gatheringdeadkindle

by Stephen Knight

  There was a tremendous crash, and the van rocketed forward, sliding into the smoke amidst an explosion of glass and metal. McDaniels narrowly missed being sideswiped by the white vehicle as he dove for the pavement, rolling across the remains of the zombies he and Gartrell had cut down. Slipping and sliding in the disgusting filth of dark ichor which leaked from their finally inanimate bodies, he struggled to his feet as the roaring engine clattered and quit in a puff of smoke. A yellow taxi had slammed into the back of the van at high speed, demolishing the vehicle’s heavy duty bumper and flexing the rear clamshell doors partially open. Smoke and steam boiled out from beneath the car’s crumpled hood. Its entire front end had been destroyed, and its windshield was a spider web of cracks. Its engine cut out with a raucous clatter.

  Inside the car’s dark interior, shapes moved across the front seat.

  Shapes in uniform.

  McDaniels lifted his MP5 and fired a burst into the open passenger window as the figure there lifted its own weapon. McDaniels beat the zombie on the draw, and sparks flew as his bursts raked the taxi’s door and the ghouls inside. All his attack really did was throw off the zombie’s aim. Its return salvo raked across the apartment building behind McDaniels, shattering windows.

  McDaniels advanced toward the taxi, firing short, tight bursts. The zed sitting in the passenger seat was definitely one of OMEN Team, though McDaniels couldn’t remember his name. As the zombie tried to return fire, one of McDaniels’ bullets struck its MP5, ripping the weapon from the ghoul’s grasp. That was all McDaniels needed, and he leaned it, clicked the fire selector on his weapon to SEMI, and fired a single round into the dead trooper’s skull. Even the Kevlar helmet on its head couldn’t save it, and the zombie slumped forward in the seat.

  The driver of the taxi wore night vision goggles, and raised its sidearm. Before McDaniels could do anything, the gun went off. McDaniels felt a heavy punch to his sternum shove him away from the wrecked taxi. One of his feet slipped in the gore on the street, and he fell just as another pistol round whipped past his head. He hit the ground hard, and his wind left him in a rush.

  The zombie in the taxi shoved open the driver’s door and slowly pulled itself out of the wreckage. McDaniels rolled over onto his side, struggling to take a breath, but his diaphragm felt as if it had been paralyzed. He pushed himself to his knees as the zombie hurried around the taxi as quickly as its dead legs could carry it. It fired at McDaniels twice while on the move, but both shots missed. McDaniels raised his MP5 and fired back a quick burst. All the rounds stuck the zombie in its ballistic armor, causing it to stumble, but did no damage. McDaniels shouldered his weapon and fired again, just as the zed did the same thing. A round ripped past McDaniels’ head. The zombie took McDaniels’ shot right below the nose, and its head rocked back beneath the force of the impact. It collapsed to the street in a heap and lay unmoving.

  Except for its mouth, which continued to open and close. As McDaniels’ breath suddenly returned to him, he realized his shot had only severed the cervical vertebra that connected the zombie’s barely-functioning brain to its body. In essence, it was now paralyzed.

  McDaniels sent it to hell with a round to the head.

  “Gartrell! Rittenour!” He turned in a quick circle, looking for both men. Gunfire continued from the front of the van, and he saw Finelly and Rittenour were keeping the zombies engaged as they stepped through the smoke barrier.

  “Rittenour and Finelly are good to go,” Rittenour said.

  “Gartrell!” McDaniels repeated. Two zombies shambled toward him. He dropped them before they got within thirty feet.

  “Here,” Gartrell said, kneeling on the sidewalk as he changed out his AA-12’s ammunition drum. Another member of OMEN lay face down nearby in a spreading puddle of viscous ichor. “This was Sanchez, and those two are Meltser and Warner. That leaves Keith and whoever else might still be… well, not alive, but you know what I mean.”

  “You all right, first sergeant?”

  “Fine. Are you all right, major?” Gartrell rose to his feet and scanned the direction the taxi had driven in from. A swelling wave of zombies advanced toward them, only a block away. Gartrell and McDaniels studied them closely for a moment.

  “I don’t see any uniforms in that,” McDaniels said.

  “Same here. But they’re out there—”

  The squeal of metal and the shriek of a woman captured their attention. They turned to see several zombies had crawled on top of the wrecked taxi and were now trying to force open the van’s crumpled clamshell doors. McDaniels lifted his rifle and capped off three of them immediately. The remaining zombies turned toward the sound of the gunfire and advanced toward McDaniels and Gartrell hungrily. McDaniels took them down, one by one.

  “Leary, SITREP!” he asked over the radio.

  “Almost through, Six. You guys should move forward now, and hurry it up! I’ve got zeds all over me! Over!”

  “Roger that.” To Gartrell: “Let’s go.” The two men ran back to the van, pausing momentarily to liberate some ammunition from the fallen soldier named Scott.

  McDaniels called to the other soldiers. “Finelly! Rittenour! Mount up, we’re leaving!”

  “About time! These things are—” Finelly’s retort was cut off by a single gunshot. The big trooper yelped and fell to the ground as CW3 Keith, the leader of OMEN team, stepped around the front of the van. The walking corpse wore night vision goggles and carried an M4, and it walked directly toward Finelly. Finelly backpedaled away from the approaching ghoul, his mouth hanging open in shock.

  McDaniels, Gartrell, and Rittenour all fired at the same time, and Keith’s upper body disintegrated beneath the firepower’s onslaught. McDaniels and Rittenour’s shots pulverized the former soldier’s head, whereas Gartrell’s rounds defeated its body armor and shattered bone and turned tissue in jelly. The corpse was flung away from the van and crashed spread eagle to the sidewalk.

  “Fuck me,” McDaniels said.

  “Major!” Finelly shouted as he sat up on the street. McDaniels turned as several more stenches emerged from the smoke screen and lurched toward them, arms outstretched, fingers curled into claws. They regarded Finelly with dull, hungry eyes, and McDaniels wondered if they could somehow smell blood and fear.

  Gartrell wasted no time in opening up, blasting each ghoul in the chest with near mechanical precision. The zombies fell back into the smoke, but beyond them, more shapes loomed, their silhouettes made visible from the flashing artillery explosions far to the north. Rittenour engaged targets slightly further out with measured semi-automatic fire.

  “Major, we’ve got to di-di,” Gartrell said, using slang from a war he had been too young to fight in.

  “Hold them back!” McDaniels slung his MP5 and grabbed Finelly under the arms and hauled him to his feet. The big soldier tottered on one foot, and McDaniels saw why. There was a spreading stain of blood on his BDUs.

  “Where are you hit?”

  “The thigh, sir… just like Derwitz. But it didn’t hit the bone, I’m good to go!” Eager to prove this, Finelly hobbled toward the van and pulled open the front passenger door. It squeaked on its hinges, and the big trooper hauled himself inside. McDaniels pushed him in, forgetting all about Finelly’s injuries. A zombie shambled around the edge of the van, behind Gartrell and Rittenour. McDaniels lifted his MP5 and fired, but the round was low and succeeded only in blasting away its jaw. The zombie emitted a burbling moan as red-black fluid seeped from the injury and continued forward, reaching for Gartrell. McDaniels’ second shot took care of it.

  “Leary, what’s the SITREP?” he asked over the radio. Inside the van, Finelly gingerly exchanged places with Earl.

  “Almost through!” came the terse response. “I think I need you guys up here! Over!”

  “We’re on our way, troop—hang tough!” McDaniels fired at a group of zombies, dropping two before the MP5 ran dry. The rest didn’t even slow down. “Gartrell, we’re leaving!”

&nb
sp; Gartrell fired at the oncoming group of ghouls, blasting away limbs and chunks of their bodies, then turned and pulled open the door in the van’s side. “Let’s go!” he shouted as he shoved a dazed-looking Wolf Safire across the seat, then pushed Rittenour inside. He then crouched in the doorway and resumed firing as McDaniels hopped into the front passenger seat and yanked the door closed. Only then did Gartrell slam his own door shut.

  “Love the smell of cordite and puke,” he commented. His boots were planted squarely in Safire’s vomit.

  “Finelly, you good to drive?” McDaniels asked. He reached for his backpack and pulled out a package of combat gauze.

  “Good to go,” Finelly said, but his voice was tight. “Could use a drink if someone can give me a canteen.” As he spoke, he dropped the van into gear, cut the wheel, and accelerated into the smoke. The van jerked and trembled, and something made a grinding noise from the rear. An arm reached in through the gap between the back doors, and Zoe screamed.

  “They’re getting in, they’re getting in!”

  “Cover your ears, sweetheart,” Rittenour said, moving to the rear of the van. He pulled his pistol and fired two rounds between the doors. The zombie fell away as the van sped up. It shuddered even more the faster it went.

  “This thing’s kind of fucked up,” Finelly said. “Feels like the axle might be bent.” He gasped as McDaniels leaned over and cut open his right trouser leg with his knife, exposing the gunshot wound.

  “You’re right, the bullet didn’t hit the bone. Looks like it missed the femoral, too. Don’t worry Finelly, you won’t be checking out like Derwitz did.” McDaniels tore open the combat gauze packet and applied the dressing to the wound. Finelly gasped through clenched teeth, but didn’t say anything further. The van bucked as it slammed through a clutch of zombies, sending their bodies flying. McDaniels was pitched into the plastic dashboard, but he kept on working.

  “Is everyone else all right? Doctor Safire? Earl?”

  “We’re fine,” Regina said.

  “Speak for yourself,” Earl muttered. McDaniels heard Zoe whimpering above the roar of the van’s engine. He finished dressing Finelly’s wounds as best as he could, then straightened up in the passenger seat and reloaded his MP5. Once that was completed, he quickly assessed if his M4 was salvageable; he decided it was not, so he pulled the magazine from it and tossed it aside.

  The van charged through the wafting smoke and hurtled down the street. It blasted through any zombies in its path like a bowling ball mowing down pins in a perfect strike, sending them flying through the air. Finelly gripped the wheel tightly, keeping the van tracking as straight as he could despite its damaged rear end.

  Ahead, the tow truck hitched and bucked as it pulled through the intersection, billowing a thick cloud of exhaust. A half dozen zeds clung to it, riding in its bed or standing on its running boards. Something flashed inside the tow truck’s cab, and one of the ghouls fell to the ground.

  “Leary, how are you making out?” McDaniels asked.

  “Not so hot, Six… this pig is giving up on me, and I’m a hundred percent danger close!”

  “We’re right behind you, Leary. Just keep going as far as you can, and—”

  Just across the intersection, the tow truck visibly shuddered. McDaniels heard its diesel engine screaming as if in dire agony as the van dashed through the intersection, its knobbed tires kicking up debris left in the wake of the tow truck’s passage. As it bore down on the bigger rig, the tow truck jolted to a sudden halt. Thick smoke boiled up from beneath its hood.

  “Leary, get out of there!” Gartrell said over the radio.

  As the van bore down on the tow truck, the zombies swarmed all over it, smashing at the doors and windows with their hands, as lethal as Great White sharks in a feeding frenzy. As the van drew nearer, they heard gunfire as Leary frantically sought to defend himself. Several of the zombies turned at the sound of the oncoming van, and they threw themselves at it, grabbing onto the brush bar assembly covering its grille.

  “Help me help me help me!” Leary screamed over the radio.

  A zombie, then another and another appeared outside McDaniels’ window, pounding on it with their hands and their heads as they hurled themselves against the door. McDaniels leaned away from the window and pulled his pistol. More zombies tried to reach for Finelly, their clawed fingers scrabbling across the smooth glass.

  “We have to do something!” Rittenour said, the terror in his voice plain and clear to everyone.

  “Drive!” Safire shouted at Finelly, suddenly animated now that the only thing separating them from certain, gruesome death was a collection of glass and metal that now seemed far too insubstantial. “Just drive!”

  “Do it, Finelly,” McDaniels said quietly.

  Finelly made a strangled sound in his throat and goosed the accelerator. The van bulled through the collection of ghouls, mowing several of them down. As it pulled abreast of the tow truck, the mass of the dead succeeded in finally ripping open the driver’s door. Leary was hauled out by scores of unfeeling hands and thrown screaming to the pavement. McDaniels looked on, totally horrified as Leary’s screams came across the radio.

  The horde descended upon him like a feral pack, tearing into him with teeth and fingers, his microphone dutifully transmitting every sound of his death.

  “Fucking Christ,” Rittenour said from the back, his voice a near sob. “Fucking Christ, I’ve known that guy for five years—!”

  “Go!” Regina screamed suddenly, and she slammed her fists into the back of Finelly’s seat, her voice taut and ragged. “Stop waiting, or we’re going to die here! Go!”

  Finelly needed no further prompting. He mashed the accelerator to the floor, and the van sped down the street.

  CHAPTER 30

  Hassle and the rest of the bridge crew silently watched as the soldier was hauled from the tow truck. He disappeared from view, and neither the FLIR systems nor the night vision binoculars had enough fidelity to show every detail of his demise, but everyone on the deck knew what was happening. They heard it all on the radio.

  The man was torn apart and devoured.

  “Dear sweet Jesus,” Sullivan said, his voice barely a whisper as he watched the FLIR display. Hassle could only nod. There simply wasn’t anything that could be said.

  “The van is moving again, sir,” the port lookout reported. Even though the young guardsman saw everything through his night vision binoculars, his voice was flat and neutral. Solid stuff, this one.

  Hassle tore his eyes away from the screen. “Weaps, let’s light those things up and try to clear a path for those people.”

  “Aye, sir.” The weapons officer spoke into the intercom and ordered all weapons to prepare to fire. Hassle turned to the communications engineer.

  “Comms, contact the LEDET and tell them we’re going to fire on the zombies. They’re to keep their heads down and wait until we let up before they proceed to the shoreline.”

  “Contact LEDET and inform them we’re going weapons hot and hold their pos until we let up. Aye aye, sir.”

  “All weapons ready, sir,” the weapons officer said.

  “Fire for effect,” Hassle ordered.

  A moment later, the night was further torn asunder as the Escanaba’s firepower joined that of the artillery barrage to the north.

  The van approached the intersection of East 80th Street and East End Avenue. It was choked with traffic, just like all the other intersections had been. As the van rolled on, McDaniels tried to think of a good tactical plan. How would they get through the intersection with the van?

  The answer was not comforting. We don’t.

  “Terminator, this is Escanaba. We’re firing on targets now, over.”

  A bright, sparking explosion from up ahead momentarily overwhelmed McDaniels’ night vision goggles. It did the same for Finelly, who swore under his breath and slowed the van slightly. Any zombies in the area turned toward the raucous din. The explosion’s flash l
it their slack faces and made their dull, stupid, lifeless eyes gleam for an instant. As McDaniels’ NVGs cleared, he saw fainter, but more constant flashes from the Coast Guard cutter holding station in the middle of the East River. Muzzle flashes, and big ones, too. Then another sparking explosion blossomed into being at the very end of the street. Zombies were framed against the sudden illumination. Hundreds of them.

  “Major, we’re not going to be able to make it across that intersection in this thing,” Finelly said, pointing out the obvious for everyone.

  “I know that,” McDaniels said. He scanned the street ahead, from left to right. It was—had been—a very tony residential area, with high-end apartment buildings lining both sides of the street. Scaffolding covered the majority of the left side of the street, as the facades on a block of buildings had been receiving face lifts before the zombie terror struck. The right side was clear, unobstructed.

  “But it doesn’t really matter.” Safire’s voice sounded weary. “Right across East End Avenue, there’s a dead end, which we have to deal with whether the intersection is clear or not. Then we have to cross the East River Drive. There’s at least a ten foot drop off separating the south- and northbound lanes. And then, we would have to get across the northbound lanes and wait to be picked up by the Coast Guard.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you have much faith, doctor,” McDaniels said.

  Safire had nothing to say.

  McDaniels pointed out the windshield. “Finelly, I want you to coast to a stop right there, where that mailbox is… see it?”

  “I see it,” the big soldier said.

  “Rittenour, how are you doing back there?” McDaniels asked.

  “Feeling kind of out of it, major. And this bite is really bugging the hell out of me.”

  “One more run, and then we’re out of here. Finelly, how’s the leg?”

  Finelly shrugged as he guided the van toward the left curb. “It hurts, but I’m not staying here, sir.”

  “Very well. All right folks, we’re going to have to make the last 400 feet or so on foot, which means we run like hell. Everyone gets a partner: Safire, you’re with me. Regina, you’re with Finelly. Earl, you’re with Rittenour. Zoe, First Sergeant Gartrell will take care of you.”