by S. P. Durnin
The MATTOC’s gun thundered again and the dump truck bed—along with what was left of the frame and undercarriage—became swiftly-moving shrapnel. The deadly cloud of debris engulfed the fast-movers who’d been sheltering behind the truck and shredded nearly all of them. Heads and limbs went flying. Hell, entire torsos became fetid tar-tar in the wake of the jagged wave. What few “uber-dead” remained scurried back amongst their more simple-minded brethren, using them as shields and sheltering behind their steadily falling bodies.
“Holy shit! Did you guys see that up there?” Elle’s voice sounded as shaken up as Jake’s ribcage felt. Hess’s MATTOC packed a punch.
“We saw. It was only a matter of time before he started using that gun. Crap! We didn’t count on him riding up in the Anti-Mimi.”
“Anti-Mimi?” Cho gave him a quizzical look as she brushed a half-cooked finger off her leg. “Gross. I wonder if that was the driver’s.”
Jake shook his head. “Doubtful. That one was likely vaporized when the truck exploded. We’re probably breathing a little bit of him right now.”
“Thanks for that. I say again, gross.” Kat covered her mouth and nose with one hand, taking shallow breaths. “What do we do now?”
Another round hit the wreckage on the bridge, scattering yet more of the dead while not killing them outright. While destroying a zombie’s brain was the preferred mode of pacification, dismemberment worked. Tough for nothing but a bodiless head to pull itself across the pavement by its lips at you.
“George? You there?” O’Connor was grasping at straws idea-wise.
“Of course I’m here! Where the fuck else would I be?”
“Alright-alright! How many are still coming though on the west side?”
“The flow has tapered off,” Foster replied, “Arcs One and Two should be able to push on through, but it might be tight. They’re pretty well protected in those things, but they’re still ridin’ in a pair o’ tour buses.”
Jake considered that for a minute. “Okay. Here’s what I want you to do. Drive the Mimi down Main Street and link up with Mooney. It doesn’t matter how many of those things you splatter along the way, the horde’s done its job by delaying and generally freaking out Hess’s men. Taking out some of them will make it easier for us to push through with the Hummer anyway, so aim for any of the larger clusters on your way.”
“What about the four of you?”
“The zombies are still focusing on the guys outside, so Kat and I will try to make it down the interior of the school bus. That should give us cover and let us get down without being seen. Once more of the things move past the wall, we’ll shut the back door and head for the nearest horizon.” He gave Cho a questioning look and she nodded in agreement. “We know where to meet up, so don’t wait for us.”
“That’s a balls-crazy play O’Connor, and way too much could go to shit as it is. We should all link up and leave together.”
“Yeah well, I want to wait until the zombies are all but depleted. Give us as much time as possible.” Jake was worried enough, and didn’t want to entertain the possibility of Hess catching up with them. “Get moving. It shouldn’t be too long before you see us in the Mimi’s rear-view mirror. Make sure to keep Mooney and his people safe, yeah?”
“Smart-ass.” The older man’s voice growled back. “I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to suck eggs either. Don’t get dead.”
Jake chuckled briefly and let go of his radio’s transmit button. “George is heading out with Mooney and his people. We’ll sit tight for a bit. Let the maggot-heads work over Hess and his people then—”
“Oh shit.” Kat rose up on her knees and stared over the tower’s edge.
“What are you doing? Get down before you’re seen!” Jake yanked her back to the floor of the ledge. “Hear those loud noises? Hess’s men are still shooting down there, and I doubt they’re very particular about their targets just now. Do you want to get shot?”
Cho’s eyes were really wide. “I think that’s about to be a moot point.”
Taking a quick look over the edge, O’Connor saw zombies dropping thickly along the road. He also saw the barrel of Hess’s monster MATTOC’s turret raise. It was now pointed squarely at Langley’s eastern barricade.
Jake swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. “Oh shit.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Elle! Haul ass and tail George to the west wall!” Jake called into his radio.
“What?” she replied. “But those things will see us! We won’t be able to get back to you, and—”
“Move goddammit!” He yelled. “Now!”
While the blonde didn’t respond, he and Kat heard their ride fire up its throaty engine. Elle put the pedal down and slammed through the nearby zombies, turning left up Main Street where the Mimi had disappeared around the curve moments before to follow in its wake.
That attracted a little notice, to say the least. While most of the creatures ignored vehicles, a small percentage—perhaps one out of every thirty-five or so—realized it was something that might very well contain prey. When considering how many were within the town itself, a relative few actually turned in slow pursuit, but that left far more still roaming about. Some of them had even heard O’Connor as he ordered Elle and Leo to vacate their position. Those were the ones that turned ponderously towards the tower now.
“We have a problem.” Jake’s eyebrows rose as the zombies recognized a living, breathing pair of humans in the watchtower.
“Just one?” Kat half-raised her pistol.
“Well, one new problem.” He clarified.
Kat pulled him back against the roof of the up-ended bus. “I don’t think they’re going to be a problem for much longer.”
Hess’s MATTOC fired on the barricade.
Trucks covered in plate steel and topped with rebar were no match for the firepower of the huge war-wagon. It began shelling Mooney’s life-preserving construct with a purpose. That being: To turn said structure into nothing but smoking ruins and fond memories. Kat and Jake could only hit the deck and pray the floor of the crow’s nest would protect them from the worst of the explosions. A small hope that, but what else could they do?
The onslaught continued. Shells blew vehicles to bits, sending them blazing out through the air in the form of flame-kissed projectiles that demolished bodies and buildings alike. Zombies caught in the path of the tumbling junk were skewered by hot shrapnel, which they ignored unless it managed to breach their brain-holders. Some were pinned to walls of the surrounding buildings, or even to the street itself, by larger chunks. They writhed on the steaming metal while their unfeeling flesh cooked around their wounds, but didn’t die. Their brains hadn’t been damaged, so they retained their semblance of life and their endless hunger.
The pair of humans didn’t come out unscathed, but that was expected. A needle-wide shard went completely through the webbing between Kat’s right thumb and index finger, flying on to stick its pencil-length halfway through the bus’s roof. While she didn’t cry out, it felt as if someone had shoved a hot poker through her palm, which was basically what had just been done.
O’Connor fared a bit worse. When a piece of the engine of an old Ford Lariat arced high, paused at the peak of its ascent, then fell back towards where the two of them lay huddled, he threw himself across Cho, protecting her body as best he could. The alternator caught him in the shoulder-blade, knocking him flat against her back and drawing a muffled cry of pain from his throat. While hurt, it didn’t feel like the chunk had broken anything. He began to take stock of the injury and another dollar bill sized piece spun past, slashing him over his left eye that felt bone-deep. The spinning piece was extremely hot and its edge that cut him seared the capillaries in Jake’s flesh shut on the fly, leaving him with a painful but nearly bloodless wound.
The cannon kept up its bombardment and more explosions
rocked the little platform they sheltered on, causing the survivors to clutch at each other and the bare metal floor as the bus shook. Hess wasn’t playing around. He was determined to take Langley for his own, so he’d decided to pull out all the stops against any remaining zombies approaching the wall or his forces. Round after round from the tank gun decimated the barrier and the dead alike, the former being used spontaneously as a weapon against the latter.
It was more than a rout, more than a battle. It was an extermination, plain and simple. The advancing zombies pressed forward and died—again—in droves, mowed down by small arms fire and hot flying steel.
If they’d been able to watch, O’Connor and Cho would’ve been impressed, but they were a bit busy trying not to die at the moment. Or soil themselves. Neither were what people would term ‘a warrior.’ Yes, Kat possessed quite a few impressive skills when it came down to hand-to-hand combat and yes, Jake had spent nearly two years shadowing the tough shooters of Britain’s Special Air Service in some very nasty places, but they weren’t soldiers. Fighting the dead—or a few assholes who needed killing because they were wasting other people’s valuable oxygen—was one thing. Fighting a war was something else entirely.
“We’re dead,” Kat told him. The tower shook as another round shook the barrier and she squirmed reflexively. “We are so dead.”
“Not helping!” Jake told her firmly. “Let me see what it looks like below. Maybe we can make it across to the roof and... Ah, man.”
Kat raised her head and flashed a look next door. “Yeah, I’m not jumping onto a building that’s on fire, thanks. Wait. Do you smell bacon?”
The pair looked down towards the source of the smell.
“Wow, I may never eat Barbeque again.” Kat shuddered. “How the hell do they keep walking around while they’re burning like that?”
Jake was repulsed by the flaming forms below. “Their brains don’t receive the input from the sensory receptors in their nerve fibers anymore. There’s some kind of failure or blockage in either the spinal cord or the brain stem, so the electrical impulses don’t make it through to be processed. A talking head for CNN had one of the CDC big-wigs on when we were hiding in George’s safe-house, and I caught the piece. Back when CNN was still broadcasting, that is. They didn’t say what caused it, though.”
“I’m willing to bet it was all the high-fructose corn syrup in our food.”
“Huh?” That didn’t equate.
She nodded. “Sure. Dulling the parts of our brain that perceive discomfort and all that? Why do you think GMOs were banned in twenty-six countries before the zombies came along?”
There wasn’t time for Jake to form a suitable reply, because the voice of Foster’s niece, Bee, began squawking at him through his headset.
“Jake? Jake! Are you and Kat alright?”
“Define ‘alright’ if you don’t mind.” he replied shortly. “If you mean stuck in the watchtower, surrounded by flaming zombies, and about to be pulverized by one of the biggest weapons I’ve ever seen on a mobile transport? Then yeah, we’re great! Where are you?”
“We’re at the western wall! Mooney has Arc One and Two running on the road outside, and they’re alright for now. There are a few maggot-heads stumping around, but nothing we can’t handle. The bulk of them are in there with you, heading east. We’re going to bring the Mimi in and get you guys right now!”
“Don’t. Not just yet.” O’Connor took a good look outside the now-flattened west barricade. There were still a shit-load of zombies heading for the general and his troops. Granted few of them were in one piece and nearly all touted some fire damage, but that was beside the point. “If the Mimi turns up now, Hess with bring his MATTOC into Langley straight away and we’ll be up shit creek. Well, maybe not us. From what I’ve seen, not even that cannon of his could breech Foster’s baby, but he could target the Hummer. Or even Mooney and the other’s buses.”
“Well, we can’t very well just leave you there!”
He laughed nervously and glanced at Cho. “Trust me, I have no intention of dying today. Too many things I’d like to do yet. Swim in the ocean, sit on the cliffs up in San Francisco... Bake another quiche.”
The smile Kat gave him at that comment was blinding.
“Give me a few minutes to watch our friends over here and I’ll call you back, alright?”
“You better!” Bee informed him.
“I will. Promise. And you know I keep my promises.”
Jake shut the radio off and pulled a small electronic device from his tac-vest. He handed it off to Kat and grabbed the car battery they’d lugged up to the crow’s nest from its resting place on the floor. Moving quickly, he attached a pair of jumper cables to the battery, then clamped the negative end to one of the corresponding pole on the device.
“You know, not to come off like a total bitch? But I hope George and Rae know their stuff.” Kat bit her lip as he prepared the transmitter. “If either of them screwed up and got the mixture wrong...”
Trying to cover his own doubts, Jake attached the positive end of the cables and began flipping a series of switches. “Don’t sweat it. Have you met George? He lives for this kind of thing. And Rae’s too methodical to botch a project. That woman lives and breathes mechanics. If you look in the dictionary under anal retentive, I guarantee you you’ll see a picture of her staring back at you from the page.”
“Heh-heh.” Cho grinned. “You said anal.”
“Do you want a spanking woman? I’ve got one right here in my pocket...”
“Maybe later.” Kat winked at him and looked over the edge of their hiding place again. “Right now? Why don’t we ruin General Hess’s day?”
“See? That right there is why I enjoy your company so much. You’ve got your priorities in order.” After activating all of the circuits, O’Connor flipped open a small hatch on the face of the device. “Would you care to do the honors?”
“Would I!” The pretty Asian nearly did a jig, even though she was still kneeling beside him. “I’ve always wanted to try something like this! Did I ever tell you? This one time, I accidentally burned down a Denny’s?”
“Are you serious?” Jake couldn’t hold back the smile. “How the hell did you manage that?”
“Oh, it was a few years ago. I was in college at the time. You know, getting my pharmacy tech certification? A group of us wanted to get something to eat after the bar closed one night, and our only choices were either Dennys or Waffle House, so—”
Jake’s nose wrinkled. “I always liked IHOP better than ‘The Awful Waffle’. Their blueberry pancakes where the best ever.”
“I know, right?” Kat went on. “Anyway. That was after the smoking ban went into effect and one of the other girls wanted a ciggy. I went with her to the bathroom to watch the door so she could have one without worrying about someone walking in on her and decided to try one myself. Took one good puff and almost coughed up my spleen. While Carly was pounding me on the back, I kind of dropped the cigarette into the trash can and it caught the paper towel dispenser on fire... Which, in turn, caught the ceiling on fire.”
Jake laughed helplessly, earning himself a pouty look from his blue-haired companion.
“Hey, it could’ve happened to anybody!”
He wiped tears from his eyes. “Nope. Just you. But then again, what’s life without a little adventure now and again?”
“Too right!” Kat pointed at the small device and nodded over her shoulder towards the ongoing fight. “Why don’t we kick this celebration off?”
* * *
The creature woke up.
When it opened its eyes the world looked strange. All the color had been washed away, and it reminded her (Her? Was it a ‘her’? It considered the question for a moment. It had been a woman, but that was before. What did that make it now? Did it have a designation?) of an old black and white movie.
It remembered what a movie was, but couldn’t think of one it had seen.
It sat up and looked around. There were a lot of others like it on the dam (Yes, that’s what the surface it lay upon was. A dam) but none of them seemed aware of it, which was strange. It was certainly aware of them. The others looked bad. Ragged. Wrong. Like sickly caricatures of people, but not actually people themselves. Drawing its feet up, the creature put its hands on the pavement and pushed up to its feet. After standing awkwardly, it realized it hadn’t been able to feel the roadway on its palms. The surface should’ve been rough, gritty and covered with scratchy rocks, but it felt...nothing. The creature looked at its hands and realized they were the wrong color. The flesh was gray. That caused it to worry. Was it infected with something? Could it get sick? Could it die from whatever had turned its flesh such a disturbing color?
The creature began to feel the first twinges of fear.
Was that fear? It didn’t like the feeling.
It looked around again and noticed the people far to its left, down at the other end of the dam. There were shooting the others! The ones like her! Why were they doing that? Were they sick too? Were the people down the road afraid they’d catch whatever it was she and the others had? Why would…?
There was something else on the dam. A barrel. No, a whole bunch of barrels. Five lines of them that stretched nearly across one whole lane of the road. The creature wondered why anyone would put them there. If they were trying to block the road, why only do it on one side? And if not, why bother lining the barrels up at all? It made no sense! Why would anyone waste their time? Tonight, it would tell Jake about...
And it remembered.
It remembered its name was Penny Carson. Had been Penny Carson.
When she’d been human.
When she’d been alive.