Free Plague of the Dead by Z. A. Recht Page A

surrounded by sandbags-and pulled the door flap aside. It took Denton a few moments to blink the sudden darkness away when the flap fell closed behind him. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that the Satcom team had settled in nicely. Computers hummed and keyboards clicked away as the soldiers synched their machines with the satellites orbiting somewhere overhead.
        General Sherman was standing in the corner of the tent, resting one hand on a folding table while he spoke with a third party over the field radio.
        “No, one of each,” he was saying. “I’m not looking for a strike force, I’m looking for a rescue team. Yes, that’s right. One Huey, one Apache. That should do. Can you manage that?”
        Denton couldn’t hear the response. The radio could be set to broadcast replies through a speaker so soldiers could hear responses in the heat of combat, but the General had turned that function off, using the handset like a telephone in the relative safety of the headquarters tent.
        “Good,” Sherman said. “And be ready with the rest of that squadron. I may need to call in a real strike at any time. Have them hot and ready to fly. Out.”
        The General replaced the handset and sighed, rubbing his temples.
        “Sir, Denton’s here, as per request,” Dewen reported.
        “What? Oh, yeah. Denton. Let’s take a walk, son,” General Sherman said, leading Denton back out of the tent. The photographer craned his neck at the screens the Satcom soldiers were working on, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever it was they were looking at. Of course he and the other soldiers in the convoy, as well as the soldiers left in Suez Base, had been briefed on what was coming their way-an entire city’s worth of infected carriers-but he wanted to see for himself. Before he could register anything useful, he found himself outside.
        General Sherman heaved another heavy sigh and pulled a cigar from his breast pocket. He took his time lighting it. Denton stood next to him, hands in his pockets, saying nothing. The general puffed on the cigar until the cherry glowed red, and he blew a contented cloud of smoke into the darkening sky.
        After a moment Sherman said, “Denton, there’s a hellstorm headed this way.”
        “I know.”
        “You sure you want to be here when it hits?”
        “I’m sure.”
        “Why?”
        “This is where I’ve always been, General. Right in the middle of the shit. Now here I am, right in the middle of the biggest shitstorm of them all, and there’s no way I’m missing the show,” Denton replied.
        “You could be back home, having a cup of coffee and watching it on the evening news,” Sherman said.
        “I help make the evening news, General.”
        “Why? Why is war so interesting? Why is seeing thousands of infected people being gunned down something newsworthy?”
        “Are you trying to say you don’t want anyone taking pictures of what’s going to happen here, General?” Denton said, narrowing his eyes almost imperceptibly.
        “Not at all. I’m asking why you would want to take pictures of it in the first place. I don’t make the regs. I just follow them.”
        “Someone’s got to show the world, General.”
        “Call me Francis. Or Frank. You’re not enlisted, after all.”
        “Alright, Frank. Someone’s got to show the world. Like you said, tonight thousands of people are going to die. I don’t know what all this is about them getting back up once they’re dead, but if they really do then we’ll see thousands of people die twice tonight. That’s something that has to be recorded somehow. We wouldn’t have history if no one bothered to report it.”
        “You’d glorify the massacre of these people?” Sherman asked.
        Denton felt his stomach churn, and anger boiled within him.
        “I don’t know where you get your ideas,