Spotting a familiar figure ahead, Tick-Tock tried to recall her name. She had joined them from the Battleship Texas, but had kept such a low profile that there was nothing she’d said or done to stand out and remember her by. Not wanting to call out, ‘Hey you,’ he approached her and asked, “How are you doing?”
Looking up from where she was concentrating on pulling nails from a board, shock crossed the woman’s face when she saw who had addressed her. Jumping to her feet, she stammered out, “I’m fine, sir.”
Tick-Tock smiled to put her at ease and said, “I’m looking for Commander Styles.”
“I haven’t seen him, sir,” she told him. “The rest of your people and I joined the demolition teams after we couldn’t find you at the gate.”
Tick-Tock cringed. He had been so distracted by other events that he had completely forgotten about telling his people to meet him out front. As he was about to apologize, a loud crack broke the silence. At first thinking it was another section being pulled away from one of buildings, he tensed when he heard screaming. Seeing people running for the east wall, he joined them.
As he raced to where a group was clustered near the northeast corner, Tick-Tock knew two things. One, that the dead either had or were about to break through the wall, and two, that he would find Rick in the middle of whatever chaos was about to ensue.
Reaching the edge of the crowd, Tick-Tock could see where three of the huge telephone poles were starting to be pushed in. The parapets had buckled and fallen from the force, hitting those that had been using their weight to push back against the dead. Numerous people were climbing over the wreckage to lay flat on the wall or bounce up and down to push it back into place, while others tended to the wounded. Despite this effort, the split widened as two poles parted, showing the snarling faces of the dead in half-shadow as they tried to move from the darkness outside the wall into the light.
Orders had been given to use their ammunition only if the walls were breached, so Tick-Tock unslung his M4 and sighted in on a dead face pushing its way between the gap. Flesh peeled away from its cheeks as twisted its head to force its way in, letting out a high-pitched whine as it saw food almost within its grasp. Before Tick-Tock could get his first shot off, numerous pistols, rifles and a shotguns from the nearest defenders rang out. As the dead thing and its fellows fell away under the hail of bullets and buckshot, more of the living moved in to throw their weight against the poles, slowly easing them back into place. Workers with boards and nails swarmed forward, hammering makeshift braces in place to reinforce the wall.
When the barricade was secure, Tick-Tock noticed that no cheer went up from the defenders at their success. Drained, they dragged their tools and planks to the center of the fort to wait for the next crack in their defenses. Watching them, Tick-Tock knew that sooner or later they would collapse from exhaustion, while the dead needed no rest in their relentless push to get inside the fort. This had been the fifth breakthrough so far, telling him that the walls were slowly being weakened.
Spotting Rick standing near Ginny as he directed the last of the crews tending to the wounded, Tick-Tock walked up to him and said bluntly, “You told Steve that you had an escape plan.”
Slightly annoyed at the interruption, Rick said brusquely, “Yeah, we did.”
“You
did
?” Tick-Tock asked, his hope flying away.
Ignoring the question, Rick waved a stretcher crew in to collect a man with a broken leg. When they had him loaded and were on the way to the infirmary, the Commander turned to Tick-Tock and pointed up to the radio tower as he said, “We planned to use zip lines to get over any big herd of dead-asses that surrounded the fort. We could also use them to get behind any living attackers.”
Not seeing anyone sliding to safety, Tick-Tock asked, “So what gives? Why aren’t we using them?”
With a futile shake of his head, Rick told him, “They only go as far as the tree line.”
Understanding struck Tick-Tock as he realized that the wires didn’t go out far enough.
“We weren’t expecting a herd this big to hit us,” Rick explained. “You can still use the lines, but you’ll end up stuck in a tree with a couple thousand Ds around you. I prefer to take my chances here.”
“So what else can we do to get the hell out of here?” Tick-Tock asked.
“I’ve had the radio room calling for help for the last hour,” Rick told him. “Fort Polk finally answered, but they have everything grounded. They put in a request for an airlift and are waiting for a reply. I spoke to the Lieutenant on duty and he told me about some internal strife in Washington DC. They’ve almost got it sorted out, but it’s going to be a while before they can get permission for a rescue.”
“What do we do until then?” Tick-Tock asked.
A loud crack split the air, letting them know that another part of the wall was starting to cave in.
Turning to run toward the latest breach, Rick said, “Keep patching holes.”
Russellville, Arkansas:
With the rage of seeing Heather trussed up on the floor surging through him, Steve was about to let loose on the man in front of him when a whining noise to his right caught his attention. Swinging his rifle in that direction, he spotted two of the dead with fresh blood smeared across their faces, pushed back against the wall like they were plastered to it. Focusing on the immediate threat, he shot each of them in the head before moving his sights back to the man directly across from him.
The fluorescent lights threw a brilliant glare over the lab as he squeezed the trigger, sending half a dozen rounds into the glass. Expecting it to shatter and the man beyond it to go down, Steve was surprised when his bullets only left blackened, saucer sized marks in its surface. The man in the lab coat looked surprised too, cringing back as the first rounds hit, and then looking down at himself in shock that he wasn’t spouting blood from numerous holes.
Trying to adjust to the situation, Steve looked for a door leading out of the testing chamber. Spotting a glass pane with hinges set into it, he quickly realized that there was no doorknob and the hinges were on the other side. In frustration, he fired off the rest of the bullets in his magazine at his initial target. Once again, they thudded into the shatter-proof wall, sending up tiny shards of glass but not punching through.
As he was changing magazines to try again, Steve felt Major Cage lay a hand on his shoulder and say, “Don’t bother. You’d need a fifty caliber to punch through that.”
Shaking the restraining hand off, Steve reloaded his M16 and raised it to his shoulder, swinging the muzzle back and forth as he searched for some weakness in the barrier in front of him. His eyes coming to rest on the second man, now hiding behind Cindy, he screamed, “Open this mother-fucker up.”
This only caused him to cower even further behind the little girl.
Turning his sights back to his first target, Steve yelled at him, “If I hit it enough in the same spot, the bullets are eventually going to punch through.”
Seeing the situation, Hawkins replied with a laugh as he stepped to the right, “And I will simply move.” Spotting Cage and Fagan, he added, “I see the Major and his sidekick have arrived. Good to see you again, gentlemen.” Nodding to Steve as he gestured to himself and the second man, he said, “My name is Doctor Hawkins and this is my assistant, Jim. But I haven’t had the pleasure of making your acquaintance.”
Ignoring this, Steve glanced down to make sure Heather was still alive. Seeing her struggling as she tried to free her arms and legs, his heart filled with fury at what had been done to her. This, combined with the pompous tone Hawkins used caused his anger to pass the boiling point. Even though he knew it was fruitless, he still sent ten rounds smashing into the glass.
Hawkins flinched but stood his ground, the bullets striking only feet from his face. Taking a step forward, he studied the impact points as he said in a mocking tone, “Like they say on the firing range, nice grouping.”
Realizing the doctor was baiting him, Steve pushed his anger down. Instead of feeding into the man’s banter, he started searching for some way through the glass. Spotting a blood splattered hole, he knew there was no way he could hit the doctor from that angle. He might be able to get a clean shot at the second man, but by the time he reached the hole and took aim through it, Jim would be gone around the corner. Looking to Cindy, he saw her staring at Heather. The little girl was bloodied but alive, giving him hope.
From behind him, Fagan asked in a low voice, “Where’s Cain?”
“Who’s Cain?” Steve asked, his eyes scanning the surface of the glass for some weakness.
“Hawkins’ do-boy,” Fagan answered in disgust.
As if hearing his name, Cain walked through a door at the far side of the lab, shock registering on his face as he took in the scene. Seeing Cage, Fagan and another man inside the testing chamber, he pulled his pistol and raised it to fire at them.
Hawkins stopped him by saying, “Don’t waste your bullets, Mister Cain. They can’t get at us and you can’t get at them. It appears we are at an impasse.”
Understanding the situation, Cain’s mind spun as he tried to figure out what to do next. He could see by the marks on the glass that numerous shots had been fired, but he hadn’t heard anything until he walked through the door. Glancing at the noise suppressors on the invaders rifles, he understood why, while at the same time registering that his men hadn’t heard anything either and weren’t coming to the rescue. He thought of firing a few bullets to alert them, but realized that with the sound-proofing done to the entire lab area that it was unlikely they would hear the gunfire.
Doctor Hawkins was one step ahead of him though, as he said, “I however, have analyzed the situation and come up with a solution.” Pointing to Steve, he said, “By the way this one keeps looking at the woman that knocked you down, I would guess he’s got some kind of connection to her. Lover? Sister? Fuckbuddy? Who cares? I want you to set an example, Mister Cain. I want you to put a bullet through her heart. After that, if Cage and his fellow cretins do not make their way back the way they came, I want you to hold Doctor Connors head against the glass and spray her brains all over it. This way, they will know we are serious. I don’t want any problems when we make our way to the helicopters.”
Looking down at Heather and then up at Cain, Hawkins said, “Whenever you’re ready, Mister Cain.”
***
Cindy understood what Heather was trying to communicate to her just as the Steve broke into the observation area. Thinking that they were saved, her heart fell when she saw his bullets bounce harmlessly off the shatter-proof glass. Hoping he would find a way to save them, she watched with dread as the man named Cain came through the door of the lab. In horror, she listened to the doctor’s orders to kill Heather.
Thoughts of how Ginny, Susan, Mary, Sheila and Linda had all died trying to protect her tore through Cindy’s heart. Remembering her vow that it wouldn’t happen again, she steeled herself. Her right side was almost immobile from pain, but she knew what she had to do.
Her arm screamed in agony as she moved it, causing sweat to pop out on her face and her breathing to turn shallow and labored. Forcing her hand down to her right side, she pulled up on the flap of material covering the cargo pocket of her pants. Digging inside, she felt the object she was looking for. With a rush of adrenalin at the ignorance of Hawkins and Cain, she rejoiced in the thought that while Heather had been searched and disarmed after she was knocked out, they hadn’t bothered to do the same to a ten-year old girl.
Pulling the pistol out of her pocket, Cindy dragged back on the slide and chambered a round. Lifting it, she sought out Cain. Seeing him smiling evilly as he lifted his own pistol and waved it mockingly at Steve, she thought she might be too late as he lowered it to point at Heather’s chest.
Not hesitating, Cindy lined up the sights on her little pistol with the center of Cain’s body and squeezed the trigger twice. Expecting the loud boom of Dirty Harry’s .44 magnum, the sharp cracks of the small caliber rounds took her by surprise. Also expecting Cain to be flung back by the bullets just like the people in the movies did, she thought she missed when all he did was let out a grunt and stiffen. Preparing to fire again, she saw two spots of blood on the side of his chest, merging into one as they grew. Knowing she had hit him, but ready to fire again if she needed to, she tracked Cain in her sights as he swayed for a second before collapsing to the ground.
Feeling hands grab her arm, she saw Jim was trying to wrestle the pistol from her grip. Twisting it in her hand, Cindy pulled the trigger again. The bullet went wild, but it was enough to make Hawkins’ assistant jump back and scurry away backward on all fours to pin himself against the wall.
Spinning in her chair, she leveled the barrel of her weapon at his chest and said in a strained voice, “Untie Heather.”
Jim stayed frozen against the wall.
Having seen how he had moved the last time she fired her pistol, Cindy pulled the trigger again. Only meaning to put a bullet into the wall to the side of him, she was shocked to see it clip the outside of his left shoulder. Tears sprung to her eyes and she started to beg his forgiveness, stopping when she saw him leap to his feet and run over to where Heather lay on the floor.