I started travelling back west, heading toward the town, keeping us on the path we had created. I passed barricade after barricade, and the horde kept coming. Duncan and Charlie kept waving their assets and singing their songs. It was a slow ride since we had to stay within sight of the leaders, who led the rest of the horde. It was a funny thing about zombies. When one or two wandered off from a group, the rest tended to follow. I’m sure we could turn this entire group if we drove around to the north and headed that way.
But that wasn’t getting rid of the problem, just moving it in a different direction. We had a chance here to get rid of a lot of zombies with minimal contact. That, of course, assumed that everything went exactly as planned.
We reached the outskirts of the city, and I began to see the snipers on the roofs. I realized I had forgotten to mention that to the rest of the commanders and also to Charlie and Duncan. So as we drove in, the watchers on the roofs got a good view of how Duncan and Charlie were enticing the zombies.
Tommy had another concern. “Aren’t you freezing your asses off? Literally?” he yelled out the window.
Duncan replied by thumping a cadence on the truck roof. “Yes! Yes, I am!”
Charlie suddenly poked his head around to my window. “Are those our people on the roofs?” he asked.
“Must be zombies we missed,” I lied cheerfully.
Charlie looked up. “You fucker. Zombies don’t carry rifles.” He started to pull up his pants.
“Sure they do.” I laughed. “You want to tell Duncan?”
“Hell, no.”
Duncan figured it out a couple blocks later when a trio of zombies came out of a building, and in the time it took to say ‘How do you do?’ all three were down with head shots. I had to give the marksmen credit. Hitting a moving target at a hundred yards or more at a downward angle was tough to do. But then, they trained for that sort of thing so they were probably bored with it. Duncan scrambled to pull his pants up when he heard the shots.
The zombies following us were fully invested in our deaths and came on regardless. Tommy called on the radio to an observer, and he confirmed that the majority of the horde was on the road, funneling into the city.
I was feeling a little more hopeful when fate decided to intervene. As we passed taller and taller buildings, a small group of people suddenly burst out of a building. They obviously had been holed up there for a while judging by their looks, and they must have hid during our initial sweeps. I couldn’t blame them for that. I could blame them for their really lousy sense of timing.
“Are you kidding me?” Tommy said.
“I wish,” I said. “I can’t stop, and that horde will stop if there’s a ready meal.”
“I got it.” Tommy got out of the truck and ran towards the group. I could see him waving his hands and pointing at the horde which was steadily advancing. There were seven people in that group, and three of them were little kids. This was going to be horrible if they were the stupid kind of survivor.
Fortunately for Tommy, they were the smarter kind, and Tommy took them over to a barricade that blocked the side road. There he passed the kids over to our people who were waiting on the other side. We had people at every barricade just in case a zombie strayed off the beaten path. In this instance we were saving lives, not ending them.
I kept driving, and we slowly passed the place where the others had escaped. I knew the zombies had seen them, too, so we had to get their attention again.
“Better show your ass!” I yelled, thumping on the roof.
“Son of a bitch,” Charlie said.
He knew as well as I did that every rifleman on the roof would be watching us with a scope and probably radioing their friends on the ground. I was so glad I was driving.
Charlie and Duncan started their routine again, although this time they showed their chests and stomachs by lifting their shirts. It was almost as funny as them mooning the Z’s.
The zombies got interested again, and we moved deeper into the city, passing the capital building. I noticed as we passed that the signs of battle were more pronounced around legislative buildings. I wasn’t going to waste my time trying to figure out why.
I approached a heavy barricade and knew it was time to turn. This was a dangerous time. We had to let the zombies get close enough so they would follow us around the turn and not get bogged down and stop. If that happened, we just let thousands of zombies into the city with no true way to contain them. The barricades were more for keeping the zombies from seeing anything more interesting than us. With the numbers they had, they could easily push the cars out of the way.
I slowed down and Charlie and Duncan stayed well away from the back of the truck. They both drew their pistols in case the leaders got too close. I stuck my head out of the window to see clearly how close they were. I didn’t trust the mirrors to be as accurate as my own eyes.
The zombies got closer and the lead ones reached out. They were in pretty bad shape, having changed to a light grey color. Their eyes were huge and their nostrils were flared; a sure sign they were in full hunt and kill mode. The ones on the edge of the path started crowding towards the center and there was a lot of jostling going around. A couple stumbled, but the rest flowed around until they were on their feet.
That was telling. These had learned to avoid obstacles, so they wouldn’t be fooled by chairs and desks. I made a mental note to let Charlie and Duncan know if they hadn’t seen what I did.
“John! Getting a little close here!” Duncan said, raising his gun.
“Almost there!” I had to make sure the whole front turned. “Come on, come on…” I said to myself.
Finally, the whole front turned, and we headed up Broadway. From there, we had to make another turn onto 17th street. This was when it got tricky. We needed to leave the truck and start luring the horde on foot. The building was right in front me, and I drove a little faster to get the truck out of the way.
The building was the Republic Plaza and our people had spent all of yesterday and today getting it ready. The building was chosen because it has two stairwells; one on the north side and one on the south side. We had just finished the work in the stairwells when the horde had arrived. Duncan had spent most of the night working there as well, and we were hoping it would work as planned. If not, we had a backup plan.
“You ready for this?” Charlie asked as he jumped off the back of the truck.
“I have no problem with climbing a fifty-six story building, but the second part scares the shit out of me,” I said, making sure I had my carabiners.
“Tommy said they tested it twice, and everything held,” Duncan said, adjusting a small pack on his hip.
“That’s still a thousand feet of a whole lot to go wrong,” I said.
“We have no other option,” Charlie said. “And we have no more time.” He pointed at the huge crowd of zombies walking their way towards us. Every single one was staring right at us, which was a good sign.
I jumped in the air and waved my arms to make sure I had the attention of some of the middle ones so they could keep the ones behind them moving. As a group, they all managed to groan at the same time, and in the plaza space, that was an echo I really didn’t need.
“Let’s go, keep it steady!” I said. I pulled both my knives and started walking away. I needed them to keep following.
Duncan, for his part, decided to play the scared victim. He kept wringing his hands and looking over his shoulder, letting the zombies get close before screaming and running away. He had his knife out as well, and held a smaller version of his war hammer in his other hand. Charlie, of course, had his tomahawk and would have looked weird with anything else.
We walked through the front door, and marveled for a moment at the three-story marble foyer. Charlie led the way to the open stairwell, and we walked the zombies across the huge space into the stairs. There was a bit of a jam up at the door, but the zombies kept coming.
Charlie went up three flights of
stairs and then got out on the fourth floor. Duncan stayed at the door and screamed a few times, getting some decent groans in return. We zig-zagged across the floor, trying to get as many zombies into the building as possible before we went to the next floor.
On and on we went up; drawing the zombies on and on. We started to give the ones closest to us names, they were with us for so long.
“Come on Fred, you’re doing great!”
“Groan.”
“Lucy, you’re keeping up, good girl!”
“Groan. Groan.”
On and up we went. We got a nasty surprise on the thirtieth floor. Someone must have left a lunch in the staff fridge, and it literally had taken over the entire appliance. The smell was worse, and by the time we were at the other stairs, I think even the Z’s were gagging.
On some of the floors, there were corpses piled in the corners. Our people had obviously encountered some office workers on some serious overtime.
We were on the fortieth floor when I called out to one of the commanders.
“What’s the situation like down there, Steve?” I asked, stepping away from Lucy’s embrace.
“You’re doing great, John. About half of them are in. Some are starting to wander, but we took care of them quietly,” Steve said.
“All right. We’re about fifteen floors from the top. Time to pull your people out. Talon out,” I said.
“Roger. Carmine out.”
I didn’t bother to relay the news to Charlie and Duncan; they were still right next to me.
We reached the fifty-fifth floor after what seemed like forever. In fact, it was probably more like three or four hours. This was the time we left the zombies to their own devices and got the hell out of there.
One of the windows had been smashed open, and cold air smacked us in the face. Out across the city was another skyscraper, and we had attached a steel cable from the fifty-fifth floor of this building to the fifty-second floor of the other building. We got the cable from a ski resort just outside of the city; the ski lift wasn’t using the cable anyway. It was looped around one of the center columns in this building and around a center column in the other building.
Charlie lifted himself up to the cable and attached the carabiners which were hooked into his belt. He shimmied a little, then gravity took over, and he sped off towards the tan building.
We waited a moment, then Duncan climbed up the same way, and he sped off towards the other building, laughing his fool head off the whole way.
I was about to climb aboard when a groan stopped me. Two zombies were headed my way and they would reach me before I could get moving.
“Shit!” I snapped the carabiners onto the cable and whipped my belt off. I slipped the belt through the metal and wrapped it around my wrists a few times as I ran towards the opening. A putrid hand reached out and caressed my shoulder as I swung out into space.
My hands were burning and my wrists felt worse as I slid along the cable. Looking down, I could see a lot of zombies around the base of the building, and they were still moving into the plaza. There were about two or three thousand outside the building, but that was a much better number to deal with. Looking back, I could see a few falling out of the window as they tried to follow me out onto the cable. I felt myself picking up speed, and the building was suddenly getting very large. I didn’t know how to slow down, so I just let myself race along, figuring I’d stop when I reached the other building. I couldn’t exactly let go where I was.
As I approached, I saw Charlie and Duncan waiting for me and the look on Duncan’s face was priceless as I let go of my belt and used him to stop me.
“Wow,” I said. “I hope I never have to do that again.”
“Once is enough. Now get off me,” Duncan said.
“Time to blow it, Duncan,” Charlie said.
Duncan nodded and pulled a small detonator from his pack. It had come with the explosives, so I knew it should work. While the crews were clearing out the building and getting the cable and stairwells ready, Duncan was planting the mining explosives he had found. If they were good enough to blow through granite, then they should be able to take out the supports of the building we had lured the zombies into.
Duncan entered the key code, got the green light, then pressed the small red square button.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but I sure was expecting something more than nothing.
Charlie must have felt the same way I did.
“Umm, Duncan?”
Duncan shrugged. “Maybe we’re too far away. We are four blocks away and fifty stories in the air.”
“Good point. Let’s try to get back to street level and try it from there,” Charlie said. “What’s plan B?”
Duncan took that one. “I also wired the explosives to another detonator, and that one is hardwired so there won’t be any signal problems. Trouble is, that one will require us to be a lot closer to the blast and the collapsing building.”
“Christ. We’ll have to run some more?” Charlie said. “We just went up fifty flights of stairs and are about to go down another fifty. What’s plan C?”
“Somehow we get close and set the building on fire,” Duncan said.
“Well, that’s something,” Charlie said.
We found the stairs and raced down, trying not to trip over each other as we went down floor by floor. It was a heck of a lot easier than going up, but our legs were still burning by the time we got to the street.
My radio was barking at me as well.
“Sir! John! Are you there? There hasn’t been an explosion, are you there? Is everything okay?”
“I’m here,” I said. “We just reached the street. We may have been too far for detonation. Hang on. Talon out.”
We ran up 18th street back to Broadway. The roads were cleared of any zombies, but there were still cars and trucks and debris of all kinds littering the streets. We had to climb the barricade to the other side of Broadway to get to 17th street, and then we had to be very careful because we were just around the corner from the two or three thousand zombies Steve had mentioned when he reported in. Maybe they had moved inside, but I wasn’t betting on that kind of luck.
Duncan pulled his detonator out again and re-entered the code. The light went green, and he pressed the red button again.
Nothing.
“Well, at least we have a plan B. Where’s the hard wire?” Charlie asked.
“Wait a minute,” Duncan said. “I’m missing something. Something about three seconds.”
“Three seconds?” Charlie asked. “Like, in three seconds we’re going to have zombies so far up our asses they’ll pick our teeth three seconds?”
“Easy,” I said. Charlie threw me a look but I returned it and he calmed down.
“Try again, Duncan. What about the three seconds?” I asked.
Duncan hit the code again, and when the light turned green he waited three seconds before pressing the red button.
Nothing.
“God dammit!” Charlie said. “Can’t we ever get a goddamned break?”
“Maybe not,” I said. “Duncan, where are the wires?”
“One last time,” Duncan said. He entered the code, then held the red button down for three seconds.
The ground suddenly shook beneath our feet, and as I looked up at the building, I swear I saw the whole thing shiver for a second. The light reflecting off the windows shimmered and danced and then was still.
“Well, it blew, anyway,” Duncan said.
Charlie held a hand up to shield his eyes. “Guys? Am I getting taller?”
“Uh, no,” I said.
“Then that building is falling down! Run!” Charlie yelled.
We bolted for the barricade and literally dived over it. The low rumble we started to hear quickly became a deafening roar as the building collapsed and fell. I didn’t waste any time looking back; we just ran to put some distance between us and the coming calamity. Three blocks up and we dove around the corner of a
building. I smashed the window of a bookstore and we ducked inside. Luckily for us, we didn’t find anything dead in there. Luckily for them, we didn’t find them in there.
There was an enormous crash, and the floor shook, knocking books off shelves and causing ceiling tiles to fall. Suddenly, there was a huge cloud of dust and debris that filled the street and pushed its way into the store. We pulled up our bandanas and slipped our goggles on as the choking cloud got thicker and thicker. At one point, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. If we’d had been closer, that cloud would likely have killed us.
After what seemed like a choking eternity, I stepped up out of the bookstore and went to survey the damage. A cloud of dust hung heavy in the air, and I was grateful for the goggles I wore. I wrapped my head with the bandanna; the mist from my breath was already turning the dust on my cover to mud. I couldn’t risk breathing in this, so we had to get away.
I waved the other two outside, and we walked away from the site of the building collapse instead of towards it. If I went there now, I would need some kind of breathing apparatus, and there weren’t many of those back at camp.
No one spoke as we approached clearer air. Once we could actually see the sun, we took off our muddy bandanas.
“Hey, look,” Duncan said. He was pointing to a storefront that wasn’t smashed, and the three of us caught our reflection.
Every inch was covered in a thick layer of dust from the very tips of our hair down to the soles of our boots. Our faces were cleared only where the goggles had covered our eyes, and our mouths were smeared and muddy.
“Holy hell,” Charlie said.
“Yeah,” I said.
We looked back occasionally and were stunned that we managed to bring down a building.
“What kind of explosive was it?” I asked.
“Not really sure,” Duncan said, pausing to cough a little. “The package said ANFO, whatever that means. Four ounces was supposed to be good for three square feet of solid rock.”
“How much did you use?”
“About ten pounds, give or take a pound. Those were some thick columns down there, and I put it on all four sides,” Duncan said.
The Zombie Wars: We All Fall Down (The White Flag series Book 9) Page 16
