ARES Virus: Arctic Storm (15 page)

The suddenness of the heavy thumping of rotors is startling. One second, it’s just the sound of the four of them slipping and panting, small stones tumbling down the face of the hill, and the next, there’s the unmistakable beating of blades through the air.

“If you want to witness another sunrise, I suggest you hurry,” Brown yells.

Weariness and fatigue are forgotten as he pushes hard and fast with his feet. Each time he steps upward, his feet slide maddeningly back. He compensates by moving as fast as he possibly can, which almost negates the effort he’s making. The beating of the rotors seems to be right over his head. Between finding his next hand- and foothold, he looks to the sides and above. There’s nothing in sight, but he knows that will soon change.

Panting heavily, he throws himself into cover, turning around to help the next one in: Emily, then Hayward. He grasps Clarke’s hand and pulls, lifting her beside him just as a shadow rolls over them. The helicopter shoots low overhead, barely clearing the crest of the hill, then dives down their side of the hill and sets up station about halfway down. Looking to the side, Brown spots a second one rounding the end of the hill.

“Don’t move—stay hidden,” Brown commands.

Doing his best to stay out of sight, Brown watches the second helicopter fly close to the hill, near the first one. He keeps the outer edge of the spinning blades in sight, making sure that he doesn’t peek out so far that he can see the fuselage.

If I can’t see you, you can’t see me
, he thinks, remembering the stickers placarded on semis.

He glances around to make sure that none of them cast distinct shadows out beyond the boulder. The second helicopter goes into a hover. Brown contemplates whether it could be a coincidence that two helicopters would rapidly show up on their position, and comes to the conclusion that they were spotted from somewhere.

Maybe it was just some movement that was caught, or they have drones overhead. I didn’t think about that one
, he thinks, keeping a keen eye on the edges of the rotors.

The sound of the two choppers reverberates heavily across the face of the hill. Each thump of the blades coincides with the beating of his heart, making them somehow more invasive. More of the rotors appear in his vision, indicating that the helicopter is moving to the side.

“It’s moving. Everyone inch back when I do. And for God’s sake, don’t edge back so far that you come into the sight range of the second one,” Brown sharply states, having to talk loudly over the sound.

Brown moves back, but not so far that he can’t still keep the edge of the rotors in sight. The helicopter is slowly moving sideways, so he has to keep adjusting his position.

“Sarge, we’re about in view of the other one,” Hayward calls.

Shit!

“Well, don’t move any further,” Brown replies.

Brown takes his eyes from the circling helicopter for a brief moment to see how far it is to the cave. If the one he’s watching keeps moving, they’ll have to make a break for it. The entrance is less than fifty yards away, but with two attack helicopters hovering a short distance away, it might as well be a mile. They’d be cut in half before their third step found the ground.

The earth thirty yards away erupts with a blizzard of shells. Brown feels as well as hears the solid thumps. They hit so fast that the single rounds are lost in a continuous blast. Dirt plumes into the air while rocks blast upward and to the side. Bullets hit the larger boulders with sparks and careen away in streaks of light. Beneath the onslaught, Brown hears the mechanical whine of the chain gun spinning. As suddenly as it starts, it ends. Dust hangs in the air, the heavier particles settling slowly back to the ground.

“Easy, everyone. He’s just reconning by fire. Stay put,” Brown states, still looking at the spinning rotors. “We’ve run out of wiggle room. If I say go, make for the cave and don’t look back.”

If the fuselage comes into sight, Brown will give the order to run. If that happens, it’s their only option. It’s either be cut down running, or be cut down hiding behind the rock. The choice really just comes down to what you want your last actions to be. It’s quite apparent that they were spotted somehow. Also apparent is that the crew doesn’t know exactly where they are, or he’d be finding out firsthand what the afterlife held.

Brown’s heart stop-starts, sending a flood of adrenaline through his body, as he sees the tail rotor and aft end of the fuselage suddenly swing into view. It then quickly disappears behind the boulder.

“What the fuck?!” Brown whispers to himself.

“What?” Clarke asks from just behind.

“Nothing. Stay put.”

Brown edges up to peek around the boulder to get a visual on the attack chopper. He sees the tail end of it as it grows smaller, flying toward the valley below. He sees the second one take position behind and to the side of the first.

“That just doesn’t make sense,” he whispers another time.

“What doesn’t?” Clarke queries.

“That.” Brown replies, pointing.

“Yeah, they’re leaving. That’s a good thing, right?”

“It is, but they had to know something was in the area or they wouldn’t one, be here, and two, recon by fire like that.”

Brown feels uneasy with the sudden departure.

This feels too easy somehow. There’s no way a team like that would just show up, shoot a couple of rounds, then shrug and fly away. They’d scour this entire hillside
.

Shuffling around the others to the opposite side of the rock, he looks across the tops of the woods to the city. Dark specks dot the sky above the metropolis, all racing in a single direction—the same direction in which the helicopters that were hovering close moments ago fled. A flash of understanding soars through Brown’s mind.

If you see a cougar running, don’t concern yourself with the cougar. Concern yourself with what the cougar is running from
.

“Into the cave, now!” Brown orders.

He knows what is coming. The bigger boys are on their way. He’s pretty sure they’ll target the noisemakers first, but he doesn’t know what the range of their coverage will be and he isn’t about to stand outside and find out.

His order causes a flurry of action. The two cadets scramble past with Emily hard on their heels. Their mad flight almost pushes Brown from his perch. He has to quickly stick a leg out to catch himself and prevent a slide that wouldn’t end until he reached the bottom; one that would entail gear flying everywhere, desperate grabs at anything that looked like a handhold, and curses that would shame a sailor.

Followed by a long march up a steep hill to murder three idiots
.

Brown regains his balance and follows. Joining the others just inside the mouth of the cave, he turns to look toward the city, dropping his pack. He hadn’t taken much notice of the pack until the weight falls free. He rubs his tight shoulders and neck as he watches the black dots continue their race away from the city.

Suddenly, faster back dots streak low across the sky. Dark billowing plumes erupt skyward behind each racing speck. Other black dots follow the first ones in spaced intervals. Flashes of light erupt from various parts of the city, debris and smoke rocketing into the air with each pass. The sounds of the blasts reach the four standing at the mouth of the cave seconds after each explosion, eventually forming one continuous rumble. Motionless, the four stare at the devastation. Having witnessed many bombing runs in the past, Brown knows that he's watching the beginning of the city’s destruction.

The deep, continuous rumbling halts. Dark smoke plumes skyward from many points, fed from fires below. The black dots of helicopters return, circling around the smoke plumes. Streaks of light arc downward from many as they deliver fire into any infected that managed to survive the death delivered from the bombs. More high-pitched chirping reaches the hillside.

Rinse and repeat
.

“This is going to go on for some time,” Brown states. “Let’s see what we’ve dug ourselves into.”

The inside of the cave is barely lit. The light radiating inward from a sun sitting low in the sky extends only a short distance, the back and sides of the cave fading to blackness. Pulling out one of the flashlights he found at Emily’s, Brown shines it around the interior, the inky voids reluctantly revealing their secrets.

The cave isn’t deep; the back wall is just past the natural radiating light. To the right, a wing extends several feet before ending in a semi-rounded chamber. The left side extends farther and doglegs deeper into the hill. The rough-hewn edges of the ceiling maintain a generally uniform height a foot over Brown’s head. Leaning his AR-15 against the entrance wall, Brown removes his handgun.

“Let’s see what’s down this way,” he says, shining his light toward the doglegged side.

Leaving the warbling city behind, he starts forward, extending his beam of light as far around the corner as possible. At the bend, he sees that the wing ends much like the other side, in a roughly circular chamber not far past the dogleg. The floor is mostly sand with a few knobs of stone protruding through the surface. In the middle of the chamber is a stone-ringed fire pit with various sized pieces of wood stacked beside it.

“Well, that’s fucking convenient,” he states.

“It must be from the kids who come up here,” Emily says, seeing where the beam of light is focused.

“Whoever it’s from, I’ll treat them to a full day in the ice cream store if I ever meet them,” Brown replies.

“Um, I did it?” Emily responds, hoping to jump on a full day of eating ice cream.

“You’ve already earned your free day, young ‘un. You two. Go get our packs,” Brown directs Hayward and Clarke.

Brown sets to getting a fire started, breaking some of the kindling left down into finer pieces and setting them alight with the Firestarter lighter he took.

“Open some of those cans of food and let’s eat,” Brown says after he has a moderate fire going.

“Oh, good. I’m hungry,” Emily states. “I didn’t get my snack today.”

While the others dive into their cuisine, Brown takes a closer look at their temporary home. Near the back of the cavern, hidden within the shadows, he discovers a small opening. Shining the light through what really amounts to a wide crack in the stone, he can’t see much other than the cramped walls widening after a few feet and the pathway taking a decidedly downward slant.

Curiosity gets the better of him. He has to get on his knees and slither through the crack sideways. The hard, rough walls press in against his chest and back, causing no small amount of claustrophobia. The sandy grit on the floor eases his ability to slide forward. The path widens and the ceiling rises, allowing him to stand. Shining his light down the narrow corridor of stone, the sharp descent looks almost like a rock slide. Securing a handhold with his free hand, he steps forward. The grit and angle nearly causes him to lose his footing, his secure hold the only thing saving him from a descent into the unknown.

“Fuck. This.” he mutters, barely managing to turn around and squeeze back through the opening.

The cavern is lit by firelight flickering from the rock walls and ceiling, dancing in continually changing patterns off the rough surfaces. Smoke from the fire drifts upward, accumulating in the high domed ceiling.

Good. At least we won’t have to worry about it drifting out of the cave’s opening and getting us noticed.

Brown heads to the entrance and looks back, comforted by the fact that the light barely shows around the corner. He’ll have to check that out again after the sun sets to make sure they don’t cast any light out of the cave mouth, but so far, so good. Retrieving the carbine, he gives the city another look. The helicopters have again disappeared from over the city.

Flashes appear, forming a string of lights that march across the metropolis, strobing until it’s impossible to distinguish one from the next. Smoke and debris are thrown wildly upward in a long line. Similar lines materialize in different districts as the deep rumbles carry to the mouth of the cave. The ground begins trembling under Brown’s feet, vibrating continuously. Pebbles and sand trickle down the hillside, forming a waterfall over the cave’s entrance. One of the precariously perched boulders lets go and tumbles down the hill. The rumbles and vibrations finally cease. In the aftermath, more plumes of smoke rise from the stricken city. The helicopters then return to drop more of the noisemakers.

They’ll be at this for a while
, he thinks, looking for the helicopters coming back to continue their search.

Returning to the fire, he starts in on a can of chili set aside for him. It’s quickly gone, as he views it only as something to fill his stomach rather than an item to be savored and enjoyed. A good steak, he’ll chew and savor each bite; the same with eggs benedict done right or a bowl of seafood chowder that has a stick of butter put into its making. A can of chili is, well, just a can of chili.

“We’ll use the other chamber as a bathroom. The smell can’t be helped, but we don’t dare go outside unless we have to. I’m not sure how long we’ll be here, so just deal with the smell,” Brown says, pulling rolls of toilet paper from his pack. “Look outside and listen before crossing the mouth of the cave to be sure it’s clear, especially at night.”