by JT Sawyer
The man hopped into the truck and sped off as Mitchell’s team moved to the side doors that led out into the main compound. “The rest of you split into your assigned groups and fan out into the B & C Wings. Forget about D-Wing as that’s their research lab and we may need those fucking braniacs in the months ahead. Remember, this is about personnel removal so try to keep as much of the wings as possible intact. The rest of our alpha teams should be here within the hour to ensure we fortify our new palace.”
As the truck disappeared into the helo bay across the compound, Mitchell heard people shouting and taking cover as the fuel tanker erupted inside the structure. Within seconds, fire crews and personnel were exiting the different wings and rushing to the scene, leaving Mitchell, his men, and the mutants with the distraction they would need to begin dismantling the command and control of Fort Lewis.
Chapter 37
Lavine was in his office, a pencil tucked above his ear as he pored over the wall map, studying the lines of attack laid out around the dam and collating field reports from Duncan, Matias, and other team leaders.
Just as he reached for a bottle of water, he heard the roar of an explosion to his left. The floor shook, overhead lights flickered, and books rained down from the shelves along the wall. He rushed to the window and saw the massive helicopter bay engulfed in flames as his personnel frantically darted around to help others and rush to fire trucks.
He searched the sky for any signs of enemy aircraft but saw nothing. He realized it must be a small ground assault unit. He backed up, his legs wobbly, and reached into a desk drawer for his 9mm Glock, staring at it for a moment like some lost artifact. He rushed to the doors and then entered the hallway cautiously, straining for any signs of movement in the stairwell to the right. Lavine heard the sound of many boots trotting up the steps followed by a faint hissing sound. He turned to run down to the operations center on his left, his heart racing and his hands clutching the pistol. As he rounded the first corner, automatic weapons fire strafed the drywall, one round punching through his shoulder. He crashed into the opposite wall, clutching his wound, then scrabbled against the corner and saw Mitchell’s enraged face bounding like a famished lion towards him. Lavine struggled to raise the Glock with his rubbery arm and then squeezed the trigger. It clicked and then it dawned on him that he hadn’t chambered a round. Mitchell plowed right through his extended arm and slammed him into the wall. Mitchell grabbed Lavine by the hair and slammed his head into the wall several times. He felt the man’s massive hands folding in around his skull as he was lifted off the ground, his back pressed into the shattered drywall.
“Conrad, it’s nice of you to invite us over for a visit. It’s been too long.”
Lavine stared into the tormented face and the maniacal eyes, the bloodshot veins resembling rivulets of lava. He reached his hands up and grabbed Mitchell’s wrists as the pressure on his skull increased. Mitchell was grinding his teeth and emitting a crooked grin as the powerful grip increased until Lavine’s vision blurred and he felt the bones in his skull folding until his world was extinguished.
Chapter 38
After several unsuccessful attempts at radioing Fort Lewis, Carlie switched the channel over to Duncan’s frequency. A few seconds later his voice came over her ear-mic.
“Sure good to hear you’re still kicking,” Duncan said. “When will your crew be arriving here?”
“Likewise. Listen, we’ve lost radio contact with Lavine and any of the other channels at HQ. We have solid intel that there is a small strike force heading to Lewis. We are inbound and should be there in ten minutes.”
“Copy that. Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you then. Keep me posted and Godspeed to us all.”
Carlie flicked off the radio and held onto the overhead railing. She peered out through the front windows at the ocean of trees ahead. For the first time since she arrived at Fort Lewis, she felt like it had become more than a refuge from the pandemic and flesh-hungry monsters outside. It was now the last bastion of security and hope in the western U.S. Though its battleship-gray walls and stark features never let her forget it was a military base, it had become a haven—a home where she could shut out the horrors of the world and hold out hope that they could rebuild some kind of life while clinging to the vestiges of civilization. She glanced down at her watch and knew they were running out of time. They had to get there and prevent Fort Lewis from falling.
On the undulating blacktop ahead, Carlie saw the lone semi-truck that had pulled out from Crowley’s ranch earlier that day.
She tapped the stout pilot on his shoulder and pointed to the two-lane highway ahead. “We need to remove that truck from the equation—you got any Hellfires left on this baby?”
The pilot just turned and grinned as he increased the speed and raced forward ahead of the truck. “Do I?” Once he was two miles further up, he swung hard around and decreased airspeed while descending. The semi was barreling down the road towards them, increasing its speed, the bearded driver’s wide eyes seeming to nearly occupy his entire face. The pilot thumbed a silver toggle switch that activated a small red screen which showed the truck. He pressed the Fire button and sent two Hellfire missiles downrange. Carlie felt the surge of power from the sides of the helicopter followed by a contrail of white smoke as the missiles sped into the engine block, instantly engulfing the semi-truck. The flaming log of molten metal and incinerated bodies spiraled through the air as the force of the explosion lifted the entire vehicle off the road momentarily before it came crashing down into a heap.
Carlie tapped the pilot’s shoulder in praise then motioned him to resume their race to Fort Lewis, whose borders were only minutes away.
Chapter 39
Mitchell’s second in command, Jeffers, was in the lead semi-truck as he and his convoy approached the last two miles of road before the dam. The heavily treed area had helped to conceal their location but he could see the forest thinning out as the narrow highway entered the open grounds at the base of the spillway. To the right of the river flowing out from the dam were the three generating stations. Each building was devoid of windows and two stories high with reinforced concrete walls. Their roofs had an array of electrical relays that spun out from massive transformers to hydroelectric generators at the base of the spillway where the Grand Coulee River flowed through the turbines. Two of the stations were on high ground while the third antiquated structure was level with the meadow.
Jeffers had lost contact with the other convoy and assumed that they had been taken out. Mitchell informed him on the radio that he had successfully breached Lewis though the alpha teams hadn’t arrived yet. Jeffers worried that they should have stayed at the prison and not stretched themselves so thin in hopes of satisfying Mitchell’s bloodlust and hunger for more territory. The man was unbalanced at times but had proven himself to be a brilliant strategist and had ensured their survival since the beginning of the pandemic. On a scavenging raid in Idaho a few months earlier, Jeffers had considered making a run for it and striking out on his own but he had nowhere to go. He only found comfort in the pack, regardless of how demented it had become under Mitchell’s frightful reign. Either way, he was committed. He had to make this work as Mitchell had informed him that he would be running operations at the dam. This meant only occasional encounters with his boss and the freedom to run his own small fiefdom.
Jeffers motioned for the driver to stop then spoke into the convoy-wide intercom mounted on the dashboard. “I want two teams of sharpshooters staked out along the woods here picking off lookouts or resistance on the upper walls of the dam.” He paused, stroking his wispy goatee while reviewing his plan. “Once we get the vehicles into the half-mile point, we’ll cut loose the zombies and use them as cover to close the remaining distance to the dam entrances. They won’t risk blowing up our rigs as that will pose a threat to the generating stations ahead.”
Thirty men disembarked their vehicles and floated into the treeline to set up their
sniping positions. Once they were in place, Jeffers had the rest of the convoy speed ahead fifty yards, plowing through the security gates towards the first generating station. Within seconds of entering the open field, his driver was pierced through the chest by a high-caliber round. The truck swayed to the right and Jeffers lurched over to grab the steering wheel to prevent the front end from smashing into a concrete pylon. Another round shattered the windshield, spraying glass in his face. As the truck ground to a halt, he leaped out the side door, yanking along a large duffel bag. Taking cover near the wheel well, he removed his ghillie suit and hastily put it on while watching the other trucks in the distance suffer similar fates to his. He reached inside the cab and radioed his men to get out and commence their operations. Gunfire from the treeline rang out as Jeffers’ sharpshooters began dispatching sentries on the dam above. The truck behind him was the only one whose cargo area held convicts while the remaining rigs contained hundreds of zombies. As the thugs piled out the back, he saw them donning ghillie suits identical to his while the remaining trucks’ cargo areas were emptied of the undead occupants.
The ghillie suit bore the overbearing stench of rotting meat from the strips of zombie flesh dangling off the mesh sides. This would enable them to blend in with the masses of undead and make their way along the meadow. Jeffers had to muffle his face with his hand to shield against the gut-wrenching odor but knew from prior experience with this method that his scent would be masked from the zombies. He waited until the horde was moving towards the dam, driven by the fresh scent of recently sniped soldiers, until he merged into the corpulent masses and made his way past the first generating station. A hundred more of his men were similarly embedded in the growing throng of zombies as they wove their way towards the main entrance at the base of the spillway.
As long as they stayed close to the generating stations, he knew they would be safe from grenades or RPGs. Zombies around him collapsed from the occasional overhead rifle round but his men in the treeline were providing adequate cover fire for him to close the distance to the target. Once there, he would have to breach the steel doors with explosives and then let the undead filter into the stairwells. He had no idea of the actual size of the resistance but he knew, with the presence of the undead, that he greatly outnumbered their pathetic forces. Soon this monumental facility would be his.
Chapter 40
The Blackhawk swept in from the south of Fort Lewis and Carlie could see the flames licking skyward from the helo bay. Bodies were scattered on the ground along with several mutants that had been dispatched, their body parts strewn along the pavement. Other mutants were still bounding loose throughout the compound, chasing personnel whose weapons had run dry or were busy engaging Mitchell’s men in the windows of B & C Wings. She stared in horror at the structural damage to the helo bay and the carnage on the ground, wondering if they were too late.
“Set it down on A-Wing. Shane and I will head to the operations center. I want the rest of you to head to D-Wing and secure Pavel and his research team.”
As the helicopter came in for a hasty landing, the teams disembarked. Carlie rushed down the stairwell to the fourth floor landing while the rest of the group kept descending. Carlie and Shane headed to the secure service elevator at the rear of the building. While they went down two levels, she quickly did a magazine check on the fresh rifle she had procured from the Blackhawk.
They rushed through the elevator doors upon opening, their rifles focused ahead. The hallway wall to the right had a streak of blood coating the side like someone had dragged a ruby-colored mop along its surface. Shattered glass from the fire extinguisher case sparkled along the ground beside a bloody ax. Carlie could hear the scream of a woman and then a gurgling noise as her life was extinguished. The noise came from the end of the hallway near the briefing room.
As they proceeded towards the sound, three mutants emerged into the hallway. Carlie raised her rifle to shoot but Shane nudged her with his elbow. “Look at the vests—those things are rigged with explosives. We suffer one miss and this whole wing goes up.”
The creatures had already spotted them and began hissing while bounding down the hallway. They were already within thirty feet when Carlie began shooting at their legs. Shane was doing the same, the rounds from both rifles eventually punching through the shins and knees as the howling mutants lost their locomotion, skidding along the floor. The three mangled beasts kept coming, like rabid wolves driven by a primal drive to consume anything in their path. With their shattered legs, the mutants began slithering along the floor, pulling themselves up on their sinewy arms.
“We’re gonna have to do this at close range,” yelled Carlie as she cautiously stepped forward to one on her left. She shot the disgusting beast in its right shoulder, further reducing its crawling ability, then kicked it hard in the temple while following up with a single round to the cranium. She spun and did the same thing to the middle creature while Shane dispatched the third.
“Damn, look at that—that’s a lot of C4,” said Shane, staring at the tiny clusters of explosives and wiring tucked into the vest pockets.
“Yeah, I’m sure Mitchell’s fallback plan is to detonate the rest of these if he can’t complete his plan of attack.” She leaned down and studied the wiring pattern and then removed the central attachment at the neck transmitter.
They heard a transmission coming through their earpieces from Jared on the ground level. “With the hole that was just blasted in the side fence near the helo bay, there’s a shitload of our usual zombie pals that were massed outside all these months moving towards the breach.”
Shane looked at Carlie, his eyebrows scrunched together. “If we don’t stem that tide, this whole base is going to be overrun within the hour,” he said.
She looked at the explosive vests and back at him. “Can you take all this C4 and rig it up on the remaining walls of the helo bay so it comes crashing down and seals off that area?”
Shane nodded and then began removing the soiled vests from the crumpled figures. “Alright, that oughta do it—let’s go,” he said, standing up and starting to retrace his steps towards the elevator.
She caught his arm. “I’m heading to operations. Mitchell has to be taken out before he can detonate the rest of the vests and bring this place down.”
“You’re not going alone!”
“There isn’t any time to debate this. Go below and seal off the perimeter.”
“Carlie, you…” She cut him off as she began walking the opposite way. “You know I’m right. If we don’t act now on both fronts, this place we call home is finished and then we’re back on the run again.”
Shane grit his teeth and shook his head. “I’m tellin’ you right now that if you do something crazy and get yourself killed, I will be pissed as hell at you forever.”
“That’s not something I think I ever want to experience, in this life or the next,” she said and then nodded at him to go as she turned and began running down the hallway.
Chapter 41
Duncan was down at the ground level of the dam, a hundred feet from the humming turbines of the spillway. He saw the hordes of zombies shambling towards them and what looked like the more rhythmic walking pattern of people clad in ghillie suits. He needed to get to the third generating station before the throng reached the dam. Duncan stood behind a security booth surveying the terrain. He saw muzzle flashes erupting from the distant treeline and noticed the figures of some of his own troops scattered along the base of the spillway to his right.
“Dammit, how much longer before you’re here?” he snapped into his ear-mic to Kulovitz. “My window is closing.”
“Thirty seconds.”
Duncan lowered into a squat and stayed concealed. He raised the scope of his rifle up and scanned the mass of unholy creatures ahead. A few seconds later he paused and noticed one man standing out near the front of the group moving at the same pace as the zombies but with more coordination in his gait. The wiry man
was completely clad in an outfit covered with strips of putrid flesh and he had a faint goatee.
Duncan heard the stairwell doors open behind him and sensed Kulovitz and a dozen other men fill in around him.
“I need your men to provide cover for me while I make a dash for the third generating station. Once I gain access, you retreat back inside the dam. I’m going to override the spillway controls and flood the lower basin here. That will take out the third station and everything in its path.”
“What about you?” said Kulovitz, raking a hand through his red crop of hair. “And what about the dam—won’t that defeat the whole purpose of us being here?”
“The third station is the oldest and provides the least amount of power. As long as the other two are intact, we’ll suffer a minimal loss. Besides, we’re out of options,” he said, waving his thumb towards the approaching menace that was two hundred yards out.
“You still haven’t told me how you’re gonna get out of there safely.”
“You worry about your job here, my friend, and I’ll cover my own ass,” he said, patting Kulovitz on the shoulder. “Get into position. I’ll create a temporary distraction in their ranks and then sprint for the station while you boys cover me.”
Duncan resumed peering through his scope and fixed his crosshairs on the moving target ahead. He slowed his breathing and squeezed off two rounds into the gut of the man with the goatee. Jeffers slumped forward as blood leaked out on the parched grass, causing the zombies around him to stop and realize the feeding opportunity before them. Jeffers tried crawling away as his limbs were yanked apart and his oozing wounds greedily dug into by frantic yellow fingers.
