by M. W. Duncan
Eric pulled his AR-15 up, aimed and pulled the trigger. Nothing. The magazine was empty. He threw the assault rifle down, and reached for his sidearm. Shots rang out from the helicopter and snow burst into the air at his feet. Brutus wagged his finger like a teacher scolding a pupil.
Gemma mouthed, “I’m sorry, Eric. I’m sorry.”
Brutus pointed upward. The aircraft ascended pulling the rope tight and lifted Gemma from the ground. She kicked wildly, clawing at the rope at her neck. The helicopter went higher. Gemma twisted in the air. The helicopter hovered. Brutus’s eyes were on Eric.
“No, Brutus! No! Let her go, you bastard!”
Gemma’s arms dropped to her sides. The helicopter flew higher, and her legs stopped kicking.
The helicopter flew higher again, and the engine became a dull rumble. Gemma dropped from the great height, her body tumbling over, once then twice, the rope spiralling after her, and to Eric’s ears, her fall to the ground made no sound.
***
Eric ran through the woods, running from one source of light to the next. An infected reared up from the tangle of a tent. Eric reversed the grip on his AR-15 and swung the weapon as a makeshift club. He struck the infected at the temple, and followed with another strike and then another. The infected went to ground. Eric stepped over it and delivered a final strike. It thrashed before falling silent. He dropped the rifle, not wanting to risk touching any of its blood. Eric stumbled away panting, and pressed on eager to reach the lines and the fighting. A group of six civilians moved toward him, going as a unit, all linking hands. One carried a lit gas lantern.
Eric raised a hand to them. “Where are you going?”
“We’re getting out of here.” It was the elderly man that had shown Eric around the campsite when he first arrived. The man clutched a thick branch as a weapon. “They’re inside the camp.”
“You can’t leave the camp,” said Eric, flatly. “It’s not safe out there.”
“And here is?”
“No, I don’t mean that. They’ve been mining the approaches to the camp. You step outside the perimeter you stand a good chance of blowing yourself up.”
“We’re being murdered in here. We can’t just wait to die.” The man clutched the branch tighter. “Are you going to stop us?”
Eric shook his head and headed to the command tent. He rearmed himself with an SA80 and all the magazines he could carry. He loaded and checked the weapon, and ran to the edge of the camp. Eric leapt the short ditch and tumbled into the fortifications. He crawled to the lip and readied his weapon.
Wave upon wave of infected charged up the hill. Great bursts of dirt flew through the air as mines detonated. Arms and legs were ripped from torsos. None deterred the mob. More seemed to fill the gaps the mines created. Major Reid’s men poured fire down the hill, tracers streaking through the night.
Warrior combat vehicles trundled free of the trees, bouncing out into the snowfields. Its 30mm cannon fired.
Eric had never seen so many infected. Perhaps thousands. How had they grown in such numbers away from the city?
Major Reid appeared, retreating uphill back to the defensive line. He dragged a wounded soldier, his legs and arms limp. Reid rolled next to Eric, the soldier tumbled after him.
“What happened to him?”
“He’s bit. I thought he’d been hit by our fire.”
“He’s going to turn, you know that?”
The Major swore, placed his sidearm to the soldier’s chest and fired a single shot into the heart.
A creature appeared above Eric. Reid shot it through the head before Eric could turn. It fell back. Eric dragged himself back to the edge of the earthwork. The press of infected was closer. Many now swarmed over the Warrior, beating at its armoured hull. Soldiers stabbed with bayonets and hit with rifle butts. But they could not match their strength.
Hands and teeth ripped their flesh and screams rang long. More infected appeared in the red light of the flares. Eric fired down on them, taking aim with each shot. Many fell only to rise, clamping hands over wounds. Reid grabbed the rifle that hang from dead soldier’s shoulder and fired. He swore with each shot.
The line of infected stretched far in each direction.
“We need to fall back.” Eric reloaded.
“To where?”
More mines exploded.
“Call in air support.”
“Not gonna happen. They’re committed elsewhere.”
Eric considered fleeing back to the camp, grabbing Skye if he could find her, his pack and more ammo and leaving. But there was nowhere to run. The world around him was dying and the camp he fought to preserve represented the only hope to be maintained. The camp was his last tendril to the living world.
Two infected reached the defensive line. Eric pushed himself to his feet, reached out and yanked at the legs of the first. It stumbled and fell. Major Reid dropped his rife, pulled his sidearm out and blasted away at the creature before it had a chance to rise. The second infected leapt down, knocking the SA80 free of Eric’s grasp. It lashed out, catching Eric on the chin. He stumbled back. The predator launched itself. Eric brought his arms up, covering his face. It crushed him in a bear hug, bringing its mouth close enough that Eric could hear the teeth snap. Its warm breath hit him. He struck out with his elbows doing little more than antagonising the creature. The creature’s hands were at Eric’s throat. He could not get air into his lungs.
How many people end like this?
It snapped at his arms, missing his skin by a hair’s breadth.
The infected squeezed harder. Eric’s eyes rolled back. Around him men died, torn apart by an unhuman foe. What was one more body among the many?
Those hands released Eric and the creature scrambled for the Major. Eric gasped for air and reached to the corpse next to him, pulled a bayonet free from the belt, and rolled to his feet. Eric wasted no time, got behind the infected and plunged the blade into the thing’s spine. It speared all the way through. The infected dropped like a stone in a pond. It roared its frustration, clawing its way forward, dragging redundant legs behind. Major Reid kicked the thing in the head over and again until it stopped moving.
Another Warrior vehicle rumbled from the trees, turned sharply and fired down on the advancing horde. Bodies were blown into pieces. Eye sockets emptied. Skulls lost cheeks. Figures moved in the treeline. The civilians from the camp had armed themselves. They rushed to join the defence. A mortar team set up their weapon behind the main line of defence and began to fire.
Eric picked his SA80 up and blasted away, no aiming, no thought, just intent on dropping as many as he could. Others were doing the same. The added numbers were enough to thin the herd. No more creatures reached their lines. A platform of bodies stretched as far as Eric could see. Some still moved, most were still. The Warriors working in tandem fired at concentrations further ahead. The movement lessened. The gunfire lessened. The tide turned.
***
Silas piloted the helicopter. He had said little since they left the camp.
Killing the bitch who cut up his face provided Brutus with some fleeting satisfaction. If time was not against them he would have made her suffer like she deserved. Still, she was dead and he was alive.
“What will happen when we get back?” asked Silas.
“You just concentrate on getting us back in one piece.”
“We shall be back soon, Brutus. We’re just coming over Glasgow.”
Spot fires in streets broke the city’s darkness.
“Ah, Brutus, I think we have a problem.”
“Why don’t you just shut up for the rest of the journey?”
Silas pointed forward. Fire burned in the distance. “I believe that is our sanctuary.”
“That’s my goddamn building.”
They flew closer then circled the building. It looked like the building had snapped in half, wreckage falling to the sides and destroying the protective wall. The fire was lessening, some areas simp
ly smouldering ruins.
“What the hell happened to my building? Set us down.”
“We do not know what’s down there. It is not safe to land.”
“Get us down there or I’ll throw you out and do it myself.”
“I cannot see enough to land this thing, Brutus.”
“You can see fine. Land. Now!”
Silas did as was ordered and the helicopter touched down inside the walls. Brutus slid the door open, grasped the handrail and leaned out. The heat from the fire was intense.
“The Owls will pay for this, Silas. I’ll make them pay for all of this.”
“I don’t think we can blame The Owls of Athena for this, Brutus. From what I understand I don’t think they have the capability to employ firepower enough to bring down a building like this. You’re a military man, too. I believe it may have been a missile strike, and only the military could launch an attack of this intensity. And whoever it was has killed the daughter of a senior Owl. Maybe they thought they were striking The Owls and not us. Wrong place, wrong time.”
“What do we do now?” asked Silas.
“How many miles can you get out of the helicopter?”
Silas whistled a low sound as he considered. “One-hundred-and-fifty miles, if we’re lucky.”
“Prep for take-off.”
“Good, I don’t want to linger here much longer. The natives are getting restless.”
Figures clambered over the fallen wall and wrecked vehicles.
The rotors of the helicopter started. Brutus gave one final look into the fire. He thought about offering words for his fallen comrades, but he knew the dead needed no consideration. Their problems were over.
***
Morning broke. Nobody moved from the defensive lines for fear that more infected would come. But none did.
Eric clutched his weapon to his chest. His body ached and his shoulder had seized up from bracing the rifle. Skye licked Eric’s cheek, her tail busy with excitement. She was alive and had found her way to him in all the madness.
“Good girl,” he said.
A solid kick came to Eric’s foot.
Major Reid stood over him. “On your feet, soldier. You up for taking a walk?”
Eric gingerly rolled his shoulders encouraging both to relax. “Before I go anywhere I have a question.”
“And?”
“Before the attack, there was a man who was in camp. A man you might know as Richard or Brutus.”
“What about him?”
“He killed Gemma Findlay, one of the civilians here. He once worked for The Owls of Athena. I need you to promise me that when our paths cross again, you or your men won’t stand in my way. He has to die.”
“Are we not surrounded with enough death for you, Eric? Look around, the dead outnumber the living.”
“It’s personal.”
“Let’s talk about this another time.”
Eric pushed himself up. Alex Cunningham stood just behind him.
The three men walked in silence over the defensive line and onto the snowfield. Alex covered his nose and mouth with a thick scarf, holding it tight. The snowfield was a bed of slaughter. Almost every square inch was layered with a corpse. The stench was unavoidable. Infected and non-infected rotted together in absolute equality, indistinguishable.
“I never dreamed anything in the world could be like this,” said Alex. “We were brought to the brink this morning. On any other day, we would have been overcome.”
“We lost too many good people,” agreed Major Reid. “Men we can’t afford to lose.”
“This was no random attack. So many infected making their way out here far from any populated centre? They were baited because of this place.” Eric pointed to Alex Cunningham. “What you’ve created here is a problem to The Owls of Athena. This camp and the people in it represent a splinter of the order they’ve torn apart and this is the result.”
“You’re right,” said Alex. “Such a mass movement into this area was not thought possible. But, as for me and what I do here, I’m just trying to do the right thing. This was never my intention.”
“Then make it official,” said Eric. “Announce yourself. If you are all that’s remaining of the government then you need to exercise some authority. Bring the remaining military elements under one direction. If you want to help the people, you need to think larger than this camp.”
“He’s right,” said Major Reid. “We no longer have the manpower to maintain a presence here. We need to coordinate with whoever is left. This is war.”
“It’s a war against the Carrion Virus and The Owls of Athena,” said Eric.
“Yes,” said Alex Cunningham. “This, what’s happened here I never thought possible. So much death. So much destruction. Everything we’ve lost. This is war. It’s one I’m not sure we can win. I fear something terrible. This war will last forever.”
The End
Read on for a free sample of Bad Day For The Apocalypse.
June 5: St. Joseph
Chapter 1
Raindrops pounded the restaurant windows in windblown sheets as Nikki Holleran cleared Table Six; the few cars in the parking lot, half of them owned by employees, occasionally invisible in the torrent. Three tables of customers dotted the dining area at Hooligans in St. Joseph, Missouri. It was Friday, 7:30 p.m. Prime dining time. Tonight, nothing. No crowd, no hum of conversation, no line of people at the door, no lucky ones holding pagers waiting for a table to open. Just a young couple, two locals drinking beer at a table next to the bar and high fiving each other over the ball game on TV, and a fat businessman eating a porterhouse in Nikki’s section.
“This sucks.”
Nikki looked up from a plate of half-eaten cheeseburger to find Tammy leaning against the back of the booth, the top of her uniform plunging low. Nikki hated the Hooligans waitress uniforms. She wore hers buttoned high, keeping herself in check, but the waist was much too snug for her figure to fit anything but awkwardly in the tight uniform. Tammy wore it expertly.
“The rain?”
“The rain, the two guys in the bar who call me Jugzilla every time I walk by, all the people who were smart enough to call in sick tonight. Everything just sucks.” Tammy was 23, a fifth-year senior at nearby Missouri Western State Community College and hated everything through a seductive smile. Nikki’s tips were good because she was a good waitress; Tammy’s were better.
Nikki scooped the dirty silverware from the table and dropped them into a bus tub. The bus boys had called in sick tonight; all of them, which is understandable because bussing tables is the worst job at a restaurant. Americans, given the knowledge someone else will clean up after them, soil everything they touch.
“There weren’t many people in my summer class today, either,” Nikki said. “And half of them looked confused. Not hangover confused, it’s like they didn’t know why they were there. Something must be going around.”
“Well I’m not catching it. I don’t have time to be sick. I have my midterm next week,” Tammy said, slowly standing straight. “Oh, those assholes are waving at me. I gotta go. If you hear a scream, it’s one of them.”
Nikki wiped the rest of the discarded curly fries and great spots of ketchup from the table into the bus tub with a damp rag, and worked her way back to the kitchen. She slid the tub on a wire rack next to Benny, the assistant manager at Hooligans, who worked the dishwasher tonight out of necessity.
“Tough night?” he asked, smiling as he pushed the tub into the stainless-steel steaming monster, and slammed the door. The regular dishwashers had called in sick as well; two of the wait staff, too. That left Benny to man everything, and he did what he needed to do. Nikki liked him. For an assistant manager, he was a nice enough guy. Friendly, fair, and newly married, so at least with Benny, every waitress’s boobs were their own. Nikki returned his smile.
“Tough for all the wrong reasons,” she said.
“We’re just lucky the weather’s shit. If we got slammed.
Whew. We’d be in trouble.”
“What do you think’s going around?” she asked, grabbing an empty tub. “It’s summer. It’s not like it’s sniffle season.”
Benny shrugged. “I dunno,” he said. “H1N1? Bird flu? Swine flu? Brown bottle flu? Some guy on MSNBC today claimed the UN let loose the zombie virus to curb the world’s seven billion or so population.” He paused and grinned again. “But you know how they are at MSNBC.”
Nikki nodded even though she didn’t know what he was talking about, but she did know if a wave of illness caught the attention of the talking heads on cable, there might be something to it.
“Did the news report talk about symptoms?”
Benny opened his mouth, but his words didn’t have the time to come out.
“Benny,” Tammy said, stomping into the strangely quiet kitchen, and slamming a black plastic drink tray hard on a prep station, the front of her black and red uniform soaked with beer. “One of those fucking rednecks at the bar grabbed me, and when I shoved him away he laughed and poured his beer on me. If I have to go back out there I’m going to kill both of them.”
“Christ,” Benny whispered, shaking his head. He didn’t know what would be worse to deal with, drunken rednecks or a pissed off waitress. It didn’t matter; he had to deal with them both. “All right,” he said, gently grabbing her by the shoulders, although he knew deep down the people at corporate HR would have his ass for that. “They’ll be gone in two seconds. Do you have any other tables?” She shook her head. “Okay, just calm down back here. I’ll take care of this.” He dropped his hands from her shoulders, cracked his neck, and walked out of the kitchen.
Nikki watched as Tammy’s shaking hands fumbled with her purse that hung on the wall next to the time clock. “You okay?”
Tammy nodded as she pulled out a prescription bottle of pills. Nikki didn’t have to ask; it was Ophiocordon. Seems like everyone took Ophiocordon nowadays. “Yeah. It’s just jerks like that. There’s no reason for them.”