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“Okay, captain.” The two took off looking through the wreckage, looking for their missing brother.

Priest and Lia had met up with Doc. “How you doing, Doc?” he asked.

“A little banged up, but I’ll be all right.” “Any sign of Neville, Caulfield or Choi?”

“Negative.” The heat from the fires was getting intense, and the team was running out of time to find the others. As they continued to wander through wreckage, they spotted Dr. Choi. Her stature gave her away, but as they came closer, something didn’t look right. Upon further inspection, they noticed her left arm was missing and just a stump and the shredded remains of her lab coat sleeve. She locked eyes on them and a recognition flashed in her eyes. She let out a scream and ran straight toward them.

“Aw shit,” Priest raised his Walther PPQ and put a .45 caliber round in her forehead. She immediately dropped to the ground. They walked over to her and immediately saw the bite and chew marks on the stump of her missing arm.

Priest keyed his comms, “Team, keep your head on a swivel. Infected are still milling around. I just had to put Dr. Choi down after she tried to attack us. We are down to Neville and Dr. Caulfield, so we need to find them ASAP.”

The Team called out for Neville and Dr. Caulfield. After a couple of minutes of searching, they heard gunshots. Some seconds later, a couple more shots rang out. They all ran toward the noise with their weapons at the ready. They cleared a few enormous pieces of debris and saw Neville standing over Dr. Caulfield with a crowd of infected advancing toward them.

Shaw yelled to pull their attention away from Neville and Caulfield. The rest of the Team opened up on the infected as Neville kneeled over Caulfield. They dispatched the infected in several seconds and in hearing the gunfire, Webb showed up a second later.

“Shaw, Neville, go perform security for Izzy while she works on Allison.” They took off and Doc ran over to Caulfield to assess his injuries.

“My leg hurts terrible,” Caulfield said as Doc reached him. Doc pulled up his pant leg and triage the injury.

“Well, your leg is fractured and we need to splint it. Let me run back to the chopper and get my med kit. I have a splint in there.” He ran off to locate his med kit.

“We need to get Caulfield and Allison stabilized and get the hell out of the middle of the wreckage. It’s nothing but a beacon for those infected, and we’re sitting ducks here.”

Doc quickly returned and could splint Caulfield’s leg. They made their way to where they found Allison. She was sitting up with a grimace on her face.

Izzy looked

at Priest, “Some bruising and sore ribs, but otherwise okay.” He nodded in acknowledgement. The Team quickly scavenged anything they could from the downed bird. Webb had scouted a small air traffic control tower while searching for the rest of the Team. It would give them a 360-degree observation and contained only one point of entry to defend.

While Izzy, Doc, Lia and Neville stayed with the injured, Webb, Priest and Shaw cleared the small air traffic control tower to set up for the night since it was getting dark. They only encountered a few infected they dispatched and threw off the catwalk at the top of the tower.

After getting Caulfield and Allison settled in, the Reapers met to go over objectives. Webb laid out where they were, “Ok, our mission, as I see it, stays the same. We have to get Izzy, Caulfield and the samples to North Carolina and the CDC lab. HQ is gone and we haven’t been able to contact any other command. Hell, we haven’t made contact with any people, period. Opinions?” Priest continued to mull over their options to make sure he wasn’t missing anything.

Shaw spoke up, “Way I see it, I think it is our only option right now. If the facility is still intact, not only will the scientists have the lab and equipment we need, we will have a base of operations which will be easy to defend and limit our exposure.”

Priest nodded, “That was exactly what I was thinking. We could scavenge for equipment, vehicles, supplies and try to plan out our next move or moves. I say regardless of how we find it; we clear it and use it. Well, within reason, that is.”

Webb agreed, “Any objections?” There was silence. “Ok, it’s settled then. Now in the morning we will have to find our next mode of transportation, load up and make our way to Boone, which isn’t but about 120 miles from where we are now. We’ll split the teams up and occupy two vehicles. Priest, you, Shaw and Lia will be one team. Me, Neville and Doc will be the other. We’ll put Allison and Caulfield in with you, and we’ll have Izzy. Izzy can shoot so that gives us a little more firepower to measure up to Shaw over there. Plus, if we separate the scientists, it will increase our chances that at least one of them makes it to the research facility. We’ll post two on watch and rotate four hours.”

Priest spoke up, “I’ll take first watch with Neville. Shaw, you and Doc release us after four.”

Webb looked at them, “Whoa, that leaves me out.”

“Yeah, your brain needs to be functioning to get us through this shit. Enough said,” Priest finished. Webb didn’t argue, and they left the circle.

CHAPTER 32

Priest was sitting outside of the tower on a catwalk that wrapped around the circumference of the tower. He focused on the ground; as the moon’s glow illuminated the area. The NVG’s took that light and made the view light up enough to see just about anything. A faint sound to his left, Priest had his pistol out and pointed as fast as a rattlesnake strike.

Lia standing there.

“Holy shit, not a good idea,” he said as he re-holstered his pistol. He looked back up to see her face was stoic, eyes were wet and glistening. Tears were forming but not falling. “Hey, what’s wrong?” His voice took on a gentle tone. She said nothing, but sat down next to him with her head into his shoulder and chest. He put his arms around her. He could feel her shivering, but knew it wasn’t because of cold. “Hey, talk to me.” he whispered.

The tears were coming now, and she was fighting to speak, “W-we lost so many today. Kind people. People who didn’t deserve to die. I didn’t know them half as well as you, but I still feel the loss.”

“I know. I have lost so many people in my life, I almost lost count. I can remember every one of them though.”

“I too have lost people in my life, but it doesn’t get any easier. Actually, the more people I lose, the harder it gets. Sometimes I wish I could just shut people out, close myself off. That’s just not me though, and I don’t think I could if I tried.”