These Dead Lands: Immolation (28 page)

Hastings knelt in front of the boy. “How you doing, Kenny?”

Kenny shifted slightly and tilted his head, avoiding looking Hastings in the eye. “Cheese, cheese, hot cheese.” His voice was soft, barely more than a whisper. Hastings hadn’t heard Kenny say anything other than ‘no’ before, and he looked over to Diana. From the surprise on her face, he could see this was a brand new development.

“You want cheese, Kenny?” Hastings asked.

“Cheese. Cheese,” Kenny repeated, still not making eye contact. “Hot cheese.”

“Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?” Hastings asked Diana.

She snorted. “I don’t fucking believe it. I’ve been feeding this kid jalapeño cheese and crackers all day long, and he still wants more.”

Hastings noticed several cases of MREs on the floor at the end of the bunk. All had been opened, and every bag had been ransacked.

“Two, five, eight, and ten,” Diana said. “I learned today those are the numbers on the meals that have jalapeño cheese in them. And this little bastard has eaten all of the cheese packets. It was the only thing I could do to get him to shut the fuck up.”

Hastings barked out a laugh. Of all the things he had seen and heard that day, Diana’s announcement was by far the most unexpected.

“Cheese, hot cheese,” Kenny repeated with a bit more excitement in his voice.

Diana sighed. “Great. See what you’ve done, General? Now I have to go find some cheese packets before he loses his mind.”

“Is it just the jalapeño cheese he likes, or will he eat the regular cheese?”

“Just the jalapeño, as far as I can tell. He hasn’t eaten much of anything besides cheese and crackers all day.”

“Don’t sweat it. I’ll ask the guys to go round up some jalapeño cheese and crackers and bring it over.” Hastings rose to his feet. “Is there anything else you need?”

Diana glared at him with all the heat of a blazing sun. His wife had given him that look before, as if she was about to start shooting daggers out of her eyes. It was yet another one of those nonverbal skills all women seemed to have mastered, and Hastings realized he was batting two for two today. From experience, he knew that inquiring about the significance behind the look wouldn’t get him anywhere, other than lead him into a fight he didn’t want to have.

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “I’ll go get that cheese now. Talk to you later.”

He spun on his heel and headed back to the men who sat at the front of the barracks. Still packing up their gear after inspection, they were in the middle of an animated conversation, but it died down as he approached.

“How’re you doing, sir?” Hartman asked with an easy smile.

“All things considered, Sergeant Hartman, I’m doing fine. How’s everyone else?”

“We’re good, sir,” the soldiers said in near unison.

“Good. Hartman, I have an unusual task for you and the rest of the men, and I need you to make it happen ASAP.”

“Sure thing, sir,” Hartman said. “What can we do for you?”

“I need you to collect up as many jalapeño cheese packets and crackers as you can get your hands on and take them over to Diana. Apparently, that’s all Kenny likes to eat. And he likes them
a lot
.” Hastings had asked his men to do a lot of things over his career as a commissioned officer, but he never thought tasking them to find jalapeño cheese and crackers to help keep an autistic kid happy would ever become an overriding mission essential.

Hartman stared at him for a moment then glanced around at the others. They all had the same expression on their faces, one that basically said, “Are you pulling our legs, sir?”

“Two, five, eight, and ten,” Hastings said. “Those are the meals that have jalapeño cheese in them.”

Reader grinned. “Damn, we finally found someone who likes that shit? We’d better get a message to
Stars and Stripes
, sir.”

“Wait a minute,
you
don’t like that shit? Tell you want, let’s make that
Voice of America
,” Tharinger added.

“Sir, we’ll get right on that,” Hartman said.

Hastings nodded. “Great. Also, make sure all of you have a few packets stashed on you and in the vehicles at all times, just in case. I don’t care if you have to go down to the chow hall and rat-fuck all the cases of MREs they have. If the mess sergeant gives you any flak about it, let him know that it’s in support of Task Force Manhattan operations.”

“Roger that, sir. Anything else?”

“No, that’s all for now.”

“On it, sir,” Hartman said, getting to his feet. “Oh, if you have a moment, you should link up with Guerra and Ballantine before they take off.”

“Take off? What’s up?”

“I don’t know how to describe it, sir, other than to ask you to go see it yourself. It’ll all be clear to you, then,” Hartman said.

Hastings had just seen the two leave. He started after them, speaking over his shoulder as he went. “Thanks, Hartman. Make sure you get that cheese.”

Hastings caught up to them outside. “Hold up, guys. I hear you’re going to look at something interesting.”

Guerra turned and waved to a waiting Humvee. “Jump on in, sir. You’re gonna want to see this, believe me!”

*

When Guerra parked
the Humvee near the intersection of Fisher Avenue and Quartermaster Road, Hastings got out and surveyed the area. The engineers had lined up shipping containers across Fisher Avenue, extending into the tree line while leveraging the creek there as a natural barrier. The engineers had also strung up triple-strand barbed wire and tanglefoot wire along the likely avenues of approach. It wasn’t perfect, but it did serve to channelize the reekers. It was also effective, as there were already a few zombies hung up in the wire. The men manning the checkpoint atop one of the containers were picking off reekers, one by one. A makeshift ladder system had been welded onto the container to make getting up there easy.

Hastings scaled the ladder. Ballantine and Guerra soon joined him on top of the container. Several sandbag fighting positions had already been made, and more were still being constructed. Just on the other side of the container, a lowboy trailer was parked lengthwise along the wall, extending across the road. On the trailer was a yellow and black CAT excavator mulcher, a big machine that rolled on tracks like a tank. A soldier sat in its cab. The mulcher and the trailer were surrounded by a wide ring of gore and dismembered body parts. The road was covered in black viscera. A group of reekers was standing a few dozen meters away in the parking lot of Moose’s LZ Bar and Grill, a wood and stone building that advertised burgers, wings, and beer on a sign decorated with pictures of Black Hawk helicopters. Hastings wondered if the establishment’s owners had ever thought of catering to zombies.

“So what is it that you want us to see so badly?” Hastings asked Guerra.

Guerra called out to one of the soldiers on the checkpoint, “Hey, have him start it up and see if he can bring over the ones in the parking lot. I want the captain to see it in action.”

The soldier waved at Guerra and got on his radio. The CAT excavator started with a diesel rumble that immediately got the attention of the reekers. The driver gunned the engine, and a black smoke puffed out of the exhaust pipe. That got the reekers moving. Like cows, the dozen ghouls moved in a herd toward the excavator.

As the group closed in, the driver turned on the mulcher attachment at the end of the arm. It spun, howling like a jet engine, and the driver raised the device over the roadway. That was like a dinner bell to the reekers, and they stumbled toward the trailer, their moans lost in the din coming from the excavator.

When the first reeker got within reach, the driver lowered the arm. The mulcher landed right on top of the reeker’s head, and the ghoul’s head simply
disappeared
. As the arm continued its descent, the zombie’s body vanished inch by inch until the device was nearly on the ground. Plumes of gore and tattered flesh were thrown out to the sides.

The operator raised the arm again, moved it to the left of the remaining reekers, then lowered it to about four feet above the ground. He then leisurely swung the device into the group of zombies. The reekers disappeared from about chest level up as the mulcher arced across their bodies. The operator swung the arm in the opposite direction, catching the remaining reekers in the same manner. In less than ten seconds, the entire group of carnivorous corpses was wiped out, reduced to nothing more than a reddish gruel-like paste that the mulcher had blown across the pavement.

As the operator powered down the mulcher and killed the vehicle’s engine, Guerra turned to Hastings and Ballantine with a shit-eating grin. “See? I told you, Ballantine. You had to see it to believe it. Is that fucking great, or what?”

Ballantine nodded. “Holy shit! You weren’t kidding. What the fuck is that thing?”

“Local guy tells me they use it to clear trees and trim branches close to power lines.”

“Trim? You call that a
trim
? Who in the fuck made that thing?”

“No idea,” Guerra said, still smiling like a kid in a candy store. “But if I ever meet him, all his drinks are on me.”

Like Ballantine, Hastings was floored. “Guerra, how many of these did you bring back from that sawmill?”

“They brought six here, but there’s two more left at the shit-water plant for use as security when off-loading the train. We figured the train’s going to make so much noise that it’ll attract large groups of reekers. The other five have been set up at other checkpoints like this one. Last time I spoke to the S3, he told me business has been good since, and that means a lot less shooting and a lot more dead reekers.” Guerra motioned toward the soldiers around them. “The guys manning the checkpoints are glad to have these things. They sure do the trick, huh?”

“Out-fucking-standing,” Ballantine said. “I still can’t believe what we just saw.”

Hastings clapped Guerra on the shoulder. “Good work, Guerra. This will definitely help with base defense.” He checked his watch. “Ballantine, let’s get back. We still have a mission to plan.”

*

The door to
the barracks opened, and a soldier walked in and looked around, scanning the military men and ignoring the civilians. “Is Captain Hastings or Sergeant First Class Ballantine here?”

Hastings looked up from the table, where he and Ballantine had been working out the operational order for the upcoming mission. “Over here,” he said. “I’m Captain Hastings.”

The soldier walked over to the table. “Sir, you’re needed in the TOC.”

“Do you know what it’s about?”

“No sir, I’m just the runner, but they did tell me to say it was important.”

“They ask for both of us?”

“Yes, sir.”

Hastings nodded. “Okay, thanks. We’ll be right over.”

As the soldier left, Hastings began gathering up the paperwork. Ballantine pitched in, keeping everything organized.

“Well, I wonder what this could be about,” Hastings said.

Ballantine shrugged. “Maybe the colonels have discovered there’s been a sudden run on jalapeño cheese spread.”

“Let’s find out. You ready?”

“Ready when you are, sir. Let me just alert the missus.” Ballantine strode over to the bunk where Kay was reading an old novel.

The boys were asleep, which suited Hastings fine—the kids needed rest. He wasn’t particularly happy with what was going down. It wasn’t the small delay in getting over to the tactical operations center that bugged him. It was Ballantine’s reluctance to do anything or go anywhere without getting some face time with the wife and kids first. Hastings respected the man’s desire to see to his family, but the mission needed to come first. He would have to figure out how to remind Ballantine of that.

*