A Glimpse Of Decay (Book 1): Red Storm) (15 page)

The pilot choked back a sob as tears ran down his cheeks.

***

Just south of the Kyshtym Military Complex

Captain Kozlov’s tank sped north along the empty highway.  He balanced himself in his hatch as he hung onto the antiaircraft gun.  An APC followed closely behind.  It was the only other vehicle from his company that had survived the massacre at the Mirnyy.  The numb captain swayed back and forth as he tried to clear his mind of what they had just experienced.

***

Although Kozlov’s column had been able to reach the aid station at Mirnyy, they had gotten there too late.  The soldiers were horrified to find that the station had been overrun by the infected.  Many of the aid tents were engulfed in flames and when the surviving civilians saw Kozlov’s vehicles approaching the station, they ran towards them in an attempt to seek some kind of protection from the rampaging horde of infected and reanimated that were close on their heels.

Like a raging river rushing over rocks, the attacking mob swarmed over the tanks and armored troop transports.  Some of the APCs were quickly overtaken as the infected—soldiers and civilians alike—pulled frightened and screaming troops from the opened hatches.  Quickly flooding into the troop compartments via the exposed hatches, the helpless and wounded civilians inside were quickly killed, only to reanimate later on.

Seeing this, several tanks had actually turned their main guns on those APCs, obliterating them and their attackers.  In all of the confusion, the infected quickly mixed in with the fleeing civilians, savagely attacking them.  Some of the bewildered troops had no choice but to fire indiscriminately into the crowd, their fear taking control of their reasoning and their emotions. At the time they didn’t realize that they were only creating more and more reanimated and revived corpses.

During the chaotic madness, Kuzma looked up from his seat to Kozlov and yelled, “Sir, what are we going to do?  We’ve just fired on fellow comrades!”

Kozlov took a minute to regain his composure.  He was trying to gather his thoughts as the battle raged around him.  The screams and the chatter of the guns were enough to drive a man insane, but he had to keep his composure if he was going to make it out of this living hell.

“We’re heading back to Kyshtym, that’s what we’ll do.”

“Captain, I don’t mean to be contradictive,” Kuzma said, “but Kyshtym is off the air.  There is a good chance it’s been knocked out.”

“I know that, but Kyshtym is the closest place where we can refuel and rearm.  I’m sure there’s no one left guarding the supplies, so we’ll probably have to fight our way in, take what we need, and then haul ass north…maybe towards Moscow.  I’m positive we will run across one of the other regiments coming down this way.”

Kuzma and Radimir exchanged nervous glances in the dim light of the tank.  Radimir then looked at his rifle and realized that he only had a couple of magazines of ammunition left.  He looked up at his commander and said, “Sir, please allow me to grab some rifle ammunition from one of the stricken A.P.C.s.  We’ve used up most of our magazines and we’re down to our side arms.  Look, I can see Yuri’s A.P.C. is deserted.  I’m sure there is ammo in there.”  He pointed to a motionless APC not more than fifty feet from them.

Knowing that Radimir was right, he said, “Ok, we’ll pull up alongside Yuri’s.  You get in there and see what you can find.”

“Yes sir,” Radimir replied as he checked his pistol.

Kozlov’s tank rumbled up next to the APC.  As Kozlov manned the machine gun, the gunner crawled out of the turret, jumped down to the engine deck and hopped over to the APC.  He peered into the darkness through an open hatch for a brief moment and then raised his head to look back at his captain.  “Looks good so far,” he said, grinning.  As he looked back at Kozlov, he didn’t see the bloody pair of hands that reached out from the hatch.

The hands quickly clamped down onto the gunner’s collar, yanking him down towards the hatch.  A second set of hands reached out of the hatch and began to claw and scratch Radimir.  The young man screamed as he fought to tear away from the hands that were attacking him.  He drew his pistol and began to fire wildly into the hatch.

“Radimir!” Kozlov screamed.  He was about to leap from out of the turret in an attempt to help his man, but he knew that the gunner was as good as dead.  A blood smeared head had emerged from the APC’s hatch—a long-haired woman with her left eye torn from out of its socket.  She pulled Radimir’s face down towards hers’, sinking her teeth into his neck.  Radimir, kneeling down on top of the APC, fought to keep from being pulled down into the hatch.  The blood from his wound was pouring out over the deck of the personnel carrier.

Kozlov yelled down for Kuzma to pull away.  At first, Kozlov’s orders fell upon deaf ears.  There was no way Kuzma was going to leave Radimir behind, but a swift kick to the back of his shoulder quickly made the driver realize that he had no choice.  “We can’t do anything for him, so go!” the captain yelled.

The tank lurched forward and as it pulled away, Kozlov spun the turret mounted machine gun around and let loose a burst at Radimir and his attacker.  In a splash of sparks and blood, Radimir’s body was blown into several pieces.  The lower portion of his right leg was left grotesquely standing upright on top of the carrier.

***

Kozlov realized that he had drifted off with his thoughts and he knew that he needed to focus on what was happening right now.  The past was the past and there was nothing he could do about it now.  Standing in his hatch, he turned and used his night vision to look at the following APC.  As he was about to relay an order to Kuzma, he heard a loud roar in the dark sky above.  The emotionally battered captain looked up and saw a blinding explosion that turned the dark heavens into a bright flash of white.  He immediately knew what it was.  It was an airburst.

Under normal circumstances, all electronically operated devices, including vehicles, would have stopped working due to the electromagnetic pulse created by the burst, but the military vehicles had been outfitted with circuitry which protected them from such an occurrence.  It really didn’t make a difference though.  Kozlov knew that in the next instant, he and his driver would be baked alive inside of their vehicle as soon as the nuclear warhead detonated.

“Fucking bastards!” Kozlov yelled up at the glowing explosion.  “You created this, and now you’re going to kill everyone to cover it up!”

Kozlov ignited like a match as the air around him turned to fire.  His tank and the trailing APC were sucked up into the roiling mushroom cloud that was now reaching up into the heavens.

***

Helicopter Approaching Astana International Airport

“What did you just say!” shouted the helicopter crew chief into his mic boom.  “They did what?”  The surprise in his voice caught the attention of all who could hear him over the beat of the rotors.

Massimov could hear the crew chief’s exclamation and he made his way over to his station.  “What’s going on?” he asked.

The crew chief flipped up the boom and said, “You’re not going to believe this, but the pilot just received word that the Russians have used a nuclear weapon on Ozersk.”

“Oh my God!” Massimov gasped.  “You can’t be serious!”

“I am dead serious.”  The crew chief placed his hand to the side of his helmet and said, “Hold on, the pilot is telling me something else.”

Roberts and the others could see the animated conversation taking place between Massimov and the crew chief.  “Looks like something is up,” Roberts said to Irene.

“Yeah, it does.”   She turned her neck to look out of one of the portals and she could see the lights from the airport.  There was a distinctive blue dome in the center of the terminal, and it was brightly lit up.

Roberts stood and walked over to Massimov.  “What’s going on?” he asked the doctor as he tried to balance himself.

Massimov looked back at Roberts and scowled at him.  “The Russians used a nuclear bomb on Ozersk.”

“Holy shit!” Roberts exclaimed.  “When?”

“Just a little while ago.”

The crew chief leaned over to Massimov and said, “There is an American transport waiting for your guests.”  He gestured towards Roberts and the others.  “We’ve been ordered to transfer the woman over to them, and then they are going to take her somewhere else.”  The crew chief was intentionally speaking Russian.

Responding in Russian, Massimov asked, “On whose authority are we to release the subject to the Americans?”

“Our president’s,” the crew chief said.  “The pilot just received a transmission telling him that an agreement between our country and the United States has been reached and they are going to take the lead in the investigation on The Ozersk Syndrome.  Astana is set to be evacuated and there won’t be any facilities left to handle any kind of long term research effort.”

“Evacuated?”

“Yes, evacuated.  Contact has been lost with the majority of the villages and towns near the border, and power has been lost from Chelyabinsk south into Kazakhstan.  There is a wave of refugees heading south, and some are heading west towards the Caspian Sea.  Ferries are set up to take people over to Georgia, but Azerbaijan is refusing to allow anyone into their country.”

“It sounds like the world is falling apart,” Massimov stated in a nervous tone.

“Yes, it does sound that way.  As soon as we off-load you and the other passengers, we’ve been ordered to refuel and head north.  We’ve been tasked with checking on some of the villages that the government has lost contact with.”

“Hey, can you at least give me a hint at what he was saying,” Roberts complained to Massimov, frustrated that the crew chief was speaking in Russian.

“There is an American plane at the airport,” Massimov said.  “You and your colleagues are going to take our resurrected woman to one of your facilities to figure out what in God’s name brought her back to life, although I think you already have a good idea as to what’s really happening.”

“Who ordered this?” Roberts asked.  Massimov’s words had caught him off guard, and he felt a little insecure and uncertain.  Decisions were now being made by his superiors, decisions that he wasn’t being notified about.

“Probably people who get paid to make these kinds of decisions…politicians.  Either way, you got what you wanted.”

“Got what I wanted?” Roberts asked.

“Yes, you’re getting your bio-weapon.  Now you can study it and figure out how to make it work for you.”  Roberts could hear the cynicism in Massimov’s voice.

“I don’t know why you can’t believe me when I tell you that we’re here because we want to help.  We’re not here trying to profit off of this.”

Massimov looked away from Roberts as he balanced himself.  The helicopter was banking left as it circled the airport in preparation for its landing.  “Major, I’ve been in medicine long enough to know that whenever government gets involved with science or medicine, a profit is always made, no matter what.”

“What’s going on?” Michael asked as he shuffled himself along the bench towards Roberts.

“There’s an Air Force plane waiting on us.  We’re going to take the patient and head somewhere else.”

“Okayyy, and so where are we going to?”

“Don’t know, guess they’ll tell us when we get on the ground.  I would probably say maybe the B.S.L. Four lab at Fort Detrick.”

Irene, who could barely hear what was being said between Roberts and Michael, reach over and tapped Michael on his shoulder, asking him what was going on.  Michael filled her in on what Roberts had just told him.  Leaning back on the bench, she felt a sense of security come over her.  Something about being around more Americans in this madness made her feel safe, and she couldn’t wait to get off of the helicopter.

After receiving clearance to land, the pilot brought the helicopter down near the large American transport plane.  With its grey paint scheme, the aircraft looked like a giant whale with oversized flippers.  The crew chief got everyone to their feet and had the guards prepare the gurney for transportation.  As the cargo ramp lowered, they were greeted by armed members of the Kazakhstan military.  They were quickly rushed across the tarmac to the waiting American plane.  Massimov and Mamani followed behind.

As Roberts prepared to make his way up into the American plane, he turned to Massimov.  “Thanks for everything you’ve done for us.  Good luck and God be with you.”  Roberts extended his hand.

Massimov stood in silence and stared directly into Robert’s eyes.  “I just pray to God that you are genuine about wanting to find a cure for this.  I hope that my inner feelings are wrong and that you’re not just here just to reap the benefits of someone’s science project that went bad.”  Massimov turned without shaking Roberts’s hand, walking away in silence.

“We need to get a move on, sir,” said an airman who was standing at the rear of the giant plane.  Roberts looked at the man for a second and then trotted up the ramp.  Four armed American troops strode down the ramp and took the gurney from the guards and the crew chief.  They wheeled it up into the plane and disappeared into the cavernous hold.

Irene stepped over to Mamani and the two embraced as Michael looked on.  Irene began to sob out loud, and in a motherly response, Mamani began to run her hand through Irene’s hair.