ARISEN_Book Thirteen_The Siege

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  “It’s just me and my three crew-mates. We’re not infected!”

  She ground her teeth and frantically considered. Because the southwest gate was at the junction of the M3, it was basically built around a big motorway interchange. It was all a bit more complex than just two gates in the Wall, as she knew from her months of being posted there.

  “Please! Abs! Don’t leave us out here!”

  She paused at the landing to the control room. The fear and pleading in Ashear’s voice were so stark – and she could see his kind eyes so vividly. She simply didn’t know if she had it in her to let him and his crew die out there on the ground, inches from salvation. Not if there might be a way to get them inside – safely.

  And there might be.

  “Don’t come to the main gate,” she said into the phone. “There’s a service tunnel under the interchange. It opens up underneath the motorway on the south side, about two hundred meters from the Wall. You’ll see a little concrete stairwell. If you can get to there, and clear out the tunnel, then maybe I can open the gate there for you. It’s a chance.”

  “On our way!”

  She resumed leaping down stairs, wondering what in God’s name she was doing. This was a terrible dereliction of duty, and her head knew it. But her heart was screaming something else, and it was also telling her a lie she wanted desperately to believe.

  That she could do both: do her duty, and save her friend.

  She hit the level of the sub-basement and threaded through some dark store rooms, then a damp section of stone corridor, finally reaching a steel gate. Looking down the length of it, she could see the long corridor beyond was clear, lit at intervals by dim bare bulbs. She turned and looked behind her – going in the other direction, the tunnel emerged beside the motorway inside the Wall, with no barrier on that side. She got her key lanyard out and opened the inner gate, then started running toward the far end. She could already hear firing down there.

  And she realized she didn’t even have a weapon.

  What in God’s name am I doing?

  As she approached the outer gate, the sound of firing grew deafening in the enclosed space, and muzzle flashes lit up the near dark. For some reason, as she looked around, she could see deep scores or cracks, in the concrete on all sides of her, in both the floor and the walls. This was of some concern – it was well known that the weight of the high sections of Wall and towers, hastily constructed, were putting dangerous stresses on their foundations, and she didn’t know if anyone had been down here for a while. But she couldn’t think about that right now. When she finally reached the outer gate, the roar of the weapons deafening now, she shouted at the four figures behind it, all with their backs to her. One turned. It was Ashear. He smiled at her, then his look turned pleading.

  “Move!” she shouted.

  When he did, she could see around him. The tunnel beyond them was carpeted with unmoving bodies. But there were no active dead ones, not close. They’d done as she said – cleared the service tunnel.

  Barely able to breathe, fingers fumbling, she got the key into the lock, turned it, and pulled the gate open. First one man, then a second, and a third darted in. Ashear stayed longest, firing to cover the others, to make sure none of the dead got close. She shouted at him, and he finally turned and ran inside.

  She slammed the gate closed.

  Turned the key.

  Pulled it out.

  And then got clear, all of them twenty feet away now. One of the crewmen stepped around them to cover the gate anyway.

  As he went by, Abs turned to face Ashear. They’d done it.

  He smiled big at her, and they embraced, tightly.

  She tried to get her breath back.

  His embrace was very tight. She could understand that – he must be amazed and relieved to be alive. And it was so great to see him. But then it started becoming painful. She tried to pull away. He hissed in her ear, and she struggled in sheer panic – and then screamed, a horrible high-pitched sound, as his teeth tore into her neck, and blood splashed her uniform, her screaming becoming a duet with shrieking, right in her face. When Ashear finally pulled away, he was unrecognizable, and he was moving a million miles an hour.

  Abigail fell to the ground, her strength evaporating as the blood poured out of her, and all she could think was that this was impossible.

  The infected never turned straight to Foxtrots.

  She impacted the cold hard stone, smacking her head, and her vision went even more wobbly, as screams and firing erupted all around her, percussive banging and sheet-flashing in the dark and enclosed stone tunnel. She could just about follow it, even though she couldn’t seem to move her body. There was manic motion and violence, and more firing, and someone cursing as he tried to clear a jam.

  Ahead, back toward the interior, what used to be Sergeant Ashear was now tearing his two crewmen to pieces. Behind her, out of sight, she could hear the panicked cursing from the third man, the one guarding the gate, and who couldn’t get his weapon stoppage clear. She felt hands on her from behind, pulling at her key lanyard, and heard panicked breathing, as ahead she saw what used to be her friend finish his work on the two crewmen, then leap back over her body toward the third and last.

  She could hear hyperventilating and subvocal pleading – “No, no, no, no…” – and then the creak of the gate swinging back open.

  Then more struggle and high-pitched shrieking.

  Finally, as both her vision and her hearing went black, the last thing Abigail Webster sensed was a stumbling body stepping over hers. It was followed by another, then a third, wandering down the tunnel toward the light at its far end.

  The inside of the Wall.

  It was only a narrow trickle of dead. But it was trickling into London – from the southwest.

  And it was totally unopposed.

  Pterodactyl

  CentCom – Command Post

  “Thanks,” Fick said, taking the tablet computer Wesley handed him upon re-entering their guard tower, but looking profoundly annoyed that it wasn’t simply a sheaf of papers. “I hope the goddamned power stays on.”

  “Just don’t drop it,” Wesley said, taking a seat and smiling to see a full pitcher of coffee and a jug of milk. He helped himself.

  After a few minutes of swiping and zooming, reviewing floorpans and layouts for various parts of CentCom, Fick stopped himself from tossing the device on the ledge in front of him, instead laying it down gently, but with visible effort. He stood. “I’m gonna walk the lines. Your watch.”

  Wesley saluted, surprising himself.

  * * *

  “What’s your name, trooper?” Fick had come to the first picket of RMPs posted to the north walls, just meters from the CP. The guard there wasn’t up to full strength yet. But it was manned, and it was damned well going to stay that way for the duration, particularly on the north side.

  The RMP looked like he was trying to stop himself, and then failed. “I thought no one gave a fuck what our names are.”

  Fick grunted in approval. At least they were listening. Moreover, he had made an impression. “Yeah,” he said, “well, I’m asking now.”

  “Lemaire,” the man said.

  “Huh. That French?”

  “No. Belgian.”

  “Whatever, you French faggot.”

  The RMP stared in disbelief, but Fick just laughed out loud. “Just kidding, man.” He clapped the Brit on the shoulder, but he was clearly far too English to be okay with this, to know how to react, or really to have any idea what to do with someone like a U.S. Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant.

  Fick clapped him on the shoulder again, and moved off.

  * * *

  “Lance Corporal Schmuckatelli!”

  Fick had carried on down the line, nodding at the men until, all the way at the bend in the walls, he spotted a familiar face. “Schmuckatelli” just gave him a tight look in response. But, then again, somewhere underneath that, Fick could almost detect the ghost
of a smile.

  Fick said, “Hey, is everyone in this outfit a Lance Corporal?” He’d noticed a weird preponderance of them in the formation.

  The man nodded. “All RMPs are promoted to that rank after completing the initial training course at the Defence Police College.”

  “Ha. That’s funny,” Fick said. “Forty percent of U.S. Marines are lance corporals. A rank that doesn’t even exist in other branches. It’s a well-known oddity.”

  “If I may ask… why, um, Schmuckatelli?”

  Fick clapped him on the shoulder. “Heh. Don’t worry about it. It’s just kind of a generic name used to describe any hypothetical Lance Corporal who goes and makes an ass of himself. Like taking a goddamned coffee to formation.”

  The RMP grimaced.

  Fick plowed on. “Yeah, everyone in the Corps has heard of Lance Corporal Schmuckatelli. He’s in every safety brief and every ass-chewing. He’s the reason every regulation exists – because Lance Corporal Schmuckatelli fucked it up for everyone else. Every time your liberty gets secured or you have to take a battle buddy just to go to the store, you have Lance Corporal Schmuckatelli to thank.”

  The RMP exhaled, clearly wishing he hadn’t asked.

  Fick grew more serious. “Okay, look. You are personally the right flank of our whole front line. And therefore a critical post.” It was true. The inadequate numbers of RMPs were concentrated on the north side, where it was understood the threat would come from first. Beyond Schmuckatelli were merely single pickets at wider and wider intervals, all the way around the broad circle of the extended CentCom walls.

  Fick looked him in the eye and said, “So listen carefully. You do not move from this position. I don’t care if a pterodactyl starts fucking your face. You let him finish. You got me?”

  “Yes, sir, zero distortion.”

  “And don’t fucking ‘sir’ me. I work for a living. Plus my parents were married. Also, I only suck cock on weekends.”

  “Yes… Master Gunnery Sergeant.” This seemed to win the Brit over, at least slightly. That buried smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “We don’t like officers much, either.”

  “Good man,” Fick said. “Carry on.”

  * * *

  Fick moved on down the line, climbing from the ancient stone sections of prison walls to the more modern extended section that connected to it, then looping around the Common, checking on each of the pickets as he circled the whole complex. Fifteen minutes later, he’d passed the southernmost point of the walls, and circled around to the gate in the southwest corner, the one Pred and Juice had driven out of. Despite there being a proper guard tower here, there was only a single sentry posted. Fick noticed that the man, unusually for the RMP company, had a suppressed weapon.

  “Where’d you get the suppressor?” he asked.

  The man seemed to hesitate. “My prior unit.”

  “Huh,” Fick grunted. “May yet come in handy. What’s your name, trooper?”

  “Booker.”

  “Okay, Lance Corporal Booker. Remember – it’s just you down here. You leave or lose this position, and I will monkey-stomp your nuts into two thick nickels.” He’d considered reusing the pterodactyl line, because it was so fantastic. But he hated to repeat himself.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Fick grimaced at this, but let it go.

  Booker looked at him, appearing slightly shifty for some reason. “But I thought the threat was going to be from the north. And this was the side we didn’t need to worry about.”

  “For now.” Fick surveyed the scene out beyond the walls, a bit of field and forest with neighborhoods beyond, all of which was quiet and empty. Then he turned and looked back in. This position wasn’t far from where the inner prison walls separated from the extension, and circled back around in a smaller circle on the inside of the Common. Fick frowned; he could see a big set of double doors in those inner walls, and that they stood wide open – well, half-open, the left door pushed open inside. It would have been one of the original outside entrances to the prison, just one over from the bigger vehicle gate this guy’s tower perched over. He turned back to Booker.

  “Why the hell is that door open?”

  The RMP shifted. “With the extended walls, that’s now an internal gate. We stopped considering it a security point.”

  Fick’s look said he thought everything was about to be a security point. “Okay, I want you to lock that shit down. We need to get this whole place locked down, tighter and better.”

  But Booker went on. “Also, there are a lot of people coming and going through it.”

  “People like who?”

  The RMP nodded at the huge white building visible not too far away. “The Biosciences staff, for starters – they need to get to the canteen three times a day. And we can’t give them all keys – they’re the old prison keys, and we only have a few sets. And the door has big physical locks that we can’t rekey.”

  Fick didn’t give a shit. “You have a set?”

  “No. But I can check some out.”

  Fick ground his teeth. “Do it.”

  “I need approval from the JOC commander.”

  “You need approval from me. I’m the boss of you now.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s a standing order from our OC. They simply won’t give me the keys otherwise.”

  Fick looked like he was trying to grind his jaw into powder. How this country had stayed alive was anybody’s guess. He hit his radio. “This is Fick. Major Khamsi free?”

  “Fick, Ali, send it.”

  “Yeah, this royal personage guarding the walls here needs approval from the JOC to check out a set of fucking keys to lock the inside gates.”

  “Le JOC, c’est moi.”

  “Repeat your last. You’re coming in broken and French.”

  “It’s approved. Do it.”

  The RMP nodded and headed for the stairs.

  “Where the fuck you think you’re going?” Fick barked.

  “But you sai—”

  “I said I’d monkey-stomp your nuts if you left this position is what I said. When’s your relief due?”

  Booker checked his watch. “Shift change in a half-hour.”

  “That’ll do. Just get it done then.”

  Fick headed off.

  * * *

  But as soon as he’d gone, the lone RMP looked around, switched his radio channel, and hailed his old commander, who came back right away.

  “This is McNiven. What is it, Lance Corporal?”

  “Lieutenant, the Americans want me to shut and lock the inner door in the south wall of the prison – the one that leads to the canteen.”

  “That’ll cause a huge pain in our arses. They say why?”

  “Not really.”

  “Okay. Leave it for now.” McNiven sounded exasperated – and his tone also said this was their patch, and what the hell did the Americans know about it? “Anyway, the south is the last side of the complex that will be under threat. If any of it ever is. You see any dead, go ahead and lock it down then.”

  “Understood.”

  Alamo Up

  London – The City

  The A10 running south from the north edge of the M25 ring road – now the breached ZPW – spilled out right into the heart of the City of London, and Jameson ardently wished it didn’t, or at least that they hadn’t come this way. The City was both the financial heart of London and the center of the old historical London Town – and right now it was also a terrifying riot of running civilians, careening vehicles, small groups of overwhelmed Met officers trying to manage the madness – and burgeoning panic.

  Word had obviously gotten out.

  London was falling.

  And everyone was trying to get the hell out – despite the fact that there was nowhere else to go. The only option was to push south through the city, away from the breach in the Wall, and the incoming undead horde.

  Right now, Jameson really wished he had plotted some cleverer route back to CentCom, a
nd its high walls, which he knew would last longer than perhaps any other place inside London. But he wasn’t a Londoner, and none of the other surviving Marines in One Troop were, either. Many were northerners, or even staunchly anti-London types – fond of sayings like, “Loud, crowded, and dirty – only bloody Londoners like London.” Now, for the first time, Jameson regretted this. Having a Londoner in the troop would have been pretty handy. The maps and GPS could plot a route. But they couldn’t ensure it wasn’t a stupid one.

  And things were getting stupid, fast.

  Theirs was the lead truck in the two-vehicle formation, and the weight came off the tires on one side as they swerved around a left-hand turn, trying to keep moving at all costs. Jameson was up front in the cab, shouting directions to Yap, who drove, white knuckles gripped tight around the wheel. Jameson checked the big side-view mirror, where he could see the other truck, with the Tunnelers in it, still with them. Not right behind them, but in sight.

  His own weight slammed into his seat belt as Yap braked hard – a knot of flustered and totally oblivious civilians had dashed out practically under their wheels, and only Yap’s quick reflexes saved them. As the civvies scurried away, Jameson shouted, “Go, go, go!” They couldn’t afford to get jammed up. They had to get back to some kind of safety, a chance to regroup, which meant CentCom. His body crushed back into his seat as the truck accelerated again, then he grabbed the handle on the door as they skidded around another turn, right-handed this time.

  Something tugged at Jameson’s mind, and he hit his radio: “Wyvern Two Zero, One Troop Actual, message over!” There was no response, nor when he hailed again. He sent it anyway. “Wyvern, this is One Troop transmitting in the blind – we are clear of the Wall, in two ground vehicles, en route to CentCom. Repeat, One Troop is mobi—”

  But he was cut off by Yap shouting at him and pointing.

  When he checked the side mirror again, the other truck wasn’t behind them. Instead, there was a knot of young children, what actually looked like a school field trip, standing frozen dead center in the road.

  And the second truck was plowing up over the curb and crashing into the glass front of the building there.