Jeffcott stared in horror through the clear visor of his gas mask as the poison, or infection or whatever raced up Sarah's arms making her smooth, brown skin blister and turn red. "We gotta get her to the doctor!" he cried.

  Archie had found a bottle of medicinal alcohol and had wetted a cloth with it. He tried to grab one of Sarah's hands to wipe the dust from it but she was thrashing around as her agony grew worse and fought him off. Jeffcott and Brooks helped try to restrain her and for a moment they succeeded. With Jeffcott wrapping his arms around her chest, pinning her arms to her sides, and with Brooks holding her left arm, Archie was able to hold her right arm still enough to wipe her palm with the alcohol-soaked cloth. Sarah cried out as it stung her and and Jeffcott winced with sympathy as he held on tighter.

  "Report," Daniels was saying into the radio, meanwhile. "Did everyone get their masks on in time?"

  "Sharples here, Sir," a voice replied. "Some of our people were still putting on their masks when the dust came in through the gun ports. We don't know if they were infected..."

  "Benny's infected," said another voice in the background. "McCoy too."

  "Maybe it's just a small dose," another voice added. "Right, Benny? You okay?"

  "I'm not feeling too good either," said another voice, sounding scared. "Got a burning in my chest. Like heartburn, but worse."

  Then the voices from the speakers were driven from their minds, though, as Sarah gave a sudden convulsion that threw the three men away from her. Jeffcott lurched forward to grab her again, but the look on her face made him freeze in surprise and fear. She was staring at him with feral fury, her eyes blazing with rage, and then she ripped off her gas mask before leaping at him, reaching out with hands that were hooked like claws and with jaws wide as she prepared to tear his flesh open with her teeth.

  Jeffcott staggered back, and then he was trying to hold her back with his hands on her shoulders as she scratched and bit like a wild animal. Archie and Brooks reached out to pull her off him, but then she turned on them, attacking them with the same fury she'd aimed at the physicist.

  "She's crazy!" said Archie as he struggled to hold her clawed fingers away from his face. Spittle flew onto the visor of his gas mask as she snarled and spat at him.

  "Get some zip ties," said Brooks as he pulled her off the smaller man. He pointed at an equipment box stowed under one of the seats and Jeffcott pulled it out. He opened it, took out a bundle of heavg duty zip ties, pulled one out and handed it to the larger man. Between the three of them they managed to get her wrists together and then Brooks wrapped the tie around it, pulling it tight.

  A couple of moments later they had her restrained in one of the chairs, struggling and snarling furiously, but sounds coming over the radio told them that the other vehicles were having similar problems. "Hold him down!" someone was shouting. "Gill, watch yourself!"

  "He's as strong as an ox," said someone else, his voice grunting with effort.

  "Don't let him pull your mask off!"

  There was a cry of pain followed by a loud curse. "Shit! That hurts!"

  "Cover that wound before the dust gets in," one of the previous voices said, and then it degenerated into a wild babble in which none of the individual scared, angry voices could be heard. Jeffcott looked at the Captain and saw him staring at the speaker grill helplessly, completely lost for a solution to the madness that had engulfed them.

  One of the screens lit up with a line of text, labelled as coming from Doctor Dogo in one of the APC's. "We have sedatives," the text said. "Will sedate victims."

  "No!" cried Daniels before remembering that the doctor couldn't hear him over the babble. He typed into a keyboard, therefore, and Jeffcott leaned forward to see what he was writing. "Stay in your vehicle. Don't risk getting exposed."

  The clamour from the other vehicles was getting worse, though, and the sounds of struggle and fury were being added to by sounds of pain. Jeffcott heard the words 'bit me!' coming from someone, and then came the sound of gunshots. The Captain sat forward in his seat, his eyes staring in alarm. "Who's shooting?" he demanded. "No shooting in the vehicles."

  Then, in one of the viewscreens, Jeffcott saw the hatch of one of the Rhinos open and mad, deranged people come stumbling out. They all had red, blistered skin and a look of wild fury in their eyes. They ran for the other vehicles and pulled at the doorhandles. They almost got the door of Rhino two open but the men inside pulled it shut. With more people outside trying to open it than there were people inside trying to close it, though, they were unable to get it all the way closed so that they could lock it. The infected soldiers threw the door open and threw themselves towards the opening but the men inside fired their handguns at them. The infected men fell back and the men inside pulled the door closed.

  "Guess we lost everyone in Rhino one," said Brooks in flat horror, but then, as a gap opened in the clouds of dust still billowing across the street , they saw a man from inside reach out to pull the door closed again. There was blood dripping from his hand, though, and his sleeve was torn. The four men in the rear compartment of MCV one looked at each other silently, none of them wanting to say what they were all thinking. If the dust could get in through broken skin then that man was infected and would soon be as mad as the others.

  Jeffcott looked down at the scratches Sarah had given him. He was relieved to see that, although she had scored his skin, she hadn't drawn blood. He grabbed Archie's alcohol-soaked cloth and wiped himself down with it anyway, just to be sure, before turning his attention back to the viewscreens.

  More vehicles had their doors open, he saw, and crazed soldiers were pulling at the doors of the other vehicles or hammering on their armoured sides with bleeding fists. "We must have lost half the men," said Archie. He was trembling, Jeffcott saw, like an alcoholic in the throes of withdrawal. He looked at if he was about to faint. Jeffcott himself was finding it hard to think coherently as his brain refused to acknowledge the enormity of what was happening. In his mind he was still seeing the crazed man who'd been trying to get into Rhino two being thrown back as bullets tore into his body. He wondered if he'd have that vision in his head for the rest of his life.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  "Have to do something," said the Captain as he stared ahead at nothing. "Have to do something." He leaned closer to the microphone. "Place the infected under restraint," he said in a trembling voice. "At all costs avoid getting bitten or scratched." Jeffcott doubted that anyone in the other vehicles could hear him in the pandemonium that still reigned everywhere.

  "They're already doing that," said Brooks with sympathy.

  "Then what do you suggest we do?" demanded the Captain, and Jeffcott was horrified to see that there were tears running down his cheeks. "What do you suggest we do? What can we do? God, what can we do?"

  Gradually, though, the clamour coming from the speakers was dying down. "Tie him down," they heard someone say. "Watch he doesn't bite you."

  "I'm bleeding," someone else said. "What do I do?"

  "I'm sorry," the first person replied. "We're going to have to tie you down too."

  "But I feel fine! I promise! I feel fine!"

  The sound of struggle that followed was half hearted, though, as if the unfortunate man knew that the others could do nothing else. Jeffcott wondered what that must be like, to know that you were about to lost your mind and become a rabid animal and that there wasn't anything you could do about it

  "Fuck those creatures!" he said, his voice full of venom. "Fuck them to hell."

  "Amen to that," said Archie. "I wonder how many men we got left?"

  "If those creatures should attack now..." said Brooks.

  "Their biochemistry is the same as ours," Jeffcott replied. "The dust would probably have the same effect on them as on us. That's probably why we haven't seen any of them. They pulled back to escape the dust."

  "Then the Furnace is unguarded," said Archie, looking up hopefully. "We can drive right up and blow the thing without opposition."

  "Some of our vehicles don't have drivers," pointed out Brooks, though. "And we're all tethered together with big, heavy chains. We need to put drivers aboard the vehicles without them."

  "Or just cut them loose," suggested Archie. "Just cut the chains and leave them behind."

  Daniels was talking into the radio again, though. He seemed to be pulling himself together now that he had something to do. "All vehicles," he said. "Report numbers of infected and uninfected. Anyone with an open, bleeding wound is to be considered infected and restrained immediately."

  "Stryker one," a voice replied. "We're all okay. We got our masks on in time."

  "Strtker two, the same," another voice said. "All okay here."

  "Rhino one," said a weak, trembling voice. "I'm the only one left and... I'm hurt. I can feel it inside me, like rats gnawing at my brain. Oh God... I can feel it..." The voice mercifully broke off, but then Jeffcott saw the vehicle's door opening again and a man come stumbling out, a wild look in his eyes. Jeffcott looked across at Sarah, still snarling, her eyes blazing with hatred as she struggled against her restraints.

  One by one the other vehicles reported in. The crew of MCV two had also escaped, they learned, as had the doctors, nurses and patients of the two M113's. Archie looked relieved to hear that Bird had escaped infection. The man was sitting up and talking, they learned, and might have been allowed to return to his MCV before long, with a bandage covering his face. Now, though, everyone was sitting tight until they had a clearer idea what the situation was.

  The four Rhinos had all been hit hard, though. Someone had decided, for what must have seemed a good reason at the time, that their gas masks should all be stored in a single cabinet at one end of the vehicle and it had taken time to pass them down to the people at the other end. Those people had all been infected and had inflicted serious bites and scratches on the others before they could be restrained. Only the crew of Rhino Four had coped with the attack, with two infected men being overpowered and restrained before they could harm anyone. The other three Rhinos, a total of sixty men, were total losses, with those still alive now wandering mindlessly around the stationary convoy as they tried to get in.

  "Half," said the Captain numbly. His face was pale, Jeffcott saw, and covered with perspiration. He looked like a man who'd been shot in the gut. "Half the men. Lost. Half the men..."

  "Captain," said Brooks softly. "Captain, we have to go on. We have to complete the mission."

  "I know that, damn you." He turned on the radio again. "Rhino four, send men to take control of the other Rhinos. Make ready to get under way."

  "There's dozens of crazies out there," a voice replied.

  "Don't call them that, Corporal," snapped the Captain. "Those are soldiers of the United States army. They are to be spoken of with respect."

  "They'll tear us apart if we go out there," the Corporal replied. "The only way to get to the other Rhinos is to shoot our way through the... The infected."

  "Absolutely not!" cried the Captain. "They're... They're just ill. They can be treated. Cured."

  "No," said Jeffcott, though. "I don't think they can. Look at her." He indicated Sarah, whose skin was continuing to blister and swell. There was nothing human left in her eyes. "Whatever that dust did to her, I don't think there's any coming back from it. She's gone. They're all gone."

  "Are you a doctor?" asked the Captain.

  "You don't have to be a doctor to see..."

  "Are you a doctor?" the Captain repeated. "They are men under my command and I will not tolerate the brutal murder of loyal US troops."

  "I am a doctor," said the voice that Jeffcott recognised as belonging to Doctor Dogo. "I haven't had a chance to examine an infected man yet, but I can see them wandering around outside and I concur with Mister Jeffcott's assessment. I believe they have suffered irreversible brain damage. There's nothing we or anyone can do for them."

  "When you have a chance to examine them properly you might change your diagnosis," said the Captain.

  "I don't believe so. Their symptoms are similar to those of Agent Red poisoning, which destroys the..."

  "This conversation is over," the Captain insisted. "I've made my decision."

  "Then how are the men going to get to the other Rhinos?" asked Brooks.

  "We'll think of something."

  "What?" Brooks insisted. "What will we think of?" When the Captian had no answer Brooks reached across to put a hand on his arm. "It's okay," he said. "It's okay."

  Daniels brushed the man's hand away angrily. "Dammit!" he said. "Don't you dare patronise me!"

  "We've got to do something," said Brooks, settling back in his seat. "And while we're thinking, we're wasting time. Those creatures could be back any time, and we've got no more shells for the Strykers. To get to the Furnace we'll have to fight our way in on foot with explosives. We have to do that before an army of ten thousand creatures arrives to guard it."

  The Captain ran a trembling hand through his hair. Then he sat back and closed his eyes, looking tormented by the terrible choice he had to make. Then his eyes opened, though, and he turned on the radio again. "Rhino four," he said. "Send people to take control of the other Rhinos. Take... Take whatever measures you deem necessary to get there safely."

  "Including lethal force?" asked the Corporal.

  "Yes dammit! That includes lethal force."

  "Acknowledged."

  The radio fell silent. A moment later Jeffcott saw the door of the Rhino open and men carrying machine guns step warily out.