by Lundy, W. J.
Two soldiers emerged from cover and fumbled with the gate lock. The M240 from the parked truck opened again, the machine gunner firing into a new approaching mass. Gyles stood and walked to the side to see. A horde was pouring around the corner, headed to the access road. Luke was in the turret of his own vehicle; facing back, he fired and shot as the gate was opened and the MRAP pulled through. “Close it, close it,” soldiers screamed while others frantically fumbled with the lock.
As soon as the vehicle was through, Luke climbed onto the roof and stood with his feet planted. The big rifle to his shoulder, he continued firing into the advancing mob. Gyles watched the things swarm forward up the armory access road. Unlike before, this group was in a full charge. They were enraged and out for blood, not looking for cover. For every row of them that fell into the dirt, riddled with bullets, more fought their way into the opening, eager to get their chance at the soldiers at the top of the hill.
With all their weapons now online and working together, the mob was quickly cut down. It wasn’t a fight; it was an organized slaughter, but at the cost of hundreds of precious rounds of ammunition. A Squad Automatic Weapon gave a final burst before the men’s weapons fell silent. Gyles stood and approached the fence, taking account of the space to their front. Men called out for ammo as soldiers ferried green bandoleers of ammunition. Luke dropped down from the truck and stepped close. “Where’s the sheriff?”
“Holding the fort inside,” Gyles said, pointing to the steel hangar. He looked at the Marine. His face held a clean scar that ran across his forehead that he hadn’t noticed before, and, as Jenny had noted, the man wore a scoped, crossed rifle tattoo on the side of his neck, the words Scout written below it.
Luke reached into a chest rig and removed a bottle of water. He spun the cap and drank until it was empty. “We were heading down the road, decided to come back up here when we spotted them behind and in front of us. For a second, I thought maybe you all might be gone, that we’d be stuck all alone out there.”
Weaver laughed and leaned against the fence. “Alone? Could be worse, you could be up here standing between those things and a hundred civilians inside.”
“A hundred? You are shitting me.” Crushing the remains of the plastic bottle, Luke looked around him. “There’ll be more, lots more. I saw three times this many on the county access road; it’s only a matter of time until they find us.”
“How’d it look out there?” Gyles asked. “Any survivors?”
Luke shook his head. “We stayed at the roadblock for about an hour. They started coming down the eastern road from the interstate. I took out the first dozen, then we buttoned up. The things just kept coming.” Luke dug through a pocket on his sleeve, finding a pack of cigarettes. He dug one out and lit it with an old lighter. Luke sucked in the poison then exhaled; he pointed his cigarette at the stacks of the dead outside the gates. “There aren’t this many people in the whole damn county. I don’t know, maybe the gunfire is drawing them here.”
Gyles shrugged. “Not like we can prevent that.”
“Maybe I should go back out, make some serious noise, and try to pull them away.”
The sergeant shook his head. “Negative. These things are moving in packs; you might lead one away, but two more will find their way to us. That pack we killed earlier was here before you.”
Luke nodded. “Then let them come to us.” He dropped the cigarette and snuffed it with the heel of his boot. “Where do you want me then?”
Pointing to the large-bore rifle clipped to the man’s chest, Gyles asked, “How much food you got for that?”
Luke grinned, showing his white teeth. “Enough to feed an army.”
“I could use a sniper on the roof.”
“Fair enough; that’s where you’ll find me then.”
Chapter Eleven
Day of Infection Plus Seven, 1945 Hours
The Vineyards National Guard Armory Vines, Virginia.
Gyles walked the fence line. His men were tired, lying behind their rifles, weary from the hours of adrenaline and living on the edge. Most of them were consuming the last of the food they’d brought in with them. It had been over twelve hours since they left Fort Stewart on a recovery mission that should have lasted three. Since the last attack, the hillside had been quiet. No signs of activity, but Gyles knew they were down there, somewhere in Vines City, or traveling the road leading from the interstate. He walked toward the back of the compound to check the overgrown fields to their rear.
He felt her move behind him. He spun to see Jenny approaching, holding a Styrofoam cup. She handed it off to Gyles, who grinned, breathing in the hot coffee before sipping at it. “You don’t know how badly I needed this,” he said.
“You should come inside and get some rest.”
“I’ll catch a nap out here once I finish my rounds. If you have officers to spare, my men could use a break. Would your people mind sitting the wall for a spell?”
“They’d love to; they’re going crazy inside,” she said, looking at the distant tree line, the sun hovering just above the treetops. “You know it’ll be dark soon.”
“Then we’ll kill them in the dark.”
She stepped closer and looked around to make sure nobody else was within earshot. “Have you thought about what we’ll do if they break through?”
“If they get inside, I don’t think there is much we can do. I’ll have the boys saddle up in the armored vehicles, and we will hold them off for as long as we can, but after that?” He shrugged.
“You don’t sugarcoat it, do you?”
“A sweet turd wouldn’t be any easier to swallow.”
She dipped her chin and followed him to the rear perimeter fence. Tall grass swayed in the wind, large swaths of the field covered in shadows of the swiftly dropping sun. Gyles looked at the weak parts in the perimeter fence, blind spots that were hard to cover. They didn’t have men to patrol back there, and they didn’t have claymores, but Luke had used the down time to string up a case of flash bang grenades to trip wires along the weak areas of the fence. They wouldn’t do much damage, but they’d at least alert the soldiers to an attack at their backs.
Jenny pointed to a distant hilltop. “The national forest is just on the other side.”
“I’ve never been,” Gyles said.
“Maybe when this is over?”
Gyles shook his head. Looking at the hill, he froze and focused on the distant fields to his front. Something tingled in the back of his brain. He thought he saw the tops of the tall grass moving; it swayed unevenly against the grain of the subtle breeze. Jenny noticed his change in posture and took a step back. “Do you see something?” she asked.
Gyles held a finger to his lips. Some two hundred yards out, a flock of birds cackled and flew into the air. The grass seemed to wave at him, like the ripple of moving water, the bending blades catching the final rays of the sun. When more birds flew into the air, this time just a hundred yards to his front, he knelt and brought up his rifle. “We’re in trouble.”
She leaned in. “What can I do?”
“Get Sergeant Weaver; get him back here now.” Gyles took a deep breath, keeping his eye on the optics. He focused on the dark texture of the waves, panning his sight to a low spot in the terrain where the ground was uneven and brown. A natural opening in the pasture, it was a place where water had once settled and stunted the growth of the grass. Gyles closed his eyes tightly, trying to relax and control his breathing. When he opened them, the glowing dot in his optic was centered on the face of a demon.
The creature’s eyes looked like black marbles against the setting sun. As Gyles focused on the thing’s head, another dozen emerged from the tall grass around it, all of them crouched like a pack of wolves on the hunt. His heart beat out of his chest as his finger caressed the trigger, his thumb pushing down on the selector switch. He tried to calm himself and wait for back up. He didn’t want to initiate contact alone. If they rushed the fence, he wouldn’t be able t
o hold them all.
The monster to his front paused then put its nose to the air like a dog sniffing out its prey. It chewed and licked like it could taste their scent. Gyles wondered if their primal sense evolved as others degraded. As they became wilder, losing the ability to reason, did they gain more in the ability to hunt and kill? Gyles thought the infected man looked back and locked eyes with him. He knew it was impossible; he was kneeling in the shadows of the fence. The creature couldn’t see him.
He waited, counting down the precious seconds. More of the monsters entered the clearing. They would be across it soon, and then he wouldn’t have another clear shot until they reached the fence. It was now or never. Gyles aimed at the sweet spot just below the creature’s chin. He held his breath and took the slack out of the trigger. As his own rifle bucked, he heard the report of automatic weapons fire from the front of the compound, then more gunshots to his right. Quickly he realized he was alone, yet all his men were engaged. No, they’re attacking on all sides, Gyles thought to himself.
Gyles focused to his front and saw the creatures were no longer prowling. With the gunfire enraging them, they were now sprinting forward in the tall grass like a herd of African gazelles in the setting sun. Fear filled his chest; there were more attacking than he had ammo on his person. But he was a warrior; he had no qualms about his responsibility. He would die here holding the line if he had to. He fired until the bolt locked back on his rifle. As he reloaded, the faces of the children in the hangar filled his thoughts. His heart grew heavy with torment.
He thought of his parents, his siblings, his high school football coach, a friend he’d left behind in the sands of Iraq. How many of them would be ashamed of his failure on this far-off hill in the middle of nowhere? How many families would he let down by failing to hold this position? He sucked in hate and exhaled discontent as he locked his sights on the mass to his front, shouting obscenities as he fired into their already broken bodies.
A bright flash and boom blinded him. A flash bang less than fifty feet to his right had been triggered. He could feel the heat on his face. His head felt crushed and ringing filled his ears as the concussion nearly knocked off his helmet. He shook the stars from his vision, hearing the clanging of bodies against the fence. When he looked back, they were on the wire to his front. Violent explosions thundered against his skull as the daisy-chained string of flash bangs triggered up and down the fence line. His vision clouded with bright spots, but he forced his eyes ahead, fighting the closing in of his vision.
He screamed, not hearing his own words over the ringing in his ears and fired directly into the creatures above him. Bile filed his mouth, his stomach rebelling against the spinning in his head. The infected madly climbed the fence, becoming entangled in the wire, screaming at him as their flesh ripped against the razor wire.
He tumbled and fell onto to his back, continuing to fire madly at the horrifying sight above him while screaming back at the monsters incoherently. Weaver ran to his side with other men close by. They put their own weapons into the fight. But even with all of the combined firing, the fence was giving; it was collapsing inward, the poles bending. “We have to pull back!” Weaver yelled.
“There is nowhere to pull back to!” Gyles shouted. “We fight here, or we die here!”
There was a roar of an engine and blasting of a horn. Gyles rolled out of the way just as the MRAP raced through and pressed against one of the supports. The driver used the mass of the vehicle to push against the waves of infected, righting the fence while the turret gunner fired point-blank into the faces of the infected. Wind whipped around him; the Chinook was spinning up, slowly climbing into the air and rotating clockwise. The door gunners lit fire to the chain guns on either side, erasing large streaks of the infected as they stormed the fences. They weren’t stopping; no matter how much they fired, the infected still came. They didn’t care how many of their own were killed. They had a single focus—to get at the people inside the fence.
Gyles was feeling the effects of the concussion grenades, the blood rushing from his head. His arms felt heavy. He was falling back, fighting the urge to close his eyes. He went weak and collapsed to the ground. Weaver caught him by the back of his armor and began dragging him back to the building. Gyles tried to resist but had no strength in his legs, his arms as heavy as concrete. He pulled in his rifle tight with everything he had. Raising his weapon, he fired into the infected-filled fences as he was dragged helplessly along the tarmac. Finally, Weaver pushed him into a seated position, and he felt his men crowding in beside him.
The outer fences were failing, and the creatures were spilling over the tops. The mounted guns on the armored vehicles were cutting down the monsters as they fell over the concertina wire, looping and hanging from torn flesh. The Chinook orbited, using its chain guns to try to stop the advance. Gyles was dizzy, but even in a drunken mind, he knew the Chinook’s guns would run dry or suffer from warped barrels before they put down the assault. The compound was going to be overrun. It was going to fall, and he didn’t know what to do.
Gyles pushed back against the men supporting him and looked at the hangar door. “We have to get inside,” he shouted.
Weaver nodded his head, acknowledging him. He pulled his platoon sergeant to his feet then, together, they turned and charged toward the hangar. With less than ten feet left to travel, the door exploded out as civilians rushed onto the tarmac. Gyles screamed for them to stop, but the panicked people flooded out. Gyles could see the muzzle flashes of weapons being fired inside the darkened space. Before his men could focus and provide relief to the fighting inside, infected creatures streamed out of the hangar entrance, chasing the civilians.
A large man covered in gore flew through the air, pouncing on a woman’s back. She screamed and collapsed to the ground with the enraged man tearing a large strip of flesh from the back of her neck. A soldier screamed as he charged head-on into the madness, firing his rifle point-blank into the escaping horde. Gyles watched the soldier get swatted aside. As the man’s twisted body fell, he recognized the young soldier as Corporal Jones, the local trooper he’d forced on the convoy into town.
Gyles stepped back, stunned; they were all dying… all his men were dying. Gunfire all around him now, his hearing was a symphony of high-pitched buzzing and bursts of static. The sun had fallen, the air filled with smoke and strobes of muzzle flashes. He’d lost control. His men were no longer fighting as a team. Survival instinct had taken over. He watched as an armored Humvee with the hatches secured crashed the front gate, bouncing the infected off its hood as it fled the compound and raced down the approach road. Another truck made laps around the tarmac, crushing creatures under its huge tires.
Gyles made a final push to reach the hangar, still flanked by Weaver and a pair of his soldiers. Finally reaching the doorway, he looked inside. He could see Jenny and a pair of the deputies backed into a corner, feverishly fighting against the wave of infected pouring out of the office area. As instructed, the colonel had barricaded the hallway entrance with office furniture. But it wasn’t enough; the infected pressed through as if launched from a firehose.
He watched as a massive wave pushed the police officers against the wall, snapping jaws and screams overwhelming them. Changing magazines in his rifle, Gyles prepared to charge forward when he was tackled from behind. He rolled to his back to find a creature tearing at his armor, bloodied hands clawing at his vest, its teeth biting at the rim of his Kevlar helmet. The soldier shifted and struggled. Forcing the muzzle of his rifle into position, he pumped the trigger until the creature’s body went limp.
He fought back to his feet. His friends around him were now all engaged in close combat. He spotted Weaver on the ground, tussling with a creature of his own. He ran forward, kicked the infected woman under the chin, and watched it lose its grip and fall back before he could level his rifle and shoot the thing in the face.
The battle in the hangar was lost, the outside perimeter overrun
. Back on his feet, Weaver stepped back, the two men moving together. Gyles leveled his rifle at a pair of charging infected and fired until his weapon was empty, killing both. He reached for a reload and found his vest empty. Gyles drew his pistol and looked back at Weaver who’d already gone to his sidearm. The area surrounding them was madness.
The Chinook was still orbiting. Its guns dry, the bird was attempting to use its heavy rotor wash to hold back the waves of infected. Most of the armored vehicles were fighting their way out of the compound now, racing to join the others on the access road. Gyles pushed back, feeling Weaver directly behind him. “We’re fucked, aren’t we?” Weaver shouted.
“Depends how you look at it,” Gyles said. “Work day is almost over.”
Gyles focused on the gap in the fence; a mob was racing at him, running, pushing at each other to be the first to reach him, their gnarled faces dripping gore. He leveled his pistol, lined his eye up to the iron sights, and watched the creatures charge as the world seemed to freeze around him. Every hour of training, every engagement, every battle, now came down to this. They were all dead; his unit was gone, the people under his charge lost. All that was left was him pressed against his brother. Every shot counted. He fired and watched the head of a creature explode.
Shifting his focus, Gyles aimed and pulled the trigger. He no longer saw faces or features of the infected—he dropped all of that and thought of them as objects—objects out to destroy him. He pulled the trigger again, hitting one in the face. The slide locked back on his M9. His hand dropped to his hip to retrieve a reload, but he knew there wouldn’t be time. They were moving too fast; they would be on him before he could fire again. He prepared for the impact.
