by John Holmes
“Listen up, guys. We’re in the shit. You know that, I know that. That doesn’t change what we have to do. You remember what it was like right after? When things broke down?” Grunts of affirmation. “Well, it’s going to be the same, but not the same. We can’t lose our military discipline, and we still have a mission to do. We’ve all been in plenty of shitholes, from the Middle East right up to here in America. Now the world is one big shithole, but what will get us killed is going lone wolf and forgetting our discipline.”
I paused and looked at each in turn. “I need to know if you can all deal with what’s going on. If you think you might crack, let me know right now. No sweat off my back, you’ll be doing us all a favor.”
Scotty Orr spoke up. “What about you, Nick? We all know you tried to eat your gun a few weeks ago. Are YOU going to lose your shit on us?”
“I’ll be honest with you” I said. “I was in a pretty bad place, but I’ve passed through it. I wanted to die, because I didn’t see the point anymore. I was tired. Fuck, I’m still tired, and if I look anything like the rest of you, I look like shit.” That brought a few chuckles. We DID look like shit. Williams had a rip in the crotch of his pants that he was ignoring, but every time he shifted around, his dick popped out. “Williams, put some tape on that rip before Kelly forgets her husband and has a go at you.”
“Nah” she said “I’d break him in half, and we need him.” She ripped off a piece of duct tape and handed it to Williams, who was blushing under the dirt on his face.
“Point is” I continued “I forgot about my son, about Brit, and let my dedication to my oath drive me crazy, allowed myself to get mixed up in politics that I wanted nothing to do with. It drove me over the edge. Now, though” and I gestured to the east “now, I think we have one chance to survive, and that is to fight as hard as we can to keep the military, and as many civilians as possible, alive and intact as a functioning society. This mission, to extract the leadership, is the first step. I’ll do my best to lead you through and get out alive. After that, well, we’ll see. Are you with me?”
I got a couple of “good deals” and “hell yeahs”.
“OK then. If this is the end, though, I’m damn proud that it will be with my brothers.” I stood and shook each ones’ hand, just as the engines on the Osprey rose to a howl. We picked up our packs, rappelling ropes, extra ammo and headed across the deck. Halfway there I saw a figure with her arm in a sling standing in a hatchway. I dropped my pack and rushed over to her. We said nothing, even if we could be heard over the engines, but I kissed her as long and as hard as I could, trying to imprint the feel of her body against me and the taste of the salty tears running down her face. I let her go after an eternity; her blue eye sparkling, and she smiled slightly, turned and went back inside. I ran back to get my pack and thumped up the ramp, grabbing an intercom set from one of the crew chiefs.
We lifted up off the deck, wobbling from side to side as McHale fought the unfamiliar controls. I thought back to the crashes I had seen pictures of when the MV-22 was first fielded and a knot of panic welled up in my gut. I hated flying anyway, and as we slipped off to the side, just missing the superstructure of the ship, I almost wet my pants. Then we corrected, lifted higher, turned south, and picked up speed.
I craned my neck to look east, where Seattle, Tacoma and the majority of the refugee camps had been. There was nothing to see through the smoke except the slowly dispersing mushroom cloud from the last blast. Thank God the winds were blowing directly from the west, and the fallout would be carried into the mountains. In those rising clouds were the ashes of America.
Chapter 5
We crossed over the coast at better than two hundred knots and skidded to a hover over the target building, rotors swinging to the vertical. The ramp started to drop, and we stood up, ready to step out as McHale put us on the roof.
“MASK UP!” I yelled, and yanked my M-40 protective mask from the carrier, pulling it over my head and then blowing outward to make a seal. Around me, all the guys did the same, except for Collier. For some of the guys, as the ramp came down, it was their first glimpse of the nuclear hell outside. Collier stared at it wide eyed as we started to descend.
“COLLIER, GET YOUR MASK ON!” I yelled over the team radio. “THERE MIGHT STILL BE WEAPONIZED VIRUS IN THE AIR!”
He looked out at the sky again, looked back at me, then said over the radio, “FUCK IT, I’M OUT!” We were still a hundred feet over the target as Major McHale fought to stabilize the Osprey in the winds rushing towards the infernos. Collier stood up, gave me a salute, and walked out the ramp, past the crewman who was watching the ground, straight into the open air. He fell out of sight, never flinching.
“Shit!” I switched over to the internal bird freq. “Dammit, Alex, get us the fuck down on the ground!”
“Trying, to Nick, but those firestorms are kicking up some serious winds, and it’s growing. This ain’t my” and I heard him grunt as he fought the turbulent airflow “my regular ride, you know?”
We dropped like a freight elevator from hell, and the ramp grounded on the roof of the building with a BANG. Just before I unplugged, McHale called me over the intercom.
“This is VOODOO SIX, I AM TAKING GROUND FIRE!” As he said it, the side gunner opened up with his minigun, sending a stream of light into a horde of undead that were rushing towards the building. Ground Fire? WTF? From zombies? Even as I thought about it, a bullet WHANGED off the airframe just over my head. The Osprey started to lift, dragging me along with the intercom cord towards the edge of the building. Williams grabbed me by the legs, and the intercom wire snapped. I fell forward into the puddle of blood next to Colliers’ still twitching body.
Trying hard not to hyperventilate, I lay on the ground for a few seconds. How the hell had they been taking fire? I peeked over the edge of the building, and was horrified by what I saw.
Three stories below us, locked out of the bunker complex, a furious battle was raging. Undead in Army uniforms were piling up on razor wire, and about a company’s worth of soldiers, maybe a hundred, masked just like we were, were firing fast and furiously at the undead hordes. At points in the perimeter, it had broken down to hand to hand fighting. Looking further over, I saw a half dozen using an improvised battering ram on the building entrance. Some soldiers were even firing at the Osprey, now circling out of range. I heard one scream in rage “GET BACK HERE AND GET US YOU MOTHER FUCKER!” as he ripped off his mask.
I rolled back before someone saw me and took aim at me. Gunshots mixed with the zombie howl to rip at my ears. “Balls” I called over the radio “we got to fucking hustle. They’re trying to bust in downstairs.” I heard a grenade go off, and then another, then a WHOOSH, BANG that I knew was an AT-4 rocket going off. The whole building shook.
“Already on it” and the AT-4 detonation was echoed by a smaller one on the roof as Kisner blew in the door to a stairway with det cord and plastic. We charged down into the darkness, tac lights shining, in a race to get to the President before either the mob of soldiers or the horde of undead.
“Lost Boys for Jumper” I called over the radio, trying to raise the President’s contingent. There had been no coms with them from the ship, but I hoped to be able to get them now. I was using a frequency that I knew they should be monitoring, but nothing came back.
Kisner was on point, and I quickly pushed my way forward to confer with him and SFC Ball. Unfolding the printout I had of the building plans, we traced a route down three floors into the basement, then across from this stairwell to the bunker doors. Hopefully we would get coms by then, and not get shot on our way in.
As we passed each doorway exiting onto a floor, Ball detailed one man to guard the door and our back. Williams on the third floor, Sullivan on the Second. I left Hart with her SAW to guard the door to the first floor, and detailed Orr to act as her assistant gunner. If anything was going to come through, it would be on that floor. We turned off our lights as we made our way down, flippi
ng down our NVG monocles.
Passing the door to the first floor, I whispered to Hart “Were going to come back through here. I need you to” and I stopped when I saw through the glass window. Pressed up against it were mutilated bodies, one or two that were squirming with the infection.
“Just hold. Whatever happens.” She nodded, ghostly in the green light.
The door to the basement swung open easily, squeaking softly, and all hell broke loose. The door itself was punctured by dozens of shots, and Kisner went down. Ball grabbed him by his body armor and pulled him back up the stairs, even as more rounds poured through the shattered doorway.
The firing stopped, the resulting silence punctuated only by Kisner’s ragged breathing and a whispered “I’m OK, hit my chest plate.”
“Anybody got a white t-shirt or something?”
Muttered no’s and nopes. I wracked my brain, trying to remember the name of the guy who had been with Epson when we picked him up back in NY. Riley, yeah that was it.
I yelled as loudly as I could “HEY RILEY, YOU GIMP! DO THAT SHIT AGAIN AND I’M GOING TO HAVE BRIT SHOVE A HOT POKER UP YOUR ASS.”
There was a moment of quiet, and then someone shouted “AGOSTINE? IS THAT YOU?”
I shook my head in relief. “NO, IT’S YOUR MOM. SHE’S HERE TO HOLD YOUR HAND.” I stepped out of the doorway as a half dozen flashlights converged on me, and a couple of red aiming lasers centered on my chest.
“We’re here to get the President out, and back to the New York. We haven’t got a lot time, and not a lot of room on the bird. Get him and let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Put your guns down. I know him, Sergeant Major Agostine.’ The lights flicked away from me, and as my NVGs adjusted, I could see half a dozen troopers crowded in front of a steel blast door that stood slightly open.
“Uh, that might be a problem” said Riley.
“Why? Is he OK?”
“Um, yeah” he said. “But he doesn’t want to leave.”
“Dammit. I knew he would pull some shit like this. Lead me to him.”
Chapter 6
“Sir, we have to GO! We don’t have time for this shit.” I stood in front of Epson, arms folded. Hs Secret Service agent stood next to him, a big hulking guy in full battle rattle. In fact, he wore so much shit, I doubted he could move fast enough to stop anyone from taking a shot at the President. Epson himself stood silent. They had been without coms since the nukes started going off, and he had no idea of the situation until we filled him in.
The air in the bunker was stale, but clean. We had taken off our masks as Riley led us inside and shut the door. I didn’t like it, since it left half my team outside in the stairwell. I was getting seriously impatient. Epson just stood there, with a haunted look in his eyes. Survivor Shock, seen it a thousand times. Then he spoke slowly.
“I can’t do this anymore, Sergeant Major. You said the virus had been released again, and the Federal Zone is gone. America is gone. Honestly, what the hell is the point?”
I thought about the speech that the General had given me on the ship when I had expressed almost the same exact view point. Now, however, was not the time for speeches.
“Listen, Sir. I give a flying fuck about your duties as President of a country that may or may not exist anymore. What I give a shit about is that we came here to get you, and that’s my mission, and good men are going to die if you don’t start moving.”
His staff, a half dozen Flag Officers, had been standing behind him. One, an Air Force Colonel, stepped forward, saying “Hey, you can’t talk to him like that! He’s your Commander in Chief, for Christ’s sake.”
The agent charged with protecting the President took a half step forward to interpose himself between us. The Secret Service had been gutted and devastated by the Zombie Apocalypse, and I doubted that this clown was up to their old standards. The fact that there was only one of him here attested to that. He was nervously gripping his 9mm pistol in a cross draw chest holster.
I turned away, but as I did so I moved slightly closer to him, got a good grip on my rifle, and spun back and hit him as hard as I could in the chin with the plastic butt stock, a straight shot. He fell backwards on his ass, hand coming off his pistol. Kicking him in the balls, I let go of the rifle, let it drop in its sling, then hit Epson as hard as I could, just behind the ear. He went down, stunned, and I heard weapons being raised and shouts being exchanged.
Epson was on the floor, looking out of it. I reached down and hauled him up over my shoulders in a fireman’s’ carry. The Secret Service guy scrambled for his pistol, and Riley stamped down hard on his hand, crushing bones.
“OK, we’re leaving. Anyone who wants to can try to make it out with us, but my job is to get HIM out of here, not you.” I turned and started for the exit. Kisner, Ball and Riley followed. I guess Riley was now part of our team. We opened the airlock door, taking time to put a mask over the unconscious Epson. Riley’s four guys were waiting for us.
The Air Force Colonel, followed by several other staffers, made it out of the door, using extra masks that we had brought with us. One, an overweight Navy Captain, made it to the base of the stairwell and suddenly stopped and tore his promask off his face, gulping in huge amounts of air.
“Oh shit” said Kisner, and he tackled the man, trying to force his promask back on. Even as they struggled, the Captain’s eyes blazed red and he screamed a howling, long drawn out scream, biting as hard as he could on Kisner’s shoulder, ripping a huge chunk of flesh out. Kisner screamed, fell backwards, and clutched at the wound. He tore his own facemask off, and Riley drilled both him and the Navy Captain, who was still trying to bite Kisner, through the heads, emptying the magazine of his .45 into them. The shots boomed in the basement, the echoed still wrapping around us even as Riley used his bad hand to reload his gun.
“OK” I said over the team radio. “That shit works quick. If ANYONE takes off their mask, I will shoot them dead myself.” No one answered me; there were all horrified by what had just happened. Kisner had been a member of SFC Ball’s scout team for years, and I asked him if he was alright to move on.
“Fuck it.” His eyes held that bitter, angry expression that so many of us wore all the time now. “Let’s go.”
We moved out, up the stairs, collecting Hart and Orr as we passed them. The door to the first floor was holding, even though it had dozens of zombies smashed up against it. We made it up to the second floor where Sullivan stood guard without incident, when we heard the first floor door smash inward and the zombie howl started echoing up the stairwell. Thank God I had Kelly Hart with me.
“Kelly, blow it!” I yelled at her. “Billy, get to the roof and call for extract.” Ball sapped my back and raced up the stairway. I started dropping grenades down the stairwell, leaning over the railing. They didn’t do shit against the zombies, who were like an oncoming river.
Hart whipped out two lengths of tubing from her pack and ran each down one side of the stairs, for about five steps, then across the upper and lower steps, forming a box shape. Then she pushed a blasting cap into one end, running back up the stairs spooling wire out behind her. As soon as she made it to our landing, she yelled “FIRE IN THE HOLE!” and detonated it.
The five step section disintegrated in a cloud of concrete dust, leaving a large gap in the stairway. The undead poured into it, falling back down the stairwell. I knew the eventually enough of them would cram themselves into the gap to make a bridge across, but she had just bought us vital minutes.
We pounded up the stairs and into the cloudy afternoon, to face an armed standoff.
Chapter 7
At one end of the roof, directly opposite us, stood a group of thirty or so soldiers in gas masks. They had their guns pointed directly at our group. My guys had their guns up. There was a dead silence except for the howls coming up from below and a pounding on the doorway the soldiers had come up. Three of the soldiers had their backs against the door.
“What the
hell is going on?” I yelled across the intervening space, even though my voice was muffled. A muffled answer came back from one of the soldiers.
“YOU’RE GOING TO CALL THAT BIRD BACK AND TAKE US OUTTA HERE!”
This could get real ugly, real quick. I walked forward until I stood face to face with the one speaking, a Specialist. Under his mask I could see his eyes, scared and wide. He held a pistol pointed directly at me.
“Put that down, Specialist Urban. No one is shooting anyone.” I walked past him, ignoring the gun. He lowered it as I passed him, moving into the crowd. As I did, guns lowered.
“I’m Sergeant Major Agostine, IST-1. Who is the ranking man here? Any officers?” They started looking around, sorting themselves out until one man stepped forward. The hair behind his mask straps was matted with sweat and iron grey.
“I guess I am, Sergeant Major” he said in a heavy New York accent. “Master Sergeant Bennet.” The hands that held his M-4 were gnarled and battered. One of the old timers recalled to active duty after the ZA.
“We can take maybe twenty of you, if we cram. But we have GOT to get the President out of here. If we overload that bird, and it goes down, we can kiss whatever government we have left goodbye. I need you to pick who stays and who goes.”
I felt a gun barrel press against the side of my head. “You’re gonna call that bird and we’re all going to get outta here.” It was the voice of Specialist Urban, the one I had walked past.
“Just hold on a minute” I said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Don’t you do anything stupid. Just get on the horn and call that aircraft, and we all gonna get outta here.”
Bennett raised his M-4 and shot him through the head with a single round. I saw him raise the gun and threw myself to one side just as the 9mm next to my head went off. The round went over my head as his body fell to the roof.