Breach 2

The quarantine zone has been breached and I do not know if this can be contained...

The National Guardsmen went to the office where Mr. Stanton had escaped the blue smoke. They crept up a steel staircase from the shop floor on the north end (Alpha Group) and the back interior stairwell to the office hall on the south (Delta Group), four men in each group. They came armed with flash bang grenades and small automatic guns bigger than uzis, but much more compact than the AK-47s I saw the militia men carrying when the ebola outbreak took me to Africa two years ago.

I was able to listen to the whole operation through a walkie talkie Davolo borrowed for me from one of the Guardsmen stationed by our little quarantine area. I was told I could only speak on matters directly related to the contagion and was warned the radio would be taken back if I tried to speak for any other reason.

Delta Group reported seeing the blue smoke as soon as the entered the building standing about three inches deep on the floor. Alpha Group saw nothing on the shop floor, but reported the same mist when they opened the door to the upstairs hallway where they also saw Delta approaching from the opposite end about 100 feet away. Both units said it was odd how the smoke seemed to be increasing in piles at their knees as if it were climbing them, but neither worried as they were all outfitted with gas masks.

The groups converged on the door in question and two men took positions on the wall opposite, aiming their weapons at chest height on the door. Another pulled a flash bang and aother prepared to kick in the door. There was a quick three count while everyone covered their eyes. Then the kicker threw all his weight into the boot heel that struck right by the doorknob. He fell back to the floor , swinging his gun to the ready as he did and the crouched soldier beside him simultaneously lobbed the grenade into the office and thrust a foot in the doorway to keep the swinging wood from bouncing back.

There was a moment of silence, and then a pop came over the radio, the explosion of the grenade. The guy who had lobbed the grenade counted to three very fast then apparently rolled out of the way for the others to charge in the door. Two went through, eyes still closed to avoid being stunned by the flash. One of the next in line said “Oh my lord....the smoke...it’s falling out the door like a...like the room was filled with water...”

At the same time, some gurgling sounds started coming over the transmission that I later learned were the two men on the floor choking in the mist washing over them. It is safe to say the gas masks did not do their intended job.

There was a scuffle, and two more men were ordered through the door while the last two pulled their fellow soldiers off the floor. The man in the lead through the door was struck by something that pushed him back through the air, colliding into the man behind him and sending them both to the floor and pinning the man in back against the far wall.

Gunfire erupted inside, and glass shattered. A spotter in the alley reported a Guardsman falling out the window, blue smoke trailing behind him all the way to the ground.

Animal sounds came through the radio as if something was attacking the remaining soldier in the office. There was more choking and gurgling, more sounds of struggle, and a sustained burst of automatic fire that must have emptied the gun firing it in seconds.Honestly, there was nothing one could do to discern anything in the confusion coming over that little speaker.

And then, for a second, all was silent.

Someone on the outside began barking orders for a report, but the only response was wheezing and choking. The outside spotter reported the blue smoke continued pouring out the window , not at a trickle, but like it was being forced out by a huge industrial fan. It flowed to the north end of the block, and then swept west through the alley and out of sight. I wish I could say it dissipated in the wind from there, but if the Greenland cloud is any indication we have not seen the last of it.

Ambulances that had been waiting two blocks away converged on the building while a third group was sent in to retrieve the soldiers from the first two groups. They entered from the shop floor and paused at the door that opened to the office hallway. Looking through the window in the door, they reported seeing no blue smoke at all, but they did see four of their comrades on the floor outside the door.

One was sitting upright against the wall opposite the door with his legs splayed. Another was sitting on the floor in front of him, between his legs as if they were lovers sitting around a campfire. A third was halfway through the door, facing away on his side, and wrapped around the frame like a drunk’s car around a tree. The fourth lay spread eagle on his back on the floor to the near side of the doorway with a considerable pool of blood forming a halo around his head.

The third team opened the door to the hall and moved forward cautiously with their weapons raised. They paused to check each of the soldiers outside the door. None were breathing.

Two of the third team soldiers stood and put their backs to the wall on either side of the door frame. They raised their weapons gave a three count, and charged in. In the center of the room, they turned back to back and swept the muzzles of their guns around the room. One shouted “clear!” and the other got out to about “cle--” before dropping to one knee and vomiting violently everything he had eaten for the past three days, sounding as if he were pulling food from his soul to surrender to the scene.

One civilian slumped against a filing cabinet beside the shattered window. His forehead was missing from just above his eyes to his hairline. His brain peeked out, exposed and cooked, burns surrounded the opening. This guy has apparently caught the flash-bang that started the melee right between the eyes.

The other civilian, our missing teen, lay on his side beside the door. When he was rolled onto his back it was easy to see how he had died. Bullet holes started in his right thigh and ran in a straight zipper up the center of his torso and finished with the most lethal shot: a neat little hole right above and between his eyebrows.

One soldier lay slumped over the top of the desk. No wounds were visible but blue smoke was so thick in his gas mask that they had to pull it off to be sure of who he was.

Another Guardsman was face-into the wall on the right side of the room. His legs were behind him, flat on the floor. His pelvis was jammed into the corner, bent 90 degrees the wrong way, allowing him to “sit” upright. The back of a wooden chair lay on top of his legs as if somebody with superhuman strength had driven the chair into the base of his spine and folded him backwards into that crease.

The final two soldiers lay on their backs in the center of the room. They were mirror images of each other, their feet about three feet apart and their heads opposite. One had a bloody bullet hole in the front of his gas mask right over his left eye, the other had suffered a bullet tearing right through his Adam’s apple. It was like their target had run between them while they were firing, causing them to take each other out simultaneously.

With no blue smoke to report and everybody dead, the third team became the cleanup crew. I will spare the gruesome details of that operation, but suffice it to say that there is nothing worse for military morale than to have to clean up bodies of soldiers after a failed operation.

The bodies have been brought back to the pier for autopsy, and while I will still be in quarantine I will be able to supervise the examination by computer video link. Hopefully we can ascertain something about this contagion before this thing gets too out of control. Though I fear that the mist cloud is already drifting to claim its next set of victims while we do this.

I know this little journal of mine has already acquired a small set of followers, and to you, all I can suggest is that you pray and if you live on the East coast, you may want to take this opportunity to cash in on any vacation time you may have coming.