Slaughterhouse

FORTY-TWO.

Liar.

Lee snapped awake. He was strapped into the front passenger seat of his Humvee. Beside him, no worse for wear, Murphy drove with his eyes glued to the rear end of the Humvee in front of them.

Lee blinked and looked into the back seat. Foster, smelling faintly of burn cream, slept in the left rear seat. He wore a fresh combat uniform because a good deal of his old one had been burned up during the holding mission against the Klown reinforcements at Drum. The young soldier hadn’t been badly hurt, but he hadn’t come through it without paying a price. No one knew how it had happened, but despite his MOPP mask, his right eyebrow had been singed off. So he always seemed to have a quizzical expression. Behind Lee’s seat sat a dour-faced first sergeant who went by Boats. He packed an interesting weapon, a pump-action shotgun backed up with an enormous kit of various ammunition and accessories. Lee and Boats hadn’t talked much since Turner had pulled Sienkiewicz and assigned Boats to the command Humvee, but Lee knew the man was disappointed not to have run into his ex at Fort Drum. Apparently, he had some special ammunition for her.

“Silver shot,” Boats had told him. “Supposed to be able to kill vampires.”

Liar.

Lee rubbed his eyes. Salvador’s final word was locked inside his noggin, nice and tight, like some sort of demonic ear bug. So instead of having something like the theme to I Dream of Jeannie stuck in his head, it was Salvador’s final assessment of Lee as an officer and a soldier. Lee couldn’t believe how much it stung, after everything he’d been through. To be denounced in such a way had a powerful effect, and it left Lee feeling as he had been cast adrift.

The Humvee slowed suddenly, jarring Lee out of his funk. He looked out through the windshield and saw the Humvee ahead was slowing as well.

The radio squawked. “Wizard Six, this is Wizard Five. Over.”

Lee reached for the radio handset as the soldiers in the rear stirred. “Wizard Five, Wizard Six. Go ahead. Over.”

“Six, this is Five,” Walker said. “We’re approaching the Pennsylvania Turnpike, so we’re halting as ordered. Over.”

Lee sat up straighter and took a good look outside. It was getting dark, and the convoy was on a three-lane road called the West Germantown Turnpike. A darkened sign for AMC Theatres stood on the next corner. Beyond that, a huge shopping mall loomed… or what was left of it.

Everything in the area had been pretty much destroyed, as if that part of Pennsylvania had traded places with London during the German Blitzkrieg attacks. When he and Walker had decided the place would be the battalion’s final rest stop before pressing on into Philadelphia, it had just been a spot on a map. No one could have guessed that it had become a deserted battlefield.

“Five, this is Six. Let’s not stop here,” Lee said into the radio. “Let’s keep moving toward Philly. You agree? Over.”

“Six, this is Wizard Five. I agree. We’re only about fourteen miles outside the city. Let’s keep moving. Over.”

“Wizard Five, this is Wizard Six. Let’s get it done. Over.”