Thunder and Ashes

by Z. A. Recht

  “And thank you very much for letting me know where you are,” Krueger murmured from the catwalk above. He fired, and the taunter doubled over, clutching at a stomach wound.

  “I’ll let her know you’re interested!” Brewster yelled back, firing another shell.

  The soldier swung away from the hall, plastered his back against the wall and fished around in his pockets for some more shells. He began to reload his shotgun. “Krueger, cover me while I reload!”

  “On it, bro,” Krueger replied, firing again. Brewster couldn’t see the results of the shot, but he guessed it had been a hit. Krueger’s accuracy was only getting better as he had opportunity after opportunity to practice.

  “Thomas better hurry the hell up!” Brewster yelled up to Krueger. “I don’t have infinite ammo down here!”

  Thomas was, indeed, hurrying the hell up. He’d run flat out down the side hall he’d discovered, trying doors and listening for the sounds of company. He guessed he’d taken a turn that led him away from the main body of raiders, and that was just as well with him. The lights overhead gave him plenty of illumination to see by. He guessed the raiders had a generator set up somewhere.

  Thomas slowed to a fast walk, considering the idea. If the raiders did indeed have a generator, they’d have to have fuel for it.

  He ran over his mission objectives in his head, almost hearing Sherman’s voice repeating them.

  Get inside, wreak as much of the place as possible, and get back out.

  Thomas allowed himself a rare grin. If he could find the generator room, he’d be able to do a substantial amount of damage. The only question was which way to go.

  The sergeant major came to a T-intersection and looked left and right. The halls were empty. He had to make a fast decision, and went with his gut, heading left. There were only three doors in this section of hallway. He tried the first two and found them locked. The third was open. He eased the door open slowly, then moved in, pistol at the ready.

  What he saw before him made the bile in his throat rise. Before him were a number of makeshift cells, all made from chain-link fence. Within each of the cells was a narrow, dirty cot and a pile of discarded clothes. Each cell also held a woman. Some were in better shape than others. Seeing Thomas, they all recoiled to the rear of their cells, whimpering. Whatever the raiders had been doing to them, it had been enough to traumatize them.

  “Relax,” Thomas growled. “I’m not here to hurt any of you.”

  His disgust for the raiders quickly grew into a festering hatred. This was a harem. They’d kidnapped women and kept them around just to have their way with them at their leisure. They were scum. Thomas’ plan of wrecking the facility was put on momentary hold. He holstered his pistol.

  “My name is Command Sergeant Major Thomas, United States Army,” he said, striding forward. “And I’m going to get you out of here.”

  One by one, the women began to realize that this man was not one of their captors, and he had not come to avail himself of their presence. They pressed forward against the front of their cells, reaching out toward Thomas as he walked by. Many looked skinny and underfed, and more than one had bruises or cuts on their faces and bodies. Most were underclothed, wearing only thin robes or tattered shirts and underwear. Their treatment had obviously been horrible.

  “Keys,” he said, looking left and right at the women. “Where can I find the keys?”

  “The wall,” said one of the women, pointing at the far end of the room. “They keep them hanging over there, on the wall.”

  Thomas jogged over and retrieved the keyring. It had several keys on it, one for each of the locks on the makeshift cells. He released the woman who’d spoken up first, then handed her the keyring.

  “Go around and unlock the rest of these cells, then meet me at the door. I’m going to watch the hall. I have two men engaged in a firefight, and I need to get back to them as fast as possible.”

  The woman nodded, swallowed, and accepted the keys, running from cell door to cell door, releasing the other captives. Once the last had been freed, they crowded around Thomas, who was standing in the doorway keeping a careful eye on the hall.

  “Do any of you know your way around this place?” Thomas asked, glancing back at the women.

  “I do,” said the one who had directed Thomas to the keys. “I used to work here before the virus hit. My name is Marie.”

  “Marie, I noticed this building still has power. I’m guessing there’s a generator in here somewhere.”

  “That’s right,” Marie said, nodding. “It’s in the basement. I can show you.”

  “Do they store the fuel for it there, too?” Thomas asked.

  “I think so,” she said, unsure of where he was going with his train of thought. “Unless they’ve moved it.”

  “Good enough,” he said. “You’re with me. The rest of you, I want you to head to the main warehouse. Head down the hall, make your first right, then go straight. There’s a firefight going on in there. Stay behind cover and pray to whatever god you believe in that my men can hold off the raiders until I get back.”

  The women stood still a moment, looking back and forth at one another, unsure of themselves.

  “Go! Now!” Thomas shouted, jolting them into action. They took off, some running, others limping from injuries sustained during their captivity.

  “Sergeant, the basement stairs are this way,” Marie said, taking Thomas by the arm and guiding him down the hall. She took him down the opposite direction of the intersection he’d come to before, leading him to an unmarked door about halfway down the hall. “This is it.”

  Thomas tried the door handle. It was unlocked. He swung it open, pistol aimed, but only empty stairs, leading downward, met his eyes.

  “The generator’s in the other room,” Marie said, and started down the stairs. Thomas grabbed her by the shoulder, holding her in place. “What is it?”

  “Me first,” Thomas growled, passing her by. He took the steps slowly, checking his corners carefully for signs of hostiles. The basement was finished, painted in bright white, and kept quite clean and clear of debris. Janitorial supplies lined one wall, stacked high on shelves that reached to the ceiling. In another corner, water heaters and plumbing access points jutted out of the walls and an employee laundry was set up in another corner. Farthest from the entrance was another heavy door.

  “It’ll be behind there,” Marie whispered from behind Thomas. She extended a thin hand and pointed at the door.

  Thomas strode boldly over to the door and pulled it open. The hinges creaked and hinted at a lack of oiling over recent years. As the door opened, the noise from the generator increased until it filled the basement with a dull roar. Exposed in front of Thomas was the generator room. Off to his left stood the large machine, taking up most of a section of whitewashed, cement-block wall, and to his right was a cage stacked with steel drums, all sealed and marked with sticky signs that read ‘flammable.’ Thomas almost grinned; the room was exactly as he had hoped it would be.

  Directly in front of Thomas, however, was an unexpected occupant of the room. Sitting with his back to the door was a raider, lounging in a simple wooden chair with his feet propped up on a desk, smoking a cigarette despite the hundreds of gallons of gasoline in the room with him. He was apparently the man assigned to keep the generator running at night, feeding it with fuel when needed and taking care of any problems that might arise.

  The man was also apparently a slacker, because he had hooked up a VCR and a small television set directly to the generator and was chuckling to himself as he watched reruns of M*A*S*H* on the little screen. The noise from the generator had covered Thomas and Marie’s entrance, and the man was none the wiser as the older sergeant walked into the room. Thomas let his eyes wander downwards. The man had a Kalashnikov assault rifle propped up against the desk.

  Thomas looked back at Marie, over at the generator, right to the fuel, and then back at the man lounging in front of him. Withou
t any further hesitation, Thomas raised his pistol and fired a single shot into the back of the man’s head. Blood sprayed the television screen, interrupting Hawkeye’s speech about never carrying a gun.

  Marie stood behind Thomas with the back of her hand held over her mouth, staring at the dead man slumped over the desk.

  “Get used to it,” Thomas growled. “Brave new world out there. Now give me a hand.”

  Marie recovered from her shock quickly enough—quicker, in fact, than Thomas had expected, raising his opinion of her a notch. Thomas busied himself by removing the protective plastic sheeting that covered the barrels upon barrels of fuel. Marie tried to help him roll the barrels to space them around the room, but had less luck in that department: the barrels were heavy and even Thomas struggled to move them.

  Over the course of several minutes they had managed to uncover, open, and reposition the barrels in the miniature fuel depot; nearly fifty in all. Thomas unscrewed the cap of one of the barrels and began furiously searching the room.

  “What are you looking for?” Marie asked, coming up behind him and casting curious glances over his shoulder as he looked through moldy cardboard boxes in the corner.

  “Fuse,” Thomas grumbled. He turned, set his hands on his hips and puffed out a short breath of annoyance. All that work and no fu—

  Suddenly Thomas’ eyes fell on the slumped form of the man he’d killed. The man had been wearing a t-shirt, overshirt, and a pair of dirty, oilstained camouflage pants. Thomas strode over to him and yanked at the overshirt, pulling it off of the corpse and holding it up to inspect it. Beside him, the jostled body slumped to the side and fell out of its chair, crumpling to the ground. Marie swallowed and averted her eyes as blood pooled from the man’s gory head wound onto the concrete. Thomas didn’t even seem to notice.

  “This will do,” Thomas announced, nodding at the shirt.

  “Do for what?” Marie asked.

  “Like I said,” Thomas replied, sounding annoyed, “I needed a fuse.”

  Marie looked around the room at all the barrels, watched Thomas knotting and braiding the large shirt into a three-foot cloth fuse, and finally made the connection.

  “You’re going to blow this place up!” she said, watching wide-eyed as Thomas stuffed one knotted end of the shirt into the nearest barrel of fuel.

  “No,” Thomas growled. “I’m not.”

  “Then what the hell are you doing?” Marie asked, gesturing wildly at the shirt, the barrels, and Thomas himself.

  “Setting the place on fire,” Thomas said, glancing in her direction. It was a minor correction, but Thomas was a stickler for details. “Not enough explosive power here to level the place. But there is enough to set it to burning—and burning fast and hard, too. First blast ought to cover our escape.”

  “Uh—look, I’ve seen a lot and I’m not stupid, but will that shirt give us enough time to get out of here before—”

  “Before it blows?” Thomas asked. He shrugged. “Yes and no. I’m going for a delayed detonation here. See that gas can there?”

  Thomas pointed behind himself, toward the generator. A three-gallon fuel jug sat next to the generator’s tank.

  “Yes,” Marie said. “What do you want me to do with it?”

  “Fill it out of one of these barrels. Get ready—we’ll be running out of here in a minute.”

  Marie did as she was asked, re-filling the jug with gasoline from one of the barrels with some difficulty, then set it at Thomas’s side.

  “All right,” Thomas said, making certain his makeshift fuse reached from the top of the barrel to the cold concrete ground. “Now it’s time to get down to business. Marie, here’s what I want you to do. I’ll go first, and cover us. You follow right behind me with that fuel jug. Keep pouring, just a little at a time. I want you to leave a trail of gas behind us, get me?”

  Marie nodded. She saw what he was getting at.

  “If anyone tries to get in our way, I’ll worry about them. You just worry about that line of gas.”

  “Okay, Thomas. I’m behind you,” Marie said, nodding once more.

  “Good,” Thomas grumbled. “Let’s get to work.”

  Thomas scooped up the dead guard’s AK-47, checked to make sure there was a round in the chamber, and made for the door. He signaled an all clear to Marie, and the woman began her slow retreat, splashing little bits of gasoline behind her as she went, leading from the tail end of the cloth fuse along the floor.

  Thomas led the way up and out of the basement. They didn’t encounter a single guard until they reached the main hall above. Apparently, one of the raiders had gone to check on the harem and hadn’t liked what he’d seen. He was standing at the far end of the hall, scratching his head at the sight of the empty cells when Thomas and Marie came into view.

  “Hey!” yelled the raider. “Stop right there!”

  The raider went for his pistol, drew it and fired three shots before Thomas was able to react. The old sergeant cursed as he flattened his back to the wall, listened as the rounds ricocheted in the corridor outside, then swung around the corner and returned fire. The raider wasn’t stupid. He’d also taken cover inside the harem room, firing from around the edge of the doorframe. Thomas let two more rounds fly in his foe’s direction before ducking back into the stairwell. Marie had halted beside him, a glistening trail of gasoline leading down the stairs behind her and off across the basement floor.

  “We’re in trouble,” Thomas said. “He’s got a good position. Listen close, girl, we’re going to take a risk. This rifle can fire on automatic. I’m going to switch it over, and then we’re both going to run for the T-junction. I’ll be firing full-auto to make that man keep his head down. You stay right the hell behind me and for God’s sake don’t leave a gap in that line of gas you’re leaving behind.”

  “Right,” Marie nodded. “I’m ready.”

  Spunky, Thomas thought. Might’ve made a good soldier.

  Three more pistol shots echoed in the corridor as the raider returned Thomas’ fire. Thomas flicked the selector on the rifle over to auto, held up three fingers, and silently counted down. When he got to zero, he swung out from his cover and depressed the trigger.

  The AK-47 belched forth round after round in full auto, and Thomas charged down the hallway. The bullets peppered the harem doorway, leaving pockmarks and smoking craters all around it. The raider inside dove for cover.

  Thomas made it to the junction and ducked into it. Marie was right behind him, still carrying the fuel jug.

  “How much left?” Thomas asked, breathing heavy and nodding at the jug.

  “Maybe half,” Marie said.

  “Gotta keep moving,” Thomas said. Now that they were closer to the warehouse, Thomas could hear Brewster and Krueger, still firing away. The pair hadn’t been taken out yet, and were, from the sound of things, holding their position in the warehouse as ordered.

  The pair moved down the hall at a steady jog. Thomas skipped backwards, watching the intersection for signs of the raider who had been taking cover in the harem room. Once, the man dared poke his head around the corner. Thomas sent a pair of bullets his way that missed by a very narrow margin. Thomas winced as he fired, praying that the sparks wouldn’t set off the gasoline trail prematurely.

  Thomas and Marie burst into the cavernous warehouse and the sound of gunfire increased immediately.

  “Do you know how to use this?” Thomas asked, unholstering his pistol and handing it, butt-first, to Marie.

  “I’ve fired them before, years ago,” Marie answered, unsteadily accepting the weapon.

  “You’ll pick it up again fast. Point and shoot. No one comes down this corridor.”

  “All right,” Marie answered, setting down the gasoline jug and taking up her position as rear guard.

  Thomas turned and sprinted toward where he’d left Brewster and Krueger. He found the pair had been busy holding off their company. Krueger was still on the catwalk above, sniping away, and Brewster
kicked heavy boxes into the entrance to the corridor the raiders were coming from, providing obstacles for them. A fine grayish-green mist was seeping out of the hall, and both Brewster and Krueger wore their gas masks. Even as Thomas noticed this, he sniffed the air and picked up on the familiar scent of a far-off campfire as the first tendrils of fog reached his nostrils.

  Brewster and Krueger had remembered the CS tear gas.

  Thomas fumbled at his belt and donned his own mask before proceeding to the front line, where Brewster was hunkered down behind a thick stack of boxes busily reloading weapons.

  “Where the fuck have you been?!” Brewster shouted over the gunfire at Thomas, his voice muffled behind his gas mask.

  Thomas decided to save the dressing-down about showing respect for later.

  “Finishing the mission,” Thomas shot back. “Report!”

  “Report is half the goddamn raider army is trying to get into this room! Krueger picked off a couple that tried to circle around back! I ran out of shotgun shells a while back and had to pull these off of a couple of guys who got too close! Take your pick, Sarge, we’ve got a hell of a fight on our hands!” Brewster gestured at a small selection of rifles and pistols he’d accumulated.

  “Not necessary!” Thomas yelled back. “We’re ready to bug out! Did you see the girls?”

  “Girls?” Brewster asked, firing a pair of shots down the fog-enshrouded hallway, gratified to hear an accompanying scream of pain. “Oh, you mean the skin-and-bones ones! Yeah, they came through about five minutes ago! We gave ‘em a couple pistols and told them to run for the ridge south of here, where we were scouting!”

  “Goddammit!” Thomas cursed. “Those raiders could be picking them back up right now, or worse, you idiot! What if some infected come along!”

  “Pardon me, Sarge, but fuck you!” Brewster yelled. “I’ve got a lot on my hands here right now and I can’t be playing nursemaid!”

  As if to enunciate his point, an enemy shotgun blast obliterated the corner of one of the boxes he hid behind, showering the pair with scraps of cardboard and plastic, reduced to little more than confetti.