They nodded their agreement.
"Remember this, your lives are worth more than hers. If it comes to sacrificing yourself or saving that woman, you are ordered… you hear me? Ordered!... to not sacrifice yourselves."
They nodded their heads, but he knew the decision they would make. It was who they were, but maybe they'd at least think twice before putting themselves at risk.
"Alright, get your asses out of here. You got some ground to cover."
They gathered their gear, and Tejada watched them leave, hoping that he would see all three of them back safely.
"Masterson, Rudy, you're on guard duty."
Tejada crawled back into his sleeping bag and counted dead soldiers until he fell back asleep.
****
Allen led the way with Brown and Epps following.
"Why'd you have to say 'Epps?' Why couldn't you have said Masterson?" Epps complained.
They crunched through the broken snow wake of the woman, moving quickly along her tracks. The world through the night-vision goggles was a green haze. He could see the dead moving along with them. The soldiers hopped the wrought-iron fence around the office building, and then they trucked ahead, outpacing the dead easily.
"Masterson's not fast enough," Allen said.
"Remind me to eat as much fatty shit as I can," Brown said, "so I don't get chosen for this bullshit again. I'm freezing my balls off, man."
Allen heard their complaints. He felt them in his own chest. The cold, the fear of the dark, the chance that they might not make it back, they were all there. They were all real. His head scanned repeatedly from side to side, scanning the environment around them. His lack of peripheral vision due to the goggles was maddening.
"If you're cold, all the more reason to move faster. You'll heat up quicker that way."
The dead moaned around them as they moved through the night. The dead in the distance didn't seem to notice them as easily as they did during the day. That meant they had the advantage over the Annies at night. It was good to have an advantage for once.
His breath plumed in front of him, lime-green. He was sweating now, but it was a good thing. His body was warmer. The Annies ahead were facing away from him, following the same trail that they followed.
"Got a couple up ahead," he said. "Brown, you take the one on the right. I'll take the one on the left." They moved towards the Annies, getting within three feet before the dead reacted to the crunch of snow.
Allen swung his hatchet and buried the blade in the side of an Annie's rotten face. It fell to the ground, still. He turned his head to the right to see Brown trying to pull his own hatchet free from the corpse at his feet. The momentary pause had brought some of the Annies closer to them. Allen looked behind him. When they tried to return to their home base, they were going to have to lose their tail. Still, it ought to be easier to lose them in the dark than it was during the day.
He pulled his hatchet free, the blood looking like oil in the night-vision goggles' display. "Let's move," Allen said, and they were galloping, dodging the dead, their breathing rasping in their ears as Allen pushed the pace. He wasn't the fastest of the soldiers, but he could move when he had to. He was slowed some by the view of the world through the night-vision goggles. They made his progress awkward, and though he was seeing a fairly good representation of the world around him, it was off in an almost imperceptible manner. He didn't trust his steps, didn't trust that split-second delay if he were to move at full speed.
Soon, they came upon the end of another tail, this one presumably that of the woman. They were spread out, the Annies at the end losing interest in the dark.
"Let's flank 'em," Allen said. There wasn't any sense in going through the entire tail to protect the woman leading it. They could move around to the side and pick off anything that got too close to the woman.
Brown and Epps followed his lead as they rushed behind an office building, sprinting to get ahead of the tail. Wherever the woman was going, she was going to bring a world of hurt down on whoever was waiting at the end of her rainbow. They emerged from behind the building, and in the distance, he could see the woman pushing ahead, her steps stumbling and clumsy. The dead forged on behind her, just as clumsy. But the dead didn't tire. They didn't give up.
The woman must be exhausted. The detail of the night-vision goggles wasn't great, but he could see her breath pluming into the cold, night air. He could see the shine of her sweat-covered face. Her bare scalp steamed in the night. She had been on the move all day, and now she was flagging. She had pushed herself to the limit, and she was going to pay for it.
"Alright, get my back," he said. Brown and Epps stood back to back behind him. There were only a handful of Annies in their immediate vicinity, certainly
