Is this something the zombies are morphing into? Like how the runners stopped exposing themselves and eventually disappeared? They are evolving? No … they can’t be. They’re dead; the dead don’t evolve, they decay. Mustafa said they were still living, so does that mean anyone can turn into one?
A swath of blackish blood and zombie bones trailed behind them as they consumed the dead rotting flesh.
Gaining sustenance …? Strength? The impact of that hit her hard, forcing her to straighten and look at her distant adversary in a much different light.
“They’re alive!” she half shouted to those around her, believing that they were the same creatures developing at the triage centers in Krupp’s command.
“What?” Kibble asked from fifty feet away as he was taking up position to protect the evacuees.
“They’re alive!” she shouted while thinking about the implications. If they’re alive then they can think and run, doors will no longer be obstacles.
“Kibble, get those skid loaders loaded back up!” She then called Mustafa back. “Mustafa, the game has just changed.”
“Excuse me?”
“They breathe and think and they can probably open doors. Who knows how much of their old selves they remember? Pull in all the heavy equipment and use them as shields only. John, call everybody in and start a withdrawal back to Hot Springs.”
“To Hot Springs? Really? We still have more to salvage.”
“If I am wrong on this we can come right back, but if I am right, we could be fighting our way all the way home. Inform Krupp and tell him we’re going to need shooters and ammo left behind, but they are to pull out if possible.” Lisa finished as a couple of shots from John’s rooftop gun eliminated one of the early arrivals.
“They’re a hard kill. A 7.62 should have dropped him like yesterday’s news,” John said from his window and Lisa nodded.
This is going to get ugly.
She readied her rifle and put the irons on one of the creatures. She squeezed the trigger and saw the spray of blood as its shoulder exploded just as it would on a living human. It turned and glared at her. Not her general area, but directly at her as if it was swearing vengeance. Tonka growled and she heard Franc shouting as he moved people toward the transports.
The people were dehydrated and starving, but there was no time to do anything about it as he kept one eye on the bridge and the other on how many people had yet to be moved. Lisa saw Franc put himself between the line of people and the infected, scanning the area just like a good soldier would do.
“Lieutenant,” he said, indicating the first of a new group from the warehouse district. As they rounded the buildings, they picked up speed as soon as they saw their open path to living meat.
“Everybody move! On the transports, now!” Lisa shouted as she changed focus and started shooting at the oncoming mass. Neil’s and Kibble’s guns were soon joining the cacophony under constant screams of rage. Unlike the moans of the zombies, they had top-of-the-lung screams worthy of shattering glass.
“No, Tonka, stay with me,” Lisa said, feeling that the mass of enraged flesh was hell-bent on destroying her loyal companion. Lisa wondered if Leon’s attack hadn’t been the result of what these creatures had become. Questions raced through her mind. But what had made him be like that? Was there some level of thought behind his actions? Did he simply change with the flip of a switch or did something actually occur within his mind? Did he know it was happening?
Two blocks away, a horde of new evil was bearing down upon them at an unbelievable pace. She looked up at the car and hoped Temple had the wherewithal to lock the doors and hide because she couldn’t do anything to help him.
*
“Give me an update, Sergeant. Over.”
Sergeant Isaac Baker hesitated halfway between outrage and relief. “Yes, sir,” he replied to Captain Thompson. Baker told the captain all that happened and waited for a response, hoping they would be allowed to be what he signed up to be—a soldier. Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan … then, he was always told to wait, to check fire until they were sure. You never know a suicide bomber until one explodes; you never know the infiltrator until his actions are complete. Yet each time, there were signs, hints, and clues that they weren’t allowed to act upon. Now, it was the same; wait and watch. Here, however, they knew the enemy.
“Okay, Sergeant, hold your position and be ready to pick up the pieces … evac, if necessary. Civilians are our focus; we are not here to assist the local police. Over.”
“Excuse me, sir? Would you care to repeat that order? Over.”
“I said watch, evac, and help civilians, if necessary, Sergeant. Do you have an issue, soldier? Over.”
“No, sir. Just static. Out.”
Sergeant Baker hung up the mic. He sat in the passenger seat of the transport, staring out the window at the people who were about to be overrun. The driver next to him shook his head back and forth. Alex was his name, from Michigan—the U.P. to be exact. He remembered when he met him the other day after being rescued at an Air Force base where they had to refuel … called himself an upper. A good kid raised on the Great Lakes in the summer and icy frozen ski slopes in the winter.
Sergeant Baker feared very little in this world and it was only here, under Colonel Jeffers, that he had to face his worst fears. The fear of inaction, the fear that he would be forced to sit and watch as atrocities happened all around him. One look at Alex’s face told him he agreed that something had to be done.
Sergeant Baker keyed his helmet com and said, “Lock and load, ladies and gentlemen.” He then smiled at Alex and opened his door, bringing his pack and M4 with him. He didn’t issue a direct order because he knew that he was walking the edge, but he didn’t see a single uniformed local police officer; he saw a woman with a shaved head wearing a SWAT cap.
Maybe I should go and talk to her, ask if she is really SWAT? He signaled different directions for the squads from the other transports to deploy before walking toward the woman whose dog watched his every move.
“Hey, are you really SWAT?” he asked after taking a couple of shots at nearby zombies.
“Nope, just own the cap.”
“That’s all that I need to know.”
“Welcome to the party,” Lisa said, truly grateful they decided to help but perturbed that it took them so long.
“Thanks, I feel welcome. Seems I’ve been going to this party all week long.” He smiled. “I hope we don’t stay drunk all night long this time,” he finished with a laugh.
Lisa shook her head, not getting the reference and not really caring.
At a block away, the creatures were in range but still hard to hit as their fast, loping gait kept them low to the ground.
“These ragers don’t seem to be like your typical zombies,” the sergeant said as he double-checked his load.
“No, they don’t. This is going to get real interesting,” Lisa replied as she focused down the barrel of her M4.
Lisa started firing at the lead figure in the center, hitting him twice in the shoulder before the third bullet ricocheted off the top of its skull. She lowered just a hair and put one in its chest, face, then skull. The beast stood straight up and slowed, but it didn’t stop. Three rounds dead center and the demon finally fell face first. She looked incredulously at the sergeant who had joined her and saw that he had had similar results.
“Fall back!” Lisa shouted as the sergeant did the same into his helmet comm. Both their guns heated up as they tried to slow the advance.
“They’re coming off the bridge!” Kibble shouted as he shot at those who were already in the park.
“Fuck!” Lisa said. Visions of them ripping through her lines, devouring everything in their path, rushed through her mind. She was as close to panic as she had ever been; even Tonka was showing signs of fear. But being the true K9 that he was, Tonka pulled back while staying at her heel, ready to fight anything that came near.
“Re-group!” Sergeant Baker
shouted and started to slowly back toward the personnel carriers forming up. “Stay with me, SWAT!” he shouted at Lisa.
She fell in beside him, glad to be near someone who had a plan. Lisa had a natural instinct when it came to fighting the dead; something that gave her an edge over pretty much everybody else. Fighting a horde of living, thinking beings was the military’s forte. His lead was welcomed and they slowly backed away, shoulder to shoulder, keeping their front clear.
The beasts didn’t clump together like zombies would, preferring instead to pursue individual targets. So instead of a horde overwhelming them with sheer weight of numbers, they faced a series of one or two at a time rushing their front.
Still twenty yards from the safety of the vehicles and other shooters, the mass started to pass them on the sides. They appeared focused on the group behind them or something beyond even that. Lisa started to feel like she was caught in an oncoming tide as foamy water surrounded her before actually engulfing her legs. Very few were dropping no matter how hard they tried; it was taking a minimum seven or eight rounds to drop one. It didn’t seem to matter which vital organ was hit; it only seemed to matter how much lead penetrated them. They just kept advancing, their faces twisted with rage.
Lisa slammed another magazine home, knowing that she didn’t have many left. A rough-looking man in his thirties came in low under her aim, going for the sergeant’s legs. She put a dotted line right down the center of his spine, finally dropping him at their feet. Then she was back-up firing at the next as the sergeant did the same.
More rifles sounded out around them, but still the horde came on. Someone screamed as the bulk of the group hit the line and a soldier was yanked out into the mass, his scream lasting for only a second before he was ripped to shreds.
Lisa’s magazine clicked empty, leaving her with barely enough time to pull her rifle in front as she backed against an abandoned car. She pulled out her Glock, lifted up, and fired at the first one who lunged for her throat in a focused attack. His head blew apart from the hollow point she had loaded it with. She took aim again and heard the familiar canine growl as the Rager was knocked away from her. She felt the car shake violently from her K9 companion’s actions, but couldn’t help him as another launched at her. She doubted that Tonka could kill it, considering how many bullets they took to put down, and felt deep regret that she couldn’t help him. The next one latched on to her rifle and she twisted, forcing it to the ground. At close range, it only took a double tap with her Glock to finish it. The next took two, and the one going for the sergeant’s back took three before she holstered the semi auto while grabbing the Rhino in one smooth motion, her hands responding without thought, instinctively knowing how the butt of the revolver would rest in the shoulder holster.
One tried to fall into her legs and take a chunk out of her, but the Rhino beat it to the punch as a .40 slammed into its forehead from the inside, blowing its face onto the ground. Close range, huh? Lisa silently noted as another rushed in, screaming with rage.
Lisa couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that it was over. The compound, the supplies, Cat, and the evil Doctor Webber … she would never know what happened because she was going to die here and end up in the belly of these new monsters.
It was all she could do to swing and fire the last few rounds from her Rhino, her mind readying her to grab for the Glock again and the magazine in her belt that needed to get to the gun before it could do any good. She dropped her rifle then grabbed and expanded her baton, but it wasn’t heavy enough to clear them away like a bat would have or even her rifle, which was now lost in the crowd. The sling it hung upon ripped in half without her even realizing.
Fuck! She would have to drop the baton and the revolver as she went for the empty Glock and magazine. She threw the baton at the head of a tall, thin man in his forties racing toward her, screams of rage exploding from his face. She couldn’t wait to see the result as she aimed at the head of a woman with a brightly colored balloon nametag that said Patsy. The Rhino barked, blasting the top half of Patsy’s head into a gelatinous spray. The second bullet dropped low, taking her in the chin and causing Patsy to fall to her knees. The slap of her hitting the pavement was in perfect stereo with the Rhino landing on the ground in front of her.
Lisa now knew where the term slapping leather came from. As her right hand yanked the familiar Glock from the holster, her finger instinctively hit the release to drop the empty magazine. Her left, already holding the fresh one, slid it home as her thumb hit the button to reset the locked-back slide and chambered a round in one smooth motion. Lisa’s timing was perfect, and she took down a half-naked male teen. Any variation was enough to get her killed as two moved in on her hard and fast, the matching uniforms looking to be something she recognized as the first group on the bridge. She hated killing other cops but kept in mind that these cops were no longer on the force. Their lives had expired, as had the suits and the mechanic she shot next while she filled her free hand with another magazine for the next cycle.
The magazine felt right, but she couldn’t help but sidestep left just a hair to divert the trajectory. She slammed the next magazine into the pistol and fired. The report instantly put her self-doubt at ease when she put two into the heads of two women while her free hand reached for a third magazine.
She couldn’t see the sergeant anymore. The black Suburban, where John was, and Kibble’s location had become streams of screaming infected as they flowed over the strong point like there wasn’t even a resistance force.
It wasn’t a pitched battle as much as it was being caught in the current of a swift-flowing stream.
More screams were suddenly silenced while growls and gnashing teeth of the feast carried on. Rifles and handguns fired constantly, slowing a little every time a fighter was lost. A flash from an incendiary grenade only caused the mass to separate for a second before they regrouped and continued their wave. The diseased flowed over the resistance effortlessly, only grabbing those who were accessible and tearing into bodies as they ran. Flesh was shredded and tossed throughout the mass in a rolling communal feast on the run.
Then … it was over.
Lisa and the sergeant stood looking around themselves in a daze. They started clearing the park with a force of forty people joining in the rescue; they were left with twelve standing within her view. She saw Kibble and Sally from her own group but Franc, Neil, and Tina were gone. Kibble’s crew and the guys with Franc were gone; only seven soldiers remained.
The ground was littered with twenty corpses of infected, and none of them had been feasted on. Blood and bone were strewn everywhere as screams echoed from down the street. Zombies and the living alike were devoured in the passing of this horde, leaving the survivors standing around bewildered over pavement covered in muck and gore.
“Holy fuck!” the sergeant said. “What the fuck was that?”
“Not sure, but I think I might have an idea,” Lisa said as she pulled out her SAT phone. “Ed, what is going on with the ones who got sick this morning?”
“I don’t think you want to know, Lisa; it wasn’t pretty,” Krupp responded with more than a hint of regret in his tone.
“I need to know, Ed.”
“They went crazy and killed more than three times their number is what happened. We have it under control now, but we had to shoot every one of them and we lost a lot of good people. They were eating on them as they killed them, Lisa. Or at least that’s what it looked like,” Krupp replied.
“Damn, I got some bad news for you. You have more coming your way, and they’re destroying everything in their path. Put you and your people on lockdown. There’s no use fighting these things until we figure out how.”
“Lockdown?”
“Yeah, somewhere safe, secure. These things are alive. They can open doors and have even broken some car windows,” Lisa finished as her eyes landed on the 300 that she had been riding in since the event started. The windshield and side windows were shattere
d, and blood covered the interior.
“No can do, Lieutenant. I got semis and straight trucks coming through here at ninety miles an hour, heading to and from Hot Springs. There’s no way I can shut it down. How soon are they going to be here?”
“Not a clue, I don’t know shit right now, Ed. Aw, fuck it. Just do whatever you think is right; I don’t have any answers,” Lisa said, her confidence shaken by the arrival of the creatures. It may have been unforeseen, but she felt it was somehow connected.
“Roger, Lieutenant. I’ll secure things as best as possible,” Krupp said, a plan already forming.
“All right. I’m sorry; I’m just overreacting here,” Lisa said shaken by the event. “We just lost three-quarters of our group in a matter of seconds and it’s left me on edge. Luckily, the soldiers stepped up, or I wouldn’t be talking to you now. These new infected seem to be running with a purpose, so unless you are that purpose, they should pass right over you … or through you.”
“Yeah, we have seen a little of that when our own turned. Do you think it was the bloody residue in the air this morning? I mean, that’s what made them sick to begin with.”
“I don’t know, Ed. The wind was out of the southwest, so that would mean the entire northern portion of Little Rock has the potential of being infected. We can only assume that it only affects the living since the zombies are, well … dead,” Lisa replied.
“It means much more than that, Lisa. It means that anyone breathing in the fluids from the Zs has the potential to become … whatever it is that they are.”
“You’re right,” Lisa interrupted. “Call the radio station in Hot Springs and have that broadcast immediately; warn them to be vigilant in watching out for these … Ragers—that is what the soldiers called them. They’re alive and don’t need to be shot in the head, but it takes a lot more bullets to stop them. Eight or nine per drop, according to what we saw.”
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