Fall Back

by Riley Flynn

“Did you talk to my grandma and grandpa?” Hayley asked, wide-eyed.

  Jax held up a hand. “It’s okay if you haven’t,” he said. “I know how busy you are.”

  Brown bit her lip. “Actually, I did get a return email from them. Just this morning, in fact.”

  Hayley’s face lit up, but Jax arched an eyebrow. Brown gave him a pleading look, so he decided to let her talk—for now.

  “What does it say?” Hayley asked.

  “I wish it was better news, honey,” the corporal said. “They’re stuck where they are. It says: ‘Dear Hayley, we’re so happy to hear from you. You must be devastated by your mother’s death, as we are. We love you so much, and we want to see you. But the roads around our town have been blocked by the police, and no one is being allowed in or out.’”

  The girl’s face sagged, but Jax thought she didn’t look quite as crushed as she had before.

  “It goes on to say: ‘We know that Jax is taking good care of you and that you’re safe where you are. The world is going a little bit crazy right now, sweetheart, so he’s going to need your help to figure things out and make sure that you’re okay and happy. And when things go back to normal, we will come and get you as soon as we can. We can’t wait to see you and give you lots of hugs and kisses. Stay strong.’”

  Brown looked up from the screen. “It signs off: ‘Love, Grandma and Grandpa.’”

  Hayley’s gaze was on the floor. Jax put a hand on her shoulder and knelt beside her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess you’re stuck with me for a while longer.”

  She gave him a half-smile that he was sure she didn’t feel. “I’m not ‘stuck’ with you,” she husked. “It’s not that bad here.”

  “There are lots of roads that have been closed off,” Brown said. “In fact, it sounds like most of the cities have been sealed to make sure that the virus doesn’t spread. There are probably tons of kids in the same situation.”

  The girl nodded. “I guess. Can I send an email back to them?”

  Jax and the corporal exchanged a glance.

  “Sorry, honey, not right now. We’re… having a power brownout right now, so we have to limit messages to just military stuff. I’ll send for you as soon as we’re able to get through again, okay?”

  Hayley nodded, brightening. “Okay.” She turned to Jax. “Can I go back to my bunk? Val found some old books for me. Something about travelling pants. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, but she said I’d like them.”

  He stood and put a hand on her shoulder. “You bet, go on. I need to stay here and talk to Cpl. Brown for a minute.”

  She nodded, giving Brown a wide smile. “Thank you, Corporal.”

  The woman returned her smile with a pained one of her own. “Anytime, sweetie.”

  They watched the girl disappear down the corridor. When she was out of sight, Jax turned to Brown.

  “That didn’t come from the Townshends, did it?”

  Her pale cheeks filled with color and she looked down at the desk. “I’m sorry, sir, I just couldn’t…”

  “It’s all right,” he said, holding up a hand to quiet her. “More than all right, it was incredibly kind. Thank you.”

  She nodded silently.

  “How bad is it?” he asked.

  “We’re getting nothing back from anywhere,” she said. “The Internet is completely out. Analog military channels are nothing but static. If we’re this quiet here, at Cheyenne? The rest of the country doesn’t have a hope of communicating with each other.”

  Jax nodded, frowning. “It’s going to get worse. And soon.”

  “I know. I saw the vice—I mean the president’s message. About what happened with you and Secretary Chase. It’s crazy.”

  More crazy than you know, he thought.

  “Do you think there are more of them?” she asked. “Enemy agents, I mean? Here in Cheyenne?”

  “No.” That much was true. “There was only one. He was enough.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Keep your chin up, Corporal,” he said as he headed to the door. “We’ll get through this. And thank you again. I owe you one.”

  “We all owe you one, sir,” she said, sitting back down in front of her screens.

  He nodded and headed into the corridor. The lie was already getting easier.

  Chapter 9

  The drive from the mountain base to Cheyenne Mountain Resort told Jax even more than his conversation with Cpl. Brown had the day before: Shit was most definitely full-on sideways. So sideways, in fact, that he wondered if Raines’s words about things taking a century of struggle to get right again might have been overly optimistic.

  Outside the windows of the Yukon, he saw hundreds of vehicles lining virtually every square foot of the shoulder on both sides of Highway 115 and the median in between. The road bisected the west side of Colorado Springs and was a major artery through the city. Crews had obviously been working around the clock to clear the road, but their driver still had to creep along in certain spots to avoid the vehicles that hadn’t made it all the way off the asphalt.

  “Takes your breath away, doesn’t it?” Archer said from his seat beside Jax.

  Jax shook his head. “Why would they bother trying to leave?”

  “Instinct. We’re wired for fight or flight, and you can’t fight a disease. Ergo, you try to run away from it.”

  “And end up making everything that much worse.”

  Archer sighed. “I don’t think it makes much of a difference. If people die in their beds or in a car in a traffic jam on the freeway, the result is still the same.”

  “Except for the survivors,” said Jax. “They’re the ones who have to deal with it all.”

  The colonel looked him in the eye, and Jax couldn’t miss the rebuke in that gaze.

  “I think you missed the keyword in what you just said, Captain. Survivors.”

  Jax looked away, suddenly ashamed. Archer was right: Who was he, or any of them, to complain about the cards they’d been dealt? They were alive. Thousands around them weren’t. And if what Raines had said was accurate, the number of dead beyond the relative safety of this little piece of the Rockies would be in the hundreds of millions. Billions, when you counted outside of the United States.

  Suburban neighborhoods gleamed in the late summer sunshine outside the van’s windows. Hundreds of miniature castles protected by vinyl siding and separated by tall cedar fences, the kind that made good neighbors. If not for the vehicles on the side of the road, Jax could have almost believed that nothing had changed in the world.

  Now he wondered how many victims of Eko were slowly rotting behind the walls of those affordable tract homes. How many parents held the lifeless bodies of their children in their laps as they themselves succumbed to their symptoms: fever, hallucinations, a crushing headache. How many of them were already lying in a pool of their own shit as the last of their life drained out of them?

  The thought dragged memories to the surface of Rachel in her sickbed at the hospice in Boblingen. Her gray skin, her gray eyes. Had it really been only a week ago?

  Back then, he thought she had won some sort of reverse lottery by being one of the first exposed to Eko. Her death was a horrible, infuriating injustice against him and Hayley, something they alone would have to endure, and that no one else would be able to understand.

  Now he realized the whole world was joining in their pain, only instead of just watching their loved ones die, they were dying right alongside them.

  He and Archer rode in silence the rest of the way to the resort. Jax took note of the upscale neighborhood that surrounded it, deserted now, and the guards at the gate. What had no doubt been a bustling parking lot less than two weeks ago was now empty except for a dozen or so dun-colored Humvees and black SUVs.

  Behind the resort, Cheyenne Mountain rose like a protective mother. Jax was already starting to think of the base underneath it as home, which would have been depressing if he allowed himself time
to dwell on it.

  Archer led him through the entrance and past a number of conference rooms. The place was buzzing with people in fatigues, carrying papers and talking into radios. Finally the colonel led him through a door and into a well-appointed room that looked like a rich outdoorsman’s man cave. The walls were lined in burnished pine, the floor covered in an ornate hunter-green carpet. A stone fireplace dominated the space between the windows on the wall, and a pair of overstuffed armchairs faced a matching sofa across a solid ebony coffee table.

  To the right was a conference table with chairs and a coffee service. Three people were already seated: a swarthy man in his forties with a shaved head, a nervous-looking middle-aged man and a young woman with strawberry blond hair and a barely suppressed scowl, all wearing different styles of fatigues.

  Archer motioned Jax to a chair at the table. “Major Brian Price from the marines and Major Alfred Skolnik, ranking member of the Colorado National Guard, I’d like you to meet Capt. Jackson Booth, 10th Special Forces Group.”

  The men looked mildly surprised as they shook Jax’s hand. Word travels fast, he thought.

  Archer turned to the woman. “And this is definitely not Col. Nicholas Roth, ranking member of the Air Force in El Paso County.”

  She rose and saluted. “Lt. Carly Grant, sir. Col. Roth sends his apologies.”

  “And a surrogate.”

  “He’s tied up with aircraft maintenance issues, and he thought my experience in health care would allow me to be of service, sir. I was a civilian nurse before I signed up.”

  “Then Col. Roth obviously hasn’t been paying attention to what’s been going on,” Archer said as he motioned for them all to take a seat. “Pardon me for saying, Lieutenant, but I don’t see us doing much flying when every computer in the fucking country is essentially a paperweight. And I would have thought that anyone with medical training would be of more use tending to the thousands of airmen at your bases currently in the throes of the Eko virus. I know Fort Carson could use every hand they can get right now.”

  Blood rushed into the lieutenant’s pale cheeks, but she said nothing.

  “Let me bring you up to speed,” said Archer. “I’m sure word has reached your various camps that Colton Raines is now the president, and that Marcus Chase is dead.”

  They nodded as all eyes landed on Jax, prompting an uncomfortable twinge in his belly.

  “Cheyenne Mountain will be the seat of government and the HQ of all military operations for the foreseeable future,” Archer continued. “President Raines has tasked me with coordinating the remaining military here in Colorado Springs. The army is running the show at the mountain. There’ll be more details about the command structure soon.”

  The others eyed each other nervously. Jax couldn’t blame them—the different branches weren’t known for playing nice with each other. But they had no choice in this situation. The marines and navy were far from here, and the National Guard was barely a thing in Colorado, thanks to the huge number of active military members. The air force had a strong presence in the Springs, but, as Archer pointed out, what were they going to fly?

  And the burning question now was: How many military personnel were left?

  “I’ll be blunt,” said Archer. “For all intents and purposes, you’re all in the army now. Official orders are being drafted as we speak.”

  The others at the table looked at each other, then at Jax, and finally back to Archer.

  “Sir, if I may?” said Grant. “Is that why you brought us to the resort? Word is that it’s going to be used by the top brass.”

  He nodded. “Exactly. You’ll also be given quarters here immediately.”

  “Nice work if you can get it,” said Skolnik, the National Guard man. “The place is pretty swanky. I guess rank has its privileges, hey?”

  Archer leveled a gaze at the man. “Actually, we’re using it because you have to travel through the heart of Colorado Springs to get here, Major. Cheyenne Mountain Complex is isolated and protected. This resort isn’t—it’s right in the middle of the death and destruction. The president thought it was important for his commanders to see it close up, all the time. That’s why he’s staying here, too.”

  Skolnik’s thinning hair dropped into his line of sight as his eyes widened.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean—”

  “You were a reservist, correct, Major?” Archer asked.

  The man nodded.

  “Then let me do you a favor and loop you in on what’s happening here. The big dogs are running shit, and the National Guard, or whatever is left of it here, will be answering to them.”

  “But President Fletcher said—”

  “I reiterate, Major, that Colton Raines is now the commander-in-chief. And he says you all work for us. As for the rest of America outside the walls of this valley, I regret to say that they are on their own as of now. Colorado Springs is the new republic.”

  He gave that a moment to sink in. Price was nodding; Grant looked shocked. Jax thought Skolnik looked ready to vomit.

  “I didn’t sign up for this kind of shit,” Skolnik said. “I’m an accountant, for Christ’s sake. It was only supposed to be weekends! Then a few days ago they gave me a needle and told me I was a major. Ever since then, I’ve been shuttled from one place to another, but no one ever gave me any orders.”

  Archer nodded. “I’m about to get to that. The guard doesn’t have much of a presence in Colorado Springs because the army and air force are so prevalent here. Not to put too fine a point on it, Major, but you’re a figurehead.”

  He turned to Jax. “Capt. Booth here has been assigned a unique duty. He’ll be the liaison between Cheyenne Mountain and the public of Colorado Springs. We need to start building a bridge between the military and the civilian population if we’re going to have a hope of surviving this with a minimum amount of chaos.

  “That’s where you three will come in—I need you to be representatives of your branches, and to be seen with Capt. Booth here. One big, happy military family that’s here to help.”

  Jax had been briefed on what this meeting would be about, but hearing his new role described in such a way suddenly made him feel like a fraud. He was a fighter, not a bridge-builder. Point him at the bad guys and order him to kill, fine. Point him at the public and tell him to liaise and build consensus? He didn’t know if he was up to it.

  Then again, if not him, then who?

  “Excuse me, sir,” said Grant. “Can I assume you meant this role is for Col. Roth?”

  “Not anymore,” said Archer. “At first, yes. Now I can see the value of having a female on the team. And one with medical training will be that much better.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “You’re saying…?”

  “You represent the air force, and you answer to Capt. Booth. As of right now.”

  She blinked at him for a moment. “And what should I tell Col. Roth, sir?”

  “Tell him if he has a problem with me, he can fucking well meet me in person instead of being a passive-aggressive pussy and sending subordinates to his meetings. Now, if we’re all on the same page, I’m going to turn you over to Capt. Booth. I’ve got other meetings to get to.”

  The colonel gathered up his papers. As he passed Jax on the way to the door, he nodded.

  “They’re all yours, Captain.”

  “Sir.” The word felt like sand against his suddenly dry vocal cords.

  The door opened and closed, leaving Jax in the room with his three new colleagues. They were all looking at him with a mix of suspicion and confusion. There was also more than a little anger in Lt. Grant’s blue eyes.

  He looked at them all with what he hoped was an air of confidence – one that he didn’t feel.

  “All right, then,” he said in his most authoritative voice. “Let’s get down to business.”

  Chapter 10

  It felt good to have Ruben and Cruz with him again, even if their duty today was something none of them were prepared for.
But then, how could anyone be prepared for it? They didn’t teach post-apocalyptic urban management in any army training course Jax had ever heard of.

  The Hummer cruised slowly down East Boulder Street through the heart of Colorado Springs. Stately old homes, some of which had been subdivided into jaunty apartments, shared space with strip malls housing everything from restaurants to architects to used book stores. It was the kind of place Jax could have seen himself settling down in with Rachel and Hayley if the world hadn’t decided to end.

  “This is creepy,” Ruben said from the backseat. “I mean, it’s a beautiful day, the sun is shining, and yet there’s no one on the street anywhere. Just empty cars.”

  “It’s like a movie set that’s been abandoned,” Val said.

  “A lot of the people are in the makeshift hospices that have been set up at the schools and at Fort Carson,” said Jax. “Archer says the number of people entering the final stages of Eko has increased a hundredfold in the last few days. That includes a lot of the people who’ve been acting as caregivers.”

  Ruben let out a low whistle. “Jesus. All while we’ve been sitting under a mountain.”

  Jax made the mistake of glancing into the front seat of a parked Jeep as he drove past. A gray figure—he couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman—was slumped over the steering wheel, a cloud of flies crawling in the pool of blood left on the dashboard. Whatever that person had been in life, he or she had died alone in their car, probably reeking of their own shit. His stomach threatened to rebel, but he clamped down against it.

  They drove on, followed closely by a second Hummer with Grant, Price and Skolnik in it. Jax wondered if Skolnik would make it through the day without suffering a nervous breakdown. He wasn’t made for the kind of work they were about to begin.

  Still, the four had managed to come up with a skeleton of a plan over the past 24 hours. Jax had chosen William J. Palmer High School, a few blocks ahead of them, because it was close to the center of town. He didn’t want to be seen as favoring any particular area of the city, and he wanted to draw as many people to this thing as he could, so the central location was best.