“Allistor this is Bob at the Stadium. We’re already loading up trucks to head over there. When we couldn’t reach you, I called Gralen and asked him to bring his ship over from Cheyenne. It’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Allistor ran toward the teleport pad. “I’ll be there in thirty seconds, Bob. Wait for me. Cindy, can you hold for ten minutes?”
“We’re… we’re okay right now. There are only ten of us here, so we’re spread a little thin. The gate is holding, but they’re stacking up against the wall, climbing over top of each other!”
Allistor didn’t answer right away, as at that moment Nigel transported them from Wilderness to the Stadium. As soon as he arrived, he headed toward the line of trucks that were being loaded up. “Cindy, that place used to have a lot of supplies. If they’re still there, find something flammable. Oil, gas, booze, whatever. Start pouring it over the walls onto the zombie piles and then hit them with flame!”
“Already on it, Allistor! We’ve got the kids running to find some right now.”
Allistor and company leapt onto the back of the nearest truck, and the Stadium’s gate opened. The first truck in line squealed its tires as the driver accelerated out the gate and down the road toward the Outpost. Allistor held on as his truck did the same. A squad of about a hundred battle droids sprinted out the gate alongside the vehicles, matching their speed. The one closest to Allistor began transmitting. “Allistor this is Gralen. I’m five minutes away.”
“Gralen! Good. You’ll get there right before we do. Start blasting the enemy off the wall! Focus on the spots where the pile is nearing the top. If you have any battle droids with you, drop them inside the walls to help with the defense!”
“I’ve got twenty here on the ship. They already have orders to protect the residents, and to carry them away if necessary.”
Allistor found he was leaning forward, willing the truck to move faster. The drivers were already speeding, moving as fast as they could on the cleared city streets between the two properties. They all had friends or family at the Outpost. As they rounded the last corner and the Outpost came into sight, Allistor cringed. It was one thing to think ‘zombies’ in your head, but quite another to actually see them.
There were thousands of them.
Quite literally, they were the walking dead. Reanimated human corpses in differing stages of decomposition from recently dead and mostly intact, to skeletal remains with a few tatters of skin and muscle holding them together. Some were on fire already, stumbling around and making a high keening sound that was part scream, part wail, and one hundred percent unnatural. They moved slowly, Allistor estimated about half the normal walking speed of a human. Some dragged broken or dislocated limbs. Others crawled or dragged themselves toward the walls, significant parts of their bodies missing altogether.
Even from fifty yards away, the stench hit the humans like a brick wall as they approached.
“Oh shit, that’s awful.” One of the men in the truck bed with Allistor said as he covered his mouth and nose with his free hand. Allistor barely heard him, already starting to channel his Storm spell as soon as the truck got into range. As he waited for the storm to build, he saw several others had cast Erupt, causing stone spikes to shoot up from the ground into the mob of undead. But other than one that took a spike through its skull, none of the zombies went down. Several that were securely impaled simply struggled in place, reaching toward the wall in front of them. A few more spikes shot out from the wall, but the undead simply used them to pull themselves higher.
As Allistor’s lightning bolts began to fall upon the undead, he heard Bob shout, “Stop wasting mana on spikes! Physical damage won’t help! Did you guys never watch a movie? Use fire! If you have to shoot, shoot them in the head! Melee fighters, cut off their heads! Don’t let them scratch or bite you!”
Allistor’s spell was only moderately effective. The lightning bolts were stunning large groups of the undead, causing them to freeze up and, in many instances, fall over. Several rolled back down the pile they’d just climbed. And while he could see many of the corpses were scorched by the lightning, they were not catching fire. He let the spell continue for about ten seconds, then stopped channeling. Instead he began targeting the highest concentration spots and calling down Flame Shots as rapidly as he could. Several of his people were doing the same, flooding the area directly in front of them with fireballs and columns of fire. The trucks began to fan out, circling around the perimeter as the occupants mowed down the mobs.
More undead were still moving in from the surrounding streets toward the Outpost, and Allistor winced as he saw one of the pickup trucks collide with three of the slow-moving zombies. The impact caused the passengers in the truck bed to lurch forward, one woman falling over the side. Immediately, two of the walking corpses literally fell upon her, their rotting bodies covering her up as she screamed in terror. Two other survivors hopped off the back to pull the zombies off of her as the others refocused their attacks on any approaching undead, covering their friends. Others cast heals as the bloodied woman scrambled away to safety.
Gralen’s Opportunity came rushing in over top of the Outpost, the guns on its underside already blasting away. It hovered over the interior for a moment, and a score of battle droids leapt out of the open cargo bay. Then Gralen piloted the ship a short distance out beyond the walls and began circling the structure, plasma guns blazing away at the undead below. The heated plasma rounds burned through the corpses like a hot knife through butter, leaving large holes in the piles that quickly collapsed under the weight of the dead bodies above.
Allistor’s assigned communication droid stayed at his side as the others waded into the fight, firing plasma rifles with two of their four arms, spreading out along with the vehicles and focusing on any enemies that approached, protecting the humans rather than the Outpost.
“They’re inside! Oh my god, they’re in here with us!” Cindy’s voice screamed out of the droid’s body just a moment before Allistor heard multiple screams from inside the wall. “The children! Protect the children!” she sobbed. Allistor remembered she had a son named Jeremy that had been with her at the warehouse. His blood ran cold, and he leapt from the back of the truck, sprinting toward the wall. He drew his sword as he ran, cutting heads or legs or arms off any walking corpses from behind as soon as they were within reach.
He needed to get in there. To get past the thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of walking dead that surrounded the place.
The moment he thought he was in range, he focused on a spot atop the roof of the nearest building visible above the wall, and cast Dimensional Step. In the blink of an eye he was stumbling across the roof, having been moving at a sprint when he arrived. It took a few seconds to stop and steady himself before he could turn and rush to the edge of the roof and look down.
Undead were streaming out of the building below him. Two of his people were already down on the ground, several biting and clawing mobs on top of each of them. Others were being scooped up by battle droids who were retreating toward another building as they and the unencumbered droids blasted away at the stream of zombies emerging from the warehouse. Allistor looked up, spotting Cindy and three others still atop the wall, facing inward and ignoring the threat outside as they fired at the zombies dogpiling the two humans on the ground.
Allistor tried casting heals on each of the two humans, but they were already gone. Second by second, pieces of them were being bitten and ripped away from their bodies. He shouted “Cindy! They’re already gone! Get off that wall and down to the other building! Get behind the droids!”
He saw the woman look over at him, her face mostly blank, her stare uncomprehending, even as she continued to blindly fire a plasma rifle toward the two dogpiles. Another of the survivors atop the wall grabbed her from behind and began pulling her toward a ramp that led down into the courtyard. Two of the droids had secured the ramp and were keeping it clear for the humans to descend.
Allistor called a Flame Shot down atop one of the piles, then the other, burning the zombies and his dead citizens to a crisp. He heard Cindy wail as she was dragged down the ramp, and a moment later plasma bolts began to flash past him. He looked up to see Cindy firing at him, the blank look on her face replaced with one of anger and pain. One of the droids snatched the weapon from her hands as it scooped her up and began to run toward the others.
Allistor looked down at the smoking piles of corpses, and in his mind replayed Cindy’s message about the children looking inside the buildings for something flammable. His heart wrenched when he made the connection, realizing that Cindy’s son Jeremy must have been one of the two killed below.
“Nigel, what happened? How did they get in?”
“A significant force has tunneled up from below, emerging inside the warehouse, sire.” The AI’s calm tone aggravated Allistor. “I was unable to detect them until they entered and began to move around in the building.”
“What? Why?” Allistor shouted at Nigel as he called down another Flame Shot on the stream of undead still emerging from the door below him. “Never mind! We’ll figure that out later. How many are you detecting inside the building now?”
“Two hundred and eighty three, with more still emerging from below, sire.”
Allistor checked his interface map, and saw a mass of red dots clustered below him, some winking out as the undead were destroyed by the droids, others winking into existence as they emerged from the hole in the floor. He gasped when, to his horror, he saw a single green dot indicating one of his people still inside the building. They were near the northwest corner, and though the vast majority of the dots were moving away toward the open bay door and the courtyard, half a dozen red dots were slowly advancing toward his citizen.
“There’s someone trapped inside!” He shouted down to the droids. Immediately, six of them set out at a run toward the zombie-infested warehouse. Plasma rifles firing in two hands, a third hand swinging and stabbing with their staff weapons. Allistor called down a massive Flame Shot in a column that cleared dozens of the corpses from the doorway just ahead of the charging droids. The two lead droids spun their staffs horizontally and held them in two hands, effectively turning themselves into battering rams, plowing into the tightly clustered bodies and shoving them to either side. Allistor saw one of the following droids reach out with a free hand and snap a zombie’s neck as it tried to regain its feet, while others simply stomped on spines and skulls as they disappeared into the building.
Allistor was about to drop down and follow them inside when more than a dozen of the corpses got back up and turned to follow the droids even as more began to push outward through the door, causing a log jam in the doorway. There was no way he could get through them. He called down another Flame Shot as he watched the half dozen green dots that indicated the droids advance across the building floor on his map. The small number of red dots that had been approaching his trapped citizen were much closer now, and the droids’ progress was being slowed.
A few seconds later there was a muffled scream from inside the building, and the lone green dot winked out, turning grey.
Allistor roared in frustration, angry at losing another person when the droids were so close. Angry at himself for not being able to help enough to make a difference. He watched as the six green dots below him turned and began to make their way back toward the door. Their progress was slowed even more, and Allistor imagined they were swarmed with zombies.
A shout to his left caused him to turn toward the other building. The remaining seven humans were atop the roof, having been carried up by the droids. Several of the droids took up station next to them, while the others remained on the ground in the courtyard, mowing down the walking corpses that emerged from the warehouse Allistor stood upon.
“Gralen! I need you to pick up the people on the roof! Nigel, order the droids in the courtyard to get up on the roof and join them! And tell the droids beneath me to climb up here to this roof if they can’t make it out the door!” He cast two more sets of fireballs down at the enemy below as Gralen’s ship swooped down to hover inches above the other rooftop. The people boarded, two of them supporting Cindy, and the droids followed. A moment later the remaining droids from the courtyard popped up onto the roof and into the ship before it lifted off, moving toward Allistor. He continued to burn the undead below as they emerged, calling out to his AI.
“Nigel, I want you to open the gate!”
Nigel didn’t answer, but Allistor saw the heavy metal double doors swing inward, allowing a crush of undead to tumble inside. Like a giant wave breaching a sea wall, the creatures piled over top of each other in their rush to get through the choke point. Allistor saw that his people outside were panicking, massing their fire attacks at the gate, unaware that Allistor had invited them in.
“Nigel, give me loudspeaker, top volume!” he called out as he saw the roof hatch open nearby and a droid arm emerge from below. He waited a moment, then shouted. “Hold your fire! Hold your fire on the gate! Let them through! Herd the others around and push them through, or let them climb over! I repeat, let them in!”
He watched as his peoples’ attacks at the gate slowed, then stopped. A moment later undead heads appeared in two places atop the wall, and bodies began to spill over. A quick check showed two of the droids on the roof with him, another emerging through the hatch. He stepped up onto Opportunity’s ramp and waited for the remaining droids to join him. They were all intact, but covered in blood, slime, and rotted body parts. While he waited, he asked, “Gralen, have you got any bombs on board?”
“Just one, Allistor. Left over from the power plant. It is one of the conventional bombs, I believe you call bunker busters?”
“Perfect. Get some altitude while we let these things pile inside. When I give the word, drop the bomb on the warehouse, directly over the highest concentration of enemy bodies. That has to be where they’re coming up out of the hole. All of you who are outside in the trucks, as soon as you’re out of targets outside the walls, back off and give the all-clear! I want you out of range of the blast. Let any stragglers on through for the bomb to deal with.”
Allistor watched as the ship rose higher, more and more of the scene visible with greater altitude. He saw thousands of unmoving corpses piled up against the outside of the wall, as well as scattered across the ground further out. There were still hundreds of them drifting in from even further out, those who moved too close to his people were being cut down, while others were allowed to stumble past the trucks toward the gate.
He listened to Cindy sob and wail somewhere behind him as he waited. More of the creatures were emerging from the warehouse, but he was now out of range for spell casting. Still, he pulled several of Meg’s napalm grenades from his ring and dropped them, aiming for the area just outside the door. The first landed on the roof, but splashed a good portion of its contents where he’d wanted. He adjusted slightly, then dropped three more, coating the area with the volatile liquid. Pulling a flare from his ring, he lit it, then dropped it, smiling as he saw the entire area burst into chemical flame. More undead stumbled out of the doorway only to burst into flames as well.
“Nigel, close the gate!” He called out. The gates closed, and the truck crews continued to retreat, though there were still a few dozen of the walking dead outside the walls. “Gralen, drop it!”
Allistor watched the undead burn at the warehouse doorway, unable to see the bomb drop from the belly of the ship. A few seconds later the building erupted in flame, pieces of debris and bits of animated corpses flung outward from the building.
One of the droids standing next to Allistor started transmitting a voice as he watched the mushroom cloud of smoke and flame rise from the building.
“Uhhh… boss? This is Bob. We’ve got a uhm… we got a corpse here waving a white flag. It’s holding a piece of paper. This is creepy as hell. Should we just waste it?”
Allistor was angry, and his first impu
lse was to tell Bob that yes, he should burn it until it was nothing but a pile of ashes. Helen’s voice replied before he could form the words. “Take the paper. Carefully. Then kill it.”
Allistor took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself. About a minute went by, then Bob’s voice came across the radio again. “It’s a note. A note to you, Allistor.”
“What does it say?”
There was a sound of paper being ripped, and Bob began cursing quietly. Then, in a louder voice, “It says, ‘Bet you wish you let your bear kill me when you had the chance.’ And it’s signed ‘Kyle.’”
Allistor’s mind reeled, trying to make a connection. “Kyle?”
Bob filled him in. “It’s that little shit that you banished the day we killed Barden and his people. He was the one that refused to take the oath, and clubbed Fuzzy on the head.”
Allistor remembered. He had banished Kyle after the surviving former prisoners at the warehouse had voted to let him live. It was a punch in the gut. Twice in recent days he’d been attacked by men to whom he’d shown mercy. And this time it had cost at least three lives.
“Gralen, take us back down, please. Drop off the droids, then use your guns to finish off any of the undead inside the walls. Destroy every building if you have to. Bob, you and the ground crews, take out any stragglers you see outside the walls. See if you can figure out what direction they’re coming from. We’re going to find this Kyle, and kill him.”
Even as the ship descended, Allistor heard a grimly enthusiastic reply. “Roger that, Allistor. He’s gonna die slow.”
Allistor turned and walked over to Cindy, who was being comforted by one of the other survivors. She sat on the floor of the cargo bay, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth. Crouching down, he reached out and took her hands in his. “I’m so sorry.”
Shadow Sun Unification: Shadow Sun Book Five Page 10
