by Jon Schafer
Looking to Steve and Heather to see if they approved, she got a smile and a nod from Steve and a, “Damn good plan, girl,” from Heather.
As they moved off, Jennifer noticed that the fog had started to thin a little on the trail but was still thick in the woods. This made it easier to see what was ahead, but not what might lunge out at them from the side. The trees and brush grew right up to the edge of the path, giving them only a split second to react if something did. Moving her eyes back and forth between both sides of the trail while also keeping an eye on what was to the front of them, she knew it was more likely that one of the people looking directly into the woods would find the path Z-girl was using. It would probably be a small game trail that was mostly overgrown since it was only used once in a while.
Spotting a small creek that cut across their path before emptying into the lake, she almost missed its significance when she was distracted by a whispered call from behind her to stop. Turning, she saw that one of her people was pointing his rifle into the woods with one hand while pointing with the other. Easing back to stand next to him, she looked to see what he had spotted.
“What is it?” she asked. “I don’t see anything.”
Pointing to a break in the thick brush and trees that started waist high, he replied, “Through there.”
Confused, she whispered, “But that opening is almost three feet off the ground. Dead-asses can’t fly.”
Shaking his head, the man replied, “I don’t mean she’s using it to get on the trail, I saw something through it. I caught it out of the corner of my eye since I was looking for something closer to the ground. There was a break in the mist, and I’m sure I saw a figure. It blended in with everything else, but it looked solid.”
“Sure you weren’t imagining it?” Jennifer asked. “If you look too hard for something, sometimes your mind plays tricks on you.”
“I’m sure I saw it,” the man replied. “It blended in, but one thing stood out. It has something splattered all over it. I’m pretty sure it was dried blood.”
The fog shifted in a slight breeze, revealing a small field beyond the line of trees bordering the trail. Looking for a way to get to it without having to break through the wall of scrub and altering their quarry, she could find nothing. Looking through the break again, she saw that the fog had closed back in.
There has to be some way to get from here to there, she thought to herself. Then it came to her. Waving for everyone to follow, she headed for the creek, stopping with her feet in the water as she crouched and looked down its length. The foliage had grown over it to make a four foot high tunnel, making it the perfect path for someone to move through.
Checking her M-16 to make sure a round was chambered, Jennifer thumbed off the safety and carefully moved forward. Her pulse pounding from the adrenalin coursing through her system, this left her focused and aware of everything around her. She could hear the thin trickle of water as it flowed slowly past her, and she could swear that she could even feel the heartbeats of the people behind her.
The light dimmed as she made her way further in, but she didn’t stop. Ahead, she could see a brighter area on the right and knew this was her destination. Although she was moving forward at barely the speed of a turtle, she slowed even more as she approached the opening. Twisting her body to the right as she took two final steps, she found herself looking through a break in the brush at a small clearing.
Fog still clung to the waist high grass covering it, small tendrils whipping up as a slight breeze came and went. On both sides, the trees were still cloaked in mist, but now she could see further into them, telling her that the fog was starting to break up. Spotting something odd at the far end of the clearing, she knew it wasn’t right. She had been an art major in college, and one of the things they taught you was there were no straight lines in nature.
Stepping carefully up the bank of the creek, she stopped a few feet into the clearing and motioned for everyone to get in a line abreast. When they were in position, she pointed to what could now clearly be seen as a half-collapsed shack.
Overgrown with honeysuckle, it looked like it had been a squatter’s shack due to the mishmash of wood used to construct it. Its half-caved in roof might have once been made of corrugated metal, but it was so rusted and broken up that there was no way to tell. One of its walls was made up of what had once been a sign, its blue and red Pepsi Cola logo still faintly visible.
Jennifer looked at her surroundings as she thought it through. The woods made an almost impenetrable wall, telling her that they would have heard her if Z-girl Lisa tried to break through them. The sound might have been muffled by the fog, but she still would have made enough noise to alert them to her presence. The only way between the clearing and the path seemed to be along the creek, and she definitely hadn’t come that way.
Looking to the shack, Jennifer said quietly, “She’s got to be in there.”
“You did really well,” Steve congratulated her. “You read the signs and figured it out.”
Jennifer nodded and whispered, “But now what?”
“You tell us,” Heather whispered back.
Flipping the firing selector on her rifle to three-round burst, she motioned toward the shack and said, “We light it up.”
“Good idea,” Steve said. “The further away you can stay from the dead when you kill them, the better off you are. If she’s in there and we take her out, we win. If we flush her out in the open where we can take her out, we win.”
Jennifer waved her hand to get everyone’s attention. When she had it, she pointed her rifle and held up one finger before pointing to the shack. She then pointed to her three people and held up two fingers. Then, she pointed to Steve, Heather and herself before holding up three fingers. This told them all to empty the magazine in their weapon in relays, assuring they wouldn’t all be reloading at the same time.
When she saw they were ready, she called out, “Fire.”
Their bullets tore into the rotten wood of the shack, throwing splinters of wood in all directions. The rest of the roof collapsed with a bang, causing a huge cloud of dust to billow out from its sides. When the firing finally died off and Steve and Heather had reloaded, they moved forward to check out the rubble.
What was left of the fog helped to dissipate the dust, leaving them a clear view of the destruction they had wrought. Standing in a half-circle around what was left of the makeshift structure, they looked for a sign of anything dead or moving around dead. Nothing stirred in the pile of flattened wood, causing Jason, the man that had first spotted Z-girl, to lean down and grab the edge of a piece of plywood.
Even though Steve thought there was nothing hiding in the rubble, he still said, “Be careful.”
“Careful of what?” Jason asked with disgust as he flipped the wood over. “She was never fucking here.”
Z-girl Lisa was lying in a small depression she had created from hours of pacing back and forth as she fought down the urge to feed. Exposed, she lunged up and forward when Jason uncovered her. Letting out a long whine, she buried her teeth in his forearm and shook her head back and forth as she tried to bite through the denim of his shirt.
The rest of the group jumped back at the unexpected appearance of Z-girl, raising their rifles and trying to get a bead on her wildly shaking head. Blood flew into the air as teeth met flesh, and someone called out that Jason was infected so they should kill them both.
Steve barked out, “No,” to this. He had something else in mind. Calling out to Heather, he asked, “Do you have a shot at Z-girl?”
“Now I do,” she replied as Z-girl lifted her head to swallow the chunk of meat she had ripped off Jason’s arm.
Heather’s CAR-15 fired once, the bullet drilling through the zombie’s head.
After seeing the spray of black ochre, bone and hair that flew into the air, Jennifer and her two remaining militia members turned their guns on Jason.
Seeing this, Steve again barked out, “No.”
In what he hoped was a calming voice, Steve pointed to Jason and asked, “But what if he’s immune? What if there are a lot of people that are immune and we don’t know it because we shoot them when they get bitten?”
This made Jennifer pause for a moment before saying, “Then we wait.”
It took five minutes for the first seizure to rack Jason’s body. When it did, Jennifer calmly put a bullet through his head before turning to Steve and saying, “He wasn’t immune.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Washington, D.C.:
From where he stood on the bridge of the LCU carrying two platoons of his Marines, General Eastridge stifled a yawn as he studied the wall surrounding D.C. It had been a long, sleepless night, but it looked like it was about to pay off. Rising high above the shore, the wall was an imposing barrier, but far from impenetrable. Turning, he counted a total of ten more landing craft carrying the balance of his men. Over six hundred Marines made up his assault force, the most experienced men and women in his command, each and every one of them ready to do his bidding.
He had arrived at Quantico late the night before and roused the commander of the base, explaining that there was a threat from a rogue group that meant to overthrow the Joint Chiefs and take control of D.C. Holding out orders signed by the Chairman himself, he commanded that the best of the best of Quantico’s combat grunts needed to be formed into a light, motorized battalion and ready to move within the hour.
As Colonel Dennison studied the orders, there was a knock on the door. His aide entered and informed him that a small fleet of Navy ships had shown up at the marina and were requesting permission to dock.
Eastridge informed the Colonel that this was their transport before turning and ordering the aide to have as many of the ships tie up as possible and prepare to load his men. They would be boarding within the hour and leaving shortly after that. Turning to Dennison, he saw that the man was giving him an odd look. After a few seconds, the commander of Marine forces at Quantico asked, “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
Eastridge nodded, so the Colonel asked, “Do we really want to stop someone from overthrowing the Chairman?”
Eastridge knew that news travelled fast, even in this world of limited communications. The Chairman might have only taken power hours ago, but he was sure that it was already well known as far away as Guam. Americans may bitch, moan and complain about their elected leaders, but they were elected. On the other hand, the Chairman had seized power and was now the sole leader. To many, this meant that democracy as they knew it was dead.
Giving Colonel Dennison a wink, Eastridge said, “That depends on who’s doing the overthrowing.”
Instantly understanding, Dennison hurried into his office and started giving orders over the radio. Within fifteen minutes, transport was arranged, and ten minutes after that men and women were being ferried by truck to a baseball field near the marina. It took another five minutes for the first of the vehicles they would use in their assault and their crews to arrive, and when they were all present twenty minutes later, Eastridge addressed them.
Knowing that most of the Marines in front of him probably already had a good idea of what was going on because of the ever-present scuttlebutt that plagued every branch of the military, he decided to be truthful. He started out by explaining that a new threat had arisen, one that made the dead pale in comparison. It was the threat of dictators and a loss of freedom. He told them that they would soon be going into battle, and while he didn’t go too much into who they would be fighting, he explained that it might mean they would have to fire on fellow Americans. He went on to say that if they won, they could turn their attention destroying the dead, but if they lost, they would be branded traitors and hunted down. When he finished, he told them that he would only take volunteers, and if anyone chose not to go, it wouldn’t be held against them.
No one moved for a few seconds, and then an Earth-shaking “Ooh-Rah!” echoed from the buildings surrounding the field. Win or lose, every last one of them was in.
After telling them that they would be briefed further on the short trip to D.C., he ordered them to board the boats.
Looking again to the wall around D.C., Eastridge tried to find their point of entry. Spotting the opening in the early light, he told the radio operator to call and have the net that protected the tidal pool lowered. This was actually the only way left to get in and out of the city if you weren’t coming by air.
When the wall had first been erected, four gates had been built for ground traffic. Convoys coming from Norfolk and Quantico made the hazardous run through the dead three times a week to resupply DC and bring in replacements. With the constant bombing of the city, though, the roads were slowly choked off by rubble. The Seabees tried to keep them cleared, but in the end it was decided to only use helicopters and the Seagate that led into the tidal pool.
Motioning for his radioman, General Eastridge took the handset from him and told his officers to get ready to land. They weren’t expecting any resistance, but he told them to be ready for it if there was. They all knew that there was no turning back. If fired upon, they would return fire and switch to their alternate landing spot and continue on with the mission.
As Eastridge’s landing craft made its way through the gate, he could see that the tidal basin was mostly dark, the wall leaving it in shadow. There were three docks jutting out on his right that were used for unloading supplies, but for his intents and purposes, they would be too slow in debarking his men.
Instead, the helmsman steered for the far end of the basin.
Leaving the bridge, Eastridge made his way to the lead vehicle, an armored Humvee. Climbing into the rear seat, he monitored the progress of his landing craft as they moved into position. He and Admiral Sedlak might have gotten them this far, but now it was up to the captain of each ship to put them on the shore. He had originally wanted to pass under the Kutz Bridge so they could land right next to Independence Avenue, but the bridge was too low. Instead, they would land to its right and use an access road to reach the main road.
Sitting in the Humvee in the open hull of the slowly rocking landing craft was making Eastridge slightly queasy. Pushing down the urge to vomit, it went away when he heard the engines roar into life and felt himself being pushed back in his seat. They had approached the city in an easy manner, not wanting to alert anyone to their real motive until they absolutely had to, but now all attempts at deception were over.
Within seconds, Eastridge could feel the landing craft suddenly decelerate. This was quickly followed by a jarring thud. Light flooded its interior as the ramp at the front of the boat dropped. The tidal pool was ringed by a retaining wall, so they had planned the landing for high tide. Despite this, the ramp was still tilted slightly upwards. The engine in the Humvee roared to life as the driver sped out of the landing craft and onto dry land. Looking to his left, Eastridge could see the other boats in the small flotilla disgorging men and vehicles.
The driver sped across a small piece of grass and onto a road before stopping. Next to him, the gunner stood in the hatch, slowly swiveling his heavy machine gun as he sought out any threats. Calling down into the cab, he said, “I’ve got a few people up on the Kutz Bridge looking at us, but nothing else, sir.”
Eastridge was pleased. There were so many things that could go wrong with the operation, but at least the worst hadn’t been realized. They hadn’t been compromised. If the Chairman had somehow found out that they were planning a coup, they would have been met with force as soon as they landed.
The radio crackled to life, letting him know that all of the vehicles were on land and the strike force was ready to move. General Eastridge looked at his watch, noting that it was eight-thirty.
***
; Steve checked his watch as he and Heather walked through the gate and said, “We’ve still got half an hour before they crank the generators and the radio up. Let’s go over and check on Denise before we try to get hold of Fort Polk.”
Nodding, she said, “With everything that’s happened, I haven’t gotten a chance to see her.”
Turning to Jennifer, Steve said, “You did real good out there this morning.”
Tilting her head down and smiling shyly, she replied. “Tracking the dead is actually easy when you take it one step at a time. You just have to use some common sense and be careful.”
“Be very careful,” Heather stressed. “From our experience, we’ve found it’s the single Zs that come at you out of nowhere that get you instead of the ones that come at you in waves.”
After giving her a few more tips, Steve and Heather made their way to the infirmary. Entering its small outer office, they found the remaining six people they had rescued from the Battleship Texas that were still mobile. They were seated in a collection of metal folding and lawn chairs that ringed the walls, but they stood when the two of them entered.
Steve noticed right away that none of them would look either Heather or himself in the eye, instead finding something interesting in the corners or on the ceiling.
Heather noticed, too, and fear rushed through her. In a slightly quivering voice, she asked, “Is Denise okay?”
They all started speaking at once, assuring her that she was fine and Tick-Tock was in with her now. Their reassurances died off as one, leaving them looking around again in an uncomfortable silence.
