Threat Ascendant

by Brian M. Switzer

  Kayla did the same, holding her hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun. "Get a gander of that, Magnus," she said in a dry tone. "Dear boy failed us. It looks as if they didn't run."

  He didn't answer. He was too transfixed at the site of dozens of enemy fighters standing on the rim of the bluff, each armed with a rifle.

  Not only had they not run, they owned the high ground. And unless the rifles pointed down at Magnus’ men held empty magazines, they weren’t poorly armed, either.

  46

  * * *

  Terrence sat on his plateau above the section of road he'd blown up, keeping himself out of sight behind the two big boulders. His body sported a handful of bruises and tender spots from falling rock after the explosion, and a cut on his ankle needed a few stitches. But he ignored his injuries and prepared for part two of his battle plan.

  When he, Will, and Jiri discussed defending the attack their biggest fear was always heavy weaponry. They knew they had a good plan that should succeed. But if the attackers came rolling down the hill in a tank or equipped with a couple dozen .50 calibers or mortars, they would give the signal to retreat rather than risk wholesale slaughter. Coy was adamant he had been all over the enemy's grounds and they didn't possess weapons of that sort. But Terrence wouldn’t breathe easy until he saw it with his own eyes. He himself showed how much damage one guy deploying a Humvee with a .20 caliber mounted on top could do the last time they were attacked. He certainly didn't expect the tunnel-dwellers to fight in the face of ten of those.

  But the one weapon was all they had. In a bit of irony, a big mortar on wheels like the one the attackers towed onto the bottom wasn't much of a threat had the defenders been in the tunnels; it wasn’t made to deploy that way. But it could do serious damage to Danny’s rifle squad atop the bluff, and other crews stationed around the quarry. So it was imperative he take it out before the shooting started.

  A green and brown, rectangular, three-foot-long case sat nearby. He pulled it to him and snapped open the latches. Felt lined the inside of the case. Three prongs held in place a squat, ugly rifle with a short, thick barrel. He opened the prongs and removed the rifle, then clicked open the breach. He reached back into the case, pulled out a grenade, loaded the weapon, and snapped the barrel shut. A graduated sight was located halfway down the barrel; he flipped it up and peered over the top of the rock at the mortar tube below. He estimated the range to be ninety yards and adjusted the sight accordingly.

  His thoughts turned to Riley, his old running buddy and partner. They survived the mean streets of East St. Louis together as teens, gone to war, operated a successful bail jumper business, and fought side-by-side during the zombie apocalypse. Riles gave him a thumbs up. Terrence exhaled to clear his mind, depressed a square button atop the barrel to arm the launcher, and stood. Eying the mortar, he rotated the slide until the sights matched and fired.

  It wasn't as dramatic as shooting a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher. There was no projectile racing toward the target as if on a line, belching a trail of fire and smoke in its wake. Instead, he pulled the trigger and for a split second nothing happened.

  47

  * * *

  Coy hunched down behind one of the big chunks of limestone that lined the rim of the bluff. He and his crew stayed hidden when Danny’s squad made their presence known to the attackers a few moments ago. The forces on the quarry bottom did not concern Coy’s crew. Their targets would come out of the tunnels directly beneath them at a later time. With nothing to do until then, he rested his elbows on the top of the rock and looked at the scene below through a pair of binoculars.

  It was a real shit-show down there. Half the attacking force drifted around with no purpose, looking unsure what to do. The other half was locked in a stare-down with Danny’s squad- both sides had their weapons up and safeties off but as yet, no one had fired.

  Magnus looked like a madman, running through his troops with his hair standing on end, waving his hands in the air and yelling at them not to fire. The toothy survivor seemed to have bitten off more than he could chew. He might be a master of dirty tricks and leading small teams on surgical strikes, but leading and directing 1000 men was not in his bag of tricks. Get out of here, you wily old coot, he thought while he watched the man who had abducted him a few weeks ago trying to marshal his forces. When the shooting starts, jump that retaining wall behind you and fade away.

  Coy had come to like the man. He had gone out of his way to make sure his people treated Coy well after they grabbed him. None of this — not his abduction, nor the attack — was his idea and Coy got the impression that the older man thought the whole mess a folly.

  He moved the field glasses a few degrees and found Kayla's Jeep. It was hard to see her- her Queen's guard surrounded her and she had stopped sitting tall and proud in her seat when the guns came out. When Danny’s squad appeared on the rim she laid down in the back seat and hunkered as close to the floor of the Jeep as she could.

  He let the glasses hang around his neck by their strap and examined the fire pit to his right. The flames inside had burned down and he fed them a steady supply of leaves and dead pine needles until the fire burned merrily, radiating a heat that made him sweat despite the cool air. He checked the tension on his crossbow and counted the shafts piled to his left, coming up with the same number he got every time- twenty-four normal ones and twelve with the spindle of white cloth tied near the tip.

  He scoped out the situation on the bottom again. Now Magnus appeared to be arguing with a fat, balding man and there was no sign of Kayla's pink shirt behind the protective ring of guardsmen. His heart jumped, and he searched for her from one end of the pit to the other. He couldn’t see her anywhere.

  "Bullshit," he breathed. Slow down and take another look, he thought. She couldn’t have disappeared that fast. He trained the glasses on the Jeep and concentrated. He breathed easier fifteen seconds later when a guardsman bent to say something to one of his fellow soldiers, revealing a flash of pink behind him.

  "There you are," he whispered. "Be careful down there. Don't get yourself shot." As he did with Magnus, he hoped Kayla survived the coming battle- but for different a reason. He hoped Magnus survived and got away to go wreak his brand of havoc somewhere far away. He wanted the Queen to live so she would know she lost. And he wanted to be the last thing she saw as he pulled the trigger that sent a bullet to scramble her brain.

  48

  * * *

  Fat Pete's face was flushed with anger and his lips curled into a sneer. He wasn't exactly nose to nose with Magnus, but he was closer to him than anyone who valued their life should be. "Why is everybody standing around? Why aren't you giving them orders?"

  Magnus drew a deep breath and resisted the urge to gut Pete where he stood. "What orders? What do you think we should do?"

  "Act like fifty men are pointing guns at us! Shoot them, before they shoot us."

  Magnus put a hand on Pete's shoulder and squeezed. "You want to get in a shooting match with them right now?” He pointed at the top of the bluff. “With them on the high ground? Way up there? It would be like shooting fat pieces of shit in a barrel for them, Pete."

  Pete remained unbowed. “Then send the men into the tunnels so they are out of the line of fire,” he shouted. “Or order them to retreat. Do something, before we all get shot to shit.”

  "We don't know what's in them, Pete. There wasn’t supposed to be anybody here, ya fuck. How do you know fifty more guys with rifles aren’t lined up inside, just waiting for us to hotfoot it in there? And retreat? Sure. Climb over that rubble and see how fast Kayla orders you shot."

  Pete gestured with both hands at the minions, the hundreds of men brought along to be expendable. "If you're worried about getting lit up going into the tunnels, send the cannon fodder in first! Isn't that what they are for?" He glared at the forces up above and snarled. “Loo
k at those fuckers standing there. What are they waiting for? Lob a couple of mortar shells in the middle of them. That will sure as shit back them off and give us a chance to put a plan together." His face took on a stricken expression. "Christ, Magnus, is this as far as you and Her Majesty gamed this out? You didn't have a plan for what to do if we got here and they wanted to fight?"

  Magnus opened his mouth with a retort, then closed it with a snap. There was no point in trying to explain that Kayla allowed for two eventualities; that Coy did his job and the quarry was deserted, or there was token resistance that surrendered as soon as it saw the size of the force arrayed against it. And besides, Pete had mentioned two good ideas that were better than anything he had thought of.

  He ran to the mortar and grabbed the captain of its crew by the front of his shirt. "I want three shells dropped on that bluff." He pointed to the three spots he wanted blown up. "Boom-boom-boom, right there. Blow those fuckers to smithereens."

  Next, he called together the nearby crew leaders. They bunched around him and nervously awaited his instruction. "Get your men ready to return fire. We’re gonna blow the shit out of them. I'm sure whoever lives through that will be pissed off enough to shoot at us. Make sure every crew chiefs knows."

  They broke their huddle and the chiefs trotted off to gather their men and relay his instructions. Idea number two- the minions. He was working through the logistics of sending teams of minions into the tunnels to see if they were empty and absently watching men prepare the mortar fifty feet away from him. He opened his mouth to bellow orders and the big tube exploded in a blast of twisted metal, burning wood, and broken body parts.

  49

  * * *

  Jobe was in his position fifty yards deep in tunnel number one, waiting for the signal to begin and trying to ignore the butterflies in his stomach. He was squatting like a catcher at a baseball game with his back against the shaft wall when a smattering of gunfire sounded from out on the bottom. That was his cue and he jumped up, aware that the same thing was happening the same way in tunnels four and seven.

  He clapped his hands. "Let's go, folks. Time to earn our cheddar." He needn't have said anything- his crew of nine had drilled repeatedly and knew what to do.

  Will and Jiri had repeated the instructions over and over ad nauseam, drilling them into his brain. "Under no circumstances will anybody on our side shoot first. So when you hear gunfire, know that the bad guys are doing the shooting and go to work."

  Two cattle trailers sat side-by-side in the middle of the tunnel, parked longways so their doors faced the entrance. Each one was stuffed with 100 gray and rotting creepers. His crew had spent the day quiet and out of sight, so the dead were still and docile. They stood motionless, heads drooped, their gaze fixed on the floor. When the crew swung in the motion they snapped awake, filling the air with growls and eerie moans. They swarmed to the trailer walls reaching through the rails and grasping at air.

  Workers had welded metal grates over the trailer doors and ladders over the grates. When Jobe gave the order to go, team members scurried up the ladders to the top.

  Three nylon ropes swung from the cleats that ran along the top of the trailer and fluttered to the ground. As their crewmates negotiated the ladders, others tied two-gallon cans of Cyrus's biofuel to each rope. The men who climbed to the top hauled the cans up with them. They had no fear of the creepers reaching for them frantically from below. They had practiced hundreds of times and knew the fingertips of the tallest one growling and grasping for them were at least two feet away.

  The next part always amazed Jobe and made his stomach turn. One can at a time, each man unscrewed the cap and doused the creepers below with fuel. Impervious to pain, they didn't react as the liquid splattered their upturned faces, splashing into their eyes and mouths. It made him wonder how they could defeat an opponent that took an eye full of flammable liquid and didn’t react or slow down.

  Their jobs done, the men up top threw their empty cans over the side and climbed down. The shaft stunk of fuel. It dripped from the filthy rags of the dead and made their gray, cracked, and rotting skin glisten.

  A different crew member stepped forward as their mates jumped from the ladders. More hanks of rope dangled from the trailer’s doors. With the creepers slapping at the walls and snarling and drooling inches from their heads, they removed the pins from the hasp and pulled the handle that released the latch. Stepping away, they yanked the rope and the door swung open. When it banged against the trailer wall they dropped their ropes and dashed away.

  Meanwhile, Jobe and two teammates had circled around and stood twenty-five feet away. About a dozen of the dead tumbled out of each container and landed on the concrete in a heap when the doors opened. As the ones on the ground flopped and tried to right themselves, Jobe and his teammates banged trashcan lids and yelled to draw the attention of those inside.

  They poured out of the trailers like lemmings following one another over a cliff. The humans backed up slowly, continuing to make noise as the exit grew near. The creepers followed them, moaning and reaching for them with grasping hands. Four of them got too close and had to be put down before a loud, shrill whistle sounded from deeper in the tunnel. That was the signal that all the creatures that could walk were out of the containers and in pursuit. Fifty feet from the exit they hurried backward and created a gap between themselves and the vanguard. They no longer needed to cause a commotion; most of the creatures had zeroed in on them by now, and the rest followed the pack.

  Jobe and his crewmen stopped retreating when the exit was a few body-lengths away. They waited, bouncing on the balls of their feet, as the dead closed in. When they were almost close enough to touch, he cried, "Now!" They backed up a few feet and bolted to the left, running as fast as he could. When they reached the south wall they turned and followed it, legs pumping like the hounds of hell were on their heels.

  A few of the dead turned to follow but most of them forgot about the bait. They were close enough to hear the noise and see the commotion on the quarry floor. Mewling and growling, they passed under the arch and stepped out into the sunlight. As the distance grew between the humans and their small gang of followers, the creepers lost interest in the pursuit and turned back into the pack headed for the quarry bottom.

  50

  * * *

  In the moments after the mortar exploded, as the acrid smoke billowed across the pit and the screams of the injured and dying sounding in their ears, about two dozen of the invaders fired at the bluff out of reflex or anger. Magnus opened his mouth to scream the order to hold their fire just as it stopped on its own. He looked at the rim to see the tunnel-dwellers reaction and was bewildered to find it unoccupied- all the enemy shooters who’d lined it were gone.

  “What the fuck?” he whispered to himself.

  They were standing up there with their weapons sighted on us; the mortar blew up; and, in a flash, they… what? Disappeared? His men cursed and swept their weapons along the top of the bluff; the sudden evaporation of the enemy baffled them, too.

  Magnus' face was beet red and his eyes blazed with anger. Several people called to him, including Kayla. He ignored them. "E-nuff," he growled. He swatted his thigh with his hand. "That is enough."

  A man he didn't recognize ran to him and stopped, blocking his path. "Morgana needs your help, sir," he said in a submissive tone. Morgana Garrett headed the medic team. Magnus looked beyond him and saw her tending to the men injured in the explosion with blood up to her elbows.

  "MOVE, fucker!" he snarled, shoving the man and sending him sprawling. "I WANT MY CAPTAINS HERE AND I WANT THEM NOW!" he roared. Most of the captains milled about close by and awaited instructions so they assembled in less than a minute.

  While the captains gathered Kayla appeared. She stomped toward him with her guard detail trailing in her wake, livid, all pretension of regal haughtiness gone. Her face was parchment white and she jabbed a finger in his direction.
"What the hell, Magnus? I've never seen such incompetence in my life! You're letting them kill my subjects! You’ve got two minutes to get a handle on this shit-storm before I-"

  He bared his teeth. "Shut your pie-hole before I bend you over and break you down like a teaser pony, then pass you around to my men. Your Majesty."

  She closed her mouth with a snap and gazed at him in wonder.

  "Get your ass back over your Jeep and have your little fairy boys find a safe place for you. I am handling this shit. If you interrupt me one more time I’ll have you bound and gagged, got it?"

  She stood with her hands on her hips and glared at him, her eyes emitting sparks of rage. Her mouth was a tiny line and her color changed from parchment to a dark red hue.

  He leaned close until they were nose-to-nose. "I said, GOT IT?"

  She started and stepped back, alarmed at the rage and implied violence in his tone. Her shoulders sagged and she stared at the ground. "I've got it," she mumbled.

  "Good. Now get." He made a scurrying motion with his hand and turned back to his men. "Now, are all my fucking captains here?" He did a quick head count and came up with nineteen. "I’m short one. Who the fuck is missing?" Screams of agony still resounded from the explosion site; below that, came the sound of medical workers shouting orders and pleading for help."

  A captain stepped forward. "Snake was too close to the mortar when it blew up, sir."

  Magnus grimaced and motioned the man away. "All right-I want six teams of twenty men going into these tunnels," he wagged his fingers toward the nearest shafts. "I want a team of thirty clearing that fucking mess," he pointed at the rubble left from the first explosion, “and in two minutes I want to hear ideas on how to put a team in place to clear out the top of that bluff. I'm not playing around anymore. It's time to root these slapdick fuck-holes out and destroy them.”