Chapter Eleven

The fighter-bombers came screaming in, dumping their lethal loads, turning the banks of the Mississippi and the Velour into a roaring wall of chemical fire. They bombed for a mile inland, one squadron coming seconds after another, the noise never quite fading. The explosions shook the earth, the fire leaping hundreds of feet into the air. Black, greasy smoke circled the two Parishes while the citizens of Baronne and Lapeer—those that were left—huddled together for comfort and watched and listened and prayed.

You know, of course,” Bob said to Sheriff Ransonet, this will only drive the mutants toward us.”

“I know. But we’re less than twenty thousand. A drop in the bucket compared to what’s outside the two-Parish area. We’re all expendable.”

The air assault continued unabated, until the thudding, roaring seemed to be a sustaining, never-changing part of their lives. And darkness drew closer. And with the darkness, all knew, the mutants would be coming. Looking for food.

There were those—and this worried Sheriff Ransonet—who refused to leave their homes and apartments and mobile homes, choosing instead to chance the horror on their own. Many of these people were good, decent folks, but a lot of them were punks.

And Vic knew that on this night, while the mutants hunted human flesh to dine on, other animals, the two-legged kind, would prowl the town, looting, vandalizing, killing, and raping.

He wondered where the mutants were hiding, and why they had not attacked any of the churches, the gyms, the warehouses. What were they waiting for? Darkness, yes. But what else? Are they watching us this very minute? Waiting for some signal?

Don’t be silly, he chastised himself. Those bastards can’t think as we do. Or can they?

After the rolling thunder of the napalm bombings had ceased, with only black plumes of smoke to remind them of the barrage, Vic heard the faint reports of shots. He radioed General Bornemann.

“Who is doing all that shooting?” he asked.

Not us,” the General replied. He thought, At least, not yet. Vic? At dawn, we’re going to send in teams of medics and doctors; I’ll get back to you with the locations of the pick-up points. The doctors have come up with a quick, easy test to determine if a person is infected. Don’t even have to draw blood. The kids go out first, the old people next, then the women, the men last. Where is Sheriff Grant? I can’t reach his CP.”

“He’s dead. Walt Burns is in charge up there.”

“No, he isn’t, Vic. He’s dead. Shot and killed about an hour ago. There is nothing but chaos in Baronne Parish. No organization at all. No one in charge. The people are running wild, looting, killing, raping. A lot of people are massing at the bridge. Looks like they’re going to try to rush it after dark. They won’t make it.”

“You want me to go up there and try to talk some sense into them?”

No. Absolutely not! You’re needed where you are. I’ve got orders from the top. No one gets out of there without clearance. No one. Now, we’ll get you out, but it’s going to have to be done slow, careful, and orderly. Those fires are going to keep burning on the banks and inland. We’re going to keep them ablaze. We’ve got watchers for a hundred miles downriver, keeping an eye out for any mutants escaping. All river traffic has been halted. Any unauthorized boat on that river will be blown out of the water—on my orders.

“The doctors and scientists believe the creatures won’t leave. that area, but at best that’s only an educated guess—so we can’t take any chances. Keep your people calm and tell them we’ll be evacuating them in the morning. I’ve got every big chopper within five hundred miles of here coming in. And, Vic? Some of those will be Cobra gunships in case anyone tries to make a break for it. Warn your people.”

“But those in Baronne—”

“Fuck them! They decided to go for broke, disregarding law and order. They are not your responsibility. I’ll have to live with whatever decision I make, not you. Talk to you later.”

The set went silent.

 

 

At full dark, Dr. Whitson sat in his lab and listened to the clicking grow louder, coming out of the darkness surrounding his home.

“I knew someday,” he spoke to the silent lab, “we’d screw around with chemicals and come up with a super bug gone amuck. Well, we’ve done it. God help us all, for we have certainly done it.”

He rose from his workbench and walked to a row of switches on the wall, flipping them all on. Harsh light filled the yard.

Dr. Whitson snorted his disgust as he gazed out a rear window. The lawn was covered with a brown crawling horde that seemed to stretch for miles.

“Nobody can really blame you,” the doctor muttered. Not really. For you are only trying to survive. That is the nature of things, human and animal. And a human made you what you’ve become. He—we—are to blame. All of us. More chemicals to produce more crops to feed more people so a few can make still more money.”

The brown filth had halted when the brilliant lights illuminated the night. Dr. Whitson stood by the window, watching them.

“Greed and arrogance caused this to happen.

The brown crawling resumed.

“Perhaps,” the old man spoke, “we might find a way to stop you in a few weeks. Except, for those of us here, we don’t have a few weeks. Our time is through. The sands are emptying from the glass.”

The roaches crawled over the house, covering the building, seeking a way in.

“Well,” Dr. Whitson said, walking to a cabinet and taking down a bottle and syringe, “you won’t find much satisfaction gnawing on this spare old frame of mine.”

He filled the syringe and then carefully, without thinking, wiped a spot on his arm with alcohol. Then, realizing what he’d done, he laughed. “Oh, yes, Doctor, do be careful. Must not risk infection, now.”

He injected himself with the poison, then walked back to his bench. The creatures began pouring into the house. Clicking. The old man looked at the mutants from his workbench. “Well, now, and how are you fellows this fine evening?”

The creatures stopped at the sound of his voice. He watched them slowly resume their march toward him. The poison hit his heart and the man toppled from his stool, and lay dying on the floor. His eyes were still open as the mutants swarmed over him, feeding. Clicking.

 

 

With the coming of night came not only a faint clicking sound to the ears of the citizens huddled in the churches, gyms, and warehouses, but also the sounds of shooting, the squealing of tires rounding corners at too high a speed. And the sounds of screaming.

“The punks are having a fine old time,” Slick observed, his arm resting on the inner circle of wood stacked around the warehouse.

Yeah,” Sheriff Ransonet agreed. “The gutter scum our courts have protected for years have finally found their true place in society.”

The huge warehouses, the most defensible buildings in town, were ringed with stacks of wood periodically soaked with kerosene to keep it ready for instant lighting. In the warehouses were the sick, the old, and the very young, guarded by volunteers.

The rest were scattered among the churches, schools, and gyms. And there had been no discrimination in the matter of placing people: first come, first served.

Vic had experienced some minor trouble with some die-hard bigots. He told them either to shut their goddamn mouths, or get out and take their chances with the bugs.

“Come next election time, Vic,” a few men told him, “we’ll remember all this when we go in to vote.”

Vic had laughed at them. “You do that,” he had chuckled, amused at the absurdity of it all. You just do that little thing, partner.”

The Catholic church and the rectory were newly built, and the buildings were tight. Still, all cracks around most doors and windows were sealed shut with Ready-Mix concrete.

Some of the people who refused to part with loved ones were housed in the smaller churches and the oldest school in town: the Elm Street Elementary. Vic knew they would be the first to go under any type of all out onslaught from the mutants. Too many windows, too many doors, too many ventilation shafts and duct work. He had warned them. That was all he could do. He could not force married couples to part.

So be it. Till death do you part.

“What’s the head count, Slick?” Vic asked on this night of horror.

“Sixty-seven hundred and fifty-one people in shelter.”

“That leaves just about thirteen hundred people unaccounted for. We know what happened to the people out in the Parish.”

“There’s a lot of punks roaming around out there,” Slick opined.

Yeah, but not thirteen hundred of them. I figure the bugs got maybe five, six hundred people here in town. Yeah, that’d be just about right. There’s just about seven hundred no-good total assholes in this town—black and white, men and women. And they are out there tonight. Looting, drinking, raping, killing.” He glanced at Slick. “You put the word out, didn’t you?”

“No one is allowed entrance in any shelter. Those that are in, stay in. Those that are out, stay out.”

“I figure we gave everybody ample warning. We went from door to door and street to street, on foot and in sound trucks. I think we did our best.”

“I wonder how many of us will make it?” Slick asked softly.

“I figure about a third, maybe a little less. If we can just get through tonight.”

 

 

“General Bornemann?” a battalion commander radioed to the CP. “Looks like the civilians are gonna try to rush us here at the bridge.”

It was what General Bornemann had been dreading, innocent people trying to escape a nightmare that was no fault of their own.

“I’m not going to lose any men defending that goddamn bridge,” the General said. “Have the SEALS finished their work?”

“Yes, sir. The bridge is ready to blow.”

“Clear the area of all personnel and blow it. Right now!”

“General!” a Navy patrol boat called in. “People trying to cross the Mississippi in small craft.”

General Bornemann felt a sickness in his guts. These people were not the enemy; they were just trying to survive. But he had his orders, and they came right straight from the top. The Man. He hesitated for a second.

“Give the orders, General,” a cold voice spoke from by his side. Do it!”

General Bornemann looked into the calm eyes of the President’s top aide. The Chief of Staff.

“Give those orders, General, or by God, you’ll never again command as much as a boy scout troop.”

“I know what I have to do,” Bornemann growled. “And I know I have to do it, but by God, it doesn’t make it any easier.” He took the microphone from his radio operator. “No survivors,” he said. “No one—repeat—no one must reach the banks alive. There are personnel in protective clothing standing by to retrieve the bodies. Fire!”

He turned to the aide. “There is still the matter of all that blood in the rivers. Have you people given any thought to that?”

“The doctors say there is only a slight danger, and that is if we miss a body and it floats ashore, contaminating a water supply. Navy SEALs and Frogmen have strung a series of nets, at staggered intervals, for miles down the river. Both rivers. We’ll probably catch a lot of catfish and gar. Maybe an alligator or two in the Velour.”

That General Bornemann did not like the Presidential aide was evident in everything he did. The General said, in a voice laced with thick, undisguised sarcasm, “The simplest thing would be to wipe out all the residents with bombing runs. Napalm, perhaps. That way you wouldn’t have had to gone to all this bother.”

The aide said, “Several small nuclear devices were considered for a very brief time. Yesterday. They were rejected because of the environmental impact.”

Bornemann’s eyes widened. “You people are real motherfuckers, aren’t you?”

“We are realists, General. And you had the reputation of being a realist. A tough-minded soldier who follows orders. What happened?”

“Those are Americans in there. That’s what happened.”

We are all expendable,” the aide replied.

General Bornemann snorted his disgust and walked out of the tent.

 

 

Members of the press corps, now numbering in the hundreds, bitched and threatened from their holding area some miles from the scene. But there was little else they could do. All major Federal and State highways were blocked, as well as most Parish roads leading into the area. Several battalions from Fort Polk had been pulled in as security troops, in addition to a lot of armor and heavy artillery from the Post. Except for the military, all communications into and out of the Parishes were blocked by the most sophisticated jamming equipment the government had at its disposal.

With the bridge blown apart by high explosive, cutting off the last remaining easy exit, the residents of Baronne, leaderless and in a state of high panic, tried every possible route of escape. They tried boats. They were blown out of the water. A few tried to fly out in small aircraft. They were shot down by rocket-firing Cobra gunships after scarcely getting airborne. Some tried to swim. They were pin-pointed by heavy spotlights and shot. Only a few made it to shore.

There was, of course, some rationale to this carnage: who knew what person might be infected? And if one infected person made it out, how many more would he contaminate? The risks were just too great. The government could not chance it.

Finally, after realizing they could not escape, the panicked and fearful citizens of Baronne turned on each other with a savagery only human beings seem to possess. And as with a few in Lapeer, rape and looting and barbarism overcame the laws of decency on this night.

All through the night in Bonne Terre, the men and women fought not only the mutants, but other men and women. As the giant, flesh-eating roaches swarmed, so too did maddened humans.

“Don’t let those people get over the barricades!” Sheriff Ransonet shouted his orders. “When they get within range, fire!”

And as the mutant creatures raced for food, the local thugs and punks and social misfits raced for safety. As the roaches went up in flames from the burning stacks of fuel-soaked wood, those who had chosen to disregard the safety of the holding areas were caught between the guns of the defenders and the hideous hordes seeking food. The night began to stink with the odor of burning flesh and the arid scent of gunsmoke.

During a lull, Slick ran to Sheriff Ransonet’s side. “I can’t raise anyone at the Elm Street school, Vic. They won’t answer.”

“There is nothing we can do,” Vic replied, his voice husky with fatigue. “Just hold on here.”

“You reckon ... ?”

“Yeah. I reckon.”

The make shift forts became foul as overworked toilets clogged and overflowed their sewage. The restrooms had to be sealed off. Mutant roaches had found their way into the pipes and were coming in through sewage lines. The odor of nervous and fearful sweat permeated the hot still air.

The two outer wooden circles were gone, burning to embers, and still the creatures came on, climbing over the charred remains of their own. After feasting on the smoldering remains of those humans who tried to breech the security of the holding areas. And in all the areas of confinement, some were bitten by the few mutants who made it through, or under, or up into the buildings. Over the wailing and screaming and weeping protestations of family and friends, those bitten were taken outside by grim-faced survivors. They would not be seen again.

And the night dragged on, through fire and smoke and gun shots and screaming.

During the early morning hours, the mutants seemed to sense they could not reach the food they so desperately craved, not in the warehouses and the Catholic Church, so they withdrew on signal and began a march to the smaller holding areas. And there, by sheer numbers, they penetrated the older, less secure buildings, and feasted. And were, for a time, content. Both mutants and humans waited for the dawn. One to survive, the other to feed, in order to survive.

An hour before first light, violent storms hit the Parishes, with high winds and sheets of rain. Vic called General Bornemann.

“We gotta get out of here, General. We can’t make it through another night. The wood barricades are soaked. We just won’t be able to make it.”

“Sheriff, my people can’t fly in weather like this. Those winds are gusting up to fifty miles per hour. Visibility is zero. Those winds would wreck the choppers before they got airborne. All I can tell you is to hold on, man.”

“I can’t order them to do that, General. I don’t know how much longer they’ll listen to me. We’ve got to try crossing the river.”

“My bosses say no, Vic. I’m sorry.”

“Why, for God’s sake?” screamed Vic, his voice blending into the howling of the winds that buffeted the warehouse.

“Too much risk of an infected person getting loose. Can you say for sure you don’t have any infected people where you are?”

Vic said nothing.

“See what I mean? If it was up to me, believe me, I’d come in and get you people. But it’s not up to me. I take orders, Vic. And it’s out of my hands.”

“It’s almost out of mine.” Vic flipped off the switch and tossed the mike on the table.

Back at the General’s CP, Bornemann cursed, loud and long. He made up his mind. “I just have to do something. I’ve got to.”

Vic turned to face a group of angry men. “We’re gettin’ out of here, Vic,” he was told. “We’re takin’ our families and gettin’ the hell out.”

“I can’t stop you,” Vic said. “I wouldn’t if I could. I don’t blame you. But just remember. Once you’re out, you don’t come back in.”

 

 

“General,” a Special Forces Captain pleaded. “Let me take my men across the Velour and get those people out. The Combat Engineers say they can bridge that gap over the bridge between Lapeer and Wilson Parishes in no time. We can take flame throwers, cut a path on both sides of the road and keep it open. They got buses in there. I heard the sheriff tellin’ you that was how they moved the people to the holding areas. They could load them up and meet us at the bridge. We got dozens of doctors and medics who have volunteered to go. We can give the tests Dr. Boswell rigged up. For the love of God, let’s get those people out of there!”

General Bornemann paced his tent. “All right. Go!”

“No!” shouted the President’s aide. “By orders of the President, you stay!”

“Goddamn you!” The Green Beret took a step toward the man, ready to tear off his head.

“Hear me out,” the aide said quietly, not backing up an inch, although he was quite aware the Captain could easily kill him. “I know you think I’m heartless and cruel, but that’s not true. Not true at all. I’m just doing what has to be done. Hear me out before you disobey a Presidential order.

Doctors Boswell and Wilkins—and all the other medical personnel—say they can’t, or haven’t, as yet, found anything to kill those creatures. Except fire or physically stepping on one. They have found no, repeat, no cure for the madness the bite produces. But they are all working around the clock. They will find a serum; they just haven’t found it yet. It’s similar to rabies, it’s similar to rickettsial, it’s similar to anthrax. God, man, it’s similar to a dozen killing diseases. That’s the problem. They have found a drug—or a combination of drugs—that will kill the virus, and it is a virus. But right now they are in the stage of tossing out the baby with the bath water. Those massive doses of the drug we gave to the people who were pulled out of the waters of the Velour—by your men”—he glared at General Bornemann—against my orders, I might add. Those doses stopped the virus cold, killed it, but it also killed the people. The body just could not stand the fighting going on in the system.

“And,” he sighed, “Dr. Boswell believes the virus might be airborne as well. That’s why we pulled everyone back a few hours ago. That’s why the people patrolling the area are wearing protective gear. And that’s why we quarantined those Troopers who assisted in the rescue of the escapees.” He looked at the Green Beret Captain. “Do you see, Captain, why we cannot allow you and your men to go after those people. Do you understand?”

No, sir, I’m sorry. But I don’t. We can wear protective gear as well as the next person. We can isolate them as soon as they cross the bridge. So, no sir, I don’t see.”

“Captain,” the aide said, I’m from Mississippi. Just across the river. Chief Deputy Riggs is my first cousin. So you might say I have more of a personal involvement in this matter than you. But, Captain, you and your men will not, repeat, will not attempt any rescue.” He spun about and walked out of the tent.

Don’t bet on it, candy-ass!” the Green Beret muttered. He looked at General Bornemann. “You didn’t hear that, sir.”

Of course not,” General Bornemann said. ” But speaking purely hypothetically, you understand, if I were even thinking about going after those people—which I’m not, you know—I’d wait a couple of hours to see what the weather is going to do. But during the interim, if I were going to do anything about it—which I’m not—I believe I’d have some men go to some of the towns around here. Get several fire trucks. Any car, bus or truck coming across that bridge—which, of course, is not going to be repaired—would have to be high-pressure hosed, to knock off any mutant roach. I would have teams of men standing by with flame throwers. Of course, there are all sorts of things one would have to do to prepare for any thing of this magnitude. One just could not sit around with one’s thumb up one’s ass, waiting for someone else to yell, Switch! No, something like this would have to be planned out very carefully. Supplies would have to be located. But, Captain, we are just speaking hypothetically, are we not?”

“Yes, sir.” The Green Beret smiled. “That we are, sir.”

“Well, son.” General Bornemann patted the Captain’s arm. “I’m sure we both have lots to do—lots to think about during the next two hours. Two hours, Captain.”

“Yes, sir,” the Green Beret said. “And, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“For what? I haven’t done a thing, son.”