Shodo brought the stock of his M-16 down on the man’s head and caved it in. “Fuck you, motherfucker!”
“In here!” Clean called from a nearby room.
The others had a look inside, where one of their missing men was chained to a bed with his throat recently cut.
“Son of a bitch!” Lee swore. “See? Goddamnit!”
“They only got shotguns and revolvers,” Clean said, dumping the shells from the cannibal’s .357 and flinging the pistol back in the direction they had come. “Let’s clean these fuckers out.”
Forrest realized that these soldiers had nothing to lose by pressing forward, but he and Kane certainly did. Farther along, a cluster of people burst from a room and dashed across the hall. Lee and his men gave chase.
“Sergeant!” Forrest shouted, but it was no use. He and Kane ran after them, covering the rear as they ran across a large conference room in pursuit of the fleeing figures. The double doors at the far side slammed shut before they could reach them, and the sound of crashing vending machines could be heard on the other side, effectively barricading the doors closed.
“It’s a trap!” Kane shouted, turning on his heel to dash back to the entrance. But these doors were also slammed shut before he could reach them, and again the vending machines outside were knocked over to barricade them.
“Goddamnit!” Kane shouted, whirling on Stacker Lee. “See what the fuck you did, motherfucker!”
There were sounds of maniacal laughter in the halls outside, whooping and hollering beyond both sets of doors, and a hail of bullets came through, forcing the soldiers to the floor and up against the walls.
“Now what?” Clean griped.
“I guess this wasn’t such a good idea,” said Shodo.
“No shit!” Kane remarked.
“Hey, fuck you!” Lee said. “Goddamn green beanie motherfucker! You dudes been livin’ underground suckin’ on cold beer and eatin’ pussy for the last twelve months! Who the fuck are you to tell us jack shit?”
“Cool it!” Forrest ordered. “We have to think our way out of this.”
They heard the sound of breaking glass in the center of the room and switched on their flashlights to see a dozen mason jars come dropping through a hole in the ceiling, shattering against the floor and releasing thick clouds of white gas.
“Fuck is that?!” Grip shouted, scooting away along the wall.
“Chlorine gas!” Forrest said.
“Where the fuck they get that shit?”
“Bleach and toilet bowl cleaner,” Forrest said, gathering the shemagh from about his neck and tying it over his nose and mouth. Lee’s men followed suit by tying green triangular bandages over their faces, and more jars fell through holes scattered all across the ceiling, shattering against the floor to fill the room with the poisonous gas.
Laughter came down through the holes in the ceiling, and more shots were fired through the doors to keep their heads down.
The soldiers started choking and their eyes burned.
“What the fuck are we gonna do?” Lee said. “We don’t have much time.”
“I have a suggestion,” said Kane.
“I’m all ears, man.”
“Turn command of this little goat fuck over to my captain so he can get us the fuck outta here!”
“What about it?” Lee said tersely. “You want command of the coal train?”
“Sure,” Forrest said, grinning beneath the shemagh. “Why not?”
“What you got in mind?”
“First,” Forrest said, “we need a fresh air supply. Stick a grenade in that fire extinguisher encasement and blow it outta there. There’ll be fresh air inside the wall we can take turns at.”
Grip wasted no time sliding over to the empty fire extinguisher box and sticking a grenade inside. “Fire in the hole!”
The grenade exploded and blew the metal encasement open wide enough for them to take turns sticking their heads inside the cinder-block wall for gulps of fresh air.
“Now we blow a hole in that far wall so we can flank these motherfuckers.”
“Fuck you gonna use for explosives?” Lee demanded. “Grenades won’t do shit to a brick wall!”
“O ye of little faith, Sergeant. Everybody fork over a concussion grenade. Hurry it up! Marcus, tape them together.”
Kane took a roll of electrical tape from his cargo pocket and began taping the six grenades together.
“Sergeant, get that jacket off and ball it up,” Forrest ordered as he removed the lanyard from his .45.
Lee stripped his combat harness and shrugged quickly out of his body armor. He then took off his jacket and gave it to Forrest, who used his electrical tape to wad the jacket into a ball as Lee shrugged back into his armor and harness.
“Now we’ll go knock the cover off that air vent in the far wall.”
The two each took a gulp of fresh air from the hole and moved quickly through the cloud of gas across to the wall Forrest had indicated. Lee used the butt of his carbine to bash the cover from the vent.
“Jam your jacket down inside the wall as far as you can!” Forrest said, choking against the fumes. He then ran the lanyard through the pins of the concussion grenades, lowering them down into the shaft to rest upon the jacket. “Take cover behind that table!”
Lee ran to where the other men had overturned a table and jumped behind it as Forrest jerked the lanyard, pulling all six pins from the grenades at virtually the same time and running for cover.
Four seconds later the grenades exploded in a massive thunderclap, blasting a four-foot hole in the double layered cinder-block wall.
“Move!” Forrest shouted, leaping over the table and sprinting toward the opening with Kane hot on his heels. The two Green Berets reached the opening a full two strides ahead of the others and ran down the hall to the far corner, catching six cannibals stunned and unprepared, machine-gunning them on the move and trampling their bodies underfoot. They continued making their way through the hospital at flank speed by flashlight.
Lee’s men caught up and together they fought a running battle back toward the emergency ward.
“Hold up!” Shodo said. “I hear somethin’.”
The men stopped and everyone stood listening. They heard the hushed tones of crying children somewhere behind them and around the corner and made their way to a private room where they found fifteen or so ragged women and children huddled together. They were as filthy and sickly looking as the men they had seen, and one of the women took a shot at them with a 9mm pistol, hitting Lee in the chest on his breastplate.
They ducked back out of the doorway and stood looking at one another.
“They sure as shit ain’t lookin’ to be rescued!” Grip said.
“Fuck you!” a woman screamed from inside. “Bastards!”
Down the far hall they could hear the cannibal men gathering, realizing that a group of their women and children had been found.
Lee took a concussion grenade from his harness.
“No!” Kane said.
“Fuck ’em! You think those motherfuckers see you as anything more than food?”
“We can keep moving,” Forrest said. “You gave me command, remember?”
“Tactical command, Captain.” Lee pulled the pin on the grenade, tossing it into the room, and they all ducked away covering their ears. The concussion from the blast blew out the windows of the room, and a great pressure wave blasted past them down the hall like rolling thunder. No one in the room could have lived.
“Goddamnit!” Kane screamed. “You didn’t have to fuckin’ do that!”
“It’s done!” Lee retorted. “Now what are your orders, Captain?”