Mainak Dhar - Zombiestan

It had all started as soon as the Sun had set. David had brought back Mike and Rob after the attack in the hills the previous day. With both of them in excruciating pain, it had taken them four hours to get back, and during that time, David had been horrified at the changes the two men had gone through. Both had lost hair, and were bleeding from open sores, and their skin was beginning to turn yellow. He had barely slept that night, as at least five more victims of similar attacks came in from patrols across the province. The medics had been unable to do much for them, and the Ranger commander had already decided that the next morning, they were to be flown out. David had been in his cabin in the evening when he was told that Mike was asking for him. It had been just before Sunset and when he reached him, he found the once rugged CIA officer looking like a ghost of his former self. His teeth seemed crooked and his skin was yellow. The sores on his body gave off a terrible stench as did the vomit that covered the floor. David saw that the young medic attending to him was shaking. David had seen a lot of blood and killing, but he had never seen anything like this before.

Mike seemed to be calling him closer to say something but then arched his back and screamed as if he were in extreme pain. Two medics tried to hold him down in vain and then as suddenly as he had screamed, he fell back limply on the bed. David watched as the medics turned to him sadly and told him Mike was no more. David stumbled out of the cabin, dazed by what he had seen when he bumped into another medic who told him that all seven men who had been infected were dead.

Then the horror began.

SEAL warrior or not, nothing had prepared David for what followed. There was the constant din of guns firing, and of soldiers screaming as the seven men tore into those who had been their colleagues and buddies. Initially unable to fire on those who had been friends, David had finally unloaded a full magazine into one of the rampaging Rangers, but then realized what all the other soldiers at the base were realizing. These creatures that their friends had transformed into could not be killed by bullets. Then he did what he had to do to survive. He hid as the frenzied attack continued all around him. A bizarre detail David remembered was that in the midst of all the carnage, the infected men had stopped when they could to tie crude black turbans around their heads.

He saw a sliver of gold next to him, which soon grew into a broad beam of light as the Sun rose. He realized then that the attacks had stopped. But it was far from quiet. All around him, he heard the sounds of wounded men. He stepped out from his cover and found a scene straight out of Hell. Wounded American soldiers littered the base, all bleeding from bites to their bodies. One or two who had presumably tried to fight back the hardest were dead. One of the dead was the Ranger commander. The man had dwarfed any of the other men at the base, but he was now lying on the ground, his neck snapped, his body tossed away like a rag doll.

David leaned against a wall for support when he saw Dan lying on the ground, bleeding from several bites. His old friend was looking at him, pleading for help. But after what he had just seen, David knew there was nothing he could do to help him.

He entered the Comms room, and tried to radio for help. He then realized that their base was hardly the only one to be hit. Bases across Afghanistan had been attacked, and there were reports of mobs of infected people attacking thousands of victims in Kabul and other cities. Wounded men on board US Navy ships off Afghanistan had also gone on the rampage, wounding dozens. He could hear one of the voices on the radio, stammering in fear and confusion.

'Man, it was like being in a zombie movie.'

David turned off the radio, realizing that everyone was too shell-shocked and had problems enough of their own to be able to help him. He did radio in a situation report, asking for medics to come in and care for the wounded men at the base.

That was when he got the one sliver of hope he received that morning. Someone from on board the USS Kearsage, the command ship for the Special Operations forces in Afghanistan, spoke up.

'Soldier, everyone's in a world of pain, and I don't know how much we can do for you but we are sending choppers out to get folks like you to safety in Pakistan. Be there by Sunset.'

David noted down the coordinates. It was a good twenty mile hike. He could easily make it there by Sunset, but not knowing what to expect along the way, he took his time preparing. He stuffed his pack with MREs. Many new soldiers hated the Meals Ready to Eat packs, but David had learnt, if not to like them, then to accept them as inevitable. He took as many extra clips for his M4 assault rifle as he could, and then he set out for his journey to the extraction point.

At the best of times, this part of Afghanistan presented a bleak landscape, but today what made it infinitely worse was the presence of injured and bleeding people littered around the roads. Clearly the American bases had not been the only places to be attacked the previous night, and David shuddered as he wondered what was to come when the Sun set again. The Americans could at least try to quarantine the injured soldiers, but for these villagers, there was nothing to be done.

What was eerie was the total absence of the infected people who had gone on the rampage the previous night. They had seemingly disappeared though more than once David got a feeling that hidden eyes were watching him. Once, while passing an abandoned village, he took out his M4 and was about to go into a hut where he was sure someone was watching him. But then, remembering the events of the previous night, he decided discretion was the better part of valour and continued on his journey.

Even with the weight he has carrying, he reached the extraction zone by four in the evening. He radioed his position and then sat on a nearby perch, his weapon at the ready. At five, a pick-up truck rumbled into view. David's senses went into overdrive. The black turbaned men riding on the back, carrying AK-47s and RPGs could be nothing other than Taliban warriors on patrol. There must have been at least six of them, and David knew that sitting in the open, he would be a sitting duck. Even then, he was not going to go down without a fight. In less than a second, he had his gun's safety off and the M4 was tracking the cab of the truck. He was about to pull the trigger when the truck stopped less than fifty meters away, and he saw that the Taliban were making no move to attack him. One of them got down and looked at him. David put his rifle down when he realized that the Taliban were not looking to attack him. If anything, they looked terrified. The man looking at him simply pointed to the Sun and then they were on their way.

David realized that they were doing exactly what he was planning-to try and get to safety before the Sun set.

About fifteen minutes later, he heard a buzzing sound and looked up to see an OV-22 Osprey come into view. The tilt rotor craft could take off and land vertically like a helicopter, and then fly in level flight like an aircraft. The Osprey landed just a few meters away and David sprinted to it, feeling a huge wave of relief wash over him as he entered it. There was only one soldier inside the craft.

'Sargeant, didn't you get anybody else?'

The man looked at David, a haunted look in his eyes.

'None of the others were clean.'

The full extent of the catastrophe hit David as he asked why he was not being flown to the USS Kearsage. The soldier turned away before answering.

'Sir, ten infected men are on board. Last I heard the skipper was debating whether to kill them before Sunset. They have already authorized cruise missile strikes on bases where only infected men are left.'