“They got guns, Rich. And food and a truck.” That seemed to work into the boy’s head.
He stood up and pointed his hammer at me. “Fine, but you gotta call the State Police in St. George and let me talk to them first. I want to speak to Sergeant Reed. He’s my dad’s uncle.”
I looked at Brick, and he came over and got down on his haunches. “I’m sorry, kid, I really am. They,” Brick pointed to the same louvered window the kid did a minute ago, “are everywhere. There’s hardly anybody left. I swear I will try a call to the cops, but I promise you, they aren’t there.”
“Where are they?” he demanded.
Chloe stood and took the hammer with no effort. “Dead, stupid, and probably trying to eat each other. We’re going with them. We can’t stay here anymore.”
Richy let loose a big sigh. “Where are you guys going?”
It was my turn for a shit-eating grin. “Atlantis.”
Sunglasses Down
The kid reached for his hammer, obviously thinking that I was a liar. “Bullshit!”
“Rich!” his sister whisper-yelled, pulling the tool out of reach and looking back and forth from him to me. The boy took a half-step back and looked both chastised and menacing at the same time. He pulled that shit off too. I was in an attic with two tried and true badass killers two feet above a hundred undead cannibals, and this kid was the scariest part of the bunch.
“Atlantis is an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Lots of people, lots of guns and food, no infected.”
They looked at each other, then at me.
These two kids, not even teenagers, had survived a year in an attic waiting for a rescue that was never coming. They were filthy, and just about to starve, but looked healthy nonetheless. I was impressed. More than that, the jarheads were impressed, and that was hard to do.
Brick inspected our surroundings. He asked pointed questions to the kids: “How did you keep warm in the winter?” Richy showed us his array of sleeping bags, and two tents that were folded and put away. “It got pretty cold,” he told us, “we had to stay in the tent together all the time unless we had to…”
Brick furrowed his brow. It was hilarious, because I knew what he was about to ask. “Where did you—” The kid pointed to the same louvered grill we had peeked out before. “We dump the buckets out there.” I smiled, and so did the kid. Brick saw us and smiled too. Even Ray, doomed as he was, smiled at the thought of dumping poop out the window. It isn’t even that funny as I write this. Had to be there.
Brick had found a four-by-eight piece of five-eighths plywood, and put it over the trap-door. Two skylights let in light, but it was still fairly dark and shadowy in the attic. The kids sat back down, and we let them know what was happening.
“A year?” Chloe asked. “We’ve been up here for a whole year?”
“I think so.” I hitched my bucket a little closer to them, the noise from the infected below was beginning to get loud. “It was about a year ago that this started happening. I can only assume you came up here pretty quick once things started to fall apart.” I looked around, marveling at what these kids’ dad had done. “If you hadn’t come up here quickly, you’d be dead. Actually, you would have been dead anyway if your dad hadn’t had all this shit…er, stuff up here. You’re luckier than most.”
She began to cry.
The boy stood. “Knock it off! We finally get some help and you’re gonna cry about it?”
“Stop it, Rich. Everybody’s dead. Everybody we ever knew. Nana, Grammy and Gramps, all our cousins, all our friends.” She looked up, tears in her eyes, and I swear to Christ I began to get misty. “Mom, Dad, and Tommy too.”
He got down on her level, took her hands in his and looked her in the face, “Yeah, well, we’re still on this side of the grass.”
She smiled at him and I realized that I was in love with these kids after being with them for less than an hour. I would kill a hundred rednecks, a thousand bikers, and a million pus-bags before I let harm come to these children. Another realization hit me right then. Smacked me so hard I moved my head back a little: Lynch would have done the same to protect me.
Was I him? Were a certifiable psycho and I the same core person? I was prepared to force these kids to come with us just as Lynch had done to me. For their own good. Were that prick-spook and I the same? No. No we were not. I can’t think of any good reasons that don’t end up biting me in my hypocritical ass as to why, but no. I’m a nice guy dammit. I’m nice! If nothing else, I had that on him. He was a douche.
I suddenly wanted to hear some Led Zeppelin while spooning a hot fudge sundae into my head.
“Rogue One, Rogue Two, how copy?”
Ray grabbed his radio, “Two this is One, we’re green, over?”
“Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em Two, be there in six hours. Be ready, over.”
“Rogue Two copies all, out.”
“Six hours until evac,” Ray said to all of us.
Brick sat down, leaning back against two crates of stuff. “Get some rack. It won’t be fun tomorrow. Kids, get whatever you want to come with you ready and get some sleep. We’re leaving in a few hours.”
Each kid had a Condor Assault Pack already kitted out, and they pulled them close, each using it as a pillow. They were out in just under a minute, sleeping soundly. How they pulled that shit off I will never know. Probably from being in an attic surrounded by undead for a year.
I got up off my bucket and moved to sit next to Brick. I looked at Ray-Ban, who was looking at me. “What do we do about him?” I asked.
Brick looked at Ray. “We shoot him in the head if he tries any monkey shit.”
Ray looked away and chuckled. “Screw that. Blaze of glory for this operator. First watch is mine.”
Brick was loading some spare magazines. “Let’s share it.” I saw him run out of shells three into the second mag.
I woke to the familiar sounds of retching. Ray was wiping his mouth when I spied him. “I’m good,” he said. Brick was looking out the louvers, and both kids had their backpacks on. I stood and stretched, checking my SOG and ejecting the mag from my 416 for inspection.
Brick shut the louvered grill. “Sun’s coming up.”
We heard the guttural rumble of salvation over the noises from the pus bags. It came from the west, and we couldn’t see that way out either attic vent. The kids looked nervous.
“Relax you two,” I told them. “We do this stuff all the time.” I pulled the charging handle on my rifle for effect. “Walk in the park.”
“Last guy to walk through the park got eaten,” Richy said as he adjusted the strap on his pack.
Shit. Unprecedented backfire right there.
Brick was standing next to us. He got down on his haunches, and we got down with him. “OK kids, this is how this is going to go: Above all, you have to be quiet. Don’t say anything, nothing at all, unless you see one of them that’s close and none of us sees it. I’ll go first,” he pointed at the plywood covering the attic trap-door, “get you two down, then the other two members of my team will follow. Always stay between me and one of them, and no matter what happens, don’t run unless the three of us are all dead. Oh, and this is probably going to get really loud.”
“Do we get guns? ”
Brick smiled. “Not yet, we don’t have enough to spare. And no more talking at all.” He looked at Chloe. “Do you understand what to do?” She nodded, terrified.
“And you?” He looked at her brother. “We good?” The boy’s nod was much curter.
Brick went through all the hand signals he might use, and the kids both nodded again in understanding.
We could hear the things below us moving off, certainly wanting a taste of tinned MARSOC that was in a freshly fueled MRAP. Yeah, I know, a lot of capital letters right there.
We gave it a half hour and made a phone call, “Rogue Two, Rogue One, how copy?”
“One this is Two, five by five. Towing hostiles from your location now. Pied fuk’n Pi
per. ETA back to you, one hour at most. Recommend you exfil immediately upon next comm. Triple squelch, over.”
“Confirmed triple squelch. Rogue Two copies all, good luck, out,” Ray said and threw up. He shook as he passed his radio to Brick. “Just in case.” It was hot in that attic, but Ray was sweating a different kind of bullets. He didn’t have too much longer before it would be difficult to walk.
A few minutes later, Brick and I removed the plywood and looked down into an empty hallway. Well, empty except for the shit the dead leave in their wake; nasty fluids, chunks of themselves, bits of clothing, you’ve seen it. Brick snapped his fingers three times and we waited. He looked at his watch and did it again in one minute. One minute after that, he pulled his telescoping mirror from his tac-webbing and checked the hallway. He nodded in the negative, and I had no friggin’ idea what that meant. No hostiles or not clear? I mean I’m kind of new to this whole military thing. I’m learning but come on.
I motioned that I didn’t know what he meant, and he looked at me like I took the short bus to school. He pointed down and gave a thumbs up. Way better than nodding no.
What seemed like an eternity later, the radio squelched three times. Brick squelched back and turned off the radio
He looked at the kids, put his finger to his lips in a shhh motion, and dropped into the corridor. He scanned both directions, looked up at me and nodded, motioning for me to drop him the kids. I passed the boy down first, then his sister. I looked at Ray. He was sitting on the Home Depot bucket, elbows on his knees, looking down.
“Ray, we’re moving out. Ray?”
He looked up at me. His right eye was blood red. A single tear of the red fluid rolled down the crease between his nose and cheek, seeming to halt for moment on the crest of his upper lip before dropping to the floor. I watched as the corpuscles in the white of his other eye positively exploded, turning it into a crimson orb almost instantly.
“Might stay here for a bit,” he said and looked down. “Good luck, and stay alive.”
“Good luck to you too, pal. Want me to tell the guys anything?”
“Nope.”
I nodded, not that he could see me, looking at the plywood floor as he was, and dropped down soundlessly with Brick and the kids, suppressed Sig at the ready. Brick stared at me and raised his eyebrows. I looked down and nodded in the negative. When I looked back up, this guy who had just lost one of his most trusted allies and friends was already moving off with the kids behind him, his suppressed handgun pointing forward.
The house was nasty with all the zombie detritus, and I finally noticed how equally filthy the kids were. Can you imagine being stuck in an attic for a year? Anne Frank kind of shit.
We came to a corner of the hall, and Brick did a quick recon looking in two directions. He immediately backed up and quick-pointed back the way we had come. All four of us spun and hurried to the room at the end of the hall, Brick rushing past and taking the lead again. The door on the left was the bathroom we had come in initially, the one on the right had a closed door. Straight ahead was open and inviting. It was a small bedroom and the door had a pink and white sign with Chloe printed on it in cursive. We moved under the open attic trap-door, and I was two steps past it when Hell came calling. A thump sounded close behind me and I spun quickly. Ray-Ban crouched there, shaking and heaving, flexing his fingers. The floor creaked behind me, Brick or one of the kids stepping on an unfriendly floorboard. Ray whipped his head up and glared at me.
It wasn’t Ray, but it wasn’t dead.
The thing gave this growling hiss, then launched from its crouch. It hit me all claws and teeth as I fired. My hesitation had slowed me just enough, and my shot went wide. The round penetrated the sheetrock, and it must have hit something particularly vulnerable in the room beyond because there was a small but exceptionally loud explosion of glass from the room.
I didn’t have tons of time to spend worrying about what I had shot because the thing that had been my friend, and had saved my ass on several occasions, was now trying to see what my face tasted like as it threw haymakers. Then it started to scream. That awful, terrifying shriek that will make anybody shit them self, came from it as it tried chew on my pretty face
I fought it hard, but it was wicked fast and damn strong. He scratched my face and arms, the deep furrow on my left forearm dropping blood in my face. The thing made one fist with both hands and raised it above its head in what was going to be a cave-man thump.
Fucker was going to Jim Kirk me!
Never got the chance though as a flying hammer took it in the mouth, breaking teeth and snapping its head to the side. Two shots sounded from behind me, the MARSOC-Runner toppling backwards. I crab-scrambled in reverse, and Brick gave his former buddy one more tap to the dome sealing the deal.
The whole event had taken less than ten seconds, but in that time, the end of the hall had filled with the slower variety of infected. Brick helped me up, and we got in Chloe’s room quickly, shutting the door. We pushed her bed against the entry, wedging it closed.
Thumps sounded on the other side of the door soon after. Lots of thumps. I guess these were the less industrious of the pus-bags, and hadn’t been fast enough to chase down the MRAP.
Brick tore some remarkably beautiful curtains from a window and threw the sash up. He checked both directions, and slipped out into the yard. “Twenty seconds and we’re screwed.” He reached for the kids, and I helped them out. I heard firing outside as I looked back to see a panel in the cheap door splinter and a dead face stare at me. They were making short work of my barricade and I slid out the window.
Brick had gone to the rifle, and there was no doubt that every infected in Big Water was now moseying in our direction.
“Rogue Two! Exfil ASAP, east side of the development! We’re on foot and moving fast, over!” We ran for it, listening to Remo tell us my truck was thirty seconds out.
Thirty seconds was twenty seconds to damn long.
Trapped.
There was no moving fast. There was no moving anywhere. The dead came from all directions. We were between two houses, maybe forty feet apart, and again I had to wonder why they had stacked these houses so close together when there was so much area to be had.
All I could think was that we should have left well enough alone. These two kids were going to get torn apart because we had brought them down from their sanctuary. I have no doubts that hunger would have forced them out in a few short days anyway, but still, I felt this was on me. I looked at the two of them as the dead closed. I knew for sure I had killed them.
Brick was selecting targets and popping domes on single shot, and I followed suit. He performed a tactical magazine switch, and I remembered our ammo situation. Three shots later and his rifle was hanging on its single-point sling, dangling while he pulled the suppressed Sig Sauer he had just put away. I did my best to imitate his re-loading technique, and pulled it off, but not as quickly. I had sixteen shots and I was out.
“Move forward but stick close!” Brick yelled, and I saw that the window we had just come through had dead arms sticking out of it reaching for us. I glanced behind and noted that the pus-bags were forty feet away, arranged twenty deep and spanning the width of the houses. The ones in front were twenty feet in front of us, but there were gaps in their line.
I clicked empty, and I thought the pride I felt for dropping a solid twenty of these dead fucks wasn’t misplaced, even though I would be eviscerated in moments. The good thing: there were way too many of them for any of us to rise when they were through. There would be little left, and I considered that a consolation. Brick tried to holster his pistol, but he caught the suppressor on the leather and it dropped to the ground. He pulled his entrenching tool, and I drew the best weapon on planet earth, my SOG.
The MRAP pulled up in front of us, sixty feet from our position, and the back door exploded outward, spilling Remo and Tim. Remo had the EBR rifle and began dropping undead as he moved forward slowly. Tim shot
a few as well, but it was too little too late.
Brick looked at me. “Get 'em out, shoot that gap!” He pointed his tool at a five foot break between the dead, then ran headlong into them, hacking. He had cleared another five feet for us, I grabbed Chloe’s hand and we ran. We almost made it too. We were at the very end of the procession, most of the infected turning as we ran past. One shot its stinking paw out and latched on to the strap of Chloe’s pack. She screamed, and before I could react, Richy put his left hand on the thing’s wrist and used a right palm-heel strike to snap the creature’s arm at the elbow. It was so rotten it came right off. His sister gave a side kick to the thing’s mid-section, knocking it down and we were through.
We reached Remo and Tim, Tim was out of ammo too. “Mags in my pack,” Remo said casually, “top’s open.”
“Tim, get them in the truck!” I reached into Remo’s black back-pack and yanked out a mag for my HK416. Slapping it in, I glanced at Brick, who looked like a cross between a grave-digger and a samurai, slashing with his shovel, kicking, punching, then poking with the tool. The kids and Tim ran for the vehicle, but all the dead were far from them. They were damn close to me though, and Brick was hand-to-hand.
The bass boom-boom of the EBR was louder than my HK, and both Remo and I moved forward as we mowed the things down. I saw my partner charge his weapon, the mag switch had been so fast that I had missed it.
One of the things encircling Brick locked its mitt on the entrenching tool and that momentary lapse in speed was enough for the others to swarm my buddy. He went down swinging, disappearing beneath the throng. I started to run forward, but Remo put his hand on my chest. There were just too many, and he was fifty feet away from us. Several of the infected decided we were tasty looking and began their slow plod toward us.
Remo passed me the EBR, and I took it by the shoulder sling. He pulled something from his tac-webbing and it made a ting! sound. “Frag out.” He tossed a black baseball in an arc into the fray of them, right where Brick had gone down, and he pulled me back toward the truck. We made it all the way to the back door before the grenade detonated with a mighty WHUMP!, tossing infected like rag dolls and blowing in the unbroken windows of the houses. The blast knocked the ones stumbling after us over on their faces, but they immediately began to get up.
The Zombie Theories (Book 2): Conspiracy Theory Page 21
