John Gilstrap - At all costs

“Well, Ops, so much for a short-term contract. This place is packed.”

“Okay, Entry. Keep us informed.”

No one moved until the two industrial hygienists said it was safe to do so. In this business, the patient man was the one who lived long enough to retire. People pretended not to care about all the safety shit during the lectures, but not one of the Silverados inside Magazine B-2740 questioned for a moment that a mistake might put them in an early grave.

“I show zeros across the board,” Parker announced.

“Me, too,” said Adam Pomeroy, Parker’s counterpart on Team Bravo.

“Tallyho,” Jake said. Only Carolyn could hear the hesitation in his voice, and she looked over to him one more time. He looked away.

The seam of light died quickly as they stepped deeper into the concrete cavern. Curiously, the blackness seemed most opaque right at the line separating light from dark.

“Entry One to Operations, we’re inside.”

“Okay, Entry One. Any first impressions?”

The place was huge, extending far beyond the range of their hand lights, and it looked as full as it could possibly be. The wooden box that had spooked the EPA guy sat right where it was supposed to be, just inside the doors, near the center-virtually the first spot to be illuminated when the blast doors opened. U.S. Army-Danger Poison, it read, just above the telltale skull-and-crossbones symbol. Then, immediately below, Chemical Agent-Mustard Gas.

But that was just the beginning. Beyond that one container, stretching on in all directions, was shelf after shelf of God knows what. Assuming that wooden containers with stenciled writing meant military hardware, and assuming that military hardware meant things that made craters, then this place was one huge bomb. Then there were the fifty-five-gallon storage drums, and the cardboard boxes, and the glass jars… It just went on and on and on.

Jake palmed his mike button. “First impressions? Yeah. We underbid this contract by about a million dollars.”

“Two million,” Carolyn added. In the darkness, everyone became faceless in the moon suits, but still, she knew her husband was smiling.

With Parker leading the way, Jake’s Alpha team moved deeper into the shadows, and with each step, their world became progressively smaller, limited only to that which could be touched by the beams of their hand lights. The shelves stretched high toward the concrete ceiling, and on initial inspection, everything looked the same; every angle identical to the other. Jake found himself continually glancing back toward the shimmering white wall of sunlight behind them. As long as he could see the light, he told himself, he wouldn’t get lost. That visual anchor, though, was shrinking in size and getting further away by the second.

“Talk to me, Parker,” Jake said.

“Still zeros. Shouldn’t you guys be doing something more productive than following me?”

It was a good point; in fact, it was the operational plan. The I.H. s bore the task of assessing the chemical hazards of the facility, and that required them to traverse the whole place, corner-to-corner. Jake and Carolyn and the other technicians should have already started writing down their inventory. Somehow, though, the sheer scale of the project drew them deeper into the magazine.

“Hey, guys, we’ve got something here.” It was Adam Pomeroy, and his voice was shaky.

Jake pivoted all the way around, 360 degrees, but he couldn’t see a thing. “Where are you? What have you got?”

Adam waved his hand light over his head, and Jake caught a glimpse through the shelving. He had no idea that they’d become so far separated. “I’m right here,” Adam said. “And I found a skeleton.”

“Come again?” Jake said incredulously. “Did you say skeleton?” He walked as he spoke, trying to wind his way through the maze of crap.

“You got it,” Adam confirmed.

“Keep waving that light so I can find you.”

“I see him,” Carolyn said, leading the way toward the front of the magazine.

Jake put his hand on her shoulder, bringing her to a stop. He thought he heard something odd. A popping noise. Backfires maybe, from the breathing air compressor? Shit, that couldn’t be good news. “Do you hear that?” he asked on the air to anyone who wanted to answer.

“Almost sounds like gunfire,” said somebody from Bravo.

Jake looked over in their direction. Damned if it doesn’t.

In a microsecond, their world erupted into brilliant white light. Jake felt a pulse of wind and instantly became disoriented. There was a sense of flying through the air and then the reality of impacting something hard. There should have been noise, and there should have been pain, but there was neither. Only searing heat as something caught fire over where Bravo used to be. Thoroughly disoriented, he couldn’t tell if he was lying on the floor, or if he’d been thrown against a wall. Up and down had no meaning in all the confusion.

A second flash rocked the inside of the magazine, and this time the noise was deafening. Yellow flames joined the white for just an instant, before the heavy black smoke enveloped everything and the heat became invisible.

He had to get out. This was the nightmare; the scenario that could never happen. In that instant, he knew that he was dead.

“Jake!”

He whirled to his right, expecting to see Carolyn, but found himself greeted by more blackness.

“Jake! Where are you!”

His earpiece! Christ, she could be anywhere, but her voice would always be inches away. He found the transmit button and mashed it. “Jesus, what was that?”

“Thank God, Jake. Where are you?”

“I don’t have a clue. Where are you?”

A third grenade screamed over Jake’s head, missing him by inches as it sought and found the right rear corner of the magazine. This time the explosion had a physical dimension. He felt the heat pulse pick him up and deposit him butt-first into a stack of shelving, which quickly collapsed under his weight. In the brilliance of the flash, he saw Carolyn’s silver outline against the roiling billows of smoke as she was deposited within feet of him.

“Carolyn! Are you okay?”

His only answer came from somewhere in the back of the magazine, well beyond the thick black veil of smoke. An ungodly shriek rose from those depths; a howl, really, whose volume increased geometrically until it finally drowned out all other sound. Then it fell silent.

“Carolyn!” he screamed. “Carolyn, where are you?” He could barely hear himself, and he wondered if he’d been deafened.

Out of nowhere, a pair of hands landed heavily on his shoulders, and he felt his suit pull tight at the crotch as someone dragged him across the floor. He struggled first to his knees and then to his feet, cheering aloud as he caught a glimpse of the big “3” on the silver suit in front of him. Carolyn was alive!

Still disoriented, Jake stumbled after her, on the assumption that she knew where she was going. The fire behind grew larger by the instant, made bigger still by secondary explosions, as munitions cooked off. Suddenly he wasn’t stumbling anymore. He was running, and pushing Carolyn along in the process.

Flames and smoke billowed through the door frame as they dove face-first onto the grass-stubbled roadbed. Slapping his hand against his transmit button, Jake yelled, “Run! Run! Run!” But he still couldn’t hear himself.

Together, they scrambled to their feet and dashed for the decon line, but Carolyn stopped short, causing Jake to stumble one more time. This time he caught himself before he fell. Then he saw it. Carnage. Bodies everywhere, in twisted heaps on the ground.

What the…

Carolyn heard the shots, then saw the shooter: a faceless monster, blended perfectly with the trees but for the muzzle flashes and the bucking of the rifle at the end of his arm. He seemed so close. She wondered how they could still be alive, and in the instant the thought flashed into her head, she saw a spray of Plexiglas explode from the facepiece of Jake’s suit. She screamed and caught him before he could fall to the ground.