The Apocalypse Crusade 2 (30 page)

It was not a sledgehammer being used on the doors as he had hoped. He thought he was going to pop out to find a couple of Von Braun types, zombies who were still able to think to a degree. He figured he would put a couple of rounds through their brains and that would end the major danger facing the station. Instead, he found himself face to face with a pair of ‘regular’ dumb zombies and they weren’t wielding tools, either, at least not in the traditional sense. Someone, or something had duct-taped heavy rocks to their hands and they were using these to batter down the door.

This was far worse than sledgehammers; it was far more diabolical.

Before the zombies could truly understand what was happening, Deckard fired twice in quick succession; a cloud of black blood misted the air and the beasts fell. He then swiveled the gun toward the gathered horde but did not shoot; he needed to find who had done this, he needed to find the zombie with a spark of intelligence in its eyes and he needed to kill it, fast.

The zombies howled and charged, while behind Deckard the troopers tried to surge forward in accordance with the plan. Caught between the two, Deckard was forced to shoot. As fast as he could, he pulled the trigger on his M16 as he roared out: “No! Back inside. Everyone get back inside!” The troopers were slow to listen and for ten horrible, long seconds, Deckard was alone, facing down a mob of undead.

Those in front were raked by his bullets and went down, while those behind stumbled over their bodies. They got so close that he could smell the putrid stink of their gaping mouths as they fell at his feet. Finally, a hand pulled him back inside and the door was shut on the monstrous faces.

“What the hell happened?” one of the troopers demanded. He was breathing heavily although he hadn’t done much of anything but press forward a few feet and then scramble back the same distance.

Deckard’s mind was too jumbled to answer just then. It felt untethered from reality and all he could think was to order one of the men: “Check me for blood.” A few black spots were quickly bleached and scrubbed and all the while, the troopers waited for an explanation as to why he had aborted the plan. When he finally told them, most didn’t understand the worry in his eyes.

“But you killed the two with the rocks,” one man said, relieved. “We should be safe now.”

“No we aren’t safe. Somebody taped those rocks to those zombies. Whoever it was had to have been in that crowd somewhere.” A part of him had expected to see the charred corpse of Eric Von Braun among the mob of undead, but he wasn’t one of their number, and worse, Deckard hadn’t seen the slightest hint of intelligence in any of their faces.

“If we don’t find him and kill him, I think we can expect to see a lot more zombies with rocks tied to their hands and our doors will come down that much faster.” That was the best-case scenario. What would happen if the ‘smart’ zombie remembered how to make fire?

“So how do we do this?” someone asked. “Do we make a foray out there? Do we go on the attack?”

“What about roof access?” another wondered. “We could pop the main guy from up there.”

The roof wasn’t a bad idea. Deckard put two men on watch at the door and then went to hunt down Pemberton to ask about the roof access and to see if he had any ideas.

The lieutenant was shaken by the news of smart zombies and sat staring at something just beyond his nose that no one else could see. “No…no, there isn’t a way to get to the roof from inside. There’s a ladder out back but who would be stupid enough to use it? Not me, that’s for damned sure. No way, not me.”

“What about video feed?” Thuy asked. She had been waiting for the outcome of the battle and had been confused at how brief it had been. She had given Deckard’s hand a squeeze when he quick-marched into the admin area, and now she kept close to him, making sure that their arms touched. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was terrified and felt the need to be close. This wasn’t difficult as everyone had crowded around to hear what had happened. They had been cheered when the hellacious banging stopped, but now they were even more depressed: the news of smart zombies had been coupled with the increased sound of shooting from the office wing where Chuck, Burke and Max Fowler were being flooded by zombies coming through every door.

On Thuy’s other side was Stephanie who was biting her lip in worry over Chuck. Thuy squeezed her hand in an attempt to calm her.

“I see there are cameras positioned everywhere,” Thuy said, “And I assume there are more outside and that they are still operating. We can use them to pinpoint the “smart” zombies and find a way to destroy them. The obvious question: how do we see the feed from the cameras?”

“Courtney can show you; she knows how,” Pemberton answered. Courtney was still trying to get in touch with the Governor and so it was up to Renee who brought the video feed up on her computer. The depression in the station grew, every door but one was being mobbed by zombies. In some places, they were a hundred deep.

“Where is this door?” Thuy asked.

“The loading dock,” two of the dispatchers answered in unison.

“It’s empty,” Pemberton gasped. “We can escape that way.”

Deckard grunted and said: “I highly doubt it. There are too many in front by the cars, which means you’ll be travelling on foot in Indian country. That’s equal to suicide. Everyone is safer inside until the helicopters get here.”

“If they get here,” Benjamin muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear. He figured they wouldn’t listen to him, since they hadn’t listened to him all night. He hadn’t liked the way he was once again being treated as a nerd by pretty much everyone. Who were they to judge? They didn’t know him. They didn’t know he had heroically saved Cheryl from her Ex and they didn’t know how he had kept her safe that entire day. He was as good as any of them…except for, maybe Deckard, who had bulging arms and the hard look of a man who has seen his share of action. Benjamin especially didn’t like how Cheryl was looking at him—like she had never seen a man before.

“The helicopters will come, I trust Courtney. She’s very resourceful,” Thuy said as she clicked the screen away from the empty loading dock door. She clicked through the screens before settling on the one that showed the emergency door that led out of the incarceration wing.

At first, all that could be seen was a wide-angle view of zombies pounding on the doors, but then they could see something starting to shove them back. “That’s a boy,” Thuy said, in a whisper. A boy of maybe eight or nine, wearing a striped shirt that Max Fowler would’ve recognized was pushing the zombies back…and they were obeying him!

“How is that possible?” Stephanie asked. “Why aren’t they attacking him?”

Thuy could barely take her eyes off the screen. She mumbled: “It’s a fair guess to say he’s infected. Interesting. Very interesting. Is he partially immune just as Jaimee Lynn Burke was? Or is he under the influence of an opiate or narcotic? Or maybe…”

Her train of thought was derailed as the boy pushed away the last of the zombies. He then left the screen and Thuy had a sudden hot flash strike her. “Deckard! Is there any one left in the incarceration wing? Get them out of there…”

He was already running. With fear lending him even more strength, he threw open the door that led into the hall and screamed: “Get out of there! Something’s going to happen.” On edge already, the two troopers ran just as the emergency door crashed inwards and the Audi that Courtney had driven that day came barreling inside with a sound like an explosion.

Behind the car came a flood of diseased bodies. Deckard ignored them. He emptied the magazine of his M16 into the windshield; there had been something in the car. Perhaps it was the boy. With only time to slap in one fresh magazine and fire a few more rounds, he aimed this time at the hood of the car, wanting to put it out of commission.

As he fired, hands grabbed him from behind and pulled him into the admin section.

The door was a heavy one and the lock very sturdy, still it was with a sinking feeling that he slammed the door shut and rammed the bolt home. They were running out of room to survive.

Despite his age, General Collins climbed up on the boxy communications Humvee and stood on its roof gazing west. It was an intriguing sight, seeing the flares suddenly pop into life and drop from the heavens like shooting stars falling in slow motion. He wished he could remain just an observer, but judging by the planes and helicopters banking all over the sky, and the endless chatter of small arms fire, there were at least a dozen battles going on.

Like a teenager, he slid down the front of the windshield, hopped off the vehicle and landed in the grass, easily. He went to the next Humvee over, the “Operations” Humvee. When they had moved the sight of the command post, there hadn’t been time to put the tents up and now they were operating out of specifically designed communications and control Humvees. They were highly mobile but cramped as hell. Four men were inside, hunched over computer screens while another five men were outside kneeling over a map that was spread out on the ground.

“What’s the situation?” Collins asked.

Lieutenant Colonel O’Brian didn’t glance up. “Even with the flares, we’re fucked…sir. That first wave crumpled our lines on a ten-mile front and we’re just starting to find our men. Some retreated straight east to the second line, but most scattered in any direction but west.”

A captain pointed at a spot on the map and said: “In some places we’ve managed to collect enough men to make a stand, but in others, like at this town of Burrnel, we have a handful only.”

“How’s morale?” Collins asked. Morale was almost always the difference between winning and losing and had been since the beginning of warfare. Collins frequently quoted Napoleon to subordinates and one of his favorite lines was: “Morale is to the physical as three is to one", another, further emphasizing the point was: "Moral force rather than numbers, decides victory.” Then again, Collins knew that if he had another fully equipped division to shore up his ranks, it would also decide victory.

“It’s as high as can be expected,” O’Brian answered. “I have no doubt that the flares are helping, but that won’t last. The men have light to fight by, but pretty soon that same light will show how fucked they really are. We need more men and I’ve already used up my reserve force. All I have left is my headquarters company.” The men around him looked suddenly uncomfortable as though Collins might send them off to fight zombies any minute, even though it was the dead of night.

“No, don’t send them in, no matter what you do,” Collins said, much to the relief of officers. “It’ll just make matters worse, trust me.”

“Then what do I do?” the colonel asked, earnestly. “With every step back my command is becoming more and more isolated from one another and the gaps widen, meaning
they
are getting through. It wouldn’t shock me if some came walking up right this moment.”

This had a chilling effect on everyone, Collins included. They all paused to look to the west where the lights in the sky were bright but the shadows below were deep and seemed to be moving.

Crouching in those deep shadows, Specialist Jerome Evermore was numb straight up. He was down to his last four bullets and the woods were quite literally crawling with the dead. One of them might go down, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was out of the fight. In the dark his shots were never sure; at one point—when he had twenty three bullets left—one went down right in front of the log palisade he’d taken cover behind. Figuring it was dead, he went on shooting the others when. After a minute, he felt something grab his boot. He screamed in a way that he wasn’t proud of, and would never admit. He was so freaked that he nearly shot his own foot off while killing the zombie.

There were two other “crawlers” in his tree-lined fort. The sight of them had given him the shakes which continued as his bullets dwindled.

When he shot the fourth to last bullet, he decided he had reached the point where he could honorably retreat. “I’m out!” he yelled. “I’m out of ammo.” He was backing out of the little fort when he heard something to his right, moving fast; he was within an inch of proving himself a liar by almost killing Sergeant Segal with his pistol as he came jogging up. “Oh jeeze, you scared the crap out of me,” Jerome hissed.

Segal didn’t seem to care. “Here’s a mag,” was all he said.

It was a magazine of 5.56 ammo used for one of the M16 variants. Jerome pushed it back, saying: “All I have is a Beretta. So I’ll fall back to the next dedicated line and…”

“We don’t have a fallback position yet.” Segal looked at the pistol as if he had never seen such a thing. “Where’s your weapon, soldier?” His growl was full of accusation. He even went so far as to glance around on the ground as if he suspected Jerome of having thrown his weapon away. Jerome had, but that had been almost an hour before while running for his life.

“This is all I have,” Jerome insisted, holding the Beretta out. Surprisingly, Segal took it and then to Jerome’s disappointment he handed over his own weapon, an M4. Not only that he pulled two more magazines from his chest rig and pressed them into Jerome’s hands.

In a booming voice, Segal called out: “We will hold this line! There will be no running and we will fight to the last bullet.” He added this last after he had dropped the clip out of the butt of the Beretta and saw the three remaining slugs gleaming up at him. “Get on the line,” he said, unkindly.

“I wasn’t going to run,” Jerome said, defensively. “I was just down to my last…”

“Save your breath for someone who cares. When I come back down the line, your ass had better be right here.”

Segal left Jerome steaming mad. Sure, he had run before, but that was only when he was out of ammo. “And no one else had to fight with just a pistol,” he groused, walking back to the downed trees. Two zombies were struggling to cross them; he shot them both from a range of four feet.

More zombies came. It seemed a never-ending stream of them. The line failed not long after Segal left Jerome. Although he was in a good position, what with the trees, the men at the far end of the line were flanked and had to run. They all fell back, but without the steely-eyed sergeant. He had walked away down the line and no one heard from him again. The same was true for a lot of the men. They didn’t desert, they either died outright or were turned. The survivors fell back to a farm where they took refuge behind a line of low fences called stiles. These held up the beasts and made them excellent targets, but ammo was running short and they had to fire from up close. When the fence finally failed and the zombies bulled through, Jerome led the shrinking group to the next farm.

They had lost all contact with the men on either side and their flanks were always “up in the air” meaning they were easily surrounded. Jerome asked for volunteers and posted the first two who raised their hands out alone on the wings. It was a dangerous mission and, after they fell back for the third time only one returned. The men ran again and when they stopped at a line of barbed wire, they were bent over at the waist, too tired to be afraid. How long they fought, no one knew. The night seemed to go on forever and the zombies just kept coming, endlessly and they never tired.

“Where are we?” Jerome asked of the little group. There were perhaps thirty of them left and he had no idea how many they had started with or how many had died. The numbers kept changing as stragglers joined them and others went down screaming under piles of the undead.

In reply to his question, all he received were shrugs. Jerome looked around for the next place where they could make a stand. A hill off to their east would do. It had a sharp face, which would slow up the beasts some.

It also slowed the men…and women heading up it. A soldier next to him tripped and cursed in a high voice. It was only then that Jerome realized that almost a quarter of the group was made up of females. “Well fuck me,” he whispered to himself. From that point on he held his shoulders a little straighter and tried not to wheeze so much. It wasn’t easy. It felt like he was running a marathon in full battle dress and boots. Even the relatively light M4 was weighing his arms down.

They trudged up the long slope and behind them, the zombies followed relentlessly after. Some were close, only forty or fifty yards back. This vanguard of the undead drove the survivors faster up the hill. Finally, Jerome stopped and pointed for the others to continue. He would kill the closest ones and then hurry to catch up, but as his breathing slackened and the others left him he was able to hear what sounded like the hum of a motor. It was coming from up the hill. Motors meant humans!

With fresh legs, he forgot the trailing zombies and jogged upward, passing the soldiers who were gusting wind in and out. Soon he topped the hill and saw a circle of Humvees. Now, he was even more worn out than the others, and could only point with an arm that he could barely keep aloft. The others saw and some went down on their knees thanking God while others struggled forward.

Jerome understood. Since the moment his M249 had gone dry, he hadn’t thought he was going to live to see the sunrise. He had fought, and he had run, all with a certain dread weighing him down, but now there were trucks and Humvees and people. He could hear them in the darkness.

“Wait,” he said to the soldiers who were heading for the tents. “We have to form a line here.” At their looks, he added: “It’ll be ok. I’ll get reinforcements and extra ammo. We’ll be able to fight properly.” He would also need flares. They seemed far from where the planes were dropping the flares in the west. “Spread out. Don’t let any of those things get past you.”

He hoped to God that this was an infantry company, but he began to doubt it when nobody challenged him. Heading for a little knot of people he asked: “Who’s in charge around here?”

An older man, tall and grey, with three stars on his collar, said: “I’m Lieutenant General Collins, and you are?”

Jerome should’ve been too tired to care that he was so close to the Commanding Officer of the 42
nd
, but all he could think of was the M249 he had thrown away, and the protective mask he had jettisoned to lighten his load, and the helmet that he had kicked away because it hadn’t stayed in place. He saw Collins looking him up and down and for some reason he was sure, the general knew all of this.

“I’m…I’m, uh, Specialist Jerome Evermore, sir.” He knew he wasn’t supposed to salute when they were in the field but the hand really wanted to come up. He was able to stop it in mid-salute so that it looked like he was about to karate chop Collins.

The general only raised an eyebrow. “Is there some reason you’re not on the line, son?” Jerome’s presence was setting alarm bells off in Collins’ head. The young man stank of fear, sweat, and battle. His eyes were those of a cat’s when it was caught in mid-hunt by something bigger than itself. He looked just as capable of running as of fighting and Collins saw that his mental state could only be described as brittle. That Jerome had deserted his post was a certainty in Collins’ mind right up until gunfire started popping off, not fifty yards away.”

“What the hell?” Lieutenant Colonel O’Brian asked, in sudden worry. He glanced Jerome’s way and saw him fully in his ragged state for the first time. “Who is that shooting? What unit are you with?”

“We’re not really a unit. Those are just soldiers and some medics and I think some aviation guys. We just formed up when the line collapsed. We formed a second defensive perimeter but it didn’t last. Ever since then, we’ve been fighting nonstop in a long retreat. Do you guys…Sorry, I mean do you have any ammunition, sir? We’re down to our last magazines and there’s a butt-load of gray meat heading our way.”

Collins started to run to the edge of the hill, but stopped and barked to O’Brian: “Get him some ammo and get every available man over here.”

“I don’t think that’s the right order, sir,” O’Brian said, causing Collins’ eyes to grow furious. “We should fall back and prepare a better spot to fight from.”

“Where? Hartford?” Collins asked with sarcastic acid dripping from his tongue. He pointed east at the lights of the city. “That’s only twenty miles away. We don’t have a fucking inch of room to spare. If we can stop them here then we damn well better stop them here! I need every spare soldier to get their asses up on that ridge!”

The general jogged to the line of the hill and stared down at the advancing zombies. There were thousands of them. They were like a biblical plague. “I need my damned artillery!” he raged up at the night sky.

“Artillery wouldn’t do you much good…sir,” O’Brian said, again slow enough on the accompanying “sir” to be disrespectful. “All of my artillery men are out there somewhere. Guns won’t do you much good without their operators.”

Collins was within a whisker of punching O’Brian in the face. He reined it in…somewhat. He brought his hand down on the colonel’s shoulder with excessive force, and gripped the muscle there in a hard grip. The smile on his face was evil, but with a touch of pretend friendship to it. “You know what’s also useless? You are Lieutenant Colonel O’Brian. Your insubordination is actionable, however I need every man, even a back-talking son of a bitch like you. I just don’t need you in a position to undermine me at every turn, so from this point on I want you to take up a rifle and defend this hill.”

O’Brian took a step back and his eyes were fierce, as if he was going to punch Collins, and now it was his turn to rein it in. He was also just able to. Sneering, he said: “You want to take responsibility for fucking this up, too? Go right ahead, have fun.”