While she drove, Hanna’s mind raced. The monsters must have followed them home after the failed raid on the city. What if they were going to attack Lost Valley, as well? A few hours’ advanced notice might be the difference between life and death, between Brett living or being killed.
If she could just get to the intersection of the 210 and Glendale Freeway, she’d be able to make a difference. That was less than thirty miles down the road. The golf cart had its governor removed, allowing it to get up to fifteen miles an hour. If she kept up that speed, they’d make it to Hanna’s destination in about three hours—if they didn’t run out of power first. If that happened, she’d run till she got there. She even thought about leaving Theresa behind to lighten the load.
With no good options, she pressed the pedal to the floorboard. She had to alert Lost Valley about the Variant horde.
Lost Valley
Camp’s Radio Shack
Gary Gringleman
Over the years, the camp had grown, which brought increased responsibility to each member. The Darden twins and Gary’s brother, Gavin, used to all work in the communications shack. During the early days of the infection, the four boys would scour the shortwave frequencies in an attempt to contact their parents. That dream died long ago.
Trey Darden had been killed by Variants, and his twin brother, Brett, had become one of the camp’s best warriors. Gavin eventually left the shack and used his communication skills to take over as Mr. Carver’s driver and radio operator. This left Gary as the only radio operator for the shack. Both Gringleman boys liked the arrangement just fine. Gary liked the solitude of the night. His brother, Gavin, loved the daytime and was more of a “get out and do something” kind of guy.
Years had gone by since the world went south. The camp had grown, then shrunk when several dozen residents moved to Catalina Island. The population grew again then receded just a few months back when several families moved to Big Bear Lake.
All during that time, Gary stayed in the shack. He grew his knowledge and expanded his equipment. Now he had a proper tower, his own solar panels, and batteries to power the many different types of radios he’d accumulated. Last summer, they’d even installed a direct current heat pump that ran off the solar batteries, keeping his equipment from overheating. All in all, he was content. He felt like he was doing his part.
Using his electronic skills for the betterment of the camp wasn’t his only motivation. Late at night, he’d scan the frequencies, searching for more survivors. That was how Lost Valley found two small enclaves north of the city.
Truth be told, his quest to find more of the uninfected was more than just a noble gesture. He was searching for one in particular. His mother.
The last place she was known to be was in Sausalito, just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. There had been no word from her since the outbreak, but the presence of these small enclaves gave him a modicum of hope. Regardless of the odds, he continued his search.
He had developed friendships with most of the other night operators. They shared their rumors of families and small groups that remained hidden in the mountains and parks that covered much of the northern part of the state. He made sure his mother’s name was known to them all.
Gary was leaning back in his chair, reading a manual on ham radio repair, when the satellite receiver’s light popped on.
He turned up the volume on the set.
“…you copy? Over. This is Remote Fourteen. This is Remote Fourteen. Do you copy? Over.”
Gary checked the map and saw that Remote Fourteen was north of Pasadena, not far from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. One of the many remote stations they had established on major roadways, it was right at the intersection of the Glendale Freeway and SR 210. Each station was stocked with canned goods, two hundred gallons of biodiesel with a hand pump to dispense it, and a satellite radio with directions on how to communicate with Lost Valley. Survivors who ran across one of these small supply depots were encouraged to take what they needed and contact the camp, if they felt comfortable doing so. The depots were regularly checked to make sure the supplies were replenished and batteries were charged.
“This is Lost Valley. Send your traffic. Over.”
“Thank God. This is…” The woman hesitated, then resumed. “Oh, screw this military crap. This is Hanna Hill. Is this Gary?”
“Hanna!” Gringleman replied. “I didn’t recognize your voice. What’s wrong? Over.”
“They killed them all, Gary. Gold Creek is gone.”
She just stopped broadcasting. Gary waited for her to continue, then pressed the push-to-talk bar on the side of his radio microphone.
“Hanna, are you there? Over.”
“Yes. I’m sorry,” she replied. “I’ve been running for the last half hour. The Variants followed us back to Gold Creek. They overran us. They killed everyone.”
Again, she failed to say “over” and just went dark. She was frightened and exhausted.
“Hold on, Hanna. I’ll get Carver. Over.”
“No, wait. Gary, they might be coming for you guys too. You have to warn everyone. You have to warn Brett.”
“Are you safe? Over.”
“Yeah. For now. But we’re on foot, and I can’t run another step. If they find us, we’re dead.”
“Hold your position. I’ll send someone right away. Over.”
“Don’t leave me,” she pleaded. “Come back and get on the line.”
“Sure, Hanna. But only if you remember to say ‘over.’ Over.”
A few seconds passed before Hanna sent her message. “Very funny.” She sounded a little less frightened. “How’s this? Screw you, Gary. Over.”
“That’s my girl. Hold your position. I’ll let you know when to expect help. Over.”
“Thanks, Gary. Remote Fourteen, standing by. Over.”
“I’ll be right back, Hanna. Lost Valley, out.”
Ten minutes later, the camp’s QRF was lifting off in Donaldson’s Osprey while Everly was spinning up his SuperCobra nearby. Twenty minutes after that, Theresa and Hanna were being lifted back to Lost Valley while Donaldson reported that there were no sightings of a Variant attack from her direction.
Everly had taken a westerly loop around the camp. Once cleared, he shot north to Gold Creek. It was dawn by the time he got there. He was too late. The camp had been destroyed, and the Variants had gone to ground.
He hovered above the destruction, searching for survivors. Unlike the other lost encampments, this one had multiple corpses scattered around the grounds. Their picked-over bones were often scattered, but there were definitely leftover body parts throughout the facility.
Everly looped around the mountainside. Finding nothing, he shot back to Lost Valley. Another hundred souls had been lost.
San Fernando
Brainard Elementary School
Escondo stood in the school’s gymnasium, surveying his guards and captured humans. His entire horde had been called to the battle. The Carver was to be killed, once and for all.
It was disappointing that Carver was not among the humans they’d slaughtered. But the taste of fresh human flesh assuaged his anger. He smacked his oval sucker-like lips and picked shreds of human liver from between his fangs. He loved that meat.
With the dawn approaching, he ordered his flock into the nearby city. There were so many buildings to take refuge in that his massive horde easily found shelter. They would rest until nightfall then resume the search for the Carver and his nasty animal companion. Escondo was not going to return to the caverns beneath the city until Carver was dead and he’d consumed the wretched human’s liver.
Everly
Over Riverside, California
Everly shot high above the town. Riverside had been abandoned years ago. Its houses and streets were being slowly consumed by the encroachment of the surrounding desert. For years, the buildings lay uninhabited. The last twenty-four hours had changed that.
The Horde was on the move.
First, they were spotted in San Fernando, just down the mountain from Gold Creek. Everly had confirmed this the night after the facility had been overrun. The next night, the creatures moved south, consuming North Hollywood. The following night, they were in Glendale. That was followed by Anaheim and Santa Ana, Pomona, San Bernardino, and now Riverside.
The SuperCobra soared over the city as Everly recorded the infrared video of hundreds of thousands of Variants scouring the town. The white-hot blobs rushed from house to house, searching for anything to consume. Several times, packs of the creatures would be seen chasing some feral animals that had managed to eke out a life within the decaying homes.
After half an hour, he turned back to camp and delivered the bad news.
“They’re hunting us,” Carver said after watching the video. “They’re moving in our direction and haven’t stopped in over a week.”
“How long can they keep this up?” Harold Kinney asked. “There ain’t much to eat out there.”
“There hasn’t been much to eat in the city for years, and they managed to keep hundreds of thousands of them alive,” Carver replied. “Who knows what their food requirements are. The damn things won’t starve to death, no matter what.”
The room went silent. The town council, along with the camp’s military leaders, all sat at a large table in Beckham Hall. It was rapidly coming to a time when they were going to have to make a decision. Either fight the horde or abandon the mainland and move to Catalina.
Carver sat stoically. He knew what he wanted to do, but he had become enough of a politician to know that his idea had to come from someone else. It was just a matter of getting one of the council members to recommend it.
“I just don’t see a way to stop these things,” one of the councilmen said. “What is their estimated strength, again?”
“Two hundred and thirty thousand,” Carver replied, for the third time that night.
“We don’t even have enough bullets,” the man said despondently.
“Then we have to abandon everything we’ve worked for? Everything we’ve fought for?” a councilwoman said. “I’ve fought too hard to just give up.”
“Don’t tell me you’re thinking about Carver’s plan,” the first man said. “That’s lunacy. It’ll never work.”
Carver saw his opening and cleared his throat. The councilman rolled his eyes and sat back. “We have good weather to try this,” Carver began. “It’s still late January, and there’s definitely a strong Santa Ana wind out there. If we do this soon, like maybe tonight, we’ll have a chance to stop them.”
“And what? Take out the camp along with the creatures? I’ve seen what you’re planning, and you’re never going to be able to control it once you start. It’s suicide.”
“Suicide versus what?” Carver shot back. “You want to leave. At least my plan has a chance to save what we’ve done here.”
The councilman looked down and had no response.
“Let me propose this,” Carver said. “Give the camp twenty-four hours to gather their belongings. We can prepare to abandon Lost Valley. Let me try to stop them. If it gets out of control, we simply leave. If I’m right, we’ll be able to stay, and the threat will be gone.”
“You can’t argue with that,” the councilwoman added. “It can’t hurt to try.”
The rest of the council sat stoically. They would vote whichever way the councilman decided.
Finally, he looked up and nodded. “Twenty-four hours. I’ll give you that much time to implement your plan. If it doesn’t work, or gets out of control, we leave for the island.”
“That’s all I can ask for, sir. Thank you.”
“Do we need a formal vote?” the councilwoman asked. “All those in favor, raise your hands.”
All hands went up. It was unanimous.
“It’s in your ballpark, Mr. Carver.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Thank you all.”
Carver nodded and left the room. There was so much to do, but he had this idea mapped out on paper ever since the supply depots had been set up along the state’s decaying highways.
Finally, Carver had permission to implement his scheme. Operation Nero was about to begin.
— 23 —
If we have eight more victories such as these there shall be nobody left to bring news of them.
— A British politician learning of the “victory” at Bunker Hill
(226 men dead, 828 wounded out of 3000)
Perris, California
“We need to funnel them here,” Carver said, pointing at the map.
Lieutenant Burke nodded his head. The time to wipe out the Variant horde had finally arrived.
“I like it,” he said. “Simple with little chance of casualties.”
“Let’s hope so,” Carver replied.
“How long before we are ready.”
“We’re ready now. I have squads at each location and two tanker trucks ready to go as well.”
“When do we set it all off?” Burke asked.
Carver looked up at the heavens. He held his hand out, covering the setting sun so that the bottom of his pinky sat on the horizon. He counted his digits up to the finger that was blocking the sun. It was his index finger. Each digit represented about fifteen minutes of travel by the sun across the sky.
“Four fingers. That’s about an hour to sunset,” Carver said. “My crews will light it off in ten minutes. With the Santa Ana winds blowing, that should give us time to get the horde to the right spot.”
The plan was simple. Start fires upwind from the Variants. The dry, blustery breeze would carry the flames west, consuming the horde. The pre-positioned refueling stations were perfectly placed to provide fuel to ignite the flames. The tanker trucks would spray their contents in areas between the depots, ensuring that the line of death had no gaps.
“Let’s party,” Burke said gleefully.
Carver just smiled and turned away. He never trusted a man who looked forward to battle. It usually meant they either had no idea what they were getting into, or they were mentally unfit. In Burke’s case, it was a lot of the first and a little bit of the second. He was an inexperienced officer who was itching to make a name for himself. Pride and ignorance were not a winning combination.
Ten minutes later, Carver made the call. Nine depots and two trucks had emptied their fuel into the desiccated vegetation. The spills were ignited.
Fields once filled with grains and produce now lay fallow. The lack of irrigation over the last half decade allowed the native vegetation to take hold. Needle grass and wildrye were rampant. They were the perfect fuel for the job.
With the sun setting on the distant horizon, the horde would soon be on the move. The trick was to steer them in the right direction.
That’s where Carver came in. Once again, he and his Stryker crew would be the bait. Of course, Lieutenant Burke had demanded a role in the adventure. Carver’s Stryker would be escorted by his battle tank. With the Abrams’s ability to travel at over forty miles per hour, both vehicles should be able to easily stay ahead of the horde.
The key would be to maintain contact with the Variant pack as they retreated back to the kill zone. That shouldn’t be too difficult, but things never went as planned in a battle.
Carver radioed Burke, and the two vehicles began the fifteen-mile drive to Riverside. The northbound lanes of US 215 had been cleared just last year. It was a vital route that they used for trade. Now it was going to be the pathway to victory, if everything went even moderately according to plan.
The horde had taken shelter around the former university in Riverside. The large campus buildings, along with dozens of city blocks, were infested by the creatures.
Carver led Burke at a pace that would bring them to the campus just before sunset. After that, he’d get their attention and improvise a way to get them to follow. Then he’d lead them to their death.
University of California at Riverside
US Highway 215
; Carver slowed his Stryker. The northbound lanes split into two with a concrete wall between them. The Abrams tank was in one lane, while Carver’s Stryker was in the right lane next to the freeway’s ten-foot acoustic wall.
“Burke. We’re coming up to the campus on the right. Stop in two hundred meters.”
“Copy that.”
The Abrams continued forward while Carver held short. His side of the road dipped below ground level. If the Variants swarmed over the acoustic barrier on Carver’s side, his Stryker would be covered in seconds. Burke’s lanes, however, stayed elevated.
The Abrams plowed forward. It shoved several cars and light trucks aside then swerved around an abandoned eighteen-wheeler. It stopped adjacent to a large tower that rose from behind the concrete-and-brick wall. The campus was just on the other side.
The sun began its final gasp as it slowly dropped over the distant horizon.
“Viper One. This is Red One actual. Do you copy? Over,” Carver called over the radio.
Everly immediately answered. “Viper One here. Send your traffic. Over.”
Racing over the southern California valley, the pilot was following the progress of the oncoming flames.
“How’s our timing? Can we kick this thing off? Over.”
Everly confirmed the advancing wall of fire. The Santa Ana winds were whipping the flames as cyclonic towers of fire spun hundreds of feet into the air, spitting embers, which ignited tinder wherever they landed. Pillars of smoke ballooned into the evening sky. The wall of death was over fifteen miles long and advancing in quick, unpredictable spurts.
“Red One, your guess is as good as mine. The wall is moving faster in some spots and slower in others. No way to tell when it will arrive at the ‘X’. Probably in about an hour. It’s your call. Over.”
The “X” was March Air Base, about halfway between Riverside and Perris. The flat land was a perfect spot for the fire to do its job. With miles of native grass on either side of the former Air Force Reserve station, the inferno would have enough combustible fuel to consume every Variant in the horde.
Extinction Survival Series | Book 4 | Warrior's Fate Page 26