by John O'Brien
Combing every square inch of their sector, they come across the occasional infected roaming the woods, sometimes alone and at other times in small groups. They send 20mm shells hammering through the trees, snapping limbs and raining a shower of needles down onto the forest floor. It clears an open path to the figures below who, instead of running to seek cover, turn and race toward the sound. Mathews almost feels sorry for them, but not so much that he won’t be elated after they clear the island. He’s been at sea for several months and is ready to feel solid ground beneath his feet.
Finishing with most of the sector, the two Vipers make their way to the Clinton township. The city is mostly residential neighborhoods, some houses packed together against the evergreens bordering the town. A great many look like vacation homes stretched in a long line along a thin strand of sand adjacent to the water.
Incandescent water glimmers offshore, the thin strip of beach a silver line separating dry from wet. Though looking through NVGs, Mathews imagines the butter-colored lights that dot the town, streaming from house windows, bathing porches in their glow and illuminating strips that expand across front and back lawns. Sharp white streetlights mark the roadways in straight rows with stoplights adding splashes of color, always changing, like slowly blinking Christmas lights.
Mathews, along with the other attack helicopter, maneuvers around Clinton, wanting to begin at the most southern end of the town and roll up northward. Mathews takes the shore side with his wingman moving in tandem further inland. He swings the Viper around to look at the houses from differing angles, attempting to get heat signatures of anyone still trapped inside the residences.
The southernmost neighborhood seems to be a community of some sort, complete with a tennis court and outdoor swimming pool.
“There, in that big one next to the pool. It looks like several of them,” his gunner states. “And there, in the one across from it.”
Mathews finds himself wishing they had a gunship like the AC-130.
Just one of those would make short work of this, he thinks, looking at the ghostly white figures near the plate glass windows.
He remembers reading a series of books just a short while ago about similarly infected creatures where the protagonist and a small group of survivors used one such vessel with great effectiveness.
It just shows how reality is so much different than imagination. We could do that, but you need someone who can fly one of those beasts. And, even then, God only knows where those golf course pukes in the Air Force keep them.
Streaks of fire race away from one of the pylon-mounted launchers, toward the first house. The rockets hit one after the other, sending plumes of smoke shooting up as they tear into the large viewing window on one side of the house. Bursts of flame flash amid the smoke, then fade. Lumber is thrown outward, combining with the clumps of turf. The side of the roof sags, and then falls, the outer walls unable to hold its weight. With a quick twitch of the stick, the gunner directs more of the thin rockets toward the second house, it too vanishing under a tumult of smoke and fire.
The town of Clinton seems to have been a collection of homebodies, house after house revealing some kind of heat signature. Whether from furnaces or infected, it’s difficult to tell at times.
“Reaper, Zulu Four,” Mathews radios, the two Vipers hovering out over the water.
“Go ahead, Zulu Four.”
“Any chance we have some of the big guns on standby? The town of Clinton in sector Delta Seven seems to have a lot of heat signatures in the houses,” Mathews states.
“Zulu Four, standby.”
“Zulu Four,” Reaper call after a period of time. “Will you be able to direct fire?”
“Roger that,” Mathews replies.
“Zulu Four, I have the Fitzgerald tasked with the firing mission,” Reaper replies after a short pause, giving a secondary frequency for coordinating fire support.
Mathews feels a little rush, as he’s never done something of this nature. Sure, he’s had training in directing artillery, but has never had the chance to practice it in a real scenario. He maneuvers to a farther position and ascends to a higher altitude. Contacting the destroyer combat information center, he’s given the location of the vessel and time to target information for the five-inch shells. He, in turn, gives the starting coordinates. From the initial blast, he’ll direct the location for the next shots, moving them in increments to hit the targets. With the computers onboard, they really don’t need him other than to confirm the rounds are accurate. The ship can move them incrementally without him, but they won’t know if the right targets are being hit. It’s Mathews’s job to make sure that the residences are being hit.
“Zulu Zero Four, Reaper asks for a fifteen minute delay to clear the flight path of friendlies,” the Fitzgerald’s CIC states.
Those minutes pass agonizingly slowly. Mathews is tired from the full day and combing the inches of his sector in the dark. He’s ready for a meal, a shower, and his bunk, where he’ll sink immediately into a coma.
“Zulu Zero Four, Reaper reports clear. We’re ready.”
“Good to go on this end.”
“Copy that. Shot out.”
At a range of ten miles, it will take the shell approximately twenty seconds to arrive. Waiting for the impact, Mathews thinks of the calculation that must be made for the round to land on target. Aside from the usual gravity, windage, and such that is normally associated with something like firing a hunting rifle, over such long distances the curvature of the earth must also be accounted for. The greater the distance, the more it curves. There’s also the Coriolis effect to be considered, which is the natural tendency to pull the round toward the equator. Then, there’s the actual rotation of the earth. Spinning at one thousand miles per hour, the earth will move five miles in those twenty seconds. While that’s not much of a factor because the ship rotates with the earth, and the shell as well, the round’s speed will alter, slowing as it travels over a long distance.
In a blinding flash, lighting up the surrounding area in a quick strobe of light, the round lands squarely in the center of the southernmost neighborhood. The NVGs compensate and return. Soil, timbers, bushes, and planted trees are thrown into the night sky. Amid the twinkles of the moon’s rays upon the waves, large and small splashes begin dotting the cove. Mathews watches as an entire roof, still intact, sails through the air.
“Fuck me!” his gunner whispers.
The tossed lumps of dirt, sections of houses and foundations, and trees fall back to the ground, leaving an area the length of a football field to either side of the impact nearly leveled. Damage to houses outside of the immediate blast zone is apparent, diminishing with distance from the crater.
The houses along the shore are almost in a direct north-south line.
“Direct hit. Adjust left two hundred, drop fifty.”
Taking the ship’s position into account, the next round will land two hundred meters north of the last impact. Shortly after the next “shot out,” another explosion blossoms in the night. An instant after the round detonates, a sharp white flash strobes through the smoke and fire—a propane tank igniting, adding its explosive power to that of the five-inch shell.
Mathews directs fire up and down the city; explosion after explosion rocking the southeastern shoreline. Secondary blasts continue to add to the destruction. At one point near the end, a gas station erupts. Flaming hunks of buildings, vehicles, and other debris arc slowly up and outward in the dark, trails of black smoke following the fiery slag. Some hit the water with a hiss of steam, while others land in the dry trees and set small fires alight.
Homes, cafes, a Dairy Queen, food stores, banks, and other businesses are flattened by concussive explosions landing in succession. By the time Mathews calls for a cease fire, there are only smoldering piles of rubble, timbers, and the husks of vehicles. Craters dot the landscape with piles pushed outward from the center, looking much like the photos of World War One near the trenches. The nea
t little coastal town now looks like the aftermath of a large campfire.
Mathews and his wingman fly slowly over the wreckage, searching for any infected that may have survived the barrage. Though how they could have, he has no idea. No targets present themselves, so they maneuver to the edge of their sector to begin another grid search.
Chapter Twenty
Hills of West Virginia
October 14
Sergeant Jennings sits on the nylon seat, the hours of constant vibration and noise numbing his rear end. Below, crossing from Virginia into West Virginia, forested hills give way to a peculiar landscape. Very defined ridgelines run southwest to northeast, much different than the random nature of the other mountainous areas. To Jennings, it seems like something slammed into the east coast that caused this part of the inland to wrinkle in a much defined way. The shadows of the ridges from the sun sitting in the western sky make this variation more pronounced. Jennings watches the terrain slide slowly past.
He’s part of the Marine contingent setting up shop in a scattering of small airfields nestled in the hills of West Virginia, getting ready for the push to Grissom Air Force Base the next day. The cities they’ve passed look like the chaos he had been expecting since they were briefed on the mission; tangles of vehicles along city streets and rising smoke plumes. One of the towns looked like it was completely engulfed, flames shooting into the air and thick smoke billowing upward. Everywhere he looked, destruction seemed to reign.
Being briefed on the status of your homeland is much different than seeing it live. All of the books he’s read about the end of the world made it seem, well, exciting. Hard times filled with moments of terror, but still exciting. Actually having to deal with it is far from a thrill.
They walk a razor’s edge, where any mistake or bad roll of the dice can topple their tenuous hold. Poisoned air and a land filled with millions upon millions of rabid, rage-filled people. Knowing the overall plan, and his part in it, it feels doable. But, when thoughts surface concerning the magnitude of what they’re dealing with, he just doesn’t see how they’ll make it. They have a vast armada of firepower, but that can vanish in an instant if one microbe of whatever virus is running rampant infects one person. The gear he’s wearing is hot and irritating, to put it mildly, but there’s no way he’s allowing a single gap. When looking at what they’re facing, the barrier it provides seems mighty thin. As an added incentive, there was the warning they were given before liftoff, the one where it was casually mentioned that they’d be shot if there were any slips in the protective protocols.
“If I get an inkling that you’ve become contaminated, I’ll put you down myself,” the company first sergeant had stated. “It doesn’t matter if it’s real or not. Even if I fall asleep and dream that you’ve been exposed, that’s enough for me. So, don’t fuck up.”
Although the company commander had put it in semi-swallowable terms, they’d also been briefed not to expect much in terms of families surviving.
“The odds are that they didn’t, so do whatever grieving you have to and move on. We need each and every one of you with your minds in the game. Your buddy next to you is depending on you.”
For Jennings, it’s the same as with the cities. Being told is different than seeing it for sure. He’d been told that his parents weren’t alive anymore, but his mind just won’t wrap itself around that idea. He can’t come to terms with it. And, they’re most likely not really dead, but infected with some virus that drives people crazy. Maybe the reason he just can’t see it, can’t take it inside of him and grieve, is because there might be a chance it can be cured. He has no idea how that could happen, but if they caught something, then there must be a way to cure it.
“Where’d you say you got that?” a voice draws him out of his reverie.
Jennings shakes his head, clearing his thoughts, and looks toward the Marine sitting next to him. The soldier nods toward the rifle poised between Jennings knees.
“Fuck you! How many times are you going to keep asking that? I found it, that’s all you need to know,” Jennings replies.
Jennings cradles his weapon protectively. As a scout sniper for the company, he is supposed to use the issued M40A5. The MK20 semi-automatic he has is supposed to be issued to special ops folks, and not many of them at that. He begged, wheedled, bribed, and sold his soul to get one. The two weapons have similar ranges and accuracies, but the MK20 is semi-automatic, making it a much better weapon in the field.
When he asked the first sergeant if he’d be allowed to use it, he’d said, “Can you hit anything with it?”
“Yes, First Sergeant.”
“At the same range and accuracy?”
“Yes.”
“If you can do that, then I don’t care if you use a sling.”
“What about the captain?”
“He’s just a captain. I’m God. So, don’t worry about a thing, Jennings. Just don’t go bragging or parading the thing around. Where’d you get it, by the way?”
“I, uh, found it.”
The first sergeant had stared hard into his eyes, for a time that seemed to rival the lifecycle of a sun.
“Very well, Marine. I had better not get wind of someone losing the weapon and that you borrowed it.”
“You won’t.”
“Good. Now, get out of my office and go find something to do. I don’t have time to be jabber-jawing around the campfire with you.”
Jennings had been about to step out the door when the first sergeant called to him.
“You and I have some range time scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Bring your friend.”
The helicopter begins a descent into the field. Out of the window, Jennings sees rotors scattered in all parts of the sky, some leaving, others arriving. Gunship teams prowl the perimeter over the tops of the woodlands, looking for any infected. To the south of the airfield, a river snakes its way around steep ridgelines. West, dark spirals of smoke lift into the air from a nearby community near an interstate. Orange flames blossom through the thick smoke from a couple of gas stations. Other smaller plumes dot the landscape from outlying homes.
On the airfield itself, tents are arrayed in open grassy areas. Several large command setups are in the process of being erected. They won’t last long as they’ll have to pick up and move tomorrow or the day after, depending upon how long it takes to clear the infected from Grissom. While his company may be one of the last to arrive here, they’re scheduled to be the first in.
The helicopter settles into a field just north of the runway. Jennings’s legs feel as if all of the lubricant has been removed and his ass flattened by the long trip. Even though the circumstances suck, he’s thankful to be moving. The wind whips at his clothing and then he’s clear. The chopper lifts off and drifts slowly over to the small tarmac where it lands and begins taking on fuel.
With the company gathered, the captain informs them that they’re responsible for the very northern end of the airport. Tree lines rise above open fields surrounding the tiny airfield. The opening provides for adequate fields of fire and the company settles in, each platoon taking a sector. Jennings’s platoon places themselves along the southern shoulder of a paved road. After determining ranges to the tree lines in various quadrants, he tries to relax.
Smoke roils over the trees to the west, the sun a dark brown orb. The noise of the helicopters in the area combines for a constant roar, sometimes growing louder, at other times fading. Jennings watches as several King Stallions come in and drop fuel bladders slung underneath. Crew on the ground maneuver the heavy black rubber bladders into positon, then begin connecting hoses to create a functional refueling station. Others bring in ammunition that is stored in the few hangars on the airport. The supply operation is continuous, with more items being stockpiled for the coming campaign.
This isn’t really what he pictured at all. Sure, he’s been on many operations, and a few had been setup in remote areas of operation, but this seems, well, too normal. In h
is mind, he had them fending off waves of infected while they established themselves. Instead, it appears that the gunships and jet strikes have done the job for them.
Granted, we didn’t arrive until late, but still. Maybe there was more action in the morning. However, I’m thankful for the relative peace; hope the rest of the assaults are like this one.
A thundering roar shakes the air as a flight of four hornets rocket overhead in formation. They begin peeling off one by one and circling around to land, each one sailing low over Jennings’s head with their gear down just prior to touching down. He watches as they taxi off the runway and park on the limited ramp space. Crews jostle around the aircraft as they shutdown, refueling and checking over each aircraft. Nearly identical actions are being taken all across the state at many airports hidden within the mountainous terrain.
* * * * * * *
Knowing that he’ll be on watch for part of the night, Jennings tries to doze, but isn’t able to catch more than a few winks due to the constant flow of traffic in and out of the airfield. According to what he’s heard, the infected seem mostly drawn to noise, and if that’s the case, he’s sure that those anywhere within the entire state will descend upon them.
The large open area across the road gives a decent field of view, the trees casting long shadows from the sun settling low over the ridges to the west. Small flocks of birds twist and turn, randomly changing directions in mid-flight as they search out their evening meals. As evening falls, inbound and outbound traffic tapers off until it halts altogether. The sun sinks below the hills, the dark of night slowly rolling in from the east.
Jennings rolls over onto his stomach, forgoing any attempt at sleep. With night fully upon them, surrounding fires create glowing pockets and light the undersides of the rising smoke. High-intensity portable lights glare across the ramp and adjacent fields as crews get the helicopters and four F-18s ready for the following day. Smaller lights shine where another company landed and set up camp, twinkling as bodies move in front of them. With two companies providing security along the perimeter, the third company will act as a reserve force should one become necessary. Once they move out the next day, part of it will remain behind to provide security until Grissom has been established.
