by J. W. Vohs
The small skyline of downtown Fort Wayne was silhouetted by the growing light in the east as Luke, Bobby, and Marcus continued their rapid paddling in search of the main force. Finally, mercifully, they saw the boats resting along the bank below a large bridge several hundred yards upstream at the same time they heard a rumbling to the west that heralded the approach of the train from The Castle. Somehow the three exhausted soldiers found the strength to make a final push toward their friends and reached the troops gathered below the bridge just before the train came into view. David and Chad had been alerted to the canoe’s arrival and waited at the water’s edge for the team’s report. Luke quietly slipped over the gunwale of the boat as it entered the shallows and allowed the two commanders to pull him up onto the shore where he breathlessly explained, “The choppers have herded over twenty-thousand infected into this city! Our radio was dead. You’ve gotta warn Jack that he’s rolling into the middle of a zombie army.”
The train was slowly rolling to its stopping point when Carter found Jack and told him the information that David had just radioed in. The tracks lay on the northern edge of the downtown district, and when Jack took a quick look out of a window facing toward the heart of the city he could see hundreds of hunters slowly making their way out of the buildings they’d taken refuge in the night before and shuffling toward the loud machine that might indicate the presence of food. Jack immediately told Carter, “Take the troops you led west and join up with Hiram. I need half of his men to keep a corridor open to the bridge, but you two need to use the rest of his force to hold the train until we get all the refugees out. Get up on top of the cars and hold off those hunters like you did in Illinois. We have to evacuate all of our people from the train before we’re overrun!”
Carter didn’t hesitate before rushing off to follow the commands, while Jack grabbed Andi and told her to inform everyone they would be immediately leaving the train. She had taken a good long look outside and guessed what they were facing. She shakily observed, “The original plan is screwed! We need to pack all of our people onto the bridge and protect them from both ends. We can probably hold our position forever with fifty soldiers; then you can use the rest to fight your way to the water treatment building.”
Jack could only shake his head in wonder in spite of the dire circumstances. “I thought you were a history teacher?”
She flipped down her visor and yelled through the plastic, “Damn right, and I know how many battles have been lost because the flanks weren’t secured. The bridge is perfect for that: then we only have to defend a narrow front on either end.”
Jack gave Andi’s shoulder a quick squeeze before running over to the radio as the train slowed to a crawl. He shouted to David, “Keep all your people on this side of the river. I’ll lead a group through your lines to fortify the other side, and we’ll hold the bridge together. You’re gonna have to help the Utah troops hold an escape corridor to the train open, but as soon as our people are safely on the bridge pull back and establish a defensive line. And be ready to reinforce my side; I think we’re gonna need the help.”
David acknowledged the order and immediately informed his team leaders of the change in plans, then he watched as everyone began to make their way to the southern end of the bridge above. Luke found Gracie, along with Lieutenant Heder, and they joined Christy as she helped David climb the rocky slope with his still-healing broken ribs. They could hear the howls of the hunters ringing out over the sound of the train coming to a halt. They knew they were headed into another desperate battle, but all of them were thankful to march into the fight together again.
Jack watched David’s force swarm up from the river-bottom to take control of the southern end of the bridge with great relief as he leapt from the train and ordered the Utah troops waiting outside his boxcar to form two columns and hook up with the soldiers from Ohio. This was accomplished in less than sixty seconds, after which Jack personally led ten hand-picked fighters from The Castle through the battle-lines to where they were to establish their defensive position on the other side of the river. David watched his brother trot by, and after looking at the area near that end of the bridge and seeing the packs of hunters moving about, he worried that the small team would need more support. “Luke, take the rest of our people and follow Jack. I saw Lori, Blake, and Sal with him, and I want you all to stay together. I’ll be all right here. Get going”
The noise of combat around the train began to attract hunters that had been lurking in the vicinity of the Headwaters buildings Jack needed to take immediate possession of in order to provide his people with safe-houses. Dozens of the creatures had apparently been rooting along the riverbank, probably watching their vile brethren across the water devour the cattle that had been provided for their sustenance until they were led to the next settlement to attack. Jack quickly realized that he and his soldiers were in for a fight, as every hunter who’d been unable to discover the bridge at the tip of the peninsula and use it to join the feast in the downtown area was hungry, angry, and now had a target for its frustration.
When Jack led his squad of soldiers past Luke and the others, the teen noticed that all of the fighters carried extra shields with them, which had become standard practice for troops from The Castle. Though fighting with the protective devices had yet to be experienced, the common perception was that some hunters would learn to grab the shields and pull them away, so extras were to be carried into a fight as emergency replacements. In this battle shields would be used by Luke, and the soldiers following him, to reinforce Jack. They all picked up one of the large, plastic discs before joining the line facing the packs of hunters heading their way.
Luke, Marcus, and Bobby jostled their way into the front rank by pushing Andi, Lori, and Maddy into the second line. This wasn’t a sexist maneuver, they were simply the following the doctrine being developed for combat within the shield walls when battling the infected. The strongest soldiers present in any fight were supposed to stand shoulder to shoulder and use brute force to hold back the flesh-eaters, while the troops behind them would use halberds and spears for piercing and crushing monster skulls.
Luke found himself on Jack’s right, with Zach Kinstler on the teen’s other side. What had seemed to be a manageable number of infected a few minutes earlier had quickly morphed into several hundred famished hunters charging as packs against the humans on the bridge. Jack had wisely chosen to form his defensive line at a point where water flowed under the structure they were standing upon. This position greatly narrowed the length of the front they needed to defend, and it also gave the soldiers an opportunity to toss hunters into the river if they could leverage them over the railings with their shields. Luke noticed that next to Zach stood Blake Alberts in full chain-mail with a Norman (kite-shaped) shield that looked bigger and stronger than the ones held by the other warriors. He also gripped a full-length sword in his right hand and obviously planned to do more than just hold his ground while the second rank did the killing.
Standing between Blake and the railing was the gentle giant, Sal Martinez. The big man was as strong as anyone at The Castle, but fighting just wasn’t in the former peace-studies professor’s nature. At six and a half feet tall and almost three hundred pounds of post-outbreak muscle, Sal was capable of doing serious damage to anyone who threatened his loved ones, even if he did theoretically detest combat and the harming of others. He understood that the infected were no longer human, but Sal just hadn’t been able to develop the blood-lust for destroying the creatures that others in the group had rapidly acquired. In this fight though, his wife and sons stood among the growing crowd of refugees on the bridge, and Blake, Luke, and the others who’d travelled with him from Cleveland to Indiana were family too. He stood silent and ready in his leather biker gear and black helmet, looking like an armored angel of death as the hunters crossed the final meters separating them from their next meal.
Suddenly Luke had no more time for looking at anything or anyone other t
han the mass of snarling hunters rushing across the surface of the bridge they had finally managed to access. Jack shouted, “Shield wall! Hold steady!”
Luke lifted his round, plexiglass shield until he felt it smack against the left side of Jack’s, followed seconds later by the sound of Zach’s tapping against his. Then the first wave of hunters hit them like a herd of rushing bulls. The entire front line stumbled back a few steps, but every man kept his shield facing forward as the halberds and spears thrust past their helmeted heads seeking the faces of the attackers. Half a dozen hunters crumpled to the ground with mortal wounds within seconds of making contact with the human fighters, but the pressure of the mass of infected pushing from behind the dead and dying drove the soldiers back again.
Luke was shocked by the force of the impact, surprised to find that he could do nothing but hold his shield as tightly as possible while he bent over and shoved back with every ounce of strength he had. Strangely he could distinctly hear the war cries and shouts of the women doing the killing from behind. Lori almost sounded as if she was at a ball game with the taunts she threw at the monsters while her .22 rounds punched home with unerring accuracy. Gracie was shouting, “Die you bastards, die!” over and over as she used the bladed side of her halberd to hack down into hunter skulls with deadly efficiency. Christy was repeatedly screaming, “Kill them!” as the bloody, razor-sharp tip of her spear thrust forward into eye sockets, nasal membranes, and gaping mouths howling their death-songs as the infected rushed into a wall of lethal steel.
After several long minutes, the pressure to the front eased a bit as the sheer mass of the fallen flesh-eaters began to slow the monsters frantically scrambling to reach the humans standing so close. Now the nature of the fight changed as the men began to bring their weapons into play. With his experience in realistic medieval mock combats, Blake had been employing his sword since the beginning, stabbing powerfully into every face that appeared beyond the shield wall. To the far right, Sal had tossed aside his shield and adopted a new tactic, literally catching the hunters as they leapt from atop the piles of their own dead before hurling them over the side of the bridge. So far, the professor had killed three times more monsters than anyone else, and the body count continued to climb as the creatures kept pressing their suicidal charge.
Luke was an archer and axe-fighter, and he was having a difficult time figuring out how to do much more than push the hunters to either side as they leapt at him. To his right, the powerful trio of Zach, Blake, and Sal were destroying every monster that came their way, but suddenly Luke sensed that Jack was in trouble. Luke turned to his left just in time to see the veteran zombie killer topple forward as a massive hunter had managed to grip the back of Jack’s helmet and pull him from the line while two smaller flesh-eaters were each wrapped around an arm and ripping pieces of leather from the protective jacket. Luke remembered the heavy dagger on his belt, and with his normal fluid motion pulled the blade free of its scabbard even as he grabbed one of the monsters by the hair and stabbed up through the back of the neck into the creature’s brain.
The hunter on Jack’s other arm went limp at the same time as one of the girls smashed a war-axe through the top of its skull, allowing The Castle’s leader to spin away from the giant creature tugging at his helmet and slam a short sword through its gaping mouth, instantly dropping it onto the rest of the corpses at his feet. Now, with the charge broken, Jack shouted over the roar of battle, “Weapons! Weapons!”
Hearing the new command everyone dropped shields and grabbed their favorite zombie-killing tool. For the first time Luke saw Zach go to work with his sledge hammer on live targets, almost giddy with excitement as he watched a monster’s head explode like an over-ripe melon when the iron-head hit just above the ear. Blake was slashing and stabbing with his long sword, looking for all the world like one of the knights of old, heroically cutting down enemies left and right. Jack had taken a step back and grabbed his halberd, and seemed to drop a hunter with every flick of his wrist. Finally Luke remembered his trench axe, and the familiar rage filled his body as he chopped down two of the flesh-eaters directly in front of his position before jumping up on the pile of corpses and going to work on the monsters trying to climb the bodies of their own dead.
Even as he continued fighting from his new, elevated perch, Luke could see that the number of infected charging his position had significantly diminished. The most dangerous hunters had reached the shield-wall first, and they had all been killed with no casualties to the humans who’d stopped them in their tracks. The fifty or so creatures currently stumbling up the ramp of the bridge would soon be dead as well, and Jack was shouting out orders for the men who’d held the front line to step behind the second rank and rehydrate. As Luke swigged water from his canteen, he considered what had just happened here and realized that if the army Jack was recruiting and training had protected flanks and a narrow front, then the only way they could lose was if they broke ranks and ran. Unknown to him at the moment, his theory was about to be tested at the fight taking place on and around the train.
Chapter 20
On top of one of the boxcars Carter could see that the handful of fighters from The Castle and a company of the troops from Utah weren’t going to be able hold back the tide of infected flowing their way for much longer. Dozens of hunters were already dead, hundreds more were rushing the cars, and thousands loomed in the growing light on the horizon. The soldiers were experienced at this type of combat, and they easily destroyed the first wave of snarling creatures to reach the tracks. The main problem the defenders faced was the openings where the boxcars were coupled, and the fact that the CSX line was elevated over most of the major roads heading out of downtown Fort Wayne. Carter found his force holding over 100 meters of train with fifty soldiers on top of the cars, while another fifty guarded the couplings and two of the road underpasses. Unlike the battle in Illinois, the troops would not be allowed the luxury of staying on top of the boxcars and spearing the infected by the thousands; the monsters would go under, around, and through the train to attack the people on the bridge within minutes at the rate the flesh-eaters were pouring out of the downtown area. Thankfully, the message that the refugees were all safely unloaded came just as Carter realized his position had become untenable.
The troops retreating from the train only had to cover a few dozen meters to reach the shield-wall protecting the southern end of the bridge, but that turned out to be plenty of space for panicking soldiers to be dragged down and ripped to shreds by the maddened hunters at their heels. Withdrawing when in direct contact with an enemy pressing a strong attack was historically one of the most difficult actions to manage in warfare. Carter’s troops were well-trained and battle-hardened, but extricating themselves from the train and descending from the elevated rails to the roadway in front of the bridge while maintaining an unbroken line facing the fierce charge of the hunters proved impossible. About half of the soldiers realized that they needed to form and hold a fighting line until everyone was on the ground and working together, while the rest of the fighters heard the call for retreat and headed toward the bridge as quickly as they could. The end result was predictable: the withdrawal became a rout.
A hard core of disciplined warriors formed around Carter, Zach, Maddy, and John near the center of the train, and they waited until everyone was on the ground before they even tried to fight their way off of the tracks. The first thing they did was cut down every hunter that was crawling under and through the train trying to get at the humans, then they scrambled down to the base of the elevated rail line and reformed their ranks. With that done, they stood shoulder to shoulder in a tightly packed phalanx and shuffled their way toward the soldiers on the bridge who were simultaneously protecting the refugees while pushing out their own line to envelop the troops retreating from the train. Carter could hear the screams of some of the fighters who’d run for the rear being eaten alive as he continued to guide his group toward the safety of the bridge, r
esisting the urge to try to rescue the fallen soldiers who once again were dying under his leadership. But this wasn’t the first time he’d been through such an experience, and he didn’t hesitate to do what he knew was the best thing for the fighters directly around him: stick together and lead them to safety.
In less than a minute Carter and the others had managed to hold off the hunters that surrounded them, and they passed through the line of troops defending the southern end of the bridge with a shield-wall. A brief look around revealed that most of the people who’d been guarding the train with him had survived the difficult retreat, and he didn’t waste a second worrying about those who hadn’t. He then heard Deb calling his name and spun around to see her standing at the edge of the crowd of refugees with David standing next to her. She was holding a small radio in her hand.
“It’s Jack!” she shouted.
Carter grabbed the radio, “What’s goin’ on over there?”
“We had a tough fight over here but all of the infected we’ve encountered are now dead,” Jack explained. “Stay on that end with your people and use a shield-wall to hold back the horde coming out of the downtown area. Retreat back onto the bridge a ways so your front is as narrow as possible. Send the rest of the troops over to me and we’ll get everyone into the buildings and set up some sort of barrier across this side of the bridge ASAP so we can all get away from the crowd. I need you to hold until we get that done.”
Carter was quiet for a moment before responding, “We just got the hell chewed outta us, Jack. ‘Bout half of my soldiers panicked and ran when I called fer the retreat from the train, and ten or fifteen of ‘em went down. Seems like I should leave Chad and his Ohio troops to hold this end and send Rickers squad and a few others to ya.”
