Diaries of Becka Vol 2: Chpt One Sec 2 (4,423 w)
Nov 16, 2010 18:23:15 GMT -8
Post by Tim Willard on Nov 16, 2010 18:23:15 GMT -8
Author's Notes:
"Where too, Sheriff?" The driver of the hummer asked me when I slid into the vehicle. Becka followed me, standing on the seat and popping up through the hole in the roof.
"I'm on the mounted gun," I heard her say over the tac-com.
"Use proper radio procedure," Came over the headset.
"How?" Becka asked, and I grinned at the driver, who rolled his eyes with a smile.
"Identify yourself, state the vehicle you're in, and tell us your actions." The voice sighed.
"Private Starling, Vehicle umm..." She looked down through the hole.
"Six." The driver mouthed, and Becka smiled.
"Vehicle Six, on the big gun on the roof." She finished.
There was a sigh over the headset, along with some laughter, and I could see Becka flush with embarrassment.
"All right, Private, you should have said 'Private Starling, Vehicle Six, manning ringmount." The voice said gently. "Who's her squad leader?"
There was dead silence on the line.
"Oh you have to be shitting me, nobody?" The voice sounded irritated. "Private Starling, where did you do your basic training?"
"I didn't, I'm sorry." Becka admitted, her voice small. There was an exasperated sound.
"Don't apologize, Private. Are you a conscript?"
"Yes, sir." Becka said.
"Sergeant Clackson, when we dismount I want you to give her some training," the voice said. "Private, what are you doing here?"
"I didn't have anywhere else to go." Becka said, her voice sounding lost. "My friends all died, my parents are probably dead, I had to kill my brother, and I don't know what happened to my little sister."
"Jesus Christ," The driver said, covering his mic with his hand. I nodded, reaching out and rubbing her leg.
"Clackson, take care of our little lost private when we dismount, will you?" The voice said gently.
"Yes, sir." Clackson replied.
"All right, Arquette, can you hear me, it's Lieutenant Groves, we'll follow you. Corporal Braddock, take point." The Lieutenant ordered.
"Yes, sir." The driver said, turning back to me.
"Where to, Sheriff?" He asked again, firing up the vehicle and heading toward the gate that the soldiers had rigged up while we were loading up the vehicles with medical supplies, food, water, and ammunition.
The gate was, in fact, two gates, separated by about thirty feet of completely enclosed ground. Right now, the gates were opened, but once the infected began gathering in enough numbers that they couldn't be cleared away easily, then they'd go to a different method. Only one gate would be opened at a time, and men stood in the cabs of large trucks, manning the guns on the roofs of the trucks. I'd been told that if any of the infected got into the "airlock" then they'd kill all the infected inside before opening the inner gate. The idea was that it would prevent any of the infected from getting into the compound that the soldiers were rapidly expanding.
Braddock drove us through and we bounced across the field to where two vehicles I'd been told were Stryker Combat Vehicles were sitting, one on either side of the driveway that connected the field to Old Highway 99.
"Take a left." I said, and Braddock nodded, honking at the two Strykers as he pulled out onto the two lane highway and gunned the engine.
"Take it slower." I warned. Braddock looked at me, opening his mouth to say something when it happened.
The machinegun on the roof fired, Becka screamed over the headset, and the infected slammed into the hood, rolling across the hood and bouncing off the windshield before vanishing off my side of the vehicle.
"The correct procedure is to call out 'contact', Private Starling." Clackson said over the headset, and there was a few laughs, including someone mimicing the scream. "At ease that shit, guys." Clackson said, "She's new, and if I recall correctly, Hewitt, you about pissed yourself when your gunner fired off for the first time."
"That's why." I told Braddock, who nodded jerkily, but he did ease off the accelerator.
We passed several groups of soldiers who were using chainsaws to cut down the utility poles, fenceposts, small trees, and mailboxes at the sides of the road, each group watched over by two men manning the ringmounts in two vehicles.
"What are they doing?" I asked.
"Cutting down the shit that might damage any fighters that land on the freeway." Braddock answered. He saw my expression and smiled, "We've got over three hundred jets coming in, everything from F-18's to F-22's and C-141's to the bigass C-5 Galaxies. There's like forty thousand people coming, all of 8th Army and the dependants."
"Why here?" I asked as Becka called out "Contact!" over the headset and fired.
"Sea-Tac, Olympia International, and Portland International are all gone, along with McChord. We've got to land those planes here, since I overheard the Captain saying that they took off with almost minimum fuel." He continued.
"Contact dead." Becka said.
"You say, tango down or enemy down, Private." Clackson told her.
"Why didn't they head to California instead of coming this far north?" I asked.
"Something about a big assed storm in the Pacific that made it so that it was shorter and safer to try to land at McChord, but once we lost McChord, we had no choice but to build this airfield." He told me, swerving out of the way of a infected that charged out of the open door of a store on the side of the road.
"Why not take a regular airfield?" I asked.
"Have you seen a fucking airport?" He asked, glancing at me.
"No, I haven't." I admitted.
"I saw Tacoma International," He said, then shivered, "There were thousands of them there, and I saw at least three planes come crashing down." He glanced at me, deliberately running over an infected standing in the middle of the road. Becka cried out in pain as her ribs slammed into the edge of the roof.
"Tacoma International alone has over twenty planes on autopilot circling the airport, none of which respond to any communication, and more arrive every hour or so." He told me.
"Gotcha." I answered. I could picture the airplanes circling, like high tech vultures, and knew without being told that they would start colliding, that they'd drop from the sky and crash in a fiery maelstrom only to be replaced by new arrivals.
We sat silently until the overpass came into view. Becka killed a few more of the Risen, mainly by shooting the ever loving shit out of them with the machinegun, until Clackson told her to stop wasting ammunition and explained how to set her tactical communicator to transmit only when she pressed the button.
"Slow down." I told him, and he nodded, dropping down to just a little faster than a brisk walk. We headed up the incline, and I heard Becka whistle.
To either side of the overpass I-5 was completely covered with traffic. The cars were stalled, either abandoned or with windows smashed in and blood on the sides of the cars. I could see infected staggering between the cars, and as one they turned and stared at our vehicle.
Several of them shrieked, loud enough to be heard over the sound of the engine, and began climbing over the cars and running at the overpass with that strange spastic grace they had.
Ahead of us, in Grand Mound proper, I could see hordes of the infected surrounding the buildings. The Indian restuarant, the Red Barn resturant and bar, the gas station, the McDonald's, and the Dairy Queen. Numbering in the hundreds at least.
And all of them turning toward us.
It was strange to watch, the way those closest turned to look, then the next row, then the next, like a breeze rippling grass, until they all stared us. The leading edge shambling forward while faster ones broke free or began shoving their way through the massive pack.
"Oh shit." Braddock breathed.
"Becka, get in here and shut the hatch!" I yelled, slapping her on the leg.
"How do I get the machinegun loose?" She shouted.
"Fuck the gun!" I yelled, "Leave it!"
"Got it!" she yelled, dropping into the cab, cradling the machinegun in her arms. I reached up, grabbed the handle, and slammed the lid shut as the faster Risen began sprinting up the overpass.
"Six to Nine, Six to Nine, over." Braddock said, keying his mic.
"This is Nine, go ahead, Six." Groves said.
"We've got a couple hundred, maybe into the thousands, of infected on the other side of the overpass, please advise, over." Braddock answered.
"Pull back, we're sending forward the Strykers, over." Groves answered.
"Roger, Six out." Braddock answered, shifting the vehicle into reverse and watching through his mirror as he did a quick three point turn.
Before he could pull forward and out three of the running Risen hit the vehicle, rocking it hard on its shocks. One jumped on the hood and began smashing at the window with its fists, one climbing up on the top of the vehicle, and the last slamming against the vehicle repeatedly.
"Shit shit shit..." Braddock yelled, gunning the vehicle. The one on the hood rolled off and the one of the top as Braddock hit the gas. Three more hit us from behind with loud thumps as their bodies impacted the hummer's armor.
"Nine, this is Six," I called out, jamming my thumb down on the transmit button.
"Six, this is Nine, go ahead, over." Groves answered after a moment.
"They're hitting the hummer, I think they're trying to flip us." I said, "I haven't seen them do that before, this is new, over."
"Get the hell out of there, Six, Strykers are two zero zero meters out." Groves said. I could see them heading toward us, running over a pair of running infected that darted out of the trees on the side of the road.
"Six, this is Sierra-Two, we've got you on visual, be advised you have a large amount of infected on your six." A new voice broke in.
"Roger that, Sierra-Two," I said. Seconds later Braddock roared between the two huge armored vehicles.
Right afterwards the world shattered in the roar of autofire as the Strykers opened up on the crowd behind us. I looked back, to see the front of the crowd to just dissolve, limbs flying up into the air.
I'd only seen heavy weapons fire in movies, and once before when the Army lured a bunch of the infected to a cordon in Olympia, and once again I was shocked at what military grade firepower did to a crowd.
In the movies, the bullets made little holes in people, might knock them off their feet if it was only one or two, but the crowd kept coming, the bullets only hitting one or two people. People just fell to the ground with red splotches on their clothing.
The guns on the top of the Strykers cut loose like a God breaking wind, and the front of the crowd, like I said before, just dissolved into butchered meat as the guns raked back and forth across them.
Torsos exploded as the heavy rounds hit, limbs were blown off, heads just vanished as the Strykers raked that weapon on the roof across the crowd. Gobbets of flesh, splashes of blood, and worse flew skyward, and the first eight or nine ranks were destroyed by the opening salvo.
Braddock slewed the vehicle around, stopping on the eastbound side of the road facing west, and we watched as the Strykers slowly advanced, firing their weapons, and in less than thirty seconds the crowd that had been following us was just gone.
"Sierra-Two, threat eliminated." The voice sounded very satisfied.
"Keep thinking that." Becka muttered.
"That's a negative, Sierra-Two," I said, thumbing the button, "That's just the leading pack of runners, there's about two thousand about to come over that overpass, over."
"Say again, Six?"
"I said, there's a whole shitpot coming at you." I said, and nodded as Becka pointed at the top of the overpass. "As a matter of fact, here they come."
"Nine, this is Sierra-Two, requesting permission to open fire." Came over my tac-com.
"You still got Six." I answered, and ignored the curse.
"How many rounds do those pack?" I asked Braddock. Becka had opened up the top hatch and stood back up.
"Two thousand rounds." He answered.
"Then they're fucked." I said.
"Fuck it, we'll just run them over." He answered, grinning.
"Keep thinking that."
The Strykers suddenly opened up again, the bullets ripping apart the Risen who had reached the top. Once again the bodies were torn apart by the heavy rounds punching into them. I'd once heard a fellow deputy comment that the fifty caliber machinegun was only for use on vehicles, that some nations considered it a war crime to use on personnel. Watching, I could see why. People weren't just killed, they were destroyed.
The hammering of the machineguns went on and on, but still the Risen kept coming, until suddenly it got silent. Unnoticed the rest of our small convoy had drawn up next to us, idling and watching as the Strykers tried to break the crowd.
"Holy shit." Braddock breathed into the sudden, shocking silence.
"Yeah." I answered.
"Sierra elements, lead the way. Clear us a path. Everyone button up. Nine out." Come over the headset. Becka dropped back into the vehicle and slammed the hatch.
"It smells like hell itself out there." Becka said as Braddock began moving.
"Six, call out direction, keep back around one zero zero mikes behind Sierra elements." Groves ordered.
"Sierra elements, this is Six, at the stop light, take a left and follow the highway until I tell you otherwise." I said.
"Roger, Six." Came back, and the Strykers started to move forward.
"This is going to be ugly, isn't it, Sam?" Becka asked.
"Yeah." I answered. I glanced at Braddock, who looked a little shocked. He flinched as we drove over the mangled bodies that twitched, some of the Risen still trying to grab onto the vehicle, usually a head attached to a shoulder and an arm, or maybe part of the chest, but usually nothing else.
We reached the top of the overpass as the two Strykers reached the bottom. More Risen were approaching the overpass, from further off, and the crowd was massive, the wordless roar overwhelming even the heavy guns on top of the Strykers.
"Hold up." I told Braddock, grabbing his arm. "I haven't seen a vehicle get caught in a mob of them yet unless it was an abandoned car."
Braddock nodded jerkily as the guns began hammering at the crowd.
Sprinters burst from the woodline to the north, slamming into the side repeatedly. At first, nothing happened, but then a knot of about 20 of them hit it, and it rocked back and forth.
"You have to be kidding me." Braddock said as more slammed into it.
"Watch my back, Sam!" Becka said, reaching up and opening the hatch suddenly. She popped up, holding the machinegun in her arms.
Another pack, this one almost fifty strong, slammed into the same side of the Stryker, and I saw it rock even further on its suspension.
"We're in trouble, Nine!" Someone yelled.
"Don't bail out!" I shouted over the com, "Stay in there, even if they flip you!"
"What? Flip them? They weight like forty tons!" Someone else yelled over the net.
Another knot hit, and now there was a huge crowd of them around the two Strykers, most of them on the same sides, roaring and pushing. The guns had fell silent.
"Nine, they're trying to flip us!" rang out as I leaned over in front of Becka's legs and rolled down the window and drew a pistol.
Above me the machinegun roared, and I saw blood and flesh spray from the Risen, and sparks leap from the vehicle's armor as bullets howled off of it.
"Nine, we're under heavy fire!" Sierra-Two called out.
"Drive, you morons!" Becka yelled over the tac-com, "I'll clear them off, don't let them stop you!"
The two big vehicles began moving forward while Becka kept firing. Two hummers screeched up next to us, their gunners hammering away. Suddenly Becka stopped firing, even as I spotted a half-naked woman charging out of the trees at us. I fired twice, hitting her twice in the face, and she fell forward into a roll.
"I don't know how to reload it." Becka sounded close to tears.
"Button up, Six, that's an order." Rang out. Lieutenant Groves. "Six, drop back, let Five, Three, and Eight take point and clean them off."
Becka dropped next to me, and the heat coming off the barrel of the machinegun and the stench of cordite filled the cab as I fired several more times, killing a trio of Risen that had obviously been in the woods to the north, but a huge mass followed them.
"They're going to flank us, they're going around the overpass." I called out, firing the last of my magazine and holstering the pistol.
"All units, this is Nine, cease fire, button up, get in tight. Any vehicle gets slowed, push them, nobody go over two zero miles per hour." Groves ordered while Becka slammed the hatch shut. I drew another pistol, leaning across Becka's lap and firing out the window while she cranked the window up as fast as she could. The slide locked back right before she got it shut all the way, and she let go of the window to dig into the front of her uniform.
"Goddamn shells burnt me." she bitched, pulling out several shell casings and dropping them on the floor. She looked down at the machinegun and shook her head. "I couldn't figure out how to reload it."
"Don't worry about it." I told her, as the Strykers plowed into the mass. Bodies crunched underneath the huge tires, but the sheer mass of bodies filled the gaps before the lead hummers plowed them under or shove them aside.
"Forward elements, get in tighter on the Strykers." Groves ordered, and the vehicles ahead of us edged up until there was maybe inches between them and the back armor of the big vehicles. Braddock had us almost bumper to bumper with the hummer in front of us.
"Get in tighter, shatter the sideviews if you have to." Grove ordered as the crowd pressed around us. We were on the right side, and the Risen pounded on the vehicle as we went by, rocking it heavily. The window on Braddock's side shattered and metal squealed as the two hummers briefly rubbed armor.
"Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck..." Braddock was keeping up a steady mantra, his eyes wide, and Becka glanced at me, smiling.
"This isn't too bad." She said, and I nodded before she continued, "The first day, my sorority sisters and I fought out way out of Northside Mall and into my brother's pawnshop in downtown Olympia on foot."
"I got trapped by about two hundred kids after they got done chowing down on the county HASMAT crew." I told her. "I was lucky to get back into my cruiser." I held up a hand and keyed the transmit button. "Follow this road till I say otherwise. It will take us into north Centralia." I paused for a moment, closing my eyes, then continued, "There is an elementary school at the city limit, do not, I repeat, do not, stop your vehicle to render assistance to any children that appear to be in danger." I shuddered involuntarily at the memory of the little kids with bloody mouths, blank eyes, and waxy colored skin chasing my cruiser as I drove away backwards from the town of Little Rock as fast as I could.
I listened to several people exclaim disbelief as we finally cleared the crowd, only the fast ones staying with us. They would hammer on the windows and the side, or leap up onto the vehicles, before falling away, only to quickly run up to the same vehicle or another vehicle to begin it all over again. Many were pulled beneath the vehicles as a foot or leg or clothing got caught on a wheel, the vehicle thumping over the body.
The Risen were howling, screaming, and beating on the windows, rocking our hummer against the hummer next to it, each roll bringing a scream of armor rubbing armor, and Braddock has his lips drawn back into a feral snarl as he tried to keep the vehicle on track.
"Nine, this is Six. We're going to have to clear these infected away, or they'll chase us all the way to Centralia." I transmitted, "On top of that, the noise they are making will attract other infected. I hate to say it, but we're going to have to use gunfire, over."
"Six, this is Nine, we read you." Groves answered, then went on after a moment, "What's the problem with weaponfire?"
"The way these hills are made sound carries and echoes for miles, and the infected seem to be attracted to gunfire." I paused for a second, racking my brain about the surrounding landscape and small towns hidden by the woodline. "The fast ones will arrive first, but the big problem is the trailing."
"What do you mean?"
"The fast ones will head out, but the slower ones will see them and start to follow, moving in the same direction and moaning. The fast ones heading in the same direction will see the crowd and race in front of it, further stirring up the slow ones, which means you'll have a trail that follows your path of slow ones, with fast ones from further out racing up the trail." I told him.
"My briefing didn't specify anything like that." Groves protested.
"I'm willing to bet your briefing skipped a lot of things." I shot back, "Do you really want to get into that now, or do you want to listen to your civilian coordinator who has survived over a dozen encounters with them in the last five fucking days?"
"Point taken, Six. Go ahead."
"We'll have to take the chance and use gunfire to clear these guys away. While gunfire seems to agitate, they all seem to like going in the same direction, and they'll follow the sounds of screaming, vehicle engines, or gunfire." I told him. "It doesn't matter, we're going to have to bite the bullet and use our guns to clear away the infected around the vehicles, or they'll stick with us all the way into Centralia proper."
There was a long moment of silence followed by a click.
"All units, this is Nine, check the vehicles around you, if you see any of them with the infected on top, call it out."
"Seven, this is Twelve, two on top, over."
"Four, this is Two, one on top, over."
A few second passed before Becka suddenly spoke.
"Sergeant Clackson, I can't reload my gun." Nobody laughed this time.
"All right, Private. Look down at your transmitter. See the dial, turn it to three and wait a moment." Sounded out.
"Hotel elements, drop into single file in the middle of the road, right side first followed by left, with minimum distance between." Sounded over the headset. Becka was fiddling with the machinegun and murmuring into her headset mic. The triple rows of vehicles began spacing out, the infected quickly filling the gaps.
Braddock eased off the accellerator, swinging in behind the one to his left smoothly. The handful of running infected that had filled the gap pushed aside or sucked under the vehicle as it bounced over their bodies. In only a few moments the convoy had gone from three abreast to single file behind the two armored vehicles.
"Sierra elements, I want you to drop to the sides of the formation, keeping as close to the humvees as possible." Groves ordered. "Scrape 'em off."
A moment later the two Strykers peeled off and decelerated, runners bouncing off the back or being thrown under the vehicles by the massive tires. Both vehicles passed less than arm's length from the hummer I was in, the roar of their engines deafening.
Becka had managed to lift the top off of the weapon and remove the plastic box from the side, as well as locate a canvas bag with two more of the boxes in it. She had opened one of the boxes and pulled free a bunch of bullets connected together by metal links and was listening intently to her headset.
"All elements, increase speed to three five miles per hour." Groves ordered, and the vehicle surged ahead, Braddock picking up the pace from where it had fallen to between ten and fifteen miles per hour.
"Five and Eight, clear the infected off the top of Seven and Four." Came the order. A few moments later gunshots sounded, followed by the call of "Tango down!"
Another infected bounced off the side of the hummer and was gone before I could get much more than a glance of a woman's enraged face. The Strykers roared by again, taking the lead and filling the whole road. A moment later there was a loud crash, the scream of twisting metal, and I saw two cars had been bashed into the ditch by the Strykers.
"Six, this is Nine, over." Rang over my headset.
"Six here, go ahead, Nine." I answered.
"Helicopters are at the Ell-Zee, they report that the infected are present but not in strong numbers, please advise." Groves said.
"Have them head north about a half mile and wait till we get there, observations have shown that helicopters seem to attract them, over." I answered.
"Roger that, Nine out."
Becka slapped the lid shut and pulled back on the handle, smiling when the action on the machinegun worked smoothly.
"Thanks, Sergeant, I think I got it now." She said, then nodded, reached down, and set her tactical radio back onto the general net.
"How ya doin, Becka?" I asked.
"Better now," She answered, flinching as another infected slammed into the side of the hummer and bounced off, making Braddock swear. She smiled at me, and I was glad to see that the shadows were at least temporarily banished from her eyes.
"Good." I answered, smiling back.
The hummer jolted as another infected fell underneath the tires.
Well, I'm currently working on the second book in a multi-book series (5 Books are approved and either outlined or in rough draft stage with Volume 1 in final pre-layout edit) and redid a chapter after some research.
The following is rough draft work, but it is a complicated scene involving a lot of different factors, and I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything.
However, my information and research on Stryker ICV's is largely relegated to the internet and a few hours of "hands on" at a local National Guard unit a few years back.
Synopsis
For reasons unknown the dead have returned to life. Bites are fatal within 72 hours and those who die reanimate. Volume 2 takes place starting at Day Five-Afternoon, and revolves around six people who are doing what they can to survive.
The story follows character's descents into madness and their recovery, their sense of loss as everything falls apart, and the heady feeling of victory followed by the crushing failure of defeat as the world slowly grinds to a halt and zombies become the dominant predator on the planet.
Book Two is estimated to follow Day Five to Day Nine, and ends with the realization that all military estimates had been in error.
The following takes place on the afternoon of Day Five of the Rising. The character portrayed, "Sam", is one of the main characters, as is the character "Becka". The two of them are in a convoy that needs to travel 15 miles through rural development to an urban area in order to begin sweep and clears against the zombies as well as rescue civilians.
Sam is a Thurston County Sheriff, an 8 year veteran of the force, and has been assigned as the military's "Civilian Operations Coordinator" by the local area commander by the sole reason he's the ONLY Sheriff left.
I'd like your opinion on how it reads, whether you got lost too easy, if I accidentally skipped over something due to my familiarity with military equipment and tactics, and if it comes across feeling interesting.
I know that a military HMMW-V is called a "humvee" not a "hummer" but the character does not, so please don't correct me on that. I also know the real names of the weapons, how to maintain and use them, as well as other pertinent data. Sam's is deliberately vague because of his lack of knowledge.
With that said...
The following is rough draft work, but it is a complicated scene involving a lot of different factors, and I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything.
However, my information and research on Stryker ICV's is largely relegated to the internet and a few hours of "hands on" at a local National Guard unit a few years back.
Synopsis
For reasons unknown the dead have returned to life. Bites are fatal within 72 hours and those who die reanimate. Volume 2 takes place starting at Day Five-Afternoon, and revolves around six people who are doing what they can to survive.
The story follows character's descents into madness and their recovery, their sense of loss as everything falls apart, and the heady feeling of victory followed by the crushing failure of defeat as the world slowly grinds to a halt and zombies become the dominant predator on the planet.
Book Two is estimated to follow Day Five to Day Nine, and ends with the realization that all military estimates had been in error.
The following takes place on the afternoon of Day Five of the Rising. The character portrayed, "Sam", is one of the main characters, as is the character "Becka". The two of them are in a convoy that needs to travel 15 miles through rural development to an urban area in order to begin sweep and clears against the zombies as well as rescue civilians.
Sam is a Thurston County Sheriff, an 8 year veteran of the force, and has been assigned as the military's "Civilian Operations Coordinator" by the local area commander by the sole reason he's the ONLY Sheriff left.
I'd like your opinion on how it reads, whether you got lost too easy, if I accidentally skipped over something due to my familiarity with military equipment and tactics, and if it comes across feeling interesting.
I know that a military HMMW-V is called a "humvee" not a "hummer" but the character does not, so please don't correct me on that. I also know the real names of the weapons, how to maintain and use them, as well as other pertinent data. Sam's is deliberately vague because of his lack of knowledge.
With that said...
"Where too, Sheriff?" The driver of the hummer asked me when I slid into the vehicle. Becka followed me, standing on the seat and popping up through the hole in the roof.
"I'm on the mounted gun," I heard her say over the tac-com.
"Use proper radio procedure," Came over the headset.
"How?" Becka asked, and I grinned at the driver, who rolled his eyes with a smile.
"Identify yourself, state the vehicle you're in, and tell us your actions." The voice sighed.
"Private Starling, Vehicle umm..." She looked down through the hole.
"Six." The driver mouthed, and Becka smiled.
"Vehicle Six, on the big gun on the roof." She finished.
There was a sigh over the headset, along with some laughter, and I could see Becka flush with embarrassment.
"All right, Private, you should have said 'Private Starling, Vehicle Six, manning ringmount." The voice said gently. "Who's her squad leader?"
There was dead silence on the line.
"Oh you have to be shitting me, nobody?" The voice sounded irritated. "Private Starling, where did you do your basic training?"
"I didn't, I'm sorry." Becka admitted, her voice small. There was an exasperated sound.
"Don't apologize, Private. Are you a conscript?"
"Yes, sir." Becka said.
"Sergeant Clackson, when we dismount I want you to give her some training," the voice said. "Private, what are you doing here?"
"I didn't have anywhere else to go." Becka said, her voice sounding lost. "My friends all died, my parents are probably dead, I had to kill my brother, and I don't know what happened to my little sister."
"Jesus Christ," The driver said, covering his mic with his hand. I nodded, reaching out and rubbing her leg.
"Clackson, take care of our little lost private when we dismount, will you?" The voice said gently.
"Yes, sir." Clackson replied.
"All right, Arquette, can you hear me, it's Lieutenant Groves, we'll follow you. Corporal Braddock, take point." The Lieutenant ordered.
"Yes, sir." The driver said, turning back to me.
"Where to, Sheriff?" He asked again, firing up the vehicle and heading toward the gate that the soldiers had rigged up while we were loading up the vehicles with medical supplies, food, water, and ammunition.
The gate was, in fact, two gates, separated by about thirty feet of completely enclosed ground. Right now, the gates were opened, but once the infected began gathering in enough numbers that they couldn't be cleared away easily, then they'd go to a different method. Only one gate would be opened at a time, and men stood in the cabs of large trucks, manning the guns on the roofs of the trucks. I'd been told that if any of the infected got into the "airlock" then they'd kill all the infected inside before opening the inner gate. The idea was that it would prevent any of the infected from getting into the compound that the soldiers were rapidly expanding.
Braddock drove us through and we bounced across the field to where two vehicles I'd been told were Stryker Combat Vehicles were sitting, one on either side of the driveway that connected the field to Old Highway 99.
"Take a left." I said, and Braddock nodded, honking at the two Strykers as he pulled out onto the two lane highway and gunned the engine.
"Take it slower." I warned. Braddock looked at me, opening his mouth to say something when it happened.
The machinegun on the roof fired, Becka screamed over the headset, and the infected slammed into the hood, rolling across the hood and bouncing off the windshield before vanishing off my side of the vehicle.
"The correct procedure is to call out 'contact', Private Starling." Clackson said over the headset, and there was a few laughs, including someone mimicing the scream. "At ease that shit, guys." Clackson said, "She's new, and if I recall correctly, Hewitt, you about pissed yourself when your gunner fired off for the first time."
"That's why." I told Braddock, who nodded jerkily, but he did ease off the accelerator.
We passed several groups of soldiers who were using chainsaws to cut down the utility poles, fenceposts, small trees, and mailboxes at the sides of the road, each group watched over by two men manning the ringmounts in two vehicles.
"What are they doing?" I asked.
"Cutting down the shit that might damage any fighters that land on the freeway." Braddock answered. He saw my expression and smiled, "We've got over three hundred jets coming in, everything from F-18's to F-22's and C-141's to the bigass C-5 Galaxies. There's like forty thousand people coming, all of 8th Army and the dependants."
"Why here?" I asked as Becka called out "Contact!" over the headset and fired.
"Sea-Tac, Olympia International, and Portland International are all gone, along with McChord. We've got to land those planes here, since I overheard the Captain saying that they took off with almost minimum fuel." He continued.
"Contact dead." Becka said.
"You say, tango down or enemy down, Private." Clackson told her.
"Why didn't they head to California instead of coming this far north?" I asked.
"Something about a big assed storm in the Pacific that made it so that it was shorter and safer to try to land at McChord, but once we lost McChord, we had no choice but to build this airfield." He told me, swerving out of the way of a infected that charged out of the open door of a store on the side of the road.
"Why not take a regular airfield?" I asked.
"Have you seen a fucking airport?" He asked, glancing at me.
"No, I haven't." I admitted.
"I saw Tacoma International," He said, then shivered, "There were thousands of them there, and I saw at least three planes come crashing down." He glanced at me, deliberately running over an infected standing in the middle of the road. Becka cried out in pain as her ribs slammed into the edge of the roof.
"Tacoma International alone has over twenty planes on autopilot circling the airport, none of which respond to any communication, and more arrive every hour or so." He told me.
"Gotcha." I answered. I could picture the airplanes circling, like high tech vultures, and knew without being told that they would start colliding, that they'd drop from the sky and crash in a fiery maelstrom only to be replaced by new arrivals.
We sat silently until the overpass came into view. Becka killed a few more of the Risen, mainly by shooting the ever loving shit out of them with the machinegun, until Clackson told her to stop wasting ammunition and explained how to set her tactical communicator to transmit only when she pressed the button.
"Slow down." I told him, and he nodded, dropping down to just a little faster than a brisk walk. We headed up the incline, and I heard Becka whistle.
To either side of the overpass I-5 was completely covered with traffic. The cars were stalled, either abandoned or with windows smashed in and blood on the sides of the cars. I could see infected staggering between the cars, and as one they turned and stared at our vehicle.
Several of them shrieked, loud enough to be heard over the sound of the engine, and began climbing over the cars and running at the overpass with that strange spastic grace they had.
Ahead of us, in Grand Mound proper, I could see hordes of the infected surrounding the buildings. The Indian restuarant, the Red Barn resturant and bar, the gas station, the McDonald's, and the Dairy Queen. Numbering in the hundreds at least.
And all of them turning toward us.
It was strange to watch, the way those closest turned to look, then the next row, then the next, like a breeze rippling grass, until they all stared us. The leading edge shambling forward while faster ones broke free or began shoving their way through the massive pack.
"Oh shit." Braddock breathed.
"Becka, get in here and shut the hatch!" I yelled, slapping her on the leg.
"How do I get the machinegun loose?" She shouted.
"Fuck the gun!" I yelled, "Leave it!"
"Got it!" she yelled, dropping into the cab, cradling the machinegun in her arms. I reached up, grabbed the handle, and slammed the lid shut as the faster Risen began sprinting up the overpass.
"Six to Nine, Six to Nine, over." Braddock said, keying his mic.
"This is Nine, go ahead, Six." Groves said.
"We've got a couple hundred, maybe into the thousands, of infected on the other side of the overpass, please advise, over." Braddock answered.
"Pull back, we're sending forward the Strykers, over." Groves answered.
"Roger, Six out." Braddock answered, shifting the vehicle into reverse and watching through his mirror as he did a quick three point turn.
Before he could pull forward and out three of the running Risen hit the vehicle, rocking it hard on its shocks. One jumped on the hood and began smashing at the window with its fists, one climbing up on the top of the vehicle, and the last slamming against the vehicle repeatedly.
"Shit shit shit..." Braddock yelled, gunning the vehicle. The one on the hood rolled off and the one of the top as Braddock hit the gas. Three more hit us from behind with loud thumps as their bodies impacted the hummer's armor.
"Nine, this is Six," I called out, jamming my thumb down on the transmit button.
"Six, this is Nine, go ahead, over." Groves answered after a moment.
"They're hitting the hummer, I think they're trying to flip us." I said, "I haven't seen them do that before, this is new, over."
"Get the hell out of there, Six, Strykers are two zero zero meters out." Groves said. I could see them heading toward us, running over a pair of running infected that darted out of the trees on the side of the road.
"Six, this is Sierra-Two, we've got you on visual, be advised you have a large amount of infected on your six." A new voice broke in.
"Roger that, Sierra-Two," I said. Seconds later Braddock roared between the two huge armored vehicles.
Right afterwards the world shattered in the roar of autofire as the Strykers opened up on the crowd behind us. I looked back, to see the front of the crowd to just dissolve, limbs flying up into the air.
I'd only seen heavy weapons fire in movies, and once before when the Army lured a bunch of the infected to a cordon in Olympia, and once again I was shocked at what military grade firepower did to a crowd.
In the movies, the bullets made little holes in people, might knock them off their feet if it was only one or two, but the crowd kept coming, the bullets only hitting one or two people. People just fell to the ground with red splotches on their clothing.
The guns on the top of the Strykers cut loose like a God breaking wind, and the front of the crowd, like I said before, just dissolved into butchered meat as the guns raked back and forth across them.
Torsos exploded as the heavy rounds hit, limbs were blown off, heads just vanished as the Strykers raked that weapon on the roof across the crowd. Gobbets of flesh, splashes of blood, and worse flew skyward, and the first eight or nine ranks were destroyed by the opening salvo.
Braddock slewed the vehicle around, stopping on the eastbound side of the road facing west, and we watched as the Strykers slowly advanced, firing their weapons, and in less than thirty seconds the crowd that had been following us was just gone.
"Sierra-Two, threat eliminated." The voice sounded very satisfied.
"Keep thinking that." Becka muttered.
"That's a negative, Sierra-Two," I said, thumbing the button, "That's just the leading pack of runners, there's about two thousand about to come over that overpass, over."
"Say again, Six?"
"I said, there's a whole shitpot coming at you." I said, and nodded as Becka pointed at the top of the overpass. "As a matter of fact, here they come."
"Nine, this is Sierra-Two, requesting permission to open fire." Came over my tac-com.
"You still got Six." I answered, and ignored the curse.
"How many rounds do those pack?" I asked Braddock. Becka had opened up the top hatch and stood back up.
"Two thousand rounds." He answered.
"Then they're fucked." I said.
"Fuck it, we'll just run them over." He answered, grinning.
"Keep thinking that."
The Strykers suddenly opened up again, the bullets ripping apart the Risen who had reached the top. Once again the bodies were torn apart by the heavy rounds punching into them. I'd once heard a fellow deputy comment that the fifty caliber machinegun was only for use on vehicles, that some nations considered it a war crime to use on personnel. Watching, I could see why. People weren't just killed, they were destroyed.
The hammering of the machineguns went on and on, but still the Risen kept coming, until suddenly it got silent. Unnoticed the rest of our small convoy had drawn up next to us, idling and watching as the Strykers tried to break the crowd.
"Holy shit." Braddock breathed into the sudden, shocking silence.
"Yeah." I answered.
"Sierra elements, lead the way. Clear us a path. Everyone button up. Nine out." Come over the headset. Becka dropped back into the vehicle and slammed the hatch.
"It smells like hell itself out there." Becka said as Braddock began moving.
"Six, call out direction, keep back around one zero zero mikes behind Sierra elements." Groves ordered.
"Sierra elements, this is Six, at the stop light, take a left and follow the highway until I tell you otherwise." I said.
"Roger, Six." Came back, and the Strykers started to move forward.
"This is going to be ugly, isn't it, Sam?" Becka asked.
"Yeah." I answered. I glanced at Braddock, who looked a little shocked. He flinched as we drove over the mangled bodies that twitched, some of the Risen still trying to grab onto the vehicle, usually a head attached to a shoulder and an arm, or maybe part of the chest, but usually nothing else.
We reached the top of the overpass as the two Strykers reached the bottom. More Risen were approaching the overpass, from further off, and the crowd was massive, the wordless roar overwhelming even the heavy guns on top of the Strykers.
"Hold up." I told Braddock, grabbing his arm. "I haven't seen a vehicle get caught in a mob of them yet unless it was an abandoned car."
Braddock nodded jerkily as the guns began hammering at the crowd.
Sprinters burst from the woodline to the north, slamming into the side repeatedly. At first, nothing happened, but then a knot of about 20 of them hit it, and it rocked back and forth.
"You have to be kidding me." Braddock said as more slammed into it.
"Watch my back, Sam!" Becka said, reaching up and opening the hatch suddenly. She popped up, holding the machinegun in her arms.
Another pack, this one almost fifty strong, slammed into the same side of the Stryker, and I saw it rock even further on its suspension.
"We're in trouble, Nine!" Someone yelled.
"Don't bail out!" I shouted over the com, "Stay in there, even if they flip you!"
"What? Flip them? They weight like forty tons!" Someone else yelled over the net.
Another knot hit, and now there was a huge crowd of them around the two Strykers, most of them on the same sides, roaring and pushing. The guns had fell silent.
"Nine, they're trying to flip us!" rang out as I leaned over in front of Becka's legs and rolled down the window and drew a pistol.
Above me the machinegun roared, and I saw blood and flesh spray from the Risen, and sparks leap from the vehicle's armor as bullets howled off of it.
"Nine, we're under heavy fire!" Sierra-Two called out.
"Drive, you morons!" Becka yelled over the tac-com, "I'll clear them off, don't let them stop you!"
The two big vehicles began moving forward while Becka kept firing. Two hummers screeched up next to us, their gunners hammering away. Suddenly Becka stopped firing, even as I spotted a half-naked woman charging out of the trees at us. I fired twice, hitting her twice in the face, and she fell forward into a roll.
"I don't know how to reload it." Becka sounded close to tears.
"Button up, Six, that's an order." Rang out. Lieutenant Groves. "Six, drop back, let Five, Three, and Eight take point and clean them off."
Becka dropped next to me, and the heat coming off the barrel of the machinegun and the stench of cordite filled the cab as I fired several more times, killing a trio of Risen that had obviously been in the woods to the north, but a huge mass followed them.
"They're going to flank us, they're going around the overpass." I called out, firing the last of my magazine and holstering the pistol.
"All units, this is Nine, cease fire, button up, get in tight. Any vehicle gets slowed, push them, nobody go over two zero miles per hour." Groves ordered while Becka slammed the hatch shut. I drew another pistol, leaning across Becka's lap and firing out the window while she cranked the window up as fast as she could. The slide locked back right before she got it shut all the way, and she let go of the window to dig into the front of her uniform.
"Goddamn shells burnt me." she bitched, pulling out several shell casings and dropping them on the floor. She looked down at the machinegun and shook her head. "I couldn't figure out how to reload it."
"Don't worry about it." I told her, as the Strykers plowed into the mass. Bodies crunched underneath the huge tires, but the sheer mass of bodies filled the gaps before the lead hummers plowed them under or shove them aside.
"Forward elements, get in tighter on the Strykers." Groves ordered, and the vehicles ahead of us edged up until there was maybe inches between them and the back armor of the big vehicles. Braddock had us almost bumper to bumper with the hummer in front of us.
"Get in tighter, shatter the sideviews if you have to." Grove ordered as the crowd pressed around us. We were on the right side, and the Risen pounded on the vehicle as we went by, rocking it heavily. The window on Braddock's side shattered and metal squealed as the two hummers briefly rubbed armor.
"Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck..." Braddock was keeping up a steady mantra, his eyes wide, and Becka glanced at me, smiling.
"This isn't too bad." She said, and I nodded before she continued, "The first day, my sorority sisters and I fought out way out of Northside Mall and into my brother's pawnshop in downtown Olympia on foot."
"I got trapped by about two hundred kids after they got done chowing down on the county HASMAT crew." I told her. "I was lucky to get back into my cruiser." I held up a hand and keyed the transmit button. "Follow this road till I say otherwise. It will take us into north Centralia." I paused for a moment, closing my eyes, then continued, "There is an elementary school at the city limit, do not, I repeat, do not, stop your vehicle to render assistance to any children that appear to be in danger." I shuddered involuntarily at the memory of the little kids with bloody mouths, blank eyes, and waxy colored skin chasing my cruiser as I drove away backwards from the town of Little Rock as fast as I could.
I listened to several people exclaim disbelief as we finally cleared the crowd, only the fast ones staying with us. They would hammer on the windows and the side, or leap up onto the vehicles, before falling away, only to quickly run up to the same vehicle or another vehicle to begin it all over again. Many were pulled beneath the vehicles as a foot or leg or clothing got caught on a wheel, the vehicle thumping over the body.
The Risen were howling, screaming, and beating on the windows, rocking our hummer against the hummer next to it, each roll bringing a scream of armor rubbing armor, and Braddock has his lips drawn back into a feral snarl as he tried to keep the vehicle on track.
"Nine, this is Six. We're going to have to clear these infected away, or they'll chase us all the way to Centralia." I transmitted, "On top of that, the noise they are making will attract other infected. I hate to say it, but we're going to have to use gunfire, over."
"Six, this is Nine, we read you." Groves answered, then went on after a moment, "What's the problem with weaponfire?"
"The way these hills are made sound carries and echoes for miles, and the infected seem to be attracted to gunfire." I paused for a second, racking my brain about the surrounding landscape and small towns hidden by the woodline. "The fast ones will arrive first, but the big problem is the trailing."
"What do you mean?"
"The fast ones will head out, but the slower ones will see them and start to follow, moving in the same direction and moaning. The fast ones heading in the same direction will see the crowd and race in front of it, further stirring up the slow ones, which means you'll have a trail that follows your path of slow ones, with fast ones from further out racing up the trail." I told him.
"My briefing didn't specify anything like that." Groves protested.
"I'm willing to bet your briefing skipped a lot of things." I shot back, "Do you really want to get into that now, or do you want to listen to your civilian coordinator who has survived over a dozen encounters with them in the last five fucking days?"
"Point taken, Six. Go ahead."
"We'll have to take the chance and use gunfire to clear these guys away. While gunfire seems to agitate, they all seem to like going in the same direction, and they'll follow the sounds of screaming, vehicle engines, or gunfire." I told him. "It doesn't matter, we're going to have to bite the bullet and use our guns to clear away the infected around the vehicles, or they'll stick with us all the way into Centralia proper."
There was a long moment of silence followed by a click.
"All units, this is Nine, check the vehicles around you, if you see any of them with the infected on top, call it out."
"Seven, this is Twelve, two on top, over."
"Four, this is Two, one on top, over."
A few second passed before Becka suddenly spoke.
"Sergeant Clackson, I can't reload my gun." Nobody laughed this time.
"All right, Private. Look down at your transmitter. See the dial, turn it to three and wait a moment." Sounded out.
"Hotel elements, drop into single file in the middle of the road, right side first followed by left, with minimum distance between." Sounded over the headset. Becka was fiddling with the machinegun and murmuring into her headset mic. The triple rows of vehicles began spacing out, the infected quickly filling the gaps.
Braddock eased off the accellerator, swinging in behind the one to his left smoothly. The handful of running infected that had filled the gap pushed aside or sucked under the vehicle as it bounced over their bodies. In only a few moments the convoy had gone from three abreast to single file behind the two armored vehicles.
"Sierra elements, I want you to drop to the sides of the formation, keeping as close to the humvees as possible." Groves ordered. "Scrape 'em off."
A moment later the two Strykers peeled off and decelerated, runners bouncing off the back or being thrown under the vehicles by the massive tires. Both vehicles passed less than arm's length from the hummer I was in, the roar of their engines deafening.
Becka had managed to lift the top off of the weapon and remove the plastic box from the side, as well as locate a canvas bag with two more of the boxes in it. She had opened one of the boxes and pulled free a bunch of bullets connected together by metal links and was listening intently to her headset.
"All elements, increase speed to three five miles per hour." Groves ordered, and the vehicle surged ahead, Braddock picking up the pace from where it had fallen to between ten and fifteen miles per hour.
"Five and Eight, clear the infected off the top of Seven and Four." Came the order. A few moments later gunshots sounded, followed by the call of "Tango down!"
Another infected bounced off the side of the hummer and was gone before I could get much more than a glance of a woman's enraged face. The Strykers roared by again, taking the lead and filling the whole road. A moment later there was a loud crash, the scream of twisting metal, and I saw two cars had been bashed into the ditch by the Strykers.
"Six, this is Nine, over." Rang over my headset.
"Six here, go ahead, Nine." I answered.
"Helicopters are at the Ell-Zee, they report that the infected are present but not in strong numbers, please advise." Groves said.
"Have them head north about a half mile and wait till we get there, observations have shown that helicopters seem to attract them, over." I answered.
"Roger that, Nine out."
Becka slapped the lid shut and pulled back on the handle, smiling when the action on the machinegun worked smoothly.
"Thanks, Sergeant, I think I got it now." She said, then nodded, reached down, and set her tactical radio back onto the general net.
"How ya doin, Becka?" I asked.
"Better now," She answered, flinching as another infected slammed into the side of the hummer and bounced off, making Braddock swear. She smiled at me, and I was glad to see that the shadows were at least temporarily banished from her eyes.
"Good." I answered, smiling back.
The hummer jolted as another infected fell underneath the tires.
