Winter Apocalypse: Zombie Crusade V

by J. W. Vohs

  “Hiram?” He could tell by the sound of her voice that Fort Wayne was in trouble.

  “I’m here; what’s the word?”

  “Part of the wall is gone; we’re under attack by God knows how many hunters. We tried to blow the bridge but there’s something wrong with the detonator, and we’re in the middle of an all-out blizzard. We’re moving ahead with the evacuation, but I don’t know if we can get most people out of here before we’re overrun. I’m not even sure we should try. I’m open to suggestions here.”

  Hiram felt like he’d been kicked in the gut. “You’re being attacked by the hunters? How many are there? Maybe the ones that’ve been hanging around across the river were attracted by the noise of the blast and are just taking advantage of the situation—”

  “I guess I forgot to mention the helicopters,” Deb interrupted.

  Hiram closed his eyes and willed his mind to remain calm. “Are you moving everyone to the river’s edge?” He pictured the fleet of small boats and canoes that were always waiting in their designated location.

  “We’re trying; we’re doing the best we can,” Deb answered, her voice rising with emotion. “People will probably die if we do this. The weather keeps getting worse. We have blinding snow and the winds are picking up; anybody who gets wet will probably die.”

  “Listen, Deb,” Hiram explained evenly, “most, if not all of you, will die when those hunters force the wall. You’re gonna have to do this. You CAN do this; I know you can.”

  “I hope you’re right, but I need to talk to Carter right away. Jack needs to know what’s going on too, and I can’t stay here by the radio much longer.”

  “I’ll find Carter,” Hiram promised, “and you go check on the progress of the evacuation. We’ll talk again in twenty minutes.”

  Hiram jogged straight to Luke’s cabin. He figured Jack would be there, and he needed to inform the leader of the Fort Wayne settlement about the unfolding disaster. He also knew that if Carter wasn’t by Jack’s side, his best friend would know where to find him. Aware of Luke’s condition, Hiram knocked lightly as he let himself in. “Sorry to bother you,” he apologized as he scanned the room. David and Gracie were sitting by Luke’s bedside while he slept; Jack and Carter were at opposite sides of the kitchen table. Hiram swallowed and tried to sound nonchalant. “Jack, Carter, can I talk to you outside for a moment?”

  Both men sensed trouble. Jack stood up first. “Sure thing,” he replied. “David’s gonna hang around here for a while,” he made eye contact with his brother, “right?”

  “I’ll be here,” David assured him. “I still want to talk to Luke when he wakes up.”

  Jack and Carter exchanged a quick glance that begged the same silent question, What would David do if Luke asked for his help to live on as one of the flesh-eaters, far away from other people? Carter walked over and put one hand on Gracie’s shoulder and the other on David’s. “We’ll be in David’s tent if ya need us; let us know if he wakes up.”

  Hiram considered mentioning that they needed to get to the radio asap, but he didn’t want to alarm Gracie and David. “Gracie, I hope you know that you can count on me if you need anything. Any of our Utah boys will tell you that Luke is a part of us—the best part of us.” Gracie nodded, and silent tears slid down her cheeks. Hiram didn’t wait for any other response; he held open the door and motioned for Jack and Carter to follow him outside.

  Carter was about to say something, but Hiram held up his hand. “Just listen. I’ve been talking to Deb; Fort Wayne is under attack and evacuating. Someone on the inside blew a hole in the wall, and choppers have been leading the infected—“

  “They need to blow the bridge!” Jack nearly shouted.

  “The detonator isn’t working,” Hiram quickly explained. “It was probably sabotaged.”

  Carter’s heart was already racing when he broke into a sprint. “I gotta talk to Deb . . .”

  Jack was ready to run off after him, but Hiram grabbed him by the arm. “There’s more.”

  “Could it really get any worse?” Jack groaned. “This is all my fault; how could I have left them so vulnerable?”

  “If it’s your fault then it’s my fault too, and everybody else who didn’t see this coming. We can lay blame later, but right now we need to figure out how to get some help up there. Deb says they’re in the middle of an all-out blizzard. They’ve been evacuating to the river, but the weather is just about as dangerous as the invasion.”

  “Barnes must have been plotting to hit Fort Wayne at the same time he moved on Vicksburg, or maybe it was just a knee-jerk reaction to his defeat here. At least his Blackhawks won’t be much use when they start icing up.” Jack couldn’t believe he’d been so blind; he should have known that Barnes would have more than one plan for an attack on Indiana. “We need to get our asses back up there.”

  “Agreed,” Hiram cautioned, “but we have to be smart about it. We can’t let Barnes draw us in to a trap.”

  “I’m not so sure he hasn’t done that already,” Jack replied bitterly.

  Inside the radio room in Fort Wayne, Deb nearly wept with relief when she heard Carter’s voice come over the receiver. “Hey sweetie, this is yer husband speakin’.”

  “Did Hiram tell you what’s going on up here?” she asked as calmly as possible.

  “Yeah, and I got here as fast as I could. Been any changes in the last few minutes?”

  “Nothing new that I’m aware of—the evacuation needs to move faster though,” Deb responded. “We gotta take the river-route, Carter, in this weather.”

  A brief silence ensued before Carter gently explained. “This is a military operation now, babe. You can’t focus on the people you might lose along the way; you gotta complete the mission. You understand what I’m sayin’?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know how well I can do that; what about the old people and the kids? Some people just can’t move fast enough, and I don’t want to leave anyone behind.”

  “Ya save the group, Deb, as many people as ya can. Kids come first, if ya can manage it, but ya can’t endanger the group. I know that sounds harsh, but war ain’t ever fair. Ya just do the best ya can.”

  “So I leave the elderly behind?” she sounded horrified.

  “No,” Carter carefully continued. “I’m sayin’ that even the old folks would want ya to make sure you get every single kid to safety. Deb, I wish to hell I was with ya right now, but ya always know what needs to be done, with or without me. I never met nobody with more common sense.”

  “I just wish you here, Carter. And tell David that Christy is out at the ranch with her mom. They’re in lockdown mode. Redders and everybody at the Castle secured themselves underground in the bunker. There was a helicopter and the Castle was overrun about the same time we were. I think the whole area is under attack, but if the folks out in the county can stay quiet and out of sight . . .”

  “I don’t know ‘bout that, babe.”

  “I don’t either, but it’s what I have to believe right now. I’m also going to believe that Chuck and his pilots can fly our Blackhawks out of here. I’m going to send them your way as soon as they’re ready to go.”

  Just then, Ted Simmons, chief railroad operator for the settlement, burst into the small radio room and gestured to Deb for the microphone. “Carter, I have three troop cars hooked up to a locomotive about half a mile west of here. The river bank’s only twenty or thirty meters from the tracks there. You want me to try to get the kids on that train and head to you guys or Utah?”

  Carter didn’t reply for a long moment, trying to consider the feasibility of the suggestion as he pictured the terrain Ted was describing. Before he could say anything, he heard Deb in the background.

  “You wanna take ‘em up there by boat?” she asked.

  “Just what I was gonna ask,” Carter added.

  “Yep, and I’ll take some of the parents along as guards, and as many Utah soldiers as we can scrape up too. We can use those mini-barges we�
��ve been using to transport grain. If the area’s overrun by hunters, we’ll just stay on the water, turn around, and rendezvous with the other evacuees. But I’m hoping we’ll have easy access to the trains.”

  “Okay,” Carter decided, “give yer plan a try unless Deb has any objections. And Ted, if ya get ‘em safely on that train, bring ‘em to Vicksburg. I’m purty sure we’re gonna have some worried parents down here.”

  “Will do, amigo. Here’s Deb again.”

  “Carter, your mom has Greta and Cassandra, I’m gonna send them on the train with Ted—I know Andi will appreciate that. I need to sign off now and help get these people on the boats. I love you, and I’ll try to get a message through after we get to our destination.” She knew not to mention Middle Bass by name over the radio; Carter knew where they were going.

  “Debbie, yer the strongest person I’ve ever known. Get our people outta there. And make sure my momma goes with Simmons on that train. I love ya too, baby.”

  Back at the cabin, Luke had broken into a cold sweat. He was shivering, but so deeply asleep that neither David nor Gracie could wake him. They wrapped him in blankets and watched helplessly as he twitched and jerked in seizure-like bursts every few minutes. Eventually the spasms stopped, and he settled into what appeared to be a restful slumber. His breathing was deep and even, and when Gracie listened to his heartbeat it was strong and regular.

  In his mind, Luke had been trapped in a cell that kept getting smaller and smaller until he was being crushed on all sides by iron bars. He struggled against the pressure until he suddenly expanded and broke free. He’d become bigger and stronger in an instant—strong enough to shatter his metal prison as if it had been made of paper-thin glass. He roared in delight. He’d never felt so powerful and alive. He scanned his surroundings and saw nothing but emptiness; then an uneasiness slowly crept over him as he sensed that something dangerous was watching. He turned around to find several alpha hunters a few feet away, studying him and snapping their jaws. He felt a surge of power in his chest, and he expanded again. Now he towered over the hunters, and they ran away in fear.

  A distant hum caught Luke’s attention, and he cocked his head to listen. It was music, and it called to him. He walked toward the sound. When he got a bit closer he recognized Gracie’s voice, but he couldn’t quite make out what she was singing. A large window appeared to his left, and he could see several deer standing together by a thicket of small trees and shrubs. For an instant he was torn—he didn’t know whether to follow Gracie’s voice or leap through the window to make a feast of the wild game. The hesitation made him question himself, and who or what he had become. Suddenly Gracie was standing before him in her wedding dress, radiating total love and acceptance. She bent down and picked up a large, ornate mirror. She raised it slowly and held it up high in front of her. Luke quickly turned away, afraid of what he would see in his own reflection. He knew what would be there—the coal black eyes of a heartless predator. He forced himself to confront the mirror, resigned to his monstrous fate. He was surprised to see his normal human face staring back at him.

  CHAPTER 6

  Deb made one last transmission before packing up the radio, turning her full attention to finalizing the evacuation, and abandoning the fort. She contacted Christy and the others out at Trudy’s horse ranch. “We’re deep in Alpha 2 evacuation mode; whoever bombed the wall also managed to sabotage the explosives wired to the bridge. We can’t hold this place.”

  Christy looked around the room at her mom and the rest of the people gathered by the radio. They’d been discussing their options since the first call from Deb about the trouble in Fort Wayne. Everyone at the ranch understood what they were going to have to do. Christy was five months pregnant, her mom was a fifty-five year-old housewife, Vickie was a doctor, and her husband a gentle giant who avoided fights when he could. Teenagers Jade and Tyler were with them, and four kids under the age of twelve were counting on the adults to take care of them. They also had Chewy, a beagle with a heart of gold. He’d saved the kids once before on the journey from Cleveland, and now it looked like he might have the chance to do it again on a return trip down the Maumee.

  “Deb, we’ll follow your lead and see you at the HD.” There were several canoes hidden at the nearby farm on the St. Joe, and she knew that Deb would understand that “HD” meant the Hosey Dam on the east side of town. Jack and Carter had tried to ensure that everyone, even newcomers to the settlement, had a basic understanding of the regional geography and could locate several key landmarks that could be utilized as rendezvous points.

  “No way,” Deb declared. “Not in your condition, in the middle of a blizzard, with thousands of hunters prowling this entire area. Stay put unless you have to run.”

  “You know we can’t do that. Even if we’re not under attack tonight, we’ll be sitting ducks out here tomorrow. Or the next day. Besides, we know that river; hell, even the kids know it better than any of you down there. We’re going to guide you, blizzard and hunters be damned.”

  Deb didn’t know what to say. She had known Christy for years as David’s girlfriend, and the past three months as a sister. No, she thought, that wasn’t quite right. She knew Christy as only soldiers at war can know one another, with a love that can never be fully explained, though it’s certainly one of the most powerful bonds in the world.

  “You still there?” Christy pressed.

  Deb finally shook herself out of the brain-freeze she was languishing in and made a decision. “Yeah, I’m still here. Listen, I don’t have the time or energy for any of that code talk. The hunters assaulting us are all coming over the bridge from downtown. We don’t have any reports of attacks along the north wall. The Castle is four miles southwest of where you are; I think you can drive to Fort Wayne. Pick up a few canoes at Johnny Appleseed Park and motor down to the dam. If you run into any problems along the way you can always head back to that farmhouse on the river.”

  The radio was silent for a few seconds as Christy thought the suggestion through. “Good idea, Deb. We’ll drive to the park; I think you’re right: the hunters can’t be everywhere at once. Heck, we’ve killed most of the infected within a thirty mile radius of the Castle; all the helicopters in the world can’t round up the dead.”

  Deb smiled as she considered the possibility that the choppers could do just that; after all, only five months ago they’d been certain that they were facing George Romero-style, certifiably dead zombies. “Yeah, I think the Blackhawks are working with just what they could gather from the immediate area; there were thousands of them just across the river not long ago. They’ve been wandering away, chasing stray cattle, but they probably didn’t get far.” She felt a slight sense of hope for the first time since she’d heard about the breach in the wall. “If Barnes had been moving a new horde in this direction, our scouts would have picked up the activity. I’m pretty sure this is a knee-jerk reaction to what happened in Vicksburg.”

  “All right then,” Christy replied. “We’ll be on the road in a few minutes, and with any luck, we’ll see you within the next hour and a half.”

  Deb finished packing the mobile communications gear and bundled herself up for the cold. On her way to the docks, she almost ran into Devon Ferguson herding a group of civilians to the boats.

  “Sorry,” she shouted, “I can only see about two feet in front of me. I don’t know how we’re going to know when everyone is loaded.”

  “I think we’ve got most of ‘em ready to go,” he yelled back. “We just need to get ‘em out on the water, and they’re loading pretty fast now.” The human shouts and screams, combined with the howls and snarls of the hunters fighting to force a path through the hole in the wall, had spurred on the evacuation in spite of the weather.

  Deb left the radio equipment with Devon; he said he would secure it with one of his injured soldiers before rejoining the fight at the wall. He told her that they’d lost a lot of good people and couldn’t hold out much longer.

/>   She tried not to think about Andi still fighting near the bridge. Time was not on their side, but Deb needed to determine the status of their own captured Blackhawks and the pilots they’d taken as prisoners. The eldest and most experienced of the group was a veteran warrant officer named Chuck, who’d earned the trust of Jack and the other leaders as he’d flown them to the Ohio River bridges when they’d set out to thwart Barnes’ invasion plans.

  Chuck had sworn his loyalty to Jack and the community, and had guaranteed the cooperation of the other airmen being held captive. Still, there was one big problem involving the prisoners that now fell squarely on Deb’s lean shoulders. The helicopter force had been led by a USAMRIID officer at the time of their capture, and virtually everyone in Fort Wayne believed the rogue soldier was a war criminal who should be executed for crimes against humanity. The pilots had flown their birds as ordered during the weeks and months following the outbreak, most of them under the mistaken belief that Barnes was conducting his missions under the authority of whatever remained of the U.S. government. Those who’d begun to question the morality and constitutionality of what they saw the general doing to the groups of survivors they found continued to fly because they were convinced their families would be tortured and killed if they didn’t. Basically, the pilots were being forced to support Barnes’ operations, while the officer now in Jack’s custody was designing and enforcing policies of murder and enslavement.