by Ivan Turner
Another bullet punched into the floor inches in front of his toe. Lefferts caught the ricochet.
“Hold your fucking fire!” And that was the breaking point for Frank Culph. He got down on one knee and fired into the mist. He couldn't aim, but that didn't mean he fired wildly. He spread his fire out in a pattern to cover the low, middle and high end of the room. Puffs of dust accompanied each shot.
“They're behind us!” That shout was accompanied by gunshots.
“Fall back,” Heron ordered.
“The hell with that,” Culph said to him. Then, to his squad, “Get Harrison and Lefferts out of here. Squad two, we need you!”
The gunfire behind them lessened but didn't stop. It meant the men were gathering their wits and choosing their shots. That was good. It also meant they weren't being overwhelmed.
Good turned to bad very quickly. Shapes appeared in the gloom ahead. The zombies were bottlenecked just as the policemen were, but they didn't care. They pushed each other through the corridor, desperate to get at their food. But they stayed behind their leader.
There was a leader.
The cop was clearly dead, just like the rest of them. The jerk of his motions, the angle of his head. Even though he was covered from head to toe in zombie defense garb, Culph knew there was nothing left of him inside that bag of skin. He was riddled with bullet holes from Culph's barrage but that wasn't what had killed him. His leg was chewed through to the bone. But he led them. He clearly led them. As much as they tried to push forward, they restrained themselves when they got close to him. And as frightening as it was that they could be semi-organized, what was even more frightening was that this police officer zombie was armed with a police officer's handgun.
“Are you seeing this?” Culph said to Heron.
“Take him down.”
“What's my back like?” Culph called out.
“I've got you,” Lorenzo said.
“Get ready to open up on them. Ready?”
“Ready,” Lorenzo echoed.
“Set?”
“Set,” Lorenzo echoed.
“Now!”
Culph's first round went into the head of the cop. His target went down without firing another shot. As expected, the horde behind him surged forward. They were a group of teenagers and thirty somethings, all here in the church for Saturday functions. Some of them looked as if they'd been dead longer than others. Mostly the kids. The kids had the tattered clothing and the decomposing faces. The kids were the bad ones.
Culph had to give Lorenzo credit. He checked his fire and placed his shots. The first few in the throng went down with ease. Between the two of them they were doing well. As the bodies piled up, the surge slowed down. Of course, the dead presented themselves as shields for the live ones. In addition, the dead ones weren't all dead. Though they went down as the bullets went into them, Culph and Lorenzo could see them writhing in the human Jenga board.
“They're getting closer,” Lorenzo said, his voice having taken on a dangerous edge.
“Keep firing and fall back,” Culph said, then called out loudly again. “How's my back?”
“Clear,” someone shouted.
“Up the stairs,” Culph cried. “We can't lose the staircase.”
But they'd gotten bunched up at the stairs. Squad two had started down as ordered and those men in the corridor couldn't squeeze themselves inside the narrow stairwell. Culph cursed and pressed himself up against the wall. Lorenzo did the same on the opposite side. A third man got on the floor between them and a fourth stood over him. Together, they presented a wall of fire against the onrush of zombies. One of them, Culph didn't know which, was firing wildly. He was effectively panicked and Culph was just glad that his shots were going forward and not hitting them.
A couple of minutes later, the onslaught ended abruptly. The last of the mobile zombies fell atop its companions. Culph stopped firing first and Lorenzo stopped right on his heels. The other two men took an extra five seconds but stopped almost together. They held themselves in check listening to the falling bits of wall and ceiling. All of the light fixtures had been destroyed by now. The only light to penetrate the gloom came from their flashlights.
“This sucks,” someone said.
“Shhh,” Culph told him.
“How are we going to get through that?” Lorenzo asked.
“I said, shut up.”
Everyone shut up. The sounds of the destruction fell away, replaced by only the moaning of the not yet destroyed. Just underneath that, though, muffled and far away, but not very far away, there was crying. Children were crying. It was coming from the end of the corridor, just past the pile of not so dead things.
“Okay, let's clear this mess,” Culph said and then began to give out instructions.
Drawing his pistol, he went to the edge of the destruction, singled out every moving thing he could, and put a bullet in its head. As he moved through, others behind him dragged bodies out of the way, shoving them up against the wall. Culph was surprised to find that most of them were alive. He counted as he went, almost unconsciously. One...two...three...ten...twenty...
There were a lot of them.
He dropped the empty clip and reloaded. Behind him, his five remaining men were joined by Squad two. Harrison and Lefferts had been ferried up the stairs and back out onto the street. Squad three took up a position at the top of the stairs and Squad four moved into the sanctuary. Rollins and Ahaj still covered their backs. The others moved forward, checking each of the rooms while Culph disappeared into the dust in search of the cries. Gunfire behind him alerted him to found zombies. There had been classes or some other types of functions going on in the rooms to the sides. Inside were half eaten and mostly eaten bodies. Inside were also the eaters. There were only a few in each of the rooms and they were easily dispatched. It was nothing like the organized horde that had flooded toward them just moments ago.
“Here!” Culph called. “I've found it.”
At the very end of the corridor, on the right side, was a door just like all of the other doors. The spacing between this door and the previous one in the line indicated that there was a big room behind it. Through the door, he could hear the children crying. He tried the knob and it turned but the door wouldn't move. He threw his shoulder against it but still it wouldn't budge.
“This is the police,” he shouted through to the other side. “Someone open the door.”
The barricade was solid, at least solid enough to keep him out. There wasn't enough space between the door and the opposite wall to effectively use a battering ram so that meant they either had to cut it or throw men against it. If there was furniture on the other side of the door, then cutting it would have little effect. They'd still need to push through.
Squad two was led by Baches. He was a big guy, six foot eight, with almost four hundred pounds of muscle. He spent most of his free time chasing women and building muscle tone. That having been said, he was a soft spoken and thoughtful person. When Culph called out for muscle power, Baches moved forward, shouldering his rifle.
“We need that door open now,” Culph told him.
Baches grinned.
***
Smith led Squad three. They were first ordered to cover the stairs but Heron overrode that order. He pushed Squad four to the stairs and sent Squad five into the sanctuary. He wanted Squad three to check out the kitchen and storeroom.
Smith formed his squad in much the same way Culph had. They came out of the stairwell quickly, already covered by Squad two on both sides. One by one, Smith's men moved through Baches' men and cleared the distance between them and the kitchen. There were still two unchecked doors. One was a storage closet, empty. The other was another room set up with tables and chairs and populated by the dead. Their gunfire startled Culph and Baches as they hammered at the door at the opposite end of the hall.
With Culph occupied, Heron turned his attention to Smith's camera. Hong, bringing up the rear, had Squad three's se
cond camera. Smith ducked inside the kitchen with Anton right behind him. They trained their guns and their lights in all directions, checking their corners and staying alert. The kitchen seemed deserted.
Straight toward the back was a heavy door that stood completely ajar. Through it they could see a narrow space lined with rows of shelves. There was far less dust here than in the corridor. Smith could see clear through to the back of the storeroom where another door, closed, led up and to the outside. At the base of that door was the trap reported by Dominquez. It too stood open, a black yawning space in the middle of the floor.
Smith proceeded slowly, keenly aware that zombies could be quiet and camouflaged despite their utter lack of sense. He and Anton checked every tiny hidey hole as they moved and the men behind them double checked. Both the kitchen and the storeroom were clear.
Shining his light into the trap, Smith could see a flight of boarded stairs. He assumed stone underneath the boards, probably matching the walls. His light didn't penetrate nearly far enough for his comfort and this flight was even more narrow than the basement stairs. They'd have to go down single file and it would be too cramped to properly aim their rifles. Smith hesitated.
“Proceed down,” Heron ordered, swallowing hard. Ordering men into that hole was probably the most difficult thing he had ever done. This was not a job for the police. It was a military exercise. “Squad four, rendezvous with Squad three. Squad two take the basement stairs.”
To his credit, Smith didn't utter a protest as he stepped onto the stairwell. Two steps down and he slung his rifle, choosing the handgun and the flashlight. There was no electricity down there. The stairs looked as if they had been cut into the bedrock. The wooden planks offered stability for his feet but the atmosphere didn't do anything for his nerves. The further he went, the more agitated he became. Five steps above him, Anton matched his every move. They went down and down, forty one stairs. But the steps were short and narrow so he figured it was about two stories, maybe a bit more. At the bottom, there was a small alcove and then the walls opened up depositing them into a large, dark room cut directly out of the hard clay beneath the church. It was cold and damp and frightening.
In the van, Heron cursed as both his camera and radio feeds sputtered static and then went blank.
“Do we have any floods?” Smith asked.
There were none.
He clicked his tongue against his lower lip a moment in thought. He was trying to focus but all that he could think about was his family. Finally making a decision, he pulled the men out of the staircase and began to line them up. With the power of so many lights, the room began to take shape. One light caught a zombie just standing in the middle of the room. It turned its head away from the light, but didn't make any other motion.
“Hold your fire,” Smith barked, worried that any unnecessary gunfire would bring a horde of the things down on them. “Keep that light on it.”
He set up four men to guard the stairs, including Spinelli, who was in charge of squad four. The rest of the men formed a semicircular skirmish line. Their lights found four more solitary zombies, just swaying in the middle of the room. On the left and right, they caught sight of the walls. Behind them, too, was a broad wall fashioned out of hard clay. There were dark corneres where the wall met the walls of the alcove, but they were clear. In front, though, was just darkness, no indication of an ending or a way out.
“Hong, Martin, Willer, and Ruiz, take aim and fire.”
Four shots rang out and the four zombies fell to the ground. The rest of the men held still while the echoes of the shots faded. Then they waited in silence. Smith thought hard about their next move. He needed to complete a sweep of the area, but was worried about branching tunnels. For now, at least, there was just one way to go. Taking up a position in the center of the line, he pressed forward at a slow pace. The men followed directly behind him, holding their positions along the line. Ironically enough, they had practiced this formation just two days before should they be overrun in a wide open space like a park or a city avenue. He didn't suppose Culph and Heron had considered they would be fighting in a medieval labyrinth. Smith half expected the Balrog to come crashing out of the darkness.
“I've got one,” someone called on the end.
Smith called a halt and ordered him to take it out. Once again there was a gunshot and then some waiting. Then they moved forward again. This process was repeated two more times, only a few paces apart. Finally, in front of them, the mouth of a passage appeared. It was directly ahead of Smith's position and appeared empty. To the left and right, they had not lost sight of the walls so he could only assume that the large chamber was clear of the undead.
He couldn't take twelve men into this passage. It wasn't as narrow as the one in the basement above, but they would get bunched up if they all crowded inside. In the end he chose Willer, Hong, Andreyev, and Ruiz. Willer and Hong flanked Smith as he moved forward while Andreyev and Ruiz kept three paces back, providing cover and light. Together, they moved slowly forward, their lights much more effective in the enclosed space. Up ahead the tunnel bent to the left. A lone figure crouched in the corner, her arms up above her head. Even when the light hit her, she did not look up. There were no visible wounds and she trembled in the cold.
“Miss?” Smith said, still several paces away. “My name is Gregory Smith and I'm a police officer. Can you understand me?”
Next to him, Hong's gun rattled a bit. Smith gave him a look, putting a hand on the barrel to steady it.
“There's nothing alive down here, Smith,” he whispered.
“Let's make sure of that, eh?” Smith stepped forward. “Miss, please look at me. We need to be sure that you understand.”
A small sound came from her. It didn't sound like their moaning, more like a sob. Slowly, she began to turn her head. Smith stopped in place, his own rifle shaking ever so slightly in his hands. When she turned her face fully toward them, they could see a pretty girl with black lines of mascara running down her cheeks. She brought one arm up to shield her eyes against the light.
“She's alive?” Ruiz blurted.
“Miss, I need you to say something, please,” Smith said.
She looked from one to the other, unable to see anything past the lights. “Are you really cops?”
Exhaling, Smith nodded and approached. “We really are. Are you wounded?”
“You mean bitten?”
“I do. I mean bitten.”
She shook her head. “No. I ran down here. It was so dark and I was so scared, but I found this corner and just...waited.”
“You're very lucky,” Smith said.
“Did you find Mary?”
Smith looked back at his three men as if they might know what she was talking about. Of course they didn't.
“She acted fast, grabbing up all of the kids and rushing into the classroom,” the girl explained. “I tried to get in but she didn't see me. She slammed the door shut and I could hear them throwing stuff against it. And the zombies...there were so many.”
Culph had heard children, Smith remembered. “I think we may have found them,” he assured her. “They're trying to get through that door now.”
Quickly she reached out and snatched his arm. “You don't understand. She grabbed all the children, but she was hurt. She was bitten!”
***
With Baches' first attempt, the door bowed in. The handle broke and it was clear that whoever was inside had piled up whatever they could find as a barricade. Encouraged, Baches continued to attack the door with vigor. Culph was amazed at the peace reflected on the big man's face as he hit first with his left shoulder and then with his right. Behind the door, they could hear furniture scraping. The children's cries became louder and more pronounced.
