From Oblivion's Ashes

by Michael E. A. Nyman

  “You see it? Then holy, fucking crap, eh?”

  “Good heavens,” Peter said, gaping at his own screen.

  “I guess we know why they’re only going fifty kilometers an hour,” Scratchard said, shaking his head. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

  “There have to be at least a few thousand,” Peter said.

  Marshal didn’t answer. The ‘advance group’ turned out to be a flock of military helicopters, spread out in formation and traveling close to the ground. At fifty kilometers an hour, they appeared to crawl down the expressway. Two different types of helicopter made up the fleet, though Marshal wasn’t expert enough to identify either. Nor did he especially care.

  The most captivating feature to the video was the horde of at least three or four thousand zombies that trailed after the flight of helicopters. A giant, ravening mob of undead, they ran in excess of fifty kilometers an hour on the expressway, pursuing their prey with full ‘Attack-mode’ obsession. Occasionally, one would leap from the ground in an attempt to grab the low-flying vehicles, but the pilot would evade with seemingly effortless grace.

  “That’s… that’s a big Swarm,” Peter said, venturing his opinion. “How intelligent could a group that large be?”

  “Very intelligent,” Scratchard said. “Smart enough that they’re working on ways to… ah. There it is.”

  One of the undead, without slowing its pace by even a fraction, seized a neighboring zombie and threw it at the trailing helicopter. Like a fastball special, the creature sped towards the target, only to miss as the pilot drifted slightly sideways.

  “A smooth evasion,” Peter said. “The pilots are well-practiced.”

  “All the ones who weren’t are most likely dead,” Scratchard said. “Are we going to wait this out, Marshal? A zombie Swarm of this size is not the sort of challenger I’d feel comfortable testing our obfuscations against. And they appear to be leading them right onto us.”

  “There’s still time for the Americans to lead them away,” Marshal said. “Let’s see what they do. We’ve given up nothing so far. We’re still just a large, windswept pile of garbage until we either move or step outside.”

  Scratchard scowled, his worry apparent, but said nothing.

  “They are coming rather close,” Peter said uneasily.

  “Kumar!” Marshal said into his communicator. “You said this was the advance group. Did you get a visual on a second group?”

  “Albert did during his first recon,” Kumar said, “but they were way behind, maybe by as much as a half-hour, traveling at the same speed. One of Albert’s guys just launched the second Phantom and we should be getting a better look at the second group any second now. It’s just that, when we saw the Swarm, Albert and I felt that it kind of deserved pride of place in our priority list, you know what I mean?”

  “Definitely,” Marshal said, watching as the helicopters came up on Dixie Road.

  “Oh wait,” Kumar said. “Speak of the devil. I’m splitting the feed into two windows to show you the second group. They’re still a long way off, but we’ll be doing fly-bys any second.”

  Silence followed as the three men in the Camoucart watched the footage and saw the heavy truck convoy slowly chugging it’s way up the road. Tractor trucks, mobile artillery, buses, tankers, and immense flatbeds made up the bulk of the long train of vehicles that seemed to stretch for kilometers. More than a hundred vehicles long, with a few smaller, satellite pacers, the convoy crept up the highway at a uniform fifty kilometers per hour.

  “They don’t want to catch up to the first group,” Marshal said. “The first group is the stalking horse. They spread out, make lots of noise, and draw the attention of every undead in hearing range of the freeway. They fly low and maintain a low speed so as not to lose their pursuers, thus guaranteeing a clear track for the less mobile second group.”

  “The flatbeds,” Scratchard said with grudging respect. “They’re refueling pads for the choppers, though resupply must be a nightmare.”

  “Hmm,” Peter said, still looking concerned.

  “Yes,” Scratchard agreed. “It does beg the question as to how they do it.”

  “What do you mean?” Marshal asked.

  “Well… just look at it,” Scratchard said, waving a hand at the choppers. “They’re helicopters, not rabbits. It’s not like they can hide very well. So how do they get rid of the Swarm?”

  “Pick up speed,” Marshal said, “loop around to their back trail, and-”

  “Then they’d pick up fresh undead as they ‘looped’ over fresh territory,” Scratchard said. “I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it would be really hard to avoid leading a fresh zombie group back to the convoy just by returning to base. And that’s assuming that you can pull the wool over the eyes of a bloody, oversized zombie Swarm, which can’t be easy.”

  “Couldn’t one simply fly upwards?” Peter asked. “At a high enough altitude, a helicopter might be difficult to see.”

  “Maybe at night,” Scratchard said, though he sounded doubtful. “You’d still have to deal with the sound.”

  “Well, we’re about to find out, aren’t we?” Marshal said. He pointed to the screen. “Those fences represent the border to the airport runway. By the way, does anybody recognize the choppers? I’m not up on my military hardware.”

  “Putting Eric through now, Marshal,” Kumar said.

  “What? How?”

  “I was transmitting your conversation to all positions,” Kumar said. “Uh. That’s okay, isn’t it? I just figured that you three were the ones everybody would want to listen too. Anyway, the Captain heard you and has some input.”

  “Fine,” Marshal said, sounding vaguely annoyed. “Eric! What have you got?”

  “Blackhawks and Apaches, sir,” Vandermeer said. “That’s what the first group is comprised of. I see ten Blackhawks, all-purpose utility helicopters, usable for attack, transport, or recon. Other than the pilot, they’re designed to carry as many as eleven soldiers, or eight if there’s a window gun. The other four, near the rear…they’re AH 64 Apaches, straight-up attack helicopters, capable of unleashing seven different kinds of hell on targets. See the weapon mounts and the hellfire missiles? They are the first group’s heavy hitters.

  “As for the evasion possibilities, Peter’s idea is probably the best explanation, though it would almost double fuel requirements to reach that kind of altitude. Still, with oxygen masks, they could go high enough that, while the undead might still hear them, they might not have the ability to track them.”

  “And yet they would risk being tracked again when they descended,” Marshal said.

  “Probably, sir. Depends on how big of a zombie-free zone they cleared in the first place. I can’t speak to the intelligence of the Swarm they create, of course. On that, I agree with Scratchard. It’s playing with fire to leave a group that big still hunting for prey.”

  There was a pause in the conversation as the video from Albert’s drone showed the flight of helicopters sweep over the airport fences with all the grace of gliders hitting an air pocket.

  “They’re coming,” Scratchard said uneasily, “out onto the tarmac.”

  “I see that, Professor,” Marshal said.

  “Where we are,” Scratchard added, his voice rising in alarm, “waiting vulnerably-”

  “I said I could see, Professor!”

  On the screen, the wave of undead pursuing the choppers hit the fences like a tidal wave smashing through a wall of toothpicks.

  “Shit,” Marshal said, activating his communicator. “All positions, prepare for a retreat. Get out now. If the Swarm gets close to you, hold position until the rest of us can-”

  “Hold on,” Scratchard said. “They’re… the Blackhawks are landing.”

  “Are they insane?” Peter said. “That Swarm will overwhelm them in seconds.”

  “Everyone, stand by!” Marshal said. “Are you seeing this Kumar?”

  “Yeah,” the numb response came. �
�Americans are bugfuck crazy.”

  “What are they doing?” Peter interrupted, sounding mystified.

  Words died in Marshal’s throat as he watched the screens alongside everyone else, dumbfounded by what he was seeing.

  With no more than a few hundred meters separating them from the oncoming horde, which raced towards them at a terrifying speed, the Americans sprang into action.

  From each of the ten landed Blackhawks, four soldiers jumped down onto the tarmac, their uniforms rippling in the windstorm of the helicopter blades. The soldiers formed into pairs, with each pair carrying a large, mounted gun between them. With well-trained precision, they planted the weapons in a defensive line, seemingly oblivious to the horde of indestructible monsters that was now only seconds away.

  Still working in pairs, one soldier assumed the firing position while his partner fed a long, belt of shells into the weapon.

  “Those are 50 caliber machine guns,” the voice of Vandermeer reported. “Serious hardware. And while it’s hard to say from here, I’d bet my stripes that those are incendiary bullets.”

  Marshal had only seconds to be amazed at the calm, precise efficiency the soldiers displayed, even as the wall of undead, now less than two hundred meters away, raced closer.

  And then, suddenly, the machine guns all started firing at once, blazing lights of pure force across the flat, empty space. Bullets tore into the horde like chainsaws, shredding flesh, rending limbs, and splintering bone. Concussive explosions of undead tissue sprayed across the open tarmac like meat through a wood chipper, as the undead disintegrated under the horizontal rain of devastation.

  “Mother of God,” Marshal breathed.

  The Swarm’s collective mind responded. Outer skin layers hardened against the attack and tissue density increased. A thousand zombies drew close together, allowing those in front to absorb the worst of the deluge, while those in behind were better protected. The undead pushed forward, slowing briefly, but picking up speed as they came to within fifty meters of the American defensive line. Where some fell, others would spring into the gap, only to be chewed apart under fire. And yet, despite the relentless deluge, the compact phalanx of undead continued to move implacably forward.

  And that was when the Apaches, still in the air, swept in to attack.

  Descending on the flanks like angels of death, the attack helicopters unleashed their hellfire missiles into the now compacted undead swarm, inflicting maximum damage. Explosions rocked the formation, annihilating hundreds of undead in their first pass. Those that escaped complete dismemberment were left spread out in the open, and were easily obliterated by the continuing streams of machine gunfire.

  Confusion fell into the horde, and their charge faltered. Stymied by the savagery of the two-pronged assault, they lingered without direction. With the Apaches pounding down on them from above, and the relentless machine gunfire tearing them to pieces them from the front, they milled about, unable to decide on a response. One moment, the Swarm had been assessing capture vectors and preparing to strike. The next moment, it was being dismantled particle by particle.

  In less than three minutes, it was all over. The tarmac was covered with a wriggling ocean of body parts and shredded tissue.

  Before anyone could comment, a second wave of soldiers jumped down from the choppers armed with flamethrowers. They strafed the field with immense, fifty-foot gouts of flame. Pieces of zombie burned and sizzled, sizzled and burned, until there was no longer any movement on the blackened field.

  For a moment, no one in the Camoucart, or on the entire communication network, could speak. It was all anyone could do to stare in disbelief at the charred field of destruction where over three thousand zombies had been Swarming only a few moments ago. Thick, black plumes of smoke caught on the wind, billowing upwards to an otherwise clear blue sky.

  And then, over the communication network, the cheering started up, gathering strength as more voices joined the choir. Savage exultation filled the air as the Canadian onlookers showed their appreciation for the spectacle they’d just witnessed.

  “America!” Kumar shouted. “Fuck yeah!”

  “U S A!” Luca could be heard bellowing, before being drowned out as more voices joined his chant.

  “U S A! U S A! U S A!”

  And in the Camoucart, Marshal stared in disbelief and wonder at the sight he never thought he’d ever see. Scratchard was shaking his head in amazement, even as Peter, an unlikely candidate for any show of emotion, put his face in both hands.

  On the tarmac, with smooth efficiency, the soldiers disassembled their guns even as the Apaches hovered behind them in a gale of wind and exhaust. Then, without any sign that their feat was anything more than a typical day, the soldiers returned to their helicopters and flew that last few hundred meters to land in front of a stunned Marshal, his companions, his Camoucart, and his rejoicing people.

  The Americans had arrived.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: Day 254: Loki’s Children

  The choppers landed in a tempest of wind and flying dust.

  “Let’s go meet our guests, shall we?” Marshal said, standing up from the driver’s console and heading for the back hatch. “Make sure you bring your laptop, professor, just in case we need any visual aids. Peter? You stay close to me. And bring that bottle of cheap wine, would you?”

  “Of course,” Peter said. “And remember to be careful, Marshal.”

  The three men exited the Camoucart, circling around front to stand before the helicopters. There, they waited patiently, watching as soldiers disembarked with smooth, military precision. There was no showmanship to their movement, just a well-practiced efficiency that was hard not to envy.

  When they were done, there were about three-dozen men and women standing at ease on the airport tarmac. They were dressed in standard issue uniforms, boots, belts, and gear. Each soldier had an assault rifle slung around his or her neck like a guitar, relaxed and not pointing in any particular direction. Despite the weary, haggard expressions on most of the faces, Marshal had little doubt that the level of aggression could be dialed up on a moment’s notice.

  One man wearing Captain’s bars swung down from what had been the lead Blackhawk. His approach was casual and distracted, as if utterly indifferent to the existence of Marshal and his companions, who stood waiting for him only a short distance away. Instead, he stopped to exchange words with a couple of sergeants. The sounds of the choppers still shutting down drowned him out, but Marshal could see him pointing over at the airport fuel dumps.

  The sergeants saluted, turned, and began shouting orders at idle soldiers who sprang into action.

  “Kumar,” Marshal said into his communicator. “They’re sending out scavenger teams. Have one of Albert’s people keep an eye on them, and make sure that none of our people are discovered. If it looks like they’re closing in on one of our positions, make sure we’re well and gone by the time they get there.

  “You got it, Marshal,” Kumar answered, sounding irritated. “Why are they ignoring you? I thought they wanted our help.”

  “We’re not being ignored,” Peter said, speaking into the communications link. “We’re being put in our place. It’s a pretty standard opening move. We must refuse to be goaded, lest we reveal the strength of our position.”

  “Idiocy,” Scratchard said.

  The Captain seemed to notice Marshal at this point, his gaze sweeping the welcoming committee with a hint of disdain. But instead of stepping forward to begin negotiations, the Captain turned his back on them and issued some more orders to another soldier.

  “That,” Peter said, “was deliberate. Act as if it was wasn’t, and we reveal nothing.”

  Marshal held his tongue. Scratchard muttered something obscene, but otherwise held his peace.

  Finally, the Captain seemed to finish up his conversation with the other soldier. He laughed at something that was said, clapped him on the shoulder and started heading towards Marshal.

  T
hen, as if suddenly remembering something else, he stopped, turned back, and spoke again. The soldier he’d been talking with laughed, as did a few of other soldiers standing nearby. There was a reply, and the Captain returned to the group to continue the now reignited conversation.

  Cold irritation settled on Marshal, and he briefly wondered what the consequences might be if he pulled out his gun and blew the Captain’s helmet off his head. Probably not good, he acknowledged, though just the thought alone cheered him up.

  “Patience,” Peter said.

  The conversation finished, and the Captain turned back to them and came over. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket as he did, popped one out in a neat move, and lit it with a flip-top, zippo lighter.

  “Hi there,” he said with only a hint of a Texas drawl. “You’ve got the look of a man in charge. I’m Captain Alex Marlowe. Are you this Marshal character we’ve been hearing about?”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Captain Marlowe,” Marshal said, extending a hand. “Welcome to New Toronto.”

  Instead of accepting the handshake, the Captain seemed not to notice it and instead lit up his cigarette.

  “This person to my right is Peter Hanson,” Marshal continued, lowering his hand without missing a beat, “and the man on my left is Professor Nicholas Scratchard. Let me start out by saying that that the battle you just won was inspiring. Honestly, we didn’t even believe the zombies could be beaten, and here you are, annihilating them by the thousands. Consider our minds blown.”

  “Uh huh,” the Captain answered, only half paying attention. Partway through Marshal’s reply, he’d started scanning the horizon behind the New Torontonians. “Well, we’ve had plenty of time - and spent plenty of blood - learning how to hone our tactics. The General spends his time going over everything we’ve learned and coming up with new strategies. So this is it? This is all of you?”

  The abruptness of his questions made Marshal consider his response.

  “There’s more of us,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “Not here,” Marshal said.