What Remains (Book 1): The Outbreak Read online

  His daydream fell short. The news had interrupted his thoughts, barely catching the bulletin that had just popped up. The announcer said that riots had spread as far as a few miles away from the outskirts of Tokyo. Military personnel was setting up roadblocks to all the major roads leading in and out of the city. All travel to and from the city had been suspended until further notice. No one except those on official city business was permitted to leave.

  It sounded severe now, deadly serious. A thought came to Kenji that he hadn’t thought to ask before. Why were all these people rioting anyways? Generally, with any revolt or anything else, there were demands. Figureheads that organized, for a cause, that the people stood behind. However, he had seen or heard nothing of the sort.

  It intrigued him the more he thought about it. The food was ready though, so he put his mind back to it. Kenji set up the food on the table in his kitchen that served as a dining room table. He went back into his bedroom, stopping in the door frame to look at her. Kiyomi was partially clothed, yet still, he could see her soft skin, amazing figure, and beautiful face from behind all the bed sheets. Kenji watched her for about a minute.

  He decided that he should probably wake her before the food was cold. Gently patting her arm, she rolled over, opening her eyes slowly. Her eyes adjusted to the morning light coming in through the window. Kenji grabbed her hand reassuringly. Kiyomi sat up and leaned in kissing him again. He led her away from the bed into the kitchen.

  Kiyomi smiled seeing the breakfast he had prepared for them. They sat down together and began to eat smiling at each other. Soon after breakfast, they were curled up together on his couch, flipping through the channels on TV for something to watch, enjoying each other’s company.

  After a few hours of TV, he said that it was going to rain soon and that it would be a perfect opportunity to see a movie at the theater. It was showing an older film, one that they had watched as kids growing up, a classic. Kenji looked up the movie showtimes in the paper. There was one in about two hours.

  Kenji asked if she wanted to take a shower before they left. Kiyomi replied that she did, so he went and got some spare clothes that would fit her as showed herself to his shower. He closed the door after leaving the clothes inside for her and went back to his computer while he waited his turn. His thoughts drifted for a moment to the fact that he had the girl he had always loved, in his bathroom undressing to take a shower. He chuckled to himself, thinking that this day would never come.

  Kenji awoke his computer, which refreshed the screen. His games were done downloading. He decided to browse the web instead of playing his video games for time sake. He brought up the main news website for the city; he saw all the bulletins, rereading them. So many towns he thought had gone under martial law in the past week it was somewhat scary. Some of the comments left on the website were people asking about current news in the town.

  One comment caught his attention; it was different from the rest. It clearly was someone who felt the rest of the video had to be viewed. The commenter had posted a link, which he clicked, bringing him to a new website. It had a video attached to it. An oddly familiar video was displayed, showing a dark street with two soldiers who were attacked by a man. He watched it all again. This time, however, the video didn’t stop short after the attack.

  The video continued, showing the dark street with buildings again. The body lay on the ground that the two soldiers had shot. The soldier with the wound was trying to make a quick bandage for his injury. In the distance several more people showed up, most of them coming from behind buildings. They all acted like the man who now lay dead on the ground, shuffling towards the two soldiers.

  The soldier who had been talking into his radio stopped and looked down the street. Seeing the other people heading their way he tapped the other soldier on the shoulder. They started to back up towards where the camera was recording. They were still quite some distance away though. A few of the stronger people in the distance were making their way more quickly to the two soldiers.

  The unwounded soldier stopped and raised his rifle, firing at the people heading their way. Most of his bullets missed. A few striking the people in the front, however, they continued towards the two men seemingly unharmed. He turned around and started to run, leaving his wounded friend lagging behind. The unwounded soldier tripped and fell onto the sidewalk in his haste.

  He scrambled up, but not fast enough, too many of the people on screen had made their way to him. They seemed excited by his quick movements and his previous action of firing at them. They surrounded him quickly, he tried to push his way past a few, but they grabbed hold of the straps on his backpack. They pulled him back towards the group and dragged him to the ground.

  A few flashes brightly cast in-between the bodies of the people who grabbed the soldier. Only one of the attackers fell, a man of average build, dropped to the ground. The other soldier, who was about twenty feet away from the soldier on the ground, kept trying to make his way down the street. He clamored down the road, just as two of the military trucks pulled down the road.

  The trucks stopped near the group of people on top of the soldier. Out of the back of each truck came eight men, more soldiers, who took aim at the group and fired. Most of the group of people went down while the ones that didn’t start to move towards the trucks. They too joined their brethren, shortly after being brought down by military precision.

  The commander of the men, who was the last one out of the truck, closest to the fallen soldier appeared. He was tapping men on the shoulder and then pointing them into formations. They set up a defensive square around the area. The wounded soldier came into view again approaching the commander, leaning awkwardly, and holding his wound.

  The commander approached the wounded soldier, urging him forward. They spoke for a moment, and then the commander pointed at the soldier’s wound. What happened next was unexplainable and shocking. The commander pulled out his sidearm and without hesitation shot the wounded soldier in the head.

  The video then shook and went black.

  Kenji sat there dumbfounded, his stomach flipped. He was disturbed by what he had seen. He saw people being shot down in cold blood, for attacking military personnel. There was no warning from the second group of men, no sign of hesitation, as they unloaded their guns into civilians that were unarmed.

  The most disturbing and perplexing part of the video, the commander had put down his soldier like he was already dead. He showed no signs of aggressiveness, and yet there it was. He shot him in the head like the rest of the group. It did not sit well with Kenji, he now knew, in the coming days, things were not going to be what they seemed.

  Chapter 10

  The plan

  Knight watched as the large helicopter set down on the rooftop. They had to hold onto some of the tents to ensure they didn’t blow away. He watched as the pilot lowered the back ramp and powered down the machine. Three figures walked out from the back of the helicopter while the pilot was doing his shutdown checks. The wind was whipping around the rooftop; the three people bent over to avoid the power winds.

  They jogged over to them; the flares that they had set down, so the pilot had depth perception of the roof, gave off a red glow. Everything bathed in the eerie light. Finally, the helicopter's blades slowed to a dull hum, allowing the people to walk and hear normally. The pilot made his way shortly behind the others.

  The waved them over; he turned and held the tent flap of the tent that was serving as the base command. He ushered them into the tent and called for his men to enter as well. Everyone was present but the Survivor who was still fitfully sleeping in the tent next door.

  The tent was the largest tent in the camp; it had a decent size square table in the center of the room. The floor had rough foam-like material that covered most but not the entire floor. There were also some boxes that held maps, some tactical gear, and some gear that hadn’t fully been set up.

  “I am Knight; this is Ramirez our medic, Smith, o
ur communications guy, and then lastly, Carter who is our backup support.” Knight also extended his hand as he said this to the pilots, who shook his hand in return.

  The four newcomers to the group sat and stared at the other four men. Two of the survivors, the man and the woman from the ship, were in their standard navy uniforms. They both seemed scared shitless. The two pilots were calm and cool, with a slight edge in their demeanor. The older pilot spoke first, “I am the pilot of that hunk of metal out there. The name is Langston.” The younger pilot who looked like he had only been flying for a year or two spoke his name as he shook Knight’s hand, “I am the co-pilot, Cooper.”

  The two rescued navy personnel, both vacantly stared as they shook Knight’s hand. They both mumbled their names as if far away in a distant place. “Evans.”, Followed shortly by a grunt and “Daniels.” No one spoke for a few moments causing an awkward silence. Knight was the first one to say anything, “Well, what is the status of the downed bird?”

  The pilots both started, but the older one quickly cut off the younger one, “Last we heard they had crash-landed about fourteen blocks from here, at that time we lost radio contact with them as well. We don’t know if there are any survivors, but we need to go check, immediately!”

  “Did you see any movement or any signs of life in the crash? Anything to say that they could have survived the crash?” asked Knight.

  The younger pilot piped up now and said, “I saw movement in the cockpit, I know I saw someone alive!”

  “Alright let’s go find them and bring them back, what’s the plan then.” Knight hesitated and then continued, “First let us break down our situation here first. We haven’t had any contact with any of the other Fire teams that were sent in. The pilots from the bird that landed here are dead. For all we know it is just the four of us left.”

  “Well, that and the man we found here.” Ramirez chimed. Knight looked over to Ramirez giving him a nod to take it from there. “We don’t know what happened here, but we did find one survivor, hiding in the back of the container. All of his squad mates are dead. There were also several dead civilians along with them. We don’t know if they attacked our men or if the survivor went AWOL and killed everyone, we just don’t know.”

  Knight took back over, “We have this camp up and fully functional, however, so that’s our side of the story. Let’s get to work on this plan.”

  He pulled out a map and rolled it out onto the table in the middle of the room. Flattening it out he placed paperweights on the edges so that it wouldn’t roll back up. Then he took out a red pen and circled the building they were on. “This is where we are right now.” He handed the pen to the pilot who circled the location of the crash. “They crashed here on this street,” said the pilot.

  Everyone observed the location on the map trying to memorize its location for future reference. Individually, each one of them started to formulate the best way to get to the crash as fast as possible. One route stuck out to them, it was the main road that went diagonally from the building they were on and led to a few blocks away from the crash site. It was a very conveniently placed road for the rescue operation.

  It would be their plan, their way to rescue those men. As they studied the map, someone spoke up, barely audible. “That man you say was a survivor. He’s not crazy.”

  Chapter 11

  He’s not crazy

  The man rescued from the command ship, Daniels, stared vacantly during the briefing of the rescue. Hell, he was miles away, still trying to evaluate what had happened to the ship and all his friends. He had been walking from the food storage area back to the kitchen with more food supply to start prepping the food for the next morning’s breakfast.

  Carrying the boxes, he walked down the hall back towards the kitchen. He looked down the walkways with no one in sight. At this hour, most crewmembers were either on one of the upper decks, in a rec room, or in their bunks. The only ones working were the crew on the flight deck and the command tower, along with a few engineers down in the bottom the beast working with the engines.

  Naturally, he saw no one as dinner had already past, and, therefore, no one wanted to hang out on this deck. He was always creeped out by this fact; it made the ship seem dead. The only noise as he walked was the hum of the ships engines and his footsteps. He turned and headed in through a bulkhead door. He entered the kitchen, where three other kitchen attendants were prepping some food. One, the unlucky one, had to wash the dishes from the dinner services.

  Daniels set down the boxes containing food. The next several hours they all prepared food except the one washing the dishes. The one washing dishes finished before the other three, so he left early, waving and saying his goodbye. The remaining three had conversations about home, women, and what they were going to do with their next shore leave.

  “Man, I can’t wait to go to the closest bar and pick me up a girl!”, Said one of the sailors. The others chuckled and retorted. “Who would think that your cheesy ass one-liners are good enough to spend the night with you? Daniels, what do you think?”

  Daniels was still thinking about the conversations that he had heard while working in the mess hall earlier. He turned towards the other two men snapping out of his daze. “Sorry, I was thinking about what I heard earlier. Now, what were you two talking about?”

  “Way to be a buzzkill! I was just saying how our friend here couldn’t pick up a chick even if he wanted to at a bar. I think his one-liner might pick up a few men, but not any females!”

  Daniels chuckled. “Yeah, your game is pretty weak. I have yet to see it work.” Daniels turned back towards his work. A silence settled over the group, as they too worked. A minute passed before Daniels spoke, breaking the silence. “Did you guys hear what everyone else was talking about?”

  The other two sailors both replied, “It’s nothing but talk, all a bunch of people overreacting. Nothing to bother you with.”

  Daniels didn’t think it was nothing. Quite the contrary, it was something that he thought would cause lots of problems. “I don’t know it isn’t every day that you pick up a man on a fishing vessel covered in bites. They said that he was half crazy and even tried to attack several of the men on deck. They had to restrain him before they could take him to the infirmary. That sounds like some scary shit to me.”

  The other two both looked at him with unbelieving looks. “I doubt that if we were in any danger that we would still be down here cutting up potatoes and such. They would have announced it over the PA. You are just overthinking the situation, hell I have seen some messed up stuff back when I was in the gulf. I have never heard of anything like what you are describing, though.”

  Daniels felt a little reassured, as he thought about how it was true that they would be elsewhere if battle positions had been declared. He figured he was still just creeped out by the steady silence in the halls outside the kitchen. He focused on his work, as one of the other two sailors said he was finished with his work for the night and was heading out. “Alright, you two ladies don’t take too long here. We don’t want you missing your beauty sleep now do we?”

  “Screw you man!”, The other sailor said back. They both laughed as the sailor approached the door. He opened it only to have a man fall through caught off balance, they both fell to the ground. “What the fuck man! Why were you…” He was cut off, and another man came through the door and lunged down on the sailor.

  Both men growled and bit into the sailor. The sailor let out a blood-curdling scream, which echoed off the hollow walls. His scream pierced Daniels like a jab straight to his brain. He stood there frozen, helpless; he watched as they tore open the sailor who just a moment before was happily making jokes.

  Daniels snapped out of his daze, grabbing the chef knife he went for the two men. He pulled one off and threw him against the wall. The man tried to get up again, but Daniels sent a kick flying right into his head. Daniels shakily held the knife yelling at the two men. “Get off him, or I will use this knife!�
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  They both ignored him and kept on their way, trying to attack the man on the floor. Daniels turned towards the other sailor who stood just as dumbfounded as he had moments ago. He was standing towards the back of the room, slowly inching back towards the freezers. “Help me get these two off him!” Daniels yelled.

  Instead, the sailor turned and ran through the kitchen towards the door where the two men had come from. He tried to run past them, tripping over them into the hallway. He quickly scrambled up and started to make his way down the hall out of view. Daniels yelled after him.

  Daniels turned back to the matter that was more pressing. The man he had knocked against the wall was now getting up and coming at him. He instinctively went for the ribs with the knife, scoring home. The man just kept coming at him, completely unhurt. Daniels didn’t understand why the man wasn’t crumpled over right now dying.

  He tried to go for the knife lodged in the man, but he wasn’t fast enough. He backed up a bit, but the man lunged forward at him. Sidestepping the man, he pushed him head first into the countertop edge. The man’s head impacted with the corner piercing his brain. A single convulsion went through the man’s body before he stopped moving at all.

  Daniels had successfully killed his first assailant. He studied the man for a second, seeing now that he was flight deck coordinator. However, the sound of teeth tearing apart flesh woke him out of his conference with a dead man. Daniels looked over at the other man who was still on top of the other sailor. He was having his last supper, at least, that’s the way he was eating.

  The thought hit Daniels like a wave of clarity. This man was on top of his friend, eating his chest. He was eating. Another man. A human being eating another person. His mind put together the scene before him, fully registering what was happening.