by Lundy, W. J.
Jessup moved to the end of the table and dropped heavily into a leather chair. His left hand stroked the top of his head before he locked his tired eyes on Gyles. “I understand you’re holding your commander on board the Chinook.”
“No, sir; Lieutenant Michaels died fighting. He was KIA with Third and Fourth Squads. The man I’m holding is Doctor Howard. He’s a medical officer with the Centers for Disease Control. And yes, he is still aboard the Chinook. Just trying to keep him safe, sir; he has a habit of running off.”
Jessup rubbed his hands together and looked to Mitchell, the CH-47 copilot. “Yes, I heard. You can turn him over to me now. We can take care of him here.”
“Thank you for the offer, sir, but we’ll keep him with us for now. He’s the only one that seems to have any idea what the hell is going on.” Gyles grinned, hoping the colonel would take it for what it was and not push the issue. “Which is why I came to see you. I was hoping you had current information for me. Any word from the higher-ups?” Gyles asked.
Jessup slowly shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I tried to reach your command at Stewart; everything is down or tied up with priority traffic. Cell circuits are dead and the landlines are all blocked.”
“Nothing at all then?”
Jessup put a hand on the table and lifted a sheet of paper. “We’ve gotten an emergency order over the secure fax. It came in somehow, but we haven’t been able to send a response or reach anyone for follow-up. I have a man retrying every five minutes.”
“No Internet?” Gyles asked.
“The entire network is down. Can’t handle the surge of people trying to check in. This is an armory; if we were on a base we would be plugged into the defense networks, but out here we are on civilian lines. We rely on local services, and I have no way to hit the secure networks.”
“What were the orders, the fax?”
Jessup slid the paper across the table. Below the address and header information was a set of typed instructions. Gyles read them aloud. “All units in the field are instructed to hold position. Secure your location and civilian populations when possible. Hold position. Do not combine units or populations. Do not attempt transit without explicit instruction.” He pushed the paper back. “That’s it?”
“I think the worm has turned—we’re headed in a different direction.”
Gyles’s eyes went wide. “Turned?”
“We’ve lost any momentum. They’re shifting us into a defensive posture. I suspect the next move will be setting up roadblocks and checkpoints. Maybe even taking out bridges and highways. Creating new chokepoints to slow the spread.”
“How…? Why do you think that?”
“That line about holding position and not combing populations… They are trying to stop the spread.” Jessup lifted a coffee cup and considered the stained empty mug. He set it back down and sighed. “It’s a logical move. They failed to lock it all down and quarantine the red zones early on. Slowing the spread is all that’s left. If I was a betting man, I’d guess bombing will be next. They want us dug in and holding while the Air Force hits anything on the move. They’ll start getting aggressive against high populations of the infected.”
Gyles looked down at the table. “How long until that happens? I’ve seen these things; it might slow them down, but if they hit the cities it’s just going to push more of them right to us.”
Jessup spun in the chair and looked up at the television. A reporter stood on a hilltop. In the distance, blooms of black smoke roiled on the horizon. Footage flashed of highways congested with traffic, hospital emergency rooms filled with screaming people. “It’s already started. Sergeant, what can we do to keep this place safe until someone can come to reinforce us?”
The sergeant bit his lower lip and pushed away from the table. “Sir, I’m taking two trucks into town. We’re red on ammo, and if we don’t find some, we won’t be able to stop anything that comes for us.” Gyles looked up and pointed at the window and shook his head. “This place needs to be locked down and barricaded.”
“What do you suggest?”
“These windows are no good. You need to cover every entrance and every opening that leads outside the perimeter. Be ready to barricade that hallway that leads back into the drill deck. We may lose this front office area if they come at us in large numbers. Move the guards you have on the door and get them up on the roof as lookouts.”
Jessup looked to a young officer on his right. The man nodded and took notes. “We can do that,” Jessup said.
Chapter Eight
Day of Infection Plus Seven, 1045 Hours
The Vineyards National Guard Armory Vines, Virginia.
Two up-armored vehicles roared through the open gates of the armory, a gunner in each turret, the other passengers with windows open and weapons out at the ready. The platoon sergeant rode shotgun in the lead Humvee, while Weaver commanded the vehicle behind them. Gyles looked left at his driver, the young, freckled, Corporal Jones in clean Army Combat Uniform, his rifle pinned to a clip near the driver’s door. In the back seat behind the driver, Howard rode with his back stiff and rigid.
“We going to have a problem, Doc?” Gyles asked, speaking loudly over the vehicle’s engine.
Howard mumbled something under his breath before second-thinking his response and leaning forward in the seat. “If this Primalis virus is out there, we all have a problem; nothing can stop it. We need to leave. Get as far away from civilization as possible. Get to the mountains.”
Gyles looked back at him. “You know we’re a bit short on transportation; we can’t get everyone out. So, I ask again—you and me—are we going to have a problem?”
“These people aren’t our concern. We can’t save them all, Sergeant; it’s time to make the tough decisions.” Howard exhaled and folded his hands back into his lap. “But, if we are here… no, Sergeant, we will not have a problem. I am willing to put your oversight in judgment behind us.”
Gyles laughed and looked back to the front. “Well, that’s good to know, Doctor.”
Traveling down a blacktop road, they passed shuttered homes and tree-lined streets. It looked like an average rural neighborhood. Gyles spotted a dog sitting quietly on a street corner… a typical Monday morning in rural America. Looking up, he knew that was an illusion. The midmorning sky between the treetops was speckled with black smoke, remnants of the burning gas station. Jones pulled the Humvee into an intersection. With the vehicle’s engine idling, they could hear the popcorn crackle of rifle fire.
Jones looked to the sergeant. “Police station is north, at the end of Main Street. Left turn here and it’s two stoplights to downtown, end of the line at a T-junction. Once there, right goes back to the highway and left is the national forest.”
Gyles nodded and pulled his rifle close. He turned back and slapped the gunner’s leg, who took the signal and stood over the M240 in the turret. “Okay, take us in easy,” Gyles said. “Listen to my commands, and we’ll be back at the ranch in no time.”
“Sergeant?” Jones said. “That’s the direction the shooting is coming from. Maybe the doctor is right; how ’bout we just turn around and head south? I know a place.”
Gyles, not knowing the man enough to determine if it was sarcasm or cowardice, smiled. “Nah, maybe another time, Jones. Today is for killing, and the killing is up there.”
Jones grimaced and gritted his teeth. He gripped the wheel tightly and mashed the gas pedal, letting the Humvee lurch forward and slowly pick up speed. Gyles checked the mirror and could see Weaver was following close behind in the tail vehicle, the truck’s two gunners rotating and covering the right side and rear of the convoy.
Grassy dew covered the lawns of the well-kept homes. Cars sat parked in their driveways. At one point, Gyles thought he saw a curtain move from a window, revealing a woman’s face as they raced by. The residential area changed to small-town commercial, the buildings spread out, with cars parked along the street. In the distance, he could see the glow
of the burning gas station.
Before they made it to the next intersection, he saw them. They were still over two hundred meters ahead, in front of a blue house with its windows all broken and door removed from its hinges. An infected man was feasting over the body of a victim. The thing turned to face the noise of the approaching convoy and instantly became agitated.
The hideous monster turned out its lips like a dog, exposing blood-covered teeth. It screamed and howled at them, its hands tearing at its clothing. Another ran from a nearby yard. It arched its back and screamed with the other. More infected in the area were drawn to the blue house, all of them now excitedly looking at the approaching convoy. Gyles felt the vehicle pick up speed. He turned to Jones and could see the terror frozen on the man’s face.
“Stay with me, Jones. Drive through the bastards. Stay straight—human or not, these things aren’t getting through solid plate steel and ballistic glass,” Gyles said. “Bump them off the brush guard, but do not put us into a tree! You got me?”
“I got you, Sergeant,” Jones replied.
Gyles turned back and yelled to the gunner in the hatch. “Crazy sons o’ bitches in the open, one hundred meters; let them have it!”
“Roger that. Contacts in the open, hundred meters, on the way!”
The big gun in the turret barked and Gyles watched as tracer rounds raced through the air at 2,800 feet per second. Like lasers, the rounds tore into the infected flesh, ripping the monsters apart. The creatures didn’t make easy targets; once the first of them was knocked down, they scattered and sprinted on direct paths for the convoy.
Gyles saw intersecting fire as the angle increased, and the second truck’s gunner joined the fight. Unarmored and running directly at the vehicles, infected crazies didn’t stand a chance. Before the trucks passed the blue house, every one of the infected was in a crumpled mess, dead or dying.
As they passed the scene of carnage, Jones slowed down and Gyles fixed on one. What was once a female, had its body now contorted, its naked legs bent in an inhuman fashion. The creature looked at him with dead, rapidly blinking eyes. Gyles knew that the thing wanted to attack, but its body had been crippled by the 7.62 rounds that destroyed its spinal column. He leaned out of the window and carefully took aim with his carbine. He fired twice, hitting the top of the creature’s head with the second shot.
“None of this makes sense,” Howard shouted from the back, having witnessed the full assault. “It’s supposed to be a virus. I don’t know what this is. It’s not…not… this is like a science fiction-style mutant weapon. Their actions, the anger, the rage… this is thousands of years of backward evolution in a matter of hours. I mean, I read the reports, but seeing it—it’s just not possible.”
“Not what you were expecting, Doc?” Gyles replied.
“Hell, no. Why would anyone do this? You can’t create shit like this by accident! This is stuff designed in a nightmare factory—to destroy the part of the brain that makes us human but still preserve the ability to be a raving lunatic.”
The Humvee slowed. “Sarnt? We’re here.” Gyles looked up; ahead was a roadblock that would make any combat veteran proud. Two black-painted Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles with Vines City Sheriff’s Department stenciled in white on the side in block letters were parked at forty-five-degree angles. The roadway to their front was covered with gator tail spike strips and rolls of concertina wire. A man was kneeling on the left MRAP, armed with a carbine, and a man with an oversized scoped rifle crouched on the vehicle to the right.
The station was positioned at a T-shaped intersection. Tall and made of red brick, the building was positioned behind the roadblock. The officers were facing toward the city with the roads coming in from the left and right, completely barricaded by wire and abandoned cars. Just as Gyles was trying to figure out how to approach, two uniformed men ran from the cover and pulled back the wire and gator strips.
The MRAP on the right backed up just enough to allow them through. Before Gyles could give the order, the policemen out front were yelling at them to proceed ahead. Without having to be told twice, Jones edged the Humvee through the gap that was closed as soon as they entered.
A short female dressed head-to-toe in black SWAT body armor approached Gyles’s window. She had shoulders so broad Gyles couldn’t tell if they were muscle or the firmness of the body armor. The woman tapped the glass with the back of a Maglite, grabbing his attention. Gyles released the combat lock, swung the door open, and joined her behind the hasty barricades. A rifle boomed from the top of an MRAP as more gunfire erupted on the opposite side.
“Damn, we can’t ever get a break down here. It’s about time the cavalry showed up,” the woman yelled over the gunshots. She looked behind her to see the incoming assault of a half dozen infected. Seeing that her men had it under control, she looked back at Gyles. “I’m Sheriff Jenny Weber.” She paused and looked at the sergeant’s stone expression and at the pair of vehicles behind him. “We can really use the help.” She stopped and looked at the pair of HUMVEEs. “Wait, how many you got with you?”
“Not enough. I’m Sergeant First Class Robert Gyles,” he said, moving away from the vehicle to examine the hasty perimeter around the intersection. Bodies were hanging in spools of wire on both flanks; more dead were lying mangled in the streets nearby. From the road to the right, a pack of the infected rushed at them, breaking out of the shadows of a tree line, racing ahead like they were on fire, screaming and arms swinging. Gyles’s turret gunner rotated into position and, with three quick bursts, stopped the attack. “You’ve been busy,” Gyles said.
“Yeah, it’s been a long watch. We’ll see more of them; they’ve been coming like this all morning,” Jenny said. “Most are coming from 81—the interstate to the east. We tried to patrol out that way early on just after the radios dropped, but it’s a madhouse just five miles from here.
Gyles pointed to the bodies. “Who are they? Where are they coming from?”
“Best my man could tell, they’re people trying to evacuate from the North and East, Washington D.C. mostly, but some even further.” Jenny reached down for a small shoebox and pulled a wallet from inside it. Flipping back the leather fold, she displayed a Maryland driver’s license. “All the way from Baltimore. Whatever the news said is going on to the north is spreading, and it’s spreading fast. People are desperate to get away from it.”
He took the ID from her and examined it. “When did you find this?”
“One of the first ones we found. I have it in a cell downstairs.”
“It?” Gyles asked.
Howard approached from the shadows, interrupting. “Wait, you captured one? Alive? Are you sure it has the virus?”
Jenny paused, looking at the young doctor. Gyles looked at Howard then handed him the wallet and driver’s license. “This is our medical expert, Doctor Howard.”
Jenny nodded. “Yeah, we know he was infected. When my deputy found him, he was on the road having a seizure. My guy attempted to get him to a hospital, but he turned violent in the back of his patrol car. If it wasn’t for the safety cage, he would have killed my deputy.”
“But the patient… he’s alive?” Howard asked again.
“Patient? You mean ‘monster.’ Hell no, it isn’t alive. We put that thing down. There was no way to get the crazy bastard out of the patrol car. Tasers, pepper spray, none had any effect on it. I don’t know if you’ve had an up-close look at these things but… they aren’t keen on cooperation; they don’t even communicate, other than screaming.”
Howard shook his head and looked up toward a clearing sky. “All the way from Baltimore… The incubation period is more than we suspected. That means they could be halfway across the country by now… This is bad, the longer the incubation period, the more an injured person could travel before realizing it. Road blocks, checkpoints—none of that will work.”
Jenny interrupted, holding up her hand. “So how long until we can evacuate the to
wn?”
Gyles looked back at the sheriff. “I’m sorry, but you’ve got the wrong impression. We aren’t a rescue mission; we came to you for help.”
“How are we supposed to help you? Ya’ll look in decent shape. You’re from the armory, right?”
“Fort Stewart. We got kinda sidetracked at the armory.” Gyles’s eyes wandered the ground. Spotting the olive-drab ammo cans, he pointed and said, “That’s what we need.”
“The Army needs bullets? Since when?”
The sergeant nodded. “We used up most of our combat load this morning. I don’t think we can last much longer if we aren’t resupplied.” Gyles looked up, seeing a tall black man in tactical SWAT body armor move across the top of the MRAP, carrying a large scoped AR-10 rifle. On his head was a woodland camouflage USMC ballcap and around his neck, a tightly tied shemagh. The man dropped heavily to the ground next to Jenny.
He looked at Gyles and the armored vehicles. “How many soldiers you got at the armory? What kind of equipment?”
“Excuse me?” Gyles asked, looking the man up and down.
“You asked for help. I need to know what you have to offer in return before we agree,” he said mockingly. “If you can’t help us, we need to balance our investment. You have no authority here.”
Howard laughed. “The President has declared a national emergency and martial law. We don’t need permission; we can take what we need. Asking was just a courtesy.”
Gyles put a hand up, waving Howard off. “Okay, hold up, cowboy. I’m sure there is enough hate to go around without us having to start more among ourselves.”
Stepping between them, Jenny said, “This is Luke, one of my deputies. I think what he’s trying to say is you owe us some answers.”
