Everyone in the room agreed. Not everyone, but most people liked John Talon, and knew he was loyal to his friends and the people who took his orders. It was just a matter of getting word to him.
“Dismissed.” Alice waited until everyone had left, then followed them outside. The river was loud and muffled the sounds of the camp. Alice shook her head. We should have taken the damned other fork.
Nebraska, West Side of the State
“Mother of God, it’s cold.”
“I know. The zombies practically shatter when you hit them.”
“Useful that.”
“Can you imagine the mess when all this melts?”
“Let’s not be around to see that, hmm?”
“We missed Christmas, you know.”
“I know. We’ll celebrate when they come out to meet us in the spring.”
“Here’s to hoping we’re still here in the spring.”
“Amen, brother.”
We were in Nebraska, slogging through the plains, killing everything we could find. A Norther with a bad attitude had come blowing in two days before, and the resulting chill literally took your breath away. The upside was that every zombie within a hundred miles was practically frozen stiff. I sent the army far and wide to go through every county and town and kill every single one they found. We cleared out hardware stores of hammers and sledges, since our edged weapons weren’t very useful against corpsicles. Bullets worked, but if they couldn’t chase you why would you waste a perfectly good bullet on them?
“What happened to Duncan and Tommy?”
“They went with a group over to the Air Force Base. Apparently there were some military survivors who had holed up there.”
“Alive?”
“Nope. Enillo got in when they let in some civilians, and they were eaten from within.”
“Same shit, different city.”
Charlie walked over to a zombie that was stuck in the middle of a yard. Its eyes followed him as he came closer, and a hand slowly raised in an attempt to grab at him. Charlie brought his axe down quickly, splitting the Z’s head like a melon. Charlie walked around the ghoul and raised his arm as he did so, leveraging his axe out of the dead man’s skull. It was casual but effective.
I admired Charlie’s choice of cold weather weapons since it took a second effort to pull the axe out of their heads. I was a bit lazier, choosing a log splitter. It was a long polymer handled thing, with a triangular hunk of steel on the end, kind of like a wedge of cheese. I had a choice of either an edge or a flat crushing surface. Either worked, and my preferred method was to raise it up and let gravity take over. Like I said, lazy.
We worked our way up the street, staying away from the houses and the businesses. There was another crew that was taking care of that, and they were ahead of us by six streets. The goal was to get through ten streets, end to end. Kill everything you find, and then you’re done for the day. Usually it took only a day to get through a decent sized city. The dead basically just stood there and let us kill them.
Of course, we were freezing our asses off, and I was pretty sure I couldn’t feel my left hand anymore, but we were almost done, anyway.
“Yours,” Charlie said.
I walked over to a group of three zombies that were standing by a lamppost in the middle of one of those turnabouts that most drivers hated. The three watched me approach, and the one on the left actually managed a step in my direction. He must have been very hungry. His skin was grayish blue, and his eyes were freaky, being nearly all black. I mean, there wasn’t any white at all. I was actually fascinated, staring at his eyes while he reached up for me.
“Umm, John? You hypnotized or something?” Charlie asked from the side of the road.
“Oh! Right!” I batted away the zombie’s hand and brought the splitter down on the Z’s skull. The other two slowly turned their heads, and I bashed both of them as well. The far zombie’s head actually cracked into four pieces.
“What were you looking at?” Charlie asked.
“Hm? Oh! The first zombie didn’t have any whites in his eyes. Pretty weird, actually,” I said.
“Really?” Charlie walked over to the dead zombie and looked at its freaky eyes.
He came back a minute later. “That was weird. I think his eyes were bloodshot when he died, and the blood turned black as it spread out.”
“That makes sense,” I said.
“Shall we?” Charlie asked.
“By all means. How many roads do we have left? Two?” I asked.
“Umm, one actually.”
“Nice. Should wrap this up by the end of the morning tomorrow,” I said.
“Cool,” Charlie said as he spotted another zombie. He walked over and slapped it in the forehead with the edge of the axe, knocking it off its feet and planting it in the snow. The zombie was an older woman who still had a couple of curlers in her hair. When Charlie hit her, two of the curlers went flying, and when she hit the ground, a few more flew up.
I was chuckling to myself and didn’t hear the radio I had in my pocket. It took a few times before I realized my chest was calling my name.
I fumbled with my mitten before I could get the radio out of my pocket.
“Talon here.”
“John, is that you?” Duncan was on the other end. Charlie heard the response, and I swear he sprained his eyeballs rolling them so hard.
I opted for sarcasm. It had been that kind of day.
“No, this is Jake, the other Talon,” I said.
“Wait, what?” I actually think I heard Duncan working his head around that one.
“Jesus Christ! It’s John! What do you want?” My hand was starting to freeze a little. If the wind chill was over twenty below I think I would have been surprised.
“Got a little problem. You might want to call in everyone for the day or get them inside somewhere,” Duncan said.
I didn’t argue or ask why. If Duncan thought it was a good idea to get everyone to safety, he had a very good reason to do so. I switched the channel on the radio and made an all call to everyone within range.
“Attention! Attention! Attention! This is John Talon. All teams report to shelter or base. All teams, report to shelter or base until further notice. Talon out.” I switched the channel back to Duncan.
“What’s going on?” I asked. I realized we were about as far as we could be from base, and it was a long walk back to any warmth. My balaclava was starting to ice up, and my goggles were getting foggy.
“We were cleaning up the base, and found there were some kid zombies in here. They ran out of the base and got away through a hole in the fence,” Duncan said.
“Wait a second. You said they ran? How could they have run? Why weren’t they frozen?” I asked.
“When did I become an expert on creepy dead people?” Duncan said. “All I can tell you is what I saw.”
I appreciated Duncan’s sarcasm, so I got down to business. “All right. How many and what direction?”
“Sixteen, and they were headed north to northwest,” Duncan said. “None of us got a shot off since they were too far away for pistol shots.”
“So, essentially they’re headed our way,” I said.
“Sorry. Tommy and I are going to take to their trail as soon as we get our rifles,” Duncan replied.
“Thanks for the heads up,” I said. “Over.”
I looked at Charlie. “You catch any of that?” I asked.
“Not really. Did he say something about rifles and a pistol shot?” Charlie asked.
I filled him in, and he was as surprised as I had been about the little ones.
“Son of a bitch! Does anything slow them down?” Charlie asked rhetorically.
“Just one thing that I know of. But we have a little problem,” I said.
“Yeah, we don’t have any long guns.”
“And supposedly they’re headed this way,” I said.
“What’s the play?” Charlie asked.
“I’m not
much for hiding, and I’d rather sleep in my own bed tonight as opposed to some store or unfamiliar house,” I said.
“Same here,” Charlie said. “Let’s make our way back, and with any luck we will catch up to another group. Safety in numbers and all that.”
I nodded, and we headed south, going over one street and then down. I figured since we were already here we may as well finish the job.
We were three blocks down when I thought I saw something flitting between buildings off to my left. I stood still, thankful I had a line of trees behind me. I whistled softly to Charlie who froze as well. I waited, staring at the spot, and then I saw it again, this time it was a small dark shape that slipped along a wall, trying to stay in the shadows. I moved slowly, slipping off my mitten and putting my hand inside my coat. When the little zombie was about twenty yards away it stopped, sniffing the air. It was a boy, about eight or nine years old, with a crew cut and t-shirt. His eyes were ringed with black which emphasized the white parts. He kept his head to the small breeze, turning it this way and that, moving ever closer to where Charlie and I were.
There was a sound behind the zombie, and he whipped his head around, crouching like an animal at bay. Smelling the wind again, he moved back the way he came.
There was a blur and a crack, and suddenly the boy dropped to the ground, his skull having suddenly sprouted a tomahawk.
I watched as Charlie retrieved his hawk and did a mental calculation around how far he had been from zombie, and I reached a suitably impressive conclusion. That was at least a thirty yard throw, and he hit a target that was about the size of a cantaloupe.
Charlie jogged back, and at the far end of the street about six blocks away there was a cry as six more small zombies ran into view. They spread out to cover the street, and hurried towards us, their little feet churning the snow.
“Wish we had rifles right now,” Charlie said.
“Got a handgun, but that’s good for one if you’re lucky and they hold still long enough,” I said, watching the little horde get closer. They dodged around cars and trees, keeping us in sight as they got closer and closer.
“We going to run?” Charlie asked.
“Nope,” I answered. “Don’t feel like wasting my breath when it’s this cold. “
“Let’s restrict their access at least,” Charlie said.
“Yeah, that’d be good. I like that box truck over there,” I said, pointing to a roofing company truck parked in a driveway.
“Perfect.” Charlie and I ran over to the truck and pulled on the back handle. The door was stuck fast and padlocked to boot.
“Not so perfect,” Charlie said. “Another idea?”
“I like that porch over there,” I said. It was on an older house that had a long porch covering the front. The porch had large brick arches going from one end to the other, and the owner thoughtfully had put wrought iron decorations that blocked the porch off. I thought it was a little ironic that the gate to the porch had a small sign n it that said ‘Welcome.’
Charlie and I raced across the street just as the six little zombies rounded the corner. It was a race to see who would reach their objective first. Charlie flew across the yard and plowed into the gate, halting for a second to wrench the handle down and burst inside. I was right behind him and slid across the porch to crash into the front door. Charlie slammed the gate shut just as two of the little zombies slammed into it. They bounced off and then slammed into it again, reaching through the gaps in the iron. I took the log splitter and hammered the little girl on the left, trying to ignore the fact that she had large brown eyes like my son Jake’s. Charlie cracked the skull of the other one, and we waited for the rest to arrive.
It didn’t take long. The remaining four saw us and launched themselves at the gates. I had a small moment of panic when the gates on the far end didn’t look like they were going to hold, but I only needed them to hold for a short amount of time, anyway.
I swung the splitter down, crushing one skull, then another. Charlie brought his axes out to play, and he had killed two of them without it being ridiculous.
A fifth one came out of nowhere, jumping at the bars and being repelled. She scrambled up, trying to squeeze through the bars, and Charlie killed her for good the next time she came within reach.
We sat back and caught our breaths, exhaling mists of vapor into the chill air.
“Do you think the Upheaval would have been different if the zombie kids weren’t so fast and dangerous?” Charlie asked. “I mean if they moved as slow as the rest?”
“Good question. Probably not as bad,” I said. “Parents could more easily control the ones that were slow moving, and we could have gotten a handle on it sooner.”
“We killed eight total here.” Charlie counted. “How many did Duncan say were loose?”
“Sixteen, so we’ve accounted for half,” I said. “Want to keep moving?” I asked.
Charlie shrugged. “This is a nice little setup, but we can’t stay here forever.”
We stepped back out into the streets, trying to see where the rest of the kids were. The sun was nearly directly overhead, and everything was bright. Even the sky was a brighter shade of blue, although that just made it look colder, if that was possible.
I walked ahead, with Charlie about five yards behind me. We stayed in the middle of the street, not wanting to be near any corners that might have surprises for us. I carried my log splitter on my shoulder while scanning from side to side. I had no idea where an attack might come from, but we had to keep moving. It was a risk to be out in the open like this, but I didn’t like just sitting around waiting for something to happen. If they were out there, they needed to be killed, plain and simple.
We walked three blocks without incident, and I was beginning to think we might have gotten ahead of the remaining ones. Charlie seemed to think so to since he walked with a little more noise than he had before.
That was when we heard it. It was a sound you never forgot, if you managed to live after hearing it for the first time. Little wheezing breaths close together. The sound carried over the chill air, adding to the chill I already felt in my skin.
They were out there, they knew where we were, and they were coming for us.
“Where do you want to be?” Charlie asked.
I looked around. “I’m good here.” Cars to the front and back, can’t attack that way.
“All right. You want to do the honors, or should I? Charlie asked.
“Go for it.”
Charlie took his axe and started tapping on the side of a car. The noise was irritating and loud enough to keep the attention of any zombie in the area. He tapped for about two minutes, then I took over. I lay the flat part of my splitter into a car roof and just tapped it back and forth. I was able to get more rhythm out of my instrument than Charlie, a fact that was not lost on him.
“Nice. Do you take requests?”
“Crab.”
“Frozen crab.”
“That, too,” I said.
They came for us from the side, two girls and a boy. They were dressed for summer, which made the situation even weirder. They broke cover from in between two houses, and they were a hell of a lot closer than I originally thought they were.
The boy came at me, and I swung the splitter at his head. The heavy bit took him above the eye and put him down without a whisper. I pulled my pickaxe to face any other threats when Charlie bellowed.
“John!”
I spun around and saw Charlie wrestling with one of the girls while the other was clawing at his back, trying to bite him and climb him at the same time.
“Shit!” I grabbed the girl by the arm she was using to climb Charlie, and her head whipped around. When she saw me she lunged for my face, but I got an elbow in her neck and kept that from happening. I lifted her up and threw her away, denting a small car fender with her body.
It didn’t even slow her down. She popped up and lunged again, coming in low and fast. I kicked her in t
he face and flipped her backwards, spilling her onto her back in the snow. I wasn’t going to waste time so I stepped in with my pick and planted the spike into her forehead. I tried to wrench it out, but it stuck, so I bent over to rip it out.
Just as I did, I felt something pass over my back and crash into the car next to me. A zombie boy scrambled to his feet and jumped at me. I grabbed him by the waist and stood up, bringing the Z over my head and slamming him to the hard ground on his. There was nasty crack and the boy’s kicking legs were still. I pulled my pick and looked around, not seeing any other threats.
I turned to Charlie. “You okay?”
Charlie shook his head. “That was too damn close. If you hadn’t been here, they’d have gotten me for sure.”
“How’d they get to you?” I was a bit concerned at how rattled Charlie was.
“Came at me at the same time, and the older one actually ducked when I swung at her. Before I could get a backswing in, she was on me. The other one took advantage and jumped on me. I was trying to shrug one off while keeping the other one away. If I could have gotten one to the ground I would have held her there with my boot while I killed the other one,” Charlie said. He held out a hand. “Thanks, man.”
I shook it. “Hell, we stopped keeping score a long time ago. Gonna have to ask God when we see him.”
Charlie grinned. “Well, let’s hope you’re not too disappointed in heaven.”
“Won’t be me that’s disappointed, brother.”
“Dream on. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
We kept our march through the city, keeping an eye out for anything that was low, fast, and deadly. I tried to keep the mood light, but I was worried about Charlie. He was shaken, and that didn’t happen to Charlie James. I’ll need to keep an eye on him. It would kill me to have to send him back, but if he gets too careful out here, someone is going to get killed.
Halfway through the city, Duncan and Tommy pulled up in a truck. I was extremely grateful for the ride, especially in a warm vehicle. I think I left my feet back in the city since I couldn’t feel them anymore. Charlie and I just slumped in the back seat as Tommy drove us to the camp.
White Flag Of The Dead (Book 8): The Zombie Wars (The Enemy Within) Page 12