Crawlerz | Book 2 | Batten Down The Hatches

by Merritt, R. S.

  “Ok. We have a few minutes to catch our breaths. Once we’re ready they’ll open the door over at the barracks and shoot off a few rounds. We’re hoping that’ll get the surgers to run up that way long enough for us to pull in the one we just tagged. Any questions?” Zimmerman asked. Drew shrugged. He knew there had to be issues with that plan but was preoccupied wondering if Blaze was going to have a heart attack. Blaze wasn’t exactly out of shape, but he wasn’t in wearing SWAT gear to outrun a swarm of uber zombies shape either.

  “Maybe you should sit this next round out.” Drew offered. He was already looking around for Zimmerman to tell him they needed to pull someone else in.

  “Maybe you should shut up.” Blaze wheezed.

  “No, he’s right. We’ve got some other people we can swap you out with. There’s no reason for you to go out there a second time. You cover the door and get ready to help secure the tango when we drag it in.” Zimmerman ordered. He’d appeared out of nowhere to see how Blaze was doing.

  “Whatever.” Blaze wheezed back defiantly. His bravado completely undermined by the fact that he was still trying to catch his breath. Drew wanted to ask Blaze if his left arm was numb and offer him a baby aspirin. Rather than embarrass the cardio challenged gypsy king anymore Drew got to his feet and followed Zimmerman back over to the door.

  “Ready when you are.” Drew announced. He’d already replenished his ammunition. In addition to the rubber bullets he had a few magazines of the real stuff shoved in his pockets. If they started getting overwhelmed, he wasn’t planning on dying while shooting rubber bullets like an idiot.

  “Cool deal. I’ll let them know to fire off a few rounds. Once they let us know it’s working, we’ll get out there and grab the one we tagged. You grab a leg and I’ll grab a leg. The rest of the team will cover us while we drag it inside. Once we get it inside, we’ll have the people in here bag it. Make sense?” Zimmerman asked seriously. This was life or death stuff where the slightest screwup could have deadly consequences. Drew nodded his understanding and stepped back out of the way to wait for the signal.

  He didn’t have to wait long. A few minutes later Zimmerman was motioning for him to stack up on the door. Drew was pulled up in the front of the line behind Zimmerman this time. If the diversion had worked there shouldn’t be any surgers outside. The comm room people from the barracks building had verified that for them already on the CCTV. Drew took a deep breath as Zimmerman scanned his badge to unlock the door a second time. Way too soon after their last interrupted outing Drew found himself running towards the comatose body on the ground.

  The men on the team spread out in a wedge behind them. If they saw any surgers they’d gauge on the fly whether it made sense to capture or kill them. The goal was to get a couple more in case they accidentally killed them trying to capture them. No one was looking forward to the next phase of this job which was going to involve capturing a couple of crawlerz. They hadn’t decided if they should try and dig them out of the bushes or wait for night yet. The smart money was on digging them out of the bushes. Leaving the safety of their shelter at night was suicide.

  Drew hustled over as fast as he could move in the thick body armor and squatted down next to the comatose surger. Once Zimmerman had waddled over to join him, they each grabbed a hairy leg and ran backwards for the door. They were halfway to the door when the first shots were fired. Their little expedition had not gone unnoticed. A handful of surgers were running towards them from across the field. Another couple had emerged out of the woods. The SEALs walked backwards slowly shooting rubber bullets at the approaching targets. If they managed to put all six of the surgers on the ground it’d be a good chance to grab the rest of the specimens that they needed. They could finish off the leftovers with some mercy shots to the head.

  Drew ran backwards right into the wall. That was his cue to get out of the way and let Zimmerman drag the body the rest of the way through the open door. Drew followed along while the SEALs left outside tried to see if they could knock out the specimen collection early. As soon as Zimmerman had the body about ten feet into the warehouse Blaze and a couple of others pounced on it. They wrapped it up with a long chain, tie wraps and handcuffs until it looked like a metallic mummy.

  One of the more depressingly realistic supplies they’d located on the shelves had been a stack of large boxes filled with thousands of body bags. They’d removed twenty of the bags to help hold the infected they were rounding up. They were planning on double or triple bagging them once secured. Blaze and Drew were currently trying to get the first surger into a bag while Zimmerman and a couple of the Marines went to see if the SEALs outside needed any help.

  “Wait a second.” Blaze said dropping the head of the surger onto the floor. Drew stood there breathing hard wondering what the hell Blaze was doing. He watched curiously as Blaze put his hand on the surger’s neck and moved his fingers around.

  “What’s up?” Drew asked. He had a sinking feeling he knew the answer already.

  “I think we killed this one. Maybe too much of the Rohypnol?” Blaze said with a shrug.

  “Could’ve been the rubber bullets fired on full auto right into his eyeballs.” Drew said sliding around for a better look.

  “Ok well help me get all this crap off this one so we can use it on the next one. Hopefully they don’t kill the next one.” Blaze said starting to unlock the cuffs they had around the surgers wrists and ankles. Looking towards the front door Drew saw the team pulling in a few more of the knocked-out Dawn of the Dead cast. He was relieved when Zimmerman gave the all clear and they locked the front door. A minute later something outside was banging on the wall again trying to get in.

  Drew and Blaze grabbed the cuffs and the long length of chain to help with the live ones laid out by the front door. Blaze checked a few of them. None of them seemed to have a pulse. Seeing what he was doing Zimmerman checked as well and couldn’t find one.

  “Did we kill them all?” Zimmerman asked frustrated.

  “We just need to throw a massive rave and hand out lots of ‘X’. World will be ours again by morning.” One of the SEALs said in frustration.

  “Now what?” Blaze asked tiredly. He knew better than to think the rugged manly men around him were even considering giving up. Blaze personally was ready to crawl into one of the body bags himself and take a nice long nap. Based on the one movie he’d seen about the SEALs though he knew taking a nap right now would be tantamount to ringing the ‘I quit’ bell during SEAL training. If Demi Moore could get through all of that garbage, then he could put off taking a nap for another hour. Not thinking much of it he yawned really big. He looked up to find everyone staring at him.

  “I’m sorry. Is our life or death operation to try and save the world boring you?” One of the SEALs asked disdainfully. None of the military men seemed to have taken much of a liking to the obviously hippie leanings of Blaze. Blaze was a smart man. He normally didn’t make a lot of verbal mistakes. This time due to the stress and his tiredness he let words tumble out of his mouth without any sort of filter.

  “Nah. Your mom just kept me up way too long last night.” The words were followed by dead silence. Blaze realized too late that most likely the SEAL who’d uttered the words in response to his yawn had lost his parents in all this mess. The overgrown camouflaged trained killer of men was in Blaze’s face in three quick strides. Wondering how bad it was going to hurt when the big man hit him Blaze forced a grin and stood his ground.

  Drew slid over closer to jump in if Blaze needed help. The overly muscular SEAL got right in Blaze’s face. Drew looked around but it didn’t look like Zimmerman or anyone else was interested in stopping the pounding Blaze was about to get. Blaze stood his ground. The big SEALs face suddenly split into a crooked smile. He swung his hand to slap Blaze on the shoulder a few times.

  “I think I may like this hippie piece of trash.” Blaze smiled back at him and everyone let out a collective breath. Drew was just hoping Blaze wouldn’t
say anything else stupid like that.

  “Your mom sure does.” Blaze pushed his luck as far as he could. The SEAL howled with laughter. It broke up the tension in the room completely. Right up until Lieutenant Murdock barked at them all to get a grip. Reminding them they still had a mission he waved Zimmerman and his own senior NCO over to discuss strategy with the men up in the barracks.

  “What should we do with the bodies?” Drew asked the group of men standing around. They all looked at him then at the bodies then back again. Finally, one of them sighed and said they should work on moving them over by the door so they could sling them out the next time they went out. They worked together to get the bodies stacked up like a pile of fleshy firewood then they all wandered off to rest. They knew it wouldn’t be long before they’d be ordered out that door again.

  Chapter 10: Double Tap

  It turned out the infected recovered quickly from large doses of Rohypnol. While recovering their heart rates became almost imperceptible. This was one of the reasons the crawlerz had such long lifespans. The disease opened up the parts of the mind that regulated the body’s nonessential systems, that allowed them to focus their energy on the healing process. In the case of having a foreign toxin injected into them their bodies immediately went to work on burning that off enough for them to return quickly to their normal psychotic murdering state of mind.

  The men in the warehouse lined up by the pile of bodies to get ready to go back out into the field. They needed to clear out the majority of the dozen or so surgers outside while hopefully capturing a couple of them. Zimmerman would be leading them out again. Lieutenant Murdock was working the radio to coordinate when the guards in the barracks should shoot off a couple of distraction rounds. They wanted the surgers running in the other direction when they came out the door to take them down. Rather than administering the Rohypnol they were going to just knock the surgers out and secure them in the dirt before dragging them back in.

  While the SEALs and a handful of the Marines were getting in some target practice on the infected Lieutenant Murdock wanted to get the corpses of the Rohypnol poisoned zombies thrown out. Once everything else was done they’d burn the bodies to keep them from contaminating anything else. Zimmerman and his crew went out the door along with Drew. Blaze and the remaining circus macabre crew joined the lieutenant to quickly cart out the supposed corpses. Blaze and one of his guys were halfway to the front door when the surger they were holding went from dead weight to kicking and screaming.

  They dropped it and ran. The surger popped up off the ground and flung itself on the man who’d been carrying it by the feet with Blaze. The man hadn’t been issued riot gear since he wasn’t expected to be leaving the floor of the hangar. He had no protection from the teeth ripping into his back. Murdock got his pistol out in time to kill the surger while it was still munching on the screaming victims back. The man rolled over clutching his bloody shoulder and begging not to be shot. Murdock shot him.

  Seconds later Murdock was on the ground as the pile of bodies by the door exploded to life. A spitting screaming red eyed mass of hellish insanity spreading faster than seemed possible. The demons ripped into the unarmored and armored in the hangar alike. Murdock killed the surger who’d taken him down and reached up to gingerly rub the side of his own head. The side now missing an ear and a big flap of scalp. He pointed his pistol at the back of the head of a surger eating a man on the floor and pulled the trigger twice. Once to kill the surger and once to make sure the surger’s victim was dead. Then he ate his own gun and fell to the ground. A final act to protect the depot he’d been charged with defending.

  Blaze ran full speed out the door into the middle of another fiasco. Fresh off the success of having put down six surgers earlier the team thought they could easily handle the dozen outside. That dozen had come fast and hard taking out two of the SEALs in the first wave. The surgers were absorbing the rubber bullets and still coming. The sound of weapons going fully automatic came from every direction as desperate men flipped the switch. Blaze craned his neck and saw Drew sitting on a downed surger’s back working a pair of handcuffs onto it. The surger suddenly regained consciousness and began bucking like a wild bronco. Drew went flying onto his back with the surger spinning around on its stomach to come after him. It was slithering like a deranged serpent with its hands and feet cuffed together.

  Blaze ran over and shot it in the head. He was way past rubber bullets and trying to take demons prisoner. This insanity needed to stop now.

  “The pile of infected inside came back to life! They’re attacking everyone inside!” Blaze yelled over the sound of nearby gunfire. A thoroughly rattled Drew was staring at him trying to understand what Blaze was attempting to tell him.

  “Who’s dead?” He asked.

  Before Blaze could answer Zimmerman passed by them yelling for everyone to fall back. One of the SEALs was trying to pull a buddy off the field. The man had sustained a dozen bite wounds from the three infected who’d managed to walk right through the automatic weapons fire thrown at them. Tackling these things with rubber bullets was like bringing a knife to a gunfight. A dull knife.

  “The infected are in the base!” Blaze yelled at Zimmerman’s back. Zimmerman looked over his shoulder then sped up to get back in the hangar and see what Blaze was talking about. A Marine came running out of the door as Zimmerman approached. The man was running fast. Zimmerman sidestepped not realizing until too late the Marine had been infected. He went down shooting with the Marine riding him like a spider monkey having an affair with a football. Another couple of newly infected came out the door. The newcomers scrambled to the ground to get their teeth into a struggling Zimmerman.

  Screaming at the top of his lungs Blaze charged the pile of cannibalistic pigs rooting around in the entrails of their former leader. Drew dropped the magazine of rubber bullets out of his rifle onto the ground and slammed in the real deal. They’d gone from trying to gather specimens to trying not to die. Men were dying all around them. The SEAL who’d been pulling his battle buddy off the field suddenly screamed when his former friend bit down hard on his thumb and started chewing.

  Drew emptied his magazine and slammed in another one. Blaze had picked up a rifle off one of the KIA and was shooting sparingly since he didn’t have extra ammunition on him. Surgers were storming out of the warehouse door and running for the pockets of men still on their feet. For no apparent reason the bulk of the surgers ran for a group of three SEALs who were spread out in a triangle facing outwards trying to put down all the infected coming for them from the other side of the field. Drew was wondering if he should help them when Blaze yanked him towards the open warehouse door.

  “If we don’t get in there and seal the place up it’s going to be a total loss!” Blaze yelled. He saw where Drew was looking. “They’re big boys they can take care of themselves. Plenty of bad guys for us to kill in the warehouse!”

  Feeling like he might be doing the wrong thing Drew followed Blaze as they snaked their way past mortally wounded surgers who were still lurching towards them. They leapt through the front door into the warehouse where multiple surgers were running around. Drew didn’t see anyone still uninfected in the huge space. He started shooting. A second later he was joined by Blaze. Blaze had found another rifle on the ground with a mostly full magazine. A third rifle joined them when one of the Marines emerged from the office behind them.

  The Marine should’ve stayed hidden. Less than five seconds after stepping out of the closet a surger came into the warehouse from the open door to the outside looking for the source of all the noise. It spotted the Marine and took him out before the Marine ever even saw the danger. Spinning around at the sound of screaming Blaze mowed down the surger and the Marine. Drew ran to the door leading outside and slammed it shut. He’d been worried about not having a badge to scan to lock it, but it snapped locked by itself once closed.

  “Were they all dead out there?” Drew asked scanning the room for more
tangos to take out. It appeared the rest of them had already run outside.

  “No clue. If they kill all the infected out there, then they can knock politely, and we’ll let them in.” Blaze answered in between attempts to catch his breath. He raised his hand when Drew walked towards the door intending to exit and see if anyone needed any help.

  “Out of my way. I’m going back out there. They may need help.” Drew said. He was trying hard to do the right thing. Even if opening that door to hell again sounded like the worst idea ever. Nothing good was on the other side of that doorframe. There was nothing out there but death. Of course, the inside of the hangar looked like someone had dropped the contents of a morgue into a gigantic blender then dumped the resulting chunky mess all over the floor.

  They were relatively safe inside the fortified hangar. If it’d been nighttime, then Drew would’ve been more concerned. With the possibility of the craftier crawlerz having snuck into the warehouse they’d have been forced to do a much more thorough search. To the best of his knowledge the day walking surgers weren’t the sneaky ambushing types. With the surgers what you saw was what you got. A super-fast adrenalized killing machine that’d come screaming straight at you with its mouth wide open. Drew would take that every time over the way the crawlerz were able to restrain themselves and stalk you. He’d take that every day and twice on Sundays.