“I’m hit. The rat bastard got me good!” Stone pushed Jacob off of him and fell back to the grass. The old man quickly removed his belt, wrapping it around his thigh as a tourniquet. Jacob lifted his rifle, firing up the trail and trying to cover the old man while he worked. With the tourniquet in place, the man put his own rifle back in action, firing a volley into approaching targets.
Jacob ducked and flinched as a stream of rounds impacted a nearby tree, throwing wood and rock splinters into his face. When he looked back up, another Delta wave was moving at them. Stone shouted a warning before tossing a grenade and let loose a long stream of gunfire and obscenities in the wake of the grenade’s explosion. He turned back to Jacob. “Go, get back to the bunker. I’ll catch up.”
Motion from the side caused Jacob to spin hard. He leveled his rifle, finger on the trigger. He was moments from firing when he recognized Jesse stumbling ahead, collapsing to the ground with them. The man crawled forward, bleeding from his neck, his shirt covered with powder burns and gore.
“They’re everywhere,” Jesse gasped. “All around us.”
Jacob helped pull the big man into their meager cover. Jesse collapsed and rolled to his back. Armed with only a pistol with its slide locked back, his face was pale. Frothy blood rested at the corners of his mouth. Stone took the pistol and loaded a fresh magazine taken from Jesse’s own armor. He let the slide go forward and put the weapon back in Jesse’s hand. “Welcome to the party, son, glad to have you with us,” Stone said, turning back to the front.
Jesse coughed and spit blood on the trail. He tried to laugh, but instead he turned and extended his arm over Stone, firing and knocking down a Delta staggering toward them from the old man’s blind spot. Stone reached out and squeezed the big man’s shoulder before looking back at Jacob. “Go; get to Gloria and the kids. We got this.”
Another dove at them. Jacob raised the AK47, looking into the twisted face of a teenaged Delta. The creature showed no surprise—only hate and vile rage. Jacob steadied his weapon and pulled the trigger, watching as the heavy rounds tore through its cheek and face. He shifted his fire as more ran at him from farther back, the steady rounds cutting them down and dropping them hard on the trail. Stone’s rifle barked as it fired rapidly into the wood line. A round came close, hitting the side of Jacob’s helmet, spinning his head back like a blast from a baseball bat. When he turned back to the front, the assault had ended.
Jacob looked down at his friends, wondering how things had gone so wrong. The ambush plan was shit. They underestimated the Delta numbers and their reaction to the dioxin. The first ambush, the placement of the bombs, it all went off without a hitch. But the numbers were far more than they had anticipated, and they didn’t slow down.
Hitting them hard after the initial strike, wave after wave they fought them, bounding back until the Deltas managed to flank them with grenades. Jacob and Jesse were caught too far forward in the middle of it all, trying to find cover. They were hit on three sides. A mass ran at them as if blinded and crazy, their faces swollen with bursting blisters, the dioxin making them mad. Grenades flew from every direction.
The team tried to maneuver and counter the assaults. Eve’s voice was on the two-way radio; the Deltas found the hide and were surrounding the barn and cabin, forcing her to retreat below to the bunker. Yellow smoke filled the air. It was Marks’s signal to break contact and hide. They would rally back at the bunker. James fought his way to an overwatch position, laying down suppressive fire with the heavy machine gun and allowing the others space to break contact.
This wasn’t conventional warfare. The Deltas were no longer predictable and they weren’t fighting as a team. After the initial contact, the massive charge, and the explosions, the order ended. Now they scattered and filled the forest like hornets from a squashed nest, frenzied and chaotic.
“Go, dammit,” Stone yelled again, waking Jacob from his sudden stupor.
Jacob handed the AK47 to Jesse then removed the scope from the M14, letting it drop to the ground. He rose up to his knees and fired into the distance, knocking down two more attackers.
“I’ll see you at the cabin,” he shouted, not knowing if it was true. He turned to run down the trail, racing for the bunker. His lungs burned with every footstep. The intense minutes of combat overloaded his system with adrenaline and were crushing him. He was exhausted and shaking with energy at the same time. He rounded a corner in the thick trees, surprising two Deltas with their backs to him. They spun around as he fired the M14. The 7.62 rounds hit the nearest square in the back. The other spun and closed the distance, pushing the rifle to the side as it attacked.
Jacob rolled with the impact, taking the creature with him to the ground. He forced the rifle between them and used his boot to dig into its thighs, trying to gain leverage. The creature reared back and pounded down with both fists. Jacob looked up into its blister- and pus-covered face. The thing snarled, drooling in agony as its empty hands punched down at him again, the blows deflected harmlessly off his
