Z-Burbia 7: Sisters of the Apocalypse (24 page)

Jake Bible
, Bram Stoker Award nominated-novelist, short story writer, independent screenwriter, podcaster, and inventor of the Drabble Novel, has entertained thousands with his horror and sci/fi tales. He reaches audiences of all ages with his uncanny ability to write a wide range of characters and genres.

Jake is the author of the bestselling Z-Burbia series set in Asheville, NC, the bestselling Salvage Merc One, the Apex Trilogy (DEAD MECH, The Americans, Metal and Ash) and the Mega series for Severed Press, as well as the YA zombie novel, Little Dead Man, the Bram Stoker Award nominated teen horror novel, Intentional Haunting, the ScareScapes series, and the Reign of Four series for Permuted Press.

Find Jake at jakebible.com. Join him on Twitter @jakebible and find him on Facebook.

1

The rain continued to fall heavily, cascading down in sheets and saturating the muddy ground and the dark glistening wet figures that trampled through the thick mire. It seemed that it had been raining for a lifetime, tirelessly pouring from the heavens with a rhythmic drumbeat from the heavy droplets that splashed against every surface.

The two soldiers stood at the high wall, staring out into the dark wasteland, squinting through the squalls that blew in at them from all directions, waterlogging their clothing and soaking through to their bodies.

Pushing back his hood, hearing the material crinkle in his hands and feeling the biting cool air and rain sweep across his bare skin, the larger of the two threw his head back, blinking up at the night sky as the cold water streamed across his face and down his neck in rivulets. He watched the dense clouds as they drifted by above him, billowing in their multiple shades of grey.

“You have to love this country,” he said loudly, in an attempt to be heard by the man standing next to him, over the loud pitter-patter of the downpour. He stuck out his tongue and savoured the icy water that splashed into his throat. “Even in the summer, it’s as wet as a Tom Jones groupie’s knickers.”

“Does Tom Jones do many gigs these days?”

“I saw an old CD of him being used to scrape some mildew from the back of the stove in the kitchen the other day, does that count?”

“I suppose it will have to.”

“Doesn’t matter anyway,” he said throwing his hood back over his head and looking out into the inky blackness. “You see anything out there?”

“Nothing, but I can still smell them,” the smaller man sighed.

Far to the right, a sudden series of flashes erupted from one of the heavy machinegun positions stationed along the top of the wall, momentarily illuminating the long barrel and the men who sat behind it. A second later, the distant low rumble of the discharging rounds reached their ears. They watched as the bright red tracer bullets shot out from the parapet and glided gracefully through the air, far out into the dark landscape. They sailed for hundreds of metres in a gentle arc before finally arriving at their intended destinations.

In the distance, beyond the vision of the naked eye, they smashed their way through their targets, ripping their prey to pieces and ploughing on through to the other side. Some of the projectiles hit hard objects like rock, steel…, bone, ricocheting vertically into the air and soaring high like a glowing crimson rocket, far off in the distance.

The guns fell silent and the rain quickly picked up the same pattering beat again to keep the silent night at bay.

“There must be millions of them out there,” the large man grunted and nodded thoughtfully, his eyes fixed on the blanket of darkness that stretched out far beyond the wall.

“When this thing began, there were seven-billion people on the planet. There aren’t many places left with living people, so yeah, I’d imagine that we have quite a few of them on our doorstep.”

The wall had been built early on in the days when anarchy reigned, using the same type of construction method that the American army had used in the early days of the Middle Eastern wars. Mass-produced T-walls, made from thick slabs of high-grade reinforced concrete, were slotted together like giant toy building blocks, creating a one kilometre square impenetrable ring around the base. A second, much higher wall was then built inside of the first, with towers and defensive positions placed at regular intervals along it and large heavy plate steel gates built into the thick six-metre high pillars.

Inside, a network of prefabricated cabins were placed into a strict floor plan, to act as laboratories, operations centres, offices, kitchens and living accommodation. Even during the early days of the chaos, when cities were being overrun and armies were wiped out, the plans had gone to the lengths to make arrangements for a recreation room and even a gym. It was a template taken directly from one of the many Forward Operating Bases that the allies had used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Originally, it had been intended as an FOB, with soldiers and scientists continuing the fight against the armies of rotting bodies. When they realised that the war was lost, the scientists abandoned the base, but many of the soldiers stayed, keeping their families safe within the walls. During the first years, a steady stream of refugees arrived at the island of life that held out amidst an ocean of death, adding to the growing community.

Beyond the outer wall, for hundreds of metres, the barren wasteland was carpeted with barbed wire obstacles and deep ditches, saturated with anti-personnel mines and low wire entanglements that would snare anything that stumbled into the demarcation zone around the fortress.

The machine gunners and sharp shooters, stationed in the towers, knew the area and the exact range of each and every dip and fold of the terrain. They sat and watched, keeping a continuous vigil on their very own ‘No-Man’s-Land’, chalking up their nightly kills and awarding extra rations of their toxic homemade vodka for the man with the most confirmed hits at the end of each day.

For a vast area around the stronghold, lay a desolate wilderness of death and destruction. Burnt and twisted vehicles, APCs, and even tanks, sat silently rotting away, their occupants still inside and entombed forever.

Countless bodies, dead and undead, mangled and twisted, lay ensnared within the barbed wire, or trapped at the bottom of the deep trenches, unable to work their way free from their eternal bondage while the bones of the thousands of fallen, their tattered clothing stubbornly clinging to their remains, slowly crumbled to dust as countless seasons passed them by. The place was a boneyard with the skeletons of men and machinery, all stirred together in a thick soup of churned mud and decay.

Over the years, there had been many attacks on the base. All had failed, but there were a few times when the brave defenders had believed that they were living through their final moments.

Raiders, rogue army units, and armed civilians wanting to seize what was not theirs from the men and women inside, launched countless assaults against the walls, only to be repelled by a ferocious defence, born from the desperation of the people manning the walls to hold on to what they still had.

Their most valued possession was their life and the lives of their families within the protection of their walls. They had all lost and suffered and were determined to cling on to what remained of their existence.

Their deaths came at a high price to their enemies.

Then there were the others, the dead. No matter how many of them were destroyed, they never retreated. Their sustained onslaught against the walls brought the men and women inside to the brink of defeat. Trapped for years, they watched and battled as the army of walking dead piled up around them, trampling over their fallen to launch themselves at the fortress walls. But the barrier held and when the fires came, the thousands of reanimated corpses were reduced to ash. The flames had almost engulfed the survivors too, but it had been a gamble they had to take, or risk being overrun.

Only the searing flames that consumed thousands of them, forced the dead back. Their mindless attacks thwarted, they had retreated to a safe distance, beyond the wire. Now, they remained at the outer edges of the defences, encircling the tiny island of humanity, watching and waiting, as though the years of innumerable failed attacks had taught them of their own mortality.

The air was thick with their stench. It drifted to the living like a creeping vapour, slowly crawling across the barren ground and permeating everything that it touched. Their sound, the low incessant hum of their voices, moaning and wailing in unison, covered the land like a pulsating blanket, haunting the survivors to their core.

They were always there, crowded together in a dense throng of rot. Their black and decaying tissue slowly fell from their emaciated bodies. Their ravenous, lifeless eyes, always gazed longingly at the high impenetrable walls that protected the living people beyond.

Since the dead ceased their mindless attacks, the people within the base had argued that the billions of corpses that now roamed the earth might possibly be gaining a degree of self-awareness. Many shuddered at the thought and refused to believe that the dead could be learning and remembering.

“Well, I suppose it’s time we got a move on.”

The two soldiers descended the steps, their boots squelching in the sucking sludge as they stepped down into the area in front of the large steel gate. Together, they began preparing themselves for what was ahead. They removed their thick nylon waterproof cloaks, filled with holes and tears and barely capable of withstanding the lightest of showers. They rolled them up tightly and stuffed them in to their small packs along with their supplies of food and water.

They were stripped for battle, ready to move with all unnecessary equipment stored away in their packs. Their weapons, equipped with silencers, were oiled against the elements and their ammunition tucked into the pouches of their armoured vests, accessible and easy to reach. Covering their bodies, they wore thick layers of clothing made from buckskin and denim, topped with greaves and vambraces made from hard moulded leather and ceramic armour plating to protect their arms and legs.

They inspected one another, ensuring that their straps were tight and secure, checking that nothing protruded that could be snagged, or cause them to become entangled.

“Have you two girls finished checking each other out?”

They turned to see a figure striding towards them from across the open space between the wall and the buildings that housed the survivors. They had already recognised the voice, but the dark silhouette and long strutting gait was also unmistakable.

“Shit,” one of them grumbled under his breath, “here comes the Fuhrer.”

She stood in front of them, indifferent to the cold water that ran through her hair and over her pale face. She was tall for a woman, with hard refined features and bright blue eyes. Even now, after all the suffering and horror that they had endured, her eyes sparkled with a brightness that seemed to radiate from deep within her. She was pretty once, and even now with endless hardships behind her, and no doubt, many more to come, she had a natural beauty about her. A beauty that came without effort and was as much to do with her bearing, as with her physical appearance.

“You come to see us off then, Captain?” The large man grinned at her as he began fastening the chinstrap of his helmet. “You’re not going to get all misty on us, are you?”

“Chance would be a fine thing,” the other retorted, nodding at the captain as he lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. “She has nitrogen in her veins, not blood.”

She smiled fleetingly, and watched the plumes of pale blue smoke from the burning cigarette drifting up into the drizzling rain. It had been years since she had given up smoking, but even after all this time, she still found herself craving for a smoke from time to time.

She eyed the two soldiers for a moment. Thoughts of days that had long since passed came racing to the forefront of her memory.

They were all that was left. These two men, the smiling mountain and his skinny friend with the crooked nose.

Over the years, one by one, the others had been consumed by the cruel new world, until only two of her original group remained. She loved them. They were her family and her men, and for years, they had fought side by side, watching their friends die around them and grieving together for their loss.

As hard and cold as she seemed, the men knew her well and never doubted her care for them. She was a true leader, willing to suffer and endure any hardship alongside them. Unafraid to do what was necessary, they had recognised her abilities very early on and against her own wishes, they had elevated her to the position of their leader.

“Just be careful out there, you two. No heroics.”

The pair turned and tramped across the yard, the wet filth splashing up from their boots as they made their way towards the small concrete alcove that was set into the wall further along from the main gate.

To their right, the cooks busied themselves beneath the canvas roof of their open air kitchen. It was Friday, and despite the atrocious weather, that meant barbeque night. The head chef raised a hand and waved to them through the coils of steam and smoke that filled the area beneath the canopy.