"They don't make any sounds," Costa mumbled. "You'd think they would groan or something like in the movies. They always groan and shit in the movies. And in the movies you can shoot them in the head but that isn't working this time! Why don't they go down when you shoot them in the head?"
Wells regarded the agent and his babbling as if he were a leper. Major Gant moved to the front door and scanned ahead with his night vision goggles. He quickly dropped to a knee with his weapon raised to firing position.
"Thom? What is it?" Stacy asked.
"They found me! You led them right to me!"
Wells snapped, "You're the one shouting, man. I could hear you all the way outside. Shut your ass."
Stacy repeated, "What is it? What's coming," and she joined Gant at the door with her night vision reactivated.
"People," Gant told them. "A whole mess of people walking this way. Walking real slow."
Stacy cocked an ear and listened. She heard a gentle breeze rustle the treetops and the distant gush of the ocean lapping the beach. Below it all … distant and faint … a shuffle. A fallen branch snapping underweight. The scuffle of a shoe on gravel.
"Major," Wells suggested, "maybe we should bug out."
"Out there, into the dark, where we can't see a thing? This is a good position to defend."
"Didn't work out so hot for him," Wells nodded at Costa. Gant ignored him.
"You'll run out of ammunition," the Secret Service agent warned. "Just like I did."
That grabbed Gant's attention. He turned to the agent and asked forcefully, "Can you function, Costa? Is your head on tight enough?"
"Yes." He cleared his throat. "I mean, yes, sir. But I don't have—"
Gant handed him his sidearm. Costa cocked the slide but seemed content to remain in the background.
Dr. Stacy peered over Gant's shoulder to view the perimeter.
"I don't see any — wait a second, something is moving out there. Someone walking around?"
Gant corrected, "Not one something, but a whole hell of a lot of someones."
Stacy gasped as her eyes adjusted enough to see what he saw.
The night tried to hide the danger but Gant saw them through his goggles. A mass of people shuffling forward in clumsy steps but making almost no noise. Their arms dangled awkwardly at their sides; some held their heads at uncomfortable angles, while others walked straight and tall. They wore a wide variety of clothing: he spied the pastel blues and pinks of tourists; a cocktail dress; a waiter's formal wear; a couple of men in white shirts with gray pants sporting what he thought might be EMS insignia of some kind but he could not discern details. Dozens of people dressed in a dozen different ways.
Most of those clothes were torn, shredded, ripped, or even half off. Something else struck him as odd about the approaching crowd, but he could not put his finger on it; the night vision revealed only so much.
Gant turned to his new science officer and said, "Doctor Stacy."
She did not respond. Her eyes — through the night vision goggles — remained fixed on the approaching horde.
He tried again, a little firmer, "Annabelle Stacy, are you awake over there? What do you make of this?"
"Huh? Oh, I don't know. I left the ECAM outside with our packs. But look, it's safe to say whatever it is isn't airborne," she replied and glanced at Costa, who, despite his panic from having spent all day on the run, was obviously uninfected by any disease or toxin.
Gant agreed and took off his gas mask. The air felt fresh for only a moment; too much heavy humidity for it to feel like a relief. Still, he appreciated being able to discard the thing. He planned to remove the bulky overgarment when time permitted.
"Damn, I'm onboard with that," Wells said as he removed his own mask. Stacy did the same a moment later.
"You say these things attacked you?"
Agent Costa answered the major, "Tore two of my men to shreds and took the senator. But look, why are we talking about this right now? We have to get going," he said and tried to lead them out the back by moving across the cottage toward the rear door.
Wells approved of the idea: "Hey, Major, I think they know we're here. The idea of sneaking out the back sounds pretty good to me."
Gant knelt near the open front door with his eyes and weapon pointing out. Studying. Analyzing. Weighing his options.
He preferred simple solutions, even to complicated problems. The simple solution here was to blast away the approaching threat and leave the analyzing for the autopsies. That, however, had been Costa's choice and in the end he had lost both men, his charge, and all of his ammunition.
Stacy broke into his thoughts, "If this is some kind of disease or virus, it's possible these people can be cured."
Costa insisted, "Bullshit, lady. They're already dead! Look! They aren't breathing!"
Wells nearly spit the word: "Zombies? You have to be kidding me."
"We kept shooting them," Costa said. His voice grew more panicked with each word; with each step closer the mob came to the cottage. "Some of them went down with one shot; others kept coming until we blasted them to pieces. They aren't alive! Nothing alive could keep moving!"
"Agent Costa," Gant said, forcing his voice to remain steady and even, "calm down."
"Calm down? Are you crazy? Look at them!"
Clearly unnerved, Wells growled at the agent, "Man, shut the—"
"I'm not getting ripped up like Barnes. No way!" Costa stood and took a step in retreat. "Are you coming or do you want to be eaten alive?"
Gant did not like having his hand forced. Traditional tactics would point to staying inside the cover of the bungalow and engaging the approaching mass at distance. The area was wide open out front, the perfect killing zone.
If bullets actually work.
Then again, the very existence of Task Force Archangel revolved around nontraditional tactics to fight unconventional enemies.
Costa made his own decision: "Screw you. I am out of here!" He turned and withdrew at a fast walk to the back of the cottage.
"Costa! Get back here!" Gant ordered.
He did not listen to Gant's order, disappearing out the back of the bungalow.
"He's been here all day," Wells stated the obvious, "and he thinks it's a good idea to run. I'm just sayin'."
The advancing tide of lumbering creatures moved to within thirty yards of the front door. While most of their features remained hidden, he could now see broken and missing limbs as well as heads hanging at awkward angles. The idea that these creatures were animated corpses gained ground in his mind.
"Major," Stacy said and then, a little more forcefully, "Thom?"
"Damn it. Okay. Withdraw, people. Out the back and make for the beach. We'll circle toward our drop zone from there. We'll worry about the gear we left outside later."
They retreated to the sliding glass door at the rear of the home and exited to a backyard that was nothing more than a few square feet of neatly trimmed grass around a stone patio adorned with white wicker furniture.
Agent Costa was nowhere to be found.
The group headed for the cover of the tall grass separating the bungalow from the beach. Wells led the way, using his night vision goggles to find the best path through the brush.
"Slow down and stick together," Gant said. He tried to sound calm as he brought up the rear, covering their backs.
Just as they reached the wall-like patch of tall grass that served as the backyard's perimeter, that grass parted. Two islanders came barreling out, practically falling not from speed but from clumsiness, as if walking were a recently learned skill.
One was an older, roundish man with a gray beard and bent spectacles dangling from a badly mauled nose. The other a middle-aged woman in a blood-splattered sundress hanging just above what had once been sexy legs.
"Major!" Wells nearly screamed in the face of the foul-smelling and gory-looking pair.
Gant understood that Wells sought permission to fire.
"En
gage!"
Wells fired his battle rifle at nearly point-blank range. The silencer muffled the rounds but even so the soft thump-thump-thumps seemed like cannon fire that echoed over the grass, the forest, the bungalow, and even the Pacific Ocean.
Sound aside, the first round penetrated the head of the man with the mauled nose. The skull fractured and biological bits — almost colorless in the soldier's night vision — flew away.
Stacy let slip a noise that came from a gray area between scream and gasp.
The sundress-wearing woman reached for agent Wells, momentarily grabbing his arm before he wrenched it free. At the same time, the tourist who had just been shot in the head seemed unfazed save for his balance being greatly disturbed by the impact.
Gant stepped to the side and drew a bead on the two blocking their path. He saw bite marks on the man's neck and noted that the woman's fingernails were mangled and bloated and covered in gory mess. The sight horrified Major Gant, but as with every other emotion and reaction, he managed to take that feeling and push it aside.
Night vision often failed to grasp details but even with limited visibility Gant noticed something even more out of place than the man's mauled nose or the fact that he remained upright despite having suffered a bullet wound to the skull.
A growth of some kind bulged from the tourist's neck and tiny fibrous tendrils covered a wound to his throat — possibly a bite wound — like fine netting.
"Get clear!" Gant ordered.
Wells retreated a step and opened fire with his SCAR-H, thump, thump, thump. The shots hit the man square in the chest at a few paces from point-blank range. The man's body vibrated as if jolted with electricity. Then he advanced again with arms dangling and his head cocked to one side, even while bits of blackened blood and rotting brain trickled down his disfigured face.
The woman reacted to the shout and lunged at Gant. He met her with a rifle butt to the jaw. Her head snapped side to side. She staggered back … then lunged for him again.
This time he opened fire. A series of silenced three-round bursts hit the walking cadaver in quick succession. Blood erupted from her chest while the rounds continued through her body, exiting out her back and slicing into the wall of tall grass behind.
Meantime, Wells fired another series of blasts, and this time the male tourist dropped to the ground like the lifeless sack he should have been.
The woman continued to reach for Gant. He kicked her square in the chest to buy time at the same time he took notice that Wells's attacker was now out of commission.
"Jupiter, where did you hit it?"
Wells's mouth opened and worked but no answer came out.
"I don't know!" he finally shouted.
The female attacked again. Gant shot her again, but this time Wells joined the chorus of silenced rounds. The two men tore her apart, bullets knocking off limbs and eviscerating her abdomen. Gant put a round straight through her skull for good measure.
However it was a bullet that tore into the woman's knee that apparently made the difference. As the bottom half of her right leg all but evaporated from the trauma, Gant spied sickly white strands hiding among the mess of blood, bone, and muscle.
What remained of the woman's torso collapsed to the ground and oozed into pieces. The creature — what had once been a girl — ceased moving.
At that very same moment the tall grass parted yet again and out came a man dressed in a fine business suit. His lower jaw had been replaced by a strange weave of what resembled white string.
He was not alone. They filled the tall grass, dozens of them, flowing forward like a silent tide moving to drown them.
Gant did not have to order a retreat; it came naturally. But the bungalow behind them had already succumbed to the flood and the creatures approached from both directions, a ring of walking dead constricting like a noose around their necks.
6
We are all going to die.
This was not the first time such thoughts had filled Annabelle Stacy's mind. While volunteering at a refugee center during the Libyan civil war she had found herself in the midst of an artillery barrage. However, this danger — a circle of what appeared to be animated corpses drawing tight — was far more sanity testing.
"Weapons free!" Gant commanded.
At that, the major and Specialist Wells opened fire with their silenced carbines, concentrating on the line of creatures approaching from the grass. A chorus of thump-thump-thump sung from their guns.
Dr. Stacy — her hands shaking — turned and eyed the second half of the trap, the half approaching from the bungalow. A wall of shuffling and stumbling cadavers, some hunched over, others holding their heads at odd angles. Fortunately, the night hid the more gruesome details, and Stacy refused to reactivate her night vision for just that very reason.
Nonetheless, she found the will to fire. Again. And again. Her unsilenced pistol clapped the night air in thunderous reports, and the flash from the barrel made its own lightning storm in the dark, illuminating torn skin, broken limbs, and gored chests with every flare.
Her first shots missed as she let the barrel creep up with each successive tug on the trigger. Then the training kicked in. She eased the pressure and squeezed instead of tugged; she also aimed a hair lower. Despite the darkness, her next volley of bullets hit home and she analyzed the results with the scientific side of her mind; the side that still operated despite the insane situation confronting her.
One bullet hit the gut of a thin fellow. The creature did not even flinch … but it did fall over to the ground, where — as best she could tell in the dark — it stopped moving.
Another shot found the base of an elderly gentleman's throat but he continued forward without pause. Her third round scored a head shot on an oriental woman in shredded pajamas. Her dead face fell apart into small bits, leaving behind a gory mess, yet she kept coming.
"There's no weak spot!" Jupiter wells shouted as his bullets met with the same inconsistent success.
"Yes … yes there is," she shouted back. "But it's not the same spot. It could be anywhere!"
"Keep firing," Gant shouted as he changed a clip. "We need an opening. Anything. Some way through."
She admired his determination, but willpower alone could not account for the waves of doom flooding forth. Half a dozen motionless corpses piled up in front of Gant and Wells as well as a trio on her front, but the enemy kept coming; no fear, no hesitation. The three infiltrators retreated into a tighter circle, nearly back-to-back.
Dr. Stacy switched out a clip on her weapon and realized it was her last. In mere seconds the bullets would be gone.
Should I save a round for myself?
Before she could answer that thought, a sound swept over the field of grass and shoreline near the bungalow. She could not see the source; not with the thick canopy of clouds keeping the moon and stars at bay. But she heard it clearly enough. The sound of heavy props flying low overhead, followed by the stench of exhaust from a cluster of engines.
"What the hell is that?" Wells shouted as he used the butt of his rifle to knock away one of the faster attackers.
"A plane. It was a big plane," Gant answered and he fired a burst.
"Is that Franco? Did they come back?" Stacy felt a pang of hope despite knowing that even if it were Franco in that plane he could do nothing. Certainly not in time.
"Keep firing. Just keep firing your weapon!" Gant ordered.
She did. She squeezed the trigger. The bullets flew forward, hitting rotten slabs of flesh. Spent cartridges arched out and away from the fast-working slide, and a puff of acidic smoke billowed from the handgun.
One more of the creatures dropped over as her last round slammed into its knee. It did not fall from the leg wound; it crumpled over and ceased moving. The "fatal" shot added yet another layer of confusion to the situation, but she had no time to consider the meaning. The swarm passed over the fallen fiend and came within arm's reach.
Dr. Annabelle Stacy felt a
scream build in her lungs. A deep, primal scream. The death-song of a person confronting the sure knowledge of her imminent demise.
During the drop from six miles up, she had wondered what her parents would have thought if they knew their daughter had jumped from the edge of space. Now those parents flashed before her eyes. She wished she had never left that boring, confined home. She wished she were there right now, curled in her father's arms, safe from the monsters that, when she had been a little girl, he promised did not exist.
Not his fault, she thought. He didn't know. There are monsters, Daddy.
They fell over.
All at once. Each and every one of the shambling former humans surrounding the desperate trio, as if they were machines and their collective "off" button had been pushed. The creatures made more noise in one big chorus of "thuds" then they had in their pursuit of the team.
She stood there — back-to-back with Gant and Wells — with her empty gun held aloft, its slide locked open, and a stream of smoke rising from the barrel.
As much as the attackers had come from a nightmare, their sudden collapse seemed even more dreamlike.
"What … what happened?"
Major Gant did his best to retain his usual decisive tone but his voice did waver: "You are the science officer; you tell me."
The three held their position for several seconds longer, as if fearing movement might reawaken the things. Gant finally stood straight, then Wells, and finally Stacy regained some measure of composure.
"Hang on," she said as her mind rifled through the possibilities. "Where's my gear?"
She carefully walked around and over the ring of now-motionless bodies that had — seconds before — threatened to tear her to pieces. As she moved, her lungs hunted for oxygen, causing her to lose concentration and stumble. Gant's strong hand caught her before she tumbled.
"Easy, easy does it." Replacing his commander's voice came a tone far more fatherly. She wondered how he could maintain his sanity enough to worry about hers.
"Stop for a second and take a breath."
She did, but not until a dozen steps clear of the bodies. Stacy leaned against a banyan tree. Even though it had been hours since she had devoured a sandwich in the cargo hold of the C-17, the contents of her stomach threatened to heave.
The Cannibal Virus Page 6