Chapter Thirty One

Using a ferry the Company had secured prior to blowing the bridges out, it took less than an hour to relocate to an airport inside the city limits. The airplane runways were mostly clear of roaming zombies. A pair of snipers set up in the air traffic control tower picked off the ones who wandered too close.

Our first stop was a nearby pizza place since we didn't have drones to assist us with moving supplies yet. We went in, dropped any zombies we encountered, then filled the delivery trucks in the parking lot with everything we found in their dry storage.

Following the same pattern, we cleared out another fifteen fast food restaurants in four hours. We would have kept going, but Overwatch came on the line to warn us, "322 has cleared a block in the business district. We're sending in a test missile. Take cover. Repeat, take cover. Incoming in sixty seconds. Over."

White directed us into a rain culvert where we'd be protected from the worst of the concussion. We laid on our stomachs, covered our ears, and open our mouths as the missile streaked into sight. Nothing could have prepared me for the moment it hit.

It sounded like a firecracker popping off in the distance. That was it. There was no bright light or gust wind. There was no debris raining down on our heads or heat scorching the air we breathed. Hanson and I both looked to the senior members of our squad as they stood and began climbing out of the culvert.

"This ain't the movies, kids," Doc said, laughing when he noticed our expressions. "They're not tossing grenades within ten feet of us or launching fireballs at our backs. The only reason we took cover was in case their aim was off. Come up and look for yourselves."

We climbed back up onto the road and stared in the direction the missile had gone. In the distance, miles away from us, a cloud of dust billowed up. It was too far away for us to see anything else.

"That's kind of disappointing," Hanson commented. I nodded in agreement.

"Overwatch to White. You have six more buildings in your immediate vicinity. Once they're gone, you'll have successfully cleared a city block. Let's aim to get them done before lunch. Over."

Everyone was starting to get bored with the repetitive nature of our task, so Crazy began teaching me about the different incendiaries the military used. On the other side, Doc took Hanson under his wing to give him some advice from one immune to another. I couldn't focus on what Crazy was telling me and listen in to their conversation, so I missed a lot of it. What I did hear focused mostly on Hanson knowing when he should speak up, because the rest of us were boneheads and couldn't read his mind. Not long afterward, we all took a bathroom break at Hanson's insistence.

We were the first squad to return to camp, so we took on the responsibility of starting lunch for everyone using the bulk cans of marinara and pasta we'd looted from the pizza place. When other squads started showing up, it turned into something of a meet-and-greet where I got a chance to actually sit down and talk with the other lich and immunes in our Company.

The lack of uninfected among us made everyone a lot more relaxed and a jovial atmosphere arose as the members of the various squads intermingled and traded information on their activities. It would have felt a lot like a street barbecue if not for the rifles everyone was carrying on slings.

Hanson and I joined the group eating in a circle around a paper map someone had looted. Two guys were using markers to outline the areas they'd cleared and I joined in the conversation long enough to point out all the buildings our squad had emptied.

Half a day in, I honestly hadn't thought we'd done much. The results on the map said differently, especially in areas where the buildings were spread out and didn't take long to clear.

"It's harder in the city center," one of the guys commented as he tapped the area in the business district that'd been hit with a missile. "You can't drive more than a block without hitting a zombie, so we had to go on foot. Most of it was office complexes without anything worth taking. That's why we decided to go ahead with the missile test."

"I think we're wasting too much manpower with this scatter method," another soldier added. "We should be focusing on clearing out the bulk supplies and ignore the piddly shit. If it was my call, I'd have the two platoons move together. One platoon could clear out supplies while the other makes the final sweep for survivors. We clear a block, relocate the supplies back here, then move on to the next block. Tomorrow, the patrols switch duties so no one is stuck doing all the hard work while the other is stuck doing the boring shit."

"There's a parking lot full of semi-trucks about two blocks down," Hanson offered, pointing in the direction our squad had cleared. "Until we get the delivery drones set up, couldn't we fill those up and call in air support to carry them off?"

"I have a question for everyone," I said as I realized something. "Why the hell are we raiding all these places anyway? I get we're sending a bunch of it to the Quarantine States to provide for all the survivors there, but wouldn't it be simpler to track the trucks that were already loaded up and airlift those out? Do we really need to be clearing out buildings?"

Everyone gave each other questioning looks. It made me realize no one had bothered questioning the point of what we were doing.

"Wouldn't leaving it all behind be wasteful?" someone asked.

"Not really," Hanson said. "There's some big cities still standing on the West Coast and they have their own stockpiles and supply lines. All we're really doing is adding to what they already have."

"Grumpy to Overwatch," I said.

"Overwatch here. I've been listening. Happy is correct. The supplies we're gathering are supplements. Over."

"Is there a way we can get a list of what they actually need? I understand adding to the stockpile, but there's no point in gathering ketchup if there's still a ketchup factory operating in the Quarantine States. Get what I'm saying? Over."

"Overwatch to Grumpy. Standby. Over."

As I waited for him to give me an update, I finished eating and tossed my plate in the trashbag being passed around. Twenty minutes passed before his voice returned in my ear. I didn't think he was the only one who came on the line, either—everyone else throughout the camp stiffened and their expressions turned listening.

"Overwatch to 363. Updated orders from command. We're on a twelve-hour scramble. D-Nav has a list for you to follow and directions to supply caches we need you to secure. Over."

"White to Overwatch. What happens at the end of the twelve hours? Over."

"Overwatch to White. You'll have four hours to complete a final sweep the city for survivors, then we will begin city-wide bombardment. Over."

"Holy shit," I whispered in awe. "Is it just me or did they go from zero to sixty?"

"No kidding," Crazy said.

"D-Nav to 363. It looks like our list is medical equipment and supplies. There was a fresh shipment due for delivery at a diabetes supply north of you. Over."

"Grumpy to D-Nav, wouldn't hospitals have a bigger supply for us to loot? Over."

"D-Nav to Grumpy. Negative. Hospitals and pharmacies were the first thing we cleared out. We weren't sitting with our thumbs up our asses before you joined us. Over."

I winced as White appeared behind me and swatted the back of my helmet for asking such a stupid question. "White to Overwatch. Mission parameters received and understood. 363 moving out. Over."

When Overwatch said we were on a scramble, he meant it. Teams scattered at a run, heading for trucks and SUVs they'd commandeered to add to the two Humvees we already had. We crisscrossed the city like madmen, building up a caravan of pre-loaded supply trucks, delivery trucks, and semi-trucks. D-Nav's information was eerily accurate eight times out of ten. The other two times, either the truck had been ransacked or the contents didn't match what we expected.

Once every person in the squad was driving a different vehicle, we drove everything back to the airport, parked them, then started all over again. Very quickly, the airport runways began looking like a parking lot. That's when the cargo planes began circling and we were retasked to perimeter security, keeping zombies at bay as the planes landed one at a time. Each time, a swarm of soldiers came out long enough to drive the supply vehicles into the plane's main hold, then the plane took off again before zombies could sense them and gather.

It took less than ten minutes for two hours of work to disappear.

The cycle repeated four times with only small breaks for everyone to use a bathroom and hydrate. By the end of twelve hours, both Hanson and Doc were looking rough, so we sent them to bed in the billet bus, along with all the other immunes assigned to the two platoons.

The rest of us went into standby in one of the Humvees, preparing to move out if D-Nav's drones picked up any signs of potential survivors. We listened on the edge of our seats as his voice became a running report of locations he was checking and the results of their scans, one that I began to shut out after an hour passed with no hits.