The other guard walked out of earshot and made a call on his walkie talkie.
“We got to call it in to the Sergeant for approval,” The young man said.
The other guard walked forward after a few minutes of back and forth on his walkie talkie.
“We have a couple guys coming to inspect the van for bombs before it can cross over and you’ll need to surrender your weapons for the time being.”
“Objection,” I said.
Pierce looked at me concerned as I could tell he was thinking I was about to ruin his good luck at finding a place to stay.
“Look, I understand protocol. You can’t be too careful. But you can appreciate our position I’m sure. You’re asking us to turn in our weapons which if the dead weren’t walking around, I’d get it. But how do we know you’re Military? The real deal? How do we know that during the fallout of the dead coming back to life the base wasn’t over run by people who want to take advantage of those taking refuge in what should be a safe guarded space?”
Both guards smiled. They seemed to be impressed.
“I like the way you think, maybe after this is all over you should think about joining up,” He said. “We can’t have you keep the guns, not until we’ve checked you out in our screening process but you can keep your knives.”
I knew it was the best we were going to get. I wasn’t comfortable with it but I understood the protocol so I didn’t push it.
“Not to press our luck,” I began. “Why are you even considering letting us in? I mean I thought for sure you would be on lock down.”
“We were for a long time. Had to turn a lot of people away. It seemed like the best option at the time, when it all started. The safest most logical decision but people are dying. We’ve lost so many that were here. We had to cut off the bridge that crosses into the other side where the housing is. Too many zombies. But recently our Sergeant thought we should start letting people in. But not many people come around anymore.”
I nodded but didn’t reply. A group of three men approached. One of the guards let them out. Natalie, Joey, Cindy, Jessica, and Milo exited the van. Jessica rubbed her head as she exited. I was surprised to see her awake. She glared at me when she saw me. I wasn’t sorry for knocking her out. In fact, I would’ve happily done it again.
The soldiers looked over the van for about ten minutes before giving us the okay to proceed.
One of them stayed back with us stating that he would drive us in the van to headquarters. We all piled back in as they opened the gate wide enough for the van to drive through.
We drove through the base that looked like a ghost town; there was no one outside or anywhere to be found.
“Do you guys fly at all anymore?” I asked the Lieutenant. His name was Ronald Sanders. He had introduced himself as we started our way forward. He was a lot older than the two guards at the gate. He had a ring on his left hand indicating he had a wife at some point. I wondered silently if she was still alive.
“No,” He replied. “We did at first but the jets brought attention. The attention brought the zombies. We had a herd that was just roaming Litchfield Road in front of the gates for months. They finally moved on South. I’m surprised you didn’t run into them.”
“We did,” Joey said.
Ronald chuckled, “I can’t believe you made it out of that crowd.”
“It did take a miracle which came in the form of this girl right here,” Joey said patting my back.
“Just did what I could,” I said shyly.
We got to a building that looked to be in the middle of the base. Ronald led the way inside. It was dark inside as he led down a hallway into a room that looked like some kind of command station. There was light on in here and computers going.
“How?” Cindy asked.
“Generators,” A woman replied.
“This is Sergeant Tracy Bennett,” Ronald said.
We all introduced ourselves and shook her hand.
“Thank you so much for letting us stay,” Pierce said.
“Well, you will be expected to help out while you’re here. But we can’t leave people out there on the street anymore. It’s too dangerous.”
“Are you able to communicate with anyone?” I asked pointing to the computers.
She looked at me a smiled, “In spurts. It’s hit or miss but we have been able to get in touch with a few other bases in New Mexico and California. Recently we made contact with Japan.”
“Japan?” I asked intrigued.
She nodded, “Yes. Not for very long but we did speak with them once or twice for about a minute or more.”
“Were you able to make contact with Guam?” I asked without thinking. Hope rising up inside me and swelling.
Tracy looked confused for a minute then shook her head, “No. Guam? Why are you asking about Guam?”
“My sister’s there or was there. Her husband was stationed at Anderson.”
Tracy nodded in understanding and made sympathetic face, “I’m not sure we’ve tried to be honest or that they’ve tried to reach us. That doesn’t mean anything though,” She was quick to add. “I think everyone is focusing on trying to contact Washington more than anything else and we just cross paths.”
“Okay,” I said. I wanted to ask her more like ‘did she know if the planes made it out or not’ but I held my tongue thinking if she did, she
