Slaughterhouse

THREE.

“One bag of dicks, coming up,” Sergeant First Class Renner said.

Captain Terrence Marsh cradled his M4 carbine in his lap as the uparmored M1116 High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle—better known in the military as a Humvee—barreled down a tree-lined avenue called Hanscom Drive. The road connected the Air Force base behind them with Route 2A, and even though it was a dual-use road, it had been closed off by the military weeks ago. Just the same, it was dotted with bodies here and there, bloated corpses enveloped in black clouds of flies. Part of Hanscom Air Force Base’s housing community lay off to their left, hidden behind a fairly thin screen of trees. Marsh wished they had razed the trees, so they would have better visibility. While the Air Force had evacuated most of the families from the base, not everyone had been accounted for. Many of them had most likely become infected, and the last thing Marsh wanted was to get into a fight before they even made it to their first phase line. For that reason, he had ordered the soldier manning the Mk 19 grenade launcher in the Humvee’s cupola to maintain a refused left position and keep his weapon trained on the tree line that separated the four-lane road from the housing development.

“Make it tasty,” Marsh said as he stared out the Humvee’s bullet-resistant windows.

Downrange, two Apaches hovered over the intersection, their noses oriented to the west. Light flared beneath their stubby wings, and each aircraft ripped off four Mark 66 rockets. Equipped with fourteen-pound warheads, the seventy-millimeter rockets zipped across the sky, trailing wispy columns of black smoke. The weapons arced toward the ground and disappeared behind the trees, striking targets Marsh couldn’t see.

“Fight’s on,” Renner said in the same tone one would use to discuss the weather. He drove the last vehicle in the column of four Humvees and one M925 five-ton cargo truck carrying two squads of lightfighters.

First Lieutenant Haberman would position his element just past the mouth of Hanscom Drive and secure the Concord Turnpike’s eastern approach in a bid to deny enemy incursion from the east. Marsh’s Humvee would turn right, away from Haberman’s element, and continue on down the turnpike. Phase line alpha was the tactical designation for the traffic circle just past Concord, where a state police barracks sat across from the Massachusetts Correctional Institute. Marsh’s three Humvees and one M925 truck full of lightfighters would stop at the western side of the rotary and dismount. Using their vehicles, the soldiers would form a temporary blocking force that would effectively close off the incoming travel lanes that fed the circle. The element directly behind Marsh—also comprised of Bravo Company troops—would secure the eastern side of the rotary. This, coupled with Marsh’s blocking force, would provide the convoy with safe passage through the area and onto the westbound Union Turnpike. Bravo Company—the Bushmasters—would hold that position until the convoy’s rolling stock had passed through. Marsh would then collapse the blocking force and rejoin the formation, initially playing rear guard until the next phase line, where they would leapfrog forward through the column until they took their next position. That would be at phase line golf, a few hours away.

“Let’s hope they let us get some,” said one of the soldiers in back, an E-5 named Weir. He was a beefy kid from Minnesota, and the rest of the soldiers called him Lars the Viking because of his wide frame, pasty skin, and blond hair.

“Let’s hope they don’t,” Marsh said. “After what we went through at Cambridge, we probably want to save the beans and bullets for when we really need ’em.” The Bushmasters had spent days holed up in Harvard, and Marsh had presided over the gradual attrition of his company. After that, the company commander found he had little stomach for fighting. Hiding was even worse, since that only led to eventual discovery, but fighting was no stroll through the park, either. What Marsh wanted, what he craved right now, was movement, constant movement, the never-ending sound of the Humvee’s big, knobby tires wailing across pavement. He figured they would occupy phase line alpha for no more than ten minutes, and they were guaranteed Apache top cover. Three other units would stop with them, so they would have three fifties, two Mk 19s, and twenty-five lightfighters on station to deal with whatever the Klowns threw at them. Everyone was carrying their weapons in condition red, so if the Klowns came, there wouldn’t be any discussion.

“All right, shooters, let’s go full MOPP,” Marsh said. He pulled off his helmet and slipped on his Mission Oriented Protection Posture chemical/biological overgarment over his head, then slipped on the face mask.

The gunner in the open-air cupola was already fully manned up in MOPP IV gear, the highest level of protection against nuclear, biological, and chemical attacks available to the soldiers. Since the primary mission of the Klowns seemed to be spreading their infection, something more was needed than the slatted metal armor that afforded the gunner fair ballistic protection but did not provide much in the way of deterring biological contamination. The battalion had lost numerous troops to the “dirty bombs” used by the Infected, usually balloons filled with piss or other biologicals, and it had been decided that front-line combatants would conduct operations only under MOPP IV conditions.

Only SFC Renner remained unmasked, as he wouldn’t be exiting the vehicle unless the shit really hit the fan, and in that case his mask was close at hand. The troops had rolled down their sleeves, pulled on gloves, and ensured their ACU trousers were tightly bloused and taped inside their boots. Everyone was already sweating despite the Humvee’s air conditioned interior. The upcoming sultry summer day didn’t promise much in the way of relief. Hydration was going to become a primary concern because the CBR X CamelBak hydration systems the troops had been issued only held three liters of water, which probably wouldn’t last long in the mounting heat and humidity. Despite the protection against contamination, the MOPP IV gear paved the way for substantial tactical degradation. The bulky outfits reduced mobility, visibility, manual dexterity, and the ability to communicate, even with radios. While the gear would buy them some time against biological attacks, the soldiers of First Battalion were going to have trouble just shooting the Klowns.

The convoy reached the intersection, and Haberman’s element broke off to the left, then came to a halt in the middle of Route 2A. Renner pulled the vehicle to the right and accelerated down the highway. Marsh looked out his window. The Humvee drifted perilously close to the guardrail that separated the road from a fallow field. The railing soon ended, only to be replaced by a stone wall set eight feet from the roadway.

Then that petered out, and Marsh stared at more trees as the vehicle slowly accelerated to forty miles per hour.

God damn Humvees…a 1970 VW Beetle has better acceleration.

He checked the side view mirror. The rest of the element turned onto the road behind him as Haberman’s unit dismounted. Rotors thumped overhead, but it didn’t sound like an Apache or a scout. Marsh looked up, and saw a helicopter in red and blue livery pacing the element. A large, stylized number 5 adorned the helicopter’s fuselage, and light reflected off a gimbal-mounted camera slung beneath the helicopter’s nose. The camera was pointed directly at the Humvee.

“Hey, we’re on TV,” Weir said, his voice muffled behind his mask.

Marsh toggled his tactical radio. “Wizard, this is Bushmaster Two-Six. We’ve got a civilian news chopper shadowing us. Over.”

“Roger, Bushmaster. It’s being handled. Over.”

No sooner had the words come over his headset than two OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters sprinted onto the scene. One positioned itself between the convoy and the news chopper, while the second trailed behind the civilian bird. The scouts were armed with one modified M2 fifty-caliber machinegun mounted on the left hardpoint, and one seven-shot rocket tube on the right side. The olive-drab helicopters paced the brighter civilian aircraft for a few moments before the guy flying the news chopper got the idea. The helicopter slowly climbed away and turned due south. The Kiowa Warriors maintained their position for a bit longer, then sprinted ahead, rotors thumping—scouts, doing what they were supposed to do.

“Damn, and I didn’t get my close-up,” Renner said. He drove with both hands on the wheel, his eyes unreadable behind his Army-issue Sawfly sunglasses.

“No one wants to see your mug on their TV set, Sergeant,” Marsh told him.

“So I’ve been told,” Renner said. “By my own mother.”

Despite the mounting tension, Marsh laughed behind his gas mask.

For the first half mile of the trip, it was easy to pretend it was just another day, despite the MOPP gear. Then Marsh spotted thick plumes of smoke ahead. They slowly rose into the sky, coiling and winding like slow-witted serpents. The Kiowa Warriors orbited the area at three hundred feet, flying in a clockwise formation.

“Bushmaster, this is Birddog Five. Over.”

“Birddog, go for Bushmaster. Over.”

“Bushmaster, we have some car fires in a parking lot about, uh, three hundred meters from your position. Looks like it’s next to some park. Something went down here, lots of bodies but no activity. You might want to keep an eye on the trees. We don’t see anything through our thermal sights, but that’s not much of an insurance policy. Over.”

Each scout helicopter had a mast-mounted thermal imaging sight above the main rotor. Marsh had checked them out and been impressed with the system’s fidelity, especially at night. The system could also designate targets with a laser, allowing another helicopter to attack with Hellfire missiles or other guided ordnance. Despite their age, relatively low speed, and fairly short range, the little armed scout helicopters were pretty useful where the ground troops were involved, even though their rounded, goggle-eyed mast-mounted sights looked like Kenny from South Park.

“Roger that, Birddog. We are eyes out. Over.”

The scouts broke off and buzzed farther downrange. As Renner guided the Humvee down the vacant two-lane highway and approached a stately old brick house with four chimneys, Marsh saw something lying on the side of the road. He straightened up and leaned toward the window. It was a decapitated corpse. Actually, it was even less than that—as the Humvee drew closer, he saw it was really little more than a bloodied torso. A patina of gore covered the road. He saw the door to the house was standing open, and more bodies lay on the doorstep.

“McNeely, eyes out!” he shouted to the gunner in the cupola.

“You got that right, sir!” the gunner shouted back as the Humvee rolled past the remains.

The two soldiers behind Marsh stirred, and he sensed they were drawing their rifles closer. He did the same thing.

Something was burning less than a hundred feet off the road, in a parking area for the Brooks Village Historical Area, apparently a recreation of an old English town built back in the late 1600s. Marsh had no idea what the minutemen of the Revolutionary War would have made of the conflict that currently embroiled Boston. Hell, Marsh didn’t know what to make of it himself, and he had access to more information than the soldiers of that era could have even dreamed of. All he knew was that it seemed that every other person in the state of Massachusetts had turned into a cackling lunatic who wanted to kill, maim, and desecrate. And infect. Always infect. Marsh kept the fingers of his right hand wrapped around his M4’s pistol grip. Something was going to happen. He could feel it in his bones, and he scanned the trees on either side of the road, waiting for the rush of crazies to flood out onto the asphalt in front of them, carrying all manner of weapons.

Marsh could tell from the set of Renner’s jaw that he was expecting things to go pear-shaped, as well. But as the park with its lot of burning cars receded in the distance, Marsh forced himself to relax. Looking down, he found his right index finger was almost lying across his rifle’s trigger, and that the safety was off. He didn’t remember doing that.

Damn. He clicked the selector back to SAFE.

The convoy continued on, driving down to the Concord Turnpike Cut-Off. There, Marsh led the column to the left, sticking to Route 2A. This would take them along the outskirts of Concord, Massachusetts. They already knew Concord center was in a world of hurt, and they didn’t want to get caught up in anything they weren’t ready to handle. While the battalion was armed to the teeth, the goal was avoid contact with the Killer Clowns for as long as possible.

The road spread out into four lanes, two in each direction, and traffic began to mount. The scout helicopters made some low passes over the cars and trucks, attempting to herd them over into one lane. Renner bullied the traffic in the right lane with the Humvee, forcing civilian vehicles over to the side. Marsh smiled. Nothing like seeing an uparmored Humvee in your rearview mirror, complete with weaponry, bearing down on your ass. Ahead, smoking buildings loomed. Marsh checked his map, and saw it was the remains of Emerson Hospital. That made him nervous. The scouts reported no undue activity, but advised them that traffic began to slow as it drew closer to the traffic circle a few miles ahead.

The convoy rolled past the burnt-out hospital, its parking lots vacant save for a few scattered cars and trucks. And bodies. Lots of bodies. Marsh kept his eyes out. The hospital was doubtless full of raving crazies before they burned it to the ground, so they were probably still in the area. Somewhere. He checked his map again, confirming their location.

“Target!” McNeely shouted.

Marsh snapped his head up. Just ahead, another road intersected the turnpike, overseen by dark, inactive traffic signals. As the Humvee bore down on the opening, a battered school bus appeared, hurtling toward the intersection from the right, slamming cars out of its path. Its yellow hide was splattered with blood, and several of its windows had been shattered. Tied to the bus’s grille were two nude, mutilated bodies of teenagers hanging upside down, the whiteness of their pale flesh offset by the dark cavities in their torsos. They had been eviscerated. Written across one kid’s narrow chest in what appeared to be dried blood or possibly excrement was the word GOOD. Written on the other corpse was FUCKS. As the school bus surged toward the Humvee, it shed all manner of debris from its roof—branches, leaves, brush, anything that could have been used to break up the vehicle’s outline from the air and disguise it beneath the leafy canopies of the trees lining the road. The Klowns manning the vehicle had waited until the Kiowas had flown past, then inched into position, hoping to ambush the Bushmasters.

“Shoot!” Marsh shouted.

His command disappeared amidst the din of the Mk 19 autogrenade launcher as Specialist McNeely opened fire. Forty-millimeter high explosive rounds ripped across the front of the bus, blasting apart its grille and the grisly trophies that had been mounted there, sending plastic and sheet metal and ribbons of flesh whirling through the air. In less than a second, the bus’s diesel engine lay bare after the engine compartment surrounding it disintegrated. Next, the engine itself lurched back like a startled cat, shorn off its mounts by bright sparking explosions of orange flecked with gray as the grenades pulverized it.

But the bus kept coming, a victim of its own momentum. Marsh caught a glimpse of its driver. A woman leaned over the big steering wheel, her face painted with blood, her teeth a brilliant white against the darkness of her wide mouth as she laughed uproariously. Her face disappeared as the second Humvee’s fifty caliber chattered behind them, audible over the Mk 19 as it continued to slam round after round into the bus. The driver exploded as the big rounds lanced through the compartment, blasting her into pieces.

The bus kept rolling, even as McNeely shifted his fire, raising the Mk 19’s barrel until it was firing directly into the bus’s cabin. The grenades exploded, sending a shower of safety glass raining across the street. Marsh watched as the bus’s black bumper seemed to target him, growing larger and larger.

Then, the Humvee darted past like a fortunate fat pig that miraculously managed to bolt across the path of a charging hippo without injury. McNeely spun around in the cupola, continuing to fire at the bus. Seconds later, he stopped. Either the soldier had run out of ammo, or he had remembered his training and ceased fire lest he risk blowing away the friendly vehicles behind him. Marsh heard expended forty-millimeter cartridges rolling around on top of the Humvee as he looked in the side view mirror. Trailing smoke from its ravaged engine compartment and smoldering interior, the bus hurtled through the intersection like a mortally wounded B-17 bomber in an old World War II movie. It slammed into traffic on the opposite side of the roadway in a cacophonous explosion that sent shattered glass and sheet metal flying through the air. The bus plowed halfway over a pickup truck and came to an unceremonious halt, its squared rear end pointing toward the sky. One lane on the eastbound side was blocked by its carcass, but it was out of the westbound lanes entirely. The rest of the convoy would be able to get through.

“McNeely, reload!” Renner shouted. “Reload, reload, reload!”

Marsh faced forward again as several dozen people emerged from the tree line on either side of the turnpike. They grinned slavishly, caught up in the grips of some great hilarity, their eyes bright and aflame with madness. Some were naked, adorned with necklaces of fingers, ears, hands, and feet. Others wore clothing, from jeans and sneakers to police uniforms to business suits. They carried all manner of implements, from chainsaws to baseball bats, to golf clubs to hunting rifles. The rifles got Marsh’s attention immediately.

“Wizard, Wizard, Bushmaster is in contact!” he shouted over the radio as the Humvee bore down on the crowd.

“Reloading!” McNeely shouted from the cupola.

Lee responded, instead of the expected radio telephone operator. “Bushmaster, this is Wizard. Say pos. Over.”

Just past the fucking burning school bus in the intersection, Copernicus, Marsh wanted to shout. “Wizard, we are approximately four klicks west of Hanscom. We were ambushed but made it past the first element. Approaching second element now.” Someone stepped out from behind the brush just in front of the Humvee and hurled something. Marsh caught a glimpse of a small figure cartwheeling through the air before it bounced off the windshield, leaving behind a smear of bright blood.

“Did they just throw a fucking baby at us?” Weir shouted through his mask.

Marsh didn’t want to think about it, but the notion chilled him to his very core. He keyed his microphone. “We need some Apaches up here. We are danger close to a platoon-sized enemy element. Over!”

“Bushmaster, Tomcat is enroute. Over.”

“What do you want me to do?” Renner asked.

“What do you think I want you to do, man?” Marsh snapped. “Drive!”

Overhead, the Mk 19 opened up again as McNeely walked rounds through the grouping that was dead ahead. The Klowns didn’t even seem to notice. In fact, every time one of their number fell, legs blasted away, body ripped asunder by shrapnel, they howled with laughter. McNeely swung the autogrenade launcher from side to side, but its cyclic rate was fairly low. If it had been an M2, he could have cut them all down in just a few sweeps. While the high explosive rounds caused horrible damage, the Humvee’s rate of closure made it difficult for the gunner to hose them all. Something else struck the windshield right in front of Marsh’s face, gouging a large chip out of the bullet-resistant glass. A bullet. Another round caromed off the Humvee’s hood, and McNeely swore as a third bullet slammed into the armor surrounding his weapon. He kept firing, but despite the onslaught, the people charged, still cackling with mad glee.

Marsh pushed himself back in his seat as the Humvee roared right into the crowd at sixty miles an hour. The first ambusher met his end when the Humvee’s reinforced bumper slammed into him, driving him backward into the crowd before he slipped from sight. The Mk 19 fell silent, and the vehicle bounced ferociously as Renner cursed, fighting against the wheel while keeping the accelerator pinned to the floor. The din was fantastic. All Marsh could hear were the horrible impacts, punctuated by shouts and jeers and never-ending laughter. The side view mirror struck a woman with a chainsaw, sending her tumbling through the air before it folded against the door with such force that the glass inside its frame shattered. From behind, the fifty cal opened up again, which Marsh took to be a good sign. They weren’t cut off from the rest of the element, and that was positively heartwarming.

“Bushmasters, get ready for close-quarters battle!” he said over the radio. He was pretty certain the rest of the column knew what was up, but he wanted to warn them, anyway. The Klowns were attacking with a zeal he had never seen before. In Cambridge, they had certainly tried their best to kill the lightfighters, but he’d never seen them sacrifice themselves quite so readily.

And then, they were through.

“How’s it holding up?” Marsh asked Renner.

“Could use an alignment,” Renner said.

Marsh turned in his seat to check on the soldiers behind him. Weir and Jacobs looked back at him from behind their MOPP masks, expressions unreadable. McNeely had dropped down between them, holding on to the lip of the cupola with both hands. When Marsh met his eyes, the soldier seemed to sigh before returning to his position behind the Mk 19’s control grips. Behind the speeding Humvee, more gunfire crackled before it was drowned out by the heavy BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM of the Apache chain guns.

Marsh faced forward again. Ahead, trees exploded. More cackling nut jobs had been lying in wait, but they had exposed themselves too soon, and now the Apaches were delivering their world-famous thirty-millimeter pain killer. Marsh watched no fewer than twenty people disintegrate beneath the withering firepower the attack helicopters delivered.

He got back on the radio. “Birddog, this is Bushmaster. You guys need to do a better job scouting. We’ve been engaged twice! Over.”

The lead Kiowa pilot responded, the aircraft’s fifty caliber chattering in the background. “Roger that, Bushmaster. We’re clearing the intersection just south of phase line alpha. Be advised, the approach to the traffic circle has been barricaded, but you can probably push through it with your Big Foots if you don’t want to go around. Over.”

Marsh grunted. The M925 trucks were nicknamed Big Foot, due to the fact they no longer sported twin sets of dual wheels on their rear axles, just single mammoth tires. “Roger, Birddog. We have some maneuvering room around that barricade? Over.”

“Bushmaster, Birddog. Plenty of room on the medians to get past. Uh, be advised, substantial dismounted forces are in the area. We’re working them over.”

“You have support moving up? Over.”

“Roger, Bushmaster.”

A trio of Apaches raced past the Humvee, bolting toward the still-unseen traffic rotary. More Apaches hung back, still pounding the ever-living snot out of the engagement area ahead. The high-explosive shells left divots in the roadway, and any time they struck near one of the Klowns ahead, the Infected went down…in pieces.

“Renner, slow down a bit. We don’t want to drive into their firing lanes.”

“Hooah,” Renner said, taking his foot off the accelerator.

As the Humvee slowed, Marsh thought he felt it wobbling in the front. They needn’t have bothered. The Apache attack ended, and the blacktop ahead was littered with body parts. Wet gore gleamed in the sunlight.

“You got eyes on the rest of the convoy?” Marsh asked.

Renner checked his side view mirror. “Roger, I see ’em.”

“All right, get back on it.”

Renner stomped on the accelerator again, and the Humvee slowly accelerated back to sixty miles per hour. The tires made wet sloshing sounds as they rolled through the carnage left by the gunships. Marsh saw a few bodies still moving, though not with any purpose, which was understandable, given that they were missing several body parts, and blood literally poured from horrendous wounds. The downed Klowns were still laughing, though, their bloodied faces turning toward the vehicle, lips parted, chuckling with their last breaths.

Oh, man…

“Bushmasters, Bushmaster Two-Six. Maintain your formations. Do not stop to engage—leave that for the follow on units. Break. Wizard, we’re still enroute to phase line alpha. Expect to be in position in about four minutes. Over.”

“Bushmaster, Wizard. Roger that.”

Renner cleared his throat. “Captain, I gotta ask you a question, sir.”

“Go ahead,” Marsh said, happy to have something to take his mind off what he had just seen—shattered, broken people, choking on their own blood… and still laughing.

“Captain—I mean, do I call him Colonel?—Lee. Is this guy off his rocker, trying to pass himself off as a field grade officer?”

It was a legitimate question, but Renner had picked a hell of a time to ask it. “Fuck if I know, Renner. What’s your problem?”

“Just want to know if we’re all going to fry for this. I mean, we know the guy isn’t a lieutenant colonel, right?”

Another fair question, but Marsh wasn’t in the mood to entertain notions of punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He was certain Lee might have more than a little explaining to do once everything was over, but the rest of them were just following orders, and Major Walker had pretty much told the battalion to listen to Lee. That suited Marsh just fine. While he didn’t particularly care all that much for Harry Lee, he knew Walker was a blue falcon—a “buddy fucker,” someone who would screw over another soldier if it was to his advantage. Marsh had decided back at Hanscom that he’d rather take directions from Lee, who at least appeared to want to save the battalion. Walker, as far as Marsh was concerned, was looking to save himself.

“Thinking’s not your strong suit, Renner. Just drive the fucking Humvee where I tell you, and leave the rest to me. Worrying is my job. All right?”

Renner bobbed his head. “Roger that.”

The Humvee led the way down the turnpike at just over sixty miles an hour, which was probably faster than they needed to go. Marsh told Renner to ease off a bit. The Big Foots hauling the lightfighters behind them were rated for fifty-five miles per hour and would have a tough time keeping up. Marsh didn’t want to invoke any unnecessary separations in the column. The convoy’s only bonus point was its consolidated firepower, and the trucks were depending on the Humvees to provide covering fire, the same way the Humvees were counting on the good-for-nothing aviators to do the same for them. Marsh understood the desire to speed, but arriving at the phase line with insufficient forces to enact the mission wasn’t going to end in a win for anyone.

“Bushmaster, this is Birddog. Over.”

“Birddog, go for Bushmaster. Over.”

“Bushmaster, Birddog. We’ve got civilian traffic in the area. Looks to be non-infected, real John and Jane Q. Publics trying to get the hell out of here. They’re attracting some attention from Infecteds, so they’ll probably get in your way when you move through the area to set up. Advisory only. Over.”

“Roger that, Birddog. Break.” Marsh decided he had to punt that one. The convoy couldn’t reasonably stop and help every civilian they encountered, but he needed some verification on which to base that presumption. “Wizard, this is Bushmaster Two-Six. Birddog reports civilians are in the mix up ahead. I need verification that we are not in the rescue business any longer. Over.”

If he and the rest of the company were going to dismount, they needed to know what was expected of them. Lee had kind of glossed over that aspect back at Hanscom, and no one had pushed him on it. The entire battalion just wanted to get the fuck back to Drum, and the fluidity of the circumstances were forcing the lightfighters to rely on their training without thinking about repercussions. Such as abandoning the civilians they had sworn an oath to protect.

Lee came back on the radio right away. Marsh had to hand it to him, he wasn’t hiding behind some RTO. “Bushmaster, this is Wizard Six. You’re going to have to make some decisions on the ground, Two-Six. We can’t stop and assist every civilian we run across. Our mission is to beat feet back to Drum. Over.”

The fuck you’re putting this on me, you prick. “Wizard, Bushmaster Two-Six. I need you to say the words. Are you telling us to not assist civilians in the zone? Over.”

Lee responded, “Bushmaster, this is Wizard Six. Assist if able, but do not abandon your position to do so. Clear enough? Over.”

“Roger that, Wizard.”

“Coming up on it,” Renner said.

A smoldering Honda Civic sat on the opposite shoulder, and a blackened corpse lay beside it. Whatever had happened to the car wasn’t recent, judging by the large flock of black crows pecking at the body. The birds watched as the Humvee approached then took flight and alighted on the power lines that paralleled the road. If the birds were hanging around, most likely no one else was in the immediate vicinity. Marsh had to hand it to the crows. They had balls, hanging out and grabbing some barbeque while Apaches and Kiowas thundered past them.

To their left, the expanse of the correctional facility presented itself. At first, it looked perfectly normal, then Marsh saw the windows of the guard tower were missing, and several bodies hung from its sills. All wore guard uniforms, and all had been horribly mutilated. To his right, Marsh expected to see the state police barracks, but all that was left was garbage. The entire building was essentially gone, as if it had been hit by a two thousand pound bomb. All that remained was twisted wreckage and curling smoke. Next to the barracks was a public works garage. All its doors were open, revealing nothing but empty bays. Not even a single sanitation truck remained.

Ahead lay the traffic rotary. Two feeder roads allowed traffic to approach the circle, but a battered fire truck lay on its side, blocking direct access to the rotary. Its red hide was pockmarked with bullet strikes. Surrounding it was a ring of corpses, all dressed in what Marsh thought of as “tribal chic,” the mode of attire so many of the Infected had adopted. Nearby, a passenger car had come to a halt with its windshield shattered, possibly collateral damage from one of the attacking Apaches. A family of four cowered behind it, and the husband was frantically waving at the approaching convoy. The mother knelt beside the car, clutching a toddler to her chest, while an older child crouched behind her. Injured Infected crawled toward them, leaving trails of gore in their wake as they dragged their shattered bodies across the ground. The Infected were still laughing, coils of intestine trailing after them. One was so close the man had to stop trying to flag down the convoy and bash its head in with a baseball bat.

“McNeely, you ready up there?” Marsh shouted as Renner slowed the Humvee and drifted into the left lane. Marsh noticed that the sergeant only glanced at the carcass of the small sedan as they passed it.

“Weapon up!” McNeely responded.

Marsh tensed again, pulling his M4 closer once more, then made sure the safety was on. “Okay, Renner…pull around this fucking fire truck.”

“Hooah.”

Marsh spoke into his radio. “Bushmaster Four, you see that family just ahead of you? Over.”

“Bushmaster Four. Roger. Over.”

“Take care of the Klowns that are trying to roll up on them then continue on to your position. Over.”

“Roger, Two-Six.”

The Humvee slid past the family. Marsh saw the man shouting at them to stop, but he couldn’t hear him over the Humvee’s engine. Renner pulled the vehicle around the dead fire truck, bumping over some of the corpses that surrounded it. He accelerated across the grassy median and around an overturned UPS truck that had an open rear door exposing dozens of packages that would go undelivered for quite some time. The scout pilot had been right, there was more than enough room to get around the impromptu road block, and the median was dry and firm, providing adequate traction for the Humvee. In a matter of moments, the vehicle was back on concrete. Renner accelerated again. Marsh saw that the eastbound lanes were mostly clear—hell, who would want to drive toward Boston?—but the westbound lanes were pretty busy, full of heavily-laden vehicles speeding west. Marsh looked at the Gulf service station to their right. Lots of people were still there, staying with their cars. They looked at his Humvee with a mixture of hope and dread.

“Okay, Renner, take us to the right a bit and set up just past this street, here. Keep us to the right a bit; leave enough room for the convoy.”

“Roger that,” the sergeant first class said, cutting the wheel to the right. The Humvee left the concrete again and bounced over the grassy median once more.

“McNeely! Try to look threatening with your Mark Nineteen,” Marsh shouted. “You see anyone making a move on us, you are cleared to fire. You understand that?”

“Cleared to fire. Roger!”

When the Humvee ground to a halt, Marsh threw open his heavy door. Behind him, Weir did the same, and Kragen, the silent black soldier sitting beside him, did as well. Clad in full armor and MOPP gear, they would look like invading aliens from another planet, which would doubtless serve to further terrorize the uninfected people in the passing cars, not to mention those waiting at the gas station.

The M925 rolled up and positioned itself squarely in the middle of the street leading into the rotary—Elm Street, the sign said—and began disgorging a full two squads of troops. The traffic heading their way suddenly came to a halt. The fact that almost thirty soldiers were pointing their weapons at the civilian traffic wasn’t lost on the motorists. Some of the soldiers squared off with the vehicles, rifles at low ready.

Helicopters pounded overhead, and Marsh looked for Second Lieutenant Erskine, the officer in charge of the dismounted troops. He was easy to find. As the newest officer to join the battalion, he carried a pair of Army-issued skis strapped to his rucksack wherever he went. As the 10^th Mountain’s ancestral mission was mountaineer combat, the skis were a symbol of the division’s special position in the combat arms, and the duty to preserve that heritage fell to the battalion’s most junior officer. The skis certainly made Erskine stand out, since only an idiot would be lugging around a pair of skis during a Massachusetts summer.

“Erskine!” Marsh called.

“Yes, sir?” Erskine’s eyes somehow managed to look big behind his mask.

“Listen, if things get fucked up, you and your soldiers are to do whatever it takes to protect yourselves and keep this area secure. If it means putting people in the line of fire, you do that. You get me?” When Erskine didn’t reply immediately, Marsh slapped his shoulder. “Erskine, you hear me?”

“Hooah, Captain. I hear you,” Erskine said. “I’m not shooting defenseless people.”

“No one’s asking you to. Just keep them back, and keep your men safe. All right?”

“Hooah.”

Marsh turned away and shouted into his radio while examining the bottled-up traffic. “Wizard, this is Bushmaster. We are in position. Traffic circle is secure, inbound lanes are blocked. Over.”

There could be dozens of Infected out there, and he’d never know it until they tried something. Could they hold it together long enough to not try and slaughter everyone in a bid to get at the soldiers of the 10^th Mountain?

“Roger that, Bushmaster. We’re making our way toward you now. Over.”

“Recommend you move your ass, Wizard. Lots of people trying to get out of here. Over.”

“Roger, Bushmaster.”

Marsh squinted at the service station a hundred feet away, separated from him by only a grassy median. There were several abandoned vehicles in its parking lot, including one SUV that had been hauling a boat. More sat around the station’s presumably empty gas pumps. The people over there turned toward the troops. They weren’t acting in an aggressive fashion, which probably meant they were just stranded motorists looking for some help. A man in a dirty baseball cap started walking across the parking lot, heading toward Marsh. Marsh waved him back, then raised his rifle to his shoulder. The man in the cap got the message, and he faded back, hands in the air.

The few vehicles behind the blocking force had stopped a good distance away. No one wanted to get close to the men with the guns, especially when they looked as menacing as the troops in their MOPP gear.

A voice crackled over Marsh’s headset. “Bushmaster Two-Six, this is Three-Six. Over.”

“Three-Six, this is Two-Six. Go ahead. Over.”

“Two-Six, this is Three-Six. Western approach to the traffic circle secured, expect the column to start heading your way. Over.”

“Roger that, Three-Six. Keep your troops on their toes. Over.”

“Three-Six, roger.”

The Sky 5 news helicopter was back, circling a couple of thousand feet overhead, well above the Apaches and scout helicopters. Marsh ignored it. If it came into conflict with the Army aviators, they would make it go away, one way or the other.

Marsh kept his attention focused on the ground regime. That was what he was paid to do, and he had half his company on the ground around him. The first elements of the convoy trundled past, with the last two platoons of Bravo in the lead. Under his XO, the remaining members of Bushmaster would head south to phase line bravo, just south of the Interstate 495 overpass, where they would provide area security while the aviation units ensured the highway overpass was clear of goblins. The scouts were already heading that way to put eyeballs on target and begin prepping the area for the convoy.

And prepping meant hosing any enemy formations with rockets and machinegun fire.

Marsh stayed near his Humvee and watched the soldiers set up. Everyone was eyes out. One of the cars that had stopped behind the blocking force, a minivan stuffed full of people and possession, slowly trundled forward. Marsh wondered what the hell they thought they were doing. The soldiers nearest the minivan waved for the vehicle to stop. It did, then it slowly crept forward again. The driver’s window came down, and Marsh caught a glimpse of a frightened face turned toward the soldiers. It was a woman, probably a frightened soccer mom, trying to get her family to safety. The soldiers waved for her to stop once again, and the M240 mounted to the top of the M925A1 barked as the gunner ripped off a short burst into the street in front of the minivan. The vehicle jerked to a halt. The woman rolled up the window, and then the minivan lunged backward in reverse.

Sorry, lady.

Marsh kept an eye on the convoy’s progress. Humvees, more M925s carrying soldiers, monstrous HEMT tanker trucks full of diesel and aviation fuel, generator trucks, water buffaloes, a few M997 ambulances that were based off the venerable Humvee platform, more trucks that serviced the mortar team. It was an entire battalion’s worth of rolling stock, followed by a string of civilian vehicles they had brought along from Hanscom. The convoy took ten minutes to make it around the rotary, and by that time, phase line bravo was already under control. Marsh was heartened by that, since it meant the aviation units and the next company in the chain, Charlie Company, would be leapfrogging ahead to secure the next phase line objective.

Alongside the gas station, a Gulf tanker truck slowly rolled into the station parking lot, diesel engine clattering, air brakes hissing. It pulled past the gas pump islands and lurched to a halt. Another tractor-trailer rig followed. To Marsh, it looked like someone had finally decided to try to fill up the gas station and get things moving again. That was fine by him. The more people who could get out of the greater Boston area, the better.

“Bushmaster Two-Six, this is Wizard. Over.” This time, it was a faceless RTO making the call. Lee apparently had better things to do than correspond with his rear guard.

“Wizard, this is Bushmaster. Go ahead.”

“Bushmaster, Wizard. Convoy has reported clear. Everyone is moving downrange on Union Turnpike, confirmed by aviation. Fold up the tents and follow the order of movement. Over.”

“Roger, Wizard. Break. Bushmaster Three-Two, you guys are clear to retreat from your position. Over.”

“Two-Six, this is Three-Six. Roger that. We’re mounting up now. Over.”

“How’s the traffic over there?” Marsh called up at McNeely, who was still manning the Mk 19. Standing in the Humvee’s cupola, McNeely had a commanding view of the area.

“Getting busy,” McNeely said, pointing toward the traffic on the other side of the circle. “What the hell are these people doing coming toward Boston?”

“Don’t know,” Marsh replied.

“What?”

Marsh waved the question away. “Never mind, McNeely. Stay eyes out.”

More vehicles rumbled past, heading up the turnpike. Bushmaster Three-Six’s element moved out, closely followed by Lieutenant Haberman’s element. An Apache moved uprange overhead, providing top cover for the two groups as they abandoned their blocking positions. Marsh looked over and saw Lieutenant Haberman shoot him a thumbs-up from the lead Humvee’s front passenger seat. The guy was out of sequence. He should have been the lead element onto the highway, not the tail, but Marsh was too tired and wound up to worry about it. He’d straighten out the lieutenant later.

“Erskine!” Marsh shouted.

Second Lieutenant Erskine turned from his position beside the M925A1’s impressive front bumper. His M4 was pulled tight to his shoulder. “Sir!”

“Have your men mount up. We’re joining the column!”

“Roger that!” Using hand signals, Erskine motioned his senior leaders to round up the men and have them rally back at the waiting Big Foot.

Marsh looked over at Weir and Kragen. They were maintaining their positions on the other side of the Humvee, keeping the vehicle between them and the traffic bottled up by the element.

“Stay on your rifles,” he shouted first to Kragen then to Weir. “Cover the rest of the troops. We’ll mount up last.” The soldiers responded with quick “okay” signals. Marsh shouldered his M4 and watched as the lightfighters mounted the waiting 6x6, the rattle of their gear lost amidst the cackling of idling diesel engines and the dull roar of the traffic to his right. He scanned the blocked cars and trucks, and frightened faces stared back at him through various windshields.

The single Apache slowly floated downrange, staying away from the turnpike, its rotors flickering in the sunlight. Marsh was hot, and the heavy perspiration that dampened his uniform was making his skin itch, especially under his arms and body armor. He could feel sweat pooling inside his M40A1 face mask. At least he knew the seal was still tight. The temperature was approaching eighty degrees, and at least ninety percent humidity. If he wasn’t able to take his gear off soon, the great seal would probably have him drowning in his own sweat.

Behind him, the air was torn asunder by the cacophony of rending metal, squealing tires, and shrieking car horns.

Marsh took two steps back and crouched while turning toward the gas station. At first, he had figured he had heard something as simple as an auto accident. There were lots of distractions to captivate a driver’s attention, what with the maneuvering soldiers, orbiting gunships, competing traffic, and columns of smoke rising into the air from various locations. But the din continued, and as Marsh brought his rifle to his shoulder, he saw why.

The second tractor-trailer rig he had watched pull into the filling station across the street was charging right across the parking lot, slamming into the cars and SUVs and, hurling them aside as if they were children’s toys. Metal crumpled, fiberglass fractured, and glass shattered. Luggage, family pets, and people were torn from the vehicles and sent cartwheeling through the air. The tractor-trailer bounced and heaved as it plowed through the sea of sheet metal and fiberglass like some bizarre, chrome-grilled yacht crossing a turbulent ocean. It was tracking just north of his position, slicing through the traffic with a raucous clamor. The entire front clip of a car flew into the air and bounced along the truck’s long trailer, disintegrating as it went. A severed arm followed it, trailing a thin plume of blood as it tumbled along.

And leering through a windshield already cobwebbed with fractures was a man, shaking with laughter behind his sunglasses.

“Open fire! Open fire!” Marsh shouted. Most of the men didn’t react to his order, not even Kragen, who was standing right beside him. Even with the voice emitters built into the mask, the noise coupled with the mask’s muffling capability made communication almost impossible. But when Marsh started firing his M4, the troops joined in the fun, hosing the truck’s cab with everything they had. The driver disappeared behind an explosion of glass and sparks as dozens of 5.56- and 7.62-millimeter rounds punched through the compartment. The driver’s side mirror exploded, and the door window disappeared in a waterfall of cascading glass. The driver’s body, held in place by the seat belt, jerked to and fro as it was chopped up by the gunfire. The muted thump-thump-thump of the Mk 19 reached Marsh’s ears. Sparking explosions rippled across the front of the tractor-trailer, blasting off its hood cowling and flaying open the engine compartment all the way to the firewall. The diesel engine screamed as it died in a puff of oily smoke. More explosions rocked through the driver’s cab, demolishing what remained of the windshield. Half the driver’s door was blown away, and a geyser of seat padding and body parts erupted through the newly created opening. The truck’s front tire blew, adding frayed rubber to the melee as the truck slammed into the minivan that had approached the blocking force earlier and drove it into another sedan.

Finally, the truck came to a halt. Smoke boiled from its engine compartment and from inside the cab, which had been redecorated with bloody gore. The troops continued spraying the vehicle. Bits and pieces of sheet metal and fiberglass whirled through the air.

Marsh shouted for them to cease fire, but none of them heard. He slapped Kragen on the back of his helmet then ran around the front of the Humvee, waving for the soldiers to stop firing. He made a point of signaling McNeely. The last thing he wanted was for the kid to fire an M430A1 high explosive grenade into one of the truck’s saddle tanks. Marsh breathed a sigh of relief when the last soldier secured his weapon.

Seconds later, people began screaming from the gas station.

Marsh turned.

The doors to the truck’s trailer had opened, and people were boiling out from its depths. Ragged clothes. Ritual self-mutilation. Ornate decorations crafted from body parts, many still bloodied. They brought with them the stink of death, and just to make sure everyone knew the Klowns had arrived, they had a cloud of black flies as escort.

“Soldier booyyyyysss, oh our little soldier booyyyyysss!” one of them sang in a high, chuckling falsetto. He was a hugely obese, bald-headed man whose pasty skin was covered with bloodied handprints. “We’ll be so true to youuuuuuuuu…” As he belted out the perverse rendition of the early 1960s hit, he raised a gore-encrusted hatchet over his head. He ran straight toward Marsh, his huge belly and sagging man-tits flouncing and bouncing with each step.

Marsh shot the fat man in the face as he raced across the median. The man collapsed, and the hatchet bounced across the grass, then skittered across the pavement toward Marsh. Raising his rifle to aim at the other Klowns, Marsh flicked the fire selector to AUTO and squeezed the trigger. He ripped off the eleven rounds that remained in the magazine before the weapon stopped firing, bolt locked back. Several of the Klowns went down, shrieking not with pain, but laughter. Marsh ejected the empty mag and plucked a fresh one from his tactical vest. His thick gloves made his fingers slow and clumsy.

Kragen advanced, moving to stand beside Marsh. Kragen opened fire, covering Marsh while he fumbled with reloading his rifle. Marsh finally got a mag into the carbine’s magazine well, and hit the bolt release, charging the weapon. The rest of the troops began to fire, but half of them hadn’t been able to properly identify the real threat. They were aiming at the shot-up tractor-trailer rig’s cab.

Weir moved into a new firing position to Marsh and Kragen’s left, hitting the oncoming Klowns with grazing fire. It was ineffective. The Klowns kept coming. They just didn’t care about being shot. Marsh sent several rounds into the mass of filthy, insane humanity charging toward him. Several Klowns stumbled and fell, tripping others who scrambled to get past them.

The Mk 19 roared again, and explosions ripped across the rear of the trailer. Torsos and limbs flew as the high-explosive grenades tore through the flimsy metal. When the grenade launcher fell silent, the gunner manning the M240B on the Big Foot started in, punching dozens of holes through the trailer, apparently hoping to perforate any Infected who might still be inside.

“Reloading!” McNeely shouted.

Rotor beats pounded the air as the Apache that had been downrange tilted into a steep bank to the right then flitted across the turnpike.

Marsh hoped the pilots were moving into a better firing position because his men could use the help. Time to call the boss.

“Wizard, Bushmaster Two-Six! Over!”

“Bushmaster, this is Wizard. Over.”

“Wizard, Bushmaster is engaged with a large enemy element at this time! They’re using commercial vehicles to transport dismounts, and they are actively attacking! Over!”

With a muted cry, Kragen dropped to the pavement. As Marsh reached for him, something flashed past his head—an arrow. If he hadn’t moved, he would have been hit.

The projectile skimmed the top of his Humvee, bounced off at an angle, and plunged into the arm of the soldier manning the M240B machinegun atop the Big Foot. He jerked, but another soldier reached up to steady him.

“Weir, maintain fire!” Marsh shouted.

Four more soldiers ran up blazing away at the Klowns, who continued to surge forward. The Infected were cut down with ruthless efficiency.

Kragen writhed on the ground, clutching his leg. His eyes were squeezed shut behind the lenses of his mask. Marsh knelt beside him and looked at the arrow sticking out of Kragen’s left thigh. It had penetrated deep, and he didn’t doubt the arrowhead was lodged in Kragen’s femur.

His radio squawked. “Bushmaster, this is Wizard. Over.” It was Lee again.

“Wizard, go for Bushmaster. Over!” Marsh leaned over Kragen. “Kragen! Hang in there, soldier. I’m going to get you out of here!”

“Bushmaster, Wizard. We’re rotating the Apaches back to you—”

Kragen sat up suddenly, his eyes wide and gleaming. He shuddered mightily, and said something Marsh couldn’t hear over the racket of the fighting. Marsh grabbed the soldier’s shoulders and tried to push him back down.

“Take it easy, Kragen!”

“Surprise, fucker!” Kragen shouted as he pulled his M4 toward him.

He was infected. The Klowns had treated the arrow with something, either piss or shit or some other bodily fluid, and Kragen had gone over to the dark side.

Marsh was quicker. He fired two rounds into Kragen’s mask at close range, blasting the soldier’s brains all over a startled Weir, who jumped away. Two of the soldiers nearest Marsh fell back, looking confused and leveling their M4s at him.

Marsh saw the soldier manning the M240B yank the arrow out of his arm and jam it into the second soldier’s side, causing the other man to yelp and fall backward. The infected soldier then spun the machinegun around on its mount, lowered the barrel as far as he was able, and started hammering the soldiers in the Big Foot’s bed with full automatic fire.

“Take him out!” Marsh yelled, pointing at the soldier with one hand while bringing his M4 around with the other.

Weir looked over at Marsh, saw him pointing back at the truck, and turned. The soldier manning the M240B turned it in Weir’s direction. They both fired at the same time. Weir missed. The soldier on the machinegun did not.

Weir danced and spasmed as a hail of 7.62-millimeter fire ripped into his body. The two other soldiers split off, pulling their sights off Marsh and reorienting on the soldier with the machinegun. Marsh fired his M4 one handed and put three rounds into the Big Foot’s cab before a fourth hit the infected soldier in the thigh. The hit didn’t faze the soldier; he only laughed harder. He finally went down when several rounds slammed into his chest and head in rapid succession.

The other soldier he had stabbed rose up and grabbed the machinegun’s stock. He ripped off his helmet and mask, laughing hysterically as he swung the weapon around to resume firing. Marsh pounded out three shots, and all struck the man’s face and neck.

“One of you get on that weapon!” Marsh shouted to the two soldiers who had taken out the first gunner. He looked over at Weir’s body. Rivulets of dark blood oozed across the asphalt. Lars the Viking from Minnesota was lying motionless on his back. His time with the 10^th had come to an end.

McNeely shouted something and opened up with the reloaded Mk 19, firing the weapon at its full cyclic rate. Marsh spun around and saw several Klowns picking their way across the corpse-strewn median. He raised his weapon and sent them to hell with several shots. He needn’t have bothered because most of them were run down by the speeding gasoline tanker as it bulled its way across the station’s parking lot, paralleling the path the cargo truck had just taken. Several Klowns clung to the cab, standing on its running boards, shouting and jeering even as the soldiers moved forward, forming a perimeter of fire teams that took the riders out one by one with precision fire. More rounds were buried into the truck’s grille, and plumes of steam erupted from under the hood as its radiator was perforated by full metal jacketed bullets. Then, the first of the Mk 19’s rounds found their target, tearing through the cab… and walking back toward the shiny metal trailer the rig hauled.

The one that was presumably full of gasoline.

“McNeely, cease fire! Cease fire!” Marsh shouted. He ripped off his mask and repeated the order, but McNeely was caught up in the act, leaning into his Mk 19 as he pumped round after round at the approaching truck, not letting up even when the vehicle slowly ground to a halt. Marsh sprinted toward him, waving his arms, yelling.

The world turned white and yellow as the sun seemed to rise right from the traffic rotary. Marsh was aware of an increasingly blistering heat before the shock wave slammed into him, hurling him head-first into the Humvee.