by Spell, David
“What is it? What’d you find?” Josh asked.
“I’ll tell you in a minute. I’ve got to make a phone call first.”
McCain pulled up Eddie Marshall’s number.
CDC Temporary Headquarters, Atlanta, Friday, 1135 hours
Eddie Marshall stared at the computer screen. If he had known how much administrative work went along with his job as the Supervisory Agent in Charge of the Atlanta CDC Enforcement Unit, he might have reconsidered before taking the job. He would have much preferred being out with his men shooting zombies and supervising the cleanup efforts around Atlanta.
Eddie was dark-skinned and built like a football player. He had played linebacker for Notre Dame twenty years earlier but still looked like he could take the field. After graduating with a degree in Criminal Justice and not getting drafted by the NFL, Marshall had gone to work for the Chicago Police Department, where he spent almost fifteen years.
He eventually realized that he wanted more and became a United States Federal Marshal. The former-football-player-turned-cop became very good at tracking fugitives, having found, arrested, and even been forced to kill Mafia members, drug traffickers, bank robbers, and murderers. Eddie had loved the work but it had taken a toll on his family.
With his wife ready to divorce him, Marshall had accepted Rebecca Johnson’s job offer to come work for a new federal law enforcement agency. Eddie would be forever grateful to Rebecca not only for the job, but for saving his marriage. Marshall and McCain had served as team leaders under Johnson, fighting terrorists and zombies. After Johnson had been murdered, Chuck McCain had been promoted and had taken her position, running the Atlanta CDC enforcement office.
When Chuck had left to go work for the CIA, Eddie had replaced him as the OIC in Atlanta. His two team leaders, Jimmy Jones and Jay Walker, were doing an incredible job, but Eddie would rather be with them than in the office doing payroll. At the same time, he couldn’t argue with the nice pay raise that had come with the position and his wife, Candace, was incredibly proud of him.
The smartphone on the desk vibrated with an incoming call. That was probably Candace now checking in. She was very pregnant and due in a little over a month. Eddie picked up the phone and saw that instead of his beautiful wife calling, it was Chuck McCain.
He and Chuck hadn’t spoken in a couple of weeks and Eddie hit the ‘talk’ button. “Hey, Chuck, how’s it going?”
“Not good, buddy. The Tijuana Cartel just tried to kill me!” Chuck quickly recounted what had just happened.
Seven months earlier, at the height of the zombie virus crisis, the Tijuana Cartel had sent almost two hundred gangsters to Atlanta. The city had been ravaged by thousands of Zs. Most people who had been able to flee were gone. Those who had tried to stick it out realized that they had made a terrible mistake.
Not only did the survivors have to contend with the infected wandering the city, there were also roving bands of criminals. The Tijuana Cartel set up shop in the Buckhead area, one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the city. They cleared out a six-block quadrant and established a strong foothold in Atlanta. They captured over forty women survivors and had kept them as sex slaves for the cartel soldiers to use any time they wanted.
Two months later, McCain led a combined team of law enforcement and military personnel against the cartel. The Mexican criminals had also managed to obtain a quantity of the zombie virus. The President had ordered the Director of Operations for the CIA, Admiral Jonathan Williams, to put together a mission eliminating the cartel’s presence on US soil, recovering the virus, and rescuing the prisoners. Williams had placed McCain in tactical control of the mission and under his direction, the military and law enforcement experts killed over one hundred and thirty of the gangsters. Those who were taken alive were treated as enemy combatants and transported to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
“Man, are you OK?” Marshall asked his friend.
“I’m fine but would you mind finding Elizabeth and bringing her here? She drove my truck in this morning so maybe you can follow her home? I haven’t talked to the detectives yet. Whenever I can get away, we’ll find a hotel or maybe even fly back to Washington tonight.”
“Sure, Chuck. I’ll go get her right now. All my guys are out working but I’ll take care of Beth. If you need a place to stay, you know you guys can stay with us. We’ve got a big house.”
“Thanks. I may take you up on that. Let me let you go. Andy’s calling and I need to update him and then call the admiral.”
CHAPTER TWO
Mopping Up
Washington, D.C., Friday, 1030 hours
Andy Fleming swapped the magazine in his suppressed M4 rifle, the thirty rounder clicking into place. The smell of cordite added to the already noxious blend of decaying flesh, trash, and unflushed toilets. He had killed three of the four zombies that his team had just encountered in the small home. The wiry former Marine’s bullets had punched into the heads of a grandmother, a younger woman, and a teen-age boy, all covered with dried blood and all infected with the bio-terror virus. One of the Metro DC police officers also put a 9mm hollow point into the forehead of a middle-age man as he lunged at them, growling and snapping his teeth together, gory open wounds visible on his neck, face and arms.
Fleming was leading the six officers in clearing a zombie-infested neighborhood in the Washington Highlands area. This was one of the poorest and most depressed areas of the city, and the authorities were finally turning their attention to eliminating the infected that were still lurking there. After five straight days of working house-to-house, street-by-street, killing the Zs, Andy’s five men and one woman team had started to gel.
Chuck had sent Andy, Scotty Smith, and Eric Gray to meet with the brass of the Metropolitan Police Department in the District of Columbia on Monday morning to plan their attack. Like so many other east coast police departments, they had been gutted by casualties, as well as officers fleeing the city to get their own families to safety after the virus had been released. The Metro SWAT Team had fought valiantly but had lost many of its members as zombies swarmed through the city.
There were still plenty of areas inside DC that needed to be cleared out. With the departmental strength low, however, this was a volunteers-only assignment. Andy, Scotty, and Eric each led a team and had spent the week, working block-by-block, shooting hundreds of Zs in the head. Andy had been pleased to see that all of the zombies were slow-moving and well into the decaying process. They had not encountered a single fresh one. The officers who had volunteered for the assignment were above average shots, but this was still a job better suited to tactical teams than to regular beat cops.
Fleming and Smith had both been a part of the CDC Enforcement Unit in Atlanta. McCain had brought them with him when he accepted the position with the CIA in Washington. Before that, Andy had been a staff sergeant in the Marines, serving in the elite Marine Corps Special Operations Command (MARSOC). These special operators were the Marine Corps’ answer to the Army’s Special Forces.
A family crisis had forced Fleming out of the Marines. After a year of working in the private sector, he had been approached to join the new CDC law enforcement branch. Andy had enjoyed his time there but really loved his new position on Chuck’s staff, working with local law enforcement agencies in eliminating the infected that still lurked in so many locations.
Scotty Smith had been an Army Ranger Sniper, deploying several times to Iraq. After being wounded when his humvee struck an improvised explosive device, the bearded, six-foot-five, heavily muscled two hundred and fifty pound Ranger got out of the army to become a fireman/paramedic in the Metro-Atlanta area. Within a few years, however, the fireman had gotten bored and was about to sign on as a military contractor and head back to the Middle East. Rebecca Johnson had a conversation with him, though, and he came to work for the CDC, as well.
Eric Gray was also a former MARSOC Marine, attaining the rank of gunnery sergeant. He and Fleming had ser
ved together on a team before Andy had gotten out. Their paths had crossed again several months earlier when Eric and fifteen Marine reservists were part of the force that Chuck led against the Tijuana Cartel in Buckhead.
McCain had been impressed with the African-American’s cool, steady leadership of his men. Andy had also given Chuck a great report on the gunnery sergeant. Eric had been hesitant to leave his beloved Marine Corps, but he liked the idea of working with his buddy, Andy, and Chuck McCain had demonstrated that he was a leader worth following. After a few months of working with local cops and killing zombies, Eric had no regrets at all about taking the new job.
This week had been a repeat of their past several months. The federal agents spent most of their time in New York, DC, or Atlanta, assisting the local authorities. McCain joined his men whenever he could. This week, he had been able to get away from the office for two days, killings his fair share of Zs, before heading to Atlanta for the weekend.
As Fleming’s team moved cautiously down Yuma Street, working through a government housing project, Smith and Gray were leading similar teams a few blocks away. Shots occasionally rang out as the police officers put bullets into the heads of the infected they encountered. They had mapped out areas of responsibility and made sure there was enough distance between the teams to prevent any blue-on-blue shooting. At the same time, they were still close enough to support each other if one of the groups ran into trouble.
This morning, Andy’s squad had engaged and eliminated close to fifty Zs in a three-block area, going door-to-door. They had not found a single survivor, the virus having taken a terrible toll in this poor community. Several of the homes they had recently searched contained bodies with gunshot wounds, the sign that someone else with guns had been through the area. Other corpses and body parts were scattered in yards, on the sidewalks, and in the street. Whenever the area was declared safe, clean-up teams would come through and dispose of the bodies.
Two of the small red brick homes looked like war zones. The windows and doors had been boarded up, but bullet holes raked the brick and wood-covered openings. In both cases, the plywood had been ripped off, with empty shell casings both inside and outside providing evidence of a serious shootout.
The remains of four dead black men were in one of the homes with the corpses of three black males and two black females in the other. All had been shot multiple times and the houses had been ransacked. The women had been stripped naked and their bodies bore evidence that they had been raped before being executed. Eighteen dead zombies were splayed in the roadway near the scene of the shootout.
Fleming turned to the female officer in his group. “Kendra, didn’t you say you spent some time with the Metro Gang Task Force?”
The light-skinned young woman nodded, anger evident on her face after viewing the crime scene. “Two years. I was with them when the virus broke out.”
“What does this look like to you? You think a rival gang did this? I remember reading that this area was a gang war zone. Who else is going to break into homes during a zombie apocalypse and fire so many rounds? That noise had to bring those dead Zs running. Plus, they even took the time to abuse those girls before killing them.”
“You might be right. Let me take a closer look.”
A few minutes later, the police officer joined her team on the small front porch of one of the homes, slipping her flashlight back into the holder on her belt.
“I found where they tagged both houses. ‘WP.’ It’s on the walls in both of them. That’s the Wahler Place gang from just a few streets over. The gangs in DC are mostly affiliated with their neighborhoods. Wahler Place claims this whole area. A couple of smaller groups tried to set up shop but WP shut them down pretty quick, killing a few of their key members.”
The policewoman pulled a bottle of water out of her cargo pants pocket and took a long swallow. “A couple of years ago we had a records clerk who was working with them. She was able to get info on rival gangs from our database and slip it to the WP guys. They murdered several other bangers based on her help.”
Andy nodded, digesting the information. “Okay, let’s keep moving, but now we know we need to keep our eyes out for zombies and gang bangers.”
As they approached the corner of Yuma Street and 8th Street, a large modern youth recreation center rose up on the corner, in stark contrast to the rundown government housing that surrounded it. The plan was to clear the Ferebee Hope Rec Center and then take a well-earned break inside before continuing their mission.
“Team One Alpha to Teams Two and Three Alpha,” Andy activated his walkie-talkie, transmitting to Smith and Gray.
When they both acknowledged, Fleming told them to make their way to his location. They weren’t sure what they would find inside the recreation center so Andy wanted to have plenty of firepower on hand. Fleming led his team of police officers behind a two-story, eight-unit apartment building. It was the last structure before they crossed 8th Street where apartments continued on the other side of the intersection. When they had started two hours earlier, they had only been dealing with small brick homes. Multi-family housing brought an entirely different set of challenges. Maybe we’ll all stay together for that, Andy thought.
The four-story recreation center sat silently across the street, only a hundred and fifty feet away. Something did not feel right and the former Marine always trusted his instincts. He brought his rifle up, sweeping his ACOG optics over the recreation center. Suddenly, a figure peeked over the edge of the roof and just as quickly, ducked back down. None of the police officers had seen him and Andy would wait before telling them. This apartment building had to be dealt with first.
Each of his, Smith’s, and Gray’s teams contained one SWAT officer. The rest were just patrol officers who had volunteered to kill zombies. Andy didn’t discount their courage but he knew that their level of training put them at a disadvantage. He and his two colleagues had tried to teach them as much as they could over the last five days. Most cops do have experience clearing buildings, often doing it several times a shift in response to false or even true burglar alarms. Searching a structure that might contain zombies, though, left no room for error.
Fifteen minutes later, Andy’s group had eliminated another six Zs, with most of the apartments being empty. Scotty and Eric led their officers behind the building where Andy waited with his team. Gray picked two of the SWAT officers, designating them to keep watch for any approaching threats.
“How was the hunting?” Fleming asked, keeping his voice down and pointing a thumb at the structure they had just searched. “This building is clear, by the way. We put down six more inside.”
“These cops are turning into killers!” Gray whispered, nodding at his six men with pride.
Smith smiled in agreement. “My guys, and girl,” he caught himself, grinning apologetically at his only female officer, “were mowing ‘em down. I figure we took out forty or fifty.”
“Excellent!” Andy said. “Now we need to head across the street and clear that rec center. Right before we dealt with this apartment building, I spotted someone on the roof across the street. It was a young black guy, maybe in his twenties. He peeked over, saw me looking up at him, and dropped back behind the wall.
“Maybe there’s a group of survivors inside or maybe we’ve got some gangbangers holed up in there. We found where one of the local gangs shot their way into two homes up the street, raped two girls, and killed everybody inside. Kendra, can you tell them what you told us?”
The officer gave a brief update to the other two teams about the Wahler Place gang. “These aren’t kids either. The ones I dealt with and arrested were all in their mid- to late twenties,” she concluded.
“What do you guys think is the best way to handle this?” Fleming asked, looking at Gray and Smith.
Scotty’s face lit up, the anticipation of a fight looming. Eric wasn’t smiling but Andy saw the excitement in his eyes as well. Shooting zombies was fun but nothing got
the adrenaline pumping like going up against people who might shoot back at you.
Eric turned to the Metro police officers. “Anybody been inside the rec center? It’d be great to have an idea of the floor plan.”
Jamal spoke up. He was the youngest of the group at twenty-three, having just graduated the police academy six months before the car bomb and suicide bomber had detonated in the city.
“I used to ref basketball games here to make some extra money. The first floor has the two basketball courts on the left when you go in through the front doors and two swimming pools on the right. The offices and admin are all on the second floor. The next level has classrooms for activities, like arts and crafts. They always had something going on for the kids in the neighborhood, trying to keep them off the streets.
“The fourth floor,” the officer continued, “I don’t know. I never went up there.”
Andy shrugged. “That’s better than nothing. Here’s what I think we should do.”
Ferebee Hope Rec Center, Washington, D.C., Friday, 1055 hours
It was Shamar’s turn to pull lookout duty on the roof. They had all heard the steady approach of gunshots as the police had worked their way down the street throughout the morning. When the lookout saw the heavily armed officers at the apartment building across from the recreation center, he quickly notified the rest of the crew. Julius King, aka JK, had immediately moved into action. The eight gang members readied their weapons, knowing an assault was imminent.
Four months earlier, when the Wahler Place gang had decided to seize the recreation center, they found a group of almost thirty starving survivors inside. Gang leader Lamar had no intention of sharing their own meager supplies and had ordered the scared people to leave. One of the male survivors had made the mistake of pulling a pistol, yelling that he wasn’t going anywhere. The WP thugs had opened fired on the entire group, slaughtering men, women, and children.