Zombie Rush 4

by Joseph Hansen

  Malcolm was suddenly next to him and Benson grabbed his hand. Benson recalled how he rescued him off that dock on the first day. It felt like their friendship and trust had grown over years of experience instead of the few days that had passed since they met. Maybe it was the pain killers, but he wanted to thank Malcom for being a loyal, devoted friend; instead, he shook the man’s hand as they made eye contact.

  Malcolm stayed by his side along with Sue, who had suddenly become the stabilizer of his family. His wife was gone, infected and killed on the first day. He loved her with all of his worth. What he was starting to feel for Sue made him feel as if he betrayed that love, but he was in no position to reject it. He needed help, both physical and emotional; Sue was there and had been every day since it started and her concern was—or seemed—genuine.

  Benson stared at the colonel sitting at the head of the table, looking as if he was in charge as the council members filed in.

  Who knows? Maybe in a way he is, or maybe he should be. Benson didn’t know nor did he care at that point; all he knew was that forming the councils was the right thing to do—they had already made a difference and helped to give the community, as a whole, a purpose.

  Sandwiches and steaming bowls of soup were set down before each member, with the exception of the colonel, as they took their places. The colonel didn’t belong at the table and the people knew it. He had just arrived the day before and hadn’t proven himself yet.

  He had taken the seat meant for someone else, who stood to the side waiting to sit. The council wasn’t afraid or intimidated by the colonel; the members were emotionally devastated and much too involved in the day-to-day workings of the compound to be moved by fear or intimidation. Malcolm leaned down and whispered into Benson’s ear, telling him of the transgressions that the colonel had been an instigator of, and Benson started to fume.

  The mayor was nervous about what could happen at the meeting, but it was out of his hands. He didn’t have any real loyalties, but he did know where he would get the most consideration. He glanced at the cot, where Benson sat completely wasted on painkillers while his buddy Malcolm squatted down next to him, keeping an eye on the injured man and the colonel all at once.

  By going with the colonel, there was no future for the mayor except as a second chump.

  Nothing wrong with the military as a whole. I even enjoyed my time as a clerk in Germany during the 80s, but the colonel is the wrong man for the job, Boweaver mused before he stood and went to Benson’s side, careful not to look at the missing leg.

  “How ya doin’, Art?”

  “Feeling pretty numb right now, Mayor Boweaver. So tell me, are you going to do right by me?”

  “We have an agreement, Officer Benson; I’m not going to start out the new world with a broken promise. I think a lot of people are going to be expecting me to take a leadership role here, Art. Are we good with that?”

  “We don’t really have a choice, Calvin. I don’t think she will say much, but give a yield to Cat if she speaks up, all right?”

  “Absolutely. Ms. Krupp and I have established quite a comfortable working relationship,” Boweaver said with a smile, causing Malcolm to deeply furrow his brows toward the mayor. There it was, the unspeakable had to come out and Boweaver was just elected to spill it.

  “Listen, Art. We had a conversation with Lisa—Lieutenant Reynolds—and …” He stopped in obvious discomfort. Benson waited; the energy to pump anyone for answers just wasn’t in him. “It seems the colonel sent some of his troops into Little Rock, and they created some situations.”

  “Really, what kind of situations?” Art said, feeling the blood start to rush to his brain. He specifically remembered telling the colonel to send some troops up to the reservoir.

  “Nothing malicious from what I understand. They just didn’t join up with the crew and went about their own agenda, which distracted from the lieutenant’s goals. You see, she wanted to block off the bridges to stop the dead from getting across the river. Then they could salvage almost at leisure, but the soldiers diverted her resources for their own goals.”

  “Sounds like she had a solid plan and a legitimate gripe. What does she want you to do about it?” Benson asked, slowly trying to process the information through his drug-riddled brain. He couldn’t help but look at the colonel, who was watching them as if he could read their lips. Benson and the colonel shared thin-lipped smiles, not necessarily cold as much as discerning.

  “Well, Art, she wants us to arrest him,” Boweaver said and Benson turned to look at him, shocked. “Just until she gets back, but still … he is a military colonel and I don’t think we have the authority to do something like that.”

  “Yeah, I see your point. That’s something that should be decided by the powers that be,” Benson replied thoughtfully as he tallied up the number of times the lieutenant had shocked him by the audacious lengths she was willing to go. By the same token, it was those lengths of audaciousness that had saved so many people and allowed them to continue to live on in relative comfort. When everybody ran and hid, she fought back. She stormed through the proverbial room and the entire sum of the existing populace was swept up in her wake. In just a matter of days, Lisa had become more than a simple police lieutenant—more than an icon or figurehead—and still she fought the horde with cunning and decisive action and the people loved her for it and considered her almost a savior.

  “Do it.”

  “What? I mean … are you sure?”

  “Yeah, we can’t stop trusting her now, and the people want her to lead. If she feels he is jeopardizing our situation, then we had better do as she has asked. We have to stick together on this, at least until a supply line is established, then we’ll iron out the wrinkles.”

  Benson caught the colonel’s eye again and signaled him over. The colonel reluctantly stood and headed toward Benson. Cat took his seat and was instantly served a hot meal, a pat on the shoulder, and condolences for the loss of her friend, Ally, to that fiend of a doctor.

  Malcolm gave a subtle signal to Fenton, who simply nodded and drifted back into the crowd as Boweaver took his seat. Two guards accompanied the colonel and stood in a relaxed, watchful state behind him.

  “So how are things up at the reservoir, Colonel?”

  “Good; I sent a team up there and they are observing the situation and sending me reports hourly. There are some issues, but the civilians are holding their own.”

  “Observe? A team? What is that then? A squad?”

  “Well, by today’s standards it could be called a squad,” Jeffers said in an almost snide tone.

  “I asked you to clear the area up there, Colonel. That hydro plant is critical to us.”

  “Yeah, I understand that and if the numbers get too great, we will send in the troops. Until then, however, we have bigger fish to fry over in Little Rock. That reminds me, Officer Benson, we’re having some issues with your girl down there. It seems that she feels the need to interfere with our maneuvers. I don’t think I have to remind you how much trouble a person, even a police officer, can get in by interfering in military procedures.”

  The pompous nature of the colonel did nothing but rile the anger of the police officer. Benson wondered what he would do if he wasn’t so strung out on oxycodone. “We had a deal, Colonel. You haven’t lived up to your end of it.”

  “A deal? Excuse me, but the US military does not make deals; especially with tin-stars in po-dunk R-Kansas, Officer Benson.” Jeffers looked down at Benson as if he were a child who just didn’t get it. Malcolm looked as if he wanted to shoot the arrogant bastard where he stood. The guards behind the colonel tried to remain emotionless, but a flick of the eyes and a slight shift in weight made Benson aware of their unease.

  “It is too bad, Colonel. I thought we could have a mutually beneficial relationship.”

  “Colonel Jeffers,” Mayor Boweaver’s voice rang out across the assembly, “you are being detained until a proper tribunal can be put together.”


  “You’ve got to be kidding. Detained? You mean arrested, don’t you?” the colonel replied, still shocked over the audacity of such an action.

  “You may call it what you like. I would ask that you allow your participation to be voluntary.”

  “And if I refuse? This could lead to a skirmish of sorts,” he said and the men with him repositioned themselves.

  “Tell your men not to bother with their guns, Colonel; we want this to be a peaceful exchange,” Boweaver said.

  “You are overstepping your boundaries here, Mayor.”

  “No, Colonel, I am not. I am merely following orders. I was also present when you struck the deal with Officer Benson. You violated that agreement and may have put civilians at risk. Your second-in-command will still have authority over your troops until we have a hearing on your actions.”

  “So, are you going to put me through some bogus trial and have me executed the way your fearless leader kills everyone she disagrees with? Shot through the head like some good ol’ boys accused of being slavers and racists? Oh yeah, I know about that, Mayor. She will be answering for that; I can assure you.”

  “I, for one, would argue against executing either you or any of your men. However, if you cannot contribute to the community in the way that the military is required to, then we will have to ask you to leave the safety of this established rescue zone.”

  Benson was impressed by the politician’s tenacity; he had always thought of the man as wishy-washy, but there he was, strong and unwavering. There was a long pause before the colonel nodded his head.

  “Okay, I’ll play along. Where is my cell?”

  “We have an office over at the hospital; you’ll actually be quite comfortable there.”

  “I provide my own guards.”

  “I’m sorry, but you’re not to have any contact with your troops unless it is monitored. We will not be posting a guard either, Colonel. A voluntary surrender means you are willing to stay and face the charges against you, so no guards should be necessary. The door is not keyed in a way that we can lock you in. You see, we want this all to be amicable and give you a chance to redeem your honor.”

  “My honor doesn’t need redeeming, Mayor Boweaver. This will not go well for you, but if it is something that must be done, so be it,” Jeffers said.

  “You broke your word, Colonel; your honor is in need of redeeming. We have lost people and time due to your actions. You might want to reflect upon that for a bit while in your cell,” Malcolm said as the colonel was escorted away.

  “You gentlemen need to summon your next-in-command,” Benson said to the two soldiers. One gave a single nod and departed, while the other stayed and continued to watch as the committee assembled.

  “We’ll wait for their representative before we start the meeting. We don’t want to leave anyone out of the loop,” Benson said, not feeling that he should play a heavy role while high, but knowing that no one else would step up while he was there. The three of them had taken charge and, with the help of people like Bret, Carlos, Malcolm, and many others, it was working.

  Once the place was stable, he planned to back away from it and focus on his children, but that day was a way off—if it ever came. He could tell that Danny was missing the one-on-one time he used to have with his mom. Justin, the son he claimed to have adopted, had been more of a stranger to him than most of the regular fighters. He prayed that the emotional bridge wasn’t burned. He saw the boy from a distance and smiled when he noticed the kid was headed his way.

  “Hi,” he said with an awkward flap of a wave.

  “Hi, yourself. How’ve you been?”

  “Good, ah, you got busy so I hooked on with one of the training groups and Cat has been working with me. Is that okay?”

  “That’s awesome, buddy. You get in late and leave early so I assume you’re enjoying it. They keep ya pretty busy?”

  “Yeah. After training, we guard inside the boundaries until a large group is going out to salvage or rescue. I’m a part of something; something we started. I have never had that before.”

  “Yes, you were a big part of that beginning,” Benson said, trying to encourage the boy to keep on track. “Outside the walls, huh? Cool, I haven’t been out there since we got here. Feelin’ kind of trapped, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, sorry about your leg, I came as soon as I heard.”

  “I’ll be honest; it’s going to really suck. Can’t be much of a zombie fighter with only one leg,” Benson replied in a semi-serious tone.

  “Am I going to have to keep Lucy away from you? Her bein’ a dog and all.”

  “The border collie? Hell no. She’s my dog now. Look, the dog that attacked me was trained to do that. It wasn’t some insane fit of rage. In fact, he would come over and eat with Lucy a lot as well as some of the other dogs. Sedge likes to eat and I never saw anything mean about him. He was trained professionally for a lunatic who wants nothing but to kill. So it was like being attacked by a soldier, not a dog. I am not going to be afraid of dogs.”

  “K, sorry. You know, you see all of those movies where people can’t go near water because they almost drowned once.”

  “Yeah, well … some of that is real though. Like I have a strange aversion to dead people due to the hundreds that have tried to eat me,” Benson said and they both smiled. Not a laugh, too much had happened for that, but a genuine smile.

  “Officer Benson? I’m Captain Thompson. I understand we have a bit of a situation here,” a soldier interrupted, which annoyed him, but what was the man to do when his commanding officer was incarcerated?

  “It’s nothing that you have to get worked up about, Captain; we just have to come to some understanding of how things are going to operate here. We can’t have anyone disrupting plans that we have already put into place. I hope that you, as a soldier, can respect that.”

  “I can respect that, Officer Benson, as I am sure the colonel intended to.”

  “He didn’t though, Captain. He and I agreed that you and your men would reinforce the reservoir; he didn’t, so now I have people up there in distress and the whole electrical grid down here is at risk. Now, are you going to live up to what he agreed to do?”

  “I make no moves without speaking to the colonel first.”

  “That’s kind of what I figured. Mayor Boweaver, have Fenton schedule an appointment for the captain to see the colonel after the meeting. Malcolm, try to find some shooters and light equipment and send them up to the reservoir. Once again, we’ll take care of things ourselves. This is becoming an irreversible trend, Captain,” Benson said, leaving no doubts as to how he felt about the arrival of the US Army.

  “All right, Art, we have some groups that are ready to go, I think. We’ll put something together.”

  Big changes were in the works and the city was getting ready to expand again, but the planning of that would wait until Lisa and Krupp got there the next day. So the meeting turned out to be more about status reports and how to assign people to work groups when they didn’t want to work. A plague that had been a part of humanity since its creation, laziness was again taking over society.

  Chapter 10

  WTF

  “Mustafa, we need transports down here, stat!” Lisa commanded through the SAT phone.

  “They’re right around the corner, Lieutenant. What’s happening down there?” he asked.

  “Something is trying to come across the bridge we just blocked. They move fast and there are lots of them. I’ll let you know when I know more,” Lisa replied.

  “We have received some disturbing news from Officer Krupp,” Mustafa said gravely. “It seems that the ones with the respiratory issues earlier have started to behave violently and attacked people.”

  “Zombies?”

  “Nope, still alive,” Mustafa said.

  Fuck! But how? She knew the answer had to be somewhere. Lisa looked at the new threat that was crossing the bridge.

  Is this …? Are they …?
>
  “They’re climbing across the trestles, Lieutenant,” Kibble said, more than a little panicked.

  “It looks like they’re eating the zomb—Fuck me! They’re tearing them apart,” Franc added as he pulled his hands down from shading his brow, the rumbling of the transports drowning out his last few words.

  Lisa could see the carnage as it happened. Chunks and pieces of zombies spewed from the side of the bridge over the Arkansas River as if they were being hit by the world’s largest lawnmower. She could hear the brains, bones, and viscera as it splashed into the water. She could hear them growling and snapping like wild animals, proving that humanity no longer was a part of their makeup. They attacked differently, sounded different, and even moved differently—on four legs like a werewolf whose body never fully transformed. Joints operating in a way that a human’s body could not endure.

  Where did they come from? she wondered with fear, silently suspecting the answer.

  The zombies were almost easy to figure out by comparison and had even been passed off as a natural, if not paranormal, occurrence. It was something the people could deal with. But these … these were more like some kind of genetically mutated crossbreed of some sort.

  “John, keep them from coming off the top of that bridge. We need a line of shooters down on the other side of those evacuees. Neil, take the lead!” she shouted, knowing that he was by far the best shooter of the group. “Franc, you get those people to the transports.”

  “Me?”

  “Yep, we need them to move and you’re just the man to do it,” Lisa said before running closer to the bridge for a better look. She couldn’t swear on it because the creatures were still halfway across the bridge, but it looked as if they were consuming as many of the Zs as they were throwing over the side. No need to fear infection with them; they were voracious and would consume a victim until there was nothing left to change into a Z.