Pandemic

SEVENTEEN.

Harvard University was comprised of numerous old buildings situated on a two-hundred-acre campus in Cambridge, just three and a half miles northwest of downtown Boston. Before the Bug, the institution of higher learning had been one of the most prestigious in the world. School was currently out of session. Possibly forever.

Harvard had become home to elements of Bravo Company. They occupied a cluster of buildings in the northwest corner of campus, protected from the street by an iron rail fence. Captain Marsh had established his headquarters at the center, in Holden Chapel.

The campus was Bravo’s third outpost in as many weeks. The battalion was steadily being pushed out of the downtown core as the area became virtually overrun with crazies.

It was the last stop on Captain Lee’s tour.

The Humvees pulled up to the iron pedestrian gate and parked. Lee’s shooters spilled out of the other Humvees and surrounded the vehicles, weapons at the ready.

Lee tried to see into the windows, but the shades were drawn. “See anything?”

“Nothing,” Murphy responded. “We’re driving on fumes. I hope they’re still here.”

“I hope they don’t have the Bug,” Foster called down.

“If they had the Bug, we’d be dead already,” Murphy said. “Pay attention up there.”

“Contact!” said Foster. “Target, two hundred meters.”

Lee got out of the vehicle and aimed down Massachusetts Avenue through his carbine’s close-combat optic. He couldn’t see anything past the obstacle course of smashed cars that blocked the way ahead and had turned the street beyond into a parking lot.

“I count nine, ten of them,” Foster reported. “They’re running right at us.”

Lee saw them now. Escapees from one of the fever clinics, naked or dressed in paper gowns and carrying makeshift weapons—tire irons, garden shears, kitchen knives. A woman snapped a pair of scissors in each hand. A grinning man with a hairy chest lugged a gas can and a lighter.

They were all smiling and shouting and waving at the soldiers. “Wait up! Wait for me!”

“Private Foster, once the hostiles clear those wrecks, you are cleared to engage,” Lee said.

“Now we’re talking!” Foster aimed his heavy machine gun. “Gonna kill some motherfuckers!”

Lee glanced at Murphy, who shook his head. The fifty-cal hammered. The path of the rounds, illuminated by bright tracers, flew over the mob. Foster corrected, walking his fire into the infected.

The battle was over in seconds. The torn bodies of the infected lay in the street like road kill.

“For such a gung-ho mo-fo, you can’t shoot for shit, Foster,” Murphy said.

The private said nothing. He wore a vacant smile, happy to have had the chance to use his big gun against a legitimate target.

Some of the soldiers didn’t feel remorse about killing the infected. The older generation liked to blame the younger for embracing violence due to rap songs and video games. Lee believed some people just didn’t have much in the empathy department. At the moment, he was glad people like that were on his side.

Lee felt remorse. A lot, but he buried it. The mission came first.

A voice called, “Coming out!”

Three soldiers scurried out of the one of the dormitory buildings while a fourth provided overwatch at the door. They opened the gate.

One of them waved and said, “Hurry the fuck up before we all get killed.” He noticed Lee’s rank and added quickly, “Sir!”

Lee and his men jogged through the gate and into the building.

Captain Marsh welcomed them in the dining hall with a scowl. “Captain Lee, this is a bag of dicks,” he said, using the popular Army term for a horrible situation. “It’s the mother of all bags of dicks. You’re the battalion S-2. What the hell is going on?”

Lee looked around. The soldiers of Bravo Company glared back at him. All of them were geared up in full battle rattle, as if they expected the crazies to come howling through the door at any moment. The air was tense. They were scared.

“We’re losing Boston,” Lee said. “What else do you want to know?”

Marsh nodded. “We lost contact with Second Platoon. They were assigned on a fragmentation order when we pulled back yesterday, and they’ve disappeared. Any word?”

Lee shook his head.

“Any idea why the Colonel put the nix on Operation Mercy?”

“Can’t help you there, either.”

Marsh said, “If our intelligence officer doesn’t know jack, then I guess we’re really in the dark.”

“What was the fragmentary order?” Lee asked. “You seem to be sealed up tight. What’s your mission here?”

“Staying alive, Captain. Other than that, not a lot. We were ordered to stand down, stay concealed and observe. If it looks like the neighborhood is starting to get crowded, we’re supposed to pull back again, toward Hanscom.”

“Who issued the order?”

“Major Walker.”

Walker was the XO, the Colonel’s right-hand man. The orders were legit, but it made no sense.

Lee said, “The strategy’s changed, but I’ve received no word of it.”

“We’re under the hammer here. We’re low on everything—ammo, food, you name it. We need rest and refit. We need a fucking plan. Fighting the crazies sucks. Hiding is worse. I need to get out there and find my missing boys.”

“I’m on my way back to HQ. I’ll try to get some answers. Something’s not right.”

“Something else isn’t right. On the other side of the Charles River is Harvard Stadium, a refugee camp with a couple thousand people. There was an MP platoon there to help keep order and distribute resources, but they were ordered out. The camp has been turned into a casualty collection point. Apparently, running the place is now the job of a mixed unit of First Battalion’s casualties. Has been for a few days. A lot of them aren’t fit for duty.”

Lee shook his head. “Get me some gas, and I’ll be on my way to find out what the hell is going on. I’ll make finding your boys my top priority once I’m back on base.”

Marsh offered his hand for a shake. “I appreciate anything you can do, Captain.”

One thing Lee knew for sure. Marsh’s men weren’t holding ground. They were waiting for a siege. It was dangerous. They weren’t projecting power onto their area of operations, and they weren’t bugging out either.

The whole thing suggested a big shift in strategy. Lee was used to increasingly erratic thinking at the top, but not from Lt. Colonel Prince. The man was predictable.

But Prince followed orders. Maybe it wasn’t his strategy.

Maybe the Brass was preparing to pull the military out of the cities.