Rolling Thunder - 03 (2 page)

Rolling Thunder was a bombing campaign during the Vietnam War…
uh, conflict, from 1965 to 1968.  It was basically carpet bombing of North
Vietnam with the declared objective of demonstrating America’s commitment to
our South Vietnamese allies.  It was supposed to disrupt NVA and VC supply
lines and demoralize the enemy.  Despite millions of pounds of bombs being
dropped it didn’t do either.  But that wasn’t because the idea of waves of B-52s
dropping thousands of bombs at once is a bad idea.  It was the politics
involved, and… well, I digress. 

“Carpet bombing to stop the herd?”  I asked.

“Yes, sir.  Everything south of I-40 is about to get
rearranged, big time.  First wave of bombers will be overhead in 20 mikes.”  He
must have already called for a pick up as the Black Hawk had come out of its
orbit and dropped to a hover just a couple of feet above the pavement.  The
medic shouldered his pack and I thanked him as he jumped out of the ambulance
and ran for the waiting helicopter. 

Neither of us wasted any more time.  Glendon stuck his hand
out and I gave it a quick shake, then he was running for the Black Hawk and
calling in the guys on the perimeter over the radio.  I slammed the back doors
to the ambulance and ran for the cab, Dog beating me there and leaping in and
across my seat.  I had just been looking at a map before the helicopter’s
arrival and I knew I-40 was 35 miles away.  And I only had 20 minutes to get
there.  Waiting for the last of the soldiers to board the Black Hawk that was
blocking the highway I shifted the ambulance into drive, held my foot on the
brake and did the math in my head as I waited.  35 miles in 20 minutes.  Shit. 
I was coming up with over 100 miles per hour.  Not that big a deal in a sports
car, but an ambulance isn’t built to haul ass on dark, twisty highways.

The last man climbed aboard the hovering helicopter and it
roared off into the sky.  I floored the accelerator and grimaced in frustration
as the ambulance slowly picked up speed.  It seemed to take forever to reach
60, and I kept the pedal nailed to the floor.  Slowly the speed climbed and was
passing 80 as I came to the first curve.  A yellow sign with a curved arrow
warned me to slow to 50 for the curve but I kept the throttle pegged and
steered for the inside edge.  The curve was long and sweeping, a sheer rock
face right next to the highway on my left and a guardrail on the right protecting
a drop-off that in the dark I couldn’t tell where the bottom was.  The speed
held at just over 80 as I fought the steering wheel to control the drift
towards the guardrail.  The wheel fought back and the dual rear tires chattered
in protest as we entered the sharpest part of the curve. 

There were several crashes from the back as equipment and
supply drawers flew open and spilled their contents.  The big, top-heavy
vehicle threatened to start rolling up on the outside tires but I had held it
tight enough that there was room to slip to the right and compensate for the
tilt.  Finally we roared out of the end of the curve, the speedometer quivering
on 86 and directly ahead was a long, steep hill.  Our speed climbed to just
over 90 for a few moments, then we started up the grade and for every quarter
mile travelled lost almost ten miles per hour.  Shit.  We weren’t going to make
it. 

As the grade leveled out our speed started climbing again,
then we crested and started down the hill and quickly maxed the speedometer
which only registered up to 100.  The down grade wasn’t as long as the climb
had been, but the ambulance hadn’t been designed to run at the speed I was driving. 
The wheel bounced in my hands, and even though there was power steering I was
having a hard time keeping us in a straight line.  The down grade bottomed out
and so did the ambulance, then we screamed into a right hand curve marked at 60
and I almost turned us over as I battled with the brakes and steering. 

Coming out of the curve there was a fairly level stretch of
road ahead of us and I pushed the throttle as hard as I could.  The engine
roared and the wheel shook but I was able to get the speedometer maxed out once
again.  I had noted the time on the dash clock when I’d gotten back behind the
wheel and risked taking my eyes off the road long enough to check it.  We had
been driving for seven minutes.  Maybe we had covered eight miles.  I kicked
myself for not having noted the odometer reading as well.  We got another
minute on the straight then another yellow curve warning sign flashed past,
this one marked 45.  Standing on the brakes I cut our speed to 70 as we blasted
through the curve.  Coming out of the curve we climbed a small hill and I
crested it doing nearly 90 and the ambulance’s headlights, on bright, glinted
off chrome and glass in the road ahead.  Much too close. 

It took me half a second to see that the road was completely
blocked by a jack-knifed semi no more than 300 feet in front of us.  I jammed
both feet onto the brake, pushing so hard my ass rose out of the seat as all my
weight was on the brake pedal.  The tires screamed and the front end wanted to
turn, but I fought it for all I was worth.  If we went sideways at this speed
the big vehicle would roll.  Dog had slammed forward off the seat, bouncing off
the dash and wound up on the floor when I stood on the brakes.  This probably
saved his life as we were still going too fast when the front bumper hit the
wrecked truck and the air bags deployed with a loud pop and a huge burst of the
white powder they use to keep the material from sticking. 

I can honestly say I’ve never had an air bag deploy in my
face before, and I don’t ever want one to do so again.  It’s not a pleasant
experience.  I sat there for a minute we didn’t have, slightly dazed but
intact.  Dog started scrambling on the passenger floor and succeeded in pushing
his way past the deflated airbag and back onto the seat.  He looked none the
worse for wear but he had a coating of fine, white powder frosting his fur.  He
sneezed and shook, re-filling the slowly clearing air with another cloud of the
damn stuff.  Coming back to full alertness I checked the clock.  Nine minutes
gone.  Checking the mirror I was thankful to see that the backboard Rachel was
strapped to was still in place and she looked like she’d come through the crash
better than either Dog or me.

The engine was still running and I batted the airbag out of
the way, shifted into reverse and was flooded with relief when the ambulance
started moving backwards.  Stopping, I threw the selector into park and spent a
few seconds slicing the airbag off the wheel with my Ka-Bar.  I stepped out of
the vehicle and tossed the heavy fabric away as I went forward to check the
damage.  The front of the ambulance was dented and banged up, but the heavy
duty bumper had done its job and protected the vehicle.  I didn’t readily see
anything that would prevent me from continuing to drive it.

The semi I had rammed into was a different problem.  It was
a specialized trailer that the 40 foot shipping containers from the rail yard
back in Murfreesboro were loaded on, and currently all 40 feet of the trailer
and container was effectively blocking the road.  On either side of the
pavement were guard rails that protected drivers from steep drop offs.  There
was no going around with the ambulance.  Leaving Dog inside to guard both
Rachel and the vehicle I climbed over the rail and made my way around the
blockage. 

The trailer was still connected to the truck, and both were
still upright on their tires.  There were no other vehicles around and I was
starting to get worried that I was stumbling around a road block that had been
set up for an ambush.  Rifle up and ready I moved forward, slowly circling
around the cab.  Moving in front of the truck’s grill I scanned a full circle
but didn’t spot anything to concern me, but my internal clock was bonging like
Big Ben in warning that the bombs were about to start dropping.  Turning to
face the truck I looked up at the windshield and saw the problem.  An infected
male sat in the cab, pressed forward against the inside of the glass as he
tried to reach me.  The poor bastard must have turned while he was driving. 
Fortunately for me the truck stayed upright and I should be able to move it out
of the way.

Stepping to the passenger door I lowered my rifle, drew the
Kukri and tried the door handle only to find it locked.  Hoping for better
results on the driver side I circled the cab, took a deep breath and pulled the
door open.  I stepped back quickly as the male tumbled out and onto the ground,
no longer smart or coordinated enough to use the steps built into the outside of
the truck body to climb down.  Before he could clamber to his feet I buried the
Kukri in his head, stepped over the body and climbed up behind the wheel.

The keys dangled from the ignition switch and were still in
the ‘on’ position.  Pressing the clutch in, I wiggled the long gear shift until
it was in neutral then hit the starter button.  There was a loud whine, then
the diesel engine roared to life and settled into a smooth idle.  Clutch pedal
still pressed to the floor I stared at the markings on the shifter, trying to
figure out how to get into gear.  Any gear.  The damn thing appeared to have 18
speeds, but I wasn’t sure and didn’t know which gear would get me moving, so I
pushed it into what I thought was fourth.  Giving some throttle I let the clutch
out slowly and the truck jerked hard and died.  Needing a higher gear I
restarted the engine and tried sixth, this time getting the rig moving.  The
left front edge of the trailer was jammed against the guard rail but I kept
feeding in throttle and the truck drug the trailer free with a horrible screech
of tearing metal.

I drove the truck far enough to clear room for the ambulance
to pass, shut off the engine and climbed down.  Trotting back I paused long
enough to grab the dead infected’s belt and drag the body to the side of the
road so I didn’t have to drive over it.  Running back to the ambulance I piled
in, shifted into drive and floored the throttle.  We slowly accelerated around
the truck and down the road and I checked the dash clock.  15 minutes gone and
we’d covered maybe ten miles.  We were going to be well short of I-40 when the
Air Force started dropping their bombs.  One thing about the Air Force.  They
are always on time.  Usually to within a couple of seconds, and I didn’t have
any reason to believe they wouldn’t be in this case. 

I pushed the ungainly ambulance as hard as I could, and to
its credit the crash into the semi didn’t seem to have affected it one bit.  It
still drove like a chuck wagon with three lame horses pulling it.  16 minutes. 
I started trying to think of any alternative, but when thousands of bombs
started falling out of the sky it would be luck that kept us from getting our
asses blown into a couple of million pieces.  Glancing at the clock I saw we
were at 18 minutes.  Raising my eyes back to the road the switches for the red
and blue emergency beacons caught my attention.  Would the pilots try to avoid
dropping on our location if they saw an emergency vehicle’s lights?  Worth a
shot, I thought as I flipped on the overheads.

19 minutes.  The high intensity red and blue lights from the
roof alternately lit the hood of the ambulance and the trees along the side of
the highway as I kept us heading north.  For the moment we had left the sharp
curves and steep grades behind and were running on a fairly straight and level
stretch of highway.  The speedometer needle was buried beyond 100 and the wheel
vibrated in my hands like a living thing trying to escape my grasp.  I was
splitting attention between the road and clock when we hit 20 minutes.  A few
seconds later the deep, bass rumble of multiple 750 and 1,000 pound bombs,
sounding just like distant thunder, reached my ears.  I tried to press harder
on the throttle but it was already mashed as far down as it would go and was
probably embedded into the floor by now.

The rumbling steadily rose in volume.  Thankfully, for the
moment at least, it was well behind us.  In the rear view mirror I could see a
constant ripple of flashes across the horizon as bombs detonated.  Carpet
bombing is exactly what it sounds like.  Bombs are dropped in sufficient
quantity to literally ‘carpet’ the terrain.  These aren’t the smart bombs that
you see on the news with a camera in the nose and the target getting bigger and
bigger until the image blinks out on detonation.  These are just big, dumb,
iron bombs that aren’t really any more sophisticated than what was used in
World War II.  They are devastating as all hell, but I wondered just how many
the Air Force still had in inventory.  They really hadn’t been used in large
quantities since Vietnam.  If there was a sufficient stockpile then the Air Force
could destroy enough of the herds to make clean up by ground forces
manageable.  But then, just how many would be needed?  The herds were reported
as numbering in the millions.  How many square miles did millions of people
fill up?  How many bombs did it take to carpet all that geography?  That was
for bigger minds then mine.  Right now I needed the ambulance to go faster as
the bombs were getting closer.

I pressed on, wrenching the ambulance through curves that
were thankfully not as sharp as some of the earlier ones, but still forced me
to back off the speed to keep from rolling over at a hundred miles an hour. 
The bombs were getting closer, or more accurately there were more bombs falling
and they were falling closer to our location.  Negotiating another curve I held
my breath when a small herd of frightened deer dashed into the road and we went
up on the outside set of wheels as I steered to avoid them.  It seemed to take
forever for the tires in the air to come back into contact with the pavement
and I nearly lost control when they did, but fought through the instability
with small corrections to the wheel and throttle. 

Tactical and evasive driving skills were another part of my
training from years ago, but that training had not been used since I’d left the
Army.  I was surprising myself how well I was doing.  Remembering my uncanny
ability to jinx myself I shut down that line of thinking and focused on my
driving as more bombs came down close enough to rattle the ambulance with their
shockwaves. 

They kept getting closer, one close enough to lift the back
of the big vehicle completely off the ground for a moment and shatter the
windows in the back doors as well as both side mirrors.  One of the four rear
tires shredded from shrapnel and there was a hell of a racket as chunks of
rubber tore off the damaged tire and smashed into the underside of the
ambulance.  I fought the wheel some more, letting speed bleed off to get the
vehicle back under control and in a straight line, absently noting the sign
that said I was two miles from I-40 as we roared past it in the dark.  As if
seeing that sign was a talisman the bombing stopped.  Well, at least the bombing
that was nearly right on top of my head.  I couldn’t tell if the Air Force was
still pounding away farther south without the side mirrors and didn’t feel like
stopping to get out and look.

Less than two minutes later we reached the intersection with
I-40 and I had to slow to navigate through some abandoned wrecks, then clearing
the Interstate I accelerated again.  Yes, I had been told the bombing was only
supposed to be south of I-40.  However, I knew that unguided, iron bombs were
being dropped and to expect precision placement of them during carpet bombing
would be foolish.  I wanted at least a few miles of buffer in case some pilot
was just a little too far north during his bombing run.

Pushing on for a few more miles I slowed to a more
manageable speed as I passed a sign welcoming me to Lebanon, Tennessee.  Soon I
had to slow to less than 30 to work my way through the wrecked and abandoned
vehicles that littered the highway.  Houses and small businesses started
appearing, but they all appeared to be deserted. 

Looking down at the dash I found the controls for the
overheads and shut them off.  No need to be any more noticeable than we already
were, but a bright red ambulance will draw attention even at night.  The dash
clock told me it was almost 0530 and the computer map showed us slowly moving
towards what looked like a medium sized town.  There was still no sign of any
habitation and I started to suspect that Lebanon had already been evacuated. 

I shouldn’t have looked at the time.   I had been operating
on adrenaline for quite some time and I could feel both my mind and body
starting to shut down.  In the old days I would have popped a couple of ‘go’
pills to keep myself awake and moving, but I didn’t have any.  There was
probably something in the back of the ambulance that would do the trick, but it
wouldn’t be labeled with a name that meant anything to me and I didn’t feel
like experimenting right now.

Exhaustion setting in, I started eyeing the abandoned homes
we were passing, looking for a good candidate to hole up in for a few hours of
rest.  I wasn’t particularly concerned about the infected we had left behind in
Murfreesboro.  They were 40 miles away and had just had the snot bombed out of
them by the Air Force.  Not that I thought for a second the carpet bombing had
been very successful in stopping the herd, but it should slow them down. 
Assuming that if they were not in active pursuit of prey, the herd was probably
moving at around four miles an hour.  That gave me 10 hours before the leading
edge made it to Lebanon.  If they were even coming this way and not angling to
the northwest to go to Nashville.

My sluggish brain didn’t register the house on our left until
I had already driven past.  Hitting the brakes I made a slow U-turn then turned
onto the dirt road that cut through a recently mown lawn.  A couple of hundred
yards from the highway a neatly maintained brick house sat dark and silent, but
I was interested in the large barn another fifty yards behind it.  The barn was
large enough to hide the ambulance and us, and was the best choice I’d seen so
far.  The other advantage was not having to go further into town where we might
encounter more infected or other survivors.

The road was smooth, soft dirt and I let the ambulance idle
down it at about five miles per hour.  Headlights on bright I scanned the house
and saw no sign of anyone in residence, either infected or not.  Blinds were
open and as we drew closer I could see that the front door was also open, the
entrance protected only by a screen door.  This made me feel confident that
there weren’t any survivors inside, but there could still be infected waiting
to invite me in for breakfast.

Rolling past the front of the house I tried to peer through
the windows, but it was pitch black inside and I couldn’t see anything. 
Relaxing a little, I felt it was a safe assumption that if there were any
infected in the house they would be charging out through the screen door in
response to the clattering diesel engine.  Continuing on past the corner of the
house I followed the road to the barn, coming to a stop a dozen yards from its
closed double doors.

The barn was painted the classic red that one expects to see
and looked to be as neatly maintained as the house and rest of the property. 
Shutting off the lights I sat there for a few minutes to give my eyes time to
adjust to the darkness.  Without the headlights I noticed the sky to the east
was lightening with the approaching dawn.  I also noticed the horizon to the
south glowed reddish orange in a few places from fires burning as a result of
the bombing.  Shutting off the engine so I could hear I told Dog to stay and
stepped out of the cab, rifle coming up to the ready position as soon as my
boots hit the ground.

Stepping away from the ambulance I carefully scanned a full
360 degrees, but didn’t see anything that concerned me.  Keeping a nice wide
buffer, I circled the barn, finding nothing to worry about.  There was only a
huge fifth wheel horse trailer parked on a cement slab behind the barn, but it
was empty and clean.  Back in front of the ambulance I moved to the barn doors
and banged on one of them with the steel toe of my left boot.  I took a quick
step back when there were a couple of answering snorts, then relaxed when a
horse softly neighed from inside the building. 

Pulling the door open wide, I exercised a great deal of
caution, stepping back with rifle ready in case any infected were lying in
wait.  I hadn’t forgotten the female infected in the forest that had shown the
intelligence to set up an ambush and had no clue if the horses I could hear
would be calm around an infected.  After a few minutes of waiting and watching
and detecting no threats I clicked on the flashlight mounted to my rifle and
moved quickly into the barn, stepping sideways and putting my back against a
wall.

Still no movement other than what I now saw were four horses
in their stalls.  I scanned across all the walls and looked up, but there was
no loft and no place for an infected to hide.  A few feet down the wall I was pressing
my back against was a large panel with half a dozen electrical switches.  Figuring
it was worth a try I slid along the wall to it and started flipping them on. 
The inside of the barn lit up as banks of overhead lighting popped on.

This wasn’t an old barn.  It was fairly new and modern and
cleaner than many houses I’d been in.  I was sure the owners either raised,
trained, or both, the horses that were all looking at me.  This set off alarm
bells in my head.  I grew up around horse people and knew that even as the
world was falling apart, horse people would not leave their animals locked in
stalls and untended.  Stepping off from the wall I thoroughly cleared the barn,
even checking each stall to make sure someone wasn’t hiding with a horse. 
Nothing.  Shit.  I hadn’t wanted to have to check the house, but something was
off here.

The horses were getting agitated, most likely hungry and
thirsty.  I didn’t want them to get too worked up and start making a lot of
noise, so I spent a few minutes feeding and watering them from gleaming buckets
that were neatly hung on pegs by each stall.  That chore done I stepped out of
the barn and closed the door behind me.  I took a moment to wedge a short
length of straw into the hinge side of the door so I would know if anyone
opened it while I was gone.  After I checked on Dog and Rachel I headed for the
house.

The back of the house boasted a large screened in porch that
had a pair of matching chairs positioned so that when you were sitting in them
you were facing the barn.  A small table sat between them with a tall stack of
magazines resting on it; Horse & Rider, Equestrian, Horse Illustrated,
Cosmo and People if it matters.  Moving across the porch I came to another open
door that was only protected by a screen and slowly pulled it open and slipped
inside.

The smell had hit me when I was opening the screen door, and
it was stronger as I moved into the house.  Not the overpowering stench of a
long rotting body, but still the smell of death I knew all too well.  I had the
rifle up and ready, flashlight on as I moved deeper into the house, clearing
rooms as I went.  The house was as clean and organized as the barn, until I
entered what I assumed was the living room. 

The room was a shambles, every piece of furniture knocked
over and broken glass from several photo frames and crystal vases twinkling in
the light.  In the middle of the floor a large man who looked to be in his
early 40s lay face up, the rug underneath him black with his blood.  He had
been stabbed in the chest and stomach more times than I cared to count.  I
played the flashlight over him and noted the condition of his hands.  He’d put
up one hell of a fight before dying.

Remembering the magazine selection from the back porch I
took a deep breath and steeled myself for what I expected to find next.  Down a
short hall that led to three bedrooms I found her.  She had been young and
pretty, probably the daughter of the dead man.  She was on the bed in the
second bedroom I cleared, lying on her back with dead, vacant eyes staring at
the ceiling.  She was mostly nude, but a scrap of clothing still circled her
waist and torn underwear hung from one ankle.  Her wrists were tied to the
headboard.  She had obviously been beaten, among other abuses, and since I
couldn’t see any knife or bullet wounds I suspected she had been hit too hard,
one too many times.

I stood there staring at the girl for a few minutes, getting
my breathing under control.  Finally I stepped forward and jerked a sheet off
the top of a dresser, sending knick knacks flying, and covered her with it.  As
I was doing this I touched her arm and was surprised the body wasn’t cold.  Not
nearly as warm as the living, but she hadn’t been dead for more than an hour or
two.  As I gently pulled the sheet over her face I heard the sound of a vehicle
turning off the highway onto the property.

Moving quickly to the third bedroom located on the front of
the house, I looked out the window and saw a mud splattered Toyota pickup
coming towards me.  I could make out two figures in the cab, but no details
about them.  Leaving the bedroom, I went to the front room and stood back from
the screen door and watched the truck approach.  It was several years old and
dented and rusting under all the mud, brakes squealing as it came to a stop in
front of the house.  The doors popped open but my attention was drawn to the
shiny dual rear wheel Dodge truck that turned onto the dirt road.

Willing to bet the Dodge belonged to the dead man since it
looked like it would go with the horse trailer I’d found behind the barn, I
stood still and watched, hidden from their view by the screen door and dark
interior of the house.  The two men that got out of the Toyota were about what
I expected.  Young, dirty and stupid looking.  Not unlike the ones that had
taken Rachel when we were still in Georgia.  They moved to the back of their ride
and stood waiting for the other truck.

It pulled up a moment later and an older version of the
first two stepped down from the cab.  Father and sons?  The older man was alone
in the Dodge and he waved the other two over to his truck where he opened the
rear door and lifted out bags of groceries which he handed to them.  When each
of them had their arms full he reached back in for two cases of beer, used his
hip to close the door and they all started towards the front porch.

“It’s my turn with the bitch,” one of the younger ones was
saying with a grin when I stepped out onto the porch with my rifle raised.  All
three froze when they saw me.

“Good morning,” I said, then shot the older one in the
knee.