Afterburn: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 1) (4 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

Capt. Mark Antonelli didn’t like this recon mission one damned bit.

He knew it was necessary, but this wasn’t his call. He was following orders, and somebody up the chain of command had a better view of things. Never mind that his superiors were huddled around a sandbox in a secure bunker that was so large it could rightly be called a resort while he and his men slept in the mud with one eye open.

This had been the lot of soldiers throughout history, from Sumerian spearmen to Roman legionnaires to Napolean’s
grenadiers.
He’d served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan in the former world, and he knew the drill. The duty was to die. The only thing that changed was the face of the enemy. But no enemy had ever been as strange as the Zaps.

As much as Antonelli wanted to charge whatever ramparts the Zaps had constructed in their city strongholds, he understood the patient wisdom of strategy. And that meant trusting those with the shoulder braids, chest medals, and brandy snifters in New Pentagon. Directive 17 had reorganized the remnants of the military into a single force. After years of skirmishes and probing and planning, the push would come soon enough.

And it would be all or nothing.

“Do you believe that kid?” his XO, Lt. Randall, said as he stirred a tin can of hash heated over a campfire just enough to make the grease ooze from whatever animal had supplied the contents.

“Not sure it matters.” Antonelli drank from his canteen, swished the stale water around his mouth, and spat. “I doubt if he knows anything that can help us.”

The fire cast long, flickering shadows against the boulders and trees surrounding them. The unit was bivouacked a hundred yards off the parkway in a hollow between two rocky knolls. From one granite promontory, Antonelli enjoyed a spectacular sunset view of the rolling ridges, and dusk brought the aurora above and not a single manmade light below. Now the troops were spread out in groups of four or five, establishing a protective perimeter with constant foot patrols.

Thirty-eight soldiers in all, four of them women, and only ten of them from his Camp Lejeune division. The rest were Army, Navy, and even a jet mechanic, as well as a couple of raw recruits they’d found holed up in a farmhouse a week before.

“Anybody that’s lived this long must know a thing or two,” Randall said.

“Or else got really lucky.”

“A good-luck charm wouldn’t hurt.” Randall smacked his shiny lips. “These mountains got monsters even Hollywood couldn’t dream up.”

Antonelli was annoyed at Randall’s mention of past things. Nostalgia was worse than useless—it was dangerous. Those who fantasized about restoring the old world were unsuited for the grim task of carving out an entirely new society, one that would have no room for entertainment or idleness. For the rest of their lives, whether that turned out to be hours or decades, they would never know true security.

Come to think of it, that’s pretty much the same state as the human race of the Terrorist Age. The only difference is the ragheads got blasted by the same God that burned the Christians.

“We can handle the monsters,” Antonelli said. “It’s the Zaps that’ll be the challenge.”

“Why’s that, Captain?”

“Monsters just want to eat. Zaps want to thrive.”

“Come on. What do we really know about the muties anymore? Do you really believe the Commander-in-Chief is telling the truth?”

Antonelli frowned and glanced over at the nearest tent, wondering if those soldiers were asleep and out of earshot. “That’s awfully close to treason, Lieutenant.”

“You’re putting all of our lives in her hands. Maybe even the future of our kind.”

“Somebody’s got to call the shots.”

“If she’s even in charge anymore. The kind of games they play in D.C., a coup wouldn’t be a surprise. And we’d be the last to know.”

Abigail Murray had been Secretary of State when the catastrophe struck, and if Antonelli could believe the rumors, she ascended to the top by virtue of being fourth in the line of presidential succession. The president had turned into a gibbering Zap that was eagerly terminated by a Congressman of the opposition party, the vice president had been aboard Air Force Two and crashed into the Atlantic, and the Speaker of the House and Senate pro tem had both died instantly. Murray was a divisive lightning rod in peacetime, and Antonelli imagined she was even more combustible with her newfound power.

But until he heard otherwise, she was boss. And Antonelli had to play the cards he was dealt.

That was, unless the situation changed in unforeseen ways. Which he figured was just a matter of time.

“We’ve got a job to do,” Antonelli said. “We’re boots on the ground, not the eye in the sky. And it’s going to take all of us working as a team to exterminate the Zaps.”

Antonelli pulled a cigarette from his pocket, indulging in one of his few perks of rank. He fished a stick from the fire and stuck its glowing ember to the end of his smoke. The tobacco was moldy and nearly flavorless, but the additives were as strong as ever. Perhaps the ingenuity of corporations was one thing from the past worth missing.

“I’m on board, Captain,” Randall said, enviously eyeing the plume of gray smoke that trailed from Antonelli’s mouth. “No need for the ‘rah rah’ bullshit. I’d take a bullet for any single one of us.”

“We’d all take a bullet. But would you throw yourself into the jaws of one of those beastadons, or tackle a dozen Zaps in a sewer tunnel?”

Randall stared into the fire as if contemplating those options. “I’d pull a pin and let an M67 frag take care of business. Even if I had to sit on it.”

Antonelli hoped Randall was never forced to commit sacrificial suicide via grenade, but he smiled at the lieutenant’s loyalty.

A private emerged from the shadows and saluted. Antonelli cast about for a name but couldn’t come up with one. “Status?”

“All quiet, sir. Recon of the perimeter complete, all present and accounted for.”

“Good.” Antonelli nodded toward the C-rations warming on top of the stones that ringed the campfire. “Get yourself some chow and stand down for the night.”

After the private retreated to the cluster of tents in the clearing below, Antonelli stubbed out his cigarette and tossed the butt in the fire. He checked his watch, tilting it toward the fire. He’d been issued a luminescent-dial tactical wristwatch by HQ, but the lingering sunspot activity must have erased it, and he was left to salvage a last-century wind-up watch. It read a quarter until midnight. Maybe he could use some sleep himself.

“You’re on,” Antonelli said to Randall. “Wake me at oh-six-hundred hours.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

As Antonelli wended his way through the trees to his sleeping bag tucked under a granite overhang, he considered stopping by the tent sheltering PFC Colleen Kelly. The freckle-faced redhead was another of the perks in which he indulged. But that would mean disturbing her tentmate, a sour civilian who was another old-world dreamer. The pleasure was hardly worth the hassle of a lecture about the U.S. Constitution, civil liberties, and equal rights.

As if anything is equal in a world where we grovel in the dirt while Zaps occupy our finest cities.

Hell with it. One more stop, check on this Stephen kid, and then we’re off to war.

He didn’t expect to find any survivors of Lt. Hilyard’s outpost, since no one had heard from them in years. But the bunker near Milepost 297 might turn up some useful supplies, assuming it hadn’t been contaminated or overrun by Zaps. They were as likely to find it was now a den for overgrown black bears as they were to secure food and ammunition.

Orders were orders, and if the leathery old bitch Murray wanted it done, so be it. Hooray for the human race.

He shook his bedroll, hoping to shed any contaminated spiders that might be hiding in the folds, and was removing his boots when the first scream sounded, followed by a three-round burst of semiautomatic fire.

Antonelli jammed his feet back into his boots and sprinted downhill with the laces trailing out behind him. Working flashlights were scarce commodities doled out only for special ops, his unit was lucky to wield three of them. The soldiers on watch were all issued night-vision goggles, but Antonelli was forced to stumble through a dimness lit only by the hazy glow of the aurora.

But the direction was easy because more weapons rattled in the night. Antonelli barked orders to the half-dressed soldiers rolling out of their tents. Lt. Randall was no longer by the campfire, likely already on the scene of the firefight. Antonelli drew his sidearm and held the Beretta before him, knowing the nine-millimeter rounds would have little effect against the largest of the monsters he’d seen.

But we’ve got enough combined weaponry to turn a pack of beastadons into sausage.

“Maintain position,” he ordered two privates who were armed with M16s. One of them was Colleen, whose green eyes were wide with fear. “Hold the camp.”

He waved a couple of others to follow him. The percussive
tatta-tat
of small-arms fire echoed off the surrounding slopes. Yellow muzzle blasts pocked the darkness ahead. Someone screamed, a shrill, piercing alarm in the formerly quiet forest.

Antonelli came out from beneath the canopy into an open grassy bald dotted with rhododendron and scrub. Dark shapes waded through the grass, rearing up now and then to reveal their wet mouths and teeth that glimmered with the greenish light of the aurora. The creatures—furry bear-like animals with short, curved tusks they’d dubbed “beastadons”—bellowed with a deep anguish that cried out against the profane divergence of nature that had spawned them.

Tracers arced across the hill. An illumination flare exploded overhead, raining streamers of phosphorus. In the bright silver light, Antonelli saw a beastadon’s broad head take a hail of bullets. Fur flew and strips of flesh peeled away to reveal gleaming bone, but still it wobbled uphill toward its prey.

Five more of the monsters charged toward the line of troops. The scream came again, and Antonelli located the source this time—one of the beastadons retreated with a human leg clamped between its jaws, dripping blood and slobber as it carried away its treasure.

A flashlight beam blinked off and on, a signal from Randall. “The 240’s up, sir,” the lieutenant barked.

“Light ‘em up,” Antonelli ordered.

The machine gun spat metal hell all over the bald, rattling the rocks and knocking down several of the monsters. One galloped from the trees fifty yards to the left of Antonelli, and several soldiers brought their weapons to bear against it. The captain fired his Beretta even though he was out of range. The four-hundred-pound animal reared up on its haunches like a grizzly bear, its talon-tipped paws slapping angrily at the air.

A couple of soft pops were followed almost immediately by muffled bursts that kicked up dirt around another of the beastadons. The grenade launcher heaved several more explosives at it, ripping great canyons of gore along its flank.

It squealed and snorted and dropped to its knees, then tried to crawl toward its attackers. The M240 unleashed a fusillade in its direction, and it collapsed.

The remaining monsters, perhaps just intelligent and cunning enough to realize their prey was formidable, turned and retreated, the humps of their backs rising and falling like those of dolphins in a saltwater bay.

“Hold your fire,” Randall called, and a few sporadic shots rang out before fading away.

Antonelli walked the line, praising the wide-eyed soldiers who’d held their positions in the face of such an unnatural assault. Smoke hung in the air, and so did the tension, as if the unit was braced for another wave of the monsters. In Antonelli’s experience, the beastadons employed sudden, savage attacks with no stealth, and when they were done they were done.

Not that their behaviors can’t change. God knows everything else has.

When Antonelli arrived on the scene where the wounded soldier writhed and moaned, the matted grass around him was already slick with blood. Antonelli knew this one, a Marine who’d served with him at Lejeune before the Big Zap.

Thomas Hollister. From Abilene, Texas. Such a fan of the Dallas Cowboys football team that he wore their blue star emblem as a tattoo on his neck. Loves country music—Merle and Waylon, not that “slick, modern shit”—and girls who can hold their whiskey. His big goal in life is to make sergeant, go back home, and join the local police force.

His leg was gone just below the hip, and there wasn’t enough left for a tourniquet. The medic packed white bandages against the stump, but blood gushed out with each dwindling beat of Hollister’s heart. Antonelli parted the ring of soldiers standing silently around their fallen comrade, and then ordered them back to camp except for the sentries.

Antonelli knelt by the young man, who gazed up at him with bleary, wobbling eyes. His night-vision goggles had fallen around his neck, covering his “America’s Team” tattoo. They would remove the scarce and valuable goggles as soon as the soldier was dead. Antonelli held the man’s hand.

Hollister licked his chapped lips. “Am I going to make it, Captain?”

“We’ll have you on your feet in no time, son.”

The medic jabbed a syringe of morphine into Hollister’s arm, blood painting his rubber gloves black in the gloom. The kid would die a thousand miles from home in a world that had all but forgotten him. A world where his kind might be forgotten before long.