by Gary Hickman
“What the fuck?” Webb could feel the heat and heard shrapnel wiz past his head. He looked up and witnessed one of the infected who was hanging off the side, throw a small ball-type thing at them. Another explosion rocked them, this time to their rear. “Mother fucker! Where did they get fucking grenades?”
Webb was hot and now he was fully loaded. “Get ready for the pain, shitheads!” Webb wrenched back the charging handle and grinned as he depressed the handles. Chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk. The tracers lit a streaking red path across the darkness as the rounds slammed into bodies and machine.
Rounds decimated the 5-ton’s grill and hood, sending bits of metal back into the infected hanging off the running boards. A couple dropped off, killed by the initial damage, then Webb raised the barrel up a few inches and plowed round after round into the windshield of the cab. Blood splattered on the back window and sprayed out through the open windows onto the infected still hanging off the running boards.
The 5-ton lost control as the driver slumped over the steering wheel, causing the truck to pivot and flip on its side. Webb adjusted his fire, aiming for the exposed gas tank now sticking up in the air. Baboom! The 5-ton exploded with an a-bomb inspired cloud, reducing any infected left alive to a smoldering piece of charcoal. Webb and Izzy turned their attention to the restseemed scared of the infected horde. A few stragglers remained between them and HQ. Izzy and Webb made a B-Line for the compound.
Shin and Neville were continuing to lead the infected, doing something close to a vast figure eight. They would lead a group of infected in a direction, only to circle around behind them where Neville would unload on them. It was effective, but only pulled small numbers away from the larger group.
The rest of the horde was several hundred yards away from the HQ. The make shift gate was now open and soldiers were frantically motioning for the two Humvees to drive through. Izzy was almost to the gate when Neville noticed them. He turned toward HQ and made a B-Line for it. A moment later, both Humvees had entered the open gate, and it was immediately slammed shut.
The vehicles came to a stop in the make-shift courtyard a couple hundred feet inside the gate. Webb dropped through the turret and stepped out of the vehicle. A couple soldiers ran up to and saluted as they saw that he was a captain. “Who is in charge here?” Webb asked.
“Major Harwell, Sir,” a young private who was scared shitless, answered.
“What about Colonel Madison?”
“I am afraid he is no longer with us, Sir.”
“No longer on this earth or no longer on this compound?” “No longer alive, Sir.”
“Shit. Ok, take me to Major Harwell, ASAP!”
“Right away, sir.”
Izzy had come around the front of the Humvee to have the private stop for a second and stare. “Private, this is Dr. Isabelle Costa, and she is a VIP, so let’s pick it up and get her to Major Harwell, shall we?”
“Y-y-yes, sir. Follow me.” The HQ building was once a showpiece for other units, posts and countries to visit and admire. It had a tall roof held up by four large columns similar to the White House. Large curving staircases were on the left and right, leading up to a central double door in the middle of the building. It had six large arborvitaes standing twenty feet tall with multiple round bushes surrounding them. They distributed flowers amongst all of them.
What was sitting before them was now a shell of that magnificent visage. Debris, dirt and supplies littered the once beautiful white marble stairs. Some bushes and arborvitaes were burned because of the Molotov cocktails thrown over the wall by the infected. They led the team up the stairs and past a make-shift communications center in the main lobby.
Soldiers were scrambling around in a fluster, trying to monitor and assess the situation after the latest infected effort to storm the compound. The Private continued to the back of the large lobby and then down a hall to the right. At the end of the hall was a large wooden door. The Private stopped at and motioned the team in. “He is in there, sir.”
The team entered the room and were met by an officer, “Sorry, the Major is busy and is not seeing anyone right now.” Captain Webb looked at the female captain across from him. She wore a neatly pressed uniform and shined boots with her brunette hair in a tight bun. He thought it was actually too tight and made her face look like a dog when they poke their head out of a car going down the highway. Webb looked at her name tape, which read “Simmons.”
“Captain Simmons, I am quite sure that your astuteness enables you to discern, based on our appearance, that we have been engaged in multiple conflicts, which were considerable and lengthy. Our uniforms are dirty and covered in blood, and I can imagine they have a fragrance that is less than desirable. We are battered, bruised, injured, tired and hungry. This team has waded through three states full of infected trying to kill us and survived a helicopter crash. We have run for lives more times than I care to count, not to mention that we lost some damn fine soldiers and friends during our journey. So, excuse me if I don’t give a flying fuck how busy he is or what the hell he is doing right now! He WILL see us now!
She protested, but Webb interrupted her, “With all things being equal in this fine United States Army, if you don’t get the hell out of my face, I have no problem fucking you up six ways to Sunday. Questions?”
“Whoa, whoa.” Major Harwell came running in. “Let’s take it easy. Captain Simmons, I will take it from here.”
“Yes, sir.” She never took her eyes off of Webb, but neither did he. Harwell led them into the War Room and the team sat down.
“Wow, a little intense out there, huh?” Harwell tried to ease the obvious tension in the room.
“Just a little, but we are not in the mood for her protocol bullshit.” Webb answered flatly.
Harwell looked nervously then turned to Izzy, “You must be Dr. Costa, I am Major Harwell, nice to meet you.” They shook his hands. “Let me give you a sit rep, then you can do the same. After that, we will determine where we go from there.”
Harwell continued, “Unfortunately, Colonel Madison is no longer with us. During one of the earlier waves trying to lay siege to HQ, a wounded soldier who he was trying to help, turned and…” He trailed off, “… ripped out his throat. We did not understand they turned that quickly and had to change protocol to deal with the wounded after that painful realization. Anyway, here is what we know based on what limited intel we have been able to gather.”
Harwell continued, “Communications are spotty to non-existent; satellite comms are sporadic and I have a feeling all satellite comms will be out soon. Terra comms work pretty well, but the issue is that we are losing people to communicate with. We were in contact with a few other divisions a couple days ago, but recently some stopped sending, and a couple others we heard the infected attack while they transmitted and then went black. Some infected transmitted while they were killing the soldiers left alive. It was horrible to listen to and I don’t think I’ll ever get those screams out of my head. I even hear that fucking clicking noise they make in my sleep.” He stopped for a moment, looking at the ground, shaking his head.
Harwell regained his composure a second later and cleared his throat, ”Based on that, we are virtually blind, and any new intel is scarce. What intel we gathered is this: As far as we can tell, they overran most of the other divisions and if there are pockets of command who are still alive, we have no way to communicate with them. Most of the world’s governments are dead or possibly in a coop site somewhere. If it is the latter, we still have no communications with any of them.”
Harwell looked toward Dr. Costa, “The CDC in Dearborn is toast, which you saw yourself, however, there is a CDC lab functioning over on the east coast in Maryland. That is the location we need to deliver Dr. Costa to, which we can
discuss a little later. The fucking scumbags who started this entire thing fled to Dearborn initially. We intercepted communications between the ISIS faction members with the virus, who call themselves Allah’s Vengeful Hand and their sister cell down in Philadelphia.
They are heading down to Philly now to regroup with the rest of their faction and they have about a five-hour jump on us. That location is approximately 600 miles from here and from your Team’s experience, it won’t be easy going, so that will give us some time. We could hack into their vehicle’s GPS nav, so we get random updates on their progress when we can receive satellite intel. As of our latest update, they are just 20 miles east of Cleveland. We need to either intercept them in route or be able to catch all of them together and eliminate the entire group. We would like to keep one or two of them alive for interrogation.”
“Understood, Sir. Any word from Priest?” Webb inquired.
“Negative. We are keeping comms open to in hope he communicates with us. Now, as far as we can determine, this virus has made it across the country and to other parts of the world. It’s a Goddamn pandemic.”
“Do we know what their end game is?” Webb asked.
“Well, from the communications we intercepted, they want to bring their caliphate to fruition as is always their goal. Initially, their intent was to have everyone succumb to their religion and if not, they wanted to reign over us infidels as their slaves. When they discovered how the mutated virus turned people into mindless murdering machines, they unleashed it on the world.”
“That’s stupid, they would kill themselves in the process,” Neville chimed in.
Harwell nodded, “Their thinking is that they would be isolated from the virus in their home countries. Killing anyone who attempts to come into the country who isn’t Muslim, they just assumed we infidels would kill each other. I guess that...” Just then, a Private burst into the room. “What the hell?” Harwell yelled.
“Sorry Sir, but we have MSGT Priest on the radio.”
CHAPTER 22
Bodies were lying all over the place. On the seats, on the floor and anywhere else there was open space. The E-One was not designed to seat that many people in the cab, but they made due and weren’t leaving anyone behind.
They rode in silence for a good while before Dana spoke up, “The one that was still alive, did you kill him?”
Priest turned around to look at her, “Do you really want to know?”
“I do.” Dana replied.
“No, he was still alive when we left,” Priest said, then added, “technically.” Dana seemed upset with this answer.
“You left him alive? What if he sets the roadblock back up and kidnaps some other girls? I would not have allowed him to live to do this to someone else.”
“That will not happen.” Priest turned back around to stare out the windshield.
“How do you know?”
Priest took a deep breath, “Because his back is broke and he can’t walk, I broke both his wrists and cut each of his eyes out. The shithead is blind, helpless and will never know when death is coming for him, but he will die… scared and alone.”
“Oh my God,” Dana covered her mouth with her hands.
Priest turned around, “I told you, you didn’t want…”
She interrupted him, “That was awesome, thank you so much,” she said.
“Huh?” Priest said, a little baffled.
“Are you kidding me? After what that piece of shit did to us, I wanted to rip his fucking nuts off myself.”
Priest’s eyes widened, and he just turned back around in his seat. Shaw glanced over at him, but Priest didn’t even look over at him and just shook his head.
After a stretch of silence, Priest asked the girls what their plans may be for the future. It turned out that they still wanted to go to Louisville and check on Dana’s parents. Priest didn’t have the heart to tell them he thought her parents were probably dead and that their trip would be futile. He explained to the team that they will visit Himsel Air Force Base first and try to gain another helicopter.
After that they would take Dana and her friends to Dana’s parent’s house and on to Fort Campbell from there. Doug admitted had flown into Himsel a few times, but wasn’t completely familiar with the layout or aircraft storage there.
“Ok, Shaw, when we get there, it’s all about hauling ass. We blast right through until we get to the airfield. I am really tired of dealing with ambushes, infected hordes, and roadblocks. Just keep the fucking hammer down until we reach our destination. Priest turned to the back seat, “Tug, Doc, you guys load up and be ready to take out anything that moves. Girls, stay down and hold on.”
About 20 minutes later, Shaw called out, “Approaching front gate, Sarge.”
Priest had his binos out already. “Stop right here and let me get an initial assessment first.” He looked down the road to Himsel AFB. “Well, the gate is wide open and I don’t see anyone in the guardhouse. I’m scanning farther and it looks like a roadblock on the main road. Don’t know if it is just a car pile-up that happened during the mass evacuation or an intended ambush or roadblock point. Either way, we need to get through there. You ready, Shaw?”
“Damn straight!”
Priest took in a deep breath and then exhaled. “Ok, shit and git!”
Shaw whooped and slammed forward, “Here we go people, hold on to your butts!”
The E-One APFF rocketed forward with amazing speed for such an enormous truck. As they blew past the front gates and approached the car pile-up, the Team noticed vehicles on each side which made it impossible to go around the roadblock.
“I see movement around the cars, which definitely are not normal Air Force personnel. Everyone down.” As they moved closer, some infected starting shooting at them. Their shots weren’t wide and were not very accurate. Just as they came near, bags exploded against the windows and windshield and the smell of urine and feces permeated the cabin.
“What is that smell?” Mia asked. Doc told her that the infected threw their urine and feces on the uninfected to contaminate them.
“They only exist to spread the virus, which seems to be some deep-rooted instinct they develop when the infection takes hold of their brain.”
Mia looked confused, “That’s crazy.”
“Yeah, it’s what we have been dealing with since we came across our first infected.” Doc answered.
Just then, Shaw burst through the roadblock and sent cars and bodies went flying. The Team didn’t stick around to view the devastation as Shaw hit the window washers to clean the filth off. “Damn that’s nasty”.
“Yeah, but smart. They throw this shit to keep us hunkered down and not able to open the windows to return fire.” Priest added.
“Hmm, never thought about it like that,” Doc said. They continued on and made their way to the airfield and as they got closer something dark and they could see rippling far in the distance. It looks similar to a wave, was the best way to describe it.
Priest brought up his bino’s. “Holy shit.” His voice had an element of astonishment. “That is a wave of hundreds of infected coming this way. We do not have even close to the firepower to deal with this mass, no matter how many the truck takes out.” There was silence for a moment.
“What about the cannon?” a voice said. Everyone turned to Allison.
“What?” Priest questioned.
“I’ve been reading the manual for this thing to pass the time and it has two water cannons that produce about 1500 gallons a minute.”
Priest thought for a second, “That is some serious pressure. It won’t kill them, but it could take a lot more out and give us some time
to take down more of these things.” “Good work, Allison.” She showed him how the controls worked. The water cannons were on the front and on the top of the massive truck, and the operating controls were on the passenger side dash board. “I was wondering what all these buttons in front of me were.”
Tug looked out through the windshield. “My God, there is a shitload of them.”
The horde was about 50 yards away when Priest opened up with the water cannons. Pressurized water came bursting out at a high rate of speed, and they took completely the initial dozen of the closest infected off their feet. The half dozen behind them caught the high-pressure blast of water in the upper chest or in the face. Those that caught the water stream to the face had their necks snapped by the pressure.
“Holy shit! Do you see that?” Shaw laughed.
Priest aimed the cannons to the front and the sides as dozens more of the infected dropped like bags of wet cement. Those taken down by the first blast were now being crushed under the massive 5-foot tires. It was comical to see the infected screaming as they approached, only to have their mouth fill with water right before their head snapped back and took them off their feet.
“Looks like slaughter time in the chicken coop. All those infected flopping around with their heads barely hanging on their bodies,” Tug commented.
The sound of multiple bodies deflecting off the truck was deafening. The crescendo of the noise along with the screaming of the infected was enough to drive you mad. Those who were not used to the shocking sounds of battle had their hands covering their ears as the truck continued on its journey of destruction and mayhem. Unhindered and unimpeded, the massive truck plowed through the hundreds of bodies littering the ground.
The water cannons were causing considerable damage in taking down massive groups of the infected. Some of those who had been infected longer had sizeable pieces of skin and tissue blasted off their face and bodies. None of them could keep their balance, much less attack the bucking truck. The feelings of dread and despair displayed as they entered the horde were now cheers and shouts as they came out the other side of the throng.