The only good news, he thought, is that those RPGs are no longer dropping on my head from the armored tow—
Something dropped on his head from above, causing him to jump and bang his scalp on steel. Whatever it was instantly tumbled off the top of the turret and onto the ground beside the truck. Zack froze, both wanting and not wanting to know what the hell that was.
It took off running, and was out of view before he could make it out.
Holy fucking shit…
He now recalled vaguely – having paid little notice at the time, mainly because he had far too many problems of his own – that Todd had come on the radio to report that the giant undead herd was outside, ahead of schedule. To the extent that he even heard it, he didn’t figure it impacted him.
Now he rapidly reassessed.
Todd hadn’t said how bad it was. Now Zack knew he’d better find out. He dug his phone out of a pocket on his vest and called up the SkyRanger app, getting half-dried blood on the touchscreen… and when he got the video up, he saw two things:
One, the dead were already piling up against the north wall – which was basically right behind him.
Two, that section over his head was one of the few that hadn’t been extended up beyond its original twenty feet.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…
Fighting against the blood on the screen, he managed to zoom in on the section that was of critical personal interest. He could see the ocean of grasping arms and gnashing mouths, as hundreds of them tried to dig through one another to the irresistible sounds of the living killing each other on the other side of the wall. And then he saw one basically go running across the rising slope of bodies, somehow doing the crowd-surfing equivalent of walking on water, and leap off the top…
It didn’t make it, smashing into the top section of wall and falling back.
Zack licked his lips. They were bone dry.
And now, when he listened between explosions, he could definitely hear the damned things moaning and scrabbling out there.
It sounded like… death, on an extremely large scale.
He checked his watch, and stole a look behind him at the interior of the building – from which Brendan, Elijah, Baxter, and Kate were conspicuously not emerging. If any of them were ever going to get out of there…
They were going to have to do it pretty damned soon.
Dead Man on Your Back
The Stronghold - Underground
Brendan stumbled through near darkness alone, dirt falling on his head. None of this shit even registered on his manifest of problems.
He had a dead man on his back, in a sort of modified fireman’s carry. He was a scrawny little fucker, and hadn’t gotten any bigger across a year and a half of ZA. Plus he was flexcuffed at the wrists and ankles, had a hood over his gnashing mouth, and was stuffed into a high-quality PVC body bag. All of this was helpful.
But he was still wriggling like a bag of worms, and Brendan could feel the Zulu’s furious intent, trying to devour him through the PVC, less than inches away from him. It also left him firing his rifle one-handed, and having to put the damned bag down whenever he had to reload.
The last thing he’d done in Godane’s chamber of horrors was to retrieve Elijah’s SCAR, which he’d found undamaged. Then he scrabbled around in the dirt until he found the firing pin, then made the repair and clipped the rifle to his own sling. He’d also liberated Elijah’s 5.56 mags. He wouldn’t be needing them where he was going.
As for his wounds, the arm wasn’t terrible, though it was starting to compound with the fragged hand from Lemonnier, degrading his ability to function. The shot-through foot was a bigger problem, and becoming more so. Between him, the undead body, and his weapons and combat load, that foot was having to bear nearly three hundred pounds of weight with every step. And it was shrieking with pain and threatening to give out with each one. And, surprising Brendan very little, it had started bleeding again. Just seeping for now.
But that meant he was on a clock. Though he was already on a clock.
So he was not exactly at his most combat effective. But he still somehow had to fight his way out of there. And, with the tunnel collapses, he also had to find his way out of there.
Two guys spilled out into the corridor ten meters ahead. They turned a light on him and shouted. Bren flipped his fire selector to full-auto and gunned them down. The mag went dry. That meant he was going to have to put this very special dead son of a bitch down again to reload. That wasn’t so bad.
The trouble would be picking him back up again.
* * *
Jake had just stepped inside of al-Sîf’s strike, his preferred tactic of closing and destroying, but al-Sîf saw it coming, pivoted, and grabbed at his knife hand – just a little too late to prevent a shallow slash on his upper arm. And while this was happening, Jake was also subject to annoying chatter in his ear. It was Todd.
“Jake – how we doin‘ up there, man?”
He yanked his knife hand away from the left-handed grip al-Sîf had briefly latched onto it, put the iron bar of his forearm across the man’s chest and neck, and pushed him off, breaking contact again. As they both circled and reset, Jake touched his PTT button with his free hand and spoke into his mic.
“Making some progress. Okay down there?”
Al-Sîf gave him an amused look – like it was pretty funny that the SF team sergeant was running his team while in the middle of the most lethal single combat imaginable.
“Dude, I don’t mean to complain – but I’d kind of like to have you back down here on the ground.”
Al-Sîf made a more tentative slash, the evil blade jabbing left, then right, his free left hand poised to defend against Jake’s knife. They circled round again, stepping over bodies and AKs.
“I’m not saying I’m about to be overrun. But I am using my side arm a little more than I normally like to while manning a crew-served weapon.”
Al-Sîf spat to the side, and rubbed his cut upper arm. Then he nodded at Jake’s radio and said in English: “Do you want to fight? Or do you want to fuck around?”
Jake touched his radio button with his free hand. “All received.” He got the picture. “I’ll be back asap. Out.”
The two warriors put their heads down and flew at each other again.
* * *
Zack saw some four guys break from cover and come sprinting at him. He struggled to depress his barrel enough to hit them. He could see his rounds kicking up all over the place – but then the minigun went dry.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
He honestly didn’t know what he was going to do now – except prepare to defend himself, up close and personal. There was no way he was going to be able to get a can of .50-cal up and loaded before these guys were on him. And two of them were carrying RPGs. It was a hunter/killer RPG team. He’d been warned about the likelihood of these in the planning sessions.
And as soon as this one worked out that he wasn’t shooting at them, they stopped and hunkered down, preparing to fire at leisure. There was probably no way they could miss from this range. Zack dropped down inside the truck, hoping maybe he’d survive the barrage from down there as he had the last one. He scrabbled at his side arm as he hit the deck, covered up, and waited.
No explosions came.
When he dared stick his head up again… all four of them were laid out dead, right in the position they’d taken up. Someone, somewhere, had saved him. He figured the odds were he wouldn’t get that lucky again, so he grabbed another can of .50-cal, got it up into the turret, and got it slotted in and threaded up. He was just getting back on the gun when something hit the turret over his head again. Fuck!
This time it didn’t roll off the side – but fell forward, right in front of his viewport, then rolled off the roof of the truck and disappeared out of view.
There followed a terrifying beat of silence.
Zack waited for it to run off like the last one.
Instead it leapt back up on t
he roof right in Zack’s face – but also right in his sights. It actually tried to reach him around both sides of the minigun barrels, hissing and spasming, arms grasping and legs kicking.
Zack depressed his trigger.
He’d never seen a body come apart like that before. It was spectacular – as frenetic in death as it had been in life. Zack shook his head. That’s not right – it was dead to start with. Oh, never mind. Fuck it.
He had other problems, and he started shooting them.
But the image of that thing reaching around the minigun for him stayed in his mind’s eye. Talk about embracing death. The jihadis sometimes talked about “marrying death” – that guy was all over it.
But Zack’s smile at this melted as he pictured a time, probably not far in the future, when there were too many of those leaping dead coming down on him from above and behind – and even the mighty minigun wouldn’t be enough to shoot his way out. He also checked his watch and wondered what the bloody hell was taking so long – and how long it would be before the whole joint was hemmed in a hundred dead deep, and there would be no escape for anyone.
Zack prayed, once again, for the speedy return of… pretty much anybody who might still be coming back.
* * *
Kate shoveled loose dirt with Baxter’s helmet while he did it with his bare hands, both working by the light on Kate’s weapon propped against the wall. They were building a pretty good-sized new mound of dirt behind them.
But the one ahead wasn’t shrinking nearly quickly enough.
Worse, Kate realized they had no idea how deep it went. For all they knew, a hundred yards of tunnel had collapsed. Maybe the one behind them was shallower. Or maybe it was worse. There was no way to know.
She felt herself growing weaker as she worked. Baxter didn’t look too good himself. The cause wasn’t any mystery. There was maybe 800 cubic feet of air there in total. And they were taking all the oxygen out of it. When it was gone, they were done. And the harder they worked, the closer forward in time they brought that point.
Kate paused and straightened up, prodding her brain for some better or more lateral solution. And just then something did strike her. It was falling dirt, right on her head. She and Baxter moved in opposite directions, getting out of the way of what looked like it might be another collapse…
But instead of the roof coming down on them, a camp lantern was stuck down, along with voices calling in Somali, through a hole in the dirt overhead.
Kate and Baxter traded a quick, alarmed look before she went for her rifle and started to raise it. But Baxter pushed her barrel down and called up in Somali:
“Waxaan halkan ku jira! Gargaar!” He was calling for help.
There followed a beat of silence.
Then a wooden ladder appeared in the hole and was lowered all the way to their floor. Baxter put a finger to his lips, and with his other hand unholstered Kate’s side arm and stuck it in his waistband.
Then he climbed up the ladder.
Kate could see his legs were shaking – whether from oxygen deprivation, fear, or just combat nerves, she had no idea.
She stood where she was and waited.
Then she heard six quick pistol reports from above, overlapping with shouting in Somali. Then silence.
And a hand appeared down through the hole. It was Baxter’s.
His four cupped fingers made a C’mon motion.
Kate got climbing.
The Mighty Fall
The Stronghold - Inside North Armored Guard Tower
Jake flipped his knife around into an overhand grip. So far his knife-to-a-sword-fight strategy wasn’t working out quite as well as he’d hoped. He’d landed a couple of shallow slashes on al-Sîf’s arms and torso.
But al-Sîf had gotten in a better one across Jake’s shoulder. The Moorish scimitar was a hell of a blade, and you knew it if you got cut with one. He’d also figured out, almost the hard way, that using his knife to block the sword was a non-starter. The shock through his hand and arm was spectacular.
He was only going to lose his knife that way.
He spotted a loose piece of rebar and snatched it up with his left hand, then lunged at al-Sîf with a left-right-left boxing-style combo. Al-Sîf parried the rebar with his scimitar, stepped inside the knife attack, but then caught the follow-up bar strike on his right upper arm. If it had hit his forearm, it probably would have broken the bone – and ended his sword-fighting days for a while.
Jake feinted, then turned it into a real attack as al-Sîf tried to come around on him. He got in a good solid strike with the bar to the big man’s side, then took his legs out from under him with a low sweep that crashed into the backs of his knees. As he went down, Jake fell on top of him – knife first. He had to drop the bar to catch his own weight with his left hand.
But al-Sîf was fast for a big man, faster than he looked, and rolled out from under the falling blade, which stuck into the wood floor, deep. Al-Sîf hammered at Jake’s knife hand with the pommel of his sword, but Jake hung on – and the blade snapped.
And that was the end of an era – the end of the oldest working Yarborough knife.
The impact also caused al-Sîf to lose the grip on his sword as well. And now they were in a ground grapple and unarmed again.
Jake made a claw of his right hand – and went for al-Sîf’s eyes.
Al-Sîf got his forearm in front of his face, blocking the strike, then brought his knee up into Jake’s groin. Jake let his weight fall full on the other man, and punched him left-handed, with all his strength, in the ear. Al-Sîf tried to reciprocate with a knuckle strike at the side of Jake’s neck, but he sensed it coming and rolled off onto his back, then onto all fours like a big cat, and finally up to his feet.
He was up before al-Sîf was and caught him with his steel boot-toe in the ribs, a vicious and debilitating swinging kick. The al-Shabaab commander was going to have to either cover up or get to his feet fast. He knew as well as Jake that, if your opponent was still standing, down on the ground was where you got seriously hurt. He spun on his hip and aimed a sharp kick at Jake’s shin, which gave him just enough breathing room to bounce to his feet.
But Jake was already piling into him with his full weight, and al-Sîf tumbled over the crate he’d been sheltering behind a few seconds ago.
They were back where they started, rolling around in the small space.
Just bloodier, and angrier.
* * *
Feel the burn, Brendan thought, as he climbed stairs with a dead man on his back, his thighs screaming. At least he was heading the right direction – up. And he hadn’t had to fight through any more Stronghold defenders in his current degraded state. He kind of had the impression they were all up top now – battling his men.
He needed to get back up there himself – now.
On the downside, he’d totally lost his orientation and sense of direction. He’d had to detour around one collapsed tunnel and a large roomful of a-S guys that he hadn’t felt like shooting it out with. Now he was heading up, but where he’d emerge was anyone’s guess.
Having climbed two flights, he exited the stairwell – and spotted daylight leaking in from under a nearby door. He staggered up, cracked it, and peered out.
It was at ground level, opening onto the courtyard outside.
Except, if he was seeing it right, it was at the far eastern edge of the whole joint. The gun truck he needed to get back to was in the north side of the complex. The other one, which he would have settled for, was tucked up in the buildings at the south side. And it was a damned long walk across exposed and bullet-raked ground to get to either. He needed to try to find an exit closer to one of them.
But then he heard voices behind him, agitated, urgent – and rising in volume, coming up from the stairwell he’d just exited.
Shit.
He looked left and right, but it was just a big open room and empty hallway beyond – nowhere to hide. And his new best buddies would be emerg
ing from that stairwell in seconds.
He shifted his grip on the writhing body, adjusted his grip on his rifle…
And stepped outside. To the sound of heavy firing and explosions. And briefly blinding daylight.
One last stretch to get through. Just him and ole Zulu Zero.
* * *
Jake and al-Sîf rolled back and forth in the narrow space, trading pistoning blows of their fists, powered by massive biceps. Ribs, abs, arms, and chins took a brutal pummeling. Jake rose up and tried to come down on al-Sîf’s throat with an elbow strike. Instead al-Sîf grabbed his arm with both hands, bent it a way it didn’t want to go, and threw Jake off him.
Jake rolled to his feet and skidded to a stop, facing the railing that looked out over the outside of the Stronghold. Below, he could see frenzied dead running up to the wall and getting backed up. They hadn’t begun to actually pile up in this spot, but it was crowded down there. And he didn’t have time to rubberneck anyway.
Spinning around, he saw al-Sîf coming up with his rifle – the Bushmaster that had fallen behind the crate. This was like a red rag to a bull, and a crimson mist descended over Jake’s vision. Seeing al-Sîf’s scimitar at his feet, he stuck his toe under it and kicked it through the air at al-Sîf’s head, causing him to flinch long enough for Jake to close again, knocking the rifle aside.
The two were now standing face to face, both gripping the rifle between them. Their narrowed eyes locked across the tiny space – until Jake rocketed his forehead into al-Sîf’s nose, cracking it violently. Al-Sîf was a truly hard man, but hard skull on soft cartilage stuns anyone.
Jake swung a haymaker right at the side of al-Sîf’s head.
“THIS,” he barked, as his fist made contact.
Al-Sîf’s head snapped around violently, though he stayed on his feet.
Arisen : Nemesis Page 35
