“It looks like we’re sailing across the stench sea,” Gartrell said. “The three Rangers are secure up here. Everyone’s lying low and keeping a good grip on those bungee cords. I see the roller is literally covered with the dead, but it’s blasting a nice, neat path through them. You should see it from up here, sir. It’s really doing the job.”
“How are things going behind us?”
“The only way I can check is if I rotate the cupola, and I don’t want to knock anyone off the top of the vehicle. Don’t you guys have infrared down there?”
“We do,” McDaniels said, “but I can’t look at the display right now. The last thing I want to do is to drive this thing into Berry’s ass.” He heard movement behind him, and then he felt Gartrell shove himself in between the two driver’s seats. Gartrell played with the infrared while Chase was talking on the radio.
“We’re doing okay,” Gartrell said. “By the time the stenches figure out we’re coming through, they try to attack the roller and get squashed. I can see some activity behind us. One of the MRAPs has a bit of a zed problem, but the shooters on the vehicle and those in front and behind it are taking care of the situation. So far, so good, Colonel.”
“Fantastic.”
“How’re you holding up, sir?”
“I’m hanging in there,” McDaniels said. There was no need to mention that his eyes burned, and that every time he blinked, it felt as if sandpaper was being ground against his eyeballs. His back was stiff and painful, as were his arms and neck. The tension and lack of rest were starting to get to him.
“I’ve got some Red Bull in my pack if you need some,” Gartrell said. “You being at the wheel and all, I think we’d all feel better if you didn’t nod off.”
“Sir, Apaches and Little Birds are on their way,” Chase said.
McDaniels heard the aircraft. “Thanks, Chase. And thank you, Sergeant Major. I’ll take one of those Red Bulls if you have one handy.”
Gartrell pulled back from the seat and returned a moment later. He pressed a warm can into McDaniels’s right hand. “One Red Bull. Sorry it’s at room temperature.”
“No problem. Thanks.” McDaniels brought the can to his lips and drank deeply. Overhead, a single shot rang out.
Gartrell returned to the cupola quickly. “I don’t see anything going on up here. Must’ve been a single zed that got too close.”
“Roger that.” McDaniels polished off the Red Bull and handed the can to Chase. “Here. Open the window and toss that out, would you?”
Chase glanced at the can, then at the zombies struggling to hold onto the vehicle right outside his window. “You’re kidding, right, sir?”
“Considering you can’t roll down the windows on this thing, yeah. I am.”
Chase sighed in relief and pitched the can into the cabin behind him. One of the controllers complained, but Chase didn’t bother apologizing.
***
The ride was an absolute trek through hell. Roche, Shin, and a Ranger named Horst clung to the bungee cords strapped across the back of the vehicle as they stared out over a virtual ocean of rotting corpses. The dead were stood shoulder to shoulder, and their collective moaning almost drowned out the din of the convoy. Even though the vehicles moved at only a fast walk, the density of the pack prevented the dead from storming the convoy. Added to the fact there wasn’t much in the way of handholds for the zeds to latch onto, Roche and the others didn’t have a lot to do other than hang on and pray to God they didn’t get swept off the vehicle. If someone fell into that fetid sea, that would be all she wrote. No one was going to survive that.
He saw Gartrell in the armored cupola behind him. He shot the sergeant major a thumbs-up and grinned behind his night vision goggles. Gartrell only shook his head, as if to say, Stop fucking around, you asshole. He then pointed past Roche’s shoulder quite emphatically.
Roche turned and saw a stench had managed to grab onto one of the bungee cords and was hauling itself up onto the top of the MRAP, its mouth a dark maw, its eyes fixed on him. Roche brought his SCAR around, pointed the barrel right into its mouth, and squeezed off one shot. The zombie fell away, one of its hands grabbing onto the rifle’s barrel, almost yanking it out of Roche’s hand.
Man, that was close. He looked back at the cupola, and Gartrell shook his head disapprovingly.
“Dude, you need to wake the fuck up and pay attention!” Shin shouted.
“Yeah? You too, asshole!” Roche brought his rifle around and zapped a zombie that had lifted its head over the top of the Cougar. It was holding onto the exhaust pipe, which ran along the outer edge of the vehicle’s topside. Shin never saw it, as he was looking at Roche; when Roche shot it, Shin yelped and flattened against the MRAP’s flattop.
“Keep your eyes open! Maintain surveillance of your engagement areas! Horst, you clear on that?” Roche yelled.
“Damn straight!”
“Make sure you do, because with this cupola in the way, I don’t have a good visual on your position!” Horst lay across the backside of the MRAP’s roof, and Roche couldn’t see him.
“Believe me, if something comes my way, you’ll know it!”
“Will we get any warning before you shit your pants?” Shin asked.
“I’ll fart first,” Horst promised.
The MRAP suddenly slowed. The Rangers cursed as they slid forward and firmed their grip on the bungee cords.
***
“The ground is getting really broken. I’m having problems getting across it!” Berry hollered over the radio.
McDaniels could see that for himself as the road roller suddenly slowed and deviated to the left. Its diesel engine ejected a large cloud of black smoke that glowed in the night vision goggles as the engineer walled the throttle. The roller listed from side to side as it tried to mount a small rise in the desert, crushing scrub brush and necromorphs beneath its vibrating rollers.
“Chase, get us some top cover ASAP,” McDaniels said. “Gartrell, get ready to start laying down suppressive fire to our left.”
“Roger that,” Gartrell said while Chase immediately hailed the Card Shark flight over the radio.
“Berry, this is Leonidas. Understand your situation. Remember the plan. We’ll come up on your left, clear your vehicle of the stenches, then you’ll exit and enter our MRAP through the front passenger door. We’ll do our damnedest to keep them off of you, but it’s up to you to move as quickly as you can. You copy all that? Over.”
“Roger, Leonidas. It’s going to happen soon!”
No sooner did the engineer finish his transmission, than the road roller shuddered to a stop, angled slightly down an incline. Even though McDaniels had been ready for it, the sudden transition from a vehicle that slowly trundled forward to one that came to a dead stop was enough to make him curse and crank the Cougar’s steering wheel to the left. He hoped the Ranger up top weren’t as caught as off-guard as he was.
“I want the firing ports manned, both sides!” McDaniels shouted. “Those on the right, be very careful, we don’t want the engineer or anyone else killed!” To Chase: “Captain, you’re going to open your door and pull that bastard in here as soon as he exits the roller. I recommend you use your pistol for close-in work.”
“Yes, sir,” Chase said. There was a peculiar quaver to his voice, something that was entirely out of place considering that he was a giant of a man. Then again, facing the dead could absolutely put vast amounts of fear in even the stoutest of hearts.
The MRAP bumped up the terrain, its engine roaring as it crushed ghouls beneath its knobby tires. McDaniels brought the vehicle to a halt beside the stuck road roller after pulling as close to it as he could. He hoped it wasn’t too close; it wouldn’t do to have one of the doors blocked so they couldn’t be opened.
Once the MRAP came to a halt, the dead immediately hurled themselves at it. Hands and fists struck its armored hide, and McDaniels thought he even heard the sound of fingernails against its undercarriage as ghouls trapped ben
eath it sought some way to break inside. One zombie shattered its teeth against the thick glass in the driver’s door.
The Rangers up top started firing immediately, and a moment later, the controllers in the back did the same thing, aiming their M4 carbines through the firing ports in the MRAP’s rear windows. The .50 caliber in the cupola began chattering like crazy as Gartrell walked the big rounds through the stenches, cutting them down like saplings before a powerful chainsaw. Chase calmly disconnected his headset from the radio and pulled his pistol. When McDaniels looked over at him, Chase patted the radio.
“Just in case I get pulled out of this thing, I don’t want the radio coming with me,” he said.
“Good thinking, Captain.” McDaniels had to admit he probably wouldn’t have considered that himself.
Explosions went off outside, and the MRAP was pelted with shrapnel and gore as the Apaches blasted rockets into the dark desert. Several zombies fell away from the left side of the Cougar MRAP, their bodies torn by the flying debris. More zombies took their place, pounding against the glass with their hands.
“Let us know when you’re ready, Berry,” McDaniels said, and his voice sounded much calmer to his ears than he felt.
“Is it clear outside? I can’t see!” Berry responded, his voice anything but calm and collected.
“We’ve got some zeds in between the vehicles,” Chase said. “I’ll try to take care of them, sir. Just have this guy crack open his ride and get out when I give you the word.”
“Hope you’re up for it, Chase. Don’t screw around. Just aim and shoot.”
“Yes, sir. You can count on that.”
McDaniels pulled his MP5 from its thigh rig and armed it, then clicked off the safety. “Go, son.”
Chase exhaled noisily, then pushed open the heavy armored door. He started firing immediately, the pistol’s muzzle flash illuminating the interior of the MRAP’s cab with stroboscopic light. He half-swore, half-screamed in between shots as he stepped onto the armed box that covered the rig’s right saddle tank. A zed reached for him from the other side of the door, and Chase turned at the waist, firing a round right into its face. Its skull imploded, and the body fell backwards onto a pile of the dead struggling to get at the captain. McDaniels heard the Rangers overhead shouting to each other, calling out targets above the racket of the .50 caliber machinegun. More stenches clambered onto the halted MRAP’s hood, and the Rangers dropped them with assault rifle fire.
“Berry, get out of there!” Chase yelled, his voice high.
“Captain Berry, move your ass!” McDaniels added over the radio. The door of the road roller opened, and one of the steel planks there flapped lazily; the weld had been broken at one of the ends. Berry emerged, struggling against the hands that suddenly reached for him out of the darkness, cold, dead fingers grabbing at his uniform. Chase grabbed him by the back of the neck and practically tossed the smaller man into the MRAP. Berry bounced off the passenger seat and collapsed on the metal floor beside McDaniels.
“One of those things fucking bit me!” he screamed. He then screamed again as a hot cartridge from one of the troops firing in the back bounced off the floor and rolled down the front of his uniform blouse.
Chase lunged back into the cab, but he was not alone. Clamped onto one of his big thighs was the upper half of a stench. It had apparently been cut in two by the roller when it came to a halt, but had been able to reach up and grab Chase when he executed the vehicle change. Chase barked out a cry and kicked at the grotesquerie, trying to shake it off, but it hung on to his leg stubbornly. McDaniels couldn’t get a good shot at it, and as Chase struggled, more shapes loomed outside the open door.
“Chase! Close the fucking door!” McDaniels bellowed. Then he took his foot off the brake and stomped on the MRAP’s accelerator. The big, heavily armored truck surged forward, its tires spinning in the sand as they sought purchase. It didn’t move very fast, but the lurch was enough to cause the door to slam shut.
Chase finally managed to get the half-zombie off him, and he kicked it mercilessly in the head, stomping on it again and again and again. Bone cracked, and the smell of wet rot filled the air. Berry gagged and shrieked something unintelligible as one of the corpse’s hands grabbed at his uniform, then fell away. Chase kept kicking, using both feet. Every time his boots came down on the twitching corpse in the footwell, they made a liquid slapping sound.
“Take… that… you… fucking… stench!” Chase yelled, his words synchronized with his kicks.
“I think you got it, Chase,” McDaniels said. “Berry, you all right?”
“One of those things fucking bit me!” Berry repeated.
“You get your shot of the vaccine?”
“I sure did,” Berry said.
“Then you don’t have much to worry about,” McDaniels said as he wrestled with the steering wheel.
“Are you kidding me, sir? Who knows what kind of diseases these things carry! And it hurts like a motherfucker!”
“If you’re in pain,” Gartrell said, stepping down from the cupola, “then you’re still alive. Let me check out the wound, sir.” To McDaniels, he added, “Fifty is secure. All three Rangers are still with us.”
“What about the rest of the convoy?” McDaniels asked.
“I see them through the back here, sir,” said one of the controllers in the troop compartment in back. “Looks like they’re coming along after us. Uh, one of ‘em is swarming with zeds, sir. I think the Special Forces guys on top are gone.”
“Roger that. Chase, you all right?”
Chase was strapping himself into his seat, breathing heavily. His feet rested on the pulped remains of the zombie in the footwell. “Yes, sir.”
“Then get on the radio, get that scouting report from the aircraft, and dial up the Air Force. I want to know how quickly they can start dropping MOABs on these things.”
“Roger that, sir. Stand by.” With trembling hands, Chase holstered his pistol and plugged his headset back into the radio. He took a deep breath, then started executing McDaniels’s orders.
“How’s it driving, sir?” Gartrell asked.
“Like a tub of lard.” McDaniels fought with the wheel as the MRAP bounced and jounced its way across the desert. Since they no longer had the roller making a nice, semi-smooth path for them, the heavy MRAP was doing all the work itself. In addition to the irregular desert terrain, the bodies of dozens of stenches were beneath the wheels at any given time. It didn’t make for the smoothest voyage, and McDaniels wondered how long it would take for someone to develop a strong case of motion sickness.
“Sir, report on the highway: it’s blocked up tight for about ten miles from our current position before it becomes navigable. After that, it’s pretty smooth sailing, except for the stenches. But they thin out at the fifteen-mile mark,” Chase said.
McDaniels glanced at the speedometer—just under fifteen miles per hour. They had only two hours before the nuke was dropped. “What about the MOABs?”
“One C-130 on-station, but nearing bingo for fuel. Another enroute to take over the pattern from the first. Handoff is supposed to take place in fifteen minutes.”
“How long until the first MOAB can be deployed?”
“You tell them, sir. They’ll make it happen.”
“Drop it between one and two miles ahead of us to thin out this herd,” McDaniels said. “Then have the second one repeat as soon as it can.”
“You want to wait for them to get closer so the drops can be synchronized, sir?” Gartrell asked from where he was kneeling in the back to treat Berry’s wound. McDaniels heard the engineer yelp. “Don’t be such a baby,” Gartrell growled.
“I want to start clearing the path as soon as possible,” McDaniels said. “We’re kind of running out of time here. We’re supposed to be forty-plus miles away from the blast site, and at this rate, that’s not going to be happening.” He kept his eyes on the terrain ahead, watching as the MRAP mowed down rows of zombies.
“I’ll coordinate that, sir,” Chase said.
McDaniels had an idea. “Have the planes pop off flares as they’re making the drop, if that’s possible. I want to attract as many zeds in the area as we can. In the meantime, have the gunships start trying to clear a path for us.”
“We have something better than that, sir. There are two modified AC-130s coming in now, with energy weapons. They’ll drop the curtain on the zeds in about two minutes.”
“Roger that. Make sure aviation knows to stay clear, then.”
“Roger.”
24
The convoy slowly made its way across the desert landscape, poking along at less than fifteen miles an hour. The zombies threw themselves at the vehicles, and after a time, overwhelmed the M949 trucks in the center of the convoy, engulfing them beneath a tide of filthy, rotting corpses. Once the Rangers and Special Forces troops sitting in the backs of the trucks had used up all their ammunition, there was no stopping the horde. One truck continued for more than a mile while the troops in the back were savagely killed, then the zombies finally penetrated its cab and killed the men inside. The truck fell out of the convoy and accelerated through the thick mob of stenches until it eventually rolled over onto its side. Within moments, it was covered by a writhing mound of dead as they struggled with each other for the last scraps of meat.
The Rising Horde, Volume Two (Sequel to The Gathering Dead ) Page 27