by C A Gleason
And they were driving at night. Never ideal for traveling the road.
With the loss of Nico, Myers, and Patty, Sven drove Jonah and Philip in the lead vehicle, the UV with the SAR at the gunner’s hatch.
Henry, Heike, and Doreen were in the lone pickup truck.
Donnelly drove with Bernard—as well as the unconscious Jacobs in the back seat—in the third vehicle, the UV with the grenade launcher at the gunner’s hatch.
And Salgado drove himself in the rear vehicle, the UV Myers drove to Fort Perry. The UVs were military vehicles so the ignitions didn’t require a key. A turn of a switch turned the engines over.
When he’d served, Jonah remembered steering wheels secured by a thick wire and a padlock. A key to unlock the padlocks were the only keys required to start driving. Thankfully, anyone could turn the ignition switch. It had saved lives.
From behind the SAR, it was impossible for Jonah not to see all the tall trees with sporadic dark, bulbous cocoons. The Behemoths within them looked ready to be born. They hung heavy from branches. It reassured Jonah how beneficial his clearing had been at the cabin.
But it wasn’t the case around here.
“The trees look decorated,” Salgado radioed, “in a messed-up way.”
Even if Behemoths had begun the Molting only to die off, they sure weren’t dying off any time soon. There were separate wars going on for supremacy of the earth simultaneously.
Where humans were once on top and dominating, they were now scrambling to even hang on to their existence.
Whenever we do reach for the top again, creatures will reach down with sharp claws to bring us to their sharp teeth.
But we’re ready, Jonah thought.
“Whenever we get to wherever we’re going, maybe we should cut down trees like at Fort Perry?” Salgado radioed.
“Too much work.” Henry radioed. “And too dangerous. There’s only one Jonah.”
“But we have Jonah with us.”
“The last thing we need right now is to face down a group of newborn Behemoths head on.”
“How about from a distance like he does? I have a thermal scope.”
Jonah was barely able to hear the speaker beneath him. A thermal scope? What a find. A thermal scope was something he’d always wanted to utilize while aiming his bolt-action rifle on the ridges.
Jonah crouched. “Tell them we’ll decide if it should be done once we get north.”
Sven steered with his left hand and grabbed the mic with his right. “Jonah says we’ll all know whether it’s silly to worry about trees near a sea when we get there.”
Jonah stood and chuckled as he scanned the dark road ahead, looking for any movement whatsoever, appreciating Sven’s humor. Even though they’d recently lost people at Fort Perry.
Jonah’s view was clear enough, resistant to the rushing wind as he was wearing goggles. And he was warm enough too, wearing his black stocking cap with the hood of his waterproof cold-weather jacket tight over his head.
As he manned the SAR, he was a gunner, a grunt, as he had been during the war before this one. But he was also in charge of this convoy.
Something dragged his attention to the right . . . but he saw nothing.
The feeling was vaguely familiar. It was the same way he’d felt while at the military base in Oberstein all those years ago, when he set the trap for the first Behemoth he’d encountered. And killed. Something was moving around out there. He could sense it.
Lifting the SAR, he did an about-face to the rear of the vehicle and settled the bipod until it was secure, aiming over the roofs of the vehicles.
With the reduced convoy in view, Jonah felt the pang of mistakes.
Salgado surely wanted to man the grenade launcher mounted on the UV Donnelly drove with Bernard in the passenger seat, the third vehicle in the convoy, but he was currently behind the wheel of the rear vehicle in the convoy. Alone.
Bernard was a cook. He could handle regular firearms, and he could be trained, but he didn’t have experience with a weapon system like a fully automatic grenade launcher. Few did, unless they served in the military. Grenades were rare and not to be wasted for target practice.
And Jonah couldn’t very well command Jacobs to man the grenade launcher as he was unconscious in the back seat of Donnelly’s UV. Everyone knew why. No one had seen the Infector bite Jacobs, but a molting was in his future.
The future molting would have to be dealt with—by being prevented—but there was no time for it now. If Jonah needed to be the one to pull the trigger during the coming days, he would.
Jonah didn’t have the time to place everyone in the vehicles where they would be most effective. Not while scrambling to get away from Fort Perry to survive. But as soon as he got the chance, he’d organize everyone in the vehicles according to skillset.
At least Sven, one of their best drivers, was one of those behind the wheel.
Though Jonah was warm enough, he still got chills. Gooseflesh radiated up and down his arms. And it wasn’t from the cold.
It was because he could sense what was looming. He couldn’t see as well because headlights blasted out the front of the three vehicles, dominating his eye line.
He put a hand to the side of his mouth and yelled downward. “Sven, drive to the rear! Philip, get on the radio and inform the others what we’re about to do! And turn up the speaker volume so I can hear better!”
Beneath him, Jonah saw Philip pivot his attention from the passenger seat window, to the hand mic Sven handed him from the driver’s seat. “This is Philip in the lead vehicle. Don’t be alarmed, we are moving to the rear.”
“Philip, keep the mic in hand!”
“OK!”
Sven gave a slight twist to the steering wheel, nudging the UV to the right, testing the muddy shoulder, and then drove completely over to it, slowing down as he did.
Doreen looked worried, and Heike stared at him as they sped ahead.
Heike’s still mad at me. Still upset. Still sad. Of course she is. And of course she should be.
Jonah waved at her anyway, and gave Doreen a thumbs up before they faded from his view.
With the three vehicles gone past, making the truck Henry drove to be the lead vehicle, Sven twisted the steering wheel to the left, nudging the UV back onto the road. Now Jonah could see the darkness better.
Well enough to feel like he got kicked in the gut.
His senses were correct. Random appearances of teeth and claws and bulbous eyes darted in and out of the gloom.
CHAPTER 20
Jonah gasped. “Fucking hell! Philip! Tell Henry to floor it! Right fucking now!”
“Faster than Henrytown,” Sven added.
“Henry,” Philip radioed. “Jonah is instructing you to go faster than you did at Henrytown.”
“OK,” Doreen radioed right away.
Jonah twisted his view to see Henry’s truck lurch forward with more speed, and Jonah placed a gloved hand to brace himself as the rest of the vehicles floored it as commanded. The rumbling torque of the engines kept up with the demands of the drivers.
Molters weren’t fast enough to catch up to the vehicles, not at their speeds. Except the creatures were coming up the road after them. And they were spilling over the hills on both sides.
It meant the convoy had driven ahead of a horde. Jonah had noticed in time but they still might end up driving through the middle of them.
The snarling, growling, and howling surged; thousands of dogfights happening simultaneously. Each and every one of the bloodthirsty creatures competed for the few of the convoy with human blood in their veins.
“Faster!” Jonah shouted.
“Will you drive faster?” Philip radioed.
Not likely, Jonah thought. It was difficult to do on an unfamiliar road at night. At any time, their path might be blocked by abandoned vehicles. Hopefully not by the horde. But he needed Henry to keep up the speed.
Wasn’t Jonah recently sleeping away a hangover o
n a beach in California? There was no way to foresee what would happen. No time for humans to prepare for such a situation, as they typically did.
The world practically changed overnight. And there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do about it.
Well, there’s something I can do.
Philip didn’t need to inform by radio. Jonah’s gunfire sent the message. The pressure of his trigger finger was instant and endless, a deafening bark of bullets, drowning out his feelings of dread.
After feeling so useless, and helpless as Frox’s prisoner not so long ago—something anyone, especially a soldier or a former one, hated—Jonah took it out on them with the SAR.
The night erupted with more gunfire as if a lightning storm struck the middle of endless darkness.
The report of the continuous fire of the SAR would have been too loud if Jonah wasn’t wearing earplugs. Even those who weren’t planning to shoot, were advised to keep them in their ears.
Jonah and his people were likely some of the last people on Earth, forced to seek refuge on the road. Winter had offered so much protection, but the melting did not.
Melting snow practically transformed the world into rivers surging down the mountains, spraying up endless steady mist when meeting tires, adding chaos to the darkness and fog and hunger from monsters and fired bullets.
“Molters and Behemoths are everywhere!” Salgado radioed.
Weapons shot in every direction, illuminating the darkness enough for Jonah to glimpse the Behemoths among Molters. They looked to be much larger than any he’d ever seen.
Maybe they were ones big and strong enough to survive this long. To live long enough to get to grow to their size. And were able to resist Molter attacks.
The road veered right and left and straight. The vehicles climbed small rises and descended short hills so fast, it made Jonah’s stomach drop.
Though the initial sight of them caused a panic, the speed of the vehicles slowly pulling away from them eventually alleviated the dread of being submerged into the midst of predatory hunger.
Jonah ceased fire. The others did too. The barrel of the SAR smoked in his eyeline.
He crouched down and fell back onto a seat, grabbing a canteen and chugging water before wiping his mouth. He reached forward, waiting.
Philip raised the passenger window he’d been firing his weapon out of and handed Jonah the radio mic.
“Clear,” Jonah said. “For now.”
“Never clear enough, man,” Salgado radioed. “Just saying. You know what I’m saying?”
Jonah thumbed the mic again. “Yeah.”
“How many rounds are left in the ammo box?” Sven said while eyeing Jonah in the rearview mirror.
“I’ll check,” Jonah said. “On it.”
Jonah stood back up into the cold of night and its endless wind. He went about weapon maintenance, mindful of the hot barrel of the SAR.
Good stuff, Sven.
They were working as a team. Jonah felt relief he could finally rely on others for their contributions to the mission, including keeping an eye out for even his temporary blind spot.
Of course the weapon needed to be reloaded. The fight north was only beginning.
CHAPTER 21
An ancient battlefield. An upended slide away from the civilized town it once was. It had been somewhere people lived and thrived. But now it was abandoned and deemed unlivable. It had likely housed thousands of Molter nests. Until it was destroyed.
The muddy structures were barely upright, leaned, had fallen down, or were reduced to bits. Destroyed by the abandoned tanks, even more powerful weapons, like howitzers, and other explosives.
Weapon systems capable of keeping a horde at bay were now unmanned. Some were knocked over. Jonah remembered how the Behemoths reacted to howitzers at the firing line.
Then there were the bodies. Corpses were everywhere—Molter and man—and the stench of death was visible by the fog of flies. Battles like the one Jonah and the others witnessed were obviously not rare.
Because they’d left packed vehicles behind at Fort Perry, they decided to restock. If they could. Philip and Bernard were tasked to rummage through what remained to collect whatever weapons and ammo they could find.
They were given a half an hour for the mission. Jonah guarded them with the SAR. Locating weapons was their main objective. Use could be decided by the group later.
Philip and Bernard were careful as they grabbed any small caliber weapons they could carry by hand: pistols, shotguns, rifles, grenades, and ammo.
Any make or model of weapon would be considered to take along, whether they were loaded or unloaded. Whenever they saw bullet boxes, they grabbed those too. They put everything they gathered in backpacks and duffle bags.
Once bags were full, they were left and runners—Donnelly and Salgado—would grab them up and load them in one of the vehicles, designated where having room by Doreen.
“Mortars?” Bernard shouted.
“Negative!” Jonah shouted back.
Because of the fuel situation, no choice but to reduce to three vehicles. The two UVs with the highly destructive weapon systems—SAR and grenade launcher—attached, and the backup truck Henry drove. It was now the primary pickup truck.
Salgado had already siphoned fuel from the UV being left behind.
“This would be going a lot faster if we all were out there,” Henry radioed.
Jonah checked his watch. “A few more minutes.”
Sven keyed the mic from the driver’s seat. “We’re leaving soon.”
If Philip and Bernard discover anything of importance, that isn’t a two-man carry, then others will be sent to help, Jonah thought.
While searching for any movement, ready to fire at any type of threat, Jonah noticed how many dead creatures there were. Even more than he initially thought. But he didn’t mention it. Everyone saw.
The devastating and unexpected attack and fall of the town and its people was nothing new to members of the convoy.
During previous battles, it had been possible to dispose of the corpses by burying or burning them, obviously, but no longer. There were too many dead. Whoever had fought for the town died. Or abandoned their homes. Jonah didn’t blame them.
Aside from a few walls, no structures were left intact. In fact, hardly anything was vertical. The constant was dirt and mud, and dirt and mud could be found elsewhere in the country. And earth could be found anywhere there wasn’t water.
It was ironic a sea was where they were headed.
Sustained silence was the result of seeing so many human corpses among the dead. Scattered and buried under the battle, even beneath the creatures, were human arms and legs sticking out at impossible angles.
Because Jonah had to pay such close attention, he couldn’t avoid such details while aiming through the sight picture of the SAR. In a way, it was like looking at the town under a microscope.
The town wasn’t overrun, or those who were ordinarily tasked with keeping everyone alive had failed in their task. It had been completely overwhelmed.
The uncountable number of dead meant there were as many or more Molters and Behemoths that attacked Archard’s—then Frox’s, then no one’s—firing line.
“Wish I could drive one of those tanks,” Salgado radioed.
“Tell him he’s got enough firepower,” Jonah said.
Sven told him over the radio, and Salgado laughed before thumbing off.
Rummaging around, Philip and Bernard were cautious. There could be Molters lying in wait as they’d been known to do. To remain still until prey entered their territory was dominant behavior for Molters.
And the territory of a lone Molter could be the upper floor of an abandoned home, a cave, or even stretch for miles. It was why Jonah’s trigger finger remained ready to depress, and would remain there until they drove away.
Aside from weapons, they added what was essential because there was only so much extra space to fill within the three vehicles.<
br />
Jonah positioned everyone in the vehicles more effectively. Once again, Jonah was standing in the gunner’s hatch of the lead UV with Sven driving it, and Philip was in the passenger seat manning the radio.
Henry, Doreen, and Heike were in the middle vehicle, the only pickup truck.
Donnelly drove the rear UV. Bernard was in the passenger seat manning its radio, Jacobs remained unconscious in the back seat, and Salgado manned the grenade launcher at the gunner’s hatch.
Looking past Salgado—who was wearing goggles too and gave Jonah a thumbs up—Jonah stared at the empty UV with all four doors open. Another vehicle of use being left behind. It gave him the same homesick feeling after leaving the cabin for some reason.
Probably because he’d spent so many years driving the vehicles. It felt like he was leaving another piece of himself behind.
Even so, after the drive north, bittersweet or not, he hoped to never lay eyes on a UV again.
CHAPTER 22
Potty breaks were coordinated. Once those words were spoken over the radio, the men relieved themselves. If they needed to.
Typically, potty breaks happened when the ladies, Doreen and Heike, needed to go, who went together.
When men poured out their urine-filled water bottles, lead vehicles had the courtesy to slow down so as not to accidentally spray gunners behind them.
If someone needed to dig a hole and go number two, it was still referred to as a potty break. And stopping for so long was always an opportunity to tip fuel canisters.
Better to keep gas tanks topped off than get into a situation when they were unable to stop. Then they would be forced to watch fuel gauge needles point closer to empty.
For some reason, Jonah expected civilization to somehow improve as every kilometer ticked by. It was wishful thinking. Unfortunately, as the days went on, they passed through many other vacant towns. They were as decimated as the one they’d scavenged.