An end that he would most definitely share considering he couldn’t run or walk. He picked one out from the crowd. Damp brown hair curls that hung down below her chest, Pirates jersey loose around her waist. He tried to ignore the fraction of guilt for killing a woman as he sent a bullet flying her way at roughly twenty-three-hundred feet per second.
STEELE
Monongahela River, Pittsburgh, PA
The weight of the infected combined with his equipment dragged him further into the depths. The surface and the boat faded from sight, and Steele felt pressure building in his lungs, preparing to explode. The infected clawed up his leg with his long fingernails. Steele kicked down ferociously with his foot, the water dampening the impacts of his combat boot. The water turned darker and darker. He struggled upward with his arms in a panicked attempt to free himself from the infected’s grasp.
In a desperate final push, he bent down and pulled on his bootlaces. His chest tightened under his hurried exertion. His fingers grasped, ripped, and yanked with all his might. The infected scratched his hands and Steele let his boot release into its grasp. He scissor-kicked the water over and over.
The light from the surface became dimmed, and then grew lighter and lighter. He scrambled and moved his arms and legs furiously, reaching for the surface.
He burst through the surface of the water, gasping for air. He treaded water excitedly, taking deep breaths of the desperate air. Coughing painfully, he spun in the water looking for the boat.
Bodies were still crashing into the water around him. The infected growled as they floundered in the water. Dozens of the zombies surrounded him as if he were in a pool aerobics class gone wrong. Water sprayed his face, and although every nerve in his body screamed that he stay above water he ducked underneath the cold surface again. He swam away from the dampened sounds of struggling infected.
He made a poor figure cutting through the water, bogged down by his M4 carbine. He contemplated letting it sink to the bottom, but decided that if he did, his long-term survival was all but sealed. After a few timid breaths on the surface, he got far enough away from the mass of infected that he felt safe enough to tread water again.
He looked up, seeing that he was now directly below the bridge. Movement caught his eye near the large stone and concrete pillar. It was Barnes slowly waving in his direction. Big buffoon. At least he could have paddled the boat over to help me out.
Steele took a deep breath and swam a steady but determined pace for the small boat. When he finally reached its side, Barnes pulled him up by his belt. Steele flopped into the bottom of the boat.
“Gotcha, kiddo,” Barnes said.
Steele lay there gasping for breath. “You know, I haven’t been training for a triathlon. So a little help would have been nice,” Steele said in between breaths.
“Survival has a sharp learning curve. When I was a kid, my dad just pushed me in the deep end until I learned,” Barnes said.
Steele draped his legs over the side and spread his arms wide in the bottom of the boat. “Didn’t teach you any manners though,” he said with scorn.
Barnes smiled ruefully, “After that bastard hit the side and you went under, it was leave ya or join ya,” he said.
“What happened to your boot?”
Steele gave him a pissed look. “One of them caught me under water.”
“We’ll grab you a new one off one of these guys. Plenty to go around,” Barnes said.
“Glad you made it back,” Ahmed said, patting Steele’s shoulder.
The boat rubbed against the large base of the stone bridge pillar. The water lapped boat and pillar alike.
“Hand me that water,” Steele said to Barnes. The heavyset EOD specialist tossed him a water bladder. Steele guzzled down fresh warm water and checked his gear. Thankfully, it was all still tied to the boat.
“You think I’ll grow another arm after going in that water?” Steele said.
“I can get you another arm,” Ahmed said, batting at another body in the water.
Steele stared up at the bottom of the bridge. “I assume that Ahmed isn’t going to make the climb.” Ahmed grimaced at the mention of his injury, trying to think of something to say; at the same time he seemed to be relieved to not have to go.
Barnes shook his head. “No, but its prob’ly better to have someone stay with the boat.” He eyed the water with disgust. “We’re going to need this pack here. About twelve of those bricks there. A few of these,” Barnes said, tossing Steele a bag. “Then we are gonna need a bunch of this wire here. Oh, and we can’t forget the clickers,” Barnes said. He tossed more items at Steele.
“Is that going to be enough?” Ahmed asked.
Steele’s experience told him yes, but he didn’t deal with explosives every day.
Barnes gave a bark of a laugh. “Of course. Of course. We prob’ly are only going to need about half that, but I like to be sure that my work always goes above and beyond the call of duty.” He sparked up a cigarette and rose his eyebrows twice.
Steele could sense a little of the off-kilter vibe coming from the man. He supposed that somebody who liked to play with things that go boom by choice had to have a few screws loose.
Barnes shoved the items in a large pack, and Steele stopped him.
“We should split up the gear evenly. If the rain of infected is any indicator of how many dead are on the bridge, then we should be prepared to each complete the task,” he said, eyeing Barnes. Barnes quickly nodded and handed over half of the demolition gear. Steele shoved it into his pack after emptying non-essential items, as if the climb up the pillar to the bridge wasn’t going to be awful enough just carrying his carbine, but he had to get the gear up there somehow. Steele hefted the pack. It was about forty pounds.
He looked over at Barnes. “This is too heavy. I don’t know if I can make it. Let alone you,” he said.
Barnes looked hurt by his comment. “Listen here, boy. I was making Ahmed’s people go boom in the first Persian Gulf War before you were out of elementary school. No offense, Ahmed.”
“None taken,” Ahmed replied.
“There has to be a better way. We don’t want you keeling over on us. I could climb to the top and then haul the packs up by rope,” Steele said.
Barnes nodded, but still looked hurt. “I could make it up there,” he muttered to himself. He readjusted the contents of his pack, counting the bricks of C4 on his fingers.
“I’m Egyptian,” Ahmed said. Barnes stopped counting. “You didn’t blow my people up in Persian Gulf 1.”
“Looked a lot like you,” Barnes said with a scrutinizing glance. He continued to check the equipment.
Ahmed sat in silence and Steele could tell he was bothered by the veteran.
Steele leaned close. “He’s an old war dog. You can’t teach him new things.”
“Someone taught him something at some point?” Ahmed said with a smirk.
“I’m sitting right here, you guys,” Barnes said. His cigarette dangled on the edge of his mouth. “And that’s a great idea. Make fun of the guy who is supposed to spot you as you climb.” Barnes handed Steele a thick climbing rope. “You first.”
JOSEPH
Downtown Pittsburgh, PA
Hundreds of the disfigured infected marched for him in their unholy parade. Sporadically, one would fall, and not get up, but most bullets were dime-sized nuisances ripping through their flesh and tearing out their backs. The piece of heavy black metal and plastic felt awkward in Joseph’s hands, as if they repelled one another. Soldiers on either side of him fired away.
“Help me,” Joseph screeched at one. The soldier didn’t even glance at him. He only continued to rattle of rounds in the direction of the horde.
“Help me,” he yelled at the other soldier, clutching his gun like an unwanted infant.
The soldier gave him an angry look and shoved Joseph back. “Shut up,” the soldier screamed at him.
The pearly-white eyes of the undead caused him to fee
l the contents of his bladder to run down his leg.
“Shoot, you bastard,” someone yelled at him. He held his rifle like a poisonous snake. A poisonous snake that provided his only defense against the infected. He tried to line up the sights of his rifle on one of the staggering corpses, but his glasses kept sliding down to the tip of his nose. He must look like a grandpa reading a newspaper. They weren’t made for this kind of thing.
He let the gun drop and put the barrel on the ground while he folded his glasses up and put them in his pocket. There. He hefted the butt of the gun back up to his shoulder and peered down the barrel.
The figure was much closer now. He couldn’t see the man’s facial features; he was a blur of mean filth. Joseph’s heart ripped erratically in his chest. He felt like he was going to hyperventilate. He had never killed a man before. I mean, this person isn’t really a man. Probably won’t even feel it. Can’t miss now. The silhouette filled his sights.
Joseph yanked the trigger feeling like an Old Western gunslinger in the movies. The trigger stuck in place, the audible click mocking him. Stiff as a corpse. No resounding boom. Nothing. He held the gun up close to his face, inspecting it for instructions.
“I know there is a button on here somewhere.” What is it? Safety, that’s it. “It doesn’t say Safety on here.” Only an S. His fingers felt the gun dumbly for buttons. The entire contraption was as foreign as a child reading their first book.
Joseph’s finger ran across an oval-shaped button and pressed it. His magazine clanked on the concrete below him. Brass-clad bullets lay unused inside their magazine home. He almost forgot the infected getting closer.
How could these brutes manipulate these weapons so quickly, and someone like me struggles to get the most rudimentary of functions out of it? The walking corpse was within five yards now. Joseph fumbled with anything that looked like a lever or a button on the weapon. Will this gun even fire without one of those clippy things in it?
He did the only thing he could do and thrust the rifle out in front of him to keep the thing away. He thrust out, forgetting his finger was on the trigger, and fired the gun into its face. The infected fell backwards and ceased moving.
“Got ’em,” Joseph said to the soldiers. “I GOT ’EM,” he yelled at the other infected. His battle cry caught the attention of others and an infected woman set her milky sights on him. He bent down and picked up the fallen magazine. His fingers floundered with it, banging it on the magazine well of the carbine.
The infected woman dropped and so did the one next to her. Joseph couldn’t see who was doing the shooting, but was thankful because it gave him time to figure this gun out. Get in there you clippy gizmo. The metal scraped on metal, and the pieces finally fit together, magazine in carbine. Finally, my machine gun is ready to fire. No sooner had Joseph placed the magazine into the carbine than somebody pulled him backwards by the scruff of his neck for the mover.
“Come on, killer. We are Oscar Mike,” a blurry red-haired Sergeant Yates said.
“Did you see that? I took one of them down,” Joseph said. He felt like a little kid looking for the praise of his father.
“That you did, egghead,” Sergeant Yates said. “That you did. Now if you could only do it about one hundred million more times without getting your ass killed, then we could call this state of emergency over.” The sergeant’s broad blurry face seemed to be smiling at Joseph.
“I will do my best,” Joseph said.
Sergeant Yates roared with laughter. “Get in the fucking mover. You just find a cure for this thing. I will take care of the rest.”
Joseph found himself shoved and pulled upwards into the people mover. He blindly took a seat and threw his glasses back on. Everything was clear again. Everything aside from a long crack that now curved through the middle of his right lens. He didn’t remember breaking them. Maybe the recoil of the weapon? Men lay about in an exhausted wet mess of gear and people. Stinkin’ Lincoln leaned back, resting in the seat next to him, but Manson wasn’t there.
The people mover roared, gaining ground beneath it. Four thick mobile-lounge wheel-treads crushed the undead, and Joseph almost called out for the driver to stop. They must have forgotten some of the men. Clearly they had forgotten some of the men. Being left behind was surely a death sentence for anyone in the heart of this horrible inner city of steel and glass.
“Where are the rest of them?” he said. A little over forty men sat inside the vehicle cabin. He searched Mauser’s face for an answer. Mauser gave a terse shake of his head.
“Manson?” Joseph asked, turning to Lincoln. Without the other hulking soldier to smash the life out of him while they drove, he wouldn’t feel right.
Stinkin’ Lincoln licked his lips like he was going to say something, but didn’t. He jutted out his lower jaw, put his head on the steel window shade, and closed his eyes.
“Most of the men who went to the front didn’t come back. If it wasn’t for Colonel Jackson’s quick deployment, they never would have replaced the tire before we were overrun,” Mauser said.
Joseph’s mouth fell open a bit. Lives for escape. Is this all it will ever be? A never-ending dwindling supply of people until we are all gone? He must make it to Michigan at any cost. It was the only choice he had. It was the only choice they had even if they refused to believe it.
The diesel engine grumbled its complaints, and the mobile lounge filled with too few soldiers and a few civilians drove onward. Every now and then a machine gun would ring out, and it made Joseph’s heart speed up. At any moment he expected to leave the safety of the mover for the carnage of the streets again.
Joseph asked Mauser to instruct him on the reload process, which the man went over in detail. Showing him quickly, with large deft fingers.
“If you can manipulate your weapon well, it will cut off time from the important parts of shooting that you need to take slow, like pulling the trigger.”
Joseph nodded dumbly. He was not used to being on the learning end of a lecture, but weirder things had happened, like the dead waking up again. By the end of the lesson, Joseph was impressed with the man and his methods.
Mauser looked at him earnestly. “You want to keep your weapon up and running at all times. The less time it is ‘down,’ the more safe you are, and the less likely something or someone is going to kill you.”
Joseph liked his teaching style: simple.
Mauser gave him a wide smile. “I saw you take down one of them out there. I also saw you drop your magazine.”
“Guns were never my thing,” Joseph said sheepishly.
“Better start learning, but while I am here you will always have a guardian angel looking over your shoulder,” Mauser said with a wink.
“Thanks, Mauser. You have saved my life more times than I can count,” he said.
Mauser slapped him on the shoulder. “I’m sure you will return the favor.”
Inside, Joseph cringed. Can I save a nation with stage four terminal cancer?
KINNICK
Mount Eden Emergency Operations Facility, VA
The remainders of Bowie Squad dashed to the helicopters. The helicopters lay at rest, rotor blades bowed down.
Master Sergeant Hunter whistled a high-pitched note when they neared the helicopters.
A low whistle met Master Sergeant Hunter’s high one, and Sergeant Hawkins materialized from the grass like a ghost. Master Sergeant Hunter wasn’t fazed by his sudden appearance.
“Hawkins. Remove Esparza from our roster. I sent him home. Any issues up top?” The half-Asian man gave Master Sergeant Hunter a slight nod and removed a small notepad from his vest pocket. “No issues that we couldn’t handle. Cause of death?”
“Infection.”
“Skins aren’t fairing so well. We are already above Vietnam casualty rates.”
“I know that, Hawkins, but while there is one of us remaining, the Skins are in the fight.”
“The Indian Wars was the only conflict with higher casualty r
ates in our unit’s history,” Sergeant Hawkins said.
“There is still plenty of time yet,” Master Sergeant Hunter said.
“Sins and Skins, Hunter.”
“Sins and Skins, Hawkins. Make sure you get it down. There needs to be a record for the next of kin.”
Sergeant Hawkins scribbled notes on his pad.
Kinnick was silent. He gave Hunter a look of inquiry.
“Standard procedure. We will get word to his family if they can be contacted.” Master Sergeant Hunter walked off to the helos. Sergeant Gibson knelt inside the first helicopter.
“Gibson, relay to General Travis that Mount Eden is a bust. No doctor. One civilian. Alive.” The short communications sergeant nodded, bringing General Travis abreast of their report.
Fifteen minutes later the remainders of Bowie Squad sat on the edge of their helo, eating under the watchful eye of Crockett Squad. Kinnick, Lewis, and Hunter used the cabin of the Black Hawk as a bench.
“What’d you get?” Lewis asked. He leaned a broad shoulder into Kinnick to get a glance at Kinnick’s meal. The man had already put down two MRE packs.
“Chili mac with beans.” Kinnick took his spoon and stirred the brownish mixture in an attempt to make it more appetizing. I’m lucky to have food.
“Whew. Lucky I didn’t get my paws on that.”
“I bet we are, Sergeant.”
The wind spun a tarp end over end, blowing it over top of the grass. Almost peaceful. The silence of nature atop the mountain was tranquil as if the animals were all gone and Kinnick’s men were truly alone. Perhaps this was the Great Flood. Instead of water, God sent a scourge of infected people. Take everyone out in one fell swoop. Would have been a lot easier just to drown us all, instead of forcing some of us to fight tooth and nail against each other for an insignificant existence.
“Sir, we got an incoming message from General Travis,” Gibson called over from the passenger side of the helicopter, his ear glued to a headset. Kinnick handed his meal to Lewis.
The End Time Saga Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 60
