The Retreat #5: Crucible

by Stephen Knight

  The crazies reaching for Campbell jerked and howled as Muldoon hit them with quick three-round bursts, sending full metal jackets tumbling through their bodies. That gave Campbell enough time to reload. She slapped the mag into her rifle, hit the bolt release, and got back to the business of killing.

  “Awesome display there, Leon Spinks, but it’s better to shoot ’em than box with ’em!” Muldoon snarled at her. “You stay the fuck on your rifle, or I’ll kick your narrow ass so hard you’ll have two cracks in it instead of one!”

  “See you try that,” Campbell said without looking at him. Her voice was barely audible above the din of firing.

  A filthy woman clad in only a soiled pair of cotton panties ducked beneath Rawlings’s lane of fire and tackled her, ignoring the hasty round Rawlings put in one of her shoulders. The wound began to bleed almost immediately, and Rawlings found that to be the most horrifying thing about the entire situation. As the woman slammed into her, driving her onto her back, all Rawlings could think about was the blood. And the infectious bug it carried.

  Rawlings was not dressed in MOPP gear. Almost no one on the recovery team was; they were far enough inside the lines that an attack hadn’t been thought possible, but here it was, in living color.

  “What’s up, sister?” cackled the woman on top of Rawlings. The woman grabbed for Rawlings’s M4 while spitting at her. Rawlings turned away at the last moment and felt the warm, stinking saliva strike her cheek. For a moment, the women wrestled for control of the rifle as more klowns stormed up. A ponderously fat man with pins stuck all over his head raised an ax high. Despite the fact one of his companions in craziness was right on top of Rawlings, the man was obviously going to swing anyway. He’d chop them both up to get to Rawlings.

  Rawlings heard Muldoon shout, but the noise was lost beneath the fury of the fat man’s shriek as he began his swing.

  Then something roared, and his head literally exploded like an overripe watermelon at the terminus of a fifty-foot fall. Blood, bone, and pulpy gray matter accelerated away from Rawlings and her combatant in a grisly plume. The ax fell from the now headless corpse and struck the woman in the back of her skull. She let out a surprised squawk at the sudden pain, then began grinding against Rawlings as if she was about to have an orgasm.

  “Fuck yeeeeeaaaahhhh—”

  A shotgun barrel with a serrated tip entered Rawlings’s field of view. The barrel was shoved right into the woman’s forehead, driving her back, eliciting another gout of laughter. Something detonated, and the woman’s entire head disintegrated, the chunks of bone and gore carried away on a tidal stream of fire. Rawlings cried out at the noise and fury, grappling with her M4. A man with severe features looked down at her. Beneath his helmet, his face was all planes and angles. An NCO she had seen around but hadn’t met.

  “You infected?” the man thundered, swinging the shotgun her way. He racked it, and Rawlings could literally hear the shell slamming into the breech.

  “No,” Rawlings gasped.

  The man kicked her in the side. “That’s ‘No, First Sergeant!’” he snapped. Rawlings cried out at the blow, and that seemed to be answer enough for the man. He nodded curtly.

  “Get back on your rifle,” he said, then turned away from her, shouldering his shotgun. He aimed at an approaching klown and blasted it right in the face. Three more went down, as the pellets continued downrange and struck more attackers. Snack-snack! The first sergeant racked the weapon again and fired immediately, dropping another attacker as more soldiers surged forward, their M4s chattering against the shotgun’s basso boom.

  Rawlings struggled to her feet, surrounded by lightfighters and their cackling rifles. And like that, the klown attack was broken apart. While they had the ferocity, they didn’t have the training and the composure to engage with dedicated combat troops. They were routed in less than two minutes, falling to the field, bleeding and howling in hilarity. Even then, they still tried to fight, spitting and clawing and hurling bloody matter at the approaching soldiers. None of it worked. The lightfighters were relentless, executing every man, woman, and child where they lay. Rawlings did the same thing. She popped a pudgy housewife right in the head, then turned her weapon right on a five-year-old boy and did the same. There was no regret in her heart. These weren’t people. They were automatons, driven to do insane and horrific things to themselves and others by a microscopic virus that had fucked up their wetware so significantly that their humanity had been essentially eradicated. They were crazies. They were klowns. There was no possibility of coexistence, so they had to die.

  Even if they are little kids, she told herself. A small part of her marveled at how fucked up the world had become, when even children were to be sacrificed in fields of war.

  Eventually, the gunfire petered out. The first sergeant who had saved Rawlings stalked around the field, barking orders in a minimalist fashion. He was like a raging war god, intense and demanding. To Rawlings, he was what Muldoon would one day become. A force to be reckoned with, complete with rocker bars and hashes on his sleeve to denote every year of service, every campaign successfully completed.

  “All right, who’s leading this shit trap?” the older man shouted. He cast his gaze across the field, looking at the collection of soldiers who were still executing the fallen.

  “There’s a lieutenant,” Rawlings offered. “I don’t know his name—”

  “Not the officer, you asshole,” the first sergeant said. “I want to know who’s the senior soldier who was supposed to secure this zone!”

  “Boats.” It was Muldoon, and he strode toward the older man like he had just won the latest Powerball drawing. “That would be me.”

  “Sergeant Muldoon, is it?” The first sergeant regarded him with a thin smile. “Yeah—the sarmajor has a total woody for you. You know that?”

  “I am an attractive man,” Muldoon said.

  “Turner told me you were smart, but a bit impractical,” the first sergeant said. “I have to say, I disagree with him completely.” With that, the older man stepped up and kicked Muldoon right in the nuts. Despite his size, Muldoon let out a loud sigh and pitched forward. The man he had called Boats kept it up, stepping in again and shoving Muldoon so hard that he toppled right over, collapsing onto his back. The older man wasn’t done. He shouldered his big shotgun and aimed it right at the stricken man’s head.

  “Stop!” Rawlings shouted. She raised her M4, wondering just what the hell she was going to do next. Shoot a first sergeant? From the corner of her eye, she saw Nutter do the same, his eyes wide with fear.

  “Securing this field was nothing,” the first sergeant growled. “Scan the tree lines. Send out patrols to look for ambushers. Protect the air drops, and the trucks, and ensure your people are safe. But you’re too full of yourself, Muldoon. You’re a fucking E-5—a God damn kid. You haven’t seen shit yet, boy. So tell me...why shouldn’t I blow your little pinhead into next fucking week?”

  Muldoon just stared up at the first sergeant, expression neutral. More rounds cooked off from the burning Stryker. The first sergeant’s finger was still on his shotgun’s trigger.

  “Boats!”

  There was no mistaking Command Sergeant Major Turner’s voice. Rawlings’s knees almost turned to jelly when she heard it. By simple voice alone, Turner exuded calm confidence, the product of decades of seasoning. The man standing over Muldoon’s prone form didn’t outwardly seem to recognize it, but there was a subtle shift in his demeanor. Even he knew that when the command sergeant major was on-station, you stood up and paid attention.

  “Boats!” Turner shouted again as he ran into the field, followed by his senior staff. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “Cleaning house, Doug,” the first sergeant said. “This sack of shit forgot all about his basic soldier skills. The way I see it, this is the only way out.”

  “Put down that weapon or I will shoot you,” Turner said. His M4 was in his hands, and as he spoke he shouldered it. />
  Boats looked over his shoulder at Turner and flashed what to Rawlings appeared to be a devil-may-care smile. “You man enough for that, Doug?”

  “You know I am, Boats. You know I am.”

  The first sergeant looked down at Muldoon for a long moment, then raised the shotgun. “Better kowtow to the sarmajor from now on, boy,” he said. “He just saved your miserable redneck ass.”

  “I’ll remember you fondly, First Sergeant,” Muldoon said. Still trying to be the badass, even though he’d just been taken down by the nuts.

  Boats grinned. “You’ll have to shoot me in the back, Muldoon.”

  “Boats, move out!” Turner said.

  “On it—someone has to provide security, eh?” With that, the older man stepped away from Muldoon and began feeding shells into his shotgun. Turner advanced toward Muldoon and offered his hand, but the bigger man practically leaped to his feet unaided.

  “I was just pretending,” he told the command sergeant major.

  “Oh really,” Turner replied.

  “It’s true, Sarmajor,” Nutter offered. “Duke, he has him some balls of steel.”

  “In this humidity, they’re probably a little rusty,” Turner said.

  Muldoon adjusted his sunglasses and cocked a brow. “You want to rub some oil on them, Sarmajor?”

  Turner favored Muldoon with a glare that would have killed Godzilla. Muldoon smiled at him crookedly for a long moment, but the smile eventually slid from his face.

  “Muldoon, you are going to experience a world of fucking hurt if you don’t start toeing the line with the rest of us,” Turner intoned, his voice hard and dry. “That first sergeant? He will kill you if you continue to fuck up and step off tempo.”

  “Maybe it’ll happen to him first, right?”

  Turner stared at Muldoon for a moment, then stepped closer. “Son...Andy, you are witnessing extreme restraint on my part right now. You close ranks and start acting like a lightfighter, or next time I’m not going to collar Boats, or Zhu, or anyone when they come across your shit again. You need to read me on this, and you need to read me five by five, because you are simply not that important.”

  Muldoon said nothing, and to Rawlings, that was remarkably uncharacteristic.

  Turner pointed to the trees surrounding the field. “Secure the area. I’ll see that the supplies are loaded up. Do your job, and do it now.”

  “Hooah,” Muldoon replied, though the tone of his voice indicated he’d rather wipe his ass with sandpaper. Turner drew the line there and didn’t contest anything further. The sergeant major went off after First Sergeant Boats, apparently with another ass-kicking in mind.

  “Hey, Sergeant, you want a clue here? You ain’t too smart to be fucking around with first shirts and sarmajors.” Campbell calmly reloaded her M4 and looked over at Muldoon with narrowed eyes.

  “Who the fuck asked you?” Muldoon replied.

  Campbell slapped a mag into her rifle and released the bolt. “No one. Because while my opinion doesn’t matter worth shit, I can tell who’s going to get me killed.”

  Muldoon barked a laugh. “You’re with the fucking National Guard. What the hell do you know?”

  “What I know,” Campbell replied immediately, “is that the Tenth Mountain needs me on my rifle, because you lightfighters are all sorts of fucked up.”

  Rawlings liked that answer, not because it exposed Muldoon as a glory-monger, but because it reflected the accuracy of the entire situation. The truth of the matter was, the remainders of the First Battalion needed everyone on a rifle they could get.

  If Muldoon reflected on the precision of the statement, he didn’t allow it to show. “Get into the trees,” he rumbled. “Kill anyone you find there who isn’t one of us.”

  SEVEN.

  Lee was late to the fight at the drop zone, so he had to be briefed on it as he sprinted toward the tactical operations center truck. Gunfire still echoed in the near distance, and he noticed all the troops around him were oriented toward the threat. The battalion command sergeant major had already mounted up a silver bullet task force to attend to the circumstance. In reality, there was little left for Lee to do but wait for the after-action reports.

  The tactical operations center was essentially a mobile command trailer mounted on a Light Medium Tactical Vehicle—more colloquially known as a “truck.” With expandable sides that could be set up or torn down in under an hour, the mobile TOC was faster to deploy than the traditional general-purpose tent, and it provided better ballistic protection for the operators inside. Usually there were only three staffers aboard, in addition to himself, the sarmajor, and Walker. Today, he saw there were more people clustered around the vehicle, including a tall man in civilian clothes who turned toward Lee expectantly as he rushed forward.

  “Colonel Lee?” the man said.

  Lee ignored him and turned to Walker. “What’s the SITREP?”

  “Engagement at the drop zone,” Walker said. “Surprise attack. The troops have it all under control, and Turner’s gone to ensure everything is secure.”

  “How is it the klowns were able to mount an attack inside our own perimeter?” Lee asked. He motioned at the area where the majority of the battalion was encamped. “We’re all right here. How did the enemy manage to infiltrate our lines?”

  “It was an attack of opportunity...” Walker began, though not very convincingly.

  “Colonel Lee? It’s because your manpower is bleeding away,” the tall man in civilian clothes said.

  Lee turned to the man, annoyed at the intrusion. “Sir, I need you to be quiet for a moment.”

  “You’ve been drowning in silence, son. Time to face the music.” The man turned to Walker. “Major, you might want to confess your sins, here.”

  “Sins?” Lee looked to Walker. “Walker, what’s this about?”

  Walker sighed and pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket. “This was given to me by Command Sergeant Major Turner right before the fight broke out.” He handed it to Lee, who unfolded it immediately. It was a list of names, handwritten in neat, block print. Lee recognized several of the names there. After each name was a specific identifier: AWOL. Away Without Official Leave.

  “What the hell is this?” he asked, looking back at Walker.

  “Your men are deserting, Colonel,” the tall civilian said. “Your combat power is eroding a little more every day, and it’s been like this for days, if not weeks.”

  Lee couldn’t contain his frustration any longer. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Colonel, meet Colonel Kief Tackaberry, formerly of the Seventh Light Infantry,” Walker said. “Retired colonel, I need to mention.”

  “Seventh Light?” The division had been inactivated long before Lee had joined the Army. “Okay well, good to meet you, sir—”

  “Like hell it is,” Tackaberry said. “Lee, you’re in a very tight spot here.”

  Lee looked from the tall retired officer to Walker. “Listen, we have a contact situation going on. Is there any reason why Colonel Tackaberry is standing here busting my balls, Major?”

  “Your men are deserting,” Tackaberry reiterated, speaking slowly as if Lee was an idiot. “You cannot provide security any longer with organic forces. You need to plus up, and the longer you stay here, the more inviting a target you will become.”

  Lee grunted. “Well, we actually have movement orders, Colonel. So thanks, but we’re squared away.”

  Walker raised his brows. “We have orders, sir?”

  Lee nodded. “From the CJCS himself. Once we get everything under control and pull in those supplies we were sent, we need to get on the road.” Lee turned to Tackaberry. “Colonel, you and the rest of the non-combatants are going to stay here. When we pull out, close the damn vault door and don’t open it for anything or anyone.”

  “Coming with you, Colonel,” Tackaberry said. “You need more men.”

  Lee snorted and shook his head. “Sir, I have no doubt you were a fine soldie
r and a fantastic leader, but we don’t have time to integrate new faces into the spaces we have open. We need to roll, and we need to roll hard.”

  “I have twenty-seven troops, all prior service,” Tackaberry went on as if Lee hadn’t spoken. “We came together in Philly, and they’re all under my nominal command. All are senior, all are battle-tested, and all are committed to taking this nation back from the crazies. We know the stakes, those being that if we cannot succeed in this mission, then everyone we care about will die.” He pointed at Lee before he could speak. “The First of the Fifty-Fifth is being driven into the ground, Colonel. I see you’ve assumed that rank, and by now, I would imagine it’s been officially conferred—congratulations, promotions should be by merit and not committee. I’m glad you got around that. But the truth of the matter is, you don’t have all the experience you need to run a battalion. I’m offering you myself and the fighters under my command, and we will help you keep the remains of your unit safe and combat capable.”

  “We can’t take you on, Colonel. We just can’t.”

  Tackaberry cocked his head to one side. “Boy, that is a load of bullshit and you know it. You can do anything you want, and it makes tactical sense to plus-up where you can. Down below, the Third has things in hand, and with the paramilitary folks who are staying behind, they’ll be able to keep this facility secure for however long the supplies last. Our services are not needed here. To you we may just be a bunch of old men, but we can still do everything we could do when we were younger. And for all of us, the road in the rearview mirror is a lot longer than the one we see out the windshield. We can still contribute, but put us on ice at your own peril, because we’re approaching our best-by date.”

  “We do need more shooters, sir,” Walker interjected. “We’re still pretty far away from Florida.”

  “Florida?” Tackaberry shook his head. “Even better. We can fight our way down, then retire. It’s a win all around, Lee.”