Endangered Species Ch. 01-08

"I agree. Let's take the kayak with us and load it up before the sun rises. We can be ready to go as soon as the sun is down."

We finished inside, filling the water bladders in the backpacks and taking more food and water. We put the packs in the waterproof storage area and the sleeping bags in the seats. We scouted out a spot with an overhang two hundred yards farther down from where we'd come up earlier. We pulled it along the grass before lowering it to our hiding place. I moved the big rocks out of the way and laid my sleeping bags on the loose rock and gravel. "This is going to be cozy," he said.

"We should do watches," I replied. "We don't know what is out there. If someone is moving around, I want to know. I'll take the first six hours."

"I'm getting some rack time in, then. I'll sleep on this one. You might want to use the rolled-up one to sit on."

He was asleep as soon as he laid his head down. I HATED people like that. I would toss and turn before finally dropping off.

I put on the goggles and sat down to watch the sunrise over the Strait. The stench of death was pervasive, but I was getting used to it. I kept count of the derelict boats and bodies I saw drifting past as the tide went out.

How could anything have survived?

Ch. 5

Summer days up north are long; sunrise was at five-thirteen, and sunset wasn't until two minutes after nine. I checked my watch; it was eight thirty-two. I'd gotten over seven hours of sleep before Mike woke me up.

My body hurt from sleeping on the rock rubble. Next time, we'd have to find something with more give to put our sleeping bags on. "What's the reading?"

"Twenty-eight millirem per hour," he replied as he took the meter out of the direct sunlight.

"Down quite a bit from the fifty-two at noon," I replied. "There is still some ozone up there."

"Not near enough."

The dosimeter the Maine Leading ELT gave me would clip onto your uniform during work in a radiation area. It gave both cumulative radiation dose and dose rate information. Using it in the daylight hours was illuminating. The gamma radiation coming from the sun was killing people. Unlike the ultraviolet radiation causing blindness and sunburn, gamma radiation penetrates skin and muscles like an x-ray. You can't sense gammas as it kills you. People hid from the sunlight, thinking they were safe, but their homes provided little protection from gamma radiation. Someone hiding in their bedroom would get between five and ten REM of gamma dose just today. That was more than the YEARLY dose radiation workers were allowed, but not a lethal dose. That was more like three to five hundred REM total.

The radiation must have been intense in the early days of the event. I hadn't seen a living thing all morning.

You can't stop gamma rays, but you can reduce their intensity by putting something between you and the source. Two inches of lead will reduce a gamma beam to one-tenth of its initial dose, but nobody has lead blankets in their home. It takes four inches of steel, eight inches of concrete/rock/dirt, or two feet of water to get the same reduction as the lead. In a submarine deep underwater, we'd never notice it.

Our notch in the cliff wall was good protection. A basement would work too, but they didn't have those in this neighborhood.

By morning, I want to be underground at the submarine base, drinking coffee after completing my mission.

I moved along the cliff until I could find a spot to relieve myself, then rinsed my hands off with the remains of the water bottle. The ski goggles dimmed the sky as I looked out over the water. "Anything interesting while I was out?"

"Floating tombs and bodies," he replied. "How bad do you want to try and find a boat with a working motor?"

"Where?"

"I was looking at the charts. There's a marina in Port Townsend and a few farther south."

"I'm not sure a motor is a good idea. With everything going to shit, silent paddling seems like a better play. We can't afford to have someone take a shot at us on the way."

"It would be faster, and we could stay offshore."

"And navigating will be a bitch at night with a fast tide coming in," I countered. We looked at the map. "We stay close enough to shore to see it, or at least hear the waves breaking to our right. We work our way into Port Townsend Bay and through the canal. Once we get down to the Hood Canal Bridge, we cross over to the east side and take that south until we reach Bangor."

"Makes sense, Summers. When are we taking off?"

"Let's go as soon as the sun is behind the mountains." We rolled up the sleeping bags and put them in the waterproof storage of the kayak with our ski goggles. The Beretta M9 pistol I kept in a holster on my right hip, held by the nylon belt on my overalls. By the time everything was ready, it was time. We donned our life jackets and carried the kayak to the water. "You ever use one of these?"

"Single seaters, yeah."

"I haven't. Only canoes."

He held it steady as I climbed in. "Don't lose your paddle. Focus on keeping your weight centered and pulling evenly with each arm. You set the pace, and I'll mirror your stroke to keep our paddles from hitting. I'll handle the steering with the rudder and my paddles."

"Got it." He pushed off and sat down, and then we started to paddle in the dimming light. I quickly got used to the motion, and we made good time heading east to Port Townsend. "This beats walking," I said.

"Damn right. It's a beautiful night, the seas are calm, and I've got a hot babe out for a midnight ride on my boat," Mike teased.

I shook my head. "Keep it up, and you may find out if the old 'I wouldn't kiss you if you were the last man in the world' threat is true or not."

"So you might kiss me?"

I just shook my head. As we came within sight of Port Angeles, our hearts sank. The fire last night had leveled the city. A few small fires still burned, but the flames only stopped at the water's edge. We paddled in silence past the Point Wilson Lighthouse, turning south. The tidal current was strong, sweeping us towards Seattle. We had to paddle hard to stay within sight of the town. "So much for the marina," I said after we rounded the turn at the southeast corner. The sailboats and yachts were gone, burned to the waterlines.

Smoke from the fires was getting annoying, so we decided to head due south by compass. Now that we were inside the bay, the only way out was the channel at the south end. It was a good call; the fires had pushed south, destroying everything to Port Hadlock. We practically flew through the narrow channel and continued down towards the bridge.

The fires hadn't pushed south into Oak Bay. We were making good time, and then we heard the yell. "HEY! HELP! HELP!!"

We stopped paddling. Illuminated by the moonlight and the Northern Lights display, a man waved frantically from the shore. "WHAT DO YOU NEED," Mike yelled back.

"MY WIFE IS SICK! SHE NEEDS A DOCTOR."

I looked back at Mike, who was starting to steer his way. "We can't help," I told him.

"We don't know how bad she is."

"It doesn't matter. Do you see a hospital open? Where would we put her? Are you giving up your seat?" He looked at him, then back. "We have a mission."

"We have to do something."

"We have to get to Bangor before sunrise, Midshipman Newman. Get back on course. That's an order."

He looked at the man. "NO HELP TO THE NORTH. GOOD LUCK." We listened to the man beg for help as we paddled south.

He didn't talk much after that. By two-forty, we had made it to the Hood Canal Floating Bridge. We passed under the transition section on the west end, then turned to parallel the bridge. The current kept pushing us farther down the bay; instead of fighting it, we kept paddling east by compass until we reached the other side. "Not much farther now," I said.

"Do you think they are still alive?"

"If anyone is, they will be. Even being onboard one of the subs would give them protection."

"Not for their families." Nobody wanted to talk about that, but I'd been passed notes from worried crewmembers asking me to check up on their families. I had a list of names and addresses written down on the notebook in my breast pocket. I dreaded the answer, but I'd promised to find out.

It was just after four when we reached our objective. We stopped at the buoys and floating barriers marking the Bangor Submarine Base waters. "Don't make any sudden moves. The Marine guards will be on edge, and I don't feel like getting shot. Follow my lead and keep your hands in view."

I hailed the guards, giving my name and rank. No one answered. We yelled and waved our paddles over our heads. After five minutes, we still had no response. "What should we do?"

Two submarines were still tied up at the pier when we left port a week ago. "I don't see any submarines or sentries. Maybe they all went to sea?"

"It doesn't seem right."

"We need to find the Base Commander. Let's go in." We lifted the line over our heads and entered the restricted waters. We paddled past the triangular docks, sitting silent and empty, and beached our kayak on the rocky shore. "Leave the packs for now. Let's see who's home."

We scrambled up the broken riprap to the fence and followed it to the road leading to the docks. That's where we found the first body, a Marine face-down in full combat gear. I checked him with my flashlight. "Where's his rifle?"

"Under him?" I rolled him over, finding no weapons.

Only a bullet hole in his forehead.

Ch. 6

"Holy shit."

Mike's eyes widened as I shined my flashlight on the dead Marine's face. There wasn't a lot of blood on the front; he'd taken the bullet and died instantly. "Notice anything weird?"

"Like the dead Marine isn't weird?"

I pointed at the face. "He's wearing full gear, including a vest with a hard plate, but no weapons. He's got a radio holder on his belt, but it's not here. Why carry the holder if you don't have a working radio?"

"Maybe he didn't bother taking the radio holder off the belt?"

"Maybe. There's a small-caliber entry wound in the middle of the forehead. No powder burns or other wounds are visible. It blew the back of his head out but didn't penetrate the back of the helmet. He's in the middle of the road, so he wasn't expecting trouble. He's not on the docks, so he wasn't protecting them. He was guarding against someone coming from the water. Someone he didn't see killed him from a distance."

He picked up on what I was saying. "Sniper?"

"Looks like a 5.56mm. Maybe, but most snipers use something bigger. That would have gone through the helmet for sure. Notice anything else?"

He looked closer, then shrugged. I pointed to his neck. "His hands, face, and neck. They aren't burned. That means he wasn't outside during the day. He was killed tonight, but has been staying underground since the event occurred last week."

"Fuck. Whoever did this could still be around!"

He was right about that. "He's not warm, so it didn't happen in the last few hours. It does mean there are survivors here somewhere underground."

"At least there were," he replied. "Turn the flashlight off. It makes us a target."

He was right about that. I clicked off the flashlight. "Grab our gear out of the kayak. I'm going to check out the docks for survivors. Meet me back here."

He turned and jogged back down the road, while I kept my pistol at a low ready while working my way to the triangular docks. I made a circuit of the docks and noticed some weird things. The shore power cables and mooring lines for the two submarines we'd left behind were hanging into he water. That meant the crews had gotten underway without help from the workers on shore. There were a few bodies I ran across; all were civilians and had been dead for a long time. I made my way back onshore, joining Mike by the bags. I filled him in on what I found.

He took it in, then looked at his watch. "We've got less than an hour until sunrise. We need to get shelter quickly."

He was right about that. "We need to find the base commander and give him our message."

He pointed up the road. "The admin building is right up the hill."

"Let's go. I'll take point, you follow ten yards behind me with the backpacks." We only had one pistol, and I had it. I moved out, trying to move quickly and quietly along the side of the road. I didn't hear anything but our breathing and the waves coming in. No insects, no road noise, nothing.

As we got closer to the administration building, we started seeing more bodies. Most of them were old and decaying, while others were from tonight. Each had been killed by small arms fire, and none had weapons or radios. I knelt next to one behind a parked car, waving Mike up next to me. "Whoever attacked came from the water," I said. "See the blood spatter?" The front of the car behind the dead man had his blood and brains over the fender.

"Heading where we are," Mike said. "You sure you want to do this? They could still be there."

We could barely see the outline of the building in the twilight, about a hundred yards away. "Stay here. I'm going to check out the building. If you hear shots, get the hell back to the pier and find a place to hide, maybe the drydock or under the road. Do not come after me."

"I can't leave you," he said.

I reached inside my overalls, removing the message. "If I don't come back, you need to continue the mission. It's more important than me."

He took the message and put it in his pocket. "Don't do something stupid, Summers. I don't want to paddle out of here alone."

I gave him a smile, then resumed my approach. As I got closer, the signs of battle couldn't be ignored. The defenders made a stand at the main entrance, which had been blown to shit. One of the large decorative doors was next to the building, the other hanging at an angle. Bodies were all around. Most had been shot, but others were bloody messes, with throats ripped out and chunks missing from arms and shoulders. What the hell did that?

I moved to the entrance and paused, listening for any activity. Hearing nothing, I moved inside. I had to use my flashlight to make my way around the debris and fallen defenders. I didn't see anyone I could identify as an attacker.

The ground floor looked empty, but I figured any survivors would be in the basement. The security door on the stairway had been blown open, and a half-dozen men lay dead on the stairs below it. I moved into the lower level, shining my flashlight around.

I found what the attackers came to get. Part of the basement was devoted to base security, including the Marine armory. The base supported boomers, which meant storage and maintenance facilities for torpedoes and intercontinental ballistic missiles. Nuclear weapons meant a large security force and plenty of weapons. I'd seen satellite photos of the base at the Academy; it had dozens of underground weapons bunkers connected by tunnels and an underground railroad. The base also held warehouses full of food, military vehicles, and communications gear.

It was the perfect place to survive this shit.

Someone else had figured that out and decided to take it for themselves. They killed everyone and took all the weapons they grabbed and the ones they didn't. Empty shelves and weapon racks were all that remained. "Fuck me. They cleaned the place out."

"They took the women, too." The voice came from across the room, barely audible above my breathing. "They took everything."

I shined the flashlight into the corner, the light reflecting off the eyes of a man holding his stomach together with his hands. "Jesus Christ," I said as I rushed over. He was barely alive, surrounded by three dead men. It looked like a hand grenade had taken them out.

The injured man reached for me with a bloody hand. "He kept me alive to warn you," the man said. "You need to hide. They took the women with them. If they come back, they will take you, too."

I ripped the shirt off a man nearby, wadding it up and putting it under his hands. "Hold this. I'll get help."b

"I'm already dead." He grabbed my hand. "I'm so cold. Don't leave me."

That was a good indicator of blood loss. The man was right; he was dying. "Who did this?"

He struggled to talk, and I leaned over to hear him better. "Werewolves." I turned to look at him, wondering what the hell he meant. I never got to ask again because he let out a wheezy breath and died on me.

I closed his eyes and folded his hands over his stomach. Had God kept him alive to warn me? Why take the women? How did an attacking force take out dozens of trained fighters without taking heavy casualties?

And why the hell would he say werewolves did it?

His last word made no sense.

I stood up and circled the battle area but didn't find any other survivors. It took me another twenty minutes to clear the rest of the building. The attackers had killed everyone, either in the fighting or with single bullets to the head.

I only saw the bodies of three women. One was in her sixties; they had executed her with a shot to the head. She was still on her knees. The other two were in uniform and died fighting alongside the men.

I looked at my watch; there was nothing else I could do. Sunrise was coming fast, and I had to get back to Mike.

I walked outside, breathing in the fresh air when the adrenaline crash hit. I started shaking, then my stomach rolled. I threw up in the planter at the stairway's base, then sat down with my back to the cool concrete. I had to get my shit under control fast, I told myself.

I took deep breaths, holding them for a second, then letting them out. I was making progress when I heard footsteps approaching. I rolled behind the planter, raising my Beretta towards the parking lot.

"Summers? Is that you?"

I lowered my pistol. "Dammit, Mike, I almost shot you!"

"Yeah, well, you didn't. The sun is coming up, and I figured if you hadn't shot anyone, it was ok to come up here."

I stood up, shaking my head. "We're a long damn way from ok. Let's get inside." He didn't say anything as I took him back downstairs. "We'll stay here for tonight."

"They're all dead," he told me.

"Yeah. The bad guys might still be around, but they cleared this building already. I figure they won't come back now that they have what they want. We can stay here today after we remove the bodies."

"Holy shit," he said as he shined his flashlight around the room where they made their last stand.

"Yeah." I grabbed my backpack from him, taking it into the armory. I dumped the contents on an empty shelf, then took the bag with me. "The armory is like a bank vault, so we should get good shielding. You start moving the bodies into the locker room. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"What are you doing?"

I held up my backpack. "Raiding the vending machines for dinner before the upper floors start getting sunshine. Whenever this happened, they never went back up there."

We finished moving the dead, then explored the rest of the basement. The garbage cans were full of Meals Ready to Eat, canned foods, and packages, but no food remained. The bastards took that too.

It wasn't until we were lying on cots in the armory that I told him about the man I'd found alive and what he said. Mike didn't know what the fuck it meant either.

Ch. 7

We hit the wall shortly after we finished eating. We locked ourselves inside the I'd barely put my head down before I was asleep.

I woke at four in the afternoon. Mike was still snoring, so I left him sleeping while I checked the room outside. I put an ear to the metal door, waited a minute while hearing nothing, then opened it. I had my tactical flashlight in one hand, the wrist supporting my right hand and pistol. Wherever the light pointed, my Beretta went with it. The attackers had taken every other weapon from here, so it was the best I had.