Craig DiLouie - The Infection

Several engineers are waving at them.

“Fire in the hole!” they shout.

“Get down, get down!”

Ray tackles Todd to the ground as the blasting machine sends an electric pulse through the firing wire and each of the electric blasting caps wired in series in the TNT.

The blasting caps explode, detonating nearly a ton of dynamite in the far right lanes.

The bridge erupts behind them with a cataclysmic peal of thunder. The bodies of the survivors leave the ground as the shockwave hiccups through the bridge. The massive jolt tears the cables, sending them flying through the air like the metal tentacles of a colossal beast, causing one of the towers to shift and slump. The sky goes dark overhead as a massive wave of dust billows over them. Then another section of TNT erupts, sending a second shock wave through the bridge. The ground bucks under them again, and for a moment if feels as if they are all falling into the water.

After the third explosion, the bridge falls silent. Todd raises his head and looks behind him, coughing on dust. The world is dark and filled with swirling particles and he cannot see five feet in any direction. His ears ring loudly. Through it, he can hear the tramp of thousands of feet, sense monstrous shapes moving through the clouds of dust, searching for them. The Demon screams, the sound vibrating through the concrete deck. The Bradley’s cannon booms in response.

“We did it,” he rasps.

“Almost,” Ethan says. “That was the stripping charge. Now we have to go back and finish it.”

The Demon punches the Bradley with a crash that reverberates through the hull and the bodies of the crew. The thing is constantly circling the vehicle one step ahead of the turret. Wendy presses the fast turret switch, increasing the speed of its response, and wrenches the joystick, suddenly bringing the monster’s body into view. As the reticle passes over the Demon’s spiky flank, Sarge fires the cannon point blank with armor-piercing rounds. The monster stomps away with a series of deep booms, roaring in pain. They catch a glimpse of its tail terminating in a spiked ball, then it is gone. Moments later, they hear the Infected pounding everywhere on the hull, trying to get in. The LO AMMO indicator light pops on and begins flashing. Sarge overrides the system, but has no target.

“Where is it?” Wendy cries. “We almost had it!”

boom boom boom boom boom boom

The Demon is rushing them from the right on stomping feet. Wendy yanks on the stick, pulling the turret as fast as it will go. The monster roars and punches the hull and she blacks out for a moment, seeing stars. When she comes to, she cannot remember why she is here.

“I have no shot!” Sarge tells her. “Move the turret!”

She frowns at him. Why is he yelling at her? Suddenly, she remembers. She pulls on the stick. Sarge fires again and curses. The sear indicator light is blinking.

“What’s wrong?” she says.

“Misfire!”

Sarge presses the misfire button, returning the 25-mm gun bolt to the cocked position, but the sear light continues to blink.

“It’s still jammed,” he says, staring at the instruments in helpless rage.

“What now?”

“Now…”

boom boom boom boom boom boom boom

“Look out!”

BOOM

The next punch makes her vomit against the instrument panel.

“Sorry,” she moans, wiping her mouth and wagging her head to fight the continuing nausea.

“What?” Sarge says. “What’s going on?”

“What do we do now?”

“Where’s Randy?” he says, laughing.

“Sarge, knock it off!”

She shoves at him twice, hard. The Bradley commander stares at her blankly, then shakes his head to clear it. He presses a button and another light pops on. Wendy recognizes it. Sarge is dropping all of their smoke grenades at once.

“Steve,” he says into the intercom. “Reverse! Steve! Back the hell up!”

Wilco, Sarge.

The rig jolts backward on screeching treads as the Demon stumbles through the thick white smoke, screaming, looking for them.

“We still got the TOW,” Sarge says.

The monster emerges from the smoke, its head bobbing as if smelling the air, and then roars and charges them.

“Fire it now!” Wendy screams.

“We can’t,” he tells her.

They hear a series of thuds from behind as the Bradley slams into the Infected during its retreat.

The Launcher UP and TOW indicator lights are on. The TOW launcher is deployed and ready to fire missiles from its firing tubes. The MISSILE TUBE 1 indicator light is on, indicating its missile is ready to be fired.

“It takes sixty-five meters to arm,” Sarge explains. “We need distance.”

“Go, Steve, go,” Wendy says, virtually praying to the driver to go faster.

The Demon gallops at them, its enormous wings outstretched and flapping, dissipating the smoke in seconds and fully revealing its monstrous form. Suddenly, it stops, jerking its head back to lick the bleeding wounds on its flank.

Sarge presses the arming switch for the TOW.

“Put the reticle center mass on that abomination and keep it there.”

The monster rolls lithely back to its feet and resumes its chase.

“Come on, come on,” Sarge adds, sweating.

“We need more distance.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, we do.”

Wendy looks over her shoulder but there is no back window, no rear view mirror. Somewhere, behind them, Patterson blew two cratered trenches into the bridge, each more than two meters deep. She is not sure the Bradley will be able to drive over them. If the rig falls into one, she is not sure they will be able to get it back out.

The thought fills her with claustrophobic panic.

“Um, Sarge?”

“ On the way ,” he says, and presses the firing switch on the gunner’s right control handle.

The TOW missile flies down the bridge and strikes the Demon in the chest in a fraction of a second, detonating in a burst of light.

“Target!” Wendy shouts, laughing and crying.

Cowabunga! Steve says.

The MISSILE TUBE 1 light is flashing. Immediately, the TOW system indicator lights burst across the board: TRCKR, CGE, PWR SUP. The TOW system is failing across the board.

The monster lies on the bridge keening and thrashing in a widening lake of thick black blood, one of its wings broken and flapping, one of its arms dangling by a few ropes of cartilage.

“I think we killed it,” Sarge says, blowing air out of his cheeks.

“Thank God,” Wendy says. “What now?”

Swarms of Infected pour around the dying demon, racing towards the Bradley.

Sarge selects the coax machine gun, arms it and puts his finger over the firing switch.

“Now we hold them off here as long as we can,” Sarge tells her, adding, “ On the way .”

The soldiers gather around Patterson and Hackett, filthy, their faces drawn and tired, their eyes wild, their hair and uniforms plastered with sweat and coated with white dust. Several wince and massage body parts where they have been stung and are even now gestating another generation of monsters.

“It’s just us now,” Hackett says. He reaches into his kit, pulls out the can of orange spray paint, and throws it over the side.

The survivors gather at the edge of the crowd, looking in. Paul coughs on the dust, feeling a hundred years old, tired in his bones. He removes a wilted-looking cigarette from his battered pack of Winstons and lights up, sighing.

Hackett spits on the ground and glares at the lieutenant. “LT, I need an honest-to-God, no-shit assessment on what it’s going to take to finish this.”

“I need thirty minutes up there to lay the second round of charges,” Patterson says.