The Flood

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  At the same time, the woman in back opened up an AT-4 – a disposable 84mm anti-tank missile – and fired it off into the far end of the dead-free channel behind them, which was already collapsing. She must have had the round set for detonation delay, because it skipped off the road and bounced back up for airburst at waist level – slicing dead bodies in half, vaporizing them entirely, or tossing them thirty feet through the air. Before that explosion even settled, the woman – a look of fierce determination on her face, beneath a green cap embossed with the word ARMY, a dirty blond ponytail spilling out the back of that – tossed the empty tube, scooped up another, and fired that one off, too.

  But this second one must have been God’s own anti-tank weapon, because the increasingly crowded area behind them now went up in a truly bowel-shaking explosion – four times the size of the first. But in fact it was two explosions, almost on top of each other.

  “Last two mini-bombs away, Cadaver! Get your asses out of there!”

  It was Hailey – putting her last ordnance on target.

  Now Handon could see Ali, Homer, and Juice piling into the back seat and yanking the doors shut behind them. Seconds later, Henno and Pred leapt directly from a pile of rocks into the open truck bed – rocking even the big heavy truck on its tight rear shocks. That left the front passenger seat – and Handon had to fight his way to it, swinging his wakizashi left-handed and triggering off his very last fat .45 rounds with his right. Two runners, a Zulu, and a Bravo all dropped or fell apart in his path, and he hurdled the remains, hit the ground, and hurled himself into the truck, hauling the door shut and banging on the dash. “Go, go, go!”

  Dead bodies were already slamming into the outside of the vehicle.

  The man in the driver’s seat – Handon stole a quick look and saw it was a lanky young man with blond hair poking out from under his Kevlar, also wearing body armor, LBE, and a side arm – jammed the gear shift into reverse, put the accelerator through the floor, and rocketed them backward at a speed that would have been unsafe in a vehicle a quarter its size. As another rocket whooshed out from the truck bed, exploding close enough to pepper the truck with shrapnel, and the minigun banged away non-stop, sending a steel rain of heavy 50-cal casings cascading all over the roof, the driver now cut the wheel and pulled a textbook bootlegger turn.

  Whipping the front end around also almost took them into a shell crater – Hailey’s handiwork – and in fact the front wheels crashed into it but then ramped out again, ending with them still on all four wheels and accelerating forward like doomsday out of the collapsing vortex of the half-leveled hospital and the half-destroyed singularity around it.

  Handon’s head banged the roof repeatedly as they ramped over bodies – all dead, some destroyed – as the minigunner did his best to clear the way, and then the driver did the rest with the cattle-catcher on the grille. He could also see more sparking mini-explosions ahead and to either side as the roaring F-35 strafed ahead and around them, Thunderchild putting her last hundred rounds of 25-mil into clearing their way the ever-living hell out of town.

  “That platform was just too unstable!” the woman in back yelled at Pred, bringing up her M4 and selectively engaging targets to one side. “I had to circle and hope things didn’t get too rough to take you off!”

  Pred just slumped down in the corner, taking up half the truck bed. “You people make me tired,” he said. “Also, I think you’re looking for the Colonial Marines up the road.” He didn’t have a single round to shoot anyway, so he just lay down and rested his gigantic bones, and left any shooting to the others – not to mention the movie quotes.

  And he just watched it all go by.

  The woman stopped shooting long enough to offer her hand. “Kate,” she said.

  “Predator.” Her small hand disappeared in his giant one as he shook it.

  She cocked her head. “Seriously?” Her voice dropped an octave. “There's something out there hunting us. And it ain’t no man.”

  Pred almost smiled at this, despite himself. It was a hard one to argue with. And at least she hadn’t used the “You are one ugly mother—” line.

  Kate smiled back. That line had actually occurred to her first. But she was actually thinking Predator was kind of cute – not an adjective she could remember applying to a seven-foot, 320-pound soldier.

  Opposite the two of them, Henno rose into a crouch and stared out behind them.

  And he would have sworn on his life that he could see CSM Zorn up on top of that half-buried MRAP, laying about him with some kind of iron bar in one hand – and shooting a .45 with the other. Where he got the pistol would probably never be known. Maybe he is unkillable, Henno thought. It’s always the biggest arseheads who are.

  “You see that?” Pred asked, following his gaze. “Sergeant Major Badass.”

  “Sergeant Major Pain in the Arse,” Henno said. “But not in ours anymore.”

  He sat back down beside his huge teammate.

  And the pair of them just leaned back and enjoyed the cool night breeze blowing over them – as together they escaped the burning, shrieking, leaping, flapping, gnashing Somali death zone.

  They were finally out of the path of the flood.

  * * *

  As the last 50-cal casing clanged down on the roof, the minigunner, standing up in the middle of the back seat area, braced himself to lift out the empty ammo can and toss it over the side. Juice was already hefting a new one to hand up to him when he saw the gunner’s pants leg, which was practically in his face, lift up as the man shifted.

  There wasn’t a leg inside. Not a flesh one anyway.

  Juice froze dead for one second. Then he clinked his heavy metallic watch several times on the titanium of the prosthetic leg.

  “Cut it out,” the gunner barked, his voice deep and resonant. Then, as he ducked down into the vehicle, he saw the beard. But he’d already recognized it when its owner was leaping down the outside of the collapsed hospital – even as Juice had recognized the faded Triple Nickel logo painted on the side of the truck. Now the gunner smiled, black stubble crinkling around white teeth, and he said:

  “The whole goddamned world ends, and I’m still having to hump through the boonies to bail your hairy ass out.”

  “Hiya, Jake,” Juice said, spitting out the window. “Just as pleasant as always.”

  “Hello, Juice.” The man reached down and the two clasped hands, resulting in a brief but fierce mid-air arm-wrestling match – and a stalemate. “Always nice to see old friends.”

  Juice smiled in recognition.

  That had been his line last time around.

  * * *

  Handon had his NVGs down again – as did the driver, who was running without lights – and monitored the road ahead. It was nearly all clear now. And they were already nearing the edge of town, after only a couple of turns and a few minutes of high-speed driving. Handon somehow had the sense the driver knew these roads well. And maybe had even done all this before.

  “We heading north?” Handon asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Slow down when I tell you. We’ve got one more to pick up.”

  “Roger that.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Baxter.”

  “Handon. Nice driving.” He clapped the driver on the shoulder as the young man looked back to the road and negotiated a last turn. Hargeisa was just about behind them now, with not much but bush and clear road ahead.

  “There,” Handon said, pointing to the treeline, where he spotted glint tape through his NVGs. As they rolled up on the shoulder, Noise noiselessly slipped out of the bush and piled into the back, evidently landing on Pred, as they heard the big man growl, “Ocupado, motherfucker.”

  The truck rolled out again and the open road spread out in front of them.

  Now that it looked like they weren’t all going to die in the next minute, and his breathing and heart rate had gotten somewhere down in the ballpark of normal, Handon flipped up h
is NVGs and swiveled to face the driver.

  “Okay,” he said. “Who are you people? And what are you doing here?”

  Baxter upshifted then flipped up his own NVGs. There was a fair bit of starlight now, the night sky having cleared of smoke and dust. He stole a glance over at Handon, who could now see he was very young indeed. But he seemed totally focused and serious when he said: “It’s not what we’re doing here – it’s what you guys are doing here.”

  He glanced back to the road, then looked back at Handon – right in the eye.

  “You’re here for Patient Zero – aren’t you?”

  Handon was too surprised to even know how to respond.

  The driver looked forward again. “Zack said you’d come one day.”

  Now Handon caught motion in his peripheral vision – and turned to see Ali half-sticking her head up into the front. Now she was the gobsmacked one, staring at them open-mouthed.

  The driver nodded again. “We know where it is. And we can take you there. But I don’t think there’s any chance of getting it out.”

  Handon didn’t answer – but only thought:

  Just watch us.

  He was sick to death of running, hiding – and doubting. It was long past time for them to regain positive control of their mission. To regain the initiative. For Handon to restore faith, his own and the others’, in his ability to command. And for all of them to regain their belief in themselves – and in each other.

  For them to stop reacting – and start acting again. To start operating.

  They’d gotten out of Hargeisa alive, somehow. But it went without saying that survival wasn’t nearly enough. Because their mission so far had been a total soup sandwich – a series of betrayals, disappointments, casualties, and near-disasters. But now they were being given a second chance. And second chances were rare.

  So they’d damn well better prove themselves worthy of this one.

  Handon had been around long enough to know that character was what you did on your third and fourth tries. And it was what defined you.

  He sat still and watched the night go by – and he mentally prepared himself.

  For their very last shot at this thing.

  Goddamned Crazy Son of a Bitch

  Jizan - the Waterfront

  “I’ll be goddamned,” Burns said, wading out beside the dock and putting his hand on their CRRC. “It’s still here.”

  “Bring it in closer!” Browning shouted. He couldn’t see a damn thing out on the blackness of the water, but had to trust that Burns had found their boat. Night had fallen completely now, and the darkness was deep and total with the plant fire out. Also, it seemed their night vision hadn’t totally recovered from that world-straddling inferno.

  Stumbling in the dark, Browning and Jenson now carried the DNA sequencer, one on each side of the heavy, unwieldy, priceless device. They’d had to ditch the cart long ago in order to negotiate the flood-ravaged terrain. But their exhausted arms were also now surging with a last pulse of strength, mainly due to finding the boat where they’d left it. Albeit it was floating now rather than beached.

  The tide here on the Red Sea was significantly higher than it had been before. Because Wesley had just dumped half of Lake Michigan into it.

  He’d also had the foresight to tie up their boat, even though it was on dry land when they left it. As Burns pulled it in, then swung it around toward the others, he was pretty sure that was the only reason it was still here. The main path of the flood had been to the south. But there had been enough here that it would have washed away their ride if it hadn’t been tethered.

  Wesley was looking smarter by the minute.

  Burns held the boat steady in the waist-deep black water as Browning and Jenson hefted the precious sequencer up into it. And as he did so, he looked back up the gently sloping land, over Judy’s furry head where she sat alert at the water’s edge, and toward the sprawling scene of charred and flooded devastation behind and above them.

  And he thought, not for the first time:

  The goddamned crazy son of a bitch did it.

  * * *

  From their starting position, way back up at the pharma complex, the three surviving members of Team Mutant had actually been able to see it all happen in real time, laid out below them like a diorama: the explosion at the water tank, then the structure ripping open and unleashing the flood – which instantly went blasting straight through the middle of the plant, putting out the biggest fire any of them had ever seen, completely, and in a matter of seconds.

  After the deluge, there had still been a few big burning areas out to either side, where the oil-vat artillery rounds had impacted, sending their glow out into the night. And there were a few flaming patches of ruined ground, like in LA circa 2029 A.D. – except instead of robotic feet crushing human skulls, it was infected zombie feet slipping on other zombies’ faces.

  But that was only in the distance. The middle proved to be totally clear of the dead. The flood had not only put out the fire – it had washed away the singularity, picking up thousands of undead bodies with its tsunami force, and whisking them away and out into the Red Sea.

  Wesley had executed his maniac plan. And it worked – perfectly.

  Nonetheless, the survivors’ run across the charred and flooded and night-shrouded remains of the plant, and Jizan Economic City around it, had been more than a little harrowing. Judy led the way the entire time – and, they were fairly sure, had kept them skirting around hazards they would otherwise have foundered on.

  As they angled toward the waterfront, mainly by feeling for and following the downward slope, there was a ton of debris to loop around or climb over. There were deep pits of water they had to avoid – not having any idea how deep they’d turn out to be. And there were also big sections of building and plant still tumbling down or falling over in the darkness, causing additional waves of surging water they could hear rolling toward them.

  This flooded world was still settling.

  But they didn’t dare wait for it to finish, terrified the dead were going to flood back in as the water flooded out. But as they dodged these other hazards, the dead weren’t among them. Breathing hard, trying to keep moving, taking care not to drop the sequencer, Browning had been the first to say it:

  “Fire: out. Dead: gone. Wesley washed it all away.”

  * * *

  Burns climbed into the boat last, after holding it steady for Browning and Jenson and untying the mooring line. Then he whistled for Judy, who jumped into the black water and quickly paddled out. All three of the humans reached out and helped drag her up and over the side.

  Then they got the paddles out and got moving out onto the water – and away from all this destruction and madness. Burns for one wasn’t sure if it mattered now whether or not they used the outboard motor this close to shore. But he figured they may as well play it safe and follow the briefed plan.

  While Browning and Burns paddled, Jenson frantically hailed Wesley on the radio. He tried for a full minute – but when nothing came back, he put his hands out to still the others’ paddling.

  “We can’t leave him,” he said. It looked like there were tears in his eyes. “He never would have left us. I can tell you that.”

  “Maybe,” Burns said, letting his paddle rest, and looking the young man in the eye. “But if he were here, I guarantee you he’d tell us to get the hell out – with that.” And he nodded at the DNA sequencer in the bottom of the boat.

  “I’m with Jenson,” Browning said, stopping paddling. He was loyal to Wesley.

  Burns swelled up and looked from one to the other. “Oh, okay – so you two want Wesley to have died for nothing? That dude just pulled off the most amazing feat of bravery and insanity any of us will probably ever have the honor of witnessing. And if we don’t get this overpriced photocopier the hell out of here, if we get taken down now, it’ll all have been for nothing.”

  Burns pointed his paddle out over the black surface of th
e Red Sea. Now that their night vision was finally adjusting to the inferno-less darkness, they could see that there were dead in the water. Of course there were – they’d all been washed away, but they had to go somewhere. And it was here, into the sea.

  Burns shoved Jenson lightly in the chest. “And you are not going to ruin what Wesley did, or make it all for nothing. I won’t let you steal his glory.”

  Jenson finally nodded – and switched channels on his radio to call for the helo.

  And Browning and Burns got paddling again.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, they had been assured that the Seahawk, having completed its medevac and refueling, was en route to extract them. Burns had his hand on the outboard motor, about to start it and get them further out…

  When Judy barked, three times, right in a row.

  And before anyone could stop her, she rose up, leapt over the side of the boat, hit the water – and started dog-paddling for all she was worth.

  “What the hell?” Browning said.

  Jenson just smiled. “I trust the dog.”

  “Yeah,” Burns said. “Me, too.”

  Without another word, they started paddling the boat after her.

  Judy got out of sight in the dark pretty quickly, but they could follow the splashing. And before she disappeared, they could also see that she was having to navigate through the dead. Zulus couldn’t swim, but a lot of these ones had been cooked to embers, plus presumably had the gases inside them inflated, and were now floating corpses. Which didn’t mean they were no longer animated – or dangerous. The three survivors of the team were pretty safe in the boat.

  But Judy wasn’t, out of it and down in the water.

  If she got a medal for this, which she definitely deserved, the citation would read something like, “Without hesitation, and with complete disregard for her own life, Judy left her position of safety and swam straight into the ranks of floating dead, exposing herself to enemy bites and scratches…”

  Within a few seconds, they heard another bark – and then some kind of grunting, as well as more violent splashing. Burns and Browning redoubled their paddling and raced toward the noises. Jenson got his light out and shined it on the black surface of the ocean. He only had to pan around for two seconds before he saw it: a human figure, hair slicked back, and using a big knife to stab at floating dead who were pawing and grabbing.