by JE Gurley
“Nosey neighbors,” Mace said.
Harris shook his head. “I got no curiosity in me anymore.”
“Good. Safer that way.”
The trio retrieved their backpacks the trunk of the Mustang, but left the trunk open for Mace to inspect its contents. He whistled when he saw their small arsenal of five automatic pistols, half a dozen machetes, two shotguns, two M16s, a 7 mm Remington rifle and cases of ammo for each weapon.
“We’ll carry these for you,” he said.
“Safer that way,” Harris repeated, mimicking Mace, and smiled.
“Run into any trouble?” Mace asked, noting the bloodstains on Harris’ clothing.
Harris smiled and held out the front of his jumpsuit. “This? Just a few zoms that got too nosey.”
Mace grunted under his breath.
By the time they reached the main entrance, a crowd had gathered. Among them was Janis Heath, eager to see a new face. She smiled and brushed her hand down her hip in a seductive way. Harris returned her smile.
Trouble brewing there, Jeb thought.
He was surprised to see Erin Costner and Elliot Samuels among those waiting for a glimpse of the visitors. He was glad they had heeded the warning and returned to the dome, but curious as to why they showed an interest in visitors. The medical research team usually showed no interest in anything not related to plague research.
His heart sank when he saw Karen. She no longer smiled or showed any interest in her companions or her surroundings. He remembered her as the beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed former Miss Arizona that he had married because of her zest for life. She now looked a shell of her former self. Her hair was stringy, she wore no makeup, and her eyes were dull and lifeless. Others had been comatose at the military base in San Diego for a long time, not as long as her, but most had recovered their health and had at least made an effort at adjusting. They still had problems, certainly; any ordeal produced mental trauma, but they were trying to resume their lives, many through long difficult sessions with him.
He went to her and placed his arm around her waist. She made no effort to move closer or acknowledge his presence as she stared at the new trio with suspicion.
“Hello, Hon. I’m glad you’re up and around.”
She didn’t respond.
“Visitors,” he said, hoping new faces would bring her out of her shell.
Still he got no reply. She stepped away and moved closer to the trio. Harris stared at her a moment, frowned, and then resumed smiling to the crowd. To Jeb’s horror, Karen rushed at Harris, slapped him across the cheek, and screamed, “Bastard!” Then she raced back inside the dome.
Harris looked slightly amused as he rubbed his jaw. “What did I do?”
Jeb tried to ignore all the barely concealed looks of sympathy from the crowd. “I’m sorry. She’s been ill.”
Harris laughed. “No problem. It’s not the first time a woman has slapped my face.”
Several people laughed nervously, breaking most of the tension, but not all. An undercurrent of distrust and fear still ran through them. Everyone there had experienced their share of trouble with strangers in their fight for survival. Newcomers meant trouble, but everyone was eager for news from outside. Mace operated his ham radio infrequently for fear that the military might triangulate their position. Lately, few people had answered his CQ, all call to anyone.
“Quite a place you’ve got here,” Harris said.
“We call it home,” Jeb said.
“How many people?”
Mace broke in quickly with, “Enough.”
Harris took a long sniff and smiled. “Do I smell lunch?”
“Half an hour,” Janis Heath answered, returning Harris’s smile.
Jeb did not fail to notice how readily Harris’s two companions deferred to him. Nor did he miss Billy Idol’s look of fear as he stared at the domes. Well, everyone’s afraid of something, he said to himself, dismissing Billy’s obvious panic. He made an exaggerated gesture toward the door.
“Welcome to the Crystal Palace.”
6
Colonel Martin Schumer swiped at his sweaty brow with his perspiration-soaked handkerchief and brought the binoculars up to his eyes. As he adjusted the focus, the cloud of dust he had at first thought to be an approaching sand storm resolved into thousands of tiny plumes of dust kicked up by as many zombies racing northwards along the Tule Valley. The small city of Delta lay directly along their line of march. He had already ordered the evacuation of the hundred or so survivors of Delta to Salk Lake City in preparation for the coming battle – Homo sapiens vs. homo mortuus venator, the Hunting Dead. Colonel Schumer knew that zombies weren’t really dead. He had gone through that personal brush with horror along with the rest of the country as the seemingly dead arose to wreak havoc on the living. Deep down, he understood that the mutated avian flu virus had infected them, placed them in a comatose state, and then revived them as a creature more animal than human – perfect killing machines. It was more difficult to believe that they were now evolving into an entirely new species, one quite capable of replacing the pitiful few survivors of humankind.
Lowering the binoculars, he wiped his forehead again, wondering what queer stroke of fate had placed him in the Utah desert in sweat-soaked camouflage fatigues with a rag-tag unit of three hundred mixed army, navy and marine personnel facing a horde of the walking dead. He would never get accustomed to the heat.
Thin and wiry as a child, the hot, humid summers in Red Bay, Alabama, had been rough on him. The youngest son of a sharecropper, he had dealt with poverty and mediocre school grades to attend college in Tuscaloosa. As an engineering graduate, he assumed the army would be the best place to gain experience in bridge building. Ironically, he had overseen the demolition of more bridges in Iraq than he had constructed. Nineteen years later, he was facing the greatest battle of his life against an unarmed opponent. He wished he were building bridges instead of leading an untested army into battle against a foe that, from all his intel, was almost invulnerable.
Nineteen years – one year shy of retirement. The Army Corp of Engineers had been good to him. He had fought tooth and nail against prejudice and ingrained military bureaucracy to advance up the ranks. He already had a nice piece of land picked out near Decatur, Alabama, on the shores of the Tennessee River where he could spend his days fishing and his nights reminiscing over a scrapbook of memories while drinking beer. He even had a woman picked out that he would like to join him. That dream had gone up in smoke along with most of America’s cities.
Salt Lake City had fared better than most cities because of its Mormon heritage and its unique location. Californians kept their earthquake survival kits close by in case the Big One hit. New Yorkers kept a supply of bottled water and subway tokens on hand in the event of a union strike. Southerners had root cellars full of canned goods and smokehouses filled with smoked hams and sausages. Mormons believed in a two-year supply of food in preparation for the Biblical Apocalypse. It had come, but in a far different form than they were expecting. Even so, survivors hunkered down in their homes and waited.
Isolated by distance, mountains and desert, Salt Lake City had avoided the worst of the plague and had become a rallying point for surviving military units driven from Denver, Las Vegas, Omaha, Boise and Cheyenne. Localized pitched battles had cost hundreds of lives, but they had stemmed the zombie threat. The presence of the well-armed Mid-West Militia prevented the wholesale roundup of munies for their blood, a practice Schumer detested and fought against with every fiber of his being. Residents voluntarily donated blood for the manufacture of Blue Juice to assure no more zombie outbreaks occurred. Unmolested, Salt Lake City might have become the new capital of the United States.
It seemed unlikely now, unless he could defeat the vanguard of the zombie army headed their way. Vegas had quickly fallen to tens of thousands of zombies following the course of the Colorado River north out of Mexico. Many still haunted the ruins of Strip casinos and four-sta
r hotels, but most zombies had spread out, continuing their northern migration seeking sustenance. Whatever compulsion drove them, Salt Lake City and its environs lay directly in their path.
Schumer gazed out at the thirty-one tanks ranked below the low rise that served as his observation point. Thirteen of them were M1A2 Abrams armed with 105 mm cannons, .50 caliber machine guns, and two 7.62 mm machine guns. They were deadly mobile weapons platforms. The remaining eighteen were refurbished M60 Pattons left over from the Cold War. Manpower was his main problem. Most of the tanks had only three-man crews instead of the customary four. Few had experienced commanders. He had four AH-64 Apache helicopters and a single Black Hawk helicopter at his disposal, though dozens sat rusting in a line at Hill Air Base from lack of trained pilots. Four A-10 Thunderbolts did have trained crews, but a scarcity of aviation fuel limited their use. The 30 mm GAU-8/A Avenger Gatling guns they carried with its 4,200 rounds per minute rate of fire could make quick work of the zombies if only they attacked like a normal army, closely packed to enhance their combined firepower.
Instead, they came like animals, hunting groups breaking off from the main body for days at a time in search of food. The mountainous area teemed with wildlife – pronghorn, mule deer, big horn sheep, and rabbits. Predator became potential prey with coyotes and mountain lions running alongside herds of deer seeking to escape the zombies following close behind. A stampede of small rodents, lizards and jackrabbits heralded the zombies’ approach.
His superiors had assured him that his forces could quickly wipe out the zombies in the open desert and that they had every confidence in his ability. He wished he shared that confidence. If they had ordered him to build a barricade to turn the zombie herd or a ditch to stop them, he could comply. He was a builder. Leading men into battle was new to him. He prayed he was up to the task.
He turned to his second-in-command, Major Emory Morris, a former supply sergeant. “Major, are the artillery batteries ready?”
Six 105 mm M119 howitzers hardly made a single battery, much less two, but he had placed three cannon on each side of the narrowest point of the valley, hoping their seven-mile-range could inflict heavy damage before he sent in his armor.
“Yes, sir. The leading edge of the group is just coming within range.”
“Good. We’ll wait another fifteen minutes before opening fire.”
That would place the zombie leading edge very near his entrenched troops, but he had every confidence they could handle a few score zombies. Then, the tanks would open fire and the helicopters would swoop down out of the sky dealing wholesale slaughter.
Schumer stared at the minute hand of his watch as droplets of sweat ran cold down his back. He felt sorry for the men sweltering in the sunbaked tanks, but with the agile zombies, an open hatch only invited disaster. They had learned that much in earlier battles. The minutes passed slowly, but finally it was time to begin.
“Open fire!”
Morris relayed the order by radio. Within seconds, the volley of cannon-fire erupted across the valley. Schumer put the binoculars to his eyes. Artillery rounds filled with two and a half pounds of high explosives landed among the zombies. Thousands of bits of metal shrapnel traveled at speeds of over three hundred feet per second, vaporizing or dismembering dozens of the creatures, shattering bones of others. The injured continued to crawl. Massive plumes of dust partially obscured the battlefield. As it slowly cleared, he saw that zombies had scattered. He ordered the artillery to walk their fire forward with the zombies, but fewer died with each successive round of blasts. Finally, he realized artillery was too ineffective in such an open area and called for a ceasefire.
The din died, but the zombies kept coming, unaffected by their losses. Already, he could hear small arms fire coming from the leading edge of zombies as his men engaged. They would be quickly overwhelmed without armor support.
“Send in the tanks.”
The thunder of tracks rattling and engines gunning filled the valley as his tanks moved out. .50 caliber and 7.62 mm machine guns raked the zombie ranks. They fell by the dozens. The tanks’ 105s ripped great divots in the dirt, but the zombies paid no heed. They swept through and past the tanks as they had any other obstacle in their path. To them, the tanks were just another river or mountain to avoid. The tanks turned and followed, dropping scores more, but the great body of zombies ignored the death following them.
Screams erupted from the first line of troops as the zombies reached the trenches. He glanced at Morris, who had the radio pressed to his ear, frowning. Morris looked up.
“They’re getting slaughtered down there, sir.”
Schumer sighed. He was going to need air power. “Order them back. Bring in the artillery too. We’ll make a stand elsewhere.” He needed a place that would funnel the zombies into a tighter mass. It looked as if the deserted town of Delta would be that place.
* * * *
Private Lloyd Osterman fired his M16 as fast as he could slap in a fresh clip, but he might as well have been shooting blanks. The zombies kept coming, leaping like animals over the bodies of their fallen comrades. He knew to aim for the skull, but hitting the head of a creature running full out and leaping like a friggin’ jackrabbit proved more difficult than he had imagined. He had dropped four with a clip and a half. At that rate, he would be out of ammo before they reached the line of defense, a hurriedly dug trench along a shallow wash. He turned to his companion, Hiram Fleishman, and saw the panic in the young man’s eyes. Damn green kids, he muttered under his breath. Osterman had served two tours in Afghanistan and knew was no coward, but looking into the red, hungry eyes of the creatures massed before him, he understood Fleishman’s fear. There was something unnatural about the creatures.
“Slow down,” he said to Fleishman. “Place your shots.” Good advice, Lloyd. Maybe you’d better follow it. He took a deep breath, squeezed the trigger slowly and dropped a zombie. Great! Only nine hundred and ninety nine left. He glanced at Fleishman and saw the recruit following his example.
The first wave of zombies was less than thirty yards away. He knew they would be in the wash in seconds. Too close for this. He dropped his M16 and slid his shovel out of his pack. In four years of fighting, he had never used his shovel for anything except digging latrines. He unfolded the shovel to its full two-foot length and tested its edge on his palm. It left a thin line of blood. Sharp enough. The nearest zombie reacted as if it had smelled his blood. It swiveled its head and howled. At the sound, not human but not quite animal, he almost pissed his pants. Fleishman kept firing beside him until a zombie landed on top of him, knocking him on his back. The creature ripped out the kid’s throat with one swipe of its clawed hand. Osterman brought the shovel down on its exposed neck, almost severing its spine. It fell across Fleishman’s quivering body and lay still. He turned to face the rest of the pack.
“Come on, you bastards,” he yelled. Rage had replaced fear. If he had to die, he would do it standing on his two feet.
A second creature attacked. He fended it off by pressing one hand against its chest until he could bring the shovel to bear. The creature’s claws ripped deep gouges in his arm, but he ignored the pain. It took two solid blows to kill the second one and he was already tiring in the 110-degree heat. The screams of the dying and the howls of the zombies filled the air. Fewer weapons were firing now. He heard the order to retreat repeated down the line and laughed inwardly at the insanity of the order. Retreat to where? Anyone foolish enough to turn his back on the zombies was dead meat. He fought on, slashing and hacking, jabbing and pounding. Bodies piled up around him. Blood covered his face and arms, some of it his own. His shredded arms felt like lead weights and his hands ached; then became numb. Still he fought. He fought with the insane ferocity of a Viking berserker, too tired to run and too angry to care.
Finally, he stood and waited for the next zombie. None came. He blinked the sweat and blood from his eyes and looked around him. Bodies and parts of bodies filled the tren
ch. His comrades were dead. The stench of gunpowder, blood, and guts burned in his nostrils. He dropped the shovel, now bent and misshapen from the use to which he had put it, and collapsed on the ground. He fumbled for his canteen and took long gulps until he began to choke. He noticed the dark blood smearing his hands and arms and used some of the water to wash it away. From his pack, he removed his first-aid kit, treated, and bandaged his wounds. He didn’t know if Blue Juice protected him from zombie blood in cuts, but he was too exhausted to think about it. He just wanted to sleep. If he awoke human, he would know.
In the meager shade of a scrub pine, using a clump of grand basin wild rye for a pillow, Private Lloyd Osterman slept.
7
Within a week of their arrival at Biosphere2 from San Diego, Erin Costner had organized searches of local hospitals and universities for medical equipment with which to continue their vaccine research. She had quelled Ridell’s vehement opposition by reminding him that their stolen supply of Blue Juice would last less than a year. To Ridell’s credit, he had organized teams to scour the countryside for the equipment on the list she had provided. The microscopes had come at great risk from the University of Arizona in downtown Tucson. They salvaged computers and centrifuges from the rubble at Oro Valley Medical Center, and the glassware and desks were from a local community college. It was not the CDC, but they managed.
When the Avian H5N1 virus had first swept out of Asia, killing tens of thousands and leaving wars and famine in its path, a worldwide effort had begun to find a cure or vaccine. Oseltamivir, better known as Tamiflu, the most widespread preventative, did not work. Through natural mutation called antigenic shift, or as Erin now suspected a deliberate release of a more lethal manmade stain of the virus, the mortality rate had jumped to almost 70 percent. When the dead began reviving as flesh-eating creatures, she had discovered that the areas of the US that had received the latest version of the vaccine, distributed across the globe through the World Health Organization, were the most heavily affected. The guilt had almost overwhelmed her. Only the necessity of saving her team, the people she had come to think of as her family, from the ruins of Atlanta had kept her going.