The Redivivus Trilogy (Book 3): Miasma Page 10
Judge concentrated on the closest of the infected, which were still nearly 75 yards away from the wall. All of a sudden, he felt a sharp sting—like that of a hornet—on his upper arm. He’d been shot in the side and taken a piece of shrapnel in the leg during previous tours in the Middle East. This pain was similar albeit far less intense than either of those experiences had been, and he hadn’t heard any report or explosion. It occurred to him that the gases vented to the sides by his rifle’s muzzle brake might have stirred up a hornet’s nest he hadn’t seen previously. Cursing, he hopped to his feet and clawed at his shirt in hopes of stopping the pain. Instead, the pain intensified as his hand brushed over something protruding from his upper arm. It was soft against his hand but felt as if it was attached to a piece of glass that was embedded in his flesh. He grabbed onto the thing and was rewarded with more searing pain as he tore it free from his arm.
Judge stared with confusion at the tufts of blue nylon in his hand. A drop of bright red blood glistened on the tip of the barbed needle affixed to the end of a small chamber. He looked around, not sure of what he was expecting to see. Perhaps there was a big blue hornets nest nearby. Dark speckles crowded in around the outskirts of his vision, and his world began to tumble end over end. He felt as though an enormous weight was attached to his brain, steadily pulling it deeper and deeper into oblivion. Despite his disorientation, Judge was aware of just enough to know he was in serious trouble. His radio moved in and out of focus less than five feet away. The vague notion that he should call for help passed through his mind. He staggered toward the radio but no longer knew which way was up. A miscalculated step sent him crashing to the ground, and the jolt was enough to short-circuit the last few neurons in his floundering brain. His scalp split open against the roof’s hard surface, causing a rapidly expanding pool of sticky blood to form around his head. Judge made a few agonal movements before going completely still.
* * *
A million things raced through Mother’s mind as he bounded down the stairs two at a time. Is someone really attacking us, and if so, why? We’re trying to keep the world alive for God’s sake. Why the hell would anyone want to stand in the way of that? Maybe I’ve got the man’s intentions all wrong. Maybe he was simply fleeing the massive horde rather than leading an infected army. No matter the case, it was impossible to find out now. Mother shifted his thoughts to his more immediate concerns and tried to take a mental inventory of the situation. Although at least half of his able-bodied men were out scavenging or doing recon, he still had Judge, Stack, Rooster, and L.T. at the compound. The weapons and ammunition brought in by the scavenging team put them in good shape in that respect. His primary objective was to ensure the safety of the scientific team, which included Dr. San, Maria Abrams, and Dr. Sodecci, in that order of priority. Secondarily, there were several civilians to protect, including a woman named Lydia and two young girls, Ava and Annalee. Facing superior numbers of an unrelenting enemy with limited resources and information at his disposal, Mother called upon his combat experience to quell the rising doubt in his mind. If he’d had enough air to spare, he would’ve shouted obscenities at the top of his lungs. As it was, he settled with thinking about how much he hated the damned apocalypse.
Mother was breathing hard when he reached the first floor landing. He was irritated at not having heard back from Rooster. He clicked the talk button on his radio, and said, “Rooster, do you copy? Judge, how long before that horde reaches the wall?”
He listened for a reply as he continued down the hall toward their makeshift command center. When he again heard no response, he assumed that a dead zone within the building had interfered with the transmission. Rounding the corner, Mother collided with Rooster, who was on his way to patrol the southern perimeter.
With an irritated smirk on his face, Rooster said, “Sorry, sir! Forgive me. I need to do a better job of watching where I’m going.”
Mother ignored Rooster’s smart-ass comment. “Rooster, why didn’t you answer my radio calls? Where are the others? Lt. Weaver? Stack?”
Worry lines were etched into Mother’s face like canyons carved into a desolate landscape, making it clear that he wasn’t in the mood for any of Rooster’s antics. Despite the fact that Mother was sweating profusely from his jog up to the roof and back, his skin looked wan.
“Whoa, there, Mother. Slow down. What’s going on? You look like you just saw a ghost.”
“A ghost would be preferable to what’s heading our way, Rooster. I need to find the others. We need to make sure Dr. San and her team are safe, then do the same for the other civvies.”
Mother gave Rooster the brief version of what he’d seen from the roof. When he was finished, Rooster’s complexion wasn’t much better than his own.
All the tomfoolery his voice had previously held was absent when Rooster spoke again. “I think L.T. is in the command center. I’ll go get Stack in the armory. He told me he was going to do maintenance on the weapons.”
“Good. The two of you meet us in the research wing,” Mother said.
Rooster’s brow furrowed, and he glanced around as though looking for a place to hide. “You think the wall will hold against that many?”
“I think it should, but I want to move everyone to the keep just to be on the safe side,” Mother said with an affected air of confidence he didn’t truly feel. He nodded before heading off toward the command center.
Rooster turned and moved down the opposite hall toward the armory. He’d just reached the building’s south side when a force like a huge fist punched him in the chest, knocking him on his ass instantly. A hundred other unpleasant sensations hit him all at once, but each of them was overshadowed by the fact that it felt like the huge hand had squeezed all of the air out of his lungs. A thick cloud of smoke and a shrill ringing sound engulfed the entire world. His eyes and nose burned, while his ears felt like someone had gouged them with ice picks. Blinking and shaking his head, he tried in vain to free himself of the sensory blackout enveloping him.
Rooster’s entire body ached as he struggled to his feet. As his senses gradually returned, he realized he’d been here before. About five years earlier, he’d been manning a checkpoint in Iraq when a suicide bomber detonated his vest near the back of the line. He wasn’t sure why the bomber hadn’t waited until he was nearer the front where he would have inflicted far more casualties, but the blast wave was still strong enough to knock him back nearly ten feet.
Just as it had then, his military training kicked in, and his rifle was up in a flash. He panned his barrel from side to side, waiting for the insurgents to storm his position. He wasn’t going to die without a fight. Broken glass crunched underfoot as he moved toward the shattered door. Veiled by smoke and debris, the infected were nearly on top of him before he recognized them.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
Rooster’s shots were surprisingly controlled given what he’d just endured. With each squeeze of the trigger, another infected body slumped to the ground. At such close range, headshots weren’t that difficult. He finally pushed into the open just as the bolt on his rifle locked back. What he saw nearly caused him to fumble his fresh magazine. The infected poured through a breach in the concrete wall, fanning out like Black Friday shoppers in search of a door buster. Rooster slammed the magazine home and began systematically dropping the infected that had made it inside the wall. For every one he killed, five more took its place. He knew he couldn’t keep up that rate of fire for long, and he knew he was a dead man as soon as he failed to do so. When he saw the shrapnel sticking out of his radio’s plastic case, he realized he was on his own.
Once again, his rifle clicked dry. Rooster released the empty magazine at the same time that his left hand came to rest on the fresh one fixed to his vest. He pulled the magazine out of the pouch but was unable to bring it to his rifle’s empty mag well. Having reloaded his weapon exactly like that hundreds of times before, he could complete the task with his eyes closed. It wasn’t
until he looked down at his left hand that he recognized the problem. Strangely, he hadn’t felt the pain that blazed up his arm like his nerves were on fire until he saw the infected’s teeth buried in the flesh of his forearm.
Enraged at the thought of becoming one of the monsters, Rooster growled and swatted the thing off his arm. He flipped his rifle around so that he gripped it by the barrel. The hot metal burned his hands, but he didn’t care. He brought the gunstock down hard on the rev’s head, splitting its scalp widely and cracking the skull underneath. Despite the brutal blow, the rev continued to snarl as it tried to get back to its feet. Rooster was having none of it; he slammed the gunstock against its head repeatedly until he’d bludgeoned its skull into a pulpy mess. Without missing a beat, he clicked the new magazine into place and released the bolt.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
The infected fell like dominoes all around him. All of a sudden, a wild idea sprang into Rooster’s head when he saw the panel van parked less than thirty feet away. Having accepted that he had no chance of surviving his current predicament, he vowed to do everything in his power to help the others stay safe. His mind was still swimming from the effects of the disorienting blast as he staggered toward the van. He moved at a steady pace, lining up his shots and dropping the infected with practiced ease. They always left the keys in the van, as there was no one around to steal the thing. Rooster’s bigger concern was whether the vehicle would start. They’d used it to move some materials to the wall on the opposite side of the compound, though he couldn’t recall exactly when that had been. He prayed that the battery still held a charge.
The timing was perfect as Rooster dropped the closest ghoul with his last shot just as he reached the van. He threw the door open and slid inside. Snatching the keys off the dash, he braced himself for the moment of truth. The strained sound of the engine struggling to turn over made his heart sink. He’d already accepted that he was going to die, but it was another matter entirely to accept that everyone else at the CDC was going to die at the hands of the monsters pouring through the gap in the wall. Just as he was about to let off the ignition, the engine roared to life. An immense surge of hope rose up within him, even as he faced certain death.
Rooster shifted into drive and floored the accelerator, the van’s bald tires spinning on the ground before finally gaining traction. The van shot forward as he steered it directly into the mass of revs mushrooming through the breach in the wall. He plowed through them, one after another. Each thud was so intensely satisfying that he was soon smiling ear to ear. The glass cracked as head after head smashed into the dirty windshield. He worried that the van might get hung up on the bodies of so many infected, but it continued to build speed. Finally, he saw what he’d been waiting for. The concrete wall loomed before him, growing steadily larger in the windshield. Rooster started to chuckle when he realized the moment before impact that he hadn’t put his seatbelt on.
BAMMMM!
The van’s metal front conformed to the gap in the wall as though it were trying to squeeze through the narrow opening. Rooster’s face collided with the windshield, finishing the job the infected had started. Shards of glass exploded outward like a million diamonds showering the infected mob. As his legs were pinned between the steering wheel and the seat, he was only partially ejected from the van. Blood poured from his abdomen where several glass spikes had torn huge gouges in his flesh. Thankfully, Rooster never awoke to witness the frenzy incited in the bloodthirsty horde.
13
Mother realized Judge still hadn’t responded to his last transmission. How long ago was that? Three minutes, maybe? What the hell is that guy up to? He was about to try him again when he felt the unmistakable rumble of an explosion coming from the southern side of the compound. That was the direction of the armory as well as the approaching horde. Neither of those facts left Mother with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Despite his exhaustion, he quickened his pace as he put out another call on the radio. Much to his surprise, Stack responded.
“Mother, what the hell is going on? What was that explosion?” Stack asked in alarm.
Stack had forgotten to put his radio on the charger after his patrol shift but had switched it off to conserve its remaining battery life for emergencies. The explosion that sounded like it came from next door certainly qualified as such in his book. Given that it was an unsecure channel, Mother gave Stack the bare minimum detail over the radio. Even so, Stack got the picture and gathered a small arsenal before heading to meet Mother and the others. He worked with renewed urgency when he heard several staccato bursts of gunfire coming from nearby. He skidded to a halt when he came to the pile of bodies littering the main hallway.
Advancing cautiously, he peered through the remains of the front doors, which had been demolished in the blast. Although many more corpses were scattered across the ground, he saw at least forty revs still shambling about. Some were heading in his direction, but most were moving toward something to the left of the doorway. Perhaps it was the size of the group or the fact that he hadn’t expected to find them inside the wall, but he froze in his tracks.
More gunfire rang out, and several more infected monsters slumped to the ground. The gunshots stopped and were quickly replaced by the sound of a car engine sparking to life. A moment later, Stack watched the old panel van—Rooster behind the wheel—plowing through the infected as it sped toward the gap in the wall. His comrade glanced directly at him as he passed. Although he couldn’t be certain, he swore there had been a satisfied smile plastered across Rooster’s face. The deafening crunch of the van slamming into the concrete wall made Stack wince. His first thought was to get Rooster to safety, but as soon as he’d moved a few steps, he saw that it was too late for his friend. He looked away, not wanting to see what was about to happen.
Stack saw the strangest sight before he turned back toward the building. The entire head of one of the infected appeared to have been spray-painted bright orange, making the thing look like a walking caution sign from Hell. Further back in the crowd he saw two other painted revs: one purple and the other blue. This is starting to look like the set for a United Colors of Benetton ad directed by Satan himself. The orange-headed rev was clawing his way toward Rooster’s unmoving body when its bright orange head suddenly transformed into an even brighter ball of fire. The force of the explosion rocked the van, but it wasn’t enough to move it out of the opening. Thrown to the ground by the explosion’s blast wave, Stack covered his head as chunks of rotten flesh and debris rained down upon him.
Mother’s frantic voice sounded like it was coming from inside a barrel as Stack’s radio squawked. “Stack? Rooster? Somebody tell me what the hell is going on!”
Although Stack had noticed the brightly colored markings on a few of the revs, he’d been unsure what they signified. After the explosion rocked him, he forgot he’d even asked the question. As it turned out, it was a system that the Puppet Master had devised as a way to distinguish these select revs from the others, even at long distance. Each of the garishly painted ghouls had been subjected to a procedure that he’d said was reminiscent of carving a pumpkin: cut a hole, scoop out the insides, put a candle inside, and replace the lid. Essentially, the infected thing was eviscerated to make room for a deadly upgrade. Rather than a candle, however, an IED was placed inside the abdominal cavity and secured to its spine using duct tape and cable ties. The device, which was completely concealed once the infected’s shirt was replaced, was linked to a color-matched radio transmitter that could trigger detonation remotely. He and his men had made six such IED revs, and they’d placed them near the front of the horde in the event that they were needed to help breach the wall Bayani had told him about. The exploding monsters had exceeded the Puppet Master’s expectations.
Stack climbed to his feet and realized he was now the focus of the few revs still standing inside the wall. Any trace of Mother’s radio call vanished from his mind. He raised his carbine and began sending the infecte
d to join their fallen brothers before he retreated into the compound. Once inside, he moved a couple of filing cabinets and other pieces of office furniture in front of the nonexistent doors. He knew that the obstruction would slow the infected for a couple of minutes at best.
“Mother, this is Stack. We’re under attack. The wall has been compromised. Rooster is KIA. I’m heading to your position, over.”
Mother’s voice was grave when his terse reply came over the radio. “Roger that, Stack. I’m moving to assist. Proceed with caution.”
* * *
When Mother reached the command center, L.T. was already gathering his things to move out.
“I heard the gunshots and explosions. What the hell is going on out there?” L.T. asked in alarm.
“We’re under attack. By whom, I don’t know, but there’s an infected army heading straight for us,” Mother replied. “I’m going to move the research team to the keep, and then I’ll go after the other civilians.”
“No, take care of the scientists. I’ll get the other civvies,” L.T. stated.
The two soldiers moved off in opposite directions. Shortly thereafter, they regrouped outside the keep with all the civilians in tow. The members of the research team looked shell-shocked, but Lydia and the two young girls appeared ready to fight.
The keep was a plan of last resort—a place to fall back to in the event that the integrity of the compound was ever compromised. The smaller building housed many of Building 18’s utilities and was located on north—the side opposite the gate and the approaching horde. The keep’s rear wall formed part of the northern perimeter, as the concrete barricade connected to it on each side. Steel-reinforced concrete blocks had been used to seal all the first floor windows and doors, making the elevated walkway on the second floor the only way in other than scaling the walls to the windows on the upper floors. The plan was to fall back to the keep, at which time they could blow the walkway and effectively isolate themselves from Building 18 if necessary. In addition to being a defensible position, the location afforded them the ability to escape by rappelling down the outside face of the northern wall if necessary. They had stashed a vehicle outside the perimeter for just such an occasion.