CHAPTER 29

Mark Kellogg stood with Jim Budlong on a hastily constructed runway, watching a C-130 taking off for Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. Over the last two days, the situation in Pennsylvania had gone from bad to just plain catastrophic. It was like San Antonio all over again. Every bit as fucked up. The civilian population was past the point of saving. The federal government’s response had been orchestrated with their usual day-late-and-a-dollar-short philosophy toward disaster mitigation. They’d come into the area with the idea that moving real-life people out of harm’s way was as simple as moving armies on a Risk board, and now there were thousands dead, and tens of thousands had been infected because they couldn’t be evacuated from affected areas in time.

The Department of Homeland Security stepped in and took the lead on the evacuation process, and as usual they completely misjudged what the people on the ground would actually need. They brought in hundreds of work trucks from neighboring towns to help restore electrical power in the area, but they had yet to deliver even one-tenth of the buses they had promised to help get people out of the hot zone. They delivered thousands of cots and tents and bottles of water, but they had assumed a static relocation of the population and made no provision for moving all those supplies a second or a third time when the battle lines changed, and the infected appeared in areas that Homeland Security assumed would remain safe. There were at least fifteen Katrina-style evacuation villages in the area, all of them now crawling with the infected, the supplies dumped there useless. The military was forced to step in and fill Homeland Security’s shortcomings, and that had stretched their limited resources way beyond the breaking point. He could see it in the faces of the soldiers standing guard all around them. Some, he guessed, hadn’t slept in the last two days.

Kellogg shook his head in disgust and wondered how many times they had to make the same mistakes before they finally grew some sense.

“This is your boy’s flight here,” Budlong said. He gave him a knock on the shoulder and pointed at a C-130 lumbering down the dirt runway. The plane bounced and kicked up a huge tail of gray dust, and then it was airborne, on its way to Minot with the rest of their team and their test subjects.

Kellogg wasn’t thrilled about relocating to Minot. It was the home of the 5th Medical Wing, but it didn’t have a medical facility of the sort they were going to need. Everything would have to be flown in and set up right off the C-130s, and if what had happened in San Antonio and again here in Pennsylvania were any indications, they were fighting a losing battle. The only good news about going to Minot was the seclusion it offered. Set in the middle of the North Dakota prairie, it was a thousand miles from nowhere. At least they’d be able to work in peace.

Nate Royal’s plane banked hard left and inched across a cloud-filled sky that was still laced with gray from the hard rains of the previous week. He still hadn’t shown any signs of depersonalization, and though Kellogg had no idea why that was, he was thrilled.

“That one is gonna be the key to this, Jim.”

“I certainly hope you’re right,” Budlong said. The two watched the plane lumber away until it was just a dark, indistinct speck in the distance. “God, Mark, I’m so worn out.”

“I don’t doubt it. You haven’t slept in, what, the last thirty-six hours?”

“When have I had time? The damn phone won’t stop ringing. They scream at me for a cure and then they won’t let me off the damn phone long enough to go find it. Everybody’s got to make sure I know how committed they are to getting this very important project successfully resolved.”

“What they mean is they can’t wait to take the credit.”

“Probably.”

Kellogg sighed. “And you wonder why I hate the military so much.”

“I always thought it was that big bowl of hate you eat for breakfast every morning.”

“Standard rations for any man who refuses to give up his common sense.”

Budlong laughed. “You volunteered to come work for me, Mark. That means you haven’t got the common sense God stuck up a mule’s ass.”

“Thanks, boss.”

“You’re welcome.”

Another C-130 was loading nearby. The rear deck was lowered and a forklift was moving one of the infected containment units toward the cargo area. Guards stood nearby, looking tired and bored, leaning against barricades or just standing around with the hoods of their biosuits thrown back so they could ventilate. Kellogg hated wearing those things, too. With it being as humid and hot as it was out here, he didn’t blame the men for the breach in regulations.

The C-130’s loadmaster was waving the forklift into the bay. Kellogg scanned the scene once more, figured they would be in the air themselves in another forty-five minutes, and was about to tell Budlong he was headed for the pisser when he heard a loud crash.

The forklift driver misjudged the ramp. The containment unit was jammed up into the V formed by the lowered rear deck and the plane’s fuselage. Even from where he stood, Kellogg could see the door to the containment unit had crumpled, leaving a sizeable opening.

The loadmaster was screaming instructions, waving his arms furiously in the air.

Soldiers were running from every direction.

One soldier jumped onto the ramp near the opening in the containment unit and crouched next to the strut with his rifle pointed down into the unit.

“What the hell?” Budlong said. He took a few steps toward the plane. “What’s he doing? No!” Budlong yelled at the soldier to get away, but his voice was lost in the confusion. He waved his hands over his head as he quickened his pace to a trot.

Kellogg ran after him. He caught up with Budlong just as the soldier on the ramp started to fire into the containment unit.

Everybody was shouting now. Men were scrambling up the ramp to join the fray. The loadmaster and a lieutenant Kellogg didn’t recognize were screaming what sounded like contradictory orders at the men, and all the while the soldier already on top of the ramp was blasting three-round bursts into the containment unit.

One of the zombies managed to climb over the damaged door and fell onto the loading ramp below. Soldiers coming around the right side of the unit ran right into him.

Kellogg heard a scream, and one of the men went down.

There was a lot of shooting, and at least a few rounds whistled past Kellogg to his right.

The test subjects in the containment unit were lost to them now. He knew that. The soldiers would kill them all and resent anyone who tried to argue with them for doing it. Another shot whistled past his ear and Kellogg ducked belatedly.

He looked around for cover.

He saw a long dirt berm that the bulldozers had pushed into place when they carved the runway out of this farmer’s field, and he turned to wave Budlong in that direction.

But Budlong wasn’t moving.

He was standing in the middle of the field, looking confused, stiff. There was a dark spot right below his throat.

“Jim?” Kellogg said.

Budlong looked at him and coughed.

“Jim!”

Kellogg broke into a sprint and was at his friend’s side a moment later, opening his tunic, carefully pulling the T-shirt down from the neckline, revealing the gunshot wound that was rapidly filling with blood.

“Medic!” Kellogg shouted. “I got a man down over here. I need a medic, damn it.”

He put a hand behind Budlong’s neck and eased him onto his back.

“Okay, Jim, we got to lay you down.”

Budlong put a hand on Kellogg’s arm, pushing him away. He tried to speak and managed only a gurgling noise. He gestures became urgent. He slapped Kellogg’s arms like he couldn’t breathe.

“Gotta open an airway,” Kellogg said. “Okay, okay.”

He tried to hold Budlong down on the ground, but the man was in a panic, fighting with him.

“Medic!” Kellogg screamed. “I need some fucking help over here.”

Kellogg got his legs under Budlong’s head to elevate him.

“Okay, okay,” Kellogg said. “I got you, Jim.”

But Budlong wasn’t resisting anymore. He went limp in Kellogg’s arms. “Oh, shit, Jim. Jim!” Nothing. Budlong’s eyes were glassy. There was no breath, no pulse. “Jim, no, you bastard, don’t do this to me.”

He started CPR, but gave it up as soon as blood started to spurt out of the wound in Budlong’s chest. Kellogg leaned back from the body, shaking his head like he could make it all go away if he just blinked hard enough.

An airman was yelling his name. Kellogg closed his eyes and tried to get some sort of control over the shock and anger and confusion that were swirling through his mind. But it was no use. There was just too much. He put his head in his hands and sat there, gradually growing numb to the sounds of the shouting and the shooting and the fighting going on around him. And the thought that kept going through his head was that it was just like San Antonio all over again.

They were headed into hell.