The other soldier was apparently stung several times and lies curled up on the ground with his face clenched in mortal pain. He does not appear to be able to move. Ethan looks at him and wonders what must be going through his mind right now. Wonders if the man can feel Infection proliferating in his blood. Can feel his body slowly being converted into an alien life form.
Hackett crouches, talking to the man, patting his shoulder. Then he stands, unholsters his nine-millimeter, and shoots him in the head with a loud report. The other soldiers tense and Ethan thinks, this is it, they’re going to shoot him now and go home, but Hackett growls at them to get back in line and prepare to advance, and they obey.
The Bradley revs its engine and resumes its slow crawl to the center of the bridge. Ethan glances at the other bridge to the south, now almost concealed in a haze of smoke lit by muzzle flashes. As the survivors pass under the overhead WELCOME TO WEST VIRGINIA sign, the remaining Infected stream toward them in a flying horde, howling.
We kill them and the bridge is ours, Ethan tells himself. This is it.
He raises his rifle, but Paul pushes the barrel down.
“What?”
“Wait,” Paul says, watching Hackett.
The sergeant has called for a halt and to hold fire until his command.
“What’s going on?” Ethan says.
“He’s afraid of hitting the bus and killing our own people,” Paul tells him. “We’re going to let the Infected get close and take them out with aimed shots.”
The Infected are bolting down the bridge, arms splayed at their sides. It takes every bit of strength Ethan has not to empty his rifle at them. Or run like hell.
“Hold the line,” Hackett cries.
This is ridiculous, Ethan realizes. There are too many. If they get close, the survivors are going to have to make almost every shot disable one of them.
He sees no old faces in the swarm. The virus is a harsh mistress, driving its hosts to constant exertion in its never-ending effort to spread Infection. The bodies of the old failed long ago. There are also no children. The Screaming spared the children but Infection did not; the Infected refuse to spread the virus to them, preferring instead to kill and, if they need food, eat them.
What is left are healthy adults who were once Americans and had lives. He sees a man running at him wearing a tattered business suit, his tie still neatly knotted around his throat. A Sikh with a long beard, dressed in a turban and greasy mechanic’s overalls. A cop still wearing his bulky Batman belt, dead radio and all. A beautiful naked woman with a gray face and the remains of a hospital gown dangling from her wrist.
A wave of stench washes over them, the characteristic sour milk stink of the Infected.
“Give the order,” Ethan murmurs.
“He’s got this,” Paul says.
“Why is nobody firing?”
“Don’t panic,” Ray mutters. “If you start panicking, I’m really going to panic.”
“Give the goddamn order already!”
“FIRE!” Hackett screams across the highway.
The line erupts with a volley and the Infected collapse in a red mist and haze of smoke. Ethan blinks, caught off guard, and fires his first shot, shooting the mechanic through the throat. He adjusts his aim and puts two into the woman. He backs up several steps, firing at the businessman, missing until finally shooting out his knees and putting him down.
The line trembles. Suddenly they are all running, streaming back towards the Ohio side of the river, firing as they run, trying to keep distance between themselves and the Infected.
“Halt!” says Hackett, holding out his arms.
The soldiers show good discipline, stopping and firing upon the remaining Infected. The air fills with noise and smoke and cordite. Ethan keeps running. For a moment, Ray runs alongside him and it feels like they are racing. Then Ethan is abruptly jerked back. He struggles, fighting against the hand grabbing at his shirt.
“Fire your rifle,” Paul shouts in his ear.
“Leave me alone!” Ethan screams in a panic, wrenching out of Paul’s grasp and spinning in time to see the swarm bearing down on him, hands outstretched, their howl and sour milk stench turning his legs to cold jelly.
Paul’s shotgun crashes in his ears and a man wearing pajama bottoms collapses in a heap.
Ethan feels drained and he can no longer run. A part of him wants to sit and let the Infected take him. His mind flashes back to Philip, who sat in the cinders of a half-burned convenience store in Wilkinsburg after seeing a newspaper with an old date.
He pictures his daughter’s face.
He screams and fires. The cop’s face explodes and the man continues running, almost decapitated, until collapsing to the ground at Ethan’s feet.
The team returns to the center of the bridge. The survivors walk among the twitching, dying bodies in a slight daze, as if through a dream, their shoes soaked through with the blood of the dead. Killing is exhausting work, draining on all levels, leaving them feeling numb. The wounded Infected crawl after them, coughing blood and growling, until finished off with mercy shots given without a second thought.
The machine gun crews set up at the edges of the bridge, aiming their weapons towards West Virginia. One of the soldiers sneezes loudly on the sharp tang of cordite hanging in the air. There is a sea of Infected on the other side of the two buses up there and if that line fails, the MG teams and the Bradley will become the main line of defense, holding off the horde until the engineers can finish the job. The five-ton trucks are already backing up towards the center line, men clambering along their beds, cutting into the boxes and dumping piles of sandbags on the road.
Ray sighs loudly, feeling strangely blessed. He has been ambushed and rushed and he is standing next to a bunch of morons fooling around with more than four thousand pounds of high-grade explosives, but he is still alive. When Patterson tells him to grab some sandbags and start distributing them along the two lines in the road he drew with chalk, he is almost grateful. Mindless labor he understands. He is perfectly fine with that. A little work won’t kill him.
“Yo, Ray. Ray. Ray Young.”
He turns and sees the Bradley commander gesturing from the open hatch of the vehicle.
“You need something, Sarge?”
“I’ve lost contact with Sergeant Horton. He’s in the right bus. I need a runner to get up there and report back on what’s happening.”
“Christ, Sarge, you can hear the firing from here. They’re still there.”
Sarge glowers and Ray glares back, setting his jaw, feeling mean. He is afraid of death, yes, but not of fighting. He never backs down when it comes to a fight.
Anytime, Sergeant Wilson, he thinks. Anytime you want, you let me know.
“Ray, there’s blood on the windows,” Sarge says. “I need to know if he’s got casualties. I need to know what he’s got in front of him. I need to know if he needs ammunition.”
Ray understands bullying very well. Sarge is not being a bully. It’s a reasonable request.
“All right, all right,” he grumbles.
“You sure it’s okay? Sure you don’t mind?”
“I said all right, I’ll go.”
“Then move your ass, shit for brains!”
Ray grins, checks the magazine on his M16, and starts jogging. After fifty feet, he is already flagging and wheezing a little, his lungs starting to ache.
Christ, Ray, he thinks. You need to get back into shape.
He feels a hand on his shoulder and almost screams.
“What’s up, dude?”
“What are you doing here, kid?”
“Thought you might want some company.”