Plague War (Book 3): Retaliation

by Hodge, Alister

  Carriers.

  Mark’s gut dropped as he heard Steph’s urgent call for assistance over the radio. He immediately confirmed that he was en-route to her location and began sprinting, knowing his detachment was hard on his heels. Steph was only a few hundred metres away, and he took the gamble that it would be quicker on foot as the crow flies than negotiating gates in the trucks. His radio crackled again as Vinh confirmed he would also provide support.

  Mark’s heart hammered as he vaulted a low fence and ran on. The first shots cracked out in the distance, Austeyrs by the sound. He was still stunned that the Spartans had attacked, part of him having never believed that a bikie would wager their life against a professional soldier’s skill. He gritted his teeth and pushed harder, refusing to consider defeat. Soldiers of the Australian Defence Force were up against a bunch of untrained thugs for fucks sake. Steph would be ok. She had to be.

  ***

  Heating coils installed along the ceiling of the compartment glowed dull orange, radiating heat down upon the Infected to raise their body temperatures and increase speed of movement. These Carriers wouldn’t be slow and uncoordinated in the morning cold, with core temperatures now close to that of a live human, they’d descend on the soldiers with the speed of a ravenous wolf pack. The bikie fired a flare gun past the open doors of the truck toward the soldiers, the burning light drawing the attention of the Infected onto their intended victims. Eyes locked onto the soldiers, faces contorting into a manic rictus of anger and hunger at the sight. Ragged bodies careered out of the truck, falling in an uncoordinated mess in the wheat, thrashing on the ground until they righted themselves and attacked. The Carriers were of mixed age. Some were fresh with wounds still red and weeping, others looked months or years old, flesh and skin dried to tough, leathery sinew over bones and joints. The bikies hung back, shielded by the truck, waiting for their manufactured pack of Infected to gouge their share of flesh before they joined the attack.

  Steph stood in the middle of a staggered line behind the harvester. She forced her mind into action, ordering the soldiers on either side of her to flank the harvester to establish a line of fire. She ran to the left, shots cracking out beside her as she skirted the edge of the harvester. Steph took a handhold and climbed the side of the machine until she had a footing next to the cabin. Heath looked out at her, eyes wide and face pale. He gripped his rifle, ready to join the fight.

  ‘What do you need me to do?’ he asked, voice drawn tight.

  Steph glanced out at the field of battle. There was less than seventy metres between the Spartans and her soldiers. The Infected swarmed forward in a ragged pack. Some had already started to spread out, zoning in on soldiers to either side, while others sprinted directly for the harvester, oblivious to the danger of the spinning reel. The Spartans had emerged from cover now that the Infected were away, targeting her soldiers while they were forced to engage the Carriers. Steph needed the sprinting ghouls wiped out quickly to enable her detachment to take on the real enemy.

  ‘Put the rifle down, I need you to drive the harvester into the pack of Infected,’ she said. The kid just nodded. Wasting no time on speech, he propped his 0.22 in the corner again and stamped on the accelerator.

  Steph dropped her rifle to hang by its sling, drawing her pistol to shoot one handed while still gripping the side of the cabin. The harvester lurched into action, Heath accelerating as fast as the machine would allow. The spinning reel bit into the pack of Carriers, catching two thirds of the group. Their bodies were caught by the machine and mashed down onto the cutters. The shear-like blades chewed into the corpses, cutting through muscle, tendon and bone; turning the Infected into a mangled abattoir of gore. The spinning reel caught on the tangle of limbs and bodies, grinding to a halt and trapping the Infected in place.

  A bullet sparked off the metal beside Steph’s shoulder, ricocheting past her face like an angry wasp. The harvester had carried her and the kid well past her men, and close to the group of Spartans who now directed their fire at them. Steph yelled at Heath to stop. The kid stamped down on the brake in vain, but it was too late. The harvester careered into the back of the truck, the reel bending about the back of the truck like a metal embrace as the harvester smashed both vehicles forward before finally coming to a halt.

  Steph was thrown clear by the force of the crash, striking feet first, then crashing onto her right side with the momentum. She lay on the ground for a moment, winded, her mouth gasping like a fish for air. Although the long grass absorbed some of the force, her head had smacked hard on the dirt. Dazed, she tried to bring her handgun to bear, but her left hand refused to obey. She glanced down in confusion at her arm, the gun had disappeared in the fall, and her wrist was bent at an unnatural angle. Suddenly the agony of broken bones in her wrist hit home, joined by a burning pain in her right ankle and knee. Behind her, she could hear her detachment fighting the Infected, snarls of rage matched by the soldier’s gunfire, while Heath lay doubled over the steering wheel in the cabin, knocked unconscious after his head had smashed into the metal grill on impact.

  A group of Spartans ran towards her, Mac in the lead. A shark’s smile covered his face, devoid of sympathy. Steph clumsily tried to draw her combat knife with her one working hand. Mac stamped down hard before the blade left its sheath, crushing her fingers under his heel. Steph screamed in agony, the added pain overwhelming the last of her reserve.

  Mac pulled the knife out of her sheath and threw it out of reach. With deliberate callousness, he wrenched her to standing by her injured arm, causing Steph to dry retch in pain. Mac shoved his face close up to hers, gross satisfaction at his victory plain to see.

  ‘You’re mine now,’ he said between short, fetid breaths of excitement. ‘Either your boyfriend does as I say, or you won’t be living for much longer.’ Mac turned to his men as he dragged Steph to one of the utes. ‘Get the boy from the harvester. It’s Joel Tipper’s kid – I want to make that bastard hurt as well.’

  The torn ligaments in Steph’s ankle burned as she was forced to take weight on it. She wrenched back against Mac, refusing to be meekly led to slaughter.

  ‘Do you really think Mark’s going to just let you go?’ she spat. ‘You’re nothing but a piece of dog shit compared to him.’

  Mac’s Sergeant at Arms whipped the back of his hand across her face, breaking her nose with a sickening crunch. Blood sheeted from her nostrils, flowing across her lips and down her chin in a crimson mess. Steph glowered at him, refusing to be silenced, she hocked blood from the back of her nose and spat it on the ground. ‘You’ve got no idea what you’re bringing on yourself. My platoon will come for us.’

  Mac wrenched her forward with her broken wrist, drawing his face close to hers. ‘Good. That’s what I fucking planned for. They’re going to do as I say, or die outside the walls of our compound. Now shut the fuck up, or your face won’t be pretty for much longer.’

  He jerked a thumb at his Sergeant in Arms, ‘Get her in the back of my ute, we need to get moving before their backup arrives.’

  Without question, the hulk grabbed her in one arm, ignoring Steph’s protest and hoisted her over the back of the ute’s tray where another two club members pinned her arms. The engine of the ute revved into life, wheels spinning in the dirt as it made for the road.

  Tears of frustration cut lines through the grime on Steph’s face as she saw Mark’s detachment join the fight against the Carriers and remaining bikies. He was less than a hundred metres away, but unless they realised her capture within the next few seconds, it would be too late.

  As Mark’s detachment finally joined the battle, chests heaving from their sprint, they found the fight almost won. He sent half of his men to finish off the last of the Carriers, and took the rest to complete a rout of the Spartans. He could see one of the two utes already fleeing the scene like cowards. The remaining five men were using the truck as cover, and remained oblivious to Mark’s simple flanking manoeuvre until their bodies jerked h
aphazardly with the passage of bullets.

  The last rifle fell silent with the death of the Spartans. Mark jogged back to the main body of his troops to confirm losses, praying that Steph would not be among them. Vinh was waiting for his return, having arrived shortly after his officer. His face was grim.

  ‘We’ve two MIA, one bite and a gunshot wound,’ said Vinh.

  Mark looked over to where the injured men lay. The medic worked on the gunshot wound, applying a tourniquet and clotting factors into the thigh wound while the Private stifled a scream of agony.

  The bite victim sat quietly a short distance from the rest of the squad, her face ashen as she regarded the crescent of tissue ripped from her calf. Mark watched with blunted horror as the young woman drew her side arm, placed it under her chin and pulled the trigger. Few of his soldiers shirked the duty of suicide post a bite, stoically refusing to demand euthanasia from their mates.

  Mark wrenched his eyes back to Vinh, realising that he hadn’t spotted Steph yet. ‘Where’s Corporal Williams, Vinny. She should be the one giving report for her detachment,’ said Mark, hiding his worry behind professionalism.

  Vinh winced. ‘I said there were two MIA, Boss. She was on the harvester. Apparently saved her men’s lives when she directed Joel’s kid to drive it into the swarm of Carriers, wiping out two thirds of them in one go. The bastards were running hot – if she hadn’t done it, I reckon the detachment would have been overrun.’

  Mark looked back down to where the wreck of the harvester lay, wrapped around the truck, horror growing as realisation dawned.

  Vinh continued as Mark balled his fists in futile rage. ‘One of the Privates saw her and Joel’s kid get bundled into the back of a ute. She’s not dead though, Boss. We can get her back...’

  Mark lost grip of his Sergeant’s words as guilt and rage threatened to blank out all reason. He’d not seen Steph in the back of the fleeing ute, and it might have just cost his girlfriend’s life. Mark battled with himself, enforcing discipline in his own mind. If he was going to get her back, he needed all his faculties.

  Mark cut Vinh off mid-sentence. ‘Sergeant, I want the men ready to leave in twenty minutes. I’m going to burn that bastard to the ground.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Harry reached the corner of Swanston and Eastern Beach Rd. and came to an abrupt stop, leaning forward with hands on knees as he struggled to regain his breath. A cyclone wire fence reared eight feet in the air on the other side of the street, marking the furthest safe boundary in Geelong. An overgrown grass slope descended on the far side to an abandoned public car park and then a narrow strip of beach. Wind gusted across Corio Bay, driving whitecaps over iron grey water. The sweat on Harry’s forehead cooled within moments, leaving an icy slick that matched the sense of foreboding in his chest.

  The footpath adjacent to the fence was empty of movement in both directions, and Harry felt a momentary surge in hope that he was wrong. A movement in his peripheral vision made him look to the right. The footpath and road climbed a gentle slope before flattening out once again. At this point, a simple bench seat provided a rest point for any person to sit and enjoy the view across the park and bay. A figure sat wearing nothing but a dirty t-shirt and jeans, seemingly oblivious to the cold wind that whipped a mass of curly hair about her head.

  Veronica.

  A faint animalistic noise carried on the wind from her direction, and as Harry changed his focus to the fence, he saw a figure opposite Veronica, fingers reaching through the wire lattice toward her.

  ‘Veronica! Wait!’ he yelled out. Fatigue forgotten, Harry set off at a run up the slope to his colleague.

  Veronica’s head turned at his call, her features impassive as she stood and walked closer to the fence, a handgun gripped in her right hand.

  ‘Get back from the barrier, Veronica. You don’t have to go through with this!’ shouted Harry. ‘We have no proof it’ll stop the virus, please don’t do this!’

  Veronica stopped him dead in his tracks with less than ten metres separating them. Harry eyed the weapon that now aimed straight at his face, struggling to reconcile the woman he’d been growing to love with the tortured soul before him. Tears streaked her cheeks and snot dribbled in a clear line from her nostrils to her quivering lip.

  ‘You don’t understand, Harry. You can’t, not unless you’ve lost a child and family like me,’ she said, gun beginning to waver as she continued to hold her arm out straight. ‘I know this might not work, but if there’s a chance I can stop another child like my own or Ruby dying in the future, it’ll be worth it.’

  ‘But what if it doesn’t?’ pleaded Harry.

  ‘Then I get to be reunited with my child and husband,’ she said with a sad smile.

  ‘Bullshit! There is no fucking afterlife, Veronica. You’re not going to see your kid again, all you’ll be is dead. This isn’t heroic, it’s just giving up.’

  Fresh tears fell from her eyes at his words. ‘Then I give up, Harry.’

  Veronica shoved the fingers of her left hand through the steel lattice toward the Carrier. Needing no further invitation, the ghoul latched onto her index finger. Veronica loosed a hideous scream as the creature gripped the remaining fingers and wrenched savagely to bring more of her arm through the fence. The skin de-gloved from her hand, stripped by the small diamond of wire as it was forced into the small space. Her middle finger tore free with the next tug as it drew her wrist through the gap, shearing the bone and dislocating the joint. Skin and fat cells bunched at the near end of the hole, torn backwards like sausage skin by the wire.

  The Carrier buried its teeth into the exposed arm muscles, worrying at the meat like a terrier with a rat in its jaws. Harry forced himself into action and stuck the end of his pistol through the fence and squeezed the trigger, punching a hole in the forehead of the beast. A spray of gore exited the rear of the Carrier’s skull and it slumped to the ground. Veronica’s arm was dragged down by the ghoul, until the teeth of the predator ripped free. Her arm flicked upward, spraying both her and Harry with crimson droplets.

  Veronica stared at her limb in mute horror, her whole body trembling in agony. Harry quickly undid his belt and fastened it around her upper arm as a rudimentary tourniquet, murmuring quiet words of support to his friend as he worked. Blood supply temporarily cut off from the wound, the hosing wound tapered off. Harry withdrew the syringe of trial medication from his breast pocket, giving Veronica a brief warning before injecting the medication through her jeans into her thigh, not bothering to waste time in exposing skin. In comparison to the torturous pain at her forearm, the needle didn’t even register on her face.

  The next movement was not going to be fun. Her arm needed to be withdrawn from the fence, and with no wire cutters to hand, the only passage would be in reverse. Harry placed one foot up against the fence and took a double armed hold around her upper torso.

  ‘How do you want it done, Ronnie? Fast or slow?’ he asked his friend, silent apology for what he was about to do written plain in his eyes.

  ‘Just fucking get it out,’ she groaned, swaying on her feet. She was starting to go into hypovolaemic shock from blood loss.

  Harry took a steadying breath and took up the slack about her chest while he pushed away with his foot against the fence. Her arm emerged barely a centimetre. Veronica screamed, a raw sound of pure agony that tore at Harry’s eardrums. The strength of the Carrier must have been enormous to draw her limb so deeply through. There was nothing left for it. Harry kicked out with all his strength while wrenching back under her shoulders at the same time. Her arm stuck for an instant more, then came free with a sickening slurp of congealed blood. Her hand was mangled, the wrist joint so badly fractured that it slipped through the small hole without protest, leaving her to fall back in his arms.

  Harry eased her to the ground, his mind reeling at what he’d just witnessed. He cursed his lack of foresight in not bringing a car. Harry needed to get her to the gaol and his research la
b for treatment as soon as possible. Veronica’s arm was unrecoverable, suitable only for amputation.

  He pulled out his mobile phone, tacky blood smearing over the screen as he opened his directory to seek a number for the Rapid Response Team. They held the only functioning ambulances in town.

  ‘Larkin, is that you?’ asked Harry as his call was answered. ‘I found her down at Eastern Beach,’ he said, looking back down at Veronica, who was curled about the mangled remains of her arm. ‘I need transport ASAP, she’s not in a good way.’

  ***

  Sergeant Larkin placed a steaming mug of coffee into Harry’s hands, forcing him to acknowledge his surroundings. Harry nodded his thanks to the soldier and took a tentative sip of the brew. He raised an eyebrow as he registered the taste of an additive to the black coffee.

  Larkin was unapologetic. ‘It’s got a couple of fingers from our own moonshine in there, thought you could do with an Irish coffee, all things considered.’

  Harry wasn’t going to complain. He’d happily consume anything to dull the edge of his loss. The Sergeant and his Rapid Response Team had stayed to help at the lab after collecting the pair from Eastern Beach. Once back to an adequate treatment facility, Harry had tied off active bleeders in Veronica’s arm and started a fluid resuscitation. What she had needed was whole blood, but it was a health resource that no longer existed. With two litres of normal saline to bulk her circulating volume, she had rallied for a while, giving Harry some meagre hope. But it had proved a short-lived improvement. Features of overwhelming infection had taken hold, a massive inflammatory response to the presence of the virus that inevitably led to death like so many before her.