The Zone: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Infection Chronicles Book 1) (14 page)

Finn was pale, and sweat was beading on his forehead.
 
His hands trembled, rattling his firearm.

Steele gave him the evil eye. Then slowly pulled the creaky door. It was heavy. He stopped abruptly on the first squeal. Steele held steady for a moment and scanned the guard towers. Salt-and-pepper was still sleeping. Cowboy was still smoking.

Steele continued pulling the door, even slower. The rusty hinges ground as he swung the door wide. Parker plunged down the steps into the tunnel.

Finn hesitated.

“Go,” Steele hissed.

Finn swallowed hard, then stammered down the steps into the tunnel.
 

Steele followed, pulling the door shut behind him—he didn’t want any lurkers creeping up on them. There were several in the tunnel already. 

Someone must have left the door open at some point. Lurkers weren’t known to have the presence of mind to open doors. Every now and then they could get lucky and stumble through one. But pulling open a heavy cellar door like that was highly unlikely. Steele dispatched them with relative ease—though it was a little tight in the tunnel. He sure didn’t want to have to deal with more than a handful in a confined space like this. And being cornered with a herd of them would be bad news. 

Finn stopped a quarter of the way through the tunnel. He leaned against the wall, and slid down. He was trembling and drenched with sweat.

“What’s your problem?” Steele asked, gritting his teeth.

“I’m just a little claustrophobic,” Finn stammered.

“Get out, and be quiet about it,” Steele growled.
 

Finn pulled himself to his feet and ran back down the passageway.
 

Steele shook his head and kept marching toward the compound.

At the end of the tunnel there was a set of composite metal blast doors. The Glöckner-Haüer logo was embossed on one of the doors. Steele was familiar with the brand—a German company that was the leading manufacturer of bank vaults. If you needed a door to keep someone out, these guys could build it. The door was probably 8 inches thick and weighed 3000 pounds. No doubt this door was rated to withstand the overpressure from a nuclear blast. Steele only hoped it didn’t have a thermal protection system.

The German company was known for its precision manufacturing, and its technical advancements in the field. Their latest state-of-the-art security products featured reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) for thermal protection. RCC is used in the nose cones of ballistic missiles and on reentry tiles of spacecraft.  S9 was powerful stuff—but so was RCC. If this blast door was equipped with thermal protection, there was no guarantee they were going to get through it. The entire operation hinged on this little detail.

There was nothing Steele could do but sit there and wait. When he heard the concussion from the IED, it would be time to put the S9 gel to the test. Hopefully, he’d hear the blast any minute, he thought.

Delroy staggered out of the Vantage and shuffled to the corner building. He backed up to the brink and peered around the corner. He had a clear view to the south entrance of the compound. It was situated maybe 200 yards down Norfolk from Vermont. He pulled the electronic detonator from his pocket. It had a range of 2.5 kilometers, and Delroy was well within operational distance. As a safety protocol, the device would transmit a unique encrypted smart key which would detonate the IED. Without this code, the IED was useless. 

Delroy had a look on his face like a little kid waiting in line to see Santa at the mall. He liked explosions. And this was going to be a big one. He watched with anticipation as Xavier charged the Vantage down the street. 

The decrepit vehicle chugged along, coughing and spitting like a sick beast. The diesel engine clattered, wheezed, then died about 100 yards out from the compound. It rolled to a stop in the middle of the road. Xavier tried desperately to turn the engine over. But the thing just slurred and seized up. The Vantage 250 had gone to that great big junkyard in the sky.

IT WOULDN’T TAKE long to get the attention of the guards in the south tower. One of their own, stalled in the middle of the road, wouldn’t arouse much suspicion. But the Vantage had left the compound with three men. All it would take was a quick glance through the scope of a high-powered rifle by a guard in one of the south towers to see that something was wrong. Now there was only one man in the cab of the Vantage. And that man looked completely unfamiliar to the men in the guard towers.

Xavier tried frantically to get the truck started. It was too far away for the blast to do any good. He had to get this truck another hundred yards down the road. The thought of hopping out and pushing the truck the rest of the way crossed his mind. But he knew he’d never make it.

Xavier took a deep breath and paused a moment. He wasn’t a particularly religious man, but what could it hurt? He bowed his head and said a little prayer. Before he could finish, a bullet ripped through the front windshield. Shards of glass pelted him in the face. He ducked down below the dashboard, taking cover. He twisted the key and pumped gas. The engine slumped. Several more bullets peppered the windshield. Glass rained down on him. He could hear the ping of bullets impacting the sheet-metal. He had made it half way. And he was going to die in the shitty, dirty truck.

He turned the ignition once more. The engine hesitated, then clattered to life. He dropped it into gear and mashed
 
the pedal. The engine stuttered and shook. The chassis vibrated like it was going to fall apart. The Vantage galloped toward the compound as a stream of bullets sprayed down from the guard towers. 

Xavier peered over the dash, through the shattered glass—webbed with a million tiny cracks. It was like looking through frosted glass. He peeked through a bullet hole and steered the hunk of metal as best he could.

Xavier felt a searing pain in his shoulder as a copper round ripped through his flesh. Blood splattered against the seat, and he could feel drops of warm blood on his face. The impact spun him around, and he lost his grip on the steering wheel. The truck slammed into the front gate of the compound. The impact smashed Xavier’s head into the dashboard, knocking him unconscious.

*****

Delroy watched from the corner. He was anxious and fidgeting. His eyes darted from the watchtowers to the truck, and back again. Apparently, Andrew and Cole did their job because blood erupted from both of the guards. They slumped and fell over. The devastating hailstorm of bullets ceased to rain down on the Vantage.

But something was wrong. He saw no sign of movement inside the vehicle. “Come on,” he mumbled to himself. 

Delroy knew he would have to detonate the IED at some point in time—whether or not Xavier was clear of the truck. He had no way of knowing whether Xavier was dead or alive, or somewhere in between. It would only be a matter of moments before someone replaced the shooters in the guard towers.

Delroy’s eyes flicked down to the electronic detonator.  The indicator light flashed—armed and ready to go. Delroy’s thumb hovered over the button.

Delroy squinted back down the street at the Vantage—still no movement. He bit his lip, restless. “Come on, Xavier,” he said again to himself. 

His eyes darted to the guard tower—no replacements had arrived yet. It was now or never. Delroy lunged into the street and did his best impression of a run. It was more of a hobbled skip. Every time his foot connected with the ground it was like getting stabbed in the thigh with a knife. He felt the stitches pull and tear. Halfway to the truck, he saw two more guards climb into the towers. 

Soon they were drawing down on him. He could only hope that Cole and Andrew were still in position and paying attention.  Delroy was totally exposed in the middle of the street. He saw the muzzle flash and heard the zip of the bullets as they ripped past his ears.

But Cole and Andrew were apparently still there. One of the guards took a bullet to the back of the head. It burst out through his eye socket, scattering fragments of bone
 
and brain about the tower. The guard slumped forward and fell over the support, crashing to the concrete below. He splatted on the ground like a watermelon dropped four stories. The other guard took two hits to the chest in rapid succession. His body fell to the floor, on top of the first dead guard. At this rate, there wasn’t going to be much room left in the turret towers.

The gunfire subsided for a moment. Delroy reached the Vantage and yanked open the door. He grabbed Xavier and pulled him out of the vehicle. Fear and adrenaline coursed through Delroy’s veins. He hefted Xavier onto his shoulder and staggered across the street. 

Delroy’s lungs sucked wind. His face was fire engine red, and the veins in his forehead popped out. He felt like he had an elephant on his back. Pain rifled through his thigh, but somehow he managed to keep going. Tapping into the reserve of strength that only combat can bring out. 

The human body is an amazing machine. Just when you think you can’t push yourself any harder, your fear response kicks in. Everything becomes more intense and vivid. Clear and focused. Time dilates and slows down. Adrenaline and cortisol levels spike. The heart pounds and blood rushes. Your mind allows performance beyond the level of your everyday maximum.

The DOD  even developed a pill to put soldiers into this heightened state. It was nicknamed the
Hero
, because of its transformative powers. It wasn’t the first time the military had used performance-enhancing drugs. Soldiers in Vietnam were often given Dexedrine to stay awake and alert on overnight patrols.
Go pills
were a mainstay of fighter pilots. Fatigue often killed more fighter pilots than enemy fire. Dexedrine came in handy for that. The Hero program however was quickly discontinued due to a high potential for abuse, and subsequent burnout.

Delroy had made it across the street and was stepping up on the curb when he felt it. His plan was to take cover in the alleyway between two large brick warehouses. But he never made it that far. A bullet slammed into his back. It felt like getting hit with a Louisville slugger. The air was knocked from his lungs. The impact spun him around and dropped him to the ground. Xavier crashed down with him.

The electronic detonator smacked the concrete and clattered several feet away. A stream of bullets strafed the ground. Bits of concrete pelted Delroy in the face. He saw a flurry of tracer rounds screaming toward him, glowing in the night air. He couldn’t help but find them oddly beautiful.

THE GLOWING RED tracer round streaked through the sky like a shooting star. Delroy was optimistic. He knew a lot of people liked to put a tracer round near the bottom of the magazine. It would give you a heads up when the magazine was about to reach empty. In the heat of battle it was easy to get confused about how many rounds were left.

Soon the hail of bullets would stop, and the shooter would be forced to reload—if Delroy’s theory was correct.

He scrambled for cover behind a parked car. Bullets pinged and popped, impacting the sheet metal. Delroy glanced down to his chest, expecting to see a bloody exit wound. But there wasn’t one. His ballistic clothing had done its job. But he was going to have a hell of a bruise come the morning. The
Special Forces Combat Uniform
was a marvel of modern technology. It was a high strength weave of microfibers that contained non-newtonian liquid. Soft and pliable under regular use—but upon high-impact, it had the strength of carbon steel.

Xavier, however, wasn’t so lucky. He was still laying in the street, unmoving. His body was dotted with bullet holes. Crimson blood was blossoming his clothing, soaking out like ink stains. Beyond his body was the electronic detonator. 

The hail of bullets stopped. Delroy wasn’t sure if the guards were switching out mags. Or if Cole and Andrew had taken out this new round of reinforcements in the guard towers. Whichever the case, now was his chance. He sprang to his feet and hobbled toward the detonator. The fact that he was able to snatch up the device without a shot being fired was a good sign. Andrew and Cole had once again done their job. Delroy glanced up to the towers—the reinforcements in the turrets were dead. 

Delroy scampered to Xavier’s body and pulled him into the alleyway, taking cover.

*****

“What the hell is taking them so long?” Steele muttered. Almost as soon as he said the words the ground shook violently. Dust and debris rained down from the ceiling of the tunnel. Even underground, on the other side of the building, you could feel the shockwave from the IED blast. It was like an earthquake. And the rumble seemed to last an eternity, even though it was only a few seconds.

“It’s go time,” Parker said, smiling. She applied the S9 gel around the locking mechanism. It was the moment of truth—did this blast door have a thermal protection system?

After a moment, the S9 gel began to glow. It illuminated the tunnel. Even several feet away, Steele could feel the heat on his skin. It was like someone had bottled the sun and poured it on the door. Despite the heat, it didn’t appear to be making an impact on the metal. This whole thing was for naught, Steele thought.

No plan ever survives the battlefield. Steele knew this. But this was one time he didn’t have a contingency plan. It was
get through that door or bust
. He sulked down on one knee. His head fell in his hand as he thought. How were they going to get in the compound?