Rotters: Bravo Company by Carl R Cart Read Free Book Online Page B

boots.
    “Let’s just find a place to hide for a while, and get some fucking rest,” Hard-on suggested.
    “I’m not walkin around no more,” Gunner agreed. 
    “Cool by me,” I said. “I don’t think I can get in any more trouble than I’m already in.”
     
    We found a tightly packed clump of smaller trees and squeezed inside the tiny clearing between them. Each of us claimed a trunk to lean back against. I sank down on my ass with my rifle across my knees and gratefully closed my eyes.
    We probably should have set a guard.

REPORT FROM COLONEL WARREN, MEDICAL CO BRAVO
     
    COMPUTER RECORDS AND INITIAL ANALYSIS DATA FROM COLONEL ORTEGA ’S UNIT RECOVERED. TO BE FORWARDED
    AS ANALYZED. CANNOT CONFIRM ORTEGA ’S HYPOTHESIS WITHOUT CULTURES.
     
    ALL MEDICAL PERSONNEL MISSING ASSUMED KIA. SOME HUMAN REMAINS RECOVERED, STILL UNIDENTIFIED.
     
    BODY OF SPECIALIST THOMAS BRADFORD RECOVERED. BRADFORD TESTS POSITIVE FOR UNIDENTIFIED VIRUS AND SUFFERED SERVERE DAMAGE, POSSIBLE CANNIBILIZATION?
     
    VIRUS CAUSES EXTREME MODIFICATIONS TO HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY, CANNOT FORWARD DETAILS WITHOUT FURTHER
    VERIFICATION OF ANALYSIS.
     
    TRANSMISSION ENDS
    COLONEL WARREN, USARMY MEDICAL CORP
     

Chapter 6
    12:02 p.m. Zulu
    The Congo
    Africa
    I’m not sure how long I was out, but something woke me up just in time. I heard a low moaning noise dimly through my mask and hood. I rubbed the lenses of my gas mask to clear them. Something was reaching for me through the trees.
    One of the infected villagers was grasping for me with one outstretched arm. I was mere inches from his struggling, blackened fingertips. The man had wedged his bloated belly between two of the tree trunks we had climbed over to get into our hiding place. Gunner and Hard-on were still out cold.
    I kicked them awake.
    Gunner practically climbed his tree, screaming in Spanish. Hard-on didn’t panic quite as badly, but he wasn’t too happy either. I moved away from the thing as far as I could. 
    We all watched the man struggle to reach us. If a skinny villager had found us we would have been fucked. This guy wasn’t as bad as the pepperoni man, but he wasn’t going to win any beauty contests either. He had several nasty wounds on his arms, shoulders, neck and face. They were all crusted with dried black blood. I pointed out that they all looked suspiciously like bite marks. His eyes were a nasty, filmed over yellow color; they looked like a dead man’s eyes. Every soldier who had ever killed a man knew those eyes. He had collected a few hundred flies of his own. We couldn’t smell him through the masks, but I was willing to bet he smelled bad; dipped in shit, three days dead, stinky, triple fucked, Ugandan whorehouse pussy bad. 
     
    “This shit’s getting way out of hand,” Hard-on observed once he calmed down enough to speak coherently.
    I talked Gunner down and we discussed what to do.
    “Let’s get the fuck gone out of here, before it gets loose,” Gunner suggested.
    “Now, wait a minute,” I said thoughtfully. “We should take this fucker back to camp.”
    “No, that is a very bad idea,” Gunner replied.
    “No, it is a good idea, and let me tell you why,” I began. “If we turn this poor bastard over to the colonel, maybe he’ll finally figure out what’s going on out here. Maybe he’ll find an antidote. Hell, maybe he’ll pull his head out of his ass and realize that the people we were sent here to save are all dead, and then we can get the fuck outta here!” 
    “I don’t know,” Hard-on said slowly.
    “This one will be easy,” I pointed out. “He’s already half way in the bag.”
    They finally agreed to help me.
     
    Gunner kept his attention while Hard-on and I climbed out of the trees on the other side of the grove. It looked clear, so we crept around to the struggling villager’s ass end. I held his feet together while Hard-on wrapped his ankles in duct tape. I climbed up on top of him and used the rifle sling trick to secure