by Jon Schafer
Sliding to a halt next to him, Cage asked, “What is it?”
Fagan said, “Take a look, sir,” and moved out of the way. Cage took his place and cautiously leaned out. At first nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but then he noticed the windows. Every single one of them on the second and third floor was wide open. Looking closer, he noticed that their curtains had been drawn back and someone was visible just inside. The windows on the first floor were closed, but on closer inspection he could see that they were boarded up on the inside.
Leaning back, Cage said, “It looks like Hawkins has got his men watching for us. He’s got the first floor barricaded, too.”
“But what in the hell is he doing?” Fagan asked. “He can’t stay in there forever. He’ll need food and -” His voice cut off as he thought of the fire. In a flash, it all made sense.
Cage came to the same conclusion and said, “He’s pulling out, that’s what he’s doing. He got hold of someone to come pick his scumbag ass up, then had the radio room torched so no one would find out.”
Anxious to move forward, Steve said, “So let’s take them out and move in. That bastard’s got Heather in there.”
“And he’ll shoot her as soon as we attack,” Fagan told him.
“If she’s even still alive,” Cage said. Instantly regretting this, he added, “My bet is, he’ll use her as a hostage.”
Fagan moved forward and took a look around the corner. After a few seconds, he leaned back and said, “The only way would be a frontal assault across open ground, and that’s out.”
“Why not?” Steve asked. “You’ve got armored Humvees with heavy machine guns. We can get close, then rush them.”
“We’ve also got rocket launchers and grenades to blow the windows open on the first floor,” Fagan told him, “but none of that will do us any good. We’d have to use small arms only or risk torching the building. That farmhouse must be about a hundred years old, and it’ll go up like a roman candle when the first tracer from one of the .50 calibers or a rocket hits it. On top of that, Hawkins has your woman and the little girl, as well as however many of the scientists he’ll grab to use as hostages. My guess is, he’ll bring them out and use them as shields the minute we start to roll up on them.”
“So a frontal assault is out,” Steve said. “What else can we do?”
With a sigh, Cage said, “There is another way in, but it won’t be pretty.”
***
Swallowing hard, Second Lieutenant Perry’s mind raced as he thought of all the ways that the Major’s plan could go wrong. At first when he and Fagan approached him and explained that they needed him to create a diversion, his mind had been full of heroic images of nighttime infiltrations and remote detonated explosives. Ready to do just about anything to make up for handing the little girl over to Hawkins, he never expected this.
Awkwardly holding a spray of flowers as he walked through the foyer of the farmhouse and stopped in front of the guard sitting behind a desk, Perry said, “I’m here to pick up Doctor Connors for our date.”
Having been told to expect some kind of assault on the farmhouse to steal the Malectron, the guard had pulled a .45 caliber pistol and held it underneath his desk when the lookouts on the second floor reported that someone was approaching the front door. They had been vague about who it was, saying only that it was a surprise. Expecting Rambo to burst in armed with everything that could kill, he looked in disbelief at the Second Lieutenant in full dress uniform, holding a bouquet of flowers, and asked, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Perry shook his head and replied, “It’s our first date.”
“Isn’t she a little old for you?” the guard asked.
Saying the first thing that came to mind, Perry blurted out, “Age means nothing. Don’t you know that love is blind?”
The guard chuckled as he said, “And that’s definitely what I’d have to be to date that.”
Before he could pick up his phone to page Connors, it buzzed with an incoming call. Picking the handset up, he said, “Front desk.”
“Are those flowers for you?” a voice asked, followed by laughter in the background.
“Fuck you, Stiller,” the guard said.
“Make sure he buys you dinner before you put your ass in the air,” Stiller said. This was followed by more laughter. “Just to let you know, we’re all glued to the closed-circuit TV. We want to watch when you and your boyfriend walk off hand-in-hand into the sunset.”
Slamming the receiver down, the guard stared at it malevolently.
In an exasperated tone, Perry said, “Now that you and your buddies are done screwing around, could you call and tell Miss Connors that I’m here?”
Wanting to get the Second Lieutenant out of there as fast as he could and get everyone’s attention off him, the guard picked up the phone and hit the page button. After a second, he said, “Doctor Connors, please call or come to the foyer.” Hanging up the receiver, he turned to the camera mounted on the wall and flipped it the bird.
***
After radioing Second Lieutenant Perry to start walking toward the front of the farmhouse, Major Cage, Staff Sergeant Fagan and Steve covered the last fifty feet to the back of it. It had taken them half an hour to get into position, since to avoid being seen by the spotters on the upper floors they had gone out through the fence by the helicopter pad before circling around and coming in through it behind the farmhouse. With their night vision goggles, they could see the dead clustered in the woods. Their whining and moaning increased at the appearance of food, but the Malectron kept them at bay. Having to stay as close to the trees as possible to avoid being spotted, occasionally one of the dead would stagger toward them before reeling back into the woods, making it a harrowing trek.
Leaning against the back wall of the farmhouse, Major Cage looked for the coal chute. Shuddering when he finally spotted it, he steadied his breathing and tried to clear his mind for the task ahead. The forty-inch square flap of metal looked innocuous, but he knew it was the door to hell.
Pointing it out to the others, he said quietly, “We go in one at a time, just like we planned. I’m first, followed by Staff Sergeant Fagan, and then Steve. Kill everything that you see because there are no friendlies down there. Once we’ve cleared the area, we need to find the door that leads into the labs.”
Fingering the silencer attached to the M16 Fagan had given him, Steve said, “I want to go first.”
“Not happening,” Cage told him. “You’re a civilian, and you’re personally involved with the hostages, so you’re lucky I even brought you along.”
Moving to the coal chute, Cage reached down and unlatched its metal cover. Lifting it up, he stepped back at the smell wafting out of the opening. Along with the expected moldy odor of the dead was the stink of putrefying flesh. Pulling a bandana out of his pocket, he tied it around his face and looked in.
After a few seconds, he said, “The chute is about fifteen feet long, and the slope isn’t too bad. I can see the bottom where it ends, but that’s it. No dead around.”
“Can we bang on something and try to attract them?” Fagan asked.
Pointing up at the house, Cage shook his head and replied, “Might attract the wrong kind of attention. There’s only one way to do this.”
Taking a deep breath and holding it, Cage sat down and stuck his feet in the hole, preparing to slide into hell.
Fort Redoubt:
After spending some time with Denise, Tick-Tock went in search of Rick Styles. The now constant sound of gunfire was distant, so he felt safe enough leaving her alone for a few minutes. The lights that normally illuminated the camp were off, the electricity used to power them having been diverted to the electrified fence, so he had to shuffle his feet to make sure he didn’t step on anyone. Many of the people that sought sanctuary in the fort had found places along the wall to set up small camps, but there were so many that they spilled into the main courtyard. Quiet conversations filled the air, everyone specula
ting on the imminent arrival of the dead. A few cooking fires burned, giving him just enough light to weave his way through the mass of refugees.
Entering the building that housed the communication center, Tick-Tock spotted Rick sitting in a chair outside the door of the radio room with his head propped up on fists, staring at the far wall as if in a trance.
Commenting on this, Tick-Tock said, “From your expression, I take it the aliens have landed.”
Looking up, Rick seemed surprised to see him as he said, “I thought you would be halfway to Louisiana by now.”
Tick-Tock laughed as he said, “And miss all the fun?”
Rick’s reply was interrupted by one of his men coming to the door and saying, “The inner barrier has been breached in three locations, sir. There’s too many Ds coming in for our people to hold them anymore.”
Sighing, Rick said, “Order everyone inside the fort and have the electricity switched from the fences back to the compound. They’re probably so broken up by now that they’re not doing any good anyway. Turn on the floodlights so the troops fighting out in the boonies can find their way in.”
“But won’t that also lead the dead-asses straight to us?” the man asked.
Rick laughed and said, “I’m pretty sure they know where we are.”
As the man turned to go, Tick-Tock asked, “Any word from fort one and two?”
“One is still off the air,” the man told him. “Fort two called in a few minutes ago and reported that they’re planning to break out to the east.”
Standing, Rick waved for Tick-Tock to follow him as he entered the radio room. Leading him to a map of the area, the commander studied it for a few seconds before saying, “I told them to give it a shot. They might have a chance if they take off now. They’re the furthest fort to the east, so they probably aren’t completely surrounded by the Ds coming in from the southeast.”
Wishing he was at fort two, Tick-Tock asked, “So where does that leave us?”
“Surrounded,” Rick answered. “When the main herd split and a bunch of them came along the lake, it really screwed us. They circled around the entire camp. On top of that, we haven’t gotten any transmissions from fort one for almost half an hour, so my guess is they got overrun. They were directly in line with the group coming out of the southwest. That’s what cut us off from fort two. By now, that group has probably joined up with the main herd to our east.”
“And the aliens,” Tick-Tock asked.
Rick laughed and said, “They’re not here yet, but when they do land, I hope they eat the dead and piss gasoline because we’ve got too many of one and not enough of the other.”
Tick-Tock laughed, then turned serious as he asked, “How long do you think we can last?”
Rick thought about it and said, “If the walls hold, I’d say we have enough food and water for two weeks. Fuel is our biggest problem, since it was already getting scarce before all this. Running the lights is eating up our power, but we need them right now. It figures the Ds would hit us at night.”
Thinking about the fortifications, Tick-Tock said, “The walls are all angled out, so we should be able to reinforce them with the weight of the refugees in the fort. The dead will be pushing in and up, so all they have to do is climb on them to counter the force with their weight.”
Rick smiled and asked an officer standing nearby, “Did you hear that?” The man nodded, so Rick said, “Then get the people in the courtyard organized.”
As the man went out the door, Rick turned to Tick-Tock and asked, “By the way, how’s Denise?”
“She’s up on the parapets,” he answered.
Concerned, Rick asked, “Is she well enough for that?”
“No,” Tick-Tock answered, “but I’m not going to try and convince her to go back to the hospital. She’s a very willful woman.”
“Maybe I can talk to her,” Rick told him. “Besides, I want to be out there when the dead hit so I can try to keep everyone organized.”
As the two men moved through the courtyard, they could see a dozen of Rick’s men getting the refugees in place along the west side of the fort. With the lights now on inside the camp, it was easy for them to make their way through the throngs of people milling around as they waited to be sorted into groups of ten and moved into position. Conversations were hushed and hurried, everyone thinking that if they kept their voice down, they wouldn’t attract the attention of the dead.
Using two-inch square pieces of wood nailed into the telephone poles, Rick and Tick-Tock climbed the angled wall and onto the narrow parapet. Sidestepping around the defenders, the two men found Denise twenty feet further on. Noticing that she was no longer leaning against the wall with her head down, Tick-Tock thought she was feeling better.
He started to comment on this, but she quieted him with a quick, “Shhh.”
Realizing that she had only perked up because she had heard something, Tick-Tock tuned out the noise coming from inside the fort and focused on the woods. Faintly at first, he could hear the whining of the dead. The noise grew in volume, reminding him of the Doppler effect of a speeding car coming toward him. He noticed that the sound didn’t grow in volume as fast as a Formula One race car on the track, but it was rising quick enough.
The next sign Tick-Tock had of the approaching dead was the tops of the trees moving. Starting as far out as he could see, the entire forest seemed to come alive as the dead passed through it. Like a groundswell forty feet in the air, the shuddering of the foliage showed their progress as they neared the camp. Watching the surge until it reached the clearing between the woods and the fort, he looked down when he saw the dead break out of the woods.
The first of the reanimated corpses came forward in ones and twos, bringing gasps from some of the defenders on the parapets. This trickle quickly turned into a raggedy wave as more and more of the dead broke through the brush into the clearing. Within seconds, the field was packed with bodies moving in a rush toward their food. Dead feet trampled over each other, breaking bones, but the mob was so densely packed that it carried the debilitated Zs along with them. Out in front of them, the leading edge of the horde hit the wall, their impact not even making the telephone poles buried deep in the ground shudder.
Knowing better than to think this would be the same case with the main body of dead, Tick-Tock called out for everyone to brace themselves. Reaching out to Denise, he put one arm around her while the other hand clenched the top of the wall in a death grip.
Heedless of injury, the main body of the horde smacked into Fort Redoubt with a dull thump, the impact causing the telephone poles to shudder and dust to rise off them in a sudden cloud. Being angled outward, hundreds of dead were pushed into the base of the wall and crushed by the weight of the others piling in behind them. The lights along the entire west side of the fort flickered for a few seconds but stayed on.
Half-expecting the wall to collapse when the dead hit it, Tick-Tock was amazed when he found himself still alive. Outside of the fort he could hear the screeching whine of the dead, and inside he could hear screams and calls from the courtyard, but the sound that overrode them all was the creaking of the wall as the dead pushed against it by the thousands.
Looking both ways down the length of the parapets, he could see at least five different places where it was starting to buckle. This was the first sign that their fortifications were starting to fail. Only two or three of the less secure telephone poles were being pushed in at each location, but if they were separated from the others, the whole wall would start to crumble.
Moving down the parapet toward the nearest breach, Tick-Tock and Rick stopped when they saw dozens of people scurry up the angled barrier to jump up and down on the bulging posts. Seeing this, others ran forward to repack the small amount of dirt displaced at their base as they were slowly realigned. All along the barrier, men and women worked to keep the wall intact, knowing if there was even a small breakthrough by the dead, it would cause a flood of them to pour into t
he compound.
After checking to make sure that Denise was okay, Tick-Tock joined Rick as he inspected each repair on the west wall. Reaching the last one and finding boards being nailed across it for reinforcement, Rick called out over the deafening whine of the dead, “Holy shit, it held.”
Listening to the increasing creaking noise coming from the overstressed telephone poles, Tick-Tock replied, “Yeah, but for how long?”
Russellville, Arkansas:
Doctor Hawkins opened the door to his lab and smiled at his three hostages tied and gagged at the far side of the room. Nodding to where Cain was seated in the corner, he said, “They look comfy. Have they given you any trouble?”
“Connors has been as quiet as a church mouse, and the little girl is no trouble,” Cain told him. “The other one is a handful, though.”
Hawkins looked at Heather with mock disgust as he shook his head in disapproval. As if speaking to a child, he said, “Now you behave, young lady.” Turning his attention to his assistant, he said, “Time is getting short, so we should begin.”
Jim moved toward Cindy and picked her up, sending Heather into a flurry of short kicks as she fought against her bonds. Whipping her head back and forth as she writhed on the floor, she tried to shake off her gag while struggling against the zip ties that held her hands and feet.
Frowning at this, Hawkins walked over and grabbed her by the hair. Raising her face up so they could see eye-to-eye, he said, “If you continue with this disgusting display of futility, I will stick your arm into the cage.”
Despite this threat, Heather still did her best to headbutt him.
