The new kid jerked his head up and down, wiping sweat from his eyes.
"Blake isn't it?" Jelks asked.
The new soldier nodded again.
"It'll be okay, Blake. Just keep your cool and follow us. You'll be alright." Jelks smiled in what he hoped would be a comforting expression.
It seemed to work. Blake grinned wearily.
"...residents of Hillshire Apartment, we know you are in there. We must search the facility. You will be relocated to a holding compound. You have nothing to worry about. You can still make the right choice here."
Wally was about to say something else when high above them, glass shattered, and the all too familiar sound of gun reports exploded into the night. Bright flashes. More glass breaking. And the crack and pop and snap of bullets flying past them.
Several tings, pinging against the dumpster, jarring Wally to take aim with his SAW, the M249 ripped open on the second and third floors. Peppering brick. "Come on assholes, come on!" he shouted, gritting his teeth.
Someone screamed from above and a moment later, a body slapped the pavement in a wet crunch, just on the other side of the dumpster. Wally gave his shout of approval. He gestured with his head for Blake to start for the side entrance.
Hesitating a second, Blake stood, M4 clutched to his chest.
More shots from above.
And Blake was down, crumpled in front of Jelks. A single horrifyingly perfect round had impacted the center of his forehead. A lone red drop dribbled down to the bridge of his thin nose.
Wally shouted again, a long string of obscenities, and lit up the side of the building with 5.56MM bullets, pumping 725 rounds a minute.
Jelks said nothing.
He stared down at Blake's motionless corpse.
Blake was just a kid. Sure, if you're talking age, not much younger than Jelks--but age isn't how soldiers measure themselves. They don't count birthdays; they count deployments, they count how many Combat Action Badges they have, how many Combat Patches, how many engagements. Some even counted KIAs, troops like Wally counted those, but not Jelks; he counted the rest.
"Come on, man," Munro was nudging him in his side. Even through his ACU armor plated vest, he could feel the thin Specialist's boney elbow. "Snap out of it. Wally went for the door."
Jelks blinked, forcing his gaze away from Blake's lifeless eyes. He turned to Munro and then he looked over the dumpster. Wally was blasting the lock with the SAW.
"Fuck," is all Jelks said as he forced himself off the ground. He bolted to Wally just as the larger troop with the SAW finished off the door and ran inside.
Swallowing hard--listening as the other squads and teams of the 1st CAV busted down the front door--he went in after Wally.
***
"Wally, what the fuck are you doing?" Jelks shouted after the large soldier. Somewhere between the mission, the shouts and screams, and the sound of doors and entryways being smashed in, wood splinting, metal pinging off plastic, Wally lost it. Maybe he never had it to begin with. Seen too much shit--overload on violence or stress or impatience or hate or all the above. The mission was to clear the dead from the building. Relocate the residents. Perhaps this was his way of dealing with two birds with 5.56MM rounds.
"Wally!"
"Come on, assholes, come get some," Wally shouted at apartment door 157. With a large boot, he kicked and bent the hinges as the door caved in. Some woman screamed inside. And he opened fire with his SAW, laughing the whole time.
He went to the next door and did the same, except this time he shot the lock off.
More screams.
And more shouts.
The stink of sulfur, heavy in the air.
And something else.
Something putrid and spoiled.
Wally started for the next door at the end of the hall.
Soldiers were moving through the complex now. Boots screeching against cement. Orders and directives yelled from occupant to occupant. Bodies filling the stairway and the hallways, frightened civilians, wide eyed.
"Wally!" Jelks shouted.
Wally started kicking at the door. This one had planks of wood nailed across the entrance. The large, manic soldier was pulling on them, shouting with murderous glee.
Not thinking; just knowing he had to stop him, Jelks laid his M4 down and bolted at Wally, jumping on his back.
Grunting, Wally turned and tossed Jelks back over his shoulder.
Jelks barrel-rolled and somehow came back up on his feet. He ran back at Wally who had started on the barricaded door again. This time, he locked his forearm, choking the larger man.
"What the fuck is your problem?" Wally growled. He backed up hard against the wall.
Dazed, Jelks fell and slid down, his eyes filled with static.
"Fuck you, man. These assholes are gonna pay!" Wally spat, turning back to the door. With his massive boot, he kicked and kicked until the wood cracked and split.
"Not that room!" someone shouted from down the hall, by the stairs.
Jelks turned to them and back to Wally. He felt like he was underwater. He touched the back of his head and felt something wet. He looked at his fingers. Blood.
With one final kick, the door burst inward and into the forbidden apartment.
Wally laughed in triumph.
A shot rang out, painfully loud.
Wally gurgled and then fell into the opened residence.
Jelks turned to the hallway. Someone, another soldier he thought, but couldn't be sure--his head still ringing, stood by the stairs, aiming an M4 at the now fallen Wally.
M4? Jelks reached for his rifle on the floor and clutched it to his chest.
The unknown soldier lifted his hands up as if in surrender and walked away, disappearing into the chaos of soldiers and civilians clearing the building.
Standing on shaky legs, Jelks started for Wally.
He was dead, a pool of crimson staining the wood, drowning his ruined face. "Damn you, Wally," Jelks hissed, touching gently the back of his head again and wincing. He started to turn away when he heard them. A shuffling from inside.
Swallowing hard, Jelks turned back.
A mass of shadows crept from inside the apartment. Jelks traced it to four individuals. Four dead, shuffling people, or what used to be people. Three men and a woman. Pale as death, and worse. Two of the men had bite marks on their arms, large chunks of meat gone. The other man was worse, half his face eaten away. Fingers missing, all but for the bone and flaps of flesh. The woman had deep cuts along her forearm--a suicide perhaps, one of the many who couldn't face the epidemic of the dead returning to life.
They came--one interested in what remained of Wally.
The others more interested in him.
Jelks licked his lips. Clutching at his M4 rifle. He trembled.
They came closer.
And closer.
Do something!
Closer.
Someone was beside him. Taking aim, they fired a handgun, 9mm perhaps. Rounds impacted torsos and arms and legs, fazing but not putting the dead down.
"Shit!" the soldier barked. Jelks didn't recognize him--maybe from Fourth Platoon, he wasn't sure. He stepped inside and took closer aim.
Head shots.
One after the other.
And then it was quiet.
He turned to Jelks. "One of the residents down the hall, supposedly the groundkeeper or something. Asshole said they were storing them in here. Didn't you see the barricade?"
Jelks shook his head. "Wally..." was all he could say.
"Wally?" the soldier frowned. His gaze fell at the body on the floor. Wide eyed, he looked back to Jelks. "You do this?" he aimed at him with his 9mm.
Unblinking, Jelks shook his head hard. "No. Someone else. I tried to stop him."
Still aiming at Jelks, the soldier started to say, "Right, we need to find the LT, buddy. This will need to be reported--" and then he started screaming, his aim falling, along with the rest of the body.
&
nbsp; Pulling on him, one of the undead, one they hadn't seen or heard. Legs gnawed away, eaten maybe. Purplish and blue-red, pussing with a foul odor.
Screaming, the soldier aimed and shot the dead man in the face. Panting, he glanced at his wound. The dead man had bitten through his uniform, torn away the fabric and the skin. Blood poured and pooled on the floor.
"Fuck! Fuck!" the soldier yelled.
He took several deep breaths.
Outside the apartment, the chaos of clearing the building was almost unbearable. The sounds of women crying. Babies wailing. Men shouting. Random gunshots and the sounds of wood breaking and glass shattering. Scuffling as people ran this way and that.
Turning back to the soldier, Jelks watched in horror as he pressed the gun against his forehead.
"I can't turn into one of them," he said.
"Don't," Jelks whispered.
The soldier pulled the trigger. Lumps of matter and a mist of red splattered the wall behind him. The soldier slumped back. Motionless.
Panting now, Jelks looked from the dead soldier to Wally and to the other dead, the ruined and mutilated horde, and back and forth. Panting. The world spun around him.
Jelks sprinted from the apartment and down the stairs to the basement.
Soldiers and civilians alike buzzed past him.
He didn't stop.
He didn't care.
Not anymore.
He reached the bottom and went through an unlocked door. Washing machines and dryers lined the walls. He ran to the sink, his head spinning still. Skin pale and cold.
Too much.
It was too much, too sudden.
Jelks heaved up what little there was in his stomach.
Trembling, he splashed cold water on his face. Breathing steady. Struggling to calm himself. And then he heard it, footsteps behind him.
He whirled around, aiming his M4.
Another rifle was aimed at him--it was the unknown soldier from before, the one who killed Wally.
They stood there, silent, waiting for the other to make the first move.
Finally, the unknown soldier broke the silence. "You were the one with Wally, wasn't you?"
Jelks held his aim. "I didn't see how he died."
The other hesitated, and then lowered the rifle.
Jelks lowered his.
Both exhaling.
Clutching at his M4 to keep it from falling, Jelks hopped up on to one of the washing machines. The unknown climbed onto another, next to him. Patting his cargo pockets, he found his pack of smokes and lit one up. Offering the pack, he said, "Jelks."
The unknown soldier took a smoke and let Jelks light it for him. "Collins."
Jelks took a long drag, exhaling smoke. "Ever think about running?"
Collins glanced at him sideways, silent.
"I'm thinking about running. I'm thinking about running tonight," Jelks took another drag and exhaled passively.
Collins nodded, his gaze across the room, somewhere else, contemplative.
The laundry room door crashed open.
Both soldiers jumped down, taking aim.
An old priest hobbled in, coughing, waving his hands as if to say without words, "Don't shoot."
Jelks exhaled again.
Collins shouldered his M4. "You okay, padre?"
"Let's get him to the med unit, outside," Jelks offered.
"Señores, please to let me pass," the old priest coughed. He steadied himself on a wood crutch. One of his legs was amputated. The pant leg had been cuffed at the stump. "Please. Just let me pass. I go up to seventh floor to find my sister; just let me pass. The people of Hillshire will do what you wish, now." He stopped and looked at them with an iron gaze. "Many have died, last week, on these streets. In the basement of this building, you will find them. I have given them the last rites. Now, you do what you will. You are stronger than us. But soon, I think they be stronger than you. When the dead walk, señores, we must stop the killing... or lose the war." And with that final word, he started off, across the laundry room and out another door near the back.
Jelks and Collins watched him go without a word between them. Further down into the basement of the apartment complex, they found the place he had mentioned. Though there were other apartments within the complex where the dead were locked away, the majority ended up here, funneled down by a garbage chute. Some were rolled in white stained bedsheets like death shrouds. Wiggling like worms. Itching to be free and to feast. Some were already feasting on parts unknown. Amputations and severed limbs, gorging themselves as if that was all they cared for or wanted. How many of the undead--neither could count the number with any confidence. They simply turned and walked away, past the soldiers and residents running past them, working tirelessly and foolishly to an impossible goal. There was nothing they could do; there was nothing anyone could do but survive.
Someone had to survive.
Ray & Tom
Summerville, Georgia
"You're an asshole, Tom."
"Maybe. But I'm right, ain't I?"
Ray shrugged, looking around the plaza.
Tom rolled his eyes. "Come on, man. Ain't a cop in sight. They got enough to worry about, anyways." He turned back to the store window, cupping a hand over his eyes and peering inside.
"As should we, Tom," Ray said, spotting a shuffling, shadowed form some distance out in the parking lot. Was it some homeless vagrant? A drifter passing through? Or just some dude hoping to find a store open? Or was it one of them? The walking dead--the things that shouldn't exist?
"Exactly," Tom said, "which is why this is such a good idea."
Ray glared at him. "Robbing a store in broad daylight?"
Tom glanced back, smirking. "We got to survive, don't we?"
Ray looked through the store window. "You call stealing booze surviving?"
Laughing, Tom said, "You fucking right it is." He looked at Ray, obviously tired of the back and forth. "Look, man. We get what we need here and when we're done, we can hit up that Shell on the way back home for some grub. We get home, hole up, get shit-faced, and wait for this whole thing to blow over."
Ray licked his lips, glancing over his shoulder at the shadowed, shuffling thing in the parking lot. "And what if this doesn't blow over?"
"The more reason to get shit-faced, then."
"And what if someone's inside?"
"Then that's what this is for." Tom pulled the pistol out from the space behind his back.
Ray glared at the piece. "Jesus, where the hell did you get that?"
Tom tapped the glass with the pistol. "Enough, Ray. We gonna do this or not?"
Looking at Tom and at the pistol, Ray swallowed hard and said, "Sure."
"Good." Tom smiled.
Sirens and screaming from the main street and both men flinched. Twisting about, they stared in frozen panic as several police cruisers zoomed down the other deserted roads. Relief flooded feeling back into their legs.
"Fuck me," Ray exhaled, leaning over.
Tom was laughing. "Come on, man. Like I said, cops got better things to do then to worry about what we're doing." He tried the door again. Locked.
"You want to try out back?" Ray offered.
"No. Not really." He aimed the pistol at the glass window and fired. The report was like a firecracker, echoing horribly across the empty plaza, empty but for that shambling shadow.
"Jesus, Tom," Ray cried, covering his ears, all too late.
Smiling, Tom stepped over the glass and into the shop.
Trembling, Ray followed.
Al's Liquor and Fine Foods was as best Ray could tell, empty. An uncommon sight, honestly. For the residents of Summerville there had never been much to offer for entertainment, unless you wanted to drive an hour or more in either direction. They were a blip on the map that had never really been much else. A town to pass through on the way south to Atlanta, or north towards Chattanooga. For Ray and Tom, Summerville had always been home, they'd never been much farther than
Rome or Rossville when they were kids. Despite several misdemeanors and a few crossed meth dealers, Ray and Tom never thought much on leaving. This was home. For better or worse; and how much worse could it get in a world where the dead didn't stay dead?
"I can't believe nobody has looted this place yet," Ray was whispering, tiptoeing around the store, checking every aisle for sign of life where life shouldn't be.
"Why you whispering?" Tom asked, his voice just below yelling. "Here," he handed Ray a handful of large brown paper bags. "Let's get as much as we can carry."
Ray took the bags reluctantly and started for the first bottle his hand could reach.
"And none of that pussy Tequila Rose bullshit, either. Gives me the shits." Tom started off, filling his own bag, the pistol tucked away in his jeans.
Reaching for another bottle, Ray checked the label and put it back on the shelf.
"Oh! We're going to be drinking real good tonight, bro. Single Barrel Jack Daniels--woowee!" Tom stared darting around the store. "Let's get some chips and dip too, oh, and cigars, man. We gotta get some cigars."
Be it Tom's jovial spirits in leu of the apocalypse, or the thought of getting really hammered later, Ray couldn't help but smile--something he rarely did due to embarrassment over his yellowed, crooked teeth.
He smiled and giggled as he continued to fill his bag with bottle after bottle of hooch. Glass clicking against each other.
"Hey," Tom said, heaving his bag of loot on the checkout table. "I'm going to check the back room, see if there's anything good."
Ray waved him off, still smiling and giggling. Truth be told, he didn't mind stealing. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, but theft in daylight wasn't something he was too keen on, and the gun had made him even more on edge. But things were looking up. Tom had been right. The police were too busy to worry about a liquor store getting broken into. The world may be going to hell--perhaps that was for the best. Ray never cared much for how it was before the dead started coming back and eating the living. Now at least they could go about their lives the way they'd always done, except now they didn't have to worry about no damn police.
Planet of the Dead (Book 2): War For The Planet of The Dead Page 2