Stephen Knight: Slaughterhouse

Marsh grunted. The M925 trucks were nicknamed Big Foot, due to the fact they no longer sported twin sets of dual wheels on their rear axles, just single mammoth tires. “Roger, Birddog. We have some maneuvering room around that barricade? Over.”

“Bushmaster, Birddog. Plenty of room on the medians to get past. Uh, be advised, substantial dismounted forces are in the area. We’re working them over.”

“You have support moving up? Over.”

“Roger, Bushmaster.”

A trio of Apaches raced past the Humvee, bolting toward the still-unseen traffic rotary. More Apaches hung back, still pounding the ever-living snot out of the engagement area ahead. The high-explosive shells left divots in the roadway, and any time they struck near one of the Klowns ahead, the Infected went down…in pieces.

“Renner, slow down a bit. We don’t want to drive into their firing lanes.”

“Hooah,” Renner said, taking his foot off the accelerator.

As the Humvee slowed, Marsh thought he felt it wobbling in the front. They needn’t have bothered. The Apache attack ended, and the blacktop ahead was littered with body parts. Wet gore gleamed in the sunlight.

“You got eyes on the rest of the convoy?” Marsh asked.

Renner checked his side view mirror. “Roger, I see ’em.”

“All right, get back on it.”

Renner stomped on the accelerator again, and the Humvee slowly accelerated back to sixty miles per hour. The tires made wet sloshing sounds as they rolled through the carnage left by the gunships. Marsh saw a few bodies still moving, though not with any purpose, which was understandable, given that they were missing several body parts, and blood literally poured from horrendous wounds. The downed Klowns were still laughing, though, their bloodied faces turning toward the vehicle, lips parted, chuckling with their last breaths.

Oh, man…

“Bushmasters, Bushmaster Two-Six. Maintain your formations. Do not stop to engage—leave that for the follow on units. Break. Wizard, we’re still enroute to phase line alpha. Expect to be in position in about four minutes. Over.”

“Bushmaster, Wizard. Roger that.”

Renner cleared his throat. “Captain, I gotta ask you a question, sir.”

“Go ahead,” Marsh said, happy to have something to take his mind off what he had just seen—shattered, broken people, choking on their own blood… and still laughing.

“Captain—I mean, do I call him Colonel?—Lee. Is this guy off his rocker, trying to pass himself off as a field grade officer?”

It was a legitimate question, but Renner had picked a hell of a time to ask it. “Fuck if I know, Renner. What’s your problem?”

“Just want to know if we’re all going to fry for this. I mean, we know the guy isn’t a lieutenant colonel, right?”

Another fair question, but Marsh wasn’t in the mood to entertain notions of punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He was certain Lee might have more than a little explaining to do once everything was over, but the rest of them were just following orders, and Major Walker had pretty much told the battalion to listen to Lee. That suited Marsh just fine. While he didn’t particularly care all that much for Harry Lee, he knew Walker was a blue falcon—a “buddy fucker,” someone who would screw over another soldier if it was to his advantage. Marsh had decided back at Hanscom that he’d rather take directions from Lee, who at least appeared to want to save the battalion. Walker, as far as Marsh was concerned, was looking to save himself.

“Thinking’s not your strong suit, Renner. Just drive the fucking Humvee where I tell you, and leave the rest to me. Worrying is my job. All right?”

Renner bobbed his head. “Roger that.”

The Humvee led the way down the turnpike at just over sixty miles an hour, which was probably faster than they needed to go. Marsh told Renner to ease off a bit. The Big Foots hauling the lightfighters behind them were rated for fifty-five miles per hour and would have a tough time keeping up. Marsh didn’t want to invoke any unnecessary separations in the column. The convoy’s only bonus point was its consolidated firepower, and the trucks were depending on the Humvees to provide covering fire, the same way the Humvees were counting on the good-for-nothing aviators to do the same for them. Marsh understood the desire to speed, but arriving at the phase line with insufficient forces to enact the mission wasn’t going to end in a win for anyone.

“Bushmaster, this is Birddog. Over.”

“Birddog, go for Bushmaster. Over.”

“Bushmaster, Birddog. We’ve got civilian traffic in the area. Looks to be non-infected, real John and Jane Q. Publics trying to get the hell out of here. They’re attracting some attention from Infecteds, so they’ll probably get in your way when you move through the area to set up. Advisory only. Over.”

“Roger that, Birddog. Break.” Marsh decided he had to punt that one. The convoy couldn’t reasonably stop and help every civilian they encountered, but he needed some verification on which to base that presumption. “Wizard, this is Bushmaster Two-Six. Birddog reports civilians are in the mix up ahead. I need verification that we are not in the rescue business any longer. Over.”

If he and the rest of the company were going to dismount, they needed to know what was expected of them. Lee had kind of glossed over that aspect back at Hanscom, and no one had pushed him on it. The entire battalion just wanted to get the fuck back to Drum, and the fluidity of the circumstances were forcing the lightfighters to rely on their training without thinking about repercussions. Such as abandoning the civilians they had sworn an oath to protect.

Lee came back on the radio right away. Marsh had to hand it to him, he wasn’t hiding behind some RTO. “Bushmaster, this is Wizard Six. You’re going to have to make some decisions on the ground, Two-Six. We can’t stop and assist every civilian we run across. Our mission is to beat feet back to Drum. Over.”

The fuck you’re putting this on me, you prick. “Wizard, Bushmaster Two-Six. I need you to say the words. Are you telling us to not assist civilians in the zone? Over.”

Lee responded, “Bushmaster, this is Wizard Six. Assist if able, but do not abandon your position to do so. Clear enough? Over.”

“Roger that, Wizard.”

“Coming up on it,” Renner said.

A smoldering Honda Civic sat on the opposite shoulder, and a blackened corpse lay beside it. Whatever had happened to the car wasn’t recent, judging by the large flock of black crows pecking at the body. The birds watched as the Humvee approached then took flight and alighted on the power lines that paralleled the road. If the birds were hanging around, most likely no one else was in the immediate vicinity. Marsh had to hand it to the crows. They had balls, hanging out and grabbing some barbeque while Apaches and Kiowas thundered past them.

To their left, the expanse of the correctional facility presented itself. At first, it looked perfectly normal, then Marsh saw the windows of the guard tower were missing, and several bodies hung from its sills. All wore guard uniforms, and all had been horribly mutilated. To his right, Marsh expected to see the state police barracks, but all that was left was garbage. The entire building was essentially gone, as if it had been hit by a two thousand pound bomb. All that remained was twisted wreckage and curling smoke. Next to the barracks was a public works garage. All its doors were open, revealing nothing but empty bays. Not even a single sanitation truck remained.

Ahead lay the traffic rotary. Two feeder roads allowed traffic to approach the circle, but a battered fire truck lay on its side, blocking direct access to the rotary. Its red hide was pockmarked with bullet strikes. Surrounding it was a ring of corpses, all dressed in what Marsh thought of as “tribal chic,” the mode of attire so many of the Infected had adopted. Nearby, a passenger car had come to a halt with its windshield shattered, possibly collateral damage from one of the attacking Apaches. A family of four cowered behind it, and the husband was frantically waving at the approaching convoy. The mother knelt beside the car, clutching a toddler to her chest, while an older child crouched behind her. Injured Infected crawled toward them, leaving trails of gore in their wake as they dragged their shattered bodies across the ground. The Infected were still laughing, coils of intestine trailing after them. One was so close the man had to stop trying to flag down the convoy and bash its head in with a baseball bat.