The Remaining: Extinction

by D. J. Molles

  Lee turned back to Carl. “Can your pilot fit in that turnaround? That clearing?”

  Carl grimaced at it. “That’s tight.” He pushed the microphone in front of his mouth. “Hey, Biggins, can you get this bird down in that clearing?” A pause, and then a nod. “He says he might shave a few branches off the trees, but he can do it.”

  Brinly spoke up. “If this thing barely fits, that Chinook definitely ain’t.”

  “I know,” Lee said. “We’re gonna deal with that in a minute. Right now, get in communication with your people and get that thing en route. Tell them to load a truck on the back. I don’t care what kind it is. They’re gonna have to park that thing outside of the woods, and we ain’t humpin’ crates of ammo three hundred yards. We need to get this shit done before that whole horde wanders its way down here to check us out.”

  For once, Carl seemed to agree. “Biggins, put her down,” he spoke into his mic.

  The helicopter came out of its circling pattern and hovered for just a moment before Lee felt the descent. He looked out the windows and watched trees looming up at him, waving in the rushing wind of the rotors, looking like writhing creatures in pain, trying to grasp at the helicopter. The closer they got to the ground, the faster they seemed to be dropping.

  Lee felt his whole body clench, and he wanted to look away but couldn’t. The trees were so close it seemed like there was no way the bird was going to get in without crashing. But he just had to hold on and trust this helicopter pilot, just like he’d trusted every other helicopter pilot he’d ever ridden with. And he’d ridden with some real risk takers who could do uncanny things with the machine that they loved so much.

  Brinly seemed to share Lee’s fear.

  Carl seemed calm.

  “Carl,” Lee called out. “Keep your bird on the ground as long as you can. Try to conserve your fuel. But if we start taking contact, lift off but stay close. We might be able to fight our way to a better spot, if all else fails.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Carl said, then pointed. “We’re here.”

  The helicopter touched the ground and shuddered. True to the pilot’s word, he had managed to squeeze it in this unlikely place, even if there were a few freshly chopped tree branches lying at the edge of the clearing.

  Lee took one big breath and pulled the Black Hawk doors open.

  TWELVE

  CONTINGENCIES

  THE RUSHING AIR FROM outside suddenly filled the cabin of the helicopter. Instead of the metallic, oily stink of military machinery, this smelled of wet woods and dirt, and it was cold enough to water his eyes.

  Lee felt a hand slap him on the shoulder and a voice yell, “Move!”

  He rolled out, felt his boots hit the ground—gravel with some weeds growing through but pressed flat by the downdraft. He brought his rifle up to his cheek and started moving, scanning left, then right as he kicked out about three yards and took a knee. All around him the woods were moving with the wind, but the whine of the engines was dying and the rotor was slowing to an idling speed. Lee tried to see through the woods, through the shaking trees and underbrush, to what might be lurking inside. What might be in the shadows.

  The battering winds and the roaring rotors blanketed everything so that the only sense he had to his advantage was sight. He would not smell the infected, and he would not hear them coming. He would have to see them. He would have to keep looking.

  Keep that head on a swivel.

  Another hand on his shoulder and Brinly’s voice again: “We’re good! Move!”

  Lee hauled himself out of his kneeling position, scanning the woods one more time before he turned that over to his Marine escort. The woods were just as empty as they had been a moment ago. But the helicopter was making a shitload of noise¸ and it was like a goddamn beacon when they were flying in. The infected had seen them. Lee had watched them staring up at him. They knew they were here.

  He moved for the fenced-in area. It was topped with liberal amounts of concertina wire and hung with placards threatening jail time, fines, and accidental death by electrocution. The big metal construction of the radio tower sprouted up from the center, surrounded by what looked like a small utility building and a large diesel generator. None of it was actually what it appeared to be. Like so many things having to do with Project Hometown.

  The gate was secured with a monstrous-looking padlock, and a chain that could have been used to tow heavy equipment. Lee let his rifle drop to his chest and then withdrew the GPS out of the pouch on his chest rig. It was already powered up. He punched in his access code and swiped the device in front of the padlock. The lock popped open and Lee pulled it out of the chain.

  “That fence still electrified?” Brinly said, eyeing the menacing-looking wiring.

  “Shouldn’t be anymore.” Lee reached out and shoved the gate open. It did not electrocute him. Lee knew that the GPS being there deactivated the protection measures for him, but it was still a little nerve-wracking touching a fence with so many black lightning bolt placards and stick-figure pictures of people being shocked to death.

  Lee looked behind him. The Marines were facing outward in every direction, a solid three-sixty security. Brinly had his satellite phone pressed to his ear, his hand cupped over his mouth and the mouthpiece to block out the rotor noise. He was speaking rapidly to someone.

  Lee jogged into the fenced area, closing the gate behind him after the Marines followed. He went to the little construction that appeared to be just another utility shed to house circuit breakers and emergency shutoffs and other such nonsense. This door was also padlocked, and the padlock popped just like the other one. The door to the shed opened up, but there was no interior to the shed, as Lee knew there would not be. There was only another door, recessed about two feet. A door that looked like it led to a vault.

  From here, the procedure was identical to every other bunker. The GPS device activated the security panel, and from there it was mnemonics and alphanumeric codes. When all the security hurdles had been run, the vault made a threatening hissing sound and then slid open with the sound of heavy-duty hydraulics. What lay beyond was a cargo elevator.

  Lee looked behind him.

  Brinly was no longer on the phone. He eyed the elevator. “That’s quite impressive.”

  “Smoke and mirrors,” Lee said, then stepped onto the elevator.

  Brinly and the others came in behind him. “The chopper’s on its way from Camp Lejeune.”

  “Good,” Lee said shortly. He pressed a button and the vaultlike door slid closed again and the elevator descended with the whirring of massive machinery. Lee looked at Brinly’s Marines. “When we get down there, just follow me. We’re going for guns and ammo. That’s it. Guns and ammo.”

  “What else do you have down there?” one of the Marines asked.

  “Stuff,” Lee said as the elevator slowed. “But we only care about the guns and the ammo.”

  Brinly gave the Marine a stand down look. The Marine looked vaguely irritated. “Roger ’at.”

  The doors opened and Lee was out, his feet moving with purpose. As they stepped out into the bunker, the whole system came alive, burning lights, air-conditioning, computers, electronics. There were the showers in the back living area, and Lee yearned for that. A hot shower, good God, how amazing would that feel right now? I could pretend I wasn’t here. Wasn’t doing this. If I could just stand under some hot fucking water…

  But there wasn’t time for that. No time for anything but movement.

  Lee hung a left and reached the armory door. The door was secured with a simple four-digit code, which he punched in quickly and then pushed the door open. The room sparked into light as the overheads winked on at the detection of movement. The room was filled, wall to wall. All crisp black polymers and glinting blued steel and dull, flat green. To the left was a wall of M4 rifles. The rest was crates upon crates of ammunition and ordnance.

  Lee pointed to the wall of weaponry. “Sta
rt grabbing the rifles and stacking them up in the elevator. Don’t take them topside just yet. Just stack ’em in there. I’ll start pulling boxes of ammunition and mags.” Lee motioned out the door. “We’ll get a nice little assembly line going. Let’s work fast, gentlemen.”

  And they worked fast. Brinly grabbed rifles and tossed them to a Marine at the door, who alternately caught the rifles and then the boxes of ammunition and magazines that Lee was sliding to him. Then he would toss the rifle down the hall, or slide the box along to the next guy.

  Lee was sweating within a few minutes. A little more out of breath than he would have preferred, he looked to Brinly. “What’s the ETA on that chopper?”

  “They said thirty minutes ten minutes ago.”

  “Okay.” Lee bent, ignoring the splitting pain in his side. “I can work with that.”

  He separated another box of ammunition from the boxes of gear and explosives and shoved it to the Marine at the door. He thought he felt one of the stitches in his side busting loose, but he had no time to stop and inspect it. He only had time to work.

  Time to work. Get it done. Get this shit done.

  It didn’t take long to fill the elevator.

  “Ain’t gonna fit no more if we want to ride it too,” the Marine loading the elevator shouted out.

  Lee hopped down off of a pile of crates and stalked to the door. He was burning up but hadn’t taken off his jacket. Inside, he was soaked with sweat. Maybe a little blood from his side. “It’s full?” he called out.

  “Full. No more.”

  Lee looked back at the room. The wall of rifles was only half-depleted. There were still crates upon crates of ammunition. Lee wiped a trickle of sweat from his eyebrow. “All right. What are we looking like?” Lee tried to do a quick estimate based on how many gun racks were empty. “Uh… thirty? Thirty-five rifles?”

  “Yeah.” The Marine looked into the elevator. “About that. And probably fifty thousand rounds of ammunition.”

  Lee looked at Brinly. “That work for you guys?”

  Brinly gave a thumbs-up. “Works for us, Captain.”

  “They should be here any minute,” Lee said. “Let’s get topside.”

  The elevator rumbled up easily under the weight of the load. The five of them were crammed in, straddling crates of ammunition and standing almost shoulder to shoulder. At the top, Lee tapped the button and the big, heavy doors slid open. As they cracked, Lee heard the sound of beating rotors, and saw the big black helicopter still sitting there.

  Lee huffed relief. “All right. We’re good.” He bent down and grabbed a case of ammunition. “Start stacking this stuff near the gate so we can load it on the truck quickly when it gets here.”

  “Hey.” One of the Marines held up a radio handset. “I’m pickin’ them up now.”

  Brinly grabbed the handset. “This is First Sergeant Brinly. Where’re y’all at?”

  The sound of rotors got heavier and deeper and was suddenly coming from above them. Brinly looked straight up and Lee followed his gaze. The Chinook helicopter roared over their heads, low enough to see the rivets on the fat-bellied beast of a machine. Brinly watched the big, double-rotored aircraft slide smoothly over their heads, and then looked back down at Lee, his face grave.

  “Roger that. Brinly out.” He shoved the handset back to the Marine. “Pilots spotted that horde. It’s about a mile from us and closing. Fast.”

  Lee picked up his crate. No more time for talking. The Marines left their rifles slung and started grabbing boxes and armloads of weapons. Lee didn’t know what “fast” meant, but he imagined they were closing at a good pace, over fairly level terrain. He started a mental clock at ten minutes.

  “What happens if they get here before we can finish loading?” Brinly dropped a case of ammunition and a pair of rifles at the gate.

  “We’ll get the Chinook loaded,” Lee said, more trying to convince himself than anything else. “But I don’t know if we’ll be able to do the Black Hawk in time.”

  “So…”

  Lee jogged back for more supplies. “I’ll handle it.”

  “You’ll handle it?”

  “I’ll handle it.”

  There wasn’t much else that Lee could say. What if they swarmed the bunker? He ran through scenarios in his head. If he reactivated the physical security, such as the electrified fence, then they’d probably be okay. But the Black Hawk wouldn’t be able to get them out. Even if it could lower ropes for them, which Lee didn’t even know that they had, it still couldn’t get in close enough to the fenced-in area because of the radio tower. And that wasn’t even counting the cargo. That was just extracting the men.

  I’ve got some tricks, Lee told himself. Don’t know if they’ll work, but I’ll sure as hell give ’em a whirl.

  They had half of the cargo transplanted to the gate by the time they caught sight of the truck roaring down the gravel access road and skirting around the bulk of the Black Hawk, skidding up dust and dirt as it went. It was a regular Humvee with a truck bed. Barely big enough to cram in the cargo, but they’d have to figure it out. The thing was moving fast. The driver was well aware of the situation.

  Lee threw open the gate as the truck came to a halt, flinging pebbles. No orders needed to be given. The driver jumped out, along with two passengers and they immediately started grabbing crates and rifles along with Brinly’s Marines. Lee worked fast, feeling the warmth in his side turn to a sticky sort of wetness that could only be blood.

  Good job. You busted your stitching open yet again.

  He kept looking over his shoulder as he worked, looking through the fence and the trees, knowing that at any second there was going to be a mob of skinny, bedraggled creatures coming for them. Starving creatures. Ones that would rip them to shreds and leave nothing but bloody patches where they’d been standing.

  The truck was loaded within five minutes. Lee did a mental check. Maybe they had a few minutes left. If they were lucky.

  Brinly grabbed the open driver-side window of the Humvee and spoke loudly to the Marine behind the wheel. “Get this shit on the chopper yesterday, Marine. Don’t stop for nothing.”

  “Aye, First Sergeant.”

  And then the Humvee tore away in the same direction they’d come from.

  Brinly was clearly doing his own time calculations. “Captain, we ain’t got time for another load. They’re gonna show up in a minute. We need to dust off.”

  Lee shook his head. “No, I got this.”

  I think I got this.

  Brinly looked at him hard. “I’m not risking my men for a fifty-fifty shot at success. We’re getting on that bird and flying out of here.”

  Lee matched his gaze and leaned in. “No. I need your men. This has to happen. You need to trust me.”

  “I don’t fucking trust you!” Brinly suddenly shouted. “I don’t even fucking know you!”

  Lee was an officer. Brinly was enlisted. He could’ve pulled rank and made it an order, but Lee got the feeling Brinly wouldn’t give two shits about protocols, and frankly Lee wasn’t one to judge on that front. Everyone was just trying to do the best thing for their people. And the Marines were Brinly’s people. But the folks at Newton Grove and Camp Ryder, who needed the rest of those weapons, they were Lee’s people. And Lee could not do it on his own.

  “The bunker,” Lee said resolutely. “It can defend itself, I promise you. We can still do what we came here to do. And I just gave your people half of the weapons in this bunker. I’d say that counts for a little fucking trust, don’t you?”

  Brinly’s jaw worked. Eyes glared.

  Lee nodded rapidly. He wasn’t sure whether he had Brinly or not, but he pointed for the bunker and started stepping backward for the Black Hawk, still facing the old Marine. “You have to trust me, First Sergeant. This will work. I promise it will work. Get your men ready to get on that elevator. I’ll be back in just a second.”

  Lee took off running, not waiting to see if Brinly was going to ig
nore him and head to the Black Hawk himself with his Marines in tow. But when Lee glanced over his shoulder he saw Brinly still standing there, his Marines fanning out into a defensive position around the small, fenced-in area.

  Making promises you can’t keep.

  You can. You will. You have to.

  Lee ran up to the open doors of the Black Hawk. He opened his mouth to speak.

  Carl was already yelling, and pointing into the woods behind Lee. “Contact! Right there!”

  Lee ducked as he watched Carl bring his little subgun up to this shoulder and let out a burst. He looked behind him as he ducked and watched an infected stop in midsprint, about fifty yards shy of the fence. It spilled to the ground, spinning streamers of bright red.

  Lee came up again and just pointed up. “Get in the air! Hover above the trees! I’m gonna clear the area!”

  “You’re gonna what?” Carl yelled, incredulous.

  “Just fucking do it! And when you see the area clear, you gotta drop this bird right back in place, because we’re comin’ to get on board and time is fucking tight, you got it?” And then Lee was sprinting back without waiting to see if Carl actually got it.

  All around him the woods were suddenly alive. The smell was not just of jet exhaust and wet leaves, but now had that peculiar unwashed smell that always rode the wind like a banner in front of the infected hordes. The noise of the rotors winding up was suddenly drowned in a cascade of rifle reports. The Marines in the fence held like rocks, rifles up, spitting flame.

  Lee didn’t bother going for his own rifle. His only objective needed to be to get inside the fence. Everything was lost if he didn’t get inside the fence. As he sprinted, the distance between the helicopter and the gate seemed impossibly long, and the infected seemed impossibly close. Lee grabbed the GPS from his chest rig, felt his heart squeeze its way into his throat as he nearly dropped it, then held on tight.

  Ahead of him, Brinly was standing with a look on his face that was some dark place between determination and pure hatred for Lee. He had decided to stay, and no matter what happened, now he was going to deal with the consequences. Maybe he was regretting listening to Lee, maybe that tiny bit of trust had already been retracted, but those were peripheral concerns.