The Killing Floor (24 page)

We’re all okay.

Rod smiles. Gabriela always starts her letters this way when he is deployed, and they have an immediate healing effect on him. This last letter is dated a week ago. While he’d rather it be dated today, he feels assured his wife and children are alive and safe.

He leafs through the handwritten pages hungrily, as if getting acquainted with a brand new book by his favorite author. He has a lot of reading to do. Pages and pages of life.

Back to the beginning. He picks a spot at random in the first letter, and reads:

We’re too close to Columbus, and can’t handle all the refugees and Infected coming south. Shooting kept the kids up all night. I doubt anyone on base slept at all. I sure didn’t. Today we were told that we’re evacuating to Fort Hood in Texas. The trip is going to take a while since we’re going to avoid the major highways, so we’re being told to bring as much food and water as we can carry, while we can only bring a few personal effects. I didn’t know it would be so hard to walk away from our home with almost nothing, Rod. I was allowed to bring a photo album and some toys and books for the kids to keep them occupied during the trip. Sitting on the bus as I write this, everyone is quiet, scared. We’re all diving off a really high diving board and we have no idea of what’s down there, you know?

Rod stops there, sniffing and wiping his eyes. He feels restless, but fights it. He wants to read the entire stack of letters in a single glance, but wants to savor every word. As a compromise, he skips ahead to the middle of another letter.

Fort Hood is serving as a refugee camp for military families, and it’s huge. I heard there are something like thirty thousand of us here, pulled together from bases all over the country, and still growing. It’s even hotter than Georgia, if you can believe that. Hot and dry. We’ve been here six days and we’re still not used to it. I spend half my time chasing the kids around, making them drink plenty of water. The barracks are all full, so we sleep on cots in a big tent they put up for us. You can imagine what that’s like: babies crying all night long, and the cot murder on my back. There’s a lot of resentment between the families that were already here, who have houses and call this place home, and the newcomers like me who showed up scared and with nothing. I’m not getting caught up in any of that nonsense; the Army is taking good care of us. We’ve got everything we need. Things could have turned out a heck of a lot worse. We’re all being given work—help with the daycare, tend the garden, type up memos, empty the latrines, collect firewood, wipe the dust that gets into everything, and laundry, laundry and more laundry —all sorts of jobs. The list of chores is endless. I feel like we’re in the Army too. We eat, sleep, shower, work together. Almost everything we have is government issue and we share everything. I miss our house and old life but in a way it’s kind of fun, like being on a camping trip. We tell stories about our men and it really helps to know so many of these people are feeling the exact same things as I am every day. Last night, some of the wives put on a play that had us all laughing for the first time since the Screaming. The kids are also making the most of it, and my only regret is I did not bring more clothes for them; they are wearing out what little I could bring as fast as they can. Oh, by the way, some drill sergeants are teaching us to shoot. I have a 9-mm and fired it a few times at a target and the drill sergeant told me to tell you that I’m good enough to earn the Bolo Badge, whatever that is, so there! You’d better watch your ass, Cool Rod! Mustang Sally is packing heat.

Rod laughs. The Bolo Badge is slang for the marksmanship badge they give to soldiers who score at the lowest possible grade, and yet still pass, on the shooting range. In other words, Gabriela can’t shoot for shit. He’s proud of her. He always tried, and failed, to get her to learn how to use a handgun for home defense while he was away on deployments, but she always refused; she hates guns.
Times have certainly changed
, Rod thinks.
I pity the dumb Jody who comes sniffing around our kids. My wife the pacifist will turn the bastard into Swiss cheese.

He skips ahead again.

So we’ve got a plague of bedbugs now. The kids all have rashes, and there’s not enough cream to go around, so we’re washing our bedding every day to try to get rid of the pesties. What else? Victor is walking now, and if you can believe it, he’s learned some sign language. Another family taught me a few basic signs for milk, eat, drink and sleep, and I tried them on Victor over the past few weeks. Just when I was about to give up, he asked for milk! Which I give him from the boob, as with everything that’s going on, I decided to keep nursing. I wasn’t even sure what he was doing at first, but sure enough, he kept squeezing his little fist together, which is the sign for milk! He cries so much less because he can tell me what he wants even though he can’t talk yet. Lilia isn’t doing so great right now, though. She asks about you all the time, cries a ton, and has nightmares that make her wet the bed. She’s back in diapers, and sleeps with me now at night. Kristina’s going the other way, thriving like a weed. She’s doing well in the camp school. The one thing that worries me is she’s starting to hoard food a little—she eats as fast as she can, and then squirrels away little bits—raisins, Cheerios, whatever she can get—under her cot.

Rod’s vision blurs with hot tears. His heart aches; he can barely stand it. He can’t believe how much he misses them. Can’t accept how much of them he is missing. They are growing up fast, without a father, in a refugee camp, while he fights this crazy war.

You’re so far away, Rod. I hope you’re safe and that these letters are finding their way to you somehow and giving you some comfort that I know you sorely need right now. I want you to know I’m proud of you, and so are our kids, and we will wait as long as it takes for you to come home. Do not worry about us, Rod. I will look after our little ones. You can keep us all safe by getting rid of these monsters plaguing our country. Fight hard for us, and win, so that you can come back to us by Christmas.

He buries his face in his hands and bawls while Corporal Carlson looks away, trying to give him some dignity. Rod is like every father in that he wants his children to have a better life than him. That is the reason he is here fighting. But he has a feeling that even if they win, his children will face a life of misery. The feeling haunts him.

And yet they are alive. His family is alive. This simple fact gives him all the hope he needs.

Rod is crying because he is happy.

“Corporal,” he says, carefully folding the letters and pocketing them.

“Yes, Sergeant?”

“I think I will get cleaned up before seeing the Captain.”

♦

Showered, shaved and wearing a clean uniform, Rod enters the big building through a cordon of military police armed with billy clubs and flamethrowers. The building has electricity, although it is rationed; only the security lights are on in the gloomy corridors, and its eight floors are accessible using the stairs only. The air is hot, humid and smells like dust and mold.

The corporal sneezes several times, and then they hit the stairs. Refreshed from the catnap, a quick shower and Gabriela’s letters, Rod follows alertly, feeling almost human again, rifle slung over his shoulder and his helmet held in the crook of his arm.

The fourth floor is busy with officers and aides and civilians clacking away on typewriters. Rod grunts with appreciation at seeing civilians contributing to the war effort. Mostly, the Army has been keeping the refugees penned like sheep—under martial law, no less—a complete waste of resources, in his opinion. No wonder they end up rioting. These people are not weak. They survived this long, didn’t they? They just don’t have the training, organization and security of the military. Someone needs to get them organized and into the fight, like those militias he’s been hearing so much about. The Maryland Regulars. The Philadelphia Free Militia. The New Liberty Army. The Virginia Field Army. The Allegany County Partisans.

Natural born killers, from what he heard. And most of them streaming toward Washington to join the final push to liberate the city from Wildfire.

The hot, crowded little office smells like flop sweat and burnt coffee. The window is open and the light is off. Major Duncan sits at his desk, sunlight gleaming on his bald head and glinting on his round wireframe glasses. Captain Rhodes, a gung ho Jane Wayne that Comanche picked up from Army Intelligence, stands behind him with Lieutenant Sims.

Rod knocks.

“Come in, Sergeant,” Duncan says.

He halts two paces in front of the officers and presents a tired salute. “Sergeant Hector Rodriguez, reporting to the commanding officer as directed.”

The officers return the salute, giving Rod a moment to notice the other two people in the room sitting against the wall in office chairs, one of them a hard case in SWAT armor, possibly National Security Agency but probably a mercenary, and the other a pale, blinking specimen in a wrinkled business suit who looks like he hasn’t seen daylight in weeks.

A spook?
Rod wonders, but decides against it. The second man is definitely not NSA or CIA. He looks scared. Like he’d rather be anywhere but here. Like a prisoner.

“At ease, Sergeant,” Duncan tells him.

“Thank you, sir,” he answers, assuming the at-ease drill stance.

“Sergeant, of course you know Lieutenant Sims and Captain Rhodes. This here is Dr. Travis Price, a scientist posted at Mount Weather Special Facility, and Captain Fielding.”

“Captain?” Rod says, giving the man a onceover. “First Maniple? Flying Column Corp?”

Few of the private military contractors escaped the Sandbox in the first days of the epidemic. Their dissolving companies pulled some of them out and were forced to abandon the rest. The locals chewed them up until the Army absorbed the survivors on the way back to the States.

Like many soldiers, Rod does not like mercenaries.

“I’m not a merc,” Fielding says. He does not elaborate.

“Captain Fielding is paramilitary,” Duncan tries to explain.

Rod lifts his eyebrows at this, but says nothing. Something big is being planned; the excitement in the room is as palpable as the scientist’s anxiety. They’ll get around to explaining things to him if he stays quiet.

“Rod, we have a special job for you and your squad,” Duncan says. “This one comes straight from the top, and it could end the war.”

Rhodes and Sims grin at this.

“Yes, sir,” Rod says, his heart pounding.

Duncan turns to Rhodes. “Go ahead, Captain.”

“About twenty-four hours ago, we spotted a uniform mike who carries the Wildfire Agent, but is not showing symptoms,” she explains. “About two hundred miles northwest of where we’re standing. As far as we know, the man is unique. First, he spreads Wildfire through the air, and second, the Infected appear to be aware of and submissive to him. How and to what extent, we don’t know. Dr. Price here feels if this man can be captured, the scientists may be able to isolate a pure sample of the Wildfire Agent. If they can do that, they might be able to make a vaccine, a weapon, even a cure. Is that about right, Dr. Price?”

“Yes,” Dr. Price says, clearing his throat. “That’s right.”

Rod nods, considering what he’s heard.
About
two hundred miles, Rhodes said.
As far as we know
, the man is unique. The Infected
appear
to be aware of and submissive to him. How and to what extent,
we don’t know
. Dr. Price
feels
they
may
be able to isolate a pure sample of the Wildfire Agent.
If
they can do that, they
might
be able to make a vaccine.

With so many qualifiers
, he thinks,
my situational awareness has not gained a single inch.

“The mission,” Rhodes adds, “is to locate, contact and recover this individual for the purpose of obtaining a biological sample. Preferably alive.”

And then we save the world and everyone gets a pony. Shit, even the Big Green Machine doesn’t believe in this saving Private Ryan bullshit. Otherwise, they’d put Special Forces on it. They’d throw everything they had at it. Not yank a single tired-out squad off the line and dump them in the middle of no man’s land to find some guy who infects anyone who comes near him, and is now surrounded by, and appears to control, an untold number of Jodies.

After dealing with all that, we just have to convince the unidentified male to surrender to a bunch of soldiers so that scientists can experiment on him in a government lab.

I’m sure this guy, alone and scared shitless, will be just fine with that!

The idea is so crazy he has to resist the urge to laugh openly at it. The Army seems to have found a very creative way to get him killed.

Dr. Price glances at him, his eyes filled with anxiety.

Rod chides himself.
What did you expect—that it would be black and white? It’s a chance, and nothing more. In this war of extermination, a chance is everything.