The Rising Horde, Volume Two

by Stephen Knight

  “Sir, looks like something’s going down to the north,” one of the Rangers said.

  McDaniels turned. On the horizon, a thick plume of smoke billowed into the air, undulating like some black serpent. He pulled out his iPad and fired it up. After scrolling through the battle roster, he spoke into his headset microphone.

  “Hercules Ops, this is Hercules Six. Over.”

  “Six, this is Ops. Go ahead. Over.”

  “Ops, Six. Have Cadillac reach out to Alcatraz Three-Six and get a status check in their sector. We see some smoke on the horizon, and I’m looking for a SITREP from them. Over.”

  “Hercules Six, Hercules Ops. Roger that. Stand by.”

  McDaniels pulled out his binoculars and looked at the smoke column rising into the sky. Below, other soldiers on the wall of CONEX containers were doing the same. Motorists in the thick traffic on Route 385 saw the smoke as well, and several emerged from their vehicles, staring at the cloud as it rose higher and higher into the blue sky. From his vantage point in the observation tower, McDaniels couldn’t see much; whatever had caused the fire was just on the other side of the horizon. He sensed movement beside him, and in his peripheral vision, he saw Gartrell looking through his own field glasses.

  “Might be nothing related to the zombies,” Gartrell said.

  McDaniels grunted. “I wouldn’t count on that.”

  “Just trying out a new sunny outlook, Colonel. Doesn’t seem to be working for me, though.”

  “Hercules Six, this is Ops. Over.”

  “Ops, this is Six. Go ahead. Over.”

  “Six, Ops. Cadillac is in touch with Alcatraz, but they don’t have a direct visual. There is some activity inside Odessa, but Alcatraz doesn’t know what it is. We’ve been trying to make use of the calling tree and get some answers from the police or other emergency services, but we’re not getting through. Over.”

  “Ops, this is Six. Define ‘not getting through.’ Over.”

  “Six, this is Ops. Telecom is down, including landline and cellular. We’re reaching out to our LNO over the radio. Over.” The leaders of the Special Forces operational detachments had been assigned liaison duty with the Odessa Police at Jaworski’s direction, so that JTF SPARTA would have additional visibility into the goings-on in Odessa.

  McDaniels lowered his field glasses and pulled out his iPad again. According to the duty rotation, a Special Forces captain named Egan was in the city. “Roger that, Ops. Let’s get some UAVs overhead for a look. How far away is the necromorph main element? Still around fifty, sixty miles? Over.” The battle for the Dallas/Fort Worth area continued to rage a few hundred miles to the east, but a large portion of the zombies had cut through Fort Worth and continued moving westerly, toward Odessa. The only sizeable establishment in their path was Abilene, but the city had been mostly evacuated by the time the horde arrived. With little to cause them to stay, and no meaningful opposition in their path, the necromorphs threatened Midland. Over the course of the past few days, they had been popping up in small groups walking through the desert scrub brush, attacking whatever they could. Several had even made it to Odessa, but since the local police had become acclimated to fighting that kind of threat, no serious harm had been caused.

  The units guarding SPARTA had also been in intermittent contact, from the south and east. A contingent of at least twenty thousand dead were pushing up 385, overwhelming the civilians in the stalled traffic there. In the words of one intelligence officer, the traffic was like a trail of breadcrumbs that led right to the fortified installation.

  “Roger that, Six. Moving down Interstate 20 and overland. Over.”

  “Understood, Ops. We’ll be returning to the TOC now. Six, out.” McDaniels looked out over the installation. The placement of the observation towers was fairly standard, with each tower approximately one hundred meters from the next. Rising sixty feet into the air, they were steel-framed upthrusts that had been welded to the CONEX wall. From that height, McDaniels had a fantastic view of the entire encampment, from the eastern wall to the blocky office buildings to the west, and past those, the lower and upper parking lots.

  The lower lot had been turned into a supply depot of sorts in one half, where the D-FAC, shower, and cash lay amidst quartermaster tents, task force tactical operations center, subordinate command ops centers, and a whole array of blatting generators. Somewhere in that morass was the Ranger mortar team, whose tubes had already been zeroed and stood ready to bracket any incoming zeds with a flurry of sixty-millimeter high-explosive fire. The upper parking lot was the airfield, and the helicopter traffic was fairly steady, with unarmed observation helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles flitting to and fro. The big Chinooks and small Black Hawks were located on one side, the armed Little Birds and more formidable-looking AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters on the other. Each aircraft was in a revetment designed to protect it from indirect fire. Not that anyone expected that, of course.

  Closer to the office buildings was the tent city where the civilians lived. Several hundred of them were armed and had received some specialized training in defending the camp should a breach occur. Many folks had brought in their own weaponry, which had deeply concerned McDaniels at first. After all, having that many untrained folks carrying firepower that rivaled anything the Rangers had was a possible security risk, but his fears had been unwarranted. There had been no incidents of abuse by the civilians, who by and large were a conscientious sort. And as Gartrell had reminded him, an armed society was a polite society. It had certainly turned out that way.

  McDaniels turned to the Rangers. “You guys keep your eyes wide open. Looks like things are about to hit the fan.”

  “Roger that, Colonel,” one of them said.

  McDaniels clapped the soldier on the shoulder and then headed for the ladder that led to the cargo container sixty feet down. He descended the rungs quickly, with Gartrell following. When his boots hit the container’s steel deck, McDaniels stepped to one side while he waited for the senior NCO. In the distance, gunfire crackled, and a report came back almost immediately. One Special Forces team to the south was in contact with a collection of the stenches. Serviced targets numbered six, and the search was on for more.

  “Things are definitely picking up, Colonel,” Gartrell said when he hopped to the deck beside McDaniels. He had heard the same report over his own headset. “Looks like business is going to be getting good sooner rather than later.”

  “I agree.” McDaniels started off in the direction of the TOC.

  The eastern wall was fully manned, and sandbagged battlements marked firing positions for both individual troops with assault weapons and heavier machineguns. Each container faced a steeply sloped ditch, dotted with decidedly medieval constructs, namely pikes and other sharp implements cut from aluminum, thick PVC piping, or even wood. While those implements were likely to be only a minor inconvenience to the zeds, they would definitely slow down an advance if the zombies made it that far past the post’s layered defenses. McDaniels and Gartrell had been very detailed in their requests that the walls be not only as high as possible, but as difficult to mount as well. They knew the zeds would simply pile up against the wall if they penetrated the outer defenses until the mound of stinking dead was able to literally fall right over it. To that end, concertina wire had been strung up along each container. Again, it would not cause the zombies any dire harm, but it would slow them enough so that a cohesive armed response could be mounted.

  McDaniels led the way down the metal gangway that led to the camp. As he and Gartrell pushed their way through the bustling encampment, they listened to the Special Forces team in contact to the south make their final report. The enemy movement had been neutralized, and the bodies were being arranged to be burned. That was the operating procedure everyone had to follow; all the dead were to be immolated as quickly as possible. That was at the insistence of Doctors Kerr and Kersey. The necromorphs were not only carnivorous; they also carried with them a hos
t of other diseases that could be very dangerous to deal with over time.

  The outer band of cement-lined trenches had been filled with a gelatinous mixture of kerosene and aluminum sulfide soap, what was informally known as “Napalm B” inside the military, even though it had no direct relation to the earlier versions of napalm that American forces had utilized off and on since the Vietnam conflict. The newer mixture was much more stable than the old stuff, and it burned much hotter. It also needed a substantial ignition source, so a charge of white phosphorus had been tossed into each trench, ready for remote detonation. McDaniels knew the trenches would be filled in no time as the dead tried to storm SPARTA. The trench fires would not only serve to destroy those ghouls trapped in them, but would also immolate any others who tried to get through, as well as contain the spread of infectious diseases.

  As they bore down on the TOC, McDaniels slowed and turned to Gartrell. The sergeant major stopped and faced him after removing his sunglasses. His blue gaze was vacant and inscrutable.

  “How’re you holding up, Dave?”

  “Colonel?”

  “Answer me.”

  Gartrell looked as if he didn’t know what to make of the question. “I’m fine, sir. How are you?”

  “What happened in New York has been dragging your ass down. I want you to forget about that. There was no way you could have saved that lady and her kid, especially a kid with special needs who couldn’t understand what was going on and keep quiet. It was incredibly ballsy of you to even try, but their deaths shouldn’t weigh on you one bit. Fate is a fucked-up bitch, but we’re all sleeping with her, and she has her way no matter what.”

  “What kind of pep talk are you aiming for, sir? Motivational or otherwise?”

  McDaniels took a step forward until his face was only inches from Gartrell’s. He knew the passing soldiers were looking at them curiously, but he didn’t care. “The last time we were within kissing distance, you had your sidearm under my chin. Sergeant Major Gartrell, you should know by now that I am well aware that fucking with you in any way is not in my best interest. You should also be aware that at the smallest inkling that you intend me bodily harm, I will not hesitate to bring lethal force to bear in your direction. I just want to get this out of the way right now before we proceed. Any issues with that?”

  “No, sir. Knock yourself out.”

  “Sarmajor, I need a senior NCO who can recognize a situation for what it is and do what has to be done in order for this task force to survive as well as it’s able. I need that NCO to bring his A-game and have on his war face. I need that NCO to become Teflon should the ballistics start to fly. And I need that NCO to be with me right here, right now.” McDaniels paused for a fraction of an instant. “If you are not that NCO, now is the time to tell me, so I can replace you with Command Sergeant Major Carlisi.”

  “Replace a Special Forces NCO with a Ranger? You realize Carlisi can’t even count to seven?”

  McDaniels wasn’t about to acknowledge any levity. “Answer. My. Fucking. Question.”

  Gartrell glared at him for a long moment, then said, “Yes, Colonel. I’m totally operational, and I’m living in the here and now, not in New York City. How about yourself, sir?”

  “I’m groovy, Sergeant Major.” McDaniels backed away. “Simply groovy. Thanks for asking.”

  “I’d hoped you would be. After all, your son is here and everything.”

  McDaniels caught onto that. “Something up with your family?”

  Gartrell slipped his sunglasses back on. “Been out of touch for forty-eight-plus hours. I’m operating under the impression it’s just the satellite provider having some issues.”

  “You call the provider?”

  “Tried. Can’t get through.”

  “Huh.” McDaniels thought about that for a long moment. “Well, look, it’s probably congestion on the network. Lots of people are using the system, especially now.”

  Gartrell nodded and looked away, studying some Rangers as they marched past in SOICS gear. “Yes, sir. I’m sure that’s it. And how is Mrs. McDaniels doing?”

  “As well as can be expected. Still holed up in Fort Bragg, but the Airborne is apparently doing a better job securing Smoke Bomb Hill than they did at Campbell.”

  “Who would have thought the 82nd could outperform the 101st? Colonel, I’m totally onboard with this operation. If you can accept that, we should probably get to the TOC and see what’s going on, because this is just the opening act of what promises to be one bitch of a mission.” As he spoke, rotors pounded.

  McDaniels half-turned and watched as an MH-47 rose into the air. It likely carried another batch of vaccine that it would deliver to Fort Bliss. From there, McDaniels didn’t know where it would go. He turned back to Gartrell.

  “Roger that, Sarmajor. Let’s roll.”

  ***

  “We’re kind of getting fucked up out there,” the police captain said. “Is there anything you can do for us?”

  Captain Josh Egan had been inhabiting a small cube at the back of the Odessa Police Department’s dispatch center every other day for twelve hours, one of four Special Forces Operational Detachment (Alpha) commanders who had been tasked to serve as liaison officers between the City of Odessa and the task force down at the InTerGen complex. He usually covered the noon to midnight slot, which was a hell of a stretch given that he still had an alpha detachment to oversee that was also in active rotation, backing up the SEAL long-range security response team. The job sucked ass, but there was no way around it. Though he was only on the high side of thirty, Egan was one of the “Quiet Professionals,” and he knew how to comport himself in a way that his superiors—and the civilians he worked with—never really got a good handle on his true feelings. The job had to be done, and Egan was articulate and smooth enough to make it seem almost effortless, but he still hated it.

  That day, he knew he was going to hate it even more. The stenches were starting to arrive in force, traipsing across the desert in ones and twos and twelves, and the Odessa SWAT team was pretty much run out. They could only be in so many places at the same time. The SEAL team on rotation to assist with “civic affairs”—killing the zombies the police couldn’t get to—was likewise busy at the moment, with two elements eradicating the gathering dead in different parts of the city. Egan was not in direct contact with them and most certainly was not in control of any aspect of their mission, but he heard the peculiar buzzing of the Little Bird helicopters as they crisscrossed over the city, ferrying the SEALs from engagement to engagement.

  On top of that, there had been an explosion somewhere in the city, one that had apparently cut power, telecom, and other services to many parts of the establishment, including the police department headquarters. They had power because backup generators had come online almost immediately, and they had radio commo, but with landlines and most cellular operations out, the radio was quickly becoming saturated. Too many cops in the field were trying to report in at the same time with essentially the same message: Send backup.

  “Show me,” Egan responded.

  The captain led him to the front of the dispatch center where an electronic map of the city was displayed on one wall. The city was broken up into different patrol districts, and virtually every district had a red “incident” icon in it. Several had more than four. Odessa had spent a good deal of money upgrading its police department after 9/11. As there was a sizable oil industry presence in the area, the police had wanted to ensure they could generate, maintain, and interpret a continuous flow of information. Egan was impressed with the display. It rivaled some of the similar systems he’d seen on operations centers at Fort Bragg and MacDill Air Force Base.

  “The red icons show where we’ve got patrol units in direct contact with the necromorphs,” the police watch commander said. “And SWAT is over here—” He pointed to one sector with no fewer than six incident icons. “—backed up by a SEAL unit, which is in the northeast corner. They’re operating independently
of each other, but they are in contact.” One of the many things the police had spent money on was a bunch of radios that could transmit and receive on all the P-25 public service bands. The special operations units on the ground and in the air could also communicate on those bands, so the level of interoperability was excellent, given that the two professions had not regularly interacted in the past.

  “I need a number of stenches to send back to my commanders,” Egan said.

  “Stenches?”

  “Necromorphs. Zombies. Zeds.” Egan wondered where the hell the captain in the pressed white shirt had been for the last month.

  “SWAT’s engaged over thirty in the past two hours, in three separate locations. We have patrol units that have rolled up on almost twice that number. And we have two units that no longer respond, even though their cruisers are still broadcasting their locations. Those flashing red icons there.” The watch commander pointed at the screen again. “I’m going to say between a hundred and two hundred stiffs are in the city right now, and those are the only ones we know about.” On another display, 9-1-1 call data delivered from a secondary call center was displayed in an RSS-like scrawl. Egan saw one that said zombies were walking down residential streets in the city’s northern suburbs. No police units were available for the assignment.

  “Tell me where you want us,” Egan said.

  The watch commander pointed to the northern portion of the map. “Those two districts right there. We’ve got two patrol cars about to shake loose and head that way, but those things are breaking into homes and eating people. A lot of residents have guns, but not everyone’s a dead-eye, you know?”

  “I get you,” Egan said. The tactical radio at his hip vibrated, and he put his right hand on it. SPARTA was reaching out to him. He pulled the radio from its holster and nodded to the watch commander. “I’ll see what I can do for you. Give me just a minute.”