Coffey stuck his tongue out in concentration as he maneuvered the SURC close to the concrete sides of the lock. Hunter and Hawk jumped up and heaved themselves onto the platform followed by Boone and his fire team. Gunfire sounded off. Then muffled gunfire as they entered the building. It was followed by relative silence. Only the faint moans of the coming dead filling the air.
The SURCs clustered into the lock one after another, packing the space without drifting too close for fear of damaging their vessels. Captain Heath stared at the pier with his carbine to his shoulder. His gun banged and the dead along the pier toppled over and into the water.
Motors idled as they waited for Boone’s fire team to take over the controls. “Keep your distance from one another,” Kinnick said into the radio. The SURCs coasted apart inside the confines of the walled lock, constantly idling. More guns pinged from the SURCs as the Marines and Green Berets took potshots at the dead along the pier.
Coffey looked cautiously at Kinnick. “Shouldn’t we be careful about drawing them in?”
Kinnick eyed Heath’s boat then looked at the boat next to his led by a lean sharp-nosed First Sergeant DeCicco. DeCicco’s men laughed and their guns boomed like they were on a drunken duck hunt.
Kinnick held the radio to his lips. “Boone, how’re those controls coming?” A moment later, Boone came out of the door of the building and gave a thumbs-up.
The large metal lock gate began to close inch by inch behind the SURCs, and the upstream river disappeared from view. It was like a prison cell door locking shut. The direction Kinnick’s men were traveling downstream meant that the elevation was decreasing with every lock. The lock would have to drop to the water level of the next part of the Mississippi River before they could continue on their journey.
The water in the lock started to dip as if someone had pulled the plug on a giant river drain, but only a fraction. Inch by inch the water disappeared below them.
Kinnick shouted over at Gore who was facing the railings with his .50 caliber machine gun turret. “Gore, how long do these things take?”
The Marine kept his eyes on the railings rising higher and higher above the SURC. “Depends on how low the lock itself needs to go to step down to the next water level. I’d say about ten to twenty minutes.”
The lock walls seemingly grew larger and larger as the SURCs sank deeper and deeper. Hunter’s voice crackled through the radio. “Sir, we are getting some serious pressure at the front of the building. Door’s gonna give.”
Kinnick picked up his microphone, pressing it near his lips. “Hunter, you gotta hold until we’re through.” Kinnick glanced over at Franklin One. Its .50 caliber machine gun was trained toward the lock walls. Six feet became twelve feet and it was harder and harder to have any idea on what was happening above them.
The muted gunfire picked up in the building, sounding like a string of firecrackers going off. Duncan swiveled his minigun and pointed it upward. The other SURCs had lost their targets and now stood silent, watching the overhang above. Eyes darted back and forth looking for their comrades. Water lapped the craft and the lock alike.
His men could feel it. Kinnick felt it deep in his gut. It was about to go bad. Kinnick followed his instinct and slowly set the radio mic back onto the receiver and picked up his M4, pointing it at the platform above. He gave himself a wide stance so as to not fall over as Coffey idled the Hamilton One in tiny circles.
Kinnick scanned the railing. Come on, gotta get this open. Only more gunfire kicked off. It sound ricocheted from wall to wall inside the lock as they waited.
Volk squeezed his radio, scowling. “Boone, what’s your sitch?”
Volk moved his head back as a screech blared through his radio. The screech hung inside the lock trapped. “They’re all over.”
“Get that lock open,” Kinnick said, looking up at the platform. “Or we’ll be trapped inside.”
A face with charred skin on one side and dead gray on the other leaned over the railing. Its pale white eyes didn’t register a thing, only seeing more flesh for infection. Its ugly mouth dropped open and a low moan emanated forth. A carbine pinged and its head bounced back on its neck. The dead slumped over the railing and free-fell into the water that mushroomed upon impact. Water sprayed the air and the body faded as it disappeared from the surface.
More ugly faces peered over the edge at them. They snarled and growled, hands extended with malice.
“Fire!” Kinnick screamed. His voice was immediately drowned out by the heavy du-du-du of .50 cals and the zipping roar of the miniguns. Gore twisted his turret back along the pier, and Duncan let the minigun go in bursts. The dead were obliterated off the edge. Faces were smeared by large caliber bullets, leaving little to nothing where once infected stood.
Kinnick ducked and covered as an arm fell onto the Hamilton One. With a smack, the remainders of the body crunched into the SURC deck.
The infected lifted itself up with one remaining arm. Kinnick took the butt of his carbine and crashed it into the thing’s head. Its head bounced off the deck and its curdled-milk eyes stared back up at Kinnick. It reached again unrelenting and clawed for Kinnick, letting out a moan. Kinnick repeated the strike again and again until the butt of his carbine met sloppy mush and the hard deck.
He looked up in time to see an intact dead crash from above onto the turret gunner of Jefferson Two. Marines scrambled to help their fallen brother. When the turret gunner rose up again, he had found new brothers in the infected. He bear-hugged another Marine, tackling him onto the deck. Adams One tried to reverse to get away from the wall and its engine penetrated the hull of Franklin Four.
Marines went into the water. It was difficult to distinguish the Marines trying to swim versus the dead floundering nearby. The lock was an enclosed pool filling with more infected by the moment.
Kinnick gave another glance up at the ledge. The dead were toppling over in droves as his men reloaded their machine guns. Marines shouted as Franklin Four started to slip beneath the surface of the water. The remaining Marines that hadn’t been thrown overboard were bailing water in an attempt to stay afloat. Infected and Marines alike gripped onto the gunwales trying to get aboard. The small craft sank rapidly, and the Marines onboard quickly joined their comrades in the frigid river water.
The Green Berets onboard Madison Three were collecting the Marines that hadn’t been pulled beneath the depths of the water by the dead.
The deep earsplitting groan of metal on metal resounded out like a river titan coming to life. A fissure cracked the lower gate. The fissure became a rift, revealing open Mississippi water ahead.
“Go, go, go!” Kinnick screamed into the radio. Engines roared and the other SURCs gunned it for the next section of the river.
“Coffey, keep us moving.” Coffey spun the boat in a small circle. Come on, Hunter. Only the ugly faces of the dead leered over the railings. Gore swirled his turret back in the direction of the lock. His .50 cal blared a loud repetitious “du” for each round shot. Body parts were flung off the lock.
“Colonel. We got men running down the pier.”
Kinnick’s eyes scanned along the lock and the pier leading away from it. Camouflaged shapes sprinted over the concrete. Kinnick could barely make out the one in the back, twisting his body around to blast his gun into the pursuing dead. “Coffey, there they are!”
Coffey’s tongue split his lips and went into the corner of his mouth. “I see ’em, Colonel.” Kinnick had to grab onto the side of the boat as Coffey shifted his hand on the throttle, ramming it forward. The SURC picked up speed and leveled out atop the water. The motor hummed behind them.
Gore’s machine gun continued to throw rounds as he let loose into the dead chasing Hunter and Boone’s men. Coffey took the craft right to the edge of the pier. Boone’s wild-eyed face stared over the railing.
“‘Bout fucking time! We been runnin’ our asses off!”
His fire team crawled down the pier wall and hopped into the
SURC. “Keep that fifty on them,” Kinnick said. He pointed back toward the lock. Gore turned his turret. Hawkins hopped down.
“We must move. More come.”
Kinnick heard a thud next to him as Hunter landed on the SURC deck.
Hunter grimaced as he stood up, dusting his knees off. He pushed the chew down into his lip as if it were helping with any pain he might have had from the leap. Coffey threw the boat into forward and it skipped away from the pier.
Kinnick eyed the tough soldier. “You okay?
“I’ll be good.” Hunter straightened his back and rolled his shoulders.
“Why’d you jump?”
Hunter squinted his single eye and a slow grin snuck underneath his whiskers. “Looked closer from up there.”
STEELE
Outskirts of Beulah, MI
The convoy neared the edges of Beulah, a small lake town north of Pentwater on the west coast of Michigan. Most of the homes had been built in the early ’50s and ’60s along the main drag and the few side streets branching off. Homes dotted the edges of the eight-mile long inland lake.
Tess glanced over at Steele from the driver’s seat. “We’ve been going for over two hours.” They hadn’t spoken a word the entire journey. “Jackson isn’t that close. Thunder hasn’t reported anything from the south and neither has War Child in the north or Macleod in the east.”
Steele ignored her, studying his map. Too many options and none of them good. How do we get out of this?
“Yo, Bearded Man, we need a plan. We can’t keep running without a place to go.”
He continued in silence. He ignored the phantoms of his newest fallen comrades, Scott’s team, and focused on a way out of this mess.
“What’s wrong with you?” she hissed over the steering wheel, anger rising in her voice. “You’re supposed to be in charge.”
“Enough, Tess,” he growled. “I’m trying to figure it out. Give me a minute to think.”
“‘Bout fucking time, I was wondering if you had a stroke.” She gave him a snarky smile.
He gave her a warning glance, his brows furrowed together. Women: the driving force behind any action.
Steele stuck his hand out the window, waved the convoy down, and called them all to a halt. His convoy had gone hard and fast into the morning light. A disorganized mass of cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, and over a thousand scared people fleeing north.
Steele brought his radio to his lips. “Thunder, we are bringing it to a halt outside Beulah. Let us know if you catch any wind from Jackson.”
The radio scratched with white noise. “We’re about five miles behind you. We’ll pull over and see if he sends any recon our way. Last we seen of anybody was Ludington.”
Steele switched to the group channel by turning a knob on his radio. “I need all the group leaders to form up on me.”
Steele opened the door and stepped out of the truck. He shook out an atlas of Michigan. The state was shaped like a giant left-handed mitten with the thumb on the east side of the state. His group was up near where the pinky finger would be. He set the map on the hood of the pickup and waited for his followers.
Steele waited, hearing nothing except the low hum of the engines around him until individual motorcycles weaved through the convoy. The bikers revved their choppers as they cut around vehicles. Red Clare and War Child rode in from the north together and Gat cruised up from the east with Macleod and Jefferson while Vigo and Frank rolled in separately from the south.
Kevin and Ahmed walked down the cars, carbines in hands. Margie joined them, hunting rifle in hand followed by another Sable Pointer, Tony, a well over six-foot-tall IT programmer with an AR-15.
The pastor rolled up in a newer dark blue Jeep Wrangler. Peter drove him and Luke sat in the back with an AK-47 clutched in his hands. It wasn’t lost on Steele that a short time ago these men were going to burn him alive. They hopped out of the doorless vehicle.
The biker presidents cut their engines and kicked their stands. Jefferson stood, arms across his broad frame. Red Clare stood next to him, lit up, and placed a cigarette between her smoke-wrinkled lips. War Child held up a cigarette of his own, and she let him light up off the tip of hers. Vigo massaged his mustache that hung all the way off his chin, and Frank looked like a badger with his black-and-gray streaked beard.
The only club leader not there was Thunder, Steele’s leading translator and attache for the unruly group, who manned the rearguard.
The pastor looked expectantly down his nose at Steele, a fresh set of all black garb clothing him. He almost glowed with exuberance.
I have to take advantage of our strengths. “Colonel Jackson has superior firepower and enough men to run us over in a force on force conventional battle. I have no doubt he would love for us to turn and fight.”
“We wouldn’t stand a chance,” War Child said, sounding like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. “Unless you got some missing air support I haven’t seen yet.”
“Wish I did,” Steele said flatly.
Steele looked at the old-time biker. “You saw no sign of the military north of here?”
The leathery old biker folded his arms across his chest with a groan from his riding leathers and blew smoke out his mouth. “No sign of them as far north as Empire. Wouldn’t expect them to spring a trap this far north when one further south would have done just fine.”
Steele nodded. “True. I’m not sure why he hadn’t encircled us earlier, but his neglect is our advantage.” He tapped a finger east of their position on the map.
“Macleod, any signs of them to the east?”
“Nah, we went all the way out to Copemish and cut up northwest from there. Saw no signs of anybody.”
“Good.”
“What’s the plan, kid? Upper Peninsula and lose them in the woods?” said Frank. He ran a hand over his beard as he thought.
Steele exhaled. “I thought about it, but if the bridge is closed, that leaves us trapped on the water with nowhere to go.”
Jefferson slammed a black finger on the map. “We are about fifteen miles from being penned in now.” The man was right. If they continued to follow the coast, they would end up on the Leelanau Peninsula, a slender peninsula jutting out of the northwest of Michigan about thirty miles into Lake Michigan. After Jackson caught up to them, they would be pinned and slaughtered on the rocky private beaches of million-dollar lake homes.
“You’re right,” Steele said.
“What the fuck are we doing then?” Gat said, his tattooed neck veins bulging. “My boys ain’t sticking around to get our asses kicked.”
War Child smirked beneath his white beard. “What are you scared of? Some punk-ass National Guardsmen?”
Gat’s face twisted in anger. He swung an arm back and the other club presidents stepped in the way. “We ain’t scared of nothin’.” He spit and calmed a fraction. “But I ain’t getting killed for nothin’ neither.” He pulled down hard on his leather coat.
The pastor looked perturbed by the man’s outburst. “So much anger, my child.”
Gat looked at the pastor with a crazy eye. “Shut the fuck up, you crazy old bat, or you’ll get what’s coming to you.”
Peter put his broad shoulders between the pastor and Gat. “You watch your tongue, you freak.”
Gat sneered. “Ah, the little altar boy sticking up for his master.” Gat’s head bobbled back and forth as he mocked, “You gonna get another spanking if you don’t watch your mouth.”
Peter kept his composure and looked at the pastor for permission to fight the biker. The pastor’s chin rose even higher and he placed a comforting long-fingered hand onto Peter’s shoulder.
“There’s no need for violence against one another when other enemies are so close.” The pastor nodded at Steele, making him slightly uncomfortable. Since when did this guy get so friendly?
“Back to the issue at hand,” Steele said, peering back down at the map, but it was too late.
The men and
women broke into side conversations. Steele stood watching them.
“He makes a good point. We need a plan. I’m with Frank. Plenty of places to hide in the Upper Peninsula,” said Vigo, Grave Guard patch on his left breast, president patch just below it. He lit a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. “I even know of a few myself.”
“We should go south,” Jefferson argued. “They won’t expect it.”
“I want to kill the bastards for what they’ve done to my club,” Frank grumbled. “I want a fight.”
Tess pounded her M1911 on top of the hood of her truck. “Everybody shut up. Let Steele speak for Christ’s sake.” She finished with a glare at the pastor as if to dare him to call her out on her usage of the Lord’s name in vain. The men and women begrudgingly closed their mouths and all stared back at Steele.
“We have to play to our strengths. We don’t have many, but we’ll be in a better spot if we can make it to Iowa. We don’t have the numbers, and even if we did, I wouldn’t be thrilled to take on the entirety of Jackson’s forces. So until we have a better situation, we’re going to evade and avoid. Let me show you.”
Steele pointed at the map at Beulah. “All of your clubs are mobile and perfect for running interference for the main group that is slower and bogged down with food and excess people. Right now, Jackson thinks we’re running scared north, so we’re going to do the opposite.”
“How would we accomplish such a task?” the pastor said. “You said yourself we cannot win in a stand-alone fight.”
“I don’t believe we can. At least right now.” Steele traced a roadway on the map. “Vigo, you’re going to be vital to this plan. You’re going to head east and then north for the Upper Peninsula by the most direct route. I want Jackson to believe you are us. We will outfit a bunch of trucks and semis for you to drive. We want you to lead them across the bridge if you can.”
The Departing (The End Time Saga Book 4) Page 12