by Jake Bible
Chapter Ten- Hold The Line
On come the Zs, adding to the crushed dead flesh that starts to mound up against the wall. Commander Lee’s fear grows as bodies begin to be shoved upward from the force of the herd. Ten feet up, fifteen feet, twenty feet-the rotten corpses move ever higher.
“Grenades!” Commander Lee shouts. “Throw the last of them now! Toss them past the piles! Don’t blow the wall!”
Arms are thrust forward all along the wall and the deadly grey/green pears sail into the air. The citizens of the Stronghold watch as their explosives clear patches here and there, but are quickly dismayed as the bloody holes are filled within milliseconds.
The ocean of undead continues to crash into the Stronghold, its tide never ceasing.
One by one, all of the flares are lit and dropped, but there is nothing to be done. The Stronghold has run out of ammunition. Commander Lee looks down behind her and can see Kevin Ross yelling to Runners here and there to warn the houses that a breach is coming. He shouts orders to make sure the Gym is ready for the retreat.
“Commander!” someone yells and her attention is brought back to the scene in front of the wall.
There they are.
Mixed in with the Zs, somehow avoiding detection, the Code Monkeys come. They shamble along, keeping in step with the undead around them, but it becomes easy to spot their eyeless faces that are turned up towards the top of the wall. Commander Lee can see the herd pushing the piles higher and higher, like the fault line that created the Rocky Mountains that the Stronghold is built upon, and knows that once the Code Monkeys reach the mound, it will be all over.
Twenty-five feet, thirty feet, thirty-five feet, forty feet. Zs now start to clamber up the mound of their brethren, climbing slowly, undead hand over undead hand, towards the flesh that peers down at them in terror.
All of the Teams are deployed elsewhere and the guns empty. Firepower will not win the day. Commander Lee takes her own rifle and spins it about.
“BREAK SOME SKULLS!” she screams and places a foot on the edge of the wall.
The entire line looks at her as she brings the rifle down onto the head of a Z that has reached the top. It cracks wide and grey matter oozes out between the crushed plates of skull. The corpse tumbles down the mound, smacking into the hundreds of Zs that claw their way to the top.
She brings the rifle down again and again, joined by the rest of the line, as her throat begins to go raw from the force of the war cry she doesn’t even know she’s screaming.
***
The citizens of the Stronghold that stand down below the wall, realize that the tide has turned as they watch their friends and family desperately try to beat back the Zs that come over the top. They start screaming, yelling for their loved ones to retreat, to fall back as they have practiced a thousand times.
The flight half of the fight or flight instinct kicks in and the citizens that stand in the streets of the Stronghold bolt and run, heading to the promised security of the Gym. They rush inside and bolt the doors, knowing that the defensive guard still has one option left, one place to find sanctuary.
***
“Not faster than bullets, are ya motherfuckers?” Stanford smirks, panting and clutching his shoulder where he took a nasty swipe of a blade.
All about the Teams, the bodies of the Code Monkeys lie, their heads and chests leaking blood.
Alastair kneels next to Diaz and holds up three fingers.
“How many?” he asks.
“Three too many,” Diaz snaps. “Get your hand out of my face.”
“He’s good,” Alastair says.
“She isn’t,” Val says as Anna Lee lays in Cole’s arms, struggling to breathe, a knife sticking out from her sternum.
The rest of the Mates, those with rounds still left in their pistols, watch the area, ready for another attack as Val and Stanford squat next to their cousin.
“Fu-fu-fu-fuck…ing go,” Anna Lee croaks, her voice a bloody gurgle. “G-g-g-get…to the…S-s-s-s-strong…hold.”
“Go,” Cole echoes. “I’ll wait with her.”
“Fuck…that,” she says and grabs onto the knife handle, using the last of her strength to pull it free.
None of them shouts for her to stop, and even though Cole is right there, he knows what she is doing, and doesn’t move a muscle as the wound gushes blood that was being held back by the blade. Anna Lee Franks takes one last gasp and then falls still, the knife clattering to the pavement. Cole picks it up and finishes the job, making sure Anna Lee will never have the indignity of coming back as a Z.
He gets to his feet, his uniform slick with blood, and takes the pack that’s handed to him.
As one, the Teams turn towards the direction of the Stronghold and start to run. They no longer have the luxury of a hard march, only a sprint up the mountain will get them to their home in time.
At least, they hope it will.
***
The butt of his shotgun shatters one skull, then another, as Collin beats back the Zs trying to crawl their way over the wall. He kicks a third, then a fourth, almost losing his balance and falling backwards off the platform. Filled with corn hooch and courage, Collin just whoops it up as he regains his balance by leaning forward. The face of a Z is only inches from his, its mouth open, teeth ready.
The thing’s jaws snap down onto empty air as Sheriff March grabs the collar of Collin’s shirt and pulls him upright.
“Nearly lost that veiny nose of yours, Baptiste,” Marsh says. He slams the butt of his rifle into the Z, ripping the thing’s lower jaw off. A quick kick and it falls backwards, dislodging four more Zs on its way down the mound. “Come on, time to retreat.”
“I ain’t no chicken,” Collin says. “I’ll fight until I die.”
“Unless you plan on killing them with your breath,” Marsh says. “Then that’ll be all of two minutes. Come one, you drunk fuck, you’re coming with me.”
Marsh pulls Collin along the platform, joining the rest of the Stronghold citizens that are abandoning their posts and running for the last refuge. He almost considers leaving Collin’s ass behind as he struggles to get the man down one of the ladders without both of them falling and snapping their necks. However, they make it and Marsh continues pulling the man along as Collin gawks at the insanity of the Stronghold with that strange mix of anger, awe and confusion that drunks have.
Weaving through sprinting clusters of guards, Marsh finally gets them to their destination.
“You ready?” Marsh asks the sweaty face of Deputy Doreen Crespo as she throws the Sheriff’s Office door wide.
“Yes, sir,” Doreen says, taking the empty rifle from Marsh and handing him a fully loaded MK-46. She sets the empty rifle down and picks up an AK-47, pulling back the slide and sending a round into the chamber. “Set and ready.”
Collin stumbles into the Sheriff’s office and looks at Deputy Linda Fitzpatrick as she lays out rifle after rifle across Marsh’s desk. His eyes go wide at all the firepower.
“And you gave me a fucking shotgun?” Collin snaps. “Asshole.”
“I never thought this day would work out right,” Marsh says as he slams the door shut and bolts it. “So I made sure Crespo and Fitz had things ready when we had to book it out of there.”
“Which one is mine?” Collin asks, reaching for a short-barreled sub-machine gun. His hand is quickly slapped away by Fitz. “Hey!”
“You just have a seat back in the corner,” Marsh says as he throws a window wide and settles the barrel of his MK-46 on the sill. “I’m not arming you unless it’s a last resort.”
“Where the fuck did you get all of this?” Collin asks, his eyes growing wider as Fitz hefts a massive gun onto her own cleared desk. “What the fuck is that?”
“To answer your first question,” Marsh says. “This is a military town, Baptiste. You can’t imagine what I’ve had to confiscate over the years after a drunken brawl or all night party. Never bothered sending Ross an inventory. Figured h
aving our own stash might come in handy.”
“And this,” Fitz says patting the gun as she answers the second question. “Is an MK-47 grenade launcher.”
Crespo helps her shove the desk up against one of the front windows. The woman hurries over to Collin and glares.
“Move,” she snaps.
“What?” Collin asks, having just done what Marsh ordered and grabbed a seat in the corner.
“You’re sitting on the ordinance,” Crespo says. “Move.”
Collin looks down at the metal box he’s planted his ass upon. He stands up, putting a hand against the wall as the room spins a little. Crespo drags the box over to the grenade launcher, opens it, and hands Fitz the end of a belt of 40mm rounds ready to blow everything in their path to shit.
Looking at the desk of rifles, Collin licks his lips and starts to sidle over to them.
“No,” Marsh says without looking back over his shoulder. “I have zero intention of you accidentally shooting me in the back, so just no.”
“Fine, you ass,” Collin says, grabbing the second drawer down on the left side of the desk. “Then I’ll get comfortable.”
He yanks open the drawer and smiles at the three jars of clear hooch waiting for him.
“Well, hello there,” Collin says. “My name’s Collin Baptiste. Pleased to meet ya.”
***
“In, in, in!” Kevin Ross shouts as those that made it off the wall stream through the front doors of the Team command center. “Hurry! Move! Let’s go!”
The last few cram inside and Kevin is about to shut the door when he sees Commander Lee far off down the street, standing on the wall just next to the gate with nothing but a machete in her hand. A Z crawls up over the edge and she sends its head tumbling back down.
“Commander!” he yells. “COMMANDER LEE!”
The woman looks over her shoulder and frowns at Kevin. She waves a hand for him to get inside, but he shakes his head. She waves again, turns and dispatches one, then two more Zs, looks back at him, her face set, telling him she is not who he wants to deal with right now.
Kevin gives her one last look, then slams the door shut. He makes sure the bars are locked, then reaches up and pulls down the rolled metal grate nested above the doorway. Using his body weight, he yanks the grate to the floor and slams home the locks that nestle into the concrete.
Outside on the wall, Commander Lee can just hear the sound of the locks echoing down the street, before the whole Stronghold goes quiet, except for the continuous groans of the Zs coming at her. She knows that her people are safe for the time being from the Zs, but those creatures aren’t what bother her.
The Code Monkeys. Those fucks.
“You fucks,” she snarls, seeing the blind men and women milling about, seemingly invisible to the Zs. She has no idea how they are accomplishing keeping the Zs from attacking them, and eating them. But that’s something she can work out later. For now, she has to keep them from coming over the wall.
Her eyes find the few men and women that are trapped on top of houses and buildings out in front of the wall that haven’t collapsed; the brave few that tried what they could to slow the herd down. She says a quick prayer, reaches down, and lifts a small box from the platform. Connected to the box is a wire which winds its way down the outside of the wall, and into the street, and then branches off into a hundred other wires, all leading to various charges.
The meat of her thumb rests on one simple button. All she has to do is push.
And she does.
One by one, the various dwellings and structures that fill the space between the wall and the outer perimeter erupt into massive fireballs. Their walls seem to flex inward, then explode out in a hail of fiery shrapnel. Zs everywhere are sliced in half, decapitated, and disemboweled. Hundreds shamble about, their putrid flesh burning and falling off in hot drips. They stumble into each other and spread the flames, fire taking hold in the flaps of skin and scraps of clothing that can never retain moisture in the dry Colorado air.
In just seconds, Commander Lee is holding her forearm in front of her face to shield herself from the heat below. The whole stretch of land between the wall and the outer perimeter is a hellish inferno.
She knows she will probably be removed from her post, because she did not inform the Mayor or any of the council members of her backup plan. They would never have approved of the complete destruction of a third of the houses of their citizens. But she is a soldier, not a politician. She’ll take her punishment and hold her head up proudly, knowing she has saved thousands of lives.
Then her blood turns to ice as she watches figures weave and dodge their way through the blaze, keeping themselves from catching fire while also pushing forward towards the wall. They shove the walking fireballs out of the way and immediately choose the paths up the piles of undead that aren’t yet set aflame. With speed that is near superhuman, the blind crazies come, scurrying up to the top of the wall.
Knowing her limitations, Commander Lee scrambles down a ladder, hits the ground, then runs from ladder to ladder, shoving them to the dirt, hoping she’ll slow the Code Monkeys’ progress. However, as she turns and sprints down the street, she glances over her shoulder and sees the crazies leap to the ground. Some give brief cries as their legs snap, but others are able to roll with it and come up fine, their blind faces turning one way and then the other, taking in all the information their heightened senses can.
Above them, Zs, burning and not burning, crawl onto the platform, stand for a second, and then tumble to the ground. The bodies that don’t burst on impact, get up and start to follow the Code Monkeys, their undead moans filling the air.
Commander Lee looks away and digs deep, pushing her legs as fast as she can until she is several blocks ahead, standing at the intersection of Broadway and University Ave. The streetlights have long since been removed, needed for the scraps and parts they could provide, but Commander Lee has to wonder what it was like so many decades ago when automobiles moved freely through the Stronghold. Back before the gasoline and diesel ran out; before the Stronghold was attacked again and again by outside factions such as the Consortium.
That was well before Commander Lee was born, but she has read the reports, she has seen the photographs. She knows it only takes one cataclysmic event for everything to change.
She prays this isn’t that event for her and her people. She prays that it was the right choice to make many years ago not to tell the population of the Stronghold about the Code Monkeys. She prays that the rare moment of secrecy in a normally open culture doesn’t lead to the death of them all.
Because when the doors fly wide and the people do what they are trained to do, they won’t be just running towards Zs. They will be running towards the faces of death; faces that have no eyes, but can see every way possible to kill and keep killing.
***
A set of double doors at the back of the Gym flies open and Kevin Ross steps into the huge space, dozens of men and women of the defensive guard behind him carrying melee weapons of all types. He moves aside as the weapons are distributed to the crowd. He takes a mental inventory of who takes what, just because that’s his job. A job he takes very seriously.
“You all know what we have to do!” Kevin shouts. “No more bullets, no more explosives. We have drained the armory of every bit of gunpowder. Today, we fight like the founders of the Stronghold did!” He holds out his hand and a large hunting knife is slapped into his palm. He stares at it for a second, then looks at the person that gave it to him. “That’s it? There’re no sabers or machetes left? I’d even take a fire axe or something like that.”
The man shrugs. “Sorry. That’s it.”
“Fuck,” Kevin snaps. “Oh, fucking well.” He turns to the crowd and holds up the knife. “In just a few minutes, we will show those fucks what we are made of! No herd of Zs will take the Stronghold! Now or ever!”
Cheers and chants go up, as the people inside the Gym rally themselves into a f
ighting frenzy.
***
“Was that Commander Lee that ran by?” Fitz asks. “Should we call her in here?”
“No,” Marsh says. “She knows what she’s doing.”
“Bet she wishes she hadn’t created a Silo Team Beta out of the reserve Mates, huh?” Collin says, happily holding a jar of hooch. “Kinda left her without backup.”
“Oh, there’s plenty of backup,” Marsh grins. “But you wouldn’t know, since you haven’t attended a civil defense meeting in how long?”
“Fuck if I know,” Collin says, taking a long swig from the jar. “I lost count just after I could give two shits and right before fuck you all, I’m getting drunk.”
“Exactly,” Marsh smiles. “It was probably better for everyone that you didn’t attend.”
“Better for me,” Collin says, finishing off the jar and reaching for another one.
“You realize I use that shit to clean my guns with, right?” Marsh says.
“Lucky guns,” Collin grins.
“Here they come, Sheriff,” Crespo says.
“Zs?” Marsh asks.
“And more,” Crespo replies, nodding to the street. “Are they blind? Jesus, they are!”
“Quiet,” Marsh says.
Collin lets out a loud belch behind them.
“Sorry,” he says. Then he farts. “Not for that, though. That had to come out.”
Marsh whirls on him, his eyes filled with accusation and anger.
“Did you know?” he asks.
“Nope,” Collin says. “Not until after my sister gave her rah-rah speech. By then, what’s it matter?” He shrugs. “Nothing we can do once they get inside, you know that.”
“What’s he talking about?” Fitz asks. “Who are those people?”
“Code Monkeys,” Marsh says.
“Code…? Fucking seriously?” Crespo laughs. “What the fuck name is-”
“Shhh,” Marsh snaps. “Don’t say another word, don’t make a sound. Don’t fucking breathe.”
