Utterly Mad

Timeline: Six months before the cataclysm.

Characters: Nathaniel.

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Nathaniel still felt a bit awkward in the leather jacket Hector had given him. Back in their regular unit he would've been out of uniform wearing it, but so long as he put the right patches on, in the correct manner, Division XIV didn't seem to care.

What was more relevant was the training and the mission. Right now it was the former that led to the vehicles of 2nd Company into a small town, securing positions at each major road in. New England charm aside, it reminded Nathaniel a bit of the town he grew up in down south, until he was about 13. One other difference was the Priority Site a couple miles out of city limits, and the infestation that came from it. The maps officially listed it as a water treatment plant, which explained a lot.

It was just their company of XIV Armored, and 3rd company of XV Medical. The place had maybe a few hundred people at most, and several now roamed the streets after succumbing to the undead plague. People higher up on the chain of command had already shut down local media and incorporated local police into the operation. It resembled a small-scale mimicry of an uncontrollable plague that would soon wrack the world, as Nathaniel would recall after the cataclysm started, but back then it was a trivial training exercise.

Nathaniel's tank crew was there maintaining a roadblock, watching a line of cars backed up before them. There were police officers and men in modified Army uniforms, all forced to wear gas masks, ordering people out of the vehicles for examination. One car at a time. "3b. Move your vehicle to the lot on the left and enter the medical tent. You'll be fine within a few days." said a woman with a Division XV patch, addressing an old man in a worn-out pickup.

The next was a family. A man, a woman, a sickly-looking young boy. The soldiers there took a few blood samples to run test strips on, examining their eyes, ears, nose, and throat as well, checking pulse. The man and woman were told to continue on due to having minimal infection, but the young boy was directed to a tent on their right.

Nathaniel gave a sigh at that, he could see the way the man reacted when the family was asked to separate. He also knew what the second medical tent was for, for any victims triaged as 5a or 5b. The resulting shouting match between the couple and the woman, who he knew as Sergeant Anderson, was getting everyone riled up.

It was when a man in the next car back stepped out, holding a pistol, that all hell broke loose. The M2 Nathaniel was operating gave a resounding boom as it cut the man down, followed by point-blank gunfire from the sergeant raking the couple up front when the husband had tried to push past them. In an instant people were getting out of their cars and scrambling in a panic, one vehicle pulling away and running someone over in an attempt to rush at the checkpoint. The main gun reduced it to a burning pile of scrap a split-second later.

Their sector of the town was soon in chaos, and Nathaniel felt nothing as he acted according to his orders. Any disruptions to triage will be assumed post-critical and dealt with accordingly. He simply hoped that the other checkpoints were having less trouble, but distant gunfire hinted at others having problems of their own.

Worse, fires were spreading through several of the residential blocks. The advanced troop carriers were sent in to assist in managing evacuation, maintaining quarantine, and dealing with the casualties that had already succumbed and stood back up. The obstinate reason for the checkpoints, given Nathaniel's crew had already put down a good dozen or two undead that strayed too close to the evacuation queue, using the driver's mounted M240 and the commander's M2.

The fires were thanks to the soldiers in full MOPP gear, wearing Division XV patches, each squad having a man toting a flamethrower. Shoot the undead, then burn the remains, and any signs of civilians holed up in their homes rather than cooperating followed suit.

Despite the chaos, at the end of the day they hadn't lost a single person, only one or two members of the medical company treated for minor bites and scratches, one checkpoint guard that suffered bruises from a rioter's rifle rounds being caught by his ballistic vest. It would be easily covered up, and of the 700 people in the tiny little town, over 200 had been evacuated or treated successfully.

Nathaniel would later find his friend Hector's checkpoint had been one of the only ones that operated without any problems, which led to a good bit of irritated remarks about the earlier gift of a so-called lucky jacket...