The Hungry (Book 2): The Wrath of God

Holding onto the overhead railing for support, Major Francine Hanratty—dubbed Rat by her peers—made her way along the cargo deck of the transport chopper, obsessively inspecting her men. The mercenary team sat in a long row, comfortable in their desert fatigues, showing only uncanny intensity and a professional calm. The dark-haired Rat felt proud of her team. Despite the unprecedented circumstances, they outwardly maintained their composure, and stared blankly out through the tiny windows. The empty Nevada desert rolled by below them, seven thousand feet down and as lifeless and barren as the surface of an alien moon. She felt like they were rocking down a river in a small boat, yet they were roaring through the morning sky at one-hundred-sixty miles an hour.

Ordinarily relaxed and easy-going before a new mission, Rat felt an odd tension growing. Something was off. The pay being offered was double hazard, so the risks were far greater than they'd been in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the mercenary skirmishes in Mexico and South America with those drug lords.
Sure, money is a good thing, but you have got to live to spend it.
She found herself to be tense, anxious even, though the mission wouldn't officially begin for a few hours. Glancing out of one of the ports set in the side of the Super Stallion, she tried to sense the nature of the enemy, to see the coming danger. To her, Nevada was for gambling and drinking. Other than that it was just one more hell hole. Another desert. Hostile, perhaps. Unforgiving, to be sure. But after four tours, if there was one thing Rat understood, it was the hidden violence of a desert.

Ripper, the team's medic and her second in command, burst into action. The dark, handsome Cajun began compulsively loading magazine after magazine of ammunition, as if bullets were going out of style. Up close, even Lovell looked uneasy, but that may have been because strange pilots were up front driving the CH-53E heavy-lift helicopter. Lovell didn't trust anyone but himself to be the birdman. A bulky man with a shaved bullet head and gray stubble, Lovell was an old pro. If it had wings or wheels, he felt entitled to be at the controls.

Cochrane was new to the team, and thus the unknown factor for Rat. He was a lanky, red-haired kid who couldn't take his eyes off the window. Past him, big Brubeck pretended to be asleep, but Rat could see him peeking out from under his eyelids, keeping an eye on the others, and occasionally their progress.

"Almost there," Rat said into the microphone. She studied the rest of them.

Hearing her, Dale, the SAW gunner, gripped his weapon as if it might suddenly dematerialize. He was a kid from the L.A. ghetto, cool and quick to anger. He stared at Rat with something off in his expression, but stayed silent and sullen.

"Hey, Psycho," she said into the microphone of her headset.

Psycho tore his eyes away from the port and the desert. He took his time, stared at their unit commander. He looked like an ad in Mercenary Magazine. Ordinarily Psycho had no use for women, and Rat knew it.
Fuck 'em and forget 'em
was what he thought of the fairer sex, if he thought of them at all. One drunken night years before, Psycho had gone to great lengths to explain to Rat why women in combat were nothing more than a rape waiting to happen. She'd smiled, produced a knife, and offered to reduce the tension by cutting his nuts off right then and there. An uneasy truce had taken effect. Psycho did respect guts. Rat had invested six months of hairy combat and a couple of ass-kickings in earning Psycho's respect. And it was with that sullen respect that Psycho said, "… Fuck you want, Rat?"

She scowled at him. "What's your problem, Psycho? There's nothing down there any scarier than me."

"I'm cool. Who's freaking out?"

"You are," Rat said. "Dude, your knuckles are whiter than Lovell's ass." This earned a laugh from a couple of the men seated far from Psycho, further down the cluttered deck. Lovell was one of them.

Psycho hid his hands in the pockets of his flight jacket. His eyes wandered. "… Ain't right," he said in his usual clipped speech. "… Had them Taliban pinned down… Couple of Predators 's all we needed… Get this goddamned babysitting detail… Fuckin' civilians."

Rat didn't have any trouble filling in the gaps. They all felt the frustration at being extracted in the middle of a firefight and transported halfway across the globe. And for what? Zombies?
Give me a fucking break,
she thought. And what was worse, her team hadn't been briefed yet—they hadn't been told exactly why they had been brought here. Rat sure wasn't looking forward to being the one to tell them they got evacuated just to take out a bunch of refugees from the set of
Thriller.
Some of them could end up dead as Michael Jackson over people the rest would never see again, and for what, exactly? Apparently, Hanratty and her team didn't
need to know
.

"Some kind of bullshit here," Dale said.

That one actually made Rat pause. If Psycho was scared and Dale was
talking
, she'd have to step in soon. The morale of the team must be sagging.

"Listen up,
Hombres
!" Rat stood rock steady in the middle of the cargo deck, legs spread, with one hand holding the overhead rail and the other pointing to each of her men in turn. She sneered at them, her dark eyes blazing. They stared back.

"Zero in on this," she shouted. "I am already sick of your pathetic whining. They called us in to do a job, and we're going to do it with the professionalism and efficiency we are known for, from the very top to the fucking bottom. Anyone have a problem with that? If so, there's the door. But you'll have to leave your chute behind—we might need that for someone with balls."

Rat paused for effect. All eyes were on her. She had their attention. Most of them enjoyed her acting as if she were angry. With this crowd she could never tell if they were looking at her or her body. Not that it mattered, of course, as long as they obeyed orders. She had earned their respect. Rat was tough, but she was also female. She knew how to use that to her advantage
. Just know the mission, and get it done. Get them home in one piece and you've done your job.

"I can't hear you!"

"Yes, sir!" the men shouted in unison.

"That's better." She fished in her top pocket and pulled out their orders. "Here it is, ladies. We are wheels down in Las Vegas in less than half an hour. But this time it's not to party. The rumors you've been hearing are accurate. According to reliable reports, a large number of
…
" She hesitated, resisting the urge to roll her eyes, "
zombies
originating in the north of the state, have infiltrated most or all of Nevada. Las Vegas has been abandoned and Nevada has been placed under quarantine until this whole thing can be sorted out. Our orders are to escort a team of civilian specialists to an undisclosed location. They will extract vital intel that might expose the zombies' weaknesses and allow the return of the indigenous population. We will be outnumbered, undersupplied, and on our own behind enemy lines. Again."

The men laughed, but not enough to relieve the tension. Rat waved her hand for silence. "Fair notice, gentlemen, the brass swears the zombie thing is for real. So if you get bitten by a bad guy,
you will not be coming home
. Get bitten, get taken out. There it is." She let them soak that up, then lightened the mood. "Other than that it's just another day at the office."

"So there really are zombies down there?" Cochrane asked quietly. Unease spread rapidly through the short team. They knew how to fight the living and take them out of the equation, but the unspoken thought seemed to be, how the hell do you kill something that's already dead?

"Be advised, the rumors
are
true. Yes, there really are zombies down there. And one headshot does the trick. No brain, no more zombie. Put one right between the eyes. That is what will keep you alive."

"Wait a minute," said Lovell, standing unsteadily. "I thought this was supposed to be a stand-up fight, Rat. Now you're telling us that we're here to protect some fat-assed civilian specialists from hordes of brain-munching George Romero wannabes? Who do I have to fuck to get off this assignment?"

"Fuck yourself. We all volunteered. Now shut up and let me finish."

Lovell made a show of deciding to sit down. She let him. Rat carefully tucked their orders into her top pocket. "Look outside, gentlemen. What you see out there is the Nevada desert. Nobody knows desert warfare better than this team. A security detail is a little beneath us, but that's what the brass want us to be spending their precious dollars doing and so," she made a whistling sound and gestured as if her hand were the helicopter itself, "that's where we shall cheerfully go."

"What about these… zombies?" Dale asked.

"What about them?" snapped Rat. "They're unarmed, unarmored, uncoordinated, and from what I understand, dumber than dog shit. Like I said, one headshot takes them out. That's a piece of cake for a first-rate team of marksmen. What are you so worried about, Dale?"

The co-pilot—Gomez, if Rat remembered correctly—came on the intercom before Dale could form his response. "Major Hanratty, we're starting our approach to Las Vegas. Y'all better strap yourselves in."

"Copy that," replied Rat. "Lock and load, keep your assholes tight. We're going in."

As she returned to her seat, Rat could see the Las Vegas Strip laid out before her through the cockpit windows. It was as dead as the zombies. No neon lights, virtually no movement. Then the airport, McCarran International, placed practically on the strip itself, also lying dormant. All planes grounded expect emergency military.
Weird.
Here in the middle of the afternoon, no traffic moved on these roads. Rat had seen a lot of crazy-assed shit in her time, but a Las Vegas almost totally abandoned was one sight that she'd not soon forget.

She sat down to scan the Top Secret files on her handheld tablet. Rat studied the photos and biographies of the handful of lucky civilians who had survived the initial outbreak of the mysterious zombie virus. One particular woman, ostensibly the leader of that pack, got a lot of extra attention. She was Sheriff Penny Miller, from Flat Rock, wherever the hell that was. She'd be the problem come crunch time. When she was finished, Hanratty erased the files and stomped her boot down, shattering the slim device. She leaned back and closed her eyes.

Zombies?
she thought.
Mother of God, what the hell are they getting us into?