The End

by P. A. Douglas

  “Oh snap, that’s what’s up, dude. That place saved our lives. Too bad we had to blow it to shit to get out though.” Kent shook his head letting out a stream of smoke.

  “So your Tyler’s dad, right?” Cynthia asked. “Eric here has talked about him a lot. He seems like a real nice kid.”

  George sank into his cot, depression and anxiety shown on his face. Everyone in the room was quiet for a moment. George sat there taking in deep breath after deep breath, staring at the floor.

  Billy sat beside him. His eyes wandered around the room. George was sad. In a way, everyone was. Billy missed his mommy and daddy. Eric missed his parents. George missed his son. Billy leaned over and hugged the old man. No one said a word. The room was silent and filled with tension.

  Kent looked over at Cynthia and shrugged, mouthing the words, Nice going, dude.

  Cynthia’s head shrank into her shoulder.

  Knock, knock, knock…

  The sudden interruption broke the silence like a train wreck startling everyone in the room. The door swung open a moment later. A short, hefty man dressed in slacks and a white lab coat stepped in. He smelled of cheese and perspiration. His glasses were thick, making his eyes look gargantuan against his already buggy little round head. His hair, or the lack thereof, thinning badly and brushed to one side. The man looked like he might be in his late thirties and seemed like he may be an avid believer in super powers in some alternate reality. The kind of guy that longed for a lab accident turned superhero kind of vibe just emanated as he entered the room.

  “Good morning, everyone. I hope you all slept well. If you all are ready, we’ll head over to the lab for a few simple tests.”

  “Tests? What kind of tests?” Eric asked, his hand throbbed in response, hidden in his pocket still.

  “Just some standard tests, young man. We want to make sure none of you are sick or in need of immediate medical attention before relieving you to the cafeteria,” the man said.

  “Hell, that sounds good to me. When do we eat?” Kent shot to his feet and stepped toward the door, walking right past the man dressed in white.

  “Excuse me, but you need to put that out. There is a designated smoke area outside in the courtyard.” He grimaced, waving a hand in front of his own face as Kent passed, smoke trailing behind in his wake.

  Eric stood, giving George a tap of encouragement on the shoulder, and then walked out of the room meeting Kent in the hall.

  Cynthia followed, scrunching her nose up at the man as she passed him at the door. It wasn’t the smoke that made her make that face, but the cheese smell lingering on the man in the lab coat. She kept her head straight, eyes to the door, not glancing over to George. She met Eric and Kent in the hall.

  With the lab assistant in the lead, the five survivors were escorted out of the barracks and into the courtyard, where several people stood smoking and chatting under a large tree. The sun was out, the breeze felt fresh, and there wasn’t a single zombie to stress over. Everyone had a gun. The place was clear and secure. A sense of refuge and ease came over all of them as they made their way across the grass toward another smaller building. On the side of the building next to its double doors, a little sign read Laboratory Research Facility. Over the double doors block letters spelling LRF hung on the brick wall.

  Billy grabbed George’s hand.

  “So, if you could have one superpower, what would it be?” the man asked as he led them down the hall and around the corner, not directing the question at any particular person.

  3

  Gus had one foot propped on the helicopter’s landing skids as he peered into the cockpit, holding a clipboard in his good hand. With his injured hand, he struggled with the grip of his pen, double-checking the supplies before setting off on the Jacksonville operation.

  The pilot, Jesse Watts, sat in the cockpit gearing up the bird and checking all the gauges. After firing her up, the large overhead blades kicked on, steadily picking up momentum.

  Gus mumbled to himself as he checked off each set of items from the list, making sure he didn’t miss anything he might need.

  “—check. Four M-fours, check. Plenty of additional ammo, check. Three gas masks, gloves included, check. Extra fuel cans.” Gus leaned in reaching up with his white wrapped hand, shaking the canisters to ensure that they were filled. “Check.”

  The chopper blades now in full swing hummed loudly with a whooshing sound over the big man as he continued down the list on his clipboard. The heavy wind created by the blades blew the man’s short, slightly graying hair. With his black pants tucked into his black boots and his black V-neck shirt tucked tightly into his pants, Gus’ clothes clung tightly to his body.

  Watts leaned back from the cockpit reaching his arm out to get the big man’s attention, pointing at the airfield directly behind Gus. He was unable to hear Watts, the man’s mouth steadily moving. He turned back at the hip leaving his feet in place and taking a glance over his shoulder to see what Watts was pointing at. With the bright asphalt glaring in his face from the clear, sunny sky, Gus lifted the clipboard over his head using it as a visor. The paper blew frantically in place between his thumb and the clipboard.

  “Name, soldier?” Gus shouted leaning in to greet the unexpected visitor.

  “I’m Jared Clay. I’m taking Luke Beal’s place on the Jacksonville OP,” the slightly younger and obviously inexperienced man replied.

  It was a little hard to hear with the blades buzzing over them, but what Gus got from the shouting was that Luke was out and he was in. Gus was thankful for that, because Luke was in no shape to be on duty, let alone work with Gus. He kind of figured that this was going to happen because the man was running late. He, however, half hoped for someone a little less green around the ears than this guy standing before him now.

  Gus couldn’t think of a single time when he had ever seen this young buck on base. Sure, there was something like four hundred people on base at any given time, but still. You would have to run into one another sooner or later, right? He had met every team that ever ran on a bird at that base for the last few years, and this kid for sure wasn’t one of them. Gus turned to face the unanticipated guest, and out of habit, reached out with his bad hand for a handshake.

  He did a good job of not showing his first impression of the kid, keeping a stern and steady look. Feeling it too much effort to shout over the noise, Gus just smiled and nodded, stepping out of the way to allow the newcomer onto the bird after awkwardly shaking hands.

  Clay’s jacket fluttered abruptly for a few moments right before jumping into the chopper, neck bent slightly showing his personal concern for the blades overhead, a clear sign that this guy had no helicopter experience.

  The pilot ready to go, shot his hand in the air, spinning his index finger around and around mimicking the blades. Gus got the cue and hopped in taking his helmet and tossing one to Clay. He took a seat across from Clay, facing him, and buckled in. He glanced up at Clay who was already strapped in and struggling to get the helmet on. Gus just smiled, trying not to look too tense, knowing good and well that this trip was going to be an interesting one to say the least.

  Gus leaned up and popped the top of Clay’s helmet shoving it down onto his head the rest of the way. His hand instantly throbbed with pain sending a jolt up his elbow, making him realize he had just used the wrong hand for the job.

  Clay gave him a thumb-up for the help.

  “We clear for departure?” Watts asked, his voice rang out in their headsets as if he was right on top of them.

  “Roger that, take us up,” Gus replied as he slapped the side of the chopper with his good hand. Stay tight, he thought to himself as he brought his hand back, not feeling the need to engage the others. His last mission with Bo and Willy came back to haunt him, his mind racing with the loss.

  *

  The chopper slowly leaned forward and up as it ascended off of the ground and into the air, leading the soldiers toward Jacksonville. As the chopper
reached a higher altitude, what was originally not visible from the ground instantly became otherwise, Clay seeing it for the first time.

  The base was surrounded, surrounded by the undead.

  Here he was for the first time, getting a firsthand glimpse of the situation; how bad it truly was. Sure, he had his run in with the infected earlier that week, when Michaels ate the dirt and that wacko professor Taft had him strapping down a zombie to the gurney. It was just another shit detail job assignment. He had been sent in on several occasions to do grunt work for the white coats, but never anything that outrageous. After that day happened, he knew he was out in two years, no questions.

  Peering over the buildings and across the base to the fences that surrounded it on all sides, zombies had gathered around ten and twenty deep in some areas, clinging to the fence line. It was out of control. There didn’t seem to be a single spot of the visible fence line that didn’t have at least two rows deep of those creatures trying their best to get in.

  The chopper took a sharp turn to the right and then eventually straightened back out flying over the main gate. Four armed guards stood in control towers on each side of the large retracting electric gates. With each armed man wielding an M-4 in hand, the men held their weapons out and at the ready.

  As the chopper flew directly overhead, Clay saw that soldiers were taking shots into the crowd from the towers. From the looks of it, he could almost swear that they had made a game out of it. With that many undead at the gates, it was a futile effort and essentially a waste of ammunition.

  Breaking away from the base now pushing forward over the city, Clay also noticed that the majority of the dead were younger people. With Tallahassee being a major college town and the state’s capitol, it was at one time well populated with college kids and people in their early thirties trying to make it in the bigger city. But they were dead now, and reanimated as the undead. The city streets and alleyways were cluttered with walking corpses.

  *

  With Clay leaned over the side of the chopper just a tad as he looked out at the ravenous plague, it took Gus a few times to get his attention. Having seen it all first hand, Gus didn’t bother even the slightest glance overboard. It was day four for the big man and that was more than enough.

  “Clay… Clay… Clay…” He tapped the guy across from him on the knee getting his attention from what lay out there on the streets. “I didn’t see you in the debriefing room this morning. What do you know of this OP, exactly?” Gus asked, aware that Watts could also hear their conversation.

  “Nothing, sir. I was told I would get my orders once we took off,” Clay replied slightly distracted, his eyes still fixed on the devastation outside as they passed over it.

  After making sure that he had Clay’s undivided attention, which took a little work, Gus started going over what the young man had missed in the debriefing. He started by producing a wallet-sized photo of an old man from his shirt pocket and handed it over to Clay.

  “This man is Grech Vonhinkly, founder of GCUR-TECH.”

  The two men swayed and bounced in the chopper as it cut through the sky.

  Gus continued, “The man is sixty-two years old, but don’t let his age fool you. He is believed to be the mastermind behind more than a handful of biochemical warfare agents, including the one that has currently wiped out almost all of Florida and its two connecting states. Despite that, I don’t expect the man to be dangerous.”

  Clay jumped in asking, “How do you know that?”

  “Because he’s the scientist type, that’s why. How many white coats do you know carry a gun?”

  “Dr. Gibbs carries a gun,” Clay said.

  “Besides Dr. Gibbs? None. That’s how many,” Gus said. “Now, the facility we’re dropping at is a secure location. What that means is that we don’t actually know a whole lot about it other than where it’s located. How big the place is or what to expect is unknown. What we do know is that this facility contains large amounts of biochemical agents and bacteria. Not sure on how well guarded the place is or what the staffing situation is either.”

  “So basically you’re telling me that we are going into this thing with our eyes closed. Is that it?” Clay asked.

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Gus replied.

  “So what’s the mission? Seems like checking the place out for the sake of checking it out would be a big waste of time,” Clay said, still glancing out of the cockpit occasionally, watching the city streets pass by congested with abandoned cars. It was like a huge ghost town.

  “Find Vonhinkly, retrieve any useful data on the bacteria or disease or whatever it is, and make it back unscathed all before dinner,” Gus said.

  Gus noticed a change in Clay’s body language. It suggested something that he saw couldn’t have been good. He stopped his little speech to peer out the same side of the chopper at what had Clay’s attention.

  Watts, the pilot, chimed in for the first time since taking off, “Ashley Fox’s team! Straight ahead.”

  The three men peered out as they passed, slightly cutting off course to take a closer look. The black bird, an exact replica of the one they currently rode in, sat atop a large building. The structure looked like it could have been a small mall, but Gus couldn’t think of there being one of those out this way. On the side of the building, the word Sears identified it.

  The parking lot, along with the streets from above, looked fairly safe, no major signs of the infected. A few stray zombies meandered about here and there, but nothing they couldn’t handle.

  “Fox Trot, this is Blue Bravo. Come in. Over,” the pilot said holding his hand up to his helmet with the radio. “Fox Trot, this is Blue Bravo. Come in. Over.”

  After a few seconds of watching the lack of activity on top of and around the building, Gus spoke up, “Let’s move on. We have a job to do. Call radio dispatch and make the report.” Without a word, the chopper redirected to its original route, Watts calling in the unexpected find.

  “I didn’t realize they didn’t make it in last night. I wonder what happened,” Gus said, still looking out at the helicopter, watching it get smaller and smaller the farther away they got.

  “Quite a few didn’t report in last night, actually,” Clay said. “Rob was telling me about it. Something like five or more of the teams didn’t report back in. I imagine they had the same set of issues that you ran into last night as well. I heard yours was rough.”

  “Get ready, kid, because the shit is probably about to hit the fan again,” Gus said.

  “Speaking of about to hit… what time are we expected to arrive? Feels like we have been riding in this thing for a while.”

  Watts chimed in to answer that one before Gus could even speak up, “Not long, maybe another thirty minutes, forty-five at the most.”

  When we get there, if for some reason there isn’t a good place to land, we’re turning around and calling it a day. I’m not about to land knee deep in that mess twice in less than twenty-four hours. If Baker has a problem with that then he can eat it, because I don’t care. Just not going to do it. Gus thought of his lost friends and that was the last thing he needed right before another jump.

  *

  The three soldiers flew the rest of the way in silence. Clay sat there wondering what it might be that was eating the older, bigger man up so much. It was written all over his face, whatever it was.

  Clay glanced down one last time at the photo still held tightly in his hand. Nothing unusual stood out about the man in the photo. He looked like an average civilian. How was it that such an ordinary man was responsible for all of this? He handed the picture back to Gus.

  Everything looked the same for miles and miles on end. Large fires billowed out from buildings and in small forest areas. Cars of all kinds littered the roadways. The walking dead scattered everywhere in the streets, the parks, the parking lots. It was all the same.

  Clay couldn’t help but wonder if there was anyone left within the quarantined zone. Could this much
destruction and chaos actually spread this fast in a few days? This type of power in the hands of man gave Clay a gut-wrenching feeling, one that made him a little lightheaded and overwhelmed. Realizing that he was only a short way out from landing in this stuff and possibly meeting face to face with the creatures drove sharp pains into his stomach. He was having a panic attack.

  Clay suddenly unlocked his safety straps and proceeded to vomit out of the aircraft. His hair and jacket fluttered in the wind with half of his body hanging out of the helicopter while he held to the sides with both hands. The light brown heave poured out pushing away from him horizontally. Most of the puke made its way out of the chopper, but almost all of it splashed across its side.

  When the moment passed, he sat back down and harnessed himself in again, making eye contact with Gus, helmet slightly lopsided. “I’ll be all right. I just need a minute.”

  Gus didn’t say a word. He just leaned forward pushing the thumb and forefinger of his good hand on the bridge of his nose and rubbed it between them.

  He let out a big sigh.

  4

  “So tell me, Gibbs, what did we find out about our visitors?” General Baker asked.

  “You can at least wait for me to sit before barraging me with questions. I’m not one of your subordinates.” Gibbs had just entered the General’s office after administering a basic check up on each of the civilians. She held in her hand a manila folder with files on all five of the survivors.

  As she sat down in front of Baker’s desk, he turned from his mini-bar with a freshly poured glass of scotch on the rocks. The ice bumped the side of the tumbler as he took a seat before the slightly irritated doctor.

  “It’s a little early for that, don’t you think, General?”

  “When you’re the general and the world around you is in chaos, you can make up the rules as it suits you. Now, down to business. What can you tell me?” Baker asked, setting down the drink without taking a sip.