He motioned Tyler to follow him to his open door. The voices on the radio were still calm and collected, which was good.
“I want you to get over to that crowd of spectators. I want them off the top of the levee, but they can watch from the backside. I need to have room to drive my vehicles back and forth on this road.” He studied the boy’s face to see how he would handle the necessary task. “And when you’ve got that done, I want you to find another boy and ask him to find Chloe, wherever she’s making spears, and tell her to get moving. We’re out of time.”
“Go!”
The salute was clumsy, but he returned it. His snap judgment was that Tyler would serve him well.
“Xander and Rando, up front.”
The boys ran to him.
“You two sound like professional wrestling names. You’re not wrestlers, are you?”
Two head shakes.
“I need each of you to go to that group of townies—my foot soldiers—and get five or six of them to go stand near each tank. Their jobs are to keep the people away, so the tanks don’t run them over, but eventually, they might be called upon to defend each tank from the zombies.”
The implications were clear and damning. It was an admission of the outcome of the battle, even before it began.
“You have a problem?”
The two boys shared a look but said nothing. They shook their heads no.
“This is war. I need you two out there helping me. We all have to contribute.”
He considered doubling up on the pressure for them, making them feel key to the whole victory, but in the balancing act between spurring them to action or making them soil their pants, he stuck with the former. They would either figure it out, or they wouldn’t.
As they ran off, a black man in a green John Deere Gator rolled up. Marty Peters sat next to him. A tiny woman holding on for dear life to the side rail, clearly uncomfortable.
He jumped out to greet her.
“Come to watch the show?”
To watch me?
“Oh, my lands, no. But Duncan insisted. And he’s my ride.”
“She’s too modest,” replied Duncan. “Marty pointed out that we needed to be up here seeing the news, as she called it, so we can be ready to run if things go bad.” He pointed down into the town. “If we wait for zombies to arrive in the town square, it would be too late to escape.”
“Sounds like good judgment. Why don’t you two stay here with me? If things get bad, we can all go down in my armored truck.” He patted his Humvee’s door.
“We don’t want to be a bother,” Marty replied.
“Not at all. I would be honored, in fact.”
His mind would not stop delving into introspection. Having Marty around sated a deep need to be seen during his greatest hour, but it was also a reminder—like the Roman Emperors of old—that he must account for the fragility of man. His defense would mean nothing if the town was overrun and people like Marty were consumed.
The plans altered, in a tiny way, to accommodate her. He wouldn’t admit, even to himself, how he intended to end this impossible fight. The three boys, his own men, and the townies may perish, but not her. There was something special about her he couldn’t quite place. But he felt it.
Alpha-1 fired its main gun, sending a wave of sound over the spectators, and a wave of tiny balls into the ocean of undead. The modern equivalent of grapeshot was devastating to a great swath of zombies now approaching the ditch.
I’ll keep you alive, Marty.
A cheer rose up as first blood was drawn.
4
Alpha-1 and -2 took turns plastering the zombie swarm with their shotgun rounds, and despite the great number of fallen, he was compelled to stop them.
The Abrams tanks carried a mixture of ammo, most of it designed to counter enemy tanks. Here in middle America, war planners probably didn’t anticipate the need for canister ammo to be used against citizens in the open. As such, they would have very few rounds of the distinctly anti-personnel rounds, and too many of the anti-vehicle rounds.
“Alphas, this is Warfighter actual. Hold onto your M1028 rounds. How copy?”
The radio crackled. “Warfighter actual, this is Alpha-1. Hold on M1028 rounds. Good copy. Over.”
Alpha-2 said the same.
“Give ‘em hell with the fifty cals. Out,” he ordered.
At some point, he may order them to use the anti-tank rounds on the zombies, though he didn’t think they’d be effective in the least. For now, he held that order. Everything cost money, and he’d probably never get replacements. Some day a platoon of Soviet armor could drive through Illinois—he had to be ready.
Today, the mere act of moving the tanks up onto the levee cost gasoline—another irreplaceable commodity. He’d need to conserve that, too.
The leading edge of the zombies—a group of runners that looked like they belonged to a track club—reached the ditch and ran right over the edge. They fell five or six feet into the water, and out of view. He knew from personal experience it was difficult to claw up the near side of the ditch—where the dirt had been piled—but it was possible. Even though he knew those first zombies wouldn’t swim across and claw their way up in just a few seconds, he expected a hand to pop up at the top of the berm any moment.
It distracted him until a group of five or six black men and a couple of women ran by, led by Xander. The boy gave him a wave, and he returned it with a salute. Everything was going surprisingly well on the planning side.
“No plan survives contact with the enemy.” What would von Moltke think of this battle?
Upon study, he realized the running zombies must walk most of the time. Otherwise, there’d be no way to explain how they weren’t miles ahead of the rest of the walking dead.
As the horde closed the distance, he began to hear them. The guttural moans grew, but so did an odd collection of screeches, wails, and the very unusual sing-song calls of some of them. The runners were the vanguard, but even they were acting strangely. Some of the leaders ran head-first into the ditch, but others were deflected by the water and ran sideways along the moat. Most appeared to be aimless, but others happened upon the bridge and crossed.
“...survives contact.”
If all the runner zombies converged on the bridge, they could cross it en masse and be upon the levee spectators in less than a minute. He didn’t think it was likely, but he wasn’t going to mess this up by assuming they were as dumb as they seemed.
“Bravo-2. I need you to move to block the bridge down there.” It pained him to sacrifice a vehicle, but there was no other way… “I’ll try to find a replacement for you, but you are the fastest I have right now. Please confirm. Over.”
No reply.
“Bravo-2, this is Warfighter actual. Do you copy?”
Static.
“Bravo-1, do you copy?”
He got out of his Humvee and looked in the direction of the Bradley’s. He had to climb onto the hood so he could see over the crowd. Dillon hadn’t been able to clear the spectators, though to his credit he was motioning some of them back.
“What the actual horseshit is this?”
Bravo-1, far down the line, began to move toward the ditch. It crawled off the hill, started up the earthen berm, then bogged down on the top. The tracks spun, but he could see it was high-centered on its hull.
Bravo-2 had gone down the other side of the levee, into town.
He jumped down, and returned to his radio, intending to get his answer.
The screams of the people on the levee made him stop. The confused crowd scattered in multiple directions. Most ran down the backside of the levee into town, but some ran toward the zombies. Some simply fell where they stood…
“What's going on here?”
Marty happened to be nearby. “They’re scared,” she said with finality.
“But why?” His statement was incredible, even to himself. The why was pretty easy. The real question was “why now?”
<
br /> At that moment a sickly sweet smell washed over him. It reminded him of a school janitor's puke dust. It came in like the first gust of a major thunderstorm.
Without realizing it, he jumped in his Humvee and pulled the heavy door shut with a slam.
Voices on the radio called to him. Someone called Alpha-something wanted a sitrep from their commander. Orders needed to be given.
“Warfighter. This is Alpha-2. Our foot support is banging on the hull and shooting at us to let them in. What are your orders? Over.” The man on the radio was annoyed.
He should kill them all.
“No!” he said aloud.
His hands were on the steering wheel. Was he about to drive away? What direction was he planning to go? He admitted it didn’t matter.
“General John Jasper, United States Army. Get a grip!”
He took a deep breath, inhaling the stink from outside.
It was in the truck with him.
“The zombies exude the smell of fear. Amazing...”
He sat frozen for a moment, but his head cleared as he did so.
“This is Warfighter actual. The zombies are causing this. They're causing the panic. Please respond. Over.” On the modern battlefield they'd be buttoned up for fear of NBC attacks, but who would fear radiation or poison gas when fighting zombies?
“Warfighter actual, this is Bravo-2. We’re OK. We, uh, woke up in this new position.”
“Bravo-1 is back on station.”
He opened the door, and waited for the smell to overcome him again, but it seemed to have been spent on the initial blast. The sick smell was there, but he was able to tune it out.
While he had his troopers back in the game, the civilians had it much worse. They lacked the discipline and support system of the military, and—John imagined—they suffered accordingly. Some of them ran over the bridge, into the approaching zombies, while those on the back of the levee were now inside the town.
But the thing that caught his attention more than anything else was the little green Gator. Much like Bravo-2, the driver of that vehicle had been overcome by the olfactory assault and had driven madly in the wrong direction. In seconds he’d taken the vehicle down the levee and had it nearly to the top of the berm.
As he watched, the driver continued to run up the berm, then over. He’d tossed himself into the ditch now filling with zombies.
Just before he toppled over the far side, the tiny woman passenger threw herself out of her seat, and onto the dirt pile. She was visible to all the humans and zombies alike.
Nope. My plan didn’t survive for ten minutes.
Chapter 12: Gator Ride
Marty felt the soil beneath her. The smell of the earth overpowered the stench of the dead. Her arms and legs ached, but she didn’t feel the unmistakable pain of a break. The soft ground had cushioned her fall from the slow-moving, doomed Gator.
“Mr. Duncan, are you there?”
She hoped he jumped at the last second, as she did.
There was no response. The zombies, however, were much louder as they arrived below her. She was sprawled, front side down, facing out over the fields. The zombies were without number as they surged in her direction. Below her, in the water-filled ditch, scores of them splashed and thrashed against each other. It was a bubbling cauldron of evil.
“They aren’t evil, Marty.”
“Al! Thank God.”
“Hiya Marty,” he said with his signature Jersey drawl. “They aren’t evil. They aren’t anything. They’re mindless bodies that don’t know they’re dead.”
Al sat next to her on the dirt. He, too, looked out over the approaching wave. It was like being in the front row of a movie theater. She was compelled to move backward...but not without Al.
“I’ve failed you, Al. I couldn’t protect anyone in my family during this plague. The only one I could help was Liam, and he’s gone again. If this is what the rest of the world looks like, I don’t think any of us can survive.”
“You hear the sirens’ call, Marty. You have a gift.”
It made no sense, but she was used to his confusing words. Or her own confusion. She still wasn’t sure if Al was in her mind, or if her mind made him up. Either way, he forced her to make choices, which she admitted had kept her alive through some desperate times.
“If I hear the call, why couldn’t I talk to you while I’ve been here in Cairo?”
He didn’t say anything, but he nodded out to the zombies.
“You’re not going to say, are you?”
“Marty, your search for answers is admirable, but as I’ve told you before, you can unlock the answers from your own brain.”
She didn’t turn around, though she knew the general and his tanks wouldn’t be there. She heard no gunfire from back there, reinforcing her belief she was dreaming. Daydream. Nightmare. Whatever.
“I couldn't hear you because the zombies weren’t here.”
“That sounds implausible,” Al echoed from an earlier conversation.
“But not impossible,” she retorted. “I’ve been safe inside the town, far from any zombies.”
“Maybe that’s it,” he said cryptically, “but what are you planning to do to save them?” He pointed out into the field, where she saw Liam and Victoria standing on an abandoned tank as they tried to fend off the infected horde.
In the pit of her stomach, she felt a firm yank. The realization that she was somehow responsible for their safety—her, a 104-year-old woman now lying on the leading edge of millions of zombies—made her cringe.
“But you already helped me save them,” she said weakly. Though true, that was all in the past.
“And now I’m going to help you help them again. This doesn’t end until you find the cure to the plague, my dear Marty.”
“Is this about that old computer?”
She thought back to her earlier meeting, where Al showed her an ancient computer in a closed room. After she had accessed it, she was able to...control a single zombie. It had saved the lives of Liam and Victoria when they most needed help.
“You three have an important connection. That computer was merely a way to organize your mind and access information there.”
“No. That’s not true at all. I saw you move that zombie so it helped Liam.”
“My dear. That sounds like magic. Are you suggesting the world is filled with magic? That you are a sorceress and that you and I used that magic to cause it to rescue him?”
That stuck a nerve against her religious sensibilities. She didn’t believe in magic. Her belief was in a single benevolent God.
“No...I think, I...”
Her words failed her.
“My sweet, dear Martinette. You’ve overlooked something very important from our first meeting, but now isn’t the time for loquacious expositions. You really are lying here on this berm, and those zombies are definitely over there, trying to get at you. They are attempting to get at us both.”
“What? How? You can see in both worlds?” It seemed obvious since he said he was in her mind. Supposedly he could see through her eyes, but his words suggested something more.
In a prior meeting, he had waved off the notion that he was an agent of God. Or, at least didn’t explicitly say he was. He suggested he was part of her mind, helping her cope with all the bad things that happened to her since the zombies came. But he left open the possibility of...something else.
“Or...” were his final words from that conversation. If he wasn’t speaking for God, and he wasn’t her own brain making things up, that could mean any number of things...
She startled herself awake. The pain in her arms and legs was real this time. The same as she felt inside her dream.
It has to be God.
Whatever else was going on, God was guiding her. For now, she would trust in that to get her and her family to safety.
Wherever that was.
2
Marty felt someone touching her back, helping her sit up properly. She
judged it was just about the last person in the world she expected.
A young teen girl—Debbie—that she knew from her time back in the refugee house. She’d never seen the girl without her phone, but now she looked like something out of a movie. She wore big black boots, black pants, and wore two long-sleeved shirts that draped over her like wild capes. The ensemble was completed by a military-style ball cap that she might have gotten from a surplus store or any of the soldiers that had been protecting the city.
“Are you OK, Grandma?” Debbie asked her.
“I’m fine,” she said with suitable ambiguity. She wasn’t fine, but she didn’t like to complain. “Just a little shaken.”
“The stink, like, made everyone go crazy for a few minutes. You were lucky.”
They both faced the horde, but could also see down into the water. The implication that she should have gone over the side with the dazed Mr. Franks was obvious. The very back of the gator stuck out of the water on the far side. Duncan was nowhere to be seen, though many ruined bodies moved in the putrid waterway.
“Come on, let’s get you up.”
By the time she was on her feet, several other people had run up to offer help.
“How did you get here so fast, Miss Debbie?”
Several arms reached for her as she eased her way down the berm. It left her free to listen to the girl.
“After I met you in our house, I, like, felt a connection with you. I wanted to go with you when those men, uh, took you with that woman, but, like, I didn’t want to be a buttinski.”
Marty giggled weakly. It would be the first teenager in a long time that wanted to spend time with her.
Go easy on Liam. He came around, in the end.
“I’ve been looking for you ever since. I, like, searched houses, and stuff.”
“This whole time? Thank you, Debbie.”
“Well, I, mmm, didn’t find you until today. They gave us these spears,” she bent her back so Marty could see the rust-colored spear lashed to her back, “and told us to walk to the levee. That’s when I, uh, noticed you in that green cart thingy.”
She seemed embarrassed.
“It’s OK, child.”
“Well, I didn’t want to be geeky, and fangirl on you, but I happened to be watching when that wave of puking gas came over us all. I tossed my cookies right away, I mean, like, right away. But I felt totally fine after that. I watched your driver take you down the hill, and I started running right then. I stopped when I thought you were going over the top, but I started again when I saw you jump out. That was, really brave, you know?”
Zombies Ever After: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6 Page 22