The Fall of Society (Book 2): The Fight of Society (5 page)

            “The rest of you, form a line, single file, and follow that sailor to hangar bay two. You will be provided with a bunk and food,” the sailor said as he pointed to another service member who waited by a hatch.

            The eighteen or so did as they were told; they were too relieved to have cleared the screening process to argue the fact that they were being herded like cattle. The senator was last in line, he watched the infected man walk to the edge of the deck with the sailors behind, he stopped and said something to them, but the senator couldn’t hear. The man turned and faced the ocean and they shot him in the back of the head. The senator watched him fall out of sight with such fright he almost urinated himself. The wind from the ocean and the aircraft was strong on the deck and it rustled his clothes so hard they flapped wildly, exposing his right ankle, the one the sailors failed to inspect—

            His black sock was ripped
.

            And wet…

            Ardent and Bear entered the bridge, it was very busy since the officers, chiefs, and seamen here controlled the entire ship.

            “Captain on the bridge!” a chief announced.

            “Situation report?” Ardent asked.

            “Sir, rescue efforts are still underway in San Diego, Long Beach, and Los Angeles, but the amount of survivors we’re finding has dropped dramatically since you left this morning, sir.”

            “How many survivors have we rescued so far?” Ardent asked.

            “As of fifteen minutes ago, when I received the last count, we have four hundred and fifty-three in hangar two, Captain.”

            “That’s all?”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “Get me the lead helicopter in the Los Angeles group.”

            “Yes, Captain,” the chief said and gave a radio operator a hand signal to do so.

            “Los Angeles group, Rescue One, this is the Ronald Reagan, do you copy?” the operator said.

            The speaker crackled with static and then they received a response, “Ronald Reagan, go for Rescue One.”

            “Standby for the captain,” the operator said.

            The operator handed the handset to Ardent, “Rescue one, this is Captain Keller.”

            “Yes, Captain, go ahead.”

            “What’s your status?”

            “Captain, we currently have thirty-six survivors onboard and are continuing to search for others, but we haven’t come across any in almost an hour now.”

            “Understood, Rescue One. What does it look like over there?”

            Los Angeles was in turmoil and engulfed in vast destruction—fires burned out of control throughout the city that reported many black smoke trails that stretched across the sky. A Sea Stallion helicopter flew slowly over downtown as they searched for any survivors on rooftops, because landing on the street was impossible. Other aircraft were in the air as well, including fighter jets loitering over the suburbs running tactical assaults on the dead they found in the streets; they weren’t using bombs or missiles, only their cannons to avoid destroying any structures.

            Tanks and other armored vehicles were at sporadic positions around a large perimeter of downtown L.A. fighting scores of the insane ghouls. First responder vehicles were everywhere as well, but instead of trying to rescue people—they fled from downtown—there were too many of the dead attacking anything that moved; ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars had little to no protection from a ravenous mob. A few of those vehicles had been overturned and burned like funeral pyres. There were military drones in the air, too, providing video data.

            The Sea Stallion drifted over empty rooftops or some that weren’t empty, they were full of the dead. The helicopter’s crew chief answered Ardent’s question—

            “It’s total devastation, sir.”

            “Do you think the attack groups can clear the area so you can search more thoroughly for survivors?” Ardent asked.

            “Negative, sir. In my opinion, Los Angeles is lost.”

            “What do you mean, ‘lost?’”

            The crew chief looked down at the tens of thousands that filled the streets below.

            “Captain, the streets are filled with those things. I’m looking at a million of them, at least.”

            Everyone on the bridge was startled by what the pilot said and whispered randomly in shock—

           
“—What?”

            “—How can that be?”

            “—Oh my God.”

            “Stand by, Rescue One,” Ardent said and addressed the bridge crew. “Show me some video data from downtown Los Angeles.”

            An operator worked his keyboard and battle images appeared on one of the many video monitors on the bridge. The particular surveillance drone they were using had its cameras aimed at the battles in the suburbs, but the operator engaged the camera controls and it swung around for a view of downtown—it was a wide-angle view and they couldn’t see the streets clearly.

            “Zoom in,” Ardent said.

            The camera image moved in close and they saw it—the streets were jam-packed with the undead, uninfected people could be seen as they ran, but they were quickly taken down and killed. First responder vehicles tried to get away and most of them were overrun and ripped open to get at the occupants. It was biblical carnage.

            An Apache attack helicopter flew by the Sea Stallion as it dove down below the skyline of downtown, firing its machine gun into the streets, blowing apart dozens of the dead. It glided next to a building and several fast moving corpses on floors higher than the Apache saw the pilots in the helicopter as it passed by—they broke through the plate-glass and jumped after them, their dead bodies dropped like rocks, but three of them hit the helicopter’s main rotor blade and one hit the rear blade—the collision damaged the helicopter enough to send it out of control. It spiraled down and crashed into the very streets it was firing into. The dead stormed the wreckage.

            “Goddamit!” the Sea Stallion pilot exclaimed.

            “What is it?” Ardent asked.

            “Sir, a group of those things jumped off a building and took down an Apache.”

            “Can you do anything for them?”

            “No, sir, they went down in the thick of it, they’re all dead.”

            Ardent made a decision, “Alright, do one more pass for survivors and then RTB.”

            “Yes, sir. One more pass and then return to base, copy that.”

            “Ronald Reagan out,” Ardent said and turned to his officers, “Bring all of our manned aircraft home, now.”

            “Yes, sir,” an officer said and carried out his order.

            “Commander Reyes.”

            “Yes, Captain?”

            “I want every survivor that’s been brought aboard checked again for any signs of infection,” Ardent told him. “Set up examination areas in hangar two immediately.”

            “Yes, sir. I’ll handle it myself,” Bear answered and left.

            Hangar bay two was two floors below the flight deck and most of the aircraft were gone, off fighting the battle of the dead. All the survivors, over four hundred of them, were in this large aircraft storage space. The crew had set up cots and a line of tables had food and beverages. A row of porta potties had been placed for them at the back of the hangar. There were also armed sailors stationed at every entry point.

            Near the back, the senator rested on a cot. He was exhausted, he was confused, he was nervous, but most of all—he was scared. The image of that man being shot in the back of the head and his body falling into the sea burned in his mind.

           
The rifle went off—

            The bullet exploded out the man’s face—

            He fell
—

            He saw the bottom of the man’s dirty shoes in the slow motion of his mind.

            The senator winced at the thought.

            He looked down at his right ankle.

            He desperately wanted to examine it, but didn’t dare with so many people around because he would definitely be seen. He didn’t know what to do and then he saw the porta potties. He calmly stood up and walked over to them. He was halfway there when Bear showed up with a dozen sailors that brought in equipment of some kind. The senator watched as the sailors began to set up privacy screens near the food tables. They put together four cubicles of privacy screens in two groups. Each section was an eight by eight foot enclosure. Bear stepped before the group with a bullhorn in hand. “Can I have your attention,” his amplified voice echoed through the hangar and everyone looked to him. “We will be conducting a second, more thorough examination of everyone that was brought onboard.” There were objections and anger from them. “I’m sorry, but this is not an option. Everyone will form two lines, starting here. Men and woman will be separated. You will be asked to disrobe and, once it has been determined that the person is clear of infection, they will be given a wristband that identifies them as cleared. These are the captain’s orders. Thank you for your cooperation.”

            The survivors, against their wills, began to form the lines, and the examinations began. The first woman entered the first privacy section and took off all her clothes in the presence of three armed female sailors. Once they saw that she was free of any bites or scratches, they let her go into the next privacy section to redress and the next person was brought in. When the person exited the second privacy section, another sailor placed a yellow wristband on their left wrist to indicate that they were clear. The names of the people cleared were entered in laptops, identifications were checked, if they had one, and their pictures were taken. Everyone was cataloged, without exception. Bear gave a warning to the survivors about the wristbands through the bullhorn:

            “After each of you have been cleared and given a wristband, do not remove the wristband under any circumstances. If you remove it and try to give it to someone else, both of you will be shot.”

            The senator’s eyes widened from fear. He tried to calm down and he had trouble doing anything, but think of his future. He calmly, or as calmly as he could manage, looked at the people around him to see if anyone saw his moment of panic. No one noticed so he continued toward the porta potties. When he reached the portable restrooms at the back of the hangar, he was placed in mental dismay when he saw the two sailors on guard duty there. He didn’t miss a beat and kept walking toward them, even though everyone else was getting into the examination lines.

            “Sir, I’m gonna need you to get in the men’s line, please,” one of the sailors said to him.

            “I need to use the restroom,” the senator answered.

            “You’re gonna have to hold it, sir. Please, get in line. I insist.”

            The senator put his hands on his stomach, “I have diarrhea.”

            “Fine, but make it quick.”

            “Thank you,” he said and walked past them.

            He got to the porta potties and stood there acting as if he waited for one of them to open up, even though most of them were empty. He didn’t know what to do. The idea of checking his ankle inside a porta pottie was good at the time, but when they announced the second examination and he saw that they were ordering everyone to strip completely naked—he knew he would be discovered—without a doubt.

           
“So now what?”
he thought with unease.

            Then he saw it, the wall behind the porta potties—

            A hatchway.

            His little hope vanished the second he saw another sailor stationed at the hatch.

            There was no escape.

            Until he heard his salvation behind him—

            In the line for the men, two guys got into an argument over their place in line, which really didn’t matter, but when someone in the apocalypse is sleep deprived, which most were, every little thing matters. The senator watched them argue and he prayed for it to escalate before the sailors could end the problem and it did—

            The two men pushed each other and a moment later, it erupted into a fistfight.

            The senator stood there as quiet as possible, he tried to make himself invisible, he wished the hardest he could to be a fly as the armed sailors that surrounded him eyed the situation, they waited to see which one of them would go take care of the problem, but no one did. The senator began to sweat and it seemed that he suddenly weighed a thousand pounds because his ankle was throbbing like the beat of a hunting party’s war drum. He looked at the sailor in front of him, he was watching the fight, but didn’t move, and then he heard the two sailors behind him walk away.

            Only the guard at the hatch remained.

            The senator didn’t even see the sailor anymore, he knew that he was still there, but all he saw was the hatch. That doorway to escape that was a portal to living just a little longer. It was like a tall glass of fresh water in the salty ocean that he was presently in. He wanted it so badly, he needed it so desperately, and then his prayers were answered as he focused his eyes on the hatch and saw that the sailor was gone. He cautiously looked over his shoulder and saw him rushing over to help because the fight between the two survivors had escalated.

            The hatch was unattended.

            This was his chance…

           
His only one.

• • •

            The back half of the ship consisted of many walkways and sections that all looked the same to a person who was never in the military, and the senator was never in the Navy or any other branch of the service for that matter. He was lost, but he didn’t care because he was away and that’s all that mattered right now, was to get away and find a place to hide.