The Zombie Terror War Series (Vol. 6): Where The Vultures Gather

by Spell, David

  “I caught a round in the vest. I’m good. It smashed a couple of my rifle mags and I’ll probably have a bruise,” the former Marine special operator answered.

  Fleming’s phone vibrated again but they were still in a building that had not been cleared yet. They left three Metro officers to cover the stairwell door as the other teams searched the lower level. Eric’s squad circled to the left, Scotty took his group to the right, and Andy led his officers down the central corridor. They understood that there could still be threats on the first floor and they didn’t need any more bad guys or zombies sneaking up behind them when they started for the upper levels.

  The police officers moved slowly and methodically, checking every area where someone could hide. The locker rooms were the last area to search. Other than smelling like raw sewage from the lack of running water, the restrooms were clear, along with the rest of the first floor.

  They all met back at the entrance to the stairs. Officer Kendra had been one of the sentries guarding the door.

  “What have you heard?” Fleming asked softly.

  “There was a guy calling for help. He kept saying he was hurt bad. After a few minutes, he got quiet and I’ve haven’t heard anything else.”

  “Hey, Sarge, you got a flashbang?” Fleming asked Alex.

  Sergeant Bell reached into a cargo pocket and withdrew a silver, cylindrical object and held it up.

  Andy nodded. “It’s been a few minutes since Scotty threw the frag in there. Can you toss the bang and we’ll follow it and see what we have in the stairwell?”

  The SWAT sergeant readied the grenade and stepped up to the door. Flashbangs are used by tactical teams all over the world. Unlike the fragmentation grenade that Smith tossed in earlier, this device was not designed to cause death but was created to stun, disorient, and confuse.

  Scotty would be leading the way this time, standing next to the SWAT officer. When everyone was ready, Alex threw the flashbang in the still partially open doorway. All the officers turned away, squeezing their eyes closed and covering their ears again as the grenade detonated, the roar temporarily deafening the cops, the concussion sucking the air out of their lungs.

  Smith was already in motion, though, stepping over the dead thug in the doorway, his rifle-mounted light sweeping over the dark stairwell. Three bodies were splayed out, the frag grenade having done its job. The first gang member was lying on the steps, blood seeping out of multiple shrapnel wounds, lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling.

  The other two corpses were on the first landing. One was facedown as if he had tried to run away, his back and legs ripped open. The third dead criminal was probably the one Kendra had heard calling for help. Shrapnel had eviscerated the tall, thin man, his intestines laying beside him on the floor in a large pool of blood.

  Scotty paused momentarily, shining his light up the steps, a blood trail visible leading up to the next floor. The padding of footsteps sounded above them and gunfire suddenly exploded from the next level, bullets striking the wall and the floor around the officers.

  “I’m hit!” Officer Jamal exclaimed, the pain evident in his voice as he crumpled to the floor, clutching his leg.

  Fleming, Gray, and Smith instinctively fired full-auto bursts at the muzzle flashes above them. They were rewarded by a scream and the sound of a pistol falling and bouncing off the side of the metal stairs, landing near Sergeant Bell’s feet. A door slammed above them and Scotty flicked on the safety of his rifle, moving into a combat paramedic role. He grabbed the wounded policeman and pulled him out of the stairwell into the corridor.

  Andy pointed at three of the DC police officers. “You stay here and cover Smith while he works on Jamal. The rest of you, follow me.”

  Only JK and Maurice were left and they were both wounded. The gang leader’s left arm was messed up bad. He had never expected the pigs to use real grenades. That’s got to be some kind of civil rights violation, the thug thought.

  JK had been standing behind T-Rex in the stairwell so his friend caught the full effect of the blast but a piece of shrapnel still tore into the leader’s left bicep. Maurice had been hit by a bullet when the cops let loose on them after the second grenade. That same burst had killed Jermaine, his body left behind as the survivors fled.

  The two gang members stumbled through the door leading to the administrative offices of the second floor, turning their flashlights on and rushing to the far side of the building, bypassing a row of cubicles. They ducked into the director’s spacious office. Lamar had claimed the large space when they had seized the facility. Since his death, JK had been using it as his apartment.

  Maurice was doubled over in pain, the bullet having struck him just above his right hip, exiting his back. JK saw the gaping, bloody hole where the bullet left his friend’s body and wasn’t sure how he was even still alive. His own arm wound throbbed and continued to bleed, but the gangster wasn’t sure where their first-aid kit was.

  The WP’s leader reached over into a corner and pulled out two soiled t-shirts, handing one to Maurice.

  “Here, use this for now.”

  JK wrapped the other shirt around his bicep, trying to stanch the flow of blood. The sound of the stairwell door opening carried down the hallway and the two men quickly extinguished their flashlights.

  “Maurice, they’re coming!” he whispered. “Can you shoot?”

  “Maybe we should surrender,” his wounded companion answered, quietly, his voice getting weaker. “The cops’ll take us to the hospital. I’m hit bad, JK.”

  “Man, I don’t think these cops are taking prisoners. They threw two grenades into that stairwell. We got this, brother.”

  There was no escape, no place to run to, and JK just wanted to take a few of the pigs with him before they killed the last two WP associates. Maurice managed to seat himself in a chair in front of the big desk, the Beretta laying in his lap for easy access.

  The offices were almost completely dark, with only a small amount of light coming in from the few boarded up windows. JK thought he saw the shadows moving, coming in their direction. A sudden jolt of pain shot through his body as he bumped his injured armed into a shelf protruding from the wall.

  The gangster had the presence of mind to get behind the heavy wooden desk and kneel down. When the shadows moved again, he began shooting, the sound of the Glock deafening in the enclosed room. The return fire from the police was immediate and heavy, driving JK to seek cover behind the mahogany desk as bullets slammed into it and the wall behind him.

  “Frag out!” one of the cops yelled.

  As JK tried to figure out what that meant, something landed and bounced on the carpet. The room erupted in an explosion and everything went dark for the WP leader.

  Fleming had made a perfect throw into the open office door at the end of the corridor, fifty feet from where the officers crouched. Fortunately, no one had been hit by the errant gunfire, the cops having all ducked into the cubicles before returning fire. Andy wasn’t going to take a chance on having any more of the officers injured.

  “Frag out!” he yelled, pitching his grenade towards the doorway the muzzle flashes had come from.

  Seconds later, the office erupted in flame, smoke, flying shrapnel, and a heavy concussion.

  “Let’s go!” the team leader ordered after the explosion, moving quickly towards the smoldering room, the others also scanning the area around them.

  The former MARSOC Marine’s light shone through the swirling dust and smoke of the now destroyed office. A male lay on his back in the center of the room, his face and chest obliterated from the blast, his left leg having been severed at the knee, blood soaking the light colored carpet. A groan came from behind the massive desk. Fleming and Gray cautiously inched to where they could see another male, this one with blood coming out of his ears and the bicep of his left arm destroyed. Eric kicked a pistol away from the wounded gang member.

  The two warriors made eye contact. Andy motioned with his head to
wards the other officers crowding in the doorway and office, wanting to see the results of the grenade. Having served on a MARSOC team together during dozens of missions, Eric understood what Fleming was saying.

  Gray took charge. “Come on, guys, we need to finish clearing the building. Sergeant Bell, can you split them up so we can search the rest of this level before we head upstairs?”

  “Team Two Alpha to Team One Alpha,” Smith’s voice transmitted into Fleming and Gray’s earpieces.

  Andy clicked the transmit button to answer. “Team One Alpha.”

  “You guys OK?”

  “We’re good. Two bad guys down. We’re about to start clearing the rest of this place. How’s Jamal?”

  “Stable, but he’s lost a lot of blood. His femoral got hit and I’ve got a tourniquet clamped down on his leg. We need to get him to an ER fast.”

  Fleming understood the implication of a gunshot wound to the femoral artery. He had seen terrorists, and in one case a fellow Marine, bleed out in minutes from that type of injury. They needed to move fast to get Jamal to the hospital. Smith was a great paramedic but there was only so much he could in this situation.

  “10-4. Team Three Alpha, are you clear on that radio traffic?”

  “Team Three Alpha, I copy. What are your orders? We’re almost done clearing the second floor.”

  “Have Bell call in our transport and let’s pull back. If there are any more bad guys hiding out in here, we’ll get them next time. I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  As Fleming gave orders over the radio, the wounded man at his feet groaned again, reaching for his Glock, now on the other side of the room. Normally, the federal officer would try to interrogate the criminal before taking him into custody and providing him with medical treatment. That wasn’t happening today.

  Andy saw the blood coming out of the wounded man’s ears indicating that his eardrums had been burst. That ruled out trying to talk to him. And there was no way they were taking the criminal with them. Fleming’s first priority was to get Officer Jamal to an emergency room. Fleming knelt beside the injured man, squeezing his nose closed with one gloved hand, while the other formed a seal over the thug’s mouth. Four minutes later, the federal officer rejoined his teammates on the first floor as they prepared to move out.

  Ferebee Hope Rec Center, Washington, D.C., Friday, 1140 hours

  Alex requested extraction and notified dispatch that they had an officer needing immediate transport to the hospital. The SWAT truck, two vans, and an ambulance had spent the week staging at an empty firehouse seven blocks away. At the end of each day, they had picked up the three teams and transported them back to police headquarters. As soon as they heard Bell’s radio transmission, six police officers and two paramedics jumped into their vehicles and raced over to the recreation center.

  Andy assigned four of the cops to guard the stairwell door in case there were any other gangsters on the upper floors of the building. Scotty didn’t want to move Jamal yet, worried that the tourniquet might slip. He continued to monitor his patient as half of the team secured the dead criminals’ weapons and the other half kept watch just outside the back entrance. The smart phone on Smith’s belt vibrated several times with incoming texts but he was still wearing bloody rubber gloves and ignored the vibrations.

  With the scene mostly secure, Fleming finally remembered to check his own phone, pulling it off his belt and moving to the rear door where he would have some privacy. He saw that he had two texts and two voicemails. One was from Tu Trang Donaldson and the other was from a number he didn’t recognize. Andy clicked on the text messages first.

  “Andy, this is Gi Donaldson. Amy and Tyler have both been shot. They r at the hospital here on base. Please try to get here as soon as you can.”

  Fleming felt his legs grow weak as he read the message again. The next text was from Tu. “Andy, I’m at the hospital with Amy and Tyler. They’re both in surgery. Call me.”

  The transport vehicles roared to a stop front of the rec center. Officers directed the two paramedics inside with their gurney to prepare Jamal for transport. Gray walked over to let Fleming know they were almost ready to go. He caught the look of shock on his friend’s face.

  “What’s up, buddy? You’re looking a little pale even for a guy as white as you.”

  Andy ignored him and pulled up Tu’s number, hitting the dial button.

  Tu Trang Donaldson was the Supervisory Agent in Charge of the Washington, D.C., office for the CDC Enforcement Unit. He had served in the Army, earning the coveted Green Beret, just as his father had before him. Tu was born in Vietnam. His father, Staff Sergeant Bobby Donaldson, and his mother, Mai, had fallen in love, but Bobby had been ordered back to the United States as the war in Southeast Asia drew to a close. The staff sergeant was unaware that Mai was pregnant at that time, but one of her many messages about his son managed to reach him in the U.S.

  It took him almost two years, but Donaldson utilized all of his savings and all of his CIA contacts to get his girlfriend and his young son to America. The couple had wed within a week of them arriving at Fort Brag, North Carolina. Tu had followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a Special Forces soldier.

  When Tu met his wife, Gi, a second-generation Korean, he had been in the Army for fifteen years. Trang knew it was time for a change. The SF soldier wanted to be a good husband, and eventually, a good father. He knew that would be difficult with the constant deployment and travel that was required of the Green Berets. The couple was wed and Tu left the military for the Secret Service. Five years later, he was approached to come work for the new CDC Enforcement Unit.

  After the zombie virus was released in the capital, Trang had made arrangements for his agents and their families to be housed at Fort Belvoir, fifteen miles south of DC. The security forces had done an excellent job of defending the base from several attacks by the infected. As a nurse, Gi worked at the base hospital, assisting the few remaining doctors in caring for the survivors at the installation.

  Fort Belvoir was also currently the home for the McCains, Flemings, Scotty and his fiancée, Emily, and Eric Gray. When Northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Southern Maryland were cleared of zombies, the federal officers would feel more comfortable relocating off of the military base. For now, however, they had been enjoying living in a secure environment as they worked to eliminate the many decaying Zs still inhabiting the east coast.

  As the paramedics rolled Jamal towards the waiting ambulance, Scotty rushed up to Andy, phone in hand, a stunned look on his face. Fleming, engrossed in his own conversation, ignored the bearded man.

  “Thanks, Tu. I’m leaving right now. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Andy disconnected the call and looked up at his friend. “Amy and Tyler…”

  Scotty put a big hand on the smaller man’s shoulder and spoke softly. “I just talked to Emily. She was on the scene and transported them to the hospital. Did Tu tell you what happened?”

  Fleming shook his head. “He said he didn’t want to say much on the phone. He made it sound like someone attacked them at home. I need to get there now. They’re both in surgery.”

  “Emily said it was a home invasion,” Smith informed the former Marine. “Three bad guys came in shooting. Tyler took out two of them. They’re DRT. Amy got off a couple of rounds and wounded the other one. Base security is tracking a blood trail.”

  Smith paused and took a deep breath. “They came after me, too, Andy. Em said they broke into our townhouse and torched it. She wasn’t there but the neighbors reported it. The whole building went up. It killed a lady who lived next door to us.”

  The two men stared at each other, the implications of what had happened staggering them. Attacks had been launched on their homes inside what they thought had been a secure base. The base housing was made up of townhomes, with the Flemings and McCains living across the street from each other. Scotty and Emily’s place was a block away. Eric was also staying nearby, in the single
officer’s quarters, the irony not lost on the former senior non-commissioned Marine.

  “Contact!”

  Gunfire suddenly exploded from the street. A group of eight growling, shuffling Zs had been drawn to the noise of the explosions and gunshots and were almost to the vehicles, their decaying corpses making them appear as if they were moving in slow motion. The federal officers rushed to assist, but the local cops were now trained zombie killers. None of the infected got any closer than ten yards before the DC officers had cut them down.

  After confirming the scene was secure again for the moment, Gray strode over to his teammates, letting them know that they were set for departure. Officer Jamal was being transported to the trauma center at Andrews Air Force Base. It was the closest functioning hospital. The Metro cops prepared to load into the vans, with two of their members riding in the ambulance for security.

  With Fleming still in shock, Smith took charge and gave Gray a quick rundown on what had happened and what they needed. Less than a minute later, Eric went to find Sergeant Bell. The armored SWAT truck was quickly rushing towards Fort Belvoir.

  Bell had not hesitated when asked to provide transportation out of his jurisdiction. He had explained the situation to the other SWAT members. The idea of a fellow cop’s family being attacked infuriated them and they were more than willing to assist in any way. They all crowded into the back of their tactical vehicle with the three feds. One of the other Metro DC cops drove with Sergeant Bell riding shotgun.

  Fleming wasn’t sure what they would find at Fort Belvoir. It sounded like terrorists had infiltrated the base and having the SWAT members’ extra firepower might prove to be useful. Andy remembered that he had not notified Chuck and pulled his phone from his belt.

  CHAPTER THREE