Transformation: Zombie Crusade VI (16 page)

Luke was nearly overwhelmed with a desire to protect the creatures in front of him. These were not the hunters from the area that his soldiers were planning to destroy. Without thinking about it, he literally roared at the pack as he waved them away. The massive male jumped back in fright, but it didn’t run. The roar did draw Zach’s attention, however, and within a minute or so Luke heard his friend calling out to him through the raging wind.

In desperation, Luke dropped his bow and leapt toward the lead hunter. He grabbed the creature by his right arm and spun him toward the waiting pack, roaring once more as he shoved the alpha in their direction. The beast seemed to regain his bearings, and with one last look into Luke’s eyes, it finally turned and ran to the protection and companionship of his mates. Together, the creatures soundlessly ran off into the blowing snow.

Shaken, Luke picked up his bow and shouted to Zach to get back to the vehicles. He believed the pack he’d warned away wouldn’t be returning, and he also knew that it wouldn’t take more than the sound of a couple of racing ATVs to hold the attention of the fast-moving flesh-eaters pouring out of the depot and surrounding countryside. The hungry monsters were closing in quickly, and their slower mates would naturally follow. Luke forced himself to forget about what had just happened and stick to the plan. From the sound of things, the hunters pouring over the road were in full attack mode; there was no time for equivocation—these creatures had to be eliminated. The pack he’d just encountered had been an anomaly; he wouldn’t let a few outliers derail the mission.

“Follow us!” Luke shouted to Zach as he jumped on the ATV with Terry. Luke revved the engine as he circled around a few of the dead cars and tried to gauge the distance to the lead attackers. He could hear the racket the monsters were making over the sound of his vehicle and was grateful for the noise given the continuing poor visibility.

Luke stopped for a brief moment and switched places with Terry, telling him, “You drive.” He then waved Zach to take the lead. “Follow Zach. If I decide to jump off and take a detour, don’t even slow down. I want you right on Zach’s tail no matter what happens—got it?”

Terry nodded vigorously and accelerated to catch up with Zach. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, Luke jumped off the ATV when it slowed to maneuver around a sideways truck, determined to set off the rest of the air-horns. To Terry’s credit, he obeyed Luke’s orders and followed Zach without looking back.

Andi had tried to get out of having dinner with Barnes by feigning a migraine. The young officer who’d delivered the unwelcome invitation seemed sympathetic, but he was obviously determined to avoid disappointing the president. He’d made it clear that “orders are orders,” but offered Andi aspirin or painkillers with codeine. He’d suggested that perhaps getting some food in her stomach would ease her symptoms as well, but cautioned that she shouldn’t take any of the pills on an empty stomach. The pills were still sitting on the small table in the entryway when he returned twenty minutes later to escort her downstairs; Andi scooped them into her pocket before joining the baby-faced lieutenant in the hall.

“Is your headache any better?” he asked politely as they walked toward the elevator.

“Unfortunately not,” she answered, scanning the hallway. “Do you mind if we take the stairs? It seems silly to use an elevator for such a short distance, and I’m a little claustrophobic.” Though Andi wasn’t actually claustrophobic, she was interested in discovering the layout of the inn and locating any possible escape routes.

“That’s no problem; the stairs are just over here.” Lieutenant Cruz led Andi into a small alcove full of vending machines across from the elevator.  He used a key to unlock what looked like a utility closet door that revealed a lavish stairway leading to the main lobby.

“This is lovely—why is such a beautiful staircase hidden away?” Andi asked innocently.

The soldier shrugged. “I think it’s only temporary, until the remodeling is complete.” He gently steered Andi toward the dining room and gestured for her to go in. “I believe the president is waiting for you.”

Andi couldn’t hide the sarcasm in her voice when she responded, “Lucky me.”
Lieutenant Cruz looked startled, then a bit confused as Andi sighed with resignation and walked into the luxurious dining room.

“Ms. Carrell, I’m so glad you could join me this evening,” Barnes’ voice boomed from across the room. “Come, have a seat by the window. We’ve missed the full sunset, but I hear the view over the water is spectacular.”

In her mind, Andi imagined killing Barnes in various ways:  choking him with the cord dangling from the window blinds, slicing his neck with a steak knife, dousing him with alcohol and setting him on fire . . . She sat down across from him as he poured her a glass of wine.

“So what did you think about our little sight-seeing venture today? I have to admit that I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the progress that’s been made out here in my absence.” Barnes raised his glass. “Let’s toast to California.”

Andi raised her glass, but drew it back. “So are we toasting obedience or competency? I’m only impressed by the latter.”

Barnes chuckled. “Then we’ll toast to competency first, though in our new world the two go hand-in-hand.”

Andi tapped his glass with her own and took a small sip of wine. It was excellent. “I’ll allow that obedience is a necessary characteristic of soldiering, at least from a commander’s point of view, but you consider yourself president of the United States, a nation founded on the principles of liberty and freedom. Human nature strives for freedom, not obedience, and that will be your downfall.”

“My downfall?” Barnes chuckled again. “I think not.” He waved his hand dismissively. “The masses desire security over freedom, as a historian you should know that. Besides, my armies aren’t human. The infected are ideal examples of obedience, and
en mass
they become the most overwhelming armies this planet has ever seen.”

“Obedience to their hunger or their killer instincts,” Andi scoffed. “You only control them through technology. If we dropped you out of a helicopter into a ravenous horde, I’m sure they’d eat you without a second thought.”

“You certainly seem fixated on people plummeting from helicopters; it’s getting rather tiresome.” Barnes refilled the wine glasses. “And your logic is fundamentally flawed. My hunters, as you call them, don’t have a first thought, never mind a second one. Think of them as remote- controlled angels of death; they go where I send them, attack when I want them to, and never question authority.”

“There are random packs everywhere,” Andi pointed out coolly, “packs that aren’t part of your army. Do you seriously think you control them—where they go, who they eat? You can’t control the chaos you’ve unleashed, and you know it.”

“In due time, the noble creatures will hit their expiration dates. Their limited lifespans have always been a factor in my plans. You should appreciate the utility of mindless killing machines that will get the job done then get out of the way.” Barnes smiled. “I know I do.”

By the time Luke could see the bridge through the falling snow, he would have sworn that one of Barnes’ hordes was following him. Undoubtedly, they’d managed to draw the attention of hundreds of the infected, maybe even a few thousand. He ran up the ramp leading to the bridge, then passed through the semi-trailers holding scores of spear and pike-men. He continued running until he reached the blocking trailer at the base of the trap, where he grabbed onto a knotted rope that was instantly pulled up by the members of one of Gracie’s squads. He saw his wife twenty feet away, loudly issuing last-second instructions to several fighters with compound bows and gave her a thumbs up when she briefly looked his way before he moved on toward his pre-planned battle-post.

Luke quickly leapt onto one of the flanking trailers and began carefully, but quickly, walking along the slippery surface as he headed back to join the soldiers hiding under the bridge. The killing had yet to begin, but Gracie’s unit was shouting insults at the packs of hunters filling the ambush-site, luring more and more of the beasts into the trap. The crossbowmen and their loaders were still lying low as Luke walked by, trying to stay out of sight so the flesh-eaters would continue to pack into the kill zone as they sought to reach the humans to their front. Finally, Luke reached the rear of the last trailer in the line and slid down a rappel-rope to join the fighters waiting for his leadership.

He touched down in nearly a foot of Red River water, but his boots stopped more than snake and hunter-bites. The squads picked to block any retreat were huddled up near the road, crouched down between the first piling and the spot where the span emerged from the earthen ramp. This position was the most dangerous one in the battle plan. The soldiers here wouldn’t be fighting from the top or inside of a trailer; they would eventually line up across the bridge and try to prevent any hunters from escaping once the beasts figured out that they had fallen into a deadly trap. While the soldiers here were fulfilling that task, they would be open to attack from the south by stragglers late to the fight. Gracie would command this ambush; Luke would make sure it succeeded.

The men and women standing on top of the blocking trailer had their helmets off, screaming and shouting at the infected pouring down Highway 8 by the hundreds. The creatures hadn’t seen this many humans since the first weeks of the outbreak, and the sight of so much fresh meat excited them even more than the sounds of human activity that had led them here. The flesh-eaters rushed into the kill zone, howling in anticipation of the food they were about to consume. The soldiers atop the flanking trailers continued to hide themselves, waiting for the signal from Gracie before they commenced their assault. Gracie remained patient, even as the first of the infected reached her position and the spear and pike-men under her command began thrusting their sharpened steel points into hunter flesh.

The troops knew full well that they needed to destroy the brain to kill the monsters, but the beasts could be slowed with solid blows to the chest. Wounding the creatures carried risks, as one of the new recruits quickly discovered when he didn’t let go of a spear he’d embedded in a hunter’s chest during the first charge. The furious flesh-eater grabbed the shaft with both hands and pulled the soldier from his perch. The young man’s screams continued for almost a minute as the monsters tore him to pieces, leading Gracie to finally put him out of his misery with a .22 shot to the brain. If any of the men had quietly questioned the toughness of their female leaders, such talk ended at that moment: Gracie was a stone-cold killer.

After administering the coup-de-grace to the soldier who’d been pulled into the mob filling the kill-zone, Gracie turned back to the girl serving as her runner and gestured for her to raise a red flag she’d attached to a long pike the night before. This was the signal ordering the flanking forces to begin their attack. Company and platoon commanders had carefully selected the best marksmen in their units after watching the troops practice with their crossbows, and those soldiers now opened a murderous fire upon the massed infected below them. The result was nothing less than spectacular as far as Gracie was concerned. From her position she could see the entire battlefield, and watching the fifty shooters rise up as one in the falling snow and release their bolts was a sight she’d never forget.

The crossbowmen had three weapons locked and loaded, so in the space of ten seconds a hundred and fifty bolts slammed into the flanks of the column of hunters who only had eyes for the humans on the blocking trailer. At a range of less than ten meters, the shooters hit flesh every time. The powerful bolts splattered skulls like rifle rounds at that distance, and even the shots that missed the head sent hunters to the snowy surface with horrific wounds to their bodies. The re-loaders kneeling behind the crossbowmen worked frantically to crank the strings back and slide new bolts into place, but during the brief seconds in which the shooting stopped the flesh-eaters below turned their attention to the food lined up along the side of their column.

The hunters rushed for the nearest trailers, leaping for any sort of possible hand-hold that would allow them to climb toward the humans so tantalizingly close. Now came the time for the spearmen to employ their lethal skills. The rookie soldiers were in perfect positions to kill and maim with virtually no danger to themselves, and they cut the monsters down with ruthless efficiency. Gracie screamed in triumph as she watched a hundred blades thrusting from the slits cut into the sides of the trailers. The flesh-eaters who’d spent months showing no mercy to the men, women, and children they’d trapped and eaten alive at every opportunity now found themselves helpless before a murderous foe. The creatures slowly began to realize that there was no meat to be consumed here, and their pack-mates were dropping into bloody heaps in the snow at an alarming rate. The intelligent hunters began to look for a way out.

CHAPTER 14

The battle was over in less than half an hour. Some of the hunters had managed to escape the trap; Luke could still see a handful of flesh-eaters running south along the highway, and he suspected that even more of the creatures were hidden by the brush and falling snow. He was fine with that; he’d never expected to completely contain so many monsters with so few soldiers. The purpose of today’s action had been to greatly thin the number of hunters in the vicinity of the Army base. Luke also wanted to insure that his people didn’t get jumped by a horde at an inopportune time, and to make this area safer for nearby survivors. After this slaughter, there was little possibility of the creatures massing in great enough strength to truly threaten his entire force. Scanning the all-too familiar carnage through his hunter-eyes, Luke fervently cursed General Matthew Barnes for unleashing this continuing holocaust upon humanity.

Terry walked up and stood a few feet away, hesitant to intrude on Luke’s thoughts. After a long moment waiting for his commander to acknowledge him, the teen quietly asked, “What’s our next step, sir?”

Luke raised his visor and gave new orders to the young soldier. “I know our people are worn out, but we need to do one more thing: mop-up duty. Tell the squad leaders to maintain their lines and slowly move through the kill zone. Put a hole in the skulls of any hunters still breathing. And keep all protective equipment on.”

Terry remained frozen in place, gaping at Luke in astonishment. “Is there something else you—?” Luke realized mid-question that Terry was staring at his uncovered eyes. “I didn’t mean to startle you; I forgot that I didn’t have my glasses on under the visor.”

“I . . . I . . . apologize for staring, sir,” Terry stammered.

“No need to apologize. I freaked out a lot more than what you just did when I first saw them in the mirror.” Luke wanted to get the explanation over with and return to the business at hand. “I survived a bite; I almost died, and the infection changed me in some ways, but—”

Terry was incredulous. “You actually survived an eater bite? I didn’t think that was possible.”

“My friends were there; they lanced and bled the wound out right away. We’d heard that a couple of people in Utah had survived by using that method, but I’m the only survivor that we know of for sure.”

“You know, your soldiers already think that the creatures can’t kill you just based on the way you fight. It’s pretty awesome that they really can’t kill you—even if you get bit!” Terry’s eyes were shining with admiration.

“The soldiers who know me might accept the way I look, but, believe me, these eyes can be a liability when meeting people for the first time.” Luke slipped on his tinted glasses. “For now, let’s concentrate on the mop-up duty.” He gestured toward the ground inside the perimeter created by the semi-trailers. Corpses were piled knee-high, arrows, bolts, and spears sticking out of the macabre pile at odd angles.

“Of course, sir,” Terry apologized, “I’m sorry for the delay. I’ll spread the word to the squad leaders.”

Luke briefly wondered what all “the word” would entail as he watched Terry scamper away, then he turned his attention back to the battlefield. The view reminded him of a painting he’d once seen with a bunch of dead knights piled up after the Battle of Hattin during The Crusades. Except these bodies were freezing in snow, and the expressions on their faces were different than those of the dead Crusaders. In the painting, the slain warriors looked beatific, their spirits floating up to a martyr’s heaven. Here, the faces of the downed hunters still looked ferocious and angry, except where cold steel had punched through cheeks, noses, and foreheads, and there were a lot of those types of wounds.

He finally turned from the scene and quickly found his way to Gracie’s side, where she updated him on the status of the troops. The small army had grown smaller during the fight; three soldiers were dead and another had a broken ankle. One of the slain had succumbed to inexperience, and would almost certainly still be alive if he had simply let go of his spear when a powerful hunter grabbed the shaft. Two others had fallen from the trailer-tops, a number that was considered somewhat miraculous when the officers considered the heavy snow that was still coming down. The injured soldier had plummeted into the horde when she lunged for a crossbow that was sliding over the edge near her firing position. Zach had been standing a few meters away when the soldier fell, and he’d immediately jumped in after her. He’d used his pistol instead of the beloved hammer, but he insisted that was only because he’d forgotten to grab the sledge before his impulsive leap. Every crossbow-wielder had also frantically worked to cover the rescue with a barrage of well-aimed bolts, a point that Maddy had already mentioned to Gracie at least five times. Luke merely shook his head when he heard that Zach had broken the rule that so many others had broken over the past six months, figuring that it might be time to re-examine the standing order that even Jack had violated on several occasions.

The corpses of the infected were being dragged to the edge of the bridge and dumped into the thick brush below the ramp; an informal count came to over a thousand dead flesh-eaters. All but a handful of the monsters were fully developed hunters, a fact that the experienced fighters found hard to believe considering the few casualties their force had suffered.

With the clean-up progressing nicely, Maddy and Zach joined Luke and Gracie for a hastily prepared lunch of beans and seared strips of venison.

Maddy was almost giddy with enthusiasm. “We really need to think about what we did right today; we might not have lost anyone if that damn snow hadn’t hit us. We were unstoppable!”

“Don’t get overconfident,” Gracie warned. “I think we were lucky today.”

“You, of all people, know it wasn’t luck,” Maddy corrected. “It was planning, and practice, and preparation. And it wouldn’t have been possible without you, Gracie. I think the boys here will agree that we’ve found our chief strategist and tactician.”

Gracie looked slightly embarrassed. “It was just one fight.”

Zach sided with Maddy. “Nope,” he argued, “you’re the one who figured out how to modify the walls at Vicksburg. We’d probably all be dead if it wasn’t for your ideas there.”

“And,” Maddy added, “you’re the one who thought of cutting holes in the sides of those trailers . . .”

“That was definitely a brilliant idea,” Zach agreed. “We should take the trailers with us somehow; forts on wheels would be awesome.”

“Hey,” Gracie, feeling self-conscious, was happy to change the subject from her leadership abilities, “I read something like that in Luke’s book.”

Luke sensed that Gracie was trying to redirect the conversation. “Which one?” he quizzed.

“That book on ancient warfare you drag around,” she replied; “something about wagon forts in medieval Bohemia.”

Luke nodded. “Ah, you’re talking about the Hussites.”

Maddy rolled her eyes. “The whose-ites?”

“H-u-s-s-i-t-e-s,” Luke slowly spelled for his wife and friends. “They used wagon-forts in the early 15th Century—helped them win a war they should have lost.”

Just then, two of Zach’s company commanders arrived with several important questions for him, and the rest of the young leaders busied themselves with their meals while Zach conferred with his men. As soon as the soldiers left, Zach announced, “We have a final count: one thousand, three hundred and thirty-two dead hunters.”  As an afterthought, he added, “So what were we talking about?”

“We were analyzing our success,” Maddy replied.

“Anyway,” Luke interjected, “the main thing we did differently today was modifying those trailers. We’ve used semis, bridges, crossbows, and shield-walls before; those murder-holes in the trailers were the difference.”

“The only thing is,” Zach objected, “most of the dead had bolts in their skulls.”

“That’s true,” Gracie explained, “but our spears kept the hunters from getting at the shooters. We’ve lost plenty of people in action like that before. Luke was the only one of us who fought at Pickwick Dam, but I know our troops had problems with climbing hunters there.”

Remembering comrades lost during that desperate clash, Luke swallowed hard before commenting. “They only needed to get one hand on the edge, and they were up in a split-second; maybe only ten or twenty percent of them can jump that high, but when thousands are attacking . . .” his voice trailed off.

Gracie waited a few seconds before going on with her train of thought. “As I remember it, you were on top of a trailer with a squad of Utah troops, guarding the flank of the phalanx below.”

Luke nodded, stone-faced, thinking about what might have been if he’d had soldiers inside that trailer like he did today. “A lot of good people died on that dam.”

Maddy had seen part of the Battle of Pickwick Dam from the waters below, where she and Zach had been part of an impromptu, floating sniper team that brought down one of the enemy helicopters. “Me and Zach saw what you were up against that day; you might have killed more hunters with a modified trailer, but you never could have held that position indefinitely.”

“It was only a matter of time,” Zach agreed.

“Unlike today.” Maddy didn’t want talk of an old tragedy to dampen the victorious mood. “Today their time ran out, and they were destroyed!”

Zach high-fived his exuberant friend. “One thousand, three hundred and thirty-two demons sent to hell!” 

Gracie noticed that her husband seemed a little distracted, and she regretted bringing up the losses suffered at Pickwick Dam. She tossed him a strip of venison, “Here, zombie-boy, eat a little more meat; you’ll feel better.”

Luke playfully flipped the meat back at Gracie, “Not to sound like Zach, but I’ll feel better after I take a leak. And I want to check in with Terry. I’ll be back in a few.” He found a private spot, well out of ear-shot of his dinner companions, and threw up until there was nothing left in his stomach.
One thousand, three hundred and thirty two . . . demons?

Will’s head pounded as he scanned his companions for some sign of intelligence. He’d joined this pack out of desperation—he’d wanted to disappear into his former, instinct-driven existence. Nothing had turned out right.

At first, their alpha had eyed him warily, but Will had grunted, crouched low to the ground, and gestured deferentially to show that he had no interest in challenging the leader’s authority. The pack was small, both in number and stature, but they all appeared to be strong and uninjured. Will’s mind had instantly labeled them:
Mostly female.
Taller than the others, the pack’s alpha had pushed its pack-mates aside and aggressively howled a challenge to the newcomer in spite of the submissive behavior. Will would have retreated into the woods, but as he’d stood to go, the alpha had lunged—not realizing his physical disadvantage until it was too late. The deadly outcome was mercifully quick.

So Will was once again a pack-leader, whether he wanted to be or not. At first he’d found some hollow comfort in the familiarity of the pack, but soon the simple-mindedness of his subordinates only magnified his loneliness. They seemed unable to understand basic concepts—not one of them could follow his example of how to throw a stone to take down a bird. They would come when called, and stay when commanded, at least temporarily. Whenever he tried to leave them behind, they would somehow find him. Thus, they were all heading west together.

Will found it was easier to keep the memories at bay if he kept his mind and body occupied. It was cold, and the group travelled at a brisk pace, mostly feeding on rodents and birds. Figuring out the best ways to capture these creatures occupied Will’s thoughts—he worked out a design for a simple snare in his mind and successfully tested his idea when the group stopped to rest one night.

This morning had brought snow and strange noises in the distance. He watched his pack mates as one-by-one they cocked their heads and began to quietly moan. Will knew the moaning would only get louder, signaling the possibility of Food. He’d awakened with a typical headache, and he fiercely snapped at his pack to quiet them.

Will couldn’t identify the unnatural noise, but he did recognize another sound: the familiar howls of a frenzied pack in pursuit of Food. His pack-mates whimpered to join the distant hunt, and he temporarily felt conflicted. Will had no desire to be swallowed up by a mindless mob of his brethren, but this was a chance to separate himself from his tiresome followers. He could send them ahead and continue his journey west without them. Once they merged with hundreds of their own kind, they would no longer feel compelled to follow him.

He locked eyes with the smallest member of his pack, surprised to find that she wasn’t whimpering along with the rest of the group. She’d obviously been watching him, studying him, as he’d been considering his options.
Don’t leave us
, her eyes pleaded.
What will become of us without you?

Will decided that he would lead his group closer to the frantic howling to see how his subordinates would react. To his surprise, they followed him silently through the forest and out onto a road where the fierce wind and blowing snow made it difficult to see much of anything. Worse than that, the mysterious and obnoxious screech had only grown louder. An alarm went off in Will’s mind:
This is a trap.