Day by Day Armageddon: Shattered Hourglass (9 page)

“I guess that’ll come in handy in a few weeks, huh?” Kil probed.

“Yeah, maybe sooner. Sit tight—you’ll be happy to know that the navy still runs on PowerPoint in the apocalypse. We’ll need to boot up our systems and log in to the standalone JWICS computer before we start. Might take a minute.”

Leaning over to Kil, Saien whispered, “What’s JWICS?”

“It’s another Internet, one you’ve never seen and likely never heard of. It wasn’t a secret that the government had it before this went down. It’s just a secret what information is shared on it. Nothing too conspiratorial; back in the days before this, you could
get most of it from mainstream news or other online sources.”

“Like who killed Kennedy and all that?”

“No way,” Kil said, briefly reminded of his mother. She’d had a habit of asking him about those kinds of conspiracy theories, considering his vocation. “Nothing like that, just regular old sensitive information. The good stuff was on the White House Situation Room LAN or on some intranet in some unmarked Northern Virginia building. I never wanted access to that. Fewer fingernails I’d lose if I got shot down somewhere.”

Monday stepped to the front of the room, interrupting Kil. “Good afternoon. For those that don’t know me, my name is Commander Monday. I’m going to talk to you for a bit before you go through the formal read-in process. I can count the number of times I’ve given this brief on one hand. For the four of you from our special-operations community—I want to thank you for your service.”

One of the men nodded a response from the back of the room.

Monday gestured to Kil and Saien. “Also, for those of you that don’t know . . . these two survived on the mainland for almost a year. Pretty remarkable, considering the odds.”

“Bullshit,” one of the other men muttered.

Monday continued. “Let’s get to business. It may seem a little unorthodox for a naval intelligence officer to just come out and ask, but please raise your hand if you believe in God.”

Neither Kil nor Saien raised their hands; only one from the other group broke from the majority. Kil wanted to, he just wasn’t quite ready.

“I see. I suppose that might make this at least a little easier in some ways. You see, what I’m about to tell you cannot be untold. I’m going to be saying that again in the next few minutes. You must understand that from childhood to adolescence to adulthood many of you were raised on certain paradigms and unshakeable principles—established cultural norms. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, what goes up must come down, the house always wins, etcetera, etcetera. Sometimes when we are exposed to template-altering data that cannot be refuted, it has odd effects on the mind. Do any of you remember the day you discovered that there was no Santa Claus?”

Everyone in the room nodded that they remembered, even though Saien didn’t.

“Well, imagine that multiplied a few dozen times.” Monday paused for a long minute, looking at each and every man in the room. “This may be the last time I say it or I may say it a hundred more times, it depends on if I think you need to hear it again. Once you are told this, you cannot be untold. Do all of you understand this?”

They all nodded as if they might, but Monday didn’t seem so sure.

“Okay, that’s it. You’re about to get punched in your philosophical gut. I’ve reviewed your records, all but yours, Saien, but we’ve already discussed that. You’re only seeing this by the direct authorization of the admiral, and subsequently, this boat’s captain. If it were up to me, you wouldn’t be here, I want that to be clear.”

Saien gave no reaction to Monday’s statement. The four special operators whispered back and forth. Kil couldn’t understand what they were saying.

“All right, here goes.”

Monday activated the display. A yellow banner at the top and bottom of the large, wall-mounted LED screen showcased numerous warnings.

“The overall classification of this briefing is top secret, SI, TK, G, H, SAP Horizon, and everything else you can think of. I’d like to welcome all of you to the Horizon Program.” Monday clicked to the next slide.

08 JUL 1947—Recovery Activity

Uintah Basin, Utah

T O P S E C R E T // CRITIC CRITIC CRITIC

YANKEE 08 JUL 1947

FROM: SECRETARY OF WAR

TO: PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

SUBJECT: RECOVERY ACTIVITY

VESSEL RECOVERED. FOUR IN CONTAINMENT. ONE ALIVE, EN ROUTE, WRIGHT FIELD.

DECEPTION OPERATION UNDERWAY. DEBRIS STAGED, ROSWELL, NM.

. . . PATTERSON SENDS . . .

T O P S E C R E T // CRITIC CRITIC CRITIC

Minus 70. Cold enough to freeze a man’s bare face in seconds. Life existed here at U.S. Research Outpost Four at the mercy of technology and fifty-five-gallon diesel drums. Nearly a year had passed since the dead broke the known laws of nature and physics. The remaining survivors of the outpost were now inside their second wintering over without resupply. Most of their forty-five-man crew had abandoned the outpost last spring, choosing to hike a hundred miles south to the nearest thin ice and what they hoped might be pockets of surviving civilization. Most of them were never seen again. A few did wander back to the outpost, perhaps out of instinct or habit. They looked the same as all the others: milky white and frosted eyes, heads frozen forward, hungry.

Outpost Four experienced the fall of civilization one high-frequency transmission at a time. High frequency was the only semi-reliable means of communication this far north. The sat-phones had worked in the first months after the anomaly, but they eventually failed as satellite orbits decayed with the rest of technology dependent upon a complex and fragile infrastructure.

There was only one advantage to the brutal and unforgiving winters of the Arctic—they encountered far fewer of the ravenous creatures than those outside the big, cold circle. At first, the dead seemed to be a distant problem—something one heard about over the shortwave or watched in horror on satellite TV. It was not yet a concern or cause for worry here at good ol’ Outpost Four.

In the spring after the anomaly began, one of the researchers passed away from diabetic complications. The shrinking crew fast realized that the anomaly had arrived; it now assaulted their
climate-controlled safe haven. It took a swift ice axe to the head to put the creature down for good, but not before it claimed another life. They tossed the bodies over a two-hundred-and-fifty-foot drop near the outpost. That’s where the dispatched corpses all now went—many bodies, broken and frozen, lay at the bottom of what the survivors nicknamed Clear Conscience Gulch.

Farther south in the real world, people were fighting and dying for their lives against lottery odds of survival. Up north, inside the Arctic Circle, the survivors waged war against low body temperature and constant darkness. They had not seen the golden glow of the sun for weeks and some had private thoughts that they might never do so again. They rationed heating oil and diesel as if it were water on a life raft lost in the Pacific. Everyone knew that they were as good as dead if they didn’t get off this ice rock inside of sixty days. That put them into January—deep winter. No aircraft (if there were any left) would risk the flight, and no man could make the journey south on foot. They had dogs and sleds, but even then, it wouldn’t be enough. They were too far north.

•   •   •

Crusow Ramsay was the unofficial station chief of Outpost Four—leader of what few survivors remained. He wasn’t the oldest or most senior outpost crewman, but he was the most respected. Crusow had an old-sounding name, older than 1950s names like Dick or Florence; it belonged to his grandfather. Thirty-five years ago his father had passed the name on to Crusow without much deliberation. He came from a long line of strong Scottish immigrant men, alpha males who made their own way in life.

His father’s spartan way of showing affection had made Crusow tough, harder than most men. His father had always given the girls leniency, but not Crusow. His sisters had enjoyed the benefit of money when they needed it, free cars, monthly allowances, but not Crusow. It was off to the sawmill at the age of seventeen for him.

Needing money to support his expectant wife, Crusow interviewed for a job that eventually put him where he was now, the cold embrace of the Arctic. There were not many choices during
that dark economic time. They told him that he would only be gone five months per year if he got the job. The cryptic minimum eligibility requirements intrigued him.

Mechanical Engineer with three years machining experience / experience with diesel engines. Single scope background security clearance eligibility a requirement . . .

Outpost Four had its secrets. Most of the research that required an Arctic base camp had been completed decades ago. Officially the outpost had been established to study electromagnetic wave propagation in the northern extremities. Crusow wasn’t a part of the search teams and before everything went to hell, he didn’t give a damn what they were looking for out on the ice. He always thought it strange how they would pack up for a three-day trip, brief the (now dead) outpost commander on where they were headed, and then disappear into the snow, dogs and all.

The story that the outpost members were told was that the teams were looking for Martian rocks. The experts say that Mars was bombarded by countless meteors ages and eons ago and this Martian ejecta eventually found its way to Earth, reentered the atmosphere, and landed somewhere in the Arctic ice.

The team never returned with anything interesting that Crusow knew about. They’d always stow their gear, clean up, and report to the boss. Same story, every time. Crusow never became acquainted with the searchers; they always rotated out every time the military airlift made its rounds.

It didn’t really matter anymore what the teams were searching for out on the ice.

Even before the anomaly, Crusow had believed that the world was on the brink. The economy was on the edge of collapse; unemployment was at 15 percent. Gold was approaching two thousand dollars per troy ounce and collapsing countries were the talk of mainstream news. His goal in the Arctic was simple. If he could just survive one, maybe two wintering overs here he could purchase his retreat out west and raise his family there, free from societal corruption, decay, and full-blown collapse.

Crusow looked up at the stars, a rare waste of time for him since the world ended. He’d lost as much as anyone to this unholy blight. Wife, unborn child, home, everything.

The only things he owned worth anything to him were worn on his belt or slung across his back—a good stag-handled Bowie knife, a 9mm Smith & Wesson M&P pistol, and a well-maintained M-4 carbine. Possessions really didn’t matter anymore, as the world to the south belonged to whoever could survive its challenges. Rolex watch? Sure, if you wanted to risk getting infected crawling around in some mega mall somewhere. Bars of gold? Fort Knox was overrun, but if you could blow the vault, all the gold-plated tungsten you wanted was yours. No one would try to stop you. Money? If you had it, you used it to start fires or you kept it in your wallet to look at and pretend things were normal. It was tough to pretend when the dead walked and tried to eat you, a very frequent occurrence far south, back in the real world.

Crusow did what he could to remain on this side of sanity. He read books, wrote letters to people who were probably already dead, and sometimes prayed. The cold slowly drained energy from the outpost, energy that would not be replaced. Outpost Four was a dying star, about to be cold and void of all things. Crusow’s soul was already approaching absolute zero, closer every time he thought of her.

News of his wife’s fate had come over satellite phone months ago. Things had already devolved worldwide into anarchy. Outpost Four survivors watched the news feeds and listened to the HF broadcasts. Utter chaos filled the airwaves. Rioting overwhelmed the major cities first. People rushed past the massing undead, looting TVs and tablets, bringing them to homes that didn’t even have power.

Under normal circumstances, spouses and next of kin were given Outpost Four’s satellite phone number in the event of family emergency. The survivors took turns at standing watch with the satphone as part of their rotation on the operations center watch bill.

Under world-gone-to-shit circumstances, people still stood the phone watch along with their normal duties, but incoming calls were extremely rare. The reliability of the United States phone network was sporadic in the weeks following the new year and the rise of the undead. It was midnight in February when Crusow’s roommate and best friend, Mark, received the frantic call.

“Hello, it’s Trisha, I need Crusow.”

“Trish, my God, the phones are working there?”

“Goddamnit, Mark, I don’t have time! They’re at the doors and the house is on fire!”

“Okay, okay, I’m running to get him . . . Just wait on the line.”

By the time Crusow made it to the radio room all that remained were Trisha’s screams echoing on the other side of the line and on the other side of the world. She was being torn apart. Crusow collapsed to the floor at hearing his wife’s last words. He lay there long after the fire severed the connection, sending a pulsing tone through the handset. Crusow didn’t move for hours. He wished for death, hoping that the searing pain of grief would take him. It didn’t.

Crusow sat in the operations room with Mark, a close friend he’d made when first starting his career at the outpost. They rationed generator time, as clean diesel was quite literally a non-renewable resource, but they saw limited success with biodiesel. It was dirty, it smelled, and it made Crusow’s job even more arduous, but it helped keep core body temps at or above 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

Crusow grew tired of tearing down, rebuilding, and maintaining the diesel engine that the outpost had designated for biofuel, but he knew that without him, the whole station would be a block of solid ice right about now. The small sense of worth and accomplishment that came every day he kept the station alive gave him purpose—reason to live. He now felt painfully alone. The last person he truly loved was dead, and he hoped she wasn’t walking now. He often wondered if the fire had finished the job, but it hurt thinking about that nearly as much as imagining Trish being one of
them
.