After The Apocalypse Season 1 Box Set

by Warren Hately

  “You’re not going to stop them?” the younger man asked with his voice cracking.

  “We’ve got trouble enough.”

  Tom turned from the intersection, slowing as he advanced along the next congested block, mindful every nook and cranny among the laneway of cluttered stalls, impromptu tents, plastic sheeting and nearby homes spilling out into the street could hide who he sought. And despite Ortega’s terrible wound, Tom believed he wouldn’t be safe until standing over the other man’s cold dead corpse.

  Which, as usual, was completely wrong.

  Ortega lay face down in the middle of the next intersection. Tom upped his pace to reach the ex-special forces killer, not for a moment thinking the Chief could be dead and the whole reason for his pursuit departed with him. His thoughts flashed instead to Iwa Swarovsky – with a guilty pang that he hadn’t done more to vouchsafe her protection during the harrowing night – and thus was caught by surprise when Ortega sprang to his feet with a feral growl and turned eyes like black headlights straight on him.

  Ortega was dead already, but that wasn’t the end of him.

  *

  ABRAHAM SLAMMED INTO Tom from behind as Tom stopped dead in his tracks about ten yards away as Ortega whipped about, fingers extended like claws by his side as the Fury he’d become snarled, no longer needing to cradle the ragged slash across its throat that’d killed him.

  In his haste – and desperation – Tom shoved Ben-Gurion aside, stumbling, weak with tiredness, trying not to gasp at the effort as well as the toll on his wrecked shoulders, something about the glint of evil in the dead Safety Chief’s eyes sending a deep, unexpurgated, bowel-loosening thrum of fear through him like few of his other past reactions to the risen dead. Although it really wasn’t Ortega in the driver’s seat any longer, something of his determination lived on all the same, coiled in the fury coursing through the thing as it literally leapt forward with a hiss of rage powering its all-out assault.

  It was too fast for Tom to let loose with the M4. Ortega was on him within a second and the best Tom could do was club the thing aside with the rifle stock, desperately trying to backtrack with Abraham in his way. As Ortega staggered, Tom fired a burst at the creature – the bullets striking its tactical vest or plunging into Ortega’s bare arm with little noticeable effect, perhaps only making the beast angrier. Then the Fury leaped onto Tom’s brutalized right shoulder and his throat. Snarling up close, Ortega’s sallow face was a mirthless death mask as he sought Tom’s death.

  Tom abandoned the rifle, he and the Fury upright like a pair of wrestlers just starting a bout, Tom hoping without much optimism his rational brain might give him the leverage his body lacked as he sought to twist the creature around, stomping his boots down into Ortega’s shins, inadvertently headbutting the monster and feeling himself come off second best. Ortega’s teeth dug briefly into Tom’s forehead above his eye, and Tom reeled backwards so fast to avoid having half his face torn off that he relinquished any hope of a strategy.

  He twisted sideways and fell.

  The rabid, snarling thing slithered atop him as if guided by a lifetime’s skill, and Tom didn’t even think about calling to Ben-Gurion for help. One glance he managed at the other man only compounded his fears, with the Councilor dancing uselessly around them, circling with Pamela’s assault rifle trained on them as if just waiting for his shot.

  “Don’t you . . . fire that goddamned gun,” Tom snarled.

  His right arm was useless once again. He reached across himself to draw the Python only to have Ortega slap it from his grasp. Tom then tried again, drawing Ortega’s knife and plunging the blade into the Chief’s breast – a gloriously stupid option given the Fury still wore Ortega’s stab-proof vest. The knife’s wicked point slipped loose and the blade skittered across Ortega’s chest to embed in its already-gaping throat wound.

  Nothing Tom did stopped the snarling creature from its mission to chew his face off. The best Tom could manage was forcing the serrated knife deeper into Ortega’s neck.

  And the first of what became many nearby gunshots rang out across the City.

  *

  THE TIP OF the dagger stuck fast somewhere beneath Ortega’s jaw. Completely unperturbed, the Fury kept snarling, thrashing atop Tom with iron strength turning its clawing fingertips into knives of their own, forcing burning pain into Tom’s arms and shoulder. Abe Ben-Gurion continued his awkward dance around them, rifle now lowered, and the panic-inducing sound of gunfire in the direction of St Mary’s was the only thing lending Tom the strength to wrestle the thing aside and flip on top of the zombie determined to rend him to pieces.

  Blood ran freely from Tom’s scalp, obscuring his vision, the droplets only feeding the Fury’s frenzy as they fell onto its face and Ortega’s cavity-filled mouth.

  Tom wrenched the dagger free and would’ve stabbed again except it was his right arm doing the work, and he could no longer lift that hand higher than his elbow. Instead, Tom let the blade drop from his hand to the road surface, hoping to swap for his left – except the Fury had other plans.

  The monstrously strong creature gave another of those haunting, whistling, semi-soundless roars, and lunged from its waist. Tom scrambled back, fell, then rolled over his own mangled shoulder to stand again – just in time for the creature to slam into him like an irate fan, sending them together into the same deadlock as before, the Fury atop him, Tom now weaponless except for the grenade launcher digging into his back and sparking a moment’s abject panic that the ammunition belt could detonate.

  Tom had no idea how to activate the grenades by hand, though he managed one free of the harness anyway and rammed it into Ortega’s mouth, getting boots underneath the monster to catapult it off.

  “Shoot it!” Tom yelled.

  Hands shaking, Ben-Gurion dropped sights on the Fury and fired a single round into Ortega’s chest. It was merely adding one more dash of salt to the shit stew of the moment, Ortega flinching backwards like a Terminator merely delayed by the bullet’s momentum thudding into his armor.

  It started back at Tom just as he finally managed to get himself upright, and Ben-Gurion shot the creature again – and again in its vest. It might’ve been comical, dead Ortega’s jaws forced wide agape by the silver egg of the live grenade, except Ben-Gurion was hopeless back-up just as he’d warned.

  “Take him down!” Tom yelled on the verge of ruining his own throat.

  He grabbed his Colt Python the same instant Ben-Gurion switched the M4 to burst mode, hellfire erupting from the weapon and cutting the Fury’s legs out from beneath it.

  Ortega fell wetly to the pavement. As the Fury tried to stand again, Tom’s Python boomed and took off half of Ortega’s face. The grenade in its jaws started an unholy spinning noise, and then the Fury’s entire head and upper body exploded like a gigantic wet firework, splattering Abraham and Tom with a sickening deluge of guts and knocking the Councilor down with the force of the blast.

  Tom tried to fall to his knees and failed, dropping heavily onto his ass instead and grunting as the wind went out of him, and he lay back, defeated by the victory, heart slamming in his splintered ribcage, the pistol momentarily slipping from lifeless fingers until he also renewed his lease on life and sat up, panting, unable to relent as his withering gaze fell on Ben-Gurion staring back at him, painted with flecks of human meat as he sat up, eyes wide, and wearing a massive grin.

  “We did it!”

  “Jesus Christ,” Tom moaned. “You’re actually pleased with yourself.”

  And he struggled once more to his feet, retched emptily, and wiped gore from his face and mouth as he carefully reloaded his gun.

  *

  THEY HITCHED A ride on a second troop carrier barreling down the street on Council orders to give back-up to Lilianna’s team – though why Tom’s daughter, out of all of the available personnel, was even in the first wave of their misguided fightback was completely beyond his ability to comprehend, especially now with his frayed nerves
doused in gasoline.

  He and Ben-Gurion rode in the back of the truck with another dozen Enclave troopers, half of them Wilhelm’s clean-faced young saviors looking a little out of sorts at having to put their money where their mouths were to defend their privilege. The remainder were toughened grunts – hard-faced veterans who’d parlayed their ability to survive into steady trooper work since taking up the City’s cause, which until now included keeping the youngsters beside them safe. The only one smiling was Kent. The big Islander calling out Tom’s name had saved him and the errant Councilor Ben-Gurion explaining why they were out after Curfew in the City under siege, as well as winning them seats on the truck.

  “Your daughter’s with the other team, Tommy Gun,” Kent said.

  “And why the hell’s that?”

  Kent only gave him a queer look, somehow bemused despite their urgent mission.

  “I don’t know, man,” he said by way of answer. “Takes after her father, I guess?”

  Tom had to take that on the chin, pleased yet displeased at how that likeness was playing out these days. But he used the distraction to check himself over, resecuring his arsenal and nudging Abraham to do the same despite the Councilor’s attempts to palm off his rifle anyone else who thought they needed it. At least the Enclave’s new recruits were armed to the teeth. Wilhelm had unlocked the City armory for the occasion.

  It was only a few more blocks, then the diesel carrier trundled around the final turn to halt behind two more trucks and a Humvee arrayed around the front of the church and its neighboring manor house. Constant gunfire sounded from different positions.

  There were more than fifty Enclave troops surrounding the site. Any of the stalls or shanty structures in place were trampled now. Tom’s newcomers poured off the back of the truck and ran in to join the others as a fierce-looking Greerson shouted commands with Edward Burroughs not far away as well, God bless, an FBI duster over a Kevlar harness that somehow made him look more like a medieval warlord than part of the City’s defense efforts.

  Those efforts were now a solid blockade around the stately, freshly bullet-riddled church, and a neighboring stout, brick, two-story manor house running along its side. Plume’s people had long-ago built a steel barricade around the compound. Welded metal tines jutted out like spearheads to deter the unwelcome. And now they were confronted with it, Tom wondered why the hell the City ever let them fortify the place to begin with. The folk legend of Madeline Plume’s gun battle with enraged Catholics probably explained the bulk of it. The rest came down to the Council’s reluctance to confront some of the more distasteful challenges of their reconstruction. Throwing outré bands of survivors into one great melting pot and expecting they’d get along nice had struck its apogee – and Tom was fiercely conscious his daughter was in the middle of it.

  Groaning his way out of the back of the personnel carrier, Tom made a staggered run through the parked vehicles scanning everywhere for Lilianna. The Enclave force hadn’t arrived with much stealth, and now Plume’s Lefthanders were squirreled away at every broken window and gap in the cover. The latest bout of gunfire eased off, the two foes locked into an impasse. The Enclave troops ringed the dangerous metal barricade, pointing automatic rifles over barely reachable gaps and confining the Lefthanders to the buildings. A small team worked a welder at the church gates.

  And of course that’s where he found his daughter.

  Several bullets pinged around him as Tom jogged from last truck, making a pained diagonal canter across the street and catching just a glimpse of a figure on the steepled tile roof of the vicar’s house. The sun was indeed coming up – with precious sloth, and far too far away for Tom’s liking – but the faint pink blur against the night revealed nothing but the dark figure creeping out of the Dutch farmhouse-style window on the top floor clutched a long-barreled gun. Tom was quickly out of the sniper’s favored angle, closing the distance to the barbaric-looking fence and thus disappearing behind it as he ran along the edge, squeezed past two more riflemen, and then his daughter lifted her distracted, furrowed brow at him as if in surprise.

  “Dad, you look terrible,” she said. “Are you OK?”

  Tom gave her a check over, noting the bow in one nonchalant hand, but nothing other than a scuff of grease across one cheek as she stood over Beau and another stocky, vest-clad figure wearing a welder’s face mask. A thick steel gate chain promptly fell apart with a heavy and satisfying thunk, and the welder removed the safety gear to reveal a serious-looking young Asian woman.

  “Done,” was all she said.

  Beau met Tom’s eyes for just a second, which was too short to tell just how close the younger man was to the edge of total panic. Beau hefted a rifle over one shoulder, nodded to Tom, and moved past ashen-faced to tell Greerson the news about the gate. The same instant, Greerson’s eyes swept back their way and saw Tom, and the men shared a blank, but empathic look, and finally the new Safety chief nodded with little more than his eyes before rallying the closest soldiers and hurrying back Beau’s way.

  Tom took those precious seconds to step close to his daughter. He’d shelter her with his body if needed, but the tough metal barricade had turned to the Lefthanders’ disadvantage anyway, with too much open ground between the buildings and the fence in which to defend it. Further along, another trio of Enclave men gave a cheer as they peeled back an entire section of the fence with a twisting metal noise, but their celebration was short-lived as the defenders poured gunfire through the breach and Tom flinched, crouching, fingers in one ear because his right hand simply wouldn’t lift higher than his bottom rib. When he leaned in to Lilianna, he had to yell to be heard.

  “I told you to stay safe!”

  “No,” Lila replied. “You asked me to.”

  “Not a big difference,” Tom lied. “And doesn’t mean you have to be right in the thick of it.”

  “And what did you think I was going to do when I got that message on the two-way?” she snapped back. “Run and deliver the message? I thought you were here!”

  Her anger nearly broke into tears, but Lilianna fought off the sentiment with a growl so uncannily like her father’s that again Tom found himself betrayed by his own love, and he curled his better arm around her and pulled his daughter into him, kissing the top of her head in their moment of safety and only just then realizing she had no helmet.

  “Where’s your head cover?”

  “Where’s yours?”

  “Don’t do that,” Tom hissed. “Please don’t tell me you’re trying not to ruin your hair.”

  “Even wearing a helmet requires training, dad,” Lila said. “I feel like I can’t hear, like I can’t practically see anything with one on.”

  “If they gave you a helmet, put it on,” Tom said in a low voice.

  There was still a ways to go with this thing yet.

  *

  GREERSON AND A dozen troopers arrived. Lilianna, Beau and the welder moved out of the way, crouched in cover as Lilianna strapped on her Marines helmet. Greerson barely slowed as he passed Tom, patting him on his right shoulder and taking a single glance at his face.

  “You get bit?” Denny asked.

  “Ortega.”

  “Fights dirty, that piece of shit.”

  Tom grunted, swallowing the story behind his latest wounds and watching as the new Safety Chief motioned half his troops to the other side of the big metal gates. The gunfire from the church eased off yet again, and Greerson twisted around and made a hand signal back towards where the single sheet of fencing lay on the ground. The young Enclave troops must’ve skipped hand signal classes though, and he finally yelled, “Lay down some covering fire!” And then the retorts of the company’s rifles started up again.

  Tom grabbed Greerson just as he was about to lead some kind of headlong charge.

  “Hold on,” Tom said. “What are you doing? What’s the plan?”

  “Stand back, Vanicek,” Greerson said and somehow smiled. “You’ve done enough.”
/>   He then motioned sharply and they pulled the gates open onto the street.

  Greerson’s other troopers laid down another fusillade and the troop commander yelled “Go!”

  The team either side of the gate charged in through the gap as more gunfire erupted from all quadrants of the house, the men and women of the Lefthanders somehow now on the upper floor windows of the church and firing from platforms where stained-glass windows once reigned. Tom clutched Lilianna as she added herself to the end of the line of desperate-faced young men and women pouring through the gap. Tom finally pinned her back against the fence as the return fire reached an epic crescendo and then simply didn’t stop.

  And the Enclave troopers charged into it.

  The weapons’ fire was like a hurricane – like bombs going off one after the other without end – and as it drew out, becoming more and more horrible with the cries of screaming women and men, Tom pulled his daughter fully into him and they crouched down together in the chaos with the battleship armor of the barricade thumping and chiming with the impact of defending fire like the hammering of Satanic blacksmiths in a frenzy at their forge.

  Within seconds, half of the invading troops threw themselves back out into the street for safety, one of the young men dragging another shot through both legs. Greerson looked wide-eyed – not spooked, but with the near-death adrenalin distorting his hoary features as if clutched by an invisible hand – and then two more late stragglers bolted back out as another wave of repelling gunfire followed them. Bullets scattered among the first parked vehicles. The female welder took a hit to the face, killed instantly. Nearby comrades deftly moved her body aside, Beau forlorn at the duty made worse by laying her down beside another half-dozen corpses, and beyond them, several troopers desperately trying to save the young man shot through the legs.