by TW Brown
As he surveyed things in a more up-close manner, he noticed that the fence was beginning to undulate. His gaze travelled down to the first of several clusters of the undead struggling against the relatively flimsy barrier. He could hear the screech of metal, and then heard what almost sounded like a giant Slinky as at least one part gave way. The perimeter was breached.
Something crackled to his right and Joel spotted an undead soldier dragging itself along on the ground at the rear of a pack that was now pouring through the breach in the fence line. The left leg was entirely gone and the right leg was missing from just above the knee. There was a headset wrapped around its neck, and the noise was coming from there.
“Anybody on this frequency, this is callsign Sky Angel One. We are currently on the roof of the parking structure of FEMA Six. Our bird is dead, repeat FUBAR. We request extraction from this location,” a man’s voice chirped from the headset.
Joel thought it over for a moment and then hustled over to the downed soldier. The man was lacking any sort of weapon, but the radio seemed like a good item to confiscate. Besides, none of the zombies seemed to even be aware of his presence. Their focus was the noise source on top of the parking garage.
Reaching his target, Joel had to fight back the urge to be sick. The stench from these things was simply beyond anything he’d ever experienced. And in such large numbers, that smell was amplified to the point of unbearable.
He moved in fast and flipped the disabled zombie onto its back. Making short work of it with a stab to the eye socket, he relieved it of its belt and then untangled the headset from around its neck.
Inspecting the radio, he really wished he could just dunk the entire thing in a vat of antibacterial solution. He had to flick a chunk of something nasty that clung to one earphone pad and decided that he would not be donning this piece of equipment.
Hitting the button, Joel spoke slowly and clearly, “Attention occupants of the military helo that just landed at the Thomas & Mack parking garage, the location has been overrun. Your arrival has attracted the attention of substantial amounts of whiskey-deltas. Suggest you try to escape the structure ASAFP. There is a grassy field below and I have a shuttle van from one of the local casinos. I intend to exit the city limits right now. If you want out of here, then I would make for my location.” Joel looked up to see the dark silhouettes of two individuals peering over the edge in his general direction. Joel waved his arms.
He decided not to tell them that he had plans to come back and abscond with as much military hardware as possible. They might not be too keen on that idea. Still, they were soldiers. He would do what he could to get them out of harm’s way. What they did after that was up to them. If they wanted to come back and perhaps try to rescue a bunch of idiots who would likely be dead with two weeks anyway, then that was their call. But, no matter what his own personal agenda, Joel would not forsake fellow soldiers.
“Hello down there,” a man’s voice replied. Joel watched the figures up above and saw one of them waving. “What the actual fuck happened here, over?”
“No idea, over.” Joel looked around to ensure he was still safe. He’d be damned if he was going to stand here and get eaten. His charity and desire to help fellow soldiers only went so far. “I just escaped the MGM a short time ago. Been up there riding this out the past few weeks until…” His voice caught in his throat as he flashed back to his dear Wanda.
She’d gone out to check on some damn friend of hers that had escaped from the casino level and come up in an elevator. Joel knew better than to try and stop her when her mind was made up, but he’d made her carry a gun. While he’d managed to stay away from the madness he’d seen unfolding on his television the past several days, he knew it was bad.
She’d promised to be careful, and Joel had no reason to believe that she couldn’t take care of herself. The two of them went to the range at least once a week, and she had become a damn fine shot with both handgun and rifle. To further bolster his confidence, she’d been the one pointing out things that were being done improperly as the news continued to roll in about how the entire world was collapsing.
She’d had no problem believing that most of the Asian nations went dark so fast. She’d brought up footage of places like downtown Tokyo, pointing out the massive amount of foot traffic. Enormous crowds were only part of the problem. She went on to explain how places like Tokyo would be next to impossible to survive in for more than the shortest periods of time due to the fact that the population was in such close proximity with each other.
“I doubt those rice paper walls did very much to keep zombies out,” she’d said, only being partially sarcastic.
When his Wanda had left that day, she’d assured him that her friend was okay. She wouldn’t do anything to endanger anybody.
One of the first things Joel had done when martial law had been declared in Las Vegas was to alter the elevator so that it only went up and down with the turn of a key. It had been a simple modification of the emergency circuit, and since nobody’d heard from staff or management for the past several days, there was nobody to tell him that he couldn’t.
He’d been sitting on the couch watching the latest EBS announcement when he heard the scream. Jumping to his feet, Joel had burst into the corridor to see Wanda struggling with somebody at the elevator. His heart had almost burst from his throat when the two had fallen into the elevator and vanished when the door slid shut.
He’d run to it, pounding impotently on the button as the numbers ticked down. When the elevator stopped and the LED indicated that it had done so on the fifth floor, Joel punched the wall in frustration. Then, after only a brief pause, the elevator began to return up to his floor.
Joel had been so hasty, that only as the doors were about to open did he realize that he didn’t have a weapon on hand. Wanda was standing in the open elevator, a splatter of almost black blood across her face. On the floor in a heap was a body of a woman with the back of her head blown out and a neat bullet hole in her forehead.
“People suck,” Wanda had said with a weak smile. A trickle of blood came from a small rip on one arm. Neither of them needed to say a word. Both of them knew the eventual outcome.
She’d stepped out of the elevator and almost collapsed as the adrenaline left her body in a knee-weakening rush. Joel had sent one of his staff to the doctor’s room. He’d had the doctor and his family brought to his floor the first days of martial law, insisting that they were safer with him than at some government emergency shelter. And from what the news showed, staying in a residential home was asking to die. The doctor had been grateful, as had most of Joel’s staff when the initial offer had been made.
It’d been after the fire that claimed the entirety of the Cosmopolitan just up the street that the first deserters had vanished in the night. They’d obviously used the emergency exits. It was the pounding of zombies on the other side that had informed Joel that there had been some late-night departures. That had also been the day that Joel had sealed the emergency fire exits.
“Anybody else wants to leave, all they need to do is say so,” Joel had announced to the remaining residents on his floor. “But I’ll be damned if somebody is going to endanger the rest of us by leaving a door open for those things to come stumbling up.”
“Hey, buddy, you still with me, over?” the radio crackled, snapping Joel out of his memories.
“Yeah, still here, over.” Joel looked around again, amazed that no zombies were coming for him.
“Look, the whirly-bird is done. Took a freaking rocket during our fly over a residential area if you can believe that happy crappy. Nearest outpost still online is about thirty miles from here, over.”
“You looking to regroup with your outfit, over?”
Joel shaded his eyes and looked up at the two figures after several seconds passed without him being answered. He could tell that they were in an earnest conversation. Well if they were going to stand up there and argue all day, then they would
be doing it without him as an audience. He was about to tell them that they were on their own when his radio crackled with static and then a reply.
“That’s a negative, over.”
“I’m rolling in five, so find a way down here and let’s put this place behind us, over,” Joel replied.
He turned and started back for the shuttle van. Along the way he had to shove away a few zombies, but he barely paid them any mind. His thoughts were focused on the next step.
“You sure you want to just walk away from this place?” the radio squawked after a moment.
Joel paused and glanced back. They’d left the top floor and were out of sight. Obviously they were seeing a trove of items worth taking. Perhaps these two would be a good start to his ultimate objective.
“What is the risk reward assessment?” Joel finally shot back after he climbed into the shuttle and scooped his cat up into his lap as he watched the undead stumbling around inside the perimeter of the fallen FEMA site.
As he sat there, he saw something that almost made him angry with himself for not having come to the conclusion earlier. Moving down the aisle of the shuttle, Joel scanned the situation and smiled at the simplicity.
“If you are not in a bad situation, hold your positions and take a moment to prioritize the best items. I will be coming in hard and fast in a few minutes. Be ready, over.” Joel put Peanut on the dash where the cat promptly yawned, stretched and then sprawled out in the pool of sunlight.
“What are we supposed to be ready for, over?”
“A fast transfer of goods and hasty departure.”
It only took him a few minutes to lay out his plan. Like good soldiers, they didn’t interrupt or ask a lot of meaningless questions. They took in the information and used that to determine what needed to be done.
4
Field Tests
Joel keyed the radio twice as the signal that he was ready. He’d left the relative safety and security of the shuttle van once again and he’d spied his objective almost instantly.
After giving the Harley a quick inspection, Joel had stood it up and walked the bike out to the four-way intersection of East Tropicana Avenue and Wilbur Street. His own radio squelched twice in response letting him know that his two new companions were also ready.
It had taken them the better part of an hour to do what needed to be done. He hoped that they’d chosen wisely. It wasn’t like he had anyplace else to be, but he hated wasting time.
Having gotten his cue, Joel started the bike and then gave the throttle a hard twist. The noise was instant and almost ear-splitting after so much relative quiet.
Hurrying away from the two-wheeled noisemaker, Joel made his way to a three-car accident and hid in one of the dark nooks provided by the mess. Already he could see scores of the undead turning in response to this new sound stimulus. He had to hope that the response by the zombies in the area was universal. If a good number of the ones wandering around inside the defunct FEMA site made their way out, it would make gathering the military hardware all that much easier.
As the numbers of the undead gathering around the idling motorcycle grew, Joel got down on his belly and wriggled his way to the other side of the wreck. He emerged in a crease between the front bumper of one vehicle and the passenger side rear door of another. He caught a whiff of zombie that was obviously closer. It wasn’t so bad that it coated his throat, but he could definitely taste it. Luckily, he thought he might be growing somewhat immune to the stink as his stomach simply clenched a little instead of threatening to empty itself.
A soft thud that he felt more than heard came from just above and behind him. He hadn’t spotted anything inside any of the vehicles, but there was no other location for this erratic thump to originate. Being very careful, Joel inched himself up until he could peer inside the passenger window where the sound came from.
“Jesus,” he breathed.
Seated on the floor of the car was a child no older than five or six years old. The ripped-out throat dark with dried and blackened blood advertised its fate. It was looking up at him with its filmed over eyes riddled with the dark tracers and an empty expression just like any other zombie. Only, there was something off about this one, Joel decided.
It took him a few seconds to realize that it wasn’t making an effort to get at him. It appeared content to remain seated on the floor in the back of the car and stare at him. That was unsettling; almost as much as what the child held clutched in its filthy hands.
Joel allowed his eyes to take in more of the picture he was being presented with inside the vehicle. There were splatters of blood on the inside of the windshield, and the driver’s side window in front had been shattered. Judging by the scraps of cloth and copious amounts of dried blood coating the inside of the door, it was a safe bet that the driver had been dragged out through that gaping hole.
Somehow the child had been bitten and then obviously turned and that is where the real horror of the scene existed. In the back seat were a pair of car seats. One of them had been unfastened and it was bit of a stretch to think that little boy had freed himself from the restraints. Since the undead showed no ability to operate even the most basic of contraptions, it was next to impossible that he’d turned and then let himself out of his car seat.
However, the second car seat was where Joel kept finding his gaze drawn. The remnants of at least two small blankets had been drenched in blood to the point where they were now almost totally solid. One corner stood straight up as if in testament to that fact. Joel found himself cursing that blanket. If it would’ve folded over, then he would not be looking at the partial remains of a body belonging to an infant. If the blanket had given him a reprieve, then all he would’ve had to endure looking at was the tiny arm clutched in the little zombie boy’s hands like a giant turkey drumstick.
Not sure how long he’d been distracted by the terrible sight, Joel finally tore himself away when his radio made a series of electronic pops indicating that his soldiers were trying to signal him. He pushed away from the nightmare diorama and hurried down the access road to his shuttle.
It was parked lengthwise just a few yards back from one of the breaches in the fence just prior to reaching the parking garage structure. Joel climbed on top of it and scanned the area for the two soldiers. When he saw them, he could not hold back the smile. They were standing just outside a long military tent, each of them waving their arms frantically over their heads.
After a single wave back in response and a click of his radio mic button, Joel scurried down and into the shuttle. He turned the engine over and wrenched the wheel around, driving through the gaping hole in the fence. He swerved to avoid or minimize slamming into the staggering corpses that had opted to stick around the FEMA site until he came to a stop at the tent. He opened the front and middle doors and hurried out.
“Pleased to meet—” the soldier wearing the radio headset began, but Joel cut him off.
“Introductions later. Right now let’s load out as much as possible and get out of here.” Joel edged past the pair and into the tent.
Sure enough, it was exactly what he’d been hoping for. This tent was basically the weapons locker for the military that had been here. There were cases and crates stacked neatly, forming aisles to walk down. Most were very clearly stamped with what they contained.
The two soldiers followed him inside and everybody grabbed something based on the priority that they’d agreed upon before undertaking this little mission. In short order, they’d transferred enough into the shuttle to arm a revolutionary resistance.
Joel gave the signal indicating that they were carrying their last load and hurried to deposit the crate of ammo he’d snatched up onto one of the seats. He rushed to the driver’s seat and watched until both of his new cohorts made it inside before shutting the doors and stomping on the gas to hasten their exit. The weight of their cargo did little to help in that matter, but eventually they got up a head of steam.
“As
I was saying,” the man with the headset groaned as he slid down into the seat closest to the driver’s, “name’s Will Barnes.”
Joel looked up and made eye contact with the man via the rearview mirror. He let his gaze drift over to the other soldier who was just removing the battle helmet. The brown hair was clumped together from sweat, and the individual’s face was flushed from the heat and exertion, but when they locked eyes, he had a tough time swallowing his surprise.
“Yeah…I’m a woman. You got a problem with it?” the soldier snarled.
“Just a bit old school? Is that the right phrase?” Joel replied with a shrug.
“Where did you serve?” Will piped in, giving a nod to the tattoo on Joel’s forearm.
Joel glanced down at the old and faded ink. The outline of Vietnam with a field knife plunged into the middle poked from beneath his rolled-up sleeve.
“Nam.” Joel had no need to elaborate. The two soldiers were silent in response.
Joel stared out the window at the road ahead. There were already swirls of sand blowing about. He wondered if the entire city might be swallowed by the desert within the next decade or so.
“My name’s Debra,” the female soldier said, finally breaking the silence. “Debra Allen.”
“Where can I take you two?” Joel asked as he nudged the wheel so that the shuttle avoided a trio of the undead stumbling his direction.
“Yeah…” Will let that word draw out a bit. “The thing is, we ain’t exactly looking to go back. We heard enough on the radio to know that the chain of command is broken. Hell, the president is dead, nobody has stepped forward to say a word about who would take over. That leads me to believe that the government is done. Our base was overrun this morning, so we don’t have a command to report to any longer, and well over half our numbers went AWOL in the last three days. I doubt the world’s most powerful army is in existence. Hell, the rumor on the wind is that a lot of units have simply gone rogue or flat out disbanded.”