by Ben Reeder
“He’s right. I have another idea. Set up near the base of the bridge, at the Guest House. I bet he thinks that’s where Heartland is because that’s where he felt me these past few days. I’ll take care of slowing them down. You just be ready to bug out when the time comes.”
“We’re not going to leave until our families are safely away.”
“Trust me, Willie,” I said. “You know I never leave anything to chance. Head back with Kaplan and Hernandez. I need to borrow the Humvee.” Willie nodded and turned back to the Humvee as I dropped back down into the Stryker. Kaplan dropped down from the commander’s hatch and was waiting for me when I went to grab my pack.
“What do you have in mind?” he asked.
“I figured I’d reap the fruits of our labors from the past few days.” I smiled as I slung the pack with the Ruger in it and my other gear. “Just make sure Amy is on that train when you leave, okay?” I asked.
“You know I will. I just hope we’re right about what he’ll do if he gets a shot at you.” I nodded and went to the rear hatch. Willie was waiting outside for me, and we clasped each other’s forearm in a warriors’ handshake, both of us knowing that it was going to be a while before we were going to see each other again. Neither of us said anything, just like every other farewell we’d made, and we turned away after a moment.
Once I was in the Humvee, I sat in silence and waited. I figured it would take the Stryker about an hour to make it back to the Guest House. My mind ran back over the past few days, and I made a list of all the things that could have gone wrong with my otherwise brilliant Plan A that had put us hip deep in Plan B. I hadn’t expected anyone to move on Heartland this soon. Everything we’d put out there had kept our departure time deliberately vague and long term sounding. All I could think of was that the Necromancer had a timetable of his own. It was more than a little disturbing to realize that the scary undead monster had his own idea of how things should go. Damn it, zombies weren’t allowed to have diabolical plots.
Almost an hour later I heard the first shots from the direction of the West Bottoms. It was time to go face the villain in his lair. I started the Humvee and pulled out onto the road, swerving slightly to run down a zombie in a short white dress crawling along with both ankles broken in high heels. The Crown Plaza glowed before me as I got closer, with the occasional light shining in the Westwind Hotel and along the top of the wall. Firelight flickered against the inside walls that I could see from outside the main gate area. I pulled the NVGs up to get a better idea of exactly how well lit the area was as I got closer and saw that the men on the walls were still looking inward. Evidently zombies outside the wall weren’t their main concern. It seemed like a good time to remind them that there were smarter things out in the dark then shambling undead. I switched the SINCGARs on and turned to the frequency we’d been hearing his men using for the past couple of days.
“Boo,” I said into the mic. The airwaves went wild as people alternately demanded to know who had just said that and denied that it had been them. “You know who this is,” I said after a few moments of chaos. “Your boss has been talking pretty big the past few days. Get him on the line.”
“Well, if it isn’t the worm himself,” Hall sneered over the air a few minutes later.
“Are you close to a window?” I asked, ignoring the barb. “Because you might want to take a look outside your front door.” I switched the Humvee’s headlights on. I had parked at an angle so that the cone of light fell on what Hernandez and I had painted earlier.
DAVE IS HERE!!
On the makeshift wall, men turned around, and I could hear voices calling out.
“You son of a bitch!” Hall hissed. “Damn it, shoot him!” The crack of gunfire sounded around me, but I didn’t hear anything hit the truck. I popped the overhead hatch and turned the M240 toward the wall. Had it been anyone else, I would have felt a little bad about firing on fellow survivors, but after the other day, I knew his black shirted bastards had blood on their hands. I pulled the trigger and sent a short burst of tracer rounds toward one of the gunmen on the wall. His arms flailed as he fell back out of sight, and the others scrambled for cover. The next burst went lower, a long sweep from left to right that punched holes in the overturned trailers and reminded them that what they thought was cover was really just concealment. Light showed through the bullet holes, and I heard more yelling from inside the compound. Before they could get their shit together, I brought the barrel up and raked the last few rounds through the glass walkway over the wall. Shards rained down as the machinegun ran dry, and I dropped down into the Humvee and pulled the hatch closed behind me.
“So, here’s the deal,” I said when I grabbed the mic. “Followers of the man who calls himself Daniel. Your so called Prophet claims the protection of God, but he hasn’t set foot outside your walls since I escaped. He claims the blessing of God…but you haven’t been able to find me since I escaped. He talks about me every night from behind your guns while I make you look like the brainwashed idiots you are. Well, here I am. If you want me, this is your chance. Do you hear me Prophet?” I paused for a second. “I’m the one God is protecting. You can’t touch me.” Something smacked against one of the windows, and the armored glass starred around the point of impact.
“I swear, I’m gonna kill you myself,” Hall snarled.
“You’re going to have to come out here to do it,” I said. “Catch me if you can.” Off to my left I saw headlights emerging from the parking garage we’d escaped from, so I put the Humvee in gear and took it into a broad turn that pointed me back the way I came. Gunfire sounded behind me, and I heard the crack of bullets hitting the up-armored vehicle’s thick glass and body. The streets were empty, and I pressed down on the accelerator. The speedometer climbed up to forty miles an hour, then fifty as I tore down the straightaway. Behind me, I could see at least five sets of headlights, and I would have bet that he had every man and every vehicle he could find on the road and coming after me. I slowed to make a left at the first cross street, then put my foot to the floor and tried to will more speed out of the heavy vehicle. I stopped counting the headlights coming around the corner around ten, and right about the time one of the smaller trucks pulled up at my rear. It slid over to my right, then swerved and drove it’s front fender into my rear quarter panel in a textbook police maneuver. The little truck just didn’t have the weight to do a full on PIT maneuver at these speeds against a three ton Humvee. They fishtailed a little then steadied, and I slowed down a fraction as the truck behind me lined up to try again. I waited until he started to speed up again, then hit the accelerator and drifted left, then braked again to bring the other truck out of position for the takeout move. Just as the other vehicle was trying to recover, I swerved back to the right and let the up-armored Humvee’s three ton plus weight do the talking for me. They swerved a little, then stopped when they hit a telephone pole. Another truck pulled up behind me, and I swerved to keep it in my six, so they tried ramming my rear bumper instead. I slammed on the brakes when they started to speed up again and felt two impacts, the first when they hit me and the second when the truck behind them slammed into them.
I floored it again and sped through an intersection. The road narrowed and funneled the New Eden vehicles into a narrow line. Brick buildings and chain link fence blurred by on either side as I hit a gentle incline, then the road widened as I went under an overpass. Behind me, my pursuers spread out, trying to take advantage of the wider space, then were forced back onto the one lane residential street. The off ramp went by on my right, and I skidded through a right turn onto the next street. Metal and glass crunched when I hit an abandoned car, then I scraped past it and was moving down the same street we had come up earlier that night. All too soon, my headlights were reflected by the yellow arrows directing me to turn left and follow the curve of the street, but I pulled the steering wheel to the right instead. I lost the driver’s side mirror against a telephone pole that I’d misjudged the
distance on, then I mowed down the flimsy chain link fence a few yards away.
The Humvee bounced down the grassy slope, and I prayed I had judged my turn right. The headlights bounced over the landscape too much to be sure of the ground in front of me, but suddenly I was on asphalt again and yanking the steering wheel hard to the left to avoid any more cross country driving. One of the pairs of headlights swerved to cut me off, then discovered why I’d gone right instead of straight or left when the truck flew off the four foot ledge set into the otherwise smooth hillside. It dropped nose first, and I cut right to avoid it. A hundred yards later, I was speeding down the onramp of US 70, going against the frozen traffic. On the eastbound side traffic was practically non-existent since no one wanted to be headed into Kansas City. I opened her up and hit fifty five. More and more of the Prophet’s people started to catch up to me on the straightaway, and I realized there were still plenty of them further back. Depending on how well I pulled this off, I was either going to fail spectacularly or do a lot better than I had hoped. I reached for the radio.
“Willie, I’m on my way,” I said. “When I get there, you and your team know what to do.”
“Under protest, brother,” Willie said. “This isn’t the way we planned this.”
“As long as you took care of your end of things, I’m good. You just do what you need to.”
“The door’s open, and your ride is waiting. Getting there is up to you.”
Two trucks pulled out in front of me and swerved to box me in, so I jinked left and hit the onramp going the wrong way at fifty five. As I sped down the ramp, I drifted to my right, and two of the trucks took advantage of the opening to pull up on my left, maybe thinking they were going to pen me in. As soon as I hit the bottom of the ramp, I spun the wheel right, and bounced over the curb, across the browning grass and onto Liberty Street. One of them tried to make the turn on the asphalt and I watched its lights tilt as it tipped onto two wheels until the driver slowed down enough to get all four tires back on the ground. Again, more and more lights fell in behind me. The street angled right, and I sped up going into the gentle curve that eased back to the left under the highway. Then the ruddy glow of fire against the smoky sky appeared to my right for a heartbeat, followed by more brick.
Up ahead, I could see the glowing spots of light from the lanterns on the Guest House’ roof on the right. The Necromancer stood on the middle of the road, looking up at whoever was talking to him. When my headlights fell on him he turned toward me and smiled. He opened his arms wide and turned to face me head on as I hit the accelerator. He grew larger and larger in the front windshield until the front grill hit him in the chest and he folded over the hood. I hit the brakes and watched him fly off the front and go tumbling into the darkness. The Humvee came to a stop and I looked back over my shoulder. The headlights had spread out behind me and came to a stop as well.
For a few seconds everything was still and dark around me. Then figures started shambling into the empty space between the Humvee and the Prophet’s people. More surrounded the truck, and I saw the Necromancer limp into the light in front of me, his suit hanging from his mangled body in shreds. The circle of undead widened, and the Necromancer sucked the flesh off of another one of his zombies, leaving black marks across his exposed skin as it repaired itself. The zombie fell into a pile of bones and purple goo, and the Necromancer offered me a grim smile. Slowly, he lifted a hand and gestured to me.
I got out of the truck, and stepped into the light. He laughed his creepy laugh and smiled at me as he clapped slowly. Behind us, I heard the Prophets people calling out to each other in confusion. The undead were just standing there, not trying to eat anyone. I was still a little creeped out about that. Then I heard the first shots ring out. I circled around so that the Necromancer was between me and the Guest House.
“Well, Survivor,” he said. “You played your part even better than I had hoped. What an entrance. I couldn’t have choreographed it better!”
“Neither could I,” I said. “But this isn’t part of your plan.” I took a step forward and swung at his head. He stepped back, and all I sliced through was air.
“But it is, Survivor. It’s time to kill you now, where and when it will do the most good.”
“You had your chance at me,” I said. “Twice. You couldn’t pull it off then, you can’t pull it off now.” To my left I could see the New Eden thugs fighting the zombies, but around us it was eerily quiet. I brought the Deuce in a backhand slice and caught him across the chest.
“You were just another soldier then,” the Necromancer said as he looked down at the shallow cut. “I could kill a million like you, and you humans would still carve a better world for yourselves out of all…this,” he said as he waved his hand back toward the glowing sky to the east. The cut on his chest slowly sealed itself back up. “A soldier’s job is to fight and die by the thousands. No one flinches at that. But it isn’t soldiers who build cities or have babies. That is the work of the masses, the normal people. Plain old good folk, I think you’d call them. In their thousands, they’re the ones who really create civilization.” I reversed the blade and tried a feint and slash, but he danced back out of the way.
“Then why the whole elaborate plan?” I asked as I came back into a guard stance, feet shoulder width apart, blade in front of me and my weight balance at my midline. “I’m nothing special.”
“No, Survivor, you are special now,” he said with a confident smile as he took a step backward that took him just out of my reach. “I’ve made you into a hero for these people. A hero’s job is quite simply to survive where no one else can and give people hope. And when a hero dies, he doesn’t die alone.” His smile became a grim expression, and he tilted his head expectantly.
“Hope dies with him,” I said quietly. “You planned to kill me where everyone would see.” His smile got broader, showing gray teeth.
“All I had to do was home in on the other one while you were away. Now, not only does everyone else see you die, your precious little girl will too.” Without thinking about it, I turned to look at the Guest House. Too many things were coming together in my head, half formed thoughts connecting as what he told me sunk in. He was aiming for where he felt ‘the other one,’ he’d mentioned Amy, and he’d come here...Amy had to be the other one, the other one like me. And she was here, right in the line of fire, which was not where she was supposed to be. If she survived, I was going to kill her. I gave Willie a thumbs up and turned back to face him. His smile faltered as lanterns went out on the roof of the Guest House behind him. I had to think fast, and I said the first thing that came out of my mouth.
“How are you able to home in on me? What the hell am I?”
“Your kind has had a lot of names through the ages. Nephilim, deva, grigori, dhampir. Whatever your masters decided to call you, you’ve been lapdogs to sheep, killing their monsters for them when you could have been lions. But now you serve my purpose. You’re going to die tonight, and they are going to watch their hope die with you.”
“There’s a problem with your plan,” I said. I brought the sword back behind me, where my body blocked his view of it. “This was a diversion. There’s no one here except a few soldiers…and they’re leaving.” He turned and looked over his shoulder, then turned back to me. His face contorted into a rictus of rage that made my knees a little weak, and he let out a scream of pure hate at me.
I’d read the Evil Overlord’s list, and I knew when to take advantage of a good diversion. And while a primal scream might not have been as cliché (or therapeutic) as cackling manically, it was the best moment of distraction I was going to get. I bolted for the Humvee as the chief dead guy leaped at me. His jump took him into the wall of zombies around us, and I put a foot on the front bumper to get myself the rest of the way to the hood. Two steps took me across the hood and to the roof of the cab. Without knowing why, I dropped to one knee and saw the Necromancer fly over my head from behind to fall into the horde at t
he rear of the vehicle. While he was busy untangling himself from the bodies he’d landed in, I yanked the hatch open and dropped down inside, thankful now for the same bad habit that had gotten me more than one ass-chewing in Iraq. I pulled the hatch closed behind me, this time remembering to latch it from the inside as I slid into the driver’s seat and tossed the blade onto the seat beside me. The diesel engine rumbled to life when I hit the start button, and I put it in reverse. From habit, I turned in the seat and looked over my shoulder through the narrow rectangle of the rear window as I gunned the engine. The headlights on the New Eden trucks backlit them, giving me a good target. The frame shuddered as I hit bodies, and I hoped the Necromancer was one of them.
A loud, rhythmic thumping across the roof sent chills down my back and made me grab for the .45 in my vest’s holster and eye the hatch. To my surprise, the threat didn’t come from there. Instead, the Necromancer dropped down in front of me and slammed his fist against the windshield. The thick glass cracked under the impact, and I got to see a close up view of his fist deforming under the force of his own punch. He looked at his fist for a moment, then at me through the glass, and I let go of the pistol’s butt to flip him off. As I mouthed a sentiment to match the gesture, his head jerked to one side. When he turned back to look at me, his right eye was dripping down his cheek. He drew back in surprise, blinking rapidly, his face contorted in what might pass as irritation mixed with confusion. His head jerked to the right again, then once more a couple of seconds later, and I saw brain matter splatter in a thin line against the windshield. I looked left and saw a narrow lance of flame erupt from the top of the Guest House. When I looked back to the Necromancer, he had raised his left hand to his ear. When he brought it back to where it was visible to his good eye, it was covered in grayish ooze laced in black that glistened in the stark light. Three tiny holes peppered the side of his face, one just below the temple, another an inch higher, and the third a little higher and on the edge of his hair line. The fourth shot had to have nailed him in the ear. I felt a sudden surge of pride in seeing the little .22 caliber holes in such a tight grouping. In broad daylight Amy could practically drive nails at fifty yards. She was the only person I knew of who would be either stupid or brave enough to shoot at an Alpha Zombie with a .22 in the dark in the middle of a fight. When I gunned the engine, he fell against the windshield, then he tumbled off the hood when I slammed on the brakes.