Pandemic(43)

Wade and Rawlings exchanged a glance. They were going to die there, and they knew it.

The Klowns had disappeared, but they were still here. They’d gone somewhere to sleep. The sun was rising. Soon, they would wake up and come out to play.

Fisher and Brown fell out of formation and waited for Wade and Rawlings to catch up.

“He’s looking for a fight,” Fisher said. “He’s going to get us killed.”

“Dude thinks he’s Lord Humungous,” Brown added.

Wade caught up to Gray. “We should find somewhere to hole up until it gets dark.”

“Get back in line, Wade.”

“At least get out of the middle of the street. We’re sitting ducks out here.”

Gray glared at him and spit his gum onto the road. “All right.” He signaled the squad to get onto the sidewalk and keep moving.

Wade grunted with each step. They were going to need to find some vehicles soon. He doubted he’d be able to walk all the way to Hanscom.

Brown said, “We can’t shoot our way there. I got just one mag, that’s it.”

“We should break off on our own,” Fisher said. “What do you think, Sergeant?”

She said, “I think all options are on the table at this point.”

Wade opened his hand. Stop. He tapped the guy in front of him and repeated the gesture. The soldier passed the message up the line to Gray, who turned with a frown.

Wade cupped his hand to his ear. I hear something. Waved his hand to the ground. Get down. A listening halt.

The squad crouched behind the line of cars parked against the curb.

Gray looked at Wade and mouthed, What the fuck?

Then they all heard it—a distant rattle growing louder by the second.

Wade fixed his bayonet to the end of his carbine. A vehicle rolled up the road, scattering trash. The shiny BMW convertible was driven by a middle-aged couple wearing black sunglasses and smiling as if out for a pleasant Sunday drive in the city. The man wore a brown suit and tie, the woman a polka-dot dress.

The rattling sound was chains. The car was dragging dozens of bodies shredded into hamburger over miles of road. The stench of death struck the soldiers as the vehicle passed.

The car came to a halt. The V8 engine roared. The couple’s heads swiveled toward the squad’s position.

The man grinned and said, “I smell lunch.”

Gray popped up and opened fire. The Klowns jerked as blood sprayed across the windshield. They slumped in a smoking mess.

Gray turned to the squad and patted his weapon. “I’m sick of this shit. No more skulking—” He stopped and gaped up at the buildings across the street.

Wade followed his gaze. Dozens of grinning faces looked back at him from the windows.

Gray sighted on one of them. “Contact.”

Wade barely heard him over the tramp of feet on asphalt coming from all directions.

“What are we going to do?” Rawlings asked.

Wade looked at her. “We’re going to get that vehicle.”

A body landed heavily on the car in front of them, setting off its alarms.

“Christ!” Fisher screamed.

“Contact!” Gray repeated.

A few shots. Seconds later, the scattered gunfire turned into a steady roar.

The Klowns came up the street. They poured out of every building and rained from the windows like human missiles. One ran up to Wade’s group and emptied a handgun. Wright flopped backward onto the sidewalk, shot through the face. Wade returned fire, the rounds thudding into the Klown and making him do a jig before collapsing. Young propped his SAW against the hood and started hammering anything that moved.

Gray dumped a grenade into the entrance of the building on the other side of the street. It detonated with a BOOM, vomiting smoke and burning bits of wood onto the street.

Gray pumped his fist. “Booyah!”

“Fuck!” Brown sat on the ground with an arrow through his shoulder.

“Man down!” Fisher cried.

Another body fell from the sky onto Young, knocking him down. The SAW slid off the hood. A moment later, a man popped up with it and opened fire at the squad.

Three soldiers were thrown through the plate glass window behind them.

Wade sighted on the Klown, but his gun jammed. Rawlings fired, and the man dropped. Wade spared a quick look around while he cleared the two rounds stuck in the firing chamber. The street was filled with laughing maniacs falling under a rain of hot metal. Klowns in the store behind them hacked at the wounded soldiers with hatchets and machetes. Gray was shooting grenades down the street as fast as he could load them. Half the squad was out of action. The rest fired at close range or were locked in hand-to-hand combat. A Molotov cocktail burst in their midst, catching Steele’s legs on fire. If they didn’t move, they were going to die.