Transmission: Voodoo Plague Book 5 (18 page)

We ran for another 20 minutes.  There were a lot of males
moving slowly across the desert, and rather than try to dodge around them I
opted for putting them down.  I shot the first half dozen we encountered, then
decided it might not be a bad idea to conserve my ammo.  Switching to the Kukri
I slashed and stabbed as I ran past them. 

The two bombs were now far enough behind us that I was
cautiously optimistic any fallout would drop to the ground behind us.  It
helped that the wind had shifted and was now blowing directly in my face, then
I started worrying that it would carry our scent to the herd.  Males weren’t a
concern.  As long as we could keep moving, they couldn’t catch us.  But the
females were another story.  I called a halt and turned to look back to the
west.

Other than males we had passed that had turned to pursue, I
didn’t see any movement, but that didn’t comfort me.  Night vision is not
designed or intended to help you see long distances.  It amplifies the
available light to a level useful to the human eye.  Typically, don’t expect it
to benefit you at any range greater than 100 yards unless you’re looking at a
large object or there’s a decent amount of moonlight to help out.  A useful
reminder is that if you couldn’t see something at noon, you won’t see it with
night vision.

Glad there wasn’t a whole scrimmage line of females about to
pounce on us, I turned back to the front and started running again.  Dog was at
my side, where he’d been the whole run, and he suddenly came to a stop.  I
pulled up a couple of steps past him, raising my fist to tell the group behind
me to freeze in place.  The fur along Dog’s back was standing straight up as he
lifted his nose and tested the breeze.

Turning my head back to the front I made a slow scan of the
area, seeing nothing other than a few males at least 75 yards away.  He
wouldn’t have stopped for them.  We’d been running by males for a while, and
they hadn’t interested him as he knew I would take care of them.  Something
else had caught his attention, and he didn’t like what he smelled.

A shout from behind snapped my head around, and I froze for
half a second when I didn’t understand what I was seeing.  The Stealth Hawk
co-pilot was frantically trying to walk backwards.  It looked like his right
foot was caught by something on the desert floor.  He yelled again and fell
backwards as a male that had an iron grip on his ankle emerged from the sand
and started crawling up his body.  Igor was closer and stepped forward to kill
the infected, tripping and falling to his face when another buried male grabbed
his foot. 

“They’re under the sand!”  I yelled to the group, dashing in
to help.

I reached the male attacking the co-pilot first, hearing
Martinez start cursing in Spanish as I shot the infected in the head.  Spinning
to help Igor, I moved on when I saw the dead infected and a bloody knife in his
hand.  Two of them had come up on either side of Martinez and she had already
killed one of them when I looked in her direction.  The second one fell quickly
when she stabbed into his eye with her dagger.

For the moment, no more infected were reaching up from under
the ground to pull us down.  Dog still stood where he’d stopped, looking to our
front and growling.  I made another scan of the area and didn’t see anything,
but then I wouldn’t if there were more that had buried themselves.  Why the
hell did they do that?  I could understand females being that smart, but
males?  Another thing to think about when I had time. 

Dog hadn’t detected the handful that we had just killed. 
That bothered me a little.  But he was detecting something that had him
spooked, and that bothered me a lot.  I didn’t know if we were facing a much
larger concentration of infected, or if there was some new threat ahead that I
couldn’t see. 

“That’s new.”  Rachel spoke quietly.  She had moved up to
stand next to me and look at Dog.  “What do you think’s ahead that’s got him
upset?  More razorbacks?”

“Not in this part of the state.  Too dry.  I don’t know, he
didn’t even twitch at these.”  I said, gesturing at the bodies lying on the
ground behind us.  “Maybe there’s a whole bunch of them buried in the sand and
this is just the outer edge.  Or maybe there are females ahead.  I’m trying to
remember if he’s ever reacted differently to males or females.  I don’t think
so.”

Rachel thought about that for a moment.  “Not that I can
remember, but maybe.  Maybe we weren’t paying close enough attention to notice. 
What are we going to do?”

I looked at my watch.  The Marines were still an hour out. 
Ideally I’d have liked to find a defensible position to set up in and wait for
them, but there weren’t any close.  We had moved into an area that I didn’t
know.  Maybe there were some hills or rocks ahead that we could use.  Maybe
not.  All I was certain of was that there was something ahead that wasn’t to
the liking of a bad ass, 100 pound German Shepherd. 

That final thought convinced me we needed to change
direction.  Looking around I still didn’t see any females in pursuit.  That was
good.  We’d turn and go due north, unless Dog warned of something in that
direction as well.  Calling him I started walking that way.  He fell in beside
me, Rachel moving to walk on my left.  As we continued on, Dog kept looking to
his right and growling, but no matter how many times I checked I couldn’t see
anything.

We walked for about half a mile, Dog still growling at what
I was starting to think were phantoms, when Rachel touched my arm and pointed
off to our left.  Several large rocks sat on the flat desert, looking like some
giant had been playing with them and just tossed them there when he was done. 
There was a little light from the moon to help the NVGs and I guessed they were
about 300 yards away.

As we were looking at the rocks, Dog came to a stop again. 
Looking in our direction of travel, he growled loud and deep, then took a step
back.  Since I’d know Dog, I’d never seen him take a step back from anything. 
Looking to our front I had my rifle up, scanning, but still couldn’t see what
had him worried.  I couldn’t imagine him responding to infected like this.  He
hadn’t been afraid to meet a razorback head on.  What the hell could actually
scare him?

Deciding discretion was the better part of valor, which
means if Dog was scared I was smart enough to pay attention, I motioned to my
left and got the group moving towards the rocks.  Signing for Igor to take
point, I held my ground with Dog and Rachel at my side.  When they had moved a
dozen yards I sent Rachel after them, Dog and I following. 

I had hoped that as we moved in the new direction whatever
was concerning Dog would lessen, but as he walked he kept looking over his
shoulder and growling.  Were we being pursued?  Not by anything I could see,
and I was looking as hard as I could.  Part of me hoped I’d spot the threat,
another part was perfectly happy to stay ignorant of whatever could spook Dog.

We’d covered about half the distance to the rocks when Dog
came to a stop and turned to face behind us.  His legs were spread, head below
shoulder level with teeth showing as he growled.  My rifle was up, scanning for
anything, but for as far as my NVGs could see there was nothing moving.  I
flashed back to one of my favorite, campy monster movies, Tremors, and almost
laughed at myself for thinking there were monsters tunneling through the sand
to come eat us.

Then my NVGs started having problems.  I reached up and
slapped them, but the distortion across the horizon didn’t go away.  Powering
them off and on, I wasn’t happy to see the problem was still there.  The sky
was slightly lighter than the ground, and whatever was wrong with them made the
night sky along the horizon ripple and shimmer.

“What the hell is that?”  Rachel asked.  She had stopped and
come back to join Dog and I when we’d stopped.

“You see it too?”  I asked, suddenly very concerned.  It
wasn’t the NVGs malfunctioning.  “I thought my goggles were damaged.”

“If you’re talking about what looks like the sky warping,
yes I see it.  What the hell is it?”  Rachel sounded frightened.  I didn’t
blame her.

“I got no idea, but I think we’d better get to those rocks
as fast as we can.”  I said, grabbing Rachel’s arm and sprinting after the
group.  Dog fell in beside us and soon we caught the rest of the group.  I
urged them to a sprint, and no one bothered to question why.  They just ran.

We reached the first rock in what had to be record time. 
Rachel and I were spooked and had run like the minions of hell were at our
heels.  That had gotten everyone else running as hard as they could.  There
were actually quite a few large rocks, some as short as a couple of feet, other
soaring thirty or more feet into the air.  I glanced over my shoulder and still
saw the odd distortion.  And it looked like it was getting closer.

I clambered up onto the smallest rock, careful not to slip
and fall onto the small stones that littered the ground at its base.  The rock
I stood on was butted up against one of the very tall ones, and as I peered
around its curve I could just make out a narrow gap between it and two other
very large monoliths.  Another glance at whatever was approaching and my mind
was made up.

I called Dog and he leapt onto the rock, paws slipping until
I reached out and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and hauled him the rest
of the way up.  Pointing where I wanted him to go, I turned back to help Irina
as he jumped down into the gap.  It took almost a minute to get everyone over
the smaller rock and into the gap, Igor and I backing in behind them with our
rifles to our shoulders.  I checked on the group and was glad to see Rachel and
Martinez with rifles aimed up at the top of the opening to defend against
anything attacking from above.

“What fuck?”  Igor mumbled in my ear in his guttural Russian
accent.

I shrugged my shoulders.  I didn’t have a clue what the hell
it was, and trying to explain to him that I was deferring to Dog’s warning
would be about impossible unless I called on Irina to translate.  Right now we
didn’t need the distraction.  We needed to be focused on defending against
whatever was coming.

Standing very still, I listened, expecting to hear running
feat and snarls any moment.  I had about convinced myself that the distortion
I’d seen was a dust cloud thrown up by the running feet of thousands of females. 
If that was the case, and they saw us hide in the rocks, we were screwed. 
There was no way we could hold off that many.  They’d just keep attacking and
piling into the opening until we ran out of ammo, then the feast would begin.

Rachel came up behind me and placed her hand on my shoulder. 
I turned my head and she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, as if saying
goodbye.  The kiss lingered a moment, then she went back to stand next to
Martinez and resume her watch of the tops of the rocks.  OK, so I wasn’t the
only one having grim thoughts.

The first indication of their approach was a low thrum
coupled with a leathery scraping sound.  At first it was just at the threshold
of hearing, but quickly grew louder.  Dog was growling steadily and I heard
Irina call him.  A moment later he went quiet and I glanced back to see her on
her knees with her arms circled around his neck and face buried in his fur.

The noise steadily increased, never to a level one could say
was loud, but certainly of sufficient volume to draw your attention.  A few
seconds later the sky above us, even with the NVGs, went dark as it was blotted
out.  What the hell?  I stared through my goggles, but couldn’t tell what was
over our heads.  I started to reach for the flashlight mounted on my rifle, but
Igor’s big hand covered mine before I could turn it on.

I looked at him and he shook his head, mouthing something in
Russian that I didn’t stand a chance in hell of understanding.  Regardless, I
had been about to make a foolish mistake and was glad he had stopped me. 
Looking back up I could see that the cloud had lowered.  I was able to tell
that it was made of what had to be tens of thousands of bodies, suddenly
realizing it must be birds.  Then some of the bodies broke away momentarily and
flew around the top edges of the rocks.  Bats. 

Millions of small bats.  This whole area of the country is
riddled with small caves and massive caverns, and it’s about impossible to find
one that isn’t hosting at least a few thousand bats.  But this many together at
once?  I’d never seen nor heard of that.  Had the virus jumped to them too? 

Bats navigate and hunt using echolocation.  They produce a
very high pitched sound, above the range of human hearing but within range for
a dog, that bounces off of all the objects around them and lets them paint a
mental picture of their surroundings.  Hopefully, we just appeared to be some
smaller rocks to them.  Thankfully, Igor had stopped me from turning on my
flashlight.  Bats may not have great vision, but they would certainly have seen
the light.

It was a very long five minutes before the last of them
passed over us, the sound slowly fading as they flew farther and farther away. 
When I could no longer hear them I eased out a breath.  Everyone else was
looking around, a mix of frightened and shocked expressions on their faces.

“What in the hell was that?”  Rachel asked once it seemed
safe to talk.

“Can bats catch a virus that started in humans?”  I asked
her, stretching out to get a view of the horizon.

“Of course they can.  They’re actually worse disease
carriers than rodents.  You don’t think…”

“I don’t know, but that was one shit load of bats.  First
the razorbacks, now these.  What’s next?”  I asked.

“What are razorbacks?”  Irina asked.

“400 pound, bad tempered wild hogs with sharp tusks.”  I
said, turning my attention to Irina.  “Was there any testing for this when the
Chinese engineered the bug?  Did you fucking people realize you were going to
kill the whole goddamn planet?” 

Irina met my stare for a few moments, then looked around the
group.  All eyes were on her and she eventually dropped her gaze to the sand at
her feet. 

“I don’t know.”  She said in a subdued voice.  “What do you
want me to say?  I’ve already told you who started this and why.  Don’t forget
why we’re out here in the first place.  I’m trying to stop this before it gets
worse.”

“Gets worse?”  I turned to face her fully.  “What the hell
are you not telling me?”

Irina had lifted her face and looked me in the eye again.  I
could see the wheels turning as she tried to think of the right thing to say,
so I interrupted.  “We’re in this together, Irina.  I accept that you’re trying
to help, but you need to stop keeping things from me.”  I wanted the
unvarnished truth this time.

“We’re controlling the infected.”  She finally said with a
sigh.  I was stunned.  Wasn’t sure I’d heard her right.  Controlling them?

“What?”  I blurted out.

“How?”  Rachel interjected.  “How are you controlling them?”

“I’m not, but the SVR is.  The nerve agent and virus send
them into a rage, but left to their own devices they will remain solitary or in
some cases form small hunting packs.  There’s a way to control them.  Make them
form into what you call herds, and become an unstoppable weapon.  That’s why
Tennessee was converged on like it was.  The decision was made to take out one
of your main refugee aid centers.”  Irina’s voice grew stronger as she became
more confident that we weren’t going to flip out and blame her.  Not that I
didn’t have that impulse, but I knew she didn’t have anything to do with this
and was trying to help us.

“The herds are being controlled and directed?”  I prodded
her.

She nodded.  “From satellites.  The Chinese discovered that
certain harmonic frequencies can excite and attract the infected from great
distances.  Our engineers developed a way to transmit high energy pulses from a
satellite that when they strike any dense object, like stone or steel, that
object will then vibrate at the right frequency to emit the sound that attracts
them.  I don’t understand it, but what I know is it’s not a sound humans can
consciously hear, but more like something we can feel.  The infected are
hyper-sensitive to the transmission and are drawn like moths to a flame.”

Son of a bitch, the humming I’d heard!  It wasn’t just some
random effect of the virus.  It was their response to the inaudible sound waves
they were feeling.  And this herd had been on its way to Oklahoma City before
I’d distracted them with a couple of nukes. 

“But they can be distracted and diverted, right?”  I asked,
wanting to make sure I was piecing this together correctly.

“Yes.  Loud noises, food and bright lights can distract them. 
Quite a few different ways, but then when the distraction is over they return
to chasing the sound from the satellite.” 

“Don’t you think it would have been a good idea to tell me
this in Los Alamos?”  I asked, trying to keep how upset I really was out of my
voice.

“If you hadn’t shot down the plane carrying the bombs,
President Barinov would be dead by now.  My uncle would be in power and the
transmissions would have been shut off.  No, I didn’t think it was important
for you to know at the time.”  She was starting to get angry, but I didn’t
really give a shit.  She should have told me.  I understand ‘need to know’ as
well as anyone, and if there was ever a case of me needing to know, this was
it.

Her comment also reminded me that her co-conspirators had
been betrayed.  Our new president had royally screwed the pooch.  I suspected
Irina’s uncle had already been stood up against a wall and shot for treason,
along with everyone even remotely associated or related to him.  The only
reason Irina was still alive was the Russians wanted to use her to get their
hands on the remaining nukes so they could be taken off the playing field. 
Well, they’d succeeded at that.

“Irina,” I’d just had a bad thought.  “Do infected animals
respond to the harmonics the same way infected humans do?”

She looked back at me, understanding dawning on her face. 
“I don’t know.  I’m not supposed to know about the control of the humans.  If
my uncle hadn’t briefed me I wouldn’t know any of this.”

“Do you know which satellites the SVR is using?”  We still
had some Navy ships, and the Navy had missiles specifically designed to shoot
down orbiting satellites.  If we knew which ones to target.

“No, and I don’t think my uncle did either.”  She answered.

Shit.  There were way too many Russian satellites in orbit
to start trying to shoot all of them down.  Besides, their military was still
intact.  As soon as a Navy ship started firing off missiles to knock down their
satellites, the Russians would pull out all the stops to sink the ship.  A
suicide mission is one thing if you know that in exchange you’ll achieve your
goal.  But to die for nothing was a waste of lives and critical military
assets.  Not that it was my decision to make, but that would be Admiral
Packard’s thinking.  And he’d be one hundred percent right.

Right now we needed to get the hell out of Texas and back to
Tinker so I could brief Crawford and the Admiral on all the recent
developments.  Neither would be happy to find out we couldn’t trust President
Clark.

“Passossee mayee yaitsa!”  I heard Igor say.  I wasn’t
positive on the translation but was pretty sure he’d just said, “suck my
balls”. 

He was leaned out over the smaller rock, looking to the east
with his night vision.  I moved over next to him, lowering my goggles and
facing the direction he pointed.  A moment later I muttered my own version of
his curse.  At least one hundred females were charging across the desert.  And
they were coming our way.