Blue Plague: Decisions, page 13
“Well you can’t have them then,” Mike responded.
“Fine,” Bruce said, then looked around at Omega. “Omega, when you run out of ammo we go to hand-to-hand. Fight in twos!” Bruce yelled as Mike grabbed his arm.
“Where the hell are you going?” Mike asked.
“Kansas City,” Bruce responded.
Mike took a step back. “Bruce, that’s an awful big city and there are at least two moving hordes nearby,” he informed him.
“That’s why I want your ammo trucks,” Bruce said.
Mike lowered his head. “Can’t that wait until it gets colder?”
“No Mike, it can’t. We came across a National Guard Armory last night and it was stripped bare. I mean there was nothing,” Bruce told him.
“Yeah, we found the same thing at another National Guard station and several police stations in the smaller towns,” Mike admitted.
“That’s why we’re moving now,” Bruce told him.
“May I ask how you are going to do it?” Mike inquired.
“The downtown airport is on a peninsula. We are going to form a line with the river to our back and sides, then kill everything that we see. Killing is our business,” Bruce said.
“And business is good!” Omega’s command group yelled back.
“Go ahead Bruce, what do you want Gamma to do?” Mike asked, knowing that talking Bruce out of it was not an option.
“Get resupplied and empty the area. Wait here and if we get in deep shit use this airport as a resupply station. If we get in real deep shit we may need you to open up a line of travel to get us out,” Bruce answered.
“One of these days you’re going to bite off more than you can chew,” Mike told him.
“Maybe, but not today,” Bruce answered as he hugged Mike and jumped in his RG.
Omega pulled out with two of Gamma’s ammo trucks joining them and the almost empty staying with Gamma. Reaching the interstate, Omega headed back into Arkansas then up to Missouri. Bruce told his driver the route he wanted to take right to the airport. For two hours he made the driver repeat it back to him. Satisfied the driver wouldn’t take a wrong turn, Bruce keyed his radio. “Listen up Omega, when we roll in, don’t fire any weapon that doesn’t have a suppressor until we reach the airport. I would prefer if we didn’t fire at all but use your discretion. The blues are thicker here and could bog us down easily. RV, what is the latest on the hordes?” Bruce asked.
“The horde to the north is now northwest two hundred and thirty miles away. The horde to the east has split with about two million barely a hundred and fifty miles away,” the operator called back.
“Okay boys, that one is going to hit us. Remember to rotate your rifles and supply, break out the spares for each platoon. Keep your cool and remember, this is our job. We can’t lead the hordes here like we could at home. With swamps on both sides of a lot of I-10 they had to stay on the road. This is how we will have to fight them now. Mark an area as ours and let them come. Every member here has to perform at top form or we will get overrun,” Bruce announced over the radio.
“Hey Bruce, if we do good here can we go play putt-putt?” Ted asked.
“Ted, I’m really worried about you, son,” Bruce called back.
“I’m just thinking Boss, and there is a cool course here,” Ted called back.
“Ted, we’re kind of busy but the next time we are here we will stop and play,” Bruce answered.
“Oh Bruce, that’s not fair,” Ted whined.
The convoy rolled along with blues charging them at every small town. They would slow and wipe them out then continue on. When the convoy stopped to refuel, Angela and Stephanie went and recorded their news broadcast, then loaded back up as Omega pulled out. When Bruce could see Kansas City he announced, “This is it, game time, stay close together. I really don’t want to have to go and look for anyone.”
“Dad, if my driver was any closer to your truck, I could wipe your ass,” Jake said over the radio.
Bruce turned around and Second Squad’s truck was really close, Bruce could not even see the driver he was so close. “Ah son, your driver has his hand up my ass. Get him to back up just a little please?” Bruce asked.
“Copy Dad,” Jake called back and Second Squad’s truck fell back some.
“Watch your spacing and let’s do this!” Bruce yelled out as Omega rolled into the city. At first there were not many blues but that changed real fast. Five miles into the city the trucks were plowing through the masses. When Omega reached the river the blues thinned down some as Bruce’s driver pulled off the highway. Bruce looked behind them and saw a mass of infected after them.
Pulling down the ramp and into downtown, the blues started getting too thick for the speed they were traveling. The roads here were too narrow and the turns had to be taken slow so the trucks wouldn’t turn over. “Omega, engage with everything you have, they are bogging us down!” Bruce yelled over the radio.
A wall of gunfire poured out from the convoy, pushing the bodies back as the convoy continued on. Bruce swung the M-2 back and forth, opening a gap as the driver pulled up to the service entrance of the airport. Running over the gate, Bruce saw only a few blues inside the fence but knew that was not going to last. “Floor it to our rally point. Buy us some time to set up!” Bruce screamed over the radio.
The RG lurched forward as the engine opened up. The few blues inside the airport fence were quickly cut down as the team headed toward the end of the runway next to the river. When the driver was a hundred yards from the river he slowed down and turned the truck broadside. The passenger side was now facing the airport as everyone in the back set up on that side of the roof. The rest of First and Second Platoon formed a line together as the supply trucks pulled through the line they were forming. Bruce dropped in a new box of ammo in the heavy machine gun and looked up.
He was expecting a wall of blues heading toward them but didn’t see but a few, and those were cut down quickly. “Where did they go?” Bruce asked over the radio.
“Carl pulled a blocking action at the gate, Boss,” Willie told him.
Bruce lifted his CVC off his ears and could hear a lot of shooting at the gate. Putting his CVC back on, he keyed his radio. “Carl, get your ass over here now!” he yelled.
“One of these blue bitches had a swastika tattooed on his chest. I mean what the fuck? I have to deal with blue skin heads now!” Carl yelled back with tremendous amounts of gunfire in the background.
“Carl, if I come up there to get you and have to drag your ass back, I’ll make the skin head blush with the ass beating I put on you!” Bruce yelled.
“You can’t, I blew him up. We’re breaking contact now and let me tell you these motherfuckers are pissed off. They just knocked down a three-hundred-foot section of fence. I saw a blue kid running on the heads of the crowd outside the gate and he jumped over the fence. That little bitch could move, Boss!” Carl yelled back.
“Damn it, quit playing with the local kids and move your ass!” Bruce yelled as he saw the RG turn onto the runway over a mile away, speeding toward the line Omega had formed. Behind Carl’s truck was a mass of blues trying to get the truck but it was slowly pulling away. “Carl, can’t you go any faster!” Bruce yelled.
“We are floored and I have two people out pushing, this is as fast as we can go!” Carl yelled back.
“You have pussies in Fourth Platoon. Any two of my people could push my RG to at least eighty,” Ted told Carl.
“Back off boy, the only reason they got out to push was I told them if they didn’t they had to babysit Buffy,” Carl announced. Carl’s RG was halfway to the line and had opened up a two-hundred-yard gap between the blues.
When Carl was four hundred yards away Bruce yelled out, “Give them cover and fire at will!”
Two hundred weapons opened up along with two Strykers and two LAVs. The wall of blues behind Carl’s RG just melted with the impact of lead. Behind Bruce the two mortar-carrying Strykers opened up, dropping rounds three hundred yards away. Carl’s RG reached the line and turned broadside, closing the line, and then it joined the killing. The mass of bodies coming at them reminded Bruce of an amoeba as it crept closer in surges then was pushed back only to surge ahead again. “I don’t think this was such a good idea,” Bruce said out loud, not realizing his intercom with the vehicle was on.
“You just now figured that out!” Stephanie shouted back at him.
Bruce opened up with the M-2, cutting down rows at a time but they were just replaced as the bodies started piling up. The horde pushed in to seventy yards but Omega held the line. Changing ammo boxes, Bruce looked in the back and saw Buffy on a SAW swinging the belt-fed weapon from side to side. Watching her, Bruce realized she was shooting the horde in the legs. Looking back at the M-2, Bruce saw the barrel smoking. Cursing, he reached over, putting on a mitt and replacing the barrel. “Buffy, get on the M-2,” Bruce called to her over the intercom. Buffy bounced over as Bruce climbed out and stood up on the roof of the RG.
Omega had formed an arched line beginning and ending at the water’s edge on a peninsula, with the RGs almost bumper to bumper. The line was just over a hundred yards long with the supply group on the peninsula. Looking behind the line, Bruce could see the supply group bringing up ammo and taking back empty magazines. Turning back to the horde, Bruce couldn’t see the ground in the airport. The blues were densely packed as far as he could see. “Yep, not my greatest plan,” Bruce said out loud.
Bruce walked across the tops of the RGs, giving encouragement and telling the supply group where ammo was needed most. Walking over to Willie’s RG, Bruce found him in his cupola firing a mini-gun. Every other RG in the attack was armed with an M-2, a mini-gun, or an MK-19 automatic grenade launcher. The tracer fire coming out of the mini looked like a water hose of steaming red. The wall of bodies melted with the impact with body parts flying through the air.
Bruce heard a pop to his right and saw Jake standing up with an AT4 rocket launcher, shooting it into the crowd. When the round impacted Bruce saw bodies go spinning through the air. Walking down the line, he noticed Carl getting out of his RG and standing on the roof. Carl reached down and pulled up a bag. Reaching in, he pulled out a grenade and yanked the pin out. Before Bruce could question the wisdom of that choice, Carl let it fly.
Watching the small sphere sail through the air, Bruce was amazed at the distance Carl had gotten. Just as the grenade fell into the mass of charging bodies it detonated. Bruce watched a twenty-foot circle of blues just drop, only to be replaced by more bodies. Turning to tell Carl ‘good throw,’ he saw Carl throw another one. This time Bruce counted and the grenade had a four-second hang time as it dropped in the horde, blowing another circle. Looking at the site, Bruce guessed Carl was throwing grenades eighty yards, which was further than some people back at the farm could shoot.
He walked over as Carl sent another one sailing; before it hit the ground he threw another one. “Hey, you throw those much further and you’ll scare them away!” Bruce yelled. Carl just stopped as he was fixing to pull another pin.
“If they leave, we win by default,” Carl replied.
“Good point, just don’t let one go close,” Bruce said.
Carl just grinned as he pulled the pin and sent it sailing. Bruce walked back down the line then returned to his RG. “Big Daddy One, this is RV, do you copy,” the operator called over the radio.
“Go ahead RV,” Bruce called out, raising up his rifle and joined in the killing.
“We have the horde to the east bearing down on us. Numbers are still at two million, and across the countryside the blues are pouring in from a fifty-mile radius. Mission Control is putting the totals of everything coming and what’s already here at five, up to six million,” he called out.
“I copy. Tell the supply group to break out the spare weapons and put them in the RGs of each squad,” Bruce replied as he turned around. People were running everywhere inside the pocket. Then Bruce noticed four men working on the bulldozer they had just picked up. “RV, why are there people working on the bulldozer when we have a lot of pissed-off infected to our front?” Bruce asked.
“It won’t start, and when Cook saw the numbers coming at us he told someone to fix it in case we have to leave fast,” he called back.
“You mean Willie picked up a broken bulldozer with all the ones in the world to choose from?” Bruce asked.
Willie came on then, “You said make sure the truck worked, you never said anything about the ‘dozer,” he told Bruce.
“Willie, we have to talk soon. RV, don’t let too many people get tied up fixing that. If it gets much more interesting some of y’all will be getting on the line,” Bruce said.
“Copy that,” RV replied.
Turning around, Bruce dropped down inside and grabbed another rifle. Looking up, he noticed Stephanie shaking as she changed magazines. When she raised her rifle up Bruce saw her whole body was trembling. Bruce walked over and put his hand on her shoulder and she almost took his head off with the butt of her rifle. “Calm down Stephanie,” Bruce told her.
“Have you looked out there? This is bigger than the group that hit us at the farm, and more are coming!” Stephanie screamed at him.
Bruce could see the fear on her face but he could also see the rage in her eyes. Grabbing the front of her vest, Bruce knew how to get the rage out as he slammed her into the side of the RG. “That is fear and it makes you weak. They want to kill us. Those blues want to rip me and this group apart, making us scream with agony and you’re scared! Stop being a pussy and feel the anger inside you!” Bruce yelled at her. Anger spread across her face as she looked at him.
“That’s it, but not at me. Feel it, that’s the rage coming. Don’t hate them, just kill them, ride it Stephanie!” Bruce screamed. Stephanie began to tremble as the anger built in her, then she started to study this new sensation in her mind. “Stop that shit, don’t think, just let it out! Feel the tingling in your spine and let it move out to your body. They want to hurt us all and you want to think! If you don’t jump on the damn wave now I swear I’m going out there with my fucking sword!” Bruce bellowed in her face with his nose touching hers.
Stephanie pushed him back, her face wiped clean of emotion. “Back off! I have this!” she yelled and spun around and brought up her rifle. Stephanie squeezed the trigger in rapid succession with Bruce standing behind her watching. Thirty blues dropped in the mass eighty yards away as she dropped the empty and had another one in place before the mag hit the floor. Smiling, Bruce watched her fire into the horde as steady as a rock.
Angela had heard the exchange and closed her eyes, following what Bruce said. A calm spread over her; her body felt like it was going to explode as she pushed her fear aside. When she opened her eyes there was a small grin on her face but it was false. Angela felt no emotion as she joined Stephanie on the wave.
Many more joined the two on the wave as the horde just kept coming. By nightfall the bodies in front of the trucks were piled four feet high but the line of advance for the blues was pushed back to a hundred and fifty yards. “Cook, bring one plate of food to each truck and one person eats at a time. This is going to take us awhile,” Bruce called out.
Before midnight the mortars started throwing up illumination rounds, and Willie caught his breath looking out over the sea of bodies. The pile was six feet deep now across the entire line and over a hundred yards back before it started to slope down, but even there the pile continued for another two hundred yards. It was not quite six feet deep, yet. And still the infected were coming. It was over a mile to the airport buildings and in many places he could see for two miles and everywhere blues were pushing towards them. “Damn, I should give them back the teddy bear,” Willie said as he walked around Third and Fourth Platoon.
The UAVs overhead were showing Mission Control and Gamma what Omega was facing. They all just watched in morbid fascination. The infected were so close together they just pressed forward. Then as they neared the kill area they charged and were cut down, contributing to the pile. Nancy called Mike over the radio at 0300 as the horde still attacked. “Mike, can’t we do something?” she asked.
“Nancy, we can’t even pull them out by air. If they let up any they will be overrun,” Mike told her.
“Are they going to make, it baby?” Nancy asked.
Mike almost said he was surprised they had made it this long but didn’t. “Baby, they are holding their own and with the ammo trucks from me they have a full load. With the rate they are killing the infected they should be done by tomorrow. Keep the UAVs overhead and warn them about any other groups. If you see another large group heading to them, shoot some Hellfires into them. It may not kill a lot but it will slow a bunch down,” Mike told her. Nancy took that as ‘start a rain of Hellfires.’
It was 0332 when the first one hit at the airport, striking a fuel truck a mile away. For a split second everything stopped at the sound of the explosion. The infected stopped moving and roaring as Omega stopped firing. Bruce watched the concussion wave ripple across the advancing horde and a mushroom cloud rose up in the air. “Jake, what the fuck did you do?” Bruce yelled into his radio.
“Nothing, I swear Dad,” Jake answered back as Omega opened back up.
“Who popped a baby nuke?” Bruce yelled over the radio as he saw a streak cross the sky, heading to the airport buildings. The rocket impacted on the other side but this explosion was even bigger than the last one and leveled the small terminal. Bruce keyed his radio, “Damn it Mission Control, tell me before you start popping off Hellfires!” Bruce screamed.
“Kiss my ass Bruce, the babies are in that pocket surrounded by blues!” Nancy screamed at him. Wisely Bruce kept his mouth shut.
The rain of Hellfires continued until Mike told Nancy to stop at dawn. They could now see the end of the horde attacking Omega. It was five miles away. Bruce tried to start a sleep rotation with Omega but the blues advanced sixty yards with the loss of firepower. Not only did he have to wake them up, he had to throw thirty of the supply staff on the line. Angela and Stephanie were now using their long range sniper rifles and were racking up kills to rival any sniper, except for Jake and Matt.
