“Home stretch is coming up. We’re committing,” said First Lieutenant Dover in Cade’s ear bud.
“Roger that,” Cade replied, maneuvering the Chevy between the cable barrier to the left and the VW on their right while adding a few new streaks of yellow to the Chevy’s growing palette.
Finally clear of the breach, Cade looked back at the sea of metal and shambling Zs he’d successfully navigated. Then he stuck his head out again and looked up at the Hercules which was making another slow turn to the south. He saw it level out and then noticed a barely visible grayish mist and knew instantly what he was witnessing. The thin, gauzelike veil was fuel spewing from the Herc’s wings and mixing in the turbulent vortex and drifting to the ground. The broadening gray smudge kind of reminded Cade of rain falling from a distant cloud band as it fell to Earth.
Chapter 36
Colorado Springs, Colorado
At the precise location Sergeant Eckels had chosen to initiate contact with the dead, I-25 made a slight left-hand bend north by west. And beyond that bend, out of sight from his position, were three soccer-pitch-sized moats filled two knuckles deep with diesel fuel. And stretching in the opposite direction, beyond West Colorado Boulevard and the Auto Mall in which his command vehicle was parked, to an area in the distance near where he’d deployed the pair of M-ATVs and his lone sniper team, three similar-sized moats had been carved into the middle of Interstate 25.
The remnants of the excavation were piled head high on either side of the six lanes, and like parapets atop a castle wall, poured concrete Jersey barriers encircled with concertina wire snaked haphazardly atop the mounds of fresh dirt and fractured asphalt. To Eckels, the whole undulating affair kind of looked like an earthen sea serpent, or perhaps the Great Wall of China—but on a much smaller scale. To further augment his kill box, on the east side of 25 was some kind of slough, its brackish water moving at a snail’s pace. On the opposite side, and of no interest to the shambling horde, stood a smattering of darkened fast food joints, their garish-colored signage offering up $4.99 value meals and Oreo Blizzards, Kid’s Meals and the Chinese-made trinkets masquerading as toys so coveted before the world died. A block south was a thoroughly looted sporting goods store, its empty parking lot paper-strewn and glittering with broken glass. Next door, a half-dozen auto dealerships with a good deal of dust- and soot-covered inventory commandeered the equivalent of three long city blocks.
Eckels shifted his gaze to the dirt egress route the engineers had fashioned with their graders and diggers. Sandwiched between the ponds of fuel and the mini Great Wall, and barely wide enough for a single vehicle, the crude dirt path spooled out from West Colorado Boulevard and ran north several blocks past three more fuel-filled moats to where it disappeared underneath the West Bijou Street overpass which was the final piece of his elaborate puzzle. Holes had been drilled at all of the critical load-bearing points and then filled with high explosives. Once the charges were detonated, gravity, loading, and shear working together would bring hundreds of tons of concrete and rebar falling into the path of the dead.
“This is Jumper One-One, I have eyes on target. The lead grouping is nearing the first moat,” said a sergeant who was manning the furthermost picket from inside one of the carefully-hidden M-ATVs. “The Zulus are four hundred meters from my position. How copy?”
“Solid copy, Jumper One-One. Hold and report any deviation,” Eckels said, feeling a slight charge of adrenalin that was but a precursor to the flood he would experience once the operation was fully underway.
He ran through what should happen next. The squirter teams would continue to operate autonomously, continuing to communicate to each other while eradicating any Zs that broke ranks. And barring a big change in the direction of the horde, he would only listen in and keep up with their maneuvers on the continuously updating BFT. On the other hand, the movement of his pickets had to be timed just right because once he ordered them to spring into action, they would be close enough to reach out and touch the rotting tide of death. And to further complicate things, the moment the drivers in the forward-most pair of M-ATVs fired up the growling 7.2-liter diesel power plants, their positions would be broadcast to every walking corpse in the area and all bets would be off. One wrong move, Eckels conceded to himself, and the whole plan would fall apart. He looped around the front of his M-ATV and slid into the passenger side, gently ushering Hudson to the rear area of the vehicle usually taken up by a gunner or additional soldiers. He swiveled the BFT screen and double-checked Jumper’s intel against the information already on the display.
“Two hundred meters,” said the sergeant in Jumper One-One, tension evident in his voice.
Bearing in mind that the drivers in both Jumper One-One and Jumper One-Two were chomping at the bit and raring to go, Eckels checked the display one last time but at a greater magnification and then ordered them to engage the enemy at will.
Chapter 37
South Dakota
As Second Lieutenant Meredith finished crossing T’s and dotting I’s, Cade felt the cold tingle of anticipation course his spine. Six minutes. Hell, he thought to himself, marking the time on his Suunto. Six minutes is barely the length of a Super Bowl commercial. Hardly enough time to take a piss, visit the fridge, and grab a fresh beer. But to him and the rest of the men who had just been told by the co-pilot of the Hercules what needed to happen and when before an exfil was possible, those three hundred and sixty seconds were going to seem like a lifetime.
“This is Oil Can Five-Five,” said the co-pilot Second Lieutenant Meredith. “After one final go-around we’ll be light enough to come down and scoop you all up. I can’t stress this enough, though. You only have six minutes to make it happen on your end.”
Pounding softly on the steering wheel, Cade answered back, “This is Anvil Actual, solid copy on that. But would you please tell me why you can’t give us more than six minutes to get the job done?”
There was a long silence. In his mind’s eye, Cade could see the aircrew conferring. Going over the good-news, bad-news options before deciding how much the guys in the truck needed to know. But when Meredith finally answered back he gave it to them straight. No smoke was getting blown up anyone’s keister. There was no gray area to be considered, and the co-pilot pulled no punches. “Not to put any added pressure on you Delta boys, but if you were up here and could see how many Zs are closing in on your position from the west, you and I wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Six minutes is the fastest we can prepare the aircraft in order to carry out this type of landing. You take longer than six minutes to clear that stretch of I-90 and I’m afraid there will be too many Zs on the rollout for the pilot to even consider this extremely difficult proposition.”
Cade heard a click and some static, then the droning white noise returned and Meredith added, “There is no cowcatcher on this bird. Only four very large guillotines ... so if you don’t give us at the minimum two thousand feet to land we’ll be forced to abort.”
Cade did the math in his head. Two thousand feet equaled a distance slightly less than seven football fields. He thought harder. Converted that and came up with just over a third of a mile. “Solid copy,” he said. “Do you have eyes on a suitable spot farther west or east of our location? Just in case? That is, if I can wring another couple of miles of forward travel out of this truck.”
“Negative, Captain. That clusterfuck you just squeaked through goes on for miles behind the pileup. Farther on ahead of you is a no-go as well. Closer to the center of town, both lanes are choked up, not to mention the fact that some genius at SDDOT decided it’d be a good idea to erect what look like sodium halide lights down the center of the interstate every hundred yards or so.”
Suddenly second guessing his decision to follow the interstate, Cade asked, “What if I go off-roading and get us to one of those feeders? Can you land and pick us up there?”
Hearing this and knowing from experience that the truck wouldn’t survive an overlan
d stint as loaded down as it was, Jasper came out of his funk and shook his head noticeably.
“Negative,” said the pilot this time. “Side roads are too narrow. Plus there’s more dead down there than you can imagine. They’re all over. It’s a good thing your bird didn’t come down a half a click further. Because if it had ... all of your bones would be picked clean by now.”
Cade made no reply. He let his silence do the talking.
“Captain, I assure you this is the only viable spot ... your only open window,” added the co-pilot. “Use it or lose it.”
“One miracle coming right up,” Cade intoned, starting the timer in his head ticking off the precious seconds.
Ignoring the quip, Meredith craned his head and watched precious jet fuel sluicing from each wingtip and into the atmosphere. At 500 gallons per minute, per wing-mounted dump mast—of which there were two—a quick calculation told him the Hercules would be 13,500 pounds lighter in just under four minutes. And if all went as planned, the internal tank would be emptied and Dover would have them turning back to the west to start on final approach which would take a minute and change from touchdown to a complete stop.
Cade’s ear bud crackled again. It was Meredith this time and he said: “Just to be on the safe side, the flight engineer recommends an additional three hundred yards.”
Cade shook his head and didn’t bother replying or reconverting the new distance. With the odds already stacked as highly against them as they were, what was an added football-field-length between friends. A little under half a mile of I-90 with Zs crushing in from both sides, four vehicles that needed to be moved, and a hair under six minutes in which to accomplish the feat. No pressure at all, Cade thought as he ground the pick-up to a sudden stop alongside a garish-looking lime green Camaro. Suddenly the truck’s engine, which was ticking like a time bomb, seemed to have developed a mind of its own; the rpms fluctuated wildly between nearly stalling out and racing into the red. And to make matters worse, Cade saw another delicate curl of vapor waft from underneath the hood. “Go, go, go,” he said into the comms while simultaneously holding the brake and applying a little throttle in order to keep the engine from dying. He watched Hicks, pistol in hand, leap from the back of the truck and hit the ground at a slow trot. “Stay frosty,” Cade said to the SOAR crew chief, who had lobbied for this first leg after claiming to have run cross-country in high school and insisting he could still pull down a consistent sub-six-minute-mile. A tick later, Hicks was crouched low and peering inside the low-to-the-ground American-made muscle car. A second after that he flashed a thumbs up and called out that the car was clear and indicated that he was going in.
Cade experienced a sudden flood of relief as he witnessed Hicks fold his frame inside. A third second passed and he saw Hicks’s upper body tilt sideways, searching the column and dash no doubt. Another two seconds passed and then Hicks said, “No keys.” He put a hand on the sleek roofline and with a disgruntled look on his face pulled himself to standing.
Shit, thought Cade upon hearing the news he had been dreading. Who in the hell takes the keys with them during a viral outbreak when there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of getting roadside assistance?
“What now?” asked Hicks.
“Gotta push it,” Cade replied. Then he did a quick computation in his head and figured the distance between the Camaro and the rally point to be a little over a half of a mile. So if Hicks hadn’t been bullshitting about his running prowess, then making it from here to the rally point in less than two minutes was doable, and that was assuming he could first complete the most important part of his task in under four minutes. A slim margin indeed.
“Get it done,” Cade said, shifting his focus to the second vehicle of the four which were spread across I-90 like a right leaning ‘Z’. The green Camaro had been on the right-hand shoulder—the tail of the ‘Z’. Their next objective, a copper-colored sub-compact sat in the breakdown lane diagonally opposite the Camaro, two hundred yards ahead.
As they motored along, Cade kept the wheel steady and the truck vectoring toward the distant compact. Then he shot another look over his shoulder just in time to see Hicks with his head down, back bowed like the St. Louis Arch, pushing the Camaro towards the embankment.
One down, three to go, Cade thought. Then he hailed the Hercules which had continued west, hanging a brilliant corona around the sun as the aerated fuel drifted gently groundward.
The reply from Oil Can Five-Five came back at once, with the co-pilot indicating the mission was still a go and the play clock was ticking. With the weight of the world pressing down on his shoulders, Cade checked his watch, duly noting the quickly diminishing time rendered in liquid crystal display. Four minutes and thirty seconds. He shook his head. Not a lot of time, he concluded glumly.
With one foot hopping between the gas and brake to keep Jasper’s truck running, Cade took multitasking to another level by flicking on the wipers and giving the windshield a liberal spraying of cleaning formula. And as the blades scoured a portal in the thick glaze of detritus and bodily fluids, a quick glance towards Hicks sent a cold chill running the length of his spine. Dozens of monsters, having pursued them through the automotive maze, were now fanning out on the desolate roadway. Hicks, who seemed oblivious of the interlopers, was hunched over, hands on knees, his back visibly rising and falling with each labored breath as the Camaro slowly rolled away from him. A tick later gravity took over and the car rocked gently as it crossed over the rumble strips. Finally it cleared the shoulder, slid over the gradual embankment, and disappeared from sight like a ship swallowed by the sea.
“Good going, Hicks,” Cade said into the comms. “No way I can come back and get you. So you’re going to have to crack off a sub-two-minute third-of-a-mile. Can’t let the Zs get in Oil Can’s way ... so I’m going to need you to thin them out a bit before you bolt.”
“Roger that,” Hicks answered back. “Give me ten seconds and I’ll be Oscar Mike.”
With a fusillade of hollow-sounding gunshots coming over the open channel, Cade flicked his gaze forward and pulled in tight alongside the copper, two-door Japanese econo-box. Still belted inside the static Honda Civic were two very rotten creatures, and snugged down in the rear were a pair of unoccupied car seats. Whether the absence of the little ones who usually rode in them was a good sign or meant something more ominous Cade couldn’t decide. “Lopez,” he said. “I’m afraid you get the honors on this one.”
“Why me, Wyatt?” the stocky operator asked. “You gave the flyboy the empty sports car. And I get this stinking demonio mobile?”
Not wanting to add fuel to the fire, Cade made no reply. Then, after a second of silence, the truck jounced slightly, a sign that Lopez had bounded out and was on the move. A quick peek in the mirror told Cade that the operator had forgone the M4 and was working his way around the Honda with a black semi-automatic pistol clutched in his right hand.
“What if there are no keys?” asked Jasper.
“He’ll improvise. He’s got plenty of time,” Cade lied. A quick peek at the Suunto confirmed this, telling him another twenty seconds had slipped into the past.
As he pulled away from the Civic, he gazed towards the stark white Budweiser logo emblazoned on the flank of the eighteen-wheeler truck he’d already deemed the next greatest obstacle to their success or failure. But before he had driven twenty yards, a burst of static followed by Lopez’s voice sounded in his ear. “Wyatt, I have a feeling you’re discriminating against me,” the Hispanic operator intoned. “First Desantos ... may he rest in peace ... makes me carry a demonio up from the CDC basement, and now I gotta deal with these.”
“Sergeant, your orders are to move the car and then get your butt to the rally point,” Cade replied sharply. “I don’t care how you do it or if there are a dozen demonios crammed in that piece of tin. Just make it happen.” Then, knowing how the mere sight of a festering, living corpse got under the religious man’s skin, Cade made a conscious
decision to forgive the glaring example of insubordination. The muttering and thinking aloud had become commonplace as of late, and for the most part everyone involved had learned to ignore it. Besides, Cade thought to himself. Lopez had already proven himself time and again and was far too valuable an operator to let a couple of apocalypse-induced idiosyncrasies alienate him from the team.
“I’ve got three walkers on our right. Four o’clock,” said Hicks. “Engaging.”
“Roger that,” said Cade. He kept his foot on the brake and watched as Hicks prepared the optics atop Tice’s M4. After swinging the 3x magnifier in place, he snugged the carbine to his shoulder, paused for a beat, and dropped all three Zs in a calm, controlled manner. Three muffled shots, spaced closely together, did the trick. Only three seconds gone, thought Cade as he cut the wheel hard right and goosed the ailing engine, an action that was met with an unusual vibration and yet another burst of white steam.
“You’re up next, Cross ... sure you can drive an eighteen-wheeler?” Cade said, remembering his very own nearly failed attempt a week ago. Bouncing the dirt-brown UPS rig like a juiced Impala had been embarrassing to say the least. That he’d done it with Desantos sitting in the cab next to him made it all the worse. With the memory of his late friend fresh in his mind, he nosed the truck on a collision course with the humongous cab, more determined than ever to get everyone home alive.
“Get me close,” Cross said.
Cade replied, “Roger that.”
“Do not stop,” added Cross, a touch of concern evident in his voice. “Just slow. Bring the rigs flank-to-flank and I’ll jump out.”
Mortal: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Page 19