Bob went down on one knee. He seemed to still be catching his breath. He said, “I saw a Land Cruiser up toward the front, U.N. plates. Looked intact. If it’s running, I’d say that’s our new ride.”
Dugan nodded. “Check. If it’s the one I think you’re talking about, it’s only blocked by another car or two. That’ll actually be faster than moving all these ones. Blessing in disguise.”
“Well disguised,” Zack said. “As Churchill quipped.”
Dugan said, “No time for cracking wise, Altringham.” But he did smile. “Baxter, you’re with me again. We’ll get the new vehicle squared away. Bob’s going to be the packhorse, getting gear up from the truck, while Zack provides overwatch.” He turned to Bob, who was standing up again. “It’s a combat load-out: ammo. Weapons. More ammo. Radios and batteries. And medical, especially the antibiotics.”
“Wait,” Zack said. “Aren’t water and fuel most important?”
“Yes,” Bob said, “but water we can still scavenge – there will be plenty in pipes and tanks. And we’ve got nothing but vehicles to siphon fuel out of. But the other stuff’s irreplaceable. Don’t worry, we’ll get some water and gas, too, time permitting.” He pinned Zack with his amused eye. “Just do me a favor and shoot anything that looks like it’s about to eat me. Got it?”
Zack nodded once. “Check.” With his gimpy left hand, he chamber-checked that there was a round in his weapon. It hurt like hell to do so. But it wouldn’t be any damned use if it wasn’t chambered.
And with a quick nod of their heads and no other preamble, Dugan and Baxter disappeared into the warren of vehicles and threaded through them out onto the bridge. Bob turned and began to scramble down the east-side slope into the dark of the hillside.
Zack was alone again.
The next thing he heard was more firing – single, spaced, M4 reports. Dugan must be up front stemming the incoming tide. Then he heard the scrape of metal down below. Looking through the NVGs, he could make out Bob trying to lever open the bent back door of the Tahoe. The seconds seemed to pile up, sands in a high-stakes hourglass, as they took longer and longer. Come on, come on… They needed to get the hell out of there. And Zack didn’t feel like they were very close to accomplishing what they needed to do, to make that happen. He heard a heavy thunk as the Tahoe back door finally came open. And then an engine started in the distance out on the bridge.
Okay, thank fuck, some progress at least…
Bob’s bulky figure appeared now, straining back up the slope. He had two of the big ISUs stacked and held before him, his rifle hanging beside him on its sling. To Zack, he looked terrifyingly vulnerable. Didn’t one of the crew members of the Nostromo get taken by the alien while carrying boxes of food to the shuttle?
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Come on…
Bob clambered over the lip of the slope and put his load down, then unslung the med ruck from where it had been out of sight on his back. He then turned and headed straight back down again. Zack flipped up the lid of the top ISU to check it. It held Bob’s grenade gun, what looked like about a dozen M4 mags, four more boxes of 100 rounds of 5.56, both of the hand-held radios, a box of batteries, and all three boxes of antibiotics. He’d somehow wedged all of that in and around the grenade gun.
Another engine fired up behind him. And more shots rang out.
This made Zack realize he shouldn’t be fucking around with the ISU. He should be covering fucking Bob. He sealed the case again – the top bowed now since he’d disturbed the contents and couldn’t get it all tamped down again – and straightened up to cover the area. Down below, he could hear clanging as Bob rummaged around in the truck for the most essential supplies. Zack realized that he also wasn’t quite doing his job if he was looking at Bob. He panned left, right, up and down, spiraling out from Bob’s position at the foot of the slope.
And he didn’t have to do too much of that before he was able to make out… human figures, walking across the low gully that the bridge spanned. The first ones looked really messed up and struggling to locomote. It occurred to Zack that maybe they’d fallen down into the gully from the bridge. Others, farther behind, looked healthier. Zack followed the trail of these up the hillside. And he could see that they were part of, and had split off from, the group coming over the hill toward the bridge. From Berbera. Except this group were making a beeline for Bob and the wrecked Tahoe.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Bob!” he hissed. He couldn’t seem to make his voice carry only that far, but no farther. “Bob!” He took a bead on the sick people closest to him. But it was too far. He couldn’t make a shot at that range, never mind a headshot. Not using his right hand, he couldn’t. Even if he felt up to just lighting up sick civilians…
“Bob!” he shouted, full volume. “Your three o’clock!”
Bob came upright, raising his rifle in the same motion, all of it amazingly fast and smooth for an enormous dude. The first shambling figures were only a couple of meters away from him. Not quite on top of him – but too damned close for people infected with a horrible disease, who wanted to claw and bite his flesh. Bob’s rifle barked two dozen times, as he swung the barrel in small efficient motions, moving left and right and then working away from him, up the slope. At the end, eight or ten bodies dotted the hillside. Bob did a tactical reload, letting his old mag hit the dirt, then slapping another one in by touch, all in less than a second. He then slung the rifle again, hefted two more stacked ISUs, and started powering up the slope with his tree-trunk legs, and at an even brisker pace this time.
When he got to the top, he laid the pair of boxes down by the first two, smiled at Zack, and said, “See? Some water and fuel.” Behind and below him, Zack could see more of the sick people, reaching the wrecked truck now, and swarming clumsily over it, and around the whole bottom of the gully.
It’s definitely time to get the hell out of Dodge, Zack thought, smiling back at the big warrior they all depended on so much – and whose unflappability did so much to calm Zack’s fried nerves.
They grinned at each other in the moonlight for one second.
Bob’s smile melted as he jerked and spun to one side, then fell.
They only heard the shot a second later.
Zack immediately recognized it as 7.62.
Horns of the Bull
That first round was only one of many on their way in.
They sparked off the pavement, thudded into the dirt, and snapped through open air. Zack reacted too slowly again, and avoided being hit only due to dumb luck. After an eternal second of standing there in the middle of the zipping storm of lead, he finally dropped to the ground – and then clambered down over the lip of the slope, where he intuited, correctly, that he’d be under cover. The shooting was coming from back down the road. Zack was now in defilade from it, as the SEALS would put it. Speaking of whom…
Zack had just started to cast around frantically for Bob, when the big man crawled up to him. “How ya‘ doin‘,” he shouted jovially over the gunfire. “Does this suck or what?”
Zack shook his head in disbelief. “Are you shot?”
“Nah. It’s fine.” Zack looked him over and saw a spreading dark patch across Bob’s left shoulder. Before he could point it out, Bob shouted, “Listen! We’re gonna grab the supplies up there on the road and then just back the hell out of here. But first I need you to take a peek over the top and tell me what you see. Where and how many. Okay?”
Zack just shook his head stupidly in agreement. He realized he was expending significant effort to hold his bladder. He then pressed his body into the crumbly dirt with all his strength and started inching forward and up. He crawled until he dared crawl no further. From up on the crest of the slope, near the edge of the tarmac, he could just make out two technicals – the trucks with machine guns mounted in back. They were parked in formation some distance back down the road. Zack had somehow never seen them. Not until it was too late. He could also now see gunmen shooting, and maneuvering toward th
em. He had to remind himself that they couldn’t see him, while he could see them. He committed the scene to memory, then slid backward down to Bob.
“Two technicals, maybe 200 meters back. And militia with AKs. I think fifteen or so? Maybe more? They’re working their way forward, cover to cover.”
“Nice work,” Bob said, and keyed his team radio. “Dugan, Bob!”
“Send it.”
“Two-zero-zero meters to our six, we’ve got approx two-zero enemy pax, break. One casualty, walking, not urgent, and we’re still taking heavy SAFIRE from the south, how copy?”
“Solid copy, moving to you now.”
“Roger that, stay lo—”
FA-BOOOOMMMM!!!!
What the FUCK?! Zack’s vision whited out utterly and his hearing overloaded into nothing but a huge and painful ringing as the earth blasted into the sky in front of them. The force of it bounced both of them into the air, and sent Zack over onto his back. His hands scrabbled for his face and he pulled the goggles away from the lacerating pain at the back of his eyes. With the goggles gone, everything went from white to pitch black again, and he struggled to master himself, to somehow fight off the enveloping panic. His whole body, his whole being, was stunned, shell-shocked.
A voice now. He could feel the breath more on his ear hairs than he could actually hear it. But it slowly resolved into speech.
“Zack! Stop moving! Gear down, buddy! I’ve got you!”
He could now make out the shape but not the features of Bob’s face in front of his. Steeling himself, he pulled the goggles back down over his head. The pain in his eyes had dropped to a dull ache, and the ringing was starting to fade. With the goggles back in place he could almost see again. Bob was covered in dirt and had cuts on his face. But he was somehow still smiling.
“Tell me where it hurts!”
“Everywhere. Nowhere. I think I’m okay. What the fuck happened?”
“RPG,” Bob said. “Right on top of us. That couple of feet of dirt on the ridge saved us. But the ISUs are scattered to hell and back.” Zack did now notice that the neat stack of four plastic containers had disappeared. “Can you see ’em, buddy?”
“Who gives a shit about the supplies?” Zack said. Rounds were still zipping into the dirt and over their heads. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here—”
“And we will,” Bob said, his voice loud, but his tone still totally unperturbed. “But we won’t last long without ammo, or make it to an extraction point without radios and batteries. So we’ve got to recover at least that first ISU. Do you see it?”
Zack couldn’t believe this was happening. But he still knew he had to not fuck up, had to obey instructions, had to be part of the solution. If not for himself, then for the others. He couldn’t let them down. Scanning around, he saw one of the ISUs nearby, still on the edge of the road, closer to the bridge. It was on its side, spilled open, and had the coil of nylon rope snaking out of it. Wrong one. He didn’t see any others.
Then he thought to look back down the slope. Ah hell… Scanning down the hill, further, then still further… he saw two things. First, a whole bunch of sick bastards now trying to crawl up the slope toward them. And behind and around those, he could see one of the ISUs, slightly deformed and charred, presumably from the RPG blast. It was all the way down by the Tahoe. He looked closer, squinting into the green-and-black distance. And as very little as he wanted to, he also found he recognized it. It had the bowed top of the one he hadn’t quite been able to close. The first one Bob had brought up.
He coughed. There was still dirt in his windpipe from when the hill erupted in front of his face. Fighting a coughing spell, he said, “Down there.” He pointed. “That’s the one with the ammo and radios.”
“Crap,” Bob said. He had his hand clamped to his shoulder now. “Just had to be that one. Looks like the old all-your-eggs-in-one-basket strategy fails again…”
Suddenly they could hear crisp 5.56 fire behind them. Two 5.56 rifles, in fact, shooting and maneuvering forward. The AK fire on Bob and Zack’s position slackened somewhat – militia guys getting driven under cover, presumably. A few seconds later, Dugan came sliding down the slope feet first.
“How we doin‘?”
Bob nodded. “Outgunned. We need to bug out. But we also need to recover the one ISU with the ammo, the Milkor, the radios, and the batteries.” He pointed straight down the slope – into blackness where he could hardly see, but Dugan could with his NVGs.
“Ah, shit.”
“Yeah. Oh, yeah, and the antibiotics, too.”
“Fuck.”
“I’ll go,” Bob said.
“Where’s Baxter?” Zack asked.
Dugan nodded, still sucking air from his run under fire. “Emplaced up in the traffic jam. Singlehandedly covering our asses at the moment. I’ve gotta get my gun back in the fight.”
“I’ll go,” Bob repeated. “I’ll get the ISU, haul it back up, and we’ll break contact under your covering fire. And we’ll get the hell out of Dodge.”
Dugan peered back down the slope. He took a couple of careful shots on the plague victims climbing toward them.
“No,” Bob barked. “I’ve got that. You’ve got to crank up the P factor and keep the militia off us. Or we’re all dead.”
Dugan turned his NVG face toward him. “Okay. You’re right. Moving.” Without another word, he low-crawled up the slope and disappeared. Firing, in both flavors, and from all kinds of positions, ramped up massively now.
“Okay. What do I do?” Zack asked.
“Beats me,” Bob said with a shrug. “I’m just here to drink beer and fuck fat chicks.” He winked. “Hold position. I’ll be back in a flash.” With that, he rose to a crouch, pulled his rifle into his shoulder, peered through the red-dot reticule of his sight and started smoothly walking down the slope, firing rapidly as he went. Zack could see the lurching figures below start to fall. Bob literally carved a channel for himself, pruning back the tide of the sick, using his rifle like a weed whacker. It was horrible and transfixing to watch. All those civilians, sick and deranged, but still human beings…
Fuck it, he thought finally. These people are dead anyway. He had a good view through the NVGs, and could make out a few of them lurking in heavy underbrush, ones that Bob either didn’t see or was ignoring for now. Zack took aim… and started shooting. He could see the faces of his targets, hissing and leering, their eyes wild and teeth bared. Shit, they don’t even look human anymore… They started to go down under his fire.
And Bob made it to the truck. Though he had a little breathing room, dozens more of the already dead were lurching down and across the gully now. It was like Berbera was being emptied out. The battle on the street above continued to rage, the cracking and snapping of high-velocity rounds coming and going up and down the length of the road.
And, for Zack, it was truly a shooting war now.
He saw that Bob now had the ISU.
But Zack had been watching the wrong spot again. He only realized it when the second RPG streaked brilliantly down and to his right. It was gorgeous in the night-vision view, like a beautiful comet or Roman candle on the Fourth of July. Zack could immediately see that a handful of the militia fighters were sweeping down the slope and forward. It was the classic problem with being outnumbered: enemy sweeping around your flanks.
The rocket-propelled grenade hit, once again, only a few yards in front of Bob’s feet. Zack thought he could see him lifted up, hurled into the back of the upturned Tahoe, and dropped back down again like an enormous sack of potatoes.
He lay on the ground unmoving.
And the ranks of the dead kept on coming, unaffected.
Maximum Bob’s Last Stand
And then suddenly Bob was moving again. Though it was initially more like twitching. Zack reloaded his pistol and took very, very careful aim at the heads of the staggering figures bearing down on his friend, only just on the other side of the Tahoe from him now.
Yes, Bob was his friend – Zack realized it for the first time. Bob was fucking awesome. And now Bob was probably going to die, while trying to save the rest of them. But not while I’ve got breath and bullets, Zack swore, hot tears leaking at the corners of his eyes.
After he’d emptied a second magazine, he looked back to Bob. The warrior’s mouth was moving now. But Zack couldn’t hear anything. Maybe it was because of the ringing he still had in his ears. But when Dugan leapt over the crest of the hill, rifle in one hand, coil of rope in the other, Zack realized Bob hadn’t been talking to him. He’d been talking on his team radio. Dugan hit the hill shooting – he was firing at the knot of militia members sweeping down the slope. In a few seconds they were all scattered or shot, or at least going for cover.
Dugan then grabbed Zack’s good arm, and wordlessly wrapped the end of the nylon rope around it. He then gave the coil a mighty heave down the slope. It landed on Bob’s lap. Dugan then advanced two paces down the slope and started firing at the legions of the dead advancing around the Tahoe. But then both Zack and Dugan heard Baxter shouting from the road. “Dugan! A little help here…!”
Dugan stopped in his tracks. He pivoted and popped off another four rounds at the group on the slope. He mouthed a silent curse and seemed to remonstrate with himself. He glared at Zack. “Keep shooting! Cover Bob!” He pulled off his little radio earpiece and boxed it onto Zack’s ear. He then shoved his small team radio into Zack’s vest. “He’ll tell you what he needs. Shoot!”
Zack complied. The infected were so close to Bob now, he had to shoot carefully. But Bob was shooting on his own behalf now – first around one side of the Tahoe, then the other. But he was still on the ground. Zack sensed that Bob couldn’t get up. He found the transmit button on the radio. “Bob! Come on! Get out of there!” Then he spun in a dead panic as he felt a hand on his shoulder, and almost shot Baxter, who now stood behind him, chest heaving with rapid breaths and adrenaline.
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