Kilo-29 (Damned of the 2/19th, Book 15)

Part 53

Site Kilo-29
Winter-1993
Blast Deflection Tunnel/Exterior
Day Seven - Morning

"What about Kincaid?" Donaldson asked me over the heavy thudding of the doors opening, the wail of the siren, and the voice of the woman that was like the voice of God, all of it mixing together in echoes that turned it into a roar that wasn't sound. It was beyond sound, a physical thing, that beat at us, getting louder as the Major waved his men into the trucks and the engines were fired back up.

Donaldson drug me to the Gypsy Wagon, pulling open the passenger door, which I could see the dimples on the armor where bullets had hit the door, even though what had once been shiny divots were now painted over with thick CARC paint. He put me in the seat, helping me get my legs in, then pulled the seatbelt over me and locked it down. He shut the door and quickly moved around the back of the vehicle, shutting the back end as he went by, then jumping in the driver's seat.

"We need to get out of here before Tandy figures out a way to keep us here." Donaldson said. The foam layered inside the vehicle had cut down the noise, but it still shook the windows and the frame. He hit the glowplugs, and I saw his lips move as he counted to fifteen and fired it up. We couldn't hear the glowplugs clicking, and the glass over the gauges was coated with thick white frost, keeping us from figuring out what the lights were showing us.

The Gypsy Wagon fired up, just like I knew it would.

My CO might have laughed at me behind my back for wanting an old half-wrecked Humvee pulled out of a depot yard, but he didn't know the Gypsy Wagon like I did. It had taken a burst through the fiberglass fenders and kept running. The Gypsy Wagon had taken a hit from an explosive charge, blowing the pumpkin off the back axle. We'd just locked the forward hubs and kept going. She'd taken a hit through the front of the grill, blowing the radiator to shit, and she'd still got us to the nearest unit before shutting down.

The Gypsy Wagon was tough. She never let me down.

She was part of my crew.

The 5-ton in front us started moving, the taillights kicking on, and Kincaid threw her in gear, letting it idle forward. I reached up, yanking back the hatch, then hit the release on my seatbelt. Unlike most Humvees, one of the guys at 15th FSB had put a 5-point crash harness on the seats, but Donaldson hadn't known to lock me in. It wouldn't have really mattered, I just would have needed to slap the buckle to hit the quick release. Donaldson looked at me when I grabbed his M16 with my right hand and used my left to drag myself up through the ringmount.

If the infected were going to hit us, they were going to do it now. They'd try to get by us, try to get out.

Or they'd try to stop us from leaving, forgotten tribal memories, reinforced by the torture that the CIA had put them through, wanting to keep us from getting out and risking the entire facility.

A round popped out when I racked the charging handle back and let the bolt slam forward.

There was another warm trickle down the back of my neck.

I lifted the weapon up, socking it to my wounded shoulder. Martin ooked softly, hugging me, letting me know that I wasn't alone. It made me feel warm inside, comforted, and I felt stronger for his affection, his little arms shifting from my tummy to my LBE so he could hold on tight.

Martin always could sense when the shit was about to hit the fan.

We hit the decon area, but no water sprayed down on us. I could hear creaking and I let go of the forward handgrips of the rifle, turning on my flashlight and panning it up as we moved through the area that earlier had sprayed us with rust and medicine smelling water.

Icicles hung from pipes as thick as my wrist, I could see several places where the pipes had burst, huge knots of ice sealing up where water should have been pouring out. Thick layers of ice coated the walls and was mounded up where the walls met the steel grate for the floor.

My flashlight thumped against the ringmount when I let go of it and stopped leaning back to see the roof. I panned my rifle over the walls, keeping watch on the sides of the vehicle behind us. Either they'd come at us while we tried to leave, or they wouldn't bother at all, scurrying deep in their holes at the remembered pain the sirens had brought in their lives.

Before we even crossed the line and left the mountain the snow and wind swept over us, blotting out my view of the vehicle behind us. Standing in the ringmount was useless, and the wind was hot against my skin, bringing memories of the way the desert smelled, both in the Middle East, Mexico, the Southwest, and at NTC in California.

Another trickle moved down the back of my neck as I slammed the ringmount hatch shut.

"Pull to the right, get ahead of the 5-ton ahead of us, don't let them start down the mountain." I told Donaldson. He nodded, ground his teeth, and hit the gas, whipping through the snow and around the heavy cargo truck in front of us. He pulled in front of it, slamming on the brakes, and laying on the horn. The 5-ton came to a stop, the driver honking his horn in return.

"Dismount, get them out of the vehicles." I told him. He nodded, holding out his hand, and I handed him the rifle. He grabbed it, threw open the door, and jumped out. I opened the glovebox, dug in it for a minute, found what I was looking for, and slammed it shut, putting what I was after on my right wrist after pushing my hand through the middle of it.

I drew my pistol and slowly followed, my left leg not working right as I lurched toward the 5-ton where the driver was banging on the horn. I'd step, drag my left leg up and swing it around, then step forward again. I knew I was lurching through the snow, but I didn't have a choice. I could barely keep my balance and my knee was killing me, waves of heat rolling up from my knee.

Grabbing the handle beside the door I pulled myself up, hitting the handle with my elbow and pulling the door open. Inside were two of the Privates, one of them the one with the bandaged face, the gauze wrapped completely around his head, only his eyes visible, with a hole for his nose and a slit in the bandages for his mouth.

"Get out of the fucking way, Donaldson." The driver was saying.

The Private with the bandaged head turned to face me and his eyes widened. I smiled at him. "Dismount the vehicle, soldier. Nobody leaves, we make camp here."

"We've got to get Murch and Franks to the hospital!" The driver yelled.

Donaldson shook his head. "We might be infected. We got to a hospital, and we might kill everyone there, we might kill everyone in the town, hell, we might kill everyone in the goddamn world." His voice got more and more urgent as he went on.

"No way, I gotta get Murch to a hospital." The driver said.

The guy with the bandages on his face, Murchison, reached out and threw the gearshift into park.

"No." His voice was muffled by the gauze and fuzzy from the painkillers. "We stay."

"Murch? What about Franks?" The driver asked. Murchison shook his head.

"I'd rather die than kill thousands of little kids." Murchison said. He nodded to me. "I need you to move so I can dismount the vehicle, Sergeant."

I nodded, and Murchison threw open the door and climbed out right after me. He paused for a second, then reached out and touched my arm.

"I'm probably infected, aren't I?" He asked. His eyes were clear, not bloodshot, and locked onto mine. "The one that carved up my face, he bit me at least twice."

"Sorry, man. You and me both." I shrugged. "I got bit on the arm at least once, I've probably been bit more than that, and I've got open wounds and have been exposed to their blood."

"Sucks for us." He said, then turned and walked away, heading back toward the opening of the blast deflection tunnel. I followed him, watching as he swung up onto the running board of the next 5-ton.

It was hot as hell outside, the wind almost burning my skin as it cut through my pants, my sleeves, and scorched my face. The Major had gathered up the men by the back of one of the 5-tons, but I couldn't hear what he was saying over the wind and the high pitched ringing in my ears.

I walked past the last vehicle, the fuel HEMMIT, which was still sitting there idling in the snow. I kept walking past the vehicle, into the snow, toward the black mouth on the side of the mountain.

Tandy was in there.

With Kincaid.

"Don't leave him in there alone, Ant." Nancy said. The tears on her cheeks had frozen, her skin white, blackened on her cheeks where the flesh was peeling, her nose blackened the same as her earlobes. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were gone, frozen and then broken away.

"No, not this time." I said pulling the roll of tape off my wrist, reaching back and drawing my knife with my left hand. I held up my right hand, switched the knife to my numb fingers, and willed them shut. It took a minute, and it still felt like my hand was open, but my fingers closed around the hilt of the knife.

The small folded tab on the roll of tape was hard to grab, wet from the snow, and my fingers didn't really want to respond right. I still managed to pull a strip from it, then started wrapping my closed fist in the 100mph tape until I was sure that my fingers wouldn't open when I didn't expect it.

I looked down, seeing Martin looking up at me.

"Ready, buddy?" I asked him. He ooked and nodded, letting go of my LBE and giving me a quick hug before grabbing back onto it.

"Let's go get K-Bar." I told him, walking toward the entrance to Kilo-29.

I didn't leave my men behind. Not if I could help it. Kincaid had trusted me to bring him home, and I'd be damned if I left him behind.

The dark shape of the huge entrance to the blast deflection tunnel loomed out of the early morning darkness, a darker spot that exuded a malevolence that I knew wasn't my imagination. The facility had been the site of hundreds of deaths, of horror that I could sadly imagine, my memory replaying old films we'd watched, the things that I'd seen in places I'd buried behind alcohol and denial.

Someone was yelling behind me, but I ignored them, drawing my pistol with my left hand.

I was sick of Tandy, sick of him following me everywhere, sick of seeing his face outside the window when it snowed, and tired of wondering if he was going to take my loved ones the next time it snowed.

It was time to end it. End the fear. End the death.

One of us had to die inside the mountain. If I died, then Tandy would have no reason to go after my family. If I somehow managed to beat Tandy, well, that would solve the problems till the next snowfall.

Someone came up next to me, and when I looked over, I saw it was Donaldson.

"We going after K-Bar or to kill Tandy?" Donaldson asked me, hefting his rifle. There was another Private with him.

"Yes." I said. "Who's that?"

"Private Mellins, Sergeant, remember?" The Private said. I nodded. "Donaldson told me to hold down the enter key on the keypad so the door won't HOLY SHIT!"

I whipped my head around to look at the entrance, my vision vanishing with a flash and reappearing with that greasy feeling snap.

Tandy stood in the doorway of Kilo-29.

Bishop was gone. No longer was Tandy wearing the body of my old CO.

His grin was maniacal, exposing broken and blackened teeth. The flesh around his eyes was black, with the black gleaming orbs of his eyes glimmering in the deeply sunken sockets. His arms were at his sides, the too long arms jutting from the frayed and torn sleeves. Frost, discolored by mud and frozen blood, rimed his tattered cold weather BDU's. His 'cruit boots were caked with frozen mud, the leather no longer highly polished but instead a bluish gray color.

"Oh my god oh my god oh my god he's real." Mellins said from next to me.

Tandy rocked up on the toes of his boots, then back on his heels, raising up his arms.

At the end of his too long arms were his hands, the palms long and narrow, the fingers half again as long as normal with the flesh missing from the ends of the fingers, exposing sharpened bone. He flexed his fingers, his smile growing wider.

"Come on, bitch, come on." I snarled, moving forward. The pistol was coming up in my hand, the sights lining up with Tandy's chest. I started pulling the trigger, each crash matching a dark spot appearing on Tandy's chest. I kept stepping forward as I pulled the trigger.

Donaldson brought his weapon up, pulling the trigger, his shots hitting Tandy center-mass.

His grin got wider as the slide on my pistol locked back and the heard the distinctive 'clack' of the bolt locking back on Donaldson's rifle.

"I'll tackle him, close the door after me." I said to Donaldson, not taking my eyes off of Tandy, who stepped forward toward me, holding on hand up so I could see the long fingers, the sharpened bone that I knew he'd used to rip the lives from so many people that I'd known.

"Ant, no." Heather said. "Please, don't."

"Finish it, brother." Bomber said.

"We love you." Taggart and Nagle said together.

Heather repeated them, her voice choked with agony, a split second after the other two women had said it.

"Luv da da." I heard.

"I know. I love you too." I told them. I dropped my pistol into the snow, reaching to the front of my LBE.

"Donaldson, I need you to take care of someone for me." I said.

"Who?" Donaldson said.

I pulled Martin loose, even though he tried to hold on to me, and held him out to Donaldson. "His name is Martin, he gets scared easy. Keep him safe after I'm gone, Brett."

"I will, Fifty." I felt him take Martin, tugging him gently free even though he tried to hold on.

I rolled my shoulders, something making a weird crunch-squish inside of it, three little pebbles inside the joint moving with the motion.

I ignored the pain as I took another step toward Tandy, who chuckled. It was a low, evil, liquid sound, like someone with pneumonia struggling to breath.

My knife came up into the guard position, and I watched Tandy, hoping that there was enough of the man left that he'd have some kind of tell when he came at me.

Tandy took another step forward, his smile wide. A gray tongue, splotched with black, licked across his jagged teeth.

"Come on, bitch, come on." I growled.

Another step forward, bringing us a little closer together, when Tandy's steps faltered, his grin becoming sickly looking.

"What's wrong, bitch?" I sneered.

Tandy started to turn around, as if he was going to run away, and I tensed to throw myself at him before he could get away.

And he suddenly burst into flame.