Pulse: Retaliation (Anisakis Nova Book 2) (10 page)

22 – Pvt. David Stewart

While trying to clear out Seattle neighborhoods of infected kidnappers, orders came in to return to north Seattle and continue clearing MAC distribution centers. Stewart didn't question orders, but it seemed whoever was sending them needed to make up his mind. When they left the city, it was in shambles. Now they were leaving the neighborhoods and they were also jacked. If they concentrated their efforts in one place, they had a chance.

All this running around cost ammunition, energy, and time. Stewart hoped once they returned to the MAC centers and hospitals, they could buckle down and hold. He'd do whatever he was told, sure, but that was his two cents.

He sat in the humvee carefully loading rounds into an empty mag, the sight of where he got the extra ammo still fresh in his mind. They'd just cleared an entire block when they rounded the corner and came upon the Bravo Company’s weapons platoon. The three 1114 humvees were in the middle of the road, doors hanging open, abandoned. A handful of dead bodies, none of whom were soldiers, littered the road. They'd all been decapitated. Trails of blood went away from the body down the slight decline in the road.

Stewart's squad cleared the area and set up a perimeter while the rest of them searched the humvees. There was no sign of the platoon's whereabouts, alive or dead. Their gear was still in the humvees. Ammo, food, supplies. Everything.

They were carrying ammo back to their own humvee when Barbie outright said it. "You think they went AWOL?"

Stewart shoved his armful of ammo into the vehicle then shrugged. "Can't say for sure, but if they went AWOL they would've taken this shit with them."

Norris caught wind of the conversation and jerked his head towards Otto, signaling for them to keep it down. Otto would stop them all for a nice lecture on abandoning your post, eating up time and giving them all a headache. He’d probably demand a salute, too.

That didn't stop him from adding on. "And
all
of them? No fuckin' way. I knew Allen and Prince. They'd rather cut off one of their own fingers than go AWOL."

"He's right, man," Barbie admitted. "This is weird. Where do you think they were going?"

"Hey Barbie, you helping me with this or what?" Stewart, uninterested in continuing the conversation on Bravo Company, walked away.

The sunset ignited the sky in oranges and red. It would be dark soon. They had NVGs but Stewart never got used to the way they messed with his vision. There’s no peripheral or depth perception while wearing them. When he first wore them, he walked into a tree. Never heard the end of that one. Plus, they could wear masks
or
NVGs. The two together were impossible. He wanted to clear the distribution center they were assigned while there was still a bit of daylight left, so he went double time and finished scavenging the humvees.

They drove. The area looked a lot different than when he was on duty at the hospital. It had been almost normal with cars everywhere and people walking the streets, but was now lifeless. Abandoned cars were pushed against the side of the road, scraped up from heavy duty vehicles pushing through them to clear a path. Not a single person walked the streets.

But Stewart felt eyes on him. Someone watched them from the building; he felt it in his gut. His hair stood on end and he couldn't shake the feeling.

"Contact front," Gonzalez said from the front. "Get ready, boys. We're going in hot."

"This doesn't feel right," Norris said beside him. "Doesn't this seem too easy?"

"Put on your big girl panties and cowboy the fuck up!" Gonzalez shouted from the front. "You're not here to feel, you're here to follow orders. Now get your masks on and weapons up!"

Barbie began to slow about thirty feet from the building.

Their coms crackled to life. It was Otto. “
Breach, Bang, and Clear, men. Bravo team, move in.
”

When the humvee stopped they were out, grabbing what ballistic shields they had. So far they’d never needed breaching charges, but they brought them anyway. They fanned out to the sides of the double doors. Their footsteps were thunder in the quiet street. Behind them, Alpha followed to cover them as they entered the building.

They covered O’Keefe as he lobbed a flash bang into the room. A moment later, they entered.

Stewart had an iron grip on his rifle as he scanned the room. The air he breathed inside the mask was stale and hot. Sweat was already accumulating where the mask pressed against his face.

Bodies on the ground, not verified dead. Shattered glass to the left. Door dead ahead, slightly ajar. Gonzalez signaled him to check the left.

Boxes of MAC were unopened, stacked in the back of the reception area. A woman, definitely dead, leaned against her desk. Another door was shut at the back of the room.

Stewart gave him the all clear and stayed in his position while the others checked the bodies.

They moved to the last door. Carew tossed another flash bang and they filtered in. Exam room doors went all the way down the building to a back door which was open. The last rays of sunlight came through along with the amber glow of a streetlight. Immediately to the right were stairs next to an elevator.

In pairs of two, Bravo began clearing the exam rooms. Each room contained exam tables and medical supplies. Some were raided. No annies.

Once they’d cleared the first floor, Gonzalez called for Alpha to move into position. Lt. Otto gave the command and Alpha team filtered into the first story.

“
Bravo, move up,
” came Otto’s voice over comm.

In front of him, O’Keefe bore the ballistics shield and Stewart followed right behind. They made their way up the stairwell slowly. Just as Stewart mounted the last step and entered the second story hallway beside O’Keefe, the first shot rang out downstairs. He reflexively jerked back towards the sound, and that was when the infected burst from the exam room across from him, glanced off O’Keefe’s shield, and took him to the ground.

This was obvious. It was Ambush 101. They should have known better.

The annie had no weapon. She grabbed wildly at the lower portion of his vest. Before Stewart was able to push her off, a burst of gunfire sent her body flying off him. Stewart was on his feet in a second, putting a final round into her head.

There were dozens of them. They poured from the exam rooms, some with no weapons, others with guns. The space was narrow and both sides seemed to want to use that to their advantage.

Next to him, Barbie unloaded his entire mag into the oncoming crowd. Stewart did the same, then they dropped back to let the two men behind them take their places.

As Stewart grabbed a fresh mag from his vest, he noticed the parasites underneath the infecteds’ feet. Hundreds, maybe a thousand. He glanced around him looking for Norris.

"We need a firebird in here! Worms straight ahead!"

Fuck
. They were already shoulder to shoulder. More of Alpha was on the stairs. Stewart was sure Norris wouldn't be able to make it through in time and they were done for when suddenly he caught sight of a flame in the tip of Norris' flamethrower.

Dread knotted Stewart’s stomach. It was a fucking hospital. Oxygen lines in the walls. Flammable chemicals could be in any one of the rooms. But with that many worms, fire was the only thing that would stop them. It could kill them, too.

"Move!"

One word was enough. They could die either way. Barbie and Stewart fell back as Norris pulled the trigger and swept the wand across the small space. The brightness of the fire was almost blinding. It's napalm-like fuel clung to anything it touched. Worms burst, fried to a crisp.

In the twenty seconds of burn time Norris had, it took down the first few rows of annies and the bucketful of parasites. In a swift motion, Norris stepped back while Barbie and Stewart moved forward.

The hallway was on fire. Cheap carpet made for a great burn. The infected kept coming, but any stray parasites avoided it.

Just as they mowed down the remaining annies, the building rumbled. Stewart lost his footing and fell forward, nearly into the slimy pile of burnt parasites and infected. He caught himself at the last minute on a door frame. Dust fell from the ceiling along with a few tiles.

"What the fuck was that?"

"Shit!"

It was quiet again save for the men's cursing. No more gunfire. No infected blood curdling screams. Their rifles were still pointed down the hallway.

Grenade.
That's what the annie was going for. His grenade pouch.

They didn't usually carry grenades. They left them in the humvee and only took them in when they needed them. In close quarters like this, a grenade was the last thing to bring. But someone had. And it had gone off downstairs.

"
Gonzalez, give me a SITREP. What just happened in there? Over.
"

The comm sounded distant, or maybe it was just Stewart. He felt dazed. He knew exactly what it would look like downstairs and he didn't want to see it.

The Corporal coughed, then pressed his hand against his microphone. "Otto, explosion on level 1. Over."

"
Investigate. Continue clearing building. Over and out
."

"You heard him," Gonzalez said. "Move out."

Gonzalez took point and the squad followed, each man putting distance between the other. Stewart braced himself as they turned a corner on the stairwell.

Bloodbath. It was the first word that came to mind when he saw the bodies of his brothers ripped apart, their guts coating the walls. They checked for casualties, because they had to. Everyone in Bravo was gone.

There were a handful of stragglers still hiding in the exam rooms. None were poppers. Alpha was silent as they dispatched the rest of the annies. Once they were finished, they returned to the convoy where the Bronco platoon had just arrived.

They had new orders. A hospital to clear downtown. Bronco was going to hold down the MAC distribution center.

Stewart was numb as he climbed into the humvee. He wanted to know if it was a soldier or an infected who pulled the pin. He wanted to know who to blame.

In the end, he guessed it didn't really matter.

23 – Mandy Sillvers

Mandy tasted the saltiness of her own tears as she licked her chapped lips. She tried to still her shaking body and ignore the phantom sounds of scurrying and whispers around her. Shoved into the corner of her tiny bedroom, a part of her knew there was nothing and no one inside with her.

Yet sitting in an inky blackness that made her eyes hurt, a primal part took over. Her own breathing startled her. Her imagination became reality. She'd come to a point where she was afraid to even click the button on her digital watch, fearful the tiny glow would show the writhing bodies of parasites closing in on her. As long as she didn't breathe too loud or give away her position, she would be okay.

The power went out three weeks ago. She was eating a breakfast of powdered eggs and milk when it flickered for a moment then went off. Mandy wasn't afraid at first. After all, she was a grown woman who had lived through scarier things than the dark. She had flashlights, glow sticks, and candles. She also had confidence the lights would come back on.

Then they didn't, and the fear set in. It was nagging, nothing more. Mandy felt it, but still had the right mind to ignore it. There was nothing to be afraid of. She was safe.

The thing about nagging is it leads to something eventually. She couldn't let herself be in the darkness for more than a few minutes. Even when she was sleeping, there had to be light. She started burning through everything she had. Something had to be running constantly or panic gripped her and made her hyperventilate. Cabin fever was worsening, and her need for light escalated to needing it in the room she was in as well as the closest room so she could see oncoming attackers.

Oncoming attackers. There are no oncoming attackers.
There was no way into the bunker except the trap door, down a ladder, and through another steel door four inches thick. Mandy knew no one could get in. She knew it.

But the vents. The worms could get through the vents. Mandy envisioned them slipping through and crawling into her ears and down her throat while she slept. What if there was a weak spot in the concrete surrounding the bunker and a tiny one wriggled through? Through all the dirt and rock. If it was determined enough, it could do it.

When her last candle flickered out, she had a panic attack so severe she passed out. When she woke, in the pitch black, she started crying. She continued off and on. It took all her willpower to feel her way through the bunker to relieve herself in the bathroom now and then, and drag food from the kitchen.

What if a parasite managed to get into her food? What if it had been there all along and, since she couldn't see the food, she ate it?

She gulped back a sob and hugged her knees to her chest. Mandy thought of her late husband and his devotion to the bunker. She thought of their hunting and camping trips, how they'd spend a week alone in the mountain living off of what they could kill or forage.

What would he think of her now?

The thought harrowed her. She allowed herself mental space to observe her own behavior and action. This was not her. Mandy was strong.

She wiped her eyes. After taking a deep breath, she stood and puffed her chest out as though she could prove to the darkness she wasn't afraid. She'd kill to see her DVD again. An image of Matthias, laying in his deathbed, popped into her mind. He wasn't afraid. He looked at her with love and strength in his eyes up until the last moment.

If she staved off suicide, she could beat this, too.

"You're better than this." Her voice was loud and echoed. Growing more confident, she took another slow inhalation. "Mandy, you are better than this. You are leaving."

The finality of her decision gave her peace. She felt her way through the bunker, sometimes using the faint glow of her watch when needed, to the closet the bug-out bags were in. Her feet sent used up glow sticks scattering across the cement floor, and she fought the urge to imagine them as something else. She visualized them for what they were; plastic tubes. Nothing more.

Mandy fumbled about, pulling out the outdoor gear hung in the closet. Pants, lightweight hiking boots, a sweater, scarf, and rain jacket. She stripped and cleaned her body with wet wipes from the bag before putting them on. The clothes smelled clean and felt good against her skin. She donned a thigh holster and the Glock .40 then shouldered the backpack. She retrieved an M16 from the gun safe. There were many guns in the safe she could take, but she felt the most confident with the M16. She put the strap over her shoulder and went to the steel door.

If she didn't do it now, she wouldn't do it at all. Hesitation was a doorway for doubt. If there was some aspect of leaving she hadn't considered yet, so be it. She needed to move.

"You can do this," she said. She spun the door hatch and pushed it open.

A cool breeze gushed into the room. The smell of dirt almost made her swoon. She didn't know where she'd go, but anywhere was better than the tomb. Mandy put her hands on the ladder rungs and began her ascent back into the world.