Capshaw's First Command (2 page)

             
The sounds of their boots on concrete echoing in the stairwell were unnerving. It didn’t matter how many times they breached a cleared a building, Brian was never convinced they’d gotten them all. He trusted Riley as much as he trusted anyone, and Nathan more than any other living being, but the old fear boiled back up.

             
The same fear he’d felt at the barricades.

Then, Day
Six of the Rising, the South Barricade

              “This isn’t happening… this can’t be happening,” Captain Steven Minnelli kept muttering. He was standing in the open hatch of his command hummer and watching in shock as the barricades were hammered by wave after wave of the risen dead. The man had been acting stranger and more disconnected as the chain of command developed more gaps than links.

             
“Sir we need to pull back,” Lieutenant Capshaw said for the hundredth time in the last six hours.  He was exhausted and covered in a mixture of sweat and zombie gore, he’d just finished a ten hour rotation at the barricades. “We are losing too many soldiers down here. If we fall back to the north we can use the bridge as a funnel to mow down the dead instead of trying to be a tiny cork in this massive bottle.”

             
Instead of responding, the Captain picked up his sat phone and dialed the same number he’d been trying to contact for two days. It was the direct line to the Generals office in Lansing and the last contact had been fragmentary and useless. But the Captain kept dialing.

             
“Sir, I don’t think now—” Capshaw never had a chance to finish.

             
Captain Minnelli had his sidearm out and pointed at the young Lieutenant’s head in half a heartbeat. “Lieutenant Capshaw when I want your opinion I will tell you what it is,” the terrified sounding officer said. His hands shook and Capshaw was sure his CO was about to kill him.

             
Then both men froze.

             
The unmistakable sound of a safety being switched off filled the air.

             
“Captain I know you’re as tired as the rest of us and god knows you have a lot on your shoulders but I think you might want to holster your weapon,” the icy calm voice of Corporal Nathan Hacker said.

             
Minnelli and Capshaw both turned to see Hacker with his M4 Carbine leveled at the Captains chest. The young man was covered in the same mixture of sweat and gore that coated Capshaw and the other soldiers at the barricade. In contrast Captain Minnelli’s uniform, while sweat stained and crumpled, was relatively clean.

             
“Corporal, shoulder your weapon and get your ass back down to the barricade,” Minnelli ordered never moving his pistol from Capshaw’s direction. “Do it now and I’ll forget you just pulled a weapon on a superior officer.”

             
“No sir, if you don’t lower your weapon I will put three rounds in your chest,” Nathan said, his face was hard and cold. The racist humor and smartassed attitude of six days earlier were gone. That Nathan Hacker died as the world around him dissolved. The Lieutenant had stood side by side with the Guard troops while the Captain had remained safe in the rear. Every man and woman on the line knew which officer they trusted.

             
“You’ll be court-martialed for this,” Captain Minnelli hissed slipping his weapon back in its holster. “We shoot traitors in time of war.”

             
“Then maybe I should have shot you,” Nathan replied lowering his rifle and turning to return back to the barricade. There was work to do and the last thing he needed to do was to spend time screwing around with this coward. “You should probably head back north sir, the barricades won’t hold much longer. It’d be horrible if something happened to you.”

             
It happened fast.

             
“Hacker, down!” Capshaw yelled.

             
Nathan whipped around to see the Captain unholstering his weapon once more. Nathan dropped to the hot cracked asphalt of the bridges road bed and leveled his rifle at Minnelli. He never had a chance to fire.

             
A single burst of rifle fire slammed into Captain Minnelli’s head. The man looked shocked as his brain matter was loosed from the opposite side of his skull and he crumpled across the top of the hummer.

             
Nathan looked to Lieutenant Capshaw and could see the smoke rising from the muzzle of his rifle. The man no longer looked like the fresh faced young officer he’d been when this started. Now he looked like a warrior.

             
“Sir,” Nathan said getting up from the ground. “Thanks for that.”

             
“That man was a piss poor officer before the dead started trying to eat us,” Capshaw said in way of an answer. “You’re worth a hundred of him.”

             
Nathan swelled with pride but said nothing.

             
“We need to move north, help me move this piece of shit so I can get to the command radio,” Brian ordered.

             
Nathan hurried over. His commanding officer needed a hand.

Now, Duluth City Hall, Basement

              “This place doesn’t officially exist, it’s not part of the building’s underground blueprints hence the dedicated stairwell,” Riley said opening the heavy door at the bottom. “You haven’t seen anything like this outside of television and movies Major.”

             
The stairs had taken them down five flights and Brian was sure they were below any other part of the City Hall’s basement space. It all looked old and in poor repair as they descended. Then the door opened and cool white light flooded the landing and caused Brian to shield his eyes from the glare.

             
“What the fuck?” Capshaw whispered once his vision equalized.

             
“My thoughts exactly,” Riley said quietly.

             
“This looks like something out of Fallout,” Nathan said speaking for the first time since they’d entered the City Hall.

             
Brain looked at Riley and the two men broke out in laughter.             

             
“You’re not far off Hacker,” Riley said gesturing for the other two soldiers to enter the room. “I honestly never thought places like this existed.”

             
The room, despite the stained area where Brian assumed the station monitor had died, was antiseptically clean. The room was a combination compact living space and high tech computer station. There were several open doors in the room and Brian could see a bathroom and some storage rooms.

             
“Why’d she kill herself?” Nathan asked. “This place has enough supplies for years.”

             
“Is this equipment still operating?” he asked looking to Riley with a raised eyebrow. “If it’s not working this was a waste of time.”

             
“Yeah it’s working but most of it is so highly encrypted that we don’t even know how to start breaking it,” Riley replied, then he reached over and touched a flashing icon on the main touch screen. “But there is this. Hacker I think this might answer your question as well.”

             
The screen was filled with the image of a young woman. She appeared to be dressed in the tattered components of a business suit favored by federal agents. Her skin was pale and there was a quaver to her voice.

“This is NSA Agent Jillian Walker, it has been twenty-seven days since the dead began to rise and I was ordered to lock myself in this hub station. It has been two days since my last contact with anyone in my chain of command. When that last contact took place I was given orders I cannot morally follow and have cut links to both Colorado Springs and Anchorage. Things have fallen apart and I refuse to be part of what they are doing.”

              She coughed and when her hand came into view the bloody bandage on her wrist was clearly visible. She realizes this and holds her arm out for the camera to get a better view.

“I made the mistake of checking out the upper levels this morning and paid the price. I am leaving this message unencrypted for anyone to find. If you are watching this I only have one request.”

              She coughs hard again and the men can see the blood vessels in her eyes breaking. They’ve all seen this a hundred times in the last year. Agent Jillian Walker was almost done with life.

“I have a daughter, her name is Hannah and she lives with her father in Chicago. I know it’s a long shot but if you ever meet her can you please tell her that her mother stayed at her post but never stopped loving her and thinking about her.”

              Jillian holds up a picture of a young girl with braces and pigtails.

“The dead are bad but what is coming is worse. Stay away from Alaska and don’t trust the liars in Colorado and Arizona. The Fleet might be trust worthy, I’m not sure.”

              She doubles over coughing even harder.

“One last thing, when you find me please bury me… I don’t want to be burned.”
 

             
The camera turns off.

             
“Well that was cryptic,” Nate said. He then walked to the store rooms and began doing a rough inventory

             
“What did you do with her body?” Brian asked.

             
“She’s body bagged with our two losses. We’re going to take her back to the Island for burial.” He looked a little self-conscious. “It just seems like the right thing to do.”

             
Brian nodded agreement. “We’re going to need to get some people down here who know computer systems and how to break them. We need to know what she was talking about, because if it jibes with what the Alaskan’s told you, we’ve wasted too much time as it is.”

             
“This place is just one of the installations on the Senator’s list,” Riley replied. “I think we have a big job ahead of us.”

             
Gunfire could be heard upstairs as a straggling zombie was put down.

             
“So what else is new?” Brian asked.

To Be Continued…

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