Transmission: Voodoo Plague Book 5 (19 page)

We didn’t have much time.  Less than a minute before the
leading edge of the females would arrive.  I didn’t think they knew we were
there.  Didn’t see how they could know.  We’d run and hidden from the bats well
before the infected should have been able to see us.  The wind wasn’t blowing
across us and towards them, so they couldn’t have scented us.  Then what the
hell had them excited enough to be sprinting across the desert?

I didn’t know, and didn’t have time to keep worrying about
it.  There were two ways into the narrow gap we were sheltering in.  Over the
rock that Igor and I were leaning on to look at the females, or 50 feet in the
other direction there was a very narrow opening between two massive rocks that
were both well over 20 feet tall.  The gap was so narrow that perhaps the women
in my group could have squeezed through, as well as Dog, but Igor was as big as
me and there was no way we could shrink our chests and shoulders.  But the
approaching threat was female, and they’d be able to squeeze through if they
tried.

We were in a very defensible position, surrounded by rocks
that soared vertically for at least 20 feet.  Without specialized gear, no one
was going to climb them.  Moving quickly I got Igor, Martinez and the co-pilot
positioned to defend the narrow gap.  I’d finally learned the co-pilot’s name
was Evans.  As they got themselves ready, Rachel and I prepared to defend our
end.  Irina didn’t have a rifle, but held Igor’s pistol in her hand, ready to
help.  Dog stood between Rachel and I, hackles up, ready for a fight.

“You ready?”  I asked Rachel, watching the front runners
close to within 100 yards.

“As I’ll ever be.”  She said.  The words didn’t sound
confident, but her voice was rock steady.

“Between us we’ve got a little over 600 rounds.  Make every
shot count.  If I yell that I’m out of ammo, clear some space because I’m going
to be swinging some very sharp blades.”  I said, putting my back against the
rock opposite where Rachel stood.

I met her eyes and she nodded, then gave me a brief smile. 
I checked on Irina and she was obviously frightened, but was ready to join the
fight if we needed her.  I had told her to stay back and only use the pistol to
defend herself in the event a female made it past me, Rachel and Dog.  About
the only way that would happen would be if all three of us had fallen to the
onslaught, but I decided not to dwell on that thought.

Turning back to the opening I watched as the first few females
raced past.  What the hell?  They weren’t after us, so where were they going? 
I knew from past experience that this wasn’t herd movement.  They didn’t run
like this unless prey was in sight, or they were reasonably sure there was prey
in the area. 

The bulk of the group wasn’t far behind the leaders, and
soon there was a solid wall of females running past, but just as quickly they
had all moved on with only dust hanging in the air to mark their passage.  I
exchanged looks with Rachel, gave it a few seconds and moved forward to stick
my head over the rock.

There were no more females coming, and the ones that had
just run past had curved around the rocks we were hiding in and I couldn’t see
them.  Where were they going in such a hurry?  As I thought about it, I started
to get an idea.  Could there be more survivors out here in the desert?  There
was no reason why that wasn’t possible, and was about the only thing that could
explain the females’ behavior.

Checking back to the east I still didn’t see any danger. 
Making up my mind, I clambered onto the rock that guarded our refuge, but still
couldn’t see the females that had run past.  I was turning to ask Irina to go
get Igor when I heard gunfire start from the west.  With confirmation of my
idea, I called to Rachel to send Dog over the rock then get Igor.

Jumping to the ground I ran around the curve of the rock
formation and far ahead I could see the group of females attacking some people
who were huddled between two vehicles as they fired pistols and rifles at the
infected.  I almost hesitated to jump into the fight, but knew I couldn’t leave
these people to be killed when I could help.

I kept running, a few moments later Dog catching up and
running at my side.  OK, trotting.  But I was running.  Not as fast as the
females, it took me nearly two minutes to get close enough to start helping the
people that were surrounded by the screaming mob.  Watching as I ran, I saw one
of them go down when a female charged in, leapt into the back of a pickup and
slithered out of the bed into the midst of the survivors.  Before they realized
there was danger amongst them she had wrapped her arms around a stocky man from
behind and sank her teeth into his neck.

When he started thrashing and screaming, the rest of them turned
and froze for a moment before going to his aid.  The momentary lull in their
firing allowed several more females to charge in and attack, taking more
survivors to the ground.  At this rate they wouldn’t last long enough for me to
save any of them.

100 yards out, I flopped to the ground, shoved my NVGs off
my face, sighted through the rifle scope and began picking off targets.  My
rifle was suppressed and I was too far away for the females to hear it, so for
the moment I was relatively safe.  Every time I pulled the trigger a female
fell.  Dog had gone to his belly next to me and I saw him look behind us out of
the corner of my eye, but he didn’t growl.  A few seconds later Igor and Rachel
ran up and lay down on either side of me.

They started firing, bringing down more females, and soon we
had made a noticeable dent in the group of infected.  Bodies were everywhere on
the ground surrounding the survivor’s position, and we kept firing.  The rest
of the group arrived and I paused long enough to tell them to hold their fire. 
The only sound suppressed rifles were mine, Rachel’s and Igor’s.  We didn’t
need the others in the fight badly enough to compromise our position by firing
an unsuppressed weapon.

Dog looked around again, this time with a growl, then leapt
to his feet and disappeared behind me.  I snapped around in time to see him
take a female to the ground, but there were at least a dozen more he couldn’t
stop and they were inside 30 yards.

“To the rear!”  I shouted a warning and got off two shots.

Igor reacted instantly, most likely not understanding my words,
but no doubt having seen Dog run to our rear and me turn and fire.  My two
shots both missed as I’d just snapped them off without aiming.  Well, miss
isn’t entirely accurate.  They struck a female, but in the torso.  I missed her
head and her heart.  Igor shot one perfectly between the eyes, the heavier
Russian bullet destroying her face and head.  Rachel was slower to react and
never got a shot off.

As the females approached I realized without even thinking
about it that they were too close and coming too fast for us to be able to stop
them with our rifles.  Dropping mine I leapt to my feet and whipped out the
Kukri and Ka-Bar fighting knife.  Igor stood up next to me with a straight
bladed Russian bayonet in his hand, and we automatically stepped away from each
other so we’d have room to fight.

The closest female was inside 10 yards when an unsuppressed
rifle fired from my left.  Damn it!  We had these ready to jump on us and
someone had let their nerves get the best of them and alerted the others that
we were here. 

“Rachel, watch my back!”  I shouted as I stepped into a
leaping infected and stabbed with my knife.

The blade missed her heart, but I used it to leverage her
body and severed her spine at the base of her skull with the Kukri.  Spinning
away from the falling body I met the next one and kept stabbing, cutting and
slashing as I moved through the group.  Dog was on to his third and Igor was
piling up bodies around his feet.  Martinez had also brought her dagger to the
party and was stopping any of the infected from reaching Irina or Evans.

I had learned to fight with edged weapons from a grizzled
former East German who had defected to the United States in the early 80s.  He
had won Olympic gold in Montreal in 1976 for his country with the epee.  Lesson
one, day one had been keeping your feet moving and never give your opponent a
stationary target.  Igor, on the other hand, followed the standard Soviet
doctrine of stand your ground and overpower everything that comes at you.  We
were both good.  Martinez was in a class by herself.

Despite having come into the fight late, she had protected
two of her teammates and already put down more of the infected than Igor and I
combined.  I didn’t know why this woman was being wasted in the cockpit of a
helicopter.  She needed to be on the ground!

“Need some help here!”  Rachel shouted.  I finished another
female with a thrust to the heart and looked over my shoulder as she fell. 

The earlier unsuppressed shot had drawn the attention of the
females that were attacking the group of survivors.  A large knot of them had
broken off and sprinted towards us.  Rachel had been shooting them as fast as
she could, and there were several bodies littering the path the group was
following, but they were getting close and she knew she couldn’t keep up.

One of the rules of combat is that you don’t take your
attention off your attacker.  That’s a rule that I know well, and honestly
can’t remember a time I’ve ever violated it.  Until now.  Because it was Rachel
that called out.  Concern for her safety overrode years of training and combat
experience without so much as a thought.  And I paid for it in spades when a
female slammed into me and sent me sprawling in the dirt.

Both weapons flew out of my hands when I hit and the wind
was knocked out of me.  I guess I was fortunate that my head came down on soft
sand and not a rock, but as the female drove her knees into my stomach and
lunged for my throat with her jaws I didn’t feel very lucky.  I got my hands up
and on her shoulders an instant before she would have torn me open.  I tried to
push her off, but she was already adjusting and locking her legs around my
waist.

Female infected are strong as hell, and the big ones are
really strong.  This was a big one.  As I struggled with her I had no doubt
that pound for pound she was stronger than me.  Guessing her at around 180
pounds, I was having trouble keeping her snapping teeth at a safe distance. 

Irina, seeing the trouble I was in, dashed over to help. 
She came up behind the female and raised Igor’s pistol for a headshot.  When I
saw what she was doing I shouted for her to stop, but she either didn’t hear me
or didn’t think I was talking to her.  Seeing what was coming, and not wanting
to get shot by a bullet that punched all the way through the female’s head, I
twisted sideways a fraction of a second before Irina fired.

At the same time, I saw her finger tighten on the trigger
and heard the shot.  Immediately I felt something strike my temple and everything
went dark.  The female on top of me stopped trying to bite me and I pushed her
off my body, feeling a wave of nausea rising before I blacked out.

When I woke up my head felt like a field artillery unit had
set up shop right behind my eyes and was determined to fire off every single
shell in their possession.  I was lying on my back and started to sit up, but a
strong hand pushed on my chest and kept me horizontal.  A weak, red lensed
flashlight came on and I was relieved to see Igor’s ugly mug looking down at
me.  Rachel leaned in, gave me a smile, brushed my cheek with the back of her
hand and the light turned off. 

“How are you feeling?”  She asked from the darkness.

“Like shit.”  I said.  “How do I look?”

“Worse.”  She quipped.  “Just lay still for a bit.  At the
moment we’re OK.  Martinez just talked to the Marines on the radio and they’re a
little less than half an hour away.”

“The infected?”  I asked.

“All dead.  We finished off the females without you.”  I
heard a snuffling and a second later a wet nose rubbed across my face.  Dog
gave me a thorough sniffing before lying down with his muzzle inches from the
side of my face.

“He hasn’t left your side.”  Rachel said.  I slowly raised a
hand and rubbed Dog’s head, then let it fall.  That had been all the energy I
had.

“What happened?”  I asked.

“Irina shot you.”  I heard Martinez’ voice.  Shot?  A surge
of adrenaline hit and I tried to sit up again, this time Igor helping instead
of stopping me. 

“What the…”  That was as far as I got before the dizziness
and nausea struck like a Mack truck.  I fought it as long as I could, but
finally gave up and pitched to the side and threw up.  I hadn’t eaten in a
while, so it was a little bit of water, then the dry heaves.  My body didn’t
care that there wasn’t anything in my stomach to purge, it was determined to
try.

When the worst of it passed, I straightened back up and
Rachel placed a cool hand on my forehead.  My head pounded bad enough that it
felt like it was going to split open, but I’d experienced the worst of the
sickness.  Other than a splitting headache I seemed to feel OK.  At least I was
moving and talking.

“What the hell happened?”  I asked, again, checking myself
over for bullet holes and happily not finding any.

“A female was on top of you and Irina shot it in the head
trying to help you.  The bullet went through the infected’s head and creased
your temple.  Knocked you out.  You’ve got a nice, deep crease along the side
of your head.  An inch to the side and you wouldn’t be here.”  Rachel said. 
That bullet had really rung my bell.  I couldn’t remember anything that Rachel
was telling me.

I reached up to my pounding skull and my fingers touched a
thick gauze pad taped to the right side of my face.  Now that I knew where the
worst injury was, I could feel the burning pain from the furrow the bullet had
carved in my flesh.  I looked up when Irina knelt down in front of me.

“I’m so sorry,” She said.  “I thought I’d killed you.”  Even
in the weak moonlight I could see a large swelling around her left eye.

“What happened to you?”  I asked.  She glanced around, not
answering at first. 

“I might have hit her.”  Rachel finally spoke up.  She
didn’t sound one bit sorry.

I looked at Rachel, then back at Irina.  The whole side of
Irina’s face was swollen, and the skin was already changing color.  It looked
black in the night, but I’d had a few of those bruises and knew it would be an
angry shade of purple in the light.  Neither woman said anything else and I met
Igor’s eyes.  He shrugged his shoulders and turned away with a grin on his
face.

“Sorry I missed that,” I mumbled to myself, raising a
canteen and taking a cautious sip of water.  The water was tepid, but I could
feel coolness all the way to my stomach as I swallowed.    

“Want some aspirin?”  Rachel asked, digging through the med
kit in her pack then holding out a small, clear plastic bottle.  I took it,
popped the lid and dumped several into my hand.  Washing them down with some
more water I hoped my stomach wouldn’t rebel when the pills started
dissolving. 

“What happened to the people the infected were attacking?” 
I was starting to think a little clearer, suddenly remembering why we had left
the safety of the rocks to fight the females.

“All dead.”  Martinez answered.  “They ran out of ammo
before all the females were put down.  And, don’t know if it matters, but they
were part of a drug cartel from Juarez.  I recognized their tattoos.”

I thought about that for a couple of moments.  On
reflection, it didn’t really surprise me that cartel soldiers had survived this
long.  They would have been heavily armed and had access to fortified locations
in which to hide.  There was no doubt they knew how to shoot.  But what the
hell were they doing out here in the middle of the desert?

“Movement to the south.”  This was Evans, the co-pilot, who
had been keeping an eye out with a pair of NVGs.  My pair, I realized when I
reached up and they weren’t on my head. 

Irina said something to Igor and he rose up on his knees and
looked.  He adjusted something that I assumed was a magnification setting on
his Russian made goggles and grunted a reply that Irina translated.

“Four vehicles approaching.”  Irina translated.  “About a
kilometer away.”

“We need to move.  Now.”  I said, climbing to my feet and
bringing my rifle around to check on it.  As soon as I stood up the pounding in
my head increased tenfold and my knees nearly buckled.  I stood there a moment,
swaying slightly, and Rachel quickly got up and steadied me.

“Have you checked the vehicles?”  I asked, referring to the
ones that belonged to the dead drug runners.

“Out of fuel.  Probably why they were stopped here.” 
Martinez answered.

“OK.  Let’s get back to the rocks before those vehicles
arrive.  If they’ve got night vision they’ll probably see us, but at least
we’ll be fairly secure until the Marines show up.”  I said.

I started to run towards the rocks, but only made it a
couple of steps before my head reminded me that I wasn’t one hundred percent. 
Or even fifty percent for that matter.  I stumbled and would have gone down if
Martinez hadn’t grabbed my arm.  Nodding my thanks I settled for a fast walk,
but was apparently still weaving around as Rachel stepped beside me and circled
her arm through mine.

“You’ve most likely got one hell of a concussion.”  She
said.

“Most likely.”  I agreed.  “I’ll try not to let any more
bullets bounce off my skull.”

“No worries there.  You’re head’s so thick I don’t think
they could do anything except bounce off.  But just in case, try to avoid
that.  Now that I’ve got you, I don’t want to lose you.”  Rachel squeezed my
arm and I tried to put on some more speed.

“They’ve seen us.”  Evans said a couple of minutes later. 
“The lead truck just changed directions and is coming directly at us.”  I
looked at the rocks ahead and guessed we were still about two minutes away from
the shelter they afforded.    

“How far are they?”  I asked, pushing myself into a trot.

“Maybe a minute.”  He answered.  Shit.  We weren’t going to
make it before they arrived.  Not without me able to run.

“Martinez, get everyone in the rocks.  Now.  Run.”  I
ordered, trying to push myself faster and nearly falling.

“We’re not leaving you behind.”  She said without turning
around.

“That’s an order, Captain!”  I said as firmly as I could. 

Martinez looked over her shoulder at me, and then shook her
head.  “Sorry, sir.  But under the UCMJ, an officer that has sustained an
injury or wound to the head and is deemed to be mentally impaired as the result
of said wound cannot issue a lawful order.”

“Goddamn it, Martinez…” I started to say, but Rachel leaned
her head towards my ear and told me to shut up. 

Well, if they weren’t going to listen, then I had to make
sure they were safe.  Pushing myself into a run I almost collapsed.  The
pounding in my head returned, a pulse of pain coordinated with each time one of
my feet hit the ground.  The desert in front of me was undulating, the horizon
warping as I struggled forward.  I would surely have fallen flat on my face if
not for Rachel’s assistance.

I could hear the sound of the engines behind us now, and
Igor moved in on the opposite side of me from Rachel and grabbed that arm. 
Together, they propelled me along at a speed greater than I could achieve at
the moment.  Dog ran a few yards in front of me, and I just focused on
following his bushy tail.

My world had compressed to a dark tunnel.  Peripheral vision
was gone, and all I could see was Dog’s ass as he led the way.  The sound of
the approaching vehicles was replaced with a roar that reminded me of the
ocean, and my stomach was threatening to spasm and force the water and aspirin
back up.  I was only vaguely aware of the sound of gunfire from our rear,
almost like when you’re dreaming and something is happening that you’re aware
of but not involved in.

But, I guess I was involved because Igor released my arm,
turned and fired a long burst from his rifle.  I was aware that Martinez was
also firing to our rear and I thought I should stop and do the same, but the
thought didn’t translate to action.  I kept running with only Rachel’s
support.  We were moving slower, but I managed to stay on my feet, and
following Dog I somehow managed to maintain a straight line.  I think.

Before I knew it we were at the shorter rock that guarded
the entrance to the gap, and Rachel scrambled on top of it.  I stood looking at
her for a moment, then realized she was yelling at me to get Dog.  Stooping
over, I leaned a shoulder on the rock to keep from falling down, wrapped my
arms around Dog’s body and lifted until Rachel could grab his front shoulders
and pull him up with her.

I climbed onto the rock, feeling like I was moving through
molasses, then Rachel was dragging me and we wound up tumbling off the backside
of the boulder and collapsing on the sand.  Moving out of the way, I pulled Dog
to me as first Irina, then Martinez and finally Igor joined us.  Igor
immediately rested his rifle across the top of the boulder and began firing at
the newly arrived vehicles.

“Where’s Evans?”  Rachel asked.  Irina turned and shook her
head.  She didn’t need to say anything else to get the message across.