by J. W. Vohs
At full dark Jack ordered the crews into action, hoping that the diminishing sound of the sirens and the zombie moans would hide the subtle sounds of the machines while the lack of light would prevent the monsters from identifying the direction of the attack. John and Tina crawled up to the top of the berm with NVGs and radios, ready to view the effectiveness of the fire and order adjustments when necessary. The minute everything was in place, the catapults went into action. After four rounds of firing had taken place Jack called for an update, and John dropped down a few feet below the top of the wall to quietly give his update.
“You need to come up and watch this, Jack, coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I guess since each of the rocks has a slightly different weight and shape, each launch is dropping stones over a fairly wide area. Right now all of the catapults are hitting the crowd, so there’s no need to adjust fire at this time. Hundreds are being hit, but only a few dozen have stayed down and are presumed destroyed. The wounds are truly devastating; arms torn off, necks and backs broken, and legs being smashed to pulp. The uninjured zombies are crawling over the dead and wounded to get to the trucks, but as you can probably tell from where you’re at, the sirens are quickly going dead.”
Jack patiently waited to see if Tina had anything to add to John’s report, then replied, “Keep us informed. As soon as we need to adjust fire let us know.”
“Got it.”
Jack nodded to Carter, who had heard the entire conversation, and the order was given to resume the bombardment. About ten minutes later Bobby walked up and explained, “We’ll need to set off the mines before those sirens are played out. We buried all the det-cord but all that shuffling around out there could eventually disconnect the lines.”
Jack nodded, “You’re right, I didn’t think about that. I’ll tell Carter and his crews to cease fire and then get John and Tina off the top of the wall. As soon as we’re ready you can set off your mines.”
Bobby smiled through the darkness, “Tell everyone to keep their heads down; this is gonna be loud.”
Five minutes later Jack had the catapult crews and everyone else inside The Castle and under cover, including Jack and Tina, who wanted to stay on the wall and observe until reminded of the damage that a fifty-pound body part could have on a healthy human when dropped from a hundred feet. Finally Jack was satisfied that everyone was under cover and gave Bobby the go-ahead to blow the mines. He clicked the detonators one at a time, and each of the six explosions shook everyone in The Castle with their sound and shock waves. Jack had given orders that nobody was allowed outside until daylight without full armor, and even then only the catapult crews and observers could leave the buildings. The concern was that zombie heads, or torsos with heads attached, could be laying around outside. Jack wanted to wait until daylight so everyone could see what they were doing before the soldiers and support teams took up positions for the coming battle.
Bobby went up to the top of the wall with John and Tina, and Jack tagged along to take a look at the damage caused by the mines and catapults. None of them were disappointed with the results of their efforts up to this point. Hundreds of corpses littered the ground around the trucks, and since the mines had been placed to explode toward the east large, cone-shaped swaths of bodies and limbs stretched for fifty yards in that direction. All of the friends agreed that at least a thousand of the creatures were lying on the ground, with countless still on their feet despite massive trauma to their bodies. Amazingly, two of the sirens were still functioning, though at a greatly reduced decibel level, and zombies were climbing over the bodies of the fallen to reach the vehicles.
Many of the creatures Jack saw were moving more slowly than the ones he’d seen leading the zombie horde when they first arrived, and he fervently hoped that most of the fast movers had been caught in the blasts. After several more minutes of observation, he carefully walked down the slope of the inner wall and told Carter that his crews could resume their fire on the same trajectories they were using before the mines were detonated, then he went into the command center to talk to Andi and grab some food.
Jack found her sipping a cup of green tea and leafing through one of his medieval history magazines. She looked up and smiled when he walked into the command center.
“Did you kill them all?” she jokingly asked.
Jack grimly answered, “They’ll be down twenty percent by tomorrow morning. The ancients could never have dreamed of that kind of artillery destruction, but they weren’t fighting zombies.”
“That shoulder-to-shoulder formation they use gives you a nice target.”
Jack chuckled, “I like it when you talk military.”
She laughed humorlessly. “Something tells me that if I’m still alive tomorrow night I’ll have to get used to a life of fighting.”
Jack slumped down across from her and took a sip from her mug. He slightly grimaced at the unexpected flavor. “I hope I don’t have to get used to a life without coffee,” he muttered. He looked wistful for a moment before adding, “All of us are at war from the time we’re born; most of us just never acknowledge it. And you will be alive at this time tomorrow.”
“What are the odds, Jack? One hundred, two hundred to one? How do you win this?” she wondered.
“Warriors have faced similar odds against other men with weapons and won; we’ll be fighting creatures that can’t figure us out, only mindlessly attack. We’re going to do it the way vastly outnumbered armies have always fought: narrow the front, use the high ground and defensive works. Of course, no human army I’ve ever read about had soldiers that continued an assault in spite of massive wounds, crawling over mounds of their own dead and injured, attacking until the last man had been killed. We just have to believe that our advantages are greater than theirs. I do believe it, and I need you to believe it too.
“Tomorrow will be a contest of strength and endurance, that’s all. We need to be able to physically outlast them. Crushing a skull is heavy work, and each of us has to do it dozens of times, maybe several hundred times, and we’ll need every person here to do their part.”
She listened patiently before taking a deep breath and looking him in the eye, “I’m fighting tomorrow, Jack.”
Before he could utter a word she put up a finger to stop him. “You’ve got me outfitted better than any of your soldiers. I’ve trained hard every day, and you know I’m strong. I’ve faced these monsters before, and I’ve killed them. You just said yourself that everybody has to do their part; what could I do better tomorrow than fight? I’m a teacher for God’s sake; I don’t have any special skills to offer these people tomorrow, and you know it. Deb will be monitoring the radios once the attack begins, and I have already proven that I can kill these zombies.”
Jack couldn’t refute her logic, and he knew that she had the right to fight for herself and her children just like every other person who would be on the wall tomorrow. He also knew that they didn’t have enough experienced fighters to fill the ranks of soldiers needed to defend themselves, and he had planned to intersperse his veterans among the newly christened soldiers. Still, he didn’t want Andi putting herself on the front lines of the fight. Finally he weakly argued, “Aren’t you worried about your girls? What if something happens to you?”
Andi just shook her head and countered, “If I fight and die but we win, somebody will take care of my kids. But if I hide down here and the zombies get over that wall they’ll die, and they won’t die quickly. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t happen, and that means I’ll be on the wall with you tomorrow.”
Finally Jack smiled weakly, “I can’t argue against your decision, and you are right about one thing—you will be on the wall with me; you will be fighting right next to me. You die, I die.”
“Well,” she smiled back, “let’s not die.”
CHAPTER 27
After forcing himself into his bed for three hours of fitful rest, Jack rose at four and quickly armored up before grabbing so
me breakfast and coffee. He headed out to the wall for a situation report from Carter, who’d managed a guard rotation and kept the catapults firing through the night. He’d said that he wouldn’t be able to sleep anywhere anyway, so he might as well keep himself entertained with the catapults.
“What’s up with your cousins out there?” Jack whispered as he approached.
Carter smiled thinly in the dim light cast by glow-sticks lying about. “What do ya hear right now?”
Jack listened for a moment before answering, “No sirens.”
Carter nodded, “Ya hear the moanin’?”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t sound like the ‘food is close’ moans I’m used to.”
“Nope,” Carter agreed. “Those sirens faded away ‘bout two hours ago, and only two of the catapults were still workin’ by then so I shut ‘em all down and grabbed a nap. We’ve made repairs, but ammo is low. Plus, the zombies are spreadin’ out now that they don’t have the sirens to focus on. I figure that once daylight comes we can get some folks up on that wall and draw ‘em back in, then we’ll dump the rest of the rocks on ‘em and come up to join y’all.”
Jack nodded, “Sounds like a plan. You and your men get some breakfast and armor up. I’ll make sure all the team leaders have their people out here at dawn. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get this thing over with.”
Carter reached out, grabbed Jack’s shoulder, and growled “Let’s kill ‘em all.”
An hour later Jack and his eighty-five soldiers stood at the base of the earthen wall inside The Castle, fully armored and standing still as they awaited the order to begin the climb. Each of them had a pre-assigned location on the crest, their larger weapons waiting for them under tarps. The fighting would begin with pikes and halberds, with every soldier carrying their preferred back-ups on their belts. Jack had placed no restriction on firearms since noise control wasn’t a concern in this battle, but all of his people had learned that it was easier to destroy a zombie’s brain with a medieval weapon than with a gun unless you were a very good shot. Consistent head shots on moving targets took place only in movies and video games, with the possible exception of professional snipers such as Bobby Crane and Todd Evans. Jack and Carter were expert marksmen compared to nearly everyone else present, but even they believed they could kill zombies faster and more efficiently with their SCA weapons.
Jack gave no inspirational speeches or last-minute encouragements. He briefed the team leaders on the latest developments and wished them good luck, knowing that with nowhere to run and their families behind them his warriors would fight to the end. All support personnel were standing by as well, their stores of water, food, medical supplies, sanitation gear, and extra weapons ready to be delivered as needed when the fighting began. Archers were posted in the guard towers, but their main job was to keep in constant radio contact with Deb in the command center. The house and barn were ready to serve as defensive positions of last resort if the walls were compromised, so they were shuttered and surrounded with razor wire. Sniper posts were set up on the roofs of both buildings, and fighting positions had been prepared behind every window and door by placing weapons and other supplies for a last-ditch defense.
Finally satisfied that everyone and everything was ready for battle, Jack raised one gloved hand and slashed downward toward the wall. The line moved silently forward in the early dawn mist, appearing almost ghost-like in their leather armor and full-face helmets as they began their climb. Andi walked determinedly beside Jack, with John on her other side in a position that had been quietly arranged by Jack at the last moment in an effort to provide maximum protection for the inexperienced fighter. The line had been arranged that way as much as possible, but every warrior now climbing the slope would have been reassured by the presence of the two deadly Rangers at their flanks. Jack would have preferred to have Carter on his left but he was staying with the catapults as long as possible before joining the fighting line.
The eighty-five soldiers would be defending a nearly three hundred yard front, which meant that everyone would have to be on the line with no reserve beyond the support-workers with their pikes. Jack believed this was the weak point in their defenses, wishing that he could have had two lines that could rotate in and out of the fighting. As it stood now, each soldier was going to have to create his or her own space and time to catch their breath and re-hydrate. The bottom line was that the plan had been designed and was about to be implemented in the crucible of battle. As with most plans in war, it would last only until the first blows were struck, after which time the battle would unfold according to events beyond any planner’s control. Jack understood this and it didn’t bother him too much; he knew his team and squad leaders were very competent and that each of the individual soldiers had proven themselves repeatedly against the zombies. Now the battle would come down to the fighting, and all the soldiers would fight for themselves and the people next to them. Combat had always been this way, and it probably always would be.
As the sun broke the horizon, the line of soldiers stood on the crest of the wall and observed the horrific scene before them. Several thousand zombies were on the ground, many of them dead and some them still feebly moving about but unable to regain their feet. The explosions from the mines had ripped bodies to pieces, and for over fifty yards in the direction of the explosion the ground was black from zombie blood. The horde had dispersed a great deal since the sirens died, zombies wandering about as far as the eye could see but still contained by the wall of vehicles that stretched north and south from The Castle. After nearly a one minute wait some of the zombies finally noticed the humans standing on the wall above them and began the peculiar moaning that let the others know that prey was in sight. A few seconds later many of the zombies began turning back in the direction of The Castle. Jack felt adrenaline pump through every inch of his body as he shouted, “Come and get it you bastards!”
The entire line roared their defiance in a deep battle-cry that turned any zombies still moving in the opposite direction, and thousands of the creatures began shuffling toward the food they had been unable to find in the trucks that had led them to this place. The fastest and closest of the zombies were now tumbling into the muddy ditch at the base of the wall, and as they scrambled to pull themselves up out of the trench their faces were perfectly silhouetted for the soldiers wielding crossbows and compound bows. Arrows and bolts began smashing through skulls, eye-sockets, and cheekbones as the men and women who’d been hunters before the pandemic unleashed a deadly barrage from less than twenty yards away. At least half of the shots were finding brains, and the ditch began to fill with dozens of corpses that other zombies trampled into the mud as they tried to cross the trench.
A few of the fast-movers began to make it out of the ditch and attempt to crawl up the slope toward the fighting line, but these were dispatched with pikes and their bodies tumbled back down into the trench. After about fifteen minutes of action the archers were out of arrows, the crossbowmen were out of bolts, and the ditch was filled with mounds of corpses. Several hundred more zombies were now truly dead, but thousands more had realized that prey was on the walls and were headed back toward The Castle.
Now that the zombies were massed again, especially at the base of the wall, Jack pulled everyone off of the summit and Carter’s catapults went back into action. For ten minutes hundreds of rocks whistled over the heads of the soldiers and crashed into the zombies attempting to climb the slope. John and Tina continued their observations with the scopes and kept giving Carter thumbs up signals until the last of the rocks were gone. At that point everyone clambered back onto the top of the wall to view the effects of the barrage.
Jack quickly scanned the base of the wall and figured that at least five hundred corpses were lying still, with hundreds more obviously maimed by the heavy stones from the catapults. He was pleased that they had killed several thousand of the monsters without any risk to themselves, but there were still a few fast-movers that
were now climbing the slope while the hundreds of acres behind them were filled with a shuffling, moaning mass of thousands of zombies moving inexorably toward the eighty-five humans standing defiantly above them.
Several of the strongest creatures finally began reaching the fighting line, and Jack had to hold himself back as one of them reached for Andi with a blood-curdling moan of triumph and hunger. Andi silenced the zombie with an almost contemptuous thrust of the halberd into the creature’s forehead, sending the now silenced corpse rolling back downhill. Then Jack had no more time to watch Andi or anyone else as a fat zombie with black blood oozing from its eyes and nostrils grabbed for him with one hand and an arm that ended with a grisly stump at the elbow. Silently thanking Carter for his catapults, Jack punched his own halberd into the monster’s eye socket and sent it tumbling back into the scrambling horde.
Now the battle truly began as the weight of thousands of urgently pushing zombies shoved the creatures in front of them over the mounds of corpses filling the ditch and scattered near the base of the slope. As Jack had hoped, the zombie attack ebbed and flowed for a long time as the slope became slick with blood and gore. Repeatedly he would find himself desperately fighting two or three of the creatures, and when he killed the last one there would be no others close by. This was the pattern along the entire summit for several hours, and all of the soldiers were able to step back to catch their breath and rehydrate at fairly regular intervals.