by M. Van
“Call me Gibs. Everyone else does,” he replied. Figured, most people I had met over here either used a nickname or some abbreviation of their real name. I turned to Tom questioningly, wondering if he had some altered version of a name.
“Tom,” he said and shrugged.
“So,” I said after a moment of awkward silence, “what’s up?”
“We were wondering if we could do a little background check of sorts,” Gibs said hesitantly. His eyes flickered from Angie to me and then to Tom as if he needed some confirmation.
“We wanna know if you can kick ass,” Tom said. “You know, if we can count on you to have our backs.”
Gibs shook his head again and added, “I probably wouldn’t have put it that way, but that’s basically what it comes down to. Except for the medical stuff, there hasn’t been that much info in the briefing on you two.” Gibs voice was soothing, and I imagined he’d be great at reading audiobooks.
At my side, Angie grinned and I figured she appreciated that the men inquired after our skills instead of presuming that we’d be useless in the field, or was that a sexist thing to assume that a man would think that? Still, I doubted I’d be insulted if they had thought that, but that wasn’t true in Angie’s case.
“My background is with the FBI,” Angie said, “and I’ve seen my share of zombies.”
Gibs nodded while Tom asked with a cheeky grin on his face, “So you know how to fire a gun?”
“That I do,” Angie replied.
“And what about you?” Tom said, pointing a finger at me.
“I … uh…” I started to mutter before Angie took over.
“Mags here was smack in the middle of the outbreak in New York where it all began.”
“Nice,” Tom said. “What was that like? Must have been crazy out there.”
I nodded in agreement. It had been crazy. Images of my friend Emily with those white, foggy eyes, sitting on a gurney in an infirmary at JFK along with the chaos that had ensued inside the departure hall flashed across my mind.
“It was,” I said in a low voice, “and at the time, I had no idea what I was dealing with. It was crazy.”
Both men looked at me as if I had something stuck to my face.
“They hadn’t told you that you’d be dealing with the undead before they sent you out?” Tom asked, sounding incredulous. He must have thought I belonged to the military or some agency, because the look on his face was one of disgust. Gibs narrowed his eyes and watched my exchange with Tom carefully.
“What’s with the accent?” he finally asked.
Angie grinned and grabbed my arm.
“Oh, I forgot to mention, my friend Mags here is a tourist from the Netherlands who missed her flight when the shit hit the fan, but don’t worry—she’ll have your back,” she said as her eyes twinkled with mischief. Both men frowned and glanced at each other in disbelief.
“I need to talk to Preston,” Tom said and climbed out of his seat to walk to the front of the plane. Gibs’s gaze turned from Tom’s back to us.
“Sorry about him,” he said and paused as he glanced at the front of the plane. Then, he added, “Excuse me.” With that, he hurried after Tom.
I shoved an elbow in Angie’s direction and caught her in her upper arm. Her face sat buried in her hands as she tried to muffle her laughter.
“Thanks for that,” I said and once again sank down in my chair.
Angie was still grinning as I felt the plane start its descent. I tried not to think of what was expected of me and the fact that at some point these people might have to rely on me. My heart hammered in my chest and only seemed to increase in speed when I felt a hand on my upper arm.
“Don’t worry,” Angie said as I gazed into her confident eyes. “You’ve got this.”
Even decked out in full assault gear, I didn’t feel the confidence that Angie seemed to have in me. I looked down at the pixelated tiger-stripe pattern that covered my uniform and shook my head. It had been less than an hour since we had landed, and after the plane had stopped rolling, Preston had ushered us out. On the tarmac, a truck had waited for us in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. A lot of empty space surrounded us, which ended at a fence with a wooded area behind that.
Even though the sun had set, movement along the fence caught my eye. Fortunately, the figures had been too far off to recognize any details, but a cold shiver ran down my spine nonetheless.
“We have to hurry, ma’am,” an airman had said as he came up beside me. “We don’t want to lure too many of them out there. The fences might not hold.”
I just nodded and followed him to the truck that stood ready to take us inside the compound.
Riding the truck, we passed several layers of defenses in the form of fences, and the headlights of patrollers guarding those fences. That same airman from before explained that the remainder of the troops stationed here had set up a defendable perimeter using the area’s natural surroundings. The Gun Island Chute had become a primary part of that perimeter.
I didn’t want to come across like an idiot and therefore didn’t muster the courage to ask, but what I determined from the airman’s explanation, it had to be a body of water or a river of some kind.
Inside the compound, we were brought to a small hangar where two other airmen greeted us and directed us inside. After unloading several duffel bags and a couple of hard-shelled cases, we started gearing up.
I zipped up my load carrier vest and clicked the buckle at the top to close it. I glanced over the table to see whether there was something I’d missed, but all the ammo pouches sat securely weaved onto the vest along with the cantina covers and all the other stuff I had to carry around.
Angie had been right about one thing though: this place felt a lot warmer than Alaska. She came over to where I stood by the table and trailed her eyes over me.
“Looks good,” she said and tugged on the vest. I stuck up my right hand and looked at it with a goofy expression. A thumb and two fingers filled the glove that covered my hand. The empty pinky and ring finger just flapped around as I waved it. Angie rolled her eyes and grabbed my hand.
“Come here,” she said and pulled me after her to the end of the table where she found a roll of duct tape. As Angie started peeling off strips of tape, Tom sauntered in our direction. His eyes narrowed as he watched Angie tape up my gloves.
“What happened there,” he asked. I looked at him and shrugged.
“Zombie ate my fingers,” I said. A disgusted look morphed his face, but then his eyes widened, and he exclaimed, “Cool, I guess that serum actually works.”
As if he realized his remark might have been insensitive, he added, “I mean, sorry about the fingers.”
His eyes drifted to the table with the weapons sorted out on top of them.
“You can still shoot, right?” he said as his gaze returned to me.
“I can,” I said and added as a reassurance, “I’m primarily a lefty, so it’s not a problem.” Tom’s eyes shifted down where my gun holster was strapped to my left thigh. He didn’t seem convinced, and Angie noticed.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We can handle zombies. They don’t even like our taste, and it’s not as if they’ll return fire.”
“As long as you don’t stick a finger into their mouths,” he said.
“Maybe you should stick a finger in your mouth and shut up now,” Angie retorted.
“Are you offering?” Tom said in a bold voice and even batted his eyelashes at Angie. With more force than I would have deemed necessary, Angie tore off the roll of tape and released my hand. She slowly raised her head and narrowed her eyes as she gazed up at Tom with one of her hard stares. The cheeky grin on his face faltered for a moment but didn’t relent.
I eyed the exchange with interest, wondering about Angie’s next move as Gibs showed up behind Tom and smacked him on the head.
“Hey,” Tom called out.
“Behave,” Gibs replied and pointed a finger at Tom. “W
e’re about ready. The sarge wants us over there.” Then he grabbed Tom’s arm and dragged him in the direction where Preston stood talking to an African-American male in the same fatigues as we were wearing. He was of average height, but he had the width of a bodybuilder. His hair had started to turn gray, though, and it added to the seniority that he conveyed with his posture. So I guessed him to be a little higher up on the ranking scale.
I glanced out the open hangar door into the darkness. Lights lit up a couple of buildings standing in the distance, but I couldn’t see any activity. The base in Alaska had been gutted of its manpower because of them being deployed elsewhere, but it still felt occupied. This place looked dead. Of course, we might have just been dropped in a spot where no one came because of whom and what we were. Although part of a potential solution, we also represented a threat as the five of us carried the virus that, if exposed, could easily overrun this base.
Angie shoved a helmet into my hands and forced me to make eye contact.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Just peachy,” I replied. She narrowed her eyes and gave me one of her hard stares. “I’m okay.”
I tried to sound convincing, but I doubt she bought it. I didn’t buy it myself. Nerves rattled my bones, and I felt somewhat eager to get a rifle shoved into my hands just so they would have something to do besides shake.
We walked over to Preston, and he introduced us to Colonel Kenneth Eaves. My hand just about disappeared in his as Eaves shook it.
“I have been fully briefed by Colonel Marshall,” he said in deep rumbling voice. “I won’t bother you with the facts of why I have my doubts about this mission, but the decision has been made—desperate times and all.” He gauged all five of us for a moment, making eye contact with each as if he were looking for something. Maybe he was looking for signs of dead, mindless eyes with a hint of white fog wafting over them. That was one of the first signs that person had become infected with the Mortem virus.
Seemingly satisfied, he said, “We lost many men during the first weeks of the outbreak, and now we have a hell of a time protecting this base. I cannot afford to lose anyone else, and we have to consider the civilian population that has settled here.” The airman who had escorted us from the plane, whose name I had never asked, had told us as much. The base had taken in many people fleeing their homes after the first zombies showed up.
“We need to preserve our resources, and that’s why I’ve kept all aircraft that we have left on the ground. Who knows how long we have till we run out of fuel and we need our vehicles to run in order to get the guards over to the fences. The distribution center you’re looking for is about ten miles out, and the land between here and there is saturated with the infected,” he said as if he felt the need to explain to us why they hadn’t been able to reach or help the people hiding out inside the distribution center. “Besides, we couldn’t take the risk of bringing back any infected.”
“We understand the situation,” Preston replied. “May I ask what type of transportation you can afford us?” Preston had barely uttered the words when two Hummers came driving up and stopped outside the hangar door. Colonel Eaves gestured at the vehicles.
“These should carry you and your crew without problem, but when it comes to transporting all of the survivors back here, you may have to make two trips.”
I eyed the vehicles that didn’t look like the standard Hummers that I had seen before. The trucks had an open back that seemed to fit at least eight people.
“Why don’t you guys get loaded up while I finish up with the colonel?” Preston said. He pointed a finger at a hard-shelled case that still stood on one of the tables. Besides weapons, we had also brought our own stash of Divus serum—courtesy of Dr. Chen. The case held everything we needed to inoculate everyone staying at the DC and then some. I glanced at Angie, and she shrugged before turning and headed for the table. I followed.
| 10
Ash
As Rowdy waited in my room, I snatched a few items of clothing from his, along with the picture of his mom that he kept on his nightstand, and some other trinkets. Then, I got him changed out of his PJs and into a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and the cutest black hoody with the words Tough Guy written on the back in bold white letters. I tossed some additional clothes of my own into Mags’s old backpack.
I opted for a pair of dark green cargo pants with a black long-sleeved shirt and a black hoody.
“What do ya think?” I asked Rowdy as I spread my arms. He noticed the similarities between our clothing and grinned.
With all the curtains drawn, we couldn’t see outside, but that didn’t stop the noise from getting through. It hadn’t been much until then, but it seemed the disturbances outside had started to pick up. Glass shattered and the loud clank of what I decided to be a garbage can tip over had the hairs on my neck stand up straight. Tension sat in the air as I waited for the bubble to burst and chaos to ensue. I wanted to spare Rowdy from that as much as possible and tried to distract him where I could.
I grabbed the picture of him and his grandparents off my desk and removed the frame. Along with clothes, a toothbrush, and my phone, I shoved it in the pack. I didn’t own much stuff, and even in the time I had spent with the Marsdens, I had only got some new clothes. It could be that I wanted to protect myself from the eventual loss, or that I knew it just to be unimportant stuff, but I’d always had this feeling that I wasn’t supposed to stay here for long.
Rummaging through my desk, I found a pocketknife and shoved it into one of my pants pockets along with the baton. I glanced across the room and found nothing left of value except for the kid sitting on my bed and the panda bear clutched in his tiny hands. I rolled to him, grabbed his legs, and pulled him closer so he sat facing me. I had to swallow as the little guy stared at me with those big eyes and wondered for a second how and when I had turned into this softy.
“Hey, buddy,” I said. “I have to talk to you about somethin’.” He must have sensed my earnestness, because he gave me a very serious look, and I was almost tempted to smile at the sight of the frown on his face. “Listen, there are some things goin’ on out there that I don’t have any control over, so that means that I basically have no idea what’s about to happen.”
Rowdy nodded emphatically as if all I’d said made sense to him, but how could it? He had no idea what was going on out there. His grandparents and dad had protected and shielded him from seeing the horrors that plagued this world. And I couldn’t get rid of that sinking feeling that I would be the one to introduce him to all that mess and ruin his life forever. I still had some hope that Mars would come to get us, but like Mags had once told me, hope killed.
“If anythin’ happens or if I tell you to,” I continued, “then I need you to close your eyes and just hang on to me, okay?” As he gazed up at me, I couldn’t tell whether he looked worried or was mulling it over, but eventually he nodded.
“Like glue,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said, “just like daddy said—like glue.”
A knock on the door brought my attention to Luke, who stood leaning in the opening.
“It’s getting rougher out there,” he said.
“Yeah, I heard.”
“There’s something I’d like you to see,” he said. The crease that formed on his forehead distorted his baby-face features and had me a little worried.
“Okay,” I said as I grabbed the backpack and fastened it to the back of my chair. Rowdy climbed onto my lap, and just as I was about to follow Luke, I noticed a baseball cap sticking out from underneath the bed. I grabbed the cap with the Brooklyn Nets logo on the front that Mr. Marsden had given me and placed it on Rowdy’s head. The cap was too big, but maybe that could be an advantage because he could use it to cover his eyes.
“Hang on to that for me, okay?” I said.
“Okay,” he replied and pulled it firmly over his head.
I rolled us down the hall and found Luke in the living room, sneaking a peek out
of the window facing the street.
“What’s up?” I asked after depositing Rowdy on the couch. Luke made room for me to look beyond the curtains without moving them too much. I looked up at him for a second, curious to what had him look so worried.
“Do you see?” he asked as I peered out the window. I glanced down the drive and past the cars in the street. The opening in the curtains was small, and it took me a moment to take everything in, but then I gasped at the sight of the white unmarked van. A man wearing a red baseball cap sat behind the steering wheel with the window rolled down. He didn’t seem impressed by the shell of the woman who lumbered by his vehicle. From her shuffle, she was clearly infected but hadn’t yet obtained the corresponding zombie look.
He blew smoke at the woman from inside the vehicle as she passed. She shoved her nose in the air and sniffed. As her whole body shuddered from the unappealing smell, she moved on.
I closed my eyes as the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place. Mr. Marsden had come inside to fetch the box before he went back to the garage. The same box that had been delivered the day before by that same guy in that unmarked van.
“The delivery guy,” I muttered.
| 11
Mags
For the first fifteen minutes of the trip or so, I had wondered what the hell the deal was. After we exited the final gate that separated Maxwell Air Force Base from the rest of the world, we steered our way in the direction of Air Base Boulevard. Preston sat behind the wheel of the first Hummer, with Tom riding in the back. Gibs followed in the second, with me and Angie riding in the back. Where it touched my face, the wind felt a bit brisk, but it was nothing to what I had gotten used to in Alaska. With every other part of my body covered, I actually felt somewhat hot.
Although it could be that the night provided camouflage for most of the walking dead, the streets around us looked deserted and displayed the usual that I had come to identify with the zombie apocalypse. Cars stood abandoned by the road. Some had been trashed, some had crashed, and others just stood there. We passed houses with boarded-up windows and houses that had burned to the ground as well as looted stores and gas stations. There wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before. Even the occasional zombie roaming the street didn’t make me look twice. The last part of the trip took us along a stretch of highway, and for as long as it lasted, it seemed as if someone had exaggerated the situation, until we started to near our destination. Except for some trees lining the highway, we had a pretty decent view of the massive building, the surrounding parking lots and open fields behind it, but it had been the smell that caught my attention first along with the low hum of murmured moans.
