Children of the Apocalypse: Mega Boxed Set

by Baileigh Higgins

  “I know.” Max considered it. “We’d better be on our guard. This could be a trap.”

  “Right.” Michael turned and whispered instructions to Peter and Thembiso. They each shot off in a different direction as they spread the latest news and orders to everyone assembled. Together they watched and waited. At last, Max spotted movement. “There.”

  “I see them,” Michael replied.

  A convoy of vehicles emerged from the tree line and sped toward the barriers blocking the gates. They braked in a flurry of dust as their wheels kicked up sand, and figures emerged from the opening doors. “Can you see anyone? Breytenbach? Kirstin?”

  “No,” Michael replied.

  “Shit,” Max swore while he suppressed his irritation with the man. One minute he can see in the dark, now he can’t make out one lousy person’s face?

  He raised the radio to his lips. “Liezel, come in.”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you make out who it is? Is it Breytenbach and his team?” he asked, longing for a set of binoculars.

  “Hold on.” Silence. “Yes, it’s them!” she cried, her excitement palpable.

  Max sagged with relief, but this passed as he watched the tiny figures drag the spiked contraption blocking the gates out of the way. Behind them, the first straggling line of zombies appeared from the brush. “Hurry, Breytenbach!”

  “They’re not going to make it,” Michael said.

  The crack of two rifles sounded from the tower as Liezel and Abe attempted to thin the ranks of the undead. A few dropped, but countless more took their place. Nervous tension coiled in Max’s breast. He watched as two of the figures dragged open the gates while the rest added their shots to Liezel and Abe’s. Together, they managed to slow the advance of the infected.

  Somebody, likely Breytenbach, tossed a grenade into the throng. The explosion sounded dull from his position, a muted roar overlaid by the groaning of thousands of zombies. Hurry, hurry, hurry!

  The last vehicle in line was swallowed up by the horde. Like ants, the undead swarmed over it until it disappeared from view. The third truck suffered a likewise fate, and Max chewed on the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.

  The gates were now open, and the two figures who’d unlatched them sprinted toward the waiting vehicle in front. They jumped in with seconds to spare as the undead reached the front of the convoy.

  The front vehicles began to move, slowly at first before picking up speed as they honked their horns and raced inside the camp. To his intense relief, the two swamped cars made it out as well, shedding their layer of decomposed bodies like old skin. It was too late to close the gates or replace the barrier, however.

  “Shit, we lost the outer fence,” Michael said, echoing his thoughts.

  “I hadn’t expected it to hold for long, but it would have given us a slight edge,” Max agreed.

  “At least, Breytenbach’s back,” Michael said.

  Max motioned to Abraham and Phillip. “Get ready to open.”

  They nodded.

  He looked at Michael. “If it’s not them, shoot. Liezel could’ve been wrong, or it could be a ruse.”

  “Will do.”

  He looked around. “Everybody ready?”

  Yells of assent rose.

  We’re ready.

  The four vehicles raced up, and he held his breath as he waited. His eyes searched for Kirstin’s, desperate with hope. He spotted her familiar blonde head, and an immense weight lifted from his shoulders. She made it. “It’s them, open up!”

  The bars were flung aside, and the weighted metal sheets pushed open. Breytenbach and the mystery trucks pulled inside, their wheels kicking up a spray of dust and gravel. The dead followed them in a straight line up the road, their faces decayed and contorted. A low hum rose from their unified throats. Runners emerged from the front ranks, pushing through their slower companions to sprint after their fleeing prey.

  “Shit. Close the gates. Hurry!” Max shouted as he bounded down the ladder. He flung himself at the nearest side and helped Abraham push the monstrosity shut with a clang. Together, they lifted the bars and slid it across. The first bodies slammed against the barrier. The beating of their fists sounded like a war drum.

  “Michael, come in,” he said over the radio.

  “Yes?”

  “Can you take over up there for a few minutes?”

  “Roger. We can hold them for now, but hurry.”

  With Michael in charge and their defenses intact once more, Max allowed himself to look for Kirstin. There.

  “Kirstin!” He bounded forward and swooped her up in a crushing hold. His arms circled her waist as he lifted her slender body off the ground and spun her around in a circle.

  “Max.”

  “Where have you been? I’ve been so worried,” he cried.

  She shook her head. “Not now, Max. You have visitors.

  Max’s gaze slid over the convoy of vehicles and settled on a familiar Land Rover. His brows lifted in amazement. “Logan?”

  Long legs clad in muddy boots and jeans slid from the driver’s side followed by a lean torso topped by broad shoulders and messy dark hair. Piercing grey eyes found him and lightened with instant joy. “Max!”

  “Logan, you son of a…where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.” Max leaped forward and grabbed his friend, enfolding him in a bear hug.

  Logan laughed. “Come on. You always knew I’d be back, didn’t you?”

  “I’m surprised some zombie didn’t eat your skinny ass.”

  “Nah, I’m too tough and gamey.” Logan clapped him on the back. “Anyway, I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  “Another one?” Max frowned as he looked in the direction Logan pointed.

  When he spotted Martin’s face, his jaw hit the floor. “Martin? It can’t be.”

  Martin grinned. “The one and only.”

  They clasped hands with matching grins until Breytenbach interrupted. “Hate to break up this happy reunion, but we’ve got an undead problem outside our gates.”

  Max sobered immediately. “You’re right. We’ve got the fight of our lives on our hands. Ke Tau is back.”

  “I’ve missed much,” Breytenbach said.

  “I’m just glad you’re back.”

  From the walls, battle cries sounded as the defenders stabbed at the encroaching undead with their long spears. Max spotted both Abraham and Philip up there, along with Lisa, Mpho, Elise, and a few others under the leadership of Michael. Joseph and a couple of helpers were running down the sides, picking off those that seemed intent on encircling the camp.

  “Seems we arrived just in time, little brother,” Martin said, using Max’s old nickname with easy familiarity. “Do you need guns?”

  “We do.”

  “I’ve got a small cache stashed in the back of my truck.” Martin led the way and opened up a metal trunk containing several shotguns, R4’s, 9mm’s, AK47’s, and a few grenades.

  Max allowed himself a satisfied smile and pocketed several of the explosives along with a few extra cartridges for his R4. “Just what we need to get rid of these fuckers hounding our doorstep.”

  Martin turned to a younger man at his side. “Josh, see to it that everybody is armed according to their expertise, okay?”

  Josh nodded. “I’ll still get to fight, won’t I?”

  Max laughed. With Martin and Logan at his side, he felt invincible. “There’s plenty to go around, trust me.”

  A few others hovered in a semi-circle, and Martin introduced them as Jed, Donya, and Caleb. “They’re all good fighters and willing to help.”

  The trio inclined their heads.

  “We need the help.” Max spotted another girl hovering behind Logan. She had the most striking blue eyes he’d ever seen, and he paused. “And who might you be?”

  “Nadia,” she replied with a touch of defiance in her voice, almost as if she expected a lousy reaction from him at the mere mention of her name.

  “Nadia�
�s my friend,” Logan said, one hand going to her shoulder. “We go back a long way.”

  Nadia smiled at him, and Logan responded in kind with the kind of ease he didn’t usually display, and Max watched the interaction with surprise. What’s going on here? Friend?

  He filed the question away for later and clapped his hands together. “Right, let’s go.”

  Max marched toward the wall but paused when he saw Ronnie and Lenka helping an injured Mike down from the truck. The Irishman’s face was covered in bandages stained yellow with disinfectant. His right arm was slung in a sling. One foot hovered in the air, while patches of his skin shone red and raw.

  He turned to Breytenbach. “What happened? Is Mike okay?”

  “He’ll live,” Breytenbach replied in a strained voice. “We had a spot of trouble in town, that’s all.”

  Kirstin appeared at Max’s elbow and whispered in his ear. “The Captain is not well. He needs to go to the infirmary with Mike. Make sure he does.”

  With those cryptic words, she pecked him on the cheek and ran up the ladder towards the tower with her sniper rifle slung across her back. Max stared after her. “What?”

  He looked at Breytenbach more closely, and alarm filled him. The Captain stood with his arm around Julianne, most of his weight leaning on her. That in itself was unusual. His face was pale, and his lips tinged with blue. “Captain, why don’t you and Julianne take Mike to the infirmary? We can handle things from here.”

  “No, I’m here to fight.”

  “Of course, but I have a job for Ronnie and Lenka,” he lied. “You can rejoin us afterward.”

  Breytenbach shot him a sharp glance. “Don’t patronize me. I saw Kirstin speak to you.”

  Julianne tugged at his sleeve. “Christo, please. You’re not well. I just got you back, and I can’t lose you again.”

  Breytenbach hesitated but drew himself upright even as he swayed like a reed in the wind. “No.”

  Max decided a more forceful approach was needed. “Captain, you’re of no use to anyone in this condition. You’d only be a liability. Go.”

  Breytenbach blanched, but after a second, he lifted his chin and said, “Ronnie, Lenka, stay here. I’ll take Mike to the clinic.”

  “All right, Captain.” Ronnie saluted smartly before hurrying to the wall to join in the pitched battle raging along its length. Lenka followed after a respectful bow to his leader.

  Breytenbach propped the suffering Mike up with one shoulder while Julianne took the other side. “Call me if you need me, Max. I’m not over the hill yet.”

  “Of course,” Max replied and watched the trio walk off. Once they were gone, he sighed with relief. “Thank, God, he listened.”

  Logan jabbed him in the ribs. “Breytenbach and your Mom? That’s new.”

  “We’ve got lots to talk about,” Max agreed.

  “You have no idea.”

  “Later, guys. Right now, we have a job to do,” Jed reminded them.

  “You heard the man.” Martin grinned. “Let’s go to war, little brother.”

  With the newly arrived reinforcements and arms, their chances of victory had increased. Max directed Michael off to the right side and Joseph to the left, each with a few others to help them. The rest he concentrated on either side of the gate where the fighting was the heaviest.

  Eschewing the cumbersome spears, they used their guns to take out the zombies ranged in front of them. The undead pushed against the barriers in a tidal wave of rotting flesh, and their stink rose above to fill the nostrils of the defenders. They reached for the defenders with searching hands, and their fingers scratched at the wall until the meat fell off the bone.

  Each volley of shots dropped a number of them, but more took their place in seemingly endless quantities. They trampled each other in their eagerness, and the sheer volume of their growls and rasps was enough to drive a person insane.

  “So where’s this Ke Tau Breytenbach told us so much about?” Logan asked, shouting to make himself heard.

  “Yeah, you can’t tell me this is all he’s got,” Martin added.

  “I’m expecting the snake to show his hand any moment now,” Max replied.

  Max was proven right mere minutes later when a squad of off-road bikes wheeled onto the grounds. They were fast and made sure to stay out of reach of the zombies crowding the walls. Each motorcycle carried a passenger armed with an automatic rifle and let rip at the walls as they flew past.

  People fell to the floor as bullets peppered their surroundings. A pained cry alerted Max, and he twisted his head to see Nombali crouched on her knees with blood pumping from her shoulder.

  “Peter,” he cried. “Get her to the infirmary now. The rest of you stay down.”

  He ducked beneath another hail of bullets and reached for the radio at his side. “Kirstin. Can you take care of our little problem for us?”

  The radio crackled, and Kirstin’s smooth voice replied. “Already on it.”

  Moments later, a rifle report cracked, and a biker cartwheeled through the air to crash land spectacularly. Infected swarmed the downed men, and their screams were loud in the afternoon air as they were ripped apart in seconds.

  “What the hell was that?” Martin asked.

  “That,” Max replied as another rider was blown clean off his ride, “is my girlfriend.”

  Martin whistled. “You’d better hold onto her tight, or someone just might steal her.”

  Max’s face took on a funny look. “You know what? You’re right.”

  Kirstin kept at it, picking off one rider after the next while the rest remained low and out of sight. The attack broke off quickly, with the last surviving quads racing back the way they came. When the last one disappeared, Max clicked on the radio. “Kirstin?”

  “Yes?”

  “Will you marry me?”

  Everybody around Max craned their heads to hear her reply.

  “Ja, jeg aksepterer,” came the simple reply in her native tongue.

  “Yes,” Max crowed, fist-bumping Logan. “She accepts!”

  People cheered as he raised the mic to his lips. “I’m honored.”

  She sighed audibly over the radio. “We have work to do, Max.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, turning back toward the fight with new determination.

  A line of trucks had entered the fray, their bodies armored with plates of steel. Manholes in the roofs sported mounted light machine guns, and the men who manned them were protected by iron boxes soldered in place with small slits to allow for visibility.

  Max paled at the sight. “Shit, those are 50 caliber’s.”

  “Probably surplus from the Angolan war,” Martin agreed, looking equally worried.

  Max waved his hands at the fighters on the wall. “Stay down, everyone! Stay down!”

  His words were followed by a barrage of automatic fire, the bullets peppering the walls at a rate of six hundred shots per minute. Where the walls were at their weakest, the rounds punched right through, and people screamed as they scrambled for cover.

  Max shouted into the radio. “Kirstin, can you take out the shooters?”

  “Negative. The targets are behind cover.”

  “Roger,” Max said, turning to Jed, Ronnie, and Lenka. “When I say go, lay down cover fire. Shoot at the tires, the windshields, anything. Keep them occupied.”

  They nodded, and he turned to Martin as he pulled a grenade out of his pocket. “Up for some fireworks?”

  Martin grinned. “Thought you’d never ask.”

  “Go!”

  With a wall of cover fire distracting the men in the armored trucks, Max and Martin tossed their grenades. They aimed for the undercarriages and were rewarded when the explosion ripped apart the chassis of the vehicles. One slewed to the side and toppled over as its wheel burst, while another crashed into the one in front.

  The grind of metal on metal and the shatter of glass was followed by screams as the infected descended on the meals now within easy reac
h. The rest of the trucks circled around for another pass, but a well-placed shot by Kirstin took out the front-runner’s driver.

  It ground to a stop, and the dead swarmed it, the manhole in the roof now providing an easy way in. Blood spattered the windows on the inside while the other trucks streamed past.

  Max and Martin tossed in their next volley and managed to crash two more. Faced by such a determined force, the rest decided to retreat. They zigzagged toward the outer gates in a crazy dash for safety, throwing up clouds of dust in their bid to escape.

  A cheer went up along the walls as everyone watched the enemy retreat for the second time that day. Max exchanged cautious smiles with those around him, and for the first time that day, he truly believed they’d make it.

  The radio at his side crackled. “Max? Max, come in.”

  “Yes?”

  “There’s another one coming.”

  Max looked toward the gate and spotted another truck, this one much larger, lumber through the entrance. Jagged bits of steel and sharp spikes were attached to the front bumper, and its wheels and windows were covered in iron sheets.

  It made straight for them, not seeking to pass by as the others had. Martin realized what it was in the same instant Max did and grabbed his arm. “It’s a battering ram!”

  “Kirstin. Take it out. I repeat, take it out now!” Max screamed even though he knew it was futile.

  Her shots pinged off the steel plating to zing harmlessly into the air. Others added their fire, but the monstrous contraption kept coming.

  Max watched with horror as it headed straight for the wall, rolling over the undead in its path like they were dead leaves. It crashed into the barrier on the far side of the gate, and immediately a cry went up.

  “Breach! We’ve got a breach!”

  The truck reversed, and a crowd of zombies surged toward the hole. Max jumped up. “Follow me. Stop up the breach. We can’t let them in!”

  He sprinted toward the gap, followed by the others. He paused for a split second to grab Peter and Thembiso who still hovered in the background. “Call the others. We need everyone here.”

  They nodded, their eyes wide with shock before taking off to deliver this final message. Max and his group carried on until they reached the gates. For a moment, he stood frozen at the sheer horror of it.