ARES Virus (Book 3): Phoenix Rising

by O'Brien, John

  “Aye, sir, that seems to be the case.”

  “Are the prevailing winds still the same and forecast to remain so?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Then burn that valley. I want to see those cities spouting flames that will rival the sun. Have the escort vessels pound the leading edges to hold up the flow long enough for the flames to reach them. The F-18s will deliver whatever is left of our Mark 77s after softening up the targets. Same game plan as Tijuana,” Gettins orders.

  “What about the power concerns, sir?”

  “I’ve come to the conclusion that we need this port and we’re not going to lose it. We can rebuild whatever we lose afterward. I’m fucking tired of setbacks. This time, we’re going to punch these bastards in the face and set fire to their asses. Is that clear?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “And I want it made in a very clear and concise manner that everyone is to return to MOPP four levels. Who the hell knows what the winds will do in such a firestorm—I don’t want that ARES virus to be carried in our direction. That would be our death knell.”

  * * * * * * *

  Encinitas, California

  December 5

  The steep slopes and deep ravines of the Elfin Forest Recreational Reserve form a natural barrier. With the help of Lake Hodges in the east and an inlet just north of Encinitas, this landform creates two bottlenecks for the infected pouring out of Escondido inland and Carlsbad on the shoreline.

  After the two massive hordes of infected converge, the entire valley from Carlsbad to Escondido fills with the screams of millions echoing down the streets and off the surrounding hills. The force moving south is unrelenting. The landscape forces them to again separate into two distinct groups, flowing around the mountainous terrain. The eastern band begins funneling down Interstate 15 while the mass along the shores begins a relentless march down Interstate 5.

  The two bottlenecks erupt in a barrage of smoke and flame from the destroyers and cruisers positioned offshore. Bridges spanning the Batiquitos Lagoon on the shore side are brought down, forcing the infected into a tighter bottleneck. There isn’t the same kind of luxury further inland against the second group, but the restricted area there is smaller. The big guns deliver blast after blast, moving back and forth over the targeted area. They occasionally let up to allow more infected to filter into the kill zone. The halt is only momentary, as their job is to slow, or halt if they can, the infected moving south.

  Further north, flying along routes to keep out of the way of the five inch shell trajectories, attack fighters fill the morning skies. The six-mile stretch of coastline from Oceanside to north of Escondido begins filling with smoke as the bombs fall. Condos, shopping centers, and once sought after coastal homes are turned into rubble. Roofs fall from weakened walls, boards sailing into the residential streets. Water shoots skyward from burst water mains; vehicles parked in driveways are turned into roaring pillars of flame. Once the area is softened up, waves of F-18s roar in, delivering jellied fuel bombs. Flames roar through residential neighborhoods, black smoke billowing into the clear skies.

  All along the six miles, houses burn under the onslaught, at first becoming separate fires. Slowly, the flames catch in the low humidity. Two burning houses catch a third, then a fourth. The jets continue to soar out of the skies and along the avenues. Canisters tumble from rails under the wings and fuselages. The separate fires join and begin gaining momentum. The breeze becomes a wind as the fires hunger for oxygen. Dark smoke roils into the skies. Neighborhoods become torches, the water geysers turning into steam before they can travel far into the air. Those can only dampen the fires immediately around the breaks, the overall mass still gaining momentum.

  Infected packed along the coastal roads are caught in the maelstrom, succumbing to smoke inhalation or the heat before the actual fires can reach them. Those further inland flee down the streets from the approaching flames, only to come against those trying to migrate down the eastern interstate. Packed tightly together, they can no longer push forward. The fires crackle and smoke fills the skies.

  Flames appear over rooftops, growing larger. Infected in the middle of packs are pushed together like a rave pit out of control. Unable to breath due to the crush of the others, they suffocate in place, turning blue. The dead continue to be held up from the press of bodies. The roar of flame grows louder, the explosions from fuel canisters and gas tanks adding punches in the approaching inferno. As the flames approach and houses become torches, the clothes from those closest begin to smolder under the increasing heat. Several spontaneously combust, their apparel catching fire. The screams of thousands can’t override the roar of flames. As if held back, then suddenly pushed, the flames roar over the infected.

  The fires sweep mercilessly through the valley, taking San Marcos by storm. Pushed into a narrower area, the flames slow. As they exit and find more fuel in the way of homesteads, the fires accelerate into the outskirts of Escondido. Infected continue to attempt fleeing the tempest racing toward them. The leading edges are pushed against their will into the barrage of five inch shells, all of the escort vessels offshore having switched targets once the flames sped past the coastal bottleneck.

  Large shards of white hot metal sear through bodies. Limbs are severed and fall to the ground, the hot metal cauterizing many of the wounds as it passes. Heads roll from shoulders, held aloft by the dense tangle of torsos. The leading edges are decimated, much like the lower food particles in a blender. More are pushed into the maelstrom of explosions.

  The infected on the eastern fringes are the luckiest, being forced up valleys and into the hills. They flee up steep slopes and along country highways. The fires roar across the city, their appetite unrelenting. The winds along the outer edges are close to hurricane-force gales. Entire neighborhoods are engulfed in mere moments. Hitting the slopes of the hills, they race upward, catching many of the infected attempting to navigate their way up them. Dense smoke clogs the skies, the sun a mere dot, more imagined than real.

  Atop the peaks, the fires slow down, unable to work as quickly down the slopes. Sparks cause spot fires further inland, which gain momentum for a period of time, then die out. The only place the fires are able to make any headway is up the San Pasqual valley. They roar through narrow passages, the shrub-lined slopes igniting. Entering the basin of Ramona, they gain a little of their former glory before eventually being beaten by the sharp peaks of the surrounding ridgelines.

  Left behind are smoldering remains. Beautiful homes have been reduced to foundations, some brick walls still standing, surrounded by ash. Hulks of vehicles are barely identifiable, lines of molten metal running down driveways. Shopping centers stand as before, their walls blackened. Collapsed ceilings lay amid the burnt remains of items they once carried. Along the streets, the charred remains of the once living lie twisted.

  Helicopters fly over the aftermath, the crews silent in awe of the destruction. Very few buildings were able to withstand the force of the blaze. Those downtown structures that still rise tall are gutted. They’ve all seen interpretations of post-apocalypse scenes, but what they witness goes far beyond any artist’s imagination. Small groups of infected are found among the steep slopes of the reserve. Artillery fire from the ships offshore makes short work of these.

  The sun slides below the horizon, the western skies flashing brilliant colors. Vast amounts of smoke drift into the darkening skies. As the land moves toward nighttime, the glows of smoldering fires dot the plain where cities once rose. The eastern horizon is orange with the fires still trying to fuel themselves. The jets return to their bases for the last time that day. The bright beams of their landing lights illuminate the runway threshold moments before the screech of tires signal their touchdown. Helicopters are sequenced into landing patterns to settle onto ramps. The skies are slowly drained of red and green position lights.

  The nighttime sky slowly invades the entire region, covering the remains of eight million infected who lie bur
ned or in pieces along city streets, in fields, or beside freeways. There are still millions heading out of San Francisco, but for now, the city is theirs.

  * * * * * * *

  Los Angeles, California

  December 12

  The infected streaming south form long lines as they push through the narrow valleys south of San Francisco. Those inland following the Sacramento Valley are able to move faster, but become bottlenecked at the southern end where Interstate 5 twists and weaves its way through steep terrain. This gains a little time for the crews working hard in and around Los Angeles.

  The last infected in the Los Angeles area finally succumbed to Ebola, enabling crews in protective gear to go ashore. From Santa Monica south to Huntington Beach, Marines work tirelessly to erect a massive fire trap. With the success they had in the south, they’re planning much the same for the approaching infected. Fuel trucks are located throughout the city and brought into neighborhoods. The underground fuel storage at LAX and other airports are rigged with explosives and det cords. The huge storage tanks all around the port are rigged in a similar manner, although those charges will be detonated ahead of the planned bombing runs in order to spread the fuel over a wider area. The plan is an ambitious one. The fires started to the south began over a six-mile area. The coastline of Los Angeles is nearly twenty-five miles.

  Once San Diego was confirmed secure, the Eisenhower and George Washington were brought north, along with their escorts and supply ships. When the infected reach the outskirts of Huntington Beach, the firepower of the three-carrier task force will be unleashed. It’s been a long two and a half months, but at long last, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. While they still have a ways to go, if they can take care of this last large horde near the western shores, they’ll finally be able to take a deep breath.

  While it would be nice to sit back and let the oncoming swarm of infected sweep south and eat their Ebola-infected brethren, by the time they actually arrive, the virus will have died out on its own.

  As the crews move along the city streets, they have to be careful of the dead. While the bodies have died, there’s a chance that the virus is still active within the dried remains of blood. Some of the bodies lying in the streets are still intact, dried streams of blood trailing from nostrils, mouths, eyes, and other orifices. Clothing is darkly stained where the skin itself sloughed off. Most of the infected look like they’ve been through a shredder. Dried bowels hang from torn torsos, limbs scattered away from the bodies as they were torn off and eaten, tossed aside like chicken wings. Heads are mostly bone with a few dried strings of sinew. The Marines going about their duties are thankful for the protective gear that hides the stench covering the densely populated area. They don’t even want to imagine what the smell of millions of decaying bodies must be like.

  Carefully, they move through the city, bulldozing houses and arranging every flammable source. Days are spent rigging miles of coastline.

  * * * * * * *

  Los Angeles, California

  December 30

  Everyone waits with bated breath for the go order. Aircraft at the ready sit astride catapults, helicopter crews anxiously pace rooms. Drones flying above the huge metropolis show the infected crowding the streets as they push south and east. Animals flee ahead of the massive swarm.

  At 10:03, the screens in the combat information centers show the infected reaching the edges of Newport Beach. At 10:06, the order is given and crews rush out to waiting gunships. At 10:09, the first gunship lifts off the deck, joining with others over the rolling swells. At 10:16, the armada begins moving toward shore, looking something like a scene out of Apocalypse Now. They roll inland, punching holes into the vast fuel tanks sitting near the port facilities. Fuels pour out of punctured tanks, spilling over their overflow bunkers. Millions and millions of gallons flow outward, covering vast tracts of ground.

  Across the three flight decks, attack fighters are launched one after the other, their wings laden with full loads of ordinance. Stacked thousands of feet high, they orbit, waiting for their call signs to be called. Two sides wait, one waiting to unleash an awe-inspiring amount of firepower, the other an unrelenting force of millions.

  The ball of rock continues to spin, not caring about the outcome. It’s seen different life forms come into existence and dominate before being replaced by others. No matter who wins this particular battle, it will see others emerge in its lifetime. With the radiation levels prevalent across most of the globe, perhaps not for a thousand years, but what’s that in the lifetime of a planet?

  At 10:49, rockets leave the tubes of the hovering helicopters. Racing through the clear morning air with tails of fire, they make impact in the midst of the still flowing fuels. Explosions rain in the various fuel farms. The gunships turn and race toward their waiting platforms, rearming in case they’re called for again.

  Flames sprout in many locations, building and spreading quickly as the fuels burn. The fires approach the half-full storage tanks, catching the holding bunkers. A series of tanks explode, concussive waves visible as they race away. Burning fuel is launched skyward and away, spraying the surrounding neighborhoods. The insides of any infected nearby are turned to jelly as the waves of concussion speed past them.

  Repeated blasts rock the area, the land quivering like a liquid from the explosions. More tanks detonate, filling square miles with burning fuel. Nearby buildings are vaporized, the land cleared for a mile around each large facility, leaving nothing but churned soil burning fiercely. The fires along the edges of the huge blasts begin to spread.

  Flight by flight, the attack aircraft leave their orbits, swooping down to drop their ordinance along the northern shores. Jellied fuel strikes neighborhoods, setting the wooden structures alight. Parked semi-trailers hauling gas explode in block-clearing blasts, sheets of flame rocketing outward. At LAX, the fighters drop their loads among the parked airplanes. Black smoke billows skyward as their fuels catch. All aircraft are called back to wait.

  Time passes, the oily smoke rising from two large places within the city. In the north, brown smoke plumes skyward from houses set alight. The ramps of the major airport suddenly bulge, followed immediately by an enormous orange ball of flame surrounded by black smoke. The pressure of the kerosene-based fuel evaporating rapidly within their underground tanks is too much for the pressure valves to compensate. Millions of gallons of jet fuel blow outward. In that explosion, thousands of infected simply cease to be. The aircraft return and work their way south.

  As they did in San Clemente, the fires gain momentum and are carried eastward. Balls of black-enshrouded balls of flame send dark smoke billowing into the air as gas stations detonate. In several places, blinding white flashes send sheets of flame outward as large propane tanks explode, erasing blocks. In one area, a vast propane storage farm creates a hole in the ground fifty feet deep. The massive explosion knocks every building within a mile and a half flat and the shock waves douse the fires that caused the blast. However, it isn’t long before they are driven back into the area by gale-force winds.

  The infected flee eastward, trying to outpace the racing flames now miles long. Flames rise hundreds of feet into the air, the temperature ahead of the line reaching hundreds of degrees. Thousands in the rear spontaneously ignite. Offshore ships deliver fire from their large-caliber guns into the bottlenecks of Pomona, the pass leading to Corona, and south into Irvine.

  The basin turns into a flaming cauldron, the dense smoke overhead causing lightning storms. Theme parks burn and swimming pools evaporate in gouts of steam. Ahead of the fast-moving fires, expensive jewelry pieces melt in their glass cases and coveted clothing smolders before erupting into flames. Candles of infected twist in city streets, their screams of agony unheard through the crackling of the inferno. In many places, the heat is too much. The lucky ones are those that are already dead by the time the flames sweep over their prone bodies. They won’t feel the heat upon their skin as it melts, o
r their eyeballs as they pop.

  Those fleeing ahead of the flames press against those ahead, their mass a forceful factor. In front, the infected have little choice but to be pushed into the large explosions from arriving shells. Blood soaks into the churned ground, the dirt lifted into the air slowly turning into a reddish mud. Pressed in a vise, the infected are being drained like the juice from a squeezed orange.

  Driven by the winds, the fires race across the basin, devouring everything in their path. The ships are required to move further out to sea or to the north and south in order to escape the force of the winds. In 1771, the first mission was established in Los Angeles. In 1781, the first families moved into the area—44 people. By 1841, that number had grown to 141. What took over three hundred years to establish in its present form is destroyed in less than twenty-four hours. Of the infected, a few thousand manage to escape and are hunted down over the span of a few days. The fires spread into the San Bernadino National Forest, but are halted by the sand of the desert beyond. Nearly the entirety of Southern California, from Los Angeles to just north of San Diego, lies charred.

  Exhausted by the endless weeks of labor, the Eisenhower and George Washington sail south, the Nimitz returning to Bremerton. With the news preceding them, the sailors lining the deck edges are greeted with cheering crowds. The infected have been cleared from the western shores. There are still a scattered few far from the sanctuaries, but they aren’t a direct threat to the havens that the surviving men and women have carved out for themselves. They can breathe a collective sigh of relief. The grieving process that many held back can now begin to let time resolve their deep sorrow.

  * * * * * * *

  Hamilton, Montana

  January 4

  “I got ya, you little bastard,” Koenig excitedly mumbles, putting his eyes back to the microscope.

  He had created the virus too well, without even imagining some of the agent’s capabilities. Rabies is nasty, with a near one hundred percent fatality rate once symptoms emerge. Enhancing it only gave it superpowers. For some reason, serums derived from Hayward’s and Handley’s blood don’t affect ARES. Although the viral agent is defeated within their systems before it can mutate, the same doesn’t hold when serums from their blood are introduced to the virus. It mutates itself around the protein-defeating cells.