Pandemic(17)
“What do you see?” Wade croaked. Worms? Little crawling worms?
McIsaac patted his chest. “It’ll need stitches.”
Hands lifted him. The sun burned into his eyes as he was half carried, half dragged across the parking lot and shoved into one of the vehicles. He couldn’t stop crying.
“Let’s move!”
“Jaworski! Mount up!”
The Humvee lurched forward. The gunner stood next to Wade, his head and shoulders above the roof so he could work the machine gun. Empty shell casings rained into the vehicle and rattled across the roof. Wade heard the whump of a Mark 19 on another Humvee as it spit grenades into the hospital emergency room. Glass sprayed across the parking lot.
The hospital entrance was obscured by smoke and dust. The lightfighters cheered.
“We’re out of here!”
He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Hang in there, Wade. You’re okay now.”
“What happened?” the driver yelled. “Where’s the rest of your team?”
“They’re all dead.”
“What? Are we going back?”
Wade shook his head. He felt dizzy. “They’re all dead.”
“What are the Tomcats doing here?”
“Do they see us?”
Wade glanced out the window in time to see the squadron of Apaches launch batteries of Hellfire missiles from their stub-wing pylons.
“Holy shit! Go, go, go!”
Guided by advanced radar systems, the Hellfires rocketed into the hospital with an aerosol roar and burst with a flash.
The ground trembled under the rig’s wheels. Wade felt the air around him suck toward the blast. Brilliant white light washed out his vision. His ears filled with terrifying booms. The sensation was like getting struck by lightning.
The gunner dropped into the vehicle. “Just go, just go, just go!”
They were too close to the blast. Debris rained around the Humvees.
“Just—”
Something big struck the vehicle with a CLANG. The windshield cobwebbed. The vehicle rocked and swerved. Hot oil sprayed from the crumpled hood. The engine howled. The driver fought for control. The gunner screamed.
Wade was flung into darkness.
SEVENTEEN.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY was comprised of numerous old buildings situated on a two-hundred-acre campus in Cambridge, just three and a half miles northwest of downtown Boston. Before the Bug, the institution of higher learning had been one of the most prestigious in the world. School was currently out of session. Possibly forever.
Harvard had become home to elements of Bravo Company. They occupied a cluster of buildings in the northwest corner of campus, protected from the street by an iron rail fence. Captain Marsh had established his headquarters at the center, in Holden Chapel.
The campus was Bravo’s third outpost in as many weeks. The battalion was steadily being pushed out of the downtown core as the area became virtually overrun with crazies.
It was the last stop on Captain Lee’s tour.
The Humvees pulled up to the iron pedestrian gate and parked. Lee’s shooters spilled out of the other Humvees and surrounded the vehicles, weapons at the ready.
Lee tried to see into the windows, but the shades were drawn. “See anything?”
“Nothing,” Murphy responded. “We’re driving on fumes. I hope they’re still here.”
“I hope they don’t have the Bug,” Foster called down.
“If they had the Bug, we’d be dead already,” Murphy said. “Pay attention up there.”
“Contact!” said Foster. “Target, two hundred meters.”
Lee got out of the vehicle and aimed down Massachusetts Avenue through his carbine’s close-combat optic. He couldn’t see anything past the obstacle course of smashed cars that blocked the way ahead and had turned the street beyond into a parking lot.
“I count nine, ten of them,” Foster reported. “They’re running right at us.”
Lee saw them now. Escapees from one of the fever clinics, naked or dressed in paper gowns and carrying makeshift weapons—tire irons, garden shears, kitchen knives. A woman snapped a pair of scissors in each hand. A grinning man with a hairy chest lugged a gas can and a lighter.
They were all smiling and shouting and waving at the soldiers. “Wait up! Wait for me!”
“Private Foster, once the hostiles clear those wrecks, you are cleared to engage,” Lee said.
“Now we’re talking!” Foster aimed his heavy machine gun. “Gonna kill some motherfuckers!”
Lee glanced at Murphy, who shook his head. The fifty-cal hammered. The path of the rounds, illuminated by bright tracers, flew over the mob. Foster corrected, walking his fire into the infected.
The battle was over in seconds. The torn bodies of the infected lay in the street like road kill.