The Dying of the Light (Book 1): End Read online

  It was then that I knew we had a fighting chance. A chance to take down this menace before it killed us all. It wasn’t going to be easy, and some of us wouldn’t make it all the way through, but we had a chance.

  No one can ask for more than that.

  Chapter Five

  Fort Carson, Colorado

  As our training continued, we learned more about the classifications of walker incursions. It turned out that what happened at Fall Creek was just the tip of the iceberg, and there had been a pattern of behavior by the government to conceal the existence of walkers since the late 1800’s. They’d even gone so far as to discredit witnesses who either refused payment in exchange for their silence or spoke out anyway.

  One bit of AEGIS history that particularly disturbed me was what had happened to Harry Stafford in the Washington Territory in the 1930s. I shivered when I read his account, feeling close to the man who had gone more than a little mad at what he had seen, and what he had been forced to do.

  I hear them too, Harry. I hear them, too. I hoped I wouldn’t end up as he did; I hoped I was stronger than that. Our stories were too similar for me to completely discount any possibility of my going crazy, but then again, Harry hadn’t had a full company of soldiers helping him, either.

  There was, of course, no reference to any survivors other than Harry Stafford in the histories and files that we read. It seemed I was unique, and as I told my story again and again to the soldiers, I found it became easier to bear those memories. I would never forget the time I spent during those two days in Fall Creek, but it no longer haunted me as it once had.

  One day a couple of weeks after our weekend pass, my team was led into a small room that reminded me of execution viewings. A large curtained window, closed at the moment, faced two rows of chairs that looked profoundly uncomfortable. A switch on the wall, presumably for the curtain, completed the room’s sparse adornments. We took our seats, curious about this new training, but we kept quiet and attentive, ready and able to take on any challenge.

  Or so we thought.

  We stood to attention as Maxwell entered, waving us back to our seats. He looked us over with a critical eye as always, and then nodded to Anderson, standing near the curtain control.

  “I guess they’re ready, Frank.” Turning back to us, he stepped to one side, motioning to the window. “Ladies and gentlemen, meet Chauncey.”

  There was a collective gasp as the curtain drew aside to reveal a very old zombie that had rotted away almost to nothing. One of the soldiers in our company bolted out of his chair and was three steps away before even he realized it.

  “Siddown, Jones!” Maxwell yelled. “That’s bulletproof glass, son; the big scary monster can’t get you.”

  Jones reddened with embarrassment and returned to his seat. He’ll hear about that for weeks, I thought. It was only when we all turned back from Jones’ distraction that I realized what the walker — Chauncey — was doing, and I wasn’t the only one who turned a little green.

  Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, I’d seen it before. Still, the sight of a zombie feeding wasn’t something you could just ignore. I glanced around the room, and saw the iron will these operators embodied as they steeled themselves against the horror.

  I just swallowed hard and looked away; I’d seen enough already to last anyone a lifetime. I was trying to emulate these men and women, but even I had my limits. Taking more than a few deep breaths and gathering what resolve I had, I turned back.

  Chauncey appeared to have been a male, from the lack of breasts and enlarged upper torso, but as to his age, no one could guess. He was so decrepit and rotten that bits seemed to be dropping off him even as we watched.

  “We found dear old Chauncey here thirty-some years ago in eastern California, wandering around a campsite that appeared to have been attacked. By him or some other zombie, we don’t know. Unfortunately, we didn’t find any bodies or other walkers, except for one poor girl who apparently called it in to the locals but subsequently turned shortly thereafter. We took over the case, and brought Chauncey back here for study. Much of our more recent knowledge about the walkers was learned from him.”

  “But feeding him, colonel?” I asked, surprised as he at my questioning. “Why feed it? It’s not as if it would die of starvation, after all. And how did it last this long anyway? 31 years? That’s impossible.”

  “Dr. Adamsdóttir theorizes that the reason it’s still… alive… is that in an enclosed environment like this, the normal decomposition process is slowed to a near crawl. Bacteria and the other bugs don’t seem to take to walkers as well as regular humans. The doc thinks it could be something in the blood changed by the prions, but no one knows for sure. No injuries, except for that collar and the wrist restraints. No outside forces like weather, heat, cold, etc. Just the same air conditioning, day in and day out.” He shook his head as he looked at the walker.

  “As to why they feed them… well, the doc has tried to explain it to me several times. Seems to be something about these prions being more active and replicating faster when the walker is feeding or has just finished. They don’t give them much, just enough to see whatever it is they’re looking for. Frankly, I’d rather they just put him down, but that’s not an option. At least not now.

  “All of you need to get used to this,” he said. “You will all be participating in acclimatization exercises with Chauncey here over the next few weeks, to prepare you for live combat. We need you functional out there, not falling apart in the face of the enemy.”

  Chauncey had finished his meal, and now stood at the metal table, his hands and neck linked to steel cuffs on chains, their other ends embedded in the reinforced concrete of the lab floor.

  A door opened in one wall of Chauncey’s cell, and a short, bored and average-looking technician came through with a long pole in one hand. The pole had a hook on one end, and just as I was wondering what he intended to do with it, he hooked a special loop on the bucket of ‘food’, pulling it toward himself and leaving the room with the feed bucket in hand.

  Afterward, we were also briefed on some new developments in the labs, designs created specifically by AEGIS technicians. Dr. Adamsdóttir gave us a tour, stopping near a mannequin outfitted with an ACU that was much thicker than normal.

  “This is a special type of Kevlar weave we’ve been looking at incorporating into your uniforms to help with bites from the walkers. It’s great for preventing heat and abrasions, but not so good with the way biting combines pressure with tearing; we haven’t worked out all the bugs yet.”

  She held up the jacket for our inspection. “Your new uniforms will be substantially stronger than the classic versions, but they’ll also be thicker and heavier. That’s something else we’re trying to address.”

  She moved over to a nearby table, covered with what looked for all the world like electronic packs of cigarettes with an elastic band on one side.

  “So what we have here, boys and girls, is essentially a mini-computer that tells this gun not to fire at you,” she said, pointing at what we now all recognized as an automated M2 ‘Ma Deuce’ .50 caliber machine gun on a ground mount. “Now for a demonstration. Ears please,” Mary continued, and we all put on our ear protectors and watched as she pointed down-range.

  A training dummy began crossing the range at normal zombie speed, and we watched in amazement as the gun tracked briefly before chattering to life and taking out the target. I was impressed even more by the gun’s accuracy, given its automatic targeting — it had fired at head height, and used minimal ammunition.

  “Now watch what happens with the device attached to a dummy with a simulated heartbeat.” Mary yelled, pointing to the next training dummy, wearing one of the devices around its bicep. The gun tracked the target, but didn’t fire.

  I looked over at Kim, who was watching the system like a kid in a candy store, and I grinned, giving her a thumbs-up. She returned the gesture and turned back to Mary, point
ing at the headsets.

  Mary nodded, engaged the gun’s safety, and removed her headset, and we followed suit. “Dr. Fanning originally designed them as mobile trauma units, but then he gave them to me when he saw the implications, and I improved on them a bit. So, what do you think?”

  Kim was the first one to speak up. “How does it work?”

  “It monitors vital signs such as blood pressure and temperature and then transmits that data wirelessly to the system; it also includes a GPS transceiver. We can monitor the vital signs of anyone wearing it. Hence the mobile trauma idea.” She pointed at a small computer attached to the side of the gun’s mount.

  “The defense system compares the transmitted data to a set of specifications that we have programmed into it. If the data falls within the parameters, the gun doesn’t fire. If not, it does.”

  “So if a target is cold, with no blood pressure…” I asked.

  “Like a zombie…” added Rachel.

  “Then it gets some more iron in its diet,” Mary said, grinning. “A lot more.”

  “How does it track the targets?” asked Angelo. “I mean, inside a building or whatever, if they don’t give off heat…”

  “Ah, good question, captain. It uses a combination of radar, sound amplification, infrared and other sensors to pick up movement.” She paused. “Have you seen Aliens?”

  He laughed. “Of course, doc. It’s practically required viewing for anyone my age.”

  “Right, of course. Well, the motion trackers we’ve built into this system function very much like those in that movie. Granted, not as spiffy-looking, but basically the same thing.”

  “Sweet.”

  “What’s it called?” I asked.

  “We’re calling them ‘Real-time Enemy Assessor and Physiology Readers.’” There was a snort from Tom Reynolds to one side, and when I looked at him, he just waved off my unspoken question.

  “Nothing, sir. Sorry.”

  I jumped and swore as Mary snuck up behind me and strapped one of the devices on my arm. “Damn woman, you should be one of us.”

  She shrugged. “Too smart for that, I guess. You all need to know that it works, so you’re going to show them. They’re not perfect, but we’ll get there. George wants them ready for you before your first mission.”

  She looked over at Reynolds, who by this time was red-faced trying not to laugh. He was practically crying as he held his sides. Mary got a mean look in her eye. “Don’t you dare, Reynolds. Don’t you dare.”

  The rest of us looked on in puzzlement as Reynolds tried and failed to contain his laughter one last time. “Sorry, Mary… but this is too good.” He turned to me and pointed at my arm. Another warning glance from Mary just bounced right off. There were groans and guffaws alike as he finally got it out: “Don’t fear the REAPR, sir.”

  Sometimes I hate my squad.

  Fast-forward a few days, and we were near the airfield, practicing fast-roping. I’d done so many drops out of Blackhawks and other helicopters at this point that it was almost second-nature. After I piled out of the current bird, I noticed Maxwell observing, and ran over.

  “Mr. Blake. What can I do for you?”

  “Well sir, I’ve been thinking about this for some time now. Our main objective is to stay as far from the walkers as we can when we take them out, but we’re still on the ground in most of the scenarios we’re practicing.”

  Kimberly and the others looked interested as they gathered around, the dust from the departing Blackhawk settling down as it moved off.

  “Where are you going with this, Blake?”

  “Well, sir… why don’t we use the helos, sir? For more than just transport, I mean.”

  “You mean like miniguns or snipers or similar mounted in the helos?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Walk with me, Blake. The rest of you might as well come, too.” He waved off the Humvee driver, and we began the march back to the main part of the base.

  “We’ve thought about using helos and aircraft for a long time, frankly. The problem is that when you’re talking about walkers, you’ve got one of two ways to take them down — a shot to the head, or a leg shot that you can follow-up on later.”

  “Right, sir. Surely you can do that from a chopper?”

  “Son, you’ve been on the firing line. You know how hard it is to make a headshot in perfect range conditions. Now imagine that you’re 40, 50, 100 feet in the air, swinging back and forth with the wind.” He snorted. “There’s maybe 30 guys in the world could make those shots with any reasonable reliability. And they’re all spoken for, protecting high-value targets without having their butts in a sling a hundred feet in the air.”

  “Of course, you’ve got the M240’s and rockets and other things, but those are ‘spray and pray’ at best. You might get one in a hundred headshots, and maybe 20 to 30 in a hundred will take out a leg or two, but either way you’ve still gotta helluva mess to clean up. And you have to get down there to do it.”

  “Napalm,” said Gaines, jogging alongside us without apparent effort.

  “And we can use that, when it’s appropriate. Flamethrowers on some tanks and ground troops, etc. The problem with all this is that the most effective tools we have at fighting the enemy also destroy nearly everything around them. Tanks can’t really fight effectively in an urban environment — even Humvees have a problem turning in some areas, although we’ve had good luck with the Bradleys.” Maxwell slowed and began walking as we approached his office.

  “It’s not about the machines and the firepower and everything else. Hell, do you have any idea how much fuel it takes to run a tank like an Abrams?” He turned back to us. “We can run the helos and the tanks and the planes, and take out a lot of zombies — and a lot of civilians and structures at the same time, while we burn through our available fuel like there’s no tomorrow — which there won’t be, if we don’t take these bastards out. And we may end up doing that, if the situation gets bad enough.”

  “But for now, we need surgical strikes. In, out, and done with minimal impact on the surroundings and especially minimal impact on civilians. The fewer who know about us, the better.” He glanced at us, and then down at his watch. “Now, if I’m not mistaken, it’s chow time. And it’s chili night. So get going! Dismissed!”

  “David, wake up.”

  I woke up thinking I was in a rocking boat, but as it turns out, it was just Kim shaking me. “Wha? What is it?”

  “It’s Tom, David. He’s… well, you need to see him.” Her voice sounded shaken.

  What the hell?

  I was dressed and out the door, headed for the infirmary, before I even realized it. Only when we got there did I realize the rest of Alpha squad was with us.

  I was only partly surprised to see Mary in the ward this late, attending to our friend. Turning as we rushed in, she held up her hands and ushered us back into the waiting area.

  “He’s okay for the moment, but he’s asleep, and needs it. So none of you are going to wake him up.” She motioned to the infirmary’s commander, Captain Stephen Drewson, who signed a form and headed over to us.

  “He’s sedated, for now. Multiple contusions and lacerations on his face and upper body, his jaw is broken in two places, and his nose. Swelling indicates he was hit in the ear several times as well.”

  I could see Kimberly getting red to match her hair, and laid a hand on her arm. Surprisingly enough, she didn’t immediately fling it off, but just took a deep breath.

  “Go ahead, doc,” I said.

  “Well, he didn’t go down easy, I’ll say that much for him. Bruises and scrapes on the knuckles as well as some blood that clearly isn’t his on his ACU indicates that he put up a hell of a fight. Whoever did this is definitely going to be in pain, from what I can guess. And they haven’t shown up here to be treated.”

  “That’s good to know, doc,” said a voice from behind us, and we turned to find Major Matthew Daniels standing there. Fort Carson’s Provost Marshal,
the man wasn’t physically imposing, unless you’d seen him in the training grounds or in the gym. Even Gaines gave the man a wide berth. “Should make it easier to find them.”

  Rachel spoke up. “I think I know who you can start with, sir.” The look on her face made me feel sorry for the fool who engendered such a reaction in Rachel. I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end of whatever she was planning.

  Ten minutes later, we watched through the one-way glass in the provost’s office as Daniels interviewed Petty Officer, 3rd Class Edward Ames, a member of Bravo squad. Lieutenant Commander Jake Powell, squadleader for Bravo, had joined us in the viewing room.