by RW Krpoun
As Chef turned the truck into the start of the circular movement Chip laid the red dot on the face of a zombie in the front rank and fired, moving to another target even as it dropped in the typical boneless fashion of a downed zed. Around him the other Gnomes opened fire.
The three trucks rumbled onto the sun-bleached asphalt of the parking lot like three battleships sailing into battle, belching fire along their inner length. The terrible zombie wail was almost drowned out by the thunder of engines and the steady rattle of gunfire, but the mob was not intimidated. Stumbling over the bodies of the fallen they moved to close with the camouflage vehicles like an avalanche of sour flesh and rotting clothing.
Dyson knelt on the seat, head and shoulders out the side window, firing at skulls ten feet away and closing. It was quick work, the MP-5 producing almost no felt recoil. The zombies were reacting too slowly, staying locked dead-on with their target instead of leading so that the mob was shambling in a long curving line of approach, bumbling into each other and stumbling over the bodies of those cut down by the hail of gunfire.
The Georgian slipped back into the truck as the bolt locked open on the second magazine in the fast-load bracket. Pulling the twin magazines free, he dropped them into his dump pouch and pulled a full magazine from his tactical vest. He had just slid it into place when the truck stopped as if it had hit a brick wall, throwing him into the steel dash hard enough to release the bolt on the MP-5 and bring stars swimming across his field of vision.
“What the hell?” He pushed himself back into the seat and promptly slid into the door; touching his forehead, he flinched in pain, and his fingers came back bloody.
“Chief, we’re stuck!” Chef yelled over the revving engine.
“Shift into reverse,” Dyson said automatically, realizing that the truck was sitting at a funny angle. Heaving his shoulders out the window he was immediately clouted across the jaw by clutching zombie’s hand. Cursing through a swelling lip he shot the zombie and two more coming up behind it, and looked to his right. The truck’s passenger side rear dual tires had broken through the asphalt like a thumb jammed into a crisp pie crust, and muddy water was spilling out on all sides of the hole. “We’re hung up, water line,” he shouted over the firing. “Go to all-wheel drive and rock her loose! Gently, not too many RPMs.”
Turning back he shot a zombie in faded overalls whose forehead was inches from his muzzle, and swore again.
Marv had been watching the column’s progress between shots. Cursing bitterly, he keyed up his radio. “Six to Five and Two Bravo, lock bumpers.”
Brick expertly backed until his bumper was scant inches from Gnome-2’s front bumper. Marv stepped from Gnome-1s tailgate to Gnome-2’s front fender and shot the nearest zombie in the head. Moments later Chef climbed out the driver’s door window to the front left fender and opened fire.
The mob surged forward as Gnome-3 nudged Gnome-2s rear bumper, their prey finally immobile and within reach. Hissing and clawing, they lurched up to the sides of the vehicles as gunfire roared into their ranks and began the laborious business of dragging themselves up into the vehicles. At first their efforts were a fool’s errand as such climbers inevitably caught a fast bullet, but as the mob pressed home the number of limp bodies beneath the trucks steadily rose like a sandbag dike.
Chip stuffed an empty magazine into his dump pouch and stole a quick look as he slid a full one into his hot carbine: to his left Sylvia was pale, wild-eyed, and shaking, but she was firing steadily into the crowd, getting a head hit with around every third shot, but every bit helped, and even her shots that missed the skull hit a zombie in the mass clawing at the steel vehicles, and kinetic shock still affected the zeds. To his right George had climbed into Gnome-3’s front fender and was helping defend the gap between the trucks’ cargo beds. Releasing the slide, the husky Gnome leaned into the stock and opened fire.
In the cargo bed of Gnome-3 Bear got as low as he could and pounded away with the Vepr-12, blasting skulls apart with loads of 000 buckshot, the occasional round of 00 buckshot and #2 shot mixed in for luck. Addison and Bambi were covering the tailgate, the weakest point of defense if the zombies had any sense, but lucky for the Gnomes the vast majority of the infected simply bored straight in, indifferent to losses. One of Addison’s pipe bombs exploded in the center of the crowd, pelting the front ranks with bits of flesh and bone.
Balanced on Gnome-1’s front fender Brick blazed away with his folding-stock, semi-only AK, working to keep the infected off the front of the truck, his chest fit to burst with pride because Dirk Chambers himself was crouching on the hood firing his big revolver into the oncoming horde. The heavy .500 bullets would, if the media celebrity got the angle right, rip through two or occasionally three skulls before terminal projectile deformation kicked in.
The mob was pressing hard along the line of immobile trucks and more and more zeds were edging around to attack Gnome-1’s front or Gnome-3’s tailgate. Dozens were falling with every second but the Gnomes’ fire was growing ragged as individuals reloaded, and accuracy was diminishing slightly as the corpses stacked up and the successive zombies got higher off the ground with each death. Worse, the Gnomes’ morale was beginning to waver in the face of the implacable mob pressing in like an unrelenting tide of death. The individual Associates’ faith in the security of their vehicles was eroding as the piled inert dead granted the active easier access to their intended victims.
The assault was unnerving-other than the horrible hissing, the zombies made no noise, just boring in with mindless intensity, collapsing silently when a bullet hit home, ignoring their losses as they struggled forward, utterly and completely focused. It was like fighting a machine, a vast flesh-covered assembly-line of death.
Then Sir Roger’s group crashed into the mob’s flank near the front of Gnome-1. The dismounted knight led a wedge made up of his two mailed men-at-arms and the mace-men, while the spearmen stayed within the wedge thrusting over and between the front ranks. The wedge plowed into the belt of zombies threatening to encircle the Gnomes and swept the front of Gnome-1 free of active attackers.
The young blond archer raced up to scramble onto the truck’s front bumper where she plied her bow, the steel bodkin points of her arrows punching through skulls with brutal force.
The flank attack broke the zombies; slow to react to changing circumstances they hesitated when realizing they had two sets of foes, and that hesitation gave the Gnomes the brief seconds of mental relief that pulled them back into the fight. As the zeds hesitated gunfire still poured into their ranks and Sir Rogers’ force continued to smash their way forward, and under the twin assaults the unity and focus of the mob disintegrated. Some zombies continued to attack the trucks, some went for the wedge, and a few tried to lurch into the shelter of the silos. Under the pounding gunfire the zombies melted away to scattered drifts of ragged, gray-skinned bodies.
“Gnomes stay put, reload magazines, put some oil into the action of your weapon,” Marv bellowed. “Truck commanders, report injuries!”
The only notable injury was sustained by Ernest ‘Scarface’ Harris, a preppy-looking young man from Houston who got his nickname from his fan-hood of the 80s Al Pacino movie. Scarface had managed to close the breech of his shotgun on his index finger, and the resulting laceration required three stitches from Chip.
“You look like you lost a bout,” Marv observed as Dyson joined him on the fender of Gnome-2; the Georgian had a goose-egg at his hairline and a fat lip. “You want Chip to take a look at you?”
“No way,” Dyson jerked a thumb towards where Sauron and Whiz were cheerfully holding down a cursing Scarface while a sweating Chip struggled with a curved needle and sterile thread. “Doctor Fat & Stein can practice on someone else.”
“I heard that,” Chip yelled. “See if I ever patch you up.”
“Pay attention to what you’re doing!” Scarface bellowed.
“Shut up-the local should be working.”
“It i
sn’t!”
“Blunt force trauma is what you’re feeling, not the cut.” Chip snipped off the thread. “There. I bet they cut legs off in the old days without half as much crying.”
“Screw you…Chief.” Scarface examined his battered digit. “I’m going to lose the nail.”
“Probably the entire finger,” Sauron agreed helpfully.
“Shut up. I’ll give you some antibiotics and some pain pills back at the train.” Chip fished a hypo out of his gear. “Drop your pants.” He held a palm in front of Sauron before the Texan could say anything. “Tetanus shot.”
JD joined them. “That does not bode well,” he pointed towards the open double doors of the elevator. “I am not looking forward to fighting my way up that bastard.”
“You won’t,” Marv sat on Gnome-1’s tailgate and began refilling magazines. “There’s rungs set into the side of the far silo. We send a team up there, they’ll rescue the people and then fight their way down that bastard.”
“Easier coming from the top,” JD agreed. “Any chance we could bring them down by the rungs and skip it entirely?”
“Maybe,” Marv studied the building towering above them. “If we have a lot of rope and some way to make a security line work.”
“We have the rope and a half-dozen ascenders,” JD mused. “We could whip up some basic Swiss seats, that should work.”
“Make it so.”
Chapter Nine
Addison led the way up the silo; as a climb it wasn’t so bad-the rungs looked to be an original fixture of the structure, simple cast-iron loops a foot across set deep into the concrete; they were badly rusted, but they had been cast so thick in an era of inexpensive materials that they were still stronger than they needed to be. Later someone had added a tube-like cage of strap iron enclosing the rungs, the white paint on the cage now flaking and stained orange by the rust coming up from underneath. Years of wind and winter had weakened the cage’s anchor bolts’ hold on the concrete, although Addison guessed it still had a few more years to spend clinging to the side of the silo.
He climbed methodically, ignoring the height, the wind, or what would await them on top. Below him George followed, and further down Sauron, Bugsy, and Upchuck toiled upwards. He had volunteered for the mission simply because he felt it was his turn; others had been leading patrols or clearing buildings so it was only fair to take his place in the rotation.
Pride took him to the top without pausing, although he was breathing hard by the time he reached his goal. Pride hadn’t been a major feature of his life before the outbreak; with his mother’s murderous plans hanging over his head he had been forced to forever consider the greater good of preserving his dental work. Since helping found the Gnomes he was finding changes occurring in his life, modifications to his outlook that he had never considered. This business of taking his turn, setting an example, of pushing himself harder just for the feeling of accomplishment was new, and pleasant in a way he couldn’t quite explain.
The rungs led to a concrete walkway that was the general dimensions of a sidewalk which ran across the tops of the four silos, terminating in an ordinary door at the square tower two stories beneath its top. A railing that looked like it was made of iron rebar followed both sides of the walkway, and dried pigeon crap coated everything to a depth of two inches.
The silo tops were slightly curved, and adjacent to the walkway at the apex of each was a metal hatch into the silo with a metal ladder extending downward into the darkness. The pigeon deposits were freshly-stirred by dragging feet, and the dark Gnome could see several zombies loitering near the far door. The office stories were only half the size of the rest of the square tower, so there was plenty of room for them to congregate.
Detaching the quick-release buckle that held his Mac-10 to his tactical vest, he drew the suppressor he had built with Brick’s help and carefully screwed it into place. The suppressor was longer than the machine pistol itself, and besides reducing the noise of firing (it was not a silencer, merely cutting the decibel level by half) it served to mount a Streamlight M-6 combination tactical light and laser sight. It also balanced the weapon and made it much handier, at least in Addison’s opinion. His G36K, stock folded, rode on his back, because even with the suppressor he could fire the Mac-10 on semi one-handed if need be, an important feature in these circumstances.
Hearing George crossing the last few rungs he unfolded the Mac-10s stock and eased forward. He waited a minute to let the Operator catch his breath and then looked back. George was extracting cheap cable bike locks from his thigh pocket and tucking then into the front of his vest; finished, he gave a thumbs-up.
Moving carefully Addison slipped forward, wrinkling his nose at the stench rising from the disturbed bird guano. Moving just past the first silo’s opening he squatted and waited as George sprayed WD-40 on the hinges and eased the trapdoor shut, locking it closed with a bike lock.
The zombies didn’t seem to notice the reduced groaning of the lubricated hinges, but Addison had spotted the double doors leading to the shaft that made up the first eight stories of the square tower, and not only was it open, but zeds were visible within.
Checking behind him he saw that George was finished and that Sauron was on the walkway. Nodding to himself he crouch-walked forward to a point just past the next silo opening and waited for the hiss of the WD-40 can.
He caught movement behind the grimy windows of the office floors, the pebbly Depression-era security glass with its embedded wire mesh too thick to make anything out; moments later he heard the scream of metal hinges protesting as their rusty grasp was broken up ahead, and then a paint can sailed out and clouted a zombie off its feet. The downed zed, who had once been a heavy-set man wearing a tattered sports coat and slacks, struggled to its feet as its fellows sounded the wailing battle cry and shuffled to claw at the door.
When the second hatch groaned shut behind him Addison moved forward; as he came alongside the opening to the third silo he heard feet on rungs and the head and shoulders of a female infected appeared, industriously climbing. The dark Gnome shot her in the back of the head; switching on the light and laser sight he stepped onto the narrow concrete platform that surrounded the hatch. Leaning forward, he shot another zed through the top of its head as it labored up the ladder and ducked back. The Gnomes on the ground should have closed or barricaded the ground-level entrances, but that did the top team little good. George started soaking the hinges and Sauron eased past to cover them.
Checking left Addison saw Upchuck heading their way while Bugsy stayed at the far end of the walkway rigging a safety line. As George stowed the can and got a good grip on the hatch Addison leaned over the hatch for a quick look; there was a zombie on the ladder a dozen feet away, but it had a broken arm and was making slow progress.
Leaving George to secure the silo Addison moved to the walkway as Sauron stove in the skull of a zed emerging from the hatch of the last silo. At the office block someone was holding a metal office desk drawer out the window and was rattling it between the metal window frame and the concrete, enthralling the infected clustered below it.
“Somebody’s thinking on their feet, Chief,” Upchuck said quietly as he joined Addison.
Addison nodded. “We need to secure that door,” he pointed to the double doors that led into the elevator shaft. “Probably by direct fire.” He glanced back: George had joined Sauron and was spraying the hinges.
“Hammer time on that bunch?” Upchuck jerked his chin towards the band of distracted infected.
“No,” Addison said regretfully. “Too many things could go wrong.” Behind him hinges squealed as the hatch thumped into place, and despite the best efforts of the noisemaker in the office several zeds turned and looked, and instantly the cry went up. “Two Alpha to Six, boom boom boom,” he released his mike and opened fire, Upchuck following suit.
An explosion and gunfire echoed up from the doors to the shaft as the Gnomes on the ground threw a pipe bomb into the e
levator and stormed the ground level, hopefully fixing the attention of every zombie in the eight-story structure.
George and Sauron joined the firing line as the zombies lurched into a charge. There were around fifteen at the start, and trying to cover a dozen feet of open ground in the face of four shooters with good weapons was more than they were capable of; George shot the last one twice in the chest to drive it back as its grasping hands knocked the hat from his head and then again in the forehead as it staggered back from the kinetic shock.
Even as it fell Upchuck was racing for the double doors; Addison loaded a full magazine and followed as the red-haired Gnome slammed the doors and braced his shoulder against them. A cursory glance established that there were no locks or options to brace them on this side.
“George, put a lock around the knobs; Sauron, get them out and moving.” It didn’t really feel strange to issue orders, although it meant dropping his habitual anti-surveillance mumble; working in a group made it seem normal. For a moment he felt nostalgia for his Boy Scout troop; it had been another of his mother’s ploys to allow hired assassins to have access to him, but despite several close brushes with contract murder he had enjoyed it, and made Eagle Scout and Assistant Senior Troop Leader before it was over.
Resting the warm fat suppressor against the side of his neck, he keyed up his radio. “Two Alpha to Six, top secure.”
“Six to Two Alpha, roger. You’ve got at least a dozen cold ones who won’t come down and play.”
“Two Alpha to Six, copy. Guys,” he addressed George and Upchuck. “You’ve got a dozen-plus holdouts. Keep an eye on things.” George sketched a salute.
Sauron, his mask pushed on top of his head, had the people from the office block forming up into a single line and heading down the walkway to where Bugsy waited. Addison watched the silo hatches vibrate as zeds, alerted by the gunfire, hammered on their inner sides, but the ladder would only allow one zombie at a time to reach the hatch; he absently held up a hand to acknowledge the thanks people offered as they hurried by. It was unlikely any were in his mother’s employ, but there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t fall into her minion’s hands, so he avoided making eye contact or speaking, and kept his head held so between the brim of his ball cap and his tinted shooting glasses none could get an accurate look at his face.