by Dirk Patton
Two shots from an unsuppressed rifle startled me.
“Martinez. Report.” I called on the radio, Scott already moving toward the opening.
“Two males came around the corner and Doc took them out.” She answered, the surprise evident in her voice.
“Copy. We’re coming out. Movement to the elevator. Ready?” I responded.
“Ready.”
I bent my knees to squat and grabbed the strap of a bomb in each hand, straightening up and moving aside for Scott to grab two more. In the hall Martinez was ready to lead the way, having positioned the doctor to bring up the rear. Scott and I walked between them, bombs swinging from our hands and banging our shins as we walked. We reached the elevator without incident and Martinez thumbed the call button, the doors sliding open with the double, dinner bell ding.
Four bombs stacked in the elevator, we headed back to the vault, me leading this time. Rounding a corner I stopped as two females stepped into the hall a dozen yards away at the next intersection. They froze when they saw me, but I’ve had enough of the damn smart ones. My rifle was already up to my shoulder and I snapped off a shot that dropped the one on the left. The other leapt out of sight into the hallway they had just come down and I sprinted forward. I didn’t want to leave her running around lose somewhere behind us, waiting to attack.
By the time I reached the turn, she was out of sight and I pulled up to a stop. For all I knew there were more of them and she wanted me to come charging after her, right into an ambush. I may not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but I’m not that dim. The others caught up with me and we started moving as a group again, rifles up on high alert.
32
When we reached the vault I exercised a great deal of caution before entering, but the room was unoccupied. Again leaving Martinez and the doctor on guard, Scott and I entered the vault.
“Major, how much shit do you think is in this facility that the Russians could use against us?” Scott asked, voicing a thought that had been going through my head.
“Probably a lot. The rub is, how much shit is in here that we could use against them?” I had been contemplating setting the timer on one of the nukes and leaving it behind to destroy the facility and everything in it. But, and there’s always a but, what if I wound up destroying something that could give us the upper hand? That would mean there had to be someone left alive and uninfected that could tell us what it was and where it was. It also meant someone would have to make another trip in here to retrieve it. Then there were the infected and the large presence of Russians only 70 miles away. Fuck it. This was our one shot.
Grabbing one of the bombs I moved it to the far side of the vault and lifted the flap. Finding the correct key in my pack I inserted and turned it to enable. Click, whine and finally the screen lit up. Surprised my hand wasn’t shaking, I punched the 1 key followed by the star key then the 0 on the key pad, the screen now reading 01.0. I pressed the pound key and the bomb beeped softly once, the screen flashing then resetting to all zeroes. Pressing the 9 key three times changed the display to read 999, then another press of the pound key. This time I received two soft beeps, and the screen started alternately showing the two settings, switching between 01.0 and 999 every second. With a deep breath I rotated the key another 90 degrees to the right and pulled it out of the lock. No beeps, but a flash of the screen and a solid display of 999. In the top right of the display a small, red dot started pulsing once per second, counting down the time to detonation.
“Looks like you know what you’re doing.” Scott said, staring at the display.
“Ever hear of the Cold War, Tech Sergeant? There was a two year stretch when Reagan was President that everyone expected we’d be using these in Western Europe, BEHIND Russian lines. Maybe that would have been better than what we’re dealing with now.”
Folding the flap back in place I hid the device amongst the discarded crates. I didn’t really expect anyone to stumble across it before it went off, but at the same time didn’t think it wise to leave it out in the open and visible. Hopefully, if the Russians did happen to visit the facility, and actually found the breached vault, they would look in and see the trash and not look further. That is if they weren’t too occupied with the problems I was getting ready to bring them. Even if they found it, I doubted they had the technical personnel with them that would be able to bypass the bomb’s security measures and disarm it.
“That timer may say 16 and a half hours, but let’s get the fuck out of here!” I said to Scott, picking up another two bombs.
“No shit. Sir.” He said under his breath, grabbing two more and following me out into the hall.
It didn’t take us long to make the final trips and get all the bombs loaded into the elevator. Now I had a decision to make. Did we all pile into the elevator and ride up with the nukes, or did we send the car up and take the stairs. I’ve never been a fan of putting myself into a confined position that I may have to fight out of, so I decided on the stairs. Reaching inside I hit the button for the ground level, stepping clear as the doors slid shut. Martinez used the key card she’d taken off the infected I had shot, tripping the lock on the stairwell door. She pushed the door open with her foot, rifle up and ready, but the stairwell was empty.
We all moved through the door, Scott holding it so it closed softly behind us. The stairs were poured concrete with metal handrails, and when I leaned into the center I could look all the way up and down. I cautioned everyone to watch their rifle fire. Bullets would bounce off the hardened concrete and ricochet around the stairwell.
I had a degree of trust in Martinez and Scott, knowing they had been trained, but I really didn’t feel like becoming the victim of friendly fire so I made Dr. Monroe hand me the magazine out of her rifle and cycle the action to clear the round in the chamber. She might know how to shoot, but that didn’t mean she would make the right decision when it really mattered.
Loading the lose round into the magazine and tucking it into my vest, I happened to look at the narrow window in the door we had just come through. The female infected who had escaped earlier stood with her face pressed to the glass, watching us with her blood red eyes. Her lips were peeled back, revealing blood stained teeth, and occasionally her tongue would dart out of her mouth and lick the glass.
“Doctor, any way to open that door without a key card?” I asked. The others noticed the female and Dr. Monroe gasped and stepped behind me.
“Not unless you have a traditional key.” She answered.
Nodding, I glanced around to make sure everyone was ready and started climbing the stairs. We hadn’t even reached the next level’s landing when the lights flickered. Uh oh. I started running up the stairs as fast as I could move and still keep an eye above us for any threats lying in wait. Behind me I could hear the rest of the team following, then as we reached the landing at the third sub-basement the lights flickered again, staying off for almost two seconds this time. Just before the lights came back on there was a loud bang from the stairwell below us, just like a heavy metal door being pushed open and slamming into a concrete wall.
Stopping on the landing I leaned out and looked down, but couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear anything either, but that didn’t necessarily mean much. The females can move pretty quietly when they want to.
“Hey, Doc. I thought you said there was no way through the door without a key card or a key.” Martinez said, leaning over the rail and aiming her rifle at the stairs below us.
“Or a power outage. The door locks are magnetic. Electromagnets. No power, no lock.” Dr. Monroe answered, sounding a bit sheepish as well as frightened.
A few seconds later the lights went out and didn’t come back on. Moments after that there were two more bangs below us and another above us.
33
The stairwell was pitch black. As black as the deepest, darkest night I could imagine. I ran my hand along my rifle and found the switch for the mounted flashlight and turned it on. The beam
was bright and focused and let me see, but only what was right in front of me. It didn’t spread out enough to afford me any peripheral vision. Fortunately, we were in a stairwell and any approaching infected would be funneled into a narrow corridor right in front of me. A moment later Scott and Martinez clicked on their lights and everyone breathed a small sigh of relief. I’ve never been afraid of the dark, in fact I prefer to work under the cover of night, but the infected had changed that dynamic.
“I’m on point. Sergeant Scott on rear. Let’s move!” I said and started climbing, rifle up and aiming the flashlight ahead of me.
I heard them before I saw them, and it sounded like a lot of feet coming fast. I stopped on the second sub-basement landing, and before I saw the ones coming down I heard a suppressed rifle start firing behind me. A moment later a second one joined in, then the first female rounded the turn above me at a run. I had her spotlighted and immediately pulled the trigger. She crumpled, but two more came into view before her body hit the ground. Muttering a curse, I started firing as quickly as I could in single-shot mode.
I drilled one of the two through the head with my first shot, but the second was really moving fast and jumping to clear the body in front of her. She wasn’t an easy target and my first round punched through her shoulder with no apparent effect. I followed up with a second shot that tore out her throat before severing her spine. The body crashed to the stairs, tumbling down, and I had to jump to the side so it didn’t take my feet out from under me. Then a solid mass of infected moved into the light of my flashlight.
The group was an even mix of males and females. The females were aggressively pushing the males out of their way as they tried to reach me. I flipped the rifle’s fire selector to burst and kept firing. Bodies were dropping every time I pulled the trigger, and the stairwell was quickly filling with corpses. This slowed the infected’s advance, but it was also blocking our path to the surface. There were already enough dead bodies on the stairs and landing above me that we’d have to waste precious time moving them just to climb up.
“Sit-rep!” I shouted over the din of battle, not wanting to take my attention off the seething mob above me.
“We’re holding them, but don’t see an end. Ammo’s going to be a problem. Fast.” This was Scott, speaking in a staccato between rifle bursts.
He was right about our ammo. We had come well armed with a good supply, had been able to replenish when we found the MRAP, but in this target rich environment we were burning through it like a drunk sailor goes through his paycheck when he gets to port. I wasn’t seeing any indication the number of infected was thinning, and I momentarily wondered if the outside doors into the loading dock had been breached. At the moment it didn’t matter. We didn’t have the time or ammunition to keep standing here and fighting.
Behind me was the door into the second sub-level, and since it hadn’t slammed open to admit a horde of infected I hoped it was a safe assumption that level was clear. At least clear near the elevators.
“Doc, is there another set of stairs?” I shouted, shooting a female that leapt over the pile of bodies I had shot.
“At the other end of the building.” She shouted back, sounding absolutely terrified.
“How far?” I asked, changing magazines.
“I don’t know. A long way. It’s a big building.” I could hear the fear in her voice and was afraid she was about to completely lose it.
“Martinez, take the doc and see if there’s an air shaft or any way up. Scott and I will come through behind you and hold the door.
“Copy.” Was the only reply, then a moment later, “We’re clear.” Over the radio.
Scott and I started backing up, stopping when our backs touched. We were both firing nearly as fast as we could in burst mode, really burning through the ammo. When our backs touched I kept firing with one hand and reached out with the other and grabbed the vertical metal handle on the door. Yanking it open I yelled for Scott to go through and I followed a split second later, nearly tripping over the threshold.
In the second sub-level hall I let my rifle drop to the end of its sling, took two grenades off my vest and pulled their pins. Tossing them through the still open door I wrapped my hands around the handle and pulled it closed, maintaining my grip and sitting down on the floor with my feet braced against the wall.
Almost immediately infected were at the door, pounding on it and screaming. A few seconds later the two grenades detonated in the stairwell with a bone jarring thump that traveled through the floor, my ass and up into my back. The pounding on the door ceased and the mesh reinforced window shattered, the broken glass held in place by the wire reinforcement.
Grenades are devastating weapons in enclosed spaces. They are designed to fragment into hundreds of pieces of steel that is propelled in all directions faster than the speed of sound. Then there’s the concussion from the blast. In a small area with hard walls and ceilings, such as a concrete stairwell, either one of those two factors will absolutely destroy a human body. Combine them and carnage is assured. So for a few moments all was quiet and no infected were trying to follow us through the door.
Scott rushed up next to me and I looked up when I heard a ripping sound. He was tearing a long strip off of a roll of duct tape. He quickly used it to cover the shattered window, pulled off two more strips and added them which completely blocked the opening. Smoothing the torn end back onto the roll and returning it to his pack, he squatted down next to me.
“Maybe the grenades killed all of them that saw us go through the door. Maybe, if we’re quiet enough, they won’t know we’re here and try to force through the door. Maybe.” He whispered into my ear. I nodded my head. Damn good idea. Not the first time I was glad he was along.
I tipped my head down the hall in the direction of Martinez and the doc who were checking doors by the light of a flashlight. Scott turned and trotted to them, his feet silent on the hard floor. Turning my attention back to the door, I made sure I had a solid grip on the handle and kept my body tensed so constant pressure was on the door. Yes, the door opened into the stairwell and I’d yet to see an infected smart enough to pull a door open, but I wasn’t about to take any chances.
It wasn’t long before I could hear them on the other side. There had to be bodies and bodily fluids everywhere, making the footing difficult. They were stumbling and banging into the metal railing. A few times a body crashed into the door. I was pulling so hard against the handle that my back and hamstrings were starting to cramp, but none of the infected tugged on the door. I worked hard to keep my breathing under control, afraid they would hear me panting if I didn’t.
It was completely dark in the hallway where I sat other than the small pool of light from the flashlight attached to my rifle. To my right I heard a scraping noise, much like someone walking with their shoulder rubbing the wall. Had to be an infected male. I glanced to the left and could see the lights my team were using to look for another way out, but they were too far away to hear the approaching noise. Oh shit!
“I got company down here.” I said quietly into my radio’s throat mic. No response.
“Martinez. Scott. Do you copy?” I said a little louder, cringing internally at the noise I was making. Still nothing back from either of them. I wasn’t speaking loudly enough to activate the radio.
I didn’t want to yell for them and alert the infected in the stairwell to my presence. So far, Scott’s duct tape trick was working. They weren’t paying any attention to the door. But I didn’t want to release the handle. Even though my rifle was suppressed, it would still make enough noise for them to hear. Could they open the door? Did I really want to take the chance?
There was another bumping sound and the scraping stopped for a moment, then resumed. I looked in the direction the noise was coming from as hard as I could, but couldn’t see anything even though the sounds seemed to be no more than a dozen yards away. I had next to no night vision at the moment due to the light from my flashlight. T
he only thing I had going for me was that the males are blind. I might not have been able to see him, or them, but they couldn’t see me either.
They had obviously been drawn to the fighting, and the grenades I’d used had hardly been stealthy. At least they couldn’t see me sitting there waiting to get munched, but they might smell me. I’d seen both males and females tip their heads up to sample the air, much like a dog. Another bump, closer this time, and now I could hear footsteps. More than one pair.
I sat there frozen, holding the handle with my head turned in the direction of the approaching infected. Straining my eyes, I finally was able to make out a pair of feet dragging along the smooth floor. A moment later I could see a second pair, then a third. Thankfully, they were all following the wall on the far side of the hall from where I sat, but the hall was only ten feet wide at the most. Wide enough for small forklifts or pallet jacks to get crates in and out of the vaults, but not nearly wide enough for my taste at the moment.
The infected continued to approach at a steady pace, and for a moment I thought they would walk right by me, but a thump against the door from inside the stairwell caused them to pause. They stood there for a moment, and even though the light didn’t let me see above their knee level, I could picture them tilting their heads back when I heard one of them sniffing the air. Shit.
I was five feet away from them, sweating enough that I could feel it running down my sides and back underneath my shirt. How the hell could they fail to find me? Time seemed to stretch out as they stood there, not making a sound other than sniffing. Watching the feet it took me a minute to realize they were rocking slightly, side to side. Then the one in front took a step forward and stopped directly behind me.
I could no longer see him just by turning my head. I needed to reposition my body so I could keep an eye on him, but was afraid to move and risk making even the slightest sound that would bring an almost instant attack. The flesh on my back puckered and I could feel the goose bumps run up and down my arms. I was so tense I nearly broke my silence when a drop of sweat suddenly ran down my side.