The Dying of the Light (Book 3): Beginning

by Jason Kristopher

  The next four made it a little farther, and the two after that a little farther still as the soldiers reloaded and their rate of fire declined. The zealots kept coming, and Carson knew it was time to call it. There was no sense risking themselves trying to stem the tide of walkers and zealots when they had Big Betty to back them up. Betty could take out all of them faster than any ten AEGIS soldiers. It was time to let her work.

  “North, south, and east teams, fall back to Betty. West team cover the MTVs.” He stood up from his perch and motioned to Cruz. “A hand?”

  “Yes, sir,” the soldier said. He raced over and threw the sergeant over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Cruz ran for the cover of the guns on top of the Stryker with Carson bouncing.

  “Not… oof… exactly… what I had in mind,” he said. He tried to cover their retreat as best he could. The others fell back in staggered formation, still taking out the zealots who made it through the door, but they couldn’t hold.

  “Hostiles have penetrated the facility,” Rachel said. “Activating REAPR in three, two… now.”

  All the soldiers took the few seconds’ warning to smash their hearing protection into their ears. This close to the guns, they’d lose it completely if unprotected for very long.

  Even through the earplugs, the noise was catastrophic. The guns tracked so fast back and forth that they became almost a blur. The system was set on “single fire,” Carson noted. Each flash and thump was accompanied by a zealot—or more accurately, a part of a zealot—exploding into a fine red mist. None of those who got hit got back up. In the spare few seconds that it took the guns to track to another target, the soldiers were still firing.

  “Contact west,” the team covering the MTVs said. “Looks like random hostiles spreading out. We’ve got this, sir.”

  The churchmen kept coming, though in fewer numbers, and Carson had spotted more than one come in, see the carnage, and flee back through the door he’d come in. Cruz had deposited him in a good defensive position with a clear view to the main doors, and Carson saw one churchman come in and decide not to stay.

  The man turned to leave and was shot in the head by the man following him in, dressed in white robes and carrying what looked from this distance to be a very large handgun. The churchman looked around at the devastation wrought upon his men and closed his eyes. He folded his hands, and Carson would’ve sworn he was praying.

  “Good fucking luck with that,” he muttered and lined up a shot with his rifle, leaning into the scope. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, the man disappeared—straight up vanished. He looked up from the scope to see a big set of holes in the concrete around the door, covered in what looked like red paint, and he smiled.

  “Got him, sir,” Rachel said in his earpiece. “All targets neutralized. REAPR deactivating.”

  “Romeo Six, Strike Actual, come in.”

  Carson’s smile got bigger. “Romeo Six, go.”

  “We’re all clear up here, sir.”

  “Roger that. RTB. We’re done here.”

  “Yes, sir, we are RTB.”

  “All teams, secure the building. Set up a perimeter. Friendlies are en route, so verify your targets before firing.”

  He pulled the earplug from his other ear and rubbed a hand across his scalp. He heard the ramp of the Stryker come down, and he turned to see Rachel walk over.

  “We made it, Sergeant,” she said with a smile.

  “Yes, we did, Lieutenant. I don’t wanna jinx it, but we might’ve just pulled this off. Roll Betty out front and have her start patrols. Get in touch with the rescue convoy and tell them to be careful coming in. We don’t know if there are other cells in the area.” He laughed and shook his head.

  “What is it, Sergeant?” Rachel asked.

  “Captain Anderson is gonna be pissed that he missed all the fighting.”

  Bunker Four

  They returned to the main level, and Eden saw that the crowd of refugees awaiting evac was far fewer.

  “Get these people out of here as fast as possible, Captain,” Anderson said to Marquez.

  The Hunter nodded and signaled for his people to disperse. “Let’s light a fire under these folks, Hunters.”

  Eden took a step toward the refugees but glanced around when Anderson spoke.

  “You’re with me, Blake,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” she said and made sure she caught Marquez’s eye so that he would know where she was. The captain nodded again, and she followed her old friend toward Ops.

  As they entered, Celero met them almost at the door. “Sir, I can’t get… uh, about that problem,” he finished as he noticed Eden standing next to the general.

  Anderson waved a hand. “She’s cleared, go ahead,” he said and continued walking over to the monitor banks. “What’s our status?”

  Eden’s brow wrinkled. “Cleared?” she muttered. On every screen were different views of a towering structure within a round room. She’d never seen anything like it. “What the hell? Are those the ICMBs or whatever?”

  Celero ignored her. “We’re boned, sir,” he said, shaking his head. He’d sweated through the do-rag wrapped around his short hair and used it to wipe his reddened face. “We’ve tried everything. Whoever he got to lock us out is better than me, sir. I’d bet it’s the same guy who locked down the doors at first. There’s nothing we can do to get access to the missile itself or any of its systems. It’s going to fire.”

  “How long do we have?” Anderson asked.

  “It’s not exact, sir, and with all the diff—”

  Anderson turned to the lieutenant and looked him dead in the eye. He didn’t raise his voice, but he didn’t have to. “How long?”

  Celero’s shoulders sagged and his head drooped. “An hour, maybe an hour and a half. No more. It’s nearly fueled. Once it completes the automatic launch checklist, it’ll fire, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing we can do about it, sir.”

  Anderson sighed. “That’s it, then.” He stood straight, and Eden didn’t like the set of his face when he looked around the room. “There is one other option, but I need you to do something for me, Lieutenant.”

  Celero looked up. “Sir?”

  “Get me a line to both Bunker One and Bunker Eight, please.”

  “Yes, sir,” the tech said and walked over to another console.

  “The rest of you, clear out,” Anderson said to the other men in the room. “Double-time it to the surface and assist with evac procedures. We are wheels-up outta here in twenty minutes with all hands.”

  Eden started to leave to assist the men, but Anderson held her back once more. “I need you with me, Ms. Blake.”

  He spoke into his mic. “Break break, urgent. This is Anderson. All teams report status of evac to Hunter One. You have twenty minutes. We are di di mau at…” He checked his watch. “. . . 1450 hours. No excuses.” He grinned. “Marines, we are leaving!”

  When he got no reaction from anyone left in the room, he grumbled. “Fucking Philistines. Doesn’t anyone watch movies anymore? Hunter One, this is Anderson. What is our status?”

  “We are ninety percent evacuated, sir. We’ll make your cutoff, if only just. I’ve told everyone to drop whatever they were carrying, there’s no more time.” Eden could hear the strain in Marquez’s voice. But she knew him well enough to know that if he said he would do something, come hell or high water, it would happen.

  “Good. Any news on Dagger?”

  “Negative, sir. Teams have scoured the bunker, sir, and there’s no sign of him anywhere. We did find something, though.”

  “What was it?”

  “Level Thirty-Nine, sir. I’d bet Celero can show you.”

  “I’ll ask. You’re watching the civilians as they leave, I assume.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ve got men stationed at all the exits, and we’re checking everyone who comes out. It’s a bit of a bottleneck for the main elevator for sheer numbers, but we’re making it work. No one matching the photos
Celero sent us has come through, sir.”

  “He’s here somewhere, but it won’t matter much longer. Stay alert.”

  “Yes, sir. Won’t matter, sir?”

  “Never mind, Captain. Once everyone is out, get you and your men clear. Leave one Humvee for our exfil.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sir,” Celero said from the other side of the room, “I have that patch-through you wanted.”

  “Before we do that, can you tell me what the hell Marquez was talking about? What’s on Level Thirty-Nine?”

  “No idea, sir,” he replied, “but I still have control of the internal security cameras. They didn’t lock those down. Let me just punch it up here.”

  A few seconds later, Celero directed his attention to a monitor, and Anderson saw what looked like the inside of a lab. “What is this?” the general asked. “Rotate the camera.”

  “Yes, sir,” Celero said.

  The camera rotated, and Anderson sighed.

  Eden could just see around the man, and she wasn’t surprised at what she saw either. The camera showed a small lab enclosure with a long glass wall on one side with a heavy door leading through the material. On the other side of the wall were the nightmares they’d expected to find.

  Driebachs. At least thirty or forty, from what she could see here.

  “Holy shit,” she said.

  “Indeed, Ms. Blake,” Anderson replied. “Celero, are they locked down?”

  The lieutenant typed some commands on his systems and nodded. “Yes, sir. According to what I see here, the door in the wall is locked and the lab door as well. Not sure how Marquez knew they were in there.”

  “Probably the smell. Can you show me how to override the locks?”

  Celero looked at Anderson like he’d grown a second and maybe a third head, and Eden was confused too.

  “Why the hell would you want to do that?” the technician asked, then remembered who he was speaking to. “Uh, sir?”

  “If Dagger’s men can lock it down, they can unlock it. I want to know how to reverse that if I have to.”

  Celero nodded as he accepted that explanation and showed Anderson how to deal with the locks.

  Eden frowned as she looked at the general and wondered why he was lying to the man. She knew him well enough to know when he was lying, and he was feeding Celero a line. But why? Was he doing it just so Celero would leave?

  “Good, I’ll take it from here. Meet up with the Hunters outside and get out of here.”

  Celero hesitated and frowned again. “Sir, what about the missile? I can keep working. We have some time…”

  Anderson shook his head. “Negative. Get clear. I’ll take it from here.” He smiled, but Eden could see it was just for effect. Not that anyone else would detect it, but she’d been around her “Uncle Frank” long enough to pick it up. He was trying to make Celero feel better about leaving, plain and simple. And it worked.

  “Yes, sir,” Celero said with a relieved nod. He trusted his CO. He grabbed his pack and ran out the door.

  Now it was just her and the general and the blinking light on the control panel with the patch-through from the bunkers. What was she still doing here? “Sir, should I—”

  He held up a hand. “Stay here for a little longer, please, Eden. I… I need a friendly face in the room with me as long as possible.”

  She blinked. He never called her Eden. What the fuck was going on?

  Anderson tapped a few keys on the control panel and spoke. “Bunker One, are you there?”

  Eden heard her father’s voice come over the speakers and saw a monitor light up, showing both her parents. “We’re here, Frank,” he said.

  Her mother spoke up too. “What’s your status, sir?”

  Anderson spoke again. “One minute, Colonel, Mr. Blake. Bunker Eight, how copy?”

  Eden thought she recognized Morena Anderson’s voice. “I’m here, Frank, and so is Roger.” Another voice spoke, one she didn’t know. “Hey Frank, what’s this about? What’s your status?”

  “Good to hear your voice again, Roger. I don’t have a lot of time, so I need you all to listen carefully.” He took a seat at the control panel and rolled the chair over to one of the stationary microphones. He folded his hands on the panel and looked straight at the camera. “We have a problem. Dagger has activated one of the ICBMs. It’s fueling now, and—”

  Everyone interrupted the general by speaking at once. Their voices were shrill, and Eden winced. They were stressed, and not just by Anderson’s announcement. Eden knew the events of the last few days had been hard on them all.

  “Enough!” Anderson shouted, then closed his eyes. She could almost feel him count to ten. “We don’t have a lot of time, and I don’t want to waste it arguing. Dagger’s locked us out of all the missile control systems. I’ve had my best people working on it for hours, and they couldn’t break in. We’re down to the wire, and it’s almost done fueling. In less than an hour, it’ll launch.” He glanced at Eden as he continued. “I don’t have to tell you what the payload is on this thing.”

  “Oh my God,” David said. “He’s actually done it. He’s going to launch the prion bomb.”

  “It’s worse than that, actually.”

  “Worse than a prion bomb?” David yelled.

  “I’ve confirmed Driebachs are present. I’d bet it’s not just a prion bomb, but another Driebach bomb.”

  It was then that Eden knew what everyone had been keeping secret for so long. Knew why Anderson hadn’t told everyone what was going on at this bunker or the others. Dagger had weaponized the prion, and he was going to launch it against someone. The idea that someone would deliberately create zombies was staggering enough. But to create Driebachs?

  “Where’s it headed, Frank?” asked Roger Tate, the governor of Bunker Eight. “We need to get word to them, get them out of the area—”

  “It doesn’t matter where it’s headed,” Anderson said.

  “Of course it matt—”

  “No, it doesn’t fucking matter!” he yelled. “Because it’s not leaving the silo.”

  Eden’s mom broke in. “Sir, you said you’re locked out. I assume that means you can’t activate the auto-destruct seque—oh.”

  Eden didn’t understand, and she wasn’t the only one. Her mother had put together pieces to a puzzle Eden had never seen, and super-fast to boot.

  “I don’t understand, Frank,” Morena said. “What’s happening? How are you going to stop it if you’re locked out?”

  Anderson looked Eden right in the eye as he continued speaking. “Every bunker has an auto-destruct sequence built in, in case of catastrophic failure or an outbreak that can’t be contained. It’s called the Wildfire Protocol, a holdover from the 70s and 80s. It’s the same sort of system they used at the CDC, though it’s combined with super-heated steam from the reactors in the case of Bunker Four.”

  Eden sat down in another empty chair, stunned. She’d never realized that an auto-destruct existed. But now that she thought about it, of course it did. It would’ve had to. No one wanted thousands of walkers roaming around.

  “So you’re going to set the auto-destruct for the bunker,” her father said. “I’m assuming you’ve evacuated the people?”

  “Everyone is gone or will be soon. It was only about three-quarters full, so it didn’t take as long as we expected.”

  “What happened to the others?”

  “Dagger happened. Or his people when he wasn’t in control. Some of the stories my people have heard… I’m surprised anyone’s left, to be honest. And we found something… something horrible. Eden or Marquez can tell you more about it later.”

  “Eden? Eden was there?” her mom asked, and Eden could hear the strain in her voice increase exponentially.

  “She’s here now, in fact,” Anderson said as he looked at her.

  “Oh my… Eden, honey, are you there? Are you okay? What happ—” Her parents were both talking at once, and she couldn’t understand them.r />
  Eden felt tears come to her eyes as they spoke. “Mom, Dad, I’m here. I’m fine. A little shook up from fighting Driebachs, but I’m okay.”

  She could hear the joy in her parents’ voices, and she knew her dad was crying from his tone. “You get out of there, Eden. You get out of there right now and get back to Des Moines. You’ve done your job. You’ve proven yourself.”

  “That’s an order, young lady,” her mom said, and Eden couldn’t help but laugh in relief as she remembered all the other times her mother had told her that. It was a running joke in the small family.

  One of the other people on the call cleared his throat and spoke. “I don’t want to interrupt the reunion here, and I’m sorry to do it, but what about Dagger?” Tate asked. “Is he in custody?”

  “No,” Anderson said. “And therein lies the rub, as they say. He hasn’t escaped, hasn’t gotten out, so he’s still somewhere in the bunker.”

  “So what?” David asked. “The things he’s done, he deserves to die. Leave him to rot in whatever hidey-hole he’s found and blow it up. There’s no choice here. We can’t let that missile out. We’ve already got one bunker full of Driebachs, and we can’t afford any more.”

  “What the fuck?” Eden said before she could help herself. “A bunker full of Driebachs? Oh my God, earlier, you said ‘another Driebach bomb.’ Did he do this before? Is that what happened? What. The. Fuck?”

  Anderson waved her questions off. “There isn’t time. Short answer is that’s why we’re doing all this. Your parents can fill you in later.”

  “You keep saying other people can do stuff later, Frank,” Morena said. “You’re scaring me.”

  “Yeah, that’s the bad part. Dagger’s loose somewhere in the base. When the auto-destruct warnings go off, he’ll find out what we’re up to. It would be simple to run right up here and turn it off with the override codes he stole from Yarborough.” He leaned against the chair’s back and rubbed his face, then continued. “No, someone has to stay here to keep him from shutting it down.”