The ride became significantly more bumpy the further they got from the barrier wall. The truck had slowed to about half the original speed as it maneuvered around cars and debris traveling further and further outside wall. Finally, with a sudden jolt, the truck came to a stop and the two squadmates closest to the rear, Troy and Pointe, jumped out, slung their packs, and began ordering everyone do the same. Pulling on her own pack, Rose filed out of the truck and got into formation while verifying the rifle she had in her hands was loaded and the safety was off. It was probably the cleanest AR-15 she’d ever held. All the squadmates around her were doing similar checks preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.
Glancing around her, Rose found her surroundings downright apocalyptic. Buildings were smashed, the roads were thick with rubble and debris, the only glass visible were shards in windows and littered on the ground. Cars were flipped over and there was evidence of fires, long burned out, their blackened traces lingering. A large faded green structure loomed in the distance, a large metal bowl-like building overlooking the destruction around it.
Before Rose could ask what it was, Pointe started in with his mission brief. “We will be breaking into two teams of five, diamond formation. Team one will take the south side of the street, team two will take the north. Fenway Park up ahead seems to be where most of the activity has been seen so we’ll start there, clear the park, and then move further up the block. Transport will be standing by here should we encounter and capture Giant. I’ll be leading team one, York will lead two. Move out.”
It seemed like a fairly well thought out plan which lead Rose to think it was likely York’s. Luckily they’d practised team break-downs from two to five groups so everyone knew where they had to go without being told. That meant Rose was on the north side of the street with York and the others in team two.
Moving quickly across the street, Rose fell into formation: York at the front middle, two squadmates to her right and left facing forward and two squadmates at the right and left facing the rear. Rose took her position at the front right of York as they advanced slowly forward down the street toward the park.
There were several buildings on their side of the street and each gap between the buildings needed to be cleared quickly before moving on, all the while keeping pace with team one on the opposite side of the street. Team one had fewer hazards and gaps to clear and as a result were moving faster than York’s team could move. It wasn’t long before team one had pulled about fifty meters ahead of of team two. While still moving forward, York grabbed her walkie-talkie. “Pointe, stand by, we have more to clear and are falling behind. Stand by at your location.”
Right after York finished transmitting, Rose thought she saw movement up ahead and off to the right of her position, but as she swung her rifle around to focus on the spot, there was nothing there.
“Movement?” asked York quietly to Rose.
“Yeah, ahead to the right,” Rose answered softly. “Gone now.”
“Eyes open, keep moving,” York ordered, slightly louder so the whole team could hear.
Pointe hadn’t answered and his team was still moving forward and would reach the outer gates of the park well before York’s team. Without a word, everyone on team two seemed to realize this and moved that much faster to try and close the gap. Despite the new pace, Rose could see up ahead that Pointe’s team had just about reached a gap in the outer fencing and had paused there. York’s radio crackled. “Team two, double-time it. You’ve fallen behind.”
Answering with an exasperated sigh to herself, Troy picked up her pace significantly, the rest of the team responding to her movements. As they pulled up even with team one, without notice, team one began to file through the fence and into the park.
“What the fuck?” said York to herself angrily. She again key’d the radio, “Pointe! Where are you going? We can’t cover you from here, we need to regroup!”
York paused a moment, but there was no answer. Turning around, York looked at her squad. “I have no idea what the fuck Pointe is doing and he’s only going to get us hurt or killed. Here’s the deal, we are going to follow them in at our own pace, covering ourselves. We’ll hook up with Pointe’s team and try and unfuck this before it’s too late, but we’re going to do it safely. On me.”
Holding formation but moving fast, Rose’s team crossed the street and cleared the fence opening before tactically entering one by one, guns up and covering all the angles, re-forming and continuing to move through the inside of the stadium. Bare cement and green-painted metal girders made up the interior of the park and while it was messy inside, the level of destruction was much less than outside the fence. From the signs that still existed and the glimpses of the field Rose had while they made their way down the main thoroughfare of the ballpark, it appeared they were under the bleacher sections of the park.
Team one had now pulled so far ahead of them, they weren’t visible. Team two continued along the thoroughfare which began to curve around to the right as they headed toward the grandstands overlooking home plate, or whatever was left of home plate on whatever was left of the baseball diamond.
Further and further they continued through the park. Rose figured they should either be coming to an end soon or run into the other team. She was about to say something to York when the silence of the park was shattered by gunfire just ahead. “Move!” called York but everyone already was, rushing forward maintaining a loose formation as the gunfire, seemingly from several different guns continued.
Rounding a bend, Rose’s team came upon team one. Two members of the team were standing back to back firing at about six Alphas dancing around doing their best to avoid the gunfire. Without thinking, Rose and her squadmates opened up on the remaining Alphas who were not expecting gunfire from behind. All six were put down quickly, their bodies strewn on the floor among other Alphas and several squad members.
Joining up with the remaining members of team one, Rose did not find Pointe among the survivors. York noticed the same. “Where’s Pointe?” York asked as they approached. One of the men pointed his rifle over to a corner before falling into formation with Rose’s squad without a word. Pointe was suspended about halfway up the wall and at first, Rose couldn’t tell how. Closer inspection revealed the the back of Pointe’s head had been impaled on a large bolt in the wall. He appeared otherwise unharmed, aside from the streams of dark red blood trickling from his eyes, nose, ears and mouth.
“Giant,” said one of the two survivors of team one. “He’s here,” he said nodding in Pointe’s direction.
“Alright, time to get the fuck out and come back with more troops,” ordered York. “Backtrack to the truck and we’ll defend there until Freedom and Patriot get here. Move-”
“Incoming!” called one of the squadmates guarding the rear before opening up, muzzle flashes lighting up the dim corridor.
Turning, Rose could see a mass of Alphas sprinting around the bend toward them. For every Alpha mowed down, another took its spot almost right away. Closer and closer.
Over the roar of the gunfire, York screamed, “Out to the field! We’ll flank them! Go! Now!”
Remarkably, everyone heard the command and broke at the same time, the rear guard keeping up a steady spray of bullets, slowing the approaching horde. Bursting out of the corridor and into the sun-baked bleachers caused Rose to squint and trip. Luckily, York was there and caught her, neither woman barely losing a step as they descended down the steep stairs of the stands to the field below. Rose had been so focused on escaping the corridor above them, she’d barely even glanced at the field they were escaping to below.
One look and Rose knew it’d been a bad idea to come this way. Like all the fields, yards and road medians Rose had seen, she expected the grass field to be overgrown but this field was crucially different. Instead of two years worth of overgrown grass and weeds, it was all flat, as if it’d been mowed. But it hadn’t been mowed, it’d been trampled from use. The field was littered wi
th holes that’d been dug in the ground; nests built from salvaged materials in the city. This wasn’t an avenue of escape, they were running right into the heart of their den.
One glance over her shoulder showed Rose she didn’t have any choice but to keep going, Alphas were pouring from the corridor they’d just left as well as through other exits nearby. One of the rear guards exhausted his magazine and stumbled while reaching for a replacement. That was the opening the Alphas needed and he was quickly pulled away screaming for help, disappearing into the approaching mass.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs and hurdling the wall, they lost two more squadmates, a man and a woman. The man had reached for a knife and had his arm bent so violently back the opposite direction, Rose thought it might have been ripped off if not for his uniform and body armor, the woman tackled and trampled by the mass as she stumbled over the wall.
“Form up!” York screamed over the noise of guns, screams, snarls and roars. “Back to back! We take out as many as we can!”
Circling up, back to back, the remaining five members of Liberty squad sprayed bullets in every direction as the press closed in. The bodies of the Alphas shot down were starting to pile up around them, a wall of gore the infected now had to climb over.
Despite this, their numbers seemed endless. How could they possibly survive? They’d killed probably fifty or more Alphas, but there were hundreds lurking in the stands or closing in. Maybe Rose could make a break for it? Sprint away while the focus was on the remaining squadmates?
Rose dismissed that thought almost as quickly as it entered her mind. She wasn’t that person anymore. That was a coward’s way out and she was no longer that coward. She was a fighter, a defender of the human race. If she was going to die here, she would take as many Alphas as she could with her.
More determined than ever, Rose refocused on shooting the surrounding Alphas, trying her best to make every shot count when, over the noise of the gunshots, a loud, booming roar seemed to reverberate through her body and vibrate through the ground at her feet. The Alphas all around them immediately stopped advancing and quickly scattered, cowering.
Looking over her right shoulder, Rose saw him. Giant. He had bounded out of the grandstands somewhere below the press boxes and was sprinting toward them down what would have been the first base line. Giant appeared to be everything he’d been described to be: a massive black man, maybe 6’5, 350 pounds of pure, rippling steel muscle that was very evident as his naked body raced toward them, dirt being kicked up from behind his massive feet as they chewed into the ground.
Rose and the other squadmates raised their rifles and fired but Giant was already darting away, unleashing another booming roar. Before they knew it, he was on them, bowling over the man to Rose’s right causing him to flip in the air and then land on his chest. Undeterred by the impact, Giant wrapped his arms around another squadmate and drove her body into the ground with a sickening crunch. His entire weight on top of her, a Giant-sized hole was left in the ground in his wake, the woman’s shattered lifeless body a bloody mangled mess in the dirt.
Moving, Rose popped off a few inaccurate rounds in Giants direction, but York was more successful, a spray of blood spurting from Giant’s right shoulder. The squamate knocked to the ground by Giant, now limping, and another squadmate opened fire scoring more hits in Giant’s left leg and arm. Giant dove, flipped in the air and rolled away from Rose’s squad demonstrating more agility than she thought possible. Standing and facing the squad, fists clenched and blood dripping down his arms and splattered on his chest, Giant bellowed in low, guttural broken English, “Kill! Them!”
Screams echoed from all around the park, bouncing off the walls, the stadium seating and grandstands amplifying the noise to a fever pitch. Hundreds of Alphas began emptying from the stands from all directions, all converging on the four surviving squadmates.
This was it, Rose told herself. Setting her jaw and firing indiscriminately, she fired off as many rounds as she could, quickly reloading when she emptied a magazine and slamming in another. It didn’t matter. The press was coming, closer and closer each second, the closest Alphas less than twenty meters away on all sides.
“I’m out!” called the man to her right as he pulled out a knife.
“Out” called York pulling out a knife as well.
As the gunfire started to drop off, the Alphas came closer and closer, their speed increasing.
Then over the screams of the infected and the dwindling gunfire, there was a new scream. Rose almost missed it, barely audible, but it was high pitched, desperate and from far off. All the approaching Alphas stopped in unison and turned their heads toward the scream, all falling deathly silent.
After a few seconds of stunned and surreal silence, Rose and the other squadmate with bullets remaining redoubled their efforts pouring shots into the frozen crowd around them. The Alphas didn’t seem to notice their comrades falling around them, transfixed by the distant scream.
The uninterrupted shooting gallery didn’t last however, Giant, also taken by the scream, was the first to break out of the trace-like state. Giving off another loud bellow, all the Alphas turned and began to stream back up the stairs of the bleachers and out of sight, Giant leading them away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Finding herself and her squadmates now alone in the middle of a silent Fenway Park, Rose was stunned by how quickly their situation had changed. It was jarring and unsettling, a pit of dread she hadn’t realized had been there before now began to blossom ten-fold. Where had they gone? There was only one place.
York, seemingly unphased and already taking advantage of their continued state of living, moved over to the squadmate crushed by Giant and gathered her still-loaded rifle and any salvageable magazines. “We need to get moving,” she ordered, standing. “We have no idea where they went or when they’ll be back. We need to get back to the transport and radio for support. Move!”
York was already hopping the first base line wall and Rose had to physically push herself into motion. Stiff from shock and adrenaline, it took a few steps before running became automatic again and not forced. Hopping the wall herself, the two members of the squad in tow, they sprinted up the stairs headed for the closest exit. Moving down the corridor and out the same fence break to the street unmolested, the remains of Liberty squadron ran/hobbled down the street, all tactical movements abandoned, their only focus on getting themselves to their transport and behind the barrier walls of Boston.
The transport was still in the same place it’d been left, the two drivers guarding it were nowhere to be found. The only trace of their presence was a large bloody streak on the ground and a bloody rifle near the back of the truck which was quickly repurposed. Rose jumped into the passenger seat next to York who was climbing into the driver’s seat. The keys, still in the ignition, were cranked and the truck fired up immediately. Finally, something was going their way.
Racing through town, Rose grabbed the truck’s radio. “Base this is Liberty squad, we’ve suffered heavy losses, requesting support, we are inbound from drop site.”
There was a few seconds of static before a response. “Liberty this is Base. Support is unavailable, Boston is under attack, all squads are being deployed to the western wall between the Longfellow Bridge and the Back Bay area. Attacks seem to be focused on the bridge accesses for now. Redirect to Copley Place or points east for re-entry.”
Without a word, York swung the truck to the right. Rose could see the barrier wall off in the distance. They’d been driving right towards it, now the were going parallel, the wall looming large. Could the Alphas really make it over? Racing away from the mass of Alphas, York did not slow up, she drove as if they were being chased, and Rose could hardly blame her. Boston, her home, was under attack and she wasn’t helping to protect it. The sooner they could get back to the city, the better.
The radio was not helping. It was now chirping away relentlessly with updates of Alpha movements, troop mo
vements, and calls for medical assists. Being the first major attack on Boston that Rose was aware of, there was an abundance of overlap with transmissions and louder, more demanding voices than needed. Overall it seemed that people’s training was taking over and the fight was going their way.
The initial attack seemed to be focused on the corner section of the wall where the Back Bay met Massachusetts Ave, normally a lightly defended section of the wall. However, Freedom and Patriot squads had been staging there and the barrier wall was easily being defended, the element of surprise it seemed, had been lost. As Rose and her squad continued to an access point near Copley Square, the radio confirmed the Alphas were continuing north up the wall. Heavy fighting was being reported all along the Storrow Drive wall as far north as the Longfellow Bridge. That worried Rose. Mass General Hospital was just past that bridge and MGH was where Jamie worked.
Pulling into the Copley Square access tunnel, they were flagged through by heavily armed soldiers with grim, determined looks on their faces. “Base this is Liberty squad,” radioed York. “We’ve cleared the wall at Copley and we’re back inside. Where should we re-deploy.”
“Liberty this is Base. Report to HQ for debriefing.”
Jordan Rose Duology (Book 2): Homecoming Page 18