“Take note of those buildings down below that have the highest concentration of infected around them,” Ian said as he pointed at three different buildings. “In my experience, those are the ones that have the highest concentration of living inside, so those are the ones we will hit first.
“Now, we have no idea what kind of shape they are in or how they have secured themselves, so it will be tricky once we get inside. Err on the side of caution. If they are coming at you and won’t stop when you shout ‘stop’ then put them down; you don’t have a choice. We are a finite number, so self-preservation is our priority. Everything else is secondary.”
“Except the survivors we are here to rescue,” Tops added.
Ian shut it down with a harsh, “No! We don’t know anything about those people and until we do, you are priority one. Rescue someone and prove that they are not infected, then they move up the ranks to being one of us.
“I want to arrange you into groups of two or three, so get together with those you are comfortable with, and we will determine placement,” Ian said and backed up to Joe, who hadn’t opted for a rifle, preferring instead to carry a hatchet in one hand and a long steel-handled hammer in the other.
Ian watched as the groups broke off, but that still left several without back up, milling around in the center. A lot of these were people who had made it on their own this long, and some were people who were less than desirable on a team.
“What’s your name, dear?” Kinsey asked a petite young girl who stood by herself but looked toward a group of three as if they were leaving her out in the cold.
“Julia” she said softly.
“Okay Julia, you and… what’s your name, bud?” She looked at an older gentleman who seemed to be one of the ones who quite possibly made it on his own. He was thick and grisly, possibly a dock worker or maybe a carpenter. It was some field that required physical work his entire life as could be seen by his broad shoulder and thick torso.
“Eric” he said and looked at the diminutive woman named Julia. He carried spear whose end was permanently stained in his right, while his left was wrapped tightly in some sort of self-fashioned leather gauntlet that covered his arm up to his elbow.
“Eric—you, me, and Julia are going to work as a team. Are you all right with that?”
Eric shrugged and nodded as he went and stood next to Julia. Toby was off arranging other teams but he eventually settled on an older man and woman to back him up. He hooked her up with a pistol and him with a rifle, which he held as if he was more than familiar with it. Toby opted for an aluminum bat as his main weapon but kept a sidearm and an M4 strapped to his back.
“The rest of you without partners come with Jasper and me. Joe here will be our main door sweeper, so make sure you have a lot of sharp pointy things for when rooms are breeched. There will be no shooting while clearing rooms unless you know your partners are secure from friendly fire. All right, wait for the signal and we head in with the vehicle right up to the buildings. We will draw out as many as we can before entering.”
That was the easy part. Opening the doors and banging on walls until a few came out also went pretty smoothly, and the group as a whole proved that they didn’t have qualms about taking out the infected as they exited.
It was about ten minutes in, when they heard a dull thrum across the parking lot, low at first but steadily growing louder. There was a sudden streak of light, and one of the vans exploded. Ian looked for the source and saw a line of helicopters approaching from the north.
Missile trails were now streaming toward the Apache gunships as well as those on the ground, causing the infected to stop. Ian ducked behind the Suburban and watched the horde that had just been led away, and he knew that they were too close.
Another vehicle was hit and flew into the air, causing several people to scream. The body of the car came down on a man, who wailed in pain, screaming for someone to come and help. It was Toby who ran over and coaxed the man to silence then started to work on removing the car that trapped his legs, but it was too late.
As if choreographed, the infected turned, their screams of frustration turning to one of elation as they saw the live bodies surrounding the buildings.
The line of helicopters started to blanket the lot with fire, pinning Ian’s group down until the infected got closer. Three from his line fell to the bullets as the rest stayed under cover. The helicopters were starting to pass overhead and too close together to concentrate fire. Their line started to break apart so they could turn and come at those on the ground again. The Apaches were gone. Whether they were destroyed or had retreated, no one could say. Now the air was filled with only enemy aircraft.
Infected were still coming out the doors they had propped open, blocking that egress, and it would be only seconds before they were fully exposed to the invading helicopters. Ian felt as if all eyes were on him, waiting for a decision. They were.
“Between the buildings to a back door now! Tops, Kinsey, and Toby, with me on cover fire; now move! Everyone stick together!” Ian shouted and stepped out behind the fleeing locals, putting the butt to his shoulder and started to fire. He knew that his 7.62s wouldn’t get through to damage the equipment, so he started laying lead in through an open door, where a mini gunner was trying to correct his angle.
Ian couldn’t see what he hit if anything, but the bird twisted and pulled up and away, giving him the chance to try it again. Tops, on the other hand, let fly with a grenade from his launcher. He was trying for the engine on a retreating bird, but his munition was by no means fast enough, nor would it have enough impact to cause real damage. It hit the underside and had no more effect than to let them know they were there.
The four began to run and shoot until the familiar screams of A10 Thunderbolts rejoined the battle. There were only three of them, but that was enough to cause the rotary wings to ignore the runners on the ground and try to protect their air space.
Ian saw more flashes to the south and realized there were tanks, lots of tanks, shooting anti-aircraft guns, and Ian knew they weren’t on their side. He ducked his head and ran while shouting into his mic.
“Keep together! All units move into the main building.” It seemed like a useless order since the rear entry of the main building was the closest one, so it was the one everybody ran to.
“Infected! Melee weapons ready!” Ian heard Joe shout as he entered the building.
“Get that front door secured, or we will have them all inside!” Ian shouted, hoping that someone close to the front would hear him. One face looked at him and gave him a single nod. Julia, with her sidearm raised, moved into the building with one purpose.
Aw fuck, Ian thought, knowing that hers would be a face left to haunt his nights.
Chapter Seventeen
Albuquerque New Mexico, May 8th
“Fuck!” Ian shouted and tried to push his way to the front, but the doorway was too small and there were too many trying to get through it all at once.
A helicopter swung around the building, and Ian felt like ducks on a pond as the gunner sighted in on them. He could see the pilot’s face and there was no remorse or hatred. His features were a mask of complacency as he set his sights to kill one more American, and Ian hated him for it.
He took a knee and fired a grenade at the cockpit, followed with useless, concentrated automatic fire from his SCAR, when suddenly the helicopter exploded in midair.
Ian looked down at his gun as if it had suddenly turned into a fifty-caliber, and he looked over at Tops, who was laughing at his confusion. Laughing, of all things. During all this mayhem, and team leader Tops was laughing at him. Then the Warthog that had taken out the helicopter screamed overhead, and Ian understood the joke.
They practically fell backward through the doorway as the last of the group pulled them in with them. Ian was up and looking toward the front, but all he could see were heads. Those facing him were infected, and those he saw the backs of were friendlies. He spied the doo
r across the atrium and swore when he saw it was still open. Worse yet, there were infected coming back into the building. The Norks couldn’t have planned this any better. He just couldn’t believe that they caught them all exposed and under-defended like this by accident. Then he remembered the radio set up they have in the compound across town. It was kind of hard to believe that this would be the only set up like it that they had. Every word they had said was being monitored, an easy feat when you have all your adversary’s frequencies.
Ian craned his neck, letting the front lines take the brunt of the infected trying to break into their ranks. They weren’t soldiers, and they weren’t suited to fighting a war, but when it came to the infected and how to survive being around them, they were all old hands. They were decimating the infected, but there were so many of them.
He leaned right and saw Joe and three others fight their way toward the front doors like a fleshy arrowhead. Joe led with an acquired spear in his left hand, striking out in quick, lethal jabs as his steel-handled hammer slammed its giant waffle head down into the skulls of those on his right, exposing brains and viscera but never failing to drop his opponent. It made Ian glad that they weren’t zombies and were susceptible to more than head shots. Joe was covered in gore and, in spite of his size, looked like he could stab and swing like this all day long.
Julia hovered around his back, taking careful shots when the press got too great in front of Joe. Eric, who Kinsey had assigned to be with Julia, was backing her up with a spear that looked homemade, much like Joe’s, but different in style. His leather gauntleted fist now held some type of three-bladed knife. It had a main blade that came out between his thumb and forefinger. There was a brass knuckle or finger guard with a giant lethal spike formed into it, so every punch in the face would be a killing blow, and a final spike came out the bottom of the pommel. It looked like something you would get out of a cheap weapons case at a truck stop, but it was effective enough to leave his gauntlet covered in blood from knuckles to elbow. He wore clear-view goggles and a surgical mask, and he wasted everything that came near him.
The fourth member Ian hadn’t seen before. He stood about six-five or six-six and was thin and wiry. His arms were thin but corded with muscle and veins. He wore biker colors that made Ian think he rode with Joe’s gang. He swung a three-foot gorilla bar, the kind contractors use for splitting two-by-fours lengthwise with a jam and a twist. It literally cleared out two infected with every swing, but even that wouldn’t be enough, with how many were still coming through the door.
“Toby, clear out beyond the outside door,” Ian said, and Toby nodded before running up a staircase to get a better vantage.
“Kinsey, follow Toby up and clear their way to the door. The big man in the group of four is their point.”
“Copy,” Kinsey said, and Ian soon heard two sets of rifles firing controlled bursts.
Joe suddenly bellowed a scream of rage as he increased the intensity of his swings, and the infected turned toward him, closing the pressure on the tiny group of four.
Ian cursed him for calling attention to himself but then realized what he was doing. By making the infected focused strictly on him, he freed up the pressure on those with him, and they started to slay with unrelenting abandon. It also clogged their numbers, making them easier prey for the handheld weapons.
Kinsey was dropping infected three out from his group, and Toby seemed to have the doorway relatively clear. Joe was literally floor-to-ceiling’s length away from the opening and none too soon because the parking lot outside was showing hundreds of hungry faces coming their way.
Ian couldn’t get to the infected due to his own people slaying everything that came into sight, and there was no way to get through the press at the door and running up the stairs for a better shot. Then he realized Jasper wasn’t with him. In fact, he didn’t remember the dog getting inside the building. He searched his memory and remembered the dog next to him when he was outside shouting about the door, and then he signaled him inside when the chopper was aiming to gun him down. He had to be in here.
He looked up to see Joe’s progress and saw Julia drop her empty magazine and pull another out of her coat as Eric’s gauntleted fist practically decapitated an infected with the three-bladed knife as it tried to get to her.
Joe slammed his spear into the chest of one, came down with his waffle head hammer on another, then yanked his spear out and up under the chin of a middle-aged woman wearing Marine dress blues. She twisted and fell awkwardly away, trapping his spear in her skull, but he didn’t let go. He directed the now dead infected down and swung his hammer wildly back and forth until he could free his primary weapon.
But it didn’t happen soon enough; an infected was inside Joe’s defensive circle and falling toward the big man’s neck. Joe’s eyes widened, as did Ian’s, as the man’s last few seconds of being uninfected passed by in slow motion, when an unmovable force from beneath it all was suddenly pushing the infected backward, causing it to stumble and fall into a heap. Something black and tan jumped back behind Joe, who was laughing hysterically as he ripped his spear out and attacked with a renewed vigor after he screamed, “Good doggie!”
Fucking Jasper. I can’t believe it, Ian thought then realized that Jasper wasn’t just his dog. Jasper belonged to the apocalypse, and there was nothing he could do about it except keep him fed and watered.
The horde started to thin and the three Bigs cleared the doorway as Julia and Jasper covered their backs. The doors were sealed, and the tide turned the rest into a quick round of mercy killings for the remaining infected inside and those of their own that didn’t make it.
Close to forty people had entered the parking lot, and twenty-five now stood in the center of a naturally lit atrium with their hands on their knees, panting.
It was Joe who suddenly let out a slow chuckle that rolled across the room.
“There’s nothing funny here!” Julia scolded.
“Today is Sunday in the beginning of summer. We always picnicked on Sundays.” Joe paused and panted for a few short seconds. “Welcome to my fucking picnic… ah, fuck,” he finished, and the room was silent for a second before they all started laughing.
The clamor quieted, and the screams of more infected echoed down the stairs. A flash of light with a massive explosion rocked everyone as the front door was blown wide open with a missile strike, causing them to cover their heads until the dust cleared. The infected started to pour in through the opening.
“Fuck! Everyone downstairs!” Ian yelled. “Toby, Kinsey, on me!”
The three of them stood in a line as the group moved down the stairs into the darkened hallway and to whatever might be waiting there.
Also by Joseph Hansen
Please take a moment and sample:
Wayward Son:
A science fiction novel by Joseph Hansen.
As an old man looking back I can say with a smile that I have lived a full life, a wonderful life. However my last few months were by far the most intriguing.
Bob.
Prologue
It was just dumb luck that it was a moonless night. The thick cloud cover naturally provided the gloom to achieve their objective, tonight they would get what they needed to advance their goals.
The three young men walked from the next dirt road down from their objective leaving the rusted Pathfinder hidden within the clutches of a long abandoned farm where the remnants of a foundation and half a concrete silo stood sentinel over the beleaguered vehicle. They walked through prairie mixed with small patches of woods to avoid the road knowing that one flash from the wrong headlights could ruin their plans. A business such as this beyond the outskirts of town had pretty tight security with night vision game cams and infra-red trip wires.
It wasn’t by chance that such a protected sight as this was targeted tonight, the assailants were very familiar with this property and its in and outs from much friendlier times.
“Waiz, we need you to hide
here and wait until Sa’ir and I lure him out.”
“Ibrahim, this is Boomer’s place, what are you planning to do?”
“We need guns asshole. Sa’ir spat the words into Waiz’ face. Where did you think we were going to get them?” His face was contorted with a rage inspired by the intensity of the moment. Sa’ir and Waiz had never been friends but instead shared a bond with Ibrahim making him the unofficial leader of the three of them. Sa’ir was older than the other two and he was pretty smart but he wasn’t a leader. Waiz thought he was just a punk and had beat him down on more than one occasion just never when Ibrahim was around. Now however was not the time so Waiz held his fists and Sa’ir took advantage of it by jabbing a few more emasculations his way.
“Look, you know where the game cams are and the trip lights and Sa’ir and I will take care of the the heavy lifting.” Ibrahim said. This was okay by Waiz as the old man at least had a fighting chance against those two. Waiz was also getting tired of having to beat the crap out of everyone who got in their way. Maybe they should do the work for a while.
Sa’ir sneer at him but Waiz didn’t care, he just nodded and headed off into woods so that he could come up on the cameras from the back and keep the trees between him and any of the other cameras. He looked for the tiniest shimmers of reflection from the lens and worked by memory as to where they were. He did not do this because he was a skilled hunter or soldier, he was simply a thief who had been caught before. One who is only capable of working off of trial and error; here, it was easy because up until three years ago he was a regular face at Boomers Gun and Range. Once a month a neighbor would take him here to shoot, until he was fourteen and could go on his own. What happened to those days? Waiz wasn’t an idiot and he knew that was actually pretty bright. However Ibrahim had street smarts and a connection to bigger things, things that would lead to getting the hell out of this town. He knew who was waiting for them in the city, they waited for what they were here to get this very night. Why didn’t they tell me what we were doing tonight? Do they think I’m stupid or a rat? Why Boomers when there Tanners across the lake or Mike’s up over the hill? He paused for a bit before he realized that this was the reason why they didn’t tell him. Waiz would prove to them that he could handle this. If you were going to be paret of a cause you had to prove that you will be one who will take it all the way.
For Which We Stand: Ian's road (A Five Roads To Texas Novel Book 3) Page 20
