Pandora - Contagion Page 5

  Foreboding seemed to suppress further questions until, finally, the same soldier who asked the first question rose. “What if you use a condom, ma’am?” The laughter was all out of proportion to the stale humor. But Isabel found herself chuckling, as did Rick and the battalion commander. Brandon, however, gazed blankly into the darkness, not returning Isabel’s questioning gaze. Since the bridge, he had withdrawn from Isabel, from the horrible new world, from life itself.

  After a half dozen other routine questions, the colonel took the bullhorn. “Our mission is to interdict infiltration into this country by Infecteds fleeing Canada. Follow your general orders. Challenge anyone you meet in a courteous manner and with a soldierly bearing. The sign is ‘Thorough.’ The password is ‘Squirrel.’ They were supposedly chosen because they’re difficult words for French speakers to pronounce. If they want to parley, they send only one representative forward. The following special orders apply. If you order someone to halt and they fail to obey, you fire three warning shots into the air. Not two, not four: three. If they still fail to stop, fire for effect. You need no further authorization.”

  The colonel let that sink in before booming, “Second battalion, mount up!”

  The troops belted out one more thunderous, “Hoo-ah!” before rising.

  Snarled commands from sergeants herded underlings into lines at the tailgates of dozens of large, canvas-covered trucks. Isabel assumed that, briefing over, their detail would return to their helicopter like after each earlier stop. But Rick dipped his fingers into a can that looked like shoe polish and swiped them across Isabel’s cheek. She recoiled in surprise. “We’re gonna observe their blocking operation.” Rick tilted her chin upward as if to kiss her. She closed her eyes. He applied more grease paint. “JCS thinks it’ll inform our future briefings.”

  Rick painted Brandon’s face and then his own as the battalion split into its constituent companies, platoons, squads, and fire teams. Their detail joined an infantry platoon and climbed aboard a covered truck. Rick returned the salute of a Second Lieutenant Brad Stockman, who looked to be about twelve.

  On the drive, Isabel and Brandon sat on one of the hard wooden benches lining the walls of flapping canvas. Rick and Stockman knelt between the rows of knees and upright rifles. Isabel eavesdropped on their discussion, oftentimes shouted over the engine growl and the unending grind of gears.

  In addition to Stockman and his platoon sergeant, she learned, there were thirty men in their platoon organized into three squads, each with a machine gun. Isabel now appreciated machine guns as an important contributor to her continued tenure on Earth. To Stockman’s platoon had been added a weapons section with a fourth machine gun and its two-man crew, and two two-person Javelin teams, whatever they were. Thirty-eight troops, plus their nine-person Pentagon detail: Rick, Army Sgt. Vasquez, his five men, all with rifles and two with underslung grenade launchers, and the two scientists, also carrying rifles, but as an afterthought. That made for a total of forty-seven armed souls crammed into four trucks.

  Rick bent over Stockman’s paper map lit by Vasquez’s flashlight. Their objective was to clear some woods, which Stockman illustrated with a sweep of his hand before stabbing at the blocking positions they would establish along an east-west stream two miles from their “line of departure.” There was thermal imagery of activity in those woods—maybe animal, maybe human—but no “friendlies,” in military-speak.

  They went over the planned line of advance, the wooded but flattish terrain, landmarks and milestones along their route, the identity of the platoons to their left and right, radio frequencies to which both Rick and Vasquez tuned, and available fire support and medevac and the call signs for each. Isabel’s eyes sank closed. She intended to continue listening. But when she rested her head against the wooden railing behind her, the noise of the engine and of the road’s surface under the tires harmonized inside her helmet. The warm press of Brandon and an unknown child-soldier at Isabel’s sides kept her upright.

  When the truck’s brakes groaned, she woke with an unnoticed gasp. They all climbed down at the edge of a dark and frankly terrifying forest wearing their combat loads, not their heavy backpacks. The platoon spread out in an extended line and lay prone in the roadside weeds behind raised rifles. Spectral figures descended from other trucks in the distance to either side. The few commands she heard were hushed, not shouted. Six hundred soldiers, all moving in deathly silence. Lethal silence, more like it.

  Rick returned from a short meeting to brief Vasquez. Isabel listened in. Two squads, twenty soldiers, commanded by the platoon sergeant, would cover a front a hundred meters wide. Stockman led the reserves—the third squad and the weapons section—which would follow fifteen meters behind the main line. Vasquez, his five men, and the “two docs,” were to remain immediately behind Stockman.

  “Where are you gonna be?” Isabel whispered to Rick in the gloom.

  “With Stockman. Stick with Vasquez, and stay low…and quiet.” He must have read something on her face even in the dim starlight. Something like, What the hell am I doing here? “Don’t worry. You’ll be all right. There are no reports they’ve organized and armed themselves yet.”

  Yet?

  Her helmet rattled when she nodded. Rick joined Stockman. Brandon looked just as lost as she felt. Stockman gave some secret hand signal, which was relayed off into the darkness. The prone soldiers all rose in unison and stepped off into the woods. The cumulative effects of the advancing platoon amounted to a hushed rustle: the chafing of fabric, the crush of weeds underfoot, the snapping of bushes brushed past.

  When Rick and Stockman disappeared into the inky night, Vasquez followed. It was their turn. Isabel gripped her rifle in both hands and tried to focus on her breathing.

  It grew darker when they left the highway. Isabel couldn’t see Rick’s line in front of her. She could barely see Brandon and Vasquez to either side. Invisible low branches scraped unexpectedly across her helmet, so she held her rifle vertically before her as if in preparation for a bayonet fight. Many of the soldiers wore monocular or binocular night vision devices on their helmets. Isabel stumbled blindly, at constant risk of turning an ankle.

  Thonk! She was momentarily rattled after head butting her rifle and the branch with which it had collided. Leaves fell under her collar and she frantically brushed them away. “Shhh!” hissed someone rudely. Isabel caught up with her line. The growing perspiration under her body armor felt like crawling ants or spiders from the fallen leaves.

  The monotony of their march and the sensory deprivation of the darkness soon freed her mind to wander. They had left the bridge immediately after the slaughter two days earlier, picked at MREs on a short helicopter flight to a high school auditorium, and been blinded by the stage lights like ill prepared understudies. Absolutely everything about that first briefing had felt off. “How many of you remember Dr. Miller from the CNN special? Show of hands.” The beaming small-town mayor demonstrated the requested response by raising his own hand, and over half the audience of police, firemen, EMTs, and local officials did the same. He was starstruck by Isabel’s fifteen minutes of fame. But less than an hour earlier, she had killed a person. And another, and a third, and who knows how many after firing all thirty bullets in her magazine. She stood on that stage, dazed, as if ready to be judged. What she got were innocuous medical questions.

  And then there had risen the spot-lit profile of a diminutive female paramedic, who had awkwardly announced, to no one in particular, that, “If the order ever comes down that we have to…to eliminate, I guess, the Infecteds, well, my religious principles won’t allow that.” No one said a word, and she sat. How much stranger could this get?

  They then flew from stop to stop in upstate New York and alternated briefings of troops, cops, and relief workers with debriefings of first responders, special forces, and talkative refugees. The former evolved slightly with each survivor’s tale t
hey heard in the latter. “One woman,” Isabel had informed Red Cross volunteers, “said she talked her way past a group of Infecteds who came to the door of her motel room. She put on her mask and shoved her way through with a roller bag, saying, ‘I’m-leaving-I’m-leaving-I’m-leaving,’ and they let her go. Maybe they just wanted her room, or her gone. Who knows? Not something I’d recommend, but the point is that while every Infected is dangerous, they’re not all totally crazy.”

  That first night after the bridge, she had told Rick she really needed to talk about what had happened. “Yeah, you do,” Rick had agreed. “But not now. After.” Rick had tucked her in to her sleeping bag in the city park and left to attend a meeting with the soldiers they bedded down with that night. She had lain there, thinking, But what if there is no after? He came and checked on her, then went to patrol the perimeter. Later, she saw him monitoring reports from nearby units over a Humvee’s radio. Maybe he had insomnia. Or a case of nerves. Or maybe it was his training. Regardless, when Rick wasn’t beside her, Isabel couldn’t sleep.

  The breeze through her hair had tickled her face. Vasquez’s men snored. And every so often, distant firecrackers crackled, which she knew weren’t firecrackers at all. Or the next night when Rick’s nocturnal wanderings were revealed to be a habit of his, she couldn’t sleep because the tiled back hallway of the medical clinic felt rocklike against her aching muscles. Then came the moans of a patient turning, and the wails of her parents when given the bad news. It was too cold outside in the park, and too hot inside at the clinic. Her underwear was itchy. She could smell her own body, and cringed at the thought that Rick might too. She was overdue for her period, which would add to her list of discomforts. At least she couldn’t be pregnant since she hadn’t had sex in about ten years and three months…and that had been with Brandon. How ridiculous was that these days to go so long? Was she picky, or just a failure?

  Sometimes—to be honest, most times—when she couldn’t fall asleep it was because she hadn’t had sex in ten years and three months. She tossed and turned and fluffed the jacket she used as a pillow, and tried several times to process what was happening, but each ended with her having to stifle the gasping, hiccupping sobs and sniffles that erupted by surprise to avoid being overheard by the others. She needed time alone, or with Rick, and soon—before everything came to an end.

  “Hubbardton, Vermont,” she had read on her iPad instead of sleeping. Capt. Ramirez, Rick’s classmate, had installed a DoD app on her tablet, and she read abstracts of field reports filed first in Asia, and now in New England. “48 civilians/officials trapped 40-80 feet AGL in steel lattice of radio tower, which is only structure in area tall enough to ensure death from leaps. Radio contact with Fish and Wildlife warden in tower. Est. 200-300 Probables at base. Guy wires prevent close approach, but observed 9 fatal falls from tower in 50 min. due to illness, fighting, or possible suicide. Mass jump planned if no relief by tomorrow p.m. Nearing bingo fuel but have 500 rds. 50 cal. and 7 x 2.75 inch rockets. Request permission to expend ordnance on Probables at base. [PERMISSION DENIED].”

  Tomorrow p.m. had come and gone with no further updates.

  Eventually, Rick had returned and lain down next to her. Only then did Isabel sleep.

  Dangerously distracted, Isabel snapped back to the present when Sgt. Vasquez raised his right fist. Everyone halted except Isabel, who took one extra crunch. “Sorry!” she whispered. Vasquez flattened his palm downward. Everyone lay on their bellies like in a game of Simon Says. Isabel swatted a bug off her nose, pressed down on the weeds that tickled her neck, and rolled from one side to the other to look around until Vasquez shushed her. She drew more disapproval when she slowly, but apparently still too noisily, raised her rifle to her shoulder.

  Three measured shots rang out from the distance to their left. Time seemed to slow in the few moments of silence that followed. She heard nothing. Saw nothing. But she viscerally felt the silent ticks of the clock.

  Machine guns burst. Rifles fired. Grenades exploded. The cacophony erupted first from their left, and then—shockingly, stupendously loudly, and jarringly—from straight ahead of where she lay. Her heart rate, breathing, darting eyes, and quaking muscles all synchronized to the muzzle flashes that lit tree trunks in nearly continuous strobes, stripping away the previous anonymity of the night. She grew lightheaded and dizzy as vertigo set in despite her whole body pressing firmly to the solid ground beneath her.

  Something crashed through the bushes beside her. A huge, antlered buck sprinted and leapt past. She heard a jarring snort as his front hooves landed heavily not four feet from where she lay. Other deer followed. Multiple people shouted, “Cease fire!” from the woods ahead.

  It rapidly fell quiet again. Vasquez raised everyone to their feet and they proceeded forward. It was just deer! Isabel passed a soldier, who raised a knife overhead and sank to his knee while plunging it with a wet, hollow sound into a jerking form on the ground. The mercy killer, wearing night vision goggles, rose from the kicking hooves of the dying animal like a mutant in a post-apocalyptic nightmare. Isabel couldn’t help but think that he’d shown more mercy to the deer than he would if it had been her infected sister Emma lying there wounded.

  “Halt!” they all heard Stockman shout from ahead, and their entire line of troops froze. “Who goes there?” They couldn’t hear a reply. “Thorough!” Nothing. “Thorough!” Again, no reply. Maybe it was more deer.

  Isabel jumped at the pop-pop-pop! Three gunshots in rapid succession.

  One breath. Her heart pounded. Two breaths. She exhaled raggedly. Three…

  The woods exploded with gunfire. She followed Vasquez and dropped to the ground, cringing and plugging her ears against the resumption of the horrible noise. This was many times worse than the earlier shooting, and it showed no signs of letting up quickly.

  Rick slid to the ground beside her, shouting something. “What?” she replied. His face, half lit in the flashes, looked grim. He almost wrenched her shoulder out of joint as he pulled her to her feet and shoved her back toward the road. She couldn’t see the branches, or the forest floor, and relied more than she should have on Rick’s grip to maintain her footing, course, and speed. Rick kept looking back over his shoulder, holding his heavy rifle one-handed by its pistol grip.

  Other soldiers overtook them. “Faster!” Rick ordered.

  “What’s happening?” she shouted, but doubted that he heard her. Did we somehow lose a battle? She ran blindly. Her lungs and her thighs began to burn. A misstep almost felled her, but Rick kept her upright.

  Stockman caught up with them breathing heavily. He stopped, turned, crouched, and fired into the darkness behind him, then raced past. Rick let go of her arm, knelt, and fired on full-auto, traversing left to right. Isabel waited for him. He turned, saw her, and shouted, “Goddammit, run!” before loosing another burst.

  Something traveling at high speed cut through the branch beside Isabel. She stooped lower. Another zipping sound sliced through the air overhead. Someone was shooting at them. From the darkness. The woods! She turned and saw a lone muzzle flash toward which Rick directed a burst of fire before reloading. “Isabel! I said get the hell outta here!”

  “You come too! With me! Let’s go!” She held her hand back to him.

  He didn’t take it, but they resumed their run together. Finally, she could see the road on which the trucks waited. As they passed a prone soldier, rifle pointing into the woods from which they’d come, the man rolled onto his side and shouted, “Forty-six and forty-seven!”

  Stockman stood fully upright to yell, “Last man’s in! Fire at will! Fire at will!” The forest erupted in shooting. Stockman headed down what Isabel saw was an organized line of troops parallel to the highway, encouraging each of his men on passing. Muzzles blazed from the troops’ nearly straight line, which extended into the distance to both sides.

  Rick practically tackled Isabel,
who grunted when landing wrong. She grabbed Rick’s body armor and shouted, “Who is shooting at us?”

  “I don’t know!” came his reply. “Them!” He then began firing into the darkness, his right eye aiming through his night vision monocular. Isabel raised her weapon, but couldn’t see anything to shoot at. There was only an occasional flash coming from the woods and zip cutting through the brush within earshot.

  Brandon crawled over to her. “I lost you!” he yelled over the cacophony. He, too, was just a spectator and didn’t even bother raising his rifle.

  After what seemed like the better part of an hour, but was probably only a minute or two, Stockman shouted the cease fire order, which Rick and sergeants up and down the line repeated until the guns all fell silent. “Fire in the hole!” came the only warning they received. Rick pressed his face into the dirt and said, “Get the fuck down!” in the direction of Isabel and Brandon. Both copied the Marine. What fire in what hole? she wondered.

  What came next sounded like a biblical prophecy come true—thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the chariots… Some shrieking demon exited its hellmouth to their left and disappeared at incredibly high speed to their right, trailing a roaring crescendo of jet exhaust that was more felt in the chest than heard. Isabel raised her head to see what that noise had been. Rick jammed her helmet back down to the ground, tweaking a muscle in her neck. “Ow! Jeeze.”

  The world burst to pieces. The air itself shattered. It wasn’t the rippling series of explosions, or the brilliant flashes of a dozen stupendous blasts, or the pounding by invisible walls of heat and overpressure, or the thuds emanating from the earth beneath her. It was all of those things, all at once. A staccato series of annihilating high explosive booms that shook Isabel’s nerves as much as her innards.