Darkness began to creep up on us. We had made it back through Indiana when we started losing the last bits of daylight. I had ordered us to head back to New Chicago, in hopes of saving them from the same fate as New Detroit. My hopes were up that we would make it there in time yet time was something we didn’t have.
Morale among my men seemed very low. Talking amongst ourselves seemed to be the farthest things from everyone’s minds. Tim’s death brought to light our own mortality, leaving us all with a horrible taste in our mouths. I felt so responsible for losing him; someone else’s blood was on my hands once again, I had to choke back the tears. The burning in my stomach was becoming ever more apparent now, my concussion still in full swing.
As the last shards of daylight faded away, Marcus pulled us in between the two stretches of 94 where we would have to camp until morning. As we stopped, Ethan set up the security grid around the APX, a 200 foot intricate laser grid that would pick up any movement within it, pinpointing it with a .50 caliber rifle from a turret atop the vehicle. Walkers caught within this didn’t stand a chance. However, this also confined us to the interior, so it was eat, sleep or talk. Since talking was sparse, and we were all either tired or hungry, this didn’t really matter.
My concussion was prohibiting me from sleeping, at least 24 hours, so I needed to eat, my body feeling weak, and most of what I had in my stomach I lost back at the bank. Our food consisted of M.R.E.s (meals ready to eat), powdered food, when added with water and heated with the heat pouch, which was actually not half bad, if u closed your eyes. The menu included mac and cheese or ham and eggs. Neither one was my favorite, but I could stomach the mac and cheese. It was a hell of a lot better than the ham and cheese, I’ll tell you this. Eating these definitely took me back to my days in the Gulf War, what I wouldn’t give to have those days back right now.
The doctor grabbed a canteen of water and a meal pouch. I could tell she was tired, but hunger must have outweighed that because she looked eager to eat anything. She had ditched her tattered business clothes for a pair of gray jogging pants and white t-shirt that hung off her frame like clothes on a line. They definitely weren’t flattering to her curves. She sat down next to me, eyes staring at me in playful curiosity. “What you thinkin bout?” she asked. She could tell my mind was a million miles away.
“I’ve just been thinking about the way the world used to be. The little things we took for granted that are gone now. Better days that always brought a smile to my face.” I explained. She could sense the tension and sadness in my voice. Since the day I found myself alone months ago, it seemed I wasn’t much to talking to anyone about my past, or what I was thinking. Opening up and getting close to someone seemed to be hard for me now, and losing Tim didn’t help at all.
“I think we can all take stock in that. Thinking about the good times help to keep us sane.” Her words washed over me reassuringly, like a waterfall. Something about her appealed to my softer side. The feminine presence was definitely something we all needed to lift our spirits a little. “You never told me your name captain?” she asked. I could see the intuitive nature building up inside her. She could also tell I wasn’t much into the conversation, yet I did my best to accommodate her.
“It’s Daniel, but you can call me Dan.” I looked up from my meal, my eyes met hers. The one thing her eyes radiated more than anything was a soft understanding that made it easier for me to open up.
“Wish we could have met under better circumstances. Times like these it’s hard to imagine meeting anyone anymore. I’m sorry about your man back there. I can’t help but feel partly responsible. He died at my expense!” I could see a tear roll down her cheek.
“Sometimes causalities happen; it’s an unfortunate circumstance of war. My men and I understood the sacrifice. We knew our chances would be slim when we took on this mission. Believe me, it’s not your fault at all.” I tried to assure her the best way I saw fit. “His name was Tim. He was the youngest in our group. My first lieutenant is Marcus, Todd is the second lieutenant and the other privates are Shane and Ethan. We all met at BC New Chicago. We are the D.D.R.S.”
“And what might the D.D.R.S. be captain?”
“Decedent Disposal and Rescue Squad, we were formed to find survivors and destroy the walkers that we found along the way. You were our first find.”
“I just hope we don’t lose anyone else.” She would never understand exactly how much I agreed with her. These men were my responsibility, my loss, my sorrow. With a nod, I turned away for a moment, my meal hiding my pain. “So were you always active duty? I mean, were you military when the virus hit?” she asked. I searched for the answer. Half of me wanted to shut off now. Getting close to someone else meant losing them and setting me up for more pain. I didn’t know if I could handle this again, yet something inside me was drawn to her, like a moth to a flame.
“I retired a captain in 2005 where I moved back to Severn, MD., my hometown. This is where I married my high school sweetheart. We had a beautiful son together. I was offered a job working for the Department of Defense as a technical analyst. Things were going good. I had a big house, a family and God. I paid my taxes and went to church every Sunday. Unfortunately, I also took everything for granted and he took them away!” the anger and frustration began to build in my voice. “We were in church when the walkers attacked. I had gone to the bathroom for five minutes when walkers busted through the church doors and attacked everyone in the pews. When I came out, there was blood everywhere. I stood there in horror and watched people being eaten to death right in front of me, including my wife and son. I was frozen. As the walkers seemed contented with the meal they had, I found my feet and ran out of the church. There were walkers everywhere! The only thing I could do was run. I found a truck with the keys in the visor, and drove until I ran out of gas. Once on foot, I fought my way as far west as I could, making it to New Chicago. Once there, I was reenlisted and given the responsibility of assembling the team. We set out New Years’ Day for our trek. It was lucky we found you, yet your news of New Detroit is distressing, I fear we may be too late!”
She looked at me with a compassionate heart, her eyes showing sorrow in its purest form. Pity was something I wasn’t looking for.
“So what is your story doctor? Were you married?” I asked. I felt silly asking this, like the geek asking the head cheerleader out. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…………I just was curious about you.” My schoolboy innocence made me shy away.
“It’s ok.” She stated as she placed her hand on my knee. “I’ve always been a pretty busy person, never really had time to date, let alone work on a lasting relationship. The last guy I had dated was back in high school. In college, I spent all my time working hard toward my degree. Epidemiology was always a fascinating field to me, working to better society as a whole. When I graduated, I had already taken a job offer working for the CDC. Given the circumstances, I’m glad I had. Never being married had given me nothing to lose. Oh, I’m sorry! I meant…..” she trailed off. I really hadn’t been listening to the last part. She just seemed to intrigue me with her beauty and brains. I just wanted to know more of what she was than the outside.
The tears began to well into her eyes as her pitch changed; sadness seemed to flow out of each word that left her lips. “I miss my parents. The last time I heard from them was on Thanksgiving. They video chatted with me from the confines of New Orlando. Everything seemed fine, but now I fear they are gone too!” I understood that all too well, more then she knew.
“Believe me doctor; we will do what we can to get you to them, whatever the cost.” Being a man of my word, I would definitely try.
“Please, call me Brie.”
For a moment we just sat there, looking into each other’s eyes, studying the other. The heat that began to radiate off us was enough to keep the entire inside warm without the heater. As she dropped her eyes to continue her meal, a smile cracked across my lips. She definitely brought out a different side of me.
It had probably been a good hour since the last words of our conversation were spoke. Sitting in silence was beginning to grate on me. I looked over to her. “So doctor, you said you know something about this virus? Care to share?”
She turned toward the burlap sack she had brought with her and pulled a brown manila folder out and laid it on the table in front of us. Todd, looking much like the things that
were hunting us, came up behind us. “Ethan is going to take first watch. The rest of us are going crash. You ok?” he asked me.
Like a flash, the doctor answered for me. “He’ll be fine, lieutenant, he just needs to stay awake for the next 24. Make sure whoever does watch, watches him as well!” Todd turned toward me. Even I could tell he was a bit impressed.
“Well, goodnight y’all. We’ll see you in the am.”, and with that he slipped off to the bunks. Ethan propped himself up in front of the monitors videoing the four areas outside our transport. The doctor looked at me. “So have you all just known each other since New Chicago?”
“Yeah, I chose them based on their expertise. The best men for the job, that’s my motto. So is that what I think it is?” I asked, knowing full well that by the classified stamp across the front it must have been information about the virus. The label on the side read “ZF001”. I opened it to a group of photos, photos of a blob with hair covering its entire shape. “I see you’ve met my old mother-in-law.” I joked.
She smiled. It was the first time I had seen her smile since we had met up. It was more beautiful then I had even imagined it was. “That is our problem, Zombificus Influenza, otherwise labeled ZOM-FLU. This highly developed strain, not unlike its brother, starts off in much the same way; fever, chills, vomiting, all the tell-tale signs of the regular flu. This is why it was so hard to detect.” She continued to explain the virus to me. “Here is the difference. As far as I can tell, while the body’s immune system is broken down, the virus then acts as a parasite, working its way into the brain. Once there, it attacks neurologically, killing the brain’s natural cells. It then multiplies and begins taking over all motor functions and thought processes. Test subjects were killed by the virus within 6 hours of contamination. Once the host dies the virus then takes over the brain, reviving the host into what we see now, the zombiesque state.”
I just sat there and tried to take this all in. How could the flu do this? It seemed so impossible for something so small to cause worldwide panic and death, yet in this world it wasn’t impossible to think about all the horrible things that have transgressed throughout history. Why not realize that the end of the world would be caused by minute cellular organism? Who would have thought?
“The virus needs blood to sustain its life within the host. Hence why they attack and eat uninfected living beings. The virus is well advanced beyond any scope of treatment. I have tried every known anti-biotic to try and kill the virus, yet nothing has worked, and I fear there is no cure!” she explained, the anxiety building in her voice. “The worst part is, the virus is highly intelligent. It knows the difference between hot and cold, pain and fear. It can react to any given situation it is put into. This is why you and your men did not originally come into contact with zoms when you first reached Ann Arbor. They were holding up in the buildings to keep the hosts warm. It wasn’t until they smelled the living, breathing tissue that they come out to feed. The larger the group, the more zoms come out to feed.” Wow! I was blown away by how much this sounded like bullshit, yet the doctor was the only thing I had to go on about what we were up against. A killer intelligent virus? Definitely sounded like science fiction.
I looked through the rest of the file. Papers on test subjects showed the amount of intelligence that the virus carried, subjects put into extreme conditions to show their level of smarts. From the look of it, the virus was one of the greatest scientific finds of the 21st century; yet, we wouldn’t survive long enough to relish in the benefits. The million dollar question entered my mind as I turned in horror to the doctor, “How do we stop it?”
“Cut off its food supply! When the food runs out, the virus will die off.” She explained, “Let’s just hope we can sustain longer than them!”
After hours of looking through papers and documents, talking to Brie about the plans we were going to have to make in order to survive this onslaught, it was evident that she was getting tired. After a brief adieu, she retired to the back to get some badly needed sleep. Shane had taken post in the turret and relieved Ethan for the next shift. I couldn’t help but go over the information that was just relayed to me. The impact it had on my confidence was nothing short of disparaging. The mission that still lay in front of us seemed to be such a waste of energy now that I couldn’t tell if it was truly worth it. The Decedents would not stop until their food source was gone. Now, it turns out, that we won’t even see them coming? This definitely was not a fight I was ready for.
With Detroit gone, and Chicago soon to follow, it seemed like such an uphill battle. With one man short as well, my silver lining was slowly disintegrating. I was slowly losing hope!
As I sat there, wallowing in guilt and depression, I grabbed a smoke from my jacket. As I pulled the last one from the pack, a four letter word crossed across my lips. Finding cigs was easy, it was actually getting to them, which was the hard part. With humans almost nearly gone, and walkers not smoking, gas stations and stores had an overabundance. They also had an overabundance of walkers stashed within so it was a suicide mission. Seemed like a perfect time to quit.
“Got another one boss?” Shane asked, peeking out from the turret hole.
“Naw was my last. Here, we can share.” I handed him the butt. “We’ll stop on the way and get some. Listen, I been meaning to talk to you about what happened back there at the bank. What you did was both extremely brave and stupid. You need exercise caution when jumping into a situation. Remember, it just might be your last!” It sounded more like an order than friendly advice.
In a sarcastic display of military bearing, he snapped to attention and shot off a “yes sir!!!!” What an asshole.
“So how did you pull off that little magic act back there?” I asked.
He looked at me with about the scariest look I had ever seen in a human face. With his eyes raised into gigantic circles, he explained, “It was easy. I ran in, dropped some C4 near the entrance, found the doctor, pulled her in the safe and hit the remote detonator. I love the smell of blood and body parts raining down from a blast. There ain’t nothing better!” His face lit up like a child on Christmas day. This worried me. He displayed all the classic signs of a loose cannon, and we all know the end to that story. We couldn’t afford anymore loss.
He just stared off into space, the gleam in his eye telling me he was enjoying this a little too much. “Hey, you ok man? Shane! SHANE!!!!!” he snapped his eyes back at me. “Listen, go get some rest, I’ll finish watch. We’ll be back on the road at 08:00. See you then.”
With that evil grin and glare in his eye, he snapped to attention and saluted me with me utmost disrespect. As he slunk off toward the bunks, I now realized I had one more thing to worry about. This mission was becoming increasingly more difficult by the minute. I climbed up into the turret, ready to finish the last post of the night.
The still in the air was enough to drive a man insane. Every little noise in the cold darkness roused me from every little moment I thought I would pass out. Thankfully, all was quiet. I was not ready for excitement at the moment.
As the first signs of light popped off the horizon, I glanced at my watch. It was 06:35, January 2nd. I also realized it was three days before my 40th birthday. Half of me wished I wouldn’t make it until then, but it seemed that God had other plans. Todd, being the first of the men to wake, walked over to me with tin cup full of piping hot coffee. “So how you fairing?” he asked, aware of the deep bags that had formed under my eyes.
“I’m so fucking tired, I could sleep for days.” I replied. I felt like shit, and probably looked like it too, but I wasn’t about to let my men down for anything. The other men began to rouse and soon we were all gathered for a morning conference on what our plan was. They all looked gaunt and exhausted; apparently sleep was slipping through everyone’s fingers.
I cleared my throat as the men all turned toward me. “I want you all to know that I am very proud of you all at this point. Our mission, though an extremely difficult one, has proved to be a worthwhile cause. We leave at 08:00. I want us in New Chicago by 10:00. Ethan, keep trying to pull them up by radio. Maybe we can get a message to them warning them of the impending doom. Ok, you know what we have to do. I’m slipping off to get some rest. Dismissed!” and with that, the men shuffled to their respective jobs. I moved to the bunk area, my head full of exhaustion. I took off my pants and slammed down on the bunk. My thoughts turned to our home. I said a small prayer in hopes that God would keep our home safe in time for us to reach them. The darkness began to spiral in and my lead eyelids began to close as the world faded away.
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