Spore Series | Book 2 | Choke Read online

  A soldier gestured with the barrel of his weapon. “All of you. Put your hands up and get out of the trucks!”

  They all got out of their vehicles, and the soldiers ordered them to spread out in a line across the expressway; the four in his vehicle and another eight from the library, including Mrs. Brody. The soldiers gestured more than they shouted due to their air filtration masks. However, they were good at it, so Randy assumed they’d done this a lot.

  He tried to pick out the leader of the soldiers but didn’t immediately see anyone. He exchanged a look with his sister, giving her a nod, then he looked for Mrs. Brody. She stood in the middle of the road, jittery, as she kept her students in line.

  Two soldiers moved behind them and patted people down, while two others came out from behind the Humvee and stood near the front fender, talking as they watched the group. Those two were the leaders, but Randy couldn’t see their faces.

  A hand dove into his coverall pocket from behind and removed his pistol. He thought about protesting but remained still. These people looked like they meant business.

  The four soldiers who’d patted them down gathered in front of them and gestured for them to walk toward the two leaders standing next to the Humvee. “Put your hands down! Go! Walk towards the officers! No talking, just walk!”

  Randy jumped out ahead of the line and was the first to reach the two officers standing beside the Humvee. He kept his eyes forward except to glance hard into the visors of the officers. One was a young woman with T. Ames on her name tag. The other was a young man, both trained soldiers by the way they held their weapons, their eyes impassive as the group walked by.

  The soldiers directed Randy to enter the back of a military transport truck, and he put one foot on the tailgate and paused. A dozen scenes from a dozen war movies flashed through his mind. He imagined them trying to separate him from his sister. They would take Jenny to another part of the camp along with the rest of the women and children while they transported the men to barbed wire cages.

  Panic spiked in his brain, and he turned with his fists up and ready to fight.

  He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Jenny standing right behind him. She raised her eyebrow in annoyance as she waited for him to climb in. He flashed her a smile, though he did not feel it in his heart. Something was not right about the situation. The soldiers seemed agitated, and they were the ones with the guns. What did they have to be nervous about? Maybe the soldiers were just being cautious, or maybe it was something else.

  Randy stepped farther into the back of the truck and took a seat.

  Chapter 5

  Randy and Jenny Tucker, Indianapolis, Indiana

  The soldiers drove Randy’s people off the expressway, around a long service road, and onto what appeared to be an airplane runway. As they passed the airport terminal, he was amazed at the number of airplanes on the tarmac. Some were parked at distant gates and left unattended. One jet sat skewed sideways with a smoking hole in its side.

  Toward the U-shaped terminal, military vehicles zoomed around as one reconnaissance force returned and another left. Each force had three or four Humvees and some smaller troop transports. Two helicopters landed near open gates at one horn of the U-shape where a pair of mobile boarding stairs were turned around and pressed up against the gangways. Soldiers leapt out of the choppers, climbed the stairs, and entered the gangways into their respective gates.

  At least three dozen FEMA tents and mobile buildings were nestled inside the horseshoe shape, and people with protective respiratory gear walked between the tents, some of them pushing equipment on large carts while others went about other tasks.

  It looked like a good, busy place, and Randy’s nerves settled.

  “Think we’re saved?” Randy leaned closer to Jenny, so she heard him over the truck noise.

  Jenny looked out at the U-shaped terminal and all the bustling activity before she turned to him. “I would, but they’re driving us away from the terminal.”

  It was true. They were driving out onto a runway and not parking near the gates at all. They kept going until they were one hundred, two hundred, and then three hundred yards away. The truck ground to a squeaky, jolting halt, and the four soldiers who’d brought them in pulled open the truck’s gate and directed everyone to get out.

  The kids stepped down first, helped by the soldiers in an efficient, if not gentle, way. Mrs. Brody and the two old men jumped down next, followed by the twins.

  He turned in a full circle and saw they sat at a four-way intersection in the middle of a series of runways. A long FedEx shipping center lay to the southeast, and there were maintenance hangars at various spots around the airport. It would take Randy a good five to seven minutes to reach any of them at a dead sprint.

  “So much for getting away,” he mumbled.

  On the north side of the intersection, where the road met the grass, eight or nine people were lined up on their knees with their hands tied behind their backs. They all wore makeshift protection, including air filtration masks and coveralls, though Randy noted a lot of bare skin showed.

  Several soldiers stood guard while another soldier wearing white coveralls walked up and down the line. The walking soldier was short and stocky, and he guessed it must be a woman commander of high rank due to the US flag and symbols stenciled onto the breast of her coveralls.

  The soldier with T. Ames on her name tag motioned for their group to stop some thirty yards away while she jogged over to the commander, waiting to be recognized. The commander was screaming at the people on their knees, although Randy couldn’t make out the words.

  The commander stepped back from the captives and turned to the waiting Ames. Ames said something, pointed at Randy and his group, and made a gesture back toward the expressway. The commander raised her eyes, and he shrank beneath her gaze even though he couldn’t make out a single feature of her face. There was something about the way she held herself with her shoulders thrown back, her chest out, and her feet always shoulder width apart. It didn’t help that she held a pistol in her right hand.

  After a pause, the woman stepped between two captives, nearly knocking them down, and stalked toward Randy’s waiting group. He took a step back until he bumped into Jenny, then he bucked up and raised his eyes.

  The commander wore a name tag of Colonel S. Jergensen. Her eyes were a shar blue color and she strode straight up to Randy and pushed her face close until their visors were an inch apart.

  “I’m Colonel Jergensen,” she said with a loud, droning tone. “I’m in command of this place. Are you or your people with this rabble?” The colonel raised her pistol and waved it in the general direction of the people kneeling in the road. Randy noticed traces of BD in the corners of the colonel’s eyes and across her thin upper lip.

  “No, ma’am,” he replied. “I’ve never seen those people. We drove down from Kentland, Indiana. Our town got overrun with BD, um, I mean, the infection.”

  The colonel’s laser sharp eyes bore into Randy’s like she was trying to read his soul. She peered down the line at the others in their group. “I see you’ve got a lot of kids with you. Were you transporting them somewhere?”

  While the question confused Randy, he stayed focused. “Those are the kids from Mrs. Brody’s library. I mean, the Kentland library. And there’s Mrs. Brody, right there. She can tell you.” He turned and gestured at Mrs. Brody, who stood at the end of the line with wide, terrified eyes.

  “Yes, I’m Mrs. Brody,” the librarian said, taking a hesitant step forward as she wrung her fingers together. She kept looking down at Colonel Jergensen’s gun and smiling in an appeasing way, like a rabbit with her neck in a wolf’s jaws.

  “I see.” Colonel Jergensen stepped up to Mrs. Brody, rolling her shoulders and staring down at the timid woman. “Do you know any of these people?” Again, the colonel gestured at the kneeling people with her gun.

  “I don’t think so,” Mrs. Brody stammered. “We came alone. Well, just us—�
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  The colonel raised her weapon and put it against the librarian’s head. “I don’t have a lot of patience these days, Mrs. Brody,” the colonel spat. “Out with it.”

  “We came on three trucks,” Mrs. Brody winced and squealed the words. “We heard about it on the news. They told us to come here.”

  Randy turned to Jenny and spoke just loud enough so she heard. “It looks like the colonel is infected. I think she’s got BD.”

  Jenny’s eyes never left the twitchy colonel, and she shot a warning look at him.

  “What’s that?” The colonel lunged in his direction, raising her pistol and pointing it at the sky as if she was unsure who to shoot first, Randy or Mrs. Brody.

  “Nothing, Colonel,” Randy said. “I was just making sure my sister—”

  “I heard what you said, son.” The colonel leaned closer. “But I want you to say it. Go ahead.”

  “I…I was just telling my sister you looked a little tired,” he said, speaking clearly while keeping his voice from rattling. “You might even be a little sick, that’s all.”

  The soldiers standing nearby stiffened, and the one named Ames backed up a step.

  Jergensen’s eyes narrowed at him. She was so close he noticed a blonde-gray shock of hair laying across her temple. She clenched her jaw and stared a hole through his head.

  “Could I do this if I was sick?” The colonel whirled and raised her pistol at one of the people kneeling down. At the end of her turn, she pulled the trigger and sent a bullet through the head of the person in the center of the row. Blood sprayed out into the grass, and the body pitched forward.

  The other prisoners shuddered and clenched their shoulders, anticipating a second round.

  Mrs. Brody screamed and clutched one of her female students.

  “What the…?” A spike of red heat tore up Randy’s spine. “What the hell did you do that for, Colonel? You didn’t have to shoot—”

  The colonel pivoted back to him and jammed the gun against his head. “Those people killed one of my soldiers this morning. Are you saying that should go unpunished?”

  Randy shook his head against the hard barrel.

  “It’s good to know you’re on board,” the colonel nodded. “Is there anything else you wanted to say, son?”

  He winced as the barrel pressed harder against his skull through his thin Tyvek hood, and he felt Jenny grab his hand and give it a warning squeeze.

  “No, ma’am,” Randy said with a shake of his head. “Nothing to say here.”

  “Good!” the colonel shouted. She removed her gun from his head and stepped back to address the entire group. “Listen up! We’ve got three thousand survivors in this camp, and they all need protection. They all need food. Considering there are no more crops, we’re reliant on scavenging from the homes of the dead and rationing that until civilization can pick itself up again. That’s why we’re at war with other scavengers out there.” The colonel turned and gestured at the line of kneeling people with her gun. “Rather than join us here in the Colony, they’ve taken things into their own hands. They steal food out of everyone’s mouth. That will not happen under my watch. Everything you’ll ever need is right here in the Colony. If you work hard, you’ll be fine. If you don’t…” Colonel Jergensen left the implications hanging in the air like the blade of a guillotine. “Any questions?”

  When no one responded but for the shuffling of boots, Jergensen nodded and went on. “Keep everyone alive. Those are my orders, and I’ll see them through come hell or high water. Corporal Ames?”

  The one called Ames stepped up. “Yes, Colonel.”

  “I want you to get these kids cleaned up and put them to work sorting in the terminal.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And put the two gingers on scavenger patrol, but I want you to watch them close.”

  Ames nodded before she glanced at the two former inmates, Jones and Bickens. “What about the old guys?”

  Jergensen waved her gun at them, and Randy couldn’t help wondering if the woman had ever shot someone accidentally while doing that.

  “The old men can do maintenance around the terminal,” she said, distracted as she started walking toward one of the Humvees.

  “And, sorry about all the questions, Colonel,” Ames said, cringing. “But what about the scavengers?”

  Jergensen turned toward the people kneeling on the runway and sneered. “I think you know what to do with them, Corporal Ames. Get them ready for questioning.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The colonel got into her Humvee and pulled off as Ames shouted orders to the other soldiers.

  Several soldiers came up and directed Randy and his group back to the transport truck. As he stepped into the back of the truck, he wondered what they’d gotten themselves into.

  Chapter 6

  Bishop Shields, Ft. Collins, Colorado

  Bishop got the kids and their backpacks out of the SUV and ushered them around the back of the house. They entered through the lower-level door and passed into the first of three makeshift decontamination spaces made of tarps and plastic bags, just like Kim had instructed him to build.

  They stripped off their packs and began washing up using big, pre-filled buckets of water and antifungal soap made for dogs.

  “Do not take your masks off, yet!” Bishop’s deep voice boomed through the basement, making it impossible to mistake his directions. “And make sure you get everything. Your hair, your clothes, your mask. Everything!”

  They scrubbed up for a good thirty minutes and stepped through a slit in the plastic to the next room. They stripped down to their skin and scrubbed their bodies, pushing their soaking clothes back through the slit and into the first area.

  “We’ll worry about our clothes and backpacks later,” Bishop said.

  They pulled off their masks and washed their faces with the same soap. Bishop held his breath as long as he could, paranoid that there might still be spores in the air. He finally allowed himself a deep breath, and his nose filled with the sweet scent of lavender dog shampoo.

  “I’m so glad we got this ready before we left,” Bishop said. He stood over the basement drain, picked up one bucket of water, and dumped a small amount over his head, peering down as the water splashed and drained down.

  “Dad, my mask is stuck,” Riley said. “I can’t get it off.”

  He turned to see his daughter’s thick, golden-brown hair tangled in her mask straps. “Oh, baby. It must have gotten tangled when we were fighting with those people.” Before he helped his daughter, Bishop gestured at Trevor. “Trevor, plug those air filters in and bring them over here while I help your sister. They’re over next to the furnace. Get dried off and put some clothes on first.”

  “Okay, Dad,” Trevor said, exiting the last decontamination space with his arms held out as water dripped off his fingertips.

  Bishop got to work on getting Riley’s mask off her head. Her ringlet curls were caught in the buckles and wrapped around the strap a hundred ways. He tried to be gentle and coax her hair out of its tangles, though it was no good. “I’m sorry, Riley. Your hair is just way too thick. I have to cut the mask off.” Bishop turned his head and shouted to his son. “Trevor!”

  The boy poked his head through the slit. “Yeah?”

  “Can you go upstairs and find me a pair of scissors?”

  “Sure thing.” His son dashed away and tromped up the stairs.

  While they waited, Bishop looked down at his angry, dejected daughter. He tapped on her visor, and she looked up. “Are you okay? I mean, did any of those people hurt you?”

  “My shoulder feels funny.” Riley shrugged her right shoulder. “Other than that, I don’t know.”

  “As soon as we get this mask off, we’ll check you out.” Bishop tried to smile, but his daughter had already cast her gaze toward the floor.

  A moment later, Trevor reached in with a big pair of kitchen scissors.

  “Thanks, Son,” he said. “The
se should do the trick.”

  He was about to cut the straps when Riley stepped back.

  “Just cut it all off,” she said, shivering in the cold with her arms crossed over her chest.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I can’t keep my hair with that stuff out there.” She raised her eyes, and Bishop saw practical defiance staring back at him. It was the same look her mother got whenever she ran into a complex problem at work. “It’ll only get in the way. Besides, we don’t have an infinite supply of masks. We can’t just tear them up.”

  He raised his hand and touched Riley’s shampoo-soaked head. It’d taken the girl two years to grow her hair out, and it was one thing that stood out about her. Riley was proud of it, and she spent hours making sure it was healthy and clean.

  “Oh, Riley. I’m so—”

  “Don’t be so dramatic.” The girl shifted her weight to her other leg. “Just do it.”

  Bishop nodded, gave the scissors an experimental snip, and went to work. He started on the easy parts first, cutting around her head and pulling off the long, untangled pieces to drop them on the floor. When he came to the tangles, he angled the scissors beneath the straps and snipped closer to her skin, being careful not to cut her. Several dozen cuts later, Bishop peeled the mask away and lifted it off her face.

  Riley gasped in the sweet lavender scent of dog shampoo before she bent to pick up a clean bucket of water.

  “Here, I’ve got it.” Bishop took the bucket from her and held it over her head, dumping a little at a time on her head. As tall as she was for a girl of twelve, he still towered a foot and a half above her.

  Riley splashed water on her face and ran her fingers through the wild tufts of hair that remained on her head. Once she’d gotten the soap out, Riley finished rinsing herself off and stepped out of the decontamination chamber to dry off.