Zompoc Survivor: Exodus (18 page)

I hit the brakes and pulled in front of Cassie to make sure she got the message to stop. She pulled to a stop a few yards behind me. For a few seconds, the tableau held, then I heard the Blackhawk’s PA system.

“Exit your vehicles with your hands behind your heads,” the lead Blackhawk boomed.

“What do we do?” Amy asked.

“What he says,” I said dejectedly as I pulled my pistols and dropped them on the floorboard. I picked up the mic again. “Everyone disarm and get out.” I opened the door and put my hands out where they were visible and stepped out. The other doors opened and everyone else followed suit. I laced my fingers together behind my head and stepped clear of the truck. Ropes dropped from the chopper’s doors and eight men in dark green camo slid down.
Marines,
I found myself thinking as they approached us with their assault rifles up.

“Turn around!” one of them yelled. “Walk backward toward us! Now!” Even Karl obeyed without a word. When we got closer to them, the lead Marine barked “On your knees, now!” One by one, we went to our knees. I heard the sound of boots and gear rattling as they approached us. Behind us, I could see the three cruisers approaching. A second and third chopper flanked the road, one higher than the other. The lower bird opened fire with a sharp burp, and I could hear the bullets hit the pavement in a series of pops. The cruisers ignored the gunfire and kept coming.

“Contact front!” one of the Marines called out, and I heard eight guns coming up and charging handles being pulled.

“Stop your vehicles and get out!” the PA system on the chopper that had fired the first shots called out. Evidently, the dumbasses in the cars had watched one too many movies where the terrorists killed soldiers by the dozen simply because they were willing to shoot first. The cars pulled to a stop and the doors burst open. Two men jumped out of each cruiser and brought their weapons up, but none of them got so much as a single shot off. M-16s popped and chattered behind us and the Blackhawks cut loose with their mini-guns. I could hear the thugs’ all too brief screams amid the metallic pops of bullets turning the cars into Swiss cheese as they flopped like rag-dolls and fell to the ground.

“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” someone called out, and others took up the call. Suddenly, there was just the sound of brass tinkling to the ground and the fading echoes of gunfire.

“Reloading!” someone called out. Seconds later, another Marine followed suit, and another, until all eight had fresh magazines in.

“Kaminski! Blake! Clear the cars.” Two Marines jogged forward as two others spread out to the side of the road.

“Have you had any contact with the infected?” the lead Marine barked out again. “Have any of you been bitten?”

“No one’s been bitten,” I answered. “No direct contact with the infected. Just shot a bunch of ‘em.” I heard movement behind me and another Marine spoke nearby, his voice barely audible to me over the rotorwash.

“Ma’am, please put your hands behind your back for me,” he said to Maya. Moments later, I heard the distinctive rasp of a zip tie being pulled closed, then another. “This is just a precaution. We’ll take them off once we’re sure you haven’t been exposed. Alright, I’m going to help you stand up, now.” The process was repeated with everyone else. The other two choppers landed, and I watched Maya being loaded on to one.

“Take the vest off,” the Marine behind me ordered me. I undid the fasteners and pulled the vest off. Another man came up and grabbed it, then I was pushed to the ground face first and my hands were pulled behind my back and bound together. One Marine held me in place while another searched me; he emptied my pockets and frisked me thoroughly, and not gently. Once he was sure I wasn’t hiding any bombs or guns, I was pulled to my feet and frog-marched toward the chopper across the road from the one Maya had been loaded into.

At the door to the chopper, I found myself face to face with the leader, a tall lieutenant with deep brown skin and eyes that looked like he was inches away from a thousand yard stare. “Are my men going to find any surprises in your vehicles?” he asked me.

“A big Rottweiler and an orange attack cat,” I said conversationally. “Be careful around the cat. He’s very territorial.” That got a smile out of him for about a microsecond.

“Don’t worry. Your pets will be taken good care of, sir,” he said. The lieutenant ordered two of his men, Lee and Simmons, to drive the trucks back to base, then I was hustled onto the chopper and ended up sitting across from Karl and Amy. The other two choppers lifted off as we did and turned north, then banked west after a few minutes.

Once we got some altitude, I could see columns of black smoke rising from the landscape below us, and a wall of dark clouds to the south. North of us, I could see thicker columns of smoke rising in the distance. One of the Marines noticed where I was looking and nudged my shoulder.

“Know what that is?” he asked. I shook my head and he continued. “That’s Kansas City. Whole fucking city’s burning.” We started to descend a few seconds later, and I got my first glimpse of their base. A heavy iron fence surrounded the edge of the airport, and infected were pressed against the eastern side. Another fence surrounded the airfield. Five hangars were in an uneven line stretching southeast from the main building, with a big concrete pad north of them that stretched in a thick L around the end of the northern edge of the main terminal, which was a square two story metal structure. A couple of newer looking buildings sat to the west of the hangars and terminal. Seven Blackhawks and a four C-130s sat in a row on the concrete pad, and a walled compound had been built south of the runway.  Another C-130 was parked at the north end of the runway, and a Chinook sat behind it on the grass. Our flight of choppers circled the airfield to the north and came to rest on the runway as four Humvees pulled up, two with machine guns mounted in turrets on the top.

“Welcome to FOB Nevada,” the lieutenant yelled over the noise of the chopper’s rotors as he hopped down onto the tarmac. “We’ll get you inprocessed and get you out of those zip-strips as soon as we can, and we’ll have you on the first plane we can out of here. This time tomorrow, you’ll be in a safe zone.” They led us to one of the Humvees and helped us inside.

“This is the most courteous violation of my civil rights I’ve ever seen,” Karl muttered as we rode toward the walled compound.

“We can’t take chances with peoples’ safety, sir,” one of the Marines in the back with us said. I nodded and gave Karl a pointed look. His face looked like he’d just swallowed a lemon, but he shut up. A couple of minutes later, we pulled up at the compound. Again, the Marines helped us out and led us through a heavy metal door. Inside, we found ourselves in a long corridor with plexiglass panels in the upper half of the walls. Karl and I were motioned to the left by two men in blue hazmat suits while Amy was taken to the right by a woman in a yellow suit. They led us into separate rooms, and the man with me cut the zip strips off my hands before he told me to disrobe. The room itself was pretty bare, with only a metal exam table and a stool. I laid my clothes on the exam table as I took them off and turned to look at the man with me once I was down to my underwear.

“Please remove everything, sir,” he said firmly. I slid them down and laid them on the table then turned around.

“Try not to be too intimidated or anything,” I said in my best deadpan.

“Subject displays bruising over the majority of the torso,” the man said as he stepped up close to me and reached for my right arm. “Including abrasions on both wrists consistent with having the hands bound. No bite marks on the arms, chest, neck or back. Please sit on the table, sir.” I put my bare butt on the metal and felt my ass cheeks clench from the cold steel against them. “Legs bear some scratch marks consistent with movement through brush. No parallel scratches. Bruise consistent with a bite mark on the right ankle, coloration indicates the wound is at least twenty four hours old. No scabbing or indications that skin was broken. Were you bitten by one of the infected, sir?”

“Gummed,” I said seriously. “It didn’t have any teeth. That happened Monday night.”

“Okay. Looks like you’re clear. What is your name sir?”

“Dave Stewart,” I answered, seeing no reason to lie to him. Even if I’d wanted to, odds were pretty good that I wouldn’t get away with it. He told me to get dressed again, and escorted me down the hallway to another room. This one had a one way mirror on the far wall and bubbles for cameras. A door was set in the wall to the right of the one I’d been led in through, and as soon as I sat down at the plain table, it opened to let a Marine lieutenant in. He tossed my vest and the two challenge coins onto the table before he sat down across from me.

“Care to tell me how you came to have these?” he said as he laid a file folder on the table. “Not to mention a Special Forces issue sidearm and a government issue assault rifle in your possession.”

“It’s been an interesting couple of days,” I said.

“I’ve got time. Tell me about it,” he said, his voice level. I hit rewind for him and described my journey out of town in as much detail as I could without revealing Nate or his role in the plan. I could tell the lieutenant was skeptical of the whole story, but hey, we were in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. How much weirder could my story get?

“And then your guys saved our asses from those guys in the cop cars,” I finished.

“And Colonel Shafer will verify your story,” he said, his tone saying what he wasn’t:
bullshit.

“Well, the part about the stadium, sure,” I told him. I read the name tape about his right breast pocket. “Look Lieutenant Parker, I know it sounds weird, but it’s true.”

“Let’s go back to how you ended up at the MSU operating base. You said they captured you. Why?”

“Like I said, they had orders to. I don’t know why, and they didn’t tell me. The agent in charge tried to order them to kill me, but they refused it as an unlawful order. I don’t know if they were looking for me in particular or if they were just looking for someone to take in. Maybe they needed to round up a left handed man.”

“And once you helped them get out of the stadium, they didn’t try to take you prisoner again.” We danced like that for another hour, with him asking me to repeat parts of the story or clarify things. Making a subject repeat their story was a standard interrogator’s tactic, designed to uncover the inconsistencies inherent in a lie. Since I wasn’t lying, there wasn’t much for me to screw up. Finally, he stood up and picked up the vest. “You can keep the challenge coins. Come with me, and we’ll take care of the rest of your personal property.” He led me out the door he came in, and I found myself in a room with a desk and a bored looking Marine behind it.

“We’re confiscating your vehicles, Mr. Stewart,” the Marine behind the desk said. “You’ll be compensated for them at a fair value to be determined later. That includes the weapons on board and all the contents. Your animals will be boarded and the cost taken out of your compensation for the vehicles and other personal property. Civilians aren’t allowed to possess firearms in the safe zones. Do you understand the situation as I’ve described it to you?”

“Understand it, yes. Consent to it, no.”

“We’re not asking for your consent, sir. You’ll be on the first flight out to the St Louis safe zone tomorrow morning. Head out through the door to your left and you’ll find the rest of your family waiting.” He gestured toward the door. I went through it, fuming and cursing the fake cops for giving our position away to the military. The open area I found myself in was surrounded by high concrete walls with walkways near the top. A mess tent was set up to the right with an open dining fly next to it, and another dozen tables out in the open. On the left side of the yard were more tents, and judging by the way people were wandering in and out of them, I was guessing they were temporary quarters. On the far side was a set of port-o-potties and crude showers. Marines in full battle rattle were on the walls and near a set of large vehicle doors on the far side of the yard, as well as a few in utility uniforms and the distinctive eight point utility covers walking around the yard itself. Maya’s voice called my name, and I found everyone else sitting at a table out in the open with tin mess trays in front of them.

“You’re just in time for lunch,” Maya said as I approached the table. “Go get something to eat, babe.” She didn’t need to tell me twice, especially since all of our food had just been confiscated. I headed into the tent and grabbed a tray, then shuffled along the line. I emerged with my tray laden with a hunk of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, two rolls and a bottle of water. I grabbed the spot next to Maya and put an arm around her for a moment before I dug in.

“It looks like we’re all being sent to the safe zone in St Louis,” Karl said as he pushed his tray away. “And as pleasant as they’re trying to make the option sound, I still don’t like it.”

“Me, either,” I said. “They took the trucks and all our stuff.” That brought a round of cursing from everyone, even Bryce.

“Dad got that gun for me,” he said. I shook my head to forestall further talk as I saw a Marine in a woodland pattern utility uniform heading for our table with a tray in his hands. He stopped in front of Porsche and looked over at us with a broad smile.

“You gentlemen looked a little outnumbered,” he said. “I thought I’d even the odds a little, if you didn’t mind the company.”

“No, that’s fine,” Porsche said quickly. She gestured at the seat across from her and ran her hand through her hair.