by Ben Reeder
For two hours, I sat there and dutifully listened to the cold wind hiss against the hull and the occasional splatter of rain. After a while, I let my mind wander, since the weird sixth sense that let me know when infected were around wasn’t one I had to concentrate on. As my thoughts drifted, I felt myself settle into the semi-trance that my grandfather had showed me, aware but placid. After a few moments, I started to feel something similar to what I felt in Kansas City, some presence in the dark. This one wasn’t searching though. It was a steady pulse, an insistent drumbeat calling out into the night. So far, though, I couldn’t feel any other undead aside from the alpha in the truck nearby. Wyoming was almost as empty as Nebraska.
When my watch was done, I woke Saunders up and laid myself out on the sleeping bag he’d vacated, figuring I was never going to get to sleep. Not so close to Maya, so close to the end of the journey…
The dead were marching, heading toward some beacon that drew them, moving west. Occasionally one would slip on the roadway, then slowly get to its feet, some new damage showing. A broken arm, a leg that bent where it shouldn’t, a foot that slewed sideways. The rain pelted them, blew them to the side, but always, they came, moving forward, toward the steady pulsing call, and insistent drumbeat calling out into the night…
I woke up to a wan light in the vehicle and a chill breeze on my face. The turret was empty, and I heard the wind moan outside. A metal clank brought me to full awareness, and I sat up. Across from me, Saunders was still asleep, and McGregor was stirring in the front seat.
“Where’s Landry?” I asked. Saunders mumbled something before he opened his eyes and looked around. He yawned and propped himself up on one elbow before looking around.
“I woke him up for his watch. What time is it?” he said as he blinked sleep from his eyes.
“Sun’s coming up,” I said, getting to my feet and grabbing my pistols. Once the SOCOM and the Five-seveN were holstered, I grabbed the P90 and headed for the open rear hatch. With every step I took, a growing sense of dread was creeping up the back of my neck. The second my boots hit the ground, my head was moving, scanning right to left. Indistinct sounds were coming from behind the supply truck, and to my left I heard the door to the lodge open. Even before I looked that way, I knew Amy was coming out the door. Caldwell was beside her, with Morris in the rear.
“Get her back inside!” I snapped as I moved toward the truck. Caldwell turned and put an arm out, but her charge shook her head. Amy stepped away from them and started angling toward the back of the truck, her path taking her to the same place I was pointed. I could hear Saunders and McGregor moving behind me, but their concern was the President.
The tightness at the back of my neck slowly made its way down to the space between my shoulder blades as I came closer to the back of the truck. Something clanked in the back, metal on metal, and I gestured with my right hand for Amy to go a little further to cover me. I stepped around the back of the truck and pointed inside.
In the dim interior, something moved, and my tac light fell on Landry’s face. His mouth was full as he reached for something, and his hand came back dripping with something brown and chunky. As I came around toward the middle, I could see open cans and wrappers on boxes and on the floor, and Landry’s chin dripping with food.
“Hungry,” he growled as the light fell back on his face. “I’m so hungry.” His pupils were like pinpricks as he looked at me, his cheeks flushed and bright red. I’d seen something like this before.
“What the hell?” McGregor said as he came up beside me. A manic sounding giggle came from behind Landry, and I stepped to one side to see the alpha zombie’s case sitting upright, the thick plexiglass scratched and the case dented.
“You’re bad little monkeys,” the thing that used to be Sarah Bach said. “Mister Landry, would you please kill the Nephilim and that feisty little bitch with him, and let me out of here?” For a moment, Landry hesitated, his eyes starting to focus on us.
“I swore an oath,” he said slowly. “I shouldn’t…Mac, she showed me things…showed me Crystal…there are…so many things…but…I have to…” He shook his head, then let out a scream and dove at McGregor. My right arm came up and shoved McGregor away and my left hand tightened on the P90’s trigger a microsecond too late. Shoving McGregor to the side brought me just far enough into Landry’s path that we went sprawling together, the P90 flying from my grip. For a moment, my right arm was numb from the impact, and I used the brief respite to grab the SOCOM from the holster and shove the slide up against Landry’s back. Instead of trying to get free of him, I leaned in and pushed the gun forward, raking the slide across his shirt and chambering a round, then turned it and pulled the trigger as fast as I could.
Even that was a little too slow, and Landry tossed me to the side before I could empty more than five rounds into him. I rolled and staggered to my knees as Landry bounced to his feet. Again, there was a moment of hesitation, and Amy hit him with a round from the Mossberg. He staggered, and she pumped another round and shot him again. Then McGregor brought his pistol up and fired half a dozen times from the ground. Landry’s body jerked with each impact, then he fell to his knees, blood soaking his shirt. He coughed once and pink froth flecked his lips before he pitched forward.
I got to my feet as the last echoes of gunfire faded. Then Landry moved, reaching one arm toward me and gasping my name. I was at his side in a split second.
“Coming…” he gasped. “They’re coming…calling them…she’s calling them.” Then the light faded from his eyes and he fell back. I took a step back and pointed the SOCOM at his forehead, but my finger didn’t tighten on the trigger. Something was different.
“He’s dead,” Amy said as she stepped up beside me. “I mean, I can’t feel him. He just faded when he died.” I nodded, understanding now that she’d said it. Feeling was starting to return to my right arm, and it was a change I wasn’t all that grateful for.
“How?” McGregor asked. “They all go zombie after you kill them.” I looked down at my right arm, then at Landry, and suddenly, I knew.
“Get her loaded on the Guardian,” I said, pointing at the back of the supply truck. “Amy, get on your bike and get to Nate’s place as fast as you can. You have to warn them. There’s an army of infected headed this way. Mac, get everyone else loaded up and follow Amy as fast as you can. Get the President to Col. Shafer.”
“What about you?” Amy asked. I looked at her and turned so she could see my right side, slowly holding up my bleeding right arm.
“I have to go the other way,” I said as I pulled my shirt sleeve back to reveal the bite mark on my forearm.
Journal of Maya Weiss
November 14, 2013
Even ten days later, it’s hard to even think about this, much less write it down. I was at Nate’s house, during one of the seemingly endless planning sessions that had consumed my life almost from the day we arrived. Lynch and Shafer were debating something pointless, Nate was sitting back and listening while Dr. Shaked and Willie were consulting a book from the Heartland group’s library. Just another day in post-apocalyptic America.
And then I heard my Amy’s voice. I looked around, for some reason thinking she was in the room for a second before I realized it was coming from the radio room. Her first words are still ringing in my memory.
“Mom! Dave needs help!” she said. “Please, Nate, Mom, anyone. Can you hear me? Dave needs help.”
I swear that room parted like the Red Sea. Half went for the radio, the other half went for the door. Shafer handed me the microphone the second I set foot in the radio room, and Amy told me what was going on. An army of zombies coming from the east, and Dave driving straight at them with the alpha zombie strapped onto his vehicle. He needed our help to stop them. Now it sounds so ludicrous. One man stopping an army with the help of a hundred other people.
Oh, and as an afterthought, the President was coming.
“Col. Shafer, I know you want to go help Sgt
. Stewart, but there’s nothing we can do. He’s been bitten. It’s just a matter of time, and you know he wouldn’t want you to risk your lives on a fool’s errand,” the President said. I wasn’t sure who she thought she was trying to convince. Shafer took the microphone from me, and he made me proud.
“Ma’am, you’re probably right, he wouldn’t want us to come help him, not against those odds. But you and I both know that’s exactly what he would do in my shoes. Besides, he can’t stop this mob on his own. Like it or not, we have to get out there.” She didn’t reply, and I was through waiting. I grabbed the mic from him.
“I’m coming, Amy,” I told her. “Hang on.”
“Roger that,” I heard Nate say over the radio. I hadn’t even heard him leave the room. “I’m on my way, kid.”
“Stomper, rolling,” Lt Kaplan echoed.
One after another, people chimed in. Karma One, Heartland, Zombie Stomper, and finally, Porsche added Landmaster One to the list when I slid into the driver’s seat. Lynch said “Ooh-RAH Marines! Mount up!” as we headed for the gate.
We looked like hell. A hundred different vehicles with almost no discipline and no clue what we were doing. But I was damned if I was going to be behind anyone on this trip. Someone must have spread the word, because everyone got out of the way as I drove toward the head of the column.
We saw them a couple of miles north of the compound, a girl in a helmet with blue Mohawk streaks on a dirt bike, a black armored transport and a heavy truck. The truck kept going south, but the bike spun around and headed back to the east, and the armored car followed her.
There weren’t many people here who didn’t owe Dave their lives. He’d already done so much alone. But not today. Today, it was our turn to help him. Even if we couldn’t save him, by God, he wouldn’t die alone.
Chapter 10
The Last Mile
~ Brotherhood means laying down your life for somebody, really willing to sacrifice yourself for somebody else. ~ Tim Hetherington
The only good thing about facing an army of zombies is that they’re so damn slow. I was driving like a maniac, on the other hand, or at least as crazy as I could in a massive armored vehicle that couldn’t beat seventy miles an hour. Up ahead, I saw the Medicine Bow Mountains, and an idea took root in my head. The far side was a relatively gentle slope up, but the side closest to me was much steeper, with several vertical faces. As I came around the southwest edge of the mountain range, I saw the sign for Sugarloaf Mountain, and up ahead I could see its much more modest profile across the lake in front of me. In better times, it might have made a nice place for a wedding.
I pulled to a stop and checked the map. The road turned due east just before Sugarloaf. The oncoming horde had to still be a ways off, though I was starting to get that creepy vibe across the back of my neck again. If they were still east of us and on 130, this was going to be my spot. I took the left and turned past a sign that marked the entrance to the Lookout Lake Recreational Area. I stayed on the road until I hit the lake’s edge, then I went four wheeling, following the rocky western shore along until I found a good spot. Above me, a narrow gap beckoned, though narrow in geological terms was still big enough to drop a house into. I pulled past the gap, then backed up the slope until I was in between the base of the vertical faces. From here, I could see a good ways down the road, and off in the distance, I could see the zombies approaching.
Curious, I popped the gunner’s hatch open and took a look through the binoculars at the slow moving mass of dead people. None of the ones I could see moved with the slow, shuffling gate of the stage twos, the zombies. These all looked like ghouls. They were faster, but easier to put down for a while. But after that, it was a head shot or nothing.
“Have you turned yet, little monkey?” Bach asked from behind me. “I don’t think you have. I can still feel you there.”
“Nope, still human,” I said.
“It’s only a matter of time,” she said. “That little shot they gave you won’t save you. Nothing can do that.”
“It isn’t supposed to,” I said as I set the binoculars aside and opened the Mk 19’s receiver. “It’s just supposed to buy me a little more time.” As I talked, I pulled the can of high explosive grenades out of the tray and reached for the HEDP rounds.
“Time? Why fight it? If you’re going to die, just put a bullet through your head and be done with it. Why prolong it?” As she talked, I loaded the first round into the receiver and closed the top, then pulled the charging handle back.
“Why not?” I said as I pressed the butterfly switch and let the bolt go forward. The belt advanced the first round into the chamber, and I grabbed the charging handle and pulled it back again. “I have this thing against dying, but if I’m going to go out, why not go out like a boss? Warrior’s death and all that.” The fifty had a full can, so I ducked back down and pulled my M4, both Landry’s P90 and mine, plus his Five-seveN. Finally, I pulled the Deuce’s scabbard out. Amy had helped me strap it to the Ruger Takedown’s carry bag to make it easier to get on and off in a hurry. I fully intended on going through every round I had with me and taking out as many as I could with the Deuce before they took me down or I went zombie. For good measure, I also grabbed a couple of fragmentation grenades from the ammo stores at the rear of the main compartment.
My right arm throbbed under the vambrace, and I wished I could scratch at the sudden itch that started around the wound. I consoled myself with the thought that I was going to be too busy killing infected soon to notice. That gave me a moment’s pause. Was that the hyper-aggression from the Asura virus, or was that the zombie killer in me, the Nephilim blood in my veins that always seemed eager to kill zombies? Whichever one it was, I was going to make the best use of it I could. With a wistful smile, I reached for the iPod we’d found in Landry’s pocket and plugged it into the exterior PA, then pulled myself out through the turret hatch.
“How did you turn Landry?” I asked Bach as I propped her up so she could watch me play havoc with her little army.
“I didn’t, little monkey,” she said with a cruel smile. “You did.”
“I’m pretty much the opposite of one of you,” I said. “So try again.”
“Not you,” she said with an exasperated head shake. “Your barely evolved simian race did our work for us. We could never have done it so quickly one bite at a time. Not even in your most crowded cesspits. But you…you devised an idea we would never have even thought of. You put it in your food!”
“Our food…” I said, my knees shaking as I planted my butt on the edge of the turret.
“That’s right, monkey. The Asura isn’t confined to bites or body fluids. You’ve been harvesting it in your crops and gorging yourself on your own extinction for months!”
“There’s no way you could know that,” I said.
“They kept the alpha from the first outbreak in Persia. He was there when Sikes first tried to harness the Asura in Nevada. What one of us knows, we all know. And now you’re going to die knowing it was your own greed that killed your race.”
“You’re going to watch me kill a whole bunch of your kind first,” I said. The zombie killing rage took enough of the edge off of the horror that threatened to shut my brain down to keep it at bay, and I climbed back into the turret. Below me, I could see the first of the infected moving through the valley made by two smaller hills. It was almost time to make my last stand.
I hit the play button on the iPod, and the first low knells of AC/DC’s Hells Bells rang out across the lake. Landry might have been a dick when I knew him, but the man had good taste in music. I racked a round into the chamber on the fifty, then waited for the horde to get a little closer.
They barely seemed to be moving but after several minutes of waiting, the first of the horde hit the midpoint of the valley. That was when I pressed the trigger on the turret controls and sent the first tracer rounds toward the mass of once-human flesh. Hundreds of yards away, I could still see the results of
the impacts as ghouls got tossed around like rag dolls. Fifty caliber rounds had originally been designed to shoot down armored aircraft. Against infantry, even undead infantry, it was devastating. The gun pounded in my ears, and I tracked the tracer rounds through the front ranks of the dead, sending bodies and parts of bodies tumbling with short bursts. After the first few bursts, though, the ghouls did what live soldiers would be hard pressed to do: they charged forward. I kept the trigger down for longer as I raked it across the thick wall of infected. More and more fell, but they reached the mouth of the valley and began to spread out, making it harder to slow them down. When the fifty ran dry, I could hear Bach cackling behind me.
Her laughter stopped when I hit the trigger control for the Mk 19 and traversed the turret across the front of the line at the lake’s far shore. Five meter wide holes appeared in middle of the column, with wider gaps showing up on the outer edges. Even short bursts with HEDP rounds were far more effective than Ma Deuce’s efforts.
“No!” Bach screamed from behind me as the line faltered for a moment.
“Welcome to modern warfare,” I called out before I brought barrel back across the ghouls. More bodies went flying as another string of HEDP shells detonated among them. Movement to the west caught my eye, and I saw another group of ghouls come running along the outside of the westernmost hill. I turned back to look at Bach, and she bared her gray teeth at me in a hateful grin.
“Only a fool fights with the enemy general looking over his shoulder!” she crowed. I raised an eyebrow, stood and reached behind me. Her grin vanished when I grabbed the corner of her box and flipped her around so that the Plexiglas landed facing down. When I turned back, I saw that I’d caught a little bit of a break. The lake was slowing the ghouls in front down. The ones behind were starting to get backed up as the vanguard slogged across the bottom of the lake. Unfortunately, even with the rain from the night before, the lake was only a few feet deep. I didn’t know if ghouls could swim, but since doorknobs were pretty much beyond them, I figured swimming would be too. Very few disappeared completely below the surface, and most of those tended to pop back up a few seconds later. But, it was still a slow walk across the lake. I walked the last few rounds in the can along a narrow spot in the lake, then grabbed another can of ammo for both guns.
