Phil lost all pretense of professionalism. “Get the hell out of there, Gary. Dr. Pearson is going to flood the tunnel with the turned. Move it, get going!”
Alpha team had split up again; following the maze of sewer tunnels and chasing down this group of runaways was proving to be more challenging than ex-SEAL Gary Wismiller had thought it would be.
When he received the frantic call from command, he questioned its validity. Then senior shift supervisor Phil Ruschman had made it abundantly clear: abort and RTB.
“This is Alpha One to Alpha team. Abort, rally to last marked location, copy?”
The paired-up team members checked in and repeated the order. They would not have heard Phil’s last transmission as it was on a channel that only Alpha One monitored.
Susan remained crouched down, hidden in an alcove by three large pipes that ran parallel to the sewer’s main tunnel. She motioned for Julian and Simon to remain still. The glow from the soldier’s red-lens helmet lights cast elongated shadows across the tunnel from where they stood. Susan had pulled them into the alcove a moment before two of the Alpha team members had finally caught up to them.
She listened, waiting to hear the pair call in their location and tell their leader they had the targets trapped. Seconds ticked by and it was all she could do not to bolt and run, but she could not. She had promised Julian she would get them out.
“Roger Alpha One, returning to last marked position, out.”
The two soldiers turned as one and double-timed it back east up the tunnel.
Susan remained motionless, afraid it was a trick. She waited an additional two minutes, which seemed an eternity to Julian.
“Okay, it appears they’ve given up the chase,” she said. “We still need to hurry though. I’m sure they’re only devising an alternate plan. I know these men, and they don’t give up.”
Julian crawled under the pipe, then reached back to help Simon through the small gap. Susan followed quickly. The short rest gave them the needed energy to continue.
Chapter 40
Day 11
CDC Command Center
Atlanta, GA
Phil
Phil saw the first of the horde coming past the cameras in the emergency stairwell. He quietly cursed that prick Dr. Pearson under his breath. He punched the transmit button on the mic.
“Alpha One, break, Alpha One, break. Do not return to base, you have incoming. Approximately sixty bogeys, your egress is a no-go, repeat, your egress is a no-go.”
Gary swore, not under his breath but in a loud, clearly understandable, logically thought-out descriptive account of Dr. Pearson’s illegitimate family heritage. He and Alpha Nine were the last to get back to the rally point. “Anybody see an egress point anywhere on your travels?” he asked, looking from man to man. One answered, “I did sir, about a half klick to our west down my route.” Gary nodded, “Lead on then. We need to beat feet guys, we have sixty of those turned mofo’s headed our way.”
The turned wasted no time in climbing the stairs. They smelled blood, fresh blood. They massed together, leaping up the stairs, running from the confinement of the cells, pushed on by insatiable hunger that had gone unfed for days. When they reached the second level, the lucky few that led the pack devoured Eric. The others shrieked their rage at the walls. They followed the trail of blood leading them to Mike. Their hunger exploded in an all-out stampede when they entered the room. It looked as if an army of ants were massing at the entrance of their underground colony as they reached the ladder leading to the sewer access. First one, then another crowded into the hole and fell, some to their deaths, a few more badly injured. But the mass swirled down the hole like bathwater down a drain, most of them trampling the bodies of their dead or injured brethren. Mike’s remains were destroyed in a minute or two, the pack then continuing into the sewers, smelling more prey in the air.
Alpha team reached the exit point in a few minutes. Gary sent the first four up the ladder. “Go up, secure the area, then give us the all clear.” One by one, the four team members climbed out of sight.
“Boss, we got incoming,” Alpha Six called over the radio.
Gary looked up the ladder. He still couldn’t see any daylight. “Okay, give me a defensive arch, everyone go dark.” The team extinguished their headlights and brought their night-vision goggles down. “I want Alpha Two, Four, Six, and Eight on a knee. Three, Five, Seven, and Nine, I want you behind them. Shoot in rotation—when the first four run dry, sound out, and the second four will take your place. Remain disciplined, gentlemen, just like we’ve practiced a hundred times.” He looked up again. “What’s the holdup, Alpha Ten? We’re going to have company any minute.”
“Sorry sir, this way is a no-go. The hatch is sealed. We’re going to need to try someplace else.”
Gary cursed and ordered them back down as the first of the turned came around the corner thirty feet away. The first four team members opened up on them. The turned went down as any other man would have. However, unlike men, the turned had absolutely no fear; they kept coming without any hesitation. The first four ran through their magazines in under a minute spraying the turned with automatic fire. The second four members selected semiauto on their rifles and only fired when it looked as if the group was about to overrun them.
Gary set his rifle to auto and began sweeping it back and forth, the bullets hitting their intended targets, but the damned things just kept coming. One by one they exhausted their magazines. The second four were supposed to pick up the fire in order for the first four to reload, but they’d been firing since shortly after the first four had started, which screwed up the sequence. The four team members who had gone up the ladder joined the fight, but they couldn’t shoot due to the cramped space. It wasn’t until someone went down that another could move forward to join the fight. When Gary saw that they were probably going to be overrun, he signaled the last four guys back up the ladder. They ignored his order and moved to reinforce their number.
The turned washed over their position like a flash flood. Gary saw the way the horde’s jaws unhinged like a python’s would as his men frantically tried to fight them off. The shrieking and the gunfire in the concrete tunnel made any further communication between them impossible. Gary watched as first one, then another of his men fell. The damn things were feasting on Alpha Six as he continued to swing his survival knife into the fray. When he saw Five’s face ripped off, he clicked his transmitter.
“Base, this is Alpha One, we are compromised, out.” Then he screamed as he went forward, sticking the shotgun in the mouth of one of them as its jaws opened wide and pulling the trigger. He stabbed another up through the eye and watched the knife protrude from its head. He took down another with the shotgun. Then he felt the first bite, and the second. He felt the skin being pulled from his chest as one shook its head like an attack dog.
The speaker in the command center went quiet. Phil stared at it. In the midst of the chaos, he hadn’t heard Dr. Pearson come in, but now he saw him standing there, arms crossed. Phil drew his .45 and pointed it at him. “You fucking bastard, you did that on purpose.”
“I did what on purpose, Phil?” Brian smiled at him.
“You sent those things down there with Alpha still in the tunnels. You wanted to see if they could take down the team.”
“Not much of a team if they couldn’t stop a bunch of unarmed civilians, now were they?”
Phil thumbed back the hammer on the Sig. He heard a small pop to his right, and felt something sting him behind the ear. He turned and saw Lana. “I’m sorry Phil, it’s for the mission.” He never heard her; he was already dead.
Brian walked to the desk and picked up the phone, dialed an extension and waited. He was calling Dawson to tell him to release another sixty of the turned. He wanted to up the odds that Julian and Susan wouldn’t get away. He reflected on why Julian ran. The phone kept ringing. Where has Dawson gotten off to? He logged on to the computer and checked the cameras on level
X.
Abe Dawson adjusted the pack on his back for a third time that day. He checked his pedometer and saw that he’d walked six miles since leaving the complex. Not bad. At this rate I’ll be in Florida in a couple of months. He laughed and continued down the road.
Brian could control the cages from the command center, but he shouldn’t have to. He was going to read that guy the riot act when he found him. He chose the cages along the left-hand side of the room and released the doors. The results were immediate; the turned poured out of their cages and began sniffing the air.
Chapter 41
Day 11
Sewer system
Atlanta, GA
Susan, Julian & Simon
As Susan led them through the tunnels, she had to stop and shine her light on the wall at every junction to determine which direction to go. “We should be getting close to the Clear Creek CSO.”
“What is that?” Julian asked.
“Where we can get out of these tunnels and connect to the new big tunnel they made. We should be able to follow it all the way to the Chattahoochee River.”
They heard gunfire echoing down the tunnel. Unsure of who was shooting or why, it spurred them to move faster.
“I’m thirsty, daddy.” It was the first thing Simon had said in an hour.
“I am sorry son, but we do not have time to stop for a drink right now.”
It seemed as though they had been down in these tunnels for weeks. They made so many turns that Julian had absolutely no idea which direction they were headed. “Just a bit farther,” Susan kept on saying.
Then they were there. Julian couldn’t believe what he saw. Daylight was streaming in through an opening just ahead. They burst through the emergency exit. No alarm sounded as the sign claimed. Susan turned and shut the metal gate.
Until that very moment, Julian had not really believed that Susan was on their side. When that gate clanked shut, he was overwhelmed with relief and gratitude. He swept her into his arms and held her tightly. She briefly hugged him back, then stepped away. “We still have eight miles in the other tunnel until we are safely away.”
Julian nodded. “Can we at least take a minute to rest and get a drink?” he asked. It was an admission that she was the one who had saved them, that she was the one who had seen them through this far, and he was asking her to make the decision. She grinned at him, leaned forward, and kissed him deeply on the mouth.
“Um, daddy, I’m thirsty.”
Julian gave a nervous laugh and opened the small pack they had brought with them. He gave Simon a bottle of water and handed one to Susan. “Thank you, Susan.” She smiled again and winked at him.
They sat for a few minutes resting and rehydrating. Julian almost dozed off. Then he heard the all-too-familiar shrieking. He scrambled to his feet and went to the entrance of the tunnel. He looked in and could see the luminous eyes staring back up the tunnel at him. They could smell him, but were unwilling to come into the light.
“We should get going,” Susan said, which made him jump. He’d been so focused on the turned that her speaking right behind him gave him a start.
“Yes, I suppose we should. Come on Simon, rest period is over.”
Susan laughed at him. “What?” he said.
“You speak like a foreigner sometimes,” she said, then began walking toward the other side of the walkway they had been sitting on.
“It is because I am a foreigner.”
“You see? You say ‘it is’ instead of ‘it’s’; I think it’s part of the reason you are so… I don’t know, sexy I guess.”
That made him laugh. Shaking his head, he said, “I will try to speak more like a native.”
“No, you see, it’s ‘I’ll try to speak,’ not ‘I will try’… Oh, never mind, it’s endearing.”
They came to another gate like the one across the way. Julian had to dig down deep not to show how much he did not want to go back underground. “There is no way those turned can get from over there,” he pointed, “to over here?”
“Not unless they can go through a .0006 micron filter. This is the way to the discharge tunnel. It will take us all the way to the river. Where we can hopefully find a boat and get away from this damned city.”
They walked down the ramp that led to another entrance gate. Julian swapped hard hats with one hanging on the wall. He was tired of not having a working light. He tested the light on the new hat and it worked fine.
Simon pointed at the hard hats on the wall. “Daddy, can I have a hat too?” Julian took one down and tightened down the size as far as it would go, checked the light, then gave it to Simon.
“You get your own hat. That means you walk on your own feet,” Julian said, patting the boy on the head. They stepped through the gate and into a much larger tunnel than those they had been traversing all day. “Wow, this is big,” Simon said, and he was right. The tunnel was designed to carry not only water from the treatment plant, but all the runoff water from the storm drains. There was a small creek running down the middle of the tunnel, though nothing that would hinder their progress. There were signs that the water had been higher recently. The stains were a foot high on each side of the tunnel, showing how much the last storm had raised the level.
Susan saw Julian eyeing the high-water mark. “We only have to follow this for eight miles, and you saw what a nice day it was outside. We have nothing to worry about.”
“That is what worries me.”
Susan took the lead and they began the trek to the river. It was a rather pleasant walk, it was cool, and there was nothing chasing them that they knew of.
Chapter 42
Day 11
US 20 West
Columbia, SC
Jay & Auddy, Jon & Gwenn
They spotted a few other survivors on the road out of Columbia. None showed any interest in them, hostile or otherwise, which suited Jay fine. She contemplated how it was that she had been untouched by the plague that had washed over the world. She knew that all those people who got the vaccine were about ninety-nine percent sure to turn into a crazy. Because she refused to go to the doctor, she was safe on that front. That aversion to doctors and needles had proven to be a healthy choice. She mentally stuck her tongue out at those who had always laughed at her for it. Who’s laughing now?
Had she been lucky where the South African flu was concerned, or did she have immunity to it? No way to know now; the virus hadn’t taken anyone in the last week that she knew of. Whether it was good genes or pure luck, she supposed she shouldn’t question it. It did give her hope that Ryan was alive, or had survived initially. No way to know that either. Both the kids had not contracted the flu, or gotten the vaccine. For that she was grateful, and took a minute to send up a quick thank-you.
She was no longer a member of an organized religious group. She had been raised in a fundamentalist Baptist home. She blamed many of her quirks on that fact. They had bombarded her with guilt. It was the main tool used by the religious. She actually met Ryan at a Baptist college, which refused to allow them to date unchaperoned. The college had an actual dating parlor, where couples could sit and talk as long as they remained six inches apart. She remembered the first time they’d kissed. It was in the yearbook room; they were working on laying out the sections of the book for that year. Ryan always tells the story that Jay was the one who initiated that kiss. She always denied it, even though it was true, and boy was it a good kiss.
Her daydreaming ended when she saw a familiar sight ahead. She slowed and called out to the other vehicles. “We got a roadblock coming up.” Jon had acquired some cheap radios from a sports store in Columbia; it made a big difference for the group.
The caravan came to a stop well short of the roadblock. There was a concrete barrier between the east and westbound traffic lanes, so without backtracking several miles, that was out. Whoever set this up knew what they were doing. They had used an overpass to give them a superior position from which to oversee the two tractor-trai
lers blocking the roadway. The two rigs were parked next to each other sideways across the road. One had backed all the way up to the concrete barrier, the other’s nose was against the embankment under the bridge.
The message painted on the side of the closest trailer made clear what this was about: THIS AREA PROTECTED BY THE CITIZENS OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY – COMMERCIAL VEHICLES WILL BE TAXED AT 25% OF YOUR LOAD – SAFE PASSAGE FOR TRAVELERS MAY BE BARTERED
“They’re probably monitoring radio traffic. Let’s meet up at your vehicle to discuss our options.” Jay said this into the mic while keeping her head on a swivel, looking for trouble. She took her AR15, got out of the SUV, and went back to Auddy’s truck. “Come on, let’s go back to Jon’s ride,” Jay said as she passed Auddy. Auddy nodded and followed, shotgun under her arm.
When they got to Jon’s truck, both he and Gwenn were waiting. Both were armed. Gwenn had surprised Jay a little at how quickly she caught on to the gravity of their current situation. She was looking behind them, which was a really good idea. “I can’t see anyone hiding behind us,” Gwenn said as they walked up. “Thanks Gwenn, and keep covering that direction. It’s where they’re most likely to come from,” Jay said.
Jon nodded toward the rigs under the overpass. “I don’t see any signs of life that way either. You think it’s abandoned?”
“It could be,” Jay responded as she looked around them for any telling signs, “but we’re going to have to pretend it’s defended by highly trained and motivated professional soldiers, just to be safe.”
There was no sign of life at all. “This is where the guy in the movie usually says, ‘It’s too quiet,’” Auddy said.
“Yeah, then all hell breaks loose.” Jon sounded a bit stressed.
Apocalypse Family (Book 2): Family Reunion J Page 23
