Zombie Extinction Event (Book 2): Hush

by c. s anderson

“Run like you have never run before and tell the guards to take out the screaming zombies! Now!”

  He turns and starts to race up the stairs, through the closed doors I can hear the sound of the Screamers getting closer.

  “Fall back! All guns aimed at the door, kill whatever tries to come through it!” I yell the order out, but not everyone obeys.

  “Jake, the door is way too thick for any rotter to pound their way through. You want to calm down and tell us what the hell is going on?” An older guy named Brent says, just standing there staring at me, like I have lost my damn mind.

  I hear both the flashbangs go off and then the wetter sound of the Screamers splattering into kibble and bits. I hear a few chunks pound into the door, but only a few, so maybe they blew before they were close enough to splash the door with their acidic blood.

  Then I smell it and know that we didn’t get that lucky.

  The stench fills the room and most of the guards are gagging now and as I watch the door, that the guard was so sure was secure, begins to smolder and melt.

  My team recovers first and we are all on our feet and we meet the first wave of zombies trying to come through the door with a withering volley of small arms fire. The genius who questioned my order gets it together and begins firing his semi auto carbine scoring head shots across the board.

  We take them all down, over a dozen with no casualties on our side, before they stop coming. Through what is left of the door, I watch the zombies fall back and take up their old positions facing the buildings.

  God help us, they seem to understand tactics.

  “I want a repair team here five fucking minutes ago! Secure that breach and then double the guard on it. Outside team drop the backpacks off at the supply center, clean up and take some down time.” I get into Brent’s face as I issue the orders and he gulps nervously and starts nodding his head like a damn bobble head doll.

  “What the hell is your name kid?” I ask stabbing a finger at student teacher dude.

  “Henry, Henry Butler.”

  “Well Henry, Henry Butler, drop off your pack and meet me in conference room two in fifteen. Joyce, gather the council for an emergency meeting.”

  We have a lot to discuss, but damn if I know where to start.

  Joyce nods at me and grabs both of our backs and follows the rest of the squad out of the room. I give Brent a very hard stare and then I let that shit go, there are bigger issues to deal with right now.

  The repair detail is already streaming into the room and working with practiced efficiency, they begin to patch what is left of our door. I caution them to be really damn careful in case there are still traces of the acid to be dealt with and then I trust them to do their job and head out to do mine.

  I know that they know what they are doing.

  I wish I could say the same.

  First person I run into is our tech geek, a middle aged black guy named Winston, who Big Al relied to keep the few devices still working doing just that. He repaired a scrounged ham radio and single handedly keeps us connected to the few other outposts we know about. He carries a spiral bound message log with him and I ask him for it now. In it I write down everything that has happened since Whiskey Dave left and I tell Winston to relay it to him and the other outposts immediately.

  I also tell him that the information is for his eyes only and if I hear any rumors that sound like he ran his mouth, I will be really fucking unhappy.

  He gives me a hurt look, but nods and rushes off to warm up his equipment. I know I handled that badly, he didn’t need to be told to keep his mouth shut,, let alone threatened. Not his first day at the rodeo.

  Would be nice if I could stop acting like it is mine.

  These are my people now, my job is to keep them alive against ever escalating odds. I didn’t ask for the job, but it is mine nonetheless and there is no room or time for a learning curve or for pissing and moaning about how hard it is. Time to nut up or shut up.

  I take a deep breath and make an active effort to get my shit together, before I go talk to the council.

  Chapter Eight

  Big Al ran this place when he was alive, his word was more or less law, but he was smart enough to surround himself with the smartest advisors he could find. I inherited these advisors when I took over.

  Not all of them were ecstatic about that particular turn of events.

  But Big Al had made his wishes in that matter pretty clear and none of them went so far as to openly object when I was named successor. Just some petty grumbling and mumbling, at least so far.

  At least to my face anyway.

  Joyce sits on my left and my new friend Henry sits on my right, she looks calm and he looks nervous. Between the three of us we lay out for the council everything we have observed and every theory we have about it. They start out a grim bunch and they dial the grim factor up a couple notches, as we tell them about the Screamer breaching the main door with an acid blood attack.

  John Martin looks calm, he used to run a chain of hardware stores, before the world went to shit and calm is pretty much his default mode. He is about fifty and bald as an egg. A tall rawboned capable looking guy, with great organizational skills, he was a personal friend of Big Al’s.

  Come to think of it, the only time I have seen him not looking calm, was at the funeral we just had. He had looked pissed off instead.

  Dottie Jones looks pale and nervous, also more or less her default setting. She is thirty something with mousy brown hair and large constantly startled looking eyes, she runs our supply center. Methodical and meticulous she keeps the lights on and everybody fed.

  Matt Blank is the ex-army ranger who took my old spot as head of security after Big Al died and I stepped into the leadership role. He is a big badass black guy with short cropped hair and a rough soul patch on his chin. Right now, he looks bored, but I know he has heard and is processing every single world that has been said.

  And last and in my humble ass opinion certainly least, we have the nut job that Big Al included as a spiritual advisor of sorts, the one and only Father Mike. “You brought that abomination through the door in here with us!” He hisses at me through clenched teeth.

  Yeah, we aren’t besties.

  “We rescued an apparent normal child and for the record, I carried her through the doors and despite all it has cost us, I would do it again. If we are the kind of people who would leave a healthy looking child to die out on those streets, then we don’t deserve to survive.” Joyce tells him in a level voice.

  “Shut up Rev, the blame game isn’t helpful right now. Ok, so the pathogen is mutating. First it spread to adults now it seems to be creating new types of zombies. Jake, what do we do about the ones you called Screamers?” John asks quietly.

  “Matt?” I turn the question over to security, just like Big Al would have turned it over to me, not long ago.

  “Roof top crew has to take them out at a safe distance. We will set up shifts twenty four seven, for now. They don’t get within splattering distance of us.” He says, ignoring the Reverend who is fuming at his side.

  Makes sense, it is what I had in mind anyway.

  “We have a good supply of rifle ammo, but we are running low on hand gun ammunition.” Dottie chimes in.

  “Another supply run will go out soon, the store we first saw the Screamer at, still has a lot of good stuff in it. Matt, any recon on possible ammo sources?” I ask him.

  “There’s a sporting goods store we haven’t been in yet, about nine blocks east of the store. Recon team says it was over run last time they checked, but it may be worth another look.” He tells me calmly.

  “More mutations are probably coming.” Henry blurts out.

  He swallows nervously as he suddenly finds all eyes in the room are now on him.

  “The pathogen has to be still evolving, adapting to new conditions. The zombies are in a state of flux now. They are more dangerous than the simple minded child zombies, it seems they have at least rudimentar
y thought process beyond kill and eat. They at least give the appearance that they can work together and seem to understand the need to retreat. After we wiped out the wave that tried to come through the acid destroyed door, the rest left to take up their old formation in front of the building again.” He tells us with a thin note of fear in his voice.

  Well, that’s a buzz kill. Not that this was much of a party to start with.

  “Then we ourselves are going to have to adapt to them changing or die trying.” John says in his calm pragmatic voice.

  Not much to say after that.

  We are about to end the session when Winston comes in holding a folded piece of paper. He nods apologetically to the room in general and walks up to where I am sitting and hands me the paper. I thank him and he beats a hasty retreat out the door.

  Wish I could follow him.

  “Good news, I hope.” Dottie chirps optimistically. She stares at me with her bug eyes, with a hopeful expression on her face.

  I unfold the paper and read it quickly.

  So much for fucking optimism boys and girls.

  “What is it Jake?” Matt asks me, probably reading the tension in my body language. It is one of the reason I picked his ass to replace me, he is very good at reading people. It is a much needed skill trying to keep the peace amongst a building full of diverse survivors and not one that everyone has. Simple muscle is easy to come by, combat skills and people skills is a rare combination.

  “It is from Whiskey Dave, adult zombies have been spotted at the borders of his enclave’s territory. They killed them all and none got through. That’s the good news.” I tell them.

  There is a moment of silence as they all process that little piece of information. The flip side of good news is always the same damn thing after all. Joyce is the first one to break that silence.

  “And the bad news?” She asks softly.

  “They have broken off all relations with us and have sealed their borders. He wants us to know that we are hereby under extreme quarantine and if any of us come anywhere near his territory, we will be shot on sight.” I tell them crumpling up the paper in my hands and tossing it at a wastepaper basket.

  I fucking miss.

  Chapter Nine

  The next few hours pass in a blur, I arrange for around the clock roof top snipers, check on my supply room team, have a word with my security chief and check on the main door repairs. They have done their usual bang up job and the door is not only repaired, but reinforced.

  Not acid proof though.

  I am getting ready to call it a day and go topple into bed, the bed I now share with Joyce, which is an added incentive to find my way there. Really not sure when Big Al found time to sleep, bastard was always awake before me and greeted the day with a grin.

  He was, God help us all, a morning person.

  Miss him anyway.

  “Hey Jake, Katrin wants you on the roof.” Cassandra calls out to me as she walks by.

  “On my way.”

  She winks at me and saunters off, probably to go find her own bed and wait there for her girlfriend’s shift to be over. Apparently she is much much smarter than me.

  I double time up the stairs and I am pleased to see that everyone is alert on task, each of them scanning their piece of landscape for any glimpse of Screamers. Lights hooked up to car batteries illuminate the kill zones. The usual circle of zombie sentries are on duty.

  “Jake, I want you to look at this. I do not have good feeling.” Katrin says bluntly as she hands me one of our very few night vision scopes. She turns me slightly and points off into the darkness.

  It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adapt to the weird colors that the scope paints the scene in. A small knot of zombies is shambling very slowly towards us, they look like they are holding up and carrying a body. From this distance I can’t tell if it is male or female. Also, no way to tell if the thing they are carrying towards us is a Screamer or not. The sentry zombies hear them coming and start to get agitated, they begin to hoot and squeal as they get closer.

  “Thin them down let’s see what nasty surprise they are bringing us.” I tell her not taking my eyes off of what I am seeing.

  Four popping noises and four zombies go down, with neat little holes in their foreheads. As I watch four more zombies come out of the shadows to replace them.

  “Screw this, take them all down. Including whatever they’re carrying.”

  Before she can reshoulder her rifle, a few things start to happen.

  First, all of the zombies carrying the body peel off and lurch back into the darkness leaving it lying there a hundred feet or so outside of the kill zone.

  Next all of the zombie sentries take one big step forward, like we are all playing some fucked up version of red light green light.

  Then the thing that they dropped, slowly starts what looks like a very painful process of standing up.

  I get a better look at it now through the scope and I am relieved to see that it didn’t used to be one of our people. It is a younger female wearing a bloody shirt that says Rustycon on it, whatever that is, with long dark hair, there is something odd about its face and it takes me a couple of seconds to figure out what it is.

  The mouth is about three times the size it should be.

  That mouth opens and for want of a better term, it begins to sing to us. Not words, just a series of random sounding harmonic tones, different from the usual hoots and whistles zombies generally make.

  “Put it down now!” I order tersely.

  Nothing happens.

  I put down the scope and turn around to find out why and all of my snipers are standing there slack jawed and empty eyed like they are in a damn trance.

  “Open fire!” I yell at them.

  That is when the first one drops his rifle and throws himself off of the roof top smashing into the pavement below. The zombie sentries begin to tear what is left of him apart.

  Katrin steps past me dropping her own rifle, which is akin to devoted mother dropping her baby and begins to move towards the edge of the roof.

  I tackle her and we go down hard, another sniper goes off the edge as the song starts to get louder and I know that I only have seconds to act.

  “Sorry lady, you are so going to be pissed off at me later.” I tell her as I punch her square on the jaw as hard as I can.

  She is tough, it takes two more punches to put her down and keep her down and in that time another sniper goes off the roof. Cursing, I snatch up her rifle and use it to knock out the sniper who is trying to stumble by me, putting him down as well.

  He will wake up with a headache, but he will wake up.

  I am no sniper, it takes me four shots to get in the needed headshot to drop the singing zombie and stop the noise. For good measure, I snap a few rounds at the zombies feeding on the snipers who jumped and drive them back to their sentry positions.

  The song stops, but I hear small arms fire from within the building which means we have other problems going on. The rest of the roof top guards shake their heads and stand there with ‘what the hell just happened’ looks on their faces.

  “Take this and get back on the fucking job!” I snarl at one of the remaining snipers, thrusting the rifle into his startled hands.

  “Shoot anything that even gets close, watch each other and make sure nobody else jumps.” I shout at him as I race down the stairs.

  I pass dazed looking people who look like they have been sleepwalking, which is pretty much what it comes down to, I suppose. The weird zombie song seems to have had some kind of hypnotic effect on people, no idea why I was immune, but that is a question for another time.

  The gun fire sounded like it was coming from the main door area, so that is where I head first.

  Matt is standing there looking grim, a smoking pistol in his hand and several bodies at his feet.

  “I had to Jake, they were trying to open the damn doors. That fucked up noise seems to put them into some kind of trance. I knocked out
a few, but there were too many and I had to start shooting.” His voice is grim and cold, but I know the man and I know what this has cost him.

  “You did what you had to brother, it was a new kind of zombie. They hauled it up here and once it started singing, the shit hit the fan. We had snipers jumping off of the damn roof.” I told him putting my hand on his shoulder.

  He shook my hand off and holstered his gun. He waved at the guards who recovered from the trance to start to clear the bodies out of the room.

  “Why weren’t we affected?” He asks me quietly.

  “Not sure, hey do you have any hearing loss? I was on a run once and some idiot fired his big ass forty four right next to my left ear. Haven’t heard right out of it since.” I ask him slowly, trying to work it out.

  “Yeah, was too close to a mortar round once and same thing, don’t hear real good out of one ear.”

  “Maybe the effect only works in stereo. Hell I don’t know, just glad that we were able to function. Lock this place down hard, find hard of hearing people and spread them around vital areas like here and the roof. Give them stun guns to take down anyone who goes into a trance before they hurt themselves or others. Give the general confined to quarters order for all non-essential personnel.”

  I give him orders knowing that he knows what to do, but also knowing that he needs to hear it from me.

  He is a solider, a shaken up solider and the orders will ground and refocus him on the job at hand. Doing his duty and keeping these people safe.

  Even if that means having to kill some of them.

  Joyce comes running into the room and into my arms and we have an unprofessional moment of relishing the fact that we are both still alive. Both offering and receiving what comfort we can take from that happy fact. Matt marches off to follow orders and leaves us alone.

  Well, as alone as you can be with a half dozen guards dragging dead bodies out of the room and re taking up their positions guarding the door.

  “Which one is your bad ear?” I ask her softly.

  She looks at me like I have lost my damn mind.