ALIVE: The Aftermath Chronicles (Book 1)

Chapter 10 - THE WORLD NEEDS YOU

Four Months Ago, District 1

"Colonel Stone," Doyle salutes his superior, his nerves shot in his defiance, as the Colonel arrives in the medical station. Doyle's rebellious composure begins to slip as he adds, "Permission to stay, Sir."

"Permission denied."

Colonel Stone, not much older than Doyle, rose to his new rank at the first outbreak of the Carrion 33 virus. His experience not to be denied or questioned, the soldier belonging to a different unit saw the wars from a closer perspective than Doyle. This war with the dead, too.
Doyle shifts in his stance, altering one foot to the other in holding the majority of his weight and then back again. He'd been asked to be at ease after his salute, but he's anything but easy.

"With all due respect, Sir, I want to know if the civilian's contracted the virus since I came into contact with her," Doyle says his half-truth that barely hides his real curiosity as to what exactly they want with the young woman.

His superior officer narrows his eyes just long enough, for Doyle to notice.

Again, Colonel Stone repeats, "Permission denied, Sergeant, return to your post."

This time, it's not simply an assertion, but another unspoken order for Doyle not to push what's not his concern.

Now victim to the eyes of onlooking soldiers and scientists alike, Doyle no longer fits in with the entourage of camouflage. In their stares, a thousand judgments linger. Doyle's challenge was out of the question. His questions were even out of the question.

Doyle feels he has no choice to obey when Colonel Stone repeats in a bark, "Dismissed, Sergeant. Return to your post immediately."

Shoulders heavy, head struggling to hold high, Doyle leaves at last.

Would Sophie disappear forever like the rest of the vanishing women to District 4?

His conscience is a whirlwind of questions and worry, the paranoia rises the longer he stays at his post. His breath is a storm cloud with each time he draws out the staggering air atop the roofs.

"Anyone out there?" Doyle asks through the dim static in his ear back at his post. The lines are unusually quiet tonight. The snipers normally passed jokes through the lonely hours of the night, but not tonight.

"Not a soul out here, man," the voice of his friend, his most trusted, is the only voice who answers him back.

Finding a small comfort in it, Doyle finds solace in anything but the silence. A silence that speaks volumes with his comrades, that their loyalties run deep, but not to him.

It's a cold truth that disturbed Doyle. They should all be bound by their experiences, their horrors. In the old world, they would've been.

"Thanks for looking out, Williams," Doyle replies to the eyes further up in the sky than his own. The chopper in the air, that circles the dozens of miles that make up District 1, is where Williams finds his post this hour of the night.

If anything were to happen, chances were Williams would see it first. The undead growl in that distance, beyond their fences, and only Williams, can witness it on these nights.

As the hours passed beneath the stars, so did the unusual silence from the living. The only sign of life came from the distant chopper in flight, where Williams mostly called home.

Doyle felt as if he were the last man on earth tonight.

Then, the blaring alarm of nightmares shook the district in the wailing of warnings.