Free V-Day: (M-Day #4) by D.T. Dyllin

to find on a father as he gazed at one of his children. “ You won ’ t hurt me, Vi. ” He turned around and ambled from the room.
    My hands shook as I tried to squeeze the trigger, but I couldn ’ t. I just couldn ’ t. The Doc really wouldn ’ t hurt anyone, would he?
    By the time I followed, he was nowhere to be found. But instead of raising the alarm, instead of having him hunted down by everyone at our disposal, I kept yet another secret while I tried to find him myself. I was afraid what would happen if someone else found him before I did. The Doc may have lost his mind but I didn ’ t want to be the cause of his death.
    Plus, he wasn ’ t a real threat, not really.
    I can handle this. I will handle it.
     

     
    December 20 th , pre M-Day~
    I ’ d passed out, exhausted, and woke up confused and disoriented. My small room was illuminated by red light, signaling the base ’ s alarm had been triggered at some point, but it was no longer going off. How did I sleep through that?
    I pulled on clothes, my all black basic uniform, and hurried from my room. The hallways were eerily quiet, everything cast in the same red light as my room.
    “ Vi! Thank God! ” Emilio called as he rounded the corner. “ We were just doing a sweep to find you. ”
    I rubbed my eyes, trying to shake off the groggy feeling. “ What ’ s going on? ”
    “ The goddamn apocalypse is what ’ s going on. ” He grabbed my arm and tugged me along. I went willingly, dread having already seized my system. It can ’ t be. Please no.
    When we got to the command room, which was really nothing more than a military panic room, equipped with everything to temporarily survive a terroristic threat, I noticed it was packed full of S-Ops agents, but none of our top level operatives.
    “ What the hell is going on? ” I demanded.
    Emilio shoved me into a chair facing a small monitor. “ This will give you the highlights of what you ’ ve already missed in the few hours you ’ ve been out. ” He swiveled around, squeezing my shoulder. “ I ’ ll be back, there are still a few unaccounted operatives and we need to finish our sweep to hopefully locate them. ” But he made no move to leave, his fingers digging into me almost painfully.
    I nodded numbly, my attention on the small screen as it blazed to life, flipping through clips of various news media reports …
    “ Super flu? Thousands of people flock to hospitals with a flu that hit suddenly …”
    “ The CDC warns against panic …”
    The screen went dark for a second before several recorded clips of military transmissions played, highlighting the opposition between the truth and what the media was reporting.
    “ Hundreds of thousands are thought to be infected with a mysterious illness. No answers yet of what exactly it is or what caused it …”
    “ Epidemic levels …”
    “ The CDC recommends quarantines for the following cities stage 1, if it progresses beyond …”
    “ Jansen! ”
    I spun around in my chair in time to see Jansen drop to the ground, convulsing. Instead of helping, everyone backed away slowly. I watched in horror, as in a matter of minutes, Jansen began to wither away, his tawny skin shriveling, his dark hair going white, and then … poof … he was gone like some fictional vampire that had been staked.
    I stood, running a shaky had over my face. What I ’ d just seen couldn ’ t be real. “ What the fuck? ”
    “ It ’ s happening everywhere, Vi. Every. Fucking. Where. ” Emilio ’ s eyes remained fixated on where Jansen had been moments before. “ We think its chemical warfare. There ’ s no other explanation. But it ’ s not just here in the United States, it ’ s —”
    “ Yeah. Every. Fucking. Where. ” I scrubbed a hand down my face. “ How long was I out? I mean, how long —”
    “ Two, maybe three hours. ” Emilio grimaced. “ This thing is fast. Really fucking fast. And the thing is, we don ’ t know how to fight it. It ’ s