As she ran toward the chopper, she saw them. Small yellow dots shining in the dark just beyond the hail of tracer rounds, which were now flying from the entire southeastern edge of the airport. The sight was indescribable—there were thousands of them! The huge rodents the president had spoken of . . . They were real. God in heaven, they were real!
The sound of weapons fire was nearly continuous. She’d never been a soldier, and had never been anywhere close to a war zone. She found the intensity of the firefight spreading around her almost too much to take in all at once. The earsplitting crack of automatic weapons fire, the flashing lights from the tracer rounds—it looked like what she’d seen on the news, but this wasn’t on a television screen in her comfy living room. She was in it. And whatever the enemy was, it was almost on top of them.
A thunderous roar suddenly rolled over the airfield as a fighter jet swooped in low, dropping a pair of cluster bombs at the far southern edge of the airport, each one splitting apart at a predetermined height and releasing hundreds of small bomblets on the thousands of yellow dots below.
As the fighter climbed, its afterburner throwing a long tail of blue flame behind it, the bomblets exploded all at once, like the finale of a fireworks display. The sound followed a second later, knocking two members of Carolyn’s team to their knees as they covered their ears with their hands.
“Up up up! Let’s go!” The sergeant was screaming, still waving his arm to follow. Carolyn saw him nervously shifting his glance back and forth from them to the firefight now just a few hundred yards away. She got the impression he really didn’t want to stay here any longer than he had to, or at least wanted to get the damned civilians off his hands so he could help his buddies.
As they neared their ride, Carolyn noticed the other choppers on the ramp had also started their engines, and people were rapidly trying to get on board. Around them on the tarmac groups of soldiers rapidly set up fighting positions, placing heavy weapons on their stands, slamming belts of ammunition into the feeders.
These soldiers were staying to fight. No matter what.
Carolyn knew she was seeing real bravery.
A loud explosion erupted to her left—one of the helicopters at the far southern edge of the tarmac had exploded, pieces of the spinning rotor blades flying through the air. Next to it, another chopper was trying to lift off—but it was covered by something, things jumping from the ground, the things with the yellow eyes. Hundreds of them!
They were on the tarmac!
She watched the big Chinook rock side to side, unbalanced by the weight of the creatures—a black wave of the things!—leaping onto it from the tarmac. As the chopper slowly rotated, Carolyn could see the back ramp was still open, and the creatures were all over the inside. She looked away as the chopper abruptly tilted forward, the front rotor blades striking the cement in a shower of sparks, tossing long, ragged shards of metal into the air. A second later, the Chinook slammed back down onto the tarmac, exploding in a bright flash as the fuel tanks ruptured and the spilled fuel ignited.
She and her team were now sprinting as fast as they could toward their chopper. The crew chief was at the rear of the Chinook, waving them in. Their escort suddenly stopped, dropped to one knee, and started firing his weapon. Carolyn turned and looked behind for just a second and saw a black wave of the things speeding across the tarmac toward them. She saw people running, trying to get away, but they were overtaken, disappearing in the wave of fiery yellow eyes.
So close.
They weren’t going to make it, she knew.
They were all going to die.
She instinctively ducked her head as she ran below the rotor blades, even though the spinning disk was high above her head. The crew chief pointed his sidearm over her head and started firing.
This time, she didn’t turn around.
Carolyn willed herself to stop and wait as the members of her team entered the rear of the Chinook. She was, after all, the leader, and she should enter last.
She counted three of them. Three of four.
She spun around and saw the fourth member, Matt, running toward them. He must have fallen! she thought. Behind him was something she’d never seen before—and hoped never to see again. Something right out of the depths of hell. A creature on long legs, jointed like a Hollywood special effects monster. She screamed helplessly as the thing reached out with a long, clawed hand and grabbed Matt by the head.
“Matt! No!”
The beast effortlessly tore Matt’s head from his shoulders, a fountain of blood shooting into the air from severed arteries. The lifeless body fell to the cement.
The creature threw the wide-eyed head to the side as the crew chief’s bullets slammed into its chest. It was still heading toward them, but the impacts were slowing it down. With each shot, it threw its head back and screamed a horrible wailing sound, its mouth open wide, revealing rows of obsidian knives.
The engines spun up and the Chinook began to rise. The pilot wasn’t willing to wait one second more.
Carolyn tumbled into the back of the chopper, immediately followed by the crew chief, still firing as fast as he could.
Carolyn crawled on all fours toward the front of the chopper, trying desperately to put as much distance as she could between her and the wide-open rear ramp.
As the chopper lifted off, she watched in horror as a clawed hand grasped the crew chief by the ankle and yanked him out.
His piercing scream was cut short. And his eyes . . . For a second, Carolyn had seen the terror in his eyes as he was pulled from the chopper, yanked away from safety to certain death. She knew she’d never forget those eyes. She looked away and covered her mouth with her hand, sickened, her body starting to shake as the reality of the situation hit her. The crew chief had saved her life by standing and fighting, delaying the creature’s advance, and if he hadn’t . . .
Over the scream of the engines and the thwap thwap thwap of the rotor blades slicing into the black sky, clawing at the air to gain altitude, she could hear the chattering, the clicking, so intense that she covered her ears to muffle the terrible noise.
From what she’d seen, she knew everyone left on the ground was as good as dead. None of them had a chance.
As the big Chinook sped northward, the automatic weapons fire on the tarmac behind them slowly diminished. And then ceased. The earsplitting chattering stopped as well, replaced with the sickening sound of flesh being torn and ripped, the sound of screams from dying lips, as the things systematically exterminated every human being left on the ground at KCI.
And then, the things ate their own dead.
In an hour, they were moving again. Toward the others. They could smell them in the distance. And the night was still young.
CHAPTER 16
Just ten minutes after arriving on station, his matte-black U-2 Dragon Lady soaring through the thin upper atmosphere above Kansas City, the pilot—wearing much the same gear an astronaut would—recorded the rapid advance of the mutated creatures using his array of sophisticated sensors. The information was transmitted to the National Military Command Center—the NMCC—in the bowels of the Pentagon.
It was one of many reports streaming in, all grave in nature.
Positions were overrun. Contact was lost with almost all the military units preparing to enter the city. Survivors—of which there weren’t many—described waves of hideous things tearing through their positions, decimating the troops, killing every person in their path.
Thousands, if not millions, of the creatures. And they were moving fast.
Kansas City was now empty. There was no life there. The things had streamed out of the city, overtaken every single military unit in their way, wiped out the evacuation centers that had received the survivors from the previous night. Unstoppable. And worse, they were showing signs of intelligence. They were moving with a purpose, demonstrati
ng intent. They weren’t spreading out at random.
The combined readings from the quickly growing armada of airborne infrared sensors chillingly showed the things had split into six distinct groups, spreading from the dead city like a gelatinous sea creature stretching its stinging appendages toward other cities.
Topeka.
Wichita.
Springfield.
St. Louis.
Des Moines.
Omaha.
Cities full of people who hadn’t been evacuated. Not to mention all the small towns that lay in the paths between these six cities and Kansas City. There had been no need to evacuate any of them. Until now.
Andrew Smith sat in the White House situation room, completely dumbfounded by what he’d heard from his SECDEF and secretary of Homeland Security. “How many did we lose?” he asked.
“Mr. President,” Hugo began, “we’re still trying to figure that out. We had roughly two thousand troops deployed around the city, and about a hundred within the city itself. We’ve had about fifty survivors accounted for so far. The numbers for the civilians . . .” He paused. “The evacuation centers have all been hit. We don’t have contact with any of them. We have to assume, sir, based on the reports we’ve received from the survivors, there probably aren’t—”
“You’re telling me they’re all dead?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Hugo answered softly. “They’re all dead.”
Andrew cupped his face in his hands. This can’t possibly be happening, he thought. A whole city is dead, hundreds of troops are gone, and six more cities . . . Six cities . . . are in danger.
“Sir?” It was Marshall Stone.
Andrew looked up, his eyes weary.
“Mr. President, I suggest we deploy troops to those cities as quickly as we can. There’s not enough time to get everyone out before those things reach them.”
Not enough time. “Which city will they reach first?”
Hugo answered. “Topeka, sir. It’s closest. We’ve already started initial evacuation actions, but like Tank said, there’s not going to be enough time. At the speed they’re moving, they could be in Topeka within the hour. We’ve already lost contact with Lawrence.”
The president knew Lawrence, Kansas, was the home of KU, the University of Kansas. A college town. Full of kids. The thought sickened him. “How fast are these things moving?”
“We estimate roughly forty-five to fifty miles per hour, Mr. President,” Hugo said.
“What?” Once again, Andrew felt a chill crawl up his spine. The creatures had enough intelligence to smash light fixtures to get out of the light, and they could move at incredible speed. “These are animals, right? You told me they were some kind of rodents, for Christ’s sake! Nothing can run that fast!”
“These can. Sir.” Hugo couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“How do we stop them?”
The SECDEF and secretary of Homeland Security looked at each other, apparently hoping the other had an answer. Neither did.
Andrew wasn’t willing to live with silence from his advisors. He fixed his gaze on his SECDEF. “Come on, Tank, I need some goddamned answers here.”
“Mr. President,” Tank said, “we’ve killed thousands of the damned things. But there’s hundreds of thousands of them, possibly more. We’ve had AC-130s pounding them as hard as they can, but they’re not making much of a dent. We’re trying to get forces in the area as quickly as possible. A-10s, F/A-18s, other strike aircraft . . .”
“Do you mean to tell me Kansas City had hundreds of thousands of coordinated, bloodthirsty rats? Where the hell are they all coming from?”
“We haven’t been able to explain the large numbers yet. Sir.”
“Have we caught any of them?”
“Sir?”
“Have we caught any of them!” Andrew immediately regretted his outburst. He knew he couldn’t let the frustration he was feeling get the better of him.
Tank shook his head. “Not to my knowledge, Mr. President.”
“Tank, Hugo, we need to know what the hell they’re made of. These may have started out as normal rats, but they’re certainly not normal now. We need to take one apart and see what makes the goddamned thing tick. See what the living hell turned them into some sort of superbeasts.”
Hugo cleared his throat. “It’s not just rats, sir. We’ve received reports of other things. Two legs. Standing upright.”
“People?” The realization hit Andrew like a hammer blow between the shoulder blades. Whatever had turned the animals into ferocious killers had also affected people.
“What used to be people, sir.”
“How many?”
“We’ve seen a few,” Tank said. “Mostly, it’s four-legged animals, but it appears some people have been . . . mutated, too.”
“All right. I want those cities evacuated. I want us to get as many people out of there as we can. Even if we save the lives of a few thousand . . .”
“The orders will go out immediately, Mr. President,” Hugo said. “We’ll save as many as we can.”
“Get on it, Hugo. Tank, I want you to start killing those things by the hundreds of thousands. They need to be stopped. Right here, right now. If you need any authorizations for special weapons . . .”
“Understood, Mr. President.” Tank noted the word nuclear had not been spoken. For now, it would not be considered.
“And,” Andrew continued, “I want to grab one. Catch one of the little bastards and tear it apart for info. I want to know how I can kill them without blowing our own country to bits in the process.”
“Roger that, boss.”
“Before the both of you leave, I want to make something perfectly clear.” The president’s eyes were burning bright, no longer showing any signs of weariness. “I will not let this situation spiral out of control. We were caught completely off guard tonight, and we’ve lost a large amount of blood and treasure because of it. We will get our people out of the way. Save who we can. That is priority number one. Priority number two is killing those things. Stop them before they decimate more of our cities.” He paused, thinking about how to word his next statement.
With the number of people lost in less than twenty-four hours combined with the speed at which the things were moving, Andrew knew he was facing an inconceivable loss of American life in a very short amount of time, and he had to take drastic measures to stop it before it was too late. In his gut, he knew he might be witnessing the opening stages of a battle that, if lost, could spell the end of the United States. His gut instinct, which had guided his decisions for years, was almost always correct.
“We will accomplish both priorities simultaneously, gentlemen. If we can’t stop them outside of the cities, we may have to kill them wherever they are at the moment we have forces available. This means there may be civilian casualties. Some of our citizens may have to be sacrificed in order to save the lives of millions of others. This blood, gentlemen, will be on my hands. My hands, and no others. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Yes, sir.”
As both advisors turned to leave the situation room, the president opened his comm channel to the vice president. He needed to touch base with Allison Perez.
“Madame Vice President, the president is on button one.”
“Thank you, Major.” Allison Perez was still at NORTHCOM, keeping abreast of the fast-moving situation as best she could. “Yes, Mr. President. This is Perez. You’re on speaker. Admiral Grierson is here with me as well.” They were seated in a small breakout room off the main Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center. The major closed the door behind him.
“You’ve seen the reports?” Andrew asked.
“Yes, sir. It’s not looking good.”
“I’ve ordered evacuations of the major cities in the spread’s
projected paths. We may be able to save some, but I’m afraid we’re going to lose a lot of people before this is over.”
Allison knew he was right. They were facing a crisis unlike any the world had ever experienced. It wasn’t spinning out of control yet, but she knew unless they could stop the spread, it soon would.
Admiral Grierson spoke up. “Mr. President, the evacuation orders are on the street and being executed as we speak.” Keaton Grierson was one of six geographic combatant commanders, each a four-star admiral or general tasked with operational responsibility over a specific portion of the globe. The crisis was unfolding on the North American continent, so NORTHCOM—Grierson—was leading the fight. “We’ll get as many people out as we can.”
“Keep pressing, Keats. We need to stop these things.”
“Stopping them may become problematic, sir,” Allison said. So many had died in such a short span of time, it was simply sickening. Worse, nothing they were doing seemed to make a difference. “Their numbers seem to be growing at an exponential rate.”
A pause at the other end of the line. “Theories?”
“Nothing yet, sir,” Grierson said. “We believe they’re leaving the Kansas City area behind. As soon as we can, we’ll drop teams back into the city to try to ascertain a point of origin, or find evidence of a cause. Hopefully they’ll discover something actionable.”
“I’ve ordered the CDC and Vanguard to examine the bodies, Mr. President,” Allison added, “as soon as we’re able to get our hands on some. CDC will do an initial analysis, and we’ll fly them to Dugway and let General Rammes’s team take a closer look.” Allison noticed the questioning look from Admiral Grierson and realized—a little too late—he wasn’t read-in to the Vanguard program. Well, he is now, she figured.
“Perfect. Thank you, Allison.”
The relationship between president and vice president changed from administration to administration, the nature of it depending heavily on the personalities involved, as well as on the political promises made on the campaign trail to appease all those who would hopefully cast their vote for the winning team. Some VPs served their tenures as nothing but figureheads, and others wielded their own power outside of the Oval Office, but in this administration, the relationship was much like a commanding officer and his or her second in command. Allison Perez was second in command of the good ship United States of America and would take the helm if and when required. Allison would be no political figurehead—that much Andrew had made perfectly clear when he’d offered her the job. Professionally, they saw eye to eye, as a good commander and his second should. Their personal relationship was close. Not romantic in any sense, but both knew they would stand back-to-back and fight off the hordes together, if it came to that.
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