“You’re pairing me up with him?”
“Damn straight—call your ride the Gimp Express.”
Guerra shook his head. “Cold, Carl. Cold.”
“Get to it.” Ballantine stepped away from Guerra and hurried toward Kenny and Diana. Diana watched him approach, her expression uncertain. Ballantine understood why. She didn’t have any night vision gear, and to her he probably looked like a Terminator coming to take her down. Clearly, Kenny felt that way. As soon as he became aware of Ballantine’s approach, his cries grew even louder. Ballantine hadn’t thought that was possible.
“Diana, it’s Ballantine,” he told her.
“Nice getup,” Diana responded. “Must remember that look for the next Comic Con show, because it certainly scares the shit out of Kenny.”
“Let’s get you guys loaded up,” Ballantine told her. He pointed to the first MRAP. “Can you see that vehicle over there with the lowered rear ramp? We’re going to put you guys in that one.”
The C-RAM fired again, sending hail tracers outbound as the bright plume of yellow flame from its muzzles seared the night. The weapon was firing rapidly now, sweeping from side to side. Troops horsed around ammunition magazines, staging them for loading. The C-RAM was a thirsty beast, and it depleted the loaded ammo drum in almost a single pass now. Rifle fire was barking more consistently, and one of the M249 machine guns mounted in one of the five-ton’s gunnery rings chattered as the Guardsman there sighted on targets. Up range from Ballantine’s position, a GAU-19 howled. He looked in that direction and saw a couple of gun trucks rolling down the derailed train’s length, their .50-caliber weapons lighting up targets inside eight hundred meters.
Kenny screamed again, severely stressed by all the commotion. Diana firmed her grip on him but he almost wrenched her off her feet as he suddenly bolted, attempting to run off into the night. Diana kept a hold of him, but he was so frightened he managed to drag her along for a few feet. For a little guy, Kenny was a powerhouse when adrenaline was factored in.
“Kenny, stop!” she yelled.
“Here, I’ve got him!” Ballantine hitched up his rifle and swept Kenny up into his arms and held him tight. Kenny responded by trying to head-butt him, but Ballantine turned away from the attack. While the boy couldn’t seriously hurt him, he could definitely damage his goggles, and Ballantine needed to preserve those. He hugged Kenny tight, wrapping him up in his big arms as he did his best to immobilize him. Kenny fought back, shrieking and thrashing and kicking and biting. The boy was a handful, and Ballantine was seriously glad he had so much ballistic armor to take the punishment.
“Got some jalapeño cheese for you, Kenny!” Ballantine said, yelling over the thundering gun and the increasing rifle fire. “Got some hot cheese for you!”
None of this mattered to Kenny at the moment, and he continued to rage and cry, struggling against Ballantine like a wild animal. Ballantine hurried toward the first MRAP and climbed up its ramp with Diana right behind. He shoved Kenny into one of the taupe-colored seats and pinned him in place.
“Strap him in, then sit on him if you have to,” Ballantine told Diana as she mounted the vehicle behind him. “Come on, hurry it up—we’ve got to get everyone aboard and seal the ramp on this fucker.”
“You do it. I’ve got him.” Diana pulled the little rifle around until it hung behind her then grabbed Kenny’s shoulders and pushed him into the seat. She grunted as he kicked her savagely, still screaming his head off. “Fuck! Do it quick, the little bastard’s going to break my ribs!”
Ballantine grabbed the harness and pulled it around Kenny’s body. Tightening the straps as much as he could, he buckled him in. The system hadn’t been designed to restrain a child, but it would have to do. Kenny continued to thrash and howl, tears pouring down his face. Ballantine put a hand on his head as he reached into one of his cargo pockets and pulled out a package of jalapeño cheese spread and handed it to Diana.
“Here, give this a shot,” he said. As he spoke, the MRAP’s driver door opened. Ballantine turned toward it, instinctively raising his rifle even though a thick metal bulkhead partially obscured the operator’s compartment from the passenger area. He watched as Sergeant Trevor Martin laboriously climbed aboard, assisted by Everson and Guerra. The cavalryman slid behind the MRAP’s steering wheel and set his rifle down between the front seats before he gingerly positioned his injured leg in the footwell. He wore his NVGs and full facial armor, like the kind the aviators wore. All the gear conspired to make him look like a cyborg warrior from the future.
“Martin, you good?” Ballantine asked.
“As many pills as I popped? I’m fucking flying, man,” Martin replied.
“Seriously? You fucked up?”
Martin half turned in the MRAP’s driver’s seat and shot him a thumbs-up. “I’m good, Ballantine. Don’t get a flop sweat around your ball sack, okay?”
“Can you drive this pig in your condition?”
“Trust me.” Martin reached over and pulled the door closed and secured it before setting about buckling himself in. “If I have to, I can fly this thing out of here.”
Movement to the rear caught Ballantine’s attention and he spun, shouldering his rifle. He saw Everson shepherding Kay and kids forward while Guerra stood in the background. As Ballantine watched, Guerra shouldered his rifle and capped off two shots to the north.
Are they that close? Ballantine wondered, and a shard of dread pierced his heart.
“Dad!” Curtis launched himself at Ballantine and grabbed onto him, and Ballantine had to raise his rifle so the kid didn’t blunder into it. It was plenty dark inside the MRAP, with the only illumination coming from the dashboard lights, so chances were good Curtis hadn’t even seen the weapon. Ballantine wasted no time in shoving him into the seat across from Diana.
“Sit there!” he snapped. “Kay, I need you across from Kenny! Diana’s going to need your help!”
“Coming,” Kay said, pushing Josh before her.
“No, come now! Everson, take Josh!” As he spoke, Ballantine stepped forward and knelt on the seat beside Diana, making enough room for Kay to pass by him.
“Got him,” Everson said, and he reached out and grabbed Josh’s left arm and pulled him aside. “Go ahead, Mrs. Ballantine.”
Kay made an angry sound and crept forward, groping in the pitch-black. Ballantine saw everything courtesy of his NVGs, and he reached out and grabbed her hand. Without pausing to be dainty, he pulled her forward and forced her into the seat across from Kenny.
“Carl!” she snapped, doubtless upset at the way he manhandled her into position.
“We’re in a fucked-up situation, Kay,” he snapped back. “Do as I tell you when I tell you!”
“I’m not one of your soldiers, I’m your wife!”
Guerra cracked off another two rounds. “I tried telling him the same shit once, Kay. Didn’t work for me.”
Kenny continued to scream, rejecting the cheese spread Diana offered him. Ballantine grabbed one of Kay’s hands and guided it toward Kenny.
“Kay, I need you to help Diana with Kenny,” he said. “We can’t close the ramp until we get this vehicle loaded up, so I’ve got to leave.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m not staying here, babe,” he told her. “I’ve got things to do. You guys will be secure. Martin and Guerra and Bill will be traveling with you, and you’ve all got weapons.” As he spoke, Everson shoved Guerra’s sniper rifle into the MRAP. He disappeared from view for a few moments, then returned lugging two heavy rucksacks. He dumped them into the back of the vehicle with a huff as Josh picked his way forward through the darkness.
“Joshie, right there,” Ballantine said. “You’re right across from Diana and next to your brother. Sit down.” He guided his oldest son toward the seat he wanted him in. “We’ll turn on the lights after the tailgate is closed, okay?”
“Won’t they see it?” Josh asked.
“It won’t matter, kid.
This vehicle weighs over fifteen tons. They’ll never be able to get in. Trust me.”
“Carl, where are you going to go?” Kay repeated.
“I have to make sure the column is secure, Kay,” he told her. “I can’t stay here.”
“Carl, we’re your family!” Kay’s voice was loud in the narrow confines of the MRAP, even with Kenny’s howling and Guerra’s firing. A louder report made them all wince as Everson let off a single shot.
“See, Guerra? That’s how you do this kind of shit,” Everson said.
“Pretty good, old man—took that runner out nicely.” There was true respect in Guerra’s voice.
“Mr. Everson, we have three empty seats not including yours and space for a couple more people,” Ballantine said, shouting as the C-RAM fired off again. And in the background, there was a mechanical howl. Someone had started one of the excavator mulchers that had been loaded onto the forward flatbed railcars. That meant the reekers were now danger close, only a hundred or so meters away. As if to confirm this, the rifle fire increased almost exponentially. The rhythmic thump-thump-thump of a Mark 19 grenade launcher added weight to the presumption. In the midst of it all, he heard Lieutenant Robinson shouting orders, orienting the warfighters onto their targets.
“I’ll round up some more souls, Sergeant,” Everson said. “You want civilian or military?”
“Civilian, please,” Ballantine said. “Military will ride in the five-tons. And Everson … only those who’re going to live. If they’re too badly injured—”
“Oorah.” With that, the old man with the long gray hair was gone, fading away into the night.
Ballantine reached out and touched Kay’s face. “All right. Leaving now. Help Diana with Kenny.” Before she could say anything, he pushed himself to his feet. Crouched over inside the MRAP, he put a hand on each of his boys’ shoulders. “Look after your mom for me. I’ll be on the radio, so if you need me, just call. Your mom knows how to do it, and so does Mr. Everson. Listen to him and Sergeant Guerra and Sergeant Martin. Okay?”
“Daddy, don’t go!” Curtis said, and his voice was suddenly small and scared.
“Josh will help take care of you, Curty,” Ballantine said. He put his hand on Josh’s head. “Right?”
“I will,” Josh said, but his voice was small and fearful as well.
“Good boy. Help Diana and your mom with Kenny, all right? He’s helpless. He needs you guys.”
“Okay,” Josh said, and there was little resolve in his voice. Ballantine felt terrible. His boys were scared to death, and they needed him near. But Hastings’s words came back to him, and in that moment they carried tremendous weight.
Get in the fight, God damn you!
“You’ll all be fine,” he told them. “I have to be outside, but I’ll be doing everything I can to keep you golden.”
“No we’re not,” Diana hissed. “Not until someone gets me that box of diapers from the train!”
As she said that, the box of Pampers thumped to the MRAP’s rear deck. Everson peered in at them through his night vision monocle.
“One box of diapers, as requested.” He reached into the bulging knapsack hanging at his side and pulled out several packages shaped like tissue boxes and tossed them onto the box. “And wipes. Gotta have those.”
“Well, God damn, Marine,” Ballantine said.
“You said the magic word, lightfighter: ‘Marine.’” More civilians appeared, guided to the MRAP by the medics Bellara had assigned to the coach. The medics were both female, and they guided the injured people onto the vehicle. One man had an arm that was splinted, while two women had bandaged heads and faces, probably lacerated from flying debris when the passenger coach lurched sideways. Everson helped the man aboard, then suddenly turned his head as the C-RAM fired into the night once again. There was something different this time, and the old man pulled his REPR rifle close once the man with the busted arm lowered himself into a seat.
“Ballantine, get out of there. We need to seal this vehicle,” he said.
Ballantine pushed his way toward the lowered tailgate. “What’s wrong?”
“Deadheads are attacking from the other side of the train now,” he said. “The RAM just turned a hundred eighty degrees and opened up on a new set of targets. Tits are moving into the upward position, Ballantine. We gotta move.”
Together, Ballantine and Everson oversaw the loading of the remaining MRAPs. There wasn’t a lot of space to work with, and it didn’t take long for them to fill the vehicles with more-or-less defenseless civilians. They were assisted by an able-bodied man named Ronny who had been with them at the barracks at the Gap. He was young and strong and fast, and Ballantine found himself envying the man’s seemingly boundless energy as he crossed between the MRAPs and the train, directing people to the vehicles and helping those who needed assistance. The rest of the guys were on their rifles, popping off rounds at the zombies that swarmed toward the train. The gun trucks ranged farther out, their GAU-19s slicing through the dead like a red-hot knife through butter. The dead couldn’t stop the uparmored Humvees from advancing and sending them back to the grave, but their drivers didn’t give them the chance. The vehicles kept moving, bounding from one firing position to another. The Guardsmen had learned that static defenses would never work against an amorphous enemy, and instead they took the fight to the reekers. Ballantine was duly impressed.
Everson helped a middle-aged couple into the last MRAP, then turned toward Ballantine. He was moving slowly now and favoring one leg. “That’s it, these vehicles are full up,” he said.
“You okay?” Ballantine asked. “Your leg bugging you again?”
Everson waved the question aside. “We have more people than we can transport in the MRAPs. We’re going to have to nut up and get them on the five-tons. Less protection, but once we’re on the road the dead aren’t going to have much chance to do anything other than get run over.”
Ballantine pointed to the first MRAP. “I want your old ass in a seat, right now.”
Everson shook his head. “Yeah, and I want a young blonde and a three-finger shot of Johnny Walker Blue. But I don’t see that happening, do you?”
“Everson—”
Ballantine’s retort was cut short by a voice over his earphones saying his call sign.
It was Bellara. “Crusader One Seven, this is Lance.”
“Lance, One Seven. Send it.”
“Crusader, we have the rest of the operational vehicles from the rear of the train. Heading your way, on station in one mike. Let’s load up and move out. Command group will cover our retreat. Over.” Ballantine had to press his earphones tight against his head to make out the words. Not only was the C-RAM blasting continuously now along with hundreds of rifles, but the excavator’s grinding head was in action. Reekers had made it to the front of the train.
“Lance, roger. We can sure use more assets up here!” Ballantine turned back to Everson. “Okay, one of the company commanders is bringing more wheels up. Get to the lead MRAP and button it up. We should be rolling soon, all right?”
“I think your family would rather see you than me, Ballantine,” Everson said.
Ballantine shook his head. “Not happening—gotta stay operational. Get up front and get buttoned up, okay?”
Everson grabbed his shoulder, and his grip was strong. “Ballantine, you sure about this? They’re your people, man.”
“They’re our people, Marine.”
Everson digested that for a moment. “Oo-rah,” he said, then padded off. He limped a bit, which didn’t surprise Ballantine all that much. The man was about eleventy billion years old, and after all, he’d recently been involved in a train wreck.
He looked to the south, where the train had been winding its way along the tracks before it had been unceremoniously derailed. He saw the column of vehicles Bellara had offloaded heading his way, the remainder of the MRAPs and five-ton trucks. Still not enough to evacuate everyone from the train, but Ballantine would
leave the heavy lifting to the captain and his staff.
“Ballantine!” Robinson called in the darkness. “Any time you want to get on your rifle, you let me know!”
The rifle fire had picked up in intensity as the reekers who managed to evade the C-RAM and the roving Humvees and their fifties closed in on the train. Over the chatter of weapons and the ripping roar of the C-RAM, Ballantine heard the shrieks of screamers and the moans of the shamblers as they drew near. The length of the train was essentially indefensible with the number of shooters they had, moreso now that the reekers were attacking from either side under the cover of darkness. No matter how sophisticated his NVGs were, they were nothing compared to daylight. Squirters, especially screamers, could get past the front lines and attack defenseless civilians. Which was what they’d do; in their queer way, the zombies sired more of their kind through a single bite, and that was a tough thing to fend off. You didn’t just have to fight them off; in case you failed, you had to make sure the reekers actually ate you.
He raised his rifle and found targets less than a hundred meters away. Ballantine fired methodically, dropping the zombies with a practiced skill. Down the line, the rest of the lightfighters were doing the same. The .50-caliber on top of the MRAP chattered, ejecting shells that clattered across the armored vehicle’s back. The vehicle’s horn sounded, and Ballantine glanced over to see its tailgate was closing, rising up on its hinges. Everson manned the Ma Deuce in the gunnery ring, and the old man swung the weapon around like a pro.
Robinson moved up to stand beside him and raised her rifle. She fired into the night, and Ballantine got back into it. Bodies fell, but more crept through the darkness. The Humvees were falling back now, their GAU-19s tearing open the darkness as they covered their retreat. In the distance, Ballantine’s NVGs revealed thousands of reekers picking their way toward the stretch of rails where the train had met its end. Many of them fell as Bellara’s column came to a halt and the troops dismounted and got into the fight. But it was like attacking a spreading forest fire with a spray bottle. It was Fort Indiantown Gap all over again, except this time their position would be overrun in no time. Ballantine was used to it. Against the dead, there was no real defense.
These Dead Lands (Book 2): Desolation Page 25
