Stone Soldiers 6: Armageddon Z

by C. E. Martin

  Kenslir turned slowly, setting the leaking canister into the back of the van.

  A worker had walked up behind him, carrying another box of canisters. Like the other workers, this one looked to be in their late fifties or sixties, gaunt, with wrinkled skin and gray hair.

  The worker, a man, looked the Colonel up and down, his eyes settling on the large submachinegun strapped to Kenslir's right leg.

  Then he opened his mouth and let out a banshee-like scream.

  All up and down the long line of work benches in the warehouse, the ninety—nine other workers stopped what they were doing and turned their heads. They all opened their mouths and began to scream as well.

  ***

  The security guard was reading Kenji's ID now, as they stood at the rear of the SUV. His backup was on the way, according to the radio the man wore. Kenji noticed he also wore a Taser handgun on his belt.

  "So, Mr. Nakayama, where's your friend?"

  "Uh, taking a walk?" Kenji said.

  The guard looked up from Kenji's ID, his eyes narrowing to thin, angry slits. But he said nothing. He just stood there, looking at Kenji.

  Then his eyes seemed to change. The blood vessels in the whites of his eyes were breaking as he glared at the psychic. Kenji's ID fell from the guard's hand, forgotten.

  "Sir? Are you all right?" Kenji asked, leaning in closer. It was like the guard was no longer looking at him—like he was caught in a daze.

  Drool began to run down the corners of the guard's mouth. Then blood. More blood began to well up from his tear ducts. Streaks of red trickled down from the guard's eyes, nose and ears.

  "Oh, hell," Kenji said. He'd seen this before. In the future.

  Kenji shoved at the guard, pushing him down. Then he spun in place and got into the SUV as quickly as he could. He had just shut the door and locked it when the guard began screaming. It was a high-pitched, wail.

  The guard began to beat on the glass of the SUV, his face bloody and twisted into an uncontrollable rage. He'd be through the glass in seconds.

  Kenji slid behind the driver's seat of the SUV. "Colonel! Colonel!" he yelled, fumbling with the ignition keys.

  The engine started just as the passenger's side window exploded in a spray of glass. Kenji glanced over at the hissing, screaming creature now trying to reach into the vehicle. He noticed that the small module that had been attached to his glasses was laying on the floorboard of the SUV—disconnected from the tactical glasses.

  Kenji threw the truck into reverse and stomped the pedal. The government SUV lurched backwards, knocking the undead guard down with the passenger-side mirror. Kenji slammed on the brakes when he was fifty feet back.

  He leaned over and fumbled for the small module with one hand, then felt at the back of his head for the small wire leading from the tactical glasses. With shaking hands, he managed to finally plug the wire back into the module.

  At once, the glasses came back on, and Kenji's heart sank. The Colonel was far too busy to help him now.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Mark Kenslir had expected to be attacked when the hundred Gr33ng34r workers had begun screaming in unison at him. Instead, they had all collapsed to the floor of the warehouse. Then they began convulsing.

  Kenslir crouched by the worker closest him, grabbing the man's head and trying to check his pupils. When he forced open an eyelid, he was surprised to see an eye with all the blood vessels ruptured.

  "Command! Any idea what this is?" Kenslir said, cybernetically taking a snapshot of the spasming man's eye.

  "Negative, Colonel," Major Campbell's vice responded from the small speakers in the headband of the tactical goggles. "We're checking."

  The man on the ground stopped shaking, his eyes snapping open on his own as blood began to leak from his ears and nose. He grabbed at Kenslir, his face twisting up with some kind of primal rage.

  The Colonel ignored the clawing, grabbing hands and held the man down with one hand on his chest. He was surprised at the strength of the infected man—it was considerably more than it should have been. But not enough for the Colonel to worry about.

  It was the other ninety-nine workers that had his attention now. They were all rising from the floor of the warehouse, many shrieking. As soon as they got to their feet, they began to run at the Colonel.

  This was not quite how Nakayama had described the outbreak. It was far too fast. And Kenslir wasn't ready to write civilians off so quickly. So he thumped the infected man he was holding down with his free hand, knocking him unconscious. Then he stood to meet the charging mass of Gr33ng34r workers.

  They were like rabid animals, not slowing, or threatening, or giving any sign they possessed rational thought. They just attacked. A wave of flesh and bone with snapping teeth and grabbing hands.

  An ordinary man would have been knocked down by the sheer mass of the attackers. But Kenslir stood his ground, waiting until the last possible second to bat away hands grabbing at him.

  The bodies of those in the front of the pack slammed into him, with an audible cracking of broken bones—theirs—as he resisted their charge. Fingers grabbed at his arms, his chest and even his face. Faces contorted with rage thrust in, trying to bite the Colonel. It was a nightmarish scene.

  Kenslir made up his mind fairly quickly—even if these were just overly aggressive people, defending their employer's property he was arguably trespassing on, he felt more than justified in defending himself at this point. Magic was at play, and whatever contagion these people had was fast and dangerous.

  He began to fight back.

  His bare fists swept out with bone crushing force, plowing through the crowd around him, knocking aside one, then another, then another. Just as quickly as he struck, sending those closest to him flying away, the Colonel would draw his arms back in, his elbows wreaking havoc on those to either side of him.

  For all their own enhanced strength, the infected were not all that much stronger than ordinary people. The super soldier's arms swung around him like trees, bowling the Gr33ng34r employees over, knocking them off their feet with irresistible force.

  But the crowd around the Colonel, within arm's reach, numbered in the dozens—backed up by dozens more. Every bone-crunching blow felled three or more of his attackers, but they were immediately replaced by fresh attackers—all clustered around the Colonel, clawing and biting at him.

  This was going to take awhile.

  ***

  Kenji's heart sank. They hadn't done it. They hadn't gotten here in time, despite the assurances of the computer in Miami. The undead had Kenslir surrounded.

  A shriek sounded outside, and Kenji shifted his concentration to the road ahead of his commandeered SUV. The undead security guard was rising back to his feet now, stumbling forward, toward Kenji, as he did so.

  The psychic remembered the first time he'd been torn limb from limb by the undead. It was not a way to end a vision. He put the truck in gear.

  The SUV raced forward, meeting the charging riser head on. Bones shattered against the front of the heavy truck and the reanimated body was flung into the air. Kenji slammed on the brakes.

  Scratch one zombie.

  The reanimated weren't indestructible. Not in Stage Two as the Army had called them in one of the terrible, possible futures Kenji had seen. They were flesh and blood creatures, slightly stronger than people, but made of the same stuff. They could be killed.

  Which made the fact this reanimated guard was moving again all the more troubling.

  Kenji had been hit by cars before, in many visions. He remembered the bone-breaking impact and the sensation of flying through the air. A few times, he was even still alive when he struck the ground. The collision he'd just had with the reanimated guard should have killed it. Its arms and legs were bent at angles that surely indicted a fatal collision. But it was moving.

  Kenji turned on the SUV's headlights.

  The guard was moving slowly, ignoring the bones sticking out of its limbs. It
rolled slowly onto its back then pushed itself up, into a sitting position. In the bright lights of the SUV, it appeared different than it had a moment before.

  Kenji eased off on the brakes and rolled the SUV slowly forward for a closer look. He was surprised by what he saw.

  In all the futures he'd seen, the undead didn't stop being a threat when killed. Instead, their bodies began to transform, growing a mold-like covering. They turned green and yellow, with black splotches and mushroom-like growths. The human form shriveled and twisted after its second death, then expanded into an amorphous blob of fungus—all in the matter of a day or two.

  This zombie was doing it in seconds.

  As Kenji watched, the undead's eyes drew back into their sockets. The flesh clinging to the skeleton of the man shriveled and drew tight, as the moisture was drawn from him. The tightening of his skin forced his broken bones back into place. The creature slowly stood.

  Kenji closed his eyes to end the vision. But he couldn't. The creature was shrieking now. He couldn't tune that out—he couldn't concentrate on the memory of waking up back at his parent's home.

  He'd need to kill the zombie to get it to shut up. He gunned the gas on the SUV and sent it plowing into the monster again.

  A spray of spores erupted from the beast as the SUV slammed into it. Its upper body flopped down on the hood, then Kenji jerked the steering wheel to the left. The SUV swerved across the street, finally colliding into the side of a building, pinning the zombie between brick and steel, and triggering the SUV's air bag.

  ***

  Mark Kenslir looked around him at the mass of infected laying bent and broken all over the floor of the warehouse. It had taken him several minutes, but he had finally beaten them all down. But not out.

  The undead—he was sure that's what they were now—were still moving. Despite dislocated jaws, broken sternums and legs twisted and shattered, they still struggled to pull themselves along the floor of the warehouse, toward the Colonel, shrieking, hissing and biting.

  "You seeing this, Command?" Kenslir asked, turning his head in a wide arc so the camera in the tactical goggles could transmit the whole scene back to Florida.

  "We're scrambling teams now to quarantine the area," Major Campbell replied over the comm channel. "But be advised that Nakayama has one outside."

  "On it," Kenslir said, turning to leave. He stopped when he saw someone new running for the one of the delivery vans in the warehouse.

  Unlike the elderly infected and reanimated workforce, this newcomer was young—easily in her early twenties. She had long blonde hair nearly to her waist, and pale, almost white skin. As she glanced over her shoulder at the Colonel, blue eyes regarded Kenslir fearfully from a child-like face. The woman wore a simple set of khaki work slacks and a green polo shirt.

  "Stop!" Kenslir yelled, reaching for the OA-93 submachinegun strapped to his leg.

  The woman leapt into the driver's seat of the van and quickly started it.

  Kenslir aimed his oversized-sidearm and fired carefully, sending a stream of 5.56mm rounds into the rear of the van, stitching a line from fender to roof on the passenger's side.

  To his surprise, the van's backup lights came on. Then it accelerated toward him, in reverse.

  Kenslir had been reluctant to fire at a civilian with no questions asked. Even after fighting off a hundred reanimated corpses, he still wasn't sold on the idea this could be a world-ending plague. But the van accelerating toward him indicated that whoever the young woman was, she was out for blood.

  He shifted his aim and sprayed another burst from his submachinegun, this time aimed at the driver's side of the vehicle.

  The van continued on and slammed into Kenslir, knocking him off his feet. He rolled with the impact, ignoring the broken reanimated bodies he tumbled over. Somehow, he managed to keep a grip on his weapon. He rose up into a crouch, and fired again.

  A reanimated next to Kenslir grabbed at him, sinking teeth into one of his calves. The bite wasn't strong enough to penetrate the tough fabric of his combat uniform, but he felt a twinge of pain as his skin split, then turned to stone.

  The stream of bullets from the OA-93 ripped through the back doors of the van and Kenslir heard glass breaking—his shots were passing through the van and hitting the front windshield. But the driver wasn't stopping.

  The van's rear wheels spun as it tried to lurch forward. But they were on top of several bloody and broken undead corpses. The wheels spun in place, sending out a spray of blood in all directions.

  Kenslir leapt up, charging forward, toward the van. Just as the rear wheels finally caught on the blood-slicked pavement of the warehouse, he reached the vehicle, and grabbed the rear bumper.

  The van shot forward as Kenslir dug his heels in, his left hand firmly wrapped under the bumper. On different terrain, he might have succeeded in stopping the van from leaving. But the smooth concrete floor of the warehouse was covered in slick blood.

  Kenslir was pulled forward, his feet sliding out from under him as the van drove off. He fell onto his chest, dragged behind the vehicle by his left hand while he held onto his OA-93 with his right.

  The van crashed through a thin metal rollup door at the end of the warehouse, then fishtailed wildly, scraping Kenslir along the road. He nearly lost his grip, but still managed to hang on.

  The rough pavement of the road outside the warehouse was now grinding away at his assault vest and legs as he was pulled along behind the fleeing vehicle. He rolled onto his left side and sighted the submachinegun—aiming under the van for the right rear tire.

  The van's tires suddenly stopped spinning as the driver slammed on the brakes. The vehicle skidded to a quick halt and Kenslir nearly went under the rear end, headfirst.

  Just as he was pushing up off the ground, trying to stand up behind the vehicle, the driver again threw it in reverse and accelerated.

  The van careened backwards, knocking him backwards onto the pavement. He lost his grip on the bumper, but remained sitting upright on the ground, pushed along behind the van for several feet.

  The OA-93 slipped from Kenslir's grip then he found himself pushed onto his back and the van rolled up and over him. His forehead cracked painfully against the rear axle's hub, and he felt the driver's side tire go over his foot. Then the van stopped again.

  The Colonel quickly grabbed at the underbody of the van—placing a hand on either side of the axle and pushing. Just as the driver shifted into a forward gear again, he lifted the rear wheels free from the ground. The tires of the van spun in the air as the engine roared at full throttle.

  Kenslir shoved as hard as he could on the van, flinging it up and off of him.

  The delivery van flipped up and forward, the back end rising into the air. It teetered for a split second, then the front wheels rolled free and the whole vehicle slid forward, the end finally crashing back down.

  The driver wasted no time in accelerating away.

  Rising to one knee, ignoring the injuries to his foot, Kenslir quickdrew his back up pistol from a holster hanging under his left armpit. The huge semi auto boomed loudly four times, each round punching through the back of the departing van.

  The vehicle swerved as the driver reacted to the shots that had to have struck her. Then she slammed on the brakes and spun the wheel, fishtailing the van around a corner before accelerating out of sight down a side street.

  "Colonel!" Kenji yelled, running over. The psychic had been right outside the rollup door of the warehouse the van had crashed through. It had narrowly missed him.

  "Where's the SUV?" Kenslir demanded, rising to his feet and looking around. He immediately saw it crashed against the side of the warehouse, wrecked.

  "Command!" he yelled, adjusting his goggles on his face. "Subject has escaped with contaminants!"

  Kenslir then holstered his backup sidearm and turned to Kenji. His foot was almost fully healed now. "Stay here!"

  Kenji could tell the super soldier was about to give ch
ase on foot. He grabbed him by the arm. "Wait. Let's try this again."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ONE DAY BEFORE INFECTION (2nd Attempt)

  Kenji awoke with a start. Opening his eyes, he was shocked to find himself sitting in the cab of the FBI SUV, where Kenslir had left him, just outside the Gr33ng34r warehouse.

  "Hey!" the security guard outside the truck said. He tapped the glass of the passenger door with his flashlight again. "Open up!"

  Kenji rolled the window down and smiled, despite his confusion. "Yes?"

  "What're you doing out here, kid?"

  My god! Kenji thought to himself. I did it! It took all his self-control not to break out into a huge grin from ear to ear. He'd changed the future.

  "Sorry, I needed a nap. Been driving all night."

  The guard looked at Kenji with suspicious eyes. "Yeah, well, you need to get moving."

  "Yes, sir," Kenji said, sliding over to the driver's seat of the truck. "Sorry."

  He held his hand on the small control module for his tactical glasses as he moved to keep it from falling out of his lap.

  The guard watched Kenji as he started the engine. Kenji could tell the guard was still suspicious.

  "Have a nice evening, sir," Kenji said, slipping the SUV's gear selector into drive.

  The guard stepped back and watched as Kenji pulled away from the curb. As he pulled away, driving past the warehouse, the guard keyed the microphone pinned to the shoulder of his jacket.

  "All clear, just some college kid that-" the guard stopped speaking, eyes going wide in disbelief as Kenji accelerated and swerved the truck to the left.

  The SUV crashed into the rollup door of the Gr33ng34r warehouse, buckling it, but not pushing through.

  ***

  Mark Kenslir had just torn the end off of the canister he'd taken from the van when a loud crashing noise filled the air and the van he stood behind lurched backwards. The bumper cracked against Kenslir's knees and he nearly lost his footing.