“Grey smoke? You stupid son of a bitch, you went too far to your right and you shifted too far forward. The orders were to shift your squad one hundred yards to the right and spread out! You’re almost two hundred yards out of position!”
“Sorry Black Knight 1, we had a whole mess of hostiles and it was hard to keep track. I’m gonna shift back. Just make sure I have no one in front of me. The boys are jumpy as hell.” Jerome looked back at Thuy and Courtney. They were more “twitchy” than jumpy.
“Copy that. Give me a minute and then move directly east. It’ll be clear. Out.” The LT began barking into the radio, shifting men about once more.
The ruse seemed to have worked and Courtney almost wilted in relief, sagging back against a tree. “Thank God. We’re finally free,” she said, too tired to even grin.
“What are you talking about?” Jerome hissed at her. “Get up! Get up! It’s going to take them all of two minutes to realize that we ain’t who we said we were, so come on.”
He pulled Courtney to her feet and dragged her through the smoke in a rush, letting Thuy shuffle along in their wake. After two days of fighting for their lives, both women were dog-tired and had to will themselves onward. Jerome, on the other hand, never felt better. Adrenaline pumped through his veins giving him a heady rush. He was going to live. He was going to make it when so many had died. In his mind, that had to mean something.
“Destiny,” he whispered as he saw something glinting on the ground. There were brass shell casings in the leaves around the base of an elm tree. They were warm to the touch. A soldier of the 82nd had been tucked up under the elm not a minute before. “Now we’re free,” he said, grinning.
Chapter 13
1—11:24 a.m.
The Eastern Border of the New Quarantine Zone
The bullet left the hunter’s gun and struck exactly where he wished it to strike: a pine tree with a trunk a foot in diameter, seven inches from Deckard’s right eye.
Bark flew and the smack of the bullet was loud in Deckard’s ear. He dropped so suddenly that for a moment, the hunter thought he had hit the man instead of the tree. A second look down the scope on his M4 showed Deckard scrambling around the base of the tree, bringing his weapon to bear.
A grin turned up the corners of the hunter’s mouth—the man was fast, the man was good, the man could’ve been a worthy opponent under different circumstances.
“I could’ve put that in your eye,” the hunter called out. “I’m looking at you through a Su16 Tactical Scope, so do yourself a favor, turn around and start walking.”
A cold wave of goosebumps broke out on Deckard’s arms. A man who used a Su 16 Tactical Scope wasn’t someone to mess with, especially when you came into his territory.
And Deckard was certainly in someone’s well prepared trap. The brush had been cleared in a wide belt so that there wasn’t any cover beyond the trunks of young trees. These were barely wide enough to hide a man and that was only when he was being seen from straight on, and there was no telling where the shooter had hidden himself.
To Deckard’s front, the land sloped gently upward and the forest there was so thick a marching band could be hiding within it and he would never have known. Still, he eased upwards, searching for the shooter. He could almost feel the crosshairs that he was sure were centered right on his forehead. It gave him a maddening itch right between the eyes, that he refused to scratch. It would have been seen as a sign of weakness.
The man with the rifle had chosen his position like a pro. For all intents and purposes, he was invisible.
“If you have a scope, then you can see we aren’t infected,” Deckard called out. Slowly, he stood, with his empty hands held out from his sides. “See? My eyes are clear. I’m not suffering from any delusions and I really, really don’t want to eat you. I could go for a steak, right now, but just as long as it comes from a cow and not a person. Ha-ha.”
The poor joke made the still air feel dead. Deckard turned toward Fowler and gestured for him to stand. “We even have soldiers with us. This is PFC Max Fowler. He’s a proven zombie fighter. Our knowledge of the beasts would be very valuable to you. Turn around Fowler, nice and slow.”
It was obvious that Fowler was barely keeping it together. His eyes were big circles that went back and forth, searching for the gun that he knew was aimed at him. Looking like an owl-human hybrid, Fowler’s body slowly turned, but his head remained fixed forward, twisting around on his neck so much that Deckard thought it just might pop off. Eventually the strain became too great and Fowler spun, his head whipping around to sit straight on his neck once again.
“You see?” Deckard said. “We’re just normal guys like you.”
“What about him?” the voice called out.
What about who? Deckard was about to ask, only at that moment he heard a sound behind him. It was Dr. Wilson coming forward, looking like the walking dead. His eyes might have been clear of the disease, but they were heavy with misery.
“Oh him,” Deckard said and tried to grin. “That’s only Dr. Wilson. We had a run in with some trigger-happy locals. Yes, he was shot, but he is not sick. Just look at his eyes.” Quieter, Deckard spoke to Wilson out of the corner of his mouth: “Stop, right there, Wilson. Don’t go any further.”
Dr. Wilson didn’t stop, he shuffled on. Now, Fowler hissed: “Please, Wilson, stop. He’ll kill you if you keep going.”
“That’s ok,” Wilson said, speaking in a dry monotone. “I can’t go on. I’m too tired and I’ve lost too much blood.”
“Wilson!” Deckard growled. “Stop right there. That’s an order. You’re one of us and we won’t let you die. Do you hear me?”
Wilson nodded, but kept going. He stared straight ahead, his eyes wide and blank. “This is the only way. I’d slow you down. We both know that. We both know that this is for the best.” He kept coming and now he came parallel with Deckard, about fifteen feet to his left.
He carried a gun. It had been Fowler’s. The soldier had set it aside when he had stood to display himself and now Wilson held it pointed out in front of himself.
The voice hidden in the woods called out: “Stop that man or I will.”
Deckard took a step forward, but stopped when the barrel of the gun swung his way. He held his hands up and pleaded for the doctor to give up the weapon and to “listen to reason.”
Dr. Wilson was beyond reason. He wanted to live and actively feared dying, and yet he couldn’t force himself to go on. What was the use? They had gone from one end of the Zone to the other and all of their roads had ended in death and misery. If he turned from this path, his death would only be put off for a short while longer. An open wound would soon fester with Com-cells and then he would be worse than a hindrance.
He kept going until the hidden voice of the hunter yelled out: “Take care of your own.”
“We don’t have the supplies,” Deckard said. “I did the best I could with what medical supplies we had, but it wasn’t…”
“That’s not what I meant,” the hunter replied.
Deckard was slow to catch on. It took him a number of blinks before he realized that the hunter wanted him to kill Wilson. It would be a mercy, there was no doubt about that. Wilson was a bloody mess and was fading fast. His pain had to be atrocious.
But he was also Deckard’s friend. That wasn’t something he took lightly. He didn’t kill his friends simply because they became a burden. At the same time Wilson had the right to die with some dignity, instead of mewling out his last moments as he became one of them.
Making no sudden moves, Deckard picked up his M4. When the strap rattled against the stock, Wilson stopped and glanced back. Now, the dull orbs held fear and his ragged breath picked up tempo. Deckard aimed, but when Wilson sniveled he lowered his gun. “I can’t,” he said.
“Don’t draw it out,” the hunter called. “Don’t be cruel or I’ll put a slug in his head with him looking right at me.”
There was a reason why people got sh
ot in the back of the head; no one wanted to see their death coming. Wilson was no exception. He tucked his chin down, and looked at the ground, his body shaking.
Deckard could see tears catch the light as they fell from his jaw. “Or you can let him go,” he yelled. “Just let us walk on by. We know the danger and we know the symptoms of the virus, and we aren’t afraid to die if that’s what needs to happen…but it doesn’t need to happen just yet.”
“Take care of your man,” the hunter said again. Although he had hunted and eaten many animals, he had never killed a man before and now that he was down to it the idea set his teeth on edge.
“No,” Deckard stated. “I know he’s an innocent man who is weak and harmless. I won’t kill someone like that. It would be murder and if you shot him that would make you a murderer. Is that what you want to be? If so, go ahead and do it. Get it over with. If not, let us walk on by and no one will know.”
The hunter wasn’t one for deep moral quandaries, they tended to make him grouchy. Purposefully, he kept to the simple road. Murder was wrong, but so was disobeying a direct order. For the sake of the country, he couldn’t let anyone pass. Given the lives of millions on one hand and only one life on the other, he had to go with saving the greater number.
He pulled his trigger in answer to Deckard and a 5.56mm bullet blasted a hole in Dr. Wilson’s head before he even heard the sound of the gunshot. His body collapsed onto itself and as it did, Deckard jerked his weapon up—almost to his shoulder.
“I wouldn’t if I was you,” the hunter drawled. He had Deckard’s torso in his sights and there was no way he could miss. “If you put that gun down and shut that dog up, I’ll let you bury the dead.”
Sundance was baying for all he was worth. He knew where the hunter was; he could smell the man’s sweat and he could see the moss-covered barrel of his gun. Fowler had him by his collar and was crooning into his ear, afraid for both of them.
Deckard, a few feet away, wasn’t afraid. His mind was too busy calculating angles and distances. He had followed Sundance’s eyes and now knew where the hunter was hidden beneath a partially downed tree—the question he wrestled with: could he aim his rifle in its current position well enough to kill the man in a quarter of a second.
Once, ten years before, one of Deckard’s instructors had called him: Scary-fast. He was still scary fast, but he wasn’t magically fast. Against another opponent, he might have tested that speed. Against a proven marksman, when his blood was up and his finger already drawing back on the trigger, it wasn’t a smart idea.
“I’m putting down my gun,” Deckard said, slowly opening his right hand and moving it away from the trigger guard. Gradually, he laid the M4 in the dirt and stood again, his hands up.
“I didn’t want to have to do that,” the hunter said. “I really am sorry.”
Deckard looked down at Wilson’s corpse. His eyes were wide and his mouth was a round “O.” He seemed puzzled by his abrupt demise. Deckard reached down and closed the eyes. “I’m sorry, too,” he whispered.
2—Newark, New Jersey
Shannon DiGirorio, her grimacing face streaked with sweat and tears, pushed on the heavy desk with all her might. Across its expanse stood the door leading from her office to the hall—it was partially open. The lock had failed ten minutes before. The knob had just popped right out to bounce off the desk with a little “clang” of metal.
Since then it had been a battle to see who would control the door. On one side of the door was a desk and on the other side of that was Shannon, all alone. Beyond the door and straining at it with savage and unholy strength were monsters, some of them were monsters she had known and worked with when they had been people.
A few hours before, the hospital had been humming as it usually did, busy, but not overly so. Then, along came the agents from FEMA. Like fat, officious vultures, they had descended at dawn, snatching up doctors and nurses and anyone who they felt they would need—need for what was never exactly explained.
Shannon didn’t think even the FEMA agents knew exactly why so many people were being “relocated.” As far as the gossip went, anyone trying to leave the Quarantine Zone was being shot to death. So why were doctors needed?
“Typical bureaucratic nonsense,” one of the elderly patients had answered, as he gummed a set of yellowing dentures. “Them government shits go by the book even if the book don’t make any kind of sense. I seen it all my life.”
Shannon was sure he was right. All of the FEMA agents had Emergency Preparedness booklets tucked under their arms which they would consult from time to time as they commandeered not only staff, but also blood, IV supplies, bandages, drugs and all kinds of medical equipment. Things had gone from humming and mellow to frantic and rushed.
The understaffed hospital was in an uproar and patients were beginning to stack up in the halls by the time Mary Gainor and her six year old son, Caleb came in bleeding from the bite Donald Briggs had given him.
Both mother and son were smeared in a slick, black slime which Mary explained away as being “grease.” She was afraid of what would happen to them if anyone found out the truth of how they had been attacked by a zombie right on the front lawn of their Newark home.
In the first minute that mother and son were in the ER, the “grease” was smeared on the handles of the main entrance doors, and on the reception desk, and all over the triage room. A dozen people were infected in no time.
The infection spread as a curious and playful four year old named Kenny, tried to engage Caleb in a game of hide and seek. Kenny was bored and filled with little boy energy that could not be contained. He had been in the ER for an hour ever since his older brother had cut himself while making toast. Sometime in that hour, his mother had given up on trying to keep Kenny in his seat, and now, he snaked back and forth through the crowded waiting room to visit Caleb. Every time he did, the four year old couldn’t help touching, well, everything.
Kenny spread the Com-cells far and wide. Within an hour, seventy-eight patients and ER staff were complaining of headaches. Thirty minutes after that, the first violence occurred as Mary Gainor went berserk and attacked one of the “new” people in the ER.
The “new” ones were all so clean and snooty, and they made Mary’s stomach grumble in hunger. Without a police presence, orderlies were called in. It took three men to subdue her and her son. The same three men were called back four times in the next forty minutes and, by then, the ER was a dangerous place and not just because of the layer of Com-cells that coated nearly every surface.
It was frightfully dark and shadowed as all the lights had been smashed. The endless caterwauling that echoed throughout the halls was like something out of an asylum for the criminally insane. People, staff and patients alike, huddled in corners or beneath chairs, moaning and crying in horrendous pain. They glared at those less infected than themselves and threw violent, volcanic tantrums at the least provocation.
People just coming in to the ER, turned and fled after only a minute or two, and, sad to say, many were already infected as they did so.
Mary Gainor, high on mega doses of Percocet, watched the mayhem overwhelm the ER while strapped to a gurney. She no longer cared about her son. All she cared about was keeping the pain away and figuring how to feed. Her belly growled, endlessly. She grew desperately hungry for fresh blood, but there was none to be had. In the two and half hours she had been in the ER, everyone there become infected. They all stank like rotted meat.
The smell of them was enough to drive her into a rage, but with the help of the drugs coursing through her veins, she held the anger in check long enough to plot and scheme. There was fresh blood nearby, she could smell it coming down from the duct work.
“It’s upstairs,” she growled, her voice grinding like rock on rock. “You,” she barked at one of the stinking, mewling creatures crawling along the baseboards. It had once been human. It had once been a doctor. Now its rage was beginning to overcome its pain. “Untie me!”
It listened and obeyed, though its once nimble fingers were now clumsy sausages that fumbled at the straps for what felt like an eternity to Mary.
When she was free, she set about closing off the hospital, blocking doors and pushing the infected into place so that there would be nowhere for the others to go. It took thirty minutes to seal off the lower floor and by that time the Percocet was wearing off and Mary’s mind was beginning to revert to a primitive level where a need to kill vied only with a need to feed.
Grinning a madman’s black grin, she headed up the stairs, followed by an assorted group of erstwhile patients and staff who were now slavering, hungry zombies.
The rest of the hospital was oblivious to what was happening. After FEMA had made off with half the staff, the various departments found themselves running around, completely frazzled. And when they weren’t speeding from room to room and rushing through the all-important paperwork, they watched the endless loop of TV footage of the massive parachute drop and of the scores of giant planes rumbling over city after city, and they even ran to the window when the hundreds of Army Blackhawks buzzed over the city.
Marty Aleman had not erred in thinking that the country needed a shot of something to calm their collective nerves.
The sight of the planes had made a shoeless Shannon DiGirorio almost wilt in relief. She had a brother in Providence barely sixty miles from the edge of the Quarantine Zone and she’d been worried sick for him, though in truth, for the last two hours she had been too busy to be worried.
She hadn’t been a floor nurse in ten years, and three hours on her feet made her remember why she had given it up for a cushy job behind a desk. Her aching feet were the reason she was in her office when the first of the zombies from the emergency room came lurching up out of the stairwell to sow terror.
The hospital had been so well constructed and sound-proofed that the first few screams barely registered on her. They sounded like a distant steam pipe letting go and she only grunted as she watched television footage taken from a traffic cam. It showed what looked like a strange parade of stumbling people going past in an endless stream.
The Apocalypse Crusade 3: War of the Undead Day 3 Page 19
