by W. J. Lundy
“Very well,” Meyers responded pulling the satellite phone and GPS from the leather pouch.
“What are you doing?” Brooks asked.
“Trying the mobile; ordering take-away from the greasy spoon. How do you like your eggs, mate? I prefer mine with a side of cruise missile.”
CHAPTER 32
He felt the weight of the pack cutting into his shoulders as he took long steps, running against the wind and rain. Brad struggled to keep up with Sean who was sprinting ahead as if he already knew where he was going. They cut across the school’s front lawn and pushed through a break in the chain-link fence. Sean was leading them to the storefront positioned on a far street across from the unkempt playground.
They ran, weaving through swings and playground equipment. Brad was worried that while he was running, he couldn’t see to defend himself at the same time. They were being stupid, taking risks; it wasn’t their way. Sean continued the fast pace then quickly stopped to a halt behind a large oak tree near a sidewalk that skirted the street. He crouched and dropped his goggles over his eyes. Brad came up behind him, slowing to a walk and trying to control his heavy breathing as he dropped to a knee behind his partner.
Sean was scanning the small storefronts across the street. Without speaking, he tapped Brad’s elbow and pointed to a small building almost directly across from them. It looked like an insurance office. It had one narrow glass door to the left and a wide tall window to the right. Brad nodded and again they were on their feet running. They crossed the street and moved to the building’s front wall. Sean slid across the surface and tested the door; it moved in his hand and swung out easily. Brad quickly dropped his night vision into place. Sean looked back at Brad, held up three fingers, and ticked them down. On the last finger, he moved to the other side of the door and pulled it out.
The door jangled from a large set of chimes hanging from a hook set in the ceiling above it. Sean ignored the noise and swept into the room with Brad close behind him. Sean reached back and latched the door. Instantly, they were hit in the face with the stench of Primals. They froze, listening intently, while the chimes still bumped into each other causing what seemed like a decibel-bursting ting, ting, ting. Sean reached up a hand without looking back and grabbed the set of bells. Yanking down, he ripped them from the ceiling and tossed them to a corner in another loud clatter of bangs as they slapped against the tile floor.
“Bit harsh wasn’t it?” Brad whispered.
Sean held up a hand in response. A slight rattle sounded from down the hallway in a back room. Sean sidestepped, ducking behind a desk to his right. Brad did the same moving to his left. Brad scanned the space; it was clean, a typical office with plants, calendars hanging from the walls, and a water cooler in the corner. Looking down the narrow, litter-covered hallway, he could see a number of office openings to the left and right as the hall led straight to the back of the building and ended at a heavy, windowless door.
Sean reached forward on his weapon and powered up the IR laser, then looked at Brad and flashed a thumbs up. Brad nodded his head and returned a one finger salute. Sean returned the nod and grabbed a coffee cup resting next to him. He lifted it with his right hand and fired it down the hallway before he crashed against and knocked over a file cabinet, causing a loud slam of metal and porcelain. In an immediate response, a Primal jumped from a space in the back and leapt into the hallway. Sean lined up the laser and a spit of the MP5 knocked the Primal over and to the ground. Two more barreled out behind it and Sean fired, hitting the lead in the shoulder and the second in the throat, yet they both continued on. Brad waited for Sean to fire again. He looked to the right; the MP5 was jammed. Sean had already let it hang from its sling and was drawing his sidearm. Brad squeezed the trigger, his own suppressed round cutting down the hallway. His fire not accurate, he let loose a barrage of rounds that tore through the chest of the leader and continuing to the tail runner. Sean’s side arm was up. He level out and after a loud pop, pop, pop; the creatures lay on the floor bleeding and dying.
“Damn, Chief. You ever clean that thing?” Brad asked, referring to the MP5’s malfunction.
“It’s that shitty ammo we picked up,” Sean retorted.
“Sure, buddy. I’ll check out the rest of the office while you clean your weapon,” Brad said, getting to his feet. He stepped lightly to the hallway; the view in front of him played out in a speckled green and black of the night vision. He kept his barrel forward in the direction he was walking to compensate for the lack of depth perception. He moved to the first office door which was already unlatched. He pushed the door and let it swing in. The room held a small table surrounded by chairs. The room directly across had an identical setup.
Brad continued down the hall. Approaching the first of the dead Primals, he probed the body with his barrel, then stepped on the base of its skull to be certain before moving past it. Another was on the ground in a twisted pose. It was an elderly woman in a pantsuit, her sleeves torn and bloodied. Brad started at it and watched as its back vibrated with a rattled breath. A swift blow from the spike of his tomahawk stilled it. Protruding from the entrance to the last room was the one Sean had taken down first. Its head was pockmarked with impact holes and the back of its skull missing where the hollow points ripped out of the back.
He carefully stepped over the destroyed Primal body and stood in the doorframe of the last room—a small break area. He could tell by the heavy stench of human waste that this was where the Primals nested. Set up as a lunch area, smashed coffee pots, an overturned refrigerator, and broken tables covered the floor space. He scanned from left to right without entering the space, then backed away after finding nothing. Turning to the right, he faced the tail of the long hallway where an empty restroom closed out the building. The back door was slightly ajar, the cool moist air still blowing in. Brad kicked bits of leaves and refuse out of the way and attempted to press the door shut. It wouldn’t latch; the months of being open and exposed to the elements caused the doorframe to swell. Brad removed a fire extinguisher from the wall and placed it next to the door to hold it shut.
When he returned to the front of the room, he saw Sean had built a mini bunker. He had dragged furniture away from the center of the room and positioned it against the walls, then moved two long book cases and positioned them below the windows. He had his rifle up and on the bipod. Sean’s rucksack was on the floor; he was leaning over it, removing gear and tossing it into a corner.
“What’s up?” Brad asked.
“You’re going to want to lighten your load. When we move, it will be at Mach 3 and you won’t want a heavy pack slowing you down. Ammo and water, I wouldn’t hold onto much else,” Sean huffed.
“What about food?”
“You can’t eat it if you’re dead. Set up on the window, get that scope back out, and see if you can get a fix on that hide site. I figure they will know by now that their eyes have been shut. When I finish, you can lighten up your pack.”
Brad nodded and moved to the window. He removed his goggles and placed them into the top of his assault pack. He pulled the spotting scope and rested it on top of the bookcase. He powered it up, looked across the playground and back to the school. Panning to the left, he was able to find the neighborhood of destroyed houses and after a short search, he spotted the dead scout’s body resting against the stone fireplace. He scanned farther to the right but the other ruins blocked his view of the garden shed. He panned back, put the scope on the stone fireplace, and dialed back the resolution so he could see a wider area.
The image went fuzzy; he pulled his face away, closed his eyes tight and then opened them slowly to relieve the eye strain. He looked through the window and nearly screamed when he saw the naked, bloodied belly of a Primal directly in front of him. Brad froze, too terrified to move; the creature was looking into the window. It leaned forward, tapping its forehead against the glass. Its scarred and greasy scalp squeaked as it squeegeed its head from left to right across
the surface of the window.
Brad stood as still as a statue. The creature backed away from the window pane and turned to the left before it continued to stumble down the street. Brad leaned back off the scope as he watched more move past. A large pack of thirteen or more filed down the sidewalk, moving past the school and deeper into the neighborhood. Brad continued to slide back away from the window as Sean looked over at him and arched his eyebrow, acknowledging that he saw them too.
More and more filed past in an ever growing procession of Primals. Women and men in all layers of dress—some in shoes, other plodding along in torn, bare feet. Brad could hear their shoulders scrape and bump against the door as they moved past. “Where are they all going?” Brad whispered.
“Something pushed them this way, we’ve never seen so many.”
“The storm maybe?” Brad asked.
Without warning, the sky suddenly flashed full of light. Sean moved across the room, crouching low next to Brad. Suspended below a parachute high in the sky, they saw a flare shining brightly. Soon afterward, a red firework exploded high above the school and then another as the first dimmed.
“Mystery solved,” Sean whispered.
The Primals arched their backs and moaned before lurching forward as they gradually picked up speed. They wailed and howled at the dropping ball of light. The once recognizable packs quickly formed into a single massive raging mob as they raced toward the school.
“Drop your shit and cover that window. It won’t be long now,” Sean said speaking plainly, no longer needing to whisper above the screams emanating through the building’s walls.
Brad crawled across the floor, allowing Sean to take his place behind the scope. He reached his pack and quickly began dumping extra items from the main cargo compartment. With the bag nearly empty, Brad found that the difference in the bag’s bulk and weight made moving it along the back wall much easier. He moved to the window on the left wall, as Sean instructed, and pushed in against the corner, gazing out at a forty-five degree angle and trying to stay concealed from the raging Primals outside.
“You think the CNRT, or whoever the hell they are, brought them in?”
Sean was on the wall a few feet from him, his shoulder pressed against the book case and ducking so only the top of his head and eyes were exposed to the window. “Still a few hours from dawn. Using the Primals to soften up the school, then hit after daybreak to pick up the pieces. Smart… hoping to force us into a fight… expend our ammo… weaken our defenses. Might have worked too, but they fucked up.”
“Because the team got out?” Brad gasped, feeling overwhelmed.
“No… because as soon as they show their heads, I’ll start poking holes into them.”
CHAPTER 33
“Get some rest people. The strike is at dawn and we need to be moving before the smoke clears,” Meyers said as he walked the train car from the front to the back. “We have two packages being delivered. The captain didn’t part with his missiles lightly, so we need to make this count, gents.
“These are dispenser variant Tomahawk cruise missiles, the only two on the boat. She’ll be dropping over 300 BLU-97 sub-munitions, providing us a wide avenue to haul ass.”
“Cluster bombs?” someone asked.
“Exactly, mate.” Meyers continued walking the railcar and stopping next to Shane. He dropped to his rear and let his legs dangle over the sides of the railcar. He looked down at the Primals below then at Shane. “Something I will never get used to,” Meyers whispered.
“I don’t know that we ever should. Get used to them, I mean,” Shane answered.
“Aye, I’d put every last one of them down if I could.”
Shane thought back to the night in the tower and how the one stared at him. How it seemed to direct the others to focus on his position. “Have you ever seen anything? I mean signs of intelligence, like there is something more to them.”
Meyers shot Shane a cross expression. “You’d be bloody barmy to believe that—look at them.”
Shane pushed himself up so that he could see over the edge of the car and down at the railroad bed. The rain had let up and the moon was just beginning to break through the dark, fast moving clouds. Shane looked down the grassy slope to the streets packed with Primals; the mottled heads and glowing eyes below stared back up at him. They moved slowly, as if one big organism, in a twisting and swirling rotation. Not standing still but in constant motion.
“There was a time that I thought that but… I’ve seen things,” Shane whispered.
Meyers drained a small plastic bottle of water, then tossed it over the side and watched it bounce off the head of what was once a bald old man. The thing didn’t react to the impact, didn’t look away, and didn’t flinch. “Would you consider that an intelligent reaction?”
Shane shrugged. “Have you ever watched them move? Seen them hunt? Not now in this mass, but when they are in small packs. The way they communicate through their howls; the way they always seem to have a dominate leader. Even now, look at the man with the red shirt at the corner of the far building,” Shane said; his voice raising. He lifted a hand and pointed to a small structure at the bottom of a slope.
All along the road, the creatures pressed and swarmed, massing around the train car, pushing their way to get closer as the weaker ones were pulled out of the way and pushed to the back. Across the street a large male, hunched with its arms at its sides, stood alone next to a building. He looked back at the train car, but differently than the others; he was enraged but also appeared to be studying them.
“That’s your Grey Wolf right there,” Shane whispered. “You might not think so, but he is in charge; he coordinates the hunt.”
“Impossible. It’s probably injured, just sticking to the fringes,” Meyers replied.
“I’ve witnessed it myself. Watched them change the tide of battle… watched them point out prey. I think something is still ticking in some of them, some basic animalistic instinct to hunt.”
“Well, I’m not sold on the idea.” Meyers stared at the man with the red shirt a bit longer. He lifted the SA80 that he was cradling in his lap and aimed across the street. A single trigger pull and the man’s head snapped back, its brains coating the wall behind it. “No reason to take any chances though.”
Shane nodded and looked back to check on Ella. Far in the distance, he saw a glowing light floating high in the sky. “Meyers,” Shane whispered, reaching out a hand to tap the man on the shoulder just as a pop echoing sound of a starburst flare found its way to them.
Meyers focused his eyes on the flare and the sparkling red lights. “Starburst grenades… it’s begun then. Damn, we should have been farther away by now.”
Gunner moved to the front of the car, kneeling with the others. He pointed down the railroad tracks. “See those concrete structures ahead? That should be US-17. If we can get there, it will take us right into Savannah.”
“How far out?” Shane asked.
“On a normal day under 30 minutes by car; today... let’s just get to the highway.”
The mass below became agitated as some of them picked up on the distant fireworks. The horde broke up and began to shift. Small groups on the edge of the mass separated into packs and took off at a full run toward the floating lights. The sounds of battle joined the chaos of the moans echoing off the buildings. Thumping sounds of a light machine gun, a distant explosion, and bright flash of light lit the horizon accompanied the steady pop, pop, pop of the illumination rounds.
Brooks sat upright and looked into the distance with his binoculars before he glanced at Meyers. “How long till the strike?”
“Short of twenty five minutes, just waiting on the sun,” Meyers answered glancing at a countdown running on his wristwatch.
“Can you move it up?” Brooks asked. “If we don’t stop this migration to the school, Sean and Brad won’t have a chance.”
“We all have our role, mate; it’s not likely to be a bloody snap for us either. Our s
uccess is dependent upon a daylight strike—”
A large explosion cracked in the distance. A bloom of smoke climbed into the sky and an orange glow lit the horizon. The rate of small arms fire increased while another boom echoed against the building walls. The Primals started to move away from the train car, suddenly more interested in the stimulation of sounds coming from the battle.
Brooks stood upright. “We all have our role,” he muttered. Brooks turned around and took a deep breath. “Fuck that, get on the horn and get those Tommys in the air now. The sun won’t make much of a difference if Chief’s position is overrun.”
Gunner looked at Meyers. “Get them in the air.”
“Okay, mate, I’ll make the call. But have these people ready to move.”
***
Shane’s head was buried atop the train car, the heels of his boots facing the direction of the blast zone. Ella was beneath his chest, Chelsea just beside them. He lifted his head and looked to the east; the flares over the school had stopped, but the sounds of battle still raged. The mass of Primals had thinned out some but were still heavily congested around the train car. Shane’s eyes swept the eastern horizon—he could just begin to make out the first rays of daybreak.
“They’re on the way, keep your heads down,” Meyers yelled, clicking off the sat phone. “First salvo will be just off the car, dispensing bomblets from east to west; the second will be right behind it. They’re moving at eight hundred kilometers per hour, so it won’t be long.”
Shane curled his head down and pulled Ella in tight. He felt her squirm beneath him. He heard the blast of the missile’s engine milliseconds before the detonation of the sub-munitions. Deafening explosions shook the car, causing it to rattle on the track; it vibrated with impacts from shrapnel and upturned earth. Shane curled to his side, pulling Ella in even tighter. The second missile screamed overhead and the roar of explosions continued, seeming to steal the air from his lungs. The car seemed to levitate and Shane swore it was tipping, the motion taking away his sense. The explosive ripping of the air suddenly stopped. He rolled to his back and attempted to sit.
