by John Ringo
As it was, the kid’s pistol didn’t do much good at all. Not noticeably.
He still did better than the campus cop, though.
The campus cop, who survived, later explained that he’d come to the group to get them to leave. They were having too much fun to listen to some fat old security guard talking about a “security threat on campus.” They were mostly drunk, the music was going, and they hadn’t heard the previous victim’s screams.
When the vamps appeared and ripped the arms off of the first basketball player, the cop had drawn his revolver, turned tail and ran, firing over his shoulder. Full on spray and pray with all six rounds. He hit two students, one lightly, the other died in the hospital, and not a single vamp.
Most of the students, live ones anyway, were running when we arrived. One was limping away, bullet in the leg, one coed was down and bleeding. Five were down covered in vamp. The one with the gun was trying to get another magazine in the well. Props for courage at least.
I took a look and called to Milo.
“Fade left and cover,” I said, drawing Mo No Ken.
Like I said, guns only sort of disorient and piss off vampires. You have to take off their heads.
One of the vamps glanced up from her meal, and turned towards me. Female, looked not much different from the coed she’d been feeding on. Shorts, crop top shirt, barefoot.
The tape in the radio changed to Crazy On You as I charged.
She came at me, slower than normal, bloated with blood, arms spread to catch my shoulders, pull me in and bite. But even a slow vamp was crazy fast. I swung up from a down position and left, taking off her right hand at the wrist. She still tried to claw my face off.
Milo’s bullet went through her cheek, shattered her teeth, and blew the side of her skull off.
She stumbled past. I leaned left and came down with Mo No Ken from behind and took her right leg out from under her. Cutting it in two through the thigh. That caused her to buckle sideways right in line for a one handed return upstroke.
Sweep back and the blonde head was rolling in the sodium arc lights.
It was like that kill flipped a switch, and every other vampire’s head snapped up, staring at me with red eyes. They all looked like kids, new creations, feral, not smart, but still mean as hell.
The nearest male leapt up from his victim and charged me. I spun away in a pirouette à la seconde, came around and took his head from behind. It flipped through the air, splattering ichor in every direction.
There are times like this when I’m in the zone I wish there were cameras rolling. It must have been beautiful.
Milo was firing, rapid, aimed semi-auto. Every round hitting a skull. A female vampire flew through the air from my right hissing like a tea kettle. A bullet went up her nose and out her forehead. I slashed upward and rolled out of the way. She landed behind me. I took a quick look over my shoulder. The female vamp was on her knees and hands, trying to figure out why her legs weren’t working right. That was because both lower legs were lying in a pool of blood.
Before I could take her head a vampire tackled me.
It was like getting hit by a rhino. Mo No Ken went flying as the vamp started ripping at my throat guard, trying to get it free while I tried to push his face to the side. Not much chance of that with a vamp but I wasn’t going to fight fair. I got a thumb into his eye and gouged until blood squirted out.
The vamp grabbed my left arm and twisted it, nearly breaking it. Even a weak new vamp is as strong as a power lifter.
But the eye gouge was just a distraction. The whole time I was scrabbling for a canteen. I opened the lid and tossed the holy water in his face. He shrieked, and rolled off of me. He probably hadn’t experienced pain since being turned.
I crawled for my sword, wondering why Milo had stopped shooting. I got my answer when he was hurled past, to bounce off the chainlink fence and land face down in the basketball court.
The vampire with the melted face flew back to his feet. He was on me in a flash. I reached for Mo No Ken, but I was dragged away, my left arm ripped by his talons. That would have to wait. Amazing how you can ignore things like that when you’re running on pure adrenaline.
There were several shots. Then dozens of them. I was splattered with blood as the vampire was riddled. It jerked and twitched, pieces of meat flying in every direction, until it fell flat on its back in a cloud of smoke and blood vapor.
That thing I said about bullets only disorient and piss them off? That’s why we use a lot of bullets.
Franklin Moore ran past me. He stopped at the vampire and drove a stake through its ribs, pinning it there and leaving it paralyzed. Then he drew a military surplus machete from his belt and started hacking crudely at its neck, like he was clearing brush. As a swordsman, it was painful to watch.
“Damn, Franklin, sharpen that thing or something.”
Half a dozen chops later and the head rolled off.
I got up and retrieved my sword. Shelbye was helping Milo up. Alvin and Trevor were finishing off the last wounded vamp.
The student with the Automag had finally gotten the magazine loaded and lifted the weapon, searching for targets.
“You point that at me, my friend will put a round through your head,” I said.
He’d been so concentrated on reloading his gun he hadn’t even realized we were there.
“Oh, shit,” he said, slumping down, the gun dropping from nerveless fingers. “Shit, shit, shit…”
“Yeah,” I said, wiping Mo No Ken. “Welcome to our world. What’s your name, kid?”
CHAPTER 25
Bad to the Bone
I let Trevor handle the scene while Milo gave my injured left arm a little TLC courtesy of Betadyne and lots of bandages. I swear, bandages and ammo had to be out two biggest costs.
Oh, and funerals.
When vampires roam in a pack, it can be bad news, but our timely intervention had saved a lot of lives. Some of the kids would die, but we’d interrupted the feeding frenzy early enough that most of those bitten would probably be saved. Alvin and Franklin had followed the ambulances, so if any of them died in surgery they’d get decapitated immediately, and not give Wohlrab the night shift morgue attendant any more surprise wake ups in a few days.
As Milo was expertly wrapping bandages around my arm there was a voice behind me.
“You’re hoodoo squad?” a girl asked.
I wasn’t worried about six. I’d noticed Milo look up then back down. No threat. I was watching his, he was watching mine. Nice to have a brother at your back.
“The same,” I said, grimacing as Milo tied the bandage tight. “Watch the arm!”
“Quit being a sissy,” Milo said.
“This stuff is real,” she said in a sort of shell-shocked voice.
“Yep. You were there?”
“Yes,” she said, sitting down on the bench I was occupying.
My immediate reaction to a girl that pretty is normally “whoof, whoof!” I guess I was tired. I didn’t even pull out a card.
“You’ll get past it,” I said, shrugging. “There’s so many worse things in this shit, you wouldn’t believe.”
“It’s hard to even think.”
“Know that guy over there?” I said, gesturing with my chin at the kid who’d had the Automag.
“I think he’s a Sigma Nu. I don’t really know him but I recognize him.”
“Go make friends. He might not have stopped them, but he was the only one really trying. Guy like that should get some moral support and he’ll be a good shoulder to lean on.”
“Okay, I guess,” the girl said.
“You’re going to need somebody’s shoulder to sleep on for a while,” I said. “Helps keep away the nightmares.”
“I’m not that sort of girl,” she said, frowning.
“I said sleep, not fuck. Make friends. Some guys from the FBI will be here soon to tell you that you can’t talk about this. You can with him. Make friends. What you do after
that is up to you.”
I’d been putting on my gear as I was talking and when I was done I stood up.
“I’m impressed. You didn’t hit on that poor traumatized girl,” Milo said. “That was nearly gentlemanly. I must be a good influence on you.”
“More like you kill the mood. Come on, we have more monsters to put to bed.”
* * *
“You good to keep going?” Trevor asked.
“You kidding?” I asked. “’Tis only a flesh wound. Besides, there’s PUFF to be collected. You got any idea how much good help costs these days?”
Full moon in New Orleans is like Christmas season in retail.
“It sounds like zombies in Saint Louis cemetery,” Trevor said.
“Please tell me we’re going one team on shamblers,” I said. “I got a mortgage to make.”
“Nope. As soon as another team is open, I’m sending them after you and Milo.”
“The day I need back-up for shamblers is the day I quit,” I muttered.
“That’s exactly what Greg Wise told me.”
* * *
Saint Louis Cemetery was another old one off of I-10. It was in three sections, bisected by roads. The shambler outbreak was in the center section between Conti and Bienville.
All three cemeteries were surrounded by high walls, which acted as tombs themselves. The interior walls were lined with grave markers marking the bodies behind them. The rest of the cemetery was entirely tombs, with none of the low sarcophagi common in other cemeteries.
There were heavy iron gates at three points on the cemetery.
Honestly, it was clear whoever set the place up knew what they were doing when it came to undead outbreaks. It was half cemetery, half undead prison. No damned shamblers were getting out of that place. Wights, maybe, those things could climb like spiders, but even a ghoul would have a hard time with that fence.
“Whoa,” Milo said, looking at the gate. “This place is a fortress.”
“Back then people knew how to build a cemetery to contain the occasional undead outbreak.”
“Accent on occasional. Man, we really need to figure out what’s making the hoodoo go haywire, because I really don’t want to die in Louisiana.”
“It’s not so bad,” I said.
“The town is below sea level. I need mountains, Chad.”
The NOPD car had been parked about a half a block away over on Conti. He’d already gotten a key to one of the gates. It was over on Claiborne, which was a hell of a walk so we drove. Oops, had to go the wrong way on a one way but there wasn’t much traffic this late.
So we had a key to this gate but I was thinking I didn’t want to use it. I could see that the place was another maze. And there were shamblers already waving their arms through the gate.
“You miss climbing,” I said, gesturing at the wall. “Let’s draw them in with lights and noise, then just shoot them from up there.”
Here’s a very important pro-tip that’s an extension of earlier ones.
Pro-tip: Bring shamblers to you and use any height or complexity advantage to keep them from getting to you and bringing them to where you can kill them easily. Don’t let them close unless you absolutely have to. And if you do be aware you’re probably going to have to ask a friend to shoot you in the head.
“We can just shoot them through the gate,” Milo pointed out.
“We’re going to have to use it to get the bodies out,” I said. “Why block it? And from up there we can draw more in.”
“That makes an amazing amount of sense,” Milo said. “Especially coming from you.”
“Well, I suppose we could take ten hours to machine a special flamethrower for them if you’d prefer. In the meantime, why don’t you come up with some inventive way to get us up there?”
The wall was about sixteen feet high. And there were no available hand-holds. Well designed, as I said. So we decided to drive around it and see if there was a way in.
The back side was a chain link fence surmounted by barbed-wire. No way in there.
However, by the corner of Claiborne and Conti there was a short section of brick wall. It was short enough to hop up onto and from there we were up on the main wall. It was still high enough to hold in the walking dead. Really well designed.
A couple of zombies came around as we were climbing up. We ignored them and walked along the wide top of the wall/mausoleum to the gate.
The horde by the gate noticed our lights and came shambling over. So did the ones that had reacted to our getting up on the wall.
We both opened fire, slow, aimed, fire. I had brought plenty of extra ammo. I’d learned my lesson on that at the battle in Greenwood.
“This is shooting ducks in a barrel,” Milo said. There were twelve shamblers down and we hadn’t come near being scratched.
Which is the way you should fight monsters. Fair is for children on a playground. Monster hunting is about efficient and fast. Kill monsters. Get paid. Live to collect the fat check.
The maze conditions of the cemetery meant that not all the shamblers had gotten over to us. We could hear more moaning down in and amongst the tombs. Somebody’s hex had gone horribly wrong. Again.
“Hey!” I yelled. “Over here! Come here you idiots! This way…That’s right…Come to Papa Smurf…Your shot, Milo.”
“Thanks,” Milo said.
Shambler down.
“And I am not a smurf.”
“If the Birkenstocks fit,” I said. “Smurfette, then. This is going to take all night,” I said. “Those things are too stupid to all get over here in any decent time. And there’s other calls.”
“First you want to play it safe,” Milo said. “Now we got to get down off of here?”
“There are times to play it safe and others to take it to the ground,” I said. That’s another pro-tip. “Sounds like about six more. I say we go to them.”
Milo thought about it for a second.
“Sure,” he said. “Why not?”
“You want point or six?” I asked as we walked back to the low wall. We probably could have made the jump but why take the chance?
“Point of course,” Milo said. “Who wants six?”
“Rock, paper, scissors?”
He won. He always wins. I have no idea how he does it.
There were seven more. Took about ten minutes.
“And now to get coroner.”
* * *
“Hey, Tim,” I said as the coroner’s assistant came over to the gate. It had only taken about half an hour which wasn’t bad. “Nineteen.”
“All old desiccated corpses. You sure you don’t want to break open some tombs and drag out some extras to shoot?”
“Thought about it, but it’s too hot.” I laughed like Tim had made a joke, because Milo would flip his lid at the idea of padding.
“You sure it’s clear?” Tim said as his assistants lowered the flat. “One of your new teams said Metairie was clear and it wasn’t.”
He sounded offended. But the coroner’s job was nearly as dangerous as ours and they weren’t as well armed. Technically, they weren’t supposed to be armed at all. But all of them carried a gun when they worked. They weren’t stupid.
“Totally clearing Metairie is a daytime job,” I said. “You know that. And it’s why we stay for security. This one is clear.”
We’d walked the whole thing calling for more undead but none showed.
“Okay,” Tim said. “Just keep an eye out. This job doesn’t pay enough to lose people.”
“Milo,” I said. “Head back and call Trevor or Ray. See what’s up next.”
“Next?” Milo said. “Seriously?”
Our promised backup had never arrived which meant it was still busy out there.
Tim looked at Milo like he was a moron. “On the way in I heard there were some ghouls in Lafayette.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Milo said, shaking his head as he walked to the car. “This town sucks!”
“I’ll cover,” I said. “You ready?”
* * *
“Nineteen,” Tim said, handing me the yellow slip. “Thanks for stacking most of them in one spot.”
“And we made sure the gate was clear,” I pointed out. “But you’re welcome. Now away to the next call. See you in a bit.”
* * *
“What’s next?” I asked, pulling out a can of Budweiser.
I’d refilled my canteens, and stuck that in the trunk. My arm was hurting like hell but it was time to roll.
“Everybody else is chasing down leads or waiting for coroners. It’s starting to quiet down. He’s got a weird call for us to check though,” Milo said. “In Carollton, according to Trevor. Last spotted near Fern and Jeanette. But he said the witness who called it in sounded stoned, so it might be nothing.”
“What did he see?”
“Some kind of giant rat.”
* * *
“Okay,” I said. “This is even affecting my sangfroid slightly.”
“Giant rat” was an understatement. It was the size of a small elephant. Naked and gray with pink eyes and really big teeth. As we watched, it was using those huge teeth to chew through the wall of a two story brick house. The house next door had already been reduced to rubble.
A little hex had given us really big frogs. Out of control hoodoo had was probably the cause of our weird bull gorilla, and probably the sobek too. But what dumbass had been using magic on this hideous thing?
“I think it’s time to break out the LAW,” Milo said.
He was spotting the thing with the spotlight but it wasn’t noticing. I was pretty sure it was a giant mole rat and they’re basically blind.
“Bertha maybe,” I said getting out. “But if it’s an actual animal and we mess it up, Shelbye will kill us.”
“What?” Milo said, getting out of the car. He kept the light focused on the massive rat.
“She’s going to want to eat it or stuff it.”
“I know you’re not big on asking for help, Chad, but…”
It was a mole rat the size of an elepaphant.
“Oh, I’m okay with it this time.”
Milo got on the radio, and started to call it in. Then he paused. “Uh oh. Listen.” Somebody was screaming. It was coming from the house the mole rat was demolishing. Imagine waking up to that. “Shoot. We’re on.”