Deadrise 2: Deadwar

by Steven R. Gardner

  “Just steamroll those motherfuckers!” Lt. Carville whooped.

  “I think I see the chopper!” Pvt. Belasko hollered from the back of the APC.

  Things are looking good. Sanders smiled, anticipating getting back home to his wife Stephanie.

  As he began through the next intersection, another vehicle came into view from the right…a large Cadillac convertible, driven by a superzombie and headed for a T-bone collision course with the APC! Without even thinking Sanders floored the gas and the APC sped through the intersection. All four of the men screamed aloud as they prepared for the impact of the collision… The Cadillac plowed into the right side of the APC with a thunderous crash, sending both vehicles spinning out of control; The Caddy spun away and smashed into a minivan parked on the side of the street while the APC flipped onto its side and skidded to a screeching halt…

  The screaming woke Private Sanders.

  When he opened his eyes, his vision was clouded red with blood and he blinked it away. He moved slowly, his entire body a mass of aches and pains…but nothing was broken, only a gash on his head that bled into his eyes.

  The screaming continued.

  Sanders looked about. The APC lay on the driver’s side. He was still behind the wheel, laying flat against the door. The windshield was smashed out and he could see two zombies, fifty feet away, shuffling closer.

  The screaming continued. It was behind him. He twisted about painfully, extracting himself from the seat and stood up, looking into the back of the APC. Major Farrell and Lt. Carville lay in a tangled heap on the ground, broken boxes of weapons and ammunition strewn about them. Beyond them, near the rear door lay Private Belasko, his left arm and leg were jagged and broken, spilling blood in a spreading pool beneath him. The rear door had been busted open in the wreck, and through it Sanders could see a zombie approaching. Sanders looked around for his rifle, but it was nowhere to be seen. He pulled his sidearm, 9mm automatic, and stepped out of the APC through the gaping front windshield.

  Where is the superzombie?

  He knew the crash was not enough to kill a superzombie. It had survived, and it would be hunting for survivors.

  The two zombies were now within thirty feet. Sanders took careful aim and put a single bullet through each ones head. He then circled around the APC, looking for the superzombie. He didn’t spot it, but he did see there were at least fifty zombies closing on the wrecked APC, Belasko’s screams like a dinner bell.

  A single gunshot rang out from inside the APC, and Belasko fell silent. Sanders hurried around to the open back door to see Major Farrell emerging, a large shoulder bag over one shoulder.

  “Sanders?” He looked surprised to see him.

  “Major!” a huge smile spread across Sanders face.

  Lt. Carville followed behind the Major, his left arm bloody and limp, his nose broken.

  “General? This is Farrell, do you copy?” The Major was speaking into his radio. The chopper circled overhead.

  “Copy Major. I see you. There’s a warehouse district a few hundred yards west of your position. I should be able to land the bird on one of those rooftops.”

  “Affirmative.” The Major put away his radio. He looked Lt. Carville up and down. “Can you make it?”

  “You’re damn right I can!”

  “Lets move!”

  The three men took off in a trot, heading west, blasting zombies as they approached. They proceeded this way for several blocks, entering the warehouse district. In the intersection one block ahead of them, a black van screeched to a halt. The three men stopped, panting with exertion.

  “What the fuck is this?” Carville asked. Blood was dripping from his left hand, and his dark skin was turning a shade of grey. He couldn’t lose much more blood.

  The tires on the van squealed and it shot forward, accelerating toward then with murderous intent.

  “Inside this warehouse!” the Major barked, running for the nearest one. They hurried up the stairs and through the will call entrance just as the black van can to a halt behind them. As Sanders hurried inside the darkened will call office, he looked back to see a pair of superzombies exiting the van.

  They hurried through the office and out into the warehouse proper, a huge room filled with rows of pallet racks, stuffed with boxed merchandise. It was dark inside, the only light coming from Plexiglas skylights set in the roof. But it was enough to see by.

  “We need to get upstairs.” Carville said.

  “I know.” The Major said. “Most of these warehouses have stairwells in the back.”

  Behind them, in the dark, the door from the office to the warehouse slammed open, echoing in the large chamber. The superzombies had entered.

  As they delved toward the back of the warehouse, a foul, rotten stench filled the air, pungent and ripe. Carville gagged. A low buzz of insects could be heard, slowly growing louder.

  “What the hell is that?” Sanders asked, fighting to keep from gagging. But then they emerged into the rear section of the warehouse; a wide, open bay with three loading docks spread along its length and his question was answered.

  There was a small pile of bodies in the center of the bay, dead and rotting. A thick cloud of flies had swarmed over the pile, buzzing loudly. Slime trails could be seen running about the entire bay. There was a small, enclosed shipping and receiving office at one end of the bay, and a wooden stairwell leading up at the other. In the center of the bay, near the pile of bodies, an open stairwell was set into the floor, accessing the basement.

  “What is this place?” Carville asked.

  “They feed here.” Sanders said. The slime trails led right to the open stairwell set into the floor of the bay.

  “Who?” Carville snapped.

  “The Krylok. They feed here. Look at those bodies. All of them punctured through the eyeball.”

  “Your right.” Major Farrell said, kneeling to examine the pile of corpses.

  “We gotta get to the roof!” Carville said, staggering toward the stairwell. The Major and Sanders followed. Just as they began climbing, the first superzombie entered the bay. It wore tattered Levi’s, well-worn sneakers and nothing else. Its hair was gone and its skull was a chipped and gouged lump of bone and leathery skin. Both of its eyeballs were missing, as was its nose and lower jaw. But there was no doubt that it saw them when it raised its AK-47 and opened fire. Lt. Carville took one in the back and went down on the stairs, screaming in pain. Sanders turned and emptied his pistol at the superzombie, bullets tearing into its chest and face, not slowing it in the least.

  “Move Sanders!” He turned to see the Major powering up the stairs, pulling a grenade from his webgear. Carville lay face down on the stairs, gagging on his own blood, crippled yet scrabbling feebly to rise. Sanders kept running. He should have put a bullet through the back of Carville’s head, just to make sure, but he had emptied his weapon and not yet reloaded. Up ahead, the Major was just about to the second floor landing, which encircled the entire warehouse like a balcony. He came to a halt and pulled the pin on the grenade, launching it out into the bay. Sanders came up alongside him just as the grenade blew, the sound deafening inside the warehouse.

  Sanders reached the landing and reloaded his 9mm, turning to survey the carnage below. The stairwell had collapsed at the mid landing point, and Lt. Carville had fallen with it. He lay broken and unmoving on the floor below amidst a pile of blasted lumber. The superzombie was nowhere to be seen. Sanders swept the entire rear bay once again, but saw no movement.

  “Major?” the General crackled over the radio.

  “On our way sir.” Major Farrell answered back quickly. “C’mon Sanders.”

  Sander’s was peering down at Lt. Carville. Was he dead? If so, he would reanimate in the few minutes it took his body temperature to reach room temperature.

  “We can’t leave him like that Major.” Sanders said. He aimed his pistol down at Carville and took careful aim. Carville’s head moved and his eyes snapped open. But
they weren’t the cold, dead eyes of a zombie; bright life stared back at him. Carville blinked a few times, recognition spreading across his blood-smeared face. He slowly nodded his head, closed his eyes and made the sign of the cross with his good arm. Then a small, peaceful smile spread across his lips and his body relaxed, accepting his fate. Sanders pulled the trigger, his bullet drilling through the center of Carville’s forehead.

  “What the hell is that?” the Major asked from behind him. Sanders looked to where he was pointing…the stairwell set into the floor of the bay. Something was emerging from below… It looked like a pair of dogs, but there was something not right about them. In the poor light it was hard to make out details but the set of their hips looked funny, and the heads were too broad. And the snarl they emitted, it was like no dogs snarl either of them had ever heard. It was thicker, deeper…more primal. They were charging across the bay towards them, but Sanders and Jenkins were safe up on the balcony ledge, unless the animals could jump that high.

  “Move Sanders!” the Major hollered before turning and running himself. Sanders took one last look, and what he saw made his blood run cold. The creatures had been dogs once. And to an extent they still bore some semblance to dogs, only twice as large, with green ands black leathery skin dotted with patches of matted, bloody fur. The eyes were large and murderous, filled with a ravenous, insatiable hunger. The mouths were slathering blood and pus, and filled with large, razor sharp teeth.

  Hellhounds!

  That was the first description that popped to Sanders mind.

  “Move your ass Sanders!” The Major screamed from fifty feet up the catwalk. Sanders took off running.

  The Hellhounds were moving vertically down the length of the bay while the catwalk Sanders and the Major took ran horizontally along the far wall and they cleared the bay and were in the main warehouse before the Hellhounds reached them. Sanders glanced a look back and saw one of the Hellhounds claw its way up onto the catwalk only fifty feet back. It had leapt up from the ground. It gave Sanders the energy to squeeze and extra ounce of speed from his already taxed body. Up ahead he saw the Major had pulled up to a halt and pulled another grenade from his webgear.

  “Run Sanders!” The Major screamed before he pulled the pin on the grenade with his teeth and un-shouldered the bag of weapons and ammo. Sanders kept running, his heart a pounding piston in his chest, his lungs burning furnaces, his muscles numbing with fatigue. The Major threw the grenade in an overhand arch that carried it over Sanders head and was right on target. It landed just in front of the Hellhound and bounced under its chest. The explosion eviscerated the charging beast as well as blew out the catwalk below its feet and it crashed to the warehouse floor below with a pathetic yowl. The blast rattled Sanders guts and the concussion threw him to the catwalk face first where he skidded and tumbled to a halt at the Majors feet.

  “Sanders? Are you ok?” The Major was over him, looking concerned.

  “Yes sir.” Sanders groaned, slowly rising to his feet.

  “I don’t see the other creature…” The Major was looking down into the warehouse, scanning the darkened rows of pallets racks. Sanders quickly reloaded his pistol while the Major slung the weapon bag over his shoulder once again.

  “Lets go.” The Major turned and trotted away, Sanders right behind him…

  Jenkins kept the chopper hovering fifty feet above the roof of the warehouse, waiting for his team to come through the roof access doorway before he would set it down. As he waited, he assessed the mission…

  As far as intelligence gather went, the mission was a tremendous success. The zombie population of Salt Lake City was relatively low, and it represented a golden opportunity for salvage. There were obviously superzombies about, but Jenkins had been devising a plan to effectively deal with them.

  As far as the mini-salvage operation went, it had been a failure. At least one of his men was dead, possibly more. But that did not sway his belief that the city could be plundered. It wouldn’t be long before David had real time satellite surveillance and things like the ramming Cadillac would be spotted well ahead of time to be dealt with. Yes, it wouldn’t be long before Jenkins returned to Salt Lake City, this time with fifty Militiamen and Smitty Tucker’s freebooters as well. They would be prepared. And it would be glorious.

  The rooftop door burst open and out came Major Farrell followed by Private Sanders. Jenkins brought the chopper down, landing gently on the roof. The two men piled in, eyes wide with excitement and fear, chests heaving as they gulped air. The Major had a large duffel bag loaded with assault rifles and ammunition, so the salvage operation hadn’t been a complete bust.

  “I’m sure Carville and Belasko were properly taken care of.” The General said.

  “Yes General.” The Major snapped. “No zombies left behind.”

  “Good.” Without another word Jenkins turned back to the controls and got them airborne. Sanders couldn’t believe how cold and detached the General seemed about losing two men. There had been scuttlebutt amongst the enlisted men of the Militia that the General was beginning to crack. Was Sanders witnessing signs of it firsthand?

  As they flew toward Rainbow Lake, Major Farrell recounted what had happened, pausing to collect his nerves before telling of the Hellhounds.

  “Zack told us the slugs could create hybrid monsters. And if that warehouse was a feeding depot, then those two Hellhounds must have been purposefully bred for protection.” Farrell finished.

  “That would also lead me to believe that the Krylok have grown a slugpod in the area… Possibly down in the basement of that warehouse.” The General surmised.

  “How long until they turn such creatures upon Rainbow Lake?”

  “How long indeed?” The General left the question hanging in the air as they flew the rest of the way in silence. Sanders reflected on his two lost squad mates.

  Lt. Carlos Carville had been his friend. And he had put a bullet between his eyes. He left behind a wife, two sons and a daughter. How would he ever be able to look those children in the eyes and explain to them how their father died? Another pang of guilt wrenched him, and he had to grit his teeth and squeeze his eyes shut to fight back tears.

  As for Private Belasko? He and Sanders hadn’t been close. Squad mate’s sure, but friends? No… Sanders had detected some veiled racism from Belasko. But never the less, he had been a squad mate and he also left behind family…a wife and son.

  Sanders said a quick prayer, thanking Jesus for looking over him and seeing him safely home from this mission. His thoughts turned to Stephanie and his nephew/adopted son, Kyle. He thanked Jesus again for their safety, and the safety of the entire Rainbow Lake community. Sanders made the sign of the cross and leaned back, trying to get as comfortable as possible for the flight home…

  CHAPTER 27

  Monday, March 18, 2002

  Kittewa, UT

  3:58 AM

  While most of 2nd Platoon, Alpha Company slept, Lieutenant Stan Larsen sat awake. His watch would be ending in just a couple minutes and he was supposed to wake Corporal Law for the final watch, but he decided to cover the shift and let Law sleep. He wasn’t tired and wouldn’t be able to sleep if he tried. He always had trouble sleeping when his squad did their rotations down in Kittewa or Summittown. It was the fourth night of a five-night stretch. He and his team were stationed in the Kittewa Town hall, which had also served as the courtroom and library. But now it served as the Rainbow Lake Militia’s Kittewa HQ. One more night and 3rd Platoon would be relieving them and it would be five days home at the lake before a five-day rotation in Summittown.

  Oh well, it could have been worse. They could have been away south with Major Farrell’s Special Ops team, scouting towards Provo. It had been less than a week since the botched Salt Lake run, and the General and the Major had already filled Carville and Belasko’s slots on the team and sent them back out.

  Yeah, he and his team could have had it a lot worse than this easy Kittewa rotation.
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br />   It was the howling of the dogs that alerted him.

  When the dogs first started barking he had thought nothing of it. It wasn’t unusual for them to let out the occasional bark at some woodland animal passing by, or a stray livestock wandering about. But the single bark from one of the dogs quickly became a crescendo of yowls and snarls of the entire team.

  Larsen picked up his AK-47 and rose to his feet. He moved toward the main entrance slowly, cautiously. Inside they had power courtesy of a pair of generators but it was dark as hell outside and he couldn’t see anything. He pushed open the Plexiglas door and walked outside, the early spring air crisp and cold, causing his breath to fog. The platoons Humvee was parked right outside the door. He could still hear the dog’s snarling echoing out in the darkness but they were nowhere in sight. The dogs were allowed to run loose and were trained well enough to stay close until a human showed up.

  “Lieutenant? Is everything ok?” Corporal Law’s voice came over the radio. Larsen unclipped it from his hip and held it to his mouth.

  “Negative! Wake Corbett and DeBirk and get down here.”

  “On our way.”

  “Base? This is Larsen. We may have a situation here in town. Do you copy?”

  “Copy Lieutenant. What’s the problem?”

  “The dogs are going crazy. Hopefully its just a random deadfuck that wandered in out of the woods.”

  “Keep us assessed. Base out.” The radio fell silent and Larsen clipped it back to his belt.

  Out in the darkness one of the dogs snarled suddenly ended in a painful squeal. A few moments later came another.

  “What the hell?” Larsen said aloud. The growls and snarls of the dogs had ended and there was only silence. Somehow that was worse. But then came another sound, a patter of feet approaching quickly. Larsen raised his gun.

  Corporal Law exited the building to stand beside Larsen, amped full of adrenaline and ready for action. “Zombies?” he asked,

  “No, I don’t think so…”

  Out of the darkness one of the dogs came running at full speed, tail tucked and whimpering with fright. Beyond it, out in the darkness, they heard another snarl, only this hadn’t come from any dog. Larger…meaner…colder… It was the snarl of a large, hungry predator that was preparing to kill its next meal.