Scott Sigler: Pandemic

Paulius reached a hand back up, quietly, and grabbed the edge of the floor mat. He silently pulled it over the hole.

He waited in the darkness. He wiggled his body enough to draw his sidearm. He heard footsteps inside the bus.

“This forearm looks kinda okay,” the man said. “Kinda.”

“Great,” the woman said. “This is only temporary, Harry. I can’t wait until we get out of here in a couple of hours. I bet cash money there’s fresh meat down in Champaign.”

A few more footsteps, then nothing. Paulius sat silent, listened to the Converted’s fading conversation.

On his hands and knees, he scooted backward through the tight space, across the frozen ground until he felt concrete. He stood: he was inside the firehouse — a long, wide garage, gear hanging from the walls, electric heaters spaced around the floor, their coils glowing orange — and sitting there pretty as you please was the red, white, black and chrome bulk of Fire Engine 98, all thirty feet of her. Polished, clean and gleaming.

The boxy cab alone looked as big as an SUV; it would hold six people, easy, with plenty of window room to fire weapons out either side. The wide, wraparound windshield took up the top half of the vehicle’s ten-foot-wide flat front.

A square, chrome grille sat below that windshield, lights and flashers on either side. The front bumper was a massive thing: red-trimmed white metal sticking out some two feet from the grille, perfect for smashing past abandoned cars. Below the right-side windows at the rear of the cab, inch-high gold letters spelled out CHICAGO FIRE DEPT. Up on the front right, gold lettering read ENGINE CO. And below that a big, white 98.

The boxy rear section of the vehicle was around fourteen feet long and ten feet high, with a bed full of neatly coiled hose. Long equipment boxes ran the length of the bed, a ladder strapped horizontally to each side. Anyone in the bed would be able to take cover behind those equipment boxes, rest weapons on the flat tops and be protected from most small-arms fire.

Separating the rear bed from the cab, a three-foot-thick section of chrome packed with hose connections and valves. And on top of that control section, the crown jewel, the thing that might let Tim Feely’s plan actually work: a water cannon mounted on a swivel.

Bosh let out a low whistle.

“Ho-leee shit, Commander,” he said. “I’d rather have a tank, but since we don’t have one, this is pretty damn close.”

Bosh opened the driver’s door. He had to step up on a footrest to look inside. He reached in, grabbed something, then leaned back out and dangled that something in front of Paulius.

A key chain with a single key.

“Looks like they were considering bugging out,” Bosh said. He pointed to the rear of the building. “There’s a good fifty feet of space behind this baby, so we can build up a head of steam.”

“How are we going to move that bus?”

“Don’t think we have to,” Bosh said. “It’s just a shell. They took the engine out. Drive train, too. That’s why we could crawl under it. They even kept it warm in here, maybe to make sure the fire truck would start right up. I think those cops were getting ready to ram their way out and take their chances.”

Paulius nodded. If he’d left the cops alone, would they have driven to safety? He couldn’t allow himself to worry about that now.

“I’ll figure out how to get this blood into the water tank,” Paulius said. “Have to make sure the water’s warm enough, but Feely said the hydras should survive no problem.”

He looked at Bosh. “You’re qualified in heavy vehicles. You want to drive?”

Bosh smiled. “Hell yes, Commander. Navy SEALs was my second choice. As a kid, I always wanted to be a fireman.”

Ten tons of truck smashed into the firehouse door, denting the metal outward and knocking the gutted bus a good five feet back.

Paulius was standing outside the firehouse, rifle snug against his shoulder, waiting for the inevitable reaction from the locals. The big diesel engine gurgled as Bosh reversed, then revved when he floored it. The rolling door ripped outward as the truck again smashed into the bus, knocking it back at an angle. One more shot would create enough room for Engine 98 to pull out onto the street. Bosh reversed; the dented roll-up door slid off the truck, clattered limply on the concrete drive.

Paulius spotted two people rushing in from the west, a man and a woman, and another man coming from the east. From all up and down the street, people scurried out of buildings like angry ants defending a hive.

The people from the west were fifty yards away, shooting hunting rifles as they ran.

Paulius sighted in, breathed out and squeezed the trigger. The woman’s head snapped back as her body fell forward — dead before she hit the ground. The man saw this, slowed. Paulius squeezed off another shot. The man spun right, left hand clutching at his shoulder.

The big diesel roared again. Engine 98 drove over the fallen roll-up door and smashed past the bus.

Paulius spun to the right, aimed and fired. The man coming from the east doubled over, fell face-first onto the snowy sidewalk.

Paulius sprinted for the fire truck, which was already turning left onto Chicago Avenue. He hopped up on the rear bumper, then scrambled into the hose-lined bed. He stayed low, picking targets as he went.

So many of them… coming so fast…

He didn’t need to give Bosh instructions. The man had been given one clear objective: get back to the others as fast as possible, don’t stop for anything .

Paulius dropped two more bad guys before Engine 98 turned north on Mies van der Rohe Way. He faced forward. The cab’s roof topped out at his sternum, giving him excellent protection from the front while still providing a full range of fire.

He heard Bosh’s voice in his headset: “Commander, you might want to hold tight. It’s about to get violent.”

Up ahead, Paulius saw a line of cars set up bumper-to-bumper, blocking the street. He ducked down, wedged himself between the back of the cabin and the water cannon’s metal post. On the inside wall of the passenger-side tool box that ran the length of the bed, he saw a red fire axe held firmly in a bracket. If he ran out of ammo, it might come down to using that.

Bosh floored the gas. Engine 98 responded, picking up speed. The wide, flat, front metal bumper hit first, bashing a BMW to the left and a Ford truck to the right.

“Ho-leee shit ,” Bosh said. “You see that fucker fly?”

Paulius rose, looked for targets — there was no shortage, as Converted popped up on either side of the road, in building windows, just about everywhere he looked.

Aim, fire. Aim, fire .

The fire engine clipped the front of a UPS truck, spinning the delivery vehicle in a full three-sixty.

Aim, fire. Aim, fire .

The engine whined as Bosh shifted gears. He tried to weave through the obstacles as well as he could, but there were just too many cars. Engine 98 smashed into an old Buick, tearing the rear end clean off.

Aim, fire .

It was working. They were just a few blocks away from the clothing store.

Paulius thumbed his “talk” button, hoping the short-range comms would work this far out.

“Klimas to Roth. Klimas to Roth, over?”

Roth’s voice came back almost immediately: “I read you, Commander.”

“Pack ’em up, Roth. Extraction in three minutes!”

Steve Stanton’s fingers squeezed tighter on the cell phone.

“A fire truck? McMasters, what the fuck are you talking about?”