Degeneration (21 page)

The radio operator jumped and quickly pressed down on the microphone button.

“
Delta
Base to
Outside
Perimeter
Detail, what
is your status? Over,” the radio operator spoke
into the microphone in
a trembling voice.

No response.

“Sir, should I send the distress
call?” the radio operator asked
.

Col.
Mathis frowned. To send ou
t the call would admit
defeat. However, he knew that there w
asn’t a victory to be won downtown a
nymore
. His career was finished
. He closed his eyes and thought about the sacrifices he made for his career, sacrifices that
proved to be for
nothing in the end. He thought about t
he wife he left behind in Texas and
about the kids
he had lost contact with.

“Sir?
” the radio operator asked again, frantic
.

“Yes, do it. We don’t
have any choice left,” Col. Mathis said
.

Gun
fire echoed outside, mixed
alongside
the dying screams of s
oldiers and the feral cries of the i
nfected.

The radio operator spun back to the microphone and
quickly
switched bands.

“Delta Base to Control!
D
elta
Base to Con
trol! Wildfire! Break. Repeat, Wildfire!
” the radio operator said into the microphone.

“
Control to Delta Base, We received your transmission. Wildfire protocol has been initiated.
”

There was a brief pause. The gunshots outside had stopped, as
had the screams.

The s
ol
diers who had taken cover spread out amongst the concert hall’s stadium seating
slowly
started to rise and look
around.

“Did they manage to push them back
?” on
e of the soldiers asked
.

One of
the main venue doors flew open and i
nfected start
ed pouring into the concert hall.

The s
tartled soldiers ducked
back down behind cover and opened fire.

Infected bounded over row-after-row of seats and took
the soldiers down
one after the other.

Two other
venue doors flew open and even more
infected
char
ged in.

With the soldiers overwhelmed, the massive horde swarmed
towards the
two men standing by the
command console on the main stage.

“
Control to all detachments. This is Major General Yates, commander of Raleigh operations. The downtown position has been compromised, prepare to implement
Wildfire
contingencies!
All Overwatch units pull out of the DZ at once!
Glenwood-Five Points Checkpoint, hold back Whiskey-Tangos
and prepare for Wildfire
! Do not allow targets to break downtown quarantine, over
.”

Col.
Mathis snatched the
micr
op
hone from the radio operator
.

“Yates! Thi
s is Mathis! I need extraction
! They’r
e here! They’re inside!” Col.
Mathis shouted into the radio, shaking, staring
at the horde as it swarmed closer,
aisle after aisle.
“I need a chopper on the roof immediately!”

“
Sorry, s
on, you know what Wildfire entails.
Hold them off as best you can
and get to any cover you can find.
God be with you,”
Maj. Gen.
Yates replied.

Mathis screamed in ang
er
and
threw
the microphone down ag
ainst the polished stage floor.

The radio operator drew his
Beretta
sidearm and started firing at the advancing horde.

Ma
this stared at
the horde
as it
drew closer to the stage.

“
What are you doing?
Help me! Help me hold them back!” the radio ope
rator screamed
, reloading his pistol. Infected started to
climb onto the stage
.
“Help me, you coward!”

Mat
his looked over at him, gave him an apologetic look,
turned
,
and took off towards the
service door at the rear of the stage.
Behind him, he heard the radio
operator’s final screams and
the command cons
ole topple over onto the floor. H
e didn’t dare look back
and, instead, forced himself to run faster
.

He slammed
against the door. I
t swung open into a narrow corridor that ran behind the main stage
that
was littered with ladders, stage lights, a
nd sound equipment.

Mathis ran down the corridor,
over
turning
equipment
behind him as he ran in a frail attempt to slow the infected down.
He
sucked frantic breaths
through
his suit’s
respirator
.

The infected effortlessly hurdled over the toppled equipment, screaming, and started to close the distance quickly.

Ahead
, Mathis
saw the fire exit doors
. H
e knew he wouldn’t be able to outrun
the infected
inside
his bulky white-suit.

He
knew
that he would never make it to that
fire exit.

In his peripheral vision,
he saw another door. He quickly stopped, grabbed the knob, swung
open the door, and ran inside.

The small closet had shelves of cleaning equipment on one side and a single sink full of mop heads on the othe
r. He quickly tried to shut the door behind him.

A young man wearing the tattered remains of a white-suit grabbe
d
the
door and prevented
him
from shutting it. The man stuck his head around the edge of the door
into the supply room and screamed at Mathis, snapping at him
.

Mathis recognized the man as
a private who had been in his unit for about six months.
He
couldn’t remember the man’s name, but he remembered that the man was a hell of a runner
, not that it mattered anymore.

Mathis drew his sidearm and shot the m
an point-blank in the forehead.

The man’s head snapped
backwards and he let go of the door.

Mathis quickly pulle
d the door shut, dropped the pistol
, grabbed the knob with both hands, and leane
d back with all of his weight
.

The i
nfected pounded against t
he door with fevered intensity.

Mathis, realizing
that the infected weren’t even
trying to use the knob, let go of
it
. He stepped back
against the rear of the supply closet,
sunk down to the floor
, and cowered in the corner
.
His sobs were muffled by the unrelenting pounding against the door.

A squadron of six fighter jets raced towards Raleigh in formation at top speed, leaving long contrails in their wake.

“
Hades Zero-One to RAL Control, enroute to the DZ, nineteen minutes out, how you copy?
” the lead pilot said into his helmet radio.

“
Control to Hades Zero-One, good copy. Cent-Com gave Wildfire final clearance, you’re clear all the way through.”

“
Copy that, RAL Control, eighteen minutes out.”

Hundreds of infected sprinted down
ruined downtown streets toward the Glen
wood-Five Points quarantine checkpoint, attracted by
the
multitude of
bright hal
ogen flood lamps
.

“Glenwood-Five Points to
Delta
Base! Five Points to
Delta
Base! What is your condition? Over,” a white-suited soldier yelled into the radio, hands tr
embling.

A sergeant stood
over
the man’s shoulder.

Both men were hunkered down
behind one of the tanks
barricading
the street. Four tanks
and two platoons of soldiers in white hazmat suits
were all that stood between downtown and the rest of the city.

A
rather large crowd of
onlookers
had gathered two blocks away and
was
being kept away
from the quarantine line by
riot
police and
National Guardsmen. T
he crowd
had grown
in size
ever since the explosion
and gunplay starte
d. Unfortunately for them, most residents of Raleigh didn’t pay attention to the mandatory evacuation order and had paid even less attention to the curfew.

The
white-suited
soldiers
manning
the
downtown
quarantine line were antsy ever sinc
e Wildfire had been initiated and since the helicopters left downtown’s airspace
. Even m
ore alarming,
the downtown base w
asn
’t
responding.

The s
ergeant looked down at the soldier
holding the radio
and motioned for him to try again.

“Glenwood-Five Point to
Delta
Base,
please respond, over,” the soldier said into the mike.

“Where the hell are those jets?” the sergeant grumbled, looking up towards the sky.

One of the gunners manning
the .50 CAL on top of one of the
tank
s whistled and grabbed everyone’s attention. He pointed
down the street at
the advancing
infected as they between the abandoned vehicles that littered the street.

The amassed horde numbered in the thousands.

An
air raid siren
on
the side of the street
started wailing and pierced the night air with its shrill cry.

S
oldiers quickly took position, many
of which were still
staggering half-dressed out of their makeshift barrack (formally a bar and grill) at the sound of the
air raid s
iren.

T
he on-looking crowd
of civilians a few blocks away began to panic and push against each other at the sound of the siren. T
he police struggled to m
aintain order and keep the crowd behind the barricade
.

“Christ,” the sergeant said as the infected quickly closed the distance. He knew that the jets wouldn’t make it in time. “All units!
FIRE AT WILL!
Hold them back until the jets get here!
” 

Gunfire pummeled the horde but the infected were neither
impeded by the bodies of their
fallen brethren nor by the ineffective body shots from the frightened soldiers.

The military HF bands were rendered useless as the panicked soldiers all tried to talk at once and stepped on each other’s transmissions.

“HEAVY FIRE! USE HEAVY FIRE!” the sergeant yelled.

The tanks opened fire and took out large groups of i
nfected
and erupted abandoned vehicles into massive fireballs
.
Body parts
and large sections of asphalt went airbor
ne as the tanks fired their ordnance.

Despite their heavy losses,
the infected continued their relentless advance.

Within a few seconds, the
front-line troops were overrun and entombed by the horde.