Chapter 6: Bodybags
Thomas Garter
Will's eyes held a fury like Thomas had never seen in him before. During their training sessions, he would often get angry, but he never had the hurt he seemed to hold now.
"You disobeyed my direct order, soldiers." Will spat, pacing back and forth in front of Usui Ousawa and Thomas Garter. They stood at attention, trying their very hardest not to flinch while their Sergeant bellowed at them. "Or are you even soldiers?! No, you're not. You're cowards."
"With my permission, sir, they're not cowards." Spoke Gary from off to the side. He wasn't forced to stand in the line, but Thomas found himself thinking the man might have enough common sense to keep quiet. Will had never been a forgiving man. "They saved that other soldier, the one with the glasses."
"Shut up!" Will barked at him. Gary shrunk back into his shoes. "They didn't save shit! The ambulance would have shown up whether they stuck around or not. What do you have to say for yourselves, assholes?"
"We couldn't abandon the scene of the crash, sir." Usui answered him, maintaining his gaze straight ahead. "It's illegal."
"Son, I will tell you what's legal and what's not." Will told him, locking in eye contact. Thomas felt a bit glad Will hadn't forced him to speak. Usui was going to take all of the shouting, and by the time Will's attention was directed to him, his anger would be diminished. "We could have worked it out with the law. It would have saved lives..."
"Saved lives, sir?" Usui asked, seeming a bit concerned. He took a step out of the line, but then remembered he was in attention and stepped back into place. Will noticed and sneered at him, but he passed it off as it was nothing.
"Do you want to know what happened while you two were sitting on your asses, waiting for your fucking ambulance?" He sounded very harsh. Usually, he was never this angry unless there was a reason.
"Yessir." Usui and Thomas replied at the same time. Will turned around and walked through the military base. They strolled past the armory, the barracks and the vehicle warehouse. This was where Thomas practically lived for the last few years. He had grown accustomed to its cruel, unforgiving environment. It was certainly more structured than his first home.
Thomas lived in a poorer neighborhood before he joined the army. His parents, Martha and Rob, were kind to him, and everyone else. They were good people. Thomas wasn't sure where they were now, but he knew, if ever found them again, he'd tell them he loved them. When he left, he did it in spite of them. It wasn't until a year after he left that he realized he was wrong.
In the schoolyard where Thomas would often play basketball with the other boys, they would tease him for being black. He remembered one time where Phil Wendell and his gang of followers jumped him one day after school. They tried to beat him up and take his lunch money...but Thomas didn't know why they were being so mean. He wanted to be able to restrain himself, but he was so angry that day... His aunt had only just passed. Three of them left with various cuts and bruises, and the last one...a broken leg.They took the boy into the principal's office afterwards. They wanted him to tell the boys sorry, and he did... But that wasn't enough for their parents. They had the young Thomas Garter expelled. That was the first and last time Thomas every got angry enough to inflict violence on someone else. He hated violence. It was disgusting.
Will pushed open one of the doors into a small room that was the morgue. It had a very light. Thomas had never been in here, and he wished he never had to again. There were four body bags lying in the center of the room. Thomas thought back to what he was doing when Will called him. He didn't remember doing anything out of the ordinary. Then he remembered the machine gun fire that issued from the radio...
"Care to open them, soldier?" Will asked Usui, masking his anger in disappointment. Usui obeyed his commander's order and stepped forward to the four black and green body bags on the table. He went to the one on the left first. He hesitantly reached out toward the zipper. "It's not gonna open itself, Ousawa..."
He unzipped the bag slowly and the pungent odor of death filled the room. "Agh!" Usui waved it away from him.
Gary backed away in disgust. "Is that what dead people smell like? It's, like, worse than a skunk!"
"Please shut up..." Will turned his attention to him, speaking very precisely and articulately. "Now, Ousawa, I want you to take the flaps apart. Show our good friends here what you all did."
Usui did as Will commanded and took the flaps apart, revealing the body inside. Slowly but surely, his friend revealed what was inside. It was Max Phillips, the guy from Ray Karsting's squad. Thomas had never really talked to Max, but seeing him inside a body bag still saddened him. "Max..." Usui gasped. "What happened to him, sir?"
"Open it farther, bucko." Will replied.
Usui bent down and separated the flaps on the entire body. The scene disgusted Thomas. The man's entire ribcage had been torn open in a scene of blood and guts. Everything inside the bones had been removed by something. Max's body didn't even have anything about it that looked like a body except his face. One of his legs was ripped off and there was no skin on what little did remain anymore. Usui took one look at the man and vomited his breakfast onto the floor. It took all of Thomas' willpower not to do the same. "What the hell is this?!" Thomas exclaimed.
"What happened to him?" Usui added
"You wanna know what happened to Max, Ousawa? Garter?" He turned to Thomas, as if he expected an answer, but then interrupted himself. "All right, I'll show you." He went to one of the other bags and unzipped it. Inside was another body, but this one looked rotted. The skin it did have was all torn away and in tatters. Its eyes were completely colorless. The pupils were almost gone. There were bullet holes riddled throughout its body and one in its head. "This is what happened to Max while you were away, boys..."
"What the fuck is this...?" Gary asked, obviously terrified by the sight of the two dead men. "What's going on here? I have to get out of here! I have to find my wife."
"Calm down, cupcake." Will told him, gesturing towards the ground. "It's gonna be no better down in the city than it is out here."
"And how is that, Sergeant?" Gary began to withdraw his phone from his pocket and was about to dial into it before Will interrupted him.
"There's more people down there." Will took the dead man with the white pupils by the jaw and swung it over to where its eyes made eye contact with Gary's. It disoriented the man a bit. "More of these."
"More dead people?" Usui asked.
Will sighed and scratched his chin with the hand that had not touched the dead man. "No. More walkers."
"Walkers?" Gary asked.
Will took his serrated knife out of the holster he had on his side and stabbed it on the table very suddenly, making everyone in the room flinch a bit, especially Gary, who had not been conditioned not to flinch. "The dead. I don't know if you fuckers have been watching the news, but the dead are up...walking among us. And they are eating us. That's what I said. They are EATING us."
"Is that...?" Thomas pointed to Max's dead body.
"Yes, Garter." Will turned to the other two men in the room, pointing to the "walker" on the table. "See, at least someone here can figure this shit out. This...killed Max. And...do you know why this killed Max?"
"...Why is that, sir...?" Usui asked with a sigh.
"Because I was short two gun hands." Will stood there in silence that none of the other men in the room broke. He looked at Gary and frowned. "So no, soldier, they didn't save shit."
"I'm not a soldier, sir." Gary responded.
Will looked confused for a moment below his army cap. But when he realized the situation, he turned to Thomas and then to Usui. "You brought a citizen in here? What the fuck were you thinking? The things in this room are classified!"
"We didn't have a ride, sir." Thomas told him, maintaining focus on the air just above his commander's head. "He destroyed my car. Gave us a ride back here. To the base. Parker's injured you know. He's in the hospital right now."
"Don't talk to me that way. I am your squad leader." Will spoke in a firm tone he always used when he was trying to sound like a leader. "I know very well Parker is in the hospital, soldier. That's not the question. The big question is, what's to do with this guy."
"Don't talk about me like I'm not even here." Gary protested, annoyed at the conversation the rest of them were having about him.
"This man is a good man, Sergeant." Usui spoke up, stepping into line with Thomas. "He helped us when we needed it."
"The morality of the man is not in question." Will replied. "What is in question, is what to do with him now. He can't stay here. This base is authorized personnel only. See him?" Will tapped the man on the shoulder. "Not. Authorized. Personnel. So tell me, Garter, what would you have us do with this 'good man?'"
[A. Send Gary away.]
[B. Push for Gary to stay.]
[C. Leave with Gary.]
55.6% of readers chose to [B. Push for Gary to stay.]
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"Sir, this man gave us a ride here to help you." Thomas spoke in the most respectful tone he could force himself to use. "You can't punish him for our mistakes. He was only trying to help."
Will's hard expression softened a bit. Thomas had that effect on people. It didn't always change people's minds, but Thomas' opinion most often influenced the other ones. Will mostly only got angry at Usui and Parker. His rage almost never extended to Thomas. "Look, I'm sorry, soldiers." He said. "I get you did what you thought was right, and I understand where you're coming from, but I want you to understand that this time...you were wrong."
"We weren't wrong, sir." Usui contradicted him. "We wouldn't have gotten back in time to save Max. And you know that. We stayed there until the police arrived and then we left. We didn't have enough time to get back."
"Maybe so, but at the very least, you could have tried."
"We couldn't have just left Parker there, sir." Thomas told him, still expressing his point. "He was injured."
"Max is dead, soldier." Will told him. He massaged his temple and looked down to the necklace hanging on his chest. He sighed and looked back up at the three of them. "Look, just send that guy away and we can call this all a wash."
Usui turned to Gary and nodded. "You should go. You're not a soldier. Civilians aren't really supposed to be here."
"Oh really?!" Gary laughed sarcastically. He rubbed his slicked back hair with his palm. "Listen, you guys talk about me like I'm some bird you can let back into the wild. Why don't I get a say in my own fucking trial?" The room stood silent for a moment and he seemed surprised, as though he expected a response. When he realized he wasn't getting one, he continued. "I came up here to drop you guys off. I came in to say I was sorry for hitting your man on the road. I never had any intentions of staying. I have to get back to my wife. So, am I free to leave, or does this guy have to call a recess first?"
"Well then, the choice becomes clear." Will laughed. He turned to the other men in the room. "Ousawa, if you could show this kindly gentleman the door."
"Yeah." Usui said, rubbing his hand over the head that had lost its greasy mop of black hair. "Come on, dude."
Usui walked towards the door of the morgue, wanting to get out of the aura of death that surrounded them. Gary followed closely behind. Thomas turned before they left the room and spoke to them. "Hey Gary." He turned right around to see what Thomas would say to him. "Stay safe, man."
"You too...man..." Gary replied awkwardly, realizing he didn't even know the names of the two men he gave rides to. He shut the door softly behind him. Thomas genuinely meant it. Although Gary seemed a bit arrogant to him, Thomas could tell he was a decent man. Something in the back of his head told him Gary would accomplish great things.
"Garter..." Will spoke after the door was closed. The light shining through the window in the corner of the room was dimming as the light of the day did. The dust particles floating through the room made it clear the morgue was not the cleanest. Thomas didn't want to think what it was from. "Garter, I hope you know we're friends. Our squad been together longer than most high school friendships."
"Yessir." Thomas replied. "We're friends."
"And I feel bad when I have to yell at you guys, but when you do things like that, I am still your Sergeant. The army has to come before that. I hope you understand." He sighed. Thomas felt a sense of sincerity in the man's voice that wasn't usually present. "I just want you to know it's not personal, okay?"
"Okay, sir."
Will cracked a small smile through the side of his mouth. "You're different from them Garter. You're a good man. Perhaps too good for your own sake. But you're an idealist. The world's not going bend to you just because you brake for birds. Sooner or later, you're gonna have to choose."
"Choose what?" Thomas asked.
"You're gonna have to choose if it's worth it; doing the right thing." He walked over to the other table where the devoured body of Max laid. "You're in the army now, Garter. I train ya to hold a gun, and that gun's not gonna brake for birds."
"It's not that simple..." Thomas sighed, letting his eyes fall into contact with Will's. It felt very uncomfortable and informal, but Will let it slide. Thomas, for the very first time, looked deeply into Will's brown eyes and saw a sorrow behind them. One he hadn't seen before.
Max's eyelids rose slowly, revealing blank spots where his blue eyes had been. What was left of his arms began to reach towards Will's face, in a pathetic attempt to grab him. The watery moaning the thing made was very unsettling. Thomas found it disgusting seeing a man with most of his torso missing, still seemingly alive.
"It's not that simple?" Will picked up the knife he had embedded it into the table and drove it deep into Max's head without losing eye contact with the soldier. The dead man's groan ceased and its arms fell back to the table. "It never is, Garter."