by Hetzer, Paul
Maybe I can kill enough of them to block the stairway, he hoped silently to himself.
He remembered watching a show on the History Channel what seemed like a lifetime ago. It talked about what the military and police called the ‘fatal funnel’. It was any hallway, doorway, alley, passageway, or stairway that funneled an opposing force so that only a few of them could go through at a time. He remembered that a handful of defenders could hold off an army indefinitely by causing mass casualties in the fatal funnel. The battle of Thermopylae was an old example where King Leonidas and his Spartans held off the much superior force of Xerxes’ Persian Army at the ‘Hot Gates’ for several days. The King would have held them off indefinitely if a local Greek hadn’t betrayed his countryman and shown Xerxes a mountain path around the defending force. Jeremy hoped that he could use the stairwell as a fatal funnel and block up the stairway with their bodies. He knew that they didn’t think like real people and the threat of pain and death didn’t faze them; they would keep coming, and keep coming until he was dead, or they were.
He was truly frightened, although without realizing it, was funneling that fright into action. He recognized the fear and also realized that it didn’t have to control him. It was okay to admit to being afraid as long as you didn’t let the fear paralyze your actions. He thought of his momma and papa and would have traded a hundred dogs to be with them now. He looked guiltily at the dog as it stood alert next to him, remembering how it had jumped off the porch to take out the Loony before it could reach him, probably saving his life.
“I’ll call you Jumper,” he said to the dog, patting the scruff of its neck. The dog indicated its approval of the new name and wagged its tail and licked Jeremy on the cheek.
They heard another loud bang from somewhere below, along with the sound of breaking glass.
“Uh oh,” Jeremy whispered, hefting the AR pistol in his grip. “I think they’re in.”
Jumper made as if to lunge down the stairs, however Jeremy closed his hand onto the fur of the dog’s neck, holding him back. “You stay up here with me, Jumper,” he whispered in the dog’s ear, his voice tight with fright. He blinked back tears and pointed the pistol down the stairs, picking a spot on the wall to aim where a picture of a smiling family standing next to a lake hung.
That could have been my family, he thought wistfully.
It sounded like a herd of cattle were stampeding through the house below him, and he guessed the chair under the door trick didn’t work so well. Now it was time to put away his fear and concentrate on staying alive.
The first Loony appeared at the bottom of the stairwell, a young woman with filthy brown hair, clumped and knotted down her back, still wearing the remains of a t-shirt and a gold bracelet on her wrist that flared brightly as a ray of sunlight coming in the front window caught it. Before he could take the shot the Loony had moved away without looking up. Then a group surged into view and this time one of them glanced up and let out a guttural growl of rage when it spotted the boy sitting stoically on the top stair. This time, without hesitation, Jeremy put a round center mass, watching the puff of red sparkle in the sunlight as the bullet tore out the back of the Loony and lodged into the chest of another right behind it. Both dropped as if someone had cut the strings holding them up. The overpowering blast of the rifle in the small area caused Jumper to yelp in fright and spring backwards away from the boy.
Jeremy rapidly moved the sight onto the next target and fired again, continuing until the bolt held open, signaling the magazine was empty. Below him a mound of Loonies lay crumpled on the landing, some still squirming in their death throes. More Loonies began agilely scampering over the bodies. Jeremy picked up the XDM 9mm. He wasn’t quite as accurate with the handgun, however, he took his time and made the shots count. The mound of bodies swiftly grew below him. He calmly changed magazines, the last for the 9mm; this was the smaller 13 round magazine for the compact XDM. Then he would be down to the Mosquito with its 10 rounds of .22 in its only magazine. He probably wouldn’t have time to reload the .22.
He took careful aim at the next Loony as it tried scrambling over the pile of shifting bodies. It was the brown-haired woman with the bracelet. His first shot went wide and hit her in the shoulder, shattering her clavicle. She let out a keening scream as blood soaked her dirty tee shirt. Jeremy gazed fixedly into her bloodshot eyes, seeing the animal madness and hate burning in them, then the XDM’s glowing sight blocked out the eyes and he squeezed the trigger. A puckered red hole appeared in her forehead slightly above her right eyebrow and she collapsed on top of the heap as two more Loonies scrambled to get over her.
Jumper began barking frantically in one of the upstairs bedrooms behind Jeremy. He ignored the dog and sighted in on the next Loony, an older man with thin gray hair to match a thin gaunt face. Blood-tinged saliva dripped in long threads from its liver-colored lips. Jeremy sent a round through its brown-stained teeth and out the back of its neck and then immediately shot a boy about his age that was crawling over the pile beside the now dead man. The pile of dead Loonies was getting bigger, still, he would run out of ammo before he could ever clog up the stairwell completely. He felt sad that he would never get to see his parents again or the family farm where he loved to still play in the sandbox his papa had built there for him when he was a little kid.
He really just wanted to be a little kid again and not have to be scared so much. He didn’t want to die here all by himself.
The dog continued to bark anxiously close by. Through the ringing in his ears, Jeremy thought he could hear another sound over the barking of Jumper and the screeching of the Loonies.
A rumbling sound.
He fired two more shots at another male Loony attempting to get over the slick, bloody pile of bodies, only wounding it, but causing it to collapse backwards into the living room.
Then from outside he heard the sweet sound of a large-caliber automatic weapon. It pounded away in unrelenting loud bursts of noise and was joined by the staccato reverberations of smaller caliber weapons.
The rumbling sound grew louder and Jeremy recognized the noise as some type of large diesel engine moving about the house. Below, he watched the Loonies abandon their attempts to get up the stairs as this new sound attracted them away from his presence. His head swam. Was he saved? He stood and rushed into the room where Jumper was excitedly jumping back and forth in front of a window and barking crazily. The yard surrounding the house was littered with dead or injured Loonies. At first Jeremy couldn’t spot anything, then the sound of the diesel engine grew louder and around the corner of the house stormed an eight wheeled monstrosity painted in olive drab. Jeremy recognized it as a M1126 Stryker, the Army’s armored infantry carrier vehicle that usually carried a crew of two and up to nine infantry soldiers. A fifty caliber Browning M2 machine gun nestled in the remote weapons station on the top deck amid imaging equipment spat out rounds of fire while the giant tires of the vehicle crushed with bone snapping force any of the Loonies unfortunate enough to be caught between them and the ground. There were three people poking out of the top of the military vehicle. Two men dressed in full ACU camouflage, one with an M4 rifle and the other one wielding an M249 squad automatic weapon, both firing in short bursts as they selected their targets which were rapidly dwindling around them. In an adjacent rectangular hatch was a young blonde woman dressed in regular civilian clothes and armed also with a full-auto M4 rifle taking well aimed and placed shots from the moving vehicle.
“Yes!” Jeremy cried out in joy as the M2 cut down a mass of Loonies that were chasing after the vehicle while it plowed through any that were in its path. The smaller rifles took out any Loony that got too close to their flanks.
“The cavalry has arrived!” he exclaimed excitedly to Jumper, hugging the dog close to him.
Jeremy waited patiently for the action to die down outside and when he heard the vehicle stop near the front of the house with its engine idling, he gathered up his weapons, called Ju
mper, and made his way down the stairs. When he reached the bottom steps near the landing where the pile of bodies blocked his way, he heard someone kick the front door sharply. The door splintered and flew open, followed closely by two men with their M4s shouldered. He heard them call ‘clear’ on the room as one approached the pile of bleeding Loonies.
“Don’t shoot me! I’m not a Loony!” he called out to them. The man on the other side of the mound of bodies lowered his rifle.
“Over here!” he called out over his shoulder. The man then spoke briefly into a small microphone that wrapped around from his right ear.
The man had a tangle of curly dark hair starting to show some gray at the temples and a strong, muscular face that was black as coal. A dark beard hid the lower half of his face and gave him a menacing look, yet his bright brown eyes held a friendly glint in them. He was dressed entirely in Army camouflage complete with a reverse U.S. flag patch and Virginia Army National Guard patch on his shoulder; a nametape that read ‘Shavers’ was on his right breast. His shoulder chevron’s proclaimed him to be a First Sergeant, while his partner’s indicated a Sergeant. The other man came over beside him. He was a head shorter with a receding hairline of thin blond strands. Although he was shorter than the tall man he seemed to be as wide as Jeremy was tall. His crooked nose and patchy, sparse red-blond beard covering a wide, protruding square chin made him look even more intimidating than his partner. His nametape read ‘Heinlich’.
“You okay?” the first man asked Jeremy.
“Uh-huh,” he answered timidly. “Are you here to save me?”
“I’m not sure you needed saving,” the shorter man said in a gravelly voice as he admired the large pile of dead. “Looks like it was the crazies that needed savin’ from you.”
“Boy, you stay there quietly while we clear the rest of this floor. We’ll be right back,” the black man said while pointing his finger at Jeremy.
Within a minute both men were back and looking slightly more relaxed.
“How many are with you boy?” the black man asked.
“It’s just me and my dog, Jumper.”
“You did this all yourself?” the shorter man inquired.
Jeremy nodded. “Yeah, but I was almost out of ammo. You guys showed up in the nick of time.”
“How old are you, boy?” asked the tall man in a deep friendly voice.
“I’m ten. My name’s Jeremy.”
“Amazing,” the shorter man remarked. “Well, First Sergeant, let’s get Jeremy out of there.” He wrapped a gloved hand around the ankle of the dead Loony boy and pulled him off the pile. Within minutes the two men had the stairway clear enough that Jeremy could walk over the remaining dead bodies. He ran up to the short, wide man who was standing closest to him and hugged him fiercely. The man reluctantly hugged him back with an amused smile playing across his face.
“Enough touchy-feely. We need to get you into the Stryker and get the hell out of here before the bigger mobs show up.” The tall man motioned toward the door.
Out front the Stryker sat idling noisily. The bodies of Loonies lay everywhere, twisted, crushed, or shot to pieces. Many were piled in heaps two or three thick. The man with the SAW had climbed on to the top deck while Shavers was boots on the ground and he gave the First Sergeant a nod when he exited the house with the boy, then continued scanning the area around them with the gun’s heavy barrel. The blonde girl stood at the rear corner of the vehicle’s lowered troop door with her weapon up guarding the entrance. She briefly flashed a smile at Jeremy as they approached. The short wide man deftly climbed up the side of the Stryker and assumed a position on the top deck next to the SAW gunner while Shavers directed the boy and the dog around to the back of the large machine. They walked up the ramp into the vehicle’s inner sanctum where Shavers had to bend down nearly double once inside. The ceiling was low enough that even Jeremy had to crouch down a little.
“First Sergeant?” another ACU clad man standing on the ramp inquired of the tall man. His face was covered with a fiery red beard and he wore a headset that was connected to the interior of the vehicle with a long coil of wire.
“Let’s get her buttoned up and get back to base. We’ve stirred up the hornet’s nest and all hell will be coming down on this sector. We’ll have to re-plan this operation for another day.” He put a large hand on Jeremy’s shoulder directing him to sit on one of the side benches. Jeremy shrugged out of his pack, although kept his empty AR pistol slung tight against his chest. The dog jumped up on the bench and lay down next to him. “This here young man’s name is Jeremy and that’s his dog Jumper. He was holding his own in that house,” Shavers said with a hint of admiration.
He knelt down so his commanding eyes were level with Jeremy’s. “You sit tight and we’ll get you somewhere safe. Anything you need you just ask one of my men.” He stood up to his stooped position again. “As for introductions, we’ll go through that back at base. We need to get rolling ASAP.” He left Jeremy and shuffled bent-over to the front of the Stryker where he said something through the hatch to the men on the top deck. One of the men’s legs dropped through the hatch where he planted his feet on the bench beneath him, his upper body hidden from view out the hatch. First Sergeant Shavers glided into the commander’s seat on the starboard side of the vehicle, slid a pair of lightweight headphones over his ears, and spoke into the attached microphone while his hands danced over the controls and switches, reactivating the remote controlled M2 on the deck above him.
The red-headed soldier ushered in the young girl and then re-entered the vehicle, hit a switch, and the ramp closed. Jeremy heard the man speak into his head mounted comms unit: “You heard the First Sergeant. We’re buttoned up back here. Let’s pop smoke and RTB.”
The short, wide man’s legs dropped through one of the rear open hatches onto the bench next to Jeremy as the blonde woman in the blue jeans and plaid shirt stood up through another open hatch on the starboard side of the Stryker with her M4 shouldered and searching.
Within moments the pitch of the engine increased and the Stryker sped off from the house.
As the Stryker rumbled down some unseen road, Jeremy took in his surroundings. The white interior of the vehicle was equipped with two long padded benches along each wall with a separate thinly padded backrest. Cables and wiring harnesses ran along the walls of both sides, interspersed with steel piping. A long, narrow crawlspace along the port side of the vehicle led to the driver’s perch, where Jeremy could only see the back of a woman’s head sporting dark short-cropped hair as she navigated via her driver’s hatch. On the starboard side, surrounding Shavers in the commander’s seat, was an array of monitors, equipment, and controls. The armor of the vehicle appeared to be pretty thick to his limited experience and for once he realized that he was actually safe.
The red-headed man smiled kindly at Jeremy from across the aisle, and then slid down so he was sitting directly across from him.
“Can I get you anything? Water or something?”
Jeremy nodded. “Water would be good,” then he paused and said, “What I really need is some ammo. Two-two-three for my Sig and nine millimeter for my handgun.”
The red-headed soldier laughed heartily as he handed Jeremy a bottle of water from under the seat. “I believe you are a firecracker! I should know. I’m one too. Gotta be our red hair, don’t ya think?” The man winked at him playfully.
Jeremy remained quiet, and took the water eagerly.
“Hell kid, when we get back to base we’ll get you a full load out.” He laughed again.
“I’m not a kid no more,” Jeremy said firmly.
The man stopped laughing and stared at the boy with his green eyes narrowed to slits. “No, I reckon you’re not.”
Chapter Five
The four survivors sat around the campfire; one man and three women barely more than girls, each with their own personal demons garnered in their long, perilous journey to this point in their harried existence. Each one won
dering if there could ever be any absolution for the sins they had committed to survive. Then there was the fifth of their party, who lay muttering to herself in a grungy sleeping bag nearby; for better or worse, all but lost to this world.
Their bellies somewhat satiated by the food they had found and consumed, they sat around contemplating each other, this ragtag remnant of humanity.
After dragging the three bodies deep into the woods they had restrung the noise making perimeter wire, still keeping an eye and an ear on the deepening gloom as evening set in. They all had their firearms close at hand.
“Do any of you know what happened out there?” asked Katherine without looking up from picking dirt from beneath her ragged fingernails. She had pulled her long blonde hair into a tight ponytail that hung limply down her back. “I mean, I know that there was some type of plague because a lot of people got sick, but does anyone know how it happened?”
“It wasn’t a plague,” Steven grunted, pressing more rounds of .223 into a magazine. “A plague is caused by a bacterium. This was a virus.”
“Virus, bacteria, what difference does it make?” Dontela snarled. “Damn thing turned most people into M-80s, and those that didn’t turn mostly got killed by the M-80s or the human shit-stains that were left!”
“It matters to me,” muttered Katherine. She looked at Steven. “People said it was that meteor shower the night before that did it to us. Do you know what happened?”
Steven nodded to her then glanced at Kera, who sat leaning against him staring absently at the fire. He stuffed the full magazine in a pocket along with the remaining loose rounds.
“Yeah, I have more than a passing knowledge of what happened.” He put his arm around Kera’s shoulder and brushed her long, silky hair back from her face and bent down to kiss her on the forehead. “As I said, it wasn’t the plague. It was a viral infection. I’m not even sure that is the right terminology, since this was so unprecedented in that the virus wasn’t transmitted from another host or through an external vector. There was no patient zero in this pandemic because we didn’t have a point source of infection.” He paused and took a swig of water from the bottle beside him. “I was a microbiologist for the Army’s infectious disease lab in Maryland.”
