by Dirk Patton
The kids began talking to each other in frightened voices as the rest of us looked at each other with the realization that our path across the river was in danger of disappearing. After a few more seconds, the bass rumble subsided. Making up my mind, I yanked open the rear of my Humvee and dug through the gear in search of a toolkit.
“Long. You and Sam go find the maintenance hatch for the closest set of bollards,” I said, still digging. “Igor. Find a high spot. You’re on overwatch.”
“What can I do?” Caleb asked.
I spied the tool kit I was looking for and pulled it from under a pile of ammo cans.
“Keep your group together and close to the vehicles. When we get these bollards retracted, we’re going to have to move fast.”
He nodded, and I took off at a trot to where Long had found and opened a large steel plate set into the side of the road. Rachel and Dog came with me, and I was surprised when I noticed Tiffany running with us.
“What are you doing? You need to stay with your group,” I said.
“You might need me. I was an engineering student at Cal Tech. I’ve worked with hydraulic systems before.”
If I hadn’t been running, I would have stared at her in surprise. She was a beautiful young woman, and also a softball player. I would have guessed just about anything other than an engineering student at one of the best schools in the country.
“Chauvinist,” Rachel mumbled beside me.
I didn’t take the bait, just shut my mouth and slid to a stop next to the large opening in the ground. Long and Sam were already down in the hole, flashlights illuminating what, to me at least, looked like a very complicated system of thick hoses, pumps and tanks.
“Think you can lower the bollards? Without power?” I asked Tiffany.
She nodded, took the tool kit from my hand and with the easy movement of youth, dropped into the cramped pit. Sam and Long looked at her in surprise, then up at me.
“Give her room,” I said. “She knows what she’s doing.”
To their credit, they didn’t hesitate to move aside. Tiffany took Sam’s light and squatted to inspect the hydraulic system. Long stood behind her, adding additional light to each area she looked at.
“Contact!”
Igor’s voice over the radio. I spun to look in the direction of the parked Humvees.
“Talk to me,” I said, frowning in concern when I heard a faint report from the suppressed sniper rifle.
“Female coming fast.” Two more shots. “Large group.”
“Long and Sam, get your asses up here! Infected attacking!”
Two more shots from Igor in close succession.
“Go! I’ll stay with her,” Rachel said, pulling her rifle around on its sling.
I nodded and ran for the vehicles, not waiting for Sam and Long. Steady fire from Igor continued as I dashed around the crashed pickup. The kids were lined up behind the Hummers, rifles at the ready. As I approached, I could see Caleb moving from girl to girl, giving them instructions and encouragement.
Beyond was a group of at least forty females, charging directly at them. They were still outside 100 yards, and as I came to a stop next to Caleb, Igor fired again, sending one of them tumbling to the pavement.
“We’re ready,” he said.
“I see that,” I answered, oddly proud of the young man.
I glanced around at the sound of running boots, seeing Long and Sam come around the wreck.
“Have everyone hold their fire. None of your rifles are suppressed and will make too much noise. We’ll take care of the infected.”
While Caleb spread the word, Long, Sam and I spread out and opened fire. Igor kept shooting as well, and the numbers of infected still alive quickly began to dwindle.
“More coming,” Igor said as a well-placed shot from Long dropped the last of the first group.
“How many?”
“Many. Shitload.”
Despite the situation, I couldn’t stop myself from grinning at Igor’s use of the English language.
“Caleb. Bigger group coming. Can these girls really shoot?”
“Yes they can,” he said with complete confidence.
“OK, get them into the rocks on either side of the road. Have them hold their fire until I yell for them to start shooting.”
He nodded and quickly split the girls into two groups. After a brief set of instructions, he sent them on their way, remaining in the middle of the road next to me.
“Rachel, any progress?” I called on the radio.
“She’s found the release, but we can’t turn it. The wrench is too short, and neither of us are strong enough.”
Shit! I glanced down at Caleb, noting the sling supporting his right arm.
“I’m going to help with the bollards,” I shouted over the radio and to Caleb. “Keep me updated.”
As I turned away and began running, Igor fired the first shot at the new group of infected. I briefly wondered what the hell they were doing all the way out here, but it didn’t matter. They were here.
Another loud groan sounded as I pounded down the road. I spared a brief glance to my left, not liking it when I saw the surface of the lake. It was dancing again, the same ripples as before distorting the usually calm water. I had no idea if this was normal, or a precursor to the dam failing. For that matter, this could go on for months or years before anything catastrophic happened. Or the whole thing could collapse in the next ten seconds.
Shutting my thoughts off, I skidded to a stop next to Dog, who was guarding the opening into the maintenance pit. Rachel and Tiffany were shoulder to shoulder, both gripping a small wrench as they tried to turn it.
“Make room!” I shouted, jumping down a moment later.
They scrambled out of my way, Rachel holding the light for me. Beneath a nest of thick hoses was a large tank with a complicated valve. Several of the lines were attached to it at the top, a thick bolt sticking out of the side. A small, chrome wrench was hanging from the bolt head.
“This will let the fluid out of the system. Right?” I asked Tiffany.
“Not out,” she said. “It releases it into that tank and depressurizes the whole system.”
I didn’t have time to ask any more questions. Thrusting my arm into the tight space, I grasped the wrench and tugged. It didn’t budge. Taking a breath, I re-gripped the tool and pulled with all my strength. It didn’t budge. Sweat popped out on my forehead as I kept up the pressure, but I soon backed off with a creative string of curses.
“Sam. Sitrep?”
I was pushing hoses out of the way so I could get better access to the wrench and took advantage of the moment to check on the team. As soon as he answered, I could hear suppressed rifle shots being fired very quickly.
“There’s a whole mess of ‘em, sir! We’re engaging the leading edge, but we’re going to need every rifle we’ve got in a minute. Sure would be nice if you could hurry.”
I reached for the valve, starting to say something to Sam, when the next groan from the overstressed dam sounded. Maybe this one was worse, or perhaps it was because we were below ground, but it was intense enough to rattle my organs against my ribs. There was a gasp from Tiffany and Rachel both, but I didn’t have time to look at them.
Grasping the wrench with both hands, I pulled with a grunt of effort. At first, it wasn’t budging, then it suddenly released with no warning. My knuckles banged into several things that hurt like hell as I stumbled backward, then there was a loud rushing sound, like water in pipes, as the hydraulic fluid flowed into the tank.
The groan subsided as I stuck my head out of the hatch to check the bollards. They hadn’t moved. Was Tiffany wrong about how to release them?
“They’re not moving!” I shouted.
“Mechanical locks in the shafts,” Tiffany yelled back.
I looked down to see her grab a hammer out of the tool kit and worm her way past a couple of hoses. Looking at the ceiling, she extended the hammer and hit something with a sha
rp blow and quickly stepped back. The bottom of a bollard appeared, descending rapidly until it came to a stop with a dull thud I could feel in the concrete floor. Checking outside, I confirmed that one of the bollards had indeed retracted.
“You’ve got eleven more. Can you get all of them?”
“No problem,” Tiffany said as she headed for the next one, hammer swinging from her hand.
“Go. Sounds like they need help,” Rachel said. “I’ll call if we need you.”
I met her eyes briefly, then climbed up onto the road. Telling Dog to stay and protect them, I ran for the vehicles. Before I reached the crashed truck, I heard the unsuppressed rifles the kids were carrying start up. That wasn’t good news. There must be a lot of infected coming if Igor, Long and Sam couldn’t hold them off on their own.
Reaching the lead Humvee, I cursed when I saw how many females were bearing down on the group. Two hundred, at least. Bodies littered the road, but there were still more infected charging towards us than there were lying dead on the asphalt.
Taking position behind one of the Hummers to use its hood for a shooting rest, I joined the fight. Putting down three females, I paused when I saw several run at an angle and into the rocks. The same rocks I’d had Caleb send the girls into.
“Females are going into the rocks!”
I shouted into the radio, pulled the trigger on two more, then slapped Caleb on the back.
“Go pull your girls out of the rocks before the females get to them!”
He nodded and disappeared as I engaged another fast runner.
“Igor. Is your position secure?” I called.
“Da,” he said, continuing a long string of invective in his native tongue as he kept firing as fast as he could cycle the bolt on the sniper rifle.
I kept firing, but the females were pressing in. I’d like to say that every shot each of us was putting downrange was dropping an infected, but that just wasn’t the case. We were easily missing as many as we were hitting, and more were cutting away from the asphalt and heading into the desert. I couldn’t tell if they were zeroed in on the girls, or if they were trying to flank us.
The volume of unsuppressed fire from my right dropped as Caleb rounded up the girls and moved them back onto the road. Seconds later, the first group joined me at the vehicle and resumed shooting. Caleb ran past, shouting for the rest of the girls to come down to the Humvee.
“We got the last one. Heading across the dam!” Rachel’s voice over the radio.
“Watch your ass,” I said in between shots. “Got a lot of females and they’re trying to flank us. Some may leak past and get to you.”
“We’ve got Dog,” she said, her voice bouncing as she ran. “We’re good.”
I didn’t like the idea of them heading to the far side by themselves, even if Dog was with them. By now, Rachel was at least as good with a rifle as many trained Soldiers I’d worked with, but there were still only the two of them. However, there wasn’t a choice.
What I’d thought had been only about 200 females was still coming. Apparently, there had been some slightly slower ones behind them. But only slightly. They raced around the curve in the road, coming into view, and the bitches just kept on coming.
I had just changed magazines when a scream to my left snapped my head around. A female had made it past us and raced onto the road to tackle one of the girls to the ground. Rifle still in my hands, I took a long step and swung the stock. The high-impact plastic solidly struck the side of the female’s head with enough force to snap her neck and send the body tumbling away from the frightened girl.
Well, maybe frightened wasn’t the right word. She couldn’t have been more than 17, but she leaped to her feet, bleeding from several wounds and delivered a solid kick to the corpse before turning and continuing to fight. Damn. I was starting to like these kids!
Moving around behind her, I spotted and killed three females who were picking their way amongst the rocks. One of them was coming up behind Igor, who hadn’t been aware of her approach.
“Igor, get your ass down here!” I shouted as I fired on another infected that was trying to reach him.
He fired two more shots then jumped up and half ran, half slid, down the hill. A female charged him before he reached the pavement, leaping to wrap herself around his upper body. The big Spetsnaz soldier grabbed her by the throat and twisted, slamming her head against a rock and ending her fight.
“Rachel, you OK?” I shouted, stepping farther back and scanning the rocks for more females.
Two on the right side managed to avoid my fire, the bullets blasting chunks out of a couple of boulders instead of putting them down. They ducked, using the rugged terrain to their advantage and I lost sight of them.
“We’re fine,” Rachel answered, panting.
It’s nearly a quarter of a mile across the top of Hoover dam. Not really that far, but when you’re racing the clock, and attacking infected, it can feel like forever. They were probably running flat out for the far side.
“Females are starting to leak through. Keep your eyes open.”
The volume of fire coming from my team and the girls was ferocious, but we were barely holding our own. And I was starting to worry about our ammo situation. Dropping a charging female, I dashed to the back of the Humvee that was carrying most of our ammo, screaming for Caleb to join me.
Yanking the hatch open, I grabbed several cans of loaded magazines and dragged them out to fall to the ground. By this time, Caleb ran up. He’d apparently had an up close and personal battle with a female as his face was covered with blood from a scalp wound. Didn’t matter. He was still on his feet, he could still fight.
“Start distributing ammo,” I said, pointing at the cans before running to the opposite flank.
Caleb nodded and grabbed one with his good arm, racing away towards Long and Sam. More females were in the rocks, and I was getting worried they’d either attack us from the rear or keep going and run down Rachel and Tiffany.
They were staying in small groups as they worked their way to our sides, and I decided to go for a more aggressive response than just a rifle. Retrieving grenades from my vest, I started pulling pins and tossing them into the areas where I saw movement. The detonations were brutally loud, even over the fire from the girls’ rifles, and must have startled them. When the first one blew, they stopped firing and looked in fear to see what had happened.
My own stupid fault. They had reacted exactly the way anyone unaccustomed to battlefields would. Despite showing themselves to be quite adept at fighting the females, they were thrown for a loop by the ear shattering detonations.
“Keep firing!” I shouted.
Slowly, first one, then all of their rifles picked back up. But that little lull had allowed the small herd of females to draw closer. By now it seemed as if they were already on top of us, but they started dropping quickly again when the girl’s got back into the fight.
I was running for a Humvee to get more grenades when the loudest groan so far started up. The road vibrated under my feet, and the sound was like a physical force. It was everywhere around us, the hard stone of the canyon picking it up and amplifying it.
As the volume and pitch rose, it felt like my bones were resonating right along with the rocks. Reaching the back of the vehicle, I started grabbing more grenades, pausing when the rifle fire around me sputtered into silence. I’ve been on battlefields where this happens, and it’s rarely good news.
Expecting the worst, I stepped to the side and looked down the road. All of the females had come to a halt, looking around as the groaning from the rock slowly faded. What the hell?
For a long beat, every female I could see just stood there. They looked at the ground, the sky, the surrounding rocky terrain. Many of them tilted their heads back and sampled the air. Then, slowly at first, they began backing away. Soon they were turning and running in the opposite direction.
“What fuck?” Igor exclaimed from a few feet away.
Everyone had stopped shooting, too stunned at the completely unexpected reaction of the females.
“The,” the girl who I’d saved from the infected said to him.
He looked at her with a confused expression on his face.
“What THE fuck, not what fuck,” she said, reaching up and wiping blood off her face.
In another time, I would have enjoyed watching an American teenaged girl teach a Russian Soldier how to curse properly. But now, I was more than worried. It’s been documented for a long time that animals somehow know when a catastrophic event, like an earthquake, is imminent. No one knows how, though theories abound.
Now, I’d just witnessed humans react like an animal. Was I reading too much into this, or had the infection reawakened something primal in the females? A dormant instinct that warned them when something really bad was about to happen?
“Rachel?” I called on the radio, fearing the worst.
“We just made it to the far side,” she said, her voice tight with exertion. “We’re trying to raise the access panel, but it’s heavy as hell.”
“Any infected near you?”
“No, but Dog’s freaked out about something.”
“Not infected?”
“Don’t… think so. Oomph,” there was a loud clang of metal. “He’s not growling. And we can’t move the hatch. We need help.”
“On my way,” I said, turning. “Lieutenant, get this truck hooked up and dragged out of the way! I’m heading across the dam to get the bollards down.”
“Copy. We’ll drive across as soon as we get it moved.”
I skidded to a halt and turned back.
“Negative! Stay off the dam until the roadway is clear. The way it’s moaning and groaning, you don’t need to be sitting on it, waiting. I’ll call when it’s clear, then you come fast.”
He looked at me, glanced at the lake pressing against the dam, and nodded. Without another word, I turned and ran.
I was about halfway across when the concrete beneath my feet began vibrating again. This time, there was no accompanying sound, but if anything it felt stronger. The lake’s surface was doing its dance, and with a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, I ran harder.