Rod watches them with paternal fondness and high expectations that they survive and become everything he thinks they can be. He wants them to kick ass; he wants them to live. He has led a dozen like Specialist Sosa, the overconfident big kid; even more like PFC Arnold and PFC Tanner, naive eager beavers; a few overthinkers like Corporal Lynch, always concerned with why certain orders are being issued; and too few like Corporal Davis—quiet, reliable men who know how to get things done under extreme stress. They are just like every other squad of big, dumb kids he has led during his career as a professional soldier. But they are his.
He knows the boys are calling him Cool Rod behind his back. After the fight at the hotel when they lost Pierce and so many others, they eyed him with a level of respect bordering on reverence. It was perhaps the one good thing to come out of that day—conquering the reputation he earned in Germany. Since then, they have fought every day, and between Rod’s leadership and a hell of a lot of plain luck, Third Squad has taken no casualties. Now they think he’s a god.
Rod does not care what they think, as long as they follow his orders and cover their sectors.
Visibility remains poor because of the smoke. On the left, a construction site reveals itself, giant cranes soaring into the murk, scattered orange traffic cones, a sign that says WAYNE CONSTRUCTION. Someone spray painted SCHOOL IS OUT FOREVER on the side of a trailer. Sosa chuckles, shaking his head. Rod remembers they are in Foggy Bottom, somewhere on the George Washington University campus.
As they near the next intersection, a wall of vehicles emerges from the gloom. This is as far as the engineers cleared the road; from here on out they will be in the shit. Cars and vans and trucks sit parked, many of them at angles, some seemingly fused together. Their drivers fought for every inch before abandoning them in this endless apocalyptic parking lot.
Rod splits the squad. Fireteam A advances first and pauses at a defensible location, and then provides overwatch for Fireteam B’s advance. Their gear clatters as they wade into the mass of vehicles.
On the left and right, high-rise apartments flank the street. Rod tilts his head back, but cannot see the tops of the buildings. The sun is just a yellowish splotch smeared on the sky like an infected wound. Frantic pounding draws his attention to one of the windows. A pale young woman stares down at him from a second floor window, slamming her fists against the glass.
Lynch follows his gaze and turns to glance at him. Refugee, Sergeant?
Rod shakes his head. Nope, Infected. He considers calling it in, and decides against it. The woman is no threat. In Kandahar, they reported continual random snatches of gunfire from the areas they patrolled each night. Sometimes a mortar burst or a machine gun. In DC, they call in foghorns, screams, distant roars, stray monsters, roving swarms of maniacs.
Sosa snickers and hisses at Arnold, “I think she likes you.”
Huffing under the weight of his flamethrower, Arnold shakes his head and says nothing, too tired to respond.
Ahead, a car door slams: Tanner, on point, clearing a path for them. The column threads its ragged course between the vehicles. They step over abandoned luggage. Sosa spots a pack of cigarettes on the ground and pockets it. The woman continues to pound on the window over their heads. The sound multiplies.
Rod glances back and sees more people at other windows, banging on the glass with their fists. As they clear the van, he sees even more in the building on his left as well.
Lynch glances at him again and Rod gestures forward. Keep moving. We’ll be fine as soon as we pass these buildings.
People stand at most of the windows now, fists pounding like war drums. The sound becomes a roar. Over the drumming, Rod hears the tinkle of broken glass on the sidewalk.
“Pick up the pace, Tanner,” he calls out.
Glass shatters overhead.
“Heads up!” Davis shouts.
A dark shape flutters through the smoke and lands heavily on one of the vehicles to their left, which groans and sags under the impact. Arnold cries out in terror, the grimy lens on his facemask dotted with sprayed blood.
Another body flies through the air in a rain of broken glass.
Tanner shoots at it, misses. The rest of the squad opens fire.
“Cease fire!” Rod roars, furious at the lack of fire discipline.
The boys obey the order, panting in their masks.
The gunfire shattered many of the windows. Bodies fall like human missiles, limbs flailing. Glass rattles across the cars. The crash of the impacts multiplies until it is continuous. A car alarm wails its grating alarm. Others join in.
The boys begin firing again, but this is not combat. The onslaught is nothing they can fight.
It’s an avalanche. We can either weather it or get out of the way.
“Off the street,” Rod roars, pushing at Sosa’s shoulder until the man obeys.
He pulls his fireteam to the right side of the street while Davis pulls his to the left. Rod peers through the grimy glass windows into the building’s lobby. No threats there.
“What the fuck is this?” Tanner screams, gaping at the bodies falling onto the cars, shattering windshields and splattering across the crumpled metal. “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?”
Sosa grips the back of his neck and forces him to look away while Arnold and Lynch bend close, telling him he’s okay, everything is going to be okay.
“It’s not okay,” Tanner sobs. “Nothing about this is fucking okay.”
“Stay frosty, vatos,” Rod tells them. “All that noise is going to attract attention.”
He feels vibrations in the soles of his feet. The sensation migrates up his legs to his knees. Ash dances on the asphalt. He turns and pulls on the building’s front doors. They’re unlocked. He holds one open and waves the fireteam inside.
“Get in there! Move!”
The soldiers enter the lobby, half dragging the dazed Tanner, and deploy into firing positions. Rod turns and sees Davis directing his men into the burned-out building across the street. The downpour of bodies has stopped. An incredible roar reaches his ears, the crash and pop of crumpling metal and shattering glass. The traffic jam trembles, cars shifting by inches.
Inside, his fireteam tenses, ready to open fire at whatever is coming.
“Get down,” he says.
They look at him.
“Eat dirt!” he roars.
The air fills with a long blast of foghorns.
The thunder grows in volume until they are certain the world is ending. The first juggernaut bounds across the roofs of the vehicles, crumpling their frames under the impact of seven tons of flying muscle and bone. The rest of the herd follows, tentacles flailing around their brontosaurus bodies, crashing over the cars and flattening the traffic jam into crushed metal.
As the last monster leaps across the wreckage, Rod lunges to his feet and rushes to the RTO, yanking the handle from the field radio and shouting, “Hellraisers, Hellraisers, this is Hellraisers 3. How copy?”
Jared Kelley’s voice responds: Hellraisers 3, this is Hellraisers 5, go ahead, over.
“Large herd of Bravo Mikes inbound on your position from M Street. Estimated size forty, fifty adults, moving at gallop speed, over.”
Rod waits during the long pause as Kelley processes the fact a stampede of about three hundred tons of monster is bearing down on his position at twenty-five miles an hour.
“Bravo Mike” is the current Army slang for “big motherfucker.”