Apocalypse Atlanta

by Rogers, David

  “Alright. Everyone else, these are the other fireteam leaders.” Peter said, gesturing at the shooters. “If you’ve got buddies or friendships or whatever, feel free to group up. Team leads, you’re each on your team’s point. Assign your other sectors however you want.”

  Peter waited for the groups to sort themselves out, and was prepared to wait a couple of minutes if necessary. He was keeping an eye on the rest of the floor that was ‘behind’ them, but if there were any zombies up here they were not showing up. This was still a safe spot for the moment. He really hoped there wasn’t a horde about to come over from some hallway out beyond the elevator bank that he couldn’t see.

  But, to his partial surprise, the soldiers sorted themselves out into the other fireteams pretty quickly. He waited until he’d seen each leader confer with his people, until heads had nodded pretty much across the board, then snapped his fingers twice to get their attention again.

  “Okay, good. Whatever arc you’re on, you’re covering that irregardless of what’s going on in that arc. If you’re covering left and there’s another fireteam on your left, you still cover left. Got it? Is anyone not clear? You always cover your arc, period, no matter what.”

  Heads nodded, and Peter nodded. “Okay, next thing. Whenever possible, I want the points to do as much of any shooting as possible. We don’t have the ammo to waste, right? We need every shot that can be a kill to be a kill. Anyone who does shoot, I want you to take your time with those shots if at all possible. Think about your fundamentals, your breathing and your grip and steady aim on the weapon. Head shots, kill shots. Only when you have to, but when you do make it a kill, okay?”

  Head nodded again. Peter waited a few moments, hoping the message was sinking in properly. “Okay, teams, figure out your ammo. Everyone should have one, two if possible, spare mags. Anything beyond that come pile it up in front of me.”

  That finally drew a bit of contention. Peter made a slashing motion with his hand. “Shut it. The extras are going to be divided between the shooters. They’re supposed to be doing as much of the shooting as possible, and they’ve got the training and talent to do it the best, so that’s how it’s going to be.”

  “But–” someone began to protest, and Peter shook his head.

  “End of discussion. Two mags tops, the rest for the shooters. If everything goes good we’ll be running more than shooting anyway. So come on, give ’em up. You want to live, work with the team. If you’re not happy, then you can take off on your own. I won’t stop you.”

  There was still a little muttering, but the fireteams huddled together and compared notes on who had what. Magazines started exchanging hands and coming forward to be piled on the floor before Peter. He waited until everyone looked done, then squatted and counted through the magazines quickly. Then he divided them into six even groups and took the two that were leftover for himself.

  “Shooters, one of these is yours.” Peter said, indicating the piles. It wasn’t much, just four magazines per person, but if even a third of them contained kill shots then that was over two hundred dead zombies. As they started collecting the ammunition, Peter glanced around again, trying to determine if anyone looked like they were ready to argue.

  He saw a little resentment, but only a little, not even really as much as he might see on a normal day in a typical barracks or base workshop. That was good. He just wanted out, out of Downtown for starters, and then . . . just out. Peter shook himself mentally, throwing off the irrelevant thoughts. Time enough for all of that shit later. Right now, there was still work to do.

  “First thing, clear out the lobby, so we can get back outside see about breaking out of Downtown.” Peter said when the last of the shooters had collected their ammunition.

  “Why don’t we just hole up in here for a while?” someone asked.

  “Yeah.” another put in. “Take a load off.”

  Peter shrugged. “No power, for one. No food, for another. Third, what’s to say the situation won’t be worse tomorrow? Maybe the zombies see better in the daylight? Maybe more will show up. Who knows. Right now, unless something even more fucked up has happened outside in the last ten minutes, east ought to be relatively clear. All the zombies were headed west, so there ought to be a cleared space we can run through. I want to break that way and see if we can slip out.”

  He waited, as if inviting comment, but there weren’t any. Peter moved to the balcony railing and glanced back down into the lobby again. The zombies were still there, which wasn’t great, but there didn’t seem to be more of them than there had been previously, which was good. And his fireteam members had moved with him when he went over to the edge, which was also good. That was all they had to do.

  He considered for a moment. Maybe flaking out in the hotel wasn’t a bad idea . . . no. He discarded the idea. He wasn’t going to waste Dan’s death just squatting less than a block away. He was getting out, and with as many of the Guardsmen as he could take with him.

  “Shooters, we’re clearing the lobby.” Peter said, glancing over his shoulder. They moved to join him, spreading out along the railing as they hefted their weapons. “Take your time, this is a chance to make sure you’re tuned up and ready. Make each shot a kill.” Peter said as a reminder.

  He settled the AR in against his shoulder snugly and put his eye to the scope. The zombies weren’t moving, which he also considered a good sign. And not just for the easier targets it made them. He was hoping that meant there wasn’t a way up here they could use. Then he sighed. If there wasn’t, and the zombies were smart enough to at least know that, then that was bad. It would have been better if they were completely mindless.

  Putting the red dot in his scope on the top of a business suited male zombie’s head, he breathed in and let it out slowly. The trigger squeezed back almost of its own accord. His weapon kicked briefly against his shoulder, and he lifted his head to look down without the scope. The zombie was on the floor, motionless with a fairly disgusting crater where the upper curve of its skull had been moments before.

  A rifle cracked next to him, then two more. Three more zombies went down. As he evaluated that, two more zombies died, then another. That was good too. The shooters were hitting their targets. He just hoped their skills would hold up when they got outside. Setting his eye back behind the scope, Peter drew a bead on another zombie. Before he could fire, a blood curdling scream erupted behind him.

  Peter spun around, the AR still up and against his shoulder. The yelling was coming from a soldier with another who was busy chewing on him. Peter’s light settled on the two, and he frowned unconsciously as he evaluated the scene in a heartbeat. The zombie Guardsman had been fine just moments before. Peter recognized him. He caught himself starting to consider it, then shook himself. Later.

  Dropping his weapon so it dangled from the sling, Peter drew the M45 from his holster. As he did, two more soldiers abruptly began yelling as soldiers next to them attacked as well. As Peter blinked in disbelief, something made him spin around. He didn’t know what it was, but it saved his life.

  The Guardsman he’d assigned as his fireteam’s left flank was in the process of reaching for him. The man’s eyes were fixed and hungry, suddenly devoid of any sense of life or reason. Just seconds before he had been a living breathing man. Now he was abruptly a zombie. It made no sense to Peter, but it didn’t matter. He had even less time to react to this than he’d had to acknowledge the preternatural instinct that had made him react to the sudden threat.

  He thrust past the grasping hands with his left arm, getting his left hand planted on the zombie’s forehead. The teeth made clicking and gnashing sounds as the zombie strained with its neck muscles to push against Peter’s hand, trying to angle close enough for a bite. The zombie’s hands closed on Peter’s arm, and Peter had to tighten his fingers against the zombie’s skull like he was gripping a ball to prevent his arm from being pulled down to the hungry mouth.

  “Sarge!” he heard Whitley blurt, but th
ere was no time. Peter reached past and under the zombie’s arms and put the muzzle of his pistol against the hollow of the man’s throat. He took an extra half second to angle the gun up a bit, just a bit, then pulled the trigger. Right as he did, Peter ducked his head down, again on instinct.

  The .45 bucked in his hand, and suddenly there was no resistance. The hands on his arm went slack, and the head in his hand stopped pushing forward. Peter looked and saw the zombie was in the process of collapsing. He stepped back as the Guardsman folded to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. The head was wobbling on the neck gruesomely, and when it lolled over to the side in a way nature never intended human heads to move, Peter saw there was only a bit of skin connecting head to body.

  He pointed and fired the pistol a second time. The bullet entered the skull and shattered it explosively. A pool of blood was almost instantly on the floor under and around the body, with bits of bone and body and brains visible in it. Peter shook himself as he realized he was staring at the gore at his feet. He looked around.

  There were six other struggles ongoing. Each one had a zombie somewhere in the middle of it. He saw a soldier near one of the fights lifting his M-16 into a firing position, beginning to aim. Peter jolted himself into action.

  “Do not fire! No rifles!” he shouted, but it was too late. The zombie the Guardsman was aiming at was atop its victim, worrying away at the victim’s forearm like a dog with a bone. The man beneath him was screaming in pain as he beat against the zombie’s head with his free hand. Another soldier had his hands on both the zombie’s feet, trying to pull it off, but the zombie was hanging on to the victim as it chewed.

  In the next moment, even before Peter’s ears had registered the chatter-crack of the M-16 firing, the zombie’s head exploded and sprayed itself across the victim. As the zombie collapsed, its head a shattered ruin that was leaking what little remained within it over the man it’d been trying to eat, Peter saw the victim’s struggles were a lot more feeble now.

  “Goddamnit, watch your fire!” Peter shouted, waving his hands above his head as he saw other weapons being readied. “The fucking rounds are going to hit people behind your targets.” Two more cracks sounded. Peter felt like screaming himself, as he saw the jacketed bullets were doing exactly what he was trying to warn about.

  At close range they were usually going to go right through a torso and come out the other side with enough energy still remaining to be dangerous. A limb, very likely to do the same. A head . . . the skull was tough but it and the brain didn’t really slow the rounds down enough when fired from only a couple feet away. Zombies were dying, but so were their victims, as the Guardsmen fired without care for the background of their shots.

  Before he could try to exert any control over the situation, it was all over but the bleeding and crying. He stood with the M45 naked in his hand for long seconds, his head swiveling around as he checked the area and tried to spot any additional threats. Finally he bent his elbow and let the pistol point up at the ceiling.

  The formerly quiet open corridor was now filled with pants, gasps, moans and no small amount of cursing. Eight Guardsmen had apparently converted spontaneously and done what all zombies did, try to eat someone. The shoot-through fire had exacerbated the casualty count considerably, even a cursory glance told that tale. The only good thing Peter could think as he listened to the moans of the wounded was it probably made their ammunition situation better.

  Peter watched as the zombie bodies were shoved out of the way and first aid treatment of the wounded started. He drew a deep breath, then reached into one of the pockets on his utilities. He popped the magazine out of his pistol and holstered it to free up his hands, then loaded a pair of loose .45 rounds in to replace the ones he’d fired. As he drew and loaded the pistol once more, one of the soldiers raised his voice.

  “What, they just up and show up now?” he demanded. His voice was well past the edge between stressed and panicked, and he hadn’t slung or put aside his M-16. The rifle was clutched in his hands, not quite pointing at the others, but close enough to make people who noticed nervous. “The fuck man?”

  “Calm down.” Peter said loudly, lowering the M45 but keeping it in his hand. The man’s eyes flicked over to him, then he stepped back.

  “You’re probably next sarge.” he said. “You’ve got blood all over you.”

  Peter glanced down briefly. There was blood splattered across the front of his utilities. He shrugged as he looked back up. “It’s just blood, I’m not wounded.”

  “You’re all just zombies who haven’t gotten hungry yet.” he soldier said, his voice now beginning to shade past panicked into hysteria. “Oh man, no way. No way I’m sticking around for that.”

  “Fine, leave then.” Peter told him.

  The man’s eyes swung back to him, and his rifle started to lower. Peter’s arm snapped up to level the pistol at the man’s head as he put all his decades of command experience into his shout. “You point that weapon at me and I will kill you!” Peter barked. “Point it up or sling it or put it down, but do not point it at me.”

  To his credit, the man froze with the M-16 in sort of a forward carry position, like he had it ready to drop level and attack with the non-existent bayonet on its end. His eyes were wide and fixed, and his voice high and hysterical, as he met Peter’s gaze and responded. “Not sticking around for you guys to eat me when I ain’t looking.”

  “Then go.” Peter said, gesturing with his left hand toward the door they’d all come into the hotel by. “There’s a door there, or you can go up the stairwell behind me and pick out a room, or down to the lobby. Take your pick.”

  “Yeah, right.” the man snorted. “Soon as I try, you’ll take me down for deserting.”

  Peter shrugged, but the pistol in his hand stayed rock steady. “Nope. Even if I cared, which I don’t, there isn’t anyone to report you to. Least, not that I can get in touch with.”

  “What about later? When you get out of here, what then?” The man demanded. “Some MPs gonna knock on my door and haul me off, right?”

  Peter sighed. “Make up your mind.”

  “Huh?”

  “Either I’m going to turn into a zombie and eat you, or I’m going to get out of here and snitch you to higher authority.” Peter replied. “Or, option three. You can just leave in any direction you want and no one here is going to bother you anymore.”

  “Seriously?”

  Peter wanted to curse, but he just smiled very slightly. “Seriously. But if you’re leaving, leave now. My arm’s getting tired.”

  “Uh . . .” The Guardsman stared at him for several moments, blinked twice, then looked around at the others. Peter kept his eyes on him, but he didn’t see anyone else moving to join the would-be deserter.

  Though, honestly, Peter didn’t think deserter was the right term. He couldn’t imagine of anything as bad as the situation in Atlanta that cut off communication with the rest of the nation that might leave someone else to actually communicate with. At least, no military or command structure anyway. He really, really, hoped he was wrong.

  But he also really, really wanted this guy to decide. His arm actually was getting tired. It was rather taxing to hold a gun aimed and ready to fire for anything longer than maybe half a minute. Sure some tough guys could do it for quite a while, but it was an effort. Peter had very little to prove, or maybe he just didn’t care anymore, but he wasn’t going to let some hysterical coward shoot him if there was anything he could do about it.

  “Okay, I’m leaving.” the man announced.

  “Fine.”

  “I’m headed that way.” he elaborated, jerking his head over his shoulder towards the door to the pedestrian tube.

  “No problem.”

  “I’m going alone.”

  “Not for long.” Whitely muttered behind Peter, but so softly he was sure the panicking soldier couldn’t hear.

  Peter shifted his aim as the man stepped back, then again. The onl
y movement in the hallway was the man leaving and the efforts of those soldiers who were providing first aid to the wounded. The man backed down the corridor until he was nearly halfway to the tube door. Peter tracked him with the pistol until the man finally turned and started walking with his back to them. Only then did Peter lower the gun, though he kept it in his hand and watched.

  He kept his eyes on the departing man’s back until it vanished through the tube door. Then he switched his attention to the wounded. “Okay, how are the rest of us doing?” Glancing around, it took a lot of effort for Peter to keep his expression calm and confident rather than angry or frustrated. In the last ten or so minutes their numbers had gone from respectable to a couple handfuls.

  There were five dead, two of them due to the rifle fire of their fellows. Four more were hurt seriously enough that they probably wouldn’t make it another hour. Especially if they had to move at all, which in one of the cases would be difficult with the damage he’d suffered to one of his legs. There were a handful of walking wounded, but three of those had been bitten by the zombified Guardsmen.

  Peter didn’t interrupt any of the first aid activities, but he was thinking furiously. It was the wounded that were the big problem, and Peter could tell he wasn’t the only one dwelling on it. The way the ‘healthy’ soldiers’ eyes kept flicking back and forth, trading glances or sneaking looks at him or at the wounded . . . it gave away what they were thinking. At least two of the wounded were doing it too, he noticed, and he wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

  Desperate people did desperate things.

  Hernandez finally asked the question, though to his credit he came over to Peter and spoke very quietly and confidentially. “What are we going to do about the wounded?”