But then the strangest thing happened. There were definitely a few minutes of stunned shock, as soldiers and workmen stumbled around in the dust-filled air, looking at the destruction, and trying to determine if their friends and colleagues were okay. But that didn’t last long.
Then the soldiers, the security guys, the builders and engineers… they all started organizing. They started working, only minutes after the collapse.
And they started rebuilding the Wall.
* * *
“I need men with shovels and wheelbarrows!”
A man in uniform had climbed up onto a pile of rubble with a bullhorn, and was now shouting orders and instructions.
“Building teams – we need welders and masons, we need a cement mixer, and we need every crane rolling!”
Out on the ground, people had started running in various directions – even before the dust settled. They were rolling up their sleeves. It was amazing to see. A cement mixer was backing up, and guys were handing out trowels and big yellow two-handed tubs for the cement. Others were putting intact stones in wheelbarrows, and getting them rolling toward what was left of the Wall at the point of collapse. Hackworth heard something behind him – and turned to see a heavy self-propelled crane rolling forward, angling toward some giant steel plates scattered on the ground.
“Soldiers, security, and civilian personnel – rally round the engineers and builders! If you don’t have construction skills, you’re manual labor. Everyone fall in. We are rebuilding this wall – starting RIGHT NOW.”
Ladders and scaffolding were going up, as men cleared debris off the still-standing twenty-foot foundation of the wall. A couple of Bobcats and bigger bulldozers were rolling now, starting to clear debris away from the base.
Everyone in sight was pitching in.
Hackworth looked again at the unmanned gate, and got ready to move – when he sensed something behind him. Turning his head, he saw that his people had begun piling out of the truck, and were coming up behind him, also watching in awe. At the front was Amarie. Hackworth watched her face for a second – and then saw Colley watching her as well. And he knew they were thinking the same thing.
Amarie’s little girl, Josie, was back there behind them, back in the heart of London, along with Rebecca Ainsley and her boys.
Could they just run out on them? Let London fall – with Josie in it?
But Hackworth still felt they couldn’t stop now. Or could they? He knew the Tunnelers had learned one lesson above all others: that they had to look out for themselves – and no one else. They had been cut off for so long that it had become a reflexive habit.
And maybe it had to be that way.
But Hackworth also knew he and his people had changed, as order had disintegrated around them. In the last day alone, they had stolen a truck, kidnapped the driver, snuck or rammed through government checkpoints… and Hackworth himself had stood there and let a man die right in front of him. Leaving that badly wounded man they passed on the South Bank had been one thing. But the soldier at that checkpoint, looking up and pleading for his help…
But Hackworth had chosen escape, and safety, over the hard, decent, moral choice. To help. To do something. To save a fellow human being. And what he had done was not, in the end, all that different from murder – killing the man himself.
He turned now as he realized Amarie had stepped up beside him. He looked down at her and said, “We’ve stayed alive, when almost everyone else died, by not getting caught up with other groups. By looking out for ourselves.”
She looked up at him, her eyes shining in the dim light. “Yes. It’s true. But how long can we keep doing it? What happens when it’s only us left – when everyone else in the world is dead? How do we survive then?”
Hackworth knew she was right. Even if they made it out – what would that be worth? How long could they survive on their own? As soon as London fell, the dead, including the ten million in London itself, would flood north. They could put off the end. But only put it off.
Maybe they had to make their stand – and maybe it had to be here.
Night was coming. And London was going to need everyone to save her, to keep the flame of humanity burning.
Now Hackworth heard the other front door of the truck open, and looked back to see Liam jump down. The kid didn’t even hesitate – he just took off straight toward the work teams forming up. But at the last second, he slowed and looked back over his shoulder.
“Will!” he shouted. And his eyes pleaded with Hackworth – much as had the eyes of that other soldier, the one on the ground.
And that’s when Hackworth realized: they’d been going down the wrong path. Maybe they’d survive. But what would survival be worth? If they paid for it with their souls?
Liam had it right, from the start. The Tunnelers were becoming no different from the marauders – who were out for nobody but themselves, and were even then tearing London apart from the inside. Hell, they weren’t all that much better than the dead, who killed indiscriminately, and were coming to destroy London and humanity from without.
Hackworth looked up at that unguarded exit, and then over at the frantic and industrious construction site spontaneously going up. And he knew he had to make a choice. The Tunnelers had to decide whether to run and save themselves, as they had every time before – or else finally throw their lot in with everyone else. To stand and fight.
But he knew, as always, it wasn’t his choice alone.
He turned to face the group. “We’ve got a choice to make!” he said, looking from person to person. “Do we run north? Or do we stay and help?”
Everyone spoke at once – and they were all saying the same thing.
“Stay!” “I want to help!” “No more running!”
“Okay, then,” Hackworth said. He climbed into the truck cab, pulled the keys from the ignition and locked both front doors. Then he went around back, where a few people, including the wounded Brown, still sat.
“Everyone out!” he said.
When they’d complied, Hackworth regarded the big crates of rifles and pistols that remained in back – and then he closed the gate and locked it. It was easy enough to imagine the time might soon come when they would need them. And not to fight soldiers, marauders, or anybody else still living.
But to fight against the living death that was coming for all of them.
Emerging out in front of the group again, he said: “Everyone follow Liam!”
And the Tunnelers ran forward – toward the sound of the hammers, and to the defense of the realm.
The capital, and the last of humanity, lay naked behind them.
Meat Surfing
Camp Lemonnier - Moving Fast
As they exited the guard tower, hit the ground, and started running, Henno flicked Handon in the shoulder. “Oi – so you ordered the others to leave me behind, then.”
Handon nodded tiredly. He knew Henno would have heard that on the open channel. There was no way around it. And now the reckoning he had feared it would provoke was upon him. Surely Henno would conclude that Handon had used his authority to try to take Henno out – to eliminate a rival.
And there would be no coming back from that.
But then, utterly unexpectedly, Henno also nodded – contentedly, in approval. “Now you’re using your goddamned head.”
Handon looked over at him, not quite comprehending.
“Nobody’s bigger than the mission,” Henno said.
After Handon recovered from his shock at this, and his relief that it wasn’t going to be their final showdown, he realized he had to give it to Henno – the man had the courage of his convictions. He insisted that they be willing to sacrifice anyone – civilians, soldiers, random psychotic girls – to get the job done. And when he said everyone, that was clearly up to and including himself.
Henno was a soldier, and he was a man of principle. Handon vowed to remember this.
The group from the tower – Handon, Henno, Pred,
and Noise – wasn’t moving at full speed, due to having a bagged-up dead guy to carry, and a flex-cuffed live one to prod along. The others – Ali, Juice, Fick, Graybeard, Reyes, and Brady – who until a few seconds ago had been holding the dike, soon caught up with them. Now they formed up ranks and all hauled ass toward the garage where Zorn’s giant car-crushing vehicle was parked.
As they ran, they could hear the fence behind them give way.
And they felt as much as heard the undead tide wash in, flooding through and around every structure before it, sluicing through the canals between buildings and across the base like a bad disaster mash-up movie – Zomnami, maybe.
And now the living had to get out of there before they were all submerged and drowned beneath it.
* * *
“Fuck, yeah,” Brady said as the metal-slat garage door rolled up, revealing the MaxxPro International XL towering behind it. “That’s our ride right there.”
“Seriously,” Reyes said. “No more ghetto hoochies for us – this is the Cadillac Escalade of MRAPs!”
“You jokers shut the fuck up – and load up!” Fick barked, as he turned, brought his rifle up, and took a position at the corner of the garage, aiming back where they’d come from. Instantly, he was taking shots to drop the front-running Romeos. A Foxtrot – inexplicably wearing the remains of an Army Class A dress uniform – broke from the pack, leaping and tacking around the street like a crazy-ass bastard on steroids. Fick took a dozen shots on it but couldn’t land one. Maybe when it got closer. Maybe it would be too late then.
“Load up and button up!” Handon bellowed, helping Pred shove the bagged Zulu through the big open side hatch of the MRAP, then pulling the flexcuffed Zorn through. “Once we’re buttoned up inside, we’re untouchable!”
“Not to mention unstoppable,” Pred added. “Once this thing gets moving…”
“Ah, shit,” Handon said, turning to Zorn. “The starter!”
Zorn just glared at him.
“Two options,” Handon said. “Drive out of here with us – or stay and be torn to pieces and eaten alive. Even if you survive, you turn. Choose!”
For a second it looked like he was genuinely on the fence about it. “Cocky motherfuckers,” Zorn finally said. “Back left corner of the garage, top storage box in the stack. Inside an oil pan.”
Handon nodded to Ali, who had just slithered in, as she was fastest and most agile. She nodded in return and slithered back out, salmon-spawning against those coming in. Handon reached over and cable-tied Zorn’s flexcuffed hands to a metal shelving unit, mounted to the wall beside the hatch and stacked with mine-detection gear.
Big overloaded bodies continued to pile in the side door, which luckily was designed precisely to admit guys in full battle rattle – or even EOD suits. In the middle of this scrum Ali reappeared, cradling a boxy hunk of metal, which she tossed to Handon. He caught it and leapt forward, clambering into the driver’s area in front. In seconds he had the starter back in place, and hit the start button.
The whole gigantic steel beast rattled and rumbled as its turbocharged, inter-cooled, direct-electronic-injection engine roared to life – all 400 horsepower of it.
Handon turned around and stuck his head into the back. “Who’s got hours in the driver’s seat of one of these things?”
“Got it,” Brady said, looking like a kid whose turn had come at the go-cart track. He clambered up front while Handon slid over to the passenger side.
They both heard the hatch slam shut, a deep rich clang, followed by a fist banging on the back of the driver’s compartment. “All in! Go, go, go!”
Brady and Handon pulled their belts across their chests.
And the grinning Marine gunned it.
* * *
Homer watched the team disappear into the garage through his scope.
He was going to have to hook back up with them at some point, but there were a lot of ways he might do it. Fighting his way back through the lines of the entire dead garrison – which was even now taking their camp back – was not a particularly appealing one.
One better option would be to climb down outside the wire and go all the way around – not unlike how he’d dove off their overrun boat on Lake Michigan and swum around the whole fracas before rendezvousing with them inland.
But, then again, from where he was in this guard tower he could cover the team’s withdrawal. Buttoned up in an MRAP, they might have cause to appreciate having someone with an elevated and unobstructed view on overwatch.
But for now, Homer was safe up in his tower, where none of the dead had even noticed him. Heck, it was more than safe, it was positively peaceful – up above it all, sitting in the shade, a nice breeze taking the sweat from his brow. He scratched at the knife wound on his cheek, given to him by that Spetsnaz combat diver, and which had begun to itch in the heat. His wide variety of slashing wounds from that fight had been stitched and/or taped up, like a boxer having his wounds closed to get back in the ring for one more round.
Way up here, Homer even had a second to reflect. He wondered how the hell Dugan, of all the Tier-1 guys he knew, could have ended up like that. He tried to imagine what had gone down, in the days, the minutes, before he was turned. If Homer knew the man at all, and he did, he felt sure Dugan fell doing his job – trying to protect others.
But still – the message was clear. If a man and an operator like Dugan could be infected and go down… then anyone could.
And that included Homer.
Now, as he watched through his scope, the biggest MRAP he had ever seen went blasting out of that garage, and started bashing through the heaving crowds of dead. In fact, it was heading north, right toward Homer’s position – which also meant it was surfing straight into the teeth of the tide, crashing through wave after wave of surging dead bodies. Homer smiled.
That almost looked like fun.
* * *
Brady put the hammer down, while Handon’s fingers dug into his armrest.
Pred was right – once this thing got a head of steam, all fifteen tons of her rolling along like an out-of-control freight train through the remains of the camp, not much was going to stop her. Not even four thousand undead. In the end, they were only flesh and bone, and mostly rotted flesh at that.
Soon the fully loaded MRAP was crashing through cresting waves of meat.
Rotted body after body went under the wheels, into the grille, or was hurled to the side, or up in the air. At this point, the base was totally overrun – certainly the northwest section they were driving back into. But it seemed the MRAP could drive over or through a virtually unlimited number of walking corpses.
One was like a thousand, where this thing was concerned.
What a difference a little hardware makes, Handon thought, comparing this to their earlier exfil from Chicago on foot, close-hauled and nerve-shredding, and in which they’d all nearly gone down. Though he was slightly concerned by Brady’s exuberance and utter disregard for obstacles. But maybe that was what was required right now. The sheer horsepower, not to mention complete indestructibility, of this rampaging beast were intoxicating. Handon was even starting to have fun himself. Brady obviously had been from the start.
Handon gathered from Homer’s radio reports that they were going to have to bash their way through a second growing singularity out at the wire. But that shouldn’t be a problem either – any more than the outer wire itself would. As long as they kept their speed up, every potential obstacle was just something else waiting to be destroyed or knocked down.
They were untouchable.
And they were now monster-trucking over and through vast crowds of dead, tearing a hole through the horde with the truck’s cattle catcher in front and V-shaped hull underneath. The truck was bumping and rocking, and around the Odin-like bellowing of its engine they could just make out the sound of howling and hissing and moaning on all sides. As gore and black gunk splashed across the windows, it started to feel like they were in some kind o
f dry submersible, a mini-sub deep in a sea of viscera and gore and liquefied meat.
Juice stuck his head up into the front and said, “Hey, Noise is in the turret. He wants to know if you want the fifty up.”
“No,” Handon said. “Save the ammo. I don’t know that he could clear the way any better than the vehicle itself.”
“True.” But then Pred noted the rising tide of gore on the front windows. Brady already had the big industrial wipers on – but they weren’t getting the job done. Visibility was dropping fast. Pred said, “Hey, how can you see where the hell we’re going?”
“Doesn’t matter!” Brady hollered gleefully. “Nothing stops a MaxxPro!”
Pred was slightly skeptical. But maybe this thing really was like the Hulk, bashing through all and sundry, unstoppable.
But just then an especially broad sheet of black gunk and viscera and body parts splashed full over both front windows, turning the whole view opaque and dark. The wipers were fighting against it, but losing the battle, clearing it away too slowly. Before any of them knew it, they had been driving completely blind for four, five, six seconds…
Handon grabbed on to the oh-shit handle beside his seat, and looked over at Brady – about to suggest that he might want to reduce their speed…
When their speed spontaneously dropped by half, instantly, as a loud crash sounded to their front, and the black gunk was sundered by fragments of wood and cement and glass, the windshield itself cracking, and the whole building-like vehicle shuddering and banging from the violent impact of a collision. In the next instant, the nose tilted down and forward – and they came to a sudden, jarring, and complete stop.
There was really only one possible explanation. They’d crashed into an actual building. A big solid one. Brady gunned the engine – but the wheels just spun.
Arisen, Book Nine - Cataclysm Page 27
