by Dirk Patton
“Are we going to be ready?” He asked.
“We have a chance,” I said with much more conviction than I felt, but I wasn’t going to let anyone see a shred of doubt. Right now my outward confidence was as important as any preparation we were making. “How’s the evacuation going?”
“The railroad guys are getting a train hooked up and I’ve got men going through town and sending people to the passenger terminal. I’ve got to get back in a few but I got a call from the hospital that they were under attack and I had to run over.”
He watched as Rachel inserted the smaller needle into the vial of clear liquid and extracted enough to fill the syringe.
“You know she took the key for the narcotics cabinet there from an EMT at gunpoint, then stole the ambulance. All of this after she threatened to shoot one of the doctors in the balls.” I looked at him then turned and caught Rachel grinning as she held my right hand and prepared to insert a needle.
“He taught me everything I know,” Rachel sassed then the needle went into the raw flesh of my hand and liquid fire flowed into me.
“Fuck me,” was the only reaction I made, but I wanted to jump, yell, scream and flap my hand in the air like a maniac. Fortunately I didn’t because moments later the pain started easing and blessed numbness began to spread across my palm. Several injections later Rachel turned my hand over and did the same thing on the back. Finished with my right she moved and started working on my left. While she worked I tested the hand, making a fist and squeezing, then wiggling each finger individually. Not perfect, but at least the pain was gone for the moment. Finished with my left she started bandaging me back up.
“Sergeant, is his pack still in your car?” Rachel asked without looking up from her work.
“Yes, ma’am. Do you need it?”
“Please.”
Rachel finished the bandaging then slipped a latex glove onto each hand to protect the heavy gauze and used medical tape to seal the cuff of each glove around my wrist so water wouldn’t run down inside. More thunder, much closer, and Jackson returned and deposited my pack in the ambulance. Rachel opened it and looked through until she found a pair of thin leather gloves that she handed me. Slipping them on I secured the Velcro tabs at the wrist so they were tight and tried my hands again. I was able to open and close my hands most of the way, but more importantly I could grip my rifle and pistol without pain. Without much pain would be more accurate. I reached behind my back and drew the Kukri, but wasn’t confident I could grip it tightly enough to be effective with it. Oh well, good enough for now.
“One last thing,” Rachel said, filling a much larger needle and syringe with the yellowish liquid.
“Oh shit. Really?”
“Yep. Stand up, turn around and drop your pants.” She said with a grin.
“I’ve been waiting for you to say that to… Ouch!” Rachel jabbed the needle into my ass, probably harder than she would have if I hadn’t been being a smart ass. As bad as the needle was, the antibiotic hurt like hell when she pressed the plunger. A moment later, syringe empty, Rachel pulled the needle out and swabbed the spot with an alcohol pad then pulled my underwear back up and snapped the elastic waistband into place.
“Just because you were crucified doesn’t mean you need to get a God complex. You need a shower,” she said, slapping my ass on the exact spot she had just injected then started straightening up the supplies she had used. The loudest peel of thunder yet sounded and Dog whined and jumped into the ambulance with us, willing to risk Rachel’s wrath rather than stand out in the open. He pushed up against me and shoved his head behind me to look at Rachel from a safe distance.
“Sounds like we’re all about to get a shower,” I said, properly put back in my place. I pulled my pants up and buckled my belt.
Stepping down from the ambulance I looked up at the wall and an idea struck me. I turned to Sergeant Jackson just as the first rain drop fell, splattering directly on my nose. Wiping the water out of my eyes I asked him, “How many fire trucks in this town?”
“Three,” he said after a moment’s thought.
“Get them here. Now.” I said, turning back to the wall and starting to count containers. Four more had just arrived and the forklifts were roaring back into town to get more. I heard Jackson on the police radio issuing orders and heard the acknowledgement that the fire department was on their way. He wished me luck and took off to make sure the evacuation was progressing smoothly. I didn’t think there was any way we could stop the infected, rather my plan was to hold them at the wall for a while. Hopefully long enough to get all the people in the town loaded onto a train that would head west towards Kansas City.
It took me a few minutes to finish counting and by the time I was done four more containers were arriving. I added them to the total and came up with 44 containers. 1,760 feet. We were getting there. I dashed forward and climbed the first ladder I came to and looked up and down the top of the wall. It was already impressive, but not enough, I knew. Turning to my left I started jogging along until I came to the end of the final container. Ahead I could see Forrest Avenue curve to the south and decided this was far enough. Running back I reached the center of the wall just as four more containers arrived. Climbing down I trotted to Jim’s forklift and gave him updated instructions. Only one container was going to the left, east, and it was going to be at a 45 degree angle to the wall, the far end of it angling south. I had noticed the terrain quickly grew very rugged as I had jogged east, and I expected that the more difficult terrain would help to keep the infected funneled along the highway. I hoped.
Climbing back down I found the paint guy, waiting right where I’d asked, a woman standing next to him. I started explaining what I needed as soon as I walked up to them. “I want the wall broken up into numbered sections. Every three containers makes up one section. Start at the far east end and the first three containers are number 1. The next three are number 2. Got it?”
The both nodded their heads.
“On the top of each container I want the number of that section painted every 10 feet, so you’ll paint a number four times on the top of each container. On the face of each container, right in the center, paint the same number very large so it can be seen from a good distance. Repeat back to me what you’re doing.” They repeated it back correctly and I sent them on their way, the woman running east along Forrest Avenue pushing the shopping cart, the man rushing up a ladder and heading east along the top of the wall. I wanted the numbers every ten feet so in the heat of battle if someone needed help they didn’t have to look far to find their location.
Looking around I was pleased to see a large group of women seated on the ground, surrounded by crates of loose ammo and empty magazines. They were loading the magazines and stacking them into waiting crates. The football team was organized and kept moving the full crates to the side and placing empty ones back within easy reach of the women. I dug the walkie talkie out of my pants pocket and raised it to my mouth and pressed the transmit button.
“All NCOs attention. All NCOs attention.” I gave them a moment to hear their radios and listen, then started transmitting again. “Get your shooters armed and on the wall. First unit on move all the way to the east, then let’s fill from there. Each unit spread out across three containers. Let’s go!”
There was almost immediate movement from the large group that had been sitting quietly out of the way. A man I recognized as one of the NCOs stood up and 25 people stood and followed him to where the rifles were neatly lined up by the two deuce and a halfs. As each man, and woman, moved down the line they grabbed a rifle, moved forward where they were handed half a dozen loaded magazines, continued on to grab a sandbag that was held out to them by one of the football players then climbed a ladder and headed east. The next NCO had his group lined up behind the first one and ready to go. Satisfied things were working for the moment I called Rachel on the radio and told her where to find me. It took her a minute but she trotted up with Dog at her s
ide.
“I need you right next to me,” I said. “There will be things that need done that can’t get done over the radio once the shooting starts.”
“Whatever you need,” she said.
“Thanks. And I want you to keep Dog with you.” Rachel nodded and we stood and watched the shooters continue to arm themselves on their way to the wall.
Containers were still arriving, Jim waving as he roared by with another section of the wall. Behind the last forklift three bright red fire trucks arrived, swinging into the parking lot and coming to a stop, side by side. I walked over, Rachel and Dog trailing me, and met the fire captain when he swung down from the lead truck. He introduced himself and I shook hands with him, suppressing the wince that wanted to form on my face when he squeezed my hand. I looked at the three trucks and quickly explained what I wanted. He grinned, nodded and climbed back into the cab of the truck and got on the radio to explain to the other firemen what was happening. I headed back to the wall and climbed a ladder to the top, Rachel following as Dog sat at the bottom of the wall and watched us.
The rain had started, big drops but not a lot of them and lightning lit the night like a strobe light. The thunder wasn’t far behind, the bass boom so loud it rattled the metal container I was standing on. Shit. Metal in a thunder storm. Maybe not my best idea, but it was all we had. The infected should be arriving very soon and we didn’t have time to do anything else. The shooters were moving quickly and efficiently and the wall was quickly getting lined with people laying on their stomachs, rifles resting on sand bags and pointing to the south. Diesel engines roared behind me as more containers arrived. More engines added to the noise as the fire trucks maneuvered into place and I turned to watch.
The largest fire truck, one of these impossibly long ladder trucks that has to have a pivot point in the middle and another driver at the very back, came to a stop on the side of the highway and across Forrest Avenue, front bumper only yards from the wall. With a whine of hydraulics it extended two giant legs on each side that would stabilize it when the ladder was raised. Firemen scurried around the truck, two of them dragging a thick hose across the pavement and connecting it to a fire hydrant. Other firemen set about raising the ladder and I could see the captain himself sitting in the basket at the top of the ladder. He waved then hit a switch that turned on a bank of brilliant halogen lights. The lights were 50 feet in the air and aimed over the wall and lit up the highway like it was noon. The other two trucks, both ladder trucks but smaller, positioned themselves to either side of the big truck, directly behind the two machine gun emplacements, raised their ladders and turned their lights on too. The result was a 250 yard width of wall that was as well-lit as any stadium I had ever seen at night.
More containers arrived and the shooters kept filing up the ladders and into their sections. Lightning flashed again, close enough that the thunder rattled my fillings almost before the lightning faded. The rain started falling harder and the wind picked up a little, blowing out of the south and driving the rain directly into the faces of the shooters. I lifted the walkie talkie to my mouth and reminded the NCOs to enforce fire discipline, making sure their people were firing single shots only, not full auto. That done, I didn’t know what else to do at the moment, so I stood in the rain and waited for the first infected to appear on the highway.
Chapter 32
I didn’t have to wait long. The first infected appeared at the edge of the light cast by the fire trucks, a female that had already broken into a sprint even before we could see her, apparently enraged by the bright lights. Nearly every rifle on top of the wall opened up and kept firing until the body was pulped into mush. I immediately got on the radio and screamed at the NCOs to get their units under control. As a group I estimated they had just blown through four or five thousand rounds of ammunition to kill one infected. Up and down the line I could hear the NCOs yelling and cursing and couldn’t help but smile as the moment took me back to my youth. The rain was coming harder now, the lighting and thunder a constant. A young boy ran up to me, breathless and slipping on the wet metal roof of the container I stood on. I reached out to help him regain his balance but he managed it himself and stuck another walkie talkie out for me to take.
“So you can talk to my dad, I mean Jim Roberts,” he said, turned and dashed off and slithered down the ladder the way I used to be able to move. I raised the radio and identified myself.
“Major, we’ve got you close to 3,000 feet of wall built. Do you want us to turn the corner or start stacking?” He was shouting over the roar of the forklift’s diesel engine.
“Turn the corner but head south with the wall a couple hundred feet before you start stacking. I want them funneled in to the rifles.” I answered.
“You got it.”
I raised the other radio and sent Alpha unit of the ready reaction force to the west end of the wall, telling them to provide security for the forklift drivers while they were placing the containers. While I did this a dozen more females appeared in the lights, but this time only the shooters on the containers directly to their front opened up. These were the shooters stationed on the container I was standing on and most of them were picking their shots and making them count, but there was one that was popping off rounds as fast as he could. I went over to where he lay prone on the container and kicked him on the bottom of the foot to get his attention. He stopped firing and looked over his shoulder, then started to swing his rifle around and stand up when he saw me. Reaching out I pushed the rifle back onto the sand bag, pointed in a safe direction and squatted next to him and told him to watch how the people on either side of him were shooting. He nodded and turned back to watch them before facing front again.
The next wave of infected was larger, close to 100 females this time. They sprinted into the light screaming so loud I could hear them over the rain drumming on the wall, only the thunder and sounds of rifle fire drowning them out. The firing was slightly more disciplined this time and all 100 were cut down well short of the wall. Firing died out and everyone seemed to be holding their breath, waiting. The rain intensified and I was thankful for the lights. Without them, in the pouring rain, we wouldn’t have been able to see the infected until they were piling up against the wall. I paced up and down the wall, nodding to the NCOs as I moved through their area. Rachel stayed with me and Dog paced us on the ground, looking up at us as he moved, distinctly unhappy at being left out of the action. I paced as far as the eastern machine gun, manned by Wilbur, squatting down next to the old vet.
“Gunny?” I asked him.
“Yes, sir. I was.” He replied, hands on the M60 and eyes trained out on the far edge of the light.
“Knock the sir shit off, Gunny. I’m John.” I said, also keeping watch on the front.
“Yes, sir.” He responded with a grin.
“Smart ass Jar Head.”
“Yes, sir. That I am, sir.” He laughed, then straightened up as bodies appeared downrange.
Female infected burst into the light, running flat out, and I didn’t see a back edge of the group. Slapping Gunny James on the shoulder I stood and unslung my rifle as the shooters engaged. The sound of rifles firing blanked out all other sounds, infected bodies dropping well away from the wall, but more females hurdled the dead and kept coming. I sighted in on a running figure and dropped it with a head shot and kept finding and dropping targets until I had burned through a magazine. Changing magazines I strode to the west along the wall, checking on the NCOs and shooters. Several shooters were frozen, just staring at the screaming females running at us and I pulled them out of line and sent them down the ladders, telling Rachel to go down and find replacements. She scampered down the ladder like a monkey, Dog meeting her at the bottom, and started moving through the people at the bottom finding volunteers.
I only pulled six people off the line and I was surprised that the number was so low. Lots of people think they can pick up a rifle and go into combat because it looks so easy in the movies,
but until you’ve had an enemy trying to kill you and you have to pull the trigger to save yourself and the man next to you no one really knows how they’ll react. Some people are built for it, some aren’t. Rachel was back with six new shooters in short order and I pointed them at the NCOs who quickly plugged them into place. Football players were already dashing up and down the line, gathering empty magazines and leaving full ones, and I glanced down below to make sure there was still a crew loading magazines. Satisfied I turned my attention back to the front.
The wave of infected was thickening and there was already a two foot high pile of bodies downrange, and it was growing, but the volume of females was increasing and they were slowly pressing their front edge closer to the wall. Raising a pair of binoculars I looked to the sides of the highway and saw females moving through the forest, their speed tempered by having to fight through the underbrush. The shooters in front of them were engaging, somewhat more successfully than the ones focused on the highway. The herd kept increasing in numbers and soon the highway was a solid mass of infected bodies. Males were now in view and were pushing and stumbling forward, often gaining a lot of ground as the shooters were focused on the much faster females.
I was just turning to run down the wall and tell Gunny James to join the fight when his machine gun started firing. He was targeting the mass of bodies at the far edge of the lights and a moment later his grandson joined him and two streams of fire reached out and started chewing up the infected. Bodies were torn apart, limbs severed and heads exploded, but the infected still pressed forward. They knew no fear and had no self-awareness to warn them that what was happening to their comrades was about to happen to them. Soon every weapon on the wall was firing and the piles of bodies in front of the wall continued to grow and the leading edge crept closer.
