Zombie Team Alpha

by Yeager, Steve R.

  “Chudovishe,” Colonel Suvorov said.

  “Monsters?” Cutter asked. “What the hell is going on here?”

  “Maybe you should tell me, Mr. Cutter. Do you believe in monsters?”

  “No,” Cutter said. “Our ‘guest’ thinks they are zombies. The undead. Like in the movies. You have movies here, right?” He stopped and changed his tone. Now was not the time for jokes. “Those things tore the heads off two of your pilots, so they seem a little more than zombies to me. Whatever the hell those things are, I’d rather we not stick around tonight and find out more about them. Have you reconsidered? Is there another way out of here other than by helicopter? Some other vehicles, maybe? It’s a mining site, right? Where are all the trucks?”

  “No,” the colonel said. “We are not leaving tonight. Not yet. Not until I find out what has happened to my men.”

  Morgan and Gauge arrived, with Dr. Martinez between them. Cutter jerked his thumb at Dr. Martinez. “She’s the one who claims these things are zombies. I saw something similar to these things once before, but I never got this close to them. We heard them more than we saw them, and that was close enough for me. Natives said they were hopped up on something.”

  “Hopped up?” the colonel asked.

  “Drugs. Something that turned them into psychopaths. But I’m thinking that was bullshit now.”

  The colonel eyed Dr. Martinez carefully while he considered. Then he nodded. “There is a secure space inside the building just past the large one over there.” He indicated the dormitory building. “We should be safe inside for the night.”

  “We just have to get there first,” Cutter added. Then he remembered something. The thought that had started in the back of his mind earlier dinged that it had finished baking. He’d been so damn stupid. He’d been relying too much on others to do his thinking, which was always a bad idea.

  “Morgan, where’s the sat phone?”

  With her help, they rushed to the stacked supply crates and dug the phone out. Cutter pressed the green button to turn the phone on. Then he stared at the dial pad. Who do I call? And what do I say? Help, I’m stuck in a Russian mining complex in the middle of nowhere. Please come rescue me from zombies who have already ripped the heads of two men clean off? Yeah. That was not going to fly.

  “Ideas?” he asked.

  Morgan grabbed the phone and began to dial a number. Cutter stopped her because the colonel and his men were already heading across the expanse of dirt and scattered tufts of grass toward the dormitory building.

  “We can get to that later,” he said to her. “Grab what you can and we’ll follow them. They may be a bunch of chimps with guns, but there’s safety in numbers—if we watch them closely. I don’t want to stick around here waiting for whatever ripped those heads off to come back.”

  Grabbing various packs, Gauge and Morgan swung them over their shoulders and handed one to Cutter. The bag weighed about sixty pounds.

  “What the hell did you put in these things?” he asked.

  “Just a bit of this, and a bit of that,” she said, smiling.

  “You coming, Doc?” Cutter asked Dr. Martinez.

  “Yes, may I have the phone?”

  “Why?”

  “I was given an emergency contact in case of troubles.”

  He took the phone back from Morgan and slapped it into Dr. Martinez palm. “Call them and tell them to send the cavalry. Horses and all.”

  Then he turned away from her and shook his head. A whole lotta things changed in his mind. Their whole mission to Ecuador just took on an entirely new perspective.

  “Zombies,” he said to no one in particular. He shrugged to adjust the straps on his heavy pack. “We are going after a bunch of goddamned zombies.”

  ~23~

  REBELS

  “Run,” Cutter barked, and as Morgan began to move, he swung in behind her. Just ahead, Colonel Suvorov and his men spread out, guns sweeping left and right. The colonel shifted to the middle of the group, well protected by those surrounding him.

  Gauge came up from behind Cutter. Dr. Martinez was with him. “Thaw thomething,” Gauge whispered, nose plugged. “Think they are trying to get at us from behind.”

  “I know,” Cutter said, pushing forward. He’d picked up the same movements, more of a sense of movement as it was too dark to tell for certain.

  “Not much we can do about it now,” he said. “Keep going, and for God sakes, keep her safe.”

  “I can take care of myself, Mr. Cutter,” Dr. Martinez said.

  “I’m sure you can.” He snorted and jogged ahead to check with the colonel. “Where exactly are we going?”

  Colonel Suvorov said nothing and kept marching forward. Asshole. Cutter checked his various guns just to be sure he could get to them in a pinch and fell into the same rapid step as the colonel.

  As the group moved deeper into the compound, the purple twilight twisted into darkness. They broke out flashlights and slipped from one building exterior to the next, clearing each and reacting to shadows while staying low and seeking out signs of pursuit. There were no sounds except the crunching of gravel under boots and the whispering wind, which had begun to pick up, bringing scents of pine and pollen.

  With his back pressed against the corner of a building, Suvorov called a halt to their advance, raising a hand to keep everyone held in place. Next, he waved rapidly and sent two men accelerating across a clearing between the buildings.

  Cutter pulled alongside and whispered, “You are sending them in like you expect them to get shot at. I’ve seen no signs of return fire.”

  “There are others out there,” the colonel said.

  “Others?” Cutter asked.

  “Rebels.”

  “Rebels?” Cutter asked, letting the odd answer sink in.

  The colonel remained silent.

  Cutter shook his head. What is the man thinking? Had it been one of these rebels that had snuck up from behind and had ripped the heads off two men while they remained in their seats? Whatever had done that to the men had to have been immensely strong. Dr. Martinez’s zombie idea had a tiny bit of truth to it. But rebels? No, it can’t be rebels.

  “Okay, Colonel, time to level with us. What’s really going on here?”

  “It is none of your business, svoloch.”

  “Of course it’s my goddamned business. I—”

  Before Cutter could finish, more gunshots crackled in the night. He could still see the two young soldiers who had separated from the group, but he wasn’t sure if it had been their shots he’d heard. Muzzle flashes then came from the two soldiers’ guns as they fired and retreated from something. Finally, they held up, turned tail, and ran all the way back to where the main group was assembled.

  “Chudovishe,” said one of the wild-eyed kid soldiers.

  ~24~

  SEPARATED

  “Where to now?” Cutter asked.

  Colonel Suvorov led the way still, but it was unclear as to where he was headed. Away from whatever his men had encountered, at the very least. Cutter was about to fall back and check with Morgan when a scream split the air.

  Everyone froze.

  Cutter scanned for targets. In the beams of all the crisscrossing flashlights, he spotted movement coming from the building directly across from them. There was a man. He was dressed in a white shirt with a narrow tie. The shirt was stained red and brown. Mud and blood.

  The flashlights converged on the guy.

  There was something wrong with the man’s face. His lips had pulled back, and his teeth were grotesquely exposed. They gleamed eerily yellow in the beams of light. The muscles of his face had pulled taut, and his eyeballs had bulged from his head. There was blood, lots of blood. He didn’t even hold his hands up to shield the light. He just stood there like a spotlighted animal.

  Cutter realized it wasn’t a man he was seeing. Not anymore. It was something else entirely. He hadn’t seen those that had chased him a year ago so up close and personal. T
hey had been natives on drugs that had driven them psychotic—or had they been something else?

  Whatever this thing standing in front of him was, it started shambling in his direction. Much as he hated to admit that what he was seeing was a ‘zombie,’ it did become the predominate term in his mind. But zombies only existed in television and movies, right? These look so real. What they hell are they?

  One of the soldiers raised his gun and prepared to fire. Then another. They glanced over their shoulders to check with the colonel, who shook his head no, so they held off.

  The thing came closer, shuffling on its feet like a drunk, dragging one leg behind it as if that leg were broken. To Cutter, it was more of a curiosity than a danger. They had plenty of firepower to kill whatever the hell it was. Perhaps the colonel was thinking like him and wanted the thing to get closer so they could identify what had happened to the guy. But that curiosity was short-lived. Cutter was pretty sure now that whatever had happened to this man and had turned it into whatever the hell that thing was, it was the same shit he’d faced in Ecuador. And that made his skin crawl.

  The thing drew closer.

  The men shifted. Two more dropped to their knees and prepared to fire.

  Still, the colonel refused to give the order.

  Then the thing moved just a little faster, closing the distance quickly. Cutter could feel the fear growing in the men around him. They wanted to kill it. He raised his own gun to fire and chanced a look at Gauge and Morgan. Gauge had Betty out and was also ready to shoot whatever the hell that creature was. Morgan stood next to Dr. Martinez, quietly whispering to her. And then the thing took another step closer.

  “Colonel?” Cutter asked.

  Suvorov twisted toward Cutter, but also kept watch on the approaching creature.

  “Aren’t you going to neutralize that threat?”

  “He is one of my countrymen. I will not have him killed. We can—”

  One of the soldiers ignored the order to hold fire and opened up on the thing, causing it to fall into a spastic dance. But it somehow kept coming at them, snarling, lips curling back to reveal a fierce row of stained teeth as the bullets slapped into its body, sending off an almost constant spray of red. To it, though, it moved like it was only encountering a strong headwind.

  Cutter raised his own gun to fire, but before he could, he heard the bark of Gauge’s Desert Eagle, and the head of the thing exploded like a ripe melon.

  “Stoyte!” the colonel yelled.

  And then from the side, the real attack came.

  Rapid movement.

  A scream. A soldier’s scream.

  Chaos. Red. Loud.

  A dark mass of movement collided with the assembled soldiers, pushing them back and hitting them from behind where they were not prepared.

  Cutter skipped backward on his heels but spun and quickly recovered and began pulling himself through the scrambling bodies of the bunching soldiers, trying to get to Gauge and Morgan.

  More screams.

  As flashlights turned, he saw faces coming at them. Terrible faces. Teeth. Those teeth began sinking into the flesh of the young soldiers.

  Flashlight beams crisscrossed and strobed. Blood flowed. Sprayed. Hot wetness rained down on Cutter and stuck to his exposed skin. The soldiers on the edge of the group tried to get out of the way of the attack, but were being pushed to the ground, and the creatures were pouncing on them like wolves and viciously tearing into flesh.

  Many tried to scatter in panic, taking their flashlights with them. Others backed away, looking for clear lanes of fire, finding none. One soldier raised his gun and pointed it in the direction were Gauge and Morgan were holding off the attack. Cutter bumped the guy off line, and the kid’s gunfire spilled into the air.

  Gauge had a grip on Morgan when he came out of the melee. Betty’s slide was locked open. He needed to reload. Cutter covered for him, firing at one of the approaching zombies, dropping it with a burst of lead to the face.

  “Where is she?” Cutter shouted over the din. He scanned those remaining, trying to sort out where Dr. Martinez had disappeared to in the mayhem, but he could not see her anywhere.

  Morgan turned her back to the battle. “We have to find her, Jack.”

  “I know. We can’t do that if we’re dead.” He pulled Morgan behind him a split second before a leaping zombie landed on her. Gauge finished reloading, spun and fired, blasting the rapidly moving thing in the head. It stopped moving and collapsed.

  “Where is the colonel?” Morgan asked.

  “He was just here a second ago.” Cutter scanned the area, but the colonel had apparently abandoned them too, along with about half of his men.

  “We have to go. Now!” Cutter yelled.

  Gauge swung his flashlight, and the fat beam lit another one of the creatures. He fired Betty once more at the approaching zombie. What remained of its head snapped back, and it fell to the ground, arms flailing. It then twitched and jerked in a wild shudder of rupturing flesh, spraying blood everywhere.

  But it was only one of many. More were coming. Many more.

  ~25~

  IN A FLASH

  “We’ll keep going,” Morgan said. “It’s close, I think.”

  “Think or know?” Cutter asked as he stayed beside her, lightly touching her on the arm so he could tell where she was going. He could hear Gauge mouth-breathing on the other side of her but could barely see the man. The clouds had thickened, and the sky had gone pitch black. Not even a hint of the deep purple existed any longer, and a certain expression about being stuck up an indelicate part of a miner’s anatomy came to Cutter’s mind.

  After they had become separated from the colonel and his men, they’d followed Morgan’s lead. She was the only one wearing night vision goggles, which made her the only one who could see what the hell was going on around them. So, all Cutter could do was rely on her to lead them all to safety. Though, he wished he could have relied on her to have packed another set of NVGs for him as well, but, this time, his go in light, get out fast mantra had worked against him. She had instead chosen to load his pack down with bullets and explosives. But he figured that if he couldn’t see anything, whatever the hell was out there couldn’t see him either. Still, he also wanted to be a little wary about stumbling into another ambush with whatever those things were, doubly so in the inky darkness.

  And those zombies were not exactly like most of the zombies he’d seen in the movies. These seemed to be able to think and reason on their feet better than those slow-moving shambling types. They had coordinated the last attack. And the implications of that—? He didn’t want to go there. Not yet.

  Since the power was off throughout the compound, they had agreed to make for the primary generators for the complex. Morgan claimed she knew where they were located. Maybe they could at least get the lights back on and see what the hell they were up against. Or maybe it’s better if we don’t see them, Cutter had suggested earlier.

  “Think or know, Morgan?” he repeated.

  “Heck, Jack, I only just memorized the map. You want me to chance looking again?”

  Shit no, that’s not what I want. She’d have to pull out her tablet to check, which would light up their current position and ring the dinner bell for all zombies in the immediate area. No, they’d separated from the colonel and his men because those guys were shining flashlights everywhere and getting themselves killed faster than red-shirts on a Star Trek episode. But, regrettably, they had also lost Dr. Martinez in the ensuing chaos. He hoped she was still with Suvorov’s men, and he could find her again once they got the lights turned back on, and the situation was under control.

  “No, I trust you. Just lead the way. Get us to safety.”

  She started forward again. He used his ears, trying to pick out any stray sounds that might alert him to danger.

  Nothing.

  In the darkness, though, he felt he could see purple-edged shapes moving at the far edges of his vision, which caused his al
ready palpable fear to keep growing to a level bordering on insanity. Hold it together. It is only—

  Morgan stopped suddenly.

  “Hear that?” she whispered.

  He had. “Can you see them? Anything?”

  “No,” she whispered back. “Just a little farther ahead. Fifty feet, I’d guess.”

  And she was right. They stopped again in about fifty feet. Cutter sensed something in front of him, something hulking and giving off warmth. He held his hand out in front of his face and probed for it. He touched metal and could feel the textures of a painted surface. Morgan shrugged his other hand off her arm, and he heard a new sound—a metallic ticking. Then, right as he identified the noise as a doorknob turning but not opening, he heard something else that pushed him close to all out panic.

  Footsteps. Lots of them. From behind. No flashlights. Bad.

  “Morgan?” he whisper-barked as he drew the Glock.

  “Two secs, Jack.”

  Cutter figured they actually had maybe three seconds and no more—because the sound of footsteps growing closer was all he could focus on, and he realized he was doing so to the point of obsession but couldn’t stop himself. He couldn’t tell the exact direction from which they came. They were echoing off walls and multiplying somewhere out in the black beyond. He turned his head left and right, seeking the primary source for the confusing noises, but quickly realized the many footfalls could be coming from almost any direction.

  He sucked a breath and held it for a beat while forcing calm on himself. New noises reached his ears. Slipping, crunching gravel. Groans. Moans. Wet sucking sounds. Icy fear trickled down his spine, which raised his anxiety to even more epic levels.

  “Morgan,” he said with a bit more insistence in his tone, perhaps bordering on desperation.

  She did not answer. He sensed her turning away from the door and shifting to get behind him. But there was nothing he could do to protect her.

  Can’t see shit.

  “Get the door unlocked or tell me what the hell you are seeing.” He raised the Glock he’d been gripping tightly and risked flicking on the tiny flashlight he’d affixed to it earlier. When the beam ignited, he almost wished he hadn’t turned on the light at all.