“Wait, what? What the hell are super-infected?”
“They’re revenants, but they are must faster, stronger, and they appear to retain fairly cunning intellectual skills. Basically, they are our worst nightmare out here. I’m surprised you haven’t faced any yet. I’ve lost count how many times these super-infected have ambushed us. You can tell they’re coming by the screams. I don’t know why they do it, but it’s our queue to get the hell out of here.”
“Why are we running? How about we lead them down this road, Jet and Arrow will pull their razor wire on ‘em, and we’re done with these so-called super-infected?” Admiral offered.
Chris thought about it for a second before responding. “I’d love to try it, but I’m not willing to risk everyone’s lives. I’d much rather run now and live to fight another day. These super-infected are more contagious than anything I’ve ever seen. One bite and you turn before your body even hits the ground. There’s no wiggle room for error with these things.”
“Well then, if that’s the case. Roll out 0321!” Admiral barked.
We jumped back into the Jeep, and the others ran to their vehicles. We hit the road as fast as the beaten asphalt would let us, and the high-pitched shrieks of the super-infected faded into the distance.
Chapter 19
Jimmy Smith
We had to stop to clear the road a few times, but it was much easier and quicker now that we had more hands to do the work. We were making good time considering the state of the roads, and before lunchtime, we were passing a sign welcoming us to Fort Lee, New Jersey.
As we drove through the streets of Fort Lee, the air seemed to change. You know the feeling you get when a massive storm is coming, and the air gets heavy? That was what I was feeling. The number of infected seemed to reduce the further into Fort Lee we traveled, which scared me more than it put me at ease. Yes, we were able to conserve ammo, but where were the infected. We were driving through a massively populated area. I would expect to see more of them.
Chris pulled the Jeep over, and the ATV’s and motorcycles of our new friends parked in front of us. Chris exited the Jeep, and Kamil, Lynn, and I followed him.
Once everyone was assembled around the hood of our truck, Chris began to speak in quiet tones. “We need to scout ahead to see what we’re walking into. I don’t think it’s a good idea to take the vehicles into the city, even if we can. They’re going to be too loud, especially inside the city. The noise of our engines is going to bounce off the buildings like a siren in the Grand Canyon. The infected or revenants are going to be heavily concentrated close to and inside Manhattan. So we have to constantly watch each other’s six. We need eyes in every direction, and we have to stay in a close group. Admiral, do you want to have a few of us check up ahead, and some of us stay back, or no?”
“Hell no. No one’s hangin’ back. That’d be as useful as a trapdoor in a canoe. We don’t wanna waste any more time because we’re burning daylight here. Son...”
Whatever the rest of Admiral’s comment was, was lost under the deafening sound of rotor blades thumping through the air. All of us ran to the shelter of a nearby entryway covered by an awning as a Black Hawk helicopter passed overhead.
Chris looked at me. “I guess you were right, Jimmy. They are heading into Manhattan. Now we just got to see if we can confirm where they’re going.”
“I know exactly where they’re going. Brigantine said one of the other bases she was using was located at the US Defense Logistics Agency building. It’s over on Varick Street. My best guess would be they were headed there,” I replied.
“Great, now we just have to figure out how the hell to get there without a damn helicopter,” Lynn commented.
Kamil smiled, “Well, there doesn’t seem to be that many infected around here. Maybe we caught a break, and we can just walk over the bridge and into the city.”
“Now while that would dill my pickle, I don’t think we’re gonna get that lucky, son. I was wondering where all the revenants were earlier. We should be swimming in them by now being this close to the city,” Admiral said as he looked around for any threats.
Lynn jumped into the conversation. “We’re hoping the George Washington Bridge that connects Fort Lee to upper Manhattan will be clear enough for us to pass into the city, right? How about instead of sitting here and chit-chatting like a bunch of high school drama queens, we actually get a move on and find out what we’re walking into?”
Bowie and Mace both patted Lynn on the back. Mace said, “I like this chick, I’m with her. Are you boys coming with, or do the girls get to have all the fun?”
With that comment, we headed back to the vehicles to get ready to set out into the city.
Garrison and Kamil got fitted with the water guns turned zombie killing devices to their backs since they were the least accurate shots of the group. It’s funny how the mechanic from each of our respective teams ended up not being the best with firearms. We loaded them with as much of the bright orange liquid as they could carry. The rest of us filled and brought a bottle with us as well, just in case.
Kamil and Garrison were the lucky ones who were going to be the front line of our little hodge-podge group of mostly ex-military. They had the honor because if we came into contact with any of the infected, we didn’t want to fire our weapons to dispatch them. The noise would bring every undead mook in the city down on us, so gunshots were forbidden.
Chris, Lynn, Kamil, and I each had a Ka-Bar with its seven-inch carbon steel clip point blade. Lynn had the added advantage of her Jian sword. The Jian is a double-edged straight sword, and it’s incredibly deadly. I knew this from watching Lynn use it firsthand. Lynn wielded the weapon like a pro. Admiral and his crew were carrying their spears as well as the Ontario MK 3 Navy Knife, which is a six-inch stainless-steel blade. It was going to suck using knives and spears as our only means of defense instead of our guns, but it was either that or get swarmed.
The streets were relatively quiet, which was genuinely bothering me. After leaving the vehicles, we had only killed four of the infected. Where were they?
My question was answered as we turned the corner of North Central Road onto Sylvan Street. We thought the George Washington Bridge was going to be clear enough to pass. I wasn’t sure we were even going to get the opportunity to find out.
“Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, that’s a lot of undead assholes,” Admiral said quietly as we all crouched to stay out of sight.
Looking down the street, we could see the Palisades Interstate Parkway and the Fort Lee Park area surrounding it. The smell alone as we turned onto Sylvan Street should have told us everything we needed to know about the area. The unmistakable stench of rotting flesh hung heavily in the air.
The undead were everywhere. There was no way we were going to be able to get through them. The second we were spotted by even one of the revenants, we were done for, I was sure of it. One sound and we’d be swarmed with no way out but back the way we came.
No wonder the soldiers who took Abby, Troy, and Stuart were using helicopters. There was no way in hell we were going to be able to get into the city on foot. The Fort Lee Historic park was a disaster. The infected covered every inch of ground and asphalt alike as far as the eye could see. The herd of infected was like a slow-moving tornado. They were a dark cloud covering the area, casting an ominous shadow over a massive swath of land and obliterating everything in its wake.
We needed another way into the city.
Reluctantly we all backtracked up North Central Road. Admiral had the idea to travel north toward the Ross Dock and try to find a boat. With the sheer number of infected, I didn’t think we stood a chance of getting anywhere near the water up here, and we needed to head south anyway. The US Defense Logistics Agency building was closer to the Holland Tunnel than up here.
“Hey guys, I think taking a boat on the water is the only way we’re going to be able to get into the city, but I don’t think going North is our best bet
. Fort Lee Park is enormous, and the Ross Dock is still surrounded by the same area. If the infected are packed in this tight down here, I imagine they’ll be just as bad up at the dock. We have to go south to get to the Defense building anyway, so why don’t we get the hell away from this massive horde, get back in our vehicles and make our way to Newport? There are plenty of docs over by the Lincoln Tunnel, so I’m sure we’ll find a boat, and when we make it to shore, the building we need will be like six blocks away,” I whispered.
Everyone looked at one another, then back towards the direction the horde was in and either shook their head or gave a thumbs up. No one wanted to be the one to speak loudly and give our position away to the undead tsunami that could wipe us out in seconds if they heard us.
We slowly and quietly made our way back to the vehicles and headed south as agreed.
Chapter 20
Christopher Bryant
Jimmy seemed to know the area better than anyone, so I let him drive. I sat in the passenger seat next to him, letting my mind wander about what was happening to Abby. Not knowing exactly who had taken her, or what they were doing to her was driving me crazy. After what we’d seen in Fort Lee, the bad feeling I had about this rescue mission before got even worse.
It was like a dark cloud was hanging over all of us. It was that terrible, foreboding feeling buried inside my gut telling me that things were going to keep getting worse until they spiraled out of control, and we lost soldiers. I chastised myself silently for not treating this like it was just any other mission. I was retired and hadn’t been in the military for years, but the training kicked in, and being around all of these soldiers again had me back in the military mindset.
“Hey Chris, you alright man?” Jimmy asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Yeah. I’m just worried about Abby. It’s already been over twenty-four hours since she was taken and were not a hundred percent sure we know where she is. Plus, seeing that horde of infected up by the GWB... that doesn’t bode well for what we’re going to find when we get into the city, that is if we make it there. Something like over a million and a half people call Manhattan home. That’s potentially a million and a half zombies waiting to call us dinner.”
“Sure, it sucks. Sure, we’re outnumbered two hundred fourteen thousand to one, but we’ve got a good idea of where they took her, and we’ll find a boat. Hell, you found seven mercenaries that agreed to join us on the fly. If that’s not a good sign, then I don’t know what is. We’ve got this, man. Have a little faith,” Jimmy said, smiling while he held his hand out the window like it was a kite in the wind.
“I hope you’re right, Jimmy. I’ve just got a bad feeling about this.”
We made it to the Hoboken Rail Yard with relative ease. We decided to gas up the vehicles and leave them here, so if we needed to make a hasty retreat, we didn’t have to worry about running out of gas or not knowing where to go to find the cars. Following the rail line was easy enough to remember. We were on the corner of 18th Street and Marin Boulevard, a few blocks from the Holland Tunnel entrance.
Jimmy said we could take 18th to 14th, and there was a dock right at the end of 14th Street. I didn’t ask why Jimmy knew this area so well, I was just glad that he did. There were more zombies here than when we were up in Fort Lee, which made me oddly more comfortable with our surroundings. I had a silencer on my rifle, so I was free to use it as needed, but even though we hadn’t seen or smelled a herd yet, we were keeping the firearm use down to a minimum, just in case.
Admiral’s crew were used to not shooting since they were almost always out of ammunition, he had said. I, on the other hand, I felt naked if I wasn’t firing my weapon, but I had to be mindful that I didn’t have unlimited ammunition out here.
We stalked down 18th Street with virtually no noise. Everyone was on high alert after what we had seen up north. Every few seconds, you would hear the thwack of a spear piercing the skull of an infected and the soft noise of rotting flesh hitting the pavement as someone took out a lone revenant. But other than the sounds of bodies hitting the pavement, our team was absolutely soundless.
It felt good to be part of a team again, especially one that matched my skills in stealth. I hadn’t realized how much I missed this feeling. After Tom and Dan’s tragic deaths, I didn’t have many veterans to train with anymore. Those men, those soldiers, were my closest friends before and during the apocalypse. I missed them every day.
We turned down 14th Street, and everyone was visibly relieved to see there wasn’t a massive number of the infected standing between us and the docks. There were quite a few, but nothing we couldn’t handle quickly and quietly.
Garrison waved at me, and I crab-walked between a crashed Ford to get to him. “What’s up?” I whispered.
“Can I see this stuff in action? I mean... I’d like to know it works before I get in a jam and rely on this crap without knowing it actually does the trick on these undead asshats,” Garrison whispered back to me as he pulled the giant yellow and orange water gun from his pack.
I looked over the hood of the long-dead vehicle we were hiding behind and saw an older man, probably in his mid-sixties wearing a torn Grateful Dead t-shirt and soiled tighty whities, my guess was that his pants had rotted off already. He had torn socks with one foot somehow still in a Birkenstock. The Dead Head was missing his right arm from the elbow down, and half of his face. I pointed to him and whispered to Garrison, “That one. Super small squirt on an open wound is all it should take. Make sure he doesn’t see you because it takes a few seconds to work. We don’t need the rest of them to come barreling down on us.”
Garrison smiled from ear to ear and plastered himself against the crunched-up car to get a clear shot. He looked back at me and then turned to the Dead Head just before it passed out of range. Garrison squeezed the trigger, and the orange liquid shot out like a stream of piss hitting the infected in the face.
I had to stifle a laugh thanks to my own sick and twisted sense of humor. I had a joke about a certain celebrity who liked to pee on underage girls I desperately wanted to make.
Within a few seconds, Mr. Dead Head was leaking black fluid from every orifice. The dark sludge was practically pouring from its open face and severed arm before it dropped to its knees and then fell broken face first into the pavement and stopped moving.
I watched as Admiral’s team members looked at one another in turn with huge smiles on their faces. Jet and Arrow seemed to be in some kind of unnatural mental sync with one another. Even though they were on different sides of the street, they both gave me a double thumbs-up while sticking their tounges out like idiots as they made the same crazy face. I knew from experience that being in a unit together bonded soldiers tighter than any civilian could ever understand, but these two guys took it to a whole new level.
I pointed to the fences in front of us. They were the only barrier between us and the dock at the moment. A few revenants were wandering around, but nothing to write home about. I pointed to Admiral, Lynn, and Jimmy, then motioned for them to follow me. I stalked up quietly to the fence, and the three followed close behind me, scanning the area for any threats.
Lynn used her Jain sword to slice through a young male who was missing an eye and a hand, then she quickly dispatched a woman dressed in a tattered cocktail dress. Lynn was absolutely deadly with that blade. I was happy she was on our team.
The lock on the gate was one meant for a key. Thanks to my years of training and preparedness, I happened to have a lock pick set in my vest. I quickly went to work on the lock, and had it open in under forty-five seconds. That was a new record for me.
I lifted the heavy metal chain from the fencing as quietly as possible, opened the gate just wide enough for us to enter, and motioned for the rest of our group who was still hidden behind cars and other debris littering the sidewalk to come inside. They each moved in sync with one another, falling into place to cover one another leapfrogging forward in silence. Then there was Kamil. He tr
ied to follow what the others were doing, but you could tell he wasn’t a trained soldier just by the way he carried himself. He still made it through the gate without making too much noise. Everyone has room for improvement somewhere, right? Kamil had heart, and he was dedicated and loyal. That was all I needed from him to feel safe when he was covering my six. The other stuff I could teach him, being trustworthy and honorable, I could not.
When everyone was inside, I closed the gate and put the chain and lock back in place without closing it all the way. I wanted the fence to be secure, but I also wanted the ability to get the hell out of here in a hurry if we needed to.
Garrison and Kamil were taking the lead here since they were the mechanics, and Garrison said he knew a lot about boats. It was up to the two of them to find a good high vantage point and scope out the docks to see if there were any viable watercraft we could use to get across the Hudson River.
Garrison moved ahead towards a raised platform that overlooked the entire dock with Kamil following closely behind him, turning every so often to make sure there were no threats. The rest of us fanned out at the entrance to the platform to make sure Garrison and Kamil had time to look for boats without worrying about the infected.
Garrison came running back, smiling from ear to ear. At first, I thought he had completely lost his mind, he looked like the Joker with that smile of his. But then he blurted out, “I can’t believe my luck! I found a Bavaria 44. Do you know how long I have wanted one of those sailboats for?”
“Shh!” Admiral and I both said at the same time. “Don’t go and kick a cow turd on a hot day, son. Are you trying to attract every revenant in the shipyard to us?” Admiral muttered quietly to Garrison.
Garrison whispered, “Sorry, sir.” He looked deflated, like a dog that just had its face rubbed in its own shit.
Z-Strain (Book 3): Fallout Page 13