Apocalypse Atlanta (30 page)

They stayed on line for another minute, maybe a little longer, then the mass of flesh was within fifteen feet of them and seemed almost undepleted.  Ragged, battered, tattered; but still intact and continuing to press north.  He shot steadily, still not really focusing on his aim beyond ensuring the rounds were sent into the approaching mass, then would reload and resume.  Finally Peter felt the driver hit him on the leg, and dropped back into the seat.

“Pulling back?” he half shouted.

“Yeah.”

Peter turned and managed to get the attention of the backseaters, the two door gunners pulling back inside after the machine gunner dropped away from the mount and sat staring numbly through the windshield.  Patting his pouch, Peter realized he had shot through half his ammo already.  It wasn’t like he’d been issued a proper patrol load; they weren’t expecting combat.  He put a new magazine in his weapon, then jabbed a finger at the shaken Vorees.  “Crawl into the back, hand up some more mags.” he ordered sharply.

She blinked, transferred her far away stare to him, then turned and eeled over the backseat and into the cargo space at the far back of the vehicle.  Their gear was back there, mostly tools and stuff, but also the packs that had not been needed until now.  They needed them now, or at least the extra ammunition that was supposed to be in them, and Peter watched a moment as she grabbed the first one and started opening flaps.

“Bravo Mary, leapfrog back.”  Foreman’s voice ordered from the radio, and Peter grabbed the back of his seat as the driver accelerated smoothly backwards.

“When we’re up again you get on the mount.” Peter told Hanover, the Guardsman behind him, who looked a little dazed, but otherwise seemed to be tracking properly.  The man nodded, and Peter watched him pull his door closed and jam his weapon in between it and the seat before sliding over to the middle of the seat.  As Hanover stood up behind the M2 mount, Vorees got the first handful of magazines out.

Peter grabbed the four she was proffering and tucked them quickly into the pouch on the left side of his equipment harness.  He took a moment to make sure they were oriented properly in the pouch, so he could grab and reload without having to look.  As he satisfied himself about their positioning, the humvee braked to a halt.  Peter looked forward again.

They were back in the second rank again.  The weapons of Philmore’s unit were up and firing once more.  Peter stood up out of the door, shading his eyes reflexively against the harsh illumination of the street lights on the Interstate’s center divider as he studied the zombie horde.

What he saw did not make him happy.  It didn’t even look like they’d made a dent.  If anything, the numbers seemed larger.  Behind the front line of the approaching zombies he could see the 10th Street overpass, fenced along both sides as a shield against pedestrians throwing things down on the normally busy lanes of traffic below.  It seemed to be . . . moving.

Ducking his head back inside the humvee, he snapped his fingers sharply as he spoke.  “Vorees, there’s an ILBE pack back there with a set of binoculars in the bottom left pouch, on the side.  Hand them up here.”

“Sarge, I don’t know which one you’re talking about.” he heard the Guardswoman say in a voice touched with a frantic edge.

Peter kept his voice calm, trying to use his tone and manner to keep her from falling past the edge she clung too.  “There’s only one pack back there that’s different than the others.” he said encouragingly.  “That’s the one.”

It shouldn’t be that hard for her to figure out, even in the shadowed interior of the vehicle.  The Guard all used older packs that were much more like, well, older backpacks.  His ILBE was a modern piece of equipment that looked like something a mountain climber might use.

Holding his hand outstretched toward her, Peter turned and looked forward again.  There was movement along either side of the overpass, where the fences ended as the overpass was no longer needed.  It was just a little bit of a hill, something that would take a person maybe a few seconds to run up or down, between the street above and the Interstate below.

“Bravo elements, engage as best you can, and watch your line of fire.  When in doubt, don’t shoot.” Foreman’s voice said from the radio.

Hanover opened up with the Browning, followed a few moments later by Manning, shooting from the driver’s side rear door.  As Foreman’s unit resumed firing, adding their weight to that of Philmore’s, Peter frowned.  It wasn’t helping.  That much fire would erode a human mob even if it didn’t disperse it through sheer terror and pain.  The zombies just kept coming.

Something pressed into his hand.  When he withdrew his arm from inside the vehicle, he saw the requested binoculars.  Dropping the strap over his head reflexively, he flicked the little lens caps off hurriedly and raised the binoculars to his eyes.  It took him a moment to dial the focus in, but only a moment, and the west side of the overpass leapt into view.

Zombies were coming down the hill, though it was really more of a falling dominos process than what humans might do to descend properly.  It didn’t seem to bother the zombies however, which was good since it seemed even the few that were somehow able to stay on their feet tended to be knocked off them by a falling and skidding zombie behind them.

At the bottom they rose and stepped off the edge of the low wall separating the small bit of grassy shoulder from the Interstate’s breakdown lane, falling again, and then they were of a level with the rest of the zombie horde.  And with the humans.  Frowning, Peter shifted his gaze to the back of the horde pressing north towards the Guard position, using the height the humvee gave him to see past the zombies.

“Fuck me.” he breathed, his words unnoticed amid the hammer and crack of weapons.  The horde was huge.  He stared through the binoculars at the trailing edges of the zombies for a few seconds, then kicked himself mentally and ran through the process of generating a decent estimate.  It was nearly a thousand he decided after another couple moments of calculation.  At least.  And growing.

Peter let the binoculars fall on their strap and grasped his AR-15.  Settling the weapon into place against his shoulder, he drew a bead on one of the front rank zombies, letting the red dot centered in his optical sight slide up until it rested in the middle of the zombie’s face.  He ignored the details his mind was picking out, business suit, male, missing a lot of skin and tissue from the left side of its face, and forced himself to stay in target mode.  Just another target.  That’s all it is.  Just another target.

The AR-15 bucked against his shoulder almost of its own accord, and he blinked as he scanned the front rank of zombies through the sight, then adjusted his view down a little.  There.  He saw a pair of legs wearing gray dress pants vanishing beneath the shuffling feet of zombies still up.  Two tripped and went down, but they were already pushing themselves up to rejoin the advance.  The one he’d shot stayed down.

Peter picked out another one and repeated the experiment.  Another headshot, and someone who may or may not still be alive would need a new secretary if they were, as a middle aged woman who definitely looked like an administrative worker went down missing the top third of her skull.  She did not get back up.

Flicking the safety back on, Peter let the weapon fall back to his side on its sling and unhooked his radio.  The handset was old and much more bulky, heavier, than was the norm in front line service, but he was familiar with it.  Before he could depress the microphone button, intending to try and get the unit’s targeting altered to maybe actually kill some of the zombies, the speaker crackled with a shouting voice that seemed on the verge of panic.

“More behind us, and coming from the west!”

Peter’s head snapped to the right.  Various parts of the Connector had retaining or support walls along the sides, holding back earth as the highway cut through hills, or to hold up overpasses and signs.  This section had a wall that was maybe fifteen feet high to the east, but the west was effectively open.  Just a low wall at the edge of the breakdown lane, not any sort of obstacle to someone on foot.  Well, and a slight slope up to the exit ramp road, but that was it.

Even a zombie wouldn’t have to climb up or down, it could just walk into it and fall forward in either direction, get back up, and continue.  Which was what was happening.  Peter saw a line of figures descending the low rise from the exit road and the streets beyond that were part of Downtown.

A lot of figures.

They were all over that flank, emerging from the exit road as it stretched up toward 10th Street.  Many were already on the interstate, flooding around the trucks and the ARV.  He saw zombies reaching up, dragging at soldiers who had been hanging out of their windows or doors, more zombies beating on those same doors.  Some zombies were already down on their knees next to victims, where a lot of screaming and thrashing and bleeding was happening.

None of the heavy vehicles had a driver visible behind their wheels.  And there were far too many zombies around them for anyone to make it through.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Peter breathed, twisting around to look behind them.  He studied the lanes to the north for a moment, then lifted the binoculars for a better view.  “Fuck!” he cursed, shouting loudly enough to be heard over the Browning right next to him.

The binoculars let him see what was happening, why it was happening, and how bad it was.  Just as at 10th Street, zombies were descending from the side of the 14th Street overpass and flooding into the Interstate as they moved to investigate what was happening.  With the wall on their east side, and zombies coming at them from the other directions, the Guardsmen were trapped.

“What?” he heard, and glanced over to see Manning giving him a questioning look.

Anxiously he looked back to the west.  This wasn’t supposed to have been a combat deployment.  Just a whole lot of drudge work clearing wrecks, assisting the overwhelmed police departments in keeping the roads open.  The Guard were reservists, men and women who only occasionally put on their BDUs and remembered they were soldiers.

No one had kept an eye on the flanks until it was too late.  Peter could already see it would take a miracle to fight through and get at any of the heavy vehicles.  The horde to the south was the largest, but the zombies on the north side were also building numbers rapidly.  He was not at all sure a humvee would be able to plow through that many bodies.  If they tried, and were wrong, then it was death.

Peter allowed himself three long seconds to think.  The humvees were designed with high ground clearances and four wheel drives.  But they weren’t tanks.  They weren’t heavy vehicles.  Oh sure, they were in the SUV weight class, and had more power than most SUVS, but still.  Was it enough to ride through forty or fifty ranks of humanoid bodies, packed in shoulder to shoulder, front to back.  Who would not be trying to get out of the way, but instead grabbing at the vehicle, at the doors and windows . . .

He abruptly decided he wasn’t interested in trying that unless he absolutely had to.  He keyed his microphone.  “Break, break.”  the cross-talk ended after a couple of frustratingly long seconds, and he spoke again.  “Bravo Six, Bravo Two-One.”

“Go Two-One.”

“Sir, it’s time to dance with BOB.” Peter said quickly, knowing Foreman would correctly interpret his comment.  There was a lot of panic and chaos within the unit as the soldiers trapped in and around the trucks fought and died, but Peter didn’t want to jumpstart any more before it was absolutely necessary.

“I agree.” Foreman said.  “Got any recommendations?”

“East is preferred.”

There was a pause, which Peter used to step out of the humvee.  “Vorees, gimmie that ILBE, now.” he said.

She blinked at him for a moment, then muscled the large pack up and over from the cargo area.  Peter opened the rear door and stood the pack up correctly, then turned and backed into as he slipped his arms through the padded straps.  When he straightened and stepped away, the pack was in place.  He was tugging the dangling adjusters to tighten the straps when Foreman spoke again.

“Concur, get it setup Two-One.  Break.  All elements, all elements, dismount and form up on Two-One to go up the wall to the east.”

The retaining wall to their east had a fence atop it.  It wasn’t as dramatically curved inward, away from the interstate, at the top like the overpass fence was, but it was still there for the same reason.  To keep people from jumping down into the interstate, or easily throwing things down into the lanes.  Peter had never understood why some people would try to jump down; there had to be easier ways, better ways, to commit suicide.

But that fence gave them a chance.  They needed to move quick, and the fence was going to make it possible to get climbing ropes set much more rapidly than would have otherwise been possible.

“Bravo Two-One copies.” Peter said, dropping the radio back on his belt and releasing the binoculars.  “Hey, rally up, cease fire, cease fire.” he shouted.

The Guardsmen in ‘his’ humvee stopped firing as they turned to look at him.  Peter kept his voice at a shout, seeing helmeted heads in other nearby humvees turning to look at him as well.  “Climbing ropes, grapnels.  We’re going up the wall to the east.”

“Fuck.”  “You’re kidding.”  “Aw man.”

“Can it.” Peter said.  “Grab whatever there is and come on.”  Peter jogged towards the center divider between the north and southbound lanes.  It was a little higher than the wall that held the landscaping back from falling into the breakdown lane to the west, but only a little.