Jacob lay in his hole next to James, waiting for the next assault. James continued digging, throwing more dirt to the front, creating a tiny sump for Duke to lie in. They could hear the Deltas running and crashing through the woods, their numbers increasing rapidly. Jacob looked down the line at the hardened faces; he could see that the rest of the platoon had dressed down in protective garments and gas masks. “So what gives? They didn’t bring any of that for us to wear?” Jacob asked, pointing.
James looked at him and grinned back. “Don’t sweat it, bro. We don’t need that snivel gear. Nothing can hurt us; we’re too hard for that. Besides, you don’t plan on getting any of it on you, do ya?”
“No, I guess not, but don’t you think it would be nice to have, just in case?”
Jacob looked away, but turned back in time to see James tie a bandana over Duke’s snout. “What the hell? I thought you just said we don’t need to worry about it?”
“Come now, Jacob. You know Duke’s a Delta sniffing dog. We got to protect his most powerful weapon, right? We don’t want his sniffer getting out of calibration, do we?”
“I guess, James, but you know what? You’re crazy as hell.”
“Shit, look around you brother; everyone here is crazy.”
A sudden rise in the volume of noise from the distant trees let the men know the Deltas were moving again, pushing toward the plant for another assault. Sounds of rattling brush and the roar of the mass once again became frenzied. Captain Merritt grabbed a nearby soldier and sent him to the NBC position, ordering them to release the fog. Merritt walked the line, crouching low, ensuring that every other man on the line now held a piss bottle, ready to deploy it on his order.
“Did you tell him what the dioxin does to them? That it doesn’t kill them right off?” Jacob asked.
James shrugged. “Yeah, I told ’em,” he said, pushing forward with his rifle.
Merritt moved behind James and dropped to his knees, looking through the fence. He turned, facing down the platoon’s defensive line. Holding a hand to his mouth, he yelled, “Tighten up, everyone. This will be their last push. This is all they got left in them. But we’re going to hit them back this time; we got something for them. We hold one more assault and we can go home.”
A soldier ran back and dropped next to Merritt, out of breath. “Sergeant Emerson says the foggers are lit. They’re sending a hell of a mist downrange. The entire back approach is now in a toxic cloud.”
Merritt nodded and faced the front as the frenzied mob ramped up. Trees cracked as they pushed ahead, still hidden in the cover of the brush and hanging clouds of smoke. Jacob could tell by the thunderous roars that the creatures’ mass had increased in size during the lull. The previous gunfire and explosions drew more of them to the fight. Merritt looked back at the mortar men and waved his hand down. “Let’s burn them out!” he shouted.
As they arranged earlier, the mortar team loaded and dropped the first white phosphorus round. A chemical round that explodes and reacts harshly to the air, it can burn through skin deep to the bone, causing blinding fires and white smoke. The mortar launched from the tube and exploded with a loud crack deep in the woods, emitting blooms of sparks and white smoke. “That’s right where I want it; keep it coming,” Merritt ordered.
The mortar team rapid fired its entire supply of Willy Pete then switched to high explosive, the trees quickly filling with white burning smoke and thundering explosions. The sounds of the monsters’ rage increased with every strike. Soon the tops of the trees were shaking while hot, dirty, yellow flames backlit the smoke. And again, The Darkness burst from the trees in a full charge, supported by their own shooters. Rounds whizzed by overhead. Jacob raised himself up, searching for a target, but saw nothing except the white acrid smoke. A volley of screaming Deltas ran from the trees, their clothing tattered and in flames. The dug-in platoon held their fire, waiting.
James rose to his knees, bleeding off a full magazine, screaming back at the charring mob, “Come and get it! You ain’t got shit on me. Come on, you bastards.”
Jacob lifted his rifle, rose up next to James, and fired into the advancing mob, hearing the rest of the platoon’s rifles join in. The machine guns went cyclic, raking the gap, chopping down ranks of the charging monsters. Bodies stacked up as more of the creatures forced their way through. James, sitting high as bullets whizzed by, screamed challenges at them. He pulled the pin on his improvised grenade and tossed it deep into the breach, hearing it explode with a loud crack and seeing the devastating results as the bodies of the tightly packed creatures were tossed to the ground by the explosion. Merritt saw James’s action and ordered the release of the remaining bottles. Men up and down the line rose to rain their own improvised grenades. They exploded in rapid succession, spilling carnage and dioxin over the battlefield.
Jacob dropped and pressed his face to the dirt as debris and body parts showered his back. When the explosions stopped, Jacob pushed up, looking over his pack to see them still coming. As they charged forward, Jacob aimed center mass, knocking down a man directly to his front. The grenades impeded their advance, but fresh waves still emerged from the burning woods. These
