Zompoc Survivor: Chronicle: A Zompoc Survivor Boxed Set

by Ben Reeder

  “No!” Keyes voice came over the radio. In the background, I could hear the sound of a helicopter’s rotors. “They’re not important, don’t wait for them. We have Mr. Sikes on board, that’s all that matters. Get this thing in the air!” I pulled the radio out of its pocket and thumbed the preselect to the next frequency, and all I got was the sound of grunting and chewing. So much for that position. The next one was pure static, but the next few were full of chatter.

  “We’re being overrun here!”

  “…need more ammo! The fifty’s run dry and we’re down to sidearms!”

  “Roger, Drifter, we are airborne now, heading to staging area one to extract the big dog.”

  “Negative, Ranger Six, staging area one is a no go, repeat, area one is no go!” I stopped in my tracks as Adams voice came over the line. Sporadic pops filtered in from the background. The heavy iron hatch was in front of me, literally under my feet. Escape was all but a given, all I had to do was keep going. Instead, I stopped the scan and listened.

  “Karma One, can you make point bravo?” I heard the voice of Ranger Six ask. I pulled the hatch open and slid down into the cramped concrete tunnel. All I had to do was go north, and I’d slip out beneath the feet of the zombie horde. The radio signal went staticy as I crouched there and listened.

  “Negative, Ranger, negative. Command post is secure, but we have no exit. The stadium is overrun, and they’re starting to swarm the field.” Adams’ voice was resigned, sounding like a man who knew he was not going to live much longer. I looked north, toward freedom, then south and recalled the last part of the Airman’s Creed. I will never leave an Airman behind, I will never falter and I will not fail. I cursed, then thumbed the transmit button on the radio.

  “Karma One, this is…uh, Tertiary. Do you read me?” I said into the mike.

  “Who the hell is this?” Ranger Six demanded. “Clear this channel!” A few seconds passed, then Adams voice came back on the line.

  “Tertiary, what is the status of Primary?” he asked.

  “He’s busy chewing on some lead. Karma, what is your position? Are you in the press box on top of the home team bleachers?”

  “Affirmative Tertiary. Recommend you evac any way you can.”

  “Can’t do that, Captain. Can you make it down into the lower levels? I can get you out.” More silence, then his voice came over the radio again.

  “Yeah, Tertiary. What is our rendezvous point?”

  “When you see me, aim for where I am.”

  “Roger that. We’ll be waiting.” I didn’t bother to sign off, I just pulled the trap door shut above me and took off south, heading deeper into the shit and cursing myself for an idiot all the way. I hustled as fast as I could in the pipe-lined tunnels, but it was still pretty slow going. In a couple of places, I had to duck under crossing pipes and conduits. By the time I came to the first turn I was dripping sweat. I passed the east facing tunnel and kept going straight until it ended in a T, then turned west, to my right. By now, I was under the fifty yard line, probably right beneath the big maroon bear in the middle of the field. Another two hundred feet further on, I found myself at the little cutout that led up into the lower levels of Plaster Stadium. The tunnel led back north from here, angling toward Temple Hall, the science building.

  I stopped there, and took a moment to get my game face on. From here, things were going to get hairy. As soon as I came up out of the tunnels, I was a target for any ghoul or zombie out there. For a moment, I felt myself balance at the edge of full blown panic as I got the full impact of what I was about to do. I wasn’t a soldier, I was just a guy with a gun. Granted, it was a fancy gun, but that didn’t make me special or invulnerable.

  “Fear is what makes you smart,” I told myself quietly. “Only a dead hero isn’t afraid.” I was just a guy, but I was a guy with a plan, and that put me two steps ahead of most people today. I slung the assault rifle and climbed the ladder up to the trap door, then shoved it up and open before I could think too much about what the hell I was about to do.

  The trap door came up in another utility room filled with the usual assortment of pipes and supplies, among them a roll of the universal repair kit known as duct tape. The door unlocked from the inside, and a little duct tape over the latch kept it from catching behind me. It also conveniently marked the door for me for later. I pulled the door flush and made my way toward the stands, coming out of the concrete breezeway right on the fifty yard line. I could see a mix of zombies shuffling around and ghouls running back and forth across the limited field the breezeway offered. Once I could see the field, I unslung the bulky H&K and belly crawled until I could see sky. Above me, I could see the stadium lights glaring against the night sky. The sound of helicopter rotors and gunfire was now punctuated by near constant screams of dying men and the hungry moan of the zombies. I made my way to the low wall that separated the stands from the red surface of the running track that circled the field, then turned over so I could see the press box. There was vague movement behind the glass, so I keyed the mic on my radio.

  “Karma One, this is Tertiary, do you copy?” I said softly.

  “Roger, Tertiary,” Adams voice came through, this time much clearer.

  “Look down at the field. Do you see me?” I said, then waved my right hand.

  “Roger that. We see you. We’re ready at the door.” I could hear the grin in his voice.

  “When it goes dark, get yourself down to the field. I’ll meet you there.” With that, I turned around and crawled back into the lower level. One of the other duties we had when I worked security was letting the faculty into the stadium early in the mornings to turn off the lights just before daybreak. I’d only had to do it a few times in the six months that I’d worked there, but I remembered where the fuse boxes were. Less than a minute later, I was facing the panel, and wondering which ones did what. Without enough time to figure the whole thing out, I pulled the flashlight from my newly liberated tactical vest and turned the knob to the red LED light before switching it on. Then, I reached for the four large circuit breakers labeled “Main” and started flipping them to the off position. The lights went out inside and outside, and I found myself plunged into darkness for a few seconds until the emergency lights came on.

  “Drifter, this is Ranger Six, we have Karma on thermal,” I heard over the radio. “Hostiles moving their way. We have a shot, request clearance to engage.”

  “Ranger, you have a go to engage at will. I say again, engage, engage.”

  “Roger that, Drifter. Lighting zak up. Karma, keep your heads down. Engaging tangoes with door guns.” I made it to the stands in time to see tracers arcing toward the stadium from the darkness in a steady stream. On the heels of the first rounds came the ripping sound of a minigun and the deceptive tapping of bullets hitting concrete and aluminum. Interspersed with that were the slapping sounds of lead making violent contact with flesh. Then there was only the distant sound of gunfire again.

  “Hostiles down,” Ranger Six said a few seconds later. I waited in the darkness with my light covered until I heard the soft shuffle of feet, then the thump of someone dropping onto the steps above me. Two more thumps came, then I heard the clanging of someone hitting the aluminum benches.

  “Karma, we count six hostiles moving your way from the southeast,” Ranger’s voice came over the radio. I popped my head up and saw a group of figures running toward us across the field. Without the stadium lights, I was guessing that they were heading for the sound instead of anything they’d seen. It was enough, though. The assault rifle came up to my shoulder and I squeezed off a burst, knocking one of the dark figures down and staggering another. I adjusted my aim and fired a longer burst, and saw the flash image of a blond girl in a purple shirt and jeans take three rounds to the chest and the darker skinned guy with short dreadlocks in a button down shirt and slacks behind her drop. Another figure also dropped, but I didn’t see any details. I felt a pang of guilt at shooting them, mostly because bo
th looked like they weren’t old enough to drink. It didn’t stop me from emptying the magazine into the rest of the group and putting another two of them down. Fighting the urge to draw my pistol, I grabbed a new mag, hit the magazine release and slid the new one home. The urge to bring the gun back up and pull the trigger was strong as I heard feet slapping against the track, but I remembered to pull the charging handle back and release it before I did. When I brought the gun up, the muzzle flash showed me an older woman in a business suit jerking as I emptied half the new mag into her. Movement to my right caught my eye, and I saw a group of ghouls racing across the field. I tried to keep my burst short, but the gun clicked empty after three pulls of the trigger. The rational part of my brain knew I didn’t have the trigger discipline to go full auto, and that I was going through ammo too quickly. Again, I changed the magazine as fast as I could, then took the extra second to switch the selector to three round bursts after I primed a round. The optical sight lined up on the lead ghoul, a huge guy silhouetted in the light of the buildings behind him, and I pulled the trigger. He tumbled and I moved to the next target, then the next, pulling the trigger only when I had a target. More gunfire came from above and behind me and my target rich environment thinned a little more. I dropped a ghoul on the left of the advancing wave of undead, then the firing pin fell on an empty chamber.

  “Reloading!” came a voice from behind me, and I repeated the call as I grabbed another magazine from the cargo pocket. Suddenly, two men came up and knelt down beside me, guns up and blazing. A hand fell on my shoulder, and Adams pulled me back toward the breezeway.

  “Come on!” he yelled over the sound of gunfire. “Get us outta here!” I nodded and headed into the breezeway. Adams was beside me with his pistol up. He’d attached a suppressor to the bulky sidearm, and he reached up to flip up his NVGs once we got into the dimly lit interior.

  “They’re getting back up!” I heard someone behind us call out.

  “Switch to semi-auto and go for the head shot!” another voice replied. There was a moment of silence, then I heard the single pops of semi-automatic fire. I clicked my light on again and kept my eyes to my right, looking for the shine of duct tape against the jamb. When I got to the long hallway that ran lengthwise under the stands, I uttered a curse. Somewhere in the dark, I’d taken the wrong turn, and I’d come out the wrong breezeway. A glance to my left revealed the red exit sign for the south doors, so I must have stopped short in the dark after I’d shut the power off. Turning to my right, I headed north. The sound of combat boots on concrete came from behind me, and I felt my shoulders twitch a little. Silence was as much a shield as darkness, but we also had to hurry.

  Movement in the hallway ahead of us pulled me up short, and I pointed the light ahead of us. A woman in a dark colored shirt with Greek letters over her right breast turned to face us, and I could see something dark glistening on her face. Without a word, Adams brought his pistol up and pulled the trigger. The gun coughed in his hand, and the woman dropped with the left half of her skull missing.

  “Turning right in the main breezeway. Zak is in the house,” he said into his radio as we pressed forward.

  “Falling back, Captain,” someone replied. The gunfire was almost constant now, and I heard someone call out “Reloading!” behind us. Two more yelled it in quick succession, then I heard the sharper sound of pistol fire and curses. I picked up the pace, jogging along until I came to the next breezeway. I skidded to a stop and poked my head around the corner, then jumped back as teeth snapped together less than an inch from my nose. This time, I didn’t scream like a little girl. I managed a more manly expletive as I jumped back, then Adams’ right hand snaked over my shoulder and his gun barked again. Something wet sprayed my face and when I opened my eyes again, I could see more zombies shuffling toward us, backlit against the opening of the breezeway. The bulk of them were on the far side of the door we needed to get to, but the balance was shifting with every second on that. The captain took a step to my left and kept firing. His first two rounds dropped a zombie apiece before I could bring the H&K up. With the optical sights and the light from behind my targets, it was a lot easier to line up shots. I pulled the trigger and shifted my aim as one went down, then had to line up on the second one again when it didn’t go down the first time. The third and fourth went down with one round to the head each, and the right side of the fifth one’s skull disappeared on my second try. Beside me, Adams was firing methodically, sweeping from the left side of the hall, while I aimed for the center. Someone stepped up on my right and started unloading rounds from a suppressed pistol as I found my bullet count climbing through the mid-twenties. When I dropped the mag and called out that I was reloading, he put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Wait for Adams to reload, son,” he said, and I nodded to him. When I heard the next mag drop, I brought my rifle up and took aim. Three heads were in my scope, and I pulled the trigger three times, then the breezeway was clear for the moment. I went forward and checked the door on my left, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw the shine of duct tape next to the handle. Gunshots still rang out behind us, then I heard shouting. Adams and the man with him went back to the main hallway while I stayed at the door. More gunfire erupted, and men came barreling around the corner. Two stayed at the intersection and kept firing in both directions while Adams and the older man helped another soldier into the breezeway with another man them.

  “Clear south!” someone called

  “Contact north!” another voice said.

  “Mason, see what you can do for Vasquez,” Adams called out, but the man pushed him away and stripped his vest off.

  “No, sir,” Vasquez said. “It’s no use. I’m bit. I’m already starting to turn, I can feel it.” He reached down and unclipped the straps of his holster from his leg, then unbuckled it from his hip and handed it to the older man.

  “I have your back,” Adams said grimly as he slid a fresh magazine into the butt of his pistol. Vasquez shook his head and pulled a pair of grenades from the vest at his feet and stuck his index fingers through the pins, then looked over his shoulder. When he turned back, his face was twisted into a parody of a smile.

  “I got this, sir. I’ll keep ‘em off your back, you get the colonel outta here.” He turned and headed for the corridor, then turned and stood there, facing north, chest heaving as he waited.

  “God go with you, son,” the older man said softly.

  “Go!” Vasquez yelled, then he pulled his hands apart, yanking the pins from the two grenades and running out of sight. The two men at the intersection ran toward us. I pushed the door open and stepped into the utility room. As Adams and his men crowded into the small room, I tore the tape off the door, and it closed with a satisfying click behind me. A heavy whump! went off outside a second later, and I closed my eyes, thinking of Vasquez’s courage. If I got bit, I couldn’t hope for a better example of how to go. It took some shoving and squeezing to make it to the trap door.

  “It’s going to get tight down there, and hot,” I said as I lifted the metal hatch. “We’re going to have to stay single file most of the way. Some of the pipes are really hot, too.” Six pairs of eyes looked at me, none of them showing more than a hint of the grief I knew they were feeling. It was Adams who broke the silence.

  “Okay, Stewart, you lead. I’m behind you, Colonel Schafer, you’re behind me. Mason, Carter, then Jackson on the back end. Suppressed sidearms, people.” Rifles were slung and the other Green Berets pulled bulky pistols similar to the one Adams had been using. “Stewart, shuck that Blackwater rig and put on some real gear.” He handed me Vasquez’s tactical vest with a look that brooked no argument. The Blackwater rig, as he’d called it, was lighter but I suspected it wasn’t as well armored. The vest he’d handed me felt like it weighed three times what I was taking off. I grabbed the radio and did a quick check of the pockets for anything useful. Most of what I found was gear that I’d find in the military vest, but the left chest pocket yield
ed a wallet with some cash and ID. Once I’d shrugged into the camo vest and buckled it into place, he handed me the holster to strap to my leg.

  “”Draw it,” he said once I finished buckling it to my leg. I pulled the pistol and held it up, barrel pointed at the ceiling. “H and K Mark twenty-three Mod zero. Mag release, slide lock, safety, all ambidextrous. Twelve forty-five caliber rounds in the mag, if you’re smart, one more in the pipe. Suppressor and LAM, or Laser Aiming Module. Activates when you put your finger on the trigger. Suppressor screws on counter-clockwise, and she field strips like the old Colt M1911. You don’t put your finger on that trigger unless I tell you to. This pistol shoots better than you do, so if you miss, it’s your fault. You got that?”

  “Yeah, I got it. It’s heavy.”

  “Get stronger. Suppressor on, then lead the way.” He turned away and I fumbled the clunky suppressor onto the threaded barrel, then slipped down into the hole. The rest of the team followed me, and even the colonel hit the ground with a bounce. I led them back the way I came, then past the McDonald Hall access hatch. Now we were into new territory. The safety lights mounted in the ceiling kept us from stumbling too badly, but they were few and far between, and not even the military flashlight could completely dispel the darkness, and the smell only reminded me I was under several feet of concrete and earth. I could just imagine the shuffle of feet above me as zombies wandered the MSU campus, searching for food, never knowing that a veritable buffet was walking right under their feet.

  The walk seemed to take forever as we made our way through the dusty tunnel, past off shoots that I knew led to some of the dorms. Sweat started to trickle down my face in the oppressive heat. An eternity later, we came to a dead end. I reached out and tried the door, but the knob stayed firmly in place. I looked to Adams and hefted my pistol, but he shook his head.