Finally, he smiled. Thuy could tell by the new lines at the corner of his eyes. “Alright,” was all he could think to say to her. He opened the door and glanced into the incarceration wing. The short hall consisted of the three questioning rooms on the left and a single door on the right that led to the holding cells. At the end of the hall was an emergency exit that rattled and shook under the thundering blows. It wasn’t fists denting the door. It was something else, something heavy and hard.
There were two troopers standing halfway down the hall. They held their pistols out but looked ready to bolt. One was Lieutenant Pemberton, he glanced back and Deckard would describe the odd look he wore as “grateful.”
“The door isn’t going to hold,” Pemberton said. “What the fuck are we going to do?”
Deckard didn’t trust the wild eyes of the man. They were too unpredictable. “Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to leave this to us. I want you to go into the cells with Dr. Lee and move the prisoners to the storeroom. The rest of us...” Deckard paused. He didn’t know what they were going to do, really. Waiting for the door to come down didn’t seem like much of a plan. “...Uh, we’ll get ready.”
“Get ready for what?” the trooper who had been with Pemberton asked. He was aglaze with sweat despite the air conditioning that made the building feel like an autumn evening.
“We’ll go on the offensive,” Deckard declared. “If they have sledge hammers we can’t just sit here waiting. So the plan is to kill those fuckers out there and grab up the hammers or whatever it is they have. Any questions?”
“Whoa, hold on,” one of the other troopers said. “We don’t even know what we’re dealing with. There could be hundreds of them out there.”
Deckard opened his mouth to speak but just then Thuy and Pemberton, with guns leveled escorted Anna, Eng, and Meeks out of the holding area. When they were safely out of earshot, he said: “There are going to be hundreds of them out there. You can count on it. That’s why we shoot fast and accurately. Don’t hesitate, don’t miss, and we’ll be good.”
This brought on mumbles but as no one else had a better plan, they went to checking their weapons and gear. Deckard waited until Thuy and Pemberton returned to get the two men who’d been with the Mexican he had killed. He gave them both a long look, checking their eyes and their gums. They seemed clean, but no one knew if that would last.
When they were gone, the men put their masks in place. Breathing through a mask, even the surgical ones wasn’t the easiest, but the way these men breathed it sounded like they were panting. Deckard was sure at least one of them would run away, but none did.
The men edged forward towards the door as if they thought it was a time bomb that was only a tick away from exploding and when they were within three feet, Deckard stopped them. He pointed at one of the troopers who held only a pistol. “Put that away. You’ll come last and grab the sledgehammers. Got it? Good. You, Driscoll, follow me on my left and Brady on my right. Don’t hesitate with those shotguns. Blast anything that moves and then step back.”
He then turned to the other two men who had M16s. “You two come in right behind them. Don’t worry so much about headshots. Just keep blasting them. Knock them down, knock them back, I don’t care. I want our total time out there to be twenty seconds at the most so that means we’re going to pop out, start shooting, grab the hammers and get back in. Any questions?”
There were none. There was only fear and men trying their best not to show it.
Deckard took a long, deep breath and then kicked at the bar across the emergency door. It was labeled with a warning: Alarm Will Sound, and it did. A ringing was added to the already noisy station, and then a second later, gunshots punctuated the air as well.
It was not a sledgehammer being used on the doors as he had hoped. He thought he was going to pop out to find a couple of Von Braun types, zombies who were still able to think to a degree. He figured he would put a couple of rounds through their brains and that would end the major danger facing the station. Instead, he found himself face to face with a pair of ‘regular’ dumb zombies and they weren’t wielding tools, either, at least not in the traditional sense. Someone, or something had duct-taped heavy rocks to their hands and they were using these to batter down the door.
This was far worse than sledgehammers; it was far more diabolical.
Before the zombies could truly understand what was happening, Deckard fired twice in quick succession; a cloud of black blood misted the air and the beasts fell. He then swiveled the gun toward the gathered horde but did not shoot; he needed to find who had done this, he needed to find the zombie with a spark of intelligence in its eyes and he needed to kill it, fast.
The zombies howled and charged, while behind Deckard the troopers tried to surge forward in accordance with the plan. Caught between the two, Deckard was forced to shoot. As fast as he could, he pulled the trigger on his M16 as he roared out: “No! Back inside. Everyone get back inside!” The troopers were slow to listen and for ten horrible, long seconds, Deckard was alone, facing down a mob of undead.
Those in front were raked by his bullets and went down, while those behind stumbled over their bodies. They got so close that he could smell the putrid stink of their gaping mouths as they fell at his feet. Finally, a hand pulled him back inside and the door was shut on the monstrous faces.
“What the hell happened?” one of the troopers demanded. He was breathing heavily although he hadn’t done much of anything but press forward a few feet and then scramble back the same distance.
Deckard’s mind was too jumbled to answer just then. It felt untethered from reality and all he could think was to order one of the men: “Check me for blood.” A few black spots were quickly bleached and scrubbed and all the while, the troopers waited for an explanation as to why he had aborted the plan. When he finally told them, most didn’t understand the worry in his eyes.
“But you killed the two with the rocks,” one man said, relieved. “We should be safe now.”
“No we aren’t safe. Somebody taped those rocks to those zombies. Whoever it was had to have been in that crowd somewhere.” A part of him had expected to see the charred corpse of Eric Von Braun among the mob of undead, but he wasn’t one of their number, and worse, Deckard hadn’t seen the slightest hint of intelligence in any of their faces.
“If we don’t find him and kill him, I think we can expect to see a lot more zombies with rocks tied to their hands and our doors will come down that much faster.” That was the best-case scenario. What would happen if the ‘smart’ zombie remembered how to make fire?
“So how do we do this?” someone asked. “Do we make a foray out there? Do we go on the attack?”
“What about roof access?” another wondered. “We could pop the main guy from up there.”
The roof wasn’t a bad idea. Deckard put two men on watch at the door and then went to hunt down Pemberton to ask about the roof access and to see if he had any ideas.
The lieutenant was shaken by the news of smart zombies and sat staring at something just beyond his nose that no one else could see. “No…no, there isn’t a way to get to the roof from inside. There’s a ladder out back but who would be stupid enough to use it? Not me, that’s for damned sure. No way, not me.”
“What about video feed?” Thuy asked. She had been waiting for the outcome of the battle and had been confused at how brief it had been. She had given Deckard’s hand a squeeze when he quick-marched into the admin area, and now she kept close to him, making sure that their arms touched. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was terrified and felt the need to be close. This wasn’t difficult as everyone had crowded around to hear what had happened. They had been cheered when the hellacious banging stopped, but now they were even more depressed: the news of smart zombies had been coupled with the increased sound of shooting from the office wing where Chuck, Burke and Max Fowler were being flooded by zombies coming through every door.
On
Thuy’s other side was Stephanie who was biting her lip in worry over Chuck. Thuy squeezed her hand in an attempt to calm her.
“I see there are cameras positioned everywhere,” Thuy said, “And I assume there are more outside and that they are still operating. We can use them to pinpoint the “smart” zombies and find a way to destroy them. The obvious question: how do we see the feed from the cameras?”
“Courtney can show you; she knows how,” Pemberton answered. Courtney was still trying to get in touch with the Governor and so it was up to Renee who brought the video feed up on her computer. The depression in the station grew, every door but one was being mobbed by zombies. In some places, they were a hundred deep.
“Where is this door?” Thuy asked.
“The loading dock,” two of the dispatchers answered in unison.
“It’s empty,” Pemberton gasped. “We can escape that way.”
Deckard grunted and said: “I highly doubt it. There are too many in front by the cars, which means you’ll be travelling on foot in Indian country. That’s equal to suicide. Everyone is safer inside until the helicopters get here.”
“If they get here,” Benjamin muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear. He figured they wouldn’t listen to him, since they hadn’t listened to him all night. He hadn’t liked the way he was once again being treated as a nerd by pretty much everyone. Who were they to judge? They didn’t know him. They didn’t know he had heroically saved Cheryl from her Ex and they didn’t know how he had kept her safe that entire day. He was as good as any of them…except for, maybe Deckard, who had bulging arms and the hard look of a man who has seen his share of action. Benjamin especially didn’t like how Cheryl was looking at him—like she had never seen a man before.
“The helicopters will come, I trust Courtney. She’s very resourceful,” Thuy said as she clicked the screen away from the empty loading dock door. She clicked through the screens before settling on the one that showed the emergency door that led out of the incarceration wing.
At first, all that could be seen was a wide-angle view of zombies pounding on the doors, but then they could see something starting to shove them back. “That’s a boy,” Thuy said, in a whisper. A boy of maybe eight or nine, wearing a striped shirt that Max Fowler would’ve recognized was pushing the zombies back…and they were obeying him!
“How is that possible?” Stephanie asked. “Why aren’t they attacking him?”
Thuy could barely take her eyes off the screen. She mumbled: “It’s a fair guess to say he’s infected. Interesting. Very interesting. Is he partially immune just as Jaimee Lynn Burke was? Or is he under the influence of an opiate or narcotic? Or maybe…”
Her train of thought was derailed as the boy pushed away the last of the zombies. He then left the screen and Thuy had a sudden hot flash strike her. “Deckard! Is there any one left in the incarceration wing? Get them out of there…”
He was already running. With fear lending him even more strength, he threw open the door that led into the hall and screamed: “Get out of there! Something’s going to happen.” On edge already, the two troopers ran just as the emergency door crashed inwards and the Audi that Courtney had driven that day came barreling inside with a sound like an explosion.
Behind the car came a flood of diseased bodies. Deckard ignored them. He emptied the magazine of his M16 into the windshield; there had been something in the car. Perhaps it was the boy. With only time to slap in one fresh magazine and fire a few more rounds, he aimed this time at the hood of the car, wanting to put it out of commission.
As he fired, hands grabbed him from behind and pulled him into the admin section.
The door was a heavy one and the lock very sturdy, still it was with a sinking feeling that he slammed the door shut and rammed the bolt home. They were running out of room to survive.
Chapter 30
To The Hill
10:12 p.m.
Despite his age, General Collins climbed up on the boxy communications Humvee and stood on its roof gazing west. It was an intriguing sight, seeing the flares suddenly pop into life and drop from the heavens like shooting stars falling in slow motion. He wished he could remain just an observer, but judging by the planes and helicopters banking all over the sky, and the endless chatter of small arms fire, there were at least a dozen battles going on.
Like a teenager, he slid down the front of the windshield, hopped off the vehicle and landed in the grass, easily. He went to the next Humvee over, the “Operations” Humvee. When they had moved the sight of the command post, there hadn’t been time to put the tents up and now they were operating out of specifically designed communications and control Humvees. They were highly mobile but cramped as hell. Four men were inside, hunched over computer screens while another five men were outside kneeling over a map that was spread out on the ground.
“What’s the situation?” Collins asked.
Lieutenant Colonel O’Brian didn’t glance up. “Even with the flares, we’re fucked…sir. That first wave crumpled our lines on a ten-mile front and we’re just starting to find our men. Some retreated straight east to the second line, but most scattered in any direction but west.”
A captain pointed at a spot on the map and said: “In some places we’ve managed to collect enough men to make a stand, but in others, like at this town of Burrnel, we have a handful only.”
“How’s morale?” Collins asked. Morale was almost always the difference between winning and losing and had been since the beginning of warfare. Collins frequently quoted Napoleon to subordinates and one of his favorite lines was: “Morale is to the physical as three is to one", another, further emphasizing the point was: "Moral force rather than numbers, decides victory.” Then again, Collins knew that if he had another fully equipped division to shore up his ranks, it would also decide victory.
“It’s as high as can be expected,” O’Brian answered. “I have no doubt that the flares are helping, but that won’t last. The men have light to fight by, but pretty soon that same light will show how fucked they really are. We need more men and I’ve already used up my reserve force. All I have left is my headquarters company.” The men around him looked suddenly uncomfortable as though Collins might send them off to fight zombies any minute, even though it was the dead of night.
“No, don’t send them in, no matter what you do,” Collins said, much to the relief of officers. “It’ll just make matters worse, trust me.”
“Then what do I do?” the colonel asked, earnestly. “With every step back my command is becoming more and more isolated from one another and the gaps widen, meaning they are getting through. It wouldn’t shock me if some came walking up right this moment.”
This had a chilling effect on everyone, Collins included. They all paused to look to the west where the lights in the sky were bright but the shadows below were deep and seemed to be moving.
Crouching in those deep shadows, Specialist Jerome Evermore was numb straight up. He was down to his last four bullets and the woods were quite literally crawling with the dead. One of them might go down, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was out of the fight. In the dark his shots were never sure; at one point—when he had twenty three bullets left—one went down right in front of the log palisade he’d taken cover behind. Figuring it was dead, he went on shooting the others when. After a minute, he felt something grab his boot. He screamed in a way that he wasn’t proud of, and would never admit. He was so freaked that he nearly shot his own foot off while killing the zombie.
There were two other “crawlers” in his tree-lined fort. The sight of them had given him the shakes which continued as his bullets dwindled.
When he shot the fourth to last bullet, he decided he had reached the point where he could honorably retreat. “I’m out!” he yelled. “I’m out of ammo.” He was backing out of the little fort when he heard something to his right, moving fast; he was within an inch of proving himself a liar by almost killing Sergeant Segal with his pistol as h
e came jogging up. “Oh jeeze, you scared the crap out of me,” Jerome hissed.
Segal didn’t seem to care. “Here’s a mag,” was all he said.
It was a magazine of 5.56 ammo used for one of the M16 variants. Jerome pushed it back, saying: “All I have is a Beretta. So I’ll fall back to the next dedicated line and…”
“We don’t have a fallback position yet.” Segal looked at the pistol as if he had never seen such a thing. “Where’s your weapon, soldier?” His growl was full of accusation. He even went so far as to glance around on the ground as if he suspected Jerome of having thrown his weapon away. Jerome had, but that had been almost an hour before while running for his life.
“This is all I have,” Jerome insisted, holding the Beretta out. Surprisingly, Segal took it and then to Jerome’s disappointment he handed over his own weapon, an M4. Not only that he pulled two more magazines from his chest rig and pressed them into Jerome’s hands.
In a booming voice, Segal called out: “We will hold this line! There will be no running and we will fight to the last bullet.” He added this last after he had dropped the clip out of the butt of the Beretta and saw the three remaining slugs gleaming up at him. “Get on the line,” he said, unkindly.
“I wasn’t going to run,” Jerome said, defensively. “I was just down to my last…”
“Save your breath for someone who cares. When I come back down the line, your ass had better be right here.”
Segal left Jerome steaming mad. Sure, he had run before, but that was only when he was out of ammo. “And no one else had to fight with just a pistol,” he groused, walking back to the downed trees. Two zombies were struggling to cross them; he shot them both from a range of four feet.
More zombies came. It seemed a never-ending stream of them. The line failed not long after Segal left Jerome. Although he was in a good position, what with the trees, the men at the far end of the line were flanked and had to run. They all fell back, but without the steely-eyed sergeant. He had walked away down the line and no one heard from him again. The same was true for a lot of the men. They didn’t desert, they either died outright or were turned. The survivors fell back to a farm where they took refuge behind a line of low fences called stiles. These held up the beasts and made them excellent targets, but ammo was running short and they had to fire from up close. When the fence finally failed and the zombies bulled through, Jerome led the shrinking group to the next farm.
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