by David Rogers
Darryl hesitated, then glanced at Bobo as if looking for support or reassurance. Bobo was looking up at Ape, so Darryl wasn’t able to trade glances or get any sort of hint of how to reply. “I’m pretty sure, yeah.” he said after a moment.
“Pretty sure.” Ape repeated, frowning. “You want to off me on pretty sure?”
“Bro, ain’t none of this cool.” Burnout said. He was one of the Dogz on the roof, having moved near enough to Ape that he could be seen by those in the back yard.
“Damn straight.” Ape snorted. “Y’all think this–”
A scream cut Ape off. Darryl’s eyes whipped down from the roof to the source of the outcry, which was Shirley. She still clutched at her son, hugging him to her, but he was no longer standing numbly in her embrace. Now he was leaning over her enfolding arms, his hands clutching at them, and blood was dripping down his front from behind his lowered head.
There was a sudden stampede of feet as people scrambled away from the pair; one screaming, the other silent. What had been a sort of corridor abruptly turned into a wide valley as people cleared out. Darryl found himself moving forward, starting to slide diagonally to get a better line of sight past Bobo. Before he could get into a good firing position, another figure interposed itself between him and Shirley.
Big Chief stepped in close enough from the side of Shirley and her son to jam his shotgun in tight against the boy’s body, right up against his shoulder. Darryl winced automatically, instinctively knowing this was going to be hellishly messy, but unable to prevent it, to say anything to stop it. Big Chief pulled the trigger back, and the shotgun bucked in his hands. The blast had no where to go but directly into the boy’s body. By the time Darryl registered the booming report of the gun, the boy was on the ground next to his mother, who stood motionless in shock at what was happening.
Shirley had a splattering of blood on the side of her face, but the main problem was the chunk missing from her left forearm. It was bleeding heavily, pulsing out from the gaping wound right in the meat of her arm. At her feet, writhing around unsteadily, was the boy who’d bitten a piece of her flesh out. Big Chief’s shot had shredded his left shoulder, leaving that arm flopping uselessly.
Darryl was still moving, and he slowed from the rapid dash to a walk as he came abreast with the fire pit. The wound on the boy’s shoulder was horrific, having been reduced to so much hamburger. The bones of his shoulder socket and arm were visible in several places. It was probably a miracle his arm was even still attached.
“Look at that!” Bobo was shouting, trying to cut through the screaming and yelling that had re-erupted. “Hang on Chief! Everyone, look at that!”
Darryl didn’t want to look, he’d seen enough. He heard a few people retching over the vocal chaos. Violence in the movies was one thing, even slasher movies; but seeing it in person was something else entirely. There was no determination of how much was too much in real life; what happened, happened. The damage to the kid’s arm was pretty damn bad.
There was a series of shots, and Darryl realized Bobo was firing the Beretta into the air. Five shots sounded, finally bringing the chaotic tumult of voices to a halt. The last of the shots echoed out across the surrounding landscape in the sudden silence. “Look at him. Why ain’t he crying?” Bobo demanded loudly. “He ain’t screaming or fussing or even breathing hard. That ain’t normal. Ain’t no one gonna get shot like that an just lay there.”
“He ain’t just laying there.” Chief spoke up. The sound of his shotgun’s slide was punctuation enough to his statement. The teenager on the ground was struggling to crawl one handed toward his mother, who was the closest person to him. Ignorant of the people who were watching him, he tried to reach his one working hand out toward the woman. When he removed it from supporting his body, he fell face first down against the ground. Still, without uttering a single sound.
“Shirley, back away.”
She looked up from her bleeding arm, fixing a wide eyed gaze on Bobo. “He . . . he . . .”
“I know.” Big Chief told her. “Move on back.”
“He got . . . bit.” Shirley said in a whispery voice that carried like a trained actor’s stage whisper. “He got bit. He done bit me.”
“Yeah.” Bobo said, sad and resigned.
Shirley’s lips trembled, and she collapsed to her knees. Darryl came forward several steps in alarm, but stopped when he heard her speak again, her voice thick through her sobs. “Do it.”
“What?”
“Just kill us both.” Shirley said, crying as she watched her son look up at her. He was reaching out to her again, his grasping and flexing fingers only a few inches from being able to make contact with her. “He . . . I . . . just do it.”
“Chief?” Bobo asked.
Big Chief glanced back at Bobo, and then back at the two on the ground a few feet from him. He hefted the shotgun, starting to aim. But he didn’t fire. “I can’t.”
“What?”
“Damnit, she still a person.”
“So was Deaven.” Shirley said quietly. She didn’t move as the boy’s fingers scraped across her knee, scrabbling against the cloth of her pants as he tried to find purchase to pull her closer.
“I’ll do it.” another voice said, and Darryl glanced over to see Ape had descended from the roof and was approaching from behind Big Chief. The wounded biker’s face was composed, features graven in hard lines, but there was a flicker of sadness and regret in his eyes as he lifted his own shotgun.
“Dog–” Big Chief said awkwardly.
“I know.” Ape shrugged. “Move on back so you don’t get no blood on you.”
Big Chief stepped back several steps. Darryl stopped, holding position about twelve or so feet away. Ape lifted his gun and fired when he was standing right on top of Shirley and Deaven. The boy’s head shattered under the close range impact of the pellets. Ape jacked another shell into the gun and swiveled it to aim down at Shirley.
“You sure?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Shirley said, still crying.
“Yeah.” Ape said, and squeezed the trigger. The blast took her in the head too, and slammed her body down against the ground with jarring suddenness. Darryl swallowed hard, fighting a swirl of nausea. The mess on the grass next to the two dead people was . . . not cool. Blood and bits of shattered heads lay heavy and glistening on the grass around them.
“Y’all better find Hooligan.” Ape said, turning to face Big Chief and Bobo. “Before this spread any further.”
“What–” Big Chief started to say, but Ape didn’t wait to hear whatever it was. He reversed the shotgun in his hands, sliding the barrel under his chin. His thumb pressed the trigger back. The gun roared and went one way, while Ape’s head exploded and his body toppled in the other direction. He landed on his back just short of Shirley and Deaven and didn’t move.
Darryl bent over, his forearms braced against his thighs, and dry heaved. His insides were twisting, but he retained just enough control over himself to avoid actually vomiting. He heaved twice more, making a groaning-hissing sound as air whistled through his mouth, then drew several ragged breaths. When he straightened, he glanced down at the Glock still naked in his hand, then looked over at Bobo.
“Where the other one at?”
* * * * *
Peter
“Damn Roper.” Dorne said as leaned forward to spear another piece of beef with his fork. As he transferred it from the serving platter to his plate, he gave Roper a curious look. “Why’d you quit as a cook?”
“Logistics pays better.” Roper said with a shrug. “Plus cooking in a base kitchen or for a company in a field kitchen . . . not fun.”
“People gotta eat.” Smith pointed out.
“Then people can learn how to cook.” Roper said with a shrug. “I did.”
“Cooking is over rated.” Crawford said with a sniff.
“Says the girl who packed away two plates.” Swanson said, then leaned back hastily with his hands up in f
ront of his face. “Hey, hey, hey! Not cool. No stabbing!”
Crawford lowered the fork she’d raised threateningly and gave him a long look. “You talk too much.”
“Maybe, but I can say one word and – ow!”
“Still talking?” she asked in a tone of false sweetness as he recoiled from the slap she’d landed on the side of his head.
Swanson glowered at her for a moment, then looked down at his plate.
Peter was about to intervene to head off further argument, or violence, when he heard Mendez yelling from the back bedroom. Peter came to his feet a little too fast, staggering as his balance shifted, but he recovered and shoved past Johns and Barker enroute to the source of the yell. By the time he got past the circle of eating soldiers he wasn’t as alarmed; his initial thought was something violent was happening, somehow, but Mendez’s tone didn’t seem quite right for something like that.
“What?” Peter asked as he reached the bedroom, pausing in the doorway and surveying the room quickly before entering. It was empty except for Mendez at the computer desk. He looked up as Peter appeared, and his normally darker hued face was notably pale.
“We’re fucked.” the Guardsman said, gesturing at the monitor. “Oh man, we’re so totally fucked sarge.”
“What are you talking about?” Peter asked, stepping into the room. He couldn’t help himself from taking one more look around, double checking for the absence of any zombies or other problems, before he focused on the computer screen.
“It just went up on the news sites. They’re going to level Atlanta.”
“Say that again?” Whitley demanded from the doorway. Peter glanced over to see her standing there with her M-16 clutched before her. Her knuckles were whitening as she gripped it tightly. He knew she’d heard it, or she’d be calmer.
“Hang on, you’re sure?” Peter said, making a wait gesture at Whitley.
“Pretty damn sure, but if we wait until tomorrow morning then we’ll have complete confirmation. That’s when they’re going to drop them.”
“What’s the ordinance?” Peter asked, fearing he was going to hear a word he really didn’t want to hear.
“FAEs.” Mendez replied.
Peter frowned. “I–wait. Come with me.” he crooked a finger at Mendez and turned back to the doorway. “Whitley, back in the big room with everyone else.” She opened her mouth, but he shook his head before she could speak. “Just wait. In there so we can all have a fit about it at the same time.”
She preceded them back into the living room. “What’s all the fuss?” Harper asked.
“Good news, we need to leave pretty soon.” Peter said as a starter. “So Candles, you can stop pissing attitude around.”
Candles studied him, his sullen expression now coloring with suspicion. “Why?”
“Bad news, what’s left of whoever’s still in charge is going to destroy Atlanta tomorrow.” Peter said, steeling himself for the reaction. About three seconds passed, then nearly everyone in the room started either yelling or trying to talk. Peter rode it out silently, letting the initial pulse of panic get out, then raised his hands. It took almost a minute to get the soldiers calmed down enough for Peter to resume.
“Okay, yeah, it’s fucking bad. I know that. Thanks for making sure. Mendez, what’d you find out.”
“Tomorrow–” he began, but Peter cut him off.
“Yeah, I got that part. Back up a bit. What did you find out before the FAE news hit?”
“Oh.” Mendez swallowed, then reached into the breast pocket of his utilities. He produced a somewhat thick wad of paper that he unfolded and paged through for a moment. Peter saw barely legible scribbles on the sheets, but whatever he thought about them Mendez could apparently read his own writing.
“Well, first off, this is happening everywhere.” Mendez began.
“What’s ‘everywhere’?” Smith asked.
“I mean everywhere.” Mendez said, looking up. “It’s not just Atlanta, or Georgia, or even the Southeast or the States. Canada, Mexico, all over South American and Europe, Asia, hell even Australia. Some places are less, ah, covered than others, but zombies are just popping up, keep popping up, all over the place.”
“So we’re definitely on our own.” Johns said quietly.
“Yeah, that’s for sure.” Mendez said. “Next thing, America. It’s kinda hard to pick details out of the hysteria that’s all over what news is available, but major cities and most of the military have been hit the hardest. No one knows where the outbreaks started happening first, but by the time reports began to be noticed beyond local levels they were everywhere.
“As far as military response, it looks like a lot of the active duty personnel either converted early, before they started to get deployed, or shortly after. And I guess a lot of those who didn’t turn were either eaten or killed, because the best figure I found is estimating something like three-quarters of the services are gone. And there’s a lot of disagreement over how low that estimate probably is.”
“Fuck me.” Barker swore.
“No, fuck us.” Nailor said with a weak humorless laugh.
“What about the Navy?” Candles asked. “They’re self-contained out on the ships aren’t they? Is there anything about how many ships have checked in?”
Mendez shook his head. “No. Whatever is causing this, the ships are affected too. A couple have run aground, and most of the others aren’t even responding at all. Navy’s out too.”
“What else?” Peter prompted.
“Um, okay, so leadership. The President, Vice-President, and Speaker of the House haven’t been seen since yesterday.” Mendez said.
“Wait, what?”
Mendez shrugged. “That’s all I could find about it. If anyone knows what happened, they’re not talking. A lot of people are speculating they turned into zombies, I dunno. But the Secretary of the Interior is the one calling the shots, and no one who’s left is arguing with him about it.”
“What about Congress?” Candles asked.
“I didn’t spend a lot of time on it, but maybe half, more or less, are supposed to still be alive. Some of the reports are monitoring twitter feeds, emails, and stuff from congressional staffers. It looks like what’s left of Washington is evacuating, but they won’t say where.”
“Why not?” Swanson mused.
“Doesn’t matter, security, too busy to say, whatever.” Peter said. “Moving on.”
“Right.” Mendez shuffled through his papers again. “Outbreaks I guess. I found a list, and we’re fortieth.”
“What, forty outbreaks?”
Mendez looked up with a startled frown. “What? Oh, no. Forty on the list of biggest cities in America. That’s where Atlanta falls. Out of the ones above us, only a couple are still reasonably intact.”
“Run that by me again?” Crawford said.
Mendez shrugged. “Well, it looks like Phoenix is doing pretty good, and except for the Strip, so is Las Vegas. We’re real bad off, so are New York, LA, Chicago . . . uh” he looked down at his papers again. “Houston, Philadelphia–”
“Right, zombies everywhere.” Candles broke in impatiently, just as Peter was about to. “Moving on. What about us?”
“Oh.” Mendez fidgeted with the papers for a minute. “Well, apparently the government has ordered whatever’s left of the military to pull back. They’re going to try to consolidate them away from the population; it’s an attempt to preserve what’s left of the forces. And they’re pulling together ordinance packages for the bombings tomorrow. Apparently they don’t want to use nukes, and there aren’t enough of the FAEs that are big enough. But the plan is to figure all that out tonight, and tomorrow they’re going to start bombing.”
“Holy Jesus.” Roper said. “Are they warning people?”
“Well, the word’s out on the news.”
“Shit, we had to jump through some hoops to get word.” Roper said, not entirely unreasonably.
“Hell, we had to jump a fence.
” Swanson pointed out.
“And steal a car.” Whitley murmured.
“My point is, are they going to do fly overs, drop leaflets, send teams to announce it?” Roper replied, steadfastly ignoring Swanson’s comment.
Mendez shrugged. “I don’t think so. My read is they’re having trouble finding enough people to prep the planes and ordinance, and to fly the missions. I think there’s a lot of reservists and civilians being involved, and even then they’re short.”
“So they’re going to drop a FAE on us as soon as they can?”
“Not any earlier than tomorrow morning.” Mendez said.
“When tomorrow morning?” Hernandez asked.
“The announcement just says Sunday morning.”
“Fuck, depending on whose definition of ‘morning’ they’re using, that could be a ten or twelve hour range.” Hernandez said in disgust.
“So, what are we sitting around in here for then?” Candles asked. “It’s time to go.”
“It’s not even dark yet.” Barker said. “Let’s at least finish eating and put together a plan.”
“My plan is to get the fuck out of Atlanta before they spread a cloud of fuel across downtown and ignite it.” Candles said, starting to climb to his feet.
“Hang on.” Peter said.
“No way sarge.” Candles shook his head. “It’s time get moving.”
“How?” Whitley asked. “Unless the zombies dispersed since last night, we’re going to run into the same problems again.”
“That Bronco down there is running just fine.” Candles said, gesturing in the general direction of the stairs that were outside.
“We won’t all fit in it.” Oliver said unhappily.
“Like I said earlier, there are other vehicles around here.” Candles was slinging his M-16 into a combat carry position. “How many of us are there, almost twenty? That’s like four cars, three if we crowd in some. We can be out of here in, what, five minutes? Let’s go.”
Peter sighed. “Modern cars often have a computer that prevents the engine from starting unless the key and its codes are present.”
“So?” Oliver asked, his voice tight and afraid. “Cars get stolen all the time. There have to be ways around that crap.”
