A Place Called Hope (Z-Day Book 2) Read online

  The scarred man fell backward and away from the bed. The master sergeant watched him crumple with dispassionate interest, then turned to his counterpart. “Rick, get the girl loose and get her some clothes to wear. I’m checking in.”

  As the other Marine moved into the room, McFarlane winced and reached back to touch his neck. His gloved fingers came back stained with blood. Must have caught a splinter from that near miss. He shook his head and keyed his MBITR. “Sound off, Marines.” He cocked his head and listened, counting off in his head. He nodded in satisfaction and switched channels. “Eagle Eye, this is Witch Doctor. Objective secure. No friendly casualties.”

  “Roger that, Witch Doctor. Significant movement all around. Evac is ten minutes out. The leading edge of the swarm is two minutes after that.”

  He grimaced. It would take them a few minutes to build up enough mass to cross the ditch, but not as many as he’d like. Going to be tight. “Marines, we are lea-ving! Secure the prisoners and prep for extraction.”

  There was enough stockpiled in the cabin that the Marines tripped and stumbled over the stacks as they led the zip-cuffed prisoners outside. Those were supplies that they could use, at Perry as well as Hope, but time had grown too short to collect them.

  No worry. Canned goods and ammo held little interest for the ravenous undead. The stuff would hold until the area cleared enough for them to return. With the infected around, they wouldn’t have to worry about other marauders or scavengers looting the house. Their mission was accomplished. Just need to get home safe, McFarlane mused. He stepped outside after Ropati and replaced the partial magazine in his MK18.

  The sound of rotors thumped in the air, echoing in the valley. “Get some strobes out,” McFarlane barked. The bottom of the bowl flattened out to one side of the lake, and they’d sketched out the outline of a landing zone during mission prep. The need to conduct the operation at night made things more difficult for the pilots, but there was no other alternative than to use night vision and infrared signaling. The night attack had been loud enough. A daytime gunfight with the cabin’s occupants would have attracted that much more attention.

  The first chopper came in at treetop level, and the second was mere moments behind. “How we looking, Eagle Eye?”

  “Lead elements are at the ditch. Suspect enhanced infected. They outpaced the rest of the mass.”

  McFarlane raised his voice over the thunder of the helicopters. “Eyes out, Marines! We got fast movers inbound.” The passage of time and exposure to the elements had worn most of the infected to the bone. As of late, a disturbing number were stronger, faster, and most worrisome, smarter than the rest of their cohorts. The ‘enhanced’ infected could run, jump and climb over obstacles. McFarlane hadn’t seen it, but some of the Marines who’d fought at the battle of Hope had spread the word that they’d even carried crude spears tipped with infected bone.

  The thought of being eaten alive was bad enough. The worry that the enemy could induct you into his ranks at long range was even worse.

  The first Black Hawk settled to the ground near the cabin. McFarlane waved Del Arroz and Mebane forward. His own fire team, the liberated hostage, and the prisoners had a ticket on the second chopper, which settled out a bit closer to the road. “Move it!” he shouted and double-timed in that direction.

  Ropati, Osborne, and Ewald wrestled the prisoners into the helicopter with the aid of one of the crew chiefs. The other crew chief had a firm grip on the M240D machine gun on the weapons station closest to the road. While the rest of his fire team focused on securing the uncooperative marauders into the back of the helicopter, McFarlane took a knee behind the fuselage. He kept his MK18 shouldered and scanned the top of the ridge.

  A gray blur of movement drew his attention and he pivoted his point of aim. “Contact right!”

  The starboard crew chief barked out a reply, but the abrupt thumping of the 240 Delta obscured his words as he stitched the top of the ridge with fire.

  At least one of the big 7.62mm rounds took the enhanced infected in the thigh, and it flopped to the ground. Even with a severed leg, it still pulled itself unwaveringly toward the landing zone. McFarlane lowered his aim and pulled the trigger. The head of the infected jerked, but the lighter round of his carbine hadn’t gone through. It kept crawling.

  McFarlane fired again, and this time his shot was true. The infernal machinery no longer drove the corpse toward them, but more blurs of movement appeared at the top of the road. The crew chief went to continuous fire, sweeping the ridge.

  He stood and looked left. The rest of the fire team was helping the former hostage into the Black Hawk, leaving him as the last man on the ground. McFarlane jogged to the crew compartment and hauled himself inside.

  The pitch of the engines on the first chopper rose as the pilot increased torque to lift off. McFarlane heard and felt the boom as one of the engines went. The smooth sound of purring machinery transitioned to the rumbling grind of metal on metal. He turned, and the crew chief on his side of the second chopper reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder. “They blew an oil line! They’re down!”

  No kidding, McFarlane thought. Rather than vocalize that sentiment, he barked over his shoulder. “Light up that ridge!” He turned to the first Black Hawk and yelled into his MBITR over the sudden outbreak of noise, “Pack it in! Drop everything except weapons and ammo!” If the second chopper crashed or couldn’t take off, it would be sucky but survivable. Without anything to defend themselves, they’d be dead meat.

  McFarlane spun back around and resumed his position at the rear of the chopper. Tracers from the 240 brought a little more illumination to the mottled green display of his goggles, and he cringed at the growing number of gray blobs at the top of the ridge. With his team and the crew chief shooting, there was enough fire pressure to keep the infected at bay. If it waned at all as the rest of the crew and Marines moved over to the other Black Hawk, they stood to be overrun.

  “Eagle Eye, Witch Doctor. We need immediate fire support. What have you got?”

  “Copy that, Witch Doctor—full rack of GBU-39s. Call your shots.”

  High-tech ordnance wasn’t exactly growing on trees these days.

  Then again, neither were Marines.

  “Two shots on the ditch, Eagle Eye.” McFarlane considered a moment, then amended, “Keep it away from the barricade if you can.”

  “Roger that.”

  The drone had been a silent overseer all along, and the delivery of the munitions didn’t change that. The GBU-39 SDBs—small diameter bombs—were slim, aerodynamic, and accurate. As they fell off the Avenger’s racks, pop-out wings deployed. Tweaks to wing geometry continuously altered the descent trajectory to align with the GPS coordinates the drone operator had marked.

  The first bomb plunged into the defensive trench. The other, by some vagary of chance, went a bit long and hit the road. The shape and speed of the bombs allowed them to plow through the soft Indiana loam. A split-second after the bomb hit, the two-hundred pound warhead on each exploded.

  A gravel driveway wasn’t much of an impediment to a weapon designed to punch through runways. A plume of dirt and debris shot into the sky, carrying infected with it and knocking still more down. The vehicle barricade took the brunt of the blast at that point in the road. The impact tore the defensive stakes off, but the majority of the blast had taken place below the fortification. The cars still stood.

  The faster infected inside of the perimeter were thus unaffected by the impacts, but fire from the Marines and the crew took them down. McFarlane didn’t know the numbers outside of the barricade, but the bombs had relieved the pressure until their attackers filled or scaled the new craters and trench works.

  He abandoned his sleeping bag, keeping only an assault bag with ammunition, pogie bait, and his canteen. For a moment, he considered ordering the men to hole up in the cabin until reinforcements could arrive, but he discarded that idea. He had no idea of the size of the swarm they’d attrac
ted, and he wasn’t going to risk having the cabin torn out from under them while the rest of the unit watched the drone feed.

  “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” He pushed one of the pilots from the downed Black Hawk into the crew compartment and pulled himself up after her. She turned and yanked on his load-bearing vest to help him get up inside.

  “We’re over max capacity,” the pilot yelled, then turned toward the cockpit and bellowed, “Last man! Go!” The name tape on her flight suit read ‘Brumley,’ and she had a West Texas twang to her voice. She didn’t sound so much scared as she did angry at the situation.

  “The hostage is scrawny and Del Arroz is short—we’ll make do!” McFarlane barked. Official spec for the Black Hawk was twenty personnel. They had that topped by three. He entertained ejecting the captives but shook the consideration away. They needed intel on this part of the state for the next stage of advance. He turned to the crew chiefs manning the chopper’s machine guns. “Dump your ammo cans! We’ll either come back for it, or we won’t be alive to care.”

  The pitch of the Black Hawk’s engine rose, and for one heart-stopping moment, McFarlane didn’t think it was going to lift off the ground. The troops on the right side of the chopper shouted and started firing again as a new wave topped the barricades. The destruction of most of the stakes simplified this task for the infected.

  “Witch Doctor, Eagle Eye, do you require further fire support?”

  McFarlane opened his mouth to call out the target, but then the Black Hawk lurched and the wheels came clear of the ground. The roar of the engine intensified, and they rose into the sky. The blurred shadows of the infected in his NVGs faded away as the deck of the helicopter lifted above the level of the surrounding ridge. He eased his way to the side of the vehicle and got a glimpse of the seething mass coming up the drive. It stretched back as far as he could make out. As the Black Hawk banked to return to base he could see the mass spreading wide from the pressure at the rear.

  He’d made a lucky call, insisting on evac. The cabin wouldn’t have lasted for long under that sort of assault. With a sigh, he pulled back and leaned against an empty section of bulkhead. The jump seats were already at double-occupancy, save for the one his men had put the lady hostage into. The former captors had become impromptu footrests for some of the Marines. The marauders shot McFarlane looks of hatred as he pulled out his canteen and took a long drink.

  “Eagle Eye. Witch Doctor returning to base. Fine shooting. Over.”

  “Roger that. Eagle Eye is RTB as well, out.”

  Chapter 2

  April 3, 2018

  Southwestern Illinois

  Z-Day + 167

  Sandy crested the slight rise before the river and fell to a stunned halt.

  US Highway 54 wound through an unpopulated swathe of Illinois before it ran into the Mississippi. A faded green sign on the side of the road boasted ‘Champ Clark Bridge.’ The crossing was as intact as civilization itself less than five months after the outbreak.

  The green-painted members of the old-style suspension bridge ended far short of the opposite side of the river. Bereft of support, the twisted and blackened deck supports sagged down out of view toward the surface of the water.

  He’d spent most of the winter holed up in his office, living off toilet tank water and vending machine food. Those supplies had lasted longer than the power, but not by much. With no food or water inside, he left his safe haven and struck out on his own. Though Doctor Alexandros “Sandy” Scopulis had spent most of his working career in a research facility, he tended toward the hyperactive. He’d been an avid cyclist before the outbreak. In the weeks since he’d left the safety of his lab, he’d found that he was an inadequate fighter at best, but he was more than good enough at running.

  He grumbled and adjusted the straps of his backpack. He’d snaked a meandering path across southern Indiana and Illinois, avoiding population centers as much as possible. More often than not, every bridge he’d come to was in much the same shape as this one. While he cowered in his lab, the US Air Force conducted a scorched earth campaign in an attempt to stem the outbreak.

  The joke was on them in the end, though. The outbreak had been too widespread and distributed to quarantine. The bombings hadn’t stopped the infection, but they’d cut off routes of retreat and left the Army and National Guard open to defeat in detail.

  There were no defensive fortifications on this side of the bridge, and the opposite bank was out of view. Sandy guessed it would look much the same as every other river crossing he’d come across. Hastily-thrown up barricades pushed aside by an inexorable mass of infected, fallen weapons, and abandoned vehicles.

  The pistol at his belt had come from one such site. He’d cleaned and oiled it as best as he could, but it still felt awkward in his hands. It was loud and he was an inaccurate shot, which made it a weapon of last resort. More often than not his first choice was a dented Easton softball bat. He’d tied a length of twine to the handle and barrel, and wore it slung over one shoulder next to his backpack.

  Sandy sighed and cursed under his breath. There was next to nothing on this side of the river—one of the reasons he’d chosen the route to begin with—but it was also starting to get dark. In the daylight, he could move around quietly enough and avoid wandering infected before they spotted him. The night was a different story. He didn’t know what changes had been wrought in their optic structure, but they were more capable in the darkness than a typical human. For those reasons, he holed up in the evenings as often as he could.

  He glanced around. A paved road led to the north off the main highway. A sign sat at a drunken angle on one side of the drive, blown over in the months since the outbreak. His only other option was to turn around and go back, and the last building he’d spotted had been a burnt-out wreck. In a pinch, he could camp out on the roof, but he’d rather find a more secure alternative.

  Sandy slipped the Easton off his shoulder and stepped toward the driveway. As he got closer he leaned over, and made out faded painted letters that read ‘Two Rivers Marina.’

  Interesting.

  He followed the curve of the driveway through a few trees and came out into a parking lot. It almost overflowed with vehicles, parked wherever they could fit. Dust covered every vehicle, though clean patches here and there boasted where snow melt had cut through the grime. Tomorrow morning, perhaps, the vehicles offered the possibility of supplies. For now, the gravid mass of the sun on the horizon lent an urgency to his movements.

  The main building had a glass front. For a better view of the river, he guessed. That also made it unfit for any sort of overnight shelter. Sandy licked his lips and looked over his shoulder. It was silent, but he still had a crawling sensation between his shoulder blades. The maze of cars cut off too much of his view of the parking lot for his taste, and he hurried to one edge. He scanned the docks and slips, but they were as empty and abandoned as the rest of this part of the countryside. When Hell had come upon the world, the uninfected had gone down to the river.

  He spun in place twice before he noticed the RV parked at the edge of the parking lot farthest from the river. Like the rest of the cars, it had a zebra-pattern of dusty and clean stripes, but the sides of the vehicle were also marked here and there with glinting spots of metal. He frowned as he drew closer.

  Sandy stiffened as he recognized the scattering of bullet holes across the RV’s side. Had the vehicle come later? Whatever the case, it had suffered far more than the other cars here. And yet, despite that suffering, the windows remained intact. He didn’t like to shelter in cars, but this vehicle stood tall. If he kept low and out of sight, it was quite possible that any infected in the area might pass on without becoming aware of his presence.

  He leaned over and scanned the pavement beneath the vehicle. It was high enough off the ground to make for an ideal hiding place. To fall victim to an ankle-biter after making it this far would be embarrassing.

  The area was clear and he
moved down the side of the RV. Sure enough, the shiny spots were bullet holes. He fingered them, then turned to study the parking lot. There was no shortage of debris, but he didn’t see any shell casings. The shooting must have occurred elsewhere, and the driver parked here before stopping.

  Sandy wiped a corner of a side window clear and tried to peer inside through the closed drapes. Shadow cloaked the narrow angle of the interior that he could make out.

  He reached the side door and tried the knob. It was unlocked, but the door didn’t move.

  He eased his backpack to the ground and scanned the area. He was still alone, but the sun would be down soon. If he was going to use the RV for shelter, he needed to access it soon, or he would have to move on.

  Sandy pulled the door open as far as he could and studied the frame. Something rectangular blocked the space above the door knob. After a moment of study, he deduced that it was some sort of drop bar. He hadn’t spent much time in RVs, but he felt confident that such a thing wasn’t a standard feature. Something the driver had added after the outbreak?

  Sandy mulled it over, then stepped over to one of the nearby sedans and unscrewed the antenna aerial. Back at the RV, he braced the center of the aerial against his knee and bent it into a rough approximation of a ninety-degree angle.

  He slipped the top loop of twine off the softball bat and tied it to the base end of the antenna. The tip was small enough to fit into the door frame below the drop bar, and he pushed it in as far as it would go, flush with the bend. Sandy eased up on the string and hoped the metal would be strong enough.

  His luck held. There was a bit of resistance, but the drop bar lifted out of the bracket on his side. The bar still sat in the brackets on the far end, but the slack let the door come open enough for him to reach inside and pull it off the inner brackets and drop it to the floor.