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ZOMBIE NATION
DEATH SQUAD | BOOK THREE
Charlie Dalton
1.
HAWK
The streets were empty.
That was a surprise on two accounts. First, according to the satellite images during their briefing, Austin should have been crawling with roving undead. Second, it was a vibrant city. Where had all the people gone?
Hawk’s instincts shifted up a gear into high alert. Neither he nor the rest of his team, mentioned what was at the forefront of their minds.
Something was wrong.
There was ample evidence of the creatures. Blood smeared the walls. Drag marks crisscrossed the sidewalk. Here, splintered nails having been torn from their roots. There, a shorn scalp, hairband still in place.
Hawk sidled up to Vasquez, their team leader. A hard-boiled soldier, battlefields were his second home. Hawk had never known a better leader.
“How do you want to handle this?” Hawk said.
Vazquez spat. “No word from command. They’re as confused as we are.”
That didn’t answer Hawk’s question. He let it drop.
No one knows what the fuck is going on.
Hawk had been on furlong when he’d gotten the call. One hour after touchdown, he was in the local boozer. It wasn’t for socializing. It was for the noise. For the distractions. For drowning out the voices and the screams and the faces that tormented him each and every night, and the silences in between.
He liked the loud music, the clacking of pool balls, the loud conversation, and boisterous laughter. It jerked him from his deeper thoughts. He was happier for it. Added to the cocktail of alcohol and drugs, and he could just about hear himself over the tides of mourning wives and children he had created.
Splat!
* * *
Those taking point jolted back. They swung their rifles at the crumpled form at their feet. They arched their necks at the building the body had fallen from. Up there, smashed windows protruded like sharpened teeth.
Vasquez prodded the body with his boot. “Hey, buddy. Can you hear me?”
The body didn’t answer. How could it? Its throat and spine had been crushed by the hundred-foot fall.
With the barrel of his rifle, Vasquez lifted the peak of the man’s cap. It exposed a young man’s face. Perhaps twenty, twenty-five at the outside. His eyes were open, staring into space. His skin was pale, his blood splattered around him like a giant raindrop.
“What do you reckon?” Hawk said. “Suicide victim?”
“Could be.” Vasquez didn’t sound convinced.
Why would a young man hurl himself from a building? Why now? What was there to run from?
Splat!
The body fell a dozen yards from the first.
Hawk grabbed Vasquez and yanked him back. “Look out!”
Splat!
Number three fell right where the leader had been standing.
“Fall back!”
The team crossed the street, casting wary glances over their shoulders.
The bodies fell like sporadically, one after another. They built into a crescendo, cascading over the side like a waterfall. They each met the same end, smashing headlong into the tarmac.
“Well, you don’t see that every day,” Vasquez said.
“I’d commit myself if I did,” Hawk said. “I might anyway.”
The dam burst and the bodies rushed out all at once. The scale of the flood was so large, Hawk didn’t believe it could last longer than a few seconds.
But it kept coming. And coming.
How much alcohol will I have to drink to get over this? Hawk thought. “I think we found the missing people, sir.”
The bodies crashed on top of one another, forming a pile ten feet high. The ones on the bottom took the worst of the impact. The subsequent bodies rolled down the sides. Some struck their heads on the tarmac. Their skulls split open, blood was thick and dark.
A young woman, barely out of her teens, came up onto her feet. She righted herself but didn’t dust herself off as Hawk expected, and instead popped her neck and shoulders. She checked her immediate vicinity, eyes locking on the dumbstruck soldiers and leaned forward.
Two men joined her on either side, their loping strides stiff and malformed, swinging their limbs in wide arcs, barely capable of keeping themselves upright. They built momentum.
A bald man with a missing leg hopped forward. Another operated with a lost arm that threw off his gait. A middle-aged woman with blue hair lost her balance and resorted to dragging herself along the street.
And still, the flood continued to fall. An army rapidly formed. And they were all heading in the same direction.
Toward them.
Further up the road, another flood fell from a tall building. And to the south, the same thing was happening.
“Ambush.” The word escaped Hawk’s lips unbidden.
The others snapped to attention, raising rifles to shoulder crooks.
“Freeze!” Vasquez bellowed. “One more step and we open fire!”
The people paid no attention.
Hawk flicked his safety off. He aimed at those closest. His mouth felt dry. You expected this sort of thing in backward, far-flung places. But Austin?
Except maybe Ohio. Even he couldn’t feel any levity in this situation.
Vasquez took a step forward. “I’m warning you! This is your last chance! Cease now!”
It was no good. They kept coming.
Vasquez spoke out the corner of his mouth. “Warning shots.”
The bullets took them in the arms and legs. Non-lethal blows.
The figures lost momentum. They danced on the spot.
Hawk stared in wonder. We just opened fire on innocent Americans. Things will never be the same again.
* * *
The people righted themselves and continued to bolt forward. They were joined on either side by their comrades.
A solid wall of suicidal people.
But they weren’t people.
Now they’d come close enough, Hawk could make out their features. Their faces were torn and bloody, flesh hanging over their split cheeks. It chilled him to the bone.
And they were drawing closer.
“On my mark, fire at will,” Vasquez said.
It was happening so fast. “Sir?” Hawk said.
“I said on my mark!”
Hawk and the others took aim.
“Mark.”
They fired.
Heads imploded. Others spurted blood. The bodies collapsed in a heap on the ground.
Those immediately behind tripped and fell. A five-year-old boy smashed his skull open on the tarmac. Most were fortunate enough to land on the cushion of their arms. Those that could push themselves up onto their feet and continued their relentless forward movement.
They were quick, easy kills.
See you in my nightmares, Hawk thought.
Despite the ease with which they were being dispatched, Hawk would have thought those in subsequent waves would back off.
Not a bit of it. They continued their relentless sprint forward.
Inch by inch, they drew closer.
A man with long blond hair broke through, propelled forward by some unseen ally.
Hawk reloaded.
The man screeched—a noise that did not belong in the throat of a man. Before Hawk could complete the reload, the creature was on him.
He swung the butt of his rifle around and cracked the creature across the
chin. It hit the deck. Hawk stamped on its skull. He repeated the maneuver three times before the bone finally broke like an egg.
He finished reloading and aimed once more.
He was already too late.
The rest of the horde had reached them.
We should have pulled back, he thought. We should have gotten out of here. The mistake would cost them their lives.
Vasquez recognized his error and tore a grenade from his pocket and hurled it at the enemy. Two more followed it. “Pull back!” Vasquez shouted.
The grenades exploded.
The creatures in the front row were thrust forward. The soldiers opened fire, but they were coming too fast.
A cluster collapsed atop Tex, their youngest brother. He shoved the creatures off. As he did, he exposed his hands and arms. The zombies were quick to latch onto him with their jaws.
Hawk crouched and fired at their misshapen heads. Tex beat at a severed head but its teeth wouldn’t release.
Gigi pried its jaws open with a knife. They dragged Tex away, leaving them exposed on one side.
There was no way they could pull back and save everyone at the same time. They had an injured man. He would slow them down. With the zombies sweeping in on every side, they had one choice.
Hawk turned and fired on the shopfront windows behind them. He gestured for the others to follow him inside. In the instant he’d turned his, the creatures had gained the upper hand.
As if they never had it in the first place.
Undead hands gripped his brother’s faces, tearing at their skin. Dislocated jaws tightened around the exposed flesh at their necks, hands, and arms. Those crawling along the floor made use of their ankles and shins.
“Run!” Vasquez stared directly at Hawk. “Run and tell them what happened here!”
It was the last thing he ever said.
* * *
A former businessman in a sharp suit wrapped his teeth around Vasquez’s throat and squeezed. Hawk heard the crunch. The creature spat the chunk out. Blood flowed down the team leader’s uniform and dribbled out the corners of his mouth.
Hawk hesitated. He was part of a team and his brothers were dying. He couldn’t blindly turn and run. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the world for him to drown out that memory.
Before he knew it, he’d reloaded his rifle and took aim at his dying comrades. He raked their bodies, taking them each cleanly in the head.
He couldn’t prevent them from dying but he sure as shit could prevent these creatures from inflicting a painful death. Even if he had to endure one himself.
So be it.
The creatures noticed their prey no longer struggled. Their sport had come to an end.
Almost.
They released their targets, faces smeared with blood. Their eyes were already turning white with blindness.
Hawk screamed as he fired every round he possessed upon the creatures, drunk with rage and remorse.
It shouldn’t have happened this way. They should have died fighting honorably in enemy territory. Not on home soil.
High above him, watching from between the teeth of the shattered windows where the human waterfall had spouted, the silhouette of a man watched with interest. He calmly turned and headed away.
The undead approached Hawk with slow, deliberate steps.
Hawk met their angry expressions. “I hope I give you the shits.”
They fell upon him.
* * *
The dream always ended the same.
In darkness. In agony. In terror.
The way he remembered it.
Hawk would have given anything to have recalled his favorite memories the same way. They were never anything more than a paper backdrop on a stage play and were easily slid aside and replaced by another screen. Another place. Another time. They lacked the same intensity of emotion, he supposed. You tended to recall the moment you died, that terrifying final shudder that accompanied your last lingering breath. At least, you recalled it vividly when you’d lived to tell the tale.
Hawk had survived where his brothers in arms had not. It felt more like a curse than a gift. He’d never considered himself lucky to be amongst the tiny minority who’d opened their eyes after being infected, and be aware of it.
He peered at his surroundings. He was always confused about where he was after a nightmare. This place had a distinctive smell. It had to be strong for him to sense it with his ruined nose. It was anti-septic, ultra-clean. The way a good hospital was.
He moved to scratch his nose but his hand couldn’t reach it. Instead, he felt resistance and heard a clinking noise.
He turned his head with slow wandering movements. A strap restrained his wrist.
A strap. . .
That took him back.
It triggered a memory from his early twenties involving a sexually curious girlfriend. He liked to think it was his natural masculinity that set her off, but the last time he saw her, she appeared just as amorous with her new girlfriend.
He reached over to scratch his nose with his other hand. It didn’t reach either. It was likewise restrained. He made to take a step forward. His feet didn’t obey him.
Now that did remind him of his ex-girlfriend.
He blinked deliberately, attempting to work some clarity into them.
A fuzzy block of white above him. Far too bright for his eyes. Fluorescent lights. The bane of my existence. Whoever invented the things should be shot. When he finally made it to hell—and he had a long-overdue one-way ticket booked in first class—it would be lit with these bulbs.
He might have been abducted by aliens. Considering his current predicament, perhaps he had been. He stood upright, shackled to something hard. The clinking sound suggested it was metallic.
Not that it mattered what the bed was made of. Without his sassy ex-girlfriend present to carry out her experiments with her favorite new toys, what in God’s name was he doing there?
Groan.
Hawk froze. He’d recognize that sound anywhere. It could have been a direct import from his memory. The last thing he recalled from his previous living life was those creatures tearing his chest open and gorging themselves on his still-beating heart.
And their endless groans of ecstasy.
* * *
Groan.
The ugly creature stood in a cage on the other side of the small room. It stared at him through its prison bars. It didn’t reach for him. Zombies rarely did these days. They seemed to understand he wasn’t something worth eating. His blood was thick and gelatinous, like theirs. Who wanted to eat custard skin when they could have a delicious cake instead?
Maybe someone had mistaken him for a zombie. He wouldn’t have blamed them. When he caught a glance of himself in the mirror most days, he thought the same thing.
“What are you looking at, chum?”
The zombie groaned. It sounded sad and forlorn.
“I hear ya,” Hawk said. “I’m not having the best day either. Any idea where we are?”
The creature just stared at him. It made loud slurping noises with its severed tongue.
“Yeah. I got no idea either. I don’t know about you, but I don’t much like the look of this place. I think we might be in some trouble. Still, at least we have each other for stimulating conversation.”
A stain spread across the front of the monster’s pants.
“If you don’t like me, you can say. Some people got no manners.”
Okay, Hawk. Time to get serious. There’s a way out of every situation. There’s a way out of this, you’re just not seeing it.
He pulled against his restraints, straining every fiber in his body.
The light above the door blinked from red to green. It slid open, revealing a diminutive figure.
“Well, well,” the woman said. “Glad you finally joined us, Hawk.”
* * *
Even with his blurry vision, Hawk could tell the woman was a stunner. She had long blonde hair and a white docto
r’s jacket that almost reached her knees. The same length of the red dress she wore underneath. A shapely pair of legs poked out of the bottom. She must have set quite a few patients’ hearts to running. She’d misdiagnose a dozen men with heart conditions.
Hawk chuckled to himself.
“Something wrong?” the woman said.
He leered at her. “No. Something is very, very right.”
As she drew closer, he made out her oversized glasses. Her eyes were a light color. Blue? Grey? Green? Who cares? When you looked as good as she did, your eyes could be purple and no one would care.
“I’m Hawk. Say, have we met before? I feel like I know you.”
“I’m Dr. Archer. We have met, but you were unconscious at the time.”
“Really? I’m sorry about that. Everyone suffers from performance problems now and then.”
“Pleasure to meet you and your. . . sparkling sense of humor.”
“People say it’s my best feature.” He extended his hand in her direction. About two inches.
Dr. Archer reached up and shook his fingers.
“Your hands are very soft. Do you moisturize? I do too, usually. I’ve been a bit lazy recently.”
“We found you near death. Moisturizing was the least of your concerns.”
Hawk squinted against the bright lights.
Dr. Archer turned a dial on the wall and the lights dimmed. “Is that better?”
“Yes. Thanks. I didn’t know hospital rooms came with dimmers.”
“They don’t. But then, this isn’t a hospital.”
She moved to a terminal and tapped something into a computer.
“If you look around, the keys should be somewhere,” Hawk said.
“Keys for what?”
“My Ferrari. What do you think? These restraints. Let me go, and I’ll be on my way.”
She smiled. God damn it, she’s the whole package. A big gorgeous mouth that begged to be kissed. Becoming a zombie had robbed Hawk of many things, but not his lust. Even death couldn’t rob him of that.
“You’re strapped in,” Dr. Archer said. “They don’t have locks.”
“Great. Then unstrap me.”
“If I do that, you’ll fall flat on your face.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Death Squad (Book 3): Zombie Nation Page 1