Mercer Island was attacked again this morning. This time by civilians who were wanting food and shelter. To keep the area contained, the SB troops fired mortars on the crowd. The fight moved to the warehouse where they opened fire on anything that moved.
The news of the attack rippled through the entire city. The whole base was on alert, and everything was locked down. No one got in or out.
I was in class when I heard about the island. Hunam was called away, and he dismissed class for the day. None of us were sure what was going on, but when I heard the words “Mercer Island”, “attack”, and “everyone dead”. I freaked out. I needed to get there and see if Charles was ok. Jim wanted us to go meet Elizabeth and Tara, but I told him to go without me. I told him that I was going to Mercer Island any way that I could. He reminded me that the place was on lockdown. But then he said that he might have an idea to get us over there.
We ran over to Tara’s house and found them inside hanging out. Jim asked Tara if she could get her dad to let me on to Mercer Island. She asked “why”, and I told her the entire story of how I met Charles and how we ended up in the warehouse on the island. She hesitated for a moment, but then Elizabeth told her that it was the right thing to do.
Tara agreed, and the 4 of us ran over to the makeshift hospital on the other side of the campus.
The makeshift hospital was full of people who were hurt in the attack on the island. Tara’s Dad and Mom were treating as many people as they could, but most were dead by the time they got there. While Tara talked to her Dad, I looked through all the people who were there…all the mangled bodies and corpses, just looking for anyone who looked like Charles. He wasn’t there.
Tara managed to convince her Dad to take me with him to the island when they go back to treat the victims who were unable to be moved. He introduced himself to me as Dr. Brian Klein, and he said that if anyone asks, I’m his assistant. He handed me a lab coat, and told me to carry his bag of supplies. I thanked Tara, and she gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. She told me that “everything would be ok”.
I followed Dr. Klein to a humvee and we drove over to the island.
The place was a warzone. The civilians that stormed the bridge had rammed it with large vehicles and a semi-truck. The SB guards opened fire and killed a lot of them there, but these people had guns and fired back. A few of the attackers on the bridge were sick, and when they died, they came back. Soon a few zombies were running around everywhere and killing anything they saw…including the civilians they came there with. Soon there were more zombies than the SB could handle, and that is when the warehouse was hit.
As the undead ran into the building to feed, the SB troops fell back and decided to fire mortars and destroy the whole island.
By the time I got there, the fighting had stopped, and the zombies had been killed. Also killed were an unknown number of survivors who were in the warehouse.
I stayed by Dr. Klein’s side the whole time we were there, and I helped him with whatever I could. But it was hard to look at all these bodies and not get sick to my stomach. I puked a few times not long after we started treating victims.
When I got a free moment, I snuck off to go look for Charles on my own. I found his bunk, and his bag was there. So he was here this morning when the attack happened. But where is he now?
I ran through the crowd of survivors calling out his name, but no one called out anything back. I asked a few people if they remembered him, but with how many people were coming through the island on a daily basis, it was hard to keep track of who had been there long.
I was walking back to find Dr. Klein when I saw a SB member holding Charles’ leather jacket. I ran over to him and asked him where he got it. He said that he pulled it off of a corpse from the pile behind him. I ripped the jacket right off of him, and when he tried to fight me, he saw the tears welling up in my eyes and he let me have the jacket. I raced over to the pile of bodies and looked at them. They were bloody and burned, but no one looked like Charles.
That’s when I smelled burned flesh. I looked past the piles of bodes and saw the five bonfires filled with human bodies that the SB were disposing of.
I looked down at the jacket, and then back at the fires. I knew what happened to Charles. I didn’t say it out loud, or even give it much definition, but I knew he was dead.
I wiped away my tears, and went back to Dr. Klein to help him finish up.
When I got back to my bunk, Jim asked me what happened. I just said “He’s dead Jim”.
