by Josh Hilden
Adam raised the binoculars back to his eyes, his grip was a little better this time, and watched. The foot soldiers of his army, the Dead infantry that would never tire and always followed orders, marched up the hill and over the crest. Great swaths of them fell to the shots of the defenders as they fell back into White Harbor, but for every one that fell there were 10 maybe 20 more to take their place.
This was not going to be another Mackinaw Bridge. The bitch was too far away to work her weirdness on his warriors. That still frightened him, he had thought Ast-Murath, and through him Lord Clarke, were the most powerful creatures on the face of the earth. But for 10 minutes his warriors stood motionless at the mouth of the bridge, and light shown from her and made him believe he’d made a mistake when he’d taken the Greater Mark. But she was gone and would soon be meat. His resolve was solid.
When 10 minutes passed he turned to Ashley and nodded his head without saying a word. She might no longer share his bed, but she still knew the currents of his mind. All that was needed was a nod.
“All units move out.” She said into the radio. If he had not seen her say the words, he might have believed that they came from a computer and not a flesh and blood woman. When she spoke and gave specific orders to the different units, the mark on her forehead glowed cold obsidian.
5
The White Harbor Docks
10:30pm EST
The savage fight through the town lasted for almost three hours. Her people performed better than Jennifer could have hoped. But they had paid a hell of a price. When they reached the docks, less than 40 of the people who’d started the morning defending the line around the town were still walking amongst the living. They’d taken great pains to make sure none of their people were among the ranks of the Dead.
“Captain Millette,” a runner shouted as he sprinted toward her. She grimaced a little at the title.
“Yes,” she said.
“Ma’am, Captain Chen radioed and wanted me tell you the last of the civilians are away from the docks.” He was panting as he spoke. Jennifer had no real use for the little Chinese Captain, the onetime she’d met him he’d spent the entire time staring at her tits. But apparently he knew what he was doing. The evacuation took less time than they’d thought, and now the people of White Harbor were sailing to safety. Of course, this fight would be decided long before they ever made sight of their new home.
“What about our extraction?” She asked.
He hesitated, and she knew she was not going to like the answer. She glared at him, and he finally gave the response she feared but was not surprised by. “The choppers from White River are moving as fast as they can, but it is still gonna be a few hours before they are done there.”
“DAMNIT!” she yelled at the black water. The runner winced as if she had hit him. She softened when she saw the look on his face, and continued in a gentler tone. “We are just going to have to make the stand here on the harbor. I want you to spread the word. Tell everyone you find to pull back onto the docks.” He hurried off without saying a word.
They spent the next 30 minutes piling barricades on the large docks that had once served the ore freighters on the Great Lakes. Then they used axes and chainsaws to cut the links to the land. On the shore, the Dead began to pile up in heaps as the sharp shooters kept them at bay. Jennifer was glad that the fucker’s artillery and armor was gone.
The sounds of trucks approaching the docks could be heard. When they came into sight, she saw the black painted vehicles of the Army of the Dead. Her heart sank. Everyone who’d gone out was probably dead. That was the only reason she could figure as to why they’d never shown. Besides the trucks, there were several dozen motorcycles representing The Razors, the bikers had been fully integrated into the structure of the Army. Jennifer could make out the forms of James McCoy and Arn Jacobson in the front. The marks on their foreheads were glowing a pale crimson in the darkness.
“Hail, hail, the gangs all here.” She said and lifted the M-4 carbine she’d carried since Dayton to her shoulder and prepared to fire. The sound of safeties being released could be heard all up and down the line of fighters. They knew that nothing short of a miracle that could save them at this point, but they were determined to an individual to make them pay.
Tears that were locked down behind her steely facade began to run silently down Jennifer’s face. Her family was gone, her child was going to die, her husband was missing, and all of these people who’d trusted her were going to be dead soon. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right! They had fought so hard, it just couldn’t end like this. She was about to give the order to fire at will, when the sounds of even more engines and of gunfire became audible from behind the enemy.
Jennifer lowered the carbine and raised her binoculars. Far back near the fallen perimeter, dozens of motorcycles and four wheel drive vehicles crested the ridge. Their lights illuminated the darkened town, and allowed Jennifer to see just how many of the enemy she and her people had managed to fell. There were still more than she could handle, unless that was who she thought it was.
Her suspicions were conformed when an old fashioned Calvary charge bugle call rang out from the sound systems of the approaching vehicles. The defenders of White Harbor got their miracle.
6
The Wall, White Harbor
11:10pm EST
The combined forces from White Harbor poured over broken ramparts which had defended the town so faithfully, and into its wrecked heart. They were surrounded by the wreckage of the holding action fought house to house in the once picturesque town, in a valiant and ultimately successful effort to allow the civilian population to escape with their lives. The Dead choked the streets and sidewalks, but the warriors ran them down.
David and Ben rode in the Humvee which had been the Rangers’ lead vehicle since the fall of Wright Patterson AFB. The men were monitoring the conversations between the loosely knit units of their force. Jammed in with them was Ken Michener. The Commanders watched as their people, most of whom had been normal average people before the Rise of the Dead, hacked their way through rank after rank of the Risen Dead and fall upon the small group of living warriors. The destruction of the force they had sent out to engage White Harbor’s defenders outside of the town had been unknown to them. General Baker had assumed his rear was secure from assault. He now knew that he was wrong.
The three men exited the vehicle once the two groups were engaged in full combat, and split to coordinate the actions of their respective groups. Gun fire began to lance out from the rear of the Army of Ast-Murath, but it was sporadic and managed only to confuse things even more. The front section of the Army assaulting the defenders, lead by Jennifer Millette on the docks, had their progress blunted when many of them stopped to see what was happening in the rear. Jennifer used their momentary distraction to order her people to rise and yet again charge. To a man they followed their leader directly into the rotted teeth of the Dead.
7
Ben
Ben joined with his people as soon as he leaped from the Hummer. He hobbled/ran as fast as he could. Holding his .45 Colt, he waded into the wall of the dead screaming for the I-75 Rangers to follow him. He fired into the head of one rotted skull after another, losing count as he did so. After he’d felled at least 30 of the Dead, the gun was pulled from his hands and was lost in the bloody mud of the battlefield.
He unslung his fighting pike from his back and began to swing it around. He knew he didn’t have anywhere near the skill with the weapon that Jennifer did, but he believed that he possessed enough to make it a more than effective weapon. He took a microsecond to feel a rush of pride as he saw his people hack and slash though the morass of the Dead. He’d given them the means to wage this fight.
The first living member of the army of the dead he encountered was a young man in a black rain coat, and what looked like racing bike armor painted black. The kid might have been killing to survive since the Rising of the Dead, but so had Ben, he didn
’t even hesitate. Ben brought the pike up, and slammed it right through the kid’s skull. As the rest of the I-75 Rangers and, he hoped, the rest of the fighters smashed into the living troops. He heard the defenders on the docks rise and attack the front line of the Army. He had to give it to that girl, she had no fear.
“Rangers!” Ben screamed over the din, “Rally on me!”
The I-75 Rangers immediately converged on their acting commander and formed a circle around him. The closest to him were the members of His Team Dragon, who would die before they allowed their leader to fall. Then they moved en-mass toward the center. Ben wanted that mother fucker Baker dead, he had killed Liam and by God he was going to answer for it.
8
Ken
The former Hession Compound Spotters were a small but tightly knit group of fighters. They’d protected the refugees from the now dead city as they followed the Wolverines north. They were hardened, and Ken Michener knew they would do whatever he asked them to do or they would die trying. As a collected group they swung wide to the right, Ken knew there was no way his little group would be able to fight its way through the center of the opposing force. But if they could get on the other side, they might be able to reinforce the defenders on the docks, and act as an anvil to the hammer hitting from the other side. It seemed like a good idea.
“This way,” he called out and got upon the back of one of the ATV’s. Unlike the crazy Rangers, he had no desire to fight it out on foot with the Dead.
They sped around the Dead, using their machetes to hack at the thin groupings that attempted to stop them. As they got within clear sight of the docks, he saw the people who’d been fighting from cover rise up and attack. In the lead was a tall young woman, brandishing one of the wicked fighting pikes the Rangers seemed to prefer.
“Oh girly, how I want to buy you a stiff drink when this is over with you crazy bitch.” he said, and was surprised to feel a maniacal grin spread out on his face. For the first time since he’d been forced from his home he felt alive.
“ATTACK!” he shouted, and his Spotters on their ATV’s turned to support the depleted ranks of fighters. They might go down fighting, but somebody would be left alive when this was over to remember them.
9
Sam
The Wolverines followed Sam toward the Dead. Their leader was missing, and they feared she was dead at best and one of the Dead that walked at worst. Rage filled their hearts, and they were consumed with a warrior’s lust.
One after another of the Dead fell before the Fangs and the small arms of the Wolverines. Before he knew it, Sam and his fighters had smashed their way into the center, and were face to face with the living enemy. It was possible to hate the Dead, it was certain they feared the Dead, but it was inevitable that they pitied the Dead. But the living that worked with the Dead were evil incarnate. The Wolverines were the first of the attackers to meet the living enemy, and they caught them off guard.
“At them, kill them all!” Sam shouted, and drove his Fang directly into the abdomen of the first black clad human he saw. Red living blood flowed from the wound, and the smell of the man’s bowels loosening filled the air. One after another fell as the Wolverines advanced, in the periphery, Sam knew the Rangers and the Militia were covering his flanks, but he was consumed with the need for a vengeance he was unable to define.
When a screaming female with flowing blond hair and a jet black brand on her forehead fell before his onslaught, all the sound seemed to rush from the area around Sam. He turned to see a hulking man with only one hand, clad in black riot armor and a long trench coat. In his remaining hand was an oversized fire axe scored with stygian symbols which seemed to pulse with evil. It was the man who’d ended the life of General Liam Harrison.
“You killed Ashley.” The dark Goliath said quietly. The crimson brand on his forehead flowed like red poster paint.
Sam raised his gore covered blade, and prepared for the blow. He knew that there was no way to avoid what was coming.
General Adam Baker swung the axe at an inhuman speed, and shattered the blade of the Police Captain’s Fang. Sam felt his wrist snap, and white hot pain jetted up his arm. He screamed and fumbled for the pistol strapped to his thigh, but he never reached it.
Adam brought the axe around, and then swung it directly into the chest of the man before him. The blade went almost all of the way through, and the red sauce of life spurted onto his arms. He looked at the brave warrior as he fell, and he felt nothing.
Adam withdrew the axe and continued onward.
Sam felt the life leaving him, and he still pawed for his gun. He didn’t want to Rise again, he wanted to go on and see his wife and children again. They had died in a car accident four years ago, and until the Rising of the Dead he had been operating on autopilot. Now he wanted to see them again, he wanted to hold his daughter and son. He wanted to kiss his wife.
He freed the pistol and slammed it under his chin, he felt darkness overtaking him. As his last act he pulled the trigger and silenced the noises of battle forever. The last thing he heard was a small voice that he’d only heard in his dreams in the last four years.
“Catch me Daddy!”
10
David
David watched the men and women around him, and silently wished them good luck. When he was sure the attention of the warriors was firmly fixed on the enemy, the living and the Dead, he slipped away and headed toward the tank farm near the docks. The fuel that he had added to the stores had been a sacrifice he considered and reconsidered more than a dozen times. The gasoline, diesel fuel, and liquid propane canisters stacked strategically around the docks could have been put to good use on the Island. Now he was glad his semi paranoid and cynical nature won out over his indecision.
He could hear and smell the fierce combat taking place all around him, yet none of it seemed to touch him. The sights he’d seen as they traveled through the snowy blood drenched streets that had been his town had stripped the last sentiment left in his heart away. Now all that was left was the need to complete the mission, and to make sure the people who’d escaped the carnage of the mainland would have a place to return to one day that did not include this satanic army.
In the distance, he saw the squat silhouette of the fuel station and thanked God it seemed to have not been touched in the fighting. There were a few corpses strewn on the ground around the building. David paid them little if any notice. When he reached the door, he saw the chain and padlock he’d secured it with before leaving were still there. He fished in his pocket for the key, and in the distraction of attempting to retrieve the item, he never heard the steady lurching approach of the solitary figure.
Randal Jennings was a fisherman in the days before the dead rose. He’d crewed on a dozen of the best boats to ply their trade on the waters of Lake Superior. He’d never aspired to be the man in the wheel house, and was content to haul nets and be just another deck hand. Randal was happy and prosperous before the dead. He’d been divorced from his wife for six years, but had a son he loved very much, Jeff Jennings was a Lance Corporal in the Marines, and the last time Randal heard from him was three days before the dead decided what they wanted was the flesh of the living. Jeff was in Afghanistan, and Randal was sure his son had died over there. When the fighting was starting, Randal decided he didn’t want to go to the island and he didn’t want to fight on the line, instead he went to his medicine cabinet and found the bottle of oxy-codone he’d been prescribed after back surgery. He’d only taken a few of the pills, disliking the way they muddled his thinking, and stashed them away.
Now he took them all.
He’d died in his bed and rose during the fighting, but been trapped inside of his house. When one of the Soldiers of the Dead smashed his way into the little bungalow he’d escaped. In life he was good friends with Chief David Hall, and backed him at every election. Now the last vestiges of Randal Jennings were gone, and the beast which had taken his shell wanted nothing more than to f
eed.
David registered the sounds of Randal’s approach less than a second before the corpse sank his teeth into the soft flesh of his cheek. It was a shallow bite, and it didn’t even hurt that much, but David knew that it was a death sentence. He whirled around and pushed Randal’s corpse down to the ground before he drew the 9mm Beretta from its holster and put two rounds directly into the Dead man’s forehead. This time he didn’t get back up, this time, as the old adage went, had been for keeps.