Crucifixion - 02 (4 page)

The Pave Hawk was waiting for us on the tarmac, two ground
crewmen just finishing fueling the external tanks.  I didn’t know the
operational radius of a Pave Hawk, but I was glad to see we would have extra
fuel for the flight.  Anderson jumped out of the pickup as soon it came to a
stop and headed for the helicopter.  He was met by a Tech Sergeant who emerged
from a hangar when we pulled up and the two immediately started walking around
the aircraft, checking whatever it is pilots check before takeoff.  Mayo walked
over and climbed in the open side door and started checking over the mounted
minigun.  I smiled when I saw the weapon.  Six rotating barrels and
electrically operated it could fire up to 6,000 rounds per minute and would
absolutely pulverize anything short of heavy armor.  A friend of mine had
called it ‘the Finger of God’ because whatever it reached out and touched just ceased
to exist.

I tossed my pack in the helicopter as Anderson climbed into
the pilot’s seat and hit the starters for the engines.  Climbing aboard I
connected to a safety tether that would keep me from falling out of the open
door.  The engines whined and quickly built to a deafening roar and I scrambled
to get a headset on to protect my ears.  I watched as Anderson scanned all of
the instruments, and apparently satisfied he plugged the flash drive Masuka had
given him into a USB port on the navigation console.  It took the system a
moment to process the data then a screen flashed to life displaying our flight
path to the target – rescue location in this case. 

Anderson left the radio linked to the intercom and we could
hear him contact flight control, requesting clearance.  They held us on the
ground for a few minutes then released us and Anderson hit the throttle and
pulled on the collective causing the Pave Hawk to leap into the air.  He didn’t
bother to stabilize into a hover, rather immediately banked the big helicopter
and put us on a heading to the southeast.  On the navigation display a blinking
green symbol in the shape of an ‘X’ started following the thin green line that
represented our flight path.

I busied myself with checking my weapons and making sure all
the spare magazines distributed across my tactical vest were fully loaded. 
Taking the headset off long enough to insert the earpiece for the secure field
radio I tested it with Anderson, then put the headset back on over it.  Next I
busied myself with checking the rope I would use to get onto the roof of the
house.  Fast roping out of a hovering helicopter is not one of my favorite
things to do as I’m afraid of heights, but you do what you have to do.  The
rope is a heavy piece of braided nylon, just under two inches thick and is
bolted to the floor of the helicopter.

Everything as ready as it could be I sat back and started
chatting with Anderson and Mayo over the intercom as we flew.  They wanted to
know where Rachel was and I filled them in on the fast approaching flight to
Arizona and where Rachel was at the moment.  They both agreed with me that she
was going to be pissed that I’d run off without her.  We talked about my recall
to the Army and my newly acquired rank, then fell quiet as we all got lost in
our own thoughts.

It wasn’t a long flight and soon we were over the edge of
the suburbs to the north of Atlanta.  Out the right side of the aircraft I
could see the lake where we’d all met and shook my head at the thought that it
seemed like weeks ago, not just a couple of days.  Ahead of us smoke still rose
from the ashes that had been downtown Atlanta.  Beneath us the trees thinned as
we flew over more established residential areas.  I kept my eyes open for other
survivors but all I saw moving were large groups of infected, all heading in a
generally northern direction.

“Five minutes,” Anderson’s voice came over the intercom,
giving me a heads up that we were almost to the target.  “We’ve got enough fuel
for 15 minutes on target, 20 if I go into the emergency reserves then we either
go or we’re walking part of the way back.”

“Understood,” I replied, already shifting mental gears as I
prepared for the assault.  I triple checked the status and security of my
weapons and spare magazines then slipped on a pair of gloves with heavy,
leather palms that would protect my hands as I slid down the rope.  The rope
was coiled neatly on the floor of the helicopter and was ready to be deployed. 
Mayo and I had already checked the operation of the winch that would be used to
get us back up into the helicopter when I had Gwen and Stacy.

“Fuck me, but look at that!”  Mayo’s voice over the intercom
pulled my attention to the open door.  Looking out I was shocked at the sheer
number of infected that had crammed themselves into the neighborhood
surrounding the house.  Even though I’d seen it on the satellite image it was
still a staggering site in person.  Three to four blocks in every direction the
ground was not visible due to the tightly jammed mass of bodies.

As we zeroed in on the house Anderson cut our speed and put
the helicopter into a tight orbit so we could get a good view.  The sun was
setting and while it wasn’t still full daylight there was plenty of light to
see the infected.  It seemed as if every face in the crowd of thousands was
turned upwards and for a moment the infected pressed against the house stopped
pounding and clawing on the walls as they looked up at the noisy helicopter.

“You sure you want to do this, Major?”  Anderson asked.

“No choice,” I replied.  “Look at that shit.  We’re those
kid’s last chance.”

Anderson didn’t answer, probably didn’t know what to say,
and a moment later he pulled out of the orbit and brought the big Pave Hawk
into a hover over the roof of our target.  The house was a small two story with
an attic on top of the second floor.  There weren’t any balconies or decks off
the upper floors, but the infected had piled on top of each other until their
hands were banging on the second story windows.  The windows appeared to have
been boarded up from the inside and with the proximity of the infected I
realized that my idea to go in an upper story window wasn’t going to work.  Oh
well, there are other ways to gain entry.  I reached into the pack I would be
leaving behind in the helicopter and grabbed a zippered nylon bag that I
clipped to my vest.

“Ready,” Anderson said when he was comfortable the
helicopter was in a stable hover.

I kicked the rope out of the door and it uncoiled smoothly,
hitting the roof of the house and the final 25 feet slithering across the
shingles and falling into the mass of enraged infected.  Mayo called out
heights and adjustments to Anderson and the helicopter gained a few feet of
altitude and the rope pulled out of the throng, two females hanging on to the
end.  I leaned out the open door and picked each of them off with my rifle,
their bodies crashing down into the waiting arms of the herd.

“Switching to comms,” I said, taking off the headset. 
Unclipping from the safety tether that had kept me in the helicopter I stepped
out the door and onto a small peg, wrapped my hands around the rope, pinched
with my feet and dropped away from the aircraft.  Fast roping, while it may
look like rappelling is actually nothing like it.  You are not using a
descender to control your speed, rather you slide down the rope just like a
fireman going down the pole in a fire station.  Even with the heavy leather
palmed gloves my hands heated up, but not so much that I couldn’t grip the rope
and maintain a reasonable rate of descent.  Very quickly my boots hit the roof
and I stepped away from the rope, holding it in one hand to keep control so it
didn’t whip around and either knock me off the roof or tangle in my legs and
drag me with it when the helicopter pulled away.  Mayo, leaning out of the door
and staring down at me gave me a thumbs up when I was clear of the rope and
Anderson moved the Pave Hawk up and away from the house to go back into an
orbit to wait for me.

The moans and screams of the infected were loud in my ears
once the noise of the helicopter moved away.  Below me at the rear wall of the
house they were continuing to pile on top of each other and hands were just a
couple of feet from the lip of the roof, well above the second floor windows. 
I checked the other three sides, moving carefully as a stumble and fall off the
roof would be fatal, and found similar results everywhere I looked.  I moved
back to the middle of the roof and called Mayo on the secure comm unit.

“Mayo, I’m about to have company on the roof.  Can you do
something about these uninvited guests?”

“Fuckin’ A, Major.  Stand by.”

The Pave Hawk stopped orbiting and settled into a stable
hover 200 feet in the air.  I could see Mayo, tethered in behind the door
mounted minigun, calling adjustments to Anderson over the intercom.  When the
aircraft was where he wanted it Mayo unleashed hell.  A minigun doesn’t sound
like a gun.  It sounds like a very loud and very angry swarm of bad ass bees. 
As I watched, a nearly solid stream of lead tore into the infected piling up
against the house and the bodies just disintegrated, all the blood and other
fluids in them forming pinkish-red clouds that quickly settled.

Tearing my eyes away from the show I zipped open the nylon
pouch I had clipped to my vest.  Inside was what looked like a thumb thick
length of rope, but rope doesn’t usually go boom.  This was a breaching charge
made of a specialized casing that was filled with a small amount of C-4 plastic
explosive.  It was very flexible and could be molded to any surface in any
shape, and when it was detonated the casing focused the force of the explosion
and ‘cut’ through what it was attached to.  I laid out a three by three foot
square, inserted four evenly spaced wireless detonators and moved to the far
side of the roof.

Mayo was still firing the minigun and it almost drowned out
the heavy thump when I pushed the button to detonate the C-4, but the explosion
was still audible and rattled the roof underneath the soles of my boots. 
Stuffing the actuator back into the nylon pouch and zipping it up I trotted
across the roof and looked down through the hole I had just made.

“Gwen!  Stacy!”  I shouted, hoping they were in the attic
and this would be easy.  Unfortunately, as an old friend of mine who was a SEAL
used to say, the only easy day was yesterday.

Pulling my rifle around I clicked on the rail mounted
flashlight and stuck the barrel into the hole I’d just blown in the roof.  Dust
and small particles of floating debris choked the air and the powerful beam of
light didn’t penetrate more than a few feet into the attic space.  I crab
walked my way around the opening, shining the flashlight and trying to see any
threats, but there was just too much dust in the air.

“Major, the infected are piling up faster than we can keep
them knocked down,” Anderson’s voice over my ear piece.  “You’ve got maybe two
minutes before the roof is compromised.”

“Copy,” I answered, made my decision and dropped through the
hole in the roof.  My boots hit the rafters with my shoulders and head still
above the roof line.  Squatting down I got my eyes down into the attic,
switched off the flashlight and dropped the NVGs – Night Vision Goggles – over
my eyes.  The entire space snapped into sharp focus in shades of green and
black.  I scanned the attic and spotted two figures huddled together at the far
end of the space, one of them holding a pistol aimed in my direction.  I also
noted the sound of the infected coming through the second floor ceiling that I
was standing on.  They were in the house.

“Gwen,” I called out, turning off the NVGs and clicking on a
handheld flashlight that I aimed at myself so she could see I wasn’t an
infected.  “I’m here to get you out.  Come to me.  We have to move.”

“Who are you?”  Her voice was weak and shaky, whether from
fear or injury I didn’t know.

“Remember a couple of weeks ago a man and woman in a truck
gave you some food?  That’s me.  I’m back, we’ve got a helicopter waiting and
we have to go.  The infected are almost on the roof.”

As if to emphasize my point Anderson spoke up on the comm
channel, “Major, it’s getting a little dangerous out here.  You’d better get a
move on.”

“Copy,” I answered.  “Gwen, we have to go now or we’re going
to die in here.”

I started moving towards the two girls and had covered half
the distance when one of the rafters I was walking on snapped under me and I
crashed through the ceiling and on top of a group of infected that had squeezed
into a small bedroom.

The rafter had snapped with no warning.  No ominous creaking
of wood stressed beyond its limit, no spongy feel beneath my feet, just SNAP!
and I was falling.  My brain sped up and wasted a blink of time thinking it was
either termites or dry rot that had weakened the board, then my feet and legs
were thrashing at the infecteds’ eye level.  The rafter that had snapped had a
couple of exposed nail heads and my rifle’s sling had caught on one of them, arresting
my fall as the sling tightened around my chest and left shoulder and pinned the
rifle tight to my body.

Hands immediately started grabbing at my feet and legs,
pulling hard.  I started kicking, swinging from the single point where I was
hanging from the nail and I must have looked like a big, delicious piñata to
the infected.  I grabbed an adjacent rafter and tried to pull myself back into
the attic but every time I gained a few inches one of the infected got a good
purchase on one of my boots and pulled me back down.  Rifle uselessly stuck
against my body, I drew my pistol and started firing into the faces looking up
at me.  I burned through 16 quick rounds and the bodies were piling up, but
that just gave a boost to the infected that were flooding into the room and
climbing on top of the ones I had killed.  Hands were now up to mid-thigh and I
could feel hungry mouths biting into my heavy combat boots.  The thought of
hands reaching higher and finding my balls caused a shiver to start at the base
of my spine and go all the way up.  Still kicking and trying to swap magazines
in my pistol one handed I almost freaked out when hands grabbed me under my arms
and started pulling.

I looked up and met Gwen’s eyes as she pulled for all she
was worth.  Flailing my feet I felt heads bouncing off my kicks, had an idea
and stopped kicking.  When I felt hands and mouths on my legs and boots again I
pulled my legs up and stepped onto the top of several heads and pushed off just
as Gwen gave a big tug.  I came far enough up into the attic to grab the rafter
Gwen was sitting on and frantically pulled myself the rest of the way and
quickly moved away from the hole in the ceiling.

“Major, infected on the roof.”  Anderson’s voice in my
earpiece again.

Shit.  So much for a quick and easy extraction.  I crouched
with my weight spread across two rafters and told Gwen and Stacy what was going
on, instructing them to stay behind me.  Daylight was fading quickly and the
attic was close to pitch black.  Foregoing the flashlight I lowered my NVGs
just in time to see a female infected drop through the hole I’d blown in the
roof.  I brought the rifle up and fired in the same motion, the high velocity
round nearly decapitating the woman.  Two more dropped through the opening and
I shot them just as quickly then started duck walking towards the opening
yelling for Gwen and Stacy to follow me.  I killed two more as they came in
through the hole and spun when Gwen fired several shots from her pistol right
behind me.  The infected were piling up in the bedroom and a female had started
to climb through the hole in the ceiling. 

Making it to the hole in the roof I looked up as a female
infected leaned over and screamed at me, maybe a couple of feet from my face. 
The rifle was up and at the ready and I blew a hole through her throat, stood
up and shoved the body away from me.  It was twilight, still too light for the
NVGs and I raised them off my eyes and scanned the roof.  The house was built
on a slope, the upslope edge of the roof not as high off the ground and this
was where the infected were coming over the top.  The big rotor of the Pave
Hawk pounded the air above me and Mayo was still firing the minigun, but he had
four walls to keep clear and could only target two without having to have
Anderson change the position of the helicopter.  They were just re-positioning
over the shortest wall as I stepped onto the roof and shot two females that
were charging towards me.

“Ready for extraction,” I shouted over the rotor noise,
knowing the small throat mic strapped to my neck didn’t need me to raise my
voice to be heard.

“Working on it,” Anderson’s voice came through my ear piece
a moment later.  “Mayo’s trying to figure out how to control the winch and
still keep the infected knocked back.”

“Lower the goddamn line,” I ordered.  “I’ll take care of the
infected.”

I was already running towards the edge of the roof as I
spoke and I was gratified to hear the minigun fall silent.  Pulling two
fragmentation grenades out of my vest I stepped to the edge of the roof as
Anderson brought the Pave Hawk into a low hover and nearly blew me over the
side with the rotor wash.  I looked over, bracing myself against the wind, and
was astonished to see the seething mass of infected clawing their way over each
other to get to the roof.  I kicked a couple of females in the face as they
reached the edge of the roof, watching them tumble to the bottom of the pile,
then pulled both grenade pins.  Letting the spoons fly I dropped both grenades
over the edge, aiming for a spot a few feet up from the bottom.  Five seconds
later both grenades detonated within a fraction of a second of each other.  I
felt the concussion in my chest and was rewarded with the pile of infected
collapsing into the void created by the falling bodies that were destroyed.

I turned and ran back to Gwen and Stacy, grabbing the
braided steel cable with a canvas harness on the end as it dropped to roof
level from the winch arm that extended out from the side of the hovering
helicopter.  There wasn’t time for niceties so I grabbed Stacy and slipped the
harness over her head and shoulders, positioning the cable centered on the
front of her body.  Grabbing her hands I wrapped them around the cable and
raised my arm in the air and twirled my hand.  Mayo was on the ball and her
feet immediately left the roof as he winched her up.  A quick scan of the roof
and I spotted two different locations where hands were grasping the edge and I
readied my rifle in time to shoot the first female that climbed up onto the
shingles.  The body flipped over backwards and disappeared over the edge.  More
quickly followed and by the time the harness was on its way back down I’d
already gone through a magazine and a half of ammunition.

Gwen was pressed against my back and I could feel her
shivering in fright as the volume of infected females reaching the roof
increased.  I was firing as fast as I could acquire targets, and the only good
thing about the situation was the range was so short I was making every shot
count.  Another magazine change and I had to shoot down two females that had
reached the roof and covered half the distance to me in the time it took me to
make the swap.  Damn they were fast.  I risked a glance behind and saw the
harness dangling a foot off the roof and shouted for Gwen to get into it.

“How?”  She yelled back.

“Just like I put it on Stacy.  Get it over your shoulders
and in your arm pits and hang on to the cable.”  I kept up my rate of fire
while I yelled the instructions to her and was now having to defend three edges
from infected.  Fire, turn and acquire, fire, turn and acquire, as fast as I
could.  I glanced behind me and Gwen and the harness were gone.  I didn’t have
time to look up to make sure she was OK. 

The infected were coming up onto the roof now in numbers
that were greater than I could keep knocked down and I had less than a minute
before I would be overwhelmed.  I was OK with that as the harness should be
heading back down any moment and I’d be plucked to safety in plenty of time. 
That is if my rifle didn’t jam, which it did the same instant the thought went
through my head.  Fuck me if I didn’t just jinx myself.  No time to clear the
misfire I let the rifle drop and hang on its sling and whipped out my pistol
and pulled the trigger on an empty chamber.  Shit!  I hadn’t been able to load
a new magazine when I was stuck in the attic and had committed the cardinal sin
of carrying a weapon that was not ready to go.

I was out of time.  Five females were on the roof, climbing
and leaping over the bodies of the ones I’d shot as they charged my position
and I was down to two edged weapons.  I had a Ka-Bar fighting knife with an
eight inch blade and a Ka-Bar Kukri machete with a wicked 12 inch curved
blade.  One weapon in each hand I met the first female as she charged, side
stepping and slicing deep enough into her neck with the Kukri to sever her
spinal cord.  Kicking the body aside I spun and buried the knife into the chest
of the next, slicing into her heart and dropping her on the spot.  I kept
fighting, slicing, stabbing, kicking and even punching.  They were fast and
strong, but they were still just enraged humans.  None of them were large
enough to present an individual threat, but if I went down they’d all be on me
in a flash and that would be the end of it.

Lost in the fight I had lost track of time and hadn’t
thought to look for the harness when suddenly the whole roof and half a dozen
females in front of me started disintegrating.  I back pedaled and looked up to
see Mayo manning the minigun again and Gwen leaning out of the open side door
of the helicopter waving at me like a maniac.  The line extended down from the
winch and the harness lay on the roof ten feet away.  Diving for it as Mayo
adjusted fire I slipped it over my head and slashed open the throat of an
attacking female as the winch took up the slack and started pulling me up.  I
was only a few feet up in the air when another female sprang onto the roof, saw
me dangling there and leapt forward with a great bound, launching herself off
the body of the female I had just killed. 

Trying to make her miss I pulled my legs up and twisted
away, but she slammed into my lower body and wrapped her arms around me with an
iron grip.  Immediately she started attacking, biting my upper thighs through
the heavy fabric of the uniform pants.  Fortunately humans don’t have sharp
teeth and serious bite pressure like a dog, so she couldn’t actually bite
through my clothing, but she was able to get a mouthful of flesh in her jaws
and son of a bitch if it didn’t hurt.  Bare skin would have torn open, but the
heavy fabric protected me to a degree.  Grunting in pain I pounded on the top
of her head with the hilt of the Kukri, but she was like a Pit Bull and wasn’t
letting go other than to bite down on a new chunk of flesh on my inner thigh. 
Damn that hurt, and it was way too close to a really sensitive area. 

We were now winched all the way up to the helicopter and
hung suspended in the air just in front of the open side door.  Mayo had
stopped firing and sat there three feet away staring at me with his mouth
hanging open.  The bitch bit down again, even higher this time and I roared in
pain and pounded even harder on her head.  It still did no good, her grip not
loosening in the least.  Now pain has a way of distracting you, and the pain
from the bites had distracted me from what I was holding in my hands.  Instead
of pounding on her head I should be stabbing or slicing.  Reversing the knife
in my grip I stabbed into the side of her neck, ramming it in to the hilt and
started sawing away from my body, feeling the blade bite into her spine.  Her
grip instantly loosened and she fell away from my body, Ka-Bar still stuck in
her neck.

Mayo snapped back into action and reached out for my now
empty hand.  I grabbed his wrist and he let out slack on the winch as he pulled
me into the helicopter where I collapsed on the vibrating deck.  He pulled the
harness off over my head, snapped a safety tether to my vest and left me alone
as I rolled into a ball with my hands tucked protectively between my legs
pressing on the spots that hurt the worst.