The Warrior took a half stride forward. “The Automatons are approaching the southeast gate. I want you to stop them.”
“And if we don’t?” Darmobray sneered.
“I’ll kill all three of you.”
The Director placed his hands on his hips and thrust his chest out. “Go ahead, smart guy! Kill us! But our deaths won’t stop the Automatons from smashing through the gate, and you can’t stop them by yourself.”
Yama pointed the Wilkinson at the transmitter. “And what’s to stop me from simply blowing that thing apart?”
“You do, and you’ll have more trouble on your hands than you can imagine. A sensitive transistor has been implanted in the brain stem of each Automaton. If you shoot up the transmitter, you might cause each transistor to short. If that happens, the pain will drive them berserk.”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Yama asked suspiciously.
“Yes, but I wanted their killing frenzy to be conducted under my control. After allotting them enough time to slay Blade, I intended to return and reduce the power output, thereby regaining total domination over my mindless slaves,” Darmobray said. “But your way, no one could control them.”
Unsettled by the news, and distrustful of the Director, Yama mulled his options. The idea had seemed so simple. Destroy the transmitter and the Automatons would drop in their tracks. But now what should he do? He couldn’t risk transforming the creatures into crazed berserkers, not when Samson would be trying to hold them back at the gate.
The thought made him frown.
How was the Nazarite faring?
The advancing legion of the dead were ten feet from the gate when Samson trained the Bushmaster Auto Rifle on the foremost ranks and shouted, “Stop! I don’t want to harm you!”
Unheedful of his warning, their expressions devoid of all animation, the Automatons tramped closer and closer.
For an instant Samson’s resolve faltered. Melissa had been right. There were so many! Row after row after row of zombielike beings who were impervious of injury. He recalled the woman on the road, clawing at that noncom even though her legs had been crushed, and he inadvertently shuddered.
Five of the walking dead came to the gate and took hold of the metal bars.
Grant me strength, O Lord! Samson prayed, and squeezed the trigger, going for the head in each instance, his rounds drilling through craniums and felling the five where they stood. But as soon as they fell, there were five more to take their place. He shot them, and on came more, seven this time, and even as he fired at them a sobering realization sent a chill down his spine.
What would happen when he ran out of ammo?
Samson’s lips compressed. He saw the Automatons fan out, going to the right and left of the gate, and several started to climb awkwardly up the barbed-wire fence, oblivious to the sharp barbs gouging their hands and tearing into their bodies. The sight filled him with a peculiar, and totally uncharacteristic, dread. They were like persons without souls! For an awful moment he imagined himself to be battling the soulless legions of the Evil One, alone against the Hordes of Hell.
He fired and fired and fired.
At the first sound of the Bushmaster, Yama tensed, recognizing the distinctive chatter.
The Director also heard the shots. “That’s not a Dakon II,” he said, and his eyes narrowed. “It must be one of your friends. Is the fool trying to stop the Automatons?”
Yama knew he had to do something! If he couldn’t wreck the transmitter, then he might be able to locate an off switch. He stepped to the left-hand wall and motioned with the Wilkinson. “Line up against the right wall,” he ordered.
Darmobray and the pair of technicians did as they were told, lined up with the Director nearest the doorway. “Have another brainstorm, did we?”
The Warrior sidled to the transmitter and scrutinized the dials and meters. One of them must shut the damn thing down! To his consternation, he discovered that none of the controls were labeled. The Technics were thwarting him at every turn. But then, the bastards always were plotting and scheming and conniving to outwit and subjugate innocent people who only wanted to be left alone to live their lives as they saw fit. Just as Alicia and he had wanted to do.
But no.
The Technics could never leave well enough alone.
They were power mongers determined to impose their beliefs on everyone else, no matter the cost in human suffering.
A cold, simmering fury gripped Yama and he swung toward the trio.
They were no longer in front of the transmitter and he didn’t have to worry about accidentally hitting the cabinet. “How do you switch the transmitter off?” he asked once more, his tone flat and hard.
The two technicians blanched. Darmobray only snorted.
“Suit yourselves,” Yama said, and shot the technician on the left, three quick rounds through the man’s green smock high on the chest. The force of the slugs propelled the technician into the wall, and he slumped to the floor trailing crimson streaks on the white paint.
“Having fun?” the Director joked.
Yama turned his attention to the second tech. “How do you switch the transmitter off?”
His eyes widening in abject terror, the second technician trembled and blurted out, “I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you anything you want to know!”
“You’ll do no such thing!” Darmobray barked.
“He’ll shoot me!” the tech wailed.
“Don’t tell him!” Darmobray hissed.
Yama took a step toward them. “Show me how to turn the transmitter off,” he instructed the technician.
“Gladly,” the man said, and went to comply.
Yama glanced at the Director, expecting Darmobray to try and stop the tech, and it was well he did. He saw the scientist look at the doorway and perceptibly stiffen, and the Warrior instinctively threw himself backwards and pivoted.
A Technic trooper stood just outside the doorway, a noncom sporting four black stripes on his uniform, a Dakon II held firmly against his right hip. He had already activated the Laser Sighting Mode, and the red beam of light was centered on the Warrior’s torso when his trigger finger began to squeeze. He thought he had the man in blue dead to rights, which made him all the more astonished when he missed. The Dakon II, on full automatic, sent 15 of its 30 rounds into the transmitter before he could check is fire.
Yama snapped off a burst, the Wilkinson booming in the small building. His shots were accurate, catching the noncom in the neck and head and knocking the man to the ground. He heard a loud crackling and fizzing and glanced at the transmitter, appalled to see the outer casing fractured and smoke wafting toward the ceiling. Tiny reddish-orange sparks and flames sparkled inside. In the moment he was distracted by the sight, he glimpsed movement out of the corner of his right eye.
Quinton Darmobray was ignominiously fleeing through the doorway.
And the second technician, his features contorted by a look of maniacal desperation, bunched his slim fingers into fists and leaped at the Warrior.
* * *
Blade’s outstretched fingers were six inches from the Bowies, and the distance might as well have been light years for all the good it did him.
Hufford and Perinn, both of whom wore side arms, were already going for their weapons. In a twinkling, he whirled and sprang, executing a flying tackle, his boots leaving the floor, his body arrow straight.
“You—!” Colonel Hufford blurted.
And then the Warrior plowed into them, angling his body between the two Technics, his broad shoulders ramming into their hips, his huge arms encircling their waists. The momentum drove them backwards, into the double doors, and all three crashed down in the doorway with the soldiers bearing the brunt of the impact.
Blade reared to his knees and whipped his right fist in an arc, his knuckles striking Captain Perinn on the chin just as the officer lifted his head, flattening the trooper.
“You bastard!” Colonel Hufford snarled, scrambli
ng from under the giant and shoving to his feet. His right hand clawed for his pistol.
With all the swiftness of a rattler, Blade jabbed a punch into Hufford’s abdomen, doubling the man over. He surged up off the floor, his left arm rigid, his palm vertical, and raked the heel across the colonel’s face, drawing blood from the mouth and the chin.
Grunting, Hufford staggered rearward, out the partly open doors, still endeavoring to unholster his gun.
Blade went after the Technic, not letting up for an instant. He delivered a right to Hufford’s ribs, then a left, and with each blow the stocky colonel gasped and tottered, spittle dribbling from his mouth. Hufford bent in half, wheezing, and Blade snap-kicked the tip of his right boot into the soldier’s head.
As if struck by a ball peen hammer, Colonel Hufford catapulted onto his back.
“Nice moves.”
The Warrior spun, startled to behold Captain Perinn standing five feet away, a pistol in the Technic’s right hand.
“Damn, you’re fast!” Perinn said, the words distorted by the blood rimming his mouth and flowing out the right corner. The Warrior’s punch had crunched his teeth together, and caused his upper central incisors to tear into his lower lip.
Blade tensed, waiting for a sign that the Technic intended to squeeze the trigger, intending to launch himself at the proper instant.
“The Director buzzed just a few minutes ago,” Perinn said, dabbing at his mouth with his left sleeve, and nodded at a portable military field radio resting on the desk. “He told us you’d escaped and ordered the colonel to collect all the man together at the southwest gate. We were on our way there when the colonel remembered he’d left your gear in the closet.” Perinn paused and grinned. “He didn’t want you to get your hands on your weapons, so we came back.”
“What now?” Blade asked, inching forward slightly.
“The Director wants you in a bad way. He’s got something special planned for you, but I don’t know what it is.”
Blade assumed the trooper must be referring to the implanta-tion. He prepared himself for a headlong rush, wishing for a distraction and getting his wish.
Unexpectedly, Colonel Hufford gurgled and started to rise.
Captain Perinn glanced down at his superior officer for a fraction of a second, and perceived even as he did that the giant was in motion, coming right at him. He automatically fired.
* * *
The Bushmaster Auto Rifle went empty and Samson tossed it aside.
He’d used the last of his spare magazines, and now had to rely on his Auto Pistols. His hands swooped to the swivel holsters strapped around his waist, holsters he had designed himself and the Family Gunsmiths had constructed. He took hold of the synthetic pistol grips and swung the barrels up. Both breakaway holsters parted at the seams, and he immediately snapped off rounds at the walking dead, felling six in rapid succession.
But still they came on. The Automatons had now spread out in a 40-foot line along the fence and were attempting to scale the fence in their slow, methodical fashion.
So far Samson had been able to hold his own and keep the ghouls out.
They were ridiculously easy targets as they came to the top of the fence or the gate, and he picked them off one after the other. The dead littered the ground. For a brief moment he believed he had overreacted, that the Automatons weren’t that much of a threat.
And then it happened.
All of the walking dead inexplicably stiffened, their entire bodies going rigid, their eyes wide as saucers. For seconds they stood perfectly still.
Suddenly, incredibly, they began to jerk and twitch and flail their arms, walking in small circles, their heads rocking from side to side. Those on the fence fell off.
Dear Lord! Samson marveled. What was happening? He lowered the Auto Pistols, confounded. What could have caused them to act so bizarrely?
The grotesque dance of the dead persisted for a full minute, and ended as abruptly as it started. Reeling or swaying, the Automatons stood in place, their facial features locked in outlandish grimaces.
What now? Samson wondered.
And the very next second he received his answer when the creatures, as one, turned toward the campus and renewed their assault on the security fence. Only this time their attack was different, this time they went about their task with a vengeance, striving to pull the fence down and batter through the gate, their countenances reflecting a feral madness, an unquenchable bloodlust. Despite the wounds they had sustained, they ripped and tore at the barbed wire, their blood spraying the ground.
The Nazarite opened up with the Auto Pistols, slaying foes as swiftly as before, but now they were moving faster and making more progress, and even though he killed and killed, they succeeded in breaching the fence, in tearing down a six-foot section to the left of the gate.
The instant the fence crumpled, the Automatons poured through the gap.
They were inside!
Samson retreated a few yards, firing as he did, emptying the left Auto Pistol and then the right. Before he could hope to reload, they swarmed upon him. He was forced to discard the Bushmasters and resort to his malletlike fists, slugging every Automaton that came within reach of his steely sinews. Every blow produced a resounding thud and sent an Automaton to the ground. He swung to one side, then the other, to the rear and the front, always in motion, a human whirlwind endowed with the power of a dynamo.
But even dynamos have limits.
* * *
Because Yama had tried to bring the Wilkinson to bear on the fleeing form of the Director, he was unable to compensate and train the barrel on the second tech before the man reached him.
The technician uttered a piercing scream, perhaps to spur his flagging courage, and swept both of his fists at the Warrior’s exposed throat.
Yama deftly blocked the man’s arms, using his left forearm to batter the technician aside, then smacked the barrel across the man’s temple, staggering his foe. He brought his right knee up into the tech’s crotch, and the man screeched at the top of his lungs. Using the Wilkinson stock, Yama clubbed him twice.
His eyes rolling upward in their sockets, the technician collapsed.
An acrid odor filled Yama’s nostrils, and he rotated to find the transmitter in flames and bright ribbons of electricity arching between several of the internal components. He remembered the words of the Director: “If you shoot up the transmitter, you might cause each transistor to short. If that happens, the pain will drive them berserk.”
Samson!
Yama spun and raced from the building. He sprinted toward the tree, wondering what could have happened to Melissa and why she hadn’t warned him about the noncom. When he reached the tree, he understood.
The sight he beheld transfixed him and stirred him to the depths of his soul.
The walking dead had breached the fence and were swarming around Samson in a frenzied effort to bring the Nazarite down. They punched and clawed and tore at his camouflage fatigues, a crazed pack of rabid jackals striving to slay a mighty lion. But Samson was proving to be the equal of his namesake. He rained a torrent of blows on the Automatons, his fists steely pistons, his bony knuckles thudding into foe after foe after foe.
Dozens upon dozens were already down, the majority never to rise again, their foreheads caved in or the skulls split open. Yet still they came on, and it was clear the Nazarite was beginning to tire.
A scream tore from Yama, a scream that originated in his gut and tore from his throat unbidden, a scream of commingled rage and affection for one of his few, true friends, a scream the likes of which he hadn’t voiced in more years than he could remember. “Samson!”
Yama ran toward the battle, realizing he couldn’t use the Wilkinson because he might accidentally wing the Nazarite. He took ten strikes, and only then did he spot Melissa, not 15 feet in front of him. She was on her knee, holding the Smith and Wesson with both hands, apparently ready to fire. “Melissa! Don’t!” he shouted.
&nb
sp; She glanced around as he sped to her side.
“You could hit Samson,” Yama told her before she uttered a syllable.
“But—” Melissa began.
“Here. Take this,” Yama ordered, and shoved the Wilkinson at her.
“What? Why do—”
“Take it!” Yama snapped.
Startled, she grabbed the weapon. “What are you going to do?”
“Stay here. If the Automatons come after you, head for the west side of the campus. You might be able to sneak out without being spotted by the Technics.”
“But what about you?” Melissa asked, too late, because the man in blue had dashed off and was now rushing toward the southeast gate. She glanced at the machine gun in her left hand, perplexed. How was he going to fight the walking dead without it?
Her answer came a few moments later.
With her heart pounding in her chest and her blood pulsing in her temples, Melissa Vail saw the silver-haired Warrior whip his scimitar from its scabbard and, without breaking stride, hurtle into the midst of the walking dead. The flashing blade gleamed in the glow from the perimeter lights, and in the space of six seconds, a half-dozen Automatons were sent to the turf with their necks nearly severed or their faces split asunder.
The scimitar seemed to be in perpetual motion as Yama ripped into the horde of ghouls, spinning from one side to the other, always spinning, his keen blade biting deep and drawing blood with every stroke. His unexpected onslaught temporarily stemmed the inhuman tide, and he actually succeeded in fighting his way to Samson’s side. The Automatons checked their attack, disoriented.
“What kept you, brother?” the Nazarite quipped, panting from his exertion, a grin twisting his lips.
“I was darning my socks,” Yama quipped, and took up a position behind his friend, his back almost touching Samson’s.
“Seen Blade?”
“Nope.”
“Figures. Maybe Hickok is right after all.”
“About what?”
“About us doing all the work and Blade goofing off all the time.”
Green Bay Run Page 17
