Verge of Extinction (Apex Predator Book 3) (19 page)

He signaled Jackson to lead the men behind the truck.  They began to crawl.  As they did, SSgt Brown popped up near the front of the black truck and began firing on the third gun.  He had seen the muzzle flashes from one of the windows in the middle of the building.  His first burst caused the muzzle flashes to stop momentarily. Soon the second gun began to fire at him, forcing him under cover.

Within a few seconds, Jackson and the Haven men began firing on the second gun.  SSgt Brown looked at the Island man next to him.  The man just rocked back and forth and covered his ears.  SSgt Brown tried to get his attention, going so far as kicking the man.  It was to no avail.  The man was done.  It was too much to ask of him to stand up in the face of automatic weapons fire.

Now it was time to figure a way out of here.  A smoke grenade or two might give them some cover.  But, alas, he didn’t have a smoke grenade.  He glanced around.  What could he use?  He looked at the Jeep.  Both front tires were flat; a puddle of oil was collecting under the still running engine.  Not for long, he thought.  Then it hit him: the oil.  He looked at the Jeep.  Bullets smacked the grill.

The sound of a lighter snapping closed caught his attention.  He was stunned at what he saw.  The Island man had lit a cigarette and was puffing on it as fast as he could.   He was about to slap the cigarette out of the man’s mouth when an idea hit.  He rifled through the man’s pockets until he found the lighter.  It was a silver Zippo with a skull and cross bones etched into the side.  He opened it and struck the flint with the wheel.  It lit on the first try.  That was it.

He jerked the passenger door of the black truck open.  Then he reached in and grabbed one of the cup holders.  He let the oil from the Jeep fill the grey plastic container.  Then he crawled under the truck and dumped the fluid under the driver’s side front tire, making sure to smear some on the tire itself.  Then he lit the Zippo again and ignited the small puddle of oil.

Within a minute or so the tire was engulfed in flames, thick black smoke billowing from the front corner of the truck.  For good measure, he repeated the process with the passenger side tire and the Jeep tire.  He decided to wait a few more minutes, allowing for maximum obscuration before he would try to lead the survivors out.

Suddenly rifles began firing from the wood line, and the other truck shot out of the trees like a canon.  The driver must have decided that the fire meant that his friends were in too much trouble and he decided it was finally time to get into the fight.

Unfortunately for him, Ripley saw him long before he would reach the smoke that the others were by then taking refuge in.  He began to pour 7.62 mm full metal jacket rounds towards the large red truck.  Several rounds impacted the windshield near the driver’s seat.  The truck suddenly veered to the left as the engine revved.  It was obvious to all who saw it that the truck was under full power, and no control.  Riggs gave Ripley a high five.

The celebration was cut short when they realized that the truck was going to slam into the building. Riggs ran down the stairs just as the red truck slammed into the corner of the building at an oblique angle.  Instead of stopping when it hit the corner, the truck knocked a seven foot hole in the corner of the building and kept going.  It didn’t stop for another fifty yards, and then only after it high centered itself on a wooden post driven into the ground long ago.

SSgt Brown was satisfied that the smoke was as thick as it was going to be.  He also noticed that the incoming fire had almost stopped.  “Come on!” he yelled to the others.  Without another word, he jumped up and ran to the back of the dead man’s truck.  The Island man jumped up and ran with him, his cigarette falling from his lips as he ran.

The group didn’t receive any fire from the building as they crossed the hundred yards of road to re-enter the tree line.  What they found was disheartening to say the least.  Of the twenty-four men that started the day, he could account for only fourteen.  All four of his vehicles were out of action.  A gunshot from a few feet away caused him to turn.  Several zombies had been attracted to the sound of gunfire.

Time to move, he thought.  He glanced back at the vehicles, two of which were engulfed in flames.  Something off the road about 50 yards from the burning trucks caught his attention.  He’d noticed the motorcycle before they had been ambushed.  But, he hadn’t noticed the body.

There, behind the big bike was the body of a man in jeans and denim vest.  A rifle was lying at an odd angle across the bike.  It looked to the old soldier as if the man had been using the bike as cover while he was taking aim at…  Ah, he thought, that was it.  Whoever was in the building had shot the biker while he was aiming at them.

A lump suddenly appeared in his throat.  Was this an ambush?  Or, was this some kind of friendly fire incident?  He thought about the guys in the first truck shooting up the housing area, acting like this was some big game.

Another gunshot brought him back to the present.  Jackson was looking at him for direction.  He pointed west, away from the building.  “Let’s get the hell out of here.  Jackson, get us off this post and find us some wheels.  You gentlemen just follow Private Jackson.”

Jackson led them to the fence running along the west side of the base.   Deciding to take a chance, he led them south along the fence.  Luckily for them, there were no zombies along this fence.  Jackson had hoped to lead them to their original breach and out onto the road.

As they approached the breach, Jackson slowed and then stopped in a crouch.  Slowly the other members of the group did likewise.  SSgt Brown duck-walked to the front of the column.  Even before Jackson pointed, he knew they couldn’t use the breach.  A steady stream of undead was entering the base, undoubtedly drawn to the sound of gunfire.

“Holy Shit!” one of the Haven men exclaimed.  SSgt Brown gave him a nasty look and held a single finger to his lips.  But, it was too late.  Several of the zombies had turned on the group and were moaning loudly.

“Shit!”  He leapt up.  “C’mon, follow me.”  He led them back along the fence.

He led them to the northern corner of the base.  There they found a golf course.  He stopped at the edge of the trees surrounding the open area.  The golf course was covered with zombies.  He counted thirty and stopped.

Quickly they moved east again.  He didn’t like the idea of heading back towards those machineguns, but there was no other option.  North and South were blocked by zombies and the fence along the western edge of the base was topped in razor wire.

He led them around several small, seemingly empty, buildings and through some sparse trees.  On the other side was a motor pool.  It appeared that most of the equipment was gone, but there were a couple of HMMWV’s a half-dozen 5 ton trucks, and some specialty engineer equipment, including bulldozers and forklifts.

His heart skipped a beat.  This is what they had come for.  He looked back.  There weren’t any zombies close to them, and only a few seemed to be showing any interest.

“John, get your people working on those vehicles.  Find us a few that run.” He was pointing at the vehicles in the lot.  “Stay together and don’t leave without us.”

He turned to Jackson.  “Come with me.  I got a hunch.”  He led Jackson through the next motor pool.  From there, they were about 50 yards from the building with the machineguns.  They’d all seen the truck take out the wall.  Single gunshots could be heard from inside.  A zombie tried to enter through the hole in the wall.  Another gunshot and the monster fell lifeless.

The pair of soldiers could see several more zombies moving towards the hole in the wall.  They looked at each other.  Then back towards the housing area and the unseen breach in the fence.  They both understood the situation.  Whoever was inside that building was on borrowed time.

“We can’t just let them die,” the young trooper said to the NCO.  His eyes pleaded with SSgt Brown to do something.  SSgt Brown had doubted his own instincts.  Even as they snuck through the motor pool, he hadn’t decided if he was going to risk himself or his people for these strangers.  Jackson’s endorsement sealed the deal.

He stood and raised his rifle.  There were six zombies between him and the hole in the building.  He fired several aimed shot into the closest two.  Jackson’s rifle fired twice, dropping two more zombies.  The last zombie fell to the unseen rifleman inside the building.

He glanced at Jackson and shrugged.  Fuck it!  He ran to the side of the hole, Jackson a step behind him.

“Who the hell are you?” a gruff voice called from inside.  SSgt Brown realized that the unseen person had seen them running and had not engaged them.  Things were beginning to look promising

“Staff Sergeant Brown, 108
th
Cavalry;” he answered as confidently.

“Cavalry huh?  The Cavalry trade in their humvees for orange Jeeps?”

“What’s left of the 108
th
has,” he countered.  “But there aren’t many of us left.”

“What do you guys want?”

“We’re just here to liberate some of that construction equipment.”

“So you’re here to steal US government equipment?”

“I was thinking more like re-appropriating military equipment from Navy to Louisiana National Guard.”

The man inside chuckled loudly.  “C’mon in.  We’ll discuss your appropriation of my equipment.”

John was getting a little worried.  The soldiers had been gone for about ten minutes.  They could still hear single shots coming from the building.   He rubbed his head as he did another inventory of the vehicles they’d liberated.  Nope, it hadn’t changed from forty seconds ago:  Two trucks the soldiers called HEMTT’s, two hummers, a bulldozer and a forklift.

What the hell, he thought?  He glanced at his watch again and then at his vehicles again.  Yep, still the same.  He rubbed his head again.

Jackson suddenly appeared in front of the hummer.  He indicated for them to mount the military vehicles.  He directed two men to ride shotgun on the dozer and forklift.  He jumped into the driver’s seat of one of the five-tons.  “Follow me!” he shouted.

SSgt Brown directed Jackson as he backed the large green truck to the front door of the building.  The rest of the vehicles formed a rough semicircle around the large truck. Chief Romanov’s people loaded their gear in the truck, followed by food, water, and ammo.  One sailor helped another injured sailor into one of the HMMWV’s.  The sailor had a bloody bandage tied around his right shoulder,  a second one tied his right arm securely to his body.

John watched as the military folks carried out two bodies wrapped in dark green wool blankets.  Dark stains indicated where blood had soaked through the wool.  A trail of red drops marked the path of the fallen.  They gently placed each body in the bed of the truck.  John didn’t know the difference in the uniforms, but neither was the dark blue that the Navy people wore.  He could tell by the size of the tan boots that one was female.  His heart sank just thinking about it.

After loading the vehicles, Chief Romanov led them to an outdoor supply area.  One of his Seabees loaded a pallet of empty sandbags into the back of one of the large trucks.  Then he took the group by the armory.  It had been stripped pretty bare.  They liberated another M240B, a couple of M16’s, and a-half-dozen semiautomatic pistols.  They were also able to find some ammo.  Both NCO’s agreed that there was not nearly enough.

The little convoy knocked over another section of fence on the way out.  They were forced to drive on through yards as they made their way to the Haven.  During the trip, Chief Romanov told them of the story of his little class.

When he told them about the man on the motorcycle, SSgt Brown’s spidy-senses tingled.  He knew some great people in the Guard who were bikers.  They wore the leathers, jeans, chaps, and even the Nazi helmet.  But something about these bikers around here had him worried.  His thoughts drifted to Ms. Hebert.

Jen could hear the sound of heavy diesel engines long before the group arrived.  She said a silent prayer that no one was hurt.  She held her breath as the vehicles began pulling into the Haven.  She didn’t let it out until she’d seen both SSgt Brown and Jackson.

SSgt Brown introduced Chief Romanov and his Seabees to Roy.  The sailor seemed happy to see another sailor.  When he found out that the sailors were all Seabees, he was ecstatic.  Chief Romanov ensured Roy that he would turn the Haven into an impenetrable fortress in no time.  The three agreed that two of the Chief’s people would go with SSgt Brown and his people back to the Island.  The wounded sailor, Hauser, would also travel with them to the Island for medical treatment.  Jen assured his buddies that he would live.

A quiet fell over the group as the sailors began removing the bodies from the truck.  The military men snapped to attention and saluted.  Chief Romanov hoped that no one noticed him wiping tears on his sleeve.