The Dying of the Light (Book 3): Beginning

by Jason Kristopher

Marquez cleared his throat and spoke. “All right, fall back to the hallway. We don’t need to be in here. Who knows what the fuck else the man did in here. Good call on the MOPP gear, Blake.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said and followed Foretti back to the hallway. As soon as Marquez had exited and closed the door behind him, she slumped back against the wall farther down the hallway, out of reach of the stench. She let the rest of the Hunter team Marquez had brought with him secure the area. She needed a break.

  Eden pulled off her mask and breathed deep of the fresher air in the hallway. Between stories she’d heard of Henry Gardner and Jack Warner from her parents, she thought the worst humans in existence were long gone. As it turned out, they were nothing compared to Malcolm Dagger.

  Marquez stopped a few feet away, looking troubled without his mask. He spoke into his mic. “AEGIS Actual, Hunter One. Sir, I’ve got something… It’s horrible, sir. We need you on Level Six, officer country, sir.”

  “On my way, Hunter One. Stand by.”

  Marquez slid down the wall to rest next to Eden. “What the fuck.”

  Eden couldn’t help but agree with him. What the fuck indeed.

  Operations Center

  Bunker Four

  Charlotte, Iowa

  The tension in the air was thick as Celero and his team worked hard to overcome the lockout that Dagger had placed on the missile’s control systems. Anderson knew they were doing their best and left them to it. There was nothing more he could do here, so he walked out of Ops to the main elevator area. It had been in constant motion for two hours, ever since he’d realized the depths of Dagger’s depravity and exactly what the man had planned.

  A shout from the elevator caught his attention as the huge platform rumbled up from the floor below. Refugees packed the lift, standing shoulder to shoulder and parents carrying their children in makeshift slings on their backs or on hips. It was a wonder that even that great machine could haul that many people at once, but it did so without a hitch. They were evacuating upwards of 250 people at a time with the main elevator. As he pressed through the throng waiting their turn to head upward, he saw that the emergency ladders were also in use as well as the secondary elevator banks at either end.

  It would be close, but they’d get everyone out in time, according to their best estimates. The planes, trucks, and vehicles of every shape and size that they’d enlisted covered the ground outside the base entrance. The video from the surface showed organized chaos, with refugees fleeing in anything that would or could carry them. Though the bunker no longer had its full complement of inhabitants, what with the depredations of Dagger and his crew over the last twenty-five years, there were still thousands of people to get clear, and that was no small feat.

  What Anderson was most happy to see were the evacuated folks returning in whatever they could scrounge to save even more people. It did his heart good to know that not everyone who’d been subject to the evil here had become evil themselves.

  “Sir, I’ve got something… It’s horrible, sir. We need you on Level Six, officer country, sir.” Marquez had gone down with his Hunter teams to search for Dagger, and now he’d found something, Anderson guessed.

  “On my way, Hunter One. Stand by.” Anderson strode over to one of the secondary elevator banks and held the door of the next car that opened. Its occupants poured out—more refugees from the lower housing levels—and he stepped in. Inserting the ident card Peltmeyer had given him, Anderson overrode the elevator’s standard operations and headed straight for Level Six.

  When he exited the elevator, he immediately noticed the smell. The secondary elevator banks were closer to officer’s country, and he wondered just what Marquez and his team had found. He had no need to ask where they were. He just followed his nose.

  As he entered the hallway leading to what he now recognized as the commander’s quarters, he put a hand to his nose to block the stench. Marquez noticed him and walked over.

  “It’s what’s left of Davies, sir. I might have… misspoken, sir. You don’t really need to see this. We can clean it up or just toss in a grenade and shut the door.”

  Anderson frowned. “Find anything important other than the body? Like where our friend Dagger might be hiding? Or how long ago Davies died? Or any other intel from the room? He must’ve spent time here.”

  “Those… Those are all good questions, sir, and I should have answers for you. We were all a little distracted by what we found. Davies, I mean.”

  A female voice called out from inside the room. “Sirs, I found something.”

  Anderson started to walk into the room, but Marquez stopped him with a hand on the general’s shoulder. Anderson looked at the hand, then back at the captain, who snatched it back as if burned.

  “Sorry, sir, but you’ll need MOPP gear. We don’t know what pathogens could still be inside.”

  Anderson leaned around Marquez to look down the hallway and saw Blake resting against the wall with the others who were closer to the door in question, all still wearing their masks. Even from here, he could smell why.

  “Roger that,” Anderson said, turning to the nearest soldier and holding out a hand. “Your mask, soldier.”

  Foretti shook his head and stuffed his mask back into his leg pocket. “Sorry, sir, but you really don’t want that one.”

  He looked ashamed, and Anderson raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

  “Well, sir, I… uh… I got sick in that one, sir. Trust me, you don’t want it.”

  Anderson grunted and turned back to Marquez. “Let’s go, Captain.”

  “Sir—”

  “Now, Captain.” Anderson strode down the hall to Blake, squatted down next to her, and held out a hand. “Need your MOPP mask, Hunter.”

  Eden looked up at him. “Sir, I’ll go with—”

  Anderson shook his head. “That’s not necessary, Lieutenant. Just the mask will be fine.”

  Eden looked relieved, though she tried to hide it. “Yes, sir. It might not fit, sir,” she said and handed him the mask.

  Anderson stuffed his uniform cap in his pocket and pulled the mask over his head. It was a bit tight, but he made it work. He wouldn’t be wearing it for that long anyway. “Let’s go, Captain.”

  They entered the small suite, and Marquez motioned to the kitchen. “In here, sir, under the sink.”

  Anderson walked over and looked in the low cabinet the search team had opened. He noticed a rack of equipment tied into the sink’s water and drainage systems. Canisters of various sizes were empty or near empty, and tubes led from them through a hole in the wall to the next room. “Life support system?” he asked.

  “That’s what the medics thought, sir.”

  Anderson nodded and stood up. “Let’s see what she’s found,” he said and brushed past Marquez as he exited the kitchen. When he entered the bedroom, the first thing he wanted to do was puke, but he’d learned long ago how to muscle down that reflex, how to control it. He swallowed and took several short, shallow breaths. The feeling passed, and he was able to concentrate on the room’s occupant.

  One of the corpsmen stood nearby, cleaning and putting instruments back in her bag. The cleaning solutions had left a small circle of clean-ish floor at her feet, pooling toward the center of the room and turning the years of accumulated filth and grime pink.

  “Report, Corpsman,” he said, and the medic looked up.

  “Lieutenant Samuel Davies, sir. Former XO of Malcolm Dagger. Records disappear about ten years ago, so we don’t know anything after that. Or we didn’t. Now we know where he ended up. How he got here is a bit of a mystery.”

  Anderson stepped closer to the walker, looking at the bite on his neck, the tortured hands, wrists, and body of the creature. The walker was gone now, of course, thanks to Blake, and presented no further danger other than by its nature as a carrier for the prion. “So this man was tortured and then turned into a walker.”

  “Yes, sir. Preliminary exam shows the damage to the bones, h
ands, feet, etc. was all done prior to turning. I’d estimate that the torture took several years, and he was kept alive through those IVs and PEG tube.” The corpsman shuddered and looked away. “I’ve never seen anything like it, sir.”

  “I have,” Anderson replied, thinking back to his old pal Gardner and the stories told of Warner at McMurdo. “Doesn’t matter now anyway. Just gives us some more insight into the horror that is Malcolm Dagger. What did you want us to see?”

  “Take a closer look at him, sir. If you’ll notice here, here, and here, you’ll see something odd.” The corpsman pointed to a few spots on Davies’s body, but Anderson couldn’t see anything different.

  “I’m not a medical person, Corpsman. What am I looking at?”

  “I think these muscles had started to regenerate, sir. I think that Dagger had turned Davies into a Driebach and was experimenting on him.”

  “To what end?”

  “Unknown. Perhaps he was studying the regeneration cycle? Seeing just how much damage the Driebachs could take before dying and what specifically might kill them. If I had to guess, sir…” She shook her head. “If I had to guess, I’d say he was trying to find an efficient way to kill them by finding out what didn’t work first.”

  “That’s—”

  “Cruel? Insane? Backwards? I agree,” she said. “I don’t see anything medically or scientifically useful about this experiment, sir. Frankly, I think it was an experiment in cruelty, nothing more.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Dagger’s a dead man regardless and a crazy dead man to boot.” Anderson shook his head. “Every time I think I’ve seen the worst humanity has to offer, someone more evil comes along.” Anderson turned to Marquez. “The evac is complete on this level?”

  The captain nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Get your people out of here. I want us all gone in one hour.”

  “Yes, sir,” Marquez said. “All Hunter teams, prep for evac. Return to the main level.” He pointed at the corpsman. “That’s you too, Alvine.”

  She nodded and left as though the devil himself were on her heels. Anderson could hardly blame her. He turned for one last look at the poor bastard and shook his head.

  “Time to find this guy and put him down. I’m sick of this.”

  Church Outpost

  Clayton, New Mexico

  The shade of the building did little to cool Brother Ezekiel as he watched the warehouse. The infidels remained inside, and though the Brethren had killed a few of them, they still existed.

  That could not continue. He took a deep breath and fortified his patience, then signaled Brother Benjamin. The man came over and knelt next to Ezekiel. He looked up at him with a reverence most often reserved for deities and their kin. It was sacrilegious, but Ezekiel tolerated it without punishing the man. He knew Benjamin to be just crazy enough to break and turn on them all, should he feel betrayed.

  “Better the devil you know than the one you don’t” was a personal motto of Ezekiel’s, at least when it came to the First Church of the Divine Judgment.

  “Is all in readiness, Brother Benjamin?” he asked.

  “Yes, Brother. The Cleansed are eager to anoint the infidels, and the Brethren are ready to assist them.”

  “Good. And Brother Jared? Has he had any more success?” Ezekiel glanced up at the building beside him, three stories tall. It looked as though it would topple at any moment. Better a lower-rank brother with a penchant for precision sniping than Ezekiel up there. Still, he would’ve liked to have had the higher viewpoint of the action.

  “The Lord wills,” he muttered.

  “Amen. Brother Jared reports that he has seen none of the infidels on the roof since earlier this morning.”

  “You mean when he missed.”

  The other man hesitated. “Yes, sir. When he missed.”

  “Very well. He’ll have more opportunities now. Signal the release of the Cleansed. Wait until the infidels are fighting, then send in the Brethren.”

  “Yes, Brother.”

  Abandoned Costco

  The AEGIS forces hadn’t been able to send anyone up to the roof all day. Every time the hatch opened, a round ricocheted off the metal. They’d had to close it and return to the warehouse floor. No sense in even trying now.

  “Heads on swivels, people,” Carson said, his voice coming through loud and clear in Rachel’s earpiece. “Everyone make sure your REAPR band is active and functional. Report contacts as you see them. You know the drill. We’ve still got four hours minimum before backup gets here. No one else is dying today, you get me?”

  “We get you, sir!” said the chorus of replies, including Rachel.

  She checked her REAPR band for the fourth time and glanced around the warehouse. They’d done all they could to secure the facility against the expected incursion, but there was no telling if it would be enough. And with a third of their few remaining people out on Carson’s spec-op, they were spread even more thin than they’d already been.

  They’d managed to collapse some of the shelves against the back walls to block almost all the doors. There was no getting through those. They’d left one free and had moved the big vehicles to just behind that door. Set and in a line, their engines ready to turn over at a moment’s notice, the vehicles were as ready as they could be.

  The Stryker would be the first one out and would use the opportunity to communicate with the incoming reinforcements over a secure channel this time. But for now, all they could do was wait, as they’d been doing all morning.

  Rachel was sure that this was a ploy by the church, to let the heat and constant state of readiness exhaust them. It would make them just a little sleepy. It’s easy to miss even the most obvious things when you’re sleepy, and they were all operating on next to no rest.

  “Contact west.” The voice was unfamiliar, but she didn’t need to know the man personally to know what was going on. As half of a roving patrol, Rachel’s job was to go where the fighting was worst and reinforce those stationed there. She rushed over to the west side of the building and met her patrol counterpart, Powers.

  Two of the other soldiers were about seventy-five yards apart, looking out windows in the emergency exit doors. The fallen shelving blocked the doors from opening, but they could still see out. Rachel noticed there wasn’t much of a view out of those smallish windows, and she shook her head and wondered how either man had seen anything. The soldier on the northern window waved them over and pointed through the tangle of shelves.

  “Looks like some walkers, ma’am,” he said. “Five or six.”

  “Romeo Six, Lima Three. Confirm contact, at least five walkers,” Rachel said into her shoulder mic.

  “Roger that, Lima Three,” Carson replied.

  “Contact east. Three walkers.” Another report.

  “Contact north, six walkers.” And another.

  “Contact south,” Carson said as he added to the party. “We’re surrounded. Don’t worry about the walkers. They’re never getting through these walls. Stay alert for their handlers. The Church has used this tactic before. Their people won’t be far behind.”

  Rachel glanced to one side at the club walls and agreed with the sergeant. The walls were patterned concrete blocks eight inches tall and sixteen inches long, at a guess, laid in rows. There was probably insulation between two different sets of walls too. No way a walker was getting through that.

  “Save your ammo for the real targets,” she said to the men nearby, her voice raised so they could hear her. She glanced out the small window again. The walkers were just standing in place, with a few turned around.

  “Sergeant, they’re not moving. They’re just standing there.”

  “I can see that, Lieutenant. They don’t know we’re in here. The nutballs have done something to get them here, but as long as we’re quiet—”

  Just then, Rachel heard a breaking crash from high up on the outside wall. The walkers started moving toward the building, but slowly. They had been out in th
e sun and heat so long, most of them had desiccated to almost skeleton status. She wasn’t sure how they were moving at all. Their skin was drawn so tight over their bones that it had split in many places, leaving just the decayed muscle tissue showing underneath.

  “They just launched something against the side of the building,” said one of the soldiers posted to that position. “North side. Wait one. It almost hit the door, but whatever was in it is dripping down over the window. Looks like blood, sir.”

  “It probably is,” Carson replied. “They like to use ‘blood bombs’ to attract the walkers. Gets them all riled up. Hold fast, folks. That just proves that they’re out there somewhere.” He paused for a moment. “Charlie, report.”

  Charlie had volunteered to be their one person up on the roof, an unenviable post in the scorching heat. The team needed someone up there to relay messages from the strike group that had snuck out under cover of near-darkness with MacPherson in the lead. Charlie had managed to find cover. She’d escaped from the roof hatch killzone while the sniper was reloading. Now she was cooking in the sun, with only a half-assed bit of shade from a scrounged tarp that hadn’t rotted all the way through.

  Rachel had also volunteered, but she was glad Carson had chosen Charlie.

  “No contact, sir. They must still be making their way over to the hotel.”

  “What are they doing, crawling?” Carson muttered. “Never mind. Keep me apprised.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The walkers had reached the wall of the club and were beating on the concrete or doors on all sides, depending on where the “blood bombs” had landed. She still couldn’t see any humans, but she knew they were out there.

  “Come on,” she muttered. “Give me something to shoot.”

  Clayton Municipal Sewer System

  Mac had not expected the sewers to smell quite this bad twenty-four years after Z-Day. They’d made their way in silence through the tunnels headed south from the warehouse, and it had been a “holy shit” level of stench the whole way. The small town must have combined their storm sewers with their septic systems. Mac was pretty sure that was illegal, or at the very least, it should’ve been.