The general extended his hand in a dramatic sweep toward the window where the guns were going nonstop and where, in the distance there was a worrisome trail of smoke in the sky. “What the hell, Neil? You see that, right? You can hear the guns, can’t you? This isn’t the time to try to grind me under your heel, because I can take back my offer in a snap.”
Neil raised an eyebrow. “So you’re saying I’m in charge right up until you decide different? If so why did you bother with all this? If I’m in charge, then stop your whining and spend the five minutes filling me in. Do you not trust your men to do their jobs? Are they poorly trained, is that it?”
Johnston glared furiously; looking as though he was about to tear Neil’s arms off. “You’re testing me? You’re testing me right this second?”
“Yes,” Neil replied simply and calmly. “It’s the only way to know if the offer is sincere.”
Slowly the general forced an angry, tight-lipped grin onto his dark, handsome face. “Ok, fine. I understand. I will give you your five minutes, but if men die, needlessly, it will be on your shoulders.”
“Establishing civilian control of the military is far from needless,” Neil countered. “Now, begin, please.”
Johnston checked his watch, took a steadying breath and then spoke slowly: “We have approximately eighteen hundred officers and enlisted men in the valley. They are broken up into three infantry battalions, a heavy weapons company and auxiliary units. Each battalion is comprised of five companies, each of approximately one hundred and ten men. These are again broken down into platoons and then squads. It’s all very standard.”
Neil nodded politely, not knowing what was standard and what wasn’t.
The general went on: “In order to reduce our logistical strain, the infantry companies use only two types of weapons: the M4 and the crew-served M240 heavy machine gun. If anything more substantial is needed then we bring in the heavy weapons company, which has a variety of tactical systems: a Javelin anti-tank missile launcher, 120 mm mortars, 105mm howitzers and lastly a Patriot anti-aircraft platform. The men are all cross-trained on at least one of these.”
The general paused for a breath; however, before he could go on, Deanna stepped between them with her hands out. “Ok, Neil, that’s enough. You’ve proved your point. There’s no need to make him go on or do I have to remind you that your best friend and your daughter are out there fighting while you’re in here wasting time.”
“I don’t need to be reminded,” Neil said, looking again to the window. “I know what I’m risking but…but you are right, Deanna. The point is made. There’s no reason to belabor it.”
“Good,” Johnston said, quickly. “Now that you’re in charge, here’s what I need from you and the other civilians...”
Chapter 7
Captain Grey
Miles to the south of the Red Gate was the Blue Gate. It stood guarding the other main entrance to the Estes Valley. In exactly the same configuration: wire emplacement, fifteen-foot deep moat, thick concrete wall, it sat across Highway 36, which also had a river that ran next to it for many looping miles until the land flattened out on the Eastern Slope of the Rockies. Some long-dead pioneer, displaying his limited imagination, had christened the river: The Little Thompson. The soldiers, in their endless pursuit to reduce confusion, had not tested their imagination either when they had renamed the little river: The Little River.
There were zombies here as well.
A great, grey wave plowed ever forward, and just like the Red Gate, the Blue Gate was in danger of being swallowed as if by a snake of infinite size. Because of the width of the road and the gentleness of the slope, two companies of men were needed to hold the Blue Gate.
The Little River, on the other hand was barely a foot and a half deep and only as wide as a two-lane road. Other than the frigid waters, the company who fought there had little to complain about; compared to what was happening at the Red Gate, it was a cake-walk.
The machine guns had been running hot for an hour and now there was a tremendous mound of corpses before the soldiers. The dimensions of the mound were frightful: it began a hundred and fifty feet from the wall, rose thirty feet in height, and ran a hundred feet from one side of the gorge to the other. It was so vast that there was no sight of either the moat or the barbed wire barricade; both were buried, deep.
This huge, stinking hill, more than anything else, slowed the endless horde in their attack. Painstakingly they’d climb to the top only to be “popped” by one of the soldiers; their dead bodies adding to the mass. It was considered a good kill if the body fell back on the far side of the hill. Anything else only made the hill that much bigger and many of the men began to wonder how big the hill would get before it broke like an ocean wave and collapsed on the wall and drowned them in corpses.
Although it was a nightmare vision, it was an unlikely possibility. The greatest numbers of the undead were already overflowing the smaller hills hemming in the road and of course they were surging up the Big Thompson.
The river was Grey’s sole responsibility. His command: the 7th Company, 2nd Battalion, comprised of a hundred and eight men, had one of the most dangerous zones. The mountain river with its frigid waters sapped the strength of the men. Their hands grew quickly numb, causing their aim to suffer. They quickly lost feeling in their feet and they stumbled frequently among the slippery rocks that lined the bottom. To Grey, it felt as though someone had cobbled the riverbed with skulls, and there wasn’t one among them who wasn’t soaked up to their necks.
The fires that Sadie kept going helped to a degree. It wouldn’t be true to say that she worked tirelessly, it was the opposite, really. The girl’s breath huffed in and out as she dragged her feet up and down the hills, searching for branches and sticks. Her face and hands were scratched and her black shirt torn, but she still went at it nonstop. She needed help, but no one had come, despite Grey’s demands.
His own soldiers were in no shape to help. Every hour, they’d come slogging out of the river to throw themselves down in front of the fires. They thrust their frozen limbs toward the flames and could do nothing but shake for their fifteen minute rest. The would then rotate to the south hill where the last of the sun’s rays would add a final touch of warmth before they crossed over to take their turn at the north hill where, in true Colorado fashion, it was twenty degrees colder in the shade.
It was a taste of things to come. More than anything, Grey feared the sun setting. With the surrounding peaks so tall, evening came early in the valley. When it did, the sudden temperature drop would only add to the misery of the men. Of course, worse than that would be the dark itself; he knew that the monsters would be ten times harder to kill when they appeared to be nothing but moaning shadows against a black background. Fires just behind the lines would have to be kept going all night long and one girl, no matter how tough wouldn’t be enough.
For two straight hours, Grey kept moving, going from platoon to platoon, sometimes encouraging the men, sometimes fighting alongside them and, infrequently, stopping at the radio. When it was answered, which was only about half the time, he would scream demands at whoever was on the other end of it. His company was getting desperate for ammunition. It was flying downrange at a ridiculous rate.
When two thousand rounds had been expended, Grey turned from the fight to stare back in the direction of the valley, hoping to see someone, anyone, coming, but the pine-studded hills were barren of life all save for the storm crows who watched the fight in a moody silence, waiting for their chance to feed. They had been eating well, these crows. They were plump as partridges and struggled to gain altitude when they bothered to fly.
“Son of a bitch,” Grey swore as the sound of an explosion jerked his head to the north. A grenade, he hoped. It would be a bad sign if a mortar crew was working already. When no further explosions were added to the first, and there was only the ongoing tat-tat-tat of distant gunfire, he relaxed the tiniest bit. There were a total of five gun
battles going on. Three were large affairs like at the Big Thompson, and two were smaller brush-ups where rarely a dozen guns would get into the mix.
There would be more battles, he knew. The longer the soldiers fought the undead to a standstill in the larger valleys, the more the smaller, finger-like gullies branching off of them would fill up. Each would have to be held, each defended, each a drain on their supplies.
If Sadie was correct and the numbers of zombies exceeded a quarter-million, then there was going to be a simple problem of math that the people of the valley were going to run into: according to the quartermaster, they had just above 80,000 rounds of 5.56mm ammunition, 6,000 of the fast flowing 7.62mm ammo used by the heavy machine guns, and another 10,000 or so rounds of various calibers for the very wide assortment of civilian weapons.
The deficit was worrisome.
Every bullet had to count. His men simply could not afford to miss. With this on his mind, Grey waded into the rising river. When the fight had begun, the waters had been an inch or two above his knee, now, after they had built a veritable damn of bodies stretching all the way across the river, the water was at his diaphragm. “Men!” he bellowed over the sound of the guns. “Move up! Move up! Get as close as you can get.”
They had been shooting at a distance of about fifty yards, and had it not been for the icy water and their numb hands, and the fact that their targets were the size of melons and were constantly in motion, the men could hardly miss, but given these factors, only half their shots were striking home. It was unacceptable.
Grey led the way, pushing deeper and deeper until the freezing water was just below his nipples. The water was so cold that it physically hurt. He moved right up to the mound of dead bodies that the stiffs were struggling over and shot the first one from point blank range. “Keep them on the other side! Make this our line, men! Do not let any get by!”
His men, their teeth chattering and holding their guns up out of the water, drew up in a new line stretching across the water and began firing. They were, as always, very thorough and professional, not wasting a bullet, and just as important, they didn’t waste any energy bitching about the cold or their crap assignment. They called a target, fired, pressed the warm stock of their weapons to their face for a moment, called another target and fired again.
When he saw that his men were well in hand, he splashed ashore to find that help had finally arrived in the form of Neil Martin. For some strange reason, Neil had changed out of the ill-fitting BDUs he had been wearing and was back to jeans, a denim shirt and a bright yellow sweater vest. The only nod that he gave to the fact that they were at war was that he still had on his jungle boots and had not gone back to wearing the fruity crocs. He waved at Grey, as if this was a chance meeting during a nature walk.
Thankfully, he wasn’t alone. Behind him in a long line were forty civilians: an equal mix of men and women, each weighed down with boxes or bags. Grey was happy to see that the majority of it was ammo. The rest was food and water.
Neil nodded judiciously at the four platoon rotation set up and then pointed at the brisk battle going on and said: “Very good. Looks like you have the situation in hand.”
Grey found himself frowning. Something was different about Neil. It was in the way he was looking at Grey as though he expected some sort of explanation or report. The strangeness was also in the way the other civilians were looking at Neil like he was something new and not the same quiet man who had been all over the valley during the last week walking with Sadie or just picking flowers. They were looking at him with a mixture of confusion and awe.
“I suppose we’re doing ok,” Grey answered.
Jauntily, Neil said: “Good! I’ve brought you some volunteers. What do you need of them?”
The captain shot a puzzled glance at the civilians before he asked: “You brought volunteers?” Neil had been one of the quietest people in the valley. It seemed unlikely that he could round up anyone besides a few of the renegades they had come in with. There were only two in the group: Connie Markson, a brave and steadfast woman, and William Gates, who was giving Grey a hard look.
William’s sister-in-law, Marybeth Gates had been going downhill steadily since their arrival. There were no actual doctors in the valley. The closest thing they had was an ex-emergency room nurse, who was in way over her head when it came to Marybeth’s case. Grey could offer little advice except to pump her full of fluids, morphine, and antibiotics, and then pray for all they were worth. One thing Grey knew was that another surgery would mean her death.
In the last week, Grey had little time to visit Marybeth, which was a sore spot with the family. He gave William a curt nod before turning back to Neil. “We need these people to…” he started to say, however Neil interrupted him.
“My people, you mean.”
“Is there something going on that I should know about?” Grey asked.
“You haven’t heard? I’ve been appointed the interim acting Governor of Estes Valley. General Johnston stepped down this afternoon. He’ll still be in charge of the military but he answers to me and, before you ask, yes, it’s weird.”
This brought a chuckle from Grey. “I’d say it was more than weird, it’s downright strange. But I guess it is what it is and it doesn’t affect our current situation or our current needs. We need wood, lots of it. It’ll be dark soon and we’ll need light to fight. If we can’t keep fires going, this position will be untenable. And we’ll need more food and ammo.”
Neil nodded and clapped his hands together like an eager basketball coach. “Ok, you heard the Captain. Divide yourself into four squads of ten people each. We’re going to need one group to go back to the valley and get a bunch of chainsaws and axes. The other three squads will start scrounging for dead wood. Let’s get moving.”
They moved out smartly without the least grumbling. William looked as though he wanted to say something to Grey, but thankfully Neil pulled the soldier aside.
“You know about the ammo issue, correct?” Neil only allowed Grey to dip his head once before he went on: “If Sadie’s right about the numbers, we’re going to be in serious trouble.”
“She is right,” Grey replied. “If I had to guess on how this will play out, the Azael will sap our strength using the horde. It will be three or four days of endless zombie attacks followed by a military strike. Though my biggest fear is what they have in surprise for us. Remember what Brad said about their military having ‘toys’ too. I’m praying that they’re pinning their hopes on tanks; they would be practically useless in this mountain terrain. Gunships would be bad. A good helicopter pilot would be able to use the hills to devastating effect. Artillery would also...”
“We can’t worry about that just yet,” Neil said, interrupting. “The truth is if we run out of ammunition none of that will matter.” There was indeed truth in that, a deadly truth. “I need your advice, Grey. Do we just keep going as we are and hope there are fewer zombies than we have bullets?”
“I think we can’t stake our existence on hope. We are going to have to deal with this old school. Have some of your people scrounge up baseball bats, hammers, sledge hammers, spears, swords, tire irons, and machetes. Basically anything that can be swung to deadly effect. We’re going to have to go toe-to-toe.”
Neil leaned in close and asked: “What about our artillery? Shouldn’t we use it?”
The soldier shook his head. “Only in an emergency. We only have so many rounds and it’s best to save them.”
“Then it will be hand-to-hand combat,” Neil said and then clapped Grey on the shoulder. “Good luck, here.”
Grey punched Neil in the arm as though they were brothers. “You keep your luck. You’re going to need it as governor.” Neil started to leave, but Grey grabbed him by the back of the sweater vest. “And do me a favor; take Sadie back to the valley. She’s run herself into the ground.” Neil started to turn away and Grey spun him back a second time. “How’s Deanna,” Grey asked, his voice pitched l
ow. “Tell me she’s somewhere safe.”
“She is. I’ve appointed her to my one-person staff. I thought about bringing Sadie on board, but I know that she would just get frustrated at how people are and then she’d start threatening them with her pistol. That’s a bad precedent to set.”
With a grin, Grey asked: “What about Fred Trigg? You know that if he’s not on your staff…in other words if he’s not safe and warm, he’s going to make life hell for you.”
“I should send him here,” Neil said looking out at the soldiers who were shooting zombies at point blank range. Neil went a touch green at the sight of the blood spraying and the rotting brains splattering, and the ugly waterlogged mound of corpses where arms and legs stuck out at odd angles, and the pooled river water which was dark red; even the shoreline where the soldiers crawled out onto dry land was stained maroon with old blood.
“Please don’t, for our sakes,” Grey said. “This is the River Styx already. No sense making it worse.”
The name: The River Styx had been overheard and it stuck. The water was hell, but it got worse when the first delivery of melee weapons arrived. There were three basic weapon types at hand: the bludgeoners, your baseball bats, your tire irons, your basic cudgels; these crushed skulls, turning them to pulp. Then there were the bladed weapons: axes, machetes and in one case, an actual saber. It was a terrible weapon. The blade of the saber started dull and it only became more so every time a skull was struck.
The last type Grey labeled as miscellaneous. An African spear with a metaled tip was found, four stout table legs with long screws were provided, three poles with metal tips were stripped of their flags and hauled down to the river and lastly, a number of lengths of copper pipes were in use. These were odd weapons in that they “clanged” with a disjointed musical sound every time they struck a skull just right.
Eventually, as night fell and each man had his gun traded for a melee weapon, the battle became surreal. Grey figured it had to be the quietest battle in the history of war. On one side, the enemy came on in an eternal moan—a long, soulless, haunting sound that was enough to shiver the heart of the hardest warrior. On the other side of the fight came the grunt of men too tired to speak.
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