Finally, the truck came to a halt. Smoke boiled from its engine compartment and from inside the cab, which had been redecorated with bloody gore. The troops continued spraying the vehicle. Bits and pieces of sheet metal and fiberglass whirled through the air.
Marsh shouted for them to cease fire, but none of them heard. He slapped Kragen on the back of his helmet then ran around the front of the Humvee, waving for the soldiers to stop firing. He made a point of signaling McNeely. The last thing he wanted was for the kid to fire an M430A1 high explosive grenade into one of the truck’s saddle tanks. Marsh breathed a sigh of relief when the last soldier secured his weapon.
Seconds later, people began screaming from the gas station.
Marsh turned.
The doors to the truck’s trailer had opened, and people were boiling out from its depths. Ragged clothes. Ritual self-mutilation. Ornate decorations crafted from body parts, many still bloodied. They brought with them the stink of death, and just to make sure everyone knew the Klowns had arrived, they had a cloud of black flies as escort.
“Soldier booyyyyysss, oh our little soldier booyyyyysss!” one of them sang in a high, chuckling falsetto. He was a hugely obese, bald-headed man whose pasty skin was covered with bloodied handprints. “We’ll be so true to youuuuuuuuu…” As he belted out the perverse rendition of the early 1960s hit, he raised a gore-encrusted hatchet over his head. He ran straight toward Marsh, his huge belly and sagging man-tits flouncing and bouncing with each step.
Marsh shot the fat man in the face as he raced across the median. The man collapsed, and the hatchet bounced across the grass, then skittered across the pavement toward Marsh. Raising his rifle to aim at the other Klowns, Marsh flicked the fire selector to AUTO and squeezed the trigger. He ripped off the eleven rounds that remained in the magazine before the weapon stopped firing, bolt locked back. Several of the Klowns went down, shrieking not with pain, but laughter. Marsh ejected the empty mag and plucked a fresh one from his tactical vest. His thick gloves made his fingers slow and clumsy.
Kragen advanced, moving to stand beside Marsh. Kragen opened fire, covering Marsh while he fumbled with reloading his rifle. Marsh finally got a mag into the carbine’s magazine well, and hit the bolt release, charging the weapon. The rest of the troops began to fire, but half of them hadn’t been able to properly identify the real threat. They were aiming at the shot-up tractor-trailer rig’s cab.
Weir moved into a new firing position to Marsh and Kragen’s left, hitting the oncoming Klowns with grazing fire. It was ineffective. The Klowns kept coming. They just didn’t care about being shot. Marsh sent several rounds into the mass of filthy, insane humanity charging toward him. Several Klowns stumbled and fell, tripping others who scrambled to get past them.
The Mk 19 roared again, and explosions ripped across the rear of the trailer. Torsos and limbs flew as the high-explosive grenades tore through the flimsy metal. When the grenade launcher fell silent, the gunner manning the M240B on the Big Foot started in, punching dozens of holes through the trailer, apparently hoping to perforate any Infected who might still be inside.
“Reloading!” McNeely shouted.
Rotor beats pounded the air as the Apache that had been downrange tilted into a steep bank to the right then flitted across the turnpike.
Marsh hoped the pilots were moving into a better firing position because his men could use the help. Time to call the boss.
“Wizard, Bushmaster Two-Six! Over!”
“Bushmaster, this is Wizard. Over.”
“Wizard, Bushmaster is engaged with a large enemy element at this time! They’re using commercial vehicles to transport dismounts, and they are actively attacking! Over!”
With a muted cry, Kragen dropped to the pavement. As Marsh reached for him, something flashed past his head—an arrow. If he hadn’t moved, he would have been hit.
The projectile skimmed the top of his Humvee, bounced off at an angle, and plunged into the arm of the soldier manning the M240B machinegun atop the Big Foot. He jerked, but another soldier reached up to steady him.
“Weir, maintain fire!” Marsh shouted.
Four more soldiers ran up blazing away at the Klowns, who continued to surge forward. The Infected were cut down with ruthless efficiency.
Kragen writhed on the ground, clutching his leg. His eyes were squeezed shut behind the lenses of his mask. Marsh knelt beside him and looked at the arrow sticking out of Kragen’s left thigh. It had penetrated deep, and he didn’t doubt the arrowhead was lodged in Kragen’s femur.
His radio squawked. “Bushmaster, this is Wizard. Over.” It was Lee again.
“Wizard, go for Bushmaster. Over!” Marsh leaned over Kragen. “Kragen! Hang in there, soldier. I’m going to get you out of here!”
“Bushmaster, Wizard. We’re rotating the Apaches back to you—”
Kragen sat up suddenly, his eyes wide and gleaming. He shuddered mightily, and said something Marsh couldn’t hear over the racket of the fighting. Marsh grabbed the soldier’s shoulders and tried to push him back down.
“Take it easy, Kragen!”
“Surprise, fucker!” Kragen shouted as he pulled his M4 toward him.
He was infected. The Klowns had treated the arrow with something, either piss or shit or some other bodily fluid, and Kragen had gone over to the dark side.
Marsh was quicker. He fired two rounds into Kragen’s mask at close range, blasting the soldier’s brains all over a startled Weir, who jumped away. Two of the soldiers nearest Marsh fell back, looking confused and leveling their M4s at him.
Marsh saw the soldier manning the M240B yank the arrow out of his arm and jam it into the second soldier’s side, causing the other man to yelp and fall backward. The infected soldier then spun the machinegun around on its mount, lowered the barrel as far as he was able, and started hammering the soldiers in the Big Foot’s bed with full automatic fire.
“Take him out!” Marsh yelled, pointing at the soldier with one hand while bringing his M4 around with the other.
Weir looked over at Marsh, saw him pointing back at the truck, and turned. The soldier manning the M240B turned it in Weir’s direction. They both fired at the same time. Weir missed. The soldier on the machinegun did not.
Weir danced and spasmed as a hail of 7.62-millimeter fire ripped into his body. The two other soldiers split off, pulling their sights off Marsh and reorienting on the soldier with the machinegun. Marsh fired his M4 one handed and put three rounds into the Big Foot’s cab before a fourth hit the infected soldier in the thigh. The hit didn’t faze the soldier; he only laughed harder. He finally went down when several rounds slammed into his chest and head in rapid succession.
The other soldier he had stabbed rose up and grabbed the machinegun’s stock. He ripped off his helmet and mask, laughing hysterically as he swung the weapon around to resume firing. Marsh pounded out three shots, and all struck the man’s face and neck.