The Apocalypse Crusade Day 4: War of the Undead

by Peter Meredith

  He believed it completely now, but he told himself that he wasn’t afraid. “They’re after the FBI agent and that is why I left her alive,” he said.

  Not a minute before, Anna had dared to question him on the subject, hinting that he had been afraid of her. You should have killed the fed, she had insisted. She’s the one with the keys to the cuffs.

  Eng hadn’t been exactly afraid. He preferred the term ‘cautious.’ Katherine had proven to be no slouch with a gun. Besides, there was another set of handcuff keys in the building. They just had to get to them while the zombies were busy hunting down the agent.

  “We must hurry,” he hissed and picked his way through the mess, heading for the north stairwell. It wasn’t empty. They heard the zombie coming down towards them. It fell frequently, making all sorts of ruckus. Eng hoped that it would be a ‘partial’ in other words, a zombie that was already mostly dead. He wasn’t so lucky.

  It was a female, but a big one and fully formed. Having no other choice, he shot it and the sound of the M4 in the confined space was like a canon. Everyone and everything in the building heard it. The zombie fell at Eng’s feet and he stepped lightly over it as if it were nothing more than a blob of gum that he didn’t want to step in.

  Anna held the beam of her light on it longer, afraid that despite the gaping hole in the side of its head, it would come alive and get her. “Jesus,” she whispered and then ran up after Eng. It wasn’t easy to run with cuffed hands, one holding the unwieldy shield and the other the flashlight. But he wasn’t waiting for her or for anyone. He had the Com-cells in his pack, a gun in his hands, and pretty soon the keys to his cuffs.

  Four days earlier, there had been an infected police officer with a battering ram who had nearly made it onto the fourth floor. Eng remembered it very well. That man had died a real death and Eng was betting his life that his body was still in the stairwell.

  And it was. Grinning behind his mask, Eng pulled the blackened keys from the corpse and handed them to Anna. “Unlock me,” he ordered.

  She pushed the keys back towards him and held out her own hands. “Unlock me, first. You’ll still have your gun, don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried,” he said, taking the keys and unlocking her hands. “I could kill you without the gun.”

  He was right. He could kill her with ease and at the same time, she could reach out and yank his mask off; she was sure her gloved hands were just covered in Com-cells. She unlocked him saying, “Just tell me how we get out of here alive. Can you fly that helicopter?”

  “No,” he said, dashing her hopes. They left the stairwell and went to the window that overlooked the helicopter, which was still spinning its blades. They could see zombies flocking in and at first, he didn’t understand why they were heading towards the hospital.

  Anna went to the window and looked up. “There’s a fire on the roof. I can see the flames. But who would do that? It’s only attracting more zombies. No! It was those awful little ones! They did it.”

  Eng didn’t want to believe it was possible. It was one thing to retain rudimentary speech and to perhaps open simple doors, but this was a level far beyond that. If the fire had been set on purpose it meant…“We’re trapped,” Eng whispered.

  Jaimee Lynn had indeed sent two of her pack to make fire. The big monsters were slow and dumb, but they were also necessary. She needed them to eat all the bullets in the soldier’s guns so that she could eat the soldiers just like she had eaten Joe Swan. Her craving for his blood had been more than just desire. After her long trek across Connecticut, she had been weak and dizzy. Now she was strong, full of malignant energy.

  It pulsed through her and when she put her hand on the wall of the first floor corridor, she could almost feel the building as a living thing. She could feel the air around her as its breath and the walls as its bones. And along those bones ran a current that she alone could feel.

  From the third door on the right along that first floor corridor she felt Special Agent Katherine Pennock trembling in the corner as she pointed a gun at the door. And Jaimee Lynn could feel Anna and Eng’s panic sifting down from above. She could even feel the warmth of PFC Jennifer Jackson lying unconscious in the storage room.

  Jaimee Lynn could eat her at any time, only right then she was in the mood to hunt. She loved the taste and feel of the blood when it was filled with adrenaline. It was hotter and richer and made her stronger.

  The little zombie would eat Jennifer Jackson, that was certain, but she wanted to taste the fear in Katherine Pennock first. She started tapping on the walls, knowing that Katherine’s fear would amp with every knock. She had only tapped three times, coming closer and closer, when she heard General Axelrod’s helicopter. This changed her plans, but not by much. A grin creased the drying blood on her face as she said, “More meat.”

  3—11:40 p.m.

  The Walton Facility

  Deckard looked down at the facility and just like Thuy, thought of it as his building. It had been his responsibility to protect and he had failed in that responsibility. This was a second chance for him and unlike Thuy, he wasn’t afraid to go back inside.

  He could see her fear and it was understandable. She was small, weak, delicate, and what was being asked of her was preposterous.

  There were only four of them going into the building. Himself, Thuy, John Burke and one of the crewmen of the Blackhawk. Axelrod wasn’t even allowing Courtney to go in, though she hadn’t fought all that strenuously for the chance to be eaten alive.

  “There are millions of people counting on this group of people,” Axelrod said, gesturing to his staff, all of whom were trying to run their perspective commands from the cramped cabin of a moving Blackhawk.

  “And there are hundreds of millions of people counting on a cure,” Deckard shot back.

  Axelrod lifted a hand, suggesting with it: what can you do? “You have your job to do and I have mine. So, let’s get cracking.”

  Thuy had not counted on the facility being so overrun with zombies. She figured there would be a couple of dozen and that Deckard and most of the soldiers would accompany her. They’d be in and out in no time. This was much, much different. Clearly the first team had met with some sort of disaster.

  They could see a body next to the grounded Blackhawk. It was the only sign of the first team—and if a team under the auspices of the White House could be obliterated, how on earth could four people win out?

  An M4 was thrust into her hands. Deckard held out a magazine for her. She took it and fit it up into the bottom of the gun, gave it a little smack to make sure it was seated properly and then pressed the little button that sent the bolt home, loading the weapon.

  “Piece of cake,” she said with a sour grin.

  “It won’t be,” Conan Westemeyer, the crew member who was going with them said. “We have to get in and out of there in twenty minutes. The pilot says he doesn’t have the fuel to hang around any longer.”

  Thuy felt her stomach drop, and even Deckard looked shocked. John Burke was unfazed. He squinted out of the Blackhawk’s open door. “We is gonna do this just fine, don’t y’all worry none ‘bout that. We’ll get them what not-cells and once we get safe, y’alls gonna fix me up with a real cure, right Dr. Lee?”

  She owed him a cure. She owed the world a cure. “I’ll do what I can, though some things will…”

  The Blackhawk’s M240 began barking as the chopper slowly descended across from the first helicopter, whose blades were still spinning. There were plenty of targets for the machine gun and the carnage was sickening. Thuy couldn’t watch. When she turned away, Courtney grabbed her hand and mouthed over the storm of noise: Be safe! Thuy nodded, her stomach whirling with butterflies.

  She thought that she should’ve been more prepared for battle. After all, she’d been in near constant danger for days now. But there was she was trembling and feeling as though she were about to be sick. Thuy fought the nausea, not wanting to add the embarrassment of puking o
n top of everything else.

  “Deep breaths,” she told herself. “Deep breaths and you’re going to be fine…Oh, shit!” The Blackhawk thumped to the pavement and she fell to the side, only to be caught by Deckard, who yelled something into her ear. “What?” she yelled. He had already turned away, pulling her out of the helicopter.

  The moment she dropped onto the ground, the Blackhawk shot up again, its blades sounding like they were slapping the air, its gun going nonstop.

  “Stay right on my ass!” Deckard yelled to her. He led the way, hurrying forward, his M4 pointed straight ahead. Westemeyer was three steps back and to the right, while John was three back and to the left. Thuy came last, mindful of only three things: it would be bad to accidentally shoot Deckard in the back, there were hundreds and hundreds of zombies rushing right for them, and her completely filled bladder that felt as though it were about to burst.

  Fearlessly, Deckard walked through the destroyed front gates and although he had his finger on the trigger, he didn’t fire. Their ride had not gone far. It hovered sixty feet up and about fifty to their right, a perfect angle for the door gunner who was spraying fire and lead from his M240 like it was a hose, sweeping back the undead and creating a gruesome lane for the four of them to hurry through.

  Thuy had been a bridesmaid at a wedding once. She had walked in pretty white shoes, stepping on rose petals. Here she walked through a flowing river of black blood and body parts. Had she not been so frightened, she would have been too sickened to move. Her fear kept her going and the helicopter kept them safe right up until they entered the building. Then they were on their own.

  Outside it had been dark, inside it was an entirely different sort of dark. Thuy could only think of it a “nightmare” dark. She fumbled for a flashlight and flicked it on.

  “Fuck!” John screamed without warning and began shooting as hideous beasts with diseased humanoid faces and wide, gaping mouths lunged out of the dark. The lobby became lit by flashes from the guns, but it wasn’t enough.

  “The light! I need the light!” Westemeyer yelled. Thuy swung the beam to the right and watched him blast three zombies into pieces. He was firing an M249, a light machine gun that was usually called a SAW. On the helicopter, it had appeared to Thuy to be heavy and cumbersome. Now it was a blessing.

  Wherever Westemeyer pointed the SAW, the undead were hurled back and Deckard had the good sense to drop into a crouch and pull John Burke down with him. Westemeyer fired over their heads, killing everything that moved, and Thuy felt a strange elation at the death.

  But it didn’t last. The SAW jammed and try as he might, he was unable to clear it. Deckard took Thuy’s as yet fired M4 and handed it to him. “We’ll find you something,” he said to Thuy. “For now, take this and keep us covered.” He gave her his flashlight so that she had one in each hand. To Thuy, the flashlights were one step up from being naked.

  She shone them back and forth as Deckard led them through the carnage and to the central stairwell, stopping as dozens of undead poured from the open door. Jaimee Lynn had propped open all the stairwell doors and now the beasts could go anywhere they pleased in the building.

  “Not this way,” Deckard said and then ran down a hallway with Thuy and the others struggling to catch up. They were moving through the admin section, keeping low and heading for the north stairwell. They were just passing the maze of cubicles when a slight voice called out: “Help me.”

  Deckard stopped so suddenly that Thuy rammed into his back. “Over there,” he whispered, pointing. “What is that?”

  Thuy shone one of her lights and saw, kneeling against a chair, her head bowed, a soldier with long dark hair spilling from her helmet. She looked as if she was using the chair to get up.

  “Are you okay?” Deckard asked as he hurried up to her. She didn’t answer or move. She looked stuck in that simple position. “Hey, are you…” He touched her shoulder and she fell over. “What the fuck?” he hissed jumping back. In the light of the beam, they saw Jennifer Jackson’s corpse, her throat had been torn out. It barely bled. Jaimee Lynn had sucked her dry.

  “What the fuck!” Westemeyer cried. “Wait, if she’s dead then who called to us?” In answer, there was a childish giggle from their right and a door opened. Thuy spun the light in time to see a flood of undead spewing from the open door.

  Deckard shot the first two, dropping them and causing a pile up. “Let’s go!” he bellowed and raced on, just as more doors opened. The first door to open was to their left and the four of them shied away from it just as another door on their right burst open.

  In a flash, diseased hands were clawing at them. Westemeyer screamed a curse as something with shocking strength caught hold of his chest rig and pulled him off balance. He turned and fired a long burst, but the M4 was torn from his hands. In the semi-dark, which was lit only by gun flashes and the chaotic beams from Thuy’s flashlight, he came face to face with what looked like a single horrific monster. It seemed as though it had a hundred arms and a hundred mouths. “Fuck!” he screamed at the top of his lungs as he was yanked forward into the creature and was swallowed beneath it.

  Thuy saw the writhing mass and tried to dodge around it, but a long grey arm reached out and grabbed her ankle, tripping her and sending her sprawling.

  Deckard had been spinning and shooting in every direction; now he charged, but his magazine was empty and the gun was useless. He used his heavy boots to stomp Thuy free.

  Then she was up and running and he was running right beside her. With the dark and zombies coming at them from every direction, she had no idea where they were exactly and where they were going. She only knew that as they raced around the first floor of the building, they ran from one mob of the undead to the next. And it couldn’t last. Their bullets would run out, their energy would run out and lastly their blood would run out of them.

  Thuy was gasping for breath when she heard a new voice, “This way!” The voice was high and piercing, and all three of them stopped in their tracks, fearing another trap, but then a flashlight flicked on and they saw what they thought was another soldier.

  It was Special Agent Katherine Pennock decked out in body armor and carrying an M4. “Get over here, damn it!” This was no monster playing tricks and the three of them charged through the open door and then threw their weight against it.

  They eyed Katherine, dubiously, none of them able to hide their disappointment—Katherine was alone and small and not terribly well armed.

  “Turn off the lights, Dr. Lee,” Katherine commanded.

  Hearing her name made Thuy jump and before she turned off the lights, she shot one into Katherine’s face. “How do you know me?” Thuy asked.

  Katherine pushed the light away. “You’re on the FBI’s most wanted list. Currently you’re number one, but you won’t be for long. Anna and Eng escaped. They knocked out a soldier that was with me and I’m pretty sure they went upstairs, though why I don’t know. They have the Com-cells already, so it doesn’t make sense.”

  “My, that’s a lot to take in,” Thuy said, trying to recover her wits. “I-I’m afraid we found a dead soldier over by the admin section. It was a woman with dark hair and she was freshly dead. And perhaps the reason why Anna and Eng went upstairs is that they realized their mistake. The Com-cells are ruined. Likely, they’re after the same things we are.”

  “Your notes?” Katherine asked.

  Thuy shook her head. “No. We are after the different structures that make up the Com-cells. You might call them building blocks in much the same way amino acids build proteins. I’m hoping to reconfigure these structures so as to produce a new…”

  “We don’t have time for this, Thuy,” Deckard said. “We need to get upstairs, get the shit and go. But we’ll never get up there without a distraction. Any volunteers?”

  Being a distraction sounded like a death sentence and John snorted at the idea. Katherine had a real mask and actual armor, but still found herself looking down at her boot
s. Deckard figured that he would have to do it and had asked the question without any real hope that someone would say, yes, thus it was a surprise when Thuy raised her hand.

  “I’ll do it,” she said. When Deckard gave her a sharp look, she added, “Trust me. I was somewhat turned around back there and panicked, but I’m better now…at least a little. Come on. Follow me.”

  To everyone’s amazement, she opened the door to the hall and strode out, flicking on both flash lights.

  “Damn it, Thuy!” Deckard cried, following after her. He was barely out the door before the first of the zombies were upon them, moaning in hunger and reaching with their long arms. Thuy hadn’t run away as she should have, instead she illuminated the beasts with her lights, giving Deckard a fine opportunity to kill the first four in front of them.

  John and Katherine joined in, killing a dozen, but also attracting so many that they filled the hallway.

  “Now!” Thuy cried, waving her lights. “Run!”

  Katherine ran with the others, thinking that Thuy’s reputation as a genius did not seem well founded. In fact, she seemed a little crazy as she sped ahead to where the hall branched and then just stood there swinging one flashlight in circles as if she were at a one-woman rave.

  Thuy pushed Deckard away from her, saying, “To the left!”

  Without questioning what appeared to be a break from reality, Deckard moved to the hall on their left where the darkness was very deep. But what good was darkness when the creatures could sniff them out? John followed just as obediently and Katherine could only succumb to the same sort of peer pressure that made Jonestown such a vacation site. They stood against the wall fifteen feet from where Thuy was still swinging the light in circles.

  With the monsters rushing down on her, she waited for the last second before sliding the still lit flashlight far down to the right, where it skittered and bounced sending out beams in every direction. It was the only light source and the zombies didn’t question whether or not there was still a human attached to it. They rushed after it while Thuy eased over to the others.