Aliens Versus Zombies (18 page)

“Don’t shoot until they enter the house. No sense giving away our position. Wait for my command. Inside, we have the advantage of surprise. With luck, we can take them out before they call for backup.”

The group waited and watched. The tension grew as the aliens got closer and closer, shooting out streetlights and checking townhouse after townhouse.

They were models of efficiency. Kick in a door, charge inside, clear the house, and be back out front in less than a minute.

In a remarkably short time, they approached the house in which Daniels and his people hid.

“Get ready. Here they come,” he whispered.

Chrissy waited behind an overstuffed chair, with Moose and Taylor Hopkins behind the sofa. They wouldn’t provide much shielding against energy weapons, but they would hide the shooters for the moment it took to get off the first shot. Hopefully that would be enough. Each of them had perfect views of both the front door and the two windows. Daniels stood in the kitchen by the doorway that opened onto the hallway, with a direct line of fire to the front door. He could also turn and defend the back door.

They waited. And they waited. And they waited some more. It had been several minutes and the aliens should have been there already, going by their pattern of the past few townhouses.

Daniels whispered, “Moose! What do you see out there?”

Moose, nearest to the window, left his hiding place and ran to the wall beside the window. He pulled the curtain aside just enough to peek outside.

“Nuthin’. There’s no one there.”

“They’re next door, climbin’ over the back fence!” Jesse called from upstairs. “They musta seen some movement and skipped us to go there.”

“How many?”

“I see five.”

“Shit! They must have called the other group in. We were prepared to take on four of them, not nine. Okay, then. We don’t have any choice but to move in. Moose? You see anything out front now?”

“Yeah. The other four just charged outta the house across the street. I guess they was waitin’ for the others to show up.”

Daniels sighed. “Damn. Best laid plans. All right. As soon as they breech the front and back, we hit them from behind. Between those inside the other house and us, we should be able to catch the aliens between a rock and a hard place. Those of you upstairs, come on down and join those in the kitchen attacking the from back. Jesse, you and the rest of us will take the front. But be quiet. We don’t want to alert the aliens we’re coming until we hit them from behind. Wait for my signal.”

The signal wasn’t long in coming.

At the sound of glass shattering and the front door splintering, Daniels whispered, “Now!”

Five armed humans ran out the back door, and another five through the front door.

This was war, and it was going to be brutal.

BlexJasp squawked his communicator to signal the team in front of the building to attack. Almost simultaneously, the two teams blasted open the front and back doors and the patio door. The windows were too high for easy access.

BlexJasp burst through the back door into the kitchen and into a hell of a firefight. The snarling hairball with the unarmed indies in the tunnel was intense, but this took intense to a whole new level.

The smoke grenades fired through the windows had turned the interior almost black. They still had their gas masks from earlier, so it didn’t bother them. But from the coughing inside, it sure bothered the indies.

As soon as he and his men entered they were subjected to a barrage of small arms fire. It couldn’t penetrate their body armor, but their exposed flesh was fair game. Several took hits to the arms and legs. Maybe the indies couldn’t see worth a damn, due to the smoke, but they knew where the soldiers were coming from. Even firing blind, it was hard to miss. A bullet blew out the throat of one soldier, severing an artery and spraying blood everywhere. The blood coated the facemask of the soldier next to him, blinding him until he could wipe it off.

Muzzle flashes revealed the locations of the indies. The soldiers took full advantage of that, firing blast after blast in their directions. Several screams attested to the effectiveness of the return fire.

A shotgun blast from close range threw BlexJasp backward. His body armor stopped the pellets, except for one that hit him in the armpit. It hurt like a demon, but wasn’t debilitating.

Within seconds, the resistance from inside was down to only two. It wouldn’t be long.

Suddenly, the smoke lit up from multiple muzzle flashes—except these came from
behind
. BlexJasp turned and was hit by two high-velocity rifle rounds at close range. His armor, primarily designed to block energy bolts, couldn’t do much against the force of the rifle rounds. They tore up his insides and threw him onto his back. He would have been dead within minutes, but then another shot caught him in the chin and blew out the top of his brain.

The indie reinforcements made quick work of the rest of BlexJasp’s men.

Final score for the day: Alien soldiers down: sixty-seven. Humans: nineteen.

* * * *

Daniels let out a deep breath. The smoke had dissipated quickly with all the doors and windows blown in—or, in some cases, blown out—and the strong breeze still pelted everyone outside with rain.

He surveyed the devastation. He and Geoff’s people in the third townhouse had arrived almost simultaneously. With all the humans inside the house either dead or hiding low to the ground, the twenty-two men and women outside could fire at anything they saw move with impunity. Within second, the aliens had taken over a hundred rounds between them. Some missed, some deflected off their helmets or body armor, but enough found their marks that the fight was over within thirty seconds.

Between the rounds fired from both inside and out, and the alien blasts, the walls were shredded in places, wall studs were blown in two, and there were even two large holes in the ceiling exposing the rooms upstairs. In one case, the ceiling rafter was splintered. It was a wonder the whole structure wasn’t about to collapse.

Not that Daniels cared about the building. It was the twelve dead that hurt. Only two survived.

Maybe if he’d given the order to attack a few seconds sooner or fired upon the soldiers before they breeched the building, more would have lived.

Then again, maybe the soldiers would have been able to hunker down and keep them pinned inside the three townhouses until reinforcements arrived and killed them all.

Come to think of it…

“We’d better get a move on, people. I know we all need time to grieve, and I hate like hell leaving our friends and family members behind, but the aliens might have called for reinforcements before they attacked. We might only have minutes before they get here. We have to head for the place Geoff’s people found yesterday. It’s only another mile or so up the road. Grab your stuff and let’s go. We’ll have to stay off the roads, so it’ll be slow going. Use whatever cover you can find. Try not to be visible for long.”

And then there were thirty.

It wasn’t much of an army with which to try to save the world from both aliens and Zoms.

* * * *

Minutes later, the battle pod landed and the pilot opened the ramp in the back of the pod from within the cockpit, leaving the engines running. Two soldiers carried the first unconscious indigene down the ramp and dumped him on his back. He would wake shortly and the symptoms should manifest themselves by then. It was expected that he would make contact with other indigenes before the day was out.

It didn’t really matter whether he rejoined his own pack, or was killed by a rival pack and eaten. Either way, he would infect others. Hell, if he drowned in the rain, with his mouth open like that, and got eaten, it was just as good.

Fifteen of the twenty-three test subjects would be released outside the city in various areas where indigenes had been spotted in groups. The other eight would be released in parts of the city outside the protective barrier.

Within a day or two, the hyperallergy should have infected a significant percentage of the indigene population.

A few days after that, most of them would be dead.

Tomorrow, after the infernal rain stopped, they would begin darting “wild” indies with more of the virus to increase the exposure.

The pilot smiled. “Sometimes the ground-pounders have all the fun. Then again, they don’t get to do this.”

He raised the ramp, pumped the throttle, raised the ship to three hundred vorspeds elevation, and headed for the next drop zone.

* * * *

Commander FronCar was livid. “What do you
mean
a platoon is missing? Fifty-seven men can’t just disappear!”

He and his second-in-command, Battle Subcommander JesBronn, sat in FronCar’s quarters.

“It’s worse, sir,” JesBronn replied, “The platoon was looking for an enhanced squad that disappeared earlier.”

“Are you trying to tell me that we managed to lose
eighty-four
highly trained men?”

“No, sir, only sixty-seven.”

“Oh, ‘only’ sixty-seven.” FronCar’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “How nice. How in MemKar’s Pit did that happen, and why is it that I’m just hearing about this now?”

“Sir, when the enhanced squad of twenty-seven went missing, it was thought to be a run-in with the indigenes gone wrong. So, Regulator BlexJasp went after them with a platoon. He filed a report before he left, but with no urgency attached. He expected to return in a few hours. It wasn’t until hours later, when Subregulator FligJeen returned with sixteen men, that anyone realized BlexJasp and the rest of his platoon hadn’t returned or even checked in. His commanding officer, Unit Commander GlebTorl, debriefed FligJeen and learned that the platoon had chased suspected indigenes through a building and down to a subterranean transport tunnel. At that point, BlexJasp directed that FligJeen and half the surviving men pursue the suspected indigenes one way, while he and the other half went the other way.”

“’Surviving men’? And you keep saying ‘suspected’ indigenes. Why?”

“I asked him the same thing. He said that while they never actually saw any indigenes, there were booby traps set throughout the building that killed most of the men.”

FronCar pursed his lips in anger. “MemKar save us from incompetence. So, the other half of the ‘survivors’ of the booby-traps went the other way down the tunnel and disappeared into the mists, as it were. Is that the gist of it?”

“Yes, sir. GlebTorl was concerned that if he sent another platoon after the men that disappeared, the same fate might befall them as well. He contacted me for orders, and I thought you would want to know what is happening there.”

FronCar nodded. “Thank you, JesBronn. You were right to tell me. It looks like I’d better get back down there and find out what in MemKar’s Pit is going on.”

* * * *

The next morning, after the rain had gone and with it the pollen that had dusted all exposed surfaces, the air had the aroma of fresh growing things. It was barely dawn when Amanda led Uncle Jay by the hand through the open door. The other Zoms followed.

“Do you remember how to spell shoe?” she asked.

“Ess-aitchh-ohhh-wee.”

“That’s right! Okay, today we’re all gonna get new shoes. This is a shoe store, but we don’t have to pay anymore.” She grinned as if they’d all understand the joke.

Although the store had been looted, like most others, there wasn’t as much demand for new shoes as there was for food and medicines. Many of the shelves were still full.

Most of the Zoms were barefoot, having worn through or lost their shoes over the past year and a half. Thick callouses helped but didn’t replace shoes when it came to walking across broken glass. Most of The Pack had scars on their feet from previous wounds.

“Okay, everybody, let’s find you some shoes!” She led Uncle Jay to the men’s section and left him there while she took Aunt Suzi to the women’s section.

“Okay, look for shoes in your size,” she announced to The Pack, or at least the eleven who were left after various battles with other packs and the golden people.

The Zoms stood around, not sure what they were supposed to do.

“Here, let me show you, Uncle Jay.” She pointed to a box with size nine shoes.

He took it down and handed it to her.

She opened it and took out a shoe. “Here, try this on.” She pantomimed pulling on the shoe.

Jay tried to put his bare foot inside, while the others watched. It wouldn’t fit.

“Okay, try that one, the one with a 10 on the box.” She pointed.

“Tehhn.” He reached for the box and then opened it.

“That’s right. Try it on.”

He did, and this time he got his foot in.

“Can you wiggle your toes?”

“Toes. Tee-ohhh-eee-essss. Toes.”

“That’s right! Can you wiggle them? Like this.” She took off her shoes and torn socks and demonstrated.”

Jay shook his head.

“Okay, let’s try a 10 ½. That one.” She pointed.

He took down the box and tried the shoe on for size. It fit. He grinned. “Wih-gul.”

“That’s great. Now can you tie the shoelace?”

He stared at her. “T-tye?”

“Like this.” She demonstrated how to do it, with the bunny rabbit going around and into the hole, but he didn’t get it.

“That’s okay. They have loafers, too. That one.”

This time, he got the shoe on and when it fit he didn’t have to mess with shoelaces. He put on the matching shoe and walked around in them.

“Shoooos!” He grinned at the others, who then set about ransacking the store looking for loafers that fit their filthy feet.

“Hmm,” Amanda said. “Maybe we better look for some socks, too.”

* * * *

BlexJasp’s replacement, Platoon Regulator MorvPlen, rode in the back of the vehicle with his men. He felt he got a better idea of what the men went through than if he sat inside the vehicle all day with just the driver. That, and he wanted a crack at the filthy indigenes.

By this time, news of what had happened to BlexJasp and the others had spread throughout the soldiers groundside. They all seethed with anger and looked forward to the chance to kill as many indies as possible.

If MorvPlen couldn’t get a crack at the actual indies who killed all those men, including his friend ChibNorl, at least he could take pleasure in darting other indies with the virus that would ultimately kill untold millions of them.

And here comes three of them.

He stood and raised the dart gun to his shoulder.