“I don’t see Rawlings,” Wade said. He wanted to scream it.
Thunder rumbled ahead of them, the steady boom of gunfire. Hanscom.
“Let’s stay focused here,” Gray said. “We’re not home yet.”
“Fuck you!” Wade shouted. “You killed her. Just like you killed the others.”
Gray spit on the ground. “I didn’t kill anybody, and you know it.”
“If you’d listened to her, we might be out of this already.”
“She wasn’t one of us, Wade.”
Wade glared at him. He’d never wanted to kill anybody so badly in his life.
“Hey, guys!” Fisher called from ahead. He whooped. “Check it out!”
Gray turned and walked off. Wade limped after him. At the top of the rise, they saw Hanscom.
Hundreds of infected ran through the smoke surrounding the compound walls. Machine guns hammered from sandbag positions. In the guard towers, the Mark 19s thumped. Across the Hescos, the lightfighters propped their weapons and kept the fire hot.
“How do we get back to base?” Gray asked. “What do you think?”
Wade laughed. “I think it’s beautiful.”
Gray turned and frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
Wade smiled.
FORTY.
The Klown army ambled down the road. They grinned like wolves, hunting, always hunting. They saw the flare pop in the murky sky. They drooled at the sight.
Bullets pinged off the road. Men tumbled laughing to the ground. The infected looked around and saw the Humvee on the road, its fifty-cal rocking. Tracer rounds flashed in their eyes. The Humvee pulled a U-turn and sped off down the highway. The Klowns gave chase. The vehicles pulled ahead of the infantry, who jogged along, grinning at the prospect of fresh meat.
They passed a series of tripods in the road. The crazies knew what it meant but didn’t care. A rocket streamed out of the nearby trees and struck one of their five-tons. The vehicle exploded and rolled, spilling bodies and equipment. The Klowns pointed and laughed.
Then the demolition kits detonated.
Muldoon blinked at the blinding flash. Vehicles and bodies tumbled in the blast. A wave of dirt reached for the sky and tumbled back down. A massive cloud of dust hung over the shattered road.
His Humvees emerged from concealment and rolled onto the shoulders of the highway, fifties rocking. The Mark 19 showered the wreckage with grenades.
Muldoon picked up the radio. “Sparta Ops, this is Sparta Six. Time to retrograde. Out.”
The Humvees took off the down the road. But Muldoon and his boys weren’t finished.
The vehicles pulled onto the shoulder and idled. Muldoon got out with Ramirez. They climbed the shoulder and lay on the road. Ramirez set up the machine gun. Muldoon scanned the dust cloud with his binoculars. A crowd of infantry jogged out of the dust.
“Man,” said Muldoon. “They sure are dumb.”
Ramirez looked at him. “They’re crazy.”
The Klowns passed two abandoned vehicles. Muldoon squeezed the handheld detonator. The electric pulse traveled down the length of wire to the Claymore mines placed on the ground next to the wrecks. Each had embossed on it, FRONT TOWARD ENEMY. The blasting caps activated, detonating the C4 behind a matrix of seven hundred steel balls set in resin. The balls flew out of the daisy-chained mines at four thousand feet per second.
The Klown soldiers disintegrated in a massive spray of blood and body parts.
Ramirez sighted on the soldiers in the rear who’d escaped the blast, and started hammering. Tracers flashed downrange. The Klowns charged, firing as they moved.
“Some human wave shit here,” Ramirez said. “Fuckers think it’s World War One.”
The Humvees rolled out of concealment and engaged with their fifties and the Mark 19. They walked their fire into the crowd of Klowns. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.
Muldoon had been right. The Klown soldiers knew their tactics. They knew to lay a base of fire before you maneuvered. Fire, maneuver, fire, maneuver. Sweep the enemy’s position with grazing fire to suppress them, then flank and cut them up with enfilade fire. Tactics 101. But the virus couldn’t wait. It cared nothing for self-preservation. It didn’t understand the concept of victory or defeat. It only wanted to play. It wanted to play right now.
Muldoon and Ramirez heard a whistle and put their heads down.
WHAM!
The ground shook. Dirt pattered against their helmets. The Klowns were firing mortars. Soon, they’d have them zeroed.
A Javelin missile streamed toward one of Muldoon’s Humvees. The vehicle rocked as it flew apart in a blinding flash.
“Fuck me,” Ramirez said. “That was Burke and Zeller.”
Another mortar round crashed into the trees. Splinters rained down.
Bullets chewed up the asphalt in front of them. The Klowns had set up a machine gun.
“Time to retrograde,” Muldoon said. He radioed his men to bug out.
They got up and ran to the burning Humvee. Bullets pinged off the road around them. The heat forced them back.
“They’re dead, Sergeant,” Ramirez said.
Another mortar round blew a smoking hole in the highway as they ran to the next Humvee and piled inside it. As they drove off, the men seemed subdued but oddly jubilant. They’d finally won. They’d finally done something good in this nightmarish conflict.
Muldoon called in his situation report and requested the whirlybirds come in to mop up the Klown mortar team. He didn’t feel jubilant at all. Those were American soldiers they’d killed.
This kind of winning felt like losing. Like he’d cut the Afghan boy’s throat after all.
FORTY-ONE.
Gray lay in a heap on the bloody asphalt.
Wade stared down at him. What happened?
The man was alive one second, bleeding from a dozen wounds the next.
Fisher backed away from him. “Aw, no, man.”
What’s with him?
Fisher took another step. “No. Please. Please don’t.”
Wade looked down at the bloody knife he held. He looked at Fisher. “You’d better run,” he hissed.
“Why’d you do that, Wade?”
Wade laughed. “He wasn’t one of us.”
Ramos’s parting gift had taken its sweet time, but it had finally taken control. Little worms in his head. Little puppet strings.
He screamed: “Run!”
Fisher yelped and ran off.
Wade looked down at the body and chuckled. He’d stabbed Gray in the kidneys. He licked the blood off the blade and stabbed again. He kept stabbing and stabbing.
Just before Gray died, they looked into each other’s eyes and laughed as brothers.
There was an old saying among warriors: Make pain your friend.
He hadn’t really wanted to kill Gray, but the organism in his body demanded everything. It didn’t appreciate divided loyalties. It wanted it all.
It wanted to see the whole world burn.
That would be so very freaking hilarious.
He heard a splash of gunfire. Below him, his brothers and sisters charged into First Battalion’s guns. He wanted to join the party.
Then he remembered Ramos’s family. They still needed attention. The sergeant would have wanted it that way.
The laughing virus in his skull thought that was a very awesome idea.
“Aw, Wade,” Rawlings said.
He wheeled. At the sight of her, he burst into long, breathless peals of insane laughter.
HAAAWWWW
HAAAAAWWWWWWW
HAAAAAAAWWWWWWWW
He knew why the infected sought out those they loved. The pain was so exquisite. It hurt soooo good.
“Sorry,” he managed. “Rawlings.”
She leveled her carbine. “I’m sorry, too.”
“Shoot me.”
She shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “I don’t think I can, Private Wade.”
“Shoot me now.”
“Tell me where Ramos’s family lives.”
He doubled over laughing.
She said, “I’ll take care of them. I’ll do that for you.”
He grinned and held up his knife. “Gonna make a hole. Make it—”
He lunged.
She fired.
FORTY-TWO.
Sergeant Sandra Rawlings watched Boston burn.
The big fires had radiated out of South Boston and were consuming everything in sight. The South End was gone. The skyscrapers of the Financial District pumped tons of smoke and ash into the already blackened sky. Chinatown had been burned to a cinder. Back Bay-Beacon Hill was gone, as was Fenway-Kenmore. The fires were eating Dorcester and Roxbury.
Across the Charles River, Charlestown was a black, smoldering ruin, and the conflagration was spreading across Cambridge and Somerville.
The firefighters were all dead, the police department overrun. The hospitals, considered centers of infection, had been destroyed from the air. The Governor held East Boston and little else. From Newton to Quincy, Major General Brock and his struggling battalions were steadily being pushed back toward Cape Cod.
Boston, drained of life, its soul already departed, was being cremated and with it everything that had defined Rawlings as a person. It was a city no more; it was becoming an idea. A symbol. For Rawlings, a memory. She remembered growing up in Dorcester. Living in one apartment after another around the city as an adult. Jobs in various offices in the Financial District before she became a paramedic working out of Christ Hospital. Proud service in the Massachusetts Army National Guard. A tour in Iraq. Then fighting hard, one day at a time, trying to save the city from plague, a plague that had devoured the city long before fire took its turn.
All of it was gone. Nothing left to fight for. Only the plague lived on.
Still, she turned toward the sound of the guns. Tenth Mountain was revving up its vehicles, getting ready to move. She wondered where they were going. Was anywhere safe?
Rawlings admired that they were still willing to fight at all. Those Tenth Mountain boys didn’t know when to quit. Maybe they could use a girl like her. She had a handful of dog tags to deliver. That, and their story. As the sole survivor of the group, she was the sole witness to their end.
Once more into the breach?
Hell, no. She wanted to find a house somewhere and take off her boots. Then, she’d get some water and soak in it for a while. After that, she’d sleep the sleep of the dead.
Nonetheless, Sergeant Rawlings found herself walking down the hill toward the sounds of the gunfire, searching for something that was still worth fighting for, living for. Maybe she’d find it outside Boston. Maybe she’d become a mountaineer after all.
FORTY-THREE.
The forward operating base at Hanscom was stripped down, packed up and ready to roll at Lt. Colonel Harry Lee’s command. Fighting vehicles and their endless train of logistical vehicles, carrying everything from water to fuel to ammunition, lay coiled like a giant metal snake at rest. The big engines idled. Apaches sat spooled up on the runway. A crowd of civilian vehicles, refugees led by a group of police officers and firefighters, waited their turn at the rear.
A small column of Humvees and five-tons rolled into the compound.
“I believe that would be the prodigal son returning, sir,” Walker said.
The lead vehicle pulled up in front of Lee. Sergeant Andy Muldoon stepped out and grinned. “Miss me, Colonel?”
“Not at all,” Lee said. “But I’m glad you’re back. Outstanding results on that mission.”
“Not that outstanding. I lost Burke and Zeller.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“And there’s still a mortar team back there. I requested air support.”
“That’s a no go, Sergeant. We’re about to move out here.”
“Or I could go back and do it myself. Sir.”
Muldoon wasn’t bluffing. Lee and Walker exchanged a glance. Lee nodded, and Walker went off to give the orders.
“Anything else, Muldoon?” Lee taunted. “How about a foot rub and a nice hot bath?”
Muldoon surprised him by saluting. “No thanks, sir. I hear you suck at giving foot rubs.”
Lee shook his head. “Dismissed. Get the hell out of my sight.”
As always, Lee got what he wanted, and Muldoon got his pound of flesh.
Sergeant Major Turner approached with a woman in uniform.
“We picked her up outside the wire, sir. Dead on her feet. She gave us these.” He showed Lee a handful of dog tags—Tenth Mountain. Turner added, “She and a group of our guys fought their way here all the way from Harvard Stadium. She’s the only one who made it.”
The woman saluted. “Sergeant Sandra Rawlings. Alpha Company, 164th Transportation Battalion. The Muleskinners. Massachusetts Guard.”
“Well, Sergeant Rawlings, it sounds like you got a hell of a story to tell.”
The woman blinked at him. She was obviously trying hard not to lose it.
Lee said, “I’ll bet you kicked some major Klown ass out on that road, soldier.”
Rawlings stiffened. “You got that right, sir.”
“Hooah. Here’s the deal, Sergeant. We’re moving out. You have a choice. You can stay here, or you can come with us. We’re leaving Massachusetts.”
“If it’s all right with you, I’ll tag along. There’s nothing for me here anymore.”
Turner escorted her to the medic platoon.
Walker turned to Lee. “I saw her first, sir.”
Lee shook his head. “You’re a real piece of work, Major.”
Walker smiled. “Thank you, sir.”
It was time to move out. The battalion had lost a few good men. Otherwise, it was a good day. They’d won a few small victories, they’d crawled out from under the hammer, and they had a new mission. They hadn’t saved Boston, but they were still in the game. They could still do some good. Somewhere. Maybe Florida. Maybe they’d go there after all and save America from this horrific, unending nightmare.
First, they had to get to Fort Drum.
Lee climbed into his Humvee and gave the signal.
FORTY-FOUR.
America. Boston.
The city was burning, its residents fled. The once proud metropolis had been turned into a charnel house overrun by infection.
The infected were gathering into an army. Boston belonged to them now, but they wanted it all. They wanted to make the whole world laugh.
Bedford. Hanscom Air Force Base.
First Battalion was on the move at last.
The lead vehicle crashed through the gate. The next opened fire as it exited, then the next. The giant metal snake growled and uncoiled and flowed onto the road.
West to Fort Drum. Home of Tenth Mountain Division.
All around them, the world was dying, but Tenth Mountain would go on fighting.
Their mission: to save what was left.
The retreat had begun.
COMING SOON:
THE RETREAT, EPISODE 2
SLAUGHTERHOUSE
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 The Retreat Series, LLC
Kindle Edition
THE RETREAT is a work of fiction including a fictionalized portrayal of the U.S. Army Tenth Mountain Division, the Massachusetts Army National Guard and the City of Boston and its surrounding metropolitan region. It is not intended to depict actual persons, organizations or places.
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Document creation date: 10.12.2013
Created using: calibre 1.14.0, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
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