“Let’s remember who’s in command, Corporal,” she reminds him. Plugging the earpiece from her com device back into place, Brooks turns it on and listens for a second before being forced to stick a finger in her open ear to block out the wailing of the emergency alarm. “Get a hold of someone and see if you can get that thing shut off,” she tells Patel before fingering the talk-button on the throat strap.
“All teams. This is Major Brooks,” she announces to interrupt the radio chatter. “This is Major Brooks,” she repeats. “Where is the breach? Report in.”
“This is sector four. The infected have broken through the doors in Section G on level two,” a voice shouts through the radio over an explosion of gunfire. “They’re pouring into the corridor leading to the ramps. We’re barely stopping them!”
“We’re in sector six,” a woman shouts over the comms. “We’ve got bogeys trying to come through the barricades in small groups. I don’t know how much longer we can hold them! Requesting permission to—” But she’s cut off by another soldier’s transmission.
“Breaches in sectors two and three, he yells into his radio. “Repeat. Sectors two and three are breached by the infected. We’re pulling back!”
“That’s a negative! Do not fall back. Hold your positions and wait for further orders!” Brooks shouts before switching off her mic and pulling the earpiece out of her ear. Stepping the few feet to her desk, she grabs the small radio laying on it. The radio was one of a few she’d brought with her for a separate channel of communication. Brooks had given one to Nichols so they could have private conversations without risk of being overheard. “Sergeant Nichols, come in,” she says into the device.
“Major! Where the hell are you?” Nichols replies immediately.
“In my office,” she answers. “What’s your location?”
“Where you should’ve been five minutes ago! Inside idling transport. I sent Patel to get you. Where is he?” Nichols asks.
“Roger that. He’s here with me,” she tells him.
“Major. We need to move,” Patel says while looking down the hallway through the small opening in the office door.
“What’s your status?” she asks Nichols, ignoring Patel’s statement of the obvious.
“Safe for now, but ready to get the fuck out of here,” Nichols answers. “We’ve got multiple breaches from inside. The infected on the field are starting to test against the exits. Oh! And the perimeter guards are reporting hundreds of infected are approaching the stadium from the surrounding streets. Like they were all just waiting for a signal!”
“How many men are there with you in the motor pool?” Brooks asks, referring to the secured loading docks where the MTVs and other vehicles were being kept. She hadn’t considered its proximity when choosing her office and now regretted the oversight. While the two were fortunately on the same floor of the stadium, they were on nearly opposite sides.
“Twenty, tops. All the others were either manning the barricades or following your orders for bugout, when the alarms went off,” Nichols replied.
“Is everything ready?” she asks.
“Sprinkler lines are an affirmative,” Nichols replies. “But, at the last report before all hell broke loose, the charges are all in place but only about half of them wired to blow,” he replies.
“That’ll have to do,” Brooks says. She mentally assesses the distance between her current location and her means of escape, which happens to be at Nichols’ location. “I want you to wait three minutes and then open the sprinkler lines. If I’m not there two minutes after that, blow the charges.”
“Three and two. Roger that,” he replies.
Patel eases the office door open and scans both ends of the hallway as the staccato cadence of the gunfire increases. He can’t help noticing the major had excluded him from consideration in the time needed for her to make an escape with Nichols. Regardless of her intentions, he planned on being on that transport, preferably behind the wheel.
“Nichols, I’ll need the whole time to get to your twenty. Do not, under any circumstances, take action ahead of schedule,” Brooks orders. “While you’re waiting for me, see if you can get that damn alarm shut off, understood?”
“Understood,” Nichols answers. He doesn’t fail to notice the major omitted part in her orders where he’s supposed to get himself and whatever soldiers are still alive into the transport and evac this deathtrap. He’d give her every minute she’d ordered, but not one second longer. Whether Brooks intended him to or not, he’d already prepared for that particular eventuality without the need for direct orders from Brooks. Knowing the major, she probably hadn’t even considered anyone else making it out of here alive if she wasn’t going to. Consequently, there was no need to plan for someone else’s escape. He knew if it came down to only one of them being able to escape this, he liked his current odds of survival over hers. Unfortunately, Patel’s death was nearly a foregone conclusion in his mind. He knew Brooks would sacrifice the kid without hesitation.
“Ready to go?” Brooks asks Patel as she clips the radio above the sling to her loaded M-4.
“Yes ma’am. I’ve been ready,” Patel answers.
“One more thing,” she tells him, as she puts her dangling earpiece back in place. Brooks’ one ear is immediately filled with a steady stream of radio chatter over the echoing, three-round bursts being fired.
“All teams, this is Major Brooks,” she says, waiting a moment for the conversations to die down before continuing. “I’m ordering all teams to do whatever you have to, to hold your positions. We must keep these infected bastards contained. I’ve just received word from Colonel Beaurite that he has an ETA inside of ten minutes and he’s bringing reinforcements,” Brooks says, looking Patel directly in the eyes as she lied to her men. “You are ordered to maintain control and containment of the stadium until the colonel and our help arrives,” she added. She didn’t bother listening for any responses as she fingered her mic off and pulled her earpiece out.
Brooks adjusts her personal pack between her shoulder blades, checks her loaded mags and verifies the two grenades attached to her tactical vest were secure. She wasn’t planning on using them, but she’d rather have them and not need them than the opposite. As soon as she finished her personal inspection, Brooks motions Patel to lead the way. Easing open the door to the hallway, Patel checks to their left and then turns right from the door, away from where the majority of the gunfire is coming from. It’s also the shorter of the two choices to get to the loading dock on the opposite side of the stadium, and the relative safety of the vehicles.
They moved quickly and carefully down the hall, using what little cover was available along the walls to advance. They leapfrogged past each other as they’d both been trained. One after another, they alternated taking point to the next shallow doorway or the occasional drinking fountain mounted to the walls as the one behind covered their six. They kept their M-4s shouldered with their fingers laid over the triggers and their eyes searching for incoming threats.
Ahead of them was a narrower corridor, bisecting the one they were in. Three soldiers were hunkered down behind a pile of desks and other furniture they’d gathered from the nearby offices. All three had their weapons pointing down the hall leading to the right. Farther down that hallway, Brooks saw one of the barricades she’d ordered to keep the infected confined, stacked high and blocking a set of double doors. Something, or more likely several somethings, were banging against it from the other side. A chair tumbled from the top of the pile after a heavy strike, and one of the soldiers shoots it as it hits the floor.
“Cease fire!” Brooks orders, not wanting to catch a bullet of her own from the shaken trio.
“Major Brooks!” shouts the private who’d executed the chair, as he jumps to his feet and salutes his superior officer. The other two soldiers afford her and Patel a glance to acknowledge their presence but remain behind cover with their carbines aimed at the barricade.
“As yo
u were, Private,” Brooks orders. “The Corporal and I are on our way to meet Colonel Beaurite and lead the reinforcements back here,” she lies.
“The Z’s have breached points all around us. Maybe we should go with you two. You know. As an escort,” the nervous soldier says.
“Z’s?” Brooks asks.
“Yes, ma’am. Z’s, Zulus. Zombies,” the private answers.
“Negative,” Brooks replies. “Hold this position until we return, or you receive other orders from me. Is that clear, Private?”
“Yes ma’am,” he replies, saluting again.
“Carry on,” Brooks says, returning the gesture and signaling Patel to take the lead.
The two leapfrog down the corridor again, scanning and clearing the narrow halls on their sides before using them as cover to plot their next steps forward. Brooks checks her watch and sees they have a few seconds over two minutes before the sprinklers cut loose and everything is doused in the thinly gelled gasoline she’d ordered pumped into the lines. She signals Patel to keep moving forward with their choreographed dance down the hallway.
Nearing another intersection, they hear a short burst of rounds bark from just inside the passage ahead on their right. Brooks is on that side and in the lead. She motions Patel to take cover as she hunkers behind a standing drinking fountain. He presses himself against the edge of a small outcropping of commercial style lockers, the kind you see in factories for the workers or in the more institutionalized high schools. There’s a loud clatter they can both hear over the still-screaming claxon. Patel prepares to make a closer inspection as a rolling-cart made from heavy-duty plastic, pinballs its way to a stop in the center of the intersection. Patel thinks he may be hearing sounds of a struggle coming from around that corner, but he can’t be certain because of the alarm. He advances past Brooks for a better look, keeping his back pressed against the doors of the lockers and his finger curled over the trigger of his M-4. Brooks abandons the cover of the drinking fountain and crosses to Patel’s side of the hallway, moving to follow him.
At the same instant Patel gains a visual trajectory, the soldier he’d seen when he was on his way to Brooks’ office, is brought down by one of the snarling infected. The young man’s M-4 is knocked from his hands when he hits the cement floor but remains harnessed to his tactical vest. aurther down the hallway, Patel spots the hole in the barricade the infected had squirmed through, with another attempting to follow the same escape route his comrade had discovered. Patel can see a couple bullet holes in the first zombie’s torso, presumably where the soldier had hastily aimed his shots. Riding him like a cannibal lover, the zombie’s teeth gnash and grind together as it bucks astride the soldier. Hot blood sprays across the wall in an arc when the monster finally sinks its teeth into the screaming soldier’s neck. The infected rips a chunk of flesh loose and leans back to greedily chew it before trying to choke it down and tear free another. The soldier Patel hadn’t recognized when he’d seen him earlier, makes a final, pathetic attempt to shove the zombie off, but shock and the sudden, massive loss of blood makes his resistance useless. As the life escapes the young soldier’s eyes, Patel takes careful aim before he paints the wall behind them with the zombie’s brains with a single shot.
An arm jerks through the compromised barricade, clawing around for anything to help it extricate itself past the barrier. Patel lines up a shot where he hopes the monstrosity’s head is, when he’s startled by the single bullet put through the brains of the downed soldier. He snaps his head around, glaring at the major. Patel logically knows his late brother-in-arms would have eventually turned into one of those things, but Brooks’ calculated callousness at taking the shot fills him with a sudden anger.
Brooks ignores his burning stare, adjusts her aim and fires a three-round burst of 5.56 bullets into the barricade. She must have hit her intended target, because the flailing arm instantly goes limp and hangs from the hole in the barrier. A second later, it roughly slides back into the hole as the infected ones behind it have pulled the lifeless body from the opening. More arms jut through the hole and claw at the edges of the barrier, forcing it to widen. From the mismatched skin tones, Patel and Brooks can tell there are several of the infected about to fully breach the barricade.
Patel sends his own burst of hollow-point deterrents into the grouping of arms, obliterating three fingers from one of the hands groping for purchase as the hole grows wider. A head pokes through the opening, its milky eyes lock onto Patel as Brooks dispatches the zombie with extreme prejudice. It immediately disappears back into the hole and is replaced by another set of arms as the breach doubles in size. Brooks has no intention of attempting to hold this position and spares a second to check her watch for their remaining time before fire rains down through every corridor. Nichols must have found a way to silence the alarm, or it’s designed to only sound for a specific amount of time, because the blaring ceases.
“Keep moving!” she says, finally not needing to shout her orders.
Patel sends another flurry of bullets at the widening hole, turning one of the heads sticking out into a dark, sticky mist. The other zombies don’t bother trying to remove their lifeless compatriot and instead start crawling around and over the corpse. Brooks repeats her command and gives Patel a shove in the direction they need to go as she takes the lead position.
A short distance along their intended path, a door bangs open against the wall, and five of the infected burst into the corridor. It only takes a second for them to spot their prey and start sprinting toward Brooks and Patel. Realizing that avenue of escape has been eliminated, Patel grabs one of the straps holding Brooks’ pack to her back and pulls her to a stop, nearly causing her to lose her footing. He swings her around to point in the only direction remaining open to them and runs to the left at the intersection. As the five zombies halve the distance to their position, more of the infected spill through the opening in the barricade and get to their feet to join the chase.
Patel slams into the door marked Stairs and can hear more of the evil bastards pounding up the stairs from below. He and Brooks instinctively look up but don’t see any of the infected coming down to greet them from the floors above them. With the decision made for them, he and Brooks move up the stairs, taking the steps three at a time. Patel stops at the next landing and yanks the door open as the zombies crash into the stairway door they’d just come through.
“Move!” Brooks orders, leaning over the rail and firing at their pursuers. The confined space of the stairway makes the concussions deafening, but Brooks can hear them continuing to pound their way up, over the ringing in her ears.
Patel releases the door handle and follows the major’s orders. Brooks pushes the door open again as she passes it on her way up the steps. Her hope is the Z’s behind them will see it close and instinct will make them assume their dinner had gone that direction. Reaching the next landing, Brooks grabs Patel’s arm before he can jerk the door open and motions for him to be quiet and wait.
From below them, they hear the zombies crash into the door and start pouring through it in a steady, snarling stream. Satisfied her ploy has worked for the moment, she nods to Patel and he pushes the door open that leads to one of the main concourses in the stadium. Deserted vendor stations and beer carts line the sides of the wide corridor. They can still hear the gunfire coming from the lower floors, but it’s muffled by the levels separating them from it.
“Help me,” Brooks tells Patel as she starts shouldering a nearby vending machine toward the stairway door. Patel lets his carbine hang from its strap attached to his tactical vest and helps Brooks move the heavy machine to block the door. He has just enough time to wonder if they’d led the gnashing horde of infected to the backs of his fellow soldiers trying desperately to hold their positions on the floor below them when he and Brooks hear a loud hissing sound. They look up and immediately know it’s coming from the sprinkler lines above them. Brooks checks her watch again and curses as she and Patel begin
running down the empty corridor, abandoning the leapfrog method for the sake of speed. They still have a little less than a minute before Nichols is supposed to release the accelerant. She unclips the small radio from her vest and presses the talk button as they move.
“What the fuck are you doing, Nichols?” she growls into the mic.
“Just increasing the pressure in the sprinkler lines,” he immediately replies. “Where are you?”
“Two floors above you and heading your way. Do not release those lines ahead of schedule,” she answers.
“Do you have any more soldiers with you?” he asks.
“Just Patel,” she answers.
“Oh,” is all Nichols replies.
“Send a few of the men with you to the south stairway. We’ll be coming down from there and we’ll have company right behind us,” Brooks orders.
“South stairway. Roger that,” he responds.
“We need to pick up the pace,” she tells Patel as a drop of the flammable liquid leaks from an overhead sprinkler valve and splashes onto her vest. Brooks tucks her head down, not wanting to risk getting the caustic liquid in her eyes and being blinded at this inopportune moment. She has no doubt Nichols, or for that matter, Patel, would leave her behind, should she risk slowing them down. She knows this because she wouldn’t hesitate to do the same.
From behind them, they hear the crash of the vending machine being forced from in front of the door as zombies stumble through it. They appeared to have discovered the earlier ruse for what it was and somehow doubled back to resume the chase. The infected flow over the toppled snack machine like a deadly wave of water and continue their pursuit. Brooks had just enough time to consider the possibility that some of the infected had continued on the lower floor in the same direction to fill the stairway and seal her fate when the door leading to the stairs on the southern end of the stadium came into view.
The F*cked Series (Book 4): Hard Page 3
