When the leading edge of the horde came within a thousand meters, Okini calmly ordered his artillery chief to commence firing. Even over the thrum of the helicopter’s engine, the thunder of artillery could be heard, as all three hundred pieces fired at once. Seconds later, clouds of black smoke and brown dirt shot into the sky and the air roiled, buffeting the helicopter.
Although the cameraman let out a muffled cry, all Okini said was: “Excellent. Fire for effect.” There was really no reason to direct their fire since there was no way they could miss.
Every shell hit home. Every shell sent body parts flying and filled the air with spores and vaporized blood and shards of bone. Twenty or thirty of the beasts were destroyed with every strike, which seemed great up until Okini did the math.
His three hundred artillery pieces had been drawn by three hundred trucks. And each of those had been able to carry only a crew of five plus thirty of the hundred-pound shells of high-explosives. Quick math showed that three hundred pieces of artillery, multiplied by thirty shells, multiplied by thirty deaths per explosion meant that optimally his artillery would destroy a little over a quarter of a million of the creatures.
It was a drop in an immense bucket. The drop was enlarged in the slightest when Okini ordered the tanks and personnel carriers to add their destructive powers to the carnage. The leading waves of zombies were ripped to shreds as the Type-96 tanks fired their 120mm semi-automatic-loading cannons into them. Again, it was like shooting at the ocean from the beach—they couldn’t miss.
For thirty minutes, firepower alone held the undead back. The carnage was so fantastic that the peasants began cheering and jumping about in wild celebration. From ground level, it looked as though the undead horde was being utterly destroyed.
From Okini’s vantage, the truth was sadly obvious: despite the prolific expenditure of ordinance, not even two percent of the horde had been killed. When the pall of diseased smoke that hung over the entire length of the ditch finally lifted, the peasants were dismayed to see the undead marching forward still.
Within the phalanx, local Party officials who had been lied to repeatedly about the lack of real danger, yelled patriotic slogans in order to stiffen the resistance: We fight for home and homeland! We fight for the Party! We fight for China!
In spite of the cheerleading, a number of people tried to flee and again the army shot them down—they were the lucky ones.
The zombies, nearly twenty-four million strong, poured over the ditch as if it wasn’t there, and struck the front line of the peasants with a savage roar. In seconds, the two titanic armies were locked together so tightly and so fiercely that it was impossible to swing a weapon let alone a fist.
The fight became man against beast, fought tooth and nail. There was no winning such a fight. The battle surged back and forth along the lip of the ditch as the two masses of humanity locked horns. It was a wonder that the line lasted as long as it did, but after an hour, it finally broke in fifty places and was simply overrun in fifty more.
Only then did Okini act the part of a general. Wherever there was a hole in the line, he rushed in army units to plug it up and soon the sound of automatic rifle fire was nearly as loud as the sound of the screaming.
Another hour into the battle, the men of the front line had been killed and now the teenage boys flinched back into the middle-aged men. Frequently, these would fall back into the lines of women and before Okini knew it, entire sections of the line were running, heedless of the screaming party officials or the bullets of the army trying to stop them.
Tens of thousands of zombies poured into these gaps and it wasn’t long before there wasn’t a real line at all. There were only islands of humanity being attacked from every side. Okini had to decide whether to send in the tanks and the personnel carriers. Their machine guns were already out of bullets, but they could still rend the zombies beneath their treads.
It was horrible to watch as the metal monsters roared into battle, crushing the zombies and spitting out dripping flags of flesh behind them. In minutes, the tanks went from camouflaged green to glistening black. They circled the islands of humanity, doing their best to keep the zombies away, but all in vain.
Most of the remaining adult peasants had been contaminated by the Com-cells long before and now they began to turn into the very beasts they had been fighting. The islands began to devour themselves as the tanks drove around them, their crews gradually growing sicker and sicker.
It wasn’t long before General Okini saw that the battle had ended and that the zombie horde, instead of being crippled, had been augmented. He guessed that China now faced thirty million zombies, instead of twenty-four million.
“Did you get all of that?” he asked the cameraman. The younger man, who was green behind his mask, nodded. “Good. I’ll need it edited down to thirty minutes. Keep five minutes of the artillery bombardment, ten minutes of the infantry attacks, ten minutes of the tanks running about and the last five minutes will be the peasants turning on each other. I want twenty-five copies total. Don’t even think about making a copy for yourself.”
Of course, the cameraman made a copy and it wasn’t long before he was making a load of cash under an assumed name by posting the video on the internet and selling advertising on the home page. He needed money, badly. The only way out of China now was through fantastic bribes.
2—Montrose, New York
By the time the Politburo saw the video it had circulated halfway around the world and was being shown on American television. Lieutenant Eng of the People’s Liberation Army sat in front of a TV screen, staring in utter disbelief. He knew people in Suzhou. He had lived in Shanghai! That was his country and his people. Seeing the endless lines of zombies made him weak.
Next to him, Anna Holloway, who had been massaging the broken fingers on her left hand, chuckled and said in a whisper: “Well, that changes things a little.”
Eng, who had access to a fake passport and Visa, had planned on slipping down to Mexico and from there catching the next flight out to China, only there weren’t any flights back to China. They had all been canceled and now he knew why.
China was convulsing under a major outbreak of zombies. By the looks of it, one that was much worse than what was happening in the states. Eng had been planning on ditching Anna and the others as soon as he had the chance, but now he didn’t know what to do or where to go.
It wouldn’t be long before it was discovered what he had done and then he would be wanted on terrorism and mass-murder charges in two countries. He put his hands over his face and groaned.
“You need me,” Anna said to him, keeping her voice low so the others wouldn’t hear. There were ten of them stuck in a little motel off of Route 9 in the town of Montrose, New York. It was an empty place, a mile from the Hudson, and eleven miles from the southernmost point of the Quarantine Zone. Anyone with any sense was long gone.
The night before, five of them had escaped the Zone by taking a like number of hostages and forcing an army helicopter to fly them to safety. Now it was hard to tell who were the good guys and who were the bad guys—except that is, for Eng and Anna. They were the only ones armed and both were desperate enough to kill. Yet all the hostages were alive and, ironically, the only one tied up was one of the hostage takers, a man named Meeks—Special Agent Chaz Meeks, FBI.
The moment the helicopter had landed in the parking lot of a grocery store, the guns had shifted away from the innocent as the hostage takers had aimed them at each other, no one trusting anyone else. Lieutenant Eng had a Glock pointed at Meeks who had just aimed his Beretta at Anna. She had her gun pointed at Bob, but only because she had seen his gun jerk up; however, he was aiming at Eng, while the last man, a nobody named Alan kept his gun moving all around. He had no idea what was going on; he just didn’t want to die.
“Put the gun down or I’ll shoot her,” Meeks yelled over the noise of the helicopter.
“Go right ahead,” Eng yelled back. “You’d be do
ing me a favor.” Anna detested Eng and knew the feeling was mutual. If there hadn’t been a gun pointed Eng’s way, he would have let Meeks kill her without a qualm.
“I just want to get out of this alive!” Bob cried, “So maybe we should all put our guns down.”
Eng dared a glance toward him, saw the gun pointed his way, and said: “You first.” Bob lacked the courage to lower his weapon and so, with the helicopter blades whipping above them, the five-way Mexican standoff continued until the pilot unbuckled and climbed out of the cockpit.
“Get the fuck off my bird!” he screamed. “Or so help me God, I’ll take you right back over the Zone and turn her sideways and drop you at a thousand feet.”
Alan was the first to point his pistol up and then Bob. Meeks was next, but only because Eng, who no longer had anyone aiming a gun his way, stuck the barrel of his Glock in Meeks’ ear.
Anna was last, and the second she lowered her gun, the pilot pointed to the parking lot he had landed in and said: “There’s your freedom. Go!”
The ten of them jumped out. When they were all out, two things happened: the standoff recommenced and the chopper lifted straight up. Anna had the upper hand in the standoff this time. In her right hand was the pistol and in her left was the vial of deadly Com-cells she had stolen from R&K Pharmaceuticals. Bob and Alan were quick to give up their guns and now with two guns pointed at him, Meeks dropped his Beretta so that it clattered onto the pavement.
Then it was just Eng and Anna. “You need me,” she said, “and I need you. There’s no reason for either of us to die.” There was no question she hated the Chinese bastard, but she was screwed six ways from Sunday. When the blame came down, she would get her share and when prison sentences were handed out, she could expect to get more than her fair share. It would be twenty-five to life for her—if they didn’t tie her into Ol’ Sparky and light her ass up.
It would be worse for Eng and he knew it. Right there, a shaky alliance was formed. Their mutual enemy, FBI Agent Meeks was disarmed and bound. Bob and Alan gave up their guns, voluntarily. The two men had been wine-reps and although they both could wield a corkscrew with the dexterity of a ninja and could decant a merlot in ten seconds, they were weak. Both were, essentially, pacifists in a time of war.
With the leadership hierarchy settled, they stared around at the town of Montrose, where the only things that moved in the dark were mosquitos and packs of stray dogs sniffing at lamp posts. The place was utterly deserted. Being so close to the Zone, the town’s inhabitants had fled early the day before, a good number of them looting the local grocery store on their way out of town.
The store’s long front window had been smashed in and Anna’s feet crunched glass as she led the way into the dim building. There was little in the way of merchandise left. All the food was gone. There wasn’t so much as a can of beans or a carrot stick left on the shelves.
Along with food, any item that was considered to be immediately useful, such as toilet paper and batteries, had also been stolen. This left an entire aisle of greeting cards, a few spices and, thankfully a hundred different cleaning products. There were a good thirty gallons of bleach sitting right where anyone could have grabbed them.
The ten of them used toilet brushes and diluted bleach to scour themselves. At first they concentrated on their feet and then it was noticed that one of the hostages had black specs high up on her calf. Everyone immediately stripped off their pants and socks and took to scrubbing their legs and feet. Hands, arms and faces were next.
The fumes from the bleach were noxious, but no one complained too loudly. Their choice between a bad smell or death was an easy one to make.
Next, the little group, half-naked and freezing, wandered down the empty streets looking for clean clothing. Eventually, they found a boutique that sold high-end women’s apparel. This store hadn’t been broken into and was locked up tight. Alan, who was the largest of them, shouldered in the door. Everyone found something that fit, even the men, although they didn’t look happy wrapping themselves in bright colors and sassy patterns.
They were warm at least.
At that point, it was after one in the morning and everyone was too tired to go on. The motel was the best solution. Mattresses were dragged into the largest room and everyone fell asleep in seconds.
Now, with the sun up, the group was awake and watching TV as if they were a bunch of teens at a sleepover. The news, at least in America, seemed to be good. The army was coming—the real army—not these backwood National Guard hicks who were being blamed for screwing up the containment.
The army meant rescue and a return to normalcy and the group chatted excitedly until Anna said: “I wouldn’t believe it if I were you. The disease is going to spread over half the country before it’s checked, mark my words.”
That killed the excitement as if a switch had been thrown. Everyone in the room had been to the edge of death. Whether by luck or their wits, they had lived when a hundred thousand hadn’t. They were survivors and each had been changed by the experience.
Trust was gone. They listened to the promises of the president and heard his grandiose plans for the paratroopers and air assault soldiers, and doubt crept in.
“We need to get moving south,” Anna said to them. “We need to get as far away from the disease as possible.”
“How?” Alivia asked. She and her little brother had been the only hostages who hadn’t begged for the chance to leave a building surrounded by a thousand zombies—she hadn’t fought it either, which suggested to Anna that despite being in high school, she had brains and guts.
Anna shrugged. “By car, I guess. It’s the easiest way. But first we all have to get some shoes.” The boutique had sold a few stylish stilettos none of which were less than four inches in height and thus were useless for any sort of journey. Anna went on: “We’ll split up in teams of twos. Alivia and Jack.” she said pointing to the pair of teenage siblings. “Alan and Renee. Bob and Meg. Eng and Meeks. And lastly, I’ll go with Jenny. Remember, if you find any Nikes in white, size six, grab them for me. Ha-ha.”
The ten of them got to their feet and went out into the morning sunlight where they blinked like owls and shielded their eyes with their hands. Everything seemed still, but strangely normal. There was even the smell of burning leaves on the cool wind.
Eng caught Anna by the arm before she could join the others. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “Shoes? If they have shoes they’ll run away.”
“Let them,” she answered. “What do we need them for? If you ask me, they’re all dead weight. If they run, then it’ll be for the better, all except for Meeks. He’s FBI. We can’t risk keeping him alive. He can’t be here when we meet back up.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Make sure it’s quiet. We’ll say he took off when you weren’t looking.” Eng only grunted, but his sly eyes shifted to the FBI Agent and Anna knew that one problem would be taken care of.
The group broke into their five teams, going down different streets. Anna made sure to keep Jenny close. And she made sure to chat about shoes and other inconsequential things in the friendliest manner. As always, she played a dangerous game and she played to win. She had to over-awe Jenny with her vivaciousness just in case there was ever a trial and a jury, and there was a need for a friendly witness who would remember how relaxed and easy going Anna had been.
Eng wasn’t nearly so friendly. Taking hold of the electrical cord that bound Meeks’ wrists, Eng hauled him away from the rest of the group, heading down a side street. Rocks and twigs bit into their feet as they bypassed the front door of the nearest house and headed into the backyard where the grass was neatly trimmed and bordered by a chain-link fence. The fence had a gate that led to a neighbor’s yard. Eng went right for it, hustling Meeks along.
“Hey? What’s wrong with that house?” Meeks asked, jerking his chin around at the house they had just passed. “You don’t think they have any shoes in there.” He tried to smile, but his nervous lips wo
uldn’t hold still. He didn’t know whether to smile or grimace and he didn’t know if he should laugh crazily or scream. There was only one reason to ignore a perfectly good house.
“It was a woman’s house,” Eng answered. For some sick reason, Meeks’ fear egged on the brutal killer within Eng. Unlike Meeks, Eng was able to smile convincingly. “I’m not going to pick out shoes for a woman. Only you American ‘men’ would do something so pathetic. You act like eunuchs half the time. It’s embarrassing.”
Meeks, who had thought the same thing about his fellow Americans on occasion, relaxed and managed to smile, despite the insulting look he was being given.
The two went through the gate and Eng pointed at the back of the next house where a pile of wood had been hand-split. “A real man cut those logs. This is a man house.” They went to the back door. Eng knocked and paused, listening, not just for movement in the house, but also for the others in the group.
He heard nothing.
“The coast is clear,” Meeks said. “Say, could you untie me, my hands are starting to go numb. I’m not going to run away or anything and I’m not a threat. I’m ruined at the FBI. I took a hostage in order to save myself. You don’t get to come back from that sort of thing. So, you don’t have to worry about me, ok?”
Eng regarded him with his flat, black eyes. A dead bass had warmer eyes than he did. When he smiled, the eyes stayed just as cold. “Sure. Turn around.”
When Meeks complied, Eng crushed his skull with one of the hunks of wood.
Chapter 8
1—8:08 a.m.
The Quarantine Zone—Gamet Corner, New York
Deckard’s group was trapped in the closest of spaces with no way to turn. The dark staircase leading into the basement of the post office was not terribly wide or all that long. It was a single flight with enemies in front and behind.
The Apocalypse Crusade 3: War of the Undead Day 3 Page 11