by Glynn James
Then the time came, and they tried to start the engines. Somewhere, probably from his memory of war films, Wesley expected the thing to keep them waiting, for the engines to fail, or not start right away. It would look grim until the very last moment that it needed to take off, and then the old Flying Fortress would spring to life and save the day.
But the engines started the first time and roared to life.
The pilots boarded a last time, and Wesley wondered for a moment if he would see any of them again. An engineer was also going, and it seemed a four-man fire team of Fick’s Marines as well.
Fick passed him, heading towards the open hatch, radio in hand.
“You’re breaking up, sir, and I do not copy your last… Repeat all after ‘Now listen to me you son of a bitch’…”, and then he turned to Wesley and tossed the radio at him. Wesley caught it and looked at it for a moment, wondering why he could hear Drake’s voice blazing at him when Fick had just said tha—
But then he saw Fick was also carrying all of his gear, backpack, assault rifle, and tactical vest, and as the stops were pulled out from under Chuckie’s wheels, Fick jumped into the open door of the plane, turned, gave Wesley a sharp salute, and then pulled the door shut.
The plane began to rumble slowly down the runway, gradually gathering speed, and Wesley couldn’t help but smile at the man’s stubbornness. But at the same time he wasn’t looking forward to speaking to Drake.
“Fick!” barked the radio. Drake did not sound amused. “Fick, answer me, damn it. Don’t you dare get on that plane.”
Wesley sighed and put the radio to his ear.
“Wesley here, over.”
“Wesley. Where the fuck is Fick? Put him on right now.”
“Ahh… I would sir, but the plane just took off and he was on it.”
Chaos Revisited
Even with a bit of lingering daylight left, the streets of Canterbury seemed somehow full of darkness. In the distance, Jameson could already hear the crack of gunfire. He didn’t need telling where it was coming from; he knew. The radio earpiece inside his helmet was buzzing with activity as contact reports were shouted out in a half-dozen places within minutes of one another. Just a few streets over, Sergeant Elson’s squad was engaged in house-by-house clearing maneuvers as a newly turned nest burst from the doors and windows around them. And Jameson could hear every blow.
They moved quickly, Jameson at the front of the column and the rest of his men spread out in a V shape behind him. They only broke formation when a car or other obstacle blocked their path. He could see frightened faces looking out through windows as they passed, but couldn’t afford the distraction of looking behind him, where those frightened expressions would turn to relief as the living were ushered out of their houses and hustled down the street behind them.
Neutralize. Secure. Evacuate.
They had done this many times in small towns before, but never in a place as big as Canterbury, and Jameson wondered where in hell they were going to put all these people. Even though the population was less than a quarter of pre-ZA numbers, it still meant over thirty thousand people had to be moved out of the area and given a place to stay. CentCom was prepared for this, apparently. When Jameson’s platoon and supporting units had arrived, there were already quarantine-management crews arriving, and the A2 and A28 were crammed full of military and government vehicles heading toward the city center.
How they were going to deal with the possibly infected, but not yet turned, was happily somebody else’s nightmare problem.
Jameson now saw movement in the distance, farther down the road. There were at least ten of them, some lumbering in the opposite direction, but half of them, the faster half, dashed up the street towards them. Jameson sighted in on the leading runner, or Romeo – for that was evidently what these were – and fired as soon as it came into effective range. Several shots from either side of him, and two more runners dropped. Then the third writhed, and tried to get up again. A wounding shot, he guessed, enough to cripple it but not accurate enough to destroy it.
Switching his radio to the command net, he said, “CentCom, we are in heavy contact with multiple Romeos.” He knew the mention of that would send people higher up the chain of command into action. More calls would be made and more troops would be on their way in minutes.
He switched back to the squad net and said, “Tighten up.” His voice was quiet, but clear enough over the channel for his squad to hear, and the V shape closed in.
Six shots and the other three Romeos dropped. They hadn’t even gotten within fifty yards, but the noise had now attracted more. A dozen, and then two dozen, and then more, burst onto the street from doors further down. Some of these were already covered in the blood of their victims.
Their lunch, Jameson guessed.
“Two ranks; engage the enemy; single, aimed shots,” he said, and went down on one knee. The two Marines flanking him did the same, and he sensed, more than felt, the others standing behind him as they doubled up the V shape and began putting out enfilading fire.
The mass of zombies rushing down the street toward them was still growing as more of them homed in on the noise.
How the hell did there get to be so many so fast? Jameson thought in between shots. The alert had only been an hour ago, and the incident at Chaucer Hospital ten minutes before that.
But if the Royal Marines couldn’t somehow gain control of this situation, then the next ten might be even worse…
Go Boom
Sarah Cameron stared wide-eyed into the chaos of her own front yard – and, in so doing, she also stared down into the dizzying maw of the worst dilemma she had ever known. The two options she faced now were both so intolerable, so gut-wrenching, that they threatened to split her down the middle of her soul. On the one hand, she saw her only son, the blood of her flesh, hurt and bleeding, terrified and fleeing. And begging for succor, for rescue.
Begging for his mother to come to him.
On the other hand, she saw an insuperably large herd of ravening corpses about to overrun their perimeter, all of them chasing a boy who was already badly wounded – and most likely infected. And, inside the cabin, behind her, was what might be the vaccine that could save the species. That mission couldn’t fail, and its heroes couldn’t fall. Not here, not today. No matter what.
For a moment, Sarah found it inconceivable to choose between them.
But she didn’t falter, she didn’t collapse, and she wasn’t frozen. She kept shooting, and kept assessing. But she could see which way this was going.
And it might not resolve in a way that anyone, never mind any mother, could live with.
Another boom sounded from the point of struggle at the gate.
* * *
Smoothly changing magazines, Handon could see through the near-darkness that the man and boy were trapped behind the gate. There was no way they could get it open. They couldn’t push back the great mass of bodies that heaved up against them. Their dead weight sealed the gate.
And almost certainly sealed their doom. Nothing could humanly be done.
But, then again, Handon was actually in the superhero business, long had been, and impossible rescues were not outside of his capabilities. He left off shooting for a half-second to call for reinforcements – knocking twice on the heavy door behind him and shouting “Squad up on the line!”
As he sighted in again, a blur of motion registered over the top of the glass square of his sight. Instinctively, he tracked upward, then immediately down again. By the time he gained a sight picture, it was on top of him.
A flying Zulu. A Foxtrot.
Not these fucking guys again, Handon grumbled in his head. He let his rifle fall on its sling, instantly drew his 6-inch Mercworx Vorax combat knife from his chest rig, and as the Foxtrot landed and sprang up into him, he brought the wicked double-edged blade straight down into the top of its head. He then put his boot sole into its chest and launched it out into the yard. He dropped the knife po
int down into the wood of the porch, and brought his rifle back up in the same motion, firing immediately and unerringly.
Now that he was ready for them, he dropped the next two that ran up the backs of the mob and leaped clear over the fence, through the air, and into the yard. Flipping his selector switch to three-shot burst, he made head shots on both, dropping them to the dirt.
It was like shooting skeet. And not in a good way.
They kept coming. And the larger, slower mob still heaved against the fence.
Handon saw and heard the shotgun go off again, its muzzle flash like a sheet of lightning in the dark. The boy had the weapon pressed across his body, wrestling with the creature that was trying to eat him, and it had gone off to the side and behind him – pointed at the generator and its fuel tank. Handon saw sparks kick up in the dark as the buckshot pellets flecked off the curved metal.
Handon didn’t panic – he knew that in real life, unlike in the movies, shooting at fuel tanks tended not to make them blow up.
A second shotgun blast went off now, impacting beside the first.
On the other hand, Handon thought, if the tank did go up, it would do some hellacious damage. Including taking out the fence that was currently the only thing between them and the surging horde of dead. Handon looked over to Sarah, who briefly looked back before resuming firing, her unsuppressed muzzle flashing brilliantly with each discharge. She looked steady at first. But then her eyes went wide, shining in the reflected light.
Handon could feel more than hear the door open behind him. His team, his back-up, were getting their guns the fight.
And then he looked forward again – and saw what Sarah saw. The fuel tank was still intact.
But the fence was coming down anyway.
The sheer weight of black bodies pressing against it in the dark was ripping the poles out of the ground. The whole edifice tilted precariously now, threatening to go over. It had never been designed to hold up a whole lynch mob of the dead, or that much weight. It would only be a few more seconds before it came down, and then the clearing and the cabin would be swarmed.
Simply, they were going to be overrun.
In seconds, the night was going to come alive around them, and try to devour them.
And, out there in the evil night, within sight but unreachable, trapped between the force of the dead surging forward and the buckling fence, were the Camerons, father and son. They were trapped between the millstones. They were now producing some noises that Handon could not quite resolve underneath the firing – wasn’t sure he wanted to – and beneath the howling and moaning of the herd in full frenzy.
Handon didn’t immediately see how he was going to get them out of there.
But he knew he had to try.
Because if his humanity failed him here, and he left them to die… then maybe nothing they did had any real meaning. They might as well just all go be zombies.
He flexed his powerful leg muscles to lever himself up and forward.
And as he did so he felt a tug at his right side…
* * *
Sarah watched the fence coming down. She also sensed Handon tensing beside him. In whatever weird, preternatural, seemingly mystical connection they shared, she instantly knew what he was planning. She knew what kind of man he was.
And she made her own decision.
She’d clocked the pair of egg-shaped high-explosive fragmentation grenades on Handon’s rig earlier. She had practiced using them, briefly, with the Toronto ETF. And she had absolutely no doubt about what she was doing now, and no doubt that it was necessary. Her husband and son were already infected or dead, or would be in seconds, and there was simply no way they could be saved now.
But humanity still could be.
That her family might still be alive and human in that moment made her actions as impossible as they were necessary. But there’d be time for doubt, and for regret, later. There’d be years for that, if she lived.
She snatched the grenade off its nylon loop.
Handon stutter-stepped, as his forward leap turned into a turn at the waist.
“I need this,” she said, her voice somehow audible, somehow intimate. And Handon saw something beyond steeliness in her eye. Something like the peace of the committed.
Handon opened his mouth to ask what she was doing – but he instantly knew. “Fire safety…” he whispered, under all the chaos. It was clear what needed to happen now for any of them to have a chance. And it was totally obvious that only Sarah could do it.
She pulled the pin, wound up, and gave the grenade a solid underhand pitch. It hit the dirt fifteen feet inside the buckling fence, bounced once, arced up and forward – and came to rest nestled up underneath the pot-bellied fuel tank.
Handon knew a couple of things now. One, he knew that grenades were a whole different deal than bullets – they actually did tend to make flammable things go boom. He also knew something that Sarah did not: that this grenade was a custom job with a two-second fuse.
He pivoted, wrapped his left arm around her waist and dove back inside the doorway, pulling her along. The door was fortunately open – but filling the doorway was the rest of Alpha team, tooled up and rifles to shoulders and heading out into the fray. The unyielding force of Handon’s dive more or less tumbled everyone back inside the cabin door, in a tooled-up domino chain.
As they sprawled out on the floor, Handon approvingly noted that down on the deck was an outstanding place for them right now. And, for the second time in as many days, he kicked closed a door with his assault boot fractions of a second ahead of a detonating grenade.
But the grenade was only a primer charge in this scenario.
A single sound like Judgment Day – the grenade and the tank went up too close together to differentiate – shook the very foundations of the cabin, knocking objects off shelves, and blowing in every single window on every wall of the structure, as well as blowing out the oil lamps. Dust and debris rushed in the empty windowpanes, filling the air around them, and reducing visibility in the dark down to nothing.
Just as, in the same instant, it reduced Sarah Cameron’s family down to nothing.
Handon and Sarah looked at each other blindly from a few inches away, lying on the floor face to face, tangled up – other bodies and limbs and random objects draped across them. And they both thought the same thing in that moment: She’d done what she had to do – and now she was somehow going to have to live with it.
But Sarah only thought this for one quarter-second. After that, she was up and moving. Even in the wake of the resolve she’d had to show with her terrible decision of a few seconds ago, she was already acting again.
“Everybody up!” she shouted. “Move, move, move!”
Because she knew that she had only bought them a few seconds. And they had to use that time masterfully. Or they were all still dead – and the vaccine with them. She actually moved more quickly, and more decisively, than CSM Handon himself.
And in that second, Handon knew.
Her tragedy was not foremost for her right now. It was in the past – and it was very much in her future, if she lived to see it. There would be years to live through, and oceans to cross, and a thousand crushing moments of doubt and regret and longing to endure.
But for Handon, right now, this was not about her sacrifice. It was about her action. Her decisiveness. And, above all, her resolve. She had acted, doing the necessary, with zero hesitation.
Seeing all this in action, from inches away, and in fractions of seconds, was not a revelation for Handon. It was instead validation – of everything he had felt about her, up until this minute. He could see it had all been perfectly right – and that he could now trust himself and his feelings for this woman.
She had expressed her love, her human goodness, in action, not words.
And that was unfakeable.
Joyride
Sarah rose up in the darkness and destruction inside the cabin, and she moved out into the
utter desolation that lay outside, rifle to shoulder.
The others followed. And they quickly found that the desolation outside was not quite utter enough.
The crashing explosion had disintegrated or simply disappeared the fence, had tossed the generator into the treeline, and had wiped out the first dozen ranks of the dead that had been pressing against the fence – as they had struggled blindly to gain entry, desperate to devour life.
And to doom the very future of it.
Most of those near the epicenter of the explosion had been destroyed – if not completely, then effectively. Limbs, faces, random hunks of meat wiggled and thrashed, their life force, or death force, not extinguished by mere dismemberment. The virus still coursed in their putrid veins and black tissues, and with it there was animation. Anything that was still connected by nerve endings to a brainstem struggled to get up and resume the hunt.
It was a horrific, writhing mass of dead-guy goulash, corpse a la carte, and every body part still a menacing vector of attack, or of infection. Or both.
And, worse, farther back down the road, came the camp followers – the rest of the deceased population of Glenville, drawn by the drama, drawn by the moaning, drawn by the prospect of living flesh to gnaw. Just as the first ones had been drawn by the boy, as he tried to stagger his way home, to safety, to his mother… but instead pulled them on behind him like the Pied Piper of the Damned, down on some level of Hell where even Dante never dared go.
And still they came.
* * *
Sarah spared one look through the darkness to the mass of meat that was her front yard. She knew her family was in there, was now some part of this horror. She didn’t want to see, but spared one irresistible look anyway. Then she realized she could only make out the details because of some light source behind her. She turned – and found the whole front face of the cabin burning, from the spray of ignited gasoline in the tank.
Now she noticed small burning pools dotting the ground here and there.
She turned on her heel, and curled around the left side of the cabin.