by Mark Tufo
“Yes, sir.” She dismounted and got Baggelli to watch their six.
She walked the perimeter, staying vigilant, keeping an eye on the woods to the left and the few places of residence and work on the right. She didn’t have high hopes she would see anything straight on; she had to hope her peripheral vision would pick up any movement.
“Anything?” Baggelli asked as she came close.
“Nothing, and I don’t know if it’s partly because the major thinks so, but I’m pretty sure we’re being watched too.”
“Reminds me of that mission in Syria,” he said.
Kendall often thought of that and wondered what could have been done differently. They’d lost two SEALS that day, walking into an ambush they were assured didn’t exist. None of them had seen anything until the bullets began to fly. Kendall had a hard time believing that she could somehow entirely miss the fact that someone had the intention to kill her and those with her, yet she’d not so much as sensed it.
“Let’s not allow that to happen again,” she said as she continued on.
“Turning around,” Reed said. “There’s an overturned tanker. We’d have to ditch the bikes if we came this way.”
“Baggelli, you’re up,” Forsyth said.
“Shit. I hate the Lincoln Tunnel,” he muttered as he walked over to his bike. “Who willingly drives under the Hudson?” He turned and looked back at Kendall, who gave him a thumbs up.
“If Bags gets blocked, we’re going to go further south and take 39th,” Overland said to Forsyth. “Don’t care what intel says. I think our cover is already blown. The best thing might be speed, as stealth could be out the window.”
“Whew, Reed was right. This does smell like my room,” Baggelli said.
A few moments later, a visibly shaken Reed exited the far tunnel.
“Reed, you stay with Kendall on patrol.”
Reed waved at Forsyth and went to the sergeant.
“You see a ghost in there?” she asked.
“Visited by one from the past,” was all he offered.
“Got a little bit of water, no cars, which I’m finding completely strange. New York wasn’t evacuated. This should have been bumper to bumper when it hit,” Baggelli said. “Quarter of the way in, still as clean as Reed’s asshole after his last colonoscopy…you have to get those when you hit fifty.”
Forsyth had difficulty suppressing his smile.
“Smell is beginning to pick up,” he continued. “Can’t see a damn thing; government issue headlight isn’t cutting it. Contact.” There was a pause. “Hey—stay where you are!” Baggelli yelled out. “There’s another.”
Overland looked over at Forsyth. “Don’t like it. Bags, get out.”
“Contact,” Kendall spoke through the headset.
“This is a bad spot for an ambush,” Forsyth hissed.
“Everyone mount up, get ready to go,” the major warned.
“Do not come any closer!” Baggelli warned. “Sir, permission to use force—they are not heeding my orders.”
“Are they zombies?” Overland asked.
“Not moving like it, but I can’t see them well enough. They’re advancing slowly, twenty-five feet and closing.”
“Break contact. Come back. If they’re people and you fire, it will give whoever is watching us a reason to shoot back.”
“Sir, north,” Kendall said as she pointed her rifle to the cement wall rising above them. A line of individuals stood like sentinels upon the grass, a few feet from the precipice.
“Where did they come from?” Overland muttered to himself.
“On the roadway, sir,” Reed said, training his weapon on the half dozen coming toward them. “No weapons.”
“Bags, where are you?” Forsyth asked.
“Moving. More are pouring out of access doors.” Baggelli was breathing heavily.
“More to the south!” Kendall alerted.
“Roadway is blocked,” Reed said flatly.
Baggelli raced out of the tunnel and pulled up to his commander. “On my tail…got to be hundreds.”
“Gunny, radio our ride, give them an update. See if they can help. Yes, I realize they’re at best ten minutes out…if you have a better suggestion, I’m listening.” Major Overland checked his magazine before flipping his safety off. “Get ready to go hot,” he ordered.
“Plane is prepping for takeoff; looking at twelve minutes,” Forsyth said as he also checked his weapon.
“The way we came, let’s go!” Overland shouted. The five bikes were in a row as they headed into the teeth of the enemy now running toward them and pursuing from the rear. The roar of the M4A1s quickly drowned out the electric hum of the motors as the rounds sliced into the enemy. Zombies fell away as the lethal projectiles found their marks. Forsyth’s bike hit the leg of a fallen zombie, sending the bike into a slide that sent him skidding to a painful stop. He was up quickly, dropping his spent magazine and inserting a new one. The motorcycle continued, crashing through five zombies, loudly breaking limbs like a cannonball of old. Overland circled back around, dodging past a trio of zombies that had flanked him.
“Get on!” he yelled, sliding, his rear tire knocking a zombie away. Forsyth lunged for the back of the bike just as a zombie grabbed hold of his leg and yanked him backward. His face slammed off the pavement before he could raise his hands to soften the blow. Blood poured from his mouth and chin as he kicked at the zombie holding him tight. Another joined in, grabbing his free leg. Overland turned and was shooting into the crowd around them.
The word “stop” slid smoothly into his head like a parasite will an open wound.
“What the hell was that?” Baggelli shouted as he continued to fire, though their forward momentum had been stopped. The zombies not holding the wriggling Forsyth down did not continue their advance but stood straight up, automatons awaiting further instruction would have seemed less stiff.
Overland’s group kept firing, probing for a weak spot within the ambush and finding none.
“Stop or all will die,” the voice said with no inflection. It could have as easily been talking about the next stop on the mid-town bus. Scattered firing continued until Overland saw the hopelessness of the situation.
“Ceasefire…ceasefire.” He had one hand in the air with his weapon; with the other, he was urging his squad to stop. One by one they finally did. They then stood, looking around to each other, their commander, and finally the zombie horde encircling them.
“Why are you here.” It was supposed to be a question, but Overland got the impression the voice asking was working through the phrase and was not aware of the needed up-lilt to the sound at the end of the sentence.
“How is it talking in our heads?” Baggelli asked.
“Quiet,” Overland told his corporal. “Let my gunnery sergeant go.” Overland pointed to the man on the ground, a zombie holding each limb outstretched.
“Why are you here,” was asked again.
“As soon as you let my gunnery sergeant go, I’ll answer questions.”
A zombie moved out of the crowd and got down on his knees. He placed his mouth against Forsyth’s head.
“Oh, Jesus, no! Overland, don’t let him bite me!” Forsyth, who had been struggling, was now stock-still, afraid of scraping his head against the zombie’s teeth and infecting himself.
“Stop, just stop!” Overland yelled out, both hands out in front of him. He could not watch his squadmate and friend go out this way.
Baggelli had dismounted his bike. “Shit, Major, do something!” He was running over.
“Stop, Bags—just stay there!” He moved a hand in an attempt to thwart the other from getting too close. He saw Forsyth stiffen as the zombie, attached to his head like an oversized tick, applied more pressure.
“Why are you here,” came again.
“Looking for Dewey! You asshole!” Baggelli shouted into the air as it was impossible to tell which of the faces in front of them was speaking. The voice was spoken dir
ectly into their minds, but their responses needed to be verbalized.
“Corporal, that’s enough!” Overland was trying to diffuse the potentially deadly situation.
“Kill it,” Forsyth said, the sound muffled from the blood in his mouth.
“We were sent to find the leader of the zombies!” Overland looked around, trying to locate the one that had set this up. “Which of you is Dewey. There was a group before us…” Overland continued.
“Talbot,” Dewey said. “We made a deal. He did not honor it correctly.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Overland said, though he did. He’d read the report half a dozen times, wondering how Lieutenant Talbot had come up with half the stuff he’d recorded and then how he’d been able to have his squad echo the words. He didn’t believe much in mass hallucination; he’d thought maybe that Talbot fellow got his kicks by dramatizing his missions. Now he knew, if anything, they’d been downplayed. Dewey was much more dangerous than Talbot had led on.
“We required fresh meat; he supplied us with old.”
Overland shivered.
“How is he talking to us?” Kendall had backed up and was near to Overland. “Do you know which one it is? We can kill it.”
“Quiet for now, Kendall. I don’t know how he’s doing it and how well he can hear our dialog. What deal can we make?” Overland asked aloud.
“Are you fucking serious? Making a deal with a squishy?” Baggelli asked.
Overland shot him a glance that could have either froze or boiled water, that was up to the discretion of the intended target. Baggelli wisely did not add anything more to the conversation.
“What do you require of Dewey.”
“We were told to bring him back to our base.” That part was true enough. He figured as soon as he was at the facility, they would have his brain under a slicer by the end of the day for microscopic slides, but that part he was not going to relay. He didn’t think the Dewey-zombie could read minds, or he and his team would already be working their way through multiple digestive tracts.
“Purpose.”
“This shit cannot be happening,” Kendall said.
“Keep it together, Sergeant.” Overland hoped the words would steady his own nerves as well as they appeared to do for her. A light came on in his head; he wasn’t sure if it would work because there was no way to know what motivated the zombie, other than food. If Dewey had even an ounce of hubris within him, Overland hoped to exploit it. “Talbot said you were the leader of your kind; our leader would like to meet with you, perhaps forge a peace.”
“What the f…” Baggelli stopped as Kendall pulled her finger across her neck
“Piece of what,” Dewey stated.
“Peace, coexistence.”
“Why did your leader not come himself.”
“Military leaders do not often go out onto the front lines,” Overland said.
“I am here.”
Overland decided to sidestep. “We can bring you to him; you can meet face to face.”
“There are many people there.”
It sounded like Dewey was stating a fact and Overland didn’t understand the implication enough not to answer truthfully. “Yes.”
“I will meet.”
“Uh, great. Our plane is coming to pick us up at a rendezvous point, five clicks from here. Can you let my man go now?”
“He will stay. He is my safety.”
“We can’t leave him here; he’s the only one that knows the way back to our leader.” Overland was grasping.
“Choose another to stay in place.”
“I’ll stay,” Forsyth spat. “I’ll stay,” he reiterated.
“Let him up.” Overland was still trying to find the individual responsible for all of this, all he got was a thousand blank stares.
The zombie with his mouth pressed against Forsyth’s head moaned as he pulled back, and the four zombies on his limbs were next. Forsyth pushed up off the ground quickly; his face was red from stress and anger.
“You all right?” Overland asked.
“As good as I can be,” the gunnery sergeant replied.
“You say the word and we’ll send as many to hell as we can,” Overland whispered.
“No, I’ll stay and then you’ll bring back an army to get me out of here. No reason for all of us to die.”
“I can’t ask this of you, Tom.”
“I wouldn’t stay if you asked,” he smirked.
“Sir, what’s going on?” Baggelli was backing up as the zombies slowly advanced.
“Steady, Bags,” Reed said as he came up alongside the youngest in the team.
“He will stay. I will go to this place. Everyone safe,” Dewey said.
“Sir, we can’t leave him here. Not like this,” Baggelli said.
“I’m with the kid on this one,” Reed added.
“We’re not voting. This is my decision and my decision only. I will pay the price if anything goes wrong,” Overland said.
“If anything goes wrong? Little late for that, sir,” Reed said.
“Tango-two, this is Tango-one. We have confirmation of your location. What’s your status? Over.” They could hear the plane flying high overhead; more than a few zombies craned their necks to watch it pass over.
Overland grabbed the radio from Forsyth. “We’re currently in negotiations, two hundred feet from the mouth of the tunnel, on the roadway. Can you tell me the unfriendly situation? Over.”
“Repeat, did you say two hundred feet from the tunnel mouth on the roadway? Over.”
“Correct.”
“CCS has over five thousand hostiles in your area. Over,” Tango-one said.
Forsyth looked to Overland. “You heard him, Jim. The crowd counting software says five thousand. We’d need tanks to make it through this,” Forsyth said. “Get him back to Etna, come grab me, and then blow this shit-hole to hell. When that happens, I’m personally going to shove a knife in his brain bucket.”
Overland was going to do everything in his power to make that a reality, but both men knew the odds were significantly stacked against them. If Forsyth somehow made it through the day, the odds Bennington would send out a rescue team were slim.
“I’m coming back,” Overland promised.
“I know. You’ll take care of Sarah for me?”
“You’ll take care of her yourself.”
Forsyth shook the major’s hand.
“We have a deal,” Overland said.
“Weapons on the ground,” Dewey said.
“No fucking way,” Bags said.
The zombies moved closer; the group was in a circle no more than ten feet across. Overland was the first to put his on the ground.
“That’s it? We’re surrendering?” Baggelli asked.
“We’re living to fight another day,” Kendall said as she also placed hers on the deck.
“Been in the service for twenty-five years. Not once have I ever let my weapon go during a mission,” Reed barked as he placed his rifle down. From the direction of the tunnel, two lines of zombies turned to the side. They stood shoulder to shoulder with their brethren, creating an opening. A tall zombie walked confidently toward them. He wore black cowboy boots, blue jeans, and a black leather trench coat that went down to his knees.
“What the bloody fuck…?” Overland hissed. He glanced down to the weapon, wondering if he should save everyone the trouble and put as many rounds into the specter as he could before they all fell. No sooner had he thought that when a zombie came through the circle and gathered the guns. The major had never felt more vulnerable in his entire life.
“Names do not mean anything to us now, but I am the one you call Dewey.” The zombie stood five feet away.
“What assurance do I have my man will be all right?”
“My safety is his safety. I die, he dies. Let us go to the place with all the people.”
“Give the gunny all your water and food,” the major ordered as he emptied his pockets
. “Ponchos too.” Overland could not get past the feeling that the creature was like this new world’s version of Typhoid Mary, but instead of only a twenty percent mortality rate, he would bring extinction.
Dewey waited patiently before leading the way. The zombies ahead turned as the ones to the rear had done before. They leaned in ever so slightly, sniffing at the humans as they passed.
“Nothing is to happen to the human. Anything tries to break through to get him, kill it,” Dewey said to the assemblage once they were through. The zombies all turned their backs to Forsyth, their fixed gazes out in front, watching for threats.
“He’s in a fucking prison made of zombies.” Baggelli could hardly believe it. “God help us.” The last words spoken before they departed the area.
“No flying machine,” Dewey said as they came up to the airplane.
“This is our transportation to Etna,” the major said.
“Vehicle only.”
“It’ll take days to get there. With this, we’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Vehicle,” Dewey said.
“A fucking squishy afraid to fly. Seen it all,” Baggelli said. “Bullshit. We just force him and get back!”
“If lose communication with others, your man will die,” Dewey said.
“I don’t think you’re understanding the distances involved,” Overland said. “You won’t be able to stay in communication anyway.”
“On ground yes. In flying machine no. Choose now.”
“Shit. Major Cook, can you radio base and tell them there’s been a change of plans?” Overland said to the pilot. “Bags, Kendall, hurry up and find me the fastest transportation.”
“We’re taking orders from him now?” Baggelli looked as if blood vessels in his head were going to burst.
“Do it, Corporal. If I wanted to hear your response, I’d ask for it!” Overland said forcefully.
“Bullshit,” Baggelli said as he and Kendall took off.
Within a few hours, they were on the road in an extended cab pick-up truck. Dewey rode in the bed. Every few miles, Overland saw zombies standing on the side of the road, and he immediately knew how Dewey planned on staying in touch with the horde surrounding Forsyth. They would pass messages like a game of Chinese Whispers, or Telephone, as they called it when he was a child. He could only hope that nothing was lost in translation amongst so many players. They drove day and night to get back as soon as possible. When they were twenty miles out from the base, they were met with a specially equipped transport. Overland convinced Dewey that he would have to enter the base in the cage they’d brought out for him. Instead of protesting, he’d gotten in without a complaint. Once he was brought into Etna and Overland had a minute, he went to talk to Forsyth’s wife. She’d cried and she’d been angry—not at his decision, but rather at her husband’s.
