Chapter 187: Camp Pitbull.
Major Elio and his team were behind schedule. The journey to Camp Pitbull should have taken an hour and a half at most but it was pushed to three hours because they came across many obstacles on the way. Human obstacles. Mass migrations were still going on, with people moving in search of safety.
They finally reached their destination and the convoy rolled through the broken gates of the camp, which was once an active military recreation site, that welcomed civilians. It was also a historical site having once served as a radar station during a war.
The teams arrived just as dusk was beginning to settle. Three trucks, loaded with frightened men, women and children that had been forced into them stopped and tarps were pulled up. The soldiers in the trucks forced the civilians off.
The sight which filled their eyes was not what they expected. Camp Pitbull was a green zone, so it was supposed to be a safe place. But instead, it looked like a beach in the morning after a storm on the sea.
Tents were ripped down, their fabric flattering like torn flags. A few supplies lay scattered on the ground, trampled into the snow. A thin trail of smoke curled up from where the kitchen was.
Dead bodies, three of them, maybe four, were sprawled in the open, covered only by a thin blanket that could not hide the blood seeping through. Some survivors were picking through what remained.
Whatever had happened was still fresh and the air was still ripe with the taste of violence.
"What the hell happened here?" Major Elio asked O’Toole.
"We have to ask but it looks like a fight broke out." O’Toole answered, flinging the truck door open.
Major Elio brought the walkie-talkie to his mouth. "The passengers should stay near the trucks for now while some of us go ahead to investigate." He told his team. His boots hit the ground hard.
"Goddamn," Enzo muttered from the second truck, pressing his forehead against the window. "Bodies already and frozen blood plus supplies on the ground. I would say robbers passed by this place and the people here were hit hard."
Corporal Day was already stepping down from the vehicle, rifle in hand, scanning the perimeter. Private Jenner climbed out slower, her jaw tight, eyes narrowing as he counted the bodies. Corporal Jae held position, waiting for Elio’s word.
"Boy!" Elio barked, spotting a teenager not older that seventeen, his face streaked with ash and sweat. The boy flinched at the sound and stopped.
"Who is in charge here?" Elio asked.
The boy’s shaky finger pointed toward a woman kneeling on the ground, tending to the bloody gash on an old man’s leg.
Elio’s eyes softened for a fraction of a second. He knew the woman. Linda Chan, former director of the national oceanic and atmospheric administration. She looked exhausted, her once crisp hair tied back in a messy knot, sleeves soaked with blood.
What was she doing at Camp Pitbull? Someone like her would have been at the white house when the meteors hit.
Elio approached Linda quickly but without threat. "Mrs. Linda Chan."
She looked up and blew a string of hair away from the right side of her face. "I am a little busy. If it is not an emergency, wait until I finish."
He waited until she finished tying the bandages and the person she was helping was carried off. "Ma’am, what the hell happened here?
Linda rose to her feet, her shoulders were sagging and her face full of exhaustion. She took a breath, and when she spoke, her words were edged with both anger and grief. "About ten armed marauders led by a superhuman stormed this place. They beat people, looted whatever they could. Those that died did so while defending their supplies." Her gaze flickered at the covered bodies. "Everyone has lost their minds. It is probably going to get worse as time passes."
Behind major Elio, Corporal Day swore under his breath. O’Toole hands clenched into fists. Enzo muttered something about stringing marauders up, his restless energy barely contained.
Elio’s eyes swept across the camp, sharp and calculating. "How long ago did they leave."
Linda tilted her head, her lips pressing into a tight line. About thirty minutes ago, you should have met them on the way here." She answered. "I heard them as they left, they said they were heading to the next base, and they would keep at it until they looted every base with survivors. Their leader seemed to know where every base in the nation is. Where are you guys from?"
"Westbrook." O’Toole answered.
Some of his friends hushed him but it was a little too late.
O’Toole said to them, "The survivors are going to tell her where they came from anyway."
"They are definitely heading your way." Linda told the soldiers. "Westbrook is the only mountain closest to the five cities in the central region. Funny how I did not hear it being mentioned on that radio when safe bases were being named."
The soldiers did not respond to that. They knew why it was not mentioned. It was because Sunshine did not want people storming the mountain.
Even if it was a green zone, its proximity to the forest made it a red zone as well. If there were too many people outside, the things in the forest would come out to hunt, especially the mutated animals.
Elio’s gut had tightened meanwhile. Linda’s words hit him like a hammer.
Marauders alone were nothing to be afraid of, but marauders led by a superhuman could not be underestimated.
"What kind of abilities did the superhuman have?" He asked her.
Linda’s eyes narrowed and she wrapped her arms across her chest. "I don’t know what to call them. He just made us feel tired and we could not fight back like we wanted to. Everyone that he touched or...." she leaned towards him. "Maybe I was imagining it, but I could have sworn that everyone that so much as came close to his shadow lost their energy."
While she had lowered her voice, the soldiers had leaned closer, and their walkies-talkies were open for communication so even those in the trucks heard what she said.
Jenner lowered her rifle, her jaw ticking as she processed the weight of the news. If what Linda described was real, how were they supposed to fight someone whose shadow was a weapon?
They would probably have to take him out with sniper rifles or something. No close combat.
Elio’s heart thudded against his ribs. All the superhumans on the base took classes taught by Sunshine. She had warned them to avoid people with energy draining abilities. They needed energy the way vampires needed blood. They had to feed off other superhumans to grow stronger.
She had called them the scourge of the superhuman community. Her face had held a lot of disgust when she described them.
If that kind of person was heading to Westbrook, they needed to warn everyone immediately. But first, he needed a description of this superhuman. Anything small they could use to identify him.
Elio looked at his modified sniper rifle and clenched his jaw. He had a bullet for the superhuman.