Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending (4 page)

“Yeah, I got
it. I have a black eye.”

“Yes,” Doc
answered, “it’s fairly easy to visually inspect your injury and draw a
conclusion as to what happened, and what realistic prognosis for recovery can
be expected. Your uncle’s injury, because of its location and the complexities
involved therein, present another matter. I gather you’ve field dressed enough
deer to know that the typically small entry wound often doesn’t correspond to
what you find inside the body cavity.”

“Doc, I
haven’t had years of medical school, but I do work in a profession that
requires a fairly in-depth understanding of ballistics.”

“Then you
understand what I mean when I say ‘temporal cavity’?”

“Yeah, it’s a
shock wave effect that displaces tissue, organs—and whatever else is in the
way—very rapidly. It can cause anything from minor complications to serious
damage, and even complete liquefaction of vital areas.”

“Mmmm-hmm,”
Doc nodded, “but the problem is that without highly advanced medical imaging—and
to be honest, a lot of times even with it—we have no way to really tell what, if
any, additional damage Andy has sustained. He could wake up in an hour with
nothing more than a bad headache.”

Eric shook his
head, already chasing the worst case scenario down the wide path he seemed to
travel frequently. “Or, he could never wake up. Or he could wake up and be
brain dead. Or he could . . .”

Walter cut in
abruptly. “Eric, there’s only one thing we can do right now, and that’s keep on
praying. Your uncle is a tough old bird, and I don’t think the Lord is done
with him just yet. Or rather, I don’t think the Man upstairs is done tormenting
me with Andy’s continued presence.”

Eric gave a
weak smile at Walter’s comment. “So it’s basically a ‘hurry up and wait’
situation?”

“And keep
praying,” Rebecca added.

“Yes,” Doc
answered, “to both of you.”

“How’s Emily?”

“Very lucky to
be alive. I’d really like to know what happened. I mean, don’t get me wrong,
I’m glad she’s alive, but her injuries came very close to being fatal. Not
precisely how I envisioned you bringing her back to me.”

A split second
flash of memories surfaced in Eric’s mind. The helplessness he had felt, along
with his indignant rage during Michelle’s captivity. The stunned
incomprehension at the personal sacrifice Emily had been willing to risk. The
aftermath.

“Your
granddaughter risked her life to save Michelle.” The words, spoken as he held
Doc’s eyes, somehow didn’t seem enough.

A soft, double
knock on the door perked Max’s ears up. Without waiting for a reply, Michelle
quietly slid into the room. She was dressed in jeans and a tee shirt, with a
light blue, long sleeve hooded sweatshirt folded across one shoulder. Her duty
belt was clearly visible, and judging from the number of magazine pouches Eric
could see, she was loaded for bear. A brief moment’s eye contact brought a
smile to her face, and much to Eric’s surprise, a quick wink. She stood silent
as Walter spoke.

“Listen, I
know there are a lot of things that we need to go over . . . to figure out.
I’ve been able to hear some of the stories of what happened, but there’s a lot
more we need to find out about, and a lot of decisions that need to be made.
Quickly. For right now, Andy and Emily are alive and hopefully healing. Other
lives, ours included, are still at risk.”

“How about the
other girl we brought back?” Eric asked cautiously.

“Her name was
Samantha,” Michelle interjected softly, “and she didn’t make it.”

Doc shook his
head. “There was way too much trauma and blood loss. I tried, but I couldn’t do
anything. I’m sorry. Who was she?”

“Someone who
should have stayed at the campground.” Michelle leaned against the wall and
bowed her head as she spoke quietly. “Andy and I are responsible for her being
at the cabin. And for everything that happened to her there. She should’ve
stayed at the campground, she would have been safer.”

Doc
immediately shook his head. “No, she wouldn’t have . . . those things . . .
they came out of nowhere—everywhere. . .”

Walter cleared
his throat. “Listen, we need to hear about this, and a lot more as well. But
not right here, and not right now. I’ve already got Amy working on a guest
list, so to speak, for our meeting. She’s coordinating with Sam on that, and
some other stuff as well. Rebecca, go get some sleep, Callie’s got it covered.”
Walter continued barking orders. “Doc, stitch the boy up, change his oil and
get him running like new, or at least walking.” Standing up and turning to face
Michelle, he finished with, “And you get the pleasure of being with me.”

Five minutes
later, his foot was once again resting on the towel covered folding chair. Doc
had used the radio to summon Callie, and the two of them began to poke and prod
at the gash on Eric’s ankle. The numbness from the anesthetic brought an
uncomfortable reminder of his dream.

Rapidly
approaching boot steps distracted Estes from the bursts of distant gunfire. He
leaned over the scarred and chipped rectangular conference table in the
teachers’ lounge, and took another look at the map of the school. It wasn’t
good. They had too few capable bodies to adequately guard too many points of
ingress. With no centralized command structure in place, the situation had
swiftly devolved into the semi-organized chaos of its current state. Colonel
Jordan’s timely removal at the hands of, well, whoever they were, had at least
allowed Estes to temporarily get a grip on the downward spiral of their
circumstances here at the school. But night was also approaching as fast as the
boot steps that he hoped were bringing good news. A sharp rap on the open door
signaled the entry of Sergeant Alex Keene.

“Captain.”

The internal
smile at his new pseudo-rank had quickly worn off with the exponential increase
in the demands and responsibilities required of him. And it had been less than
thirty hours since his “promotion.”

Keene was a
career NCO; a short, wiry Arizona to New York transplant with a prematurely
leathery face adorned by the standard issue TBUG’s—thick, black, ugly glasses
that the military saw fit to provide at no cost. Well, no cost besides your
pride.

“Sergeant,
what did you find out?”

Keene shook
his head as he withdrew from his pocket a partially crumpled, but as of yet
untouched by flame cigar. “You mind?”

Estes grinned.
“I think most schools have some kind of no smoking policy, don’t they?”

“When you hear
my news, I think you’ll agree that it ain’t going to be cancer that either of
us is going to die from.”

His grin
slowly modifying to a sigh, Estes replied, “in that case, I hope you brought
two.”

A broad smile
was accompanied by a second trip to the pocket, and a few moments later a
wispy, translucent haze began to rise towards the ceiling panels. An upward
glance from Estes revealed the presence of a smoke detector above the door
frame. Sergeant Keene followed his glance, and then slightly shook his head.
“Smoke alarms are all cut off. It was one of the first things I had my guys
do.”

Estes
understood, and acknowledged with a nod. Most smoke alarm systems are tied
together, and when one went off, they all did. That was unacceptable in their
current situation, especially considering the extreme likelihood that they may
have to fire their weapons inside the school buildings. And weapon fire creates
a lot of smoke. The last thing they needed was an additional source of noise
like an insanely loud fire alarm to draw in the . . . things.

Turning back
to the map, Estes took another drag from the surprisingly mellow stogie before
asking, “What have you got for me?”

“The school’s
main generator is down. It ain’t likely going to come back up either. It took a
couple hits in the control panel from some screwball who wasn’t watching his
field of fire this afternoon. Some of the guys have managed to scrounge a few
portable generators from somewhere, and right now they’re running cords into
the end of the northwest wing by medical.” Keene tapped the end of a hallway
displayed on the map they were looking at.

“How much power
is that going to give us?”

The sergeant
shook his head in a wide, slow arc as he replied, “Not near enough. Even with
the big diesel generator running, we still had to cut a lot of nonessential
systems out of the loop. What’s really going to suck is that we’re not going to
be able to power the athletic field lights. You’re going to have a lot of kids
shooting in the dark, Captain.”

The portable
radio clipped to Estes’s belt chatted in stereo with the one coiling across the
sergeant’s shoulder.

Three
different squads were reporting in as all clear after the last incursion. No
casualties to friendly forces.

“Well at least
there’s some good news today,” Estes noted. Turning back to the map, he pointed
to the northwest hallway and said, “Sergeant, check my logic on this. Here’s
what I’m thinking. This school,” he indicated with a sweep of his hand over the
map, “is basically in the shape of a giant letter ‘H.’ You’ve got two hallways
heading north off the main building, and two hallways heading south. The
northwest side is also where the athletic fields are, and coincidentally, most
of our vehicles and supplies. I think we need to get all of the civilians,
hell, everybody that we can, into the northwest wing. There are fire doors that
connect each wing to the main building, and we can secure those somehow. That
is going to greatly reduce the area we’ll have to cover, as well as giving us
quick access to medical and resupply. I also want every transport vehicle we
have gassed up and ready to go in case we have to bug out. We can put a squad
up on the roof at the end of every wing, and that should give us full circle
coverage. How many pairs of night vision goggles do we have?”

“We had seven,
but four of them went down—mechanical issues, accidents, or just bad luck—I
don’t know. Anyhow, that leaves us three.”

“Double check
them for function, make sure they’ve got extra batteries, and then give them to
the squads on the roof of every wing except where we’ll be.”

Keene squinted
slightly as he replied, “You don’t want any for the fire team on the roof of
the northwest wing?”

“No,” Estes
replied, “one of the Hummers out there has a thermal imaging camera that we can
use.”

“It doesn’t
work, sir.”

“Specialist
Perkins, one of the guys in my squad, is a whiz with all of that tech stuff. 
As of about twenty minutes ago, he had it operational, at least when the Hummer
is running.  For some reason it’s not working on battery power. And, there
seems to be an issue with it continuing to function for longer than a few
minutes before it shuts off again.”

“If we can get
that into play, it would just be the shit.  As hot as those gray bastards are,
they should positively glow in the thermal scope,” Keene replied.

“That’s what
I’m thinking.  What other good news to you have for me sergeant?”

“Ammo’s
running low. We’re not out, but we need to watch our usage.”

Estes nodded
as he replied, “Noted. All right then, rest time is over . . . let’s get
everybody moved to the northwest wing.” With a final puff, he ground out the
glowing ember of his cigar tip on the corner of the conference table.

It was almost
midnight when Estes finely had a moment to sit down. The consolidation of
civilians and military personnel had gone fairly smoothly. There were a few
speed bumps, of course, like when they moved Colonel Jordan and his goon squad
from the athletic cage into an empty science lab close to medical. Weaver had
tried to incite a rebellion with anybody who would listen, at least until the
guys on the transport team had threatened to all piss on a dirty sock and stuff
it into his mouth if he didn’t shut up. For a few moments Estes closed his
eyes, rubbing his temples as he did. His brief respite was disturbed when the
requested attendees to the midnight meeting arrived. The room they had chosen
was set up for high school geology, and various samples of rocks and minerals
were scattered on almost every horizontal surface. Sergeant Keene was first
through the door, followed immediately by Corporal Henry. Major Jeffery
Sullivan, the soft-spoken doctor in charge of the medical unit brought up the
rear. Estes stood and saluted as the major entered the room.

“Captain, I
wish you wouldn’t do that. Twenty-seven days ago I was comfortably lounging in
my civilian practice making six figures, high six figures every year. My
biggest worries were my golf handicap and my wife’s infidelities with whatever
boy-toy she hired that week to mow the lawn. Then Uncle Sam decides to enact a
classified recall for previously serving military physicians, and my rosy world
came tumbling down. I never much cared for the military attitude when I was in,
and that hasn’t changed in the seventeen years since I’ve been out. With all
due respect, stop saluting me and acting like I’m in charge, because I’m not.
Until this Major Larrabee gets here, as far as I’m concerned, you’re the man
with the plan.”

“Yes, sir,”
Estes stifled a yawn before continuing, “I think we all need to get some sleep,
but before that happens, there’s a couple things we need to go over. Just so
we’re all on the same page, OK?”

Nods of
agreement accompanied the weary expressions of the other three men. Estes
turned towards Corporal Henry first. “Where are we at with numbers, Bones?”

Bones stood
and stretched before answering. “Good news and bad news there. Like you
ordered, we gave all of the civilians an option to exit the school if they
wanted. Most of them took us up on the offer, and we were able to transport
them in the APC’s to their houses. It took us most of the afternoon to make
enough trips, and we had several encounters with hostiles, but it’s done and
they’re now in charge of their own fate. I think most of them were just happy
to be out of here. Anyhow, we’re down to thirty-one civilians. Check that,
that’s thirty-one locals. We’ve got other civilian contractors who have been
assigned to various units, mostly medical, but I’ll get to them in a minute.
Anyhow, that’s the good news; that our civilian numbers are down from almost
two hundred to thirty-one. Now, the bad news part one. The civilians that chose
to stay are mostly elderly or infirm, or both. And now, the bad news part two.
As best as I can figure, including us, we’ve got forty-nine fieldable swinging
dicks, although eleven of those don’t have . . . um, dicks.”

Estes suppressed
a grin at the remark, but Sergeant Keene and Major Sullivan both rolled their
eyes skyward.

“Bones, those
eleven women, I know at least some of them have served in a combat role, and
all of them have gone through the same basic training you have, so don’t
differentiate them.”

“Yes sir,”
Bones replied. “So we’ve got those forty-nine who are basically combat ready.
We’ve got fifteen non-combatant civilian contractors, again, most of those in
some way connected to the medical team. In addition to that, we’ve got another
baker’s dozen of support and logistic personnel. I can’t give you an accurate
number without pulling everybody from everywhere into a central location and
physically checking them off of a list. Most of those support people are going
to be like the good doctor here; people that have been called up out of the
blue or pressed into service somehow—medical, mechanical, maintenance—that sort
of thing. On top of that, we’ve got four people that I’ve lumped into the
‘specialist’ category. Two of them are the pilots for that Black Hawk outside,
and one of them is an aviation maintenance crew chief, also with the Black
Hawk.”

Keene said,
“That’s three, who’s the last one?”

“I can’t say
for sure. I found him handcuffed to a pipe down in the boiler room about an
hour ago. Specialist Oakley from the 10
^th
Mountain Division out of
Fort Drum. He looks like a staff weenie to me, but all he’ll say is that he’s
waiting for Major Larrabee.”

Keene frowned
as he replied, “Great, another mystery we don’t have time for.”

Estes raised
his eyebrows in question toward Keene. “What do you mean ‘another’ mystery?”

Sergeant Keene
looked up at the still standing Corporal Henry, who shrugged his shoulders as
he sat down. “That’s all I’ve got.”

Estes nodded
and then looked toward the sergeant, who removed his thick, black framed
glasses, rubbed his leathery face with calloused hands and sighed before
speaking.

“The Bradley
APC’s that we used to move the civilians out of the school and back to their
houses, well, after the last trip they didn’t come back.”

“What?”

“They never
came back after dropping off the last load of civilians. Remember though, at
least one of the crews were those guys that fired on the guardsmen, and I’m
guessing both of the crews were in the colonel’s circle. So yeah, we’ve lost a
lot of firepower and protection, but maybe in the process we got rid of a few
snakes. We still have the old M113 APC out there, but my guys say something is
wrong with the engine. It’ll start and idle, but won’t go over five miles per
hour.”

“Anything
else?”

Keene nodded
as he answered, “We’ve got exactly five of the M35A3’s fueled up, lined up and
ready to go if needed. Each one has a small load-out of ammo and supplies. In a
perfect world we could have everybody at the school on those trucks and heading
out of the fence in about eight to ten minutes. It would be crowded, but we
could do it. With that said, we had to park them pretty close to one another to
fit them all inside the fence with all of our other crap, so our actual ‘get
and go’ time is going to be more. On the bright side, we’ve found enough ammo
to provide full combat loads to everybody, plus another three reloads for most
of them. Still, that’s not very much.”

Estes looked
toward the slightly balding physician. “Major?”

Electing to
stay seated, Major Sullivan yawned, and then cracked his knuckles before
speaking. “I imagine this conversation is way overdue. How much do you know, do
you
really
know, about what’s been going on?”