I see my reflection in the window,
I see my reflection in the window,
It looks so different, so different from what you see.
Projecting judgment on the world,
This house is clean baby, this house is clean.
I could only get one thought in my head, and that thought was,
"Get to the stadium, check out what's burning, and get the fuck out,"
I can honestly say I didn't want to die. There was no reason to.
As I ran as fast as I would let myself, I realized that there would never be a reason to die.
Mercenaries don't die; they just go to hell to regroup.
When I finally hit the off ramp to the stadium, I stopped and waited for my comrades to catch up. I was breathless from the nearly quarter mile run in full combat gear, and decided to have a quick smoke before the others caught up with me. I pulled a pack of Camels from my admin pouch and a Zippo from my pocket. Flicking the Zippo open I lit the cigarette and took a long drag, feeling the smoke fill me completely.
"You know those things will kill you man," said one of the SWAT troopers who had just stopped next to me. He sounded breathless and winded; a bad sign if I ever had seen one.
"Either that or the infected." I retorted simply while exhaling the acrid fumes of my dirty little pleasure.
I took in the scene before me; the freight parking lot was completely clear of cars, bodies, anything that might cause issues. Eerie as how there was supposed to be a game going on when the virus hit hardcore and spread. As far as I knew the freight trucks were in the main garage with potential survivors or infected inside the containers. That scared the shit out of me and I felt it.
Other than that, it was a normal stadium. Albeit on a massive scale. The building must have been 12 or 13 stories high, and was simply massive on ground level. There was no way we could clear the entire building before nightfall and the rest of the infected, however many there were, caught up with us.
As I scanned the top of the stadium for some way to either climb up from the outside or any kind of snipers, I saw a glint, ever so faint from the far end. I squinted at it and tried to make out a shape from the glint, but to no avail.
"Anyone got eyes?" I asked out loud to practically nobody. The rest of the group had caught up, but was still breathless and exhausted. Never having run that far with so much weight on I was sure.
"Of course we all have eyes…we can see can't we?" piped up the trucker in our group. I almost smacked myself in the head and called him an ass, but I remembered that no one here was military or even ex-military as far as I knew, so I took a deep breath and rephrased myself,
"Ok, does anyone have a spotting scope or binoculars? Something that I can see far away shit with?" I listened to the rustle of equipment being moved about and kept my eyes locked on the place where the glint came from. Sure enough it came again, this time a little brighter. I turned back to the small group and saw one of the older guys pull out a small booklet labeled 'Birds of the Southeastern US' and a small pair of spotting binoculars. He handed them over to me with a
"I knew my hobby would come in use someday." And a small smile. I didn't make any remarks, though I know I should have.
I raised the small binoculars towards where the glint came from and saw a small hump in the outline of the stadium top. Probably someone behind a scoped rifle, watching us and waiting to see what we were going to do apparently. As if the smoking and talking hadn't given us away as uninfected.
The hump turned into the shape of a person dressed in all black and with what almost looked to be a headset on. He raised his arms and pumped them up and down, the left one going up and down 3 times, and the right one going up and down 5 times. This guy was either a contractor, or a professional soldier. That signal meant radio channels. GRMS Channel 3, Sub channel 5. I handed the radio back to the older guy and pulled out my radio; switching the channels to 3/5, I sent out a transmission,
"This is call sign Sorrow. We've come from Benning on a SAR mission after we got a distress beacon from this area. Identify yourself sniper." I released the PTT and for a few tense seconds, got nothing in return but a dead net.
"Sorrow, this is Romeo 6. We're the source of the distress beacon that you guys have picked up at Benning. The Stadium is secure from the inside, so we would have to lift you up somehow if you wanted to get in." came the reply. It was a female voice, so probably not the sniper. She sounded exhausted and somewhat relieved that we were friendlies.
The screech of the infected suddenly caught my attention away from the radio.
Am I who I think I am?
Am I who I think I am?
Am I who I think I am?
Look out my window and see its gone wrong
Court is in session and I slam my gavel down
"Fuck." Was all I could say to myself about the situation. It seemed that we were literally up shit creek in a chicken wire canoe and heading for deadmans falls without a paddle. The sounds got louder and closer, screeching, moaning, roaring. All primal sounds for the beasts that had suddenly gotten a fix on our location. It was unnerving to know that my life and the lives of these 10 other men were suddenly hanging in the balance. Not by my thread, but by the thread of this woman who told us she would have to drop us line to get us in the stadium.
I clicked on my PTT and said with some semblance or calmness,
"Alright Romeo 6, get us the fuck up there. Where are you dropping the line?" The reply came almost immediately. With a definitely happier tone this time,
"We can drop the rappelling ropes down straight in front of you, by the freight doors. You'll climb up to the third floor and be escorted to the field and upper levels by some of our shooters." I didn't like the sound of this, 'escort,' as she was calling it, but I had no choice other than dying at the hands of possibly a few thousand infected. I bit the bullet and replied,
"Drop the lines Romeo Six. See you when we get inside. Sorrow out." As I looked back at the men who had willingly followed me into this deathtrap, I saw a small look of fear in each of their eyes. It must have shown in my eyes as well because they grimaced, and one of them asked me,
"We're going to die here aren't we Dan?" I simply shook my head and replied,
"Not yet man. Not without a fight."
I drink from the cup of denial
I'm judging the world form my throne
I drink from the cup of denial
I'm judging the world form my throne
I gave a quick intro to the fundamentals of rappelling, all the while having to almost shout over the noise of the screeching infected that were somehow nowhere in sight.
"This is hard work guys, if you can't make it up. I can't promise that I can get you up there. So you should probably do this, even if you think you can't. It's either make it up there quickly, or become one of them." I jerked my thumb in the direction where the screeching was coming from. The looks of horror on the men's faces said it all; they would do it, period.
I love my little pep talks.
After my little class on rappelling, we all took off at a dead sprint down the on ramp and into the main freight parking lot. Which thankfully was set about 20 feet about main street level and fenced off; the damn depot even had a sliding steel gate that I bet we could have locked. My heart almost stopped when I saw the gate was closed in front of us. I almost hit the gate when it started to open up, slowly, but fast enough for us to be able to sprint through a small gap that had opened up.
One at a time we all piled in past the gate and stopped to make sure the men behind us made it through. The slowest man was ironically the football player kid that had volunteered to come with us so he could, "Find his girlfriend." I personally believe that kind of bravado and selfishness to be stupid, but this kid had done well so far. We all took a knee because we knew the screaming mobs were most likely right behind the kid, and sadly we were right.
As he came about halfway down the on ramp a veritable mob of the infected came right behind him. As soon as they saw him running, and us just standing in the open gate way, they began to sprint full speed down the on ramp, tripping and falling over themselves. But no matter how many of them tripped and fell, more just took their place. They just trampled each other and kept coming. Their shrieks filling the air, their stench blowing down on us, and the fact of potential death fueled my next descision.
"CLOSE THE GATE DAMNIT!" I roared over the sound of the mob, my voice must have rang loud and clear because almost immediately the gate started closing. I saw the look of panic on the kids face as he put everything into his run, the look of desperation in his eyes. I just stared back with my (as a fellow Delta Force operator had called them), "Cold, pitiless killers eyes. Eyes as grey and bleak as a winter day." I simply stared at a dead man running towards me.
"What the fuck are you doing Dan!?" yelled one of the SWAT officers, "We can't just let him die!" I simply stared straight into his eyes, trying to will him to run faster, to make it here before the gate closed.
Time crawled, and I heard a pitiful scream emit from kids mouth, and something snapped in me. The gate was closed by the time the kid had reached it, and the horde was right behind him, not even a few hundred feet. I climbed up onto the top of the gate and put my hand out, grasping his in my own. I pulled with all my might and the kid simply lifted up off the ground, finally coming to rest on the concrete below me.
As I jumped down to the ground I picked the kid up by his vest and pushed him towards the 5 dangling ropes that were our lifeline at this point. The infected beat on the gate, causing it to shudder and groan under the weight of the mob. Time returned to normal as it was, my heartbeat suddenly erupted in my head as the realization came to me;
Get up the ropes. So I yelled it,
"GET UP THE ROPES ASAP!" without hesitation or question, the 10 men sprinted faster than I had ever seen a man move before towards the ropes, hook their lines up, and started rappelling. As I ran towards the ropes myself making sure to be the last man up, I heard three things at once; the gate beginning to give way, a spurt of automatic weapons fire from up above, and finally Raven Six's miniguns roaring out in staccato, tearing the mob to shreds in less than a second.
I turned back towards the ropes and saw only three of the ten men had made it up. I fired a shot into the air and roared again,
"GET UP THOSE FUCKING ROPES!" the sound of my own voice was hollow without the noise of the infected in the background, or the cacophony of automatic weapons fire. Within a few moments the other seven men were up the ropes, or three quarters of the way up, with two men to a rope. I latched myself onto a line and didn't even have time to brace myself against the support beam before I felt myself lifting off the ground and up towards the third story breezeway.
I clambered up over the side of the railing and just sat on the ground, my lets splayed out in front of me. I pulled out another cigarette quickly and noticed the stillness around me. I looked up and found a female hand held out to me. I took it and was helped up by who I presumed was Romeo 6 by the insignia on her uniform. After she helped me up she said cheerfully,
"Welcome to New Haven"