by Brian Parker
She eyed him suspiciously. “I don’t know a lot about the Army, but it seems strange that they’d send an officer—a combat guy like you—to do that. Why not send an intelligence agent or whatever?”
“Well, we don’t really have a huge pool of soldiers to choose from,” he whispered. “We only have what was on the base before the gates were sealed. There are only so many people that the command thought could pull this off and all of us got tapped. There are soldiers going to the other camps as well. If the population riots and the Army has to put it down, then it could mean the end of humanity.”
Her eyes widened in response to his statement—which wasn’t false, per se. “I hadn’t thought about it like that before.”
Jake nodded seriously. “It’s not a good situation.” He gestured around them. “Obviously. But our survival as a species is more important than the survival of a few individuals and troublemakers.”
“Wow…” she laughed. “For a second, I almost believed you.”
“What?” he asked. “I’m telling you the truth.”
“You know, maybe if you hadn’t already lied to me and convinced me that life would be better at Fort Bliss—oh yeah, and that you’d keep me and my kids out of the refugee camp—then maybe I’d be gullible enough to believe you.”
“Now wait a goddamned minute, Carmen. I tried to get you and your kids housing.” He stopped, suddenly aware that he’d spoken loudly. He dropped his voice. “They wouldn’t put you up anywhere, every place that can take a family is full.”
She spat onto the ground. “This place is shit. My kids have to fight for food scraps and get beat up by the larger ones. I’m constantly defending myself against rape. Women are taken in the night and never heard from again.”
Jake glanced at the refugees milling nearby indifferently. “I’m sorry.”
She unslung the folding chair from her shoulder and thrust it at him, causing him to throw up both hands to block the assault. “I even have to carry my chair around with me or it will get stolen, pendejo.”
“I— Really? What the fuck?”
“You’re telling me what the fuck? I should be asking you what the fuck, Jake? You were supposed to protect us. We should have stayed at that warehouse. We had enough food, medicine, and supplies to last for decades, maybe even our entire lives. Here, we’re just waiting to die.”
Her words stung deeper than they should have. He barely knew the woman. In all honesty, he didn’t know the woman. He knew her name and that she had two kids, that was about it. He shouldn’t have been bothered by what she said. He’d known life in the camps was tough.
“Look, Carmen. I’m gonna level with you, okay?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why would I believe anything you say?”
He looked around again. Nobody seemed to care at all about the two people standing near the shit canal. “I’m not here to assess the volatility of the situation in the camps—but I do believe that’s why they sent me.”
“What do you mean? How can you be here not to do something if that’s why they sent you? You talk out of both sides of your mouth.”
“No. Hear me out,” he pleaded. “I need an ally in the camps.”
“Well, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Dammit. I’m sorry about the warehouse. I had my orders to clear the place out. In fact, I had the authorization to neutralize anyone who we happened to find there if they weren’t willing to let me take the food.”
“Neutralize?”
“Yeah. I was ordered to get that food by any means necessary. Understand the stakes now?”
She nodded, but didn’t answer, so Jake took that as his cue to continue talking. “Like I said, I need an ally here and I’m not here to spy. I got sent here for one month as a punishment.”
“Ha!” she barked. “Oh, that is good. They send you down here when you get—”
He closed the distance and clamped his hand over her mouth again. “Shut it. This is real life or death stuff—not just for me, but for all of humanity. I was telling the truth about that.”
“Mmpfmpfmm.” He released her and she asked, “What are you talking about now?”
“You weren’t here yet, but about a month ago, there was a big food riot and twenty thousand people were killed.”
“They were still burning bodies and cleaning the blood when we came to the camp,” she stated.
“That’s right. We were gone when it happened and you were brought here right afterwards.”
“Pendejo,” she repeated her earlier insult.
“I was at Division when—” He stopped, noting the confusion on her face. “That’s the headquarters building for the Army here on Fort Bliss. The guy who runs this entire operation works there. Anyway, I was up there meeting with the general and learned about the massacre. As I was leaving, I heard him tell my commander that he wished more people would get killed off so the food supplies we have would last longer.”
“Dios mío…”
“Yeah. With four million people, the food goes quickly and it’s beginning to run out—or at least they are planning for when it runs out. That’s why we’ve been raiding the FEMA camps, grocery stores, and food distribution centers within helicopter range.”
“And an instant fix would be less mouths to feed,” Carmen finished his thoughts.
“Exactly. If there were more riots and more deaths, less people would need food and it would last longer.”
“There were children who died. Mothers. Fathers. This is evil.”
Jake nodded and checked their surroundings once again to see if anyone was listening. As before, nobody seemed to care. “I agree with you, but I can also see where the general is coming from. He’s been tasked with keeping humanity alive, not every human.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” she said, her eyes drifting toward the ground.
“I know. I know it is.”
After a moment, she looked up at him, wiping away a tear with the back of her hand. “I should have never brought my babies to this place.”
Jake wasn’t sure what to do, but hugging her seemed like the right thing. He slowly brought his hands up, leaning in and stopped when he felt the pressure of something pointed sticking into his gut. He looked down to see the tip of Carmen’s knife digging into his shirt.
“Get off me.”
“Yup. You’re right. Sorry,” he said, backing up.
“So that doesn’t tell me why you’re here. Are you supposed to start this fight?”
“What? No!” he exhaled forcefully. “I’m here because I got some people killed. We know the infected are drawn toward sound and movement and all of our actions on this base, on the wall, continue to bring more and more of them. So, I had the idea that if we just stopped shooting them they’d go away and give us some breathing room.”
“Did it work?”
“It did for my men, but the infected followed the sounds to the next platoon on the wall that was still fighting. They didn’t know we weren’t protecting their backs and the infected were able to get to the soldiers on the wall. I’m here as a temporary punishment for letting them get killed.”
She stared blankly at him for a moment, making him wonder if she was working through what he said or if her mind had drifted. Finally, she reached out and grabbed his hand, tugging him toward the tent she’d been sitting in front of when he arrived.
“Come on. We’ve got to get you out of the open and get you some dirty clothes.”
He let her lead him along. “Does that mean you’ll help me blend in for the next month?”
“Yes. But that also means you’re going to help me leave this deathtrap.”
“I can’t get you billeting outside of the camp.”
“I know. If I help you, you’re going to take me off of Fort Bliss. I’ll find somewhere to live with my kids outside these walls.”
For the first time in a long time, Jake Murphy was truly speechless. He hadn’t been expecting that.
16
> * * *
SURVIVOR CAMP #3, EL PASO, TEXAS
OCTOBER 23RD
“Are you sure, sir? I know what Sidney says, but she’s a civilian.”
Jake nodded and gestured with his head back toward the camp. “It’s worse than I thought, Sergeant.”
He and Carmen stood on the gravel and dirt path that marked the perimeter of the camps, the line where residents were not allowed to pass. Jake had never agreed with allowing the refugees to keep their weapons for defense against the infected; now it was going to come back to bite them all in the ass.
He’d been stuck in the camp for almost two weeks, but not quite half of the time that Colonel Albrecht had sentenced him. In that time, he’d learned that the camp was one minor incident away from a full-on revolt. There were organized groups of armed men and women who’d been given missions to accomplish on the day the balloon went up. Everything from the overall plan to kill as many soldiers as possible, to very specific orders to infiltrate the division headquarters so they could kill the commanding general, and to eliminate the guards at the food warehouses. From what he could gather, Camp Three leaders were even in contact with resistance fighters in the other camps.
General Bhagat would get his wishes. There would be a massive reduction in the number of mouths to feed soon.
Staff Sergeant Wyatt exchanged a look with her companion, a tall, hulking soldier named Dickerson. A look passed between the two and Jake knew that they were more than just a squad leader and her soldier. “How bad, sir?” she asked.
“I’m not privy to the private meetings, just the camp scuttlebutt,” he replied. “But it sounds like within a week, maybe less, they’re gonna rise up.”
“Maybe you should tell him,” Dickerson rumbled. The sergeant shot him a withering glare that didn’t deter him. “Sidney trusts him. Plus, he just gave us the best information out of anyone. It’s time, Caitlyn.”
Her eyes opened wide in shock. Jake groaned internally. As a soldier, he didn’t approve of the relationship, but he didn’t really care about it. She composed herself then turned her attention back to Carmen and Jake.
“What are you planning to do about the uprising, sir?”
“There’s nothing I can do. Based on what I told Lieutenant Mirman a couple days ago, the security patrols have tripled in and around the camp—”
“Yeah, thanks for that,” Sergeant Wyatt quipped.
“Sorry,” he said. The twelve on, twelve off had changed to eighteen on, six off for the soldiers not on wall duty in order to make up for the additional workload. It wasn’t sustainable, but for the short term, it was effective. “I don’t have pull with anyone in the camp, I’m too new. Nobody trusts me yet, so if this thing goes off, I can’t stop it.”
The sergeant nodded. “Understood, sir. We— Goddamn it.” She stopped and clenched her fists, a pained look on her face. “Fuck it. Sir, Me, Dickerson here, and Sidney are gonna leave Fort Bliss.”
Her words were both alarming and a relief. On one hand, to hear her openly talk of desertion made him angry beyond belief. They were fighting for their lives every day against the infected, the loss of two combat soldiers wasn’t significant, but it could have an impact in the long run. On the other hand, he’d had the same thoughts about leaving with Carmen and her children. The fact that others were thinking the same thing meant that he wasn’t a horrible person.
“Sidney is eight or nine months pregnant,” he stated.
Carmen shoved him. “Who’s Sidney?”
“A friend,” he stated, not wanting to go into the details of how Sidney was able to make it out of the camps. “She’s pregnant.”
“I’m a nurse,” Carmen offered. “If she needs care, I did a six month rotation in Labor and Delivery. And I want to leave this camp too. The sooner the better.”
Jake sighed. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this to you, but…” You’re an officer dammit. He warred with himself internally for a moment before finally admitting it aloud. “Carmen and I were planning to leave as well. I can’t do anything while I’m stuck in here though.”
“Well it sounds like you can’t wait two more weeks,” Sergeant Wyatt said.
“Yeah. I think this place is about to implode,” he reconfirmed. “But what—”
“How serious are you about leaving the base, sir?”
He felt Carmen’s fingers interlock with his, adding to his resolve. She’d committed herself to him, overcoming her original prejudices because of what happened at the warehouse. He was directly responsible for her and her two children, Patricia and Miguel, and needed to take whatever steps were necessary to ensure their survival.
“Very,” he replied.
“Okay. The information you’ve given us about the situation in the camp has moved up our timeline by a couple of days,” the sergeant stated. “But it’s workable. The infected are the most active at night, so there’s less scrutiny on the camps during the fighting. Can you meet us here at zero-four-hundred tonight?”
“You want to leave tonight?”
“We’ll load everything we’ve set aside into our vehicle and pick you up, then stage until daylight. I’ve got a good friend who’s an RTO at the BDOC. He…owes me a favor. I’ll make sure he’s on shift tomorrow morning.”
“What is a bee dock?” Carmen asked, repeating the word that Sergeant Wyatt used.
“The BDOC is the Base Defense Operations Center,” Jake said. “And an RTO is the Radio Telephone Operator. The RTO takes the calls from the gate personnel. How can you be sure that he won’t sell us out?”
“I have my ways,” she purred.
Dickerson’s lips thinned and Jake thought he understood what her ways were. “No way, Caitlyn.”
“You knew how I was before we got together, Eric,” Sergeant Wyatt said. “And this will help us get off the base. You got a better way?”
He stared off hard into the camp for a moment before saying, “No. This is the last time if we’re going to make this work.”
“We’ll talk about that later,” she answered.
“Yeah, we will,” the private replied. He turned and stomped back toward the Stryker that he and Sergeant Wyatt had arrived in.
Jake didn’t take his eyes off of Dickerson as he left. “Is he going to be a problem?” he asked. The private and the sergeant were fucking, that much was apparent. What was also apparent was that Dickerson took their relationship much more seriously than she did. As it stood, no one would stop them from leaving the base. That was every citizen’s right, but they wouldn’t have the truck or any of the military equipment that Sergeant Wyatt said she had stored up. They would leave on foot with the clothes on their backs.
“Dickerson?” Wyatt asked. “No, he’ll get in line and do what I say.”
“I don’t know what your arrangement is—or isn’t—with him, but our lives are literally depending on him keeping his cool for a few more hours,” Jake stated.
“Don’t worry, sir. He hates it inside these walls as much as we all do, and he’s prepared to help us leave.”
Jake glanced at Carmen, who nodded and said, “I know a thing or two about getting men to do what you want. That boy looks completely enamored with Caitlyn.”
“Okay. What other choice do we have?” Jake grumbled. “I’m stuck in the camps for at least two more weeks anyways, even if I think this thing is going to explode before then.”
The conversation died away after that, causing Sergeant Wyatt to shift uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Alright, I’m gonna head back to the barracks,” she said. “I’ve got some work to do.”
Jake reached out to shake her hand and then thought better of it in case anyone was watching from the camp. As it was, they could easily explain away the meeting with the soldiers as requesting supplies of some sort. People did that all the time, even if they rarely got anything from it. “Do you have—ah, do you have a couple of tampons?” Jake asked tentatively.
“What?”
“Tamp
ons,” he repeated. “That’d be a good excuse for why we’re over here talking to you.”
“Uh…sure. I always keep a few in my pouch, just in case.” She reached behind her and pulled the butt-pack around from where it rested below her vest. Inside, she dug two plastic-wrapped tubes out and handed them to Carmen.
“Thanks,” the Latino replied.
“Yeah. I should probably grab a few boxes of those to take with us, huh?”
Carmen nodded. “Probably.”
“Okay, I’ll see you guys here at four a.m., right?”
“Absolutely,” Jake said. “We’ll have Carmen’s two children with us. Will your truck be big enough to hold us all?”
She grinned back at him, then pointed at the Stryker behind her. “We’re taking that, sir. We’ll have room.”
“You’re stealing a Stryker?”
“Yup. And, now that you’re coming along, I can be the gunner while you TC.”
The mention of her being the gunner reminded him of Corporal Jones. He’d be a good guy to have along. “Do you think my gunner Corporal Jones would leave with us? He’s enthusiastic about Sidney’s proposal to remain silent and let the infected fade back into the desert, so he may be willing to take the next step.”
“We don’t have a lot of time to be making additions to the group, but I’ll try to feel him out,” Wyatt said.
“Thanks. Alright, see you tonight, Sergeant.”
Carmen’s fingers interlaced with his once more as he watched the soldier depart. “Come on, Jake. We need to get ready.”
“Shh, shh, Chiquita,” Carmen shushed her daughter as she woke her. “Momma is going to take you to the bathroom.
“But I don’t need to go potty,” the girl protested.
Jake watched silently as he shifted the boy, Miguel, in his arms. Their noise discipline would be the key to making it out of the camp without raising an alarm. Most everyone was asleep, but with this many people, and the gunfire on the walls only a half mile or so from where they were, someone was guaranteed to be awake.
“I know, baby. But we gotta try so you don’t pee pee in the bed again.” That last part would hopefully deter anyone who’d heard their movements from noticing they both wore backpacks filled with all of their worldly belongings.
