Chapter 44- Hastings

Chapter 44

Hastings

Cavill, Virginia

Captain Thomas stood in the village square of the ruins of Cavill and lit a cigarette.  The air was thick with smoke and the rank odor of death.  The clean up was still going on and the steady crack of rifle fire was broken up by screams and the whoosh of flame-throwers.

“Burn the bodies.  Burn all the bodies,” yelled Staff Sergeant Eckerson.

Captain Thomas stared at the huddled survivors of Cavill.  According to his sources, Cavill had a population of around one thousand.  They had found fewer than one hundred and fifty people left.  More than one hundred infilitrators had been discovered, generally mid-process, covered in blood and gore.

Captain Thomas had emptied the magazine of his M4 into the twitching bodies over and over again.  He’d then personally burned more than six or seven of them before he’d grown exhausted and numb.

He paced back and forth, looking at the crowd of shocked and mute people who may, or may not, be survivors.  Staff Sergeant Eckerson continued to speed around, barking out orders and occasionally directing efforts.

Captain Thomas preferred to just watch the crowd now.  There was a wide variety of reactions from them.  Some of them sat there blank faced and stunned.  It was a classic shock reaction.

One or two were on their feet yelling for help.  They wanted medicine, food and blankets.

One or two of them lay on the crowd crying their eyes out.  Captain Thomas wasn’t sure which ones were the most suspicious to him now.  How could he be sure of anything anymore?

“This is Captain Thomas to Lance-One,” he called into the radio.

“Lance-One here, over,” replied the voice.  Since the General had “resigned, Lance –One was the new call sign.  He’d been assigned early this morning from the Pentagon.  Captain Thomas didn’t care anymore who was calling the shots.

“Please advise, I have one hundred and fifty two survivors here. That is one five two survivors.  I cannot tell if they are infected or not.  Please advise on how to proceed.  Over,”

“Lance-One, will advise shortly,” came the reply.

Captain Thomas took another drag of his cigarette and waited.

“You okay Captain?” asked the staff sergeant.  Captain Thomas nodded but he wasn’t sure if he was convinced.

Elsewhere in the crowd, Tom McVay sat amongst the other survivors of the little town.  He had always been a quiet person so his continued silence drew not attention at all.  He looked at the tired and grubby soldiers.

Washington, D.C

Hayden McDonald breathed something that wasn’t too far from a sigh of relief.  The report had come in, Cavill was sealed off on all sides and the cordon was tight.  More units were on their way.

Meanwhile the other village in Venezuela was “clean” too.  The General was on the phone to the President of Venezuela who was rather unhappy about his country being bombed not once, but twice.

Still, Hayden McDonald knew that a lot of extra work was needed to truly fix the situation.  Colonel Carpenter came back to speak to them.  Even he looked a little happier.

For a second or two.

“We’ve got a rough decision to make and I wanted to get your measure on it,” he said.

“I don’t like the sound of this,” said Jack Krane, Hayden’s deputy.

“Yeah, you shouldn’t,” said Carpenter with a tiredness in his voice.

“Get it over with then,” replied Hayden.

“We’ve sealed off Cavill with about one hundred survivors at the scene.  All of the infiltrators that we were going to find are dead now and burned.  But we’ve got no way of knowing who, if anyone got infected at the scene and how many of the survivors are infected,”

“There’s a test isn’t there/” asked Hayden.

“Yes the Air Force says you can do a blood test.  But do we really want to take that chance?”

“What’s the alternative?  Keep them in there forever?” asked Krane.

“No, it’s cleanse the scene utterly,”

“Jesus fucking Christ.  You’re talking about bombing it aren’t you?” said Hayden grimly.

“Yes we are.  We’ve got no real choice here.  We’ve got to stay strong for the good of the human race,”

“What human race will be left if we just bomb anything that had any contact with them at all?  What humanity will we have left?” said Jack passionately.  “Why don’t we just shoot everyone but ourselves?  Just to be safe?”

“Don’t fucking joke about that, “ replied Carpenter.  “There are some that think we should just napalm anything that we’re even slightly worried about.  I thank my lucky stars I’m on the inside for this rather than the outside. Because, quite frankly, the General has decided that anyone who is outside is expendable now,”

“Expendable?  They are American citizens!” yelled Krane.

Expendable, Hayden supposed they had always been expendable hadn’t they?  Thousands of Americans’s died every day.  Thousands more were born.  They grew up saluting a flag and saying their pledge of allegiance, they voted Democrat or Republican or they none of the above.  They were truck drivers and mailmen, they were butchers and farmers, they were Wyoming ranchers and California oilmen.  They were the expendable, grimy, overweight, happy-go-lucky Americans.

“We cannot do this,” said Hayden.

“We’re not asking for your permission,” said Carpetner with some compassion in his voice.  “We just wanted to get your opinion on it.  General Pierce doesn’t think there is any other way,”

“Find another way. If we start bombing our own people when we aren’t sure, this will only get worse and worse,” Hayden shot back.

“Don’t you get it?  Even the fucking test isn’t one hundred per-cent proof.  If one of them breaks containment again then we’re fucking finished.  What if one of them gets to Richmond? Or Atlanta?  Or here?”

“Or New York?  If they do then we’re fucked.  But as soon as the first one broke containment that was already the case wasn’t it?  If this is cancer, then we’re already dead.  I’d rather we went on living like human beings then live a bit longer as a diseased animal,”

Cavill, Virginia

A dog barked a couple of times and wagged its tail.  The soldiers had rounded up and shot most of the town’s animals by now.  They were not afforded the benefit of the doubt like the humans were.

Deputy Andy’s collie-cross, Walker, was the last dog standing in Cavill and even he was not to last much longer.  He stopped by a tree and cocked his leg.  As there was a rustle in the branches above him, he whipped his head up suddenly to spot the passing squirrel.

There was a crackle of gunfire and a flash of light.

“Poor pooch,” said someone into their radio mic.  There was a whoosh and flames spread across the tree.