[This is a side story taking place simultaneously with the main story. It does not affect or resolve the fates of the main characters in Volume 3.]
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[Major Rattanakorn – Army Base Camp, Outskirts – 11:00 a.m.]
The camp is sprawling like a wound across the scorched earth, tents are sagging under the relentless Bangkok sun. Dust is clinging to every surface. The air is thick, choking with the mingled smells of sweat, diesel, unwashed bodies, and the faint metallic tang of blood that never quite washes away.
Hundreds or maybe thousands of survivors huddle in ragged lines, their faces hollowed out, eyes deadened by days of fear and hunger. Not just kids from the school. Families are clutching what little they salvaged. Office workers are still in torn shirts and ties. This are the strangers who ran when the city fell. Those zombies took everything else.
My boots are crunching on gravel as I step from the command tent, radio in my hand like a stone. The school's ash still lingers in my nose, a ghost of the boom I ordered less than an hour ago. Guilt is a blade, but I can swallow it. Orders will keep us alive. Without orders, this camp would already be overrun.
As I scan the perimeter I see barbed wire coils like a snake, watchtowers manned by soldiers whose faces are as gray as the dust. Beyond the fence I see the city in a distant smudge of smoke and silence. Bangkok is gone and we are all that's left.
[11:05 a.m.]
The med tent is a nightmare, we can hear moans, not from zombies, but from people who still remember pain. A woman is clutching her child to her chest, both shaking, her arm bandaged with blood seeping through the gauze. She's Bitten. Quarantine's full. Soldiers drag her away, her screams cutting the air like glass. "Containment," one of them mutters, avoiding my eyes. I nod with my right throat. There is a man begging for his wife, separated for testing. All families breaking apart. No one is clean. Not anymore.
[11:10 a.m.]
The supply line is a war. People are shoving for water and we can smell blankets which smell like blood. A ten year old boy is clutching a torn photo of his mother, silently sobbing. She's gone. A soldier shoves him back, rougher than necessary. "Order!" he barks. My jaw clenches.
We're saving them, but are we really?. The trauma we have now is thicker than the dust. A girl from the school group with sharp eyes, whip coiled at her side is watching the chaos silently. Her friends huddle nearby, their faces hard to read and their lips sealed. They're hiding something. I can feel it in my bones. But there is no time for questions.
I walk the lines while nodding to soldiers, offering them empty reassurances.
"Hold the line."
"Keep calm."
"We're getting supplies."
This are the lies I tell myself as much as them. The supply trucks are late again. Water rationing is down to half a bottle a day. People are starting to look at each other like food.I hope this people do not become something worse then what we're fighting right now.
[11:15 a.m.]
I climb the watchtower with heavy binoculars in my hands. This camp's a mess, tents, barbed wire, survivors packed like cattle. Beyond, the city's a husk, the smoke rising in columns, zombies shambling in the distance.
A soldier radios in, another breach at the east fence.
"Hold it,"
I order in a steady voice. I scan the camp for cracks. I see five of the school kids again, clustered near a tent. They neither talk or cry. Just watch. Like they're waiting for something. Or someone.
As I scan, I hear a woman screaming in the med tent. The soldiers drag her out, but I can hear her pleas.
"My daughter! My daughter's still out there!"
I close my eyes for a second. Daughters. Sons. Mothers. Fathers. All are ending the same way.
[11:20 a.m.]
Back in the command tent, the air is stale, coffee cold, maps spread like a battlefield. Reports pilling up and survivor count is dropping, zombie sightings are rising, supply shortage is critical. The camp's barely holding, but it's not enough.
People break faster than fences. A corporal brings me the latest casualty list. I scan it. I think of the school kids again, their silence louder than any scream. They saw too much and lost too much. Like the rest of us. But I know they know more then me about this because it all started from their school when a girl was transported to hospital from their school.
A soldier outside shouts, their is another fight over rations. I step out, my voice cutting through the noise. "Enough!"
They scatter but the anger is lingering, as thick as the dust.
[11:25 a.m.]
I'm back at the maps now ,tracing the red lines that used to mean safety, no one is safe though. Now they just mean where we failed. The school's gone. The hospital's gone. The city's gone. And here we are, a last stand of tents and fear. The radios hum, waiting for the next crisis.
I think of the girl in the dirt, the one pushed from the chopper. Still out there, maybe. Or dead. I don't know. I don't want to know.
A new report comes in, it's about east fence holding, but zombies are massing. I nod and issue orders, we keep moving. Movement will keep the guilt at bay.
[11:30 a.m.]
I step to the east fence, my binoculars raised. The camp is quiet now, the midday heat pressing down. I can see something moving at the edge, near the wire, it's small and fast. It's not a soldier. I adjust the focus, my heart kicking and I see a kid. Not more than twelve. Alone. My eyes are sharp, too sharp. He moves wrong, too quiet, too still. The zombies near the fence aren't lunging but watching him instead. Like he's one of them. But he's just a kid. Isn't he?
I lean closer, catching my breath. He looks up, with glinting eyes, and for a second, I swear he sees me.
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