Gnash (20 page)

The newly arrived soldiers strapped Cecil’s body to the table and then began strapping the others down as well.  Emory yelled out, “He wanted his body cremated.  He didn’t want to become one of the things you’re talking about.”

“His body will be destroyed, believe me.  I had great respect for the man; he was at ground zero of this outbreak with me.  But at this point, it’s important we know how long the change takes.  According to the two survivors from the attack, most of these men were overrun by the infected no more than forty-five minutes ago.  This group was only rescued because there were already supply helicopters inbound that cleared a path with their machine guns.”

Collins gestured again, “Ah…see, the change is beginning to fully take hold.”  Sergeant Owens’ body jerked violently against the bonds that now held it firmly to the table.  “It’s really a terrible virus we have here, but fascinating from the scientific aspect as well.  The mutation is taking hold faster than the original version which, I think, took over forty-eight hours to occur in the initial victims.  This virus spreads quickly when passed through broken skin, and obviously these men have had plenty of broken skin.”

He pulled a voice recorder from his pocket and pressed record, “Subject appears to change almost immediately after expiration.  No exact estimates to time of initial infection, but it’s less than an hour.  Others in the group who are still alive were exposed at roughly the same time and do not currently show signs of infection yet…Believe that initial victims at the Pentagon had expired as well before they changed, but subsequent victims took roughly twelve hours to change while still alive…Something to do with lack of oxygen that brings about the change in victims…” he clicked off his recorder as the dead man began making loud grunts and he lifted his head up as he strained against the straps.

“Unngh.  Unngh!” he moaned.

A man wearing only boxer shorts burst through the tent flaps.  He saw the creature on the table and said, “Oh fuck.  Oh shit Owens.  I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”  Tears began to fall down his face as he cried unashamedly.

Another man, thinner and less muscled than the first, but dressed only in underwear as well, came in.  “Shit, Hank.  Those fuckers took out our whole team.”

Emory looked at them and wondered why they were both nearly naked, but then she remembered the younger doctor’s claim of infection getting into open wounds.  If they were part of this team, they’d probably just gone through some type of decontamination and inspection. 

Cecil’s body began jerking so violently that the entire medical table shifted every time he moved.  Emory watched in horror as the man stopped jerking and looked directly at her.  His eyes seemed to focus on her and yet be totally vacant at the same time.  Slowly the muscles in one of its arms contracted as it put all of its effort into freeing the arm that was strapped tightly across the forearm.

She heard the bones snap then the sick, wet tear as he,
the creature
, she corrected herself, pulled its upper arm free of the strap.  Blood flew across the room as it waved the useless stump around.  The lower half of his arm remained strapped to the table.

“Put him out of his misery,” Doctor Collins told one of the soldiers, who put two quick rounds into the head of Cecil’s corpse and the tent was silent except for the ringing in everyone’s ears.

The doctor turned towards the chief surgeon.  “Sir, with the exception of one individual so far, this outbreak has had a 100% kill rate.  My men will stay behind and assist you if any more of your patients expire, but after they are stabilized, they will be immediately transported to my lab at Decon Camp Seven about ten minutes from here.  I’m going to take Sergeant Owens’ body with me now for burial, but every moment I’m away from my lab is another moment that I haven’t determined how to combat this thing and the virus spreads even farther.”

The doctor started to leave the tent, then stopped and turned.  He placed a hand on the larger of the half naked men.  “I’m sorry about your team, Sergeant.  We didn’t expect there to be that many of them.  When you’ve had a chance to clean up, please stop by and debrief General Reeves and myself so we can prepare our report for the president.”

“Yes sir.  We’ll be there as soon as we can get some clothes,” the sergeant mumbled as he looked vacantly around the room at the men on the tables that he’d led to their deaths.

***

04 May, 0814 hrs local

Military Decontamination and Infection Control Site #7

Fauquier County, Virginia 

Lieutenant Colonel Bryce Colton looked up from his breakfast as the doctor came through the doorway.  “What’s the word doc, am I cleared to get out of this place yet?”

The doctor bypassed the question.  “That Delta team that was with us in the Pentagon got overran today.”

“Man that sucks. Did anyone make it out alive?”

“Just their team leader and the sniper.  They’re coming over here later today for a debriefing, so I’ll get the details from them then.  I’d also like it if you could talk to them about how to get through being a sole survivor.  Those are a couple of good men and we’re going to need people like them to get through this crisis.” 

“Alright doc, I’d like to talk with them.  I may not have been pulling triggers at the building, but we’ve been through a lot together so maybe that will help me connect with them.” 

“I would really appreciate that, thank you.”

“You’re welcome doc.  So, back to my question, am I cleared to leave here yet?” Bryce asked. 

“It’s been two weeks since your initial exposure to the chemicals.  Your blood continues to show no signs of the virus, but no discernible antibodies or any reason why you aren’t infected as well.  I think I can convince General Reeves to let you out of solitary but I have to have access to you so we can continue to experiment.”

“Thanks doc.  I’ll do whatever my nation needs me to do, but I’d rather not be a human pin cushion.”

“You’re welcome,” the doctor said, ignoring the second part of the colonel’s statement.  “I’m convinced that the cure to this disease lies in your body.  I just have to figure it out.  After the Delta debrief I’ll see if I can get you a place to stay, but you’ll probably want to be back in your solitary room after a few days amongst the refugees.  They’re an angry lot and if it wasn’t for the military security, I’m afraid things could deteriorate pretty quickly.  There have already been reports of several rapes and murders in a couple of the camps.”

“Really?  What the hell is wrong with people?  We’re all Americans here doc, we’re supposed to band together, overcome disasters and all that, not fight like animals amongst ourselves.”

“The situation in the camps isn’t nearly as bad as it is in the countryside.  Even though only a relatively small portion of the nation has been destroyed, there’s been mass chaos all across the states.  It’s getting better every day, but the trucking routes are still shut down and people are beginning to get truly hungry, especially in the cities.  If the president can’t get the food moving again, we may have an even bigger problem in the next couple of weeks.”

What the hell is wrong with people,
Bryce repeated to himself.

***

04 May, 1525 hrs local

Military Decontamination and Infection Control Site #7

Fauquier County, Virginia 

“Alright Sergeant Dawson, tell us what happened,” the general said as he leaned back and placed his hands on his stomach.  As a Lieutenant General, Jasper Reeves had let himself go a little softer than he was in his youth.  He would never again lead troops on organizational runs or be in front of formations where his personal appearance was the first thing the young men and women under his command would notice.  The years of riding a desk were starting to show in his posture and in the slight pooch in his abdomen, but he chalked it up to middle age and a long, distinguished military career.

The two soldiers facing the general and Doctor Collins looked at each other briefly.  They’d showered and shaved since the last time the doctor had seen them in the medical tent early this morning.  They were even wearing the standard Army uniform instead of the different type of camouflage that he’d always seen them wear.  Hell, he didn’t even know what their ranks were until two minutes ago when the men were escorted into the room.

“Sir, we were inserted on 27 April, five days ago, near what used to be Arlington,” Hank said gazing directly into the eyes of the general.  “We were advised to set up a perimeter and stay on site to conduct observation until we were relieved.  Sergeant First Class Owen’s HAZMAT team was attached to us for the duration of the operation.  If attacked, we were cleared to defend ourselves, but not to pursue the creatures beyond our perimeter. 

“Basically, we were ordered to conduct a hasty defense and not authorized offensive maneuver, which is Delta’s specialty, sir,” Hank continued, barely keeping his temper in check.  “We didn’t have any contact in our sector; it was mostly over in Delta 456 and Delta 234’s areas.  We underwent a mandatory decon every twelve hours, fifty percent of the men at a time.  The situation changed at approximately one am last night when we were attacked from the rubble in the east. 

“This attack was different than our experience with them at the Pentagon.  There was no probing or waves of attackers, they just rushed us.  Thousands of them.  The bulk of the force that attacked us was a different kind of zombie than we’ve seen before.  The original men and women from the Pentagon have this pale, almost waxy complexion with patches of what appear to be bruises, and they’re fairly smart, as I’ve indicated in previous reports. 

“This new type, well, they looked different.  They had a blue-gray skin tone with sores that leaked pus or something.  They moved a lot slower than the other kind, but they more than made up for their lack of speed with sheer numbers.  It’s my personal opinion that they aren’t as smart as the other ones either.”

“Sir, the original type, the ones that are faster and smarter, appear to be the ones that were contaminated in the initial release of the pathogens at the Pentagon,” Dr. Collins interjected.  “The newer versions, from what I can tell, are the results of secondary infections from exposure to the originals.  Everyone I’ve examined that have become infected as a result of the transfer of fluids has been of the secondary variety.  And I support Hank’s, I mean Master Sergeant Dawson’s, assessment that the primary group is faster, stronger and smarter than the secondaries.”

“So now we have two different kinds of zombies running around Washington.  Shit, make sure that makes it into our report to the president,” General Reeves said.  He gestured to Hank, “Go on.”

“We killed a lot of them, but when we started running low on ammo and it looked like we’d be overrun, I made the call to get my team up on top of the decon container and fight from there.  We made it to the top without any real difficulty and were able to pull the crates up with us that we’d used as steps, by then the zombies were able to bull-rush their way through the wire within a few minutes.  That’s when we began to actually run out of ammo.  Sir, we burned through literally 8,000 rounds of ammunition between fourteen men.

“The resupply helos said they were less than five minutes out, but my guys started taking some losses.  We were totally out of ammo and the men were using whatever they had.  M4’s became clubs and I used the short sword that I carry to cut and hack as many of these things as I could, they just continued to attack, climbing on top of each other to reach us on top of the container.

“The resupply helos finally made it to our location and the Apaches that were with them made several gun runs across the large mass of zombies.  They stayed and took the assault for, I believe, the first two runs, but then they turned as a group and high-tailed it back into the ruins.  The gunships continued firing into the zombies and were lighting them up with both the 20mm and the 2.75-inch rockets.

“We threw the ammo off the resupply helos and used them to evac us out.  I put all seven of our wounded onto the first bird and it returned to the hospital right away.  Two of my men were dead and we loaded them into the second bird, there was no sign of my three missing guys, literally nothing.  The two dead men, Staff Sergeant Herion and Sergeant First Class Gutierrez began to turn while we were circling the site looking for my guys.  Sergeant First Class Sanders and I,” he gestured to the man sitting beside him, “put them down.  We stayed for an extra fifteen minutes searching the dead zombies but when the Apaches began to get low on fuel and informed us they had to leave, the Blackhawk we were riding on decided to leave as well.

“By the time we got back to the hospital at Decon Site Three and were checked out by the medics to see if we had any bites, our teammates were already being treated in the ER.  We ran as fast as we could to see if there was anything we could do.  When we got there, Doctor Collins was already on site and you know the rest, sir.”

Doctor Collins cleared his throat and looked at the general.  “Sir, all seven of Master Sergeant Dawson’s teammates that were brought in turned into what the men are calling ‘zombies’. That’s a one-hundred percent infection rate for the secondary infection and a nearly one-hundred percent infection for the primary infection.”

“What did we do with the men from Delta who turned?  I can’t justify taking those men and using them to experiment on.  Hell, we might get a mutiny from the troops if they knew that was their fate.”

“I assure you general, all of them were ‘put down’ as Sergeant Dawson call’s it.  Unfortunately we have plenty of test subjects that have been collected by our teams over the past week.”

The doctor turned back to the two noncommissioned officers beside him.  “You say they all retreated as a group after the helicopters fired on them.  Was it like a frightened animal running away from harm or did it appear that they moved away as if they were obeying a command?”

For the first time Jeff spoke up, “Doctor, those things aren’t afraid of shit.  They kept coming right into a wall of lead.  Hell, like Sergeant Dawson said, they stayed put and continued to press their attack even after the Apaches made a couple of runs.  It was like they all turned at once and left
en masse
like they were following an order.  It reminds me of that freak that we saw right when they escaped us at the Pentagon.”