gatheringdeadkindle

by Stephen Knight

  “Locked?” Finelly asked.

  McDaniels shook his head. “Negative. Held back on the other end, somehow.” He pointed to the cigarette butts. “Someone’s still alive up here. Probably on the other side of this door.”

  Finelly looked in the corner and nodded. He then looked at the placard next to the door. McDaniels followed his gaze. The placard read CAFETERIA.

  “Well, if they have any gumption, at least they won’t starve to death. And whatever they have in there probably tastes better than our MREs.”

  McDaniels nodded, then turned. Behind them was one more set of stairs, which terminated at a heavy, green door. Painted on the door was the message:

  ROOF ACCESS

  AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

  “And here we are,” he said. He bolted up the stairs and pushed on the door. It was locked. McDaniels sighed, but with the AA-12, he was prepared for this eventuality.

  “I’m going to have to shoot the door off its hinges,” McDaniels explained. “I could use a grenade to do it, but for all I know, there’s a gas main in one of these walls, and I don’t want to get blown into orbit. So I’m going to shoot it off instead.”

  “Guess you Jedi Knights have a lot of fun on your gunnery range days,” Finelly said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the entry door to the cafeteria behind him. “What about whoever’s still in there?”

  “Later. We have a call to make. You better step back. This is going to be pretty freaking loud.”

  Finelly retreated to the lower staircase and took position there. McDaniels lowered his goggles and shouldered the AA-12. He fired two shots. The first round tore through the locking mechanism in an explosion of sparks and shredded metal that ricocheted off the cinderblock walls. The second round blasted the remains of the latch assembly into oblivion, and the roof door flew open as if it had been kicked. The tepid remains of daylight entered the stairwell.

  “We’re good,” McDaniels said to Finelly. He reported the current events back to Gartrell, who informed him the situation near the ground remained static, but that the zed count seemed to be increasing.

  “They might have heard those last shots,” the first sergeant opined. “HE rounds can be pretty loud, you know.”

  “Got that, Five. Time to make the call, I’ll get back to you.”

  McDaniels edged out onto the roof. Finelly was right behind him. The building they were on was by no means the tallest, but there weren’t many huge skyscrapers this far from midtown; Manhattan’s Upper East Side was mostly residential. The two men checked the rooftop for any ghouls, but they had it to themselves.

  Glass shattered in the near distance. Both men looked toward another office tower on the opposite block. This building was mostly dark; apparently, it was without power. It was also completely infested with zombies. McDaniels and Finelly watched as one zombie pushed itself through a plate glass window, reaching toward them as it did so. Of course, it fell thirty stories to the ground below. Another zombie replaced it, then another, and another. They boiled out of the building like a sudden rush of maggots, moaning and writhing as they tried to walk across thin air to the neighboring rooftop. If it wasn’t so gruesome, McDaniels thought it would be hilarious.

  “Those things are pretty stupid,” Finelly opined.

  McDaniels felt the mindlessness of the zombies was frankly horrifying. There was no chance they would ever give up their pursuit of human flesh. They were already dead and had nothing else to lose. He walked to the edge of the roof, watching as the zombies kept walking out of the shattered window. How many of them were there?

  A chorus of moans from the street below rose up to meet him. McDaniels looked down from his vantage point over the corner of Lexington Avenue and East 79th Street. What he saw took his breath away.

  Below, thousands of zombies milled about. The ones falling from the building landed on those walking on the sidewalk and street below, but the fall didn’t kill them. Even though a great many of their bones had to have been turned into pulp upon impact, they still twitched and shuddered and tried to return to the building they had fallen from. One, a half-naked woman, rose from the ground with a horribly mangled arm and severely fractured leg. But more horrifying was the fact her head hung backwards over her shoulders, so her face was pointing backwards. The zombie merely turned and hobbled toward the building... backwards.

  No stopping these things, McDaniels said to himself. No stopping them at all...

  He turned and faced downtown. Fires still raged there, casting a ruddy orange glow across the skyline. The smoke was just as thick and heavy as before, and even on the roof of the building, he saw its taint hanging in the air. It was like looking out over Los Angeles on a smoggy day. At least half of the city was dark now, and many of the tall, elegant skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan stood a dark, silent watch over the burgeoning walking dead. In the distance—was it from uptown?—McDaniels heard sirens, and the occasional gunshot. But other than the whisper of the wind, the moaning of the dead, and the whirring of the building’s HVAC systems, the city was as quiet as it likely had ever been over the past two centuries.

  And the dead. There were thousands of them. As McDaniels watched, they slowly marched mostly uptown, away from the flames, toward the still-lit horizon. They were hungry, and they were following their food source.

  He turned away from the vista and pulled the satellite phone from its holster. According to the display on the transceiver, it had signal. McDaniels punched in the access code and placed the phone against his right ear.

  “Rapier, this is Terminator, over. Rapier, this is Terminator, over.”

  “Terminator, this is Rapier, over.” The response was so sudden that it was almost overpowering. McDaniels felt the relief shoot through him, and it must have shown on his face, because Finelly started smiling. The action seemed uncharacteristic for him.

  “Rapier, this is Terminator. Just calling to let you know that we are still above room temperature, and still in possession of our packages. We were wondering if there’s any chance for an extraction, over.”

  “Terminator, this is Rapier. Give us your pos, we’ll see if we can work something out. We got the word ROMEO burned in, so we’re kind of surprised to hear from you, over.”

  “Rapier, this is Terminator. Roger that. Position is: latitude, forty point seven seven five two. Longitude, minus seven three point niner five eight seven. Total of nine souls looking forward to getting the hell out of the Big Apple. Over.”

  The operator at Fort Bragg read back the GPS coordinates, which McDaniels verified. The operator then told McDaniels to stand by.

  “So what’s the story?” Finelly asked. He squatted on the rooftop next to McDaniels, but could only hear his part of the conversation. He looked up at the darkening sky. Twilight was almost upon them, but it didn’t seem to worry the big sergeant. McDaniels knew that was because he was a Night Stalker, and was used to operating at night. A daytime op like what they had undergone in Central Park must have been an anomaly for him.

  “Put on hold. They’re probably looking for an asset to hand the air tasking order to,” McDaniels said.

  “Here’s hoping it’ll happen soon. I don’t want to stay here overnight.” Finelly watched the zombies as they continued to spill out of the office across the street. McDaniels turned and looked as well. It was an unsettling sight, something he hadn’t dreamed of watching in person.

  “Terminator, this is Rapier, over.”

  “Rapier, Terminator. Over.” McDaniels squatted opened the kneeboard on his right leg. He found a blank sheet of paper, pulled out the pen, and stood ready to start writing down the details.

  “Terminator, this is Rapier. We’re scrambling trying to find a vertical lift asset that can pull you out of there, but almost everything we had in the zone was lost at Central Park. We don’t have any 160th resources available to us right now, though we do have units moving up from Georgia, over.”

  McDaniels blinked, but avoided
looking at Finelly. “Roger that, Rapier. So what do you think you can send our way? I want to make sure you know we have the package, and that our situation isn’t as great as it could be. Over.”

  “Terminator, this is Rapier. Roger on that last, we know you have the package and we’re trying to coordinate an extraction with available resources. We’ll have to go outside the family on this one.” McDaniels winced a bit when he heard that. Going outside the family meant that a regular line unit would be tasked to make the extraction, which shouldn’t be a big deal, but he had no idea who would be doing the flying. “So we’re calling contacts on the leader board trying to find someone who has something they can throw your way. Uh listen, Terminator, there’s no chance you could get out of there by heading over land, is there? Over.”

  McDaniels almost laughed. “Rapier, negative. Terminator can’t make it out over land. There are about ten thousand stenchers between us and Harlem, over.”

  “Roger that, Terminator. Stand by, we’re still looking. Over.”

  “Rapier, Terminator standing by, over.” McDaniels adjusted the boom microphone connected to his personal radio earpiece and pressed the transmit button. “Five, I’m in touch with USASOC now. They’re seeing what they can do for us. What’s your SITREP? Over.”

  Gartrell came back immediately. “None too good, major. We’ve got a lot of activity outside... looks like the deadheads are more active at night. You hear anything about that during the mission briefings? Over.”

  McDaniels shook his head even though Gartrell couldn’t see it. “Negative on that, Five. I don’t think anyone really knows that just yet, but I’ll run that by the doctor once we get back down. Over.”

  “Roger that. I’m going to send Rittenour up to check on things, and he’ll send Leary down to me. Shouldn’t be solo down here for very long, but I’ve got my eye on things, over.”

  “I trust your judgment on that, Five. How many stenches are outside, would you think? From up here, it looks like over ten thousand. Over.”

  There was a pause before Gartrell responded. “Ah major, did you say ‘ten thousand’? Over.”

  “Roger that, Gartrell. At least ten to twelve thousand zeds in the streets that I can see. Lexington is full of them, over.”

  “Good to know... I guess. You might want to give USASOC a poke and find out if they know of any other units in the area. I’ve been flipping over to the common net, and there is some sporadic activity on that, I was briefly in contact with an operator who had holed up in a coffee shop with a couple of NYPD guys and some civilians. They had one guy turn on them, had a bite on his arm and he went over to the dark side, over.”

  “Terminator, this is Rapier, over.”

  “Five, roger that last on the radio contact, I’ll pass that on. McDaniels, out.” McDaniels spoke directly into the sat phone. “Rapier, this is Terminator. Go ahead, over.”

  “Terminator, Rapier. We have a lot of resource contention, but we’re working to free up an asset to head your way. I’m sorry, but it’s going to take some time. Lots of commands are fragmented right now, over.”

  McDaniels felt a sinking sensation start to form in his stomach. “Roger that, Rapier. We’re secure for the time being, but that can change in a heartbeat. We don’t have a lot of guns available, and the numbers aren’t on our side. And the package says he’s got some important research to farm out, so I hope that gets us kicked up the list. Over.”

  “Terminator, Rapier. Good copy on all. We’re trying to move mountains on this side, but there just aren’t enough aircraft to go around right now. We have lots of assets repositioning, but there’s just no one out there who can jump out. I know you don’t want to hear it, but we need more time. Over.”

  McDaniels sighed. He heard the sincerity in the operator’s voice, and even if he hadn’t, there wasn’t any reason for USASOC to push him off. He had Safire with him, after all.

  “Rapier, Terminator. How long do you think you’ll need? Over.”

  “Terminator, stand by.”

  “Roger.” McDaniels looked at Finelly, and shrugged. “They’re trying to see who they can send our way. I guess New York’s not the only place where there’s trouble.”

  “Right before we left Campbell, we heard about zeds showing up in Louisville. No idea how many, and the local PD was dealing with it. And some of the Air Force guys and jarheads mentioned ‘em being in Florida and North Carolina, too.”

  McDaniels frowned. “How long ago did you leave Fort Campbell, sergeant?”

  Finelly checked his watch. “Almost three days now, major.”

  McDaniels clenched his teeth and watched more zombies march out the busted window on the 30th floor of the building across the street. They didn’t seem terribly put off by the fact they had a rapid fire date with the concrete below.

  “Three days,” he said. “I was deployed a day ago, and I never heard anything about an infestation other than in New York.”

  Finelly shrugged. “I guess maybe you were in a rabbit hole or something.”

  McDaniels snorted. “Working for USASOC’s J2 directorate is just about that. Funny, I thought I was supposed to be up to date before jumping out.”

  Finelly was silent for a long moment. “Major, when they come back to you, maybe you can ask about our families.”

  “Give me the full names of all your troops.” McDaniels opened his kneeboard and flipped to his notebook. Finelly gave the full names of the Night Stalkers, and McDaniels wrote them down, including ranks and unit. He then added the names of the Special Forces soldiers, as well as Gartrell and his own. At the end, he added the Safires. He didn’t know if they had any relatives in the area, or if USASOC would even know anything about them, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

  “Terminator, this is Rapier Six.”

  McDaniels straightened up a bit when he heard the voice. Rapier Six was the call sign for Lieutenant General Josiah Abelson, the commanding general in charge of the United States Army Special Operations Command. Even though McDaniels knew Abelson personally—the general was actually a fairly affable individual, as far as three star generals went—a commanding general almost never interacted with field personnel during an operation, which meant this was something of a precedent. And a damned spooky one, at that.

  “Rapier Six, Terminator Six. Go ahead, over.”

  “Terminator, Rapier Six. Good to hear your voice again, Cord. When we got word that ROMEO had gone in, we’d thought the worst. How’s the package? Over.”

  “Rapier, the package is good for the time being, but I can’t guarantee that’s going to continue to be the case. We’re in the middle of dead central, and the only thing that’s keeping them from us is that they don’t have the collective intelligence to turn a door knob. Over.”

  “Understood, Terminator. Listen, Cord... I have to be honest, things are falling apart quicker than we can put them together again. We never thought the lines would be overrun as quickly as they were, and we didn’t anticipate we’d lose the entire assembly area. We surged every airframe we had available into Central Park, and only a few made it out. From what we can see on the satellite displays, a lot of our aircraft are still on the ground. Hell, some of them even have their rotors still turning. Over.”

  McDaniels didn’t know what Abelson expected from him, so he merely said, “Understood, Rapier. Over.”

  “Big Army is putting together a land movement to the city. The entire 10th Mountain Division is already on the move. I’ve tried to get a CH-47 from them, but all their assets are tied up supporting the movement. They’ve been encountering issues on the way... not just zeds, but citizens are evacuating in their direction, and slowing up the advance. But we haven’t forgotten you, major. We intend to get you people out of there, any way we can. Over.”

  “Roger that, Rapier. Sir, I’d like to give you the names of those who are here with me, and we’re all hoping someone on your side can take a moment to verify the well-being of our dependents.” McDaniels f
elt an undercurrent of black dread forming in his breast when he images of his own family arose before his mind’s eye, unbidden. “We’d probably get along better if we knew how they were doing. Over.”

  “Understood, Terminator. I’ll be turning the mike over to operations now, they’ll take the information. You keep things together up there. We really are coming for you, Cord. Rapier Six, out here.”

  In other words, Onward Christian Soldiers, McDaniels thought sourly. General Abelson’s intentions might have been in the right place, but if a three-banger in charge of all the Army’s special operations forces couldn’t tell you what was going to happen and when, then it was dire time indeed.

  “Terminator Six, Rapier, over.”

  “Go ahead, Rapier.”

  “Let me have those names, Terminator. We’ll try and get some info out to you.”

  McDaniels read off the names in a flat monotone. Across the street, zombies tumbled from the building in a seemingly endless stream. For all he knew, some of the less-battered ones had crawled back up for another round.

  The operator heard the tone of his voice even though the compression algorithms that made up secure satellite communications. “Uh listen, Terminator... you heard what Rapier Six said. We’re moving all the pieces trying to build a bridge your way. Sorry it’s not an instant-on kind of thing, but we really are trying. Only thing left for you guys is to keep low and camp out for a while. Over.”

  “Rapier, Terminator Six. I know the routine, no need for the pep talk. We’re all big boys and we know what we have to do. When do we call you next? Over.”

  Finelly rose to his feet and walked a few steps away. It didn’t show on his face, but McDaniels knew the NCO was disgusted at the wait. And, to no doubt, frightened.

  “Give us an hour, Terminator. Over.”

  “Roger, we’ll be back with you at”—McDaniels checked his watch—“1910 hours. Terminator out.” With that, he powered down the phone and placed the unit in its holster. He rose to his feet and adjusted the AA-12 and his backpack.