The End Time Saga (Book 2): The Breaking

by Daniel Greene

  “Hurry up now, Gwen. Who gets to have fun first?” Puck goaded her.

  “The Arab. The Arab,” others shouted.

  “Let me keep the painted one,” One-eyed Sue yelled, giving Mauser a twisted smile.

  I think I’d rather go in the Pit.

  The strain wore heavy on Gwen, having to choose which of her friends would die first. It was tearing her apart from the inside, a burden she didn’t want to carry.

  Isn’t it bad enough she has to watch us die?

  Mauser’s limbs tingled. It was a funny thing knowing he was about to die, and it gave him a bit of clarity even when his insides screamed. He supposed that some people might panic thinking about their final moments. Mauser drew strength. He knew he would have some control over his fate. One doesn’t get to pick where they come into this world, but every man is given a choice how he entered the next world. In a pile of shell casings, or bullet holes in the back. I will not give them the satisfaction of lying down. I will fight.

  Mauser stood shakily, conviction etched on his face. “I want to go first,” he shouted.

  The group quieted down staring at Mauser. Puck glared, furious that he’d taken the fun out of Gwen’s psychological torture. He marched over to Mauser, engulfing his shoulder with a meaty paw.

  “You don’t get to choose. Gwen must choose,” he growled, holding Mauser in place.

  “Let’s get this party started.” Mauser gave a smile to everyone. “Everything’s going to be okay,” he called to Gwen. Let me help you. This can be a choice.

  Gwen looked up, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t. I can’t,” she quavered.

  Mauser was forced back to his knees, a knife held to the side of his throat. The point pricked his skin. His eyes locked with hers. It’s okay, I’m ready.

  “Gwen, pick me,” Mauser said.

  Gwen’s eyes glistened as she nodded.

  I never thought it would be like this. “Everything is going to be alright, I promise,” Mauser lied. She nodded, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.

  “I pick Mauser,” she sputtered. Her hands leapt up to her face.

  “There, it’s settled. Ahmed, buy me a beer when we’re done here. Deal?” Mauser said with false bravado.

  Ahmed nodded dumbly, defeated, in shock, attempting to face death but with no will to do so. The knife was released from Mauser’s neck and he stood.

  Mauser offered his hands to Puck. “You want a real show, untie me.”

  Puck grinned, unsettling Mauser. Puck turned away and planted a huge foot into Ahmed’s back, sending him sailing into the Pit.

  JOSEPH

  Quarantine Base Rattlesnake, Pittsburgh, PA

  Joseph sat in a fold-out chair inside the quarantine base’s large medical tent. His earplugs muffled the coughs of the sick and the booms of the artillery outside. He yawned; his sleep had been fitful, but better than on the road.

  With each passing day, Joseph was ushered closer to defeat. His one shot to find Patient Zero had been squandered, and now he was stuck with a failing military unit on the outskirts of a dead city.

  He checked the thermometer of a pale soldier lying on a cot in front of him. His temperature was under control. He will need another dose of antibiotics to make sure he doesn’t relapse.

  An influenza outbreak had plagued the unit, requiring a great deal of antibiotics. It kept him busy, but most of the men only needed rest. Rest that they were not allowed to have in the field. The tempo of shelling and base defense was constant and Joseph was sure most of the men were sick due to lack of adequate physical and mental rest.

  “What’s a deadman’s knot? Five letters across.” Henderson sat nearby, pen in hand, folded piece of newspaper in the other.

  “A noose,” Joseph said. He walked over to the next soldier.

  “Perfect,” Henderson exclaimed. He shook his head in disbelief. “Dang, Dr. Joseph. You sure do know everything.”

  “No I don’t,” Joseph said apathetically.

  “Well sure you do. You’re going to find a cure for the virus.”

  Joseph rolled his eyes. “No, I’m not. I can’t do anything here.”

  “You’ll get there, Doctor.” Henderson stuck the pen in his mouth while he thought.

  Joseph looked up at Henderson sitting across the room. “Are you going to take me?”

  “Well no, that would be against orders, but at some point the colonel will get you there.” Henderson gave Joseph a dumb smile. He was just a kid, no more than twenty, and had already seen more death than the most seasoned of warriors.

  “How about ‘killer of pre-modern war’?” Henderson crunched his brow. “Rifle doesn’t fit. Bow and arrow is to long. Hmm. Starts with a D.”

  “Dysentery.”

  Henderson counted out the letters. “What do you know? It fits.” He gave Joseph a smile.

  “How have you not finished that?” Heavy Howitzers boomed outside as if they were at the Battle of Gettysburg.

  “Well, I dunno. It’s hard.”

  “The last newspaper came out, what over a month ago, and you still aren’t finished?”

  “Nope. Maybe I don’t want it to be over,” he said, defensiveness creeping up in his voice. Henderson went back to his task of solving his never-ending crossword.

  “Why is that?”

  “Cause then I won’t have nuttin’ to do.”

  “There is always more to do. I’m going to check on a few of the patients and make sure they getting enough fluids.”

  They were well-supplied with medical supplies and antibiotics, but the task was still daunting with his basic atrophied medical background.

  Is Henderson here to assist, or make sure I don’t run off?

  “You know what? How about you grab those IV bags over there and change them out,” Joseph commanded.

  Truck tires came screeching to a halt outside the tent, and people shouted back and forth. Henderson set down his crossword and went for the door. The tent flap blew open. A fiery-red-haired soldier charged through in bloodied tan digital camouflage. His name tag read Yates in block lettering.

  Joseph hesitated, thinking the man might be infected. Yates and another soldier hauled a patient behind him on a stretcher. More men followed them, dragging in their comrades. It’s going to be a long day. Joseph immediately started a triage for the men.

  The first man they set down wore the remnants of shredded clothes. Multiple metal fragments protruded from his chest and arms. Joseph put his ear next to the man’s mouth watching his chest rise and fall in rapid successive repetitions. He placed a red marker on his stretcher.

  The next man they set down had burns and gunshot wounds to his upper leg. All the hair on his face and head had been burnt away. Joseph tossed red marker down next to him.

  The next man was already dead, eyes glazed over. He suffered from a deep penetrating wound just to the left of the mid-thoracic spine of which almost was certainly severed descending the thoracic aorta. Joseph threw a black marker near his feet.

  “He’s dead,” Joseph said to the men standing around. He repeated the process for soldier after soldier as they piled in. They set them on the ground in a mangled row of ground up men.

  Sergeant Yates paced back and forth behind Joseph, fuming in anger.

  “Those fuckers set up a roadside bomb. It was like Iraq all over again,” he said to himself. Another soldier with a faint beard spoke up.

  “Wesley was on fire and just wouldn’t stop screaming, Sarge.”

  “I know, Taylor. We’ll get those fuckers. I promise. I never thought people here would be like this. Those … those fuckers. We aren’t invaders. We’re Americans,” Sergeant Yates hissed.

  “We were only trying to help,” Taylor said to himself.

  Joseph couldn’t bear it. “If you aren’t putting pressure on a wound, I need IVs in him and him, and if you aren’t doing anything get the hell out of here,” he yelled over his shoulder. Yates mumbled an apology and the handful
of troops not helping left the tent. Joseph’s mind raced. Americans attacked American soldiers. It can’t be. Why?

  He found the nearest red marker and went to work. Taking a pair of scissors, he cut open the soldier’s shirt, revealing a chest that looked like hamburger meat. He is more of a boy than a man.

  “Hold his mouth open,” Joseph said to Henderson. The specialist wrestled with the soldier’s jaw, finally prying it open. Joseph inserted a laryngoscope, a flashlight with a 90 degree blade on it, to see that he was deploying the endotracheal tube beyond the vocal cords. The tube slid down his throat. Joseph put his ear next to each of the man’s lungs to ensure he was breathing properly. With the airway open, the man would survive for the time being.

  “Bag him,” Joseph shouted. Henderson placed a resuscitation bag over his face and squeezed it in a regular rhythm.

  Using tweezers, Joseph removed pieces of metal and ripped fabric from the boy’s shredded flesh. He unwrapped a Vaseline gauze and wrapped it around the soldier’s chest wound to ensure air didn’t leak out.

  Joseph wiped his forehead. The soldier needed emergency surgery, and Joseph didn’t have the capabilities here. More shouting emerged from outside, and tires burned rubber. No more, he thought, but it grew quiet and he knew the soldiers outside were gone.

  Joseph moved to the next red marker. The man’s face and arms were severely burned. The tourniquet wrapped around his upper thigh had prevented him from bleeding out long ago.

  “Get fluids in him, now,” Joseph commanded.

  With a snap, Joseph slipped on new gloves and began the emergency surgery process. He scrubbed the soldier’s leg wound and started the excoriating process of removing fragments, bits of clothing and dirt from wounds caused when the velocity of the bullet vacuumed foreign particles into the wound cavity. His tweezers clamped around a large fragment and it clinked as he dropped it into a silver tray. Blood spurted on his face. I must have inadvertently moved a clot.

  “Hand me the hemostatic agent,” he commanded. Henderson handed him a brown package filled with the small granules that would save the man’s life. He ripped it open and dumped it into the wound.

  The spurting blood vessel calmed down with the white sandlike hemostatic agent setting to work clotting the wound.

  “Get me the pressure bandage.” Henderson handed it over and Joseph wrapped the soldier’s leg tight with the bandages.

  After the excruciating makeshift surgery, Joseph only had to deal with the burns that had spread across the man’s face. The man would lose the use of one of his eyes if not both. He washed the burns on his face, scrubbing the skin. He applied wound filler, followed by antibiotic powder. Controversial, but it hopefully save his life from infection. The man’s life would still be in question for days.

  Only when the last men were stabilized did he allow himself rest. Hours had passed. He swept up a bottled water and guzzled it taking a seat near the edge of the tent. The patients chests rose and fell. Many slower than they should. So much death. So many innocent people dead.

  That night Colonel Jackson checked on his men. He made rounds around the cots. He breezed past Joseph.

  “Come,” Jackson said. Joseph stood up and tailed him like a whipped dog. Night had crept up on Joseph without him noticing.

  The air outside the tent was pure, not defiled by the blood, sweat, and tears of the wounded. The moonlight shone off of Jackson’s ghostly bald head.

  “How are my boys doing?” he asked.

  “Two are dead, and I don’t expect Jefferson to make it through the night. Thomas I give a fifty/fifty chance, but he will most likely lose the use of one of his eyes.”

  “Damn it all to hell,” Colonel Jackson cursed. He shook his head. “Not here. This wasn’t supposed to happen.” They stood in silence for a moment until Jackson took a pack of cigarettes from his top breast pocket, pulling a white cigarette straight from the pack with his lips.

  “Cigarette, Doctor?” Jackson said, speaking from the corner of his tight lips. Joseph almost laughed at the colonel, but then at the same time it sounded delicious.

  “A few weeks ago, I would have asked you if you were crazy. But you know, time is too short to worry about that now.”

  Colonel Jackson grunted and struck up a lighter for Joseph. They stood in silence for a minute. The colonel’s guttural voice broke the night air.

  “I lost five soldiers today, a dozen to desertion last week, we have thirty to forty men unable to perform their duties, and eight in the medical tent now with you. Do you know how many soldiers I started with?”

  Joseph shook his head in the darkness. “No, Colonel,” he said. His understanding of military organizations was limited to television and the news.

  “We started with two hundred and thirty-four in the Artillery Battalion and three hundred and fifty-eight in the Combat Infantry Battalion. Five hundred and ninety-two United States Army soldiers. The toughest, most professional military organization on the planet. Now, I have less than two hundred, most of those being the artillery troopers. Not many grunts left.” He shook his head and snorted. “What am I wasting my breath on you for, Doctor? You don’t understand military matters.”

  Joseph took a drag off his cigarette and tried to keep a cough inside his chest. His limbs were woozy as the smoke filled his lungs, and he relaxed at the same time.

  “No, Colonel Jackson, I don’t. I was in Africa when this first started. I saw a village of people become infected and fall ill. Within the week, they started to die and consume each other. We were extracted to the embassy in Kinshasa and within hours it was under assault from the undead; there was a terror attack and most people died.”

  Colonel Jackson’s eyes flashed respect for a moment. It faded into the precipice of his soul.

  Joseph exhaled smoke. “I thought I had samples of Patient Zero. We were going to stop this. Then on the return flight from Kinshasa there was another outbreak amongst the staffers, and if it weren’t for the valiant effort of a team of Counterterrorism agents I wouldn’t be here today. When we landed, McCone International had already been compromised. Do you know what that meant?”

  Colonel Jackson didn’t answer. Oddly enough the heavy guns had stopped their barrage, and the camp was quiet.

  “It meant that I didn’t have samples of Patient Zero. I wasn’t at the initial outbreak. The disease has mutated so fast, we can’t keep up. But if we had Patient Zero, however a long shot that is, we could isolate the original mutation, what I think is a cross from primate to human. If we had that person, that one person, we might have a slim chance of stopping the disease. A slim chance, but a chance,” Joseph said. He took another hit off his cigarette and coughed out loud this time.

  Colonel Jackson looked at him grimly. “There is no hope for a cure?” he said.

  Joseph tossed his cigarette butt and stepped on it.

  Colonel Jackson’s thin lips tightened even more.

  “No, Colonel. But there is a man in Michigan, and I have his address. He may be our only hope to finding some sort of vaccine, maybe someday a cure. In time, I could make your soldiers immune to the disease. I need you to take me there. You are the only one who can make sure I get there alive.”

  Colonel Jackson’s Cro-Magnon skull glistened. “That is out of the question. My orders are to stay here and contain the infected in Pittsburgh. I would be court-martialed if not outright shot to go on such a mission.”

  Rage boiled up in Joseph. “Eventually hordes of the undead will come through here and overrun this camp, and you will have contributed only more infected to this war.”

  Jackson looked like he was going to rip Joseph’s head off and spit down his throat. Joseph didn’t care.

  “When was the last time you heard from the other quarantine bases? When was the last time you received orders from a superior not in a protective bunker? Somebody who knows what is going on out here. Every day more and more dead make their way here. We are alone. We are on our own. The governm
ent response has failed, but we can still win.” The words gave him hope. We might still survive. Colonel Jackson was no idiot; he would have to understand.

  “As a member of the United States military you have a responsibility to protect this nation. Please help me, save this nation,” Joseph pleaded. This man couldn’t be blind to what was happening; time was vital. It meant saving lives, their lives included.

  Colonel Jackson stiffened, his posture becoming rigid. Jackson leaned into Joseph. His face hovered an inch away from Joseph’s. “Do you take me for an imbecile? Do you think I can’t see what is happening to this unit, this military, this country?” He lowered his voice. “Do you think I can’t see that everything that the United States has built is crumbling in a blink of an eye? Everything that we have fought so hard for? I see it, Joseph. These are my men out here dying. Those boys you treated in that tent are mine. I am the one who is responsible for them. I am the one who decides whether or not to send them into the jaws of Hell. It is me who they look to, to take them home.” He flicked his cigarette butt onto the ground and twisted his boot on top of it.

  Jackson pointed at the tent. “The men in that tent were trying to help some civilians that were trapped, when they were supposed to be making contact with the Quarantine Base Boa. Now, we have a whole new threat. By God, if it isn’t bad enough that we have to deal with a bunch of undead cannibals, now we have to deal with domestic terrorists. I had a unit today leave the base with no orders. Do you understand?”

  Joseph gulped. “No,” he whispered.

  “They left the base with no commands. I don’t know where they are or what they’ve done. And even if they come back, do you expect me to punish them? Do you expect me to lock up a platoon when we are in a war of extermination? Not if I want to remain in charge.” He eyed Joseph. “You don’t want someone else in charge of these men. The country is breaking, and there is nothing I can do to stop it except follow my orders, and hope that somebody higher up the food chain has this figured out.” He looked at Joseph for a long time, his eyes pools of black, before turning his back.