“Hanscom’s pretty far too. Twenty klicks at least.”
“Then I hope you know how to hotwire a car,” she said brightly. “The only other option is to head downtown toward the sound of gunfire and hope the people doing the firing is a Guard unit.”
“Listen, I need to tell you something.” His heart suddenly pounded in his chest. His voice sounded thin. He took a deep breath. “Can I tell you something important?”
Rawlings eyed him warily and crossed her arms. “What is it? Shoot.”
“I might have the Bug.”
She looked around to make sure nobody else heard. The other men lay on the floor facing the walls. She hissed, “Why do you say that?”
“My sergeant was infected. He licked his knife and cut my face with it.”
“You’ve been here for days. The Bug incubates faster than that. You’d be a Klown by now.”
“Maybe they were wrong. Maybe it takes longer with some people.”
“That’s not what we were told. That’s all I’m saying.”
He thought about it. “Do you think I’m immune?”
“Who knows? The Bug doesn’t survive very long outside the body. Maybe it died before you got that cut. Hell, Wade, it could be anything. But the fact is you aren’t sick.”
“Okay.” He let out a long shuddering sigh. “Okay.”
She snorted. “Is this what’s had you all tied up in knots? God, most of us were wounded before we got here. We were all exposed, just like you. Private Wade, you need to think about more important things. Things like you lost people you really cared about. Like it wasn’t your fault they died. Like you need to keep fighting if you want to survive. Like how much the rest of us need you to be at your best if we’re all going to get through this.”
He nodded and studied his feet. He sighed again, but with relief. “All right.”
“Rawlings!” Fisher called. He stomped into the room, startling the men lying on the floor. He noticed her at the window. “Oh, Sergeant. The camp just let in some new people. They’re telling everybody the Army is bugging out of Boston north of the river.”
“That’s Tenth Mountain’s area of operations,” Wade said.
“It’s the fire,” Rawlings pointed out. “The fire is pushing everybody out.”
“Whatever it is, other refugees are saying the same thing. Units all over are pulling out. Word’s going around the civilians. They’re pissed off.”
Wade checked the window. The crowds down in the stadium were concentrating. Everywhere, angry men and women pointed up at the windows of the athletics department building.
Rawlings paled. “Damn. Anybody who wants to go, we’re leaving tonight. Pass the word, Fisher.”
“Will do, ma’am.”
“Don’t ma’am me, Fisher. I’m not an officer.”
Wade looked at her in surprise. “We’re leaving now? Just like that?”
“Just like that, Private Wade. The situation has changed. You’ve got a few hours to get your stuff together. At oh-dark-thirty, we’re bugging out.” She eyed the crowd. “If they let us.”
TWENTY-NINE.
Lt. Colonel Lee watched the captains of First Battalion file into the Air Force administrative building. It was time for a powwow.
“Ready when you are, sir,” Walker told him. “The room’s all set up.”
They followed the captains inside. Lee took a deep breath and let it go. There was a lot riding on the outcome of the upcoming meeting—everything, actually.
The men knew his character and service record. He’d served with some of them going back years. Iraq. Korengal Valley. They respected him. But would they follow him?
He let go of his worries. They either would or they wouldn’t. He’d make his case, and they’d make up their minds. That was the best he could do.
The conference room was filled with men: the captains of Alpha through Echo and HQ, the young lieutenants who served as their XOs, and the battalion sergeant major, Doug Turner, who represented the enlisted men.
At the sight of Lee, Turner stood at attention. “Gentlemen, the commanding officer.”
The officers made to stand, but Lee told them to be at ease, taking a seat at the head of the table. The captains, freshly showered and fed, powered up their iPads as they waited for him to speak. Strong java brewed in a coffeemaker in the corner.
“Gentlemen, thank you for your attendance. For the first part of our meeting, anybody below the rank of captain, please give us the room.”
Turner escorted the lieutenants into another part of the building.
Lee planted his elbows on the table. “You’ve all done an exemplary job far beyond the call of duty over the past weeks. And you got your men back safe. Now we need to talk about what comes next. As you know, I have assumed command as First Battalion CO.”
“Congratulations on your promotion, sir,” Captain Marsh of Bravo Company said.
“Thank you, Captain.”
“It’s extraordinary, to say the least,” the man added, his tone deferential but testing.
“That’s because I wasn’t actually promoted. Or appointed to command.”
The men stared at him, their mouths hanging open.
Lee went on. “The chain of command has been completely disrupted. The Bug’s incubation period in some cases appears to be longer than previously understood. Casualties sent to the rear have spread infection. There are now detection kits that can determine on the spot if somebody is infected, but they’re being prioritized to military personnel in Florida and at Mount Weather. In the case of regimental command, all of headquarters was compromised and had to be terminated via airstrike. In the case of divisional command, Fort Drum has gone dark. We’re working on getting eyes on base via satellite, but it’s chaos across the board.”
Lee paused to let all that sink in. Some of the men had families living at Drum.
Marsh glanced at Major Walker. Lee knew what Marsh was thinking. He was thinking the major should have assumed command as the senior officer, but he didn’t believe Walker could get them out of the mess they were in. Lee wondered what Marsh would say if he knew the major shared that sentiment.
“I fully support Lee taking command,” Walker said, putting the issue to bed.
“As a temporary posting,” Captain Sommers of Charlie Company pointed out, “until we get back on the reservation. Right?”
Lee nodded. So did the other men.
“Major Walker pulled you out of the core,” Lee said before they had a chance to come up with any fresh objections. “I ordered you the rest of the way here.”
Hallelujah Hayes snorted. “That didn’t come from the top, either?”
“No,” Lee told him. “That’s on me too.”
Marsh said, “You’re stretching the concept of independent initiative far beyond what’s accepted. We could all get shit-canned for this.”
Lee noted Marsh said accepted, not acceptable. An important distinction. “It’s on me,” he repeated.
“Then God help you. Sir.”
Captain Perez of Delta Company glared at the others. “Who wants to go back into Boston?”
Nobody raised his hand. They knew the city was a lost cause.
“So we’re here,” Marsh said. “Now what?”
“The first step is Fort Drum,” Lee replied. “Retake it if necessary. Make sure our families are safe. Rest and refit.”
“Wait a minute. Boston’s a write-off. We can’t hold onto the real estate. I get that. But there are still civilians here who need our protection.”
“And I have a wife and three kids at Drum,” Sommers said. “Lee’s right. Let Brock handle his people. It’s about time we took care of our own.”
“Our mission is to save Boston.”
“And we failed, Captain. That sucks. But it’s how it is.”
“Tell that to all of our guys who went through hell and died out there.”
“Our mission,” Lee said, “is to save the United States. That�
��s the big picture.”
“Suppose we got every civilian in one place and protected them,” Captain Johnston of Echo Company said. As a support company, Echo took care of everything from the motor pool to making sure the men got their three squares a day. “How would we feed them? Treat them when they’re sick? We don’t have the resources. We’re down to essentials just for our own boys. We barely have enough ordnance and fuel left to get us to Drum.”
“We could attach ourselves to Brock,” Marsh said, adding quickly, “It’s an option.”
“He’s got eight thousand people in the field, and he can barely keep them supplied,” Johnston told him.
“Besides that,” Sommers added, “he’d just send us back into the meat grinder.”
That appeared to settle the issue. Necessity trumped the moral considerations. They couldn’t protect the people of Boston any longer, because soon, it would simply no longer be possible.
“So what happens after Drum?” Perez asked.
“We have options,” Lee said. “We may become attached to another command that can provide the resources we need to remain combat effective. We could establish a sphere of protection for civilians. Set up refugee camps if somebody can supply them. Major Walker had another idea. It’s crazy or bold, take your pick. But the way things are going, it may be our last chance.”
“What’s that, sir?”
Lee said, “Florida.”
THIRTY.
Step off in less than two hours. A night march through a city of nightmares.
Wade entered a dark room to test the night vision goggles mounted on his helmet. His vision instantly went from 20/20 to 20/40 as the world became rendered in luminous shades of green. The monocular view provided forty-degree tunnel vision and eliminated depth perception.
In short, the NVGs sucked. But they worked, amplifying the dying daylight coming through the window thirty thousand times, turning night into day. Tonight, out on the street, being able to see would give him a critical survival edge. The Klowns were crazy, but they weren’t superhuman. They couldn’t see in the dark.
He turned them off and flipped them up from his eyes.
And saw the horde.
THIRTY-ONE.
There were hundreds of them, a maniacal army of Klowns dressed in rags and covered in fresh scars and other tribal mutilations whose significance was known only to the infected. Their laughter filled the night, drowning out the popping of distant gunfire. They came out of the dusk in a mob and filled the street, dragging their weapons and grisly trophies along the ground.
They stopped in front of the stadium and listened to the throbbing bass of multiple boom boxes turned up too loud for common sense. Bouncing on bare feet, they grinned and clawed at the air. They wanted so badly to get inside.
Across the throng, men dropped onto their backs and pulled taut powerful slingshots, their feet raised against the handles. Their brothers lovingly placed bright objects onto the leather pads. The men released. The objects sailed through the air. Some burst against the wall. The rest sailed over the top of the stadium and disappeared.
They looked like water balloons.
Wade ran into the hallway, calling for Rawlings. He found her in an office overlooking the stadium. Soldiers crowded the windows, staring down at the playing field where red, white and blue balloons fell out of the sky and splashed among the refugees.
“What the hell are they doing?” Fisher cried.
The crowds parted around the impacts, leaving people writhing on the ground.
“Some type of poison, looks like,” Gray said.
Kaffa. Wade remembered something he’d read in one of his military history books. During the Middle Ages, the Tartars laid siege to Kaffa, a Genoese trading colony established in the Crimea, but they failed to capture it after the Black Plague broke out in their camp. Before they left, they placed the bodies of their dead on catapults and launched them into the city by the hundreds. Within weeks, plague had decimated the city’s defenders. Biological warfare.
One of the bodies on the playing field lurched to his feet and ran at the nearest refugees, clawing at them. Shots rang out as more balloons rained from the sky. Thousands fled into the stands, filling the air with an endless scream. Scores of people fought across the field. Tents collapsed or burst into flames as cook fires spilled.
“It’s piss,” Wade said. “They filled the balloons with their piss. It’s infecting people.”
“The Bug can’t survive outside the body that long,” Rawlings said.
Wade touched his face, fingering the dirty bandage.
Gray smashed the window with the butt of his rifle and propped his weapon on the sill. He took aim.
Wade grabbed the barrel and yanked it up. “What are you doing?”
“There are Klowns down there!”
“You’re going to get us all killed.”
“Fuck you! We can stop it. We can hold this place.”
“We can’t. Trust me. I saw them.”
“How many?” Rawlings asked.
Wade looked her in the eye. “Too many.”
They froze as something heavy thudded in the distance.
BOOM
“Aw, shit,” Fisher said, backing away from the window. He looked around as if searching for somewhere to hide. “Aw, fuck. What is that?”
“Battering ram,” Wade said. “I saw them carrying it.”
“We’re okay here for now,” Rawlings said. “We’re in a different building.”
“Are you kidding?” Fisher asked. “It’s only a matter of time before they find us.”
“They won’t find us. We’re getting the heck out of Dodge.”
BOOM
Gray fixed his fierce glare on her. “Those people down there won’t stand a chance without our help, Sergeant. It’s our job. It’s what we signed up to do.”
“There’s nothing we can do for them, soldier.”
“The hell there isn’t. We can fight.”
“Then stay and fight. I’m bugging out. Those people down there are already dead.”
BOOM
Wade didn’t move. The battle on the playing field had spread into the stands. The screaming never seemed to break. He blinked at the gunshots. People stampeded in all directions, trying to flee the knots of fighting. Bodies rolled down the steps. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the sight.
“We have to move,” Rawlings pleaded. “Now.”
Wade looked at her in mute horror. All the teambuilding and planning they’d done was for nothing. They were broken. Already they were falling apart.
BOOM
“Make a hole!” The sergeant who’d lain on the floor in a stupor for the past few days staggered past them to the broken window. He rested his carbine on the windowsill and started shooting.
Wade saw figures drop. He couldn’t tell if they were infected or not.
CRASH
The Klowns flooded onto the playing field, trampling the tents. The screaming rose in pitch. In seconds, the field resembled a slaughterhouse. The Klowns raced into the stands next, hacking at anything that moved and spreading their disease to their ever-present soundtrack of shrieking laughter. Blood splashed across the bleachers. Some of the crazies blared long, random notes on trumpets and tubas. Others frolicked among the dead, collecting their grisly trophies.
“Oh my God,” Fisher said. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”
The sergeant dropped an empty mag and loaded a fresh one into his carbine, muttering the whole time.
“Thy kingdom come.” The sergeant fired again. “Thy will be done.”
Wade set his jaw. It was time to move. “All right, guys. We’re getting out of here right now.”
The squad had gathered, all ten, geared up in full battle rattle. Wade and Rawlings raced downstairs ahead of the others and headed for the west exit. The doorway was blocked with piled office furniture and light fixtures. They frantically grabbed the nearest pieces and threw them out of the way. Gray, Fisher and B
rown arrived and helped. They opened the door.
A giant wearing a loincloth made out of a leathered human face lunged at them with a bloody claw hammer. “HAW, HAW!”
Fight or flight. Wade wanted to run. Then his training took over. He fired a burst into the giant. The Klown spun around and fell hard as if his legs had been kicked out from under him. He immediately started to get back up.
Rawlings put a round in his head. The hellish screaming inside the stadium went on and on.
“We’re heading west,” Wade said. “Jungle file. Team Alpha on the left, Bravo on the right. If you see something, go to guns on it. Fire and move. While we move, we keep the initiative. Tempo, tempo, tempo. If we get separated, remember the rally points.”
He wasn’t afraid anymore. He still had a lot of things worth fighting to save. The survivors of his platoon, wherever they were. Ramos’s family, still holed up in their apartment waiting for the sergeant to come rescue them. And not least of all, Rawlings.
THIRTY-TWO.
The command post was a beehive of frantic activity as First Battalion HQ worked to prepare for the retreat back to Fort Drum.
Redeployment, Lee reminded himself. He scanned the big board. The only blue units left in Boston were National Guard, and they were clustering to the south, pushed out of the city by fires and waves of infected. Everything else was gone. Fire, police, paramedics, all of it. The only authority still active had a lot of firepower. Or, in the case of the crazies, numbers and sheer will.
CNN and the other networks were off the air. All civilian television broadcasting had been bumped. Mount Weather had taken over what was left of the national communications network. On the video monitor, an attractive blonde shared the latest Federal propaganda. Captions rolled across the bottom of the screen, advising people to stock up on food and water, stay in their homes and avoid laughing when approaching military personnel. To find the nearest safety shelter, they were supposed to call an 800 number.
Walker was right. Local civilian authority had collapsed. Central civilian authority was following suit as decisionmaking at the top became increasingly erratic and military commanders in the field ignored their orders. The military itself was breaking down due to disruptions in the chain of command. Real authority rested with local commanders trying to hold what they could with dwindling resources.
This Is the End: The Post-Apocalyptic Box Set (7 Book Collection) Page 25