Pandemic i-3

by Scott Sigler

He faced the engine’s left side. So many bullet holes; how was the thing still running? Klimas stood in the truck’s bed, aiming his pistol and firing, making each shot count. Beyond the fire engine, maybe a block down Oak, Tim saw a wave of people and monsters closing in.

  Cooper turned right, started firing.

  Roth opened the rear passenger door and set Ramierez inside. He grabbed his big SCAR-FN rifle, leaving the wounded SEAL with the black shotgun.

  Tim stumbled forward, looked left, right, looked across the street — they were coming from everywhere. Hatchlings, people with blades and guns and clubs.

  He was going to die.

  A woman sprinted toward him, the butcher knife in her hand raised high. Tim pulled the M4’s stock tight to his shoulder, just as Ramierez had told him to do.

  He squeezed the trigger.

  The recoil turned him a little: he hadn’t expected that much.

  The woman fell to the ground, her hands clutching at her stomach.

  A screaming teenage boy with a shotgun. The shotgun roared. Nothing hit Tim. The boy pumped in another round, but before he could shoot again Tim aimed and fired. The bullet slammed into the boy’s chest — he staggered back, dropped.

  Klimas, screaming: “Get in! Get in!”

  Cooper, running for the truck.

  Roth, climbing into the back even as he fired short bursts down Oak at the onrushing horde.

  A roar from Tim’s right: he turned to see a nightmare — a huge thing that had once been a woman. She wore the tattered remains of a blue-sequined evening dress. Yellow skin pockmarked with sores, too-wide neck, long, pointed shards of bone sticking out the back of her wrists like a pair of chipped white swords.

  He couldn’t move. His body wouldn’t react.

  The monster roared again… her bone-blades reached out for him.

  Clarence Otto walked out of the store’s rotating door, his right arm level and steady, his pistol firing so fast, pop-pop-pop-pop. The woman-monster flinched, turned away. He fired three more times into her back. She dropped face-first onto the snow-covered street.

  Clarence grabbed Tim’s shoulder.

  “Move, dummy,” he said, and pushed him toward the truck.

  Tim’s paralysis broke. He ran for the rear driver’s-side door.

  A hatchling, crawling out from underneath the truck. Tim launched himself, raised both feet in the air and landed as hard as he could, smashing the pyramid body. Globs of purple guts splashed out against the trampled white snow.

  Tim reached for the door.

  “Feely, up here!” Klimas, yelling down at him. The SEAL pointed to the water cannon mounted behind the cab. “You’re on that! Move!”

  Hands grabbed Tim from behind and threw him over the bullet-ridden equipment boxes. He landed hard on top of canvas hoses. Tim scrambled to his hands and knees in time to see Clarence Otto hop onto the truck’s rear bumper.

  Klimas pounded on the cab’s hood three times. The big diesel gurgled, and they started to roll.

  TIME TO FLY

  The SH-60 Seahawk pilot eased his helicopter off the Coronado’s deck. He was a good mile away from the shoreline, probably safe from any Stinger the Converted might launch, if the Converted could spot the Seahawk at all from that distance.

  The ’Hawk headed north, over open water, following the Apache attack helicopter that had lifted off a few moments before. The two aircraft would fly well past the LZ, cut west over the shore, then fly south so they could approach the LZ from the north.

  IFF picked up another friendly aircraft in the area: an AC-130 gunship.

  That baby brought serious firepower. The SH-60 pilot hoped the survivors could make it to the extraction point — if any bad guys followed, the AC-130 would make a wonderful mess of them.

  HELL’S ANGELS

  Steve Stanton rode on the back of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He wore an American flag helmet, which he thought was pretty damn awesome.

  In front of him, driving the bike, was the wide bulk of Jeff Brockman. Steve had duct-taped a map of Chicago to his back. Jeff didn’t wear a helmet, because there probably wasn’t a helmet in the world that would fit him. His bone-knives pointed straight ahead, parallel to the snow-covered road.

  Two more motorcycles — another Harley and a crotch rocket — were driving on their right, and a BMW was on their left. A bull drove each of those bikes. Behind each bull, a man with a machine gun.

  The biker gang (Steve couldn’t help but think of it as a biker gang) rolled south on Lakeview Avenue. They drove fast where they could but had to slow frequently in order to maneuver around the cars that choked the road.

  This time, Steve would take care of things personally. He’d find Cooper and shoot him dead. If Steve could get Cooper alone — and unarmed — he would have Jeff kill him slowly. Maybe use those bone-blades to skin Cooper alive.

  Spotters reported that the fire engine — a frickin’ fire engine, of all things — was heading north on State Parkway. The humans were smart. They wanted to get away from downtown. They must have guessed correctly that Steve had concentrated his remaining Stingers there. The humans wanted to get somewhere a helicopter could safely pick them up. Steve had sent more motorcycles to gather up the remaining Stingers and bring them north, but he didn’t know where those helicopters would land.

  Or did he? He looked at the map. The humans were driving north… they would want an open, flat place with no tall buildings. Steve’s fingertip traced the roads.

  There… Lincoln Park.

  Just south of where he was now.

  Considering the abandoned cars blocking the streets, it would take the fire engine about five minutes to reach that location.

  Steve’s biker gang could be there in four.

  ON THE ROAD

  Clarence Otto was soaking wet.

  Tim Feely had yet to master the water cannon. He’d mishandled it twice, the errant, full-force blasts almost knocking Clarence off the truck to land at the feet of the pursuing horde. The big vehicle smashed its way north. The road had narrowed. Not as many tall buildings here, far more three-, four-, and five-story constructs. Snow-covered bare trees lined the sidewalks. It couldn’t be far now… maybe four more long blocks to go.

  Clarence returned fire as best he could. He had only three rounds left in his Glock. Subzero temperatures and wet clothes made his body shake so bad he could barely aim.

  Margaret’s blood is in that water…

  He felt she was with him again. Not the husk he’d killed in the store, but the Margaret of five years ago. His wife. His love. They were fighting this nightmare together.

  Roth was down: a bullet had shattered his right collarbone. He lay there on the ruined hoses, his body tossed left and right by the endless collisions — no one had time to help him.

  Klimas had Roth’s SCAR-FN rifle, was firing single shots to the right side.

  Cooper Mitchell knelt on the hoses, taking careful aim to the left. He was laughing; he sounded just as insane as the crazies running after the fire truck.

  “You want some?” he said, pulling the trigger. He looked at a new target. “Oh, you want some, too?”

  Klimas had ordered Clarence to cover the rear. With the way Engine 98 swerved and slammed and smashed, anything beyond the ten-yard range was an impossible shot.

  Constant obstacles kept the truck from outrunning the wave of pursuers. Bosh avoided what he could, but for the most part he just plowed through anything that was in the way.

  The muscle-monsters were faster than the people, faster than the hatchlings. Four of them had pulled ahead of their fellow Converted and were only ten or fifteen feet behind the truck — if Bosh slowed down, even for a few seconds, yellow-skinned beasts would jump right into the back.

  Clarence aimed carefully, trying to gauge the engine’s continuous impacts. He fired at the lead muscle-monster. It twisted a little to the right, blood visible on its chest, but it kept coming. Clarence aimed lower, fired again: the creatu
re clutched its belly. It slowed, unable to keep up. Clarence aimed at the next one, fired — his slide locked back. He was out of ammo.

  He turned to face forward. Little Tim Feely aimed the water cannon to the right, shooting a long, spreading spray at the hatchlings, people and muscle-monsters that poured out of buildings, desperate to get at the still-accelerating fire truck.

  Klimas dropped, blood pouring from his knee. He reached both hands to grab it; his SCAR-FN tumbled over the side to clatter against the snow-covered street.

  Roth had yet to get up.

  Cooper fired his Sig Sauer — his slide locked back. His weapon was also out.

  A hatchling scrambled over the right side and shot toward Klimas. The SEAL saw it coming, managed to get his hands up in time. Tentacles wrapped around arms: Clarence saw what lay on the bottom of those pyramid bodies — thick teeth made to tear off huge chunks of flesh.

  Clarence reached to his belt. He gripped the handle of the knife he’d used to kill his wife. Klimas pushed the hatchling against the inside of the equipment box. Clarence drew the blade and drove it into the plasticine body. The hatchling let out a high-pitched squeal. Clarence lifted the knife and flicked the creature over the side.

  Klimas’s knee was a bloody mess. He grimaced against the pain, but held out one bloody hand.

  “Can I have my knife back?”

  Clarence handed it over. He never wanted to touch the thing again.

  He looked forward over the truck cabin’s roof. Another wave of bad guys rushed down the middle of the tree-lined street, coming head-on.

  Bosh floored it.

  Engine 98’s flat face hit people so hard the cabin rattled with each impact. Bodies flew in all directions. The truck wobbled and bounced as killers of all kinds fell under the wheels, spraying blood onto the snowy street and even up onto the sidewalks.

  And then, there were no more attackers in front. Bosh had driven through, broken free. Clarence looked out the back.

  Hundreds of them — no, thousands — filled the street, a rushing mob straight out of a zombie flick. The closest ones weren’t even fifteen feet away.

  Tim was still aiming his spray off the right side. Clarence grabbed his shoulder. Tim yanked back on the cannon’s valve-handle. The spray of water quickly faded and died, dripping down onto the bed’s hoses. His face was a sheet of blood; a round had grazed his forehead.

  Clarence pointed to the rear. “You wanted them concentrated.”

  Tim looked. He’d been wide-eyed the entire time, terrified of everything, but now his fear vanished.

  Tim Feely snarled.

  “Come get some,” he said. He pointed the chromed cannon at the chasing horde and shoved the valve-handle all the way forward.

  A concentrated blast shot out, hit a muscle-monster in the chest. Tim moved the stream side to side, knocking people down, kicking up a huge spray that soaked everyone around them.

  And still the mob came on.

  SLOW RIDE

  Engine 98 slammed into something big, catching Tim unawares and smashing into the back of the pockmarked cabin. The blow stunned him. He blinked, tried to clear his vision. When he looked up, he saw Clarence manning the water cannon.

  Clarence aimed high, creating a wide, spreading spray that rained down on the army of pursuers.

  How many had been exposed? Five hundred? More?

  Tim hurt so bad. Every bone, every muscle, if not from jarring impacts then from the endless shivering. His hands were so cold he couldn’t move his fingers, which were curled up as if they still gripped the water cannon’s handles.

  Far behind, he saw some of the pursuers — soaking wet, chests heaving with big, deep breaths — giving up the chase. They would die within twenty-four hours, but not before, hopefully, exposing dozens of others.

  We did it, Margo… we did it.

  Tim looked around. Roth was moving again, struggling weakly to rise. Blood matted the right shoulder of his letterman’s jacket. Just to the left, on the other side of the cannon’s base, Klimas clutched at his bloody, ruined knee.

  And in the middle of the bed, Cooper Mitchell, standing tall and flipping a double bird at the pursuers.

  “How’s that taste, motherfuckers?” Cooper grabbed his crotch and shook it. “Lick it up! Lick it allllll up!”

  Engine 98 lurched. A grinding noise joined the diesel’s gurgle. The truck started to slow.

  Tim saw the street signs: State and Banks. They weren’t far from Lincoln Park now. Two long blocks and they’d be on the green grass.

  He heard a noise up above. There, two spots far off in the sky… helicopters?

  Rescue. They had done it. They were going to make it.

  Then he saw something else, something much closer… something hanging from a tree by its oversized, yellow-skinned arms.

  Engine 98 drove directly underneath it.

  The monster let go.

  GOOD-BYE

  Paulius didn’t see it drop, but he saw it land in the middle of the truck bed, almost on top of Roth. In that frozen, awful moment, Paulius noticed the monster had almost a full head of curly red hair. He wondered if the person had been Irish.

  A pale, sore-speckled arm stabbed down: a bone-blade slid through Roth’s letterman’s jacket, deep into his belly. The creature lifted the 250-pound man like he was nothing. Lifted, and threw — a screaming Roth sailed off the back of the truck to land hard on the pavement.

  Paulius gripped his knife and reactively started to get up, but the agony of his ruined knee stopped him cold.

  The wide-headed monster turned, locked eyes with Paulius. Rippling muscles drove its arm forward. Paulius flinched right — the tip of the bone-blade slashed the side of his neck before it punched through the cab’s back wall.

  A powerful blast of water caught the monster full in the chest and face, sent it tumbling over the equipment box. It smashed through the rear window of an Audi.

  Fire Engine 98 pulled away.

  Paulius reached up with his left hand, pressed it against the right side of his neck.

  He felt blood pouring down.

  Fifteen meters back, Roth managed to get to his knees before the horde descended upon him. A muscle-monster drove a bone-blade straight into his back. Paulius heard Roth’s final scream, then the man vanished beneath a swinging flurry of knives, axes and lead pipes.

  The water cannon’s powerful stream slowed — what had been a steady, straight blast now curved down, the landing spot quickly growing closer as the pressure faded.

  “Shit,” Clarence said. “We’re empty.”

  The truck suddenly started to wobble left and right, wobble hard.

  Paulius heard another new noise. Over the grinding engine, over the sound of metal scraping pavement, and over the ravaged vehicle’s broken rattle each time it hit a bump, he could just make out the thumpa-thumpa of rotor blades.

  And also, something else…

  The roar of motorcycles.

  CHICAGO BULLS

  Steve Stanton’s biker gang rolled to a stop at the T-intersection of North Avenue and North State Parkway. The park — flat and green, dotted with snow-covered, leafless trees — lay behind them. The wind had finally died down. It was turning into a beautiful day.

  There were five motorcycles now: the four he’d started with, plus one man who’d brought a Stinger missile from downtown.

  One block south on North Parkway, a shattered fire engine shivered its way toward them. How was that thing even moving? The windshield had so many splintered holes it looked white rather than clear. Torn metal lined the bottom where a bumper had once been. No grille, just a squarish, black hole with an oddly bent dead man jammed into it.

  The thing wobbled, left-right, left-right. Shredded tires flapped visibly.

  Steve pointed at one of his bulls.

  “You, go kill the driver.”

  The yellow-skinned beauty didn’t ask questions, it just sprinted down the street on impossibly thick legs.

/>   Steve looked at the others. He made a cutting motion at his throat.

  “Kill the bikes,” he said. “Get that Stinger ready. Let’s finish this thing.”

  The bulls did as they were told.

  When the last motorcycle’s gurgle died away, Steve heard something else.

  He turned to look back.

  Since his conversion, he hadn’t felt fear. Not once. That emotion swept over him now — not even fifty meters away he saw a helicopter coming in just over the park’s sparse trees. He thought back to that girl in his office, the one who said the helicopters she saw “looked mean.” Now Steve understood what she meant.

  “Well, shit,” he said, then he felt strong hands wrap around his waist and roughly pull him to the right.

  THE EQUALIZER

  The Apache pilot made a judgment call. Those were monsters standing at the park’s edge… genuine, straight-from-a-nightmare monsters. They were the bad guys. Ergo, anyone standing side by side with monsters was a bad guy as well.

  Five men, five motorcycles, four monsters.

  “Light ’em up,” he told his gunner.

  From inside the helicopter, the Apache’s M230 chain gun sounded like a staccato, three-second roll on a toy snare drum.

  Thirty-millimeter rounds tore into flesh, metal, grass and concrete, kicking up chunks of dirt, puffs of blood and flashing clouds of smoke. All targets dropped. The pilot saw a monster running right, carrying a small man in his arms. The pilot started to call out the target, but one of the fallen men rose to his knees, struggled to bring a long tube up on his shoulder.

  “SAM,” the pilot said.

  Another three-second drum roll answered.

  The man didn’t drop so much as he disintegrated.

  “SAM neutralized,” the pilot said. “New target running right, get him.”

  “Tracking,” the gunner said, but it was too late — the monster dove through the window of a gothic, white-stone apartment building.