“I was wondering when somebody was going to come and visit me.” Zack said with a smile. David leaned over and gave him a hug, careful not to touch his injured side.
“How are you feeling? David asked.
“A lot better than I did yesterday. The doctor was in here earlier and he said the infection is clearing up and the wound is healing well. Another couple days and I’ll be back on my feet. Another week and I’ll almost be as good as new.”
“Good thing you were unconscious over at the U. Those conditions were medieval.”
“Oh I was awake.” Zack said. “Who’s your friend?”
“Corporal Josh McReedy. But everybody calls me Mac.” he offered his hand.
“Thanks for bringing Davey over to see.”
“My pleasure…Now if you two will excuse me, I’m going to go get some coffee.” He looked at David. “I’ll be back in a little while to fetch you.”
“Thanks again McReedy… Mac.” David said.
“No problem. No problem at all.” The Cpl. turned and left the room.
“So where are Matt and Susan?” Zack asked. David quickly filled him in on what was happening, including the events of Matt’s patrol yesterday. The only thing he neglected to tell Zack was about the argument just before they left.
“Those crazy bastards.” Zack said. “What the fuck was Matt thinking? Especially after fighting superzombies?”
“I don’t know. Mom tried to talk them out of it, but Matt’s mind was made up. He insisted that we would need some supplies to take with us to Rainbow Lake.”
“I suppose he’s right.” Zack said grudgingly. “We are going to need some things to help us get by up there.” Zack fell silent for a moment, taking David’s hand in his own. “About your dad…I’m really sorry. I -”
“It’s not your fault.” David said avoiding Zack’s eyes. “It’s nobody’s fault except the fucker’s that killed him.”
The silence stretched.
“Hey did you see that red headed nurse out there?” Zack asked, breaking the tension. “What a babe.” They chatted about nothing in particular for several minutes making wise cracks and jokes. Their conversation was interrupted by an alarm that suddenly began blaring outside. They peered out the window to see that the pace of the base had suddenly become hectic.
“I wonder what’s going on?” Zack said. The door to his room burst open and Mac stepped in.
“I’ve got to get you back to the barracks.” he told David.
“Why, what’s going on?”
“I’m not sure. But we’ve got to get back so I can report in.”
“But I don’t want to leave.” David said.
“I know you don’t but you haven’t got any choice.” Mac said firmly. “Now move your ass.”
“Go with him.” Zack told David.
“But what about you?” David asked.
“I’ll be fine.” Zack said.
“We haven’t got time for this.” Mac said, grabbing David’s arm. “You can come back later but right now we have to leave.” He pulled David to his feet and headed for the door.
“I can walk myself!” David said pulling his arm free.
“Then move!” Mac half shouted. As they moved towards the elevator David could see the nurses rushing the patients back to their rooms. They crowded into the elevator with half a dozen other people, all of them off duty soldiers.
“This isn’t good,” one of them said. “No good at all.”
“You don’t think the deadfucks broke through the perimeter defenses do you?” asked another.
“I don’t know,” answered the first. “I sure as hell hope not.”
The elevator doors opened onto the ground floor and they all filed out. Mac half walked half ran out the lobby looking to make sure David was still with him. As they ran up the sidewalk towards the barracks several transport trucks were heading out in single file, loaded full of combat ready troops. The alarm continued to blare its nerve grating call. A wing of three Apache gun ships passed overhead, swinging north towards the University campus.
They reached their barracks. The guard that relieved Mac was nowhere to be seen. Mac hurried behind the desk and picked up the phone and dialed three numbers.
“Corporal McReedy. Barracks seven sir.” he spoke into the phone. David watched Mac’s eyes relay several emotions: surprise and shock, fear and determination. “Yes sir. Orders acknowledged and understood sir.” Mac put the phone on the receiver and stood there silently a moment.
“What’s going on?” David asked.
“We are under attack.” Mac unshouldered his M-16. “Thousands of zombies are swarming along all perimeters.” David’s throat went desert dry. That was just down the hill from here. Less than one mile! In the distance continuous M-16 fire was a constant background noise. Two tanks firing their main guns drowned the chatter for a moment followed a second later the explosion of the weapons impact. David’s heart was a jackrabbit in his chest. He looked to Mac with wide, fear filled eyes.
“Relax David. Relax.” Mac walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. “Take some deep breaths. It’s all right.”
“What are we going to do?” David felt his nerves coming back under his control.
“I have to report to the main entrance for assignment. You are to stay here.”
“What?” There was no way he was just going to sit her and do nothing. His sister and Matt were out there in the city!
“I want you to go inside and grab you gun.” Mac said. He could see David about to argue. “THAT’S AN ORDER!” he barked at the top of his lungs. David fell silent as a whipped dog. “Grab your gun and stay inside with your family until somebody comes for you.” He turned to leave.
“What about Zack?” he asked. A greasy ball of fear had knotted into David’s belly.
“He’s safe at the hospital. Now do what I told you.” He turned and ran off. What about my sister and Matt? His stomach churning, David hurried into the barracks…
Chapter 13
Saturday June 23, 2001
Fort Douglas/University of Utah Campus
Salt Lake City, UT
2:07 PM
Back at the University campus thousands of zombies were pouring from the suburbs and advancing along the perimeter. The soldiers at the perimeter defenses were mowing them down as fast as they could but there were simply too many zombies. The legion of dead slowly pressed foreword. Apache gun ships flew back and forth overhead, unleashing death from their Vulcan machineguns, blowing zombies into rotting chunks. But for every one they destroyed two more took its place. When they were one hundred yard from the Northwestern perimeter the M1A1Abrams tanks opened up with their main guns, blowing swarms of them to pieces. The apaches began unloading their rockets into the rear ranks of the advancing zombies. But they still kept coming.
One apache was circling around for another pass with its rockets when the fiery smoke trail of a Surface to Air Missile shot into the sky from somewhere in the suburbs. It hit the Apache in the jet engine and the entire helicopter exploded into a ball of flame and crashed down into one of the neighborhoods. As if on cue nearly one hundred superzombies charged from cover along the entire University Campus perimeter. They were in full battle gear complete with M-16 and mounted grenade launcher. Several of them stopped and fired their grenade launchers, blowing holes in the perimeter defenses.
The army of zombies was now only fifty yards from the NW perimeter trenches.
The convoy of troop transport trucks heading north from Ft. Douglas on the perimeter road ran smack into the sea of zombies near the main entrance to the hospital. The trucks were large but there were thousands of zombies swarming them. Sheer numbers overwhelmed them. For the soldiers within it became a living hell as rabid, slavering zombies came at them from every direction. The men were pulled kicking and screaming from the trucks where they were torn apart and eaten alive! The transport trucks at the rear of the convoy came to halt, fanning out to block the road. Th
e soldiers leapt from the back of the trucks to engage the hordes of zombies that were swarming around the barricade. Within seconds it was every man for them self as zombies converged from all sides.
The main western perimeter militia could do little to help the doomed soldiers below except shoot zombies from a distance. They couldn’t bring their tanks and mortars to bear for fear of hitting their own men in the convoy. But that did not stop them from blasting deep within the zombie’s rear ranks, which stretched far back into the suburbs to the west. Houses were shelled to pieces by mortar fire or outright blown apart by a tank blast.
Grenades launched from both sides exploded randomly in the ranks. Those superzombies that weren’t firing grenades charged the defenses at full speed. When the wall of zombies was thirty yards from the NW perimeter trenches the troops triggered the Claymore antipersonnel mines that ran the length of the perimeter. The deadly devices shredded the first three rows of zombies as thousands of razor sharp pieces of shrapnel the size of a tiny pebble were released from each Claymore. But those behind them pressed foreword, oblivious to anything but the live flesh ahead.
Another Apache gunship exploded from missile fire, this time directly over the battlefield, raining flaming debris for one hundred yards in every direction.
The men in the trenches began fleeing for their lives when the wall of zombies was twenty yards away. The charging superzombies cut many of them down with a bullet to the back or the legs. The fallen soldiers tried crawling to safety but the lead zombies in the advancing ranks fell upon them, tearing large chunks of flesh with their teeth. Their screams were smothered by a wave of zombies.
Flamethrower wielding soldiers stepped from behind the tanks now that the zombies were in range, spraying liquid fire along the length of the zombie line. As they burst into flame the ones behind them instantly fell back, afraid of the fire. But there were simply too many zombies to stop them all and with a final surge the NW perimeter line broke and the sea of zombies flooded in.
The tanks were moving now, crushing zombies like fruit beneath their tracks. Much of the fighting was hand-to-hand and Soldiers piled on top of tanks and into the vehicles to escape being eaten alive. The transport trucks were moving south, trying to retreat to a secondary rally point at the northern edge of the refugee camp.
Once the superzombies were in the melee they split into pairs and concentrated on the vehicles. One pair blasted the men from the back of the Abrams and clambered up themselves. Soldiers nearby fired their M-16’s at them but the Superzombie’s paid them no attention. One superzombie poked his rifle into the tanks view port and let fly the bullets. Trapped within, the crew popped the hatch to escape the gunfire. The second superzombie was waiting for them, and blasted the first one to emerge in the head before leaning over the open hatch and letting rip a burst from its M-16. Ignoring the bullets that continued to pepper them the two superzombies climbed down the hatch of the tank and took control. The tank turned and fired near pointblank range at another tank twenty yards away, blowing the top half into flaming wreckage. Two more Abrams were quickly commandeered this way. An Apache unleashing a pair of missiles as it cruised by destroyed one of the Zombie driven tanks. Another of the Z-tanks was targeting fleeing transport trucks full of troops. Mutilated body parts were flung in every direction as the trucks exploded.
Anarchy reigned.
The refugee area was complete chaos. Mass hysteria had overtaken them once they realized the hospital was under attack. One third of them took up arms and ran to join the perimeter defenses. Another third made a mad scramble for the hospital, some in their vehicles, but most on foot. And the final third stood about, numbed with terror like cows waiting for slaughter. And a slaughter was what it turned out to be as the tattered remnants of the Western Perimeter militia came fleeing in from the north followed by the army of zombies led by three Z-tanks and over a dozen superzombies. Reinforcements from the main perimeter were dispatched out to reform the crumbled NW perimeter. They met the army of the dead at the northern edge of the refugee camp where the zombies were already feasting on those poor souls not fortunate enough to escape.
So the battle raged.
The perimeter of Fort Douglas was also under attack. Hundreds of zombies had swept out of the commercial area below the base as well as the suburbs between the hospital and the base. The men in the trenches along that stretch of road fled, where they ran into the wave sweeping in from the commercial district and were eaten alive, or they stayed in the trenches and fought while the army of zombies overwhelmed them and they were eaten alive. But the defenses of the main base held solid, and the tanks and artillery and flamethrowers kept the zombies one hundred yards distant…
Chapter 14
Saturday June 23 2001
Fort Douglas
Salt Lake City, UT
2:10 PM
David used the barrel of his rifle to push the blinds aside and peer out the window once again. The base was quiet now, almost empty; a few soldiers here and there…A Humvee speeding by now and then…nothing more. But the sounds of battle were not too distant and an oily slick ball of anxiety was swirling in his stomach. He looked back at his mother. She on a cot with her eyes closed. The sound of machinegun fire close by snapped David’s attention back to the window. The street was clear. A Humvee suddenly streaked by, heading for the south end of the base…More machinegun fire…Seconds later the explosion of a grenade no more than a few hundred feet away! A few moments later several soldiers went running in the same direction as the Humvee, shouting incoherently at one another.
He left the window.
“Mom! Get up!” he said. “Mom! Get up!”
“What?” she asked as she slowly sat up on the bed.
“Get up. Something’s happening.” David opened the barracks door and peered into the hall. The guard was not behind his desk. But someone was approaching from the far end of the barracks; a short, stout woman with long black hair, wearing Levis, a red blouse and sneakers with an M-16 cradled in her arms. He recognized her as Jennifer Black, Rick’s wife. He and his sister had met her as well as Rick’s two young daughters, Jennifer’s sister Samantha and her infant son last night at dinner and again this morning at breakfast. David hurried down the hall to meet her in front of the main entrance.
“What’s going on?” he asked her. He tried not to sound afraid.
“The university and base are under attack.” she said.
More gunfire sounded from nearby.
“That’s just outside!” David exclaimed. “I think they might have entered the base!”
“How could they get in without being spotted?” she said.
“I’ve got to get to my mom.” he turned to leave then stopped. “Is it all right if I bring my mom over there with you?”
“That’s why I was coming over. I think it’s best we all stick together.” They hurried back to his barracks room. His mother sat at the edge of the cot.
“Get up mom.” David said. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and stood his mother up. Another grenade explosion made with windows rattle in the panes. It was closer than the last.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I’m taking you over to Mrs. Black’s quarters,” he said. “It’s much safer there.” Jennifer took his mothers arm and was leading her out of the room.
“Why is that alarm going off?” Sharon asked. “I hear gunfire.” she sounded as if she just now became aware of it.
“Some zombies are attacking the base.” Jennifer said. “But the soldiers will protect us.” As they passed the main entrance David could see more soldiers heading towards the south end of the base.
“But we can’t leave.” Sharon said, feebly trying to resist. “We have to wait for Susan and Matt.”
“We’re not leaving.” Jennifer said, keeping hold of Sharon’s arm and leading her down the hall. “We’re just moving you to a safer area.”
They reached the door to her barracks room and h
er sister Samantha opened it for them. A cute, waifish girl his sisters age with the same dark hair as Jennifer only cropped shorter. They hurried in and Jennifer closed the door behind them. Two young toddlers dressed in child-sized fatigues sat at a table, bowls of soup in front of them. Mary was a curly haired, blue eyed three year old barely out of diapers and Tiffany, a chubby, round-faced doll half her sisters age and still in them.
“Did they tell you what time they were coming back?” Jennifer asked David.
“No.” he said. He and his sister hadn’t really been on speaking terms when they had left. “Matt told me some army guys were going with them. I bet they have a radio.”
“Jenkins is with them.” Jennifer said. David had met him only briefly, but that was all it took for him to realize the guy was an asshole. “But we have no way of contacting them. But I’m sure the base would recall him. He’s a platoon sergeant.”
Another grenade exploded somewhere outside. The noise wakened Samantha’s six-month-old baby boy who had been sleeping peacefully in a small bassinet one corner. His small screams quickly attracting his mother’s attention.
“I’m going to see what is going on outside.” Jennifer said.
“I’m going with you.” David said.”
“Samantha, lock the door behind us.” Jennifer said. “Don’t open it until we get back. And keep your gun with you.” Samantha nodded and picked up her own M-16.
Jennifer opened the door and peered down. Empty.
“Come on.” she said to David and they sprinted down the hall.
Gunfire roared just outside as they reached the open door. David peered out just in time to see a retreating soldier crumple to the ground as bullets raked his back.
“Get down!” Jennifer hissed, pulling him out of the doorway and to the ground against the wall. “Silent.” she said into his ear. David tried not to breathe lest it give away their position. He heard the heavy booted footsteps just before he saw the shadow of someone or something pass the wide-open barracks door.
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