These Dead Lands: Immolation

by Stephen Knight

  “Cease fire!” the lieutenant shouted. “Take aimed shots, and watch what you’re shooting at. Our guys are going to have to retreat toward us!”

  “Mother of God!” one of the men down the line screamed.

  Hastings looked up and saw a wave of reekers splashing over the top of the container. Thousands poured over the sandbag fighting positions, revetments, and machine-gun positions. It was a tsunami of cannibalistic corpses, and they surged toward the soldiers massing around the ladders with single-minded determination. The men on the container wall didn’t have a chance, and several of them apparently knew it because they charged for the ladders. One of the ladders fell with four soldiers on it and a zombie hanging onto the end. The ghoul was flung forty feet into the rear area, where it was hit by a deluge of rounds. Hastings saw Vogler go down, fighting until the zombies covered him in a heap.

  Reekers walked off the container wall by the dozens. The men forming the defensive line opened, and Hastings joined them. Dead bodies jerked and fell as bullets tore through their heads, and within a minute, the highway behind the barricade was covered with corpses. But more and more zombies came, not just dozens but hundreds. They’d already torn through the men on top of the barricade, and they were hungry for more. Those few soldiers who had managed to evacuate the container wall staggered past the line. Hastings saw that more than a few of them had been bitten. Their faces were slack. They knew what lay in store for them.

  “Getting kind of tough to hold them back, sir!” the lieutenant shouted.

  “Fall back. Ten meters!” Hastings responded. “Ten meters, now!”

  The line of defenders began to retreat one step at a time. Hastings burned through his mag, ejected it, and slapped in another. He fired at a zombie only feet away, and the barrel of his rifle actually went off inside the corpse’s mouth, flowing out the back of its head. A runner came surging toward him, and he capped it twice. It might have still gotten to him if it hadn’t stumbled over a body on the ground. He fired a third round into it, and the corpse went still.

  More reekers poured over the top of the barricade, an endless progression of horrible death. The defenders were pushed back another ten feet, even as the zombies’ bodies began to stack up in front of them. Hastings realized they were going to be overrun if something didn’t give.

  The GAUs on the Strykers opened up then, raking the oncoming mob with a fusillade of .50-caliber rounds. Limbs were blown off, heads exploded, and body cavities were torn open. The air was full of ripping thunder and pulped viscera. The thudding impacts of corpses and body parts hitting the deck were offset by the moans of the dead and the screams of the living. Another Shadow UAV raced across the sky, the sound of its propeller engine lost in the din of the combat.

  More heavy weapons joined the fray, vehicle-mounted M2s, M240s, and MK19s. The dead went down a dozen at a time, only to be replaced by two dozen more. Hastings and the defensive line were driven back another thirty feet, leaving several of their men screaming beneath piles of zombies. Hastings took down four more reekers, stepped back to avoid a charging screamer that was killed by the lieutenant, then popped another four. The bodies fell atop one another, and more ghouls, many of them slick with fresh blood, crawled over those, hissing and moaning. The voices of the reekers were giving the noise from the big guns some competition.

  From the corner of his left eye, Hastings could see the Stryker gunner working over the advancing reekers. Torrents of expended cartridges rained off the truck roof as the soldier depressed his weapon as far as it would go, raking zombies only ten feet in front of the armored vehicle. The Stryker began to reverse, pulling away from the horde.

  Something grabbed Hastings from behind, almost hauling him off his feet. He twisted, trying to bring his rifle to bear. Ballantine, wide eyed with panic, had a gorilla grip on the back of Hastings’s harness as he half dragged, half pulled Hastings along behind him. Fifty-caliber rounds snapped past their heads, and Hastings could hear the fat rounds slapping into bodies right behind him. Ballantine screamed something Hastings didn’t catch.

  “What?” Hastings shouted back. “What?”

  “Are you fucking trying to commit suicide out here, sir?” Ballantine yelled.

  In that moment, Hastings realized he had been fighting alone. The rest of the men had fallen back to the vehicles. Hastings had remained behind, and Ballantine had risked his neck to save him.

  “Sorry, Carl,” Hastings said.

  Ballantine jerked Hastings over to the MRAP and practically threw him inside. Hastings sprawled across the soldiers already sitting in the armored vehicle, and they hauled him farther inside. He turned so he could look out the open hatch, and he saw Ballantine blasting away at reekers as the ramp slowly rose on its hydraulic rams. Ballantine leapt backward and tumbled into the truck as the ramp closed. The MRAP began rolling forward, leaving the barricade behind.

  The container walls had fallen within the space of a few hours.

  *

  Tharinger sat in the back of the armored Humvee. Hartman was driving, and Slater slouched in the front passenger seat. The vehicle was part of a small column headed back to the Gap from the northern barricades on Interstate 81.

  Tharinger was sorry to leave the container walls. Everything had been quiet up north. It had been boring, and more than just a little hot, but Tharinger didn’t mind sitting around and doing nothing for a while. It gave him time to think about how he was going to get back to Colorado. He was an only child, so he worried deeply about his parents. They were strong people, but they had lived in the same residential neighborhood since the 1980s. His father owned a Dodge dealership, and his mother was a bookkeeper for a local fast-food franchise. They didn’t have much in the way of survival skills. His father even sucked mightily at playing Left 4 Dead 2. But Tharinger had heard the vicinity around Colorado Springs was being hardened, and the 4th Infantry was still on post at Fort Carson. He hoped that meant his folks had some protection.

  He and Reader were from the same neighborhood, and had known each other all their lives. But whereas Tharinger was driven by a deep desire to get back to Colorado and see to his family, Reader remained distant and remote. Tharinger knew it was because Reader had shot the lady on the road, but that had been a simple mistake. Tharinger thought he probably would have done the same thing if he’d been on security instead of trying to clear the road. The woman had looked like a freaking reeker. Reader couldn’t be blamed for shooting her, and no one did blame him. The only person who wanted to hang Reader out to dry was Reader. It pissed Tharinger off that Reader wasn’t all that interested in getting back home, even though his mother lived alone with Reader’s younger brother, who was a general fuck-off. Reader should’ve been chomping at the bit to get back to his family, but he was too wrapped up in self-pity and blame. Tharinger had resigned himself to the notion that the only way he was going to get home was to get there by himself.

  Tharinger’s scheming had been cut short when word was passed up that all the other barricades had fallen. Within minutes, the company commander ordered the troops to get off the wall and to pack up their shit. They were returning to the Gap. With the other barriers overrun, the company stood more than a fair chance of being cut off.

  After clearing out, Tharinger and the rest of the fire team sped down the cleared sections of I-81 on their way back to the Gap. There was some talk that an element of reekers might intercept them as they passed by the barricaded bridges, but when Tharinger questioned Slater about it, the Special Forces soldier didn’t seem unduly concerned. He just told Tharinger to get ready to get on the M2 if things suddenly went sideways.

  The convoy didn’t make any contact, other than with some individual zombies that slunk through the motionless traffic on I-81. The trucks in front pretty much took them out by running them over, leaving them spread out across the clear travel lane the troops had made days earlier when transporting the containers to the north. The column exited the highway at Fisher A
venue and turned west. Groups of a half dozen or more reekers were shambling about, apparently having gotten past the barricades set up the west.

  Tharinger dutifully manned the M2 in the Humvee’s turret, but by the time his Humvee got to where the action was, the zombies had been turned into speedbumps. Tharinger looked to his left. Well down the street, clusters of reekers headed toward them. Large clusters. Like thousands.

  “Hey, you guys see this shit?” he shouted down into the Humvee.

  “Don’t sweat it, kid,” Slater said. “We’re going the other way.”

  “Yeah, but they’re headed in the same direction we are!”

  “Well, look, we can always let you off here to handle it,” Slater said. “Though you might want to come back to the Gap with the rest of us, so we can take care of them together. What do you say? Should we stop?”

  “I’m good,” Tharinger replied.

  He swung the .50 around and oriented it on the oncoming zombies even as the Humvee accelerated away. Man, I need to get out of here.

  *

  Ballantine stepped inside the barracks building. Curtis and Josh were using the bunk beds at the front of the building like a homemade gym set, leaping from upper bunk to upper bunk.

  Curtis spotted him first. “Dad!” He dropped from a top bunk and ran to him.

  Ballantine had just enough time to lift his M4 up to shoulder level before the boy was wrapped around him. Josh followed a moment later, and the double impacts of young energetic boys drove Ballantine back a step.

  “Easy there, guys,” he said, smiling.

  “Carl!” Kay called, hurrying over to him. She was carrying an M4, which he found a bit hilarious.

  He reached out for her with his left arm and drew her in for a quick hug. “Hello, family,” he said. “Everyone okay?”

  “We’re good,” Kay said, stepping away and wrinkling her nose. “You smell terrible.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not like I have an office job.”

  Kay looked over his shoulder. “Where are the other guys?”

  “I heard they’re all back, and they’re on the walls, except for Slater, Tharinger, and Hartman. They’re on their way back.”

  Diana walked toward him, leading Kenny by the hand. The boy seemed content enough to follow.

  Ballantine told her, “Hastings is in the tactical operations center with the rest of the command staff. As far as I know, all of our guys are all right.” He looked around and saw that almost everyone was armed, with several civilians keeping lookout. He nodded to Everson. “Hey there, Devil Dog. I guess everything’s been secure?”

  “For the moment,” Everson said. “What are you guys doing back?”

  “We were overrun,” Ballantine said. “It was fall back to the Gap or become the blue-plate special.”

  Everson grunted. “Okay.”

  “We’ll talk about that in a few minutes. I’m supposed to be on the wall with the rest of the guys, but I decided to stop by here first. I just wanted to make sure everyone was all right.”

  “Oh, of course,” Everson said, smiling thinly. “You do what you gotta do, Sergeant. Check in with me on the way out.” With that, the old Marine walked toward the front door and stepped outside, holding his rifle in a loose grip.

  Ballantine unslung his weapon and leaned it against a nearby bunk frame. He grabbed both his boys in a big hug. “You boys being good?” he asked, kissing their faces.

  “I have, but Josh has been bad,” Curtis said.

  “I have not!” Josh glared at his younger brother.

  Ballantine laughed. “All your sins are forgiven.”

  “Including the time I burned the couch with a lighter?” Josh asked.

  Ballantine sighed and shook his head. “Well, no. Not that.”

  He scanned the barracks area, noting that everything seemed to be secure. Everyone except the kids looked tense, but that was to be expected.

  He picked up his rifle again. “Babe, I got to git,” he told Kay. “You check to make sure the MBITR batteries are charged up?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, they’re good.”

  “Put another set in right now, and get the old battery on the charger. I want to make sure you have enough, because if we get pushed out of here, there won’t be a lot of opportunity to charge them up again.”

  “Okay. I will.”

  Ballantine bent down and hugged his boys again. “You listen to your mom and do what Mister Everson tells you. All right?”

  “We will,” Josh said.

  “Daddy, don’t go,” Curtis said, with a pout.

  Ballantine ruffled the boy’s hair. “I have to, little man. I have to. But I’ll be back.” He straightened and studied his wife’s face. Her eyes were a little washed out from the never-ending stress, but otherwise, she looked as good to him as she ever had. Ballantine reached out to touch her face.

  She grabbed his hand and brushed her lips against his rough knuckles. “You do what you have to do, but remember where you’re needed most.”

  “No chance I’ll forget that,” Ballantine said. “I don’t know when I’ll get back. This is probably going to be an all-hands kind of thing, but I’ll check in over the radio if I can’t see you in a few hours. All right?”

  “Where will you be?” Kay asked.

  Ballantine pointed toward the barrack’s left wall, toward the sound of gunfire. “Main gate container wall. I’ll be working with the Cav guys, probably in the relief rotation.” He grinned. “But don’t come looking for me, all right?”

  Kay smiled back. “I won’t.”

  Ballantine looked past her at Diana. “How’s everything on Kenny Control?”

  She regarded him coolly and gave him a shrug. “Nothing’s changed.”

  “Got enough cheese?”

  “We’re good to go on that. Thanks.”

  “All right.” Ballantine turned back to Kay. “I’m off. Try to relax as much as you can. We’re going to get through this.”

  A few minutes later, he joined Everson on the front stoop. The sounds of combat still raged to the south.

  “So, I’m guessing things didn’t go so well,” the older man said.

  “We lost a lot of guys,” Ballantine said after the door had closed behind him. “They piled up on us quicker than I thought they would, and we had a little bit of smoke issue from a fire that started. They were able to use it as cover.”

  Everson frowned. “They intentionally used it as cover?”

  Ballantine shook his head. “No, no. Nothing like that. It just worked out that way with the way the wind was blowing. That’s all. Listen, we have a lot more firepower here at the Gap than we did on the barricades, but I’m not really counting on that to hold. You guys really do need to get ready to bug out at a moment’s notice. I can’t guarantee you that one of us will be able to come back and get you squared away, so you might have to take whatever steps necessary to stay secure.”

  “I know,” Everson said. “You hang onto that MBITR and try to give us some advance warning if you can. And if our circumstances change, I’ll try to get word to you as to our disposition, but really, our only chance is to make it to the train.” He pointed at the van parked nearby. “Because that thing’s hardly an MRAP. If the train gets shut down, I’ll lead the folks into the game lands to the north, but that’s only going to be a delaying tactic. If we’re lucky, we might be able to find a place to go to ground and hope the horde keeps moving west. I figure if they can’t see us, they won’t be hanging around for long. They’ll want to keep moving to find something to eat.”

  Ballantine nodded. “That sounds like a plan. You know of any special spots?”

  “State Game Land 264 has some cabins next to Bear Creek. They’re illegal, I think, but I know where they are, deep inside the tree cover, pretty much just a collection of shacks. If they’re unoccupied, they’ll do for the time being. We’ll let you know over the radio.”

  Ballantine nodded. “Roger that.” He extended his hand,
and the older man shook it. “Look after my family as much as you can, Mister Everson. Please.”

  “I will,” Everson promised.

  *

  “Well, the barricades were a good idea, Hastings,” Victor said.

  “They were, sir. But the numbers are just too much for us to handle.”

  Victor nodded. “I know. It was a crapshoot from the get-go, but it had to be tried. If we’d been able to contain the dead for longer, it would have helped give us more time to dig deeper trench lines, but no plan survives contact with the enemy.”

  “So what’s the plan now, sir?” Hastings asked, looking around the TOC. Everyone was busy, but all the soldiers and the few civilians in the center shared that pinched, stressed expression that told him they knew they were in for a hell of a night.

  “No substantial changes. When the horde to the east gets in range, we’ll start hitting them with artillery to try to break up their advance. A lot of the barriers will divert them into the woods, at least initially, but we can expect those to eventually fail. The train is ready for movement, and we’ve already relocated Senator Cornell and his wife to one of the passenger coaches we scrounged up. He didn’t want to go, but he’ll be safer there.”

  And also able to bug out if things go to hell. Hastings kept that thought to himself and asked, “What about the rest of the civilians, sir?”

  “We’ll move them there once the vehicles have been loaded up. We’re already lifting MRAPs with cranes, along with some HEMT tankers and gun trucks. The plan is to use the cranes at the Naval facility to offload so we can start the road movement to Bragg, and then the train continues on to the west. We’ll start moving personnel tomorrow morning if things begin to deteriorate.”

  “Are you thinking we’ll be able to hold out, sir?”

  Victor studied Hastings for a long moment. “What do you think, Captain?”