John O'Brien - Return

Lastly, I insert the radio earpiece, feeling myself slip into total awareness and calm. Confidence solidifying inside. Emotion has taken a back seat. The only sound on the ramp is from a few others getting something to eat from our supplies. A small morning breeze springs up, gently blowing across the ramp, moving a few scraps of paper in fits and starts along with it. Instead of the fresh morning breeze and scent of summer it should be carrying, it brings a hint of something rotting in its midst, souring the otherwise peaceful morning with the scent of human decay. That smell jostles me momentarily out of my frame of mind, worrying me about what else may be carried on that slight movement of air. The diseases that will be rampant with the decaying of so many bodies. Wondering, with a little bit of hope, if disease will affect the night runners as well. Will they know it from an instinctual aspect and move out of the cities and the once dense population centers? Will it kill some of them off? I imagine they’ll eventually move as their food source dictates . These meanderings come and go in an instant, my thoughts once again centering. The detail returns with armloads of wood and limbs with leaves attached. I motion for them to put their gatherings in the bed of one of the trucks.

“I want you to go along with Green, Blue and Black Teams. As a reaction force should I need,” I say to Lynn and feeling it is time to be off.

I sense a little of the tension leave her body knowing that she will at least be close at hand. I have the sense that she thought I would be travelling alone. I do want the teams close by and to drive me there so I can remain in my current frame of mind without worrying about which turn to take or hitting parked cars. I also want the teams that were there the day before because they are most acquainted with the interior.

“Do you mind if he stays with you?” I ask Little Robert referring to the dog. “Maybe you can come up with a name for him when while I’m gone.” Little Robert’s answer is to smile widely.

We get the trucks started and head out with the teams loaded into the rear beds. The journey there is a quick one. Old hat to the teams riding along with but new to me. The smell in the neighborhoods is strong as we pass by the seemingly empty houses. The front yards that were once pristine, now with grass growing long. Flowers in assortments of yellows, oranges, reds, whites, and purples bloom in flower beds that were once the pride and joy of those who lived here, now only silent memorials. Their colors brighten the landscape in pretty assortments, creating an illusion of peace and contentment. Their beauty is a stark contrast to the smell emanating. With summer fully underway, the streets should have been alive with the sounds of children playing, balls rolling out into the streets from sloped driveways, lawnmowers buzzing in the morning sun bathing the neighborhoods with the sweet aroma of freshly cut grass. Perhaps even the sound of an ice cream truck meandering slowly through the streets to the sounds and movements of kids running after it waving dollar bills recently begged from their parents. Now, it is just surreal, as if those things are here but hidden from sight and sound. Darkened windows, or those with drapes pulled, stare at us with longing and contempt as we make our way through.

We pull into the CDC facility following the same route as before. I have us pull over and stop a distance away from the building, not wanting any noise of our arrival to reach the interior and hence alert the night runners within. The soldiers exit quietly.

“I want you to stay here and wait,” I say gathering everyone around. “Don’t go close to the building unless I say so as I don’t want any breeze that may be swirling around the building to carry any of your scent inside. No noise. That means no talking or opening and shutting truck doors. No getting into the pickup beds.”

A small fire is built on the road away from the trucks. I add the dry wood and get a nice bed of coals glowing on the dark gray pavement of the street. Adding the greenery on top, smoke thickens and drifts upward, pushed slightly by the breeze. I step into the smoke on the downwind side, letting my clothing and body bathe in it; rubbing the smoke into my clothing and gear; letting it become saturated; covering my scent.

I shield my eyes from the glare of the morning sun peeking around the side of the building as I look towards it. It looms before me; the image from the blue sky above is mirrored on its glass front as if it is made of water. A still pond stretched vertical. The building takes on a sinister aspect as if it is trying to shield something behind the beauty of its structure. I get a chill thinking about all of the viruses locked in the depths of this campus. All sitting there without power to keep them chilled if they needed to be kept dormant in that way. Without power to keep the clean rooms clean and without the pressure differential set so the various germs can’t leak out. All there waiting for some night runner to knock them over, freeing them and allowing them to grow and spread. Maybe it’ll wipe them out in this area , I think watching the skies reflection. The quick thought of being able to use them fades as the realization dawns that I have no idea of how to safely keep a virus.

“Well, let’s do this,” I say quietly to myself chambering a round and flipping the selector switch to burst with my thumb.

I walk into the building’s shadow, cross a street and step up on the curb to the sidewalk in front. My image, mirrored on the glass panels, does not reflect the tightness within as I walk in front of pane after large pane towards the entrance door; the panels conveying my image like a constant rerun. I can smell the faint aroma of the smoke rising to my nostrils as I near the entrance door still littered with shards of glass on the concrete outside.

I step to the entrance avoiding the glass, the sidewalk shows faint outlines of the dried, bloody footprints Lynn mentioned leading outside before vanishing a short distance away. Peering inside, I see the tiled floor lobby; the boot prints from the teams in the dust gathered by the door, bare foot prints appear on top, smearing some. Scuff marks appear in places across the large foyer, made yesterday by the boots of the teams, in either their entrance or, more than likely, their exit. Close to the door, several fresher bare foot prints, some of them outlined in recently dried blood, lead toward the hallway across from me.

I step into the lobby, toeing bits of glass out of my way quietly before stepping; making sure I don’t step on any of the pieces before setting the weight of my foot firmly on the linoleum. I have plenty of time so caution, stealth, and quiet is the name of the game. Edging past the fan of glass by the front door, I walk silently to the hallway, making sure not to silhouette myself against the light behind me, coming to rest against the wall to the side of the broken glass doors. Kneeling, I listen for any movement.

The complete absence of noise within is just a little disarming. There is always, well, used to be always, some type of noise within a building whether that is even the tiny sound of wind being expelled or drawn in by the air conditioning system. It is completely silent. I mark this, knowing there will not be the slightest cover to conceal any noise I might be making whether that comes from the creak of a boot bending or the soft swish of cloth rubbing. I rise slowly and enter into the hallway, again silently moving the glass from under any place my boot will set down. Once inside the hallway, with its elevator banks lining the walls to either side, I lower the night vision goggles into place and turn them on, having already donned them on my walk over to the building.