Tooth And Nail

by Craig DiLouie

  This school, turned into a Lyssa clinic, was where Quarantine placed the headquarters of Charlie Company, First Battalion, and its First Platoon. Yesterday, it was teeming with patients, medical volunteers and nearly forty soldiers, MPs, engineers and specialists, including at least one squad constantly manning a checkpoint behind a sandbag position constructed around the front doors.

  Today, the entrance appears deserted. The street in front of the building is also empty of vehicles, restricted to official traffic only. Nobody comes out to welcome the boys of Second Platoon.

  There are bodies everywhere lying on the street among fluttering papers and loose garbage, already starting to stink in the brisk air of this late September morning. The air is thick with flies.

  They died from gunfire.

  Second Squad is on point. Sergeant Lewis calls a halt. The LT hustles up, takes out his binoculars and scans the small, neat sandbag fort.

  No soldiers are visible.

  Bowman turns to Lewis and signals him to move.

  The Sergeant whistles softly and Second Squad’s fireteams rush across the open space to the sandbags, carbines held in the firing position.

  Behind him, the civilians are getting nervous and asking why the platoon is stopped and they are not entering the refuge. Kemper explains that they must check out the area to make sure it is not dangerous. He tells them to stay out of the way for their own safety.

  Second Squad disappears into the building. The scene is quiet except for the intermittent clatter of a machine gun somewhere far to the northeast.

  “Every time we stay out of the way, we get slaughtered,” one of the civilians complains.

  Moments later, Lewis reappears at the sandbags and whistles, waving his hand in front of face to give the signal for all-clear.

  “Now we can move,” Kemper says to the civilian. “See how this works?”

  “I thought how it worked is I pay taxes and you protect me,” a woman in the crowd says, just loud enough for him to hear.

  Kemper sighs, sorry that he tried.

  The platoon moves forward, the civilians following closely.

  “What the hell happened here?” Sherman wonders. The area in front of the school’s doors is carpeted with bloody brass shell casings, the product of hundreds, possibly even thousands, of rounds being fired. The smell of cordite hangs in the air.

  “Some kind of war,” says Boomer.

  “No sign of blue forces, sir,” Sergeant Lewis reports to the LT.

  The boys shuck their rucksacks in the hallway and take long pulls on their canteens. The civilians file past them, looking shell-shocked.

  “Rest up,” Bowman says. “We’re on the move in five.”

  How a rifle platoon seizes control of a building

  Sergeant Ruiz extends his arm over his head and gives a slight wave. Williams and Hicks get into position on each side of the door and give him a thumbs up.

  Ruiz opens the door to the classroom and flicks the light switch. Inside, the rows of institutional fluorescent lights blink to life instantly.

  He steps over the threshold, holding his carbine at shoulder level, ready to fire. Williams follows on his heels and turns left, while Hicks turns right. Behind them, Wheeler and McLeod pull security in the hallway, watching their backs.

  The fireteam then loops around until they return to the doorway.

  “Clear,” Williams says.

  “Clear,” Hicks says.

  “Clear,” says Ruiz.

  They have done this eight times already, and they are exhausted.

  This is how a rifle platoon seizes control of a building, one room at a time. Once they entered the school, the LT placed his gun team and HQ, along with the wounded and civilians, near the primary doors, plugging the main entrance. This base became their foothold for action inside the building, while denying access to outsiders who might reinforce enemy forces.

  This accomplished, the next step is to systematically clear the building. The three squads each entered a separate wing of the building, with the fireteams in each squad alternating as assault and support forces.

  “All right, here’s the stairwell leading up to the second floor,” the Sergeant says, mopping sweat from his forehead. “Down there is the admin wing, which we got to clear before we can go up. McLeod, I am placing you here with your SAW.”

  “You’re leaving me alone?” says McLeod.

  Ruiz sighs loudly through his nose. “The rooms behind you have been cleared. We will be on your left, down that hallway. You lie here and point your weapon at the stairwell until we get back. Think you can manage that?”

  “Since you put it like that—”

  “Listen to me, dipshit.”

  “Okay, Sergeant.”

  “You got our backs. Do not screw up or nod off or rub one out or read a good book or whatever it is you do instead of soldiering. If you do, I will not assign you KP or smoke you with exercise. I will frag you. You will die. Okay? Do we understand each other?”

  McLeod nods darkly. “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “All right, let’s do this, ladies. Sooner we clear this building, the sooner we can kick up our feet.”

  “Roger that, Sarge,” says Hicks.

  “Take point, Private Williams.”

  “All right, Sergeant.”

  Williams turns the corner toward the admin offices and almost walks into the man standing there smiling down at him. A tall, skinny giant of a man, almost six foot five, wearing a neat suit and tie.

  “Oh, sorry, sir,” Williams says.

  He glances up at the face and his bowels turn to water. The man’s swollen, bruised throat bulges over the shirt collar, which is soaked with drool and mucus.

  “Shoot him, Private!” roars Ruiz.

  The man opens his mouth, making a bubbling, percolating sound deep in his throat, and reaches out with his long arms to embrace Williams.

  The rifle pops and the man staggers backward, wincing in pain, his dress shirt now soaked red.

  Williams blinks in surprise, then fires again as he was trained, putting the second bullet into the man’s face, blowing off his jaw and ear. The man spins like a top and eventually falls to the ground with a meaty sound, his hair smoking.

  The soldier laughs hysterically.

  “Who shot him? Was that me?”

  “Give me your weapon, Private.”

  Ruiz takes the M4 out of his hands, shoulders it and fires rapidly, bang bang bang, dropping three more figures at the end of the hallway.

  “I’m going to make a soldier out of you yet, Private Williams,” he says, handing him back his carbine and then retrieving his shotgun.

  “Roger that, Sergeant,” Williams says, blowing air out his cheeks. “Roger that.”

  A familiar voice from around the corner: “You guys all right?”

  “Shut up and stay in position, Private McLeod,” Ruiz yells back.

  “Sergeant, look, it’s a rifle,” says Hicks, stepping forward and picking the weapon off the floor. “It’s an M4.” He wrestles with the bolt and snorts. “Jammed.”

  The Sergeant nods. He was afraid that at some point they were going to begin finding the shreds of First Platoon.

  “And there’s a blood trail. See it?”

  The trail of blood droplets leads under a door to an administrative office. The fireteams quickly get into position, ready to take it down. Ruiz peers through the window set in the upper half of the door, which is similarly spotted and streaked with blood. The inside of the office is clean and brightly lit but otherwise appears empty.

  He counts down with his fingers, Three, two, one—

  The doorknob gives, but the door barely moves. Something’s blocking it.

  He pushes hard until the obstruction clears.

  The soldiers step into the room, clear it, and then converge on its sole occupant.

  The corpse lies tangled up in his own limbs. They recognize him as Charlie Company’s RTO. He wears a crude tourniquet tied tight
ly around his leg, which has been mauled savagely below the knee. The top of his skull and brains are splattered up the scorched and splintered door, which he was blocking with his body.

  Blocking, apparently, to keep the Mad Dogs out.

  “This shit is cold,” says Williams.

  “He didn’t want to become one of them,” Ruiz says.

  “Sergeant?” says Hicks, puzzled.

  “Nothing,” says Ruiz. “Just thinking out loud.”

  The man still clutches the pistol that he used to blow his brains out. As RTOs are not issued sidearms, the pistol is not his, although the soldiers recognize it as an Army-issue nine-millimeter.

  The Sergeant crouches down and tears off one of the corpse’s oval dog tags, then contacts the LT using his handheld.

  “War Dogs Two-Six, this is War Dogs Two-Three, over.”

  War Dogs Two-Three, this is War Dogs Two actual standing by to copy, over.

  “We have cleared most of the first floor of hostiles and have located a member of Charlie Company’s headquarters staff in the admin area of the left wing, over.”

  What’s his status, over?

  “He’s dead, over.”

  Any sign of War Dogs Six or other elements of his command, over?

  “Negative. We have something positive to report, though. The man we found is the company RTO, and he has a working combat net radio. Over.”

  The boys glance at each other and grin. The man’s death is horrible, the more so because this particular death, among so many, is closer to home for them as soldiers. But finding an intact SINCGAR is a stroke of luck. Communications can be as valuable as water and ammunition in the field. With a working field radio, the platoon can easily talk to Battalion. They can get things they need to live and continue functioning as a military unit in the field. Specifically, through direct communication with the chain of command, they can ask for news, orders, reinforcements, evacuation, rescue, air support, food, water, ammunition, equipment and medevac.

  Outstanding, Sergeant, says the LT. Can you send it back with a runner? Over.

  “Wilco, sir. Sending Private Williams now with the radio, over.”

  Solid copy, out.

  “Collect these weapons and any ammo you can find,” Ruiz tells the squad. “As for Doug Price here, we’ll pick him up on the way back so he can be buried with respect.”

  A greater obligation

  Lieutenant Bowman established his headquarters in the wide entry hallway of the school, surrounding a sprawling refugee camp of more than a hundred panicked civilians located directly adjacent to public lavatories and a water fountain.

  At the end facing the main doors of the school, he placed his gun team, and at the other, facing the main stairs leading to the second floor of the trunk of the building, a SAW gunner detached from Second Squad.

  This simple setup provides protection for the civilians while enabling them to access water and toilets, which he hopes will keep them calm, but not the soldiers’ rucksacks, which are stacked near the front door under the watchful eyes of his gun team.

  Sherman, holding an M4 carbine, scans the crowd for signs of trouble, shrugging at their requests for food, medicine, diapers, beer and cigarettes, plastic cups, blankets, rubbing alcohol, chocolate bars, more toilet paper and paper towels and soap, and a toilet plunger. He frequently glances at Hawkeye, lying groaning and sweating on a blanket under the care of Doc Waters, the platoon’s combat medic.

  Hawkeye is starting to stink.

  “He’s got Lyssa bad,” the medic tells Sherman, dumbfounded. “He got bit by a Mad Dog and now he’s turning into one. In hours. Something is definitely not right here.”

  “You think?” somebody mutters under his breath.

  Bowman struck a deal with the civilians, allowing them to enter the platoon’s defensive perimeter, and thereby become his problem, on two conditions. First, that they would not interfere with the operations of the men under his command. Second, that they would report any of them showing Lyssa symptoms, especially Mad Dog symptoms, so that they could be removed from the security zone and banished from the building.

  So far, they have ignored the first promise and kept the second.

  Beyond this, he is not sure what to do with them. He has orders to link up with First Platoon and Company HQ, and he will try to complete that mission for as long as he can. These civilians are only tying him down. And yet they are American citizens, and he has a greater obligation to protect them from harm.

  His highest priority at this moment, however, is securing this building and giving his boys a well-deserved rest. They simply cannot keep up this pace. Already they are exhausted and using up their supplies at an alarming rate.

  And the worst, he knows, is yet to come. Days of it. Even weeks of it. It may take a superhuman effort for his boys to stay alive just during the next twenty-four hours.

  Doc Waters marches up to Bowman and says, “The men need to change their masks. They’re getting caked with sweat and soot, and the men are forgetting to change them.”

  Bowman blinks in surprise. The platoon has bigger issues to deal with than Lyssa prevention. But of course the combat medic is right. Bowman nods and says he’ll get on it.

  “And sir,” Doc Waters adds, “some of the men aren’t wearing their masks at all anymore. This is majorly stupid, sir. We’ve had a rare morning, but the chance of infection is just as high now as it was yesterday.” He glances at the civilians. “In fact, it’s higher.”

  “All right, Doc,” the LT says. “I’ll see to it.”

  “Sir, we got incoming!” cries Bailey, the SAW gunner from Second Squad. He is lying on the floor, sighting down the barrel, which now rests on a bipod. “I got seven, no, eight hostiles on the main stairs.”

  The LT kneels next to Bailey and studies the Mad Dogs through his close-combat optic. They are Mad Dogs, seven of them sorry-looking specimens wearing paper gowns, and one wearing hospital scrubs. Three of them grin like clowns, their mouths and gowns stained red.

  He wishes he could understand what motivates them. Don’t they recognize their own friends and family? Why do they want to kill us? Why don’t they attack each other?

  The Mad Dogs pause and stand motionless, fists clenching and unclenching at their sides. They are still thirty meters away.

  “What are you waiting for?” one of the civilians says. “Shoot them, for Chrissakes!”

  Other civilians begin clamoring for them to open fire. A baby in the crowd starts screaming.

  “Shall I light ’em up, sir?” says Bailey, gently placing his finger on the trigger.

  “You know the ROE, Private Bailey,” Bowman tells him. “We fire only if they threaten us. Right now they’re not hostile.”

  The gunner glances up at him. “ROE, sir?”

  “We’re still operating under the rules of engagement issued by Quarantine last night.”

  “Well, they smell pretty threatening if you ask me, sir,” Bailey says.

  Bowman smiles despite himself.

  Two of the Mad Dogs leap forward, snarling. The others quickly follow, sprinting with their characteristic loping gait.

  They think like animals, Bowman thinks. They hunt in packs. Look at them go. They even run like animals. Why?

  “You are cleared to engage,” he says.

  The SAW is a belt-fed light machine gun able to fire up to seven hundred fifty rounds per minute at an effective range of a thousand meters. It is a squad support weapon, typically used to set up a base of fire. It eats ammo fast and spits out a high volume of withering, murderous fire.

  Bailey sights the first Mad Dog carefully and drops him with a single burst. He moves on to the next. Each time he shoots, the crowd emits a chorus of grating shrieks.

  Bowman is starting to believe the civilians are actually trying as hard as they can to make his job irritating and complicated.

  Then he tries to put himself in their shoes. As if several weeks of plague and chronic shortages weren
’t bad enough, their world is ending, they are refugees in their own land, and they are defenseless in a fratricidal war, hunted by a remorseless enemy that just hours ago was their son, their mother, their doctor, their priest, their oldest friend.

  Now they’re watching a SAW gunner cut some people in half.

  Christ, he tells himself, the only reason you’re still sane is you have a job to do. So try to cut these people a little slack, okay?

  “Good shooting,” he says.

  “Sir? The Mad Dogs are a lot more aggressive than we were told, and there’s a lot more of them than they told us there were.”

  “That’s a very good observation, Private Bailey.”

  “I mean, is this, like, supposed to be the end of the world?”

  “The Army has given me no such order,” Bowman says.

  The exchange reminds him of another important task he has yet to figure out how to do: Tell his people about the way the Mad Dog strain spreads, and what this means. Many of them, like Bailey, are already starting to put two and two together.

  His handset chirps and Sergeant Lewis’ voice deadpans, War Dogs Two-Six, War Dogs Two-Six, this is War Dogs Two-Two, how copy, over?

  “War Dogs Two-Two, this is War Dogs Two actual, I copy, over.”

  War Dogs Two-Six, message follows, break. We have found an athletic facility in the main trunk, break. Hundreds, maybe a thousand, sick people on cots here, break. Some are in bad shape. Break. I see a lot of empty IV bags. Bedpans not being emptied. Meds aren’t being passed out. Some of these people were apparently murdered in their beds. The survivors need aid. Over.

  “Roger. I’ll send Doc Waters down as soon as the building is cleared. Any sign of the CO or First Platoon, over?”

  Negative. There’s a lot of blood and brass. A lot of bodies who died of gunshot wounds. . . . No other sign of blue forces. Over.

  “Any sign of medical staff, over?”

  We see several body . . . parts that may be from the medical staff, over.

  Bowman is starting to piece together what happened. First Platoon only had a squad manning the front entry. This unit was attacked from front and rear by Mad Dogs on the street and coming out of the gym. The rest of Captain West’s command and First Platoon were attacked in isolated pockets, and probably destroyed. The medical staff was either slaughtered or infected and absorbed into the Mad Dog population.