“Janet and I took turns with them. I cared for them the best that I could,” she said defensively.
“Yeah,” I retorted. “But you never told me they’d been taken.” Ruth avoided eye contact and didn’t respond. Kelly gave me a subtle look.
“Alright, I didn’t invite you guys here just to interrogate you. Let’s change the subject.”
“Okay,” the sergeant replied warily.
“I’d like to hear more about the CDC, if you don’t mind.” His expression changed then to a more thoughtful expression.
“I can tell you what we were told,” he said.
“Sure.”
“When the outbreak first started, the CDC personnel were caught with their pants down,” Sergeant Smithson said. “They had protocols for almost every type of contingency, but they were overwhelmed by how quickly it spread and how violent the infected were. It was assumed all of their field teams either became infected or were wiped out.”
“So, what’d they do?” I asked.
“Fortunately for them, their security staff were mostly retired military people and they reacted quickly. They locked down the facility and waited. They figured out, like everyone eventually did, the cold weather slows them down considerably. So, during the first winter, Atlanta had about a month and a half of freezing cold weather. They worked their asses off building fortifications.” He gave a short, humorless chuckle.
“It worked, more or less, until those infected things organized and launched an offensive.”
“Yeah,” I said as I grabbed a notepad. “Can you be more specific about that?”
“Sure,” he replied. “It started around sunset. Guard post three, which was on the east side, reported there was a large number massing together. The OIC…”
“OIC?” Kelly asked. Sergeant Smithson explained.
“The military uses acronyms for everything. The OIC is the officer in charge. He was manning the TOC. Oh, I’m sorry. The TOC is short for the Tactical Operations Center. So, the OIC, a REMF Captain…”
“REMF?”
“I’m sorry, Kelly. I’m too used to talking to fellow soldiers. A REMF is a derogatory term,” he paused.
“It means Rear Echelon Mother Fucker,” I said. “Someone that doesn’t know anything about real soldiering.”
“Yeah, exactly. So, this captain decided the guard was being overly dramatic and didn’t put out an alert. By the time we realized something was up, they were attacking.”
“How?” I asked.
“In human waves, or I’d guess you’d say in zombie waves,” he replied. “It was so simplistic it was ingenious. Our defensive fortifications consisted of the fence, sandbags, concertina wire, and guards posted in armored vehicles. Everyone, me included, thought that was enough. After all, those things couldn’t climb, use weapons or drive, or anything like that, which was true, but they thought up something entirely different. They simply walked up to the twelve foot tall fence and made a zombie ramp.” I furrowed my brow as the sergeant explained.
“The front ranks would fall to the ground, the second rank followed, and so on. They effectively created a ramp for their companions to walk up and clear the fencing.” I paused in my writing and looked at him skeptically.
“I’m not exaggerating, Zach. It was both scary and amazing to watch. Once they cleared the fence, they’d fall to the ground and start the process again. The inner perimeter between the fences and the building was only about twenty feet wide. They simply repeated the ramp building process, and within no time they were up to the third floor windows, which as I said, were totally unprotected. We killed thousands of them, but killing them only aided in the ramp building process.” He shook his head ruefully.
“We never in a million years would have guessed this strategy. Think about it. They sacrificed maybe a couple thousand of them so the other forty-eight thousand could get to us. Oh, and they used their heads as battering rams to break out the windows.” I continued writing long after they had finished telling of the incident. When I finally stopped, I saw them staring at me intently.
“The major believes they instinctively knew what the CDC was and that was their reason for attacking it.”
“I can’t say I disagree.” It made absolutely no sense how they knew, and yet they did. I changed the subject.
“Two questions: is the President really alive and did he really order me taken prisoner?”
“He’s still alive,” Smithson replied. “The colonel wasn’t bullshitting about that. He’s supposedly tucked away in one of those super-secret underground bunkers. As far as him giving the order to have you imprisoned, I have no idea, but there were daily radio communications with him.” He pointed at Ruth and himself. “We weren’t privy to what was discussed though. The major may know.”
“Alright,” I said, “fair enough. What about the research? What were they doing exactly?” Sergeant Smithson shrugged.
“You’d have to ask Major Parsons about all of that,” Ruth replied. “All of their testing and research was done in the labs, and only a few people had access.”
“Yeah,” Sergeant Smithson replied levelly. “But, we went on a few missions where if we saw an infected person wandering around by itself, we’d go out and snatch it. I assume they were being used for their experiments. I don’t have any idea what they did to them.”
“So, were any of them cured?” The two of them continued staring at me, although I could see a hint of confusion now. I continued. “The infected subjects, were any of them cured?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “Again, you’d have to ask the major.” I kept my silence and sipped some coffee. The major had just told me they thought they had a cure, but he didn’t inform these two. It seemed suspicious.
“The meal was awesome, Kelly,” Sergeant Smithson said. Kelly smiled and thanked him. “And I must admit I’ve really enjoyed spending time with you guys, but I think we should be heading back.”
“Yeah,” Ruth added. “We really appreciate it.” She then looked a little worried. “Would it be possible to fix a plate for Major Parsons?”
“Of course,” Kelly said before I had a chance to respond. She got up and fixed a large plate, much more than I would have given him, especially considering how low our food supplies were.
“Where’re you three going to go?” Kelly asked when she handed the plate to Ruth. Ruth looked at her worriedly.
“We have no idea,” she replied.
“They’re going to go wherever Major Parsons orders them to go,” I said with a chuckle. “Isn’t that right, Sergeant? I mean, the man may be a doctor, but he outranks you. If I had one, I’d bet a dollar he orders them to return to Atlanta and they’ll foolishly obey him, right Sergeant?”
“I don’t know about that,” he replied with a disapproving stare. “If we go back to Atlanta, we’re likely to be tried as deserters and shot.”
I shrugged. “Good point. I’m sure y’all with think of something.” I was ready for them to go and indicated as much by standing and staring. They took the hint.
After they left, I cleaned up the kids while Kelly cleaned the kitchen. Frederick couldn’t keep his hands off of me and I smiled while he did things like pulling my hair and sticking his tiny fingers up my nose. Macie quietly stared at me in only a way a small child stares at big humans. I couldn’t tell if she recognized me as her father, but that was okay. I had them back and life seemed pretty good, for a change.
I realized my face was hurting because I was smiling so much. After the warm bath, I had no problem getting them bedded down and they fell asleep within minutes.
“Well, that went better than I expected,” I said. Kelly agreed. “I think I know a perfect way to end the night,” I added teasingly.
“Yeah, about that, you’re going to need to get them to sleep in their own bedroom, Dad,” she said with a grin. “Otherwise, we won’t be having much fun after dark, if you know what I mean.”
“Good point.”
I got up early and, to my surprise, the little guy was awake and staring at me. When we made eye contact, he gave me a big grin. I got him dressed, fixed the two of us a snack, left a note for Kelly, and soon we were riding along on Hank. Frederick was ecstatic and squealed in delight when Hank started walking.
The information they told me about Lamance got me thinking. Would one of my friends have survived? Nobody had actually confirmed Fred had died. Or Konya, for that matter. Kelly saw him get shot, true enough, but she didn’t stick around to see if he survived or not. I’d already been all around the homestead and never saw anything indicating Konya had crawled away. The only thing left of him was an old blood stain on the front porch. It was a large, brown stain, indicating a lot of blood loss.
“I doubt he survived,” I muttered. So, I rode over to where Fred was supposed to have been shot, which was a field where we had a large potato plot growing.
“Alright, big guy, if you’d been shot but didn’t die, what would you have done?” I looked around. Supposedly, he was in this field. If I were injured, I think I would have tried to hide, maybe crawl somewhere that offered concealment.
I looked everywhere I could think of, but I found nothing. No lone boot lying in the weeds, no skeletal remains, nothing. That could’ve meant anything. Maybe he was one of the burnt corpses, maybe coyotes dragged off the body. I simply didn’t know and it was killing me.
Unfortunately, the farm work was pressing. The fair weather this past week was causing the grass to spring to life. The cows were happy for it, and soon it would lessen my workload, but right now it was still necessary to take the tarps off another large round hay bale.
“We’re going to have a lot of hay to cut in a few months, you think you’re ready to run a tractor?” Little Frederick grunted and made some kind of unintelligible response. I grinned. “The man you were named after would have had a lot of fun hanging out with you.”
We made our way over to the old homestead at a leisure pace. The three of them were still there, sitting in some chairs in front of the house eating what appeared to be MREs. They watched expectantly as I rode up. I saw Ruth looking at the forty-five I had holstered on my belt, but she didn’t comment. I dismounted from Hank with Frederick in my arm. Before I could tether him, he walked over to the Marines to check them out, and more importantly, see if perhaps they’d share something tasty. When I set Frederick down, he started waddling over toward Major Parsons. The Major had squatted down and held his arms out expectantly. I caught my boy quickly.
“No, Frederick. That man is evil,” I said, pointing at the major, who actually looked hurt. I didn’t care.
“Don’t even think about touching him,” I warned the man. He sat back down in his chair, crestfallen.
“Enjoying the morning sunshine?” I asked the other two. They nodded. I pulled up one of the chairs and sat down. “Why are y’all still here?”
“We were just discussing the situation when you rode up,” Sergeant Smithson replied. I looked him over. He was freshly shaven again and saw me looking.
“Ruth is a master with a straight razor, you want her to give you a shave?” I grunted and shook my head.
“What’s your first name, Justin?” I asked curiously. He nodded. “Justin, what have y’all decided?”
“Nothing yet,” he replied while looking pointedly at Major Parsons. The major looked quite haggard; I hoped his balls were still sore. Their combat utilities were still grimy and I almost suggested they could use our washer, but stopped myself.
“Major, before you three head off into the wild blue yonder, I’d like to ask some more questions. Do you feel up to giving me some honest answers?” He waved his hand flippantly.
“I’ll take that as a maybe. Well, let’s see. Did you try to infect my kids to see how they’d respond?” He shook his head quickly, and then looked at the ground.
“We were going to, though.”
“You son of a bitch,” I growled. He looked up quickly.
“I vigorously objected, Zach. I kept them out of danger, you have my word on it.” He looked at me pleadingly. “I’ve, no let me rephrase that, we’ve grown quite fond of your children, Zach.”
“But you were in agreement to inject them with zombie juice though. How in the hell did you rationalize that?” He started to answer, but I cut him off and looked at the other two.
“Am I the only one who sees how warped this man’s thinking is?” They didn’t respond and refused to make eye contact. I shook my head. “Alright, since you’re so fond of them, did you administer any proper inoculations?” The major’s face lit up then.
“Oh, yes,” he responded. “The CDC had a number of vaccinations stored.” He looked around. “All of the children at the facility were inoculated. Tetanus, polio, all of the childhood diseases, they were vaccinated.”
“How many kids are there?” I asked.
“Seven children under the age of eighteen,” he answered. “I hope they’re still alive,” he added.
“And none of the others were immune?” I asked. Major Parsons shook his head. “Other than the woman we had found in Kentucky, but she’s dead now.” I paused and thought a minute.
“Do you guys think anyone else at the CDC survived?” My question was met by dour expressions.
“I don’t think so, Zach,” Justin replied slowly. “But anything’s possible, I guess. By my estimation, we probably killed seventy-five percent of that invading force of those stinking things, and that wasn’t near enough.”