Anvil (22 page)

Closing the
window, he retrieved the piece of paper with Katie’s beacon codes.  Carefully,
double checking his work, he punched them into a text message addressed to
Lieutenant Hunt in Hawaii.

Sam and
Gonzales began firing as they emerged through the glass doors.  They
ignored the much slower males, even though they were closer.  The females,
with their frightening speed, were their targets.  Two of them fell before
they were even aware of the presence of the pair of SEALs.  The rest began
to scatter, each man dropping running targets, then there weren’t any in sight.

Shifting
focus, they methodically shot the males as they moved across the parking
lot.  Nicole, nearly frightened out of her mind, stayed close to Sam’s
back.  When he paused to steady his aim she bumped into him, knocking his
rifle off target. 

“Sorry,” she
muttered.

Ignoring
her, he grunted, reacquired his target and drilled the hissing male through the
forehead.  In a matter of seconds all of the infected were down and the
Master Chief moved into the lead.  Sam pushed Nicole between them, telling
her to stay ten feet behind Gonzales.  He fell in five yards behind her,
scanning through the area to their rear.

Two females
charged around the far corner of the building and he shot one, the other
escaping when she dove behind the shelter of a parked car. 

“Fuck me,”
Gonzales said over the radio.

“Sit-rep,”
Sam said, not taking his attention off the open ground behind them.

“Goddamn
things are eating Chucky,” came the answer a moment before more suppressed fire
began sounding from the Master Chief’s rifle.

Sam glanced
over his shoulder, seeing Gonzales standing at the edge of the pavement,
looking down the slope where they’d left the body of one of the SEALs who had
been killed on their way to the lab.  He wanted to go look, but more
infected were moving into the area, drawn by the muted sound of their weapons.

“We’ve got to
haul ass,” Sam said into his radio, firing on two different groups of females
who were zeroing in on them.

“Copy that,”
Gonzales answered, a moment later disappearing over the edge of the slope.

Sam fired
five more shots, checked to make sure Nicole was on her way and followed when
he didn’t see her.  They moved down the slope quickly, pausing for a
moment by the eviscerated corpse of the dead SEAL.  The plan had been to
recover the man’s body and take it back to the research institute with them,
but Sam realized that wasn’t going to work.

The torso
had been torn open as the infected fed.  Blood and bodily fluids stained a
large area, the clothing soaking in them.  A long string of entrails
extended from the open abdomen, still clutched in the hand of a dead male that
Gonzales had shot. 

“What do we
do, LT?”  Gonzales asked as both men fired on infected approaching from
multiple directions.

“No choice,”
Sam said between trigger pulls.  “We have to leave him.”

“We can’t…”
Gonzales started to say, but Sam cut him off.

“Get your
ass in gear, Master Chief.  Now!”

With a
grunt, Gonzales complied, heading for the tree line.  His rifle was up and
firing as he walked, an infected falling with every shot.  Nicole,
fighting the urge to stop and throw up, was tight against his back.  The
fear of the whole situation had overcome the instructions to keep some space
open between her and the two SEALs.

There were
less infected under the trees, but still enough to require a nearly constant
rate of fire.  Behind, Sam could hear the noises of males stumbling
through the undergrowth and too many rapid footfalls of females on the leaf littered
forest floor. 

“Faster,” he
hissed at Gonzales, not wanting to have to face a large group in the limited
sightlines of the trees.

They passed
through, emerging from the edge of the greenbelt only moments ahead of four
charging females.  Sam managed to kill one and slow another with a shot to
her leg, then they were on him.  He fell to the ground with one of them on
top, her scream loud in the night as she began trying to rip into his
throat. 

Twisting, he
pulled the much smaller woman to the side and slammed her head against the
pavement of the road.  The body went limp, but before he could regain his
feet, the one with the injured leg reached out and grabbed his foot. 
Kicking free, he fumbled his rifle around and shot her in the face as she
opened her mouth to scream.

Leaping to
his feet, he froze when he saw a female standing only feet away.  Gonzales
was behind and to the side of Nicole, his rifle aimed at the infected’s head,
but he wasn’t pulling the trigger.  The female was in a partial crouch,
arms swinging slightly in front of her body as she stared at Nicole, who was
frozen in fear. 

The small
tableau remained that way for a few heartbeats, then the female suddenly turned
and raced away.  Gonzales fired as she ran and she fell dead to the
ground, her body rolling in a loose limbed tumble.  Sam grabbed Nicole’s
arm and shouted at the Master Chief to move.

They dashed
down the road a short distance, then into the massive parking lot.  Now
they ran, a few males following and females sprinting in at angles, trying to
intercept.  They were losing the race, but reached the end of the pavement
slightly ahead of the infected.  Before scaling the fence to cross the
athletic fields, they turned and dropped the females that were almost on them. 

Sam had
begun the run with Nicole’s upper arm firmly grasped in his left hand,
frequently checking over his shoulder for pursuit.  By the time they
reached the athletic fields, he realized Nicole wasn’t only keeping up, she
would have outpaced him if he wasn’t holding her arm. 

This
confirmed for him her status as an infected.  She’d been locked in a
confined area for an extended period of time, and frankly didn’t look like an
athlete.  Yet she was running with easy strides and not even breathing
hard despite the fast pace Gonzales was setting.

Scaling the
final fence, they dashed around a small equipment shed and the Master Chief ran
directly into the arms of two males.  Within an instant he was wrapped up
and taken to the ground, one of them locking his jaws onto Gonzales.  The
SEAL screamed as a large chunk of flesh and part of his nose was ripped away by
the infected’s teeth. 

Releasing
Nicole, Sam dashed in and grabbed the male’s shoulders, lifting and throwing
him to the side.  As the infected fell away, he yanked the knife off his
vest and buried the blade in its head.  Spinning back, he paused in
surprise as Nicole tore the other infected off the stricken Master Chief with
apparently little effort.  She lifted the much larger man into the air,
her arms wrapped around his neck.

Turning her
hips, she levered the attacker away, not releasing her grip as the entire body twisted
in the air.  With a loud crack, the male’s neck snapped and she tossed the
corpse several feet where it rolled to a stop against the wall of the
shed.  When she realized what had just happened, she froze, staring at her
hands before turning to look at the dead infected.

Sam was also
frozen, but a groan from Gonzales spurred him to action.  He reached into
a pouch on his vest and pulled out a small first aid kit as he dropped to his
knees next to the injured man.  The Master Chief was trying to sit up, Sam
glancing around to make sure they had a moment before pushing him back onto the
wet grass.

The bite had
torn most of the flesh off the left side of Gonzales’ face, exposing the cheek
bone and upper gum line.  At least a third of his nose was gone.  The
remaining flesh was ragged and blood poured from the wound.

“Hold still,
Master Chief.  This is gonna hurt like a motherfucker,” Sam said, tearing
open a packet of blood clotter with his teeth.

Gonzales bucked
like electricity was coursing through his body when Sam poured the powder into
the exposed flesh.  Sam emptied the packet and pressed a thick gauze pad
onto the area, meeting the other man’s eyes and seeing only pain
reflected.  Despite the clotting agent, blood quickly soaked through the
gauze, spreading across the white surface.

“Can you
run?”  Sam asked, quickly wrapping a couple of turns of tape around the
Master Chief’s head to keep the bandage in place.

“Yes,
sir.  I’m good,” Gonzales hissed, sitting up and accepting Sam’s offered
hand to help him to his feet.

They made it
to the boat without any further incident, Sam breathing easier when all three
of them were aboard.  He sprawled on the deck at the front of the boat,
aiming his rifle in the direction they had just come from as Gonzales used the
paddle to move them to deeper water.  Once they were clear of the small
islands and floating several hundred feet offshore, he started the engines and
dropped into the driver’s seat.

“You good to
drive?”  Sam asked, making his way to a seat.

“Good to go,
sir,” Gonzales answered, blood dripping from his bandage when he tried to grin.

“You
OK?”  Sam asked, turning to Nicole.

“I killed
him,” she said in a small voice.  “How did I kill him?  I was just
trying to stop him.”

Gonzales
turned to look at her, his hand resting on the throttles.

“You saved
my ass,” he said, wincing in pain as his face moved.  “Thank you.”

She didn’t
seem to hear, or if she did wasn’t able to respond.  She looked like she
was in shock.

“Look,” Sam
began as the Master Chief fed in some gas and got them moving.  “The
infected are very strong, especially the females.  It’s a good thing you
were able to do that or the Master Chief might not be here with us.  We’re
heading for the institute and I’m sure the scientists there can tell you what’s
going on.  But hold your head up.  You did a good thing.”

Nicole raised
her face and looked at him, red eyes glistening with tears.

“Got a
problem,” I said over the radio, shouting to be heard above the screams of the
females that were pushing in against the fence.  “Fucking generator needs
a twenty-four-volt battery to start.  We brought a twelve.  Anyone
have any bright ideas?”

There was
silence on the comm channel for several long moments, the rate of fire from the
parapet above my head increasing as Dutch and TJ came over to help provide fire
support.

“Two twelves
in series will do it,” Chico said, the sound of his rifle clear over the
circuit.

He was
right.  I could wire two car batteries in series, effectively doubling the
voltage, and maybe the generator would turn over.  But there was only one
problem with that idea.  I didn’t have a second battery.

Looking up
as the Black Hawk buzzed by in its orbit of the area, I called the smart-ass
pilot on the radio.

“Sam
one-niner, you see any vehicles close by that are intact?”

“Stand by,
Dog.  I’ll see if I can spot you a chariot.”

While he
checked the area, I stepped around the generator that was screening me from the
fence, and the throng of females, intending to add my rifle to the suppressive
fire.  When I got a look at the sheer number of infected surrounding my
small sanctuary I paused.  There were too many of them and not enough
rifles. 

The Rangers
overhead were doing a good job of keeping them knocked down, but as the bodies
piled up the new arrivals were climbing on them and getting closer to the top
of the fence.  The only good news here was that this place had taken
security seriously and the generators were well protected.  The fence was tall
and sturdy. 

The bad
news, there were more infected than I could hope to count and they would eventually
be able to force their way in or over.  Once that happened, if the
generators weren’t already running, we wouldn’t be able to clear them out and
come back down to start them.

Before I
began firing I stepped to my right, peering through the mass of writhing,
screaming bodies.  I was concerned that one of them had gotten tangled in
the fueling line and pulled it out of the filler neck and the precious supply
of diesel was just flooding out onto the asphalt.  A sigh of relief
escaped me when I spotted the hose, still in place.

“Dog one,
Sam one-niner.”

“Go for
Dog,” I immediately replied, hoping he was calling with good news.

“Got you a
big Dodge pickup.  One of the diesels.  It’ll have two, high amp
batteries in it.”

“Where is
it?”  I asked, moving back between the generators to block some of the
noise from the infected.

“About a
mile from you.  What do you want to do?”

“Can I get
to the truck or is it mobbed?”

“It’s at
some kind of construction site.  There’s a fence around the area and at
the moment it’s clear.  But that fence looks like one of those temporary
ones.  Don’t think it’ll hold up to all those fuckers for more than a
minute.”

Shit. 
Well, I guess I’d have to work fast.

“You got an
extraction line on board?”  I asked.

“Affirmative,”
he answered.  “On my way.”

I glanced at
the IR strobe on my upper arm, making sure it was still flashing away so the
pilot could find me.  Satisfied it was working, I grabbed the end of the
rope I’d climbed down and cut several feet off.  Coiling it, I stuffed it
in a cargo pocket along with a couple of tools from my pack, which wouldn’t be
making the trip with me. 

“Dog two,
Dog one.  I’m taking a ride.  Keep everyone back from the edge while
I’m gone.  Maybe the infected will try to follow and move away from the
area,” I said to Dutch over the radio.

“Copy,” was
his simple reply.

It wasn’t
long before the Black Hawk came into a hover directly over my head, just above
the level of the roof.  The voices of the females rose to a fever pitch as
the helicopter hung in the air as if it were teasing them. 

“Line down,”
a previously unheard voice spoke over my earpiece.

A moment
later, the weight on the end of a FRIES – Fast Rope Insertion Extraction System
– line banged off the top edge of one of the generators before falling to the
ground between them with a dull thud.  Slinging my rifle behind my back, I
dashed forward and stuck a foot in a loop, got a firm grip on the rope and
twirled my free hand in the air.

The pilot
went straight up, ascending quickly until I was a hundred feet above the roof
of the building.  Looking down, I noted the Rangers pulling back from the
parapet.  When I looked across the large parking lot I wasn’t happy to see
the volume of infected that were pouring in through what were now multiple
breaches in the perimeter fence.

With enough
altitude to clear any obstacles in the area, he started us moving
forward.  I appreciated that he was careful to not go too fast with me
dangling beneath him.  Normally, two people will be on the line together
and each can extend an arm to the side.  This acts like wings, stabilizing
the two bodies and preventing them from spinning around like a top.

But I was by
myself and didn’t have a lot of options.  Hold on with two hands and spin,
or extend one arm and spin faster.  I chose to hold on with both. 
Mercifully, the pilot didn’t try to break any speed records, so the spin was
tolerable.  Not pleasant, by any means, but it could have been worse.

Beneath my
feet was a sea of enraged faces staring up at me.  So far I couldn’t
detect any attempt to follow the noisy helicopter and the handsome, delicious
snack dangling beneath it.  But there were so many infected, and they were
packed so tightly, it would take some time for the momentum to build.  I
hoped there was enough of a distraction for the ones near the generators to
back off, otherwise there was a good chance that fence would be down by the
time I returned.

After a
couple of minutes, I spotted the construction site we were headed for.  It
looked like a new industrial park was being built with numerous buildings in
various stages of completion.  Some were nothing more than wooden forms
waiting for concrete that would never be poured.  Others had already been
framed, appearing appropriately skeletal in the new post-apocalyptic world.

“Going to
drop you and make an orbit to check the area,” the pilot said as we came over
the unfinished roof of a large building that was probably going to be a
warehouse. 

Directly
ahead was an open stretch of raw mud with several large pools of water filling
the low spots.  A couple of small, trailer mounted generators were sitting
next to a battered Dodge pickup.  It may have been battered on the
outside, but I didn’t question the pilot’s assessment that it was a good
choice.  Contractors have to take care of their vehicles and equipment.  Even
though the sheet metal had seen better days, I was willing to bet the engine
had been well maintained.

He came in
slow, losing altitude as we approached the truck.  I had time to scan the
area for infected and was very happy to not see any.  But, I reminded
myself, it’s always the ones you don’t see that can ruin your day.  In
hindsight, I should have had one of the Rangers tag along to keep an eye on my
back while I pulled a battery out of the truck.

The line
came down as we lost altitude and I stepped into nearly ankle deep mud with my
free boot.  Making sure my other foot was clear of the loop, I took a step
away before calling the all clear.  It quickly disappeared above my head
and I ran to the truck as fast as I could through the soupy earth.

The Dodge
was locked up tight so I smashed out the driver’s window with the stock of my
rifle after looking into the cab to make sure there wasn’t an infected waiting
to grab me.  Reaching through the opening, I popped the door open and a
goddamn alarm began wailing.  Are you fucking kidding me?  Someone
put an alarm on a beat up piece of shit like this?  Well, at least I knew
the batteries had some juice in them.

I fumbled
around the driver’s side foot well until I located the hood release, pulling it
and feeling the click through the body of the truck when the catch
opened.  Moving through the muck, I pushed the night vision goggles off my
face and turned on my light to see better.  It only took a moment to spot
the fucking alarm siren and rip the wires out of it.  The absence of the
noise was almost a physical relief.

“Dog one,
don’t know what you did, but you got company coming.  Females at the fence
about three hundred yards north of your location,” the pilot’s voice was loud
in my earpiece as I began working on the nuts securing the vehicle’s electrical
cables to the battery terminals.

“Copy,” I
answered, not pausing or looking up from my work.

Sweat broke
out all across my head as I forced myself to concentrate on what I was
doing.  My splinted fingers slowed the work, pain shooting all the way to
my shoulder, but I didn’t take my attention off the battery.  If I looked
up or worried about the infected breaching the fence, it would just slow me
down.

“Fence is
down.  You’ve got a whole bunch of runners heading your way,” the pilot
called.

“Copy,” I
breathed as the nut for the positive terminal loosened enough to allow me to
yank the cable free.

It took
about the same amount of time to remove the negative terminal, then I had to
figure out how the bracket that held the battery in place operated. 
Several precious moments were wasted as I peered at it from several angles and
ran my hand over it looking for a release.  I couldn’t find it.

The Black
Hawk came into a hover directly over me as I worked, opening up with its
minigun.  Short, controlled bursts.  I knew they were low on ammo for
the weapon and hoped they didn’t run out before I was back in the air. 

With a
curse, I gave up on figuring out how to release the bracket.  Pulling my
Kukri, I jammed it between the heavy plastic arm and the top of the battery and
twisted as I pulled up.  The bracket bent, but whatever the fucking stuff
was that Dodge had used to make it was tough as hell.  It didn’t break and
didn’t pop free.

“More
runners coming from the north, and south fence is breached.  You’ve got
about twenty seconds.”

The Black
Hawk wasn’t firing the minigun any longer, rather a couple of unsuppressed
rifles began shooting.  Were they out of ammo?  I didn’t have time to
worry about it.  This goddamn battery had to come out and I was out of
time.

“Fuuuuck,” I
grunted as I used two hands to lever the Kukri up.

There was a
loud snap as the bracket parted.  Sheathing the Kukri, I reached in and
grabbed the heavy block that was the battery.  With a grunt I lifted it
free and set it on the ground, whipping the piece of rope out of my pocket.

“Ten seconds.”
 I heard.

Frantically,
I wrapped a couple of loops around the battery, pulled them tight and spun the
free end of the rope around my left wrist and hand.  The same hand with
the broken fingers.  Looking up for the first time I saw an entire phalanx
of females almost upon me.  When they saw me, screams erupted from
hundreds of throats. 

Lunging, I
grasped the extraction line which was dangling five feet from the front bumper
of the truck.  I jammed my foot in the loop and stepped up, my left arm
jerking hard against the weight of the battery.

“Go!” 
I screamed as three of the leading females leapt.

The pilot
fed in power and I was yanked skyward so fast the leg that was standing in the
loop nearly buckled.  The heavy battery came with me, my shoulder feeling
like it momentarily pulled out of its socket.  Then, two of the three
females slammed into me.