The Infection (43 page)

He sees Todd, working with the other survivors and Guard to pass sandbags along a human chain, and waves.

Yeah, Sarge?

Sarge smiles. For a moment, he forgot he has radio communication with the survivors.

He keys his handset and says, “Todd, I want you to go up to the buses and tell those boys we need twenty more minutes from them, over.”

Cool! Todd, out!

Todd snatches his carbine and takes off at a sprint.

He hears a colossal crash of thunder and looks south. The center of the Market Street Bridge, shrouded by a drifting cloud of black smoke, is collapsing into the Ohio River.

The soldiers let up a ragged cheer. Sarge grunts with satisfaction. Half the mission is over. But it will not be successful until they finish the job and destroy this bridge.

He returns his binoculars to the buses. He sees fresh streaks of blood on the windows, the dead propped up in the seats, as if waiting for their next stop.

Just hang on a little longer, he thinks. He marvels at the bravery and endurance of the men inside those vehicles. He cannot even imagine what they must be going through in there.

The engineers are shouting in alarm. Sarge shifts his gaze and sees one of the Towering Things leering down at the bus, ropes of drool leaking between its massive teeth.

The monster’s tongue lashes out. After several moments, it pulls the broken body of a National Guardsmen into its chomping mouth. The monster bites down, chewing greedily with a blissful expression, its eyes closed and leaking tears. The creature is so happy it is crying.

Another Towering Thing appears on the right, chortling. Its tongue lashes out and a man screams.

The bus is
moving
.

“Todd, get back here now,” Sarge says.

But I’m almost there, over.

“Get back here now,” Sarge roars. “The line is breaking.”

The gunfire sputters and stops. Soldiers emerge from the buses and race towards the safety of the machine guns at the center of the bridge. One of the monsters lashes out over the roof of the bus and grips a fleeing soldier by the ankle, yanking him up and into the mouth, the man screaming and firing his weapon until the teeth crush his body into paste.

The bus is moving, swinging open like a door. Something big is pushing it. Tentacles wave in the air behind the vehicle. One of the Giants. A limb as thick as a tree trunk, knotted with thick, pale muscle, emerges. Moments later, the behemoth pushes its way past and lumbers onto the bridge, bellowing like a foghorn.

“Prepare for action,” Sarge says into his handset. “Hold the line!”

So close, he thinks. We are so close to winning this.

He drops into the telescoped seat, lowers it, and seals the hatch.

Immunity 1, this is Immunity actual, over,
he hears over his headset.

“Go ahead, LT,” Sarge says.

I still need fifteen minutes, over.

“You got your fifteen, out.” Sarge shouts, “Get those MGs up!”

Moments later, the .30 cal machine guns placed at the edges of the bridge start firing, the tracers streaming down the causeway and converging on the bellowing titan, which staggers back a few steps, its massive head trembling. The Infected swarm around the feet of the monster, racing towards the center of the bridge.

“Hackett, I want that MG fire focused on the foot mobiles,” Sarge says.

Roger that, Sarge.

“What about us?” Wendy says.

“On the way,” Sarge says, squeezing the trigger.

The rig shudders slightly as the cannon fires, BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP, empty shell casings spilling down the Bradley’s chest. The HE rounds crash into the Giant and the area around it, exploding in a series of flashes.

“Target,” Wendy says, letting Sarge know that his aim is good. “Target.”

“It’s like shooting at a barn,” Sarge mutters.

Immunity 1, this is Immunity actual, we’re about ten from detonation. How copy?

“Solid, LT,” Sarge says. “Ten minutes to detonation.”

The Giant collapses, shivering, gushing blood.

“Target destroyed,” Wendy announces.

Good work
, Steve says from the driver’s station.

“Mark the time, Wendy. Officer or not, if the LT is not ready in ten, I’m going to put my boot up his ass.”

Smoke billows at the end of the bridge. The horde comes running out of the smoke, throwing themselves into the machine gun fire, driven by their endless rage.

“Shifting fire to area target,” he murmurs, switching to the coax MG. “
On the way
.”

Sarge keeps the reticle in the same place, fires a burst of ten to fifteen rounds horizontally across the target area, then another diagonally, then another horizontally, in a repeating Z pattern.

“Jesus,” Wendy says, almost retching.

Hundreds of rounds fall among the ranks of the Infected, cutting them down like wheat under a scythe. The bodies collapse in groups, often in pieces. Smoking fingers and hands and heads and feet and legs fly through the air in a bloody mist. Just as often, the bodies literally disintegrate under the withering machine gun fire, flesh and bone exploding wetly across the asphalt.

Ten minutes, Sarge reminds himself. Ten minutes is a long time. But we can do it. The soldiers and the survivors can handle the Infected, while the Bradley can handle the larger monsters.

He freezes, wincing, as the Bradley fills with a hellish roar that he remembers all too well.

♦

The monster’s screaming cascades across the bridge. The shooting sputters for a moment as the soldiers and survivors flinch in primordial terror. The screaming fades and the firing resumes while the engineers begin removing sandbags and rows of TNT blocks in front of the Bradley. The rig revs its engine and trembles like a bull stomping its feet.

“What in the hell is that?” Ray says.

“We don’t know,” Paul tells him.

“But you’ve met.”

“Yeah, we’ve met. We call it the Demon.”

For several moments, nothing happens. Thick clouds of smoke hover at the end of the bridge in a thick haze, concealing the buses and the Infected. The Infected have stopped coming for the moment. Then the monster screams again, rending the air with its pain and drawing the smoke clouds into strange swirling patterns.

Todd catches a glimpse of a massive horned thing. Then it emerges, a thickly muscled mass of armor and spikes and giant horns instead of eyes set almost directly over its wide chomping mouth. Enormous membranous wings. Todd can feel each of its steps sending a tiny vibration up his spine. The thing is so ugly and terrifying that his eyes glance off of it.

The Bradley’s cannon begins firing. The Demon shudders, stumbling under the blows, but does not appear harmed. It screams, blanking out Todd’s mind for a moment, literally eliminating his memory of the last few seconds, and advances. The smoke follows it in swirling patterns, clinging to its limbs.

The engineers have removed the array of charges from the Bradley’s path and Patterson is shouting into his mike. The rig jolts forward. Todd reads boom stick on the side of its turret as it roars full speed towards the Demon, its cannon pounding.

“What are they doing?” Todd demands, running after the Bradley and waving his arms. “What the hell are you doing?”

Paul grips his arm and pulls him back. “Let them go, Todd.”

“No! They’ll be on the wrong side of the bridge when it goes up!”

The Bradley disappears into the clouds of smoke swirling at the end of the bridge. The thick haze lights up with flashes of cannon fire, the reports echoing back as booming thunder. Then it is gone. The engineers are already returning the charges to the road.

“No!” Todd screams. “No!”

Waves of Infected pour out of the smoke, squealing and howling.

“They had no choice,” Paul shouts into his ear. “Patterson’s not ready and we don’t know what that thing can do to us. We’ve got to finish this, boy!”

One of the behemoths lumbers towards them, groaning under the MG fire, then roars and gallops forward blindly with a sudden, heart-stopping burst of speed until crashing through the rail and falling into the river below.

Ray appears at their side, shooting.

“Fire your fucking guns!” he cries, emptying his rifle into the swarm.

The Towering Things step ponderously among the Infected, their giant faces grinning.

“
Shaw chonk?”

“
Roomy lactate.”

“
Shaw chonk mute chonk.”

“Fire in the hole!”

Trailing a line of smoke, an AT4 rocket streams from the Guard unit, scoring a hit on one of the Towering Things. The top of its head suddenly erupts in a geyser of blood and brains.

“Holy shit,” Todd says in amazement.

He drains his magazine, reloads, fires again.

Hoppers drop down from the cables onto one of the MG teams.

“They’re above us again,” Ethan yells into the noise, firing into the air.

“Got it,” Todd says, adjusting his aim to shoot at the things clambering up the cables. Moments later, two of the creatures fall to the ground with a wet, meaty sound.

The soldiers are screaming and shooting their rifles as the Hoppers leap into their midst, fangs bared and stingers erect. Ethan sees more climbing the cables.

Ray tugs on Paul’s arm. “We got to fall back or we’re screwed.”

“You go, Ray. I’m not moving until this bridge is down.”

“You may already be dead, Preacher, but I’m not.”

“You will be if we don’t blow this thing, understand? We all will!”

Todd glances behind them and sees the engineers running after the retreating five-ton trucks, joined by some of the soldiers. Patterson is backing away slowly at a safe distance, uncoiling wire. He waves at them. The charges are in place, tamped, primed and ready to explode.

Hackett blows his whistle, calling the retreat. It’s time to blow the bridge.

Another AT4 missile zooms down the span, detonating on the far side. A score of Infected disintegrate in the blast, raining blood and flesh on the rest. A severed arm comes to a skidding halt at the survivors’ feet.

“Now can we go?” Ray asks.

The survivors turn and sprint after Patterson, who is already splicing the firing wire to the blasting machine rapidly with expert fingers.

Several engineers are waving at them.

“Fire in the hole!” they shout.

“Get down, get down!”

Ray tackles Todd to the ground as the blasting machine sends an electric pulse through the firing wire and each of the electric blasting caps wired in series in the TNT.

The blasting caps explode, detonating nearly a ton of dynamite in the far right lanes.

The bridge erupts behind them with a cataclysmic peal of thunder. The bodies of the survivors leave the ground as the shockwave hiccups through the bridge. The massive jolt tears the cables, sending them flying through the air like the metal tentacles of a colossal beast, causing one of the towers to shift and slump. The sky goes dark overhead as a massive wave of dust billows over them. Then another section of TNT erupts, sending a second shock wave through the bridge. The ground bucks under them again, and for a moment if feels as if they are all falling into the water.

After the third explosion, the bridge falls silent. Todd raises his head and looks behind him, coughing on dust. The world is dark and filled with swirling particles and he cannot see five feet in any direction. His ears ring loudly. Through it, he can hear the tramp of thousands of feet, sense monstrous shapes moving through the clouds of dust, searching for them. The Demon screams, the sound vibrating through the concrete deck. The Bradley’s cannon booms in response.

“We did it,” he rasps.

“Almost,” Ethan says. “That was the stripping charge. Now we have to go back and finish it.”

♦

The Demon punches the Bradley with a crash that reverberates through the hull and the bodies of the crew. The thing is constantly circling the vehicle one step ahead of the turret. Wendy presses the fast turret switch, increasing the speed of its response, and wrenches the joystick, suddenly bringing the monster’s body into view. As the reticle passes over the Demon’s spiky flank, Sarge fires the cannon point blank with armor-piercing rounds. The monster stomps away with a series of deep booms, roaring in pain. They catch a glimpse of its tail terminating in a spiked ball, then it is gone. Moments later, they hear the Infected pounding everywhere on the hull, trying to get in. The LO AMMO indicator light pops on and begins flashing. Sarge overrides the system, but has no target.

“Where is it?” Wendy cries. “We almost had it!”

boom boom boom boom boom boom

The Demon is rushing them from the right on stomping feet. Wendy yanks on the stick, pulling the turret as fast as it will go. The monster roars and punches the hull and she blacks out for a moment, seeing stars. When she comes to, she cannot remember why she is here.