Chapter 3
I hate zombies. Everyone does and most of us are terrified of them. Really, the Human Reanimation Virus was maybe created as a bio-weapon that escaped and appears throughout history. Someone thought it was sent by time-warp, others say it came from Venus on a meteor and mutated on Earth into the HRV, but no one really knows. It’s enough that the Vartanians found a vaccine and I kept my shots current. Sad thing is that the Vartanians won’t give the serum to Earth, but they would sell it! If they were allowed to reveal themselves. Vartanians are not altruistic.
But, if there were Zeds on the aircraft, that could be why it went down. One infected person on an airliner could infect half the plane before he was dead, and the other half after he died. That was probably what had happened. A zombie bit someone, that person hid the bite and got out-of-the-country fast! They probably died in flight and reanimated, infecting others and starting a panic that broke through to the cockpit and once the pilots were attacked, by Zed or a terrified passenger, the craft was doomed.
I checked my pulser in case I had to waste my passengers. I hated doing that but the only thing that stops a zombie is to destroy the brain. It really doesn’t matter if you do it with a baseball bat or a bullet or a pulse-charge, so long as you avoid the splatter. And a pulser burns the brain and kills the virus. Blood splattered by a bullet or club is still infectious for a day or two.
The question now became which of my passengers was infected? One? All? Good thing we had a Zed-Medic with us. If I could get them back before they died, he could cure them. I watched the UAV circle around, high overhead. He was probably keeping me at the edge of the sensor web and looking all around. He also reported the Zeds to the Captain so they were ready for that too.
I stopped the Walker at a lava cliff. I could climb it but the passengers would be shaken off so I had to find another way. To the right was sand! Lots of sand! Worms love sand and Walkers bog down so that was out.
To the right was hard ground and vegetation. With luck the ground was too hard for a Worm but they were real good at traps. A Worm put on hard ground would eventually dig a hole down. And once underground, it would begin to munch away at the dirt, maybe a foot an hour, building soft-dirt tunnels all over the place, focusing on game trails and traps. The surface would be so hard you couldn’t dig with a crow-bar, then a couple inches deep, so soft you could scoop it with your hands. Worms were living proof that you didn’t need brains.
We think the Worms came from Mongolia then spread out. They even made movies about them; Tremors, Sand Serpents, so on. They all got the details wrong but the facts right. Giant Worms that lived underground and occasionally came up to eat people.
I had no choice. I scanned the ground with sonar but the waves bounced off the crust (or surface) and never penetrated far. So I set the Walker to ‘caution’ and moved out, carefully testing the surface before putting too much weight on that leg. So far so good!
I looked at the sun and decided to cross the dirt. If I was careful, I could cross before the Worms knew I was around.
Unfortunatly, 50 feet in I touched a trip-wire.
I never even saw it until the Spider erupted from the trap. Dennis, A Canadian scientist, said that the Spiders came from another parallel world where they grew to size before any other animal could evolve. I don’t know and don’t care but if the Vartanians ever hire out to that world, I’m quitting!
The thing was a typical Trap-Door Spider, only it was the size of a wolf and reached the Walker before I knew it was coming.
I pulled my pulser and tried to shoot it but the thing moved too fast and the screams of the passengers tore through my helmet pads. Then the Spider grabbed someone and dragged it back to the burrow, slow enough for me to aim and I put a couple rounds in the thing. I shot it three times before it realized that is was cooked and died.
Then I realized that I was outside the Walker. Damn! I froze, looked around and saw the gatling tracking the three people who had broken and run. I hoped my Peep was working or it would track me too.
First things first. The man was still jerking and a closer (not too close) look showed the Spider-fangs still in his leg, two leg-claws digging into calf and belly. I didn’t need to touch him to see that the Spider had pumped his entire poison-sac when I cooked him. “Brent?”
“Here, your other three passengers are running like hell!”
“How about this one?”
“Medics say that if they were on site, maybe. No chance now.”
I nodded, then put a pulse charge into his head. He died instantly, assuming that he was still alive but the body kept twitching. At least, with the brain burned out, he’d not suffer or reanimate.
“Any sign of Spiders or Worm?”
“Can’t tell from up here. No Zeds or anything surface though.”
Nothing to do but chase the others down.
I got into the Walker and headed after the nearest, a woman who was screaming as she tangled herself in the trip-line. Spider-silk is stronger than steel and sticky as all hell. I set the pulser for as low as it would go and burned the web a foot from her legs. She screamed.
Then she tried to back away, still screaming.
“Shut up!” I snapped. “You want to attract every Spider and Worm and zombie on the island? Settle down and climb back onboard.”
“You… you killed him!”
“He was already dead. I put him out of his pain. Now get aboard and I’ll take you to safety.”
She backed away some more so I yelled, “Spider, behind you!” She was up and on the Walker within a second. “Hold on, this will be rough.” There wasn’t a Spider.
“Zeds approaching the last two. Better hurry” the UAV reported.
I hit ‘hurry’ and hung on! Now it was a race.
A minute later I heard, “Zeds at 10 meters and closing on target.” I locked the gat for 3-round burst and targeted the undead, setting the two living as ‘protect’. The gat would fire at the Zeds but not if there was a human in front. BURST….BURST…BURST….
Two of the Undead went down but the men kept running. Couldn’t they tell there was something wrong?
One of the Undead stood again, his spine gone and upper body barely attached to the lower. It pulled itself forward by hands as it tried to walk. Then another one grabbed the first man and started to eat.
His screams stopped the second running man who stared. And then I was there.
Another burst stopped the remaining Zeds, their heads gone, but the one eating the first man kept chewing at his throat, blood pumping as the upper body of another dragged itself forward and took the arm of the last man.
I got out, put a round into the head of the torso, then into the head of the one at the poor guy’s throat. Then I looked at the first, he was missing his thumb first finger and part of his hand so I slapped him to the ground, stood on his arm and fired a round into his hand. It wouldn’t stop the infection but it cauterized the wound so he wouldn’t bleed to death. If I could reach the medics in time, they could cure him. If not, they’d pulse his brain to prevent reanimation. Then I looked at the first, dead or as close as you can get with a Zombie chewing at your throat.
I tried to stop the blood but his eyes glazed over. Dead. He’d reanimate within an hour so I put a pulse-round in his head, then into the heads of the other zombies as the last man simply sat there and cried, holding the burned stump of his hand.
“Worm breaching three klicks south!” I heard from the UAV.
No time, I knelt and told him, “You are infected. If we can get back in time, we can cure you. BUT I need your help. Get aboard and strap in!” I helped him climb aboard and used the luggage straps to hold him in place, then yelled, “Hold ON!” and put the Walker into high!
Not knowing if the ground was a shell or solid to the lava and rock, I began to drop sonar sensors then watch the telemetry. So far so good. Plus the sonar from so
many spots might confuse the Worm. Then I heard the banging on the shell of the cage.
I loosened my helmet and listened carefully. It was the girl screaming for me, “He’s shaking. Feverish. What’s happening?”
I yelled back, “Zombie bite! He’s infected and dying. If I can get him back in time, we can cure him. Keep watch but do NOT let him bite you or get blood or saliva on you. What happened?”
“I don’t know. They held the plane for someone. He was sick, coughing, and was helped by a couple guys. I think they were important or they’d never let them aboard. I remember seeing him .. feverish when I went to the bathroom. Then an hour later, he was covered with a blanket. I think he died. I went to sleep then heard screaming. The dead man and his friends were… they were eating people! We tried to warn the pilot but they were locked in. Security. I don’t think they heard us banging on the door. Some of us crowded into the bathrooms, locked the door. People screamed, then nothing. Then hours later, the plane went down. I think I lived only because we were so crowded in that bathroom there was no way to bounce around. But the doors broke open and.. oh my god! The mess. People half-eaten, still alive and coming for us. We ran and you showed up.”
I understood, “That sick guy was infected and died. Then he reanimated and killed the men next to him, probably the guys who brought him aboard. They reanimated and the numbers grew. Half the plane was probably infected by breathing in the virus when he coughed.”
“What about… Am I infected?”
“Maybe. But we can cure it. We just have to get you both back in time.” Then the Walker lifted!
Lincoln isle Page 4