Craig DiLouie: Pandemic

They waved and flashed their breasts as the Humvees passed.

“Can I light them up?” Foster yelled, yanking the charging handle on his heavy machine gun.

“Don’t waste the ammo.”

“It’s time for some payback, Captain.”

Lee shook his head. With the Taliban, payback had meant something. Killing the infected for payback was like punching a shelf after you accidentally slammed your head against it. The shelf wouldn’t care, and you’d probably just hurt yourself.

Murphy growled, “Give it a rest, Foster. You’ll see more action soon enough. We need you to stay alert up there.”

“Wilco, Staff Sergeant.”

The little convoy drove the rest of the way through the park without incident.

“I got some family here,” Murphy said after a while. “Distant relatives.”

“I didn’t know,” Lee said.

The big staff sergeant shrugged.

“Are they okay? Have you heard anything?”

“No.”

“If they’re on our route, we could stop and check on them.” It was an offer Lee would not have made to anyone else.

“Right now, sir, I’m focused on getting back to Hanscom alive.” Murphy spit into his cup. “We weren’t close or anything, but I’d visit them from time to time. I liked coming here. You know, it used to be a really nice town.”

Lee knew he should say something earnest about it becoming a great city again once they completed their mission. The streets would be packed with people and traffic, and the Red Sox would play again at Fenway Park. But he couldn’t. He said nothing.

At that moment, he realized he’d lost faith in their ability to win this war.

Murphy sighed and nodded as if he’d read the captain’s mind. “Yeah.”

“We’re still here,” Lee said. “We won’t lose it all.”

It was more a vow than a prediction.

Scott Wade knew he was going to die in this hospital.

He’d survived horrific battles against the Taliban over the past year. Only once had he truly been convinced he was going to be killed. After it became clear the Americans were pulling out to fight a new war, the Taliban, still fighting the old war, staged an all-out assault on Combat Outpost Katie. They wanted American bodies and weapons as trophies to show off. They could then claim they’d driven out the infidels.

In a night attack, the Taliban took out the gun placements in the tower with rocket-propelled grenades. Soviet-era heavy machine guns rattled along the ridges. The red sparks of tracer rounds blurred across the rocks. A stray rocket blew up the fuel truck and drenched the compound in fire. The ammo in a burning Humvee began to cook and pop at intervals.

The first two waves of fighters blew themselves up on the claymores. The rest raced to the walls. They threw grenades and emptied their AK-47s.

The platoon threw everything they had at them. The air filled with hot metal flying in all directions. After Guzman toppled with a smoking hole in his helmet, Wade took over his M240 machine gun and returned fire until the barrel got so hot it began to melt.

Apache gunships approached but didn’t engage, the soldiers afraid of killing American troops. Outpost Katie replied if the helicopters didn’t start dropping ordnance, they were going to be overrun. The Apaches opened up with their chain guns. After this pounding, the guerillas melted away into the mountains while the gunships pursued like angry wasps and mopped up the stragglers.

Wade had been wounded in three places on his left arm. Bravo Company’s medic performed some quick field surgery and told him he didn’t rate a medevac. The next day, the company struck its colors and drove down to Kabul, which was in chaos due to the plague, then flew out of the Sandbox to Vicenza, Italy. Then to Fort Drum in New York State. Then to Boston.

To Christ Hospital, where, ironically, he was going to die.

As far as he knew, most of his platoon had already been wiped out. He didn’t have a weapon. Pain lanced through his ankle. His left leg could barely take his weight. His right trembled with exhaustion. He was on the fifth floor of a large building filled with thousands of homicidal maniacs. And one of the best soldiers he’d ever known wanted to stab him to death.

Ramos lurched over the corpses. Wade wondered what was holding the man together. Half his face was gone. He moved jerkily, like a puppet.

Wade limped down the corridor and pushed the stairwell door open. He looked down and heard echoing sounds of struggle. Stomping feet. Shouts. Laughter. From outside, he could hear the hammering of the fifty-cal machine guns mounted on the Humvees.

Nowhere to go but up.

He grit his teeth and pulled his body up the stairs one step at a time.

Behind him, the door slammed open.

“ An Army of one, motherfucker! ”

Wade kept climbing. He finally came to a roof exit and prayed it was unlocked.

The door opened with a squeak of the hinges. He cried with relief and stepped outside.

Bright sunshine washed over him. The light flickered as a squadron of Apache gunships roared past, bristling with their low-slung chain guns. They weren’t part of his mission. He had no way to contact them.

Wade paused to catch his breath. The view struck him. Parts of Boston were on fire. He smelled smoke. The ever-present sirens had fallen silent, replaced by a distant chorus of screams and laughter. The epidemic had reached some tipping point. After weeks of endless struggle, the military had finally lost control.

Behind him, the door banged open. Ramos staggered from the dark opening as relentless as the Terminator. He laughed with red teeth. He still held his pig-sticker. “ Get some. ”

Wade backed away until he reached the edge of the roof. Far below, he saw the fifty-cals rocking on the Humvees. The gunners stood hunched behind the heavy machine guns, blasting away at the hospital entrance.

He had nowhere to go. He was going to have to fight. That, or jump to his death.

Then he spotted a maintenance ladder. He hoped it ran down the length of the building. It was a chance he had to take.

The pain in his foot nearly blinded him when he tried to move again. Ramos laughed, terrifyingly close. Wade didn’t look behind. Instead, he doubled his pace, crying out in pain. He gripped the ladder rails and began to climb down, favoring his right foot.

The ladder reached all the way to the ground. At the halfway point, Wade looked up and saw his sergeant’s grimacing face at the top. He resumed his downward climb. The sergeant wasn’t following. Wade knew he was going to make it.

His body tingled as the shadow fell over him. He heard rags of clothing flapping in the wind. Something was coming at him—fast.

It was Ramos. Wade hugged the ladder as the sergeant flew past. He cried out as searing pain ripped across his face.

Ramos kept falling, laughing all the way, until his body smashed against the asphalt.

Wade pulled off his glove and touched his cheek. His fingers came away red. He was wounded. His entire face hurt like a son of a bitch. Blood poured down his neck. Ramos had jumped and sliced him on the way down, cutting Wade’s cheek wide open.

Wade remembered seeing him lick the knife. I’ve got the Bug! His mind blanked out with fear. He counted the seconds.

Nothing happened.

I’m okay. I’m okay. Please let me be okay.

He knew the surviving members of the platoon would be frantically trying to contact Lieutenant Harris. The idea that they might give up and bug out, leaving him there, terrified him even more than the possibility of infection.

He hurried the rest of the way down and limped toward the vehicles, waving his arms. Halfway there, he collapsed with a groan.