sjar Chapter 219: The Night Burns
Chapter 219: The Night Burns
North of San Fernando, Pampanga, another Tomahawk missile screamed across the night sky.
Its turbofan engine roared as it skimmed over forests and abandoned highways.
The missile’s terrain-following radar guided it through the darkness.
Its target.
A massive concentration of infected trapped between two collapsed bridges.
Nearly fifty thousand of them.
The drone feed showed bodies packed together so densely that the thermal image looked like a solid white mass.
The Predator operator swallowed.
"Missile thirty seconds out."
Inside Basa’s command center, dozens of eyes watched the live feed.
The horde kept moving.
Thousands climbing over thousands.
Bodies packed shoulder to shoulder.
Then—
The Tomahawk arrived.
BOOOOOOM.
The center of the horde disappeared.
A fireball hundreds of meters wide erupted into the sky.
The explosion flattened nearby buildings.
Vehicles flew through the air.
The shockwave rolled outward like a tidal wave.
Thousands of infected ceased to exist.
The drone feed shook violently.
The operator zoomed back in.
A massive crater had appeared.
Hundreds of bodies burned inside it.
Thousands more lay scattered around it.
Yet movement still remained.
The analyst stared.
"...How are there still zombies?"
Nobody answered.
Because nobody knew.
Near Outpost Echo.
The ground shook again.
Then again.
Then again.
The night sky continuously flashed orange.
It looked like a thunderstorm.
Except every flash meant something exploded.
Corporal Daniel Santos continued firing his M240.
BRRRRRRT.
The machine gun hammered the advancing infected.
The barrel smoked.
His gloves were black with carbon.
His shoulders ached.
His ears rang continuously.
Yet he never stopped.
Because he couldn’t.
The infected were still there.
A hundred meters.
Eighty.
Sixty.
The dead formed hills.
Literal hills.
The corpses had piled so high against the defensive berm that new infected were climbing atop their dead comrades.
One soldier looked over the sandbags.
Then immediately ducked.
"Holy shit!"
A massive cluster of fast variants burst from the smoke.
There had to be hundreds.
They sprinted through the corpses.
Leaping.
Climbing.
Running.
Daniel immediately traversed the machine gun.
"RUNNERS!"
BRRRRRRT.
The stream of fire tore into the charging creatures.
The first ranks collapsed.
The second ranks jumped over them.
The third ranks kept coming.
A rifle squad joined in.
M4 carbines cracked continuously.
The darkness lit up with muzzle flashes.
Bodies dropped.
Yet more kept appearing.
Then—
THUMP.
THUMP.
THUMP.
An Mk19 grenade launcher fired.
Forty-millimeter grenades landed directly inside the charging mass.
The explosions shredded the variants.
Blood and body parts filled the air.
The survivors stumbled.
Then died beneath machine-gun fire.
The attack collapsed.
For now.
One exhausted rifleman breathed heavily.
"I hate those things."
Daniel nodded.
"Me too."
Then another infected climbed over the corpses.
They opened fire again.
Twenty kilometers away.
An M1 Abrams tank platoon continued advancing.
The tanks no longer fought for territory.
They fought for space.
Every kilometer gained bought the defenders more time.
Inside the lead tank, Sergeant Ramirez stared through his thermal sight.
The battlefield looked impossible.
Thousands of glowing shapes moved across the display.
Everywhere.
No empty ground.
No breaks.
Just infected.
The tank commander pointed.
"Front. Three hundred meters."
The gunner saw them.
A huge concentration moving through an open field.
The commander spoke.
"Canister."
The loader immediately rammed the round into the breech.
"Up."
"Fire."
BOOM.
The tank recoiled.
The canister round exploded.
Hundreds of steel balls blasted outward like a gigantic shotgun.
The effects were horrifying.
The front ranks disappeared.
Bodies exploded apart.
Limbs flew.
Entire sections of the horde collapsed.
The coaxial machine gun immediately opened fire.
BRRRRRRT.
The tank commander keyed the radio.
"Second Platoon, engage left sector."
A voice answered.
"Copy."
Then the darkness exploded.
Multiple tank guns fired simultaneously.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
Gigantic muzzle flashes illuminated the countryside.
Canister rounds ripped through the infected.
The open field became a slaughterhouse.
Yet somehow—
Movement continued.
Sergeant Ramirez slowly lowered his binoculars.
"I’ve officially run out of words."
Nobody inside the tank disagreed.
Far above Pampanga.
Specter One remained on station.
The AC-130 had become one of the most important assets on the battlefield.
Unlike fighters, it could stay.
Unlike bombers, it could adjust.
It simply circled endlessly above the burning province.
A sensor operator suddenly pointed.
"Large movement."
The thermal display updated.
Thousands of infected had bypassed the destroyed highways.
They were moving through farmland now.
Across irrigation canals.
Rice fields.
Open terrain.
The officer frowned.
"They’re adapting."
The fire control officer looked up.
"Not adapting."
He pointed.
"Following."
The infected were still moving toward Basa.
Nothing changed that.
The roads had slowed them.
Not stopped them.
The officer grabbed the intercom.
"New target package."
The pilot nodded.
The AC-130 banked.
The 105mm howitzer lined up.
BOOM.
The shell landed.
A huge section of the field erupted.
Bodies flew.
The cannon fired again.
BOOM.
Then again.
BOOM.
The explosions walked through the horde.
Hundreds died.
Then hundreds more.
The gunship switched to its 30mm cannon.
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP.
The rounds shredded everything still moving.
The attack continued for nearly three minutes.
Then the operator checked the results.
The horde had taken catastrophic losses.
Yet it still existed.
The officer sighed.
"I’m starting to think there are infinite zombies."
Several hundred kilometers offshore.
The destroyers were not finished.
Far from it.
Inside one Combat Information Center, new target coordinates arrived.
The task force commander looked at the display.
Thousands of red markers.
Again.
Another officer looked up.
"We still have missiles."
The commander nodded.
"Then use them."
The launch order spread.
Again.
Vertical launch cells opened.
Again.
Missiles erupted from the decks.
Again.
The ocean breathed fire.
WHOOSH.
WHOOSH.
WHOOSH.
The night sky filled with flames.
Another salvo of Tomahawks accelerated toward Luzon.
Sailors watched in silence.
One young seaman looked toward the horizon.
"How many missiles have we launched?"
A petty officer looked at the tally.
Then blinked.
"...A lot."
Nobody laughed.
Because everyone knew this was no ordinary operation.
This was national survival.
Human survival.
Everything depended on the lines holding.
Everything depended on Basa surviving.
Because if Basa fell—
One of humanity’s strongest bastions would disappear.
And nobody wanted to imagine what happened after that.
Back in Pampanga.
The second naval strike arrived.
The first Tomahawk slammed into an abandoned town packed with infected.
BOOOOOOM.
Buildings vanished.
The second missile hit an elevated highway.
The entire structure collapsed.
Thousands disappeared beneath concrete.
The third missile struck an enormous concentration moving through rice fields.
A gigantic fireball climbed into the sky.
The explosion illuminated half the province.
The ground shook.
Every soldier felt it.
Every pilot saw it.
Every infected died beneath it.
And still—
The drone feeds continued updating.
More movement.
More concentrations.
More red icons.
Inside the command center, an analyst slowly looked up.
His face had gone pale.
"What now?"
Adrian looked toward him.
"This is what we have to do, cull their numbers with all means necessary."