“We’ve got about fifty people in here. Hold on, I have to get the boards away from the door.” We heard the sound of a screwdriver working screws out of the boards, and in a few minutes, we were looking at a lot of people streaming out of the house. They looked around at their fellow townspeople and several went over to possible relatives and knelt beside them.
The man who Duncan had been communicating with stepped out and shook our hands, but we couldn’t stay for pleasantries. There was another group of zombies we had to deal with, and that group was larger than these two combined.
Chapter 53
We moved to the center of town and saw about thirty zombies attacking what looked like the town hall. It was a building that was roughly square, but built low to the ground, so there were a lot of easily accessible windows. The trouble was the windows were such that you could only open then half way, and the people inside couldn’t effectively kill the zombies that were clamoring around the place. They had the tools to do it, from what I could see, but they didn’t have the room to swing. They did the next best thing, which was just to push the zombies away from getting into the windows. Trouble was, every time they pushed one away, another took its place.
We parked the vehicles and got out carefully. Several zombies noticed us, so it was just a matter of time before we were under attack. We couldn’t use our rifles, since the bullets had a really good chance of hitting a window and killing someone on the inside, which would kind of defeat the purpose.
“All right. Here they come. You want to take them on as a group or split up?” I asked, taking out my pickaxe. For this kind of crowd, I wanted one-shot stops and the pick always delivered.
Charlie looked the crowd over. “Let’s just charge them, and when we’ve hit the end of the first wave, regroup and do it again.”
“Last one to the zombies is a mangy stray!” I called out as we all ran towards the oncoming zombies. There was about ten of them that had split from the main group, and they were strung out in a ragged line as they advanced.
We ran right at them and Charlie was first in kills. He cut down a middle-aged woman who was lurching on a broken ankle, and Duncan was next with a kill on a tall zombie. He looked really cool doing it, as he jumped up and used his sword to hack the zombie’s head in half.
I walked right up to a man whose arms were covered in bites and tears, and smashed his head in without breaking stride. Sarah tripped up her zombie before killing it, and Rebecca finessed a knife stab right between the eyes of the one that confronted her.
Tommy had two come at him, and he slipped right between them both. When they turned and bumped into each other, they were confused enough to give him a second to shove his knife into the back of the head of one, then he kicked the other over and spiked its head as well.
Charlie killed another two, and I added one to my score as well. Duncan cut the legs off on another, and managed to lop its head off as it fell.
“I think Duncan wins for coolest kill,” Tommy said.
“I’d have to agree, that was pretty awesome,” I said.
“Here they come again,” Charlie said. “And yeah, that was well done.”
Duncan just smiled as Sarah and Rebecca rolled their eyes.
We killed the next group, and the next, and then spent the next few minutes going around and killing the zombies that were preoccupied with fighting the people inside the building. There was a moment when a person inside the building accidentally poked Tommy, but other than that, we had no injuries.
Once the people inside realized the danger was over, they came outside and looked over the carnage. There were a lot of sad moments, especially when people went over to their relatives and friends.
I found a man standing apart and approached him to see if he had any answers.
“Hey. You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, thanks. Thanks for your help. We kind of had a standoff there.”
“What happened? Do you know?” I wanted to make sure I was chasing the same ghosts I had been chasing for the last four days.
The man shook his head. “Not really sure. We’d gone to bed like we’d done for a while, and then suddenly there was a general alarm that we had zombies coming up from the south. Standard procedure was to retreat to the hall and we’d talk care of it from there.” He looked around. “Sure didn’t see this coming.”
“What time did they hit you?” I was curious to see how far ahead of us they were.
“Can’t say, maybe around two or three in the morning.” The man clearly wasn’t sure, but it did tell me that our little group had gotten ahead of us again and we were chasing their tails.
“All right, we’ll get out of your way. You have a lot to do.” I signaled to my crew and we met back at the rear of the pickup.
“They got hit early this morning, which makes sense if they got past us around midnight. If I was paranoid, I’d say these attacks were just meant to slow us down, but that’s giving a lot of credit to the zombies,” I said.
“Maybe that’s the problem,” Sarah said.
“What is?” Asked Rebecca, who was cleansing her weapon.
“Maybe we’re not giving them enough credit. If we treated them like they were fully functioning humans, then we’d stop being surprised at what they do and get down to stopping them.” Sarah replied.
I had to admit it made sense. “Well, then we need to figure out how they are traveling. Where’s that map?” I rummaged around, pulled out the map, and gave it to Tommy. “Here’s your job. Look at the map, check every spot we’ve had contact with the zombies, and then tell me what the connection is. What do they have in common?”
“Gee, that’s all?” Tommy asked, but he looked at the map with interest.
“What’s our next move?” Charlie asked.
“We won’t know for sure until they strike again, but we’ll head east, keeping an eye on getting home. The army shouldn’t be too far behind.”
Duncan piped up. “Actually, I just heard their chatter on the radio and they’re ahead of us. Colonel Freeman decided to keep moving and set up a block on the Mississippi. Nothing will get past him there, he swears it.”
I tried to believe him, but I knew unless we pinned down how they were traveling, we’ lose them again and again. My mind spun over the possibilities, and for some reason I thought back to the little iron balls we dug out of the feet of that little zombie. I had a hunch they were important, but I sure couldn’t figure out how.
Chapter 54
We left Batavia behind and sped down 34. Thirty miles later, we were on the south end of New London. Duncan reported a small outbreak there, but they had contained it pretty quickly, only losing one person. Apparently, that person had taken a walk by themselves and our friends set upon them. It had happened within the last hour, so we were catching up.
Fifteen miles brought us to the outskirts of Burlington, where we caught up with Colonel Freeman. He had placed his men all along the river, each one heavily armed and ready to go. They were about twenty yards apart, and covered a good distance. The trucks and vehicles had been used to block the road that crossed the Mississippi, and another group of men was sent north to cover the crossing at Muscatine. A third group was sent to Fort Madison to cover the crossing to the south, so there was no place for the zombies to go. Unless they got here ahead of Freeman, I didn’t see how we could miss them.
We parked our vehicles on the 34 bridge and stood with Colonel Freeman. We couldn’t do anything except wait, but I figured we would be seeing something soon. The little bastards had to be very close. I felt like they were very close. I kept my rifle close, and then assured that all my magazines were full and within easy reach. Everyone else was armed as well, and we fidgeted with little to do. The only one of us that was occupied was Tommy, who was staring intently at the map, trying to find a connection.
Suddenly he shouted. “Railroad!”
“What?” We all kind of jumped, and I was the only one who spoke.
> “The railway! That’s how they’re traveling! Look!” Tommy brought the map over and showed us the connections he had made. “All I did was draw straight lines between the attacks and looked for a connection. I knew the roads were out since we had already covered those, so I looked for something that connected them in another way. That’s how they got past us at Ottumwa. No one had covered the railroad bridge. All of the towns that were attacked had a railway connection.”
“Well done, sir, well done.” Colonel Freeman was congratulating Tommy along with the rest of the crew. I started to, but something caught my eye. I walked over to the side of the bridge and stared intently to the south.
Sarah and Charlie came over and Sarah put a hand on mine. “Tommy figured it out, John. Now we know how they’re moving. John, are you listening?”
I continued to stare, and pointed to the south.
Charlie looked, and cursed.
“What is it?” Sarah asked.
“It’s a railroad bridge across the river.” As I looked, several small forms raced across the bridge, disappearing into the trees on the other side.
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah. They’ve crossed. They’re in Illinois.”
The End
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Read on for a free sample of Machines of the Dead by David Bernstein
Chapter 1
“Damn it,” Dr. Reynolds said when he looked through the glass into the containment room. Homeless person number 14 was dead, the bots taking too much of the man’s energy, sucking him down to almost nothing more than a husk.
“I don’t understand why the programming isn’t working,” he said, and hit the kill switch, filling the containment room with enough electromagnetic energy to wipe out a small town’s electrical equipment. “The bots worked perfectly in the rats.”
“Sir,” said Dr. Chan, his assistant. “The human brain is just too complex. Maybe we—”
“Maybe we what, tell the military that their project is too much for us? That they should find another company to work on this project? We’ll just give back the millions upon millions we’ve been funded, and say sorry.”
Dr. Chan sighed and looked down. “I’ll have more test subjects rounded up. The city’s full of them.”
“Get on that; tell Chambers I want at least twenty—no, thirty.”
“Thirty? Sir that’s too many at one time. We’ve never—”
“I need to be alone,” Dr. Reynolds said, cutting his assistant off.
“I’ll take lunch then,” Chan said, and left the control room.
When the military first approached him, Dr. Eugene Reynolds had thought it a good thing. Now he wasn’t so sure. What if he couldn’t deliver? What would they do to him? Would he ever be able to work again, or would his reputation be ruined? None of that mattered, because he was going to make the project work; give the government what they wanted. He had never failed before and he wasn’t about to now. With thirty more subjects coming in, plus the ten he had left, he would be able to get the bots to work. He had to.
Sitting down at his computer, he began to re-work the nano’s interface module. He needed stronger bots, and ones that required less host-energy.
Chapter 2
Derek Mayfield had been living on the streets of New York City for ten years, having spent time in almost every burrow. At the age of fifteen, he was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, and under his parents’ medical insurance, he received the proper care and medication for him to maintain a normal lifestyle.
At the age of nineteen, he fell in love with Clare Schmidt, a waitress and recreational drug user. Together, they partied at night and on their days off from work; it was a twenty-four hour party. Marijuana and beer were the drugs of choice, until one day, they decided to try cocaine. From that day forward, it was the hard narcotics: cocaine, speed, meth, and heroin.
Off his meds, Derek experienced major mood swings. They could occur at any moment and anywhere. After Clare died from an overdose, Derek spiraled further down the path of destruction. One day, while arguing with his parents over money, he snapped and killed them both.
Since that night, he had been living on the streets, hiding from the cops and society. His weight had dropped to half of what it used to be; he was dirty and had a full, scruffy beard. He was always looking to score, and one day a large, well-built man came to him, offering him a job.
“Work for you?” he asked the big guy. “I thought you brought me to this back alley because you wanted me to blow you.”
The big man smiled, but something about his smile bothered Derek, making his blood feel as if it had turned into ice.
“I work for a pharmaceutical company,” the big guy said.
Derek’s eyes lit up at hearing the word pharmaceutical.
He was in.
“My boss,” the big fellow continued, “is looking for test subjects. Former drug users, current drug users, and whatnot.”
“What do I gotta do, suck his dick?”
The big man laughed. “No, no. Nothing like that. He needs people willing to go around the bureaucratic tape, the paperwork. Things get done much faster that way. Course it’s all off the record. We keep our mouths shut, and you do the same.”
“How long is the job?”
“Should be no more than a few days and while you’re staying with us, you’ll be fed, bathed, and given whatever you need.” The big man held up a small baggie filled with white nose candy. Derek reached out, grabbed the coke and held it close to his chest. “And you’ll earn a thousand bucks, cash.”
What did he have to lose?
Now, sitting in his room five stories below Manhattan, in an underground bunker, Derek started to feel as if he were in withdrawal. He was antsy and needed a fix. The small room was too claustrophobic. It made him angry. Made him wonder why he was there in the first place. Who were the rich assholes who needed him? How much were they going to make off him?
He deserved more than a grand.
Derek closed his eyes and began smacking himself upside the head until he felt right again. Truth was he needed the money. Didn’t everyone need money? He’d been allowed to take numerous showers. The hot water was something he had longed for, and he was fed and clothed, just as the big guy promised. He could do this, whatever it was. If all they wanted were samples of his blood, they could have them. Shit, they could keep on having them if he could stay here. His brain was so fucked up. He needed meds. Fuck that. Meds turned him into someone else. He needed drugs, the kind he could use to leave the world and enter the land of ecstasy. Once he got paid, he would go out and celebrate in style. Get the good stuff, not that shitty crank he had to settle for on the streets. Maybe, he would even find a woman.
Okay, he could do this. Let them take whatever they wanted from him. A little blood, sure. Some skin, sure. He had done way worse, for far less. Nasty things with nasty people. He should count his blessings and enjoy himself. If only his head wasn’t so fucked up.
Sitting on his bed, he waited for his turn in the lab.
An hour later, a doctor entered his room.
“Hello, Mr. Mayfield,” the man said. “My name’s Doctor Chan. How are we doing today?”
Scratching his head and twitching, Derek said, “Good. I’m doing good.”
Chan looked at him curiously. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. What have you got for me, Doc?”
“I’m going to give you a very mild sedative, so that when we bring you to the lab, you won’t be as jumpy.”
“I like sedatives. It’s a good idea. I’m a little nervous.”
“Oh, this is nothing really. I doubt you’ll notice a thing, and as far as being nervous, don’t be. All we’re going to do is x-ray your body, take some blood and skin samples and send you on your way.”
“Sounds good, Doc.” Derek held out his arms. “Pick one.”
The doctor approached him, held onto the left arm and injected him with the syringe he w
as holding. “Okay,” he said, “all done.”
“I’ll just lay back and enjoy . . . I mean, wait for you to come back.”
“Relax, Mr. Mayfield. You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Chan said, then walked out of the room and closed the door. Derek heard the lock click and jumped.
“Fuck,” he said. Why were they locking him in? Precautionary, that’s all, he thought. He laid back and tried to relax, let the drug take effect. However, after a few minutes, he felt the same. He wondered what the hell was going on. He’d been on plenty of sedatives and whatever they had given him, sure wasn’t one.
Shit. They were screwing with him.
Sitting up, his heart racing, he looked around the almost barren room. Cameras! They must have cameras and were watching him to see how he would react. But why?
He searched the room, looking in the corners, under the bed, and along the walls. Nothing; he found nothing. Shit. He was just being paranoid, allowing his condition to get the best of him. If only he had a hit of something, something to calm him down, because whatever they had given him was total bullshit. Maybe, he shouldn’t have lied on the form he filled out and informed them that he was bi-polar, and a heavy drug user, instead of just a recreational one. Maybe then, they would have given him a stronger dose of sedative.
Relax, he told himself, as he paced frantically. All they wanted was some of his stuff, blood and skin, then he was free to leave. Wait, the doctor didn’t mention the money. What if that was a lie. What if there was no money. What if this place was one big sex house and they were slowly dosing him so that he wouldn’t remember getting raped? No, he was being ridiculous. Damn it.
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