Crucifixion - 02

by Dirk Patton

  “Anderson, you up on the net?” We hadn’t been on a planned mission and didn’t have designated call signs.

  “Go ahead, Major.” His reply came back almost instantly.

  “What’s your status?”

  “Fueling complete. Mayo found ammo for the minigun and is loading us up right now. We’re ready to go when you are, which had better be soon. There’s a lot of infected headed this way.”

  “Copy. Moving to the flight line with a group of survivors. Got a big bird inbound and the plan is to evac on it. Get your passenger ready to move and keep an eye on her. People are still turning.”

  “Copy that,” he replied. “We’ll be ready.”

  By now the survivors had formed up into a tight group. Eight unarmed people helped four wounded and I spent a moment getting us into a movement formation with me at the point and Rachel right on my ass. Roach’s two MPs straddled the group and Roach was at the rear. I bent and retrieved the rifle and three more magazines from the dead MP, handed them to Roach, then moved back to the front of the small group and pulled the doors to the hallway open.

  I had to immediately engage two infected males who had been feasting on a body in the hall. Both went down before they could rise and I moved into the hallway, stepping over the bodies. Dog took up position to my right front as we moved, head and tail lowered but ears straight up as he stayed alert for any threat. The hallway to my left led deeper into the building and was clear. Ahead was the top of the stairs and I moved forward, rifle ready and aiming down the stairwell ahead of my line of sight. Behind me I could hear the group moving, making more noise than I wanted as several feet kicked spent shells sending them tinkling across the hard floor.

  Dog trotted down the upper flight of stairs, stopping on the landing. The fur along his back stiffened and went straight on end as he let out a low growl. I moved quickly to stand beside him, swinging the rifle’s aim down to the lower stairs. Approaching were three infected males and I decided to keep us as quiet as I could. I had a sound suppressor for my rifle but it was in my pack and I didn’t have time to dig it out. Holding up a clenched fist I signaled for the group behind me to stop as I lowered the rifle. Drawing the Kukri I descended the lower stairs and moved forward to meet the infected.

  The first infected I reached was wearing AF blue coveralls with Tech Sergeant’s stripes and grease stains on the sleeves. He looked like one of the ground crew that had helped with the pre-flight on the Pave Hawk earlier that afternoon. He wasn’t that man anymore. Leading with the tip of the Kukri I rammed it into his throat then torqued it so the blade sliced up into his skull as I pushed. The body dropped and I yanked the machete free and met the next infected who was wearing sweat pants and an Air Force Academy T-Shirt. He was younger and in great physical shape and moved faster than any male I had encountered so far. Not as fast as the females, but fast enough to make me adjust my swing with the Kukri and miss slicing into his neck as the blade cut into his upper arm and got stuck in the bone.

  In a flash he was on me, trying to wrap me up as his snapping jaws sought out my face. I had already released the handle of the Kukri and got my arms in front of me, hands flat on his chest and shoved with all my strength. He flew backwards, tumbling to the hallway floor, the blade of the machete popping free from his arm when he fell. The momentary distraction with him allowed the third infected to move in and grasp my left arm with an inhumanly strong grip. Reaching across my body with my right hand I grabbed his wrist and turned my whole body, breaking his grip and pulling his arm into a cross lock. With a quick jerk I snapped his elbow, but for all his reaction I might as well have hit him with a feather pillow. He kept coming forward, grabbing with his good arm and trying to grab with his broken arm. By now the infected I had knocked to the floor was back on his feet and pressing the attack.

  OK, fuck quiet. These weren’t normal humans that could be subdued in hand to hand combat. Shoving hard against each of them I gained a few feet of space, drew my pistol and shot each in the head. Scooping up the Kukri and sheathing it I shouted for the group to start moving again as I brought my rifle back to the ready position. They quickly filed down the stairs and stacked up behind me in the hall. We moved forward again as a group, several soft gasps sounding from behind me as we passed the bodies on the floor. Reaching the closed door where I had left the young woman earlier I paused our movement and tapped on the door with the barrel of my rifle. No screaming or pounding from within the room so I turned the knob and cracked the door open, ready to fire if anyone or anything charged at me.

  The woman was still huddled behind the overturned table, eyes wide in fear. I motioned her to come to me, but she was frozen in place. Reading the situation, Rachel stepped past me and into the room, talking to the frightened woman in a calming voice. A minute later she had her on her feet and rejoined the group, giving the woman an assignment of helping with the wounded. I had maintained watch on the remainder of the hall and the exit ahead while Rachel brought the woman out to the group, and started moving forward again when I felt Rachel’s hand on top of my left shoulder.

  “Major,” Anderson’s voice came over my earpiece.

  “Go,” I replied in a low voice, keeping my focus on the exit door at the end of the hall.

  “It’s getting damn scary out here. Infected are coming from every direction. Seems like there’s a major outbreak and the explosion and fire are drawing them in.”

  “What’s your status?”

  “Aircraft is fueled, re-armed and ready to go, but we’re going to have to start burning through ammo real quick. We’ve got a pretty large group headed our way.”

  “Copy,” I replied. “Get your ass in the air and stay in the area. I’m about to exit flight ops with a group of survivors. That Globemaster should be touching down any minute and I’ll probably need air support to get these people on board.”

  “Copy that,” he replied and I could already hear the Pave Hawk’s engines spooling up over the radio. “We’ll be on station when you need us.”

  Chapter 10

  I pushed out through the metal exit door and the first thing that hit me was the smell of burning jet fuel from the massive fire at the far end of the flight line. The fire was close to half a mile away but it was large enough to light up the entire area. Silhouetted between me and the fire were hundreds of infected, some shambling in our direction, others apparently mesmerized by the fire and just standing there staring. Closer to the fire several figures stumbled along as their clothing burned. As I watched they eventually fell to the ground.

  There were a couple of dozen infected males within 50 yards of us and I started firing single head shots, dropping them as we moved forward. Behind and to my left another rifle started firing single shots and the two of us quickly dispatched all the infected that were too close for comfort. When the last one fell I glanced around, expecting to see Roach, but Rachel smiled at me and lowered her rifle. I guess the time on the firing range had paid off.

  Overhead I could hear the heavy rotor of the Pave Hawk as Anderson kept it in a tight orbit over the area. Masuka came forward and touched my arm and pointed off to the right, her arm indicating a spot a few degrees above the horizon. I looked and saw an impossibly large jet that appeared to be hanging suspended in the air. The optical illusion was quickly dispelled as it grew larger by the second. The Globemaster is the heavy lift aircraft for the Air Force. It’s almost 200 feet long with a wingspan as wide as the aircraft is long. They are capable of carrying armor and troops anywhere in the world and are one of the largest aircraft in the US Military inventory.

  As I watched the pilot brought the gigantic plane down onto the runway closest to us and the four massive engines roared loud enough to shake the ground when he activated the thrust reversers to slow down. The plane rolled for a long way as speed bled off then the noise reduced as it rolled to a stop and the engines were throttled back to idle. I glanced around in dismay as every infected in sight zeroed in on the new a
rrival and started shambling towards it.

  “OK people, double time. Let’s move!” I shouted and started running, leading the way towards the idling jet.

  We were several hundred yards from the Globemaster and I couldn’t count the number of infected that were in our way. The only good news here is that the military is predominantly male so there were very few fast moving females to deal with. A couple of them noticed our small group and broke away from the main body that was collapsing in on the plane and sprinted directly for us. Dropping to a knee I brought down one of them while she was still over 100 yards out, missed the second one with my follow on shot then split her head open when I fired again.

  The group had stopped behind me when I went to my knee but they stayed close with me when I rose and started running again. Males were shambling towards us on our flanks and rifle fire started up behind me as we ran. I was glad to hear single shots, not full magazines being emptied in a couple of seconds. I slowed our run to a fast trot to help us aim better and started engaging targets directly to our front as the converging males took notice of us and started turning to attack. I burned through my first magazine, did a quick change and started firing again. My accuracy was suffering due to running while I was shooting, often taking two or three shots for each infected. Slowing down to a walk was not an attractive option though as time was not on our side. We still had at least 300 yards to go to reach the plane.

  “Anderson,” I called on my comm unit.

  “Go for Anderson.” The response was immediate.

  “We need some air support down here. Too many infected in the way. We’re not going to make our ride.”

  “Stand by, Major.” A few seconds later he was back, “Major, turn on your strobe.”

  I reached up to my shoulder and flipped the switch on a small infrared strobe light attached to my vest. Light in the IR spectrum can’t be seen by the human eye but it would be very visible to Mayo through his NVGs and would let him keep us spotted and hopefully not hose us down with the minigun.

  “Got you,” Mayo’s voice came over my earpiece.

  A few moments later the Pave Hawk roared into a low hover a hundred feet over our heads and the minigun started chewing up the infected in front of us. A red tracer was placed in the ammo belt at a ratio of one for every 100 rounds, but the rate of fire of the minigun is so high that it looked like a solid stream of red reaching down and destroying the shamblers to our front. Mayo used very controlled bursts to both conserve ammo as well as more effectively keep the weapon on target. Quickly a nice wide path opened up in front of us and I took down the half dozen infected that had been too close to us for Mayo to engage.

  When the last infected in front of me dropped I noticed there were no sounds of firing behind me. Glancing back I saw the two MPs just standing there watching the light show from the minigun. Infected were closing on our flanks and they weren’t paying any attention. Spinning I fired twice at the right flank, each round finding its target and dropping an approaching infected. Rachel turned with me, saw the danger and started firing at the left flank, killing an infected moments before it would have wrapped up the MP on that side in a deathly bear hug. I ran back to the left flank and smacked the MP hard on the side of his helmet before getting in his face.

  “You dumb motherfucker,” I shouted, my nose an inch from his. “If you want to die, let me know and I’ll drop you myself. You will pay attention and you will keep these people safe. Am I fucking clear?!”

  “Yes, Sir!” he shouted back, eyes wide with fear.

  I held his eyes for half a second, looked over at the other MP to make sure he’d gotten the message then glanced back at Roach, who wasn’t there. Shit. I scanned the tarmac behind us but couldn’t tell which of the multiple bodies might be his. Grabbing the MP I’d just dressed down I shoved him to the rear of the group and told him he was on rear guard. Running to the front I sent Rachel to the left flank, told Dog to go with her, and started running towards the plane again.

  The path that Mayo had cleared was already collapsing as more infected pushed into the area and I yelled for the group behind me to move faster. Rifles started firing behind me and I was burning through a lot of ammunition to keep the path open. I was about to call Mayo on the comm unit when the Pave Hawk roared back into a hover and the minigun opened up again. Bodies started disintegrating from the heavy slugs which continued on through them to also shred the pavement. We ran through the aftermath of this, the air thick with a fog of pulverized asphalt mixed with body fluids from the devastated flesh of the infected. Sure wish I had a mask on. We still had a good distance to go when the minigun fire ceased, infected quickly moving into the open space it had carved.

  “Minigun is jammed,” Mayo’s voice told me over my ear piece.

  Not bothering to acknowledge I changed rifle magazines again and slowed so I could maintain a level of accurate fire, but there were so many infected the herd was closing in faster than I could shoot them. Even though the three rifles behind me were firing single shots they were all firing as fast as their triggers could be pulled. I was worried that nerves were getting the best of Rachel and the two MPs and they weren’t hitting anything, but I couldn’t spare a moment to check. Three females were pushing through the lumbering males and one of them had just broken free of the press of bodies and was sprinting directly at me.

  I had her head lined up for a shot when a body slammed into me from the side, very nearly knocking me to the ground. Reflexively my finger pulled the trigger and the round punched into the female’s body instead of her head. She stumbled for a step, then resumed her sprint. I glanced to the side and saw Major Masuka on the ground wrestling with an infected female that had apparently sprinted into the flank and tackled her. The two of them had then slammed into me. Taking care of the more immediate threat first I pulled my pistol to engage the sprinting female to my front who was now almost close enough to touch. Whipping the pistol up, I fired just as she launched herself into the air. The heavy bullet destroyed her face and punched out the back of her skull, but the corpse was already in motion and slammed into me, knocking me back onto my ass.

  Kicking the body away I scrambled back to my feet, grabbed the long hair of the infected that was on top of Masuka and yanked the female into the air, letting a badly bleeding Masuka scramble to her feet, and tossed the infected a yard in front of me. A male tripped over the female and fell on top of her giving me a moment to holster my pistol and bring my rifle to bear. Two fast shots dispatched each of them then I raised my aim, searching for the two other females. They were less than 10 yards away and I snapped off two more quick shots to put them down. More males pushed in as they fell and there was nearly a 50 yard deep wall of flesh between us and the plane.

  “Get that goddamn minigun going!” I shouted into the comm unit.

  Blasting through the remainder of the magazine I put in a fresh one but instead of starting to fire I grabbed a grenade off my vest, yanked the pin with my teeth – always wanted to do that and it only took the apocalypse to make it happen – counted to three and tossed it deep into the mass of bodies in front of me. A heartbeat later it detonated and cleared a small area. I repeated the process with five more grenades until I was out, then brought the rifle up and started dropping infected again. The firing behind me was still at a furious pace and I could hear three distinct rifles so I was reasonably confident our rear and flanks were still intact. Males kept pressing in all around us and I was about ready to go full auto just to keep them out of grabbing range when a machine gun started hammering away from the side, cutting a swath through the infected.

  I didn’t have time to look and see who had joined the fight, rather maintained my rate of fire to keep a couple of yards of clear space in front of me. We were no longer moving, having bogged down completely in the crush of bodies, but after a minute of well-placed machine gun fire I was able to start slowly moving forward, shouting for the group to stay tight on my back. I kept firing, th
e rifles behind me still in action and the machine gun hammered away and bit by bit we began moving faster despite having to continually step over infected bodies that littered the ground.

  Finally reaching the far side of the herd of infected I sped up to a fast jog, looking around to make sure the group was staying with me. It looked like everyone was there except for Roach. Major Masuka was starting to lag behind, her uniform blouse soaked in blood from the nasty looking bite marks on her arms and face. I could only see three infected still between us and the plane and I slowed but shouted at the group to keep running. Taking careful aim I dropped the three in front of us then turned to the rear as the last of the group passed me. A solid wall of infected stared back at me as they shambled forward, arms raised as they sought out their prey. I did a quick scan and didn’t see or hear any females, turned and trotted after the group.

  Looking around as I ran I spotted our saviors. An up-armored Humvee with a pintle mounted machine gun was sitting 50 yards to our right, a carpet of dead infected surrounding it. I didn’t recognize the driver or gunner, but couldn’t have been happier to see them. I waved and the gunner waved back as the driver pulled forward and positioned the vehicle between my group and the pursuing infected. The gunner opened up and knocked the first few ranks of bodies down, the driver turning and following us to serve as rear guard.

  Ahead I saw Masuka stumble and go down to her knees. I ran forward and waved the MP on that flank away as I scooped her up and over my shoulder. Burden secured, I ran to catch the group. Behind me the machine gun sounded occasionally, keeping the infected’s advance to a minimum. There was a scream from a female and another burst from the machine gun silenced the bitch. Overhead the Pave Hawk returned to hover and I stopped and turned to watch. The minigun started firing and Mayo walked it down the whole front rank of the herd, then reversed direction and adjusted fire into the main mass. Bodies either fell or just disintegrated, depending on how many of the high velocity slugs struck them. The effect was absolute hell on earth.