Beyond the Brink_Toward the Brink IV

by Craig McDonough

  “It’ll take us a bit longer this way,” Riley said, loud enough for the entire patrol could hear. “But it’s safer underfoot on the road.”

  The patrol walked steady, but not fast, in two files of five. Riley headed one, Chess the other.

  “There was a motel on the main street just before we turned to get to the doctor’s, let’s try there first.”

  “A motel would work. Rooms for everyone,” one was heard to comment.

  “Hey?” Dave Kinnerly called. “What about running water, how do we manage that?”

  “One thing at a time,” Riley answered. “One at a time.”

  Sandspit 21

  Back at the market ugly tensions began to appear. Discussions on how much better they would be in a new location, the catalyst.

  “Once we get away from the harbor area and in town, I think we’ll be better off.”

  “Do you really think so, Chuck?” Cindy’s tone contained venom.

  “Much better than—”

  “Better than what? Certainly, not better for Allan or Terry Ashwood—and you nearly joined them, too, along with Johnny. It won’t be any better for those poor sons-a-bitches that followed Holmes here. It won’t be better than it was six months ago. You remember that, don’t you? The world, people, services, all that good shit—”

  “Cindy!”

  “It’s okay, Kath, let her speak,” Chuck said, and gestured with his hand in Cindy’s direction.

  “And what about Elliot? I’ve noticed that none of you have mentioned his name. Or Tom’s. Or the others that went on the secret mission to save the world. Huh! That's a joke, save the world. What fucking world—there isn’t one!”

  Tears ran down Cindy’s cheeks, but she was far from finished. “And do you think it will be better for my baby?”

  Chuck and Kath both looked like they could have been knocked over with a feather.

  “Oh, I see Bob hasn’t told you. Well, good for Bob. At least we know of one president that can keep a secret!”

  “Oh, Cindy, do you know when it happened?” Kath rushed to Cindy and put her arms around her.

  “Yeah, it was that last night at your farm. When you made it possible for Elliot and me to, err…well, be together.”

  “Oh dear, I didn’t mean for this to—”

  “It's not your fault, Kath. These things happen.” Cindy said between tears and dropped her head onto Kath’s shoulder. The care and tenderness she had missed brought more tears, and she cried openly.

  “I, err…” Chuck searched for the right words to say. He couldn’t and tried to explain about Elliot. “Cindy, you know Elliot has been gone four or five days,” with so much that has happened the exact length of time had been lost, “and I think that, given good weather, they would have reached their destination by now and—”

  “Stop searching for the right things to say and just spit it out, damn you!” Cindy screeched at Chuck, who felt anything but at this moment.

  “Cindy, Chuck is just trying his best to explain, he—”

  “I know, Kath. I know. I’m sorry, Chuck. Really, I am. It’s just that I-I…”

  “You’re tired, you feel alone, and you’re pregnant, right?” Chuck tried.

  “Yeah…” She half-smiled at Chuck. “Something like that.”

  “And I believe Chuck is right. Elliot and Tom should have made it to Washington by now, and—with God’s assistance—have rendered the missile launch inoperable. We just won’t know until they get back, which I’m sure is what they’re trying to do at this very moment.” Bob stepped in with—he hoped—some words of comfort.

  “You—you think so?” Those few words seem to lift her spirits, gave her a new lease. Bob Charles, a career politician and the last president of the United States of America, had that ability—as most had noticed since he joined the survivors at Prince George. With tragedy, uncertainty, and key members lost—and the whereabouts of others remaining undetermined—a lift to the spirits was the shot in the arm everyone needed.

  Chapter Three

  Mountain View 4

  Tristan now led his friends toward the spiral staircase, just a few steps behind an unsteady Hakola. “Have you had many foamer attacks before?” he yelled—the alarms were deafening in the hallway. “Colonel! Have you had foamer attacks?” Tristan reached out and grabbed Hakola and spun him around.

  “I-I-I—yeah...we’ve had s-s-some,” Hakola weaved like a boxer in slow--motion.

  As they exited from the bunker, the F-16 which had greeted the chopper crew from Sandspit, roared overhead.

  “Sir, what is the situation?” Tom asked the guard who had delivered them to the colonel's luncheon disaster. The colonel was as close to useless as one could get.

  The guard cupped his hands over his mouth as he answered. “We’ve got foamers from the northwest, north, and the east, congregating on the base as if it were a free AC/DC concert.”

  “Do you have any more jets?” Elliot pointed to the F-16 above as it disappeared over the western end of the base.

  “That’s the only operational one now, son.”

  “Where did all your aircraft go?” Tristan strained to look left and right, but the size of the base and the many structures prevented any sight of their assailants.

  “The Air Force, they took them. We’re just reserve officers. When we arrived here, there were a few guards, three planes, and a junked helicopter. But the base still had some power, food, ammunition, and—as you saw—running water. It was much better than out there so we stayed.” The guard pointed in the direction beyond the fence line.

  “What’s your plan then, sir?” Tom reiterated the sir. To defend against a foamer attack, there needed to be someone in command and Tom had to make this guard feel like he was it—whether he wanted the job or not.

  “We need to get to the tower, to assess the size of our adversaries. For the moment, you can rest assured they won’t get in. There are two chain-link fences around the perimeter of the base. Razor ribbon on top and the first fence is electrified. We threw the switch the moment the alarm sounded.”

  A covered Air Force truck screeched to a halt in front. “Get in,” the guard said, then looked back at Colonel Hakola, who sat where he had fallen. Now a drunken heap on the tarmac not far from the bunker he crawled out of. “He’ll be okay. It’s best we leave him here—he won’t get in our way.”

  The truck took off, bounced over some curbing, then raced through the hangars that barely afforded enough room. Once out on the apron, it sped toward the traffic control tower halfway along the runway.

  “Ricardo, Captain Ricardo.” The guard in the blue beret introduced himself, then the survivors from Sandspit followed suit.

  An entirely different attitude.

  “You might want to see this!” Ricardo held open the rear flap now they were on the access road that paralleled the main runway.

  A hundred yards or more beyond the fence line, thousands of foamers marched, ran, shuffled, and crawled toward the base. Even from this distance, the disheveled appearance of the foamers was evident as were the numbers—thousands. Torn clothes, dried blood, and strips of flesh dangled in the sunlight—a horrific sight. But more than anything it was their all—white eyes, which stood out the most. It seemed like the red orbs of the devil had been replaced with shiny, hard-boiled eggs.

  “That just how their eyes were in Sandspit the night they attacked!” Elliot pointed out.

  “You’ve seen them with eyes like this before?” Ricardo asked.

  Elliot told the captain—the abbreviated version—about the night at Sandspit as the truck pulled up next to the tower. They ran up the outside emergency steps—no time to waste on doors.

  “Fuck me! That's what they were like. Red eyes like tail-lights and they only came out at night.” Ricardo confirmed. “Just like the title of that old Edgar Winter album.

  While the expression on the faces of Tom, Richard, and Tristan told everyone they had no clue as to Ricardo’s re
ference—or who the fuck this guy Edgar was, but Elliot and Ted smiled. They understood the connection.

  Inside the control tower there were two air-traffic controllers—or at least, they were assumed to be. Their dress—green coveralls and the tennis shoes each man wore didn’t set them aside from aircraft mechanics or maintenance personnel. But as they were in the control tower it was a safe assumption.

  “Captain, they’re all around us, a swarm of them. I’ve never seen so many.” One controller said as he handed his binoculars to Ricardo, then nodded his greetings to the others.

  “My Jolly Jesus. There’s a fucking ocean of the bastards. Look.” Ricardo passed the binoculars to Tom.

  Tom looked left, right, and straight up the center. He then lowered the binoculars to ask. “Do you have a transport plane, Captain Ricardo?”

  Tom’s fellow travelers from the helicopter immediately turned and stared. There was a resignation, almost defeat, in Tom’s voice.

  “Is it that bad?”

  “It’s worse, much worse.”

  Mountain View 5

  The enormity of the foamer assault had everyone in the control tower wide eyed with fear. Each man, to varying degrees, had faced foamers before. But experienced as they were, this was something entirely new. The scene not unlike the moment in the movie Zulu when Michael Caine and his tiny band of British forces realized they were up against the entire Zulu Nation and not just a band of marauding savages. A different setting, of course. This was the northwestern United States and not the Natal province of southeastern Africa where the actual Zulu attack the movie was based upon happened. This might be a. U.S. Air Force base, but with just one functioning offensive aircraft and no transport plane, it might just turn out to be their prison—or graveyard.

  “How much ammunition do you have for the fighter?”

  “Not as much as we’d like, that's for damn sure. The Air Force took most of the ammunition and weapons systems in the transports—what they couldn’t take, the trucks did. Hence, we only have the one. We do, however, have about a hundred thousand rounds of rifle ammo. I guess they couldn’t take it all,” Ricardo answered

  “What about machine-gun towers, don’t you have those?” Elliot’s question drew strange looks from all except Tom, who knew even less on the subject as his younger companion.

  “You’re—err…thinking of a base in a conventional war in or close to enemy territory, Elliot. This is far from that. Until just a few days ago, this was an air base in Idaho, which is part of—or used to be—the United States of America,” Ricardo patiently explained. Unlike Hakola, he understood the young man’s concern and misunderstanding. Besides, he was as scared as everyone else.

  “Well, I don’t mean to be pushy, but if you have the ammo, don’t you think it might be a good idea to allow us to get our weapons so we can help with defense?”

  Before Tristan received an answer, one of the controllers called Ricardo’s attention. “Captain, he’s coming in for a run.”

  Mountain View 6

  The sun, which still shone over much of Mountain Home AFB, glinted off the pilot canopy as the F-16 screamed in at low altitude. Foamers looked up, toward the roar of the single Pratt & Whitney engine. Some even angrily waved a fist in the air. When the fighter came within half a mile from the western end of the base, the 20mm Vulcan cannon erupted. With the speed of a pneumatic ratchet—only louder—the mini-gun rained a hail of destruction down on the foamers in the space of seconds. By Grandview, Airbase, and Perimeter Roads at 6,000 rounds per minute. Two short bursts of about a second each with a slightly longer pause in-between before the plane began its ascent.

  “What, is that all? How come he’s pulling up?” Elliot had learned much from the likes of the Tall Man, Riley, Chess and now Tristan. He had more than a “working” proficiency with firearms—his father taught him well—and safety always came first. F-16s and Vulcan 20mm mini-guns, however, were quite a few steps above his current level.

  “By the time he’s fired those two bursts,” one of the controllers, answered, “he’s passed the target and needs to gain altitude.”

  “He’ll come around for another pass, Elliot,” Ricardo added.

  “My God, would you look at that.” Tom motioned with a nod toward the field beyond the chain-link fence.

  A swath had been cut through the hordes of undead just as easily as Moses—or was that Charlton Heston?—parted the Red Sea. Bodies and parts of bodies flew in all directions, or simply exploded into a red and green goo. Hundreds were decimated in the F-16’s run. The foamers that were outside the kill zone surprisingly didn’t scatter from the carnage. In a frenzy, they pounced and tore what remained to pieces. They had to obtain sustenance from any available source.

  “Roger that, Alpha-One,” the controller acknowledged the pilot before he relayed the information. “Captain Ricardo, he’s gonna use the Mavericks this run.”

  “Mavericks?” It was Tom’s turn to look puzzled.

  “AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missiles. Should take out quite a few of ’em.” Ricardo, explained for the less informed.

  “You know it looks like…” Elliot had taken the binoculars from Tom to look at the havoc, “like they’re blind.”

  Elliot watched, mesmerized by the actions of the foamers he could now see up-close through the 10x50s. On hands and knees, they felt the ground in front as they searched for the body parts of the fallen. The foamers obviously knew nutrition was near, but had to search the ground to locate each snack-sized bite.

  Was it a smell—a form of pheromones—which informed the hideous beasts that nibbles had been served, and could it be this is what drew them to the living?

  “Here we go!” Ricardo’s announcement of the imminent bombing run canceled any further discussion of Elliot’s observation.

  From inside the tower, the roar of the F-16 shook the windows—he was low, too low for a missile attack. By the time Ricardo and the controllers realized, it was too late. The first two missiles released a thin white trail from under the wings toward the target—the foamers on the ground. Explosions one after the other were seen from the tower. Dirt, debris, and more body parts. A full two seconds later, the vibration from the blasts was felt inside the traffic control room.

  “JESUS!” Ricardo made the sign of the cross over his forehead he realized what was about to happen.

  The jet shuddered as it caught the force of the blast—and body parts hit the undercarriage. The plane wobbled sideways, the nose lifted a moment before it dipped. It was going down. At an altitude of five hundred feet and a speed of 600 knots, the ground came up to you remarkably quick. Elliot and the others watched in shock as the canopy shot from the fuselage and the pilot—attached to the seat—ejected, tumbled over several times before the ’chute deployed. There was just enough height for the parachute to open. He drifted down—into a sea of foamers.

  If ever there was a case for “out of the frying pan and into the fire,” this had to be it. The fate of the pilot was never mentioned again.

  All eyes were on the jet as it tumbled, scraped a large scar across the earth then burst into a huge fireball. The tower windows shook far more violently than before, and everyone in the control room hit the floor. They stood one by one and breathed a sigh of relief they weren’t shredded by slivers of double-paned glass, then stared at the disaster below. Suddenly, a bloody arm—with hand intact—slammed into the window. The seared and shredded appendage made a high-pitched scraping noise as it slid slowly down the outside of the window. Everyone in the control room stared in shock as the arm came to rest on the sill. The fingers opened and closed—clutching, reaching out.

  “My God. Is-is it still alive?” Tristan stared at the undead hand.

  “Never mind that, we got bigger problems now!”

  “Tell me about it, kid. We just lost our only plane. That was all the—”

  Elliot ignored the “kid” remark and pressed on. “You didn’t just lose your plane—you lost
your fences. There’s a gaping hole almost a hundred yards long and—”

  “What? Gimme those!” Ricardo snatched the 10x50s so he could see for himself. “Holy Mother of…”

  Smoke now rose into a mini—mushroom cloud near the perimeter fence. Thousands of bodies and parts littered the ground. The explosion, the fire, and the mayhem confused the foamers, who now scattered in all directions—but mainly away from the base. With a gaping hole in the chain-link fences and no possible way to repair it, it would only be a matter of time before the foamers discovered the access point to the base—blind or not.

  Tom had the answer and a question. “We have to get to the underground bunkers. How secure is the entrance at the top, Captain?”

  “The top is like a hatch and it’s manually closed from inside. Further down inside the bunker itself, the reinforced doors are electronically locked. There is access to a further bunker below. Nuclear prevention.”

  “Then, I think we should get a move-on before the foamers realize they now have access, don’t you?” Elliot suggested.

  “You’re pretty smart, kid, y’know that.”

  Elliot didn’t get a chance to answer the captain, as Tom stepped in and reminded the reserve officer, in no uncertain manner, that Elliot was no “kid.”

  “Captain Ricardo. Just so you know, Elliot has led his group against the foamers from the day of the outbreak, fought rogue military units and armed militias from Idaho, Missouri, and British Columbia. He’s also fought against the mutants, which I’ve so far been lucky enough not to have crossed, and outran the forest fire. He is, sir, no fucking kid.”

  Tom wasn’t sure how the captain would react, but was pleasantly surprised with what transpired next.

  “I understand. Elliot, you have my apologies. Now can we get a move-on?”