by A. J. Sikes
— 33 —
Emily retreated from the dog, holding the broken saucepan handle out like a knife. The monster landed in front of her and stalked forward, slavering and growling. Danitha had swung the skillet, striking the dog that leaped at her. But it only knocked the animal to the side. Now it was stalking toward her, and had her pinned against the truck. She tried to slide to her left, but the animal darted forward and barked, showing its maw of needle teeth. All the time, both dogs made a slight clicking noise from deep in their throats.
Emily wanted them to attack, so she could at least have a chance of defending herself. Danitha tried to move again, but the dog leaped to cut her off. In the corner of Emily’s vision, the driver struggled with the dog that had jumped from the truck bed. They rolled side to side on the ground. Snarling and growling mixed with grunts from the driver. The dogs in front of Emily and Danitha snarled and kept pressing forward, holding both women from moving.
Why don’t they attack? Emily wondered.
The telltale clicking of a Variant’s joints sounded behind her. She ran to her left, toward the nearest house, but the dog was faster and penned her again. The Variant was getting closer. Its clicking joints mixed with the snarls of the dogs, and Emily felt every bit of hope drain from her chest.
A gun shot cracked, then a grunt followed by two more shots. Both dogs backed up a pace before charging forward to bite at Emily and Danitha’s legs.
Emily stabbed with the pan’s handle, jabbing the dog in the head. It skittered to the side and moved for another attack. A heavy clang sounded, then another gun shot. The dog in front of Emily spun away with a hole in its side.
Emily looked up. Danitha held the skillet over a dead dog Variant in front of her. Its head was a mess of ragged skin and blood. Emily spun around, expecting a Variant to leap at her.
It was lying in the middle of the street, just a few feet away, with blood leaking from wounds in its head.
The driver came over and held a gun on them. Emily couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman. The person wore heavy coveralls and the face was covered in a scarf and goggles. A pilot’s cap covered the hair.
Blood stained the front of the driver’s coverall, and a jagged bloody tear near the collar showed where the dog Variant got its teeth in.
The driver took off the goggles and tugged the scarf down. Her round face was pulled with grief and sorrow. She teetered and stumbled back a step, then fell forward, catching herself on the hood of the truck. The driver’s eyes were rimmed with blood, and her mouth shook as she lifted the gun and asked, “Did they bite you, too?”
“No!” Emily and Danitha shouted together and put their hands out.
“Lucky,” the driver said, then turned the gun on herself. Emily and Danitha looked away before the shot.
The street was still and quiet with only the echo of the driver’s suicide ringing in Emily’s ears. She and Danitha stepped around the body and got into the truck. Emily scooted across the bench seat so Danitha could take the wheel.
“Keys still in it at least.”
She closed the door and reversed them a few feet so they could go around the driver’s body.
They left the neighborhood and got onto the road to the fire station.
Danitha asked, “Why’d she do that? Why’d she kill herself? We could have helped her. Could have taken her to that doctor. Maybe she has some medicine or something that could help.”
“There is no medicine for the virus, Dani. No cure exists.”
They drove quietly the rest of the way. People gathered outside of larger buildings as they got deeper into town. Some of them wore coveralls and goggles, like the driver. Emily kept seeing the woman in each of them, kept hearing her last word.
Lucky.
— 34 —
Jed flipped open one of the hippie’s notebooks as McKitrick took them back into town. A slip of paper fell out with two radio freqs on it. Jed recognized one of them as the blue net they used for commo with Greg Radout. He handed the paper to Mehta in the back seat.
“Try that other freq,” he said.
Mehta dialed it in. The radio was silent and stayed that way as they pulled into the shadow of the fire station.
Doctor DuBois was outside ushering injured people into the building. Some of them had cuts and scrapes, one limped with a broken leg. Jed couldn’t tell if any of them had been attacked by Variants, and he hoped the good doctor would have the sense to quarantine anyone who did.
He got out and walked up to her. Garza was nearby, talking with some of the Baytown militia, a mix of men and women. They all wore the same high-speed costume as the gate guards. One of them, a tall woman with close-cut blond hair, stood out as a leader. She directed three of the militia to support the demo effort at the clinic.
“The rest of you secure the neighborhood. House by house. Take everything to the northern burn trench.”
Jed approached and waved to the woman. She met him halfway.
“Sergeant Welch,” she said. “I’m Councilwoman Day. My guardsmen tell me you executed a prisoner at the north gate.”
“They spelled infected terrorist wrong, but otherwise that’s correct, ma’am.”
She blanched, and Jed explained what they’d found, how the hippie was infected and had a stash of anti-viral pills with him.
Doctor DuBois suggested he might have been using them to keep the infection from taking over.
“If that’s possible, we may have a route to a cure,” Day said.
“Doubtful, unless we also gain access to a secure and sterile lab facility,” Doctor DuBois answered.
“I’ll trust you to head up the effort to build one someday,” Day said. “Meanwhile, I have biohazards to address.”
She left to join her team of people outside the clinic. They were laying in charges around the building, and placing the 55-gallon drums of fuel inside the door and at the top of the staircase.
Both radios in Jed’s vehicle crackled. He took the one they’d got from the hippie, ignoring the other. It was Greg talking about something outside the fence line.
The hippie’s set had more important traffic on it. A man’s voice came across, sounding haggard and weak. Even though Jed had only spoken to him a few times, he knew he was listening to Sergeant Jordan.
“Attempted infil. I think we softened them, but it cost us. They took out all the dogs up here and put down three of my people. I’m injured. We need to regroup with the rest of the wolf pack if we’re going to take this place.”
Gunny Ewell replied.
“How bad are you hurt?”
“Leg wound. It’ll heal.”
“Any sign of Kip’s people?”
“Negative.”
“What about the snoop?”
“Almost had him at the Home Depot, but he slipped our net right before we took out Welch. At least there’s one headache we don’t have anymore.”
Jed felt his blood turn to fire the longer he listened. The conversation was partly in code, with other names and locations Jed couldn’t identify, but he’d heard enough to know his next steps. Parsons and Keoh would be avenged.
He threw the mic down when the conversation ended with Ewell closing the traffic. As he made his way to the fire station, two trucks pulled into the area. One held Greg and a few of his Six Team people. The other was one of the .50 call pickups from the bridge. It shuddered to a stop and Garza’s sister nearly fell out the passenger door. He ran over to help her while her friend climbed out from behind the wheel.
“Garza, they okay?” Jed called over.
“Rah, Sergeant. Just shook.”
Jed waved Garza off to the day room. McKitrick and Mehta had taken Keoh’s body around to a trailer the Baytown folks used to move the dead. She’d be buried, unlike the people killed in the Variant attack.
Greg came over to Jed and extended a hand. “I’m sorry about what happened. I know that doesn’t help, but—”
“Forget it. You couldn’t have k
nown they were listening to our commo.”
“What the—?”
“Hippie was on the blue net. He had another freq he used that put him in touch with Ewell, back on Galveston. Gunny’s behind all this.”
Greg chewed on the info, kicked at the dirt.
“That explains the Humvees then. Saw two of them racing off after the attack here, same ones from this morning. Sounds like some of your own people went rogue.”
“They did, but they aren’t our people anymore. Anybody working with Ewell is no better than bin Laden.”
“You going back for him?”
“Don’t see how I can avoid it. Soon as we’re squared away, we’re moving out.”
Greg nodded and said, “You’re gonna need watercraft. There’s a launch by the Goose Creek Graveyard. Right at the south edge of the community. Should be a boat there you can take, but I’ll talk to the council to make sure.”
“Appreciate it. And make sure they know we aren’t asking permission.”
Greg gave Jed a look that said he understood, then walked over to the clinic where Councilwoman Day was standing with her demo crew.
Jed set up a rough operations order in his head as he went back to the fire station.
They knew their enemy, could estimate his strength, knew the terrain on Galveston. Jed was still puzzling over how they would conduct the mission when he got to the fire station and nearly ran into Garza coming out the door.
“Mehta’s been reading that hippie’s notebooks, Sergeant. Some wild shit in there.”
“Like what?”
“Like a whole fucking diary of how Gunny did it. He blew the bridge, like LT said.”
Garza filled him in as they went inside and joined the others in the day room.
“The hippie dude, his name was Lou. He was a pharmacist here. Had a stash of every drug you can think of. Used to trade them for sex and whatever he needed, until Gunny came to him with a bite. This was all before we got to Galveston, any of us. Kip, Jordan, even LT.”
“So, he was a drug dealer. I’m still not sad he’s dead,” Jed said.
“It’s more than that, Sergeant,” Mehta said. “Lou didn’t know that Gunny was sick with the actual virus, but the pills he had helped him keep it down. Then Gunny started bringing other people in with bites. Kip’s squad first, and then after they left, Jordan and his people. Lou figured it was rats biting everybody, or something like that, but then he saw a bat in Gunny’s rack spot. That’s when he started taking pictures. We looked at all of them. They’re pretty fucked up, Sergeant. Gunny went nuts.”
Jed lifted the camera and checked. The photos went back several months, and showed a progression of horror the Gunnery Sergeant had brought upon his own Marines, turning them into monsters that he could control. The earliest photos were of bats roosting in and around Ewell’s rack. Then the dogs appeared. The most recent pictures of him were taken from high up, like Lou had been inside the TOC on the second floor looking down on Ewell’s rack spot behind the building. One picture showed Ewell feeding the dogs and bats from a sack. In another, the sack went into a refrigerator next to the Gunnery Sergeant’s rack. In another, he pet one of the dog Variants while it chewed on a human arm.
The Variants had vanished, and Ewell had brought them back as his children.
Jed picked up one of the notebooks and thumbed through it. Lou had taken detailed notes of everything Gunny was doing. Including setting up the bombs that would take out the bridge.
He said he was going to bulldoze the cars off the causeway, make a path for the refugees. He did, but he also planted bombs all along the route. He made me and one of the engineers help him. I didn’t understand, but wasn’t about to ask him why he did it. He told Jordan though, and I was in the room. They’d turned me the night before. I guess they thought I was really one of the pack.
They don’t have enough dogs to take over the bigger settlements on the mainland. Ewell’s afraid they’ll be slaughtered if they try to attack Baytown now, but he wants to try for the garrison at Texas City. They were talking about putting one of the turned people from Galveston into the garrison community. Jordan took the guy with him when he left.
Jed kept flipping through the book, growing more furious with Gunny Ewell as he scanned Lou’s notes.
They’ve killed most of the other survivors. Just a few of us are left, and I heard Ewell saying they’d be used to feed the pack. I’m getting out tonight or tomorrow morning. If anyone finds this, I’m already dead. The antivirals don’t kill the bug, but they slow it down enough that you can feel human. Mostly.
Sometimes I see the other Marines, the ones who aren’t turned yet. Sometimes I want to—
Jed closed the notebook and tossed it with the rest of Lou’s stuff.
McKitrick took out her cleaning kit and disassembled her weapon. She looked at Jed as she worked and asked when they were heading out.
“Tomorrow, first light. We put Keoh to rest, then hit the water. There’s a boat launch by the graveyard.”
— 35 —
The squad had loaded up as much as they could fit in the SUV, piling their packs in the back, along with tools to dig Keoh’s grave. Councilwoman Day authorized two HE rounds for McKitrick’s 203. Everyone carried a near max load of ammo for their rifles. Jed and Garza both received sidearms as well. Keoh’s body was wrapped in a sheet and on a trailer hooked up to their vehicle. Councilwoman Day and Doctor DuBois stood by as the squad mounted up.
“We’ll see what we can do with the antivirals,” Doctor DuBois said.
Jed didn’t respond. He knew this could be his final mission, and he wasn’t about to distract himself by hoping about a cure for the virus.
“Good luck, Sergeant,” Councilwoman Day said, coming around to the passenger door.
He nodded and lifted a hand, but kept his mind focused on the mission ahead. Day joined a group of her people outside the clinic. They were finally going to blow it this morning.
Garza lingered by the fire station, saying goodbye to his sister. She and her friend were safe now. They’d survived running through the wilderness, and they’d defended themselves in the recent attack. Garza took his time saying goodbye, though. When he got to the SUV, everyone else was inside and ready to roll.
“They’ll be okay, Garza,” Jed said. “Good people here. They’ll watch out for your sister.”
“Rah, Sergeant.”
“And we’ll watch out for you,” McKitrick said, looking at Garza in the rear-view mirror. “We all go out, we all come back.”
She wheeled them onto the street and through the community. All along their route, Baytown residents held up hands and waved. Some people shouted good luck or God bless. Greg had spread the word about what they were doing. It was hardly the send-off Jed had wanted. He’d have preferred empty streets and silence to let him focus. But he understood it. These people were only alive because their security teams fought off the Variant attack. They needed to see somebody playing the dragon slayer.
The road to the graveyard wound through the community and crossed a narrow stretch of Goose Creek near its headwaters. They veered under a highway and around the ruins of housing tracts yet to be reclaimed. Goose Creek widened after an oxbow, and the graveyard came into view at the water’s edge with a narrow parking area to one side. A small pier sat at the far end of the lot, with a few fishing vessels moored.
Jed and the squad worked in silence, taking turns digging and providing security, with one person in the SUV to monitor the radios. After two hours of work, they lowered Keoh’s body into the grave with her rifle, just as they’d done for Parsons. Everyone took turns tossing in a handful of earth before filling the hole.
They moved their gear to the biggest boat, a cabin cruiser like the one they’d ridden around the bay, with Skip at the helm. McKitrick got them moving at a slow clip. Mehta was their RTO now, with both radios at his feet.
“We’re going into unknown territory,” Jed said. He sat against the gunw
ale at the back of the boat. “We know Galveston, but we don’t know what Ewell’s done to it since we left. And we don’t really know his strength either. Could be he’s got the whole place crawling with Variants or he could be alone there.”
“Sergeant Jordan’s squad can’t get there in Humvees, right?” Mehta asked.
“Far as we know. But he might have a way across the water. We should assume his squad is there.”
“So, we recon from offshore,” Garza said. “Where do we start?”
“I’m guessing he’s still around the TOC. That’s the safest place on the island right now. It’s the most built up, easiest to harden. He’ll be watching the water wherever he is, but we can approach from the east, give ourselves some distance to walk in and scout his AO. Assume IED threats, people. The only good news is he doesn’t know we’re coming. I heard him and Jordan on the radio and they think I’m dead. Probably think the same thing about y’all. Doesn’t change our mission. This is straight movement to contact. We look for a fight until we find it and end it.”
The squad gave back mumbled Errrs.
McKitrick put on a little speed and they rounded a second point extending off the Texas coast. The remains of Commander Mercer’s domain were up ahead. Someone had already begun dismantling the fencing.
Scavengers probably, Jed thought. But he kept a corner of his mind open for the idea that Ewell had been here and taken what he could to help fortify himself on Galveston.
By the time they reached the island, Jed had come up with a dozen ways the mission could go wrong, and his doubts didn’t let up after he stepped onto dry land again. They left the blue net radio behind, but Mehta carried the one tuned to Ewell’s channel. Jed hoped the traitor didn’t change his freq before they reached him.
The team moved through a shipyard and around the skeletons of industrial buildings, crossing a highway to the marshland on either side of railroad lines that extended down the length of the island. They moved fast over a narrow strip of swampy soil, with Jed in the lead. He knew the danger of an IED and an ambush, and also knew the longer they delayed, the more time their enemy would have to prepare for their arrival. If they’d been spotted, Ewell could be laying in defenses right now, setting up an ambush, or putting his Variant servants on the hunt.