“She’s lived in Plato’s cave, staring at the shadows on the wall. Now she’s been turned around to face the fire.”― M.R. Carey
Malcolm’s vision was foggy and the sounds around him were muffled; he was accompanied by a sensation of dizziness. His ability to think was completely halted, save for flashes of Daniels’ and his rage filled eyes. Suddenly, Malcolm felt like he was beaming from someone else’s life; it was the life of a man deemed a failure and a mutant. Suddenly, Malcolm was looking down on himself inside the Visitor Center. Malcolm’s heart began racing and his fingers began twitching while he sank from the ceiling. It was as if Malcolm was falling to Hell beneath his previous paradise; then he realized the year was 2019; he briefly felt his family with him...
Malcolm, snap out of it!
It was there he stood on the tracks outside of the Infiltration Tunnel as Clairet’s Platoon fell out. She stood adjacent to Malcolm with the detonator in hand.
“Captain…” her fists remained clenched. “How the fuck could you do this?!”
The lightheadedness was still subsiding when Malcolm eyed her. He could not read her expression beneath the surgical mask, but her anger was obvious in tone. “You know what we’re dealing with.” he uttered.
“You fucking Murdered those people!” Clairet barked in French. “Those were our soldiers!”
Malcolm shut his eyes as a new headrush took him.
“Fucking answer me already!”
Malcolm seethed in French. “It’s a fucking Zombie outbreak!”
He passively demanded the detonator as Clairet eyes glared in disgust at him, she relented and slowly handed it to him. Like a baton, Malcolm twirled it in his hand and hit the trigger. The explosions came in an instantaneous sequence from the inside of the cave to the base of the mouth. Malcolm marked the second the dust cloud formed and handed the detonator back to his Lieutenant. “Go get on the helicopter.”
Clairet stepped back and turned around, disappearing into the evacuating troops. The Visitor’s Center was a quarter empty by this point as the rest of both companies fell into the parking lot, gathering only what they could carry.
“That’s it! Get going!” Malcolm barked. “Schnell! Schnell!”
Hardly more than three squads moved beneath him. They all were hustling up the ramp and seeking their backpacks among the inside campsites. Everywhere Malcolm looked, tents and crates were left where they were set. Just beyond the windows were two Chinooks set with their motors running in the outer parking lot. They appeared to already be packed with up to fifty soldiers each and were getting ready for takeoff.
“Johnson, you and your boys on the chopper? Over.” Malcolm asked through his earpiece.
“We’re soon to be up and adam!” Kenneth radioed back. “I heard an explosion. Over.”
Malcolm nodded. “You did.”
“Good…We did the right thing Spacey. Over and out.”
“Copy that.” Malcolm held his Crystal by his side. He decided that he ought to see how much was being left behind. He walked over to the center encampment. Troops were still grabbing their luggage and nothing more. The tents, the sleeping bags and the supply crates were being deserted for the first group of vagabonds to happen by.
Malcolm followed them outside; the first Chinook was in the process of taking off and one out of an additional three that were circling overhead landed in its place. Its back shudders opened and a volley of troops from both companies filed inside. It struck Malcolm that he wanted another cigarette, but Beauregard was nowhere to be found. The parking lot hardly had more than a hundred soldiers left, and the perimeter guards were to be the last ones loaded; Malcolm resolved to be on the helicopter after them.
He was finally the last on the fifth Chinook after an egregious waiting process ended. Only a spare twenty needed to occupy the last helicopter and the Chinook’s escort banged the front interior to signal the pilot that they were ready for takeoff. Malcolm stared out the closing shutters into the ghostly remains of his company’s encampment.
He leaned against the front-right window with his knee resting on the bench and watched as the parking lot became an ant beneath this feat of American Ingenuity. The chopper climbed high into the sky before banking south in the direction of Camp Stanley.
Malcolm was shocked, but not surprised, to see the Korean countryside engulfed in the blackout. As they passed over Dongducheon, the only illumination he could make through his little portal were thousands of headlights collaged with the occasional flame of a building or gas station. Many of these cars he could tell had been turned over or wrecked by some other means. These dots of lights painted the silhouettes of countless civilians seemingly fighting or fleeing. The sight was only accompanied by the humming of the Chinook propellers. Parallel to them were scores of other helicopter lights of different configurations assembling in a haphazard battle formation as they cut across the sky.
Malcolm finally broke from staring out the window to notice that the other soldiers who looked up to him, were also staring out various portals. When Malcolm checked his watch, the time was close to Ten. When he looked out the Chinook’s let side porthole, the city sat in silent smoke as fires pockmarked the black silhouettes. The horizon disappeared as the Chinook descended at Camp Stanley Airfield.
Malcolm took notice of the mob of four hundred soldiers waiting on the grass field by the side of the airfield; hundreds more civilians crowded outside the fence lines. The Chinook landed its feet on the airfield, its propellers came to a slow rotation and its shutter door opened.
Malcolm was the first out and in front of him was where the crowd now stood. They rested on their duffle bags for pillows or stood with anticipation. All gathered themselves together and were now moving past Malcolm, swapping spaces with his people on the Chinook. As Malcolm rounded the corner, the mechanics were rushing out from the base with pumps to refill the helicopters.
Both he and his unit grouped together as they walked across the runway and were taken aback as the Camp Garrison rushed out in scores to redirect them into the mass of soldiers in the field behind them. They bore their weapons and modern gas masks while shouting at Malcolm’s companies.
The cap of a base captain revealed itself to Malcolm, the officer was berating her subordinates and following this with a repetition of the same commands. “Get back and wait for Evac!”
Malcolm looked at the captain’s tag while moving towards her; two privates made feeble attempts to press him back; all while they repeated variation of the captain’s orders.
“Casper!” Malcolm bellowed. “Look at me!”
On his whim. she acknowledged him, “Sir, you need to step-“
“Captain Malcolm Nelson, November and Bravo companies, Second Division, First Battalion!”
“You’re sequestered from the rest of the base! This goes for all the evacuees!”
“By whose authority!?” Malcolm shouted.
“General Abrams!”
Malcolm waved his hands in frustration. “My boys have been through hell out there and Bravo lost their Captain! So now you point guns at us!?”
“Every Company has lost people!”
“You have the slightest idea what we’ve had to do!?” Malcolm’s eyes blackened.
“NO EXCEPTIONS” Casper held her hand forward. “Get back!”
“We’re evacuating, I got a family to protect AND I told my people they could speak to their families!” Malcolm’s face flushed. “Let me in to see the Colonel!”
She seemed ready to draw her own gun at this point. “MY major said no-one gets in! End of discussion!”
Malcolm eyed her hand which was on her holster, “Are you seriously thinking of drawing on me?”
“We’re authorized to use force! You don’t know what I’ve seen and I’m NOT letting it in the camp!”
Malcolm lowered his surgical mask. “It’s all around us! Look around you and stop pointing at your fucking comrades!”
“All of you are under quarantine until you can be evacuated to the fleet!”
“GODDAMMIT!” Malcolm closed in on her, peeling his eyelids back beneath the headlights. “Look at me! I’m not sick!”
She shoved him in response, her sidearm was at his head now and Malcolm took this offense with ventilated hostility. She shouted, “I’ll put a bullet in your goddamn head! Don’t try me twice!”
“My people get out of here!” Malcolm hissed.
“Sir, the choppers are already loading!”
“Then put them on the next chopper!” He demanded.
“First in, first out! That’s the arrangement! You can’t…”
Her rebuttal was cut off by a suddenly loud clanging, immediately followed disjointed onslaught of rifle fire.
Everyone about faced to see the hundreds of men in the field springing into action. They fled in panic, or they joined in the rifle fire. Malcolm took notice that some were firing at the shrubs behind them as a truck had run down the fence; civilians were now pouring through. The grunts were firing towards the center, and others in their confusion, shot at any direction. A state of total unit collapse broke out among the ranks as soldiers were cut down by accidental friendly fire.
Malcolm found a single soldier to hone his eyes on. He was kneeling over his duffle bag, loading his rifle. When he stood, he had time to fire but a single burst before a runner wearing American Camo tackled him from behind. There was screaming, there was his scream out of many dozens.
“WEAPONS FREE! WEAPONS FREE!” The Base garrison rushed past Malcolm’s Companies and took positions in a disorganized two-line system where one knelt and the other stood. In harmony, they began to unload their chambers into the mass of troops as the Chinooks took off. The rules-of-engagement treated every man and woman as expendable, regardless of uniform. Malcolm and his companions stood back as scores of fleeing troops were seamlessly chopped to pieces by the flaying rounds.
“EVERYONE FALL BACK!” Malcolm bellowed.
Casper’s response was to turn the pistol she was firing in Malcolm’s direction.
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Malcolm grabbed her wrist, spun her, and proceeded to flip her off her feet. She landed on her back and Malcolm successfully had her arm twisted at the shoulder. She screamed beneath the gas mask as Malcolm yanked her up and ripped the mask off her head. He finished by tossing her contorted arm against her. Having equipped the gasmask, he grabbed Casper’s pistol magazine and left with his two companies, and more than half the garrison chose to flee with Malcolm’s.
Scores of troops splintered off into the airbase as its emergency siren blared the night loudly, others made their way down the runway, Malcolm and his imminent pack poured across the grass to the airbase’s adjacent end. From there they continued to run through buildings that had not been allocated spare electricity from the base generators. Malcolm splintered again from the Troops and cut through some shrubberies. He emerged into a smaller grass yard at the same time as the blaring of the base emergency siren. At this point, he slowed to a jogger’s pace until he emerged out the other end of the yard. Now, Malcolm had no clue where he was.
“Hey dummy!” a familiar voice called from behind. Malcolm about faced and spotted Lieutenant Liam Campbell in the bushes. “I saw that!” he spoke.
“Are you about to start with me now of all times!?” Malcolm barked beneath his gas mask. “She was about to shoot me!”
Liam was red-faced. “You can’t do whatever you want!”
“She shot at those grunts! End of discussion, Lieutenant!”
Liam shook his head. “Don’t pretend you care about that.”
“I would’ve fed her to the fucking wolves! I am NOT dying out here!” Malcolm willed the conversation over and faced his situation once again. There was not a single civilian in sight as the soldiers’ families would be the first to evacuate. When Malcolm looked to his right, he could see a road and the headlights for a convoy accelerating past.
“We got to find Clairet!” Liam shouted. “I have to find my men and we need to find a rally point!”
Malcolm’s head hurt. “Shut up! Let me think!”
Liam winced. “Yea I hate seeing those ‘thoughts!’ You know they’re gonna die without us!”
“They can catch a ride!” Malcolm answered. “That’s what I’m trying to do!”
“I just watched you fight to get them on the next helicopter!” Liam yelled. “You care about them; why did you splinter off?!”
Malcolm hesitated then unknowingly stammered. “...The Dead weren’t through yet!”
Liam squinted. “You think being a soldier is suddenly over just because the Dead are walking!”
Malcolm hid his guffaw, “Everything’s falling apart!”
“It takes us five seconds to do the right thing, Malcolm!” Liam retorted. “If they stay here, they’ll die! If they go out there?! They get dispersed into the chaos and are torn limb from limb! Why don’t you learn a thing or two from your time with Meryl and…”
Malcolm had tackled Liam and was holding him by the throat; barely squeezing. “Say her name again!” Malcolm snarled beneath distant screams. “Justify me this one time!”
“You’ve no responsibility?! Think you and your family is better than everyone else’s?” Liam croaked a laugh. “It’s fucking lonely at that peak Malcolm…especially when you let everyone drown beneath you!”
Something in Malcolm was stopping him from breaking Liam’s neck, there was no waking the Carnal Beast to inspire a new Act.
“...Goddamnit!” Malcolm screamed as he released Liam. He stood and tapped his transmitter. “This is Captain Nelson calling all personnel of November and Bravo Companies! If you are receiving this, rally at the HQ for evacuation! I repeat! Rally at the HQ for evacuation! Over and out!”
They emerged into the base’s main road. They could witness two apartments where a fire team of two soldiers fleeing the opposite alley. They were panicking as one sprayed his automatic magazine at two berserkers in South Korean Camo. The soldier’s bullets riddled the Berserkers as they charged, yet one was nearly upon him.
Malcolm had been sprinting to the scene, he smashed the Berserker with the stalk of his rifle and fired a burst into the foot of the other. The former South Korean fell with a spraying black stump on its leg as Malcolm stomped the other Berserker’s head twice to cave it with his boot. A final rifle burst put the second Berserker to rest.
Seemingly clear, the two privates were frozen as Malcolm turned to face them with black blood rising his shin. “On me! We're not sick!”
Two privates froze and mushed their way into the passenger and back seat of the Humvee. Malcolm could see the drivv er and signaled for him to get in the back. Malcolm entered the Humvee as the driver climbed into the minigun emplacement and Liam entered the left-hand back seat.
“HQ? Where is it?” Malcolm barked.
A Private named Cable struggled to get his seatbelt on. “It’s locked down, sir!”
“I don’t give a fuck! They can shoot me!”
“But we’re supposed to evacuate to Incheon!” He protested.
Malcolm grabbed the private’s collar, “HQ IS HOW WE’RE LEAVING!”
“...It’s just around the corner!”
Malcolm revved the Humvee and took off.
“Second left turn!”
Malcolm slapped the minigun private in the leg. “You catch anybody shooting at us you light them up!”
Malcolm sped through the base dodging squads of fleeing soldiers and the occasional gunfight with Berserkers. Malcolm saw the turn and the traffic gates were lowered and four riflemen stood adjacent. At high speeds he banked right and shifted a hard left, breaking through the traffic gate and forcing the troops to duck out of his path. They pulled into a parking lot with trucks loading in the front of a staircase leading to the doorway. At least one squad of soldiers were aiming their guns at Malcolm and his fire team when he emerged from the door. He held both hands in the air and circled around the Humvee, walking towards them without a confirmation from their end. “HOLD FIRE HOLD FIRE!”
“THAT’S CLOSE ENOUGH!” A voice bellowed beneath the static of echoing gunfire.
“GO GET THE COLONEL!” Malcolm commanded as he proceeded. “BEFORE WE ALL DIE!”
“WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!?”
“SOMEONE WHO OUTRANKS YOU!” Malcolm was confident enough to drop his hands now.
He was in arms reach of the first grunts by now. “The Colonel and his support staff are evacuating first!” the officer spoke.
“Well, I’m his guest!” Malcolm and his fire team were moving past the convoy and marched up the staircase. Malcolm, along with his fire team, found the stairs and ascended the building.
A squad of masked troops along with general support staff descended the case and on the fourth floor, Malcolm emerged in a dense hallway which was dimly lit. He could hear the voices coming from beyond the corridor. He turned and greeted Colonel McElroy with his auxiliary staff of Warrant officers and Majors.
“McElroy!” Malcolm bellowed down the hallway. “Care to explain all this to me?!”
The grey Colonel of sixty years of age tried to rub his nose through the mask as they approached. “Christ Nelson! This war just started…”
“We’re not at war; this is an outbreak!” Malcolm raised a finger “Do NOT bullshit me!”
“Nelson, what do you expect me to tell you?”
“I expect you bring me more helicopters while you tell me what the fuck the Chinese have been talking to us about!”
The Colonel blinked. “And what right do you have to that?”
Malcolm was snide. “Because we all got a right to know what’s happening out there!”
“I’ll have you on that chopper in chains if you don’t tow yourself properly.”
“Like we’ll be putting anybody in jail during all this?” Malcolm snarked. “My major promised me a goddamn debrief! He said, ‘The Chinese are finally talking to us.’ Tell me right now or I’ll keep us until the Dead charge up those stairs!”
McElroy’s expression was blank beneath the gasmask, but the eye contact created a resonating tension between every subordinate in the hallway. “Fine.” He relented. “That way. Move it!”
Malcolm, Liam, and the fire team parted for McElroy’s group to continue; Malcolm waited until he was parallel to McElroy before he turned around and they walked at a hurried pace.
“You think they’re really dead?” the Colonel genuinely asked. “The infected?”
Malcolm almost smiled with relief. “So, it is the Flu cases.”
“Yea, and no one seems to be immune to it.” McElroy returned to his question. “You called them ‘the Dead?”
Malcolm nodded. “It’s exactly like the movies so far.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’ve seen infected people who died, come back anyway.”
McElroy almost paused to rub the bridge of his nose again, again he forgot about the gasmask. They made a turn, found themselves in the stairwell, and started rushing to the roof. “...The Flu infections were skyrocketing since this morning, then Emergency Service calls blew up…We had no idea something was wrong until Yongsan raised the alarm bells. The situation in Seoul has plummeted from bad to worse since nineteen hundred. Our boys in Panmunjom got swarmed by hostiles, we barely got any of them out alive…”
“What did Yongsan report?”
“First thing we heard was to cut off the intersections around the base. Once Seoul police set that perimeter up, it already had to be expanded. The last broadcast from Yongsan was a jumble of gunfire, followed by someone screaming ‘Bomb the area.”
“That’s it?” Liam asked.
“By now, the news has plenty of footage.” McElroy affirmed. “If we ever get a chance to sift through the remains, then we’ll know exactly how it started. Once the mob hit our forces in Panmunjom, the Chinese started talking and we’ve been realizing how fucked the situation is all night. General Abrams ordered the shutdown of every electric grid and power plant to curb civilian migration. Obviously, it was too late.”
“I sent one of my medics to Camp Casey before the blackout. This was literally the last I heard anything. Before I knew it, we were hightailed here.”
“The primary personnel pulled out before we lost all contact with Casey.” McElroy answered.
They came upon the final door and the man taking point kicked it open and moved with his gun drawn. The group emerged on the rooftop and the sound of automatic fire and helicopter propellers could be heard. A chinook was parked in the center of the roof and a fire team stood by the ramp.
Malcolm maintained his position by McElroy’s three o’clock. Liam spoke up again “Are we just abandoning every base?”
“The Evacuation Order is Alpha!” They halted by the ramp as the entourage loaded themselves.
Malcolm squinted. “So, the Koreans are on their own?”
“The blight doesn’t spread too far south; they’re erecting quarantine zones in and around Busan!”
“You’re leaving them to die!” Liam shouted past Malcolm’s shoulder.
“Watch it!” McElroy barked. “Between the riots and the outbreaks, the U.S. is fucking Pandemonium!”
Malcolm felt a gut-punch with the last bit of information. “You’re telling me that its already global…”
“I’m telling you that if we don’t pool our surviving forces, there’s no quarantining this peninsula! Now quit arguing with me and get on the chopper! Washington has given the greenlight, the outbreak centers are getting cindered by the air force as soon as we get join our troops with the fleets!”
“Would we do that to our own cities?!” Liam demanded.
McElroy huffed. “The cities are devolving; the civilians are caught in the black and anyone who’s infected is rampaging!”
“You’re panicking!” Liam shouted; Malcolm was doing his best to not acknowledge it.
“You’re not the first to tell me dead people have been coming back anyway! If everyone can succumb to the infection, then the situation will devolve quicker than the movies! We bottleneck their numbers as the Southern government relocates to Busan and they might come out the other end of this! Now get on the goddamn helicopter!”
Malcolm took a step forward and was cut off by a tug on his shoulder.
Liam was pleading. “Everyone’s gonna die if we leave them behind!” Malcolm looked Liam in the eye and Liam parted to approach the ledge of the roof. “They’re coming!”
Malcolm started over to where Liam stood.
“Nelson!” McElroy called out. “Get away from there!”
Malcolm was next to Liam, and he could see scores of troops running towards the building from the other end of the parking lot. Malcolm looked at Liam, who stared back. Liam’s expression turned to grimace, and he cranked the chamber of his AR-Fifteen; he turned around and sprinted back down the stairwell.
“GODDAMMIT!” Malcolm shouted. He looked back to the fire team that accompanied him, who stood indecisively, and he turned back to McElroy. “GET MORE CHOPPERS OVER HERE ASAP!”
“I can’t make that promise captain! The Airforce is minutes away from Hammer down!”
“FIGURE IT OUT!” was Malcolm’s retort. He turned back to the two grunts who accompanied him. “Well? Stay or go!”
“We’re with you sir!” Said Cable; the other private named Henrick slowly nodded in agreement.
Malcolm turned to McElroy. “DON’T STAY AND WATCH! GET US THOSE CHOPPERS!”
With an acknowledgement, the Colonel turned around and ascended the Chinook ramp. A signal was given by one of the grunts escorting him and the ramp shut behind them. The chinook lifted off the rooftop and began its high climb into the sky. He spun his Crystal around to the front of him and cranked the chamber as Liam had done before.