The Orphans Series Vol. 1: The Orphans (24 page)

             
Earl looked behind him. A few mechanics from his group had come up silently, curious as well to see what was going on. They stood next to him in the dark watching this as well. Earl whispered to them. "Did you know this shit was going on here? What are those guys?"

             
"Know what was going on?" one whispered back. "Hell, I don't even know what those things are! They ... they look like zombies...."

             
"You dumbass!" Earl retorted. "Zombies aren't real. They're something someone dreamed up to scare little kids."

             
"They're not real? Try telling that to the doctor those things are making a damn meal out of!"

             
Earl dropped his cigarette and looked at the three men. "This is why we're here tonight," he began. "Something must've gone wrong. We need to kill these damn things!" He brought up his newly acquired automatic rifle and flicked the safety switch off, ignoring everything he'd been told that night about not shooting until they received specific orders. He unleashed a string of bullets directly into the men through the window. The noise and light from the muzzle erupted into the night gaining everyone's attention. The Eagle Company soldier who'd been put in charge of him came running in a panic, knowing he'd be left to answer for this little pissant who broke rank and disobeyed orders.

             
Sergeant Smith came running, enraged. Sergeant Hilpiper, the head of Eagle Company and Earl's battalion leader for the night, made it before Smith. "Cease fire! What the hell are you shooting at!?"

             
When he let out a second string of bullets, Earl looked behind him, startled, seeing the very angry man who was screaming at him and the other soldiers. He could barely hear anything--his ears were ringing from the bursts of gunfire. At this point, everyone was focused in on the commotion coming from the side of the building.

             
The commander screamed again, and Earl was finally able to pop his ears and hear bits and pieces. "What in God's name are you shooting at!? It's a damn hospital!"

             
Earl, with large terrified eyes, pointed inside. Saying nothing, Hilpiper pushed past him and the others to look for himself. He saw the gore and slaughter inside the building through the holes the rifle had made. He noticed the people inside were all moving about, sniffing and looking for something. A large doctor started to rise, taking chunks out of his arm, and must have been oblivious to the fact his neck was gushing blood. He made his way down a hallway towards a lone man who was pinned up against the front door trying to scream something at Major Stevenson through the mesh.

             
Hilpiper looked at Smith who was also watching this in dismay. They focused on the man screaming for and at the Major. Something horrible had happened here tonight. Hilpiper thought the Major probably had everything to do with it and knew more than would be told.

             
Smith's chest was rising and falling as he tried to rationalize what he was seeing. "We need to kill whatever these things are and get that building secured!" He hit his radio. "Phillips!? Is that door still secure!? Do you have control of it!?"

             
He looked down at the radio making sure the device was still on, but nothing came back. He held it up to his ear, making sure there was no response. He looked back from the window, through the group of bystanders behind him, and a look of complete terror and fear spread across his face.

             
Earl whispered, "What is it, Sarge?"

             
Smith couldn't speak. He just raised a quivering finger at the mass of blood covered bodies that was appearing from out of the shadows. They had slipped out of the tunnel entrances just as the two soldiers almost had made it to freedom, but they now were part of the killing squad looking for fresh living meat as well.

             
The group of soldiers turned to see what he was pointing at.

             
"How, how did they get out!?" Smith bellowed. "The tunnel! Oh, dear God! They got out through the tunnel! "Fire at will," he spat at the soldiers. "Spare none of them! Fire now!
Open fire
!" He brought up his own rifle, taking shots at creatures left and right. The others followed suit.

             
As the bullets found their targets, the soldiers were waiting to see them fall dead. They had hit center mass in the creatures' chests as they had been trained.

             
Earl yelled, "They aren't stopping! They aren't stopping! What should we do!?"

             
Smith shook his head. Thinking quickly, he removed a hand grenade from his belt and pulled the pin. Tossing it as far as he could, he lobbed it into the approaching mob.

             
It exploded sending bodies and limbs everywhere. When the smoke cleared, they saw the monsters were still closing the distance. The ones who had been hit and lost their legs were gripping ground and pulling themselves closer, never letting up. There were other men running full out but were missing an arm, or had their necks broken and were running with their head dangling to the side.

             
Smith had barely made a dent with the explosion. He did a sign of the cross while shaking his head. Screaming, he shot the rifle freely into the crowd of killers.

             
The infected men and women made it to the group, gorging themselves once they found a soldier to gnaw on.

             
Bullets were all but useless. Smith looked over and saw Major Stevenson near the front door which exploded open, smashing him in the face, and sending his rifle flailing in the air. The Major had been knocked to the ground. The doctor he'd been speaking to through the door was now one of them. It was on top of him tearing and licking the blood, the bigger doctor was also ripping off fingers and chewing on a meaty thigh.

             
Smith went into survival mode, and just as he was ready to fight his way to the gates to leave the base, a creature came out of nowhere, grabbing him and throwing him into the air. He landed hard, sliding to a stop in the desert sand. The thing jumped on top of him, resting a leg and foot on him to keep his prey still. He opened his mouth wide and his head exploded into pieces--blood and brain matter going everywhere. The body went limp and fell to the side.

             
Looking around, Smith saw a light flash from a building hundreds of yards away--a sniper had taken this monster out. Over the full company channel for anyone to hear, he screamed, "Shoot these bastards in the head! Shoot them in the
head
!"

             
It was too late. He stared around, unsure how this was actually happening. He saw smoke floating through the air left from the grenade. He could see his men being eaten alive, men who were trying to fire but there were too few of them and too many of the beasts. They were growing in numbers. Victims who had been a snack a minute ago were up and looking for their own to feed on.

             
From nowhere, one of them jumped through the air pouncing on Sergeant Smith. He felt teeth rip into his flesh. The pain was excruciating like nothing he'd ever endured in his life. The only thing he could hear were the sounds of jet engines making their way through the cool desert night.

****

              The call came from the pilot over his radio to his commanding officers, "
Sir, it's affirmative. Whatever's going on down there has taken control of the base. The video from the telephoto zoom on this bad boy shows everything. They are ... they're eating each other, sir. What in God's name is going on down there!? Do you want us to proceed with the orders, sir?
"

             
Colonel Webber looked at the other commanding officers in the room. "What choice do we have. God have mercy on our souls." He punched the radio button. "Unleash hell, son. Don't wait around for the show leave town."

             
"
Affirmative, sir--unleashing hell. Gentlemen, let's light 'er up.
"

             
The jet soared high into the air to release its payload.

****

              Sergeant Smith was drifting in and out of consciousness as the creature ripped through parts of his flesh. He was losing blood fast. He could just make out the plane as it released the missile. He knew it would be better to be dead than to be one of these monsters. As the blinding white flash of the nuclear bomb detonated, he whispered, "Thank you, God."

             
The shock wave hit, and everything in a wide radius was turned to dust as the base was wiped from the face of the Earth.

****

              "
Sir, stand by for confirmation.... It's a direct hit, sir.
"

             
The Colonel replied, "Good job, son. Do a loop and make sure we don't need to hit it again." They would have to find a way to blame this on the Taliban--a group with neither the resources nor education to produce such devastation.

             
The plane circled for the next few minutes taking thermal images as well as using the lens to zoom in on the surroundings. "
Sir, it appears to be all clear. The mission is a success.
"

             
Webber looked at the group. "We take their word on this then?"

             
A General nodded. "Yeah, now let's tie up the rest of the loose ends here. Your science boys made one hell of a mess this week!" He typed in a code to his computer terminal. The monitor in the jet went to static as the plane blew to pieces across the desert.

Chapter 14

Day 1: May 30th, 2017. World Population 7,370,474,805

              Ben, a forty-something, potbellied, balding, chain smoking trucker, came around the corner. The clock on his dash showed it was 9:30 in the morning. His personal big rig had a grill cover made of metal flames and a set of 'Honk if You're Horny' mud flaps adorned the rear. He was flipping gears and making good time to the E&T plant. He picked up shipments regularly to transport between the Adel and Chicago facilities.

             
He was rocking out, radio blaring with the windows down enough to keep the cab from filling with smoke, crooning how he was on the road again. Approaching the plant, he brought the rig in slow until he was sitting still in front of the gate idling in neutral. He leaned out and hit the button for the guards' office. He waited, impatiently sucking down a cigarette, and coughing his way through most of it. "Man, I gotta quit these things, good Lord...!"

             
The speaker crackled into life as Pat saw Ben sitting in his semi and bobbing his head. "
You're here early today, Ben.
"

             
Ben leaned out the window. His smoke floated out the cab in the air. "Yep. We gotta get loaded up so I can get this rig's big ass back on the road. Traffic's gunnuh suck somethin' fierce today!"

             
Pat was never shy for small talk. "
You know today's Sunday, right? Interstate traffic ought to be as dead as can be for you to speed right out of the state on God's day of rest.
"

             
"'Rest' my butt! They got the nation's biggest damn volleyball tournament goin' on, and it finishes up later today! Everyone'll be hittin' the road in a few hours. It's called the Eighty-Thirty-five Spike Tourney. All those teams and parents are either gunnuh be on interstate eighty or the two-three-five, driving like morons in giant SUVs and mini convoys, swerving to get every minute off of their time that they can!"

             
Pat smiled thinking of his beloved granddaughter. "
Yeah, I know all about it. My grandkid, Christy, was playing in it along with every other teenage girl in the nation.
"

             
"Well, how about you punch me in so I can get a fightin' chance at beatin' traffic out to Chicago by the end of the day today?" Laughing at his own joke, he told every security guard every time they saw him, no matter how often, "You know, I think maybe I need to switch companies from this gig to beer. Hell, I've already got thirty-plus years of transporting their product!"

             
Pat hit the button to let him enter and pick up the preloaded freight. "
Ben, I don't think that stomach transportation counts. Have a safe trip!
"

             
Ben pulled through the gates and got his rig set up. The trailer was filled with the week's experiments and a giant batch of X-74. He was back on the interstate within a matter of minutes.

****

              Back at the lab, Frank was still talking to Karen's doctor and getting worked up with the thoughts of anger for Rogers. He couldn't believe what he had done, how he had betrayed him, and it was probably why he was sick now. The rats were not a good sign and he wasn't sure what this meant for Rogers ... or the love of his life, either.