I turned the scope southward, to the field where the mercenary team had tried to parachute in. I could see a single figure walking toward the remains of the paratroopers, followed by the short / tall team of Red and Hart, pulling security. As I watched, the lone figure, must have been Ziv, fired a short burst into each of the bodies on the ground. Cold bastard, he was, but he was right. We had other things to worry about than someone faking death and sneaking up on us behind.
Lifting the scope higher, I searched for the two that had run away. I saw one floating in the river, unmoving. His heat signature was fading as I watched. This time of the year, the Hudson was still very cold, and he probably had been wounded anyway. The other one was trying to hide behind a tree. I shot him. Such were the wages of being a mercenary, and I had no sympathy for the ones that hired themselves to someone like the Doctor.
As I made to head back down the stairs, the ground to the east rocked with a rhythmic pounding as the 40mm cannon on the Spectre gunship walked its way across the fields, followed at intervals by the big BOOM of the 105mm howitzer. I ran down the stairs, passed Doc and Brit frantically doing CPR on Ahmed, and flipped the radio to the TACAIR frequency.
“Spectre, Spectre, this is Lost Boys, over.”
The copilot of the gunship immediately came back over the radio. I could hear the rumbling of the engines and the hammering of the guns over his headset. “Go ahead, Lost Boys.”
“Spectre, what’s the situation, over?”
“Lost Boys, we are engaging approximately two — four, I say again, two — four undead and receiving small arms fire from a group located about 100 meters from the undead, break”
After a second he came back on “be advised, small arms fire no longer a problem. Will continue to engage target area until heat signatures are gone, over.”
“Roger, Spectre, much appreciate the support. Be advised there may be heat signatures eight hundred meters east of my position. DO NOT, I say again, DO NOT engage. High Value Target. Will attempt capture.”
“Roger, will not engage.”
“Also if there are any heat signatures on the west bank, consider hostile, over.”
“Roger that, Lost boys. We will be on station for approximately ten more mikes. Spectre out.”
I dropped the hand mike and raced upstairs. Brit sat crying in the hallway with Ahmed’s head cradled in her lap, covered in blood, his eyes closed. Doc was stripping off his gloves. He also had blood up his arms, and it was pooled on the floor.
“He’s gone, Nick. The round hit him in the shoulder, penetrated his chest cavity, down to his heart, I suspect. There was nothing I could do. He was dead before we brought him down here.”
I sat down next to Brit and put my arm around her. She was sobbing hysterically.
“Brit.” I squeezed her shoulder. “Brit.” She shook her head. I grabbed her jaw in my hand and turned her face towards me. “Brit, he’s gone. We have work to do. Let’s go.”
She looked down at Ahmed’s peaceful features, all the color drained away from the massive internal bleeding. She made a pillow out of her hoodie and set his head down on it, then leaned down to kiss his forehead, a strand of her red hair brushing across his still face, tears mixing with the blood.
“Morano is out there, probably still with some of her goons, and maybe some Z’s. I wrecked her transportation, so they aren’t going anywhere.” I listened, but the explosions outside had stopped. “Air support is done. We need to get the team together and go after her.”
Doc stood and then lifted Ahmed’s body. “I’ll take care of him. I’m still no good in a fight anyway, with my hands like this. I know what to do with his body.” Even more so than I had, Doc had spent a ton of time in Afghanistan as Special Forces medic, and had fought and lived with the same kind of people Ahmed’s tribe had been. He knew their ways, and I could trust him to show the proper respect. Even more than that, Ahmed had been, with Doc and Jonesy, our original teammate, and it was an obligation he willingly took on.
I took Brits’ hand and led her down the stairs. Halfway down, I had to stop and retighten my leg. As I sat down on the stair and worked the straps, Brit sat down with me. Her tears had stopped, and she put her arm around me.
“Nick, I can’t go out with you. I’ll stay here with Doc.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not risking it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was going to tell you after the guys had left, but I want you to know now. I’m pregnant.”
I sat there on the stairs, looking at her. Outside, zombies were howling. Blood was leaking down the stairs, one of my best friends’ lifeblood. He lay dead upstairs. Outside, corpses were strewn around our farm. I could hear Ziv and the others coming back into the kitchen. There were hundreds of bullet holes in the house. An evil psychopath was somewhere out in the woods, possibly with heavily armed troops, and corpses animated by a genetically engineered parasite were crawling around. Brit was pregnant. This was the only thing tonight that had thrown me for a loop.
“How?” Well, that was a stupid question. We had talked about it, and I wanted a family, but she had been scared of being pregnant so far away from real medical care. I had told her that it would be up to her.
“Probably when you bent me over the couch a few weeks ago.” She laughed, and then started crying again.
“Oh.” OK, I felt like an idiot. “Britanny Karen O’Neil” I whispered to her, “thank you.” She squeezed my hand, and I got up off the stairs. She sat there, looking at me, the blue in her eyes rimmed with red from crying.
“I, I just wanted you to know. In case you didn’t come back.”
“I’ll try my best, beautiful girl.”
“Go get her, Nick.”
Chapter 30
The sky was growing light in the east as we started across drawbridge. We had built it earlier in the year to reach the catwalk across the canal doors, which we had cut away halfway across. Ziv led point, and after we had crossed, Brit and Doc cranked the wooden plankway up. As we passed over the canal, Red shot at several zombies that had fallen into the water.
I missed Ahmed. I had been on countless missions with him, and it was hard to believe he was gone. I put it aside, deep down. I would think about it tomorrow, or later today when we buried him. For now, mission first.
We crossed the Hoosick River by wading through a crossing I knew of. Ahead of us the field of corn that I laboriously planted was torn to pieces by 40 millimeter cannon fire. Small green shoots were scattered around and craters were all over the field, mixed in with body parts from the zombies. Further on, in the next field, a clump of bodies lay around a crater from a 105mm howitzer shell. Those would be the merc squad that had been firing on the house.
“Spread out, and shoot any of them that look alive. Watch out for unexploded ordinance.” Ziv turned and walked backward for a second, and the light had gotten strong enough that I could see the grin on his face.
“We will be making a soldier out of you yet, Nick.” He turned just in time to step over one a rock wall bordering the field, and continued patrolling forward toward the tree line. Red laughed as he passed me, since I had stopped to give Ziv’s back the finger.
Hart walked next to me for a bit.
“So, what’s the deal, Nick? Does this crazy psychopath have some kind of personal beef with you guys?”
I nodded. “Yeah, we’ve run into her several times. Know that eye patch Brit wears?”
“Yeah. Did she give that to her?”
“”Yep, back in Seattle. She also killed one of our teammates, Specialist Mya, with some bullshit neurotoxin “cure”. That and Ziv mixed it up with one of her bodyguards too.”
“Bodyguards?”
“Yeah, she goes everywhere with two guys who were Army Special Forces, Delta, back before the plague. I’m pretty sure they’ve gone rouge. Every now and then an occasional asshole slips through selection.”
Ziv had reached the cluster of b
odies in the field, and he flipped one over, then started kicking the body as hard as he could. A groan escaped from the prone figure. Red rushed up and took a knee, his back to Ziv, rifle at the ready, scanning for targets.
“I think Ziv found one of them.” As I watched, he knelt down and made a quick cut across the guys’ throat. His boots drummed for a second in the dirt, then fell still. Ziv spit on him.
“He doesn’t screw around, does he?” said Hart.
From behind us came a “Nope. He’s my hero.” Donnie the Butcher laughed that weird laugh of his, and Jim smacked him in the back of the head.
“Shut the F up, you weirdo, and watch your sector. And DON’T touch those zombie corpses.”
“But Jim, they might have jewelry, and like, gold teeth.”
“I will butt stroke you. In the teeth.” Jim carried an M-14 with a wooden stock, and he knew how to use it. Donnie grumbled but kept walking in a straight line. We moved toward the tree line, and a fog seemed to follow us across the field, rising from the river.
“Keep it tight. I’m pretty sure I hit the other bodyguard, but I could be wrong. Might have hit him square on the ceramic. Noise discipline from here on out. Jim you, Donny and Red circle around and try to cut them off. Assume that neither is wounded, but I doubt she can move through the woods like we can. He’s gotta be hurt, any which way I hit him. Even if I hit his strike plate, he’s gotta have some busted ribs. Make SURE you ID your targets, no friendly fire. Say it back.”
Ziv repeated it back to me, and the three of them set out at a fast airborne shuffle around to the Northeast, through the woods. They would parallel the road until they got to the next field, then keep a line of sight down the opposite side of the woods. The anvil to our hammer.
Red, Hart and I moved through the woods, making noise as we went. We would hopefully drive them out towards Ziv and the rest of the guys. I wanted them alive.
We had only gone a few dozen meters into the woods when a shot punctured the morning stillness. All three of us rushed forward, in single man overwatch, rushing from tree to tree, till we broke out of the thin belt of trees.
Ziv and the others were approaching from the North, and in front of us two figures knelt on the ground, half hidden by the scrub growth that had grown up over the last two years. We met the others and together approached them.
“Hart, cuff the Doctor. Be careful, she might stick you with something. Ziv, what do you want to do with the bodyguard?”
“I will do it the old way, the way Ahmed would have wanted.
Chapter 31
Morano looked daggers at Hart, and Hart punched her across the face, knocking her down. Red covered her with his rifle, and Hart knelt on Morano’s back, wrenching her arms behind her, not gently, and cuffing her with a zippy tie.
Ziv walked over to the bodyguard. “You and I have unfinished business, my old friend. Does your head still hurt from the punch I gave you? Yes, pig?” He drew his knife and motioned for the other man to come at him.
“Ziv, are you kidding me?” I slipped my finger onto the trigger of my rifle and drew a good site picture, but Ziv waved me off.
“No, Nick, do not interfere. Look at the rifle. This one killed Ahmed. I must do this.”
The man laughed. “Ha, good, I thought I got a piece of that Muslim piece of shit. Sniper, my ass. I can’t believe you had a hard on for a raghead. I thought you Serbs were tough.”
I stepped back and lowered my rifle. I was worried, because in a knife fight, everyone gets cut. Yeah, one person may come out the loser and wind up dying, but the winner, often as not, comes off pretty badly himself.
I nodded to the man. “You know if you win, I’m going to kill you.”
“Yeah, but I’ll go out in style. Killed the famous sniper Ahmed, and now I’m going to slice up Sasha Zivkovic, notorious Serbian Special Forces Officer.” With that, he slipped a bayonet from where it was strapped onto his boot and went into a crouch, left arm extended; right arm held in close, bayonet pointed down. Ziv walked towards him, big knife held at the low ready. Damn, this was going to suck.
The shot from the house, fully a thousand meters away, took off the top of the bodyguards’ head, and he threw his arms up in the air and toppled over to one side, his brains splattering out the huge exit hole. My radio crackled to life, and Brit’s voice carried over the air.
“Whoops! Must have squeezed the trigger in all the excitement. Excuse me, gotta go pee. Brit Out!”
Ziv stuck his knife back in the sheath, then spit on the corpse. “Nick, I am going to have a talk with your she-devil. Gah, impudent American women.”
We walked over to where Doctor Morano sat in the dirt, hands cuffed behind her back. She smiled at me as I approached.
“Hello, Nick. Long time no see.” She started laughing. “Tell Ms. O’Neill I said that. No see! Hahaha!” She peeled off into hysterical laughter. I waited for her to stop.
“You should have stayed in the lab, Doc. Picked the wrong ground to fight on, my ground.”
“So now what? You shoot me?”
“No. Not yet, anyway. Back to the house, for starters.”
Hart grabbed her hands and lifted her, pulling hard, making Morano wince in pain. We frog marched her back to the house, and Doc lowered the bridge, allowing us back across the canal. Brit met us at the far end of the span.
Doctor Morano started to speak, “Ah, Miss O’Nei-“, but before she could get the words out, Brit took an icepick and poked her in the eye, puncturing it. Morano fell to the ground, screaming. Jim grabbed Brit’s hand, but she stepped back.
“It’s OK, I’m done!”
“Doc, treat that. Get her patched up. I want her alive.”
Doc got out a field dressing and started to wrap it around her head, holding it to her bleeding eye. As he held her face with his free hand, she twisted her head and bit down hard on his fingers.
“OW! FUCK!” Doc pulled his hand away and Morano laughed. Hart kicked her in the shoulders and she fell to the ground, still laughing.
“Crazy bitch!” Doc was holding his hand, and I could see the blood welling up from the teeth marks.
“Go get that cleaned up, Doc. Leave her eye the way it is.” Doc walked over to the well pump, muttering to himself.
“You’re an evil snake. Gotta get one last once of pain in, don’t you?”
“You have no idea, Nick. No idea.” She licked at the blood running down her face and kept laughing.
Brit screamed, and Doc hit me from behind, knocking me down into the dirt. I felt his hands wrap around my neck as I rolled over. Training kicked in and I jammed my arm up into his mouth, the kevlar inserts in my sleeves keeping his teeth from sinking into my arm.
“I CAN’T GET A SHOT!” yelled Ziv. I dragged my pistol out with my free hand and forced it slowly up under his chin. His red eyes burned at me from inches away, and his hands were choking me, jaws reaching for my neck. Everything was going black, hazy around the eyes. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Red with his hammer looking for a way to swing. Behind him Morano started to run, but Brit tackled her and started banging her head into the dirt. I kept forcing Doc’s head back, trying to get the pistol up, working the hammer with my thumb, cocking it back. I finally got it jammed under the skin of his neck, pulled my arm out of his jaws so I didn’t shoot myself, and pulled the trigger, sending the .22 slug through his lower jaw and into his brain. I pulled it again and again until the magazine was empty and the thing that had been my best friend rolled off me and fell to the ground.
I sat up and started crying.
Chapter 32
Morano sat tied to the chair in the basement. I flicked on the light, and she squinted up at me. Not bothering to strap on my leg, I hopped down the stairs. Brit followed behind me, and we each took a seat in chair facing her. She stared at us, her eye socket bloody and a half mad grin on her face. On a table in front of her sat a leather wallet, open, showing half a dozen syringes.
“So, let me g
et this straight. You’re infected.”
She gave me a look like I was an idiot. “Of course I am. How else could I do my research?”
“You did this to yourself?”
“Why, yes. It would be inhumane to not experience what my test subjects were going through, right?”
Brit leaned over and whispered in my ear. “She is freaking nuts.”
I nodded. “So, what’s in the syringes? A cure?”
“Not that you would understand it, but no, not a cure. A preventive. It keeps the parasite at bay. I need to have it every forty eight hours. You’ll be happy to know that I developed it from your friend Mya’s blood.”
Brit stood up, pulled on a glove, and jammed her finger into Moranos’ bloody eye socket. She screamed in pain. I grabbed Brit’s arm and pulled her back.
“Sit down, Brit. I know what we’re going to do.” I reached for the medicine.
Morano leaned forward in her chair, new blood pouring from her ruined eye. “You have to let me go, you know. I’m very close to a cure. The government needs me. I could have even saved your friend Doc. You’ll of course have to give me Specialist Redshirt. He will be vital to our program. I’ll forgive Ms. O’Neill. Eye for an eye, you know.”
One hundred percent, batshit crazy. I dropped the syringes on the floor and ground the glass vials into dust under my boot, then spread the liquid around on the brick. Morano’s mouth opened, and then closed.
“Forty eight hours you said? Must be at least twenty four since you had your last shot.”
“You can’t do this. The world depends on me!” For once, something seemed to have gotten through to her.
“Not this world, Maybe the next one.” I called up for someone to come down and give us a hand.
Ziv came downstairs and grabbed her by her feet, dumping her out of her chair. Despite her kicking and screaming, he dragged her up the stairs, making sure she hit her head on each step. When we got outside, he locked her cuffs to a tree with a bicycle chain. Then we went to bury Ahmed and Doc in the field just outside the house.
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