by Rick Chesler
“Um…” Alex hung back, glancing up. He felt useless, dead weight.
That all changed with the next words out of Xander’s mouth, before Veronica flung open the door and they rushed into the thick of battle.
“Be ready, kid, you’re up soon. Phase Two? It’s to fight our way back up the stairs to the roof. There’s a helicopter, and I’m hoping you have enough skill to fly us the hell out of here.”
#
Veronica had to admit, for a biochemist nerd, Xander was pretty dead-on with a gun, and that was a good thing when only a headshot would suffice, A real good thing. He took down two raging ex-soldiers to their immediate left as he exited the stairwell, then shot down three in quick succession on the other side. Veronica saw her chance—a .45 clipped to one of the zombie guard’s belts—and snagged it just in time.
Xander, on her right, mowed down another four charging creatures, sweeping at head level and blasting their skulls open, while she covered them from the left, firing ten rounds at the five lurching figures as they marched around the corner like dumb AIs in a shooter video game.
In the ensuing silence, they heard rumbling steps and echoes of hungry wailing somewhere else on the level. The corridor was littered with zombie corpses and the walls were sprayed with gore and bullet holes, but for now, they were safe.
They approached the munitions door. It had a hand print scanner as well as a key code entry system.
Alex tried the door and breathed out in relief as it opened right up. “I guess we have DeKirk’s overzealous sense of drama to thank for this.”
“Just get in,” Xander said, turning and giving the hallway a once-over as he checked his gun’s magazine—one round left. “And gear up. This was just a prelude to the fight we’re going to have getting to the roof.”
Alex stood there in awe—not so much because of the shelves and racks full of ammo, weaponry and stacks and stacks of guns, grenades, crossbows and body armor and helmets—but because of Veronica’s sudden burst of unbridled enthusiasm.
She slung a heavy automatic rifle over her left shoulder, and once she was done stuffing magazines into her pockets and a knapsack, she grabbed several handfuls of grenades and set them inside on top. She zipped up and slung that over the same shoulder before grabbing, cocking, and loading two stainless steel .45 handguns and slipping them into the back of her jeans. She considered the crossbow for a moment, hefting it, and then tossed it to Alex.
“Here you go, Daryl.”
Alex fumbled with it and tried to fathom how to load it when Xander reached in, plucked it from his grasp and threw it to the floor. “Quit kidding around. This isn’t Walking Dead, let’s not alert them with loud noises’ bullshit. They know where we are—whether its smell or superhuman hearing or fucking ESP. Whatever it is, we need firepower. We need it fast and loud. Gather that gun there, and… well hello, baby!”
He slung the M5 over his shoulder and made his way to a green crate with Asian lettering. “Oh, I really hope my translation is right, and no one took this out already…”
The crate opened, and he whistled. “There you are.” He reached in with both hands, and straightened up, setting the back end of a cylindrical weapon over his right shoulder while he turned and aimed through the sight on the end.
“Bazooka?” Alex whispered.
“RPG,” Veronica said. “Looks to be circa nineteen-eighty. What was this, some hidden military base for the Japanese?”
“Koreans,” Xander corrected, “and…there they are. He pulled out a square sack and looked inside. “Four rockets, in prime condition.” He grinned like a teenager just given the keys to a sports car. “Let’s gear up. We’ve got a flight to catch…and some dinosaurs to kill if we get the chance.”
Veronica stared at her enemy, this cold calculating killer, and Alex could tell she was weighing her options, trying to judge which threat to take out and when. Whether to just draw those .45s and shoot Xander full of holes right now, or to rely on his knowledge of the facility to get them out.
Logic apparently won out—either that, Alex thought, or she was just biding her time, waiting for a more fitting moment to exact her revenge. Whatever the case, Alex had to focus. He’d been defenseless up to this point, and lucky. No more. He licked his lips, surveying the room for whatever was left for him.
“Just take a damn AK,” Xander said, “and one of those .45s, and let’s move.”
33.
The stairwell was a little more crowded than when they left it, and the gunfire echoed painfully in the narrow quarters. At least it blocked out the hideous sound the zombies made: the hissing, scratching and gnashing of teeth that went with the high-pitched cries of insatiable hunger and brutal bloodlust.
Veronica took the lower section and Xander started to work clearing the upper stairs, while Alex stood at the door, guarding their flank. His hands trembled as the AK-47’s barrel swept back and forth, seeking targets in either direction, although Alex feared it would take him the whole clip before he would be able to hit something’s head. Wishing he had time for practice, all he could think about now was getting to that roof, and then…whether or not he could actually pilot a freakin’ helicopter.
It had to be close to flying a prop plane, right?
Deal with that when you get there, he thought, flinching with every burst of fire at his back, every guttural cry, every scream from Veronica—who probably couldn’t even hear her own battle cry over the explosive echoing rounds.
The coast clear, he risked a glance over his shoulder and immediately spun around. Veronica was out of ammo, bending over to reach for another magazine. She had forgotten about the guns at her back—or else figured her best bet was still the rapid-fire automatic, but she wasn’t going to make it.
Xander was busy mowing down a seemingly endless onslaught of ex-doctors, janitors and soldiers pouring down the stairs, clambering over the comrades, so he couldn’t help. Alex swung the AK around and aimed. Took a deep breath and just as he focused on the first pair of yellow eyes belonging to a bald, freakishly heavy ex-scientist, he felt his finger tighten and pull—as enthusiastically as he could.
The recoil kicked back and he stumbled then righted himself, ready for another shot, even if he would just get off a burst at the thing’s chest to knock it back. When he looked back, the overweight zombie was toppling backwards, a neat chunk of its skull blown away and gore spilling out.
“Nice shot,” Veronica said, slamming home another magazine before she casually turned and blasted through another wave of undead. Alex stepped in, braced himself and fired off a half dozen more rounds, two of them connecting, before aiming up the stairs and taking out one more, riddling bullets up its chest before connecting with its chin, and then punching through its open mouth.
Xander shot one more with a .45 as it rounded the bend, gnashing at them. When it was down he gave Alex a nod. “Thanks for the assist, kid. Now let’s move.”
Alex chose his spots without much concern, stepping on the backs and chests of bloodied corpses, trying to get to the clearer stairs beyond. Veronica followed, but Alex hesitated, glancing at a few of the faces on these stairs, then below.
“What are you doing, kid, looking for loose change?”
Alex swallowed hard, still trying to peek around all the shattered skulls and look for eyes that held some familiarity. “Looking for my Dad.”
Veronica paused. Xander sighed and shook his gun in a waving motion. “Haven’t seen him in this bunch, so stop wasting time.”
“Where did you last see him?”
“Outside, okay? He kind of…went berserk and busted free after wasting a few guards. I opened the lab door and let him out. He’s probably…” Xander made a shooing motion over his shoulder. “Out in the world somewhere, hopefully roaming free, doing what zombies do.”
Shaking his head, Alex started after them. “I’m not giving up on him. He can fight this, and it was just an extremity wound.”
“From a freakin�
� dinosaur,” Xander snapped, skipping to an empty stair, and then running around. “Let’s pick up the pace, I hear them.”
Alex did too—down the stairs below them. Doors banging against walls, more trampling feet. Definitely brought by the gunfire, he thought. The hell with whatever other senses they’ve got.
“Uh… one last question.”
“Come on,” Xander called from above, exasperated.
Alex stopped in mid-step, seeing a tear in his boot, and then looking at all that blood on the floor, among the corpses. Hell, on my own clothes… “When you studied this virus thing, did you happen to conclude anything about like…how it infects somebody?”
Xander’s head peeked over the railing. “What?”
“Well, you looked in the microscope and saw the microbes in my Dad’s blood, just swimming around, so those things—they’ve got to be everywhere, right? And if they touch our skin, or get in a cut, or our eyes, or we breathe them in…”
“Jesus. You a germophobe or something? That’s not how it works. They’re activated through enzymes in the host’s saliva.”
Alex frowned. “So…we have to be bitten?”
“Yes!” Veronica shouted, picking up the logic faster. “Just step on ‘em, and get the hell up here.”
Alex moved his foot, but stretched and found a clear spot, then jumped over the remaining heap of bodies to land on another empty space. Taking no chances.
He ran after them.
34.
Veronica burst out onto the roof, wincing against the intense sunlight bearing down from a crystal blue, cloudless sky. It took her eyes a few moments to adjust and get her bearings, and then Alex was all but smashing into her.
“They’re coming! Right behind me!”
She turned, pulled the door shut and looked around, cursing. Grabbed Alex’s rifle and slid the barrel through the handle slot, flush against the external wall, then backed away. Something slammed into the door from the other side, and a barrage of thumps and howls of frustration followed as the creatures threw themselves against the door and tried pulling it and pushing to no avail. The gun held.
“Okay, let’s pray that keeps them out. Now…” She turned and Xander was already heading toward the landing pad—a giant painted X on a flat concrete section in the center of the roof. The helicopter itself was painted white with red stripes, and looked shiny but a little beat up, with scratches and dents along the outside edge and nicks in the windshield.
“All ready for you, kid,” Xander called when he got to the door and peered inside. “Keys in, locked and loaded, or in this case…” he opened the door, “…unlocked. Get in and get it going, we’ll stand guard.” He motioned Veronica to the north edge of the roof as he slung the RPG’s strap over his right shoulder, took out the M5 and reloaded it, heading toward the south edge.
Veronica watched Xander as she gripped the AK in her hands, raising it, then pointing it in his direction, wavering. Did she still need him? He had just turned his back on her. Was he that confident? Alex was getting in the cockpit. Looking like a lost, scared puppy, but if he could fly that thing…
She tensed, about to aim. It was the perfect chance—shoot Xander down now, end all the pain and anguish. He more than deserved it, whether or not this was personal. Clearly justified, she just had to…
Something caught her attention and caused her to flinch, shifting her aim. The southern edge of the rooftop… beyond the edge she could only see a beautiful view of the Pacific stretching out into the lighter blue horizon, and off to the right, rising from the jagged hills and brush carpet, a smoking volcano.
Again, the sound of scrambling, hissing and scraping.
She approached, tensing, her feet nearing the edge. Behind her the chopper’s engine turned, sparked, died. She heard Alex cursing, muffled behind the glass as he tried again.
Her feet neared the edge, where the sounds were getting stronger, more intense and closer.
Finally there, she looked back first, to see Xander patrolling the opposite edge, gun tip down. She watched him turn to the chopper and yell something disparaging at Alex—something lost in the ferocious hissing of the thing beneath her.
Snapping her head around, she leapt back out of sight, but not before a glimpse of the impossible: one of the Cryos, its ferocious snout and flaring crown only a few yards away.
Its dead dragon-like eyes locked on her, and she felt sixty million years of hunger and absolute ferocity wash over her senses, along with the revolting scent of blood and death that issued from the depths of its throat.
#
It hadn’t climbed the building’s four levels, but instead—if she could believe her eyes—it had ascended a mound made up of writhing, reaching, climbing zombies. Several dozens of them, all piled onto each other like ants working collectively, creating a ramp the Cryo just ran right up and ascended.
Still can’t get up, she thought. Didn’t build it high enough… yet.
That’s when another influx of zombies tore around the corner. Heads up, they seemed to unerringly locate her on the roof’s edge, and they ran. Two of them accelerated as if getting a burst of nitrous. They bounded up the ramp and leapt ten feet into the air—onto the tail and back of the Cryo...
Where they climbed up the spine of the creature, tensed, crouching at its neck and shoulders, eyes on her—
And they sprung…
Veronica fired as she fell backwards, strafing the first zombie in mid air, the slugs knocking him back, but still he landed on the edge in front of her. All the rounds had missed its head, and it rose in a flash, growling.
Her finger still on the trigger, she raised her aim, and this time blew its skull open, just in time to roll out of the way of the other leaper.
Again the engine cut, caught and then revved up, competing with the sound of her gun—and Xander’s now, joining the action. She wasn’t sure if it was her shot or his, or both, but the leaper’s cheek blew apart and a hole punched through its temple simultaneously, taking him down.
She scrambled to her feet just as another zombie leapt into the air, arms spread wide.
This time Xander shot him twice in the face, and the mindless attacker fell in a heap at Veronica’s feet.
“How the hell are they climbing?” he shouted, joining her side.
“You don’t want to look.” Veronica pointed over the side, where now the Cryo was doing a little hopping dance, allowing more and more zombies to jump onto the pile so it could step on their bodies and raise itself up.
“Holy shit,” Xander said, returning the M5 to its strap around his shoulder—and taking out the RPG. He checked the rocked magazine, clicked the release, and lined up a shot. “Stay still you son of a—”
“Wait!” Veronica yelled and tried to deflect the shot. “You’ll blow open the—”
The rocket streaked out in a blast that went wide by a few feet, missing the Cryo’s head but tunneling between its forearms, where another zombie had been climbing under its neck. The explosion knocked Veronica back into Xander, who dropped the RPG and scrambled to catch it before it rolled off the side.
“What the hell, bitch? I had it!”
Veronica got up fast, gun ready, pointing at his face. “You idiot! The explosion could have… Oh shit…” She looked down, and tore her eyes away from the sight of the Cryo writhing on the ground below, its chest cavity torn open, its rib cage blasted apart, internal organs sliding to the dirt, its lower jaw demolished and smoking, blackened tongue wriggling—but still trying to get up. She looked at the hole in the side of the building, a hole that enlarged as she watched, collapsing a full quarter of the roof.
She backed away, as did Xander, backed almost to the western edge, until they were sure they were safe from further collapse. Still she couldn’t look away, couldn’t move or respond enough to raise the gun until it was almost too late.
The floor below them was now exposed. A floor full of hungry, crazed reptilian zombies who had—until now—bee
n denied their prey.
They jumped for the roof.
#
Alex saw the explosion, saw the roof almost collapse completely, concrete tumbling away and supports failing, and he had a moment’s terror where all he could think was: get this bird off the ground or you’re going to be buried in it…
He grabbed the collective pitch, the stick-lever on his left, turned a few dials, flicked the release switches—, and prayed. Pulled back and felt the helicopter ease up, getting the landing skids off the roof, then it lurched backwards—and stalled like it got too much clutch.
It slammed back down onto the roof, then the engine caught and it again roared into life. He looked up and out the cockpit window and saw thankfully that the damage to the structure at least was over, and limited to the farther section of the collapsed roof. That was the good news. The bad news was that a countless rush of zombies were climbing, leaping and running across the remainder of the roof, chasing after Veronica and Xander who were now sprinting desperately for the chopper. They’d given up on all but a few backwards bursts of fire that did nothing to slow down the horde.
Shit, shit, get this working!
It was all up to him now.
He leaned over, unlatched the door, and kicked it open for them as Xander shouted, “Get it off the ground, kid!”
Alex pulled back on the stick, gentler this time. It was going to be tight. If he could raise it and keep the bird there about six feet up, they could leap and grab on to the landing skids like in the movies and—
They were almost there, leading the zombies by a shrinking distance.
Xander was faster and while the craft was still rising, he leapt into the passenger hold, then turned and let loose, emptying the M5’s clip, spraying cover fire behind Veronica and over her head, knocking back the first row of ravenous creatures. Veronica skidded to a halt, ducking her head again as the chopper dipped, angled, and almost sheared off her head.
“Sorry!” Alex yelled. “Get in already!”
“Wait,” she yelled. “Something...” She turned, aimed and fired in another strafing angle, blasting apart three more heads and ripping into legs and kneecaps, tripping up another row of attackers—attackers that suddenly slid to a halt as if listening to some distant orders. They turned their heads and looked backwards toward the gaping rooftop hole, and they started to move to the sides.