War of the Undead Day 5

by Peter Meredith

  One of the commanders asked, “So the plan is to get out of Dodge, right?”

  Again, there was head bobbing; this time it was enthusiastic head bobbing. Only Ross shook his head. “Not yet. We have to make sure the line is stabilized and then we’ll all run.”

  The CO of Bravo Company held up a large flat, dirty palm. “Fuck the line. It don’t sound like it’s holding anyways. I say the only thing we have time for is to get the fuck out of here.”

  “No, we have just enough time to light a few fires,” Ross said, his wicked smile gleaming in the night. He told them what he wanted and sent the captains running back to their units faster than they had come. This left only Rita and Clarren, who had been standing back a few feet, not wanting to interfere.

  Clarren wore a look of tired resignation and Ross knew what he was going to say and beat him to it. “Stay and get executed if you want to, but it won’t matter in the end. The only thing that will happen is that the President will win again. Trust me, the moment you die, he’ll rewrite history and they’ll say they found you hiding in an old folks home under the skirts of some poor old granny.”

  “A granny? Who’s going to believe that? And running seems just as bad if you ask me.”

  “We won’t be running far,” Ross said and dropped to the ground. He opened a map, and clicked on a flashlight, uncaring that he was making himself a prime target. If there were snipers let them shoot, he thought. “This is where the Marine unit was stationed and you can hear them coming right down this road.” He pointed to a road that was slanting diagonally toward them. “See this road here? We can scoot right up it. What does that say? Bruce Street?”

  “It does,” Rita agreed quickly with a smile that gleamed in the darkness. She thought that he was easily the best soldier in the army, and maybe the handsomest as well. “It’s a good road,” gushed. “There’s trees and bushes and no one will see us.”

  “If it has Rita’s stamp of approval, then we’ll take it.” Ross jumped up, trying and failing to fold the map along its original lines. It ended up looking like a giant hunk of origami gone bad; maybe a cross between a swan and a pug. “Rita, you scout ahead. Make sure Bruce Street is empty. Clarren, you gather Alpha and Bravo and get them moving. I’ll do the same with Charlie, Delta and Echo.”

  Youth again. He ran along the river, barking the men to their feet. There was confusion and fear, and also anger. “Are we running or fighting?” a soldier with a Screaming Eagle patch on his shoulder asked.

  “Both,” Ross answered grinning. He wasn’t a chess player, but he knew a bad move when he saw it. The political officer he had baited was going after a pawn with his queen, and had left his king wide open for the taking.

  Chapter 21

  1-8:02 p.m.

  New Rochelle, New York

  “This is stupid,” Anna hissed, grabbing Katherine’s arm. After so many grinding hours wearing on them, the two women looked nothing like they had five days before. Anna’s overt sexuality had been replaced by a savage will to live. She could no longer hide the conniving look in her hard, blue eyes. Katherine, who had always prided herself on a subtle and purposely semi-masked beauty was also in survival mode.

  Her blonde hair had been tied back in a severely lashed ponytail and the planes of her face were now hard and unforgiving.

  Neither of the two would ever admit it; however, they looked more like sisters than bitter enemies. Not only did they possess similar Nordic traits, they were both dressed in matching camouflage and wore the same sort of ballistic armor.

  “We should be getting the hell out of here,” Anna said, still speaking in something of a serpentine whisper. “I wasn’t lying before, it really does take years to find a cure for anything. Years! Thuy is only doing this out of guilt. I caught her crying earlier. Crying.”

  “So what? She’s been through a lot. Didn’t she lose a fiancé or something like that?”

  “So what? This is Dr. Lee I’m talking about. She’s a friggin’ block of ice. You didn’t know her before, and you haven’t seen what she’s like under pressure. She’s like stone. So, to see her cry means there’s trouble. It means she’s cracking. I understand it. It makes sense, and sure, if we had time, I’d be right there with her, working as hard as anyone on a cure, but we don’t have the time. You heard the President, didn’t you?”

  In the dark of the stairwell, Anna didn’t see Katherine roll her eyes. “I’m not deaf, I heard him.” She shook off the latex-covered hand and had to refrain from smashing Anna with the butt of her rifle.

  “Then you agree that all we’re doing is indulging her psychosis or guilt trip or whatever. The way I see it, if she wants to stay here and get fried by a nuke, that’s her business. We still have a chance. Together we can make it back to the helicopter. All you FBI guys can fly helicopters, right?”

  Anna had put out her hand again to touch Katherine, almost as if she needed to be reassured—or to make a grab for her rifle. Katherine smacked the hand away, saying, “Are you that big of an idiot? No, I can’t fly a helicopter. And we aren’t leaving Dr. Lee. There’s still a chance.”

  Now it was Anna’s turn to roll her eyes. “Yeah, a chance to die. Haven’t you figured it out yet? Every second in the Zone gives you a whole new chance to die. And don’t fall for the way Thuy talks, all cool and all. You saw those kids last night. They’re monsters, and Eng…if that is Eng with them, then…” She trailed off, thinking that if it was a zombie version of Eng that the President had mentioned, they were in big trouble. Eng knew what drugs to take in order to retain a part of himself. It would be the most dangerous part, and Anna didn’t want any part of a confrontation with him. He would be nearly invincible and driven by a voracious thirst for both blood and revenge.

  But if Thuy and Katherine wanted to hang around and distract Eng, Jaimee Lynn and her pack, then great, more power to them. While they were busy getting eaten alive, Anna was going to light on out of there just as fast as her feet could carry her.

  She didn’t want to go empty-handed, however. “Hey, let me have one of your guns. I’ll take the pistol if you want the rifle.”

  “Yeah, right. You’re not getting a gun, and not only that, if you try to run, I will shoot you.”

  “Shoot me? Come on, we both know you’re not shooting anyone. You’re the good guy. You could have shot me so many times it’s not funny. And I could have killed you if I wanted. Just a moment ago when you were peeking into the stairwell, I could have knocked you right in the back of the head, no problem. I didn’t, though and you want to know why?”

  “No,” Katherine answered, flatly. “What I want is for you to shut up. I hear something down there.” The two were only a flight up from the first-floor door; close enough to hear a thumping noise. It sounded like someone was tapping on a windows. Katherine dropped her blue mask over her face and headed down. “Your one job is to watch my back. You don’t need a gun for that.”

  Anna cursed at her under her breath—her shaky breath. With every step downward, her fear mounted, and the need to whine about the unfairness of not being armed grew in her. She felt extremely clingy, and had to fight the urge to grab Katherine again. The FBI agent would certainly smash her if she did, and Anna was tired of being hit and hurt, and tied up, and left defenseless and sneered at…and so on.

  Oh yes, she was tired of all that bullshit. She had been treated as some sort of subhuman piece of garbage for too long, and so, was it any wonder that she would end up acting like one? Not in her way of thinking. Not in her twisted way of thinking. Unlike Eng, Anna needed excuses to kill and now that she had them firmly set in place, all she needed was a weapon and an opportunity.

  This was definitely not an opportunity. There was no way of knowing what was on the other side of the door Katherine was about to—she opened it, staying back, her M4 held in one hand like a giant black pistol. The lobby looked just as it had: gleaming marble floors, twenty-foot high ceilings, and half of the long, wide room walled in
glass. Piled in front of the lobby doors were soft leather couches, granite-topped tables and polished ash desks. It was just as she had last seen it, except that now shadows dominated everything.

  Unnervingly dark shadows. Anything could be hiding in them.

  “Do you see what’s making that knocking sound?” Anna asked. The moment the door had opened, she had been cured of her clinginess and was now edging back towards the stairs.

  “No. It’s coming from down one of the halls.” The building had two wings branching from the central bank of elevators. “The north hall, I think.” Katherine started out of the stairwell, her weapon at the ready. Anna followed a few feet back, her steps were very light. She was ready to run at the first sign of trouble; she just didn’t know where she’d run to, exactly. Nowhere was safe.

  “This is a trap,” she told Katherine. A derisive snort was the agent’s answer. “No, I’m not kidding. They’re smarter than they look.”

  “Just stop it. You’re not getting a gun. One of them was sort of smart. She wasn’t a genius or anything and if it hadn’t been for you and Eng, we would have killed her, grabbed what we needed and wouldn’t be in this situation.” Anna opened her mouth to reply, but Katherine snapped her fingers under her nose and shut her up.

  Katherine led the way through a heavy door that was marked Personnel Division. A long, dark corridor greeted them. A dozen doors opened on the right, each leading to a small office. A few more offices were on the left before they came to a cubicled section where a number of the dividing walls were tilted far over and leaning on desks.

  The tapping sound was clearer now: there was a sharpness to it, like metal on glass. Katherine refused to hurry. She eased forward, checking every corner; they were definitely walking into a trap, but she figured it would be obvious: they would try to corner her and then spring out to attack. To counter this, she didn’t head directly towards the sound of the knocking; instead she took her first left and maneuvered through the cubicles.

  Any moment she expected to come across a crouched child, trying to hide beneath a desk or behind a filing cabinet. Nothing. And there was nothing when she finally found where the tapping had been coming from. In the very corner office, far from the main hall, she found one of the windows was chipped as if someone had repeatedly smashed it with a hammer.

  Anna had picked up a letter opener from one of the desks. She held it in her left hand, and in her right, she held a potted plant. “Where are they? They brought us here for a reason, right? They had to know you had a gun, right? They had to…” A crashing thud from behind them made them both jump. “That was one of the cubicle things,” Anna cried in a hushed voice, darting to the side, raising her potted plant higher.

  “Yes,” Katherine said, going to the doorway and looking out. The halls were quiet again. Once more, she went into stalking mode, skirting the entire cubicle section, going around before entering what was essentially a maze.

  In the center they found the wall that had been pushed over; there were small, black handprints on it. When Anna saw them, she spun too quickly and dropped her plant. Just as she picked it up, the sharp knocking began again.

  “They’re messing with us,” Katherine muttered.

  “No, it’s a trap,” Anna insisted, spinning, ready to hurl the plant at the first thing that moved. “You gotta give me a gun.”

  Katherine was just starting to get nervous, but not for herself. “This isn’t a trap. They’re just running us around. They’re trying to keep us busy.”

  “Why would they…” Anna bit off her words as she realized who the kids were really after. Her head tilted back as if she could see through the floors between her and Dr. Lee, who stood frozen in front of one of the seven computers that she had running.

  She had just heard the giggle of a child. In no way was it a normal giggle. No, this was a vile, evil sound.

  2-8:19 p.m.

  Grafton, Massachusetts

  Twenty-five minutes before, the battalion had close to a thousand men. Now, without even a shot being fired, there were not even seven-hundred. Ross didn’t blame the deserters. He knew full well that it was one thing to corner a small group of political officers and a few ill-prepared MPs, it was quite another to try to take on the full might of the army.

  “They have tanks, sir,” one of his sergeants had said in a whisper when Ross caught him trying to sneak off. “I would join you; I really would, but…” A shrug. “Ain’t the zombies enough?”

  There was no time to explain the “bigger picture” to the deserters. He let them go without recrimination. Those that stayed were eager to move. The tanks were indeed coming. They were coming slowly, at least compared to how fast they could travel through open country. Their speed was hampered by the amount of trash and broken-down vehicles that littered the streets.

  Still, they were coming on at a steady fifteen miles an hour. Interspersed among them were a small fleet of Humvees and trucks laden down with Marines who had been held out of the fight for exactly this ignoble reason. Right down to the lowest jarhead, the Marines hated the political officers with fiery passion. About the only thing they hated more was a traitor.

  They came roaring down North Street with their lights blaring. They had been warned about the danger from the zombies, but they wanted the dumb as shit militiamen to know they were coming. Each Marine figured the fight would be over before it started. Maybe a few heroes might take a few potshots; they’d be dealt with in a snap. The tanks came loaded for bear, and were ready with M1028 antipersonnel canister rounds.

  “You seeing this sarge?” the driver of the lead Abrams asked.

  “Friggin-A. What a bunch of morons.” The tank commander flipped to the battalion net. “This is Six-one Alpha in lead. These cheese-dicks have lit off a bunch of fires along the river. Just a heads up, we’re going to have bookoo IPs crawling all over the place real quick.”

  “Roger.”

  The tank commander glanced at his gunner with a raised eyebrow. “He gives me a ‘roger.’ What a pussy. The guy can’t fart without permission from his PO.” The gunner gave a grunt in agreement and then turned back to his periscope, flipping from the thermal night vision to day and then back again.

  “The fires are messing with me, Sarge. I can’t pick out any targets in close. All I get is a big blur.”

  “Me too. Friggin’ cheese-dicks. There’s our street. Turn left, Smitty.” As they turned onto the frontage road, the gunner swung the monster 120mm gun so that it was aimed toward the black bog. He had his face crushed into his viewer, straining to see anything that was even vaguely human in shape—at least anything close in. Two-hundred yards away, he had a target-rich environment. There were so many zombies slogging towards them that even safe as he was in the belly of his steel beast, the gunner shivered.

  Six-one Alpha rumbled along the road until the driver finally caught sight of a human. He was standing just off the side of the road, waving at the tank.

  “Look at this cheese-dick,” the driver said. “What do you think, sarge? Is he surrendering?”

  “Dunno.” Staff Sergeant JD Stronko pulled his M9 Beretta before opening the hatch directly over his head. He came up cautiously, the gun at the ready. “We’re looking for Colonel Ross. You him?”

  “Shit no. This is the 4th Battalion. You’ve gone too far. 1st Battalion was all back down that way.” He pointed back the way they had come. As Stronko was looking back with a frown bending his bristly cheeks downward, the soldier went on, “I hope you do something about him. Look at those fires. He’s been doing shit like this since we came on the line.”

  Stronko grunted, wondering how Ross had managed to hold the line this long. “All day? That’s pretty fucked and he’s pretty much fucked. Hold on a sec.” He ducked back down and informed the battalion CO that he had reached the end of Ross’ line. The gunner popped up out of his own hatch and watched as the rest of the tanks filled in along the line. Between them were the Humvees and 5-tons, the Marines
pouring out of them and dropping along the road.

  A hundred yards down, the battalion commander boomed out, “Colonel Ross!” His voice easily stretched out to reach the black bog, and beyond. The only answer he received was the growing moans of the dead. “Ross!”

  The soldier was now casually leaning against the tread of Sergeant Stronko’s Abrams. “Hey you know what?”

  He paused for so long that Stronko had to ask, “What?”

  “Yeah, about Ross and them, they all left.” Again, the soldier just left this hanging in the air, as if there was no more that was needed to be added. No when, why or how, or even to where; they just left.

  Sergeant Stronko felt himself swell in anger. “What? What the ever-lovin’ fuck are you talking about? They left? When?”

  The soldier was just a vague shadow. Stronko saw him cock his head as if something about the question was questionable. “Wellll,” the soldier said in that frustratingly slow way of his, “I’m not the most knowledgeable about a great many things when it comes to the military. I mean, I just showed up the other day, you know, looking to do my part, and for whatever reason these high and mighty muckety-mucks, well they decided to put me in charge of things around here. Possibly because of my kindly disposition.”

  There was a thumpy kind of vein pulsing in Sergeant Stronko’s forehead. It thumped along with his growing anger. “Kindly…!” he choked on the word. “Where the fuck is the 1st Battalion?”

  “That’s almost the question.”

  He paused, or so Stronko thought at first, but then the slow-talking cheese-dick never got to talking again. “If you don’t answer me right this second, I will turn this gun on you and blast you into goo.”

  “Hmm, I wouldn’t want that.” The soldier tapped on the side of the tank, his knuckles barely making a thud. “Welllll, I didn’t want to be overly officious. I find it doesn’t answer as well as you’d think, but seeing as those muckety-mucks, in their vast but capricious wisdom, decided to make me an officer, and being officious pretty much comes with the territory. That being said, you’ve been talking to a ranking officer. As a sidebar, I personally hate the concept of a ‘superior’ officer. It strikes an elitist note.”