Zombie Crusade

by J. W. Vohs

  A new energy swept through him as he vowed to himself that he would fight against this virus, the creatures it created, and the twisted human beings that had conceived and developed this horror that was trying to sweep humanity away in an orgy of pain and blood. He would fight until his last breath, and then the men and women he taught, led, and inspired would continue the war, even if it lasted for generations. Earth belonged to humankind, and they were not going to lose it to these monsters.

  At the height of the emotional ecstasy brought on by his epiphany, Jack stepped through the line of waiting warriors and turned to face them, pulling his helmet free so all could hear him over the noises coming from the woods. He felt as if he was looking at all of them at once, and the fighters must have felt it too because almost as one they lifted their visors and seemed to lean forward to hear what their leader was going to say.

  Jack smiled and nodded as he met their gazes and shouted, “We are going to win this fight! We are now engaged in a war for the survival of all that is good in this world, and we will not lose!”

  He pointed his halberd at a stocky man in his early twenties who had distinguished himself today with skills and a fighting spirit he never knew he had until forced to fight for his existence. “If I fall here tonight this man will carry on tomorrow.”

  He then pointed the weapon at Bruce who had learned today that he truly was a leader of warriors. “And this man will carry on the next day.”

  He waved the halberd across the line of soldiers and declared, “If necessary, your children and grandchildren will carry on for all the days to come until humanity regains its rightful place on this planet. All our lives we’ve struggled to gain wealth and possessions, but today we have fought for the right to exist. Today we have stood like the warriors of old against an enemy determined to destroy all that we cherish. Today, we have found something within ourselves that we didn’t even know existed, and what we have found is good. We fight for something more than ourselves now; we struggle for life and love, and as long as we remember that we can never lose this war.”

  Light flickered and took hold in the eyes of the warriors looking at Jack, and virtually as one they lifted their bloodied weapons and shouted a roar of defiance against the evil coming their way. When the voices finally fell silent Jack nodded his approval and pulled his helmet back into place. The soldiers lowered their visors and stepped forward to join their leader as he turned to face the wood line where a score of zombies had tentatively moved out of the trees and seemed to be examining the scene before them. For a long moment nobody moved, and then one of the zombies let out a moan that morphed into a sort of roar. The rest of the creatures mimicked the first and loudly moaned as they began to quickly move forward to take the food they had finally identified.

  Jack unceremoniously dispatched the first zombie to reach him with a mace blow to the right side of the skull, and in his peripheral vision he could see that the rest of the first wave was being dropped with similar precision. But now the reality of what they faced became apparent, as the hundreds of zombies that Jack surmised had been confused and delayed by the brightness of the halogen lights eagerly followed their less timid pack-mates’ moans. Jack used the mace once again on the first of what seemed to be a dozen zombies to reach his position, dropping the corpse onto the pile of branches and bodies that the defenders were using for a protective barrier. Then he stepped back and grabbed the halberd as he began what he knew was a hopeless effort to keep the horde of zombies from crossing the makeshift wall and penetrating the line of humans.

  Jack methodically stabbed and slashed into the faces and skulls of the moaning creatures as they clawed their way over the wall. The man on his right was using a sword, and Jack knew he was still in the fight by the regular spray of blood and gore flying through the air in front of his position. To his left a stocky fighter was using a sledge hammer, seemingly crushing skulls with every blow as he swung the weapon back and forth. None of the zombies could gain a foothold against the hammer-wielder, but Jack knew the man would soon tire and be unable to raise the heavy weapon that he was currently using with such deadly effect.

  Somewhere down the line Jack could hear men screaming and shouting so he chanced a quick look and saw that a pack of zombies had a man down on this side of the wall, and contrary to orders, the nearby warriors were fighting to rescue their buddy instead of defending their assigned positions. Even as he returned to the fight in front of him, Jack knew that zombies were pouring through the openings left by the would-be rescuers of the downed man. As he quickly cut down three of the monsters in front of him he knew he should be angry with the fighters who were trying to rescue their friend instead of holding their positions, but he realized that if it was Marcus or Bruce under that mob he would be doing the same thing.

  Now there were six or seven zombies scrambling over the wall in front of him, and several of them were the fast ones. He punched the deadly tip of the halberd through the top of the fast-movers’ skulls and then shouted at the men next to him to spread the order to retreat. There was nothing they could do for the man already down, but another was scrambling to escape from a pack of zombies about fifty feet in front of the door they planned to use for an escape. Jack had ordered the new soldiers to practice the retreat maneuver several times that afternoon, and to their credit they pulled it off nearly flawlessly under the terrible pressure of the massive assault. As a professional military historian, Jack knew that an orderly retreat was usually impossible when in direct contact with an attacking enemy, but his people got it done quickly and efficiently.

  They reassembled into a tight wedge shape with the wide bottom guarding the exit door and the tip centered on the man trying to escape the pile of zombies dragging him down. Off to their left the fighters who’d been trying to rescue their fallen comrade had finally recognized the futility of their effort and were now trying to fight their way back to the wedge while the hundreds of zombies pouring over the wall attempted to trap them. Both of the men were swinging heavy maces with reckless abandon, indiscriminately crushing heads and torsos as they finally made it back to the relative protection of the formation, where they both went to their knees behind the line until they could regain the breath and energy needed to carry on the fight.

  Earlier Jack had ordered Marcus and Bruce to anchor the bottom of the wedge-shaped formation so he could be certain that the door was being guarded by the best fighters he had. The next most important, and most dangerous, position in the wedge was at the tip, and he had reserved that place for himself. The melee from which the second fallen man was trying to escape was right in front of Jack, and he began to carefully stab the spiked-tip of his halberd into the skulls of the top layer of zombies trying to eat the trapped soldier. Of course this resulted in over a thousand pounds of dead weight on top of the pile, so Jack yelled at the two men next to him to protect his back as he pulled the corpses away from the writhing mass of zombies.

  Once the bodies were removed, Jack could see that most of the others in the pile were dead as well, obviously killed by the man at the bottom still struggling to escape. Finally Jack was able to grab hold of the man’s hand and pull him to his feet. The exhausted warrior could barely stand under his own power, so Jack unceremoniously dumped him in the middle of the wedge and turned back to the fight. His warriors were surrounded but they were lethal, as the growing mound of corpses around their new position proved. Still, the zombies kept coming, and there seemed to be more of them than ever. Many of the creatures were now using that unnerving roar that seemed to send out a “food nearby” signal to the others, and the zombies packed into an ever tighter mass trying to reach the humans desperately fighting to hold them off.

  The wedge began to shrink back under the sheer weight of the zombie-assault, and now the warriors were literally shoulder to shoulder. All weapons but swords and broken spears were now useless since there was no room to effectively use the long halberds or swing the deadly maces and war ham
mers. Another of the fighters had fallen to the zombies, and had quickly been pulled away from the line and was now buried under another pile of creatures frantically trying to feed. This time they had trapped one of the women, and her screams could be heard above the moans, roars, and shouts as the battle raged on. The sounds of the doomed woman’s struggle filled the warriors with a rage that momentarily reenergized them as they fought to keep the zombies at bay, but there were simply too many of the creatures for the remaining humans to stop.

  Jack had left the decision for calling the final retreat to Bruce and Marcus, who were in the best position to know when the wedge had shrunk to an untenable size. Now the two Rangers shouted for the survivors to fall back, each fighter in the line waiting for those near the tip to hear the order and begin stepping back toward the door before making their own move to safety. It was a complicated maneuver to perform under such intense pressure, but once again the rookie soldiers proved up to the challenge as they rapidly filed past Bruce and Marcus and into the rear of the station. Finally the only men still outside were Jack and his two old Ranger buddies. None of them would leave while the others were still in danger, so finally the fighters now inside reached out and pulled their leaders through the portal and slammed the door in the faces of the zombies still trying to reach their prey.

  Once inside Jack ripped off his gore-covered helmet and greedily drank down three water bottles from the cases being passed among the soldiers by some of the older women in the station. He was finally catching his breath as Maddy ran up to him, nearly hysterical as she shouted, “Carter’s trapped outside!”

  Jack’s bottle fell from his hand as he took off at a dead sprint through the station, putting his helmet back on and pulling his mace free as he ran. Approaching the door he found a group of battered, gory soldiers guarding the opening and holding up their hands as if to stop him. Jack barely gave them a thought at all, preparing to barrel through the men until he heard Marcus and Bruce, who had moved through the station nearly as fast as Jack, shout out orders for the soldiers to step aside. At the last minute the guards moved back, just in time to avoid being run down by a frantic Jack as he threw the door open with such force that a handful of zombies clawing at the portal were flung nearly ten feet back.

  For a brief moment Jack had a clear view of the battlefield, quickly determining that a writhing pile of zombies twenty feet to his left was probably on top of Carter. There were several other mounds in the distance, but Jack somehow knew that Carter was at the bottom of this one. As if to confirm his guess, a zombie stumbled away from the pile with a hole in its forehead, falling to the ground after a few clumsy steps. Somebody was still fighting down there. Jack began frantically pulling zombies from the pile, smashing each one’s skull with terrifying blows before contemptuously tossing the neutralized creatures aside and continuing his search. He briefly wondered why no more zombies were piling on from the other side until he realized that several halberds were cutting down every monster that approached the frenzied mound. As Jack reached for another creature he saw a sword blade briefly emerge from the pile before being pulled back down for what he presumed was another strike. Now most of the zombies Jack was pulling off were already dead, and finally he saw black leather and the flash of a helmet visor through the corpses.

  Jack tore at the pile with renewed vigor, while the man at the bottom continued to dispatch zombies with his short sword. Then suddenly there were no more corpses between Jack and the gore-covered soldier lying gasping on the ground. Jack reached down, picked Carter up, and threw him over his shoulder. Turning back toward the door he saw that Maddy and the hammer-wielder who’d covered his left flank during the battle at the wood line had been protecting him with the halberds he’d seen flashing by. Other soldiers were keeping a path to the door clear of zombies, with Marcus and Bruce once again anchoring the base of the formation and pulling everyone slamming the door shut.

  CHAPTER 20

  Jack quickly carried Carter into the makeshift clinic they’d thrown together earlier in the day, where Marcus and Bruce joined him in pulling off Carter’s helmet and armor while Maddy held a water bottle to the exhausted soldier’s parched lips. Black zombie blood had literally soaked Carter’s under-armor, but Jack had yet to see a sign of human blood anywhere on his friend’s body. He kept yelling at Carter, asking him if he’d been bitten, but his old friend was too depleted to do anything but stare at Jack in shock and utter exhaustion. They removed the undergarments and began wiping away blood and gore from Carter’s skin with sanitary wipes, then Jack started pouring peroxide over his friend’s arms and legs looking for bite wounds. As the cleanup continued with no sign of any breakage of the skin, Jack allowed himself to hope that Carter hadn’t been infected. After carefully inspecting the neck, upper back, and lower jaw, Jack finally felt confident enough to sit back and sigh, shaking his head as he declared, “I can’t find any place where they punctured the skin. How about you guys?”

  Marcus and Bruce shook their heads and offered hopeful glances, their silence finally broken when Carter croaked, “They bit me all over, but I never felt them get through my armor.”

  Jack smiled at his best friend, “You’re bruised everywhere, and a few of your ribs are probably cracked, but I can’t find any open wounds on your body. Now you just lay back and rest for a while; I’m going to have one of the EMT’s hook up an IV to rehydrate you. We’ll need you on your feet in a few hours.”

  Carter gave the slightest of nods to indicate his understanding of what Jack had just told him, then closed his eyes and leaned back into the pillow under his head.

  Jack looked at the Rangers and Maddy. “Get yourselves cleaned up and hydrated. I’m going to check on the progress of the trucks and make sure those exit doors are secure and well-guarded.”

  Jack found the modifications on the trucks progressing well; the workers had finally figured out a way to attach the framework for a platform and were just now beginning the process of building the floor needed to hold the refugees. Assured that good progress was being made on the transportation, Jack then called the courthouse and Station 1 and found that both were holding out well enough, facing zombies by the dozen rather than the hundreds. He reminded them to maintain noise control, and when he did something clicked in his mind. Though he believed that the zombies had some type of vision, they still seemed to mostly rely on noise to locate their victims. The vehicles they would be taking out of here were still fire trucks, in spite of the modifications they were currently undergoing. In short, those trucks had sirens that would wake the dead. Now that he thought about it, these walking dead would follow them as well.

  Carter was still passed out so Jack rounded up Marcus and Bruce and sat them down to explain his new plan.

  “When we leave here, there will still be hundreds of zombies roaming around behind us.”

  “Hopefully way behind us,” Bruce added.

  Jack continued, “Yeah, but the point is they’ll still be hunting and killing, and eventually we’re going to have to deal with them if we’re ever going to secure the land around The Castle.”

  Sensing that Jack was leading up to something, Marcus interrupted, “Why don’t you just tell us what you have in mind?”

  Jack took a deep breath, then quickly blurted out, “When we leave we turn on the sirens in those trucks and lead these critters back to The Castle.”

  Bruce and Marcus shared a glance that expressed their concern that Jack may have lost his sanity.

  “Hear me out,” Jack continued. “We stocked The Castle with enough supplies to meet the needs of fifty people for three years. We have more people than that out there right now, and we’re taking another hundred from here when we leave.”

  Bruce stated, “I figured we’d eventually take them to one of the other safe-houses.”

  Jack shook his head, “There are no safe-houses right now. How many people lived in this part of the county before the virus hit? Fifteen thousand? Maybe twenty?
I’m guessing more than twenty. Between Hunter’s Ridge, this battle, and the other fights over the past few days we may have killed a thousand zombies. The population of The Castle and the safe houses is less than four hundred people. Where is everyone else?”

  Bruce and Marcus just shook their heads and waited for Jack to continue.

  “I’m sure there are some people holed up and keeping quiet all over the county, but I’m equally sure that they are a rapidly shrinking minority. Most people just don’t have the food and water to hold out more than a few days; Hurricane Katrina showed us that. So we probably have more than ten thousand zombies roaming around this area right now. Those monsters will be picking people off for months.” Jack glanced around the room. “Sooner or later we will get tired of being crowded and cooped up in The Castle. We’ll end up out hunting for zombies and supplies. Plus, we could really use access to a modern hospital. We need to deal with the zombies around here—exterminate the local infestation—and give ourselves some room to maneuver.”