Arisen, Book Two - Mogadishu of the Dead

by Glynn James

  No one spoke for a second.

  “He’s right,” Handon finally said. “So saddle up. Take everything. We’re moving out.”

  “Where to?” Homer asked.

  “Far side of the bunker for now – if the fuel tank out in that hall goes, I’m not sure I see the inner door holding. We’ll think of something else from there.”

  “Hell,” Predator said, levering his huge bulk off the couch with three limbs. “I’m not sure I see this side of the structure not collapsing…”

  As the commandos began an accelerated process of strapping everything back on, Pope sidled over to Handon. “Quick word with you, Top?”

  The two of them led the exodus down the hall, then stepped off alone into the kitchen, as the others filed by. Suddenly Handon noticed that Pope wasn’t looking too good. He clocked the sweat beading on Pope’s forehead. The temperature in the bunker was rising now, but was still relatively cool. And when Handon squinted, focusing on Pope’s face, he saw the early signs – those tiny black lines spreading out from the eyes and the mouth; dark spots across the brow and that strange glazing of the eyes.

  “Ah, shit, Pope,” Handon cursed, shaking his head.

  “Yeah,” sighed Pope, flexing his right hand and peering at the white dots already appearing on his fingernails. Body proteins being destroyed.

  Handon looked Pope straight in the eyes. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “What – you worried about a lone Zulu turning in your rear? I’m not. Anyway, I didn’t know until just now. Thought I was still just out of breath. Something. But that roll-around, during the run here, must have splashed me. On a bit of mucous membrane, probably.”

  Handon held the other man’s eye. “Do you want me to do it? Or on your own?”

  “Neither.” Pope spoke levelly and carefully. He knew that there was no one else that he would have wanted to end it, but he had another plan. “Use me. To get out of here.”

  “How?” asked Handon.

  “Diversion,” replied Pope, nodding in the direction of their blocked exit. “Send me up out the main exit.”

  Handon frowned. “You can’t. It’s overrun up there. A mass of meat.”

  “No,” Pope said, shaking his head. “The outside of the building’s meat. But the inside, the trading floor and whatnot, I think has just got a few from the internal outbreak. The outer doors must have held. I saw it on the security cams. Maybe a few dozen wandering around. However, if I go up there and open the outer doors…”

  Handon nodded. “Then the ones outside will pour in. And maybe the ones in our back tunnel, and clogging up the basement of the hotel, will follow them.”

  “Exactly. They’ll follow the frenzy and decamp, giving the rest of you a way out.”

  Handon thought seriously about this. He didn’t have much time to ponder, but it depended on the dead doing exactly as predicted, and they weren’t always predictable.

  “And what if they don’t?”

  Pope smiled. “Well, you’ll have nearly a half hour to think up a new, better plan.”

  “Jesus.” Handon shook his head – 98.5% of humanity dead, and yet they still managed to produce heroes like this one. Right now, though, Handon would have given all of those others to hang on to this one for even just another day. For two years they had been the only team in USOC – perhaps the only deployed military unit anywhere in the ZA – never to lose a man. Now they’d lost two in the space of ten minutes. If felt like the world, or what was left of it, or maybe just their little sane corner, was falling to pieces. Handon pushed the feeling away, deep down inside him.

  “You’re ready to do that?” he asked, knowing the answer already. It was a stupid question.

  “Oh, yes.” Pope held up his hand and showed Handon the lesion that had appeared on the back of it, a long thin line that had already turned black, the edges starting to seep and grow raw. “I’m on my countdown anyway, and I don’t want to be around long enough for the bell to toll. Let’s do this.”

  Handon paused for the briefest of moments, held Pope’s gaze again, and then nodded.

  “Okay,” he said.

  KI KEN TAI I-CHI ("SPIRIT SWORD BODY AS ONE)"

  Pope had a minute or two to prepare. He wiped his sword down with a soft cloth, then sheathed it again. He cleared the chamber of his assault rifle, reloaded it, and slung it across his back. Then he did the same with his sidearm, re-holstering it. He catalogued the magazines and grenades on his assault vest by touch, along with others on his belt and in thigh pouches.

  Briefly, he’d tried to take off his bite-proof assault suit, and put it on Dr. Park instead. After all, the scientist was a lot more important now. Also, suddenly, getting bit was much less of a big deal for Pope. But the others wouldn’t hear of it. They made noises about being able to perform close protection just fine, thank you very much. But to Pope it was transparent that they just refused to send him out to his end looking, for a Tier-1 operator, naked.

  Now the others were milling around the far end of the compound, by the main door, which led up to the Exchange Center. Someone had gathered up four large fire extinguishers, both CO2 and dry powder varieties. Handon and Park were checking video feeds – trying to clock the location of everything upstairs, and as much of their outdoor exfil route as they could see.

  Very soon, it was time. Because there was no time.

  Handon and Pope nodded at each other, as the door swung open.

  Without looking back, Pope began the climb up. The stairwell was clear. When he reached ground level, he pulled his sword with his right hand, and opened the stairwell door with his left.

  There were three there. Pope dispatched them methodically with the blade. Pivoting, lunging, and striking, using the footwork and combination techniques of kendo, soothed him. He felt so much as if he were back in the dojo at Hendon with Ali. Those were beautiful times. Beautiful memories. He suddenly remembered what he’d overheard Ali saying, to Homer, on their flight in: something about looping through your whole life in the last second of your life. Maybe he’d get to experience it all once more.

  Emerging from his brief reverie, he moved out of the stairwell, stepped over the headless bodies, and made his way forward. Within a minute, he found the main lobby and atrium of the south tower. It was like nothing he’d ever seen – the dead outside blotted out the sky. Literally every inch of the two-story-high glass, from one end of the lobby to the other, was pressed with writhing, dead flesh. It was something beyond a horror show.

  “Well, no time like the present,” Pope said aloud to himself, then moved to take up a position a little further out in the middle of the lobby. He removed an HE grenade from his vest, pulled the pin with his teeth – then whirled suddenly at footsteps behind him. It was Ali.

  And also Handon, and Pred, and Juice. And Henno and Homer. The whole team. They walked up to him in silence in a line, then split in two, and formed a loose ring around him.

  “Okay,” grunted Predator. “You gonna throw that thing? Or make me stand here all day?”

  Pope smiled out loud, turned around, and gave the grenade an easy underhand toss over the main desk. It hit the outer glass wall, dropped, and rolled a foot or two. The bowel-shaking explosion took out the glass panels above and to either side, and for twenty feet in all directions. And in came the dead with their own rumbling explosion of moans. They literally spilled in. And, in a frenzy, those that could still locomote rushed the circle. As they approached, the operators could hear the moaning being picked up outside, and repeated down the block.

  “FPF!” Handon barked. “Two volleys! On my signal!” Final Protective Fire – an unrelenting volley of full-auto and grenades, generally only used in the most desperate situations. When the dead were ten meters out and closing, Handon gave the signal. In a fraction of an instant, the whole room lit up with a galaxy of muzzle flashes, and explosions of grenades further out. Those with MetalStorm launchers fired all five rounds of HE or buckshot. Those witho
ut chucked hand grenades. Everyone emptied their magazines in seconds, reloaded, and went again.

  After the second volley, the dead were piled up in a semicircle halfway to the ceiling. With little delay, the dead behind them could be heard scrabbling over the barricade of their fellows. Nothing slowed the dead. Nothing dinged their self-confidence. The dead didn’t ruminate.

  “O-karada o daiji ni,” Ali said quietly, kissing Pope on the cheek as she passed him by. A beautiful Japanese phrase, it meant “take care of yourself.” But, literally translated, it was “your body is precious.” The others shook Pope’s hand, nodded, or clapped him on the shoulder as they went by. Homer was last.

  “I’ll see you in the next place, my brother,” he said, looking warmly into his eyes.

  And Pope thought to himself: I am a very lucky man. I am blessed.

  Then he gripped his sword, drew his sidearm, and turned back to face the room.

  Time for one last ji-geiko.

  SALVATION

  Homer pulled the stairwell door closed behind him and raced down to keep pace with the others. Just as they were spilling back into the bunker, a terrible explosion rocked the walls and floor, and hot gases rolled over them in waves. Homer instantly knew it was the diesel fuel tank from the back hallway. He also knew something else: God was watching over them. Because that explosion, timed so utterly perfectly, would have cleared out that hallway of the dead, both the animated and squashed varieties. It cleared their escape path.

  Now, if Pope’s sacrifice worked, and Homer didn’t doubt for a second that it would, those that had crushed down into the hotel after them, would be reversing course, and following the noise, and the smell, and the general frenzy toward the lobby of the Exchange Center across the street.

  Homer let his rifle fall on its sling, hefted one of the CO2 extinguishers and hauled ass through the bunker, knowing the others would be right behind him. Sure enough, the inner door was gone from its frame, and flame and smoke poured in from outside. Homer gave it a good, long, rolling burst from the extinguisher, then paused a second to let the gases clear.

  “Everyone ready to go again?” Handon barked. He had his left hand wrapped around the thin bicep of Dr. Park, who had his laptop bag slung around him, plus clutched in both arms. The others stood poised like sprinters at the starting line.

  “’Til the roof comes off, boss,” Juice said.

  “’Til the lights go out,” Ali added.

  The lights in the bunker went out. One down, thought Ali, pulling down her NVGs.

  Predator spoke in the dark, as he did the same: “’Til my leg give out, then.”

  “That’ll be never,” Juice said, coming up in the others’ vision as a puffy fluorescent green.

  Homer pulled his shemagh up over his face, hefted the extinguisher, and charged.

  * * *

  The group burst out into the street, after fighting through moderate opposition in the hotel. Pope hadn’t died for nothing – most of the dead had withdrawn. Homer spared a look back up the cross street, where the Exchange Center had turned from a meat wall to a meat funnel, sucking in the dead from all directions. God lets no one die in vain, Homer thought. He then turned the opposite direction, east, and led the team in their last run.

  Pulling up the rear again was Handon – who also rode herd on Dr. Park, shoving him, and his laptop, out ahead of him. As they took off, Handon spared one quick look at his wristwatch. They now had 21 minutes to get across town, down the lakefront, and out to the airstrip on Northerly Island. It was 2.6 miles, as Handon had earlier measured it. This required only 8-minute miles of them (slower than their conditioning runs), and would have been completely manageable – if they all didn’t happen to be encumbered with weapons, armor, and ammo, plus fighting their way through an entire city of Fucking Nightmare zombies. Plus running for their lives. Also, there was zero leeway on the timing. It was sudden-death, do-or-die.

  Predator mocked up a plummy English accent, and parroted Ainsley: “‘Two-point-eight miles over surface streets. You’ll hardly notice it.’ Easy for that son of a bitch to say, he doesn’t have to do it now.” Henno made a mental note to kneecap Pred later, if they lived.

  This time the running street battle was like their earlier one, only more so – plus at only 75% of their previous strength, and also with one helpless passenger. They all ran, shot, reloaded, stabbed, dodged, and parried. Every zombie in the city not already there was now clearly headed for the Exchange Center – which meant that every zombie between the airstrip and them was headed directly their way. They cut through them with whirling blades, and mag after mag of 5.56mm, 7.62mm, .45-cal, and shotgun shells. Some were starting to conclude it was easier to pulp and dismember them, than to make headshots on these jackrabbit sons of bitches. Or maybe they were just too tired now. They painted a rich black smear of zombie blood across the urban heart of Chicago.

  As they finally emerged from the forest of buildings, spotting ahead of them the open expanse of Lake Shore Drive bordering the water, they were all sucking wind and critically low on ammo. But Chicago still had zombies to burn.

  As he ran and changed out magazines, eyes and ears scanning in all directions for threats, Homer heard something from an unexpected direction: up. It was the prop-engine buzzing of the Greyhound, already banking and descending, coming in from over the broad expanse of the lake.

  Thank fuck, Homer thought. He slightly startled himself with this, realizing he’d probably been hanging out with Brits, not to mention heathens, for too long now. He tweaked their path, toward the north end of the island, which connected with the mainland via a narrow spit of road and footpath. He gasped for air, and steeled himself to race the final distance.

  Hope was dangerous. But there was no way to avoid it. The appearance of the plane was making all of them start to believe that they just might get out of this alive after all.

  DAMNATION

  “No, no, no,” chanted Major Lee Vesbost, sole surviving pilot of the Greyhound transport aircraft. Early forties, big lean frame, short curly hair, and wry manner, he was an extremely experienced naval aviator, with a variety of challenging flying assignments behind him. He hadn’t gotten as far as he had by being a mushy-headed dreamer, or wishful thinker.

  “No, no, no,” he repeated, trying to hold the plane on the long banking track that would line it up with the long narrow grass edge of the island, which was formerly the airstrip. His words were now like a totemic incantation. They didn’t mean anything, had no affect. He was just denying it, ritually.

  The first two hours of the flight from the charnel house of the Kennedy had been fine. Of course, he had been equally horrified to lose his long-time co-pilot, as he was blessedly relieved to get the hell out of there alive. It had been a terrifyingly close call, and of course only one of them had survived. But some unseen sniper had taken off the zombie’s head, giving Vesbost the time he needed to hurl himself into the cabin. After that, finding enough clear deck to take off had been another miracle.

  For that first two hours, he’d just focused on the flight and the mission. He had paused briefly to wipe off the viscous gunk that had splashed from the exploding zombie’s head. It had only caught him on the shoulder. Mainly. He’d left it at that.

  Including when he started getting headachy and dizzy later on. But when the fever hit him, he realized. But still he denied it. There was nothing else to do. He thought maybe he could bull through. Maybe it wouldn’t take him. He was the only one left to fly the plane, to make the extraction. This simply couldn’t happen to him.

  The gray of the city and sky, and the steel blue of the lake, started to go hazy and dark in his fading vision. It all began to go out of focus. And holding himself up over the yoke and flight controls was becoming impossible. But he was beginning not to care about that… Down he went.

  * * *

  Juice had Pred’s arm over his shoulder now. How the man-mountain had just run nearly three miles, on a leg that was
mostly lumber, was beyond him. He was physically failing now. But it was okay. They were going to make it. They were halfway across the land bridge to the island – and they could see the Greyhound lining up for approach.

  Coming onto the island proper, they turned right – heading south down the grass strip and straight toward the descending aircraft. It drew them all on in those final 200 meters. But then a strange wobble appeared in its wings. And then its altitude dropped – too low, way too low. As Juice exclaimed aloud, “Oh, no, no, no – no!” the twin-engine plane plowed nose-first into the south edge of the island, coming apart in an ugly pirouette of dismemberment, wings and tail and fuselage and aileron separating, and then the fuel tanks went up in a pretty orange explosion. The sound of it, and warm wash of air, reached them a second later.

  The group slowed to a trot, then a stop.

  They turned back around.

  Out in the open now, they could all see, literally plain as day, the hundreds of Foxtrots racing after them, lurching, sprinting, tumbling, ravening, rasping. They’d be across the land bridge in less than a minute.

  The six commandos and one civilian stood in a loose knot, all trying to catch their breath.

  “Swim for it?” Homer suggested.

  “Fuck that,” Predator said. “I’m exhausted. And they’ll just follow us out.”

  “Plus there’s nowhere to go,” Henno added. “I’m with the big man. Let’s finish it here.”

  Homer knew that, like any SEAL, he could swim any distance, however winded. But Henno was right. There was nowhere to go. And, even if there were, he’d much prefer to stay and die with his team. With his brothers.

  They formed a skirmish line, bowing it at the flanks, some taking a knee, others laying out their few remaining magazines before them. Pred actually sat down. He grunted in satisfaction, the relief of taking the weight off. He swiveled his head toward the others. “And I don’t want to hear any of that ‘It’s been an honor serving with you’ bullshit, either.”