by Tom Calen
With a regretful smile, she roused herself from her reminiscing and set about completing the remaining work for the day, and several hours passed. Her assistant, Sherry, had long since gone for the evening before Michelle turned off the light in her office. Tracing the familiar path down the wide steps from the fourth floor, she paused briefly at the large doors to the library before turning to the building’s exit. Not yet ten paces away, she stopped and turned back.
Just an hour, she thought to herself as she placed her bag and coat on a table before selecting several texts from the shelves. Michelle tucked her feet under her as she sat in the oversized leather armchair. Pulling the beaded chain, a metallic click preceded the soft glow from the table lamp at her side. Just an hour.
The large windows at the rear of the library clearly showed the height of the moon as it crossed the sky, its cold white light casting long shadows in the cavernous room. Among the shadows, a solitary yellow glimmer illuminated the sleeping figure of Michelle Lafkin.
Chapter Three
Paul eased himself into one of the small inflatables tethered to the much larger ship with an exhausted sigh. The day had been long and had produced no sign of survivors, but for the rampant mosquito population that now claimed dominion over the Turks and Caicos islands. For the sake of the men that followed him, he struggled to keep his disappointment and frustration checked, but four days of hacking through overgrown brush, searching previously premiere resorts, had begun to take its toll. Sun-bleached bones were the only human remnants his team found during their search of the two larger islands. Likewise, there had been no sign of living Tils, and for that he allowed a modicum of gratitude.
As they cast off their lines and motored towards the island of Provenciales—or Provo, as Paul learned those familiar with the area called the island—the soft dampness of the sea air against his tanned face eased his tension fractionally. Having been raised some distance from oceans and seas, he was surprised how quickly he acclimated to the vastness of the waters he now called home. Here, a delicate balance between docility and blind fury existed, and with so many years spent battling the unnatural, he welcomed the fickle moods of nature on the seas.
The bottom of the craft nudged its way onto the shore, and Paul’s team dispersed with the accuracy gained from repetitious practice. The occupants of the other small boats similarly took point on the beach. He no longer needed to call out directions to the well-trained men and women with him. Scanning his eyes over the land before him, the ranger was unable to detect any movement aside from the branches that stirred in the light breeze. A familiar sensation spread through his body—part tension and part exhilaration; with each step as he crossed the short distance, adrenaline seeped into his veins. He no longer wondered at the feeling, no longer questioned how alive he felt when on these search and rescue missions. Paul had learned to accept it, and in truth, began to miss it when he was safely back in New Cuba.
The team formed around him, deadly in their precision. No words were exchanged as all eyes and ears were tuned to the surroundings. Very few Tils had been encountered on the earlier missions, and none had been seen in the last several months, yet those that followed him understood the potential dangers and maintained the highest alertness. They had seen firsthand the penalty for carelessness and inattention. Each ceremony to mark the passing of a fallen comrade had served as a cruel, but necessary, lesson for caution.
Thirty minutes later, the group entered the first resort on the island. Silent hand signals, the language of soldiers, passed along information. There was no smell of death or decay, which indicated to Paul that neither Til nor human were likely to be found. Meat and tissue had long since been devoured or rotted away. The lobby of the resort, The Sands by the engraved marble behind the concierge desk, was a clutter of abandoned luggage, overturned furniture, and scattered bones. He shook his head over the idea of vacationers pausing to collect luggage as they tried to escape the outbreak.
An hour passed as the team searched the hundred plus suites of the resort. More than once doors had to be forced down, revealing rooms where occupants had chosen to end their lives on their own terms. One image he knew would haunt him when they left this place; the skeletal remains of a couple, clearly embracing after digesting the contents of the various pill containers discarded on the floor. Unlike the other rooms, Paul found himself closing the door upon exiting. Though small, and perhaps meaningless, a measure of respect for the lives the room once held.
The resorts subsequently searched offered only further disappointment. Dusk descended, forcing Paul and his team to set-up camp along the shoreline. Several members formed the first watch detail, while others saw to the preparation of the evening’s meal. With half the island still unsearched, fires were kept low to avoid detection. Once the search was complete and the team safely back aboard their ship, flares would be fired in an effort to draw out any survivors that had gone unfound.
When Paul took command of search and rescue operations, he had questioned why patrols hadn’t been sent out to the neighboring islands. In tones mixed with condescension and dismissal, his superiors simply stated that the first priorities had been to establish a sustained community. Though he fought his rising anger, and forced himself to see the logic behind the decision, the knowledge of how many had died—likely while waiting vainly for rescue—still rankled. When he had attempted to press further, his intentions had been met with desultory mutterings about having a civilian in command of a military operation. Only when Gen. Reed informed him of the National Council’s tepid endorsement of a search and rescue team did Paul cease his questioning, in fear that the team would be disbanded before he had had a chance to embark on a first mission.
From dusk to twilight and finally dawn, no sightings of Tils or humans had been reported. Camp was struck quickly and the team continued their search efforts from the previous day. Reaching the third resort before noon, Paul detected an unsettling difference, one that coursed through the team. The stench of death had struck him as soon as he entered the Seven Stars. Hands flashed commands as floor by floor they searched, the nauseating odor dissipating the higher they climbed.
Time passed with infuriating disappointment before the team returned to the lobby. With the rest of the building swept and cleared, Paul directed his men to follow him as he began the search of the building’s subsurface levels. A staircase in the kitchens led them steadily down as he silently cursed the flashlights the team was forced to use. Though the Council had allowed the formation of the team, equipment such as night-vision goggles had been adamantly denied them. He had grumbled to Lisa that night that if the Council had its way, his team would be making their own ammunition.
With each step, Paul had to struggle harder to keep the stench from overcoming him. His stomach turned repeatedly as he wished he had forgone the morning meal. Only a few steps from the landing, and he could hear rustling movement in the darkness beyond. Beams of light crisscrossed before him, illuminating wide support columns and scores of boxes; the lights fell on no walls, indicating the vastness of the room. The sound of boot steps fanning out behind him provided some relief in knowing his team was taking position. Forming a tight circle, they progressed slowly into the darkness.
That he was in a Tilian den, Paul had no doubt. As he walked, the hard concrete floor became slick with waste, and all too often he felt the crunch of brittle old bones beneath his boots. Defecation and death mingled in the air, drawing out harsh memories from his years in the mountains. He knew he risked not only his own life, but also those of the men and women serving with him. Caution screamed to retreat and allow grenades to remove the threat before them, yet he pushed rationality aside in favor of discovery. He could not bring himself to leave until he was sure no survivors remained. He believed that that was his motive, but he could not ignore the feeling that something else was driving him now.
Maintaining a moderated pace, the team stood several yards from the stairs. One of the men
, Patrick McGowen, flashed him a signal. Paul nodded, though his own ears had already picked up the guttural breathing and soft growls emanating from the open entrance to a side room. Punctuated solely by the drumming of his heart, resonating loudly in his head, he could distinguish at least three distinct growls. They know we’re here, the thought flashed, so what are they waiting for?
Breathing deeply to still his nerves, Paul and those to his immediate sides formed a deadly wall of fire-power several feet in front of the doorway. Flashlight beams fell on four—not three—Tils, crouching inside the room. The closest one, face scabbed and scarred to the extent that its gender was impossible to determine, stretched its jaw wide and released a deafening roar. The sound, as feral as human vocal chords would allow, was immediately followed by the creature rushing forward. Several shots rang out and the Til crashed to the ground just feet from Paul. The remaining three turned and retreated into the darkness beyond flashlight range.
Fear.
It had shocked Paul the first time Tils displayed the emotion during his last night before arriving in New Cuba. For years, the infected ignored all danger and death in pursuit of their prey. He had seen Tils engulfed in flames, others riddled with bullets, still more with limbs hacked or blown off, and all had ceaselessly continued their attacks. But that night—and in each of the encounters Paul and his team had had during the rescue missions—the Tils demonstrated a sense of self-preservation that had not existed in the earliest days of the outbreak.
Without hesitation the team swarmed into the smaller room and, as the need for covertness had passed, called out to each other as they scanned the darkness for the escaping Tils.
“Three o’clock!”
Paul could not tell which of his men issued the warning, but flashlights immediately trained on the location and shots erupted bringing down two of the remaining Tils. One left, Paul thought with relief.
Though the side room was significantly smaller than its main counterpart, it still allowed the majority of his team to move about freely. Stacks of limbs, some still holding severely rotted flesh, formed large mounds in the room, many stretching beyond Paul’s own height. He thought he saw slight movement behind one such mound a dozen feet ahead of him, and raised the high-powered M-16 he held as he inched closer to the target.
With bated breath, Paul’s finger tensed on the trigger. Nearing the skeletal pile, he saw clearly that for which his eyes had been searching. Over time he had learned not to hesitate when battling the infected, but the sight before him stalled him like no other had previously. Hiding behind the pile was not the third Til he had expected, but rather a young child, perhaps ten or eleven years of age. Its clothes were tattered and darkened in places where blood had long since dried. The girl, assuming its long hair identified its gender, had striking blue eyes that sparkled prominently against the dirt-covered face. He could feel his heart tearing as he stared in disbelief—the child’s neck was tilted awkwardly to her shoulder.
In the years since the outbreak, Paul had been forced to end the lives of countless infected, yet he had never encountered one so young. Certainly he had discovered their remains and those discoveries had been a challenge to his composure. Now faced with an infected child still living, he struggled with the inevitable decision he had to make.
Looking into her blue eyes, he whispered a plea for forgiveness as his trigger finger gently contracted. The bullet flew, its force carrying the child several feet before she returned to the hard floor, body twitching its last seconds of resistance. No longer able to fight the sensation, Paul hunched over and spilled the contents of his stomach on the concrete. Memories flooded through him; the newborn child and the wife he had lost in the first hours of the virus’ war with mankind. His arms could still feel the warmth that had surrounded his daughter the first time he had held her. As she had been then, the memories of her were ripped from him as screams erupted behind him.
“Above us!”
Rising quickly to address this new threat, Paul angled his head upward. The beams of the flashlights, chaotic in their wavering, lit the metal-grated catwalk that circled the room. Shapes dropped endlessly from the twenty foot high ledges, and he could see dozens of Tils leaping down onto his team.
Though well-trained, confusion immediately took a place among the team and resulted in uncontrolled firing into the space above. Fewer flashlights remained pointed towards the catwalk, but the constant muzzle-flashes replaced the diminished light. Paul heard several thuds behind and he quickly wheeled around, firing his weapon, tearing into the advancing Tils. More than once, he had been forced to bring down members of his own team that had been bitten in the ambush.
“Clear the exit!” he shouted, though he was not sure anyone could hear above the din of gunfire.
Minutes passed as the remaining men and women of the team edged their retreat back through the doorway. Once clear of the room, Paul slung the strap of the M-16 towards his shoulders and lobbed four grenades into the room. “Fire in the hole!”
The blasts staggered him and the floor shook violently, forcing Paul to his knees. Smoke and ash ballooned out of the room. Struggling to regain his feet, he returned the machine gun to his hands and waited for any sign of Tils emerging. As the gray cloud settled, he could see that a large section of the concrete wall had caved in, preventing any further attack. With wavering control, he ordered a retreat that his team had no reluctance in obeying.
--
The sunlight burned his eyes, blinding him momentarily, once they reached safety. Understandably shaken, Paul had to push the team along on their several-mile hike back to the inflatables. During the trek, he could see that in addition to the eleven he had lost in the battle, several more had been wounded and required the aid of others in walking. Though the injuries were mostly cuts and broken bones, some had taken bullets through friendly-fire. Pushing the defeat from his mind, he continued to press them until the rafts had reached the ships and the most seriously wounded were in the care of the medics.
Once within the confines of his cabin, Paul realized that he too, had been injured. He bore a long gash on his right forearm, whether from the grenade blast or in the dash to escape outside, he was unsure how the wound occurred. Though the steady rocking of the ship was a challenge, he managed to stitch the wound in such a fashion that only a small scar would remain to tell the tale.
The journey home was somber, the team preferring to keep to their quarters than see their own anguish reflected in each other’s eyes. Paul spent the two-day voyage pouring over the personnel files of those lost in the basement ambush. The self-imposed penance forced him to commit to memory how many spouses had lost loved ones, how many children were now without mother or father. He tried to direct his anger at the Council: If we had been better equipped… if we had been authorized to go sooner. But those attempts failed as quickly as they formed, and he could not help but feel the weight of responsibility for the devastating loss. Never had so many fallen in one mission under his direction.
Those files now rested in his lap as he waited outside General Reed’s office. Any doubt of the team’s solvency prior to the mission had been completely erased in Paul’s mind. The National Council’s support had been tentative at best, and now with such a blow, he was sure the order to disband was imminent. Reed, having led men into battle, would understand his sense of guilt, but he also knew the veteran would broach no attempts of sword-falling on Paul’s part. On more than one occasion Reed had told him that a soldier’s life was not counted in years, but rather in missions. Those missions, he said, were what soldiers lived and died for.
Reed’s assistant, a pleasant-faced woman in her mid-fifties, spoke softly from behind her desk and informed Paul that the General was ready for him. Rising from the chair, he thanked Louise and she offered him a soft smile that did not reach her brown eyes. Having worked with Reed for decades, her eyes told Paul that she understood his pain.
With a brief exchange of pleasantries, P
aul launched into a full debrief of the mission in Turks and Caicos. All the islands had been explored. No signs of survivors had been discovered. His team had suffered an incredible defeat in what appeared to be a Tilian ambush. It was the last part of the information that caused the General’s eyebrows to lift slightly.
“So, it’s true…” he muttered softly to himself, perhaps not intending Paul to hear. The idea of Tils having the wherewithal to stage such an ambush had rankled Paul ceaselessly since the escape.
“Are you sure?” the older man asked.
“Yes, sir. It seemed planned.”
Studying Paul closely, Reed finally said, “File it in your written debrief and I will bring it to the Council.
“Yes, sir,” Paul responded, waiting for what the General would inevitably tell him next, the end of the search and rescue team.
“If this is correct, it is alarming, but I doubt it will change the Council’s directive,” Reed began. “As I mentioned before you left, the Council has been reconsidering the direction of your team.”
Paul steeled himself, ready for the news.
“They feel that the team has proven itself ready for an expanded mission. Longer, and in my opinion, significantly more dangerous than what you have faced so far. Preparations are already underway for your people to deploy and begin a search of the mainland.”
“The…the mainland, sir?” Paul asked in whiplashed confusion.
“America, Paul. Once you replace the men lost, the Council has ordered a nine month exploration of the Gulf states.”
Over the course of the next two hours, Paul sat in disbelief as General Reed proceeded to outline the mission specs. Having prepared for the worst—the disbanding of the team—this news sent a flurry of questions racing through his head. Though relieved that the team would continue to exist, Paul wondered if in fact the worst had actually come.
