Chapter 6

Outbreak - Day 4

Camp Williams 19th Special Forces Garrison

Draper, Utah

 

The dead had been coming from miles around since the first days of the outbreak; most were drawn from Salt Lake City because initially the floodlights around the base were left blazing all night. A massive slit trench was cut into the earth with the tractors on the base, and then all it took was a boom box and loud heavy metal music to lure the dead over the edge where they were trapped and immolated.

Little did Major Beeson know the lights weren’t the only draw. The dead were following each other like ants to a treat and once the steady stream started, it couldn’t be diverted. By the time the base commander ordered the lights extinguished it was too late.

***

Corporal Litters blinked twice and then used the back of his hand to wipe the sweaty tears from his eyes. The damp bandana was tied tightly around his face but still didn’t filter out the smell of death, but it was effective at keeping out the dust stirred up by the constant movement of the undead. They were never still, like meth heads on the constant hunt for the next hit, only it was human flesh they coveted and no amount could sate them.

For the third time in as many minutes he pressed the scope to his eye to reconfirm his worst fear. She had on the Sea World shirt, the one with the black and white orca he had bought for her less than two weeks ago. Even though his wife Carmen was out of work, with no prospects on the horizon, Steve won out and convinced her to let him take them to Sea World in San Diego. If he had known it would be their last vacation together as a family he would have gotten her more than just that goddamn shirt. Steve cursed God. Billions of dead walking the earth and you put her front and center pressed against the fence. With her sandy blonde hair still pulled back in a pony tail, despite the pallor of her scratched and torn skin and lifeless eyes, she was still his little girl. He had last kissed and said good bye to Becca and Carmen in the kitchen of their little house in Draper on the morning of the first day of the outbreak. Now she was in his cross hairs and he couldn’t find it in himself to pull the trigger.

Litters was in charge of the back perimeter fence. It abutted against the woods separating the two forest service roads leading out of the back of the base. Until now there hadn’t been much activity; the few dead that did show up he promptly put down. A pile of fifteen infected corpses littered the outside of the fence, scattered randomly where they had fallen, all having been killed by bullets from his M4.

Becca had been quietly swaying back and forth, both numb hands gripping the chain link fence, for over an hour. Her stare was getting to him. Inexplicably Litters stood up from behind his blind of filled sandbags and put his rifle down.

One last time, I need to feel my baby’s soft hair, one last time. Corporal Steve Litters didn’t cry often. During the solemn trudge towards the perimeter fence he completely lost control.

Becca stopped swaying. A low guttural moan emerged from the gaunt, stooped over ten-year-old. Behind her, like wraiths, more of the dead materialized from between the gnarled trees.

“Honey it’s me, Daddy.” Litters wiped his nose on his fatigue sleeve. A long silver slug trail of snot remained behind.

Litters stood six inches in front of his undead daughter. In the far recesses of his mind a voice urged him to back away. If his little girl’s catatonic gaze and eerie moaning wasn’t deterrent enough, nothing was going to keep him from trying to fix her. He stammered, hot tears burning trails down his face, “Hold still, I won’t hurt you.”

He swallowed, a dry Mojave Desert throat cracking swallow, and reached his hand through the fence to comfort his Becca. Even though she only vaguely resembled the love of his life, her hair still had the same silky texture that he used to stroke while reading her bedtime stories.

For some reason the little ones were faster. Becca snatched her dad’s hand and plunged her incisors into the soft flesh of his forearm; the bite was deep and violent and caused his hand to reflexively snap shut. The plug of flesh and tendons slid down her throat. Litters stared in disbelief as her second bite shredded the veins of his wrist. Hot blood surged from the jagged wounds. She no longer was Daddy’s little girl.

What was I thinking? were his last thoughts before he blacked out. Corporal Litters’ life pulsed into the soil, pooling near Becca's bruised and bloodied bare feet.