29
“So that’s the Mighty Mississippi then?”
Anna looked up at Seyfert from her map. “Yeah, it forms the border between Iowa and Illinois.”
A Texas drawl added to the conversation. “She don’t look so mighty from here. Kinda like a junk yard.”
They were viewing the river from the embankment under the Black Hawk Bridge in northern Iowa. The bridge had been destroyed, the girders twisted and the concrete broken. Cars, also broken, could be seen piled up and partially submerged under what used to be a road over the crossing. There was movement in the crushed mountain of cars, and a sizeable force of creatures on the far side of the river milling about.
“They blew the bridge with people on it?” fumed an irate Dallas.
“I would imagine,” began Bourne, “that in an attempt to control the spread of infection, many bridges were destroyed. The loss of human life here is reprehensible, but to keep the plague on the east side of the Mississippi, I would have ordered the same destruction.”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t ya have cleared them folks off first?”
“They probably wouldn’t leave. They were so desperate and scared they disregarded orders to get off the bridge, or were stuck in gridlock when the planes came. Or maybe they didn’t believe the army would actually destroy it in the first place.”
“How do you know it was planes an’ not explosives?”
“The blast pattern and the way the bridge looks now. See how the bridge is mostly twisted and bent, and there are huge pieces of it missing? That is indicative of aerial bombardment. Explosives would have taken out an entire section, north to south, neatly and cleanly.”
Anna traced her finger down a blue line on the map. “The only other crossing on the map is the one on I-80 to the south of us.”
“That will undoubtedly be gone as well. We’ll cross here.”
“Uh…the jeep ain’t gonna make it over that wreck of a bridge, and it ain’t gonna swim neither.”
“We’ll have to take on the four men in the Hummer and find more transport on the other side.” The colonel strode from the back of the LAV and into the red light of the early morning sun. Rick was talking to Biggs and Murray, while Androwski urinated behind the Hummer. Stenner was in the Hummer’s turret scanning with binoculars, with Keleher walking a close perimeter.
Six eyes surveyed Bourne as he walked up to Rick’s small group. Androwski finished his task and was coming around the corner of the vehicle when he heard the colonel’s voice. “There’s no way to get the Humvee across the river. You boys will have to pile in with us, this mission is about to go amphibious.”
Androwski keyed his mic. “Stark, how many people can the LAV hold?”
“Comfortably? Seven, three crew and four passengers, but we’ve been running between six and ten since we got her.”
“Can it carry twelve of us?”
“I don’t know if twelve will fit. But we’ll have no room and we’ll piss through fuel if we try. I wouldn’t recommend it for the entire trip anyway.”
“Can it carry all of us across the river?”
“Negative. I don’t know what the extra weight would do. But we could pull a boat or raft.”
Bourne pointed at the other side of the river, where the undead mass had seen the survivors and were starting to get frisky. “Not into that. Alright people, options. We didn’t come all this way to be stymied by a busted bridge.”
“Contact, sir, four hundred meters.” Stenner was pointing to the north past the bridge. “Six hostiles, speed is slow, ETA twenty.”
“We’re out in five people, lock and load and button up.” The colonel looked around, paying attention to the far side of the river. “I’m not getting any warm and fuzzies coming off this location.”
Androwski ejected his magazine and checked his rounds. “Sir?”
“Why are all of the dead on the other side of the river? Where are the ones from this side?”
“Maybe they’s all gone,” drawled Dallas. “Maybe they got lucky and escaped the bombin’.”
“We’re behind enemy lines, Dallas, we don’t have time for maybes when it concerns the enemy.”
They piled into their respective vehicles and drove south down the river. There were several bait and tackle shops, convenience stores, a gas station, a movie theater, bar, and some homes. Everything looked pretty well looted, and most of the shops had broken front windows or kicked in doors. Evidence of panic was everywhere as well, burned buildings and vehicles were prevalent, and corpses on the road. Many corpses. Dallas looked wistfully at the bar through the video screen as they drove past.
Larson and Sons Marina sat a mile south of the Black Hawk Bridge in a small cove almost invisible from the street. The road had pulled away from the river, and the only indication that there was a marina was a small sign at the head of a dirt access road. The LAV and the Hummer turned down the dirt road and followed to its end. The street opened up into a rather large area with two dozen or so boats on stands or blocks. Some were shrink wrapped in plastic, but others showed signs of activity. Half a paint job on a hull, shrink wrap partially removed. Tool boxes and an arc welder next to one boat, buckets and scrapers next to another. These were signs that people had been starting to get their boats ready for another summer when the plague had cut their plans short.
A small structure with a corrugated metal roof and a sign that read “Get your bait here!” was located near the two docks and boat ramp. The windows were intact, but the door had been left open, and there was gore spatter on it.
“Androwski, take Seyfert and Wilcox and check out that store. Murray, have your group run a perimeter sweep. Check between the boats for unwanted visitors and deal with them quietly, from inside the Humvee if possible, and nobody gets out alone. Remain in contact.”
The Hummer pulled away with an
Acknowledged,
from Murray. Androwski, Seyfert, and the jumpy kid Wilcox moved off to check the store while Rick, Dallas, and Bourne examined some of the boats.
“This one here’s a real beaut.”
“I agree hillbilly, but it’s up on blocks.”
“Damn shame. I coulda used a cruise right about now.”
Bourne held a fist up. “Quiet!”
Rick tilted his M4 to the side, double checking the safety and selector switch, and Dallas flicked the safety off on his shotgun.
The safety was off Bourne’s M9, and he held the weapon with both hands, pointing it at the ground. He went into a semi-crouch and looked under the boat Dallas had thought was pretty. He saw two sodden work boots and a pair of jeans from the shin down. The colonel nodded his head toward the boat and raised one hand with one finger extended. Rick and Dallas nodded, and Dallas put his hand on Bourne’s wrist. Dallas slung his shotgun and pulled his rebar, and it was Bourne’s turn to nod. A pungent odor wafted through the air.
The feet moved, crunching across the gravel beside the boat. Dallas strode around the front of the vessel, rebar held high, Rick and Bourne followed with weapons ready. The thing on the other side of the craft was disgusting. Worms dropped from it as it walked, and maggots infested its empty eye sockets. Hairless, sightless, and shirtless, the repulsive creature stumbled, its one arm hanging limp, the abdominal cavity completely devoid of anything resembling organs. Shreds of flesh and whatever was left in its chest dangled down into the empty stomach area.
The smell was unimaginable, and as Dallas approached it, an eel slid from its middle and plopped on the ground with a wet slap. Dallas put his forearm to his mouth and gagged loudly. That was all the impetus the creature needed, and it moved toward the Texan with astonishing speed for a dead thing, the one arm reaching blindly, mouth open wide. It was on him quickly, and he swung the rebar in an upwards arc, catching it under the chin. The mandible broke with a loud snap, and something black and slimy fell out of its mouth and landed on the gravel. The creature fell backward but immediately started getting up again. Dallas finished it with a coup de grace swing to the top of its skull.
“Jesus. Thing stinks.” Dallas retched again. “Is that black thing its damn tongue?”
Bourne got down near it and looked it over. “Why’s it so rotten? This is the worst one I’ve seen. It’s even worse than the burned ones.”
“Well,” Rick began. “The plague hit the east coast first, then made its way west and then jumped across the ocean. Maybe we’re looking at one of the first victims.”
“Maybe. But if that’s the case, why aren’t the others around here like this one?”
Dallas spit. “Yeah, well, it’s dead, let’s leave it be b’fore I lose m’lunch.”
“
Sir, the bait shop is clear
,” came Androwski’s voice over the radio. “
There aren’t any keys for the boats in here, though.
”
“Roger that, Androwski. We just took care of a dead one, so stay frosty. Continue recon and meet back at the LAV in five.”
“
Copy
.”
The three men walked through the boat maze carefully, listening to the sound of the Hummer driving around the yard. They made it to the docks and everything looked clear. They weren’t actually on the Mississippi River anymore, but on a canal that must lead to it. Small trenches were cut into the surrounding marshland, probably for drainage. The boats undoubtedly put in at the ramp and took a quick jaunt to the river. There was little current and the reeds blew noisily in the breeze.
Rick pointed at a small barge tied to the end of one of the docks. “Can we put the Hummer on that and drag it across?”
“You think it’ll fit?”
“Let’s take a look.” Rick began walking down the small pier to the end, Dallas and Bourne following. They reached the barge and climbed aboard. There were tools and hardhats, welding equipment and two gas cylinders on a dolly. There was no wheelhouse, and no motor. “This here’s a work float,” Dallas told them. “I worked on a couple o’ these in Corpus Christi. Damn solid.”
“Will it hold the Hummer?”
“It’ll hold that damn tank of ours, but we gots ta tie her down some or she’ll fall off with the first stiff breeze. These things won’t sink, but if they tip a little, anythin’ with wheels’ll get ta movin’ then the barge gets all a kilter and before ya know it, ya lost yer cargo. That’s what them rings is for.” He pointed to a series of rings that were welded to the barge in various locations. “And them chains too.” Rusty chains with hooks at both ends were piled in boxes in the center of the barge.
“I’m tellin’ ya, this baby would float a team o’ elephants across this river. Solid,” he said again, and stomped his boot on the barge three times.
The bass boom from his stomping echoed across the small marsh, and Bourne scowled at him.
“Oops,” said the big man looking back at Bourne sheepishly. “Sorry, I…” he broke off and craned his neck slightly to the right so he could see past his friends to the dock behind them. “Shitfire.” Creatures were rising from the water on both sides of the dock. Two had already begun to climb up, as the water was only waist deep halfway back to the land. There were ripples in the water all around them, as more dead things ambled back toward land.
Bourne was already on the radio when Dallas and Rick unslung their weapons. “Stark, Murray, we’re in deep shit at the dock, we’re going to need an extraction!”
Stark’s voice sounded tinny as he answered the call. “Roger that, sir, we’re on the way!”
Rick noticed small swirls and eddies in the water. They were swirling toward the dock and the barge. Apprehensively, he peered over the side of the vessel. “Look at that, look there.” He pointed at several things moving just below the surface of the water.
“Jesus, is that—”
“It sure is, hillbilly, and there are a lot of them.” One of the things noticed Rick’s shadow above, and reached its hands toward him, the fingers just breaking the surface of the water. The dead man was fish-belly white, and bloated. Several more white hands and fingers had broken the surface of the water when the three men heard the first thump on the hull of the barge. A shot, and then the ratcheting sound of Bourne’s cold-loaded nine millimeter pistol drew Rick and Dallas’ attention, and they both brought their weapons up as well. The dock behind them was filling up with the dead.
“I thought they dint go in the damn water!”
“Me too, maybe they fell in or something, and couldn’t figure out how to get out until they heard you banging.”
Several ghostly pale figures were had made their way to the boat ramp and stood, looking toward the dock. They turned their heads back and forth, searching. Rick took a knee and aimed his rifle at the oncoming pickled horde. “They must be blind too. Probably been in the water for so long that their eyes were taken by fish or just popped out because of the facial swelling.” He got three shots off before the Hummer and the LAV showed up.
The vehicles pulled to either side of the entrance to the dock, the LAV moving slightly down the boat ramp. Pallid hands began hitting the hull of the LAV with squishy slaps.
The bass boom from Dallas’s shotgun echoed across the marshy area, three of the lead creatures falling into their dead comrades, some falling back in the water.
Bourne fired again. “Hurry, Stark,” he said, quite calmly.