Age of Monsters by John Schneider (books to read for self improvement .TXT) 📗

nurse emphasized repeatedly – evidently, not quite able to believe it, especially after hearing their story.

“I'll want to meet this Lieutenant Walker,” the young nurse said.

Now Rosa and her fellow refugee/survivors found themselves sequestered in their own tent – likely a hastily re-purposed storage shelter with cots – in the rear with the gear, not a hundred yards from the back gate where they'd first come in.

“You got in just under the wire,” the nurse explained.  “They're gearing up for a big operation.”

“There haven't been any other survivors?” Rosa asked.

The nurse shook her head slowly.  “It's been bad, ma'am,” she said.

Behind her, the small group of them stared at each other with new awareness.

They were a lot closer to the last people on Earth than they had even thought.

“Where's Lieutenant Walker?” Jamie asked.

Rosa shrugged.  “He's gone back to work,” she said.

“So,” Jeremy said, “what are we supposed to do?”

Rosa shook her head.  “I don't think they've given that much thought yet.  For the moment, I think they'd rather we just stay out of the way.”

“Well,” Daryl said, hovering at the back, “I'm fine with that.”

Bud was more interested in what 'operations' the military had planned.

“What did you hear?” he asked.

“Nothing except that they were going to 'start fighting back.'”

Rosa sighed.

“That,” she said, “and that the town where Lieutenant Walker was looking to find his wife apparently has been hit.  Up in Eureka.”

As one, the group of them fell silent.

“Lieutenant Walker,” Julie said, “is he...?  Is he alright?”

Rosa thought for a second how to answer truthfully.

“Lieutenant Walker,” she said, “is Lieutenant Walker.”

Somber eyes looked back at her, uncomforted.

Rosa was feeling rather uncomforted herself.

She turned, pushing back the flap of their tent to find two armed soldiers standing guard.

The first, a young man whose badge identified him as Private Jones, stepped to meet her.

“Sorry ma'am,” he said.  “We've got operations going on.  Civilians are going to have to lay low, for the time being.”

Rosa frowned.  “Are we prisoners?”

Private Jones shook his head.  “No, ma'am.  It's for your safety.”

Julie pushed her way out of the tent beside her.  “What's going on?”

The second guard – Private Barnes – stepped forward.  “Please, ma'am.  Just stay inside the tent.”

Rosa looked down at the guns, but remained where she was, exchanging direct eye-contact with both young soldiers before turning her attention out onto the docks.  Their position, stashed unobtrusively at the back entrance of the compound, just where the land started to slope back up towards the highway, gave them a slightly elevated vantage – and she could definitely see activity – choppers were circling the carriers – and even from the distance, she could see the squadrons firing up.

Lucas was in one of them, she knew – and undoubtedly would be in the lead.

The last fight had nearly killed him.  He had crashed and burned.

In point of fact, that was the one time Rosa had saved him.

She wondered what he had waiting for him out there now.

Beside her, Julie was watching the buzzing choppers – preparation for war.

All-out last-ditch war, Rosa realized.

Even after the last three weeks, that was still dawning on her.

Julie had started crying.

“He's out there, isn't he?”

Rosa looked at the young nurse, with very little to say in the way of comfort.

As a doctor, she realized she was sadly lacking in that regard.  It wasn't what she did – she fixed people – and did so emotionlessly and mechanically.  She had to.  Just like Lucas said.  It was the nature of the job.  And you do choose the job.

She put her hand on Julie's shoulder – a young woman who had left her family behind to come to the University and learn her field – a corn-fed Kansas-girl, granted academic scholarship.  She had left a high-school sweetheart – an on-again/off-again distance romance that was now off-again forever.

Lucas hadn't just been their rescuer – he'd played surrogate for all that.

Rosa was just beginning to realize the weight he had carried just getting them here.

“We're never going to see him again, are we?” Julie said.

Rosa shut her eyes, pushing the thought away – denying the possibility.

She'd learned that much from him at least.

“He looked out for all eight of us at once,” Rosa said.  “Now all he's got to do is look after himself.”

She nodded, believing it.

“And now he's going to go fight.  That's his job.”

Rosa turned and looked at Julie seriously – and it was as much for herself.

“Don't lose heart,” she said.

Over the dull roar of the surf, came the sound of jet-engines coming alive.

Whatever was happening, Rosa thought, was happening soon.

“Don't lose heart,” she whispered.

Chapter 25

The human race took its first counter-strike against the Apocalypse at 1800 hours, Pacific-time – two hours short of twenty days after the first bloom hit New York City.

Major Tom was the first to realize that it was not going to go as planned.

Tom was only just beginning to absorb certain realities he had known for weeks, but it had taken his first contact to make it real.

General Rhodes had offered the cold comfort of duty – he had put him right to work – locking in satellites – networking silos.  Tom had found he could pick up on the accelerated energy signature of the infected giants, and thus track them – especially when they moved en-masse.

But in the nearly forty-eight hours since first regaining contact, a lot also got swept aside.

It turned out for example, that Rhodes had, in fact, been broadcasting all along – out to space and everywhere – and while Tom had been analyzing radio feeds from Kansas, he had somehow missed apparently twenty-four-hour-a-day efforts to specifically