Shaun Harbinger - Wildfire - Destruction of the Dead

“What are we going to do?” I asked her. Sam had moved two of the cars out of our way but the Ford Fiesta remained.

“We’ll go through it,” she said, taking the Mastiff out of reverse.

“Can’t we go back up the motorway and find a way around…?”

“We can’t go back,” she said, shaking her head.

“Why not?”

“Look in the mirror.”

I checked the side mirror. Behind us, a fleet of maybe a dozen cars was bearing down on us.

Tanya gripped the wheel tightly and hit the gas. We accelerated toward the bridge. The shooters began shooting again. Bullets careened off the front of the Mastiff. Our speed increased.

I turned in my seat and said to Lucy and Sam, “Hold on.”

Lucy nodded. She and Sam were harnessed into their seats. Sam gave me a weak thumbs-up.

Everything became dark momentarily as we drove beneath the bridge. Then we slammed into the Fiesta, pushing it along the road in front of us. Its tires squealed against the wet road surface as we emerged on the other side of the bridge and into daylight.

Tanya hit the brakes, reversed slightly, and then guided the Mastiff around the crushed Fiesta. As soon as we were clear, she accelerated along the center lane, leaving the bridge behind us.

I checked the mirror again. The cars were still coming.

If it came down to a firefight on the motorway a second time, I wasn’t sure we would come out on top again. There were at least twelve cars behind us and we had a man down. I wasn’t even sure we had enough ammo left to take out all those vehicles.

“Can’t we go any faster?” I asked Tanya.

She shook her head. “The top speed seems to be around sixty.”

I felt my heart sink. Those cars could outrun us easily. They would reach us in the next couple of minutes, if not sooner.

I climbed out of my seat and went into the rear compartment to check my weapons. Lucy unharnessed herself and did the same.

“What’s the best way to do this?” I asked her. “From the roof or through the rear door?”

“Both,” she said. “You take the roof, I’ll take the door.”

“Okay.” I stepped up onto the platform and opened the top hatch. The wind resistance battered me as I climbed up through the hatch, staying low, and thankful for the raised edge that ran around the perimeter of the roof. I crawled to the rear section and peered over the raised edge.

The cars were close. Nobody was shooting yet but I could see that the occupants had guns. Unlike the bandits we had seen earlier, these seemed to have a plan, and that was scarier than if they’d just started firing haphazardly at us.

I positioned my M16 so that the muzzle jutted over the edge of the roof. If we were going to go down, at least we were going to go down fighting.

Then something on the opposite side of the motorway caught my attention. There was an exit road there and coming down it was a convoy of military Jeeps. I counted five of them, painted in desert colors like the Mastiff. Each Jeep had a driver and a soldier manning a large gun mounted on the rear of the vehicle.

They came racing south along the northbound lanes and opened fire on the cars behind us, shooting across the median and over the safety barrier.

The air became thick with smoke as the fleet of cars took hits from the large-caliber guns. The scene behind us was one of mayhem as vehicles exploded and crashed. I saw a red Ford Galaxy drive off the road with black smoke pouring out of its engine, its bodywork shredded.

I crawled backward to the hatch and dropped down into the rear compartment. Lucy had the rear door open and was watching the carnage on the motorway. She turned to me and grinned. “Here comes the cavalry to save the day.”

Even Sam was smiling although he looked exhausted.

The cars that had been chasing us were now no more than burning pieces of wreckage on the motorway.

The Jeeps came alongside us on the opposite side of the road and the lead driver waved his hand in a downward motion at Tanya.

“He wants us to stop,” she said. “Should I?”

“After what they did to those cars, I don’t think we have a choice,” I answered.

She slowed us down to a gentle stop. Lucy and I got out. The road surface was beginning to dry in the midday sun now. The rotting meat smell still hung in the air.

The Jeeps halted on the other side of the barrier and three soldiers walked across to us while the others remained with their vehicles. The big guns were trained on us now. These soldiers might have saved our lives but they still didn’t know who we were and they were probably ready to kill us at a moment’s notice.

Tanya came around the side of the Mastiff to join us. She had kept the engine running.

The man in the lead looked to be in his late thirties. He had dark hair with some gray at the temples and a thin, hawkish face. As he got nearer to us, his eyes roamed over the Mastiff, Lucy and me, and our combat clothing. I guessed that he was probably trying to mentally process how two people who were obviously not military personnel were riding in an expensive piece of military hardware.

I was wrong. He seemed to know exactly who we were. “I was told you lot were resourceful,” he said, “but where the bloody hell did you get this?” He pointed at the Mastiff.

“You know who we are?” Lucy asked.

“I think so,” he said. “You should have ID badges to show me if you are who I think you are.”

We dug into our pockets and showed him our badges. He inspected them and nodded before handing them back to us.

“I’m Captain Price,” he said. “We were told at Prometheus that you were coming. The brigadier sent us to meet you. It seems you had a welcoming committee of undesirables so we arrived just in time.”

“We were about to deal with them ourselves,” Tanya said.

He looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I’m sure you were.”

Then he walked to the rear of the Mastiff and looked inside, raising an eyebrow when he saw Sam.

Price turned to face us again. “So tell me,” he said, “where the bloody hell is the vaccine?”

We told Price about the drones patrolling the coastline and the vaccine on our boats. He listened to our story of how we had commandeered the Mastiff and driven south on the motorway to get to Prometheus. He listened quietly and nodded when we were done.

He pointed at Sam, who was sitting in his seat quietly, his face pale and sweaty.

“And what’s wrong with this chap?” Price asked.

“He’s been bitten,” I said.

“I see. And I assume he’s already been vaccinated?”

“Yes, we all have.”

Price went to the rear door and looked in at Sam. “I suppose this is as good a test as any for the efficacy of the vaccine. I’m going to have to insist that you keep him in that harness until we get to Prometheus.”

“Prometheus?” Tanya said. “We just told you that the vaccine is on our boats. Call off the drones so we can go back and get it.”

Price pursed his lips, thinking. “That’s not my decision to make. Besides, the brigadier will want to see you. He’ll decide what happens regarding the vaccine and how we get it off your boats.”

He paused as if considering something and then said, “We were told that you lot might know something about a problem we’ve been having at the camp. Something has been sneaking in at night and attacking our men. We’ve had a lot of good soldiers go missing.”

“Why would we know anything about that?” I asked.

“Because the men who went missing are probably the lucky ones. It’s what happened to the others that you might know something about. They were killed.” He paused and then added, “And their spines were torn out.”