Pandemic(36)

“We have to move,” Rawlings pleaded. “Now.”

Wade looked at her in mute horror. All the teambuilding and planning they’d done was for nothing. They were broken. Already they were falling apart.

BOOM

“Make a hole!” The sergeant who’d lain on the floor in a stupor for the past few days staggered past them to the broken window. He rested his carbine on the windowsill and started shooting.

Wade saw figures drop. He couldn’t tell if they were infected or not.

CRASH

The Klowns flooded onto the playing field, trampling the tents. The screaming rose in pitch. In seconds, the field resembled a slaughterhouse. The Klowns raced into the stands next, hacking at anything that moved and spreading their disease to their ever-present soundtrack of shrieking laughter. Blood splashed across the bleachers. Some of the crazies blared long, random notes on trumpets and tubas. Others frolicked among the dead, collecting their grisly trophies.

“Oh my God,” Fisher said. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

The sergeant dropped an empty mag and loaded a fresh one into his carbine, muttering the whole time.

“Thy kingdom come.” The sergeant fired again. “Thy will be done.”

Wade set his jaw. It was time to move. “All right, guys. We’re getting out of here right now.”

The squad had gathered, all ten, geared up in full battle rattle. Wade and Rawlings raced downstairs ahead of the others and headed for the west exit. The doorway was blocked with piled office furniture and light fixtures. They frantically grabbed the nearest pieces and threw them out of the way. Gray, Fisher and Brown arrived and helped. They opened the door.

A giant wearing a loincloth made out of a leathered human face lunged at them with a bloody claw hammer. “HAW, HAW!”

Fight or flight. Wade wanted to run. Then his training took over. He fired a burst into the giant. The Klown spun around and fell hard as if his legs had been kicked out from under him. He immediately started to get back up.

Rawlings put a round in his head. The hellish screaming inside the stadium went on and on.

“We’re heading west,” Wade said. “Jungle file. Team Alpha on the left, Bravo on the right. If you see something, go to guns on it. Fire and move. While we move, we keep the initiative. Tempo, tempo, tempo. If we get separated, remember the rally points.”

He wasn’t afraid anymore. He still had a lot of things worth fighting to save. The survivors of his platoon, wherever they were. Ramos’s family, still holed up in their apartment waiting for the sergeant to come rescue them. And not least of all, Rawlings.





THIRTY-TWO.



THE COMMAND POST was a beehive of frantic activity as First Battalion HQ worked to prepare for the retreat back to Fort Drum.

Redeployment, Lee reminded himself. He scanned the big board. The only blue units left in Boston were National Guard, and they were clustering to the south, pushed out of the city by fires and waves of infected. Everything else was gone. Fire, police, paramedics, all of it. The only authority still active had a lot of firepower. Or, in the case of the crazies, numbers and sheer will.

CNN and the other networks were off the air. All civilian television broadcasting had been bumped. Mount Weather had taken over what was left of the national communications network. On the video monitor, an attractive blonde shared the latest Federal propaganda. Captions rolled across the bottom of the screen, advising people to stock up on food and water, stay in their homes and avoid laughing when approaching military personnel. To find the nearest safety shelter, they were supposed to call an 800 number.

Walker was right. Local civilian authority had collapsed. Central civilian authority was following suit as decisionmaking at the top became increasingly erratic and military commanders in the field ignored their orders. The military itself was breaking down due to disruptions in the chain of command. Real authority rested with local commanders trying to hold what they could with dwindling resources.

“Sergeant Major Turner, reporting as ordered.”

Lee returned the man’s salute. “Sergeant Major, how long have you been in uniform?”

“Twenty-one years next month, sir.”

Lee had to handle Turner with some caution. Not only was he the senior enlisted man left standing, he had a monumental amount of tactical and operational experience that was worth its weight in gold. While officers ran the Army, senior non-commissioned officers ran the men, and without the men behind him, any plan Lee formulated would die like a fish out of water. He needed to get on Turner’s good side, and stay there.

“Another old-timer like me,” he said. “You served Lieutenant Colonel Prince with distinction.”