The Apocalypse Crusade Day 4: War of the Undead

by Peter Meredith

  “Really? You just happened to be here, laying on the couch, looking like that?” In Jerry’s mind, it didn’t seem possible that she was there by accident. He didn’t want it to be possible. In the last few days, reality had been bent into a pretzel, and now this woman had been thrust into his life, all alone and helpless. She seemed like gift, and with his head swimming in alcohol and the fumes of the pot riding high in his system, all he could think about was touching her.

  If he did, who would know? It wasn’t like there were cops around. There was no one around. No one at all.

  He reached out and touched the girl’s lapel. When she flinched, it gave him a new thrill. “Don’t be like that. It’s fate that brung us here, together. Do you believe that? I mean, you’re here, I’m here. We really are all alone. Allll alone.” He traced the lapel again, touching her breast through the fabric. It wasn’t just her tit he felt. Her heart was beating like mad.

  Her fear was intoxicating. It brought something out of him; something animalistic, something hot but very, very wrong. It brought out something he had never contemplated before, because, before it had always been something illegal. Now, there were no laws and that just opened up all sorts of possibilities, didn’t it?

  Thuy was a tiny, bird-like thing compared to this slovenly brute, and she was under no illusions. She was at the extreme range of vulnerability and knew it. “I’ll scream,” she said.

  Jerry smiled, showing off his unbrushed teeth. This new part of him, which, in truth wasn’t new at all, wanted her to scream. If she screamed…if he could make her scream, didn’t that mean he controlled her? Yes, obviously. He could make her scream if he wished. And he could make her cry and make her laugh at his jokes, and fetch his beer and suck his dick. And he could make her do it all with a smile.

  That was evolution, wasn’t it? Hadn’t they been teaching survival of the fittest in this school since before he had come to work there? Wasn’t that the rule in the animal kingdom; might makes right, and all that? And weren’t we all just animals?

  That’s how Jerry heard it.

  “Go ahead and scream. No one will hear you. It’ll be like that ‘tree falling in the forest’ crap.” He stepped closer so that his belly pushed into her, pinning her to the door with his filthy bulk. “If a girl screams and there’s no one to hear it, did she really scream?”

  She was deathly afraid and he could feel an involuntary scream brewing up. It only added to his lust and for the first time he came close to understanding what all those fucked-up feminists were always going on about—“rape was all about power,” they said. They were wrong. Rape wasn’t always about power, sometimes it was and sometimes it was just about some guy getting his rocks off.

  In this case it was both. A happy accident Jerry decided as he slid his hand down Thuy’s body.

  “I’ll scream,” she repeated, with more conviction. “And someone will hear.” His hand stopped on her flat stomach and for just a moment he was nervous. It was possible that she was there with others.

  “Yeah, who?”

  She turned to the window where the shadows moved. “Them.”

  With his new lust consuming him, he had forgotten about the zombies, though after the briefest consideration, he decided that they didn’t matter. They weren’t going to derail this train because there wasn’t a chance in hell that she’d scream loud enough to attract them. “You wouldn’t,” he sneered. “They’ll eat you little girl. They’ll eat you right up. But I wouldn’t hurt you like that. I would be good to you.”

  “Prove it,” Thuy challenged, doing her best to keep her lips from quivering. “Prove that you’ll be good. Take your hands off me.”

  Jerry scoffed at the idea and with a smarmy smile playing on his face, he slid his hands down to her crotch and gave her a squeeze. In response, Thuy screamed her head off.

  Chapter 4

  1– 3:36 a.m.

  —Stockbridge, Massachusetts

  Just as the clouds scudded in front of the moon, turning the dark night even darker, the F-15 lit up the balloon for the second time with its Vulcan. This time it had a heat signature. Deckard had the burner going full force, sending a gout of blue flame six feet into the shredded canopy. The pilot couldn’t miss and he didn’t.

  Forty M53 rounds were targeted on the heat signature and half of them went right through the flame and flew out the other side doing absolutely zero damage. The other rounds struck mostly wicker, a few ropes and the burner itself, which exploded in a ball of fire, singeing the back of Deckard’s arm as he lay atop Courtney.

  Then the F-15 rocketed past, spinning the basket. Everything was a whirl of fire and smoke when Deckard looked up. The burner was blazing away four feet above him. The fire was chaotic, no longer directed into the canopy, which was beginning to sag like an old birthday balloon…a very old birthday balloon.

  He didn’t need to look over the side to see that they were falling fast, now. And that was the good news. They would crash before the F-15 could come back for another run.

  On the flip side of this “good news” was that they were going in, burning like a torch. He didn’t like his chances, especially after he turned his head and saw that one of the rounds from the Vulcan had punched a hole in the basket. He could see quite clearly that they were heading right for the trees. From his position, they looked like a forest of dark spears.

  Great. He was either going be impaled on those spears or he would crash land in what was, essentially, a flying bonfire. The wicker and the canvas would catch on fire in a blink, not to mention the… “Shit! The propane!” Next to his left leg were twenty gallons of propane in an aluminum tank. They were going to crash with a bomb sitting right next to them.

  Courtney tried to wriggle away from it while at the same time, staying huddled away from the flame above them. As if two feet would make any difference, Deckard thought. He had to get the tank out of the basket. Logic suggested an easy solution: if he turned off the gas then the fire would go out.

  Logic went out the window when he reached up to turn the knob, only to find that it had been shot away.

  “Deckard!” Courtney cried. She had shifted toward the hole in the basket and had a perfect view of the trees rushing up.

  “I got it!” he screamed. “Don’t panic!” He didn’t need her panic, he had plenty of his own. Frantically, he scraped at the strap holding the tank in place and, by a bit of fantastic luck, managed to get it free in seconds. Then it was just a matter of heaving it over the side of the basket without catching on fire himself.

  It wasn’t easy and the pain was harsh, but he got the tank over the side. Of course the tank was still hooked to the burning contraption and so instead of dropping away, the tank hung by the reinforced hose. The weight of it, combined with the fire eating at everything, pulled the burner down so that it rested on the side of the basket.

  Burning ropes began to snap while the whicker caught on fire in a blink, turning one side of the gondola into a bonfire, a raging, falling from the sky, bonfire. Both Courtney and Deckard were screaming at the top of their lungs now and trying to get away from the flames, only there was nowhere to go except over the side.

  It was the ultimate nightmare scenario for Courtney and yet, it only got worse. Desperately, Deckard started kicking the side of the basket, hoping to free the burner and the tank. On his fourth kick, the burning side of the basket fell away. It was an improvement of sorts. The gas-fed fire was gone, however the bottom of the basket was now in flames and within seconds the wicker began to lose all integrity, coming undone and falling into the trees that were now so close that Courtney only had time to grab Deckard before they hit.

  There was a great crashing noise as branches, leaves and whicker went everywhere. Then came a sound like that of a hundred children screaming in unison as the canvas caught and tore.

  Deckard had a grip on one of the risers and he held on for dear life, hoping that he wouldn’t be run through by the endless number of branches t
hat seemed to be aimed straight at his heart. He could only close his eyes and hold Courtney close and then—Bam! Bam! Bam! It felt as though they were being hit by a truck as they hit branch after branch as they fell through the canopy.

  With a final bone-jarring thud, they hit the ground. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself lying beneath a burning tree.

  It was an elm or an oak, or something like that. It was big and it was going up in flames faster than he would have guessed possible. Next to him, wrapped in a length of rope was Courtney. She stared up at the fire with a vapid expression on her face that suggested she’d had hit her head pretty good.

  “How did we live?” she asked, in a whisper.

  “I don’t know,” he replied and then groaned his way to a sitting position. He tried to get a bearing on their position relative to the points of the compass, but all he knew for certain was which way up and down were. He climbed to his feet and stuck out a hand.

  Courtney didn’t take it. “I think I just want to lie here for a while and, you know, just breathe.”

  “We can’t. They’re going to be after us pretty soon. We have to clear the area before they can figure out that we aren’t dead in the top of one of these trees.”

  If Courtney had the strength, she would’ve cried. All she could manage was to squinch up her face for a moment and even that left her out of breath. Deckard had to practically lift her to her feet. Gazing around at the wreckage, he saw nothing useful. The M16 she had been carrying was gone, lost in the darkness.

  It felt distinctly strange and unnerving to be traveling without a weapon, so much so that he had to keep himself from bending over and picking up a stick as they walked out of the umbrella of light given off by the burning tree.

  As they walked, Deckard oriented on the sound of gunfire and headed for it. Gunfire meant zombies and that meant the edge of the Zone. Beyond that was Thuy. They crossed through the forest for a few hundred yards and then found a north-south road. He approached it slowly, almost as if he were afraid to spook it.

  Although he squatted low against a tree, Courtney stepped fearlessly and, in his opinion, foolishly, right out into the middle. “Which way?” she asked. She had her bearings back as well. “North to Canada or south to…well, I guess south really isn’t a good option.” She turned and stared back into the shadows through which they had just passed. “I say we go north and then if we want, we can go east.”

  “I’m going west,” Deckard said, his voice low and firm.

  Courtney’s breath sucked in as she stared at him in fear. It lasted only a few heartbeats before the look turned to shame and her shoulders fell. “I-I can’t go back. I can’t. I hope you understand.”

  He understood. Courtney’s flesh was torn and bruised, her eyes were circled in shadows, her clothing was in shreds, but what had suffered worse was the stuff inside of her. She had given everything she had to get out of the Zone, and he saw that she was done in.

  Still, she wasn’t a coward. “I’ll help you get out. If you can get to Dr. Lee, I’ll…” The sound of a car approaching sent them both scurrying like mice into the underbrush. Two matching black SUVs crept by. One had a searchlight attached to its side mirror and used it to sweep over the forest.

  “Don’t look,” Deckard warned. “Just keep your nose in the dirt.” Her shirt was white and to keep it from being seen, he lay over her; he could feel her shivering. “If they see us, don’t move. I’ll get them to chase me. But…okay, they’re leaving.” He rolled off her and allowed himself the small luxury of breathing a sigh of relief while he gazed up at the moon. It was a bright nickel high, high above them. “You were going to help? How?”

  “I’ll figure something out,” she said, surprising him by sitting up first. “Try to find a police cruiser with a Motorola scanner. Tune in to 866.06250. My call sign will be Dispatch 6. If you hear me broadcasting, reply with Deck 1 and we’ll go from there.”

  They stood and stared at each other, neither knowing what to say. They were outside the Zone, but neither was safe. With a final smile, the two parted, only Courtney stopped after only a few steps. “Hey, Deck. Do you think she can fix this?”

  There was no need to ask who Courtney was referring to. “If anyone can, she can.”

  2— J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington DC

  Everyone in the conference room, whether they were in black suits or black pantsuits, was ragged around the edges. Ties were loose, shirts were rumpled, eyes were red. The men sported five o’clock shadows and the women, their make-up wearing thin, had begun to look mannish.

  There was one noticeable exception and that was Special Agent Katherine Pennock, who had been told to “keep looking like that.” She didn’t quite know what that meant, but as it had come from the Associate Executive Assistant Director for National Security, she had made sure to keep the lip gloss handy. While the Associate Executive Assistant Director for National Security was a ridiculous title, it was an extremely powerful position, two steps away from the Director of the FBI.

  Katherine was in a room full of strangers. They were all FBI, but she was the only one who had been farmed in and not because she had special skill in tracking down domestic terrorists. She was there because the president liked young, hot blondes. Supposedly, it made him easier to manipulate.

  It was embarrassing and degrading and, so far, she hadn’t had the opportunity to manipulate anyone. In fact, she hadn’t had the opportunity to do anything at all, except to make coffee and she had passed on that special opportunity.

  Her expertise was in cyber-based crime, with an emphasis on child sexual exploitation. “And a minor in presidential stroking,” she mumbled. She sat in the back of the room, well away from the coffee pot, and watched as the assignments were given out. An hour before, every agent in the room, except for Katherine, had been spread out all over D.C. prepared to swoop down on two of the terrorists.

  But the terrorists were one step ahead and had forced their helicopter to set down in Baltimore and had disappeared into the wind with vials of zombie blood. Supposedly, there was a second group of terrorists somewhere on Long Island, but Katherine didn’t think they’d be getting another note or another call. There was no honor among thieves and truly no evidence, beyond the word of cold-blooded murderers, that there were any more people out there carrying around vials of zombie blood.

  The FBI couldn’t take chances, however and now they were going to spread their already thin resources over a second major American city. Baltimore was now its own Quarantine Zone—and all the while, Katherine was just going to sit there, studiously avoiding the coffee maker.

  The lights dimmed and the overhead projector kicked on displaying a map of the city of Baltimore. An agent with short-cropped dark hair began speaking in a no-nonsense monotone, “You will need to familiarize yourselves with the city. Maps will be provided. Roadblocks are in red. As you can see, the Baltimore office had concentrated on the roads heading south. That is the prime directive, keeping these terrorists from getting to the capital. We will be coordinating with local law enforcement and what is left of the Maryland National Guard. Don’t expect too much from them. For the most part…”

  Katherine tuned him out. She wasn’t going to Baltimore so why bother memorizing useless details? Instead, she went back to her own investigation. For the last day and a half as she had waited to speak to the president she had been free to do as she pleased just as long as she didn’t leave the J. Edgar Hoover Building. What pleased her was doing her job. In this case she only wanted to find out who had let the disease loose and who had escaped from Long Island. In other words, she wanted to break the case wide open.

  Cracking her Mac Pro, she gazed once more at a copy of the letter that had been sent:

  To Whom it may concern,

  Because the military has not been able to control the spread of the “zombie virus,” my comrades and I do not believe we are safe on Long Island. By chance we have access to “zombie” blood a
nd have used it to create a dozen infected persons. Each of these persons is being held in separate homes behind locked doors, but as you know, doors and locks will only hold against them for so long, meaning you are on a time crunch to respond.

  Our demands are simple, we would like to have safe passage arranged for the ten of us. You will provide two helicopters for our use. The first will convey a small group of us to Washington D.C. where we will be freed at a destination of our choosing. Once the first group is safe and outside of government control and surveillance, the second will follow.

  Yes, each of us will have the virus on our persons and yes, we will make zombies within the capital. None of this is open to negotiations. Once we are safe, the location of each zombie will be released.

  We do not wish to spread the disease any further than it has been. Our only goal is survival. Our safety and the lives of twenty million people are in your hands. If you agree to our demands broadcast the words: Lord Abraham’s Revival on ISR channel 12 in the following locations: Garden City, Brentwood, West Hampton, and Riverhead. We will reply with Morning Glory Blinders and instructions for the first pick up. It is advisable for you to hurry.

  Yours,

  Professor X

  Her eyes scanned it once, rereading the letter for the hundredth time, searching for meaning behind the meaning. As always, certain words jumped out at her: zombie virus, comrade, by chance, Lord Abraham’s Revival, Morning Glory Blinders and Professor X. These were marked in red.

  Deep within the building was an analysis team pouring over the letter, agonizing over every word. She was sure they had a hundred different theories cooking. Katherine was working on her own. The letter had been written by a woman. A smart woman who had put quotes around the word zombie and the zombie virus. That meant she was dismissive of the term. Was she dismissive because she knew the true origin of the apocalypse?