Linda Andrews - Extinction Level Event

He blinked as she pulled her blue mask down. Not a man, but a woman.

“Hey, Beth. Do you remember me?” The woman reached out to touch the girl but drew back her hand at the last minute. “I stopped by once a week to give your dad eggs.”

Beth pushed her dark hair out of her eyes and stared at the other woman. “Ms. Hernandez?”

“Yes, that’s right.” Ms. Hernandez extended her hand again. “Why don’t we go gather up some of your favorite belongings?”

“Oh.” Beth blinked, then took the proffered hand and climbed off of Henry. “Yes. Okay.”

Manny watched them leave while Cowboy walked up.

“They’re all dead. One was knifed in the chest. The others…”

“The Redaction?”

“Could be. The eyes are red, but it seems so fast. Most of them didn’t start coughing until three or four days ago. Now this…” Cowboy adjusted his facemask. “My wife and daughter started coughing the day before.”

Henry nodded. “We need to get to the soldiers. Fast.”

Manny swallowed hard. If this new Redaction killed in days, then most of those coughing would be dead soon.

David blew his nose into a napkin. Damn fires. Wadding up the paper, he stuffed it into his pocket along with the handful of others and watched the large bellied C-17 cargo plane taxi down the runway of Luke Air Force Base. The rows of grounded F-16 Raptors wavered in the hot exhaust. In the smoke clogged sky, he picked out the slim-lined Sentry ‘eye in the sky’ and its company of F-35 Lightning fighter jets circling the valley.

“You getting sick, Big D?” Standing on the tarmac beside him, Robertson leaned against the back of their empty supply truck.

“Sick of breathing in all this crap.” David shrugged. He knew better than to wave his hand. The smoke from the fires raging around the base interpreted the action as an invitation to invade his lungs. “Thought I was done with this shit when I left Iraq.”

Across the tarmac, Air Force ground crews in uniform waited for the cargo plane to get close enough to direct it to its appointed spot.

Robertson crossed his muscular arms across his chest. “This is worse than the fires in the Sandbox. Here we have to deal with Zipper-Suited-Sun-Gods on a daily basis.”

“The pilots aren’t too bad.” David rolled his shoulders inside his ACUs. Once he and his men loaded Monday’s delivery onto the trucks, he could take a drive to see Mavis. She’d sounded sick on the phone. That wasn’t allowed. He needed her alive, wanted her to stay alive.

“That’s cuz so many of them are sick in their beds.” Robertson shoved off the back of the truck and paced. “It’s weird, Big D. I think we’re the only group left that isn’t sick. And while my sparkling personality would explain why God spared me the uglies, I can’t account for the rest of you.”

Leave it to Robertson to make the Redaction’s return into an ego stroke. Still… The private had a point. One that had been bothering David for a day and a half. Should he mention it to Mavis? She might have an explanation. Then again… “Not everyone caught the Redaction at the same time.”

That could explain why his men remained healthy. For now. He checked the fit of his face mask.

“Maybe, but we could see the sickness moving through the base, tent by tent. People got sick practically overnight.” Robertson stopped pacing and threw open his arms. “This feels different.”

“People are recovering.” At least, that was the official word from the governor. Did he believe it? David wanted to. God knows he wanted to. But his gut remained in a hard knot. He pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and checked the readout.

No missed calls.

Robertson resumed his pacing. “Still no call from Wheelchair Henry?”

David strained to hear the words above the screaming engine of the cargo plane before stuffing the spongy orange plugs into his ears. Shaking his head, he dropped the phone in his pocket. In his last message, the old soldier had said they’d be heading for Mavis’s at first light. He hoped nothing had delayed their departure. According to the infrared maps, their neighborhood had been surrounded by fires at noon.

Gears groaned as the back of the plane opened. Ground crews streamed around the plane. Two Airmen driving forklifts shot out of the metal hangar.

David waited by his truck and felt his men gather behind him. At least this part was routine—unload the supplies from the plane and parcel them out for the week’s delivery. Since they wouldn’t be returning to their base camp, they’d commandeered space in Hangar Foxtrot to stage the rations.

With a handheld tablet in his hand, a pilot in orange earmuffs bounced down the cargo plane’s ramp. He paused at the bottom to bend over and cough before striding across the blacktop. The C-17’s engines whined then faded into silence.

Walking away from his men, David marched to meet him halfway. Despite the protection of the face masks, he wanted the sick airman away from his healthy soldiers. He was ten yards away when David noticed a jeep racing toward them. The weak afternoon light bounced off the brass on the men’s collars and hats.

Officers. David’s steps faltered. He recognized General Lister’s square jaw visible under his blue face mask. Despite being partially covered, the elongated face of the other man in the backseat must be the base’s commanding officer. Now what shit storm was headed his way?

David reached the pilot first and held out his hand for the tablet.

The airman held on to it while facing the incoming brass.

The Jeep screeched to a halt so close the engine heated David’s leg.

His attention shifted from the officers to the tightly packed cargo. Damn! The two were connected and his gut told him his rations were about to be confiscated.

Lister hopped over the side of the Jeep. With a predatory gait, the Marine marched around to meet David. The dark screen of the computer in his left hand reflected bursts of sunlight. “Sergeant Major Dawson. We would like a word with you.”

Luke Air Force Base’s commanding officer walked with the loose-hipped stride of crowned Zipper-suited-sun-god. He reached his subordinate and held out his hand, palm up. “I’ll take that, Captain.”

“Aye, Sir.” The airman handed over the tablet with the ration details to his superior officer before jogging back to his plane.

The base’s CO handed it to Lister.

Blue tinged the Marine’s features when he started the tablet. His steel gray eyebrows migrated up his forehead as he peered at David. “Tell me, Sergeant Major, do you believe this latest round of illnesses to be harmless or the beginning of something else?”

David eyed his superiors. Poker faces looked back at him. Sides were being drawn. His gut told him the military was about to take down the government for the survival of the people. He stifled the thought. No, not take down the government, take down the politicians. It was the people who were the government. Politicians had held themselves so far above the people that they might have been living in different plane of existence.

The two commanders remained still, predators waiting to strike.

Robertson’s laughter drifted on the smoke tainted air.

He owed to it his men and folks like Wheelchair Henry and Manny and the hundreds of thousand like them who were fighting for their survival to stand against a political agenda. The people were his real commanders. Those were the true America.

Not everyone would see it that way. God knew, Mavis had taken knocks for overreacting and panicking from the governor during her public address of reassurance and platitudes. David cleared his throat. If he sided with the losing team he’d be shot without a trail while the country remained under martial law.