Z-Day (Book 3): A Place For War

by Humphreys, Daniel

  He ejected the last round in the magazine and patted his vest in search of a replacement. None left. Pete plucked a round from the saddle on the Savage’s stock and fed it into the chamber by hand. “Molly,” he said, tracking a rather healthy-looking attacker. It jerked to one side at the last moment, and his round plowed uselessly into its upper torso. Shit. “Open the main pouch in that backpack on the deck there. You’ll find a soft case full of magazines—hand me one, please. Darnell, you can keep an eye on the stairs and reload mags at the same time, this is getting a little hairy.”

  Beside him, Guglik glanced at her watch. “We’ve got another forty-five minutes before air support gets here.”

  Based on McFarlane’s description of the situation on the river, Pete had been about to rescind his initial request for evac, but the Sergeant Major had assured him they had everything in hand. “We’ve got an easier path to slip out of harm’s way, sir. I’ll tell the Orca pilots to step on it, direct from reloading.”

  Some napalm would be nice right about now, he thought. Molly passed over a loaded magazine, and he exchanged it for the empty one from the Savage. Bigger magazines for the big rifle would have been nice too, but he might as well wish for working legs. He’d never thought before Z-Day that he’d have a need for anything of the sort. There wasn’t much of anything on the North American continent that five rounds of .338 Lapua Magnum couldn’t put down on a permanent basis.

  Well. Not before the alphas showed up, anyway.

  He hadn’t seen any more of them since they’d pulled the cunning little trick that killed Burton. But the group that had begun to filter through the motor pool had a strange look to them. Rather than begin firing, he scanned them through his scope. His blood went cold as he realized that a half-dozen zulus with umbilicals had spread through the crowd. Of all things, they seemed to be coordinating the advance in a ragged formation. Rather than being able to pick the attackers off in groups as they approached, this would force the Marines to spread their fire—and the team wasn’t big enough to manage something like that.

  The black tentacles stretched back into the woods on the south side of the camp and disappeared into the brush. He’d have never admitted it to anyone, but he was more than a little glad that he couldn’t see the source of it. He didn’t know if he could handle any more craziness. On the bright side, that’s a prime bombing target—if we hold out that long.

  He keyed the transmit button on his radio and tried to keep his voice from shaking. “Byers, you’ve got one hell of a fight headed your way. Y’all need to step on it.”

  “Roger that, Major. We’re entering the building now. One way or another, we’ll keep them clear long enough for the techies to do their job.”

  “Oorah,” Pete said. He shouldered his rifle and took aim at the umbilical zulu at the center of the formation. Let’s see what happens if I put a couple rounds through your chest right about there.

  October 18, 2026

  Taum Sauk Mountain, eastern Missouri

  Z-Day + 3,287

  The entrance door to the block building was a shattered memory. The opening, though, was brighter than Miles had expected. A few of the light fixtures were dark—burnt out over the years, he supposed, but others still blazed. At least we know the solar panels are working.

  The team snaked into the interior and split up on either side of the opening. A secondary room inside of the larger building built of the same materials as the exterior caged them in a uniform gray tunnel—concrete slabs on the floor and ceiling, block to either side. The hallway to the left of the entrance stopped at an unadorned, white-painted door, while the right branch disappeared around the corner of the building. A large blotch of long-dried blood marred the floor between the entrance of the corner. A rusting gun lay between the stain and Miles, but he didn’t take the time to identify it. With the door open, a decade’s worth of moisture had rendered it useless by now. He didn’t pay the blood or the gun much attention—he was too relieved that there were no black tendrils inside. There were several visible on the gravel outside, tracing paths between parked vehicles and housing trailers to locations unknown.

  “Lawrence, McDermid, you’re with Miles and the doc,” Byers said. He pressed himself up against the wall and took a quick look outside. A thrown spear plowed into the ground a short distance from the door, but he pulled back nonetheless. Sometimes zulu was scarily accurate, particularly if one of their fellows had made a ranging shot beforehand. “Leave the AA-12s at the door.”

  Miles hesitated, then handed the shotgun off to Wood and unslung his carbine. Sandy was more vocal about losing his.

  “What the hell are we supposed to use if we run into another one of those things?”

  Byers trained the barrel of his AA-12 on an unseen target and fired. “You’ve got two of the three flamethrowers, Doc. I don’t trust either of you with grenades, especially in close quarters.”

  “Speaking of,” Miles said. He slipped his pack off. “Spare mag.” On the bright side, if he had to run, he was humping a lot less weight.

  “Go,” Byers said. “We’ll hold here as long as we can.”

  “We’ll lead,” Lawrence said. “Which way?”

  Miles pointed. A pair of metal conduits entered the wall a few feet off the ground just to the right of the door opening. They traced along the ceiling, made the turn at the corner, and disappeared out of view. “Follow the juice,” he said. “There’s an electrical switching panel on the wall outside.”

  “Fair enough,” the Marine said. “Stay close.” He looked pointedly at Hatcher. “That means you, too. Behind us.”

  He just shrugged and grinned.

  More of the overhead lights were burnt out as they moved away from the door. The sputtering fire from the muzzle of each flamethrower cast long, distorted shadows on the wall. Behind them, Byers and the rear guard began to fire in a steady rhythm, the thumping boom of exploding rounds blending into one continuous roar.

  Lawrence hesitated at the corner, poked his head around, then turned back to wave them forward. The sight around the corner was much the same—there were no doors off the corridor, and it turned to the left again along the back wall of the building.

  They ran faster down this leg. The echoes of the fire from the entrance intensified with every step they took, and each advanced with the sneaking suspicion that their time was running out. Again, Lawrence checked the corner, but he hesitated this time, allowing the rest of them to catch up.

  Miles took a look. The corridor ended at a plain door about halfway down the width of the building. The overhead pipes continued on, passing through holes cut in the block. “Either that’s it, or we just put ourselves down a really long dead end,” he observed.

  McDermid barked a nervous laugh. Lawrence shook his head, then moved up to the door. He twisted the knob and shook his head. Miles had expected no less—if anything, things had been going too easy.

  The Marine pointed at Miles’ rifle. “Shoot the lock out?”

  “No!” Sandy interjected. “We have no way of knowing what kind of equipment is in there. If that’s the kill switch, we can’t risk damaging it.”

  Lawrence raised an eyebrow at Miles. He shrugged and then nodded. “Doc’s got a point.” He studied the door and slammed the heel of his boot into the door above the knob. The frame creaked, but that was the only lasting evidence that he’d done anything.

  “Joe, cover our six with the torch,” Lawrence said, then imitated Miles’ kick. He grimaced. “Steel core. We’re going to have to bust the jamb to get in. Wish I had a shaped charge, right about now.”

  Miles took the opportunity to kick the door, and he thought that it shifted, but that might have been wishful thinking. Static crackled in his ear as Byers called back. “We’re falling back into the corridor. Status?” Miles had never heard the sergeant sound as worried as he did at that moment—it was almost as disconcerting as what he actually said.

  “Working on it,” Lawrence said. �
��Come our way, Sergeant. We’re clear up to the dead end, we should be able to stop them cold with the flamethrowers.”

  Any extended use in the enclosed environment of the hall was bound to fill the air with smoke and risk suffocating everyone. It was still a better way to die than becoming one of those things. Miles didn’t know if the same thoughts ran through Byers’ head at that moment, but there was a significant pause before he replied.

  “Roger. Moving.”

  “Friendlies coming this way, Joe!” McDermid signaled he understood from down at the corner, and Lawrence glanced at Miles. “Same time?”

  “Yeah,” Miles agreed, bracing himself.

  “On three. One. Two. Three!”

  They slammed their heels into the door one last time, rewarded by the sound of cracking wood as the jamb finally gave way. Lawrence stepped forward and drove his shoulder into it, then drew back as the door swung open.

  The only lights still on in the small room beyond were on the opposite wall, illuminating what looked like a metal examination table from some sort of laboratory. The conduits continued across the ceiling, then dropped down the center of the back wall, and terminated in a stack of electronics equipment. He couldn’t identify most of it, but there was a desktop PC integrated into the assemblage. Outside of the pools of light, shadows reigned, and Miles stared into the darkness, trying to will anything inside to come rushing out so they could deal with it head-on.

  Sandy was less patient. “It’s the kill switch! Come on!” He pushed between Miles and Lawrence and sprinted over to the table. The screen came alive as he stabbed the power switch on the tower. He turned and gave Miles an expectant look.

  The quarters were too tight to aim his carbine. He pulled his pistol on the way into the room, Lawrence’s furious shout falling on deaf ears. Miles toggled the flashlight under the barrel and swept the darkness. “Damn it, Doc! How the hell did you stay alive so long doing stunts like that?”

  “Sorry,” Sandy said, sheepishly. “I didn’t think that—”

  The moment that his flashlight parted the darkness, the zulu rushed out of the shadows in the corner behind the door, sinking teeth into the exposed flesh of Miles’ forearm before he could pull the barrel of his pistol in line with the mottled gray surface of its head.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  May 7, 2018

  Taum Sauk State Park, Missouri

  Z-Day + 201

  Henry Schantz didn’t know how long he’d been staring at the ceiling, but he suddenly realized that he wasn’t dead.

  Or was he?

  He thought that he could feel his heart thumping in his chest, but other than that, his body was numb.

  Oh, no. This isn’t what the nanos do, is it? Am I doomed to be an unwilling watcher until my body degrades enough for them to shut down?

  He blinked, and he sighed in relief as he realized that he’d made himself do so. With a grunt of exertion, he propped himself up on an elbow and assessed his body.

  He’d have been better off passing on that. His clothing was ripped and torn. The only bits that weren’t soaked with blood were the areas where his body had covered them when he fell to the ground.

  The sight of his own shredded flesh made his stomach twist, but he pushed aside the desire to retch. Of more concern were the dark gray lines surrounding each bite wound. As he watched, the lines around a particularly nasty cavity on his thigh shot up toward his hip, then suddenly receded and shifted directions.

  There was a war going on within his body, counter-nanos fighting with the plague nanos. He patted his lab coat to confirm that he still had more doses of antidote.

  A boot scraped on the floor.

  He forced the cry down and turned his head to look back down the hall. Most of the crowd had dispersed outside, but a few of the infected mercenaries still stumbled down the hall.

  Infection subroutine, he thought dully. Disengage attack once sufficient viral load is detected in the target. It was one of the core processes to the tiny machines, perhaps the hardest one to engineer after he’d cracked replication. Each tiny machine was a smaller node of an aggregate wireless network. It burned energy and, in many ways, reduced the effectiveness of the machines, but it was critical to ensure that those attacked were intact enough for the infection to take hold and continue the spread.

  “Propagation is the prime directive,” he said before he could stop himself. One of the mercenaries shifted, assessed the hallway, then turned back.

  I can use this. If I can thread the needle between eliminating the plague nanos while keeping enough of the counters in my body to manage the spread, I can walk right past them.

  First things first, though—he needed to set the timer and tend to his wounds. The numbness had faded somewhat, and something told him he’d be screaming in agony in the next few minutes. Was there a First Aid kit in the broadcast room? He thought there might be.

  He tried to walk, but he fell almost as soon as he got to his feet. Crawl, then, damn it!

  Fatigue forced Henry to stop more frequently than he would have liked, but he made it inside the broadcast room and secured the door behind him. Everything in him cried out for sleep, but he knew that if he gave up now, he’d never wake up.

  The equipment was ready for him on the opposite side of the room, but it might as well have been a million miles away, for all that he could muster the energy to rise and move over to it.

  Hand trembling, he reached into the pocket of his lab coat. One more dose, and then I can tend to my wounds and rest. One more—

  That ephemeral something inside of him that was Henry slipped away, and the ravaged frame of the man who’d helped to destroy human civilization sagged to the floor.

  Not long after, the warring machines within the corpse took control. With nowhere else to go, they waited with a patience borne out of the ignorance of time.

  October 18, 2026

  Taum Sauk Mountain, eastern Missouri

  Z-Day + 3,287

  Miles punctuated his scream of dismay by shoving the barrel of his pistol into the right eye of the zulu attached to his arm and squeezing the trigger over and over again. The dead thing flopped back with a ruined skull and a chunk of fresh flesh clamped in its jaws.

  Frozen, Sandy stood still as the other man jammed the pistol back into his holster and tore at the sleeve of his shirt. Blood flowed freely down his forearm and the tell-tale traces of infection had already stretched up to his bicep.

  “Son of a bitch!” Miles screamed again, and when he turned to Sandy, his eyes were wide, crazed with equal parts terror and rage. “Get the fuck out of my way, Doc. It looks like I’ve only got a couple of minutes to save the world before I check out.”

  “I’ve got your back, brother,” Lawrence said quietly. His voice turned cold. “Move, Doc.”

  Someone screamed from further down the hall. “Here they come!” McDermid and Wood opened up with their flamethrowers, and the hellish light cast their harshly-angled shadows against the walls, dancing in orange tongues of fire.

  Sandy took a quick look at the fallen zulu. Even with half of its head missing, he still recognized the man it had once been. “Henry,” he said quietly.

  “Perfect,” Miles said. He tucked his wounded arm up against his chest, flipping the keyboard over. Someone had taped half of a Post-It note to the bottom of the keyboard. “Dumbest genius at GenPharm. He always wrote his passwords down.” He flipped the keyboard back over and tapped the keys with a shaking hand.

  “Miles—” he started, but the other man shook his head viciously.

  “Don’t. Just—don’t. You want to do something? Get out of my face and let me die in peace.”

  Sandy shoved his hand into the pocket of his cargo pants. The self-mocking part of his soul laughing at his near-fatal screwup suggested that he might have lost it in the mad rush from the crash site to the camp.

  But he hadn’t. He flipped the cap off of his last injector with his thumb, took two steps forwar
d, and jammed it into the meaty part of Miles’ bicep.

  He howled in renewed agony, wheeling in response to the perceived attack. Miles jammed his injured forearm under Sandy’s jaw and slammed him against the wall. The pistol barrel was still warm against his temple as he hissed, “What was that?”

  The pressure on his throat obliterated Sandy’s first response, and Miles let off a bit to allow him to speak. The gun barrel didn’t leave his temple.

  “Look at your arm,” Sandy said. He tried to keep his voice calm, but it shook nonetheless. He hadn’t been ready to save Richard Fox, back when he’d first encountered the group of survivors he’d ended up joining and leading. He hadn’t made the same mistake, this time, but he’d made another one entirely. This time, at least, he could atone for his screw-up.

  Miles lowered his head and looked at his injured arm. Sluggish blood welled from the injury, but the dark gray lines that had once advanced along his nervous and circulatory systems were already beginning to fade.

  “What is this?”

  “Anti-nanos. My last one.” Sandy forced himself to crack a smile. “Best make it count, eh?”

  Lawrence took a step farther into the room, but Miles shook his head. “I think I’m okay,” he said slowly. “The bite still hurts like hell, but it doesn’t burn like it did.” More shouts from the bend, followed by gunfire. Smoke and the acrid scent of burning flesh had begun to creep into the room. “Help them,” Miles said. “Let us try this on our end.”

  The Marine hesitated for the barest of seconds, then nodded and turned to sprint down the hall. Miles met Sandy’s eyes again. He was a little pale, but the whites of his eyes remained just that. He shook his head slowly.

  “You still screwed up big-time, Doc. Never go into a room without clearing it, first.”

  “It’s been a while,” Sandy admitted.

  Miles worked his right hand and winced. “Has it been a while since you’ve bandaged someone up? Cause this would go a lot faster with both hands.”