Cannibal Reign (29 page)

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?”

“We get the fuck downstairs and find an exit! Shodo, you got point!”

On their way across the lower lobby a shower of Molotov cocktails rained down around them and Shodo was completely consumed by fire, screaming and flailing in a futile attempt to beat out the flames. Forrest shouldered his carbine and shot him dead before any of Lee’s men could react, whirling about to spray the balcony above them and driving back the firebombers.

“Forget the emergency ward!” he ordered. “The Humvee’s fucked anyhow.”

They burst out the main entrance onto the sidewalk to see that the Humvee was indeed burning fifty yards away.

“Looks like we hoof it,” Forrest said. “I trust you remember the way, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir! Grip, on point! I’ll bring up the rear!”

Using their night vision, they ran the two miles all the way back to the checkpoint, where they were nearly machine-gunned by their own troops before they could identify themselves.

“Check fire!” Lee screamed from behind a truck. “Check fire!”

“Identify yourselves!”

“Stacker Lee, you dumb motherfuckers! Stacker-fuckin’-Lee!”

It took a minute but they were eventually permitted to advance, and Lee wasted no time telling the men at the checkpoint what had taken place at the hospital. A great fury swept through the men upon hearing that twenty of their comrades had been abducted and eaten. Two full companies of men were quickly assembled.

“At first light we go back there and clean those motherfuckers out,” Lee said, gathering a fresh supply of grenades. “Care to lead us, Captain?”

Forrest looked at Kane. “We should be on our way.”

Kane agreed.

“In that case, I’ll drive you to the barricade,” Lee said.

At the barricade he told them to keep their helmets, NVDs, and body armor, and complied with Kane’s request for three more sets of NVDs.

Forrest reached into the back of their Humvee and grabbed a bottle of Tequila from a barracks bag, offering it to Stacker Lee. “For that final circle jerk, Sergeant.”

Lee smiled a white, toothy smile and accepted the bottle with relish. “And this time I’ll save it.”

The soldiers all saluted one another, and Forrest and Kane mounted up.

“My guys took the liberty of gassing it up for you,” Lee said, shutting Forrest’s door for him. They shook hands through the window. “Godspeed, Captain. Sorry I was such a prick.”

“Live forever, Sergeant.”

Kane started the engine and wheeled the Humvee around, roaring through the gate, headed north.

B
oth men were so exhausted from the fight that neither of them remembered to be alert at the eighty-four-mile marker—until a Molotov cocktail flew out of the darkness and exploded in flames against the windshield.

“Son of a bitch!” Kane shouted, cutting the wheel hard to the left and narrowly missing a car that had been rolled onto the center of the highway. He could barely see where he was going through the flames and ended up swerving into the center median and up a concrete highway barrier, perfectly high-centering the vehicle. “Cocksucker!” he swore, realizing they were stuck fast.

“Dismount!” Forrest said, grabbing his carbine and helmet.

They took cover behind the barrier as shots rang out and bullets began pinging off the Humvee. Forrest could see a number of men across the highway in his night vision and opened fire, killing four with four quick shots. The firing from across the road stopped and the attackers disappeared from their view.

“Guess you saw a flashlight after all,” he said.

They could hear hushed voices on three sides.

“They’re moving to outflank us.”

“We’re already outflanked,” Forrest remarked. “Soon to be surrounded.”

As if to verify that fact, a shotgun slug struck Forrest dead-center in the back panel of his boron carbide body armor, knocking him into the concrete barrier as if he’d been mule-kicked.

Kane whipped around and returned fire, driving the shooter back under cover. “Jack!”

Forrest got to his knees and grabbed his carbine, blinking his eyes to clear his vision. “I’m okay,” he groaned. “Christ, that hurt.”

“We need to get out of the light of the headlights,” Kane said, and they both moved farther down the barrier.

More shots rang out.

Kane grabbed his lower leg. “Shit, I took one!” He and Forrest backed in tight between the barrier and the large steel shovel of a backhoe.

Forrest lifted his head for a look around, switching to infrared. Men were scurrying about in the dark, but there were too many abandoned vehicles to get a shot. They were protected on three sides now from direct fire, but that protection worked both ways, potentially allowing their attackers to creep up unseen and lob a Molotov cocktail directly onto their position. “How many you think we’re up against?”

“Feels like about twenty,” Kane said. “Give or take.”

“Well, let’s pick a direction and break out before they tighten the noose.”

Another shot rang out, but it was far away and nothing hit near their position. Then they heard another shot from the opposite side of the highway, equally far off, and this time one of the attackers screamed.

“Fuck is that?” Kane said.

“Got me.”

They took the chance to raise their heads for a look around, seeing that some of their assailants were now entirely exposed, having taken cover from whoever else was firing. Forrest and Kane fired and killed five more men.

Their attackers began to fire wildly into the night, panicking in the darkness and shouting to one another that they were surrounded. Their firing subsided after a minute, and Forrest could now see that someone was picking their attackers off with apparent impunity, probably from a hundred or more yards away and likely from an elevated position.

“That’s gotta be the Forty-fifth!” he said.

The five or six remaining attackers suddenly broke from cover and ran south through the cars in attempt to escape, but the snipers didn’t seem inclined to let them go, continuing to fire until they had killed every one of them.

Forrest and Kane kept low as they crept back toward the Humvee, using their infrared to scan the low bluffs east and west of the highway.

“Got one to the west,” Kane said. “Moving carefully this way. It’s a GI.”

“Got one to the east too,” Forrest replied. “Has to be the Forty-fifth.”

The two men stood near the Humvee and waited for the troopers to approach from opposite sides of the highway.

“It’s probably Lee and one of his men,” Kane said. “What if they want to join us?”

Forrest took a moment to slap a fresh mag into his weapon. “I’d say they’ve earned it, wouldn’t you?”

Forty-Four

E
mory slowed her pace, waiting for Marty to approach the troopers first, prepared to gun them both down if they gave him any shit. Sullivan was not with them. He had a concussion from being shot in the head and was too sick to be tromping around the countryside, so he lay sleeping in the back of the SUV parked half a mile north of their present position.

Emory and Marty had spotted the group of twenty-five road agents earlier in the day and taken cover in the hills around the highway with the intention of picking them off during the night after they were bedded down. The party had stood across their path south, and there was no other way through to Topeka without a long backtrack. Emory had been about to open fire on the snoozing band of marauders when Forrest’s Humvee had first gone racing down the highway and stirred them all back up again.

Afterward the bandits stayed awake, taking up positions covering the highway, waiting to see if another Army truck might come by.

After watching the troopers kill six or seven of the bandits on their own, Emory and Marty, keeping in contact now via a pair of USGS walkie-talkies, decided to use the unknown men as a force multiplier and opened fire themselves, eventually killing off the remaining bandits and making the decision to expose themselves.

Marty flipped up his NVD as he walked into the area illuminated by the headlights of the Humvee, noting at once that both troopers were clean shaven. His carbine was slung over his shoulder, but he kept Joe’s .45 gripped in his hand as he approached.

“Is either one of you hit?” he asked, trying to sound like a professional soldier.

“My partner is,” Forrest said, his own .45 in hand and ready to blow Marty’s brains out if he so much as twitched.

“My partner’s a medic,” Marty said.

“So am I,” Kane said, watching Emory through his NVD, realizing she was intentionally hanging back.

“We appreciate you saving our butts,” Forrest said. “You’re with the Air Force?”

“Not anymore,” Marty said, trying to keep his voice as deep as possible. “The Air Force isn’t what it used to be.”

“You can tell your partner it’s safe to come in,” Kane said over his shoulder, not wanting to take his eyes off Emory. “We won’t shoot if you won’t.”

“My partner’s with the Arizona Guard,” Marty said, not yet having enough information to trust them. “Who are you guys with?”

With a speed that seemed inhuman to Marty, Forrest had disarmed him, screwed the barrel of his .45 into his ear and used him as a shield.

Kane was already gone from Emory’s view, having taken cover behind the wheel hub of the Humvee.

“Tell your partner to drop his weapon!” Forrest ordered.

Emory shouldered the carbine as she dropped to her knee, sighting on Forrest’s head, though not steady enough at fifty yards to be sure she wouldn’t kill Marty instead. The speed and skill with which Forrest had moved told her they had come up against a highly trained pair of soldiers.

“Let him go!” she shouted. “Or I’ll fire a grenade and kill all three of you!”

Kane quickly sought cover behind a different vehicle. “I got a clear shot, Jack.”

Marty drew a breath to scream a warning, but Forrest choked off his air, pulling him closer to ground.

“Now listen up!” Forrest shouted. “We don’t want to kill either of you. Just sling your weapon out there and I’ll let your man go. This doesn’t have to end bloody.”

Emory wasn’t sure what to do, realizing that Kane must have taken up a different firing position by now.

“How do I know you won’t shoot?” she shouted, wanting badly to actually trust another soldier for a change.

“My partner’s had you in his sights for ten seconds now and you’re not dead! That proof enough?”

She rose slowly and lowered the carbine, waiting for the shots that would kill her and Marty both, but the men did not fire and Marty was released as promised.

“Relax now,” Forrest said to Marty. “No sudden moves.”

Marty stood in place as Emory came forward. Her carbine was slung, but she was ready to bring it up in a hurry, her finger on the trigger of the grenade launcher.

“She’s got her finger on the M-203, Jack.”

“That’s fair,” Forrest said. “Everybody be cool. It’s a dangerous world we’re living in.”

Emory stepped up opposite the concrete barrier.

“Sorry about that,” Forrest said, seeing her in the lights of the Humvee now. “But your partner seemed to be stalling. I couldn’t take the chance.”

“We just saved your asses,” she said. “Why would we want to kill you?”

“Good question. Hard to trust anybody these days.”

“That’s a fucking understatement,” she said, her eyes looking for Kane.

“Come on in, Marcus.”

Kane stepped out of the darkness. “Thanks for not makin’ me shoot you. I’ve never killed a woman and I wasn’t lookin’ to start.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Marty wasn’t saying much, still too pissed at himself and embarrassed over having been so easily overpowered and nearly getting Emory killed.

“I’m Shannon. That’s my partner, Marty. He’s an astronomer.”

Forrest looked Marty over and offered his hand. “I’m Jack Forrest.”

“Marty Chittenden.”

“Look, I don’t mean to be rude,” Forrest said, “but we’re trying to save a life, so we have to get this rig unstuck and be on our way.”

“We’ll give you a hand,” Emory said.

While Kane saw to the bullet hole in his calf, Forrest and Emory drew the cable from the winch on the front bumper backward under the Humvee and hooked it into a loop of rebar sticking out of the concrete barrier, enabling the winch to pull the vehicle backward. After a few feet the rear wheels had enough traction to pull the Humvee the rest of the way clear. The whole procedure took less than ten minutes.

“Give us a lift to our truck?” Emory asked. “It’s only half a mile north.”

“Mount up,” Forrest said, squinting against the snow that had begun to fall much more rapidly since their truce.

“Is there anything south of here we need to worry about?” Emory asked from the backseat, wanting badly to know what these men were up to and where they were headed, sensing their reluctance to share much information.

“Stay away from Topeka,” Forrest warned from the passenger seat. “It’s full of restless young soldiers who haven’t seen a woman in a while.”

“Great,” Marty said gloomily. “As if we haven’t seen enough of those.”

“You guys said you’re trying to save a life,” Emory said. “What’s that about?”

“A friend of ours is sick. We went to Topeka for some meds.”

“We’ve got a sick friend too,” she said. “He’s up here in the truck with a bad concussion.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Forrest said.

Emory could smell the aftershave on these two, so she knew damn well they were living high on the hog someplace and that they were looking to ditch her and Marty as soon as possible. A feeling of desperation welled up inside of her as Kane pulled up alongside their SUV.

“Thanks again for saving our asses,” Forrest said, offering Emory his hand.

“And now you’re gonna ditch us?” she said, taking his hand.

“It’s not like that. You guys were obviously headed somewhere and we’re—”

“We’re headed toward a long shot,” she said, keeping hold of his hand. “And you two smell like an ad in
GQ
, so don’t tell me you’ve got it tough. Look at us. Our luck’s about to run out. Don’t you think we’ve earned a break?”

She let go of his hand and gave him a moment to think it over.

“What do you think, Marcus?”

“I think Wayne’s gonna pitch a bitch, but if we’re gonna do this, let’s do it.”

Forrest helped them move Sullivan into the back of the Humvee and they were on their way. “What happened to him anyhow?”

“Shot in the head,” Emory answered. “But his Kevlar saved his bacon.”

“Our doc can take a look at him.”

They got back to the silo without any more trouble and Kane pulled the Humvee up to the front porch of the house. Marty and Forrest helped Sullivan inside. He was conscious off and on. Emory saw the mostly eaten body on the living room floor in the beam of her flashlight as they took Sullivan upstairs and laid him down on the bed across the hall from where Black Beard had been killed.

“We’ll get the gas and water turned back on for you,” Forrest said. “The furnace too. That way you’ll have hot water to wash with.”

“This isn’t where you live?” she asked.

“No, we live underground.”

“Wait, this is an old missile installation, isn’t it?” She exchanged glances with Marty.

“As a matter of fact, it is. Why?”

“Survival Estates?”

Forrest looked at Kane and laughed. “No, honey. We’re not twenty-twelvers. We didn’t buy this place until after we knew about the asteroid. How did you hear about Survival Estates?”

Emory and Marty told them the story about the crater and the wiped-out missile installation, then Forrest and Kane went below, promising to send up hot chow.

T
he first thing Ulrich said when he stepped into the cargo bay to greet them was: “Who the fuck’s upstairs, Jack?”

“How’s Melissa?”

“Unconscious but hanging in. Who are they?”

“They saved our goddamn lives,” Forrest said, handing over the rucksack full of antibiotics. “Get these to West right away. Marcus and I have to clean up before we come in. And have somebody cook up a pot of something hot to eat.”

Over the next few hours, Emory and Marty were fed and showered in the house above and given clean clothes to wear before being taken below, where they were asked to shower again and undergo a physical examination.

Sullivan was initially kept in the cargo bay wrapped in a thick arctic sleeping bag until Emory and West were able to give him a sponge bath. West suggested that after a few days of warmth and bed rest he would probably be much improved. For the time being he was given the cot in Launch Control, where he would be safe from the hustle and bustle of everyday life in the silo.

Forrest finally stepped into Medical, and Veronica got up from the chair beside Melissa’s bed, hugging him. She could have cried with joy at the sight of him, but with Michael present she maintained her composure.

Michael shook Forrest’s hand and thanked him. By then Kane had related the details of their adventure, and the story had spread throughout the tiny population.

“How is she?” Forrest asked, seeing the bags of fluid now hooked up to Melissa’s arms.

“Sean says we should know within twelve hours whether or not the drugs are helping,” Michael said.

“They will,” Forrest said, willing the antibiotics to be effective.

“I’ll give you two some time,” Michael said, turning to go.

“Stay put,” Forrest said. “I have to go debrief our guests before Wayne gives them the Gestapo treatment.” He found Marty and Emory in Launch Control with Ulrich and Kane. Emory was sitting beside Sullivan’s cot, running her fingers through his hair as he slept. “How are you doing? Better?”

“It’s unbelievable down here,” she said quietly, ready to crawl out of her own skin. She was so used to being on the edge twenty-four hours a day that she was having trouble decompressing.

“You knew about the asteroid months in advance?” Marty said from a chair near the wall. “How?”

“A friend of mine at the Pentagon.”

“And who are all these people?”

“Some are family and friends, the rest were chosen at random. See you in the hall for a minute, Wayne?”

Ulrich got up from his chair and stepped out with him.

“Recognize the look in their eyes?” Forrest asked.

“They don’t know what to do now that there’s nothing to fight. Better have Mike talk to them before we try any sort of debrief.”

“We’ll let ’em sleep in there with their man. They’re not gonna want to split up for a while.”

“You two fucking near bought it, didn’t you?” Ulrich said.

“Twice. But it’s over now.”

“This makes three more mouths to feed, you know.”

“I do. After you crunch the numbers, let me know how many days I’ve knocked off our lives, and I’ll see what I can do to make up for it.”

“Oscar and Linus bagged a rat while you were gone. It’s in the cargo bay under a tarp. It’s a female. Now they need to figure out what to build the cages out of.”

“How long can we keep it a secret do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Ulrich said, “but if you hear Erin screaming like her hair’s on fire, you’ll know one of the little bastards got in here.”

I
t was late in the afternoon of the following day that Veronica found Forrest sleeping on the floor in the electrical room. “Jack,” she said softly, kneeling to touch his arm.

He opened his eyes and for a moment didn’t know where he was. “Yeah?”

“Melissa’s awake,” she said with a smile. “She asked for you first thing.”

Forrest sat up in a flash, throwing back the sleeping bag and pulling on his boots. “What’s Sean say?”

“He thinks maybe she’s out of the woods.”

“See?” he said, suddenly pissed. “Fucking Wayne would have had us watch her die!”

“Hey,” she said gently. “I think that’s entirely the wrong way to look at this.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, still frazzled from the mission. He got to his feet and kissed her, slipping quickly out of the room and up to Medical.

Melissa was obviously still very weak, but her face lit up the moment he came into the room.

“Hey!” he said softly, taking her hand and kissing her forehead.

“Where have you been?” she asked.

“I’ve been right here,” he said with a smile. “What are you talking about?”

She shook her head. “You went somewhere.”

“I’ll tell you all about it later. How are you feeling?”

“Better. My head doesn’t hurt so bad.”

“Excellent,” he said with a glance at West. “I’m going to talk with Sean a minute, okay?”

“Are you coming back?” she asked, trying to hold his hand tighter.

“Yeah.”

“Promise?”

“Right after I talk with Sean, honey. I swear to God.”

Forrest took West down the hall. “No bullshit, Sean. How is she?”