Forces of Destiny

by Robert Maxwell

  Matthew over the radio said, “Satellite scans show the Eden base is hidden in the mountains of the small town Yellow Pine in Idaho but there are large migrations of thousands of undead going right through that whole area and around the secret base entrance on their way to Los Angeles. If we can’t fight our way into the Eden base through that then we lose the only significant hope left of not being dragged into the sea of an apocalypse.”

  ***

  Jason was touching the Arc Light energy source to verify it was cooling down instead of giving off high volumes of heat.

  David walked up behind Jason. The team had fashioned a three foot tall curved U out of pounded out metal to hold gallons of IVs and water bladders packed with crushed black rocks that had covered the Arc Light energy source crystal like a dirt. It looked like they constructed the second half of the circle to match the form of the crystal.

  David asked Jason, “How did you come up with this idea?”

  Jason with an unsure look on his face answered, “It was a strong instinct. I just knew how to do it. The longer I am on this thing, the more I instinctually understand things about it. Somehow I understood saline and graphite from the black rocks that had crusted and surrounded the crystal structure had to be used to create a feedback loop. Don’t ask me to explain it because it scares the shit out of me the thoughts popping into my head ever since we got this thing on board.”

  David looked at the confusion on Jason’s face for a moment and decided he would question Jason latter.

  David turned to gather the team but Ashley pulled him aside and whispered, “When Jason and I were dealing with the energy source, Ben was in the equipment locker. I glimpsed he had a satellite unit and a computer before he used a door to hide his actions. I don’t like it at all, he has crossed the line.”

  David whispered to Ashley, “Roger, I’ll take care of it.”

  David turned away from Ashley and said to everyone, “Group up for new missions orders.”

  The team gathered around the command console as Ashley kept looking back at the Arc Light energy source to ensure it was staying cool and not going to burn a hole in the bottom of the aircraft and kill them all.

  David said, “Our new mission is to meet with Matthew at an objective rally point two miles west of the Yellow Pine town in Idaho. We will transfer ourselves and this energy source to his aircraft along with critical weapons and ammunition.”

  Ben at hearing they were taking the energy source with them to Matthew’s plane made his face tightened with anger. David looked him in the eye waiting to be interrupted but Ben did not say anything.

  David continued by noting that, “The area is swarming with migrating undead throughout the whole town on their migration out West. We are going to have to fight our way in.”

  David looked at Ashley and paused wanting her feedback.

  Ashley said, “We will bring every machine, grenade system and explosive from our aircraft to Matthew’s aircraft. We may have to offload nonweapon system equipment from his aircraft.”

  David said, “Account for the weight of a prisoner aboard Matthew’s aircraft, the Ex-Secretary of Defense. Matthew said the United States last organized military stand in Washington, D.C., has fallen and we have lost contact with the President.”

  Ashley in disbelief said, “Holy Shit!”

  Ben calculating the amount of additional machinegun rounds they could take vs. the weight of a prisoner said out loud in disgust, “Since when did we think taking prisoners vs. critical ammunition to a priority mission was tactically sound?”

  David was not letting that challenge go unanswered and said, “That is why they spent millions of dollars teaching us all how to make headshots while running towards our objective. We accomplish the mission with the ammunition we have. We will also have to assume we may run into one or more of the dangerous fast mover undead. Ashley, I want you on the ground to recon looking for high ground and all possible ambush zones to funnel the fast mover into where we can kill it from up above where it can’t reach us. Bring the portable razor wire to create obstacles that will tangle it up to take away its speed advantage.”

  Ashley nodded and said, “I will see if I can find an Arc Light hidden aircraft facility with automated UAVs armed with Hellfire missiles with the special fuel bomb warheads to burn it the fast mover to death.”

  David had dozens of deadly problems with this mission he had to focus on so he was going to push his team’s experience to the limit. He knew the thousands of hours of Special Forces training and the hundreds of topics they were experts at would get them a solution to the essence of a complex threat faster than normal. This team rarely made the same mistake twice by learning at an adrenaline filled life or death pace.

  David looked at Ashley and said, “For now we classify the fast mover threat like a tank. This mission will be on foot without anti-tank capabilities so mission planning will be to avoid these fast movers whenever possible. Since we only have small arms, the engagement strategy if we encounter it again is an explosive or fuel based ambush using obstacles to trap it in the kill zone. Unless we are on a hunter killer mission for a fast mover, I want a primary, alternate, contingency and emergency retreat corridor to a stronghold with the right equipment until we can kill it.”

  David brought up the Satellite feed of Yellow Pine Idaho on the command computer to his left, “There are hundreds of thousands of undead migrating to Los Angeles…”

  Ben’s anger could no longer be contained as he burst out, “This clustering of the undead in Los Angeles is a target rich opportunity that is going to dry up. If we struck sooner with large weapons maybe Washington, D.C., would have been able to hold the perimeter. With the United States military command decimated we are the only group with the power to strike down this infection before we are all hunted down. Take out Los Angeles now before this team dies from your risky push for a cure.”

  David touched the screen drawing a circle around thousands of undead on the satellite feed. Looking at the screen instead at Ben he said, “We are going to risk everything fighting to get to that base. We are going to protect this Arc Light energy source with our lives. You know deep down beyond your killing instinct Ben, you understand we are not going to kill our way out of this, even with nuclear weapons. Killing this time is not enough. Death was just the beginning for the undead. Whatever caused this, we are going to find it no matter how invisible it is. We are going to understanding it and cut it out with targeted scalpel-like missions until we find out how to cure it. I know you can kill better than any of the men left alive, but as long as I am still alive, you are going to follow me brother on the razor’s edge for a little longer. If we destroy Los Angeles then we will never know what is causing them to migrate there. You can’t fix what you don’t understand.”

  HUMANITY’S EDEN

  Yellow Pine, Idaho

  Chapter 5

  David leaned out of the door gunner position on the black MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft firing his six barrel minigun at the thousands of zombies on the ground one hundred feet below. David yelled into the mic above the scream of the miniguns to Matthew who was flying the aircraft, “Hover SOUTH! Hover SOUTH! I can’t hit the zulus blocking the entrance.”

  Empty shell cases rained down from the Osprey as three thousand rounds a minute ejected from the bottom of the mini gun. It sounded like a rain pounding against a tin roof but down below on the ground the bullets were shredding the bodies of hundreds of zombies and kicking up a dust storm of dirt and asphalt. Ashley was firing her mini-gun mounted at the back rear ramp of the Osprey as she yelled into her microphone, “I am on my last three thousand round magazine! We have to land now or we will be swallowed by the horde when they regroup!”

  David replied, “She is right we are out of time, we try to breach now into the garage or we abort the mission and lose everything!”

  Matthew said, “Affirmative, clear a final perimeter for my landing zone 4 meters from the garage entrance.�
� as he rotated the tiltrotor aircraft like a helicopter allowing David and Ashley’s miniguns to clear a final circle so the aircraft could land and give them a few seconds to run into the entrance of the garage.

  They were hovering over the town of Yellow Pine Idaho which had a population of thirty two but they were now dead or had escaped from the overrun town that had two hundred thousand undead migrating from Canada to Los Angeles, California for some unknown reason. The masses of undead would walk up the mountains of Mt McGuire but tumble down until the mass of them found a path down Boulder Creek which funneled them through the small town of Yellow Pine past the Silver Dollar Grill.

  The large heavy machinery garage with two snow plows on the Northwest end of the town was surrounded a few minutes ago by tens of thousands of undead shoulder to shoulder bottlenecked in the five street town as they inched forward to the south. But now with thousands of machine gun rounds fired from the miniguns on the Osprey create a small gap in the migrating zombies.

  The Osprey landed heavy on the ground. Ashley was the first to sprint off the ramp as David covered her with an M-4 assault rifle with a hundred round magazine in it. Matthew ran from the cockpit grabbing Jason by the back of his jacket as they sprinted to the entrance of the garage. Ben and Tom literally carried the Ex-Secretary of Defense out of the aircraft ramp with one hand each as they shot their rifles with their free hand.

  The garage door was blown open earlier by a three hundred burst of David’s mini-gun. Ashley entered the door and instantly shot three zombies already in the garage. She yelled, “Clear Left.” as she saw no zombies in her sector of the room. David scanned the right side of the room yelling, “Clear Right.” Matthew, Ben and Tom protected Jason and the Ex-Secretary of Defense as they ran in the room towards the back wall towards a door with a sign that said “Parts Room”.

  Ashley pulled a claymore mine from her vest. She dragged a spare tire that was in the garage and put it right at the entrance of the door they entered from. Then she put the claymore mine in front of the tire. The mine contained C-4 explosive and seven hundred steel balls. The tire would protect the team from the back blast when the mine was detonated.

  David saw out the door a horde of zombies heading towards the garage. He yelled out, “Two hundred zulus thirty seconds out.” as he kneeled to steady his rifle shooting zombies in their head.

  Ashley not able to stand in the doorway David was shooting through, stood to his side as she pulled the pin on a hand grenade and underhand tossed it out of the door as it rolled towards the advancing zombies. She didn’t stop to wait five seconds for the grenade to go off. She pulled out another grenade and underhand tossed it even harder out the door. As Ashley pulled another grenade from her chest rig pouch the first grenade exploded knocking over fifteen zombies that had been walking over it. Four of the zombies lost legs from being so close to the explosion.

  Matthew pulled out a smart phone and held it to the frame of the door. The screen on the phone had a circle for a thumbprint to be read which Matthew placed his thumb on. A door opened outward to reveal a parts room. Matthew yelled out, “We are in!”

  They all ran inside. David and Ashley continued to shoot out the parts door shoulder to shoulder.

  The back of the room wall opposite of the door David and Ashley were defending were three foot windows fifteen feet in the air. Ben and Tom started shooting at the undead that were somehow climbing up on something to smash through the windows. Ben thought, are they trampling on a horde of zombies against the wall to reach up this high?

  Matthew looked up at a security camera and was told in his training on getting into this secret base to look at the camera directly so it could pick up on a retinal scan on his eye so the automated security system would verify his identity. A door to their left opened to an elevator. As they all ran in a computer voice stated, “Submit finger for DNA blood sampling.” Matthew was told the security protocol for the secret Eden base required first time commanders to submit DNA proof of identity but he was not trained on how long the test would take as he placed his index finger on the device which pricked his finger to draw a blood sample. The elevator was not moving and the undead had now reached the outer door of the garage.

  Ashley seeing everyone was in the elevator hit the detonator of the claymore mine. A sharp boom like a thunder strike cut short assaulted everyone’s ears in the room as a fireball filled the outer garage door and a huge bloom of black smoke blew into the room on a blast wave that knocked anything not secure off shelves. The smell was terrible as blood, burnt flesh and smoke from the explosion blew back into their room. As the thick black smoke cleared there were pieces of forty undead that were streaming towards the door. Ashley looked in disbelief as zombies too far away from the explosion to be ripped apart were in looking confused and dazed. An explosion that big had confused them. She took a grenade and threw it through the parts door into the lobby of the garage as the hundreds of recovering undead started again to try to squeeze through the outer door of the garage. David grabbed Jason and pushed him to an auto parts shelf and told him to drag it with him to the door. At first, they could barely move it as David screamed, “PUSH Goddammit! PUSH!”

  As they pushed and dragged the heavy shelf with its parts falling off, Ashley was shooting at the edge of the door attempting to close the door but the zombies were flowing in so fast there was no time.

  David yelled, “MOVE!” as Ashley waited for the last second to get out of the way as they shoved the shelf against the door. The open backed shelf had three large open sections that allowed David to see the open doorway. Ashley and David put their one leg against the shelf as they fired into the doorway into the heads of the undead trying to push through the door and grab them.

  Jason was frozen in disbelief not comprehending the waves of violence they literally crash landed their plane into. It was incomprehensible to him of how these human beings fighting in front of him could have run towards death without hesitation and unleash a close range violence he had never known possible. The look on the normally beautiful face of Ashley was pure rage where her skin and muscle could barely contain the raw emotion of killing she was exuding from her very being. The shock of being inches away from two forces trying to decimate each other at a full speed collision of life and death struggle was sickening. Jason felt himself being overwhelmed. Was being smothered to death in darkness by the emotional energy waves of hatred between two enemies trying to literally rip the life from each other. Jason could feel the force that was driving the undead in the zombie’s feet away from him trying to end the life of all living things. Tears flowed from his eyes as civilization collapsed before his eyes. He felt fear and a great sadness that life could have evolved to this. Was this the end. Was civilization about to end!

  David seeing Jason crying and frozen in shock, started shooting with one hand as he pushed Jason back towards the elevator. Jason dazed simply allowed the momentum guide him towards the open elevator door.

  Ashley fired with one hand as she grabbed a grenade with the other hand. She stopped firing for a second to pull the pin and throw it over the heads of the zombies trying to get in the doorway. The grenade landed in the room full of undead and fell among their feet. Ashley continued to fire as David reloaded his rifle yelling, “RELOADING!”

  The grenade went off in a deafening explosion blowing the group of undead around it into large body pieces and threw the undead up against the shelf blocking the door. A fragment hit David in his bulletproof vest and another fragment cut Ashley’s forcep causing blood to wet her gloves. In the slight lull of zombies rushing the door Ashley grabbed another grenade, pulled the pin and threw it but the round metal grenade slipped in her blood covered glove as she threw it causing the armed grenade to bounce off the shelf. A burst of shock pulsed through Ashley’s body as she instantly screamed, “NO,” willing this deadly mistake to go back in time and erase itself but she immediately snapped out of thinking and without hesitation her eyes spotted
the grenade as it landed on the ground and every muscle in her body instantly dove for it from pure instinct of survival. She had never known a human body could move that quickly. As she strained to reach for the rolling grenade her eyes were wide in terror as time was slipping by too fast propelling them toward all their deaths. She grabbed the grenade as her hand in terror wanted this object of death away for her as quick as humanly possible. Her hand whipped the grenade in a blur of motion, throwing it through an opening in the shelf, past the door frame and into the air in the garage lobby as it exploded in an air burst showering shrapnel back through the door into David's left arm and filling the room with a huge burst of black smoke. David’s nostrils stung from the acidity of the black explosive smoke and his arm had a burning feeling shoot through his arm. The sound at that range was deafening as it slapped a violent shock wave against their whole body like the hands of a giant God striking them.

  Matthew’s ears were ringing as he saw the green light trigger on the control panel. Matthew screamed, “The elevator’s moving.”

  David and Ashley still in shock from being so close to the grenade stumbled backwards shooting at the door as the undead surge pushed the heavy shelf out of the way and streamed into the room. The black smoke from the grenade still obscured all the zombies entering the room but Matthew, David, and Ashley all shot directly in the crowd barely having to aim at this close of range. Hot shell casings were hitting the people standing next to their firing rifles. As the elevator closed David moved his barrel to keep shooting the zombies clawing at the elevator threatening to hold it open. David’s rifle was crowding Ashley’s rifle so she literally fell straight down on her side to be able to aim her rifle out of the slim opening of the closing elevator doors. Then there was a silence as the elevator doors closed completely shut. Blood from Ashley and David’s wounds slowly dripped on the floor of the elevator. As their ears were ringing and adrenaline was surging through their bodies, they all felt the elevator descended rapidly towards the Eden secret base Matthew had learned about hours before in a classified briefing.