Plague of the Dead (38 page)

    Sherman stepped forward to add his piece: “It also seems the sporting goods store we scouted last night holds a few more items we can use. First and foremost-we’ll be eating tinned foods for the next couple weeks-old T-rations.”

    “Better than nothing, sir, and a damn sight better than the scraps we’ve been getting,” sang out a soldier. The rest chorused in with a muted, but still morale-boosting, ‘Hoo-ah!’

    “Second-and just as important-Stiles has reported there are at least another half-dozen to dozen rifles left in the store that he couldn’t hump back with. We’ll be adjusting our escape plan. Our runner, snipers, and covering-fire rifleman will
not
have vehicle support to evac them once they’re clear of the city. You’ll all be running. I’m sorry to whoever else has to join Stiles, but we need to get that gear or risk starving to death-and I want every possible person armed. Once again, this is not the kind of decision I like to make, but I feel it is in the best interests of the group at large. Mark Stiles has already gone above and beyond, and despite being wounded, he’s still up for being the runner. I suggest all of you do your best to imitate the ideals he has selflessly set for himself.”

    “
Oi
, General, I heard he was bit. That true?” asked one of the refugees, an Australian welder named Jack-he refused to give his last name. “Should we be letting him hang around?”

    “Yes, for the time being,” Sherman said. “A bite that small means he’s got five, maybe up to ten or twelve days before he turns. He knows he’s a dead man. I expect all of you to show him proper respect for the manner in which he’s handling this. Is that clear?”

    “Don’t have to tell me twice, sir,” said Thomas. His eyes, sweeping the crowd, addressed once again the soldiers that remained. “Kid reminds me of me at that age-only then getting wounded meant stepping on a scatter mine, not being bitten in the leg-and you at least had a chance to survive the mine.”

    “So what’ll we do once we re-raid that store?” asked a soldier, raising his hand.

    “Take what’s left of the weapons. Load up all the food. Grab any gear that might be useful once we’re into the countryside. I don’t want to go into any more towns unless we can clearly see they’re uninfected, or if we’re so low on supplies that we have no choice.”

    “Sounds like a damn fine idea, sir,” growled Thomas. “I can deal with a banzai charge, but those infected get me all uneasy. Too quiet. Too…
inhuman
. I, for one, wouldn’t mind never seeing a city again after this and Sharm el-Sheikh.”

    “They’re deathtraps,” chimed Rebecca, speaking for the first time since treating Stiles. “They build up in there, relax when there’s no more prey, then jump out when they see you walking in.”

    “Seemed an awful lot like an ambush to me,” Sherman agreed. “They all struck at once.”

    “I’ve been thinking a lot about it,” Rebecca said, moving forward again to the center of the circle of people, standing next to Frank. “I don’t think it was really an ambush. I think it was…
instinctive
. You could say that, like, those dinosaurs-
velociraptors
-might have been pretty smart. They lull you into thinking you’re safe, then while you’re focused on one of them, a buddy strikes from the side. I remember that from Jurassic Park-the book, not the movie. The movie sucked. Anyway, these guys don’t have any tactics. They’re just dormant… then they hear you, and they all come rushing at once. I think it’s the growl.”

    “The
growl
?” chuckled one soldier. He earned a glare from Rebecca so icy that he shut his mouth, pursed his lips, and looked down at the pothole-filled road.

    “Their cry. Haven’t you noticed it? When they see you-the living ones, anyway-they scream at you and then run at you. I think the scream draws all the others in the area. Back there in town, the first one that came out gave that growl, and suddenly they were all around us. They’re not smart, they’re just…
pack hunters
. Yes, that’s it. That’s what I was trying to remember. They work together-I don’t know if they know what they’re doing or if it’s just coincidence. But get spotted by one, and let it get that growl out, and you’re swamped.”

    “She’s right,” came a weak, shaky voice. It was Stiles, re-awakened by the discussion, looking over at the group with glazed eyes. “Only one of those bastards came to look for the gunshot I had to use, but right after he saw me they were pouring out all over the place. They’re instinctive. Single-minded. We’ve all got at least a hundred IQ points on these pus-bags-if they’re even self-aware. But the apple pie was good.”

    With that, he drifted back into a semi-slumber, shivering slightly in the morning cold.

    “That was interesting,” said Jack, the welder. “Think that was the drugs talking?”

    “The apple pie comment was the morphine,” Rebecca said. “I didn’t give him enough to make him go sideways on us. Just a babble dose. Nah, I think he’s right.”

    “So do I,” Sherman began, “But until you gave your opinion, Becky, I was starting to think they were actually coordinating ambushes. Now I’m starting to really wonder. But one thing’s non-debatable: go into a city, get one little piece of bad luck, and you’ve got a thousand carriers on your six. Thomas!”

    “Yes, sir!” bellowed Thomas, snapping to attention. The other soldiers were slipping back into semi-civilian attitudes, but for Thomas, the Army was his life.

    “You will not be part of the rescue mission. I have a much more important task I need taken care of.”

    Thomas scowled, but quickly wiped the expression from his face and straightened back up. “I’m ready, sir.”

    “Go on foot. Take one man, and a pistol for both of you. Find a gas station on the outskirts. You have two objectives: first, see if there’s any fuel left for our truck. Second, find us batteries for our radios and-
this is the big one
-a road Atlas of the West and Midwest. When you get back here to the rendezvous, start plotting routes that’ll take us to our destination and keep us out of any big towns. Hamlets, villages-those I can risk, or go around. But nowhere-
nowhere
-that brings us close to a large-population area.”

    Thomas smiled. This wasn’t such a bad assignment after all. He loved recon in his younger days.

    “Yes, sir. Krueger! On line!”

    Krueger, the sharp-shooting shortie who had gone with Denton and Brewster when they first approached Hyattsburg, trotted up and fell back into parade rest. Like Thomas, he was still clinging to military tradition.

    “Sergeant Major?” Krueger asked.

    “Grab us each a pistol, five magazines apiece now that we’ve got ammo. Get moving-I want you geared and ready to move out in five.”

    “Hoo-ah, Sergeant Major,” nodded Krueger, spinning neatly on a heel and jogging over to where a pair of soldiers were laying out Stiles’ haul. He selected a nine-millimeter for the Sergeant Major, then halted. There, on the table, was a pristine chromed.357 magnum revolver. His eyes widened, then flicked left and right to see if anyone was watching. Grinning, he quickly holstered the weapon-a tight fit in a holster designed for a Beretta-and pocketed the speed loaders that had already been laid out.

    “Finally, a bit of good luck,” Krueger commented, strolling over to his webgear laying next to his dew-dampened bedroll. He clicked it across his chest, double-checked his remaining equipment, and ran back up to Thomas with a full minute to spare. He handed the Beretta, butt-first, to the Sergeant Major, whose eyes were locked on the bright and massive long-barreled magnum the Private carried.

    “Nice weapon choice,” growled Thomas. “Have fun reloading it in a firefight.”

    “Don’t expect to get shot at, Sergeant,” quipped Krueger. “Plan on doing some shooting, though-and this will be a fun thing to do that shooting with.”

    Thomas turned away and headed off on the trail to hide the half-smile on his face. The world was falling to shit-but some people still managed to find a bit of pleasure in life.

    The pair didn’t have very far to hike, as it turned out. There were several small roads that led out of Hyattsburg in almost every direction. They traversed an open field, grass comfortably low and crunchy underfoot in the cold day. Beyond the field lay a stretch of trees, sloping down through a gulley, and the two men wound their way around the trunks, stepping slowly and carefully between fallen branches and dried leaves. Through the trees they could already see the next road.

    They slid down the incline that had been carved out of the gulley to make room for the road. Both dropped into crouches in the drainage ditch and jogged lightly toward town, moving out of sight around a distant bend.

    Back at the truck, Sherman got busy marshaling the remainder of the survivors for the foray into Hyattsburg.

    “Alright, empty the back of that vehicle to make some room!” Sherman ordered, gesturing at the truck. “Anybody who isn’t getting ready to head back, settle in. We’ll be gone until just after nightfall, if all goes to plan.”

    The handful of unarmed refugees had already scouted out a nice thicket off the edge of the road to hunker down in while the soldiers raided the town. It would afford them at least some protection from detection if an infected were to wander by. It wasn’t likely. So far they hadn’t seen so much as a single shambler once they’d left the town-but that was not a guarantee one wouldn’t mosey past.

    “Sir, those of us that are armed are ready to move,” reported one of the soldiers.

    “Better see if we can get Stiles on his feet,” Sherman said, looking in Rebecca’s direction. “Get him into the truck. He can ride until it’s time.”

    “He’ll be woozy,” she warned. When Sherman only nodded in reply, she shrugged and shook the soldier’s shoulder. Stiles waved an arm and batted her hand away, wrinkling his forehead in annoyance without awakening. She tried again, and this time he caught her forearm in a lightning-fast move, eyes blinking open.

    “Don’t do that,” he said.

    “General’s orders. He wants you in the truck,” Rebecca said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder at Frank. “Can I have my arm back now?”

    “Yeah. Yeah. Sorry,” Stiles said, letting go of her wrist. He leaned heavily against the tree behind him as he unsteadily rose to his feet.

    “Need a hand?” Rebecca asked.

    “I’m fine.”

    Stiles limped over to the off-white utility truck, still using his rifle as a crutch. He grimaced as he put weight on his wounded leg, and looked back over his shoulder at the medic.

    “Not complaining about the morphine, but you got anything that’s more of a local?” he asked, trying to smirk.

    Rebecca didn’t reply.

    “Alright, saddle up!” barked Sherman, waving an arm over his head. He wanted everyone who was going into Hyattsburg to be in position well before dusk. It was still a good twelve hours before the sun would fall below the horizon, but that would only give them more time to scout the town before moving in.

    The truck left the camp first, driven by one of the soldiers with another riding shotgun and Stiles sitting up in the back. It would move to the town’s edge and park to conserve what little fuel that was left. The rest of the men shouldered or holstered their weapons and moved out after it, walking in twin columns on either side of the road.

    Sherman knew that he was being forced once again to risk the lives of many to only possibly save the lives of a few. It was true soldier’s work, the kind not every person was cut out for in life. He knew of plenty of officers who froze up when presented with such decisions-not that he blamed them. A person had to have very thick skin and a lot of rationalizing power to cope with the knowledge that their plan or call was the direct impetus behind death-on whichever side. Sherman thought of it simply: to make an omelet, one must break eggs. It sounded callous and shallow when he said it to himself, but he always reminded his conscience that it was as true as any other common-sense adage.

    It was a curious human condition that led people to be willing to die to save the life of another. How many times had he read in the newspaper of events like a lost hiker in the mountains? Dozens, if not hundreds, would rush out of their homes and jobs to search for the victim, possibly becoming lost themselves. Often, he’d heard of civilians-people not often credited with much honor by soldiers-who lost ten, twelve, fifteen people in a search effort for just one lost person.

    Yes, if you want to do a rescue-or make an omelet-you break some eggs.

    He’d be damned if he let his people-even the civvie refugees-stay stuck in a godforsaken movie theater to slowly starve to death when he had a chance to make things different.

    And Stiles had given them a fighting chance once they finally left Hyattsburg. The town’s name left a sour taste in Sherman’s mouth even when thinking it silently. He’d lost less people here than he had at Suez or Sharm el-Sheikh, but it felt more personal now. Then, there had been hundreds of them. In Hyattsburg, maybe fifty. And now, less than a dozen-unless by some miracle they located Mbutu’s missing truck. They still hadn’t gotten so much as a peep out of the radio from him. Sherman hoped for the best-but deep down he believed if they hadn’t come by yet, chances were they hadn’t made it.