“Leonidas, this is Rapier. We’ve already thought of that, and we’re reaching out to them. We’ll redouble our efforts on this end. Over.”
“Rapier, this is Leonidas. Much appreciated. What’s the story on the military advance to the north? Over.”
“Leonidas, this is Rapier. They’re making great time, since the stenches won’t turn to fight. They’ve killed thousands already. Don’t have an accurate body count at this time, but they’re rocking and rolling. We’re trying to put together a similar movement from the east, but it’s taking longer to draw up the units. We have to bring them down from the north. Over.”
“Roger that, Rapier.”
The door opened, and one of the sentries stepped inside. He looked at McDaniels, then at Gartrell as the senior NCO stood up and walked over to him.
“Keep us posted on whatever aviation assets you can get, and let us know when we can expect that air drop. Leonidas, out.” McDaniels disconnected the satellite phone and plugged it back into its charger.
“Hey, Colonel, you might want to check this out,” Gartrell said.
“What is it, Sarmajor?”
Gartrell glanced at the ops staff sitting nearby. “You might want to hear this one privately, sir.”
McDaniels looked at Gartrell and the sentry for a moment, then got to his feet. He marched over, looking from man to man. “What is it?”
“There’s some guy outside, sir. Says he has to talk to you about your son. His name’s Jim Howie—”
McDaniels shoved the soldier aside and stormed out the door. Jim Howie stood at the base of the ramp, watched closely by the remaining sentry. He looked up at McDaniels with a sheepish expression.
“What’s going on, Jim? Something happen to Lenny?”
Howie shook his head quickly. “No, no. Nothing like that!” He paused and seemed to think about his statement for a quick moment. “Well, not that I know of, anyway. Look, I just can’t find the boy. He’s not at the airfield, and I can’t find him anywhere else. I checked the hospital, the mess tent, his tent, our tent, the shitter, the showers—I can’t find him, Cordell. The boy doesn’t want to be found, it looks like.”
McDaniels glanced at his watch. “Aren’t you supposed to be leaving soon?”
Howie nodded. “Yeah.”
McDaniels sighed. Howie looked back at him, his face expressionless, but he could feel the urgency the man emanated as if it were his own. “Okay, Jim. You have your own family to tend to. I’ll take care of Lenny. Thanks for trying; I really do appreciate it.”
“Listen.” Howie stepped closer. “I don’t want you to think that I just want to get the hell out of here. I mean, I do, but I want to find Lenny, too. Belinda’s upset as all hell about him not being at the airfield, and so am I. But…” He shrugged. “Like you said, I do have my own family to take care of. And I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. I’ll figure out where he is.” McDaniels had to shout the last words over another air raid. “You go on, Jim. Get out of here. Don’t miss that chopper.”
Howie looked torn, but he obviously knew what he had to do. He shook McDaniels’s hand, and his grip was strong. “You do whatever you need to do to survive, Cord. I really owe you big time, and I want to make sure I get the chance to do right by you.”
“You already have.” McDaniels slapped him on one of his meaty shoulders. “Go on, man. Get out of here.”
Howie nodded and, after a brief hesitation, hurried away.
“Well, he’s not wasting much time. He’s practically leaving a dust cloud behind,” Gartrell said.
McDaniels turned and found the sergeant major leaning against the side of the trailer.
Gartrell reached behind his body armor and pulled out a pack of Marlboro Ultra Lights. He took a cigarette from the box and stuck it in his mouth, and then offered the pack to McDaniels. “I figure since death is at the door, I might as well have a smoke. Hell, if I could find one, I’d even put on a blindfold.”
McDaniels shook his head. “I have to find my boy, Sergeant Major.”
“Fuck that, McDaniels. You have a task force to run.” Gartrell lit his cigarette with one of those cheap plastic lighters. He pulled on it and exhaled smoke. Despite the violence tearing through the night, McDaniels noticed the air was getting quite nippy. “I’ll find your son. You go back to business.”
“Not so sure I’ll be able to concentrate on the fight while my boy’s out there, Gartrell.”
“Tough shit, Colonel. I haven’t heard from my family in weeks, and you don’t see me falling to my knees over it, do you?”
McDaniels had to admit the rangy NCO had a point. He also noticed Gartrell was sliding back to his former mode of operation, which was classified as One Tough Motherfucker. “I do not, but I’m pretty sure you have better things to do than go chasing around after my boy.”
“If I can find him and take the weight off your shoulders so you can do your job, I’m all about that, Colonel.” Gartrell took another hit off his cigarette. “Do you want to talk to him when I find him, or do you want me to just take him to the airfield?”
“Just… just take him to the airfield and put him on a helicopter, Sergeant Major.”
“Can I put myself on one, too?”
McDaniels shrugged. “Sure. I’ll just co-opt Sarmajor Carlisi.”
Gartrell looked indignant. “He wears dresses when he’s not on duty, Colonel. Trust me, with the world coming to a pretty quick end, the last thing you want on hand is a command sergeant major strutting around in feather boas while stuffed into a pink pencil skirt.”
“I don’t even know what to say to that, Gartrell. How the hell would you even know something like that?”
“I hear things all the time, sir.” Gartrell took a major drag on his cigarette, then flicked it into the night. He offered the pack to McDaniels again, who declined with a wave of his hand. He’d had enough cigarettes in New York. “I’ll find your son and drag him to the airfield in handcuffs if I have to.” Gartrell hefted his AA-12, then pushed past McDaniels and headed down the ramp without waiting for a response.
“Thanks, man,” McDaniels shouted after him.
Gartrell waved and kept going, moving at a fast pace.
McDaniels watched him go for a long moment, wondering just how in hell he could possibly trust a man he had deeply hated until a short time ago to find his wayward son and deliver him to safety.
“’Scuse me, sir,” said the sentry who had come into the TOC looking for him. He slipped past McDaniels and resumed his post.
McDaniels pulled open the door. It was time for him to do the same.
19
The battle at the wall was a nightmarish vision from Hell.
Lieutenant Colonel Bull Haley was hardly inexperienced when it came to combat. Originally an infantry officer who had first seen action in Somalia in 1993, he had entered the Ranger training program when he was a young captain. After making it through the grueling process, he had remained in the Rangers for the rest of his career. That ensured he saw his piece of the action, mostly in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also courtesy of certain contingency missions the Rangers were tasked to undertake from time to time in the name of national security. There had been plenty of times when the fire was hot, and he had lost men. Friends, colleagues, subordinates, even a superior here and there. He thought his soul had been finely tempered in the forge of war, that he had seen all there was to see, had met every enemy he was likely to face. Defeat was not in his lexicon.
After personally fighting against the endless horde that threatened SPARTA, he was having some severe second thoughts about his assumption.
The dead just would not stop coming. Even after the shooters had made a pile of bodies fifteen feet high in front of the gap in the wall, the dead continued to clamber over it. They had no fear of being shot, felt no pain when wounded, and gave no quarter. Haley had thought he had already realized just how implacable a foe the stenches were. But fighting them almost
within spitting distance, he was amazed at how dedicated they were. Individually, they were not much of a threat. But in hundreds of thousands, the necromorphs became a great juggernaut, one so incredibly effective that even the force of combined arms couldn’t hold them back for long. Bombs and bullets meant little to an enemy whose only reason for existence was to taste hot blood and swallow warm flesh.
The defenders were going through ammunition at an alarming rate. As the horde inched slowly closer to the gap, many soldiers were missing their shots in their haste to engage, and were forced to fire another round or two to obtain a positive kill. Often, the snipers in the observation posts were able to take up the slack, but they were far from infallible as well. The contact was too fast and furious, and even though the majority of the zeds were lumbering sloths, a fair portion of them were still capable of moving with great speed and dexterity. Haley learned that the hard way when one of the grotesqueries slammed into him like a linebacker with the Atlanta Falcons and knocked him right on his ass. He fired his SCAR into it at point blank range and managed to kill it with a bullet that entered the bottom of its chin and continued out the back of its head. Haley would have liked to believe the shot was a product of great skill, but in reality, luck just happened to be on his side. In the brief moment it took to regain his feet, three more zombies shambled toward him, reaching with twisted fingers. Haley killed them, but he had to fire five times to do it.
This isn’t working out for me, he thought as he ripped through the magazine in his rifle, then swapped it out with a fresh one. But at least it’s a target-rich environment.
He shouted orders, urging the men to solidify their lines and make every shot count. Those who ran out of ammunition had to duck out of the line immediately, so another shooter could take their place. The dozens of soldiers fighting in the forty-foot-wide gap had flattened the earthen mound, making it easier to find firm footing. In the initial moments of the engagement, the soil that had been inside the decimated CONEX container had been so loose that men were slipping and sliding as they tried to stop the enemy advance. The only plus side to that was the zombies couldn’t get their footing either, and the more uncoordinated ones were easy pickings. But their numbers swelled, and soon they were stalking across the motionless bodies of their slain brethren. The swaying of their bodies as they picked their way toward the defenders worked in their favor, and many more shots were missed.
“Focus on your targets!” Haley shouted, reminding himself as much as the men fighting beside him. Just the same, the NCOs and officers in the area repeated the command, exhorting the troops to do it faster and better. More zombies fell beneath the withering firepower.
But it still wasn’t enough.
Haley opened his mouth to call to the men on the wall when something flashed in the desert. A moment later, a soldier fell off the edge of the shipping container to his left, right into the zombies. The zeds turned and savaged the man instantly, even as Haley and the others opened up on them. There was no chance at rescue. Another flash, and something struck the container’s metal surface with a sparking concussion. Then another flash lit the night, and another, and another, a sporadic twinkling that appeared from different parts of the desert. Out where the zombies were.
When something went crack! as it raced past his head, Haley figured it out.
“Gunfire! Gunfire from the front!” He automatically returned fire at the last location he’d seen a muzzle flash.
A zombie working its way across the pile of corpses stood up straight and fired a shotgun right at him. Haley shouted something unintelligible even to himself when he felt the hot sting of birdshot strike him. One pellet lodged in his right cheek, making him stagger backward. The zombie folded as three soldiers fired on it at once, making it dance and shudder across the fallen corpses before one round took off the top of its head. More muzzle flashes twinkled in the night, and one of the soldiers beside him went down with a cry as he took a bullet in the leg. Bullets struck the containers on either side in bright explosions of sparks, and Haley pulled down his night vision goggles. Through the wonders of light intensification, he could make out several armed zombies moving just outside the pool of light generated by the floods.
“Ops, this is Hercules Six! We’ve got shooters across the line! I say again, we have armed stenches coming at us, and we are taking fire! Over!” He lined up on one of the rifle-toting necromorphs and drilled it through the head with one shot. It fell to the ground where its corpse was trampled by hundreds of dead feet. But what would prevent another zed from picking up the rifle and continuing the fight?
“Hercules Six, this is Ops. Roger your last. We’re having the Apaches make a rocket run to try and break up their attack. They’ll be opening up from the south—”
Something hit Haley’s left foot, and he looked down. What he saw made him forget all about the voice on the other end of his radio headset. “Grenade!”
As his legs were essentially vaporized by the explosion and the remains of his body cartwheeled across the sky, Haley felt no pain. His mind shut down, and he exhaled his last breath before he hit the ground.
***
Masterson saw the bloom of the explosion through the monocle connected to the Apache’s pilot night-vision turret on the aircraft’s nose. She had just brought her helicopter into a hover and had pedal-turned to align its rocket pods with the zombie advance when the explosion lit up the gap in the wall, and men collapsed to the ground. Several struggled to get up while others hurried to assist them. More soldiers rushed into the sudden pocket caused by the explosion, pouring on the firepower as the zombies shambled toward them in a huge pack.
“What the hell was that?” her CPG asked over the ICS.
“Looks like someone dropped a grenade,” Masterson said. “Okay, let’s do rockets—”
Something cracked against the canopy to her right, loud enough for her to hear it over the Apache’s roaring engines, thrumming rotors, and her helmet’s earphones. She instinctively jerked away from it, and the movement was transferred to the helicopter’s cyclic. The Apache jumped to the left while its nose came around in the same direction. Masterson corrected with right pedal and goosed the cyclic in the opposite direction, bringing the helicopter back to its former position.
“Hey, take it easy!” the CPG said.
“We just took a hit!” She examined the bullet-resistant glass of the canopy and saw it was marred by a long streak. “Man, one of those things just shot at us!”
“Well, at least things are getting easier. Let’s shoot back!”
Masterson selected the rockets on the fire control panel. She noticed the winking muzzle flashes where the zombies were. There were dozens of them. It was tough to believe that some of the corpses out there could still manipulate firearms, but if they could manage to set up a couple of artillery pieces and hit the camp, then it shouldn’t come as that big of a surprise. She coordinated the rocket attack with her wingman just as another tidal wave of rotting flesh rolled toward the gap in the camp wall. The Apaches fired in unison. Too late.
Even though the rockets slashed through the zombies and blasted dozens of them into gory ribbons, the zombie push had too much mass to be halted. They rolled right into the camp, overrunning the defenders who chose to stay and fight, ignoring the ferocity of the rocket attack and the withering firepower of the shooters on the wall. Within seconds, both Apaches were out of rockets. Masterson slewed the infrared around and checked out the trenches.
“Let’s do Hellfires,” she said. “We’ll start blowing holes through the zeds in the trenches, see if we can’t slow them up by removing some of their stepping stones.”
“Roger.” The CPG’s tone of voice seemed to indicate that he thought it was a waste of time, but he leaned forward in his seat and peered through the Apache’s sighting system. Masterson relayed the plan to her wingman, and both aircraft backed off from the camp. They needed more distance if they were going to start flinging Hellfires aro
und. Another bombing run commenced, and the shock waves from the attack made the two helicopters bob in the air.
“Hercules Operations, Card Shark Six. Over.”
“Card Shark, Hercules Ops. Over.”
“Ops, the zeds are pushing through the gap in the wall. It doesn’t look like ISRT can hold them back. We’re going to go ahead and start slagging the zeds in the trenches with some Hellfires. First engagement is going to be in about seven, eight seconds. You need to let them know. Over.”
“Roger, Card Shark. We’ll pass it along, and thanks for taking the shots.”
“How’re we doing?” Masterson asked even though she could see the progress on the displays before her.
“Lasing now,” the CPG reported. “Yeah, solid box here. I’m good to go whenever you are.”
“You’re good to fire. Shoot.”
“Firing.” There was a quick hiss as the first Hellfire missile blasted off the rail. The weapon arced to the ground and disappeared inside the massive heat signature that filled the second trench, the one closest to the wall. The resulting explosion caused the FLIR to white out a bit before the processors restored the picture. And just as it stabilized, another Hellfire landed and blotted out the picture again.
“Okay, let’s keep the heat on,” Masterson said.
“Hooah, re-engaging.” A moment later, the CPG said, “Good to go, can I fire?”
“You’re good. Shoot.”
“Firing.”
Another Hellfire left the rail and slammed into the mass of zombies in the trench below.
***
“Let’s get ready to pull back to the airfield,” McDaniels instructed the troops in the operations center. “Everyone grab your weapons and take whatever gear you need. We’re all probably going to have to do some fighting before we can get out of here. Switch?”
The Rising Horde, Volume Two (Sequel to The Gathering Dead ) Page 21