This Is the End: The Post-Apocalyptic Box Set (7 Book Collection)

by Craig DiLouie

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re saving the battalion.”

  “I’ve got to get my head around it.”

  “As long as your head is in the game.” After a slight pause, Walker added, “Sir.”

  “All right. I’ll address the men at the funeral. We’re going to need a game plan.”

  “I have some information that may help,” the major said. “I’ve been talking to my counterparts at other battalions across the Northeast and Midwest. They’re all worse off than we are. Everybody is actively engaged. Civilian authority has bled out. The military commanders are beginning to act independently. They don’t like the strategy, and they’re starting to break off on their own. Prince was one of the last die-hards.”

  “Options, then. We could pull out of the city, regroup and take it back block by block. Announce a curfew to keep the citizens off the streets. Shoot everything in sight.” Lee might go down in history as another Attila the Hun, but it just might save the city.

  “Problem, sir. Major General Brock wants to absorb the battalion into his command.”

  Lee sighed. “And he’ll order us back into the city to do what we were doing before.” He thought about it. “The other option is to resist. We can’t take on the Massachusetts Guard.”

  “Correct. I don’t think we have the men, materiel or energy to do what you’re thinking, in any case. Resupply has slowed to a trickle. I’ve been carefully shepherding what we’ve got.”

  “That doesn’t give us a lot of options. We either work for Brock or fight him.”

  “There is another way.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We could leave Massachusetts.”

  Lee looked at him in surprise. Walker had told him they needed to start thinking outside the box, but it appeared the man was ready to throw away the box. “And go where?”

  The major sipped his drink. “Florida.”

  “What’s in Florida?”

  “General Wallace. He’s cleared the peninsula of infection. He’s got air assets to keep anybody out he wants kept out. He’s got considerable strength and resources and the closest thing to a working civilian government outside of Mount Weather. I’ve been in contact with a few units that have had the same idea. If enough of the military can make it to Florida, maybe Wallace would have enough strength to take back the country.”

  It was Lee’s plan for Boston but on a national scale. “Let me give it some thought, Major.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Lee regarded Walker with new respect. “You know, I was wrong about you.”

  Walker grinned. “I doubt that. I’m no hero. I want to stay alive, and I figure being right here, in the middle of a combat-effective battalion, is the best way to do that.”

  Lee would also be the man who might get shot once they reached Florida for disobeying orders and giving up Boston. If they were going to Florida. First, they would go to Fort Drum and find out what had happened there. They needed to ensure the soldiers’ families were safe and get supplies. Maybe that would be enough.

  “I think we’ll work well together in any case,” Lee said.

  “I share the sentiment, sir.”

  “Good, good. And, Major?”

  “Sir?”

  “You contravened the Colonel’s orders. If you do the same to me, I’ll have you shot. Are we clear on that?”

  Again, that enigmatic smile. “Crystal, sir.”

  TWENTY-SIX.

  Wade hoped a passing unit would bring in more wounded so he could hit them up for news, but nobody came. They had no radio. They were cut off.

  He kept to himself all morning. He nursed his banged-up ankle, his face. Something was in there, deep in his wound, tickling. Moving. Searching. He inventoried his emotions as a matter of routine. He didn’t want to hurt himself or anybody else. The truth was he felt numb.

  Maybe he wasn’t infected after all. Maybe he was immune. Or maybe he was about to become a murderer in five, four, three, two—

  Outside, Boston burned and smoldered. Black smoke filled the sky.

  There were around thirty soldiers in the building, and only nine appeared able to function for an extended period of time. Late in the morning, those men got up off the floor and walked down the hall. Wade found himself alone with three soldiers who lay with their backs to him—in other words, totally alone. These men were gone, empty husks. The things they’d seen and done had destroyed their ability to cope.

  He stood and dusted himself off. After some wandering, he found the others in one of the offices. They’d pushed the furniture against the walls and sat on the dusty carpet in a semicircle around Rawlings. She talked while she cleaned her disassembled carbine with a rod and patch.

  “You’ve all been in the shit,” she said. “You know that, in combat, nobody cares who you voted for, what god you worship, the color of your skin, or where your ancestors came from. All that matters is whether your friends are going to watch your six while you watch theirs. It’s true there are no atheists in foxholes, but the soldier’s religion is his platoon. He depends on his platoon more than he does God.” She smiled. “Welcome, Private Wade.”

  Wade nodded and sat with the others. “What’s this all about?”

  “Boot camp for lost souls. We’re planning on how we’re going to get out of here and back to civilization. Did you get the sergeant’s carbine?”

  “He said he’d cut off my balls if I took his weapon.”

  Rawlings looked impressed. “You got more out of him than we did. Did he say anything else? Is he going to get back into the game?”

  “I didn’t stick around to find out. I like my balls.”

  The men chuckled lightly.

  “All right.” Rawlings looked at Fisher and tilted her head toward Wade.

  Fisher stood and gave Wade his M4. “My hands keep shaking. I can’t shoot for shit. You should have it.”

  “Thanks,” Wade said, taking the weapon. He found the familiar weight of the carbine comforting. “I’ll take good care of it for you.”

  “You do that, bro.”

  Rawlings continued. “The problem is we’re not with our platoons. They’re dead, or they’re not here. It’s every man for himself at this post. All of us have lost friends, but we’re still here. Why? It doesn’t matter why. It just is. It hurts like hell, but that’s a good thing. The pain of losing everything, the guilt of having made it while other men, better men, didn’t. Embrace that pain. Make that guilt your friend.”

  Wade thought of Ramos, Williams, Ford and Eraserhead, and the faces of other men he’d once called brother. All of them gone forever.

  Rawlings put aside the cleaning rod and patch and began to reassemble her carbine. “You fought for those men, and now they’re gone. So why are you here? Why are you still fighting? What are you fighting for? We need a reason to fight. Think about that reason and hold onto it. I don’t care if it’s your mom back home or America or beer and tits, hold onto it.”

  The man chuckled again.

  “Whatever it is, it’s all you got right now. And once you got a hold of it, once it’s yours, you’ll be ready to fight. The people in this room, we’re going to be a new unit. You don’t need me to tell you that we have to be, or we won’t make it.”

  Wade looked at the others. Gray scowled back at him. Brown wore a dreamy, vacant expression. Fisher looked pale and shaky, as always. Wade didn’t feel encouraged. Under normal circumstances, they wouldn’t need inspiration from a National Guard reservist to keep going. They were all damaged goods, not least of all him. Somehow, this group of shattered men was going to have to learn to work together and trust each other with their very lives.

  “The Klowns are out there,” Rawlings went on, “and they know we’re in here. Some heavy shit is coming, and we’re going to be in it neck deep. Because mark my words, gentlemen, it’s only a matter of time before the Klowns get in or the civilians get pissed off enough to take a shot at us. If we want to sur
vive, we’re going to have to work together.”

  She slapped a magazine into the carbine’s well and propped the weapon against the wall next to her. “All right, then. Enough of this kumbaya shit. Let’s talk about how we’re going to get out of here alive.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN.

  Lt. Colonel Harry Lee’s eyes roamed across the big board and the drone footage rolling on multiple monitors. All displayed the progress of First Battalion’s scattered elements as they moved through Greater Boston’s clogged arteries and converged on Hanscom. The soldiers were fighting hard for every mile, their vehicles keeping just ahead of the mass migration of infected citizens pouring out of the burning city.

  Major Walker had proven to be a slippery one, but he’d probably saved the battalion with his subversive maneuvering. Aside from the crazies, tens of thousands of dazed refugees were on the move. They were easy pickings on the street. The crazies killed or infected them, swelling their own numbers into an irresistible flood.

  First Battalion was in full retreat. Lee was starting to tremble with exhaustion. He was sweating, and his body ached. He’d been standing for hours with every muscle clenched with tension. Those were his boys out there, and if they failed, it was game over. The burden of command brought a heady sense of responsibility he hadn’t anticipated.

  He gratefully accepted a cup of strong coffee from a second lieutenant. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had some decent chow and sleep.

  “Watch it,” he murmured as Alpha Company’s vehicles stacked up at a bottleneck. “Cover your flanks and rear until you get things squared away.”

  He was about to ask for the radio when Captain Randy “Hallelujah” Hayes sent vehicles out in every direction to provide security to the main column. Lee saw the fifties rocking in the gun turrets. White particles fluttered to the ground around the gunners—ash falling from the sky as if it were snowing in high summer. Tracers zipped downrange. The big rounds chewed up people and vehicles.

  Seeing the way the Alpha boys pounded their opposition made Lee consider—just for a moment—ordering them to turn around and go back into Boston. Concentrated, his lightfighters could deliver incredible firepower. They appeared almost invincible.

  But appearances were deceiving. Pulling out was the right thing to do. Boston was a lost cause, its people fled or infected, its once proud buildings slowly converting into ash. Lee doubted his forces had enough bullets to do the job at this point.

  “Radio,” he said.

  A staff sergeant gave him the phone. Lee barked instructions to the Apaches assigned to provide top cover for Alpha. He directed cannon fire at several civilian vehicles speeding along an open stretch of road toward Alpha’s position.

  He handed the radio back and sipped his coffee. On one of the video monitors, he kept watch on a speeding white Cadillac. Welded spikes protruded from its hood and roof, onto which a grisly array of severed heads had been mounted.

  The vehicle wilted under chain gun fire from one of the Apaches then burst into a fireball.

  Good work. Behind him, one of the staff sergeants whistled. The staff appeared to be in good spirits. The command post hummed with new energy. They were losing, but they were doing something. They had a new mission, one they could understand, one that had promise. They were getting the hell out from under the big hammer.

  They weren’t retreating. No. He hadn’t put it like that during his speech at Prince’s funeral, which he’d kept short on platitudes and long on communicating the new strategy. He called it “redeployment.” They’d fought the good fight, accomplished what they could, and they were returning to Fort Drum. If there were infected at Drum, they’d clean house. If there were survivors, they’d help them.

  The soldiers had looked back at him with faces lined with constant stress and fatigue. They didn’t cheer. But he saw a new gleam in their hollowed eyes. Lee hoped the men coming back from Boston felt the same way about their new mission. Together, they’d go to Fort Drum. They’d rest and refit then plan their next move.

  Bravo Company approached the wire. They’d made it.

  Lee heard cheering outside. “Major,” he said, “take over here. Back in five.”

  Walker snapped to it. “Yes, sir.”

  Lee wanted to greet Captain Marsh personally. It wasn’t going to be a pleasant meeting. He had bad news: The captain’s missing platoon had gone into one of the hospitals and had been virtually overrun. And Marsh was going to have to hand over his wounded, who would be locked up and cared for in a special quarantine facility on base.

  All in all, the next few days would severely test Lee’s diplomatic skills. If he was going to succeed as the new commanding officer, he needed the support of the field officers.

  He stepped out of the command post as the column of Humvees rolled through the gate and began to coil near the maintenance building. Soldiers shouted and slapped the metal hides of the vehicles as they rumbled past. The gunners smiled down at them and flashed the victory sign.

  They stiffened at the sight of Lee.

  One by one, they saluted him as they passed.

  TWENTY-EIGHT.

  Wade knew he had to come clean with Rawlings.

  He’d seen a lot of zombie movies back in high school. There was always some guy who got bitten but kept it secret from everybody else. Wade could never understand the motivation. If you knew you were infected and going to die, why not tell the others in your group? He always pictured himself in that situation, thinking he’d grab the nearest weapon and go out in a blaze of glory. With nothing to lose, he’d sacrifice himself so that others might live.

  The real world was not a movie. In the real world, the monsters didn’t shamble around trying to eat you; they howled with laughter while they pressed a hot iron into your face. Wade didn’t know if he was infected. If there was any chance he wasn’t, he didn’t want to be tossed out on the street to face those things alone. And if he was, he wasn’t sure he could handle being rejected and tossed out by the group. He needed them in more ways than one.

  Still, he owed them the truth. If there was any chance he could be a danger to them, they should know about it. The need to come clean felt like a crushing weight.

  Wade found Rawlings standing in front of one of the big picture windows overlooking the crowds boiling in the stadium.

  She greeted him with a nod before returning to the view. “I was just thinking about human nature, Wade.”

  “What about it?”

  “Cooperate versus compete. When the shit hits the fan, most people try to do the right thing. Then some assholes go and ruin it for everybody. See those guys?” She pointed at a gang of teenagers at the eastern edge of the playing field.

  He nodded. “Yeah. What about them?”

  “At least once a day, they drag some girl under the stands.”

  Wade frowned with disgust. “We should—”

  “There isn’t a damn thing we can do about it.”

  “Well,” he said. He didn’t know what to say.

  “More people come in every day. Nowhere out there is safe now.”

  Wade asked, “It’s safe in here?”

  She offered up a grim smile. “You’re a quick study, Private Wade.”

  They stood in silence for a few moments, watching the crowd. A boom box down in the camp played a rap song that pounded the air with its bass line. Wade shook his head at the stupidity. If he could hear the music up here, the Klowns could hear it out there.

  After a while, Rawlings nudged him and swept her arm across the view. “One day, my son, all this will be yours.”

  He smiled at her humor. Rawlings was like no other woman he’d ever known, the polar opposite of the girls back in high school, who were so insecure yet so full of themselves. With Rawlings, what you saw was what you got. He really liked her.

  One more reason to come clean.

  But all the more reason to fear her loathing and rejection.

  “Why don’t we leave?” he a
sked. “It seems to me we’re sitting ducks here.”

  “We’re healing, Wade. We need every minute of rest to get our fighting spirit back. Without it, we won’t last five minutes on the street. We’ll be dead meat out there.”

  “We can do it,” he assured her.

  “What about the other twenty guys here who are still too messed up to wipe their own asses? We need to give them every chance to come around and step up. I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell am not super excited about leaving them behind to get chopped up.”

  Wade nodded. She was right. But at some point, they were going to have to make a tough decision if they wanted to survive.

  “You’re cutting it awfully close,” he said. If it wasn’t too late already.

  “I know. I just don’t want to leave them.” She winced. “And maybe I’m a little scared, okay?”

  Wade hated seeing her forced to admit that. Of course she was scared. They were all scared. They were terrified. He wanted to put his arm around her and comfort her. He patted her shoulder instead. “It’s going to be all right.”

  “I grew up here. Bean Town is my home. It’s all going up in smoke. History itself. All those people…” Rawlings wiped her eyes and set her jaw. “I’ll face it when I’m ready.”

  “And then what? What’s the plan?”

  “You know the egress routes and the rally point. Assuming we get out of the building alive, we strike west. Travel only at night. Cross the river. Then north all the way to Hanscom.”

  “You’re coming with us?”

  “Camp Edwards is too far away. Think they’ll let me join your club?”

  “We’ll make a mountaineer out of you in no time, Sergeant.”

  “Once you’re back with the Tenth, I’ll be just another Nasty Girl to you hotshots.”

  Wade smiled. “Not a chance.”

  “I can’t stay with you boys anyway. I’ll find a Guard unit after we get to Hanscom. Gotta get back to my Bay Staters. No offense or anything to you mountaineers.”