The Infection

He misses a shot and curses. He is tiring, getting sloppy. He fires again, and the snarling man goes down wearing a surprised look on his face.

Sarge knows he cannot keep up this pace. Anne must either show up with the flares and Molotovs or the Bradley must show up to get them all out of Dodge. If neither happens soon, the Infected will take him and that will be that.

His eyes continually sweep the parking lot while barely moving, absorbing every detail and instantly assessing it as a threat, an asset or nothing. The robot has taken over; he is in complete survival mode, every part of him focused on fight and the option of flight. Being under fire in Afghanistan has given him the ability to look at the world as a palette of survival. He finds it bizarrely unsettling to be in combat, firing his rifle steadily at close targets standing out in the open, without worrying about the snap of bullets flying past his ear. When he blinks, sometimes he sees insurgents running at him at a crouch, not Infected. Time is compressing and he has little idea of whether he has been out here for minutes or an hour.

No matter how many of them he kills, they never quite feel like the enemy. Even after all of the atrocities he has seen, he cannot bring himself to hate them.

The worst is when they come at him wearing military uniforms.

The flares go arcing high into the sky, landing among the derelict cars, bursting with a fierce orange glow and revealing scores of moving figures.

Anne taps his shoulder, then raises her rifle, peers into the scope, and takes down a running woman with a colossal bang and flash of light.

“It’s about time,” he grunts, still firing.

Anne is a different sort than him, he knows. Anne has enough hate for both of them.

The asphalt vibrates with stomping feet.

“Swarm!” says Wendy, standing with her Glock held ready in case any Infected get close.

“I’m on it,” Todd yells, lighting his first Molotov.

The Infected bob among the cars, blending into a howling mob racing through the night towards the six survivors.

“Molotov out!” Todd cries.

The flaming bottle soars through the air and hits one of the Infected in the chest, bursting into a wide sheet of fire that turns her and five others into staggering, screeching human torches.

“Good throw, boy,” Paul says, yelling, “Molotov!”

The flaming bottle arcs over the Infected’s heads, bursting on the roof of a station wagon. A group of Infected races through the fire, the clothing on their arms and legs suddenly igniting with flaming gasoline, and continue running at the survivors until Wendy cuts them down with her handgun. The fire flares briefly, then suddenly ebbs and begins to fizzle out.

“It’s starting to get dicey out here, Sarge,” Todd says, his voice breathless and panicky.

“Shut up, Kid,” says Sarge. “This ain’t nothing.”

Actually, they are in deep shit. The enemy is relentless and inexhaustible. His own tiny force is tired, scared and fighting with a limited supply of ammunition. In the long run, the Infected will either overrun them or force them back into the hospital, where they will be killed by the expanding fire or stuck barricaded behind some door for who knows how long.

Unless the Bradley gets here first.

He sizes up his next target, the red dot in the close combat optic hovering on the man’s chest. He squeezes the trigger, the view shakes violently, and the man drops.

And another. And another. Bankers and housewives and bakers and students and firemen.

Behind him, Wendy and Paul are firing. The Infected press in on the flanks. Somebody throws a Molotov and Sarge hears the bottle shatter dangerously close; he can feel the heat from it.

A loud metallic squealing fills the air.

“What is that?” Paul says, sweeping the parking lot with his shotgun. The gun fires with a deafening roar, cutting a howling woman almost in half.

The squealing grows louder, like a giant eagle descending on its prey.

Sarge grins. That sound, he thinks, is the cavalry arriving in the nick of time.

The Bradley slams through a row of nearby cars on its screeching treads, its main gun blazing like thunder and lightning. Sarge sees the familiar boom stick on the side of the turret. The red tracers stream toward the far end of the parking lot, where the cannon rounds rip apart Infected and cars alike and fling both into the air like confetti in a series of mushrooming fireballs. The survivors watch this incredible violence in silence until the Bradley grinds to a halt nearby.

The tail lights wink and the ramp drops, promising safety in its dark interior.

♦