Linda Andrews - Extinction Level Event

He shoved it open and stumbled onto the wooden platform. Careening down the steps, he struggled to find his footing. Rocks oiled the ground and he went down. Fire blazed across his knees and palms.

The door banged shut.

Jumping to his feet, he sprinted toward the open chain link fence. A stitch dug into his side and he gouged his fingers into the ache. No fucking way was he stopping. As soon as he got to the corner, he’d tell the Marines about the bitch. They’d take care of her.

He cleared the gate and jogged into the street. His attention zoomed to the intersection a hundred yards away. It was empty.

He slowed to a walk and sucked air into his lungs. No Marines.

What the fuck was wrong with the world?

Pain woke David. The throbbing in his arm extended to his hip and knee. His mouth felt like he’d sucked on dry cotton all night. Scraping the build-up off his tongue with his teeth, he opened his eyes. Across the empty room, the silver coffee dispenser sat on an empty table. Well, hell. They hadn’t bothered to move him to more comfortable quarters after he’d been shot.

Bracing his good arm against the table he laid upon, he struggled to sit up. The movement jostled his injury igniting starbursts of agony inside his skull. It was going to be a wonderful morning. He shoved aside the bloody, cut sleeve and glanced down. Blood stained the white bandage wrapped snuggly around his arm. He wiggled his fingers; every cell screamed in protest. Heat bolted down his arm.

Hissing through the pain, he tried again. Same reaction. Okay, then. David hugged his injury close. He’d be holding his M-4 with one hand during today’s deliveries.

“Oh good, Sleeping Beastie has awakened.” General Lister’s voice boomed across the empty mess hall.

“Sir.” David eased off the table. His gaze drifted to the brain and blood halo splattered around the vestibule. It was a lot of goo considering how little Colonel Asshole had used it. David breathed through his mouth but the stench of death infested his nostrils all the same.

“After you grab a cup of Joe get your assets over here.”

“Yes, Sir.” Bile welled up in his throat as he crept toward the coffee. Today was going to be a pearl of a day. His hip hurt from sleeping on a wooden table. His arm hurt from being shot. His neck hurt from how his head had lain all night. Hell, only his eyelashes didn’t hurt. He blinked. Nope. Even those suckers hurt.

But coffee. Yeah, coffee would cure most things. He grabbed a Styrofoam cup and opened the spigot on the dispenser. Black liquid filled his cup halfway before it slowed to a trickle. Oh no fucking way was he going to start his day with only half a cup. Gritting his teeth, he raised his injured hand, placed it on top the cylinder and tilted it forward. Pain lanced down his torso and tightened his groin.

Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. He chanted in his head. Black liquid filled the rest of his cup and he pushed the dispenser back onto the table. He licked at the sweat beading his upper lip before blowing on the tendril of steam dancing above his cup.

David turned in time to see Lister kick open the double vestibule doors.

“Corpsman! Private!” He barked before turning on his heel and faced David again. “Lot has happened since you were shot.”

Swigging his coffee, he followed his superior officer across the nearly empty mess hall. Besides his table and the one with the coffee urn, only one more remained. The stoves, ovens and burners had all gone AWOL. Just how long had he been asleep? He checked his watch. Nine-fifty-seven. “Shit!”

Lister picked up his own cup and drained it. “Given the amount of morphine it took to stop you from twitching while the Corpsman stitched you up, I gave orders to let you sleep until it wore off.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! He should be out there with his men as they distributed food. David glared at his coffee as he joined the general at the table.

A Marine and a soldier rushed through the door before standing at the ready. The general finished his coffee. “Finish clearing out this tent. We’ll be leaving in ten minutes.”

“Yes, Sir,” they repeated in unison before breaking down the tables. One man carried the coffee urn while the other folded the tables.

David’s feet pointed at the door.

“Your men left the Humvee for you to join them.” The general lifted a pile of papers before removing a khaki MRE bag. “They also left chicken and dumplings.”

David’s stomach growled. Chicken and dumplings. His favorite. Setting his cup on the corner, he reached for the bag.

Lister waved him away. “I don’t have all day to wait for Gimpy to get the bag open.” He stabbed the top paper with a blunt finger before whipping out his knife and slicing the top off the MRE. “Red are the current fall back positions. Blue marks the original deployments of our tanks.”

Blue dots marked most of the city’s major intersections, red barely a quarter of the original. Many of the less populated areas had been left undefended. So it had begun in earnest. His stomach cramped. “How many are sick?”

“I’m down seventy percent as of oh-eight-hundred.” After adding the water to the heating sleeve, the general folded the top of the MRE bag over then handed an open square of spice cake.

“Christ.” David bit off a corner of the cake. The ginger and cloves barely masked the bitterness coating his tongue. There were some good people in those neighborhoods. And a few really fucked up morons. “The areas unprotected have people in them. Probably thirty percent children and forty percent over sixty years old.”

After adding water to the chocolate milk shake sleeve, the general pinched it closed and shook it. His jaw thrust forward. Brown dotted the maps. “I don’t have the manpower to watch over everyone. As it is, I’ve had to get Dr. Spanner to officially override the Governor and leave off protecting infrastructure.”

Go Mavis. Setting his cake down, David held out his hand for the shake before it evaporated in a chocolate shower. “Why not patrols instead of fixed points? If you mixed it up, put everyone in within a two block zone, you’ll be able to cover each quadrant several times a night.”

Lister flopped the milk shake baggie into David’s waiting hand. “Not enough gas to keep the tanks in motion for more than a few days. A week tops.”

Mavis’s simulations replayed through his head. Seventy percent infected and it had officially started yesterday. Tomorrow practically everyone would be sick. “We both know we’ll be forced to retreat before the week is up.”

“Sooner.” The general slit open the pouch of bread then the packet of grape jelly. “And we’re not ready. No resupply stations have been set up.”

“Then we’ll do it from our supplies.” David finished his spice cake in two bites then washed it down with the last of his coffee. “Our weekly shipment is due into Luke tomorrow morning. We can use that.”

Lister rolled up his collection of maps. “I’ll see if I can drum up enough helicopter pilots to make the drops.”

After downing his chocolate shake, David reached for his pouch of chicken and dumplings and his wrapped fork. “My men know to fall back to Luke after today’s deliveries?”

“Yes. I have given you one of our… computers.” Lister tucked the rolled up papers under his arm. “It will provide you with GPS coordinates of your men.”

David almost dropped his food. The handheld computer that streamed infrared and satellite data in real time? Good God, it really must be the end of the world if the Marines were sharing their fancy toys. “Much obliged.”

“Don’t mention it. And don’t bother saluting. It’s painful to watch.”