by Ricky Sides
“Check the motel,” Zimmerman ordered his men.
The men checked the office first. It was unlocked, but no one was there. Still, they checked the adjoining storage rooms, but found nothing unusual.
They exited the office area and began a systematic search of the rooms, using passkeys they had acquired in the office. All of the ground floor rooms were empty.
Next, they split into two teams and approached the two staircases leading to the second floor rooms. The men were spread out along the staircases when the first wave of zombies came out of the rooms moaning. The Marines fired their weapons as the zombies approached them. Although they had been warned during briefings to target the heads, the men had been trained repeatedly to target the center of mass on enemy targets to ensure hits. During the fighting, most of the Marines reverted to their training. Therefore, their weapons fire was ineffective against the creatures.
“Fire at their head, Marines!” shouted the Platoon Sergeant.
The men responded, but it was too late for several who had been overrun by the leading edge of the first wave of zombies. Others, forced to decide to hold their fire for fear of hitting their own men or risk killing them, waited for clear shots. Some of those were likewise descended upon by the moaning horde.
“Fire, damn you!” screamed the Platoon Sergeant.
Thus spurred on by their leader, the Marines hesitated no longer. This resulted in several men being hit by friendly fire, but they began to take a serious toll on the zombies as the Marines retreated down the stairs.
Then the second wave of zombies struck.
The main portion of the convoy had been concentrating their attention on the raging battle at the motel, so only the men charged with the responsibility to guard their flanks saw the onrushing horde of zombies that were coming at them from the front.
The guards did their jobs, thus the company wasn’t caught flat-footed by the assault. They laid down a vicious antipersonnel fire with their small arms and several, vehicle mounted, large caliber machineguns. The front ranks of the zombies were decimated. The .50 caliber rounds blew great chunks out of the enemy. In some cases, they separated limbs from bodies, but even with their firepower, the Marines were unable to prevent some of the zombies from closing ranks with them.
At the same time, a smaller group of zombies approached the convoy from the rear and the side opposite the motel. Some of them wore police uniforms, which caused the Marines to hold their fire. At first, the confused soldiers believed that the law enforcement officials were trying to reach them to fight alongside them. Too late, they saw the bloody evidence that zombies had already attacked them. A dozen of the creatures were already inside the confines of the convoy before the soldiers realized their error. Two dozen of their number fell to the ravenous creatures before the last one in a police uniform was dispatched.
Meanwhile, the survivors of the platoon that had gone to investigate the motel were fighting their way back toward the convoy. Across the parking lot, the Platoon Sergeant saw a little girl hobbling away from a zombie. He ordered his men to keep going toward the convoy, and then altered his course to intercept the child. He scooped her up with his free arm as he fired his M4 into the face of the male zombie that had been pursuing the girl.
The NCO felt a burning sensation in his neck as the little girl bit him. Too late, he realized that the child hadn’t been running from the zombie. She had been charging with him.
Several of the sergeant’s men saw him being bitten. They also saw him throw the child zombie to the ground and shoot her in the head. He then charged toward the onrushing horde of zombies, emptying the magazine of his rifle. As he drew near them, he dropped the empty rifle and drew his pistol. He emptied the magazine of his 9mm service pistol into the heads of various zombies. When that too ran dry, he dropped the useless weapon, grabbed a grenade from his battle vest, pulled the pin and released the handle. The explosive detonated in his hand as the viscous horde reached his position, killing him and taking out several of them at the same time.
Second Lieutenant Casey Zimmerman made it back to the convoy with six of his men. They were parked near the head of the column and had to fight their way to their vehicles.
Captain Billings saw that the zombies were decimating his company. He ordered his men to turn around, but there wasn’t room to do so. Then he ordered them to charge through the creatures, so that they could find a place to turn around and get back out onto the interstate. This too proved to be problematic as the shear number of zombies beneath their chassis bogged several of the vehicles down.
The Marines fighting for their lives grew desperate. Now down to less than half their original number, they were soon firing the heavy machineguns at point blank range into the press of zombies.
Some Marines were dragged from their Humvees when they were stalled by the traffic in front of them. In some cases, this left the other occupants, who were busy providing covering fire out their windows, without a driver. More than one hapless vehicle crew was slaughtered in that manner when the creatures entered their vehicles and attacked them. This added even more to the traffic jam that was growing worse with each lost vehicle.
In a desperate move, Captain Billings gave the order for all vehicles to go off-road to attempt to escape. They hadn’t attempted that tactic prior to that moment because the ground was low and looked soggy from recent rains, so the officers had concluded that it was too risky. Now, as the company lost vehicle after vehicle to the swarming mass of zombies, which was being reinforced by others from the city by the minute, there seemed no option. The order was given to risk getting stuck.
The first couple of vehicles that pulled off the road seemed to do well, but then they hit a softer section and their tires churned the grassy area into a mud pit as they floored their accelerators in desperation. Other drivers tried ramming the stuck vehicles, only to themselves become immersed in a quagmire.
Now even the shoulders of the road were blocked, and the zombies pressed on in their attack. Soon, only a dozen men remained. In a desperate attempt to escape, the Marines left their boxed in vehicles and sought to circumnavigate the feeding frenzy occurring at the stalled convoy. It sickened them to have to leave their fallen brothers to the zombies, but they had no choice, if they wanted to escape.
Captain Billings had every intention of informing his superiors that Hayti, Missouri was a lost cause. Mental pictures of the town that had decimated his men being carpet bombed out of existence were flashing through his head as he circled past the still unfolding carnage with a dozen of his men. They made it to the end of the convoy closest to the interstate before being spotted by a Yorkie, which gave the canine equivalent of a moan. The zombie woman beside the dog, once named Shaunna, turned her attention to the soldiers and moaned, causing dozens of other zombies that were closer to the men to turn their attention to the Marines.
A desperate battle ensued. Marines fired their weapons skillfully, taking out zombies by the dozen, but there were hundreds more to replace those they terminated. The fighting raged for ten minutes as the soldiers formed a defensive circle and fought back to back. The bodies of the dead zombies grew so numerous around that defensive circle that they were forced to walk over their fallen to reach the troops, but reach them they did. One by one, Captain Billings’ men were dragged from their ever-shrinking circle and torn to pieces. In the end, their ammunition expended, the few remaining men used their rifles as clubs. If they lost them, then they resorted to their bayonets.
Captain Billings, bloody bayonet in one hand and his empty pistol in the other, was among the last of his company to go down. He wondered fleetingly if he was the only soldier in history to die in combat on his birthday, and then Shaunna ended his life as her ravenous jaws ripped out his throat.
Chapter 1 8
The nanobots
“There you are, Ox. Where have you been, boy? I’ve been worried about you,” Herb said to the dog who seemed pleased to see him. He was s
haking his tail so hard that his entire body was twisting back and forth from side to side. The dog had been missing the previous afternoon and hadn’t returned until some point late in the night or early morning.
“Is that your dog?” Herb heard Erma ask him.
He continued to pet the squirming dog, but turned to face the woman. “I guess you could say that,” Herb responded. “Although I think he thinks I’m his human.”
“Is he safe?” Erma asked, causing Herb to see that she viewed the animal with a bit of apprehension.
“He wouldn’t hurt you, unless he thought you were trying to break in to the house or truck. He’s protective that way because I often tell him to stand guard.”
“That’s nice to know, but I was referring to the parasites,” Erma explained.
“I think he’s clean or he wouldn’t be with me,” Herb responded defensively. “Of course, there’s no way to know for certain,” he conceded.
“Actually, there is. All we need do is draw a blood sample and test it.”
“I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t like that. He was on his own when he was found and I took him off a woman’s hands because she couldn’t keep him.”
“So you don’t know much about his background?”
Herb shrugged. “I can tell you where he has been the past week, but that’s about the extent of it.”
“All the more reason to test him, Herb, but he’s your animal.”
“Doctor Langley! You better come to the trailer at once! Agent Marx needs to see you!” shouted Gil.
“I guess I’d better go and see what he wants,” Erma said. “Would you like to come along? This could impact you as well.”
“Sure, I guess so,” Herb responded. “If he doesn’t want me there, he can always tell me to leave.”
Herb followed Erma to the trailer and walked in behind her.
“Thank you for coming, Doctor Langley,” Agent Marx said when she stepped inside. The moment his eyes fell on Herb, he added, “Is there something I can do for you, Bennett?”
“I invited him to come along, Agent Marx,” Erma explained.
“What I have to say to you doesn’t concern him, Doctor.”
“I beg to differ. This is his land we’re parked on at the moment. If you know something that impacts our safety here, then that would definitely concern him because he would be just as affected as us.”
The federal agent frowned in consternation, but made no further objections. “The Marine Company that was supposed to be here today was overdue, so I requested that a helicopter fly to their transponder signal and see what could be learned. I’m afraid I have bad news regarding them. It seems they were wiped out in a battle in Hayti, Missouri.”
“Then they won’t be coming, which means we are back to square one.”
“Right, so as you can see, it’s time to get you people out of here,” Agent Marx said.
“You mean after the next group reaches us?” Erma asked for clarification.
“No, Doctor, I mean in an hour.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Herb asked the agent.
“This is hardly a joking matter, Bennett.”
“Then you have lost your damned mind,” Herb said in reply to the agent. “You just said a 120 man Marine Company was wiped out trying to get here with all their gear and weapons, yet you think you can get that trailer to your undisclosed location with a couple of cars and a truck? Have you lost your damned mind?”
“You’re out of line, Bennett. I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you? Do you really? Tell me, Agent Marx, how many zombies have you fought? How many times have you fought them? How many have you killed?”
A strained silence greeted Herb’s questions. “My friend and I have fought the zombies more times than I care to remember. We’ve both lost track of how many we’ve terminated, and I will tell you from personal experience that what you’re planning is a suicide mission. We didn’t risk our lives saving Erma to see you put her at risk in some insane, misguided, attempt to accomplish an impossible mission.”
The silence in the trailer after Herb’s comment was palpable.
“Agent Marx, I think you should listen to what this man is saying. After all, he and his friend did take the initiative to go and save Doctor Langley, and recover the trailer with its cargo. He is experienced in these matters,” David Raines said in a calm and reasonable tone of voice.
“I must agree with my colleges, Agent Marx,” Gil said with a frown. “While I can appreciate the boldness of a plan of action, there is a fine line between bold and reckless, and I’m afraid your plan crosses that line.”
“I disagree,” Sam Evans replied. “I was against a reckless plan of action yesterday, but today, the idea seems to have more merit. I think we should consider the agent’s suggestion. Waiting any longer puts a burden of responsibility on us for each additional life that is lost in the interim. In short, I think it is time for us to act.”
“Finally! It’s about time someone who understands the ramifications of waiting spoke up,” Agent Marx said.
“Believe me, Agent Marx, I understand all too well. I know 120 Marines gave their lives trying to get here to escort us,” Erma responded. “On one hand, I think we owe it to them to wait, otherwise, it seems their loss was in vain. On the other hand, I think we owe it to the world to take the risk.”
“Doctor Evans. You’re senior man with this project. That puts you in charge of this decision, as far as I’m concerned,” Agent Marx said.
“Actually, Doctor Langley is the senior scientist on this project. I don’t yet comprehend half of what she has learned in the past week, and it was her work with the nanobots that achieved the cure with the specimen that she recovered in Athens.”
“You’re the senior surviving member of the CDC team assigned to the Akins parasites, aren’t you?” asked Marx doggedly.
“Technically, yes that’s true, but in an administrative position. Doctor Langley is the head of the research team that was tasked with investigating the zombie phenomenon.”
“Then, I say it’s up to you,” Agent Marx said with an air of finality.
“Unfortunately for you, Agent Marx, what you say doesn’t count.” Sam responded with narrowed eyes. Being in an administrative position, he was well versed in dealing with minor bureaucrats with power complexes. “Need I remind you that my authority to conduct our operations comes from the President and top members of government, including your boss at Homeland Security? Press me too hard, and I’ll see about making a few calls of my own.”
Agent Marx frowned, but said nothing in reply.
“My colleagues and I need a private meeting to discuss this. We’ll give you our decision in a few minutes. Please excuse us,” Sam said to the Homeland Security Agent pointedly.
“What about him?” Marx asked, indicating Herb with a tilt of his head in his direction.
“As the resident expert on dealing with this crisis, I think we need his input. What we don’t need is a low level agent dictating our course of action. Quite frankly, this decision is above your pay grade.”
Agent Marx looked stricken. Without a word, the man turned on his heel and headed for the door.
“I think that last remark hit close to home,” David said quietly when the agent closed the door.
“I imagine it did. I’ve dealt with people like him a lot over the years. They sometimes attempt to exceed their authority, but when you’re in a position to have their boss’s ear, the smart ones back off,” Sam explained.
He turned his attention to Herb. “You said it would be suicide to try to get to the undisclosed location. Not knowing that location, how can you be so certain?”
Herb then explained the encounter that they had had the previous day. “And that was just traveling 70 miles,” he pointed out. He shrugged his shoulders and added, “I used that term for a reason. If the lab were in a safe place, and all you had to do to get there was to travel through a narrow band of zombies, M
arx could have pointed that out. The fact that he didn’t suggests to me that the route may be much worse than any of us realize.”
“So you think we should know the location up front so that we can determine if it would be safe?” asked Sam.
“No, Doctor. I’m not suggesting that at all. The fact is, I don’t believe there is any guarantee of safety any more, other than what you can provide for yourself at the location you’re in at the time. Consider this. Yesterday morning, Randy and I left at daybreak to go to Little Rock. There were no zombies in sight between this property and the city. That changed in a matter of hours. We killed two on the interstate driving back here and over a dozen at the Echols place when we rescued Martha and Henry, one of which managed to get onto the running board of Doctor Langley’s truck, and was trying to get to her when I shot it.”
Sam nodded soberly. “I understand the situation. I think we all do. However, as I said earlier, I believe we have a moral responsibility to take action to halt the spread of the Akins parasites. Therefore, I want to hear from all of you. Doctor Langley, as head researcher, you know the most about this menace. What are your thoughts?”
“Unfortunately, I agree with both of you gentlemen. Corporal Bennett and Private Lions fought bravely yesterday, and their quick action saved the day, but it was obvious that they were hard pressed. Had the odds been higher, we might not even be here having this conversation, through no fault of my escorts or lack of valor, mind you.”
Herb nodded in agreement.
“Still, I agree with you, Doctor Evans. I don’t know if I can live with myself if our inaction leads to numerous needless deaths, and I’m afraid that’s a fact that isn’t even debatable.”
“All right, I see that you are torn, but time is critical. I need your decision,” Sam pressed Erma.