Zombie D.O.A. Series Four: The Complete Series Four

by JJ Zep

  The first stack of containers emerged from the swirling, white twilight like the sheer wall of a cliff. Chris stepped up the pace and rounded it, rested his back against the corrugated expanse of steel. Ruby followed soon after, then Chico, Julie and the rest. They stood bowed, breathless. Just being out of the wind was a blessed relief.

  Chris looked across to the dock, to the harbor, the water there, deep, and sheltered from the worst of the wind, hadn’t frozen. Instead, it had the appearance of slush. On the other side of the dock stood the cranes, a row of twisted metal structures watching over the world like maimed sentinels. The sky north of them was beginning to clear, taking on that dazzling shade of azure that only winter knows. The sun appeared, taunting them with the promise of heat, casting light upon the waters of the bay, blinking back off the Manhattan skyline in the distance, so near and yet so far away. A couple of days, Chris told himself, a couple of days hike through Jersey and I’ll be back with my family.

  Now though, they needed to find somewhere to spend the night. The weather might be clearing but they were bushed. A night’s rest and an early start was what was called for.

  twenty nine

  “Clank!”

  Chris sat bolt upright and for a moment was confused by his surroundings. He was sitting in a slightly reclined leather seat, looking through a windshield into darkness.

  “Clank!” The sound of metal striking metal, the sound that had woken him, came again. Something moved to his right, Ruby sat up in the seat beside him. From the rear came the guttural snort of Paulie’s snores, the gentler sough of Julie’s breathing.

  He realized where he was now. He was sitting in the passenger seat of a BMW 750, stashed inside a cargo container, the first container they’d opened.

  “Clank!”

  “We should check it out,” Ruby said.

  “Uh huh,” he agreed, although he was reluctant to leave the warmth of the vehicle. In the last couple of days he’d learned that the body could crave warmth as much as it craves food or water or sleep. He levered the door open, slid out, pulled the AK after him. In addition to the Beamer, the container was densely packed with the contents of a household, leather settees and oak bureaus, high-end electronics and artwork. Chris squeezed between these now as he worked his way to the fore, arriving there just after Ruby.

  Chico had the guard shift and was peering through one of the bullet holes they’d created for that purpose.

  “What do you see?” Chris whispered.

  “Nothing boss,” Chico said. “Nothing moving out there.”

  Chris put his eye to another of the peepholes and looked himself. The narrow field of vision that the hole offered gave him a view across the dock. A full moon poked out from behind patchy cloud, casting a pallid, silvery light, that rippled across the water. Other than that, it was dead still out there, the wind had dropped to the mere hint of a whisper. The metallic clunk (whatever it had been) had been stilled.

  Chris was about to turn away, to return to the warmth of his vehicular crib when Chico grabbed hold of his sleeve.

  “Boss!” Chico hissed.

  Chris reassumed his watching position and saw what had attracted Chico’s attention - a single Z, a large man, naked save for a ripped and threadbare pair of pants, standing in a patch of moonlight. Where had he come from?

  “What do we do, boss?” Chico whispered.

  “Leave him,” Chris said. “It’s only one. He’ll soon pass by.”

  “There are more,” Ruby said. “Listen.”

  Chris did and heard it immediately, that maddening Z hum.

  “Clank!”

  Chris scanned his gaze left, following the sound. He picked up a man crouching in the shadows, the vapor trail of his breath betraying his position.

  The Z saw him too, and lurched in his direction and the man stood up to meet him, a metal bar in his hand.

  “Holy crap! It’s Strangler!” Chico said.

  thirty

  The Z crossed the yard towards Strangler, moving in that distinctive, deceptively quick, lurch. Strangler, though, wasn’t holding back, he jogged forward holding his club, two-handed. Then, as the distance closed between them, he swung the weapon in an arc, like Tom Daly driving for distance on a particularly long hole. The bar caught the Z under the chin in a vicious uppercut that snapped its head back. For a moment it seemed almost to levitate and then it crashed to the frozen ground and Strangler moved in to finish the job.

  Chris caught movement to his right and saw Z’s spilling from between the stacks, lots of them. He scanned left and saw them emerging from that end too. In the next moment his vision was obscured. It took him a moment to figure out that some of the things were standing directly in front of the container. If that was the case, Strangler was surrounded.

  “Open up,” he said.

  “Boss, are you sure?” Chico stammered.

  “Open up!”

  “What’s happening?” Julie’s sleepy voice came from behind them.

  Chris heard the latch disengage. He cocked the AK as the door began to fold outward. “Close it after me,” Chris shouted.

  “I’m coming with you,” Ruby said.

  “No, you’re not. Stay inside.”

  But Ruby stepped deftly past him and slipped through the door.

  ***

  Chris wasn’t the only one who had heard Stangler’s metal bar striking the lock as he tried to gain access to the container unit. Three rows down and two across, Carlito Lopez shook his aunt, Ana, awake. Another member of their group of stragglers, Eddy Montague, was already up and had the door open a crack. Eddy peered into the darkness and saw nothing. He heard something though, felt it in his bones, that insane Z hum.

  “What’s going on?” Ana whispered.

  “Z’s,” Eddy said. “A lot of them by the sound of it. “We’d best lay low, they can’t get to us in here.”

  He started to pull the door towards him, meaning to shut it and get back to sleep. That was when the first shot sounded.

  ***

  Chris followed his daughter through the door. Ruby was already busy, spinning and thrusting, her blade flashing in the moonlight, two headless Z’s already lying at her feet, a third slumping to the concrete like a deflated air balloon. He raised the AK-47 and fired off two shots, dropping a couple of Z’s then stepping over them, the rifle to his shoulder, picking out targets, putting them down. A path opened up and he shuffled through it and joined Strangler in the center, as the Z’s circled. The big guy had a length of pipe in his hand and was swinging left and right, keeping the zombies at bay.

  “Man, am I glad to see you,” Strangler said.

  “I thought we’d lost you.”

  “You may yet.”

  From the direction of the container came a loud “Whap! Whap! Whap!” The rest of the team, trapped inside, were pounding against the door trying to force a way out. It was pointless though. The Z’s were piled five deep back there, the sheer weight of them holding the door closed.

  “Stay inside!” Chris shouted, knowing they couldn’t hear him, knowing they wouldn’t obey if they could.

  He fired at a zombie as it broke ranks, saw Ruby working her way towards him, her sword hacking and slashing at the Z’s in her path. It was as if a small hurricane was cutting a swathe through them.

  He shucked the magazine from his rifle, clipped in a fresh one. Two of the zombies facing him were abruptly cut down. Ruby pushed through the melee and joined him and Strangler in the circle. They stood back-to-back, circling as the Z’s closed in. The rest of the team, trapped inside the container unit, continued pounding impotently at its metal walls, and Chris realized that it had been a mistake to come out here alone. They could really use some help right now, the three of them alone had virtually no chance of defeating this many Z’s.

  He’d barely had that thought when one of the zombie’s heads exploded. He heard the report of the rifle a split second later, then saw muzzle flashes as more of the Z’s when
down. The rat-tat-tat of a machine gun added its voice to the symphony of destruction, flat slapping against metal then shifting its line of fire and setting the Z’s to dancing. Chris joined in, firing into the mob. The zombies at the container unit were being decimated. Now, the door swung open and Chico flew out. He did a quick, desperate scan of the carnage, spotted Ruby and rushed towards her, vaulting the fallen Z’s like a hurdler. Julie and the others joined the fray, firing as they emerged from the darkness (Chris would reflect later that it was a miracle there’d been no friendly fire casualties).

  The brutal barrage went on for no longer than a minute. When it was over, zombies lay thick on the ground. The air was dense with smoke, laced with the hellfire scent of cordite. The gunfire became sporadic then died down entirely. Chris looked across and saw Chico hugging Ruby, Ruby allowing herself to be hugged. Now came a booming voice.

  “Julie? Julie-bear? Is that you?”

  “Ah Christ,” Julie said. “Just when I was getting used to being a widow.”

  thirty one

  “Yeah, yeah, keep your dungarees on you goddamn grit-grinder.” Joe shuffled down the corridor, muttering as he went. Hooley was early as usual, although Joe didn’t blame him, living with Janet could hardly be a barrel of laughs.

  “Yeah, yeah, don’t get your jockstrap in a twist,” he said swinging the door open.

  “I’ll try not to do that,” Justine said. She was standing in the passage wearing a short, dove-colored dress that seemed designed as a showcase for her stunning figure. She wore a dazzling smile on her immaculately made up face. Her hair was up. She held up a bottle - smoked glass, vintage label, cork stopper, amber liquid within. “I thought I’d call in that rain check,” she said.

  Joe drew in a sharp breath. For a moment (perhaps for the first time in his life) he was speechless. He felt as though someone had just sucker punched him in the gut. He adjusted his bathrobe and hair in automatic movements. Justine cocked a quizzical eyebrow at him.

  “Of course. Come on in.” He stood aside and let her pass, caught a whiff of her perfume (rose petals) as she brushed against him, deliberately, he thought.

  She headed down the passage, swaying her hips in exaggerated movements.

  Walking behind her, admiring the view, Joe said, “Sorry about that, I was expecting Hooley.”

  “You sound disappointed.”

  “Far from it,” Joe said. “It’s just that, if I’d been expecting company, I’d have dressed for the occasion. I feel a bit…undercooked, compared to you.”

  “This old thing,” Justine mocked, doing a little twirl. She giggled. Despite himself, despite the fact he knew he was being played in some way, Joe felt his breath quicken.

  “Seriously though,” Justine said. “A girl so rarely gets a chance to dress up these days and I figured, as this is a special occasion…”

  “Is it a special occasion?”

  “I’d say so. It’s not every day I get to spend time with a fascinating man. Glasses?”

  “Sorry?”

  “For the whiskey?”

  “Oh. Yeah,” Joe said. He was a bit annoyed at himself. He was acting like a schoolboy in the presence of his first crush.

  She’s playing you.

  Nobody plays Ma Thursday’s boy.

  He walked to the sideboard, trying his best not to hobble on his damaged ankle. He removed two tumblers, brought them back to the table where the cards and chips were laid out for his game with Hooley. Right now the game was the furthest thing from his mind.

  Justine poured a generous measure into each glass, passed one over and clinked her glass against his. “To new friendships,” she said.

  “New friendships,” Joe agreed and took a sip. The single malt was all peat and sea breeze, delicious.

  “Whiskey at ten in the morning. I feel quite decadent.”

  “I’d have thought decadence was your default mode.”

  Justine giggled again, that seductive giggle. “Hell no,” she said. “I’m just a simple country girl at heart.”

  “From?”

  “L.A.”

  “Ah, yes. How is the rural backwater of Los Angeles these days?”

  “Haven’t been there in a while.”

  “Where’ve you been?”

  Justine regarded him over the rim of her glass, a mischievous glint in her eye. She was enjoying this. He was too.

  “Let’s not talk about me. Tell me about yourself?”

  “Not a lot to tell.”

  “I find that hard to believe. Where are you from?”

  “Idaho originally, a lot of places since then.”

  “Idaho, really?”

  “Really.”

  A lull now. Joe could almost hear Justine figuring her next move.

  “Kelly said you were once head of the Pendragon Corporation. Is that true?”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Ah huh. Your chance to give something up.”

  A chuckle. “Okay, fair enough. What do you want to know?”

  Joe thought for a moment, pretended to anyway. What he really wanted to ask was what she’d being doing out of doors at four in the morning during a snowstorm. But that would be showing his hand. He might be a piss poor card player but at this game, he was a champion. “That day you rescued Kelly from Barlow’s thugs. Where did you learn to fight like that?”

  Justine considered for a moment. “Here and there. My older brother, a few self-defense classes.”

  “From what I heard, it would have taken more than a few self-defense classes.”

  “Really, Joe,” she laughed. “You make me sound like some trained assassin.”

  And there it was. With that he understood what Justine was doing here, what she was about. Justine was a tease, a prick tease, sure, but another kind of tease, too. Justine was here for him. She was working for the Corporation and she was here to either kill or capture him. She’d as good as told him so.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “That’ll be Hooley.”

  “Damn, I was just getting into that.”

  “Me too. Some other time?”

  “Count on it.”

  thirty two

  They set out for the Kill at first light, their number now swelled to fifteen by Ana and Eddy and their contingent. The air was crisp but mercifully still, the sky a gorgeous shade of blue, the snow pristine white, reflecting back fierce and impotent sunlight. They walked single file, Chris in the lead. No leadership debate had taken place.

  At the gates of the container depot they went right, cut through a warehousing district and found themselves at the run up to the Kill, a hundred yards of open ground, scrubland in warmer weather, now under snow. The texture of the powder, slightly slushy with small puddles beginning to form, worried him. It was warmer today than it had been for sometime. He hoped the Kill hadn’t begun to thaw.

  He got them moving again, cutting across towards a spot roughly between the twisted remnants of the two collapsed bridges. A slight and gradual drop saw them down to the Kill itself, three hundred yards across, seemingly frozen solid. In this regard, the bridges had played their part. North and south of their position the Kill was impassable slush. The bridges, though, had broken up the river’s flow, allowing it to settle and freeze. The crossing was completed in twenty minutes and without major incident.

  They found the New Jersey turnpike and made the turn north. They had twenty miles to cover and if they stuck to the turnpike they might be able to avoid the Z’s until the very end. That last stretch, though, was going to be a killer.

  ***

  Some twenty miles west and north of Chris’s current position, Colonel Bobo Benson tore open the manila envelope marked “Private: Eyes Only”. He shook out the single sheet of paper and scanned his eye to the foot of the page. The scrawl at the bottom was illegible, but he recognized it even before he saw the name typed underneath - Marcus Pendragon.

  Benson began
reading, the smile on his face growing with every line, with each word, of the short message. Operation Empire was a go. Not only that, it was a go for tomorrow.

  He scratched at an itchy spot on his left arm. Even through his shirt and jacket it felt moist and tacky. The site of his daily shots had recently begun oozing, scabbing over. This didn’t alarm him unduly. His condition threw up these annoying little symptoms from time to time. It was something he’d learned to live with.

  He finished reading the note, read it again, then folded it into a neat square and placed it into his breast pocket with a hand that was shaking slightly. Benson held the hand out in front of him and commanded the tremors to stop. The tremors refused. In fact, they got worse. Unlike the rash on his arm, this was a concern. He’d have to speak to the doc, get her to up his dosage of BH-17. He needed his wits about him.

  He got up from behind his desk - the counter of a former TV repair shop - and headed over to Dr. Payne’s office, stopping on the way to chat with one of his officers. The weather was warmer today, warm enough to melt off some of the snow. That was a real bonus. Seems he’d be able to drive into Manhattan at the head of his column of Humvees after all.

  All of this good news injected a spring into his step as he crossed the lot. Things were going his way, coming up roses, in the words of the old song. He had a green light on the operation, the snow was beginning to melt and he was going to be able to give Scolfield the old heave-ho. Scolfield and the doc’s days of playing God were over. Their Z’s were no longer required. The Corporation had an agent in Manhattan who had seen to that.

  ***

  Justine wasn’t sure that she needed an elevated position from which to broadcast her signal, but it never hurt to be sure, especially when all it required was an elevator ride. She was making that ride now, watching the numbers climb up the dial along with the elevator car. The car pinged to a halt on the 27th floor, South Tower of the San Remo building. The doors rumbled open. Justine stepped through hoisting a gym bag. The foyer was a masterpiece of art deco design, spoiled somewhat by the two thugs that loitered there.