Transformation: Zombie Crusade VI (36 page)

The observation post close to the Virgin River Campground was situated at the end of a private drive to the northeast of the main camping area. Peering down into the location as they approached on the interstate, Luke and the others could clearly see that they were too late; this observation post was in no better condition than the first. Pulling off the highway and onto the single-lane road leading to the building housing the soldiers assigned to watch the area, Luke felt a sinking feeling in his gut: the Utah early warning system had been systematically destroyed. At first, he didn’t know how the hunters were being directed to the targets, but tire tracks were soon discovered, along with clusters of what appeared to be human footprints.

Olsen pointed to an area close to Luke. “Looks like a semi-trailer backed off the road over there.”

“And humans wear footwear—these tracks are from hunters,” Luke declared.

“This might explain how the hunters got here, but we still don’t know why our troops left the safety of the building.” Olsen looked at Luke nervously. “Hunters aren’t driving semis around, are they?”

“No—I have no doubt that Barnes had them delivered by his goons.” One of the scouts approached Luke and waited deferentially a few feet away. Luke motioned for him to come closer. “What’ve you got for me?”

The tired soldier glanced around nervously. “No dead hunters here; I guess the surprise was complete. All the corpses are mauled, but not as bad as the last place—these bodies are mostly intact. We can account for eleven men.”

Olsen cut in, “We always staff our outposts with twelve men—we might have a survivor from here.”

  A hurried search of the building revealed no survivor and no sign of struggle inside. One of the men finally noticed that the back door was open and called for his sergeant to check it out. He discovered what looked like several sets of boot-prints running toward the river behind the facility.

Luke looked the terrain over with an experienced eye. The observation post had been quartered in a building that enjoyed a back yard surrounded by a wall. The Virgin River could be heard, but not seen, from where they stood. Apparently there was a significant drop-off from the banks to the river bed. Scrubby trees were visible along the edge of the water on the far side. Luke told the scouts to stay behind and keep an eye on the outpost, then he and Olsen’s men double-checked their weapons before carefully following the tracks toward the river. They hadn’t gone very far when a frightened voice could suddenly be heard shouting over the swift current still out of sight, “Go back! They’re in the river bed!”

Before Luke could stop it, one of the Utah troops shouted back, “Where? We don’t see any—.” A soldier wearing an Army uniform popped up from behind the elevated bank and shot Olsen’s man in the face.  

The three remaining Utah soldiers hit the ground, while Luke catapulted himself over the embankment, aiming for the location of the shooter. He landed on two very surprised enemy gunmen. He snapped one’s neck while he disarmed the other, smashing his head with the butt of his own AR-15.

Someone shouted, “Hold it right there, superman!” Luke turned around to see half a dozen rifles pointed at his heart. Luke calculated that he could take out half of the men before the rest could react, but it would still be a suicide play. He remembered that Gracie had told him she had a bad feeling about this trip.

“Who are you? You’ve got three seconds to answer me or I’ll blow your head off.”

Luke appreciated any time that he could get. “My name is Major Luke Seifert.”

“Major? I don’t think so. Try again.”

“My name is Luke Seifert. I’m here with some friends. Who are you?”

“Not that we need to answer your questions, boy, but we decided to take a little vacation from working for that lunatic Barnes. We weren’t expectin’ there’d be any people left ‘round here once the eaters cleared out.”

Luke tried to keep them talking. “How’d you manage to survive the attack? It looks like a massacre back there.”

“We’re deserters, not idiots.” The grungy speaker cleared his throat and spat a glob of mucus. “We know the targets, and Barnes’ officers ain’t got the sense to collect up supplies after an extermination. That whole damn Army’s full of retards and psychos.”

Luke tried to put on a friendly smile. “Maybe we’re on the same side?”

The men snickered behind their leader, who exclaimed, “Yeah? You got meth and women?”

Luke cocked his head. “No,” he answered coldly as his eyes scanned the riverbed behind the men. “You should let me go and be on your way. My friends don’t like you threatening me.”

The entire group laughed at that. The spokesperson, still chuckling, took a few steps toward Luke. “You think we should be afraid of your pansy-ass Utah buddies?”

In an instant, a dozen massive hunters flew in from all directions and fell upon the soldiers. “Not those friends,” Luke pointed out, though he doubted that anyone heard him. He started to climb back up over the embankment but stopped and turned around. “Will, be sure to rip their heads off.” Then he remembered the survivor who’d tried to warn them about Barnes’ men. He walked down to the river’s edge and waved for the survivor to join him. The man peeked out from behind some tall weeds, but he appeared too traumatized to speak or make a move.  

Luke waded into the current and fetched the trembling Utah soldier. He carried him past the gruesome scene of hunters carrying out Luke’s orders and hoisted him up to higher ground calling out, “Olsen, I’ve got your survivor.”

Before he could rejoin his troops, an internal alarm hit Luke like lightning. Hunters, lots of them, were closing in. Luke nearly flew over the embankment, ordering, “To the vehicles—now!”

The first thing Luke noticed once they were back on the highway were the black specks hovering in the distant sky. The two vehicle convoy roared west on the interstate until they were clear of the canyons formed by the Virgin River, a trip that required less than ten minutes after leaving the observation post. Luke signaled for them to pull over, and a quick look through his binoculars confirmed his fears; there were more than a dozen Blackhawks circling above the most massive horde of hunters his experienced eyes had ever seen.

Olsen jogged up to where Luke was standing by the Hummer. He was having a hard time digesting what he was seeing. “Are those hunters under those helicopters?”

Luke pushed down the fear trying to crawl up from his gut to his throat. “Hundreds of thousands of ‘em, maybe millions.” Olsen was too stunned to speak, so Luke finally added, “Time for you to go.”

“You mean time for us to go, sir?”

Luke drew a deep breath. “No, you’re leaving me here. Get back to the Black Battalion and tell Gracie to fight at Quail Creek, if she can defend the place. I want her to buy time for the evacuation, and give me time behind the enemy lines.” He told Gracie’s scouts that Sergeant Olsen was in charge for the return trip.

“There’s no way we can leave you out here,” Olsen protested.

Luke sighed with frustration. “You have no choice. First, I’m giving you a direct order, and you know General Carlson would back my authority. Second, all of you together couldn’t force me into one of the vehicles; just ask my scouts—or the survivor from the outpost.”

Olsen persisted, “Why in the world would you want to stay out here? It doesn’t make any sense!”

“I don’t expect you to understand, but I feel like I’m supposed to be here. Make sure you tell my wife that, not that she’s gonna like it. Utah, and the battalion, need warning of what’s on the way. We’re what—forty or fifty miles away from Hurricane and Quail Creek?”

The Sergeant nodded, miserable and frustrated.

Luke put a hand on his forearm. “Hunters can probably cover that distance in less than 24 hours. I really need you to get your men and my scouts back to the battalion.”

Olsen spontaneously hugged Luke, climbed back in his Jeep, and led the troops away without looking back.

Gracie had been shaken at how quickly Luke had left her in what was, completely, foreign territory. But she had Zach and Maddy, and Wyatt and Logan, and she was determined to show no lack of confidence to the rank and file of the battalion. If Luke was going to run off and leave her in control of this elite unit, well, she loved these soldiers with a passion. She’d led them to battle before, and she could do it again. She called Zach to her side. “You lead with your company to the Quail Creek Reservoir area; hopefully we’ll find a place to make a good defensive line there.”

“Sure looks like it from the maps I have,” Zach offered. “Let’s hope they’re accurate.”

“Just get us over there as quickly as possible, and we’ll check the place out in person.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Zach actually saluted as he headed back to his Hummer.

Wyatt was next. Gracie had an important job for him as well—his horses could still go places a Hummer couldn’t. He, too, saluted as he dismounted and walked over to greet her. “Why are you all doing that?” she asked, slightly perturbed.

“We’re heading into battle, Ma’am.”

“But I’m half your age, and we’re the same rank!”

“I’m closer to three times your age, but that doesn’t matter. You do outrank me, and discipline wins battles. The troops need to realize that you’re in charge. We have some greenhorns with us, and I think it’s best to get everyone in the proper mindset right now.”

Gracie considered the lawman’s advice. “You’ve got a good point; I’ll try to get used to the salutes.”

Wyatt nodded seriously. “What are your orders, Ma’am?”

“When we reach the intersection with I-15, send a squadron north to the area above the reservoir. Have them scout the ground for hunters or any other problems we don’t want surprising us.”

“And the rest of the company?”

“You lead them south toward St. George. Spread the word of the evacuation order to any civilians you encounter, and again, be on the lookout for hunters. Try to get a feel for the mountain range that borders the interstate after it turns west down there; I want to know if the enemy can flank us from that direction.”

“Will that be all?”

“Bring them all back, Wyatt.”

He saluted and smiled. “Yes, Ma’am.”

CHAPTER 30

The battalion was now in motion, so Gracie hopped aboard her command vehicle and continued to issue orders to a number of sergeants who belonged to her own headquarters company. The road to I-15 was completely clear, as were both lanes of the interstate when they reached it. A few minutes later, the convoy pulled into a campground just north of the reservoir and began to survey the ground. Maddy was the first company commander to reach Gracie’s side. “Double the size of our battalion, and Attila the Hun couldn’t push us out of here.”

Gracie nodded absentmindedly as she continued her own examination of the terrain. “Actually, he’d run us out of here in a day or two; humans can deal with water obstacles. But, as far as we know, Barnes’ troops are still afraid of getting wet, so our left flank is solid.”

“What about our right flank?”

Gracie frowned. “It can and will be breached, the only question is how long it will take the hunters to find a way through.”

“So what’s your plan?”

“We’ll send a couple of squads to the top of the nearest peak overlooking the highway, and hope the hunters don’t figure out a way around our line over there.”

The conversation was interrupted by Courtney running in with a message for Gracie. “The backhoe-guys have an idea for the right of the defensive line; they wanted me to ask you to come over to where they’re unloading so they can show you what they want to do.”

Gracie nodded and turned to Maddy. “The left is on you; make sure the hunters can’t squeeze between your troops and the reservoir.  Support Joe’s gunners as much as possible.”

Maddy saluted. “You got it.” Gracie rolled her eyes; she just couldn’t take a salute from Maddy seriously.

The backhoe operators had their machines unloaded and were conducting a pre-operation check as Gracie arrived on the scene. She addressed the platoon sergeant standing nearby. “So what did you want to show me?”

The sergeant turned and pointed toward the mountains to the west. “We can use these backhoes to dig a trench pretty far up this first slope. Probably can’t get all the way up to the peak, but I’m guessing you’ll post some infantry up there?”

Gracie nodded as the sergeant continued explaining his idea. “We fill that trench with all kinds of flammable material, soak it with kerosene or gas, and burn up the first wave of hunters to work through the obstacle. The flames will eventually die, but the trench will smolder and be hot as hell for hours afterward.”

Gracie carefully surveyed the several hundred meter stretch the sergeant was discussing. His proposed fire trench would free up a company of infantry who’d otherwise have to cover the area and force any hunters trying to go over the nearest mountains to navigate the flames and smoke before undertaking a steep climb to where infantry with pikes would be waiting. She decided that this was the best idea she’d heard since leaving Denison. “Do it,” she said with authority. “Take whatever resources you need; anybody tries to interfere, just get me on the radio and I’ll back you.”

“Yes Ma’am,” the sergeant, obviously proud of himself, saluted. “Mostly we’ll just need diesel and plenty of hands to fill the trench with brush and tires. My men already found a kerosene tank in the abandoned campground.”

Gracie returned the salute. “Good work, Sergeant.”

Joe Logan’s guns were literally lined up axle to axle across the highway, which was being deliberately left open to encourage hunters to funnel their attack through a small corridor that the gunners were already calling ‘The Valley of Death.’ If the monsters managed to overrun the cannon there, the troops manning them would retreat over the laager stretched directly behind their position. The remaining gun batteries were being deployed according to the doctrine developed back in Texas; they were positioned between fighting cages, protected by sheet-metal walls.

Gracie slowly walked along the front of the line and inspected the defenses from the viewpoint of an attacker. From the reservoir on the battalion’s left flank to the fire-trench and mountains on the right, the defense stretched over a distance of approximately one mile. That was too wide of a front for the battalion to cover against an attack equal to or greater than the one that hit Vicksburg, but the terrain was really working for them. From the way it now looked, nearly a quarter of the front would be covered by the fire trench, which was extending even further up the slope than she’d anticipated. There would be a gap between the end of the obstacle and the infantry squads atop the peak, but she was fairly certain the terrain was too steep for more than a handful of hunters to crawl their way through.

The cannons were arrayed in such a way that their fire would overlap at about two hundred meters out, creating a wall of shrapnel that would literally shred closely packed attackers. On the highway itself, the overlap would begin just a few meters from the mouths of the guns. Seeing his commander in front of his main position, Joe Logan came out to ask Gracie what she thought of the dispositions.

“How can anything survive your guns out here?” she wondered aloud.

“Nobody in the front line will go unscathed unless we have gun malfunctions, at least with the first volley. After that, a certain percentage of hunters will get through by sheer luck; they’ll stumble into a gap created by a gun or two reloading or having problems. Some of the critters will have slipped and fallen when a blast goes overhead, that sort of thing.”

“And of course,” Gracie added, “crews will tire, and eventually we’ll run out of ammo.”

“Eventually,” Logan agreed, “but I know the infantry wants a chance to kill some of the flesh-eaters. We can’t hog all the fun.”

Gracie continued to study the front as she replied. “Everybody’s gonna get their chance . . .”

Sergeant Olsen and the scouts Gracie had loaned to Luke that morning pulled up to the laager an hour and a half after noon. A knot tightened in Gracie’s stomach when she saw that Luke wasn’t with them. It was clear that Sergeant Olsen was in charge now, so she immediately pulled him aside for a private discussion. “Where is Luke?”

“He ordered us to leave him behind and sent us to warn you about the giant horde coming this way. I tried to talk him out of it, but he had his mind made up.” Olsen remembered what Luke told him to say, “He said to tell you he had a feeling like he was supposed to be there.”

Gracie didn’t know whether to be relieved or furious. “Thank you, Sergeant. I’m going to call in all my officers so they can hear your full report.”

The story of how the outposts were deliberately attacked by semis full of hunters outraged everyone, but no one was really surprised. The most alarming piece of information was that an uncountable horde of hunters was only forty miles away.

Zach was standing with Gracie, Maddy, and Wyatt when they heard the report. “They’ll arrive here tonight, even if they’re only keeping a moderate pace.”

“Five miles an hour for eight hours,” Maddy muttered. “That’s still well after sunset, and they’ll be starving when they get here.”

Gracie’s eyes darted back and forth while she tried to figure out how to best prepare for what they were facing. “I don’t know that there’s ever been a night attack involving helicopters, but we need to be ready anyway. We’ve spotted them, but I’m not sure they’ve spotted us. Make sure flares are distributed to every platoon; we can fight in the dark if that’s what they want to do, but my guess is that the action won’t start until daylight.” She looked at Olsen. “Can you and your men drive north until you find General Carlson? I sent two men this morning, but that was before you sighted the horde. We still have no radio contact with anyone more than a mile or two away.”

“Yes, Ma’am. We’ll need to borrow some gas though.”

“Of course. Zach, take them to fuel up and get them any food or drink you think they might need. See me at the command vehicle before you leave; I’ll have a written message for the general.”

Luke was moving east along the river before Olsen and the others were completely out of sight; that was the direction Will and his followers had taken after killing Barnes’ goons. The current had cut small canyons and deep embankments through the desert; the hunters would have sought cover there while they waited for Luke to join them. He found them half an hour later.

Luke had memorized maps of the entire area during the cold nights around the fire with Zach and the rest of his officers; he knew exactly where he was and where he wanted to go. He planned to lead Will and his followers north into the Paiute Reservation. They would eventually turn east and circle around the town of Leeds, at which point they would enter the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area. From there, only fifteen miles of mountains would lie between he and Gracie. But before he or Will or any of the hunters following them could begin their journey, they would have to re-cross I-15. He decided that would be most easily accomplished under the cover of darkness.

The lead elements of the invading horde had continued eastward until just after dusk. The guiding Blackhawks had been flying in wide, slow circles several thousand feet above the earth, but they were most focused on keeping the masses back by the gorge moving quickly to avoid congestion in that narrow and winding section of the highway. Hundreds of enemy flesh-eaters now mingled along the interstate between Luke and the roads north that he needed to use. In the morning, there would be thousands of the beasts on the road—another reason to cross during the night.

Luke was fairly certain one leather-covered human and even a substantial number of hunters cutting through the front of the advancing army wouldn’t draw any attention from Barnes’ men in the darkness, but he still kept his group travelling quickly. The enemy flesh-eaters didn’t seem to notice as Luke and his hunter-companions passed through their ranks.

Corporal McKee escorted Andi and Thelma back upstairs, where the women retired to their respective rooms. Andi replayed the events from the dining room over and over in her mind. At first, she was perplexed by the behavior of the two officers who’d made a mad dash for the exit. There was no way they could have expected to pull off the escape. Then she realized that their likely intention was suicide by security guard—that was obviously a better option than whatever Barnes might have had in mind for them. The fact that Utah was under attack, and that the population was retreating to locations already known to the enemy, made Andi sick to her stomach. She felt desperately helpless, and she chastised herself for having had so much access to Barnes and still not finding a way to help the Resistance.

There was a sharp knock on her door, then Barnes entered with one of his bodyguards. “Good evening, Ms. Carrell. I believe I’ve actually missed your charming company.”

“Really?” Andi raised her eyebrows. “I’d have thought that you’d have been too busy organizing mass murder and slitting people’s throats to think about someone as boring as me.”

Barnes laughed and helped himself to some orange juice from Andi’s refrigerator. “That’s exactly what I mean. All my officers just trip over themselves trying to suck up and tell me what they think I want to hear. You may be a bit simple-minded, but your candor is refreshing.”

“Obviously not all your officers have been pandering for your approval,” Andi pointed out, “but I guess you hadn’t noticed.”

“I believe you witnessed me noticing,” Barnes countered. “Anyway, we might not have too many more opportunities for our scintillating conversations, and I just wanted to express my appreciation.” He finished his drink in one swig. “I also wanted to let you know that we’ll be leaving at dawn in the morning. I’m taking you on a little sight-seeing adventure, and I’m hoping that we’ll run across some mutual acquaintances.”

Andi’s heart raced as she thought about her friends in Utah, and how Barnes might be able to use her against them. “Let me guess, I get to be some sort of bait again,” she scoffed. “Do you really think that I’m important to anyone in Utah?”

Barnes smiled with obvious self-satisfaction. “If he’s not in Utah by now, I expect he will be very soon.”

The battalion remained on high alert all night, but Gracie had been right about expecting the attack in daylight. Just after dawn, Gracie was using her binoculars to scan the pink horizon when Maddy approached, looking like the bearer of more bad news. “Am I really seeing eighteen helicopters?”

Gracie swallowed her fear before answering, “At least.”

“How many hunters do you think are out there?”

Gracie handed off her field glasses to her friend. “Go ahead and start counting,” she answered dryly.

Maddy slowly lifted the optics to her eyes. “Holy Lord—this is worse than Vicksburg, a lot worse than Vicksburg . . .”

“Get to your platoon leaders and tell them to calm everyone down,” Gracie ordered. “Explain how we beat this many in the east a couple of times last fall.”

Maddy lowered the binoculars and briefly met Gracie’s now-cold eyes, an unspoken understanding quickly passing between them. An aide was standing nearby, so Maddy didn’t voice any objections about lying to her beloved company. She held her friend’s unwavering gaze for several racing heartbeats before lowering her eyes. “Yes, Ma’am,” she softly promised before turning to go.