“Where is that coming from?” He finally turned slightly to address the co-pilot.
“US Route 31, sir,” The co-pilot already had the information. “They call it The Dixie around these parts.”
Lieutenant Hatch made a noise that was a slow rumble. His eyes were trying to pierce the dark as the helicopter blades cut through the night sky. Control panel LEDs reflected in his eyes while he watched the steady orange glow fade ever so slightly. Molly carefully watched him and tried to peel back the layers of his thoughts. He had that look about him. It was more of an instinct than a fact. Hatch had that appearance of a good soldier who had followed one too many orders that sat poorly with his soul. His eyes were cruel, observant but intelligent.
“Why don’t we figure out where they’re going?” Molly broke the silence. It was a mere suggestion. Hatch clearly took it as a challenge.
“…and how are we gonna do that?” His tone was dismissive.
“They’ve made a turn.” Molly decided it was time for some reverse man-splaining. Her eyes were steady while her left eye brow did the now familiar arch in contempt. “We can make a good guess where they are going now.”
Shit. His expression spoke volumes. Hatch knew he should have thought of that. The cruel lines hardened for a second before letting the moment go. The Lieutenant elevated his chin a few inches higher while he made eye contact with Molly.
“What’s at the end of that highway?” Hatch asked without breaking eye contact with Molly. She didn’t blink while letting her mouth curve ever so slightly. It has been way too long since somebody has talked back to you, hasn’t it? She thought.
“Checking, sir,” The co-pilot seemed to be relieved to break the silence and ratchet down the tension in the cabin. He carefully scrolled through the map on his screen while the glow in the distance grew closer. A logical conclusion to his search appeared on the electronic map. That had to be it, the co-pilot let his head bob slightly.
“I think I have it, sir.” The co-pilot’s easy going voice had taken on a gravitas tone.
*
Time, it was a collection of measurements. Seconds, tens of seconds and minutes were the starting points. Then came the days, weeks and years, all of it was relative. Eons could pass in a desert before anything of consequence could occur. For the commander, change had just happened in the blink of an eye.
How many seconds had passed since Ubaid and Birk began to send warnings? Did it really matter? The commander was under the bridge now among the scattered remnants of his force. They were carelessly parked here and there on the highway like toys left around by careless children. Huge chunks of concrete lay about like roadblocks, dislodged by heavy weapons fire at the bridge. They were now just part of the new reality. The commander was watching the direction they had come with an almost detached shock. They always said an operation was long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of extreme terror.
Was that what you’re feeling? He watched the flames flicker away and consume the skeletons of cars that were just blazing metal. Is this fear, shock?
It had only been a few seconds. But it felt so much longer as he played back his memories. The first chopper exploding into a brilliant comet of fire and steel that crashed into a pack of rusting cars. They had torched so quickly, the fire had jumped from vehicle to vehicle like it was carried by a swarm of burning locusts.
The commander remembered giving the order to race to the safety of the bridge, brilliant flashes that temporarily blinded his driver. He checked his Protector weapons station screen, the glare had made it hard to focus the targeting system on the bridge. He just sprayed and prayed his 30 mm. machine gun at the bridge as they came closer. A second Stryker fired a 75 mm. shell that shook the bridge and sent debris crashing into their path. The commander then remembered firing a second time. It sounded less like a weapon and more like a whirring machine toy for play. A shadow among the blackness of the bridge seemed to shudder and fall away from his line of sight................
Another helicopter had made a second reckless charge and a thunderous, brilliant splash of light from behind had blinded his Protector M151 weapons station a second time. Refocus, reboot. He turned the system backwards and a massive wall of fire had engulfed at least one of his vehicles. It had broken in two on the impact from a Hellfire II missile. The vehicle had flipped over twice in midair, then the broken, shattered remnants crashed to the pavement and exploded again as the ammunition inside detonated.
Tracers flew skyward in defiant anger. A second Stryker nudged the burning carcass aside on its way toward the bridge. For an instant, one the fat front tires burned before snuffing itself out. A figure lurched toward the burning Stryker in the middle of the road and was run down in revenge. Its crushed body became just another discarded broken prop in the war game.
Someone claimed they had hit the second chopper and reported it was limping home with a trail of smoke betraying its path. It had all taken a few seconds. The commander then popped the hatch for a clear view of his situation. He drank in the night air that now stank of gasoline and cordite.
“Let’s take a closer look.” The commander ordered. He had sent Birk in two Strykers back to check on the stragglers. “Back up, let’s give them some cover.”
“Yes sir.” The engine sprang to life and began to retrace its steps cautiously.
“Birk?” The commander tapped his radio. “Answer me, son.”
“Birk?” Worst case scenarios began to creep into his head.“Birk!”
“Yes sir.” A breathless voice finally replied. “Sorry sir. We transferring wounded.”
“Okay, what’s it like back there?”
“We lost two vehicles outright, sir.” There was a spreading sense of grimness in his voice. “Two more are so badly damaged. We had to abandon them.”
“How about the crews?”
“We have....” He seemed to draw a breath and steady himself. “......casualties.”
“At least 12 dead, sir,” Birks voice had always been a monotone. But now words formed a second slower. “We have transferred three wounded.”
“Who?”
“Yes sir,” Birk continued. “McCully has a concussion. Hodges took a shell fragment in the thigh.”
“Okay.” The commander remembered both men quickly. McCully had a confident look about him that bordered on the cocky. Hodges had been a fresh faced kid who had been a slow learner until Ubaid had made him her assistant. He had proved to be capable under her patient tutoring.
“Ubaid got the worst of it, sir.” Birk completed his bleak report. “She took shrapnel in the back and neck.”
“Is she gonna pull through?” He found his gaze blurred for a moment, unfocused.
“We got the bleeding stopped.” Birks tone was somber. “I just don’t know about internal injuries.”
“Okay,” the commanders eyes started to search the darkness for the familiar form of the Strykers among the shadows and fire. “Get back here as quick as you can.”
“Yes sir.”
He sighed and tapped the microphone and surveyed the flames and carcasses of steel that were now little hothouses with sparks leaping out like escaping fireflies into the night. It had all happened in a few short seconds, the hiss of the flames began to fade at the sound of engines that appeared out of the dark. They peaked out from behind the raging inferno of the unlucky Stryker in the center of the highway and closed on his position. Birk was in the command hatch with several other soldiers sitting cross legged on top of the vehicle. Their eyes were vacant, introspective. Were they playing and replaying that moment when armor piercing shells turned their safe metal haven into a slaughterhouse? There were no waves to comrades, no salutes. Birk pulled up alongside while Devoe continued on toward the rest of the unit.
“How are they?” The commander inquired and then noticed a small group behind the turret of the Stryker. At the center was Ubaid. She was laid out flat, lying on her stomach with her eyes closed, sedated. One pri
vate held an IV bag a few feet above the Sergeants body.
Ubaid’s uniform had been cut open to expose her back. Her smooth brown skin had a large, black canyon like fissure that cut a swath from her shoulder to just an inch or two above her hips. At the widest point it must have been eight inches across. A young man with intense eyes was carefully applying as much gauze bandage as he could find to cover the huge wound.
“Where’s the medic?” The commander returned his attention to Birk.
“He was killed, sir.” Birks face was much paler than the commander remembered. His eyes were slightly bloodshot. “We do have some orderlies and trainees but we need to get her some real help.”
“How about the other two?” The commander thought it odd for a second that the wounded were so few and the dead so many. Armor piercing shells cut through steel. He had seen what they had done to bodies in Iraq.
“McCully is seeing double a bit, sir.” Birk reported while occasionally stealing a glance toward Ubaid. “Hodges lost a chunk of his thigh but no severed artery, so he’s lucky as hell.”
“Where are the bodies?”
“I’m sorry, sir.” Birk stammered for a moment. “We couldn’t ....”
“I will not have my people left behind in these circumstances.” Birk understood what the commander was referring to. They will not become like them. They will not be harvested and eaten by them.
“We had no chance to get them, sir.” Birk’s head was slowly beginning to shake back and forth. He understood. Oh god, how he understood how his commander felt. “There were a lot of them.....”
“Sir, hostiles!” A voice from behind raised the warning.
The commander quickly looked northward on the Dixie and saw the first fleeting spectres among the embers. The hunched shoulders, slow stiff walk and the animal intensity. The first one walked past the blazing Stryker and faced him in the center of the roadway. He had once been a large man. He wore a checked, long sleeve shirt that was popular among rural people. The fabric had been frayed and torn in some places like his skin. His left eye had been hollowed out and devoured long ago. A craterous black pit was in its place. The commander watched the big man cock his head slowly at them. Was it curiosity? Perhaps he was the leader of this new pack. Did they have leaders? The commander’s skin started a slow crawl. They always make you feel that way.
Behind the big man, slow, curious and ravenous fingers began to touch the hot metal of the burning Stryker. The commander watched an elderly woman with a drawn face hiss in frustration as her skin stuck to the hot armor plating. With an angry roar, she pulled away her hands as her flesh stuck to surface of the burning vehicle. It was like watching fabric being ripped away from a dress. Huge chunks of skin peeled away and sizzled on the surface. Her blackened hands were steaming in the night air as she investigated more potential openings.
They can smell what’s inside. The commander felt rage and bile in his throat. They can smell burning, fresh meat.
Hungry fingers encircled around a smashed hatchway. Then a few more found a hold and then others joined in. There was a groan of metal on metal and then: WHOOOOOSH!!! A jet of flame roared out of the opening as the fire inside greedily inhaled the new oxygen source. The commander watched two hostiles begin to burn. Their dry skin was easy kindling. There were no cries of pain or surprise from them. Instead, the first one stepped into the inferno of the hatchway for the salvation of his burning addiction. Hunger.......
“Get Ubaid and the rest back with the unit and head to our destination.” The commander’s voice was angry and low.
“Sir.....’ Birk’s big dog voice was a whine now.
“You heard what I said.” The commander tore his eyes from the desecration and leveled them on Birk. “Get moving, I’ll catch up to you.”
Birk could only nod and give the order to move out while the orderly working on Ubaid asked for more bandages. The vehicle drove away from the carnage. The driver was careful to keep an even and slow speed for his passengers. The firelight faded with distance and Birk tried to concentrate on the outlines of the vehicles he was approaching. He looked ashamed, helpless.
“Turn around, head north.” The commander was angry and he knew it. This was pure, sickly sweet revenge. “How’s our ammo on the 30’s?”
“We’re reloaded sir.”
The commander closed the hatch, sealed it and pulled the M151 weapons station closer. The camera scanned for a second before he found his target. He grabbed the hand grip and depressed the firing button. Inside the vehicle, there was a thrumming vibration that gently reverberated through the plexi-glass and steel body of the Stryker. The screen offered an almost antiseptic, unreal vision of the carnage.
The big man had no time to move as 30 caliber shells seemed to cut a swathe from his stomach to the top of his head. He just came apart like a jigsaw being pulled asunder. The commander carefully turned the camera right and fired at a group of shadows in the firelight. An outline of a woman was struck in the shoulder and her arm exploded and detached from her body. She seemed to look at the shoulder stump for a second before stepping forward in a blind rage. A 30 millimeter shell found her lower cheekbone and her head exploded like a ripe watermelon. Her body, a shattered cluster of skin and bone dropped to the ground.
The commander traversed back across his fire lane and saw a head and left shoulder crawling forward. It reared up on its one remaining limb and howled at him in defiance. It was the big man, a blackened wet mud traced behind him.
“Drive forward,” The commander’s voice was harsh and cold. “Crush it with the wheels.”
The driver obeyed but not before taking a glance back to the commander and making eye contact. What are we doing? The vehicles suspension system barely registered the big man’s head and rib cage being smashed and ground into the pavement.
“Sir, we have hostiles on our vehicle!” The driver spoke and then instinctively backed away a few inches from the face that was clawing at his windshield. She had been a beautiful African American woman. Now, the lower part of her face was muscle and bone. The teeth snapped away while he watched the now exposed jaw muscles working. The driver kept repeating to himself. Don’t look at it, don’t look at it.
The commander felt the machine gun turret grow sluggish. It felt like the battery was in need of a charge. He was wrestling hard with the controls and while the camera tried to play around the scene for targets, he saw the problem.
It was leaning hard and pushing, pulling at anything that came close quarters to his fingers. A man of twenty, Caucasian with darkened blood clots for eyes dropped his jaw and hissed at the machine gun turret. The twin machine guns whirled around while the thing’s fingers reached around and grabbed at metal, tubing and wires. Searching, exploring. Looking for anything to find a crevice or opening into the vehicle. Other fingers appeared and began grabbing. Pushing, pulling, wires came free........
Red lights appeared on the console.........Robotics failure......hydraulic failure.........
“Damnit!” He finally swore as his hand carelessly smacked the keyboard. He felt foolish, useless. His eyes looked forlornly at the burning vehicle, his crippled machine guns pointing at the sky. They have you now, they always win. You know that. The camera played over the shadows and specters in the firelight. They were feeding now. The commander and his modern war machine were insignificant in their eyes. A lump in his throat made his voice crack; “Get us out of here.”
He felt the wheels reverse and fingers began to fall away from the driver’s windshield. His camera played over the wreckage, the burnt husks of steel and the figures that seemed at home in the end of all things. Amid the rhythmic flames, a looped structure caught his eye as it burned fiercely. It was a bit larger than the rest of the skeletons strewn about the highway.
It was the pilot’s compartment of the attack helicopter. The plexi-glass had shattered on impact and the flames engulfed the two bodies slumped forward over the control panel. Sitting on the pilots ba
ck with her legs draped over his shoulders was a girl of twelve. Her feet seemed to dangle without a care. Like she was sitting on the edge of a dock, dipping her toes in a lake on a sunny day. The girl was feasting on a large chunk of meat, carefully chewing away with a carefree calm. The flames had burned away her clothes. She paused for a moment to extend her left hand and watch the skin burn in a colorful blue light. Perhaps she was reflecting on how beautiful the flames appeared, if they even thought like that anymore. Her eyes scanned up toward the camera and the girl arched her neck in momentary curiosity. It suddenly occurred to the commander that all of the armor plating, the heavy weapons and protection the Stryker offered seemed inadequate. They were as unstoppable as the tide coming in at night. Slow, ponderous, pitiless as nature could be. The girl lost interest and returned her attention to the slab of meat in her hands. You aren’t a threat anymore. They’ve won. They always win. You should know that by now.
“Hojo,” The commander tapped his radio. “We’re heading back now, see you in a minute.”
“Yes sir.” Hojo’s voice mirrored his own. Somber and dark, like a forest on a moonless night.
“Any sign of that other chopper?” The commander was eager for something else to say or think about. The girl on the pilot’s back refused to leave his mind’s eye.
“No sir,” Hojo replied. “We definitely hit it.”
*
“Yup, they definitely hit us.” The pilot was back to his monotone calm.
“Confirmed,” The co-pilot’s voice was all business now. “We are leaking fuel.”
It had not been like people always described moments of terror. It had been a lightening flash of shock. One second they were watching an attack chopper climb quickly. Beautiful long lines of light were chasing its’ dark form like vertical shooting stars to wish upon on a summer night.
Bang!
Molly thought it sounded exactly like a car running over an object on the road. The noise, a second crump! This one felt closer to the passenger compartment. Then, red lights began to appear in front of the pilot’s console. It was like an epiphany to Molly. When this marvel of modern engineering had been floating on air it had seemed like magic. Now, the beast was wounded and it was a growing fear inside her. All that keeps you airborne are five rotating blades. It’s all physics, really. When the blades fail you fall into the clutches of gravity. A blackened landscape below felt like the mouth of a huge monster.
5 Years After (Book 2.5): Smoke & Mirrors Page 4