The Dying of the Light (Book 1): End (22 page)

There was a general shaking of heads, and Gardner sighed. “I know it’s hard to believe. But I’ve watched AEGIS technicians take a live feed from a roadside attack in Afghanistan and digitally edit out the zombie’s remains, replacing them with an insurgent.
And things like that happen all the time
.”

“But surely there have been soldiers and media people who’ve seen what’s really going on,” said Reynolds, disbelief still strong in his eyes. “You can’t tell me that no one has seen a walker anywhere and reported it.”

Gardner looked at him coldly. “I wouldn’t tell you that, captain. Of course they have. Or at least, they’ve
tried
to report it. Some have listened to reason and retired, others had to be…
coerced
.” He left no doubt in my mind exactly what he meant by that. Judging by the faces around me, I could see that the rest of my team got the message, too.

“Where do you think their transmissions go? To satellites. Who controls the satellites? We do. The governments. It’s as simple as that. We control the entirety of the information coming through news channels from the Middle East, and everywhere else for that matter.”

“What about the Internet, though? I’ve seen crap like this all the time before Fall Creek,” I said.

“You’re not seriously suggesting we can’t hack whatever we want, are you, Mr. Blake? We’re talking about not only the wealthiest country on earth but arguably the most technologically advanced. We have crypto-analysts and hackers that are good enough… well, let’s just say the true extent of their talents would shock even you.

“Or maybe you didn’t think that we could have our own people do some posting of our own? In fact, I’ve got three or four technicians whose sole job is to sit in a room 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, doing nothing but posting misinformation on every forum and website they can find. Not everything has to be super-secret spy stuff; believe me, information control was the first thing we thought of.” He paused, and smiled again. “After all, we can’t have people running around claiming it’s the end of the world, can we?”

I sat down in my chair, stunned and mumbling. Gardner heard it, though.

“What’s that, young man? Why don’t you share with the rest of us?”

I ignored him, lost in my own little world, until Kim shook my arm roughly. “David, what is it?”

I shook my head and turned to look at Maxwell. “I understand, sir,” I said. “I understand why you couldn’t tell us.” A pained look crossed his craggy face, and he glanced at Gardner, who wouldn’t meet his eyes. I looked back at Kim, and something on my face caused her to flinch back, startled.

“They couldn’t tell us. I wish I didn’t know. I wish none of us knew,” I said.

“Knew what, David?” Kim asked, reaching out a hand to lay it on my arm.

“We’re going to lose this war. We never had a chance.” The silence from Gardner and Maxwell was confirmation enough.

“Is that information that Gardner showed us confirmed, sir?” I asked Maxwell, dreading the answer. “Reports from all continents, I mean.”

“Yes, son, it is.”

“Well, that’s it, then,” I said, collapsing into my chair. I could feel the thousand-yard stare creep across my eyes.

“David…” Kim asked.

“We’re fucked.” I glanced at Maxwell. “Sorry, sir.”

“Never mind that. What do you mean?”

“Well, if they truly are on every continent, then it’s only a matter of time. We’ll see sporadic outbreaks across the globe, probably starting in the third world and Southeast Asia. Places like Laos, China, mid-Africa and the poorer parts of India would all be good bets. Anywhere people are packed in like sardines and have little or no access to quality health care. Not that that would make any difference in this case.” I paused and stood up, pacing.

“They’ll be Class One outbreaks initially: five walkers at most, with the occasional Class Two. To indicate a hotspot or a country with no effective response to the incursions, like AEGIS. This will go on for a while.”

Tom broke in. “How do you know this?”

“I don’t, not for sure. But we saw the same thing in Fall Creek, just adjusted for our size. A microcosm of what will happen out there,” I said, waving my hand vaguely toward the window. “It starts small, with just one or two people affected. Then it grows, primarily because no one will believe what’s actually happening. Because of course, zombies don’t exist in the real world.

“What you have to understand here is that
we have lost containment
. If we’d been able to find that first walker, or first couple of them, and put them down, we could’ve saved the town. But we didn’t know what was happening until it was too late. Out there, there is no way in hell we could do that. There’s no way to find ‘Walker Zero.’ And there never will be. There can be no putting the genie back in the bottle on this one.”

“The end will happen fast, too. Every walker creates who knows how many others, and their numbers will grow exponentially. We’ll see cities overrun, then almost overnight it’ll be smaller countries, then several, and finally whole continents. There won’t be any safe places to run or hide, because eventually the survivors will make a mistake, or run out of supplies, or just go crazy. And that’ll be it.

“So, in short, we’re fucked. We never stood a chance, not after it spread this far. And the really screwed up thing is that
this will never end
.”

“How so?” asked Maxwell.

“Think about it. Is there any way you could absolutely say for sure and for certain, that you could find every single walker out there? Every. Last. One? Every waterlogged bastard hiding out on the ocean floor, every frozen one stuck in waist-deep permafrost somewhere in Washington State or the Arctic? No, there’s not. Not now, anyway.

“And that’s what you’d have to do to make sure these prions were dead and gone forever. The walkers would have to be wiped from existence completely. And since you could never be sure you’d gotten them all, there would always be the chance that someone, somewhere, somehow could stumble upon one, and be turned.”

“That’s not entirely accurate, Mr. Blake,” said Dr. Adamsdóttir. “Walkers decay just like any other organic creature, just much more slowly.
Eventually
, they will literally fall apart, and when that happens…”

“When that happens, the prions — which will be dormant at that point, but not dead — will likely make their way into whatever groundwater is nearby their former host’s remains. Which means they could end up in
anything
. It might end up in a human who drinks from that water, but it could just as easily end up in any animal as well. Although from what you’ve told us, most animals seem to somehow sense this disease and stay away.

“We’ll never be rid of it, though, not really. Until and unless someone miraculously develops a serum or antidote sometime in the next few years — before we’re all dead — this thing is going to be with us forever, and we’re going to all need to be willing to put a bullet in and then burn anyone we know. That’s the only truly permanent solution — destruction by fire.

“And since setting fire to the entire surface of the planet is probably a bad idea, we’ve got no options.”

The human race was ending, and we had front-row tickets to the big show.

Chapter Twelve

Fort Carson, Colorado

Gardner had left, and the rest of the team was seated in a loose circle. Colonel Maxwell had joined us, but Commander Anderson was still MIA. That worried me, but I knew that they’d been together for a long damn time and would eventually work it out. I just hoped that they got the chance.

“Sir?” Powell was leaning forward, staring at something only he could see beyond the scratched and dinged tiled floor. “Was what he said true, sir?”

The colonel sighed and stood up, pacing behind his chair. “Yes, lieutenant, it was. Everything he told you is or has happened.”

“Everything?” asked Kimberly, her arms folded and a look that would have sent me running for the hills on her face. Fortunately, it was directed at the colonel.

“Operational security, major. I was given specific and direct orders by the Secretary of Defense, himself on orders from the president not to divulge the true nature of the walker threat.” He scrubbed a hand through the short gray stubble on his head and shrugged. “There was nothing I could do.”

“What’s the point, sir?” Janet spoke up from the back of the room where she was leaning against the wall. “I mean, if it’s as bad as that, why are we bothering to fight at all?”

I turned to Janet, surprised. “We have to, Turner.”

She ignored me, staring down the colonel who finally answered. “He’s right. We all know how this is going to end. There’s too many of them, too spread out, and the only effective weapons we have are in the hands of far too few soldiers and other trained personnel. We can’t just run around killing them willy-nilly, either.”

“Then why don’t we tell people? Tell the truth, I mean.”

Maxwell looked at her, dumbfounded. “I happen to know you are not that stupid, soldier. You and I both know what would happen if we did that, and if John Q. Public believed even half of what we told them.”

“Panic. Anarchy. Riots, looting, millions if not billions dead.” I couldn’t keep the terror from my voice as I said it.

Pointing at me, the colonel continued. “Exactly. People are not prepared to deal with a crisis of this magnitude. Hell, we have enough idiots to deal with who actually know what’s going on and think we can somehow domesticate or train the things.” He paused as the incredulous looks spread around the room. “Now you know some of the shit that I’ve been dealing with from Gardner.”

“But that’s not the issue. People are panicky. We don’t need some jackass in Bumfuck, Nebraska going on a shooting spree because he thinks all his neighbors are zombies. And god help us if some zealot or terrorist decided to set off a nuke.”

He sat down once more in the circle, and sighed. “We’re fighting because we have to. It’s the only option we have left. We have to keep them at bay as long as we can, hoping that we have enough time.”

“Enough time for what, sir?”

“I don’t want anyone here to have any illusions about what we’re facing. Still, things may not be as bad as you think.” Maxwell stood and activated the briefing projector once more. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Project Phoenix.”

He looked around at us, and grinned slightly. “None of you are cleared to know about it, but this hasn’t exactly been a day for keeping secrets, has it?” He half-turned toward the hall door and raised his voice. “Okay, Frank, you can come back in now.”

Commander Anderson walked into the room, saluted the colonel, and grinned. “Thank you sir; that hall is not made for waiting.” He took a seat as Maxwell waved his hand in the general direction of his forehead, and relaxed.

The rest of us sat there, confused and uncertain of what had just happened. That was the only time I ever heard Colonel George Maxwell laugh, and just like everything else he did, he laughed
loud
.

“Oh, that’s rich. I love the looks on your faces. Frank?”

Anderson was still grinning and chuckling a bit, and nodded. “Definitely, sir. Caught them all by surprise, I think.”

“Well, good. It’s about time we shook them up a bit. So, Project Phoenix.”

“Sir, what was all that about with the commander?” Dalton asked, looking confused.

“All in due time, Gunny. All in due time.” He waited until Dalton shrugged, then went on. “Project Phoenix was conceived about twenty years ago once we realized just how bad things had really gotten; they’ve been actively working on it for the last five or so, after all the bean counters and administrators had their say in the planning.”

“Essentially, what’s happening is that governments around the world are quickly and above all quietly, building large subterranean bunkers that can house up to about ten thousand people each. Once the situation on the surface gets to the point of no return, those chosen for the bunkers will go underground.”

“What happens to those left above?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“They’ll die. Or they’ll get bitten and turn. Some may even survive in the mountains or in other cold locations where the walkers slow down some. I imagine quite a few of the survivalist types will make it, but they’ll end up as warlords or nomadic tribes or some other such thing, if only because they’ve got weapons and most know how to use them. But most everyone else will die.”

“How could you build these without anyone knowing?”

“Who said we did?” Maxwell chuckled. “They’re all in remote areas, to begin with. Second, the best place to hide something is in plain sight. For some of them, it was just another government storage bunker. For others, it was to hold toxic waste, or just about anything we could dream up. Sure, there were occasionally those who wandered onto the properties or dug a little too deep, but all in all, it went off without a hitch. Almost all of them are located in places no one cared about, and eventually, the novelty of some massive government project just wore off.”

None of us could say anything for a while. We just sat there, processing all the new information with which we’d been inundated, and the idea that the majority of the planet,
six billion people
, would die horrible, painful deaths. Finally, Reynolds broke the silence.