Eric Brown: Season of Rot

Kyle took his hand and shook it. “Nice to meet you, Mike. And who might these gentlemen be?”

Mike introduced Benji as his aide and Darren as the group’s computer specialist, though the title was a bit of an exaggeration. “And you’ve already met Warren,” Mike concluded. “He’s our head of security.”

Kyle chuckled. “I gathered as much.”

Mike offered Kyle a seat and sat down near him. “We’ve got a lot of questions for you, Kyle. How about we start with why you’re here? As far as I know, this base was officially decommissioned when the plague hit, and the operating personnel relocated or were sent out into the field. A single person being left here just doesn’t make sense. A skeleton crew or the sort I could believe, but not one person. Were you stationed here, or did you come here after things went to hell like we did?”

“Or we could start by asking who the hell you are?” Warren butted in. “Your accent doesn’t sound like someone who’s spent a long time in the U.S.”

“Kyle Weathersby,” Kyle said to Warren. He sighed and turned back to Mike. “I imagine you want the long answer. Okay. I am, or rather was , a representative, shall we say, of the British government, dispatched by the United Nations in attempt to discover the fate of the United States. The U.S. was one of the first countries to ‘go silent’ as all hell broke loose around the globe. I set foot upon American soil for the first time twenty-four hours after my government lost contact. I, along with my similarly well-armed associates, quickly found ourselves on the run, fighting for survival, with no way home. Most of the members of my team died in New York. Those of us who made it out lost contact with home.

“We set out for your capital and reached it to join forces with the remains of your leadership, at least those who weren’t already dead or whisked away to a shelter somewhere. One of those survivors was a person of some importance in your C.I.A. He knew of this facility, and a small group of us decided to head for here since home was unreachable and your nation had crumpled. I was the only one to make it here still breathing. I’ve been here ever since, staying alive and using the comm. channels to listen to the fate of the world above.

“I honestly thought I would die down here alone before your group showed up. I had gotten so used to the idea, I hid rather than chance dying at your hands. I couldn’t bring myself to make a stand against you, knowing how rare human life is becoming in the world.” Kyle stopped. “Is that enough of an answer for you or do I need to elaborate?”

“So you’re military?” Warren asked.

Kyle shook his head. “No, I was a field operative. There’s a difference. I was an agent, not a soldier.”

Warren glowered at him.

“Does it really matter?” Mike asked them, taking control of the situation again. “Kyle, you said you had been listening to what was going on out there. Is the rest of the world as bad off as we are here?”

“Do you even know what’s happening?” Kyle asked.

“Are there people still broadcasting?” Darren interrupted.

“No.” Kyle’s voice became flat and cold. “I hadn’t heard anything for a few days before you arrived.”

“So the rats rule everything now?” Mike asked, praying he was wrong about the answer he expected to get.

“No. They’re at war with the other factions of Hell.”

The room fell silent. Kyle felt their eyes burning into him, and finally he continued. “The wolves are still trying to complete their hold of Canada. The squids rule the seas and most of the islands. The bats are facing pockets of human resistance in Russia. The snakes have pacified Asia and are already making strikes against the bats, which hasn’t gone well for them if the human accounts are to be believed. I haven’t heard anything about Australia, and South America has been silent since days after the U.S. fell apart. As to my home, it was holding out against the dead, but the last word I got were my orders to come here.

“The only constant in all of it is the dead. Each group of demons, or whatever one chooses to call them, seems to use the dead as their primary foot soldiers in their secondary war against us. So with the demons at war and humanity nearly gone, I would be forced to say that if anyone ‘rules the world,’ as you put it, it would be the dead.”

Mike leaned close to Kyle. “Stop it. I am sorry for whatever happened to you, but there are no such things as demons. Hell doesn’t exist. Everything that’s happening out there is the combined result of a virus and an aberrant evolutionary spike in the rodent species.”

Kyle held his ground. “Believe what you wish. I don’t care. I’m just telling you what I’ve seen and heard. Hell has been loosed upon the earth, and because of where we are, we are going to die. Maybe not today, maybe not even for a year or two in this base, but we are going to die. Unlike most of the other factions, the rats just want us gone and they’ll stop at nothing until their borders are clear of our infestation.”

“Mike, we’ve all seen those creatures with the rats,” Darren argued. “Warren and some of his crew even nicknamed them demons. He may be telling the truth.”

“Or he may be completely crazy! We have no way to verify who he is or any of his claims.”

Kyle reached into his pocket and slapped down his U.N. identification card in front of Mike. “And I recorded some of the transmissions I spoke of. If you haven’t fired them while jury-rigging the base’s systems, I suggest you listen to them yourselves.”

Warren watched Mike closely. He could see that the man refused to accept anything Kyle had told them, but as much as his own instincts told him not to trust the U.N. agent, Warren had to admit his story had the ring of truth about it. “What do we do, Mike?”

“Lock him up until we figure out what’s really going on.”

“Mike,” Benji interjected, “we can’t do that. He has rights.”

“I’m not suggesting we kill him! I just think we should keep an eye on him until we know he’s not crazy. For his sake and our own.”

Kyle said nothing, resigning himself to the group’s judgment.

“I agree with Benji,” Darren spoke up. “This guy knows this place better than we do. Frankly, we could use his help, and he hasn’t done anything.”

Mike turned to Warren. “I want you to find somewhere to lock this man up and make sure he stays there.”

“Sorry, Mike, they’re right. We need him. If there’s a chance he can get this base fully online and the main doors locked down, he’s a hell of a lot more use to us here than tucked away somewhere. Everyone else deserves to know he’s here as well, and what he knows too. We’re all in this together.”

“Did any of you listen to the crap he claimed was happening? Demons, Hell on Earth—I mean, my God, come on.” He slammed his fist into the console beside him. “He needs to be locked up.”

“Benji,” Warren said, “get the group together for another meeting. I want all of us there, understand?”

Benji nodded, though it pained him to go against Mike.

“And Mr. Higgins, you’re going to stay right here for the moment and help Darren with his work. If you so much as think of doing anything that would put us at risk, I will personally put a bullet through your damn skull.”

Mike threw up his hands. “So that’s it then? I’m out just like that, and you’re all listening to Warren instead of me?”

“Mike, we’re grateful you got us here,” Warren said, stepping closer to him. “No one’s saying we don’t respect you, but rats or no rats, this is still a free country where people get to decide what’s best for them. None of us has the right to decide things for this group alone.”