Jack took a good look at the floor. It was hard to make things out in the circle of his flashlight, so he started scanning around with it. There was a small carpet with a corner raised, and a circular patch of tiles suspiciously free of dust. “You may be on to something, Corpsman.”
He re-latched the gun’s safety and returned it to its holster, then lifted up the carpet. Beneath, he found a rectangular panel with a shiny metal handle.
“Trap door,” he said. “I think we have survivors.”
He didn’t want to say it for fear of getting his hopes up, but there it was. Survivors. He hadn’t seen anyone alive since the woman on the first day, and he didn’t want to think about that. Not ever again, if he could.
“Hold my flashlight,” he said as he shoved it into Cozar’s hand. Then he grabbed the handle and gave the door a good tug. It was heavier than he expected, but with a little effort, it opened and revealed a short wooden staircase leading into the darkness.
Something shifted in the shadows, and Jack heard breathing. He held out his hand and Cozar handed him the flashlight. For a second, he considered pulling the flare gun back out, but decided against it. If they were people, he didn’t want to panic them. Panicked people were unpredictable. On the other hand, if this was a trap, he was already screwed.
He took two tentative steps into the cellar, and ducked his head down to have a look around. His flashlight swept the small storage room, and what he saw made his breath catch in his throat. A family of six huddled in the cellar, dressed in torn and dirty clothes. They were looking at him with wide eyes like he was the reaper come to claim them. A mother and father, teenage daughter, two sons and an infant. The baby was coughing, and the mother rocked him, whispering something into his ear over and over again.
Jack didn’t know any Chinese beyond the names of entrees, and he even screwed those up half the time. Albright knew a little, but she was elsewhere.
“Hello?” he said.
No response.
He had another option. The Corps had developed a language so squads from different parts of the world could communicate on some basic level. It had a simple syntax and a small vocabulary, making it easy to learn, but severely limited. A corpsman could tell someone his job or where to go, but describing a movie plot would be next to impossible.
The Corps also made an effort to spread pamphlets around and offered free courses, with the goal of making it easier for corpsmen to communicate with refugees. ”-Please be calm-” Jack said. ”-I’m here to help-”
The children were sobbing, and their father tried to quiet them. No one reacted at all to what he said. Jack lifted his gas mask and tried again. ”-I’m here to help. Do you understand me?-”
Nothing. He wasn’t surprised. For all of the Corps’ efforts, he’d never met a single person outside of the Corps who understood it. He thought it was worth a try, though, and suspected the ERC administration felt more or less the same way.
“We’ve got live ones. Hartnell, gather some cloth and water so we can improvise masks. Sunglasses or goggles also if you can find them.”
It occurred to Jack that the poor folks couldn’t see anything but his flashlight. In their position, he’d be scared witless too. He slid the flashlight’s casing back and reconfigured it into a lantern, and the small supply room was filled with dim light. “I’m here to help,” he said in English, and motioned to the ERC patch on his shoulder.
Everyone around the world knew the symbol, two hands in a diamond, gripping each other at an angle as if one was helping the other up. The family recognized it, and this time, their reaction was instantaneous. Jack suddenly had two small boys hugging his legs, while the parents began to spew incomprehensible babble at him. The father was motioned to the mother, who in turn was propping up her still coughing infant. Jack didn’t understand the words, but the message came through clearly.
He removed his work glove and motioned towards the child. The mother nodded, and he reached out and felt its head. He wasn’t being particularly scientific, but the baby felt warm to the touch, and its eyes were red. That was enough to tell Jack he was out of his league.
“Cozar, get Albright and bring her back. Tell her we’ve got an infant with a fever and a cough.”
“Roger,” Cozar said, and he took off running. That was the right reaction. Jack was always glad to see a corpsman pound dirt when given a task.
The parents were still heatedly telling him something, and the father was making all kinds of motions with his hands, but the gestures didn’t help at all. He hoped whatever they were trying to tell him wasn’t too important.
He put his hand on the father’s shoulder and said, “It’s going to be okay,” in a reassuring voice. “There’s a doctor on the way, and we’re going to get you out of here.” The father didn’t understand a word of it, but saying it made Jack feel better.
He peeled the small boys from his legs, then crouched down and took a good look at each. Their faces were dirty and they were frightened, but they looked healthy. The younger of the two had a quivering lip, and his eyes were wet with tears. He had to be six or seven years old, and he was trying as hard as he could not to cry.
“Don’t sweat it, buddy,” Jack said. “You’re both very brave little kids. After what you’ve been through, you’re allowed to cry, okay.” It didn’t matter that they couldn’t understand him. He tousled the boy’s hair and gave him a pat on the shoulder.
The girl was standing in the far corner, shivering and focused on her feet. Jack had done enough rescues to know that was normal, and he also knew better than to bother her. Teenage girls tended to react better to women after trauma, and he decided to leave her be.
A minute later, Albright came down the stairs at full sprint with her medkit in hand. She said something in Chinese and went directly to examining the infant. She raised her mask to get a better look, and Jack could see sheer amazement all over her face. It was the face of a lottery winner. Albright always had a special affinity for children, and this put her on top of the world.
She learned what she needed quickly then took a look at the other children. “Nothing too serious,” she said as she worked, “The little guy’s just having a bad reaction to the mold and dust. Should be fine once we get him out of here.”
Jack breathed a sigh of relief. That was exactly what he needed to hear. He was desperate for a win, and he got one. “Can you tell ‘em we’re bringing a car?”
“Dream on,” she said. “I know how to say I’m a doctor, order the general’s chicken, and ask for the toilet, but that’s the full extent of my Chinese.”
“That’s okay. We’ll figure something out,” he said. “We always do.”
Hartnell stopped at the top of the steps with her arms full of cloth, water and cheap sunglasses. “I got what you asked for, chief.”
That’s when it happened; Jack was filled with a feeling he hadn’t had in more than a week. If these people had survived, then so had others. Possibly many others. He had a reason to be there in that wasteland, and more importantly, he had something to look forward to besides another heap of corpses.
He had hope, and it was the single most precious thing in the world.
Chapter 18:
The Silk Road
Back when he first saw aliens piling up the dead, Jack retreated. His body was stuck there in the remains of China, but his head ran all the way back home to the comfort of his girlfriend’s arms, where it stayed while his body persisted on. He did what was necessary to survive, but only in a dim, mechanical daze. He was an animated corpse that had forgotten to fall.
Then he found a family of survivors, and everything changed. The discovery filled him with a ray of hope that brought him back to life. From that point on, he was fully charged up and firing on all cylinders because it wasn’t just about survival anymore; it was about saving lives, and that meant everything to him.
It woke all of them up.
Nikitin and Chase returned with a delivery van which had carried more than its fair share of fish, by the smell
