Pandemic

THIRTY-NINE.

They drove fast. Gray grit his teeth and yanked the wheel. The car wove through mobs of infected, past scenes of madness and savagery. The Klowns turned and acknowledged them with the delighted surprise of seeing old friends.

Wade looked behind them. The crazies chased them in a laughing stampede. Ahead, men on ladders were busy crucifying a cop to a telephone pole.

“Problem,” Gray said.

Rawlings glared at the back of his head as if looks could kill.

“Jesus Christ,” Fisher said. “What the hell now?”

“Gas,” Gray barked. “We’re on the reserve tank.”

“We’re not far from Hanscom,” Wade pointed out. “Maybe a mile.”

“Might as well be a hundred,” Fisher said.

The car sputtered.

Gray pounded the wheel. “End of the road.”

They were on a residential street lined with abandoned cars and broken glass. They got out and stared at the flood of laughing maniacs pouring up the road. Nobody gave the order. They knew what to do. They started firing.

The carbines threw rounds downrange into the mob. Crazies dropped and were trampled by their fellows. Gray’s grenade launcher thumped. The grenade burst in their midst, sending bodies flying through a cloud of smoke.

“Bounding!” Gray shouted and took off.

Fisher stopped firing. He looked down at his weapon and released the empty magazine. “Shit, I’m out!”

“Move!” Wade shouted.

“Bounding!” Fisher ran.

The mob was getting closer by the second.

Rawlings shoved him. “Go! I’ll cover forward!”

No time to argue. He went, hobbling as fast as his ankle would take him.

Gray and Fisher had stopped behind an SUV lying on its side in a pile of glass in the middle of the street. Wade turned. He didn’t see Rawlings.

Gray pumped another grenade into his launcher and fired. “Come on, Wade!”

“I don’t see her!” Then he heard it—gunfire from one of the buildings. Rawlings was leading them off.

Fisher was already running. Gray tossed a smoke grenade onto the street. He grabbed the back of Wade’s blouse and pulled him along.

They stopped after a hundred meters, gasping for air, and looked behind them. None of the Klowns had followed them through the smoke.

“I don’t see Rawlings,” Wade said. He wanted to scream it.

Thunder rumbled ahead of them, the steady boom of gunfire. Hanscom.

“Let’s stay focused here,” Gray said. “We’re not home yet.”

“Fuck you!” Wade shouted. “You killed her. Just like you killed the others.”

Gray spit on the ground. “I didn’t kill anybody, and you know it.”

“If you’d listened to her, we might be out of this already.”

“She wasn’t one of us, Wade.”

Wade glared at him. He’d never wanted to kill anybody so badly in his life.

“Hey, guys!” Fisher called from ahead. He whooped. “Check it out!”

Gray turned and walked off. Wade limped after him. At the top of the rise, they saw Hanscom.

Hundreds of infected ran through the smoke surrounding the compound walls. Machine guns hammered from sandbag positions. In the guard towers, the Mark 19s thumped. Across the Hescos, the lightfighters propped their weapons and kept the fire hot.

“How do we get back to base?” Gray asked. “What do you think?”

Wade laughed. “I think it’s beautiful.”

Gray turned and frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

Wade smiled.