Plague War (Book 3): Retaliation

by Hodge, Alister

  PLAGUE WAR: RETALIATION

  Alister Hodge

  www.severedpress.com

  Copyright 2018 by Alister Hodge

  Chapter One

  Steph turned the key in the ignition again, urging it to work under her breath. An unnatural grinding noise came from the engine briefly before cutting out.

  ‘Fucking piece of shite!’ she said, thumping the dash in frustration. ‘That’s the third breakdown this month. If we get swarmed because of those bastards in maintenance, I’m going to gut the first mechanic I meet when we get back. If we get back.’

  Screams of the Infected filled the air outside, gaining in volume as they drew closer to the truck.

  Vinh gave her a sharp look. ‘So what? The truck’s dead. Not the first time, won’t be the last either.’

  Steph’s face contorted for a moment as she stifled an expletive laden response to her sergeant. She drew a ragged breath and made her features relax. As much as she hated to admit, Vinh was right. Getting mad would only impede her chances of finding a solution, and time was at a premium.

  ‘Good to have you back, Corporal,’ said Vinh. ‘So, is it something we can fix, or are we looking at a request for assistance?’

  Steph leant closer to the dash, examining the illuminated warning light. ‘Engine’s overheated. Probably the radiator like last time.’

  ‘Somehow, I don’t think those hungry bastards outside are going to let you pop the hood and troubleshoot it in peace,’ said Erin, looking out the back window of the truck. ‘We’ve got five minutes at best until they’re on us.’

  Steph glanced over her shoulder at the approaching horde. She was sitting at the wheel of an armoured troop carrier, a new type of vehicle developed and pumped out of a car manufacturing plant in Geelong for the specific task of killing the Infected. Behind the driver was an open area that carried a handful of fighters. Engagement of the enemy outside was through a finger width slit in the cabin wall, just wide enough to accept the barrel of a rifle. Above and below this gap was a thirty-centimetre panel of reinforced Perspex. Clear so that the soldiers within could sight their weapons, but made so thick for strength that it invariably distorted the visages of those outside like a theme park mirror. From this moving fortress, soldiers could fight from relative safety, out of reach of their enemies on the street. The only problem with driving a prototype, was that the vehicles had been plagued by mechanical issues – some of them proving fatal.

  Outside, a swarm of Carriers was closing on their location. Steph had fought countless times against the Infected since the outbreak, and yet they still made her skin crawl. The crowd of men, women and children lurching toward their truck were barely recognisable as human. Any clothes worn at death had rotted and fallen away months before. Muscle and tissue was desiccated, drawn tight over bones and joints. Skin had acquired the yellowish brown of an embalmed corpse. Lips and gums had dried, withdrawing to make the remaining teeth appear unnaturally long and sharp. Unblinking, their eyes were white. The surface dry and damaged by innumerable tiny scratches until corneas became opaque, hiding the colour of the iris and pupil behind. But for all the hideousness of their external features, it was the mindless violence of the creatures that was to be feared.

  Steph forced herself to reframe that thought. No, not to be feared, as allowing that sort of undisciplined thinking flirted with despair. Respect. Yes, they were an enemy to be respected for their awesome ability to inflict slaughter if given the smallest chance.

  A year and a half before, a new plague had ripped across the mainland states of Australia, catching the military on the back foot in a firestorm of violence, blood and terror. A rabies like disease called Lyssavirus had mutated, transferring from bat to man with disastrous effects. In humans, the resultant Lysan Plague rapidly overwhelmed the immune system, leading to death. But at this point the virus had demonstrated an unwillingness to abandon its host, causing the corpse to reanimate. Everything that had made them human was lost, and measured against all established norms - they were still dead. With minds incapable of conscious thought, hearts that lay flaccid and lungs empty of oxygen, they’d become nothing more than vectors for disease transmission. Known as virus ‘Carriers’ or the ‘Infected’, the creatures were consumed by a mindless rage, driven to attack any non-infected creature and feed. The virus was transmitted through saliva in bites, effectively recruiting every victim to the feral hordes that advanced across the country. Brain destruction had proven the only method to disable the virus’s control of the body and return the body to an inert state.

  The rules of war as they’d been known for millennia were re-written. Here was an enemy that could not be beaten into submission, couldn’t be terrified or taken out of action through wounds. Remove a Carrier’s legs and it just crawled onwards. Cut off its head, and the jaw continued to snap in rage. Once engaged in battle, it was a case of fighting to the last man standing. The Infected did not stop until each and every brain had been destroyed.

  The military had learnt this lesson the hard way. Less than 10% of the population remained. Every major mainland city had been lost. Sheltered by Bass Strait, Tasmania was the only Australian state to remain virus free. But the tide was changing. The army had gained a foothold in Victoria at Queenscliff, and subsequently cleared the surrounding towns of plague at significant cost in human life. And now it was on to the first major city: Melbourne.

  The advance had commenced weeks before out of Geelong, hitting the first suburbs of Werribee and Hoppers Crossing with relative ease. But as the density of habitation increased the closer they came to the city, so had the numbers of Carriers. The incendiary bombs used to cull the Infected in Geelong were all gone. It was down to fighting from the armoured trucks, but there was only so much ammunition each vehicle could hold before rifles ran dry and a wall of moving flesh enveloped them like a king tide. Not such a huge issue when the trucks were capable of ploughing through a mob of Infected like a harvester through grain – but the damned vehicles had to function to enable such an escape.

  Today, their truck had been the last to withdraw from an advance into the suburb of Footscray. After a day of fighting, they were low on rounds. The other trucks of their platoon were in the same boat and would be unable to provide support until they replenished ammunition.

  ‘We’re going to get buried again, aren’t we?’ said Erin. Her face was pale, lips thin as she watched the Carriers advance closer through the strip of Perspex.

  Nobody said anything. It wasn’t a question that required an answer – they all knew what would happen, and it was the dread of every soldier that fought in the armoured division.

  Vinh picked up the radio and called back to base, lodging a request for assistance. Call made, he hung up the radio and climbed out of his passenger seat chair next to Steph to join Erin and the other Privates in the back.

  ‘You guys know the drill. We get the truck sorted then shoot Carriers until we run out of ammo,’ said the Sergeant, voice controlled despite a nervous tic at one eyelid.

  Steph climbed out of the driver’s seat and retrieved her rifle, automatically running through a quick weapons check. Vinh unclipped a metre-long section of steel pipe from an interior wall of the truck. On the roof above, Erin un-latched a circlet of steel, exposing a palm sized hole, just large enough to admit the pipe. Vinh inserted one end of the pipe, then began extending the outer segment, the pipe elongating like a telescope until the end stood proud above the truck by two and a half metres. Beneath it he hooked on a small fan set up, designed to suck in oxygen from above while extracting carbon dioxide from the cabin. Once a truck was buried for any length of time, air quality became the true danger. More than o
ne crew had been found asphyxiated on retrieval, their bodies unharmed by the teeth and fingers of the enemy – but dead all the same.

  The first Carriers were now less than thirty metres away. Erin raised her rifle, took quick aim and squeezed off her first shot. The nearest ghoul was smashed to the ground missing a fist-sized chunk of skull, its brain spattered over the face of the Carrier behind. Steph winced at the horrendous noise within the confined metal space, and quickly stuck in a pair of ear plugs. Despite the added protection, a high-pitched whine of tinnitus told her the damage was already done.

  Steph took position next to Vinh and picked out her own target. A child of no more than ten years ran toward her with mouth open, emitting an incoherent scream of rage. Its left eye had been popped from the socket and hung by a shrivelled optic nerve against its cheek. Steph saw this, and yet she didn’t. Moving by practice into a battle mindset, she acknowledged the boy as already dead, allowing her to see him as nothing more than a target. Steph squeezed her trigger and the child skidded to a stop, face first on the tarmac.

  Steph switched aim and fired. Switched aim and fired again. Each of the five soldiers in the back of the truck did the same. One shot every two seconds with metronomic regularity. Pick a target. Shoot. All single shots. Every bullet needing to count.

  Bodies dropped outside at a rapid rate, disappearing under the feet of those that followed. The truck rocked slightly as the crowd of Infected smashed against the outer wall. Monstrous faces pushed up against the Perspex, distorted by the clear barrier, they snarled and tried to reach the occupants within. Fists hammered at the metal of the truck, turning hands into messes of shattered bone and pulped meat upon the unyielding surface.

  The sound of the demonic cries outside was horrendous, matching the volume of the guns in the enclosed space. Fingers reached through the rifle slit, the only part of the body small enough to breach the space. Irritated by the grasping digits, Erin periodically swept her combat knife in a ruthless arc across the space, dropping the fingers to the truck floor.

  There was no more need to aim. All that was required, was to press the end of a barrel against a skull and pull the trigger. Quickly, the pile of dead mounted. With the truck out of action, Steph was powerless to drive into clear space and continue the fight. They were going under.

  Her next pull of the trigger came with an empty click. Steph reached into her webbing for a replacement magazine and came up empty. She’d run dry. Over the next minutes the gunfire began to lessen as her squad mates also ran out of ammunition.

  In a business-like manner, Erin leant down and swept the severed digits from around her feet into a small pile in the corner, then took a seat on the floor, ignoring the screaming faces through the Perspex above. Slowly, the rest of the team followed suit. Vinh flicked on the fan below the pipe in the ceiling, then joined the soldiers sitting on the floor.

  Now came the truly horrific time. The period of waiting with no idea of how long it would take for rescue. If they even could be rescued. The truck rocked slightly as the mob pushed against it, the walls a constant vibration under raging fists outside. Steph forced herself to take a slow breath to calm her thoughts and began to methodically dismantle her rifle. Servicing the weapon would help to pass time, and they had plenty of it ahead.

  As the crowd surged outside and climbed over each other, light entering the cabin began to dim, blocked out by the bodies crammed against the outside wall. Metal creaked above their heads. The first Carrier had climbed on the roof, and within moments, additional noise told them he had new companions on top. They were now surrounded on all sides, buried under a mass of writhing, dead flesh.

  ***

  Erin awoke abruptly, a scream escaping her lips before she could stifle it. Her heart raced as she re-oriented herself in the gloom, pupils dilated and fingers jittering with the surge of adrenaline. Tortured faces pressed against the Perspex strip opposite, fingers squirming through the narrow gap to reach her and her mates. Her heart ached as she realised that she was still in the truck. Still buried under a mob of Carriers.

  Vinh reached across an arm and squeezed her shoulder in solidarity. ‘From one nightmare to another, eh?’ he said, having to raise his voice to be heard over the noise of the Carriers.

  Erin gave a slight nod and forced her breathing to slow. Beside her, Steph moaned lightly in her sleep, her legs twitching like a dog tortured by a horrible dream.

  ‘You’re not the only one having nightmares, although given the environment, I don’t think any of us were going to be dreaming of bloody rainbows and unicorns,’ he said with a sad smile.

  ‘Did you manage to pass out at all, Vinh? You can’t stay on watch the whole time.’

  ‘Nah, but I’m fine. I couldn’t sleep with those fingers scrabbling through the slot near my head.’

  ‘It’s been over twenty-four hours now, has there been word from Mark?’ asked Erin, her eyes hopeful.

  ‘No, just static through the radio – the bastards on top must have snapped the aerial. I wouldn’t worry though, the retrieval team will arrive this morning,’ he said with a firm nod.

  Erin had a suspicious feeling Vinh was trying to convince himself more than her. She grunted non-committedly, unwilling to argue the point. She had more pressing issues at hand – like where was she going to empty her bladder? If she didn’t take a leak, she’d wet her pants.

  ‘What are we using as a toilet? I’m bloody busting.’

  Vinh cracked his first genuine smile of the mission. He held up an empty coke bottle in the dim light, already half full of yellow fluid. ‘Us blokes have less of an issue when it comes to aiming.’

  ‘Fuck off, Vinh. That’s not funny.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ he said, raising a hand in apology. ‘Steph used her helmet earlier on, then poured it in here with the rest. Might as well use it too, no point destroying another piece of kit.’

  Erin snapped up Steph’s helmet and went into the corner while Vinh turned away to give her a little privacy. He unscrewed his canteen and upended it to take a sip. Nothing. With a grimace he re-capped and dumped it on the floor, his thirst left unsatisfied. If help didn’t come their way soon, latrine options would be the least of their concerns. Out of food and water – it would be only a matter of time until hunger and dehydration outstripped the Carriers as their biggest torture.

  Mark drummed his fingers irritably on the dash, his frustration at the delay steadily mounting. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was now seven o’clock in the morning. Mark was deep within plague infested territory on his own, and by the satellite marker of the lame truck, little more than a few blocks away from his stranded crew. He may have been out of sight of the swarm, but he could still hear them as guttural screams carried on the breeze in fluctuating waves.

  Over a day and a half – too bloody long to leave a crew stranded. The rates of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder rose exponentially amongst soldiers the longer they were left behind. The last armoured truck that he’d rescued after two days buried under a swarm held nothing but dead soldiers, the crew turning their guns on themselves after going mad in the hideous conditions.

  To make matters worse, this time the truck held people he loved. People he’d happily trade his own life to save, and call the price cheap. Steph, Vinh and Erin were family; the fact there was no blood connection between them was irrelevant. Shared dangers and combat had forged bonds far stronger than any genetic tie.

  The report from the reconnaissance helicopter lay crumpled on the floor where he’d tossed it the day before. The fly-over had confirmed his worst fears. His mates were buried under a swarm of plague-ridden corpses that stretched for blocks. Once the numbers had been confirmed, command had refused to commit additional troops for a rescue mission, deeming five soldiers to be an acceptable loss in the circumstances. Mark had promptly told his superior officer to shove his recommendation up his arse and hung up. He knew a reprimand and likely loss of rank would be waiting on his ret
urn to base, not that he cared much at this stage.

  A rumbling sound of approaching machinery grew in volume from behind. About bloody time. Mark climbed out of his vehicle in readiness. The armoured trucks were adequate in most circumstances to push through a swarm, but when Mark had read the reconnaissance report, he’d known that to have any chance of success, he’d need something with a little more grunt. He’d called in favours owed and stretched professional relationships to breaking point to get this piece of kit.

  On wide metal tracks that chewed the underlying tarmac, came the only Bulldozer within 100 kilometres that had been altered for use in plague infested areas. A reinforced lattice of steel mesh covered the entire cabin, protecting the driver from teeth and probing fingers of the Infected. The ground underfoot shuddered as the enormous machine approached, then with a squeal of metal on concrete, it came to a stop beside him.

  ‘What took you so bloody long?’ asked Mark as the driver unlocked the bulldozer’s cabin door and climbed down.

  The man paused and raised an eyebrow at him. ‘So, not even a thanks, mate? I just stole this slow piece of shit from military land and drove all the way from Geelong.’ He glanced past Mark, eyes roving the surrounding area as he talked. ‘If it wasn’t for Steph and the kid, I would have told you to piss off. I mean, what the fuck were you thinking, taking your girlfriend and a child into battle against a swarm?’

  Mark ground his teeth and forced himself to take a breath before replying. His mate, Victor, was a veteran of the Queenscliff landing and had risked a court-martial to help him out.

  ‘First of all, Erin’s nearly fifteen. I couldn’t stop her enlisting after they lowered the age last year. And secondly, just because Steph’s my partner, it doesn’t stop her facing the same risks as every other soldier in the platoon. You think I fucking like having them out there?’