“Well, will you look at that.” The sergeant said, lighting up one of his signature cigars that smelled suspiciously like chamomile. “They sure look like they’re in a real hurry to get somewhere. You ever seen anything like this?” The sergeant asked Brendon.
Brendon shook his head no, but somehow he got the distinct feeling the sergeant didn’t believe him. “Nope, never.” He said with a waver in his voice. ‘Great, that oughta really convince him now,’ he thought to himself.
“Sarge they aren’t even looking at us. They can’t be more than a couple of hundred yards away and they’re not even looking at us.” Dickens noted.
Murphy’s hand shook as he lit a cigarette. “Never did smoke before them.” He said motioning out into the field and he left it at that.
“I don’t like this at all.” The sergeant said.
“I do.” Dickens replied. “They ain’t coming after us.”
“Yeah there’s something to be said for that.” The sergeant said pausing to ponder the situation. “But they do seem to be traveling in the direction we’re going.” He made sure to lean forward and look directly at Brendon. Dickens and Murphy also looked but were not connecting the dots at all.
The heat of so many gazes, flustered Brendon. “We sightseeing or are we going?”
“Oh we’re going, if for nothing more than to see how this pans out.” The sergeant said.
“How what pans out?” Dickens asked. But no one was listening; they were all getting back in their prospective rides. Dickens watched as a lone zombie peeled off from the rest and began its pursuit of him. “Fucking Gomer.” He said, placing a round in the zombie's shoulder, spinning it around and to the ground. Dickens was back in his truck before the zombie had regained its feet and started back after them.
The line of zombies was at least a couple of miles long and stayed parallel with the Marines until the highway made a sharp easterly turn and the zombies faded from view. Even the sergeant felt better when they were no longer in sight. For another fifteen miles they traveled, finally gaining entry into North Dakota. Night had descended quickly and the sergeant was hesitant to keep moving with that many zombies around.
“Dickens, I want you to set a land speed record for getting the HAZARD up and running. Ramirez, Henderson, dual watches tonight.”
The most ominous thing Brendon noticed was that there was not the usual banter or complaining. The Marines went about their business professionally, their training kicking in to help usher out the welling panic that threatened to overtake them all. The HAZARD kicked on, the green display completely devoid of life or death. Almost as one the Marines tensed up.
“That’s a good thing right?” Brendon said looking at the monitor and not able to discern the current mood from what he was seeing.
“Not really.” Dickens said tensely. “There’s usually something on the screen, even if it’s only a raccoon.”
Brendon got it now. “Nothing living likes to be around when the zombies are.”
“You nailed it.” Dickens said, holding tight to his rifle.
“How far out can that thing see?”
“When it was used just for tanks and vehicles it was specced at almost 4 miles. When they dialed the sensitivity up it lost distance.”
“So?”
“Supposedly 1000 yards, maybe more maybe less, depending on the surrounding landscape.”
Brendon instantly began to do the math of how fast the average man can run 1000 yards full tilt. “What’s that give us, a couple of minutes warning time?”
“At the most.” Dickens said straining to see into the murkiness of the darkening night.
“That’s plenty of time right?”
“Depends on how many of them there are.”
The world is full of seemingly unrelated random events that have profound impacts, sometimes for the positive, sometimes for the negative. Tonight was of the latter.
A rogue wave in Taipei, which coincidentally had wiped one of the few remaining human strongholds off the face of the planet had also caused water vapor to go high into the atmosphere. The result was a thick cloud cover that slipped into the El Nino slipstream that was four months early due to the global fires that still raged in most countries. The cloud cover raced across the United States and right across the dividing line between North and South Dakota. The last Farmer’s Almanac that would ever be printed had called for clear skies but how could they have known. The moon which was three quarters full, should have supplied ample light; unfortunately it was veiled.
Ramirez and Henderson were three hours into their four hour shift. The nerve racking silence was grating on Henderson. A pack of howling wolves would have been more comforting. Henderson purposefully sought out Ramirez just to break the oblivion.
“Psst, Ramirez.” Henderson whispered. It sounded preternaturally loud with nothing to diffuse the sound.
“Scared the shit out of me.” Ramirez said, appearing out of the gloom. “What are you doing here, you know we’re supposed to be on opposite ends. The Sarge finds out you abandoned your post he’ll shoot you.”
Henderson shivered, that was not an idle threat. “I know man, I’m just going crazy. I needed to know somebody else was alive out here.”
“I hear you man, been seeing ghosts my damn self.” ‘Ghosts referring to phantom images brought on under duress.’
“You want some chocolate?”
“Do Mexicans hate fences?”
“Huh?”
“Shit yeah, I want some chocolate.”
“Fences?” Henderson asked.
“Poor humor, give me some of that.”
Henderson handed over half of a Hershey’s chocolate bar, which Ramirez promptly dropped. And to compound his error he booted the chocolate away, it skidded a good ten feet before it came to rest on the base of the HAZARD.
“Hell man, if you didn’t want it I would have eaten it.”
“Real funny and keep your voice down.” Ramirez' footfalls echoed off the stillness in the air. A cold wind blew through. Ramirez bent to pick up the fallen prize, the muzzle of his M-16 caught on the base of the HAZARD and as he stood the array came crashing down. One missed audible blip pinged the radar display before the whole assembly came crashing to the ground. “Shit.”
Henderson took off, not wanting to get caught this close to Ramirez’ post. Within seconds, Marines that had been slumbering heavily but uneasily were out and ready to face whatever threat had befallen them.
“It’s alright!” Ramirez shouted over the din. “I just knocked over the HAZARD.”
“Dickens!” The sergeant yelled.
“On it Sarge,” came Dickens voice from somewhere off to the left.
Brendon was beside his truck, his breath coming raggedly. Not from the commotion in the makeshift campsite but rather from the nightmare world from which he had just emerged. Nicole had been screaming in pain of his betrayal. 'Why did you leave me like this?' She had asked. It wasn’t so much the question as it was the condition of his fiancée. She had been completely skinned alive. Nothing remained of her to allow identification except for her diminutive size and her hair. Her fleshless lips had screamed his name, her bleeding arms had struck out seeking to cling to him. Her ravaged legs walked ever in circles as her sightless eyes moved rapidly looking for something that wasn’t there.
When the sergeant was convinced everything was in order he came over to see how Dickens and Ramirez were faring with the array. He could smell the chocolate on their breaths from two paces away. “I thought Henderson was the one with the sweet tooth.” Ramirez’ look of guilt was all the information he needed. Nobody was dead but this breach of protocol would not go unpunished. “If this thing doesn’t work Ramirez, you and Henderson are going to be on patrol every night until we get back. Get back to your post. How’s it looking?” He asked Dickens.