Stephen Knight: Slaughterhouse

“Shoot!” Marsh shouted.

His command disappeared amidst the din of the Mk 19 autogrenade launcher as Specialist McNeely opened fire. Forty-millimeter high explosive rounds ripped across the front of the bus, blasting apart its grille and the grisly trophies that had been mounted there, sending plastic and sheet metal and ribbons of flesh whirling through the air. In less than a second, the bus’s diesel engine lay bare after the engine compartment surrounding it disintegrated. Next, the engine itself lurched back like a startled cat, shorn off its mounts by bright sparking explosions of orange flecked with gray as the grenades pulverized it.

But the bus kept coming, a victim of its own momentum. Marsh caught a glimpse of its driver. A woman leaned over the big steering wheel, her face painted with blood, her teeth a brilliant white against the darkness of her wide mouth as she laughed uproariously. Her face disappeared as the second Humvee’s fifty caliber chattered behind them, audible over the Mk 19 as it continued to slam round after round into the bus. The driver exploded as the big rounds lanced through the compartment, blasting her into pieces.

The bus kept rolling, even as McNeely shifted his fire, raising the Mk 19’s barrel until it was firing directly into the bus’s cabin. The grenades exploded, sending a shower of safety glass raining across the street. Marsh watched as the bus’s black bumper seemed to target him, growing larger and larger.

Then, the Humvee darted past like a fortunate fat pig that miraculously managed to bolt across the path of a charging hippo without injury. McNeely spun around in the cupola, continuing to fire at the bus. Seconds later, he stopped. Either the soldier had run out of ammo, or he had remembered his training and ceased fire lest he risk blowing away the friendly vehicles behind him. Marsh heard expended forty-millimeter cartridges rolling around on top of the Humvee as he looked in the side view mirror. Trailing smoke from its ravaged engine compartment and smoldering interior, the bus hurtled through the intersection like a mortally wounded B-17 bomber in an old World War II movie. It slammed into traffic on the opposite side of the roadway in a cacophonous explosion that sent shattered glass and sheet metal flying through the air. The bus plowed halfway over a pickup truck and came to an unceremonious halt, its squared rear end pointing toward the sky. One lane on the eastbound side was blocked by its carcass, but it was out of the westbound lanes entirely. The rest of the convoy would be able to get through.

“McNeely, reload!” Renner shouted. “Reload, reload, reload!”

Marsh faced forward again as several dozen people emerged from the tree line on either side of the turnpike. They grinned slavishly, caught up in the grips of some great hilarity, their eyes bright and aflame with madness. Some were naked, adorned with necklaces of fingers, ears, hands, and feet. Others wore clothing, from jeans and sneakers to police uniforms to business suits. They carried all manner of implements, from chainsaws to baseball bats, to golf clubs to hunting rifles. The rifles got Marsh’s attention immediately.

“Wizard, Wizard, Bushmaster is in contact!” he shouted over the radio as the Humvee bore down on the crowd.

“Reloading!” McNeely shouted from the cupola.

Lee responded, instead of the expected radio telephone operator. “Bushmaster, this is Wizard. Say pos. Over.”

Just past the fucking burning school bus in the intersection, Copernicus, Marsh wanted to shout. “Wizard, we are approximately four klicks west of Hanscom. We were ambushed but made it past the first element. Approaching second element now.” Someone stepped out from behind the brush just in front of the Humvee and hurled something. Marsh caught a glimpse of a small figure cartwheeling through the air before it bounced off the windshield, leaving behind a smear of bright blood.

“Did they just throw a fucking baby at us?” Weir shouted through his mask.

Marsh didn’t want to think about it, but the notion chilled him to his very core. He keyed his microphone. “We need some Apaches up here. We are danger close to a platoon-sized enemy element. Over!”

“Bushmaster, Tomcat is enroute. Over.”

“What do you want me to do?” Renner asked.

“What do you think I want you to do, man?” Marsh snapped. “Drive!”

Overhead, the Mk 19 opened up again as McNeely walked rounds through the grouping that was dead ahead. The Klowns didn’t even seem to notice. In fact, every time one of their number fell, legs blasted away, body ripped asunder by shrapnel, they howled with laughter. McNeely swung the autogrenade launcher from side to side, but its cyclic rate was fairly low. If it had been an M2, he could have cut them all down in just a few sweeps. While the high explosive rounds caused horrible damage, the Humvee’s rate of closure made it difficult for the gunner to hose them all. Something else struck the windshield right in front of Marsh’s face, gouging a large chip out of the bullet-resistant glass. A bullet. Another round caromed off the Humvee’s hood, and McNeely swore as a third bullet slammed into the armor surrounding his weapon. He kept firing, but despite the onslaught, the people charged, still cackling with mad glee.

Marsh pushed himself back in his seat as the Humvee roared right into the crowd at sixty miles an hour. The first ambusher met his end when the Humvee’s reinforced bumper slammed into him, driving him backward into the crowd before he slipped from sight. The Mk 19 fell silent, and the vehicle bounced ferociously as Renner cursed, fighting against the wheel while keeping the accelerator pinned to the floor. The din was fantastic. All Marsh could hear were the horrible impacts, punctuated by shouts and jeers and never-ending laughter. The side view mirror struck a woman with a chainsaw, sending her tumbling through the air before it folded against the door with such force that the glass inside its frame shattered. From behind, the fifty cal opened up again, which Marsh took to be a good sign. They weren’t cut off from the rest of the element, and that was positively heartwarming.

“Bushmasters, get ready for close-quarters battle!” he said over the radio. He was pretty certain the rest of the column knew what was up, but he wanted to warn them, anyway. The Klowns were attacking with a zeal he had never seen before. In Cambridge, they had certainly tried their best to kill the lightfighters, but he’d never seen them sacrifice themselves quite so readily.

And then, they were through.

“How’s it holding up?” Marsh asked Renner.

“Could use an alignment,” Renner said.

Marsh turned in his seat to check on the soldiers behind him. Weir and Jacobs looked back at him from behind their MOPP masks, expressions unreadable. McNeely had dropped down between them, holding on to the lip of the cupola with both hands. When Marsh met his eyes, the soldier seemed to sigh before returning to his position behind the Mk 19’s control grips. Behind the speeding Humvee, more gunfire crackled before it was drowned out by the heavy BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM of the Apache chain guns.

Marsh faced forward again. Ahead, trees exploded. More cackling nut jobs had been lying in wait, but they had exposed themselves too soon, and now the Apaches were delivering their world-famous thirty-millimeter pain killer. Marsh watched no fewer than twenty people disintegrate beneath the withering firepower the attack helicopters delivered.

He got back on the radio. “Birddog, this is Bushmaster. You guys need to do a better job scouting. We’ve been engaged twice! Over.”

The lead Kiowa pilot responded, the aircraft’s fifty caliber chattering in the background. “Roger that, Bushmaster. We’re clearing the intersection just south of phase line alpha. Be advised, the approach to the traffic circle has been barricaded, but you can probably push through it with your Big Foots if you don’t want to go around. Over.”