The Zulu Virus Chronicles Boxset (Books 1-3)

by Steven Konkoly

  “I’m on it!” said Fitzgerald before taking off.

  “David, Josh,” said Larsen, “I need you up here. Fitz has our back.”

  “Are you sure about that?” said David.

  “For now,” said Larsen before moving on line with Scott.

  The small mob ahead of them broke apart quickly, the combined guns from NevoTech security and Larsen’s crew dropping most of the infected fifty yards out. Several crazies ran headlong through the barrage, barreling down East Street and passing the entrance gate. Larsen and Scott picked their targets on the move, knocking them down one by one until the street was clear again. They were almost there!

  Movement in in his peripheral vision instinctively drew his rifle to the right, the green targeting beam intersecting a man running at them with a fireplace poker. A second crazy was right behind him. Both fell to the sidewalk across the street without anyone in Larsen’s group firing a shot, a green beam slicing through the air where the two had just stood.

  His first thought was to empty his rifle magazine into the tight space between the two houses, but he fought that instinct. If the shooter wanted him dead, he’d be dead. This was something else.

  “Larsen?”

  He recognized the female voice immediately. Ragan.

  David stopped next to him. “You sure they’re not going to kill us?”

  “They have to stand in line,” said Larsen, nodding at the growing mob near the corner of the street.

  “Good point,” said David before taking off.

  “You here to play nice?” said Larsen.

  The green laser vanished, and Ragan appeared from the shadows.

  “We just want to get out of here. All of this is beyond screwed,” said Ragan. “I’m coming out with McDermott and Cordova.”

  “Hurry the fuck up, then!” said Larsen. “You picked a bad time to make friends.”

  As Ragan and her team crossed the street, the gunfire intensified to the south because Fitzgerald’s shooters over-responded to a small group that managed to break through their shield of bullets. The momentary distraction, drawing most of their fire away from the main mob—essentially collapsed the rear flank. Larsen took off in the opposite direction, catching up with the rest of the group as they ran for the closest gate.

  “Where are you going?” yelled Ragan.

  “Back inside this fence!” he said. “It’s the only place that’s safe.”

  “What?” she said. “Why is the military here?”

  “What military?” he said.

  “The military inside the fence?”

  “That’s private security for NevoTech!” he said, looking over his shoulder.

  At least twenty infected had broken through Fitzgerald’s gauntlet.

  “What the fuck is going on, Larsen?”

  “I’ll explain once we get inside!” said Larsen. “Until then—run and shoot.”

  They ran for a few seconds before a new volley of gunfire erupted in front of them.

  “This isn’t going to work,” yelled David, who had stopped in his tracks.

  A tidal wave of people rushed onto the road north of them, from McCarty Street, which was only twenty yards beyond the gate. Larsen’s group was slightly closer to the turnstile entrance, but they’d never reach it in time to get more than one person through before they were overrun. They had to make a stand here and use the ladders—something they probably should have done in the first place. The grim realization that not all of them would make it over hit him like a hammer.

  “David, tell Fitzgerald to collapse all of his security guards right here and get those ladders over!”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Just do it!” said Larsen before grabbing Ragan and pointing back the way they came. “Form a tight line facing that way. That’s your field of fire.”

  Ragan instantly assessed the situation unfolding on both ends of the street, a look of resignation settling over her face. She nodded and started organizing her team.

  David yelled over the gunfire, “Dammit, Larsen! We don’t have the firepower for this.”

  “We don’t have a choice,” said Larsen. “I got the north, with the rest. You reinforce whichever side needs the help, and keep coordinating.”

  David stared at him for a moment, like he’d spoken another language.

  “We’re all going to die out here,” said David.

  “Not all of us,” said Larsen. “Get Fitzgerald’s people moving. I want them right here, along the fence, putting out a steel wall. And we need those ladders.”

  David began coordinating with Fitzgerald while the lines formed up and started firing. The effect was immediate, but insufficient. Even with the NevoTech security team in place, Larsen couldn’t imagine it being enough. It all came down to numbers. The number of critical hits per bullets fired balanced against the volume of targets. They simply didn’t have enough skilled shooters to keep the crazies at bay long enough to get everyone over the fence—or anyone, if the ladders didn’t show up very soon.

  Chapter 49

  Major Smith’s HUMVEE rolled to a heavy stop in front of the address Dr. Owens had given him. By the look of the place, he wasn’t optimistic about finding Dr. Hale. The lobby entrance windows had been shattered, jagged chunks of glass lying on the sidewalk or on top of the steel frames. Similar to the windows, the glass door had been smashed, but the mess had been dragged inside. Almost like someone had jumped through it. He couldn’t tell from here, but two bullet holes appeared in the upper right corner of the door frame.

  “Third floor. Apartment three-ten. In and out in thirty seconds,” said Smith over the squad tactical net. “Kick the door in if she doesn’t answer.”

  “On our way,” said Staff Sergeant Vaughn.

  Four soldiers disembarked the HUMVEE behind Smith’s and quickly moved into the building, spreading out inside the lobby. He tapped his fingers on the bullet-resistant window, willing Vaughn to move faster, though he knew she was balancing speed with caution. Stopping in the middle of the street made him nervous. They’d encountered dozens of infected on the way down here, aggressively maneuvering around each group and strictly avoiding the use of their mounted weapons.

  In fact, he’d purposefully kept his gunners out of the turrets. Gunfire attracted attention, and out here, the key to survival was not attracting attention. Hard to do when you were stopped in the middle of the street, in a rumbling, overpowered diesel vehicle. A lone figure holding a knife ran through the intersection ahead of them, paying no attention to the three armored vehicles. Pure luck.

  “Kill the engine,” said Smith, repeating the order over the net to the other drivers.

  “You want me up on the two-forty, sir?” said Private First Class Roth from the rear driver’s seat.

  “Not yet,” said Smith.

  The HUMVEE cabin went still, the four of them waiting silently for news from Staff Sergeant Vaughn. A loosely spaced group of six figures dashed into the intersection, headed in the same direction as the first. One of them looked at the HUMVEEs as he ran by, slowing his pace. Smith held still, watching the man closely. His facial expressions were mostly washed out by the night vision, so he paid attention to the man’s body language. The guy wanted to check out the vehicles. Shit. He just stopped.

  “Sir?” insisted Roth.

  “I got this,” said Smith, grabbing the door handle.

  A single pistol shot to the head would draw considerably less attention than a burst of 7.62mm gunfire from the turret-mounted two-forty. He started to pull on the door handle, when the distinctive crackle of automatic gunfire jolted the infected man’s attention—and he vanished behind the corner of the apartment building.

  “Vaughn, sitrep,” said Smith.

  “Just reached the third floor,” said Vaughn. “Moving toward—shit. The door is blasted in. Serious explosive breach.”

  More gunfire echoed between the buildings.

  “Quick sweep and get out,” said Smith. �
��I’m hearing sustained gunfire on the streets. It’s going to get busy out here, really fast.”

  “I hear it. Webb and I are moving into the apartment,” said Vaughn, pausing for a few seconds. “I have a body on the floor in the living room. Looks like a military contractor. Civilian clothes. Body armor. Suppressed rifle. Bullet holes in the glass slider facing the street.”

  “Get out of there,” said Smith. “She’s long gone.”

  “Copy that,” said Vaughn. “Moving back to the vehicles.”

  Another long surge of gunfire cut through the night, but unlike the previous bursts, this one didn’t stop. Instead, the shooting intensified, reaching the kind of ferocious pace he recognized all too well. A few blocks from here, a rifle squad was fighting for its life. He pressed the radio transmit button on his vest.

  “All vehicles, get ready to roll. Gunners up in the turrets,” said Smith. “Convoy will take a hard right at the first intersection. All vehicles stay on me and stay tight. We’re looking for the source of that gunfire.”

  “Sounds like a final protective fire,” said Sergeant Breene, starting the HUMVEE.

  Most of the gunfire stopped for a few seconds. He could still hear some kind of shooting, but it was a lot quieter.

  “Maybe it’s over,” said Corporal Mayer, in the seat behind Smith.

  Before Smith could respond, the shooting started again, sounding more desperate than before. He glanced impatiently at the apartment building. Four soldiers appeared at the rear of the lobby, running toward the front door.

  “Contact. Intersection,” said Roth. “Request permission to fire, sir!”

  Smith’s eyes darted to the intersection. Four infected scrambled in their direction, armed with a variety of makeshift weapons. Harmless against the HUMVEEs, but he still had four soldiers in the open.

  “Fire,” said Smith.

  The M-240 roared twice, its 7.62mm shell casings clattering against the metal roof. The people running toward the HUMVEE tumbled to the street like they had been switched off remotely. He triggered his radio again.

  “Hunter convoy is cleared to engage hostile targets. I say again. Hunter convoy is cleared to engage hostile targets.”

  Roth yelled down from the protective turret, “You need to define ‘hostile target,’ sir.”

  She was right. Smith spotted a dozen or more infected beyond the intersection, all headed in their direction.

  “Contacts approaching from our six o’clock,” reported Specialist DeLeon, the rear vehicle gunner.

  He couldn’t put this off any longer. He’d wanted to shield them from shooting civilians, but they no longer had a choice.

  “Hunter convoy, this is Hunter actual. You are clear to engage anyone on the streets,” said Smith, wondering what he had just done.

  Chapter 50

  David jumped as high as he could and grabbed the bottom rung of the aluminum ladder with both hands, pulling it downward when he dropped back to the ground. The ladder flipped over the top of the fence from the sudden, violent momentum, crashing to the sidewalk between the two lines of shooters and skidding partway into the street. He yanked his son out of the firing line and took his place between Scott and Larsen.

  “Get that ladder up and get over!” said David. “Take Jack and Emma with you!”

  Jack heard what he said, and emptied the last few bullets from his revolver into the nearest crazy—less than ten feet away—before stepping out of the line to help Joshua with the ladder. David dropped the empty magazine from his rifle and removed another from his vest without taking his eyes off the approaching horde, noticing that most of his ammunition pouches were empty.

  He slapped the magazine into his rifle and released the slide before connecting the green targeting beam with a man several feet away and pressing the trigger. David didn’t wait to see the result. He shifted the laser to the next target and repeated the process. Scott and Larsen did the same thing, only much faster. None of them were using the optical sights attached to their rifles anymore. The green beams, only visible to those wearing night-vision devices, moved back and forth across the crowd, pausing long enough on each target to guide a bullet.

  A head slammed down on the sidewalk a few feet in front of him, the first crazy to get that close since they had reformed the group. Along the fence ahead of David, muzzle blasts from the NevoTech rifles flashed like a paparazzi camera frenzy, pounding the mob in a lethal crossfire. A man broke out of the pack, running toward David with a broken glass bottle. Two beams connected with him at the same time, Scott’s rifle firing first. The crazy tumbled to the ground, the bottle skidding along the sidewalk between them. They were moments from being overrun.

  David glanced over his shoulder. The long ladder sat against the fence at a forty-five-degree angle, extending several feet past the sharp spikes that curved outward to prevent someone from scaling the fence from the street. Two of the spikes protruded through the ladder rungs, still presenting an obstacle, but nothing that couldn’t be avoided. Emma was already halfway up the ladder, while Jack stood on the bottom rung so it wouldn’t tip when she got to the top. Much to David’s dismay, Joshua stood under the ladder, firing at the rapidly approaching mob just beyond the other team.

  He turned his attention back to the crazies directly in front of him, with one thought in mind. Hold the line until my son gets over the fence. Based on what he’d seen when he turned his head, he wasn’t sure that was a realistic thought. The mob had completely broken through the NevoTech gauntlet.

  A woman barreled into Scott, but he held firm, shoving her backward into the crazy behind her. David shot them both and barely got his rifle around in time to shoot a man point blank in the neck. The crazy’s limp body knocked his rifle sideways, away from a tangle-haired woman coming at him with a kitchen knife. He stepped into the attack, deflecting the knife with his left arm while pulling his pistol from the holster on his right thigh and sticking it under her chin.

  David was already searching for the next threat when he pulled the trigger, immediately turning the blood-slicked pistol toward a man swinging an aluminum baseball bat. He got off a single shot before the bat connected with his right forearm, knocking the pistol out of his grip and sending a shockwave of pain up his arm and down his hand. The man dropped from a gunshot blast to the forehead, replaced by another crazy—an endless tide. His only mission now was to buy a few more seconds for his son.

  Unable to use his right hand, he gripped his rifle with his left and jammed the magazine against the crook of his right elbow, stabilizing the weapon. He managed to fire twice before he was knocked to the ground by a throng of infected. On his back, he saw Larsen still upright, firing his pistol point blank into several onrushing crazies. Scott grunted on the other side of him, driven to his knees by two men, one who was trying to push a switchblade into his gut.

  David tilted his head up and caught a brief image of his son at the top of the fence, aiming the scoped M1-A1 rifle down at the mob piling onto him.

  “Get out of here!” yelled David.

  A thick, warm spray covered the left side of David’s face, followed moments later by what felt like a bucket of hot worms spilling over his neck. The sound of rapid machine gun fire hit him before he could react, along with a steady flow of body parts. The crazies above him collapsed in a shower of gore, pinning him to the sidewalk and knocking his night-vision goggles out of place. He recognized the machine guns by their fast rate of fire. M240s.

  “Stay down!” he yelled, his voice unable to compete with the repeated bursts of gunfire.

  He strained his head sideways under the weight to find his son. In the dark, he could tell the ladder was bent, probably punctured in several places by bullets. He couldn’t see anything beyond that. The bursts of machine-gun fire grew closer until tires screeched and the heavy engines surrounded him.

  “Careful!” yelled an authoritative female voice. “We might have survivors. Start pulling them off.”

  “I go
t one over here!” yelled another serious voice. “At least two.”

  David desperately wanted to see his son, to know that he’d jumped over the fence in time, but he didn’t want to move. The thought of making it this far and getting shot by a jumpy soldier kept him perfectly still. The weight pressing down on him lifted slowly, then was gone. He opened his eyes and smiled at the body-armor-clad soldier pointing a rifle in his face.

  “David Olson, Westfield Police Department,” said David. “There should be two more. One on each side of me.”

  Two pairs of hands lifted him to his feet. One of the soldiers kept him steady while the rest went to work sifting through the carnage. He lowered his night-vision goggles and looked around. Larsen stood on one leg, his arm draped around one of the soldiers. The team leader on the other side of the ladder was up, helping the soldiers pull dead crazies off her teammates. She gripped an outstretched hand and pulled one of her people clear of the mess.

  “Medic!” yelled a soldier next to him.

  Scott lay on his side, blood spilling out of his mouth. He grimaced in pain, roaring as one of the soldiers flipped him onto his back and started to unsnap his gear. David saw the problem before the medic. The switchblade was buried deep in his right side, and they’d just rolled him over it.

  “Doc, he has a knife in his right side,” said David.

  “Shit,” said the soldier, leaning back on his knees and unzipping the “unit one pack” next to him. “Major Smith!”

  A soldier rushed past him, kneeling next to Scott and the medic. While the two argued over what to do with the critically injured operative, David searched the faces on the other side of the fence for Joshua. He didn’t have to look for long.

  “Dad! I’m here,” yelled his son, waving frantically behind the fence with Jack and Emma Harper.

  David raised his hand and gave them a thumbs-up, unable to form the words to express his joy. He just nodded and started to tear up, momentarily oblivious to the machine-gun fire and chaos around him. The moment was short lived.