Turning Point (Book 1): A Time To Die

by Wandrey, Mark

  “I’m in the cargo area,” Wade told Andrew over the PA. “Dropping the rear ramp.” On the status board the corresponding indicators lit up, telling him the ramp was going down. “Man, the fumes are bad back here.”

  “There should be an oxygen mask. Grab it,” Andrew told him.

  Now that everything was working, he could bring up the numerous CCT cameras located inside and outside the plane. With the engines running, the marker lights came on, illuminating the hangar every three seconds with a powerful white strobe. Looking down from the height of the cockpit, he could see the operators finishing their work. One of them, perhaps Cobb, drove a tow truck in front of the plane. Andrew knew it wasn’t to tow the C-17 as the scenario called for the transports to be under their own power.

  Seconds ticked away as they waited for the operation to begin. It seemed an eternity before the radio came alive again. “Operation Donner Pass is commencing. I repeat. Operation Donner Pass is commencing. All operators, open hanger doors in 10 seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven…”

  Andrew couldn’t hear the counting anymore, because outside all hell broke loose. A dozen Apache Gunships unleashed their 20mm chain guns in a torrential rain of lead. He heard rockets exploding as well as the helicopters dealing merciless oblivion to the untold thousands outside.

  They must have reached ‘One’ because a series of small explosions lit the inside of the hanger. Similar to the setup he’d used in Monterrey, the explosives blew the locks on the huge doors, and dozens of 55-gallon drums the operators had winched up with the tow truck pulled them open with their weight. The huge doors began to accordion back.

  Outside was a scene from one of the lowest levels of Dante’s Hell. The gunships had strafed the taxiways from fifty yards outside the hangars to a hundred yards from the airfield perimeter. Dozens of red parachute flairs drifted lazily downward in the rain. Hundreds of zombies were still outside the doors, and they would have rushed in, but they encountered a merciless wall of high velocity lead delivered by the men inside Andrew’s hangar.

  Fully automatic and burst fire ripped into them. In just seconds almost all of the infected were down. Five men converged on the tug and jumped aboard, its engine belching smoke as it headed toward the door.

  “I hope the rest of the operation went well, or this might be a short drive,” Andrew said as he put a hand on the throttle. Chris put his hand on top of Andrew’s, and, together, they advanced the throttle to 25 percent. Outside, the engines roared, and he heard the unmistakable sound of tortured steel as the thrust deformed the unopened doors behind them. In a moment the huge C-17 began to roll.

  They approached the door. Andrew’s foot hovered over the brakes, almost quivering with intensity. The tug moved to the side just as six massive D7 bulldozers appeared, three from either side. They swept in, turning and meeting in the middle of the taxiway. Their blades nearly touching, they were as wide as the C-17. The front two drivers angled their blades in opposite directions and took up positions just ahead of the next two, who positioned themselves ahead of the last two, creating a massive wedge. Their smokestacks belched huge gouts of black smoke as the engines roared, and they began to plow the road.

  “Woohoo!” Chris cheered as the plane’s nose left the hanger and rain began to pour down on them.

  “Find the wipers, will you?” Andrew asked, concentrating on steering the massive plane. The taxiways at the army airfield were not as wide as he’d have liked. And worse, even with the work of the bulldozers, there were dozens of partially mangled bodies on the tarmac. He could feel the huge tires crush them, making the Globemaster shift slightly from time to time. He corrected with the wheel and rudder, feeling the plane come back on course.

  “The tug is aboard,” Wade called from the back, “ramp closing.”

  Andrew heaved another sigh of relief; that was one less thing to worry about. In the pouring rain, he could see the other two C-17s behind him, on the plane’s tail camera. The job of the last of the three wasn’t as easy. After the plows passed, more of the crazies ran at the transport. They crushed some under the tires, while others tried to climb the landing gear. The Apaches came back around and carefully began providing perimeter fire as the planes moved along at a painfully slow five miles per hour.

  “What happens if a turbine sucks a zombie in?” Chris asked.

  “Then the turbine is fucked,” Andrew said. “But at the speed we’re going, the engine bell is too far up. It doesn’t create enough suction. It’s part of the reason we’re going as slow as we are.”

  Wade arrived in the cockpit and sat in the engineer’s seat. Their operators were below with the crew doors open, adding their fire to that of the Apaches, picking off the zombies running toward the transport. Andrew saw that the rear plane wasn’t copying their actions, so he used the radio.

  “23 Papa, can your operators help keep them off you?”

  “Negative,” came the reply. “Our hangar was overrun. We lost all but one securing the transport.”

  “Oh God,” Chris said, his hand clammy on the throttle. If something went wrong with the planes, they were probably dead men.

  The transports were halfway back, and Andrew could see through the cockpit window that the final stage was underway. More than a hundred soldiers from inside the airfield were staging a breakout. They were too close to the perimeter to risk gunship fire, so they were using crew-served M240s and small arms. Worse, they couldn’t risk firing in the direction of the transports, so they had to go out at angles away from the planes, then turn sharply and fire inward with low angle shots at the infecteds’ limbs. Andrew could see a lot of hand-to-hand fighting. He offered a silent prayer on their behalf to those gods he seldom addressed.

  He didn’t want to think about the price they might pay in blood, but as they approached, the bulldozers sped up slightly and began working from the center out to clear the way. Inside the perimeter, cranes began moving the barricades blocking the taxiway. It was a carefully coordinated action that went well, until one crane stopped working, leaving a single 10-foot-tall barricade in the center of the road.

  “Oh shit,” Andrew said and estimated the distance. They had less than two minutes. He considered and decided. “Throttle down,” Andrew ordered.

  “But the general said not to stop for anything,” Chris complained.

  “I know what Rose said, but he’s not sitting up here! Throttle down.” He activated his radio. “This is 44 Foxtrot to all transports, there’s a problem, and we’re stopping!”

  “23 Papa, understood.”

  “41 India, acknowledged.”

  They watched tensely as two bulldozers tried to move the barricade and failed. It weighed forty tons, and simply refused to budge without chewing the shit out of the tarmac. Flipping it would be just as bad.

  “They’re going to have to blow it up,” Wade said, watching from his seat.

  “There has to be a better solution,” Andrew said. But as Wade suggested, several operators came running out with backpacks and quickly attached them to the barricade in several places. Then the men didn’t just retreat, they ran like hell.

  “I hope that blast…” Andrew started to say he hoped the blast wasn’t too big, when the barricade went up in a tremendous explosion. Given the containment of the blast, Andrew suspected they’d used specialized demolition charges. In short order, the bulldozers cleared what remained, with little damage to the taxiway. Andrew gratefully throttled back up, and in a minute, the nose of his plane passed the barricade entrance.

  Small arms continued to roar from all sides as the soldiers maintained the perimeter, but the more intense and much louder gunship fire ceased as there was no longer a reason to keep the taxiway open. The zombies started to push toward the retreating transports, and the small arms fire picked up in intensity.

  “What are they going to do without the crane to replace the barricades?” Chris wondered.

  It turned out the general had planned for that contingency as
well. A dozen huge container trucks backed into place once the last C-17 taxied though. Once lined up, the tractors dropped the trailers, and the bulldozers raised their blades, pushing the containers onto their sides and sliding them into place. The containers were two deep and covered the entire width of the taxiway, although they were not as heavy or resistant as the concrete barriers were.

  Andrew made it to the airfield, and he taxied his aircraft over to the flight line by the helicopter hangars, turning it slightly so the rear was facing away from the runway, and shut it down. Operation Donner Pass was a success. Lightning played across the stormy sky as the zombies raged against the airfield’s defenses.

  * * *

  Dr. Lisha Breda walked onto the balcony off the main labs to look at the growing spectacle. The view wasn’t as good as ‘the bridge,’ as the crew called it, but since the Navy and Marines had moved in, she no longer had free run of her own facility. The sun was coming over the eastern horizon, revealing how the fleet had grown overnight. As in her facility, almost everyone she saw was a stranger.

  The night before, a Navy physician waltzed into her lab like he owned the place, a squad of sailors with him, and gave orders that all her equipment be “stored or thrown overboard…” to make room for a new medical center. She was almost stunned speechless by the audacity, but had rallied quickly.

  “You are going to do no such thing,” she raged, placing herself squarely in the doorway. She had often lamented her too-wide hips, but as a woman of a certain age, it was something she had come to grips with. For once, she was glad she wasn’t a thin little girl. With her hands on her hips and her death-ray stare, she was an imposing figure.

  “I was told you were prepared to cooperate,” the man said, trying some intimidation of his own. But, given her experience as the only black female in her post-doctorate program, he did not intimidate her.

  “I gave you access to my facility. You have people bunking in our unused living spaces. We’re opening other areas to you. Our bridge is under Navy occupation, serving as a damned traffic control center. A hundred boats are using our generators for power. That said, we are a BSL-3, a Level Three Bio-Safety Laboratory, which is among the most secure we’ve got. There are only five currently operational in the world that we know of. We are studying the virus that is destroying humanity.” She leaned closer to him, and gestured at the racks of equipment incubating samples. “So, you will not touch anything, and you will get the fuck out of my laboratory!” He backed up a step with each word. The staff he brought retreated behind him until they were out in the hallway.

  “Y-you don’t understand, we have a priority need,” the man stammered, clearly taken off guard by her rage.

  “You don’t understand; this is not your facility!”

  “We will simply take it then,” the man said, regaining his air of authority.

  “That would be unwise.”

  The man turned and saw the imposing figure of Joseph from the Zombie Squad. The stores department man was almost as wide as he was tall, with upper arms as big around as Lisha’s thighs. Standing next to him was Robert, the diesel mechanic and another Zombie Squad member. Both held massive shotguns in a manner that came from untold hours of handling. It chagrined Lisha to see they’d somehow come up with patches for their impromptu uniforms. It was a big, stylized ZS with a drooling zombie caricature, complete with blood dripping from its lips.

  “Who are you?” the doctor demanded.

  “We’re the Zombie Squad,” Robert said.

  “Fuckin’ A,” Joseph agreed.

  “Zombies?” the doctor said, completely flabbergasted. His team of sailors, all big guys, backed up a bit. They looked small in comparison to the two men.

  “Problem, Doctor?” The men looked the other way and saw two more Zombie Squad men; Oz and a new guy named Danzas. Danzas was a friend of Joseph’s who’d been on a fishing boat that’d come alongside the day before. Danzas was the only one without a gun. He carried a pair of nunchakus and several very long, very sharp knives. There were men on both sides of the Navy personnel, who suddenly looked very uncomfortable.

  “No, Oz, these men were just leaving.”

  The Navy doctor considered for a moment, then nodded and left. There’d been no sign of them in the laboratory since. She asked Robert to keep two of his people on guard at all times. He didn’t seem to mind and had said he “…looked forward to roughing up some squids.”

  The view from the balcony was like the one she remembered from San Diego Harbor on Regatta Day. There were hundreds of boats and ships of every imaginable type tied up to each other, and then to the HAARP platform in vast groups, leading out like spokes from a wheel.

  The military presence was formidable. Beginning with the Coast Guard cutter, the USS Boutwell, it had grown substantially. The Marine amphibious assault ship, USS Essex, arrived next with dozens of boats. Then the USS George Washington, a Nimitz-class supercarrier, and its entire task force showed up with hundreds more vessels. It had left for Japan a few days before, but turned around when everything started to go to hell.

  As she watched, another carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, with all its ships and refugees, arrived. They informed her the USS Ronald Reagan was a few hours out as was the USS Gerald R. Ford. Though the Gerald R. Ford was not yet fully operational, it did have a full crew and facilities.

  “There are more every hour,” a voice said. Lisha glanced over to see Edith leaning on the railing. “How are they going to feed them all?” Edith asked.

  “We can figure out new ways of cooking,” Lisha said. “They won’t work too well with fish, though; the temperature is so high it almost crisps it.”

  “Christopher is experimenting with soups cooked in a pressure cooker,” Edith said.

  “Our mad chef? He’s subjecting everything to testing, isn’t he?”

  “Of course, ma’am.”

  Lisha turned back to the flotilla. “I understand there is another of these stations off Norfolk. It’s as if the government is abandoning the land.”

  “You’ve seen the webcasts,” Edith said. “There are mega-swarms in many of the cities. Others are roving across the countryside. And have you seen the last numbers from the CDC?”

  “I helped formulate those numbers,” Lisha reminded her. They suggested as much as a 90 percent infection rate within 72 hours of the loss of containment. She’d snorted at that. They’d never contained it. Aside from a weird fox, there appeared to be no Patient Zero. Nothing had prepared the world’s medical community for a plague like this. A zombie apocalypse? Impossible. And yet, here they were.

  “Dr. Breda,” a lab tech came out onto the balcony, “the latest treatment runs are ready.”

  “Thank you, Teresa,” Lisha said and turned to go back inside. At the edge of the formation a cruise ship was arriving, escorted by a Coast Guard frigate.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 28

  Tuesday, April 25, Afternoon

  The celebration in the operations center was short. Someone offered a toast to the Operation Donner Pass teams, both the C-17 flight crews and the bulldozer teams. Just about everyone cheered as they shared some of the last Cokes. Then, it was back to work.

  Andrew and the flight crews retired to their bunks for some sleep, while every other able hand set to work. They fueled the C-17s, checked them for damage, and reloaded them with supplies. Loading took twice as long as normal without C-17 loadmasters.

  Cobb and Kathy managed to get a few minutes alone.

  “When I heard one of the operator teams was lost…” she said. She closed the door to the tiny room and flew into his arms. “I almost died.” She began to cry.

  “I’m fine,” he assured her and stroked her hair. She’d taken a shower and smelled like soap and beauty. “Except for that crane failure, we had a pretty easy go of it. That Air Force puke, Andrew, is a pretty solid pilot.”

  “Seems to be,” she agreed and nuzzled her head under his chin. “Do you have to g
o right back?” An unspoken question was evident in the way she conformed her body to his.

  “I have a few minutes,” he said as her face turned up to his, and their mouths met. They took more than a few minutes.

  * * *

  A young, nervous pilot woke Andrew and his crew just before noon.

  “Preflight in 15 minutes, sir.”

  “Thanks, Lieutenant,” Andrew said and saluted him. The kid smiled and left the door partway open. “Up and at ‘em!” he yelled and shook the cot next to his. Chris flipped him off and tried to go back to sleep. “Get up, and go wake Pillsbury. We have preflight in 15 minutes.” Chris slowly sat up and ran a hand up and down his face vigorously, making a dubba-dubba-dubba sound.

  “Fine,” he said and sat up. Confident at least one of them was up, Andrew went down the hall to the tiny shower. Two other men were already there, but being in the military for years had scrubbed away any sense of modesty. He dropped his clothes on a bench and found an available shower head.

  The water was hot, and the soap plentiful. There was no shampoo in sight, and he was considering using the hand soap, when the man next to him held out a small bottle.

  “Here, sir,” the man said. “You saved our ass bringing out that bird. Least I can do is share some of my shampoo.”

  “Thanks…” he said and realized that being naked in the shower meant he had no clue about the man’s rank.

  “Staff Sergeant Hickens,” he said and shook his head.

  “I didn’t know there were any other Air Force personnel here.”

  “Not many, sir. And my specialty was computers, so I’m pretty much useless on the C-17s.” He shrugged. “I’ve been helping load the birds, doing what I can.”

  “Glad to have a fellow Air Force man here,” Andrew said and took a minimal amount of shampoo before handing it back.