These Dead Lands: Immolation (17 page)

As they worked, everyone kept an eye on the tree lines around them. Even though it was farm country, there were still patches of thick woods, and the trees could give hundreds of reekers enough cover to close on them if they weren’t vigilant. Every rustle or snap of a twig made the troops stop what they were doing and shoulder their weapons. They would peer through their optics, getting ready to open up on any threat, but no zombies appeared. The interruptions made the work even more stressful, but there was no way to avoid it. Also, the activity was fairly noisy with lots of bending metal was required, and that just ramped up the tension.

The team had just pushed one of the mangled cars off to the right side of the road when Diana emerged from the lead Humvee. She looked furious. She marched directly toward the soldiers, and Ballantine, seeing Hastings looking past him, turned toward her as well.

“Something wrong, ma’am?” Ballantine asked.

“Kenny just shit himself,” she said acidly.

Ballantine looked confused. “Well, why didn’t you let him go to the bathroom?”

Diana glared at him, shifting the small Sig rifle that hung from a strap on her right shoulder. “Because he’s fucking nonverbal and doesn’t say anything, that’s why. I had no fucking idea.”

Hastings sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. As he did so, his gaze happened across a battered box with the Pampers brand on it. He went over and picked it up. It was an unopened box of baby wipes.
Wow, a lucky break. Finally.
He turned and walked back to where Diana stood, glowering. Ballantine fairly towered over the small woman, but if she was in any way intimidated, she didn’t let it show.

Hastings held the box out to her. “Here.”

Diana didn’t take it. “What the hell is that?”

Hastings tapped the logo on the side of the box. “They’re wipes. For cleaning up kids after they’ve had an accident. Sorry, but it’s the best we can do.”

“You want me to wipe the kid’s ass?”

“Someone has to do it, and the rest of us are busy trying to clear a way out of here,” Hastings said. “So, yeah. I want you to clean the kid’s ass. Questions?”

“You do it, General. That’s not my gig.”

Hastings stepped forward and shoved the box into her chest, driving her back a step. “If you don’t start acting like part of the team, then you’re not coming with us. I’ll leave you right here.”

“Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?” she snapped, slapping the box out of his hands.

“Hey, guys, let’s keep it down, okay?” Hartman said, as he, Stilley, and Tharinger started working to get another vehicle off the road.

Reader was on the other side of the road, M4 held low. He glanced at the angry woman then went back to scanning the tree line.

Hastings put his hands on his hips and glared at Diana. “Lady, pull your head out of your ass, and do as you’re told. Figure this shit out. You’re not in a democracy here. You do as you’re told, or you get cut loose. You think you can do a better job out here by yourself? Then just keep trying to push my buttons, and you’ll have your wish.”

Diana opened her mouth to answer, but she let out a startled yelp instead. She jumped toward Hastings, spinning at the same time as she frantically tried to pull out her small rifle. Hastings and Ballantine both automatically took a step back, going for their own weapons, as a small figure crawled out from beneath the car they had been standing beside. The vehicle had already been driven off the road, so they had ignored it. It was a woman, her dark hair stringy and filthy with oil and dirt, her jeans and blouse just as dirty. Hastings raised his rifle and put his finger on the trigger.
Just another reeker …

She looked up as she crawled forward. Her eyes were clear and blue and full of at least a vestige of life. He had already taken up the trigger slack. Another few ounces of pressure and his M4 would have fired.

“Shoot it!” Diana shouted.

At the same time, the woman’s lips moved, but Hastings couldn’t hear what she said. Was it a whispered
help me
? Hastings lowered his rifle and wondered how long she’d been hiding under the car.

“Geez, guys.” Reader walked up, raised his rifle, and fired a round right into the woman’s head.

The body bucked once then went limp.

“You asshole!” Ballantine thundered.

“What?” Reader looked around then down at the corpse. “I mean, it was just…” His voice trailed off when he saw red blood leaking from the woman’s ravaged skull. He lowered his rifle and bent forward at the waist, as if struggling to comprehend what he saw. “Oh, no.”

Hastings grabbed the man’s pack and hauled him backward a few steps. Reader didn’t take his eyes off the woman he had just murdered, thinking she was just another reeker.

“Get back to what you were doing,” Hastings told him.

“Jesus, I just killed a
person
?” Reader asked, his voice cracking.

Hastings spun him around, forcing Reader to look at him. The soldier’s blue eyes were wide with shock.

“Get back to what you were doing, Reader,” he said. “It happened. It’s over. I almost shot her, too, and I was right next to her. This shit happens. Now forget it, and get back to your mission.”

Diana laughed. “Oh, man. You guys are some pieces of work.”

“Fuck you,” Ballantine said. He probably felt a bit differently about what had happened, but Hastings knew Ballantine wasn’t one to start a fight with his superior officer in front of everyone.

“Oh, man,” Reader said, his voice quavering. “Captain, she looked just like a reeker!”

“I know, Reader. I know,” Hastings said, keeping his voice calm.

Behind him, Diana sat on the road where she had fallen after tripping over the box of baby wipes. She was giggling, but whether it was in true hilarity or utter shock, he couldn’t tell.

Stilley, Tharinger, and Hartman hurried over, weapons at hand. Guerra stood straight in the cupola, the MK19 still pointed in the opposite direction. The soldiers looked down at the woman lying on the road, bright blood leaking from her ravaged skull.

“Aw, fuck,” Stilley said, his voice loud and harsh, as always.

“Get back to work!” Hastings told them. “Double-time. We don’t know how many reekers in the area heard the shot, so let’s get to it. Reader, get on your fucking weapon.
Now
.”

“Roger that,” Reader said, and he finally turned away from the sight. But Hastings caught a glimpse of his eyes, and he knew that the young soldier was probably going to need some downtime soon.

Hastings nodded to Ballantine, and the sergeant first class finally asserted himself, corralling the soldiers and getting them squared away. Hastings hauled Diana to her feet, picked up the battered box of wipes, and shoved it into her arms. She took it.

“Do what you have to do,” he snapped.

She nodded and stepped away, no longer tittering. She glanced back once at the freshly slain woman then hurried back to the Humvee.

The soldiers found a new reserve of energy, and five minutes later, they had cleared a path large enough for the Humvees to push through. Guerra reported that he could see several figures coming toward them through a farmer’s field, and worse, he could hear movement in the brush off to the convoy’s left rear. Once they had shoved the last battered pickup out of the way, Hastings ordered everyone back to their vehicles. There was no time to gather fuel or supplies, though he did happen upon a case of flavored water and what looked to be a couple of bug-out bags. He grabbed one, and Tharinger grabbed the other before beating feet back to the convoy. As they mounted their vehicles, the MK19 opened up from the rear.

“Okay, got reekers in the zone, about eighty meters back. Over,” Guerra said over the radio.

“Roger that, Guerra. Break. Hartman, whenever you’re ready, go. Over.”

“Rolling, Six. Over.”

The lead Humvee trundled forward. Hastings put his pickup in gear and took his foot off the brake just as a reeker stumbled onto the road beside him. He considered rolling down the window and shooting it but elected to save the ammunition. Tharinger popped up in the lead Humvee’s cupola and slewed the .50 around until he had the zombie in his sights. A quick burst took care of the walking corpse, removing it from the threat scale.

One more down, several million to go.

*

Sticking to secondary
roads wherever they could, the small column of vehicles skirted the larger towns and cities where possible. There were still zombies about, stumbling down the roadways or emerging from tree lies, sometimes in the hundreds. Three times, the herds were so large that Hastings ordered the column to reverse course and find a way around them—it would have taken too much ammunition to fight their way through, and the chances of losing a vehicle or personnel were too great.

Another interesting circumstance that caused some navigational deviations was the appearance of heavily fortified towns. Hastings was impressed that some of the small communities had actually erected substantial defenses, such as high fences and thick walls around parts of their establishments, complete with fighting positions and towers. They wouldn’t do much to stop a modern, mechanized attacker, but they would certainly slow down shuffling reekers. And given the amount of corpses surrounding some of them, they had done just that.

Hastings avoided contact with the fortresses. His convoy had weapons those people would likely fancy, as well as some supplies and their armored vehicles. And there was nothing the towns could offer him or his people that would be worth the exchange.

The convoy wound its way through eastern Pennsylvania. Hastings knew there was a horde of reekers still coming out of New York City, and Fort Indiantown Gap was only a hundred fifty miles west of the great metropolis. He had to wonder if heading to Indiantown Gap would wind up being a wise move in the long run. Even if the National Guard had managed to keep the reservation secure, the troops there would be hard-pressed to hold out against the eventual onslaught of hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of flesh-eating zombies.

He eventually decided that it didn’t really matter. If Indiantown Gap fell, Hastings and his group would either be killed or find themselves on the road again.

On the afternoon of the third day, the column was moving down Pennsylvania Route 443. The two-lane blacktop highway was mostly deserted, and the farmhouses they passed looked abandoned. Untended cornfields wilted under the heat of the blazing sun. One house had burned to the ground, leaving only blackened chunks of bricks rising into the air like the bones of some great fallen beast. Something moved amidst the destruction, and Hastings saw a gaunt figure clad in threadbare rags turn toward the convoy as it motored past. Another zombie. He glanced over to check the side-view mirror on the passenger side before he remembered that it was gone. He turned and looked out the rear window. Through the gaps of the stuff in the truck’s bed, he saw the ghoul stumble out onto the road, looking after the vehicles with empty eyes.

Route 443 snaked south then veered west. Hartman’s Humvee led the column toward a three-way intersection on the outskirts of Indiantown Gap, where the aptly named Moonshine Road met Ridge and Tomstown Roads. Hastings looked around, studying the area and seeking any sign of an active military presence. There was nothing but trees and brush.

Hartman suddenly slammed on the brakes, and Hastings swore as he stomped on the truck’s brake pedal. Even with ABS, he wasn’t going to be able to stop before the truck’s grille met the Humvee’s rear bumper, so he wrenched the steering wheel to the left, taking the loaded pickup into the opposite travel lane. With screeching tires, he finally came to a halt. Behind him, Ballantine’s pickup and Stilley’s Humvee rolled to a halt.

Hastings saw what had caused Hartman to stop so suddenly. Three M1126 Stryker infantry combat vehicles sat in the three-way intersection ahead, their remote-controlled weapons trained directly on Hartman’s Humvee in the middle of the road. One Stryker’s Protector Remote Weapon System turret slewed to the right, pointing directly at Hastings’s idling pickup truck. The system was equipped with a three-barreled GAU-19, an electrically driven .50-caliber heavy machine gun that could turn his truck into shredded sheet metal and plastic with one burst. He was impressed. He’d never seen such a system mounted on anything other than a helicopter.

“Uh, Six, this is Three. Over.”

Hastings keyed his radio. “Three, this is Six. Over.”

“Six, I think we’ve found Indiantown Gap. Over.” Hartman sounded a little stressed, and Hastings saw Reader slowly let go of his M2’s grips and hold up his hands.

“Roger that, Three. Stay where you are. I’m dismounting to have a chat with them. Over.”

Hastings put the pickup in park and unsnapped his seat belt. He kept his eyes on the Strykers and debated if he should take his rifle with him. It might alarm the Guardsmen if he presented himself with a weapon, but at the same time, it was too dangerous to go outside unarmed. He pulled his M4 with him as he exited the truck.

The GAU-19 stayed on him. Hastings kept it slow and easy, walking toward the Strykers with his rifle in his hands, held at low ready. As he walked past Hartman’s Humvee, the soldiers inside glanced at him before locking their gazes on the armored vehicles ahead. Hastings ignored them and kept going, mindful of the turreted weapon that tracked with him. He stopped fifty feet from the lead Stryker.