THE RETREAT
Episode Two: Slaughterhouse
by Stephen Knight
with
Craig DiLouie and Joe McKinney
Copyright © 2014 The Retreat Series, LLC
Kindle Edition
THE RETREAT is a work of fiction including a fictionalized portrayal of the U.S. Army Tenth Mountain Division, the Massachusetts Army National Guard and the City of Boston and its surrounding metropolitan region. It is not intended to depict actual persons, organizations or places.
ONE.
Beantown burned.
Dark clouds hovered over the city as thunder boomed with irregular pulses, like the faltering, erratic beat of a titanic heart moments before it finally failed. But the clouds were made of smoke, and the inconsistent rumblings were not that of thunder, but explosions. Artillery, the King of Battle, was firing its final salvos before the curtain finally fell on the stage of murder, death, and madness. Boston was took its final bow, and the crowd went wild.
A wildness born from laughing insanity.
The Infected pranced and darted through the smoke-filled gloom, sticking out their tongues, trying to catch the falling ashes as if they were snowflakes. They carried grisly trophies—severed hands, heads, breasts, penises. They came from all walks of life. Postal workers. Firemen. Doctors. Winos. Actors. Carpenters. Criminals. Priests. Housewives. Dotcom executives. Insurance salesmen. All laughing, cackling in uncontrollable glee as they chased down the ones who cried, who tried to fight, who tried to flee. The adults were easy to catch. The children were tougher, but they earned a special place among the Klowns.
The Infected impaled the young and carried them past Faneuil Hall, writhing and shrieking, living effigies of the prey they hunted.
The Klowns did what the British had only dreamed of centuries earlier. In less than two months, the city of Boston had been murdered, dying a death of a thousand cuts, courtesy of rusty, salt-encrusted blades.
TWO.
“Wizard Six, this is Tomcat Six. Over.”
Lieutenant Colonel Harry Lee could barely hear the lead Apache pilot over the roar of twin turboshaft engines and the pounding beat of rotor blades. Through his Humvee’s windscreen, he could see attack helicopters swarming a mile downrange, twenty AH-64D Apache Longbows flanked by four smaller OH-58D Kiowa Warriors. The convoy hadn’t even passed the gate yet, and already, the helicopters were orbiting over North Great Road.
Lee picked up the AN/VRC-89 Single Channel Ground Air Radio System’s handset and put it to his ear. “Tomcat Six, Wizard Six. Over.”
“Wizard, this is Tomcat Six. Some light enemy formations on Route Two-Alpha just past phase line alpha, oriented east to west. Looks like a blocking force. They’ve got fire trucks and heavy construction equipment moving toward the intersection of, ah, Two-Alpha and Hanscom Drive. We’d like to go to guns on them, right now. Over.”
Lee grimaced. Phase line alpha was the convoy’s first waypoint, an intersection less than half a mile away, where Hanscom Drive terminated at Route 2A, a two lane route that traveled east to west. The gunships had made a pass five minutes ago and reported that the route was clear. Several columns of black smoke were rising into the air, testament to the fact the Apaches had already had a brief workout. But the Klowns were coming again, and this time with different apparatuses. Lee had to think fast.
The Apaches and their lighter-armed scouts were the unit’s mailed fist, capable of delivering ordnance onto targets miles away. They could decimate an entire skyscraper, if necessary, and had even been used to level hospitals that housed the Infected. But the gunships were a finite resource, and they were needed for the long haul, so he couldn’t have them blast everything on the street and expect them to be ready for the next fight without touching down and rearming. With Hanscom Air Force Base fading in the Humvee’s side view mirrors, Lee didn’t know where the next secure landing zone would be. In the air, the helicopters were death incarnate. On the ground, they were soft targets, like fat old men wearing wife-beater T-shirts that rose up over their bellies, flabby midsections exposed for all to see.
Lee keyed the microphone. “Tomcat, Wizard. One pass. Make a hole for us and then secure phase line bravo. Over.”
“Roger, Wizard. We’ll make a fast run and report results. Over.”
“Roger, Tomcat. Break. Bushmaster, this is Wizard. Over.”
“Go for Bushmaster. Over.”
“Marsh, you and your guys are up. Whatever the aviators leave for us, your team has to push through. Keep going to phase line bravo and hold the line for Chaos to hop past, just like the plan. Over.”
“Roger, Wizard. Bushmaster’s on the move. Over.”
“Glad we’re not up front, sir.” Staff Sergeant Michael Murphy said. He kept both hands on the wheel of the Humvee, and for once, a customary wad of chew tucked wasn’t tucked into his mouth.
That suited Lee just fine. He’d always thought the habit was disgusting.
“That’ll change soon enough,” Lee told him.
At every phase line, a couple of squads would fall out of formation, secure the objective, and maintain that security until the rest of the convoy rolled past. The time would come when part of Lee’s headquarters element would need to stop and take their turn. Lee had already decided that he would participate in the operation. Even though it made little tactical sense for him to do so, the subdued lieutenant colonel insignia on his Army Combat Uniform weren’t actually his. He’d taken them from the battalion’s former commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Prince, something that was both irregular and illegal. Without formal promotion, Lee had no right to the rank, but the world had changed. Boston had fallen to the Infected, and he was pretty certain Fort Drum had gone down as well. Lee had assumed command of the remains of First Battalion because the only remaining ranking officer, Major Walker, had declared himself unfit to lead. Not that Lee was thought of himself as particularly suited to it, either. After less than fifteen years in the service, his official rank was captain, and he hadn’t even been designated as promotable to major. To make the transition from company grade to field grade command was one hell of a big step, and Lee knew more than a few officers and enlisted men weren’t just confused by the sudden reorganization, but also resented him for it. Prince—God rest his soul—had been vetted by the Army before being given command of the One Fifty-Five. Lee hadn’t, and even though he was senior in his grade, he still had some things to prove to the rest of the battalion.
One of the first things he had tried to do after assuming command was reach out to the commanding officer of the attack helicopter battalion, a lieutenant colonel named Jacoby. Lee didn’t know the man personally, though he had certainly seen him during ops meetings. But Jacoby had died earlier that day, when his AH-64D went down in a ball of flame. The unit XO, Major Fleischer, hadn’t been interested in Lee’s problems.
“You want to be a lieutenant colonel, you go right ahead,” Fleischer had told him. “I’ve got my own unit to run. We’ll provide all the close air support we can, but if you’re going to put on another man’s rank, then that’s on you. You’re in control of everything below an altitude of fifteen feet.”
“Will you take direction from me?” Lee asked.
Fleischer didn’t even bat an eye. “As far as I know, Wizard Six is still the same guy we were talking to yesterday. So long as you don’t throw us to the wolves, we’ll be there.” Fleischer pointedly didn’t use the word sir, but that didn’t matter to Lee. All he needed was to ensure the aviation units would honor the improvisational org chart.
And that had been it. Harry Lee had become the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 55th Infantry Regiment, one of the subordinate units of the 10th Mountai
n Division (Light Infantry). And because of the irregular chain of command he and Walker had established, Lee felt honor bound to personify the battalion’s motto of Bounding Forward. He had to pull his own weight during the movement back to Drum, and if that meant exposing himself to danger, then that was what he would do.
“Well, let’s not make a habit of getting into dust-ups, Colonel,” Murphy said. “Let’s just concentrate on getting back to Drum, okay?”
“That’s what we’re doing, Mike. That’s what we’re doing.”
Foster dropped down from where he had been manning the big pintle-mounted M2 .50 caliber machinegun in the Humvee’s cupola. “Hey, Murphy? When we finally halt, do me a favor?”
“You want to dance, sweetheart?”
“Huh. No, you couldn’t keep up with me, and I know you hate the way I lead. But when we do finally stop, could you dismount and jump up and down for a while?”
Murphy kept his eyes on the road. “What the fuck for?”
“I’m just hoping that your balls will eventually drop,” Foster said. “You might be full of chewing tobacco, but you’re a little light on the warrior ethic, bro.”
“Check it out, sir. Give a guy a fifty, and all of a sudden he’s a crossbreed of Rambo and Patton,” Murphy said.
Lee smiled vaguely. “Get back on your weapon, Foster.”
Foster nodded. “Hooah.”
THREE.
“One bag of dicks, coming up,” Sergeant First Class Renner said.
Captain Terrence Marsh cradled his M4 carbine in his lap as the uparmored M1116 High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle—better known in the military as a Humvee—barreled down a tree-lined avenue called Hanscom Drive. The road connected the Air Force base behind them with Route 2A, and even though it was a dual-use road, it had been closed off by the military weeks ago. Just the same, it was dotted with bodies here and there, bloated corpses enveloped in black clouds of flies. Part of Hanscom Air Force Base’s housing community lay off to their left, hidden behind a fairly thin screen of trees. Marsh wished they had razed the trees, so they would have better visibility. While the Air Force had evacuated most of the families from the base, not everyone had been accounted for. Many of them had most likely become infected, and the last thing Marsh wanted was to get into a fight before they even made it to their first phase line. For that reason, he had ordered the soldier manning the Mk 19 grenade launcher in the Humvee’s cupola to maintain a refused left position and keep his weapon trained on the tree line that separated the four-lane road from the housing development.
“Make it tasty,” Marsh said as he stared out the Humvee’s bullet-resistant windows.
Downrange, two Apaches hovered over the intersection, their noses oriented to the west. Light flared beneath their stubby wings, and each aircraft ripped off four Mark 66 rockets. Equipped with fourteen-pound warheads, the seventy-millimeter rockets zipped across the sky, trailing wispy columns of black smoke. The weapons arced toward the ground and disappeared behind the trees, striking targets Marsh couldn’t see.
“Fight’s on,” Renner said in the same tone one would use to discuss the weather. He drove the last vehicle in the column of four Humvees and one M925 five-ton cargo truck carrying two squads of lightfighters.
First Lieutenant Haberman would position his element just past the mouth of Hanscom Drive and secure the Concord Turnpike’s eastern approach in a bid to deny enemy incursion from the east. Marsh’s Humvee would turn right, away from Haberman’s element, and continue on down the turnpike. Phase line alpha was the tactical designation for the traffic circle just past Concord, where a state police barracks sat across from the Massachusetts Correctional Institute. Marsh’s three Humvees and one M925 truck full of lightfighters would stop at the western side of the rotary and dismount. Using their vehicles, the soldiers would form a temporary blocking force that would effectively close off the incoming travel lanes that fed the circle. The element directly behind Marsh—also comprised of Bravo Company troops—would secure the eastern side of the rotary. This, coupled with Marsh’s blocking force, would provide the convoy with safe passage through the area and onto the westbound Union Turnpike. Bravo Company—the Bushmasters—would hold that position until the convoy’s rolling stock had passed through. Marsh would then collapse the blocking force and rejoin the formation, initially playing rear guard until the next phase line, where they would leapfrog forward through the column until they took their next position. That would be at phase line golf, a few hours away.
“Let’s hope they let us get some,” said one of the soldiers in back, an E-5 named Weir. He was a beefy kid from Minnesota, and the rest of the soldiers called him Lars the Viking because of his wide frame, pasty skin, and blond hair.
“Let’s hope they don’t,” Marsh said. “After what we went through at Cambridge, we probably want to save the beans and bullets for when we really need ’em.” The Bushmasters had spent days holed up in Harvard, and Marsh had presided over the gradual attrition of his company. After that, the company commander found he had little stomach for fighting. Hiding was even worse, since that only led to eventual discovery, but fighting was no stroll through the park, either. What Marsh wanted, what he craved right now, was movement, constant movement, the never-ending sound of the Humvee’s big, knobby tires wailing across pavement. He figured they would occupy phase line alpha for no more than ten minutes, and they were guaranteed Apache top cover. Three other units would stop with them, so they would have three fifties, two Mk 19s, and twenty-five lightfighters on station to deal with whatever the Klowns threw at them. Everyone was carrying their weapons in condition red, so if the Klowns came, there wouldn’t be any discussion.
“All right, shooters, let’s go full MOPP,” Marsh said. He pulled off his helmet and slipped on his Mission Oriented Protection Posture chemical/biological overgarment over his head, then slipped on the face mask.
The gunner in the open-air cupola was already fully manned up in MOPP IV gear, the highest level of protection against nuclear, biological, and chemical attacks available to the soldiers. Since the primary mission of the Klowns seemed to be spreading their infection, something more was needed than the slatted metal armor that afforded the gunner fair ballistic protection but did not provide much in the way of deterring biological contamination. The battalion had lost numerous troops to the “dirty bombs” used by the Infected, usually balloons filled with piss or other biologicals, and it had been decided that front-line combatants would conduct operations only under MOPP IV conditions.
Only SFC Renner remained unmasked, as he wouldn’t be exiting the vehicle unless the shit really hit the fan, and in that case his mask was close at hand. The troops had rolled down their sleeves, pulled on gloves, and ensured their ACU trousers were tightly bloused and taped inside their boots. Everyone was already sweating despite the Humvee’s air conditioned interior. The upcoming sultry summer day didn’t promise much in the way of relief. Hydration was going to become a primary concern because the CBR X CamelBak hydration systems the troops had been issued only held three liters of water, which probably wouldn’t last long in the mounting heat and humidity. Despite the protection against contamination, the MOPP IV gear paved the way for substantial tactical degradation. The bulky outfits reduced mobility, visibility, manual dexterity, and the ability to communicate, even with radios. While the gear would buy them some time against biological attacks, the soldiers of First Battalion were going to have trouble just shooting the Klowns.
The convoy reached the intersection, and Haberman’s element broke off to the left, then came to a halt in the middle of Route 2A. Renner pulled the vehicle to the right and accelerated down the highway. Marsh looked out his window. The Humvee drifted perilously close to the guardrail that separated the road from a fallow field. The railing soon ended, only to be replaced by a stone wall set eight feet from the roadway.
Then that petered out, and Marsh stared at more trees as the vehicle slowly accelerated t
o forty miles per hour.
God damn Humvees…a 1970 VW Beetle has better acceleration.
He checked the side view mirror. The rest of the element turned onto the road behind him as Haberman’s unit dismounted. Rotors thumped overhead, but it didn’t sound like an Apache or a scout. Marsh looked up, and saw a helicopter in red and blue livery pacing the element. A large, stylized number 5 adorned the helicopter’s fuselage, and light reflected off a gimbal-mounted camera slung beneath the helicopter’s nose. The camera was pointed directly at the Humvee.
“Hey, we’re on TV,” Weir said, his voice muffled behind his mask.
Marsh toggled his tactical radio. “Wizard, this is Bushmaster Two-Six. We’ve got a civilian news chopper shadowing us. Over.”
“Roger, Bushmaster. It’s being handled. Over.”
No sooner had the words come over his headset than two OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters sprinted onto the scene. One positioned itself between the convoy and the news chopper, while the second trailed behind the civilian bird. The scouts were armed with one modified M2 fifty-caliber machinegun mounted on the left hardpoint, and one seven-shot rocket tube on the right side. The olive-drab helicopters paced the brighter civilian aircraft for a few moments before the guy flying the news chopper got the idea. The helicopter slowly climbed away and turned due south. The Kiowa Warriors maintained their position for a bit longer, then sprinted ahead, rotors thumping—scouts, doing what they were supposed to do.
“Damn, and I didn’t get my close-up,” Renner said. He drove with both hands on the wheel, his eyes unreadable behind his Army-issue Sawfly sunglasses.
“No one wants to see your mug on their TV set, Sergeant,” Marsh told him.
“So I’ve been told,” Renner said. “By my own mother.”
Despite the mounting tension, Marsh laughed behind his gas mask.
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