The Killing Floor

by Craig DiLouie

  Roger, Three. Out.

  The others wolf down their meals, knowing what is coming, but waiting until he gives the order.

  “We’ve got a vehicle inbound,” he says. “You know what to do. Let’s get to it.”

  The soldiers take final bites of food and slugs of juice and scramble to their feet, pocketing their energy bars and candy for later. They snatch up their weapons and run off. Lynch stays behind to help Sosa pull on his flamethrower harness.

  “Corporal, when you’re done there, go tell spooky and the doc we’re expecting company,” Rod says.

  “Aieeyah, Sergeant.”

  “Hart, I need you on the fifty,” he shouts, banging his fist against the Stryker’s armor. The gunner appears in the cupola, gives him a thumbs up, and grabs hold of the mounted heavy machine gun, locking and loading it.

  Checking his shotgun, Rod walks to the checkpoint they built using sawhorses and STOP signs, placed in layers running every twenty meters along the road up to the gas station. The theory is Typhoid Jody will either stop, or try to bypass or drive through the roadblock.

  If he tries to bypass or drive through, he will slow down, and the Stryker’s fifty will make quick work of him. If he fails to cooperate, he is a dead man.

  Rod’s body rebels, his heart racing and his breath becoming fast and shallow, but not from fear. No, he is simply excited. Can this really be it? Can this guy really offer a cure? If not a cure, maybe a vaccine, or even a weapon?

  Is this the operation that ends the war and allows us to retake the country?

  He whistles to get Davis’s attention. “Corporal, change of plans for you. I want you to find a safe spot fifty meters behind us, watching our rear. Same plan if something happens to me, though. You’re to take command.”

  “Got it, Sergeant,” Davis says, jogging away.

  Rod blows air out his cheeks, raises the hood on his MOPP suit, and pulls on his gas mask.

  “It’s time to earn our money,” he says.

  Hellraisers 3, this is Hellraisers Eyes, over.

  “Go ahead, Eyes, over.”

  I have eyes on the uniform victor. Range, about three kilometers. Break. It’s a military vehicle, Sergeant. An APC. Over.

  “Shift to overwatch, Eyes. Hellraisers 3, out.”

  Rod frowns at the waves of heat rising off the warmed road and wonders about the odds of this being a coincidence. What’s an armored personnel carrier doing in this exact place at this exact point in time? Could this be our guy?

  He had the impression Typhoid Jody is a civilian, but he might be military, and he might know how to drive an APC. Alarms flash through Rod’s mind.

  How are we going to stop him if he’s driving an amored vehicle?

  Fielding and Price approach in their bright yellow spacesuits, carrying what appear to be suitcases made of yellow plastic emblazoned with ominous biohazard symbols.

  “Stay behind me,” he tells them.

  The vehicle appears in the distance, approaching with a metallic scream, and crushes the first line of sawhorses before rolling to a sudden stop in front of the second.

  Rod waves, his heart pounding against his ribs.

  The turret turns rapidly, aligning the cannon barrel with the Stryker. Five shooters in a motley collection of military uniforms fan out from behind, taking cover and aiming their weapons at his men.

  “Hold fire, Hellraisers,” Rod says into his headset.

  “Any idea who they are?” Dr. Price says.

  “I believe we’re about to find that out.”

  The hatch opens and a large man appears. “Who’s in charge here?” his deep voice booms across the roadblocks.

  Rod takes off his mask and pulls his hood down.

  “I’m Sergeant Hector Rodriguez, Fifth Stryker Cavalry Regiment. And you would be?”

  “Sergeant Toby Wilson, Eighth Infantry Division, Fifth Brigade—the Iron Horse.”

  Rod grunts with respect. From what he heard, elements of Fifth Brigade fought hard all over Pennsylvania in the first days of the Wildfire epidemic, and were destroyed piecemeal. If Wilson is from that unit, he and his crew are among its few survivors.

  This guy must have one hell of a story to tell.

  “Where’s your original dismounts?” he asks, referring to Wilson’s infantry squad.

  “Dead just like all the rest. We’re militia now.”

  “Well, Sergeant Wilson, it’s an honor, but I’m going to have to ask that you exit my area of operations. If you want to pass through, you’ve got my blessing.”

  “No can do, Sergeant. This is important. I need you to tell me about your operation.”

  “What the hell?” Rod mutters, then calls back, “Go fuck yourself, Sergeant! Is that enough information for you?”

  He hears his boys laughing at their positions. Wilson’s shooters continue to scurry to new cover, fanning out further on his flanks. Preparing for a fight. Soon, they will have him flanked on the left, where he’s weak. He doubts they know about Arnold looking down on them with his machine gun.

  The situation is deteriorating fast.

  “I ain’t playing with you, Sergeant,” Wilson says. “This is important. I’m going to ask one more time. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m telling you for the last time: It’s none of your goddamn business, Sergeant.”

  The next few seconds appear to stretch as nobody speaks or moves. Rod has a sense of everyone lining up iron sights on a human target, settling in for the order to fire.

  “Sergeant,” Dr. Price says.

  “If I were you, I’d get down, Doc,” Fielding says, kneeling behind cover.

  “He’s right,” Rod says. “Get your ass down.”

  “We’re looking for a man!” the scientist cries, rushing forward.

  “Jesus,” Rod groans. “Get down before you get shot!”

  Price ignores him, running toward the distant Bradley and shouting: “We’re looking for the man who brought the Wildfire Agent into Camp Defiance! We believe he is coming this way! We want to bring him to a special facility because we believe his blood may hold a cure to Wildfire! Come on, we’re all on the same side!”

  Wilson whistles and Rod tenses, raising his shotgun and aiming it center mass at the figure sitting in the open hatch of the armored personnel carrier.

  Go ahead, Wilson. I’m taking you with me.

  Wilson has some connection to the camp, and has been tracking Typhoid Jody in the hopes of killing him. Simple justice.

  To his surprise, Wilson’s shooters pop up from their concealed positions, weapons lowered.

  “Good call, Doc,” Rod says absently, blowing air out his cheeks and lowering his shotgun. He watches Wilson jump down from the Bradley and march toward him unarmed. A woman exits the back of the Bradley and joins him. Rod gives the order to stand down.

  “I want you back to observing the road, Eyes. Out.”

  Roger that, Three. Out.

  Rod steps out from behind the row of sawhorses, and jogs to meet Wilson and the woman.

  “Looks like we’re on the same side, Sergeant Wilson,” he says, extending his hand.

  “Sorry to step on your op,” the large man says, taking it.

  “Hate to see what would have happened if we weren’t on the same side.”

  “That’s a topic best avoided, don’t you think?”

  “Agreed,” Rod grins. “And you can call me Rod.”

  “Rod it is. I’m Toby. The guys call me Sarge. This is Wendy, my gunner.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Ma’am.”

  “Likewise,” she says.

  Rod blinks as he shakes her hand, feeling his cheeks burn. Wendy smiles wryly in response. God, this woman is gorgeous. He introduces them to Price and Fielding.

  “Anything we can do to help, Rod?” Wilson asks him. “We appear to have the same mission.”

  “Let me be clear about something, Toby. Our orders are to bring the man in if we can. We are going to do everything we
can to make this happen. If we can’t, well, then I’m afraid we’ll have to put him down. Those orders are not open to discussion or compromise.”

  “Understood,” Wilson says with a nod.

  “In that case I will take you up on your offer of help,” Rod says. “I could use your vehicle a hundred meters behind us and to the left, in front of the strip mall there, with your shooters deployed around it, out of sight, but accessible, and everyone in gas masks if you’ve got them. Provide rear security, and act as reserve.”

  “Happy to do it.”

  “What do you know about the man?” the scientist asks them.

  “His name is Ray Young,” Wendy says. “We came across his trail yesterday, and we’ve been tracking him. Lost him somewhere after Mechanicsburg.”

  “Why were you tracking him?” Fielding wants to know.

  “He infected Camp Defiance,” Wilson answers. “We figured he uses spores. And if he’s using spores, it’s something we haven’t seen before, something unique. We thought we might be able to get him to where some scientists could take a look at him. Maybe come up with a cure.”

  “That’s why we’re here too,” Dr. Price says.

  “Smart thinking,” says Rod.

  “Not me,” Wilson says with a grin. “We got a smart aleck kid named Todd on our team.”

  “So what are we dealing with here, Sergeant?” Rod says. “Do you know the extent of his influence over the Infected?”

  Wilson and Wendy exchange a glance.

  “We had to shoot our way through two towns,” Wilson tells him. “The Infected attacked us, with weapons. Some of them had guns.”

  “Fascinating,” Dr. Price says.

  “I was thinking, horrible,” Rod says. “If Mr. Young has that kind of command and control over the crazies, he could be a hell of a lot harder to deal with.”

  “After Mechanicsburg, we stopped being attacked, so our guess he went to ground between there and Spring Lake, probably up in Milford, which is around a ten-minute drive off the road.”

  “The man is close, then,” Rod says, nodding. “Assuming he’s still coming east.”

  As if to confirm his assumption, Arnold’s voice buzzes in his ear.

  Hellraisers 3, this is Hellraisers Eyes. Contact, west. Repeat. We have contact.

  Dr. Price

  Travis catalogs his symptoms: shaking, loss of peripheral vision, lips tingling, heart racing and eyes and mouth feeling dry, which he knows is a result of stress inhibiting the lacrimal gland. Sergeant Rodriguez was right; when it comes to fight or flight, you may end up fighting your own body.

  As they wait for the vehicle to approach the roadblocks, Travis remembers what he felt his first day at the White House, and the last, when he fled the building in a helicopter. That sense of history in the air. He glances at the men next to him. Their eyes are gleaming. They can feel it too. The Berlin Wall coming down. Fireballs erupting from the World Trade Center. The Screaming, the first days of the Wildfire epidemic. Fulcra around which history bends. The sense that after today, nothing will ever be the same. After today, everything, everywhere, will be different.

  And now this. Bringing Ray Young to a special facility, where they will capture a pure sample of Wildfire and save the world.

  He remembers Sandra Forbes swooning in the grip of the Secret Serviceman just before the man flung her into the crowd like so much garbage. I’m sorry, Sandra. But I did it for this. I have a responsibility to the human race far greater than to any single individual.

  He turns and studies Fielding’s profile. The man is grinning. He feels it too. For this one moment, these enemies are like brothers, united in common cause.

  I owe you an apology as well.

  I’m sorry, Fielding, but you won’t be able to come with me for what I must do.

  Anne

  Anne stands hunched and gasping over the hot machine gun, her dead comrades crumpled at her feet. She and Marcus say nothing for several minutes, just watching the road. They are approaching another town. Anne tenses, but it appears to have been burned off the map. A charred ruin that smells like ash, utterly dead.

  The bus jolts over a pothole and Marcus moans in pain.

  Anne stares at him with growing horror. The large man hugs the steering wheel, gritting his teeth, his face pale and waxy. Marcus looks like a corpse.

  Blood drips from his seat into a dark puddle on the floor.

  “You stupid—” She drops the machine gun and hunts for the first aid kit. “How bad is it?”

  “Bad,” he manages. The simple act of speaking appears to give him pain. “Shot.”

  “Stop the bus.”

  “No.”

  “Marcus.”

  “Can’t. If I stop, don’t know if I could drive again.”

  “Then don’t,” she says simply, surprising herself. “I’ll get you patched up, and then take you to Nightingale.”

  “The mission. . .”

  Anne shakes her head. “I don’t care. I can’t let you die.”

  “Not up to you,” he says, his eyes a fiery blue in his pale face. “Saw what this guy can do. Understand now. Have to stop him.”

  She chokes back a tear, conquering the urge to weep by sheer force of will. Crying is like death, a threshold. Once she starts, she knows, she may never stop.

  “I don’t want you to do anything for me anymore.”

  “It’s not about you, Anne. Always my choice.”

  She probes him with her eyes, looking for the gunshot wound, and finds it in his hip—a small hole with charred edges, the surrounded area blackened with blood. Probably a ricochet, or one of the Infected shot him point blank from the hood. She checks for an exit wound but finds nothing. The bullet is lodged in his pelvic bone.

  While Marcus focuses on the road, Anne uses her knife to widen the hole in his jeans, and studies the ragged, broken flesh around the wound. It is still bleeding, but the bullet missed the arteries. She opens a bottle of alcohol.

  “This is going to hurt. Get ready.“

  She pours the alcohol onto the wound, making Marcus gasp with agony. Anne marvels at his endurance. He has strength of a bull. She wipes away the fluids and pushes a bandage against it.

  “I can put a dressing on it but the bullet is still in there. You need a doctor.”

  “After,” he says.

  “We could go to Nightingale, get you fixed, and then we could live there together, you and me,” she offers. “I could be your wife.”

  Marcus does not speak for several moments. Anne studies his face hopefully. Finally, he shakes his head with a tight smile. “Now you ask. Too late for that.” He gestures to the bodies on the floor, the smile turning into a grimace. “Otherwise, they died for nothing. Besides, unless Ray dies, nowhere safe. Must give him mercy.”

  “I don’t know if we can get him,” Anne says. “He’s too well protected.”

  “Find a way. Always do. Ranger way.”

  “We’re not real Rangers, Marcus. I’m just a—”

  Anne pauses, surprised she cannot recall what she was before. Instead, she remembers the cries of children washing over her like waves from the distant burning ruin of Camp Defiance. In her mind’s eye, a military helicopter lunges into the sky, wobbling unsteadily, people tumbling out of the back and falling screaming to the ground.

  “All right,” she says. “This time, I need you to get me close. We’ll wear gas masks. We’ll drive straight into him. I get out, I shoot him in the head. All or nothing. Then I get you to Nightingale.”

  “Can get you close,” Marcus tells her. “Can do that.”

  Anne runs her hand along his heavily muscled arm and wonders at the life they might have created together. She kisses it, tasting blood. Presses her scarred cheek against his bicep.

  This is her way of saying goodbye.

  “Look,” Marcus says. “The road.”

  She stands, facing the wind rushing through the open windshield, and sees the billboard looming in a grassy
field. The board is plastered with a wilting ad for a gun store and shooting range in the next town, five miles ahead. Morgantown.

  The content of the ad barely registers with her. Someone has spray painted over it in bold black capitals:

  DEFIANCE? FIND SOLDIERS IN MORGANTOWN

  “I think things have just gotten more complicated,” she says.

  Ray

  The old truck lurches down the road, careening around abandoned wrecks, its driver feeling terrified and elated, still riding high on the adrenaline rush. The ferocity of Anne Leary’s pursuit makes Ray shiver even now.

  She was one tough broad. But I took care of that, yes sir. I got her, I’m sure of it. Her and her entire crew, all dead or infected now, and good goddamn f’ing riddance.

  “No more Mr. Nice Guy, honey.”

  He glances right for a reaction but the seat next to him is empty. French, Anderson and Salazar are in the back, clinging to the sides of the truck, and Lola is dead, her brains splashed across a motel parking lot like so much litter.

  Nothing ever works out the way you want it to, he tells himself, filled with bitter anger.

  Lola is dead, but the plan is the same: go to Washington and help to make things right again. The lump in his side purrs in response to this thought. Yes, yes, it says. Find more people.

  After driving through the burned-out husk of Horseneck, he saw the first billboard. He knew it was meant for him. Whatever doubts he had about trying to work out a deal were silenced by the apocalyptic horrors of Horseneck, which reminded him of the dead world of his fevered dream. Infection showed him that world as if it were an offering that would please him. To the bug, a dead world is beautiful. Lots of space for new life.

  An epiphany makes him blink. The bug, he realizes, has no master plan other than to diversify and compete. Ray is not particularly special; he is just another mutation, an experiment, part of the Brood. Just like all the monsters. They are not things from another planet, recreated on Earth. They were specially created, like him, from genetic material the Brood found here. The Brood is not an alien race. It is life itself. A runaway program for building life.