Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (Book 4): Walking In The Shadow Of Death

by Lundy, W. J.

  Brad turned to face them. They seemed oblivious to his presence. They continued to walk in his direction, looking straight ahead. Brad scrunched as low as he could and tried to hide in the shadows of the parked cars. He felt the pistol in his hand and silently clicked the safety with his thumb, then used his pointer finger to activate the laser.

  “Take the one closest to you, I’ll hit the trailer.”

  Brad swallowed hard and raised his hand, watching the green dot dance about as his hand shook nervously. He used his left hand to steady his aim and carefully placed the IR dot that was invisible to the naked eye on the primal’s forehead. When they closed to within several yards, he exhaled as silently as possible and depressed the trigger until he felt the pistol buck in his hand. He immediately heard a thhhhpt … thwack as a round ripped through the air and hit the other primal. Both creatures dropped heavily to the ground.

  “Clear, move up.”

  Again Brad swallowed hard. He closed his eyes tightly as the strain through the NVGs was already beginning to take a toll on them. He got back to his feet and looked towards the market. From his new position he could just see inside the broken window. The space appeared empty. Must all be outside, he thought to himself.

  Brad continued to follow the parked cars. He was close to the clinic now; he could see the outline of the first rows of law enforcement vehicles and the entrance to the building. He had to repress the urge to walk faster, not to run. He wanted nothing more than to be back inside.

  “Hold.”

  Brad looked left and right, seeing nothing.

  Thhhhpt … thwack … thhhhpt … thwack

  Brad heard a dull thud from behind him.

  “Clear, move up.”

  Brad could feel his knees shaking as he turned and looked all around. Just behind him he saw the body of a primal with fresh blood oozing from its head. Farther back lay another one.

  He swallowed hard and willed his legs forward. He was moving between the law enforcement vehicles now. Two police cars with shattered windows. A car door was open. Brad looked inside the car and saw a police officer with his throat torn out. He quickly looked away and continued towards the clinic.

  “Hold.”

  Bad, bad idea, Brad thought to himself as he froze in place, trying to make himself invisible.

  Thhhhpt … thwack

  “Clear, move up.”

  Brad moved to the wall beside the clinic door and pressed against it. Just to the left of him was the entrance. It was jammed open. A body lay on the ground preventing it from closing. Brad looked at it, unable to identify it as male or female because of the snow covering it. Brad leaned out away from the wall and looked inside. There was a small lobby littered with objects and bodies. Furniture had been tossed about, and a long drift of snow was piled up just inside the door.

  Bad fucking idea, he thought.

  “Okay … once you get inside I won’t have eyes on you,” Sean said over the radio.

  No shit Sherlock, Brad thought angrily as his mood continued to go south.

  He took another deep breath, swallowed hard, then stepped over the body and into the clinic. He quickly moved inside and backed against a wall, trying to conceal himself. He thought of trying to close the clinic door so nothing could sneak in behind him. He grabbed the edge of the door with his free hand, but it was completely blocked by the body and frozen in place. Probing the body with his boot, he found that it was frozen to the ground. Brad reached down and gripped its frozen shoulder with his gloved hand and started to tug.

  “Stop worrying about the door, I won’t let anything in,” he heard Sean say.

  Brad looked back over his shoulder, trying to focus his vision on the tiny apartment located above the coffee shop. Finding the building but little else, Brad released the cadaver’s shoulder and re-entered the tiny lobby of the clinic. He moved through the snow and found an inside wall. He pressed back against it and knelt down into the shadows of the room. Brad sat silently like a statue, only moving his head as he slowly panned his night vision display across the space.

  The room had a tile floor that was covered in paperwork and broken furniture. Half the room was filled with snow where it had blown in through the open door. Brad scanned the drift and quickly identified several sets of footprints in the snow. He panned and searched deeper into the room. It ended at a long counter. To the right of the counter was a doorway; its door had long ago been torn from its hinges.

  “Are you alone?”

  “I don’t know,” he whispered, breaking his silence.

  “Explain?”

  “I don’t see anything, but there are tracks in the snow.”

  “Coming or going?”

  Brad looked again at the footprints. They did all appear to have the toe pointed towards the doorway. He let out a sigh of relief and shook his head as he reported back over the radio, “Going.”

  “Good, they were probably with the group pursuing the brothers. Be cautious, get in … get out.”

  Brad swallowed hard before getting back to his feet. He searched the room again and moved towards the counter, stepping deliberately to be as silent as possible. Brad pushed up against the cutout of the long counter. He scanned left and right. To the right he could see banks of printers and tall file cabinets. To the right was another door leading back. Brad leaned out over the counter and looked behind it.

  He saw the body of a thin woman. She was wearing a long lab coat and loose-fitting pants. Her coat was ripped and an arm was twisted away from her at an odd angle. Brad knew that if he were to remove his goggle and use a flashlight he would probably find blood and gore on her clothing. For a brief moment he was grateful of the sanitized view the night vision device provided.

  Brad stepped back and slowly walked towards the open doorway. He posted up next to the entrance and stood silently, again listening intently for anything that might be lurking inside. He could hear the wind whistling through the door. There was the clanging of an object. The beat was random yet rhythmic, probably something that had come loose in the wind, now slapping against the side of the building.

  Satisfied, Brad raised his pistol to the ready position and stepped into the doorway. He looked down a long hallway with doors on both sides; the end of the hall turned off and to the left. Brad stepped into the hallway and cautiously made his way to the first door. He looked at a sign above the door. It was labeled ‘Patient Room 1.’ Brad wasn’t there to clear the building; the door was closed so he moved on. Doors were staggered along the hall, each one labeled with an ascending number. He reached the end of the hall and slowly turned the corner, slicing it with his vision so that he always had his pistol pointed in the correct direction as new objects came into view.

  The hallway as it turned left opened into another large space. There was a destroyed coffee table in the middle and an overturned magazine rack. Brad saw a number of sofas and chairs along a wall. He took a step deeper into the space and saw more bodies. Like the woman in the front, they were also dressed as medical workers. Brad made his way towards a wall and again pressed back against it as he recon’d the space.

  The room was a large square. Across from him was an exit sign above a door, to the left, a lab, and to the right, a pharmacy. Brad stayed in his position and slowly lifted the goggles from his eyes to check the room for ambient light. As he’d suspected the room was pitch black. Deep in the building he was concealed in complete darkness. He continued to listen, hearing nothing but his own heartbeat, the wind, and the clanging object.

  “You have a status? There is more movement out here.” Brad jumped as Sean’s voice broke the silence.

  “I found the pharmacy, I’m about to enter,” Brad said as quietly as possible.

  “Okay, pick up the pace. The numbers are manageable, but they seem to be waking up, doubling every few minutes. They are all coming from the market.”

  “Great, thanks for the positive forecast.”

  “Anytime, buddy.”


  Brad rolled his shoulders and stepped towards the pharmacy door. Just to the right of the door was a small service window. A large panel had been slid across the window, shutting off the access. Brad reached down and tried the door. He found it locked; the knob turned easily in his hand, but the door wouldn’t budge. Sliding his gloved hand along the edges of the door he noticed there were bolts at the top and bottom. Possibly secured from inside or with a key.

  Brad pressed on the door again and verified the resistance and the weight of the door. He was certain he wouldn’t be able to break into it using the hawk. He moved on to the service window. There was a large pane of Plexiglas with a slot at the bottom. Just beyond that was a large wood panel sealing off the door. Looking closer he could see the wood panel was only held in place by a small locking latch and a track at the top and bottom of the panel. Brad reached his arm down into the slot and pulled on the Plexiglas. It was solid but he was confident he could remove it. Twisting his arm, he pushed against the wood door beyond the glass. He found it to be light and loosely fitted.

  “I have a problem,” Brad said over the radio.

  “Go.”

  “The door to the pharmacy, it’s heavy and secured. I’d need a fire axe or more to get in … There is a small window but it’s closed up and blocked on the far side with another door. Looks weak enough to gain entry but it’s going to be loud.”

  “It’s your call … I won’t lie to you, if you make noise you are probably going to piss off the neighbors.”

  “How’s it looking out there?”

  “Just shy of twenty of them. They took notice of the ones I put down. These fuckers aren’t acting dumb,” Sean said with anxiety in his voice.

  “We didn’t come all this way to go back empty-handed.”

  “Got it, I’ll keep them outside.”

  “Okay. There’s an exit door right here. If they get in, I’ll egress that direction … I’m about to open this can of whoop ass,” Brad said.

  14.

  Brad placed the spike of the tomahawk under the glass and the claw against the wall. He pressed down on the handle and heard the Plexiglas strain before snapping loudly and popping out of the frame. “Oops, that was a lot louder than I expected it to be,” Brad whispered.

  “I don’t think they heard it,” Sean answered.

  “Good, I’m going to breach the sliding interior door now,” Brad whispered.

  Brad positioned the tomahawk against the small metal latch. He began to apply his weight to the handle of the hawk. Boom! There was an impact against the far side. Brad jumped back, almost tripping over his own feet, yelping in the process. The banging continued and was joined by moaning and the high pitched scream of the primals.

  “What was that are you okay?”

  “Oh shit … Something’s in there,” Brad answered.

  “Okay … Brad, listen to me … get out, get out now. We’re scrubbing this mission.”

  “No, I got this, they still can’t see me.”

  “Brad … it’s over, get out of there!” Sean yelled.

  Brad ignored him and took the tomahawk in a baseball bat grip and swung at the door. The spike stuck, the thing banging on the other side continuing its assault on the door. Brad ignored the screaming and Sean’s instructions over the radio as he pulled out the hawk and swung again. This time the flimsy door began to split. Brad slipped the hawk back into its holster on his hip and leveled his M4. He had already made plenty of noise. What will a little more hurt? He thought to himself.

  Brad saw the split in the door open as a set of grey fingers reached through the crack. They pulled at the door until a piece of it broke away. Brad raised the rifle just as he recognized an eye staring back at him from the hole. He squeezed the trigger, putting two rounds into the door just right of the eye, the suppressed rifle sounding far louder in the confined space. The fingers lost their grip on the door and he heard a thud on the far side.

  Not wasting time, Brad used the collapsed stock of his rifle to knock away the remaining pieces of the sliding door. The pieces fell in, now allowing him to see into the pharmacy. He spied row after row of tall shelves stocked with bottles and boxes of medication. Brad looked left and right and saw no movement.

  “I’m going inside,” Brad said over the radio.

  “You need to hurry, the neighbors are pissed about the noise; they are moving towards the clinic.”

  “Got it,” Brad said as he pulled himself through the window.

  He landed next to the crumpled creature he’d just put down. Unlike the others, this one was wearing a law enforcement uniform. Its arm was wrapped in stained bandages. Brad saw that deeper into the room lay a pump shotgun and a semi auto pistol near the officer’s jacket. There were more bodies in the room, these ones torn apart. Brad looked to the heavy entrance door and saw that it had been locked and barricaded from the inside. The surface of the door was covered in deep scratches.

  “I see multiple dead in here … Clinic must have fallen … They hid in here together. Until this one turned on them, then folks didn’t have a chance,” Brad mumbled.

  “Yeah, we’ve seen that before. Are the meds there? Brad, you need to hurry,” Sean said, cutting him off.

  “Yeah, shelves of them. Okay, let me look.”

  “Brad, I’m trying to push them back, but they are onto you. They’re all moving towards the clinic now.”

  Brad pulled the sheet of paper from his breast pocket. It listed generic medical items such as gauze bandages, syringes. Brad saw a wall stacked with miscellaneous medical supplies. He opened his pack and began stuffing them in, several of everything, no time to sort in the dark. He came to the drug list. It called for pain killers and antibiotics. Darvocet, Percocet, Oxycodone, Tramadol. Brad read the list but didn’t see them on the shelf. He quickly ran up and down the aisles searching until he saw a locked cabinet in the back.

  No time to waste. Brad leveled the M4 and shot through the handle. He grabbed the door and twisted the latch until it popped open. The first thing he saw was a box labeled ‘Hydrocodone/Vicodin.’ Shit, close enough, Brad thought as he grabbed the box and dumped its contents into his pack. Then he grabbed several other bottles from the cabinet and threw them in. If it’s worth locking up it must be good shit, he thought as he turned to search for the antibiotics.

  He looked at the list. They all seemed to end in ‘cin’. He was looking, knocking over boxes, when he heard an unsuppressed gunshot. “What was that?” he asked, continuing his search.

  “I’m buying you some time, they’re at the clinic door,” Sean said just as Brad heard another gunshot.

  Brad tipped over another box, finding a bottle labeled ‘Sisomicin.’ “I don’t know what you are, but you’re coming with me,” Brad whispered as he dumped the bottles and those around it into his pack. He quickly zipped it shut and put it on his back. He turned towards the window as the frequency of gunshots increased.

  “Brad, they’re inside! You need to find another way out,” he heard Sean yell just as a primal crashed against the window.

  Brad jumped back, pumping rounds into the creature’s head as it attempted to climb into the space. “Fuck, they’re at the window!” Brad yelled as he turned and grabbed a shelf behind him. He pulled it sideways and then shoved it against the wall, blocking the window. He took a desk in the corner and slid it across the room and jammed it against the shelf. Now Brad could hear them screaming and beating against the other side of the shelf.

  “Brad they’re in the coffee shop below me, I have to bug out!” Sean said.

  “What the fuck, I’m trapped in here, don’t leave me Chief.”

  “Hey, you’re still in the fight, don’t quit … I’m moving, back with you in a few.”

  Brad continued to pile the shelves against the window entrance. He could hear them screaming against the far side, but his barricade was holding. Brad looked around the room, finding it hard to see. He flipped up his night vision and turned on his flashlight.
He immediately wished he hadn’t; the room’s floor was coated with dried blood, the walls streaked with bloody handprints. The white light brought color to the horror of what had happened to the pharmacy workers.

  Brad moved the light along the ceiling and walls. He was closed in. There appeared to be no other way out. He moved around the room, yanking shelving from the walls and throwing them against the barricade. He knocked over the cabinet filled with painkillers, searching the wall behind it. Nothing. He was trapped. Brad moved to the wall opposite the barricaded window and dropped to the floor. They were still screaming outside and beating against the shelving. He watched the wall vibrate with every impact.

  “Chief? You there? … Sean?”

  There was no response. Brad pushed the magazine release on the M4, quickly replacing the mag with a full one. He took off the assault pack and sat it next to him. He could see his breath. Even though he was still sweating, he knew he would be cold soon. Brad searched the room and saw the police jacket still lying near the shotgun and pistol in the corner. He got to his feet and moved towards it. The jacket was dark blue and of a heavy quilted material. Brad picked it up. There was a large tear and blood marks on the sleeve.

  Brad pulled his knife and cut away the bloody part of the jacket. He looked down at the pistol. The slide was locked to the rear and empty. He picked up the shotgun, a standard 12-gauge with iron sights. On closer inspection he found three rounds in the tube and five more attached to the stock. He left the pistol but decided to take the shotgun for now. He moved back to his spot by the wall and sat down, pulled his knees in tight and placed the police jacket over them. All the while the primals continued to scream and press against the barricade.

  Brad shut off the light and sat quietly in the dark. The longer he sat, the calmer the primals became. He could still hear them on the other side of the room, snarling and occasionally lashing out at each other. Brad would sometimes drift off, but sharply be woken by the sounds of an attack against the barricade. He forced himself to stay quiet, to avoid using the light. Often he would power on his night vision to reassure himself that he was still alone in the pharmacy. He tried the radio several more times, getting no response.