Rotters: Bravo Company (13 page)

One final corpse crawled forward from the broken creepers and blindly drew its shattered body forward. Most of the zombie’s face had been blown away, as had both legs and an arm. The fuckers were incredibly tough. McAllister pulled the trigger and fired until only a quivering pile of bullet riddled red meat lay atop the blood splattered mud. The SAW sputtered and fired its final round. He sadly dropped it; the machinegun was the only thing between him and his own impending death.

The sergeant pulled himself up and ran down the lane of fire he had just laid down. He sprinted past crippled zombies that reached out clutching hands to grasp him, evading death by inches. He broke free of the last clutching corpse and raced down the muddy trail. He wanted desperately to just keep on running; he knew he was in the clear.

Instead he pulled up short and snatched off his pack. He rummaged through it until he had found the last pair of Claymore mines. He worked frantically to set first one, and then the other mine towards the trail. He trailed out the firing lines and ducked behind a tree trunk just as the first of a wave of pursuing zombies staggered up the trail.

McAllister waited until the last possible second, then he yanked the cords. Both the mines exploded simultaneously, firing hundreds of screaming steel ball bearings into the approaching corpses. The closest zombies were shattered and hurled back in a crimson flash. The zombies further away collapsed, their limbs twisted and broken. Still they came on, dragging their ruined bodies down the trail. As the smoke cleared and McAllister could see again, even more cadavers approached, trampling the struggling undead under their feet into the blood splattered mud. He turned and fled further down the trail.

Sgt. McAllister didn’t run far. He pulled up short and stood bent over on the trail, gasping for breath. He could escape the zombies following him, but every minute he slowed them bought another minute for the rest of Bravo Company to finish their mission. He wasn’t doing this because the major had ordered him to, or even to save the rest of the men under his command. He was about to die because he was a professional soldier, and he knew it was his duty.

The sergeant stood slowly upright and removed his backpack. Rummaging through it he found the last bottle of whiskey and tossed the pack aside. He took a long pull of the fiery liquid to kill the pain.

One last cigar was in his breast pocket. He gently removed it and calmly lit it. He stood smoking his cigar and drinking until the zombies were almost upon him.

McAllister tossed the bottle aside and pulled the pin on his last grenade. He threw it as far back down the trail as he could. He calmly pulled his shotgun up and pushed in his last two shells as the grenade exploded. The zombies caught in the blast radius cart-wheeled off the trail into the undergrowth, and severed body parts rained down into the muddy crater created by the explosion. The pair of cadavers closest to him staggered, but then came on. McAllister emptied the shotgun into their faces. Both of the zombies went down, completely decapitated. Their headless bodies groped blindly along the trail, grasping for the soldier. He pumped the last spent shell from the shotgun, it was empty. He tossed it to the muddy ground and pulled his combat knife.

A fresh cadaver stumbled past the two he had shot. McAllister leapt upon it, driving it to the ground. He sank his knife into its neck again and again, working the blade back and forth in an attempt to decapitate it. Blood spurted as the zombie bit him on his hand, and then again on his forearm. The sergeant screamed in pain as another zombie grappled with him, tearing a bloody chunk of flesh from his shoulder with broken teeth. Leprous feet churned the muddy track all around him. The sergeant laughed mirthlessly through bloody lips as he pulled the cadaver’s head from its shoulders. He felt more teeth tear at him as the zombies teemed over him, then the pain drained away. His knife slipped from his nerveless fingers into the African mud, and he felt no more.

TO THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF - CODE RED COMMUNIQUE

VIRUS CONFIRMED IN IMMEDIATE AREA OF CONGO BASIN

CASUALTIES WITHIN ACCEPTIBLE RANGE

COMPUTER SIMULATIONS PREDICT LIMIITED TRANSFER RANGE, ALL MODELS FORCAST DISPERSAL OF VIRUS CONTAINED WITHIN DRC

REPORT ENDS

04:50 p.m. Zulu

Road to
Lat

The Congo

I wasn’t sure how long I had been out, or how long we had walked further down the track. We all heard gunfire and then the explosions in the distance behind us. The major ordered us to keep moving, we all knew the sergeant would catch up to us eventually. We trudged along until we just stumbled off the trail and back out onto the road that led to the airfield. Everyone gratefully collapsed as the major brought the line to a halt for a moment of rest.

Maj. Dorset walked over to me. “We need to go that way, right?” he asked, pointing to the south.

“Yes, sir,” I responded.

“You’ve got the map. It’s your responsibility to keep us on track,” he growled, then stalked away and sat down beside the roadway.

I pulled out the map and unfolded it.

Gordo walked over and sat down beside me. “How much further?” he asked.

I traced our route and checked the scale. “Four miles, give or take,” I answered.

“Four miles is a long way,” he observed dryly. “Do you think the sergeant will catch up to us?”

I had been thinking about him myself. “I hope so.”

The major got to his feet and ordered us to move out.

“We’re almost there, men, just a little further!” he prodded.

Everyone slowly got up and moved back into a line. The corpsmen picked up the stretchers and hobbled down the road. At my suggestion, Jacobs took point and I brought up the rear. I had given Jacobs one of my magazines. We each had twenty-five rounds for our M-4 rifles; that was it. The major had his pistol, as did one of the corpsmen. Gordo had abandoned his rifle once he ran out of ammo. We had no explosives and could not call in any support. Our situation was critical; we were completely on our own.

I fell back and followed the stretchers; they were moving so slowly that I had to hold back to stay in the rear. I paused to listen for any sign of pursuit, but I heard nothing as we moved forward on the roadway. I looked back from time to time for any sign of the sergeant. As we progressed I realized he wasn’t coming back. This mission was shit.

I just wanted to get the hell out of Africa.

We switched out carrying the cadavers every ten minutes. I insisted that someone watch the rear; the corpsman with the pistol hung back behind us while I carried the stretcher. We made slow progress up the road. It took us over an hour to cover a mile, and then we were forced to rest again. We fell out along the road. No one stood watch; we just laid down and quit. 

I didn’t realize what was happening until it was far too late. It was almost dark. The rebels silently walked out of the trees on both sides of the road, and captured us with no resistance. One of them quietly approached and picked up my rifle. I had fallen asleep, everyone had.

I was awakened by a pair of soldiers who roughly held me down and tightened a zip tie around my wrists. They hoisted me to my feet, and pulled me back to the trees.

The older commander we had encountered earlier was there, questioning Gordo. They argued back and forth in Congolese. I couldn’t understand them, but the man’s manner was not friendly.

I was forced to my knees. As I watched two men emerged from the forest with five-gallon jerry cans. They approached the wriggling cadavers upon the stretchers, and doused them in gasoline.

The major screamed for them to stop until one of the rebels hit him repeatedly with his rifle butt.

One of them lit a pack of matches and tossed it onto the stretchers. I watched as the cadavers writhed and squirmed; the only noise was the crackle of the flames. I wasn’t sorry to watch them burn, I was only sorry that we had failed after so much blood and pain. Greasy smoke rose into the tree
tops, and the stench of burning flesh filled my nostrils. As the flames burned down they poured on more gas, until the cadavers were still, and only blackened bones lay upon the muddy road.

I was pulled to my feet and forced to march down the road. We were moving to the north, away from the airfield. We stumbled and staggered along the road. If we fell out we were kicked until we rose and went on. When one of the corpsmen went down and couldn’t get back up he was shot and beheaded on the spot.

At least we weren’t carrying the damn stretchers anymore.

Our captors said little to each other, and no one spoke to me. When we were allowed to stop and rest I stumbled forward to fall over beside Gordo.

When I had caught my breath I whispered to him, “What did their leader say to you?”

Gordo hissed back, “He said he had warned us, that we could never return. He wanted to know why we were carrying the cadavers.”

“What did you tell him?” I asked.

“I told him that the major was in charge; that he wanted to make medicine with them. I told him we were trying to find a cure.”

“Did he believe you?” I asked hopefully.

“He said there was no cure. He told me that the sick must be destroyed. Parsons, I think we fucked up. I have been listening to them talk. I don’t think these men are rebels at all. I think they are local militia who have established a quarantine zone. They attacked us to stop us from spreading the disease,” Gordo explained.

“What are they going to do with us?” I queried.

“Their leader said something about taking us back to a village. I don’t know. They want to make some sort of show out of the major; they consider him important. Maybe they will ransom us.”

“I doubt it Gordo,” I replied grimly. “Remember, this is the Congo.”

OPS ORD 10-02

US ARMY CAPTAIN TUCKER, SAMUEL, J. SPECIAL FORCES

LOCATE AND EXTRACT ACS SPECIMENS PRIORITY ONE

ASSIST AND EXTRICATE BRAVO COMPANY PRIORITY TWO

EXERCISE EXTREME CAUTION, ACTIVE ACS VICTIMS AND REBEL ACTIVITY IN AREA

ORDERS END

06:33 a.m. Zulu

Abandoned Airfield

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Captain Tucker slipped out of his parachute harness and quickly wrapped the collapsed silk in the
paracords. He pushed it down into the tall grass at the edge of the field and looked around him. The rest of his five man fire team was already moving forward to his position. Tucker scanned the airstrip with his binoculars, but it was still too dark to see clearly. He could see no sign of movement or activity.

His second, Specialist Bradford, moved up and knelt down beside him. “Sir?”

“We wait,” Tucker answered.

The Special Forces unit disappeared into the tall grass.

Twenty-five minutes later the sun had risen enough to see across the deserted airstrip. The three C-130 cargo planes still sat on the field where they were supposed to be, but they would never fly again. Each had been burned. Black scorch marks were clearly visible around the cockpit windows, and their tires were flattened. A partially collapsed tent stood nearby.

Capt. Tucker used hand signals to direct his team forward. Three men slipped forward through the tall grass, and stopped at the edge of the landing strip.

Tucker waited until he was sure they were in position, then rose and silently led the other two forward. They cleared the short distance to the planes, and flattened out against their burned out hulls. The men they had passed moved rapidly forward and cleared the rest of the airfield. They encountered no resistance, and quickly located the military unit they had been sent to assist.

“Why did they behead them?” Bradford asked through the bandana he held tightly over his mouth and nose.

“I don’t know,” the captain responded. “Talk to me, Felder.”

Their medical officer, Lieutenant Felder knelt among the pile of badly burned remains they had found at the far edge of the field, near the surrounding rain forest. He slowly stood and removed his surgical gloves, dropping them among the debris.

“Sir, I cannot explain why these men were murdered in this manner. Some were shot and then beheaded; some were just decapitated. Perhaps they had surrendered. I would guess that the bodies were burned afterwards.”

He stood and slowly walked to the pile of fire blackened skulls nearby.

“These were our people, I’m sure of that,” he finished grimly.

“How can you be sure?” Bradford asked.

“Their teeth,” the lieutenant replied, gently moving a detached jaw
bone with his boot. “Africans don’t have fillings.”

“We’ll pick them up on our way out,” Capt. Tucker said softly. “Let’s see if we can find anyone from Bravo Company who’s still alive, then we’ll get some payback.”

Capt. Tucker picked out the tracks of the Humvees near the edge of the airfield. He led his men down the rutted track, following them into the rain forest. They moved as quietly and quickly as six ghosts. Three miles in they found the burnt remains of two men lying in the center of the road.

Lt. Felder quickly examined them. “Ours again,” he reported.

“Damn,” the captain growled. “What the fuck went on here?”

The captain scanned the ground around the charred bones. He knelt in the loam near the giant trees at the edge of the track. “Looky here, boys,” he growled, pointing to a set of boot tracks in the mud. “These were made by one of ours, and I’m pretty sure he was still alive. He was walking when he made em.”

He peered at the muddy ground, trying to read the story imprinted in the muddy ground there. “Looks like a bunch of locals, and a few of ours, probably taken prisoner.”

“How in the hell can you tell all that?” Felder asked incredulously.

“The ground is so muddy that a child could read the tracks. These boot tracks were heading south up to this point, then they are muddled up with these barefoot prints here where we found these bodies,” the captain explained. “And these over here are headed back north, the way they came, all traveling together. Our people would have been making for the airfield, behind us to the south.”

“What now?” Felder inquired.

The captain pointed down to the tracks leading north. “We follow these boot prints.”

The Special Forces unit carefully followed the tracks along the road for another mile. At that point they pulled up short.

The captain was on point; he held up his hand to stop the men behind him and motioned them off the road. Tucker had spotted someone looking back down the trail directly ahead of them. The man wasn’t moving, and Tucker was sure he hadn’t been spotted. He cautiously moved into the trees and slowly made his way forward, looking for trip wires and booby traps as he moved from tree to tree. He slipped forward until he was overlooking the road, and then belly crawled the last few yards until he could peer over the twisted tree roots down the rutted track. Moving with extreme caution he brought his M-4 up into firing position and peered through the scope until he acquired his target. Slowly he lowered the rifle. Capt. Tucker had found the men they were looking for, they were mere yards away.

Parsons, Gordo and Maj. Dorset stared back at him from atop their stakes.