Read Bestial Online

Authors: William D. Carl

Bestial (33 page)

“It looks like the hydrogen bomb went off over there,” Burns said, motioning to the buildings of downtown Cincinnati. His voice was tinny through the speaker on the outside of the orange suit. “Every time I think I see someone moving, they disappear back into the shadows. Can’t trust these old eyes anymore.”

Granger said, “Won’t be long now, sir. We’ll see plenty of those things, just like the other nights. Hundreds of ’em, sir, trying to get across, leaping from where we’ve blown up the bridges.”

Burns sighed. Looking over to his left, he took in the parking lots the army had commissioned as a temporary morgue. Torched,
blackened skeletons of men, women, and even children were lined up in rows. The sheer number of them staggered the mind, and he felt a bead of sweat trickle down his brow. He wondered how he could be perspiring when the suit was air-conditioned and, truth be told, rather chilly.

Scanning the rest of the operation, he saw regiments of the army mingling with the National Guardsmen, talking casually over coffee, only a few snipers and watchdogs to keep surveillance on the bridges. A few men and women were hauling the last of the previous night’s burnt bodies off the Brent Spence Bridge, away from the still-smoking hole in the middle of the structure. The deserted city of Covington was dotted with combat engineer vehicles, 165mm demolition guns, and grounded helicopters. Searchlights rimmed the river, their massive bulbs switched off until darkness fell. The military men and vehicles stretched as far as he could see, encircling the parameter of the infected area. Every half mile, there was a decontamination area with chemical showers for the soldiers who had infiltrated the infected area, returning with terrible stories of massacres and suicides, of mothers killing their children rather than letting them change again.

He leaned back on a Humvee, crossing his arms, and he squinted at the cityscape like John Wayne. With his southern drawl and broad face, he’d often been told he resembled the Duke. He took it as a compliment, as long as nobody referred to that piece of shit
The Conqueror
. Nobody liked Wayne in that one. What the hell had the casting director been thinking?

“The men ready to go?” Burns asked Tom.

“Troops are stationed at every bridge, sir. Nobody’s getting through, just like last night.”

“You wonder about all this?” Burns asked.

“Sir?”

“We’re literally mowing them down while they’re running toward us. You ever wonder if that’s right? These are Americans, after all.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but they’re monsters. They’re gonna try to jump across that gap we blew in the bridge, maybe even try to swim across the river. We let them get through the parameter,
there’d be panic everywhere. At least most of the country’s kept safe this way.”

“Sacrificing the few to save the many, huh, Granger?”

“Well, yes, sir.”

“You’re right. As always. Still, I had trouble sleeping last night. Haven’t had that since the first Gulf War, but this was different. When we took out the middle of that bridge, we blew the hell outta so many of them. The ones already across, the ones we had to burn—I kept seeing them.” He motioned to the rows of corpses laid neatly side by side. “Their faces … before we set them on fire, before we fished them out of the river where they fell, burning, they looked like anyone from my old neighborhood. From any neighborhood. And what if anyone’s still normal in there? We’ve been jamming the cell phones with satellite signals. I know it’s so the media doesn’t get hold of anyone inside, but, damn it, there are probably a lot of kids in there. The Pentagon seems more worried about media perception.”

“Don’t tell me you’re getting sentimental?” Tom said. Realizing his mistake, he added, “Sir.”

“I’m not going all soft, if that’s what you mean. Don’t worry. Just little conscience pangs.”

From a few miles away, they heard automatic rifle fire, then silence descended again. “Someone else trying to get across,” he said. “Damn it, why don’t they listen?”

“Sounded like it came from Newport. We give them fair warning. Hey! Sir, what’s that?”

Granger motioned toward the bottom of one of the bridges, and Captain Taylor Burns pulled the binoculars back to his eyes. Focusing, he saw several people approaching the water on the opposite side of the river, three men and two women. Each of them carried a pack. They looked back and forth, then the black woman pointed into the distance and they all trekked toward some determined destination.

“There’s something … different about this bunch,” Burns said. “Look at the way they move. It’s organized. Like they have a goal or a set of plans.”

“I imagine their goal is to get on to this side of the river, where it’s safe, sir.”

“Maybe. My point is, they’re working together. You’ve seen the way people over there have been acting. They act alone, or in packs with a single leader barking orders, not in groups. Seems like even when they aren’t beasts, they’ve become very independent and wary, like they can’t trust anyone else. Most of these mugs that we’ve isolated act like they can’t see more than ten seconds into the future. They just do what they want. They see something they like, they steal it. Look there, see how that guy just helped that woman up onto that rock? That’s good manners. Common courtesy. I didn’t even think that existed anymore.”

“Looks like they’re making for one of those coal barges, sir. We’ve been seeing this all day. People using boats and rafts and such. We can’t let them get over here.”

“I know my orders, Granger. You don’t have to constantly remind me.”

The group was indeed stepping onto the deck of one of the barges that was docked near the bridge. Burns told Granger to report to him if they did anything suspicious; then he retired to his tent. He felt very tired.

He prayed the little group wouldn’t try to cross the river. They’d seemed like good people in the few minutes he’d observed them, very unlike anyone else he’d encountered from the infected area. He would hate to have to kill them.

43

SEPTEMBER 18, 5:50 P.M.

T
he five-block trip from the Bio-Gen building to the riverfront was more harrowing than Rick had thought it would be. Not because there were so many dangers in their path, but because of the eerie stillness that had clouded the city streets. Nothing moved as they weaved through the parked cars, climbing over them when necessary. Their voices echoed off the empty buildings, so they refrained from conversation while they traveled to the Serpentine Wall that separated Cincinnati proper from the Ohio River. Inside, Rick roiled with the urge to shout something, to break this unnatural quiet. He kept it under control, though, walking briskly south, watching from the corners of his eyes for any movement.

Chesya repeatedly turned her head from side to side, aware that she was being watched from the dark alleys between buildings. Occasionally, a noise emerged from the shadows, proof that there were still people out there. They just preferred the darkness of the side streets. This predilection for staying hidden frightened her more than their existence.

With a knife in each hand, she gave herself a mental pat on the back. She had proven herself to be a stronger woman than she thought she could be, given the circumstances. She knew her brothers wouldn’t have fared any better, and they had both been street thugs, wise to the ways of the world.

Andrei could barely control his delight at being set free after so long. He touched things as he walked: automobiles, street signs, fire hydrants that still trickled water. Raising his wet fingers to his mouth, he grinned as he sucked down the water from a cupped palm. His arms and legs would sometimes reach out and stretch without
him being conscious of it, as he flexed muscles that had been imprisoned for too long. He’d had plenty of room in the cell, but he’d never been able to feel that he’d actually flexed. The world was a huge empty space again, and it contained more than enough room for his big body. Even the slight wind on his face was deeply satisfying. He only wished that since the rainstorm had passed, the clouds would part for the sun. He yearned to feel sunshine on his pale skin, to strip down to the waist and enjoy the prickling as he tanned a dark, chestnut brown, as he’d been in the old country.

Behind him, Cathy walked alongside Christian. Her hands kept flitting at him, worrying a speck of lint from his coat, running fingers through his long hair. All the time, she ignored the creepiness of the deserted streets, focusing completely on her son, even as she wondered where the crazies had gone. She felt she knew for the first time in her pampered life what it was to be a mother. This was what it meant to care about another person more than you’d ever cared about anything before. To feel as if you’d protect your child no matter what danger came at you. These intense emotions had been buried within her for so long, covered and encumbered by responsibilities of the house and the role of doting wife and mother. Losing nearly everything and burning the rest to the ground had seemed to disinter these feelings, and she embraced them. She didn’t ever want to let go of Christian’s hand. Grasping it tightly, she realized she wasn’t surprised by these overwhelming sensations. They had been there all along.

For his part, Christian knew that the clutchy-grabby woman needed him far more than he needed her. He was certainly happy to see her, but he wanted to brush her hands away, tell her to stop. Sighing, he realized he could do no such thing. She had proven she loved him, had taken a ridiculous risk to hunt him down. She could have imprisoned herself in her cozy million-dollar house and waited out this ordeal, but she hadn’t. And he loved her for it, knew that he had actually missed her since he’d run away from home. So he could endure a doting mother for a while longer, if it pleased her. At least it took her mind off the dangerous situation at hand.

When they reached the Serpentine Wall, they scanned the river
for the barges. Pointing west, Rick said, “I see one over there, under that bridge.”

It was probably a half mile away from where they stood, the empty eye of the Sawyer Point amphitheater glaring at them. In fact, it was a procession of three barges, each loaded with a mountain of coal, and they were attached to a feeble-looking tugboat in the lead.

As they jogged toward it, Cathy asked, “That little boat pulls all that weight? It doesn’t seem possible.”

“Let’s pray that it is possible,” Chesya said. “We need to get those flat barges out to the middle of the river … and fast. It’s starting to get dark.”

A little stone stairway was carved into the bank of the river, and they walked down it until they stood on the silt that lined the rushing water. The river was a bit swollen from the deluge earlier that day, and the water seemed to turn in upon itself, rolling with some hidden mentality, an undertow, as though it planned to pull them down into its brown, dirty, polluted grasp.

The little band of survivors stepped across the soggy plywood plank, from the shore to the tugboat. In a few moments, they were all crowding the boat’s cabin.

Rick was amazed that everything had remained intact over the previous two nights. Apparently, the beasts hadn’t attempted to sail away on the river. This only reinforced Cathy’s claim that they were afraid of the water, that it posed a danger to them.

The bank of instruments in the tugboat seemed deceptively simple.

“That’s the speedometer,” Cathy said, “and that’s the ignition. I don’t see a key, though. That lever moves the boat forward or backward and determines your speed.”

“You can really drive this thing?” Chesya asked.

Cathy nodded. “I think so. It’s a lot like our little yacht we keep down in Florida.” She continued, pointing, “That’s the GPS system, a lot like what you have in your car.”

Chesya snorted. “Not in
my
car. I’m lucky to have a cassette player.”

“The radio!” Christian said, lunging forward. “It’s got a ship-to-shore radio” He pulled the mic from its cradle and clicked it twice,
flipping on the metal switch with his other hand. “Is there anyone out there who can hear me?” he asked, speaking into the mic. “This is an emergency. Is there anyone listening?”

“My God,” Chesya said. “If we can get the military on this thing … You think they’re monitoring this frequency?”

“I don’t doubt they’re listening to every frequency,” Christian answered, and he tried raising someone on the radio again.

They waited for a few moments as static crackled from the little speaker. Christian switched frequencies and tried again, only to be answered by the same pop of white noise.

Andrei said, “I do not think it works, no? Shouldn’t we hear, what, talking talking talking?”

Rick shrugged. “I’m outta my element.”

“What that mean?”

“It means I’ve never had enough cash to buy one of these floating babies, my Siberian friend. Probably never will.”

Chesya glanced up at him as Christian continued to scan various frequencies. She said, “I thought you did well for yourself? Bank robbing not pay as much as it used to?”

“I got one nerve left, Chesya. Don’t get on it.” He leaned back, sulking a bit. Listening to Christian’s unanswered bellows, he chewed the inside of his lip, then waved at Chesya.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve been having a chance to look back at my life, and I’m discovering it isn’t so exciting or wonderful. Not where I planned to be by now, at least.”

“You wanted a boat?”

“Oh yeah, baby,” he said with a Cheshire cat grin. “I wanted the boat and the house and the cars and the women. All the things that make up the stereotypical good life. Never quite made it there, though. Still one of the suffering middle class.”

“Just enough to get by?”

“I guess that’s right.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be looking back,” she suggested. “Maybe it’s time to start looking forward. To the future.”

He laughed. “You think there’s gonna be anything to look forward to?”

“If we get through this night, I am going to take the hottest, longest bubble bath of my life. Then I think I’ll eat a huge meal—steak and a gigantic, heart-attack-inducing dessert. Something really sinful.”

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