Aliens Versus Zombies

by Mark Terence Chapman

  It seemed as if half of the indies from the city were attacking at once. And then it got worse.

  There was more screeching, but this time from behind them. The soldiers in the rear turned and fired at another group of indies. Thus far, those soldiers been unable to join in, due to the ones in front of them blocking their line of fire. Now they had their own targets, and those were easy pickings. Indies fell in droves.

  A service door in the tunnel clanged open to BlexJasp’s right and four indies dove into the packed crowd of soldiers. Three more indies followed.

  It was a madhouse. Some soldiers shot at the indies coming from in front, some shot at those behind, and many turned to combat the threat in their midst.

  Soldiers fell from friendly fire; others from indigene attack. By the time the sea of indies had been dispatched, eight of BlexJasp’s original sixteen men lay dead or critically wounded.

  As he stood there, catching his breath, the tunnel lights came on. Power to that portion of the city had been restored.

  BlexJasp surveyed the carnage. At least a hundred indies lay all around. In some cases, their red blood mixed with the yellow blood of their victims.

  But why had they all attacked at once? Why were they all right here, right now?

  He closed his eyes and shook his head when he noticed that the indies all appeared to be soaking wet.

  The rain. They all came down from the surface to get out of the rain.

  It appeared that even the planet itself was fighting the Drahtch colonization efforts.

  With the squad reduced in number from eighteen, including BlexJasp, to only nine, perhaps it didn’t make sense to continue pursuing the indies who had set the traps that killed twenty-two of his men. The thought of giving up galled him to no end. But what if there were a large number of armed indies up ahead? Nine soldiers might not be enough to take them out.

  BlexJasp told himself that there would be another opportunity to make them pay. Intelligent indies couldn’t go unnoticed forever. Sooner or later they would stick out like a sore thumb and BlexJasp and a full platoon would be there to even the score—and then some.

  Right now, the score, including ChibNorl’s men, stood at fifty-eight of his men dead or out of commission, to none for the responsible indies.

  Still, what would his men think if he ordered them to quit now? He didn’t need rumors spreading among the troops that he’d lost his nerve.

  Knowing that he was probably putting pride ahead of common sense, he signaled the others to continue on, chasing the indies that he hoped were up ahead, but hadn’t actually seen.

  Maybe it was all just a wild orneek chase…

  * * * *

  Daniels and his team brought up the rear of the human contingent of forty-nine.

  The hoots and screeches and howls of Zoms on the warpath, followed by loud buzzes that could only be alien weapons, caused a number of the humans to turn, weapons at the ready. The sounds were clearly a fair distance down the tunnel, and didn’t appear to be getting any closer. But they waited, just in case.

  “It sounds like the Zoms did us a favor and at least slowed down the aliens for us,” Daniels said.

  The tension rose as the battle continued. Who was going to win?

  After a few minutes, silence fell inside the tunnel.

  “I hope they took out a bunch of them,” Chrissy replied.

  “You hope the aliens took out the Zoms or the Zoms took out the aliens?” Jesse asked.

  Chrissy laughed. “Either way is fine by me. With any luck, they wiped each other out.”

  Those within earshot laughed, as much from tension release as anything.

  Fewer than forty of their party were armed and fight-ready. The others were frail, injured, or children. It wasn’t much of an army with which to take on possibly dozens of aliens armed with energy weapons. There was no telling how many aliens might be pursuing them—if any. The not-knowing was the most worrisome part.

  Then the lights in the tunnel came on.

  “Uh-oh,” Daniels said. “We’d better get out of this tunnel in case the aliens are right behind us. We’re too exposed here.”

  Geoff Meisner, at the head of the group, was of the same opinion.

  He told those behind him that they’d better all exit at the next train station and look for cover on the surface. They passed the word along to those behind them, and so on down the line.

  They reached the next station in less than twenty minutes. The gate was padlocked.

  “Crap.” Geoff had heard the story of how Chrissy had picked the other padlock. He called for her to do the same, now.

  Chrissy pushed her way forward through the crowd. She removed her homemade lock-picking tools and went to work.

  At the rear of the group, Daniels and the others peered back down the tunnel, flashlights off, straining to see or hear anything that might indicate the approach of aliens.

  Was that the sound of a pebble clanking off a rail? Was that the crunch of boots on gravel? Tension and adrenaline could play tricks on one’s senses.

  Then, an undeniable clank originated from the darkness. Someone or something was approaching.

  In a stage whisper, Daniels told those ahead that they’d better get moving in a hurry, or they’d get pinned down. The message was passed forward until it reached Chrissy and Geoff.

  “I’m going as fast as I can. If I rush, I’ll make a mistake and it’ll take even longer.”

  “Take your time, missy, and get it right,” Geoff said.

  “Those flashlights are blinding me. Just…just turn them both off. I can do it better by feel, anyway. Geoff and Mary turned off their lights and semidarkness enveloped the front of the group.

  Another clatter came from behind them, close enough now that even those at the front could clearly hear it.

  That increased the tension even more and boosted the pressure on Chrissy.

  A whispered voice came from the middle of the group. “Come on, come on! What’s taking so long?”

  “Got it!” Chrissy grinned.

  She and Geoff unwrapped the chain from around the gate post as quickly as possible, producing a metallic clanking. If anyone was chasing them, they had to hear it.

  Behind them, a shout accompanied the crunching sound of many feet running on gravel.

  They’d run out of time.

  “Move, it move it, move it!” Geoff made no effort to keep quiet at this point, as he waved the others out. “Go to the right and find some sort of defensible position. Missy, you take Mary and lead the others. A few of us will stay here and buy you some time. We’ll be right behind.

  Chrissy nodded and led the group up the stairs and into the rain.

  * * * *

  A metallic clatter emanated from up ahead. It sounded close. It didn’t really matter anymore whether it was smart indies or stupid ones making the noise. Either way, they were dead meat. BlexJasp was ready to kill them all or die trying.

  “Let’s go! Double time!”

  The nine of them took off running. Their headlamps jiggled as they ran, creating weird patterns of light and dark on the wall.

  The soldiers rounded a curve and there they were. At least a dozen indies running toward the station exit and six pointing weapons at them.

  “Drop!” he commanded. “Turn off your lights!”

  He and his men all dove to the floor, mindless of the sharp jabs from the gravel.

  “You three, shoot at the ones fleeing. The rest, shoot at the ones with weapons.”

  They opened fire. Lying prone in the dark, they greatly reduced their exposure to return fire.

  Two of those running for the exit fell, along with one of the shooters. Several bullets clanged off the rails to either side of the soldiers. One bullet deflected into the body armor of a soldier, doing no harm.

  They kept firing, and three more of the damned indies dropped, before the others escaped. Then the shooters dropped back, still firing at BlexJasp and his men. One more
indie fell. Another grabbed his shoulder. But they managed to get out with no more casualties.

  Score: Still fifty-eight soldiers down, but now seven indies, too. That was getting to be more like it—and it would only get better once they caught up to the main pack.

  “Let’s go!” BlexJasp shouted.

  They all jumped up and sprinted for the station platform. There was more clanging up ahead.

  One of the men rounded the nearest corner, gun pointing left and right, in case some of the indigenes were waiting in ambush. He signaled all clear. He and the rest turned the corner and started toward the stairs, only to encounter the padlocked gate.

  BlexJasp gestured the others out of the way and then blasted the padlock. Once through, they all ran up the stairs, stopping just below the surface while one of the soldiers peered over the top.

  He signaled all-clear and waved the others forward.

  While they all stood on the sidewalk, in the driving rainstorm, BlexJasp peered left and right, looking for some sign of the indies.

  Which way? Which way?

  The rain had created an early twilight. The fact that some of the street lights were lit didn’t help at all. Nothing moved on the street, except for water.

  “It looks like we do this the hard way, door to door. You four go left, the rest with me. Whoever spots any indies calls the other team immediately. We can’t let them get away, but don’t be reckless. Nine of us stand a better chance of taking them all out than only four or five of us.

  “Keep your wits about you. If they’re indoors, they can see you, but you can’t see them. Shoot out the streetlights to make visibility harder for them. Go!”

  * * * *

  The forty-two remaining men, women, and children had split into three groups and hid in three adjacent townhouses. That gave them better odds for escaping should one of the houses be overrun. It also gave them three sets of windows to fire from, if it came to that.

  Daniels and his team, along with ten others, waited inside the first unit. The four noncombatants waited in the bathroom off the hallway, hopefully out of harm’s way and ready for a quick exit, if needed. Of the ten with weapons, three waited facing the front door and windows downstairs, two behind the overturned table in the dining room off the kitchen, and three stood by the kitchen windows, in case of attack from the back yard. The other two were upstairs spying from the upper front and back windows. One of them was Jesse Jefferson, who’d been wounded in the firefight at the station. His left shoulder was injured, but at least he wasn’t bleeding much. The blast had cauterized the wound. He wouldn’t be able to hold a rifle, but he was just fine with a handgun or knife. The other was Jennie Josephs.

  Daniels watched through the window as the aliens emerged from the train station and split into two groups, one heading toward them and the other away.

  “Good. They split up. That improves our odds. If we can take out these four before the others realize what’s happening, so much the better.”

  He walked back toward the stairs, so those upstairs and in the kitchen could hear what he had to say.

  “Don’t shoot until they enter the house. No sense giving away our position. Wait for my command. Inside, we have the advantage of surprise. With luck, we can take them out before they call for backup.”

  The group waited and watched. The tension grew as the aliens got closer and closer, shooting out streetlights and checking townhouse after townhouse.

  They were models of efficiency. Kick in a door, charge inside, clear the house, and be back out front in less than a minute.

  In a remarkably short time, they approached the house in which Daniels and his people hid.

  “Get ready. Here they come,” he whispered.

  Chrissy waited behind an overstuffed chair, with Moose and Taylor Hopkins behind the sofa. They wouldn’t provide much shielding against energy weapons, but they would hide the shooters for the moment it took to get off the first shot. Hopefully that would be enough. Each of them had perfect views of both the front door and the two windows. Daniels stood in the kitchen by the doorway that opened onto the hallway, with a direct line of fire to the front door. He could also turn and defend the back door.

  They waited. And they waited. And they waited some more. It had been several minutes and the aliens should have been there already, going by their pattern of the past few townhouses.

  Daniels whispered, “Moose! What do you see out there?”

  Moose, nearest to the window, left his hiding place and ran to the wall beside the window. He pulled the curtain aside just enough to peek outside.

  “Nuthin’. There’s no one there.”

  “They’re next door, climbin’ over the back fence!” Jesse called from upstairs. “They musta seen some movement and skipped us to go there.”

  “How many?”

  “I see five.”

  “Shit! They must have called the other group in. We were prepared to take on four of them, not nine. Okay, then. We don’t have any choice but to move in. Moose? You see anything out front now?”

  “Yeah. The other four just charged outta the house across the street. I guess they was waitin’ for the others to show up.”

  Daniels sighed. “Damn. Best laid plans. All right. As soon as they breech the front and back, we hit them from behind. Between those inside the other house and us, we should be able to catch the aliens between a rock and a hard place. Those of you upstairs, come on down and join those in the kitchen attacking the from back. Jesse, you and the rest of us will take the front. But be quiet. We don’t want to alert the aliens we’re coming until we hit them from behind. Wait for my signal.”

  The signal wasn’t long in coming.

  At the sound of glass shattering and the front door splintering, Daniels whispered, “Now!”

  Five armed humans ran out the back door, and another five through the front door.

  This was war, and it was going to be brutal.

  Chapter Seventeen

  BlexJasp squawked his communicator to signal the team in front of the building to attack. Almost simultaneously, the two teams blasted open the front and back doors and the patio door. The windows were too high for easy access.

  BlexJasp burst through the back door into the kitchen and into a hell of a firefight. The snarling hairball with the unarmed indies in the tunnel was intense, but this took intense to a whole new level.

  The smoke grenades fired through the windows had turned the interior almost black. They still had their gas masks from earlier, so it didn’t bother them. But from the coughing inside, it sure bothered the indies.

  As soon as he and his men entered they were subjected to a barrage of small arms fire. It couldn’t penetrate their body armor, but their exposed flesh was fair game. Several took hits to the arms and legs. Maybe the indies couldn’t see worth a damn, due to the smoke, but they knew where the soldiers were coming from. Even firing blind, it was hard to miss. A bullet blew out the throat of one soldier, severing an artery and spraying blood everywhere. The blood coated the facemask of the soldier next to him, blinding him until he could wipe it off.

  Muzzle flashes revealed the locations of the indies. The soldiers took full advantage of that, firing blast after blast in their directions. Several screams attested to the effectiveness of the return fire.

  A shotgun blast from close range threw BlexJasp backward. His body armor stopped the pellets, except for one that hit him in the armpit. It hurt like a demon, but wasn’t debilitating.

  Within seconds, the resistance from inside was down to only two. It wouldn’t be long.

  Suddenly, the smoke lit up from multiple muzzle flashes—except these came from behind. BlexJasp turned and was hit by two high-velocity rifle rounds at close range. His armor, primarily designed to block energy bolts, couldn’t do much against the force of the rifle rounds. They tore up his insides and threw him onto his back. He would have been dead within minutes, but then another shot caught him in the chin and blew out the t
op of his brain.

  The indie reinforcements made quick work of the rest of BlexJasp’s men.

  Final score for the day: Alien soldiers down: sixty-seven. Humans: nineteen.

  * * * *

  Daniels let out a deep breath. The smoke had dissipated quickly with all the doors and windows blown in—or, in some cases, blown out—and the strong breeze still pelted everyone outside with rain.

  He surveyed the devastation. He and Geoff’s people in the third townhouse had arrived almost simultaneously. With all the humans inside the house either dead or hiding low to the ground, the twenty-two men and women outside could fire at anything they saw move with impunity. Within second, the aliens had taken over a hundred rounds between them. Some missed, some deflected off their helmets or body armor, but enough found their marks that the fight was over within thirty seconds.

  Between the rounds fired from both inside and out, and the alien blasts, the walls were shredded in places, wall studs were blown in two, and there were even two large holes in the ceiling exposing the rooms upstairs. In one case, the ceiling rafter was splintered. It was a wonder the whole structure wasn’t about to collapse.

  Not that Daniels cared about the building. It was the twelve dead that hurt. Only two survived.

  Maybe if he’d given the order to attack a few seconds sooner or fired upon the soldiers before they breeched the building, more would have lived.

  Then again, maybe the soldiers would have been able to hunker down and keep them pinned inside the three townhouses until reinforcements arrived and killed them all.

  Come to think of it…

  “We’d better get a move on, people. I know we all need time to grieve, and I hate like hell leaving our friends and family members behind, but the aliens might have called for reinforcements before they attacked. We might only have minutes before they get here. We have to head for the place Geoff’s people found yesterday. It’s only another mile or so up the road. Grab your stuff and let’s go. We’ll have to stay off the roads, so it’ll be slow going. Use whatever cover you can find. Try not to be visible for long.”