Behold Darkness

by L C Champlin

  Ssssssaaaaaahhhh!

  Nathan skidded to a halt. Shit! Dead DHS escorts meant no one to tell the officers outside that the civilians needed evac.

  Josephine sidestepped his charge. “What are you—”

  “We need the jackboots alive.” A peek around the corner and down the other hall first, as he didn’t need a stray bullet in the head.

  “But you said those things want to kill us!”

  Good, the oil-mouth officers had only just begun to jerk themselves toward their targets. Rust-orange eyes locked on prey. The monsters left a trail of blood and black slime as they advanced.

  Nathan darted forward, grabbed Jordan by the arm and dragged him backward. Off balance from leaning toward his comrades, the officer stumbled after. Unfortunately, wrenching the MP-5 from the man and putting it to its intended use would bring more confusion.

  Hauling him abreast of Rodriguez, Nathan found her weapon up. For once she aimed at the cannibals and not him.

  “Head shot now or they will kill us,” Albin, the angel on her shoulder, was counseling.

  Jordan regained enough balance to jerk free. “What the fuck!”

  “Halt now or I’ll shoot!” Rodriguez ordered the monsters.

  Ssssssaaaaaahhhh!

  “I’m warning you!”

  “Shoot them!” Nathan and Albin yelled. He could only do so much unarmed. Human shield time again?

  BAM!

  Riiiiiiiiii—Nathan clapped his hands over his ears by reflex.

  A miss.

  BAM!

  Oil and gray matter sprayed in the wake of the 9 mm round. The hostile rag-dolled.

  “My God!” Josephine yelped from the rear.

  One left.

  “Were there shots fired in the building?” the officers’ HTs crackled.

  BAM! The bullet bit the floor as Jordan shoved the muzzle down. “Are you fucking nuts, Rodriguez?” Horror and disbelief contorted his features. “You just killed an officer! Give me your weapon!”

  “Shut up.” Rodriguez jerked the MP-5 free of his grip, brought it back on line.

  Damn the consequences: a headlock caught Jordan off guard. Biceps flexing, Nathan squeezed the vessels feeding the brain.

  Boots pounded down the hallway behind them. The cavalry?

  As Jordan went limp, Nathan dragged him toward the rear.

  “Hold!”

  Rodriguez paused at the command.

  A glance over his shoulder showed three DHS thugs piling from the hall, ARs leveled. He couldn’t choke them all out, sadly.

  Ssssssaaaaaahhhh!

  The cannibal dragged itself closer. Three yards until it came in biting range. Mucus trailed onto the floor.

  “What in the—” The lead cavalry officer took in the scene, mouth agape.

  Two yards.

  Cold washed over Nathan. Sirens howled outside. He dropped to one knee with Jordan as a shield and grasped the MP-5 that hung at the officer’s chest. Though awkward, he could manage. The angle, plus Albin’s and Josephine’s obstructing bodies, should disguise his action from the reinforcements.

  BAM! BAM! Sloppy chest shots from this position. Black fluid splattered as a round chewed into the monster’s shoulder. Hits to the center of mass made the oil mouth stagger, gave breathing room. Too bad bulletproof vests worked so well.

  Ssssssaaaaaahhhh! Throwing back its head, black ooze streaming down its blistered chin, it lunged.

  Chapter 37

  Dodge and Burn

  Over My Head – The Fray

  BAMBAMBAM!

  Downed. A three-round burst of 5.56 mms did the trick.

  Rodriguez stepped up to finish the job: the thing’s nose vanished in a puff of blood and cartilage. Brain liquefied, and the twitching ceased.

  “I can’t believe this,” Josephine announced to the air.

  “Ah, what the fuck?” Jordan groaned as he came-to. Nathan dropped him and stepped back.

  “Officer Rodriguez, Officer Jordan,” the lead newcomer barked, “what’s going on? Were they the hostiles we’ve been hearing about?”

  “They can’t be,” put in one of his companions, a younger man with wide eyes. “They’re officers!”

  Jordan scrambled to his feet, checked his weapon, then stared in disbelief at the bodies.

  “They were officers,” Albin, corpse-pale, corrected as he adjusted his glasses.

  Nathan turned to the exit. “Let’s go.”

  “Not so fast, sir.”

  A hand clamped on his shoulder. Not now. The exit beckoned in a blood-red glow. “Director Washington’s orders, officer: we’re assets and must be taken to safety. Officers Jordan and Rodriguez are our escorts.”

  Rodriguez shifted from staring at the decimated skulls of her targets. “It’s true, Sergeant.” She held the MP-5 across her chest in an at-ease stance. Shock deadened her expression.

  Frowning, the sergeant released Nathan.

  Jordan shouldered up to come nose to nose with Rodriguez. “You’re as crazy as these idiots!” A gesture toward Nathan, Albin, and Josephine.

  “They were trying to kill us, you dickhead.” She butted vests with him.

  “God, Rodriguez.” He stepped back, wincing at the gore sprayed across the hall. “You shot them in the head. You shot our guys in the head, for Chrissake.”

  Nathan snorted. “She just saved our lives.”

  BOOM! Dust rained from the ceiling tiles.

  Albin brushed powder from his shoulders. “Apparently the terrorists have yet to be subdued.”

  “Come on.” Nathan nodded for him and Josephine to follow.

  They picked their way around pools, spatters, and splashes of gore. Josephine panned her smartphone over the scene, eyes narrowed with professional scrutiny.

  “Go,” the reinforcements’ leader ordered Rodriguez and Jordan. “Director Washington confirms your report. Gareth, Johanson”—he motioned to the wide-eyed young man and a heavy-set officer—“back them up until they reach transport.”

  After a salute, the escort officers joined their charges.

  “Move,” Rodriguez ordered, even as Nathan vacated the doorway.

  The officers stacked, Rodriguez on point. Crack the door, go. They scanned the area, then motioned for the civilians to follow. Finally, free of the prison, and into the killing fields.

  Spent gunpowder and exhaust fouled the night as Nathan stepped into the back parking lot. The weight of an assault rifle in his hands would feel wonderful.

  Ahead, trees loomed like Titans ready to consume the humans. Floodlights illuminated the lot and its vehicles.

  Gunfire and shouted orders echoed all around. Fleeing on foot invited death here even more than it did downtown. Nathan squared his shoulders. The terrorists would find the sheep turned to wolves.

  Movement behind a burned-out squad car drew Rodriguez’s attention. “One o’clock!”

  Ssssssaaaaaahhhh! To the left—

  “Nine o’clock,” Nathan barked. “Where’s our transport?”

  “Possible hostiles, nine o’clock.” Gareth, aka Captain Redundant, repeated.

  “Where’s our vehicle?” Rodriguez demanded into her comm.

  “Inbound from the north. Standby.”

  “ETA?”

  “Not soon enough,” Josephine muttered.

  Ssssssaaaaaahhhh! Desk jockeys, but they’d never need a desk again. They staggered toward the group, drooling black trails down their white shirts.

  The exit route lay north, the opposite direction of the cannibals. Nathan nodded to Albin and to Josephine’s phone camera to go.

  Automatic-weapon fire cracked from the left, joining the neighborhood gunfire.

  “Fall back,” Rodriguez ordered.

  Something moved ahead. Nathan pointed. “One o’clock.”

  Rodriguez’s MP-5 hammered a three-round as a gunman appeared from behind one of the totaled cruisers across the lot. Jorda
n’s weapon joined.

  “Get down!” Nathan dragged Josephine down, himself between her and the enemy. Albin needed no encouragement, already shoving his employer down.

  Chapter 38

  Don’t Say the Z Word

  Aim for the Head – Creature Feature

  The earth trembled. Diesel-engine bass thrummed under the gunfire. A black International MaxxPro monster van rumbled around the corner, more beautiful than any Maserati.

  “Yes!” Nathan’s tax dollars might help him for once. Amazing how situations changed a person’s perspective, making him glad to see nineteen tons of DHS Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle bearing down on him.

  The beast pulled between the gunman and the officers, then backed up, angling to provide cover. The rear door dropped to make a ramp.

  “Go, go, go!” Jordan barked, on point.

  Keeping low, the civilians charged the five yards to the MaxxPro MRAP. At the entry, Nathan stood between his people and the tree-side of the ramp as they boarded. Then he swung into the six-seater and strapped in beside Albin.

  “Rodriguez, go with them,” Jordan ordered as he pushed her toward the truck’s bay.

  By now the cannibals lay in puddles of gore, unmoving after the barrage.

  She saluted. “Be safe, Jordan.”

  He heaved the door up, threw it home.

  Hissss boom!

  The officer in the MRAP’s passenger seat fired a grenade from a rifle-mounted launcher. The MaxxPro didn’t even rock as the explosive eliminated the gunman and half the squad car.

  Belted in across from Nathan and Albin, Josephine panned her camera while Rodriguez checked her weapon. Two FEMA agents, a male of Asian descent and a blonde female, both in their thirties, occupied the seats closest to the cockpit. Nods from residents to newcomers and vice versa.

  The engine revved as the vehicle rumbled into motion.

  “Whew!” the reporter breathed, grinning from the escape. “That was close.” Then she sobered as the situation’s weight crashed into her. “Way too close.”

  “What did I tell you, Albin?” Nathan couldn’t help grinning at his friend in the dome light’s glow. “Everything’s going according to plan.”

  Albin’s spine remained rigid, his knuckles white on the four-point harness straps. He gave Nathan a sidelong, patronizing look. “Perfectly so, sir. Nothing could have been simpler. I can’t fathom why I failed to conceive of this strategy myself.” He tucked his chin to hide a smile as he shook his head.

  “This is incredible,” the newswoman announced as she craned her neck to look through the vented gun slit above Nathan. “You were right about those cannibal things. They only went down with head shots. They’re like zom—”

  “Do not say it,” Nathan and Albin snapped. Later. He’d think about the possibility of . . . zombies later.

  Sensing a point to argue, Josephine pressed, “But that’s essentially what they’re like, isn’t it? You saw those officers and their friends. People apparently become them after being attacked. Right?”

  “We cannot be certain,” Albin cautioned.

  “What other explanation is there?”

  Nathan toyed with a plate-carrier pocket flap. “Chemical and biological weapons.”

  “Zombies, like I said!” She spread her hands in triumph.

  As much as the reporter had helped, she could get off at the next stop if she didn’t shut up and let Nathan enjoy the ride. “Look, Ms. Behrmann, this isn’t a ‘don’t use the Z-word’ moment. Names are important, as any marketer will tell you. They shape how we perceive reality. Orwell called it Doublespeak when Big Brother used words to control thoughts and ideas.”

  “Zombies,” Albin began in his expository tone, “traditionally have two definitions.”

  Nathan settled into his seat as the blond began erecting one of his Fortresses of Logic.

  “First, they are deceased humans reanimated through necromantic means, usually of the hoodoo persuasion. Second, they are humans who have been drugged into a semi-conscious state and are kept under the control of another by continued administration of the substance. Blowfish toxin is believed to be a key ingredient—”

  “Obviously neither of those is what’s going on,” Josephine broke in. “You left out the third definition: mutation from radiation or a virus.”

  “I do not consider Hollywood B movies a proper source of information.”

  “Some Hollywood fantasies do become reality.”

  Nathan raised a brow. “Are you going to point to Star Trek comms and smartphones?”

  “Among other things. Who’s to say zom—”

  “Cannibals.”

  “You’ve seen them eat people?” Skepticism and excitement blended.

  “The name refers to the bath salts cannibals,” Nathan clarified. “We thought their condition was from drug use.”

  “Cannibals? Zombies?” asked the FEMA man. His partner appeared as confused as he.

  “You’ll meet them soon enough,” Nathan warned. “Keep your distance and shoot them in the head.”

  “Listen to me, Ms. Behrmann,” Albin pressed, “I am not claiming these things are unrelated to the virus-infected creatures in the movies.”

  “Sure sounds like you are.”

  “I am merely stating the term zombie is a misnomer in this situation just as it is in most Hollywood productions.”

  “It might not be exact, I’ll cede you that.” Josephine leaned forward, enjoying the argument apparently. “But it’s close enough.”

  Finished with her weapon inspection, Rodriguez looked up, bemused. “What the hell does it matter? They stumble around and want to kill you. That’s zombie enough for me.”

  “No.” They didn’t know what Kraken they’d awoken by challenging Albin. Nathan smiled to himself. “Names are power.”

  Josephine laughed. “Speak a thing’s true name and control it, is that it? Surely you don’t believe in those old myths.”

  “No, indeed he doesn’t,” Nathan murmured, producing his water bottle and taking a gulp.

  Albin gave a thin, ice-laden smile. “People bestow pet names on what they wish to diminish in stature. Familiarity is a form of power that gives the wielder a psychological advantage by decreasing his or her chance of feeling intimidated. The term ‘zombie’ carries too many dangerous connotations that may put people in an inappropriate, even dangerous mindset.”

  “Head shots work on them,” Rodriguez pointed out. “If you call them zombies, people will know to kill the brain.”

  “Perhaps, but they will also consider them shambling, slow, mindless undead that want to eat brains. Operating under these assumptions when facing the cannibals could very well get a person killed, or worse.” Perfectly accurate, as always.

  “You mean they’re not that way?” Josephine looked skeptical. “The ones I saw—”

  “Were not the ones I saw, nor the ones I dispatched.”

  “Then that answers my question about how you knew head shots worked,” the newswoman addressed Nathan.

  “We don’t know enough yet,” he sighed. “We’re not calling them zombies. That’s final.”

  “Have it your way.” Josephine sat back with a smile of amusement.

  Nathan shifted his shoulder harness to a more comfortable position over his armor. “Driver, what’s our destination?” With how his luck was running tonight, they were probably headed back toward Union Square.

  “Just north of Sigmund Stern Grove, sir.” Which told him nothing.

  Josephine, however, cocked her head in question. “But that’s not far.”

  “You’ll switch to another transport vehicle, which will take you to Fire Department 19. It’s another command center.”

  “That’s more like it.” Rodriguez slid back into DHS Law Enforcement Mode. Fine, so long as she dispensed head shots at the appropriate times and into the appropriate skulls.

  “That is, of course
,” Albin drawled, “if this location is secured with more effectiveness than the previous command center.”

  The vehicle slowed.

  Nathan raised himself as far as he could in his seat to peer through the gun ports. Floodlights and trees slid by.

  Swinging right, the MaxxPro rumbled into the park, then jerked to a halt. “Everybody out,” the driver ordered.

  Rodriguez unlatched the door, which swung down on a grassy space bright with mobile lighting and loud with vehicle engines, chopper rotors, personnel shouts. Sirens whined, near and distant.

  Squinting, Nathan followed Rodriguez into the field. Albin, VTAC on his back again, followed Josephine. After the FEMA agents disembarked, Rodriguez slammed the hatch shut. The MRAP rolled away with a roar of MaxxForce engine.

  A young man in a FEMA windbreaker trotted up to Rodriguez. “From Taraval Station? This way.” He motioned for them to follow him toward—Oh hell no. Hell no.

  Chapter 39

  Caged

  Radioactive – Imagine Dragons

  Nathan ground to a stop. Ahead waited a white GMC van, a 3500 chassis judging by the length. “I gave up a Bentley for this?” He could handle the van. He couldn’t handle the green stripe and gold seven-point star that glinted along its hull. “They’re using a prison transport vehicle?”

  “Is Half Moon Bay Airport looking appealing now, sir?” Albin smirked.

  “Do I need to carry you boys?” Rodriguez called from beside the PTV. Josephine, the FEMA agents, and two other government employees had already boarded.

  “Is it too late to walk?” Nathan muttered, starting toward the shortbus. First the government confiscated their weapons, then it accused them of terrorism, now this. That C-130 ride home better include an in-flight fillet mignon.

  “Move!” Rodriguez motioned for them to hurry.

  At the van’s rear, Albin climbed in, then raised a brow at his employer, who hesitated. “It’s not a significant departure from the personnel carrier, Mr. Serebus.”