Slow Burn (Book 9): Sanctum Read online

  “Just so you guys know,” Martin interrupted, “we can stay here for an hour, maybe two if we want to push our luck. But if we go much longer than that, we won’t make it back to Fort Hood.”

  “Can’t we just set down by a convenience store and gas up?” I asked, urgency rushing my words.

  “No,” said Martin. “She’ll run on diesel, but we’ll only get about four hours of flight time. After that, we’re done. We’ll have to get another Black Hawk. Regular diesel gums things up.”

  “Take us down then,” I ordered again. “Murphy, you clear the guys off the roof. I’ll get a couple of rifles, a load of ammo, and as many grenades as I can carry. I’ll hop off on the roof, run down the stairs, liberally applying my grenades to clear my way. I need to get down two floors and possibly down a hallway. If things look too hairy, I’ll turn around and come back to the helicopter.”

  “No you won’t,” said Murphy.

  “No, I won’t. You know me too well.” I patted Murphy’s machine gun. “I need you here. This is a lot of firepower. This will make it work.”

  “It won’t do you any good inside the building.”

  “I don’t plan to be in there long.”

  “Every White in a mile is already comin’ this way.” Murphy looked at me expecting that argument to sway me.

  It didn’t.

  Shaking his head, Murphy spoke into the intercom. “Martin, take us down.” He looked at me. “Gear up, buddy, in two minutes, every White on that roof will be dead. And I’ll probably fuck up most of those homemade solar panel arrays, so don’t cut yourself.”

  Martin orbited the building just above the level of the roof. At that range, the Whites didn’t have a chance. Murphy opened fire and slaughtered them. For my part, I had as many full magazines stuffed into my tactical vest as I could fit. I had an M4 on a strap over my shoulder, my machete in a sheath, a pistol in my holster, a dozen hand grenades tucked in wherever I could put them, and another loaded M4 in my hands. I wasn’t worried about my aim. I figured I’d be close enough to anything I was shooting at to be deadly.

  As soon as the last of the Whites on the roof fell, Murphy shouted, “Now or never.”

  Martin swung the Black Hawk over the roof, came down close, and held it steady. Murphy nodded at me, but his face was wrinkled with worry.

  “Don’t worry mom,” I stretched a big smile. “I’ll be right back.” I jumped out of the helicopter and landed on the roof, running toward the stairwell as soon as my boots touched down.

  Chapter 16

  My adrenaline was coursing. My heart was pounding. Shredded Whites were dead or bleeding out all around me. I knew I might also be dead in the next five minutes but I was back in the shit, and I didn’t care. I was where I belonged, surrounding myself in a fragile illusion of immortality that expanded with each splash of warm blood around my boots.

  I stopped running with my back to a brick wall beside a closed steel door. Stairs leading down were on the other side.

  Best way to proceed?

  I’d brought a dozen grenades for a reason.

  I took one in hand, flipped off the grenade’s thumb clip, let go of my rifle to hang in its sling, and pulled the grenade’s pin. With my free hand, I pulled the door open and swung my arm to toss the grenade in.

  Wide-mouthed hollers and white-skinned beasts bursting out the door bowled me over, and I fell.

  The grenade got away from me.

  Whites tumbled on top of me while others rolled off. I got stepped on, elbowed, and kneed as my anger and urgency flared. Frenzied Whites tried to get to their feet, spellbound by the sound of helicopter machinery and a chattering machine gun.

  My bubble of immortality popped, and I scrambled with only a single purpose: to get through the door and on the other side of the brick wall before my few seconds of grenade fuse time expired.

  I rolled, kicked, and crawled, got a hand on the edge of the door and pulled myself through, not giving the slightest thought to shins kicking my face or feet stomping my back as the Whites flowed through the doorway.

  I got my torso through and just inside the wall. I pulled my legs inside and tucked into a ball as the grenade detonated. Whites’ screams notched up and were suddenly snuffed. The shockwave punched the air out of my lungs, thumped my skull, and put a deadening ring in my ears.

  Damn. Too close.

  But I’m still alive.

  Ha!

  I shook my head and blinked my eyes, consumed for the moment with regaining my senses and trying to figure out if all my pieces still worked—shoulders, elbows, hands. So glad to still have hands! Legs, knees, ankles, feet.

  I looked around.

  Whites outside were groaning. One in the doorway was sitting up, hands rubbing across a face that was red mush with a messy hole where a mouth used to be. More Whites were on the landing just inside the open door, dazed and bloody. They had no way of knowing the blast was coming. They hadn’t protected themselves behind a brick wall like I’d done. Tough shit for them.

  Time to move.

  I got up on wobbly knees, put a hand on my M4 and pointed it in front of me while grabbing a railing to keep my balance. My head was still spinning but getting rapidly better. I’d be fine—fine enough. I had a momentary advantage, and I needed to push it.

  The stairs were slippery with blood. More coated the rail and dripped down the walls. The grenade’s shrapnel had blown through the open door and done a lot of damage.

  At the first landing on the way down, a White was getting to his feet and trying to orient himself. He looked at me with uncertainty on his face. I kicked him in the face as I came forward. His head bounced off the cinderblock wall and he fell. One less problem to deal with on the way back up.

  The next staircase was empty, and I moved faster down that one to the next landing. That put me one floor toward my goal with another to go.

  A White was just coming up from the next landing. I fired. Chips of brick sprayed all through the stairwell where my bullets missed—most of them. The White toppled as blood spewed from a hole in the center of his chest. At least one of my bullets found its mark.

  My ears were ringing again from shooting in the confined space. I hurried down. More Whites were in the stairwell, maybe a dozen on the floors below.

  I rounded another landing, saw the last stairway clear, and bounded down, stopping by the door. I paused. I was on the floor where the people had broken out the window. That meant there had to be Whites in the hall. With more Whites coming up the stairs, my time for figuring out my next step was limited, severely so.

  Think. Think. Sequence. Be calm.

  I took a deep breath, let go of my rifle, removed a couple of hand grenades, one in each hand, flipped the thumb clips, and pulled the pins.

  One more breath.

  Don’t fuck this one up like the last one.

  I flung the door wide and saw twenty or thirty Whites, some nearby, gnawing on the dead, many far down, tearing at a barrier of piled desks and chairs. Some of them looked at me.

  I heaved a grenade toward the barricade. I tossed another in hopes of getting it to land halfway down the hall as I stepped behind the protection of another brick wall. The steel door slowly closed as feet came running and howls in the hall swelled.

  Two explosions blasted in rapid succession, both dulled by the ringing still in my ears. I felt them both, but nothing like I’d felt on the roof a minute before.

  Whites from downstairs went crazy at the sounds.

  I took one more grenade, pulled the pin, and dropped it through the gap between the handrails and ran into the hall. Eight left.

  The floor was slick with blood, and it smelled of cordite and torn intestines. Whites screamed through a fog of dust. I leveled my M4 and jogged, firing in the direction of anything that moved.

  Halfway to the barriers, the dust grew so thick I could only make out the glow of light coming from windows at the far end of the hall, no detail inside. I planted my feet
, leveled my rifle and emptied the magazine at the hall ahead, hoping my bullets found their home in anything but walls and floors. I popped the empty magazine out and put a full one in to take its place.

  I moved into the cloud of dust, careful with my footing. Whites were on the floor. One made a half-hearted grab for my ankle. I put a bullet in his head. I shot another for making the mistake of coughing out the blood filling its lungs.

  I had plenty of bullets and wasn’t taking chances.

  I reached the barricade, the tumble of office furniture crammed into a doorway. I called, “Anybody in there?”

  “Yeah,” someone immediately shouted back. “You from the helicopter?”

  “Who gives a shit where I’m from?” I laughed. “You need help?”

  “Zed?”

  Say what? “Fritz?”

  “You’re still alive?”

  You’re still alive?

  That brought an unexpected memory of Steph. We’d greeted each other that way over countless text messages when she was stuck in the hospital all those months ago. But fuck wayward memories. I had urgent shit to tend to. “We need to hurry this along, Fritz. Know what I mean?”

  The sound of desks tumbling on the other side of the barrier confirmed the people inside were rushing to tear it down.

  “We’re about out of ammunition,” Fritz called through the pile. “A handful of rounds between us.”

  “I brought some with.” Noises from the far end of the hall got my attention, but I couldn’t make out the doorway to the stairs through the settling dust. “I’ve got M4 magazines along with some grenades.” I scooted a desk into the center of the hall, kneeled down behind it, and rested an elbow on it as I steadied my aim at where I figured the stairwell door was. “I brought an extra M4, too.”

  The steady slap of bare feet on tile floor echoed up the hall, jogging, and then sprinting.

  All I saw was white dust.

  I held my fire and kept my weapon pointed down the center of the hall.

  The steps drew closer, and more footsteps sounded.

  “Oh fuck it.” I fired in three-round bursts. Once, twice.

  A scream from down the hall told me I hit something.

  A white-skinned figure materialized out of the white cloud so close to me that I pulled the trigger as I ducked to my right.

  Red holes burst through the White’s chest as he tumbled over the desk and came down on the floor behind me. I jumped to my feet and stomped him twice in the face.

  “You okay?” Fritz shouted.

  “Fine,” I told him as I leveled my weapon down the hall. “We’re running out of time.”

  I turned, knelt, positioned my rifle on the desk, and emptied another magazine.

  Groans and screams. No footsteps for the moment. That wouldn’t last.

  I unslung the extra M4 and pulled the magazines out of my vest and laid them on the table. I wasn’t preparing for a last stand, I was preparing to hand off my weapons and the ammunition. Nearly anybody would be better with the gun than me. With proficient, armed men to back me up, I’d do just fine with my machete and pistol.

  A moment later, a gap opened up in the barrier and Fritz climbed through, panting heavily from the effort.

  I nodded at the magazines on the table. “First come, first serve.”

  Fritz, carrying an M16 already, ejected a magazine, letting it clatter to the floor. He slammed another into his receiver and tucked a few more into his pockets. “We weren’t ready for them when they came last night.”

  I shrugged. I’d heard a thousand versions of the story and witnessed enough myself that I didn’t need to be told again. “You can’t see the stairwell door at the end of the hall, but they’re coming in that way.”

  Fritz nodded and raised his weapon.

  A woman came through the door with a shotgun in hand. Her eyes immediately landed on the pile of magazines. “You got any 12-gauge?”

  I shook my head and raised my M4. “You ever use one of these?”

  She looked astonished.

  “I can’t hit shit I shoot at,” I told her. “Have you ever shot—”

  She reached out for the weapon. “I hunt with an AR-15. Same thing.”

  “Take it.”

  She took the weapon and gave it a quick look, checking the chamber and the magazine before loading herself up with more ammunition. She stepped around the desk and brought the weapon to her shoulder. Her and Fritz covered the hall as more people helped each other through the hole in the barrier.

  I drew my pistol and pulled out my machete.

  “How many?” I asked.

  “Us and those three,” answered Fritz.

  “Any more in the building?”

  “I don’t think so,” he told me. “I haven’t heard any fighting from the other floors since before the sun came up.”

  “Okay, here’s the plan. As soon as you guys are ready, we’ll hit the stairs at the end of the hall, get up to the roof, and the helicopter will pick us up.”

  Fritz nodded and looked at the woman with my M4. “Remember the guy I told you about, the one we left out by Caldwell in the middle of the night, not wearing a stitch of clothes? He shows up here with a helicopter.” Fritz laughed a manic sound.

  Fear affects everybody differently.

  The woman looked me up and down. She didn’t seem impressed. “He the one that bumped your head, Fritz?”

  Fritz ran his finger across a bandage on his forehead. “It’s nothing.”

  One of the guys helping the injured woman said, “Ready.”

  Fritz gave us all a glance and said, “Follow me.”

  The woman with my M4 looked at me and said, “You go. I’ll take the rear.”

  A dozen more dead Whites, a couple of empty magazines, and five minutes later, we were all squeezed into the Black Hawk with all of the weapons and ammunition we’d brought along. Martin was bitching about the load, but we rose into the air above the building anyway.

  I took the unused copilot helmet and passed it to Fritz so that we could speak over the noise of the rotors using the intercom. I asked, “What’s the story?”

  “Now that we know you’re okay,” said Murphy as he put on an enthusiastic face to make a joke of it, “what he wants to know is what happened to Jazz and Grace. Did they make it?”

  Chapter 17

  Fritz looked at me, then back at Murphy. “Like I said inside, they came last night. Thousands of them. We got complacent. We weren’t ready. We didn’t expect it.”

  I leaned in close, though the intercom didn’t get any louder or softer. “Are you saying you’re the only survivors?”

  Fritz pointed down at the building we’d just rescued him from. It slowly shrank below as the helicopter rose. “From where we were in the pharmacy school, in the infirmary we set up there, we didn’t have the best view of things. The veterinary school was northwest across the street, but we were only able to see part of it. That’s where all the uninfected doctors and professors were working on the vaccine. We had our people in the structures all around the veterinary buildings, like guard towers, to watch the perimeter and keep the infected off the defenses from the outside.”

  Murphy stuck his head out the window and took a long look. “That’s a lot to defend.”

  “We did alright for a long time.” Fritz leaned against a bulkhead, feeling the weight of everything sink in. He’d just lost his friends, possibly all of them. “We were spread too thin to defend against so many at once. When it started, everyone in the infirmary who could handle a weapon went out to help. Some of us went up on the roof to shoot at infected down in the street. Others went downstairs to defend our building. The pharmacy school was our base of operations. We lived there.”

  “The outposts fell pretty quickly.” Fritz seemed pained as he worked through his fresh memories. “As soon as the shooters opened up, the horde focused on where the sound was coming from and just washed over them. They found the weak spots in the buildings’ defens
es.” Fritz shook his head slowly. “It happened so fast you wouldn’t believe.” He looked at me, pleading almost. “I mean, we’ve held up just fine for months now, and none of the infected even came close to getting through until now. There were too many. They were too smart.”

  “It was the naked horde that attacked you,” I said, “and just a small part of it. They’re not like the other infected.”

  “No, they’re not,” Fritz agreed.

  “Did any of your people in the other outposts survive?” Murphy asked.

  “I don’t know,” answered Fritz. “We stopped hearing concentrated gunfire just after sunrise. Then just sporadic shots. To tell you the truth, we got so caught up in trying to protect our own building, then our own floor, then just the infirmary, that we weren’t paying much attention. Just trying to stay alive, you know.”

  I nodded. We’d all been there. “Where were Grace and Jazz when it started?”

  Fritz shrugged. He pointed at the woman in the back with my M4. “Eve, one of our doctors—I guess our only doctor now—kept me in the infirmary. Grace and Jazz got acclimated and introduced around when they arrived, but I don’t know where they were assigned.”

  “What about your scientists in the veterinary building?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Fritz. “I think the infected got in.”

  Murphy asked, “Their work, their vaccine?”

  Fritz slumped down on the floor. “We were doing something here. We were trying to give humanity a chance.”

  I turned away. It was hard watching optimistic Fritz lose his hope.

  Chapter 18

  We flew high above the veterinary science and surrounding buildings for twenty or thirty minutes looking for signs that more survivors might be down there, but we saw only Whites slowly moving across campus. The noise of the Black Hawk was drawing them in.

  Martin finally asked, “What’s the plan, boss. Head back to Fort Hood?”

  I looked at Murphy. He frowned and looked out the window. He was feeling the same guilt I was. It had been Grace’s choice to follow Fritz to College Station, but I’d brought Fritz and her together. And what of Jazz, a young girl, tagging along, looking for meaning like anybody her age—my age—does. The whole situation was another bucket of shit in a sewer pit world.