Empire's End

by David Dunwoody

  No, first things first. Briggs had to keep a cool head. He had to lead his men. Until his last breath, he was their commanding officer and nothing else.

  “Someone radio Gillies,” he said. Closing his eyes, he thought back to the early days of the war—for this was a war—and of the angel in white who had restored him. It had been for this purpose, this very day, that she had done so. He might not be able to count on God tonight, but he’d do right by her.

  * * *

  Dalton descended the ladder and, drawing his .45, cut a path through the milling undead with surgical precision. A kneecap shattered here, a spinal cord severed there. One after another they fell until he’d reached one of the remaining Jeeps—and then the Strongman brought his hammer down through the windshield.

  Dalton spit glass from his mouth and started the engine. The Strongman clambered onto the hood. Dalton stomped on the gas.

  They sped into ever-increasing torrents of snow. Rotters struck by the bumper sailed past Dalton and were lost in waves of white. There was only the Strongman, clinging to the hood with one meaty hand and raising his great hammer with the other.

  Dalton jerked the wheel to the right. The Strongman nearly rolled off, but righted himself. Dalton emptied the .45 into his face. The undead shook his head as if bothered by gnats; the pulp of his eyes slopped down his face. He let the hammer go and grabbed Dalton by the throat.

  A hard left. The Strongman held firm. Already Dalton was seeing red, hearing only the thudding of his heart in his ears. Through a crimson haze he saw the Strongman’s head lowering, his bloody jaw falling open.

  Dalton’s foot found the brake, and he pressed down with all he had left.

  The Strongman dropped hard onto the hood, losing his grip on both the Jeep and the soldier, then flew off, landing twenty yards away in a puff of snow. Dalton fell out of the vehicle and pulled his rifle off his shoulder. Fighting to keep his balance, he came up on one knee and took aim at the zombie.

  The Strongman’s head exploded in a scarlet supernova. His body sagged, hands grasping at the red mist in the air. Then he was done.

  Dalton lowered the rifle. He hadn’t fired a shot.

  A fleet of headlights appeared on the horizon. There were more gunshots. A headless rotter fell beside Dalton.

  The cavalry had come. The tide was about to turn.

  Thirty-Two / You Just Can’t Win

  “No plane’s going to land in this shit,” Gillies muttered, frowning through the window of the Hummer. Beside him, Gregory was silent.

  Someone emerged from the storm, rapping on Gregory’s door. He pushed it open. “Call for the Senator!” the man said, forcing a radio into the bodyguard’s hand.

  He passed it to Gillies, who grumbled, “Thrill me.”

  “Senator, this is a message on behalf of Major Briggs. Rotters have breached the outer Wall. They’re all over the dead zone outside Gaylen.”

  “Where’s Briggs? Why isn’t he telling me this?”

  “He’s on his way to the front, sir.”

  “Jesus.” Gillies lowered the radio and tapped his driver on the shoulder. “Get out there and have them close all the gates. I want you posted out there. Tell the other Senators I want their men out there too! Shoot anything that comes near us.”

  “Me too?” Gregory asked. Dammit. I should be out with the troops.

  “No, you stay put.” Gillies rubbed his eyes with a groan. “I have a headache.”

  “Want me to go fetch you an aspirin?”

  “Don’t give me any shit, Ian. You’ve already let me down tonight.”

  Gillies’ door was yanked open. Senator Cullen stood in the snow. “What the hell are we gonna do, Sam, just sit here and wait for them to surround us?”

  “We’ll be fine,” Gillies sighed. “The entire army’s out there. What you should be worrying about is that plane turning back in this weather.”

  “Do you think that’ll happen?”

  “I don’t know. I’m staying regardless.”

  Cullen frowned. “Do what you want,” Gillies said, and slammed the door shut.

  * * *

  The other Army vehicles, Jeeps and Humvees, had pulled up beside Dalton and stopped. A hundred men trained their weapons on the horde in the distance.

  “Visibility’s shit,” Briggs said, handing off a pair of binoculars. “All right,” he said into his radio, “we’re going to try and keep them back with small-arms fire. Use your heat scopes. Reinforcements are on the way to help. With any luck we can get the rotters bunched up close together—then we bring out the heavy artillery,”

  Silhouettes, barely visible through the storm, were peppered with gunfire. They couldn’t see well enough to cripple the rotters; they were wasting ammo. “Let ‘em come closer! Put ‘em down!” Briggs yelled into his radio.

  The shadow figures were scattered sparsely across the dead zone. Dalton knew immediately that something was wrong. He’d seen far, far more than this at the Wall. Where were they? Hanging back, wary of the gunfire? Or plotting?

  Rotters plotting? Undead with a strategy?

  The silhouettes weren’t coming closer. They were spreading further out and fading into the storm.

  “Heat scopes aren’t doing any good!” a captain shouted. Briggs, standing in the front of his Jeep, clenched his fists and sat down. “All right, roll out! Let’s find the sons of bitches!”

  “They’re behind us!”

  Cries erupted throughout the ranks as a surge of undead came from the back, flying out of the white winds and landing on the troops. Sheer panic overtook the men. Briggs could only watch in terrible wonder as the dead claimed their swift and brutal victory.

  * * *

  Voorhees was lying, bound, on the floor of Tripper’s bedroom. Halstead and Lily sat beside him.

  “I’m sorry we hurt him,” Halstead was saying. “But you see, he doesn’t understand that we’re the good guys. Tripper and Campbell have taken good care of you, haven’t they?”

  Lily nodded slowly. “But why would good guys hurt a policeman?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” Voorhees muttered. “You can preach to me all you want, Halstead, but you’re not going to sway a child with your bullshit logic.”

  “You just... if you’d only met Thackeray.” Halstead sighed. “He’s the architect. He’s the revolutionary. He sent us here with a plan, and no, it’s not to burn the Great Cities to the ground. This is about liberating this country from the undead. It’s about not giving up, not living in denial. And I know you understand that logic.”

  Voorhees rolled onto his back, staring at nothing, and spoke not a word.

  He had to get Halstead out of here and be alone with the girl. Halstead wasn’t stupid, though. She wouldn’t give Voorhees the opportunity to talk Lily into untying his wrists.

  But he didn’t need that kind of time. He needed only a few seconds—enough time for Lily to help him loose his widowmaker from the sheath beneath his shirt...

  Cam poked her head into the room. “It’s almost dawn.”

  “Happy Halloween,” Halstead said.

  * * *

  Eviscerato led his minions over Gaylen’s city wall. The few soldiers posted there were slaughtered before they could even reach their radios.

  It had taken only a few hours to make it from the outer Wall. The pack had suffered minimal casualties. And even now, some of the dead soldiers they’d left in their wake were rising to join them.

  The King of the Dead paid no mind to the solitary Jeep that sped past him into the city. Gaylen was asleep. They didn’t stand a chance.

  * * *

  “I see the plane,” one of Gillies’ men cried, pointing east. “Look!”

  Gillies ran from the Hummer and across the airfield, his heart pounding. The plane was still coming, even through the storm! The British had come through! There was a God.

  “Will they land?” Senator Cullen cried.

  “Of course they will!” Gillies pract
ically screamed. “Light the torches! Guide them in!”

  The plane streaked over the airfield and began a sloping turn. Men thrust flames into the air and waved desperately at it.

  The plane was coming in. Cheers broke out among the Senators and their entourages.

  Gillies clapped his hands and, turning to see Ian Gregory standing behind him, said, “Is your faith still waning, my friend?”

  “I can’t do this,” Gregory said.

  “What?”

  “I can’t get on that plane. I belong back there with the troops. I’m not abandoning all these people. The woman I loved,” he said softly, “she died here.” He glanced away from the runway, toward the gates. “She died.” And he began to walk away.

  “Ian! Ian!”

  To hell with him then. Gillies watched the plane touch down. He jogged back to the Hummer and retrieved his briefcase. Hopefully it wouldn’t take long to negotiate his way on board. Maybe he’d just tell them that the rotters had breached the Wall and that all was lost. The truth wouldn’t hurt for once.

  The plane taxied toward the fleet of parked cars and came to a stop, engines whining. Stairs descended as the side hatch opened.

  “All right!” Gillies snapped. “Let me talk to them. Just let me do all the talking.”

  He started up the stairs, calming himself as he did and putting on a formal air. One last diplomatic dance. He’d have to hit every mark perfectly this time.

  As he stepped onto the plane, he was assaulted by a four odor that made him gag: confined, concentrated putrescence, the stench of death. It smelled like they’d come straight from the battlefield. Didn’t anyone observe basic hygiene anymore?

  The cockpit was sealed. Parting a damp curtain, he stepped into the passenger cabin.

  Every seat was occupied. That was a—

  They were all undead

  Gillies staggered back, tearing down the curtain as he fell to the floor. “My—my God! Christ Jesus! Oh no! Oh, no!”

  The cockpit opened. Two uniformed zombies shuffled out, starving hunger in their eyes.

  So, the war in Britain had been won, after all.

  “Oh no,” Gillies stammered. He tried to get up. The pilots’ hands came down on his shoulders. Passengers were rising from their seats, hands outstretched, eager for the taste of American flesh. :Oh no,” the Senator wept. “No, no, NO!”

  They fell upon him. “Nooooooooooooooo!” he wailed, choked with sobs, and then with the blood welling in his throat. “NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Nooooooo...”

  While the pilots licked his bones clean, the rest of the British began to deplane.

  Thirty-Three / The Heavy Artillery

  “Halstead! What’s your twenty? Is Voorhees with you?”

  It was Casey. Halstead answered into her radio, “I’m downtown. Don’t know about Voorhees.”

  “Gulager just called in from the east city limits. He was checking out reports of gunfire... there are rotters inside the walls. They’re on the streets, hundreds of them.”

  Halstead looked up, her face pale. Tripper and Cam shook their heads in disbelief. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” she breathed. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “All right, relax.” Tripper pressed his fingers to his temples. “Think. Think. We gotta get to the storehouse, get the guns. Between us and the Army we can mow these fuckers down, right? Cam?”

  She nodded, already heading for the door. “We’ll have to leave the blind guy here.”

  “And Lily?”

  “She comes with us,” Cam replied. To Halstead she said, “Find out what your S.P.O. wants.”

  “What do you want me to do, sir?” Halstead said into the radio.

  “This is the military’s problem. What we need to do is clear the streets of civilians... it’s all we can do. Make a quick sweep of downtown and then report back here. Watch yourself.”

  “Yeah.” She clipped the radio to her belt and turned to the others. “Where’s the storehouse?”

  “The basement of the soup kitchen,” said Tripper. All of the weapons and ammo he’d bartered for were down there, just waiting. He could tell Cam was itching to get her hands on some.

  “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  “Cullen!” the radio squawked. “This is Briggs!”

  The Senators were speeding down the road away from the airfield. Cullen’s aide passed him the radio, and he responded, “Major?”

  “They’re pouring into Gaylen. City’s barricades crumbled like they were nothing I’ve lost maybe a third of my men. Where the hell is Gillies? I can’t raise him.”

  “He’s dead,” Cullen said numbly.

  “Dead?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “Who’s the acting President?”

  “I am.” Cullen fidgeted with his tie. Fuck Gillies for doing this to him! “We need to contain the threat, Major. Agreed?”

  “Of course. I’m preparing to move my boys into the city.”

  “No,” Cullen said. “Just raze it. Burn it to the ground.”

  “What?”

  “It’s the only way to prevent the spread of infection. No one enters, no one leaves. Just burn it all.”

  “Cullen! You can’t be serious!”

  “I’m dead fucking serious!” the Senator yelled. “I refuse to die like this! I may be stuck in this fucking hellhole but I’m not going to die like this. You burn Gaylen down! You shoot to kill if anyone tries to escape! Do you hear me, Major?”

  There was no reply.

  “He won’t do it,” Cullen grumbled. “Brian, radio the Chicago outpost. I’ll give them my orders. Tell them Major Briggs is no longer running this operation. I am.”

  “Yes sir,” his aide said. Cullen settled back in his seat. He actually wasn’t too bad at this.

  * * *

  The rotters hadn’t reached downtown yet. Tripper, Cam and Halstead—Lily on her back—ran through the empty streets. It was seven in the morning.

  A man exited one of the apartment buildings. “Get inside!” Tripper yelled. “Rotters!” The man shook his head at them and continued on his way.

  Tripper fumbled for the keys to the soup kitchen. Bursting inside, he ran to the basement door, affixed with three locks. “There are others who can help us,” he was saying. “We’ve got to track them down.”

  “How much time do you think we have?” Halstead said.

  “We’ll make time,” said Cam.

  They descended a dark flight of stairs into a musty cellar. Tripper lit a lantern and opened its shutters on the room.

  High-powered rifles, automatics, and hand cannons were stacked along the back wall. Boxes and boxes of ammo were spread out by caliber. “We want to travel light,” Tripper said.

  Cam grabbed a machine gun and started gathering magazines. “This’ll work. Ooh, and this.” She snatched a Colt Python from a rack and tucked it into her waistband.

  “I can’t believe this is really happening,” Halstead said. She stood in the middle of the room and watched as the other two stocked up. “Believe it,’ Tripper said. “Get over here and arm yourself.”

  Lily had been silent this whole time. She sat on the stairs with a weary look. “It’s gonna be okay,” Cam said.

  “I don’t know,” Lily replied. “I wish my friend was here. Then we’d be okay.”

  A distant scream caught everyone’s attention. It was a woman. Her screams drew nearer—then they stopped abruptly.

  “They’re here,” Halstead gasped.

  “Then we go it alone,” Cam muttered. “Ready?”

  “We could stay down here, couldn’t we?” Halstead asked.

  Cam scowled at her. “What happened to the fucking plan, Em? We’ve got to take these bastards out! Letting everyone die isn’t the plan! Now c’mon!” She took off up the stairs.

  Halstead held her arms out to Lily. “C’mon. I want you to get back onto my back and hold on tight. Okay?”

  Cam walked out into the street to fin
d a trio of rotters ripping the slain woman’s skin off. The snow was stained red; steam rose from the corpse’s spurting guts.

  “Hey mates,” Cam called. The fiends looked up.

  She unleashed the machine gun. The rotters flew back as bullets ripped through their throats and faces. Skulls opened and vomited out foul matter. They landed on their backs, twitching but essentially immobilized.

  “On your six!” Tripper cried.

  Cam turned around and cut a rotter in half. It dropped, legless, into the snow and clawed toward her. Gunfire scissored it into half from crown to crotch.

  “Where are we going?” Lily cried, clinging to Halstead’s neck.

  “East!” Tripper said. He stepped into the middle of the street, an Uzi in each hand, and grinned at the oncoming dozens of undead. “Behind me, Halstead. Now watch this.”

  He unloaded into the horde. Zombies spun and tumbled over one another. Heads exploded, leaving bodies to stagger aimlessly and finally sink into the snow.

  “We’ll burn ‘em later.”

  It was a different picture to the east. The rotters were running into tenements and knocking down door after door, falling upon helpless families.

  Some of the living ran into the street and tried to make a break for it. They were brought down in seconds.

  A lone rotter crouched over a dead child and pulled out handfuls of entrails, raising them to its lips.

  Eviscerato brought his cane down on the rotter’s head, sending it sprawling.

  Kill them all. Then eat.

  P.O. Gulager huddled behind a dumpster in an alley and watched the carnage unfold. All he had was a fucking baton. How was he supposed to do anything?

  But he had to do something. He was a cop.