Slow Burn (Book 8): Grind (23 page)

With the Whites all focused on the crashed Black Hawk, Murphy and I made our escape and ran a good way down the road before we slowed. Any further and it would have been too dark for me to see anything, anyway. It was time to torch.

We came across an old school bus that had been shabbily converted into a recreational vehicle. It was off the side of the road, parked halfway in a culvert and leaning precariously. Just like so many houses we’d seen, the door was open, and many of the windows were cracked or broken out. A chair, picture frames, and magazines lay scattered among pots, pans, and dishes, as though a giant had shaken them out of the bus through the open door.

“The things that get their attention when they ransack a house,” I mused.

Murphy leaned in through the front door. “Hey honey, I’m home.”

I readied my machete.

Footsteps banged across the metal floor inside.

Nonsensical grunts.

A White was coming.

“I got it.” I stepped back and raised my blade.

The White stumbled down the stairs and burst out of the door, catching my machete right through the bridge of his nose, dying as he tumbled down the embankment.

“Dammit.” My machete got stuck in the White’s skull as he went past.

Murphy leveled his M4 at the open door.

I scrambled down the sloping concrete and took hold of the handle of my machete, jiggling it fiercely to get it free. Without it, I was defenseless meat on slow feet.

“Anybody else in there?” Murphy asked of the darkness inside.

No other sounds came.

Murphy looked back up the road, worry on his face.

In a crowd of so many Whites, most had no hope of getting within reach of the dead in the helicopter. The infected who couldn't were losing interest in it and needed a new goal.

I had my machete in hand, and I jumped up the steps to put myself beside the driver’s seat. “We need to set this bus on fire.”

Murphy pulled a bottle of lighter fluid out of his bag and tossed it up to me. “We need to get a move on.”

I popped the plastic bottle open and liberally squirted anything that looked flammable. I tossed the bottle back to Murphy and used my lighter to get it all burning.

I jumped down the stairs and stepped quickly away from the bus as the flames glowed brightly through all the windows.

“Shit works,” said Murphy, already hurrying up the road.

I looked back to see how close the horde was and noticed the sky in the east was turning a dull gray. “Damn.”

Murphy looked east. “Time flies.”

We ran. Before we'd made it more than a few hundred yards, Murphy put a hand on my shoulder to slow me down. He cocked his head and looked at the dark western sky.

I listened.

“More helicopters.” He pointed into the darkness.

I nodded. “A couple, you think? I don’t see ‘em.”

“Let’s find some cover.”

I followed Murphy to a billboard standing on a metal post the girth of a small redwood tree, tall enough to be seen for a mile in either direction on the highway.

“Keep the pole between you and the choppers,” he said. “They’ll never see us, even if they have infrared.”

“Infrared?” I asked, “Do they have that?”

“How would I know?”

“You were in the Army.”

“That doesn’t mean I know everything. I rode in ‘em. I didn’t fly ‘em.”

“Do you try to be difficult?” I searched the sky. The helicopters were getting close.

“No,” he answered. “It just happens. Mostly just to you.”

Murphy leaned around the post to look as well.

One of the helicopters flew directly overhead and caught the attention of the horde. It slowed and turned a wide circle in the air above the downed Black Hawk.

The bus we’d just torched had enough flames roiling out of its windows to illuminate thousands and thousands of screaming Whites.

The other helicopter flew by, following the course of the highway east. It didn’t slow when it passed its downed comrade.

No one in either helicopter fired.

“Recon,” Murphy deduced.

“Let’s go set that next fire.”

Murphy put a hand on my arm. “Wait.”

“What?”

He pointed at the helicopter that had been circling. It was coming back toward us.

“Other side of the pole.” Murphy quickly hid himself.

I did too, while keeping an eye on the coming copter. Moments later, it passed overhead, going back toward Fort Hood. The sound of White voices changed and grew distinctly closer.

I pointed at the retreating helicopter. “They’ve done our work for us. The horde is going to chase them all the way to the front gate.”

“It can’t be more than a mile or two now,” said Murphy. “Just up the highway here.”

I heaved a deep breath. “How many miles do you have left in your legs?”

“Won’t matter,” said Murphy. “If these dipshits aren’t bright enough to hide their position from the horde with the first helicopter, the second helicopter will come right back this way, too. You’re right. They’ll do our work for us. We don’t need to burn anything else. All we need to do is get out of their way and let nature take its course.”

“Survival of the fittest.” I had another thought and laughed. “Or death of the stupidest.”

“Don’t get too cocky, dude. They’ve nearly gotten us plenty of times.”

“Can’t argue with that.” I looked at the billboard towering above us, wondering how I could get myself up there before the horde closed in. “We need to find a place to observe from.”

“Observe?” Murphy asked, emphasizing the question in the word.

“You know,” I admitted, “until I spot the Smart Ones. You know what I need to do.”

Shaking his head, Murphy jogged away, not down the highway, but away from it. “If you were a Smart One, you'd let the dipshits kill each other and you'd stay out of it."

“It won’t work that way,” I told him as I matched his pace. “The Smart Ones will keep themselves out of harm’s way.”

“Sounds like Null Spot rationalizations to me.”

Even though we were running away from the main body of the horde moving up the highway, the sound of their screaming was everywhere. If I hadn’t known where they were, I wouldn’t have been able to guess.

As the sky turned brighter with the coming of morning, I saw everything around us and realized that we'd run our way into a semi-rural area with lots of houses and long rows of fences. But I couldn't see anything of the horde or the helicopters.

“It’s too flat here,” I said as I slowed and stopped.

Murphy stopped and turned to look at me.

I told him, “We can’t see anything.”

“We’ll find a spot. A building or something to get on top of.”

I looked east to where the helicopter had gone, but not yet returned.

"It hasn't been that long," said Murphy. "It'll come back.”

“I’ve put too much into this to take a chance.”

Murphy heaved a sigh.

I laid my machete on the ground, took off my jacket, and pulled my shirt over my head. “It’s time for Null Spot to do his work.” I expected a laugh out of Murphy.

“It’s dumbass time.” He wasn’t amused.

“Give me a quart of lighter fluid—a full one—and a lighter. A couple of lighters,” I told him. “I’ll get out in front of the horde and keep burning things, if I have to. If not, I’ll infiltrate and hunt for the Smart Ones.”

Murphy reluctantly took a quart out of his bag.

I finished undressing. “That silvery stadium thing that looks like a tiny Astrodome—”

“The Bell County Expo Center,” Murphy confirmed.

I nodded my head north. “It’s up that way a couple of miles. Just off the highway.”

“I know where it is.”

“Go there.”

“What am I supposed to do there?” Murphy frowned and added, “Boss.”

“Don’t be a bitch.” I put my boots back on. “Things are going to get chaotic pretty quick, here. If the naked horde finds you, they’ll kill you, unless you want to strip down and come with me.”

Murphy shook his head. “Going without clothes and a gun is for Null Spot dumbasses. Not me.”

“You said you were behind me on this.”

“I figured you’d come to your senses by now.”

I forced a harsh laugh. “We’ve been through too much shit together for you to believe that.” I tucked two lighters into my boot beside my extra knife. “This thing with the naked horde and the Survivor Army is going down today, right now. By tonight, it’ll be over, one way or the other. Find a place on the roof of the Expo Center. You’ll be able to see everything you need to see from up there. You still got those binoculars, right? You didn’t leave them in the truck, did you?”

“Got ‘em.”

“I’ll come to the Expo Center when it’s over.”

Murphy didn’t respond.

“If you keep an eye out, you’ll find the Smart Ones. Just keep looking. They’ll be near the center of the horde, out of danger. If you don’t see them, just scan around until you see a White running in the wrong direction. That’ll be a messenger. Follow the runners. They’ll lead you back to the Smart Ones. If you see the Smart Ones, you’ll see me. I’ll be nearby.”

Murphy sighed.

“You know I need to do this.”

“You tell yourself that.”

“Doesn’t matter why, I need to. I need to.” The reasons I felt like I needed to boiled up from repressed feelings to rage. Too many people I cared about were dead because of these naked white fuckers.”

“I’m not going to try and talk you out of this anymore.” Murphy looked away from me, apparently scouting out which direction he was going to go. “I’ll keep an eye on you from a distance, and—”

“No,” I told him. “You can’t follow and snipe anymore. That worked out in the country, because they stayed together and there were plenty of hills for you to use as a vantage point." I waved at the houses around us. "It’s only going to get worse the closer we get to Fort Hood. The risk is too great. The Whites will find you and kill you."

Murphy shook his head.

“You know I’m right. Let me do what I need to do without worrying about you. I’ll see you when it’s over.” I turned and walked away. It was time to do what only I could get close enough to do.

Following the sound of frenzied howling, I found myself behind a big box store. I made my way around it and crossed the parking lot, being careful to use the abandoned cars for cover, when I heard a helicopter come close. When I came to the tall store sign at the end of the parking lot, I climbed up on its footing, a three-foot concrete cube, to get a view across the highway.

A river of Whites flowed five hundred feet wide, shoulder to shoulder, back to chest, running and angry. They covered the highway lanes, the shoulders, the medians, and the access roads, solid as far as I could see from east to west. Their numbers had to exceed a hundred thousand. Hell, there might have been twice that many.

No wonder they destroyed everything they came across.

Half a dozen helicopters were in the air, some hovering over the highway up ahead. Others were flying around in no particular pattern, perhaps trying to measure the size of the threat coming their way.

I scanned across the horde, looking for Whites moving in the wrong direction. As I told Murphy, those would be the messengers carrying instructions from the leadership out to their subordinates in the front or on the flanks.

Far ahead, probably from Fort Hood itself, another five helicopters rose into the air.

Things were getting ready to happen. I had the urge to jump off my vantage point and run with the horde, thinking that from within, I might better be able to see what was hidden from me at the moment.

A line of Whites peeled away from the main horde, right in front of me. All behind one leader, snaking as it went, the line grew quickly past a hundred, then two hundred strong. All along the flanks of the horde, more lines peeled off, a thousand strong, two thousand strong. All still going in the general direction of Fort Hood, but spreading out.

The Smart Ones saw the helicopters overhead just as easily as I did. They knew what those Black Hawks represented. They knew bloodshed was coming. They were moving their forces into formations to surround and overwhelm.

I spotted several Whites beneath an overpass, not running, but hugging the concrete poles and looking around, doing much the same thing I was doing.

Shit.

Those were the messengers. They weren’t running, they were waiting for the horde to come to them and watching for the recipients among the mass. That meant the Smart Ones had to be somewhere up ahead.

I jumped down from the sign’s concrete base and ran with the flow of the horde, but that flow was losing its distinction. The single file lines of Whites that had been peeling away were growing into tentacles of the infected, running four, five, and six abreast.

I stayed on the fringes as I proceeded, keeping off the highway and running through fast-food restaurant parking lots, around muffler shops, and past business parks.

I came to the crest of a rise, hoping that I’d get a clear view of the horde, a good part of Killeen, and maybe even some of the Fort Hood buildings in the distance. A Red Lobster restaurant stood on the corner, and I crossed the parking lot and jogged around back. Access to the roof via a ladder for servicing the air conditioners and vent hoods would be located there.

Indeed, it was, and with no security device on the ladder to prevent unauthorized access.

I tossed my bottle of lighter fluid up on the roof and then climbed in a hurry. Thankfully, the mansard style of the roof gave me what was effectively a wall to stand behind and look out. I glanced east and saw the horde still flowing up the highway toward me, though thinning in the far distance.

Nearly a dozen helicopters were still flying in no specific direction, maintaining an altitude that would leave the Whites below in range of their weaponry.

In front of the horde's leading Whites, I saw Humvees, a couple of tanks, and armored fighting vehicles. They didn't seem to be organized in any way I could discern, except that they formed a ragged line of about thirty vehicles across the highway and spread out a good distance on both sides.

A muzzle flashed from the machine gun mounted on the roof of a Humvee near the center of the line. More muzzles flashed along the line and the sound of several dozen machine guns hit me, along with the screams of hundreds of Whites, suddenly shrill with pain.

The helicopters spat fire down in any direction where Whites charged forward, which was
every
direction.

A war cry from the horde swelled so loudly for a moment that it drowned out the sound from all the guns.

Explosions burst in the main body of the Whites, but it didn't slow the mass down. The horde absorbed the explosions and the bullets and kept on at full speed toward the vehicles.

A couple of Humvees retreated from the line, got several hundred yards away from where they’d left their comrades to fight, and were ambushed by a line of Whites pouring out of a side street. In seconds, the Humvees were hidden under mounds of writhing white bodies, fighting for a way to get inside. Both Humvees stopped moving.

I crouched behind the mansard. The firepower and destruction were awesome and frightening.

A tank accelerated forward into the horde, the commander perhaps thinking that running the Whites over might be a more effective way to slaughter them. Another tank moved in.

Some of the other vehicles moved—some closer together, some in retreat. The naked horde had them surrounded, but had to be taking massive losses, with all the bullets flying at such close range. From where I stood, it was hard to see the dead and wounded, since they were immediately run over by the ones charging forward from behind.

I looked for a pocket of control in all the chaos. Somewhere out there, the Smart Ones had to be passing out orders and listening to whispered messages.