Erik heard the pitch of two of the five-tons drop as the drivers put them into gear.
Two down and ten to go
, Erik thought as he turned his head back toward the killing corridor.
A family of three was running toward the barricade. Erik tightened his grip and prepared himself to fire. He could just make out two more figures charging toward the family and gaining.
The man must have sensed that the pursuers were gaining, because he turned to fight with them. Before the marines could do anything about it, the two were upon him. They didn’t stop to try to rob him; they didn’t stop to fight; they slammed into the man and latched on as they fell.
Erik couldn’t see any detail, but he could tell that the attackers were biting the man’s arm and neck.
“Oh sweet jeezus! They’re fuckin’ eating him,” said a marine looking through his binoculars. “I think I’m gonna be sick. Somebody put them down.”
Erik watched Lance Corporal Diez step to the median and throw up. He heard the sharp report of a rifle. He looked up in time to watch the second attacker’s head become a pink cloud as the report of a second sniper shot reached his ears. A third report followed close behind.
The mother and daughter reached the barricade out of breath. The mother turned to find her husband and went into hysterics when she realized he was lying on the concrete several hundred yards behind her. Erik and another marine grabbed the woman’s arms to keep her from rushing to her husband’s body.
They finally managed to get the woman and her child onto one of the trucks.
“I’ll stay with her,” PFC Glover volunteered.
Erik didn’t argue but trotted back to his position on the blockade.
He watched more terrified people run toward the barricade. He kept his eyes open for any crazed people chasing them.
One of the men stopped to talk with Gunny Thorn and the “El Tee.” From the fact that the guy was pointing the way he had come, Erik guessed the shit was about to hit the fan. Gunny Thorn called the platoon leaders to him.
None of the marines needed to wait to hear what was up. They pulled out an extra magazine and repositioned themselves so they could move quickly if they had to.
Before the platoon leaders could get back with orders the first of the rioters was visible. The one quickly turned into tens or even a hundred. The marines waited until their targets were closer.
“My God,” said Diez, “There’s so many.”
Several of the marines lowered their weapons and watched the group trudge forward. “I can’t…I can’t. They’re civilians,” several marines repeated as much to themselves as the Marine above them.
“Marines, open fire,” Gunny Thorn calmly ordered.
For the first time since boot camp, the Marines hesitated.
Gunny Thorn didn’t start screaming right away, as he would have been right to do. He knew why his men weren’t shooting—overcoming Marine Corps training takes something extraordinary. He waited until the group was close enough for every man on the line to clearly see what was approaching them.
“Marines, open fire.”
Being faced with “rioters” that were missing limbs, looked like they had been mauled by wild animals, and coated with blood, was enough to finally goad the Marines into action.
Unlike a normal firefight, the shots were single and calm. Bodies dropped to the ground, one per shot. Erik aimed and fired. The old man he had aimed at dropped. He aimed again and again. Targets kept dropping. It was over before any of the rioters were close enough to pose a real threat.
Erik turned his eyes from the body-strewn highway. He told himself all of them were psychotic rioters who would have killed the people who’d just boarded the trucks. He hated that the only way to be certain whether or not a person was a rioter was to look for injuries. Being sure required getting entirely too close.
A few marines staggered to the side to throw up, then promptly returned to the line.
The flow of survivors slowed to a trickle. Several of the evacuees threw up on the highway as they crossed the body-strewn killing field. A handful of refugees would come hurrying along screaming, “don’t shoot” about every half hour or so.
By late afternoon, hours had passed and no more survivors were coming. Erik overheard one of the sergeants talking about a National Guard convoy that was overdue. It all amounted to trouble.
“Eyes up,” somebody yelled.
A small group of people wandered toward the barricade. Somebody jumped on a megaphone, “Hurry up.”
The group acted like they didn’t hear him.
“Acknowledge us by holding up your hands or you will be fired upon.”
They kept trudging mindlessly forward.
“This is your last warning; acknowledge this warning or you will be shot.”
They ignored the warning and continued toward the barricade.
The Lieutenant gave the order to Diez’s fire team.
Three of his Marines fired. Three bodies dropped.
Erik could hear the Lieutenant’s breath over his shoulder. He wished he hadn’t heard what the lieutenant said.
“Jeezus … we’re all going to die here.”
* * *
The sun wandered nearer the horizon, and still the men of Golf Company, 2
nd
Battalion 6
th
Marines waited for orders. Gunny Thorn had wandered away from the defensive line in the direction of the communications vehicle about an hour ago.
Erik switched the knee he was kneeling on. Shortly, he would finally have the opportunity to move off the line, get some chow and maybe a little rest. Things had settled into an eerie calm after the three incomers were shot for not acknowledging the Marines. Still, until new orders were issued, they had no other choice but to wait and hold the evacuation site.
Gunny Thorn soon marched back to the defensive line, shouting orders.
“Get the lights unpacked. Get me another watch put together to relieve the men upfront. Everyone else move onto the bridge and establish a fall back chain. Demo team, make sure that last line is clear of the charges. Blow the inbound bridge.”
The remaining eight five-tons rolled onto the bridge and joined the two that had been stationed there for the Marines to use. Marines trotted onto the bridge and started filling sandbags.
A Marine whose name Erik couldn’t remember tapped him on the shoulder, relieving him of his position. Erik stepped back and stretched his legs. He was just about to walk to find a spot to sit and eat when he heard someone screaming.
He ran in the direction of the screams.
“ … the fuck? Gunny, ‘El Tee’ you’re gonna want to see this!” it had been a Navy corpsman who was yelling.
Erik rounded a hummer that was towing a portable floodlight. He saw a row of a dozen bodies draped in sheets and jackets. One of the sheets was moving.
Gunny Thorn ran up behind Erik.
“Corpsman this better be dam …”
“Gunny, he was dead. He’s been dead for about ten minutes. Now he’s wigglin’ like a panicked two-year-old after dark,” the corpsman said, stepping around the flailing body.
Finally, the man under the sheet got it off his face and started to sit up. He growled savagely. Gunny Thorn took one look at the man, pulled his sidearm, and blew the struggling corpse’s head off.
“How did that man die the first time?”
“That’s just it Gunny, the bite he had on his leg was superficial. I mean, yeah, he was bleeding pretty good when he showed up, but he shouldn’t have lost enough blood for it to be fatal like it was.”
Gunny Thorn put up his hand. The corpsman stopped explaining.
“How many more of these bodies had bites?”
“All of them except the two on the end. Those two looked like they had been involved in a car wreck or something. They were dead before they got here, hearts just hadn’t got the message.”
“How long have they been lying here?”
“One or two been here an hour or so, the others maybe twenty minutes.”
“Jamison, Diez, I know you two are supposed to be on break, but stand here another fifteen minutes or so. Any of ‘em move, shoot ‘em and report back to me.”
“Yes, sir,” they replied in unison.
They leaned up against the truck and waited. Erik wondered if what he had seen was real. He wasn’t the most hardened of Marines, but he had seen enough combat to know that dead men don’t move. He also doubted that the corpsman had made a mistake about the guy being dead.
What the hell are we in the middle of?
A low moan startled him.
The body at his feet was moving like a stunned football player trying to regain his senses. He jammed the muzzle of his rifle against the body’s head and pulled the trigger. The moaning stopped.
“Corpsman, you said this one was bit too right?” Diez asked, pointing at the bloody sheet.
The young man nodded.
“Two bites, two that start moving when they shouldn’t?” Diez said to Erik.
Erik nodded. The two of them shot the remaining bodies in the head and walked over to Gunny Thorn.
“Something in those bites…” Diez started.
“Understood,” Gunny Thorn cut him off. “Go get some rest. I have a feeling you’re gonna need it.”
Gunny Thorn called the platoon leaders to him. Erik could just barely hear him telling the leaders to order their men to shoot anyone who had been bitten on sight.
Bites make the dead move. The rioters keep moving with injuries that should have left them incapacitated or dead. Only headshots kill ‘em. They eat people. Surely we’re not dealing with ZOMBIES. For heaven sakes, someone made the concept up for a fucking movie…
Nothing else fits the bill though.
“Fire in the hole!” someone yelled.
Seconds later, the silence was shattered by an ear splitting boom. The bridge Erik and the other Marines stood on shook with the blast. Erik put his back to the setting sun and watched large chunks of the northbound bridge dropping into the water below. Dust wafted up, creating visible, colored beams of light.
* * *
Erik woke up to a sergeant kicking the bottom of his boot and calling “Jamison.” Erik sat up with his rifle in his right hand.
The sergeant woke up the rest of squad the same way.
“Your squad is back up on watch. Mortars are set and ranged, the defensive line is now on the bridge at the start of the fall back chain, and you have about ten minutes to take care of business before you’re on the line.”
The sergeant walked away, presumably toward the command post. Erik’s squad mates and he stretched, grabbed their gear, and headed toward the latrine area.
Seven minutes later, the Marines took their positions on the defensive line.
The moon was mostly full and cast a silvery sheen on the abandoned cars and concrete. The row of sheet covered bodies stood out in the pale light. Nothing moved. Even the bugs and birds were hiding.
The Marines didn’t speak, but just listened for the sound of anyone approaching. It was somewhere in the early morning hours before anybody heard anything.
“Something heavy is driving towards us,” Sgt. Jim Johanson announced.
JJ, as the platoon called him, made Crocodile Dundee look like a pansy. He could spot any trap, no matter how well hidden. Half the men would swear on a stack of Bibles that he could outhunt a panther on its own turf.
Erik shifted his weight so the blood could return to his feet. The pins and needles feeling of returning circulation had quit bothering him not long after he’d finished boot camp. He adjusted his grip on his rifle so he would be ready to fire.
“Gunny Thorn! We have a heavy vehicle inbound,” JJ said into his radio.
Gunny Thorn trotted up to the defensive line.
“Give it to me,” Gunny Thorn said.
“At least one heavy vehicle, possibly more. We should be seeing headlights any second.”
“Look alive,” Gunny Thorn bellowed. He picked up his radio. “I need another squad up here to inspect possible survivors.”
Less than a minute later, Erik could hear the rumbling of large diesel engines. He was nearly blinded by the headlights. His eyes adjusted quickly. He counted at least a dozen sets of headlights approaching the barricade.
The leading vehicle turned out to be an M1A1 Abrams tank. It slowed to a stop about a hundred feet from the line. Erik couldn’t be sure, but it looked like there were armed men sitting on the tank.
One of them jumped off the front of the tank and approached the line of Marines with his rifle over his head.
“We’re what’s left of the National Guard convoy. We have survivors,” the man said.
“Tell your drivers to bring the vehicles up. We are going to have to do a visual inspection of every man, woman, and child before you get to go through the barricade. Anyone who resists being inspected will be shot immediately.”
The National Guardsman turned back to the tank, yelling as he went.
“Gentlemen, you heard the man. Have the drivers move the vehicles into three lines right here. Everyone, soldiers included, line up fifty feet west of the vehicles for inspection.”
The soldiers slid off the tank and trotted back along the convoy spreading the orders and organizing the survivors. Erik was mildly impressed with the person leading the convoy—the man had his people responding efficiently, almost like Marines. The survivors obeyed out of fear and shock, but they obeyed.