Anvil (23 page)

If my foot wasn’t
tangled in the loop, the impact from the females would have torn it free of the
rope.  As it was, I nearly lost my grip with my free hand, which would
have left me hanging upside down, swinging by one leg.  Spinning and
swaying like a pendulum, I began kicking with my free foot.  I could tell
I was striking flesh with the heavy boot, but had no idea if it was doing any good.

But giving
up wasn’t an option, so I kept at it.  Strong hands grasped the single leg
that was all that was supporting the weight of three bodies and a heavy ass
battery.  Those hands were reaching up, trying to grasp my belt, and I got
lucky with one of my kicks.  As the female was reaching for a better grip,
my foot knocked her other hand free and she fell away, disappearing into what
had quickly become a seething mass of infected.

There was
still one holding on, and the bitch was wrapped around my leg like a python
with one of her arms.  With the other, she was reaching, flailing for a
higher purchase on my body.  She was positioned on the outside of my leg
and I couldn’t kick her.  Trying to think of a way to reach a blade or my
pistol, I was reminded I had a fifty-pound block dangling from my left wrist.

Shifting the
angle of my body, I began trying to swing the battery.  I hoped to be able
to gain enough momentum to smash it into the female and knock her off.  As
I struggled with the ungainly weight on the end of the rope, she managed to get
a fingertip grip on my belt.  Shifting her weight, she inched up my leg
and began biting.  Only the tough fabric saved me from being torn open,
the pain from the bite pressure dumping even more adrenaline into my bloodstream.

I finally
got the battery swinging, its weight causing me and the female to twist on the
end of the extraction line.  She was snarling and tearing at my leg, and I
panicked when I felt and heard fabric tearing.  She was getting through
and about to sink her teeth into bare flesh!

Twisting
harder, I swung with the momentum of the battery as it came around us.  In
slow motion I watched it slam into the female’s ribs, the impact substantial
enough that I felt it in my leg.  She was knocked free from her grasp on
my leg, beginning to fall.  Her arms reached out and I watched as she
began to drop away, crying out in pain when she succeeded in wrapping an arm
around the battery.

Her entire
weight suddenly came on the rope secured to my wrist and I felt my shoulder
come completely out of its socket.  She screamed as she dangled beneath my
feet, looking up at me with rage burning in her red eyes.  I screamed
back, the pain radiating from my shoulder intense enough that I would have
dropped the battery if I could.  But the rope was thoroughly wrapped up
and there was no way I could let go until the weight came off and gave me some
slack.

I had time
to remember that this was the same shoulder that had been dislocated twice when
I was a much younger Soldier.  Did that make it more susceptible to
popping out of the socket?  It sure made it ache when the weather was damp
and cold, and right now all I could hope for was that the joint wasn’t being
permanently damaged.

Quickly, but
not quickly enough, we were over the roof and I looked down to see the Rangers
waiting for me.  The pilot came down fast, then paused about twenty feet
above the surface.

“Shoot this
fucking bitch!”  I roared in pain.

TJ raised
his rifle and fired a single shot.  A moment later her weight dropped off,
only the battery swinging from the rope still dragging on my arm.

“Put me
down!”  I shouted.

The pilot
did just that, lowering the Black Hawk quickly.  The battery hit the roof
first, giving me a fraction of a second’s warning that I was next.  My boots
thumped onto the surface and I stumbled, saved from going down when Drago
wrapped me up in his big arms.  Hands fumbled with the extraction line,
freeing my foot, then the helicopter moved away.

Drago held
me until I had my balance, then removed his hands but stayed close
behind.  Chico was already working on the rope that connected my hand to
the battery, gently unwinding it from my bleeding wrist.  When it came
free, he grabbed the battery and moved it a few feet away.

“Ready for
this?”  Dutch asked, standing in front of me and looking into my
eyes.  He already had his hands in place and I felt Drago grab me from
behind.

“Oh, fuck me
not…” I started to say, but Dutch didn’t hesitate.

With the
right pressure and a sharp, hard pull, he popped my injured shoulder back into
place.  I might have said a few choice words about his lineage and his
sexual proclivities towards animals, but when the joint snapped he took a quick
step back and smiled.  Drago released me, also stepping away.

My shoulder
throbbed, but at least it no longer felt like a molten knife was being inserted
and twisted.  Cautiously, I moved my arm to assure myself I still had use
of it.  It hurt like hell, but now it was a six on the pain scale, not a
ten.

“Thanks,” I
mumbled, looking up at Dutch.

He nodded
and seemed like he had something to say, but apparently thought better of
it.  Glancing around, I saw that Chico already had the battery at the
parapet and was pulling up the rope so it could be lowered down to ground
level.  Looking at Drago, I nodded my thanks for his help and walked over
to where Chico was busily working.

Stepping to
the edge, I glanced over.  A small sea of infected was pressed up against
the fence around the generators, and in several places it was beginning to bow inwards. 
I quickly stepped back so they didn’t try to push in harder to get to me.

“Ready?” 
I asked Chico when he pulled the knot tight.

“Hold on,
sir.”  I turned to look at Dutch who was shrugging out of his pack. 
“I’m going this time.”

“The fuck
you are,” I said.

“Sir, your
arm was just out of its socket.  I don’t care how tough you are, it’s
weak.  You aren’t going to be able to climb down that rope and move a
heavy battery around.”

“Like hell
I’m not,” I said, rolling my shoulder and nearly gasping in pain.

“See?” 
Dutch said.  “Mission first, sir.”

I stared at
him for a long moment, seething.  Not because he had called me on being
injured, but because he was right. 

“Do you know
what you’re doing?”  I asked, acknowledging to myself that I needed to sit
this one out.

“Chico
educated me while you were out swinging with the local ladies,” he smiled and
held up two lengths of heavy wire.  “Stripped these out of that AC unit
over there.  Should do the trick.”

I nodded,
still not happy, but feeling pride that these guys hadn’t just sat on their ass
waiting for me.  They’d thought about what needed to be done and come up with
what was needed to make it happen. 

Dutch
smiled, adjusted the rifle slung on his back and walked to the parapet where
Chico had just finished lowering the battery. 

“Watch your
ass, Top,” Drago mumbled as Dutch grabbed the climbing rope and turned to begin
his descent.

I took up
position with the three Rangers and we began picking off more females as Dutch
scampered down the outside of the building.  The infected became frenetic
when they saw him, the fence groaning under the weight of their constant
push. 

“Sam
one-niner, Dog one.  Any pellets left in your minigun?” 

I shot two
females off the fence as I made the call.

“Negative,
Dog.  Used them all up protecting you from the skanks.”

Shit!

“OK. 
Got anything else that’s close and will make a big boom?” 

If I
couldn’t get direct fire support for Dutch, maybe another distraction would buy
him some breathing room.  I wanted to look down and check on his progress,
but there were just too many females trying to scale the fence.  I
couldn’t let my attention waiver or one of them would make it over.

“Stand by,
Dog,” I heard in my earpiece, then a moment later another voice that it took me
a moment to realize was Edwards.

The
Lieutenant didn’t have a rifle, so he was at the edge of the roof watching
Dutch work.  He must have realized none of us could spare a glance, so he
was reporting on the progress.

“He’s got
the two batteries connected to each other and is running the jumper cables to
the generator.”

The infected
were surging again, hands reaching for the top of the fence around the entire
perimeter.  I had stopped going for kill shots, settling for anything that
would slow their advance.  Arms and shoulders were weak points that didn’t
require the precision of head shots.  Less precision meant I could send
more lead into the bodies below.

I heard the
Black Hawk fire, surprised the pilot had found a target so close.  An
instant later there was a brilliant flash as the missile detonated, then a
fiery explosion a few hundred yards out in the parking lot rocked the
night.  There was a momentary pause in the assault on the fence by the
infected as hundreds of males turned and began shambling towards the new noise.

But this
didn’t have the effect I had hoped for.  The females could see Dutch and
weren’t about to be pulled away by a loud light show.  They had him
cornered and were determined to reach him.  As the males pushed through
the tightly packed bodies, more females surged forward and filled the gaps they
left behind.

“Everything’s
connected,” Edwards said, excitement making him sound like a junior high school
kid.

A couple of
beats later I heard the whine of a large, heavy duty starter.  The big
diesel engine coughed, sputtered and went quiet.  The starter whined
again, for a long time.  The engine finally began sputtering, this time
continuing on in a very rough idle.  It kept stuttering as the air in the
lines was pulled to the cylinders. 

“Don’t let
it die,” I repeated in my head several times as I shot three more females.

If the
engine stalled, it would probably be necessary to pull the fuel filter and
prime it again, and there was no time for that.  Also, the fuel line was
outside the fenced area in no-man’s land.  Holding my breath as I kept
shooting, I heard it cough a couple of more times, then the idle slowly smoothed
out.  When the controller software detected the engine was ready, it
revved the motor to a higher speed, holding it there to spin the big generator.
 Lights on the exterior wall of the building came to life.

Females were
screaming and charging in at a fever pitch.  Just a few minutes ago we’d
been able to knock them down as they reached the fence and began
climbing.  Now, with their renewed push, we were shooting them off the
fence.  Some of them were getting hands on the top rail, and I killed a
couple that made it all the way up and thrust their heads above the barrier.

“Dog two,
fall back.  You don’t have time to start the second one,” I shouted
without slowing my rate of fire.

“We don’t
know if we have power to the servers,” he shouted back.

I spared a
glance in his direction, noting he was frantically yanking cables free as he
prepared to move to the next generator.

“That’s an
order, First Sergeant,” I bellowed.

“Sorry,
sir.  Your transmission is garbled,” Dutch replied.

I shut up
and kept firing.  He was doing pretty much the same thing I would have
done.  We all knew this was critical, even though we didn’t know what it
would accomplish.  That’s life in the military.  You don’t always
know why something is important, you just know that it is. 

Three more
females went down under my fire, one of them so far up that when she collapsed
her body came to rest draped across the top rail.  There was another groan
from the fence but I didn’t have time to look for the spot it was coming from.

“He’s got
the batteries moved and is connecting them,” Edwards shouted.

As soon as
the Lieutenant finished speaking, there was the loudest groan yet from the
fence.  This time it wasn’t just a complaint, it was a full on protest
from the overstressed metal posts.  It grew louder as two thick poles and
the chain link stretched between them began bending inwards.

TJ and Chico
both switched to full auto and began hosing down the bodies that were
frantically climbing the sloping path into the generator area.  They were
no longer trying to kill individual targets, rather hoping to damage the
attacking bodies enough to buy a few more precious seconds for Dutch. 
Drago was still pouring fire onto the left side and I the right, but there were
just too many infected.

“Dutch, the
fence is failing.  Get out now!”

Part of me
knew it was pointless to shout the warning.  He wasn’t going to budge
until that second generator was up and running.  But time ran out. 
With a horrific screech, the already compromised section of fence
collapsed.  Infected immediately began pouring in, reminding me of how
water sluices over a barrier that has failed.

As the first
infected made it inside the fence, a starter whined.  It kept whining as
all four of us poured as much fire into the breach as possible.  Females
were killed, maimed and shredded, but we barely slowed the tide.  The
engine coughed once, twice, sputtered, then kept limping along, barely running.