The End Time Saga (Book 5): The Holding

by Greene, Daniel

  Tess’s ears were assaulted by high-pitched ringing. She rolled to her shoulder, sitting upright. Piteous screams came from Low’s mouth. “My fucking hand!”

  She scooted her hands beneath her and kicked her legs while pulling her arms out from underneath. Her slender body and flexible frame proved enough to get her hands to her front.

  Low’s screams cut off as Jarvis choked the man with both hands. Low fought him with his single hand pushing Jarvis’s face, bleeding on him with his stump. Blood soaked both the men, staining their soiled uniforms. Jarvis growled as he strangled his friend, his eyes growing wider with rage.

  As the men struggled, Tess crawled over the broken glass, looking for anything to fight with. The MRE package lay tipped on its side. The canvas plastic package crinkled as she crushed it with both hands and found the golden-brown plastic spoon. Her greedy fingers wrapped around it. She yanked it free from its package-like sheath. Bits of rice and beans still clung to the end.

  Both men were slick with blood as Low’s hand slipped off Jarvis’s face. He slammed Low’s head into the floor repeatedly. “Die, you fucking coward.”

  She was almost silent. Her boots were soft on the carpet with only the occasional piece of glass crunching, and Jarvis paid her no heed in his violent rage. Low’s legs kicked frantically.

  Crunch! Her boot ground a shard of glass. Jarvis turned in her direction, face twisting in surprise.

  With both hands, she swung with all her might. The spoon snapped on impact, but the handle punctured the soft tissue of Jarvis’s eyeball, sinking into his skull. His hands leapt to his face. “You fucking bitch!” Squeezing his eye socket, he tried to hold the pieces of his eye together. A mess of reddish fluids seeped between his fingers and ran down, saturating his face. His other hand felt on his hip for his axe handle.

  Tess stumbled for the door and ripped it open. Bullets punched through it, revealing its hollow insides. She kicked the storm door, and the bitter cold night bit at her as she ran.

  Willie jerked his head up as she bolted into the cold. Using both hands, she unraveled the horse’s reins as quickly as she could. The windshield of the car imploded. The snow and glass sunk inward.

  Yanking Willie’s head to the side, she led him toward the forest. She tried to slip her foot into the stirrup again and again as they hobbled along.

  “Get back here!”

  His boots crushed the snow beneath them. He shot more bullets in her direction, all of them missing their mark. She used the pommel to hoist herself atop the beast and rode into the forest. She turned back as the nasty cold air whipped her, and she could see the soldier running out of the house in a mad dash, rifle on his back and axe in hand.

  Willie moved into a gallop and she leaned in abreast of his mane.

  Jarvis’s voice trailed behind them. “Get back here, you bitch!”

  ALVARADO

  Northern Mississippi River

  Marines were spread along the stretch of river ice in two teams. Each team had a sled and took turns bounding over one another as they planted blocks of C-4 and ran detonation cord between them.

  Any kind of air support would have changed the game. Even with civilian helicopters, they could hover above and drop amounts of C-4 explosives at intervals and fly away, making it a four-man job tops. They could even ignore the dead staring mindlessly up at them in the process. They could even enjoy the mutual destruction of the dead and ice from a safe distance. But on the ground, everything was different.

  The river hadn’t frozen all at once leaving the ice in a smooth surface like a small lake or pond, something that she would imagine local kids skating on. No, the river was composed of rough irregular ice chunks pressed together and jutting into the air like rebellious tectonic plates.

  The Marines slipped often and found traction difficult even with the sharp crampons attached to the snowshoes. They’d been forced to shoulder their snowshoes and carefully make their way along the center of the frozen river. They hustled along the ice, dealing with any single Zulus with knives and entrenching tools.

  Running the cord between the blocks was a nightmare, and both planting teams made slow progress as they stuffed the nylon cord, really a compressed explosive, in nooks and crannies to avoid a negligent Zulus from tripping over it.

  The other problem they were facing was getting far enough away and on land when the explosives went off. If they detonated as they went along, the dead would be drawn in by the explosions making forward progress impossible. They would have to clear a sizable section of river to make a dent in the horde of Zulus, starting with the river front near Outpost Barron.

  Alvarado knelt to the ice. She attached the open end of a blasting cap to the detonation cord then gently pushed the explosive edge into the brick of C4.

  Standing, she evaluated her sister team led by Riddle. They should have bounded past her by now. The landscape was a dreary bleak off-white, difficult to make out anything in particular. Her men and the dead were black oblong shapes struggling along it.

  Triple gunshots penetrated the air, echoing like someone had dropped a pallet on a cement floor in an empty warehouse. The sound rippled down the river’s frozen surface, nothing to impede the acoustic wave.

  Her eyes instinctually went in the direction of the booms. The clouded sun still managed to blind them off the jagged whiteness and she was forced to shade her eyes. Only three Marines were standing. More gunshots blasted from their weapons. The order had been explicit: only use firearms in the most dire of situations.

  She turned and looked the other way. Dead trickled in from the Wisconsin side of the river, adjusting their almost seamless course. She peered back at the besieged Marines. A pack closed in around them. The fourth Marine now stood. His form was shaking, his head jerked from side to side as the virus began attacking his nervous system. He lunged with the agility of a fresh Zulu, his mouth biting the neck of the Marine next to him. He ripped his head backward, taking clothing and flesh away from their owner. His victim’s hands leapt to his throat as he collapsed to his back.

  She forced air from her nose to steady herself. “You two with me.” She eyeballed Lance Corporal Rasmussen. “If we go down, blow it.”

  His eyes expanded beneath his heavy brow and bushy eyebrows. “Ma’am?”

  “No questions. Just detonate everything.”

  “We aren’t getting far without the other sled.”

  “Set ’em and run. That’s an order.”

  Rasmussen glanced at Finch and O’Bannon. “Yes, ma’am.”

  An M27 thundered in the distance. Powpowpow. Powpowpow. Zulus jostled and went down as bullets sprayed gore like they’d hit a wall of denser than normal flesh, larger bits flying.

  She took off running toward Riddle’s team. At least to her it was running. She was slow over the ice, each uneven chunk taking its turn to step up and trip her. Nothing could be done as another Marine went down while others engaged in frantic hand-to-hand combat. Only the lone Marine near the sled fired his weapon. He spun in a circle, firing a burst in one direction and then the other, taking down the nearest Zulus.

  Slowing, she steadied her firing platform. An infected closed on the Marine from the rear. There was no order to their assault, just assault. She shot her weapon, and its head jerked to the right, partially spinning its body. Not bothering to make sure it was still, she closed on the besieged men, air biting her lungs like infected.

  A Marine turned and faced her, blood drenching his lips. She thought it was Adams. Crimson spread over his face like he’d been drunk while applying make-up. She shot him in the head, and he rolled on his side. O’Bannon and Finch covered her flanks, firing like mad into the dead.

  Riddle spun with his gun pressed against a meaty shoulder and aimed at her. He blinked recognition. “Jesus.”

  She glared past him. “Let’s move, Marine.”

  He patted on his leg. “Leg’s twisted. Leave me.”

  “We ain’t leaving any Marines.”


  Riddle’s face twisted in anger. “Blow those charges!”

  “Major, more are coming!” shouted O’Bannon.

  She bent down and removed a detonator from her cargo pocket and attached it to the det cord. She flipped a switch on the detonator. A thirty-second timer powered on, ticking down with every quick second.

  “Good on you, Mad Isabel. Finish the mission. I’m nothing but dead weight.” He rotated to the side and rattled off a few rounds with his M27.

  His eyes widened in surprise as she wrapped an arm around his broad back, gripping his belt on the other side. She heaved and grunted with exertion. “Move, Marine.” O’Bannon grabbed his other side and they stumbled toward the shore.

  “What about the sled?” screamed Finch.

  “Leave that shit!”

  Finch covered their backs as they moved. “Our explosives?”

  “Leave it.”

  She glanced down river at the Marines ahead of them setting charges. They ran for the shore, scrambling over the uneven terrain. “This way.”

  They were almost to the icy riverbank when a roar ripped the landscape, riding its frozen surface like the earth was cracking in half. They were boosted into the air and thrown like tiny ants on an exploding ant pile. As a group, they were launched into hard ice layered with accumulating snow. The impact took her breath away, forcing her eyes closed.

  As much as she wanted to hold her stomach, she covered her head for the secondary effect of an explosion, the debris.

  Chunks of ice rained from the sky in a hailstorm of death. It was a shower of frozen shards like the heavens were falling to the earth. The sound was as deafening as the explosion itself, the crackling of ice on ice prevailing over everything else.

  As it lessened, she moved to her knees and crawled over to Riddle and O’Bannon. She placed Riddle’s limp arm over hers and she tugged. He hoisted upward a few inches.

  “Wake up!” The ringing in her ears was fierce like her head itself was the bell.

  Hands gripped her jacket from behind. She chopped rearward with a forearm that turned into a shove. She fell back on top of Riddle, fighting to get her carbine from her side.

  Muffled yells pierced the bells in her ears. “Major!”

  She blinked away her fury. Living, breathing, fighting Marines stood in front of her. Uninfected by the virus. Not the dead.

  They helped her to her feet, gesturing toward some sort of waterfront warehouse. They hauled Riddle and O’Bannon upright and dragged them to the building. Rasmussen waved her forward and inside followed by the others. The warehouse doors rolled closed behind them, and they stood for a moment, weapons trained on the door. Tense seconds fled in half-time with her heartbeat. No dead followed them.

  She bent down on her knees, catching her breath, letting herself relax. She forced herself upright after her momentary display of weakness. There was no shame by being overcome by a close call with survival, but she knew she didn’t have the luxury of digesting that scrape with death.

  Private Finch’s voice was muffled like he spoke underwater, and she couldn’t understand him.

  “What?”

  He motioned at her and rotated his thumb up and down mouthing, “You okay?”

  “Fine,” she yelled.

  He held a single finger over his lips. The Marines spread out into teams, clearing the insecure warehouse. Stacks of wooden pallets were piled high throughout, towering almost to the ceiling. Alvarado placed her weapon back to her shoulder and scanned for threats, following her Marines. They passed stack after stack of wooden pallets. Nothing appeared touched by the living or the dead since the outbreak. She’d figured the people that worked here just stopped going to work or were killed early on. The stacks gave way to an office that doubled as a break room.

  They helped the wounded Marines to the floor and closed the door, sealing them off from the rest of the warehouse. Not ideal for keeping an eye on their surroundings, but they needed to take stock of their wounded, and layers between them and the dead made a difference both in physical security and psychological wellness.

  She stretched her jaw, trying to gain a level of hearing back by unclogging her ears.

  Rasmussen smiled at her. “Close call.”

  She nodded her head, opening her mouth wide and rotating her jaw.

  “How are we going to get back across?”

  She opened her mouth again, trying to adjust the fluids inside. “We aren’t done.”

  “The area in front of Barron is clear.”

  “Not enough of it.” She unslung her M4A1 and set it on a table. “We need to take the river south of Barron as well. From my estimate, we only made it about halfway to our priority. There’s still plenty of work to do.”

  “How are we going to do that?” Rasmussen said. He glanced around and added, “With all due respect, Major.” He temporarily lowered his eyes in deference. He’d seen her fight for her men on countless occasions to know that she treated all her Marines the same and would die for them if need be. “The sleds are gone.”

  “How much do we have left?”

  A thick pack was thrown on the table. Foster dug through its contents, laying out bricks. “I’d say another mile tops. Maybe a bit farther if we stretch it out. Hope that the weight of the Zulus will break up anything still solid.”

  “We blew that cord on our sled,” Riddle said. He sat with his back against the wall. “You’re going to have to set timers from here on out.” His leg lay limp.

  “How’s the leg?”

  “The bone is pushing on the top of my boot.”

  “Keep that boot on tight. It should keep swelling down.”

  “I’m not worried about my leg. It’s setting those timers. We’ll risk getting blown on every charge. If there’s any delay, we’re screwed.”

  She eyed the Marines. They’d lost two more since Odom. Her party shrank by the hour. “I understand that, but I won’t go back until it’s done.”

  “But we rang the dinner bell too early. Now we got every Zulu in the county headed our way,” Rasmussen said.

  “Then we’re going to have to move fast out there.”

  A slight frown took his lips. “It’s suicide, ma’am.”

  “Since when wasn’t this a suicide mission, Marine? We cleared a section of the river and that was good, but we need another mile to make a difference, more if we can stretch it. We reclaim Barron and get word to the other outposts to clear their river before it freezes.”

  “What if they’ve already frozen?” asked Finch.

  She shook her head. “Pray to God they haven’t.”

  TESS

  Shimek State Forest, IA

  Within a minute of hitting a gallop, Willie slowed to a trot and then down to a walk. Tess glanced back over her shoulder into the night. The faint unintelligible calls of Jarvis still echoed out, ricocheting from tree to tree. She heeled Willie’s side.

  “Come on, boy,” she urged.

  Willie tossed his head, his mane flaring. She gave him a hard heel. “Willie, we have to move.” He flapped his lips together and exhaled forcefully, his flanks quivering. She pleaded harder. “Come on, boy.”

  The horse picked up to a trot for thirty seconds before he slowed back down to a walk. “What is wrong with this thing?” Her voice was absorbed by the night.

  Willie stopped. She leaned close to his twitching ear. “Willie!” She half-heartedly punched his neck in frustration. “What’s wrong with you? Go!” She glanced back over her shoulder. Jarvis’s calls were softer, but barely. Her breath fogged, and her whole body shook. Crimson blood spotted the ground, trailing alongside their tracks.

  With numb hands, she patted her own body down. Nothing. Everything was in place. She climbed down from Willie’s back. Her feet sank into the forest snowdrift untouched by humans. Willie knelt. She patted him until her hand felt a warm wetness on his hindquarters. He complained with a high-pitched neigh. She moved up toward his head, petting him. “Shhh. It’s
okay.” She ran both her hands down the flat of his nose to his nostrils. They were wet too despite the cold. He calmed beneath her touch. “I’m sorry, buddy. I have to go.”

  The roar of Jarvis continued to echo through the frozen woods. Willie panted as his breathing became more labored. The cracking of branches and yelling grew closer. She kissed the horse’s snout and stood.

  Like an animal, Jarvis’s voice roared. “Somebody’s not doing so hot.”

  Tess took off into the timber. She jumped a log, using both hands to vault over it. She trailblazed through the snow and forest alike. The puffy layer absorbed her steps like quicksand, and she struggled to gain ground. She knew if she stopped she would freeze to death. Her face, hands, and feet were beyond numb. Her warm parts were frozen, and her body shook violently now. Her breath came out in quick bursts of icy mist.

  Visibility rapidly diminished in the fading light. The forest was as dark as she could remember, stealing whatever light remained. Each direction was more trees—oak, hickory, and maple—all naked and gray except for the pines with their thin tiny evergreen needles.

  She stomped around in a circle, running one way into the forest and then backtracking. Hopping down near the uprooted end of an ancient maple, she took cover. Snuggling close to the ground, she tried to keep her teeth from audibly chattering. From underneath the trunk, she watched and waited.

  His form weaved through the forest. His labored breathing audible in pursuit. He reached the clearing, following her tracks.

  “Don’t slow down,” he shouted into the trees. “Saw your little friend back there bleeding out. I’ll eat him later.”

  She spied him through the timber. The spoon still stuck out of his eye socket. He was a nightmare in living form. His face was painted in blood. His gray, brown, and green standard issue combat uniform was varying shades of dark red. As he marched closer to her fallen tree, the wet fingers of his necklace tapped his damp chest as if they impatiently waited for his next kill.