A Glimpse of Decay (Book 3): Lost in Twilight (13 page)

San Antonio Army Medical Center on Ft. Sam Houston

“How long do you think this place can keep running on generator power?” Irene asked her military counter-part, Captain Jim Rockatansky.  She looked up to the ceiling and cocked her head as she listened to the hum of the electricity running through the fluorescent lighting.  “This is not good at all.  Losing power was the last thing we needed.”

“I’m not sure, but the generators should be able to carry us for a while.  I guess it all depends on how much fuel they have stored here on post.”  He pushed himself back from the desk he was sitting at and he spun to one side, swiveling in his chair.  “At least we have power in here.  Can you imagine what it’s like right now for any survivors out there?  No power.  That eventually means no water either.”  He looked down at the floor, running his hands over his trimmed, salt and pepper hair and shaking his head in despair.  “What else can go wrong?”  After taking a troubled sigh, he added as an afterthought, “And I heard that we lost contact with Fort Hood.”

“What does that mean…about losing contact with Fort Hood?”  Irene leaned back in her seat and let out her own deep sigh.  The stuffy laboratory was starting to close in on her and she was feeling anxious and nervous, almost trapped—like a caged animal pacing in its enclosure.  The glowing computer screens, the steel table tops, the medical instruments with blood and gore on them…it was all so cold and unreal and it was breaking her.  Getting back to Jim’s statement she asked, “Is that bad…losing contact with that place?”

“Well, that’s the place that’s been providing us with our supplies.  If they’re gone, then we’re pretty much on our own.  I know there’s an airbase in Abilene that’s been running some operations, but I don’t know if they’re still around or what.”

“Terrific,” Irene said in frustration.  “Just terrific.  But I’m so damn tired that none of that means anything to me right now.  God, how long have we been going at it today?”

“Fourteen hours so far.  Hopefully Doctor Farris and his group are having better success than we are.  I think they were actually able to drown one earlier today.”  He raised his head and sat up.  “Or at least I think they did.”  The lights flickered.  Jim guessed that one of the generators was surging or fluttering under the load it was carrying.  Feeling anxious and desperate, he clenched his fists.  In most situations, he was always able to come up with a response or a solution to whatever was challenging him, but he now found himself completely out of answers, and that left him feeling frustrated and vulnerable. “You know, I don’t want to admit it, but I’m really starting to run out of ideas.”

“You and me both.”  Irene stood up and took off her dingy white smock.  Draping it over her chair, she reached back with her two hands and pressed them into the small of her back, arching her pelvis forward as she did.  She immediately caught a whiff of perspiration from the dirty green scrubs she was wearing.  “God, I need an adjustment…and a bath.”

“Yeah, and I need two weeks in the Bahamas,” Jim added.

“Me too.  See if you can get online and book us a flight for tonight,” she said as she tried to bring some tired mirth into the room.  She closed her eyes and began to think about sandy beaches and turquoise waters and she found herself pondering on the fate of the people who lived there.  Looking over at Jim, she asked, “Do you think there’s anyone left over there…or do you think they’re all dead?”

“Way to kill the moment, Irene,” he teased.  “I was already imagining myself on the beach with a margarita.  Maybe a hot babe in a two-piece next to me.”  He drummed his fingers on the table.  “Hell, who knows.  Maybe they’re all down there having one last big-ass party.  Shit, maybe the president is there too.  I mean, he’s on a carrier out there somewhere.  What’s to stop him from taking a Bahamas cruise?  Shit, he’s probably tanning right now on some white baby powder beach.”

“Lucky him,” she said sarcastically.  “Some guys get all the luck, right?  Well, since I have already started raining on your parade, I’ll go ahead and completely kill this happy moment all the way by reminding you that we have another briefing in two hours.  What are we going to tell General Hartman?”

“The same shit we told him yesterday.  And the same shit we told him the day before.”  Jim swiveled in his chair and grabbed his computer tablet from his desk.  “Let’s see,” he said as he acted as if he were having a conversation with the general, scrolling the screen with his finger. “Uh, we haven’t been able to completely identify the radioactive element that’s been reactivating the brain, but we have determined that the dead ones are really
dead
.  Oh, and the ones who are infected but haven’t died…well, they’re mean as fuck.  The dead ones want to eat us, and the live ones want to kill us.  And by the way, we all seem to be infected with whatever it is, so when we die, we’re gonna come back as one of those damn things.  So goodbye to normal funerals.”

“So have you found a magic cure?” Irene said in a deepened voice as she impersonated the general, played along with Jim’s routine.

“A magic cure?  No.  Introducing potassium iodide has done nothing to reduce the radioactivity because we’ve found out that we’re not dealing with radioiodine, and besides, when we try to introduce it into the dead subjects, nothing works because the fucking thyroid is decomposing…with the rest of the body!  The thyroid isn’t processing or collecting radiation, or the radioiodine for that matter, so it’s a waste of time.  Although we’ve detected trace amounts of plutonium, Diethylenetriamine Penta-Acetic Acid doesn’t work because for some strange and wondrous reason, the D.T.P.A. isn’t latching onto the metals in the plutonium.  So general, we’re fucked.  It’s the end of times…get used to it!”

“Jim, if you talk to the general like that, I don’t think you’re gonna have a very successful career in the Army,” Irene jested.  The lack of sleep was pushing her to the edge of deliriousness and she was having a hard time focusing.  She then had a sudden urge to laugh and she broke out into an uncontrollable cackle.

“Oh, you think it’s funny,” he said as he played along.  “I was thinking I’d make the Army my career and maybe after I retire, see if I could be named as the director of the C.D.C.”  He too had hit his limit and he could no longer concentrate on their work.  “I’m so tired, I feel like I’m fucking high!” he said with a laugh.  He looked at Irene and could see dark bags under her eyes.  “You know what, you look like shit.”

“You know what, I feel like shit,” she said laughing.  “It’s the end of the world as we know it and I’m laughing my ass off.  The dead are walking, civilization is crumbling and now the fucking power is out.  I can’t even blow-dry my damn hair anymore.  What else can go wrong?”

“Hey, really,” Jim said as he tried to stop laughing.  He coughed several times and wiped the tears from his eyes.  “I’m so fucking tired.  Let’s try to get an hour of sleep before we do the briefing. Okay?”

With the laughter now gone from the room, Irene rubbed her forehead with her hand and asked, “You don’t think we should keep on working until the briefing?  Maybe we missed something, or maybe we’ll see something that is new.  We can focus on the plutonium aspect.”

Jim looked over at a large metallic door.  In glowing green letters just over the door was a sign that read “EXAMINATION ROOM 4.”  “Do you really want to go back in there and start cutting on those bastards again?  I know that their teeth have been removed, but still, I just don’t know if I can stomach being in there one more minute.  Anyway, we don’t even know if the radiation we’re detecting is the same radiation that was initially encoded into the agent…or weapon…or whatever it is.  The plutonium could have become attached to this thing when the Russians nuked the initial hot zone.  It may have even been altered when it was exposed to the blast.  All we’re doing is guessing.”  Jim slid his tablet across the table and turned to Irene, walking up to her.  Standing at just over six feet tall, he was a full five inches taller than her and he had to look down at her.  “Just go to your dorm and get some rack time.  You need it.”

“Are you sure?” the weary epidemiologist asked.  Jim could hear the uncertainty in her voice.  He could also hear her exhaustion.

“Yeah, I’m sure.  I know I could use a few winks myself.  Fuck it.  We’ll wake up and save the world later.”

***

“Man, I can’t fucking believe the power went out,” Private LaBianca said.  “I can’t wait for the sun to come up!”  Standing on a rampart attached to the 8 foot high steel wall that formed the perimeter around the hospital complex on Fort Sam Houston, he nervously clutched at the butterfly handle of the mini-gun he was manning.  Peering into the darkness through his night vision apparatus, he swiveled the weapon back and forth.

“Tell me about it,” Sergeant Karnes said as he sat on the rampart with his back against the wall.  He let his feet dangle and he kicked his legs in anxiety.  “Fuck, now we can’t even keep the perimeter lit.  Hartman said he didn’t want to waste fuel by running the lights on the wall.”  He looked down and fidgeted with his rifle.  He glanced over to his right and saw the other members of his squad.  Some of them were peering over the wall and others were looking back at him.

“You know, I heard that communication has been lost with Fort Hood,” LaBianca stated.  “One of the guys in the armory said that he heard a guy who works in the comms center talking about how Fort Hood couldn’t be raised.”

“What did you say?” Karnes asked in a shocked voice.  “When did you hear that?”

“About thirty minutes ago.”

“Why didn’t you say something earlier?  You know my family was evacuated to Hood when they decided to move all the dependents from here last week.”

“Because I just saw you, Sarge,” LaBianca answered with an apologetic tone.  “I didn’t know any of this when you made your last round.”

“You should have told me as soon as you saw me,” Karnes scolded.  “Fuck, half the guys here have families that are over there.”  After taking a moment to get ahold of his emotions, he realized that his initial response to the soldier’s revelation was a bit over the top and he tried to make sure that it didn’t happen again.  “Did you hear anything else?”

“Not about Hood.  Although the armory guy said that they were still in contact with the airbase in Abilene.”

“Dyess,” Karnes said to himself.

“What was that?” LaBianca asked.

“Dyess.  The base in Abilene is Dyess.  They have bombers and airlift there.”

“Bravo-One” a voice called over Karnes’ radio.  Karnes took the small hand-held unit from off of his chest rig and he keyed up.

“Go ahead Bravo-One,” Karnes said.

“Hey Sarge, we’ve got a big build up over here.”  The voice on the other end of the radio was tense and it had a sound of fear in it.

“How many are we talking about?”

“Maybe a couple of thousand.”

“Did you say ‘a couple of thousand?’ ”

“Well, maybe a little more…or maybe a little less, but that’s just a guess.  They all just showed up about ten minutes ago.  Came out of the darkness from the freeway and they’re walking down the road to the main gate.”

Karnes sat back and thought for a moment.  He figured that if his troops remained silent and didn’t fire on the herd, they would eventually move on when they realized that they couldn’t breach the perimeter.  “Bravo-One, don’t do a damn thing.  Keep quiet and stay out of sight.  Don’t turn on any weapon lights and don’t shoot.  If they think that no one is around, they’ll probably just walk away when they get tired of bumping into the perimeter wall.”

“Okay, Sarge, if that’s what you say.  Bravo-One out.”

Karnes stood up and looked over the wall.  Standing on the western side of the perimeter and looking in the direction of the abandoned portion of the fort, he saw no movement through his night vision goggles.  He turned to scan the interior of the compound.  He looked away in disdain when he saw the wreckage of the civilian helicopter that had been shot down a few days earlier. 
Poor bastards, they didn’t stand a chance.
  He jumped down to the asphalt and trotted over to his awaiting Humvee.  He looked back at LaBianca and the rest of the squad and he said, “Keep your shit together over here.”  He then keyed his radio.  “Bravo-Six to all posts.  Maintain noise and light discipline.  No firing.  Keep me informed of any developments.  I’ll be checking on all positions, so stand by.  Bravo-Six out.”  He climbed into the passenger side of the vehicle and he told the driver to take him over to the main gate entrance, which was on the south side of the compound.

As the Humvee made its way across the compound, Karnes looked up at the large hospital complex.  With all of its attached wings and sections, the multi-story building was an impressive structure, and when it came to military medicine, it was the pride of the U.S. Army.

Karnes fumbled with his radio as he contacted the communications center.  He notified the duty officer of the situation at the main gate and he asked for further instructions.  Half-asleep, the duty officer radioed back that General Hartman was being notified and that the fort was going to be put on lock down.

“Shit, where do you think they all came from?” the driver asked Karnes.

“Fuck if I know.  We really haven’t seen that many of them over the past few days.  This is a first.  Hey, have you heard anything about losing contact with Hood?”