Up From the Depths (7 page)

Chapter 12

Museum of Natural History, New York City

The men of Sierra-3 were silent as they cleaned and checked their weapons. They had left the tunnels and secured each door behind them until they had reached the main sub-basement. Not one word had been spoken the entire time. Each of them was lost in their own thoughts about what had happened and the infected they had encountered. Luzetski cleared his M4 then slapped a fresh magazine into the receiver, chambered the first round and set the safety. He handed the rifle to Pruitt.

“Hold this for me until I get back.”

Pruitt nodded his agreement with a perplexed expression on his face. It wasn’t until Ski turned and walked to the doors that led up to the main museum that he had an idea of what was on his senior NCO’s mind. Ski flung open the doors and climbed the stairs two at a time. He was a man on a mission. Striding across the main floor of the museum, leaving a wake of confused and questioning stares behind him, he shoved open the doors to the conference room where Wiener was conducting his weekly briefing.

“Give us the room,” Ski said, his eyes locked on Wiener.

Shocked stares greeted him from those seated at the table.

“I said, give us the room,” he repeated louder. The shuffling of papers and movement of chairs signaled the initiation of activity until there were only three people left, Luzetski, Doyle, and Wiener.

“I’ll overlook your insubordination, Sergeant. And I’ll remind you who’s in charge here,” Wiener said.

“From where I stand, you’re in charge of two things. Jack and shit and Jack left town,” Ski said.

The room was silent as Wiener’s face turned red and he took a few calming breaths.

“Sergeant, I regret that your men were put in harm’s way but this mission is all about sacrifice. We all have to do our part to see this plan through.”

“Bullshit. This isn’t the time to work out a five point action plan,” Ski said indicating the whiteboard that Wiener used to outline the goals for each week. “Or talk about sacrifice. These people have sacrificed enough. We need to get these people out of here! Man up and get it done!” Ski yelled at Weiner.

Wiener had a look of utter shock on his face. No one had ever spoken to him like that before. Certainly not a NCO.

“Who the hell do you think you are?!” Weiner shouted.

“I’m the man who’s going to change your life or end it right here,” Ski replied, his eyes hard and cold as he stared at the officer. Doyle stood off to one side, watching with a shocked look on her face. She had never seen Ski like this.

“You can’t threaten me! I’m an officer!” Weiner shouted. “I’ve been in the mix! I’ve felt the heat! I know what needs to be done!”

“Then start acting like an officer!” Ski bellowed. “When was the last time you stepped outside and saw what’s going on out there?” Ski asked. “You’ve been in here all this time. How dare you think you can talk to me or my men about sacrifice when you haven’t experienced it yourself. You’re not even worthy to be in our presence. My men are warriors. They live by a code. A code you have no concept or understanding of. The only code or oath you know is to this nation. You violated that oath by hiding in here and doing nothing,
nothing
to save those that weren’t able to make it to safety. All these plans, they’re all bullshit. You don’t have the balls to do anything but make diagrams and plans. You sit here, secure, visualizing what it would be like to be a real soldier, a warrior that has been baptized in the fires of combat and attrition. And then you talk about sacrifice to me.”

“That will be enough, Sergeant! I won’t be talked to like this! You are dismissed!” Wiener said.

Ski glared at the man who he had once thought of as a friend with contempt. He looked Weiner up and down with disgust then turned and walked to the door.

“Sergeant, are you in the habit of not saluting your superiors?”

“No sir,” Ski replied, looking back once last time at Weiner with a sneer. “No one in this room is superior to me.”

Outside, in the hall, several people were gathered. Some were the ones who had exited the room while the others had stopped what they were doing when they had heard the raised voices. A few of the stragglers had followed Ski from the time he had exited the basement and made his way to the conference room.

“You people need to know that this man,” he turned and pointed to Wiener who was now standing in the open doorway of the conference room. “Will not save you. He is not here to get you to safety. He's living inside a fantasy world where he thinks this city can be retaken. Look around you. Who here is ready to go out on those streets and fight house to house, building to building to take back what was lost?”

No one spoke up. They looked at each other then back at Ski.

“Are any of you ready to take up arms, without much more than rudimentary training, and go out there and engage the enemy? Highly trained soldiers couldn’t do it but he,” Ski turned and pointed to Wiener. “Thinks you can.”

No hands were raised but there was a murmur that flowed through the gathering.

“That man,” Ski pointed to Wiener again. “Is still living in that kind of world. He has no grasp of what it’s like outside these walls. If you listen to him, he’ll tell you his ideas of how to retake this city. Instead of focusing on getting us all out of here, he still thinks that with the handful of soldiers we have here, we can continue with the primary mission.” Ski fixed Wiener with a hard look.

“Mission objectives change. There is no black and white. We’re currently inside a very fluid environment. The primary mission has changed to how do we all get out of here.” Ski paused to look at the crowd. Before, where there were looks of resignation now was a glimmer of hope.

“There’s a carrier group offshore that is willing to evacuate all of us but, Colonel Wiener refuses to contact them.”

The looks on the faces of the survivors ran the gamut from shock to anger to disbelief.

“Decide for yourself what you want to do. I can’t make that decision for you,” he said.

Ski pushed his way through the crowd and headed back to his men.

He didn’t notice that Doyle had followed him until she spoke.

“What’s that going to accomplish?” she asked.

“People need to know that he’s not the be all, end all to their continued survival. They also need to know that there’s a way out.”

“What happened?” Doyle asked, after several moments of silence and knowing that something had to have precipitated this encounter. Ski stopped and faced her.

“We found the other squad that was supposed to be down in the tunnels. They were infected.”

Doyle’s face went white. She knew that there were missing personnel but it had been assumed that they had just left. Desertion had been high in the days, weeks, and months following the outbreak. This revelation was shocking.

“You think Wiener made that happen?”

“I don’t know. Someone did. Someone let them out.”

“Let them out?” Doyle asked.

“Yeah. It looks like they were infected or maybe locked in a room with someone who was. We go down there to light up the place and someone came along behind us and unlocked a door letting those things out.”

“What?” Doyle asked, unable to comprehend that there had been intentionally infected inside their secure perimeter and that another party had then released those infected.

“Yeah. It’s a real mind blower for sure,” Ski said. “You should have been there.”

“You’re saying Wiener’s responsible? No way he would do that.”

“I don’t know. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. What I do know is that he assigned us to that space because he wanted us gone. Out of sight. Forgotten about. Hell, maybe he wanted us dead.”

“This makes no sense,” Doyle said, shaking her head. “I can’t see the reasoning.”

“Neither can I. Do you know who has access to those spaces?”

“No, but I can find out.”

“Do it. Quietly,” Ski cautioned. “What really pisses me off about all this is that we’ve already lost a lot of people. There’re more of those things out there and those numbers are growing every minute. We can’t afford to lose what we have left.”

Doyle nodded.

“Take care of yourself. Wiener won’t like that you showed him up,” she said.

“I can handle it.”

Doyle looked up and down the hallway then quickly hugged Luzetski. He watched her walk away before he continued towards the Marine held area of the museum. He had a call to make.

***

Chapter 13

Star Valley Ranch, Wyoming

Master Sergeant Alan Hathaway looked out the window at the blowing snow. Drifts were piling up against the foundations and frames of the incomplete shells that would have become homes. Those houses would have been on the golf course that was all but a white field now. The snow blowing almost horizontally obscured visibility to mere feet. Sleet and snow pattered against the glass, freezing in place and forming a crystalline structure. It had been a number of years since Hathaway had been in a blizzard let alone whiteout conditions. That had been in Alaska way back when he was still relatively new to Special Forces. His ODA had been sent up north for winter training. That training had been mostly fun and games until an unexpected storm front had moved in, lowered temperatures, increased the wind chill and dropped several feet of snow on them. Their training had turned serious at that point.

Now, watching the snow blow outside, he thought about the others they had met through the Atkins. Ben Atkins had mentioned some families that might still be in the area before him and his son, David, returned to their home. With Axtell driving, he had scouted out the homes to see if anyone had remained in the area. Star Valley Ranch was very rural. The homes were spread out to where there were several miles between them and in most cases; you couldn’t locate a house from the main road. They had burned through gallons of the finite amount of fuel they had for the Hummer wandering the back roads looking for signs of habitation. While the Hummer performed well in rough terrain, it wasn’t the most fuel efficient means of transportation. He had tossed the idea out about locating something else even considering horses but Brandon had vetoed the idea. Hathaway was the only person who had some experience with horseback riding as he had once done so when deployed to South West Asia.

While Brandon’s bruising from the injuries she had received before being moved out of the Dupont Federal Center had turned a faded yellow, he surmised that her face wasn’t the only part of her body that was still bruised. The swelling around her right eye had gone down enough for her to regain full use of it. For a time, he was concerned about a potential orbital fracture. There would have been no way to set something like that without visiting a maxillary facial  surgeon, and the odds of finding one with a staff and full surgical suite were about the same as winning the lottery. Hathaway knew that her mental scars were still fresh as he had heard her call out in the night, awaking from an all too real nightmare. He had been tempted to go and try to comfort her but the relationship between officer and enlisted had to be respected. He felt that was one of the only things keeping their unit together, adherence to the rules no matter how out of date they may be.

“You think any of those infected can make it through this weather?” Axtell asked from behind him.

“Don’t think so. But, keep an eye out anyway,” Hathaway said as he turned and looked at the young corporal.

He had his doubts when he first met Axtell. The kid was young and green and had transferred over to the National Guard after spending a couple of tours overseas with Big Army. Axtell had the basic skills but was a bit slow grasping the overall big picture. He whined at times but when it was in the fan, he had his shit screwed down tight. Valdez had worked part-time as a night stocker in a grocery store only using the Guard to supplement his income, one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer. Of the two, he was the most level headed. He had plans to use the G.I. Bill that was offered to attend college classes and eventually get some kind of degree. Those plans had been halted when the world changed into what it was now. Hathaway knew that a lot of the plans that people had made were now on hold, probably forever, because of the recent turn of events. Not really recent, it had been three months or more since the outbreak and there were no signs that it was dying off in the near future. He wished again that he had grabbed a calendar from that same truck stop that he had taken the map from. Maybe then, they’d of had a way to tell how much time had passed.

“I’m hitting the rack. Keep sharp and make sure the fire doesn’t go out,” Hathaway said as he moved down the hall to the bedroom that served as the enlisted bunkroom. There was always a large pot on the stove that several times a night; whoever was on duty would make sure it was full of water. The boiled water was allowed to cool then treated with their dwindling supply of purification tablets before it was stored in empty 2-liter soda bottles. Hathaway knew it was just a matter of time before they would be forced to head towards larger cities and start searching camping supply stores for more supplies. He had the basic skills and experience to purify water but he wanted to make sure they had the additional supplies on hand. Maybe they could find a swimming pool or hot tub dealer but doubted that rural Wyoming was a hotbed for those types of outlets. If they stumbled upon someplace like that, he could grab the basics to make a field expedient water filtration system.

“Hoo-ah, Top,” Axtell said to Hathaway’s back. Hathaway stopped, looked over his shoulder at Axtell, smirked, then continued. Between Valdez and Axtell, they had been calling him ‘Top’ since Brandon mentioned that he, as the senior non-commissioned officer, and the only one with the most time in the military, was now the First Sergeant of their little band. He opened the bedroom door and made his way to the window, checking that it was secure and the storm shutters closed and locked. Sitting down on his sleeping bag, he leaned his rifle against the wall aligning the butt stock with a grain in the flooring and the barrel resting on the edge of the window frame. Untying his boots and placing them at the end of the bag, he looked around the room as he unbuttoned his shirt, removed it and placed on the floor next to his boots before covering himself with the open flap of the insulated bag. There was no way he was going to zip up inside the sleeping bag; it would take too long to get out if there was trouble. Rolling over and facing the wall, he closed his eyes and drifted off.

Hathaway awakened to darkness. He was still facing the wall but something, he wasn’t quite sure what, had made a noise. Listening to the sounds of the house and those of either Axtell or Valdez, he tuned out the muted footsteps as one of them made their patrol. Something else was making noise. Slowly sitting up, he reached for his rifle. There it was again, he was sure it was someone talking. Resting his rifle across his thighs, he slipped his boots on but left them untied. Standing up and walking to the bedroom door, he cocked his head and listened again. Someone was talking quietly and it wasn’t Ax or Val. Opening the door he stuck his head out and looked in both directions of the hall. Towards the living room, he saw the orange light from the fire and the harsh yellow/white from the lanterns. Towards the other end of the house he heard a voice. It was coming from Brandon’s room. Closing the door behind him, he walked to her room and knocked softly.

“Captain?” he said quietly. He pressed his ear against the door and listened. She was saying something but he couldn’t make it out. Opening the door he stuck his head in and looked around.

“Captain?” he called again. Furtive movements caught his eye. Brandon was tossing and turning, the sheets and blankets had been kicked to the foot of the bed and she was crying out softly in troubled sleep. Stepping closer to the bed, he stood and watched as her body contorted and twisted. He leaned his rifle against the wall then reached out.

“Captain?” he said as he grasped her shoulder and shook her. Brandon sat up and screamed. Hathaway backed away then stepped forward and grabbed her about the shoulders. He shook her and repeated her name several times before she gasped and then turned to look at him. He realized what he had done; he had seen this before in soldiers who had been in combat. The pounding of feet in the hall told him that Ax and Val had arrived.

“Captain!” Axtell called out. The knob rattled and the door was thrown open to reveal Axtell and Valdez, weapons ready.

“It’s ok,” Hathaway said to them as he held Brandon in his arms. Both soldiers looked at their sergeant and at the sweat soaked captain clothed only in a brown t-shirt and thermal bottoms. Valdez closed the door, pushing Axtell out of the room. Hathaway slowly rocked Brandon as she held him tight and cried into his chest. He moved one hand to the back of her head and softly rubbed.

“It’s ok, captain. You’re among friends,” he said as her body shook. “No one is going to hurt you,” he said softly. He felt wetness on his chest as she sniffled into his shirt. She took a few calming breaths.

“Thank you, sergeant. I’m fine now,” Brandon said but made no effort to release him or move out of his arms. Hathaway moved to release her but she hugged him harder.

“No, please don’t go.”

“Ok.”

He held her and felt her warm breath on his chest.

“Tell me what we’re doing,” she said.

“We’re holding each other.”

“No. I mean what we’re going to do here. Are we staying here or are we moving on?”

Hathaway nodded slightly.

“If we stay here, we’re going to need more supplies. Defenses, evacuation routes. More personnel would be nice. And we’re probably going to need to build a latrine.”

Brandon pushed away from his chest and looked up at him.

“A latrine?”

“Oh yeah,” he said with a grin. “It’s just a matter of time before the four of us overwork the septic system here.”

“No way,” Brandon said as she looked at him.

“Yes way. Ma’am,” Hathaway said, trying to distance himself and retain some decorum yet knowing somehow that it was futile.

“I have a first name, sergeant,” she said, resting her head back on his chest.

“Yes ma’am, I know that.”

“It wouldn’t hurt you to use it sometime.”

“No, ma’am. Yes, it would. We need to maintain separation of ranks. Too much familiarity and we get chaos.” He felt the hard points of her nipples press against his stomach. He tried to get his mind off that feeling by attempting to recall the UCMJ articles in numerical order. That wasn’t working so he began to picture in his mind how to disassemble the M240 in the other room. He was disgusted with how he was reacting to holding a female. After all she had been through, she didn’t need this. He felt the tingle of arousal leave him when he remembered what had happened to her.

Brandon leaned back and looked at him.

“Sergeant, that’s bullshit. We’ve danced around this issue for months. I, we, have to work together. It’s required,” she said then looked away and studied the wall. “At least I think it is.”

“Ma’am,” Hathaway started to say. Brandon shot him a sideways look.

“Angelina,” he corrected himself. “This isn’t a good idea. Familiarization leads to fraternization. And between enlisted and officers that are in the same chain of command is not only illegal it’s a very bad idea.” Hathaway could smell the shampoo she had used. They had ransacked a small motel on the way here and took all the small bottles of shampoo, conditioner, soap, and cleaning supplies. Brandon looked at him.

“We’re not in the same chain of command. You’re National Guard and I’m regular Army. Big distinction there and two separate chains of command.”

“True,” Hathaway said. “But changing our professional relationship is still a bad idea.”

Brandon leaned closer, her eyes hard and squinting

“We’re not changing our professional relationship,” Brandon said. “I just want to be held. Nothing more. This is not an invitation for you to jump my bones. I just want to be held.”

“Is that an order, ma’am?” Hathaway asked with a grin.

“I can make it one, if you’d prefer.”

“No ma’am. I think I can manage this just fine,” Hathaway said as he held Brandon tight. He thought he heard her softly mutter
asshole
but he wasn’t sure.

In the main part of the house, Axtell and Valdez were in the kitchen.

“You think that Top and the captain are, you know, knocking boots?” Axtell asked.

“I don’t think anything. I’m not going to assume anything unless I personally see action that confirms said activity,” Valdez said. “Even then, it’s their business, not ours. The captain, she’s been through some serious shit. We don’t know what she went through before we found her but I kind of doubt that’s what’s going on in there.”

Valdez had never told Axtell what he and Hathaway had found when they rescued Brandon from her captors. That was the first time he had fired his rifle at another human. The infected didn’t count in his book as human. They were hostiles and as long as they went down when shot there were no problems. But, when he had shot two of Brandon’s captors? That had been different. He didn’t know why, but he had actually felt good about it.

***