Chapter 4

Everyone on board the USS New Horizon scrambled to get to their stations. Something Captain green had never understood in all his twenty four years in the navy. This destroyer had an active crew at any given hour throughout the year. When it was time for action though, everyone was scrambling to get where they needed to be.
The ship had been off the coast of Peru for three months now supporting Major Cole’s “A team” while they looked into whatever had made all of South America go black to the rest of the world. So far they had only been looking on the coast, and had found nothing. No humans, no “zombies”, nothing. It had been enough to make the Captain keep a radio that was in constant contact with the Cole’s team with him at all times.

Today was the first time they had decided to move further inland, to spite Green’s protests. Cole had brushed him off and told him if they did find anything this team was the best there was and that there was nothing to worry about. It had convinced Green, at least up until 20 minutes ago when Cole had called in and said they were heading to the beach and needed a cover team and pick up immediately.

This was standard procedure and wouldn’t have caused alarm, if the Major and his team had been following it the last three months. Instead the Major had made it clear that unless his team was dying the only thing the Captain was giving him was a place to sleep.
The Captain had set out the cover team ten minutes ago and was preparing the ship to pull back to the “safe” zone off the coast of Mexico. He had left his radio on but hadn’t heard from Cole sense his call for pick-up.

“Sir, we are getting confirmation from the cover team. They are on the ground. Colonel Sheppard has a chopper waiting encase they need a quick pick-up.”

“Thank you Ensign, keep me updated if there is any sudden change.”

Captain Green paced the bridge, He had always trained to be calm and let the enemy come to him. But he had never figured out how to do that when he didn’t know what or who the enemy was. He began to imagine every sort of enemy, from children with bombs strapped to their backs to werewolves jumping from tree to tree after Cole’s team. His day dreaming was interrupted by his communications officer.

“Sir, we have visual on Cole’s team.”

“Bring it up.”

A screen about the size of a normal home TV lit up and showed an image from his cover teams comm. Officer’s helmet cam. So far it showed Cole’s team, minus two people, including Major Cole, and a man, clearly civilian, be carried between two of the SEALs. The third was staying behind and turned back several times to make sure it was clear. As they moved closer the Captain began to see why. Out of the trees, limping and crawling toward the men, came several figures. They looked like people but their skin was like what he had seen during his first meeting with the men he now worked so closely with. Bones stuck out of joints and many of those that crawled were missing their lower halves altogether.

As soon as the cover team saw this they opened up, firing on anything coming out of the trees. Even then it barely slowed them down. Even those that were hit and fell would get back up and keep stumbling toward them.

“This is recording?” The Captain asked.

“Yes sir, what the hell..”

“Can it, tell Sheppard to move his chopper in to pick up Cole’s team and the wounded man. Our cover team will stick around until they are away then head out themselves.”

Green said all this without taking his eyes away from the image in front of him. He watched Colonel Sheppard’s bird come in and load the team and turn back heading for his ship. He then watched as the cover team loaded into their boat, still firing at the creatures and head back themselves.

~

The Captain was in the medical bay as soon as Cole’s team arrived. He moved toward the wounded civilian but barked at the marines standing around him.

“What the hell happened out there? Where is Cole? Who is this?”

“Sir, we have no idea what happened. We found a small group of civilians. Most were dead or dying. This guy was the only healthy one. He had a small hand gun and said they were there filming when they ran into the creatures. Cole ordered us to stay put while he and Mendes scouted. Before they came back those…things jumped us, we held out for a while but we were low on ammo. This guy got shot in the leg from somewhere. Probably one of us, it was crazy. We pulled back as soon as he started bleeding.”

“Calm down son,” Green put his hand on the SEALs shoulder, “You did good, saved a life. Major Cole would be proud of you. Get some rest. When we get to the safe zone I will need a report so get your head straight and take your time writing it. Ok?”

“Yes sir, thank you.”

“You all are dismissed, thank you for your service today.”

Green turned toward the nurse and wounded man as the marines walked out.

“What do we have?”

“Nothing too serious, blood loss is his only problem. He will be fine.”

“Good, I want to ask this…what is his name?”

“ID says his name is James Neely, sir.”

“Hmm, well I want to ask this James Neely some questions when he wakes up. Call me when that happens.”

Fin.