Twenty-Seven
Chris got to the far side of the lot and stopped. Checked his rifle and said, “Check in.”
“One ready,” came over the coms.
“Two set.”
“Three good.”
“Four ready.”
“Good, remain in position and keep me informed.”
“Roger.”
“Copy.”
“Got it.”
“Copy.”
The day was crisp and the wind was picking up. He could see the clouds off in the distance, getting bigger, darker, more ominous. He lit a smoke and leaned against a tree trunk. Watching. Waiting. He didn’t see any signs of life. No dogs or cats cutting across the street. No birds. Shit, no bugs. Nothing.
“Creepy,” he said.
Twenty-Eight
Brooks paused at the door. Sam behind him two back. Sam looked ahead and saw Brooks standing there, his hand forward, touching the door, waiting. Sam couldn’t see his face, but he imagined Brooks was trying to see into the dark station.
They had made it all the way to the door, and nothing had happened. No one shouted out and asked why they were armed. No creeper lunged out to take out their throats. No shaken trooper had burst out to thank them for rescuing him.
Nothing.
“Go,” Sam said and Brooks was through the door.
Then Phil.
Then Sam.
With the shock of darkness, it took a split second for Sam’s eyes to adjust, but before they had, the entryway became a blur of flashing lights as Brooks opened fire on a creeper as it leapt at him. The force of the blast threw the thing back but two more were quick to take its place. Phil broke formation and came up beside Brooks. Sam did the same on the other side. Clancy followed suit. All firing.
Sam put a three round burst into a former cop’s face, shattering it in a wash of red. The body crumpled to the ground.
Brooks swept across the mass and three went down. One started to get back up – Brooks hit it again. It went back down. Stayed down.
“Pull back,” Sam ordered, “tactical retreat.”
Clancy turned to him, said, “What the hell is th…” and screamed as a creeper clamped down on his shoulder. It wasn’t a good bite – blood started dripping, not gushing. But it held him in place as two more got hold of him and opened his jaw line. His face exploded in a rush of blood, roaring across the open space and then dropping in streams and droplets on the frenzied creatures pulling, pushing, fighting each other to get to the source.
“Get,” Sam roared. “The Fuck. Back.”
[RL: Clancy was trying to say “What the fuck is that?” about a tactical retreat. These are prison guards, not members of a SWAT team or commandos. Yes, they’re battle hardened. No, they’re not Richard Marcinko.]
Twenty-Nine
Chris took a drag off his cigarette and kept his eyes glued to the long, desolate road. He was getting bored now. It had only been a minute or two since he got to the tree, and already he felt antsy. He hadn’t even finished a smoke. What was he all worked up about?
He rubbed his arm and tossed the smoke.
Nerves. He couldn’t quiet his nerves, he decided. All this shit going on.
Something moved.
Down the street. He squinted, bringing his rifle up. He was sure something had…
Gunfire broke the silence in a muffled chatter from inside the Sheriff’s office. Chris started. Looked at the building, then back down the street. There it was again.
A dog.
He relaxed a bit. Looked back at the office, the rifle fire near constant. Then turned to his post and jumped back six inches.
“Holy fuck,” he breathed. “Creepers.”
Dozens of them. Materializing out of nowhere. Headed his way. Led by the dog. But the dog was all fucked up. Like he had rabies. There was a long gash on his side, like something had opened him up. Then he saw more creepers coming out of houses and storefronts. Not fast: stumbling, lurching, wandering – towards Chris. The Sheriff’s office. The gunfire.
“Watkins! Are we secure inside?”
Shots rattled over his coms unit. “Got three coming out,” Watkins said. “Lost one, hostiles following.”
“Fuck!”
“All units, fall back. Defensive perimeter around the trucks.”
Everyone gave a “Roger” and Chris started backing his way to the truck. Keeping them in front of him. But… there were more. Coming from every street. Converging on the office. On their position. Hundreds of them.
He left the ones heading down his block and broke into a run. Crossed the lot and got to the trucks. Turned around. Saw the mass mixing with ones from the other streets. Coming his way. The dog in the lead.
He shot the fucker.
[TK: It was important to us to be cruel to every type of animal, although I think the dog got off the easiest.]
Thirty
Sam went full auto – murderous – through the threshold as Brooks reloaded. Chipping off ragged chunks of half-turned flesh as the bullets tore through the crowd of creepers. Then dropped his magazine and reloaded while Brooks laid down fire.
They had made it out, but one man less, and still had a ways to go before they made the trucks.
What had once been the Sheriff pushed forward, and Sam shot it in the mouth. The bullet came out just below the ear. It stumbled, and then kept coming. Sam shot it again between the eyes, leaving a Rorschach blotch on the creeper behind.
“Go for the head. Head shots,” he said. “Wall them in.”
The three separated and stood shoulder to shoulder, pouring down fire. All at different angles. The heights varied. The shooters as well. They spent clips at different points, each compensating when one ran dry. Blood began to run in clotting bunches along the pavement, pooling around their feet. Rolling off the walkway and onto the frozen, snow covered grass. Body parts stacked up. Head wounds. Body wounds. More head wounds. Men. Women. Children. Cops. Civilians. Falling under the onslaught.
Until they stopped coming.
Out of the office.
Thirty-One
“They’re coming to getcha.”
“What?” Chris asked.
Harold Jenkins said, “What?”
“Nothing.”
[RL: Full disclosure: I stole the “They’re coming to getcha” from the scene in South Park Bigger, Longer and Uncut when they’re looking at the hologram of the battlefield for their war with Canada, and the map shorts out and Saddam Hussein flicks on and he says “I’m coming to getcha.” It was me, not Tom and he’s just now finding out that I did it. But the funny thing is that every time I read it – no matter where I am, at home, work, sitting at the doctor’s office – I always say out loud, in the Saddam Hussein voice they used, “I’m coming to getcha.” It really freaks people out sometimes.]
They were coming from everywhere now. Drawn – presumably – by the sound of Watkins’ team leaving the Sheriff’s office. Chris glanced behind him and saw three men cutting down at least twenty creepers. They weren’t being shy about it, either: just executing them with all the firepower they had.
And then the world went eerily quiet. No gunshots. No nothing. Just small, scraping noises as the creepers crept closer.
“Well,” someone said beside him and Chris jumped. Sam Watkins was there, drenched in sweat, reloading. “I don’t think the Sheriff’s going to win the next election.”
“No?”
“Don’t think he’ll be running. Hell, not sure there’ll be another election. But either way, I just shot him in the face. Twice.”
Chris shook his head. “Probably did the world a favor,” he said.
“Fuck the world. I did myself one. Bastard was trying to… you know.”
“I do.” Chris said, nodded. Looked out over the sea of bodies coming towards them. “I don’t know what the fuck we do now.”
“Now,” Sam said, his eyes wild, “we run like hell.”
Thirty-Two
&n
bsp; “You really think she’ll poison your food?” Bill asked.
“Mercedes?” Erin Gibbs said, sitting up.
“Is that the name of the Nubian Goddess that brought me the love of my life?”
Erin sighed. “I guess,” he said.
“Then Mercedes it is. You think she’d do it?”
Erin shrugged. “Nah. It’s not her style. She’d want to watch me die.”
“Were you two married or something? Because that’s usually how those things go.”
Erin thought back to the crime scene: It had been a bad one. She had stabbed the pimp in the throat to start off. Throat shots were messy, because the arteries are under so much pressure. The blood sprays out with force and can cover twenty feet or more. In this fucker’s case he didn’t have twenty feet or more – they were in a car – so literally everything had been covered.
Including Mercedes.
And she hadn’t stopped with the neck. She had… taken something, and thrown it out the window. Except the car was parked, so it had been recovered at the scene. Not that Erin thought she cared: the pimp had already been dead, she was just working off her aggression. And she had. By the time Erin and the other police arrived, she was sitting on the curb, rocking herself, the knife held limply on her lap.
“She’s a firecracker,” Erin said, “that’s for sure.”
“Why didn’t you tell them what we saw outside?”
Erin shifted back on his bunk, and leaned against the cold, concrete wall. “Because,” he said, “what good would it have done? It’s the same thing with me sitting here thinking about Blake and Nina: why bother? If they’re dead, they’re already dead. If not, good for them. All those people out there, they’re dead. But having those girls know about it doesn’t bring them back.”
“But you said you wanted to go after your family.”
“Wanting to go after them is one thing. Sitting here stewing about it is another.”
“Gotcha. So you’re planning? Because, here’s the thing: I’m not leaving without my lady there, and you aren’t leaving without me.”
“You’ve known me a day and a half.”
“That’s long enough to know if anyone has a chance of surviving out there, it’s with you at the lead.”
[TK: Bill makes a good observation there. Of all the characters we’ve introduced so far, Erin is the only real natural leader.]
Thirty-Four
There was a thud as Sam ran over an eleven year old girl. Then a sort of grinding noise under the truck as he sped on. And then the truck released the girl and she tumbled along the pavement as the truck sped away.
Sam turned on the wipers and hit the action to spray solvent on the windshield. The wipers smeared red across it until after ten tries they freed the last of the girl’s blood and Sam turned them off.
[RL: This, to me, is one of the most overtly disturbing and brutal scenes in the season. Simply because of the callousness of Chris and Sam. “Shit, she got blood on the windshield.” Err-whe, err-whe, err-whe, err-whe. “Better.” Others have said the Burning Man made them queasy, but the intensity of those scenes somewhat diminished the disturbing effect for me. I dunno why.]
He turned right and then cut left. The trail of creepers moving faster now, as the clouds rolled in and their vision cleared.
“God Damn it,” Chris shouted out the window, and mowed down a family as they came out their front door. “It’s everyone, the whole fucking town!”
“Noticed that,” Sam said and cut the wheel again, sending Will nearly sprawling.
“Well what the fuck do we do? We still have to check everyone.”
“We did, we’re going back.”
“Warden said ‘Check every house.’”
“We did,” Sam repeated. “You just said it was the whole town.”
“I’m telling you right now, Brooks will fucking kill you if you don’t check on his wife and baby. And the Warden wants me to physically check his house. He sent me for that reason. So I could go in and get some of his stuff.”
“Fucking Bowers,” Sam said, shaking his head. Cut left again, onto a new street.
“So what the fuck do we do?”
“Working on it.”
Chris fired off another volley as they passed the elementary school. Six children’s heads splattered and they sprawled out in the playground.
Sam turned left again, trying to get back to the Sheriff’s office. If they could get inside, there should be weapons there. And it was empty, already cleared. And defensible, he hoped.
“Why are you driving around in circles?” Chris asked. “We need a fucking plan.”
“I have a plan, just shut up and get ready to roll out.”
“Where are we going?”
“The sheriff’s office,” Sam told him, and cut the wheel again.
“Oh shit,” Chris said, shook his head and leaned out the window, firing.
Thirty-Five
Maurice Avelanda heard the gunshots, loud and angry, and had been for the past fifteen minutes. They had started close, then gone further away, and now were coming back around.
[TK: Maurice and Phil are two of the best people in the series, they really let us be creative in the dispatch methods.]
He didn’t understand.
He knew the local police were all dead. And if the National Guard had come in, they would be moving in a single direction: clearing the town. Not driving all over hell shooting things. Which meant it was someone else.
Gangs?
Police from the City? State?
He didn’t know. For all he knew they could be worse than the damn zombies.
Now he heard something else. Engines. He couldn’t tell how many. But they were floored. And they were roaring his way. He crept up to the window he had blacked out with blankets over tin foil – he thought the foil might distract them from his body heat. He didn’t know if they could see or read his heat signature, but wasn’t taking any fucking chances.
[RL: Right.]
Slowly, he peeled back the cover of the blanket. Then – even slower – a one inch corner of the foil. Under him, four trucks screamed by. So fast they were practically a blur. But he could still see what it said on the side:
BRENNICK MAXIMUM SECURITY.
Thirty-Six
Sam brought the lead truck up to the Sheriff’s office as fast as he could without running into the damn thing. Ran it right up over the curb and onto the grass. Drove over the walkway. Slid to a stop in the snow and was out, followed by Chris and Will.
The trucks following did the same. Their drivers, as well.
They ran the last few feet and made it to the door. Pushed in and disappeared inside.
The station was empty. Sam locked the doors behind them.
“Chris,” he said, “left. Will, right. Brooks, center. The rest fan out. I want those windows secure.” Sam stopped as the hoard struck the glass doors. The creepers pressed against the glass, pushing, clawing, trying to get through. “Barricade that door,” he shouted. “See if we can get a gate on it. I want it secure. No different than the fence at home – enough weight and it’ll go down.”
“Got it,” someone called and disappeared into the gloom.
“Phil, see what they have for munitions. We need ammo. Now.”
“Sir.” Phil left, too.
Sam went to the window and looked past the three creepers trying to gnaw through the double pane glass. The sky was turning inky. And he didn’t see an end in sight. It would be damn near full dark soon, and stay that way for a while.
“I better call the Warden,” he muttered.
“Why’s that?” Brooks asked.
“Because we need help,” Sam told him. “And because I don’t feel like dying so he can get his shit.”
“We can hold up in here until the storm passes,” Brooks said, ignoring the comment about the Warden. “Until tomorrow morning if we need to.”
“Yeah, we’re safe in here, but what happens…”
[RL: A solid cliffhanger. I defy anyone to not turn the page and find out what happens next. I defy you.]
[RL: Exactly. Take it like a man, bitches.]
EPISODE 3:
THE BURNING MAN
[RL: First, let me tell you this is my absolute favorite episode. It’s not that it’s ridiculously awesome – even if is. It’s not that the others aren’t good – because they are. It just… Well, let me tell you a story:
Tom and I were hashing shit out for Episode Three. We had finished the initial work to be done on Episode Two, and were both pleased with the results. Minor modifications aside, it was done. And I had just had a really good idea. The kind I would usually launch the conversation with. But because of a thousand reasons, I hadn’t gotten there.
We had named the episode: the Burning Man. No real reason why. Often times we’ll have a killer title with little to no fucking clue what it’s supposed to mean. In this case, I had been doing some gardening and figured it out. Just standing in my front yard, laughing maniacally.
So I said to Tom, “What I want to do in the third episode is…”
And he cut me off with: “Wait. No. Don’t tell me. I want to read it.”
So I just blasted out the first draft. (Much of the time we spent working on this I was on a serious bender of zombie movies, books and games. I honestly did next to nothing for the entire project other than work on Season One, drink and absorb zombie fiction.) Sent it over at midnight on a Sunday.
Monday I watched the clock. About the right time I positioned my phone in front of me and watched it (because I’ve known the bastard my entire life, I know his routine and knew almost exactly the time he would get to sit down and read it). Right on cue, the phone rang.
Outpost Season One Page 41