Degeneration

by Mark Campbell

  A man staggered out of the breached lobby entrance, head twitching as he looked around with glazed eyes. He gave a feral cry and started to run towards the amassed soldiers.

  The CDC white-suits fired-up their flamethrowers and engulfed the infected man.

  The man staggered towards one of the CDC white-suits and collapsed to the ground a few feet away from him, withering in the flames.

  “Delta Lead to Delta Base! We have confirmed Whiskey-Tangos! I repeat, confirmed Whiskey-Tangos, over!”

  Two more infected men wearing blood-stained dress shirts staggered out of the lobby with their mouths fastened in a bloody snarl.

  The CDC white-suits engulfed the two men in flames.

  Both men, despite being covered in flames, charged towards the CDC white-suits but were quickly put-down by the white-suited soldiers just a few yards away in front of the Humvees.

  “Copy, Delta Lead! Attention all downtown detachments! Confirmed Whiskey-Tango sighted! Code Red! Break. Repeat. Code Red!”

  Suddenly, ten people ran out of the lobby in a full-sprint, screaming, snarling rabidly, and two of them were already on fire.

  The CDC white-suits fired-up their flamethrowers, sweeping the flames back-and-forth as they collectively took several steps backwards.

  The infected continued, unimpeded by the fire dancing off of them, and leapt onto several of the CDC white-suits, biting through their protective suits.

  The CDC white-suits panicked and turned their flamethrowers on each other, screaming.

  The white-suited soldiers opened indiscriminate fire on both the infected and the CDC white-suits, riddling the corpses with bullet holes.

  The corpses collapsed on the ground, engulfed in flames.

  “Delta Lead to Delta Base! The CDC disposal detachment has been neutralized! I repeat, the CDC detachment has been–”

  Infected ran out of the lobby sixteen strong and effortlessly hurdled over the engulfed bodies of the fallen.

  The frightened soldiers managed to take down about eight when twenty more rushed out of the lobby.

  As the soldiers fired, infected started to jump out of the shattered lower-floor windows.

  Soon, the infected outside were over a hundred strong.

  Bullets fired wildly into the air as the soldiers were tackled to the ground one-by-one. Infected swarmed the soldiers, ripped open their white-suits, and tore into them ruthlessly.

  All the while, infected men, women, and children continued to pour out of the breached RBC lobby and jump out of the lower-floor windows.

  The soldiers manning the Humvee’s mounted machine guns indiscriminately fired into the rapidly growing horde of infected as they converged all around them.

  Infected climbed onto the Humvees and pulled the screaming gunners out of their nests, tearing into them.

  The infected horde ran down the street, snarling, towards an arriving convoy of four armored personnel carriers and a battalion of jogging white-suited soldiers.

  The soldiers opened fire and managed to take down a few scattered targets but failed to effectively slow down the horde. Within seconds, the horde swarmed the soldiers and climbed onto the four armored personnel carriers. The personnel carriers crashed against each other in the middle of the street as the infected swarmed past them and climbed over them.

  “Overwatch Four to Delta Base, Overwatch Four to Delta Base, we lost primary ground position and have multiple targets! Whiskey-Tangos have pushed through and are Oscar-Mike, over!” one of the pilots hovering above cried out into the radio.

  “Delta Base to all ground and Overwatch units! This is Colonel Mathis, downtown operations commander! Use of indiscriminate fire is authorized! Fire at will! Fire at will! Do not allow the Whiskey-Tangos to get anywhere near the downtown quarantine border!”

  Two Blackhawk helicopters hovered low and fired their machine guns into the massive crowd on the street, killing both infected and non-infected alike. It was no use. For every infected person they killed, dozens more seemed to emerge from the RBC tower.

  On the street, terrified white-suits fell back and ran away from the advancing horde while firing wildly into it, tearing through many unfortunate white-suits caught in the panicked crossfire.

  The horde overtook soldier-after-soldier as it relentlessly advanced towards the bright halogen lamps of the 161st base camp a few blocks away at the Meymandi Concert Hall. The bright lamps led the infected like moths to the flame.

  Four Humvees careened around the corner at the intersection of Hargett and Fayetteville, crushing four terrified white-suits in the process. The gunners manning the Humvee’s rooftop M2 Browning machine guns opened fire into the advancing horde.

  Large sections of the horde disintegrated into bloody splotches, but more bodies filled-in the gaps from the back of the horde, bounding over the bodies of their fallen comrades. Within seconds, the horde swarmed over the vehicles.

  The gunners manning the Humvee’s machine guns screamed as the infected ripped into them and tore into their flesh with rabid intensity. One of the terrified gunners squeezed down on the trigger, screaming, as an infected woman grabbed hold of him; the M2 Browning’s barrel jerked towards the sky and the rounds flew wildly into the sky.

  “Overwatch Four to Delta Base! Overwatch Four to Delta Base! Whiskey-Tangos are nearing your perimeter! I repeat, Whiskey-Tangos are–”

  The pilot’s radio broadcast was cut short when one of the M2 Browning’s errant .50 BMG rounds punched through the floorboard of the cockpit, shattered out the back of the pilot’s skull, and exited through the roof. The pilot slumped forward onto the controls. A shrill alarm started chirping in the blood-splattered cockpit as the craft twirled out of control towards another Blackhawk hovering nearby.

  “Overwatch Two to Four! Two to Four! Check your- Jesus!”

  Both helicopters collided and blossomed into an orange fireball. The flaming remnants cascaded against a nearby skyscraper, ripping the plastic tarp off of the building. The remnants of the two helicopters landed at the base of the skyscraper and erupted into a billowing explosion.

  Swarms of infected poured out of the newly breached skyscraper and joined the horde on the street as they sprinted towards the downtown base’s bright halogen lights.

  Alarms started wailing at the base. Searchlights placed along the roof of the Meymandi Concert Hall powered on and encircled the pavement below as white-suited soldiers scrambled into position.

  Sentries along the base perimeter opened fire at the advancing horde and emptied clip-after-clip, but the horde continued unabated. Within seconds the sentries were overwhelmed and overrun.

  The infected, many soldiers newly amassed amongst their ranks, shook the flimsy chain-link perimeter fence that had been temporarily erected around the Meymandi Concert Hall. The fence toppled over and infected sprinted towards the concert hall, overtaking the scattered pockets of soldiers they encountered.

  Reinforcements ran out of the hall, guns blazing, but, they too, were quickly overrun.

  Inside the concert hall’s main venue, a make-shift command console had been erected in the center of the concert hall’s main stage. The soldiers positioned themselves out in the stadium-style seating surrounding the stage, crouched down, and sighted-in their weapons towards the venue doors.

  The gunfire and screams coming from outside the main concert hall was intense. The radio traffic had become garbled and incoherent.

  Col. Mathis crouched next to the radio operator manning the command console in the middle of the stage. Col. Mathis’ skin was pale behind his facemask and his heart was beating wildly inside his stuffy white-suit. Whatever false sense of calm he felt earlier had dissipated.

  “Try them again, goddamnit!” Col. Mathis shouted at the back of the radio operator’s head.

  The radio operator jumped and quickly pressed down on the microphone button.

  “Delta Base to Outside Perimeter Detail, what is your status? Over,” the radio operator spoke
into the microphone in a trembling voice.

  No response.

  “Sir, should I send the distress call?” the radio operator asked.

  Col. Mathis frowned. To send out the call would admit defeat. However, he knew that there wasn’t a victory to be won downtown anymore. His career was finished. He closed his eyes and thought about the sacrifices he made for his career, sacrifices that proved to be for nothing in the end. He thought about the wife he left behind in Texas and about the kids he had lost contact with.

  “Sir?” the radio operator asked again, frantic.

  “Yes, do it. We don’t have any choice left,” Col. Mathis said.

  Gunfire echoed outside, mixed alongside the dying screams of soldiers and the feral cries of the infected.

  The radio operator spun back to the microphone and quickly switched bands.

  “Delta Base to Control! Delta Base to Control! Wildfire! Break. Repeat, Wildfire!” the radio operator said into the microphone.

  “Control to Delta Base, We received your transmission. Wildfire protocol has been initiated.”

  There was a brief pause. The gunshots outside had stopped, as had the screams.

  The soldiers who had taken cover spread out amongst the concert hall’s stadium seating slowly started to rise and look around.

  “Did they manage to push them back?” one of the soldiers asked.

  One of the main venue doors flew open and infected started pouring into the concert hall.

  The startled soldiers ducked back down behind cover and opened fire.

  Infected bounded over row-after-row of seats and took the soldiers down one after the other.

  Two other venue doors flew open and even more infected charged in.

  With the soldiers overwhelmed, the massive horde swarmed towards the two men standing by the command console on the main stage.

  “Control to all detachments. This is Major General Yates, commander of Raleigh operations. The downtown position has been compromised, prepare to implement Wildfire contingencies! All Overwatch units pull out of the DZ at once! Glenwood-Five Points Checkpoint, hold back Whiskey-Tangos and prepare for Wildfire! Do not allow targets to break downtown quarantine, over.”

  Col. Mathis snatched the microphone from the radio operator.

  “Yates! This is Mathis! I need extraction! They’re here! They’re inside!” Col. Mathis shouted into the radio, shaking, staring at the horde as it swarmed closer, aisle after aisle. “I need a chopper on the roof immediately!”

  “Sorry, son, you know what Wildfire entails. Hold them off as best you can and get to any cover you can find. God be with you,” Maj. Gen. Yates replied.

  Mathis screamed in anger and threw the microphone down against the polished stage floor.

  The radio operator drew his Beretta sidearm and started firing at the advancing horde.

  Mathis stared at the horde as it drew closer to the stage.

  “What are you doing? Help me! Help me hold them back!” the radio operator screamed, reloading his pistol. Infected started to climb onto the stage. “Help me, you coward!”

  Mathis looked over at him, gave him an apologetic look, turned, and took off towards the service door at the rear of the stage. Behind him, he heard the radio operator’s final screams and the command console topple over onto the floor. He didn’t dare look back and, instead, forced himself to run faster.

  He slammed against the door. It swung open into a narrow corridor that ran behind the main stage that was littered with ladders, stage lights, and sound equipment.

  Mathis ran down the corridor, overturning equipment behind him as he ran in a frail attempt to slow the infected down. He sucked frantic breaths through his suit’s respirator.

  The infected effortlessly hurdled over the toppled equipment, screaming, and started to close the distance quickly.

  Ahead, Mathis saw the fire exit doors. He knew he wouldn’t be able to outrun the infected inside his bulky white-suit.

  He knew that he would never make it to that fire exit.

  In his peripheral vision, he saw another door. He quickly stopped, grabbed the knob, swung open the door, and ran inside.

  The small closet had shelves of cleaning equipment on one side and a single sink full of mop heads on the other. He quickly tried to shut the door behind him.

  A young man wearing the tattered remains of a white-suit grabbed the door and prevented him from shutting it. The man stuck his head around the edge of the door into the supply room and screamed at Mathis, snapping at him.

  Mathis recognized the man as a private who had been in his unit for about six months. He couldn’t remember the man’s name, but he remembered that the man was a hell of a runner, not that it mattered anymore.

  Mathis drew his sidearm and shot the man point-blank in the forehead.

  The man’s head snapped backwards and he let go of the door.

  Mathis quickly pulled the door shut, dropped the pistol, grabbed the knob with both hands, and leaned back with all of his weight.

  The infected pounded against the door with fevered intensity.

  Mathis, realizing that the infected weren’t even trying to use the knob, let go of it. He stepped back against the rear of the supply closet, sunk down to the floor, and cowered in the corner. His sobs were muffled by the unrelenting pounding against the door.

  A squadron of six fighter jets raced towards Raleigh in formation at top speed, leaving long contrails in their wake.

  “Hades Zero-One to RAL Control, enroute to the DZ, nineteen minutes out, how you copy?” the lead pilot said into his helmet radio.

  “Control to Hades Zero-One, good copy. Cent-Com gave Wildfire final clearance, you’re clear all the way through.”

  “Copy that, RAL Control, eighteen minutes out.”

  Hundreds of infected sprinted down ruined downtown streets toward the Glenwood-Five Points quarantine checkpoint, attracted by the multitude of bright halogen flood lamps.

  “Glenwood-Five Points to Delta Base! Five Points to Delta Base! What is your condition? Over,” a white-suited soldier yelled into the radio, hands trembling.

  A sergeant stood over the man’s shoulder.

  Both men were hunkered down behind one of the tanks barricading the street. Four tanks and two platoons of soldiers in white hazmat suits were all that stood between downtown and the rest of the city.

  A rather large crowd of onlookers had gathered two blocks away and was being kept away from the quarantine line by riot police and National Guardsmen. The crowd had grown in size ever since the explosion and gunplay started. Unfortunately for them, most residents of Raleigh didn’t pay attention to the mandatory evacuation order and had paid even less attention to the curfew.

  The white-suited soldiers manning the downtown quarantine line were antsy ever since Wildfire had been initiated and since the helicopters left downtown’s airspace. Even more alarming, the downtown base wasn’t responding.

  The sergeant looked down at the soldier holding the radio and motioned for him to try again.

  “Glenwood-Five Point to Delta Base, please respond, over,” the soldier said into the mike.

  “Where the hell are those jets?” the sergeant grumbled, looking up towards the sky.

  One of the gunners manning the .50 CAL on top of one of the tanks whistled and grabbed everyone’s attention. He pointed down the street at the advancing infected as they between the abandoned vehicles that littered the street.

  The amassed horde numbered in the thousands.

  An air raid siren on the side of the street started wailing and pierced the night air with its shrill cry.

  Soldiers quickly took position, many of which were still staggering half-dressed out of their makeshift barrack (formally a bar and grill) at the sound of the air raid siren.

  The on-looking crowd of civilians a few blocks away began to panic and push against each other at the sound of the siren. The police struggled to maintain order and keep the crowd behind the barrica
de.

  “Christ,” the sergeant said as the infected quickly closed the distance. He knew that the jets wouldn’t make it in time. “All units! FIRE AT WILL! Hold them back until the jets get here!”

  Gunfire pummeled the horde but the infected were neither impeded by the bodies of their fallen brethren nor by the ineffective body shots from the frightened soldiers.

  The military HF bands were rendered useless as the panicked soldiers all tried to talk at once and stepped on each other’s transmissions.

  “HEAVY FIRE! USE HEAVY FIRE!” the sergeant yelled.

  The tanks opened fire and took out large groups of infected and erupted abandoned vehicles into massive fireballs. Body parts and large sections of asphalt went airborne as the tanks fired their ordnance.

  Despite their heavy losses, the infected continued their relentless advance.

  Within a few seconds, the front-line troops were overrun and entombed by the horde.

  One of the gunners atop the tank abandoned his post, leapt off of the tank, and ran away from the approaching horde.

  The radio operator looked at the sergeant, gave an apologetic look, and took off running after the gunner; other soldiers in white hazmat suits stopped firing, turned, and joined the retreat as the horde weaved in-between the Humvees and tanks.

  Down the road, the gawking civilian onlookers realized what was happening and their panic intensified. They trampled over each other and shoved past the riot police as they tried to make an ineffective retreat.

  Infected climbed onto the tanks and pulled gunners out of their nests while the others chased after the retreating soldiers and spread out into the terrified civilian crowd, claiming countless new numbers.

  A group of four infected men tackled the sergeant, tore open his white-suit, and started to bite him repeatedly.

  The sergeant managed to pull his Beretta out of his holster, stuck the barrel against his head, and pulled the trigger.

  Glenwood-Five Points Station was lost and the downtown quarantine had failed.

  The six fighter jets roared past the compromised Glenwood-Five Points and over the heads of the screaming crowd.