Oscar Mike – Chapter Ten

The door came to rest on the ground and the vehicle filled with the smell of the morning air… and death. Stepping to the asphalt, Haynes placed his helmet on and surveyed the scene. A hundred houses of varying size surrounded him, some improvised but most predating the First Wave by many years. A settlement that was the size of a modern-day township; and in an instant, it had become a festering incubator for the virus.

Beside him, Colonel Coombs stepped down from the vehicle, flanked by two more armed grunts. The men took up position on either side and walked with them from the command vehicle. Arranged around them in a semicircle were the were many vehicles of 2nd Battalion; Humvees and LAVs parked in place as their crews fanned out in all directions, looking for the last of the Whiskeys and trying to spot the uninfected – assuming their were any to find.

Looking around to make sure no one would hear them, Coombs stepped to the General’s side and began addressing him in a hushed tone.

“Sir, are you sure this is wise?”

Haynes took in a deep breath. The aroma of decay was somewhat stagnant in this portion of the town. The winds were currently blowing from the east, which was sending the scent of the freshly killed undead in the opposite directions. He had to be thankful for that much. Despite the ancient motto, their stench was not something he could ever come to enjoy.

“The infection must be purged, Colonel, wherever it resides.” His words were flat and final. He hoped they would suffice, but the Colonel was insistent.

“Sir, but the plans to resettle… We’d be losing much prime real estate, homes for dozens, if not hundreds of people.”

Haynes turned to the nearest household and spotted a set of windows facing the street. Thanks to the sun, which was now high enough to shine over the eastern wall, he was able to spot the brown streaks that ran across the window pane. He recognized the pattern easily enough – fingertips that had been groping at something in the outside world, leaving behind a bloody trace of their path.

Perhaps they had been left by a still-living person that had been caught inside, begging for help as they were devoured by someone they had known. Or perhaps the deposit had been left by a newly-infected soul, one which was trying to break out of its confines to get at some fresh meat it saw running through the streets. It didn’t matter in the end. One way or another, that place and all those around it had been tainted by the horrors they had witnessed.

Turning to face the command vehicle, Haynes signaled to the Private waiting in the back. The young man quickly obliged him and hopped from the rear door and came to attention a few feet away.

“Private, put in a call with the Bravo Company Commander. Tell him I want him front and center, right now.”

“Yes, sir,” said the Private, and then jumped back inside to put in the call on the vehicles radio. As they waited, Haynes stepped to Coombs’ side and lowered his voice. In a moment, they would be joined by the leader of the clean-up crew, and any opportunity to speak candidly, one senior officer to another, would be lost. He kept things plain.

“Colonel, you ever lived in a house where the previous occupants suffered a grizzly death? Maybe the victims of a break and enter, or a husband who lost his mind and shot his whole family before turning the gun on himself?” Coombs looked him oddly, shook his head. “Chances are, you wouldn’t want to know if you did, would you? A house like that has a bad spell cast over it.” He spread his arms wide, indicating their surroundings. “Now imagine an entire community, every house having its own version of that kind of horror story. Do you think anyone would ever be able to live in such a place? Or would they flee in horror, look for something untainted?”

“But sir,” Coombs interjected. “We can’t exactly afford to be picky right now. Scarcely anyone doesn’t have their share of bad memories, and we get plenty of people pouring in every week who are just looking for a roof over their heads.”

Haynes nodded, but then proceeded to disagree. “People need to feel safe far more than they need to feel housed, Colonel. They’ll take field tents and cots over a roof that bore witness to the kinds of things that went down here. This place was completely taken over, and the fuckers even managed to elude our detection until the very last minute. Nothing about it deserves to be saved at this point.”

The Private jumped from the back of the vehicle again and came to their side. Haynes promptly stopped addressing Coombs and turned to face him instead.

“Sir, the Bravo Company CO is here, sir.”

The Private pointed down the street. Haynes followed the direction of his finger and saw Bravo’s Captain approaching, running just as fast as his kit would allow. When he came to within a few feet of them, he stopped and brought himself to attention, snapping out a salute.

“Sir! Captain Blakely reporting as ordered, sir!”

Haynes returned the salute. “At ease, Captain. What’s the status of this God-forsaken settlement?”

“Well, sir…” he began, hesitantly. “We’ve combed the entire area and found no trace of survivors. Looks like just about every home was invaded and every soul infected. They must have emptied out into the streets at some point, because we found very few after we secured the front gate.”

“Jesus,” muttered Coombs. Haynes looked momentarily in his direction and continued with the Captain.

“Have you ascertained yet how the virus managed to get into the settlement?”

“Well, sir, we did notice a section of wall on the north-eastern side that appeared to have come down. The locals tried to patch it with wood panels, but some of these looked to be jarred out of place. It’s possible a found their way in at that point and began infecting others. It also looks like the people tried to make a stand there, but its difficult to say. This entire place is littered with signs of struggle, so it had to have gotten very messy. We found a few bodies picked clean, but other than those…”

Haynes inhaled deeply and caught of whiff of something truly rotten coming from the west. The wind was changing, apparently and everyone around him began to cringe. Everyone except him. Putrid or not, one could not turn away from that smell.

“How many were there in total?”

“Infected, sir?” Blakely asked. Haynes nodded. “All told, possibly two-hundred and fifty. Difficult to say though, sir. Our tankers managed to do a number on them.”

“So I noticed,” Haynes said with a smirk.

“Yes, sir. That reckoning comes mainly from what 1st Platoon’s grunts reported seeing.”

The smirk quickly faded and Haynes felt a sour taste forming in his mouth. Perhaps it was the smell of death, or perhaps he just didn’t like knowing crucial intel was coming from that source. Either way, he turned to spit. Clearing his throat, he looked back at Blakely and finished their little meeting.

“Alright, Captain. Since the virus was so widespread, I want you and your men to begin setting controlled fires before we start to pull out. 2nd Battalion will continue on its way up Route One and enter town from the south. But once we put this settlement in our rear view’s, I want it burning down and eradicating every trace of the infection. You get me?”

The Captain nodded and replied sharply. “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” said Haynes, issuing a salute. “Dismissed.”

The Captain returned it and quickly ran off. With him gone, Coombs came to his side once more.

“Sir… shall I order the 2nd Battalion and the BCT to proceed to Route Two and continue the advance?”

Haynes looked at him and smiled. He was expecting the Colonel to reiterate his previous objections, but was instead found him in a cooperative mood. That was far preferable.

“Yes, Colonel. It’s high time we moved on to the main objective. There’s nothing more for us to do here.”

“There is perhaps on thing, sir…” he said delicately. “It concerns the reports made by First Platoon and the issue of a… certain ambush.”

“Speculation,” Haynes replied swiftly. “There is absolutely no indication that what we witnessed here was indicative of tactics on their part.”

“No, sir. But given what Doctor Ross was working towards… given what General Thur himself seemed to think…”

“The General was adept in many ways,” Haynes interrupted. “However, I would not consider this to be one of them. What’s more, his decision to study the issue in greater detail wasted countless man hours and resources which would have been better spent on other fronts, like immunizing our people. I think we can all agree, a whole lot of people would still be alive if that had been done sooner.”

Coombs was about to interject, but thought the better of it and simply nodded. There was no point in arguing the point further. And besides, he would be wrong. As loathe as any of the men were to question the Mage’s leadership, they had to be able to see that they wouldn’t be in their current predicament if more efforts had been directed towards developing the vaccine sooner and then distributing it.

Whether it was a matter of weeks or days, the time lost dedicated to studying the Whiskeys and their capacity for intelligence was time they didn’t have to spare. It was also for this very reason that all traces of the vaccine had been lost when their “friends” from the east had attacked them without warning or provocation. And now their people were paying the price for it.

“As for the real estate,” Haynes continued, choosing to address that issue one last time, “our friends in the City Council can take care of the newcomers until we get new places up and running. Plenty of new homes and new domiciles can be built, and our engineers are going to need something to do once we retake Espanola. In the meantime, we don’t need any more ghosts in our lives.”

Coombs nodded again, muttering an obligatory “yes, sir.”

Haynes looked up as his nostrils detected a new scent on the air. The wind was once again changing, the smell of fresh air blowing through the area. It was a welcome scent, marking their passage and their actions appropriately. Within a few seconds, the Private called to them from the command vehicle for the third time.

“Sir! Bravo Company reports they are ready to begin controlled incineration in several sectors. Captain advises we begin moving, sir.”

Haynes looked to Coombs and smiled. “Time to move on, Colonel. Nothing left here for anyone.”