Up From the Depths (17 page)

Chapter 36

Safeguard, New Mexico

“Well, that was fun,” Durst said after several minutes of silence.

When he and Burnett had returned from Safeguard with the ammunition as requested then refilled the tires on the CUCV, the rest of the group had been waiting for them. Colby had stacked several pallets for them in one of the empty bays then helped them load what they could into the back of the SOTV and the CUCV.

Stone had glared at Colby the entire time then hobbled over to the passenger seat of the SOTV, climbed in and slammed the door. He stared straight ahead and drummed his fingers on the seat while the rest of the group loaded the freight.

Durst looked over his shoulder from the driver’s seat at Burnett and Drewett. Both of the women were looking out the windows and not talking. He looked back at Stone who was frowning behind his sunglasses.

“What happened while we were gone?” he asked. Stone cast a sideways look at him then turned his attention back to the road, not saying a word.

“Anyone? C’mon, you had to talk about something while we were gone,” Durst said.

“I got shot. Again. This time with a fucking arrow,” Stone said. "Can you believe that shit? A fucking arrow.”

“What?” Durst asked. When he and Burnett had been inside the freight office of the warehouse, his angle of the events that took place on the main floor was limited. He had seen Mecceloni pull Stone behind a loaded pallet but hadn’t seen anything else. He hadn’t ventured out onto the main floor at all. When Mecceloni had told him the plan, he and Burnett had left without knowing what had transpired.

“An arrow,” Stone said, bringing up the item in question and showing Durst.

“It didn’t hit the bone. Quit your whining,” Drewett said from the backseat.

“It still fucking hurts,” Stone said.

“He could have killed you,” Durst said. “That would have hurt more.”

“Oh, hardy fucking har,” Stone said.

“Yes. That might have happened,” Drewett said. “But, he didn’t seem like he really wanted to. We were apparently in his sights for quite a while and all he did was shoot the pallets.”

“And me,” Stone said.

“And John,” Drewett agreed, shaking her head. “I’m thinking that he was kind of shocked, maybe amazed, that there were other people that had survived.”

“Funny way of showing it,” Stone grumbled.

In the CUCV, Mecceloni was lost in thought as he followed the SOTV back to Safeguard.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Cassie said.

“Colby has that place secured,” Mecceloni said.

“Yeah, he sure does.”

“There’re a lot of supplies there that we could really use,” Mecceloni said. “It would be beneficial to work out some sort of trade agreement.”

Cassie looked at him strangely. In all the time she had known him, Mecceloni was more of the action kind of guy not someone who would sit down and formulate a plan.

“Think he’d go for it?” she asked.

“Colby or Stone? I don’t know. It’s worth a try. It would be a lot safer than trying to forage in Clovis.”

“No kidding,” Cassie agreed. “And his kids are polite. The girl who showed me where the supplies were was asking me what it was like outside and kept calling me Miss.”

Mecceloni looked at her. Cassie had a grin on her face. Something that he had rarely seen her with outside of Safeguard. Turning his attention back to the road, he thought about their relationship. Was it really a relationship or was it just a set of circumstances that had thrown them together? In truth, this was the longest relationship he had been in. Most of his encounters were with women like Cassie or what she used to do.
Was she still doing that?
He thought. After all these months, was she still plying her former profession? He doubted that was the case. His attention was brought back to the moment when the SOTV in front hit the brakes and slid a little sideways on the asphalt. Mecceloni braked then eased forward until he was even with the other vehicle. They had stopped on a small rise. Below them, moving across the desert was a large, black mass partially hidden by the low lying dust cloud.

“What is that?” Cassie asked.

“Not sure.”

The rear passenger door of the SOTV opened and Burnett stepped out then climbed into the back of the truck. Removing binoculars from a pocket on her vest, she leaned forward resting her elbows on the roof of the truck and peered at the mass. Mecceloni rolled down his window.

“What is it?”

“It looks like people. But there’s something off about them,” Burnett said as she dialed in the focus. The group was shirtless and wearing black hoods with openings cut for their eyes and mouth. But what stuck out as unusual was that they all carried some kind of home-made whip with multiple tails that they constantly slapped their backs with. Burnett looked closer, all the backs of this group was lined with red tracks and torn flesh. They were walking, chanting something that she couldn’t make out and scourging themselves every few steps. She panned down the line seeing appliance cords, ropes with screws and glass embedded in it, cables taken from bicycle locks along with actual horse whips that this group used on themselves. Everyone was dressed the same in some kind of dingy white robes speckled with red, as they chanted and whipped themselves. The echo of each whip as it hit bare skin traveled to where she was, leaning over the roof of the vehicle, watching in shock and disbelief. In the dust thrown up behind this first group, she saw shadows and shapes moving. Where the scourging group moved rhythmically, this other group didn’t. The dust cleared enough for her to see.

“Shit! They’re infected!” She quickly stuffed the optics into her vest and climbed back inside the SOTV.

“What do we do?” Cassie asked as she brought her P90 up and checked the magazine.

Mecceloni was silent as he watched the horde of infected pass across the highway and disappear into the desert, trailing after the first group.

“We wait,” he finally said. Cassie was silent as they watched the mass of infected move across the desert below them.

“Think things will ever go back to normal?” she asked.

“What’s normal anymore?” Mecceloni countered.

She turned and looked at him.

“You know what I mean. These things have to die somehow. We can’t spend the rest of our lives living in a hole in the ground and only coming out of supplies.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe this is the new world. Maybe this is how it will be from now on.”

Cassie was silent as she thought about what he had said. Since their arrival at Safeguard, and after settling in, she had thought about all that had happened. This new reality that some of their group had apparently accepted wasn’t a reality that she expected. Her plans hadn’t factored in the end of civilization and the arrival of whatever the hell these things were. She knew that these infected had once been normal people. Just looking at them you could tell that. But, their actions, their savagery, the constant tension of being on guard and watching every single doorway, every parked car and every house for signs of infected. This wasn’t the way the world worked.

“John, we need to get out of here,” she said.

“We’ll wait for these things to go then we’ll get going again.”

“No. That’s not what I mean,” she said shaking her head. “We need to get away somewhere. I don’t know where, just somewhere. Somewhere these things aren’t at.”

“There may not be any place these things aren’t at,” he said. “You saw the news before it all ended. There were outbreaks everywhere.”

“This isn’t supposed to be happening,” she said, lowering her head and shaking it slowly. “There isn’t supposed to be children armed with bows and arrows and living in a warehouse. That isn’t how families are supposed to be living.”

Mecceloni leaned over and put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to him. She grabbed him and hugged him tight, sobbing into his chest. He softly rubbed her back.

“I know,” he said. “This isn’t the world we’re used to. But, it’s the way it is now. We either adapt or we die.”

***

Chapter 37

Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM), Washington State

“Supply convoy is away,” the radio headset Holroyd wore crackled with the message. He didn’t acknowledge it as he was handing up a fresh ammo can to Upton. The gun trucks had led the infected away from the supply trucks and deeper into JBLM. He mentally joked that anyone could follow them by the trail of belt links, spent brass, and infected bodies that littered the roads. Reaching up he changed channels.

“Raven-6, Texas-6 how copy?”

There was a burst of static.

“Raven-6, Texas-6 Actual how copy?” he tried again.

“Texas-6, Raven-6 copies. SITREP?”

“Raven-6, we are 2 klicks from Broadway and heading for Route Idaho,” Holroyd reported. “We are in contact with heavy numbers of hostiles.”

“Copy that, Texas-6. Support is 30 mikes out.”

“Texas-6 copies.”

He switched channels back to the team net.

“Support is not going to get to us in time. We need to disengage and affect our own extraction.” He looked at the men in his vehicle.

“Hoo-ah?”

“Hoo-ah,” Sullivan and Upton replied together.

He tallied the other gun trucks. All vehicles were present and accounted for but ammunition was running low. They had a ways to go before they could leave the base and catch up with the supply convoy. If the number of infected they had encountered so far was an indication of what to expect before they could leave the base, they were going to need more ammo.

***

Chapter 38

Museum of Natural History, New York City

Ski stepped to one side of the utility tunnel and looked at his watch. The civilians from the museum continued to move along the maintenance catwalks on both sides of the tunnel. He estimated that they had traveled about four miles with ten more to go before they reached the south end of Manhattan Island.

“We go any slower, we’ll be moving backwards in time,” Pruitt said quietly as he stepped into the same alcove as Ski.

“We’ll make it there with about a half hour to spare,” Ski said. “You see Wiener?”

“Yeah. He’s somewhere up there with that priest, McFadden,” Pruitt said.

“Watch him. He’s a bit squirrely.”

“Like he was my own,” Pruitt said before he moved off. Ski looked back to the end of the column. DeMillio was bringing up the rear with two squads of Marines herding the stragglers along and assisting those that were at the end of their endurance. Behind those two squads were the last of the Marines forming a rear security element and safeguarding four of Doyle’s engineers who were laying charges at intersections and choke points.
Just like Doyle
, Ski thought.
Always thinking the worst
. He stepped back into the flow of traffic.

Up ahead, walking with McFadden, Colonel Richard Wiener kept casting glances at the tunnel walls. He was sure that the walls were getting closer and the passageway tighter. With all these people down here, space was limited. He reached down to belt and rubbed the holster of his M9. That action had a calming effect. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath unaware that McFadden was watching him. He opened his eyes, noticed the old priest’s gaze and pasted a confident smile on his face.

“We’ll make it, Father.”

McFadden nodded then stopped to help a young woman with her children. The little boy had stumbled. McFadden went one knee and helped him regain his footing. When he looked back up, Wiener had disappeared into the mass exodus of survivors.

Luzetski stopped and waited for DeMillio. He nodded to the Russian contingent as the passed. He noted Arkady still carrying the HK21 machine gun. The rest of the group was just as heavily armed with variation of the Kalashnikov family of rifles and several models of the HK MP5 submachine gun. DeMillio’s Marines herded the civilians ahead of them and made sure that the group kept moving. The Marine officer nodded to him then stepped aside.

“Anyone behind you?” Ski asked.

“No,” the Marine said, shaking his head. “That’s all the stragglers.” He glanced back at his rear security element and part of Doyle’s combat engineers as they paused and set more explosives.

“If we have to move fast, it’s not going to be pretty,” DeMillio said.

“Yeah. Not a whole lot of room to maneuver,” Ski said.

“We’re heading to the absolute limit of our explored perimeter,” DeMillio said. “We haven’t gone further than ten blocks from the ferry terminal.”

“Ten blocks?” Ski asked. “Shit. That means surface streets for the last leg.”

“Oh yeah. Not looking forward to that. The recon boys are supposed to meet us. They’ve been outside and topside all this time,” DeMillio said.

Ski remained silent. He knew firsthand what it was like in the city. Neither of them saw Wiener who had stopped in an unlit alcove. The National Guard officer listened to their conversation then held his breath as they moved on and he was passed by more of the civilians. Soon, he would be alone in the dark. He stifled a giggle as he felt the tunnel walls close in on him.

***