First Strike Weapon

by Gavin G. Smith

  “Vadim!” the Fräulein hissed, but he ignored her.

  VADIM TRIED NOT to think about what he was doing. There were other, less risky ways of achieving what he wanted here. Did he want to die? Really die, as in stop moving? He was looking at a future of rot, after all. Did he want to be punished?

  From where he skulked, he could see a number of bodies lying in the streets: people who had, mercifully, been too badly hurt to reanimate. A few were twitching, but were too broken to move. He was very well aware of what they – what he had done to this city. There was no doubt in his mind that if there was natural justice, then death was the very least of what he deserved.

  He gave the rest of the squad enough time to get into position and removed the pins from the grenades, but left them hanging from his fingers.

  The two M48A5 Patton tanks were two generations old; the boxy, tracked M113A3 Armoured Personnel Carriers were a generation behind the current US military. National Guard, Vadim decided. According to the street signs, this was the intersection of the Bowery and Delancey Street. It was clear that the Guard were just doing as they had been told, blocking this particular thoroughfare. It irritated Vadim; whoever had given the order had clearly been working on doctrine and had no real idea of the situation. Things must be pretty extreme.

  “Don’t shoot!” he called in English as he moved out of the darkness and into the street. A few of the broken, mindless dead cocked their heads and started dragging themselves across the asphalt towards the source of the noise. He raised his hands high, but kept his fists curled around the grenades. The searchlight almost blinded him. That wasn’t good, but it was to be expected. There was shouting from the tops of the APCs and the tanks.

  “Quiet!” a voice unused to command shouted. “Who are you?” Despite the bright white light, Vadim was pretty sure the voice was coming from the passenger side of the jeep. He’d spotted a manned M60 machine gun mounted in the back of the vehicle.

  “My name is Captain Vadim Scorlenski of the armed forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”

  There was some muttering from the jeep.

  “A Russian?” the voice asked.

  “Just so. Who am I addressing?”

  “Lieutenant William Smithson of the 50th Armoured Division.” Lieutenant Smithson sounded young, and more than a little nervous. This did not fill Vadim with confidence. In some ways, given the situation, he was impressed that the young officer was holding it together, but nervous people made mistakes. “Can I assume that you’re surrendering?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Vadim said apologetically. “Take the light off me and we can talk.” He could hear discussion from the vehicles. Someone referring to the lieutenant as Bill, encouraging him to just ‘blow him away’. “As you say, you have me covered, but I have information pertaining to the force that is about to attack you.”

  “I’m going to send two of my men out to secure you,” the lieutenant said, still little more than a shadow behind the lights from the two tanks.

  “That would be a mistake,” Vadim told him and opened his fists, revealing the grenades. “Lieutenant, please understand, I am trying to save your life.” Is that it? he wondered.Is that the reason for this stupid plan, is this just a pathetic attempt to alleviate a tiny bit of my guilt? He told himself he was just buying time for the squad to get in place.

  “I could just shoot you,” the lieutenant pointed out.

  “Your men in the tanks and the APCs will probably be fine, but I suspect the blast will catch your driver and gunner. Besides, you can see me without the lights and you need them to check your surroundings. I am not the threat, unless you make me one.”

  “Just fucking shoot him.” The voice sounded like it came from the turret of the M48A5 to the right of the jeep.

  “That’s enough,” the lieutenant said. “Take the light off him.”

  “But lieutenant...”

  “Now, Rogers!”

  The light was moved off Vadim, leaving bright spots in his sight. His night vision was ruined.

  “Did you do this?”

  Vadim blinked trying to make out the figure wearing a helmet and poncho in the passenger seat of the jeep. “We brought this to your city, yes,” Vadim told him. “We were just...” He was about to tell the lieutenant that he’d been following orders, but he’d heard that excuse before. It was a coward’s excuse.

  “Son-of-a-bitch!” This was from the gunner stood on the back of the jeep. “Let me kill him, loot!”

  “Can you think of a terribly compelling reason why I shouldn’t just kill you now?” the lieutenant asked, voice taut.

  No, Vadim thought. He would have sighed if he’d had breath.

  “Do I look well to you?” he asked.

  “No, sir, you do not. We heard rumours of a biological weapon.”

  “That is correct. It makes people kill in a frenzy,” Vadim told them. He couldn’t be bothered to try and explain what was actually happening.

  “Like rabies?” the jeep’s driver asked.

  “Yes, only it is much stronger and acts much more quickly.”

  “Bullshit,” the gunner in the jeep said. “Where are the bodies?” It was a good question. Vadim decided to ignore it.

  “Lieutenant, you have a force of several thousand frenzied cannibals, probably two or three blocks south of you, in the Chinatown district.” Several of the soldiers actually turned around and looked down the Bowery. “You have been sent here to die. You need to put all your men in one of your armoured personnel carriers and leave.”

  “Why would I put all my men in one of the APCs?” he asked.

  “Movement!” This came from the turret of the tank to his left. Still trying to blink away the spots in his vision, Vadim could see the tank’s commander had twisted around and was pointing a pair of binoculars back down the Bowery towards the bridge. Vadim wasn’t sure, but he thought he might be able to see the darkened silhouette of the bridge at the end of the broad road.

  “Because I need your APC,” Vadim told the lieutenant.

  “I get the feeling you’re not asking,” he said. Vadim could hear it in the young officer’s voice: resignation. He knew he was about to die.

  “There’s no duty left here, only ruin,” Vadim all but pleaded.

  “It’s an ambush!” the lieutenant shouted. Vadim brought his tired arms down.

  The two commanders in the turrets of the tanks died first, shot by Princess and Skull. Vadim threw the grenade in his right hand at the closest tank, the one on the right. It was a lucky throw, dropping through the open hatch. He heard the ensuing panic. With his now-free right hand, he drew his Stechkin and opened fire. The RPKSs opened up from a building on his right, bullets tearing into the jeep and sparking off one of the APCs. He heard cries of pain, but the M60 in the back of the jeep started firing. Tracers flew past him. He heard the sharp crack of the near misses as he reached the deceptive safety of cover behind the left-hand tank, just as its turret traversed towards the building Mongol and the Fräulein were firing from. Both gunners on the APCs were firing at the building as well, their big .50 calibre heavy machine guns blowing huge holes through the masonry. Bullets from the M60 sparked off the tank Vadim was hiding behind.

  When the two .50 cals went silent and the gunners slumped forward, Vadim assumed his snipers had killed them as well. He heard shouting from inside the closest APC as the rear hatch opened and the infantry squad inside started to debus. Vadim clambered up onto the front of the tank, firing his Stechkin wildly at the M60 gunner in the jeep. He tossed the grenade awkwardly, underhand, at the open hatch of the tank. At first he thought he’d missed, but the hand grenade bounced off the armoured plate and in.

  There was a popping noise, a grenade launcher. An explosion in the back of the closest APC. No! Vadim thought. They needed one of them. Screaming, the shredded remnant of a soldier staggered out of the back of the vehicle only to be cut down by bullets from an AK-74. The M60 gunner on the jeep slumped, his
gun swinging up, tracers shooting into the air like fireworks. The tank Vadim was crouched on bucked as its main 105mm gun fired and part of a building ceased to exist. Vadim’s second grenade went off inside the tank and the gunner’s torso leapt out of the open turret hatch. A cloud of powdered masonry rose from the building the tank had hit. Vadim hoped that it had been a blind shot, that Mongol and the Fräulein hadn’t been anywhere near where the shell had hit.

  He heard the staccato of AK-74s on burst-fire. Gulag was advancing on the rear of the APC he’d hit with the grenade launcher, firing into it, finishing off the wounded soldiers. New Boy was doing the same with the far APC, but at least he’d listened to the orders Vadim had passed on through the Fräulein, to capture a vehicle with as little damage as possible. The younger man closed with the APC, firing into the hatch; at the last moment, he let the assault rifle drop on its sling, grabbed the sawn-off KS-23 from his back scabbard and fired the weapon, twice, into the APC. Vadim could see the muzzle flash of the shotgun lighting up the carrier’s interior through the narrow armoured windows.

  “Clear,” New Boy said. There was something in his voice; he sounded sickened. There was a low, unpleasant laugh from Gulag.

  “Yeah, clear,” Gulag said.

  “Check the other tank,” Vadim said, reloading and holstering his pistol before looking in the tank. It was a slaughterhouse. He tried to ignore his hunger.

  At the sound of birdsong, he turned to see Skull on the corner, pointing down the Bowery towards the bridge. Vadim was still seeing spots, and it took him a moment to work out what Skull was pointing at: a vast, dark mass of people about three blocks away, sprinting towards them. They weren’t uttering a sound, but now he was aware of them, Vadim heard the thunder of their feet.

  “Get the bodies out of the back of the APC!” he shouted. “Grab any spare weapons and ammo to hand, but don’t waste any time!” He needed to hope that the Fräulein hadn’t been killed. They’d all been trained on various pieces of captured or bought NATO equipment, but only the Fräulein had ever actually driven an M113. To his relief, he saw both Mongol and the Fräulein stagger out into the intersection, though both were covered from head to foot with dust. The Fräulein cast him a look of utter scorn as she ran to the jeep.

  Gulag and New Boy were tossing bodies out of the back of the less-damaged M113, stripping them as well as they could of weapons and ammunition. New Boy kept casting glimpses back at the rapidly closing horde of the dead. Skull ran to aid them; Princess followed, but paused, briefly, to watch the closing horde as well. Even Vadim was finding their silence eerie.

  “Captain, help me with this!” the Fräulein snapped at him. She was trying to unscrew the M60 in the back of the jeep. He ran to aid her. “Get the ammo!” She pointed at two ammo boxes as she finally wrenched the gun free. “What the hell are you playing at?” she demanded, quietly enough so the rest of the squad couldn’t hear. Vadim was looking at the lieutenant in the passenger seat of the jeep. He was young. The captain found himself wondering if he was a college student. He’d sounded educated. Vadim resisted the urge to apologise. Suddenly Gulag was by the jeep, searching the lieutenant.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Vadim demanded, grabbing Gulag’s arm. The gangster threw his hand off and held up Smithson’s Colt M1911, and a couple of spare magazines.

  “I’ve always wanted one of these,” the Muscovite said, and grinned.

  “Come on! We don’t have time for this!” the Fräulein snapped and all three of them were running for the APC.

  CHAPTER NINE

  0046 EST, 17th November 1987

  The Bowery, New York City

  THE M113A3 ARMOURED personnel carrier was basically a brick on tracks, with a sloping front and a Browning M2HB .50 calibre heavy machine gun mounted on top of it. Given a straight road, the APC was capable of hitting a speed of just over forty miles an hour; and the Fräulein seemed determined to reach it.

  “I can smell blood in here,” Gulag shouted over the roar of the engine and grinned at Princess. She narrowed her eyes but held her peace. It wasn’t just the smell. There was blood sloshing around in the bottom of the vibrating armoured vehicle. The APC had held an entire squad of infantry until they’d been killed and unceremoniously slung out onto the road. Vadim had no idea if they would rise again or not.

  He found himself gripping his rifle tightly. The smell of blood suffused his senses. He wanted to launch himself across the cramped interior of the APC and bite Princess, or New Boy, until he tasted flesh; and if he felt like this, the others must as well. It could only be a matter of time before someone snapped. He wondered briefly if this was some kind of delayed adrenalin response from the fight, sluggish biochemistry trying to force its way through a dead body. He had felt nothing during the fight itself, no excitement, no fear. It had been clinical.

  “Get ready!” the Fräulein shouted from the driver’s seat. They didn’t feel the impact – the APC didn’t even slow – but they heard it: bodies bouncing off the armour, the wet tearing of flesh under the tracks. Through the narrow window slits on the roof, they saw bodies tumble past. Vadim heard something hit the .50 cal. He was staring at New Boy. He knew he was going to attack if he didn’t find something to distract himself.

  “New Boy!” he shouted, but the scout didn’t hear him over the roar of the APC’s engine. Vadim reached over and grabbed New Boy’s leg. The scout flinched, and almost brought his weapon up. Vadim let go and pointed up at the roof. “When I pass my shotgun down, you pass yours up and reload mine, and keep doing it! Understand?” New Boy nodded. Unsteadily, Vadim pulled himself up and opened one of the roof hatches.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” It might have been the closest that Vadim had ever come to hearing the Fräulein actually scream. Straightaway, one of the dead was in the hatch, trying to scrabble into the compartment. Vadim grabbed it by the face, avoiding snapping jaws, and dragged his saperka from its loop on his webbing. He jabbed the sharpened edge of the entrenching tool up into the mouth of the struggling zombie; he cried out when he heard a crunch, but continued pushing until the creature went still. He shoved it away, and only then did he realise it was just a torso with arms.

  “How come Infant gets to have all the fun?” Gulag shouted, but Vadim ignored him. Despite the Fräulein’s protest, he had a purpose. He wanted to save the .50 cal. He had a feeling that they would be needing it.

  The Bowery was obviously a less salubrious part of town. There wasn’t much emergency lighting, and the buildings were more rundown. The APC’s headlights cut through the night, showing the charging horde sprinting at them and bouncing off. The APC mowed them down like wheat. A broken, flailing form sailed over the roof, and Vadim tried to batter it out of the way, but the body slammed into him, throwing him into the edge of the open hatch.

  Despite the speed of the APC, some of the dead managed to cling on. Vadim lashed out with his saperka, severing fingers and dislodging zombies, but there always seemed to be more of them. Row after row of the horde were disappearing beneath the vehicle. They were sprinting out of the side streets, out of the alleyways, forcing more of the dead into the path of the APC. The press of bodies was horrific. All he could see were what had once been people, filling the street wherever he looked. There must have been thousands, tens of thousands.

  Vadim checked behind him and saw a zombie clambering onto the roof from the rear of the vehicle. He jammed his saperka into a handhold, drew the sawn-off KS-23 from its back sheath and rammed it, one-handed, against the thing’s head. The rear top hatch of the vehicle flipped open, hitting the barrel of the shotgun and knocking it away from the zombie. The weapon discharged into the masses, the muzzle flash illuminating the silent, distorted faces of the dead horde. The zombie practically fell on Gulag as he rose through the hatch; Vadim heard the crack as Gulag rammed his saperka into the thing’s skull again and again, before heaving it over the side. He swung round to face Vadim.

  “Did you just try and
shoot me?” he demanded, shouting to be heard over the APC’s engine, although he was smiling. Not yet, Vadim thought.

  “Pay attention!” Vadim cried. Gulag had hold of New Boy’s KS-23. He fired, ejected the shell, and fired again. A face ceased to exist in a cloud of matter and bone. He worked the slide and fired again as Vadim turned away. Another zombie was clambering up the sloping front of the APC; Vadim put the shotgun in its mouth and squeezed the trigger, and a headless corpse slid down and under the tracks. Behind him, the muzzle flash from Gulag’s shotgun lit up the night once more.

  “Reload!” the Muscovite cried, passing the shotgun back down into the passenger compartment for New Boy. Suddenly the APC veered sharply to the right, sending zombies flying into the air. They were heading towards the wall of a building.

  “What are you doing?” Vadim cried.

  “I can’t see!” the Fräulein shouted back.

  “Left, left! Forty-five degrees left!” Vadim shouted. He was thrown around again as the APC veered the other way. Behind him Gulag was striking out with the saperka. Vadim fired his shotgun twice more, dropped it into the APC and started doing the same. The entrenching tool’s blade sparked off the APC’s armoured plate as he cut the hand off one of the zombies, and the creature fell back into the press. The night lit up as Gulag fired the KS-23 again. Vadim felt a tap against his leg as his now-reloaded shotgun was passed up to him. From behind him, the sound of an unfamiliar handgun as Gulag fired his new .45 repeatedly into the head of one of the zombies, laughing maniacally. Vadim shouted another course correction to the Fräulein and blew a zombie off into the road, and then they were clear of the horde.

  “Yeah!” Gulag cried out from behind him. “Wooh!” Vadim glanced behind. He could make out the dark mass of the horde sprinting after them, but they were getting further and further away. The APC had left lines of gore on the street. He reloaded the shotgun and slid it back into its sheath, wiped the worst of the mess off the blade of his saperka with a rag and then slid the entrenching tool back into its loop. He clambered out onto the roof of the speeding APC, holding on tightly to one of the hand rails, and did his best to clean the narrow slit of armoured glass that passed as the APC’s windscreen, so the Fräulein could better see the road. Just for a moment, it felt like they were all alone in the city. Just for a moment, it was almost peaceful.