by J. J. Fowler
“Lieutenant Colonel Dagos and Captain Drake are believed to have escaped. We cannot confirm that as most of the men are either dead or have fled through the tunnel.” He coughed into the microphone. “My apologies for that, sir. Yes. I will evacuate through the tunnel immediately. Over and out.” He pressed a switch on the panel before him and took off his headset. The fat man wiped the sweat off his brow and released a long and tired sigh.
Drake nodded to Dagos and then cautiously crept into the room behind the control operator. He aimed his pistol at the back of the man’s head and then flipped off the safety switch, making a loud clicking sound.
The bloated man immediately swung around in his chair with a pistol in his hand but was knocked out of his chair when Drake smashed his pistol into the younger man’s face. By now, Dagos was next to Drake pointing his assault rifle at the terrified man’s head.
The control operator began to sob and cried out, “Please! Please don’t kill me!”
“Then give us some answers,” Drake replied.
“Right now,” Dagos added.
The control operator nodded his head wildly. His round cheeks jiggled with each nod.
“What is this place?” Drake asked sternly.
“What do you think it is?” the operator said sarcastically. Drake was not amused and swiftly kicked him in the stomach. The operator grabbed his flabby gut and wailed in pain.
“Goddammit! Shut up!” Drake screamed at him.
Dagos leaned close to the operator and asked, “How did Harbinger know our names?”
The operator regained control of himself and sat up. He coughed several times and then replied, “He works for some big shot. Who? I don’t know.”
“How did you know we were coming, fat ass?” Drake growled.
“Um…Harbinger informed me.”
“I don’t like that answer.” Drake punched the man in the face. As Drake figured, the operator immediately started weeping pathetically. Drake raised his fist to hit the operator again when Dagos shook his head at him. Drake lowered his fist and deferred to his superior.
“Now,” Dagos said placidly. “Who do you work for?”
The man wiped the tears and blood from his face. “Are you going to kill me?” he whined.
“No,” Dagos replied honestly. “We just want you to answer a few questions. Time is of the essence now.”
The operator wiped a few tears away. “Well, we work for a colonel from Freetoria. It’s a…uh…special program started by the colonel.”
“Which colonel?” said Dagos.
“Tarte,” interrupted Drake. “The fucker set us up.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Maybe fat ass knows. You know why you came out here. Don’t you?” Drake asked, suspicious of Dagos.
“I was ordered to follow you and take over the mission if you became unfit for duty.”
“What the fuck kind of bullshit is that?
Dagos ignored Drake’s accusatory questions and replied by saying, “I suggest we spend what little time we have interrogating this man rather than ourselves.”
“You didn’t suspect something odd?” Drake saw Dagos’ point though. Dagos wasn’t part of any nefarious plan to set up Drake and his men. Otherwise, Harbinger would not have tied him up to feed his pets. “Okay, sir,” Drake said to Dagos.
He then turned his attention to the operator and said, “What’s the deal here, wide ass? Why are you training these things?”
“To fight…to fight other deaders.”
Dagos looked up and listened to the faint screams of the horde outside the bunker and the pounding against the steel door. “It appears to me they’re fighting us more than other deaders.”
“This doesn’t make any fucking sense. Why the hell didn’t Tarte tell us about this program?” Drake mused. “Why the fuck would he want us dead?”
“I don’t know,” Dagos said quietly.
“Do you know why Colonel Tarte would set us up, bubble ass?”
The operator shook his head.
“Lying piece of shit!”
Drake punched him in the face several times before Dagos pulled him away and said, “Drake, he’s telling the truth.”
“Fuck this!” Drake thundered. “Let’s kill this fuck and get out of here, sir!”
“Please!” the operator cried. “I can tell you more!”
Drake calmed himself, for the moment at least, and said, “Speak fast.”
“Your army is being ambushed. They’re on their way to help you, but it’s a set-up. We’re going to surround them with deaders not far outside this camp. I didn’t like it, but I had no choice but to follow orders. Commander Harbinger would’ve killed me.”
The two soldiers were incredulous. Dagos placed a hand over his eyes and rubbed them hoping this was all a nightmare he would wake up from. Drake didn’t even pretend it was a nightmare. He knew this hell was their reality.
“We’ve got time, sir,” Drake said to Dagos. “It’ll take our boys days to get here.”
“No, it won’t,” Dagos responded. “They’re taking the old railway since it’s an emergency. I noticed the tracks going right past this camp.”
“That’s not possible. It hasn’t worked in years. The path is littered with debris and deaders.”
“It was basically repaired and cleared by teams sent out secretly last year, most of whom died doing it. It reaches deep into deader territory.”
“Fuck me,” Drake said with astonishment. “Why didn’t we take it?”
“Deaders and nomads would’ve heard it and followed you along. It would have been too dangerous. An army can protect itself.”
“Tarte is going to kill his own men!” Drake said. He was astonished, confused, and getting angrier by the second.
“It sounds that way,” said Dagos hopelessly, and then left the room.
Drake glared at the pathetic pile of blubber softly weeping in the corner of the control room. “Where’s the exit?”
“Below…near the jail. There is an entrance to the tunnel with a railway connecting this camp and the forward operating base. It was how the colonel from Freetoria would visit us in secret.”
“Thanks,” Drake said. He then fired two rounds into the operator’s head.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Mifune put the walkie-talkie into his pocket and said to Murphy, “The captain says he knows a way out. It’s somewhere around here.”
Murphy stood guard near the entrance to the dungeon and listened to the masses of zombies stumbling about above them. They were in the bunker. “How are they going to get here with the deaders broken in?”
“I don’t know,” replied Mifune. “Maybe we can find some door that’s an exit to a tunnel and hope they can make their way down here. Follow my lead.” Mifune carefully moved outside the dungeon, his rifle pointing the way down the dimly lit corridor.
Murphy kept close behind him, looking over his shoulder occasionally for any approaching threats.
* * *
Dagos stuck his head around a corner and saw a mass of deaders huddled around a door, bashing against it, and screaming in hunger. Beyond them, he saw an entrance to the lower level where the dungeon was located. Hopefully, it was the entrance to the tunnel. The door to the lower level was closed for now. He moved back out of view of the zombies and said to Drake, “It doesn’t look good. There’s too many of them to get by.”
Drake reached in his jacket and produced a grenade. “I’ll throw this, sir. Once it goes off, we can make a run for the door.”
“That won’t even kill half the deaders out there. We won’t make it to the door.”
“One of us will. I’ll create a distraction by firing at them so you can get by.”
“No. Both of us make it or neither of us do.”
They heard a burst of gunfire and humans yelling. Dagos looked down the corridor again and saw deaders falling in a hail of bullets. Several men pushed their way out through the horde of the dead.
Within moments, their guns fell silent as the deaders overwhelmed them. They tore Harbinger’s men limb from limb and devoured their flesh.
“This is our moment,” Dagos said.
“I guess so.”
The deaders huddled around Harbinger’s dead men fighting and clawing their way for a taste of warm flesh. A particularly large zombie with an eye missing and a machete lodged in his chest cavity shoved several zombies aside to get at the newly dead. He reached through the crowd for a piece of flesh, but returned holding a live grenade. The creature gazed at it, not sure what it was. It blew up in his face.
* * *
The lower level was a maze. Murphy and Mifune were going in circles. Water dripped from leaking pipes in the ceiling and rats darted around in front of them. Murphy suddenly stopped. “Did you hear that?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
Ahead of the two, they saw a door lit by a flickering incandescent light. There was a persistent tapping emanating from it.
“Deaders?” Murphy inquired nervously.
“Deaders don’t tap. They bang. Stay here.” Mifune moved carefully toward the door, and as he did so, the tapping became louder. He could even hear voices.
He reached the door and knocked on it. The tapping inside stopped. “Can you hear me?” Mifune asked.
No response.
“Answer me!”
Nothing. “We should move on,” Murphy whispered to Mifune.
“Just stay frosty,” Mifune said as he waved his hand dismissively. “The deaders are everywhere above us. We’re all in the same boat now.”
The door creaked open slightly, revealing an eye suspiciously examining Mifune. “Just open it up. We don’t have a lot of time.” The door slammed shut. “Oh, to hell with this.” Mifune turned his attention to Murphy and said, “This is hopeless, let’s keep going.”
The soldiers moved several meters down from the door when they heard it open. They stopped and looked at it. Neither of them moved toward it, but both of them pointed their weapons at it.
A young woman with two blonde pigtails wearing a black leather mini-skirt and a tight tank top stepped out into the corridor. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Behind her, another young woman appeared, looking nearly identical except her mini-skirt was red. Murphy stood frozen. His mouth was ajar and his eyes revealed lecherous thoughts.
“Who are you?” Mifune said.
The girl in the black mini-skirt coughed slightly as she sized the two men up. They didn’t look like Harbinger’s men to her, but then again, Harbinger’s men varied from deranged to sweet. Virtually none of them wore the same uniform. These men were dressed in the uniforms of the soldiers from Freetoria, her enemies.
“We are the meat,” she finally replied.
The red mini-skirt blonde cowered behind the black mini-skirt blonde. It was quite apparent to both of the soldiers that these young women didn’t trust them one iota. No one said anything for several long seconds until Mifune said, “For the deaders?”
“No,” said the black mini-skirt woman. “For the cocks.”
“They rape you?” Murphy said naively.
“Yes,” she replied. “Why the hell else are we dressed like this?”
“Why were you two tapping on the door?” said Mifune.
“We were told to tap on the door and wait for one of Harbinger’s men to open it for us. If we open it on our own, we are beaten.”
“You aren’t locked in?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Where would we go?”
“Well, whatever the reason, we have to get out of here. The deaders are everywhere. Do you know where the tunnel is?”
“No,” said the black, mini-skirt woman. She glanced back at the timid, red, mini-skirt woman behind her and continued, “…but she does.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Mifune had hated pass codes on doors ever since he was a child. One of the most horrifying moments of his life was when he was nine years old and fleeing a deader in Freetoria. He got to his apartment door and the pass code to get him inside didn’t respond. Fortunately, a neighbor heard his cries, took him inside his home, and called up the squads to terminate the deader. Now, once again, he was stuck fiddling with a pass code futilely as the living dead pounded hungrily outside a wooden door.
Drake and Dagos had managed to follow Mifune’s directions to the tiny room, which led to the tunnel, but they arrived with company, and not the friendly kind. “I can’t get it to work,” Mifune said to Drake.
“I don’t know how those fucking things work either, Sergeant.”
A single incandescent light, scarcely large enough to accommodate the four men and two women, lit the room. Murphy and Dagos had their backs against the wooden door, hoping to use their combined weight to hold off the horde as much as possible. Everyone knew though that they were running out of time. If the deaders could get through a steel door, they could certainly get through this puny wooden one.
“Sir,” Murphy yelled. “I have experience with these things.”
“From what?” Drake snarled.
“Does it really matter?” said Mifune.
“I guess not. Go take his spot.”
The two men switched and Murphy set to work trying to get the door to open. The two women watched him anxiously. Drake watched them. He couldn’t understand why they were dressed so ridiculously.
“So, who are you two?” Drake asked the two young women.
“What do you care?” asked the black mini-skirt girl.
“Let’s just say we ain’t got much going on now.”
“I’m Lara. This is my sister Tyrene.”
“So you their fuck pets?”
Lara sneered at him and replied, “You must be one of those asshole soldiers who hate my people. Well, guess what? We hate you, too.”
“Your people won’t be around much longer the way this war is going.”
“We’ll outlast you.”
Drake saw their point and grinned at Lara. Lara frowned at Drake, but her sister smiled back at him.
“Is she a mute?”
“A what?”
“Forget it.”
He asked Murphy how things were coming along.
“Not very well, sir.”
“Captain,” Dagos said. “We can’t hold this door much longer.”
“I know. I know.”
Tyrene moved forward and gently tugged the fabric on Murphy’s shoulder. He ignored her. She tugged on it again.
“Hey, soldier,” said Lara. “She wants to give it a try.”
Murphy appeared confused and said, “Why?”
“Yeah,” said Drake. “She’s a nomad. What the fuck do you all know about these things?”
Lara locked eyes with Drake. “We’ve been breaking into your pathetically pass-coded bunkers and bases for years.”
“You have?” Murphy replied skeptically.
“Drake!” Dagos screamed.
“Oh all right, let the girl. Have a go, Murph.”
Murphy stepped aside. Tyrene examined the keys on the pass code carefully and thoroughly. Then she rapidly punched in a series of numbers and the door unlocked. Murphy and Drake eyed each other in shock.
Lara pushed them aside and swung the door open. She looked up at a still surprised Drake and said sarcastically, “Lady nomads are good for something. Right?” Then she grabbed her sister’s hand and took her into the tunnel.
Drake heard Dagos yell at him to move into the tunnel and get ready to slide the door shut as soon as he and Mifune raced past it. Drake gave his superior an affirmative and waited with Murphy for Mifune and Dagos to run into the tunnel. Then Drake would step forward and fire a clip into the coming horde as Murphy slid the door shut.
“You ready, kid?” Drake said to Murphy with his weapon trained into the room.
Murphy said yes.
“We’re all set here, sir!” Drake hollered.
A moment later, Mifune and
Dagos sped through the doorway, and Drake fired into the room immediately after they passed him. Murphy pushed the door with all his might, but it didn’t move. It was stuck.
“What’s going on Murph?” Drake screamed.
“Sir,” he said while continuing to push, “it won’t budge!”
The deaders fell in heaps in front of Drake, causing the other zombies to struggle to get over the fallen. Dagos moved in next to Drake and poured fire into the room while Mifune helped Murphy push the door.
“We can’t hold this horde forever,” Dagos said.
Then shots rang out from inside the room and into the tunnel. Dagos and Drake ducked and realized there were trained deaders in there firing at them. Things had gone from bad to worse.
Drake told Murphy and Mifune to give up pushing against the door and join them. As they did so, a deader leapt through the door and tackled Murphy. Mifune fell in the opposite direction as deader bullets flew above him. “Murph!” Mifune screamed from a prone position. He couldn’t get up. Deaders poured firing into the tunnel, pinning everyone down.
The deader crawled its way up Murphy’s body seeking his jugular. Murphy tried in vain to push the creature off him, but this particular deader weighed significantly more than him. Its maggot-infested face screeched in hunger.
Murphy smelled its hideous breath and felt vomit traveling up his throat. Its one remaining eye dangled out of its socket held only by a thin cord of flesh. The eye swayed back and forth as the beast crawled its way slowly up Murphy’s body. Murphy reached around him for anything he might use as a weapon, but only picked up dirt. He tried kneeing the creature to get it off of him, punching its face, spitting and screaming at it; nothing worked. He couldn’t stop it.
Then it was at his neck. He watched in horror as the deader leaned back, opened its mouth wide to reveal blackened teeth, and readied itself to move in for the feast. Murphy shut his eyes, thought of his life, thought of beautiful women, and then thought of peace. He felt the deader crash upon him. Where is the pain? Why hasn’t it bit me? Murphy opened his eyes and saw Tyrene hovering over him, a bloodied rock in her hand, a grin on her face.