She never told a soul.
After that, Chrissy could never again look at the buck on the wall. She never told her dad why she’d suddenly lost interest in hunting.
The goddamn Zoms weren’t the only monsters in the world.
Afterward, she closed herself off from her friends and withdrew from afterschool activities. Her grades began to suffer and she was moody and prone to angry outbursts. Her parent’s didn’t understand why. She had frequent sexual encounters, but no steady boyfriends—or girlfriends. Her parents attributed it all to hormones, typical teenage angst, and a rebellious phase. She’d grow out of it, they said.
She didn’t.
On her seventeenth birthday, she ran away from home with a boy who said he was going to make it big as a musician. Instead, they lived in a rat-infested tenement, panhandling for cash. Before long, he got her hooked on heroin. The next eight months were a blur of drug-induced highs and crashes.
And then, one day she awoke to find Doug dead of the plague. She’d somehow survived the pandemic and going cold-turkey.
The day she had to kill her first Zom, she pictured Uncle Jack when she pulled the trigger.
She found she was good at killing, and even enjoyed it. It was therapeutic. As far as she knew, the real Uncle Jack was long dead of the plague. But each time she killed a Zom, it was like killing a piece of Uncle Jack. Each time, a section of the emotional wall she’d erected around her after “it” happened crumbled away.
It was ironic that whenever she killed one of these inhuman creatures it made her feel more human again.
* * * *
“Permission to speak candidly, Your Excellency?”
Battle Commander FronCar and CresNal were in the latter’s ready room. The ornate splendor of the chamber would have seemed quite at home in the Emperor’s palace on Draht. FronCar stood at attention as CresNal leaned back in his chair.
“Speak, Commander. What’s on your mind?”
“Sir, I know it’s your wish that we take the planet from the ground, rather than from space. I am attempting to comply. However, your desire to preserve the infrastructure at all costs is hampering our efforts and making the entire process take much longer than it could, or should.”
“Really. How so?”
“Sir, if given free rein, we could go in with heavy armament and clear the city and surrounding area of indigenes within a week or two. Level the buildings they are hiding in and around, destroy the food supplies, blow the bridges that allow them to flee from one area to another, and so on. But without that ability, we have to resort to small arms fire and clear thousands of buildings one by one, risking some of the indigenes escaping ahead of us. And we’re taking unnecessary casualties because the indigenes are able to get too close to us. At first, they charged us when we approached and they were easy to kill. But they’ve grown wary. Now they hide until we pass, or wait until the men are in close quarters and then attack. At this rate, it will take us months to clear this one city and generations to clear the entire planet. All of this just to avoid accidentally destroying the water conduits, the power grid, the roads, etc.”
“Commander, we have gone over this before. We need to preserve the infrastructure as much as possible. Once you clear this one city, we can start bringing colonists down and finally begin settling after eighteen years in space. If it takes a few more weeks to do it right and give us a huge head start in colonizing, so be it.”
“Sir, couldn’t we just start from scratch in an unpopulated area? It would be much simpler and quicker to clear such an area, and—”
“Am I not making myself clear, Commander? That’s the last resort and will require the most time to build. By taking advantage of the existing buildings and infrastructure in the city, we can move people in while we take our time to build a model city in an unpopulated area. This approach will allow us to land colonists months earlier. That is my wish. Make it happen. Or do I have to find someone else who can?”
FronCar took a deep breath and let it out. “No, sir. I’ll find a way to get it done.”
CresNal smiled. “Good. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
* * * *
FronCar sighed on the way back to his command station in the Fleet Control Room. It would be so much simpler the normal way. The men are trained for that. They know how to root armed survivors and civilians out of city rubble. But this— There are too many hidey-holes and ingress/egress paths in an intact city. Buildings, underground transport tunnels, sewer lines. For MemKar’s sake, they can even hide in the treetops or under bridges.
He sighed again. It was time for more aggressive measures—within the ridiculous limits demanded by the Viceroy.
When he arrived, he called for his second-in-command, Commander JesBronn.
“Commander, the viceroy denied my request for aerial bombardment. We’re to keep clearing the city at ground level, doing as little damage as possible. However, we need to be more aggressive in rooting out the indigenes. I want round-the-clock aerial low-altitude surveillance. Thermal imaging scans, motion-detection, the works. Have the flights coordinate with the ground troops to pinpoint group gathering places. Also send in fast-attack vehicles with marksmen. Have them shoot any indigenes they can with tracking darts and then vacate the area. We can follow the indigenes back to whatever holes they crawled out of and root them out that way.”
“Yes, Battle Commander!” JesBronn acknowledged with a sharp head nod.
“Meanwhile, I need to speak with our Commanding Medical Officer.”
* * * *
“Dr. ZemBleth, I’m glad you had a moment to speak with me.”
“Of course, Commander. Any time. How can I help you?”
The doctor gestured FronCar to have a seat in his office.
“You’ve had time to examine the indigene corpse thoroughly?”
“As thoroughly as I can. But without a living subject, there’s only so much I can learn.”
“Have you learned enough to develop a poisonous gas or viral infection that would only affect the indigenes and not my men?”
Dr. ZemBleth laughed. “Not even close. I’d need living subjects I could test treatments on, lots of subjects. Dozens, maybe hundreds. I’d need to see how their organs work, their immune systems, what it takes to stop their hearts or paralyze their muscles, and so on. You get me some living subjects and then maybe I can give you a more effective way to kill them than one by one.”
FronCar smiled. “Excellent! Doctor, I’ll get you your subjects, whatever it takes. For unintelligent, unarmed creatures, they’re remarkably difficult to find and kill. Thank MemKar they’re not armed.”
* * * *
Jay led his pack back to their den, inside an apartment building. Each of The Pack now carried a knife in one hand, and a machete in the other. He’d showed them how to use a knife to stab or a machete to hack off a limb. It took quite a while for some of them to understand, but eventually they did.
Although not able to put the thought into words, he recognized that The Pack would now be better able to find food and protect its territory against other packs.
Even that strange new pack of golden foods.
Chapter Five
Ex-Sgt. Daniels, USMC Retired, struggled to get his shoes on in the dark. It wasn’t yet dawn but he didn’t want to turn on the lights.
“Chick, honey, come back to bed.” Her voice was slurred from too much drink and not enough sleep.
“Sorry, babe. Didn’t mean to wake you. I’ll have to hump it to get to work on time.”
“Why don’t you come over here and hump me, instead?” He barely understood her words, with her face half-buried in the pillow.
He laughed softly. “Patty, you’re insatiable! Believe me, I wish I could stay. But I gotta get to work. Same time Friday?”
A muffled “Sure,” emanated from the pillow.
Daniels leaned over the bed and kissed her on the cheek. She’d already fallen back asleep. She’d been anot
her in a long string of easy lays, but he really liked this one. They had been dating off and on for two months.
He smiled as he closed her front door behind him.
It had been a wild night of clubbing and crazy hot sex. Two days later, all hell broke loose and he never saw her again. That was also the last time he’d gotten laid.
“Your watch, Sarge.” Moose Villa waited for Daniels to yawn and stretch and grab his gun, before taking his place in the cot to catch a few winks before morning. “Good dream?”
Daniels yawned again before replying. “Good memory.”
* * * *
Moose had grown up in a poor neighborhood, where preteens were often bullied by older kids and joined street gangs for protection. He’d been lucky. Always big for his age, he’d fought back and kicked the shit out of some of the bullies. After that, they left him alone.
It seemed everyone was either in a gang, or beat up by the gangs for not being in one. As a result, he joined the 49th Street Hoodlums when he was fourteen. It wasn’t that he wanted to, but he was now old enough that to not join would show disrespect for the gang in their eyes. Gangs that felt disrespected tended to get angry and the last thing he wanted to do was anger the 49th Street Hoodlums. They had a reputation for gunning down people they didn’t like in drive-bys—usually in front of other people, to ensure their reputation as the biggest bad-asses around stayed intact. If they offered you membership, they’d threaten your family if you declined.
So he joined. He’d managed to avoid jail, despite a string of crimes he’d had to commit: armed robbery and B&E, auto boosting, and enforcing for protection money. The main reason he’d never been incarcerated, although arrested several times, was that the victims were so afraid of the Hoodlums they somehow always managed to forget what the perps looked like. As a result, none of the charges stuck.
He hated himself for participating in those things. He told himself he was protecting his family. He knew that was mostly true. There was also the adrenaline rush from getting away with a heist. He hated himself even more because of it.
For him, the zombie apocalypse was almost a blessing. Sure, it killed everyone he knew, including his family, but it freed him from that life. Six months into the apocalypse, scratching and clawing his way through life and, doing whatever he could to survive, he ran into Sarge and Chrissy.
Since then he’d tried to do the right thing. He didn’t always know what the right thing was, but he did his best.
* * * *
The Pack closed in on a rival pack, visible in the light of the full moon. They inched within twenty yards of the store where the other pack was holed up before being spotted. A sentry shrieked and howled and woke the others. The Pack charged and within seconds the two groups met.
The others fought with ferocity, both inside and outside the store; however, teeth against steel was a terrible mismatch. It took four minutes and several minor injuries, and then it was over. The six members of the other pack were dead. The Pack would eat well for days.
As they exited the store, a sound came from the next storefront over. Jay kicked open the door, prepared to hack with his machete. Inside huddled a young girl, whimpering behind the counter with her arms wrapped around her knees and her eyes closed tight. Jay moved forward, prepared to strike.
Before he could, a shriek from behind caused him to turn. One of the female pack members ducked beneath his arm and stood between him and the girl, growling, weapons at the ready.
Jay didn’t understand this. Did she want the food all to herself? But…they had plenty outside. He lowered his weapon in confusion.
The female saw this and turned to the girl. She put down her weapons and drew the girl toward her. The girl looked up at her and, not seeing rage or hunger in the older female’s eyes, reached out and hugged her.
The female turned to look at Jay…and smiled.
He stood there, puzzled. He tried to understand the female’s actions, but it made his brain hurt, so he stopped. After a minute, he turned and went to help the others carry home some of the meat.
Behind him, the female used one hand to carry her weapons and the other to hold the girl’s hand. Together, they walked back toward their den. When one of The Pack turned his eyes toward the girl, the female glared and growled at him, brandishing her weapons until he backed off.
Jay followed with food tucked under one arm, still confused.
Once back inside the basement den of The Pack, the female cuddled in a corner with the girl. The child had stopped making her mewling sounds and was at last quiet. Jay squatted nearby. He was still puzzled by the female’s behavior. However, with a full belly he was content to simply observe.
The female put the girl on her lap and began rocking softly back and forth, humming something that wasn’t one of The Pack’s warning or attack cries. It was softer, more melodic. Within seconds, the child was asleep.
After watching for a few more minutes, Jay went to his own corner to sleep. The ratty, filthy blanket had been salvaged from a home The Pack had entered months earlier, looking for food. Something about the baby blue color seemed familiar, comforting; so he took it with him. Now he always slept on it. He could no longer dream, but the fragmentary images that sometimes flickered through his mind when he slept were always more pleasant when he slept with the blanket than when he didn’t.
Jay awoke sometime later. Alert for danger, he listened intently. Nothing seemed to be amiss. He began to drift off. A sound woke him again—the same sound as before. It was soft, and coming from the other corner. Jay mulled over those unfamiliar sounds.
“I’m hungry.”
* * * *
“Hurry it up, men!” Platoon Regulator BlexJasp waved the group off the back of the vehicle, two by two. The scanner had detected one of the homing darts in the building ahead and he wanted to hurry up and capture the filthy creatures before they could escape.
He would much rather have blown them all, and the building around them, into tiny little bits in repayment for the dozens of soldiers killed in recent days by the bastards. Those weren’t his orders, however. He was supposed to round them up and bring them back all safe and sound, barring immediate risk to life and limb.
He hoped they would resist and give him an excuse.
The soldier on point burst through the door and led the charge inside. There were nine indigenes sleeping inside and his men clubbed most of them unconscious within seconds of waking. One managed to jump to his feet and dove for the closest soldier, shrieking.
BlexJasp took great pleasure in putting a shot through the creature’s face.
“That’s what you get for resisting.” He turned to Subregulator FligJeen. “Have the men secure them and toss them into the vehicle. If you happen to be less than gentle with them, well, I’ll be around the corner taking a piss.”
FligJeen flashed a cold smile. He had lost several friends since landing on this MemKar-forsaken planet, two in just the past three days. “Yes, Regulator.”
* * * *
The female kept trying to give the child food to eat. She kept pushing it away.
“Eww, that’s yucky!”
The female looked to Jay, who had no answer. Why didn’t she eat? The meat was freshly hacked, only a few hours old and still dripping with blood.
“I’m hungry!”
The female offered the hunk of meat again, with the same result.
“Eww! Not that.” She stood and took the female’s hand.
The female stood, too, and the girl headed for the door, towing the female behind. Jay followed out of curiosity.
The trio walked up to the ground floor and toward the front door. Jay stopped the others until he looked out the door, weapons at the ready. When he saw that all was clear he stepped through and waited while the female and the girl exited.
The girl pulled the female to the left and Jay continued to follow.
Several minutes later, the girl turned left into the same storefront where Jay
had found her. Then she ran ahead and found a shopping cart that was as tall as she was. She grabbed an armload of stuff that looked vaguely familiar to Jay—bags, bottles, jars, and boxes. She dropped it all in the cart and ran around the store gathering more stuff.
“Peanut butter!” she crowed. “And Gummy Vites! Mommy always said it’s impordant to take your vite-mins. I don’t like pills, though.”
After several minutes, she pushed the cart toward the front door with some difficulty. “C’mon, let’s go!”
When Jay opened the door, the child took the female’s hand and put it on the cart handle. Then she pushed the cart. The female just stood there looking at her.
“C’mon, push!”
She took the female’s other hand and put it on the handle and pushed. After a moment the female caught on and began pushing as well. The girl took Jay’s hand with one of hers and held onto the cart with the other. Jay recoiled for a moment and then relaxed.
The three walked back to the den together, like some bizarre zombie family.
Back at the apartment building, the girl handed Jay and the female armloads of stuff. They walked down the stairs and back to the safety of the den. Once inside, the girl dropped to the floor and began ripping open packages. The others stood for a moment and then sat across from her.
“Mmm. These are my favorites. Slim Jims and ‘tato chips.” She popped open a can with a loud hiss. “And root beer.”
Jay and the female watched her eat for a minute.
“Here, try some.”
She opened a Slim Jim and handed it to Jay. He sniffed it and took a bite. His face lit up in surprise. He took another bite and then another, before shoving the rest in his mouth. He picked up another Slim Jim and tore it open. After two bites he offered the rest to the female. She repeated his routine of sniffing, biting, and then gobbling. Pretty soon the trio were digging into the chips, cheese curls, pretzels, Pop Tarts, and soda. They had no bread, so they sucked the peanut butter off their fingers.
Aliens Versus Zombies Page 5
