by Gunther, Cy
But if it was bad, then the government would make sure that the city was evacuated.
Adam checked in on the handheld as he turned the truck up onto Daniel Webster Highway and saw cars and pick-ups flashing their lights, ripping through traffic to get to the National Guard armory. Exhaust was rising from trucks and humvees, all of the lights in the yard on and soldiers scrambling out of hastily parked personal vehicles.
Fuck, Adam thought. This is going to suck.
He turned left onto the highway and made it to his condo in a matter of moments. The neighbor’s dachshunds started barking at him as he climbed out of the truck, and he wondered, just for a moment, if it’d be okay to shoot the neighbor.
Sorry, officer, Adam chuckled, I thought he was a zombie.
Still grinning at the idea, Adam walked up to his house and unlocked the front door. Jack and Diane, his Rhodesian Ridgebacks, came bounding towards him, nearly knocking him over as he stepped into the foyer.
“Easy, easy!” he said, petting them both. “Stay here while I get some stuff.”
Both of the dogs stayed, tails thumping loudly against the floor as Adam moved through the condo quickly. He gathered up his medical supplies and weapons, a couple of books he’d meant to read, and extra clothes. He tossed them haphazardly into a duffel bag and walked back out to the dogs.
“Come on,” he said, leading the way. The dogs barked happily, following him quickly to the truck. He tossed the bag into the bed and let the dogs into the cab. “Be right back.”
Adam hurried back in and made his way to the kitchen. He loaded a backpack with the dogs’ canned food, shouldered a full fifty pound back of dry food for them, and glanced once around the condo.
Got everything I need for now, he thought, and left, locking the door behind him.
He added the food to the duffel bag in the bed and climbed into the cab, Jack and Diane staying in their place. Within a moment he was back on the road and he noticed more lights on in houses as he back-tracked towards Ernst’s house.
The armory was already empty.
Adam keyed the handheld. “Ernst.”
“Copy.”
“Headed back now. Armory’s cleaned out of vehicles.”
“Figured it would be. What’s your twenty?”
“Probably about fifteen, so long as I don’t run into anything dead.”
Ernst laughed. “Be safe.”
“I copy.”
Adam shook his head, a surreal, almost drunk feeling surrounding him. The situation felt unreal, but he knew that it wasn’t.
The closer that he drew to the city, the brighter it became. Homes had all of their lights on, and a few times he spotted humvees working down side streets. The occasional pop of an M16-A4 sounded out while spotlights could be seen flicking through the shadows. More helicopters had joined the first two that he had spotted, and Adam noticed that a lot of houses had driveways that were empty of vehicles.
Adam found himself shutting off the lights and pulling over a few times to avoid humvees that went racing past. Picking up the handheld he called Ernst.
“What’s up?” Ernst asked.
“Looks like they’re evacuating the neighborhoods around downtown. Check the site, let me know if there’s any way in.”
“Hold on.”
Ernst came back a minute later.
“Looks like an access road through the train yard is still open. It runs right along the river, but the river seems to be where most of the reports have started from, too.”
“Got it. I’ll give you another call when I get through the yard.”
“Sounds good.”
Adam pulled away slowly, taking a few more side streets to make his way to the old Amtrak train yard. Ernst had been right. Adam couldn’t see any sort of humvee or foot patrol, and no cops.
But there were definitely some things down there, too. Off to one side near a flatbed Adam could make out a pair of security guards shambling along. Further down was a homeless woman he had seen begging at the bridge every once and a while.
Adam took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He drove the truck cautiously, but as soon as the wheels hit the gravel of the unpaved road, all three of the zombies’ heads turned to face him. Within a matter of moments their arms were up, hands reaching out, their gait quickening slightly as they moved towards the truck.
The dogs growled, faces pressed up against the passenger-side window, their hackles up, tails stiff.
Adam fought the urge to roll down his window and shoot the fucking things.
But if they react just to gravel being crunched, he thought, what the hell will others do if they hear a gunshot?
Leaving his pistol in its place, Adam focused on getting through the yard.
He quickly left those three behind him, and in a matter of minutes he had passed half a dozen more, but he made it through the yard.
“I’m clear. Be there in five,” Adam said into the handheld.
“Good,” Ernst said. “Dogs okay?”
“Yup.”
“Excellent.”
Adam put the radio down and focused on following the street to the intersection that would take him once more to Ernst’s house, and the safety of the man’s madness.
Brian
Brian rounded the corner of the warehouse and saw Ernst standing a few feet away, rifle slung over his shoulder and lighting a pipe. Ernst looked up at him, shook out the match and grinned around the pipe-stem. Dropping the burnt match to the ground Ernst asked, “How are you holding up, Corporal?”
Brian shook his head. “I’m still trying to figure out if this is real.”
“It is, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of, too.” Brian kept his steady pace, Ernst falling in beside him. Brian smiled. “You were in the service, right?”
“Briefly,” Ernst answered.
Brian looked at him. “Dishonorable?”
“No. Nothing so interesting as that. Turns out I’m batshit crazy.”
“Really?” Brian laughed. “Couldn’t have figured that one out. You were always so mellow at work.”
“Yup, that’s me, Mr. Mellow.”
Brian kept scanning the shadows, listening, watching the long, double fence that stretched around Ernst’s compound.
“You’re going to be deployed in October, right?” Ernst asked.
Brian shrugged. “Who knows now, man. I mean, if this is bigger than just us, it’ll probably be delayed. I just hope that the government doesn’t have its head up its ass on this one.”
Ernst nodded. “I’m hopeful that there’ll be some information in the morning. Right now things are hectic, people are just getting a grip on the situation.”
“Downtown was crazy,” Brian said after a minute. They turned another corner and spotted Corey advancing towards them. “Seemed like every cop in the city was down there. What happens if it spread out farther, out into the neighborhoods around the stadiums and stuff?”
“Adam said the National Guard was rolling,” Ernst said. “I’m thinking that they’re trying to at least isolate the initial impact zone.”
“Downtown?”
Ernst nodded.
They met up with Corey and came to a stop. Brian’s twin shook out a pair of cigarettes and handed one to Brian. The zippo followed quickly and in a moment all three of them were smoking.
“Let’s get back to the gate,” Ernst said. “Adam radioed in a few minutes ago to say that he was cutting through the train yard, but it runs along the river.”
“What’s wrong with the river?” Corey asked.
“Seems like all of the attacks are in areas off of the river,” Ernst answered.
“Fuck,” Brian said, “don’t all the homeless live on the river?”
“During the summer,” Ernst answered. “Little cooler down there, and there’s safety in numbers. They make sure that no one messes with their camps. Why?”
“The first few attacks we saw looked like homel
ess people,” Corey said.
“And the ones that Adam killed came out of Temple Street, you know, where that little bridge runs from one side of the river to the other?” Brian added.
“Damn,” Ernst sighed. He let out a long stream of smoke. “That would definitely explain why all the attacks came off of the river. Something must have gotten into one of the camps.”
“But what?” Brian asked.
“Who knows,” Ernst said, shaking his head. “The lore on zombies is crazy. Hell, it could even be chemicals from any one of the plants we’ve got around here.”
The sound of Adam’s diesel interrupted them, and all three turned to watch it approach the gate.
“Somebody want to let me in?” Adam said over the handheld. Within a moment the truck was once more turning around the corner and heading towards the gate.
Ernst led the way, punching in the code when they reached the gate and stepping aside as Adam pulled in. Brian followed the pick up as Corey and Ernst secured the gate. Adam parked the truck near the front door, killed the engine and let his dogs out. Jack and Diane came tearing towards Brian, barking happily and wagging their tails. Brian smiled at the dogs, patting each on the head as Adam climbed out of the truck.
“How is it out there?” Brian asked.
“Getting crazy. But here’s hoping it gets secured in the next day or two.”
Brian nodded as Ernst and Corey came up.
“Let’s get this stuff in,” Ernst said, “then we can put the pick-up in the garage and settle in.”
Brian nodded his agreement with the others, and took one last glance at the emergency lights flickering against the growing cloud cover.
Corey
Corey sat in a lawn chair outside the front door of the warehouse as the sun started to rise. Adam was inside making coffee, the dogs still asleep in the kitchen. Brian was asleep on a cot, and Ernst was somewhere in his giant library looking something up. As far as Corey could tell, the man hadn’t slept at all.
Corey smoked slowly, his A4 on his lap, iphone in his hand. He still couldn’t get a signal, even though the internet for Ernst’s computer was still running strong. It was like all of the cell towers in the area had been wiped out.
Taking a drag off of the cigarette he watched the sun rise, noticing for the first time the black and gray streams of smoke blossoming from the city. The sirens and lights had stopped, although sporadic gunfire continued in the distance. The helicopters had patrolled for hours, but they’d disappeared half an hour earlier. An occasional explosion sounded, and the breaking of glass and revving of engines could be heard. At some point in the night the power grid had shut down, and the city was missing its traditional electric hum.
Adam was going to check on the emergency site after breakfast, see what – if anything – was being done by the local government and police. If either of those two things still existed.
He looked down at his phone again, tapping the ashes of his cigarette into an old coffee can.
Still nothing, and no way to contact Kiki.
Brian came outside and handed him a cup of coffee. Corey nodded his thanks as his twin sat down in the chair next to him, placing his A4 across his own lap. The two drank their coffee in silence.
“Still nothing, huh?” Brian asked after a minute, nodding at Corey’s phone.
Corey nodded.
“Why don’t you send her a message on Facebook after Adam checks the situation out?”
Corey nodded. “I will. Just worried right now.”
“Understood.”
One of Adam’s dogs came to the doorway, followed by Adam. The older man raised his coffee to them, saying, “You may want to come inside, guys.”
“Fuck,” Corey muttered, standing up with Brian.
“That about sums it up,” Adam agreed.
The twins followed Adam and the dog back through the long aisle between the shelves until they came to Ernst’s kitchen. Ernst stood there, looking the same as he had the night before, except for a fresh shave and damp hair.
“Did you sleep at all?” Corey asked.
“A couple of hours,” Ernst said.
“What’s up?” Brian asked.
“Cable’s down now, too,” Ernst said, gesturing towards the laptop on the island, “which means that until a cell tower goes back up, we’re incommunicado with the rest of the world.”
Corey sighed, shaking his head.
“Still nothing with your girl?” Ernst asked.
“Nope,” Corey answered. “Not a damned thing.”
“Well,” Ernst said, looking at them, “I hate to pile more shit on top, but there is more bad news.” He walked to the laptop, moved the mouse and clicked on an icon. “We still have power because, hey, I’m a psycho and had a shitload of alternative energy solutions applied before all of this went down.
“Anyway, this is what it looks like from the camera mounted on my antenna.”
Corey and Brian leaned forward, looking at the image displayed before them.
Smoke rose from fires burning in the inner city, and roadblocks could be seen at various intersections. Bodies were scattered, cars abandoned, and the undead could be seen shuffling along. They moved in waves towards the roadblocks, climbing over corpses mindlessly towards the soldiers manning the weapons. The images were silent, but Corey knew the sound of the .50 cal and the 240. One up-armored humvee was even using a Mark 19 while the one beside it was using the 25 Mike Mike.
But it didn’t look like it was doing any good.
Even as they watched a roadblock collapsed, the soldiers abandoning their position as the undead swarmed out of a building behind them. With the loss of the soldiers the dead moved over and around the vehicles, pressing on towards a group of refugees trying to get out of the inner city. A gunship came in low, mini-gun working, shredding the advancing column, but too few of the hits were head shots, so the undead continued on.
Corey looked away and back to Ernst.
“I figure that most of the city is like that,” Ernst said. “Fear will probably cause a few more barricades to collapse. Numbers will do for the others. Add to that the fact that we don’t know how far its spread.”
“How do you think they’ll take care of it?” Brian asked.
“Maybe fast-movers, just level the place?” Corey asked.
Adam shook his head, drinking his coffee. “No. Not so long as there’s a voting populace still in place.”
“Adam’s right,” Ernst said. “By the time they think of a way to get a grip on this, they’ll have lost most of the states. I’m prepared for a long isolation period from society, but even my defenses are geared towards people who are alive. People who can be motivated by fear, convinced that I’m not worth the trouble that they’d have to go through. The dead, though, pretty sure that they don’t care.”
“Yeah,” Brian said, looking at the laptop, “I can see some of those bastards pulling themselves along with just one arm.”
“We’re going to need to find a quiet way to deal with most of them, too,” Ernst said.
“What do you mean?” Corey asked.
“Last night,” Adam said, “when I was coming back, I passed a few. They were definitely attracted by the sound, and by the motion of the truck. I don’t know how they can still function, but they obviously do. I figure that loud noises must attract them, so we need to keep firing to a minimum.”
“Which means,” Ernst continued, “that we need to find a way to kill them with minimum risk to ourselves, and maximum effectiveness. Add to that the fact that we’re going to need to make a plan to strengthen our defenses, and add to our supplies, especially if this turns out as bad as it looks like it’s going to.”
“This is fucking lame,” Corey said.
The others laughed, nodding their agreement. Grinning, Corey said, “We need – ”
The sound of a .50 cal nearby cut him off, and Ernst turned back to the laptop. “Front gate, quick.”
Weapons in h
and, the four of them rushed for the front door, the dogs barking as they ran alongside of them.
Lee
“I can’t see a fucking thing!” Lee snapped into her headset.
“Straight! Straight!” Marcus yelled between bursts of the .50 cal.
Lee muttered under her breath and kept the humvee moving forward. The windshield was blocked by the dead, mouths still moving, fingers clawing at the glass. She fought back the urge to pull her sidearm and shoot the damned things off of her vehicle.
But that will just leave us open, she thought, and she focused on the radio, which was still silent. Specialist Andrews lay slumped in the passenger seat, throat ripped out by one of the things outside when he’d tried to rescue a civilian. His brains were splattered over the passenger side window from Lee’s 9mm after he’d come back to life beside her.
This is so beyond fucked up, she thought, humvee bouncing over something.
“Fuck!” Marcus screamed, working the bolt back and forth.
The .50 cal had jammed.
He screamed again and she glanced back in time to see him pulled up out of the turret, legs kicking, boots smashing against the sides.
And his screams stopped suddenly, just as the sound of A4s overpowered the moans of the dead. The shots were controlled, no bursts, no panic.
Lee slammed the humvee into park and turned to face the empty turret, weapon up and ready should any of the dead drop down.
Outside the shots continued, getting closer.
The dead started climbing down off of the humvee, focused on whoever was shooting.
Within a minute a baldheaded man of about 40 was pounding on the driver’s side door. “Let’s go!”
Lee popped the door and climbed out. Three other men had formed a perimeter around the humvee, and they were steadily picking off the dead. Every shot was one to the head as the dead advanced, a wall forming in the large alley between a pair of warehouses.
“Anyone else?” the baldheaded man asked, an A4 at the ready.
