Like the train station, buildings were destroyed and ablaze; a half dozen or more. Piles of rubble, some of it still burning littered the street, much of it body parts. Despite the carnage and the inevitable destruction awaiting them, thousands of DEVO’s filled the cross streets as they moved toward the building and the prey they so desired.
Despite Logan blazing away like the ammo was free, all that destruction just wasn’t enough. Nor would the remaining ammo in the rig be sufficient; they were four against tens of thousands of creatures with no sense of self-preservation. Only powerful UV lights would drive them back and keep them at bay.
Andy searched for the menu that controlled the exterior lights. Finding it, he took a deep breath before activating it. Andy hoped that the generator could handle the load as well as all the breakers and other electrical controls. The UV light system, while fully installed had not been tested with all the lights turned on running off the one generator. The plan was to bring in a second generator dedicated to the external lighting system.
Andy watched the lights in the control room dim as he switched on the last of the light banks. After a moment or two, the generator compensated for the load and the lights in the control room returned to normal. Andy took his first breath in as many seconds.
“Andy, this is Logan, over.” The signal was slightly stronger, probably because they were higher up in the building but still filled with static.
“This is Andy”
“Hey, bro, I’m at less than 20% ammo, and there are way more DEVO’s massing than I have rounds for. You ready for me to return?”
Andy studied the monitors; everything was in the nominal range, all he could do was trust it would stay that way. He thought about the rig and that as much as he wanted to have an escape plan there simply wasn’t enough ammo in it to blast their way to safety, not the distance they needed to go. Maybe if it was at a hundred percent, but the damage from the AT-4 near hit was extensive, the JLTV was running on borrowed time. There was no choice, they had to barricade in place and hope the building now bathed brightly in light would hold out until the sun came up, or Mia could come in a VTAL. Andy knew it was more likely he’d be stuck here till morning, if he wasn’t a chewed-up corpse by then.
“Make your way to the ramp. When I see the rig I’ll open the door.”
“Copy, moving to door. I’m gonna waste a few more and push them back first; then I’ll be right there.”
“Roger, don’t take any unneeded risks.”
“No worries, bro. I just wanna check the perimeter and lay waste to as many as I can, maybe they will get the picture.”
“Just be at the gate in five regardless. Keith will meet you in the structure and show you up.”
A click-click came back, short for good copy.
Chapter Fifteen
“Got a rig in front of us, boss, blocking the next intersection. Looks like the Crewmen! What should I do?”
“Stay calm and slow down, we’ll approach cautiously and friendly like. Let me do the talking. If something goes down, don’t wait on me; waste all of them.”
“Roger, boss.”
The group of four-wheelers in a straight line, the only way they could fit in the sewers, slowed. The Crewmen had their own armored ATV, but there were only three of the rival Outfitters; one of whom Graybeard immediately recognized.
As his convoy came to a halt, the boss stepped from his four-wheeler, motioning the rest of his crew to stay in theirs. Walking past the lead four-wheeler Graybeard ignored the guns trained on him from the Crewmen.
“That’s far enough Graybeard.” Rang out a voice, from the past.
Clayton Hacksaw was the boss of the Crewmen, an Outfit that Graybeard knew well having once been a member before striking out on his own. Clayton was a tough old bastard, but he wasn’t the one that Graybeard’s eyes furtively searched for. The one guy that Graybeard considered his equal wasn’t around, or at least not with the group that he now faced, which gave him pause.
“How the hell you been, Clay?”
“I’ll be doing a lot better when you turn those buggies around and depart Crewmen territory.”
Graybeard splayed out his hands and smiled before he took a few more steps toward the fellow boss. “This is no-man’s territory down here; we have a right to travel it as much as you do. All the commotion topside downtown got us curious, we thought maybe you all needed a hand with them DEVO’s or the INFIL-rats is all.”
Graybeard closed to within a couple feet of his counterpart before he stopped, purposely not looking at the shotgun pointed straight at him from the older man.
“Well, no need to concern yourself with what is going on in Crewmen territory. I got Haus and his boys taking care of things up there, they should be along any minute now. I’m sure Haus would like to see you.” Clayton smiled for the first time, not realizing he just gave away some intel that Graybeard found useful.
Haus was the one guy with the Crewmen who he knew could take him, he was the meanest, nastiest SOB either the Crewmen or the Day Breakers ever knew. Someone Graybeard had trained, who then betrayed him. Loyalty was everything to Graybeard, and when Haus crossed him, he cast him out, certain he would flee back to civilization.
Instead, he became a Nomad, existing in the Dead Zone and killing the DEVO’s singlehandedly while collecting trophies. Eventually, he recruited others into the deserted city and in a final act of betrayal joined the Crewmen, making them the most powerful of the Outfits in the Dead Zone.
There wasn’t much Graybeard could do. He had cast Haus out. After being a Nomad for those many months, he had the right to join another Outfit, and Clayton had the right to take him. Those rules and a few others had been hashed out by the three remaining Outfits after the gang warfare whittled down all their numbers, leaving the Crewmen, thanks to Haus with the largest numbers and the best territory. Tonight, was as good as any to change that.
***
The formation of DEVO’s, growing in numbers by the minute, gave Logan pause. Despite thousands of rounds of high explosive sprayed down range against the creatures, and all the destruction that it inflicted on them, they returned in even greater numbers. The cannon rounds left would no doubt wreak havoc on a good many more, hundreds if not thousands to be sure, but not all of them. Not even close. No matter how many he put down, blew apart and even vaporized, the creatures would not be cowed or slowed, not in the slightest. The ones remaining, a far larger number than what Logan could see would follow.
As safe as the rig felt, the building would be safer so long as the lights stayed on, or the Outfits didn’t show up with more heavy weapons. He hated the idea of being stationary in a place where he could be cornered. But the fact was even in the armored rig the DEVO’s had him trapped. If he remained they would block him in then burn him out. If he tried to flee then a roadblock, sinkhole or other surprise would surly trap him. And if the JLTV finally gave out…
A thought crossed Logan’s mind, and he switched the menu on the MDT in front of him to the flare launch system. He touched the screen and entered a few commands, rechecked his inputs then hit the launch button.
With a loud swoosh followed by another the two flares, launched from the JLTV. The mini hydrogen dirigibles inflated and their small props guided them on a preplanned route following the flight coordinates Logan had inputted by drawing a flight path on the touch screen map of the area. Mini GPS receivers on the flares would guide them along it.
After a half minute or so of flight, the effect was what he anticipated.
Both flares brought the brightness of two suns down onto the DEVO’s massing in front of Logan but from their rear. The mass of creatures from behind would push into the ones on the street trying to flee from the ultraviolet light, causing a stampede effect as the creatures stormed towards the JLTV, many now moving as fast as they could, trying to escape the agony of the light coming from behind them.
The Vulcan came to life when the first were no more than 25
meters in front of him. A mass of bodies so thick that Logan could not see even to the street. An instant later, what had been flesh and bone became a mist of blood and shattered body parts, much of it aflame. The Vulcans laid to waste a thousand or more of the creatures just in sight. Hundreds if not thousands more rushing behind the first groups, running stiffly not so much to their destruction as away from the light they could not endure to see or feel entered a merciless zone of destruction. They too like the hordes in front of them became reduced to pieces, that is what wasn’t annihilated down to the cellular level.
Through the monitor, Logan watched the building behind the human-like figures erupt into fireballs of exploding concrete, brick and rebar as the walls collapsed onto the beings who had nowhere to retreat from the UV light. Fires erupted and smoke and dust soon blacked out everything.
Logan watched in sheer astonishment as the Vulcans spun to a stop, finally expending the last of the ammo. Two more flares shot from the rig, their bright luminance now directly overhead, giving Logan the cover he needed to move to the ramp. He climbed down from the turret, the one place he felt the safest.
As he slid into the driver’s seat, the rig was already slowing as it entered the ramp before stopping for what seemed like an eternity before the thick steel door rolled up. Spotting Keith, Logan manually drove the rig in before shutting it down and then exiting it, pulling on his battle helmet then slinging his CAR-50 over his vest as he walked up to Keith.
“Please tell me there is a VTAL on the way to pluck us off the roof. You have no idea what is going on out there. I have never, even in the early days, seen so many DEVO’s. If those exterior lights go down, we’re doomed. Promise me that you will shoot me if that happens!”
Logan was shaking, which made Keith more worried, normally the experienced infiltrator was cool as a cucumber.
“I don’t know, bro. It’s Andy’s show, he is up in the control room. Follow me, stay in night vision, we’re not wasting any power on interior lighting.” That last statement only made Logan’s jitters worse as he scanned the dark spaces of the parking structure then the stairwell as he followed Keith.
***
Clayton looked to the sewer’s ceiling. Loud shrieks followed by explosions just above them rocked the concrete tunnel as gunk, water and dirt fell from the shaking tube. Graybeard saw his moment. He rushed Clayton, pushing the shotgun the old bastard gripped to the man’s left towards one of the Crewmen who died the instant his leader pulled the trigger, intending to shoot Graybeard.
With the gun trapped between them, Graybeard let his grip go from Clayton’s shotgun. He brought his left hand up around the older man’s neck and pulled him into the waiting 8-inch blade he had pulled from inside of his leather vest. The knife plunged into the front of Clayton’s throat and out the back of his neck to one side of his spine before Graybeard twisted it and slashed the blade across the man’s throat before retracting it. The Crewmen leader’s eyes filled with both surprise and agony as a torrent of blood ran from the massive wound. He tried to form words but instead of speaking only blood came from his mouth. Looking for his next victim, Graybeard held the Crewmen boss up for a moment, his left hand still wrapped around the back of the man’s neck. Clayton made a gurgling noise, catching Graybeard’s attention as he glanced back at the rival boss. The Crewmen’s eyes still wide, went blank. Graybeard let go of him, and the man collapsed into the slimy inch or so of water that became a river of blood, not just from Clayton but the unlucky member of his Outfit that he accidently shot, his body now laying near that of his leader.
Before Graybeard could turn on the one remaining Crewmen, he went down in a hail of gunfire from one of his crew, but not before getting off some rounds of his own, which was unlucky for one of the Day Breakers.
Graybeard walked over to his subordinate. Spitting up blood the man slithered down the side of the ATV he had exited from, now laying in a puddle of putrid red water from the other victims. The man, whose lightly bearded face was already turning pale looked pleadingly to Graybeard who crouched down next to him.
“Well team, this is what happens when you are not quick enough on the draw. Don’t worry son. I’m gonna take care of you; ain’t no way I’m letting the DEVO’s turn you.” The man smiled as he looked up at Graybeard whose expression didn’t change at all. The man’s smile faded rapidly with the realization of what the boss truly meant, confirmed by the large shiny and bloody blade inches from his face. The man tried to plead then move, but it was too late for either. The boss plunged the knife into his throat and then across, severing it to the spine before wiping the blade on the dying man’s vest. The DEVO’s might feast on the remains but would not gain a member.
“Hey boss, look what the Crewmen have.”
Graybeard ignored the man kicking at his feet as he rose to his full six-foot-eight-inch height and turned to walk to the Crewmen rig, now his.
A smile crossed the huge man’s face. “I’ll be damned. That is going to help us a lot, boys, or rather help the DEVO’s get into that building.” Graybeard said, as he picked up the AT-4 out of its case, admiring it.
Chapter Sixteen
Rushing into the control room Logan and Keith found Andy in an animated discussion on his sat phone. Logan’s elation at being in the fortified building did not last long.
“No, babe! Don’t hang up again!”
There was no doubt exactly who Andy was talking to. Worse yet from the one-sided conversation, Logan gathered that no VTAL was coming to get them. “Babe,” was Mia, Andy’s on again-off again girlfriend and the best damn VTAL pilot among all the infiltration teams. It was a violation to fly into or over the Dead Zone at night, a regulation that most of the teams adhered to at least when it came to the center of the massive city. The ones that had access to a VTAL would use them at the perimeters to move personnel around in the evening or early morning hours, but no one wanted to risk an overflight at night. If there was a mechanical glitch, there was no getting that crew and the expensive machine out. Plus, there was little that could be done at night. No one wanted to be in “the zone” when the sun set.
Mia was a legend who, on more than a few occasions, ran risky rescue flights, but that was always during the day. When the biggest danger was the Outfits.
Mia was a “freelancer” in that she did not work for the Voracious Soldiers exclusively. In fact, she was not officially a member of any of the teams. She owned her own VTAL, and it was for hire to the highest bidder. The Voracious Soldiers were the most prosperous of the various groups that went into the Dead Zone searching for fame and treasure. In no small part, due to Andy and Mia.
Now that they were on the outs, Mia was less willing to participate particularly when it involved Andy. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him, it was that she did too much. Mia believed that Andy had outlived his nine lives. He had an excellent income from his custom-built vehicles and equipment specifically designed for hunting DEVO’s and treasure in the DZ. Not to mention a fair amount of wealth from trophies Andy had snatched. On top of all of that, he ran a popular website and blog about entering the DZ and even did training seminars for those wanting to increase their skills and odds of survival.
Tonight, Mia believed Andy went too deep, too late and she wasn’t going to be a part of his demise, or cause her own by flying into the DZ at night with tens of thousands of DEVO’s already agitated and on the hunt. Andy’s escapades had already gotten the attention of the authorities, who reinforced security forces on the DZ borders in case the DEVO’s tried a breakout. Not since the early days of the epidemic had such large numbers been seen massing. Then again, no one since had fought them for as long and as strongly as Andy and his crew did tonight, which only seemed to bring them out in greater numbers.
Andy sat for a minute staring at his sat phone, before chucking the device on the desktop. He looked dejected, it was more than not being rescued, it was the rejection from someone he believed he had something special with.
“Logan, take his weapons.”
“Andy, what the hell. Do we really have to do this now, given there are ten thousand DEVO’s just outside the lights of this building and licking their chops?”
Keith stiffened, but stayed silent. Better to let Logan plead his case; his team leader had that look.
Andy’s left thumb flicked his rifle from “Safe” to “Single Fire” as his right index finger moved inside the trigger guard. A motion not lost on both Keith and Logan, both quite familiar with the weapon.
“Yeah, we do.” Andy elevated the barrel slightly so that Keith stared straight down it. A glint of light, enhanced by the night vision, reflected to his eyes from the gold colored nose of the .50 caliber round perched in the chamber, the barrel was that broad.
Logan didn’t know what to do. He had never seen Andy this way. It wasn’t anger or another emotion. In fact, Andy was just as cool and collected as always. Too cool, Logan had no doubt Andy would execute Keith right there and then. The best thing to do was follow his instructions.
Logan took Keith’s rifle and sidearm. Keith looked resigned. He neither protested nor tried to reason with Andy.
“Now take off your helmet, vest, boots and uniform.”
“Andy, what the fuck man? This is getting crazy!” Logan protested again.
“Do it now, or I swear I will shoot you in the leg and drag you outside and leave you for the DEVO’s.” Andy lowered his rifle, pointing it at Keith’s kneecap.
“It’s ok, Logan. Andy’s going to send me outside either way. I might as well have two good legs. Maybe with luck, I can get to the bay and tread water till sun up.”
METAVERSE GAMES: OMNIBUS Page 11
