Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Louis woke with a start; he had been sleeping in his ‘bago bunker as he has come to think of it. His safe room smelled faintly of rot, but nothing he could not handle. Clearing the door, he stumbled out into the hall and towards the bathroom, he had a bucket of creek water from last night for flushing the toilet and washing up, using this he gets ready for another day of travel. After getting cleaned up and dressing, he packs up his gear and leaves the trailer. On a whim, he looks around the trailer to see if the creature is still following him. On the side of the trailer, he sees very fresh scratch marks through the paint. On both of the doors, there were large dents and more scratch marks all over them and around the door.

“Oh my god,” Louis exclaimed, “that thing must have been making a lot of noise. How did I not wake up from that?” Hitching up his pack and began walking the way he was going yesterday. Louis was more on edge today, he looked back much more often than yesterday. Though he did not see any shapes following him, he felt like something was following him.

He walked through the morning, stopping for lunch at a small village park. Louis broke into a small diner; surprisingly enough, he found some sandwich fixings. Excitedly, he made several sandwiches, some for eating now, some for dinner. Louis takes his sandwiches and a pop he found in the diner, back to the park. Under a cherry tree, Louis began to eat his lunch; off in the distance, he hears the sounds of nature. “Ah. I have not heard birds singing like this since I took my camping trips with the scouts.” Louis thought. “I wonder how many of the different songs I remember. I hear a blue jay, there is a robin, ah, and there is a barn swallow. Suddenly, as he is listening, he hears a low growl followed by a snarl.

Louis jumps up, grabs his pack, and sprints back to the diner. He slams the door, grabs one of the tables and throws it against the door. Panting, he collapses against the wall; he now has time to think. “What was that noise?” He thinks. Looking over the table against the door, he searches the street for a clue of what he was running from. What he sees defies explanation; he sees a brownish yellow shape, crouching behind an overturned car across the street. It is much too large to be anything Louis has ever seen in books or at the zoo. It has cat like features, but it is three times the size of the largest lion he has seen. The fangs protrude from its mouth, but not to the extant of a saber tooth tiger, strangely, the teeth are green and dripping a fluid that seems to smoke when it falls to the concrete.

Louis falls back to the floor, overwhelmed by this foe. How to escape this, and what is that are the only thoughts running through Louis’ head as he just sits there. He is sure that the creature does not know he is here, but he is stuck here until he makes a plan, that much is clear.

“Is that the same thing that attacked at the farm house?” Louis thinks. “That can not be what scratched up the trailer, that is big enough to tear right through the side of something as flimsy as a trailer.” Louis decides to find a more secure place, in case that thing catches his scent and comes to check out the diner. Louis quickly clears out the large walk in cooler, again luck is on his side as there is little in there, and it is mostly sealed foods that, while unsafe to eat, do not make a strong smell because they are either rotting inside a package, or not rotten at all. He lights his battery powered lantern and shuts the door tight and gets ready to wait out most of the day.

General Sebac climbs out of his shower stall, grabbing his towel on the way out. He dries himself and puts his daily uniform on, then combing his hair into a severe flattop, he goes out the door to go back to his office. “The corporal should have gotten the files I needed together by now.” he thinks. The general passes only a few technicians on his way back to the command hub of the station. Most of the staff left when word of the plague reached them. The safety of their families outweighed their personal safety and health. The general wonders how many of his staff are still alive out there.

Reaching his office, he bypasses security with a retinal scan, a pointless gesture at this point, but protocol must be observed. Entering the anteroom, he sees the corporal has been having her lunch while he was gone. “Soldier, have you carried out my orders?” Sebac barks at her.

“Yes sir, I assembled a complete inventory of the entire station, double check against our master inventory, and assessed loss based on discrepancies.” She tells him with not a trace of the smugness that should be expected by such a talented logistical officer.

“I am impressed corporal.” Sebac tells her honestly. “May I ask why you are only a corporal and have not been promoted for your obvious talents?” She shuffles her feet in embarrassment.

“Well sir,” she pauses, “I had been told of your work and the work of this facility and I was fascinated. I wanted to work here, especially with you, so I put my career on hold to work here. I am young; I thought at the time, I can always advance in the future.”

“Well young lady, I am impressed and I am privileged to have such a talented assistant. Finish your lunch and I will look over these reports and let you know if I need anything.”

Sebac takes the thick folders, and going into his office, realizes that he has always taken those around him for granted. He thinks maybe this crisis is the perfect opportunity to get to know the people who are left here, and include them in his inventory of skills.

He turns around; “Corporal,” he says. “Would you be able to get a list of who is left on base and what their skills include?”

“Of course sir,: she says. “in fact I have it right here. The list is a few weeks out of date, but I am sure I can get it updated in a few hours.”

“That would be great. Just buzz my office when you get that finished, also could you get me a information sheet on our communications system and also a pot of coffee?”

“I have a fresh pot on your machine; I started it when I saw you on the surveillance system.” Sebac is impressed.

“Carry on then, if you keep this up I just may have to promote you myself.” He beams at her and then closes the door. Again, it is a formality as anyone who has access to him here is more than welcome to see his papers, but again with the protocols. Looking over the papers his assistant gathered, he sees that his expectations that with proper rationing, he could easily support a lot of people here. In the margins, he sees many notes that Corporal Veronica gave estimates of caloric content against number of people, broken down to number of daily meals. “When did she have time for this?” he wonders.

Opening his message box on his terminal, he sees that most of the staff has replied that they can come to a meeting around dinner. They all seem to have some sort of experiment or something else running, with a scheduled break at dinner. “The world is falling apart, and they are still tinkering with their toys!” he thinks. As he looks over his network inbox, he sees a message with the name of “UNKNOWN SENDER”. Sebac has never seen this before, but he knows that you never open a message you do not know the sender.

“Corporal, could you come in here please?” Sebac asks through the intercom. Within seconds, he hears her chair sliding across the linoleum floor. She comes in promptly and with a curt stance approaches his desk.

“Yes sir, what can I do for you?” she asks.

“Have you ever seen an unknown sender in our messaging system?” he asked knowing what the answer would be.

“No sir, every terminal requires a log in and every log in has a name attached to it. But you knew that didn’t you? You were just asking to check yourself.” Veronica decided. “That should be impossibility,” she says looking at the General’s inbox. “Shall I call the system tech to check this out?”

“Yes, maybe you should. In the meantime, what should I do with this message?” Sebac was a take charge kind of man, but when it came to technology, he always was cautious and asked one of his younger subordinates. He was fifty seven years old after all.

“I would leave it until he gets here,” she tells him, slightly reproaching in her tone, “it many not be safe to open. The last thing we need now is a virus from an unknown source taking our system down.” She turns on her heel and begins towards the door.

“Oh and one more thing, you can consider to be at ease at all time, considering the circumstances. With the way things are, I think we can take our discipline down a notch. Being keyed up and at attention all the time will just cause us to get over stressed and on edge when we may need clear heads.” Sebac had been debating making this call for the military staff since the plague began, but in the case of Corporal Veronica Lopez, she has the innate discipline to keep things professional without the theatrics.

As he waited for the tech to come up, Sebac puts his feet up on his desk. Turning to his bookshelf, he pulls down his Army Field Manual; he turns to the section dealing with “National Apocalypse”. Reading the section over, he sees that strangely, nowhere does it mention viral plague. There are sections about nuclear attack, chemical weapons, invasion, and so on. What all of the scenarios have in common though, is the responsibility of the military to the people of the nation. Therefore, while the book does not give him any of the answers he was looking for; he finds new conviction for his plan for this base.