“What’s going on?” Sorensen was next to me. “Why did they stop out there?”
Freedom dropped a few grenades on the exes heading for the transport. It pulped some of them, but once the haze cleared I could see things with no legs dragging themselves towards the armored carrier. One of them had a hole in its stomach that daylight shined through.
Adams snapped. He kicked open the door of the Guardian, knocked a few exes back, and tried to run. He was an Unbreakable, after all. He had a chance. Not much of one, but a chance.
Then he yanked open the back door and pulled the girl out after him. Sorensen’s daughter. He was still going to try to get her to the base. Blood was gushing out of his nose where she’d tried to fight him off or something.
The doc pressed himself against the gate. I pulled him back so the exes wouldn’t chew his fingers off. “What’s he doing?” shouted Sorensen. “What’s he doing?”
Adams knocked down a bunch of exes. Hit them with his shoulder one after another. Even opened up on a few with his Bravo. He was maybe thirty yards from the Guardian, dragging the wailing girl behind him, when he stumbled. Stumble’s not the best word. He just jerked to a stop. At first I thought he slipped up on some zombie-mush from the barrage. Eddie Franklin had a better view and he told me later it was like one of his legs cramped up or something in the middle of the stride. A few people in the towers tried to give him cover fire, but it wasn’t enough.
The girl was screaming for her father. He heard her. We all heard her.
The exes swarmed over them. Even this far out we saw flashes of red from the girl. Adams fought for a few moments, even after his ACUs turned red. They were hidden by a press of exes, so we didn’t see them die. But I’m pretty sure we heard it, even over all the chattering teeth.
Sorensen started howling. No other word for it. Just this raw sound coming out of him.
Someone tried to pull the rear door shut on the Guardian and got dragged out. Three or four dead things were forcing their way through the driver’s door at the same time. I remember I heard screaming through the radio and the same screams off in the distance. It was a creepy stereo effect that made my stomach churn. Screams and gunfire and teeth.
I kept waiting for Washington—for Britney—to leap out of the transport and up onto the relative safety of the roof. She could last for an hour or two up there. Long enough for us to get another Guardian or a Humvee or something out there.
Sorensen was wailing in my arms. “Do something!” He looked at me and shouted up at Freedom. “Why aren’t you helping them?”
Somebody yanked my radio out of my ear. Kennedy was standing next to me. She’d leaped down from the tower. “Sergeant Harrison,” she told me, “escort the doctor away from the fence.”
Sorensen grabbed her sleeve. “You have to help them,” he screamed. He was crying so much his beard had two wet streaks in it. “You have to do something!”
“I’ll lead the recovery team,” I said. “Twenty-one can be out there in ten min—”
“Sergeant,” snapped Kennedy, “I am ordering you to escort the doctor out of sight of the fence and into that building. Clear?” She pointed over my shoulder.
“Yes, First Sergeant.” That’s when I knew Britney was dead. They were all dead. “Clear.”
I dragged the doctor away. I could bench press over nine hundred pounds, but he was twisting and flailing and shrieking and trying to get to the gate. If you’ve ever tried to hold a really determined four-year-old, that’s what I was dealing with. I didn’t look back. My radio was dangling around my neck and I could still hear the screams. There were less of them, but one of them was a woman.
I kicked open the doors of the admin building, broke one of the hinges, and dropped Sorensen into a lobby chair. He was just gone. He wasn’t moving. There was a vacant look in his eyes I remember from a few guys after their first live fire test. He couldn’t process what was happening. Who could blame him? He’d just seen his daughter taken down in front of him.
I thought about Britney. Three hours ago she’d been alive. I was very cold all of a sudden. Cold and empty, like everything in my belly had just vanished and left me hollow. I thought about sitting down, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t get back up if I did. I leaned against the wall.
Britney was dead. Everyone in Twelve was dead. There was never going to be an Army Band again. No horn lessons for kids. No nights playing jazz down in the Gaslamp. Nothing.
“Sergeant Harrison?” The doctor’s voice was small and reedy. He was hoarse from screaming.
“Yes, sir?”
He looked up at me. It was like locking eyes with a sad dog. He was calling me by name, but I don’t think he really knew who I was.
“Are they...” he started. He coughed, cleared his throat, and whispered, “Are they going out soon to rescue Eva and Madelyn?”
Chapter 20
NOW