Apocalypse Atlanta

by Rogers, David

  Facing forward, he saw they were nearly to the besieged Guard unit. Glancing in the side mirror, he saw the distinctive headlights of the five ton trucks with them were swinging off to the side of the interstate, along with the ARV. He grunted in approval; it got the bigger vehicles out of the way for the humvees to back up as they engaged, plus let the troops riding the trucks dismount and add their fire to the effort.

  Bracing against the dashboard, Peter gripped his AR-15 tightly as the driver braked sharply about twenty feet behind the line of Pappa David vehicles. Their humvee was slotted in between two of the others in front of him, Peter was pleased to see. It was a good sign the driver knew to do that without having to be told. But Peter turned and grabbed the man’s shoulder as the humvee came to a stop.

  “When you back up, you fucking go easy or you’re gonna spill us out.”

  “Got it sarge.” the Guardsman said quickly, glancing briefly at him before looking back forward with the aura of someone watching a gigantic wreck unfolding in slow motion; eager to not miss a single detail but afraid to watch.

  Peter cranked the volume on the vehicle’s radio to near max, then opened the passenger door and put his right boot on the running board, pressing himself back against the door frame with his left. He settled the AR-15 firmly in his hands, tight against the sling and his shoulder for good control.

  He peered through the optical sight on his weapon at the approaching zombie horde. He tried, he really tried, to just view the entire mass as one big target. But, inevitably, his eye drifted to individual people in the crowd. Zombies, he kept telling himself they were just zombies. But as he adjusted his aim, his eye fell upon one woman who was the right age to be a typical college student.

  Her Georgia Tech t-shirt was bloody and ripped, hanging off her by one shoulder and revealing a lot of skin. If it weren’t for the blood it almost looked like the shirt was supposed to be worn that way. She had been pretty, he noted almost immediately, as he took in the blonde hair and attractive features.

  But now the eyes were fixed and hollow, her features slack and lifeless, skin pale higher up but mottled and bruised lower down. And she was covered in a lot of blood. She staggered forward with the other zombies, and as he watched she ignored a bullet impact high up on her left shoulder. The wound did not bleed, merely opened up a hole that would have any normal person down on the ground screaming in pain. She just kept pressing forward.

  “Bravo Mary elements, be prepared to check your fire.” Captain Foreman said on the radio. He was shouting, clearly trying to make sure he was heard by everyone despite the gunfire. “Papa David will be maneuvering back to reload and grab a quick breath.”

  Which would normally mean, Peter knew, they were going to let their weapons cool for a few moments. Now, however . . . Peter didn’t begrudge the soldiers a minute to try and collect themselves. This was an insane situation no one could have been fully prepared to deal with.

  The humvees in front of them began backing up, some of them jerking a little as the drivers hit the gas too abruptly. They all settled down before they became a hazard however, sliding in reverse past the newly arrived vehicles. Behind, well in front of them really but headed in the same direction, came the dismounted Guardsmen. They were turning and running to fall back from the encroaching zombies. Those whose faces Peter could see clearly had no interest in being left alone in front.

  Peter blinked and realized his aim had drifted away from the Georgia Tech student. Swallowing, he deliberately didn’t try to find her again, and kept his gaze as unfocused as he could let it get and still be sure of where his rounds would go. He didn’t need to see any actual details, didn’t want to see such things. The mass was so big almost anything he fired would hit.

  The last of the Papa vehicles and men made it past Peter’s unit, and the radio crackled again. “Bravo, open fire.” Peter flicked his selector switch to semi auto and squeezed the trigger. The rifle rocked him slightly, surging back against his shoulder, but he controlled it with the ease of decades of practice.

  Still refusing to pay attention to what he was aiming at, beyond ensuring his sights were on the shambling expanse of flesh that was slowly encroaching toward him, he had his second round on the way a second after the first, then the third. The pattern of steady aimed fire, as aimed as he could make it without looking too closely anyway, was a trained instinct that he fell right into immediately.

  He was waiting for it, expecting it without really knowing that he was, but he still flinched a little when the Browning opened up less than a foot from him. The machine gun fired fifty caliber rounds that were capable of penetrating the engine block of most vehicles in the world. Part of that was their size and weight, and the rest was the muzzle velocity they fired at. Bottom line, the damn thing was loud when it went off.

  Especially when you were next to it. Now, as the Guardswoman manning it sent a long burst forward, the light and noise so close to him were enough to make him flinch involuntarily. Vorees was sweeping the weapon from left to right in a tight arc about as wide as the humvee. As Peter kept squeezing off shots of his own, he saw the heavy fifty caliber rounds ripping through the zombies in twos and threes. The noise was incredible, and he kicked himself for not putting in his earplugs.

  Peter had spent some time over the years researching the history of the Corps, somewhat out of a sense of duty and esprit de corps, but also out of interest and even curiosity. A good part of that research had covered World War II and the often overlooked and incredibly bloody campaign the Corps had fought from island to island across the Pacific Ocean after Pearl Harbor.

  During that war, repeatedly, the Japanese defenders of those islands had launched wave attacks into fixed positions covered by crew served weapons. Some of those attacks had even succeeded, the enemy soldiers soaking up the fire of sometimes multiple machine guns that raked them with belt fed rounds until enough of their surviving brethren could overrun the positions.

  When Peter had read such accounts, and then when he’d seen a Hollywood reenactment of some similar battle or another, he had marveled at the courage, and been thankful modern combatants had learned to not do stupid shit like that. But the zombies were beyond anything that could reasonably be called smart, and showed signs of neither tactics nor self preservation. They simply walked right into the fire of dozens of rifles, which was bad enough, but also the mounted machine guns.

  As bad as that was, the worst part was that not all of them were even falling when hit, even when hit by one of the Brownings. Getting hit was only a problem for one of the zombies if it fell, or was knocked, over. Wounding seemed to be a non-issue, except where the wound involved a limb being lost.

  In those cases, the zombies that were unable to stand because of having lost a leg or more rarely seeming to be unable to regain their feet without the use of an arm to prop themselves up while they rose merely began crawling. Without a sound, without crying or panting or anything; they just walked and crawled forward steadily. Hardly without pause. They didn’t even seem to notice, or care, if other zombies walked on or tripped over them.

  Lack of blood or not, the scene was beyond his worst nightmares. None of his extensive prior combat experience had really prepared him for the sight of a shuffling mass of civilians that walked determinedly, unhurriedly, into such a hail of gunfire and didn’t seem to mind beyond the inconvenience of being knocked over or losing the use of a limb. They weren’t even flinching, not even blinking, as the fire raked them over.

  He started focusing on the horde again, involuntarily, as he struggled to come to grips with what he was seeing, as if his mind demanded confirmation that his decision to remain visually detached couldn’t provide. When he started looking properly, what he saw was sickening.

  There were people with gaping holes in their chests that were getting up and continuing forward, holes that you could see through, that had ribs and organs showing or spilling out of. He saw arms blown off, and beyond a twisting from
the impact, the person – the zombie – continued approaching. And still, the entire time, without a sound, without a single cry of complaint or scream of pain.

  It was unreal, and Peter realized the fire was slackening. His left ear wasn’t cringing under a vicious assault of heavy rounds firing off nearly next to his head at about two a second. Then he realized, to his shame, his own weapon was half lowered. He covered by hitting the magazine release to let the mostly empty magazine drop out of the AR-15, fumbling at his ammunition pouch for a fresh one as he turned his head to the gunner on his left.

  “Your orders are to fire that weapon!” he barked sharply.

  Vorees looked at him, and now he saw she was in shock. He grimaced as he got the new magazine seated with a click that was felt rather than heard, then reached over the roof of the humvee and grabbed her arm.

  “Goddamnit, your buddies are here! They need you. Now fire that weapon!” he shouted.

  “Sarge . . .” she stammered, and her eyes flicked past him to the zombies.

  “Now! I don’t care if you have to close your eyes to do it. Just keep it level and in line with the vehicle and fire until we leapfrog back.”

  She visibly swallowed, and flinched as he jerked the charging handle on his weapon. Then, and Peter couldn’t believe she actually did it, she closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger, sort of waving the mount back and forth across about five inches of traverse. He decided that was fine for the moment, and turned back forward, bringing his weapon back to his shoulder and resuming his own fire.

  They stayed on line for another minute, maybe a little longer, then the mass of flesh was within fifteen feet of them and seemed almost undepleted. Ragged, battered, tattered; but still intact and continuing to press north. He shot steadily, still not really focusing on his aim beyond ensuring the rounds were sent into the approaching mass, then would reload and resume. Finally Peter felt the driver hit him on the leg, and dropped back into the seat.

  “Pulling back?” he half shouted.

  “Yeah.”

  Peter turned and managed to get the attention of the backseaters, the two door gunners pulling back inside after the machine gunner dropped away from the mount and sat staring numbly through the windshield. Patting his pouch, Peter realized he had shot through half his ammo already. It wasn’t like he’d been issued a proper patrol load; they weren’t expecting combat. He put a new magazine in his weapon, then jabbed a finger at the shaken Vorees. “Crawl into the back, hand up some more mags.” he ordered sharply.

  She blinked, transferred her far away stare to him, then turned and eeled over the backseat and into the cargo space at the far back of the vehicle. Their gear was back there, mostly tools and stuff, but also the packs that had not been needed until now. They needed them now, or at least the extra ammunition that was supposed to be in them, and Peter watched a moment as she grabbed the first one and started opening flaps.

  “Bravo Mary, leapfrog back.” Foreman’s voice ordered from the radio, and Peter grabbed the back of his seat as the driver accelerated smoothly backwards.

  “When we’re up again you get on the mount.” Peter told Hanover, the Guardsman behind him, who looked a little dazed, but otherwise seemed to be tracking properly. The man nodded, and Peter watched him pull his door closed and jam his weapon in between it and the seat before sliding over to the middle of the seat. As Hanover stood up behind the M2 mount, Vorees got the first handful of magazines out.

  Peter grabbed the four she was proffering and tucked them quickly into the pouch on the left side of his equipment harness. He took a moment to make sure they were oriented properly in the pouch, so he could grab and reload without having to look. As he satisfied himself about their positioning, the humvee braked to a halt. Peter looked forward again.

  They were back in the second rank again. The weapons of Philmore’s unit were up and firing once more. Peter stood up out of the door, shading his eyes reflexively against the harsh illumination of the street lights on the Interstate’s center divider as he studied the zombie horde.

  What he saw did not make him happy. It didn’t even look like they’d made a dent. If anything, the numbers seemed larger. Behind the front line of the approaching zombies he could see the 10th Street overpass, fenced along both sides as a shield against pedestrians throwing things down on the normally busy lanes of traffic below. It seemed to be . . . moving.

  Ducking his head back inside the humvee, he snapped his fingers sharply as he spoke. “Vorees, there’s an ILBE pack back there with a set of binoculars in the bottom left pouch, on the side. Hand them up here.”

  “Sarge, I don’t know which one you’re talking about.” he heard the Guardswoman say in a voice touched with a frantic edge.

  Peter kept his voice calm, trying to use his tone and manner to keep her from falling past the edge she clung too. “There’s only one pack back there that’s different than the others.” he said encouragingly. “That’s the one.”

  It shouldn’t be that hard for her to figure out, even in the shadowed interior of the vehicle. The Guard all used older packs that were much more like, well, older backpacks. His ILBE was a modern piece of equipment that looked like something a mountain climber might use.

  Holding his hand outstretched toward her, Peter turned and looked forward again. There was movement along either side of the overpass, where the fences ended as the overpass was no longer needed. It was just a little bit of a hill, something that would take a person maybe a few seconds to run up or down, between the street above and the Interstate below.

  “Bravo elements, engage as best you can, and watch your line of fire. When in doubt, don’t shoot.” Foreman’s voice said from the radio.

  Hanover opened up with the Browning, followed a few moments later by Manning, shooting from the driver’s side rear door. As Foreman’s unit resumed firing, adding their weight to that of Philmore’s, Peter frowned. It wasn’t helping. That much fire would erode a human mob even if it didn’t disperse it through sheer terror and pain. The zombies just kept coming.

  Something pressed into his hand. When he withdrew his arm from inside the vehicle, he saw the requested binoculars. Dropping the strap over his head reflexively, he flicked the little lens caps off hurriedly and raised the binoculars to his eyes. It took him a moment to dial the focus in, but only a moment, and the west side of the overpass leapt into view.

  Zombies were coming down the hill, though it was really more of a falling dominos process than what humans might do to descend properly. It didn’t seem to bother the zombies however, which was good since it seemed even the few that were somehow able to stay on their feet tended to be knocked off them by a falling and skidding zombie behind them.

  At the bottom they rose and stepped off the edge of the low wall separating the small bit of grassy shoulder from the Interstate’s breakdown lane, falling again, and then they were of a level with the rest of the zombie horde. And with the humans. Frowning, Peter shifted his gaze to the back of the horde pressing north towards the Guard position, using the height the humvee gave him to see past the zombies.

  “Fuck me.” he breathed, his words unnoticed amid the hammer and crack of weapons. The horde was huge. He stared through the binoculars at the trailing edges of the zombies for a few seconds, then kicked himself mentally and ran through the process of generating a decent estimate. It was nearly a thousand he decided after another couple moments of calculation. At least. And growing.

  Peter let the binoculars fall on their strap and grasped his AR-15. Settling the weapon into place against his shoulder, he drew a bead on one of the front rank zombies, letting the red dot centered in his optical sight slide up until it rested in the middle of the zombie’s face. He ignored the details his mind was picking out, business suit, male, missing a lot of skin and tissue from the left side of its face, and forced himself to stay in target mode. Just another target. That’s all it is. Just another target.

  The AR-15 bucked against his sho
ulder almost of its own accord, and he blinked as he scanned the front rank of zombies through the sight, then adjusted his view down a little. There. He saw a pair of legs wearing gray dress pants vanishing beneath the shuffling feet of zombies still up. Two tripped and went down, but they were already pushing themselves up to rejoin the advance. The one he’d shot stayed down.

  Peter picked out another one and repeated the experiment. Another headshot, and someone who may or may not still be alive would need a new secretary if they were, as a middle aged woman who definitely looked like an administrative worker went down missing the top third of her skull. She did not get back up.

  Flicking the safety back on, Peter let the weapon fall back to his side on its sling and unhooked his radio. The handset was old and much more bulky, heavier, than was the norm in front line service, but he was familiar with it. Before he could depress the microphone button, intending to try and get the unit’s targeting altered to maybe actually kill some of the zombies, the speaker crackled with a shouting voice that seemed on the verge of panic.

  “More behind us, and coming from the west!”

  Peter’s head snapped to the right. Various parts of the Connector had retaining or support walls along the sides, holding back earth as the highway cut through hills, or to hold up overpasses and signs. This section had a wall that was maybe fifteen feet high to the east, but the west was effectively open. Just a low wall at the edge of the breakdown lane, not any sort of obstacle to someone on foot. Well, and a slight slope up to the exit ramp road, but that was it.

  Even a zombie wouldn’t have to climb up or down, it could just walk into it and fall forward in either direction, get back up, and continue. Which was what was happening. Peter saw a line of figures descending the low rise from the exit road and the streets beyond that were part of Downtown.

  A lot of figures.

  They were all over that flank, emerging from the exit road as it stretched up toward 10th Street. Many were already on the interstate, flooding around the trucks and the ARV. He saw zombies reaching up, dragging at soldiers who had been hanging out of their windows or doors, more zombies beating on those same doors. Some zombies were already down on their knees next to victims, where a lot of screaming and thrashing and bleeding was happening.