Pandemic(10)

Grinning Klowns filled the corridor. Several stomped on the half-stripped, mangled body of a nurse lying on the floor. Others watched and roared with laughter, hands on their hips or gripping their stomachs. The nurse was laughing too.

When the infected noticed the soldiers pointing guns at them, they cheered and shrieked with glee as if the guests had finally arrived at their surprise party. Once again, Wade was disturbed by their faces. They looked like clowns with their wide glassy eyes and crazy leers.

One stumbled close to Ramos and giggled. Ramos cut him in half with a blast of buckshot.

As if they’d been waiting for a signal, the crazies charged.

Wade sighted center mass on a woman and fired a burst. The recoil hummed against his shoulder. She went down. Another took her place. Another. And another.

Spent shell casings flew from the carbine’s eject port and clattered to the floor. The metallic crack of the carbines and the roar of the sergeant’s shotgun pounded his ears.

Eraserhead got the SAW into position and fired controlled bursts. The mob disintegrated, bodies blowing apart under the withering fire. Tracer rounds streamed down the hallway.

Wade gasped. The scene was like something out of a movie.

And more kept coming.

“Reloading!” Wade pocketed an empty magazine and slapped a new one into his carbine. He pulled the charging bolt, aimed and fired.

Behind him, the Sledgehammer boomed. The infected were coming at them from the other end of the corridor.

Combat was typically unpredictable, but Wade knew their survival here was a matter of simple mathematics. Either they had enough bullets, or they didn’t. Even if they did, if there were too many infected, their guns would eventually overheat and start jamming.

That was how military units got overrun by crowds of infected: human wave attacks against small groups of soldiers who fired until their weapons jammed. Klowns didn’t take prisoners. They either killed you or made you one of them.

Wade fired. A bald man’s head erupted in a geyser of brains and blood.

“Nice shot,” Eraserhead said. “I knew you had it in you.”

“Go to hell,” Wade told him.

The SAW was rocking now, firing nine hundred rounds per minute, every fifth a blurred tracer that pulsed strobing red light. Eraserhead was grinning. “Time for some payback.”

A severed hand trailing a long rag of flesh and tissue slapped against Wade’s chest and flopped to the floor. The Klowns were throwing body parts at them.

Williams dropped an empty magazine from his carbine. “Reloading!”

Wade glanced at the hand lying on the floor. He laughed. He couldn’t stop himself. It just rolled out of him. He wasn’t infected. The whole situation was insane. He’d survived a year of combat against the Taliban, and he was going to die fighting a mob of murderous maniacs throwing arms and legs at him. He had to either laugh or scream.

But laughing was a good way to get himself killed. He half expected his comrades to train their weapons on him. Instead, Eraserhead started chuckling.

Then they were all laughing at the infected as they killed them by the dozens.

Laughter really was contagious.

The crowd was thinning. The soldiers kept the fire hot. Eraserhead put down the last of them with a few bursts. The squad ceased fire.

Wade raised his goggles, which had fogged again. The hallway was shrouded in a thick, smoky haze. Broken, bleeding bodies lay in piles in their shredded hospital gowns. The sight should have sickened him, but he could only stare in morbid fascination. He knew he shouldn’t look at all. He knew the tableau would haunt his nightmares the rest of his life.

Ramos tapped his shoulder. “Get ready to move!”

Wade blinked, surprised he was still alive. “Roger that, Sergeant.”

They reloaded. They’d burned through most of their ammunition, and they were going to have to get out of the hospital quickly.

Eraserhead opened the SAW’s feed tray, laid in a new ammo belt and slammed the tray shut. He yanked the charging bolt. “Good to go.”

Wade heard muffled reports. The gunfire on the floor below them was barely audible over the loud ringing in his ears. No sounds filtered from above.

Ramos tapped his headset. “I can’t get the LT on the radio. We’re going up.”

Nobody protested. Leave no man behind. It wasn’t just a noble idea; it motivated them to face danger, knowing their comrades would come for them.

They’d have to move fast. The building was filling up with crazies awake and dying to play.

The fireteam chased after Ramos. They flung open the stairwell door and sprinted up the stairs, gasping under the weight of gear and armor.

They banged onto the sixth floor, weapons at the ready.

Nothing. They bounded down the hall. Two men covered while the others moved.