Recovery: V Plague Book 8 Page 2

  “Jennifer. We all thought you were dead. You should be dead. Something’s going on that is keeping you on your feet, but no matter what that is your body needs food and rest. Don’t work yourself to death and make me think I’ve lost you again. Please.” I said in a low voice.

  She looked back at me for a moment before lowering her eyes and powering down the damaged Pave Hawk. Climbing out of the cockpit, she stepped over the body of the pilot Roach had killed and headed for the door to the VIP area.

  “You can be a real sweetheart when you want to be,” Katie said, taking my hand and smiling. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  “Bite me,” I said, leading her across the roof.

  3

  We all moved to the opening in the roof bulkhead, stepping around the door I’d pried out of its frame to gain access to the casino when I rescued Katie. The stairwell was dark, so I knew the solar system that powered the giant building was out.

  “Power’s out,” I said quietly to the group.

  “The EMP,” Crawford mumbled.

  “So that’s what it was,” I said. “Know anything about solar systems? Will it have been fried or just knocked off line?”

  “No idea,” he said.

  Shit! It would be really good if we could get the power on. Much easier and safer to clear the building, and a whole lot more comfortable while we rested. In fact, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go inside if we didn’t have light. The casino was just too damn big to clear by flashlight. I’d rather spend the night in one of the helicopters.

  I had seen a large array of solar panels from the air when we’d arrived, but didn’t know if there was any equipment located adjacent to them that I could check. For a moment I’d thought the power was out because the sun was down but remembered it was on the last time I was here, which had been night also.

  “OK, I’m going to go see if there’s something I can do before we go in.” I said, heading for the edge of the roof.

  It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. As I’d suspected, when Zemeck, Martinez and Rachel had climbed the grappling rope he’d pulled it up and left it coiled on the roof. Saying a silent “thank you” to my dead friend, I stuck my head over the edge and looked down.

  A small group of females milled around, one of them seeing me and screaming. A moment later they were all standing perfectly still, staring up at me. Moving back I turned and looked at the others.

  “Females,” I said. “Not a lot, but too many for me to go down. If we all get on the edge we can take them out.”

  Colonel Crawford nodded and was the first to step to the low parapet. I kneeled down next to him, my rifle over the edge and pointing down. Katie and Martinez joined us a moment later. I fired the first shot, knocking a female off her feet, then they opened up and three more fell. Two of the females instantly turned and began running away from the building but the rest kept standing there, heads tilted back to watch us.

  “I’ve got the runners,” I said, tracked one of them for a second and pulled the trigger.

  She tumbled to the ground, dead. Adjusting, I sighted in on the second runner and fired, but missed the bobbing head that was moving away from me. Changing aim, I fired again, my round striking the middle of her back. The way she flew forward and rolled in a loose-limbed tumble the round must have severed her spine. She began screaming, thrashing her head back and forth, but she couldn’t move her limbs.

  “Fuck me,” I said, actually feeling a moment of pity for the poor creature.

  Taking my time, I lined up for a head shot, pulled the trigger and silenced the wounded female. The rest of the infected were down and I made a quick scan of the area, not seeing any more. Standing, I grabbed the rope and after making sure the grappling hook was still tightly secured, tossed it over the edge. It unrolled smoothly, slapping against the side of the building a second later.

  “Going by yourself?” Katie asked as I bent and grabbed the rope. “You need someone to watch your back.”

  I paused. She was right, but then if there were two of us on the ground and a lot of females showed up we might have a problem getting both of us back up the rope. I thought about it for a moment but Crawford ended the discussion.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” he said. I nodded and gripped the roped tightly, scrambling my way over the edge.

  “Watch yourself,” I said. “The rope’s going to be slick in this rain.”

  Going down was easier than coming up had been the other night. Bracing my feet against the wall, I moved my hands down a knot at a time, walking down with my feet. It’s not hard. The biggest thing to focus on is making sure you keep your center of gravity above your feet. If you don’t, well, you turn upside down, lose your grip, fall on your ass and break half the bones in your body.

  Fortunately I did it right and stepped onto the ground in a short amount of time. Immediately I turned, moving away from the rope and raising my rifle. Scanning my surroundings I didn’t see any movement, but kept watch as I heard the scrape of the Colonel climbing over the edge and starting down. Soon he was standing next to me, rifle up and ready.

  I glanced at him and hand signed the direction we were going. He nodded and I stepped off. Crawford fell in five yards behind and was so quiet I had to glance over my shoulder to make sure he was really there. I guess I had expected less from a Colonel who had spent most of his time behind a desk, even though I knew it hadn’t always been that way for him. He hadn’t earned that beret by being a slacker desk jockey.

  It took us five minutes to work our way out of the maintenance area at the bottom of the wall and across a small, paved area to a massive solar array. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of panels and each was six by twelve feet. They were mounted on iron brackets, held a few feet off the ground with enough space between each for a man to walk through and perform whatever maintenance they might require. They also created a maze with enough space below the surface for infected to be lying in wait, ready to drag me down to my death. I stopped a few yards from the edge of the first panel.

  Where to start looking? For that matter, what was I even looking for? Standing there, I took a moment to scan the area as I thought about what to do. All was clear and I checked on Crawford. He was behind me, facing the opposite direction, keeping an eye on our rear.

  OK, what did I know about solar? I knew the electricity generated by the panels was Direct Current, or DC, and not compatible with the lights, motors and pumps in the casino that ran on Alternating Current or AC. That meant there had to be some inverters somewhere that converted the power before it was supplied to the building. And since there had been power at night, there also had to be a bank of batteries to store electricity generated during the day for use when the sun was down.

  But where the hell was all that equipment? Copper wire is expensive, so I suspected that it would be somewhere between the generating array and the destination for the power, but after turning two complete circles I couldn’t spot anything. Would they have put it inside the casino? Maybe the inverters, but I didn’t think they’d put massive banks of batteries inside. Too great a risk for explosion and fire if something went wrong. Even if the local building codes didn’t prohibit it, I was pretty sure their insurance company would.

  With that in mind, where the hell would the equipment be? Raising my rifle again I scanned the perimeter of the array, stopping when I saw a sprawling, squat building on the far side of the sea of panels. Focusing on it I realized why it hadn’t caught my attention before. It had a very low profile roofline and was well screened from view by trees and shrubs.

  I was fairly confident this was what I was looking for when I noted the forest of vent pipes sticking up from the roof. Gasses from batteries can be extremely toxic, and if allowed to build up can also be very combustible. Proper venting solves that problem, and this building was definitely well vented.

  “There,” I mumbled to Crawford, pointing across the array at the distant structure.


  He nodded, then turned back to watch our rear, waiting for me to lead the way. But which way, through or around? The array was massive. Probably every bit of ten acres. It was a long way around, but as I looked at the maze with about a million hiding places for an infected, it was an easy decision. We were going around.

  4

  I made another slow scan of the perimeter of the array then carefully surveyed the field of solar panels itself. Nothing was moving and I didn’t see anything to concern me. We were standing at almost the center of the long edge of the giant rectangle defining the area, so there was no distance advantage to going either right or left.

  Going to the right brought us to the far edge of the property and nothing but open prairie. To the left took us closer to the main building of the casino and kept us on asphalt. I opted for the easier path on a smooth surface and signed to Colonel Crawford that we were moving left. Stepping off, I glanced over my shoulder and noted him falling in when I’d opened up about five yards of space.

  I’m not one to get easily spooked, but something about this whole situation was making me nervous. Maybe it was the spectral feel to the area, brought about by the faint light of the moon penetrating the broken cloud cover and reflecting off the rain-washed panels in a pale, bluish hue. Maybe it was the thought of all that open, hidden space underneath the panels.

  There could literally be thousands of infected hiding under there. It didn’t help my nerves that it was raining. Rain does a great job of creating white noise that will mask a lot of environmental sounds. Sounds such as a female infected sneaking up behind you.

  But that was ridiculous. The infected didn’t hide. They attacked. But what about the females? They had shown a level of cunning that I hadn’t seen before when they took Katie and the others. Posting sentries. Cooperating and coordinating their efforts. Why couldn’t they be smart enough to hide and attack at a vulnerable moment?

  I’d made the mistake of letting my mind wander too far afield and managed to come up with scenarios that weren’t reality. Or were they? Oh, fuck it! Holding up a clenched fist I signaled for a stop. Carefully I squatted, rifle at my shoulder and eye to the night vision scope. Looking under the closest edge of the panels I began a slow scan.

  Trash blowing in a night breeze nearly caused me to pull the trigger, but I stopped myself in time. Continuing to sweep and look, I saw nothing that shouldn’t have been there. Of course there could be some females hiding on the far side and it was too far away for me to see, but there weren’t any imminent threats. Letting out a deep breath I stood up, glanced at Crawford and got us moving again.

  It took us most of ten minutes to reach the end of the long side of the rectangle and I adjusted my estimate of the overall size of the array. It was closer to twenty acres. Sure, that’s really not that large, but we were moving slow and careful. It would have been easy, and perhaps satisfying, to stride right along and cover the distance in a couple of minutes. But why not just go ahead and put on a cowbell to announce our presence while we were at it?

  At the turn I called another halt to stoop and check under the panels. More of the same, or more nothing to be accurate. Moving again, I checked the open lot to our left then turned back to keep an eye on the front. I froze and whipped my rifle to the right when I thought I detected movement out amongst the panels in my peripheral vision. But after a full minute of watching I didn’t see anything.

  Squatting, I checked the underside but it was still clear. At least I hoped it was clear. In all fairness there was a veritable forest of iron brackets supporting the panels. I didn’t think I could see more than a hundred feet into the array before the view became too jumbled to identify any individual shape. Unless something was brightly lit or moving fast I wouldn’t be able to see it.

  Shaking my head I stood and took a step, detecting movement again out of the corner of my eye. Frozen, I didn’t look in that direction, just tried to focus the edge of my vision on whatever was out there. The human eye’s night vision has a blind spot directly in the center. It has something to do with the way the rods, what allows us to see in low light, are aligned. Anyway, the ability to see after dark is much better when you use the periphery of your eye.

  So that’s what I did. Of course I could have swung the rifle in that direction and looked through the night vision scope, but that hadn’t worked last time. If we were being stalked then it was by something or someone that could recognize I was looking in their direction and would take shelter beneath the solar panels.

  At first nothing moved, then I saw it again. Three figures moving amongst the maze created by the panels. But they were only visible for a quick moment, then disappeared. Without turning my head I signaled for Crawford to move up next to me.

  “We’ve got company out in the array,” I said in a low mumble when he was standing beside me.

  “Infected?”

  “Can’t tell. We’re being stalked for sure, but I can’t get a good enough look.” I answered.

  “Go back or continue?” I was glad he was deferring to my judgment in the field.

  “Continue,” I said, and started moving again.

  I intentionally picked up the pace, hoping to force the hand of whatever was tracking us. We reached the back edge in a couple of minutes and I made the turn without slowing. I was dividing my focus between what was in front of us and trying to catch another glimpse of movement in the array, but whatever it was wasn’t showing itself any longer.

  Good or bad? Had they realized where we were going and stayed hidden below the panels, moving to arrive at the building first and set up an ambush? As we drew closer to the building I slowed, pausing to squat and look under the panels. Nothing. Where the hell were they? And what were they?

  We were within thirty yards of the corner of the structure and I could see a heavy, steel door when I caught the movement again. I’ve never been one to fire at something that I wasn’t absolutely certain posed a threat, but I didn’t hesitate. Spinning I fired four fast bursts at the area where I’d detected them. As far as I could tell I didn’t hit anything and decided it was time to put on some speed.

  Breaking into a sprint I dashed for the building, Crawford running lightly behind me. Reaching the door, I grasped the knob and turned but it was locked up tight. Stepping back I fired a burst into the knob, raised the muzzle slightly and blew out the deadbolt. I kicked hard and it slammed open, a pitch-black opening in front of me.

  When we had scavenged at the Osprey crash I’d found a working, high intensity flashlight, and I clicked it on to illuminate the interior. I could see banks and racks of equipment, but the building was large and there could have been a hundred infected out of the reach of my light. Crawford was right behind me, facing out across the array, so I stepped through the opening to start clearing the space.

  A quick sweep revealed nothing more than dark racks full of switches, miles and miles of thick electrical cabling connecting everything. Moving deeper, I kept scanning and picked up the smell of burnt wiring. Shit. This was probably going to turn out to be an exercise in futility.

  “Clear,” I called over my shoulder.

  No, the entire building wasn’t clear, but the immediate area was and I wanted to get both of us inside and that door secured before whatever was outside decided it was a good time to attack. I heard Crawford’s foot scrape on the threshold at the same time I heard the screams from outside. Not just one or two, but a whole fucking chorus of voices tore through the night.

  “Shit!” The Colonel said.

  I turned just before he slammed the door and braced his shoulder against it. In that brief instant I saw what had to be at least a hundred females charging directly at us. They were popping up from within the array and flowing out from underneath the closest edge. Damn it. I had felt something was wrong before we even started around the solar panels, but I’d ignored the warning and now we were trapped.

  “Find something to block this door!” Crawford shouted as thumps
began sounding against the steel.

  He had turned and wedged his back against the door, feet braced on the floor and was pushing against it as hard as he could. It rattled from the female’s assault, pushing in an inch before he was able to overcome the pressure and force it closed again.

  The door was set in a smooth concrete wall and there was no equipment or racks within fifteen feet of it. Nothing that could be used as a barricade. Shining the light around I spotted several giant spools with wire as thick as my wrist wrapped around them. They must have been there in case any repairs were needed and probably weighed a thousand pounds each.

  They wouldn’t have something on hand that large and heavy unless they had someway to move it. Running farther along the wall the spools were stacked against, I saw a small, electric powered forklift next to a charger. Hoping and praying it was charged, I jumped into the seat and couldn’t believe my luck when I saw a key in the switch.

  Turning it to on I slapped the lever that raised the hooks, shifted into reverse and mashed down the throttle. Forks going up, back up alarm beeping, the tires spun on the smooth concrete for a second then grabbed and I shot away from the wall. Forcing myself to slow, I got the machine under control and came to a stop, spinning the wheel to head for the closest spool.

  Not really getting the hang of the forklift, I kept at it until I got one of the giant spools raised a few inches off the ground. Maneuvering, I looked down and noticed the switch on the dash marked “lights”. Flipping it up, bright headlamps came on and now I was able to better see how badly I was handling the machine. It wasn’t pretty, but I was getting the job done.

  Turned and moving forward, I headed for where Colonel Crawford still struggled to keep the door closed. He was losing the battle, the door pushing open slightly farther every few seconds until he could force it closed again.