by Mark Wandrey
Andrew couldn’t hear the counting anymore because outside all hell had just broken loose. A dozen Apache Gunships unleashed their 20mm chain guns in a torrential rain of lead. He could hear rockets exploding as well as the helicopters dealt merciless oblivion to untold thousands outside.
They must have reached ‘One’ because a series of small explosions lit the inside of the hanger and the operators work kicked in. Similar to the setup he’d used in Monterrey, the explosives blew the locks on the huge doors and dozens of fifty-five gallon drums the operators had winched up with the tow truck pulled them open with the weight. The huge doors began to accordion back.
Outside it was a scene from one of the lowest levels of Dante’s Hell. The gunships had strafed the taxiways from fifty yards outside the hangars to a hundred yards or so from the airfield perimeter. Dozens of red parachute flairs drifted lazily downward in the rain. Hundreds of zombies were still just outside the doors and they would have begun to rush in but instead were met with a merciless wall of high velocity lead from the men inside Andrew’s hangar.
The fire was surprisingly controlled considering it was a mixture of fully automatic and burst fire that tore into them. In just seconds almost all of them were down. The five men converged on the tug and jumped aboard, its engine belching smoke as it headed towards the door.
“I hope the rest of the operation went well or this might be a short drive,” Andrew said as he put a hand on the throttles. As Chris had been instructed he put his hand on top of Andrew’s and together they advanced the throttle to 25%. Outside the engines roared and he heard the unmistakable sound of bending, tortured steel as the thrust deformed the unopened doors behind them. In a moment the huge C-17 began to roll.
They approached the door. Andrew’s foot hovered over the brakes, almost quivering with intensity as the door approached. The tug moved to the side just as six massive D-7 bulldozers appeared, three from either side. They swept in, turning and meeting in the middle of the taxiway. Their blades nearly touching, they were as wide as the entire C-17. The front two angled their blades in opposite directions and took up position just ahead of the next two behind them, and onwards outward to create a massive pointed wedge. Their smokestacks belched huge gouts of black smoke as their engines roared and they began to plow the road.
“Woohoo!” Chris cheered as the plane’s nose left the hanger and rain began to pour down on them.
“Find the wipers, will you?” Andrew asked, concentrating on driving. The taxiways of the fort’s airfield were not as wide as he’d have liked. And worse, even with the work of the bulldozers there were dozens of partially mangled bodies on the tarmac. He could feel them crush under the huge tires, actually making the Globemaster shift slightly from time to time. Was the plane actually sliding slightly?! Yes, it was, and he corrected with wheel and rudder, feeling it come back on course.
“The tug is aboard,” Wade called from the back, “ramp closing.”
Andrew heaved another sigh of relief. One less thing to worry about. Out in the pouring rain he could see the other two C-17s behind him on the plane’s tail camera. The last of the three didn’t have as easy of a job. After the plows had passed more of the crazies were running at the transport. Some were being crushed under the tires, other tried to climb the landing gear. The Apaches came back around and carefully began providing perimeter fire as the planes moved along at a painfully slow five miles per hour.
“What happens if a turbine sucks a zombie in?” Chris asked.
“Then the turbine is fucked,” Andrew said. “But at the speed we’re going, the engine bell is too far up. It doesn’t make enough suction. Part of the reason we’re going as slow as we are.”
Wade arrived in the cockpit and sat in the engineer’s seat. Their operators were below, the crew doors open they were adding their fire to that of the Apaches, picking off stragglers that ran at the transport. Andrew saw the rear plane wasn’t copying their efforts so he used the radio.
“23 Poppa, can your operators help keep them off you?”
“Negative,” came the reply. “Our hangar was overrun. We lost all but one securing the transport.”
“Oh God,” Chris said, his hand growing clammy on the throttles. They all knew if something went wrong with the planes, they were probably dead men.
The transports reached the halfway mark and Andrew could see from the cockpit that the final stage was underway. More than a hundred soldiers from inside the airfield were staging a breakout. They were too close to the perimeter to risk gunship fire, so this was with crew served M240s and small arms only. Worse, they couldn’t risk firing in the direction of the transports, so they had to go out at an angle away from the planes, then turn sharply and fire inwards with low angle shots at limbs. Andrew could see at several points the fighting was hand to hand. He offered a silent prayer to gods he seldom spoke to.
He didn’t want to think of the price that might have been paid in blood, but as they approached the bulldozers sped up slightly and began working from the center out to clear the way. Inside the perimeter cranes began moving the barricades that were blocking the taxiway. It was a carefully coordinated action that went well, until one crane stopped working with a single 10-foot-tall barricade still in the center of the road.
“Oh shit,” Andrew said and estimated the distance. They had less than two minutes before he was there. He considered and made a decision. “Throttle down,” Andrew ordered.
“But the general said not to stop for anything,” Chris complained.
“I know what Rose said, but he’s not sitting up here! Throttle down.” He activated his radio. “This is 44 Foxtrot to all transports, they’ve had a problem, we’re stopping!”
“23 Poppa, understood.”
“41 Indigo, acknowledged.”
They watched tensely as first one, then two bulldozers tried to move the barricade and failed. It had to weigh forty tons and simply refused to budge without chewing the shit out of the tarmac. Flipping it would be just as bad.
“They’re going to have to blow it up,” Wade said, watching from his rearward seat.
“There has to be a better solution,” Andrew said. But as Chris suggested, several operators came running out from the base with backpacks that were quickly attached to the barricade in several places. The men didn’t then just retreat, they ran like hell.
“I hope that blast—”—” Andrew started to say he hoped the blast wasn’t too big, when the barricade went up in booming explosion. It was a surprisingly contained one considering, and he suspected it was specialized demolition charges. What remained was cleared by the bulldozers in short order and left little damage to the taxiway. Andrew gratefully throttled back up and in a minute the nose of his plane passed the barricade entrance.
Small arms continued to roar from all sides as the soldiers maintained the perimeter for them, but the much more intense and louder gunship fire ceased as there was no longer a reason to keep the taxiway open. The zombies started to push towards the retreating transports. Small arms fire picked up in intensity.
“What are they going to do with the crane to replace the barricades?” Chris wondered.
It turned out the General had planned for that contingency as well. A dozen huge forty-foot container trucks were backed into place once the last C-17 had taxied though. When they were lined up, the tractors dropped the trailers and the bulldozers raised their blades, pushing the containers on their side and sliding them into place. The containers were eventually two deep and covered the entire width. Though not nearly as heavy or resistant as the concrete barriers had been.
But regardless, the transports were at the airfield. Andrew taxied his over to the flight line by the much smaller helicopter hangars, turned it tightly so the rear was facing away from the runway and started shutting it down. Operation Donner Pass had been a success. Lightning played across the stormy sky as the zombies raged against the airfields defenses.
* * *
Dr. Lisha Breda came out onto the balcony off the main labs to look at the growing spectacle. It wasn’t as good of a view as the ‘bridge’, as the crew called it. But since the Navy and Marine operations people had moved in, she almost wasn’t welcome in her own facility. The sun was just coming over the eastern horizon, revealing how the fleet had grown overnight. Just like in her facility, almost everyone she saw was a stranger to her.
Late last night a Navy physician had waltzed into her labs like he owned the place, a squad of sailors with him and proceeded to give orders that all her equipment would be ‘stored or thrown overboard’ to make room for a new medical center. She’d been stunned almost speechless by the audacity.
“You are going to do no such thing,” she’d raged and promptly placed herself square in the doorway. She often lamented her too-wide hips. As a black woman, it was something she had come to grips with in her early forties. But for once she was glad she wasn’t a thin little girl. With hands on those hips and a deathray stare, she was an imposing figure.
“I was told you were going to cooperate,” the man said, trying to throw his own intimidation right back at her. As the only black female in her post-doctorate program, she was not that easily intimidated.
“I gave you access to my facility. You have people bunking in our unused living spaces. We’re opening other unused areas to you. The bridge is now basically under Navy control as some kind of God damned traffic control. I have a hundred boats using our generators for power. However, we are a level three biological research laboratory, and we’re continuing to study the virus that is busy destroying the world.” She leaned closer and gestured at the racks of equipment incubating samples. “So you will not touch anything and get the fuck out of my laboratory!” He backed a step with each word, the staff he’d brought retreating behind him until they were again out in the hallway.
“Y-you don’t understand, we have a priority need,” the man stammered, clearly taken off guard by her rage.
“You don’t understand; this isn’t your facility!”
“We will simply have to take it then,” the man said, regaining his air of authority.
“That would be unwise.”
The man turned and saw the imposing figure of Joseph from the self-appointed Zombie Squad. The stores department man was almost as wide as he was tall, with upper arms as big around as Lisha’s thighs. Standing next to him was Robert, diesel mechanic and also Zombie Squad. Both held massive shotguns in their tattooed arms with a manner that came from untold hours of handling. Lisha was chagrined to see they’d somehow come up with patches for their impromptu uniforms. A big stylized ZS and a drooling zombie caricature, complete with blood dripping from its lips.
“Who are you?” the doctor demanded.
“We’re the Zombie Squad,” Robert said.
“Fuckin’ A,” Joseph agreed.
“Zombies?” the doctor said, completely flabbergasted. His team of sailors, all big guys, backed up a bit. They looked small by comparison to these two men.
“Problem, Doctor?” The men looked the other way and found two more big Zombie Squad men, Oz and a new guy named Danzas. Danzas was a friend of Joseph’s who had been on a fishing boat that came alongside yesterday. Danzas was the only one without a gun. He carried a pair of nunchakus and several very long, very sharp knives. Now there were men on both sides of them. The Navy personnel suddenly looked very uncomfortable.
“No, Oz, these men are just leaving.”
The Navy doctor considered for a moment, then simply nodded and left. There’d been no sign of them in the laboratory area of the facility since. She’d asked Robert to keep two of his people on guard at all times. He didn’t seem to mind at all. Said he looked forward to roughing up some squids, whatever that meant.
The view out the balcony was like what she remembered from San Diego Harbor at Regatta Day. There were now hundreds of boats and ships of every imaginable type tied up to each other and then to the HAARP platform in vast groups leading out like spokes from a wheel.
The military presence was formidable. From the first Coast Guard cutter, the USS Boutwell, then the Marine amphibious assault carrier USS Essex. Dozens of boats and ships drifted in. Then the USS George Washington, a supercarrier and its entire task force showed up with hundreds more vessels. It had just left for Japan days ago and turned around when everything started to go to hell.
As she watched another carrier was arriving, the USS Carl Vinson, with all its ships and more refugees. She’d been informed that the USS Ronald Reagan was a few hours out, as was the USS Gerald Ford, though that ship was not yet fully operational it did have its full crew and facilities.
“There are more every hour.” Lisha glanced over to see her assistant Edith leaning on the railing. “How are they going to feed them all?”
“We can devise means of cooking,” Lisha said. “It won’t work too well with fish, the temperature is so high it almost crisps it.”
“Christopher has been experimenting with soups cooked in a pressure cooker,” Edith said.
“Our mad chef? He’s subjecting it all to testing, isn’t he?”
“Of course, ma’am.”
Lisha turned back to the flotilla. “I understand there is another of these off Norfolk. It’s as if the government is abandoning the land.”
“You’ve seen the webcasts,” Edith said, “mega-swarms in many of the cities. Others roving across the countryside. The last numbers from the CDC?”
“I helped formulate the numbers,” Lisha reminded her. It suggested as much as 90% infection rate within seventy-two hours of loss of containment. She’d snorted at that. The thing had never been contained. Aside from possibly a weird non-normal fox, there appeared to be no Patient Zero either. Nothing had prepared the world’s medical community for a plague like this. A zombie apocalypse. Impossible. And yet, here they were.
“Dr. Breda,” a lab tech came out onto the balcony, “the latest treatment runs are ready.”
“Thank you, Teresa,” Lisha said and turned to go back inside. At the edge of the formation a cruise ship was just arriving, escorted by a Coast Guard frigate.
Chapter 28
Tuesday, April 25
Afternoon
The celebration in the operation center was kept short. A toast was offered to the Operation Donner Pass teams, both the C-17 flight teams and the bulldozer teams. Just about everyone cheered and some of the last Cokes were shared around. And then it was back to work.
Andrew and the flight teams all retired to bunks for some sleep while every other able hand set to work. The C-17s were fueled, checked for damage from the operation, and loading was begun. Lacking any actual C-17 loadmasters resulted in twice the expected time being taken. Tobey and Kathy managed to get a few minutes alone.
“When I heard one of the operator teams was lost…” she said as the door closed to the tiny room and she fairly flew into his arms. “I almost died,” she began to cry.
“I’m fine,” he assured her and stroked her hair, noticing that she’d finally gotten a shot at a shower. She smelled like soap and beauty. “Except for that crane failure, we had a pretty easy go of it. That Air Force puke, Andrew, is a pretty solid pilot.”
“Seems to be,” she agreed and nuzzled her head under his chin. “Do you have to go right back?” The unspoken additional question was evident in the way she conformed her body to his.
“I have a few minutes,” he said as her face turned up to his and their mouths met. It ended up taking more than just a few minutes.
* * *
Andrew and his flight crew were awoken just after noon by a very young and nervous looking pilot.
“Preflight in 15 minutes, sir.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant,” Andrew said and gave him a little salute. The kid smiled and left the door partly open. “Up and at ‘em!” he yelled and shook the cot next to him. Chris made a rude gesture and tried to go back to sleep. “Come on, and go get Pillsbury up. We have preflight in f
ifteen minutes.” Chris slowly sat up and ran a hand up and down his face vigorously while making dubba-dubba-dubba sound.
“Fine, fine, fine,” he said and sat up. Confident that at least one of them was up, Andrew went down the hall to the tiny shower. Two other men were already there, but being in the military for years had scrubbed away any sense of modesty. He dropped his clothes on a bench and found an available shower head.
The water was hot, and the soap plentiful. No shampoo was in sight though and he was considering using the hand soap when the man next to him held out a small bottle.
“Here, sir,” the man said. “You saved our ass bringing out that bird. Least I can do is share some of my shampoo.”
“Thanks…” he said and realized that naked in the shower meant he had no clue of the man’s rank.
“Air Sergeant Hickens,” he said and shook his head.
“I didn’t know there were any other Air Force personnel here.”
“Not many, sir. And my MOS was computers. So I’m pretty much useless on the C-17s.” He shrugged. “I’ve been helping load the birds, doing what I can.”
“Glad to have a fellow Air Force man,” Andrew said and took a minimal amount of shampoo before handing it back.
“Chair Force,” an Army man nearby snorted, then turned and winked at them. Intra-service rivalry made the military go round.
“Don’t worry, grunt,” Hickens said, “We’ll still give you a ride.”
He was just finishing when Chris and Wade showed up. Chris looked like he was still sleepwalking while Wade looked wide awake. The big man examined the communal shower with obvious distaste. Andrew understood his discomfort. Being both out of shape and a civilian, he probably hadn’t stripped in front of other men since high school.
Down the hall in their room he dug out a clean pair of skivvies from the pairs he’d drawn upon arrival and found a surprise. Hanging from the door was a brand new Nomex flight suit, complete with rank insignia and name patch.