“Get down,” Dave yelled again, but his warning was drowned out by the steady k-chunk, k-chunk, k-chunk of the heavy guns.
A stream of zombies, unheeded by the carnage happening behind them, ran toward CJ. The gunner in the Jeep nearest him, swung the red-hot barrel cutting a line across the approaching zombies as Carl continued to shout his approval. His words were cut short by a strangled cry as the line of shells stitched up CJ’s leg and across his torso and shoulder. The lower half of his leg was severed as his body was blown backward. Large blooms of smoking crimson appeared across his coat as his rifle flew from his hands and he disappeared into the tall grass. The soldiers continued firing, indiscriminately cutting down zombies and the uninfected without a care. The running people screamed as they were ripped apart, either by the now dwindling horde or the soldiers firing upon them. From over the roar of the guns, they could hear the soldiers whooping and hollering as another body was riddled under by the jaws of their guns.
Dave and his sons were on their stomachs trying to crawl for cover as the soldiers kept firing. Their shots began punching holes into and through the vehicles filling the parking lot. Rounds shattered the glass and blasted craters into the cinderblock wall at the back of the store. Dave silently prayed Pam had listened to him and had the others hiding in the back of the warehouse.
Carl remained standing as the heavy caliber guns continued pounding the night. He screamed his fallen son’s name, hoping what he’d seen with his own eyes had been an illusion or a trick of the light, but his words were drowned out by the maelstrom crashing around him. Carl wanted to run to his son, to check his condition and assure himself it hadn’t happened. That any second he’d wake up in his own bed, dripping with sweat and his heart racing from what he was certain must be a vicious dream. But Dave grabbed at him, snagging his pant leg in his fist as he started running toward where he’d seen his son disappear in the grass. He stumbled, coming down hard on his side and driving the air from his lungs. Carl glared at Dave, enraged by his interference and began spewing rasping curses as he frantically kicked at him to release his hold. One of his feet connected with Dave’s offending hand, smashing his fingers and scraping them free. Carl scrambled to his feet but the fall Dave caused had battered his old joints, forcing him to shamble rather than run. Shards of shattered asphalt and pebbles of auto glass pelted him, making shallow cuts in his face and hands as he stumbled toward where he’d last seen CJ.
The thunderous fire gouged another line of small explosions, carving through the zombies and remaining humanity that were zeroing in on Jacob, who was running to the front of the store. Holes punched through the infected and uninfected alike as the soldiers continued the wholesale slaughter. Almost all the people who’d been fleeing the infected were already dead or dying. The latter instinctually trying to crawl to safety, dragging bloody stumps and ropes of bleeding intestines and ruptured organs behind them on the pavement.
The gunners mercifully reached the ends of their chained ammo at relatively the same time. The ensuing silence as they worked to reload another canister of shells into the gun was almost as deafening as when they were firing. Carl finally reached the spot where CJ had disappeared and saw what was left of his son. The only thing that identified the bloody heap of pulverized flesh as his son, were the tattered scraps of shredded black denim and the small walkie-talkie clipped to his belt. Something snapped in Carl at that moment and he released a primal keening the reverberated in Dave’s head and sent a chill up his spine. He bellowed again and the wailing from pain and loss jackknifed into a guttural roar fueled by pure rage. Dave stood and shouted Carl’s name, hoping to break the hold his suffering held on him. To tell him to get down and remind him he still had Jacob. They’d need each other more than ever now.
In his newly fragmented mind, Carl latched on to Dave’s voice and put the pieces together in his head. Dave had brought these horrific events to him and his sons. That bastard Dave had been the cause of all this. He knew the loss of CJ could be laid at Dave’s goddamned feet. If the insufferable son of a bitch hadn’t come here with his fucking brood, none of this would have happened. He’d brought this upon them. Him and his cunt of a wife. They were to blame. They were the ones that led death to his family. They were the ones who were responsible, and they were the ones that were going to fucking pay.
Carl spun toward Dave’s voice and saw him on his knees, waving his arms and yelling Carl’s name. Then he saw CJ’s discarded rifle at his feet and felt this was a clear sign from God the blasphemous bastard needed to die.
Dave watched Carl retrieve the gun from the grass and bring it to his shoulder, pointing it in Dave’s direction. At first, he thought someone or something was sneaking up behind him and he took a terrified glance behind him. He would have run, but he knew it wouldn’t be long before the soldiers started their barrage again to play cleanup. That thought disappeared when he saw the green laser dot flash across his hand, and he saw the murderous intent in Carl’s expression. The glowing spot fluttered in a staccato circle as Carl steadied his aim. Dave was stunned into paralysis, locked tight by the idea that Carl was going to shoot him. He thought about flinging himself to the ground and crawling for cover in the grass, as the light jumped and settled on Dave’s chest a second before disappearing. At the same instant, Carl was shoved to the ground with a 7.62 caliber hole punched through his chest.
From the passenger seat of the Jeep on their left, a soldier had stood and placed Carl in his crosshairs. From the rooftop behind Dave, Ben had done the same. They both fired at the same instant, sending Carl to be with his dead son. The soldier thought that was the first time he’d shot someone tonight that fell toward him rather than away. At the same time, Jacob’s green dot appeared on the soldier and he sent him to join his father and brother. Jacob took another step forward, having only heard one of the shots and aimed again. Ignoring the zombies encircling him, he placed his dot on the Jeep’s gunner. Another bark from Jacob’s gun and the soldier flipped from the back of the Jeep. The driver who’d been assisting with the reloading, abandoned the process and dropped into his seat. Rather than driving for cover or gathering his weapon to return fire, the soldier appeared to be fumbling with the radio. One of Jacob’s bullets ricocheted off the windshield and the driver ducked down below the dash.
In the other Jeep, the reloading process had been completed, and the cannon mounted on the back thundered to life again. The gunner chewed through the remaining zombies and their intended victims alike. Jacob took aim at the new targets and fired, his bullet missing as the soldier blasted evenly spaced chunks from his body, cutting him in half.
A shot rang out over Dave’s head and he saw the soldier’s helmet go spinning off. Dave realized the other gunner was a woman as her long hair flipped and spilled in the moonlight. The realization was short-lived as another shot was fired from above. The female soldier’s head snapped back and then lurched forward, her body slumping over the smoking barrel. Bullets pinged off the windshield as Brigette placed a burst aimed at the driver’s head. Her lighter 5.56 rounds weren’t able to penetrate the bulletproof glass. However, Ben’s heavier 7.62 round punched a neat hole in the glass and the soldier in the passenger seat, twisted to the side. The driver wasted no time fishtailing the Jeep around to the opposite direction and sent a spray of shredded turf flying from the tires as it bounced back into the trees the way it’d entered. The remaining driver performed the same maneuver and reentered back the way it had murderously appeared.
Zack and Joe stood from the cover they’d thankfully found, to see it disappear into the trees. Dave was already on his feet and looking at the spot Carl had been brought down, but he couldn’t force himself to get any closer. He didn’t want to see how he’d been ripped apart. He didn’t ever need to see how the three of them had been torn to pieces by the soldiers. The soldiers… The thought resonated in his head, bouncing in the empty space.
“We gotta go,” Dave said to himself as the light
clicked on in his head, spinning on his heels and slamming into Zack. “Fuck!” he shouted, clutching Zack by the shoulders to keep from sending them both to the ground. “We have to go,” he shouted over the ringing in his ears.
“What?” Joe asked, wiggling a finger in his ear trying to clear the ringing.
“The soldiers,” Dave shouted. “They were herding them. Flushing the zombies out of the trees like they were hunting wolves.”
“With live prey,” Zack replied as the gravity of their situation settled in.
“It’s worse,” Dave said, reading his son’s expression. “Carl said a convoy drove past here before us,” he explained. “They’re going to be coming back.”
Chapter Six
Brooks and Sergeant Nichols were seated in the major’s office when the young soldier knocked loudly on the open doorframe and snapped to attention. They’d been discussing what little they knew about the situation at Army Base Bolivar and the likelihood Brooks would be reporting to Colonel Beaurite in twenty minutes as scheduled. It’d been several hours since she’d last talked with the colonel. With the way her last report to Beaurite had abruptly ended, she had her concerns. But now her concern swirled around the decisions she’d made after her report was cut short.
The colonel had given her permission to move forward with Sterilization Plan Bravo, but only if she felt there was no other alternative. What he hadn’t given her was the green light for Operation Washout. She’d immediately initiated the sterilization plan and pushed it to the limit of its operational parameters. This included dispatching forces to drive the infected away from the state borders and back toward the center of Ohio. She’d ordered the platoons carrying out her orders to tolerate zero resistance. She made it clear to her leaders to treat the slightest hesitation as insubordination during wartime and to punish such behavior with extreme prejudice. This included any of the uninfected they encountered while carrying out her orders. She’d told her men that the virusite could lay dormant in the human system for days and that those who weren’t showing any signs of infection, most likely had the bug anyway. She’d made it clear there were no friendlies out there unless they were wearing military insignia.
Once those orders had been given and the squads had rolled out, she gave the order to sterilize the soccer stadium. Because Mapfre stadium, home to the Columbus Crew, was completely encircled by acres of asphalt-covered parking lot, the cleansing was going easier than she could have hoped. Everyone who was in one of the visible stages of the infection had already been secured in the lower sections of the stadium. All the others were being led out onto the field and into the surrounding seating. To attain compliance, she’d announced over the stadium’s PA system the outbreak hadn’t been the threat it was first believed to be and they would soon begin releasing people back to their homes, once contact information was collected from each of them. It hadn’t taken any more motivation than that to herd everyone into the open. Teams were already clearing the overhead sprinkler lines intended to extinguish fires and were filling them with a mixture of flammable chemicals designed to burn fast and hot. Once everything was in order, she planned on giving the command to execute her orders and burn the stadium to the ground.
“Begging your pardon, Major,” Whitaker said from the doorway. “You’re needed in the radio room.”
Brooks looked at her watch and asked, “Is it Colonel Beaurite?”
If Beaurite was calling her earlier than their scheduled check-in, things could have improved at Bolivar. She may need to find a way to ease back from the potential points of no return and cover her ass in the process. With Nichols as her unofficial virusite expert and second in command, as far as the troops were concerned, she was confident she could pin her more distasteful decisions on him. The key to that plan was to ensure he wasn’t around to disagree with her when the time came to pin the blame on someone, if that should become necessary. She looked at him on the other side of her desk and wondered if he had any idea he’d be held responsible for the deaths of thousands. Posthumously, of course.
“I don’t know, ma’am. They just called and said you were needed there, right away,” he replied.
Brooks took a moment to weigh her options before standing from her desk. Nichols was on his own, his military-issued laptop seated on the other side. He’d been searching through satellite images of projected weather patterns, running scenario outcome analyses and possibly watching porn, she thought. He looked away from the display when she stood.
“Shall we?” she asked him, waving an open hand for him to lead the way. “Whitaker, you stay here and have my connection to Bolivar set up when I return,” she said, neglecting to add if there was any of Bolivar left, and followed Nichols to the radio room.
“Where’s the fire, private?” Brooks asked after entering the radio room, returning salutes, and ordering everyone to go back to what they were doing. The first person she saw after that happened to be Private Nancy Newell. Brooks hadn’t even noticed the subliminal slip of the tongue she just uttered. Soon enough, the fire would be right here in the stadium.
“One of the sweep teams is reporting they ran into some resistance, ma’am,” Newell answered.
“You didn’t really call me down here to tell me that, did you?” Brooks asked, prepared to return to her office and have the private reassigned to the fire detail.
“Strong resistance, ma’am,” the private replied.
“How strong?” asked the major.
“Three soldiers dead and one severely injured. Possibly DOA by the time they make it back here,” Newell answered. “One of the drivers reported they were sweeping the surrounding area in the sector they were assigned. They’d just herded a group into the open and were sterilizing the area when they came under heavy fire. The gunners were the first to be taken out, and then whoever they were started picking them off randomly. The survivors reported there were at least twenty hostiles, maybe more. By the time they figured out what was going on, half their teams were dead and they got out of there to report back.”
“Fuck,” Brooks hissed under her breath.
“There’s more, Major,” Newell said.
“What is it?” Brooks asked.
“Private McEvoy was adjusting his radio,” she said. Newell didn’t bother mentioning the reason McEvoy was adjusting his radio. The other private had just poured a fresh cup of coffee to help make it through the eleventh hour of what was sizing up to be an endless shift, when he spilled it across the table the radio equipment was on. While he was frantically wiping up the mess and cursing everything but himself for his clumsiness, the back of his hand swept under the dial, tuning it well past their customary, military frequencies.
“He picked up some unusual transmissions,” Newell added.
“What kind of transmissions?” Nichols asked.
“At first we thought they were a bunch of locals playing weekend commando,” Newell replied. “They were using call signs and some of the usual radio protocol, but it wasn’t right. There was too much chatter, for one. And they weren’t using normal abbreviations.”
“Any estimation on their numbers?” Brooks asked.
“It sounds like there might be two separate squads, maybe more, ma’am,” she answered.
“How long were they broadcasting?” Nichols asked.
“A few hours,” Newell said. “Long enough for us to get a rough triangulation on them. We put their location a mile or two east of Haviland. It’s within spitting distance of where one of the sweep convoys were deployed. If they kept broadcasting, I was going to send out a recon team to collect them for sterilization.”
“But then this happened and made you think you might have been wrong,” Brooks concluded.
“Yes, ma’am. And the transmissions stopped after that,” Newell answered, drawing her eyes down and away from Brooks’ growing glare.
“And you’re certain there are no other troops in that area? No one that isn’t one of ours?” Brooks asks.
“When are the survivors of your underestimation due back?” Brooks asks.
“ETA is about fifty minutes. Forty-two minutes,” Newell corrected after checking the time.
“As soon as they arrive, I want to debrief them myself. I want you and McEvoy to start monitoring the frequencies around where they were broadcasting. If you hear more from them, I want it recorded, transcribed and on my desk, ASAP. I want as much intel on these wildcards as you can gather. Understood?” Brooks asks, turning from the private in frustration without waiting for her reply.
“What do you think?” Nichols asked.
“I think we have a rogue ops team out there. I don’t think the colonel would deploy any Special Forces units without informing me, so maybe they’re freelance contractors or something,” Brooks replied.
“There’s another possibility,” Nichols said, pausing to rub his chin while he considered the odds of his alternative.
“Spit it out, Pete!” Brooks said, addressing him by his first name.
“With what we’ve seen, I’m wondering if the infected are getting even smarter than we ever expected,” he answered. “I know it’s a big leap but the group we engaged on the way here appeared to be organized. What if they’ve evolved enough to use radios and weapons?”
“The radio part would explain how we almost got fed our own asses earlier,” Brooks said. “But it’s still a pretty long stretch.”
“It could be,” Nichols replied, keeping his eyes on hers.
“Whoever they are,” Brooks said after a moment. “Smart zombies, mercenaries or local fuck-ups, I don’t care. If they’re not one of ours, I want them rounded up and brought back here for interrogation and sterilization.” Preferring this term to execution. “If that can’t be done, I want their operation terminated, hard and fast. I want an example made of these bastards to discourage anyone else who may know about them from making waves.”
The F*cked Series (Book 3): Mean Page 12
