Monster Nation(50)

'Sir, no, sir, nothing since the last transmission.' That had been half an hour before. A column of light armor (Hum-Vees with mounted weaponry) was supposed to come down Speer Boulevard any minute and relieve the platoon. Clark wasn't holding his breath. The AG wasn't responding to his calls, which couldn't mean anything good. 'Alright, get back to the vehicle,' he told her. He called for Horrocks and the sergeant appeared instantly. 'It's time to break contact. We're holding our ground here but that's not exactly the same as making progress. I want squad three on rear security.'

The sergeant set about making it happen while Clark hauled himself up into the cab of the HEMTT. A laptop on the dashboard showed a GPS map of the neighborhood. It showed the country club and the Cherry Creek shopping center tinged in red. Clark had to zoom out to see any blue at all'a Stryker group sitting tight on a stretch of Federal Boulevard. 'How old is this product?' he asked.

'Sir, about thirty minutes,' the comms specialist replied. She was blushing under her helmet. The best data she had must have come in with the last download from command.

'Alright,' he said, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. 'What is CNN saying?'

She played with the laptop for a while, collating text reports from the news channel's website with the map's imaging software. When she showed it to him again the Strykers were missing and whole districts of the city had turned red. The Epidemic was spreading, far faster than any infectious disease had a right to. And where did those Strykers go? He couldn't find them anywhere on the map at all. Had they retreated?

The HEMTT started up with a roar and got under way. The driver kept it to a crawl'the cargo unit in back was stuffed full with the survivors so the soldiers had to run alongside carrying all their equipment with them.

The infected seemed to sense that Clark was withdrawing. Congress Park was crawling with them and they stretched out bloody arms to try to grab the truck as it went past. They came out of every street the HEMTT passed, streamed out of half the buildings. The soldiers wanted to aggress on the enemy but Horrocks kept a tight rein on them'fighting would just slow them down. Clark wanted to get back to command and find out what the hell was going on before he committed to another combat effort.

On Colfax somebody had opened up a dumpster and spread trash across half the street. It looked like some of the bags had been torn open by animals. Clark buckled and unbuckled the holster of his sidearm for something to do with his hands.

The driver took them straight up the Esplanade, crushing the grass and bushes there in the interest of speed. 'Try the AG again,' Clark told the comms specialist and she dutifully dialed the number but got no response. Maybe the Joint Tactical Radio System was down again'it had a bad reputation. As the driver brought them into the school's parking lot Clark leapt down from the cabin before the vehicle had even stopped.

There was no one around.

Nobody guarded the rear entrance. Nobody staffed the motor pool. The big TROJAN SPIRIT II vans on the playing fields were standing vacated and alone. Clark told Horrocks to send two squads into the school and report back at once but he already knew what they would find, and he was pretty sure he knew where the Stryker group went, too.

More red dots on the screen. There was no way to save Denver, Clark realized. It just couldn't be done. There were too many infected, and not enough bullets.

The Pentagon is dispatching troops to help us right now'units of the 82nd Airborne Division, ah, you may have heard of them and also the 10th Mountain Division, they're trained in high altitude work. Whether they can get here in time we don't know' wait, what? No, we'll stay on the air until we're ordered to leave. Well, I don't care, Marty. I don't care, you can go, that's fine. Just leave the camera running. [Denver's 7, Emergency Bulletin 4/4/05]

Nilla wanted to laugh, to whoop for joy at their escape. Except that in her hand the bundle of napkins was already soaking through, a spreading red stain growing in the center of the makeshift bandage.

'Shar,' she said. The girl kept staring straight ahead. The car jounced through a pothole and Nilla's hand flew free. Blood sloshed out of Charles' neck. 'Shar,' she said again. 'Look, we need to get Charles some help now or he's going to die.'

Shar sped up, the mountains falling away on either side, dead and barren desert consuming the view through the windshield. The Toyota screamed with heat prostration and stripped gears. Through the broken window a gritty wind battered Nilla's face and rattled the napkins in her hand. There was glass everywhere but she couldn't spare a hand to brush it away'her free hand was needed just for holding on.