by David Spell
“Run!” McCain told his wife, pointing to the right.
Elizabeth started sprinting while Chuck paused to give her a head start, firing a long burst into the snarling group before running after her. There were still at least thirty infected following them, most of these shuffling slowly. That’s good, McCain thought. He figured that most of the Zs on the interstate had come from the many abandoned vehicles, but now he could also clearly see agitated zombies on the bridge in front of them. Some of their pursuers had probably been up there and had made their way down to the highway, attacking motorists who were trying to escape or the police who had been manning the roadblock. Now if we can just find another vehicle.
The police officer paused for a moment, halfway across the interstate, and made a headshot on a muscular zombie who looked like he had just worked out, his muscles bulging under his black tank top and shorts. He looks and moves like he just got infected, the CDC agent noted surprisingly. Both arms showed open wounds, and his face was covered with blood. Muscles was just fifteen feet away when a 5.56mm round punched through his left eye and pitching him face-first onto the asphalt.
Chuck started sprinting again, trying to catch up with Elizabeth. She was a real runner, having participated in several half-marathons. The CDC officer pushed himself, glancing over his shoulder as the Zs continued after their prey. Even as a part-time professional MMA fighter, the big man had hated to run in training. At this moment, though, he was wishing that he’d put in a few more miles.
Beth had already climbed over the guardrail and turned to check on him. McCain saw her watching him sprint, her eyes wide with fear, as the large group of infected closed in on the couple. He motioned for her to keep going. Instead, she raised her rifle and started shooting their pursuers, dropping four before he joined her.
Chuck jumped the metal barrier and spun around, raising his M4. He pushed the selector to semi-auto and took down five of the closest creatures before the bolt locked open. He hit the magazine release, dropping the empty and grabbing a fresh one from his plate carrier. His gun was ready to go again but they needed to keep moving and create some distance. There were still at least fifteen zombies closing on them.
Elizabeth fired three more shots, her last bullet sending a heavyset man wearing a jogging suit crashing to the pavement. Chuck tapped her on the shoulder.
“Let’s go,” he said, pointing in the direction of Upward Road. “Climb that fence and head towards the main road.”
A three-foot high, chain-link fence ran along the top of a small rise, ten yards off the highway, adjacent to their location. On the opposite side, a narrow street ran parallel to the interstate and appeared to dead-end into Upward Road. Chuck sent Elizabeth ahead while he turned to check on the Zs, dropping two that had closed to within fifteen yards. The growls and snarls that filled the air sent a chill down the police officer’s spine.
By the time he joined Beth, she had managed to get over the fence. Chuck climbed the obstacle and paused, glancing back at their pursuers. The Zs had been slowed at the guardrail, unable to climb over it. The first few bounced off, while their zombie comrades kept pushing forward, knocking several over the barrier. After these managed to get to their feet, they continued up the hill, towards the fence. Additional Zs had stumbled down the exit ramps from Upward Road, following the sound of the gunshots and growls, moving towards the smell of living flesh.
Elizabeth and Chuck ran up the access road, scanning the area for any new threats. For the moment, they appeared to be in the clear except for those who were behind them. Ahead of them was a Dunkin Donuts and a convenience store, sitting side-by-side on their left at the corner facing out towards Upward Road.
McCain glanced back and saw that the fence had stopped their pursuers for the time being, at least.
“We can slow down,” he said, breathing heavily. “It’ll be a few before they get over that fence.”
Beth turned, seeing what he was talking about and stopped, letting Chuck catch his breath. Most of the new zombies on the interstate were now over the guardrail and were shoving up against the fence or were climbing the small ridge towards it. The way in front of Beth and Chuck appeared clear, but they could only see the rear of the two businesses ahead of them.
McCain looked into his wife’s eyes and was pleased with what he saw. She was scared but not panicking.
“What’s the plan?” she asked.
“We need to put plenty of distance between us and the ones behind us. They’ll eventually get over or through that fence. They’ll jam enough bodies against it until it collapses. We need to be long gone by then. Let’s get across the main road up there and see if we can find a place to hole up so I can look at our maps. We can get to Mel cross-country but it would be better if we could find some more transport. Go ahead and reload.”
Elizabeth removed the partial magazine from her rifle and inserted a full one. It wasn’t smooth but she got it done and was becoming more fluid. This time, because an attack could come from any direction, McCain had Beth walking fifteen feet behind him, covering the area to their right.
The Dunkin Donuts was just twenty-five yards ahead now. Everything had gotten quiet again except for the growling coming from behind them. Chuck’s rifle was locked into his shoulder, the muzzle slightly lowered so he could see over it. He moved slowly but steadily, stepping, listening, and smelling. A slight breeze brought the odor of death to their nostrils. McCain glanced back, confirming that Beth was covering her sector, just like he had trained her. Her AR-15 was up and ready and she was moving with confidence.
A driveway ran behind the doughnut store for the drive-thru window, the business now just in front of them. Hopefully, they could scoot by, cross Upward Road, and then find a place to pause and study their maps. An entrance was on their side of the building, just up from the drive-thru. Chuck knew that there would also be a front door.
McCain motioned for Beth to stop and walked over. “Let’s swing out into that field to your right instead of passing so close to the DD.”
When he stepped onto the shoulder of the access road, however, he encountered a steep embankment with a three-foot wide drainage ditch full of stagnant, smelly water. That way was a no-go. They couldn’t afford to get wet, not knowing how long it might be before they could get dried off.
“Never mind,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve got point but let’s take it slow.”
Beth nodded, keeping five yards between herself and Chuck, just as he had shown her.
A loud slamming sound startled both of them as two infected Indian men and an infected Indian woman, all wearing Dunkin Donuts uniforms, burst out the side door. They rushed towards the couple, just thirty feet away, growling and snapping their teeth together. The lead zombie’s throat and face were ripped open, blood covering him. The second man’s right arm was missing at the elbow. Behind them was a tiny woman who rushed past her two zombie friends, sprinting at their victims. She had no visible wounds but her face was covered with gore.
A hole appeared in her forehead as McCain fired and she dropped to the ground. The other two Zs never slowed down as they continued past her. Chuck’s second shot caught the lead male under the nose, punching into his brain. Elizabeth’s AR-15 roared and the third zombie joined his friends on the pavement, her bullet striking him above the right eye.
McCain knew that their shooting would only bring out more of the creatures.
“Come on!” he urged, and started running.
As they passed by the doughnut store, movement caught his eye and he saw what he’d been dreading. Fifteen growling Zs had congregated under the awning of the convenience store’s gas pumps. Several abandoned vehicles were parked next to the gasoline dispensers, their drivers already dead and consumed or dead and infected, looking for fresh flesh.
I bet we could find a car with the keys in it and keep going, he thought, but quickly dismissed the idea, seeing how many zombies were shuffling towards the couple. Behind that gr
oup, the news got worse as Chuck saw thirty or forty more coming from the direction of the bridge over I-26, just a few hundred feet away. Directly across the street from their location stood a Waffle House and a Zaxby’s restaurant. To the right of the Waffle House was a patch of woods.
McCain quickly swung his rifle, tracking what had probably been a young woman in her mid-twenties. Her dark hair was tied back in a ponytail and her white tennis outfit was coated with blood and gore. She hadn’t made any noise as she sprinted towards them. The tennis player zombie was focused on Beth and rapidly closing the distance.
Chuck fired twice, missing with the first, his second shot penetrating the infected woman’s temple, dropping her at Elizabeth’s feet. Chuck’s wife screamed involuntarily and jumped backwards. If he had missed, that thing would have gotten me, Beth realized, shaking.
“Run for those woods across the street. I’m right behind you,” he said, raising his rifle and shooting the closest fast-movers.
McCain was back to firing short bursts in full-auto mode, trying to thin the group out. Their problems just got worse, he saw, glancing down the access road. The pack of maybe forty or fifty infected had kept pushing and shoving against the chain-link barrier until a section collapsed. Those zombies were hungry, too, and surging up the hill after him. They weren’t surrounded yet, he thought, but it was getting close.
It was the strangest set of sensations Elizabeth had ever felt, she realized, as she sprinted across the five-lane road. On the one hand, she was terrified. Just a minute earlier, she had almost become a meal for a hungry flesh-eater. Thank God, her husband could really shoot! She was definitely scared, but on the other hand, the rush of adrenaline flowing through her system was like nothing that she’d ever experienced before. The fear was present, but the skills Chuck had drilled into her were helping to suppress it so that she could function effectively.
Behind her, Chuck’s rifle began working again and she glanced over her shoulder to see zombie after zombie fall under his withering fire as he shot while moving backwards, towards her. The main group was close to him, less than fifteen yards away now, their growling, snarling, and clicking teeth becoming louder the closer they got to their prey. She turned her attention back to where she was going, running towards the woods.
Six infected suddenly rounded the corner of the Waffle House, moving to intercept the young woman. They snarled loudly as they closed in on what they perceived to be an easy meal. Out of her peripheral vision, Beth saw the door of the Zaxby’s fly open, discharging at least a dozen more zombies drawn to the gunfire and the growls of their friends. The chicken restaurant was fifty yards to the left of the Waffle House so Elizabeth knew that she had to deal with the Zs directly in front of her first.
An older, gray-haired woman in a Waffle House uniform, complete with a brown apron, led the closest group. Her hair was done up in a bun, a ballpoint pen sticking out of it for quick access, her glasses hanging from a chain around her neck. The waitress’s left ear was missing, while her left arm and neck sported vicious open wounds.
Beth quickly did the calculations. She knew that she could probably make the wood-line before these got to her but it would be cutting it too close and, worse, they would be between she and Chuck. She made up her mind to take her stand on the far side of the road, the Zs shuffling toward her through the parking lot just thirty feet away. Her rifle came up and she fired. The first shot whizzed past the waitress, but the second 5.56mm round hit her in the middle of the forehead, the ballpoint pen flying out from the impact.
Elizabeth kept shooting, missing a few shots in her haste, but killing the other five Waffle House customers-turned-zombies. She turned back towards her husband, watching him break contact with the zombies on the other side of the street, and conduct another reload while sprinting towards her. Beth climbed the slight embankment and paused at the tree line. She guessed there were still over fifty infected in their general area.
A quick glance back towards the bridge caused her to gasp in shock and surprise. A surging mass of bodies was on the overpass, coming towards them from the other side of I-26. These had been drawn to all the shooting, she supposed. There are hundreds of them! the young woman thought, the sounds of their snarls getting louder by the second.
Centers for Disease Control Compound, East of Atlanta, Saturday, 1120 hours
The CDC agents, along with Shaun Taylor, crowded around the small table in the enforcement unit’s office. After the officers had stood their weapons against the wall and removed their body armor, Shaun got right to business.
“Gentleman, Admiral Williams asked me to give you a preliminary briefing on an upcoming mission so that you could get some ideas flowing. His plan is to be here later today or tomorrow to get the ball rolling. For those of you who don’t know, Admiral Williams is the Director of Operations for the CIA and has been tasked with dealing with the situation that I’m about to brief you on.”
Taylor described the Tijuana Cartel’s invasion of Atlanta and the need to mount an operation to eliminate the cartel soldiers, secure the gang’s supply of the zombie virus, and rescue the hostages. At first, the CIA agent merely reiterated much of what Lieutenant Colonel Clark had told them the day before.
After Clark had passed the intelligence on to Admiral Williams a few days earlier, however, Williams had ordered around the clock drone surveillance of the area since Wednesday night. Things were still not functioning normally and the coverage had not been perfect but the analysts at the CIA now had a pretty good idea of what they were dealing with.
“The initial findings,” Taylor continued, “are that the cartel has captured and secured the entire intersection of Peachtree and Piedmont Roads and much of the surrounding area, at least a four or five block radius. I’m not from Atlanta but just looking at the maps, it’s clear that these gangsters have established a strong foothold and are continuing to push outward.”
“What’s the estimate on the number of cartel soldiers?” Hollywood asked.
The CIA agent glanced at his notes. “As best the analysts can estimate, close to two hundred. At this point, she didn’t feel comfortable narrowing it down any more than that. The chief analyst did tell me this, though. They’re not all Mexican. There appear to be quite a few African-Americans, or possibly very dark Latinos.”
Jimmy nodded. “I just had a run-in with some BMF members out near Athens. That’s Black Mafia Family. They were wearing National Guard uniforms and started shooting at us. The police officer that I was with got hit. She’s OK now, but after we killed the thugs, I saw BMF tats on two of the bodies.
“It makes sense to me that any of the surviving gangs in the city would join forces with the biggest dogs on the block. Right now, those are the Mexicans. It wouldn’t surprise me if more than just the black gangs are hooking up with the cartel.”
“Like who?” Shaun asked.
“The ATL is full of some really bad Latino and Asian gangs. MS-13 has had a big presence here for years. They’re predominantly from El Salvador and them and the Mexicans hate each other but I bet they could figure out a way to work together if the prize was the entire city of Atlanta. The Asians, I don’t know. They don’t really work and play well with others.”
“What else, Shaun?” Andy queried. “What have the drones picked up about weapons, sentries, and where everyone is being housed?”
Taylor nodded. “The admiral will be bringing maps and diagrams. The good news is that it looks like the cartel took over a luxury high rise building on Piedmont just off of Peachtree. At this point, everybody seems to be living under one roof. They run regular motorized patrols and there are always sentries patrolling the outside of their HQ.”
Jay Walker glanced around the room and chuckled. “That brings up an interesting point, Shaun. We are eight of the baddest asses on the planet,” he said, nodding at the other CDC agents, “and I’m sure you’re somewhere in that mix yourself. Now I’ll admit I was never very good at math, but I belie
ve that that only gives us a whopping total of nine to go up against a minimum of two hundred cartel soldiers?”
Shaun smiled. “There will be quite a few more people joining us. One of the reasons that the admiral has been delayed in getting down here is that he’s currently gathering resources. Human resources. I think you’ll all be very pleased with the team he’s putting together. Like I said at the beginning, we just want you to start thinking about strategies and options. When the boss gets here, we’ll all go into full planning mode.”
South of Hendersonville, North Carolina, Saturday, 1125 hours
McCain rushed across the street, zombies pursuing closely. Beth had taken out the group from the Waffle House and now the way was clear for them to get into the cover of the woods. He knew by experience that the infected did not move as well on uneven ground, where both trees and thick undergrowth formed natural obstacles. Chuck knew that the Zs would continue to chase them. The forest, however, would allow the couple to create some distance. He hoped.
The CDC officer saw his wife pause at the edge of the tree line and survey their situation, her rifle at a low ready. Her eyes widened when she looked back towards the interstate. He quickly joined her at the top of the ridge, only to see the hundreds of infected stumbling across the bridge, coming after them.
McCain blew out a big breath. “It’s gonna be OK,” he said, sounding like he was trying to convince himself of that fact. “Get going and I’ll catch up to you.”
Three running zombies were inside twenty yards, having just sprinted from Zaxby’s; a young, African-American woman in business attire and two chunky, thirty-something white guys wearing light blue work shirts. I wonder if they finished their lunch, McCain thought, putting a shot into each of the men’s heads and then the young woman’s.
As Chuck ducked into the woods, he instinctively touched his rifle mag pouch mounted on the front of his plate-carrier. Only two left, he realized, the full-auto fire causing him go through ammo at a blistering pace. It’s going to be a long day.
