I like it.
Ray drives along at a snail’s pace, waving back.
“Look, honey. They’re waving at you.”
Lola raises her hand and waves feebly, her face a blank, more robot than human.
He stops the truck in front of a tangled pile of vehicles blocking both lanes of the road. Concentrating, he summons work crews to push the wrecks out of the way. Dozens of people swarm across the knot of vehicles. Ray lights another Winston and watches them work.
“Nobody ever treated me special like this before, Lola. Hell, I don’t want you to think I’m getting a big head or anything, but I could get used to it. I honestly could.”
The last wreck is moved aside. Ray throws the transmission back into gear and nudges the gas.
“Thanks for the help, you guys.”
The waves turn into Nazi salutes. A forest of hands pledging absolute obedience.
“That’s right,” he chuckles. He sees a man wearing a pistol in a shoulder holster and broadcasts, Bring guns to my boys here. And bullets. Whatever you can dig up.
Within minutes, several Infected run out of the mob, chasing after the truck to hand rifles and pistols to the boys of Unit 12.
“Thank you, my subjects. I shall never forget you.”
Now we’ll see if anyone wants to screw around with me.
He laughs and stomps on the gas, roaring out of town on squealing wheels. Lola smiles at the sound of his laughter. Ray notices an ant crawling across her face and brushes it off.
“That’s right, honey. It’s you and me against the world.”
What now? Stick to the plan. Go to Washington. Contact the Army. Make a deal.
Ray glances at the fuel gauge. The rig still has half a tank of gas in it. It feels a bit underpowered when he steps on the gas, but it runs true. It will get him to the city, or at least close enough to walk.
He pats Lola’s knee and smiles at her while he drives. He was hoping his return would offer him a second chance, and here she is in the flesh.
“We’re going to fix you, honey. We’re going to make things right as rain again.”
If they want me to cooperate, they’re going to have to cure you, too. That’s the deal.
Cool Rod
The lumbering Chinook heaves into the air with thundering rotors as the Stryker rolls out of the sunny field and onto the road, picking up speed as it heads toward its objective. Twenty minutes later, the Stryker’s gunner, standing behind the heavy machine gun, crouches inside the passenger compartment and says to Rod, “You should check out the birds.”
Rod opens the hatch and peers outside. The old, cracked country road, flanked by trees and telephone poles and marked by centerlines faded to mere suggestion, is empty. The wind in his face smells like green, living things. The sky is deep blue here, free of the smoky haze hanging over Washington like a permanent shroud. It feels free. It feels like home.
A cloud of black birds swirls over the distant town visible miles down the road. They are crows, scavenging, fighting over an unprecedented feast.
Crows will eat just about anything, including dead meat if it is soft from rot.
Rod’s smile fades.
“What’s it mean, Sergeant?” says the gunner.
“It means stay frosty on the fifty,” Rod tells him, closing the hatch over his head.
Soon they will enter Morgantown nice and quiet, the way they did in Afghanistan during their nighttime patrols. His team will wait for their guy, grab him, and bug out.
He blinks in the heat and the gloom of the Stryker and regards his team. The vehicle holds a squad of nine, but today they are carrying the scientist and the spook and reserving an empty seat for Typhoid Jody. He brought Fireteam B and loaded them up with heavy weaponry and ammunition: Sosa with a flamethrower, Arnold with a machine gun, Tanner with a rifle, and Lynch with a SAW. He also brought Davis with a rifle and field radio. Between the Stryker’s machine gun and the squad, they have enough firepower to make short work of anything in their way.
The young faces look back at him expectantly, but he just nods, and they return the gesture with some relief. No news is good news. Sosa gives him a cocky grin that looks like lipstick on a pig. Rod’s shooters have faith in him, but they think the mission is screwed up. The scientist is dripping with sweat that smells like fear. Next to him, Fielding sits looking sour, probably resenting being taken out of the safest place on the continent and thrown into the shit.
Don’t worry, Captain, we’ll get you back to your cushy desk job. We’re all going to get through this in one piece.
Major Duncan and Captain Rhodes made a big deal out of the mission. They made it sound like the squad was being sent to save the world. It’s a chance, yes, but a long shot to be sure. Saving the world apparently is not even important enough for the Army to give him some air support and keep eyes on the package. Someone is watching, possibly by satellite, but they’re not being very giving with their information, and what they do share, by the time it filters to Rod’s level, is old. In short, this is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack.
A haystack that is on fire and trying to kill you and eat your flesh. The mission is important, but I’m not going to allow it to become a slippery slope where good men end up taking big risks and dying for nothing. We’re going to do this like we do everything—as professionals.
The Stryker gunner swears loudly.
The nauseating smell has already seeped into the rig, making the boys wince. They know it well from DC. The sweet, beefy, putrid stench of dead bodies left rotting in the sun. They will never get used to it. It’s just a hint now, but getting stronger by the second.
Lynch produces a bottle of menthol vapor rub from one of his front cargo pockets and wipes some under his nose with a cotton swab, sniffing. He passes it on.
“Two minutes,” the commander announces.
Rod opens the hatch as the Stryker rolls into the outskirts of Morgantown on its eight wheels. Behind him, the commander sweeps the fifty across the length of an old red brick apartment building, its windows filled with cheap air conditioners.
Past that, a shopping center, and beyond, main street.
The Stryker passes five bloated, grinning corpses hanging from a traffic light, three by their necks with their hands tied behind their backs, two by their ankles. The calling card of the militia groups. Signs on their chests bear the inscription: INFECTED.
The militia, it seems, are every bit as ruthless as he heard through the grapevine. Some of them wear necklaces made from monster teeth. Others cut off the Jodies’ heads and mount them on spikes to mark human territory. Rod has seen what men can do in war and believes these people are insane. He’s just glad they’re on his side.
A seething carpet of crows bursts shrieking into the air at the Stryker’s approach, revealing piles of blackened, half-eaten bodies covering the street. As the birds take to the air and settle in the hundreds on the rooftops, thick clouds of flies materialize over the dead.
Armageddon visited this place. The storefronts lining the town’s main drag are shattered and burned out, the walls peppered with bullet holes, the sidewalks glittering with broken glass and empty shell casings. The asphalt is coated with a paste of hardening blood. Rod covers his mouth and waves away the hungry flies buzzing around his face. The stench is incredible and he resists the urge to vomit, reminding himself that decorated combat infantrymen do not hurl on over three million dollars’ worth of taxpayer-funded military equipment. He thinks about Gabriela’s letters, about baby Victor squeezing his fist, signing for milk, and smiles a little.