Plague Years (Book 3): This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine

by Rounds, Mark

  Suddenly, the hillside in front of the truck erupted in fire as the rest of Antonopoulos’ detachment began firing. The area to the south of the truck was cleared out in seconds, but under the cover of darkness many infected were crawling around in the brush on all sides. The fusillade died out as the airmen ran out of targets. They were then reduced to firing at sounds and movement in the darkness.

  “Cease FIRE!” shouted Antonopoulos. “Pick your targets! Shoot only when you are sure of your target and for God’s sake, make sure you’re not aiming at the truck! It’s our ride out!”

  The fire died down some but there was no way for the troops on the hill to disengage without having to mix it up with the Infected.

  Winters saw all of this in an instant and fired up the diesel to begin moving forward. Jeremy only had a split second to jump out of the way. The truck lumbered forward towards the hill. Both doors on the trailer were now open and airmen were firing from each side. Jeremy grabbed the edge of the door and used the forward momentum for the truck to swing him onto the bed.

  “Watch out LT!” said Ireland as he brought his M-60 to high port.

  The truck stopped at the base of the hill. Antonopoulos, who had a few seconds to figure out what was going on, started waving his troops forward.

  “Cease Fire, get in the truck now!” shouted Antonopoulos whose exhortations were echoed by Major Kong and Chief Shiner.

  A young communications specialist, Airman Holly Henry, was running down the hill when a large Infected man who had been shot earlier grabbed her ankle and sent her sprawling. Then he was on her. She fired once more, hitting him in the side but it didn’t stop him. As soon as he closed, the Infected man bit her left forearm and wouldn’t let go. After struggling ineffectually with him for a few seconds, Holly released the shotgun with her left hand and pointed it one handed at the Infected’s face and fired. The recoil ripped the gun out of her hand but the charge mostly hit his face knocking, him free. Chief Shiner, who had started moving toward the struggling pair, fired a short burst from his M-4 into the ruined face of the infected putting him down for good. He them turned his attention to Airman Henry who was clutching her left arm in pain.

  “He bit me Chief,” said Henry through the pain, “and I don’t shoot so good. I hit myself with a couple of pellets from the shotgun.”

  “You shoot just fine, Airman,” said the Chief reassuringly.

  Then Henry removed her hand and looked at her arm.

  “He got me real good,” said Henry pointing to Shiner’s M-4. “Do it Chief.”

  “You sure?” said Shiner, shocked by the thought of shooting his own, even though they all talked about not wanting to live short lives as Slash addicts.

  “You have to,” said Henry with tears in her eyes. “I don’t want to be like them. But if they ever find my mom, tell her I tried to be brave.”

  Shiner fired.

  “You were very brave, sweetheart,” said Shiner wiping away his own tears. Then he made sure all of the rest of his troops had made it to the truck and boarded himself.

  “We have to make a pickup on Sergeant Martin,” shouted Antonopoulos over the din. “He was shadowing you. He was down by the bend in the road.”

  “Where is he now?” asked Price.

  “No clue,” said Antonopoulos. “He is probably trying to get to us. We need to reduce the distance so head back out the way we came.”

  “Sir are you nuts?” said Jeremy. “Have you ever tried to turn one of these things around on a dirt road?”

  “Don’t turn around, Lieutenant,” said Antonopoulos, “back it up!”

  The light dawned and Jeremy vaulted out of the open door, caught the edge to redirect his flight then worked forward to the cab and pounded on the side window.

  “Geez, you scared the shit out of me,” said Winters in a voice that was at least an octave higher than normal.

  “Back this rig up towards the bend in the road!” shouted Jeremy.

  “We’re going in the ditch for sure!” said Winters, but he began backing up.

  Meanwhile, Sergeant Martin had done the smart thing and remained in his hide as the Infected streamed past him. Then he began sniping at their backs. Unfortunately, they weren’t all in a straight line so after the first couple of shots, the Infected began moving towards him. He began firing longer and longer bursts, trying to shoot his way out. He started moving downhill as he was firing, trying to confuse the Infected because his ammunition was limited. In the first three minutes, he was through his first two magazines and he only had six.

  The sound of gunfire from the truck comforted him a little because he knew that his shots had given them a few seconds warning, now all he had to do was stay alive and get to the truck.

  Martin ran from tree to tree, firing to clear his path. But some of the Infected were faster as they were not burdened with his military gear or body armor. The first Infected man closed with Martin, who dispatched him with four rounds from his M-4. The second was a woman and he hesitated a split second before firing, allowing her to close, grasping his left arm and pointing the M-4 toward the sky.

  He struck her twice with his gloved hands but it hardly slowed her down and then she was on him. The combination of his PJ conditioning and adrenalin allowed him to lift her bodily in the air and toss her at the oncoming rush in Infected which bought him a little time. The bad news was that his M-4 went with the assailant.

  Now moving without his long arm, he was making better time, but still not fast enough. He drew his M-9 and so when the next Infected grabbed Martin, his target was met with six 9mm slugs at close range. However, in turning to fire, he lost his footing in the dark and rough terrain and went down. He emptied his M-9 as the Infected swarmed him. Martin continued to strike out with every appendage, unwilling to give up, but he was also unable to struggle to his feet.

  Then he heard the bark of the twelve gauge, first one then another of the Infected on him stopped struggling. He felt a few pellets hit his body armor, but they didn’t have much zip after passing through the Infected pile of bodies and so they didn’t penetrate. Three more shots and Martin was able to scramble to his feet to be met by Chief Shiner’s M-4 and Senior Airman Risch carrying a 12 gauge.

  “Damn, I am glad to see you Chief,” said Martin with more than a little feeling.

  “They get to you, son?” said the Chief, still holding his M-4 at Martin’s middle.

  “No, no, they chomped on my body armor some but nothing got through,” said Martin, now only too aware the Shiner would shoot him if he thought he was infected. At this range, his body armor would not stop a 5.56 mm jacketed slug.

  “Good to hear,” said Chief Shiner who was now smiling, M-4 at high port. “Let’s get you back to the truck.”

  Chapter 3

  July 10th, Friday, 9:51 pm PDT

  US Highway 195 just north of Steptoe WA

  Connor and Sayla had worked their way up to a farmhouse that was just two hundred yards from where one of Macklin’s remaining buses had stopped for the night. They had spent the better part of the last hour making their way through the buildings in and around Steptoe. Currently they were in a home that belonged to Raymond Hunseid, a retired farmer Jacob Ulman knew. Ray had been fuming about the buses that had parked across the street and had even got out his old Winchester 30-30 but had kept from shooting as the occupants of the bus disembarked and appeared to be much more heavily armed than he was.

  “Mr. Hunseid,” said Jacob diffidently, “We would like to fire on those folks over there in the bus but …”

  “Shoot ‘em!” said the old man, who was nearing his eightieth year. “I’ll help!”

  “Mr. Hunseid,” said Jacob, “There aren’t enough of us to take them all out. The best we can do is harass them some, maybe kill a few. But they might take it into their heads to burn this place down or something.”

  “Jake,” said Hunseid more calmly. “I taught your daddy in school years ago. This town was different then.
We had lots of young families in town and on the farms in these parts. But more and more they’ve moved away. Then that damnable Plague came and most of the rest left. There aren’t but about fifteen people in town, most of them are my age.

  “I know who those folks are,” said Hunseid indicating the Infected around the bus. “I don’t mean what their names are, I mean what they are. They’ve got it, you can see it from here, and they want to spread it. One of my kids has a house in Pullman and was bugging me to move in with her. I got enough gas in the truck. I could probably do it, but this is my home. I’ll be damned if I am going to abandon it to them. Better they burn it down rather than use it to make more people sick.”

  “Mr. Hunseid,” said JD, “we can’t get you back to Pullman, we are on foot and just going to harass these folks. We don’t want you to get killed.”

  “You won’t,” said Hunseid with a bit of a laugh. “I know the ground around here. What I haven’t farmed, I‘ve hunted, both deer and upland game. These Palouse Hills, if you know them, will make me invisible once I step out the back door. I may not be as fast as I once was, but I still know the ground.”

  “Where will you go, Mr. Hunseid?” asked Jacob.

  “That widow, Mrs. Campbell and I have had an ‘understanding’ for the last few years,” said Hunseid with a wink. “She has been bugging me to move in with her, even before the Plague. It would be a damn sight nicer than moving in with my daughter and her three whiny teenagers.”

  “Mrs. Campbell just turned sixty!” said Jacob without thinking.

  “I know,” said Hunseid with a sly grin. “I’ve always had a weakness for those hot young chicks.”

  “Seriously though,” said Hunseid, who was all business now, “Give me five minutes and then do what you need to. This house saw me through four kids and forty-five years of marriage, but it’s just a house and it’s kind of old and tired, like me.”

  Hunseid had obviously been planning his escape for he shouldered an old ruck sack, picked up his rifle, pulled his hat down low over his brow and strode out the back door.

  “We’ll give him a little more than his five minutes,” said JD kindly. Old man Hunseid had been a customer of his father’s trucking company for years and had taught him in school too.

  After several more than five minutes, JD nodded to Connor.

  Connor had been lining up his first shot since he had set up to fire through the living room window when they came in. Sayla had procured a low coffee table and a flour sack for Connor to use as a shooting rest. Sayla had also opened the small window adjacent to the main picture window so Connor wouldn’t be shooting through glass.

  There was a lookout who looked incredibly bored sitting on top of the bus. Connor’s first shot toppled him. His second and third shots buried themselves into the bus’s engine block, oil and coolant began streaming from below the bus. Then the other Infected mercenaries began boiling out of the bus and the nearby buildings where they had been sleeping or goofing off. Connor began to methodically pick off the closest ones until his M-1 expelled its clip. Sayla tapped him on the shoulder and they vacated their shooting stand. A few seconds later, return fire shattered the front window, but by then, Connor had reloaded and moved to the front bedroom. Eight quick shots and another expended clip and Sayla and Connor were gone from that room.

  They moved back to the kitchen and nodded to JD, who pulled the pin on the grenade that was taped to the door jam. Attached to the door was a piece of twine that was looped around the safety handle of the grenade, holding in in place. Then they all followed Mr. Hunsied’s lead out the back door.

  July 10th, Friday, 9:56 pm PDT

  South State Highway 23 just west of Steptoe WA

  Nergüi grasped his head and sat down. The rest of his patrol stopped to watch him as he gasped in pain.

  “No, No, NOOO!” said Nergüi after a few moments.

  Ælfheah, one of his three remaining followers and easily the largest man in the group, cleared a circle around his leader.

  “They are behind us,” said Nergüi still with his head in his hands. “The Infected found him. He is not twenty miles from Fairchild. We drove past them in our rush to keep him from reaching Moscow.”

  “What should we do?” asked Ælfheah, who, while being as large as a pro football player was actually quite childlike, if you ignored the weapons that festooned his combat armor.

  “We will find some transport,” said Nergüi gaining some strength in his voice, “and drive back to where they are. We can still capture him if we do not tarry.”

  Nergüi punched up Macklin’s number on his phone.

  “Macklin,” came the distant response.

  “I need you to come find me,” said Nergüi.

  “That’s going to be a little difficult,” said Macklin, dissembling.

  “Enlighten me,” said Nergüi menacingly.

  “Another of my buses has been shot up,” said Macklin. “It can’t move. I have troops out looking to requisition transport but as of now, half of my force is on foot.”

  “Do you have ANY transport at all?” asked Nergüi.

  “I have three busses left,” said Macklin. “I have one here with me on the outskirts of Steptoe, a second is near Thornton monitoring the Washboard Road that leads away from your recent ambush site, and the last one is in Rosalia.”

  “Have the one near Thornton come to my location,” said Nergüi.

  “I’ll send them of course,” said Macklin dissembling, “but it’s dark out with no moon. How will they find you?”

  “ARRGH!” shouted Nergüi at the air.

  “Ælfheah,” said Nergüi with his hand over the microphone, “What is the name of that road over there?”

  “Trunkey Road,” said Ælfheah after consulting his GPS. “We are near the Hansen farm.”

  “Have them drive down Trunkey Road,” said Nergüi. “Stop at the Hansen farm. We will be there.”

  “They will roll in five,” said Macklin.

  As soon as Nergüi broke the connection, Macklin waved Ngengi over to him.

  “Get this bus ready to roll,” said Macklin. “We are going to leave a big hole in the net we have cast for the General. We are going to have to fall back to Thornton, then meet up with Nergüi and come up with a better plan. Battering our way through these two units plays right into the Strickland’s hands. Better to go around them, and the night is the best time.

  “Since we only have one bus, take the casualties and the least reliable troops and load them up with Slash and lock them in that grain shed over there. We can come back later if we are successful and pick them up. If not, we can find more later.”

  “There was a time where I would have killed you for this ‘independent thinking’,” said Ngengi grudgingly. “But I see what you are about. This seems to be a better path to achieve Nergüi’s goals. I will do as you ask.”

  It was only after Ngengi had turned and walked away that Macklin realized that he had been holding his breath.

  July 10th, Friday, 10:35 pm PDT

  US Highway 195 2 miles north of Steptoe WA

  Connor was watching the Infected with his binoculars from his new hiding place, the bank of a railroad cut a mile down the road from Mr. Hunseid’s home. He had watched while they had moved a number of casualties into a big warehouse along with some other troops. They were in the warehouse a long time and then only three of them came out. All that was left was one busload of mercenaries.

  “JD, it looks like that bus is getting ready to move,” said Connor handing the binoculars to JD.

  “Can you stop it?” asked JD.

  “I can hit the bus,” said Connor, “but I can’t guarantee that I can stop it.”

  “Take the shot,” said JD, “and then be ready to move. Either way, Major Tippet needs to know.”

  Connor nodded and took the shot. The round impacted on the hood. But then the bus started rolling anyway. Connor shifted to the tires and fired five times, the last round puncture
d the right rear tire.

  “OK,” said JD, “We gotta go.”

  “I will stay,” said Sayla, “for a little while to make sure you aren’t followed.”

  “You sure?” asked JD worriedly.

  “I will wait a few minutes and then follow,” said Sayla. “If they try to send a patrol, I will delay them.”

  “Your call,” said JD, who gathered up his kit and nodded to Jacob and Connor. They slipped down the grade and began working their way toward the gulley where Major Tippet’s force blocked the road.

  Sayla retreated back into the shadows. He did not have long to wait. There was first a fusillade of fire that went harmlessly over his head. Then one of Macklin’s mercenaries was sent up the hill. Sayla waited until he was out of sight of his comrades, then moved quickly behind him and cut his throat before he had a chance to even recognize that he was dead. However the distraction allowed Carlos and Ngengi, two of Nergüi’s long serving henchmen, to jump him. Sayla had the reflexes of a cat, so before Carlos could thrust the knife he was carrying, Sayla kicked him high and low, causing him to drop his blade and stumble back.

  Ngengi, with the strength of an Olympic powerlifter, grabbed Sayla in a bone crushing bearhug. Sayla kicked and flailed, but Ngengi had been in too many fights to be caught that way. However, the struggling did allow Sayla to plant both of his feet firmly on the ground when Ngengi’s grip slipped a bit and he was able to jackknife his body, lifting Ngengi off the ground. A hard twist and Sayla slammed Ngengi into the ground with his elbow in his solar plexus breaking Ngengi’s grip. Sayla rolled over and in the same motion drew his Colt Delta Elite and fire three times, all striking Ngengi. However, because Ngengi had kept rolling, two were in his legs and the third glanced off his helmet. None were immediately life threatening, but he was out of the action for a bit.

  By then Carlos had gathered his wits and moved nearly as fast as Sayla, who was focused on shooting Ngengi. Carlos was never one for showing off, so his right cross to Sayla’s jaw was very fast and caught Sayla completely by surprise. Sayla’s jaw was dislocated and he was knocked unconscious. Carlos wasted no time in restraining his hands, feet, and removing all manner of weapons that Sayla had secreted on his body.