Red Hammer: Voodoo Plague Book 4 (7 page)

The two little girls were named Lindsey and Madison, Madison
the younger.  Rachel’s guess of their ages had been close.  Madison was seven
and Lindsey ten, almost eleven as she proudly announced.  Their parents owned
the small gas station, the only place to buy gas for forty miles in any
direction, Madison assured her.  They had only lived in Arkansas for a few
months, their parents having sold everything they owned to come up with the
money to buy the business from a distant relative.  The girls missed their
friends, but said their mother was very happy to have left the crime in their
Memphis neighborhood behind.

They huddled with Rachel in the back of the office area, Dog
lying protectively between them and the door.  He was close enough for the
girls to touch him and both kept a hand on his back, gently rubbing.  Tired,
but unable to sleep, Rachel got them talking about what had happened to their
parents.  While they talked, she kept an eye out the glass front of the office
even though it was too dark outside for her to see anything.  She trusted Dog
to warn her if there was any danger.

Shortly after the attacks, the local Sheriff had come around
and talked to their daddy.  They weren’t able to hear the conversation, but
when the man left their father was very upset.  He used a lot of bad words when
he was telling their mom about what the man had to say.  Their mom got
frightened and begged their daddy to take them away to somewhere safe, but he
said there wasn’t nowhere safe anymore.  He said that the monsters were
everywhere and the river was all that was keeping them safe and they couldn’t leave
it.

It wasn’t long before the first monsters showed up.  It was
late evening and the girls were playing in front of the gas station while their
parents sat watching.  Madison was playing a game of hop scotch and when she
hopped out of the last block and looked up, there were three men walking down
the road in her direction.  The men were still down the road a short distance,
a small stand of trees screening them from their parents’ view.  It wasn’t
uncommon to see field hands walking long distances in the area, so Madison
didn’t pay any attention to them and went back to her game.

Back and forth she went, happy with how well she was doing. 
She had just started another game when Lindsey screamed.  The three men were
much closer now, just coming around the edge of the trees, and when Madison
looked up she screamed too.  One of them was missing most of his face, bone and
teeth clearly visible in the evening light.  Their mother started screaming and
running to protect them while their father dashed into the small office and
grabbed the shotgun he kept under the counter.  Gathered up in their mother’s
arms they started crying as she hustled them to safety, crying harder when they
heard the booms of their daddy’s gun.

After that they weren’t allowed to play outside any more. 
There was a small two room shack behind the gas station which was where they
lived, and their mother stayed there with them while their father kept watch
from the office.  They never saw any more monsters, but every day or two they
would hear their daddy’s shotgun and their mother would start praying that he
was OK.  Then, two days ago, the bad men came.

There were six of them, and peeking out through a crack in
the wall the girls recognized the Sheriff who had come by and upset their daddy
so much.  There was a lot of shouting and the men pointed guns at their parents
and made then climb into the back of one of their pick-ups.  The girls, crying,
had stayed hidden in the shack like their mother told them.  They watched as
the trucks drove away, two men sitting in back with shotguns pointed at their
daddy.  There hadn’t been much food left in the shack and they had finished it
off quickly, wandering out to the office to search for more.

The girls sat on either side of her, Madison finally lying
down and putting her head in Rachel’s lap.  Rachel was shocked and saddened by
their story.  She knew racism was still alive and well in the world, probably
would be as long as there were humans that weren’t identical to each other, but
never dreamed that there were men who would take advantage of the situation to
start enslaving other men.  Where the hell was John?  Why hadn’t he found her
yet?

Gently stroking the child’s hair as she drifted off to
sleep, Rachel cursed the circumstances that had separated her from John.  These
innocent little girls needed his help, and she just needed him.  At first Madison
started softly snoring, Lindsey soon falling asleep with her head resting on
Rachel’s shoulder.  It wasn’t long before Rachel’s eyes grew heavy and she
joined them in a dream haunted sleep.  Dog was aware that all of them were
sleeping, but he didn’t take his eyes off the windows that looked out at the
road.  Remaining still and silent, he watched the small pack of infected males
approach from the east and stumble slowly past the turn-in to the small gas
station.

Little Rock Air Force Base outside Little Rock, Arkansas was
a hive of activity, despite having been nearly decimated by the second outbreak
a few days ago.  I was just arriving from West Memphis on a Black Hawk that would
take a few minutes to refuel before heading back to where Colonel Crawford had
his temporary headquarters.  Captain Blanchard was with me, briefing me on what
was known about the conditions in Los Alamos, where the SADMs were stored in
the city and calling ahead with his satellite phone to coordinate the equipment
and personnel I needed.  I would have liked to have Jackson with me to watch my
back, but I had asked him to stay in West Memphis and help with the search for
Rachel and Dog.  Crawford left the decision up to him and he had grudgingly
agreed.

I had several problems to deal with to get my hands on the
nukes.  First off, Los Alamos was crawling with infected.  The small city had
avoided the initial release of nerve gas, but Blanchard’s best guess was that
due to the relative proximity to Denver, which had been attacked, the virus had
arrived and wreaked havoc.

Problem number two was the whole reason I was even going. 
The goddamn Russians.  They had captured Kirtland AFB which is on the southern
edge of Albuquerque, giving them effective control of a large swath of the
American southwest.  Los Alamos, no more than 70 air miles from Kirtland, was
within the protective bubble of the CAP – Combat Air Patrol – that the Russians
were flying around the clock.  There was no way to get an aircraft inside the
CAP and on the ground in Los Alamos without being spotted.

Problem two exacerbated problem number three.  Once I had
the nukes in my possession, how the hell did I get them out where they could be
used by American forces?  I hadn’t seen them, but had been assured we had
satellite imagery that showed plenty of vehicles available that we could
commandeer.  The SADMs were so small and light I didn’t even need a truck.  A
small SUV or even a sedan with a decent sized trunk would fit the bill if that
was all I could find.  I refocused on the moment as the Black Hawk’s tires
touched the tarmac.  With good luck wishes from Captain Blanchard I jumped out
the side door onto the concrete apron.

Fifty yards in front of me a man stood next to the door of a
squat office building.  He waved and I headed in his direction.  As I
approached I had a moment to look him over.  He was younger than me by more
years that I cared to acknowledge, close to my height with a broad chest,
powerful arms and shoulders and probably close to my weight.  Dressed in desert
camouflage cargo pants and a tight, black dri-fit T-shirt with a holstered
pistol and slung rifle I could tell he wasn’t an officer.  Both arms were almost
fully sleeved in tattoos, artfully done with the result making his already
powerful build appear even more intimidating.  When I closed to within a few
feet of him he straightened his stance and snapped a salute which I returned,
surprising him when I stuck my hand out to shake his.

“John Chase,” I said, looking him in the eye and trying to
get a sense of who he was.

“Tech Sergeant Zach Scott.”  He replied with a small grin. 
“Welcome to Little Rock.  Heard you had some excitement in Memphis.”

“Yeah, and I didn’t even get to see Graceland.”  I answered
with a grin of my own.  He smiled, either because I’m genuinely funny or
because I’m an officer.  He didn’t look the type to suck up, and didn’t feel
the need to encourage me to say something else witty, so he passed my first
little test.

“We’re getting set up inside, sir.  If you’ll follow me,
we’ll get started.”  He turned and pulled the door open, leading the way inside
and turning into the first doorway we encountered. 

The room was large, appearing to be a pilot’s briefing
room.  Two large tables at the back of the room were stacked high with
equipment being checked over by another man dressed similarly to Scott, and a
woman wearing a standard AF uniform with Captain’s bars on her collar.  Scott
called them to attention as we entered and I walked over to meet them, telling
them to stand at ease.  The woman was small and looked to be in outstanding
physical condition.  The name tape on her uniform blouse read Martinez and when
I looked in her eyes I recognized something that told me she was not a woman
you wanted to mess with.  The other man was an AF Staff Sergeant named Yee,
nearly as short as Martinez and whip thin.  He looked like the type that could
run a marathon as a warm up for the day.

The two Sergeants were part of a very small and elite group
in the Air Force called SOF TACP or Special Operations Forces Tactical Air
Control Party.  They normally run with Army SF units to coordinate any air
support that unit may need to complete their mission.  To be able to do that
they had trained to the same level as their Army counterparts and in most if
not all cases were just as capable.  I was glad to have them along for the
fight.    Martinez didn’t have the same level of training, though she looked
like she could have made it through the selection process, but was a helicopter
pilot.  Her job was to ride along with us and if we found the opportunity to
get our hands on a helo, she’d fly us where we needed to go.

Looking down at the gear I couldn’t help but smile.  New
weapons, clothing, radios, jump suits, parachutes, the list went on and on. 
Everything was neatly separated by category and I was happy to find a change of
clothes and lightweight but very warm long underwear.  It was going to be cold
where we were going. 

“No night vision?”  I asked, hoping there was some that just
wasn’t out in the open.

“That’s the one thing we couldn’t get our hands on.”  Scott
shook his head, looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.

Glancing up at the clock I was surprised to see it was
already 1500 – 3 pm.  We needed to get our gear together and start getting
ready to depart for New Mexico.  But, first things first.

“Have any of you fought the infected, face to face?”  I
asked, looking at the three AF personnel.  All three shook their heads.

“Not like you have,” Sergeant Scott spoke up after glancing
at Captain Martinez.  “We’ve had some on base and also been into parts of town
to help clear them out, but we’ve always had superior numbers.”

“OK, then you know some of the basics.  These are just
humans.  They aren’t zombies or vampires that can’t be killed.  That said, they
are so pumped up on adrenalin from the infection that they don’t feel injury. 
Body shots are all but useless unless you hit the heart.  Head shots put them
down instantly, and if they’re really close a good knife thrust to the heart or
brainstem works well too.  I’ve seen infected take injuries that would
completely incapacitate one of us and keep on coming like nothing happened. 
Those injuries will eventually kill them, but they don’t feel pain or go into
shock.  They go until their body completely fails.  Questions?”

There were none, so I continued.  “Have you been briefed on
the smart infected?”  Nods all around this time.

“I won’t beat a dead horse, but the smart ones, which seem
to be just the females, are scary as hell.  I’ve encountered a few and they
understand death and the concept of self-preservation.  They also are able to
work together and set up ambushes as well as form hunting parties.  They don’t
just scream and run at you, they stalk you and strike when you’re vulnerable. 
Heads on swivels out there.  Got it?”  There were more nods and I was happy to
see that while they were taking me seriously, none of them were looking like
they were going to freak out.

“One final thing.  They are strong as hell, both male and
female.  Remember, they’re in a rage.  I’ve fought females that were the size
of Martinez here, and they were nearly as strong as I am.  You cannot engage
with multiples in hand to hand.  They will overpower you, especially since
nothing you’ve been trained to do will stop them short of a knife or a bullet. 
The males are slow, but the females are fast as hell.  They don’t tire.  I
imagine they’d run at a sprint until their heart exploded, but I’ve never seen
one get to that point.  You won’t outrun them.  You won’t outlast them.  No one
will, no matter what kind of shape you’re in.  If you find yourself being
pursued, find a defensible position and start killing them.  That’s your only
option.”

I looked at each of them in turn.  Sergeant Scott met my
look, steely resolve in his eyes.  I saw the same thing in Martinez and Yee and
decided I had a good team to go in with me.  I was opening my mouth to ask where
the mess hall was when a strident alarm began blaring.  Martinez dashed to a
phone hanging on the wall next to the door and snatched the handset off the
cradle.  Apparently listening to an announcement, she stared intently at the
floor with the phone held tightly to her ear, slamming it back in place after
about 20 seconds.

“Russian air raid,” She said in a surprisingly calm voice. 
“Our CAP is engaging them 100 miles to the west, but there’s more of them than
there are of us.  We’re going now!”

She ran to the tables, and with the two Sergeants helping,
started stuffing equipment into waiting duffel bags.  Stepping over I joined in
and soon we had eight very large and heavy duffels ready to go.  Each of us
grabbed two and Scott led the way outside and around the building to where an
AF pickup was parked.  We tossed the bags into the truck, Scott and Yee piling
in on top of them as Martinez jumped behind the wheel and I joined her in the
cab.

The alarm was louder in the open air and she didn’t hesitate
to floor the accelerator as soon as the truck started, leaving twin, black
patches of rubber on the concrete.  Driving fast, she swung onto a road that
paralleled the runways and quickly pushed our speed to over 100 miles an hour. 
Next to us on the runway, a pair of F-35s screamed into the sky, quickly
followed by two more.  Ahead, I could see more F-35s lining up for takeoff,
waiting behind half a dozen F-18s that were already starting their takeoff
roll.

As Martinez drove I watched fighter after fighter leap off
the runway and into the air, pilots immediately going nearly vertical to gain
altitude as quickly as possible.  Beyond the sortieing jets were several
massive hangars.  A couple of them had the tail sections of cargo planes
sticking out as the aircraft were having maintenance performed on them, but the
three largest hangars were buttoned up tight, each with its own chain link
fence topped with coiled razor wire.

Martinez pulled out a small, hand held radio and spoke
briefly into it.  Moments later I saw the doors of the closest high security
hangar crack open and two figures ran across the large apron.  The rolling gate
in the fence started moving and Martinez pointed the front of the truck at the
opening.  I’m pretty much a fearless driver, but don’t do well when someone
else is behind the wheel.  It took every ounce of my self-control to not scream
at her that we weren’t going to make it.  The gate was opening much too slowly
and we were going way too fast. 

Somehow, we did make it, roaring through at over 100 miles
per hour.  If there was more than two inches of clearance on either side of the
truck I’ll eat my beret.  Fucking pilots!  Approaching the hangar doors, which
were still trundling open, Martinez braked sharply and cut our speed to a sedate
pace as she drove into the cavernous building.  She made a sharp right before
coming to a screeching halt, parking the truck out of the way of the menacing
looking plane that sat in the middle of the hangar.  I’d never seen a stealth
bomber up close before.