That was enough for Kyler to press the radio send button three times. He didn’t have long to wait before the guy whose name he couldn’t remember slithered into the room.
“What’s your name?” Kyler asked him.
“Steve. That all you needed?” Petty Officer Steve asked him.
“Nope. There’s another one out there now and they all just did some kind of synchronized march towards the building then stopped and tilted their heads at the same time.”
“So, I guess that means it isn’t a coincidence they did the exact same thing on the other side of the station.”
Kyler was shocked into silence by that statement. He just stared at Steve with his mouth agape. That was the freakiest news he’d ever been given. Steve sat there looking out the window at the four in the front of the station allowing time for Kyler to process.
“What do we do?” Kyler finally asked.
“I say we wait until twilight then we kill the bastards. Kill them quietly.”
“How?” Kyler asked. He was waiting for Steve to say bow and arrow so he could tell him to get bent.
“We’re working on that part. Wish we had some silencers but what we’re thinking right now is getting a couple of guys on the roof who don’t suck with the bow and seeing if they can do some damage without being seen. Problem is we only have one guy who doesn’t suck with a bow. Rodriguez already told us you’re completely useless. We’ve got a crapload of arrows so it could work. As long as the archer isn’t seen. Those freaks actually lay eyes on somebody then who knows what kind of hell that stirs up.”
“Works for me. We should focus on the front first then do the back. We need to get guys with hand weapons ready to rush out and finish off the Zombies if they do see the guy on the roof. That way we can get them put down before they can scream for too long.”
“Good thinking. We’ve already got our archer headed to the roof. He used to do a lot of bow hunting so he’s the guy. I want you to stay here and tell us if we need to rush out and finish off the rest of them or not. That’s a pretty solid plan. Rodriguez told me you weren’t as stupid as you look.” Steve said. “Two clicks any time after the arrows start flying and we’ll charge out the front door with machetes and axes.”
Steve left when Kyler nodded. Kyler was thinking they probably didn’t need to kill the Zombies outside. By morning they may be gone anyway. He understood where Steve was coming from though. First of all, the damned things were just creepy and needed to be killed. Who knew if they’d be gone by the morning or not? They wouldn’t have time to deal with them as the plane was landing. They also didn’t want Krantz and company to come strolling back into a Zombie ambush. They still hadn’t turned their radios on so had no way of knowing about the extra creepy staring Zombies.
Kyler stared out the window with the radio gripped tightly in his hand. He saw Susan Sommers take an arrow directly to the boob. The arrow must’ve stuck in a bone or something as she didn’t fall over or anything. She actually didn’t even move. She just suddenly had an arrow sticking out of her breast. She continued to stand there with blood seeping through her sports bra as another arrow slammed into her head. That arrow ripped off a big patch of her scalp before bouncing into the street. Again, there was no movement from the line of intensely staring Zombies.
The rain of arrows from the roof continued. One finally punched right through the yoga pant rocking Zombie’s head and she collapsed to the ground in a lifeless pile with the arrow sticking up like some kind of punk rock hair accessory. Heckle and Jekyll were next. Jekyll went down with an arrow through the heart pretty quickly while Heckle looked like a bloody pin cushion by the time he sagged down to the ground. None of them made any move to defend themselves or look for the source of the arrows striking them down.
With just the old pirate looking Zombie left Kyler began to relax. He’d built up this encounter in his mind to the Zombies suddenly having Keanu Reeves Matrix type powers. It was beginning to look like his earlier guess at some sort of brain damage may have been more accurate. Pirate Pete didn’t last very long. Either the archer on the roof was getting more accurate or he just got lucky with his first shot. The arrow went right through the empty eye socket scrambling whatever was left of Pirate Pete’s brains. The hapless Zombie collapsed silently to the ground.
Kyler sat there wondering what the signal was supposed to be for all clear. He finally went with a single click. When he got nothing back in response he sat there wondering if he should click again. He held off on doing anything because he was paranoid that’d lead to the group downstairs rushing outside to take care of the now defunct group of Zombies. Steve finally poked his head in the room and asked how it was going. Kyler let him know all the Zombies were dead in the front. Steve nodded and told him to stay and keep watch in the front room for now while they worked on the Zombies in the back.
It was dark outside when Steve showed back up in the room with Rodriguez in tow.
“That was some weird shit. We got them all. We had to go out and clean up a couple in the back since it got too dark for Milton, the guy with the bow, to see what he was shooting at. We’re going to go out front and collect the arrows then settle in for the night. I’m going to send someone up to watch out this window with a pair of NVGs. They’ll switch those off each shift, so we’ll know if anything weird is happening in the front or the back. For now, you two can try and get some shut eye. I’ll wake you up if anything comes over the radio about the plane or any orders from Krantz.”
Steve left. Rodriguez slammed a handful of Tylenol and another of the antibiotic horse pills. Kyler looked out the window but couldn’t even make out the street below it’d gotten so dark. Weird how dark it got without power. In the days before this all happened, he couldn’t remember it ever being this dark in a town. Out in the woods it’d get dark but anywhere near a bunch of people the darkness was normally driven away. Whether through some instinctual fear of the night or just as a byproduct of modern living darkness had been banished from the surroundings for most ‘civilized’ people.
Kyler had just fallen asleep when Krantz woke him up to get a report on what’d happened while he was away. Kyler went through all the weird Zombie activity and how they’d taken care of it while Krantz listened stone faced. When he was done Krantz shook his head in exasperation.
“Just what we needed right? More weird Zombie crap. I don’t know why they don’t just all start falling over dead. Although it sounds like these did the next best thing. Anyway, nothing from command yet on the plane so just plan on it showing up butt early in the morning. That way it won’t suck as much when I wake you up butt early in the morning.” Krantz said.
“Hey. How’d the thing go you went to check out? That camp ok?” Kyler asked.
“No. They were all ripped apart. We did see a couple of Zombies just standing in the woods staring at where the camp had been. Sounded a lot like the Zombies in the story you just told me. Sweet dreams princess. See you at butt early.”
“No kiss?” Kyler was able to get out before Krantz left the room. Middle finger high in the air Krantz exited the room.
Chapter 11: Now Boarding
Gonzalez paced the top of the tower watching the gas stations continue to burn. Not only had the fires not slowed down, they appeared to have ignited some neighboring buildings which were now also going up in flames. At this rate their distraction technique was going to end up attracting every Zombie within fifty miles. There weren’t many cutting through the airport or this side of town yet but that was only a matter of time. It was drizzling outside so he had some small hope that’d help contain the fire. He’d love to see a nice big thunderstorm roll through. He bet if he’d taken his family down the street and dropped a few hundred dollars for them to get into Disney for the day the rain would’ve come pouring down.
He’d gotten the call around four in the morning that the plane would be landing immediately after first light. He’d been ordered to make sure the landing stri
p was clear, and the prisoners were ready to go. He’d acknowledged the order and signed off. Then he’d spent a few minutes trying to calculate when ‘first light’ would be. He’d finally said screw it since he didn’t have a Farmer’s Almanac handy and Siri was permanently offline. He’d send his men out to check at five then every hour after that until the plane landed. He was pretty sure it was still dark at five. He definitely wasn’t going to call command back like some kind of dumb ass and ask when ‘first light’ was.
From the top of the tower he watched as the sun came up bathing the world in orange and red. He felt the weight of a new day settling over his shoulders. The weight of leading his team and carrying out his mission. He was down to six men now. They still hadn’t heard back from the two who’d gone out to cause the needed distraction. Damned if those two pyromaniacs hadn’t taken their orders way too seriously. At this rate the whole city may end up burning to the ground. He assumed they were trapped in a building surrounded by Zombies. They’d probably end up being burnt alive if they didn’t eat their own bullets first. He put them out of his thoughts. There wasn’t anything he could do for them now unless they were able to miraculously make their way over to the tower.
There wasn’t anything he could do for the family downstairs either. Despite his best efforts he found himself admiring the hell out of them. If he’d had the cojones, he would’ve broken his family out of the Brotherhood camp and went to find a free place for them to start over. That’s all the father downstairs had been doing. If you couldn’t tell the man was worthy of respect just from meeting him and knowing some of his story you could tell it by the woman he’d married. That was one bad puta. She’d killed one of his men and all he could do was respect her for it. Green had gotten out of line with her kid and paid the price. You didn’t get between a mama bear and her cub. Kelly was one hell of a mama bear.
They’d raised great kids too. It broke Gonzalez’s heart to see them all huddled together in the breakroom or on the floor of that closet. He was glad they hadn’t called his bluff on hurting the kids to keep the parents in line. There was no way he could’ve done anything to any of them. He could talk the talk but when it came to kids, he had a soft spot. The longer he was away from his own daughters the bigger and softer that spot grew. The more he thought about what he was doing right now the more disgusted he was with himself. The thought of what would happen to his own daughters if he screwed up this mission was the only thing keeping him from just leaving the break room door unlocked and having his men take a walk with him for a few minutes.
He really regretted ever catching the family. If he’d had a clue what they were all about and what they’d been running from he’d have been happy to just let them keep going. At the time he’d just been reacting to the gunshots and the radio and riding the tide of the Zombies to catch their prey. He was good at being the hunter. He’d been one for a long time. He’d hunted men in the alleys and jungles of South American countries way before the world fell apart. His country had turned him into a hunter and set him loose. They’d set him loose with a French passport in case he got caught. That had really amped up the adrenaline quite a bit since it told him he was on his own if he got caught.
The radio crackled to life. The voice on the far end asking if the runway was clear. His men had checked it and cleaned off the debris they’d found lying on it. There were no Zombies on it yet but that could change at any second. He told them it was clear as of now, but he couldn’t guarantee it’d stay that way for too long. He was told to stand by to move as soon as the plane landed. It would taxi to the runway as close to the tower as the pilot could get.
Gonzalez signed off and took a deep breath to calm his nerves. He shouted down the stairs to let his men know to get the prisoners moved to the bottom of the tower and ready to roll out on his order. He heard the men moving the family. He smiled to himself at the sound of one of the little girls asking if she could get carried. He had to contain himself from running over and offering to take on that task. No matter how good it would’ve felt he just thought it’d make him even more of a monster. He wondered what the guards at Auschwitz had felt like when they got their first train car full of children to gas. How many of them justified what they did knowing their families would suffer if they didn’t do it? How many did it out of fear for their own lives? After the first five train cars did it get easier. At what point did you lose your soul?
Gonzalez watched as a plane banked and lined up with the main runway to come in for a landing. He turned on his heel and raced down the stairs letting his men know it was time to head out the door to the tarmac. Three of his men picked up the little girls. They’d already taken the tie wraps off the ankles of the adults and put the cuffs back on. Gonzalez opened the door to the tower and led the way towards the tarmac at a fast jog. Behind him the men followed along holding the little girls and prodding the adults with their rifle barrels.
They were less than fifty feet from where the plane would be coming to a stop when they saw the first Zombie running towards them. It’d already started screeching loudly as it sprinted towards them. In the distance more screeches could be heard as others in the area took up the cry. Gonzalez looked to see where the plane was and noted it was still pretty far out. It looked like the pilot recognized the danger though as he was taxiing over faster than would normally be considered safe.
Not wanting to attract even more Zombies Gonzalez pulled out his machete and grabbed a man to come with him. He ordered the rest of them to get the prisoners on board the plane. He then broke into a fast jog for the Zombie running towards them. At the last second, he dodged the Zombie jumping at him and spun in a neat circle slamming the dull side of his machete into the back of the Zombies head. The man he’d picked to come with him caught up and calmly dropped to one knee and bashed in the Zombies head with a carpenter’s hammer.
The first threat neutralized Gonzalez locked onto two more Zombie running at them from the road on the other side of the tower. Breathing hard, he started jogging straight for them with his man covering his flank. He tripped up the first one sending it to the ground knowing his partner would take care of finishing that one off. The second Zombie running for them was a little girl. Gonzalez lifted his machete and steeled himself to do what was necessary. He brought the weapon down hard on the little girls head. Her knees wobbled as a gush of warm, red blood coursed out of her skull swirling around the blade of the machete.
Gonzalez looked at the pathetic body of the girl lying on the ground. He realized it didn’t stir the emotion in him it used to. He started thinking again about the train cars steaming into the concentration camps full of little kids. Had this little girl Zombie been the train car that cost him his soul? Was he now so hard that his own kids would never be able to love him? Dropping all vestiges of professionalism and seized by a sudden impulse to just do what he thought was right he turned and ran for the plane. He sprinted as fast as he could trying to get there before it was too late. Before he’d sent that heroic family with the little angels off to their fate.
He was too late. He got there as the plane was already speeding up to take back off. He stood there panting like a dog after a long run with sweat covering his body. The man who’d been with him caught up wondering what the hell had gotten into him. Gonzalez heard a steady roar. He shrugged off one of his men who was trying to get him to look at something. Controlling his breathing for long enough to look up he saw that the damn had broken. Zombies were pouring into the airport by the hundreds. All of them running straight for Gonzalez and his team. Gonzalez pulled his rifle up and started taking shots. The rest of the men turned and ran. None of them made it very far.
Gonzalez went down laughing maniacally as he pulled the trigger repetitively. He knew this army of demons had come to pull him down to hell. To punish him for everything he’d done wrong. God had given him the chance to rescue a family. The opportunity to atone for his sins. He’d let that chance slip away. He’d taken that c
hance and flung it as far from him as he could. His last thought before he worked the barrel of his weapon up high enough to jam it in his mouth and pull the trigger was that at least now his kids would never have to meet the monster their father had become.
Randy and Kelly watched from the window of the luxuriously appointed corporate jet they’d been loaded into. Randy looked around thinking that with a shortage of pilots they’d at least made sure they had the best possible planes to fly. They’d been shoved into the plane quickly by the soldiers who’d taken them this far. The soldiers had been told they weren’t getting on the plane and needed to get moving if they were going to survive. One of the soldiers had tried to come on board anyway and gotten a pistol aimed at him for his troubles. He’d turned and backed off while the crew on the plane had gotten the door shut and the plane swung around to begin taxiing for a quick takeoff.
Zombies! (Book 5): Greater Love Hath No Man Page 8
