Rotter Apocalypse

by Scott M. Baker

  Natalie had not seen her girls act like this since before Site R. At least now her Angels, or what was left of them, showed the same bravado they had in the past. It felt good to have them back.

  Napier made his way down the line of troops, with Mesle in tow. “All right, people. Uncle Sam has arranged a nice little ride for you this morning. Thanks to our friends in the Air Force, this should be as easy as a stroll along the beach. So mount up and get ready to roll.”

  Ari tapped the side of the Stryker and pointed to Natalie. “Good luck, boss.”

  Natalie wished she hadn’t called her that. It reminded her of Robson.

  Mesle led his squad inside the Stryker. Along the line, other squads loaded up into their recon vehicles. The troops who had been gunning down the rotters pulled the corpses out of the way while others used forklifts to move the Jersey barriers off of Route 101. Once the highway had been cleared, the ground troops moved forward and the line made its way through the surrounding neighborhoods. To the south, it detoured around Mineta San Jose International Airport where clean-up crews cleared out the mound of charred corpses along the scorched remains of the airport’s perimeter fence. An Apache flew by overhead and took up position a few miles ahead of the front, serving as their forward scout. Once the line had reached a point five hundred feet ahead of them, Tango Alpha moved forward, keeping pace with the ground troops. They passed through the previous day’s battleground, with the piles of slaughtered rotters along the route and the pools of crushed bodies and gore.

  The line maintained its precision as it advanced. Occasionally, a lone rotter would emerge from a side street and would be put down with a well-placed shot to the head. The surge reached the intersection with Interstate 880 when a voice came across their CVC. Natalie recognized the call sign as belonging to their Apache escort.

  “Tango Alpha Leader, Sierra Echo Three. I have engine failure and am going down. I can’t make it back to our own lines.”

  “Sierra Echo Three, Tango Alpha Leader copies. Set her down in an open area and I’ll send someone to pick you up.”

  The blare of the collision alarm came across the radio, drowning out the pilot’s voice. A metallic crash came through the headphones, and the radio went dead.

  “Sierra Echo Three, Tango Alpha Leader. Are you all right?”

  Silence.

  “Tango Alpha Leader, Sierra Echo Four. Sierra Echo Three went down on the baseball field of a school near the foothills.”

  “Is the crew alive?”

  “Let me check.” A minute passed that seemed interminable before the pilot responded. “Tango Alpha Leader, Sierra Echo Four. Sierra Echo Three’s crew is alive, but the chopper went down hard and I think the pilot has a broken leg. The school is Piedmont Hills High, about six klicks northwest of your position. There are half a dozen revenants surrounding the chopper, with another twenty or so nearby. They’re too close for me to fire on. Can you send assistance?”

  “Sierra Echo Four, copy that. Tango Delta Leader, dispatch two Bradleys and an AMEV to Sierra Echo Three’s location.”

  “Tango Alpha Leader, Tango Delta Leader. Copy that.”

  “Tango Alpha One, Tango Alpha Leader. Send a Stryker ahead to assist Sierra Echo Three.”

  “Tango Alpha One copies.” The Stryker picked up speed and the line separated to let it through. Once safely beyond the troops, the driver accelerated. The recon vehicle raced pass Interstate 880. Natalie pulled out a street map of the area and compared it to their surroundings, trying to find the best path to the crash site.

  Half a mile out from Interstate 860, the Stryker stopped.

  “What’s going on?” Natalie asked without taking her eyes from the map.

  “Up ahead of us. We can’t get through there,” said the driver.

  Natalie glanced up. Abandoned vehicles blocked all lanes of traffic, including the breakdown lanes, part of the gridlock caused by congestion on Interstate 860. On the other side of Route 101 a single lane road merged on to and off the main freeway. “What about off to our left? There’s a road there that’s open.”

  The driver turned and rolled over a broken section of freeway divider, bouncing over the crushed cement. Entering the exit lane, he maneuvered the Stryker around a burnt out ambulance and steered right onto Old Bayshore Highway. There were few vehicles or rotters on this road. The Stryker rushed through the commercial district, slowing down at the intersection with Oakland Road where a twelve-car accident narrowed the path. When Old Bayshore Highway ended at Berryessa Road, the driver steered left, floored the Stryker, and raced down the road.

  Natalie studied the map, checking it with the street signs that raced by to get her bearings. After several minutes, she yelled, “Turn left here!”

  Natalie folded the map. “We’ll be there in a minute.”

  From inside the Stryker Mesle ordered, “Be ready to roll.”

  Sierra Echo Four hovered above the rooftops on their left. The pilot had positioned his Apache over the school parking lot to draw the rotters away from the crash site. The stunt worked, because over a dozen of the living dead stood beneath the helicopter, frantically clutching skyward. Swinging left, the Stryker rolled over the chain link fence surrounding the compound, raced across the parking lot, and plowed through the pack of rotters.

  The downed Apache sat at the far end of the school grounds in the middle of the track field. Other than some bent rotor blades, it looked to be in good condition. A dozen rotters swarmed the cockpit, scratching at the glass to get to the pilot and gunner. The Stryker raced across the football and baseball fields, Sierra Echo Four falling in behind to provide fire support. As they passed beyond the school building complex, Natalie spotted fifty rotters crossing the playing fields behind the facility, spread out so far that none of them posed an immediate threat.

  “Tango Alpha One, Sierra Echo Four. I’ll take care of the revenants around the school. You guys retrieve Sierra Echo Three.”

  “Tango Alpha One copies.”

  The Stryker stopped one hundred feet from the downed Apache. Natalie and the others disembarked and rushed to the crash site. Intent on the food inside, none of the rotters around the helicopter heard them approach. The squad couldn’t shoot the living dead without risking a stray shot accidentally hitting the pilot, so Natalie removed her hunting knife from its sheath and approached a rotter in a crossing guard vest. When she got to within ten feet, one of the soldiers from the Stryker, Stephenson, raised his M-16A2 and fired off five rounds. The bullets whizzed inches by her head. Four of them slammed into the side of the Apache, three ricocheting off the metal and one fracturing the cockpit glass. The fifth thumped into the shoulder of the rotter in the crossing guard vest. Upon seeing them approach, it moaned and shambled toward them. The others around the Apache did the same.

  Natalie had no time to switch weapons or fall back. Reaching out with her left hand, she clutched the rotter by its vest to keep it at a distance, plunged the hunting knife into its right eye, and twisted the blade. It convulsed once, went limp, and slumped to the ground. Another in Piedmont Hills High gym shorts and shirt came snarling at Natalie from the left, lunging for her outstretched arm. Before it could get to her, Ari ran up and struck it in the head with the stock of her M-16A2. The rotter swayed off balance for a moment and lunged again. Ari pummeled its head with the butt of her automatic weapon, churning its face into pulp until it eventually fell over backward. Even went it hit the ground, Ari kept up the assault until the rotter’s head erupted. Ari was so intent on that rotter that Natalie and Doreen had to take down three others which went after her.

  Mesle had withdrawn his Glock 23 and shot through the forehead the remaining rotters on this side of the Apache. By now, the eight from the other side were coming around the helicopter. Stephenson fired off another four rounds that missed. Natalie and her Angels had done this numerous times and fell into their familiar pattern. They stood abreast, lined up their shots, and fired. Three rotters went down. They l
ined up and fired again, and three more went down. Natalie stood back and let Ari and Doreen take out the last two. With the threat gone, they rushed forward and opened up the cockpit to the Apache.

  “About time you guys showed up,” the pilot said, forcing a grin through his pain.

  Mesle remained all business. “Where are you hurt?”

  “My left ankle’s broken.”

  “An AMEV is the way.” Mesle tapped the gunner on the shoulder. “How are you doing?”

  The gunner gestured toward the pile of corpses. “Fine now that those things are gone.”

  “You ladies stay here and keep an eye on him,” Mesle said. “We made enough noise to attract every revenant in San Jose.”

  “Copy that. What are you going to do?”

  Mesle glared at Stephenson, who stood fifty feet away from the others and avoided eye contact. “I need to kick someone into shape.” He strode off purposefully.

  Ari stepped up between Natalie and Doreen. “We made it.”

  “Made what?” Doreen asked.

  Ari pointed ahead of her. “We made it to the edge of the city.”

  Natalie followed her gaze. During all the excitement, she hadn’t focused on her surroundings. A few hundred feet to the east stood the green foothills of the Diablo Mountains.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  After partaking of their first good meal in weeks, the coven had slept soundly all day. Everyone except Vladimir and Gabrielle, who had taken Linda into a spare bedroom and introduced her to the heightened carnal pleasures that came with being a vampire before falling to sleep around dawn. As was his usual custom, Vladimir had woken up an hour before sunset to use the time to plan out the night’s hunt. Gabrielle slept naked beside him, her head resting in his lap. Linda, also naked, had woken up half an hour ago. She nestled against his shoulder, running her fingers up and down Vladimir’s bare chest.

  “You’re very pensive,” he said. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re my progeny. I know you better than you think.”

  Linda hesitated. “Is there any way we can use Robson as the coven’s familiar?”

  “Do you have a sentimental attachment to him, too?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a sentimental attachment, but he did save me and the others from Price. I owe him my life.”

  “As a human, you did.” Vladimir’s tone was soft yet firm. “You’re a vampire now, and your allegiance is to us. Robson doesn’t like us.”

  “He seems to like Dravko and Tibor.”

  “He tolerates Dravko and Tibor.” Vladimir cupped Linda’s cheek and raised her head so their eyes met. “Let me ask you this. After he rescued you from that camp, did he show the same level of concern with meeting Dravko’s and Tibor’s needs as he did those of the humans?”

  Linda frowned. “No.”

  “You see? He was friendly with them because he had to be, and because he wanted their strength to fight rotters. He never considered them as equals. It’s like the mobsters who hire thugs to do their dirty work, but never allow them to be made.” Having made his point, Vladimir let go of Linda’s chin. “If I made Robson our familiar, he’d stake us in our sleep.”

  “She does have a point,” said Gabrielle, whose head still lay in his lap. “We’re very vulnerable here. Maybe it would be a good idea to have a familiar who can protect us during the day.”

  Vladimir tried to hide his frustration. “The covens have had bad luck with familiars betraying us to hunters to save their own skin.”

  “There are no hunters to worry about now. Only rotters.”

  As much as he hated to admit it, Gabrielle had a point. They were exposed living in this farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. So far the coven had been lucky. It would be irresponsible for him to assume that their luck would hold indefinitely.

  “We do need a familiar, at least until we find a better place to live. It won’t be Robson, though.” Vladimir squeezed Linda’s shoulder. “What about the members of your group?”

  Linda thought for a moment. “Yukiko and Magda might do it out of fear.”

  “They’re weak and useless. I wouldn’t want to rely on them during a crisis.”

  “Corey’s a possibility,” Linda continued. “He’s an opportunist. Promise him immortality and he’ll go along. You’ll never get any of them to join with us as long as James and Ed are around. They’re too hardheaded, and I’m sure they’ve teamed up with Robson to keep the others in line.”

  While Vladimir would have loved to add James or Ed to the coven, he knew neither of them would agree to be a vampire. The smartest thing would be to get them out of the way first, and then maybe he could convince the others to join the coven. If not, they would make a pleasant meal.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Derrick lay prone on the roof of the gas station. He took a bite out of a 3 Musketeers bar and lifted the binoculars Andre had loaned him, scanning the intersection of Boul des Ecluses and Route 132. Hundreds of zombies meandered along the main road. Derrick wondered how Andre had survived so long in this gas station so close to so many of the living dead. Actually, Andre had told him last night. Derrick had only been half listening, even though Andre had talked for almost two hours. Sure, the poor guy had not seen another human in almost a year and was lonely as hell, if not a little bit nuts from being isolated, but that wasn’t Derrick’s concern. Still, Andre had been nice enough to offer him a place to hang out for the night, as well as some of his dwindling supply of junk food, so it would have been rude not to let the guy ramble on while Derrick pretended to be interested.

  Andre had talked about escaping the outbreak and winding up here at the Shell station. Zombies had already attacked the rows of vehicles stuck in traffic, eating those passengers not lucky enough to escape in time and chasing after those that did. Andre had decided to hole up in the station, figuring he would be rescued in a few days once the military sorted out the crisis, and in the meantime he would have plenty of access to food and water. He had boarded up the place with lumber he had found in a contractor’s pick-up truck parked out back and had hunkered down for what he thought would be a week or two at most. At that point, Derrick had stopped paying attention because Andre had gone into agonizingly boring details about how he had run out of nutritious food and water within the first two months and, after that, had been surviving on bags of potato chips, candy bars, soda, and beer. When Derrick had asked Andre why didn’t he abandon this place and try to find something better, Andre had answered it would have been pointless. He didn’t want to head back north into the city, and he would never be able to continue south as long as zombies lined the road.

  At first that answer had sounded like a copout until Derrick climbed up on the roof this morning to check out the situation. Now he understood what Andre had meant. From this vantage point, he had a view of a kilometer stretch of Route 132. Zombies shuffled between the abandoned vehicles. Several dozen stood and stared off into space. Only a few of the living dead had left the main road, even they had not wandered far, and the nearest one to the gas station was a good one hundred meters away. The good news for him was that none of the living dead were bunched together. By being spread out, it gave him a chance to get away without being swarmed if he moved quickly and got across the road before they realized what was going on. The mass of vehicles made that impossible.

  Dereck took another bite of his candy bar and went back to studying the road, this time concentrating on the jammed traffic. The way the vehicles had been left, the only way across would be to zigzag between them. With four lanes of traffic as well as those vehicles abandoned on the shoulders, he would never make it. The zombies would be all over him before he got to the other side. He considered driving east or west until he found a break, ruling that out because it would attract attention. If he didn’t find a place to cross within a few minutes, he would have to head back into the city and find a place to hide out with a few hundred zombies on his ass. No way w
as that worth the risk. He saw only one possibility, slim as it might be. In the middle of the intersection was a thin break in the traffic, a gap about a meter wide that ran straight across Route 132 except for a dogleg at the rear bed of a pickup truck. He hadn’t noticed it at first because it was so small. If he could get to that gap before the zombies did, he had a better than even chance of making it across and out of Montreal. If not, then he would spend the rest of his existence wandering along the road with the rest of the living dead, assuming they left behind enough of him to reanimate.

  Derrick checked his watch. 9:12. He considered going now, which would give him plenty of time to clear Montreal and find a place in the countryside to hide out, changing his mind at the last second. His leg still ached from the fall he took yesterday, and he wanted to give it another day to heal in case his plan went south and he needed to escape on foot. Plus, if he left before sunrise, he might be able to sneak up on the zombies without being seen, getting him closer to the gap and giving them less time to react. And, honestly, he needed an extra day to convince himself that this wasn’t the most fucked up thing he had ever done.

  Derrick took the last bite of his 3 Musketeers and tossed the wrapper over the side of the roof. Crawling backwards, he went to the far end where he had set up a ladder out of the zombies’ line of sight. Once back inside the station, he would fill Andre in on what he planned to do and then get a good day’s rest.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Robson had spent the last twenty hours going over in his mind how tonight would play out. In every scenario, he won the moral high ground over Vladimir. In reality, he knew he had no chance of coming through this that did not end disastrously for both sides. So, when an hour after nightfall the coven approached the barn, Robson braced himself for the unexpected. The vampires unhooked the chain holding the barn door shut, and he propped himself up against the support beam, running his fingers through his hair in an attempt to look presentable. The others did the same, except for Corey, who still sat hunched over. The doors swung open and the coven entered, stepping over Caslow’s body. The kerosene lamps they carried cast a soft light inside the structure and threw long, eerie shadows across the floor and walls. Vladimir stopped in the middle of the barn, his coven spreading out in a circle around him.