The Valley of Shadows - eARC

by John Ringo

  “Imagine it’s your last few minutes. Who’re you gonna call? You know you’re about to die when the zombies break in. But you have time to call just one more person. Should you call your mom to let her know how much you love her? Or your siblings to let them know that they’re strong and can go on without you?”

  Durante began to answer but Astroga cut him off with a raised knife hand.

  “But…Bill from the Quartermaster’s office really pissed me off last week. He didn’t believe me that I legitimately had a crowbar destroyed in service! He said I just lost it and it had to come out of my paycheck!”

  She made telephone sounds and narrated.

  “Ring, ring.

  “Bill: ‘Hello? Hello?’

  “Hey Bill? I’m about to die in this stupid zombie apocalypse and I just want you to know you’re an utter pool of cold, spilled toss for not accepting my Report of Survey!

  “Bill: ‘Whaaat?’

  “Fuck you, Bill!

  “See, that way I could die feeling like I had lived a life well lived,” Astroga finished, leaning back in contentment.

  The other two Army types laughed. Durante just stared at her.

  “I thought I was fucked up,” he offered. “Did you lose a crowbar?”

  “Hell, no!” Astroga said. “It was destroyed in service!”

  “How does a crowbar get destroyed?” Faith asked, chiming into the conversation. “They’re pretty tough to destroy.”

  “Hello, Bill?” Astroga continued, holding a “phone” to her head. “You there?

  “Your Report of Survey said that the crowbar was eaten by termites,” she added in a deeper voice.

  “Yeah, so?” Astroga said.

  “Crowbars are steel,” she continued in her Bill voice. “Termites don’t eat steel crowbars.”

  “Wait,” Copley said, shaking his head. “You actually turned in a RoS that said that crowbar you dropped in the sewer was eaten by termites?”

  “Bill’s right, you know,” Durante pointed out. “They don’t.”

  “You’re saying I’m a liar when I’m about to die in a zombie apocalypse?” Astroga asked, gasping in disbelief.

  “Yes, yes, I am,” Durante said. “I’m going with Bill on this one.”

  “Fucker!”

  Up front, the driver announced, “This looks like it.”

  * * *

  Matricardi’s convoy had made it into Manhattan safely. After first light, the remaining Cosa Nova staff cautiously emerged from their vehicles. Laagered in a triangle, all of the reinforced vans showed bloody collision damage on their front quarter panels and bumpers. After discovering that the infected would run towards headlights, they used parking lights to navigate the streets, often hitting the zombies that loomed unexpectedly in their path.

  Oldryskya hoped that they had all been zombies.

  One shooter per vehicle faced outwards while the interior doors rolled back, permitting conversation that didn’t require shouting. Turned out that the infected really were attracted to loud sounds.

  “Why didn’t we just roll up last night?” One of the remaining Cosa Nova shooters had been grousing all night, but now he had a broader audience. “We could have taken one of the bank’s planes and already be out of the city!”

  Oldryskya knew the answer, but Tradittore beat her to it.

  “You stupid dumbass,” he couldn’t yell but he managed sarcasm just fine. “Did you not see all the fucking zombies? Did you not hear all the shooting? Did you see the crashed BERT full of holes? What do you think happens if we roll hot into Smith’s security? We attract more zombies than we can shoot and we die. Or maybe we scare Smith’s security and they light us up outside the walls and we die. Or maybe the cops are there already and they shoot us as soon as they see us and we die,” Tradittore spat. “Shithead.”

  The goon wasn’t hired for his intelligence, but he subsided, demonstrating judgement better than Oldryskya expected. She was actually glad that his linear thinking kept him from thinking too far ahead. Where he thought they were going to get a “plane” in downtown Manhattan was impossible to guess. She looked over at Tradittore and then at Matricardi. Cosa Nova was still over the authorized count of evacuees though only three of them knew that. Besides, Matricardi wasn’t planning on keeping the deal anyway.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” Matricardi said. “We stay here, we stay quiet, and look for our shot to get inside the bank. Tradittore will pick a couple of youse to scout, careful like. We’re only a few blocks away and we don’t want to bring a whole mob of zombies along with us. When we spot a chance, we reach out, peaceful like. Anyone that doesn’t like that can leave and try their luck on their own. Takers?”

  There were none.

  “Oldryskya, once we know the way is clear, you’ll approach Smith. You’ll see if he is going to let us in, peaceful like.”

  “Mr. Matricardi, maybe we should make sure that we send someone else along, to help remind her that she works for you,” Tradittore interjected. His eyes slid over to Oldryskya. “Last time, she had the distressing habit of forgetting, sometimes.”

  She straightened her spine as the head of the Cosa Nova’s looked at her appraisingly.

  “Another good idea, Joey.”

  * * *

  Joanna didn’t like to wait. She had watched her team settle in and suppressed her impatience. She was reasonably confident that Smith would honor his bargain, but regardless of his intent he would need to move quickly if he wanted to escape. Joanna looked around the dreary classroom for the twentieth time and again restrained her impulse to escape, somewhere. If she didn’t get out, she would die too. She took a few breaths, repeating a cycle that she had repeated several times during the wait. It was just a matter of burying the apprehension more deeply. Fear would trip her up. Destroy the vision.

  As the situation in New York—indeed, globally—had become worse, her thoughts on how to improve the fundamental structure of the city had begun to come together. However, it would be difficult to remake the world if she was dead.

  Gauge walked up and offered a bottle of sparkling water.

  “It’s been three hours,” she said nervously. “Why are they keeping us waiting?”

  “They are very busy, Sarissa,” Joanna replied with a forced calm. “We need to talk to Smith, and until he is available, we will wait patiently. We are not going to get what we want any more quickly by aggravating our hosts.”

  That much at least, Joanna believed. She had selected the group that filled her evacuation party for intelligence, political commitment and personal loyalty. Her partner had questioned her approach. He was no longer accompanying the group. His sort of distraction was…replaceable.

  Although the end game was accelerating uncomfortably fast, Joanna could see advantages to the existing system eroding to a point where someone decisive, with the right vision and the right positioning, could lead a recovery. The next step would be to reach that place.

  The door swung open, revealing the trim young man with the ridiculously blue eyes.

  “Mr. Smith can see you now,” Rune said with a smile.

  Joanna’s return smile was almost entirely genuine.

  * * *

  “That’s a fuck ton of zombies, Da,” Faith said. She and the rest of the MRAP riders took turns craning their necks to look out the front windows at the growing mob of infected in view.

  Steve Smith agreed. However, there was still a way to make this work. He addressed the driver.

  “If you don’t worry about knocking over railings or scratching your paint, can you put the back of this thing up against the doors of that building?”

  The corporal looked skeptically at the structure, featuring the typical Central Park East walk-up entry.

  “Close to it, anyway. The steps are an issue.”

  “Right,” Steve replied. “So, what we do is back all three vehicles up so that we create a barrier between the rest of the street and the doors. We use the firing slot
s to light up the zombies we trap against the buildings, and then breach inwards till we get to the principal. Grab the family, reverse our way back into the truck and head back. Easy-peasy.”

  Everyone looked at him like he had grown a third eye.

  “What?” Smith sounded aggrieved. “This is a great plan. What do you think, Sergeant?”

  Copley considered the zombies through the bulletproof glass. Several were clawing ineffectually at the MRAP’s armor.

  “Dunno sir,” Copley replied. The sergeant tried to count the infected. “It isn’t the craziest idea I have heard today, but that’s not saying much. Probably work. Worst case we scratch the trucks up a bit. Can’t use frags though, wouldn’t want to flatten the tires. Fine on the MRAP, not so good on the civilian vehicles.”

  “Right, no punctures please,” Steve said. “Sergeant, brief the other drivers. We’ll game it out in here, then you line us up.”

  The looks he noted still clearly suggested that he was stone crazy.

  * * *

  “So, you are saying that Ding has gone crazy?” Tom asked his guest.

  “Homicidally detached from reality,” Joanna stated flatly. “His wife was dead already. Now the children are dead. In fact, most of the unaccompanied dependents at One Police Plaza were turned, and those such as survived the experience were shot dead by their parents or their parents’ coworkers.”

  “Jesus. So, homicidal, irrational, and he blames…?” Tom wondered.

  “He thinks that Matricardi did it.” Kohn tapped one fist into her palm. “I expect that he is not feeling too cozy about us, either.”

  She held up a hand to forestall the obvious retort.

  “Yes, I know that there is not a logical reason for Matricardi to do it, but logic is not at the fore at the moment. Dominguez is certain enough that it was Cosa Nova that he has cordoned the city everywhere that I can reach. He has killed any of the Matricardi organization that he can find. His anger is unsatiated as is that of the hundreds of cops who are raging to kill those responsible for the death of their children. Which target list. at this point, is pretty much…everyone. At least everyone of importance.”

  She paused.

  “How the hell did whoever did it actually do it?” Smith was still thinking through the problem.

  “Somehow some zombies got into the children’s dormitory, undetected,” Kohn replied. “Yes, I know that does not make sense. It looks as if they were deliberately planted.”

  “Overture.”

  “Probably,” Joanna said, her tone impatient. “How is not immediately relevant. What is important is that Dominguez knows that you have a deal with Matricardi. He is going to call you. I do not want to be on the island when he does. You stated that if my information was good, you would honor our bargain. I want to be evacuated. Now.”

  “Your information is…valuable,” Tom ceded reluctantly. “I’ll place you on the evacuation list for a lift in the next couple hours. We only have three helos, and we are planning on driving most of the rest out in a couple of hardened buses as soon as the last people are gathered up—which is happening now.”

  “And my additional staff?” Kohn insisted.

  “Somehow I don’t think that Matricardi and Dominguez are going to be using their spaces,” Tom said drily. “So, yes, I’ll accommodate your extras.”

  * * *

  The ringing in Steve Smith’s ears was continuous now, ear plugs or not. That meant that everyone was nearly yelling to be heard, especially given the background of howling zombies. The mob outside was thinned by the belt-fed, but new infected continued to appear, drawn by the either the suppressed gunfire or the idling vehicle engines.

  Things inside were a little…sticky.

  After creating a barrier with their high-sided vehicles, they had used the limited firing arcs of the gun ports on the MRAP to finish the zombies that the trucks knocked over. The first shooters to un-ass the MRAP immediately discovered that although the ground clearance on the BERT trucks was low enough to prevent zombies from easily crawling under them, the MRAP’s axle height was much more generous. After a few tense moments of shooting under the truck to pile up enough zombie dead to inhibit easy passage, they all caught their breath before Smith and Durante organized the door entry and the team cleared its way to the bank CEO.

  Steve flipped up his night vision. The interior of the residence was lit with battery powered lanterns, and the bright white LEDs precluded the use of NODS. Rich Bateman had been briefed on their arrival, and recognized the Smith family resemblance.

  Even though the family seemed glad to see them, there was a new wrinkle. Several extra wrinkles in fact. As the group reversed its route and paused inside the front door, Steve repeated his headcount, twice, before approaching Bateman.

  “Sir, we planned enough space for your family and household, totaling nine people,” Steve said carefully. “You’ve three times that many.”

  Steve was staying calm, relying on his master’s degree in “Nothing Ever Goes Strictly to Plan,” earned at the University of “No Shit, There I Was.”

  Bateman wasn’t relaxed, exactly, but he wasn’t panicking. The same couldn’t be said of his party. Beyond Mrs. Bateman and the two children and their nanny, his regular driver and his regular driver’s family, there was a group of in-laws, their children and some hangers on, including more mid level bank officers and their wives. The volume of what Steve assumed were complaints was steadily growing. He was letting Durante handle that.

  “Steve, right?” Bateman said, trying for normalcy. “Call me Rich, please. How many can we take in the first go, Steve? Some are friends of Nancy, some just short of showed up.”

  “There might only be one lift…Rich.” Steve’s scalp itched abominably but he didn’t want to screw with the straps to re-don it. “The presence of infected is getting heavier and we all need to get off the island, post haste, so shuttling between here and the bank is going to be dicey. It’s easier since we have the armor, we now know which routes should be clear and there aren’t anymore zombies in the house. If the streets get blocked there is no way we’ll get back on foot. Then there is the matter of the vehicles themselves. They are…less than comfortable.”

  “Steve, I don’t care about their comfort,” Bateman replied.

  Steve had been filtering out the background chatter as he simultaneously talked to the CEO and mentally shaped a loadplan that would stack people like cordwood in the MRAP and BERT vans. Yelling and then screaming loud enough to overcome the thumps, growls and occasional gunshots coming from outside finally broke his concentration.

  “How dare you celebrate murdering my husband, you horrible, evil little girl! I’ll have you arrested, and your Neanderthal boyfriend too!”

  The screamer was a well-kept woman in her late middle years. One of the strap hangers had made it inside the house before she turned, and had bitten one other person. Both of the zombies were now down and dead, credit one each to Faith and Durante. When the last door opened the uninfected rescuees had caught the pair exchanging a high five. It turned out a newly deceased zombie had left a widow who felt pretty self-important. Judging from the screeches, a former Mrs. ex-senior financial services executive.

  The CEO grimaced at her yell and tried to keep talking, but Steve watched for a moment longer as Faith performed her patented teenage eye-roll maneuver and muttered something that her father couldn’t quite make out. Designed to overcome her father’s notoriously strong sangfroid, this display of insolence was overkill for the matron, who was sufficiently outraged to scream and leap for Faith, optimistically trying for a slap.

  Steve didn’t really think that Faith had actually tried to physically provoke anyone, but if the teen was surprised by the reaction it didn’t slow her reaction. She ducked under the slap and pulled most of the power of her return butt stroke to her attacker’s stomach.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Faith said as she levered the woman the rest of the way to the floor in an arm ba
r. “Da said that I can’t kill anybody ’cept infected, but that doesn’t mean you get any freebies.”

  Bateman, Smith and Durante all lunged to intervene and then halted to avoid a three-way collision. The woman’s teenage son was yelling, but carefully not touching Faith and equally carefully watching Durante, who had taken a half step back while laying his hand on a holstered Taser.

  “Let her up, Faith!” Steve ordered. He really didn’t need this.

  Faith immediately released her hold and backed away a step, pacifically raising her arms to shoulder height in an “I give up” motion.

  She immediately ruined the gesture by looking side to side and asking the group, “Are you not reassured?”

  “I feel reassured!” Astroga chirped. Astroga and Randall had slipped in through the door to help with loading.

  Randall promptly smacked the back of her helmet.

  “Deep breaths everyone,” Steve ordered in a loud voice. The woman’s son led her to the opposite side of the room, where she sobbed and flailed, but otherwise left the team alone.

  In the background, Astroga whipped out her little green notebook.

  “Number two hundred and eighteen: the Specialist shall not encourage the homicidal teenager to slap around VIPs. Even if it is reassuring.”

  Steve shook his head, closed his eyes and made Daffy Duck noises with his mouth for a moment.

  “Roight,” he said, opening his eyes again. “Let’s see how many we can fit in a single lift, Rich. You and Mrs. Rich are first. Then we shall load the vehicles for our scenic tour of Manhattan as follows…”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “How many people do we have left? ”

  The evacuation had been running steadily all night. The massive building was largely empty. The security outposts had thinned, and suppressed rifle fire was common as zombies came into view singly or in small clusters.

  “Bateman and his wife left even before the second lift of evacuees were all on the trucks. Now that everyone is back, your brother is already heading back to the family boat. We are loading the last of the civilians on the three birds on the roof. Speaking of which, there was another situation with Faith…”