Alone No More (19 page)

His men were trained well; none of them shot the civilians. When they finally got around to the back area of the stage they saw dozens of scattered bodies. Most had been pretty clearly wounded or killed by small arms fire. Groans of pain in any language are unmistakable. It pained Kevin to not render aid, but there were plenty of people already on their way who could, and he had to get his principal and his team out of here. This gunfire meant a lot more real danger than just a bomb going off in Jerusalem. 

Kevin watched carefully as he moved the Senator and his detail across the open construction site to the rear where their Suburbans were parked. As he stepped over and around the fallen, he knew something wasn’t right. Kevin had earned a reputation in the Special Forces community for his “sniff test.” Everyone knew when Kevin got the creeps, it was bad juju.

He slowed his gait and took a few seconds to evaluate was happening around him a little closer. Nate, Corey and John continued moving past him with the Senator in tow. He watched the wounded as they struggled to staunch their bleeding, or put their mangled limbs back into place. Some would succeed, some would fail. Combat teaches you what a lethal wound is quickly. There’s no time to help those who cannot survive, and Kevin could see several lethal wounds slowly bleeding their victim to death. That wasn’t it though, that wasn’t what was setting him off.

The Senator was about 20 feet from the middle of the three Suburbans when Kevin noticed some of the dead bodies were twitching. Kevin had seen dozens of bodies in his time in the military. Hundreds even. Many twitch, but not like this. They jerked in spasms, hands clenching over and over into fists, jaws tightening reflexively, sneering the faces of the dead into an expression of sinister evil. Kevin felt his stomach drop out on him again, but this time, there was no spike of adrenaline, just hollow fear.

As he watched on in horror, a dead Arabic man missing half his chest sat up and made vacant eye contact with him. The man’s lung slipped down and out of the hole in his side and dangled there, like a morbid pendulum. Kevin stopped breathing as he watched the man turn his head and look at the wounded people lying around him. A man moaning a few feet away was oblivious to the situation with the rising dead man. The man was preoccupied holding his mangled thigh together. The dead Palestinian locked onto the rocking victim near him, and pounced with animalistic hunger. Soft moans of pain quickly turned into high pitched screams of agony as the dark skinned murderer bit into him, ripping fist sized pieces out of his chest and neck.

Kevin finally breathed. Operating on complete instinct he lifted the HK416C and placed the red dot of his Aimpoint sight on the torso of the dead man. He squeezed the trigger once, sending a high velocity round straight through the space the man’s heart should’ve been in. The impact of the tiny bullet rocked the dead man forward, but didn’t knock him down. He spun, and with a noiseless snarl, rose to his feet, and started approaching Kevin. Kevin held his ground and squeezed one more round off, hitting the blood drenched man in the chest, directly where the Kevin knew the heart should be. In his earpiece he could hear one of his men call out that other dead bodies were moving, and getting up. Kevin knew they were running out of time.

The man coming at the team leader started to pick up speed, closing the dozen or so feet between the two of them startlingly fast. Kevin snapped out of his disbelief and double tapped the rushing predator. One bullet hit him in the throat, and as the muzzle of his carbine lifted slightly, the second shot went straight into the nose, blowing the back of the skull clean out, sending brain matter a dozen feet away. The dead man died again, crashing face first at Kevin’s feet.

He bolted for the Suburban as he saw more of the dead surrounding him rise. He keyed his throat mic as he went, “Shoot them in the head, shoot them again, they’re coming back from the dead!” He was screaming. He never screamed. Had the Senator heard him, he would’ve mocked his thick Boston accent.

On all sides as he sprinted to the center Suburban he witnessed the dead coming back to a twisted mockery of life. They were sitting up and immediately ravaging the defenseless wounded all around them on the ground. Kevin snapped off a few hasty headshots and re-killed a few of the freshly risen corpses. He got a few, but even for an expert marksman like Kevin, head shots on the run were next to impossible. Eventually he saw they were hopelessly outnumbered by the violent, risen sea of the dead and he gave up trying to fight. The only safety here was inside the armored SUVs.

Kevin’s team stood in the open doors firing into the mass of undead closing in on them. He couldn’t believe what was happening. This wasn’t real, this wasn’t possible. Dead people are dead. Dead people do not sit up and bite other people. That shit happens in movies. Not in real life. As Kevin’s mind struggled to wrap itself around the reality of the moment he watched as one of the lead car’s team A members was overwhelmed by several of the walking dead. He wasn’t shooting them in the head as Kevin instructed, and he paid the ultimate price. He thumbed his HK416 to full auto as he was pulled to the ground, spraying automatic fire everywhere. One of his errant bullets hit Alan, the senior Brit team leader square in the chest, sending him sprawling into the open SUV door as if he’d been struck by a sledgehammer. 

“NOOOOOOooooo!!” Kevin screamed as he saw his buddy go down. Alan looked like he’d been hit by a truck. No blood was visible, and for a moment Kevin thought his vest had stopped the round. For Alan it turned out to be a moot point, because as he was pulling himself to his feet half of the dead turned their attentions to him, and they ripped him apart right there as he tried to get to his feet. He managed to empty his rifle into them, but most of his shots were ineffective. Kevin watched as Alan coughed up a thick gout of blood with his last breath. There would be no call home to England tonight.

Kevin screamed in primal rage and had to restrain himself from getting their bodies. There was no chance he’d survive. The Ranger creed of leave no man behind did not account for the living dead. By the time he got to the bodies there would be twenty of the near un-killable monstrosities on him. They’d have to get their bodies from the Israeli police later.

“Wheels up, we’re out!” Kevin said as he slammed the heavy armored door. Not a second later there were Jewish and Arabic undead smashing their limbs and faces against the tinted windows. Kyle the driver floored the gas pedal and the heavy vehicle lurched forward behind the lead car. They spun in a large circle turning around to head out the back of the construction site. The SUVs jumped up as they ran over the bodies of the living and dead, smashing Kevin’s head into the ceiling

“Head out go right,” Kevin heard Kyle say into his mic, instructing the front driver which way to go to get out. Immediately the lead SUV picked up speed, hitting a few more of the undead, sending them flying. The giant black Suburban in the lead barreled through the closed chain link gate, blasting it violently to the side. Kevin checked the Senator’s body next to him as his vehicle moved into the street. 

“Are you wounded? Are you hurt?” Kevin ran his hands all over the old man’s shirt and legs, looking for red wet spots. His hands came back clean as the Senator shook his head in shock. Kevin looked out the windows as Kyle got the truck pointed away from the ceremony site. He looked at the blonde aide Anna, clearly panic stricken in the front seat. She didn’t even realize he was looking at her. She had a random smear of blood on her cheek that stood out starkly. He suddenly realized that she was very pretty, but he didn’t like her much, and he couldn’t figure out why.

Out the rear view mirror Kevin could see the intersection closest to the area the bomb had gone off. Emergency vehicles were parked or parking as far as they eye could see, and just as they turned off, he watched a body in the street begin to sit up.

Maybe that briefing he’d gotten this morning really was going to change the world.

*****

They were a few kilometers away before Kevin felt comfortable enough to start radioing in the situation. Kevin used an advanced communications suite built right into a special center console in the back seat of the Suburban. He started making the calls according to emergency protocol. First step was notifying the Embassy, and getting the other actual diplomats back inside the compound. An attack on one usually led to attacks on the others.

His second call was to the Department of State office of security back in Washington. The call went all the way back to D.C. via a satellite uplink. In a calm voice born from years of being shot at he relayed all the information he’d gotten to a faceless, nameless intelligence officer. He explained the bomb, then the shooting, and finally the worst part, the dead rising. An intelligence officer put him on hold, and after a few seconds a different voice picked up the line.

“This is Director Lancaster, is this Mr. Whitten?” The voice was older, rough. Not a diplomat’s voice at all, it sounded more like a drill instructor’s. From years of habit Kevin was instantly respectful to the man.

“Yessir.” 

“You say dead bodies got back up? How sure are you of them being dead? Dead as a doornail dead, or just mostly dead and they got themselves a second wind?” The voice sounded skeptical, but Kevin caught a hint of seriousness. He was instantly afraid of what to say back. Life in the military teaches you to always know enough, but also to never know too much.

Kevin swallowed and replied, “Sir they were dead. I watched a man missing most of his torso get up, lose a lung, bite another man’s chest open, then come at me. I put four rounds into him before he went down for good. Last shot was a head shot.” 

Silence. Finally Kevin could hear the other man clucking his tongue, mulling over what he’d said. Finally there was a long, tired sigh. “Son that Senator is a pretty important pencil pusher. You may think he’s as useful as tits on a bull, but there are many who think otherwise. We need him extracted from that region immediately. Head to the airport per your exfil plan. We’ll get the DOS bird ready and you are to head straight to London. Stop for no one. Anyone even fucking looks at that man funny you put two in their face, capiche?”

“Uh yes. Yes sir.” Kevin unscrewed the cap on the Senator’s old water bottle and drained it of the last swallow. The moisture helped.

“You lost men today?” Kevin heard the genuine worry in the tone of the Director’s question.

“Yeah we lost two. One American, one British national. Both good men.” Kevin didn’t like to talk about losses, especially so soon after.

“I’m sure they were the best. I’m sorry for you son. But you gotta take care of that Senator, and take care of the rest of your team. Get that man the fuck out of Israel and get him home,” the Director spoke quietly, filling his words with weight, and importance.

Kevin thought for a few seconds, and then finally asked the burning question, “Sir, what is happening. You didn’t call me a fucking idiot for telling you I saw dead people sit up, and that strikes me a bit queer. What the fuck is going on?”

Silence again. Kevin heard the same clucking noise of the Director’s tongue for a few seconds, and finally he replied in monotone, “Something has gone very wrong with the world Mr. Whitten. We’re seeing credible reports from all over now about dead people doing what you saw earlier. A lot of reports Mr. Whitten.” 

Kevin couldn’t believe it. It was probably more military-political bullshit to deny some new terror attack. Pretty soon they’d be invading Belgium or something over this. This was all just another reason to go to war, dredged up by the Washington war machine. “Sir, are you serious?”

“Serious as the rash on my asshole son.” It wasn’t meant to be a joke, and it didn’t come off as funny either. “It started in Africa. We don’t know why yet, or what’s causing it, but it seems to be radiating away from Africa. It’s just starting to show up here in the States now. We’re trying to get it all figured out but…” he trailed off.

“What time is it there sir?” Kevin asked the man as he looked around, surveying the slowly spreading chaos in the city. He could literally see the panic spreading as they drove at breakneck speeds through the tight city streets. Sirens everywhere, people pointing, covering their mouths, clearly scared.

“It’s 0230 here in D.C.” Lancaster replied. Kevin could hear him sipping at a cup of something, probably coffee or tea.

“Shit.” Kevin looked over at his charge, the Senator. He was still shell shocked from the violence earlier. Kevin felt bad for him. This was easily the worst thing that the old man had ever experienced. Kevin knew that without even knowing him. This was really bad. “Thank you sir.”

Lancaster swallowed his mouthful of beverage and replied, “Welcome Son. See you when you get back to the States.” And he hung up. Kevin sat the satellite phone back in its cradle.

The trip to Ben Gurion airport was smooth. Once the convoy got out of the urban area the construction site was in traffic freed up and the world returned to some semblance of normal. Kevin made one more phone call to the Israeli authorities informing them of the situation. They offered police or Army escort but Kevin politely declined. This whole thing was dirty from the jump, and he didn’t want help unless he could stake his life on it being legit. The only real help he was going to get in Israel were the men and women in the three SUVs with him.

His phone call to the authorities did manage to smooth out the security checkpoints for them. They were passed through with minimal harassment. The airport itself was locked down. The Israelis deal with terror regularly, and they’ve gotten very good at reacting to it. The airport was secured by the time they arrived, complete with tanks at the entrances, and they were escorted by airport police to the secured rear of the tarmac where the U.S. government planes were waiting. More American Marines were waiting at the plane, fully loaded for combat. They had their camo gear, full combat kit, and were armed for a real fight. Kevin thought it was strange that they had arrived at the plane and were already geared up. It seemed to him as if they’d gotten advance orders to get here. Maybe there was an extraction plan in place before the bomb went off? Kevin quickly lost the thought at the big black vehicles pulled up the plane.