LZR-1143 (Book 4): Desolation (56 page)

She could feel the creatures cluster to her rear, following the food, driven mad by the sight of a real live human, unenclosed, vulnerable and soft—and right in their midst. Hundreds of feet now shuffled in her direction, the intended consequence of her dismount being a huge pull of the zombies clustered in front of the mill away from where they had been close to breaching the building, and toward the advancing soldiers.

Starr had her army, and Kate now had hers.

To Starr and her crew, she appeared like some Norse goddess, eyes wild, hair flying; blood dripped from her clothing and a crimson sword held in her furious hand. An army of the undead followed behind, their faces ravenous and their minds devoid of anything but desperate hunger and malice.

Kate’s vision had narrowed. She knew where Starr would be.
 

About the hundreds of monsters behind her, she knew and cared little.
 

They were nothing to her. They were motivated by hunger. By need.
 

Starr, on the other hand, was motivated by cold malice and insane ambition.
 

And right now, Kate was far closer to being undead than she was to human. Because she needed one thing only: blood.
 

A spray of bullets hit the driveway in front of her feet, spitting concrete and dirt into the air as voices yelled at her to stop.
 

She ignored them.
 

Starr’s voice was on a megaphone now, from within the first humvee.
 

“Stop, or I swear to fucking god we will gun you down!”

Kate, taken by the madness that her fear and loathing had inspired, simply laughed.

Her legs were pumping and a scream welled up inside her throat. Her fist tightened on her machete as bullets began passing over her head, seeking targets beyond her, taking the first ranks of the undead as they pressed up behind her.

Suddenly she was on the ground, confused. A raging fire in her leg screamed for attention as she tried to rise, merely twenty feet away from the front of the Rhino, which had come through the gates and pointed toward the mill. The humvees had each flanked the larger machine and were now starting to rake the undead behind her, copper shell casings flying.

She watched in pain as Starr rose from behind the now-open passenger door of the humvee on the left, her rifle smoking slightly.
 

Kate looked down, knowing what she would find. A large ragged bullet hole in her thigh, weeping thick crimson on her fatigues. She tried to put weight on the leg and crumpled, yelling in pain.
 

“And here I thought you were invincible,” Starr yelled, her voice pleased and cocky as she moved away from the truck and advanced, gun still at the ready. “Toss the rifle, Kate. And drop the blade.”

Heedless of the creatures approaching, Starr’s voice dripped with malice.

“This is how you want this to go down? You think this will save your friends inside? You sacrificing yourself to me? I’m not going to kill you, you know that, right? You have something…some things…that are important to me, Kate. I’m not going to grant you the mercy of death until you show me what I need. What makes you the way you are.” She smirked and nodded behind Kate.

“But your friends,” she shrugged, still smirking. “They mean nothing to me. They
are
nothing. I’ll kill them all. Even the kids. Especially the boys and men. You know that. There’s nothing you can do about it. Come quietly, and we’ll make it quick, I promise.”
 

Behind her, she could hear the advancing horde. The gunfire was faster now from Starr’s people, the fifty-cal rounds cycling on full auto, the smaller arms consistent.
 

Hundreds were too many for this small group. They would be overwhelmed. Starr had to know this.

Why would she risk it? Even without Kate pulling the small herd from the mill, they had to have known that there were too many for them to take on.

As Starr advanced, her face resolving in the chaos and gun-smoke, Kate understood.

She had seen that look before.

In institutions and in pre-trial hearings and on the witness stand.
 

This woman had passed into derangement. She was fixated on revenge and on achieving power. That mean that she was entirely fixated on Kate.

“Drop the weapons!” she screamed, spit flying now from her mouth. Her hair was in disarray, her face dirty.
 

Her eyes no longer tracked her surroundings, as they had only days before, like a professional. They were on fire and they were fixed on her target—on her prey. Another bullet leapt from her gun, finding the concrete in front of Kate’s foot, only an inch away.
 

Kate stood, eyes scanning for options, releasing the bloody machete and pulling her left hand up to detach the single point harness. The rifle fell to the ground and she kicked both to the side.
 

Starr lowered her weapon slightly as she came forward, still held at an angle to the ground, pointed slightly downward.
 

Behind their leader, the soldiers in the humvees were calling to one another, their voices raised and worried. The heavy thump of what Kate assumed to be a grenade launcher sounded from Starr’s right, then a massive explosion pushed Kate to the ground again as flames erupted into the air.
 

She could hear the moans now, smell their stench and decay.
 

It was almost time.
 

Bunching her body underneath her, she winced at the pain as she put weight on her wounded leg.
 

But even now, her body was working to heal itself. Sealing the wound, diverting blood to vital functions, fighting to live.
 

“Captain!” This from Sergeant Sherman in the humvee on the left. “We can’t hold this flank—we need to pull back through the gate.”
 

Kate knew that if they did that, her only chance to kill Starr would vanish.
 

“Hold the goddamned line!” Starr shouted, now within ten feet of Kate. Behind the Captain, her humvee had advanced and the gunner in the turret was leaning into the heavy machine gun, as if willing each bullet to find its target.
 

Footfalls behind Kate made her turn, as a creature found its way past the blistering fire of Starr’s people and laid a hand on Kate’s shoulder. She twisted sharply, putting her weight on her good leg and flinging the beast to the ground between her and Starr, who jumped at the sudden interruption.
 

From the other side of the line, Specialist Fray screamed.

“There are too many—we can’t keep them back! Captain, we need to move back
now
!”
 

Starr turned her head to respond, creating the opening that Kate needed. She flew forward, pushing off her good leg and gathering the stumbling zombie, which was only now pulling itself from the ground, in her arms. Starr’s reaction was quick and violent. Her head flew around again and the rifle at her side flashed a stream of automatic fire, taking the corpse in front of Kate in the torso and hip, spinning it out of her grip.

As she pushed the creature away, Kate screamed again as she made impact with Starr. The first bullet had torn through her left oblique muscle, cleanly exiting her side but sending a searing pain through her torso. The second, fired as Starr was stumbling back, took her in the calf, grazing a furrow in her shin bone and spitting out the back of her calf muscle, hobbling her good leg.
 

The force of the impact took Starr to the ground and both of Kate’s hands were on the gun hand, slamming it to the ground twice until she heard the bones break and the rifle came free. Starr’s face was manic, barely registering the pain as her eyes flashed and her face was pulled into a hateful grimace. Her left hand found Kate’s thigh wound, and her fingers dug into the torn flesh.
 

Screaming in pain, Kate let her grip loosen on Starr’s right hand, and she rolled to her right, trying to dislodge the burrowing fingers.
 

Around them, gunfire was now interspersed with screams. Kate watched as a zombie ducked the lines of fire and made it to the open driver’s door of Starr’s humvee, which had pulled even to where the two women grappled. The creature’s hands clawed at the driver, who was unloading automatic fire into the dense ranks of undead ahead of them. Before she could bring her weapon around, the zombie’s mouth found purchase in the unprotected joint between the woman’s bicep and shoulder, pulling a wad of flesh from the bone.

Kate’s head whipped around as Starr rolled, both of them looking for the better position. But despite her wounds, Kate was still far stronger.
 

She used the simple power of her arms to twist Starr to the ground again, lashing her fists forward twice, carefully placing blows to the woman’s forehead. Starr’s head slammed into the concrete and her eyes rolled back in her head, lids closing slowly.

To her left, the sudden silence of the fifty-cal was oppressive. She heard the gunner scream something, but then turned suddenly, pain from her wounds dulling her reactions.

Kate rolled to the side, just as two zombies closed in, falling on Kate as she trying futilely to rise and flee.

***

Seeing the formation at the gate, and noting that most of the line was caught and separated from the fight in front of the fence—the soldiers had stupidly stopped their advance just inside the gate, jamming the whole column—I crossed the fence in the rear of the property to come at the battle from the side.
 

Some of the irregular troops from the column were firing between the bars, but they didn’t have a good angle on the main engagement. The troops inside, seemingly frozen by the combined advance of the undead and their orders not to retreat, were not reversing their vehicles. And so the entire force was split and vulnerable.

I couldn’t have asked for a better set-up, actually.
 

I stuck to the fence as I approached, then angled out and up the hill to keep out of the immediate line of fire from those at the fences. I followed the heavy sound of the machine guns from the humvee that had advanced furthest to the front.
 

Pausing only slightly, I took in the scene. Hundreds of creatures were between the assembled vehicles and the mill, the Rhino parked dead center in the driveway, gunners on the roof trying in vain to take out the advancing horde. Most of the herd had split from the mill, abandoning the harder target for the softer. The Grinder was inexplicably spinning in place, like a flesh-eating sprinkler.
 

One humvee was on the far left, even with the Rhino, its fifty-cal still spitting lead into the herd. The Rhino and the humvee were only separated from the front ranks of the herd by twenty feet, and even the constant barrage of gunfire wasn’t stopping its advance.
 

On the right, the other humvee was isolated, its gunner whirling in desperation. The driver was out of the vehicle, firing forward.
 

And in the middle of the driveway, between the advanced humvee and the Rhino, two women rolled on the ground, blood covering both of them.
 

One of the women was Kate.
 

Suddenly, the dismounted driver on the humvee disappeared from sight and a scream split the air. Zombies poured forward, enveloping that flank as I made my way into the melee. Suddenly yearning for the bloody cover I had discarded in the woods, I pulled my machete free and waded into the fray.
 

My carbine spit fire into the first ranks as I passed. Managing to move to the left of the advances, I went to the rear of the closest humvee and bought myself several seconds as I made my way to the two forms on the ground.
 

But now there were four.
 

Too late, I realized the right flank was exposed. The fifty-cal behind me had stopped firing. The gunner was trying to reload. But the open driver’s side door had doomed her.
 

In the brief time her emplacement wasn’t firing into the horde, several creatures were moving past her still-screaming companion, into the cab of the humvee. I watched as her body simply disappeared from the turret, pulled down in a flash of arms and an unearthly scream. Blood flew against the windows from the inside and her hand slammed against the bloody mess, before going limp and streaking the blood down the glass.

Dozens more were pouring in, toward the women on the ground in front of me.
 

I flew to the scene, pulling the two creatures from Kate, one with each hand, and I gasped at the blood. So much blood, all over her. Three different bullet wounds, each still spurting crimson. Her face was pale, her eyes open but distant.
 

The creatures in my hands flew into the air, knocking against several more that were making their advance. I scooped Kate into my arms and stood, searching for safety.

Behind us, the Rhino and the remaining humvee, whose engines were even now revving as they realized that Starr was down and seconds from being consumed by the dead.
 

No one tried to save her. No one shot at us. Their attention and their focus was not on this grudge, or on the hopes of a now-dying leader. It was on survival.
 

And we were not the threat.
 

Apparently loyalty to Starr as a leader went as far as her death, and no further.
 

Up the hill, there were only zombies. Still nearly a hundred of them, and the fifty cal on the left flank had just run dry. Engines were revving and the two vehicles were backing out.
 

I turned into the advancing herd, taking a breath and preparing to run forward and try to bash through as many as possible with Kate in my arms, before I was taken down.

That’s when I heard the third engine.
 

No longer was the Grinder sitting in place, swinging its arm in circles.