Jacob sprinted ahead and stopped next to the structure. Designed to keep the weather off the cars, it was nothing more than a roof and sheet metal walls that stopped a foot from the ground. With the solid cover, he was able to walk to the edge where Murphy called them. Looking out, Jacob could see they were now at the end of the city block. A gravel drive led away from the structure and into a wide two-lane street. At the end of the street was a wall barrier made of coiled wire and sandbags; military vehicles were parked in the grass and across the corner. The passageway itself was blocked at both ends. The scene of a final stand, weapons and equipment covered the street; bloody drag trails moved over the barriers and down the sidewalks, leaving remnants of clothing.
Beyond the barricade was a fortified corner lot occupied by a commercial bank building. A tattered military tent stood limply beside the bank amid more collapsed and tumbling sandbag structures. A fire truck was parked diagonally across the lot and all the windows in the truck’s cab were broken. Murphy slowly moved out of cover and approached the barricade with the team close behind. As he got closer, Jacob could see human bodies hanging in the wire. Beyond the roadblock, a soldier was dead on the ground with his rifle still tight in his hands. Stephens stopped next to the body and removed the rifle. He quickly checked the weapon’s action, then inserted a fresh magazine and exchanged the rifle for Tyree’s pistol. Jacob stood over the dead soldier, not speaking, then turned away to keep watch while Stephens and Murphy scavenged for equipment.
“It’s crazy; they recover their dead. All these bodies are… human,” Stephens said.
Jacob turned back. “All of them?”
Murphy was going through the Humvee and pulled a soldier from the turret before removing magazines from the man’s load-bearing vest while saying, “I haven’t seen one of them yet.”
Tyree shook his head. “Why would they take them?”
“Who knows,” Murphy answered as large explosions to the west took his attention. “How much farther is it?” he asked Tyree.
“We’re close… not far,” Tyree said. “The golf course is just across the street, other side of the bank.”
Murphy nodded. “Let’s move.”
Chapter Nineteen
Tall shrubs lined the sidewalk that wound along the bank’s perimeter. The shrubs connected with a sandbag wall topped with a single row of razor wire. The long wall shielded the containment area of the parking lot but a large swath of it was knocked down and the bags pushed inward. The ensuing avalanche of bags continued down and through the once finely manicured line of shrubs. The wire over the fallen bags stretched to the point of snapping, its loose un-coiled ends now lying twisted and mixed with the bags. Jacob and the team lay on their bellies at the mouth of the breach, looking out with Murphy using Tyree’s telescope to scout the terrain ahead.
Jacob lay looking at the terrain as Murphy pointed out landmarks. The ground ahead was flat and open for fifty feet with very little cover available from trees. Other buildings and structures were far apart so there would be little available to hide behind. Beyond the initial narrow street, ran a four-lane road with a lone bus stop to one side and then a thin stretch of median grass. Beyond the grass was an access road that curved around and led deeper into the park; they would be out in the open until they hit the golf course. At the edge of the fairway, a row of trees ran parallel to a path that skirted a tall chain-link fence bordering the golf course.
“That path,” Tyree pointed far into the distance, “will take us all the way to the boats. The harbor is fenced; I don’t know if the gate will be closed, but it ain’t high. We can jump it if it is.”
Murphy looked out with the scope and pivoted, following the path. Then he handed the scope off to Stephens.
“See any of them?” Jacob asked.
Murphy shook his head. “No, but they’ll be there… hiding… waiting.”
Stephens collapsed the scope and handed it back to Tyree before pulling his rifle back into his shoulder. “How you want to do this, Sergeant?”
“Tyree, you lead. You run into anything, shoot it in the face. Stephens, we have the flanks; run alongside the fence—it’ll keep one side protected—get to the harbor, find something that floats. Jacob, how’s the hip?”
“I’ll live,” Jacob answered.
Murphy smiled. “I hope so. We’re running the entire way. One eight-minute mile and we’re on the water. Don’t stop; we have to stay ahead of them. If we get pinned down, they’ll mass on our position. We can’t afford to fight our way out of that.”
“Got it,” Jacob said. The rest nodded their heads.
Murphy pulled back the bolt on his rifle, locking it to the rear. He dropped the magazine and inserted several loose rounds from his pocket to top it off. Jacob watched the veteran soldier push on the rounds, then after reinserting the magazine, let the bolt go forward. Jacob mimicked Murphy’s actions and readied his own weapon.
Murphy looked up, grinning. “Good day for a boat trip. Tyree, whenever you’re ready,” Murphy said.
Tyree crawled forward through the crumbling barrier
