Free Up From the Depths by J. R. Jackson

exposed to any smell that Harold had given off.
    "To put it bluntly, they've been wearing the same clothes they had on when they were infected. That means they've emptied their bowels, urinated, puked, bled, been sprayed with bodily fluids during an attack and any number of other things since then. They also seem to be a Petri dish for all kinds of bacteria. The samples I have are teeming with all sorts of bacteria. They're not dying off from secondary infections at all," Chambers said.
    "Yeah," Heller said. "That’s good to know."
     
    ***
     

Chapter 11
    Site R, Raven Rock Military Complex (RRMC)
     
    “Mr. President, General Wilbur at NORAD is on in the Situation Room,” Erwin Grayson, POTUS Security Detail SAC said.
    Hamilton Jefferson Wood looked up from his wife’s bedside, bleary eyed, and nodded. FLOTUS, Dana Wood had suffered some kind of de-habilitating episode that the medical staff of Site R had been hard pressed to diagnosis. The medical staff had settled on a diagnosis that was a mixture of extreme stress coupled with anxiety, lack of sleep, and a whole list of other possible causes. Since that time, there had been minimal improvements to her well being. Recently, she had squeezed her husband’s hand and moved her eyes to look at him.
    “Inform the Joint Chiefs that I’ll be there momentarily,” Wood said before turning back to his wife. He ran his hand down the side of her face and was rewarded with a slight twitch of her lips that might have been the beginnings of a smile forming.
    “I’ll be back, Honey. You just stay here and rest a while,” Wood said as he stood and walked to the door. He paused and looked back; Dana’s eyes followed him to the door. He closed the door behind him knowing that Sergeant Warren would watch over her in his absence.
    Outside in the hall, the Secret Service Incident Response Team in full tactical gear watched both ends of the corridor. Wood’s periphery vision caught the glimpse of Marines in their distinctive MARPAT camouflage pattern securing the far ends. The travel time to the Situation Room was short, a few strides through the color coded passageways, a nod to the Marines standing post at the doors and he was inside. On the large, wall mounted LCD screen the image of General Wilbur at NORAD could be seen. The remaining Joint Chiefs of Staff were seated at the table along with Lonnie Packwood and Mike Dunlavy of the Defense Information Service.
    “Mr. President,” Wilbur said when the camera picked up Wood’s entrance.
    “General.”
    “Sir, we have some new information," Wilbur said as the screen split into two separate screens.
    "What do you have, General?" Wood asked.
    "Sir. We were able to download raw footage from NATO headquarters in Brussels," Wilbur said as the blank section of the screen his image shared came to life. The shakiness was obviously from a helmet camera.
    "General, what are we looking at here?" Wood asked.
    "Sir. Wait one while we clean this up," Wilbur said. "This is raw footage taken from a MHRS," Wilbur said in reference to the Mission Helmet Recording System that some soldiers wore. "This is all that we've been able to recover. There's a time stamp at the lower right corner and we've verified that this is authentic."
    The screen changed to full as Wilbur's image blinked out. On the LCD, soldiers were seen running back and forth at some fence that Wood presumed to be an installation perimeter. The camera swiveled to show the headquarters of NATO and more soldiers moving rapidly. The sound cut in and out.
    "...support! We need more support!...fuck...get on it! Right side! By that truck!"
    The Joint Chiefs watched as a large civilian truck with infected clinging to the sides, rammed through the fence just yards from the entry gate. Soldiers were seen firing at it. Steam poured from the engine but still the truck pushed forward, wrapped as it were in the security fencing and dragging more infected with it. Weapons fire cut off any more