by Mark Rivett
Dr. Damico lay on her stomach, her outstretched hand reaching desperately toward him. “Come on!”
He heaved himself upward against the broken glass with all his might. Blood from his cuts ran down the side of the wall in thin streams. The sheet tore loose, and he felt the undead pulling at him through the window. He kicked away, resolved to take his chances with the fall, when something caught his wrist.
“I’ve got you!” Kelly hung off the roof at her waist, her face red and furrowed as she struggled against Stenson’s weight.
“Grab her! Pull her!” someone shouted.
Kelly’s face was beet red under the strain of holding a grown man’s weight. “I… can’t…”
Dozens of hands reached through the window after Private Stenson. Pallid faces mashed together like a wall of hungry death. They snarled and snapped after the prey that was slipping from their grasp.
Stenson kicked and scrabbled up the side of the building. A second civilian reached down to grab him, then a third. Within seconds, he had been pulled safely to the roof.
“Damn, you’re heavy!” Kelly huffed and puffed with her hands on her knees.
“Thanks.” Stenson placed his hand on her shoulder. “You saved my ass.”
“Don’t mention it.” Kelly stood up and arched her back, a look of pain on her face.
“Every WD in the building is in that back office,” Stenson mustered.
“Good,” Kelly replied getting to her feet. “We have to go back down there.”
Chapter 16
The mounted guns atop the Humvees poured devastation in 360 degrees. A chorus of nightmarish howls rose to a crescendo, and hundreds of shambling dead surged toward the convoy. Children screamed in terror at the sound of gunfire and rampaging undead. Within seconds, the street was filled with thousands of blood thirsty monsters. Gore exploded around the vehicles as .50 caliber devastation cut through the host in a constant stream of annihilation.
Barely a minute passed before the first voice came over the network. “I’m low…”
“Me too…” another voice answered.
“Close the hatches!” Miguel shouted as the guns went dry. The vehicles plowed forward through the throngs of moaning horrors. The heavy military Humvees rocked violently under the relentless onslaught. They were buried beneath the dead within seconds.
“I’m pushing through,” Carl announced. The military had two protocols for being surrounded by a swarm of endless zombies. They could push through the mass and hope their vehicles endured, or teams could hide inside their impenetrable armored vehicles and wait for rescue. The latter wasn’t an option in this case. Aside from having limited rations among the crew, there were nearly a dozen children in each vehicle that would require food and water as well. They wouldn’t last a day when the California sun turned their vehicles into ovens. There was also the possibility that a rescue mission might not be mounted at all.
Carl pressed on the gas. His four-ton vehicle plowed forward. Ghouls bounced like rag dolls over and around the car. The chorus of moans grew louder as they drove deeper into the heart of the swarm.
“Control, Convoy Nineteen has encountered a STOG. Request air support three miles west of…” Pam shouted into the communications network.
The convoy initially had physics on its side, but Carl could already feel it turning against him. Every cadaver that bounced off the vehicle took a fraction of his momentum away. The powerful engine roared, but the tires began to slip and his speed dropped.
“Richards, push me!” Carl ordered.
“What?” Richards’s voice came over the network confused.
“Push me! Hurry! Before I lose all my momentum!” Carl pressed on the gas but could feel his tires slip. His RPMs were holding precariously in the red.
Carl’s vehicle jerked forward as the Humvee behind him slammed into his rear. The force of the two vehicles together slowed the loss of momentum, and they pressed on.
A gentle buzzing sound rose into a thundering drone above the moans and growls outside. Out of the horde rose a plume of dust and debris. Miguel looked out the window past the faces leering back at him. “A Super Cobra!”
“Convoy Nineteen, this is Air Zero, remain on your current heading. Do not stop. Things are gonna get worse before they get better.” A voice came over the network. A marine helicopter hovered overhead, pouring streams of Vulcan Cannon firepower into the undulating mass. “We’re going to try to thin things out for you, but there’s a lot of WDs down there.”
“Barona, you need to push Richards! I’m getting bogged down again,” Carl ordered.
With another bang, Carl’s car flew forward. The three vehicles pushed together as one, their engines roaring in unison, their tires grinding relentlessly onward onto a street now slick with gore and limbs. Undead howled and clawed at the vehicles as they were crushed beneath the unstoppable armored trucks.
Progress slowed to a crawl, but they continued advancing. The Super Cobra above cut huge swaths through the swarm—slowing the onslaught, but an ocean of howling undead came at them like a deluge of claws and fangs.
“It’s starting to clear!” Pam shouted.
“Keep pushing!” Carl ordered.
“You’re almost there, Nineteen. Keep it up.” The Super Cobra pilot’s voice came back over the network.
Carl floored the accelerator. His Humvee plowed into a small clear patch of freedom. “We’re out!” A highway onramp ahead occupied by a handful of ghouls came into view beneath a tattered black billboard.
The sign read, ‘Hope,’ in white letters next to an image of a glowing crucifix. Some church had, perhaps in the closing days of the apocalypse, wanted to spread an inspirational message. Carl smiled but his joy was short lived as he veered up the ramp and onto the highway.
Graffiti came into view – letters added to the sign in blood-red spray paint created the word ‘Hopeless.’ Thick red streaks ran down the sign from the paint and pooled at the bottom like a puddle of blood. Carl frowned as he accelerated. Optimism was all too rare in this new world, and destroying a heartwarming message like that seemed wrong.
“Ah…SHIT! Something’s wrong.” Richards’s voice came over the network.
Carl looked in his mirror to see the middle vehicle rolling to a stop, smoke pouring from its engine. He stomped on the brakes, threw his vehicle into reverse, and headed back towards his team.
Pam immediately shouted into her headset. “You still up there, Air Zero?”
“Still here, Ninteen. What’s up?” The pilot’s voice came back.
“Gonna need you to lay down some heat on that onramp back there. We have a problem,” Pam responded. “We have a breakdown.”
“On it…” The sound of the war machine hovering into position above them was small comfort, as the vanguard of the multitude behind them began to stagger up the onramp.
Miguel swung the Humvee door open as it came to a stop and stepped into a nightmare. Guns and rotors from the Super Cobra drowned out all sound in an oppressive rumble. The undead scattered through the immediate area, turned, and locked eyes on the convoy team. Rotting corpses slithered and slunk from behind broken-down cars and over the concrete median.
A nearby ghoul in a biker’s jacket and Harley Davidson t-shirt stumbled toward Miguel. Miguel took aim, fired, and the monster fell. Even the sound of his rifle was barely audible in the roar. He slung his gun over his shoulder, moved to the rear of his vehicle, and unraveled the heavy coiled chains.
Sergeant Quinn, Specialist MacAfee, and Private Barona emerged from their rear car. They fanned out over the highway, popping off shots into the shambling mass. The helicopter above poured firepower into the onramp. Huge arcs of carnage cut through the swarm, but it continued relentlessly up and toward the disabled convoy.
Private Richards and Sergeant Ornstein emerged from their broken-down vehicle firing their weapons. As quickly as they could drop a roaming corpse, three more took its place. The host was building by the
second.
Pam and Carl climbed atop their hummer. They used their elevated position to cover their compatriots. With careful, precise shots, they picked off the undead that approached the convoy’s flanks. The corpses piled up in heaps of two and three, then four and five. A moat of bodies began to build around the convoy.
Miguel dragged the two chains—one in each hand—toward the disabled vehicle. His work would take mere seconds, but seconds were in short supply. He stepped around a skinny undead woman in a black tank top that read ‘Pink.’ The limping corpse reached clumsily for Miguel, and then turned in pursuit. Carl took aim, pulled his trigger, and watched a plume of black skull fragments erupt from the monster’s cranium.
Pam fired at a blood-covered child that scrabbled after Sergeant Ornstein. The skin was torn from its fingers, and dried bloody crusts of its flesh caked around exposed bone. The monster tumbled lifelessly to the ground, and Pam looked for another target. She aimed at the head of a man in a bathrobe, his abdomen torn open and his intestines dragging on the ground. She put a bullet in his skull. A dead woman in a police uniform followed. Pam fired. Next came an elderly man in overalls, his beard matted thickly with blood. Down. A tattered woman missing one arm stumbled clumsily toward the convoy crewman. Click. Pam’s stomach dropped.
“Ornstein! Behind you!” She screamed, but her shout was drowned in the tumult. Ornstein was oblivious. Firing shot after shot into the approaching swarm, his attention was focused on the mass working its way toward them.
Frantically, Pam punched her communication system. “Ornstein! Look out!” She jumped from the top of her Humvee and broke into a sprint.
The one-armed woman wrapped herself around Ornstein, and dug her teeth into his shoulder. Blood shot from an artery, and Ornstein stumbled backward under the woman’s weight. Ornstein twisted out of her grip and shoved her off him, before unloading a series of rifle shots into her face.
Pam rushed to Ornstein, but he shook his head and waved her away. He fell to one knee as blood poured from his severed artery. Ornstein then dropped his empty rifle and drew his sidearm. A ghoul in ragged blue jeans and a t-shirt stumbled towards him. Ornstein put a pistol shot through the monster’s knee. It tumbled into him and they fell to the ground. Ornstein’s attacker was joined by a second, and then a third ghoul, and his screams of agony were carried away by the thunder of the helicopter above.
“No!” Richards shouted. He rushed over to Pam with his sidearm drawn. He nearly went weak in the knees when he saw the monsters tearing into Ornstein.
“No…” he mumbled, but the undead were already losing interest in Ornstein and locking onto Pam and Richards with murderous intent.
A ring of undead began to press in on Pam and Richards. They backed toward the rear hummer. A wall of leering faces and outstretched claws reached for them.
“Get back in the cars!” Carl screamed. He watched as Sergeant Quinn swung his empty rifle like a club at a mass of walking corpses. Specialist MacAfee joined him with his combat knife, stabbing at snarling ghouls. Private Barona had fixed his bayonet to his rifle. He jabbed at the monsters closing around him. The three soldiers were fighting back to back. The horde surrounded them.
Suddenly, Private Barona went down under a dog pile of undead. MacAfee dove after him, and both of them vanished into the swarm. Quinn realized he was surrounded. He climbed a pile of corpses in hopes of gaining the high ground. He smashed his rifle into undead arms and faces. All the while, he looked back toward the spot where his fellow soldiers had fallen. He was searching, hoping his friends would emerge triumphant. No one did.
Quinn lost his footing, stumbled, and fell. He vanished into the mound of corpses. Within seconds, a dozen ravenous ghouls were upon him.
Miguel finished the work of securing the lead car to the second, and he turned around to find ten zombies closing in on him. Cut off from his comrades, he hoisted himself atop the Humvee. Rotting undead claws reached for him while he pounded frantically on the Humvee gun hatch. Miguel kicked and punched the ghouls who climbed after him. Just as it looked as though he would be overtaken, the hatch flung open. Miguel slipped inside, closed it behind him, and the vehicle disappeared beneath a shrieking pile of insane monsters.
Richards turned to Pam and nodded at her, “Get inside!” he screamed. Turning back toward the wall of undead that surrounded them, he barreled forward…holding his rifle like a club.
“No!” Pam screamed in protest. It was too late, and as quickly as Richards killed a ghoul, two more jumped on him. The first bite took a chunk out of his forearm, and the second, his thigh.
“Go! Get inside! Go!” Richards screamed as he fell.
Pam’s eyes welled with tears as her comrade was torn apart. Wordlessly, she opened the Humvee, pulled herself into it, and closed the door behind her. The thunder of the helicopter above was muffled by the rain of dozens of fists beating on the vehicle’s armored shell.
Carl watched as his team was consumed by the onslaught. The Super Cobra had backed away from the onramp and moved directly above him. It rotated in position, unleashing a constant stream of destruction into the undead. Their bodies piled high in a ring, and their mangled comrades relentlessly clambered over the heaps.
Pam was now in the rear Humvee, and Miguel in the disabled middle. They and the children were safe for the moment. They would have to leave now if there was any hope for survival, and Carl reluctantly slid in through the gun hatch of his own lead vehicle. He sealed the hatch behind him. More walking dead came to press themselves against his windows and hiss hungrily at the living within. The children in the back of Carl’s Hummer wept hysterically.
Carl bit his lip and closed his eyes for a moment. He was dizzy, conflicted, angry – overwhelmed by the loss of his men. These weren’t the first men he had lost, but there was something different this time. He felt like he was leaving something behind…something vital. Shifting the vehicle into gear was a feat of will.
“Dammit!” He shouted. “God dammit! God fucking dammit!” Carl opened his eyes, hit the gas, and jolted forward through the mass of bodies that lay before him. “Fuck you, you goddamn motherfuckers!”
His engine protested against the weight of the second vehicle dragging behind him. He looked in his rearview mirror. The third Humvee erupted out of the mob to follow his lead. After a few minutes, the mayhem vanished behind them. The wail of the undead faded and the roar of the helicopter quieted as it ascended. Vacant highway stretched before them, and the convoy was heading home.
“God fucking dammit!” he screamed again as he plowed through a handful of undead. “Fuck you!” he swerved and smashed into a rotting cadaver wearing a tattered business suit.
“You’re clear, Convoy Nineteen.” The voice of Air Zero came over the network somberly. “You’re clear.”
“Goddamn motherfucking shit!” Carl screamed, pounding the roof of his vehicle with his fist over and over again.
“You’re clear.”
Chapter 17
“The convoys are at their end, Admiral,” Dr. Henry Damico stated confidently. He stood on the bridge of the Aircraft carrier. The sounds of the command center seemed to fade away as the Admiral’s attention focused on him. “It’s time to pull our remaining ground forces out, ration the resources we have, and say goodbye to the mainland for a while.”
Admiral McMillan set his jaw and nodded in agreement. He received daily reports from San Diego, and Henry’s recommendation aligned with the information he had been getting for weeks. Henry could tell the Admiral had been waiting for the moment when he could finally cut the fleets tether to a mainland overflowing with walking dead and helpless civilian refugees. “I’ll order Captain Sheridan to reserve one convoy mission to San Onofre and withdrawal from the docks.”
“San Onofre?” One of the senators sitting behind the Admiral inquired with a curious tone.
Dr. Damico sighed. Whenever he issued a briefing, the civilian leadership aboard the U.S.S. Ronald Regain was
included. As was typical, they had neglected to read his last report. He wondered why he bothered wasting the paper – a resource which, like much else, was finite. “We have to evacuate San Onofre and shut the power plant down, Senator.”
“Won’t evacuating the San Onofre plant cut off power to the DDCs?” The senators asked. “Thousands of people in Southern California depend on that energy! We can’t just shut the plant down.”
The Admiral’s anger was impossible to hide. Behind clenched teeth, he spoke with quiet rage to the statesman. “Unfortunately, Sir, you are correct. The San Diego DDCs and anyone else within several hundred miles will have their power shut off when San Onofre goes offline. This is an eventuality that has been included in your briefings for weeks now. Any suggestion from the civilian leadership as to how to avoid the situation would be most welcome. If you’re going to make suggestions, however, could you please bother to read your goddamn reports, educate yourselves on the finer points of the goddamn situation, and provide commentary two or three weeks prior to the same goddamn day I’m going to be issuing an order?”
A congressman who clearly missed the Admiral’s point and emboldened by his colleague’s interruption, replied, “We could keep the plant running indefinitely and add additional personnel to complement defenses.” The other statesmen at the table nodded in agreement. “It’s a nuclear power plant. It can provide power basically forever.”
“Leaving the San Onofre plant running was a calculated risk to begin with.” Dr. Damico replied, sensing the Admiral’s rage boiling over. “I made the recommendation based on our mainland evacuation efforts. Originally, the danger of shutting it down outweighed the danger of keeping it running. Now that we’ve gotten as many survivors and supplies out of Southern California as possible, however, it’s become a liability. Outside the fact that we do not have the ability to safely manage nuclear waste material, there is a high likelihood – indeed a probability that San Onofre will eventually succumb to a rogue civilian attack or be overwhelmed by WDs.” Dr. Damico had taken to using the military acronym lately.