Scout's honor By Re1ndeer and Yarri Part 1
Prologue
May 8th, 2009: A very contagious infection spreads rapidly across the world, turning the majority of the human race into flesh-craving zombies. The Infection started without warning, effectively bringing the US government and military to its knees. The US military was barely able to hold its major bases across the country. Survivors were left on their own and contact was almost instantaneously lost with all of the major cities in the country. The survival of the human race seemed unlikely as the days of the infection turned into months.
The date is now June 27th, 2011 and the future of humanity is looking a little brighter. With the military able to hold its main bases, operations began with the vision of one day retaking the world from the rotten clutches of the zombie horde. But, each operation needs its own intelligence source. That is where IntCom comes in. Intelligence Command (IntCom) was put together for the purpose of gathering intelligence for these recapturing operations.
IntCom completes its mission by deploying scouts to retrieve information.. And a Scout’s life is not easy. Being deployed as a solo unit, a scout has only a few things he/she can rely on: their knowledge, their gut and their honor.
Chapter One: "Orders" Part One
It was warm and dark in the belly of the nest. She cuddled close to another body, feeling sleepy and content. The nest was safe. The nest was home. Sleep claimed her comforted as she was by the warmth of the bodies around her. Dreams with bright colors and pictures of things she no longer understood or remembered flowed through her mind filling it with happiness. A fuzzy fat grey cat missing one ear purring in her lap, the round face and gentle eyes of an older woman smiling at her, a kiss, passionate pressed itself to her lips making her heart beat faster, a man’s voice whispering words she didn’t understand.
The dreams were comforting her, giving her for even a moment peaceful sleep. The sleep was interrupted by a hand tangling itself into her long hair pulling her across the floor away from the pile of sleeping forms. The hands pulled her to her feet shaking her awake. The voice with the hands was deep and rhythmic, sensual in its nature. It roared in her ears.
“It will wake! It will wake!” the voice yelled as it shook her. “It will rise and answer the call!”
She began to tremble moaning in fear. She opened her eyes to see He who calls them. The grey scarred face was flushed with rage putrid yellow eyes blazing at her. She struggled out of his grip to drop to her knees in submission to him.
“It rises. It listens to the Caller.” She feared very little but the entire nest feared The Caller.
He grabbed her hair and arm dragging her up from her supplication to him.
“It will go. It will watch the human meat. It will watch! It will remember the coming and the going of the meat. It will not be caught! It will not be seen. It will not hunt the meat! It will come when called.”
He repeated the orders over and over shaking her till her head snapped back and her teeth chattered.
He screamed “WHAT will IT do?”
Her voice small “It will watch. It will watch meat. It will remember. It will be unseen. It will come when called.”
He dragged her to the door of the nest pushing her out into bright light of day. She was alone.
Chapter One "Orders" Part two
“Lieutenant John M. Blake, Colonel Douglas is ready to see you know, sir.” said the young enlisted airman from behind his desk. The poor soldier signed up to fight and now he was put behind a desk to fill out a colonel’s paperwork.
I shrugged off my thoughts about the airman as I walked to my commanding officer’s door. The old thing creaked a little bit as I opened it and entered the room behind it. The room was decorated with medals and pictures of Colonel Douglas in Iraq. Some people said that war was bad. But, I think some may have changed their mind now with the current situation.
My eyes finally made their way to the desk in the middle of the room and the Air Force officer behind it. Colonel Douglas was one of the top officers in IntCom. I figured that I was going to get another mission to collect info in some small town nearby. I soon figured out that my assumptions were incorrect.
“So, Lieutenant, you up for some recon?” asked the 40 year old Colonel as he searched in his desk for a file.
“Of course, I am, sir. Have you ever met a scout that liked being in these cramped quarters and having nothing to do?” I said as I smiled my usual smile. The colonel had been the officer that got me into the IntCom operations and he had been the one that always gave me the missions. We had gotten used to each other, became friends even.
“Can’t say I have, Blake. Grab a seat.” Douglas said as he placed the file on the desk and rotated it toward me. In the file, there was a map of a state and one location was highlighted with an orange highlighter. I realized that it was a map of Oregon and the highlighted location was Portland. “Blake, IntCom wants you to infiltrate and recon any important locations in the area. We need Intel on this place before we even think about trying to retake it.”
The colonel reached back into his desk and pulled out a bigger map of Portland. He pointed at the International Rose Test Garden. “Here is where you will drop in. After a month, you will be picked up at Portland International Airport. Of course, you will have your radio and can call in an emergency evac if necessary. Blake, we need zed counts, survivor locations, the whole works, and to top it off we need you to do it low key. We don’t want you kicking the hornet’s nest right before an op. It will really screw it up for the ground troops. You think you can handle it?”
Can I handle it? What kind of question was that? These creatures only had numbers on their side; otherwise they were no smarter than a pile of rocks. I gave yet another one of my big grins. “Of course, sir, I won’t let you down.”
The colonel stood up and I followed his lead. Douglas checked his watch before reaching out to shake my hand. “Your ride leaves at 0800 hours, tomorrow. Get your gear packed and study up on the location till then.”
“Yes, sir” I replied as I shook his hand. Then, I saluted before I made my way out of his office and hurried back to my quarters to prepare for my mission.
