“Fuck this,” Fitz said. Reaching down, he unfastened the straps of his blades. “Dohi, hand me that stick!”
The other soldier tossed it to him between gunshots. Fitz grabbed the end with one hand and then used his other to unfasten the final straps of his blades. He fell forward and hit the sand with a grunt, leaving his precious carbon fibers behind.
Dohi dragged Fitz toward the grass. He didn’t bother looking back at his blades, which were as good as gone. Instead, he did the only thing he could do and pulled his M9 from his holster to fire at the beasts on the beach. He pushed himself to a sitting position as Dohi continued to fire with his M4. The first shot Fitz squeezed off chipped at its thick, armored back, but the second shot hit the creature scrambling toward them in the eye.
It trumpeted like an elephant and swung its head from side to side, blood sloshing out of the shattered socket. Dohi hit it in the forehead with two more rounds, killing the monster instantly.
Apollo licked Fitz’s face and then nudged his side as if to say, “Let’s go!”
Dohi grabbed Fitz up under his armpits and then hoisted him over his shoulder. He wasn’t used to being carried, but Fitz wasn’t going to protest.
Dohi lumbered across the grass to the woods separating them from the MATV. Fitz couldn’t see the truck, but the gunfire continued. It meant his team was still alive.
A projectile came crashing through the branches of the forest somewhere in the distance. Fitz caught a glimpse of a Reaver tumbling through the canopy, flapping and squawking in its otherworldly language.
The bark of the M240 drowned out his voice, and the chatter of at least two M4s joined the battle. Fitz fired his pistol at a humanoid face that emerged from a bush. The beast plowed through the vegetation and slammed into a tree. Fitz searched for an unprotected hunk of flesh and popped off two shots that ripped through the slimy skin above the monster’s neck. The creature crashed to the ground, screeching in rage.
A voice crackled over the comms. “We’re stuck!”
The transmission from Rico prompted a flood of adrenaline-induced heat that prickled through Fitz. If the MATV was in quicksand as well, then they were all doomed. Losing the vehicle out here was a death sentence.
“Hold on, we’re almost there,” Fitz said into the comms. He bobbed up and down as Dohi carried him back to the road, winding around trees and powering through underbrush. The rumble of a strained engine soon joined the sound of gunfire.
“The Reavers are retreating, but we can’t move!” Tanaka said over the comms.
Fitz tried to look over his shoulder, but he couldn’t see the truck. He forced himself to keep his pistol trained on the trees, realizing the M240 was no longer firing.
Dohi took a few more steps and then lowered Fitz to the ground. He was crawling from the moment he touched the grass, and Dohi spun to fire quick bursts from his M4. Fitz pushed away at the ground, propelling his now useless lower half up the rest of the embankment to get a look at the MATV.
Tanaka had reversed into the field on the left side of the road, and from the look of it, they were indeed stuck in another quicksand trap. The front tires were still above the ground, but the back of the vehicle was submerged.
“Get out of there!” Fitz shouted.
Tanaka was already climbing out the front driver’s side window. He pulled himself onto the hood and then reached back for Alecia. The girl jumped off into the dirt and scrambled away to safety.
“Changing!” Dohi yelled.
Rolling to his back, Fitz squeezed off three quick shots at a juvenile that skittered around a tree. The rounds ricocheted off its armor.
Dohi slammed in a fresh magazine and fired off another burst that brought the monster down. The other creature sank back into the shadows.
Fitz flipped back to his stomach and dragged himself toward the road. Alecia and Tanaka were standing on solid ground, but Rico was still climbing out onto the hood, and Stevenson was nowhere in sight.
“Hurry!” Fitz shouted.
The back of the MATV was buried up to the passenger’s window, but the front wheels were still on solid ground and kicking up dirt. The sand gurgled and slurped around the armored doors as Stevenson fought to keep the vehicle above the muck. The engine groaned, filling the air with the scent of smoke and burned rubber.
Drawing his Katana, Tanaka ran over with the blade in one hand and his pistol in the other. Alecia raised her pistol and fired into the forest, scoring a hit that prompted a screech from one of the monsters.
“Stevenson, you gotta bail!” Rico shouted.
Dohi was firing again behind Fitz, and Apollo was barking up a storm.
“Stevenson, get out!” Rico yelled again.
Fitz dragged his body a few more feet. He changed the magazine in his M9 and searched for a target. The wall of smoke to the south had completely swallowed the setting sun, and darkness spread over the land. In the woods separating him from the lake, three juveniles were prowling the shadows, darting between trees.
Apollo took off running toward the forest, and Fitz reached out to stop him. “No! Get back!”
Behind them, there was a loud sucking sound followed by a pop. Apollo retreated, and Fitz squeezed off three more shots into the woods before turning to look at the road.
The MATV was gone—with Stevenson still in it.
12
To say they were surrounded was an understatement.
Beckham finished sending the SOS and their current GPS coordinates over the channel that had broadcast the repeating message “Javier Riley” and turned to look at the monitors in the radio room.
Outpost 46, or Deadwood, as Flathman called it, was an island in a sea of infected. There were hundreds of the beasts, some of them clothed, others naked and covered in pus-oozing bite marks and deep gashes. Flathman watched the security footage from a chair in front of a table covered with magazines, boxes of bullets, and the single bottle of vodka.
They had plenty of ammo, but not enough weapons to fire it. Between the two of them, the soldiers had two M4s, two M9s, and a twelve-gauge shotgun—hardly enough firepower to hold off the horde beyond the gates.
“They definitely know we’re here,” Flathman kept saying. He took another swig of vodka.
Beckham almost slapped the drink out of his hand.
“At least the fences are live,” Flathman continued. “Those will keep the bastards out for a while.”
“How long is a while? I just sent an SOS to whoever is sending out the repeating message. Maybe we can hold them back long enough to get evacuated.”
After another swig, Flathman shrugged a shoulder. “Two, maybe three hours.”
“And then what?”
Flathman shrugged again. “They get in.”
“Fuck,” was the only word Beckham could think to say. He looked down at his blade. He needed to find a replacement or fix it before the monsters breeched the outpost. There was no way he could run with the condition it was in now.
“Does that Humvee work?” Beckham said. He didn’t want to leave the base, just in case President Ringgold sent them a bird for evac, but so far there had been no answer to his SOS, and he couldn’t wait around for one either.
“I filled the generators with the last of the diesel,” Flathman said.
“How about that M260 and the Gatling guns? Do any of ’em have ammo?”
Flathman shook his head. “My men burned through it weeks ago. That’s probably why ROT left them behind.”
“Is there another tunnel to get out of here?”
“Nope.”
“Make it too tough for the enemy to get in and you can’t get out,” Beckham muttered under his breath. The old saying had been drilled into him during his training, but he hadn’t thought of it in years.
“Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet,” Flathman said with a chuckle. “I’ve never been a great soldier, Captain. I’ve spent my life failing at the first two parts of Mad Do
g’s advice, and now I’ve failed at the third.”
Both soldiers stood for several minutes in silence, listening to the shrieks of the hungry monsters.
“We have to do something,” Beckham said. “I’m not going to sit here and wait to die. Kate needs me.”
“Your lady is still alive out there?” Flathman went to take another drink, but Beckham reached out for the bottle. He clearly hadn’t been listening to anything Beckham had said about the radio transmissions.
“You’ve had enough, LT. I need you sober when those fences come crashing down.”
Flathman clutched the bottle to his chest. It was already a third gone, but his gaze was still sharp, and his reaction time seemed normal.
“Come on, hand it over,” Beckham said more firmly. He motioned for the bottle with two fingers, but Flathman turned his body to shield it like a kid protecting a stolen candy bar.
Beckham balled his left hand into a fist. His eyes flitted to the monitor where the infected were prowling outside the eastern electric fences. One of them galloped through the field, making a run for the chain-link fence. It leaped into the air and latched onto the top, earning itself a jolt for several seconds before it released its grip and fell back to the dirt, pale flesh smoldering.
“Stupid little bastard,” Flathman chuckled. “My men and I used to watch this shit all night long. Then we met the Badger, an Alpha who figured out how to tunnel beneath them. The sly fucker killed four of my soldiers before we brought her down. But at least we got a tunnel built for us. It’s the same one I used to get inside.”
Beckham grabbed the bottle as Flathman brought it back to his lips and yanked it away. He backed up out of the lieutenant’s reach.
Flathman stood, his chest heaving and eyes crooked with rage.
“You do not want to get into a pissing match over that bottle,” Flathman growled. “Trust me.”
“I need you sober, sir. A lot of people are counting on us, including the commander-in-chief. You may not take orders from me, but you do from her, and she told you to hold this post. Did she not?”
Flathman took a step forward, and Beckham saw raw anger in the lieutenant for the first time since meeting him. The lieutenant was a strong and brave man—a man who had suffered as Beckham had, losing men under his command. But unlike Beckham, Flathman had chosen to drink his sorrows away.
“It’s over, Captain. I’m sorry. There’s no way in hell we can hold back that many. Now give me my damn booze.”
Beckham could see taking away his self-medication wasn’t going to be easy, but he wasn’t going to let Flathman give up. Not now, not after fighting for survival for so long—and especially not after learning Kate was still alive.
“You asked if my lady is alive, and she is,” Beckham said. “I sent an SOS over that channel while you were over here drinking your sorrows away. If it gets through, then maybe President Ringgold will send a bird in time to get us the hell out of here.”
Flathman snorted. “Your message is more likely to get through to ROT, Captain, and the moment Wood finds out where you are, he’s going to send cruise missiles to finish the job. My guess is you just made things worse for us.” He fingered the air, motioning for the bottle. “Now hand that over, or we’re going to have a major fucking problem.”
A shriek sounded outside the front door. Flathman had taken a step forward to grab the bottle, but at the noise he drew his M9 and pointed it at the door.
“Shit, one of ’em must have made it past the defenses,” he grumbled. “Those fucking moles.”
Beckham sat the bottle down on the table and grabbed the M4 resting against the wall. They walked out into the dark main room, side by side, the tension from their argument subsiding as the threat of the monsters loomed.
A shadow flashed by the gap in the window curtains to Beckham’s right. Another darted past the window on the left.
Not one infected, but two.
Flathman held up two fingers and then directed Beckham to the right.
The lieutenant stepped up to the window and slowly pulled the drape back. He then pushed the drapes together and walked back to the operations room to look at the monitors. After a quick scan, he muttered, “You have to be fucking kidding me.”
“What?” Beckham said, stepping up for a look. He didn’t need Flathman to answer his question. On-screen, several infected were climbing into the tunnel that Flathman had used to get back into the outpost.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Flathman said. “You didn’t seal it off?”
“Me? So this is my fault?”
Flathman cursed and then kicked a chair, sending it crashing into the wall.
Beckham glared at him and brought a finger to his lip. He’d never seen the lieutenant act like this. “Calm down, man.”
Flathman took in several deep breaths. He released a sigh and wiped his nose with his sleeve.
“I’m sorry, Cap,” he said. “I don’t know what got into me.”
Beckham furrowed his brows. He had a pretty good idea of what had gotten into the lieutenant: about three gills of vodka. “We have to seal this end of the tunnel then. Where does it come out?”
Flathman pulled off his Cubs hat and fluffed it over his head. “There are two places. One is the central guard tower, and the second is by the machine shed.”
“Do you have any explosives?”
Flathman shook his head and then followed Beckham’s gaze toward the bottle. “Oh, fuck no.”
“Sorry, LT, but we don’t have a choice,” Beckham said, grabbing it off the desk. “We need to make a Molotov cocktail or at least set that tunnel on fire to keep out any more of the infected until we can find a way out of here.”
Beckham thought he was going to have to fight Flathman, but a wave of calm seemed to suddenly pass over the man. He drew in a deep breath, exhaled, and then reached out. “I’ll do it, Cap, but it’s going to take more than a single bottle of vodka.”
Beckham reluctantly handed him the bottle.
“Don’t worry, Jim ‘Ten Lives’ Flathman has one last trick up his sleeve.” He took a swig and winked at Beckham.
“I’ll watch your six from the top of the building,” Beckham offered, wondering if he’d made a terrible mistake.
They loaded up on magazines, grabbed their weapons, and checked the radio one last time to see if there was a reply to their SOS, but all they heard were the same two words on repeat.
“Javier Riley, Javier Riley.”
Flathman exchanged a glance with Beckham, and then a nod. They proceeded to the back entry that led to a ladder up to the roof, pausing at the door.
“Good luck, sir,” Beckham whispered.
Flathman twisted his lips to the side in a pained frown. After a moment of silence, he said, “I’m sorry about earlier. It’s truly been an honor fighting with you, Captain. I’ll do everything I can to make sure you make it out of here and see your lady and, someday, your son.”
“Thank you, sir. It’s been an honor fighting with you too. Good luck out there.”
Another nod, and the men parted ways. Beckham’s final words to Flathman seemed absolute, but he still held on to hope they could both get out of this alive. He slung his suppressed M4 over his back and climbed carefully, while Flathman took off around the building.
The monsters surrounding the fences to the south shrieked when they saw him and several rammed the fence, earning jolts that sent their smoking bodies into the field.
Beckham made it to the roof and crawled to the sandbags on the ledge. The third chain-link fence was just below. An infected prowled outside the door that led into the building.
The creature had been a brunette woman not long ago, with hair that hung down to shoulders hunched like a cat’s. Razor-sharp claws still bore traces of purple fingernail polish. Beckham ducked lower when the beast glanced up at his position, blood oozing from its eyes, ears, and nose. A long, swollen tongue flicked over bulging lips, licking them dry, before the beast dropped to al
l fours.
He charged his rifle, then pulled out his M9 and placed it on the ground. Next he lined up his magazines. When he was finished preparing, he bowed his helmeted head.
Instead of saying a traditional prayer, he spoke to the person he knew was looking out for him.
Mom, I could really use your help now. I gotta go meet your grandson. Feel free to move mountains to get me out of this one!
That’s what it was going to take—or something on the same level, he realized as he peeked again over the sandbags. A tsunami of pallid flesh was flowing in from all directions. More of the infected were still darting out of the forest. Their noses had brought them straight to Outpost 46 to kill the last two men left in Chicago.
Kate, baby, if I don’t make it, please know that I loved you and our boy more than anything on this earth.
It was torture knowing that Kate was still alive out there but not being able to get to her. At least he could die knowing she still had a chance—even if it was without him.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to fight tooth and nail to return to her side.
He magnified his scope’s sights on the tunnel entrance Flathman had used to get into the base. Several of the beasts were crawling into the hole, but most of the others were either too dumb or too distracted to notice the back door into the outpost.
Beckham counted five infected in the fenced-in area outside the buildings: three to the east near the Humvee, a fourth sniffing the metal building to his right, and the fifth moving around the corner below, right toward Flathman.
The lieutenant glanced up and met Beckham’s gaze. They exchanged a nod, and Beckham propped his M4 on the sandbags. He pushed the butt against his shoulder and aimed for the creature moving toward Flathman.
The beast crossed in front of his sights and Beckham got a magnified view of the lacerations covering its naked back like whip marks. Several chunks of flesh were missing, teeth marks surrounding the wounds.
A double pull of the trigger dropped the creature into the dirt with nothing more than a faint thud. Flathman took off running for the central guard tower with a shotgun slung over his back. In his right hand was the bottle of vodka turned Molotov cocktail, and in his right hand was a small camouflage bag.
Extinction War Page 16
