by Vohs, J. W.
One of the soldiers in the trailer to his left exclaimed, “Oh my God!”
Zach could only stand in stunned silence while he watched the flesh-eaters atop the mounds tumble into the gore beneath them as the corpses began rolling forward. The stacked dead slowly advanced like an ocean’s wave approaching shore. The mounds grew higher until gravity pulled the bodies back toward the earth, which was now trembling with the weight of thousands of corpses slamming to the ground. Live hunters continued to momentarily appear on top of the wave, only to immediately find themselves sucked into the vortex of rolling gore. The macabre swell was a hundred meters from the defensive works when it finally began to break apart under the strain; the corpses were literally disintegrating from the forces being exerted upon them. Finally, the first of hundreds of thousands of hunters massed for this assault pushed their way through the dead, wading through a sea of body parts and fluids as if they were emerging from the surf like the Marines of World War II.
Zach didn’t enjoy the analogy that had come, unbidden, to his frightened mind. These “marines” carried no weapons beyond their teeth and hands, but no assault force in history was ever so deadly to human beings. He wanted to run; he wanted to drop his weapons, shed his armor, and run screaming from this place. Maybe, he thought, if nobody was counting on me I might run. But nearly a hundred young soldiers were counting on him, and he knew that he would die here, a thousand times, before he would abandon his troops. He turned his head from side to side as he shouted, “I’ve seen worse, and won! Stand your ground and kill the bastards!”
Zach was able to share his message twice before his voice was swallowed by the shattering roar of the cannon opening up on the hunters. At this new range, the guns blew narrow openings in the approaching ranks of monsters; the living and the dead were thrown into the air by the hundreds, landing in pieces on the creatures behind. This time, those ghastly openings were filled with ever-increasing numbers of hunters before the gunners could reload. Another volley hit the horde at fifty meters, and again at twenty, sweeping away thousands of creatures, their flesh and blood raining down upon the rear ranks who continued to push ahead into any available openings. Finally, barrels were pulled inside the laager and heavy mesh screens quickly fixed into their places. The artillerymen picked up spears and joined their brothers in the infantry.
When the horde was ten meters from the line it endured another culling as the shotguns unleashed their deadly loads into the faces of the snarling hunters. The buckshot was followed by hundreds of crossbow bolts. Thousands of the beasts fell to the ground, creating enough of a barrier to cause many of the following ranks to lose momentum as they stumbled into spear range.
Gracie anxiously watched as this stage of the battle opened up like the first attack, with the big guns slaughtering thousands of hunters. But this time there was simply no stopping the pressing mass of flesh-eaters with artillery alone. She watched as the infantry began reaping a bloody harvest with their close-combat weapons, again noting that the pressure along the entire front never ceased for more than the few seconds required for the following ranks to climb over the dead and dying. In several places, a few of the strongest, most determined hunters vaulted the laager and continued on toward the rear of the human position. There were snipers in place for just such problems, and they relentlessly blew brains to the wind with almost every shot they took—the range was ridiculously close for such expert marksmen.
Within minutes, the first creatures passed through the gauntlet of shooters and even past the command-truck. Two squadrons of cavalry had remained in the rear, with their horses, to put down these flesh-eaters. The troopers were using lances instead of their muzzle-loaders, looking for all the world like an old picture Gracie remembered from a history textbook; she finally recalled that the cavalry in the drawing had been charging the Russian guns in The Charge of the Light Brigade. Considering the awesome killing power of her own artillery, she quickly gained a new appreciation of 19th Century courage.
Gracie picked up her handheld radio. “Sergeant Jenkins?”
“Right here ma’am,” he called back.
“Looks like we’re being overrun. Time to head out, my friend; enjoy the ride.”
“Copy that, and we will enjoy the ride. Jenkins out.”
Luke didn’t have any trouble locating where the presidential helicopter had landed—there was a small but active forward command base on the top of a plateau, maybe six miles from the main battleground. He sat motionless and watched the scene for twenty minutes, counting the soldiers and memorizing every detail of the layout. There was an additional helicopter on the ground, as well as two Jeeps and several tents. He easily identified Barnes from the smug way he seemed to be inspecting every aspect of the sparse base, and the nauseatingly deferential behavior of the troops around him.
Luke counted seventeen men, not including Barnes. When one soldier began setting up a table near the edge of the ridge, apparently so Barnes could enjoy a chilly but scenic lunch, Luke recognized his opportunity. While Will and his subordinates noiselessly positioned themselves around the perimeter behind the helicopters, alert for any opportunity to quickly snatch and silence an enemy or two, Luke circled around to the dirt road that was probably constructed to serve conservation officers or, if necessary, firefighters. He put on his sunglasses and raised his hands high in the air while loudly announcing, “Don’t shoot—I’m unarmed and here to discuss terms of surrender!”
Six of the fourteen soldiers still breathing fixed their weapons on Luke, shouting for him to stop and calling out for backup. Luke halted, keeping his hands up, while Barnes got up from the table, looking extremely annoyed that his meal was being interrupted.
“President Barnes,” just speaking the title left a bitter taste in Luke’s mouth, “I’m unarmed, and I’ve come to speak with you about possible terms of surrender.”
Barnes sighed. “I probably should just have you shot and be done with it; I can’t see where you could have anything to offer. Utah is mine, and I can take anything I want.” He looked Luke up and down. “I’ll give you five minutes, but only because I’m a generous man. Come sit with me.” He turned to the guards closest to him as he motioned for Luke to approach the table. “You two keep your guns trained on this rebel. Don’t hesitate to shoot if he so much as sneezes.”
Luke took a seat across from Barnes; the table was set for two. “It almost looks like you were expecting me,” Luke said coolly. “Too bad I’ve already had lunch.”
“Watch yourself, boy. I don’t tolerate insolence, and you are in no position to try my patience. I doubt you’ll be able to entice me to accept your surrender.”
“I’m afraid you misunderstand, I’m not here to surrender to you—I’m here to let you know our terms for your surrender.”
Barnes laughed. “There’s something about you that I find thoroughly entertaining. Who are you, and who do you represent?” A series of muffled thuds caused Barnes to stiffen and his guards to look around nervously.
Luke took off his sunglasses and fixed Barnes with a menacing stare. “My name is Major Luke Seifert, of the Allied Resistance. Luke Seifert-Smith. I believe you know my father.”
Barnes reflexively leaned back, away from Luke. “Shoot him!” he ordered, but the guards were too focused on the huge hunters emerging from all directions, inexplicably carrying axes, pikes, and baseball bats. Barnes reached for his own pistol, but Luke was quicker. He snatched the gun from Barnes and tossed it over the ravine. The guards had emerged from shock long enough to fire a few wild shots at the armed beasts, but they didn’t manage to inflict any permanent damage before their limbs were torn from their torsos.
Luke roughly slammed Barnes back down in his chair. “Now let’s continue our negotiation. Though I doubt you’ll be able to entice me, or my friend Will here, to accept your surrender.” Will stepped forward and snarled, causing the so-called president to wet himself. Luke was about to offer a more formal introduction whe
n he thought he heard a woman’s voice calling for help. He cocked his head to listen.
“Jesus, Luke, just kill him!” Andi screamed from the doorway of presidential helicopter. “And watch out for the hunters—”
Someone fired up the engine, and the rotors began to spin. Luke thought he recognized the voice calling out in warning. “The hunters are with me, don’t worry—just get out of there,” Luke shouted as he turned slightly in his chair to see who was in the chopper. He was shocked to see Andi alive and well.
The armored bulldozers had been hauled across half a continent for just this moment, and they didn’t disappoint in their first battle-action. The buttoned-up vehicles, currently surrounded by packed hunters who’d had no idea there were humans so close by, moved down the slope side-by-side. The ‘dozers were simply unavoidable for most of the flesh-eaters in their path. A few of the creatures managed to crawl atop other nearby hunters to gain enough distance to avoid the unstoppable crushing-machines rolling through the horde, but most were rolled over with brutal efficiency. As the bulldozers passed through the attacking monsters, they left a trail of mangled gore thirty feet wide. The space was quickly crossed by the following ranks of hunters, but as the D9’s completed their first pass through the attackers and turned around for more, the gaps began to create an accordion-type approach that at least allowed the defenders along the line a few seconds every minute or so to reload weapons and gulp down one of the water bottles they all carried into battle.
“Damn!” Gracie exclaimed as she watched the bulldozers complete their first pass across the front. Even Jack took a minute to radio his observations.
“Where in the hell did you get those D9’s?” he shouted into Gracie’s ear.
“Zombie smashing store in Dallas; how’s it going up there?”
“We’re rotating at fifty-twenty now, so the pressure’s increasing. I don’t think the D9’s will help us out.”
“No,” Gracie agreed, “if anything, more hunters are headed your way.”
She could hear shouts of alarm as Jack quickly confirmed her worry. “Sounds like they may be here; I better get back on the line.”
As the radio went silent, Gracie looked toward the slope and saw that it was swarming with flesh-eaters scrambling upward over the corpses littering the rocky ground. She tried to count as Luke had taught her to do, but there was simply no way to gain separation—the mass of hunters was too dense and widespread. Regardless of how many creatures were attacking Jack’s position, she knew that Jack would hold; he had to hold.
As she watched from the command vehicle, Gracie could only follow the bulldozers by the path of crushed corpses left in their wake; the machines themselves were covered with dozens of hunters frantically trying to rip off the doors so they could reach the humans inside. The creatures were doomed to failure. The D9’s had been modified to withstand heavy weapons fire, they weren’t going to be breached by hands and teeth. The bulldozers were simply unstoppable, but so was the horde pressing forward in spite of the horrendous casualties they were suffering as the tracked vehicles cut across their advance. The carnage Jenkins and his partner were wreaking on the hunters was helping to ease the pressure on the thin human line blocking the interstate, but the beasts were still pressing mindlessly forward by the tens of thousands. Gracie could hear the big guns firing, but their pace had noticeably slackened over the past half-hour or so. The battle had devolved into a savage clash of ground troops, a fight where commanders no longer mattered. The training and courage of the warriors, and the cold-steel they wielded, would now decide the outcome of the conflict.
Maddy had watched with alarm as the trickle of hunters somehow surviving the canister began to increase as the horde finally became organized beneath the circling Blackhawks. The troops had been ordered to use only spears and pikes on the manageable numbers of flesh-eaters reaching the laager, up to this point, but a fresh wave now appeared from the other side of the main mound of corpses to the front. Most of the cannon had just fired another round and wouldn’t have time to reload before the next charge reached their positions. Maddy shouted the order, “shotguns!” to her left and right, hearing other commanders along the line calling out the same order. The highly disciplined soldiers set their pole-arms aside and gathered up their shotguns, nervously awaiting the order to fire as the roaring hunters rapidly crossed the corpse-strewn no-man’s land in front of the laager. The fastest of the infected were already climbing the cages and fencing when the order came to fire. Three hundred shotguns, all loaded with double-ought buckshot, fired in unison at point blank range. An audible moan could be heard from the horde as yet another assault-wave was perforated with lead balls before falling dead to the blood-soaked earth.
The troops reloaded as quickly as possible, thankful that about half the cannon managed to discharge another volley into the approaching ranks of monsters coming in for more. A second, rather ragged round of buckshot tore through another thousand hunters, the creatures falling in bloody ranks just in front of the laager. The pattern of alternating cannon and shotgun fire managed one more half-hearted volley before the flesh-eaters were on and in the human line, and in the blink of an eye the battle disintegrated into hundreds of individual combats decided by steel blades and hands and teeth.
Zach’s feet were now on the blood soaked ground. He had come to the same conclusion as Gracie some minutes earlier; he was done trying to command, now he could only fight. His spear was long gone; the tried and true war hammer resting familiarly in his weary hands. Every section of the line held designated “sweepers,” fighters whose mission was to sweep up any hunters who made it past the fortified laager. Zach could see these sweepers engaged all along the line as scores of hunters began to survive their collision with the laager and somehow make it through the storm of steel and lead being employed by the troops in their protective enclosures. He found the action hot but manageable until the firing of the guns came to a sudden halt; then, the floodgates opened. He swung his war-hammer in mighty arcs that shattered bone, and splattered flesh every time the heavy weapon connected. It wasn’t enough. A score of broken dead and thrashing wounded formed a macabre mound around the vicious young warrior; at least a hundred more hungry beasts were closing in for the kill. Zach had fought in many battles since the collapse, and he’d nearly been killed half a dozen times over the past year. But as his beloved hammer slipped from his blood-soaked glove and he reached for a short-sword, he believed that he was living his last minutes here on this earth.
Gracie watched the failing line with something approaching panic in her mind, but she still had one card to play before ordering a general retreat. Logan had left three soldiers from his former command at Fort Sill under Gracie’s supervision at the command post. The troops had chafed at their inactivity since the fighting started, especially as their buddies manning the cannon wiped out tens of thousands of hunters in the first hours. From her position atop the command vehicle she pointed directly at the trio of artillery men before giving them the thumbs-up that was the pre-arranged signal for them to employ their weapons. With whoops of joy and excitement they opened the cases that held what were possibly the last three Stingers on the planet.
The Blackhawks directing the horde were still trying to keep a safe distance from the human defenders, but the complete lack of fire directed their way had made them complacent as the afternoon wore on. The pilots had drifted closer than they’d originally intended, though in their defense, what happened next would not have changed if they were twice as far away from the line as they were when the first missile streaked skyward. The helicopter circling the center of the hunter-army erupted in a powerful fireball that shook the earth, as well as all the creatures fighting on it within hundreds of meters in every direction.
The radio-net connecting the pilots exploded in a frenzy of voices shouting questions about what had happened to the lead-chopper. A few flyers thought they’d seen a missile-trail just before the Blackhawk blew u
p, but their commander ordered everyone to remain where they were and continue directing the battle. Ten seconds later another helicopter was transformed into burning wreckage, and it managed to collide with a third before crashing into the ground. The Blackhawk damaged in the collision stayed in the air, but immediately began wobbling away to the southwest, leaving a trail of greasy smoke in its wake. The loss of three choppers in a matter of seconds was understood by every pilot to be more than coincidence, and orders or no, their survival instincts kicked in and they whipped their birds back to the south before the third Stinger could be locked onto a target.
Luke was shocked to his core at seeing his father’s fiancé alive. “Come on, get out of there—these hunters won’t hurt you,” he shouted at Andi again. He grabbed Barnes by the collar and jerked him to his feet. “My father believes you murdered her,” he growled.
The General’s terrified gaze flickered from Luke’s hunter-eyes to the eastern sky, and he was obviously stunned by whatever had diverted his attention. A split second later, Luke heard the roaring whine of an aircraft in distress and turned his own eyes in the direction of the sound. A spinning helicopter filled his vision, careening directly toward the plateau upon which they stood. He grabbed for Barnes as he leapt for the nearest depression in the ground, and he also muttered a prayer before the world around him shattered in a fiery explosion.
The blast rocked the ground, scorching Luke’s leathers and briefly igniting the hair on the back of his head. He frantically beat back the flames as he looked around wildly for Barnes. Then he remembered Andi. He shouted to Will’s silhouette in the smoke, “Get Barnes—I’m going for Andi!”
The pilot of the injured Blackhawk had been frantically trying to reach what had once been a friendly landing base. When the helicopter slammed into the unforgiving desert just shy of the small command post, the fuselage had burst apart and sent flaming tendrils of fuel spewing across the entire area. Through the haze and flames, Luke could still hear the engine of the presidential helicopter idling on the ground; he set off in that direction, calling out for Andi. He heard her coughing nearby, trying to answer him but overcome by the smoke. He found her injured and crawling on the ground.
