Left With The Dead

by Knight, Stephen

  The subway tunnel was filled by fire and thunder, and Gartrell’s NVGs overloaded as something exploded nearby, something that burned bright and loud for a moment or two before disappearing, as if a camera flash had gone off in the darkness. A cascading series of cracks assaulted his ears, even through the radio headset and the hearing protectors beneath it, and long ribbons of fire spat out at the stenches. Their heads exploded, and in some instances their bodies just disintegrated, as if they had been hit by some sort of death ray. Gartrell watched all of this with a detached, remote interest as well as he could; his goggles kept overloading, and the racket was so loud and vicious he couldn’t even think properly. He just stood where he was, even as a zed reached toward him with grimy hands, its jaws spread wide, its tongue black and swollen, maggots pouring from one eye socket, its hair singed away and the skin on its face and scalp blackened, as if by some incredible heat. Just as it touched him, something cracked again, and the zed pitched over onto its right side at Gartrell’s feet. He saw a small hole in the side of its head.

  Beyond the corpse lay Jaden, and Gartrell’s eyes burned with sudden tears when he saw the tiny boy. He lay on his back, his forehead pushed slightly inward; the back of his skull had been blown away. His cranium looked deflated, irregular beneath his beautiful hair. His alabaster skin was almost white through the NVGs, and his eyes were closed, as if he had fallen asleep. His lips were slightly parted, and Gartrell knew what the boy’s last words had been.

  Momma…Momma…Momma…

  Gartrell walked to the small corpse and sank to his knees beside it, his chest on fire. Tears streamed down his face as he picked up Jaden and held him close, ignoring the ropy mass of matter that dangled from behind the boy’s ears. He just held the body to him and wept, shutting out all else, tuning out the death and devastation that raged all around him.

  And finally, even that came to an end. Gartrell became aware of someone talking to him, someone kneeling right next to him. A hand gripped his arm and shook him roughly, and Jaden’s head turned away from Gartrell’s chest. He fully saw the damage his round had done for the first time.

  Dear God, you fucking cheat, you fucking piece of shit, how could you let this happen to someone who couldn’t even fucking understand what was going down?

  “Hey guy—hey first sergeant, you all right?” Someone shook Gartrell again, and he slowly looked to his right. A young second lieutenant knelt beside him, peering at Gartrell through his own night vision goggles. His face covered with beard stubble and sweat-streaked grime. He clutched an M4 carbine against his chest. Behind him, another soldier stood. This one carried a bulky Squad Automatic Weapon, the M249 SAW. Gartrell looked around. More soldiers had taken defensive positions in the gloom. They carried a variety of weapons, all standard issue, nothing esoteric like his AA-12. These were regular Army soldiers, and from their shoulder patches they were with the 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry). The platoon Gartrell had been trying to link up with. The lightfighters had finally arrived.

  Two seconds after he had shot a small toddler named Jaden.

  Two seconds.

  The platoon commander was saying something else when Gartrell refocused on him. “Where the fuck were you?” he asked. His voice was tight and dry, as full of emotion as a desert was filled with water.

  “What’s that, first sergeant?”

  Gartrell didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. He knew how to get a point across with screaming and yelling, and he reached inside himself and pulled it out one word at a time, nice and easy and full of barbs. “Where. The. Fuck. Were. You.”

  The second lieutenant facing him got the message loud and clear, and he looked down at the tiny corpse in Gartrell’s lap as if for the first time. “Uh…this tunnel is blocked by a subway train…we had to move through the other tunnel…and then we, you know, we had to get set up. We had to protect ourselves too…”

  Gartrell pushed Jaden’s body into the officer’s arms. The lightfighter recoiled and tried to pull away, but Gartrell’s hand lashed out and caught him behind the neck and held him in place. “You did a great job practicing force protection, lieutenant. Looks to me like all your guys made it. All the guys with the guns are still standing, and zed’s down for the count. But look down. Look down at this four-year-old boy and ask yourself: should I have moved a bit faster?”

  “I don’t need this shit from you—!”

  “Shut up, butter bars.” Gartrell rose to his feet and glared down at the lieutenant through his night vision goggles. “Look down at that boy. Remind yourself who you are, what you do, and who you’re supposed to fucking protect.” He looked up at the rest of the soldiers and found none of them could withstand the weight of his gaze; they all looked away and concentrated on their prearranged fire lanes. Gartrell looked down as the lieutenant gently placed Jaden’s body on the railroad ties that connected the rails and rose to his feet.

  “I’m sorry,” was all he said.

  “Not interested. Give me a weapon, lieutenant.”

  “Why?”

  Gartrell looked past the lieutenant’s shoulder as the troops arrayed to their south stirred uneasily. In the distance, the moans of the dead echoed in the subway tunnel.

  “Because the dead are coming, lieutenant. And they’re hungry. They’re always, always hungry.”

  END

  AFTERWORD

  So the question has been raised: Why a novella, and not a full-on sequel to The Gathering Dead?

  Let me explain, and allow me to get the more pressing business out of the way first. Yes, there were will be a sequel to The Gathering Dead, and it will be called The Rising Horde. McDaniels and company will be back, along with a cast of new folks as they engage the rising legions of the dead in that good old military-on-zombie action that so many people crave. And there will be additional dimensions covered in the sequel, such as how the United States fares, as well as some international goings-on that will need to be checked on. I am working to try and deliver the book by Fall 2011.

  Now, as far as the novella is concerned…

  I just wasn’t finished with New York City falling to the dead, and I believe I hinted at that in the conclusion of The Gathering Dead. While there wasn’t a great deal left over, it didn’t belong in the first book. And to me, it doesn’t belong in the next one either. So a novella was the best way to accommodate the material, without causing an overrun in the first book and a “what the fuck?” moment in the sequel. Plus, I wanted to work on Gartrell a bit more. I wanted to give the character a challenge he really wasn’t ready for, and I wanted him to discover that he’s not some near-omnipotent war god. His successes depend on his skills, his prowess, his knowledge…and a liberal dose of luck, something that he runs out of here.

  I hope you’ll agree.

  The usual round of thank yous are required here: fellow writer Fred Anderson for being a good sport about the whole thing and for getting me his comments lightning-fast. Joe LeBert for his input as well. Derek Paterson for his detailed analysis of everything that went right and wrong. And Mike Costa for the sanity check—I’ll try not to destroy your boat when I come down to Jawja see you.

  And of course, the biggest thanks go to you, the readers. Without you, this would be nothing more than a solitary exercise. Thanks for the all the support, ideas, and yes, the criticism. The more I get, the better off the next project will be. Keep it comin’, gang!

  THE GATHERING DEAD WILL RETURN IN

  THE RISING HORDE

  Fall 2011

  * * *

  Stephen Knight lives in the New York City area. You can find more of his fiction at:

  City of the Damned

  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Q3RIHK

  The Gathering Dead

  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SYAY2S

  Hackett’s War

  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004W48LZQ

  Ghosts

  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004PLNQ6U

  Family Ties


  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004P5NS2S

  Stephen Knight on the web:

  http://knightslanding.wordpress.com/

  Did you like this story? Did you hate it? Compliments and/or complaints should go to:

  sknightwrites@gmail.com

  Cover Art Copyright © by Jaden Rackler

  http://bookworld.editme.com/JadenRackler

  Excerpt:

  THE GATHERING DEAD

  By Stephen Knight

  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SYAY2S

  The dead had risen.

  McDaniels heard the fragmented reports over the radio, and he could glimpse the reality of it through the Humvee’s thick, bullet-resistant windows. The dead had risen, and they swarmed through New York City like a plague of locusts, consuming every person they could find. The gates of Hell had opened, and the dead were the vanguard of Satan’s army. Every now and then, the .50 caliber mounted in the Humvee’s cupola would bark, and red-hot cartridges would roll into the vehicle’s passenger compartment, tinkling to the floor between McDaniels and the slightly stooped man cowering in the armored seat beside him. Whenever the soldier manning the .50 fired, the gray-haired man flinched. His pale face grew even more pallid.

  “Shooting them really doesn’t help,” he said to McDaniels. “It takes a head shot to make them fully dead again. And the noise is just giving us away.”

  McDaniels shifted the M4 carbine in his lap. “A few rounds from a fifty don’t really leave all that much, doctor. I’d rather deal with a couple of stiffs that are blasted into several different pieces than a couple that are still whole and able to give chase.”

  “But the noise...”

  McDaniels shrugged. “The city’s falling apart. A little gunfire isn’t going to make any difference, sir.”

  From the front right seat, First Sergeant David Gartrell glanced back at McDaniels. “Zeds in the street ahead. Looks like they busted through the NYPD cordon. We have a choice of deviating or going through ‘em. For what it’s worth, top cover says we’re on the most direct route.” The grizzled senior noncommissioned officer hesitated for just a moment before dropping the bomb. “There are lots of civilians still in the area, so it’s going to get messy no matter where we go.”

  “Keep on going,” McDaniels said. “Doctor, you’d better prepare yourself—this won’t be pleasant.”

  Doctor Wolf Safire shrunk even further into the seat’s hard contours. His big blue eyes brimmed with terror, but there was a defiant set to his jaw.

  “My daughter,” was all he could get out. His voice was barely a choked whisper above the roar of the Humvee’s diesel engine and the sporadic chatter of the .50 caliber overhead.

  “She’s right behind us. We won’t leave her behind, doctor. I promise.”

  Safire nodded and ran a hand through his thick gray hair. He started to say something more, but the Humvee bounced on its suspension as it drove over something. The bouncing continued, and McDaniels knew the vehicle had rolled over several somethings. He looked up as a distorted face flitted past the window to his right, then another. A smear of blood splashed across the window. Above, the .50 caliber opened up again, this time with a vengeance as the trooper manning it let loose salvo after salvo. McDaniels leaned past the trooper’s legs and looked at Safire again. The thin scientist had his hands clenched into fists and pressed them against his eyes.

  “Holy shit, is it thick out here!” the gunner said over the din of his weapon.

  He wasn’t kidding. Through the windshield, McDaniels saw dozens—maybe hundreds!—of the walking dead surging onto West 58th Street as they overwhelmed the hasty barricades set up by the NYPD and New York Army National Guard. The barricades weren’t totally ineffective; constructed from garbage trucks, fire engines, squad cars, and every other vehicle that could be driven into position, they still held a mass of stinking dead at bay. But the dead just piled up on each other, trampling each other as they formed great writhing dunes of bodies that loomed over the barricades. That was how they crashed through. Undeterred by the firepower arrayed against them, they closed upon the barricade defenders and slammed into them like a tidal wave. Their single-minded desire to feed was what drove the legion of the dead to swarm out of lower Manhattan like a vicious, malignant cancer. No matter what they had been in life, in death—or the new death—all that was left for them was incessant, never-ending hunger. And all the food was pulling away from them, headed to the north. Out of the city.

  Why the dead needed to eat live human flesh was beyond McDaniels.

  He slapped the trooper’s right leg. “Ritt, button it up! Secure your weapon, now!”

  “Hooah.” As the Humvee plowed into the first of the walking dead, Rittenour dropped back into the Humvee’s passenger cabin and closed the cupola’s hatch. Just in time; the vehicle was jarred by a sudden impact.

  “Looks like we got some jumpers,” Gartrell said from the front right seat. “I don’t believe this... the damn stiffs are actually jumping off the buildings to try and get at us.” He adjusted his helmet’s strap slightly as the Humvee slammed through two other shambling corpses, sending them flying. McDaniels watched as a New York City Police officer ran toward the convoy, a pack of the dead on his heels. He stumbled, and that was all it took; some of the faster ghouls fell upon him, nails slashing, teeth tearing. McDaniels turned away from the sight.

  Gartrell glanced at the driver as the armored vehicle drove over another clutch of the dead, its big, knobbed tires spinning momentarily as they crushed bone and pulped desiccated flesh.

  “No need to try and go around them or anything, Leary.”

  The driver kept his eyes riveted on the chaos before them. “First Sergeant, you can kiss my—oh God!”

  The Humvee skidded to a sudden halt, throwing everyone against their harnesses before they could brace themselves. Sergeant Rittenour flew into the back of Gartrell’s seat and rebounded pretty much right into McDaniels’ lap before McDaniels could restrain him. He hadn’t had the time to buckle up.

  “Leary, what the fuck?” Rittenour yelled.

  And then McDaniels saw what had prompted Leary to stand on the brakes. Standing next to the Humvee’s left fender was a slender woman with curly red hair. She wore a white terry cloth bathrobe, and clutched asmall toddler to her breast. The toddler’s eyes were big, blue, and beautiful, much like her mother’s would have been had they not been so full of terror.

  “Please! Please help me!” the woman screamed. She pounded on the driver’s window with one well-manicured hand.

  “Oh God,” Safire whimpered.

  “Major,” Leary said.

  “Drive, Leary!” McDaniels said.

  Leary twisted in his seat and looked back at McDaniels. He compressed his lips into a thin, bloodless line.

  “Major,” he said again, his voice soft but the plea was unmistakable. Please major, don’t make me leave this woman and her kid to these things.

  “God damn it, troop!” Gartrell reached across the wide vehicle and rapped his knuckles across Leary’s Kevlar helmet. “Drive!”

  Leary glanced back at the woman, and she must have seen it in his eyes. She pounded on the bullet-resistant glass as the dead swarmed toward her, some at a slow run, others at a limp.

  “My daughter, take my daughter!” she screamed. Leary finally stomped on the accelerator, and the Humvee’s diesel engine roared as the vehicle pulled away just as the first of the ghouls slammed into the woman and ripped the child from her arms.

  “Oh fuck,” Rittenour said.

  “God forgive me,” Leary muttered. There was no mistaking the sob in his voice, and McDaniels’ heart went out to him. None of them had ever thought they would be abandoning defenseless American citizens to the ravages of a brutal and uncaring enemy like this. If they had, McDaniels knew none of them would have signed up to wear the uniform of the United States Army.

  “God’s not here today,” Gartrell said. “But I am. Just do what you’re told to do,
troop—drive. Straight down 58th until we’re told to turn. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Leary said. He got a semblance of his game face on and sped up, weaving around the odd abandoned vehicle here and there. But when the dead shambled into view, he drifted toward them and let the Humvee’s reinforced bumper and brush guards deal with them. The heavy vehicle swayed as it crashed through them.

  “You’re not hurting them,” Safire said.

  “Sir?”

  “You’re not hurting them, soldier! They can’t feel pain! They can’t reason, they can’t feel fear, all they know is hunger! Going out of your way to run over them isn’t hurting them at all!” Safire said, his voice nearly a high-pitched shriek.

  Leary kept his eyes riveted on the street before him. “That may be, sir. But it sure is fun.”

  McDaniels’ radio headset came alive. “Terminator Six, this is Two-Six, over.”

  “Terminator Two-Six, this is Terminator Six, go ahead.”

  “Six, keep on 58th. Don’t turn toward Columbus Circle. That area was a mess before the quarantine, and it was being used as a staging area for the fire department before they were stood down. A lot of the tankers and ladder trucks were abandoned, I saw it on the flight in,” said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Walter Keith. He was the real commander of the Special Forces Operational Detachment, not McDaniels. McDaniels didn’t know Keith well, but he had immediately impressed upon the major and First Sergeant David Gartrell that he was a hard charger who wasn’t about to shrug off a mission.

  “Roger Two-Six, good copy.” To Gartrell: “Verify that with top cover.”

  Gartrell spoke into his headset’s boom microphone, talking directly to the pilots of the MH-6 Little Bird that paced the convoy from overhead. He listened to the response.

  “Keith’s right. The Night Stalkers verify what he said, but it’s not their intention to send us that way. We’ll drive through the intersection of 58th and Eighth Avenue, then across Broadway. We turn north at Seventh Avenue and enter the park there.”

  “Got that, Staff Sergeant Leary?” McDaniels asked.