Free Bitten by Tristan Vick Page A

tolerate slip-ups. For him they were a sign of poor discipline and carelessness. Two things which could get you or your unit killed on the battlefield.
    “Sorry, sir,” Anderson stammered. “I was … it was … er … I mean … I’ll have this cleaned up in no time.”
    Greer sat back down and rolled back in his seat with a huff and turned to Major Valentine. “Tell the guards at the south gate to remain vigilant. I want those boys back safe and sound before we lock her down. Also, get me a progress update on the evacuation of the remaining officials of Newcastle City.”
    The major promptly saluted and then turned on her heels and left the control room.
    Greer leaned back in his chair and pulled out a cigar from the inside of his uniform’s breast pocket and lit it up. Puffing on it, he watched as the smoke formed rings which wafted away and then dissipate almost as quickly as they were fashioned.
    The damned contagion had decimated the city population almost overnight. There wasn’t any way to prepare for such a thing. You could only deal with it once it arrived. Whoever survived the initial outbreak was being evacuated from the city. Of course screening continued as usual, and hopefully he’d make sure every one of the uninfected had a chance to get out before he went in to sterilize the whole goddamn city. Deep down in his gut, however, he felt the worst was yet to come.
     

     
    Valentine made her way out of the barracks and headed toward the main gate s which overlooked the city. The base was set up as a semi-permanent cantonment. Inside the perimeter the base was lit up with halogen lights. At the main entrance there were two guard towers with spotlights and armed soldiers.
    Funneling the survivors through the entrance ensured that anybody coming through would be properly inspected for signs of infection. If they cleared the initial inspection, they would be guided inside to a special room for a chemical shower and sterilization.
    Personally, Valentine didn’t like the idea of quarantine check points and sterilization camps. It seemed too eerily similar to America’s dark flirtation with eugenics and the sterilization camps of the quack American scientist Charles Davenport. Indeed, it was this very American idea of cleansing the “defective,” fueled by Davenport’s deep seeded racism, which would go on to influence Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust and give rise to Auschwitz.
    She couldn’t help but feel it was wrong to simply put down the infected. They weren’t defective, per se. They were sick. But maybe in times of crisis the line of demarcation between the two became blurred. Whether it was a terrorist or a virus the first rule of survival always stayed the same: kill or be killed.

7
Almost Road Kill
     
     
    Standing on the side of the road, Alyssa stared up at the body of an elderly woman high up on the telephone pole clinging to it for dear life. Seeing the poor old woman stuck up on her perch, sitting listless with eyes wide open, and stricken with fear deeply unnerved Alyssa. Obviously she had climbed up there to get away from the Walkers only to have died of the cold, dehydration, or sheer terror. Alyssa bet it was probably the cruel combination of all three that did the poor woman in.
    “What is the world coming to?” Alyssa asked herself , speaking out loud. Looking down at her leg she checked the gauze bandages. Everything appeared fine. Her stitches were holding, at least for now. She decided to press on.
    Looking back down the road, the way she had come, she saw the shambling horde of Walkers slowly stalking her. Lucky for her, they didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Some of them were walking aimlessly about, bumping into other Walkers. Another one wandered off in the wrong direction entirely. If they weren’t so horrifyingly blood thirsty, she thought, their fumbling, shambling, lack of intelligence was rather quite amusing. But there was nothing funny about them.
    Alyssa had made her new