It’s set in the world of “From 1 to Zombie Apocalypse,” which was a game idea I had (which I used for a couple of classes.) It was a setting I really liked, which I’d like to go back to at some point, so this short story let me sort of dip my toe back in that setting.

Short story:

Ana adjusted the goggles on her forehead as she looked about the locker room. It was all very clean, and futuristic looking. Anything that wasn’t painted white was stainless steel, which made the whole place just feel sterile. Then spotting a mirror that was across the room walked over to it, wanting to see how she looked in her new work clothes.

Looking in the mirror she saw a reflection of herself. Most of her blonde hair was tucked messily under a wool cap, on top of which her goggles were fastened. She flexed at the mirror in various poses deciding that the outfit made her look pretty badass, like she were some sort of special ops soldier or something. Her outfit was covered with all sorts of pockets, and clasps, none of which she knew what it was for or what was in it.

There was a knock at the locker room door as it opened and Rob walked in. He was dressed almost exactly like Ana, but he was covering his eyes with his left hand.

“You decent?” he said stopping just inside the room so the door would shut.

“Yup,” Ana said sounding a little excited, as she quickly returned to a more normal non-flexing pose, “All set to start!”

Rob opened up a slit between his fingers to make sure all was alright before finally taking his hand away from his eyes, “Good, then we should get going. Our boss wants to talk to you before you start.”

Rob motioned for her to follow as he went out the door. Ana hurried to catch up with him, almost skipping with excitement thinking how much better a job this was then making coffee.

***

About 1 week earlier…

Ana wiped her hands on her apron after passing the freshly made cup of coffee to the customer across the counter. The campus coffee place was pretty quiet on Sundays, and today was no different. There were a few regulars who usually just came in to work on their laptops, and occasionally buy something to drink (usually only when they had to to keep their wireless internet connection.)

“Ana Svendova?” she heard someone ask.

Turning to where she heard the voice she saw a brown haired guy, who she judged to probably be a few years older then herself.

“Yes, that’s me,” Ana responded.

“I’m Rob Clay, we met at Stacey’s party the other week,” he said holding up his hand to wave slightly.

“Right,” she said starting to remember him, “you’re a graduate student right?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“So what can I get you?” she asked assuming he was there for some coffee.

“Actually I’m here about a possibly job opportunity for you,” he said, “I had heard you were looking for something that pays more.”

“Yeah I am,” she said feeling a thrown off by his unexpected response.

“Can you take a break so we can talk?” he asked motioning to a free table.

“Yeah… one sec,” she said before clearing up her throat.

“Anyone going to need anything?!” she yelled out to the few of customers in the shop, who all indicated in their own way that they were good.

“Sweet” she said before taking off her apron and hopping over the counter in one leap without disturbing anything.

The two of them found at a table a good ways away from the customers to sit at. “How did you hear I was looking for work?”

“Stacey mentioned you were looking for something to help pay your tuition, and I had told her at some point that my job covers my tuition,” Rob said.

“Really?” she said, “That would be perfect! My parents can’t afford to pay my tuition anymore so I need to find something that will cover it for my last year and a half.”

“I had a similar situation, but with the pay for this it more then covers my tuition,” he said.

Rob noticed Ana’s face changing from being excited to looking rather inquisitive, “Wait… so what is this job exactly anyway?”

“Well…” Rob said trying to decide the best phrasing, “I’m not allowed to say exactly what it is, but basically its security. I can’t say much more then that.”

Ana cocked her head to the side, which Rob could tell meant that wasn’t going to be enough information for her.

“I’m sure they’ll tell you more once you meet with them,” Rob said hoping that would be enough, “They looked at your records and want to meet with you as soon as possible.”

“They looked at my records?!” Ana said sounding a bit concerned.

“The job is basically working for the school, so they have access to all the records the school has on you,” he said, “It’s standard for them to take a look at that sort of thing.”

Ana hummed a bit as she rested her chin on her hand as she thought.

“I’m not really sure, it sounds a little too good to be true,” she said working out her thoughts verbally, “but I guess I can’t really be too choosy right now.”

“So should I set up the interview for you?” Rob asked.

“Yeah, sure,” she said sounding a bit reluctant, “I guess if I don’t like what they have to say I can always say no.”

Ana then stood up noticing someone new walking into the cafe and heading towards the counter.

“I gotta get back to work,” she said starting to make her way behind the counter, “could you set up the interview for tomorrow?”

“Sure,” he said as he stood up from the table as well, “I’ll have Stacey give you the details.”

***

The next day…

Ana stood outside the Landa Arts & Sciences building, which was one of the smaller buildings on campus. This was due to Brick City Tech being a school based mostly around technology based fields (ie: engineering, computer science, etc.) so there were not many liberal arts programs of study.

She looked at her phone again to check the email she had gotten that contained the meeting information. She had arrived a little early, not wanting to be running late to the meeting, but it was now 10:18 am, 18 minutes after the time she was told to be there. Then a door to the Landa building opened and Rob appeared out of it.

“You’re late,” she said in a joking tone before Rob could say anything.

“Sorry about that,” Rob said, “Lost track of time.”

Ana followed Rob into the building, and down a flight of stairs into the first level basement. Which was home to some classrooms but mostly was offices for the Arts & Sciences faculty. He followed him to the eventual end of the hallway which dead ended at some offices and an elevator. Rob pushed the button and the doors opened immediately. Inside the elevator it appeared as if it had been been built in the 70′s, and hadn’t been cleaned since then either.

Rob went to the panel of buttons, and rather then pressing any of them he slid a key into the emergency stop keyhole, and then turned the key. The doors quickly shut, and then the elevator suddenly began moving down.

“I always thought it was weird that this building had an elevator,” Ana noted, “Since it only has three floors.”

“Well that just makes it so it’s less likely to be in use when we need it,” he said.

Ana nodded, seeing as that made sense. “So who are ‘we’ exactly? Or am I going to have to wait for the elevator to reach where we are going?”

Rob looked at her, “You’ll have to wait. You’ll probably have to sign a non-disclosure agreement first.”

“Fun,” she said in a way that Rob couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or if she was excited about it.

They stood in an awkward silence for a few moments before the elevator stopped moving, and the doors slide open. The room it opened into was completely white. It was narrow at the end they were on (only as wide as the opening of the elevator,) but then progressively widened making the room sort of triangle shaped.

At the other end of the room was a large reception desk (also white,) that was maybe 200 feet from the elevator. Ana could see someone sitting at the desk, but could not get a clear look at them as they ducked back and forth between various monitors on the reception desk. Rob motioned for Ana to follow him out of the elevator, and she walked with him up to the desk.

As they approached the desk the figure finally stopped, and looked up at them. The receptionist short brownish red hair, and as best Ana could judge was likely in her 30′s. She also noticed that while she wore glasses there wasn’t actually any glass in them.

“Hello Robert,” the receptionist said with a smile, “I assume that this is the new recruit. Alex is waiting for you in the security office.”

“Thanks Rose,” Rob said before turning slightly toward Ana. “Ana this is Rose, Rose this is Ana.”

“Nice to met you,” Ana said with a little wave.

“Like wise,” Rose said with a nod.

Now I haven’t really gone over this, so if there are any spelling or grammar things let me know and I’ll fix them up. Also its about 2500 words, so its a bit long.

Short story:
Undisclosed location
Iraq

It had been 3 weeks, plus or minus a few days. Lt. George Hicks had stopped keeping track after a while, there didn’t seem to be much point in it.

The insurgents had nabbed him and the rest of his squad while they were on patrol. He had run through that day in his mind constantly, it had been completely routine up until they got ambushed.

He was pretty sure now that he was the only one left of his squad, he hadn’t seen any of the others in days. Or at least it felt like days. It was hard to judge time in his cell. There wasn’t much light, but there seemed to be more of it at times then there was at others. He had tried to use that cycle to judge the passing days, but he wasn’t really sure if it was accurate or not.

Even if all the others were dead he was pretty sure why he was still alive, he could understand Arabic. He wasn’t completely fluent, he’d picked it up what he could during his three tours. He had started off getting taught by translators, but the locals were very helpful in teaching him when they could.

His reminiscing was broken by the noise of arguing coming from a nearby room. The voices seemed to be getting loud as time went on, and he soon realized that it was because they were coming his way.

As they got closer the voices became more distinct. Two of the voices he recognized, the third voice however was new and not speaking Arabic. The two voices he recognized, from what he could tell, were arguing with each other about the third guy. It was hard to understand them, but from what he could pick up it seemed like they had captured the wrong person.

They kicked the door open as they dragged in the third guy. He had a bag over his head, and his arms were tied behind his back. They used his arms to push/drag him to the cell, the whole way he resisted trying to shake them off him. But from what George could tell it wasn’t a full hearted effort, he could tell the guy knew what was inevitable, and it was all really just for show and to save some face. Not that there was any reason to.

As he struggled he yelled at the two men in a language he didn’t understand. It seemed like it might have been Spanish, or French, or Italian. He wasn’t good with the European language. He was starting to regret not paying attention in French class in high school.

George didn’t move as they opened up the cell and tossed the man in. He wiggled a bit on the ground as he tried to get up without the use of his arms, but just as he got onto his knees the cell door slammed shut and locked, followed soon by the door to the room.

The man continued to scream at the empty room, and George waited until he finally calmed down before saying anything.

“Here,” he said as he stood up and approached the man, “let me get those things off you.”

The man did not act surprised to hear George’s voice, and sat still as he was untied. He blinked a lot once the bag came off his head. From what George could tell he seemed like he was in his thirties, and probably some civilian contractor based on the 5 o’clock shadow he was sporting that wasn’t military issue.

“So do you speak English?” George said as he sat back down at his spot on the floor.

“Among other things,” the man said with an impeccable Massachusetts accent.

“I thought you were European or something from whatever you were yelling at them,” he said.

“Nope, not European,” the man said as he rubbed his wrists where they had been bound. “I figured if I spoke English they probably wouldn’t have stuck me in with you.”

“With me?” George asked after a pause. He didn’t know what it was, but there was something about this guy that rubbed him the wrong way.

“Yeah, been looking for you,” the man said as he stood up, “you are a surprisingly hard man to find.”

“Well I haven’t exactly been trying to hide,” George replied. “What are you, special forces or something? Come to rescue me?”

The man scratched his head as he leaned against the bars of the cell, “Something like that. I’m here to make a deal.”

“A deal?” George said with a laugh, “What kind of deal could you possibly want to make with me? We’re both dead men, its just a matter of time.”

He walked towards the door of the cell hitting every other bar with his hand, “If I get you out of here, you’ll answer any questions I have for you. That sound fair?”

“Sure, whatever,” George said in a rather sarcastic tone, “I’ll answer whatever questions you got for me if you can get me out of here.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” the man said as he turned towards the cell’s door. After some sounds of metal scrapping metal there was an audible clank and the door started to swing open.

George stood up in shock at the opening of the door, “What the hell are you doing?!”

“Freeing you, remember?” the man said as he pushed open the door and started searching the room.

“They’ll fucking kill you!” George yelled trying to reason with the man.

“Well you said we were dead anyway. Why not now rather then later right?” the man replied as he gave up his search of the room.

George stood at the cell door not sure what to do, he really hadn’t expected he’d have any chance of getting rescued let alone some crazy guy showing up trying to rescue him.

“Stay here until I come back and get you, or someone else shows up to rescue you,” he said as he walked over to the door of the room. “If I don’t come back and get you I’ll find you once you get back to the States to make good on the deal.”

George stood somewhat in awe of the man, he seemed to have complete confidence in what was going to happen next. There didn’t seem to be hint of fear in him.

“Who the fuck are you?” George asked.

The man turned his head to look at George as he gripped the doorknob, “Just a journalist.”

* * * *

Two weeks later
Ramstein Air Force Base
Ramstein, Germany

George flipped the page on his book on Arabic. Since he had arrived at the hospital in Ramstein a little more then a week ago he had decided to really work on his Arabic, and hopefully become a lot more fluent in it before he was sent back into service. He really wasn’t sure why he was being kept in the hospital so long, since all that seemed to be wrong when he was rescued was some malnutrition and dehydration. He considered it to be a nice break at least.

There was a knock at his hospital room door, which caused him to instinctively sit up and put the book down expecting a nurse to come in and want to check on something. But as he looked at the door he didn’t see a nurse enter, instead he saw two men in military uniforms enter. The first of the two he recognized at Col. Archer, who had been the one to debrief him about his time as a captive. The other man was someone George hadn’t seen before, but he could instantly tell from his uniform that he was a General. George sat up as straight as he could and saluted as he slide his book closed and placed it on the table next to his hospital bed.

“At ease,” Col. Archer ordered as he and the General moved to the end of George’s bed.

“Lt. Hicks, this is General Warren” the Colonel said motioning to the General who merely looked at him as though he was quite irritated to be there.

The Colonel continued, “After reading the report of your accounts the General wished to meet with you to discuss some things about what happened.”

“Of course sir,” George said, “Whatever the General needs.”

George tried to quickly run through everything that had happened while he was held captive, and what he had told the Colonel during the debriefing, looking for something that might have brought this on. Perhaps he had over heard something important and hadn’t realized it? His internal dialogue with himself was suddenly stopped as the General cleared his throat and stepped forward.

The General was a surprisingly large man, considering both his age (which he guess was around 60,) and his rank. His hair was pure white, and combed back making it look very smooth, which was in contrast to his face which was not. His face had some wrinkles on it, most of which seemed to be on the right side of his face, which he realized at further examination were actually remnants of old scars.

“In your report,” the General started, “you stated that before you were freed there was another prisoner brought in. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You go on to say that he offered to free the both of you in exchange for some information at a later date. He then unlocked the cell and, i quote, ‘disappeared through the door into the rest of the hideout.’” the General stated glancing down from time to time at an open folder he held in front of him. “Shortly after which you were pulled out of the hideout by a squad of Marines that had been sent to retrieve you.”

“That’s correct sir.”

The General closed the folder with one hand and held it at his side, “Is there anything else you remember about the guy? The only information you gave on him was that he had said he was a journalist, and he could speak English and possibly Italian.”

“I can’t really recall much else.”

The General leaned forward a bit, resting one of his hand on the end of the bed, “Can you think of anything you might have forgotten to mention, or maybe have since remembered? Perhaps what he looks like, or a name? Anything?”

George paused for a minute thinking back on his short time in the cell with the man, but he was not trying to remember what the General wanted, but rather was trying to piece together what it was they wanted from that guy.

“I’m sorry sir, I put everything I remembered in my report.”

The General stood up straight again, letting out a humph as he did, “Very well, but as you mentioned in the report he said that he would get into contact with you once you were back in the States.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ll be sent back to the States in the next few days, and given some leave time. During which we’ll have you and your family under observation until he gets in contact with you. If he does not contact you within a month or so you’ll be assigned to duty at a local military facility until such time as he does contact you,” and with that the General turned and left followed quickly behind by the Colonel.

George slide back down into a comfortable position in bed, feeling as though a great weight had been lifted off him after the General left the room. His presence had been almost oppressive, but he smiled at the thought of getting to see his family. The thought was the only thing in his head as he dozed off to sleep.

* * * *

George awoke to the sound of metal hitting plastic. He recognized it as the sound of his chart against his hospital bed. Opening his eyes he found the room to be completely dark. His eyes adjusted to what little light was coming in through the windows. He couldn’t tell what time it was, but he could tell by the lights out the window it was the middle of the night.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” a voice said from the foot of his bed. It was a familiar voice, but he couldn’t place it as one of the nurses or doctors.

George rolled over onto his back and pushed himself up into a seated position. At the foot of his bed stood a man reading his chart by the light of a flashlight. It’s bright light caused him to squint, since his eyes were not prepared for it.

“Can you turn on that bedside light?” he asked as he pointed his flashlight at an adjustable lamp built into the wall next to the bed.

George did so, trying not to take his eyes off the man. The light clicked on, and he adjusted it to focus its light on the man. He recognized the journalist from the prison cell instantly in the lamps light. He had shaved, and was wearing a doctors coat over what looked like a suit minus the jacket, but even so he recognized him. George started to mentally beat him self up a bit for not realizing him sooner.

“What are you doing here?” George asked trying not to speak too loudly.

The man seemed to ignore him as he flipped through the chart, “Seems like you’ll be heading back to the States in a few days, that’s pretty nice.”

He slipped the chart back into its spot at the end of the bed and made his way around to George’s left side and pulled up a chair next to the bed.

“You said you were going to find me in the States,” George said hoping that the statement might lead to him answering the question he had asked before.

“I happened to be in town, and heard you were here so figured I would stop in and say hi,” the man said as reclined a little bit in the chair, at least as much as he could. “Well since I’m here I guess we can finish off our deal.”

George felt a thousand questions running through his head, many of which he verbalized, “But the military is after you, why are they after you? Who are you? What’s to keep me from calling in someone to arrest you?”

The man sat up, and leaned forward a bit, “As I told you before I’m a journalist. If I knew why they were looking for me I wouldn’t be here.”

George watched as the look on the man’s face shifted from being casual to being very serious, “Now we made a deal, so I’m going to ask you the questions I have, after which you can do whatever you want. But if you tell them you saw me tonight, then you aren’t going to get to go home.”

It was then that George realized that this had all been setup from the beginning. When he told him in the cell he would find him in the States he actually had had no intention to knowing that he would be under observation, so instead he meets with him in Germany and gets to use George getting to see his family as a bargaining chip for not getting informed on. George slouched a bit in his posture feeling somewhat defeated already.

The man pulled out a small recording device from his pocket and placed it on the bedside table between them saying, “I’ll make this as quick and painless as possible.”

George sighed, “I’ll answer your questions, I owe you at least that much.”

The man’s face seemed to become a little more relaxed as he began his questions, “Can you tell me about the incident involving the private military contractor RavenHawk?”

George suddenly felt as though his heart had stopped.