“Six, this is Wizard. Roger that. Can you give me a time? Over.”
“Wizard, this is Six. Five minutes. Break. Thunder, this is Six. Over.”
“Six, this is Thunder. Over.” Thunder was the officer commanding the mortar platoon located on the other side of Fort Drum Road, more than two miles away. Their six mortar units had already been stood up and dialed in as best as they were able.
“Thunder, this is Six. Stand by to deliver concentration fire. Over.”
“Six, this is Thunder. Ready to fire on your command. Over.”
“Wizard, this is Six. We’re on the move. Make that call. Over.”
“Six, this is Wizard. Roger.” Walker dialed in another frequency. “Mountaineer, this is Wizard. Over.”
Walker repeated the hail twice before he got a harried response. “Wizard, this is Mountaineer. I send ‘shield.’ Over.”
Walker consulted the code book that had been issued to the battalion prior to jumping out for Boston. Knowing how the military mind operated, Walker had presumed the response would be ‘sword’ or ‘arrow’ or something similar. “Mountaineer, this is Wizard. I send ‘Excalibur.’ Over.”
“Wizard, this is Mountaineer. Good to hear from you guys. You must be close, right? Over.”
“Mountaineer, this is Wizard. Roger that, we’re close. Wizard Six has some requests for you. Stand by to copy. Over.”
TWENTY-NINE.
The two trucks drove through the night, heading toward the glow of combat in the center of Fort Drum. Lee had ordered Murphy to drive a bit erratically, as if he were under a tremendous laughing spell. Silhouetted against the glow of the headlights, Lee could see the head of one of the corpses strapped to the grille lolling back and forth, its hair matted down beneath a paste of dried blood and gore. The stink of death was everywhere. Lee didn’t know how they were able to do it, but the soldiers in the back hooted and howled, acting infected.
They began to roll past groups of Klowns. The soldiers in the back cackled madly, and the Klowns laughed back, raising their weapons and waving them in the air. Lee saw uniformed military among them, but most appeared to be civilians. The truck jounced a bit as it rolled over a body.
“Getting kind of weird, sir,” Murphy said.
The Klowns were using torches and bonfires to light up the night, and sparks wheeled about in the air. The stench of burnt meat reached them, accompanied by screams. Lee looked to the right and saw living soldiers—presumably uninfected—being burned alive. They’d been tied to office chairs and plopped in the middle of large bonfires.
“Weird isn’t the word I would use, Mike,” Lee said after a moment.
More like nightmarish. It was hard to keep up the laughing act after witnessing that.
Lee checked his watch. Two minutes had elapsed since his communication with Walker. Ahead, he could see the outer bands of the Klown force, a huge, ragtag collection of pulsing insanity armed with every weapon. Lee was thankful the Infected hadn’t taken over some heavy armor units. Those would be almost impossible to overcome with the forces presently under his direct command. But the Klowns did have vehicles, trucks, Humvees, and even construction equipment. The Infected were flailing against the outermost ring of the defenses that had been erected around Hays Hall. Shipping containers, tractor trailers, earth-filled HESCO and concrete jersey barriers topped with concertina wire—already decorated with dozens if not hundreds of Klown corpses—surrounded the two-story, metal-roofed brick building that housed the brains of the 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry). The corpses that littered the grounds around the defensive perimeter numbered in the thousands. For headquarters guys, the surviving elements of the 10th had done an awesome job at keeping the goblins at bay.
Murphy slowed the truck as it started rolling over more bodies. The rig swayed from side to side like a powerless ocean liner drifting in a beam sea.
“Wizard, this is Six. Over.”
“Six, this is Wizard. Go ahead. Over.” Walker’s voice sounded high-pitched and strained.
“Wizard, Six. Did you pass on to Mountaineer that we’re rolling up Division Drive? Over.”
“Roger, Six. Mountaineer knows you’re close to making station. It’s all up to you now. Orders for us? Over.”
“Wizard, this is Six. Get the battalion in the fight. Start rolling. Six, out.” Lee had just finished the transmission when someone thumped on the door then clambered up onto the running board. A grizzled, blood-soaked face peered in through the window, blue eyes glittering brightly in the flickering light generated by fires and firearms. Lee started cackling and glanced at Murphy.
“Laugh,” he tittered as he cranked down the window.
Murphy started chuckling as well as he was able.
“Hey, fuckers, who are you?” the man on the running board shouted through hysterical laughter.
“We’re the fucking U.S. Army, asshole!” Lee said, laughing himself. “We got us some shit to bring to the party!”
“You know this place?” the man cackled.
“Fuck, yes! We’ll blow a hole right through the wall!”
The man laughed even harder, and Lee thought the guy was about to lose his grip on the window sill. He peered into the truck’s cab, looking at Lee’s filthy uniform. “Man, looks like you guys’ve been through some shit already. But where’s your junk? We all wear junk here, man!”
Lee had anticipated the question. Presuming “junk” meant the gruesome decorations of body parts most of the Klowns wore on their persons, he reached down to the floor. When he straightened, he was holding a severed hand he had cut from one of the corpses they had used to decorate the trucks.
“You need a helping hand, bro?” he asked, inserting more laughter. He was beginning to understand the insanity. If he had to keep laughing much longer, he might go crazy himself.
The other man laughed then fell away from the window as the truck lurched over a stack of bodies. The tires doubtless kicked up a fountain of gore as they spun for a moment before finding traction.
“Now this is one fucked-up mission, sir,” Murphy said, fighting with the wheel, a stupid grin frozen on his face.
“Just get us to the barrier, Mike,” Lee said. “Just a little farther, man.”
THIRTY.
The world had slipped into total insanity.
Rawlings looked around as the truck rolled through the Klowns, giggling as much as she could beneath her armor. A necklace of twine bearing three rotting fingers encircled her neck, their stink lingering in her nostrils. The odor of decay overrode all the other smells—smoke, ash, exhaust, cordite from expended munitions. The only scent it couldn’t overpower was the reek of her own fear and that of the men in the truck with her as the vehicle rocked around like a ship foundering at sea.
All around them, thousands of Klowns swarmed, pealing in macabre delight as they hurled themselves against the remains of Fort Drum’s defenders, hooting and hollering in the night. Many of them were military, and despite the ravages of the Bug, they still operated in a coordinated fashion. The only reason their attacks weren’t successful was that someone in the headquarters building had seen fit to erect machinegun emplacements on the building’s roof and on the crude walls that surrounded it. The three twenty-millimeter antiaircraft guns roared as they flung thousands of rounds per minute downrange. The defense was incredibly effective. Bodies and parts of bodies lay all around the perimeter. The emplacements were hidden behind banks of sand bags and metal plating that defeated all but the most expert sniper fire. Just the same, Rawlings could see dead soldiers who had been gunned down during the pitched fighting.