Pandemic

TWENTY-FOUR.

As the light of day faded, the convoy of Humvees roared down the road, scattering rubbish. The streetlights were off. Rotting corpses swung from the poles in the mounting twilight. Feasting birds scattered at the approaching diesel roar.

Captain Lee had built a career on honesty. He held nothing back in his intelligence reports. When asked, he gave his opinions without the sugar coating. He didn’t believe in putting lipstick on pigs. He’d made captain because of it. He’d been held back from further promotion because of it.

He was going to tell Prince everything. He’d already submitted a report, but even that didn’t contain half of what he’d seen. He’d shared the facts, but he had to make the Colonel see the horror. Right now, First Battalion was scattered, ineffective and losing ground by the day. They needed to pull their forces back into a defensible position and build their operations from there. They could take the city back, block by block, using overwhelming force and killing the infected without mercy. The stakes involved survival of an entire city, and there wasn’t much time. The inmates were inches away from running the asylum and putting it to the torch.

As night fell, they approached the onramp that would take them onto Concord Turnpike. The road was supposed to be reserved to official traffic, but the police and their vehicles were gone, the rows of barriers smashed and flattened. The emptiness was unnerving. The silence made Lee think of Afghanistan. The calm between attacks.

Without being told, Murphy slowed the vehicle and cut the headlights. The men put on their night vision goggles, which rendered the dark landscape in a thousand shades of phosphorescent green. Nobody in sight. In the distance, headlights moved quickly along the turnpike, too fast for military. The vast fires of Boston glowed a brilliant green on the horizon. The Humvee’s tires thudded across the smashed barriers. Lee held his carbine propped in the open window. Foster swiveled the .50-cal in the gun turret, sweeping the area for threats.

Behind them, the other two Humvees did the same.

“Do you believe in prayer, Captain?” Murphy asked.

“Not really, Mike.”

“Could you try? I really don’t want to die here.”

“I believe in good planning, but that doesn’t work either. It’s all on us.”

“That’s not very reassuring.”

“Really? We’ve gotten this far.”

They pulled onto the turnpike and took off their goggles. The headlights flashed on. After a mile, they passed the first flaming wreck on the side of the road. Still no visible threats.

“Your prayers seem to be working, Mike.”

Light flared in the side view mirrors.

“Way to jinx it, Captain,” Murphy said.

The headlights in their rear were approaching fast. Lee remembered the top speed of a Humvee was fifty-five miles an hour.

“We can’t outrun a civilian vehicle,” he said. “And we can’t shoot unless they’re hostile.”

“We won’t know they’re hostile until they’re right on top of us.”

“We should stop. Set up a defensive formation.”

“Fire some warning shots? If they don’t stop, we light them the fuck up.”

The light gleamed bright in the side views.

Lee shook his head. “No time.” He picked up the phone on his field radio. “Rebel Three, this is Rebel Six. What have you got, over?”

“Rebel Six, this is Rebel Three. Vehicles approaching fast. Five hundred meters. Over.”

“You are authorized to use lethal force to respond to any threats. Over.”

“That’s a solid copy, Rebel Six. Over.”

“Take no chances, Rebel Three.”

“Don’t worry about us, s—what the fuck?”

They’d misjudged how fast the vehicles could catch up to them. Lee heard the .50-cal hammer over the roar of an overstressed engine and found he wanted to pray after all. He flinched at the ear-splitting crash of metal. The car shattered against the two-ton military vehicle and burst into flames. Rebel Three lurched and rolled in a series of bangs.

He cursed himself for his stupidity. Here he was on his way back to preach to Prince, but even he didn’t get it. The rules of engagement no longer mattered, only force protection. He should have declared the highway a free-fire zone and taken the consequences.

Behind him, Rebel Two’s machine gun swung into action. Tracer rounds burst in the dark. A smoking car swung off the road. A truck raced past to catch up with Rebel One.

“We got company,” said Murphy.

Foster got off a few rounds but missed. The truck was going too fast. He walked his fire forward, guided by the tracers. The truck pulled up alongside the Humvee’s right and slowed. Lee saw naked, mutilated men swarming across the truck bed, clashing crowbars and golf clubs against the battered chassis. One of the crazies threw a colorful object that struck the rear of the Humvee.

Water balloon. Lee smelled piss. Infected piss. The Klowns lobbed grappling hooks like pirates. One hooked onto Lee’s window. Its connecting chain pulled taut. A man tried to jump onto the Humvee but missed and became road kill. A baseball struck Lee in the chest. He grit his teeth against the flash of pain and the stars that sparked in his vision.

A shrieking devil was about to throw a bright yellow water balloon straight at him. Lee sprayed the back of the truck on full auto, draining the magazine in seconds. Laughing bodies spilled and smashed against the asphalt rushing under their feet. When his rifle clicked empty, Lee pulled out his 9mm and unloaded it into the driver’s cabin.

Foster found his mark. He lit up the truck back to front with a deadly metal rain. The vehicle crumpled like tin foil, riddled with smoking holes. The figures capering along the truck bed exploded. The windshield burst with a splash of glass. The truck disintegrated.

The Humvee door wrenched off with a crack as the shattered truck spilled off the highway.

Lee blinked into the darkness. “Shit.”

“That was a little close,” Murphy said, gripping the wheel.

“Bring us alongside Rebel Two, Mike.”

Mike glared at his side view mirror. “Problem!”

Lee stood and leaned out of the vehicle. The wind howled past. He saw muzzle flashes burst in the dark. Rebel Two was demolishing a souped-up Trans Am at point blank range. On its other side, a tractor trailer roared on eighteen wheels. The truck was black. A woman had been chained to the grille like a freshly killed deer. The trailer’s flank showed a smiling family eating hot dogs.

“Fire your fifty!” Lee ordered, but Foster was already on it, sending hot metal downrange into the grille, which began to blow steam. His next rounds smashed the windshield.

The laughing driver wrenched the wheel. The giant rig swerved into Rebel Two.

“No!” Foster screamed.

The truck struck the Humvee with a metallic clap and enveloped it, jackknifing before the trailer rolled, flaring sparks and shards of metal. Rebel Two disappeared.

Murphy brought the Humvee to a stop. He was drenched in sweat.

Lee keyed his radio. “Rebel Two, this is Rebel Six. What’s your status, over?”

Nothing.

“All Rebel units, this is Rebel Six, how copy? Over.”

Dead air.

Murphy turned in his seat. “What now, Captain?”

Lee reloaded his rifle and chambered a round. His hands were shaking.

“What now?” the sergeant repeated, shouting.

Lee took a deep breath. His body was shaking from excess adrenaline. He was exhausted; he’d never been so tired. He wanted to lie down on the road and take a long, long sleep. “Now,” he said, “we go back and look for survivors.”