“Three steps to the bottom. You go first. I’ll move you into position, but be quick about it—we’re danger close here, the stenches are closing in.”
“Okay.”
He had her place the revolver in her jacket pocket, and then maneuvered her so she stood at the edge of the platform. After he positioned her hands on the ladder’s rails, she quickly descended down the short ladder. Once on the ground below, she pressed her back against the wall and waited. Gartrell went down the ladder as carefully as he could, struggling not to make any noise—the first of the zeds was only twenty feet away at the most. The barrel of the AA-12 struck one of the handrails with a metallic clang, and the nearest zombie charged straight ahead. It slammed face-first into the wall next to the ladder and bounced off with a grunt. As it sprawled across the platform floor, Gartrell had the surprisingly strong urge to laugh at it.
He reached out and took Jolie’s wrist again and led her into the tunnel, panning his head from left to right as he scanned for any sign of additional danger. So far, the tunnel ahead looked vacant, though even the NVGs could expose only so much—there was close to zero illumination, and even the night vision goggles needed some source of light to amplify. Behind them, bodies hit the ground as the zeds on the platform walked right off it and crashed onto the subway tracks. Gartrell looked back. Several of them survived the tumble pretty much intact, and they rose to their feet and resumed the hunt. Some were disoriented, and actually started moving across the tunnel, or heading back in the direction they came from—
Something fell over in the darkness to his right, and Gartrell turned toward the southbound tunnel. He shouted a curse when he saw literally dozens of stenches pushing their way through the man-sized openings in the wall that separated the northbound tracks from the southbound one. Some of the zeds were only feet away.
Gartrell fired and dropped three of the zombies instantly. He blew the leg off another, and a fourth he blasted back with a shot to its chest. Jaden came alive on his back, writhing and screaming, and Gartrell’s fifth shot missed its target entirely, and the sixth only decimated one of its shoulders. Undeterred by the gruesome damage, the ghoul lurched toward him, flailing about in the darkness with its one good arm. It missed Gartrell by inches, and the first sergeant unslung his AA-12 and swung it at the zombie’s head with all his strength. The blow knocked the stench to the deck, but another one sprang up to take its place as Gartrell cast the AA-12 aside and ripped his MP5 from its tactical truss. Holding it in one hand, he clicked off the safety and ripped off a burst, moving the submachine gun from right to left. It was mostly a waste of ammunition, but the sudden fusillade of nine millimeter rounds knocked the zeds back a few paces, giving him the opening he needed. He grabbed Jolie’s arm in his left hand and yanked her away from the wall. He took off at a run, heading north, as she stumbled along after him. She made little noises in her throat, but Gartrell was certain the zeds behind couldn’t hear them; they must have been deafened by the gunfire, and their own moans filled the subway tunnel with a creepy, ululating cacophony. Jaden continued writhing on Gartrell’s back, whimpering as he bounced up and down in time with the soldier’s gait.
Behind them, he heard the dead as they surged up the tunnel in pursuit. Ahead, two more zeds appeared, crossing over from the southbound tracks. Gartrell fired on the move, three shots resulting in two fatal hits—a terrible ratio, given his current ammunition state. The walls of the tunnel were coated with a grayish material that he presumed was some sort of fireproofing. It seemed to capture what little illumination there was in the tunnel. Gartrell made Jolie grab onto his belt—it took more time than it should have, but he couldn’t speak—then he fished around in his pocket for another infrared chemlight. He found it, activated it, and hurled it down the tunnel before them. Light blossomed through the NVGs, and he saw the remainder of the northbound tunnel was clear…but in the distance, at the very edge of the goggles’ acuity, he thought he saw some sort of obstruction.
Jesus, what the fuck could that be?
And then, more zombies crossed over from the southbound tracks. They stumbled through the darkness, completely blind, but they sensed the activity in the tunnel, and that activity meant there was a chance at finding food.
Jaden struggled again, and Gartrell moved forward, heading for the zombies ahead. He knew the light infantry troops were in that direction, and if he could do anything to close the gap, then that was what he would do.
“Jolie, stay with me,” he whispered over his shoulder. “If you drop behind, they’ll get you.”
“I know.” Her voice was more whimper than whisper. “If anything happens to me, take care of my son.”
“Roger that.”
Gartrell advanced toward the zombies milling about ahead, pulling ahead of the stenches to the rear. Their footfalls were as quiet as possible, but he doubted the zeds could tell the difference between their steps and their own. As he closed on the group, he made sure his last magazine of MP5 ammunition was where it was supposed to be—he would need it in a hurry. It was. He shouldered the weapon and took aim at the zombie closest to him, about thirty feet away. It stared unblinking into the darkness, as stupid as a fire hydrant and about half as good looking.
The quick tie binding Jaden’s left ankle to him failed suddenly, and the boy shifted crazily on his back. He cried out as the pain in his wrists doubtless doubled. Jolie grabbed him, tried to keep him steady, but the young boy screamed and thrashed, his voice hoarse and dry, but still it echoed throughout the tunnel. The zombies ahead of them turned to the south as if of one mind, and they rushed toward them as fast as they were able. Then one of them went down, tripping in the darkness; the rest of the stenches piled up on the first, falling like a line of dominoes.
Gartrell pulled his knife and cut the quick ties that bound Jaden to him. “Jolie, grab Jaden and move to the right—flatten against the wall there! Keep him out of the way, then get the flashlight out of your pack. Don’t turn it on, just let me know when you’ve got it!” he said as Jaden slipped off his back. He held on to the boy’s left wrist, preventing him from collapsing to the ground. If that happened, he didn’t want Jolie fishing around in the darkness trying to find him. “Do you have him?”
He felt Jolie tug Jaden away. “I have him! We’re moving to the wall!” He heard her shrug off the backpack, and it hit the ground next to the wall.
Gartrell shouldered the MP5 and blasted two zeds through the head, dropping them as they rose to their feet. He then turned at the waist and fired at the mass of zombies behind them. He dropped one zed, then another, the nine millimeter projectiles blasting furrows through their skulls. He turned back to the north and fired again, one round per stench, firing with a quick precision that belied the near-panic that nibbled at the edges of his discipline and threatened to overwhelm him. If that happened, then they would all die.
And Gartrell wasn’t ready to die just yet.
Especially when a lady and her autistic son were depending on him.
So the zombies fell to the rails like clockwork. Every shot he fired resulted in a bullet punching through a stench’s skull, turning the remains of its brain into something like watery oatmeal, and blasting a good portion of that goo out the other side as the bullet continued on its merry way. He counted off the shots as he went, even though he didn’t know how many rounds were still in the magazine after he had ripped off on full auto earlier.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Once he had created a buffer zone between himself and the zombies to the north, he turned and engaged those rolling up on them from the rear. They were close, much closer than he had expected them to be, only fifteen feet from where Jolie crouched over Jaden. She hugged her screaming son to her chest with one arm, her lips pressed against the top of his head as she rooted through the backpack with her othe
r hand. Gartrell dropped the leading zed as it lurched toward them, zeroing in on Jaden’s cries.
Nine.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Thirteen.
Fourteen.
The MP5 ran dry then, and Gartrell ejected the spent magazine and slammed the new one into the weapon. He yanked back on the cocking lever and cycled a round into the chamber and resumed firing.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
“I have the flashlight!” Jolie said.
“Turn it on and shine it at them, both sides of the tunnel! Make sure those fuckers see it!”
She did as he instructed her to without hesitation. The zombies blinked at the sudden bright light, their dead pupils slowly narrowing to pinpoints. But when they charged forward, emboldened by the light, Jolie cried out in horror.
“Shit, now what?” she screamed as Gartrell continued firing.
“Throw it across the tracks! Throw it now!”
Jolie pitched the metal Maglite toward the southbound tracks, and the bright flashlight tumbled through the air end over end. It sailed through one of the openings in the barrier wall and came to a rest on the other set of tracks, its bright beam shining into the gloom. The zombies all turned to watch it travel, and then they moved after it.
Just like with the flare…they associate the light with food!
Yet some hung back. Either they didn’t fall for the trick, or Jaden’s whimpering was a stronger indicator that a hot meal was very nearby. These remaining zombies, perhaps twelve in all, closed in on them ahead and behind. Gartrell clenched his teeth. This wasn’t working out. The second he started firing again, the shots would only recall those who had crossed over to the other side of the tracks.
For an instant, an inelegant solution presented itself: he could slip past the encroaching zombies, and leave them to make their way to Jolie and her son, while he made his escape.
Not happening.
“Jolie, get ready to move—they’re still closing in on us. We’re going to advance. Leave the pack, just grab Jaden, and get ready.”
And with that, Gartrell resumed firing, blasting away at the zombies in front of them, methodically cutting them down. He scanned to his left and saw the rest of the horde hovered around the shining flashlight, but now they looked up, the MP5’s stroboscopic muzzle flashes capturing their attention.
Behind him, Jolie screamed.
Gartrell spun around, and Jolie shoved Jaden toward him as a zombie grabbed her from behind. Gartrell grabbed Jaden’s arm with one hand as Jolie pulled her revolver and fired over her shoulder, right into the zombie’s face. It fell away from her, but pulled her down with it. She screamed again as she fell to the railroad ties between the rails, and before Gartrell could move to assist her, another zombie fell upon her.
“Jolie!”
“Save Jaden, save Jaden!” she shouted, and then her words turned into a shriek as another zombie landed upon her and its teeth found her flesh. The revolver cracked again and again beneath the writhing mass of bodies, but it was too late for that. Gartrell fired twice into the pile, and hoped the bullets ended Jolie’s life before the zombies took it from her.
“Momma!” Jaden cried. “Momma-Momma-Momma!”
Gartrell snatched the boy up in one arm and turned back to the north. A stench lunged for him, and he fired two rounds through its face, then turned sideways as it fell past him. Another zombie loomed before him. Gartrell killed it. Jaden screamed and thrashed in his arm, calling out for his mother, again and again. Gartrell continued to advance, firing. But Jaden was ruining his accuracy; two rounds missed taking down a zombie, and he had to waste a third to finish it off. He missed the next ghoul entirely, and didn’t zero it until it was within arm’s reach. When it fell to the railroad ties before him, its ruined skull bounced off his boots.
God, I’m losing it…
“Term…inder One…your pos…”
The fragmented message over his radio buoyed his spirits immediately. “Pathfinder, this is Terminator! I’m in the tunnel, moving northbound toward what looks to be a stalled subway train, over!” As he spoke, Gartrell kept moving, bobbing and weaving past the zombies now. He just wasn’t able to shoot all of them. Something brushed across his back, and he spun to find a ghoul standing right there, so close he had to swing the MP5 at its head to push it back far enough from him that he could shoot it. Which he did, and the zombie collapsed to an unmoving heap.
And then the MP5 was empty.
Gartrell threw the weapon at advancing zombies and pulled his pistol. He had fired five times.
Which meant he had eight rounds left in the magazine.
He had to put Jaden down, and he pushed him against the wall, pinning him there with his body. He pulled his final magazine of .45 caliber ammunition for the pistol from his pocket and discharged the weapon, taking out eight zombies in less than five seconds. The slide locked in the open position when the weapon ran empty. Gartrell ejected the magazine, slammed in the fresh one, and thumbed the slide release, sending the first round into the chamber as a stench slammed into him. It sank its teeth into his armor’s shoulder strap and dug in with its legs, dragging him away from the wall with surprising strength. Gartrell shouted and pounded on its head with the butt of the pistol, but it made no difference; the zed hung on like a dog clenching its most favored chew toy between its jaws. It shook its head from side to side, and Gartrell wound up wrapping his left arm around it, just to hold it in place. He extended his arm and dropped a zombie that moved to join the fracas. They were so close now that they didn’t need any light to see. They knew food was so very near.
Gartrell fired again and again, the Mk 23 pistol kicking hard in his hand. He shouted over the radio for the infantry platoon, but received no response he could fully comprehend. It seemed the unit was close, but not close enough to count. Gartrell kept firing, and the bodies kept stacking up.
And then he was down to two rounds.
In the darkness, Jaden screamed.
Gartrell punched the zombie hanging onto his body armor full in the jaw, fracturing it. The ghoul finally fell away, rolling across the railroad ties. Gartrell evaded another zed by ducking past it. More stenches surrounded Jaden, his cries drawing them to him like bees to honey. There were so many, too many. And more swam in the darkness around Gartrell, circling, trying to locate him now that the shooting had stopped. Gartrell looked at Jaden as the small boy kept crying for his mother, his eyes wide in the darkness, the tears pouring down his beautiful face, his copper hair matted with sweat and grime. The boy’s last few moments would be spent in absolute terror, terror that would be all he knew before guttural agony set in as the stenches set about their work. Gartrell felt a heavy sadness descend upon him. Only seven feet separated them.
Gartrell found himself mentally reciting the Lord’s Prayer, and a small measure of peace came to him.
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
“Jaden,” he called, raising the pistol. “Jaden, baby. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Jaden heard his voice, and he calmed a bit, looking through the darkness, trying to find Gartrell. His hands were bloodied from the rents cut into his wrists, and he had small bloody handprints on his seared denim jacket. The zombies swung toward Gartrell’s voice, just as he had hoped they would. He aimed the pistol at Jaden, and time seemed to dilate in a way he had never fully experienced before, even when he was in the full heat of combat where every moment stretched out over the course of an hour. As he lined up the pistol’s sights on Jaden’s small head, he had a sudden premonition, the sudden idea that this is what McDaniels
had struggled with so long ago in Afghanistan, when the two of them were the leaders of PHANTOM Team, and they had wrestled with a horrible decision: to kill an unarmed boy who had discovered them, so that he couldn’t warn others and bring the Taliban upon them. Gartrell had supported the execution, out of sheer military necessity. And he would have carried it out as well. But the decision was not his to make. McDaniels had wrestled with the choice for as long as he could, but in the end, his morality overcame his discipline. While Gartrell had always known that was what happened, he had never fully appreciated it until now. First Sergeant David Gartrell had seen combat in every war and participated in scores of clandestine operations, where many people met violent ends. He had seen utter brutality up close, and had managed not to participate in the worst of it, but there was still some blood on his hands.
And here he was, confronted with circumstances that demanded a specific outcome: that he execute a small boy to save him from an even more heinous end.
And he couldn’t do it.
A zombie seized Jaden’s shoulder finally with a hissing roar, and it bent toward him. Gartrell adjusted his aim and put a bullet through its head as Jaden screamed yet again, the terror returning. The rest of the zeds whirled, their ranks split—half turned toward Gartrell, half turned upon the screaming young boy who never truly understood what was happening. He only wanted the comfort of his mother.
He would never have that comfort, ever again.
So Gartrell reached deep inside himself and found the strength to act, to give the boy the only comfort he could. His last round made Jaden’s small head seem to explode, and the child’s body wilted to the bottom of the subway tunnel where it was trampled by the zombies as they turned toward the rangy first sergeant. Gartrell pulled his knife.
“Come on, you stupid sacks of shit,” he said. His voice was small amidst the moans of the dead, practically lost in the flood of sound. He had failed to protect the woman and the boy, had failed to accomplish even a mission as basic as that, and now his time was up. No more options left, just fight and die.
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