Page 19 of Redemption (Devil Dogs of the Apocalypse #4)

“Good to go, Staff Sarge?” Corporal Weitz asks. I don’t have any words yet, so I simply nod in return. Andrew and I went to boot camp together, but I was the son of a bitch that got my rank sooner. I suddenly no longer want it, but I have no fucking choice. They’re all my responsibility now.

Forcing myself back to the here and now, I pick up the pace, pushing my team to the checkpoint, fighting everything that comes our way because that’s my job. My purpose. My mission. There is nothing else. Only survival.

We turn the corner just as one of our grenades goes off, blood and guts flying over our group as we take out the infected that try to cut off our path.

The carnage turns into a blur of adrenaline and survival.

There’s no rhyme or reason to it. Just our squad of mismatched Marines and our undying need to survive.

We’re exhausted, drained after fighting and running for so long.

Our lungs seizing as we force ourselves to keep going, battling our way through the cannibalistic horde.

Suddenly, a scream comes from the left, interrupting the collective grunts and groans of combat. I turn my head towards the sound, but it’s already too late to help.

“WEITZ!” He’s engulfed by four of them, falling from my sight within seconds as they devour him alive. The squelching sound of their ravenous hunger mixes with his pleading cries for help before finally ending with a sickening crunch.

He just got engaged a few months ago. A baby on the way.

His fiancée was practically glowing as she told the rest of us at the family day picnic.

She must be close to seven or eight months along in her pregnancy by now.

I gasp as the truth sets in hard: Weitz will never be able to meet his daughter.

She’ll never get to know, firsthand, how incredible her father was.

“Fuck!” The word comes out in a vengeful growl, wishing I could’ve done something more to help him but knowing we’re at a massive disadvantage. They have the numbers and are growing exponentially by the second. Nearly indestructible. Wildly insatiable.

Another helicopter goes down, crashing just a few roads away. That makes seven so far. The tangled metal and burning fuselages can be seen all around us. The aerial assault we were counting on to help us out of this mess, dead in the dirt.

We need to move.

Now.

That bunker is the only chance we have to survive the next hour. Without it, we’re all fucked. I swallow hard, jerk my head, and grit my teeth as I forcibly push the remainder of my team forward. “GO! GO! GO!”

Everyone places a hand on the man’s shoulder in front of him, guiding and maintaining the connection so we don’t lose anyone else.

We’re almost there. Just another block away.

We need to make it.

We have to.

We have no other choice.

There’s only survive or die.

NiccolòMachiavelli once said, “The greatest sign of an impending loss is when one does not believe one can win.”

I will not lose.

Not today.

Today, in this final stand, we will make it.

Not another one of my men will fall. I will not allow it.

We pick up the pace, sprinting the remaining distance as the building finally comes into view—the access point.

Waverly charges forward, leading us all to the entry.

He barrels into the door and opens it, ushering every last one of our mangled squad in.

I wait at the entrance, searching for any more survivors we could save, but see nothing but an endless sea of death.

With a resigned slump of my shoulders, I give the signal.

As one, they turn, entering the darkened space while I shut out the world with a definitive click.

∞∞∞

We’ve been holding down the fort for a few days now.

Our bunker, while it’s not as fully stocked as it should be, does have some rations.

Enough to keep the group satiated for at least a little while.

But there’s one vital thing—more important right now than food—that’s noticeably missing: A functional ventilation system.

Apparently, this particular bunker didn’t have or didn’t pass its latest inspection. Which, unfortunately, forces us to keep the hatch open in order to breathe down here, all while the hostile takeover is still lingering out there.

Waiting.

Hunting.

We’re one hundred feet below the surface, which hides our presence, but we learned the second night we were down here that the infected still exhibit cognitive motor function.

Even if we didn’t keep the door slightly ajar to bring air down the stairwell, they’ve figured out how to open the hatch and find us, regardless.

Whether it be by sense of smell or by simply hearing us down here, the hostiles have found us more than a handful of times since we’ve come down here to ride out the invasion.

For this reason, we’ve chosen to operate with a rotating sentry duty, monitoring the cracked doorway and terminating the hostiles when they’re close enough to fuck around and find out.

I still my movement, waiting for the all clear from upstairs.

I was heading back from doing inventory of the meager amounts of rations remaining in the storage room when Corporal Wiengard called out.

He’s up there with Lance Corporal Bulwark.

The irony of their names and their current positions, not lost on me at all.

Names.

The military is full of them, but no one ever calls each other by their first names.

It’s unnecessary when everyone’s last names are affixed onto their uniforms. The only ones who ever made me divert from the commonplace protocol were my previous fire team.

Although I still find myself referring to them by their surnames on occasion. Old habits die hard, I guess.

My eyes start to glaze over with remembrance of my battle buddies turned chosen family, but I shut that shit down before I lose myself.

I can’t let myself think of them. Not now.

Not during this shit. I can’t afford to.

I need to keep everyone down here safe, including me.

Especially me if I want to get out to find them. .. and her.

It's been over eight years. I know she’s no longer mine and might not even need me to find her. To save her. For all I know, she could be married by now and have all the safety and security she could ever need.

Or... she could be….

I grimace, shaking my head and ridding myself of the negativity.

No. Not going to think about that. Focus, dammit.

The cramped bunker is filled with suffocating, frenetic energy. We’re all charged up, ready to go—death and destruction, finely tuned at the tip of a broadsword—but we smother down the rising tide of kill or be killed.

Survival is key.

And silence may give us another day.

No one talks. No one moves. We barely breathe, even all the way down here. I hear the creak of the hatch opening and then a muttered curse.

“Shit…”

Gunshots ring out, prompting the rest of us to jump into action as we race up the stairs to help out Weingard and Bulwark.

Since I was already standing, I’m the first to make it up the stairs, weapon drawn and at the ready, but it’s already too late as I see both of them, lying limp and bloody on the staircase as four of the infected chew, and rip, and bite, and gnaw at their bodies.

I unload my entire magazine on the motherfuckers, clearing house before I reluctantly turn to Weingard and Bulwark.

At first glance, you would think they were dead.

Hope... they were dead. Bulwark’s stomach is torn open, his guts spilling out into the stairwell.

Weingard’s neck is shredded, his trachea exposed as blood pours out from the wound.

But as I step closer, both of their chests rise and fall with stuttered, gasping breaths.

They’re still alive....

“Fuck!” I yell through my clenched teeth, the sound echoing down the stairs just as the rest of the squad reaches my position at the top.

I wipe my face with the inside of my shirt before looking down at the blood smeared along the walls and the floor.

There’s no saving them. We have some medical supplies down here, but not enough to reverse the damage done to them. They have, at most, seconds left.

Which means we have only seconds left to decide.

From what I’ve seen, either the dead stay dead or they turn into those cannibalistic zombie things.

It’s a fucking crapshoot as to which outcome will occur.

We can either let them die as they are and see if they turn, or…

we could end this here and now for sure.

I hate to do it—I’ve known these guys for years, and it’s going to fuck with my head for the rest of my life—but there’s no coming back from an attack like that, and there’s no disputing the truth of the matter.

They’re suffering, and, at this point, there’s no saving them.

I’d rather put them out of their misery now than potentially see them at their worst.

As I maneuver closer, Bulwark’s eyes connect with mine.

A stammered breath is released through his nose as he clenches his jaw with what little strength he has left.

He looks to Weingard, unmoving on the floor next to him, before returning his gaze to me.

A silent plea is spoken through his eyes before he closes them and, with the smallest, almost imperceptible motion, nods his head.

Only once. That’s all he needs to do. Because with just that tiny bit of acknowledgement, I know what he’s trying to say.

The permission and forgiveness he’s granting me in his last act on this planet.

Taking a deep breath, I pull out my Kabar and position Weingard on the floor in front of me on his chest, giving me access to his back and neck.

We learned early on that you need to destroy the connection between the brain and the rest of the body.

Either by blunt force, a bullet, or with a knife, as I’m doing now.