Tooth And Nail

by Craig DiLouie

  Mooney sits against a wall, his carbine between his knees and his mouth blissfully full of stale cupcake, and listens to the sounds of the boys sharing stories and seeking each other out in fellowship. He is intensely aware of everything around him and his own place among them. Like the other soldiers, he has an innate knowledge that every passing minute is bringing them closer to a confrontation with Maddy in daylight. In just a half an hour, he might be dead, his body torn to shreds by a homicidal mob. Life is particularly precious to the doomed. Every moment that passes, he experiences like a snapshot. And he is filled with intense fraternal love for all of the other soldiers because they might die, too.

  The thing is, if they will die, at least they won’t die alone. In the end, after all, that is all a soldier truly owns in combat—the possible comfort of dying among friends. That is why soldiers consider other soldiers their family. They look the tiger in the eye together, at the edge of oblivion.

  It is sad to think, though, that for those who do die today, war will be the only thing they have every truly experienced.

  “So this Hajji’s up on the roof firing an RPG—remember that guy?” Carrillo says, almost shouting as he reminisces. “Every time Second Squad shot at him, he ducked down, then popped up to fire again, only he wasn’t even firing at us.”

  “Oh right, he kept shooting at that yellow station wagon parked near that factory,” Finnegan chimes in. “And we were like, ‘What’s he shooting at? Does he need glasses or is he just an idiot?’”

  “They had Second Squad boxed up nice and neat in a kill zone and that dude could have done some serious damage to those guys, but he kept firing at the vehicle,” Ratliff says, laughing.

  “That’s right, it was a VCIED!” Carrillo says, his eyes gleaming and slightly vacant, reliving the moment. “That car was wired up like a big brick of C4 but didn’t go off. So he tried to make it blow by hitting it with a grenade.”

  “Only he couldn’t shoot for shit,” Wyatt points out.

  “Some of them could,” Mooney says, instantly regretting it. The laughter dies down into a smattering of chuckles. Now they are starting to think about the rest of that horrible day fighting in the alleys, streets, courtyards, houses. By the end of that day, they were exchanging point blank fire with insurgents in the middle of people’s living rooms. They cannot remember whether the insurgents were Sunni or Shi’a, jihadist or nationalist. But they do remember how Torres died in the house to house fighting, how Simmons lost both his legs.

  “Yeah,” Carrillo says softly, trying to hold onto the moment.

  “Hey, what about that night, when the Tank Team showed up, and that crazy Hajji took on an M1 Abrams with an AK?” Finnegan says.

  The boys howl with laughter, rekindling their mirth with fresh memories. Mooney grins. The AK47 rounds bounced harmlessly off the tank’s composite armor, already scorched and scratched by numerous RPG hits and heavy machine gun fire. At first, the tankers could not believe what they were seeing, then decided if it’s a duel the insurgent wanted, they would oblige. The tank ground to a halt in a cloud of dust, its turret swiveling, and lowered its rifled tank gun. Moments later, it fired a round that lit up the street like daytime for a moment, vaporizing the Iraqi instantly.

  “Like a fly swatter squashing a gnat,” Finnegan adds.

  “Brave or stupid, take your pick,” Corporal Eckhardt chimes in.

  Again, the levity does not last. This time, the image of the lone Iraqi pointlessly shooting at a sixty-ton armored monster bearing down on him—its steel-clad treads squealing and its big gun lining up to belch instant death in the form of a 105-mm HE round—does not strike them as quite so darkly comical today.

  The prospect of going up against Maddy again this morning, in fact, is suddenly making them identify with that plucky but seemingly suicidal insurgent.

  Brave or stupid, take your pick.

  And yet they too would try.

  Not quite saving the world, but I’ll take it

  Kemper knocks on the door with the nameplate that says joseph hardy, research director, and enters to find the CO sitting on the edge of the desk, studying his wrinkled map of Manhattan that he has thumbtacked to the wall.

  Kemper places his hand over his heart and says, “Salaam ’Alaykum, sir.”

  Bowman usually answers, “Hooah” to this greeting when it’s given by a fellow veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom—specifically, Operation Together Forward III, in which all soldiers learned Iraqi customs as a strategy to win hears and minds—but today he says earnestly, “Wa ’Alaykum As-Salaam, Mike.”

  And unto you be peace.

  Kemper’s eyes flicker to the map.

  “The plan is solid, sir,” he says. “The men know what to do.”

  “I have endless faith in the men,” Bowman answers. “But almost none in plans.”

  Kemper laughs, lighting one of his foul-smelling cigars.

  Bowman continues: “A million things could go wrong and get us all killed. It’s going to be a hard day, Mike. The ultimate test.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “This will be the last military operation before America gives up on New York. Once we’re gone, the city will be ceded to the virus.”

  “If Maddy lets us leave, sir.”

  “And if Immunity sends us those birds.” Bowman checks his watch. “It’s already too late. We’re going to be making part of this march in broad daylight.”

  “I don’t suppose you can get the General to postpone the extraction for a day.”

  “I’m afraid that’s a big November Golf, Mike.”

  “You don’t want to go now, while it’s dark, and wait for the birds at the Park?”

  “What if they don’t show? We’d be stuck out in the open. This is a good position we’ve got here. We’ve got electricity. We may end up having to stick around.”

  “Speaking of which, there is another alternative, sir, that I didn’t want to bring up in front of the other men for obvious reasons.”

  “Stay here?”

  “Do what everybody else is doing. Take care of number one.”

  Kemper realizes that only in a crisis as bad as this are they able to even talk this openly about desertion.

  “And then what?”

  Kemper shrugs. “Maybe try to get back to the high school and sit this thing out until Maddy finally drops dead. Try to get the people here fed and organized somehow after it’s over. They’re going to need a government. Perhaps this is where our duty lies?”

  “Yeah. You’ve seen how good we are at nation building.”

  Kemper exhales a cloud of smoke and laughs again.

  Bowman shakes his head.

  “Seriously, Mike. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to stay in this war as long as I can. We raised our right hand to uphold the Constitution against all enemies, and if ever America needed us to fight an enemy, it’s now. In any case, we’ve got to get the scientist out. Who knows, maybe she really can cure this thing. The world can’t have a vaccine right now, but it might need one later. It’s not quite saving the world, but I’ll take it.”

  The Platoon Sergeant nods. “I figured on you feeling that way, Captain.”

  “That’s the mission.”

  “It’s a bag of dicks, that’s for certain.”

  “Hooah, Mike.”

  “Anyhow, you asked to see me. What do you need?”

  “Right. It’s like this, Mike: I need an officer to command Second Platoon.”

  “What about Lieutenant Knight?”

  “I’ve made him my XO.”

  “Ah. Smart.”

  “Mike, I’m offering you a promotion to the rank of first lieutenant.”

  “Right. Ah, sorry, sir, but I’m going to have to say thanks but no thanks to that promotion. If you’re really feeling magnanimous, sir, you can promote me to Sergeant Major. But even First Sergeant would be a nice step up in pay grade.”

  The CO grins. “Afraid all your friends would ditch you, M
ike?”

  “If I became an officer, sir, whose incompetence would I bitch about all day?”

  Bowman laughs out loud and says, “So be it. The battalion will be reconstituting as an overstrength company, and it’s going to need a First Sergeant, so you’re it.”

  He extends his hand to Kemper, who shakes it warmly.

  “Congratulations,” he adds. “It’s a well deserved promotion. Although I don’t know about that rise in pay. Money’s becoming worthless. For all I know, they’re going to start paying us in MREs.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Same to you, Mike. Thanks for everything. . . . I wanted to let you know, whatever happens, that I appreciate everything you’ve taught me.”

  “You’re paying me back for it. You’re starting to teach me a thing or two.”

  “Well,” Bowman says, embarrassed.

  “Do you mind if I take that map, sir?”

  “Help yourself.”

  Kemper takes it down from the wall, folds it carefully, and puts it in a pocket of his BDUs.

  “Souvenir, sir,” he says.

  I must be in good hands with soldiers who have a name like that

  The elevator takes Petrova and a squad of gawking soldiers down to the lobby, where the rest of the company has assembled and is ready to leave the building. When they are not staring at her—the famous scientist they believe holds the secret to curing the plague—she likes to watch them work. These kids seem to know what they are doing. They move like clockwork and are well led by their NCOs, the professional warriors.

  The company begins to file out of the building in sections. First, two platoons exit in a paired column, one soldier swinging left and one swinging right to provide a defensive perimeter on the street so that the rest of the company can safely exit. Then Captain Bowman, trailed by his machine gunners, whom he calls the Alamo Squad, leads the rest of the company outside.

  Petrova blinks in the dim light, marveling at the sky, which she has not seen for days.

  The air is chilly and the sky is gray and cloudy.

  The helicopters took too long to get in the air. Dawn has come and the column will be moving in daylight. The gray sky is already filled with screaming birds, feeding on the dead.

  She cannot believe the carnage. The cars smashed against each other at odd angles on a road of garbage and broken glass. The blood splashed across the ground and pooled in the potholes. She steps over random torn luggage, battered children’s books, a pattern of cracked CDs. People’s entire lives spilled onto the ground. Without its owners, it is just garbage.

  The air smells like smoke.

  My God, Petrova tells herself, it is not even a city anymore, but a wasteland. She was picturing a city in a crisis, not already fallen.

  This was her home, and she is leaving it forever.

  At last, the CO gives the order to move out. The company gets onto its feet, weapons and gear clanking, and begins its march north at a brisk pace. She feels safe being surrounded by so much legendary American firepower, and yet feels completely vulnerable in the open like this.

  The Mad Dogs are out there in their armies, hunting the uninfected. Petrova can sense them. Their growling gently touches her ears as whispers on the breeze. Their marching vibrates under her feet, a deep rumble in the distance. If the Mad Dogs brought the greatest city in the world to ruin like this in days, what does this puny group of boys hope to do with their rifles and bombs and machine guns? They would shoot an ocean, hoping to kill it.

  She passes the burned wreck of a Chevy Malibu. The charred, blackened skeletons of the driver and his family are still inside. The driver’s grinning jaws hang open, as if laughing silently at the fools passing him by. The horror of it slaps her in the face.

  She presses her hands over her mouth and swallows hard, painfully aware that the soldiers around her are watching to see how she will react. They are not being malicious. They are visibly anxious. If she starts screaming, she could put their lives in danger.

  But Petrova does not scream; she steels herself and keeps walking, passing one horror after another. Overhead, the black birds cackle, as if laughing at them all.

  She turns to the soldier marching next to her, a tall, slim twenty-year-old with intelligent eyes, apparently part of a handpicked detail assigned to guard her.

  “What is your name?” she says as quietly as possible.

  “PFC Jon Mooney, Ma’am,” he answers earnestly, if mechanically.

  She tentatively holds out her hand.

  He stares at it, then takes it with his own gloved hand, gripping it firmly.

  “I’ve got you, Dr. Petrova.”

  “Thank you, Jon.”

  The boy’s face lights up at hearing his first name.

  “I’m Joel,” the soldier on her other side says. “Do you want a Kit Kat bar, lady?”

  Petrova smiles and shakes her head politely. She is too nervous to eat and besides, she lived on junk food out of the vending machine for days and is now thoroughly sick of it. They’ve gone several blocks without incident but they have so far to go, and the sky continues to lighten as the sun rises above the horizon.

  Above, people are waking up to the noise the column is making as it weaves its way through a street choked with cars, and begin shouting down at them from windows. Some ask for help killing a Mad Dog loose in a stairwell, public corridor or even in a neighboring room. Some ask for food and water and medicine. Everyone ask for news, any news.

  Are you here to help us?

  Who sent you?

  Is it over?

  Petrova looks down at her feet, her face burning at the thought the Army is not fighting its way into New York to save its people, but sneaking its way out to save just her alone, abandoning everybody here to a likely future of disease, starvation and death.

  This city was her home. These people are the New Yorkers she shared its sidewalks, subways, restaurants, museums, parks, taxis, cafes and treasures with.

  “What is your unit?” she asks Mooney, hoping to distract herself. She instinctively trusts this seemingly sensitive young man. His eyes have not died like most of the other boys’. Their eyes have seen too much killing and they’ve been turned partly into what they hate, killing machines capable of thoughtless, wholesale slaughter. Those creatures roaming the streets are, in a sense, the living dead, but some of these soldiers are the dead living. Jon Mooney is one of those who are still alive. He is still human. She can tell by looking at his eyes, where the soul shows itself.

  “First Squad, Second Platoon, Charlie Company, First Battalion, Eighth Brigade, Seventy-Fifth Regiment, Sixth Infantry Division. They call our brigade the Crazy Eights, Ma’am. Technically, we’re all that’s left of it.”

  “The Crazy Eights,” she says.

  “That’s right.”

  “I must be in good hands with soldiers who have a name like that.”

  Mooney grins and says, “We’re the best at what we do. You’re safe with us.”

  “So what is my special name?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “President Kennedy was known as Lancer. I must have a special name.”

  “Actually, you do. You’re, uh, ‘Doctor Killjoy.’”

  “Oh,” she says.

  “The names aren’t very important, Ma’am. They’re almost pulled out of a hat.”

  “It is okay,” she says. “But it is not as good as ‘Crazy Eights.’”

  The soldier laughs, while the people in the windows above continue shouting.

  Can I come with you?

  Are you here to stay?

  Do you guys need any help?

  The noise has already attracted a stream of Mad Dogs, who are quickly bayoneted. Then the first shots ring out. The gunshots reverberate in the street, echo down the canyons formed by the buildings. These sounds in turn flush more Mad Dogs out of their hiding places. Snarling and snapping their jaws, they come running at the column from alleys and side streets and out of buildings
, only to be speared or shot on sight.

  Petrova suddenly feels her body clench with fear. She squeezes Mooney’s hand fiercely, her arm trembling. The soldier holds on and does not complain. He is looking up at the buildings, frowning at the sudden change in atmosphere. He hears it, too.

  A bizarre rumbling sound, like a million cardboard boxes being punched in the distance.

  The civilians in the windows are crying out to them in panicked voices, pointing south. The NCOs at the rear of the column shout into their radios.

  Letting go of Mooney’s hand, Petrova climbs onto the hood and then scrambles up onto the roof of a Ford Ranger pickup truck, ignoring his protests.

  Panting, she turns and looks south.

  A moving wall of people races towards them, raising a colossal cloud of dust that drifts high in the air, wafting against the sides of skyscrapers.

  Deep in the flood of Mad Dogs, cars and trucks appear to slide as they are jostled by the crowd, like they’re floating on water.

  A million Bairds, all rushing headlong towards her in a compact, twitching mass, driven by a single mind.

  She screams.

  If you can’t run . . .

  Captain Bowman stands on the roof of a blood-spattered yellow taxi, carbine slung over his shoulder, looking through binoculars and whistling at the horde of Maddies bearing down on his command from less than two thousand meters away. Around him, the company streams past, preparing to shed squads every block to form lines facing south.

  He is faced by an overwhelming force, and has few options. He can’t run, at least not very far, because Maddy runs faster. He can’t hide because the helicopters will be recalled if the company doesn’t show up at the scheduled time, and they will be trapped here; besides, there is no guarantee Maddy will not follow them into the buildings.