Craig DiLouie: Pandemic

Wade tensed, ready to kill.

It wasn’t murder anymore. It was survival.

Ford opened the door.

Lt. Colonel Prince watched the landmark office tower get bombed on live television. It was mesmerizing in its way. Not the violence, but the fact nobody was doing a damned thing about it .

That alone told him everything he needed to know about the current situation.

Another section of the building vomited fire, smoke and glass. The camera shook. Prince recognized the building. The Federal Reserve Bank. At the bottom of the screen, triple captions scrolled public service announcements and propaganda. In the upper right: LIVE.

The United States Army had an operations manual for everything. Prince liked to say, “There’s an op for that.”

There was no op for what he was seeing. Whoever was doing the shooting was military.

“Major Walker,” he barked.

The major signed a clipboard and returned it to a staff sergeant manning the radios. He approached wearing a slight smile Prince wanted to punch off his face.

“Colonel?”

“Something amuse you, Major?”

“No, sir. Just trying to be positive in front of the men, sir.”

Walker was hiding something. Prince had never liked his executive officer. The man was a politician, a cold snake, and he sucked as a soldier. Walker was nothing more than a desk warrior. But he was a wizard at getting things done.

The colonel let it pass. He found he really didn’t care what Walker might be hiding behind that creepy little smile of his. “How’s the operation coming along?”

“Which operation, sir?”

“Mercy.” That was the name the Brass had given the operation to terminate the infected in the major quarantine hospitals. It involved three companies, most of their fighting strength.

“Forces are en route.”

“Outstanding. What about the Governor?”

“We’re still talking to his people.”

Colonel Armstrong, commander of the 55th Infantry Regiment—the “Double Nickel”—and Prince’s boss, had issued another critical operational order, or OPORD. His boys were to round up the governor of Massachusetts and other senior civilian officials and put them in a safe place, per the Federal Continuity of Government plan.

“Talk faster. Get it done. Understand?”

The major’s tall, slim body stiffened into a respectful stance. “Yes, sir.”

On CNN, another round hit the Federal Reserve Bank. Prince flinched as if he were there. The building was burning in a dozen places, pumping black smoke into the air.

According to the Army, after two to four days of little rest, an extended sleep is needed—twelve to fourteen hours. The colonel had barely slept in over a month. Exhaustion on this level was like being drunk. Leaders made mistakes when they were this tired. He needed to stay sharp.

He dry swallowed another Advil and tried not to think about that. The muscles in his face were numb. His head pounded in time with his steady heartbeat, threatening a blinding migraine.

Prince had often marveled at how much power he held commanding a light infantry battalion. Eight hundred men. Tenth Mountain. Climb to Glory. The best infantry in the world.

They were First Battalion, part of the 55th Infantry Regiment, Fifth Brigade Combat Team, Tenth Mountain Division, XVIII Airborne Corps. Six companies—Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo (an attached forward support company providing logistics), and HQ (call sign, The Wizard). These forces were supplemented by the Tomcats, an attack aviation battalion; the Trailblazers, a scout platoon; Thunder, a mortar platoon; and Nightingale, a medic platoon.

When Colonel Armstrong, call sign Big Brother, had contacted Prince and explained that the Army had been called into action, Prince had responded like a dog freed from its leash.

He thought it would take days. Weeks rolled by. The division was soon spread all over New England, getting chewed up by real estate agents and housewives turned into laughing sadists and suicide bombers.

They hadn’t cleaned up the mess. They’d become part of it.

When Big Brother reached out to him, he’d had a choice. He could have gone home and protected Susan and Frankie. If he had, they wouldn’t have caught the Bug, and they wouldn’t have been shot down in the street like rabid dogs. Prince had thought he could do more for them where he was, helping to maintain order and halt the spread of infection. Over the past two months, he’d accomplished little more than slowing the tide, and even that was questionable.

The massive, constant headache he suffered had started right after he realized that.

Walker eyed him with open concern. “Is there anything else, sir?”

“Affirmative.” Prince pointed at the video image of the blazing office tower, which was still taking hits. “That’s Boston. And that’s heavy ordnance. On live television. Who the hell is doing the shooting, and why is nobody putting a stop to it?”

Walker said nothing.

“Get me some answers.”

“Right away, sir.” Walker’s enigmatic smile returned as he gave the video monitor a final lingering glance. “The apocalypse will be televised.”

Ramos raised his Sledgehammer as he cleared the doorway. Wade followed, pointing his carbine the other way. Eraserhead with the SAW, the squad automatic weapon, was next, followed by Williams with his M4/203.

Grinning Klowns filled the corridor. Several stomped on the half-stripped, mangled body of a nurse lying on the floor. Others watched and roared with laughter, hands on their hips or gripping their stomachs. The nurse was laughing too.

When the infected noticed the soldiers pointing guns at them, they cheered and shrieked with glee as if the guests had finally arrived at their surprise party. Once again, Wade was disturbed by their faces. They looked like clowns with their wide glassy eyes and crazy leers.

One stumbled close to Ramos and giggled. Ramos cut him in half with a blast of buckshot.

As if they’d been waiting for a signal, the crazies charged.

Wade sighted center mass on a woman and fired a burst. The recoil hummed against his shoulder. She went down. Another took her place. Another. And another.

Spent shell casings flew from the carbine’s eject port and clattered to the floor. The metallic crack of the carbines and the roar of the sergeant’s shotgun pounded his ears.

Eraserhead got the SAW into position and fired controlled bursts. The mob disintegrated, bodies blowing apart under the withering fire. Tracer rounds streamed down the hallway.

Wade gasped. The scene was like something out of a movie.

And more kept coming.

“Reloading!” Wade pocketed an empty magazine and slapped a new one into his carbine. He pulled the charging bolt, aimed and fired.

Behind him, the Sledgehammer boomed. The infected were coming at them from the other end of the corridor.

Combat was typically unpredictable, but Wade knew their survival here was a matter of simple mathematics. Either they had enough bullets, or they didn’t. Even if they did, if there were too many infected, their guns would eventually overheat and start jamming.

That was how military units got overrun by crowds of infected: human wave attacks against small groups of soldiers who fired until their weapons jammed. Klowns didn’t take prisoners. They either killed you or made you one of them.

Wade fired. A bald man’s head erupted in a geyser of brains and blood.

“Nice shot,” Eraserhead said. “I knew you had it in you.”

“Go to hell,” Wade told him.

The SAW was rocking now, firing nine hundred rounds per minute, every fifth a blurred tracer that pulsed strobing red light. Eraserhead was grinning. “Time for some payback.”