“Falling back by sectors.” That was Pope, speaking levelly in Handon’s earpiece. “Hate to rush you, man…” And that was Pred. “But just about all out of room to back up here. Ten seconds tops.” Handon looked down into the agonized eyes of the half-crushed man, whose earpiece was tuned to the same squad net. And, anyway, the man could see perfectly well what was happening around them. They were being overrun.
With his ebbing strength, he wiggled out of the ruck and pushed it across the dust and debris. He tried to speak, but couldn’t draw enough breath. Handon laid his palm across the man’s forehead. Another soul winking out. But at least this one would never rise up. Nor would his last experience be that of becoming a one-man live banquet. Handon used the .45. This man was worth the bullet. He’d only been posted to Handon’s team for a few weeks – POs tended to have a short half-life – but he was obviously a brave man.
Straightening up, Handon stuck his sword in the face of a zombie breaking through on his left. Its skull burst in two, spewing the blackened contents of its head backwards in an arcing spray. Before the body had even hit the floor he had scooped up the ruck with his right hand, and with a powerful motion tossed it into the helo. Firing spaced single shots with his left hand, dead bodies falling deader around him, he pulled Juice up and into a fireman’s carry, yanked his sword free from the dead face on the ground, then heaved himself forward and into the collapsing pinhole of their escape.
As he lurched into the cabin, throwing the unconscious operator ahead of him, he could see Pred backing in the opposite door, alternately firing and jabbing the barrel of his assault rifle through the heads of those that were nearly on top of him. Pope appeared from nowhere, proceeding to do basically the doing the same routine behind him at the other door. Gore was splashing close and thick all around, but they all wore their face shields, as well as bite-proof assault suits. The powerful twin engines of the heavily modified UH-60 Black Hawk whined and surged and the bird rocked off the ground, climbing and accelerating. Pope and Pred hacked off a few clinging arms on the door edge and the fixed landing gear, while Handon stuck his head into the flight deck to confer with the pilots.
In less than a minute, they would be flaring in over their secondary target site – where the other half of Alpha team was heavily engaged on the rooftop.
* * *
Captain Connor Ainsley, formerly of the SAS’s ultra-elite Increment unit, burst onto the building’s flat roof, with his left hand on his PO’s shoulder. They’d got the goods, and they’d gotten out alive. Now – where the bloody hell was their air? The SOF pilots that flew these Black Hawks were American, and Ainsley couldn’t shake the feeling they flew just that bit faster to extract other Americans.
Dusk was still an hour away, but an oppressive overcast sky blotted out the low sun, and of course there was all that damned mist, lying low and thick on the ground. Any cursed thing could be out there. He hailed the American sniper chick, emplaced out on the edge of the roof for ISR and security. But he spotted her before she answered so he just trotted over.
“Sitrep.”
“Unchanged,” she said, not taking her eye from her scope. “Romeos in ones and twos. Manageable.” Romeo was the designation for the other ones – the runners, the ones who moved fast. Her scope sat on an enormous rifle, an Accuracy International Arctic Warfare in .338 Lapua Magnum. It would take the head off anything with a head, out to over 1,000 yards. It was also fitted with an internal suppressor and subsonic ammunition to keep the noise down when necessary – very necessary in bandit country – though that dinged her range.
As Ainsley nodded and turned, she took a shot on a runner, at about 350 yards, as it broke from the tree line. This one, like the others, had been drawn by the noise of the original helo insertion. The Delta sniper, Aaliyah, or Ali, had been keeping them off the building for the last twenty-two minutes. The Romeos were a hell of a lot more dangerous than the bog-standard Zulus – not least because they could open doors. It wasn’t through a form of developed coordination that they managed it, just blind, fast fury. Where a slow zombie would bang the door down over time, a fast one would usually open it by accident much quicker.
And with that thought, the other two members of their four-man detachment, Homer and Henno, burst onto the rooftop. Both brandished short swords and handguns, their assault rifles hanging on their slings. This meant they’d been in close contact. They also glistened with gore.
“Henno, talk to me,” Ainsley said into his throat mic.
“No drama, boss,” he said, backing away from the stairwell entrance, while Homer produced a hammer and nailed three eight-inch spikes diagonally into the door frame, sealing it. Henno trotted up to the captain, flipping up his face mask. “Heaving Romeos down there now, and this building’s right Swiss cheese at this point. Danger Girl there can only shoot in so many directions.”
As Homer pounded the last nail home, a tumult, including a variety of gurgling roars, erupted from the opposite side of the rooftop. Ainsley belatedly noted a large maintenance structure – and also quickly deduced it must have additional stairwell access – around which Romeos in platoon strength were pouring. The ghouls put their shoulders down and sprinted.
The three operators and the PO hunkered down in all-around defense and started putting out rounds. Ainsley had the presence of mind to think of the girl. Swiveling his head and sparing a look, he saw that she was tightly wired and switched on as usual – flipped on her back, firing her sidearm through her raised knees. Ainsley breathed evenly and made his shots count. Romeos were dangerous, but the team knew their capabilities, and they had enough open space to work with here.
And, thank God, that’s when the Stealth Hawk roared in low and fast and from out of nowhere. The men onboard the bird also started putting out rounds, and the rooftop started to clear as a SPIE rope, with D-rings at three-meter intervals, dropped out the side. The team on the roof executed the drill, covering, withdrawing and clipping in. The captain went last, right after the PO, and the bird began to climb instantly, pulling the men off the ground in sequence.
And that’s when it appeared.
From out of fucking nowhere.
Ainsley actually froze – not good. He’d never seen anything, never mind anything dead, move that fast. For a second he thought it was coming right at his face, but it wasn’t. With an ungodly shriek and an inhuman leap it launched itself into the air, over Ainsley’s head, and straight at Homer in the number four position on the rope. The eyes of the utterly unflappable former Team Six SEAL went wide, and he pulled the only evasive maneuver open to him: he unclipped in a blur and slid down the rope right onto Ainsley’s head.
Everyone had trouble following exactly what happened from there, but piecing it together later, they couldn’t avoid the conclusion that the ghoul had grabbed onto the rope – and then scampered up far enough to maul the PO, who was in the three position. And the attack was the strangest thing of all: instead of going for the man’s flesh, either a bite or a ripped-out handful, as they’d all seen happen too many times, it instead raked its splintered nails across the man’s face, leaving deep furrows amid a smear of mixed blood and viscera.
It then leapt away, disappearing into the gloom and mists on the ground as the helo buzzed away. Somebody thought they saw it running flat out, away from them, like it was fleeing.
And it did that after a twenty-meter fall that should have broken half of the weakened, rotten and infested bones in its body.
Unseen hands above pulled the stunned and bleeding PO into the cabin. Ainsley simply clung to the rope where he was, twisting gently in the aircraft’s slipstream. A voice came over his earpiece, from the air mission net. “Raptor One-Zero to Alpha Actual. Uh… what the fuck was that, over.”
Ainsley blinked once, heavily, before remembering that he was being pulled up, and needed to get a leg over and into the cabin.
Whatever the hell it was, he wasn’t hallucinating.
The pilot
had seen it, too.
This was something new.
EVEN ZULUS LONG FOR HOME
The PO’s breathing was shallow and fluttery, but his pulse steady and strong. He wasn’t going to die of his wounds. And he wouldn’t die from the infection, assuming he’d been infected, for many minutes, or maybe even hours. After hauling him aboard, Homer carried him to the back of the cabin, and Predator did some of his battlefield medicine magic. This was more in basic decency, than any kind of hope. The PO’s face was a bloody mess. The poor man had flipped his face shield up when he hit the SPIE rope. Homer thought placidly: it’s always the one from the direction you’re not looking that gets you.
He shook his head and tried to reconcile himself to it. No one can out-think the mind of God.
He looked out the cabin doors, where the very last light was all singed orange as the sun set on the west. The wind whipping through the airframe was cool and without sin. Homer breathed deeply and let the wind gently take the beading sweat off his face.
Looking back inside, he saw Predator working on Juice, who was coming around now. That was good. Shifting his gaze down again, he removed his glove and placed his palm over his trembling PO’s forehead – sure enough, the skin was ratcheting up to stovetop temperature. If there were any hope of him escaping infection, after deep scratches like that, the fever sunk it. Homer shook his head at Pred to let him know. He kept his hand on the man’s simmering head and started reciting Psalm 23.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I have everything I need. He lets me rest in green meadows…”
“Hey, Homer, mate.” Homer looked up without reacting. It was Henno, the other SAS soldier, and Captain Ainsley’s man. “Why don’t you ask the bloke if he wants last rites before just charging in?” Homer smiled at him, in as much honest kindness as he could manage. No point in explaining that there’s no basis in Scripture for last rites, which are a man-made (and Papist) invention. Anyway, the wounded man was too doped up on morphine to consent to anything. And the terrified look in his eyes told Homer he wasn’t going to turn down consolation – of any denomination, or none.
“He leads me by peaceful streams. He renews my strength, he guides me along right paths…”
“Let him alone,” said Predator to Henno. “If nothing else, the pious shit makes Homer feel better. And when Homer feels better, I feel better.” Pred swiveled in his squatting position toward Handon, changing the subject. “Okay, boss, I’ll bite. What the fuck was that?”
Homer looked up and watched their top sergeant, Handon, maintain his poker face; it hardly ever deserted him. Homer’d always personally thought the sergeant major was a dead ringer for the Punisher. That heavy, lined brow. The wavy black hair. And the dark, shadowed, deeply sad eyes. Weight of the world. The world that was.
“Runner?” Handon said, though even as the word spilled out Handon knew he wasn’t convincing anyone that it was merely that. He knew, and more importantly he knew that everyone else there knew, that this was something different. They’d all taken down runners before.
Predator laughed rumblingly. “Yeah, the zombie of Michael fucking Jordan, maybe. With a forty-eight-inch vertical leap.”
Handon in turn looked to Captain Ainsley. The British spec-ops officer, and team commander, shook his head, looking just as confused as Handon was. “Never seen the like.” His expression changed fractionally as he scanned the cabin. “Say – where’s your PO?”
Handon shook his head. No.
“Both of them. Christ." The last word was almost a curse. "Secure the data?”
Handon patted the big ruck full of pharma research drives.
But Ainsley shook his head again. “Fuck sake, Handon. We can ill afford to lose more tech guys. You’ve got to be more cautious. What in the hell happened out there?”
“Bad luck.” He nodded toward the dying man in the back of the cabin. “How about yours?”
Ainsley held his gaze. (Staring contests in the spec-ops world can be epic. Backing down is really not the done thing.) “You saw it as well as I did.” Handon didn’t respond to that. But it was a poorly concealed secret that he thought Ainsley, who commanded Alpha team, had been showing unexceptional tactical judgement lately.
And no one needed wonder about Ainsley’s feelings for Handon, the American senior NCO, whom he believed to be systematically undermining his authority with the mostly American team. Homer figured one day there was going to be a reckoning between those two. And God save them all then – from tearing themselves apart from the inside, when the whole Rapture was tearing at what was left of them from every other side. Would they destroy themselves from within, in the end?
The English Channel appeared now on the horizon, the setting sun flashing on the white tips of wind-driven surf. Another change from the old days, Homer thought – daylight ops. SOF, Special Operations Forces, used to own the night. Now even they feared it. There’s aught more dangerous than us out there now, Homer thought. Predator saw the sweat pouring off the PO, and gave Homer a pointed look. Five minutes, Homer mouthed. They didn’t have to do it until just before they cleared the Channel. And something made Homer want to give this man the blessing of a last few minutes alive. Amongst the living. Amongst his brothers.
He unwrapped the shemagh, the black-and-white checked scarf he’d picked up in Libya, and worn habitually ever since. He used it to mop the man’s sweat-drenched brow.
* * *
“I think I caught it on my shoulder cam,” Juice said a little weakly, pausing to spit tobacco juice out into the slipstream. “Whatever it was.” Handon nodded at him. Combat video feeds could be seen as a luxury, for a military unit, a whole species, on the brink. But even more than in the high-tech terror wars, all data was precious. They captured everything, so it could be analyzed and exploited after they returned to base. If we return to base, Homer mentally amended. But knowledge was definitely life.
They were flashing toward the cliffs of Dover now, and Homer spotted the cruciform shape way out. It was a landmark for them. The lacerated, worm-gnawed figure nailed to it didn’t resolve until a few seconds later. But it was still there. In the early days of the quarantine, English country people, farmers mostly, had gone around nailing the soulless up on crosses, all along the coast, at mile or two intervals. Homer figured it was nice that Christian symbols retained some of their talismanic, or protective, power.
Unfortunately, many of the ones they nailed up never did get properly destroyed. Homer didn’t know whether it was through carelessness, or cruelty, or as some kind of warning to the others. But many of them were wiggling up there to this day. Some of course rotted right off, or pulled free of their own limbs, tumbled down, and wandered off to kill and infect more. Which was a reminder that you didn’t want faith getting in the way of tactical considerations. But, at a certain point, faith, however groundless, however forlorn, can be all you’ve got left.
The helo continued its unrelenting flight, landfall coming up on them faster and faster. The PO’s remaining seconds in this world ticked down.
And then Homer saw the other one – the buddy. He recognized this one, he’d swear he did. You see millions of the soulless, you kill thousands, they blur. But this one he knew. Usually it just walked or stood on the cliffs, a hundred meters or so from the edge, all alone, shoulders slumped, looking lost and profoundly forlorn. The Lord alone knew how it’d survived, what with the regular shoreline patrols, the recons in force going out to tamp down outbreaks, the combat air patrols over the Channel… but somehow this one poor creature was almost always there, when they flew back in this air corridor. It looked like it was searching for someone, or had lost something. Like nothing mattered enough – or it all mattered too much.
The Existential Zombie.
As noted, it was usually alone. But sometimes, like today, it would stand at the foot of that crucifix, its last shreds of clothing flapping in the wind, head bent down toward the ground, standing almost perfectly still like it was on som
e kind of vigil. Like that was its brother up there. This vision was deeply affecting to Homer, and also, of course, extremely creepy. Homer wondered how long it would be until they would fly over this way and see the clifftop devoid of that figure. Would it eventually give up its post and wander off, or maybe find peace at the bottom of the cliffs? Everyone had put a bead on the thing at one time or another, but for some unfathomable reason no one ever pulled the trigger. Maybe one day it would look up and see what it had lost. Or maybe it would be there forever.
Homer pulled his eyes from the scene outside and looked down into the pale blue eyes of the fevered, dying, frightened man before him. His pupils were already growing paler and more translucent, dark flecks and lines already forming in that spiderweb pattern as the blood vessels died, even as Homer watched. It was a sign of the turning. But then his expression softened. Homer thought he’d maybe somehow passed through the fear, and found some kind of peace. Waving Predator off when he tried to help, he cradled the man under his arms and eased him over to the open cabin door. They held each other’s eyes as Homer put the single round through his brainstem. The deformed bullet left him and sped off out into the lonely Kingdom of Heaven, way out above this fallen world.
As they approached the tall, noble clifftops, Homer’s mind’s eye flashed back to the cliffs of La Jolla, near San Diego, back when he was stationed with the West Coast SEALs at Coronado. His wife, his son, and his daughter, he could see them with such beautiful clarity, the four of them together amid so much peace and joy, their bellies and hearts so full, basking in the warmth of that world’s California sunlight, the ocean named for peace stretching out past God and man’s horizon. Knowing nothing of what was to come.
The dead man’s own weight took him right over the edge, and as he fell he picked up speed, tumbling peacefully toward the last stretch of the darkening water.
Arisen, Book One - Fortress Britain Page 2
