LZR-1143: Evolution Read online

  From the destroyed remnant of the Bridge-Tunnel, pieces of cement hung suspended from strands of rebar. The jagged edge of the causeway yawned into the channel. Several seagulls, sensing no immediate danger, alighted on the guardrail merely feet from the twisted end of the metal barrier. A single abandoned car sat on the concrete bridge, mere feet from the chasm, miraculously unaffected by the massive collision.

  I turned from the window and released my death grip on the handle in the doorway. The heavy chop of the rotors battered my ears as I sat heavily on the floor, exhausted legs giving out beneath me. Another hand shot out from behind me and handed me a dark green helmet with a raised visor. I stuck it on my head, if for no other reason than to keep warm.

  A crackle from the sides of the helmet announced the presence of embedded com equipment. Cold water drained from my flight suit and my teeth chattered uncontrollably as the wind whipped through the cabin from the open door. As I took a deep breath and focused on the occupants of the cabin, I shivered again. These guys meant business.

  There were twelve of them, all men. They wore black, and their faces were painted in tones of black and gray; each wore an array of weaponry on their waist and chest, with knives and extra magazines filling every conceivable space in their belts and assorted bandoliers. Automatic rifles were slung and pistols holstered, but they looked about as cheery as a one eyed paraplegic at a bikini contest. I made eye contact with the man closest to me, who bore the insignia of a Lieutenant on his chest. It was my friend from the machine shop and flight deck, finally sans mask and goggles.

  “So...come here often, sweetheart?” I joked, smiling despite the cold.

  He stared, eyes unmoving. Beside him, his men did likewise. No humor, no response.

  Suddenly, he spoke, eyes still serious and dark.

  “Lieutenant Peters,” he said quickly and curtly. “Rick Peters. And if it were up to me, you’d still be on board. You have your friend to thank for the rescue, but otherwise ... Jesus Christ, man! Running to the bridge while the ship is sinking? And don’t think for a minute we didn’t know you were under some sort of arrest in the infirmary.” He shook his head as if regretting his decision.

  “Just so we’re clear, I just watched thousands of my crew-mates die on that ship, and the only reason I’m not with them is that we were prepping for a mission when the shit hit the fan. Instead, I had to shoot most of them and lock the doors behind ‘em as they came on deck, and I think you had something to do with it. I am well fucking aware of your history, so don’t try to make friends, shit head.” His eyes were blazing and his voice cracked with emotion.

  I sat in silence, gazing out the open door, watching the coast line pass by to the east of the aircraft as we moved north.

  I turned to Kate, making a face with wide eyes and a slightly tilted head. I reached up and grabbed the cord on my headset plugged into the ceiling, twisting it out and indicating to Kate to do the same. If the headsets weren’t plugged in, they wouldn’t transmit, and I didn’t want to broadcast our conversation.

  “What happened back there? With these guys I mean. Why weren’t there more survivors on deck?”

  She grimaced, glancing at the Lieutenant before answering.

  “Hartliss said that Captain ordered the exterior bulkheads sealed and the SEALs to dust off an hour ago. They didn’t get the drugs, since they had this mission planned. The whole ship was supposed to be locked down, but the initial couple hundred that got injected turned pretty fast, and they couldn’t get ahead of it. So these guys followed their orders. Locked it down and shot anything that came out. Problem was, their second pilot and his crew never made it up. Got stuck in the galley and ... Well, hence their need for Hartliss.”

  I frowned, mind flashing to the thousands of souls that had died, or were dying in ice cold seawater as I sat here. Shaking my head, I asked her the pressing question.

  “You know where we’re heading?”

  She nodded once.

  “Same place they were getting ready to go before the shit hit the fan onboard,” she said. “Dover Air Force Base.”

  I sighed once, hoping that they would divert directly to the Pentagon, but I wasn’t about to question my new friend too closely.

  “Lieutenant Peters said they got some radio transmissions from the inbound Air Force flights right before we took off from the deck. Said that it sounded like the first of the transport planes were short on gas and had to land soon.” Her voice was concerned, and she turned to Peters again, plugging her headset back into the ceiling.

  “Lieutenant, have you received anything from Dover itself?”

  He looked at her sharply before responding; apparently she didn’t warrant the same silent treatment. Go figure.

  He shook his head and the headset crackled as he replied over the sound of the thumping blades. “None. Not for eight hours. That’s why this was a priority for us. We’ve got a lot of assets coming through, and Dover is one of the biggest transport bases we’ve got on the East Coast. If it’s lost, they’re going to have to divert a whole lot of flights, and we’re really damn short on bases we still hold.”

  “Where to after Dover?” I asked, forgetting myself.

  He just glared.

  “Pentagon,” said Kate, glancing at him before answering.

  I leaned back in my seat, and exchanged looks with Kate. We were heading where we needed to be. We just needed to deal with one stop in Dover on the way.

  No problem.

  Peters looked at me briefly, and I smiled again.

  He glared, fingering his weapon as he did so. Slowly, he raised his other hand and deliberately extended his middle finger.

  This was going to be an interesting trip.

  Chapter 13

  Dover was slightly more than a hundred and fifty miles from the site of the crash, and the flight was uneventful. The wind had kicked up and the rain was furiously beating against the glass of the cockpit, but the pilots were unfazed, and the course relatively undeterred.

  I let the reality sink in as we flew. The steady beat of the chopper blades was an oddly relaxing cadence, set against the dissonant reality that we had lost the vaccine. I cursed my hastily conceived plan to save Hartliss, but weighed it against the other option: letting him die. I knew that it wasn’t my fault the Captain had injected his crew, but the effect was the same. Thousands had perished from an agent that I brought on board; an agent that was, ironically, the last hope of a dying nation. Perhaps a dying world.

  I looked down at my arm and stared at where the bite wound had been. I wondered, in a fit of optimism, if the vaccine could be copied or synthesized, or whatever the hell those smart people did in the movies, from our blood. I glanced over at her, beautiful hair drifting in the slight wind of the cabin, and knew she would have an idea. A plan to keep hope alive.

  In my movies, there was always a plan.

  I always had a plan. Even if someone else had to write one for me.

  But for once, I had nothing.

  And it felt like shit.

  We followed Route 1 along the Maryland and Delaware coast, all of us peering out of the windows as we flew merely hundreds of feet above a seemingly placid landscape. Despite the grim darkness of night falling and rain pelting the air, the ground looked quiet. Stores and gas stations, neighborhoods and hotels all passed underneath the dark gray belly of the helicopter. Oddly, only a few ghouls were discernible from above. I noted this to Kate over the intercom.

  “I know, it’s weird, right? When we flew out of Long Island, we could see them everywhere. They were wandering aimlessly all over the damn place. Even in the areas that had been less populated, you could always see a few around.”

  I squinted as I watched a solitary shambling figure stop in the middle of a cul-de-sac below, head canted up, mouth open as it watched us pass overhead. Its arms raised to the sky, unappreciative of the distance between us.

  “Captain Allred mentioned the herding instinct, but it’s weird t
o see from the air; it’s like they’re all inside or moved away or ... something. This area isn’t that remote. This is tourist season, and this is a tourist place. We’re only 40 miles South of Ocean City, this place should be crawling with folks stuck on the eastern shore when this shit started, right?”

  My memory of the area was coming back to me in fits and starts, but one thing that you remember about Ocean City, Maryland was the God-forsaken traffic. There was only one way in and out of the eastern shore resorts from the D.C. area, and that was across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge on Route 50, then across painfully slow two-lane highways designed in the 1950’s for at least three hours before you branched North or South to your destination. During the summer months, it took forever to get to and from the beach, and I used to hate it. Maria loved the beach, but I couldn’t get into it.

  All the sand, and the shirtless, fat, pallid city-dwellers that flocked to the area like overstuffed lemmings; it all drove me nuts. It was one of the reasons I couldn’t stand public beaches, and wanted to move to New York City so soon after graduation.

  I know Maria suspected my intentions, but I was always a forest and mountain man, and if we were forced by circumstance to take all our vacations in a cabin on the top of a mountain with a roaring fireplace, instead of laying next to a coconut-flavored obese lawyer from D.C., well ... so be it.

  A new voice crackled over the intercom. It was another SEAL from the rear of the cabin, who was poring over a map as we flew.

  “Yeah, this is one of the new things we’ve noted from the last few days. When this all started, they were random. They just tore off after anyone or anything that moved. According to recent reports and radio chatter, as well as some damn freaky stories from survivors we brought onboard, they’re starting to group up.”

  He adjusted his rifle across his lap, and moved his microphone closer to his mouth to compensate for the volume of the gusting wind outside. Next to me, Kate leaned forward.

  “You don’t see as many on their own any more. They tend to flock together.”

  She started her question even before he was finished.

  “But doesn’t that make it harder to kill them?”

  He lifted his hand horizontal to the ground and rotated it back and forth in the universal symbol for maybe.

  “Yes, if you’re just packing small arms. But not if you’ve got some high-end weapons like a fully auto cannon or some explosives. One thing’s for sure though. They are definitely harder to hold off and avoid when they’re in these packs. With enough numbers, they can crush fences, wooden barricades ... Shit, they can even overwhelm normal machine gun positions if you give ‘em enough time. Fuckin’ dangerous in herds, that’s for sure.”

  Kate sat back against the seat and turned toward me, eyes worried.

  So they were changing their behavior?

  I wasn’t a scientist; hell, I wasn’t that bright at all, but I knew that to be a troubling development. The instinct to stick together—to become more dangerous through group dynamics—was really troubling. Not because it was foreign, but because it was just too damn human.

  From the headset, the pilot’s voice intruded, “Passing over the Delaware state line now. ETA in to Dover is approximately 20 minutes. We’ve got some increase in the gusts coming off the ocean and we’re going to have to put down if we can. It’s just not safe to be flying any longer than necessary in this weather.”

  “Solid copy,” said Peters, turning to the assembled SEALs.

  “You heard him, ladies. Get locked and loaded and ready for prime time in 20. We are to assume this is a hot LZ and will move to secure an expanding area of influence around the helos when we land, you got that?”

  I didn’t. I didn’t know what the crap he had just said.

  Why did the military have to turn actual language into indecipherable jargon? I mean really. What did the English language ever do to them?

  Kate’s hand found mine as we sat, the increasingly violent vibrations of the helicopter preventing private conversation, and rendering us silent as we waited for the landing.

  As we approached the airfield, a sudden jolt in the aircraft made us lose about ten feet of altitude. Next to me, Kate cursed loudly and profusely enough to be heard over the noise in the cabin. I smiled, despite myself, and gripped her hand harder.

  Peters’ voice came over the intercom again, firm and deliberate.

  “Okay, get tight ladies, we’re approaching the target.”

  Immediately on the heels of his last sentence, the pilot’s voice shot out, “2 minutes LT, and not a moment too soon. These winds are kicking up something fierce. I am going to do one full circle of the LZ before we touch down. We have very limited visibility, so stay frosty. We don’t know what we’ve got down there.”

  The voice cut out and Kate and I glued our faces to the windows.

  We were approaching parallel to a four lane highway, low and fast. Various businesses and buildings lined the road, all in various states of abandonment and disrepair. Some showed evidence of looting, some of having been burned in fire or torn by gunfire. Several cars stood empty, doors open to the elements.

  But the landscape was as conspicuous for what it lacked as for what it contained. No dead or undead bodies. None. Anywhere. The streets were vacant and quiet. The rain whipped down on a desolate landscape.

  When we banked hard over the airfield, I started paying attention to what we could see. That seemed more important right now.

  There were three of them, and they were all burning. The C-5 is one of the largest airplanes on the planet, and two of them sat piled together at the end of the tarmac as if thrown there by a giant’s ill-tempered hand. The third stood alone, off the runway in the grass, mostly intact but one wing hanging useless next to the hull. The rear door of the third airplane was open, and tire tracks led from the open doors, ending in a crashed Humvee hundreds of yards away. Several bodies were strewn around the planes, all appearing simply as shadowy, smeared forms on the cement of the runway.

  The helicopter banked hard, turning in to the circle of the airfield as the SEALs cursed silently to themselves. I looked to Kate, and she was silent and staring, likely contemplating what had made these airplanes collide. I was thinking the same thing.

  I also wondered where all the troops and crew had gone.

  The aircraft was banking to the left, and I snuck a peek outside the helo on the right side. Although we were angled hard, I could still barely catch the sight of a large fenced in area roughly a mile from the edge of the runway. Billboards to the side of the fences and looming over the highway announced the presence of the Kent County Fair.

  The advertised dates of the fair were weeks ago, but obviously the organizers had yet to have the time to adjust the advertising to current circumstances. Saddened by the thought of such events being permanently discontinued considering the global tragedy, I turned away from the window and looked at the airfield again as we made a complete circle.

  Isolated landing lights gave the area a surreal glow in the blustering wind and scattered rain. The doors to the flight control center and tower were battered on their hinges, stark evidence of the violence that had occurred here. The only question was, when had it happened?

  Peters indicated that they had sporadic coms traffic several hours ago, but if that were the case, where were the corpses? Where was the enemy?

  The helicopter was evening out, and the altitude dropping. The SEALs in the cabin were hefting their rifles, and leaning forward, ready to bolt for the open door.

  Kate keyed the intercom mic and whispered softly, “I don’t like this.”

  I nodded, following our descent through the windows, watching the ground get closer.

  The pilot came on one final time, “Open the door, we’re at the LZ!”

  Kate’s hand tightened on my own as the sailors sprang into action simultaneously with the rush of night air into the cabin as the door opened. They leapt from the aircraft in pairs, tightly contro
lled movements taking in the surrounding area adeptly and professionally as they fanned out to establish a perimeter.

  Peters was the last one to leave, speaking loudly on his radio as he jumped down. Kate and I stood, walking slowly to the open door. It was dark now, and the eerie glow of the isolated spot lights interspersed on the tarmac, combined with the moving glare from the sailors’ gun-mounted flashlights, lent the scene a creepy feeling I didn’t much like.

  My mind flashed back to one of my first movies: “Creatures From Somewhere!” Every damn time someone went out into the dark, they got eaten. While oddly prescient, I still didn’t appreciate the possible similarities.

  The choppers blades had slowed to a loud but bearable thump, and Kate and I both threw the headsets to the seats as Peters’ head reappeared in the doorway.

  “All clear here, we’re going inside. You can stay or come with, your call.”

  Before we had a chance to answer, he was gone.

  I turned to Kate, certain I knew the answer already.

  “You wanna head inside? I don’t know about you, but this place gives me the creeps. But better in than out, right?”

  She nodded, “Yeah, I hear that. I can’t shake the idea that we’re missing something here. I know it’s not unusual for places to be deserted nowadays, but ... this just seems off. Seems like there should be a few of those nasty bastards around, right?”

  She stepped down off the bird and turned around as I leapt down next to her. My clothes were still wet and I shivered slight as the wind kicked up from the slowing spinning rotor blades blasted against me.

  The second chopper had landed a hundred yards away, and I saw the team disperse to the East, heading toward the fairgrounds. Several men made a beeline for the fencing on that border of the airfield. The chain link had large breaks in it where the fencing had been pushed to the ground, the poles bent at ground level as if crushed under a large weight—maybe a vehicle of some sort. The earth near the fencing was torn and muddy, churned into a froth.

  “I know the feeling,” I said, turning back toward her as we moved in unison to follow the jogging men into the main building. The wind tore at the ground, but the rain had paused momentarily. I couldn’t shake the same intuition.