Out on the tarmac, the day promises to be another warm, humid day even at this early morning hour. I begin to gather my tools of trade together with my new canine friend quietly following me around or at my side. The others leave me to myself, sensing my want and need to be alone to focus on my adventure to come. I want this time in order to settle into a frame of mind. Each mag I insert into my tac vest puts me deeper into my ‘business’ mindset, reminiscent of so many other pre-mission moments of gearing up, both physically and mentally. Setting my mind into the single focus of the mission yet opening at the same time. Expanding my senses of awareness but filtering and refining that awareness down to intercept signals of danger. Becoming more aware of my actions and the sounds, smells, and movement around me.
As the last mag is inserted and checked for rounds, I begin the process of taping loose items down, hopping intermittently to test for any slight sound coming from me; finding items that make the slightest noise and taping them into quietness. The rope I coil and also tape down, looping it over my head and under one arm, ensuring it doesn’t interfere with the ability to freely move. Ensuring also that it doesn’t interfere with my ability to grab magazines or get to the radio transmit button. I also gather lengths of 550 cord. A very thin, lightweight cord that has incredible strength. The same kind as is used for parachute cords. Stepping away from the aircraft and making sure no one is in my line of fire, I test fire my M-4, both on semi and burst, emptying the chamber to ensure it will work properly in the event I need it, and refill the spent rounds. There is nothing worse than having something that should function automatically fail at a moment when you need it most. It tends to drastically reduce your options in that moment. Basically reducing them to run and run fast.
Lastly, I insert the radio earpiece, feeling myself slip into total awareness and calm. Confidence solidifying inside. Emotion has taken a back seat. The only sound on the ramp is from a few others getting something to eat from our supplies. A small morning breeze springs up, gently blowing across the ramp, moving a few scraps of paper in fits and starts along with it. Instead of the fresh morning breeze and scent of summer it should be carrying, it brings a hint of something rotting in its midst, souring the otherwise peaceful morning with the scent of human decay. That smell jostles me momentarily out of my frame of mind, worrying me about what else may be carried on that slight movement of air. The diseases that will be rampant with the decaying of so many bodies. Wondering, with a little bit of hope, if disease will affect the night runners as well. Will they know it from an instinctual aspect and move out of the cities and the once dense population centers? Will it kill some of them off? I imagine they’ll eventually move as their food source dictates. These meanderings come and go in an instant, my thoughts once again centering. The detail returns with armloads of wood and limbs with leaves attached. I motion for them to put their gatherings in the bed of one of the trucks.
“I want you to go along with Green, Blue and Black Teams. As a reaction force should I need,” I say to Lynn and feeling it is time to be off.
I sense a little of the tension leave her body knowing that she will at least be close at hand. I have the sense that she thought I would be travelling alone. I do want the teams close by and to drive me there so I can remain in my current frame of mind without worrying about which turn to take or hitting parked cars. I also want the teams that were there the day before because they are most acquainted with the interior.
“Do you mind if he stays with you?” I ask Little Robert referring to the dog. “Maybe you can come up with a name for him when while I’m gone.” Little Robert’s answer is to smile widely.
We get the trucks started and head out with the teams loaded into the rear beds. The journey there is a quick one. Old hat to the teams riding along with but new to me. The smell in the neighborhoods is strong as we pass by the seemingly empty houses. The front yards that were once pristine, now with grass growing long. Flowers in assortments of yellows, oranges, reds, whites, and purples bloom in flower beds that were once the pride and joy of those who lived here, now only silent memorials. Their colors brighten the landscape in pretty assortments, creating an illusion of peace and contentment. Their beauty is a stark contrast to the smell emanating. With summer fully underway, the streets should have been alive with the sounds of children playing, balls rolling out into the streets from sloped driveways, lawnmowers buzzing in the morning sun bathing the neighborhoods with the sweet aroma of freshly cut grass. Perhaps even the sound of an ice cream truck meandering slowly through the streets to the sounds and movements of kids running after it waving dollar bills recently begged from their parents. Now, it is just surreal, as if those things are here but hidden from sight and sound. Darkened windows, or those with drapes pulled, stare at us with longing and contempt as we make our way through.
We pull into the CDC facility following the same route as before. I have us pull over and stop a distance away from the building, not wanting any noise of our arrival to reach the interior and hence alert the night runners within. The soldiers exit quietly.
“I want you to stay here and wait,” I say gathering everyone around. “Don’t go close to the building unless I say so as I don’t want any breeze that may be swirling around the building to carry any of your scent inside. No noise. That means no talking or opening and shutting truck doors. No getting into the pickup beds.”
A small fire is built on the road away from the trucks. I add the dry wood and get a nice bed of coals glowing on the dark gray pavement of the street. Adding the greenery on top, smoke thickens and drifts upward, pushed slightly by the breeze. I step into the smoke on the downwind side, letting my clothing and body bathe in it; rubbing the smoke into my clothing and gear; letting it become saturated; covering my scent.
I shield my eyes from the glare of the morning sun peeking around the side of the building as I look towards it. It looms before me; the image from the blue sky above is mirrored on its glass front as if it is made of water. A still pond stretched vertical. The building takes on a sinister aspect as if it is trying to shield something behind the beauty of its structure. I get a chill thinking about all of the viruses locked in the depths of this campus. All sitting there without power to keep them chilled if they needed to be kept dormant in that way. Without power to keep the clean rooms clean and without the pressure differential set so the various germs can’t leak out. All there waiting for some night runner to knock them over, freeing them and allowing them to grow and spread. Maybe it’ll wipe them out in this area, I think watching the skies reflection. The quick thought of being able to use them fades as the realization dawns that I have no idea of how to safely keep a virus.
“Well, let’s do this,” I say quietly to myself chambering a round and flipping the selector switch to burst with my thumb.
I walk into the building’s shadow, cross a street and step up on the curb to the sidewalk in front. My image, mirrored on the glass panels, does not reflect the tightness within as I walk in front of pane after large pane towards the entrance door; the panels conveying my image like a constant rerun. I can smell the faint aroma of the smoke rising to my nostrils as I near the entrance door still littered with shards of glass on the concrete outside.
I step to the entrance avoiding the glass, the sidewalk shows faint outlines of the dried, bloody footprints Lynn mentioned leading outside before vanishing a short distance away. Peering inside, I see the tiled floor lobby; the boot prints from the teams in the dust gathered by the door, bare foot prints appear on top, smearing some. Scuff marks appear in places across the large foyer, made yesterday by the boots of the teams, in either their entrance or, more than likely, their exit. Close to the door, several fresher bare foot prints, some of them outlined in recently dried blood, lead toward the hallway across from me.