Rend, page 21
True to his word, the pilot settled the tail wheel down on the soft grass and then leveled out to touch the two front wheels, coming to rest on the field between the harbor and the fort. The seven team members in Allyson’s chalk jumped out of the helicopter and jogged the direction that the crew chief indicated was toward Fort McHenry. The mist was deeper than they’d been expecting and the bright morning air that they’d flown through disappeared into a soupy, brown half-light.
Behind her, she heard the helicopter’s engines rev up as the pilots put more power into them to lift the bird skyward. She turned to watch the helicopter clear the landing zone in time to witness the second Blackhawk come sluicing through the mist above. The pilot of the trail helicopter realized that he was coming in on top of the first one too late and as he tried to shoot skyward, the tail boom dipped down into the spinning rotors of the bird that was taking off. Allyson shouted in warning and threw herself to the ground as a wave of heat passed over her and the massive fireball that used to be their transports temporarily cleared the mist away.
She shook her head from side to side in an effort to clear the ringing that echoed through her head and made her vision blur. How the fuck did the helicopters collide? her mind asked through the haze. There were no answers to the question, but she knew that she needed to move and see if there was anything that she could do to help the victims of the crash.
By the time she reached the burning hulks of metal, several of the other members of her team that had been on her bird were already on site. In Allyson’s mind, she saw the pilots and passengers like she’d seen them in video games. As she was running toward the crash, she believed that she’d see burnt piles of ash, maybe some charred skeletons, but the reality that hit her square in the face was nothing like what she’d experienced in a game. Pieces of the people that she’d been training with and gotten to know on a personal basis were scattered everywhere.
She had no idea what arm belonged to what torso. There was way to tell which burnt and bloody boot belonged to Simpson, or if that that ear and flap of skin belonged to Jefferson. The explosion charred the remains so effectively that she couldn’t even tell if the parts she looked at belonged to a Caucasian or African American, let alone a man or a woman.
Allyson tried to stop herself, but her body reacted violently to the carnage before her. Regardless of her protests, the contents of her stomach erupted from her mouth into the inside of her helmet. She gagged at the smell of partially digested oatmeal and gastric acid. She retched again at the odor and made the decision to disengage her mask. She tried to hold her breath, but it was no use. As she threw her mask to the ground, her nose was assailed with a strange, burnt odor that smelled like a sick chemist’s mix of barbecued pork, rotten eggs and gasoline.
Over the pops and hisses of body fat sizzling in the fire, Allyson heard a sound unlike anything she’d heard with her unaided ears before—the moans of the dead. They must have been attracted to all the noise from the helicopter crash. Her mind screamed at her to make a choice: either continue the search of the wreckage and potentially be exposed when the zombies came out of the mist, or abandon the search and run for safety.
She surveyed the bloodbath before her and arrived at her order. “They’re all dead. Fall back to the fort!” she screamed as loud as she could.
In the shifting haze of the dancing flames and the radioactive mist, she saw figures running toward where they believed the fort was located. She took off at a sprint in the direction of the wall and then stopped abruptly as she remembered her mask. Even full of vomit, she’d need the damn thing while they waited on their transport out of this hellhole. Allyson pivoted around and stumbled through the acrid smoke of the helicopter wreckage toward where she’d dropped the helmet. Her foot caught against the rubber hood and she scooped it up quickly to avoid further delay.
The moans were louder now and they seemed to come from everywhere at once as the sound waves bounced off the dense fog. She tucked the mask under her arm and flipped the selector switch on her M-4 to semi-automatic. Out of the shadowy vapor, a figure stumbled into her line of sight and reached for her. The rotting skin and exposed cheekbone were a dead giveaway that it wasn’t one of her teammates and she quickly brought the suppressed rifle to her shoulder and squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened. Allyson cursed silently and brought the rifle down to an angle across her body. When she was within two feet of the creature, she pushed the butt of the rifle out with all of her strength and connected with the side of zombie’s head. She cringed as she heard the vertebrae snap and the head flew violently to the side and impacted with the creature’s shoulder. The crippled body fell lazily to the turf while the thing’s mouth continued to snap at her feet.
She scanned the area quickly and didn’t see a looming threat so she transitioned to immediate action for a misfire in her M-4. The acronym that Asher had taught her was S.P.O.R.T.S. which meant to Slap up on the magazine, Pull the charging handle to the rear, Observe the chamber, Release the charging handle, Tap on the forward assist to fully seat the round, and Squeeze the trigger to fire another round. By the time she made it to the “O” she realized that she’d never chambered a round in the first place and she released the charging handle with an embarrassed groan. Lucky for her, no one was around to see her stupid mistake that only a recruit would make.
Once she was satisfied that her weapon was ready to go, Allyson jogged toward the fort’s walls. Another creature lurched from the gloom and she fired a round from the hip that impacted almost in the center of its chest. The damn thing didn’t even stagger as the bullet punched through one of the most vital parts of a human being. She stabbed outwards with the barrel of her rifle to create separation and the silencer penetrated the rotten flesh of its abdomen.
Allyson pulled backward on the rifle, but the zombie continued forward, countering her actions to dislodge the weapon. She retreated backward one step at a time while she continued to wrestle with her rifle. Her foot scraped against a chunk of metal from the helicopter crash and she stumbled, almost going down.
A second zombie gave away its presence behind her with a soft moan. She made the tough decision to drop the rifle and run. The team leader told herself that it wasn’t worth getting killed over the weapon out here on the grass. She sidestepped the second zombie that lunged for her and ran into the morning gloom toward the fort.
EIGHT
18 June, 0731 hrs local
FBI Forward Field Headquarters
Quantico, Virginia
Alistair Reston set his coffee cup down and eased his lanky frame into the chair behind his desk. Then he inserted his identification card into the card reader and typed his password to unlock the computer. Within seconds he was immersed in his morning routine of checking the emails that came in over the course of the night so he could prioritize his schedule for the day.
The first few emails that he read were standard situation reports of actions that were occurring all over the United States. Since he’d been tasked as the lead for the artifacts recovery mission he’d been able to disconnect a little from the day-to-day operations of the entire Bureau. But, his normal position as the Deputy Director of the FBI still required that he stay abreast of every situation in case the director became ill or was called away for any number of reasons.
A new message notification popped up in the lower right corner of his screen. Normally he just let those fade and go into the queue of emails that he would read when he got to them chronologically, but this one was from Ryan Blackhurst, the site lead at the FBI Mission Staging Site at Aberdeen Proving Ground, and had the extremely urgent symbol attached to it. Alistair set down his coffee mug and clicked on the message. He read through it quickly.
Importance: Extremely Urgent
To: Kelly Flannigan
CC: Alistair Reston, Keith Eubanks
From: Ryan Blackhurst
Subject: S-SB Mission
Ma’am, I’ve tried calling the Emergency Operations Center at Quantico, but can’t get an answer. We’ve lost communications with the team that inserted into Baltimore a few minutes ago. There was a message from one of the pilots that they were landing and there’ve been no updates since then. Helicopters and team communications are down.
V/R
Ryan Blackhurst
The deputy director cursed under his breath and picked up his phone. He dialed the number at the bottom of Ryan’s signature block. He answered on the first ring, “Mission Staging Site APG. Blackhurst.”
“Ryan, its Reston. What’s going on?”
“Sir, I’ve been trying to contact the EOC for the past ten minutes, but I haven’t gotten an answer. Just like my email said, we lost contact with everyone who went into the city and there’s been no indication why.”
“Hmm,” Reston mused. “Hang on. I’m going down to the EOC to see what’s going on. Call that number in four minutes.”
“Yes, sir,” Ryan replied.
Alistair hung up his phone and pulled the card from his computer, which would lock it without turning it off. He picked up his folder for the Star-Spangled Banner mission and his notebook that he took everywhere. As he stepped into the hall, his phone began to ring. That would be the director. Even though it was 5 a.m. in Denver, all extremely urgent messages went directly to her phone and required an immediate response. He decided that it would do no good to answer his phone and tell her that he didn’t know what was happening so he continued on to the Emergency Operations Center.
It was a short trip from his office across the enclosed courtyard and then down the steps to the basement where the EOC vault was located. He saw a figure enter the center just as he stepped into the hallway so he rushed toward the room. The acrid stench of exhaled cigarette smoke made him crinkle his nose and he knew instantly what had happened.
“Gentlemen, there’s an emergency,” he announced as he entered the EOC.
“Morning, sir,” Michael, the younger of the two men in the room, said. “What do you mean an emergency?”
Reston held his tongue temporarily. It would do no good right now to chastise the two technicians for taking a smoke break in the middle of an insertion. Instead, he replied, “The mission in Baltimore. We’ve lost radio contact and I need to know why.”
The technicians’ hands began flying over the keyboards in front of them and the large video monitor in the front of the room switched from a distant satellite view to a close up view of the Baltimore harbor. Michael rewound the video feed to see if they missed anything on the camera. There wasn’t much to see through the fog except for a muted orange and yellow glow about fifteen minutes ago. The phone rang and Reston picked it up.
“Reston.”
“Sir, this is Ryan. Have you been able to figure out what happened?”
“We’re working it now,” he replied. The video began playing forward again and the same quick orange glow emanated from the gloom. “Michael, rewind that and switch to infrared.”
Into the phone, Reston said, “Hold on, Ryan. We may have something.”
The image switched to a standard IR view and the heat emanating from the two helicopters moved right to left across the screen. The first helicopter’s heat signature got a little smaller as it lowered to the ground and increased its distance from the satellite’s camera angle. Reston counted eight smaller heat signatures separating from the bird as the first half of the team dismounted and began running toward the walls of the fort.
Then, the second helicopter came in quickly and the two images superimposed on the screen. Reston watched as the birds collided and the screen showed a blossom of white as both helicopters exploded. The fireball receded quickly and six of the dismounts began to move back toward the wreckage. The remaining two continued to glow, but they didn’t move. The six figures’ heat signatures blurred in with the burning wreckage for a moment, but then they separated from the helicopters again and began running toward the fort again.
Reston tried to determine what was happening from the infrared image, but it was nearly impossible to discern what caused the team members to turn away from the dead and injured. “Zoom in,” he muttered. Michael obliged and enlarged the recorded footage as far as he could while still keeping the six personnel in the frame.
The deputy director’s mouth went dry as he watched the heat signatures of the men and women going through motions that appeared to be fighting. Whatever they were squaring off against didn’t give off a heat signature of any kind. “Pause it,” he ordered. “Rewind until I say stop.”
The video paused and then slowly rewound. Sure enough, the heat signature in the upper left was under some kind of assault. “Stop. Now advance. Stop. Zoom in on the far right operator.”
The screen filled with the pink and white silhouette of a human being. “Advance at ultra-slow speed.” At a speed of one frame a second he watched dark hands cover the operator and then heads blocked off the heat signature, finally torsos could be seen twisting in and out of resolution as the zombies’ dead and cold bodies covered the operator. Reston winced as a spray of heat shot into the air and cooled rapidly by the next frame.
“Zoom back out. I want to see what’s happening to the rest of them.”
It was still unclear what was happening to each of them, but it was painfully obvious now that they were fighting for their lives. Hordes of zombies covered the remaining members of the team one by one, extinguishing their heat signatures. Brilliant flashes of white indicated weapons firing, but it wasn’t enough. There seemed to be too many of the creatures.
“I thought they were wearing protective suits,” the second technician said.
“They were, Chris,” Reston agreed. “But that will only protect against bites. It does nothing if the zombies twisted and broke their arms or dislocated shoulders, broke a neck…” he trailed off as one of the heat signatures broke away and ran toward the fort.
He scanned the overall picture and determined that the other operators were down. “Zoom in on that one and pause.”
The angle of the satellite was perfect for him to see the white light of the operator’s core fade to pink near the chest and finally terminate in two red masses that weren’t nearly as hot as the rest of the body. “It’s a woman.”
He remembered that he held the phone and spoke into it. “Ryan, I need the flight information. How many women were in the first helicopter?”
“Umm… Just one, sir. Allyson Harper was on the first bird, the other two women were on—”
Reston didn’t hear what the other man said. “Play the footage,” he mumbled.
The screen showed Allyson stepping side to side and once she even twirled like a running back breaking through a line of defenders. Then, she was at the wall of the fort and began running parallel to it, looking for the gate. Suddenly, a second heat signature appeared over the wall where she’d just passed. Allyson turned and ran back to where the second person was and somehow her body began to lift into the air. It appeared as if she was climbing a rope of some kind, but it may have been a ladder, Reston couldn’t be sure.
The second figure reached out a hand and pulled her over the wall. The two of them ran side by side until they disappeared inside one of the fort’s buildings. Reston mulled over what he’d just seen and said, “Zoom back out and center on the other agents who made it off of the helicopter.”
The scene showed several heat sources fading rapidly and no other moving humans. He lifted the phone back to his ear. “Ryan, I need to hang up and call the director. There was a helicopter crash. Looks like only Agent Harper survived. I need you to continue to try and raise her on the radio.”
“Yes, sir. We’ve been trying to raise anyone while you were watching the replay, but so far we haven’t gotten any answers. Are you sure that I should only try to contact Harper and not anyone else?”
Reston watched as a body was torn in half. The area between the two sections blossomed pink for a moment and then the blood cooled in the morning air, fading to a dark blue. The legs jerked back and forth as the creatures played tug-of-war with them and they finally split in two as well. “Yes, I’m sure. Zombies attacked them after the crash. There are no other survivors. Harper made it into the fort with the help of someone else, not one of our agents.”
The phone was silent for a moment and then Ryan asked, “Who the hell is living in Fort McHenry?”
“I don’t know, but I intend to find out,” Reston answered. “Alright, I need to call the director. Continue to try and reach Agent Harper. We’ll be in touch.” He hung up the phone and then picked it up again to dial the director’s number. She was probably awake anyways.
*****
18 June, 0825 hrs local
Fort McHenry National Monument
Baltimore, Maryland
It took a few moments for Allyson’s eyes to adjust to the building’s dark interior. She rested wearily on the floor with her back against the rough stone wall and had her knees drawn up with her head resting on her forearms. She knew that she was in some type of mild shock because of the events of the last few minutes. No, that’s not right. I’m not in actual shock. More like… disbelief, she corrected.
After the helicopter crash and the fight over her weapon, she’d sprinted for the fort. Zombies had come out of the gloom by the hundreds and she saw at least two of her teammates ripped to shreds. The sharksuits didn’t protect against blunt force trauma and they certainly didn’t help when twenty creatures pulled their limbs in every direction.
So she ran for her life. The poor visibility in the city helped the creatures appear all around them and she’d barely avoided a few clusters of them as she ran. When she finally reached the walls of the fort, she’d panicked and couldn’t find an opening that would allow her inside.
