Mark, John and Daoud crawled up the incline on their elbows. They got to the top and peered over. One by one their eyes widened. They lowered back down, looking at one another, shaking their heads, before looking again over the side.
It wasn’t possible.
The compound had been blown to smithereens. It now stood as piles of rubble.
Wisps of smoke rose to the tree canopy before the wind snuffed it out. Mark’s team entered the wide open space, exposed. Mark found himself hoping it was all part of an elaborate trap, willing to prove the twisting feeling in his stomach wrong.
They crossed the exposed courtyard. Cars lay tossed aside and burning in what might have once been a carpark.
No one jumped out at them as they’d hoped. No one greeted them with broad smiles. The only grins they saw were deathly ones, horrified masks belonging to bodies dotted about the area.
Daoud bent down and pressed his fingers to a cadaver’s neck. He shook his head.
They retook their positions and headed into compound, bodies and weapons moving as if they were one, checking each corner like it might hold a risen demon. A wire fizzled and sparks drifted down from the ceiling. The shadows yielded to their flashlights. The building was devoid of life.
“What happened here?” John said.
“I think we heard it,” Mark said.
“But those were our choppers,” John said. “Why would we blow up our own compound?”
Why indeed.
Mark overturned a flat slice of concrete with his foot, a piece of what had been the roof. Dying sunlight streamed through the hole, revealing more than any of them wished to see.
A small rock tumbled down a mound of rubble and tapped Mark’s boot. He bent down to pick it up. He surveyed the mound. Nothing moved.
Mark tossed the rock back on the pile. As if in response, a slab of concrete slid down the ragged pile of refuse. John snapped his rifle around, mindless of the fact it was only loaded with paintballs.
“Who’s there?” John shouted. “Out with you! Come on!”
A hand thrust through the rubble like something from a horror movie. The fingers were curled like claws, bloody, the fingernails torn like a torture victim on the rack.
Mark stepped forward and pulled at the rocks and steel rods. John moved to the side, maintaining aim on the arm.
The hand fell, lifeless. Daoud joined Mark in dragging the detritus off whomever was trapped beneath it. They uncovered a face, pulverized and beaten bloody by the rocks. It might once have been a pretty face, but now the nose was broken in two places, an ear was torn off, and her eyes were swollen like she’d been in a fight with a gang of youths.
They pulled enough of the rocks free to extract her body, and laid her on her back. Her clothes were torn, exposing her flesh underneath.
Daoud checked her pulse.
“She’s alive,” he said. “But barely.”
“What can we do for her?” Mark said.
Daoud shook his head.
“Make her comfortable,” he said. “Clean her wounds. Search for pain killers. She’s going to need them when she wakes up.”
Mark pulled a dirty sheet from the corner and laid it over her body. She wore the remnants of a white science jacket.
“One thing’s for sure,” Mark said.
“This ain’t Kansas no more,” John said.
Mark nodded.
“What do you think is going on here?” John said.
“I don’t know,” Mark said. “But she does.”
Mark and John drifted into the next room while Daoud set to cleaning the woman’s face with water from his canteen. The room had broken cabinets strewn across the floor. They each took one and began searching, reading the medicine labels and tucking them in their pockets whenever they found anything remotely related to a pain killer.
“What in God’s name do you think is going on here?” John said.
“Something strange,” Mark said. “I can’t imagine the major would have organized something like this. There are easier ways to get our attention. And the woman. He would never leave a woman in that state here like this. Something’s going on, but I can’t figure it out.”
A scream.
Mark and John ran back to the main room. Daoud held his hands up as if to say he hadn’t touched her. The woman’s eyes were wide and wild.
“What happened?” Mark said.
“Nothing,” Daoud said. “She just woke up and started screaming.”
“Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh,” Mark said, moving close to her.
She shuffled backwards on her heels until her back met the rubble. She covered her face with her hands. She chewed on her knuckles. It muffled her screams.
“It’s all right,” Mark said. “You’re safe. You’re safe.”
But the woman didn’t seem to think so.
Mark didn’t know what to do. He imagined it was Tabitha in this state. What would he do then? The answer was painfully simple. He handed his rifle to John, dropped to his knees, and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight to his chest, whispering, “It’s okay,” and “Everything’s all right,” into her ear.
She pushed against him, beating on his chest with her fists. Her actions became weak, and she slowed, then stopped. She let go and allowed him to hug her. She hugged him close and wept, burying her face into his uniform, crying like a little kid who had summoned the courage to look under her bed only to find her mother’s warnings of the Boogie Monster were not unfounded.
“It’s okay,” Mark said. “You’re going to be fine.”
The woman pushed him back. This time it was one of confidence. She wiped her eyes with the back of a dirty hand.
“No, I’m not,” she said, her voice rough like a chain smoker’s. “And neither are you.”
The woman’s name was Lucy. She sat on the edge of a table, her head bowed down, looking at the floor as if reliving every gruesome moment of her ordeal.
“It started soon after the training mission began,” Lucy said. “People started showing up, people we didn’t recognize, who weren’t part of the exercise. Something was off about them. Their eyes were glazed, expressions distant. They looked like earthquake victims.”
Mark’s mind went back to those they’d seen stumbling through the woods. He shivered.
“The soldiers put them in the infirmary,” Lucy said. “The doctor kept an eye on them. They were infected with something, he said. Something from Uwharrie. The soldiers thought it was part of the exercise, something the major had put in place that he hadn’t told us about. We all had to go through a briefing before we came here. It seemed exciting at the time.”
Lucy shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe how naïve she’d been.
“We were warned not to use open communications in case you were able to pick up our signal,” she said. “There was to be total radio silence. But the doctor sensed something was up and broke protocol, putting a call through to the major’s office. They couldn’t locate him. It seems he’d intentionally made himself difficult to reach.”
She pulled from a water canteen and flinched as the cut on her lip broke open. She dabbed at it with a tissue.
“And then things went wrong,” Lucy said. “The injured people began to… to change… began to turn into something else. Something we hadn’t seen before. Monsters – like the ones we’d prepped that morning. I’m a make-up artist. This was only meant to be a one-off gig. It was good money, so I took it. Man, do I wish I’d stayed in the city.
“Those things attacked us and kept coming at us. The soldiers here had no live ammo, so they beat the monsters’ faces in, but they kept coming and coming. Then, when we thought we’d finished them off, more of them rose – the ones they’d managed to kill before. Or maybe they’d been infected before. I don’t know. It was like a nightmare. We broke radio silence again and called in the troops. We expected them to come and save us. Instead, they… they…”
She burst into tears. John and Mark exchanged a look of bewilderment. Could this really be happening?
“We’re just civilians!” Lucy said, crying. “We didn’t do any harm! And the soldiers… They were just trying to protect us! Why did they have to do this to us? Why?”
Racking sobs shook her whole body. John placed a comforting hand on Lucy’s shoulder.
“Please Lucy,” John said. “We need to know what happened here. Please continue.”
Lucy took a moment, gathering herself. Her body hitched as she calmed.
“They launched an attack on us,” she said. “They launched rockets, blowing us to smithereens. The building collapsed on us, burying us under all this rock. Everyone else… I heard them, hours later… The groans… The growls… The screams… But I couldn’t get out. Which meant maybe they couldn’t get in. It took a while for them to leave. I fell asleep or passed out, I don’t know which. When I woke up, there you were.”
“If this is the compound, where’s the major?” John said.
“The major was never here,” Lucy said. “This was meant as a decoy compound. You were meant to get in here, realize the virus wasn’t here, and then escape, heading for the rendezvous point as the others chased you.”
“That sounds like the major,” John said, glancing at Mark.
It certainly did.
“Can you get to the rendezvous?” Lucy said. “I’d sure like to get out of here. Colin must be going spare.”
“Who’s Colin?” Daoud said, sitting beside her.
“Colin’s my cat,” Lucy said.
She smiled at the thought of him. As the conversation took a turn into Lucy’s personal life and what she usually did on a daily basis, Mark and John drifted away.
“This shit just got very fucking real,” John said. “Can you believe this? You don’t think…”
“She’s an actress?” Mark said. “If she is, she’s the best I’ve ever seen.”
“You don’t think this is all part of the major’s plan?” John said. “Have you ever known him to do something as extreme as this?”
“No,” Mark said. “But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t this time. ‘Always do what they don’t expect,’ he always told me. Well, I didn’t expect this.”
“Destroying the center like that was not something the military would ordinarily do,” John said.
“But maybe they planned on renovating it anyway, or even rebuilding it and turning it into a modern facility,” Mark said. “It would make sense to use it in this way if it was going to be knocked down anyway.”
“If that were true, why doesn’t he swoop down on us now?” John said. “He knows we’re here. We’re sitting ducks.”
Mark didn’t have an answer for that.
“You’re right,” Mark said.
The words were difficult. He disliked not knowing what his father was up to. It felt like failure.
“I think it’s safe to say we’ve passed the point of no return,” Mark said.
“Shit,” John said. “Shit…”
It was incredible the amount of meaning he could put into a single word.
“We’ll have to head to the rendezvous point,” John said. “If that’s where the major is, it’ll be the best place to defend from.”
“We’ll have to take Lucy with us,” Mark said. “We can’t just leave her here.”
“Freakin’ A,” John said.
“But if none of this is part of training,” Mark said, “and there’s nothing deeper taking place here, just what are these things we’re up against?”
“The same things we were being trained to fight,” John said. “Only real. They’re here already. I just hope we’re ready to do what we were being trained for.”
Mark, John, Jacob and Roach stood at a checkpoint. They were armed and wore facemasks. A long queue of locals waited their turn to enter a tent with a big red cross on it.
Mothers held babies who bawled and cried. A young man argued with the mother of a screaming child to get him to stop. Mark was on the scene first. He didn’t need to be aggressive or start shoving his gun in anyone’s face. The locals saw him, his uniform and the flag on his arm, and calmed down. Even the baby stopped crying.
Mark and his team were sent to help maintain order as nurses administered treatment. Babysitting at its finest.
“I can’t believe it,” John said when they’d received their orders. “Everyone else is running away from the area, and we’re sent right into the middle of it.”
It was a view shared by them all, but there was only one response:
“Orders are orders,” Mark said.
Then came the sound of rattling bells and cymbals, and a holy man with a large skull cap danced past those waiting in line. He turned and moved away. He didn’t shout his wares, didn’t cajole. The sound was enough for some of the people to break away and join the holy man beneath a tree.
That was the problem with sending medical supplies into the undeveloped world. People did not trust what they did not know, and to put you and your child’s life in the hands of the unknown, often against the wishes of your husband, wife, parents, friends and other loved ones, was too much to bear.
The holy man placed a bead of water on the forehead of each of the victims and said a holy chant. He received a few coins for his efforts, tucking it into a leather pouch that hung at his waist. He didn’t fear theft. No one ever stole from a holy man. Some locals returned home after receiving this ‘treatment’. Others rejoined the queue to get their free injection. It didn’t hurt to hedge your bets.
Superstition stifled the progress doctors were trying to instill. Their medicine was free – it had to be, otherwise no one could afford it. The education they provided about their services was scanty at best, with little drawings and images that described a world that none of the locals recognized, and often did not believe – ones with tall buildings that seemed to touch the sky, and trains that pierced the ground. Progress was slow.
A little boy came running along the road, clocking a fair clip. His bare feet kicked up a cloud of dust.
It was Kid.
He’d come by the camp often enough for Mark to recognize him at a glance. Kid had the ability to make an appearance whenever a soldier turned around. Clean water? He was there. A trinket to take back home? He was there. The location of a remote local village? He was there.
But now his eyes were pained, his brow furrowed with well-worn lines. He skidded to a stop before Mark, hands on his knees, gasping for air.
“Sick… Sick people…” he said.
“Sick people?” Mark said. “You mean infected? Where?”
“Out… Outside,” Kid said, his lips turning white.
The situation put Mark in somewhat of a quandary. No CO would have believed the word of a young local lad, and if nothing came of it Mark would be taking the punishment. But he knew Kid, trusted him. He had nothing to gain by lying.
“Stand up and put your hands on your head,” Mark said. “It’ll expand your lungs.”
Kid did, though his arms shook with the effort.
“Can you take us to them?” Mark said.
Kid nodded, a weak effort.
“Roach, fetch a truck,” Mark said. “John, keep an eye on the queue. Jacob, inform the doctors about a possible outbreak outside the perimeter.”
Roach brought a truck around, full of soldiers in quarantine gear in the back. Mark carried Kid to the front seat, and carefully sat his fragile body on his lap.
Roach drove, weaving around the other cars and trucks and bikes, honking his horn to get them out of the way. He would have made a fair ambulance driver.
“Left,” Kid wheezed around half a mouthful of air.
He guided them to the other side of town. He had run a long way. It was no surprise he was so exhausted. Finally, Kid said: “Stop.”
They were surrounded by tin shacks that glinted in the sunlight.
“Where are they?” Mark said. “Where did you see them, Kid?”
Kid opened his eyes, raised his bony arm, and pointed with a shaky finger to a small shack at the end. Mark lay Kid’s body down on the seat. He left the door open and ran to open the back of the truck. The quarantine team were already climbing down the short ladder.
Locals saw the quarantine men and women in their shiny white suits and turned and ran. A clear sign of the approaching apocalypse to their eyes.
“In the shack at the end,” Mark said.
The quarantine team nodded and hustled inside. Mark didn’t see the scene himself but he later heard what they’d found.
A shed of squalor. The infected had been put inside and left. A beaded necklace hung from the ceiling, a lucky charm meant to bestow the favor of the Gods. The holy man had long since vanished, along with their money and their hope.
The doctors were unable to save any of the entombed bodies that day. They were too far gone. But they did manage to confine the spread of the virus in that part of the city, all thanks to Kid, whose tiny bony legs protruded from the truck’s cab.