Omega Days (Volume 1) - By John L. Campbell Page 0,20

life. She didn’t touch it.

“C’mon, honey, take it!”

“Do it.” The soldier who had saved her, crammed in on her right, spoke softly. He stood the weapon on its stock and guided her hand to the barrel. “Just hold it like that, between your knees. Jay needs to work the sixty.”

Skye didn’t know what a sixty was, but learned a moment later when Jay Hayman, standing in the circular hole, opened up with the M-60 machinegun mounted to the turret. He fired the thirty caliber weapon in short, choppy bursts, and Skye cried out first from the noise of it, then from the rain of hot, empty shell casings bouncing down into the Humvee. All the other soldiers, with the exception of the driver, were firing out their windows as well.

The driver was moving fast, the heavy vehicle swaying as he dodged stopped cars and staggering figures. From the middle of the rear seat, Skye would have had a good view out the windshield were it not for the machine-gunner standing in front of her. Something thumped against the front of the Humvee.

“Try not to hit them,” said the soldier in the front passenger seat.

“Why not? It saves us rounds.”

“Cause if they go under and jam up the axle it’s gonna fuck up my truck, Corporal, that’s why not.”

“Copy that, Sergeant,” said the driver.

Out the right window Skye saw trees and campus buildings passing, the road lined with cars. Beyond them, people were moving stiffly across lawns, wandering in all directions. Every one she saw wore torn and bloody clothing. And then she saw one moving much faster than the others, a young man with dreadlocks flying as he sprinted and weaved among the dead, waving his arms at the Humvee.

“Live one on the right,” Skye’s soldier called out. She had to think of him that way, he had gotten her out of there, and she didn’t know his name.

“Got him,” said the sergeant, and the vehicle slowed. Skye saw the machine-gunner shuffle left, and then his weapon started barking again. Brass rattled on the metal decking around her feet.

Skye saw the slow-moving people taking hits, bullets smashing into them. Some were knocked down, others spun in different directions, and one collapsed onto the grass when his legs disintegrated beneath him. Most kept moving, and the one without legs just crawled after the running man, pulling itself along by its hands, just as the corpse had when it fell out the window and landed in front of her and Crystal. Just as she noticed all this, the gunner shouted down from the turret.

“They’re not going down, Sergeant!”

“I can see that! Keep up your fire!”

The man with the dreadlocks reached the Humvee, and Skye’s soldier – as he turned she saw the name Taylor on a patch over a chest pocket – climbed out and told the man to get in. Dreadlocks scrambled inside, wedging up tight against Skye with a muttered, “S’cuse me.”

Taylor had his rifle to his shoulder and did a half circle sweep of the area. There were lots of people moving slowly towards them, but no more runners. “That’s it,” he yelled, climbing in. The Hummer started moving before he closed the door.

Skye heard the sergeant speaking into a handset, a mix of common language flavored with the kind of numeric, military lingo she’d heard in movies. The radio answered back in the same language. She heard words like Sweep, Tangos and Sector, and none of it made much sense, but she clearly heard him say, “Four civvies on board.” That had to be her, the kids in the back and dreadlock man.

They left the campus behind and were quickly in the surrounding community, the vehicle turning and the corporal steering around objects in the road as he had been instructed by his sergeant. He banged on the horn and swore repeatedly, and sometimes there would be a crunching noise against the grill. Each time that happened, the corporal grunted, “Fuckers.”

In the back, the girl started crying and the boy held her. The soldiers fired sporadically, and every once in a while the machinegun made a harsh ripping noise. The vehicle kept moving, accelerating, slowing, then accelerating again.

“Ain’t this some pretty shit?” Dreadlock asked of no one in particular. He shook his head and looked at the floor. “Ain’t this some shit?”

Skye suddenly remembered Crystal’s cloudy eyes as her sister snapped at her, and she forced the thought away. She made herself focus instead on the weapon she