Fortress of the Dead
Page 19
“Well, kid?” the sergeant added, nudging Jun with his elbow. “You with us?”
She turned back and met his gaze, then nodded. “Let’s go.”
“Alright, then,” Josiah said, and yanked the door open with one swift move, immediately stepping aside so Werner and Jun had a clear line of fire to shoot through the doorway.
In the blink of an eye the three of them were on the other side, and the sergeant was slamming the door shut behind them.
“Don’t let up!” Josiah shouted, firing a round from his 12-gauge into the face of a zombie lurching towards him, racking the pump and then firing at another.
As she had used up the last drum magazine for her Thompson submachine gun, Jun’s choices were limited to her T-99 rifle and her Webley revolver. With the Dead in such close quarters, she opted for the Webley as they drove their way through the crowd and towards the hangar door.
When they were maybe a dozen paces from the door, Jun could hear the sound of the chain-and-pulley mechanism clanking to life, and looking ahead she could see that the rolling door was slowly beginning to close. She, Josiah, and Werner would reach the door in time to get under and out before it shut, but it would be cutting it close. They needed some small advantage, something that would occupy the shambling horde even for a brief moment. Because besides the ones who were still trying to smash the remaining windows and climb into the control room, the rest of the Dead jostling around the hangar had turned their attention to the three squad mates fighting their way towards the exit.
They still had a half-dozen hard-fought steps to go until they reached the door when Jun remembered the drums of gasoline that she had spotted on the far wall of the hangar when she had first looked out from the grill of the electrical conduit. Without sparing a breath to tell Josiah or Werner about her plan, she decided to improvise, and taking hold of her T-99 swung its barrel around, peered through the telescopic sight and took aim, and squeezed off a round at the bottommost of the petrol tanks.
First one and then all of the barrels erupted in a massive explosion that ripped through the far side of the hangar. Dozens of the Dead were caught in the swiftly expanding fireball, their inhuman shrieks sounding out as the flames consumed them.
The Dead closest to the corner of the hangar where Jun and the others were fighting through were not directly caught in the blast, but with the pressure of those now-burning corpses no longer pushing from behind, the leading edge of the horde had lost some of its forward moment. And with a final surge of speed Jun burst through the crowd and dove beneath the hangar door, thankful that the chain-and-pulleys had ceased moving just before she slid under.
For the briefest of instants Jun worried that the Dead had overrun the control room and that Sibyl was no longer able to man the door controls, but as soon as Josiah and Werner slipped out underneath the bottom edge of the door, the chain-and-pulleys once more clanked to life and the rolling door slammed shut in a matter of seconds.
Sibyl had halted the door’s closing just long enough to let them out, and then closed it the rest of the way as soon as they were clear.
“Gott im Himmel,” Werner swore under his breath.
There were a few grasping limbs that stuck out beneath the bottom of the door, and at least one of the Dead had been decapitated when the door closed on its neck, but otherwise the door had completely shut and there was no way for any of the Dead within to get out now.
Of course, there were the Dead who had already gotten out still to worry about.
Jun was bent over with her hands on her knees, struggling to catch her breath. Turning her head to look across the landing pad, Jun could see a handful of the Dead still shambling across the pavement, no doubt following those who had descended the mountain ahead of them. There was no way of knowing how many of the Dead had already made it out of the hangar and were even now on their way towards the populated areas at the base of the mountains.
It was clear that the sergeant was thinking along similar lines.
“We’ll need to catch up with them as already headed down the mountain,” he said, sounding weary.
Werner was in the process of reloading his MP40, a stoic silence settling over him, but Jun could see a pained look in his eyes.
Jun straightened up and looked back at the hangar door. The sound of the Dead within could be faintly heard through the reinforced metal door, along with the distant peals of Curtis’s pistol firing. There was a brief silence, and then another shot rang out, immediately followed by another, and then only the muffled sounds of the writhing Dead horde could be heard.
“Oh…” Jun covered her mouth with her hand as she realized what those final two gunshots meant, and who had taken each of the last two bullets.
Sergeant Josiah stepped over to Jun’s side, and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Come on, kid,” he said softly. Jun could hear his voice almost break, but Josiah maintained his composure. “Remember, we’ve got to concern ourselves with what’s ahead of us, not what’s behind.”
Sibyl had told her that she needed to make it count. Jun owed it to her, and to Curtis, and to her fallen friends and all of the others who had gone ahead of them, to keep moving. To aim for the head, scan for incoming, and keep moving.
“Okay,” Jun said, and began reloading her Webley. “Let’s go make it count.”
And as the sun raised over the peaks of the Alps that loomed in the east, the three survivors began to make their way down the mountain, leaving the fortress of the Dead behind them, to carry on the fight against the armies of the unliving.
Jun would make it count, for the sake of all those who had gone before her, or die trying…
About the Author
CHRIS ROBERSON IS the co-creator with artist Michael Allred of iZombie, the basis of the hit CW television series, and the writer of several New York Times best-selling Cinderella miniseries set in the world of Bill Willingham’s Fables. He is also the co-creator of Edison Rex with artist Dennis Culver, and the co-writer of Hellboy and the B.P.R.D, Witchfinder, Rise of the Black Flame, and other titles set in the world of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy. In addition to his numerous comics projects, Roberson has written more than a dozen novels and three dozen short stories.
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