by Dirk Patton
Another few minutes of flying and it felt like the helicopter was going to shake itself apart and us with it. Rachel had squeezed herself into a corner, Dog wrapped in her arms and sitting in her lap. A quick check to verify our Russians were still with us and I spoke to Martinez.
“Did you reach the Marines? I asked.
“Two and a half hours away, best case.” She said through clenched teeth.
“How much longer can you keep us in the air?”
“You want to land, we’re out of time. Crash, maybe two minutes if we’re lucky.” She gasped.
“Put us down.” I ordered. “And don’t forget our passengers hanging around below us.”
We immediately began losing altitude, faster than I liked, but I was sure Martinez was doing everything she could. Our speed came off until we were barely moving as we descended. Realizing what she was doing I leaned out the door and watched. As we continued down, the end of the line brushed the ground, more of it quickly coming into contact with the desert floor and being dragged through the sand.
I could see Igor tighten his big arm around Irina and lift her out of the loop she was standing in. Damn that guy was strong. Timing it just right, he dropped her when they were only a couple of feet off the ground. She hit and tumbled across the ground, Igor jumping a moment later and rolling to a stop next to her.
“Clear!” I shouted on the headset and Martinez brought us the rest of the way down to the ground.
To say it was a good landing would be kind. But then I’ve always heard pilots say that any landing you walk away from was a good landing. I guess I can’t really argue with that, but we hit hard. Bone jarring, teeth clacking, spine compressing hard. Disconnecting my tether I grabbed Dog from Rachel and pushed him out the door. Unhooking her I pushed her too before sticking my head into the cockpit to make sure Martinez and the co-pilot were OK.
They had already shut down the engines and had their doors open, ready to get out. I didn’t waste another moment, following Rachel and Dog out the side door. Irina and Igor ran up and I turned as the two pilots joined us.
“How far from the herd?” I asked Martinez.
“Just over four miles. You think they’ll follow?”
“Some of them are. I was watching. There’s a lot of them going on to the battle site, but the whole edge on this side started peeling off and following when we flew over. We were loud as a washing machine and really got their attention.” I checked my watch. “The first females can be here in way less than an hour. We’ve got to move and hope the Marines don’t stop for a beer.”
We spent two minutes gathering supplies and equipment from the helicopter and distributing it so that everyone was equally loaded. Then I squatted down over the backpack that Igor had rescued from the windmill. Pulling the flap open I checked the serial number and pulled out the correct key. Energizing the unit I paused.
How long did I set it for? How soon would the leading edge of infected be here? And how many of them? I didn’t want it going off too soon and only killing a handful of the fastest females. On the other hand I didn’t want it going off too late with thousands of them already past it and hot on our trail. For that matter, I wasn’t even sure we had anything to worry about.
By the time the infected arrived we should be at least a couple of miles away. Why was I worrying about them following us when we had enough space between us that they couldn’t possibly know where we went? “Because you plan for the worst and hope for the best, dumb ass.” Was the answer that went through my head.
Making my decision, I set the yield to max, or one kiloton, and the timer to 45 minutes. I had also debated what yield to use, racking my brain to remember the training I’d received. A 1 KT, or one kiloton, nuclear detonation is equivalent in force to 1,000 tons of TNT. A ground level blast would create a lethal shockwave out to a radius of 500 meters. The fireball, which burns at one million degrees Fahrenheit, is lethal up to six tenths of a mile. Then there’s the initial pulse of radiation as well as secondary fallout.
The initial pulse would be lethal at a radius of half a mile, even though it would take a few agonizing hours for you to die. Secondary fallout at three and a half miles, but this time several painful days of skin, hair and teeth falling off your body as your organs shut down before you finally succumbed. Bearing in mind that all of these were minimums, and hoping that I was remembering accurately, it was time to haul ass. I wanted to be at least four miles away when the damn thing detonated. Nuke ready to go I lifted it up and set it inside the Stealth Hawk. Then we ran.
Igor and I may not have spoken the same language, but we were both soldiers and understood the concept of fast movement with a small group. I took point and set the pace, Igor taking rear guard. Dog ran next to me, though to be fair he trotted. I can’t move fast enough to make Dog actually run. Rachel tucked in behind us with Irina, Martinez and her co-pilot filling in the middle.
It was my job to make sure we were moving fast enough to reach all of the minimum safe distances when the SADM detonated. It was Igor’s job to make sure no one fell behind. He would poke, prod or kick ass as needed. Oh, and we also had to keep our heads on a swivel for any infected. Assuming that the only infected in the area were in the herd would be foolish and potentially suicidal.
I started us off fast. Before the attacks I spent a lot of time in the gym, lifting weights and running on a treadmill. Normally I’d start out with my first two miles at six miles an hour, then play with the speed after that to break up the monotony. My body was still familiar with that routine and I settled into what I was confident was a six mile per hour pace. After five minutes I checked over my shoulder. Irina and the co-pilot were already showing signs of distress. Martinez looked as relaxed as always and Rachel gave me a smile.
Turning back to the front, I scanned our surroundings as I ran. Sand, rocks and cactus were all I saw other than an occasional coyote. Dog either saw or smelled his four legged cousins, growling as he trotted along at my heels. I was glad he didn’t decide it was a good idea to engage the animals. The last thing I needed was to have to go chasing after him.
15 minutes, or a mile and a half, into our run I stopped when there was the sound of a body falling behind me. Irina had tripped and gone down. Not seeing anything other than smooth, hard sand, I imagined she was already at the limit of her endurance. Igor stepped forward and helped her to her feet. I raised the NVGs and looked at her face. She had already reached her limit.
I met Igor’s eyes and he nodded, shrugging his pack off and handing it to me. My pack was still at the site of the ambush where I’d dropped it to set up Martinez’ attack, so I slipped his over my shoulders. Igor stooped, pressed his back against Irina and grabbed her legs before straightening up with her in a piggyback carry. He bounced her a couple of times to make sure he had a solid grip then nodded he was ready to start running again.
I was starting to turn back to run when there was a brilliant flash of light on the horizon behind us. It was the SADM Igor had armed and left at the site of the ambush. Hopefully several hundred thousand infected had pushed into the area looking for the source of the noise and had just been atomized by the blast. We stood rooted in place, watching for a few moments as the incredibly hot fireball boiled skyward and created a mushroom cloud. Rachel came to stand next to me and took my hand in hers.
“It’s getting old watching nukes go off with you.” She whispered, eyes glued to the specter in the distance.
I squeezed her hand, but didn’t know what to say. Settling for putting more distance between the second bomb, and us, I got everyone running again. This time I moderated the pace a bit in deference to Igor’s burden, and moved Martinez to run with him to make sure there was a sharp set of eyes watching our rear that didn’t have a 110 pound woman as cargo.
Another twenty minutes of running and I brought us to a halt with a raised hand. Ahead, at the limit of the NVGs range, I could see movement. It was too far away for the goggles to resolve wha
t it was, but I didn’t expect anything moving in the desert tonight to be friendly.
We were now three miles from the second bomb, and other than secondary radiation we were clear of any danger it presented. There was a breeze blowing, as there always is in west Texas, and it was at our backs. That meant the fallout from the first bomb, as well as the one yet to detonate, was coming towards us. Signaling everyone to take a rest, I moved to the back of the group and whispered to Irina what was going on so she could fill in Igor. We needed to move, to keep opening the distance.
Getting us moving again, I kept us at a walking pace this time. We needed to run, to get farther away from the bombs, but we also needed to maintain some sound discipline so we didn’t alert whatever was moving ahead of us in the dark to our presence. Our scent would most likely do that as the breeze was blowing directly across us in that direction.
I was keeping half an eye on my watch as we walked and at the right time stopped and had everyone lie down, cautioning them not to look to our rear until after the detonation. Lying down didn’t have anything to do with direct danger posed by the bomb. When it went off it would light up the entire horizon, drawing the attention of everything for miles around. We were between the movement I’d seen and the bomb, and I didn’t want us silhouetted by the fireball when whatever was out there looked in that direction.
30 seconds after I got everyone on the ground, the bomb detonated. This one was much closer than the last one, and I felt and heard the explosion. The flash lit up the desert like noon, and the fireball cast a glow like the fires of hell across the landscape as it climbed into the night sky. The extra light was compensated for and utilized by the NVGs and I was finally able to clearly see what the movement was. More infected. Thousands of them, perhaps tens of thousands. And when the bomb went off they all turned and started coming in our direction.
31
The approaching infected were maybe a thousand yards in front of us, or a little more than half a mile. I wasn’t worried about the herd behind at the moment. The closest ones had to have been at least a couple of miles behind when the nuke detonated, most likely more. Unless there were some freakishly fast females that had somehow managed to track us, I didn’t think there was any way there could have been any infected make it far enough beyond the disabled helicopter to escape the blast. And with that hellish inferno in front of them, I wasn’t worried any longer about being tracked by the slower ones.
But I was worried about the approaching herd. I wanted a better look, wanted to stand up so I could see, but there was still a lot of light from the mushroom cloud behind me and I had no doubt there were females that would see me if I stood up and silhouetted myself like an idiot. I settled for getting up on my hands and knees, hoping my shape would blend into the surrounding terrain and I’d look like nothing more than a rock.
The herd was still coming directly at us, and it was larger than I had first thought. I was facing directly east, the herd stretched out like a snake in its direction of travel, which had been north, and there were infected across the entire horizon. I couldn’t see an end to the mass of bodies either to the north or south. The only good news was that there weren’t any females sprinting out ahead. Yet. That was no small amount of good fortune as a sprinting female could cover 500 yards in about a minute. Way faster than we could.
We couldn’t go back. Even as I kneeled there in indecision, the wind was pushing fallout from not just one, but two nuclear bombs in our direction. It wasn’t a strong breeze, but it would be no more than an hour before this entire area was irradiated. The only positive was the sheer number of infected that would receive a fatal dose of radiation, and that we probably weren’t going to die from radiation poisoning. The bad news – we were probably going to get ripped apart and eaten before the fallout arrived.
Two options were all I could come up with. Run north, or run south. Which direction would get us around the end of the herd faster? North would get us closer to the Marines that were coming to get us, so that’s the way I decided to go. Scrabbling around in the sand I gave the rest of my group a fifteen second dump of what we were doing and why. Nods and frightened expressions answered me.
Getting to my feet, I began running north. I ran in a crouch, bent at the waist, hopefully changing my profile enough that the infected’s brains wouldn’t identify me as a human. The others followed suit, bunching up tightly behind me. Irina had recovered somewhat while we’d been stopped and ran on her own. This was good, as I didn’t think Igor could have carried her very far like this.
We ran for what seemed like hours, but was probably closer to ten minutes. Running bent over with your knees flexed is not a natural position, and my legs and lower back had started burning before we had gone a couple of hundred yards. I was also trying to keep my head up to watch for danger to our front as well as constantly looking to my right to check on the approaching infected.
Another ten minutes and we had covered no more than a mile. Looking ahead I still couldn’t see an end to the herd and for a moment was pissed that I hadn’t been warned about this second threat. I’d been told there was one herd. Had they split apart at some point, or was this a completely different group that no one had seen? Dismissing my questions and anger until there was time to actually worry about anything other than survival, I started looking for a place to hide.
I had angled us towards the west, away from the infected, as we ran. My hope had been to buy time before they reached us, enough time to clear the front edge of the throng. But we weren’t going to make it. They were within 100 yards of us now, the length of a football field, and it was only dumb luck that had kept us from being spotted.
50 yards ahead I could see a shallow, dry wash cutting across the desert floor. The two or three times a year it rained, the wash would fill with a raging torrent of muddy water, but I knew it would be dry at the moment. Glancing behind I was glad to see everyone staying close. Irina was still running on her own, but Igor had moved next to her and had a firm grip on her upper arm as he helped her keep moving without standing up straight.
As we approached the wash I got a better look at it. It was only about five feet deep, the edges having been cut to a near vertical angle by rushing water. Maybe twenty feet wide, it wound across the terrain, following the lowest ground which was where the water drained. Would there be infected in the wash? Only one way to find out.
Putting on as much speed as I could, I dashed ahead, Dog at my side. I slowed enough when I reached the edge of the drop off to make sure I wasn’t about to jump onto anything that would end my night, then leapt when all was clear. My boots came down in deep, soft sand that had been deposited by eons of rain storms, Dog jumping down next to me and sinking in nearly to his belly.
As the rest of my group made the small drop into the wash I started looking for shelter. I’d been in a lot of these washes as a kid, using them to stalk the coyotes I liked to hunt. I remembered those days well, and knew that every time the wash made a sharp bend the water would carve out the wall on the outside curve. Most of the time there was rock that couldn’t be carved out, but occasionally there was a soft spot and a nice, deep cave would form.
Feeling the pressure of the approaching herd, I looked in both directions, seeing two sharp bends, but neither of them had the shelter I was looking for. Making a decision that was solely based on not wanting to move closer to the infected, I headed southwest in the wash. Dog was growling almost constantly now, and I realized he smelled the herd. Had the wind shifted, or were there infected ahead of us? At the moment all I had time to worry about was getting someplace where we could hide.
Movement in the wash was just as difficult as I remembered. With every step my boots sank several inches into the loose sand. With every change in body position the sand under my boots shifted. It was like trying to walk on the dry sand on a beach. Moving around a gentle curve we came to a sharp bend and there was what I was looking for. A deep undercut in the outside wall of the
wash.
The opening was only about three feet tall, another two to three feet of hard packed sand and rock above it. Rushing to the opening I peered inside, thankful for the NVGs. These undercuts make great dens for wild animals, and nothing would have surprised me. Rattle snake. Coyote. Bobcat. Javelina. Mercifully, there weren’t any occupants. Just a smooth, sandy floor stretching to the back of the small space where the ceiling tapered down to meet the ground.
Moving out of the way I waved the group inside. Rachel was the first one in and I told Dog to go with her. He stood his ground staring at me, not wanting to hide when he knew there was a fight coming. I gave him a quick hug, then shoved him through the opening just ahead of Martinez and her co-pilot. I really needed to learn his name. Next came Irina, panting with sweat dripping from her face. Once she was in it was obvious there wasn’t room for both Igor and me. Not hesitating I motioned him inside.
He shook his big head, but we were running out of time. I shook mine and pointed into the cave emphatically, eyes locked on his. After a moment he nodded and dropped to his knees and scrambled inside. It took him a moment to get all the way in and twist around to face the opening with his rifle across his knees. I kicked sand up in front of the entrance, then ripped a creosote bush out of the ground and stuck it in the loose earth. The entrance was completely concealed.
Taking another few seconds I raked the ground at the cave mouth with my foot, erasing the tracks leading inside. No, I didn’t think the infected could follow tracks, but there was no reason to chance it. Basic camouflage completed, I moved to the center of the wash and used my rifle’s stock to begin digging. The sand was deep and soft and it moved easily. That was good, because I could hear the approaching herd.