The Rising Horde, Volume One (Sequel to The Gathering Dead )

by Stephen Knight

  McDaniels nodded. “Other than completely destroying the entire corpse, that’s right. A shot to the head is what’s required to put them down.”

  “Then we’re still trying to figure out the best method to use. We can set up miles and miles of concertina wire and fencing with zones of antipersonnel mines to give us some additional defense-in-depth, but other than that, we’re kind of drawing a blank. Since normal suppression techniques won’t work, we’re kind of reinventing the wheel here.”

  “Passive defenses are what we’ll need, sir,” Gartrell said. “High walls with battlements. Trenches to make it more difficult for them to get to us. And yeah, lots and lots of concertina wire—that way, they’ll get hung up, and we can snipe them.” He paused. “We’re probably going to need a hell of a lot of bullets, since a lot of our guys probably aren’t going to be full-on snipers.”

  Jaworski nodded. “I like the way you think, Sergeant Major. Captain Chase, you mind if we let Sergeant Major Gartrell run with the security configuration around SPARTA?”

  “Hell no, sir. If the Sarmajor has some input that’ll be useful, I’m all for it. Whatever you need, Sarmajor, I’ll make sure you get it,” Chase said.

  Gartrell jerked his thumb toward the tall captain. “Now this is the kind of officer we need in this man’s Army,” he said. “I guess we got the only one, huh?”

  “Seems like,” McDaniels replied. “Captain, what about supplies? Munitions, food, fuel, lubricants, spares, maintenance facilities … the whole nine yards. Are we close to becoming self-sustaining for a while?”

  “Initial shipments of class five, six, and nine supplies are already here. There’s a road movement from Hood right now bringing the rest of the goods our way. We expect the first shipments to be here by morning. We’ll have ten HEMMT tankers with fuel alone for the vehicles, and we’ll transfer the fuel to blivets. And aviation fuel, too, which will come by Chinook later in the day. But we need to establish the airhead for them first, before they can start making their drops. Here’s what we have so far.” Chase turned to a map table a few feet away and flipped on the lights over it. An aerial photograph of the site was there, transferred to a clear film that allowed him to mark it up with a grease pencil. The photograph was illuminated from below by a series of LED lights; above the table, a camera recorded the changes and sent the digitized pictures to a computer for storage.

  Chase pointed at one of the parking lots, located to the northeast of the pharmaceutical complex. “This is where we want the aviators to set up, but we don’t have any of them here to make the final decision. So we have to wait for them to bless it. I think we’re getting some units in from Fort Campbell, right? Chinooks? Yeah, then we should wait for them to determine if the lot is useable. We have some light poles here and here.” Chase pointed them out on the map as he spoke. “And they might have to come down, but I don’t want to tear ’em out of the ground just yet. The nights get pretty dark out here in west Texas, and light might be a welcome commodity if things go south and we find ourselves cut off from the rest of the country.”

  “How many generators do you have?” McDaniels asked.

  “Six, sir. All of them are in use. We have more on the way, of course. But just so you know, the facility itself has a very robust backup power solution. Geothermal and solar powers supplement the electricity delivered from the power grid, and then there’s a bank of generators in this building here, with a smaller bank in this building here.” Chase indicated the appropriate buildings. “I haven’t been inside to verify that, but I’m told the gensets run off a buried series of liquid propane tanks somewhere around this field here.” He circled his index finger around a patch of real estate between the two northernmost parking lots.

  “Let’s verify that and make that a no-fire zone,” Jaworski said. “At least, nothing we want to shell indefinitely. It would be a shame to go up in the blaze of glory by blowing up one of our contingency power sources.”

  “Roger that, sir.” Chase made a notation on the photo.

  “All the accommodations set for the moment?” Jaworski asked. “Does everyone have a cot and place to have a hot?”

  “Yes, sir. Quarters are here, dining facility is here, latrine is here, but we have access to the facilities inside the building. There’s a full cafeteria, workout facilities, and bathing areas.”

  “All right, but let’s think about keeping our use of those areas off-cycle from the civilians,” Jaworski said. “For now, our numbers are relatively small, so it probably won’t be a major issue, but once the rest of the troops arrive, we’d better stick to our own areas. The civvies will have a lot of work to do, and they don’t need us getting in their way. Keep that in mind, Captain Chase. We’re here because the nation is depending on these folks doing their job.”

  “Hooah, sir.”

  “Pass that on to the rest of your troops, and keep that thought close at hand. We’ll need to continually reinforce it to keep friction to a minimum.”

  Chase blinked. “Sir, if you’re making a reference to my decision to set up the TOC in this parking lot—”

  “I am not,” Jaworski said, smiling. “Sometimes, we need to do what we need to do, and setting up our initial footprint is one of those things. But going forward, we need to consult the facility’s management before we do something to annoy them. We’re their partners in this, not their superiors. Look at it this way. We handle the tactical aspects of the mission; they handle the strategic elements. That’s how it should be played.”

  Chase nodded. “Roger that, sir.”

  “Great. Okay, what else?”

  Chase walked them through the rest of the proposed plan to consolidate SPARTA. McDaniels paid close attention to the areas where Hercules would assemble and launch in the event the facility came under attack. When he had been briefed in Washington, he had thought the forces made available to him were sufficient for the task, but seeing just how big the complex was, he realized securing it would need more troops, which meant that SPARTA would have to grow even more.

  He started to bring that up to Jaworski, but the Air Force colonel stopped him. “Whatever you want to do, just write down all the details, and I’ll try and get it done. But listen, Cord, getting more special operations forces assigned is going to be pretty tough. All the tier-one assets are spoken for, and a lot of remaining manpower is filling the void they left behind.”

  “Forts Hood and Bliss are in the neighborhood, sir,” McDaniels responded. “We don’t need special operators to button this place up. Regular troops should be good enough, but we’d need at least a full battalion.”

  “A battalion’s what, about five hundred people?” Jaworski asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jaworski snorted. “Well, if the people here were getting annoyed by just this small presence, imagine what they’ll do when a full battalion of horny infantry guys show up.”

  “We’ll be keeping them busy, sir,” McDaniels said.

  “Okay. Write down the exact specifics and give me the list before twelve hundred tomorrow. After that, I’m not so sure it’s going to be easy to dial home and get reinforced.” Jaworski pointed at the monitor showing the CNN feed.

  Washington, DC was on fire.

  Oh shit, McDaniels thought.

  “Let’s get back to business and finish this up, Captain,” Jaworski said. “It’s going to be a long day tomorrow, so the sooner we can get to quarters and square ourselves away, the better.”

  Gartrell must have made a face McDaniels didn’t see, because Jaworski suddenly looked up and addressed him directly. “I only joined the Air Force because of the light schedule, Sergeant Major. All this traveling and all these briefings and PowerPoint presentations have taken their toll.”

  Gartrell nodded. “I didn’t say a word, Colonel.”

  6

  The next day came mighty early. McDaniels awoke to the sound of roaring diesel engines, and he slowly sat up on his cot. Gartrell was already gone, as wer
e the rest of the troops who had been snoring away when they’d bedded down last night. He checked his watch—0553 hours. The sun wasn’t even up yet. He swung his legs over the side of the cot and rubbed his face. He felt stubble on his chin, and his eyes burned as if someone had attacked them with sand paper.

  The joys of military life.

  It was slightly chilly, so he pulled on his BDUs and wondered where he could find a shaving kit—his was lying somewhere along 79th Street in Manhattan. He was supposed to receive replacement gear, but the how and when hadn’t been spelled out, so he would have to figure out how to manage until then. Gathering the remains of his gear, he left the tent and found a soldier who directed him to SPARTA’s nascent quartermaster activity, currently running out of an eighteen-by-thirty-two foot Modular General Purpose Tent System like the one he had just vacated. It was located near what would eventually be the motor pool, and McDaniels was surprised to find it staffed by a sleepy-eyed Army specialist wearing 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment “Brave Rifles” patches on his BDU blouse. The specialist nodded when McDaniels inquired about a personal hygiene kit and rummaged through the tent for a moment before he produced one. He then handed over a requisition form for McDaniels to fill out.

  “Still have to account for everything, huh?” McDaniels said.

  “It’s the Army way, sir.”

  With that bit of business taken care of, McDaniels hit the latrine and found the field showers set up in an array of modular tents known as TEMPERs—Tent, Extendable, Modular, Personnel. The array consisted of two thirty-two-foot TEMPERs joined by a connector; one tent was for changing, the other for showering.

  Stepping into the changing tent, McDaniels found Gartrell getting ready to exit. “Sarmajor,” he greeted.

  “Colonel. Feeling rested?”

  “Not so bad. Yourself?”

  Gartrell shrugged. “So-so. I’ve gone through worse.”

  McDaniels grunted and looked around. “Any place around here to store my weapons?”

  “No, sir. I’ll watch over them if you’re not going to take a Hollywood shower.”

  “A quick shower and shave, and I’m done,” McDaniels said. “Ten minutes, max.”

  “Five,” Gartrell said.

  “You’re on.” McDaniels removed his weapons and placed his gear in a nearby locker.

  Gartrell checked his watch. “Clock starts now, Colonel.”

  “Damn!”

  McDaniels made it through in record time, running surprisingly hot water over his body, lathering up, rinsing off, and scraping his new, virgin razor over his chin. After toweling off, he wrapped the wet towel around his waist and returned to the changing tent. He found Gartrell heading for the entrance flap.

  “Done here, Sarmajor,” he called.

  “Fantastic work, sir. You’re a minute late. I’m headed for the mess tent,” Gartrell said, automatically dating himself. The term mess tent had been assassinated years ago by dee-fac, or dining facility. McDaniels was almost certain the crusty senior enlisted man wouldn’t kill anyone if they were uncouth enough to bring up the fact that he was one of the Army’s last remaining dinosaurs.

  McDaniels dressed quickly, verified his weapons were still in fully operational condition, then set out through the gloomy light in search of the dining facility, which was quite easy to find, as it was almost directly across from the showers. There weren’t many troops in the facility just yet, which suited McDaniels just fine, as there were only eight tables, each complemented by six chairs. Half the tables were already full, and McDaniels put his helmet on one, officially staking a claim. He acknowledged a chorus of “sirs” as he made his way to the serving line. Gartrell was just finishing up there, so McDaniels grabbed a tray and watched as the serving staff—civilians, apparently—filled it with plates of scrambled eggs, French toast, bacon, hash browns, and even a small container of oatmeal complete with fruit topping and brown sugar cinnamon. By the time he made it through the line, McDaniels barely had any space to balance a cup of coffee on the tray.

  Gartrell had already sat down at the table McDaniels had reserved. McDaniels joined him, and the senior NCO glanced over at McDaniels’s full tray.

  “You know, you might have left something for the rest of the troops. Just sayin’, Colonel.”

  “Let them eat MREs,” McDaniels said, complete with phony French accent.

  Gartrell snorted and turned to his own breakfast, consisting of a single serving of eggs, bacon, and coffee.

  “You get in touch with your family?” McDaniels asked.

  “Affirmative. We have a satellite phone. My wife was able to call me when I was sitting in one of the 87th Infantry’s TOCs giving the lightfighters some lessons in killing zeds. Everyone on my side is fine. What about your people?”

  “Talked to both wife and son earlier today from the TOC. Wife is freaked out being confined to Fort Bragg, but it’s probably safer for her there than anywhere else. She has no survival skills to speak of, so I told her to make a nest in the attic of our house and fortify it as best as she can. If it was safe, I’d tell her to get out of Bragg and try to make it to my son—he’s over at the University of Texas. But I’m worried that she’d never make it.”

  Gartrell grunted. “Might be a better choice than staying at Bragg, Colonel. Once the stenches make up whatever passes for their minds to move on the place, there aren’t going to be enough guns around to hold them back. It’s not like the entire 82nd isn’t going somewhere else, and the garrison forces will be, what, three hundred guys? Five hundred? Not enough to secure an entire reservation.”

  McDaniels started eating, even though he was no longer hungry. “I know. But she’s not the hardy type. My son, though, is a different story. He’s thinking about heading north to get her. I told him to stay put, that it would be better that way, but the boy’s got a mind of his own.” He chewed some French toast and looked around the tent that housed the dining facility. “I have to get a new cell. Mine’s fragged.”

  Gartrell tossed his phone on the table. “Need to make a call? You can use mine.”

  “I’m good, thanks. I just need to get one for later.”

  Gartrell shrugged and pocketed his phone, then went back to eating. McDaniels watched him for a moment, wondering how to best approach what he wanted to discuss. Was it even a good time? Both men would be up to their necks in work in a very short time, probably the instant they stepped out of the DFAC tent.

  “What’s on your mind?” Gartrell asked suddenly. “If you have something to say, say it, Colonel. You staring at me from across the table is making me feel really weird, and not in a giddy schoolgirl kind of way.”

  McDaniels laughed. “All right. Gartrell, you should have had a hero’s death in Manhattan. What the hell happened?”

  “Why, Colonel McDaniels, you sound disappointed.”

  “The day’s not too early for that to change, Sergeant Major. What happened in New York? Because whatever it was, it’s kind of fucked you up.” Gartrell looked up at that, and McDaniels looked back at him calmly as he sipped his coffee. “You aren’t the same soldier who went in, and I’ve been trying to figure out what kind of soldier you are now that you’ve come out.”

  “Sir, I spent a couple of days fighting off the walking cannibalistic dead. If I seem a little off-key, it’s probably because of that.”

  “I think that’s what you want me to believe, Gartrell. But that isn’t really the case, is it?”

  Gartrell’s eyes narrowed. He took in a deep breath, held it, then released it in one long sigh. McDaniels held his angry stare for as long as he needed to, maintaining an outward façade of calm.

  Eventually, Gartrell resumed eating half-heartedly. “I hooked up with a family, a lady and her boy. The boy was autistic. Not really controllable.”

  McDaniels sipped some more coffee. “You leave them to the stenches?”

  Gartrell looked up again, and his eyes were unreadable. Just the same, McDaniels thought he detected an
undercurrent of surprise run through the otherwise imperturbable sergeant major.

  “I thought about it,” he said finally. “But no, Colonel McDaniels, I didn’t leave them to die. But I somehow managed to deliver them to the stenches anyway.”

  McDaniels didn’t know what to make of that. “So you, what? Tried to get them out of the city?”

  “The lady’s not-so-deceased husband showed up. Used his fucking house key to get into the apartment building we were in. I was in contact with the 87th Infantry, and I got us some top cover while we boogied out of the apartment building and hit the subway tunnels. I still had my NVGs, and it was the only chance we had.”

  McDaniels noticed the soldiers at the other table were listening. They were trying to be discreet, but one of them looked away suddenly when McDaniels glanced over. He glared at the soldiers for a long moment until they got the hint, finished up, and left the area.

  “I agree. The subway tunnels would be the best way to try and get out. Didn’t the lightfighters try to come for you?”

  “No helicopters available to evac us until after the stenches made it into the building, and I wasn’t going to camp out on the roof with a lady and her special-needs kid waiting for a National Guard Chinook to show up. What if something happened and the bird got delayed, or retasked? The last thing I wanted was to be trapped on a rooftop with no other option than throwing myself over the edge to escape the dead.” Gartrell drained his coffee and stared into the cup for a long moment, his blue eyes hollow, as empty as the vessel he held. “So yeah, we managed to get up the street and down into the subway system. The poor kid was going nuts from all the shooting, the explosions, the darkness, and obviously from being confronted by fucking zombies. The zeds were able to track us through the tunnel. Hell, a busload of ’em followed us down, and I couldn’t take down each and every one. They caught up to us eventually, and by the time they took out the kid’s mother, I was down to two rounds in my pistol.”