Craig DiLouie: Pandemic

“So what happens after Drum?” Perez asked.

“We have options,” Lee said. “We may become attached to another command that can provide the resources we need to remain combat effective. We could establish a sphere of protection for civilians. Set up refugee camps if somebody can supply them. Major Walker had another idea. It’s crazy or bold, take your pick. But the way things are going, it may be our last chance.”

“What’s that, sir?”

Lee said, “Florida.”

Step off in less than two hours. A night march through a city of nightmares.

Wade entered a dark room to test the night vision goggles mounted on his helmet. His vision instantly went from 20/20 to 20/40 as the world became rendered in luminous shades of green. The monocular view provided forty-degree tunnel vision and eliminated depth perception.

In short, the NVGs sucked. But they worked, amplifying the dying daylight coming through the window thirty thousand times, turning night into day. Tonight, out on the street, being able to see would give him a critical survival edge. The Klowns were crazy, but they weren’t superhuman. They couldn’t see in the dark.

He turned them off and flipped them up from his eyes.

And saw the horde.

There were hundreds of them, a maniacal army of Klowns dressed in rags and covered in fresh scars and other tribal mutilations whose significance was known only to the infected. Their laughter filled the night, drowning out the popping of distant gunfire. They came out of the dusk in a mob and filled the street, dragging their weapons and grisly trophies along the ground.

They stopped in front of the stadium and listened to the throbbing bass of multiple boom boxes turned up too loud for common sense. Bouncing on bare feet, they grinned and clawed at the air. They wanted so badly to get inside.

Across the throng, men dropped onto their backs and pulled taut powerful slingshots, their feet raised against the handles. Their brothers lovingly placed bright objects onto the leather pads. The men released. The objects sailed through the air. Some burst against the wall. The rest sailed over the top of the stadium and disappeared.

They looked like water balloons.

Wade ran into the hallway, calling for Rawlings. He found her in an office overlooking the stadium. Soldiers crowded the windows, staring down at the playing field where red, white and blue balloons fell out of the sky and splashed among the refugees.

“What the hell are they doing?” Fisher cried.

The crowds parted around the impacts, leaving people writhing on the ground.

“Some type of poison, looks like,” Gray said.

Kaffa . Wade remembered something he’d read in one of his military history books. During the Middle Ages, the Tartars laid siege to Kaffa, a Genoese trading colony established in the Crimea, but they failed to capture it after the Black Plague broke out in their camp. Before they left, they placed the bodies of their dead on catapults and launched them into the city by the hundreds. Within weeks, plague had decimated the city’s defenders. Biological warfare.

One of the bodies on the playing field lurched to his feet and ran at the nearest refugees, clawing at them. Shots rang out as more balloons rained from the sky. Thousands fled into the stands, filling the air with an endless scream. Scores of people fought across the field. Tents collapsed or burst into flames as cook fires spilled.

“It’s piss,” Wade said. “They filled the balloons with their piss. It’s infecting people.”

“The Bug can’t survive outside the body that long,” Rawlings said.

Wade touched his face, fingering the dirty bandage.

Gray smashed the window with the butt of his rifle and propped his weapon on the sill. He took aim.

Wade grabbed the barrel and yanked it up. “What are you doing?”

“There are Klowns down there!”

“You’re going to get us all killed.”

“Fuck you! We can stop it. We can hold this place.”

“We can’t. Trust me. I saw them.”

“How many?” Rawlings asked.

Wade looked her in the eye. “Too many.”

They froze as something heavy thudded in the distance.

BOOM

“Aw, shit,” Fisher said, backing away from the window. He looked around as if searching for somewhere to hide. “Aw, fuck. What is that?”

“Battering ram,” Wade said. “I saw them carrying it.”

“We’re okay here for now,” Rawlings said. “We’re in a different building.”

“Are you kidding?” Fisher asked. “It’s only a matter of time before they find us.”

“They won’t find us. We’re getting the heck out of Dodge.”

BOOM

Gray fixed his fierce glare on her. “Those people down there won’t stand a chance without our help, Sergeant. It’s our job. It’s what we signed up to do.”

“There’s nothing we can do for them, soldier.”

“The hell there isn’t. We can fight.”

“Then stay and fight. I’m bugging out. Those people down there are already dead.”

BOOM

Wade didn’t move. The battle on the playing field had spread into the stands. The screaming never seemed to break. He blinked at the gunshots. People stampeded in all directions, trying to flee the knots of fighting. Bodies rolled down the steps. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the sight.

“We have to move,” Rawlings pleaded. “Now.”

Wade looked at her in mute horror. All the teambuilding and planning they’d done was for nothing. They were broken. Already they were falling apart.

BOOM

“Make a hole!” The sergeant who’d lain on the floor in a stupor for the past few days staggered past them to the broken window. He rested his carbine on the windowsill and started shooting.

Wade saw figures drop. He couldn’t tell if they were infected or not.

CRASH

The Klowns flooded onto the playing field, trampling the tents. The screaming rose in pitch. In seconds, the field resembled a slaughterhouse. The Klowns raced into the stands next, hacking at anything that moved and spreading their disease to their ever-present soundtrack of shrieking laughter. Blood splashed across the bleachers. Some of the crazies blared long, random notes on trumpets and tubas. Others frolicked among the dead, collecting their grisly trophies.

“Oh my God,” Fisher said. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

The sergeant dropped an empty mag and loaded a fresh one into his carbine, muttering the whole time.

“Thy kingdom come.” The sergeant fired again. “Thy will be done.”

Wade set his jaw. It was time to move. “All right, guys. We’re getting out of here right now.”

The squad had gathered, all ten, geared up in full battle rattle. Wade and Rawlings raced downstairs ahead of the others and headed for the west exit. The doorway was blocked with piled office furniture and light fixtures. They frantically grabbed the nearest pieces and threw them out of the way. Gray, Fisher and Brown arrived and helped. They opened the door.

A giant wearing a loincloth made out of a leathered human face lunged at them with a bloody claw hammer. “HAW, HAW!”

Fight or flight. Wade wanted to run. Then his training took over. He fired a burst into the giant. The Klown spun around and fell hard as if his legs had been kicked out from under him. He immediately started to get back up.

Rawlings put a round in his head. The hellish screaming inside the stadium went on and on.

“We’re heading west,” Wade said. “Jungle file. Team Alpha on the left, Bravo on the right. If you see something, go to guns on it. Fire and move. While we move, we keep the initiative. Tempo, tempo, tempo. If we get separated, remember the rally points.”