A Glimpse of Decay (Book 3): Lost in Twilight (14 page)

“Uh, no…haven’t heard anything like that.  Who told you that?”

“Never mind.  Anyway, there’s nothing I can do about it if it is true.  I just gotta pray for them.”

“Pray for who?’ the driver asked.

“For my family.”

The driver, not encouraged by Karnes’s response, drove in silence the rest of the way.  He tried to keep his hands from trembling by gripping onto the steering wheel.  As they pulled up to the fortified main gate entrance, Karnes jumped out of the vehicle and sprinted over to a ramp that made its way up and along the fifteen foot high section of wall that guarded the main entrance to the hospital and its facilities.  Awaiting him was another sergeant.  The nervous man fidgeted and pointed over his shoulder to the steel wall that protected the entrance to the compound.

“Fuck, they’re all over the place!” the sergeant exclaimed.

“Calm down, Darkowitz,” Karnes said.  “Let’s not overreact.”

“I’m not bullshitting,” Darkowitz blurted in fear.  “Take a look for yourself!”

Walking up onto the rampart, Karnes peered over the wall and stood in silence as he tried to take in what he was seeing.  Being short in stature, he raised up on his toes to do so.  Just on the other side of the wall was an enormous horde of living dead and infected.  They filled the entire view of his goggles and he could see the mass stretching down the street and into the darkness.  A sickening stench began to waft up and over the walls and Karnes fought to keep from gagging.  A growing chorus of moans and shrieks began to fill the air as some of the reanimated and infected sensed Karnes’s presence.

“Oh my God,” Karnes said in a hushed voice.  “There’s got to be at least ten thousand of them out there.”

“At least,” said Darkowitz.  “But where did they come from?”

“Shit, who knows.  What I’m wondering is why are they all together.  Are they communicating with each other somehow—or coordinating with each other in some way?” 

“They’ve gotta be communicating for all of them to be bunched together the way they are.  What I really want to know is, and this might be a little premature but, what are we going to do if they breach the walls?”

Karnes turned to Darkowitz and raised his goggles.  “That’s a good question.  I was here when they put up the walls, and it looked like they welded them fairly decent.  They should hold.  We’ve got contingency plans for a few of them getting in here, but we’re definitely not prepared for being overrun.”

“Then what do we do?” Darkowitz asked with panic.

Karnes made his way down off of the wall and he grabbed his radio again.  “Bravo-Six to Cowboy-Six.”  He was calling Morrow and the Dallas Bradleys.

“Cowboy-Six.”

“Lieutenant Morrow, I’m sure you heard Bravo-One’s report.  I’m here with him right now and I’ve got about ten thousand of those things just outside the perimeter.  Can I have you and your tracks position yourselves closer to the main gate.  That will put you close enough to the primary threat, but you’ll still be in position to strike anywhere along the perimeter just in case we have a breach somewhere else.”

“We’re cranking up as we speak,” Morrow said.

“Thanks Lieutenant.  We’ll let you know if anything else pops up.  Bravo-Six out.”

Turning back to Darkowitz, Karnes said, “I got to get over to the command center and let them know what’s up.  You hold it down here for right now, okay?”

“Sure thing Karnes, we’ll manage,” said Darkowitz as he tried to muster up his courage.  “It’s just that God-awful stench.  It’s about to make me puke.”

“Puke out of fear or out of nausea from the smell?”

“Uh, a little of both.”

“This is weird,” Karnes mumbled to himself.  “Almost ancient.”

“What do you mean by that?” Darkowitz asked.

“I was just thinking, you know, how battles went down in the past.  Big ass armies marching in formation, and out in front were the drum corps.  Usually playing something that was unique to the units involved, letting the other guys know who they were facing.  That’s kind of what’s going on right now.”

“I don’t hear no music,” Darkowitz said with a perplexed look on his face.

“Their smell…that’s their music.  It’s letting us know who they are.”

Darkowitz’s eyes widened with fear at Karnes’s words.  “Man, you’re putting way too much thought into this.  It’s already bad enough that those things are out there, but now you’re creeping me out even more.”

Karnes loaded up into the Humvee and called back to Darkowitz, “I’ll be back as quick as I can.”  The driver then sped off in the direction of the main hospital building and parked out by the south entrance.  Two troopers nervously eyed Karnes as he rushed past them.  The sergeant noticed that the entryway was darkened and he asked one of the soldiers, “They’re not letting you keep the lights on tonight?”

“Naw, some captain said that only essential lights could be turned on.  They don’t want to tax the generators and they want to save as much fuel as possible for them.  Or at least that’s what they told us.”

After walking through the darkened vestibule, Karnes stepped into a mall area that normally would have been filled with people and kiosks.  In one corner was an empty coffee stand.  In the center of the mall was an information and greeting station and off to the right were rows upon rows of empty seats that served as a lobby for several clinics and a pharmacy.  The mall itself was cast in ghostly shadows as the moonlight filtered down through the skylights overhead, and Karnes could see his own shadow on the tiled floor.  Across the way was a soldier who was busy lighting emergency candles.  Karnes walked across the open area and he could hear his own footsteps echoing through the empty first floor.

“Hey Sarge, I know that the power went out earlier tonight, but do you know why they aren’t letting us use the genny to run the lights in here?” asked the trooper who was busy lighting the candles.  “It would have been nice to know in advance that they were going to keep us in the dark.  I could have had these things ready sooner.  Now I gotta run back and forth to the supply room to get them.”  His young face was cast in an eerie glow from one of the candles he was carrying.

“No, I sure don’t.  I’m sure it’s only temporary…just until we get a resupply on fuel for the generators.  I’m sure they’ll figure it out though.”  Karnes was having a hard time concentrating on what the trooper was saying because the sergeant was consuming himself with worried thoughts on the plight of his family.

“I hope they do, because I hate being in the dark, especially with those things out there.  Plus, it sucks having to go around and light candles.  Oh, and if you’re going up, you’ll have to use the stairs.  They shut down the elevators to conserve power.”

“Great,” Karnes mumbled to himself.  He didn’t envy having to walk up to the fifth floor.

“I lit a couple of candles in the first stairway just past the eye clinic, so use that one if you want some sort of light.”

“Oh…yeah…cool,” Karnes acknowledged.

***

“Are you sure on the numbers?” Brigadier General Hartman asked Karnes as he peered over a map of the medical complex that was now serving as the fort.  The map, lying over a conference table, had markings on it indicating the perimeter and its defensive positions.  A young captain and a younger lieutenant stood around him, studying the map intensely.

“Yes sir, I’m sure,” Karnes said.  He traced his finger on the map around the main gate.  “From here back to Interstate Thirty-Five…all the way down Binz-Engleman.  Full of them.  Plus, those civilian apartment complexes across from the compound might be hiding more of them.”

“General,” interjected the captain, “we’ve put all three shifts on the walls.  That gives us roughly two-hundred men and women out there.  We’ve got maybe another twenty-five or so providing security for the main hospital, the clinic buildings and the personnel quarters.  We’ve got four tracks and about six Humvees.  And we’ve got just enough five-tons to transport the troops and the research staff.”

“I thought the fort’s training battalions had enough five tons and deuce-and-a-halfs to outfit a division?  What happened to all of those trucks?”

“Well sir, we didn’t have enough personnel to bring them into the perimeter, so they’re still out there in their lots.”

Sighing in disappointment that the majority of his transportation had been abandoned, the general shook his head.  “Alright, Captain Youngblood, then make sure everything is locked down.  If for some reason they do breach the walls, we’ll pull everyone back into the main hospital and hold them at the 2nd floor.  I think we can secure all the stairways and stairwells and we’ll lockdown the elevators on the upper floors just to make sure nothing gets up here.”

“Uh, General, if I may say so, but don’t you think it would be better if we had an escape route planned out?” Karnes asked.  Pissed that he was having to interact with the man, he considered himself lucky in not having to deal with the general on a regular basis.  In his mind, Hartman was self-absorbed.  At fifty-three years of age, the general was still in tip-top shape and his youthful look and fit body led Karnes to believe that the general was one of those commanders who cared more about his appearance; a narcissist—not giving a shit about his troopers or their welfare.  He didn’t care for the man and now he didn’t care for his way of thinking.  He didn’t like the idea of being trapped in the hospital and he was bewildered at why Hartman had no plan for escaping if the walls were breached.

“We could escape through the abandoned part of the base and make our way out into the city,” Karnes explained.  “From there we could work our way over to one of the freeways.”

Hartman turned and walked to the center of the command room.  He glanced around, noticing how unorganized it looked.  He despised how everything was disorderly.  It wasn’t professional and it definitely wasn’t militarily acceptable.  Until recently, the room had served as a conference center for visiting physicians, but now it was cluttered with computer monitors and bulky radio equipment.  The smell of coffee, cigarette smoke and sweat gave the place a stale aroma; it definitely was not his idea of how a command center should look.

“When we realized that we wouldn’t be able to secure the entire fort,” Hartman said, still antagonized at the state of his command center, “we decided to create this perimeter around the hospital and its medical clinics.  That only leaves a few acres to defend.  We’re not going to give up any more ground, so we’re not planning on evacuating.  Anyway, we can’t afford to lose this facility.  As far as we know, we’re the only ones left who are working on trying to figure out what’s causing this whole calamity.  If we leave this place, we’ll lose all the research that has been done, and I’m not going to do that.”

“But if we lose the actual researchers, then they’ll be nothing left to salvage,” Karnes countered.  “We have to be able to save them at least.”

Youngblood and the lieutenant walked over to Hartman.  “Sir, I think the sergeant is right when it comes to the researchers,” Youngblood said.  “There are nine of them.  We could at least fly them out on Novak’s bird if it comes down to it.”

“And what about Morelli’s craft?” Hartman asked with surprise.  “I thought we had two helicopters still functioning?”

“I’m sorry, I thought that you had been notified about this,” Youngblood said apologetically.  “Morelli’s craft has a transmission issue…and we don’t have the necessary parts to address the problem.”

“Son of a bitch!” Hartman exclaimed.  “Why wasn’t I told about this?”  Throwing his hands up in despair, he grunted, “So we only have one functioning aircraft right now?”

“Yes sir, just one,” Youngblood answered.

Disgusted with the captain, Hartman turned and looked at the map again.  After thinking for a moment, he spun around and walked over to the communications console.  A red headed female with freckles on her nose was manning the radio console.  Chubby cheeks and a slight overbite gave her a cute woodchuck look.  She apprehensively looked over her shoulder at the approaching general.  She could feel his anger and frustration and it unnerved her.

“Raise Dyess,” Hartman instructed.  “Tell them that we are besieged and see if they have any available ordinance left because we’ll probably need support from them.  Also, see if they have anything left to give us.  I’m talking about food, water, ammunition.  Whatever they can airdrop.  And we need it A.S.A.P.”

“Yes sir,” the radio operator answered.

“Ordinance?” Youngblood questioned.

“Yes, ordinance.  I don’t intend on losing this command.  If they have it, I’ll call in a strike on those things.”

“Private Collier, have we lost contact with Fort Hood?” Karnes asked the radio operator.  He turned to Hartman and said, “My wife and my two young daughters are over there and I’m worried about them.”

Not knowing if she was authorized to answer the sergeant, she looked at the general for approval.  He stared at her with a stone face.  She looked back over at Karnes and answered in a hesitant tone, “We haven’t been able to raise them since early this morning.”

Seizing on the moment, Hartman said, “I am sorry for your family.  Hopefully it’s just technical issues, but this is why we need to make sure that this place doesn’t fall.  For your family’s sake…for everyone’s sake, we have to make sure that this place keeps operating.”