by M. Lorrox
Her eyes grow even more wild. She rips her hand away from Steve, still squeezing onto his hair, and she tears the scalp off him. He yells and shoots his hands up to push her back, but before he can reach her, she slams the claws of her other hand into his flabby stomach. Her fingers pierce the skin, and she digs at the fat and muscle from inside. “I’ll tear you apart!”
Li Chen comes up behind her and buries his tactical dagger straight into her back, pushing it so deep that the knife’s small metal hilt penetrates into her, too. The blade slides between the ribs, pierces her lung, cuts a pulmonary vein, and pokes out the front of her chest near her sternum.
June releases Steve and looks down at pointed metal emerging from her chest. She coughs up blood. Li Chen tries to pull his knife back out, but from the angle he’s pulling from, the hilt catches on a rib. The blade twists inside her body, spiraling a cut through her lungs and flesh, but it doesn’t pull out.
“Fuck it.” He pushes her to the side and out of the way, leaving the knife inside her. She falls to the ground below him.
Steve is curled up on the ground. He quakes while he squeezes his hands onto his abs where June stabbed into him with her fingers. The top of his head lost the scalp at the plane of the looser layer of connective tissue, and his raw flesh underneath seeps blood.
Li Chen bends down and grabs him up. “We gotta go! Come on!”
They get up and stumble to the tree line.
June lays sideways on the ground. Blood oozes out of the wound on her chest, and it dribbles out of her mouth. She wheezes and squeezes her eyes shut.
Earlier, General Riley ordered the marine that stayed behind with him, Corporal Daniels, to set up the rocket propelled grenades at the northeast corner of the FAA’s roof. From that position, they would have the best angle on the grass of the National Mall toward the Capitol Building—the area where the general anticipated the mechs would enter from North Capitol Street.
Now, he kicks himself that he needs the RPGs on the northwest corner.
While he waits for Daniels to bring them over, he watches the rear end of the helicopter touch down with its gate open. “Are you fucking kidding me!” He draws his Sig Sauer P320 pistol and unloads a full magazine of 9mm bullets at the huge helicopter.
The engineers in the tent, Specialists Smith and Klein, look on and shake their heads.
General Riley’s target is two hundred and eighty yards away. Handguns are not very accurate at a distance, and 9mm rounds—although potentially lethal—are NOT designed to be effective against anything but flesh. General Riley knows this, but he still empties his clip. None of his bullets even hit the target.
The survivors on the roof don’t wait for any kind of invitation to get on the helicopter. The adults pick up the kids and start making their way. It’s dark now, and the city’s ambience spreads some light onto the roof before them. As they walk across the slanted surface, zombies are attacking around them, and the kids in their arms shake. The adults go as fast—and as slow—as they dare, balancing their desire to escape against their desire to not slip and fall fifty-five feet to the hungry zombies on the ground below.
On the east side of the roof, two more zombies rush toward Jambavan. He takes aim. -Thwoop!- -clk- “Shit.” No more mags, and I’m out of ammo. He already tossed his other pistol when its ammo ran out, but now when he tosses this pistol, he tosses it only a few inches in the air and grabs it by the barrel. He swings his arm back and hurls the gun at the zombie’s face. It connects, the zombie falls, and then it slides toward the edge of the roof.
More zombies barrel down on Jambavan, but all he has is a short-bladed push dagger attached to his empty shoulder holsters. He turns and runs back toward the group, yelling, “Where’s the commander?”
Frank, who takes up the rear of the group headed for the helicopter, assumes Jambavan is talking about the madman that leaped down from the helicopter. He points with the Smithsonian Ceremonial Mace to a mound of zombies on the other side. “Sorry.”
“NO! Gimme that!” Jambavan grabs the mace from Frank’s hands as he rushes past.
Skip recently clicked in his last magazine, and he aims the rifle at a zombie rushing the group. -Kitchew!- “Six.” It drops, and Jambavan rushes past it, heading to the west.
A zombie from the eastern side is almost on the group. -Kitchew!- “Five.”
Jambavan swings the mace and swipes the face off a zombie as he approaches the pile on top of Charlie. “Hold on, Commander!” He swings the mace at the zombies on top of the pile, and he quickly kills two of them. They fall limp on the pile, and Jambavan frowns. He can only use one hand, so he drops the mace and starts grabbing and yanking zombies off Charlie. He first gets a hold of one by its foot and tears it to the side. Then he grabs another by the shoulder and rips it off the pile as well.
-Kitchew!- The body of a zombie that was rushing the group falls forward without its head. “Four.” The body rolls off the roof.
Jambavan draws his push dagger and punches into the back of a zombie’s neck, killing it instantly. Then he jumps and stretches his arm out, slicing through the throat of a zombie on the far side of the pile. He lands and opens his hand, squeezing his fingers together against the blade between them, and grabs another zombie and tears it from the pile.
-Kitchew!- “Three.”
Frank helps the last person onto the helicopter. He turns to Skip and holds his hands beside his mouth, yelling, “Come on!”
Skip lowers the gun, then looks over to where Jambavan headed—to the west side of the roof—where Charlie also went. He sees Jambavan tearing a pile of zombies apart, but he doesn’t see Charlie. Oh no.
And then the section of roof between the helicopter and the South Tower explodes, thanks to a hit from a rocket propelled grenade.
General Riley smacks Corporal Daniels on the shoulder. “What the hell is wrong with you! That helo is in range, and I gave you an order!”
“Sir, kids just boarded it. I guess I flinched. Are you sure about this?”
The general draws his pistol, pulls back the slide to chamber a bullet from the new magazine he loaded, and pushes the gun’s muzzle into the side of the marine’s head. “We’re at war! You just helped the enemy, and that’s treason! Get the fuck out of my sight before I put a bullet in you!”
Corporal Daniels scurries away on his hands and knees, then he gets up and runs to the opposite side of the roof. Jesus Christ! The man’s lost it!
The two engineers duck down and pretend to be talking into the microwave transmitter. Then, they decide to do that, and they send an update of the situation to the Pentagon Field Command Center.
Shocked by the explosion beneath him, Skip is thrown backward off the edge of the parapet. He lands hard on his back, on the roof of the South Tower. He gets back up, looks at the blown-open roof, then notices the thin line of smoke that hovers in the air. He follows it with his eyes to the FAA building and sees two figures at the edge the taller roof. One scrambles away and out of sight, but the other stays. Skip turns back to where Jambavan is and sees him lifting Charlie up.
The once royal-blue uniform that hangs off Charlie’s body is soaked in his own, red blood.
As Jambavan carries him, a zombie rushes them from behind. -Kitchew!- “Two.”
Jambavan glances up at his sniping savior. “Come on, Skip!”
“Get him on board! I’ll cover you!” He scans the roof, and as if by a miracle, there’s no zombies barreling down on them, nor on the helicopter. He turns back to the FAA building, and he sees a lone figure moving on the distant roof with something long across his back, but then the figure crosses out of Skip’s line of sight—the helicopter’s upturned nose blocks his view. Shit! He spins back, Jambavan and Charlie are stepping onto the helicopters gate, and between Skip and the helicopter is a burning and gaping hole in the roof.
Skip jumps from the top of the parapet down onto the other side of the roof section that connects the South Tower to the main roof. W
hen he hits, he collapses to not break any bones, but when he falls he rolls, once…twice…then he catches himself—his legs hang off the edge.
He gets up and runs to the other side of the gaping hole in the roof. He drops to his chest a few feet from the blown open section and looks through the rifle’s scope. He sees the figure on the far roof drop to a knee, and Skip fires. -Kitchew!-
The bullet misses and hits the top of the building. Two inches higher, and it would have hit General Riley in the thigh. At the impact site on the edge of the roof, stone explodes in a tiny burst, sending a mist of pebbles and dust into the air in front of General Riley. He’s surprised, and as he jumps back, he pulls the trigger.
Danny watches out the cockpit’s windshield as the man on the tall roof aims a rocket propelled grenade at him. “I know they call these things RPG magnets, but you’ve got to be shitting me!” He tries very hard not to flinch—he has no copilot to steady the stick, and he’s performing a very tricky maneuver. All he can do is hold his breath and pray.
The rocket is fired, and it flies over the top of the Chinook.
Danny gulps and shakes his head. “That’s it! We’re getting outta here!” He carefully starts lifting the tail of the helicopter up.
Jambavan was taking care of Charlie, but now he leaves him with a couple of the vampire chaperones. He scans the cabin of the military craft in hopes of finding a military class weapon—but there aren’t any.
Harold, for once understanding the direness of the situation, pushes his way over to Jambavan and holds out the blunderbuss. “You’ve got one shot.”
Jambavan takes the gun, and at the back of the cabin, he drops to his belly. The short barrel extends out through the Chinook’s open rear gate.
Skip pulls back the bolt and loads the last bullet into the rifle’s chamber as he watches the helicopter take off without him. Instead of considering how he’s surely to be attacked by a zombie horde—at any instant—he climbs onto a knee and watches the figure on the far roof. Easy now. Just like a bow, extend through it…
General Riley picks up the last RPG, and he swivels toward the helicopter. “You’re mine.”
A pair of zombies rush at Skip, and Jambavan aims the short, shotgun-like blunderbuss at them. Please don’t let me murder Skip.
All three of them—Skip, Jambavan, and General Riley—each pull their triggers and fire their last shots.
Felipe, Rosie, and Kevin arrange their mechs in a row, blocking the wide street. They turn their lights on, and it seems to attract zombies more than it scatters them.
At first, Master Sergeant Vega shot zombies as they attacked the mechs, but then he saw that he was wasting his bullets—the mechs don’t need any help in slaughtering zombies. Instead, he focuses on looking for zombies that are directly threatening civilians. If there aren’t any, then he sharpshoots nearby zombies that decide not to attack the bloodied machines that are tearing their zombie comrades into buzzard-beak morsels of meat.
In a lull of the fighting, Corporal Jenkins bails from inside the cab of Lynxie-Lou. He’s careful not to touch any of the mulched zombie that covers the machine, and he climbs up a short light post on North Capitol Street by way of the various parking rule signs bolted to it. And that’s why you don’t drive in DC.
On top of the pole is a horizontal section with lamps on each end. He sits at an angle across the top, and he adds his bullets to the melee.
When Rosie sees that Jenkins is safe up the pole, she re-engages the five-hundred-and-forty-RPM power-take-off to spin up her triple bush-hog blades. She can raise them up and lower them onto zombies’ heads—but it made her a little nauseous when the fifth eyeball smacked into her windshield. Now she keeps the blades at neck level, and she advances and withdraws repeatedly to lure the zombies toward her.
Kevin is hurting inside The Edward’s cab, but he’s still fighting. He had hoped to be able to control the two deadly arms separately, the way the machine was designed. But, with only one good arm on the pilot, he found himself needing to choose which of The Edward’s arms—and thus which of the absurdly devastating weapons—to use.
Instead of choosing one, he sets both out at their maximum reach, and he swivels the cab back and forth on the articulated legs. The platform leans because it lost a hydraulic line to one leg, but The Edward is still incredibly effective.
The Edward’s carbide-coated steel X blade has about the same diameter as a large lawnmower’s blade, but it spins more than twice as fast. The tips of the weapon shred through the air at over seven hundred and fifty feet per second, two-thirds the speed of sound.
The blade is a blur, a slightly darkened circle of “Touch me and die.”
On the other arm, the trencher tool’s blade-tipped chain spins much slower, but the blades are sharpened, the chain is wide and heavy, and it has a stupid amount of torque pushing the chain. Anything that comes into contact with it is torn into baseball sized chunks and is ripped away.
Kevin rotates The Edward’s upper cab and arms on the platform all the way to one side, waits for zombies to come into range, then he pushes the lever to swing the cab—and the arms—to the other side. The X blade howls in the air until it meets the slight resistance of flesh and bone. The roar of the trencher is constant, but when the flat side of the chainsaw-like weapon slams into a zombie, the zombie’s freshly loosed legs are thrown at The Edward’s cab with a great -Thumpump!- The upper body is thrown into the distance, and the midsection -schlops- down the flat of the blade to the pavement below.
While the gunners are sharpshooting zombies with their carbines and Rosie and Kevin rock forward and back or side to side, Felipe manages Tiny Tim in a completely different fashion.
Felipe’s feet are disengaged from Tiny Tim’s walking mechanisms, and instead they control the auxiliary sickle-like arms. Felipe’s hands and arms control Tiny Tim’s huge clawed arms. As single zombies approach, Felipe has four options for how he can dispose of them.
He likes it when groups of zombies approach.
Just like a kid at the mall strapped into a VR rig, Felipe looks like an idiot as he flails his arms and legs while he’s suspended in the air. His flailing though, does more damage than what his ego takes because the actuators he presses against drive the four arms of Tiny Tim into a deadly swarm of heavy metal that crushes and tears through zombies.
When Felipe finishes a round by only using the sickle-like appendages he controls with his legs—to give his arms a rest—he sees The Edward speed ahead and turn around.
Kevin lifts the cab to its maximum height, then he opens his hatch. His right arm hangs limp from the shoulder. “I’m hurting, guys! Can someone take over The Edward, and I’ll ride with Rosie?”
Felipe sees Kevin’s blood-covered biohazard suit, and his heart crashes. For a moment, he just looks at his partner, stunned and shocked with his mouth agape.
Before Master Sergeant Vega can order Corporal Jenkins to pilot The Edward, Jenkins is climbing off the post and running over. “I got it!”
Vega sighs. Classic Jenkins. “Get back here, and give me your ammo. I’ll cover you. Hurry up, Kevin!” Vega raises his rifle and prepares to take out any zombies while the machines are down and people are shuffling between them.
Rosie opens Lynxie-Lou’s cab and makes room for Kevin. Oh, you don’t look so good…
Kevin is pale, and even though his legs aren’t injured, he barely lifts his feet as he shuffles across the ground. When he reaches Lynxie-Lou, he struggles to climb inside without touching any infected zombie goo.
Rosie climbs halfway out to meet him as bullets fly nearby.
Vega lowers his gun. “There’s a big group coming! Hurry up!”
Rosie helps Kevin into the cab and grumbles under her breath to Vega. “Like we’re taking our sweet time.”
Kevin chuckles and wheezes. “I’ve lost a lot of blood.”
She closes the cab. “You’re a toughy though, just sit back, relax, and…”
He mo
tions with his chin past the currently motionless hula dancer on the dash to the guts and flesh splattered across the windshield. “Enjoy the show? I think I’ll just close my eyes.”
She whaps him lightly on the leg. “I was going to say: and try not to barf.”
He nods. “Noted.”
Meanwhile, Jenkins straps himself into The Edward and has the biggest smile of anyone currently on Earth.
Within a minute, they’re moving down North Capitol Street again. They soon enter the paved walkways of Senate Park. People that climbed the short trees in the park to escape the zombies cheer as the mechs eviscerate the zombies as they pass.
The mech pilots are careful to keep the infected-meat splash-zone far from the trees—to protect the people in them. Vega, still riding high on Tiny Tim, fires on any zombies that the machines can’t reach. They circle around the side of the park and are less than one thousand feet from the U.S. Capitol Building. Just in front of them now is the northeastern corner of the National Mall.
They can’t yet see the horrific scene of zombies feasting along the manicured grasses of the Mall, but killing those zombies isn’t their mission anyway. The people those zombies hunted down are already dead. They can’t be saved.
The First National Mech Brigade searches for people to protect.
A cold terror again overwhelms June. She felt it when she found out Beatrice was killed; when she realized she was drugged.
Not again.
She tries to stay calm and not move.
Someone will find me.
She relaxes her eyelids but keeps them closed. She focuses on listening in case she can call out to someone walking nearby, but at first, she can only hear traffic in the distance.
She feels blood overflow from a pool between her chest and arm and cascade down her side. It soaks into the light-colored hospital gown, dying it a dark crimson. She grimaces. They’re hurt inside. Eddy’s hurt... Nobody is looking for me; they don’t even know I’m awake.