And Darkness Fell (12 page)

“What does that have to do with any of this?” Reed asked.
“They knew Ebola was somehow related to HIV, the AIDS virus, because
both originated somewhere in Central Africa. Except Ebola acts with lightning
speed. Its victims die within hours or days instead of years.”
“Many people still believe AIDS was created in a lab by the CIA,” he said. “I
read it on the leftwing blogs for years.”
“Yeah, well, the real stuff was going on with Ebola, anthrax, bubonic plague
—strains like that. Part of the research was to develop vaccines to defend against
biological attacks. But another part was experimenting with even more virulent
strains. They wanted to see if they could make a virus that would sweep through a
population so swiftly that it would overwhelm their ability to combat it.” I took a
breath. “That was their plan. Look what’s happening now.”
“We were never told any of this,” Fields said. “The general consensus was
that what’s happening is the bad-seed effect of the massive antibiotics campaign
the government pushed through over the past decade.”
“What do you know about that campaign?”
“Anyone with any sort of medical training could tell those antibiotics weren’t
right. A chemist friend of mine told me the batches she studied contained a
cocktail of nearly a dozen chemicals she couldn’t isolate.”
“But you weren’t allowed to say anything, were you?”
“We were ordered to keep it to ourselves.”
“They always play it this way,” I said. “Always with the best intentions, and
always with unintended—and tragic—results. It was the same when they
launched their campaign to fight the narco gangs sneaking across the border
during Mexico’s war with the cartels. They’d been mixing in with the illegals for
years, but it got much worse when we started letting assault weapons flow south
under that ridiculous Fast and Furious program. Then, when the cartels took over
the Mexican government, our most learned superiors decided we’d better get
serious about protecting our sovereignty.
“I spent six months on the Arizona border as a sniper. They posted two dozen
of us at various checkpoints and ordered us to shoot everyone we saw sneaking
across the border.”
“Everyone?” Fields asked.
“Everyone.” Nausea immediately filled my gut.

The miles rolled on uneventfully. We passed through the Allegheny Mountain
tunnel, which unnerved me a bit, because its lights were off. But on the other
side, headed toward Somerset, the night grew even darker and more ominous
than inside the tunnel, and sourness infiltrated the chilled air. More corpses,
obviously. I wondered if a field of death awaited us straight ahead.

I felt the urge to turn around but didn’t want to alarm Fields and Reed.
Besides, where could we go? I wasn’t familiar with this area, and didn’t want to
flick on my headlights and risk being seen. Luckily, no one else had mentioned
the smell. I could be imagining it.

I decided to keep driving. If something prevented me from going further, I’d
handle it when it happened. But until then, it was best to stick with my plan and
stay calm.

Then, about a quarter of a mile down the road, I saw something that told me
I’d been right in my suspicions.
Half a dozen vehicles sat off the shoulder. A battered pickup, its bed stacked
with furniture, sat in the rear. A slender arm dangled from the driver’s window. A
large figure lay on the pavement beneath the doorway, forming a dark blur on the
pavement. I wondered if the poor souls had packed hastily to rush off to some
safe place, unaware that death had gone along with them.
As we passed the other vehicles, I veered out of the way of the bodies
sprawled in the slow lane. There were eight of them; five adults, the rest small
children. Fields and Reed gazed out the window in stunned silence.
When it was clear, I sped up to get away from the horror. No one said
anything for the next few miles.
Fields, regaining her composure, rubbed her face. “Death. It’s everywhere.
Where does it end?”
“It doesn’t,” Reed muttered. “It’s become our reality.”
“Does any of this bother you?” she asked, staring at me.
“Why shouldn’t it?”
“You were in the military.”
She might’ve said “you’re a cold-blooded killer.”
Reed had also mentioned this to me. Many who’d never served assumed
military people were cold, calculating killing machines unaffected by death and
destruction.
“You never get over it,” I said.
Fields stared straight ahead at the darkness smothering the windshield. “It
must have been sheer torture,” she said, her voice a whisper.
“That more or less sums it up.”
“I’ll never understand how people can do such horrible things to one
another.”
“Border Patrol was a nasty gig.” Even after all these years, going back to
those days brought a bitter taste to my mouth. “At twelve o’clock each night, a
dozen of us were driven out to the desert in jeeps and placed in various strategic
spots. I spent the next eight hours lying in a shallow foxhole surrounded by
sandbags. It was just me, my knife, canteen, and my Falcon 12.7 sniper rifle and
bipod. My assigned kill area went straight out for about twelve hundred yards and
covered four hundred yards in either direction.”
The Falcon, an effective, formidable weapon, had saved my life many times.
The round, equivalent to a .50-caliber Browning, was designed to penetrate armor
at a hundred meters. Wounding someone was nearly impossible. It was like
shooting a sparrow with a .357. I chose not to mention this.
“How many ... did you kill?” she asked, still staring straight ahead.
“I never counted.” I’d forced myself to rid my mind of the actual number. For
years, the images haunted me. It took a great deal of sheer will power and
sleepless nights to get me through it.
Fields still didn’t look at me. “Did you … shoot women and children?”
It had been very dark during my shifts. At twelve hundred yards, it was
impossible to tell the age or sex of those I’d killed.
“Most of the time, it was too dark to see. Luckily, nearly all my hits turned
out to be scouts for the cartels. All were armed with machineguns and grenades.
They also wore vests—which is why the Falcon was necessary.”
“How long did you do this?”
“Six months.”
“What happened after?”
“They took away my rifle and gave me a pair of binoculars with laser sights
and built-in camera. I was told to keep track of the illegals and photograph them
as they came over.”
“What was that all about?” Reed asked.
“They didn’t share the details with us, just told us to take pictures. Then, after
just a few weeks, they changed our orders again and sent us all over the place.
For six weeks I sat in a Quonset hut in the middle of the desert in New Mexico,
collecting spent ammo the other snipers had brought in. I had to count it,
categorize it, file the information, put all the ammo in canisters, and load them on
a truck.”
“Sounds like busy work to me,” Fields said.
“It was the most boring six weeks of my life. During that time, the public was
growing tired of the daily death tolls and urged the politicians to do what was
necessary to reduce the size of the border-defense program. The military then
launched an early out program for anyone who didn’t want to re-up when their
tour was over. I jumped at the chance. I was completely bummed out by military
bullshit.”
“I just don’t understand what happened with that border stuff,” Reed said.
“The illegals kept coming over.”
“I’d heard things about some sort of deal with Mexico and the drug cartel, but
nothing definite. Too much was going on at the time. The United States started
dealing almost exclusively with China, and for the next few years, everything sort
of went crazy.”
“That was around the time the food-poisoning epidemic started,” Fields said.
“When I started at Walter Reed ten years ago, the hospital had already endured
five solid years of poisoning cases.”
“Those days were ghastly,” Reed said. “At least one food recall per month,
thanks to China. I was afraid to buy anything. Every time I turned around, one of
the kids was sick. My wife developed every conceivable sort of food allergy and
stayed in bed most of the time. She and the kids practically lived on antibiotics
back then.” He sighed. “I honestly believe that’s what killed them so quickly.”
Another group of vehicles showed in the dim yellow rays of my parking
lights. This time, more than a dozen formed a jagged line just off the shoulder.
Several bodies lay nearby, three of them directly in the slow lane. Their heads
were cocked at an odd angle.
“My God.” Reed hunched over, his elbows on the console. “What happened
here?”
It looked like the handiwork of the same trio that attacked Fields in
Breezewood.
“Anyone know what’s out here?” Fields asked.
I slowed, swerving carefully out of their path. “Small towns, pastureland.”
“Government land?”
“Possibly.”
About a mile later, we passed another vehicle. This one was also abandoned.
Nothing else showed up ahead. I began breathing again.
“Why’d you really get out of the military?” Fields asked.
“When we began dealing with China, our policies changed drastically.
Nothing made any sense to me. Our food deal with China sent me over the edge.”
“Yes,” she said. “Chinese farmers were sent over here in droves, and
American farmers went bankrupt. That boner infuriated a lot of people.”
“That was around the time of my discharge. I wasn’t even twenty-two years
old and no longer wanted to be a part of an organization that kept making
decisions that made no sense.”
Fields lowered her window and tossed out what was left of her ice pack.
“Nothing was more brainless than that stupid…”
“Uh-oh.” The scene straight ahead made me cringe.
A group of vehicles blocked our path. Nearly a dozen unmarked cars,
arranged in an overlapping chain, spanned the highway. Not one body lay on the
pavement. The bodies stood in front of the vehicles. They were all armed with
shotguns. They wore camouflage fatigues and stood at ready alert, their weapons
aimed straight out. At least two dozen of them formed a chain, each standing just
two yards from one another.
It was a very efficient roadblock, with the Jersey barrier preventing me from
switching to the oncoming lane.
“What ... is this?” Reed whispered hoarsely.
My pulse was thumping. “A roadblock...” My voice sounded far away.
“Wh …What ... do you think ... they want?”
Stupid, Reed
.
But he couldn’t help it. He was frightened, as was Fields, who sat forward,
gripping the automatic in her lap.
“They obviously want us to stop,” I said.
As I slowed down, Reed groaned.
“Now what?” I asked.
“You won’t ... want to hear this.”
“Probably not, but tell us anyway.”
“My friend says they all have little black dots on their foreheads.”

My insides heated up. Once again I found myself staring at a gun barrel. It
had become a daily occurrence in the last few days and had turned my nerves into
tingling needles scratching my flesh.

A second soldier circled the front of the van and marched over to the
passenger door. He stopped about the same distance away and stood in the same
manner as his partner, his shotgun pointed directly at Fields. She turned around
very slowly to gape at me. Her face was as white as a sheet. Her eyes lowered to
the .380 in her lap.

She wants me to take the gun and use it
.
“Can’t,” I whispered, barely moving my lips. “Too many of them.”
“We’re toast,” Reed whispered anxiously from the back seat.
“What ... do they want?” Fields whispered.
“Us,” I whispered back.
“Why?”
“It doesn’t matter. We don’t have much of a choice.”
The soldier on my side tapped my window with the tip of his barrel.
“Get out,” he said flatly.
Grab the .380 and take them out
.
That wouldn’t be a bright move. The two shotguns aimed in our direction did

not waver. I had no doubt that they’d shoot us at the slightest provocation. If they
actually were the new batch of soldiers the military had perfected over the years,
they’d be unstoppable. Their young faces revealed no expression at all. In my
experience, no expression meant these were real cold, calculating killers.

Once again, I considered grabbing the .380. My right hand was only inches
away from it, my lower body concealed in the darkness of the cab. They couldn’t
possibly see my hands. I could grab the gun and stick it in my pocket. When I
needed it, I could whip it out and pick off one or two before they nailed me.

The soldier at my door obviously thought I was taking too long. He suddenly
reached out with his left hand. Grabbing the side mirror by its metal base, he
ripped it free. It was done with minimal effort—as if he’d merely pulled back his
arm to swat a fly. He held up the mirror.

Fields gasped. Reed groaned softly.
The mirror was then dropped to the pavement with a clatter.
“Out!”
He’d done it quickly and easily, his eyes on me all the while. The shotgun in

his right hand hadn’t moved. I realized then that going for the .380 would be the
stupidest move I could make.
“It’s been nice, guys.”

One last attempt at bravado might give Fields and Reed a shred of hope.
I grabbed the handle and pushed open the door. I wanted to slam it in the
soldier’s face, but he’d immediately stepped back. This alone helped ease my
guilt for not testing him. Even if my silly plan had worked, the other soldier
would have shot Fields and Reed. And since he was using a shotgun, the spread
would be at least six inches in diameter. I would have been in the line of fire and
killed as well.
We had to do as they said, but I realized that if they’d wanted to kill us, they
could have easily done it. Anyone capable of calmly pulling a mirror loose from
the side of a van, running down a moving car, or picking up an adult with one
arm, could kill with ridiculous ease.
A heavy wave of guilt quickly swept over me.
This is my fault. I brought them as well as myself into this. If only I’d listened
to my gut and left Reed in St. Cloud ... If only I’d let Fields jump out of the van
when she’d wanted to
.
It was much too late for ifs or regrets. I had to bite the bullet and let them take
us. I had no desire to sacrifice any of us for the sake of idiotic, ill-fated heroics.
I climbed down, slamming the door behind me. The soldier motioned with his
shotgun.
“Where to?” I asked.
He pointed to one of the cars.
“What about my…?”
The tip of the barrel poked my lower back.
I walked toward the designated car. I considered running, maybe even
ducking between cars and making for the woods, but I knew it would be just as
futile as anything else I’d considered. These men could run down a moving car. I
had to keep remembering that.
He circled me, reached out, and pulled open the rear door.
I risked a quick peek before I slid in.
No one.