Blood Soaked and Contagious (48 page)

Instead of vaulting over cars with appropriate barbarian cries of triumph, I decided to scoot carefully along and find my next target. I held up for a moment when my skull pinged with Charlie angrily commenting to me, “That little fucker actually bit my boob! I want to kill him a third time!”

“Don’t worry about the dead guy with the oral fixation. Take care of my favorite breast! They’re much more important.”

“You don’t even know which boob it is, so how can you say that it’s your favorite?”

“They’re fraternal twins, and I love them both equally. Therefore, as a set, they are my favorite breast.” I felt a little smug about how well I handled that and managed to creep around the minivan in a seriously stealthy way.

“Baby, you are so full of shit!” Charlie signed off, but I think she was smiling when she did. I was gratified.

I remained gratified until the gunman on the right saw me, yelled, and tried to shoot around the side of the minivan from entirely the wrong angle. There was a certain something in the air under the gunpowder scent, and it reminded me of gasoline. My favorite critters informed me, without any words, that it was gasoline.

They took over my legs.

I had half a second to bellow, “Fire in the hole!” before my legs had carried me across the parking lot to “our” side. Either I dodged every bullet that was shot at me, or my body accepted each love tap or puncture without slowing down. I had barely stopped running when the minivan exploded in a ball of smelly flames.

“Fire Teams! Check in!” Flower broadcast his urgency through my skull and I waited for the responses, much as he was waiting, before I said anything.

Franklin checked in by swearing loudly. Ramos rattled off a string of Spanish that was so beyond what I knew that he could have been speaking Martian. Omura reported that he was in the process of healing a severed femoral artery but was otherwise fine. I chimed in and was followed by Charlie, who sounded relieved.

“Fitz? Report!” Flower didn’t sound happy.

“Flower, I see him,” Charlie sent back to all of us. “I think he’ll respond when he finishes... what he’s eating.”

While I couldn’t hear everyone else say “Oh,” I certainly felt it.

Flower spoke up again, “I mark four unfriendlies, three people in the pen still moving, and nothing else. Ramos, you and Franklin mop up those four. Frank, go and cope with the pen. Charlie, watch over Fitz. I’m pulling in to check on Omura. Go.”

Frank. Cope. With. The. Pen. Fuck. Me. I didn’t want to follow my orders, but I did. The pen was littered with the remains of at least three people who had been food, and three victims who were still, for some value of the word, alive. They were not, I assure you, the least bit happy to see me. I wanted to say something comforting but I couldn’t think of anything that fit or wouldn’t sound like some kind of mortality consolation prize.

I stood there beside the pen and did not have one word to say, flippant or otherwise. The living ones stared at me, crouched together on the other side of the pen, as far away from me as they could get. To be completely honest, I didn’t blame them. There was no way in creation they could have thought I was there for any reason other than to kill them.

I imagined I could see it in their faces.

“I am so sorry.” It was the only thing to say, and the only thing that would come out of my mouth. The poor soul on the left, who had a rough rope tying off the flow of blood to her gaping forearm, nodded at me but said nothing.

The only thing I could really do by way of mercy was to stop delaying and take the fastest and most fatal action I could. I drew my pistol and fired three shots from right to left, and another three from left to right. The first bullets were sure and final, but I added the second shots for an extra measure of terminal security.

Turning around, I surveyed the Methodist Church parking lot of Hell. Bodies and parts of bodies were all over the place, and two vehicles were still burning the last of their rubber and petroleum away into the night. The only people moving were the ones I had arrived with, and they all looked like animated blood-soaked ragdolls. It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume I looked at least as adorable as they did.

“Frank?” I hadn’t even noticed Charlie was walking in my direction, much less that she’d arrived.

“Yes?”

“Honey, you do not look... well.” It took her a moment to end that statement, and I’ll admit it was spot-on accurate. I didn’t feel anything remotely close to “well.”

“I don’t feel well. I don’t feel well at all. Let’s finish this insanity and go home.” I started walking toward Flower and Omura, who were standing together in the middle of the lot. I heard Charlie fall in behind me and was a little comforted by her presence.

It was 7:31 pm.

When I got to Flower and Omura, I had only one thing to say: “What’s next?”

“Ramos goes back to the Hummer, Fitz stays here as a relay, and we head in when we get word the convoy has left and Buttons has executed his side of the plan.” He looked me over like a head of lettuce in the produce aisle. “You need to eat something right now. You’re looking gray.”

“I didn’t bring anything to eat,” I explained, and dropped straight down onto my ass on the pavement, “and none of these poor idiots looked appetizing.”

Omura opened up a Velcro pocket on the leg of his tactical pants and handed me a foil-wrapped rectangle.

“They didn’t create these with good taste in mind. Think of it like one of those sports drinks that tastes like shit unless your body needs it and then it tastes really good.” I gave the package the evil eye.

They were probably talking sense, so I opened the package and was enticed by the aroma of pure bliss that wafted from the broached foil. Tentatively, because nothing that smelled that good could taste that good, I licked it. Then I stuffed the whole bar into my mouth sideways. Buddha had nothing on my bliss.

“Gee, Flower, it looks like he needed something in his mouth,” Omura snarked and cracked a rare smile.

“Damn. I have something he could have used for that!” Charlie piped up from right behind me.

“Both of you,” Flower pointed at both of them, “stow it. You’re making me ill.” They laughed at him, but did stow the snark as he ordered.

The outer skin of the thing in my mouth started to slough away and I was content to sit there and let it dissolve into mush. Ramos headed back to the Hummer, and Fitzgerald found himself an easily defensible area to dig himself into. Before too long we had our Cranium Townhall relay set up and ready to go.

Fitz called out to us, “Buttons says the convoy has started to move. He estimates a ten-minute window before he can start the light show.”

“Roger.” Flower answered for all of us. I probably wouldn’t have been able to answer if I had wanted.

My darling, blood-covered Charlotte sat down beside me and gave me the once-over. “What happened to the front of your vest?”

“Mmmrrr nnnnnnn mmmm,” I replied, saying something that sounded a whole lot like a man who had a mouth full of goop.

“If you swallowed some of that instead of sitting there like a demented, homicidal squirrel, you could answer the question.” I detected a bit of annoyance in her voice, so I did as she suggested.

“Ah got staabud in a ches wi a baynet.” I swallowed a little more, because it didn’t come out as clear as I might have preferred. “I got stabbed in the chest with a bayonet.”

She looked shocked, reached over, and stuck her hand in the hole. “Frank, did he get you in the heart?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t die?!” I was a little surprised she’d ask, considering the upgrade package.

“No. It hurt a whole lot and feeling the hole close up was really disgusting, but it didn’t kill me.”

“Damn.” She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to go through that, but I’d prefer not to die. Guess I’ll just have to suck it up, huh?”

“Probably. How’s your boob?”

“Fine. He didn’t even dent the vest. I was just startled as Hell he thought to do it.” She shook her head ruefully and added, “I’m really happy I had the vest on, though. I don’t want to watch my body grow a new nipple.”

I just nodded because I had no idea what to say to something like that.

Thankfully, the need to reply to her statement was taken from me by the nano-critters. All of us hit the dirt at the same time, faces down with our hands covering our eyes. I had to assume that my onboard posse was aware of something that I wasn’t, like the impending laser show.

Charlie got up first. “What the Hell was that about?”

“Fitz, ping Ramos and have him ask Buttons what the Hell that was.” Matt issued the order calmly but looked slightly rattled. “I don’t know, Charlie, but we’re going to find out.”

We stood there, looking around as if we expected something to land on us. Eventually, Fitzgerald got back to us with an answer. Buttons saw a civilian helicopter land on the roof of our target building and took the opportunity to take it out on the off chance that someone interesting was about to make a break for it. Matt sent back a brief message of thanks that included a pointed request that we be informed before such actions were taken.

Fitz also relayed that the convoy was moving quite quickly for such a large number of vehicles, and that the rescue team should start moving toward the overpass. Armed with that information, Matt rounded us all up and had us check and reload any weapons that were low. We were good to go in less than 60 seconds.

“All right. We’ve got about half a mile to cover on foot. The plan is to stick to the right side of the paved road with Franklin on point. We will take cover as necessary to avoid the light show. Clear?” Matt locked eyes with each of us until we gave him an affirmative. “All right. After the light show, we will cross the overpass on the right, as quickly as possible. If we have no incidents, we will then duck into the condo community, take out any sentries, and assess which entrance to the building will function best. Clear?”

We were clear. It was simple and direct. Things would likely become messy once we made our entrance into the building itself, but the degree of trouble would depend on things we were not able to predict. The collateral damage from the laser strikes being one of those things, the other unknown being the exact number of opponents we were going to have to face.

Franklin gave us the high sign and we started walking. I’m grateful, and I’m sure the others were as well, that it was a quiet and uneventful slog. There were no cars and not a peep on our “radar” that had anything to do with enemies. We stopped at the end of the overpass and got the ping from Fitzgerald that we had 15 seconds to get cover and get something over our eyes.

It was a long 15 seconds, facedown in the dirt with my hands wrapped around my face. Fitz came across on the Townhall channel to let us know that the strikes on the crater area were about to start. A moment after that it sounded like the sky squealed.

I didn’t hear the following shots, even as far away as we were, because there were too many other noises. Booming sounds and screams carried across the road, and I felt sick to think that the idea I had come up with was as brutally effective as it sounded.

“Rescue, Fitzgerald here. Relay says you are good to proceed to target. Visual indicates successful strike, and B is moving to target the convoy. Godspeed.”

Flower looked us over and pointed to the other side without a single comment. Franklin took point, and we scrambled over there, hoping to make good use of the confusion.

Hieronymus Bosch would have painted the scene we set our eyes on as we ducked into the elegant, but slightly damaged, brick condominium community on the other side of the overpass. It was Hell after the lights are turned out.

The laser strikes into the water-filled crater did three things we were sure of, even with a quick glance at the tableau. One of the beams melted the water pipe closed. The other shots dazzled or blinded quite a few of the observers instantly. Those near the crater rim, and for some distance beyond it, didn’t fare as well as those that were blinded.

The heat caused the entire pool of water to explode into super-heated steam. There were dozens of bodies that had been steamed to death instantly. Still more looked like boiled lobsters, contorted on the bubbling asphalt.

If I live forever, I will pray I never hear a noise like the screaming of the poor bastards who were still alive. I will also hope that if there is a God, that forgiveness is possible, because I brought that suffering about. It didn’t matter if they were murderous undead things; they still looked and experienced agony just like people.

Not even the most foul, genocidal, child-raping sociopath deserved to have half of their body cooked to the bone and still be conscious to feel the horrible burning that would kill them... not right away, but over hours. What was being human without some kind of mercy, even in the face of an abomination that masqueraded as a person?

God help me.

I didn’t see the sentry until he tried to kill me. Omura took him out, deftly, with an almost graceful motion that sent the head into the air as the body hit the ground. Absentmindedly, it occurred to me I didn’t know a garrote could do that, but I kept it to myself. The only thing that came out of my mouth was air, because Flower shoved me up against the nearest wall.