She scooped up the bucket of wood stain and made her way to the roof of the music store. The heat of the midday sun was oppressive, but the fresh air — as fresh as it could be with the reek of decay wafting on the wind — was welcome over the stench of body odor and death festering in the clinic.
The crowd of ghouls wandering about outside ignored her while she surveyed the area. As secure a position as the Tierrasanta DDC was, it was also isolated atop its rise. If they had to escape, it would be nearly impossible. There were nearby commercial buildings, abandoned and unsecured, but to get there would require a mad dash through a sea of undead. On the other side of the DDC, was a sharp drop into an overgrown lot. A rusty swing set sat in the middle of a ruined city park that was now occupied by roving corpses and abandoned vehicles. Figuring a way to get down would be challenging in and of itself, but once down, where could they go? Downtown San Diego was ruled by the dead, and finding a safe place would be a roll of the dice.
The DDCs’ natural defenses had become the very things that confined them. If they did have to evacuate, very few survivors—if any—would make it.
Frustrated, Kelly dipped a rag into the bucket of brown-colored wood stain and began scrawling on the wall of the clinic. The moans of the undead carried through the stillness, and Kelly noticed the absence of other sounds echoing through the city for the first time. The distant gunfire, the rumble of helicopter blades, and the far-away screams that echoed through the streets, were things she had grown accustomed. Now, they were all eerily lacking, and their absence was unsettling.
“What’s our best case scenario?” Private Stenson’s voice startled Kelly.
Kelly turned from her work to see him standing in the doorway. A few hours had passed since he had risked his life to rescue a handful of civilians trapped in the music store offices, and yet, he stood ready to help in any capacity he could. He had watched her back while she snuck down to the ground floor for food and supplies, and this eighteen-year-old kid had shown more presence of thought than many people twice his age. With the staff, guards, and Dr. Thomson all dead, and her husband, Henry, in some far off naval ship, Private Stenson was the closest thing she had to a friend.
“Best case…” Kelly thought for a few seconds as she considered the question. She hadn’t actually considered a ‘best case’ scenario until now. She had gotten used to living moment to moment. “Best case is if a military convoy swings by and gives us a ride out of here… ideally to the fleet.”
Private Stenson pondered Kelly’s answer as he limped toward her. He absently worked a piece of bloody glass out of his leg. He looked at it before throwing it away, and then he picked up a rag.
“You should let me look at that,” Kelly offered as she continued her work. As young men were wont to do, Stenson had stubbornly denied any medical attention after his escape from the music store.
“I’m fine.” Stenson dipped his rag into the wood stain and began helping Kelly thicken the letters she had been scrawling on the brick. “When might a convoy arrive?”
“We’ve been out of contact with the military for weeks now, and they haven’t been keeping to the schedule for months. Could be today, could be tomorrow, and could be never.” Kelly answered. She no longer had the strength to sugar-coat the situation, and honesty poured out of her. “Convoys have been taking more than giving these days anyway — food, supplies, and personnel. It’s entirely possible a convoy could arrive here, see the situation, and simply turn around and abandon us to our fates. Or maybe they’ll get here, take all our food, and leave without us.”
Private Stenson did not reply. He continued to help stain the wall with one hand while digging another piece of glass out of his hip with the other. His pants were soiled red with the blood of his effort.
They worked in silence, and the stillness of the city overcame them. A million emotions swam together as they considered their predicament of hopelessness, fear, and anger. It had been impossible to forget the apocalypse that threatened to consume them all, but they had slipped into a state of detachment within the DDC, protected and supplied by the military. They had assumed a false sense of security of the horror that was erupting all around was no longer happening to them. They had convinced themselves that the far off screams and gunfire were mere sounds of the city, not real events happening to real people. Now that their illusions had been shattered, and the adrenaline had worn off, it was time to embrace the reality of their dire predicament.
Kelly and the private finished their task, stood back from the wall, and assessed their work.
“So what’s the worst case scenario?” Stenson asked, sliding an inch-long piece of glass out of his hip and throwing it over the edge of the building.
“We’re on our own, the convoy will never come, we’ll run out of food eventually, or the dead will find us,” Kelly stated grimly.
Private Stenson nodded with a frown. “Are you an optimist or a pessimist, Dr. D?”
Kelly assessed the large letters scrawled in dark brown on the side of the clinic reading: ‘Alive Inside.’ There must be thousands of signs like this throughout the city on the sides of office buildings, skyscrapers, and houses. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her cellular phone. She looked at it, hoping she’d see a message from her husband. There wasn’t one. Only a flashing light that read ‘low battery.’
“I’m a realist,” Kelly replied.
Chapter 20
Captain Sheridan entered the stone-silent briefing room. Five three-man convoy teams stood at attention in unison.
“As you were, soldiers,” he responded.
A mere six months ago, this room would have been filled with sixty crewmen who would sit and joke amongst each other, receive mission details, and rush out to man an armada of Humvees and trucks. Back then, the San Diego docks housed all the convoy teams, ferry captains, maintenance crews, and administrative personnel tasked with front-line logistics. Today the docks were empty: a huge sprawling complex of vacant corridors and silent barracks. Now there were only fifteen crewmen, and only one convoy remained, Convoy Nineteen.
When military operations in California began, no one suspected that the convoy teams would endure such staggering casualty rates. These were the kind of statistics that would one day share a page with World War 2 RAF bomber squads and German U-Boat crews. Over time, the joking and sharing of adventure stories had been replaced with quiet discussion of past missions, or of fellow soldiers who were now either dead or walked among the ranks of the dead. Today, no one spoke, as morale was low, and the soldiers had been pushed to their breaking point.
The convoy team sat back down, and the Captain stepped behind a podium at the front of the room. The tension was palpable — briefings like this had been rare in recent months. They had been reserved for only the most complex and dangerous of logistical operations involving dozens of teams. Being summoned to the briefing room had become a bad omen among the soldiers.
Captain Sheridan stood quietly for a moment and looked at the men and women under his command. In a year’s time, they had gone from inexperienced soldiers — many fresh out of high school — to hardened veterans aged beyond their years. His eyes lingered on Sergeant First Class Carl Harvey. That man had never lost a soldier to desertion, but he had seen more men and women die under his command than any other team leader. This was due, in part, to the fact that he was the longest active-duty team leader by far. Carl hid the pain as all commanders do, but Sheridan could sense it — leaders haunted by their losses shared a silent bond as powerful as it was intangible. If this was not to be the last convoy mission, he would have placed Sergeant First Class Harvey on leave, sending him and the rest of his team to the fleet to heal the scars of the past year. The man had already endured too much.