Apex Fallen

by C. A. Michaels

  Lance swung the door open. The beasts had been drawn to the sound of gunfire when they’d moved in from the other building, and the far side of the room, where two double-doors were open onto the factory floor, revealed around twenty hacks who had taken up positions. Being able to see so many hacks packed into a single area took Dan’s mind back to the school ground and he felt his heart race. He shifted his weight onto his front foot as his barrel steadied against the far line of hacks and he flicked his 416 onto full auto as his red dot floated around their staring, sneering figures. Dan’s bursts were longer and sustained than before, putting five to six rounds in a pattern of fire that he swept across the far side of the room. Lance’s fire was more disciplined and precise, with his single rounds picking up and spinning the figures as they lurched into a sprint to escape the automatic blasts of gunfire. Within ten seconds Dan had emptied a magazine and, without hesitation, he reloaded. Lance held his fire. The hacks had retired; two lay dead in the room before them, shot through the head or neck, and six or seven hacks lay dead or dying on the far side of the room which was now a mess of pools of blood seeping onto the concrete floor.

  Lance pushed a table away from them, giving them more space to move through. They were in the factory’s break-out room with a microwave, fridge and coffee maker off to the right. There was only one way out and it was slippery with blood and scattered with the fallen beasts.

  “Front!” Lance called, initiating another contact. Dan saw a target off to his half-right and he brought his ACOG sight into the aim, firing a single round at its centre of mass. Missed, fuck! He followed it up with another aimed shot, closer this time, with the hack’s right arm being jerked upwards, leaving behind a few lines of blood trailing through the air. Winged it. Not the best shooting, but he didn’t linger on that thought. They could see the loading bays around 80 meters from them, between which were a large number of compartmentalized construction stations and pallets packed with stores. The factory was cavernous and extended to the right, further than Dan could see. 200 meters end-to-end Dan recalled. Two football fields – that’s large.

  Lance and Dan both held their fire and ignored the glimpses of fleeing hacks in the distance, instead scanning their immediate surroundings. Julia had pushed right up to them.

  “Just to your left, I think that is the stair-case.”

  Lance moved in that direction and Dan followed, waiting until Scott and Hannah had orientated onto the factory floor before he moved. He didn’t want that checker-board of obstacles to be left unobserved.

  The metal stairs clanged loudly under them as they moved up to the mezzanine level. Lance paused as soon as his head was clear of the floor and he scanned the space with his rifle before vaulting the last few steps, onto the second floor. Dan followed. They were on a long landing-like level that over-looked the factory floor. Against the wall were a number of enclosed office rooms – management, Dan guessed – with the rest of the space being made up of open-plan work stations – inventory management, orders processing and the ilk. The floor was around twenty meters wide and, like the rest of the factory, disappeared away from them to the right.

  “Fucking hell, this is gnarly,” Lance muttered. Dan could see why. The small dividers around each desk created row upon row of concealment for any hiding hacks. Given the number of workers who would have been at their stations when Stalin struck there would be a fair amount of predatory hacks here, too.

  They stepped away from the stairs and let the others join them.

  “We need to sweep this level, and we’ll do it in a single line,” Lance said, settling onto the least-worst plan out of a range of poor options. Dan and I will be central, Julia can be between us. Scott, hang on the right and Hannah, go onto left, next to Dan. We’ll clear down together, moving to the next row of desks on my call. Scott, at the end of each row clear the office rooms.”

  They shook out in their line and then stepped it off on Lance’s call, halting next to the first row of partitions and desks.

  “On my mark we’ll step over and clear around these barriers, but don’t move beyond them, so everyone has a clear arc of fire to their front. On my mark... Move!”

  They all swept around and over the row of dividers, their weapons leading. Some suppressed fire kicked up from Dan’s right but his immediate space was clear. Hannah’s obviously wasn’t, though, as he saw her level and fire her MP7 at a hunched figure a few meters away.

  “Good shot,” he called out to her.

  There was a brief clattering as Scott cleared the first office, firstly looking in through the room’s window and then opening the door.

  “Next row,” Lance called out, and they slowly wound their way down the gaps between the work-stations and tables, kicking chairs out of the way and carefully checking their path to make sure they weren’t walking into a hack.

  “Same again. On my mark...Move!”

  Dan half-leaned over and half-turned around the edge of the next stack of desks. To his immediate front was a sitting figure, slumped forward with a bloodied face and neck. Dead. There was movement to his front, at around thirty meters, but he kept his focus to his immediate front. Watch your lane. It was clear, and so was Hannah’s to his left and Julia’s to his right, judging by how they too had started to scan ahead of them. Dan swung back to his front, sighted the target and paused for an instance. The figure leaned back into the corridor form by the tables to get another glimpse of the disturbance to its front and, through his ACOG, Dan saw bloodied, snarling lips and a filthy neck. He fired and the head snapped back, the lower jaw torn open by the path of his 5.56mm bullet. He came out of the aim and saw the hack slowly rock onto its back and spasm twice, silently.

  “Next row,” Lance called again. “On my mark... Move!”

  The next few rows were more of the same. After the first few beasts they dropped let out low, guttural screams the hacks started to cautiously retreat back away from their sweep, giving them clearer shots at each partition. Scott seemed to have the hardest job in clearing the office rooms, but he was able to fire through the glass windows before kicking the door open to confirm it was clear. Beneath them, on the factory floor, Dan could here scattering as the hacks moved from cover to cover, occasionally knocking something over. A few guttural and low howls could be heard, too, over the noise of their clearance.

  At the fourth of fifth row in Dan and Hannah’s rows combined into a central, long space. He couldn’t see but he pictured a series of tables set length-to-length for meetings or planning tasks. Hannah moved towards him and the waited for Lance’s command.

  “On my mark... Move!”Dan was right and the space was taken up by a series of tables and chairs. Hannah cleared to her left and Dan to his right; both fired as they caught targets in their sights at close quarters. As they had with the last few rows everyone took a step into to the row to confirm it was clear. Hannah was just behind Dan’s left shoulder and he scanned out to the right, interlocking his gaze with Julia’s movements so they both knew where each other were. Dan started to swing his rifle to the left, back towards Hannah when he heard her scream and saw, out of the corner of her eye, her tumble to the ground.

  A switch flicked on in Dan’s mind and he was on edge, fully charged with adrenaline, his entire body pumping and pulsating with energy. His rifle swung to where she had been as time slowed down. Something had grabbed her vest and pulled her down, and Dan could see Hannah on her back, kicking, keeping her hands over her face, her MP7 still connected to her sling but caught somewhere in the middle of the struggle. There were two snarling, thrashing hacks, Dan realized, as the split-second of motion coalesced in his mind as a single, horrific image. Dan didn’t hesitate and pushed his 416 forward, using the edge of the suppressor as an improvised bayonet. The creature flailed on top of Hannah, a clawed set of fingers and snarling teeth seeking her face and neck seemingly oblivious to the threat Dan posed. It seemed to have one hand caught up in a pouch on her vest which was delaying its attack
. The hack spent the last second of its life trying desperately to reach Hannah’s face, raising its head upwards as Dan’s HK416 fired.

  His round exited his barrel at point-blank range into the beast, entering the creature squarely under its jaw and propelling it backwards. The second hack had been scrambling on all fours behind the first beast and Dan, now kneeling, fixed it centrally in his vision. It was less than a meter away and it was moving at him, its hands reaching out for him in slow motion. Dan didn’t even aim but orientated his weapon, and feeling with his body that Hannah was still safely out of the way underneath him, fired a series of single shots.

  He saw the creature spasm as the first round tunneled through the shoulder-blade just as its hand reached out towards his helmet . The second round smashed into the creature’s stomach, then the third round caught its chest. He didn’t see where his last round went because he was caught from behind, and went sprawling over the top of Hannah and rolled on top of the dead hacks. Something was trying to bear down on him and he felt a wave of pure panic seize him as he tried to leverage himself back of the ground. He struggled on the carpet as his rifle caught on something and his flailing legs connected with the table, propelling it away but not giving him enough leverage to push himself up.

  A series of loud claps seemed to slap him around the face as he tried kicking out again, sprawling further forwards, and then he felt something heavy and warm against his back, but it wasn’t struggling. Dan managed to get his knee against something – probably Hannah’s leg, and he half-rolled onto his side. The hack that had tried to take him down was looking at him, blood seeping out its open, lifeless jaw. Hannah was lying on her side, her right hand holding her pistol, pointing it at the beast. A few louder reports of gunfire echoed over the area and something collapsed on the other side of the table.

  “Are you OK, are you two OK?” Julia screamed out at them.

  “Yes!” Hannah called back, making eye contact with Dan as she did so. They were untouched but very, very alert. Dan was on all fours as he stared at the floor, spitting out a sweet bile-like substance that had coated his mouth in the struggle. He felt sweat dripping off his forward. He turned to Hannah and looked at her. She still had her pistol out, pointing it under the table. He could see her chest under body armor rising and falling at a very rapid rate.

  “Thanks,” he said. “That was... Close. Very close.”

  He stood and helped her regain her feet, hauling her up by the hand and elbow. She re-holstered her pistol and reclaimed her MP7.

  “Thanks, too. I didn’t really know... what was happening... and by the time I pistol out I was looking up at one of them.”

  “Yeah.” Calling out louder, so everyone could here, Dan continued talking. “We surprised them here, backed them into a corner – they had tried to hunker down, probably because they couldn’t make out a clear escape route. In future I’ll flash-bang any larger areas.”

  “OK,” Lance called back. “Make sure you’re OK and we’ll pick up the clearance again.”

  They were almost at the end of the mezzanine level and, after another two rows, they were looking out at the rest of the factory floor over a waist-high barrier. Lance had rested his rifle on the short wall and took his time as he lined his rifle up against a few of the figures beneath him.

  “This is more like it,” he grinned behind his scope. “One at a time, like plinking at rats when I was a kid.” The bolt of his 416 cycled quickly and quietly, chambering another round with a smooth metallic clang each time he fired. After reaching the end of his magazine he rested back on his heels and surveyed the scene below.

  Julia passed around a canteen of water and they all took a sip. Dan reloaded his magazine and then turned to the group, resting against the wall while Lance addressed them.

  “It should get a lot easier from now on in, since we have the high ground. We’ll swap weapons and Scott and Hannah can stay up here with Julia, providing over-watch with the 416’s. Dan and I will sweep the lower level with the MP7s. The ranges are close enough in here that the fact that the weapons aren’t zeroed to the right shooter shouldn’t matter for the next bit. We’ll use flashbangs every 80 meters or so to keep them stunned and we should roll through the floor pretty quickly. You’ll see where we are from up here, and put anything down that’s more than twenty meters away from us. If something is closer then pass it on over our radio link, as it will be hard to hear shouting from down there. The biggest problem we have will be the loading bays.” Lance was indicating the areas where large roller-doors had been opened, letting sunlight flood in from outside. “We can shut those pretty quickly when we get to the control point next to the door in question, but the ones with trucks backed up in ‘em already will be difficult. We’ll sweep the far side first, shutting the open doors and we’ll improvise obstacles either side of the trucks to seal those bays from the outside. Once that’s done and the factory floor is clear, we’ll come back and walk with Jules while she does here thing. Scott and Hannah can keep us covered.”

  Julia nodded. “I’m able to see a lot of what I want from up here, so it should be a pretty easy walk-through once I’m down there. Two, maybe three hours at the most.”

  ***

  The first flash-bang went off with a deafening crash, shaking the shelving around them and sending thick grey dust spiraling into the air and through the gaps in the shelves. Even for Dan and Lance, who had been crouched down, eyes closed, expecting the blast, it took a moment for them to regain their senses.

  They moved from the first shelf along the outside wall. A few of the hacks had staggered towards the light, swaying and shielding their face. Dan and Lance dispatched them with ease. Dan’s MP7 rocked slightly upwards with each shot but it was accurate and, even compared to the 416, light and responsive in his hands. It felt like a large, over-sized pistol but was a lot easier to shoot than any hand-gun he had ever fired. He didn’t even need to shoulder it against his body in order to put down targets – simply keeping it in front of him was enough, with the light 4.6mm round being lethal enough to crash through the hack’s bodies without throwing the sub-machine gun up into the air. All in all, Dan thought, it was a weapon he could become rather fond of for close-in work.

  There was a lot of suppressed firing from the second floor and the stun-grenade was obviously having a good effect. Lance covered down the aisles while Dan walked briskly along, shutting the bay doors one by one. He could see some movement outside and guessed that the car-park was full of the hostile, stalking beasts. The first few doors slammed shut behind him, shutting off the sunlight, but clear solar-tubes in the roof kept the space illuminated. When they reached the first truck Dan checked inside. It was partially loaded with packages, but nothing that could block the narrow gap either side of the vehicle. He instead turned his attention to the aisle, and ended up next to a stack of small barrels of solvents. By stacking them two high he figured he would be able to block each side and, if something pushed their way through, the noise of the barrels tumbling onto the concrete would alert them.

  Dan rolled the first barrel against the truck’s side and stood it up, using his foot to leverage it against the truck.

  “Good enough,” he grunted, as he stepped back. Lance nodded and rolled a second barrel up to the truck. There would be hacks in the aisles, still watching them, but the last few minutes had been sufficient to establish themselves as the apex predators of the building. The ghouls seemed to understand that, too, and were keeping their distance.

  Lance heaved the second barrel on top of the first, and slid it the final few inches so that it was neatly stacked together.

  “Not quite a hesco barrier, but I think it’ll do the trick.”

  “Plenty of ‘em, too,” Dan said, looking down the aisle. There would be more than enough barrels to blockade the gaps alongside each truck.

  The two men grabbed a second barrel each, rolling them to the other side of the truck. Lance stood his up and then froze, looking out.<
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  “Vehicles,” he said. “Inbound on us.”

  ***

  Dan and Lance took up positions alongside the truck. They didn’t have any time to move further down, and Lance was already keying in the update back to Scott’s group up top when the first vehicle keeled into sight.

  Dan was scanning his field of view through his MP7’s holographic sight. He was low, kneeling, while Lance stood right behind him, high. So long as Dan stayed low they both had a clear field of fire.

  Lance picked up the vehicle at the same time, as they both growled out a sighting report. “Truck.”

  Dan’s first thought as he scanned the vehicle with his red dot sight was to flick off his safety catch. The group inbound were armed – at least one was, anyway, with a long barrel pointing out through the front of the cab, where the windscreen should have been. His finger rested gently on the trigger. He was a split-second away from firing but waited, paused, cycling through the alternative options. Friend of foe? Friend or foe?

  The combat indicators Dan had previously had drilled into him for operations in Afghanistan didn’t cut it out here. Vehicles heavily weighted onto the rear axle – Vehicle-borne IEDs – or nervous middle-aged men with cleanly cut beards and suspicious shapes around their bodies – suicide bombers – didn’t cut it for his current situation. He instead relied on a far more ancient, primitive form of judging others. Treat everyone as a threat, until proven otherwise. And be prepared to kill them all in order to survive.

  Lance was the same behind him, he knew, as he could hear the steadied, regulated breaths of an experienced warrior readying himself for potential combat. Both the men were able to shut out the ongoing chatter in their ear-pieces – “Have you got visuals? Can you see anyone? What is going on?” – as they focused on the situation to their front.