Carlie Simmons (Book 5): One Final Mission (6 page)

Chapter 12

The flight over the Pacific had leveled out
and the ride was smoother. Eliza sat with her eyes transfixed on a metal bolt
on the floor, her mind drifting back to her previous life in Tucson, nearly
twelve months ago.

“Hey, you hypnotized or just daydreaming?”
said Amy, who was sitting next to her.

“Just thinking about this little café I
used to eat at on Speedway, off campus.”

“You mean the Roadrunner?”

“Yeah, actually. You’d been there?”

“A few times. My friends and I on the
ambulance crew would go there after a late-night shift sometimes.”

“Hard to believe I was sitting in a booth in
that diner highlighting terms in my biology book for a test. It was a year ago,
August 25, this very day.”

“While I was stuck in the company Suburban
outside the Roadrunner
,
profiling potential bad guys and eating fast
food,” said Carlie, who shouted from the bench across from them.

Amy leaned forward, resting her forearms
across her knees. “And I was getting ready to teach my first class to a bunch
of new EMTs and then going shopping for a new Subaru.”

Jared slid over in his seat, moving up
closer to Amy. “And I had just gotten done casing a few upscale homes in north
Tucson…you know, the kind with the Spanish-tiled roofs and kidney-shaped pools
in the backyard.” He interlaced his fingers into hers, staring into her eyes.
“But I found a real treasure with this fine young maiden,” he said in a
sonorous voice while issuing a half-grin.

The two women frowned and shot their
smirks back at Jared while trying to contain their chuckles. 

“Shane, where were you?” said Eliza.

He looked up from his notebook and peered at
Eliza then floated his gaze over to Carlie. “Finishing up a desert op and then
having my ass handed to me the next day by a female shooter that I’ll never
forget.” Carlie folded her arms and looked out the window, her face taut.

Amy saw Matias sitting quietly on the
bench on the other side of Jared. “What about you
—
what were you up to
last year on this day?”

“Finishing up a deployment along the
border with Shane. I was getting ready to head home to Phoenix to spend a few
weeks with my wife and two kids.” Matias averted his eyes and looked down at
his tan hands then flexed his right fist, staring at his wedding band.

As the plane continued its voyage west
over the Pacific Ocean, the cabin grew silent inside as each person’s thoughts
probed the alcoves of their souls, reflecting on the memories of their old
lives and the new world that had since emerged.

Chapter 13

Osaka, Japan

During the eleventh month after the virus
arrived in Japan and when the fruits on the cherry trees in August emerged, the
city of Osaka was still silent. Gone were the rush of crowds, the street
vendors, and the blare of trains. Now the only things that stirred were the
millions of soulless creatures roaming the roads in search of prey. There were
no other humans left other than small, desperate bands of survivors spread
around the country. The Legionnaires’ Disease epidemic that had swept through
the nation prior to the global pandemic had further ravaged the population once
it was left unchecked and Japan had suffered far more greatly than other
nations. Within a week of the outbreak, the country was fractured and thrust
into third-world living conditions; within a month the entire social fabric had
collapsed and the cities went dark. But the priorities of life hadn’t changed.
It still revolved around staying warm, dry, fed, rested, and safe from
predators.

With the vast die-off, there had been no
shortage of canned goods, dried rice, and other staples but protein was sorely
lacking. From their hideout in the Shinsekai Aquatics Center across the bay from
downtown Osaka, Shiro and his tiny band of ten fighters used small boats which
they put into the bay for a few days each month to net fish that they would
then pickle and preserve. Nora’s experience working catamarans in younger days
on the Atlantic had served them well and provided her, the sole geijin, with a
means of contributing to their tight-lipped group.

Early radio reports from around the globe
indicated that there were large clusters of survivors in some countries. Intermittent
broadcasts from Copenhagen, Seoul, Halifax, and an army base near Seattle had reported
refugee camps that had sprung up, their walls fortified by the vestiges of the
military.

Occasionally, at night, there was a faint
white glow from the mainland to their south where the last nuclear reactor was located,
which increased their concern that another location away from the mainland
would be in their best interest. Most of their days were spent in the aquatics
center with bi-monthly resupply trips to Osaka, using the extensive maze of
underground tunnels to avoid the abominable creatures above. The aquatics
center’s hot springs provided fresh water, and an array of solar panels on the
roof enabled them to have a few hours of electricity each night.

Every few weeks or so, a couple of them ventured
across the bay at night to an isolated dock near the subway exit. Once inside
they made their way through utility corridors and snaked through an abandoned
power station until they arrived at the service passageway that paralleled the central
tracks. Most nocturnal excursions involved them repeating the same travel route
until they were underneath a derelict grocery distribution center. There they
obtained more canned goods, Soba noodles, medical items, pediatric supplies,
batteries, and sometimes even spent a few hours longingly scanning the streets
for any survivors.

***

The two nearly silent Yamasaki motorcycles
sped along the subway tunnel, the headlights providing some respite from the
darkness. Shiro was in the lead with Yoshi trailing slightly behind to his
right. The two men had outfitted six motorcycles procured from the streets
above and kept a pair stored in different locations throughout the tunnels.
Each was equipped with an array of weapons, spare fuel and parts, and trauma
kits. Shiro had welded four-foot sections of angled rebar onto the front wheel
frames which acted as lances for any creature in their way. Tucked into the
sides of the bikes were several Samurai swords, lead pipes, and spear guns
along with a bamboo quiver of spare darts. Yoshi had fitted the mufflers of each
with sound-dampening devices made from improvised grass-cutter mufflers he had
obtained from a golf course. In addition, they had fixed up a small railway
cart used by maintenance workers. This was hand-operated and the size of a van
but with a flat bed. The cart allowed them to haul large quantities of supplies
along the vast network of the subway utility routes beneath the main terminals.
The see-saw lever in the middle of the cart was laborious to operate so they
only used it for bulky items.

Shiro took a deep breath of the musty air
and exhaled. He was counting down the days until the end of August, when the
trade winds would be in their favor and Nora could sail the group to one of the
distant islands in the Pacific to see if they could locate something that would
provide them with a fresh start. Then he could be free of the goryo
—
the
evil that roamed the land. Shiro thought the creatures were the embodiment of
malicious spirits that had returned for revenge. In past conversations, he
mentioned to the group that it was only the powerful spirits of the mountain
yamabushi that could put the evil to rest but most of the less traditional
members of his group just nodded respectfully at his beliefs.

It was nighttime above them so movement
through the city would be to their advantage. With the goryo’s eyesight
decaying, the creatures relied on triangulation for locating their prey, using
sound and smell to pinpoint a human’s location. Shiro remembered the early
weeks of June when the goryo milled around clumsily as if they were
blindfolded. He thought maybe their end was near
—
that the mountain
spirits had finally come to release the land from this evil. But, in observing
them, he realized that they were slowly adapting to using their other senses.
It slowed the creatures down temporarily but the fact that there were so many undead
still made any daytime movement perilous. June was a particularly good month
for laying in provisions and they got around easier, only losing one of their
band.

After several miles of weaving through the
labyrinthine passages, they arrived at the tunnel’s end, near a set of concrete
steps that led up to a steel door. Both men turned their motorcycles around and
turned off the engines. Shiro slung two spear guns over his back, alongside his
black-handled katana sword, while Yoshi gathered a spear gun and an arm-length
hollow steel pipe. Yoshi pulled out a plastic vial of blended fish guts and
dabbed a few drops around his jacket collar and pants cuffs then handed it to
Shiro. The odor was similar to the rotting trash and remains lining the streets
above and would cloak their scent.

Shiro trotted up the stairs, his headlamp
lighting the way. He listened for movement beyond the barrier and then slid the
padlock and chain from the door. Peering through the opening, he saw the
moonlit silhouettes of several creatures ambling along the sidewalk beyond the
window in the lobby of the subway conductor’s office. He squatted low and
scurried up to a ticket counter and then made his way along the stuccoed wall
until he was at the rear exit.

He slowly opened the door and slipped
outside while holding it for Yoshi, who placed a small wooden wedge in the
doorframe to keep it slightly ajar. They always had wedges with them for
securing doorways and never entered a place unless they had at least three
familiar escape routes available. The alleyway behind the subway administrative
building was fenced off on both sides but the men still scanned the path to the
distribution center two blocks ahead.

They trotted down the long alley, stopping
beside a dumpster near the terminus with the street. Shiro pulled an IPod and
speaker from his pack and turned it on so the pre-recorded music of Taylor
Swift was blaring. He grimaced at the grating sounds before he shoved the
device into a white tube sock and then flung it over the fence into a clump of
raggedy bushes beside a park. It landed next to a dozen other bulbous socks
stuck in the brush but whose devices were long since spent.

Shiro and Yoshi then sprinted in the
opposite direction towards the distant fence while zombies began flowing around
the outskirts of the buildings towards the grating music. They waited behind a
pile of toppled pallets, watching the undead denizens of Osaka flood through
the streets enroute to the noise. Shiro scanned the alley across from them,
staring at the distribution center ahead, partly shrouded in the shadow of the
immense hospital to the right.

Chapter 14

Shane looked down at his watch,
specifically at the date of August 25, once more.
The day the page turned on
humanity’s future. Could it really have been only a year ago this fucking
nightmare started? It seems like this is the only world I’ve known—like the
other one was just a dream.
He glanced over at Carlie, who was half-awake.
She had hardly looked at him the entire trip. He wanted to move beside her and
pull her into his arms. How he longed for the tension between them to slip
away.
Hell, pandemic or not, relationship problems between men and women
haven’t changed. I should have talked with her before all of this—let her know
what I was thinking. Shit, what was I thinking?
He shook his head.
Only
about doing the right thing, once again. Take one for the team like always.
He clenched his fists and then forced himself up and walked towards the
cockpit.
Just give me my rifle and show me the enemy and I will destroy him—time
to get on with this fight already and stop lingering in the past.

Compton the pilot and his navigator Hadley
were discussing their approach vector when Shane entered the narrow confines.
He could see downtown Osaka in the distance, the derelict forms of skyscrapers
jutting up like extinguished candles, their forms backlit by an intense white
light emanating from the north. The streets were pulsing with movement,
darkened forms hobbling along the litter-strewn pavement. Shane had witnessed
the carnage in other cities laid waste by the zombie hordes but his eyes
widened at the sheer numbers of putrescent cannibals below. They resembled
millions of pollywogs, each one wriggling alongside the others while searching
for something to tear apart.
My God, this country was hit hard. So many
people living in already cramped cities—the fatality rate must have been out of
control. No wonder this place has been silent. It’s a fucking tomb.

As they drifted south past the central hub
of downtown, the cityscape became obscured by dense fog that was roiling in
from the bay to their right. Shane returned his attention to the white glow out
the right window and coming from the distant city of Kyoto. “Looks like a
nuclear reactor on the outskirts of the city that Duncan mentioned
—
Japan’s
got a lot of those as I recall,” said Shane.

“That’s the airfield up ahead,” the pilot
said, raising an outstretched finger to a distant peninsula of land near the
water. “Now, if they can only turn on the runway lights for us, this’ll be a
smooth landing,” he nervously chuckled.

“Set us down as close to the hangar as
possible. Duncan informed me earlier that the runway had shown few creatures around
it as of a few days ago,” said Shane, straining his eyes out to the horizon
then glancing down at his watch. “The sun will be up within the hour and we
need to be in the boats by then.” Shane knew that success depended on the golden
rules of combat: speed, simplicity, and boldness. Soon they would be on the
ground where every second would count and any victory would revolve around his
well-honed team executing his orders.

Shane returned to the main cabin and sat
down across from Carlie while buckling into his seat.

“I’ve got Commander Ellis on the radio.
He’s still firm on his ETA here,” said Carlie, handing the comms device to
Shane and then sinking back into her seat and closing her eyes.

“Roger that.” He put the receiver up to
his mouth. “Commander, this is Shane Colter again. What can you tell me about this
nuclear reactor?”