Why She Survived

They ended up at Camp Rigero, a National Guard Reserve Center just off the coast near Carson City. The parking lot in front of the base was littered with corpses—the kind that didn’t seem to get up again, all with extremely apparent head wounds—and the fence beyond was patrolled by dozens of uniformed soldiers carrying very big guns.

The soldier who had rescued her, remembered simply as “Ryan,” was dragging her by the arm at a very brisk pace, forcing her to find her own footing, pain in her ankle notwithstanding. There were several stray zombies here and there in the parking lot, but snipers behind the fence quickly picked them off. She and Ryan ran to the base and screamed to be let in as if it were the last American embassy in a hostile nation.

The soldiers opened the gates.

It was here she lived for eight weeks. The base had its own power generators, so they were never without light, and sometimes the pasty stuff that oozed out of the packages in her daily allotment of rations was actually pretty good. On top of that, fresh water was plentiful; several rows of water tanks occupied the area between the barracks and the northern rifle range. However, as secure as she should have felt, most of the time spent at Camp Rigero was uneasy, and not for the most obvious reasons. Of the eighty-seven others surviving there with her, eighty-one of them were male.

No one asked for her input. Most never even asked for her name. She figured it was for the same reason she survived the slaughter of the convoy.

When she had leapt off the deuce-and-a-half and hit the ground, there were two others close by that needed just as much help as she did: a soldier and another girl. Yet Ryan chose to help her. She knew why and—looking back—the reason sickened her.

The other soldier, the one bleeding and in a terrible amount of pain, was for all intents and purposes a brother to Ryan. Courtney always thought that soldiers were told to never leave anyone behind, but that nameless soldier was left as fodder for the zombies.

Ryan could have chosen to rescue the other girl instead of Courtney. She didn’t even appear to be injured. But that girl was also a lot more ample than Courtney. Courtney—with purple highlights through her hair and tight jeans around her legs, showing her slim physique—was the one and only person Ryan decided to help. He hadn’t even seemed to look twice at the others.

Courtney realized that if she were blonde instead of brunette, she would have made for the absolute perfect damsel in distress. She could remember how manly Ryan acted the night before they arrived at Camp Rigero, that he had rescued his prize, believing himself to be a heroic savior and Courtney to be an utter weakling in need of a heroic savior.

And maybe that’s how it really was then.

—Then. But not now. Not five years later.

She saw less and less of him in the following weeks until he became just another face in the hallway. However, each time she saw him, he glared at her in an unflattering way much like the other soldiers did—like she was there under their protection and she should be doing something to return the favor—and by that they didn’t mean menial chores. Furthermore, as days passed, they began to look at her as if they wanted to exact their payment sometime soon. They were just waiting for the right time, it seemed, when man’s law could be made more flexible for the times they were living in—maybe just as soon as it was confirmed that all the higher-ups were truly gone.

—Idiots on power trips, just as her father warned.

Over the course of the first week, fewer and fewer uninfected civilians were arriving at Camp Rigero. Even worse, the infected ones were being turned away at the gate. All of the soldiers knew by then that to get bitten meant twenty-four hours of painful sickness, followed by death and reanimation.

She was beginning to wonder if she wanted to continue living like this or if she even wanted to continue living at all.

But then everything changed.

She heard the sound of the helicopter—the noisy, deafening sound—and, like everyone else, she ran to see what was happening. Excluding the soldiers ordered to remain at their posts, they all hurried to the heliport where a mammoth Army Chinook was hovering patiently overhead with its bay door wide open. She could see a dozen or so figures sitting inside.

A rope was flung out, dangling from high in the air, and not long afterward someone was rappelling down fast and graceful. Several large padded packages were then dropped and landed hard on the heliport. The figure—by now obviously a male someone—unhooked the line and the helicopter spun away, leaving him there without so much as an explanation.

Soldiers were looking to their captains for some kind of explanation, but the captains could only shrug their shoulders in response.

The man was wearing a pseudo-military uniform that up until that point had not been seen by the general military. Most noticeable was the black beret on his head. Below that was a full polarized visor that reflected the sunlight with a copper glow and completely obstructed his face. It seemed to be secured comfortably snug by a spandex hood below the beret. His actual uniform, however, was a tight black and turquoise bodysuit with a high collar. He wore black gloves that fit close against his forearms and extended nearly to his elbows. Lastly were his boots, which appeared to have thick metal embedded in the heels. In this full garb, none of his skin was at all visible.

There was a rifle strapped to his back and a handgun in a holster on his right hip. On his left hip was a sheathed sword.

He was tall and imposing and quite the spectacle.

Then came the unveiling—the removal of his copper-colored visor.

He was black and a great deal older than most of the soldiers—probably in his late thirties or early forties. However, as they would all soon discover, he was highly articulate and had a strong, domineering voice to go along with it. Also, it seemed he was prepared for the inevitable skepticism.

“My name is M. Gordon Levi,” he stated. “No ‘sir’. No ‘M’ . Just Gordon. I’m a Black Beret. I’m here to help.”

Then followed a barrage of questions by the soldiers.

The Black Beret began answering these questions, piquing the curiosity of everyone, but when he made it known that he was without rank—a total civilian yet under military authorization—the soldiers started to lose interest.

“I’m a member of the Black Berets,” he explained again in a very practiced way. “A unit trained and specialized in surviving the new world crisis. Yes, I am a civilian, as are most Black Berets. As you might’ve guessed, actual military—in any branch—is an endangered species. What few of us there are have been sent to places like this to train you and increase the number of Black Berets. Like I said: I’m here to help.”

In the minutes to follow he would repeat his mission statement over and over exactly the same. Courtney wondered how anyone with such a bold voice would have any problem at all getting others to fall in line, but the soldiers didn’t make it easy for him.

Gordon Levi, unfazed, was ready to provide a demonstration.

Later that day, entirely at his request, he ventured alone through the gates of the base and into the uncontrolled outer parking lot. Courtney watched on, her fingers trembling as she wrapped them around the links of the chain fence. There were three zombies on the other side, one male and two female, and she knew anyone with a gun and three bullets should have had no problem putting them down. However, Gordon left his guns behind. He wore only the outfit from before and carried only the sword.

The zombies were fast. No area of their skin appeared decayed and they were able to walk at full strides. They were approaching in a huddle, weaving through a line of cars that had been parked there and forgotten.

Gordon met the zombies halfway.

He unsheathed his sword and in one motion decapitated the first. Its head rolled off its shoulders immediately and hit the pavement with a very satisfying thunk. Gordon stepped gracefully away and spun twice, taking off another zombie’s arm on the first spin and its scalp on the second. The third and final zombie, equally unfazed, extended its arms and lunged at its meal. Gordon extended the blade and—using a simple jab and the zombie’s own forward momentum—put the metal at least five inches through its eye socket, most certainly splitting the brain in half inside its protective shell.

Finished, Gordon knelt down and used the zombie’s shirt to wipe the blood and gore from the blade of the sword. He then calmly sheathed it.

Courtney didn’t remember everything that happened, nor did she care to, but she did remember everything Gordon said—and the soldiers’ rebuttals—with utmost clarity.

Upon returning through the gate, Gordon addressed the crowd: “Are we finished playing playground here? Have you seen enough, or do you want to keep playing reindeer games? Because I refuse to continue butting heads with you.”

One of the captains spoke up and his sarcasm was already evident. “You want to teach us to be ninjas or something?”

Murmurs and chuckles rumbled through the crowd.

“Yay, a smartass,” Gordon countered, passive-aggressively maintaining his composure. “That’s exactly what we need.” He took a few moments to eye the soldiers one at a time, effectively silencing them, and continued, “A sword is the least of it. A Black Beret is almost as effective without a weapon at all, but give him the right rifle and the right handgun and a Black Beret with only a week of training can deal more damage than any of you trigger-happy bozos. Your shoot-’em-enough-and-they’ll-eventually-go-down tactic ain’t going to work in the long run.”

The soldiers got understandably angry at this point and several of them appeared ready to verbalize their displeasure. One of the captains held up his arm to keep them silent at least for a little while longer.

Gordon continued, “Ammunition’s running out, boys and girls. There’s too many of you who have heavy trigger fingers. There’s even more of you who expend entire magazines because you like to see blood and guts flying everywhere. Well, bravo. All you’ve accomplished is proven that you get your rocks off by shooting up something formerly human. But guess what? There’s going to be millions more.” He paused a moment to let this sobering fact sink in. “So what happens when you’re out of ammo? I’ll tell you: You’ll have to fight. And I mean really fight—there’ll be no more of this hanky-panky gunplay. You’ll be fighting with your hands and with a sword.” He jabbed his knuckles together and motioned to the sheathe on his hip. “These weapons never need reloading and you’ll never run out of ammunition.”

“We won’t be ninjas, Captain,” one of the soldiers in the front chimed. “We’ll be Shaolin monks!”

Gordon quickly approached that soldier, put his palm on his chest, and pushed him to the ground. He could obviously lay a whipping to living people just as well as he could to dead people. However, instead of doing more, like holding the soldier down and bloodying his face, Gordon simply stepped back. He removed his cover, revealing a shiny bald head, and held the black beret high in the air for all to see.

“This means something!” he shouted. “Wearing this beret means never having to doubt yourself! It means not being afraid anymore! Anyone who trains under me will receive one. I’ve got plenty of berets and uniforms in those fancy little boxes over there and plenty more en-route. I’ve even got manuals for the reader types.” He motioned to the packages that had been dropped out of the Chinook, and continued, even more seriously: “You’ll be a weapon. You won’t need endless amounts of ammunition—you won’t need any more fully automatic hogs. You’ll have a rifle, a sidearm, and a sword. That’s all you’ll need.” Then he capped it all off with, “We’ll win this war.”

It was quiet for a while after that. The midday sun was getting hot and the soldiers were getting even hotter.

“That’s the plan?” one of the captains asked. “This is the best that all the strategic minds could come up with?”

Without hesitation Gordon replied, “This will at least keep you alive until a long-term strategy can be developed.”

The captain stepped forward, looking doubtingly at his men, then turned to face Gordon once more. “There’s nothing else?” he asked. “They’re not going to round everyone up and get us the hell out of here? They’re just going to drop off a...,” (Here he paused to make quotation marks in the air with his fingers), “...Black Beret?”

“Black Berets are being dispatched throughout the country,” Gordon said. “You needed help, so you got it.”

The captain approached him and stood very close, but in a very soothing tone told him, “I’m sorry, Mister Levi. But you’re not a soldier. You’re a civilian. You haven’t earned your stripes. I don’t care how cool you are, the men here aren’t ready to listen to you. Besides, sir, in case you can’t tell, our enemy is already dead. They’re going to rot away and everything will be back to normal. So why fight them? We’re safe here and we’re handling things just fine. And since all the best strategic minds in our great country have left us stuck here, we plan to enjoy the calm.”

Gordon walked away from him and didn’t bother arguing. He focused on the crowd once more and addressed them instead: “Anyone interested should raise their hands now and make yourselves known. I’m not going to waste any more time trying to convince you.”

There was silence—maybe even crickets chirping.

However, from her position in the far back, this was the point when Courtney timidly raised her hand. Every head turned to her and she lowered hers, not wanting to feel their eyes watching her.

Gordon didn’t hesitate to point to her and say, “There’s one. Any more?”

There wasn’t. Even after waiting—perhaps even hoping—no one else raised their hand.

Then Gordon motioned like he was parting the oceans and the crowd of soldiers shuffled out of his way. He walked through them and straight to Courtney.

“What’s your name, honey?”

She stuttered a moment before she finally got out: “Courtney Colvin.”

He eyed her in a very confident way and said, “Well, Courtney Colvin, you made the right choice.”

They walked away together.

She could hear several racist remarks being spoken, which she thought was funny since no one had said anything until they discovered it was a white girl that decided to follow Gordon. But to her it didn’t matter what those soldiers thought. None of them had much of a personality to speak of anyway, so a racist remark was probably the best they could come up with. Whether her decision was right or wrong, one way or another she would never have to rely on them again.