Fredrick Carr's Arc

Chapter 11 of 11

Tuesday came. Fredrick lay on the ridge at 2:50 a.m., radio pressed to his ear. Below, the shrine glowed on his counter overlay. Parks's two teams crept toward the barracks and the church. The desert gun truck sat behind him, its 155mm howitzer laid and waiting. Donovan's relay line carried every voice. Fredrick's job was simple and impossible. Keep the artillery and the ground team from killing each other. "Teams in position," Parks said over the channel. Her voice was flat and calm, the same voice she used in Brad's office. Fredrick had hired her for exactly this. Rangers couldn't breathe near that radiation. Her six could. Then the shrine stirred. Fredrick saw ghouls rise from the dirt around the chained thing. They moved as one, not like wild ferals. The big one at the center pulled against its chains and stumbled. Its back legs would not hold. Something in it was breaking. "Carr, they're waking," Parks said. "Call it." Fredrick keyed the radio. "Parks, hit the barracks now. Ghouls are up but the big one's crippled." He heard gunfire start below, sharp and close. Her shrine team opened on the moving ghouls. Muzzle flash lit the church wall. "Gun crew," Fredrick said. "Shrine, my mark." He read the coordinates off his notes. The howitzer boomed behind him. The first shell landed short of the church. Fredrick corrected. "Add fifty. Fire." The second shell struck the shrine dead center. The glow on his counter spiked, then dropped. Dust rolled up the ridge. The chained thing screamed and tore free. It charged the shrine team. "It's loose," Parks said. Her team scattered back. "One more," Fredrick said. "Gun crew, drop ten. Fire for the big one." The howitzer answered. The shell caught the creature mid-stride. When the smoke thinned, it lay still in the crater. The counter reading fell to near nothing. Parks's voice came through, steady. "Shrine's down. Big one's down. We're cleaning the rest." Her teams pushed through the camp tent by tent. Scattered gunfire, then quiet. One ghoul at a time, they cleared it. By dawn the valley was silent. Fredrick walked down with a med-tech who carried a blue and yellow Radaway bag. Tammy Lammens, the field hospital's head nurse, checked each of Parks's team for radiation. She dosed two of them from the vials. "You're clean enough," she told the last one. "Go home." Fredrick found Parks by the ruined shrine. She looked at the dead creature, then at him. "No one on my side fell," she said. "Good shooting." Brad's voice crackled on the relay. "Fredrick. Talk to me." "Camp's destroyed," Fredrick said. "Shrine neutralized. Big one's dead. The ghouls aren't marching for the vault road." "Heh." Brad let out a breath. "Good. Mary will file the report. Get your people home." The road to the vault was safe now. The hospital would stand. Fredrick holstered his radio and started up the ridge.