“Please remain in here for now,” Tucker said, then left with his assistant.
“What’s going on?” Alison asked. West leaned in to whisper.
“They have the spaceship,” he said, sotto voce, “we spun a cock-and-bull story about it being a prototype orbiter.”
“Weak,” she whispered back.
West shrugged. “Jeremiah was starting to sputter. You’d think a corporate president would be better at lying.” Jeremiah caught their conversation and came over.
“We need to get it back to the ship before these people realize what it really is.”
West winced and spoke quietly, “If you don’t keep your voice down, they won’t need any help figuring it out.”
Jeremiah looked around suspiciously. “So what do we do?” he asked them.
“I don’t know,” West said. “For now, we wait.”
* * *
Andrew Tobin put his cup of coffee down in the officers’ mess and saw the liquid inside was tilted. Instantly he knew the ship was coming about. Something was going on. Luckily, he now had a source. He threw down the last gulp of coffee and left the cup in the sink as he headed down ladders and toward the center of the ship. He wasn’t surprised to find Kathy Clifford at her computer.
“Funny seeing you here,” she said and winked.
“You know what’s going on.” It wasn’t a question.
“What makes you think that?” She looked around the room, double-checking they were alone.
“Because you sit here all the time and listen. It’s what reporters do.”
She gave a little smirk and bid him to come closer. “The Reagan had an outbreak.”
Andrew’s eyes went wide. “How bad? They’re the ones running the flight ops for the assault on Coronado.”
“Bad,” she said. “A controller coming off duty from the CIC a few minute ago said the carrier was dead in the water.”
“I need to find someone,” Andrew said and took off without another word. A couple minute later he’d searched almost everywhere and was heading up toward PriFly when he passed one of the squadron ready rooms. He stopped and backed up; there was a group of civilians he hadn’t seen before, and several were bandaged. He stuck his head in. “You guys from the Reagan?”
“No,” a man answered, “we’re from a private company. Those are our helicopters on the deck.”
“Wait, what helicopters? I’m Lieutenant Tobin, USAF.”
“Alex West, test pilot.”
Andrew noticed a guy sitting in a chair wearing expensive North Face outdoor clothes, which had seen better days. A bandage adorned one side of his head.
“Is that Jeremiah Osborne?”
“None other,” the man said without looking up.
“Air Force?” West repeated. “Are you the one who landed the C-17 up there?”
“Yeah,” Andrew said and added a sigh. “Not too popular with the swabbies here because of it, either. Do you know what happened on the Reagan?”
“No,” West said, so Andrew explained what he knew. “So that’s why we’re hauling ass south.”
“Yeah,” Andrew said, “only that big ass transport is in the way of using the flight deck.”
“Tobin!” barked the familiar voice of Commander Beeker, the Ford’s Air Boss.
“Sir?” Andrew said, turning and saluting.
“That big thing out there doesn’t have an ejection seat, does it?”
“The C-17? No sir. Looks bad for the pilot to get out before the passengers.”
Beeker snorted, as close to laughter as he got. “Fine. The captain wants to know if you’re willing to drive it off the bow.”
“Holy shit, are you serious, sir?”
“As a fucking heart attack. We need the flight deck, now. We’re going to start losing birds any minute, and every minute afterward there’ll be more in the drink.”
“I’ll give it a try…” he said, pausing.
“But what? I hear a butt monkey in there Tobin.”
“Sir, there isn’t any room. The nose gear is about 10 feet from the edge. As soon as it goes over, the nose may fold. And if I do get it over, I’m going under the bow. I can’t imagine running over a 100-ton airplane will do your ship any good.” Beeker made a face. Andrew knew that look. He’d been ordered into the air by officers with that look.
“How long to get it running?”
“Say, five minutes,” Andrew said.
“Locker room is over there, grab survival gear and haul ass.” Andrew’s jaw set. “That’s an order.”
“Yes sir,” Andrew said, saluted, and moved.
“You’re sending him out to die,” Jeremiah said.
“Mind your own business, sir,” Beeker said.
“I’m a taxpayer,” Jeremiah replied.
“There are no taxpayers anymore,” Beeker said, and left.
An oppressive silence hovered in the room after Beeker and Tobin left. Everyone looked at anything but each other. West shook his head. He knew what it was like; he’d taken orders. By the sound of it, this was one that needed doing. Only, it didn’t really.
“It doesn’t have to go down that way,” he said aloud.
“What do you mean?” Jeremiah asked.
“We have an alien spaceship, remember?”
“The drives,” Alison said, snapping her fingers.
“The military will know what we have,” Jeremiah said. For a change, he didn’t sound like a kid who was going to lose his toys.
“Yes,” West agreed, “yes they will. But there are more and more compelling reasons to tell them.”
It was Alison who spoke up next. “If I can get some help, I can rig a simple version of what we used on the Azanti.” West nodded and got up, then he found the locker room next door where Tobin was putting on a flight suit.
“Hey, Tobin?”
The pilot looked up and West was surprised to see the man was missing his leg from below the knee. “Yeah?”
“We have another option, but you’re going to have to help us convince the brass here to let it happen.”
* * * * *
Chapter Fourteen
Early Afternoon, Sunday, May 1
Near Junction, TX
Luck had a way of ebbing and flowing. As a combat soldier, Colonel Cobb Pendleton was as aware of that as anyone. The Stryker was still rolling, and he still had fuel. After the attempted ambush near Sisterdale, he’d been more alert, even driving through rain storms. He also remained constantly on the alert for signs of fuel, as the APC’s tank was dangerously low. It was approaching fumes as Interstate 10 came into view.
Cobb hadn’t known what to do about the major artery. It was impossible to continue west without crossing a dozen such places; all of them were potential trouble. He got some good luck when he rumbled around a bend in the road and saw a truck stop ahead. Truck stops meant diesel! He slowed to a crawl, the Stryker in low gear and his head on a swivel. Almost out of gas wasn’t how he wanted to run into more trouble.
The truck stop was occupied. A medium-sized group of survivors, truckers mostly, had created a perimeter of trailers and were defending it with small arms. They weren’t interested in going with him; the group was waiting on more friends to arrive and sticking it out until ‘the plague ran its course.’ Cobb played on their patriotism and got two five-gallon cans of diesel, which went right into the tank.
The interstate proved remarkably clear. The truckers had informed him that there were road blocks 20 miles south, near San Antonio’s outer loop, which were now deserted. They also said that they’d encountered roving bands of infected from a few hundred to thousands. They were following the roads like deer following a game trail. There didn’t seem to be any sense of where they were headed. When groups encountered each other, some violence followed, but eventually a new larger group was formed, and a direction chosen. Then they were off again.
Cobb drove west along Interstate 10, his thoughts dark and malignant. How many of his fellow Ame
ricans now had the infection? All of them? Was the country soon going to be filled with 360 million wandering infected zombies, feeding on anything they could find, including each other? Again he thought about Kathy; how it had felt to lie next to her in the few hours of passion they’d shared. He’d been trying to avoid such thoughts; afraid they’d fill him with depression. She was somewhere on the west coast, if she was still alive. Untold thousands of miles lay between them, and millions of infected. Still, thinking about her gave him hope. She was worth staying alive for, because he somehow knew she’d be waiting for him. Even after only a couple nights together, he felt certain she would be there. He drove on.
There were plenty of abandoned cars on the interstate, some with their hoods up or doors open. He didn’t slow too much; the earlier ambush had made him less willing to be a convenient target. It was the cars parked along the road, doors closed, windows up, that made him the most curious. What was their story? They weren’t abandoned in a panic, like many of the others, but carefully secured against future need. It was a creepy apocalyptic landscape he was driving through.
He was rolling past the exit for a town called Segovia when he saw his first infected swarm. They were over the median, on the south-bound lanes. There were at least a hundred, and as he approached, all their heads tracked him like dogs watching a treat. The group had all ages, though none appeared less than about 12. It seemed like a lot were darker-skinned Hispanics, and many were partially naked. Seeing people on foot caused him to instinctively slow the Stryker, and that was when they started leaping the barrier.
“Shit,” he cursed and rammed the gas pedal down. The big diesel revved back up and the Stryker accelerated. Two men who’d been fit and athletic before Delta had claimed them both leapt at the APC. Cobb winced at the sound of bone crunching from the impact. The four wheels on the left side bounced slightly as the men were crushed under the vehicle’s weight. He swerved further to the right and roared ahead.
They were the only two to reach him before he was past. Since he didn’t have a rear view, Cobb had no idea if they were following. The speedometer stayed at 45 mph, and he decided not to worry about it anymore as he drove on.
A little further north, Highway 481 paralleled Interstate 10, and he saw a truly horrific swarm. This one held thousands, all on the side road. He guessed they’d been on the interstate until some instinct made them all follow an exit. They heard the Stryker coming, and Cobb was forced to push the vehicle faster as the infected raced across the intervening field toward him. Speed considerably reduced fuel economy, and as he sped up, the ‘Fuel Low’ light came on, mocking him.
The swarm raced across the grass to the side of the freeway and hit the chain-link fence barrier en masse along a good distance. The first there tried to climb or jump the fence. Some made it; most didn’t. Those behind them hit so hard that Cobb saw blood fly from a hundred yards away. He thought the fence would hold. It didn’t—not against thousands of onrushing bodies—it collapsed in vast stretches. The infected who’d begun to climb were crushed to the ground and summarily trampled to death. Reduced in number by a few dozen, the horde advanced with frightening speed.
This time Cobb couldn’t get past before they reached the freeway. A modern barrier was along the right edge of the road, three heavy steel cables held up by posts every 50 yards and set in concrete each quarter mile. These modern barriers were more effective than the old steel guard rails, cheaper, and caused less fatalities. They also didn’t slow the infected more than a few steps. However, those few steps were enough for him to get past before 90% of the crowd reached the actual road.
By the dozens, they leapt the safety barrier and into his path, and, this time, it wasn’t a couple thumps and a bump or two under his wheels. They hit like an oncoming hailstorm, fast and hard. He grunted as the Stryker crashed into a wall of human flesh. The front of the APC was slanted, and he felt it ride up and over the meat and bone, and the speedometer slowed. It slowed a lot. They’re going to stop me, he realized.
Cobb jammed the throttle down, and the engine roared. The transmission downshifted, slowing him further as it fought the resistance. He slapped the controls, and it went from using the two rear wheels to the rear four. The Stryker jumped and lurched over a big pile of screaming, yelling infected. Fists pummeled weakly against the composite armor. Some hit the spots that had been damaged when he’d rammed the trailer. Those were much louder. He wondered what would happen if they stopped him. Would they pound on the sides until it failed, pry him out, and feast on him? Or would he just be trapped until his food and water ran out, and he was forced to open the door and shoot his way out?
Cobb didn’t like either of those options, so he kept his foot down and offered a silent prayer to whomever might be listening. The Stryker continued to lurch, slide, and jump as its 20-ton mass crushed dozens, then hundreds of infected. Then the Stryker gave one more heroic lurch, and he was clear. The wheels spun, covered in unimaginable gore as they found traction, and the Stryker began to pick up speed again. There were one or two more thumps, then nothing. He looked through the vision slits and saw the road was empty. He’d made it.
Cobb drove on, laughing until tears ran down his face. A mile onward he slowed it back to 45 and wiped his face. “Fatigue,” he said, alone in the driver’s compartment, “just fatigue.” But how many times would his luck hold out? The answer was five miles.
He’d just reached the top of the County Road 2169 overpass when he saw the bridge ahead. A two hundred-foot-long double concrete span which crossed the South Llano River. It was destroyed. Quite effectively, too. If he had to guess, Cobb figured it had been bombed. He cursed and looked at the GPS. It appeared 2169 went along the south side of the river for a thousand feet, then came to an older single metal span which crossed into the city of Junction. He’d meant to bypass the city by staying on the freeway. His luck hadn’t held.
Coming to a stop just past the top of the overpass, Cobb put the transmission into park and opened the hatch over his head for a look. Standing on the driver’s seat, he strained his eyes to the south. Was the bridge still there? He could see the structure, though not all of it. Next, he looked down. The river looked high. It wasn’t raining anymore, but in this part of Texas, when it rained it ended up in the river quickly. The Stryker could ford; it couldn’t swim. The approach down was dangerously steep on both sides. Getting stuck or rolling the Stryker was less than optimal.
Cobb looked back the way he’d come and was horrified to see a ragged line of infected jogging along. He felt like the Pied Piper of plague zombies. No wonder why he hadn’t seen any other cars! Driving just drew them like a moth to a flame. In a few minutes, they’d catch up. That made his decision for him. He dropped the hatch, settled back in the seat, and engaged the transmission. At the bottom of the overpass, he turned and headed down the ramp the wrong way. It gave him a small thrill of lawlessness. When he reached the bottom, he turned left and found several dozen cars and trucks abandoned. They all looked like they’d been attacked by herds of enraged rhinoceros.
“So that’s what happens when a swarm catches a car,” he said. Shielded from the rain under the overpass, many of the cars were still bloody messes. A skeleton sat in the driver’s seat of a semi-truck, half out the window, some flesh still clinging wetly to the bones. “Fuck,” he said as he picked a route though the mess. The Stryker pushed a mangled SUV to the side as it bulled its way through and left the carnage behind. The ground was littered with bones and still-shiny empty brass. Whoever it had been, they’d tried to fight.
Driving south on 2169 from under the overpass, he felt a thud on the roof. One of the infected must have jumped. He doubted the 30-foot fall had done the man or woman any good and drove on. The road dropped down a bit as it swung away from the interstate, and he could see some of the taller buildings of Junction. He wouldn’t call them high rises, but they were the biggest buildings he’d seen since he’d left Ft. Hood. Some were as much as 10 st
ories.
The road swung around to the right, and there was the bridge. An old metal trestle style, it probably predated the interstate. At first his heart sank. A huge gap of metal was missing from the top, near the center of the span. The remainder was twisted at odd angles and charred black. This bridge had been bombed as well. However, as he got closer, he saw the deck was intact. These kinds of bridges were harder to drop than concrete spans. As he drove closer he could remember a video of experts trying over and over to detonate a span in Ohio to drop in into the river, only to have the bridge stubbornly refuse to die.
* * *
On the final approach as he climbed up to the level of the bridge, he saw the deck was damaged after all. A hole, ten feet across, was torn through the concrete and steel. Risky, he thought as he examined it. Was the bridge’s structure compromised? He could drive out on it only to have the entire thing fold around him, taking the Stryker 50 or more feet to the water below. Trapped inside the APC and drowning seemed only marginally better than being eaten alive. Regardless, he didn’t stop as the vehicle rolled onto the span.
Cobb tried not to pay too much attention to the unnatural sway he felt as the 20-ton machine moved further and further away from the southern side. Right about now, he caught himself thinking, the main support will give way…only it didn’t. He maneuvered around the hole, which was one of the worst moments. The bridge shimmied but didn’t fail. He was past the impact point and onto the northern side, safe and sound.
He drove down the road, around a sloping corner, and onto a main street. He’d just rolled past a cross street when he realized what was just ahead. Another swarm, at least twice the size of the one back by the freeway. Thousands of eyes were looking at him with unnatural gazes. Cobb slammed on the brakes and the Stryker came to a stop. He could just see a pair of pickup trucks in the middle of the swarm and had time to wonder who the infected had just killed when the engine coughed once as the small amount of remaining diesel temporarily left the feed lies. Left was a courthouse, right a two-story parking garage. The swarm began to run, and he acted.
Turning Point (Book 2): A Time To Run Page 26