Gnash (12 page)

“Yes sir and the disease also seems to spread easily to a non-infected person if they have any type of broken skin.  Those two soldiers I mentioned were injured in the first day’s fighting with the zombies.  In fact one of the men, both of whom are both fully infected now, was the commander of the original hazardous materials response team that we sent in there.  They’re restrained and Doctor Collins is conducting tests in order to see if the infection can be reversed.  He hasn’t had any luck so far and has even said that if he could reverse the symptoms, they’d probably be on life support for the remainder of their lives due to the extreme destruction of their internal organs.  He’s primarily attempting to develop a vaccine against catching the disease in the first place.

“He’s also reported that the two men with secondary infections appear slightly different than those originally infected,” he continued.  “The coloration of these men are different and they don’t appear to have higher cognitive functions, like the Pentagon employees who were originally infected do.  The originals seem to have the capacity to learn and they are constantly changing their attack techniques each time an attempt fails, in fact, it’s even been reported that they can use clubs as weapons.  The secondary infected seem to only have the capacity to walk and attack with their bodies, not with weapons.” 

“So, if the primary infected not mindless, can we negotiate with them?  Find out what they want?”

“Sir, the only thing they’ve shown so far is that they want normal people dead or infected like them. We’ve also had to segregate the injured men of our strike teams so if they turn, they can be captured easily.  We can’t risk the Medevac of an infected soldier since, so far, this is contained within the Pentagon walls right now.”

“So those men are as good as dead then?”

“Sir, it’s most likely that they will become infected and need to be put down like the others.  However, there is the Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who worked in the Pentagon and was at ground zero for all of this and he’s still uninfected.  The doctor’s been analyzing samples of his blood in an effort to identify anti-bodies against the infection and if there is a way to produce some type of preventative vaccine like I mentioned.”

“Alright Chip, what are my options?”

“Sir, we can either keep moving forward with our current operation or seek out all of the infected and have them destroyed.  We’re studying the creatures and working on a vaccine now, but we are also losing damn good men, the Delta and SEAL soldiers that are in there now are extremely difficult to replace and it’s doubtful that we’ll develop any type of cure for the infected.”

The Director shared a knowing glance with the president, “And we’ve got that other search taking place in the Middle East, sir.”

The president nodded and turned to the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  “Rob, do we know if there is any more of this biological weapon out there?”

“No sir, in fact, we don’t have any substantial information on these guys yet.  The only person we’ve been able to find that was in any way connected to these events was the terrorist who died when he opened the nerve agent to seal the building.  He’s not in any of the databases that we have access to.  The same goes for the few fingerprints we pulled from the vans they drove up to the Pentagon.  These guys have never been arrested or fingerprinted in the States or Europe that we know of.  According to the video footage we pulled before the power went out there were originally ten of them but we believe they were either killed or infected just like everyone else and are now in the building.”

“So what are you doing to ensure we don’t get hit again somewhere else damn it?”

“We’re working everything we’ve got Mr. President.  There hasn’t been anything unusual on the blogs or the usual terrorist websites, but I…”

“Actually, we have a lead on that,” Chip Bullis interrupted.  “There was an obscure Islamic website that went active a little over a month ago.  It was very well done, mostly information about the faith, its history and beliefs, just like hundreds of others out there.  But there was a one-liner buried within this site that possibly matches up with the dates of the attacks worldwide.  It said ‘Today is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and honor Him on the Night of Power.’  The Night of Power is supposedly the anniversary of the night the Qur’an was revealed to Mohammed, the Islamic prophet.  It’s celebrated annually during the month of Ramadan, and this year, the Night of Power was in mid-April.  Depending on the sect and branch of the Muslim faith, they celebrate the night between the 14
and the 18
.  It’s extremely obscure and a long shot, but the page was dated for this year and it does coincide with the attacks.”

The president nodded his head, “So what does that tell us?”

“The site was published on a computer purchased in Egypt and uploaded via a satellite internet connection from somewhere in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

“I knew it was those Al Qaeda fuckers!  We need to action on this right away.”

“Sir, we couldn’t reliably pinpoint anything closer than a two hundred-mile radius in those mountains, our equipment just isn’t that good yet.  And there are several known organizations operating there.  With that large of a search area, it could be one of five or six terrorist groups that posted that web site or even a rival organization that inserted into the area to upload the information so we would think it was one of them.  Until one of them claims responsibility, we can’t reliably say who it was.  It’s good intelligence, but it’s not legally actionable yet.”

“The American people demand action, and I’m going to give it to them.  What are our options for attacking these mountain hideouts?”

“Sir, we’ve operated relatively freely within those mountains for over a decade and we haven’t found our primary targets on most of our missions there.  The people are just too sympathetic with the terrorists and there are too many places to hide.  It would take ten divisions of Marines several months to search all of the valleys and caves, and even then, they might not find anything useful.”

“Pete,” he said to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Send out a warning order to the Marines and the Army, we’re putting as many men as we can into those mountains within a week.  I’ll tell Congress that I’m going to partially mobilize the reserve force and we’ll say it’s part of another surge in Afghanistan.  We will find those responsible and make them pay.”

SEVEN

21
April, 1617 hrs local

Comanche County Emergency Medical Center 

Lawton, Oklahoma 

The same heavyset nurse who’d been caring for Grayson and providing him rumors from outside of the hospital for the past several days opened the door to the hospital room where he was staying.  “Well, Mr. Donnelly, you’re cleared to leave.  The phones are still out, but if you wait by the front entryway, I’m sure a taxi will be along soon.  But I’ve been told they charge some outrageous prices right now since it’s still so dangerous to be out on the streets.”

“Thanks Maggie,” he said as he gingerly swung his legs over the side.  “Um, did my clothes make it?”

“No sir, we had to cut them off of you.  But the hospital does give out complementary scrubs to patients in your situation.  No family to bring them any new clothes, I mean.”

“Complementary?  Sure, I bet you guys charged the hell out of my insurance for those pajamas.”

“Of course we did sir,” Maggie said with a wink.  “Here’s an envelope with your personal effects.  Don’t worry, I know you had a lot of money in your wallet, but the whole bundle has been locked in the safe.”

“Thanks again Maggie.  I really appreciate all your help,” he said with a little smile as he took the envelope with his wallet and car keys.

“Oh, Mr. Donnelly, you’ve been a perfect patient since you fully woke up.  I hope everything goes well for you.  Let me take that IV out, and then we’ll be all set.”  She leaned over him and deftly pulled the catheter out of his arm and quickly wrapped a cotton ball under a self-adhesive bandage.

After Maggie left, Grayson changed out of the hospital gown he’d been wearing for several days and put on the scrubs and the shoes he’d been wearing when he was brought in.  Unfortunately, the laces on the shoes had been cut, so they wouldn’t be useful for much more than shuffling his feet.

He lightly tapped his cast on the nurse’s station desk as he walked by.  “See you around ladies, thanks for taking such good care of me.”

***

The taxi pulled into the diner’s parking lot.  There was the Chevy Cobalt, flat front tire and now busted driver’s window.  “What the hell?” Grayson mumbled as he examined the badly vandalized rental car. 

Out loud he said to the taxi driver, “Ok, I can’t change that tire with my arm in this cast.  Can you please take me to the Best Western and I’ll coordinate for a tow truck or something to take care of this thing?”

“Sure, buddy,” the cabbie said as he pressed the gas pedal down and turned the wheel.  The little red Dodge Neon that passed for a cab in Lawton did a complete U-turn from one lane into the next without any effort. 

Before too long they pulled into the Best Western guest check-in lane.  “That’ll be, oh, I don’t know, three hundred bucks,” the taxi driver said over his shoulder towards the back seat. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.  What does the meter say?” Grayson asked as he tried to see the meter set low on the dashboard.

“Didn’t set it.  Look, bud, its three hundred dollars for the cab ride from one end of town to the next.  It’s dangerous out here,” he said holding his hand out between the Neon’s front seats.

“Nothing happened on the trip over.”

“Something could’ve happened though.  Look, give me the money you owe me or I’ll call the cops.”

“We both know the cops are a lot busier than to respond to a call from a cabbie about his fare not paying the amount you’re charging.  Here, take your damned money,” Grayson said throwing down three crisp one hundred dollar bills onto the lid of the center console between the two front seats.

“Nice doin’ business with you pal,” the taxi driver yelled out the open window as Grayson got out.

He walked into the lobby and quickly established that his luggage was still in his room and he was still being charged to his credit card since he never checked out and all of his things were still there.  The manager told him that people came in all the time and rented rooms without the staff ever seeing them for weeks at a time, so it wasn’t exactly unusual for him to have gone missing for a week.  Grayson was able to get the manager to refund a couple of the days and he assured him that he’d be checking out first thing in the morning as soon as he could get transportation lined up.  Since the phone lines were down, the manager wrote him an old-fashioned carbon copy receipt and promised that once the credit card machine was back on line, he’d reverse any charges that Grayson hadn’t agreed to.

Grayson walked back to his room and opened the door.  He’d been beaten up, hospitalized, basically robbed by a cabbie and now overcharged for a crappy motel room.  He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed.  First thing tomorrow he would walk down to the car rental office and explain to them that he couldn’t change the tire because of his broken arm and inform them of the vehicle’s location.  Then, he’d rent another car and get the fuck out of Lawton, Oklahoma.

***

23 April, 0457 hrs local

The Pentagon

Arlington, Virginia 

“They’re coming again, goddammit!” the Delta
[10]
sergeant yelled to his squad.  The NCOIC
[11]
keyed his throat mike, “Jeff, it’s Hank, you’re free to engage.”  The sniper gave a thumbs up and started picking off targets. 

The targets, once employees that worked at the Pentagon, shuffled forward at somewhere between a trot and a jog.  Some of them had limbs missing, some had clothes, some didn’t.  Most of them carried some type of club weapon.  The members of the Army’s highly trained special operations unit had seen everything possible used as a weapon by these freaks including chair legs, construction hammers, broomsticks, even human arms. 

They were incredibly strong and each attack got a little more complex, almost as if they were learning and adjusting their tactics.  The last attack, a little over an hour ago, had even been supported by rudimentary indirect fire.  The freaks threw computers and telephones from the fifth floor towards their perimeter but since the courtyard was roughly 5 acres of land the larger items hadn’t made it anywhere near their positions.  The snipers had been so distracted trying to shoot those freaks that the ones attacking on the ground were able to get extremely close and almost broke through the perimeter of concertina wire and courtyard trees that they’d blown with det cord
[12]
, something they hadn’t been able to do since the first night when the teams were just learning how to fight them.  It had taken most of that night to learn that the only thing that put them down for good was a shot directly in the brain, not a glancing blow to the head or face.  Decapitation didn’t even work, it severed the head and
killed
the body, but the jaws continued to clamp down on anything that came near them.

The combined Delta and SEAL teams had been fighting non-stop every night for five days now.  It seemed like the freaks had an inexhaustible supply of personnel.  Hundreds were killed in each attack and the bodies were piled up several feet deep in places.  They’d been briefed that there could potentially be as many as 27,000 of them if all of the people working in the Pentagon on the day of the attack had been turned.  Every night they ran dangerously low on ammo but their resupply came just on time to ensure they were prepared for the next night’s attacks.

The teams had sent men into the building every day to try to find where they were coming from, but hadn’t been able to find where the freaks went.  The initial sweep of the building on the first day of contact with them had been conducted by the chemical team that was still on site and being used as daytime security while the special ops teams rested.  According to Sergeant Owens, the HAZMAT team’s highest ranking person since their officer had become infected, they hadn’t found more than a handful of bodies anywhere except in the lobby.  Besides the freaks themselves, it was the strangest thing Hank had ever seen.  They simply disappeared without a trace.  As far as he knew, they’d searched every corridor and room.  The obvious answer was that they were hiding in the crawl space, but the areas they’d been able to search hadn’t revealed anything there either.