***This story contains scenes of horror violence... reader discretion is advised...
***
Tokyo was the front page news that no one knew anything about, after a catastrophic blast inside the city and the initial reports of a contagion, the country became an information dead zone. With my lucky stars though I negotiated my way into being the only reporter to get eyes on the situation on the ground.
I flew to the city thinking this story would be great for my career. I flew there imagining the tabloids clawing for my words like hungry animals. That my first hand account would be pure gold, this story would set me up for life.
Jesus Christ I was so wrong.
Looking back on it now forty years later I should've taken the hint the second I landed in Tokyo, I should've just fled off world before the planetary quarantine.
I used my only favors in the Japanese government to catch an army resupply ship to the city. The troop carrier's three hundred seats were full of young brave men. It's cargo hold where I resided held another three hundred soldiers, many were praying desperately, a lot of them looked like young reservists or 'weekend warriors' as the full time military called them.
The cold, high-roofed cargo hold stunk of perspiration and fear, a constant chant of whispers and soldiers double checking their equipment for the tenth time hung in my ears. One of the soldiers beside me gazed tenderly at a photo of a young woman holding a toddler no older than two. He swiftly tucked the photo back under his vest as a young officer walked by confidently, his uniform immaculate without the sweat stains carried by the enlisted troops under him. He stopped by the young soldier and peered down at him with his hand extended, reluctantly the private relinquished the photo to his commander who gazed at it blankly. "If we fail here, they will die. Die for them." The officer spoke with the barest hint of sympathy.
Before he turned away I asked him. "Lieutenant, Mike Cook, I'm a report..."
"My C.O informed me of your presence on the ship and I have no time for suicidal journalists with big pockets."
"Lieutenant I was told this was a resupply ship? Are you willing to comment on what's happening in the city?"
"We are the supplies sir and all I'll tell you is that you should've run. Only a miracle is gonna keep you alive over the next few days."
That comment filled me with dread but I won't lie I was too rebellious and determined to back down from this. Looking back on this moment I envy the young's unwavering sense of immortality.
I began to feel the ship slow down through my boots as klaxons began to erratically light the cargo bay in strobes of hazard yellow. The three hundred soldiers raised themselves in unison as I nervously collected myself and my gear. I could feel the atmosphere change as a tide of adrenaline washed over me and a fleeting sense of selfish safety among all these trained soldiers. With a high pitched hum the cargo ramp slowly lowered, meter by meter the day's dying sun threw the last of it's light to blind me as my eyes struggled to adjust for a few brief moments.
Before my vision returned fully I was corralled forward by the troops behind me as we disembarked with an anxious haste. No matter how hard I tried I struggled to deal with crowds of people no matter how 'organized' they were and I moved quickly to the side to escape the march. Once free I allowed myself a moment to breathe in the space as the sounds assaulted me from close by and far in the distance.
I'd covered war-zones before and the sounds of gunfire always seemed to follow a rhythm, halting to maintain accuracy, cool the weapon or to reload. The sound from the city outskirts a few miles from me however was a near constant droning storm coating the atmosphere around me with a constant wavelength or danger. We had landed in what must have been a park before the military moved in, the feeling of grass and soft earth under my boots was a rare feeling. Looking around me though most of the grass was gone. Either ripped up along with the hundreds of trees that were once rooted here or churned under hundreds of feet into the slick mud that near turned this field into a marsh. Remnants of flower beds littered the flat ground, their once beautiful colors now flattened and drowned out of existence by the rows of supply ships near sinking into the mud with their own weight.
A convoy of trucks weeded their way through the crowds of personnel before parking themselves just outside the ships' access ramps including mine. Too many to count I watched motionless at the flatbeds closest to me, their cargo was caged like animals. To this day the sight still saddens and horrifies me.
The cages were filled with civilians near climbing on top of each other without order or prejudice to age or gender, desperately trying to escape their mobile prison, their screams wrenched at my heart as soldiers exited the flatbeds and hesitantly prepared to open the cages. The second they were unlocked the civilians gushed out of the cages like an opened artery, falling harshly into the wet mud as those just behind landed on top of them. After a few seconds some gained purchase to raise themselves up and run, throughout all of this the gunfire from the wall was drowned out by sounds more animalistic than human. I could do nothing but watch as the mob ran chaotically towards the ship, in a stampede of panic, they trampled over each other without care, the soldiers didn't seem to care less, they had bigger problems.
I made eye contact with a man for a split second as he trampled a young woman, desperate to reach the ship with his child in his arms and recoiled at the haunted, primal look in his eyes. The majority of the crowd's clothes were torn and dirtied beyond salvation with the only colors I could see being mud or blood with the lingering scent of human waste breezing past my nostrils.
Once they were in the ship the ramps started to raise and a chilling choir of terror and despair competed with the firing of the ships' engines until the ramps finally clamped shut and they departed to a destination unknown leaving the muddied wasteland and myself with a haunting emptiness.
I stood watching the ships fly into the forgotten distance until I saw a small boy walk in front of me, no older than ten walking alone hopelessly into the empty field. He seemed lost in a state of limbo, clutching a useless toy gun, his innocence clearly lost to whatever horrors he had seen back in the city.
"Hey kid!" I stopped him with my hand, upon closer look he was emaciated, I could feel his bones poking through his skin and clothes. "Where's your parents?"
He simply swung his head from side to side, I knelt down, trying in vain to wipe dried blood from his cheek which came away in crumbles that fell effortlessly from my fingers, a few of the boy's teeth were missing too.
I heard my name being shouted by a soldier waving at me to approach him, standing with a weary looking squad beside a battered APC. I lifted the boy to my hip near effortlessly as I walked swiftly towards them. As I drew closer to the soldiers, little alarming details caught my eye, their exhausted posture a stark contrast to the straight-backed troops i flew in with as well as their stained and torn uniforms. Their body armor was littered with scratch marks penetrating the protective metal. The APC was more alarming with deep stretches of armor designed to resist bullets and explosives gouged out leaving gaps a few inches deep. Every now and then there were pieces of armor that looked almost melted away.
"Mike Cook?" The Sergeant asked as my eyes followed the lit cigarette bouncing in his lips.
"Yeah!"
"I'm Sergeant Taksahi. Your riding in with me and my boys then we'll take you to our C.O." He looked at the child with the briefest hint of disdain. "Did he come in with the refugee trucks?"
"Yes, do you have any spare food? He doesn't look like he's eaten in days." I asked without any belief they would provide any.
Proving me wrong a young private with a bandaged eye rustled an energy bar out of his trousers and handed it to the boy who almost tore it out his hand and ripped the wrapping in a starved frenzy before devouring it in a few heartbeats.
"Jesus" I exclaimed.
"I know," The Sergeant muttered as he hawked and spat before continuing to smoke. "Fucking animals in those camps are merciless when it comes to the food. We're leaving in five, we cant leave him out here alone, there's MRE's in the sledge he can have. Doubt he'll survive another evac rotation without the calories." Hastily the Sergeant picked out another cigarette, looking at me he motioned it towards me. "Need a smoke before we leave?"
"No thank you. I quit a few years ago."
"That'll change before the end of tonight I guarantee you. You armed?"
"I'm a journalist Sergeant, I'm here to report not to fight." I was shocked, never in my time being attached to a military element had I been asked to carry a firearm.
"Hoshi give him your sidearm." The Sergeant turned towards the half blinded Private.
