In Harm's Way (23 page)

The door opened. Sasha cringed a little, knowing that she was stuck between Pug and the changed man that Wilson had become.

“Well. Was I right or was I right?” Pug asked smugly.

Wilson wanted to lash out, but he had left it all on I-25. Instead he softly said, “I knew you were right from the get go. The beauty of the whole thing is that now
I am alright
.”

Pug didn’t know what the kid was getting at and he really didn’t give a shit. He wanted to get to the U.S. Capital and he wanted to get there before dark. In the distance a group of white lights suddenly appeared on the far horizon and began sweeping the sky.

“Look, they’re expecting us,” Ted joked, trying to ease the tension in the truck.

“Then that’s where we’re going,” Pug stated as he pulled back onto the road and accelerated quickly. Although he was anxious to get to his destination he watched his speed a little closer. He didn’t want any more walker encounters now that he was so close to his objective. 

***

The Stryker sat in the middle of the interstate, silhouetted against the backdrop of darkened high-rises in downtown Colorado Springs. From the roofs of the buildings, feelers of light probed the sky. Cheyenne Mountain, Pikes Peak and the rest of the Rockies circled the city like a fourteen thousand foot granite fence.

The survivors, being chauffeured by the strange man named Pug, were instantly blinded by the high intensity lights atop the armored vehicle’s sloping nose.

“Turn off the motor and exit your vehicle,” a disembodied voice ordered through a loudspeaker.

Since the Stryker’s .50-cal was pointed directly at the Ford, Pug wisely did as he was told.

“What do you think they’re going to do with us?” Sasha whispered.

Wilson stepped out first and said, “Whatever it is... it can’t be any worse than the shit we’ve been through already.”

“Wilson. Quit cussing, it’s not like you.”

“You’re not my mom,” he hissed back.

“Quit yer bickering and do as you’re told,” Pug implored. He wanted to blend in, not draw the ire of the U.S. military.

“What should I do about William?” Ted asked anyone that was willing to listen.

“Leave him for now. If you drag him out they might think he’s infected and get a case of the itchy trigger fingers,” Pug advised.

Once everyone, excluding William, was assembled, the voice told them to slowly turn all the way around.

Wilson got a good look at Ted’s splotchy cut up cheeks and forehead and hoped that it didn’t hurt half as bad as it looked.

Two armed soldiers emerged from the vehicle and approached to within ten feet of the survivors. “Are any of you armed?” the older of the two asked as his eyes passed from Pug to Wilson to Ted and then stopped on Sasha for a second.

Pug recognized the rank on the soldier’s uniform and addressed him properly. “Yes Sergeant. I have a .45 and there’s also a shotgun in the backseat, and Babe Ruth here...” Pug elbowed Wilson, “his baseball bat is in the front seat.”

Ted spoke up. He had to warn the soldiers about William. “My partner is in the back seat...
I assure you, he is not infected...
but for his safety, I had to sedate him.”

“Are you a doctor?” the sergeant asked.

“I’m a psychiatrist.”

“A shrink,” the other soldier, the younger of the two, studied Ted for a moment and clucked his tongue. “You’re going to be real popular at Schriever.”

The younger soldier was soon joined by another from the Stryker and together they went through the Ford, searching all of the compartments and under the seats. After the soldiers collected the weapons, Sasha’s handbags and Pug’s backpack, they politely ordered everyone back into the Ford. The three soldiers disappeared behind the Stryker and after a moment a tan Humvee emerged, driven by the older sergeant, who pulled alongside the Ford and instructed Pug to extinguish his headlights and follow closely.

During their meandering drive along the perimeter fencing, dusk slowly gave way to night. In the failing light, Pug took note of the various buildings and aircraft, cataloging everything in his mind for future reference. The Humvee paused outside of the southwestern gate; nearby, two mounds of rotting corpses served as an all-you-can-eat buffet for the crows and ravens.

The entrance was protected by a Bradley fighting vehicle. Two guard towers stood one hundred yards apart, manned by no fewer than ten heavily armed soldiers. After a two minute wait a solitary soldier emerged and waved them through both sets of gates.

When darkness finally prevailed the base virtually disappeared. To ensure that Schriever wouldn’t become a beacon to the dead, all of the streetlights and porch lights had been unscrewed or removed altogether and every window had been blacked out.

“Extreme measures...” Ted said, alluding to the silent lifeless grounds. “I wonder how many people made it here alive.”

“From the looks of all those planes we passed... quite a few. I just wonder where they’re all staying,” Pug stated.

 “Those searchlights in the downtown district don’t make sense to me,” Wilson said, staring westward at the ambient light dancing off of the underside of the forming thunderclouds.

“Give it some thought Wilson... why do you think this base is blacked out?” Ted asked.

“So the dead heads don’t get curious,” Sasha said, smiling in the dark. “Those lights must be super intriguing to them. Kind of like Facebook used to be to me.”

“
Used to
,” Wilson muttered.

Pug continued following the Humvee to a desolate corner of the air base. Soon, out of nowhere, a giant hangar materialized from the darkness and the doors began to part, revealing the muted night lighting inside. The Humvee didn’t slow, it just rolled right through with the Ford still on its bumper.

As soon as the immense doors rolled closed, the red lighting switched off and was replaced by the sterile light cast from long rows of ceiling-mounted white fluorescent bulbs.

“Wow... you could park an ocean liner in here,” Wilson noted.

“Or a couple of jetliners,” Sasha said smugly.

Wilson was relieved to see that the old Sasha was still in there somewhere. He was amazed at the sense of security that a couple of fences and a few armed U.S. soldiers fostered in her… and in him.

The Humvee rolled to a stop and the sergeant exited, clutching the three bags belonging to the survivors. Without saying a word he unzipped the two expensive
leather bags and rudely turned them upside down. In an avalanche of bright colors, Sash
a’s clothes, tubes, and vials of perfume and makeup as well as her long dead iPhone clattered to the concrete. “A young lady of means I see.”
The grim faced sergeant then gave the bags a violent shaking. Once he deemed the status
symbols empty he motioned for Sasha to reclaim her belongings.

“My
single, airline attendant
mom bought those for me at the Duty Free store,” Sasha retorted in a huff. “And it is
all
that I have to remember her by.”

“Understood,” replied the soldier without a hint of compassion.

Pug’s black REI backpack got the treatment next. His clothes, although not as frilly, were dumped on the hangar floor along with several packages of Mountain House freeze-dried food, a pocketknife and a fol
ded map of the Western United States. The sergeant upended the empty bag but didn’t stop there.

Pug felt his stomach tighten as the soldier rooted around inside of the empty pack.

After the prolonged sound of ripping Velcro, the sergeant removed a distended Camelback hydration system from inside the pack and tossed the full bladder onto the floor, where it hit with a wet smack, jiggling for a few seconds.

“Whose is this?” the sergeant inquired, holding the pack at arm’s length.

“It’s mine sir,” Pug answered hesitantly.

“Sorry I tore it apart. You can take your belongings in with you during your quarantine...”

“Quarantine?” Ted said incredulously.

Fully expecting someone to object, the sergeant rolled out his standard spiel: “None of you are being singled out. Every person coming in from the outside has been subjected to the same twelve hour quarantine. You will be provided with clean clothes and bedding and our well stocked library is at your disposal. Are there any questions?”

Of course Ted raised his hand. “William is not well. Um... his medicine is in the truck and without it he’ll be miserable...
and eventually he will die.”

As if on cue a woman soldier in desert ACUs, her face hidden behind a surgical mask and clear eye protection, appeared, pushing a wheelchair obviously intended for the incapacitated man.

The sergeant lowered his voice and said, “Listen... they will keep him quarantined for a few hours... if he is going to turn it will happen soon--if he doesn’t--someone will take him to the infirmary where he will get the appropriate medical treatment.”

“How do I know that you’re not blowing smoke?” Ted shouted.

The sergeant put his hands up in a gesture of surrender meant to put Ted at ease and said, “Don’t worry; the man will be in good hands.” Clearly the discussion was at an end.

Little did they know that each one of them was going to be ordered to strip, while a person of the same gender gave them the incoming prisoner once
-
over: lift, cough, and spread. This was necessary to ensure the medical staff could check
everywhere
for
bites.

After they were forced to shower for fifteen minutes in near scalding water, the medical staff checked them with a bulky thermal scanner. Lastly Sasha and Ted were taken to another room to have their injuries attended to.

Sasha had a few superficial scratches on her face that only required Neosporin and bandages. She was given a meal and then placed in a locked cubicle with a Twilight novel and twelve hours to kill. She settled in happily enough, engrossed in Edward and Bella’s romance as only a teenager could be.  

Ted’s face received the same treatment, and after it was cleaned and bandaged he was taken to another cubicle. He declined the book and the meal; he wanted to get the clock started and the quarantine over with. If his math was right he should be free before noon.

Since both Pug and Wilson weren’t injured, they were fed and offered their choice of reading material and mercifully started their time in the cubicles a little sooner.

Pug grabbed a thick hardcover copy of War and Peace.

Wilson opted for a Stephen King novel. He figured if he did finally fall asleep he’d rather have nightmares starring Captain Trips than the rotting creatures outside of the fence.

William, still unconscious, was whisked away in a wheelchair by one of the soldiers in full level
4 biohazard
garb.

Outbreak - Day 8

Eden, Utah

Eight hours earlier

Logan adjusted his body armor ever so slightly and moved his legs to get the blood flowing in his lower extremities. The binoculars went back to his eyes and his free hand went back to worrying his long handlebar mustache. He had been lying on the pine needle
-
covered forest floor with a rifle and a pair of binoculars watching the two-story cabin for the last three hours. Up to now, most of his experience with waiting had been done in the DMV or behind some math
-
challenged prick in the express checkout at the Safeway. Before they moved on the building he wanted to have a better idea of how many additional personnel and weapons they were up against.

Since Logan hadn’t served in the military, he usually relied on Lev’s or Gus’s opinion on security matters, but if either one of them weren’t available he reluctantly consulted his U.S. Army survival manual for a solution.

The library shelves in the compound were filled with every book that Logan could get his hands on that had to do with prepping or surviving off of the grid. Logan was a pretty good shot. He w
as also well read and had been preparing for the
shit to hit the fan
since the day he first learn
ed about the Y2K bug. The event was supposed to kill a good portion of the world’s computers, turn out the lights, and in a lot of people’s worried minds, generally stop the earth from spinning. Logan was in his compound with a few trusted friends and fellow preppers in 1999 when the New Year rolled around and nothing happened. Undaunted, Logan continued prepping for any other eventuality, a financial crash, errant asteroid
--
anything
but the zombie apocalypse which had been near and dear to his heart, but only in movies and books and the occasional zombie walk
--
until now
.

For the past two nights in a row they had detected someone probing the compound’s defenses.

Lev proposed that they have a QRF (Quick Reaction Force) ready the next time someone came too close for comfort.

Chris Levdahl and Logan had been friends since high school. After the two men graduated from Highland High, Lev went into the Army and was later deployed to Iraq where he served two tours, coming back tanned, fit and restless.