by David Smith
"Hey, look at this." The Specialist said with a chuckle.
I looked over the edge of the building and the streets below us were clearing out, the entire mass moving north. There were still a lot of them but for the first time in four days I could actually see the street, painted red with blood. I knew it only meant one thing though. If they were all moving north, they had to be leaving the island and judging from the ricocheting tracers, they were fighting on the mainland.
Gradually, the gunfire subsided until it was completely quiet. The streets below us were almost still after another hour except for the ones that were slow enough to be left behind or the ones who were too consumed to have enough body left to move.
Finally, the Lieutenant spoke up. "What do you say we get off this rock."
"And go where?" The Sergeant asked.
"Well," the Lieutenant continued. "we know Fort Lee is trashed. Maybe we can cut them off at Weehawken or Newport, rejoin the fight."
"There ain't gonna be no fight." The Specialist interrupted. "If all that didn't stop 'em then what do you think's gonna happen to the rest of the country?"
"They've got to be stopped somewhere." The Lieutenant argued. They'll be more spread out now. Maybe that'll give us more of a tactical advantage. We can fly out of here low and be across the river before anyone sees us, find another unit and join in the fight."
"Do what you want." The Sergeant said. "I'm going to find my family and spend the last few days I can with them."
"At ease! Both of you!" The Lieutenant ordered. "You're still on active duty and I'm still your XO. You're still soldiers and there's still a fight to be had."
"If you don't get out of my face, the only fight there's gonna be, Sir," the Specialist said calmly, sitting in the door of the chopper. "is between you and me and you're gonna fly but it ain't gonna be in this helicopter."
The Lieutenant looked at him for a moment. I could see that he wanted to test the Specialist's theory but he kept his bearing. "Come over here for minute."
The Specialist jumped down and walked over to him. The Lieutenant got close to him and started speaking, calmly and just loud enough for only him to hear. After quite a long time, they both nodded and came walking over to the Sergeant and I.
"Okay," the Lieutenant spoke. "We're going to fly east to the first place we can refuel and upgrade our weapons. No more rescue operations, we're going hunting. Sergeant, if you want to go home, you can find a way when we get where we're going and I'll process you out when this is over but, you took an oath to defend this country and that sometimes means making sacrifices. But that's up to you. Chief, how long till we can take off?"
"Give me ten minutes." He answered and got to work inspecting.
"What are you gonna do, MacAdory?"
"Well, I guess you're my XO too, for the time being."
Eight minutes later, there was click when the pilot tried to start the chopper. We all looked and there was another click.
"Batteries are dead." The pilot said.
"Okay." The Lieutenant said and clapped his hands together. "I guess we're going on foot. We'll make our way to the river, find a boat, get off in Hoboken and take it from there."
"Better than being up here." The Specialist said. The Sergeant gave the Lieutenant a dirty look before getting up to put on his pack.
"Any of you ever been in close ground combat?" I asked them.
They all just stared at me except the Specialist. "Iraq, 2003...2007, 2010."
"Okay." I said, "Lieutenant, with all due respect to your rank, I think I should take over till we get to the river. You mind being point man?"
"In the situation, I think that would be appropriate." He answered.
"Sergeant, would you and the Chief take his flanks?"
"Yeah, I guess so but this is bullshit." The Sergeant answered.
"Specialist, I'll be in the middle and you'll bring up the rear."
"Shouldn't I be on point since I've got more experience?" He asked.
"That's why I want you in the rear. Less chance you'll panic and shoot somebody in the back. No offense guys."
They all nodded except for the Sergeant who gave me that same dirty look he gave the Lieutenant.
"I didn't have the time to remember everyone's names earlier, I'm Sean MacAdory. Everybody calls me Mac."
"I'm Lieutenant Burton, Lars. That's Sergeant Watts." He waved sarcastically, index finger up, hand hanging loosely at the wrist. "Specialist Osterik and Chief Warrant Officer Byrd."
"Alright, we've got about eight blocks to cover, west. It's a straight shot so we're just gonna take it slow, stay in formation. If we run into trouble, keep moving forward and do not break formation. If the trouble is in front of us, you'll be the first to see it, sir. Halt the formation and we'll cut across to another street."
"Wouldn't it be easier to go the east river? It's half the distance." Osterik suggested.
"It would but I didn't see any boats out there. No piers or ports either so we would probably end up having to follow the southern tip of the island all the way back around." I said and he nodded. "First things first, PCCs."
Everyone but me still had their full combat load. Lieutenant Burton; M-4 with 210 rounds, M9 Beretta with two extra mags. Sergeant Watts; M-4 with 210 rounds. Osterik; M-249, a smaller caliber version of the 240B, with 800 rounds. The Chief had an M9 with one extra mag so I gave him my M-4 and took the 240 off the chopper and broke what was left of the belt back down into four empty ammo cans.
"The most dangerous part of this is going to be going through the building. Blind corners, darkness..."
"Hey Mac!" Osterik interrupted. "There's a construction elevator on the outside over here." He said looking down over the edge of the building.
I walked over and looked down. There was a large platform mounted on rails that were mounted on a frame of steel beams reaching the entire 1300 and feet of the building except for the top four floors like some sick nightmare roller coaster. We would have to rappel down to it but if there was still electricity, it would be safer than going down through the inside.
I went first to make sure nothing would come out of the windows at us. Minutes later, we were all standing on the platform and slowly descending beneath the skyline and into the hell of what was left of the city. There were dead on a few of the floors, slapping slowly at the double pane plate glass from inside expensively furnished condominiums. They must have came to the windows, feeling the vibration of the elevator. It felt like ten minutes before we were close to the street. As I suspected, there were a few dead, really messed up ones, walking down the narrow street behind the skyscraper. Half of the street was blocked off by a temporary sidewalk enclosed in scaffolding, a place for pedestrians to walk around the construction.
As soon as we hit the bottom floor, we stepped out in a jog, bypassed the sidewalk and took a right up the narrow street, squeezing between a line of yellow cabs and a concrete barrier, and ignoring the few dead as they turned to follow us. There was a banner sign on the outside that had a panoramic picture of the view from the top of the building, looking south and '432PARKAVENUE' printed along the bottom with a phone number.
At the end of the block, the construction tunnel ended and the street went from one lane to three. We crossed Madison Avenue, following 56th Street and there was a reflecting pool on the corner with several dead lying around it. They were mostly eaten a struggled to crawl after us. Past that was a fifty foot high glass atrium with Trump tower rising high above it. On the left was a neatly parked row of identical blue bicycles for rent, the entire length of the block.
On the next block, just before we reached the Avenue of the Americas, there was an underground parking garage on the right and as we came up to it the Lieutenant snapped his fingers and pointed into it. We kept moving forward, myself twenty meters behind him and as I was almost to the entrance I could hear footsteps echoing around in the concrete tomb. I looked in as I passed, Osterik still behind me, and when my
eyes adjusted I saw twenty or more of them gathering toward the entrance. Half of them were dragging their feet but were being overtaken by several that were fresh and running faster than I thought Osterik or myself could run the next six and a half blocks with such a heavy load of ammo so we turned to fight.
Muzzle flashes lit up their open sepulcher like a strobe light as they came closer and the 240 and 249 shouted back and forth at each other like a mean drunk and his rebellious teenage daughter. The rest of the guys came around us and started to help and I shouted, "We got these, watch our flanks!"
In a few moments we had killed all the runners and most of the rest but I could hear more coming, dragging their feet quickly on the concrete. We continued west as Osterik loaded another belt into the 249, me watching his back, walking backward and shooting them as they came up and out into the street.
As we made it across the Avenue, Osterik started firing again and I stopped to connect a new belt to the end of the first one with only about ten left, hanging out of the feed tray. Looking over my shoulder, I noticed that the rest of the team had gotten about fifty meters away so I tapped him on the shoulder and we started running to close the gap. I kept looking over my shoulder every half a block as the guys up front popped off rounds sporadically, taking down a few and clearing the way ahead of us. We crossed 7th Avenue, Broadway, 8th and as we reached 9th we had gotten a good lead on the ten or so that were left from the parking garage so I called out.
"Let's dial it back a little guys, we're almost there."
"What's the matter youngster?" Osterik joked. "Running out of steam?"
"Want to trade?" I asked him, nodding my head at the 240 which was nine pounds heavier than his, sweat falling off the end of my nose.
"Nope." He laughed and coughed.
We crossed 9th Avenue and started down a gradual hill through Hell's Kitchen and the going felt a lot easier. We fought our way through the next few blocks with very little resistance, ignoring those who were dragging themselves on the ground or lying paralyzed except for their heads turning or mouths moving like they were trying to speak.
We passed one that was laying across the blood smeared hood of a car. It was completely eaten except for the head and a few strands of muscle holding what was left of it together, the legs missing from the knee down. I could see inside its ribcage and it was empty, hollowed out completely. Still, when we passed by, it managed to turn its head and snap it's teeth together so hard that it jarred loose and slid down the hood and fell, face down, on the pavement. It's face was untouched except for the dried blood splatters and it barely looked dead, just looked like a crazy person who needed some sun. I thought it probably was a successful young executive, a bachelor and probably a ladies man, clean shaven and not a hair out of place. It was weird to see such a head on a skeleton.
Finally, we ran through a long, dark tunnel under a building with steel cage garage doors on the left side, leading into a parking garage full of garbage trucks. Then we came out and crossed eight lanes of parked cars on Joe DiMaggio Highway, then another four lanes running parallel to it, ran through the bushes and into a park and we could finally see the Hudson River and Pier 96.
There was a building like a small airplane hangar with windows all the way around, just below the roof. The ten foot high, rolling doors were open half the width of the building and inside were hundreds of different colored kayaks and canoes. After clearing the building, we closed the doors behind us and locked them with a chain and padlock that was hanging on the back of the door. At the opposite end of the building was an identical door, also open, that gave a clear view of the river and a wooden pier leading down to it. The river was so full of blood and bodies and parts of bodies that the water had a reddish hue. Some of them were dead but most were still splashing around and almost all were burnt to a crisp or dismembered. They were trying to swim but didn't have enough appendages or coordination to do so productively and were just floating along with the current, being washed out toward the Atlantic like the splintered wreckage of a wooden ship.
"I've been thinking the whole walk down here." The Lieutenant said. "Do you think they've got the river bank guarded against boat traffic the way they did the sky and the bridge?"
I thought for a moment and realized that was a very real possibility.
"Hell no." The Sergeant said. "They're across the river now anyway. They ain't gonna care about some Kayaks going across."
"He might be right." I said. "Just because they've made it across the bridge doesn't mean they won't still be watching other escape routes. They're gonna want to keep them contained and that means keeping their flanks covered."
"So what we gonna do then?" The Sergeant asked. "Cause I ain't staying on this island like some kind of prison. I'm going home!"
The Lieutenant looked out over the river at the shoreline of New Jersey, a little over a Kilometer away. "Our duty is to get back in the fight. But we can't do that if they won't let us across the river. It's not like we could really make much of a difference anyway."
Osterik spoke up next. "Sir. As far as they're concerned, we're out of the fight. Casualties, missing in action, infected, call it what you will but we've been ordered to quarantine ourselves here because in their minds we're more of a liability than an asset."
"What do you think Specialist?" The Lieutenant asked me.
"As much as I hate to admit it and as much as feel we should be fighting with our last breath, I think he's right. If they've got the shoreline guarded and we cross the river, we're dead and making them waste bullets that could be used for the real enemy." I said but really didn't feel it was right to just sit this one out. "I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to chase the dead north, hunt down and kill as many as I can until they kill me."
"I'm with you on that." Osterik said.
"Okay," the Lieutenant agreed. "Let's get on it. Chief?"
"Honestly, I'd rather find a place to hole up and wait for rescue. Like he said, we're out of this fight. But I'd be a coward if I let you all die alone. Count me in."
We all looked at the Sergeant. "I can't believe I'm hearing this!" He shouted. "I'm getting my black ass in that canoe and going home!" He continued to cuss us as he walked down the ramp to the end of the pier. No one said a word to him. We all just started counting our ammo.
A few minutes later, I heard a whistle, then a splash and felt the thump of a round exploding underwater. We all stood up and looked out into the river to see a plume of water exploding into the sky and Watts and his canoe flying back from it. Instinctively, the Lieutenant ran down the ramp, jumped into another canoe and started paddling out to him.
I got into a Kayak and followed. After paddling through the body parts, some of them snapping at us or grabbing the ends of our paddles is having to fight them off as we went, we found Watts, barely holding his head above the water, floating on his back. He had managed to get out of his body armor and let it sink along with his weapon. I helped the Lieutenant lift him over the side of the canoe, almost flipping both of us into the water.
"I can't move my legs!" He shouted as he lay in the bottom of the canoe. "I can't move my legs."
"You probably broke your back. Just be still." I said and the lieutenant and I looked at each other, knowing this meant we'd have to either carry him or shoot him in the head.
He continued cussing and screaming as we paddled back to the pier. He kept asking the Lieutenant to shoot him in the head. "I've seen it on TV. If I'm gonna die, I don't want to be one of them!" He argued hysterically.
"Shut up Watts!" He ordered. "First of all, if your back is broken it doesn't mean you're going to die. Second, if you do die, you're not coming back because you're not infected." Watts continued groaning and complaining as the Lieutenant talked over him. "We're going to find a hospital and get you stabilized until this is all over but you need to calm down or you're going to make things worse."
Osterik and Chief met us at the bottom of the pier. "I don't thin
k we should move him if he's got a spinal injury." Chief said with a little authority.
Osterik didn't care. "You can throw the manual out the window, sir." He put one foot into the canoe and bent low to grab Watts' legs. "Ain't much more damage we can do that isn't already done."
I stepped in and grabbed him under the arms, keeping most of my weight on the foot on the pier. We lifted him up and laid him on the pier, the canoe almost tipping then floating back out into the river as we stepped out.
"Okay. How are we going to do this?" The chief asked.
"Anybody know how to hotwire a car?" The Lieutenant asked.
"I can," Osterik volunteered. "but I think most of them still have the keys in them anyways. We just have to find one that wasn't left running till it ran out of gas."
"I don't think that'll matter." I said. "Sorry to state the obvious but the streets are too jammed up to drive through anyway."
"Yeah, that's not gonna work." The Lieutenant agreed.
"We passed a construction site a block back." Osterik said. "I'll bet there's a bulldozer in there. We can push our way through with that."
"What about the noise?" Chief asked.
"You ever tried to climb up on a dozer moving eight or nine miles an hour? even if they can climb up, it'll be just a few at a time. We can all ride up high a pick them off as they do."
"Okay." The Lieutenant said. "Can you two make it if Chief and I stay here with Sergeant Watts?"
