by Ben S Reeder
“He was already a zombie. No pulse doesn’t mean-” I got out before Deacon’s hand shot up and grabbed the orderly by the neck. The guy’s scream ended in a wet gurgle as his throat was ripped out. The second orderly jumped back long enough to buy himself one more second of life before Deacon’s teeth were on his neck as well. Blood sprayed across my cell as Deacon let his second victim fall to the floor with a gurgling sound. He ignored the other two guys to grab the doctor by the throat and squeeze hard. An ugly, wet crunching sound filled the arena before he let her go and turned to face the remaining four men. She staggered back with her hands to her throat and her mouth gaping, trying to draw a breath that wouldn’t come.
I clenched my teeth and turned away from the slaughter going on in the next cage. I had priorities of my own. Surviving was big on that list. It took an effort of will to ignore the screams as I stood up and pulled my arms over the top of the chair back, but I managed it. Once I was upright, I bent at the waist and pulled my arms back away from my butt as far as I could and clenched my fists, then brought my hands back down against my butt as I pulled my elbows out, away from each other. A line of fire wrapped itself around the outside of my wrists, but I brought my hands back again. This time, I remembered to turn my wrists at the same time as my hands hit my back and I tried to chicken-wing my arms. All of the force of the blow centered on the hasp of the zip-tie, the single weakest point on the whole device, and it popped free, releasing my arms. I turned back to the carnage in the cell next to mine.
One of the guards was crumpled against the bars of my cage, his head twisted around so that he was looking over his shoulders at me. The other was on his knees in front of Deacon, who had his hands on either side of the man’s skull. With a barely visible effort, Deacon brought his hands together, and the man’s skull deformed. I was never so glad to be looking at a man’s back as I was just then. Deacon looked at me and gave a bloody smile, then he turned back to face the doctor, who was wide eyed and gurgling on her bottom, leaning up against the far wall of his cage. He walked to her with a deliberate care, his head tilted to one side as he squatted down to watch her choke to death. With his attention on her, I went to the first guard and pulled his body around so that his belt was closer to me and grabbed the keys from his belt, then grabbed his pistol from the shoulder holster under his left arm.
“You know how you can tell if they’re dead?” Deacon asked as I looked the gun over. My head came up, but he was still watching the doctor. I palmed the keys and got to my feet.
“They stop moving?” I asked as I moved away from the bars.
“No. Shot a guy in the head once. He kept kicking for a few minutes, but that’s the thing with a head shot. You know they’re dead right like that. First thing he did was piss himself. See, her eyes are all glassy, but…ah, there it is. She’s gone.” He stood with a satisfied look on his face and walked over to the wall of iron bars that stood between us.
“So, now what?” I asked him. He reached down and pulled the dead guard’s body away from the bars before he answered.
“Now I walk out of here like a free man and you die in a cage. Kinda fitting, don’t you think?” He walked to the body of the other guard and started undressing him.
“Not really,” I said. He ignored me as he pulled the guard’s clothes on, then stood with his hat in one gray hand.
“You’re going to listen to the people around you dying, and you’re going to know that your turn will come soon. And I’m going to come back in here to watch you panic as my zombies surround your cage and tear it apart. I wonder…are you the kind of guy who thinks he can take on a thousand zombies with a single magazine and survive, or will you save the last bullet for yourself? For that one, last act of cowardice.”
“I’m full of surprises,” I said, and instantly damned my big mouth. He looked at me, and again, he tilted his head to one side, giving me a calculating look.
“You’re right,” he said and turned to walk toward the open door of his cell. He walked to the door of mine and a slow smile spread across his desiccated features. “I should just kill you now.” He pulled a set of keys from his belt, sorted through them until he found the right one and inserted it into the lock. I bolted for the door, and he grabbed me by the hair. Instantly, I planted the barrel of my pistol in the crook of his elbow and pulled the trigger twice. The room seemed to explode as the report hammered my eardrums, but he pulled his mangled arm back. Dried lips peeled back from bloody teeth, and he backed up a step. All I could do was throw my shoulder into the door when he did the same from the other side. The door gave a few inches, but I pushed it shut. Undaunted, he stepped back again, his mouth moving. When he launched himself forward again, I stepped to the side, and he met no resistance when he hit the door. His momentum carried him halfway across the cell and he tripped over the chair I’d been sitting in. The door swung open behind him, hit the wall of the cage and rebounded back. I grabbed it, stepped outside, swung it the rest of the way closed and turned the key until the bolt clicked home, then pulled it half way out and snapped it off.
“Told you I was full of surprises,” I said from a few steps away from the door. Even through the ringing in my ears, I heard his screams. It was my turn to go to a dead guard and get dressed. In my case, however, I grabbed his black t-shirt but left the blouse, and put the tactical vest on. I also picked up the man’s assault rifle. It looked a lot like an M16, and the receiver group matched exactly, but it didn’t have the carrying handle over the receiver. The telescoping buttstock looked different too, and it had Picatinny rails all the way around the barrel. It had the H&K brand on the left side of the magazine well, and I guessed it was one of the H&K Mk 416s Nate had spoken highly of. Once I was dressed, I had my choice of handguns. The guard Deacon had stripped carried a Colt Python on his hip, while the one I’d stripped had carried a SIG with the Blackwater logo on it. When I checked the magazines, I counted twenty rounds, which meant the SIG won hands down.
“I’m going to kill you!” Deacon screeched as I pulled the magazines for the rifle from the other man’s tactical vest and stuffed them into my cargo pockets. My hearing was starting to return, but I wasn’t going to be writing any music reviews for a few days. “I’ll eat your heart, I’ll rip your balls off and shove them down your throat!” The sounds of gunfire were now punctuated by the sounds of men screaming. I stood and put the earpiece from the vest’s radio in my ear, then picked up the Python from the gurney.
“Do you hear me?” Deacon screamed.
“I hear you,” I told him as I walked to the door. “I just don’t care.”
“I’m your new god, you stupid little fuck! This is my world now, and you’re just a walking piece of meat! I am gonna rule the fucking world!” He stood at the bars and raved at me, and if he’d been alive, I imagined spit would have been frothing on his lips. I stopped at the corner of the cage and turned to face the abomination that had once been a man, then brought the revolver up and shot him through the kneecap. He howled in pain as he collapsed onto the floor, then started laughing again.
“You can’t kill me with that,” he said gleefully.
“Not trying to,” I said flatly as I shifted my aim. I turned the other knee into paste and raised the barrel to his hips. The gun roared twice, and his pelvis was a bloody ruin. The fifth shot went through the ball socket of his left shoulder. “I figure you’re going to live no matter what I do. I can’t kill you, but I can damn sure fuck you up hard. But that…that isn’t the worst thing. See, for all your power, you’re no match for a good man with a little knowledge. You have to live … or whatever…with knowing that.” I grabbed my cell phone and my sweatshirt off the table then turned and walked toward the door, one ear on the radio chatter, and less than half my attention on Deacon.
“I’ll have the last laugh, mother fu-” he got out before I turned and put the last round in the Python round through his face.
“Not today.”
Chapter 10
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br /> A Good Man…
It is the task of a good man to help those in misfortune
~ Sophocles ~
There were steam tunnels running under the southern half of the MSU campus. One came up near the locker rooms in McDonald Arena, in a utility room. When I’d worked campus security two years before, we used them during the winter to check various buildings or get around campus without being seen. Right now, they were my route to freedom and survival. Outside, I could hear gunfire as a near constant white noise. I turned the volume up on the radio as I headed down the hallway toward the locker rooms.
“No!” Keyes voice came over the radio. In the background, I could hear the sound of a helicopter’s rotors. “They’re not important, don’t wait for them. We have Mr. Sikes on board, that’s all that matters. Get this thing in the air!” I pulled the radio out of its pocket and thumbed the preselect to the next frequency, and all I got was the sound of grunting and chewing. So much for that position. The next one was pure static, but the next few were full of chatter.
“We’re being overrun here!”
“…need more ammo! The fifty’s run dry and we’re down to sidearms!”
“Roger, Drifter, we are airborne now, heading to staging area one to extract the big dog.”
“Negative, Ranger Six, staging area one is a no go, repeat, area one is no go!” I stopped in my tracks as Adams voice came over the line. Sporadic pops filtered in from the background. The heavy iron hatch was in front of me, literally under my feet. Escape was all but a given, all I had to do was keep going. Instead, I stopped the scan and listened.
“Karma One, can you make point bravo?” I heard the voice of Ranger Six ask. I pulled the hatch open and slid down into the cramped concrete tunnel. All I had to do was go north, and I’d slip out beneath the feet of the zombie horde. The radio signal went staticy as I crouched there and listened.
“Negative, Ranger, negative. Command post is secure, but we have no exit. The stadium is overrun, and they’re starting to swarm the field.” Adams’ voice was resigned, sounding like a man who knew he was not going to live much longer. I looked north, toward freedom, then south and recalled the last part of the Airman’s Creed. I will never leave an Airman behind, I will never falter and I will not fail. I cursed, then thumbed the transmit button on the radio.
“Karma One, this is…uh, Tertiary. Do you read me?” I said into the mike.
“Who the hell is this?” Ranger Six demanded. “Clear this channel!” A few seconds passed, then Adams voice came back on the line.
“Tertiary, what is the status of Primary?” he asked.
“He’s busy chewing on some lead. Karma, what is your position? Are you in the press box on top of the home team bleachers?”
“Affirmative Tertiary. Recommend you evac any way you can.”
“Can’t do that, Captain. Can you make it down into the lower levels? I can get you out.” More silence, then his voice came over the radio again.
“Yeah, Tertiary. What is our rendezvous point?”
“When you see me, aim for where I am.”
“Roger that. We’ll be waiting.” I didn’t bother to sign off, I just pulled the trap door shut above me and took off south, heading deeper into the shit and cursing myself for an idiot all the way. I hustled as fast as I could in the pipe-lined tunnels, but it was still pretty slow going. In a couple of places, I had to duck under crossing pipes and conduits. By the time I came to the first turn I was dripping sweat. I passed the east facing tunnel and kept going straight until it ended in a T, then turned west, to my right. By now, I was under the fifty yard line, probably right beneath the big maroon bear in the middle of the field. Another two hundred feet further on, I found myself at the little cutout that led up into the lower levels of Plaster Stadium. The tunnel led back north from here, angling toward Temple Hall, the science building.
I stopped there, and took a moment to get my game face on. From here, things were going to get hairy. As soon as I came up out of the tunnels, I was a target for any ghoul or zombie out there. For a moment, I felt myself balance at the edge of full blown panic as I got the full impact of what I was about to do. I wasn’t a soldier, I was just a guy with a gun. Granted, it was a fancy gun, but that didn’t make me special or invulnerable.
“Fear is what makes you smart,” I told myself quietly. “Only a dead hero isn’t afraid.” I was just a guy, but I was a guy with a plan, and that put me two steps ahead of most people today. I slung the assault rifle and climbed the ladder up to the trap door, then shoved it up and open before I could think too much about what the hell I was about to do.
The trap door came up in another utility room filled with the usual assortment of pipes and supplies, among them a roll of the universal repair kit known as duct tape. The door unlocked from the inside, and a little duct tape over the latch kept it from catching behind me. It also conveniently marked the door for me for later. I pulled the door flush and made my way toward the stands, coming out of the concrete breezeway right on the fifty yard line. I could see a mix of zombies shuffling around and ghouls running back and forth across the limited field the breezeway offered. Once I could see the field, I unslung the bulky H&K and belly crawled until I could see sky. Above me, I could see the stadium lights glaring against the night sky. The sound of helicopter rotors and gunfire was now punctuated by near constant screams of dying men and the hungry moan of the zombies. I made my way to the low wall that separated the stands from the red surface of the running track that circled the field, then turned over so I could see the press box. There was vague movement behind the glass, so I keyed the mic on my radio.
“Karma One, this is Tertiary, do you copy?” I said softly.
“Roger, Tertiary,” Adams voice came through, this time much clearer.
“Look down at the field. Do you see me?” I said, then waved my right hand.
“Roger that. We see you. We’re ready at the door.” I could hear the grin in his voice.
“When it goes dark, get yourself down to the field. I’ll meet you there.” With that, I turned around and crawled back into the lower level. One of the other duties we had when I worked security was letting the faculty into the stadium early in the mornings to turn off the lights just before daybreak. I’d only had to do it a few times in the six months that I’d worked there, but I remembered where the fuse boxes were. Less than a minute later, I was facing the panel, and wondering which ones did what. Without enough time to figure the whole thing out, I pulled the flashlight from my newly liberated tactical vest and turned the knob to the red LED light before switching it on. Then, I reached for the four large circuit breakers labeled “Main” and started flipping them to the off position. The lights went out inside and outside, and I found myself plunged into darkness for a few seconds until the emergency lights came on.
“Drifter, this is Ranger Six, we have Karma on thermal,” I heard over the radio. “Hostiles moving their way. We have a shot, request clearance to engage.”
“Ranger, you have a go to engage at will. I say again, engage, engage.”
“Roger that, Drifter. Lighting zak up. Karma, keep your heads down. Engaging tangoes with door guns.” I made it to the stands in time to see tracers arcing toward the stadium from the darkness in a steady stream. On the heels of the first rounds came the ripping sound of a minigun and the deceptive tapping of bullets hitting concrete and aluminum. Interspersed with that were the slapping sounds of lead making violent contact with flesh. Then there was only the distant sound of gunfire again.
“Hostiles down,” Ranger Six said a few seconds later. I waited in the darkness with my light covered until I heard the soft shuffle of feet, then the thump of someone dropping onto the steps above me. Two more thumps came, then I heard the clanging of someone hitting the aluminum benches.
“Karma, we count six hostiles moving your way from the southeast,” Ranger’s voice came over the radio. I popped my head up and saw a group of figures running
toward us across the field. Without the stadium lights, I was guessing that they were heading for the sound instead of anything they’d seen. It was enough, though. The assault rifle came up to my shoulder and I squeezed off a burst, knocking one of the dark figures down and staggering another. I adjusted my aim and fired a longer burst, and saw the flash image of a blond girl in a purple shirt and jeans take three rounds to the chest and the darker skinned guy with short dreadlocks in a button down shirt and slacks behind her drop. Another figure also dropped, but I didn’t see any details. I felt a pang of guilt at shooting them, mostly because both looked like they weren’t old enough to drink. It didn’t stop me from emptying the magazine into the rest of the group and putting another two of them down. Fighting the urge to draw my pistol, I grabbed a new mag, hit the magazine release and slid the new one home. The urge to bring the gun back up and pull the trigger was strong as I heard feet slapping against the track, but I remembered to pull the charging handle back and release it before I did. When I brought the gun up, the muzzle flash showed me an older woman in a business suit jerking as I emptied half the new mag into her. Movement to my right caught my eye, and I saw a group of ghouls racing across the field. I tried to keep my burst short, but the gun clicked empty after three pulls of the trigger. The rational part of my brain knew I didn’t have the trigger discipline to go full auto, and that I was going through ammo too quickly. Again, I changed the magazine as fast as I could, then took the extra second to switch the selector to three round bursts after I primed a round. The optical sight lined up on the lead ghoul, a huge guy silhouetted in the light of the buildings behind him, and I pulled the trigger. He tumbled and I moved to the next target, then the next, pulling the trigger only when I had a target. More gunfire came from above and behind me and my target rich environment thinned a little more. I dropped a ghoul on the left of the advancing wave of undead, then the firing pin fell on an empty chamber.