Craig Dilouie: Tooth And Nail

“Thank you, Sergeant,” Mooney says with a lump in his throat.

“Good luck, Sarge,” Wyatt says.

“Luck I got plenty of,” McGraw says, winking. He salutes quickly and then he is gone, jogging lightly past the Special Forces teams as if the world were just beginning, not ending.

“I’m staying, too, Mooney,” Wyatt tells him.

“You quitting?”

“Naw,” Wyatt says. He pauses for a quick farmer’s blow and then adds sourly, “One of those wanking wanktards back there bit me in the armpit. The infected one got me.”

“Christ, Joel,” Mooney says, too stunned to understand what he is hearing.

“Hurts like hell. I can actually feel the little mothers in my brain. Guess I’ll go somewheres and eat the rest of my chocolate bars. Maybe go swim in the pond back there. Maybe rob a bank. Who knows; a lot can happen in a few hours before I turn into a zombie.”

Mooney’s voice cracks. “But what the hell am I supposed to do without you?”

Wyatt offers up his gimpy smile. “You’ll manage okay on your own, boss. But I’ll have to find a new sidekick.”

One of the Special Forces soldiers appears at the top of the ramp and says, “Coming or going, make a choice. We got company.”

“I’ll see you around, Joel,” Mooney says, holding out his hand.

Wyatt ignores the gesture, backing away awkwardly in the raging wind, smiling and offering a comical salute with his middle finger.

“Contact!”

Several soldiers rush down the ramp and begin firing at a horde of Mad Dogs breaking from the trees and streaming into the back of one of the other Chinooks parked across the lawn, overrunning its guards in hand to hand fighting. The distant bodies flop onto the grass, while others disappear inside the massive helicopter, which suddenly lurches into the air.

One of the soldiers grabs Mooney and shoves him roughly inside, where he lands on the floor shouting in panic. He scrambles into the seat next to Petrova, who screams at the sound of the gunfire, covering her face in her hands.

“No more killing,” she pleads.

An NCO runs down the aisle towards the pilots, roaring a command to get the bird into the air right now.

“You’re going to be okay, Dr. Petrova,” Mooney says. “You made it this far for a reason. You had all those chances to die and you didn’t. You can’t die now.”

The helicopter suddenly lifts hard, rising at a speed of twenty-five feet per second. Gravity sucks at his stomach and toes.

A Special Forces medic works his way down the aisle until he reaches Petrova and begins shouting questions at her: Has she been bitten? Is she otherwise injured? Does she have any other medical conditions affecting her well being? Does she want water?

Turning away, Mooney hops frequencies on the combat net radio, searching for Charlie’s net. The air whistles through the cabin, making it difficult to hear. Then his ears pop and the voices come through clear as a bell.

That’s our ride up

We can’t

Man down!

Can the birds give us cover?

If anybody’s got an MG, we need

He finds the sounds of their voices, even describing a losing fight, strangely comforting. They are still alive down there, and as long as they are still alive, there is hope.

We got contact

Could use fire support on the left

Establish a base of fire

Then break off with the other assault team

Clear the net, morons!

Mooney notices that the Special Forces guys are staring intently out the windows of one side of the helicopter, swearing. Turning in his seat, he sees the Chinook that was infested with Maddies flying erratically in the sky, its tail swinging back and forth, the loading ramp still open and spilling bodies that fall hundreds of feet to the ground below.

“Come on, come on,” one of the soldiers says. “Keep control.”

Mooney knows how they feel. Their friends are dying in the other helicopter, and there is nothing they can do about it.

The distressed helicopter roars west, veering towards the majestic, castlelike towers of the San Remo Towers building with the others pursuing at a safe distance. The men suck in their breath, expecting to see it crash and dissolve in a fireball inside one of the towers, but it pulls back, lurching and trying to stabilize. It is still too close, however: The props suddenly break against the side of the building and the violent stresses rip the Chinook in half with a burst of fire and smoke. The two pieces flop over and fall like stones to the earth, where they crash into pieces.

But while Mooney cannot tear his eyes away, he is only partly continuing to pay attention to this drama.

On the radio, the voices are screaming.

A fool’s errand

Second Platoon pauses to fire a ragged volley against the pursuing Mad Dogs, then starts running again, leaving a trail of brass and links and Maddy corpses.

Bowman lingers for a few moments, providing cover fire. He knows he is going to have to give his exhausted boys a rest soon. The platoon is starting to shed stragglers and everybody’s aim is getting wild. Maddy, meanwhile, does not seem to get tired. Plenty of the infected suddenly stop and keel over, their hearts bursting in their chests from the severe exertion, but the rest keep coming. They are the strongest and the fittest and there are always more to replace the fallen, it seems.

The same could be said of us, he tells himself, only when one of us falls, there are no replacements. There is nobody else. These men are the best but they are also the last.

He lobs a grenade into the endless horde and starts running again, flinching at the explosion that he hopes will buy them seconds.

The objective was to reach the rendezvous location at Sheep Meadow, but then Private Mooney radioed to tell him that the birds were back in the air with Dr. Valeriya Petrova safely aboard.

Their mission is now over. It was complex, extremely dangerous and partially successful. Now they have a new mission, simple but even more challenging: Stay alive.

Six blocks ahead, Vaughan’s force was stopped cold at Columbus Circle, a wide traffic area at the southwest edge of Central Park, and set up a defensive position at its center, around the statue of Christopher Columbus. He is barely holding and is screaming for reinforcements. Bowman is taking Second Platoon there. Everybody else is dead. There is nobody else. Between him and Vaughan, the unit has maybe seventy shooters left.

Vaughan picked the spot for his stand well. As a junction for Broadway Central Park West, Fifty-Ninth Street and Eighth Avenue, Columbus Circle was kept clear of civilian traffic and there are no vehicles around, offering beautiful open firing lanes with good kill zones. They have too few guns and are virtually surrounded; both units now need to rejoin to concentrate their firepower.

After that, it is either them or Maddy in a classic showdown.

The only other option is to disperse his command: Everybody break into the nearest building, find a safe place to hide, and pray Maddy does not come in looking for you. But then what? Only the NCOs have communications. Everybody would be spread out and stranded in different buildings, possibly already filled with Maddies, with little food and water. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as they say. Their only ultimate hope for surviving is to somehow get everybody into a safe place or defeat Maddy here. Now.

Ahead, the boys are slowing their pace.

Trouble ahead , Lewis says over the radio.

Bowman doubles his effort, sprinting to the head of the column, where Lewis and Kemper are observing another large body of Maddies blocking the road ahead.