by Glynn James
As they passed a crap-strewn alley on their left, Pope swiveled to cover it. But he was a little too close to its mouth, and they were moving too fast, and two blasted out and were on him before he could bring his rifle around. The three figures tumbled into a maelstrom of living and dead flesh, Pope’s rifle wedging up in between them and clanking on the blacktop. Henno reacted and turned in to help. But Pope already had two knives out, one in each hand. In less than a second of flashing butchery, one dead arm had been cut loose, a hand off, and two brainstems speared – one from above, one from behind. Henno pulled Pope to his feet, and they both accelerated onto the back of the column.
Ainsley clocked all this. “How’s he look, Henno?”
Henno eyed Pope up as they ran. There was a fair bit of gore on his chest and left thigh. But, in addition to being bite-proof, the suits were pus-proof. “He’s good,” Henno said. He’ll want to be hosed off later, he thought, but we can deal with that if we live long enough…
After three frantic blocks south, Ainsley led them in a jog to the right, one block west. Without any kind of overhead surveillance to find them the clearest route, Ainsley was just going full out. Keeping the turns down to two, but otherwise just going hard and fast.
Handon, still tail-gunner Charlie, actually felt like he was having an okay day of it. He sure wouldn’t want to be as dinged up as Predator or Ali and try this. But for his part, and with the spiritual kick he got from dire peril, he was having a good day out. He spared some of his attention for the sectors of the wounded, in case they got overwhelmed. But otherwise, it was a little like a day on the CQB range – motorized pop-up targets zanging up and racing by, or lurching straight at him. The cardboard versions wouldn’t chomp your neck, killing and then reanimating you as a monster who would then kill your friends… but otherwise. His adrenaline was up. He just had to look out for his people. It was complete madness. But in a good way. He was in the zone, in a perfect state of flow.
But just when he was getting sanguine, that’s when he saw one fall on top of Homer up ahead. As Handon moved to react, a second one came out of a window, right on his arm. Fuck. Wrestling is not a recommended tactic for zombie warfare – and neither Homer nor Handon had Pope’s laser-gun knife skills. Homer let his rifle fall on its sling, and came around with his boarding axe, putting it straight through the mottled and worm-eaten face of his attacker. Handon held onto the pistol grip of his rifle, while drawing his second .45 and rapid-firing point blank. The zombie’s head turned into a canoe, and brain matter and black pus splashed Handon’s face shield. While regaining his feet and resuming the mad run, he pulled the fouled plastic mask off and tossed it. Dripping with infectious material, it was more of a hazard now. Though the next such splash might be lethal, ruining Handon’s good day out – and switching his allegiance for good.
Thank God, they were finally approaching the Hyatt from the rear. Through the cross street, they could make out the twin cylindrical towers of the riverside Chicago Mercantile Exchange Center.
Virtually only the towers themselves were visible.
Because the lower stories were encased in a writhing skirt of meat – dead but animated bodies piled dozen upon hundred, clawing to get deeper in, climbing to get higher, pulling off pieces of themselves and others, wriggling like a plague of maggots in some Lovecraftian hell.
Ainsley actually had to swallow the contents of his stomach back down, when he caught sight of it. Now the entire group caught the stench. It smelled like what it was – an enormous pile of thousands of rotting dead bodies. And the dead out on the edge were starting to catch scent of the living. Fuck the hotel entrance, Ainsley thought, shooting out a large pane of groundfloor glass, and leading the group straight inside the hotel at a gallop. In the rear, Handon turned around and started moving backward, making rapid single shots on the scores of swarming, enraged, starving, hyper-powered soulless, who were now moving to follow them in.
Within thirty seconds, they found a service stairwell. Down, fuck it, down, Ainsley thought. They were so close – but playing it way too close to the bone. There were also a few strays inside the building, in their own patch of turf, converging on the noise. The operators put them down in close quarters in whatever way seemed to hold most hope of keeping themselves on their feet. But behind them, through the shattered glass, a much greater mass of undead were sluicing into the building, filling up the space behind Alpha like air into a vacuum.
Juice spared a lightning look back to make sure his battle buddy was still with him. He caught a strobe light flash of Pred flyingly unscrewing the suppressor off the end of his rifle barrel and letting it fall. Without asking, Juice instantly knew why: the suppressor slowed rounds, and Pred wanted his full muzzle velocity; also, it was already so tight in here that bringing your weapon to bear was tricky – the shorter the barrel length the better; and, finally, who the goddamned hell else was the noise going to attract? The entire population of Chicago already seemed to be on them. Juice made a mental note to take his off, if he happened to get two seconds to rub together at any point during the rest of his life.
Which floor? Which fucking floor? Ainsley gritted his teeth. There were several below-ground levels, and he didn’t have any better intel than “in the basement.” Fuck it, he thought – in for a penny, in for a pound. He’d take them all the way to the bottom. If there was no secret door there, well, it was a perfect place to be buried.
Buried under the weight of thousands of dead.
“Floor clearing drill!” he shouted across the squad net. It was the quickest way to scour every part of every room on the level. “Looking for a secure door!” Out of habit, he instantly went to the heavy side – the one with a pair of Foxtrots coming to life and leaping down the dark and dirty corridor. Indoors, thank fuck, they couldn’t dance around so goddamned much. On the other hand, it was so tight they were on you in fractions of a second.
Handon took the light side – but it didn’t stay that way long. He knew the other six would be dynamically making decisions about movement and fire, based on a hundred factors, including visible opposition, the layout of the structure, and what the guy ahead of him was doing. They flowed through and across and around the floor in a slithering flash, dropping attackers at fast-forward speed, passing in full view of other operators and holding fire, a supremely controlled chaos. This was what they were very, very best at.
It was only twenty seconds later that Homer announced: “Found it! North edge, beyond the boiler room.” By the time the full group converged, Homer had the code entered and the door open. But by the time they were all through it and inside, the great mass of dead were on them.
Juice and Predator, the two biggest men (and Predator was strongest, even on one leg), pushed on the door with all their strength, while the others fired out the slit into the mass of hissing mouths and undulating dead flesh outside. Finally, Pope got a tiny look at open air and tossed two grenades through. “Frags up!” he shouted and everyone hunkered down. The explosions didn’t even kill the ones against the door, shielded as they were by the bodies of others. And the sheer mass of corpses was too much now – animated or not, they were keeping this door open.
While the others held the dyke, Handon scouted frantically forward. Dim blue LEDs illuminated the floor – it was only twenty meters of corridor, running alongside a scooped-out enclosure of chugging machinery, which Handon clocked as a large diesel generator, and then terminating in another door at the end. This one was steel, and solid, and had no keypad or reader. The long lever handle wouldn’t budge – locked from the inside. Fuck. Handon was reaching for a shape charge to blow it when his peripheral vision registered movement. He came up with his sidearm in a blur – but only found himself aiming at a mini-CCTV camera above and in the corner. Its active red LED was lit. And Handon was sure it had moved.
Fuck it, he thought again, holstering his pistol and pulling out the shape charge. No time.
But then… the door simply
opened. A young man with short dark hair and brown-framed eyeglasses stood behind it. For a quarter second neither seemed to know what to say. Then they both spoke at once:
“Get in!” shouted the man.
“Make way!” shouted the sergeant major.
BENEATH THIS DEAD EARTH
Juice and Pred stayed in the rear, now covering the fighting withdrawal. They stepped backward down the dark hallway, Pred dragging his badly swollen and immobilized leg, both of them firing incessantly. They got in sync – each reloading at the midpoint of the other’s magazine, empties dropping out with a scraping sound, and hitting the cement floor with a clunk. Ejected shell casings hit the walls and the floor with a tinny sound. And the rifles roared.
The dead flew at them with ravenous single-mindedness. None of these could have fed in months or years. All were driven to frenzy – though whether by hunger, or merely hunger to infect, was a question no one had time for. As they leapt forward, levering by the destroyed ones in front with their stringy arms, Juice actually thought they might start using the walls and ceiling to come at them. It was all already way too much like the teeming-horde scene from Aliens…
As they neared the back end of the corridor, Pred emptied the remaining four buckshot rounds from his underslung Metalstorm launcher – then jammed in a pack of five high explosive (HE) rounds. Juice gave him a look – in this enclosed area, the overpressure caused when the rounds exploded could seriously fuck them all up. As in kill them. But there was nothing else for it. As things stood, the horde was too close, virtually on top of them – the dead would be on the inner door at the same time the last humans tried to go through it. Then they wouldn’t be able to close that one, either – and all of them would be doomed.
As Pred slammed shut the receiver on the five-round munition tube, an unseen hand grabbed his collar and pulled him backward. He almost tumbled ass over teakettle, and as he staggered backward, his assailant pulled his rifle out of his hands. It was Ainsley. He pivoted and gave Juice a mighty shove with his strong right arm, then turned away, into the horde. Pred and Juice tripped over each other – falling right through the doorway and into the others inside.
The first HE round went off only a few feet down the corridor. It ruptured the eardrums of both Juice and Pred, and sucked the air out of the lungs of everyone behind. The overpressure also slammed the heavy, handleless door closed with a whump.
Behind it, four more explosions sounded dully.
* * *
“Simon Park,” the young man said. He was trembling badly. “Doctor Simon Park.”
Handon took his hand. Even as completely unhinged as their world had gone… it still must have been a bad shock to find seven heavily armed commandos, dripping blood and zombie gore, suddenly standing in your secret bunker. “I was expecting someone older,” Handon said.
“Yeah, I get that a lot.” Park pointed at the heavy inner door. “Your… your friend… Jesus…”
“He’s gone,” Handon said, repeating a scene he’d acted out a hundred times. He turned slightly toward the others. “And we pick up his banner and carry on. While there’s breath in our bodies.” The others nodded. There hadn’t been any real need to say it. But it served as a passing of the torch of command. Ainsley had made his choice, spending his life gloriously. And they were all alive because of it.
Predator turned away and staggered into the main room, looking for and finding a couch. Blood dripped from his ears. “Not sure there is breath in my fucking body…” he said, too loud, and collapsed. Juice followed to look after him.
* * *
It was an underground complex of more than twenty rooms. Several of them, most of the larger ones, were filled with computers, desks, network gear, phones, and large display screens. Most of the rest were one type or another of living quarters – bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, an enormous supply closet (almost a mini-warehouse), and the large living room in which Alpha, or the remainder of it, sprawled out now. They peeled off sweaty assault suits – several of them after being hosed down in the shower – dropped their heavy rucks on the floor, shrugged out of assault vests, unchambered and safetied weapons, tightened bandages, and chugged down bottles of water.
Park talked directly to Handon, who was also gearing down. The others listened.
“They built all this after 9/11,” Park said. “When they saw how long the New York Stock Exchange was out of action after the attacks, they decided to make sure they could continue trading through any kind of disaster. Natural or man-made.”
“Yeah,” Handon said, sitting and loosening his assault boots. “We saw your e-mail.”
The young scientist’s eyes went wide. “You were at NeuraDyne?”
Handon nodded. “That’s what we came for. Your research data.”
“So… there’s someone left out there? Somewhere?”
“Britain. It stood when everyplace else fell. Listen – how long was this bunker designed to hold out for?”
“Three months. But that was with a full staff of traders, techs, managers, executives – everyone vital to operating the Exchange. With just one man, me, the food and water looks like lasting for years. As for the diesel generator… well, I conserve power, and only run it when the batteries need topping up. I’m about halfway through the fuel.”
Handon perked up. “Juice,” he said. “Get to the trading room. Get on their radio set, if they have one. Or try to hook one of our radios into an aerial or repeater, if they’ve got that.”
“On it,” Juice said, rising with his ruck and striding out.
“Pope. Check the perimeter. Especially the other door, and outside via the cameras.”
Pope nodded and glided out.
Handon slumped down a bit on the couch again, and pinned the young man with his eye. “And so where are all these people who are supposed to be here?”
Park shrugged. “They never turned up. I’m guessing the dead swept the trading floor before anyone could make it down here. It’s just me.”
“Well, bully for you,” Henno said, levering himself up. “I’m gonna recce the kitchen.”
“I’d murder a bacon sandwich,” said Predator – who’d finally consented to taking a half gram of morphine sulfate. He lay diagonally on a large loveseat, taking up the whole thing.
“Okay. How do we get out of here?” Handon asked.
“I don’t think we can. You must have seen – the building is literally covered with them.”
“Why is that?”
Park shook his head quickly. “I don’t know, not for sure. I think maybe it’s because I’m the last living person in Chicago.”
Ali snorted with laughter. “A LaMOE! We found one.”
“What?” asked Simon.
“Never mind,” said Handon. “How do the dead know you’re in here?”
“That’s been a matter of some speculation on my part. I thought maybe it was because of the toilet flushing. It would be the only one.”
Homer looked up. “Where does your garbage go?”
“Um. I don’t know. It gets sucked out a pneumatic tube, about once a week.”
“That’s probably it right there. It will have organic matter in it, and they’ll smell it. Like ringing the dinner bell.”
Handon nodded, looking intent, and looking like changing the subject. “Your research… Have you cured the plague? Do you have a vaccine?”
Simon drew breath. “Yes and no.”
Handon worked to swallow his irritation. He refrained from pointing out that what they’d all just gone through to get there probably at least merited a straight answer. “Go on.”
Park nodded. “I don’t know how much you know about vaccine research – or care to. There are several types of novel vaccine strategies that presented themselves as possible candidates for the zombie plague – for a double-stranded RNA virus. I focused my work on a possible recombinant vector vaccine. Using data from the dsRNA interference technique we worked out, I was able to combine the
physiology of one microorganism and the DNA of the other, creating immunity against an organism with as complex an infection process as this one has.”
“So does it work, or doesn‘t it?”
“Yes,” Park said, finally. “It works against the early samples of the virus I have here. But the virus is clearly mutating. Hell, it’s mutating in here, in test tubes, in isolation. But out there…” and he tossed his head toward the steel doors. “With two years, and the whole world as a breeding ground… look, I’ve got a lot of external cameras. And I can see the changes in their behavior, even from in here. But I wasn’t going to open that door, not just to get new samples. Plus… I didn’t really think there was anyone left in the world to immunize…”
Handon blinked. “So you’re saying it wouldn’t protect anybody from the virus as it is today?”
“I believe it could be made to work on current strains of the virus. I’m sure of it. All I need is to understand which features of the virus are transitory, and subject to significant mutation – and which aspects are enduring. Look, all organisms have DNA that stays basically the same over time. I target my technique to those genes and, blammo, we’ve got a universal vaccine.”
“Okay,” Ali said, from across the room. “How do you find out which genes have endured?”
Park paused before answering. He looked like he was worried how his next statement was going to go over.
“I need patient zero.”
Handon snorted, shaking his head mordantly. Isn’t that just like the ZA, he thought.
With this, Juice returned to the main room.
“No go, Sarg. I’ve got long-range radio transmission capability. But it’s like the JFK’s just not there. Or everyone on it’s asleep… or dead.”
Now Predator snorted. “I’m gonna take a shit.”
Juice moved to help him up.
BEAR ANY BURDEN
