Plague of the Dead (9 page)

    “You weren’t bitten, scratched, anything like that?” Sherman asked.

    “No, sir. None of them got near me. I made sure of that,” Decker replied.

    “Good enough for me,” Sherman said. “Now I need you to assemble your men, sergeant. I’ve got bad news for them. The fight’s just started.”

1911 hrs _

    The battle lines were drawn.

    The soldiers had spent the past two hours reinforcing their foxholes and dragging the broken remnants of razor wire to the edge of the canal to bolster the fence line.

    The Satcom operators had set up their mobile transmitting station and were working on downloading updated images of the desert east of Suez. Ammunition and grenades were re-distributed. Wounded soldiers were given a painkiller and told to walk it off-every rifleman available would be needed on the banks of the Suez Canal.

    Brewster grunted as he heaved another sandbag onto the rim of his newly-dug foxhole, pausing for a moment to wipe sweat from his forehead. Denton crouched nearby, taking the opportunity to snap a photo of the soldier.

    “Picture this,” Brewster said, flipping the finger to Denton.

    Denton snapped a second picture in response.

    “You could be helping instead of taking Polaroids,” said Corporal Darin, another soldier from Brewster’s unit.

    “I don’t get paid to fill sandbags,” Denton said. “You guys do.”

    “You won’t be getting paid to shoot the carriers of Morningstar, either, Denton,” said Colonel Dewen, surprising all three men as he loomed up behind them. “But you’ll be doing it anyway.”

    Dewen tossed a rifle to the photographer, who caught it deftly with one hand.

    “I haven’t fired one of these in years,” Denton said, working the bolt of the M-16 and checking the chamber before slinging it over his shoulder in one swift motion. His familiarity with the weapon startled Dewen, Brewster, and Darin. All three had assumed him to be entirely civilian. “I’m not sure if I’ll do any good.”

    “Try,” said Dewen. “If you only hit one of those shamblers, it might be enough to win the day.”

    “Can’t argue with that,” Denton said. “I’ll do what I can.”

    “How’s it coming, soldiers?” Dewen asked, switching the focus of his attention from the photographer to the two enlisted men shoulder-deep in the sand.

    “Slow, sir,” Darin replied. “Ground’s a little sandy.”

    Brewster smirked, but cut himself off when he noticed Dewen glaring at him.

    “Dig in good. The carriers might not be shooting at you, but you’ll be glad you’ve got a stable firing position when they come over those dunes,” Dewen said, glancing across the canal at the seemingly infinite sandy expanse beyond.

    “Yes, sir,” replied the two men.

    “I’ll be back in ten. Denton, come with me,” Dewen said, turning on his heel and heading toward Suez HQ. Denton rose from his crouch and followed the Colonel, struggling a little to keep up. The man was a fast walker.

    “What’s up, Colonel?” Denton asked.

    “Let the General explain.”

    Denton couldn’t get anything else out of the recalcitrant officer, and gave up trying after a few more futile attempts. The pair reached the base headquarters-nothing more than a ripped and battered tent surrounded by sandbags-and pulled the door flap aside. It took Denton a few moments to blink the sudden darkness away when the flap fell closed behind him. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that the Satcom team had settled in nicely. Computers hummed and keyboards clicked away as the soldiers synched their machines with the satellites orbiting somewhere overhead.

    General Sherman was standing in the corner of the tent, resting one hand on a folding table while he spoke with a third party over the field radio.

    “No, one of each,” he was saying. “I’m not looking for a strike force, I’m looking for a rescue team. Yes, that’s right. One Huey, one Apache. That should do. Can you manage that?”

    Denton couldn’t hear the response. The radio could be set to broadcast replies through a speaker so soldiers could hear responses in the heat of combat, but the General had turned that function off, using the handset like a telephone in the relative safety of the headquarters tent.

    “Good,” Sherman said. “And be ready with the rest of that squadron. I may need to call in a real strike at any time. Have them hot and ready to fly. Out.”

    The General replaced the handset and sighed, rubbing his temples.

    “Sir, Denton’s here, as per request,” Dewen reported.

    “What? Oh, yeah. Denton. Let’s take a walk, son,” General Sherman said, leading Denton back out of the tent. The photographer craned his neck at the screens the Satcom soldiers were working on, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever it was they were looking at. Of course he and the other soldiers in the convoy, as well as the soldiers left in Suez Base, had been briefed on what was coming their way-an entire city’s worth of infected carriers-but he wanted to see for himself. Before he could register anything useful, he found himself outside.

    General Sherman heaved another heavy sigh and pulled a cigar from his breast pocket. He took his time lighting it. Denton stood next to him, hands in his pockets, saying nothing. The general puffed on the cigar until the cherry glowed red, and he blew a contented cloud of smoke into the darkening sky.

    After a moment Sherman said, “Denton, there’s a hellstorm headed this way.”

    “I know.”

    “You sure you want to be here when it hits?”

    “I’m sure.”

    “Why?”

    “This is where I’ve always been, General. Right in the middle of the shit. Now here I am, right in the middle of the biggest shitstorm of them all, and there’s no way I’m missing the show,” Denton replied.

    “You could be back home, having a cup of coffee and watching it on the evening news,” Sherman said.

    “I help
make
the evening news, General.”

    “Why? Why is war so interesting? Why is seeing thousands of infected people being gunned down something newsworthy?”

    “Are you trying to say you don’t want anyone taking pictures of what’s going to happen here, General?” Denton said, narrowing his eyes almost imperceptibly.

    “Not at all. I’m asking why you would want to take pictures of it in the first place. I don’t make the regs. I just follow them.”

    “Someone’s got to show the world, General.”

    “Call me Francis. Or Frank. You’re not enlisted, after all.”

    “Alright, Frank. Someone’s got to show the world. Like you said, tonight thousands of people are going to die. I don’t know what all this is about them getting back up once they’re dead, but if they really do then we’ll see thousands of people die twice tonight. That’s something that has to be recorded somehow. We wouldn’t have history if no one bothered to report it.”

    “You’d glorify the massacre of these people?” Sherman asked.

    Denton felt his stomach churn, and anger boiled within him.

    “I don’t know where you get your ideas, Francis,” Denton snapped, “But I’m no dirt-digging stereotypical journalist. I’ve watched just as many soldiers bleed and die as you have over the years. The only difference between you and me, Frankie, is that you make the wounds. I show the world the wounds you’ve made.”

    That seemed to hit the mark. Instead of taking the bait, however, General Sherman let a smile spread across his features.

    “That’s what I wanted to hear, son,” he said. “You can stay for the shitstorm if you want to. You have my blessing.”

    Denton was taken aback. He hadn’t expected this after the general’s other comments.

    “Thanks, General,” he managed.

    “No problem,” replied Sherman, puffing on his cigar. “And just one more thing before you go back to the line.”

    “Yes?”

    “I’d like to clarify something. There will always be folks who will be willing to go out of their way to ‘
make wounds
’ on the souls and bodies of their fellow people. I’m not one of them. I’m here to wound the sinners, not the innocents.”

    Denton managed a grim smile and said, “The people coming at us tonight aren’t all sinners, though.”

    “It’s a unique situation, son,” Sherman said. “It can’t be helped.”

    “No moral quandaries?”

    “No,” Sherman said. “They’ve been drafted by the enemy. There’s only one real course of action-kill them, or be killed.”

    “Then we’ll kill them,” Denton said. “And we’ll let God sort them out.”

2102 hrs _

    With the loud humming of controlled voltage, the floodlights on the west bank of the Suez Canal came online, illuminating the battle lines in a kind of ghostly, flickering white light.

    Beneath the floods were the soldiers, hunkered in their foxholes. Their rifles were aimed at the bank beyond, shifting barrels nervously in the diffuse light. Their line stretched off into the darkness in both directions. No one spoke out loud, but here and there came a whispered query.

    “Where are they?”

    “They’re coming soon.”

    “Keep your eyes open.”

    “Anyone got a smoke?”

    “Those things’ll kill you, man.”

    A new sound grew above the hum of electricity-the sound of distant chopper blades cutting through the night air. They grew closer. Some of the soldiers craned their necks back, squinting beyond the brightness of the floodlights, trying to fix the aircrafts’ position.

    With a shuddering roar, two helicopters flew over the defensive line towards the eastern desert. They stayed within view, and pulled about, circling. One of the choppers was large and bulky, slower than its companion, but deadly in its own right. The UH-1 flicked on its own spotlights, trying to pinpoint something on the ground out of view of the soldiers on the bank of the canal.

    “What’re they doing?” asked one trooper.

    “Quiet! Just watch,” said another.

    The second helicopter was painted as black as the night it flew in. Narrow and vicious in silhouette, it stabilized and dropped closer to the ground, facing away from the defensive line.

    “What’s the Apache doing? Are they landing?”

    The sound of a magnified voice loomed out through the darkness. The Apache pilot was speaking to someone on the ground.

    “Civilian! You are entering a containment zone! You must submit to decontamination before proceeding! Stop your vehicle and dismount!”

    The Huey had fixed its spotlights on something behind one of the sand dunes. The soldiers on the line were shifting now, curious as to what was going on.

    The Apache backpedaled in the air, keeping its weapons trained. Whatever it was that they were focused on was moving.

    “Civilian, halt! You are entering a containment zone! Stand down now! This is your final warning!”

    Now the soldiers on the line could hear a new noise. The sound of a diesel engine drifted to their ears, and grinding gears followed. Someone was driving toward them. They steadied their rifles.

    The Apache circled overhead, pulling over the canal and positioning itself above the soldiers. The Huey hovered over the target, spotlighting it. For the first time, the soldiers noticed the rope and harness dangling from the side of the Huey. They were trying to get the driver to climb onboard.

    The driver wasn’t having it.

    A semi truck burst over the crest of the nearest dune, spraying sand in a wide arc. The gears ground again, and the truck accelerated towards the waters edge. It was clear the driver had no intention of stopping.

    A screech from overhead drew the attention of the soldiers and for a second they were bathed in the orange light of ignited propellant from the rear end of a Hellfire rocket. The Apache had fired.

    The truck wasn’t built to take a missile to the front grille. It exploded, sending metal shards flying in every direction. The soldiers ducked into their foxholes as the remains of the vehicle came clattering down on the sand and with splashes in the canal.

    Brewster raised his head slowly, adjusting his helmet as he peered over the edge of his hole. The ruins of the truck were on fire on the eastern bank. He grinned, nodding his head and turning to look at Corporal Darin next to him.

    “Now, that had to be a foreign truck,” he said. “Sure wasn’t built Ford tough.”

    Sitting on a pile of sandbags behind the foxhole, Denton spoke up.

    “You don’t feel sorry for the driver?” he asked.

    “Hell no, man. The guys in the Huey tried to lift him out of there. The dumbass was running dead-scared.”

    “The stuff he was running from is right behind him,” Denton said, pointing.

    The Huey had circled the debris of the truck twice before its spotlights flicked off into the distance, once again illuminating ground beyond the view of the soldiers. The Apache joined it, and the pair flew further east. They began to fire at the ground, hovering in the air as they did so. The Apache let fly with more rockets, and the soldiers could hear the dull thumps of the distant explosions as the Hellfires hit and detonated. The two choppers were raining death from the sky.

    “I hope they leave some for us,” Brewster said.

    “Don’t worry,” Denton replied. “There’ll be plenty for everybody.”

    The choppers soon stopped firing. They hadn’t run out of targets. They’d run out of ammunition. The two aircraft roared over the defensive lines once more, this time vanishing into the west. The sounds of their blades grew distant, and then faded altogether. The battle was left to those on the ground.

    Silence.

    In the quiet, the soldiers felt themselves growing nervous. Whatever the helicopter pilots had been firing at was still out there, beyond the dunes, out of sight, but coming closer. Safeties were flipped off and equipment rattled as they shifted in their foxholes.

    “Hold your fire,” whispered Sergeant Major Thomas, the grizzled veteran, as he ran up and down the line checking his men. He held a weathered Colt 1911 in one hand and a flare gun in the other. “Wait for them to crest the dune. Get a good sight picture before you hit ’em. Aim for the head! Remember to aim for the head!”