Indestructible: V Plague Book 7

by Dirk Patton

  After confirming that Igor wasn’t finding any threats, he and the big Russian lowered the rear ramp and stepped out into the night. They left Irina in the idling vehicle, each of them with a tactical radio set so they could stay in communication.

  “Son of a bitch!” Scott exclaimed when they walked around the right side of the Bradley.

  The rifle fire that he hadn’t been worried about had punched holes in the spare fuel cans on that side, and they were now all empty. He looked at Igor, knowing he’d hear “I told you so” if not for the language barrier. Running around to the left side he was relieved to find that half of their supply still intact. After a quick translation over the radio, Igor slung his rifle and grabbed the first can off the makeshift rack.

  Cursing himself for having stayed Igor’s hand when the Russian wanted to take out the sniper, Scott moved to the downed aircraft while Igor started pouring diesel into the Bradley’s tank. Not seeing anything that hadn’t been in the satellite image he’d been shown by Captain Blanchard, he stood staring at all the bodies.

  “What do you see?” Irina asked over the radio.

  “Dog survived,” he answered. “There’s at least three female infected with their throats ripped out.”

  “What about the Major?” Irina asked.

  “Don’t know. I’m going to take a look inside the fuselage.” Scott answered, clicking on a high intensity flashlight and climbing through the debris.

  He spent several minutes searching, finding more bodies, but not the Major, Rachel or Martinez. Moving back outside he paused, looking at the crash site. The Osprey was heading south when it crashed. On its way back to Tinker? Most likely. And the presence of Dog was pretty compelling evidence that either the Major, Rachel, or both, were on board when it went down.

  While he was standing there looking, Igor walked up and joined him. The Russian didn’t bother to look at any of the bodies, but started walking around the area peering at the ground. Scott had forgotten about the tracks Captain Blanchard had found in the satellite image. Igor kept moving, slowly working his way farther and farther from the wreckage. He paused a couple of times, then looked to the east and started walking across the field. Scott jogged over to see what he’d found.

  Igor looked at him and started speaking rapid fire Russian into his radio, motioning for Scott to return to the Bradley with him. As they approached, the rear ramp dropped with a whine of hydraulics and they quickly boarded and took their seats.

  “A large group headed to the east after the crash,” Irina translated once Scott was back on the intercom. “They were followed by a dog and a man in US Army issue boots. I think we know which way the Major went.”

  31

  “Stay on me!” I shouted to Katie and ran for the tunnel that led out of the chamber.

  She kept her left hand on my left shoulder, firmly gripping the edge of the vest. I was moving fast, but was afraid to break into a full run, rather moved by shuffling my feet along the surface of the sand. Any females that hadn’t gotten to their feet could easily trip me. I hoped that keeping my feet low would prevent that.

  I had lowered the rifle and drawn the Kukri as we ran, feeling it slice into a body a moment before I crashed into it. The contact with the blade had given me enough warning time to lower my shoulder and bull the female aside. We kept going, screams continuing to sound all around us. Hands grasped at my arms as we moved and I began slashing back and forth.

  More often than not I felt momentary resistance as the blade bit into flesh, but it was sharp and my swings were adrenaline fueled. The Kukri cut through everything it contacted. I was starting to think we were going to make it to the exit relatively unscathed when a body crashed into my right side and sent me sprawling.

  I landed hard on my left shoulder, no longer feeling Katie’s hand gripping my vest. Panic surged as the female that had tackled me lunged her face forward against my throat. I was able to thrust my shoulder up just in time to protect my flesh, hearing her teeth clack together on empty air, inches from my ear.

  Twisting, I grabbed the female’s neck and levered her up and away, thrusting the Kukri into her chest until my knuckles pressed against her body. Hurling the corpse away I stood, afraid to swing the blade because I had no idea where Katie was. Disoriented in the dark, rage took over and when the next female reached for me I yanked her close and snapped her neck.

  Stepping back, I sheathed the Kukri and raised the rifle. Suddenly I could see and began pulling the trigger the moment I had a target. The females zeroed in on me as soon as I fired the first shot, rushing my location. They were close, but I had the advantage of sight and kept putting them down as fast as I could pull the trigger, sidestepping so as not to give them a static location to attack.

  “Katie!” I shouted, no longer worried about the females knowing exactly where I was.

  “Here!” She shouted in return a moment later, her voice coming from behind me.

  Knowing where she was removed the last restraint and after changing magazines I switched from semi to full auto and started mowing down my attackers. I wasn’t going for headshots, just putting bullets into legs to slow them. Going through two full mags, I popped in a fresh one as I moved backwards.

  “Coming to you,” I shouted between pulls of the trigger.

  “No need,” Katie said a moment later from right behind me, then I felt her hand on my shoulder again.

  The females were still screaming, but as I scanned the chamber with the night vision scope I didn’t find any that were still able to walk. Many were alive, crawling towards us across the sandy floor, but they weren’t an immediate threat. I checked behind us, not at all surprised when I saw three dead females where Katie had been.

  “OK, we’re moving,” I said, heading for the tunnel.

  Three more females were on the ground, still alive, between the exit and us. Switching back to semi I put a single round into each of their heads, then broke into a real run. Katie held on tight and stayed right against my back.

  Passing through the gap, I turned to the side so I would fit, Katie shifting her hand to my other shoulder. The light steadily increased as we approached the far end and I moved with the rifle at my shoulder, ready to fire. I didn’t think for a moment that there weren’t other females responding to the screams and sounds of the fight.

  We quickly covered the length of the tunnel, emerging into the next chamber. Stepping over the bodies of the females I’d killed earlier, I froze when I heard screams coming from one of the other tunnels. A lot of screams.

  “That’s a whole shitload of pissed off females,” I said.

  “Is that the way out?” Katie asked, moving up next to me and pointing at a tunnel in the far wall. She still held my Ka-Bar and it was stained red, drops of blood falling from the tip onto the sand.

  “In there,” I said, pushing her toward the tunnel entrance that led to the chamber with the waterfall. It had been empty of infected when I’d checked it and if we were very lucky, the ones charging in would head straight to the sleeping chamber.

  Katie dashed through the opening and I followed, still facing the approaching females with my rifle up. We melded back into the passage, moving around the first bend so we were hidden from the chamber we’d just left. I pressed my back against the glowing wall, poking my head out just far enough to see the room. Katie was next to me, pressed tight against my side.

  A moment later, females began boiling into the chamber we’d just left. There were a lot of them, and they were moving too fast for me to get an accurate count. Racing across the floor they entered the other tunnel, moments later fresh screams echoing throughout the caverns.

  Pulling my head back I checked my vest, unhappy when I only found four more full magazines. Not enough with this many females. But then I’m not sure four hundred magazines would have helped. There were so many of them, and they were so fast, I didn’t think I’d be able to hold them off for more than a few seconds. Longer if we were in this tunn
el and they couldn’t rush me from a broad front, but even then there were more targets than I had bullets.

  “What are we doing?” Katie mumbled in my ear.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve got less than a hundred rounds left and I’m pretty sure there are more females than that.”

  Katie stayed quiet and I leaned out to check the tunnel entrance. Fifteen or twenty females were pacing around the chamber, looking at the floor, sniffing the air, but so far none of them seemed to be interested in our hiding place. Pulling back, I turned and quietly told Katie what I’d seen. Before I could turn my head away she reached up and grabbed my face and kissed me, hard and deep.

  “Just in case,” she breathed when our lips parted.

  I kissed her again, a quick touch of the lips, then looked back down the tunnel. Two females were standing at the entrance, peering in. I froze, hoping they hadn’t seen me, not about to move again and risk drawing their attention. After a long moment, one of them stepped into the tunnel.

  Without moving my head or taking my eyes off the approaching threat I reached behind and gently pushed Katie a couple of feet away. Once she was clear I drew the Kukri and held it along my leg and waited. The female kept coming and now the second one followed her into the tunnel.

  Keeping my attention on the infected I extended two fingers on the hand that was holding the Kukri and lightly tapped the side of the blade. I hoped Katie would see my signal and understand. I couldn’t help but smile when a moment later I felt two taps on my shoulder. She’d gotten it and understood.

  The first female moved even with me and paused when she realized I was standing there, but I was already in motion. Leaning out I rotated my shoulder past her body and drove my elbow into the back of her neck. She stumbled forward and I reversed my motion, thrusting the Kukri into the second female’s throat.

  I grabbed the front of her shirt and keeping the body upright, dragged it deeper into the tunnel, out of sight of the other females prowling around the chamber. Turning, I was happy to see Katie had finished the first one off with the knife. Pulling the corpse the rest of the way around the bend I dropped it on top of the first one.

  We had hardly made a noise, putting both females down before they could sound an alarm, but something had drawn the attention of several of the infected in the chamber. They were stalking towards the tunnel entrance, and I snapped my head around when a scream sounded behind us. Whipping the rifle to my rear, I body checked Katie out of the way and fired three shots, dropping two females that were charging us.

  There weren’t any more behind them, at least that had shown themselves, so I turned back to the front. As I sighted in on the females that had broken into a sprint I felt Katie pull my pistol out of the holster strapped to my thigh.

  Pulling the trigger, I noted the sounds as she checked the magazine and verified there was a round in the chamber, then felt her back against mine as she guarded our rear. Time for worry over the noise of firing the unsuppressed pistol was over. Every female in the caverns knew where we were, and it looked like all of them were charging directly at us.

  32

  I burned through a magazine in no time. Loading a fresh one I resumed a steady rate of fire, dropping a female with every pull of the trigger. They were so close I hardly needed to aim, and the narrow entrance into the tunnel restricted them to one attacker at a time. The bodies were piling up, but several of the females were pulling their dead sisters out of the way as fast as I could put them down.

  Ammo was going in a hurry and I could see the chamber still filling up with females. In only a matter of minutes I was going to run out and then they’d push in and rip us apart. When the rifle ran dry I’d draw the Kukri and keep fighting. I’d be able to hold them off for a while, but eventually my arm would tire and slow, or the blade would stick in a body, then it would all be over.

  I hadn’t realized Katie was no longer at my back until she suddenly appeared next to me, shouting to be heard over the screaming of the females and the muted shots from the rifle.

  “It’s open behind us. We need to fall back!”

  “This tunnel’s all that’s saving us,” I shouted in between shots. “We fall back and they can spread out and rush us.”

  “How much ammo do you have left?” She asked.

  “Not nearly enough. Maybe a minute, two if we’re lucky.” I said, pushing the release to drop an empty magazine then slapping in a fresh one.

  “Trust me,” Katie shouted as I felt two hard tugs on the front of my vest. Glancing down I saw fragmentation grenades in her hands just as she pulled the first pin.

  “Don’t fucking do…” I started to say, but it was too late.

  She had already thrown the first one onto the sand at the mouth of the tunnel and was pulling the next pin. The second grenade landed farther out in the chamber amongst a tightly packed group of females. Firing two more times, I spun, pushed Katie around the bend and pressed my body against her to act as a shield.

  The twin detonations were like the fist of God. I was deafened and not entirely sure my eardrums weren’t blown out by the concussive wave. Dirt and dust was thrown into the air, reducing visibility to nothing as it quickly filled the entire chamber and rolled into the tunnel. I was aware of a vibration in the soles of my feet, but couldn’t hear a thing.

  Moving away from Katie I looked around the bend, seeing nothing other than a glowing cloud. The force of the blasts had torn much of the phosphorescent lichen free from the walls and it mixed with the dust in a nightmarish, glowing fog. I couldn’t see any females, but then I couldn’t see more than six inches. I couldn’t hear any screams, but then I couldn’t hear anything other than my own heart pounding.

  The vibrations intensified and “cave in” flashed through my head. Grabbing Katie’s arm I turned and ran for the far end of the tunnel. Grenades are devastating weapons against the human body, but they really don’t contain that much relative explosive force. I was pretty sure that either the tunnel, the chamber, or both were about to be buried under a few tons of rock, but the blasts shouldn’t cause damage all the way back to the waterfall chamber.

  We moved as fast as we could in the tunnel, visibility slowly improving as we moved farther away from where the grenades had detonated. Finally we emerged from the cloud and into clear air. The glowing dust was just starting to roll out of the tunnel and disperse into the larger space, but it quickly absorbed the mist in the air created by the waterfall, making the dust heavier and causing it to fall to the sand.

  The vibrations increased, turning to a deep rumble and a moment later a fresh cloud of dust pulsed out of the tunnel, then the noise stopped. I had my rifle up, focused on where an infected would emerge from the dirty air, but after a couple of minutes we were still alone. Slowly lowering my rifle I was glad to note that my hearing was starting to return.

  The room was well lit, as it had been before, and I turned to check Katie over. She was dirty, sweaty, streaked with muck and blood, hair greasy and plastered to her head, but had never looked so beautiful.

  “Can’t you ever do anything in moderation?” I asked her, smiling my happiness to be standing there with her.

  “How many years of marriage and you have to ask?” She smiled back. “Saved our asses, didn’t it?”

  “Maybe just prolonged the agony if we can’t find a way out of here.” I said. “How are you feeling? The last time I saw you, you were flat on your back with a bullet hole in your chest.”

  “I’m good,” Katie said, reaching up and touching her injury.

  Leaning down I took a closer look at where Roach’s bullet had entered her body. The wound looked like it had been healing for a couple of weeks, not just a couple of days. Rachel had told me she’d used powdered blood clotter to stop the bleeding after determining nothing vital had been hit, but Katie shouldn’t be up and running around two days after being shot through the chest.

  “How does it look?” She asked.

  “Good
,” I said. “You’re doing good.”

  I was more than a little concerned. Unless they’re in a movie, people don’t just take a bullet then go on like nothing happened. There was definitely something odd here, and I didn’t like the only possibility I was coming up with. The virus. Somehow the virus, without causing Katie to turn, had strengthened her body and was helping her heal at an accelerated pace.

  “What?” She asked, looking at my face. I’ve never been good at concealing my thoughts from her.

  “Nothing,” I said, starting to turn away.

  “Uh huh. Talk to me. What’s wrong?” She reached up and touched the wound again.

  “It’s just that you’re healing too fast,” I said. “I’m a little worried that maybe the virus has done something to you.”

  Katie stood staring at me. She started to smile, thinking for a moment that I was kidding her, but as she looked at my face she realized I was serious.

  “Did you receive the vaccine while you were at Tinker?” I asked her.

  “They almost had to hold me down, you know how I am about things like that, but yes I got the shot. You don’t really think…” She paused, a look of fear passing across her face. “You think I’m infected?”

  “I don’t know, babe.” I said, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her close. “I don’t know. I just know you’re healing about ten times faster than I’ve ever seen. That’s a good thing, and you’re not running around screaming and trying to eat me. That’s even better.”

  “Maybe that’s why they took me,” she said a minute later, face still pressed against my chest. “I’ve been trying to figure it out, but nothing’s made sense. Until now.”

  Katie leaned back and looked up at my face. Started to say something but I shook my head. There wasn’t a point in talking about it right now. We were alive and together. That was all I cared about. Breaking our embrace, I surveyed the chamber, seeing nothing different from the first time I’d been in it.