Rotter Apocalypse (13 page)

“Talk to me,” said Preston.

Natalie used one hand to wipe her mouth and the other to push the microphone close to her lips, cupping it so no insects could get inside. “Where are we heading?”

“There’s a truck entrance on the north end of the stadium.”

“Continue straight. I’ll tell you when to turn.”

“Roger that.”

Natalie shifted around to avoid the swarm of flies and wasps the tank passed through, and wished she hadn’t. The treads kicked up a splash back of blood that sprayed the rear end of the Abrams and left a wake of gore in the ocean of living dead. The nauseating stench of decay mixed with the overpowering odor of ammonia from hundreds of ruptured stomachs and intestines. Natalie retched again, spilling what remained in her stomach down the open hatch.

“Jesus!” complained Hendricks as the puke splattered off his helmet. “What the fuck is going on up there?”

Natalie ignored him. When she spit out the last of the vomitus, several flies entered her mouth, forcing her to swallow them. She grimaced, trying to prevent herself from puking again. 

“I need a location update!” Preston yelled into his microphone.

“Hang on,” Natalie hacked. Glancing forward, she said, “Turn left thirty degrees.”

The Abrams swung left and continued plowing its way through the parking lot. A few seconds later, they passed by the front entrance to the stadium. More rotters occupied the eastern and northern sectors of the parking lot, surging toward the noise.

“Where are we now?” asked Preston.

“We passed the front entrance.”

“How big is this fucking thing?” he asked.

Natalie kept turning her head to the back to avoid the swarming insects. When she looked forward for the third time, they had reached the far corner of the stadium. “Turn left again, forty degrees.”

Preston complied. Natalie scanned the side of the building for the vehicle entrance. After a few seconds she spotted it. The doors had been pushed in, presumably by one of the previous tanks.

“I see it. Turn ninety degrees to the left on my mark.” Natalie waited until the Abrams had pulled parallel to the entrance. “Now!”

The M1 lurched hard left and headed for the stadium. After a few seconds, Preston said, “Everyone hang on.”

The Abrams stopped. Preston locked the turret in place and rotated the chassis three hundred and sixty degrees, repeating this maneuver several times. The spinning chassis plowed through the horde of rotters, scattering them in every direction, and propelled the insects off. On the third revolution, the chassis stopped and the M1 moved forward.

“What was that about?” asked Hendricks.

“I needed to clean the bugs off my periscope so I can see where we’re going.”

“Good idea. Natalie, get back in the tank.”

She did not need to be told twice. Climbing down into the turret, she closed the hatch. Dozens of insects followed, although they were nowhere near as aggravating as the swarm topside. She peered through the periscope as the Abrams entered the stadium. She found it difficult to see because of the darkened interior, although she did notice that the walls were splattered with blood and dripped with crushed internal organs, evidence that the other two tanks had passed this way. A few seconds later, the Abrams exited through the other end of the vehicle opening into the stadium.

Natalie thought this was what Hell must be like.

Rotters jammed the stadium bowl. Every inch of the playing field contained the living dead, as well as most of the seating area, until the structure itself seemed like a single pulsing organism. The only portions not occupied by rotters were the two spots where the other Abrams had been abandoned. A cloud of flies and wasps hovered over the horde.

Preston maneuvered to the center of the stadium and shut down the M1.

Hendricks yelled into his microphone to be heard above the din. “This is RCZ4/3! We’re ready for extraction!”

“Roger that. We’re inbound to you now. Please be waiting by the curb for your ride.”

“Hurry up, I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to.” Hendricks pulled off his helmet and gas mask, and then called up to Natalie. “Crack the hatch and head topside. The chopper will be here in a minute.”

Natalie removed her helmet, pushed open the hatch, and climbed out onto the turret. Only then did she appreciate the full horror. A sea of decayed, outstretched arms greeted her. Several tried to crawl up onto the M1, unable to get a grip on the gore-covered surface. Even those in the seating area reached out, many tumbling over the guardrail and crashing into the mass of living dead on the levels below. The stench was more intense within the confined spaces of the stadium. The moaning of tens of thousands of rotters and the buzzing of hundreds of thousands of insects drowned out all other noise. Natalie moved toward the rear of the turret, trying to ignore the mass of living dead.

Her foot slipped on a piece of intestine and Natalie fell backwards, sliding along the turret’s slick surface toward the rotters. Those closest to her became frantic in anticipation of a meal, tearing and clawing at each other to get to her. Natalie closed her eyes and prayed.

A hand grabbed her arm before she slid off, and Natalie opened her eyes to see Hendricks crouched down on the turret, one hand holding her wrist, the other clutching the machinegun mount. For a moment she thought she would be all right, and then hands clutched at her legs. One wrapped itself around her ankle and yanked, threatening to pull her out of the lieutenant’s grip. She kicked desperately. The rotter let go of her ankle, and others took its place. She glanced down and stared into dozens of hungry mouths only a few feet away.

“Give me your hand!” yelled Preston. He crouched beside Hendricks, leaning out and extending his arm. “Give me your fucking hand or we’re going to lose you!”

That snapped Natalie out of her confusion. She swung her free hand up and clasped onto the corporal’s. Both men pulled her onto the turret and steadied her.

“Are you okay?” Hendricks asked.

“Yes, but I feel like an idiot for falling.”

“Don’t. It takes a while to get used to crawling around armor.” Hendricks patted her on the shoulder. “Secure the antenna before the Chinook shows up, otherwise they’ll cut us to shreds.”

Natalie had finished tying down her antenna when a heavy burst of wind slammed into her face. A Chinook entered the stadium, and the pilot positioned it over the Abrams. The back ramp lowered, and the helicopter descended until its ramp hovered one foot above the front end of the turret. Preston jumped on first, holding the hydraulic joist with one hand and helping Natalie on board with the other. Hendricks boarded last. The other two tank crews sat on a bank of seats. One of the crewmen spoke into his headset, and the Chinook lifted off and headed out of the stadium. Once at a safe distance over San Francisco Bay, the helicopter paused to hover.

An MC-130 flew northwest at an altitude of six thousand feet. While still over the Bay, the rear landing deck lowered. When the MC-130 passed over the stadium’s eastern parking area, a gray cylindrical object thirty feet long and three feet in diameter rolled down the ramp and off the plane. A parachute on the blunt end of the device opened, allowing it to float toward its target. A second, similar object rolled off the ramp three seconds later and also deployed a parachute, this one over the stadium. The MC-130 banked left, increasing speed and altitude to evacuate the blast zone.

The two devices exploded twenty feet above ground into donut-shaped clouds of liquid-gel that spread out across the eastern parking lot and stadium, each covering an area of one thousand square feet. Five seconds later, explosions occurred inside each cloud, generating a spark of fire that detonated the liquid-gel mixtures with the equivalent of forty-four tons of TNT. Outside the stadium, the flames incinerated everything within the cloud’s radius. A massive overpressure twenty times normal atmospheric pressure raced through the parking lot and expanded into the northern and southern sectors, crushing everything in its path. In an instant, tens of thousands of rotters not burned in the fireball were shattered, limbs and heads torn from bodies, torsos ruptured, and skulls caved in. The blast wave slammed into the eastern façade of the stadium, shearing off the klieg lights, leveling the entrance, and collapsing the concrete ramps. The device that detonated inside did similar damage, the fireball incinerating almost two hundred thousand of the living dead on the field and in the seating areas, and blasting through the exterior corridors. The elevated seating directed the overpressure back on itself, generating a shockwave that gutted the interior of the stadium and blew chunks of the top sections into the parking lot. As the smoke dissipated, nothing could be seen moving in the area of the blast.

All Natalie could say was, “Holy fucking shit.”

“Tell me about it.” Hendricks grabbed her shoulder and squeezed, intending it as a comradely gesture. “I told you we were taking this war back to the revenants. Payback is going to be a bitch.”

The Chinook headed back to the Beachhead, the remnants of the stadium receding in the distance.

Damn, we might just win this after all.

The push down Sloat Boulevard had fallen into a routine after the first few hundred feet. Ari admired the efficiency of the operation. The troops walked the line abreast and stretched from one sidewalk to the other, with a foot between each person. If they came across any living dead, the soldier in front of it would take it down with a single shot to the head. At every intersection they paused to check out the cross streets and allow any stray revenants to close with the line, dispatched it, and then moved on to the next intersection. Every fifteen minutes, platoon leaders would check with their counterparts on the parallel streets to the north and south, and would either stop so the other lines could catch up, or would move their own people ahead. By this method, a stable front steadily made its way across San Francisco from the Pacific Coast toward the Bay. A second line of troops followed one thousand feet behind the first. Their job was to mop up stray revenants that wandered out of buildings or alleys, and to ensure the main line did not get surrounded. A third, much smaller group brought up the rear and would leave a pair of guards along Sloat Boulevard every five hundred feet to police the area and report any large numbers of the living dead they found, most likely those stuck in buildings that emerged after the main line had passed. Those on the line encountered only a score of revenants in their push across the city, most having been previously lured to the RCZs and eliminated during the morning’s PDS operations. Most of those they came upon were trapped inside abandoned vehicles or were immobile. A few buildings, like the Lucky Supermarket and West Portal Lutheran School, contained a considerable number of living dead trapped inside. Penal squads would come by later and clean them out before the city was declared safe for habitation.

The line eventually reached the intersection of Portola Drive and Junipero Serra Boulevard. Napier’s platoon continued through the intersection to where Sloat Boulevard narrowed and became St. Francis Boulevard. The going was uphill through a residential neighborhood. Rotter activity increased in this sector, although nothing to be alarmed over. When St. Francis Boulevard came to an end by a large stone water fountain, Napier yelled out, “Take fifteen, people! Stay alert in case there are revenants in the area.”

“Beautiful view from up here, isn’t it?” Doreen remarked.

Ari turned around, and for the first time realized they were on one of the many hills overlooking San Francisco. Looking back the way they had come, she saw the coastline a few miles in the distance, the azure water reflecting the late morning sun. Off to the northeast, the various residential neighborhoods ascended the hill’s terrace up to the peak of Mt. Davidson Park. The homes were large and elegant, many with red terra cotta roofs. The horrors of the outbreak had not reached this neighborhood; none of the houses had been ransacked or destroyed, and no corpses lay strewn across the street. The only indications of an apocalypse were front lawns where grass and weeds had grown untended for a year and the four pillars of black smoke rising in the distance from the RCZs.

“It makes me want to move here when this is finally over,” said Doreen.

“Fuck that. There are too many bad memories associated with this city. Besides, if I make it through this, I’m moving to the mountains where I’ll be safe if this shit ever goes down again.”

“Won’t you be lonely by yourself?”

Ari wanted to avoid answering that question. She got the chance when Mesle strolled by. She excused herself from Doreen and stepped over to him.

Mesle paused in front of her. “What’s up?”

“I’m curious why going to the zoo was so important?”

“We’ve heard rumors that the Revenant Virus had species jumped, and we needed to check out the zoo to verify that.”

“Species jumped?” Doreen came over and joined the conversation.

“Yes.” Mesle nodded. “The Revenant Virus was originally designed as a medical application to regenerate scar tissue. It had the unintended effect of killing off the host’s living tissue and reanimating it. Since the virus had been bioengineered for humans, it only infected humans. Over the past few months, we’ve been receiving reports from across the country, none of which could be substantiated, that the virus had adapted and could infect animal hosts.”

Ari exhaled audibly. “Jesus.”

“Exactly,” answered Mesle.

Doreen scrunched her eyebrows. “I don’t understand.”

“If the virus species jumped,” explained Mesle, “we’d be dealing with revenant animals. Can you imagine the clusterfuck if a pack of infected rats or a flock of infected birds got loose in an unaffected area? The rumors almost convinced Secretary Fogel not to proceed with the plan to take back the country, and to limit the reclamation to San Francisco. Luckily, none of the animals we found in the zoo that were bitten had come back to life, so we can rule out those reports as rumors.”

“Thank God,” said Ari.

“You rest up,” said Mesle. “We’re going to have a long afternoon ahead of us.”

“Why do you say that?” Ari asked. “This has been easy.”

Mesle pointed to the area east of the water fountain. “So far, every street in our sector has been laid out in a grid pattern, so most of the revenants were lured to the RCZ. Once we get on the other side of this fountain, the neighborhoods become a winding labyrinth of roads that stretch for over a mile until we reach the flat ground on the opposite side. According to our intelligence, there are large concentrations of revenants in there.”

Mesle walked away. Ari looked over to the fountain and the area beyond it. All she could mumble was, “Shit.”