Plaguelands (Slayers Book 1)

by Jae Hill

  One of the special forces troops in front of her was doubled over, bleeding from the abdomen.

  “On the ground in ten seconds!” the pilot yelled.

  The door in the back of the chopper swung wide and the troops poured out. The ghoul operating the fifty-cal on the flatbed swung it in an arc toward the helicopter and hit a few of the disembarking troops before the door-gunner on the chopper took him out. Another ghoul tried to get up on the gun and was similarly cut down. The truck’s fuel tank ruptured and spouted flames into the air.

  Rebekah helped drag a wounded soldier back into the helicopter and then ran with the Californian troops. They fired into the trucks. Zombies started pouring through the parked vehicles and engaging the Californians at point-blank range. A few more of the special ops guys fell and were utterly ripped to pieces. Rebekah was panting, running, searching the trucks.

  “The hell is that?” she said, peering into the canvas flap of a big green ancient army truck.

  I could see on her camera. It was definitely a piece of older technology. She climbed into the truck. A dial indicated the number of hertz and the pattern. It was an emitter of some type.

  “Destroy it, Rebekah.”

  She smashed it with the butt of her gun, over and over. Sparks flew, the blue sizzle of electric lightning raced along the edge. The humming stopped.

  “Suppose that’s the ULF generator they’ve been controlling the zombies with?” MacDonald asked Christensen.

  Christensen nodded.

  “But the zombies are still attacking?” I asked one of the comm guys.

  “Cascadian forces Two-Alpha and Three-Alpha are falling back behind the locals on the third trench,” he confirmed. “California Bravo and Charlie companies are pushing forward through the line.”

  I turned to Christensen. “How are they using the ultra-low frequency to control them?”

  He shrugged, “Somehow the frequency syncs with their natural brain patterns. It gives them moments of clarity through the haze of the virus-induced side effects.”

  “Ebenezer said that he traced the ULF to at least one of three places,” I mumbled, fidgeting with my digibook. I accessed the Central Library and found an article on old United States Navy ULF stations. They had used these stations hundreds of years ago to communicate with submarines at sea.

  “It’s not one of three,” I said triumphantly. “It’s all three! Michigan, Wisconsin, and Virginia. If you look at the angle and the intensity of the three likely signal vectors….”

  I punched something up to the main display screen from my tablet. The trendline from the three stations went west-northwest across the country.

  “The signal is pushing them right toward Cascadia!” Holland exclaimed.

  We wouldn’t have an orbital solution for another sixty minutes and our line was collapsing under the weight of the zombie attack.

  “Holland, you gotta tell Fleet to get a solution on these locations,” I shouted, pointing at the ULF sites.

  “Already done,” he said excitedly, reaching for his digibook.

  “Rebekah,” I shouted back into my digibook, “good work.”

  “Thanks, Pax,” she sighed.

  I watched on the screen as she flipped open the canvas tent and saw nothing but zombies. She immediately flipped it closed.

  “Shit,” she murmured.

  “How’s the strike team doing?” I asked Captain MacDonald.

  “They’ve taken heavy losses and are being overrun. They’re retreating back to the chopper.”

  “Without Rebekah?” I screamed angrily.

  “They’ve got to pull out,” he said.

  “Unacceptable,” I said, reaching for a spare rifle.

  “You can’t go out there,” Christensen put his hand firmly on my shoulder.

  “I’m not leaving her there!” I yelled.

  “We’ll get her out,” he said. We’ve got a second team moving in to cover the extraction.”

  “Rebekah, you’re gonna have to wait a little bit longer,” my voice quivered into my headset.

  “I’ll keep my head down,” she said quietly.

  “The Cascadians and the Californians are taking heavy losses now, sir,” one of the comm specialists said. “20 percent casualties. The locals have fallen back entirely.”

  One out of every five men and women who’d set in on the trenches were dead or wounded.

  “There’s nothing more I can do here,” I said. “You have your orders. I’m heading to the line.”

  I’d never fired a real gun in my life, but I knew I’d killed thousands of fake zombies in Slayers and hundreds of real ones at Cheyenne Mountain.

  No one tried to stop me this time as I ran toward the front, picking up a piece of body armor and a helmet.

  Some of the locals were running away from the fight, west toward Magic Valley. I grabbed one by the shirt.

  “Where are you going?” I yelled at him.

  “If you go that way, you’re dead!” he screamed, pointing toward the fray.

  “If you go that way, you’re dead too!” I shouted, pointing toward Magic Valley. “You believe in God, right? It’s not time to meet him just yet!”

  Helicopters were now lifting off from the landing zone and strafing into the fray. Grenades popped.

  I started running again and noticed a few of the fleeing locals were running along with me through the rows of tents. The trenches were a few hundred meters away. I fumbled with my communicator on my battle helmet.

  “Rebekah, are they there to get you out yet?”

  “There’s a helicopter hovering a hundred meters away,” she whispered. “The back door’s open and they’re shooting at zombies but I don’t think they’re landing.”

  “You’ve gotta run for it,” I urged.

  “No,” she said quietly, “I’ll never make it through this swarm. And I still haven’t found the Reverend.”

  “We’ll get him later,” I pleaded.

  “No,” she whispered harshly. “He killed my family. He killed your family. He’s going to face judgment for his sins.”

  I stopped and pulled out my digibook to see her helmet cam feed. She jumped out of the flap of the truck into the thick of the zombies, firing wildly, and running around to the other side of the truck. She climbed under it and the zombies ran past her. One sniffed like he was on to her scent, and inched closer to her position. His head exploded with a Gauss round from her rifle, and she was on the move again.

  I heard a scream from somewhere to my left. I watched a Californian soldier get eaten by two runner zombies, even though we were hundreds of meters behind the trenches. I fired a few rounds at the zombies, killing both of them. I was more than surprised by my accuracy.

  I rushed over, hoping to help, but it was obviously too late. The Californian soldier was bleeding from a ripped open neck and from several deep gashes and bite wounds all over his body. They’d been eating him alive. He was shaking and twitching. Even if he survived, he’d likely been so infected that not even a heavy round of anti-virals could save him. I picked up my gun, and I’ll never know what made me do it, but I shot him in the head, ending his suffering.

  I continued racing into the fray. The living were pulling the dying out of the mess. Enhanced forms, leaking maintenance fluid and missing limbs were stumbling backwards. Some were dragging the bodies of Californians, bleeding bright red and covered with the dark black blood of the zombies.

  By the time I reached the rear-most trench, I could finally see the fighting down the hill in front of me. The first and second trench had been completely overrun, and fighting was heavy in the third and fourth. There were countless wounded in the fifth and sixth, still clutching their weapons and ready to give their last.

  A helicopter swooped low overhead and hovered for a second above me, then lowered a cable. I grabbed it, and it swung me rapidly up into the air as the chopper turned to the east over the river.

  The cable hauled me into the cargo hold. Cap
tain MacDonald was aboard, and he could sense my confusion.

  “All of the teams we’ve sent in to get the Reverend have come up empty, and haven’t come back,” he said angrily. “We spotted a small group of heat signatures about a kilometer north of the action. I’m betting he’s out there.”

  “What happened to Rebekah?” I asked.

  “Her video comm got shattered. We’re gonna swoop low over her last known location and see if we can pick her up.”

  I leaned back to the open window and saw us descending over the cluster of trucks, several of which were burning. Two crumpled bulks that used to be helicopters belched flames on the ground. The zombies temporarily cowered back from the dust whipped up by the blades. I took advantage of their pause to fire into their ranks, and the door gunner did the same, dropping rows of zombies. I looked under the truck, and saw Rebekah’s gun, but not her. I scanned the horizon and saw her atop the cab of another vehicle, laying low.

  “Go!” I pointed. “There!”

  The helicopter lifted off and moved to hover a few meters above the truck. Rebekah reached up and tried to grab the bottom of the cargo door.

  “Lower!” I shouted.

  I reached down and grabbed her, pulling her up right as the truck was swarmed by runners and ghouls.

  “Thanks,” she said. “My rifle stopped working. I thought I was a goner.”

  We hugged tight, and the chopper lifted off to the east, surrounded by a full squad of night-vision goggles equipped, body-armored soldiers, clutching their weapons. Two held large rocket-launcher weapons.

  “Thirty seconds!” shouted the pilot. The door gunner checked the breech on his minigun.

  “I love you, Rebekah,” I said loudly, over the rumble of the spinning rotors.

  She kissed me tightly.

  “Got a new gun for me?”

  MacDonald pointed to a locker over her head. She opened it and there was a hefty sniper rifle in it. She giggled and patted it approvingly.

  “Ten seconds!” the pilot shouted.

  We dropped low over a single tent. There was no movement around the outside.

  “Out the door!” screamed MacDonald, and the chopper disgorged its contents.

  The team pushed into the tent.

  Inside sat one man on a chair. He wore a black robe. Rebekah raised her long-barreled rifle to shoot him and I pushed it down.

  “Why?” she snarled at me.

  I pointed at his hand. He held a black metal box in his fist. Wires led back to the stack of grey metal cylinders behind him.

  “The nukes….” MacDonald mumbled.

  “Indeed,” the Reverend smirked. “And this is a kill switch. If you shoot me, I let go. Poof. Everything goes.”

  “How do we get you to stop?” MacDonald asked.

  “You don’t,” the Reverend laughed. “I call the shots here.”

  My digibook flashed. We had an orbital firing solution on the ULF arrays on the east coast.

  “Wrong,” I said coldly. “I do.”

  A few thousand kilometers above us, the Fleet task force engaged their MAC guns. A few thousand kilometers away in the east, three huge craters suddenly appeared in the ground. And a few hundred meters away, the zombies suddenly lost the last ties to their consciousness.

  The Reverend stood up holding his box aloft.

  “The glory of the Lord is upon us!” he shouted.

  Rebekah lifted her rifle and pulled the trigger in quick movement. She severed the wires to the bombs in one instant.

  We all stared at her in surprise.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You could have blown us up!” I screamed.

  “Oh,” Rebekah said, shocked and dismayed.

  Outside, the zombies had lost control. Without the therapeutic effects of the ultra-low-frequency signals, they weren’t pushing in the same direction. Some were even turning on each other. But they weren’t going away and we were at the maximum concentration.

  The Reverend started to run, but he was blocked by one of the soldiers.

  “Restrain him,” I said, pointing at the Reverend. “We need to question and try him. Get him back to camp.”

  “The camp is one strong push short of collapsing,” MacDonald frowned.

  “Then I’m gonna stay out here and fight,” I said.

  “I’m staying with you,” Rebekah said, grabbing my hand.

  “We’re heading back to the line,” MacDonald said.

  I shook his hand. He and the rest of our team loaded the Reverend in the helicopter, handcuffed and blindfolded. Rebekah and I covered our eyes as the chopper lifted off back to the west.

  “We probably won’t make it through the night,” I noted.

  “I never expected to,” she replied. “I figure my daddy and my brothers died right here defending those they loved. There’s no better place to die, doing the same thing.”

  “Let’s go then,” I shouted, running forward toward the battle.

  Flares had been sent up over the valley and helicopters hovered in the distance with spotlights on. It was eerily illuminated with the sun rising in the east. I could see the fighting stretching up the hill.

  In the distance, to the southeast, I could see the massive shapes of the hulks closing the distance to our position. They had been slower than the runners and drudges to arrive at the chokepoint. They’d pass right by us on their way to the river’s edge. I checked my rifle, and Rebekah did the same.

  As I was about to pull the trigger I heard a loud whining sound screaming through the air from the west. Something large and round impacted the ground just barely on our side of the river and threw up a cloud of mud and rocks.

  Then another one impacted just a little bit farther. Another one impacted just beyond that.

  “Orbital guns?” Rebekah asked.

  “No,” I said. “Something else.”

  Through the clearing muck, I could see a blue-cloaked figure rushing out of the capsule and destroying zombies with powerful punches and kicks. I knew what I was seeing, just couldn’t explain why it was happening. Another capsule impacted, the front of it exploding away to reveal another blue-cloaked figure racing forward with a long black spear in his hands, his black bodysuit showing underneath the billowing cape.

  My communicator beeped. It was Holland.

  “We’re clear for an orbital strike on the main force of hulks,” he announced.

  “Do it,” I said firmly.

  The capsules containing the Cerulean Order kept impacting around us. Their presence was incredible. The matter repulsors on their hands either ripped pieces off of the zombies, or flung entire bodies hundreds of meters. Their black spears sliced through everything as if made of the sharpest razor blades imaginable.

  In an instant, the sky lit up and a terrific explosion rocked the ground a few kilometers in front of us. A wall of debris came rushing in advance of the impact shockwave. The Ceruleans all spun in a circle and dropped to the ground, their cloaks stiffening against the force of the blast, and protecting them. Rebekah and I dropped to the ground and covered our heads. Fortunately we were far enough away that the heavy debris wasn’t a threat, but lots of pebbles and little rocks crashed around us, pinging off our helmets.

  The Cerulean Order resumed beating back the zombies. We sat and watched, with no need to go engage ourselves. Dozens of black bat and butterfly shapes were now circling over the battle, firing laser-like weapons into the fray. Rebekah was initially frightened, then after I reassured her, confused. In a matter of twenty more minutes, the attack had been completely repelled from the hillock near our camp.

  Rebekah and I started walking along the highway toward the destroyed bridge. We walked down the embankment to the river to look for a place to cross. One of the Kergueleni aircraft hovered above us, turning on a spot light.

  We were suddenly engulfed in the light, which was blinding to the point where we couldn’t see anything.

  And then we were inside the craft.

/>   I was shocked. Stunned. A little scared actually. General Skygard was in standing front of me.

  “Sorry for the unannounced arrival,” she smiled, “but we actually had a change of plans en route.”

  I cocked an eyebrow.

  “We were ordered here by Chairman Winterfall to pick off the remnants of the Cascadia Republic,” she said. “But there’s been a vote of no confidence on the chairman by our Senate and a change of government: only the second ever in our nation’s storied history.”

  “The new chairman is Lord Titus Skygard, my father,” she added. “He listened to my pleas, and your pleas through me, and decided to come to your aid in the hopes of forging a long and prosperous partnership.”

  “I think our Senate will be most interested to hear about this,” I said. “And I thank you for your support in our darkest hour.”

  Rebekah looked at General Skygard, then at me, then back at Skygard…then back at me.

  “Who is this lady?” she yelled.

  AFTER ACTION

  We slowly drifted over the battlefield in the Kergueleni aircraft—not so much “hovering” as just “floating”—watching as the Cerulean Order utterly vanquished the hulks and drudges below. The zombies, absent the soothing pulses of ultra-low frequency energy, had gone into a frenzy and were fighting with a bloodlust that hadn’t been observed since time immemorial…but it was no match for the superior fighting skills and augmented nano battle-suits of the Order.

  The combined Cascadian, Californian, and local forces had taken advantage of the arrival of the Kergueleni air and ground forces, and had now pushed the zombie horde back across the river toward where the bulk of the Ceruleans were slaughtering the monsters. In the early morning sun, the Kergueleni aircraft fired down into the fray with precision, picking off zombies like snipers. The fog and smoke of the battle hung over the battlefield, and the view of other aircraft firing their purple-red lasers into the zombies seemed other-worldly.

  Our craft floated above the battle for a while longer and then turned west toward the encampment. We touched down just west of where the locals had set up the original command tent. Regular Kergueleni naval forces, in their black and grey digital-pattern camouflage, were quickly setting up a camp to include several field hospitals.