The lieutenant fills the rest of the team in on the situation.
“Is anybody else getting a bad feeling about this place?” Gunny asks.
“I am,” Claire says. “It started right around the time I had to hide in a bathtub for a couple hours.”
“Sir,” says Sarge. “Maybe we should just get the hell out of here while we still have those Victors secured.”
“We aren’t leaving without the doctor,” says Logan.
“I thought you said we lost contact with them?” says Sergeant Lowe. “We have to assume that something happened.”
“Why don’t we just talk to Jenson?” says Claire. “Maybe we can try reasoning with him.”
“They’re not really big on talking things out around here,” Mac says. “You haven’t met these assholes, Miss Davies.”
The volume of the conversations increase as everyone begins arguing and talking over each other.
“Listen up,” yells the lieutenant. “Everyone stay calm. We may not be able to unfuck the situation here and that is not our job. All we can do is focus on our mission and make sure we are prepared for anything that comes at us.”
The lieutenant pauses to let everyone take a breath.
“Arguing with each other won’t fix anything. We still have a lot to do before anything happens, so I need you all to focus,” he says. “Logan, keep working on getting in touch with your contact. Gunny, take Lowe and Collins and see if you can get some additional supplies. Rations, medicine, batteries, anything else we might need at Los Alamos. Claire—”
“I know,” she says. “Stay in the room. Got it.”
“I’m sorry,” says the lieutenant. “It won’t be for much longer.”
She heads back into the room and closes the door again.
“I’ll keep her entertained if you want, sir,” Mac offers.
“That won’t be necessary, Corporal,” says the lieutenant. Will glances at me and Sarge. “You two better get changed into some of the clothes that Gunny brought back. I want everyone ready to go as soon as we get word back from Logan.”
“Yes sir,” I tell him.
Mac waits for me while I grab a change of clothes from the selection that Gunny got from the BX. None of them are really my style, so I settle on a pair of black cargo pants and a black and white flannel shirt.
“Don’t you ever wear any color?” Mac says, gesturing at the tropical shirt on the bed that matches his own.
“I’d just hate the thought of us getting confused by anyone,” I tell him.
“You just don’t think you can pull off this look,” he says. “I get it.”
“Don’t you ever stop?” I say. I’m losing my patience with him a bit. Usually it’s fine, but I’m still feeling edgy about our current situation. After I toss my uniform on the bed and put on the new clothes, I take a look at myself in the mirror. I push up the sleeves, but still feel like I look stupid.
“You know, when you don’t have your uniform on you look like you’re not even old enough to drive,” he informs me.
“Shut the fuck up, Mac,” I tell him.
“Just saying,” Mac shrugs.
I head out to the hall and find Logan looking at his phone. I watch as he dials a number on the keypad. It’s a different number than I remember seeing him dial to call Jess. Even seemingly little shit like this, I always remember.
“Who are you calling?” I ask him.
He holds up a hand as if to block the sound of my voice as he listens to the phone.
“Hey, it’s Logan,” he says.
There is a short pause. I try to hear the other end of the conversation but the volume on the phone is too quiet.
“I haven’t been able to reach her,” Logan says.
Another pause.
“Are you sure?” he says. “I need absolute certainty on this.”
There is a long pause while he listens on the phone. The lieutenant comes out of his room, now wearing a pair of camo cargo shorts and a green polo shirt.
“Thanks,” Logan sighs as he hangs up the phone. For a long moment, Logan stares at the device in his hands.
“Who was that?” the lieutenant asks.
“I couldn’t get through to Jess,” Logan says. “So I put a call in to a friend of mine at NORAD. He was able to track the helicopter by GPS to an Army airfield in Missouri where they stopped to refuel. He was monitoring them by satellite.”
“That’s good news, then,” the lieutenant says.
“No,” says Logan. “They were ambushed by an unaffiliated group after they touched down. They tried to take off but the helicopter went down in the forest a few miles away. No one has been able to contact them since. The area is swarming with the dead. I think we have to presume the doctor did not survive.”
“That’s it then,” Sarge says.
“Game over,” says Mac.
Nineteen
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” says Will.
He raps a knuckle against the door to get Claire. She opens it a few inches with an exasperated sigh and peers out into the hall.
“The doc is dead,” Will says. “We’re leaving.”
“Hold on,” says Claire. She grabs at his sleeve as he turns to walk away. “What happened?”
“The helicopter crashed,” Will tells her. “I’m sorry. We have to go now. Get your things.”
Several minutes later, we escort Claire out the front door of the inn and head up the block towards the airfield. The sun is sinking below the massive dunes to the west, casting shades of pink and orange onto the white sand. Several men patrol the street, walking along with assault rifles at a low ready. The lieutenant holds up a couple fingers when one of them waves and we swiftly pass by them.
We reach the airfield and Gunny directs us to a hangar at the far end of the runway. The area is quiet aside from the cool breeze kicking up sand on the tarmac.
“Just around the corner,” Gunny says.
“You gassed them up, right?” Will asks.
“Yeah, we got more than enough to get to Los Alamos,” Gunny says as they round the corner.
“Los Alamos?” Jenson says. I recognize the tone of his voice before I even come around the side of the hangar and see him sitting on the hood of the Humvee holding an apple in his hand with a big bite missing from it. After a quick scan of the scene, I count about twenty of his men surrounding the vehicles. He swallows, then takes another bite of the apple and waits for some kind of response from us.
Will opens his mouth, but he hesitates. In all the time I have known him, I have never seen him at a loss for words until now. He was not expecting a clown like Jenson to be a step ahead of him. Maybe we all underestimated him.
“You fellas wouldn’t be running out on us?” he asks Will as he tosses the apple off to the side and slides off the hood of the Humvee.
“No,” Will finally says.
“No?” Jenson asks. “That’s kind of what it seems like.”
I keep my rifle ready, just in case. I don’t want to get into a shootout right here, but if they try anything I won’t go down without a fight.
“Lieutenant, did you know there are still over one thousand women and children on this base right now?” Jenson asks. “You really going to leave them here to be eaten alive by the dead? Is that the kind of men you are?”
“I don’t see you volunteering to drive down to Orogrande,” Gunny says.
Will holds up a hand to tell Gunny to be quiet. He approaches Jenson, but keeps a casual distance. Jenson stands a good six inches taller than the lieutenant, and looks much more imposing in comparison.
“We are going to take those Victors and complete the operation, just like we discussed,” Will says. “After that, my team will proceed with our mission to Los Alamos.”
“Okay then,” says Jenson. He holds out a hand to invite us to get into the Humvees.
Will jerks his head and we begin to pile into the vehicles as Jenson and his followers stand around watching.
For a moment, I have to wonder if he is just a complete moron. Once we take the trucks, there isn’t anything preventing us from taking off and leaving them to die.
“Oh,” Jenson says. “Just thought I’d remind you, I’ll be watching. You know… drones.”
He gestures up toward the sky.
“If you get the urge not to keep your word,” he warns. He balls his fists up and makes an exploding sound as he opens them up again.
“Let’s move out,” Will says.
Will turns around and climbs into the passenger side of the vehicle beside Corporal Collins.
“Good luck boys,” Jenson waves after us as we begin to accelerate away from the hangar.
“I really want to kick his ass,” I mutter.
“Even with two good hands, he’d bust you like a piñata,” Mac says.
“Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t enjoy trying,” I say.
I feel Claire looking at me, the whole situation seems to have her on the verge of tears.
“You okay?” I ask her.
“I never thought people could be this terrible to each other,” she says.
“This ain’t nothing,” says Sarge. “People are capable of worse.”
“I still don’t understand how we got suckered into this shit,” Mac says. “The lieutenant really fucked this one up.”
“He didn’t have a choice,” says Sarge. “Besides, there are innocent people here. Kids. Families. Jenson wasn’t lying about that. If he isn’t going to risk his ass to help them, it might as well be us.”
“It’s not our mission,” I say.
“Yeah,” says Sarge. “But it still might be the right thing to do.”
“Unless we all die,” says Mac.
“Let’s just focus then and make sure that doesn’t happen,” Sarge says.
We pull out of the base and onto a dusty backroad that winds through the rocky desert. As the skies turn black, I look up at the amazing number of stars in the sky around the glowing swirl of the Milky Way. I forgot how mesmerizing it is to look at. Like God is trying to remind you that your problems will never matter that much in the grand scheme of things. Even if this is the end of humanity, the universe will continue to expand and grow and change, and our entire existence will be nothing more than a tiny flicker in all of it.
Within a half hour, we reach the intersection at Orogrande. The vehicles pause in the middle of the road while we all scan the highway to El Paso that stretches into the dark night. Although we can’t see the dead yet, we can hear them. The faint constant moaning of thousands and thousands of corpses travels across the desert.
“Do you hear that?” Claire asks.
The haunting sound sends a chill down my spine. I try not to let it show. Claire looks nervous enough already.
“Don’t worry,” I assure Claire. “They won’t get anywhere near us. We just have to lead them up that road. It’ll be fine.”
“Unless this old Humvee dies,” says Mac. “Or Jenson decides to drop a bomb on our heads.”
“Corporal,” Sarge warns him.
“I mean, it’s probably going to all be fine,” Mac says. “The lieutenant has assured me we’re perfectly safe out here.”
“Enough, Mac,” Sarge says.
The dark figures of the dead appear in the distance as they shamble toward us down the highway.
“I see them,” I say.
The trucks roll side-by-side along the empty highway.
Gibby lights the stiffs up with the fitty cal, spraying bullets into the oncoming horde that trails behind us. The barrage does nothing to slow them, but the noise ensures they chase after us.
The sight of all the corpses at our six is terrifying, but we keep leading them along for miles down the dark highway. At least until we come to an overturned tanker that blocks the road.
The scent of fuel fills the air. Gunny drives off the road to the left around the rear of the tanker. Mac steers off the road in the opposite direction. Bushes scrape the undercarriage and the wheels spin in the sand, but he gets us around the tanker. Mac pulls back on to the highway but stops when he notices the other vehicle stuck in a ditch.
“Fuck,” Sarge says.
The immense amount of fuel from the tanker turned the sand into a quagmire on the other side of the road. We watch as Gunny gives it some gas and tries to push out of the sand, but the Humvee isn’t going anywhere.
“Not good,” says Mac.
The lieutenant yells for the rest of the squad to abandon the vehicle as the dead swarm around the tanker. Gunny and the lieutenant climb out and sprint toward the road, but Collins, Logan and Sergeant Lowe fail to get out before the dead surround the Humvee.
I raise my rifle, but I hesitate to shoot. One spark could create a massive explosion with all that gasoline in the area.
“Don’t fire,” I yell, but it doesn’t matter.
One of the dead latches on to the CIA agent and he pulls his sidearm and fires in desperation. The air all around us catches fire. I raise my arm to shield my face from the heat of the fireball. When I lower it again, I hear the screaming.
Gunny is engulfed in flames, he flails his arms as he falls to the ground. The lieutenant swats at the fire that covers the back half of his own body. He drops and rolls around on the highway. I see the shapes of Collins and Sergeant Lowe ablaze inside the vehicle.
“Gibby!” yells Sarge. “Help me get Will.”
The two of them jump out of the truck and race over to where the lieutenant is collapsed in the road. I fire at some of the dead to cover them, but we only have seconds before there will be too many. Sarge tosses his combat jacket over the lieutenant and tries to smother the fire. Corpses, some of them in flames, close in around the men.
“Hurry up!” Mac yells.
Gibby and Sarge lift the lieutenant up and carry him back to the Humvee, but the dead are too close. I pull the trigger again to try and hold the dead off, but my mag runs dry as the things encircle them.
Several of the dead grab on to Gibby first. He tries to break free of their grip and keep moving, but more of them lunge at him and latch on to his clothes. He yells at the top of his lungs as he lets go of the lieutenant and falls back into the horde.
I jump out of the truck and run over to help Sarge. He shoves the dead to keep them away from the lieutenant until I reach them and help drag Will back to the truck. I get in and Sarge lifts Will on top of me in the seat. His legs dangle out the open rear door, so I wrap my arm around his neck and hold onto him.
Mac hits the gas once Sarge gets into the front seat, but the dead are already swarming around us. I reach for my nine-mil and fire at their faces as they try to pull the lieutenant away and climb inside the Humvee. Claire screams and leans back into me when the dead reach through the window on the opposite side of the vehicle.
“Get us out of here, Mac!” I yell as I kick at the dead in the door and fire again.
The vehicle lurches over several bodies and then breaks free from the group. Some of them cling to the vehicle, hanging on to the hood and the bumper as we pull ahead of the pack. The Humvee swerves as Mac tries to shake them off of us to see the road ahead. I fire at the last of the dead that clings to the lieutenants leg. It falls away and tumbles on the pavement.
“We’re clear,” I say, but when I turn around, I see a corpse crawling through the turret from the roof. I lift the gun and fire my last round as the thing lunges down at us. Claire screams as the stiff falls headfirst into the Humvee and crashes to the floor between us.
“Everyone okay?” Sarge asks.
With the chaos and the surge of adrenaline and the continual pain from my hand, I have no idea if I am okay. I glance quickly to see if I have any new injuries. I take a look at Claire; her face is flushed, and she is panting so hard that she can’t even speak, but she seems okay.
“We’re good,” I say.
Then I notice Sarge is inspecting a wound on his arm. He cringes at the sight of a missing chunk of flesh. Blood drips
onto his jeans. It’s definitely a bite. Sarge leans his head back against the seat as he wraps his tourniquet around the wound.
“How’s Will doing?” he asks me.
I take a look down at our platoon commander. Half of his face is burnt to a crisp. I check for a pulse, and I finally find it.
“He’s alive,” I say. “But he’s in really bad shape. We need to get him help soon or he won’t make it.”
Twenty
“We need to drive faster,” I urge Mac.
“I can’t go any faster,” Mac says. “If we get too far ahead of those things, Private Dickhead might decide to order a drone strike on our fucking heads.”
“Will is dying, Mac,” I plead. “He won’t be able to hang on much longer.”
“Mac is right,” Sarge tells me. “We have to maintain our speed.”
“Fuck,” I curse. “This ain’t right.”
I can feel myself losing my grip. We have lost a lot of our brothers, but Will has been the glue that kept us together through all of it. As I look down at him, burnt and on the verge of death, I begin to feel the burden of everything we have been through over the last few days.
“Keep it together, Corporal,” Sarge reminds me. “We can’t afford to lose our shit now.”
I decide right then and there that if we make it back to base, I am going to kill Private Jenson. It doesn’t matter if I die in the process. All of the pain and frustration and rage that has built up inside me since this started becomes focused on that singular objective. I just want him to die.
Will starts to convulse in my arms. His body shakes so violently I nearly lose my hold on him.
“Shit,” I curse.
“What’s wrong with him?” Sarge asks.
“A seizure, or something,” I say.
“He’s going into shock,” Sarge says. “Fuck.”
“What do I do?” I can’t remember any of my training in this moment. Besides, there probably isn’t much I can do for him right now.
“Don’t quit on us, Will,” Sarge says.
“Hang in there, lieutenant,” I plead.
Will trembles violently before he lets out a gasp, and his body goes still in my arms.
ROTD (Book 3): Rage of the Dead Page 12