A Place Called Hope (Z-Day Book 2)

by Daniel Humphreys

  The alpha batted Del Arroz’s knife hand aside and brought its opposite fist around in a swift roundhouse that ended with a wet crack and the sound of tearing flesh. The impact spun him around, and Charlie blanched at his friend’s wounds.

  Teeth splintered, blood fountaining from the ragged hole where his dangling jaw had anchored on one side, the only sound the little Marine could manage was a wet, “Gurk, gurk,” until the clenched fists of the alpha slammed down on the crown of his head and drove him to his knees. Charlie forced himself to look away from the image of Del Arroz’s ruined skull.

  He had an opening that could have taken him up the ramp and into the Orca. He was the last man on the roof. After what the alpha had done to Ropati and Del Arroz, none of the other men were willing to face it with hand weapons. He couldn’t say why the urge to step forward and take it on hit him. Maybe he thought that in some way his immunity would protect him from the thing’s strength. There was no logical train of thought. He simply discarded his new rifle, unslung the Marlin, and began pumping .44 Magnum rounds into it as fast as he could jack the lever.

  And it was for naught. The alpha didn’t even seem to notice his fire, and as he got closer, it lazily backhanded him and sent him flying. His torso slammed into the knee wall on the south side of the building, and who knew how far he might have gone if not for that.

  The Marlin was gone. He pushed himself to his feet and tried to ignore the throb in his back.

  “Charlie! Run!”

  He looked up and saw Pete struggling as Foraker and two other Marines yanked him back into the Orca to keep him from running out. A ripple of gray-skinned bodies had appeared on the opposite edge of the warehouse, and zulus began to tumble onto the roof. He didn’t turn to look to the opposite side, but he knew in his gut that the side would be much the same. The horde had gained the roof.

  The alpha turned in place, surrounded by the bloody scraps of the men Charlie had known so briefly. It lighted on the open hatch at the rear of the aircraft, and it began to move.

  At once, Charlie knew what he had to do. If he’d had the time to stop and consider it, it might have surprised him that he felt no fear. He felt resigned; focused, with only the slightest regret that he’d be unable to tell Frannie goodbye.

  He sprinted forward.

  Shy of the lowered ramp, the alpha squatted, seeming to coil its infernal muscles and gather itself for a final convulsive leap into the interior. At once it moved, far faster than something that mass should have been capable of, and horror ran through Charlie as he jumped himself, hoping his own vault wasn’t too late.

  It wasn’t.

  He hit the alpha in midair, wrapping it up in a tackle that would have done his varsity football coach proud. The creature twisted in his arms, struggling to reach out for the lowered ramp, to continue its savagery.

  They fell. Charlie had hit it with enough force to push it off course, and the leap that would have ended up right in Pete’s lap turned into a plummet down into the heart of the warehouse itself. Gravity pulled him away from the fading cry of his friend.

  The alpha continued to fight, and as they hit the floor it broke away, leaving him to hit the concrete on his own. He hit feet-first, and the view of his leg bones splintering and folding up like an accordion combined with the sickening sound of cracking bone nearly made him retch. Then the pain hit, and he did throw up, spewing his small breakfast all over the concrete.

  This close, the buzz of the alpha’s mind was overwhelming, and the signal—or whatever it was—crowded into Charlie’s own awareness and tamped it down flat. He felt at once in control of his own faculties as well as disconnected. In a way that wasn’t so bad. It pushed away the agony of his shattered legs, helped him focus on what he had to do. The fall had staggered the creature, and he heard bone rubbing on bone as it pushed itself to its feet. The unholy engine driving it had far surpassed its inferiors. The damage would have crippled a lesser zulu.

  Through the monster’s eyes, he saw himself smile with blood-stained teeth. He’d busted something inside and hadn’t even known it. The pain in his legs must have gotten top billing.

  Charlie’s voice in his ears came as though piped through a long tunnel. “You aren’t all that smart after all, are you?”

  It leaned in and seized him with one hand. The surge of agony the icepick-probe of the nanomachines bursting forth from its palm elicited tore another cry from him. The scream turned into a laugh even as threads of living metal tore their way through his body. He felt the flesh of his chest ripple under his hands, but his attention was somewhere else. Charlie saw the receding shape of the Orca as it faded into the bright blue of the sky over the shoulder of his torturer. He smiled, relaxed, and pulled his hands away from his chest. There were a pair of barely-audible clicks.

  As he spread his hands wide, he again saw through the Alpha’s eyes as it looked down at his hands, and the grenade pins hanging from each of his upright middle fingers.

  “You stupid mother—” Charlie laughed, before the grenades on his chest exploded and put an end to his pain.

  Chapter 37

  April 3, 2026

  The air over Lockheed Skunkworks

  Z-Day + 3,089

  Ferris didn’t know which one of the Marines was a medic, but he wondered if they were going to have to figure out a way to sedate Major Matthews.

  “No! No! Take it back down!”

  Lieutenant Ross kept his voice pitched low, but you could have heard a pin drop in the cargo compartment, even over the smooth purr of the generator. “He’s gone, sir. You know it, and I know it.”

  The mission leader grew silent at that point, covering his face with his hands as his shoulders heaved. Ferris didn’t think any of his men would have cared if he’d cried out in the open. Half of the Marines looked as though they’d seen a ghost as it was.

  Hell, what he could see from the open hatch had been bad enough. A vision of blood and tortured flesh returned to him, the simultaneous explosions of the grenades on Charlie’s chest, and he shuddered. He hadn’t expected the mission to be a milk run, exactly, but he had never thought it would turn into that. He ran his eyes through the compartment, counting heads. Eleven Marines remained. They’d started out with twenty.

  It wasn’t so much that the battle had become easy. There were always losses, of some sort, though years of wear had given the entire affair a Darwinian effect. The clumsy and stupid had died long ago.

  This, though. This was a whole new ball game.

  Niles touched him on the shoulder. “Sir.”

  He glanced up and met the other man’s eyes. “Agent Guglik says we’re high enough.” He held up a small control.

  Ferris smiled, and it was a wicked expression indeed.

  Hey, every pound counted—and he’d figured on there being more Marines on board. It had seemed a waste to haul all that C4 to the LZ and not use it. He carefully took the control from Niles and cleared his throat.

  “Major Matthews.”

  The other man looked up and met his eyes. “What is it?”

  “We had a significant amount of C4 left, sir. Rather than haul it back out, I figured we’d leave zulu a goodbye present.” He bared his teeth and held up the control. “We rigged the propane supply for the generator to blow. Care to do the honors?”

  Major Matthews pushed himself to his feet and staggered across the floor. He snatched the control out of Ferris’ hand and headed toward the front of the craft. Confused, Ferris stood and followed as the other man climbed the short staircase that led into the crew compartment.

  The copilot seat was empty, but Bob Harris and a couple of Ferris’ other people were hanging out in the cockpit—unexpectedly spacious, given the need for extra crew to control the cargo ramp and bay doors—in case Guglik needed anything done. The major stomped forward and stood next to the command chair.

  “Turn it around,” he said. “I want to see it.”

  Guglik opened her mouth to speak, saw t
he look on his face, and settled for a nod. The shift of the Orca was an odd feeling. The weight of the cargo and the lift bag kept it level as she pivoted the nose. The horizon panned across the cockpit until the view settled on the warehouse. The lines of zombies still crushed in from either side, and they covered the roof, now. Who knew why they hadn’t abandoned it at this point. Perhaps they had some innate need to ensure that all the foreign interlopers were dead or gone.

  Major Matthews pushed the button.

  The eastern half of the warehouse bulged from the massive pressure within even as gouts of flame shot from the opening in the roof. Then the walls gave out, and the shooting flame turned into a mushroom cloud. Chunks of cinder block and shredded pieces of steel wall panels sailed through the air. The portion of the horde left on that side of the building dissolved in fire.

  Pete considered the control, then handed it back to Ferris.

  “Let’s go home, Agent Guglik,” he murmured, then headed back to the rear.

  April 4, 2026

  Anacapa Island

  Z-Day + 3,090

  From above, the orderly lines of the ersatz refugee camp among the green foliage covering the island barely stood out. By some miracle, the place had remained untouched in all the years since the outbreak. The clearance search after they’d landed had turned up the sign of only one occupant. The long-dry skeleton lay tucked under a blanket on a cot at the base of the island’s lighthouse. There were no signs of a struggle, though Pete supposed the man’s death had been horrible enough. The bunched-up waistline of his pants indicated that he’d starved to death.

  From the top of the lighthouse, Pete could see for miles, and it occurred to them that in a very real sense he had found a replacement for the Crow’s Nest. He doubted that his Marines would leave him be, as his fellow survivors back home had for so long.

  That was all right. He just needed a bit of time.

  Of course, at some point he was going to have to make a call home to break the bad news to Miles—and, he realized all at once, to Frannie. His sense of guilt swelled again, and he sighed.

  Right at fifty percent casualties and a dear friend. His eyes found the Orca and cargo containers, parked alongside the Sea Hawks. “But we accomplished the mission,” he told himself, and his voice echoed in the empty lantern room. Cold comfort to families of the survivors, or their friends, but it had to be worth it, in this case. Because—

  The sound of feet on metal stairs broke his train of thought, and he turned to wait. Agent Guglik poked her head inside. “Permission to come aboard?”

  Pete would have rolled his eyes if he weren’t so exhausted. “It’s not a ship. What do you want?”

  She climbed up the rest of the way and crossed her arms. “You never struck me as the brooding type, Major.”

  Pete turned away and looked back to the ocean. “I’m going over a few things in my head.” He’d gotten a little time to talk to command, up in the Orca. Their portable radios weren’t powerful enough to get through from the ground. “Soon as we’re back on a ship it’s hot wash time.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about losing your job,” she replied. “All things considered…”

  Pete tried not to laugh. “That’s the last thing I care about. Hell, I doubt I’m that lucky. Home with the family sounds mighty good, right about now. No, being honest, I’m worried about the—call it a stage three, I guess. I don’t know if you saw the thing, Agent Guglik. Round through its skull, and it got up and shook it off. Bounced around like a damn basketball and tore my men apart. We need to figure out a way to fight back fast because bullets aren’t going to win this war. Not against that.”

  She nodded. “Three bombers seem like a good start, Major. If we can’t shoot them, we’ll burn the damn things.”

  “Maybe so,” he agreed, but at the same time, he wondered. Would that be enough? Even at this moment, was a singed figure staggering out of the burnt-out warehouse, guiding its following swarm ever-onward?

  Guglik must have noticed his reverie, because she murmured, “I’ll leave you be,” and left.

  The day deepened into afternoon, and all the while Pete watched and thought. After a time, he stopped tallying the losses in his head and started thinking about the future. He considered plans and tactics, wondering how low an Orca could go and not worry about a zulu-thrown spear.

  He was so deep in thought that the gently-cleared throat to his side startled him. Pete jumped, then turned to see the Marine who’d come up the stairs. He saluted the younger man, noting his rank—Lance Corporal—and last name, LoPresto. “At ease, son. What can I do for you?”

  “Top wanted me to let you know, dinner will be ready shortly, Major.”

  At the thought of food, Pete’s stomach clenched a bit. He’d missed lunch, brooding. “Roger that, LoPresto. I’ll be down directly.” The lance corporal saluted him, but there was a reluctance in his movements. “Is there something else?”

  “Sir, if I may—what’s next?”

  Pete blinked, a bit surprised that the rumor mill hadn’t filled in the gaps. Everyone in the cargo bay during the Orca’s trip to the island had been in their own little world, he supposed. “Georgia will be here in a few days. We’re headed for Panama. Command has another ship waiting for us on the other side of the Canal Zone, in the Gulf, to receive us and the cargo. We’ll do the transfer, then we’re hitching a ride to Galveston. Sounds like the helium mission went well. They’ve got all the gas we’ll need to start bombing those gray bastards back to Hell.”

  “And after that, sir?” LoPresto wondered aloud.

  Pete took one last look at the sun as it started to settle into the Pacific and ran his hands down his face. He cringed at the sweat-sticky feel of his skin and the rasp of beard stubble. I must be a sight. Time to get it together, Major.

  He got to his feet. “Charlie Mike, Marine. We continue mission.”

  May 13, 2026

  Southwestern Illinois

  Z-Day + 3,129

  More mouths to feed meant more hands to work, but good grief was it back-breaking.

  Sandy straightened, planted the base of his hoe in the dirt, and rubbed the tight balls of quivering muscle in the small of his back. They’d called this sort of farming ‘stoop labor’ back in the day, and for good reason.

  The corn was coming in well. The tasseled tops brushed his knees as he worked his way through the rows, hacking at the ever-present weeds and plucking grubs and grasshoppers off the shucks whenever he could grab them. These he half-crushed and stuffed into a stained canvas messenger bag he wore on one hip. One of the books on organic farming he’d found and read had said that they made for good protein in a pinch. They’d had some lean times, over the years, but thankfully they’d never gotten to that point.

  The small clutch of pigs they kept penned by the old building didn’t seem to mind them, though. They’d found the piglets during a salvage run to a farm up north, winter of the second year. It was anyone’s guess how they’d avoided becoming a meal for the infected, but none of the survivors were about to look a gift horse—or pig, for that matter—in the mouth. The things were a pain in the ass, but they’d eat anything and gave the survivors plenty of meat to last through the winters.

  Sandy adjusted his grip on the hoe and surveyed the small garden. Not bad, he thought. Not bad at all.

  The clot of parked cars at the marina had helped form the basis of the wall, though they’d expanded it as time went on. The raised-up mound Pat had built his dealership on was the center of the settlement now, and the three walls around it encapsulated a goodly chunk of the surrounding ground and ran down to the river. They had the occasional swimmer pop up and out of the water—and hadn’t that been a shock, the first time it had happened—but the stakes and tripwires they’d put in place were enough to slow down the intermittent arrivals until someone could deal with them. The current, Sandy and Jason had judged after some debate, was swift enough to break up any large groups that happened upon the
shore. The few singletons they did get were the luck of the draw more than anything else. Going on nine years after the outbreak, it was good enough. He liked to think that Pat would have been happy with how things had turned out. His vision had started the ball rolling, after all.

  A sudden shout came to his ears. He turned and saw Jason waving from the watchtower—really an old deer stand—on top of the showroom. When he saw that he had Sandy’s attention, he pointed to the west.

  He followed Jason’s finger, shading his eyes with one hand. For a long moment, he didn’t know what the other man was pointing to, but when he finally saw it, Sandy’s breath caught in his throat.

  The early summer sky was the lightest robin’s egg blue, with not a cloud in sight. The white shape in the distance didn’t qualify. It moved far too fast, and against the wind.

  “What is it?”

  Sandy looked away from the blur in the sky. Mason Vieby had grown into a skinny, rangy version of his father, and the kid already towered over Sandy by a couple of inches. If any high schools had been left, the basketball coaches would have drooled over him.

  “I don’t know, hand me your binoculars.”

  He adjusted them to his eyes, then scanned the sky until he found the object again. Zoomed in, he could make out details that he couldn’t with the naked eye, but it was heading in this direction. His naked eye might be more than enough, in not too long a time.

  “It’s a blimp.” Awestruck wonder filled his voice. It was like no blimp he’d ever seen, but it was recognizable even so. A sleek gondola beneath it glittered in the sun, and as he tweaked the binoculars, red and white stripes and a field of stars on blue came into focus. Strangely, the tall letters to the front of the flag looked ever-so-slightly off, as though they’d been spray painted on. USMC, he read. Marines?

  “What’s a blimp?”

  Sandy grinned under the binoculars, though he knew Mason couldn’t see him. “A way of flying through the air, big guy.”