But then Jake shouted at him again, over the radio this time. “Zack! You’ve gotta get on the Mk 47 – you’re going to have to blast us a hole out of here!”
Zack blinked once, hard. “What, with the grenade launcher on this truck? I can’t! It’s destroyed!”
Zack felt strong hands on his belt – and was yanked down out of the turret. Jake popped out and looked for himself. In part because it had been rotated to the back, in part because he’d had a lot of other shit on his mind, Jake had never seen the half-melted Mk 47, from that RPG volley that had nearly taken out Zack. But now he could see the weapon was no longer fit for purpose. It didn’t even look like you could have the bad idea of trying to fire it.
“Son of a bitch!”
Jake hesitated, then climbed down again – to Zack, it looked like standing was agony for the team sergeant, and he crawled back into the front and into a sitting position and got on the 240 again. Zack climbed back up – and started burning through his very last can of ammo.
Much good may it do them.
* * *
Baxter battled panic as he also battled the wheel of the truck. They were now the lost convoy of one. They were trapped inside this dying place, doomed, Sisyphus on his hill. The lurching, ramping, hurtling vehicle ran down running bodies – live ones, dead ones – swerving only to dodge holes in the ground that might stop or cripple it.
Baxter knew if they stopped, they were all dead.
Then again, even if they kept moving, death was only a matter of time.
Baxter remembered a line from one of the guys in the lost convoy in Black Hawk Down: “We’re going to keep driving around until we’re all fucking dead.”
And that was how they were going to end up now.
But then a series of rippling explosions in the south wall caused his neck to snap in that direction. Leaning forward and looking up through the cracked windshield, he could just make out the arc of incoming 40mm rounds that terminated in these explosions, and he followed it to its origin.
It was the other gun truck, sitting mostly destroyed in the center of the courtyard.
Somehow, its Mk 47 was back up – and engaging.
And it was systematically knocking down a whole section of south wall.
Switching to Guns
The Stronghold - Center Gun Truck
[Three Minutes Ago]
Todd tried to open his eyes.
It kind of worked – for one of them.
The other had been completely closed by swelling. Through the narrow slit of the other, he could see where he was – down on the floor of the truck, wedged between the rear bench seat and the driver’s seat. He’d been knocked down there.
Or rather blown down there.
He tried to move and to assess his injuries. Pretty much everything hurt. And he wasn’t sure he could even move at all. He wasn’t even totally sure he was going to survive these wounds.
But he was alive for right now.
And then he remembered Kate. And he felt sure she was still alive, too – because of what he’d done. Because he had kept firing to protect her, because he had refused to leave his station.
Even when the RPG rain of death was falling on his head.
And he regretted absolutely nothing.
Now, he managed to turn his head. And on the floor just beside him, he saw his radio earpiece. It had been knocked out but looked intact. That was some good luck. And a good place to start.
He’d just take it from there.
He found his right arm also basically obeying instructions. It was shaking, and weak as a kitten, but it moved. He used it to grasp the earpiece and get it seated. His ear didn’t feel too good. Most of his face didn’t feel great. But feeling was slowly coming back.
And only a few seconds after he got the earpiece in, he learned the radio was still functioning. The first exchange of traffic he heard was all he needed.
“Zack! You gotta get on the Mk 47 – you’re going to have to blast us a hole out of here!”
“What, with the grenade launcher on this truck? I can’t! It’s destroyed!”
And now Todd knew what he had to do. He had to make the rest of his body work. Maybe only one last time.
But he had to do it.
Looking around again, he saw another object on the floor – his blue and gold Cal hat. Heh. That would do very nicely.
With trembling hands he pulled it on his head. He thought some of his scalp came away. Didn’t matter. He was smiling.
And he battled to pull himself back up into the turret.
* * *
Baxter’s hope soared at the sight of the south wall coming down, in a section maybe ten meters wide. He’d have to wait for the grenade fire to stop, and the explosions to settle, before he could try driving through it.
But he wasn’t going to be able to wait long.
They had to get the fuck out of there. Now that it looked like there was some hope of this, every one of Baxter’s nerves fired with urgency and panic. Hope, the possibility of escape and survival, somehow caused this reaction even more than being shot at from a hundred directions did.
He turned the wheel and pointed their nose toward the exploding section of wall. He had some evasive driving to do before he got there.
But they might, in theory, miracle of miracles, maybe just make it.
He could hear the 240 still going crazy practically by his right ear. And the minigun was still putting out short bursts and raining down gigantic shell casings, some hitting the roof and cascading over the windshield, others falling into the cabin and creating a hazard with their roly-poly shape and burning heat.
Baxter kept one eye on the wall ahead, one on the hazards all around them, and one on the other gun truck.
The explosions finally wound down.
And he heard a voice in his ear, which he recognized as Todd’s.
It said: “Yahoo! You’re all clear, kid!”
And he could see running figures converging on the other truck.
“Mayday, mayday, Mav’s in trouble! He’s in a flat spin, he’s heading out to sea!”
Baxter gunned the shit out of the engine.
* * *
The bolt on the 47 locked back and Todd reviewed his handiwork. As the explosions cleared, he could see daylight through the dust. That wall was down in a big-ass section. There was enough space to drive through.
He was still in a daze, in shock really, with much of his body not responding to commands. But he was vaguely aware that incoming rounds were flecking off the truck and turret around him. And when he took one in the shoulder, he didn’t feel any pain – just the force and tug as it knocked and spun him.
Looking down, he could see guys running toward him on the ground. Some of them were firing. Some had their arms out and were slavering. Hundreds of rounds and the odd RPG still rained down from the walls. And the dead were pouring in from two directions now.
Todd laughed out loud, hardly believing it. Here he was, at the exact epicenter of the battle for the al-Shabaab Stronghold, deep in the black bush of Somalia, being shot at from all sides, surrounded by the largest herd ever seen, the dead running in every direction and dragging down and devouring the living.
It was the most glorious, hellish, unlikely scene he’d ever imagined.
Whatever else, this sure as hell wasn’t going to be an ordinary way to die. It was a completely extraordinary way to go – all the way down.
He tugged the bill of his cap, drew his side arm with a hand that didn’t quite close, and he started making shots on the ones below who were shooting back. As he did so, he managed to find his radio button with the other hand.
“Too close for missiles, switching to guns…”
He hoped Kate heard that.
He knew she would get a huge kick out of it.
* * *
Jake didn’t bother giving a command to Baxter. Instead he just reached over and hauled the steering wheel to the right. The truck veere
d away from that hole in the wall. And it lined up on a heading straight toward the other gun truck.
Baxter looked over at him, his eyes saucers.
“We’re going back for Todd,” Jake managed. He was lolling in his seat, and looked like he might not be conscious for much longer.
Baxter tried to breathe. “He’s dead, Jake! I just saw him shot to death by like five guys with AKs!”
Jake shook his head. “I don’t give a shit if he’s vaporized into atoms. If there’s a toenail left, we’re going to pick it up and bring him home.”
Baxter got it. Jake was not leaving anyone else behind.
And while it had looked for a second like they all might live, by a hair’s breadth, now Baxter accepted it. They were in fact all going to die. No one was getting out of there. Once he let the cells of his body sink down into that hopeless certainty, he felt better. Life was easier without hope.
But somehow they were still alive and rolling when they lurched up beside the other truck – driver’s side to driver’s side again, cross-decking, just like when they first rolled in here, fifty minutes and a thousand lifetimes ago.
Baxter looked over at Jake – and he didn’t think the man was going anywhere. He could barely sit up now.
Fuck it. Baxter opened his door, ducked his head, and leapt out. At least he was sheltered between the two trucks – but only from incoming rounds, he realized, as a dead guy stormed in there after him. Unarmed, he timed the Zulu’s approach – then slammed him in the face with the truck door, and left it open, counting on the walking corpse not being able to figure out a way around.
In a flash, he opened the back door of the other truck and grabbed Todd under the arms. He wasn’t moving, and he was heavy as a son of a bitch, and it seemed to take hours to drag him into the back of the other truck. But he did it.
And then he saw it, as he shut the back door and turned. It was sticking out of the mud, maybe fifty feet away, just a scuffed aluminum corner. But there could be no doubt. It was the GCS for the Predator. It had been blown into the middle of the courtyard by the rocket barrage on Zack earlier.
Baxter hesitated, seeing all the incoming kicking up dirt between him and it.
And then Zack spoke in his ear. “No way, Baxter! Not again! It’s destroyed – and we’ve gotta go!” Looking up, Baxter could see him looking and firing right over his shoulder from the turret. And he knew he was right.
When he crawled into the driver’s seat again Baxter could hear two things: Jake firing half-aimed bursts while half-slumped over the 240, and Zack still firing the minigun, with one hand now, and pounding on the roof with the other, shouting, “Go, go, go, go, go, go, go!”
Baxter gunned it. For a second, the truck didn’t want to move. It was because the tires were all shot flat and they were in mud. But he rocked it a couple of times and got them moving, just mentally blocking out the incoming rounds and bodies slamming into the truck, and the screams.
In a few seconds more he had them pointed at the hole in the wall.
And he had them accelerating fast, thanking God for run-flat tires.
Ahead, Baxter could see the walking dead walking on in – and he could also see al-Shabaab guys both fighting them off and making a fast first attempt at sealing the gap in the wall, using crates, debris, half-destroyed pieces of timber, mud and rocks…
Baxter just gunned it and plowed straight through all of this.
Al-Shabaab guys, dead guys, pieces of improvised wall, all of it went flying in every direction with violence and authority.
For one second the truck went airborne, plus tilted sideways, and Baxter was convinced they were going to roll, but the center of gravity of this thing was somewhere about an inch off the ground and they came down on two wheels, then two more, and crashed through some underbrush and small trees. Baxter wrestled it toward what looked like a clearing, and it was in fact the road leading south out of there, and only lightly populated with walking dead guys.
He simply couldn’t believe it.
And he really couldn’t believe it when they’d gotten maybe a hundred yards down the road and a figure ran right out in front of them.
Baxter had to decide whether to stop or to run it down.
He had one second to decide whether it was Zombie Kate.
Or just Kate.
She raised her arms and shouted.
Baxter locked up the brakes.
We’re Going Back
The Stronghold - North Wall
[Fourteen Minutes Ago]
Kate couldn’t believe it.
In fact, she didn’t believe it. She saw that horrible barrage of rockets go in even as Todd stayed where he was and put fire on the wall over her head, protecting her. She saw the blossoming explosions and the steel turret flying apart.
But she didn’t believe it. No – Todd would be dead when she saw his body, checked his pulse, and did thirty minutes of CPR with no response. Not before.
But right now she had her own set of problems.
The first was the section of wall above and behind her. She took a couple of steps away and looked up – and was surprised it hadn’t come down from that explosion on the parapet. She could see it was scorched and cracked down to about two-thirds of the way up, and looked none too stable.
But now, in the relative silence that followed, she heard the sound of large numbers of dead scrabbling and hissing on the other side.
Shit. That can’t be good.
She decided she wasn’t going to hang around underneath this thing any longer than strictly necessary.
But that was when she encountered her second problem: Todd hadn’t killed everyone on the parapet. With the explosion, he’d actually sent a few flying off it. Now they were regaining their feet and their senses and were shouting and targeting her with AK fire. They were also to the west, which put them right between her and the rest of the team at the surviving truck.
The wall made an awful creaking noise.
She spared one look up, then took a knee and started shooting to defend herself. She was pretty well trapped back there. In fact, she saw only one immediate escape route. But she didn’t like the look of it, and would avoid taking it if at all possible. Her immediate goal was to fight her way back to the north gun truck – above ground.
And that’s when it gave way.
Her head snapped up at the sound of the creaking and snapping – and she saw the top third of the wall give way and go over. And right behind it was a whole shit-ton of dead meat. She flinched down and away from it automatically, as she saw it coming down to the west of her, up ahead – but then the wave of snapping timbers and tumbling bodies rolled right toward her.
And now it was coming down over her head – but the force of the bodies punching through actually caused the cascade of dead to shoot out ahead of the wall first, trapping her as if behind the sheet of a waterfall. The time dilation of adrenaline allowed her to see all this happening – but in reality she had less than a second to react.
Uncoiling the energy in her legs, she power-dove forward and down – straight into the tunnel entrance in the ground two feet away. The sun was blotted out above her, first from the tsunami of dead covering the sky and then from the dirt ceiling above her, and she could both feel and hear the horrible impact of the timber-and-meat wave crashing down. With zero time to spare she scrambled to the far end of the dugout, pushed the wooden door open, ducked in, and then put her back up against it and heaved.
It didn’t shut, but instead bucked against her.
The dead were writhing and scrabbling on the other side and pressing their massed weight against it, filling in the hole Kate had just crawled through. She dug her boots in and shoved for everything she was worth – the resistance on the other side shifted as the dead tried to gain their feet, and for a quarter-second there was enough slack for her to push the door shut and bring down the wooden bar to secure it.
She was back underground.
But she w
as still alive – neither dead nor undead, for at least a little longer.
* * *
Goddammit, Kate thought. Where was Baxter when she needed him? Every time she thought she’d found a way back out of this low-rent labyrinth, she found herself either blocked by collapsed passages or cut off by running al-Shabaab guys.
Seemingly unerringly, she was being channeled back to that escape tunnel. Or maybe that was just the one route she knew. And maybe her best shot was to try to get out and meet them on the road. She could radio when she got above ground.
Fuck it. She ran down the length of the long escape tunnel and got the door open. Outside there were more dead than before – but they were also more fixated than ever on walking or running to the walls of the Stronghold.
In a few minutes more, ducking from tree to tree, she found the road.
And peering out from the edge of the forest, she actually saw the section of south wall come down. Somebody in there was still rocking a grenade launcher.
And then one of the gun trucks came ramping out, monster-trucking over debris and bodies.
And there’s my ride.
* * *
The truck slid to a halt with its front bumper four inches from her knees. Baxter was behind the wheel, eyes like saucers of milk, and she could see Zack up in the turret rocking the minigun. When she went to the passenger side and pulled open the door, the first thing she saw was Jake lying there, unmoving – and she started to panic. But, mastering herself, she got two fingers on the radial artery on his wrist, and her face up to his, to feel for breath.
He was alive.
“Get the fuck in!” Baxter yelled.
Dead from the incoming herd were starting to converge on them. And somebody was still shooting at them – rounds were skipping back down the road, one or two plinking off the truck’s already ravaged panels.
Kate moved to the back door, pulled it open, and climbed in – and around Zack’s legs sticking down from the turret, she saw Brendan lying on the bench seat. He was also unmoving, his young body lifeless. And when she grabbed his wrist and rotated his head to feel for breath, she saw it.
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