Carlie Simmons (Book 5): One Final Mission (4 page)

Chapter 7

When the first rosy slivers of dawn
penetrated the horizon, Shane and his team gathered their gear from the armory and
strode down the long hallway that led from A-Wing to the airfield. Duncan met
them in mid-journey and proceeded to walk with them beside Carlie and Shane,
briefing them on last-minute details.

“Remember that the satellite intel is
nearly non-existent now due to the erosion of technology so the pilots will be
flying old-school, probably like on missions you did in the early days.”

Shane shot an eyebrow up. “How many years
do you think I have under this hat?” he said.

“He does look like an old fossil sometimes,”
said Matias from behind with a grin.

Duncan continued his lecture without
noticing the interjections, his face taut. “As discussed yesterday, comms will
be spotty at best from malfunctioning relay stations and the aforementioned
SAT-com degradation from their unchecked orbit drifts in space. We will have a
broadcast out with significant updates on shortwave radio every two hours at
this frequency,” he said, handing a stack of index cards which all bore the
same number to Shane, who took one and passed them along to each member.
Although they would have radio contact with Fort Lewis for part of the flight,
the individual comms they had would only work between themselves.

“The ham radios loaded in the cargo are
already dialed in to the correct frequency but any shortwave or improvised
transistor radio will work, though you won’t be able to relay any messages.
We’ll keep you posted regularly on the location of the
Olympia
whenever
we get updates from the sub commander.”

The hallway terminated at the large
double-doors that led to the airfield. On either side were two guards who
pivoted and swung open the heavy doors.

As they walked in two rows onto the
airfield, their cumbersome packs and duffle bags bobbing against their bodies,
they saw the rooftop of A-Wing lined with people. All manner of intel
personnel, operators, team leaders, and other members they had come to call
brothers and sisters were silently watching their procession to the waiting
C-130.

Shane stopped and looked over his shoulder
at the hundred or so people filling the edges of the roof while the rest of his
group did the same. He glanced back at Duncan whose face normally bore an
eternal look of confidence and saw a solemn expression, his eyes still fierce
but backlit with a haunting uncertainty.

The individual personnel that flanked them
from above raised their right arms in unison, holding their salutes as Shane
turned around and resumed leading the group to the rear ramp of the plane. He
and the others dropped their gear in the center of the cargo hold and then
strode back down the ramp. Duncan met each person with a firm handshake, the
roar of the engines serving as their farewell symphony. The personnel on the
roof were still standing at attention. Shane moved a few feet out from under
the fuselage along with the rest of his group, each one of them standing
shoulder-to-shoulder beside him to return the salute. His boots felt firmly
rooted on the blacktop as if they had grown tendrils into the earth below.
Though he had always been the first one to spring at a new mission, Shane found
the fibers of his soul yearning to remain tethered to that spot as he looked
out at the faces of his brethren in the distance. He felt his heart already
racing with longing for the place that had become his home. The rush of
countless joyous moments with Carlie swept over the fields of his mind. He forced
himself to do as he had done on many missions in younger days and bid a
permanent farewell to his countrymen, knowing he wouldn’t see these shores
again. He swiftly lowered his tense hand in a salute then pried his boots free
and turned towards the ramp, giving Duncan a final nod as they filed back into
the belly of the plane.

Chapter 8

Once the plane had disappeared from the
horizon, Duncan returned to his office in A-Wing. He searched the cobalt-blue
skyline one last time from his window for the faint image of the C-130 and then
he sat down on a rolling chair beside his oaken desk. The same desk that had
been occupied by his predecessor Conrad Lavine. The same nightmarish
considerations that Lavine had faced bore down on Duncan’s shoulders and he
felt like there was a concrete hand preventing him from moving. Duncan took out
a key from his pocket and opened a drawer, extracting a manila envelope. Inside
were numerous pages of handwritten notes indicating the current food stores
present at Fort Lewis. The number “68” was circled in heavy black ink, like a
crater was trying to contain the pressing meaning of what lay inside.
Sixty-eight
fucking days of food left for our current personnel. How am I supposed to feed
all these people after that?
He slid another paper over the first one and
studied the handmade graphs which showed the fishing productivity rate from the
boats out in the bay and the yield of produce he expected from the two-hundred-acre
garden. His eyes kept racing over the same figures he’d already seared into his
brain as if they might spike in prominence if he blinked his eyes any harder.

He removed the last sheet of paper, which
showed the lakes, rivers, and nearby harbors along with plans for using
explosives in the water to harvest massive quantities of fish and sea life.
Duncan had held off on following through on this strategy as many had advised
against the devastating long-term effects on the food chain resulting from the
destruction of the aquatic ecosystems.
Killing our grandkids to feed
ourselves, but what choice is there?
While his munitions specialists had
told him they had enough explosives on hand, he had been informed by the fishing
crews, whose experience he valued, that they should be able to procure enough
salmon, sturgeon, and cod for the coming winter. Except his meetings with them
always left him pondering their definition of the word ‘should’ and he needed
more certainty than his begrizzled skippers could provide.

Duncan had never had to worry about
feeding a colony of people before
—
not off the land or remnant canned
goods pilfered from fallen cities. In the past, you simply called in for
resupply and let the logistics staff deliver the food pallets which kept the
troops well-fed. Now he was faced with recreating a subsistence and
neo-agricultural lifestyle that had taken humans millennia to perfect.

He heard a knock on his office door and
shoved the papers back into the folder. “Yes, come in.”

A young redheaded woman in her thirties
walked in and closed the door behind her. “Sergeant Major,” she said, standing
before him. “There’s another group of refugees that have arrived from the south
—
around
fourteen people including several children.”

“Really
—
that’s astounding. This is
the third group this week,” Duncan said, tapping his fingers frantically on the
manila folder. “In from where?”

“They indicated they had been holed up in
a logging camp in northern California since the pandemic began. Their leader
said the summer wildfires there drove them out. They’d heard about Lewis on the
remaining ham radio networks and made their way here over the past month.”

“Have they all been cleared by medical?”

“Yes, they’re in a waiting room in D-Wing.
Pretty shook up
—
they started out with twenty-one people and got whittled
down to where they are now.”

Duncan winced and leaned back in his chair,
folding his arms. “That’s a helluva trek on foot to make. I’ll need to talk
with them later and see what they can tell us about the regions to the south.
The kids are OK, though?”

She nodded with a troubled smile. “There’s
one more thing
—
they said they heard on the airwaves a while back about
there being a cure for the virus here
—
that that’s why they came to Lewis
and that there were other small groups around the West planning on doing the
same.”

Duncan put his fingers up to his forehead,
rubbing his temples. “I’m glad those folks are alive and their ordeal on the
road is over.” He looked out at the windows, wishing he was on the plane headed
west. “It was just a matter of time before word got out about Pavel’s
breakthrough despite my attempt at classified briefings with other base
commanders around the U.S.”

“Should I keep the group in the waiting
room for now or show them to some temporary quarters?”

“Take them to their quarters and let them
rest. I’ll visit with them later this evening.” Duncan locked the folder back
in his drawer and walked past the woman. “Right now, I need to have a sit-down
with our explosives experts and then figure out just how forgiving Mother
Nature really is.”

Chapter 9

Osaka, Japan, Two days after
the Pandemic Began

Shiro walked up to Nora, who was leaning
against the elephant-gray walls of the storage room, and handed her a bottle of
water. Her baby was asleep in her arms. The fourteen survivors were clumped
together amidst boxes of contraband liquor, imported jars of food, and forged
paintings from the Meiji Period. This was a Yakuza hideout that Shiro had used
in the past and its location, two levels below the subway tunnels, rarely saw
even utility workers. After he helped to deliver Nora’s baby, the entire group
had made their way along several miles of dark corridors until they arrived at
the storage room. The past twenty-fours had seen them sleeping, eating, and
discussing potential escape plans while debating what horror had unfolded in
the city and possibly beyond.

“You look much better today,” he said in
English as he squatted beside her.

“A few hours of sleep can do wonders. I
don’t remember much of the past day,” she said, taking a drink and then looking
around the twelve-by-twelve cinderblock room. Shiro noticed she had a poorly inked
butterfly tattoo on her neck, partially hidden by the corkscrew curls of her strawberry-blond
hair.

“Ah, I brought everyone here yesterday
morning after we encountered a few goryo in the tunnel where your baby was
delivered.”

“Goryo
—
that’s an interesting term.”

Shiro nodded but before he could respond,
a woman in her late twenties sitting to Nora’s left muttered something in
Japanese. “Goryo are malicious spirits that return for revenge to dole out
destruction across the land.” The woman shook her head in disgust. “Silly girl
—
her
baby probably knows more than she does.”

“I would think the term
kitsune
or
tengu
would be more fitting than ‘goryo,’” Nora fired back in perfect Japanese.

The woman, named Arisu, dipped her chin as
she looked at Nora in shock. Then she stood up with a snort and moved across
the room next to two women who were asleep against some crates.

Shiro grinned and then looked at Nora.
“Impressive
—
your dialect has a hint of New York perhaps?”

“New Jersey actually, but not bad.” She
tucked a loose flap of her shirt around her baby’s neck. “I grew up in Asbury
Park but went to NYU for a dual major in English and Japanese. After college, I
floated around Asia for a while then got a teaching job over here…uhm…going on eight
years now.”

Shiro looked down at the baby and then
back up at Nora, who seemed content to carry on the conversation. “Oh, the dad,
yeah, he up and left a few months ago. We were going to move in with his
parents in Florida. Then one morning I get up and he’s gone with all of our
money. I was gonna finish out my summer semester of teaching and then maybe head
back to the States. I wasn’t supposed to deliver for another month.”

He kept nodding, hoping she would pause so
he could politely pull away but she kept gushing out her words.
Just like an
American woman—has to tell me her ‘amazing’ life story then will probably fish
around for my opinion of her when she’s done.
He wondered how someone as
extroverted as her had survived in so reserved a country as his.
Shiro
slumped his shoulders into the wall and folded his hands across his lap,
letting out a sigh as the woman continued in between sips of water, seemingly
as thirsty for conversation as she was for her drink.

He tuned out her voice as he looked over
the other thirteen survivors. They rarely looked at him except in passing
glances. He knew they resented having their lives in the hands of so lowly a
social figure as a Yakuza though most of the businessmen in the room had
probably, at one time, frequented Yakuza-run
houses of
easy virtue
to spend time with high-priced escorts.

The nine men ranged in age from eighteen
years to forty-three. Most were reasonably fit but had soft, lotiony hands and
they had tired out quickly the day before after trotting only a short distance
in the tunnels. Three of them had the fighter’s spirit in their eyes and would
kill if forced to. One of the men, a thin figure in his early thirties named
Yoshi, had provided the most help so far and had slain several zombies that had
flanked the group earlier in the tunnel with a hammer.

Shiro knew he might have to draw upon
these men during the night ahead when they made their move to the Yodo River to
acquire a boat. The other men reminded him of heads of sour cabbage, their
minds filled with useless information as they spouted off their backgrounds in
the stock market, insurance industry, or computer world. One of them was an
optometrist so he had some use but the others were akin to the empty crates
beside him.

The four women at the opposite end of the
room were in their mid to late twenties. Two were dressed in formal skirts and
pearl-buttoned shirts, indicative of the fashion associated with a corporate setting
while Arisu was clad in blue hospital scrubs typical of a nurse. She had
stumbled upon Shiro only a few hours ago when he was reconnoitering the exit
near the river. The fourth and youngest woman was wearing tattered jeans and a
loose floral-print blouse that revealed her shoulders. Her silky, raven hair
draped below her neckline. She sat huddled against a steam pipe in the corner
apart from the other women. The humidity of the tunnels combined with her sweat
had caused the woman’s heavy eyeliner to run amok over her flushed cheeks like
she had been in a duel with a black marker. Her hardened demeanor reminded
Shiro of the escort-girls that the Yakuza employed for visiting executives. Her
eyes bore the look of an alley cat and he added her to his mental list of
potential frontline soldiers.

He had analyzed enough street fights of
his own over the years to know that the human factor more than the weapons often
had a greater impact on a battle’s outcome. Employing overwhelming brutality in
a fight and never admitting defeat even when the tide had turned against you
was the key to surviving in this world or the previous one. It was the fierce blaze
of hate flashing from the burning eyes behind the blade that won the battle.

“So that’s my deal
—
now you know
everything about me,” said Nora, whose shrill voice snapped Shiro back to her
presence. “What’s your story?” she said with an inquisitive stare.

Shiro rubbed his calloused hands together
then interlaced his fingers, realizing he better say something fast before she
started talking again. “Not nearly as exciting as yours. Perhaps another time
—
right
now, we need to discuss getting ready to relocate. When nighttime comes, I want
us all to move down to the river where I’ve located a few boats. From there we
can hopefully make our way along the waterfront to one of the less populated
peninsulas. We need to find out what is going on in the world and get some
fresh supplies.” He pulled the flap of cloth back from the baby’s cheek and
stared into its soft eyes. “And we must make sure the boy has medicine and warm
clothes.”

“I grew up around sailboats
—
maybe I
can be of help.”

As he leaned forward to stand, Nora
grabbed his wrist. “I’m sorry about what happened to your brother back in the
tunnel. I, uhm, heard you whispering to him. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

He stood up and nodded, his cheek muscles
tensing as he looked away from her.

“Thank you for what you did for me back
there
—
what you did for us,” she said, pulling her baby tightly against
her chest. “I wouldn’t have made it without you. You’re a savior.”

He chuckled. “Savior
—
I’m no savior,
Nora-san…”

She interrupted him. “I know what you did
these past two days to save a bunch of strangers when you could’ve just left us
to die on the streets.” She looked down at his tattoos with a glance of
recognition and then back into his eyes. “You’re a good man. Don’t let anyone
else tell you otherwise.”

He was trying to process her puzzling
comments. He felt mild irritation that he had been interrupted by a woman while
at the same time being moved by her compliment, which was a rare pleasure in
his life. Though he barely knew her, she brought out a confounding blend of
emotions in him
—
their shared experience of being outsiders and his
innate desire to safeguard her son. The inner workings of his shrewd warrior
psyche had no programming to contend with her praise so he simply did a
perfunctory nod and then walked out into the hallway to clear his head.

He left the door slightly ajar and glanced
over to his right, peering at the distant sunlight filtering in through the
terminus of the tunnel a half-mile away. The smell of the ocean wafted along
the filthy corridor, intermingling with the rancid odor of waste water running
along the curved floor.
If we can get to one of those boats at the pier, we
can make it across Osaka Bay to one of the islands. That should afford us more
protection than waiting it out here like sewer rats.

He thought about the yellow-faced
creatures he had battled over the past few days. They seemed possessed by an
inner rage he had only witnessed in gangsters revved up on designer meth. His
tanto blade had gotten him out of tight spots before and he had used it to
dispatch several of the reanimated corpses but it put him in too close a range
of their snapping jaws. Instead, he reverted to using a twenty-inch section of
metal pipe that he pried off the wall. That enabled him to gain more distance
and he could wield it like his old fighting sword. With Japan’s strict ban on
firearms, even amongst the police, he knew they were unlikely to obtain guns
and their survival would depend on simple bludgeoning moves with any improvised
weapons they could obtain. Almost overnight, it seemed like his country had
stepped back into the feudal era of warfare.
What is going on? How could our
great nation have fallen into such darkness? There have to be other survivors
out there—someone who knows what’s happening.

As these thoughts rolled over the tired plains
of his mind, he detected a faint sound coming from the dark confines of the
passage to his left. Unconsciously, his senses sharpened and his breathing
steadied as it always did prior to engaging a threat. His ears strained beyond
the steady trickle of sewer water running below his boots. Shiro stood up and
crept along the damp concrete wall, removing the metal pipe from his waistline.
He walked for five minutes until he came to the first intersection and peered
to either side. His nostrils flared as he sniffed at the paltry air. Something
revolting yet familiar pierced his nose. It was coming from the right corridor and
was accompanied by a shuffling sound.

Shiro squatted down alongside a large
water pump emanating from the floor and focused his gaze into the center of the
obsidian-colored tunnel. A faint ray of artificial light shone through a crack
in the ceiling above, illuminating a four-foot section of the passage that was
fifty yards distant. As his eyes adjusted, he saw the formation of a hundred or
more creatures shambling his way, their sagging yellow faces highlighted by
their bloodshot eyes. His own eyes widened in horror and he squat-walked back
to the other tunnel and then sprinted away.

Rounding the corner that led to the
storage room, he ran straight into two gangly creatures dressed in coveralls
with tool belts. Shiro nearly lost his footing on the slick ground and he
struggled to regain his grip on his weapon. As he raised his pipe for a lateral
swing at the snapping beast to his left, he caught sight of the skull coming
apart from a crashing blow. He couldn’t see where it came from and he instead
slammed his heavy pipe into the creature to his right, the sidewall of its
skull collapsing like a deflated soccer ball.

“I thought I might be of further help,”
said Yoshi, who was standing a few feet away, his hand trembling from the
adrenaline dump.

Shiro smirked and then shot a glance over the
young man’s shoulder. “We have to go, now. We need to get to the pier or we’ll
be trapped in here for good.” He turned and both men sprinted down the corridor
to the others, who had stepped out of the room. He yelled at the long-haired
woman in jeans to lead the others while he paused to help Nora.

The younger woman with streaked eyeshadow gave
him a disappointed look. “Leave her
—
she’s just a burden and will slow us
all down.

“Then she and her son will be my burden,”
he shouted as the woman turned her back and began bolting along with the
others. Yoshi turned back to help Shiro and they grasped Nora under the
shoulders as she clutched her baby. They scampered down the murky corridor as
the moaning horde of flesh-eaters quickened their pace.

A few minutes later, they neared the
tunnel mouth beside the waterfront. Shiro saw the others running down a narrow
cement walkway that hugged the shoreline and led to a row of boat docks in the
distance. He stopped and motioned for Yoshi to continue on with Nora. Shiro
retreated back into the tunnel until he came to a series of water pipes lining
the wall. He swung his metal pipe along an elbow-joint connecting two sections until
water fissured out from the battered edges. The hot water flowing out combined
with the cold air of the tunnel produced a heavy mist that obscured the
passage. He heard the creatures trotting along the corridor forty yards away.
This
should slow them up for a while.
Shiro retreated back into the daylight.