The Reaper Plague

by David VanDyke

  The beast ground to a halt, but there was no accompanying burst of blue sparks. The electrical discharge must have malfunctioned. The turret still operated on battery, and it slewed rapidly around.

  Swede grabbed his rifle, leaped up and charged forward. It was a race, the Marine switching magazines and ignoring bullets fired by the rattled Fredericksburg men as the tank gun came around inexorably to aim directly at him.

  She didn’t know why it did not fire immediately, or why the coaxial machinegun didn’t cut him down. Perhaps the gunner was faster than the loader. Perhaps the tank had lost some internal systems. Whatever the reason, Swede expertly popped each human target in turn, for all the world like a dynamic range exercise – bang, swivel bang, swivel bang bang, aim, bang. The Needleshock rounds put them down with brutal efficiency.

  Then the tank gun roared.

  The whole tableau disappeared in smoke and flame as the high-explosive round plowed up the ground behind the Marine, throwing dirt high in to the air.

  “Swede!” Jill cried involuntarily, but there was no answer from her radio. Then she saw the turret was still functioning, turning, the muzzle questing for another target.

  I have to get out of this window before they slew that gun back around and hit the building. She emptied her magazine in the general direction of a squad of infantry working their way cautiously forward, then heard an ominous hammering to her left.

  Straining to look out at an extreme angle, she spotted a light armored vehicle sending groups of 25mm shells into the clubhouse. She could hear the rounds rattling the structure, poking fist-sized holes in walls. She had to get out.

  Reslinging her PW10, she lizard-crawled to the floor and rapidly out into the hallway, dragging her useless legs afterward. Her back twinged and she prayed once again that the bullet would work itself loose and allow her EP-boosted body to heal so she could walk and run again.

  God said no again.

  She crawled onward.

  Bodies littered the hallway, some dead, some torn up but living. She had to leave them, could do nothing for them. Damnit, I’m helpless, she thought, like nothing since I looked down at my missing feet eleven years ago. I think I took life for granted for too long. And it could all end right here.

  At the back door she stopped, sliding her head out to survey the situation. The tactical ops center tent was in ruins, charred and collapsed. Something moved beneath the material, though. Seeing no enemy, she scrambled across the debris-littered ground, pulling her carbon-steel blade from her boot and slicing carefully through the waterproofed cloth. “Hold still,” she hissed, “I’m cutting you out.”

  When the hole was big enough a muscular arm came through, then a shoulder and head. “Nice to see your smiling face, Jill.”

  “You too, sir,” she said as she cut more hole for Colonel Muzik to worm his way through.

  He rolled out and carefully worked his way to his knees. Something seemed odd to her, about the way he moved.

  “Your arm!”

  Muzik looked at the empty space at his left shoulder. “Yeah. Misplaced it somewhere. You got some water?”

  “Holy shit. Aren’t we a pair. Gimpy and one-arm.” She handed him the canteen off her web gear.

  He guzzled the whole quart. “Sorry. Lost a lot of blood. Knocked me out. What’s our situation?” As if in answer a burst of 25mm came through one building, passing over their heads and poking holes in the far treeline.

  “They got some kind of LAVs, old Strykers or something. Swede’s team immobilized all the tanks but there’s at least one with an active main gun. Their infantry have stopped advancing, though. They’re shaken, they’re not pros. Content to let the 25-mike chew us up for a while.”

  Muzik nodded. “Yeah. We have to gather up as many as we can and fall back to the south. They hit us from the north. If they were smarter they would have used their vehicles to get in blocking positions, surrounded and annihilated us. If we move fast, we might be able to get some of our folks out.” He reached down, grasping both straps of her webbing from the front with his one big hand. “This might hurt.” He lifted.

  She screamed as her lower body exerted traction on her vertebrae. The pain spread up her spine and along her skeleton like electric fire, then cut off abruptly, leaving nothing but a throbbing heat. “Don’t worry about it, sir,” Jill gasped out. “Just go. They can fix me later.”

  He didn’t waste time with sympathy, just threw her over his good shoulder like a sack of potatoes and started yelling. “Battalion!” he bellowed. “All Civil Affairs troops, rally to me! We’re falling back!”

  Muzik worked his way southward, picking up two dozen shaken stragglers. Jill kept her abdominals tight, trying to stay stable as she jounced, staring at the Colonel’s heels. The broken building burning behind bought them some time. With their tanks dead or immobile, the Fredericksburg troops apparently had no stomach for further assault.

  They could hear the tock-tock-tock of the 25mm cannons as they fired into the wrecked structure. Stray rounds whizzed over the retreating US troops’ heads, struck the ground around them, or in one case took a Civil Affairs lawyer’s hand with it as it flew. First, disarm all the lawyers, Jill laughed giddy to herself as her surreal, pain-filled journey continued. She saw Donovan loop the man’s good arm over his shoulder and haul him along.

  From her crazy angle they all looked like drunken contestants in a three-legged race as they stumbled across the golf links and into the woods. Smoke and fire and intermittent explosions from the Battalion’s ammo and fuel stored inside the barn shielded their march, and now with trees hiding them Muzik stopped and gathered his people around him after putting Jill gently down among the scrub-oak.

  “Listen up, people,” he began. “This was a disaster, but we’re not dead, and we’ll all heal. Even you, Master Sergeant.” he said, turning his grim face toward hers. “And I’m going to need every one of you to stay positive and focused if we are all to stay that way – and to help our people back there. We have to regroup, and figure out a way to rescue them.”

  What if they kill their prisoners? Jill thought, but held her tongue. No need to bring that up. She glanced around, looking for Rick among the faces there, again not seeing him. Like looking for something you lost in your house you keep looking in the same places, over and over, expecting it to be there. She threw a quick prayer skyward again, for her love and her commander and her people and all the people with them. And smite these evil people, Lord. And protect the prisoners they took.

  It seemed a fair request.

  “Anyone hang on to a radio?” Muzik asked. Three people raised their hands but Donovan handed his over first. “Good, three is good. Not sure what we’ll do, but…” he muttered as he selected a frequency and began calling for anyone to respond.

  Jill rolled over, away from the cluster around their commander, and dragged herself to a sitting position near a tree. Donovan noticed her moving and rushed to help her, but she waved him off. “Thanks, Corporal. I’m just as good and bad as I am, until they can get this bullet out of my spine.”

  “Sorry, ma’am. Master Sergeant, I mean. You oughter be an officer anyways.” The concern in his eyes was touching and his Appalachian drawl was comforting but it wasn’t a leader’s place to be coddled by her subordinates.

  At least not until I’m actually dying.

  “Don’t you worry, Corporal. Colonel Muzik’s a better man with one arm than most are with two…” She trailed off and stared at something deeper in the woods. Stared harder.

  What is that?

  A face. A small boy’s dark face. It was his eye whites that she had noticed.

  Jill raised a tentative hand.

  The body attached to the face waved back, fingers curled and bobbing, a child’s gesture. He looked about six years old.

  Jill beckoned him. “Donovan, get behind me and make sure no one comes this way. Keep them back.” Her eyes still on the boy, she dragged herself forward on her palms an
d thighs, feeling nothing as her knees scraped along the forest floor. When he showed signs of bolting, she stopped and sat, her back to a tree. She heard the noise and conversation die down behind her and knew the others were watching from a distance.

  She reached into a cargo pocket and pulled out a granola bar, tearing off the wrapper, her eyes never leaving the child’s. She nibbled, mimed eating. Smiled.

  The boy stared, and crept forward. He was wearing torn jeans and a Tupac t-shirt, and the remains of tennis shoes. The exposed parts of his feet were callused but not bleeding.

  She looked for signs of wounds, scratches, or blood, but saw none. She began to hope, and held out the granola bar. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “I’m not one of the bad people.” Whoever they are, I’m not one of them. Come on, kid. Say something. Don’t be a Twosie.

  He stepped up with within arm’s length and slowly extended his hand. Delicately he took the bar and, never taking his eyes off hers, ate a piece, solemnly handing it back. That was almost a ritual, she thought. She took another bite, then held it out again, chewing slowly. They continued this way until it was gone and he had popped the last corner onto his tongue.

  She reached for her canteen, then realized Muzik had drunk all her water. “Canteen,” she said softly, and Donovan brought one slowly over. The kid didn’t run. Jill took a drink then handed it to the boy.

  “Master Sergeant!” Donovan hissed. “What if he’s got a plague?”

  “I don’t think so. Not a Demon Plague. Look at him. His clothes are all torn up but there’s not a scratch on him. I think he’s an Eden. Besides, I’m inoculated.”

  Some movement from behind her startled the boy, and he backed away. He didn’t seem afraid, just cautious, but the spell was broken. He nodded to her once, a wise old gesture in such a young visage, then turned to vanish into the deep undergrowth.

  One of the survivors stepped up to lean against Jill’s tree. Her name tag read “Horton,” and the caduceus on her collar marked her as a doctor. She asked, “How do we really know what a Twosie looks like? We were supposed to capture some and run some basic tests but we never got a chance.”

  Jill shrugged, then focused on the doctor’s insignia with sudden determination. “Doc,” she said, “You gotta get this bullet out.”

  The doctor squatted down to look Jill in the face. “If you’re sure, I’ll try. It’s dangerous but being carried around like this may do permanent damage anyway.”

  “Worst case is no worse for me. Maybe better, since I keep getting shooting pains as the bullet moves around in there.” Jill shrugged. “I’m a burden right now. We need everyone contributing.” And if Rick is still alive I can’t very well rescue him parked on my butt, can I? “Can you do it right away?”

  Doc Horton masked her distress well but there was plainly a war going on inside of her. With a touch of relief she objected, “I don’t have anything to operate with.”

  Jill reached down to her boot and drew forth her slim, carbon-steel combat knife. Its design hearkened back to the classic KA-BAR of World War Two Marines, but it was a handmade custom blade her father had bought for her when she’d graduated from Basic. She handed it to the doctor hilt-first.

  “I don’t think you’ll find anything sharper.” She looked over at Colonel Muzik on the radio, caught his eye. “Are they coming after us, sir?”

  He shook his head. “I think they’re content to loot our stuff. One of our people is pinned in the wreckage and giving me reports. If they leave, we may be able to get him out. I’m hoping the enemy pulls back to their lines and we can sneak back in, try to salvage some equipment, save some people.”

  “All right,” Jill said mildly, looking in the doctor’s eyes. “Let’s do some surgery. You up for this, Doc?”

  She nodded sharply. “As long as you are. We have no anesthetic.”

  “Damn.” Jill had forgotten about that. “Donovan. Grab three other guys and come over here. Anyone got a poncho in their ruck? Spread it out on the flat place. Okay, gentlemen, pick me up and put me down on my stomach on that poncho.”

  Once they had done that thing she reached up to pull her tunic and t-shirt off, leaving herself bare-backed. She unbuckled and unbuttoned her trousers and shoved them down a couple of inches, exposing skin to her tailbone. “You understand what you have to do, Doc?”

  “Sure.” She put a comforting hand on Jill’s back. “All right, I want each of you men to pin her down by a limb. Sit on her if you have to.” Once they had, Jill felt the doctor put her knee, with increasing weight, on her buttocks, immobilizing her lower back.

  “Okay miss, this is going to hurt like hell. Don’t fight passing out. The best thing you could do is lose consciousness. Now tell me where it is.” The doctor started probing with her fingers, soon finding the place in Jill’s spine where the hot ache lived.

  “My name is Jill, Doc.”

  “And my name is Hazel. Someone find Jill something to put in her mouth – a smooth green stick, or a leather belt. Don’t want to aspirate broken teeth.”

  When a piece of soft fresh wood was in place, tasting like nature and smelling of greenness and woods, Jill put her head down on the poncho and mumbled, “Ready.”

  That was a lie. Pain like this was a completely different animal from the hurts of blows, of a fight, or even the sudden searing touch of a bullet or the point of a knife. It began but did not end, and she could feel the blade going in slowly, feel the hot screaming bite of it. Her stomach protested with nausea and she fought to keep her muscles from seizing up, from deflecting the doctor’s razor probes and leaving her worse than before. Mercifully her vision grayed and she drifted off to a place where the pain was just a dream.

  “Horse my body stumbled,” she quoted vaguely to herself before oblivion seized her.

  -31-

  Major Vargas smoked and stared at death with straining eyes. Through his binoculars he could see two M1 Abrams tanks obviously flanking the road, and two M2 Bradleys back on a small hill on overwatch. I’m not a big-war officer, I’m a counterinsurgency specialist, but I do know one thing: a well-aimed main gun round will demolish this MRAP and me in it.

  He could also see some Humvees near what looked like a tactical operations center, tents with radio antenna masts reaching for the sky. It was about where he had expected the first possibility of an encounter with the locals. Ashland was big enough that it might be worth controlling the road going by – and through. He also had to find out whether Governor Allaine and Richmond controlled Ashland, or someone else.

  The convoy was stopped in the middle of the pavement on top of the last rise before the edge of the town. He’d backed up the MRAPs behind the crest of the hill, with just the tops of the hulls showing to the tank gunners.

  Just in case.

  “Anybody got a marker? Get me a piece of cardboard, one of those MRE boxes will do.” When he got them Vargas wrote a frequency and the word “CLEAR” in big block letters and held the cardboard up, facing forward. He could see one of the tanks was lined up on him and knew the gunner was looking at him through its superb optics. He can probably see my mole hairs at this range. He hoped the man was smart enough to understand the sign.

  “Furth, put me on this freq.” He tossed the cardboard down to her. “In the clear.” He began calling for contact.

  -32-

  Jill Repeth awoke in Corporal Donovan’s lap. The man I beat to a pulp, she thought as she looked up into his simple clear eyes. Holding me like a baby. Men are funny creatures.

  Seeing her awake he lifted a canteen to her lips, a smile on his own.

  She let him pour some water down her throat, trying to assess her condition. She slowly stretched, working her back muscles, then tried to shift her toes.

  Thank God! She moved her booted feet backward and forward, left and right, then gently drew her legs up. Nodding thanks she sat up, then rolled over onto her knees and hands. Carefully she stretched out her muscles, searching for twinges or ling
ering problems, then stood up, using Donovan’s shoulder as a support. Thank you Lord. You make the lame to walk. You and good doctors.

  “Thanks, Corporal,” she said, squeezing his shoulder as she let go. “Maybe you should apply to the Nurse Corps.”

  His smile got wider. “Maybe ah should. Always did like helpin’ God’s creatures get better. Mama said I should be a vet but that was too much schoolin’ and the recruiter said the Army needed policemen.”

  “Well, things are changing all the time. When we get out of this mess I’ll put in a word for you. Maybe we can get them to retrain you for a medical MOS.” She checked her watch, saw it had been two hours since they had started cutting. We’ve become so blasé about these medical miracles. It took nearly getting killed to remind me how amazing this body is.

  “Naw. People don’ hardly need no nurses no more with the Eden Plague.” He looked sad. “But maybe the animals do.”

  “I think we’ll always need people who care,” she said distractedly as she looked around their little hideout. She walked the perimeter where troops crouched or lay behind cover and concealment, accepting quiet congratulations on her recovery, encouraging them in the face of the disaster, finally coming up next to Colonel Muzik.

  “Good to see you up and around, Jill,” he greeted her. “I knew you were too tough to keep down.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She looked over his shoulder across the golf course at the wreckage of the battalion’s former position. “We should have dug in.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up over it. Who knew someone would hit us the day after we landed, with armored vehicles and enough force to take on five hundred troops? Right now, though, we need to go get some people out of there.”