Bob cleared his throat. "So the big question, then."
"Yeah, the big question: Why Traverse? Nobody knows Eloise Fields was run by the military, with military doctors. But Traverse knew."
Bob sighed. "Thought he was full of shit when we found him that first time. When he said, he wanted to be committed at Eloise Fields. That's why we he took us all the way to Michigan."
Crater shook his head. "This man was a ghost. Bob and I are the best damn trackers in the business. Traverse… was one of the greatest soldiers to have ever lived. The man almost didn't need to be trained. In most exercises, no matter what it was, he was a master. So they sent him on impossible missions. He couldn't be killed. He was black ops all the way. People wondered if he was part of some government project to design the best soldier, like something out of a movie. But that wasn't the case. This guy was Jason Bourne and James Bond on steroids."
"How did the bird fall from the sky?" Vega pointed to the smoking rubble that used to be a helicopter, its pieces scattered all over the parking lot outside.
Crater rubbed his forehead and aggressively chewed his bottom lip. "We think it was him. But we don't know that for sure."
Vega smirked. "Yeah, right. You're telling me he brought a chopper down? With what?"
Crater chuckled. "You don't know what you're dealing with."
Bob shook his head. "And we still have to bring him back alive."
One of the other soldiers asked, "But how do you know this shit's spreading? How do we know all those dead things are going to be all over the place? I'm not buying it!"
Crater spat. "Not going to argue the point. You've seen what I've seen. You die, you come back. How can that be exclusive to our location? But those damn things should be easy to take out. That's not the worst of it. They didn't bring it down to this level. No. I never thought it could happen like this. That we would do it."
"Just needed an excuse this whole time," Bob remarked.
"This is supposed to happen," Vega added, though she wasn't interested in sparking a philosophical or theological debate about fate and God.
For a long time, nobody spoke. Crater's chin rested on his chest while he wallowed in self-pity.
"So we're just going to sit around?" Vega asked. "Take a coffee break?"
"You haven't been listening…" Crater started.
"No, I think I've heard enough, actually. Traverse is supposed to be the key to this whole thing, so why don't we do something about it?"
Someone said, "I ain't going back out in that shit. Count me out."
Crater didn't answer. Instead, Bob stood up and approached Vega. In a lowered voice, he tried to calm her. "He's fried, and this outfit's fucked. Crater's a good soldier, but I don't feel like waiting around, either. We might be alone on this."
"There's a chance someone else got to Traverse," Vega said. "He might even be dead."
Bob shrugged. "Who cares? We're going to do this, with or without Crater's people. They've lost more than we have. Put it into perspective. Miles could still be with us."
Vega looked away.
"No," Bob said. "Look at me, Amparo. You know I'm right. These men are trained commandos and most of their squad was wiped out. They're stranded here, just like us."
"I don't feel like sitting around and feeling sorry for myself. I've done that already. I'm done with these people."
Bob turned away from her and addressed Crater. "We’re leaving. We came here to do a job. Traverse might already be dead or captured. Either way, we've got firepower, training, and balls. If you want to sit here and rot, go right ahead."
"Fucking rousing speech there, Grandpa," Crater stared at the fiery cityscape outside. "You're inspirational, to say the least."
"We don't have a trail," another soldier pointed out.
Bob said. "Traverse is having the time of his life out there. It's like a meat buffet to him. This hospital's close enough to the suburbs—if I wanted to try and blend in with people and kill them later, that's what I would do. Hang out in the ghetto. Chop people up. Besides, he wants to be found. He wants to gloat."
Crater eyed him for a moment. "This man left a trail of dead bodies across the country, and he was only caught because he wanted it."
"He's an addict," Bob said. "Just like us. We're action junkies. We love our violence, and he's not much different. He's right at home with all the monsters. I don't suspect he would be a nice guy if he managed to escape from the hospital alive. We keep this thing simple. He likes to kill people, right? He wouldn't suddenly have a conscience in the middle of the apocalypse."
Vega was sick of waiting. She didn't need anyone's cooperation. She would be able to kick just as much ass by herself. She stood up and looked through a window at the shuffling horde of undead.
"Let's take the Stryker and get this guy!" one of the soldiers announced.
"How stupid would that be?" Bob asked. "You don't think he'll see us coming? You don't think we'll attract thousands of those things to the tank while we roll through? We're just going to push right through all the abandoned cars?"
The other soldiers began to chime in, and an argument ensued. Vega tuned them out and began to think about Shanna's chances out there in the wilderness of pain and horror.
Crater was pressed against Vega. His eyes lingered on her for a long time.
"Fuck's your problem?" she asked him, suddenly aware of all the tears in her uniform and the MP5 which hung from its strap around her shoulder.
"You're my problem," Crater said. "You gotta wonder how it'll be for women now, you know? No rules, nobody to protect them. We've already seen it, you know. Rape. All over. Everywhere. And why not? When the armies of ancient civilizations conquered cities, rape was their reward. But there's no reward waiting for us. Until you showed up."
Vega's hands balled into tight fists. She wanted him to keep talking. It would feel so much better to knock him out when he was done.
He leaned in and spoke into her ear. "You think it's not on everyone's mind, right now? We might never get a piece of pussy again, but you're the perfect little ass. You think Bob's going to help you? He might even want in on the action."
Crater was pressed up against her thigh enough for her to feel him harden. He pressed closer, and his warm breath brushed against his ear.
It dawned on her then what he was talking about. He indicated a terrifying truth, and while she wasn't ready to accept that Detroit was simply a microcosm for a great disaster that was already spreading across the country, she knew he was right about a woman's chances.
His hand slowly eased its way along the length of her thigh. Her bloodlust was at an all-time high, and she had no qualms about blowing Crater or any of his people away, but she if she started a firefight, Traverse might never be found. She could only hope that Bob turned around to look at her.
His fingers spread along the inside of her thigh.
"You son of a bitch," she said, her hand shaking with rage.
"But you want it, don't you? You want to be conquered by a real man."
She wanted to surrender to her rage. She closed her eyes, and she saw Miles smiling at her from beneath her, his hands on her hips. She'd been with him only hours ago.
When she opened her eyes, Bob and the others continued to argue. Crater had his hand on her, and on a day when nothing made much sense, she questioned what she saw rumbling through the wrecked parking lot outside.
A large pickup truck crushed several corpses, and a small group of them had crowded into the truck's bed, their arms flailing like tree branches waving madly in the middle of a hurricane. The truck's engine roared.
She caught a glimpse of the Ford logo on the large truck's grill as it accelerated.
"Look out!" Vega shouted. "Get away from the doors!"
It was too late.
***
A storm of shattering glass and groaning steel overwhelmed Vega's senses. The truck's bright lights seared her eyes, and several of the corpses that had bee
n along for the ride were broken into pieces, their limbs lacerated by a thousand sharp edges. A tide of blood and limbs washed over Vega's entire field of vision when she turned away from the light. Blood and flesh rained from everywhere.
"Firing positions!" Crater tried to organize his men, though they were already firing on the crowd that ambled toward the hospital.
"Get to the Stryker!" someone shouted.
Vega ran outside with the rest of the fragmented squad, their boots crunching on glass, some of them slipping on the bloody shards beneath their feet. They scrambled over the poor footing and picked each other up along the way. Corpses slipped out of the truck's bed and landed with a crash upon the floor.
Her combat boots slipped over the river of glass and wood. A cloud of dust threatened further harm to her damaged lungs. The outside air offered little relief, as smoke from smoldering cars rolled over the parking lot.
She could see what was going to happen: the dead were going to wash right over them and leave behind nothing but a pile of bone and gristle. They were going to have to find a way around them, somehow.
The corpses couldn't be reasoned with. They wouldn't surrender. They wanted human flesh, and nothing short of destruction would persuade them otherwise.
Two soldiers stopped firing and ran in separate directions.
"Fall into position, goddammit!" Crater screamed in vain.
Zombies collapsed when their heads exploded, but most of them were jostled by the volley of firepower and kept coming. Bob moved between soldiers and tried to tell them where they should regroup, but he couldn't get to most of them. They seemed hypnotized by their ability to keep firing, as if it was all they knew how to do. They reloaded their weapons and leaned on their triggers. Why didn't they get up and run?
A haggard creature stepped in front of Vega as she tried to reach Bob. Where were they all coming from? The zombie had been an African American woman once, with dark flesh that was already starting to blue, her lips pale, and her weave askew on her head from a struggle or rough sex. Vega slammed the butt of her machine gun into the creature's face to knock it back, and then sprayed bullets into its face.
She could no longer see Bob. Flashes of sporadic gunfire complimented the screams of men who had chosen to die in battle. Grenade explosions near the back of the crowd sent limbs into the air. More corpses stepped in Vega's path, and she didn't hesitate to open up their minds with her philosophy of violence. Another grenade exploded not too far from her position.
The soldiers were completely surrounded. They were fools to stand and fight; their bravado would earn them nothing but death.
Death cries accompanied the sound of war. Men stood and shouted their final curses. One soldier fired and continued to lean on the trigger, unaware that he needed to reload. His battle cry replaced the sound of his weapon, but he didn't see the creatures behind him. They ripped his helmet away and exposed a bright-eyed, youthful face. Fingers dug deeply into those eyes, while other hands grabbed the edges of his mouth and pulled. His screams became choking gurgles and he disappeared into the arms and mouths of the dead.
Vega dropped to one knee and emptied a clip. Bodies dropped. Reload. Press the trigger. Scream at nothing. Reload again.
Vega stood and checked her ammo supply. She was still weighed down by useless ammo for her missing sniper rifle, so she quickly dropped it all onto the pavement. She whirled around and caved in a zombie's face with a short burst from the machine gun. She pivoted and did the same favor to another. And another.
Screams. Firepower. Death. Everything she could have wanted for Christmas without the bottles she could never find the bottom of.
Take a deep breath. Reload again.
Someone had made it to the Stryker. The remote gun swept over the crowd of dead and mowed several of them down, but others hardly seemed to notice they were being shot at. They turned their attention toward the massive tank, and Vega couldn't help but think maybe Bob had been right: the Stryker was a bad idea.
The gun continued to fire wildly. She pushed past several corpses and dove into the bushes that once made up part of the asylum's landscaping. She put her hands over her head as soldiers detonated grenades while they were being ripped apart. Blood and hot pieces of bone rained down upon her. A fragment scorched the back of her hand, and she grimaced, careful not to scream in pain.
Vega rose to her feet and was glad she did. Another corpse had been lingering over her, and it was devastated by a short burst from her MP5.
"Bob!" she called out as a grenade explosion signaled another man's death.
The Stryker began to drive out of the parking lot. It squished several corpses beneath its eight wheels, and hundreds more of the dead followed as the tank drove into the ghetto. The .50 caliber machine gun was firing sporadically. Several undead stood on top of the tank and hammered on the hull uselessly with fists that felt no pain.
Vega stood and lobbed a grenade to buy herself some time, unmindful of the fact that Bob might still be alive. Hundreds of corpses milled around the Humvees, and she needed to reload. By herself, she could move quickly. She could still make it.
She stopped to reload her weapon. Her fingers fumbled the fresh clip and it dropped into the grass. She leaned over to grab it, and the jarring shock to her head caused her to fall sideways against the wall.
"Fucking bitch."
Her vision clouded with stars, and her thoughts eluded her. She knew what was happening, and she tried to take a deep breath. Her body seemed far away, completely detached from her head. She needed to stay awake, no matter what else happened.
Crater straddled her hips and spat while he talked, his combat knife in his fist. "You little whore. You nice little piece of trash. That's right. Look at me."
Words were difficult, but she managed to groan, "All the same. Always say the same thing. Swearing and calling names…"
"Ha ha ha! Yeah! You're gonna love this sh…"
The top of Crater's head erupted and blood splashed in a thousand different directions, washing over Vega's face and gear. Crater slumped against the wall, his face firmly planted against the asylum. His bloody skull smoked, and his remaining eye stared at nothing.
She tried to turn her head and buck the dead man from her body, but she was too weak.
When she saw the shiny Desert Eagle magnum, she thought about God. The man holding the smoking gun had wavy, salt-and pepper hair, and his sport jacket and tactical vest were drenched in blood.
"Sheeiit," the man said. "Thought he was a zombie. His head sure did explode!" He laughed for a moment. She could see him hook his thumb into a belt loop, his other hand on the gun. He seemed oblivious to everything that was happening around them, as if it didn’t matter. She knew that he was leaning in to get a better look at her.
Vega's savior wiped Crater's blood off her face with his thumb and index finger.
"Girl, I have to say you have the face of a starlet," he said. "Good thing he didn't mess it up."
"Drop the gun, NOW!"
She knew it was Bob, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
"Buddy, I just saved her life," the stranger said. "I'm not dropping my gun."
"You just murdered a damn good soldier," Bob growled back.
Vega's savior chuckled. "Good? He was going to rape this woman. We can stand here and debate about right and wrong all night, but if we don't figure this out in the next thirty seconds, we're meat."
Bob only took a second to think it over. "Help me get her to her feet. Grab that man's gun and his ammo. There, on his belt. We have to hustle our asses out of here."
"Glad to help," the man with the magnum said.
"He was a piece of shit anyways," Bob muttered about Crater. "I'm not surprised."
The two men lifted Vega to her feet, the machine gun dangling from its strap around her shoulder. She tried to tell them about the clip that was in the grass, but Bob must have noticed it, because she could feel the pressure of a new clip being slapped into
the weapon. She looked down and saw her savior rob Crater's corpse. He handed the M16 to Bob.
"I prefer my own zombie blaster," the stranger said.
"Let's fucking go," Bob mumbled.
They began to walk away from Eloise Fields and into the shadowed suburbs. Vega was carried only a few feet into the darkness before she could hear Bob ask his questions. "That's not exactly a civilian weapon, or at least a civilian who knows what they're doing with it."
"Stole it from the candy store," the stranger explained.
"Name?"
"Patrick Griggs. I used to be a cop, and now I make porn flicks. You might even know some of my stuff."
Vega wondered if she was hallucinating. She knew the man's name, had in fact watched one of his movies, if he was truly who he said he was. There used to be a redheaded woman in all his films who seemed eager to please him; the girl had been willing to do anything. The way he spoke now, with people dying, seemed surreal. Every word he said seemed to favor an inside joke that only he could laugh at. He could have been making remarks about a romantic comedy rather than an apocalyptic outbreak of cannibal corpses.
"I'm Bob, and this is Vega. We're looking for a man who was locked up in the asylum, and we're going to hit the suburbs. I need to assume he didn't go too far. You can come with us, but I won't let you slow us down."
"I have nothing better to do. Who's your lucky target?"
"Name's Jim Traverse. Killed a bunch of people."
"Yeah, I know who he is. My girlfriend wrote to me once and mentioned his name. She used to be a patient here, too. In fact, I came here to look for her."
"That was your truck," Bob said.
"Why can't we take one of those vehicles?" Griggs asked. "Maybe I'm missing something that's obvious."
"Those dead fuckers will follow like dogs, and Traverse will hear us coming. We need to move quietly."
Vega wondered if his girlfriend was the redhead from his movies. The woman had been involved in a horrible crime, but she couldn't remember what it was. Many of her videos were still available on the internet.
Her thoughts seemed random and out of control. Out of the corners of her eyes, she could see the walking dead closing in around them, while Bob and Griggs talked as if they were old friends sharing a beer together.
Zombie Ascension (Book 1): Necropolis Now Page 19