by JJ Zep
There was a lot of activity going on beyond the prison walls. Jojo could hear soldiers being drilled, orders being yelled, heavy machinery being moved in preparation for the assault tomorrow.
The plan Harrow had laid out was straight out of the text book – a dawn assault with a mortar barrage laying the groundwork for armor and infantry. Except the Corporation had no serviceable armor, no tanks and very few armored cars that would still run. In their stead they’d be using bulldozers, ultra effective in clearing a path in cramped fighting conditions. Then would come the infantry, with hand pumps spewing kerosene, their officers equipped with flare guns to get a blaze going. The rickety shacks of the shantytown were tinder dry. It was going to be a massacre.
thirty
The twenty-mils had opened up again, firing in prolonged bursts that had to be chewing through whatever ammo Morales had stockpiled. Charlie heard a series of closely spaced explosions that sounded like 60-mil mortars. He jogged along the sidewalk, edged along the flank of a long-since looted Circle K convenience store. A yellow school bus stood askew at the curb on shredded tires, all of its windows shattered. Charlie dropped into a crouch at the back end of the convenience store, peered over the low chain-link fence across a garbage-strewn parking lot. He could see the back of the Morales compound a block away, make out the gunner on the roof, directing fire down 4th Street.
It left him with a dilemma. In order to reach the compound they’d have to cross 100 yards of open tarmac. The gunner was firing away from them, but what if he spotted them and mistook them for Z’s? The 20-mil would tear them apart before they’d taken even a few paces.
“Got any ideas?” he asked Wackjob.
“Yeah,” Wackjob said. “Let’s hightail it out of here and head north.”
“That’s exactly what I plan on doing,” Charlie said. “But first we’ve got to get a message to Morales, let him know what’s coming. They try to make a stand here and they’re done for.”
Wackjob looked towards the compound. “Yeah, and if we break cover that twenty is going chop us up so fine the Z’s will think we’re the blue plate special. Meatloaf with ketchup.”
He was right, of course. Charlie had been thinking the same thing. He scanned across the vacant lot, hoping that some idea might occur to him. It was then that he heard the sound of an engine starting up, now another. Figures darted across the compound running with heads bowed. Now the gate rolled back and a beige pickup roared through the gap, hit the tarmac and veered left, leaving rubber on the pavement. Another couple of vehicles, identical to the first, followed and turned right. Charlie could see the gunners standing up in the back of each pickup, each encased in a protective cage of steel mesh.
“Shit!” he said as the first vehicle raced along the road in their direction. Morales had sent out his Toyota gunships, no doubt in an attempt to flank the Z’s, to catch them in a pincher movement. That might have worked with a smaller group. With the numbers heading their way now, they were going to be swamped and overrun.
The Toyota blazed through the intersection and turned south.
Without even thinking about it, Charlie broke cover and ran into the middle of the road, directly into the vehicle’s path. The Toyota bore down on him, the gunner’s eyes widening as he swung the twenty. Charlie braced for the volley of cannon fire that would tear him apart, prepared to throw himself either left or right.
A shriek suddenly issued from the vehicle’s tires as the driver stood on the brakes, forcing the pickup into a slide, white smoke billowing from its undercarriage. The gunner was momentarily thrown off balance, his aim diverted. A line of bullet holes punched into the side of the yellow bus in a series of flat slaps. Charlie threw himself to the ground amidst the stink of burning rubber and cordite. He heard angry voices, Wackjob screaming obscenities and someone returning them in Spanish.
Charlie vaulted to his feet, oblivious to the layer of skin he’d removed from his elbow. He jogged towards the Toyota where Wackjob was going toe to toe with a tall man in a straw Stetson – Cowboy.
“We look like a bunch of fucking Z’s to you, dickwad?” Wackjob was shouting.
"Bajate a los chescos," Cowboy came back "Pinche pendeja.”
“Prick!”
“Puto!”
“Okay fellers,” Charlie said, getting in between them. “Let’s save the dick slinging contest for another time. Wackjob, stand down.”
“This beaner’s getting his ass kicked,” Wackjob snarled.
“Back the fuck up, I say.”
He placed the palm of his hand on Wackjob’s chest, backed him up a few paces. Then he turned towards Cowboy.
“Que pasa,” he said. “You remember me from Mexicali?”
Cowboy snorted. A rattle of gunfire from the compound drew his attention back in that direction.
“You’ve got to go back there,” Charlie said pointing. “There’s a shit load of Z’s coming up the road… muchos Z’s… we’ve got to go back to the compound to warn Senor Morales.”
Cowboy looked blankly back at him, shrugged then turned and headed back to the Toyota.
“For fuck’s sake!” Charlie shouted after him. “You’ve got to get back to the compound. You’ve got to –”
From behind Charlie, Wackjob rattled off a stream of Spanish that stopped Cowboy in his tracks. Charlie hadn’t even known that Wackjob could speak the language.
thirty one
“Impossible,” Tico Morales said. He leaned back in his chair and directed a stream of cigar smoke towards the ceiling of his office, in a way that suggested he didn’t have a care in the world.
“What’s impossible?” Charlie said. “That there is an army of Z’s heading up the road towards you? That you’re about to be overrun?”
Morales’ casual acceptance of the news, the maddening, semi-amused expression on his face, annoyed Charlie, but he kept his temper in check. Perhaps Morales did not yet understand the gravity of the situation.
“Impossible that we should leave here,” Morales said. “Where would we go?”
“To Pendleton,” Charlie said, this time allowing the frustration to show in his voice. “Where they have –”
“Where they have what, Lieutenant? What do they have at Pendleton that I don’t have here? As far as I’m aware, most of them are living in shacks, no? Most of them are starving.”
“Where they have men for one thing. And the kind of weaponry needed to fight off the number of Z’s we’ve got closing on us right now. I don’t think you appreciate the numbers you’re facing, senor.”
“Oh, I appreciate very well,” Morales said, still in that annoyingly condescending tone.
“I don’t think that you do.” Charlie levered himself out of the chair, placed his hands on Morales’ desk, leaned in. He could feel the veins throbbing at his temples, his stomach churning. Surely Morales couldn’t be this stupid?
He took a deep breath, steadied himself, spoke in a tone befitting a first grade teacher. “The Z’s you are seeing outside the compound right now are just the advance party,” he said. “A small contingent compared to those I saw from the lookout post at the school, a hundred thousand of the things at a rough guess, probably more. They’ll be here within the hour, senor. By then you and your people will want to be elsewhere.”
Morales ashed his cigar, a smile tugging at the sides of his mouth.
“You think I don’t know this? We have lookout posts here too, Lieutenant, and field glasses. Oh, and by the way, I think your numbers are out, by my estimation I would venture two hundred thousand at least.”
Charlie could almost feel his jaw dropping open. “You know what’s coming and still you refuse to move?”
Morales shrugged. “I think we can withstand them,” he said casually.
“You think you can….” The rage that had been building up in Charlie suddenly erupted. “Jesus, Morales tell me you’re not that stupid! You think you can withstand them? Let me give you the benefit of my limited military
expertise. You can’t. You’ll be overrun. You and your people will be eaten alive.”
“So be it then.” Morales sighed almost contentedly and in that moment Charlie knew that there was no getting through to the man.
“You’re crazy,” he said.
“Not so much crazy as a realist,” Morales said. “This has been coming for a long time, Lieutenant. You and your Corporation might think you can fight destiny, but you can’t. Every year that passes, every day, there are more of them and fewer of us. Can’t you see how this ends, Lieutenant? There’s no miracle waiting at the end of the rainbow. This does not end well for the human race.”
“So what? We just give up without a fight?”
Morales chuckled. “Not without a fight,” he said hoisting himself from his chair. “If it’s a fight they’ve come for, they will not be disappointed.” He turned towards Charlie.
“Now, what can I give you to aid your flight to Pendleton? Regrettably I do not have a vehicle to spare, but food, water, ammunition?”
“You can give me whatever ammo you have for this M-60,” Charlie said. “I’ve never run from a fight in my life. And I’m not about to start now.”
thirty two
Charlie jogged along the fence trying his best to ignore the dead faces on the other side, an army of corpses packed so tightly together that they resembled a single monstrous creature. In all of his time fighting Z’s he’d never seen this many of the things gathered together in one place. Earlier, he’d stood in the rooftop bunker and watched them creep forward to engulf the compound, stretching back for blocks on every side, stopping just short of the fence, waiting as dusk turned to dark, as a ripe moon skulked into the sky and cast down jaundiced light upon their number.
Waiting.
Waiting for what? For whom?
He didn’t have the answer to those questions, neither to the more obvious one. Why weren’t they attacking?
He reached the northeast corner, made a left and headed for the main gate where Wackjob was showing some of Morales men how to rig Claymores. He was fixing the deadly landmines to the perimeter fence at head height to the zombies, each held in place with a twist of wire. That was going to cause some damage, but hardly enough to make a dent in their numbers. Nothing short of a nuclear device was going to do that.
“How we looking?” Charlie said.
“Like Custer at Little Big Horn,” Wackjob replied, then shouted something in Spanish to one of the men working at the fence. “Claymores ain’t gonna slow them down for more than a few seconds, you know that don’t you?”
Charlie did know that. It was for the same reason that he’d instructed the twenty-mil gunners to stop firing into the massed Z’s. They were just wasting ammo. Never before had he felt so entirely helpless.
“Any ideas on why they ain’t attacking?” Wackjob continued.
“They seem to be waiting for something.”
“For what though? You notice how they ain’t even buzzing?”
Charlie had noticed, and while it was a blessing not to have to listen to that god-awful sound, it also meant that the I-Pod frequencies were useless against them. Charlie had long wondered how the frequencies worked. He thought he understood now. The Z buzz was some kind of collective language. Tap into that by mimicking their frequencies, and you could influence their behavior. But now something was overriding those frequencies. What, though? Something to do with the quick Z’s? Something else?
As if in reply, Charlie heard a series of clicks and saw a ripple running through the ranks of the zombies. Wackjob barked out a warning and the men at the fence backed quickly away, several of them raising their rifles as they did.
“Hold fire!” Charlie barked.
The Z’s weren’t advancing. They were shuffling aside, almost politely, allowing someone to pass between them.
A man pushed through the crowd and stood before the gate. He looked to have suffered severe facial burns, his skin blackened and melted, hair burnt to the roots. Charlie recognized him though. He was the one they’d rescued, the one who’d died in the infirmary, the one who they’d cremated in the intersection.
Except they hadn’t waited around to watch him burn, had they? Evidently, the rain had –
“You,” the man said, eyes fixing on Charlie. His voice sounded like the crackling of dry leaves. “You have something that belongs to me. Give it to me and you live.”
thirty three
Charlie looked through the fence at the monstrosity facing him. What was this thing? A zombie? Surely not. He’d never encountered a Z that could speak. But this man had been dead, his throat slashed, his heart flayed. There’d been no breath in his body when Wackjob had set him alight. If he was alive now, what else could he be? But… a talking Z? Charlie felt almost dizzy contemplating it.
“Her name is Skye,” the man said in his parchment dry voice. “She belongs to me.”
For a moment Charlie was too stunned to talk. Morales’ men were backing off, crossing themselves. Even Wackjob had fallen silent.
“Her name is Skye,” the man repeated.
“There’s nobody here by that name,” Charlie said. His voice sounded dreamlike and distant in his own ears. Was he really having a conversation with a Z?
“Bring her to me.”
“There’s nobody here called Skye,” Charlie repeated. But even as he spoke he knew that wasn’t the truth. The girl in the infirmary bed, that’s who this thing was talking about. That’s who it wanted.
“She carries a mark on her cheek,” the thing said. He raised his arm and pointed towards the westerly sky. Following his direction Charlie was at first confused as to what he was supposed to see. But then he picked it out. A trio of stars formed in a shallow V, almost identical to the three moles on the girl’s cheek. If Charlie had harbored any doubt before, he had none now. This man, this creature, was talking about the girl in the infirmary.
“Her name is Skye,” the man said for a third time.
“Listen, dipshit,” Wackjob cut in. “Maybe you don’t hear so good. Maybe that fire that turned you into a snow cone also melted your earwax. There ain’t no one here called Skye. Now how about you take your horde of carcasses and move on down the road.”
The man ignored him. “Her name is Skye,” he insisted.
“And my name is fuck you,” Wackjob responded.
From the corner of his eye, Charlie saw Wackjob swing up his carbine. “No!” he screamed. “Don’t!”
It was too late, a rattle of automatic fire spewed from the weapon and cut through the ranks of the Z’s, dropping several of them to the ground. Charlie half expected to see the talking Z among those who had fallen, but the man had disappeared back into their massed ranks. How had he managed to move so quickly?
In the next moment, a series of explosions detonated along the length of the fence and the rattle of small arms fire joined the din. The deeper thud of a twenty-mil added its voice, mortar hissed and then exploded among the zombies.
Charlie pressed the M-60 to his hip and depressed the trigger, holding it down until the hammer clicked empty, the full hundred rounds expended. His ears buzzing with the percussion of gunfire, his nostrils stinging with the tang of cordite, he slung the weapon over his shoulder and backed off, unholstering his nine-mil as he did.
“Fall back!” he shouted as the Z’s surged, clamoring over the bodies of their fallen comrades.
They closed on the fence like a black wave.
thirty four
Charlie sprinted across the yard, past the Toyota pickups standing askew and unmanned. For the briefest of moments he considered vaulting into the bed, getting on the twenty, opening up on the advancing horde. That would be suicide. In these numbers the Z’s would overrun him. He kept going, veering across the lot to the fallback position in the warehouse. Cowboy stood just outside, directing the fleeing men as they dropped to the ground and slid under the roll-down steel door to safety. From behind him, Charlie heard screaming. He stepped o
n the gas, tossed the M-60 aside, prepared to drop under the gate. And stopped.
Had anyone thought to bring the girl across from the infirmary? In the mad rush to get all of his people to safety, had Morales remembered his patient? Charlie was suddenly certain that he hadn’t.
“Inside!” Cowboy barked at him.
Charlie looked back towards the gate at the army of ravenous creatures blundering towards them, now just forty feet away. He looked across to the compound to the main building, where the infirmary was housed. The door to the building stood open.
Cowboy raised his silver plated six-shooter and fired a volley of shots over Charlie’s head, emptying the pistol. Now Wackjob squirmed under the gate and looked back towards the approaching Z’s, concern etched on his face.
“What’s the hold up, boss?” Wackjob said.
“Wait here,” Charlie cut him off, turned and sprinted across the yard.
Behind him, Charlie heard Cowboy shout something in Spanish, heard Wackjob add his voice in a barrage of curses. Charlie wasn’t listening. The girl was in the infirmary. He wasn’t leaving her. Not to the Z’s, and definitely not to their grotesque leader.
He skidded to a halt, gained a handhold on the doorframe and catapulted himself into the passage, pulling the door closed behind him. It clattered open again almost immediately. Charlie turned and saw Wackjob follow him into the passage.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Charlie hissed. “Get back to the warehouse.”
“Fuck that for a living,” Wackjob’s voice came out of the darkness. “Rangers, right? One for all and all that?”
“You’re fucking insane, you know that?”
“Boss, I’m called Wackjob. You were expecting rational behavior?”
“Guess not,” Charlie said. “Glad to have you along, Riley.”
