Slow Burn: A Zombie Novel (63 page)

* * * * * * * *

Matvei awoke to the sound of heavy gunfire and slowly rose from his empty bed while glancing at his watch. He had been asleep for six much needed hours and dressed hastily before exiting his quarters. He saw that Elma had already returned to her post. Matvei was still strapping on his USP .45 as he asked for a situation update.

“
The lead elements of our returning columns are arriving, sir,” one of Matvei’s men reported, “and they have brought a lot of company with them.”

As Matvei exited the command center, he saw that trucks loaded with men were pulling in with the occupants dismounting and running back in the direction from which they came. Turning back for his rifle, Matvei followed the men the short distance back to the wall.

He was stunned at what he saw. Trucks, as well as men running on foot, were streaming in while a horde of infected so large it reminded Matvei of an avalanche descended upon them. There were far more than he could have imagined. His mind racing, Matvei stepped up and emptied his rifle into several targets who had pressed to within fifty meters of the gate. The noises and smells of combat brought Matvei back to his days in Chechnya, and he instinctively reloaded and emptied another magazine, striking seven or eight of the lead infected in the head. As he paused to reload again, Matvei came to grips with the situation and called up a courier.

“
Tell Alpha Company to round up all the supply vehicles that are coming in and get ready to move out. I want them on the highway moving north within the hour,” Matvei ordered as he aimed his rifle and squeezed the trigger. “We will stay to the west of Mountain Creek Lake and hopefully be north of the city in a few hours. We have to hold here so they can break contact. Once they break through, others will follow.”

When the courier left, Matvei called another courier and snapped the next order while firing on yet another horde who pressed home the attack.

“
Tell Bravo and Charlie Companies to shift to our left and get in close to the Duncanville Safe Zone. We need to get some of the pressure off us and on to them!” Matvei yelled over the report of his rifle.

As the second runner took off, Matvei ran towards the gate and waved in another group of arriving trucks. They pulled into the compound amidst a hail of gunfire, and Matvei rallied his men with words of encouragement and sent them directly into the fight.

“
Hold to the last man,” he urged, “or we are all dead!”

Returning to the Command Post, Matvei ordered Elma to get Lt. Calderon on the radio.

“
Where are you, and what do you got?” Matvei asked into the microphone as soon as his lieutenant spoke.

The return traffic was badly distorted, but Matvei could make out that Lt. Calderon was in trouble. After the battalion in Mesquite had linked up with the battalion in Hutchins, they realized that they had dragged approximately a hundred thousand bad guys along with them. Lt. Calderon stayed behind to fight a delaying action in order to allow the main force to break contact. While being only partially successful in allowing the column to escape, Lt. Calderon and his men got cut off and completely surrounded. Thousands of undead were now on top of them, pressing ever closer. Over the radio, Matvei could hear the screams of men as ammunition began to run low and the infected broke the perimeter. The radio then went silent and Elma was unable to raise them again.

“
That will be our fate as well if we stay here much longer.”

Looking back to Elma, he made yet another executive order. “Send out a message to all of the men. Tell them we need to make a stand here until we can clear a path out to the north and then we will get the hell out of here. That will take a day or so, and we are going to need to be stubborn.”

Matvei knew that to fall back immediately would probably lead to a disorganized retreat that would in turn most likely lead to a massacre. Already, numbers were coming in that he was down several hundred men. Matvei then began to walk the line offering encouragement to the besieged defenders, stopping to fire his G36 into the horde that kept coming relentlessly. The cowards and shirkers were long gone by now and only the true fighters remained. This was all that was keeping them alive.

* * * * * * * *

The night flew by in a hail of gunfire, and with the dawn of a new day, the infected pressed the attack on all fronts. The hastily prepared defenses of vehicle barricades and trenches succumbed to the avalanche of undead that descended out of Dallas. Matvei received word just after noon that the infected had turned the right flank of his line and were pouring into the perimeter of his command. He had just sent the last supply convoy north, and it appeared just in time. Matvei himself had moved in close to the Duncanville safe zone at dawn, and the high school was also now besieged and looking as if it would collapse as well. Matvei ordered his pilot to prepare his helicopter. He then went and found Elma manning the radio and told her to order all remaining men to withdraw to the northwest along the prearranged route. She looked terrified but immediately carried out the order.

“
It’s every man for themselves,” Matvei relayed that last order personally over the radio.

As the men began what was to be a fighting retreat, part of the line directly in front of Matvei collapsed without warning and a flood of howling, shambling infected poured in around him. All along the line the organized fighting withdraw turned into a chaotic fight for survival. Clutching his rifle, Matvei fired at three large men with yellow skin and shredded clothing who suddenly popped up between him and Elma. He grabbed her and headed for the helipad. Several more infected came out of nowhere, and Matvei fired wildly. The shots would have been fatal for mortal humans but not to the infected. One of them sunk his teeth into Elma’s arm, and she screamed in terror and shock. Matvei was transfixed momentarily by the look on her face. His rifle dry, Matvei let it fall on his chest, hanging from its single point sling, and transitioned to his pistol, shooting the attackers in the head before hesitating briefly, and then blasting a round into poor Elma’s skull as well. He heard cries of terror all around him as his men realized they were doomed.

“
They shall feast today, the demons,” Matvei hissed. “But not on me.”

Reaching the helicopter, Matvei turned to look back at his unraveling army. Individual mercenaries were overcome as others fled in a chaotic scene of blood and terror. Matvei saw several men shoot themselves in the head while being bitten. He had only moments to reflect and wonder how many of the 1,500 men were able to get out on the convoy north. Matvei guessed six or seven hundred at most as he quickly emptied his pistol into three approaching undead. As the slide locked back on an empty magazine he ordered the pilot to take off. Four other men reached the chopper and Matvei helped them aboard. Reloading, Matvei fired rapidly as several dozen infected reached the helicopter pad all at once. Matvei and the others aboard were only able to down maybe half of them as the Huey helicopter rose off the ground, and the landing skids slammed into the horde. At least seven grabbed onto the skids and hung on as the aircraft struggled under the added weight to gain altitude. Reaching for another magazine to feed his empty pistol, Matvei reloaded and struggled to make head shots as the chopper swayed violently under the uneven load.

Below him, Matvei watched a tidal wave of rotten flesh flood over the remaining survivors. Two of their unwanted cargo were scraped off when the helicopter nearly hit the top of a cell tower and Matvei’s .45 helped clear off most of the rest. The helicopter flew north over downtown Dallas, and Matvei observed firsthand the destruction and devastation left in the wake of the rampant virus. The city was completely destroyed with fires burning out of control everywhere.

The view was breathtaking and momentarily distracted him. Snapping out of it, Matvei realized there was one infected remaining on the skids. He stared down at him as he struggled to reach the human flesh in the cabin. The creature was a former athletic male who seemed oblivious to the fact that he was hanging several hundred feet off the ground. Matvei made eye contact right before blasting a hole in the infected man’s forehead and it, he snarled in defiance, almost as if it knew what was about to happen. Matvei's hand recoiled from the shot, the man’s head snapped back and it fell from the skids. He watched the body free fall to the ground and then continued to stare at the urban apocalypse passing below.

After a moment of relief shared with the others in the cabin, Matvei reached the front of the aircraft, sat in the co-pilot chair, and handed the pilot a map with the location of a rendezvous point well north of the city.

"I have men waiting at that location," Matvei informed the pilot.

“
That’s going to be a problem, sir,” the pilot answered dryly. “We must have taken a stray round or two, and we are losing oil pressure rapidly. The controls are sluggish, and we have got a few minutes airborne at most.”

Matvei sighed and considered his options as a warning light and buzzer activated on the Huey’s control panel.

“
I’m sorry, sir. I was wrong. We don’t even have a few minutes,” the pilot relayed. “Get on the radio and send out a mayday. I may be able to get us just north of the city, but we’re going down, and it’s gonna be a hard landing.”

As the pilot struggled with the controls and tried to guide the crippled craft to an open clearing, Matvei turned to his men in the back of the Huey and told them to prepare for a crash. Grabbing for the radio, Matvei sent out a calm final radio transmission while watching the sand bunkers of a local golf course grow nearer. The helicopter began to spin as it lost altitude.

“
This is Captain Matvei. I’m north of Dallas near a golf course off toll road 289. We are going down, I repeat, we’re going down! If you can hear this, send a rescue party. If you do you will be greatly rewar—”

In the remote cabin tucked back in the woods of western Illinois, everyone was going about their work. The small group led by Dan’s brother Dave and Tom Ogle, along with a few relatives, was busy canning food and chopping wood for what was looking to be a long winter. Finishing a batch of canned green beans, Tom’s wife came up to him and told him she was going to go for a walk down to the pond towards the back of the property to try and unwind. She never did like to camp out at the cabin, and now being stuck here permanently, she had been getting a little testy as of late. Tom told her to give him a few minutes, and he would go with her.

"No,” she replied, sounding irritated. “Don’t be so overprotective, I’ll be fine."

“
Well, you better take a gun with you just in case," Tom countered.

“
You know I don’t like those things,” she answered. “We haven’t seen any of those monsters for a long time. I’ll be fine."

Tom Ogle again tried to convince his wife otherwise, but she just got pissed at him, turned around and headed off through the woods. The other group members were tired of her constant bitching and never even noticed she left.

She took her time walking through the woods. It was a beautiful day and some of the trees still had leaves on them. It was getting cooler and she stopped often to watch birds and take a swig from the bottle of vodka she kept hidden under her coat. She had to drink just to keep her sanity while completing one mundane chore after another.

She wondered exactly how many jars of green beans someone could prepare before they jammed a knife into their eyes from boredom.

After about half an hour, she reached the back pond on the property where they would go to catch fish and hunt. It was a beautiful place surrounded by large oak trees, where she could sit and drink and feel sorry for herself in private.

“
I didn’t ask for any of this shit to happen!” she said aloud. “The others can kiss my ass as well if they don’t like my attitude! They have no idea what I’ve been through.”

Tilting the bottle back for several swallows of the smooth liquor, she sighed with content as the alcohol burned inside her belly.

She sat drinking in the lawn chair that she had left out near the pond, and she saw a little girl approaching through the clearing. She recognized the girl as Alice, who belonged to the neighboring family that had a farm just down the road.

What’s she doing out here by herself?
she thought. She must be so scared. Her family must be out here looking for her.

She got up and began calling to the girl, and sure enough, Alice’s family appeared from the woods as well, walking in her direction.

“
Hello!” she called, but received no response.

Tom’s now slightly drunk wife walked up to the little girl while calling to her family that Alice was over here. Something just seemed a little off to her as the girl’s family didn’t reply and just kept walking – or more like stumbled – in her direction. Suddenly she saw many others, who were not part of the little girl’s family, emerging from the woods as well. Horror filled her eyes as she realized that she was now alone in the woods with several dozen of those “monsters” that she had so easily dismissed earlier. She momentarily forgot about the little girl and looked down just in time to see Alice grab onto her shirt. It was obvious from the large hunk of flesh missing from her cheek that Alice was infected as well.