The Flood Read Free

He could see everyone wedged into the bench seats, trying to make the best of it inside the bouncing truck. A vehicle designed to survive the most massive IED explosions known to man was not, alas, known for the smoothness of its ride or suspension.
    But discomfort was perhaps about to become the least of their problems. The town up ahead, Berbera, had been home to nearly a quarter-million souls – now a quarter-million bodies. And while their new ride was probably the most invulnerable mode of transport yet created by man, that hadn’t prevented them from nearly getting wedged up and killed the last time they tried to surf through a tsunami of the dead.
    Noise shouted down from the gun turret. “Multiple targets, spanning ten and two o’clock, range two hundred and closing. Shall I engage?”
    Handon considered. “Conserve ammo,” he shouted back up. “Only engage thick concentrations, and only to our twelve .” Maybe the .50 could serve as sort of a long-range windshield wiper. Handon hoped so. He hoped they were learning something – they’d better be.
    He turned forward and climbed back into the passenger seat. The view from up here, particularly since Brady cleaned the windscreens, was pretty great – or would have been if the view itself hadn’t been so terrible. Berbera was clearly a shithole of the first order – and had been even before the fall. Handon figured that even to Reyes, who had worked as a bounty hunter in south-central LA, this probably looked like the asshole of the universe.
    Handon shook his head. Somalia had arguably been the most screwed-up place in the world, back before the fall. Arguably, it had also been the scene of the first battle of modern warfare, with the events of Black Hawk Down . So why was he not surprised that it had finally turned out be the starting point for the end of the world – and even less surprised it was where they had to go on what would almost certainly be their very last mission… to try and save what was left of the world.
    Sand-covered roads with no discernible curbs snaked through one-, two-, and three-story tan buildings, all of which squatted in brown dirt. A few of the structures looked kind of colonial, but others were mere shanties. Telephone poles and antennas dotted the landscape, though many were now horizontal after having come down during or after the fall. The city fronted the harbor – but it was a working port, industrial and not the least picturesque.
    The Apocalypse had of course provided dramatic accents to this tableau: burnt-out buildings, devoured bodies and bones on the ground, crap spilled and blowing everywhere – and, most conspicuous as well as dangerous, entire fleets of third-world vehicles jamming up Berbera’s roads and alleys.
    As usual, the operators were learning about the next threat only as it materialized. Very soon, Brady was taking them up onto shoulders, onto porches, and finally onto and over cars and trucks themselves, as he tried to negotiate the maze of narrow roads and abandoned vehicles. It was like everyone had tried to drive out of Berbera at once – and all failed.
    And now the stranded drivers and passengers were all stumbling around and converging on the MRAP, particularly as Noise started to put thunk-thunk -ing short bursts of .50-cal into the ones directly ahead. Their arrival was clearly the most exciting event in Berbera for ages, and everyone was coming out to see it.
    Handon clenched his jaw. They had to drive through the city center to get to the connecting highway that led south. There was no way around it. And by staying buttoned up in the vehicle they were “safe” – but they also risked finding themselves jammed up in another building, or tangle of vehicles. But he tried to count his blessings – thinking how very, very shitty it would have been to negotiate this labyrinth in a regular vehicle, or even a Humvee or up-armored SUV. At least they could bash through obstructions with the