A Time to Die

by Mark Wandrey

  “Yes?”

  “There is a radio call for you.”

  “You mean telephone?”

  “No, ma’am, radio. It’s the Coast Guard!”

  “Oh!” she said and got up to quickly follow the man.

  They went up three decks to the top level of the old oil rig. It was the command center of the facility, and had once been the operations center when the gigantic machine had extracted fossil fuels from miles under the ocean’s floor. Many of its functions stayed here when converted. Generator control, environmental engineering, security cameras, and radios. It’s where they’d sent the ill-advised Mayday that first summoned the Coast Guard after their zombie outbreak. When she arrived she found the head of the zombie team, Robert Boyer, sitting in a chair listening and watching. He might have seemed a flake, but he took his new job seriously.

  The radio man looked up and waved her over, flipping a switch she could hear a woman’s voice.

  “…I say again, this is USS Boutwell, WHEC 71, United States Coast Guard. HAARP facility, how do you read, over?” Lisha held out her hand and the radio man handed her a microphone. He pointed at a button and she nodded.

  “Boutwell, this is HAARP Director Dr. Lisha Breda, we hear you.”

  “Good to hear your voice, Doctor.”

  “And yours,” Lisha replied. “Is this Lieutenant Grange?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Lieutenant Grange, acting commander of the Boutwell.”

  Uh oh, Lisha thought. “What can we do for you, Lieutenant?”

  “We are going to be alongside in a few minutes. We have 119 boats alongside and want to use the rig as a staging area.”

  Lisha considered for a second, chewing her bottom lip.

  “Why’s a junior officer in charge of a cutter?” Robert asked, giving voice to her concern.

  “That’s a good question,” Lisha said, and keyed the mic. “Lieutenant, where is your commanding officer? Wasn’t there a captain?”

  “There was,” the officer replied. “We were involved in relief operations of a Panamax container ship. The Captain was meeting with the senior surviving officer of the container ship, when the man went insane and bit our captain who then succumbed to the virus. In all, we lost twenty-nine crewmen and nine officers. I’m operating with a skeleton crew.”

  “I have to ask,” Lisha said, “have you been eating any fresh food?”

  “Negative. We got that information from command in time to avoid secondary infections. We’ve been subsisting on canned goods and MREs. Luckily, we have a lot of both.”

  “Very good. You have permission to come alongside. However, no one will be allowed into the facility without a blood screening. We’re actually researching the virus here.”

  “I never completely bought your story of pirates,” the ship’s commander said with a chuckle. “Your moorings and docks will be sufficient. In a few days we have some much more powerful friends on the way and this is an ideal area of operation.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Hard to explain, Doctor. But on the civilian side, there are hundreds of ships out here, many uninfected, and we want to hand off the ones we have and go help more.”

  “Understood. See you soon,” Lisha said and handed the radio back.

  “Hundreds of ships,” Robert repeated. “None of them are going to the mainland.” Lisha stared at him and rubbed her chin. They both knew what that meant. America was not secure anymore. Perhaps nowhere was.

  An hour later the cutter appeared with its flotilla of private vessels. Everything from mega yachts to fishing ships, cruise ships to cargo ships, tankers and sail boats. Many were being towed or barely making headway. She stood up the open top deck and watched them approach along with other senior staff, and her zombie response team.

  “There must be ten thousand people on those ships,” Joseph the zombie hunter said. Working in stores, he had a realistic view of the situation. “What are they all going to eat?”

  “Reminds me of Battlestar Galactica,” someone said. A few people snorted, but others nodded.

  “Only we don’t have any spaceships with which to run away from the enemy in,” Lisha said, and that ended the humor.

  A short time later they saw what the lieutenant had meant by powerful friends. The huge shape of a Marine amphibious assault carrier was steaming towards them.

  “And here comes the Pegasus,” Joseph chuckled.

  * * *

  The CH-47 swept in on a long arc round the east side of the base just past the primary perimeter fence. Kathy and Tobey rode next to an Army gunner who grimly manned an M-240 machine gun. He wasn’t sure why the soldier looked so depressed until they got a few miles from the base and he could see it was essentially surrounded.

  The base was roughly divided into three parts, the military airfield being one of those parts. He could see that most of the base was overrun with the infected people everyone insisted on calling zombies. At first Kathy thought the base was still filled with thousands of personnel, until they got close enough to see individuals.

  “You aren’t engaging them?” Tobey asked the gunner, a corporal.

  “No sir,” the man replied. “We’ve been ordered to conserve ammo for perimeter security.”

  As they approached and circled the airfield he could see all the survivors had crowded into the airbase perimeter. The outer fence was double strength and very strong. But the inner fence was only tall chain link. It had been reinforced with hundreds of concrete traffic barriers and topped with miles of razor wire. All along the perimeter were soldiers with weapons in twenty-five foot tall guard towers and roving in Stryker armored cars. Even over the pounding of the double rotors the sound of weapons fire was a constant roar.

  The other survivors from the farm house were all huddled in the cavernous rear of the Chinook. A squad of soldiers were arrayed along the back door which was open about half way. The chopper flared and began to settle. The pilot was good and they hardly felt any shock at all. The ramp motors whined and it quickly fell. The rotors began to spin down.

  Tobey cut ahead of the civilians, Kathy following close behind as an older soldier in the same camo as all the others came walking up. He smiled as Tobey came into view.

  “Been a long time,” the man said as he walked up the ramp.

  “General Rose,” Tobey said and saluted.

  “Drop the shit, Major,” the general said and held out a hand. Tobey shook it warmly. “Who’s this with you?” He looked at Kathy and seemed about to say something when Tobey cut him off.

  “You remember my wife passed away?”

  “I do now, I’m sorry.”

  “It was a while ago,” Tobey explained. “This is Kathy Clifford.”

  “The reporter,” General Rose said and took her hand in a warm yet gentle shake. “I thought you looked familiar.”

  “Thank you, yes, I’m a reporter.”

  “And a fairly famous one. Do you know there is a warrant out for your arrest?”

  “I figured there was,” she admitted as they followed the general down the ramp. They had to almost shout over the sounds of constant gunfire. “Considering what’s going on, are you going to turn me in?”

  “Probably not,” the general admitted. He gestured to a waiting Humvee. It was still painted in desert tan and had a little flag with four gold stars [[He’s a lieutenant-general earlier, and before that there’s a mention of his losing his ‘star’, as in singular for a brigadier-general. Which?]] stuck to the fender. “Ms. Clifford, would you mind waiting in the Humvee?” She looked from the general to Tobey and nodded reluctantly before heading off.

  “The situation looks bad, sir,” Tobey said once she was out of sight. The general was watching the Mexican families offloading from the Chinook. Enrico and Manuel Vetares both waved to Tobey and gave little bows of gratitude. Many of the others waved as well, some with tears of relief pouring down their faces. They knew how close to a horrible end they’d come in that house in the d
esert.

  “Most people don’t know how bad,” General Rose admitted. “We lost all contact with command authority six hours ago. Until then we’d been receiving conflicting orders to deploy to several different locations with various missions in mind.” He sighed and shook his head. Tobey could see the weariness there in his eyes. The air echoed with several dull thumps from grenades. “I stopped paying attention after I told them we couldn’t deploy without air support and they just repeated the orders over, and over, and over again.”

  Crews had rushed into the Chinook and were refueling it and bringing fresh ammo aboard for the guns. A new flight crew was checking the bird out, though to Tobey they looked just as tired as the ones who were shuffling off for rest. He looked to see huge stacks of 463L master pallets piled high with all manner of gear.

  “You’re getting ready to evac?”

  “Not particularly,” the general said. “We don’t have the lift capacity. We had to seal off the airfield from the west hangars. Another twenty-five Chinooks over there, and three Globemasters.”

  “We could move a lot of people and equipment with those C-17s,” Tobey noted.

  “We’re short of pilots,” the general admitted. “All the rotary wing pilots made it, but only two of the heavy transport pilots. I think we could make a run at the hangars, maybe run and gun it to cut a corridor…”

  “But without pilots, no joy,” Tobey finished. General Rose nodded. “What about the guy flying that gunship?”

  “It crashed. We checked out the crash site about 15 minutes after he went down. Did a low and slow with a couple of Cobras. Only those infected lunatics and some piles of chewed meat. Damned shame too, I knew about him. Tough as nails fighter jock. Came out of Mexico with that gunship and a load of survivors from a crashed plane.”

  “Guy that resourceful might have survived,” Tobey suggested.

  “Maybe,” the General said with a shrug.

  “Mind if I pick up a squad, take a Blackhawk and go looking for him?”

  “Can’t give a bird to a civilian, son. You know that.”

  Tobey nodded and after a second he stood up straight and came to attention. “Sir, Major Tobey Pendleton reporting for duty. I’m formally requesting to be reactivated.”

  The general regarded him for a long moment then came to a somewhat less straight attention and saluted. “I kind of figured you might. Captain Drake?”

  “Sir,” an Army captain said, coming from the Humvee where Kathy watched. The man handed something to the general who in turn put it in Tobey’s hand. Tobey opened the box and found two silver oak leaf emblems.

  “Wrong rank, sir,” Tobey said.

  “No Colonel, correct rank.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Thanks for coming back, we need you. Now get with the captain here, draw a uniform and he’ll get a squad of operators for you. See if you can find that damned pilot.”

  Kathy watched the proceedings, knowing what had just happened and feeling dread. She didn’t know if she loved him, but did know she cared for the older man a lot. He’d saved her life a couple times now and they’d been lovers ever since that first night. She never imagined she’d fall for a soldier.

  Some of the women from the farm house came over to her and thanked her in their halting English, or translated by children before being led to where hundreds of civilian dependents waited under huge tents and inside hangars. All the while the sounds of gunfire never stopped as the enfermo, as the Mexicans had been calling them, waged a nonstop assault against the airfield.

  A few minutes later a soldier came striding towards her. He was dressed in full combat gear, web harness bulging with magazines and equipment. The uniform looked brand new, including the silver oak leaves on the shoulders. It wasn’t until she noted the rifle slung over his shoulder was an HK-91, same as Tobey’s rifle that she realized the soldier was Tobey.

  “You clean up nice,” she said as she ran into his arms. He was a little stiff at first, then put and arm around her as she angled her head up and kissed him. “I thought silver was a colonel,” she said.

  “Lieutenant-Colonel,” he corrected, “I was promoted upon reactivation, I guess. I doubt it’s strictly legal…”

  “What’s legal during a zombie apocalypse?” she asked. He just shrugged. Another soldier came running up and saluted.

  “The squad is loading up, Colonel,” he said and snapped a quick salute. “Pad seven,” he said and pointed to where a black helicopter squatted, its rotors starting to turn.

  “Very good, Sergeant. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “And where are you going?” she asked.

  “I’m taking some men to go looking for the pilots of the gunship that saved us. The general said his staff will see to you and the people from the farmhouse.”

  “So you’re just going to run off and leave me here?”

  “Well,” he said and shrugged, “what am I supposed to do, take you with me?”

  “Actually, yes.” Tobey started to laugh, then cut it off hard when he saw the look on her face. He took an unconscious step backwards as she slowly put her hands on her hips and just glared.

  Chapter 25

  Tuesday, April 24

  Afternoon

  The desert was quiet as the sun blazed down on them. Andrew was perched on a badly rusted guardrail, trying to balance between the pain in his ass from the metal he sat on, and his foot and stump which throbbed in time with his heartbeat. He couldn’t remember walking this much since his Academy days. As bad as he felt, his new friend Chris was worse off. The older man, a former three-gun champion, was average in that he walked very little very day. He looked like he’d been rode hard and put away wet.

  The two of them looked like spring chickens next to the last of their number. Wade was younger than either of them, but probably weighed as much as the two of them put together. A self-proclaimed video game champion, he told them at every step that he’d now walked further than he had in his entire life. The man had to be in the worst physical shape of anyone Andrew had ever met.

  “Can… we… stop… yet?” Wade whined as he finished the last few steps to catch up with them.

  “For a few minutes,” Andrew said. Wade fell onto his ass with a meaty whack sound. Chris just elected to lean against the same guardrail that Andrew was sitting on.

  “They’re never going to give up,” Wade said. “Are they?”

  “I don’t think so,” Andrew agreed.

  Chris looked down the road south and let his head hang, slowly shaking it from side to side. “How do they keep going?”

  “The virus… does something… to their metab… olism,” Wade huffed.

  “Better just sit there and breathe,” Andrew suggested. He was checking his pack at the time, verifying how much ammo they had left. He knew it was only a matter of time before they couldn’t go any further. Maybe sooner rather than later for Wade, then they’d all be forced with the decision to stay and fight, or leave those who fell behind for the crazies.

  For all of Wade’s failings, and the short time he’d known him, Andrew knew there were a lot of them, Wade had come through when it counted. He’d manned the chief gunnery position on the AC-130. Without him they would have never been able to save those people in the farmhouse.

  Andrew cocked an ear and listened for a moment. None of the familiar sounds he’d come to associate with their pursuers. He pulled out a water ration packet from the backpack and popped the release tab, took a drink and passed it to Chris. The man took a drink and passed it to Wade, who drained the container in several log guzzling swallows. Chris and Andrew exchanged looks. Andrew just shrugged and checked how many they had left. Three. One and a half liters. Wade looked like he could have drank it all on the spot, so he left the rest in the pack. The heat was already brutal and they were sweating like pigs.

  A few more precious minutes went by as they all rested in the way they found best. Wade flopped out flat on the concrete, igno
ring the oppressive heat, and slowly resumed something approximating normal breathing. As if on cue the unmistakable sound of grunting came from down the road. Wade’s head came up and he moaned out loud.

  “Let’s move,” Andrew said and hopped off the guardrail. His ass was grateful, his limbs were not.

  “I can’t, Wade said, and put his hands on his knees. He shook his head from side to side and tears started to form. “Leave me.”

  “So you want to get eaten alive?”

  “Then shoot yourself,” Andrew said.

  “What are you saying,” Chris asked, his eyes wide.

  “I’m tired of listening to this fucker piss and moan! We’ve done everything we could to keep him alive and pull him on. He’s a drain on our resources.” Andrew walked over and bent, snatching the pistol from the big man’s belt. He expertly checked the chamber, cocked it, and held it out. “There you go, gamer boy.”

  The other man took the gun and looked at it. It appeared to weigh heavily in his hand.

  “What are you waiting for? You want to get eaten alive?” Wade gave a tiny shake of his head. “Then do it.” Wade looked back down at the gun. “Do it!” Andrew snapped, making Wade jump.

  “Fuck you,” Wade said and put the gun down on the blacktop.

  “What did you say?” Andrew said.

  “I said go fuck yourself!”

  “That’s what I thought you said. So you want to live?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, then get up.” Andrew looked at Chris who’d looked shocked at the entire exchange and motioned with his head. The other man came over and they both took an arm, hauling his considerable bulk to his feet.

  “I got it,” Wade growled and shook them off when he was most of the way up. He started walking down the road without being prompted any further. Andrew bent down and picked up the pistol, flipping the safety which decocked it.

  “Would you have let him shoot himself?” Chris asked. Andrew flipped the gun in his grip and pulled back the action, revealing an empty chamber. Chris grunted and looked back down the road. There was a very slight rise a couple hundred yards off. A few dark spots could just be seen cresting the ridge. “Pretty over the top way to handle that.”