by Dirk Patton
“What the fuck was that?” He hissed. “Another outbreak? And when the fuck did they get smart enough to use a flashlight?”
Rachel’s blood ran cold at the thought, but he had asked a damn good question. These people had been fine a few hours ago. Why the hell had they turned? And they could use tools now? Then she thought about the two little girls. How the hell was she going to tell them?
“We’ve got to go.” Jackson said, grabbing her arm and shaking her. Rachel nodded and spared a glance at the ditch with the two bodies before turning back to the truck.
When he saw she was moving, he headed back to the driver’s side of the truck, climbed in and called Dog. Dog looked up at Rachel and she motioned him into the cab, then followed him in and slammed the door. Jackson turned the wheel and floored the accelerator, heading back to where he hoped the train was still waiting.
41
I had just finished instructing Captain Vostov on how to enable, set the yield, timer and arm the SADMs when I noticed one of the soldiers with her turn his head slightly to the side and raise a hand to his ear. The universal, automatic reaction to a voice coming over a radio headset stuck in your ear. She saw where I was looking and straightened up, watching him. He started speaking in rapid fire Russian, carrying on a conversation with whoever was on the other end. I checked on Martinez and Scott, who were also watching him intently.
After nearly two minutes he lowered his hand and turned to the Captain and filled her in on his conversation. Or he could have been discussing the weather in Moscow for all I knew. They were speaking Russian, and my knowledge of the language was limited to how to curse someone or tell a woman I wanted to see her naked. Hey, I’m a guy. What do you expect?
“There’s a patrol on the way. About thirty minutes out.” Vostov said to me. “One of our pilots noticed the infected massed around the gates you came through and called it in.”
“Thirty minutes means they haven’t started climbing up onto the mesa yet.” I said. “Do you think they’ll come inside?”
“Da. They go inside.” One of the soldiers answered in heavily accented English.
Shit. We had time to break out and slip away before the patrol arrived, but the damn infected would just follow after us. Might as well put a flashing red light and siren on top of the MRAP to make it easier for the Russians to find us.
“How are you extracting?” I asked Vostov. She looked at me for a moment, probably trying to decide if it was a good idea to share that information.
“We have a comrade who is a helicopter pilot scheduled to fly a patrol in a few hours. He will pick us up on the roof. He is how we got here.”
“How many hours is a few?” I asked. She looked at me for a moment before checking her watch.
“His patrol starts at 1500 hours local. Why?”
“You have to be out of here before then.” I said after doing the math in my head. “This whole facility is going to turn into a smoking crater before that.”
“Pizda na palochke!” She said in her native tongue. I didn’t understand the words, but got the meaning from her tone.
“Whatever than means, I probably agree.” I said. “We go out of here together. We’ll get you to a safe location and you can wait for your buddy to pick you up. I’m sure you have a way to get in contact with him to change the pick up point.”
She thought about it for a moment before turning and having a brief conversation in Russian with the two soldiers. The thing about Russian, if you’re an English speaker, is that you can’t tell if they’re pissed off and ready to start shooting at you, or if they’re professing their love for each other. The soldier who had spoken in English earlier ended their discussion with a nod of his head.
“Thank you. We accept your offer.” Vostov said to me.
The first order of business was to get the nukes loaded into the MRAP. The two Russians took care of that under the watchful eyes of Martinez and Vostov. While they worked, Scott and I checked out the big, exterior doors at the far end of the shed. We’d gotten in by tripping the emergency release on the outside, and even though there should have been one inside, we couldn’t find it.
A steady drumming was coming from the heavy, steel doors. Infected outside that wanted to come in for dinner. The doors were hydraulically operated, as most things large and heavy are, but instead of rams pushing on the frames of the door the mechanism was housed in the massive hinges that ran up each side of the opening.
“Can you release the pressure and we just push them open with the MRAP?” I asked.
“Don’t see a release.” Scott answered, shining his flashlight up and down the hinge for the right hand door. Finding nothing, he moved to the other side but came up empty there as well.
“There has to be a release.” He said. “They can’t do maintenance without it. Change the hydraulic oil and you have to open a valve to bleed out any air that got into the system.” He was back to the right hand hinge, climbing up the skeletal framing on the inside of the shed to get a better look at the upper section of the hinge.
“You’ve got one minute to find the release, then we’re going to ram our way through, Tech Sergeant.” I said.
“Yes, sir.” He answered, climbing higher up the wall.
I returned to the MRAP and looked in the back. The nukes were neatly stacked along one wall of the vehicle and Yee’s body had been pushed under a bench seat that ran along the other. The three Russians stood at the side of the vehicle, watching Scott try to find the release and Martinez had climbed behind the wheel.
“Can’t we just break through with this big vehicle?” Vostov asked.
“I think we probably can, but if we can get the doors to release I’d feel a whole lot better. There’s a few thousand infected waiting on the other side of those doors and if we damage or disable the vehicle trying to break through, our goose is cooked.” I answered.
“Goose?” The big Russian soldier asked, looking at me curiously.
“Means we’re fucked, Ivan.” I answered, calling him the name everyone in the Army uses when referring to any Russian soldier.
“Igor.” He said and thumped his chest. I ignored the impulse to say “Tarzan” and thump mine.
“Got it!” Scott shouted.
I turned and watched him perform an aerial ballet, keeping one foot and one hand on the shed’s frame while extending the rest of his body out to reach the valve on top of the hinge. Even from where I stood, the jet of red oil was visible in Scott’s flashlight when the valve opened. Moments later he was back on the floor and dashed to the other side and climbed.
This valve opened with an audible pop and a veritable flood of oil shot out, hitting the ceiling and splashing down onto Scott and the metal cross member he was holding on to. He was pulling himself back to the wall to climb down when he slipped. The hydraulic oil had gone everywhere, and when he adjusted his grip to take the first step down his hand landed on oil and instantly slipped off.
He had time for the start of a shout of fear before he crashed to the concrete floor. I was in motion before his body hit, Martinez slamming the MRAP’s door open to follow a half a second behind me. Scott was unconscious when I reached him. Martinez skidded up next to us on her knees and started to reach for his head, but I stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“Don’t move him, yet.” I said. She nodded and placed her hands in her lap, concern creasing her face.
Scott was breathing normally, which was the good news. The bad news was a broken arm and blood pouring from a wound under his hair where the scalp had split when his head hit the floor. I heard boots walk up and Vostov kneeled beside me.
“Igor is a medic. If you’ll let him, he’ll help your Sergeant.” I looked at her then cranked my head around to look at the chest thumper who stood behind me with his pack in hand.
“I help.” He said in his guttural accent. I glanced at Martinez but she just shrugged.
Moving aside I kept a close eye on what he was doing. Fi
rst he checked Scott’s eyes, then gently ran his fingers along the back of his neck. Grunting to himself he checked the limbs that didn’t have obvious breaks, finishing his cursory exam by pushing his hands underneath Scott’s vest and checking his ribs.
“Arm broken and, and…” He switched to Russian and spat out what he was trying to say as he retrieved a small first aid kit from his pack.
“His arm is broken. There don’t seem to be any other broken bones. The head wound looks nasty with all the blood, but he doesn’t think it’s serious since the eyes check out normal.” Captain Vostov translated as Igor withdrew a vial of blood clotting powder and sprinkled it into the scalp laceration. The flow of blood stopped almost immediately, the powder turning red and swelling to fill the cut. Next he applied a thick gauze pad and wrapped it to Scott’s head with several turns of dark blue medical tape.
Head wound addressed, he moved to the far side and carefully picked up Scott’s arm. Using a pair of scissors he cut in a line up the sleeve, exposing the abnormal bend in the arm. Probing with his fingers he grunted and waved me over next to him.
“Hold.” He placed my hands on Scott’s upper arm, just above the elbow, grasped his wrist and gave a sudden twisting tug. The bulge subsided, the arm looking normal again.
Igor shouted something in Russian to the other soldier who quickly shrugged out of his pack and drew a small dagger. He deftly sliced open some of the stitching on the back, reached into the opening and pulled out two flat lengths of aluminum that were part of the pack’s frame. Each piece was about eight inches long and a couple of inches wide, flat and no more than an eighth of an inch thick. He trotted over and handed them to Igor who formed them to Scott’s forearm with his thick fingers.
“Hold.” He said again, grabbing my hand and placing it on top of the splint he was creating. As I held the aluminum in place he started wrapping the arm with gauze, not tight, but tight enough for the aluminum pack braces to prevent the broken bone from shifting. Finishing with the gauze he wrapped the whole thing with more of the blue medical tape, pulled the shemagh he was wearing from around his neck and fashioned a sling out of it. Slipping this over Scott’s head he gently placed his arm in it and made some final adjustments.
“Good.” He said, looking up at me and smiling.
“Spasiba, Igor.” I said, thanking him in Russian and smiling back at him.
We quickly loaded Scott into the MRAP, placing him on the bench and strapping him into place. Using Vostov as a translator I’d asked Igor how long he thought Scott would be unconscious. He just shrugged in response.
Everyone climbed in and we buttoned up the big, armored truck. Martinez was driving as I rode shotgun, the three Russians squeezed into the back. Vostov perched on top of the SADMs, pulling her legs up to make room for Igor’s big feet, her skirt riding up around her hips. I looked at her and couldn’t suppress the giggle when I thought about Slim Pickens riding the nuclear bomb in Dr. Strangelove. She gave me a dirty look. I guess it’s not a good idea to laugh at an attractive woman when her skirt is around her ass. Fortunately she was familiar with the movie and saw the humor when I explained it to her.
“Ready?” Martinez asked. She already had the MRAP in gear, holding us back with the brakes.
“Let’s go.” I said. “Nice and easy on the doors. Just come up and tap them, then push. The relief valves are open so they’ll move, but the oil can only come out so fast. Can’t push faster than that.”
Martinez let the vehicle idle forward, touching the brakes and bringing us to a stop just as the heavily armored bumper banged against the doors. They pushed open a few inches, then sprang back to smash into the bumper, rebounding back open a couple of inches as the volume of oil in the system dropped. I was glad we had exercised caution. The doors were so heavy the impact shook the 14 ton MRAP when they sprang back and hit us.
She gave it a few seconds, then let us idle forward again and give the doors another bump. This time when they rebounded there was a two foot gap and the infected immediately started flowing into the opening. There were hundreds of them waiting for us, and I knew there would be many more than that waiting at the chain link gate we’d closed behind us. I heard Martinez’ breathing pick up as the infected started flooding into the opening we were creating.
“Easy, Captain. They can’t get in. We’re fine as long as we don’t panic and do anything to damage the vehicle.” I said in a calm voice. I could also hear the fast breathing of the Russians behind me and the occasional curse muttered under someone’s breath.
“Yes, sir. I’m good.” Martinez said, sounding a little more frightened that she was admitting. That was fine, as long as she kept it together.
Another bump with the MRAP and the gap widened to five feet. I told Martinez to turn off the headlights so we weren’t so visible to any Russian eyes that might be overhead. She flipped the switch and let off the brakes to bump the doors again. Enough oil must have finally been forced out of the system because this time they didn’t bounce back against the bumper. They opened another couple of feet each and stayed there, giving us a nice, wide, nine foot gap.
The infected were flowing through the doors like floodwaters, quickly filling all the open space around us. Fists pounded on the armored sides of the MRAP, but we could barely hear the blows through all the layers of steel. Females leapt onto the hood and attacked the windshield, but they might as well have been trying to claw their way through one of the vault doors below. Human hands, even enraged human hands, were completely ineffective against the multiple layers of ballistic glass.
Martinez took her foot off the brake and let the truck start rolling. Infected were knocked aside and under the huge tires. She gave a little throttle and we bulled through the throng, brushing bodies aside like dry leaves before a strong wind. Quickly clearing the infected, Martinez accelerated across the open parking lot, steering for the gate. We rounded the corner of the building, gate ahead and to our left, and she brought us to a stop.
The gate was still closed, but bowed inwards under the tremendous pressure of the crush of infected bodies. The fenced road between the inner and outer gates was completely packed with snarling and screaming bodies, the crowd flaring out into and filling the public road that ran through the area. I couldn’t even guess how many of them there were, but there was no doubt this horde was what had drawn the pilot’s attention.
“Can we push through that many?” Martinez asked without taking her eyes off the seething mass of flesh.
“We can, and we will.” I said, intentionally sounding more confident than I felt at the moment. “We don’t have a choice.” I said silently within my own head.
“Fast or slow?” She asked.
“Slow and steady wins the race, Captain.” I said. She looked at me, grinned slightly and turned back to the front as she started to accelerate.
42
It took less than a minute for them to drive back into the rain, Jackson slowing to a crawl when visibility was once again reduced to nothing. Lightning flashed close behind them, the sharp crack of thunder rattling the truck less than a second later. Dog whined and climbed into Rachel’s lap, somewhat comforted when she wrapped both arms around him and hugged him to her chest. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jackson check his watch.
“Are we going to make it?” She asked. He shrugged and reached up to adjust his earpiece.
“Crow’s Nest, Black Dog. Copy?” Jackson said into the radio.
“Black Dog? Really?” Rachel looked at him with a small grin.
“Don’t ask.” Jackson snorted a laugh then went quiet to listen to the radio. “What’s status of evacuation? I’m inbound from town. ETA 10 mikes.”
He listened some more before speaking again. “Copy. Three souls inbound if you can hold one of them.”
Rachel didn’t think it was sounding promising. She suspected Jackson was being told they would miss the train and was asking if one of the helicopters could wait for them. John seemed t
o be in love with the big, noisy, bone vibrating machines, but she didn’t share his feelings. The damn things could go up and down and change direction so fast she always felt like her stomach was having to play catch up.
“Copy.” Jackson spoke the single word and let out a breath of frustration.
“What?” Rachel asked when it didn’t seem he was going to share the news.
“We’ve missed our ride out of here. We’re going to drive to Little Rock and meet up with them at Little Rock Air Force Base, then continue on to Oklahoma City. The storm’s coming fast and the Colonel doesn’t want to risk any of our air assets by sticking around waiting for us.”
“How far is Little Rock?”
“Maybe a hundred miles. Hours in this shit,” he said, waving a hand at the storm raging around them. “Ninety minutes if I can see to drive.”
The rain continued as they pushed on to the west. Jackson stopped and reversed when they passed a sign that pointed to I-40 westbound. Neither of them had seen the sign until they were already past the turn. Following the curving ramp they climbed up onto the Interstate, but had to keep the speed under 10 miles an hour. There were wrecks and abandoned vehicles strewn across the pavement. Nothing they couldn’t maneuver around as long as they saw the obstacle in time to avoid it.
Within a couple of minutes the rain eased off from fire hose to bucket brigade volume and Jackson pushed their speed up slightly. Then the hail started. Small at first, the chunks of ice no larger than a pencil eraser, but quickly growing to the size of golf balls. The nearly constant impact of the ice on the roof of the truck sounded like a hundred blacksmiths all beating on the metal at the same time. The windshield cracked when a particularly large hunk of ice smashed down onto it, the crack spreading as the smaller hail stones continued their barrage. Lightning and thunder were now constant.
“It’s a good thing the Colonel didn’t hold a helo back for us.” Jackson commented. “This kind of storm can put one into the ground in a hurry. Hail and rotor blades are not a good combination.”