Days Nevermore

“Davis, get down!” I shouted, pulling on his armored vest to the ground as I fired a few shots towards what our doom may be. He scrambled to take cover behind what was left of our hum-v. I too ducked behind the burnt frame as the clacking of bullets unleashed from an automatic weapon followed my dodge. “Where the f**k is Ruiz?!” He shouted, dropping the empty magazine from his pistol and replacing it with another. His breath came in heavy as he looked around and not willing to look over our current shield of protection. We’ve been surviving, barely, ever since hell broke loose. “He said he was getting to higher ground. To try to even the odds.” The soldier beside me cursed and punched the door of our cover. “Why the f**k are they doing this to us?! We did everything they commanded us to do!“ I took a peak over the shield to gauge where the enemy was and quickly ducked with a few clacks from more bullets following my head. As soon as they stopped, I returned fire and heard the satisfying connection of bullet to body cavity thumping and the sweet sound of a thud. The uniform looked familiar on the corpse now on the ground. I quickly ducked again, and more clacking followed. “Come on, Ruiz. Where are you?" I breathed, replacing the now empty magazine with a new one. “We’re going to have to move soon, Sargent. “Davis was now crouching and looking at me. “Not yet, Davis.“ “What if he didn’t make it? What if we’re slowly getting surrounded? These guys are swarming in like cockroaches!“ he hissed. I glared at him. “You will remain here, Davis. That’s an order.“ His face glowered with anger and he growled “Sir, yes, sir.“ “You are surrounded! Put your weapons down and surrender, Sargent Whitaker and Private Davis. Stand down now.“ A male’s voice boomed from our left from behind a destroyed cargo van. Davis fired off a couple of rounds in response to him. “Have it your way then! Orders were no survivors, men. Take them o..“ The thud and appearance of the speaker's body was now on the ground with the signature kill shot through the right eyebrow. “That’s my boy, Ruiz! Woo!” Davis cheered, then looked to see where others were, and Ruiz had already dropped two more from their hiding places. He ducked when shots came towards us. We waited for the clacking to cease before returning fire. Ruiz made beautiful work of dropping more enemies from their shields. “Get ready to move forward, Davis.” As soon as the words left my mouth, Ruiz’s Central American accent came in through my earpiece, “Get to movin’, Sarge! We only have a short window. Backup is coming and coming quickly. I’ll clear a path to the garage and meet you there.” Davis looked at me and nodded, “Alright, Ruiz, meet you there. God speed, my friend.” He chuckled before the radio went silent. I looked to Davis who nodded again. We faced the enemy and charged them head on. Ruiz was dropping the enemy like flies to a fly swatter as we weaved our way through the road and piled up military equipment towards the garage. We returned fire when and where we could until we were at the door of the massively displaced building. We kicked in the door just to duck to either side of it from the bullets that came after. “Holy s**t, Sarge, is that you?” the Southern accent chimed from inside. “Dallas?” Davis pinched his nose and shook his head while I peered around the door in shock. “The one and only, Sarge! I see that Yankee Davis is with you too.” He chuckled like he put all his heart into it. We made our way inside, closing the door and barricading it. “Where’s Ruiz?” I asked, looking around after pushing the last heavy thing in front of the walk-through door. Dallas looked confused a moment and shrugged his shoulders, “He ain’t here, ma’am.” I looked to Davis who now seemed worried and exchanged a glance with me. “He’ll make it, Sarge.” The hope in his voice sounded near empty. I looked at the mechanic and blinked a moment, “Which of these vehicles is ready to go, Dallas?” He looked at the long line of various military transportation and then back at me, “The hum-v down at the end, but if these guys are who I think they are, they all have tracking on them, ma’am. They’ll find where we are in an instant.” I looked at him puzzled “Who do you think they are?“ he sighed and went to pull a tarp away from a corpse wearing the same uniform as all the rest. I walked over to examine the body’s uniform and noticed it was solid black with a small crest like an emblem on the armored vest. “f**k!” I punched the chest of the vest and then kicked the side of the rolling tool box, resounding in a loud clang. “f**k! f*****g bastards!“ Davis and Dallas looked at one another before looking at me with puzzled looks. I sighed and rubbed my face. “They’re a special force. They come in and wipe s**t out and clean it up like nothing ever happened or even existed.” They look at each other again and at the same time asked “What?” “They’re a group that comes in and cleans up the government’s mess. Nobody knows about this force. They make it seem like nothing occurred anywhere and nothing happened, and our checkpoint just so happened to be ground 0 of the outbreak.” I looked up to see them looking at each other with knitted brows. “You mean this is where it all started?” Dallas asked in almost a whisper. I nodded my head “New York, New York. Close proximity of bodies, illness can spread fast. “I put air quotes around “illness”. “Shit.” Davis kicked at the ground and rubbed his face with his hand. “So, that means all of this was biological warfare!” He shouted, swinging his arm wide, gesturing at the chaos going on around us. I nodded my head in confirmation. He turned away and took a few steps, anger tense across his shoulders. Then, as if something dawned on him and he spun around quickly, “How the f**k do you know any of this?!” I looked up at him, honestly unsurprised he was putting two and two together. I sighed, “I..“ I looked at Dallas then back to Davis who was still waiting for the answer “I used to be a recruit for that branch.” “Holy fuck.” Dallas plopped down on a seat nearest to him. “You used to be a recruit for them?!” Davis shouted. “Keywords ‘used to’, Davis. I advise you to watch your tone, Private!” I squared my shoulders and stood firm, assuming my commanding tone. He sneered and backed down from his line of would-be accusations. “Why did you leave?” Dallas asked, trying to take our focus away from each other. “I left because it didn’t feel right being trained to go against civilization. I left because all the clues were pointing to this..” I swung my arm wide in gesture at what was happening. “I wanted no part of it!” I turned to Davis as if it emphasized the sentence. Right then a side door kicked open, we all spun towards the door, firearms ready to defend ourselves when Ruiz threw up his hands from his rifle and his accent came through “Don’t shoot! It’s Ruiz, don’t shoot!” When we relaxed he continued his mission towards us in a rush, “ We gotta get, Sarge. The cavalry is arriving from the west side of the city!” he ran and popped the hood on the last hum-v and, as if he expertly knew where the tracker was, yanked it from the vehicle. “The wonderful thing about these old things is the fact they didn’t update how to put the trackers in.” he ran to the key box and busted the lock with the butt of his gun snatching the keys from the box. “We gotta get out of here. Gather what supplies we can now or forever hold your peace.” As if that was a cue, Dallas and Davis began gathering what they knew we needed from the immediate vicinity. I looked at the uniform on the body, then it clicked. I rushed over and began stripping it from the traitor. “What are you doing?” Ruiz rushed over “Here.” I pushed the uniform I had stripped towards him. “You are about the same size as him. Put it on.” Dallas’ Southern accent came from behind me, “Why? We gotta get out of here.” I looked at the three soldiers I had left and sighed, “disguising might get us through in a moment if we look like them. They’ll kill us on sight in the uniforms we currently have on.” Davis looked disgusted, “You want to give up our uniforms for the traitor’s? What about what they stand for?“ as if he just pushed the last button, I spun on him “Listen here, private Davis! What we do and who and what we stand for is not a uniform! It’s for the people these assholes murdered in cold blood because they can’t stand the fact of being accountable for their little experiments going south! You will do as you are told and not a single objection more! Do I make myself clear, Private?” Once again, he scowled “Sir, yes, sir.” We found plenty of bodies close by to pick the uniforms that fit us. We added the last of the cases and supplies to the hum-v. Ruiz turned over the engine and, with a bit of stubbornness, it finally fired off. “You can definitely tell it has sat here for a minute.” He chuckled. I crawled into the passenger seat, Ruiz took the driver's seat and we waited for Dallas and Davis to crawl into the backseat. “Let’s go!” Ruiz gassed it and drove through the vehicle access gate. The energy in the cab was tense, edgy and solemn all at the same time. We headed south, taking highways 478 to 278, then to 440. Hoping there will be a slim chance of getting off the island.