He leaned against the wall and slid down to the ground. Driving and death had been his life for a year, and now his job was over. Until this moment, the idea that he might make it out of convoy duty alive hadn’t even occurred to him. He had seen so many men and women slaughtered: shot by civilians, ripped apart by ghouls, or killed in accidents. He had assumed that sooner or later, he would be among them. It filled Carl with a deep sense of regret that seven more men had died under his command today… and he hadn’t been among them.
Carl rubbed his eyes. Tears had snuck up on him, and he could not make them stop now that they had come. Guilt and anger overwhelmed Sergeant First Class Harvey, and his chest convulsed with sobs.
“Carl?” Pam’s voice startled him.
He wiped his face and turned away from her as he took a drag of his cigarette. “What’s up?”
Pam sat down on the ground next to Carl and placed a hand on his shoulder. It was an odd gesture. As close as they had become over the past year, there was rarely any physical contact, short of an occasional high five or fist bump. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just taking a smoke break. Building Two is empty and I just wanted a quick rest before I started helping with Building One.” Carl attempted to will away his tears, stood up, and offered his friend and comrade a hand. “You ready to get the hell out of here?” Carl asked, with a forced smile.
Pam took his hand and got to her feet. “No, I mean are you okay?” She looked into Carl’s eyes, concern on her face. “At the Tierrasanta DDC you… when we were leaving… things just seemed… off.”
Carl paused for a few seconds, and he fought against the anguish rising in him. There was no use hiding it. Carl doubled over, sat back against the wall, covered his face with his hands and began to weep.
Pam rubbed Carl’s back, trying to offer whatever comfort she could. Her commanding officer’s outpour of emotion was almost enough to bring her to tears. Sergeant First Class Carl Harvey was the kind of man whom she would happily follow into the gates of hell. He had cultivated an image of invincibility that was almost superhero-like. Seeing Carl’s hidden side — the side that endured silently in pain — was difficult.
“I can’t remember their names,” Carl gasped.
“I can’t either,” Pam confessed.
“I was their commander… they trusted me. I was supposed to keep them safe…” Carl sobbed.
“You did a good job, Carl. You did a better job than everyone else. There’s a reason you’re the last convoy commander; you got us here alive because you’re the best. Those missions saved thousands of lives. You did that.” Pam tried to console Carl. “You saved thousands of lives. You’re a hero.”
Carl shook his head. “I don’t even know how many men and women I lost. I’m no hero… not by a long shot.”
“There are a dozen kids from the Tierrasanta DDC who would disagree, and two dozen or more from the Spring Valley DDC,” she retorted. “You’ve saved families and brought doctors to the fleet, transported food… you sound like a hero to me.”
Carl wiped his face, took a final drag of his cigarette, and flicked the butt onto the pavement. He rolled Pam’s words over in his mind, and his breathing calmed. He wiped his face and resumed his normal cool demeanor. “The price was too high…”
“Look… it’s all over now. We did everything we could.” Pam pointed at a Chinook helicopter that hovered over the parked convoy vehicles. Soldiers were securing straps around one of the Humvees and hooking it to a winch. A few moments passed, and the soldiers hooked the winch to a line hanging from the helicopter. They stepped away from their work, and watched as the Hummer rose into the air and flew out over the ocean under the power of the aircraft. “No more missions. We did a good job and saved a lot of lives.”
Carl watched his vehicle disappear into the distance. “It’s going to be strange.” Carl composed himself. Only the redness around his eyes betrayed his emotional outburst.
“Yeah…” Pam conceded. “It will be strange, but it will be a good strange.”
“Let’s check on Miguel and finish helping with Building One.” Carl wiped his eyes one final time.
Pam nodded, and the two of them began walking around the loading dock toward the screening facility. Neither of them had been screened as of yet, and now seemed as good a time as any to take care of that. A crowd of civilians was already gathered around the landing pad, hoping for a place on the next helicopter. Soon, the military personnel guarding the power plant would follow, and San Onofre and all the rest of North America would belong to the living dead.
“San Onofre is now entering cold shutdown.” A woman’s voice came over the speaker system. “We will be relying on backup generators until the facility is vacated.”
As the nuclear power plant began to shut down, the cooling towers vented a column of steam into the atmosphere. The purple sky faded to black as the sun vanished beneath the horizon, and the oppressive heat that had dominated the day began to abate. Carl imagined the lights of San Diego skyscrapers going out, and the panic that it would bring. Thousands of trapped survivors would find themselves, for the first time, cast in total darkness.
“It’s going to be a dark night,” Pam frowned.
Chapter 30
“I’m sorry I couldn’t look at this earlier.” Kelly said, as she examined Miguel’s leg.
Miguel had lain on his back for the majority of the afternoon, waiting patiently for her attention. As the lone doctor in the entire facility, the only assistance Kelly had was a nervous Marine security guard and a teenage Army combat medic. The Marine sentry was distracted by the growing mass of undead along the outer fence. The combat medic, Private Heimbach, hadn’t even completed his training. He was better suited as a courier — running around San Onofre looking for something Kelly needed — gauze, antibiotics, and crutches.
“No… er… problem.” Miguel grit his teeth through the pain as Kelly unwrapped the bandages from his improvised splint. “Is everyone checked out?”
“Almost.” Kelly nodded, and a saddening thought entered her mind. She hadn’t seen Nicole or her son during the screening. She couldn’t remember seeing them escape from the DDC, but she certainly would remember seeing them killed. She sighed; how many people had simply disappeared? How many friends, mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters were simply swallowed up by the undead legions… only to rise as just another faceless monster?
“How we doing, soldier? You patched up and ready to sip martinis on some cruise ship?” Carl said loudly as he approached with Pam.
Miguel turned to see his friends. “Just my luck…” He gestured toward his broken leg. “I finally get a vacation and this happens!”
“We need to be screened.” Carl held up his hand. It was devoid of the black ink mark that would indicate Kelly had examined them for bites and infection.
Kelly nodded. “Give me one second.” Kelly felt around Miguel’s lower leg, and he grimaced in pain. “This is going to hurt a little…”
“Okay…” Miguel took a deep breath.
Kelly squeezed hard on Miguel’s leg until she felt the bones realign. He bit down hard on his shirtsleeve and gripped the edges of his cot until his knuckles turned white.
“Private Heimbach,” Kelly addressed the young combat medic, “wrap this up and put a cast around it.” Making a cast was not demanding and the green combat medic would have minimal chance of messing up. “Okay, step behind the curtain please.” She instructed Pam to go first.