The Dying of the Light (Book 1): End (33 page)

Well, that explains the need for the medics
, I thought as I watched James ease Santos to a resting position on one of the impromptu tables set up by Morena’s people.

“Looks like Santos is hurt,” I said as Kim and I got closer, staying well clear of the working medical personnel.

“How is she, Morena?” Kim asked, pulling her pistol from its holster.

Morena didn’t look around. “She’s not bitten, major.”

Santos spoke up. “
Madre de Dios
, that hurts. I’m fine, ma’am. That jackass attacked me with a bone saw,” she said, jerking her head at one of the patients they’d brought out on a stretcher. “He was in surgical recovery; I guess he thought I was a walker, sir. He’d barricaded himself in the room. He just forgot that the door opened outward.”

Kim put her pistol back in the holster and snorted. “Lemme guess, you decked him.” I noticed the oh-so-evident bruise on the man’s jaw, and turned to hide a smile from the corpsman.

“Yes, ma’am, I did. We didn’t have time to deal with him going crazy, so I figured that was the fastest way.” She shrugged. “I’d keep him pretty well sedated, if I were you, at least until medical clears him,” she said to Morena.

“Don’t worry, he’s out for a while. I gave him a nice cocktail.” The two medics shared a smile, and even Kim grinned a bit, some of the tension easing from the group.

Too bad it didn’t last.

“Alpha Six, Bravo Five.” I wondered why Arkady was calling in instead of Commander Powell, but as I heard the muted cough of the silenced battle rifles in the background — as well as Powell’s fluent cursing — I realized why. “Alert three, ma’am. We’re engaged with what appears to be at least four, possibly six or seven walkers.”

“Maintain your position, Bravo Five. Alpha squad, move to reinforce Bravo.”

“Acknowledged,” Reynolds said, and I saw four figures break off from the perimeter at the other end of the hospital and move inside in staggered formation, covering each other well.
That’s my team,
I thought. Foxtrot squad reconfigured to provide maximum coverage as they left.

A few minutes went by, and there was a crackle of static and Bravo Six came on the radio. “…cking thing, dammit! Alpha Six, Bravo Six.”

“Alpha Six here, go ahead.”

“Five walkers confirmed down, ma’am, with one other infected, also confirmed down. One survivor. We are finishing our sweep now.”

“Acknowledged. Send the survivor out with Alpha, through the emergency room doors.”

“Roger, Bravo Six clear.”

Kim turned to Morena, who held up a hand. “I heard. We’ll take care of it. Looks like you might have some unpleasantness headed your way though,” she said, looking over our shoulders. We turned to see Anderson striding toward us, and if ever a man could be said to look murderous, that was our commander.

I just hoped
I
wasn’t the reason he was pissed.

“Problem, sir?” I asked as he got closer.

“One of those little bastards with a camera got away. One of the other idiots swears up and down that he saw the little shit put something in his shoe. Fuck! There goes OpSec.”

“Sir, it may not be that bad.” Kim and Anderson both looked at me, startled. “Surely someone got video of the crowd, right?”

“I believe Gaines and Eaton were collecting the tapes and discs and whatnot from those assholes. Where are they?”

“Sir, they’re escorting another survivor out of the building while Bravo and Charlie finish their sweep,” Kim answered.

“Good. Have them report…” He broke off, looking over my shoulder. “Never mind.”

He strode off, leaving us to catch up as he walked toward the field trauma unit, where the rest of Alpha squad had appeared and left their survivor. I waved Tom and the others over.

“Gunny, I need those memory cards,” Anderson said without preamble.

“Yes, sir,” Gaines said, and trotted off towards the rental car, and Eaton turned to Anderson.

“Sir, we don’t really have the facilities here to analyze them fully.”

“Are you telling me no one here has a laptop? That we can’t ‘borrow’ a computer from the hospital for a bit?”

Rachel flushed. “Of course not, sir. It’s just…”

Anderson held up a hand. “I don’t need to analyze them completely, sergeant. I just need to look for someone who’s disappeared, apparently.”

Eaton grinned. “Lemme guess, sir. Tallish, skinny, sandy hair? Looks about 25?”

Anderson was stunned. “How the hell did you know that?”

“Oh, you know, sir. Women’s intuition and all that.” She held out a hand as Gaines ran back up with a bulging sack of electronic media. “That, and pictures, sir. D, I need your phone.”

Gaines shrugged and pulled the phone from his pocket, handing it to her. Eaton opened the phone, punched a button and held it out to the commander. “Him, sir?”

Anderson grinned. “Excellent work, sergeant, gunny.”

“We thought he was a bit fishy, sir, we just didn’t have a chance to report yet.”

“I’ll see you get this back, Gaines.” Anderson moved off, opening his own phone and making a call.

“I guess I can put these back, then?” Dalton asked, his tone suggesting he’d rather leave them there until they rotted.

“Absolutely,” I said, smiling as Gaines grimaced and trotted back to the car. The five of us turned to look back at the hospital. “How was it in there, Angelo?”

“We had it kinda rough, man. They were coming out of nowhere. Not a place I’d want to have to secure again.” Martinez was thoughtful, then seemed to grow sad. “It’s a damn shame about the kid, though.”

“The kid?” asked Kim.

“Yeah, the survivor we found. Can’t be more than 7 or 8. He’s pretty messed up. We found him hiding in a closet. Think he was visiting someone, but we don’t know who. He won’t talk to anyone.”

“Lemme try, boss,” I said, turning to Kim. “I’m good with kids. Maybe I can help him some, ease some of the trauma a bit.”

She shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”

I walked over to the tables the nurses had set up, and glanced around. I didn’t see any at first, but then one of the nurses moved and I saw a small arm lying on the table, unmoving. As I moved closer, I saw the boy look up at me; Morena had an arm around him, and suddenly I stumbled, sinking to my knees, my eyes locked on the pair.

This… this can’t be. It’s impossible!

Kim rushed over calling for a medic. I dimly heard her calling to me, as though from miles away, but I couldn’t think about that right now. All I could think of was that this boy and the woman taking care of him were the spitting image of Rebecca and her son Eric.

Not possible. You shot one, and the other is…
I cringed, and tore my gaze away from the boy, somehow reaching for and finding Kim, who drew me to her.

I didn’t hear myself mumbling over and over. “It’s not them; it’s not them.”

She heard a voice from behind her as she stared at the car. “Ma’am, will he be alright?”
That would be Reynolds
, she thought.

She scrubbed a hand across her eyes to get rid of the tears she’d refused to let fall, and turned to him. “I hope so, captain. I don’t know what happened. You saw as much as I did. He just sort of sat down and started mumbling to himself.”

“What was he saying, ma’am?”

“‘It’s not them.’”

“What the hell does
that
mean?” asked Gaines, who was watching Eaton as she knelt by the open door of the rental car, talking quietly to David.

“I think I know gunny, but I can’t tell you.” She shook her head as he looked up. “I really can’t.” The sergeant subsided but still looked worried. She thought all of them were probably looking the same way.

“Everything all right here, major?” asked Commander Anderson as he walked up.

“I hope so, sir,” she said as she turned to face him. “Bravo and Echo squads have finished their sweep, and are on their way out now. I’ve got Foxtrot retaining the perimeter, just in case. I’ve already called in the cleanup teams, they should be here within the hour. Turns out the colonel had them trucking up I-25 at the same time we took off.”

“Great, then we won’t have to wait forever for them to get here. What’s with Blake?”

“He… he had something of a scare, sir. I think he’ll be fine, but we need to get him back to base.” She looked at him suddenly. “Sir, what about that guy with the camera?”

Anderson grinned in a way that said bad things were going to happen to the little shit soon.

“The techs have already identified him based on your pic, Gaines. His name’s Jason Horner. He was already a person of interest for us after a little fiasco we had with the press up in Rawlins. They’re deconstructing his life right now. They’ll know everything there is to know about him by the time we get home.” He glanced over to the nurses packing and cleaning the area where they’d set up their mobile trauma unit. “So what’s going on with this nurse, then?”

Kim shrugged. “She’s good, sir. Very, very good. At least as a field medic. She has no military background, but she’s learned things that I’ve never seen a hospital nurse do, sir.” She stood tall and looked him square in the eye. “I want her for AEGIS, sir. But not on my team. I need to make sure David is okay too, — he had some sort of reaction when he saw them.”

“Reaction?”

“Went catatonic, sir. He’s being looked after.” Kim sighed. “Forrest’s tough, and she can handle herself. We should keep her around at the base and put her through training, but not on field duty yet, or at least not with 1
^st
team. And nowhere near David.”

Anderson stared back, expressionless. “Family? Friends?”

“No family, sir, and she said she’s just moved here, so no friends to speak of that would miss her that much.”

“Can she handle it, do you think?”

“Yes, sir, I believe she can. She led over forty people to the roof, and went back twice to look for more.” She chuckled. “She said she would’ve kept going back down, but one of the men threatened to knock her out if she did. So she stayed and made sure everyone was okay. She’s seen them, sir, and not only lived to tell but came out without any obvious major psychosis. And we need medics, sir.”

Anderson grunted agreement. “That we do, badly. All right Barnes, bring her over.”

“Yes, sir.”

Morena looked up as she approached, and Kim waved her over. “My commander wants to talk to you. Do you have a moment?” she asked the nurse, who appeared startled.

“Uh, sure. Did he say what he wanted?”

“In my experience, Morena, it’s better to do first and ask questions later. If you get the chance.”

“Gotcha. Lead on.”

Gaines and Reynolds stood behind the commander in flanking positions as the two women approached, and Kim could see that Morena was nervous. She put a hand on her shoulder and flashed a quick smile, and the nurse straightened, heartened by the thoughtful gesture.

“You wanted to see me, commander?” Morena asked.

“Yes, Ms. Forrest. I’ve had reports from my soldiers here, but I’d like you to tell me in your own words what you think happened here today.”

“I just need one word, sir: zombies.”

Anderson raised an eyebrow and glanced at Kim, who shook her head and tried her best to stifle a grin.

“Zombies? That’s ridiculous.”

“Well,
of course,
zombies.” She began to count points on her hand. “One, they’re dead, then they come back to some sort of life, if you can call it that. Two, if they bite you, you turn into one of them. Three, they don’t seem to be hurt by anything other than head shots. Four, the moaning. The goddamn moaning. What else could they be?”

Gaines and Reynolds were doing their best to hide smiles and outright laughter, and Anderson’s smile turned up slightly in a grin himself. “Well, I guess that settles that, then.”

“Settles what, sir?”

“Ms. Forrest, we’d like you to come work for us.”

Morena’s mouth dropped open, and Anderson smiled. “Work? For you?” Morena asked.

“Indeed. We’d put you through combat training and assign you to a squad for field operations. We can always use more medics, and from what I’ve heard, you’re one of the best the major here has seen in quite some time.”

Morena glanced at Kim, who was also smiling. “But I don’t know the first thing about being a soldier!”

“Somehow I doubt that. Major Barnes says she personally observed you performing procedures that we know only military-trained field medics are usually skilled in performing. So what was it? National Guard? Army Reserve?”

Morena flushed and looked down. “I… I knew someone once who taught me some things. He was… well, he was a soldier.” The way she said it left little doubt as to just what kind of soldier her friend had been, but Anderson just shook his head.

“I don’t care if he was a merc or a true-blue American soldier, Ms. Forrest. We
need
your help. You’d be moved to our base, paid well, and given certain other perks. But you wouldn’t be allowed to tell anyone what you do.” Anderson leaned in and brought his eyes level with hers from about four inches away, dead serious. “Ever.”