The Infection ti-1 Read online

  “Give the goddamn order already!”

  “FIRE!” Hackett screams across the highway.

  The line erupts with a volley and the Infected collapse in a red mist and haze of smoke. Ethan blinks, caught off guard, and fires his first shot, shooting the mechanic through the throat. He adjusts his aim and puts two into the woman. He backs up several steps, firing at the businessman, missing until finally shooting out his knees and putting him down.

  The line trembles. Suddenly they are all running, streaming back towards the Ohio side of the river, firing as they run, trying to keep distance between themselves and the Infected.

  “Halt!” says Hackett, holding out his arms.

  The soldiers show good discipline, stopping and firing upon the remaining Infected. The air fills with noise and smoke and cordite. Ethan keeps running. For a moment, Ray runs alongside him and it feels like they are racing. Then Ethan is abruptly jerked back. He struggles, fighting against the hand grabbing at his shirt.

  “Fire your rifle,” Paul shouts in his ear.

  “Leave me alone!” Ethan screams in a panic, wrenching out of Paul’s grasp and spinning in time to see the swarm bearing down on him, hands outstretched, their howl and sour milk stench turning his legs to cold jelly.

  Paul’s shotgun crashes in his ears and a man wearing pajama bottoms collapses in a heap.

  Ethan feels drained and he can no longer run. A part of him wants to sit and let the Infected take him. His mind flashes back to Philip, who sat in the cinders of a half-burned convenience store in Wilkinsburg after seeing a newspaper with an old date.

  He pictures his daughter’s face.

  He screams and fires. The cop’s face explodes and the man continues running, almost decapitated, until collapsing to the ground at Ethan’s feet.

  ♦

  The team returns to the center of the bridge. The survivors walk among the twitching, dying bodies in a slight daze, as if through a dream, their shoes soaked through with the blood of the dead. Killing is exhausting work, draining on all levels, leaving them feeling numb. The wounded Infected crawl after them, coughing blood and growling, until finished off with mercy shots given without a second thought.

  The machine gun crews set up at the edges of the bridge, aiming their weapons towards West Virginia. One of the soldiers sneezes loudly on the sharp tang of cordite hanging in the air. There is a sea of Infected on the other side of the two buses up there and if that line fails, the MG teams and the Bradley will become the main line of defense, holding off the horde until the engineers can finish the job. The five-ton trucks are already backing up towards the center line, men clambering along their beds, cutting into the boxes and dumping piles of sandbags on the road.

  Ray sighs loudly, feeling strangely blessed. He has been ambushed and rushed and he is standing next to a bunch of morons fooling around with more than four thousand pounds of high-grade explosives, but he is still alive. When Patterson tells him to grab some sandbags and start distributing them along the two lines in the road he drew with chalk, he is almost grateful. Mindless labor he understands. He is perfectly fine with that. A little work won’t kill him.

  “Yo, Ray. Ray. Ray Young.”

  He turns and sees the Bradley commander gesturing from the open hatch of the vehicle.

  “You need something, Sarge?”

  “I’ve lost contact with Sergeant Horton. He’s in the right bus. I need a runner to get up there and report back on what’s happening.”

  “Christ, Sarge, you can hear the firing from here. They’re still there.”

  Sarge glowers and Ray glares back, setting his jaw, feeling mean. He is afraid of death, yes, but not of fighting. He never backs down when it comes to a fight.

  Anytime, Sergeant Wilson, he thinks. Anytime you want, you let me know.

  “Ray, there’s blood on the windows,” Sarge says. “I need to know if he’s got casualties. I need to know what he’s got in front of him. I need to know if he needs ammunition.”

  Ray understands bullying very well. Sarge is not being a bully. It’s a reasonable request.

  “All right, all right,” he grumbles.

  “You sure it’s okay? Sure you don’t mind?”

  “I said all right, I’ll go.”

  “Then move your ass, shit for brains!”

  Ray grins, checks the magazine on his M16, and starts jogging. After fifty feet, he is already flagging and wheezing a little, his lungs starting to ache.

  Christ, Ray, he thinks. You need to get back into shape.

  He feels a hand on his shoulder and almost screams.

  “What’s up, dude?”

  “What are you doing here, kid?”

  “Thought you might want some company.”

  “Why don’t you just do it and I’ll go back?”

  Alarm crosses Todd’s face.

  “Sarge wouldn’t like that. Come on, it’ll be cool.”

  It’ll be cool. Crazy, stupid kid.

  They slow as they approach the bus. Several of the windows are sprayed with blood on the inside. Two of them are open and gun smoke drifts lazily out of them. Dark shapes are moving inside. The constant pop of gunfire is so hot and loud here that it almost feels like a physical barrier.

  Ray and Todd glance at each other.

  “What do you think?” Todd shouts at him.

  “I think we should get this over with.”

  Ray pushes open the bus doors and climbs aboard, looking down the aisle and coughing on the smoke. The aisle and seats on the right are filled with soldiers, firing and reloading and roaring obscenities. Dead men occupy several of the seats on the left, their eyes staring at nothing. Empty shell casings clatter onto the floor, already covered in brass and links. There is an atmosphere of madness here. The soldiers wear wild expressions, like they’ve completely lost it.

  But they are holding.

  He is about to grab one of them when he sees Sergeant Alexander Horton sitting in one of the seats, his eyes bulging with fear and his chest torn out and dripping onto the floor, dead as a doorknob. Mission accomplished, now let’s get the hell out of here.

  Todd taps him on the shoulder and points.

  Ray looks past the nearest soldiers and sees the horde.

  It surges towards him in a vast shrieking swarm, an endless freak show of monsters and zombies converging on the bridge. He spots packs of Hoppers with their absurd walk, occasionally leaping to sting one of the Infected. Giant leering faces swaying on bony stilted legs. Titans waving their tentacles, bellowing. And flowing among them, mindlessly marching and occasionally serving as food for the monsters, thousands of Infected waiters and students and housewives and cashiers and typists and investment bankers.

  He wakes up outside the bus, running, gasping for air, trailed by Todd.

  Paul rushes to meet them halfway. They fall to their knees together.

  “Talk to me,” he says.

  “He freaked out,” Todd says. “Paul, there are like a million of them over there.”

  “Ray?”

  “Tell your boss that Horton is dead,” Ray gasps. “In fact, one out of four soldiers on that bus is dead. And every Infected bastard from Pittsburgh is beating at their door.”

  ♦

  Sarge sits on the Bradley’s turret, aiming his binoculars at the school buses at the end of the bridge and chewing his lip. They have been on the bridge for over an hour, anxiously watching the engineers do their job. Patterson bangs on the armor to get his attention and tells him that he is almost done setting up the charges. The TNT is arranged in two lines in front of the Bradley. All that remains before the show, the engineer explains, is finishing the tamping and pulling back the wires for each series of explosives to where they will be detonated.

  Twenty minutes, he says.

  Roger that, LT.

  The distance between the Bradley and the end of the bridge is about three hundred meters. Sarge has the Bradley’s battlecarry—pre-selected range and ammuniti
on—set up, establishing a kill zone around the buses. He looks at his watch nervously, sweating in the afternoon sun.

  He sees Todd, working with the other survivors and Guard to pass sandbags along a human chain, and waves.

  Yeah, Sarge?

  Sarge smiles. For a moment, he forgot he has radio communication with the survivors.

  He keys his handset and says, “Todd, I want you to go up to the buses and tell those boys we need twenty more minutes from them, over.”

  Cool! Todd, out!

  Todd snatches his carbine and takes off at a sprint.

  He hears a colossal crash of thunder and looks south. The center of the Market Street Bridge, shrouded by a drifting cloud of black smoke, is collapsing into the Ohio River.

  The soldiers let up a ragged cheer. Sarge grunts with satisfaction. Half the mission is over. But it will not be successful until they finish the job and destroy this bridge.

  He returns his binoculars to the buses. He sees fresh streaks of blood on the windows, the dead propped up in the seats, as if waiting for their next stop.

  Just hang on a little longer, he thinks. He marvels at the bravery and endurance of the men inside those vehicles. He cannot even imagine what they must be going through in there.

  The engineers are shouting in alarm. Sarge shifts his gaze and sees one of the Towering Things leering down at the bus, ropes of drool leaking between its massive teeth.

  The monster’s tongue lashes out. After several moments, it pulls the broken body of a National Guardsmen into its chomping mouth. The monster bites down, chewing greedily with a blissful expression, its eyes closed and leaking tears. The creature is so happy it is crying.

  Another Towering Thing appears on the right, chortling. Its tongue lashes out and a man screams.

  The bus is moving.

  “Todd, get back here now,” Sarge says.

  But I’m almost there, over.

  “Get back here now,” Sarge roars. “The line is breaking.”

  The gunfire sputters and stops. Soldiers emerge from the buses and race towards the safety of the machine guns at the center of the bridge. One of the monsters lashes out over the roof of the bus and grips a fleeing soldier by the ankle, yanking him up and into the mouth, the man screaming and firing his weapon until the teeth crush his body into paste.

  The bus is moving, swinging open like a door. Something big is pushing it. Tentacles wave in the air behind the vehicle. One of the Giants. A limb as thick as a tree trunk, knotted with thick, pale muscle, emerges. Moments later, the behemoth pushes its way past and lumbers onto the bridge, bellowing like a foghorn.

  “Prepare for action,” Sarge says into his handset. “Hold the line!”

  So close, he thinks. We are so close to winning this.

  He drops into the telescoped seat, lowers it, and seals the hatch.

  Immunity 1, this is Immunity actual, over, he hears over his headset.

  “Go ahead, LT,” Sarge says.

  I still need fifteen minutes, over.

  “You got your fifteen, out.” Sarge shouts, “Get those MGs up!”

  Moments later, the .30 cal machine guns placed at the edges of the bridge start firing, the tracers streaming down the causeway and converging on the bellowing titan, which staggers back a few steps, its massive head trembling. The Infected swarm around the feet of the monster, racing towards the center of the bridge.

  “Hackett, I want that MG fire focused on the foot mobiles,” Sarge says.

  Roger that, Sarge.

  “What about us?” Wendy says.

  “On the way,” Sarge says, squeezing the trigger.

  The rig shudders slightly as the cannon fires, BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP, empty shell casings spilling down the Bradley’s chest. The HE rounds crash into the Giant and the area around it, exploding in a series of flashes.

  “Target,” Wendy says, letting Sarge know that his aim is good. “Target.”

  “It’s like shooting at a barn,” Sarge mutters.

  Immunity 1, this is Immunity actual, we’re about ten from detonation. How copy?

  “Solid, LT,” Sarge says. “Ten minutes to detonation.”

  The Giant collapses, shivering, gushing blood.

  “Target destroyed,” Wendy announces.

  Good work, Steve says from the driver’s station.

  “Mark the time, Wendy. Officer or not, if the LT is not ready in ten, I’m going to put my boot up his ass.”

  Smoke billows at the end of the bridge. The horde comes running out of the smoke, throwing themselves into the machine gun fire, driven by their endless rage.

  “Shifting fire to area target,” he murmurs, switching to the coax MG. “On the way.”

  Sarge keeps the reticle in the same place, fires a burst of ten to fifteen rounds horizontally across the target area, then another diagonally, then another horizontally, in a repeating Z pattern.

  “Jesus,” Wendy says, almost retching.

  Hundreds of rounds fall among the ranks of the Infected, cutting them down like wheat under a scythe. The bodies collapse in groups, often in pieces. Smoking fingers and hands and heads and feet and legs fly through the air in a bloody mist. Just as often, the bodies literally disintegrate under the withering machine gun fire, flesh and bone exploding wetly across the asphalt.

  Ten minutes, Sarge reminds himself. Ten minutes is a long time. But we can do it. The soldiers and the survivors can handle the Infected, while the Bradley can handle the larger monsters.

  He freezes, wincing, as the Bradley fills with a hellish roar that he remembers all too well.

  ♦

  The monster’s screaming cascades across the bridge. The shooting sputters for a moment as the soldiers and survivors flinch in primordial terror. The screaming fades and the firing resumes while the engineers begin removing sandbags and rows of TNT blocks in front of the Bradley. The rig revs its engine and trembles like a bull stomping its feet.

  “What in the hell is that?” Ray says.

  “We don’t know,” Paul tells him.

  “But you’ve met.”

  “Yeah, we’ve met. We call it the Demon.”

  For several moments, nothing happens. Thick clouds of smoke hover at the end of the bridge in a thick haze, concealing the buses and the Infected. The Infected have stopped coming for the moment. Then the monster screams again, rending the air with its pain and drawing the smoke clouds into strange swirling patterns.

  Todd catches a glimpse of a massive horned thing. Then it emerges, a thickly muscled mass of armor and spikes and giant horns instead of eyes set almost directly over its wide chomping mouth. Enormous membranous wings. Todd can feel each of its steps sending a tiny vibration up his spine. The thing is so ugly and terrifying that his eyes glance off of it.

  The Bradley’s cannon begins firing. The Demon shudders, stumbling under the blows, but does not appear harmed. It screams, blanking out Todd’s mind for a moment, literally eliminating his memory of the last few seconds, and advances. The smoke follows it in swirling patterns, clinging to its limbs.

  The engineers have removed the array of charges from the Bradley’s path and Patterson is shouting into his mike. The rig jolts forward. Todd reads boom stick on the side of its turret as it roars full speed towards the Demon, its cannon pounding.

  “What are they doing?” Todd demands, running after the Bradley and waving his arms. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Paul grips his arm and pulls him back. “Let them go, Todd.”

  “No! They’ll be on the wrong side of the bridge when it goes up!”

  The Bradley disappears into the clouds of smoke swirling at the end of the bridge. The thick haze lights up with flashes of cannon fire, the reports echoing back as booming thunder. Then it is gone. The engineers are already returning the charges to the road.

  “No!” Todd screams. “No!”

  Waves of Infected pour out of the smoke, squealing and howling.

  “They had no choice,�
� Paul shouts into his ear. “Patterson’s not ready and we don’t know what that thing can do to us. We’ve got to finish this, boy!”

  One of the behemoths lumbers towards them, groaning under the MG fire, then roars and gallops forward blindly with a sudden, heart-stopping burst of speed until crashing through the rail and falling into the river below.

  Ray appears at their side, shooting.

  “Fire your fucking guns!” he cries, emptying his rifle into the swarm.

  The Towering Things step ponderously among the Infected, their giant faces grinning.

  “Shaw chonk?”

  “Roomy lactate.”

  “Shaw chonk mute chonk.”

  “Fire in the hole!”

  Trailing a line of smoke, an AT4 rocket streams from the Guard unit, scoring a hit on one of the Towering Things. The top of its head suddenly erupts in a geyser of blood and brains.

  “Holy shit,” Todd says in amazement.

  He drains his magazine, reloads, fires again.

  Hoppers drop down from the cables onto one of the MG teams.

  “They’re above us again,” Ethan yells into the noise, firing into the air.

  “Got it,” Todd says, adjusting his aim to shoot at the things clambering up the cables. Moments later, two of the creatures fall to the ground with a wet, meaty sound.

  The soldiers are screaming and shooting their rifles as the Hoppers leap into their midst, fangs bared and stingers erect. Ethan sees more climbing the cables.

  Ray tugs on Paul’s arm. “We got to fall back or we’re screwed.”

  “You go, Ray. I’m not moving until this bridge is down.”

  “You may already be dead, Preacher, but I’m not.”

  “You will be if we don’t blow this thing, understand? We all will!”

  Todd glances behind them and sees the engineers running after the retreating five-ton trucks, joined by some of the soldiers. Patterson is backing away slowly at a safe distance, uncoiling wire. He waves at them. The charges are in place, tamped, primed and ready to explode.

  Hackett blows his whistle, calling the retreat. It’s time to blow the bridge.

  Another AT4 missile zooms down the span, detonating on the far side. A score of Infected disintegrate in the blast, raining blood and flesh on the rest. A severed arm comes to a skidding halt at the survivors’ feet.