Craig DiLouie - The Infection

The Bradley rolls onto the bridge. Sarge sighs with relief.

The operation has officially begun.

The two leading buses race ahead to the other end of the bridge, knocking down Infected along the way while the rest of the convoy slows and stops. The other two buses deploy laterally across the Ohio side, forming a steel wall blocking access to the Infected. Immediately, the soldiers in the buses begin shooting out of the windows, cutting down the Infected who were following the convoy. The Bradley sits on the asphalt, idling. Inside, the survivors listen to the occasional pop of rifle fire as soldiers on the bridge take down stray Infected.

Oh, Jesus, oh Jesus Christ

Sarge keys his handset.

“Negative contact, Immune 2. Say again, over.”

There are thousands of them

“I repeat: Negative contact, Alex. How copy, over?”

Over the Bradley’s idling, Sarge can hear the splash of small arms fire from the other end of the bridge nearly six hundred meters away. Wendy flinches at the sound, then returns to scanning the bridge for threats. The Immune 2 unit, comprising the two buses that moved ahead, are supposed to plug the West Virginia end of the bridge by creating another steel wall. Once both ends of the bridge are sealed by buses manned by combat troops, Sarge and his force will walk the bridge from one end to the other, clearing it.

Then Patterson and his engineering team can do their work.

We’re trying to set up the buses but they’re everywhere, Sarge. Not just the Infected but the monsters, too. Hoppers. The giant heads with legs. Elephants with worms growing out of them.

“Copy that,” Sarge says.

“Should we go and help him?” Wendy says.

“Our job is to clear the bridge,” Sarge tells her. “Alex’s job is to secure the other end.”

I think we got it! Yeah, he’s got it. Holy shit, we’re in place. We’re in place, Immune 1.

“I copy, Immune 2. Great job, over.”

We’ll hold them here as long as we can, over.

“Hang on. We’ll see you in a few minutes, out.”

Roger that, out.

Wendy activates the Bradley’s intercom system before Sarge can reach for it.

“It’s time to go, guys,” she says, fighting to control her voice. “I just wanted you to know that I love all of you. Good luck and come back safe.”

Sarge nods.

“You heard the lady,” he says, and presses the button to drop the exit ramp.

The survivors dismount the vehicle, stepping into May sunshine. Nearby, a squad of National Guard and two machine gun crews watch them fidget with their weapons while wearing expressions of barely concealed disdain. Covered by the Bradley, they are all going up the bridge together. Their job is to clear it of anything breathing so that Patterson and his people can do their work. The big five-ton trucks, loaded with tied-down boxes of TNT and C4 covered in plastic tarps, stand idling, surrounded by large, burly men waiting for their turn in the game. Patterson walks over to them and shouts instructions. Immediately, the men begin taking off the tarps, exposing enough explosive to rip the bridge in half.

Todd checks his M4 carbine and waits for the order to move out, chomping at the bit for some action. He saw the way the Guard were looking down their noses at him and wants to show them what he can do.

The firing at the other end of the bridge suddenly increases in volume. Todd wonders what those men up there are seeing, what they are going through.

Paul nudges him, blowing air out of his cheeks.

“This is going to be a shit storm, boy,” he says. “You stay close to me.”

“I’m not worried, Rev,” Todd says with a smile. “If God is with us, who can be against us?”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Paul answers. “I think God might be on their side.”

“Got an extra smoke for me, Preacher?” Ray says.

“Here you go, Ray.”

“Thanks. Feel that breeze. Man, that feels good.”

While the two men smoke, Todd moves away a little, irritated. Between their smoking and all the exhaust hanging in the air from the idling vehicles, he is starting to get a headache.

Gunfire crackles in the distance. The survivors crane their necks and squint at the Market Street Bridge, clearly visible to the south. Vehicles and tiny figures are moving on the road deck. The crackle becomes a steady pounding roar. Sparks flash along its length, tracer rounds streaming to contact. Several pale figures fall off the bridge and into the muddy waters below. A rocket explodes at the far side, a flash followed by a deep boom and a mushroom cloud.

There is a hell of a fight going on over there. The other force is in action.

Todd fingers the handset the Army gave him for the mission and keys it with a squeeze.

“Uh, Sarge?”

Todd, unless this is an emergency, get the hell off the commo, over.

“Sorry about that, Sarge.”

Todd hesitates, but cannot help himself. He is already committed. And he cannot resist using the radio.

“I was just, uh, wondering when we’re going to get moving,” he adds. “Um, over.”

You move when I tell you to move. Out.

Todd smiles. He heard Wendy laughing in the background.

Moments later, Sarge gives the command to advance.

It’s show time, folks.

The Bradley begins crawling along the bridge, keeping pace with the Guard unit led by Sergeant Hackett, fanned out across the left three lanes, and the survivors spread out on the right. On the far right, near the edge, Paul looks down at the brown torrents far below. The water seems a good place to be, he muses, especially if the Infected cannot swim. A man could get a boat and disappear. He thinks about how the Ohio is formed by the Allegheny and the Monongahela meeting at Pittsburgh, and travels all the way here; downstream, it feeds the Mississippi. He asks Todd to swap weapons for a moment and uses the close combat optic to get a magnified view of the far shore. It is swarming with Infected as far as the eye can see. Corpses and small islands of plastic garbage float in the water, collecting in piles on the riverbanks. The Infected gather at the water’s edge, drinking among scores of bloated corpses washed up onto the mud.

Paul lowers the rifle, feeling sick, and hands it back to Todd.

“You look like you saw a ghost, Rev,” Todd says. “What’s going on over there?”

“The usual,” Paul tells him.

Behind them, Ray says, “Hail Mary, full of grace,” repeatedly until doubling over, vomiting loudly onto the road.

Sergeant Hackett frowns at the survivors and shakes his head.

Todd flushes with embarrassment and hisses at Ray, “Come on , man.”

Ray wipes his mouth, gasping, and says, “Fuck this.”

“Contact!” one of the soldiers calls out.

The Guard begin shooting. The Bradley slows even further, almost coming to a halt. The survivors slow their pace as well, waiting until the threat is eliminated.

“Clear,” the soldiers shout. The motley little army resumes its advance.

Ray is right to be scared, Paul thinks. The hordes of hell are waiting for us at the other end of this bridge.

As if reading his thoughts, Ray says, “You don’t look too scared, Preacher. What’s your secret?”

“There isn’t any secret, Ray.”

“You think if you die, you go straight to Paradise to be with the virgins, right?”

Paul smiles and answers, “No, boy. I’m not scared because I’m already dead.”

Ray stares at him in disbelief for several moments before shaking his head. “You people are fucking crazy.”