“I’m sending eight companies in eight different directions. I want to quell this bugaboo ASAP. I want you leading Alpha Company headed north. Eliminate every threat you encounter.”
“Can I expect air support? Armor? Or is this another Libya?”
Henry stiffened. My words were meant to sting and it appeared they did.
“No, you’re on your own in this one—from the start. We don’t want Apaches and tanks tearing up civilian cities. I suspect a week at the latest as the timeframe for this… cleanup operation.”
“That’s a bit optimistic isn’t, sir? That’s a whole lotta dots.” I said, tapping my finger on the aerial photos.
Henry laughed.
“It’s just a bunch of unarmed dead folk, Jack. Like shooting fish in a barrel.”
January 1st, 0800 hours: Louisville, Kentucky
My initial concern of contagion became reality the moment Alpha Company entered the first small town we came to—a small community on the outskirts of Louisville. I can’t remember the town’s name without turning to the front of my journal. It isn’t important anyway, the town is neutralized.
One red dot erased from Henry’s pictures.
But what was important is the fact that we gunned down naked corpses with toe tags, fresh from the morgue, dirty stiffs wearing their finest suits and dresses with gnarled hands from digging out of their graves, and old people in hospital gowns. All expected.
I didn’t expect, however, to turn my weapon on soccer moms with half-eaten entrails hanging from beneath bloody blouses or little boys in baseball uniforms with most of the skin from their face gone, leaving gleaming bone for all to see.
Henry’s fish in a barrel had turned into sharks in the pool.
Whether or not these people were infected and mutated or simply killed and reanimated was a question that weighed heavy on my mind. I needed answers. And the only way to get those answers was to experiment.
I had no illusions my plan wasn’t evil. I also didn’t believe my mission was one of heroic purpose. I’m an exterminator, nothing more. If I had to sacrifice a life for answers, I was willing to do so.
I shared my plan with Major Maxwell. She, unsurprisingly, wholeheartedly agreed with my decision.
I found myself impressed with Max (I called her that and she never protested, so it stuck). I expected her to be more of a robot, never questioning orders and performing every task with the utmost efficiency. Max surprised me with her exceptional leadership skills as well. In our first firefight, her squad nearly fled with panic—they’d encountered the walking dead from a burn/trauma unit. Max held them together by forging forward, leading by example.
I wondered how Max would respond if she knew the truth about herself, that she was, basically, one of the undead?
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