by Bible, Jake
“Greta’s still with Dr. McCormick,” Charlie says.
“Right, of course,” Stella nods.
“Hey,” Buzz says as he comes up behind Charlie.
“It true, bro?” Pup asks.
“Daddy dead?” Porky follows.
“Yep,” Buzz nods. “Nothing the doctor could do.” He looks around. “Where you want me? At the gate?”
“No point,” Stella says as a loud crack echoes through the air, “it won’t hold. We’re getting out by the cliff. Can you and your brothers go get the vans up at the Church? They’ll need them back at the infirmary. And tell Dr. McCormick I’m sorry for being such a bitch. No, never mind. I’ll tell her myself. I have to go back and get Greta. You just get the vans. God, I’m tired.”
Buzz nods at Stella then nods to his brothers. The men quickly walk up the hill towards the Church of Jesus of the Light. Critter stands and watches his nephews go.
“They’re good boys,” Critter says. “But nothing will replace their daddy. Don’t know how the Farm will keep going.”
“We need to worry about other things now,” Lourdes says. “Critter, can you walk Stella to the infirmary? I’m going to check on the gates and see how much time we have then keep the evacuation going.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Critter says as he helps Stella stand.
“What about me?” Charlie asks. “What do I do?”
“You stay by my side,” Stella says, “and don’t leave my sight.” She looks around the subdivision. “We could sure use Sergeant Platt right now. He’d be barking orders left and right, keeping things in line.”
“I don’t bark,” Lourdes says, “but I do bite. Maybe that’ll move some of the stragglers along.”
***
The baton spears the Z’s head and after a couple of stuttered hisses the monster stills.
“They’re getting thick again,” Weapons Sergeant Sammy “John” Baptiste says as he pulls the baton out and flicks the red-black goop from it. “I thought we’d gotten through the worst.”
“It’s like a storm,” Medical Sergeant Alex “Reaper” Stillwater says, coming up next to John, wiping his own baton. “We’re hitting waves of the things.”
“That means what’s behind us isn’t the first wave,” Master Sergeant Joshua Platt adds as he shoves two Zs off of himself and gets to his feet, a gore covered knife in his hand. “They’re attacking now. Dammit.”
“Radio is dead,” John says. “Can’t even pick up short wave.”
“They have jammers already in place,” Platt says. “We’re too late. They’ve been planning this for a long time. I think we just upped their time table.” He pats the heavy pack on his back. “Hopefully this is all they had.”
“You think so?” John asks, not buying it.
“I don’t,” Platt says, “or it wouldn’t have been so easy to get.”
“Easy?” Reaper laughs, pointing to his bruised and cut face.
“We’re still alive, correct?” Platt asks. “Pull your panties out of your ass.”
“Yes, sir,” Reaper sneers.
“There should be one of Critter’s caches up ahead,” John says as he checks his compass. “Just over that ridge.”
The three Special Forces soldiers, what’s left of the elite ODA Team Cobra out of Fort Bragg, NC, begin yet another leg of their journey from Atlanta, GA. They’d left Asheville weeks ago, determined to get intel on what the group known as the Consortium was up to in good ol’ Hotlanta.
They found the intel they needed, which did not bode well for the residents of Asheville trying to put the pieces back together. And they found something else. Something they carry with them as they hurry to get back to the people they have sworn to protect.
If they can get past the thousands of Zs that choke I-26, spilling off into the side highways and environment beyond, that is.
They dodge a few rogue groups of Zs, choosing to evade instead of engage and possibly draw attention, and crest the ridge. They instantly hit the dirt, flattening themselves against the ridge line, hoping they haven’t already been spotted.
“Those aren’t Zs,” John says. He unslings his sniper rifle and puts it to his shoulder, his eye looking through the scope. One hundred mile per hour tape covers part of the front lens, keeping any sun flare on the scope from giving away their position. “I count, four, five, six men. Well armed, all watching the Zs carefully.”
“What the hell?” Reaper says. “Since when did Zs need chaperones?”
“Since they need to be herded in a specific direction,” Platt replies.
“So, what, they’re shepherds? Wranglers? Ranchers?” Reaper asks. “Jesus.”
“I can see black gunk smeared all over their clothes,” John says. “They’re using Z guts as sensory camouflage. Same as the security patrols in Atlanta.”
“Can we get down the ridge without them seeing?” Platt asks.
The Atlanta men are all standing on a high bridge spanning the French Broad River. The river flows down below the Z covered bridge as well as the ridge Platt and his men are perched on. John watches the men closely, gauging their attention to their surroundings coupled with the distance from the bridge to the ridge.
“Yeah,” John says, “they’re occupied with the Zs. With the gear they have, and the numbers of Zs they have, I doubt they’re worried about much other than staying stinky and keeping themselves from being eaten.”
“Good,” Platt nods, “we’re about to lose the sun. We need to get to the cache and down to the river as soon as the light is gone. We don’t have time to wait.”
John slings his rifle and slides after Platt and Reaper as they carefully navigate the hillside on the other side of the ridge. They get to a barely visible deer trail and silently make their way to a small outcropping of granite. John crawls underneath and then gives a short whistle as he shoves a good amount of deadfall towards Reaper and Platt.
The two men get down and crawl in behind John. Both are pleasantly surprised that they can stand up fully after only crawling a couple feet.
“Nice,” Reaper says. “Are those cots? Man, I could sleep for a year.”
“We all could,” Platt says, “But…”
“It’s not going to happen,” Reaper nods, “I know. Just dreaming.”
“Rafts,” Platt says. “Find those first. Then ammo, food, and water.”
“Water’s right here,” John says, tossing a bottle to Platt. “Looks like only a few MREs for food.”
“What flavors?” Reaper asks.
“Chicken lasagna,” John says.
“Pass,” Platt and Reaper say at the same time.
“Is it chicken lasagna that makes you crap so bad it comes out your pores?” John asks. Reaper nods. “Right. I’ll pass also.”
They stack three large, rubber cubes by the cache entrance then go back to add to their dwindling ammo.
“No magazines for my rifle,” John sighs. “I was worried about that.”
“How many rounds do you have?”Platt asks.
“Four full magazines,” John replies. “But I get twitchy when I have less than eight.”
“Understood,” Platt nods. “If you men are set then let’s move out.”
They gear up and exit the cache one at a time. John covers the entrance and let’s Reaper then Platt slide past him as he watches the men on the bridge with his scope. He waits as Platt and Reaper get all the way down to the riverbank before he slings his rifle and slides down after them.
A small copse of oaks give them enough cover to pull the tab and let one of the cubes auto-inflate into a six person raft. The hissing sound of air being sucked into the raft makes them all nervous, but John keeps his eye on the men up above. None seem to notice. It would take a lot to divert one’s attention from a massive herd of Zs.
They toss in the other two cubes and their packs, along with the heavy pack Platt has kept with him since Atlanta. Reaper starts to shove the raft off as Platt gets in then follows. John waits
until the last possible second and tumbles into the raft, coming up on his belly with his rifle resting on the side of the raft, aimed at the men on the bridge.
The raft drifts along the shallows for several yards before coming to a bend in the French Broad. Once the bridge is out of sight, John takes a deep breath and rolls onto his back.
“It’s 1930 right now,” Platt says, looking at his watch. “It’ll be close to 0400 before we get to the landing by Whispering Pines. You two grab some shuteye. I’ll keep an eye on the banks and wake John at 2130. Reaper, you have watch at 0100. Understood?”
“Understood,” Reaper says as he settles into the bottom of the raft.
“Got it,” John replies as he does the same.
It takes them both less than a minute to be sound asleep. As a Special Forces soldier you learn to sleep when you can, wherever you can.
Platt watches the ripples in the dark green water as his thoughts drift to the past few weeks of action.
The three of them set out to get some intel on the Consortium’s operations in Atlanta. Knowing what they were up against was the only way to know if they stood a chance. Sadly, what they found confirmed what he’d feared: they do not stand a chance.
Atlanta is surrounded by herd after herd after herd of Zs and all carefully contained and managed by several dozen armed keepers. Platt could easily tell the men and women weren’t military professionals, but they were tough and looked like they knew how to handle themselves in a fight. His guess? They cut their teeth in Atlanta’s deadly crime underground before Z-Day hit. After Z-Day, the weak were thinned out, just like everywhere else, leaving only those that would do anything they could to survive. And joining up with the Consortium was a good way to survive.
It took them a week of scouting just to find a weak point so they could get into Atlanta proper. What they found was not what Platt expected. He figured things would be organized, but would also look like a scene from the Road Warrior: desperate groups all co-mingling in order to stay alive just a few more days. That wasn’t the case.
Atlanta, at least the parts that were occupied and developed, was clean, orderly, and the picture of post-apocalyptic efficiency. Running water, solar and wind energy, neighborhood gardens and markets, even trash pickup in large, horse drawn carts. People seemed happy, people seemed content, people seemed satisfied with their lives.
But Platt was trained to look below the surface smiles and fake laughs. It didn’t take them long to discover that the order and efficiency was brutally enforced. Within a day, they saw their first public executions and by the end of the first week, they’d witnessed an entire family lynched because they were growing food in a spare bedroom without permission.
It took all his self-control and discipline to keep from gunning down the “security” men that tightened the nooses. He doubts he’ll ever get the faces of those children out of his mind.
By week three, they had been able to infiltrate a group of single men that stayed close to mid-town. A few bribes with some canned goods and pints of scotch they’d picked up on the trip down and they were given ID badges and assigned work duties, no questions asked. By the end of the fourth week, Reaper had gotten himself a position within the main medical center.
From there they learned that Atlanta was well aware of what was going on in Asheville and none too pleased with it. Officials from the Consortium spent a good amount of time in the medical center, keeping up with the constant breakouts of various diseases that occur when you pack a large population together while also controlling their food and water rations. Even despite the trash pickup, and running water, people were still undernourished and basic preventive medications and vaccines were completely depleted.
John was able to get in with the security team, which gave him access to the munitions dumps, various armories, and security barracks set up throughout the city. In days he had intel that Atlanta was planning a full on siege of Asheville. The only thing in Asheville’s favor, it seemed, was Atlanta’s overconfidence. There were plenty of loose lips ready to sink ships.
Even with all of the information they gathered, there wasn’t a sense of urgency until John came back to the small apartment the men shared with four others and dropped a bomb. A very dirty bomb.
“They have uranium,” John had whispered one night, “and they plan on using it.”
A dirty bomb, explosives wrapped about uranium that would explode and spread deadly radioactive materials for miles, was one way to kill Asheville. So Platt came up with a plan to relieve Atlanta of its dirty, little secret. It took them another two weeks to put the plan into place.
When the night came, the three men quickly figured out they weren’t as covert as they had thought. A security team was waiting for them. Unfortunately for those men, they didn’t have the SpecOps training that Platt, Reaper, and John did. It wasn’t an easy fight, but they were able to get the C4 encased uranium and get the hell out of Hotlanta.
But, as they found out, Atlanta had more than one trick up its sleeve.
And Platt can hear that trick moaning and groaning hundreds of feet up above the river.
Tired of running everything through his head, he stretches out in the raft and watches the tops of the trees sway in the evening breeze. He can’t see the interstate above, but the constant sounds of the Zs make it clear it isn’t too far off. If his memory serves him, they have quite a few miles of cover before they float back into sight of the highway. But by that time, it will be dark and the last thing the Z wranglers will be looking for is a raft floating the French Broad.
Or so he thinks.
The first flicker of light Platt sees near the shore he chalks up to a reflection from the endless amounts of mica rock that the Blue Ridge Mountains are made up of. The second flicker, only a few yards past the first one, makes him take notice. It is too uniform, too much of a coincidence, too similar to the flare off a scope.
“John, Reaper,” Platt whispers as he taps them with his boots, “Company.”
The men are trained professionals and they only open their eyes and neither moving a muscle to give away that they are awake and alert.
“Numbers?” John asks.
“At least two,” Platt says as he eases the barrel of his rifle up onto the side of the raft. “But let’s assume there’s more.”
Platt lets out a quiet laugh as he glances down at John. The hope is that it makes him look like he is casually joking around and not scanning the surroundings out of the corner of his eye. It is obvious the rouse doesn’t work when a loud cough is accompanied by the sound of a bullet whizzing past Platt’s ear.
“Fuck,” Platt snaps, “suppressors. We’re in the shit, boys!”
Both Reaper and John roll up to the side of the raft, their rifles ready, but they hold their fire.
“Where am I looking?” John asks.
“Two o’clock and about ten yards down from that,” Platt says, his finger on the trigger, ready to return fire. He has no plans just to start shooting, not until he knows for certain where the targets are.
John dials in his scope and watches the tree line by the riverbank. “Got one,” he says.
“Take him,” Platt orders.
John squeezes the trigger and his rifle barks. A man cries out and then all the shit hits all the fans at once.
Bullets from at least six automatic rifles tear up low hanging branches and vines along the riverside. The water is puckered by slugs as the shooters begin gauging the distance from shore to raft. John answers the gunfire, taking careful aim as he sights on the various muzzle flashes that come from the shadows of the riverbank.
Platt and Reaper don’t bother with John’s finesse and let loose with their M-4s. More men cry out, but the gunfire doesn’t slacken, telling the men that there are more than just six shooters.
The raft hisses once then twice as it is punctured by gunfire. Platt calculates that they have about ten minutes before they take on water and have to swim for it. When a third
hiss starts, he tosses all calculations out the window and concentrates on his return fire. Which lasts all of eight seconds before two slugs rip into him.
“Fuck!” he shouts as pain explodes in his left shoulder and then deep into his chest. He keeps firing for as long as he can before the wounds force him to let go of his rifle and slide down to the bottom of the raft.
“Sergeant?” Reaper shouts. “What’s your status?”
“Left shoulder…is ground meat,” Platt says as he struggles for breath. “Also pretty sure…a…slug entered through my…shoulder and hit…my left…lung.”
“Fucking fuck shit,” John says. “They’re moving back into the shadows too far. I’m losing them.”
He nails three more men before he rolls and ducks down into the raft with Platt. Reaper joins them and they cover their heads as bullets continue to puncture the raft again and again.
“Sergeant?” Reaper asks. “Talk to me.”
“No,” Platt gasps. “Hurts…too…much.”
“Good,” Reaper says, “that means you’re still alive. Focus on that pain. FUCK!”
He clamps a hand to his ear then pulls it back to see the palm covered in blood.
“Fucker took off the top of your ear!” John shouts. He grabs Reaper’s M-4 and pops up, emptying the magazine at the riverbank. “FUCK OFF!”
He can hear the bullets, and feel their heat, but none of the enemy slugs hit home. By the time he’s emptied a second magazine the gunfire from the tree line stops. The damaged raft floats around a wide curve and the landscape changes as the river cuts through a large ravine. John listens closely, but can’t hear the sound of Zs anymore.
“We’ve pulled away from the interstate,” he says. “I don’t think they can follow us for now. The sides are too steep.”
“Get us to shore,” Reaper says, his hands pressing a pack of gauze against Platt’s shoulder. “I need space to work and we need a new raft.”
John grabs the small paddle and steers them to the side of the ravine. As soon as the riverbank turns back to mud and sand instead of sheer rock, he paddles them over and hops out, pulling them up onto shore.
