by A. J. Sikes
“I remember that place,” Reeve said. “Last time we were on the street, we skirted the crater. That was before we knew Tucker was running his operation from the old police station.”
“Lucky for us they were out on a run,” Mahton said. “We’d be MREs otherwise. Marines Ready—”
“Enough shit, Mahton,” Sergeant G said over her shoulder. A dark look swept across her face. Mahton must have caught it, too, because he shut his yap and even tucked his hands up at the small of his back.
Sergeant G picked up the thread and gave them the rest of her plan. “There’s good cover for our approach, behind where the apartments used to be. We can use the alley there maybe. It lets out on the parking lot where they keep the trucks. Or we use the debris as cover to take out Tucker and his col-labs. They’ll have maybe one or two people guarding the stronghold.”
“How do you know?” Jed asked.
“We’ve been watching them. At first they just patrolled the immediate perimeter, taking out any of the monsters that came sniffing around. Then the big one showed up and started grunting at them. We didn’t see the deal go down, but we know Tucker used to have a lot more people with him. Some Army. A few Marines. People from Operation Reaper that got wounded.”
“Tucker made them fight the sucker faces. Right?” Jed asked.
She nodded. “They stopped hunting this neighborhood since then, or they all moved off somewhere else. It’s like they’ve drawn territory lines. We’ve seen Tucker’s crew patrolling the parking lot where they keep the trucks, and sometimes the street outside. They haven’t been hassled by the monsters, so that makes me think we don’t have a lot of them to worry about. It’s just us against whatever’s left of Tucker’s army.”
“I thought you said they only had a few guys, like maybe a squad. So I could have lit ‘em up yesterday,” he said, staring at Mahton.
“That’s our best guess of their strength, Welch,” Sergeant G said. “We’ve only seen a few pairs of boots walking around the stronghold since they made their deal with the monsters. It’s possible they have more people inside that we’ve never seen, or maybe they’re down to just the two teams you and Mahton saw earlier today. Maybe the other monsters out there got to ‘em. But we don’t know, and I’m not risking the last Marines alive in this city on a gamble. We go in careful and sure, assessing their strength every step of the way. When we learn something new, we adapt. We improvise. We come out on top by being smart, not rushing to shoot the first enemy we see.”
Jed mumbled an Errr, and stood at rest again.
“What’s priority one, Sergeant?” Reeve asked.
“Commo. From what we’ve seen, they always post one man on the breezeway gate with a radio. That dude is priority one.”
Mahton sniffed. “None of them were ever Marines. Any fool knows one is none.”
“Welch, you and Reeve hold position at the parking lot after we take down the gate guard. Mahton and I go inside and clean house. If the truck comes back, there’ll be nobody to open the gate, so they’ll be ready for something to go down. Light ‘em up before they get inside, rah?”
“Rah, Sergeant,” Reeve said.
“Welch?”
“Oorah!” Jed said, feeling the buzz of adrenaline burning in his arms and legs.
Mission first, everything else second. Tucker, your days are numbered.
Sergeant G gave Jed a handheld radio of his own. It was a beat up piece of green gear, but it worked. Mahton told him they’d collected as many as they could when they were retreating during Operation Reaper.
“We knew we’d need commo. As long as we got batteries, we got commo.”
Jed went down the hallway and did a radio check with each of the others, confirming he could hear them clearly when they were out of earshot.
“Batteries are in short supply, Welch,” Reeve said over the channel. “That one should last until we’re done, or until you’re done, whichever comes first.”
Jed mumbled to himself as he stepped back down the hall. “Man, I hope that motherfucker can find a new attitude and fast.”
Back in the barracks room, he double checked the fit on the tactical vest they’d given him. Then he squared off in front of Reeve and stared the man in the eyes. He’d had enough shit and wanted to clear the air before they moved out. Sergeant G saved him the trouble.
“Reeve, one is none, rah?”
“Rah. And two is one,” he said, staring back at Jed like he was daring him to make a move.
“So how about you and your other half get right, and get right fast. We’re moving out. Now.”
Sergeant G and Mahton checked their commo one more time and left. Jed kept eyeballing Reeve. A few beats passed and Reeve cracked a grin, shook his head, and broke the staring contest. He waved a hand in the air like he was swatting a fly before he went to the desk and hefted two of the ammo boxes for the SAW.
“That’s your boom stick, Welch. Leave the M4 here. Grab the other two cans and make sure you got a full one locked and loaded in the weapon. And here,” Reeve said as he reached into a pouch slung over his shoulder. He took out two small tubes with pull rings at one end.
“Flash-bangs. We got ‘em from that survivalist dude. More shit he’d scrounged up.”
“Good thing you found him first instead of Tucker.”
“Yeah, no shit. Sergeant G wants us all to have a couple in case of hostages in the stronghold. Mahton has our last frag, but we’re going with just bangers unless we have no choice.”
Jed took the grenades and tucked them into a pouch on his vest. “Okay, man. Now what about that attitude adjustment?”
For a second Jed thought he’d pushed too hard, too fast. Reeve got a twitch across his cheek and he looked ready to throw the ammo cans at Jed’s face. Then he chuckled and dropped his eyes to the floor.
“You’re a candy-ass if I ever saw one, Welch. But you got balls. We’ll be jake out there.”
“What about in here?”
Reeve looked up at him and Jed saw nothing but fire in the other man’s eyes. Then his gaze softened. He reached into a pocket and took out a tin of dip. He opened it and held it out, like some kind of peace offering. Jed shook his head.
“We good, Reeve?”
“Rah,” he said, after he’d packed a wad under his lip and stowed the tin again. “Sorry I’ve been a dick, Welch. I lost a lot of friends when all this shit happened. Sergeant G and Mahton are all that’s left. Don’t fuck things up for us.”
“I feel you, man. I lost people same as you. I’m good to go.”
Reeve turned his head and spat into the hall. He looked back to Jed with a goofy grin before he moved out. Jed went to the SAW and unhooked the pins holding it to the tripod. He slung it and hoisted the spare ammo cans in their bag. All the gear made him feel like a damn donkey at first. And Reeve’s attitude still didn’t sit right. Then Jed remembered where they were going and what they were doing.
We’re coming after you, Tucker. For Pivowitch and his squad. For Reeve and Mahton and Sergeant Gallegos, and all the people you took from them. And for Meg. We’re coming for you.
Jed caught up with Reeve and followed him through the warren of hallways and ruined offices. Jed stayed back about three yards and checked their six at every turn. Finally, they got to a firehole that Mahton had shown him the day before. Reeve held out a hand for the extra ammo cans.
“We go down here. Sergeant G and Mahton are already on the street. You first.”
The firehole dropped them into a mop closet on the first floor, which let out into a service hallway at the back of the building. They stepped outside into a dark covered drive that extended from the street down to berths holding busses that would never be used again. The busses sat behind metal screens that dropped from the ceiling.
Their headlights stared back at Jed like dead eyes.
Smoke stained the ceiling in front of the berths. Jed wrenched his gaze away from the blackened mounds of bone and cloth piled there. Tras
h and debris filled the middle of the three deep drives. Across the space, a low railing bordered a raised walkway. A string of windows lined the wall above the walkway. Yellow safety pylons stood at the far end, nearest the street.
Reeve went fast through the debris field in the driveway until he got to the yellow pylons. He waved for Jed to follow as he moved into the street. Jed emerged from the covered drive into a hazy morning with mist sprinkling through the air and nothing but silence in every direction.
The street was a mass of craters and rubble in every direction. Park Avenue sloped down from the bus depot in the direction they were headed. The tracks that ran alongside the avenue went from being level with their position to sitting on top of a brick trestle in an elevated run that stretched away for blocks. The brick was stained with smoke where it was still whole, but had been broken up by explosions every few yards. The tracks splayed out at these points like the rib bones of some dead giant.
“This is Park Avenue?” Jed asked. “Damn.”
Reeve put a finger to his lips and paced along the depot’s back wall, heading toward the next corner. When he got there, he signaled for Jed to take point. Keeping the SAW ready, Jed moved around Reeve to the front. They kept to Park Avenue, leap-frogging across open spaces, and made to the next block. Reeve had told him that Sergeant G and Mahton would be waiting for them two blocks ahead.
Jed stepped fast but carefully, sweeping the street and eyeballing every shadow like it held the threat of instant death. The tracks beside him reminded him of his entrance to Manhattan with the Civil Affairs unit. He shook those memories away and concentrated on his mission now.
Stay on point, stay on mission. Eyes out and weapon up.
Mounds of dead monsters littered the street. Some lay sprawled and alone in the middle of the road. Others were heaped together against the remains of buildings or the elevated tracks. Even with so many dead ones, Jed didn’t dare let his guard slip.
I know you ain’t all dead. You got plenty left underground.
Most of the buildings near the bus depot had been leveled or turned into skeletal ruins by the bombing runs. An entire block of apartments along 100th Street had tumbled like matchsticks into a tangled mess of splinters and concrete dust. Here and there Jed thought he saw a human body in the mess, but he never let himself look for too long. He could only pray they’d gone somewhere better.
As they neared 101st, Reeve tapped his mic and blew twice. That was their agreed signal to hold position, so Jed set down on one knee and rested the SAW on a mound of broken earth and concrete. He scanned the area, trusting Reeve to be doing the same at their six. In front of them was an open area that used to be a tree-lined alley between apartment blocks. Now it was just a mess of dirt, tree limbs, and rubble, with nothing but the frames of buildings to show where the apartments had once stood.
A crackling in Jed’s left ear startled him so bad he nearly raced back to the depot. Then Mahton’s voice came through his earpiece.
“Got eyes on you. Close it up so we can move.”
Jed shifted to look back at Reeve. He made eye contact and signaled he was moving. One at a time, they sped through the open space and took up positions at the end of the block. Cars were scattered around like toys thrown by a giant child. The street was pockmarked in places, but most of the pavement was clear of obstacles.
Except for the stains and blood and wrecked cars. And bodies.
Like he’d seen when he was with Rex and Meg, the monsters that had died in the Air Force’s chemical attack lay all over the place, filling the city with the stench of rotten fruit and death. They’d all succumbed instantly it seemed, with most of them just lying in piles in the middle of the street or on sidewalks. A few had tried to hide under cars. Their scabby, pale white legs jutted out with the clawed feet curled up in a clutch of pain.
Like I care what those things felt when they died . . . or do I?
Jed shook his head to clear his thoughts. He and Reeve continued their movement to the corner of 102nd Street where they connected with Mahton in a little hollow of debris.
Sergeant Gallegos wasn’t there.
“She’s scouting ahead. Said she’d be back in two.”
Sure enough, Jed spotted the sergeant crawling over a debris pile that loomed at the opposite end of the block. At first he thought she was a monster coming for them, until he saw the weapon in her hands.
☣
Gallegos flashed a hand signal, clicked her mic, and blew twice to confirm it was her and not some col-lab shitbag. She breathed a slow sigh of relief when Mahton clicked his mic and flashed the matching hand signal. When she got down to street level again, she raced over and sheltered with her men.
“Tucker’s about to move out. They’re at the truck Four of them out there.”
“Plan?” Reeve asked.
“Same as before. Take out their commo; get inside and clean house.”
“What about after?” Welch asked.
“Make a run for it back to the hide.”
Welch didn’t say anything else. Neither did Mahton or Reeve. Gallegos put her hand out and one by one the men stacked theirs on top, like every committed team had done probably going back to ancient times. They’d all signed on for the mission and would complete it without any more questions being asked.
Or we’ll die trying.
Gallegos led the men forward along 102nd Street. As Lexington came into view, she spied the crater left by the exploding gasoline tanks. It filled the opposite corner, like a great black pit in the middle of a city covered in concrete dust and rubble and ash.
A truck motor revved once and then rumbled steadily. In the thick silence, the doors slammed shut and the motor revved again. A scraping of metal on stone pierced the dead calm.
That’s the gate. They’ll be coming out soon.
Inch by inch, the black truck appeared from the breezeway. Gallegos held back the urge to race forward and open up on the col-labs as they exited their stronghold and turned to drive away. She felt Reeve and Mahton behind her and glanced back to see them glaring at the truck’s tailgate, just as she had been doing.
“We’re going to get them,” she said. “This shit ends today.”
“Errr,” Reeve said. He shouldered his weapon and motioned for Welch to move out ahead of him. Gallegos waited while the men dashed across Lexington and into the crater. No sniper fire cracked the air, and no sucker faces came tearing out of the shadows.
Gallegos checked left and right, listening to the truck motor disappear into the neighborhoods up ahead. The street was clear, and she didn’t see any signs of the monsters. Still, something kept nagging at her like an itch. What was she missing?
A bank of clouds rolled across the sky, partially obscuring the sun for a moment. Did she hear the suckers’ joints clicking? Was that scraping?
No time to waste. Go! Go!
Gallegos nudged Mahton and raced across Lexington, listening to her teammate’s steady footfalls behind her. She nearly stumbled at the edge of the crater, but hopped over the rim, dropping to a crouch and moving fast across the blackened pit. Shards of metal and bits of stone stuck out from the earth where the fuel tanks had once been. Gallegos skirted the obstacles and came up alongside Reeve and Welch on the other side. Mahton joined them moments later. Together, the four of them held position, scanning the rooftops and ruins.
Immediately in front of them were the remains of two apartment blocks on either side of an alley. Trees that used to fill the space were nothing more than blackened sticks poking out of the ground. Mounds of ash covered everything in the area.
Checking her men one by one, Gallegos caught Welch’s stricken face. The dude looked ready to crumble just like the buildings around him. She tapped his helmet and signaled for him to keep his eyes out. He gave her a sharp nod and Errr in return, then went back to scanning his zone.
I hope to hell you don’t lose it, Welch. Time to find out if I was wrong about you.
“Re
eve, you and Welch will move out through the alley. Climb up to a vantage point there,” she said, pointing at the mounded debris.
“Me and Mahton will come from this direction. I’ll signal you when we’re in position. Get eyes on us to confirm. You take out the gate guard first, then anyone who comes out to investigate. We’ll move in and make sure the gate is secure. Then we go inside. Throw a flash-bang and clean house.”
“What about the noise, Sergeant?” Reeve asked. “If Tucker’s still nearby, he’ll hear the gunfire and probably the grenade. And if it ain’t him, the sucker-faces will hear it. They’ll be on us like flies on shit.”
“We deal with that if it happens. We’ve all seen how the suckers are timing their hunts. They aren’t just roaming around like before. They’ve got Tucker feeding them prisoners. Game plan right now is you and Welch secure the parking lot. Mahton and I go inside with a flash-bang. If they got hostages inside, we want to greet them with a smile, not a bunch of shrapnel in the grill. You stay ready to come in hot on our six, rah?”
“Rah,” Reeve and Welch said together.
“Move out, Marines,” she said.
Reeve and Welch peeled off and moved toward the alley. Mahton picked up beside her and they were scrambling over the ruins, making their way up the debris pile in front of them. The climb was a struggle with so much ash and dust. Every step could be a one-way ticket to a broken ankle or knee if the debris shifted under their weight. Scrapes and squeals of metal on concrete came from the parking lot.
He’s closing the gate. Good. That’ll give us more time in case Tucker comes back.
As they climbed, they found their footing on the remains of people’s homes. Gallegos dodged around a splintered headboard and ignored the people’s faces staring at her from behind shattered picture frames.
At the top of the pile, Mahton set down against a mound of earth and ash, sighting on the gate guard in the parking lot below. Gallegos set down beside him and scanned the lot for additional targets. The guard was closing the gate the final few inches. Gallegos thought about taking him out herself, but she’d told Reeve he could have the first kill. He needed it and she knew it.