by JJ Zep
“That’s it over there,” Hedrick said, pointing north. Charlie followed his direction and saw a cluster of warehouse-like buildings behind wire a block and a half away. The compound appeared to be in good condition with a recently applied coat of paint. The defenses though, were puny, chain link but no razor wire, sandbagged bunkers but no one manning them. Neither did the Morales clan appear particularly interested in keeping a low profile. The only reason he could make out the buildings at all was because a number of bonfires blazed in the yard. He knew now that he’d made the right call. Based on what he’d seen, Tico and his kin were inviting a Z attack. All the more reason, he realized, to draw the Z’s away from them.
He placed a hand on Hedrick’s shoulder, stopping him in the intersection. “Change of plan,” he said when Hedrick turned towards him. “What’s out this way?”
Hedrick looked fearfully along Orange Avenue, disappearing into the murky distance. “Residences mostly. Used to be some folks staying out that way before we brought the perimeter in. There are some rail tracks about two blocks down.”
“That’s it then,” Charlie said. “Let’s march our little Halloween parade down to the railroad tracks and splat them.”
They were fully surrounded now, more of the creatures pouring in from the south and east, from the low-rise commercial buildings studding the road, from beyond that. If they were going to do this, it had to be now.
Hedrick was turned towards him, clearly unimpressed at this new turn of events. “Ten minutes,” Charlie reassured him. “Ten minutes and we’re –”
It was then that Hedrick’s skull exploded.
twenty one
The harsh clatter of a machine gun ripped through the silence. One minute, Charlie was facing Hedrick, the next he was showered in the man’s blood and brain matter. Hedrick was thrust forward, sending Charlie to the tarmac, his elbow connecting hard with the road surface, loosening his grip on the I-Pod, Hedrick coming down on top of him. The device slipped from Charlie’s grasp and skittered across the ground. He scanned desperately, hoping to catch a glimpse of its silver frame. He saw nothing but Z’s writhing and jerking as the machine gun exacted its deadly toll. Another weapon had now joined in, this one heavier, a twenty-mil perhaps.
Without the I-Pod to ward them off, the Z’s closed in. Around him they were being decimated, dancing that jerky rumba that in the First World War had been called the ‘Spandau Ballet.’ One of the creatures collapsed and came down on Charlie’s right arm. Another landed on top of the first. Even as they fell, more Z’s joined the fray. Charlie was pinned down by Hedrick’s corpse, his arm trapped under the dead Z’s, preventing him from gaining any sort of traction to free himself. But he had to move. Sooner or later one of the things would spot him, or a stray bullet with his name on it would come spiraling through the night air. He yanked his trapped arm, freed it to the elbow, yanked again and gained another few inches. The movement attracted attention. A grizzled, stooped creature with a single bulging eye, turned slowly in his direction. The zombie’s maw creaked open in a sinister grimace and it started towards him in a shuffling walk. He pulled and wriggled, trying to free the arm. The creature would be on him in a second. It trampled its way over a mound of corpses, moving with urgency now that it sensed a meal. Charlie reached down and got a grip on his trench knife, pulled it from its sheath. But the knife was in his left hand, the Z was approaching from the right. He wasn’t sure that he could reach it with the blade. At least not before it took a bite out of him. It was three paces away, two, stooping in for the kill. Then suddenly the creature jolted upright, danced briefly and collapsed as a volley of bullets cut it down.
The narrow escape got Charlie moving. He yanked the trapped arm again, removing a layer of skin from his knuckles, but working it free. Then he grabbed a handful of the back of Hedrick’s shirt and rolled him. He lay like that for a moment, straddling the corpse, looking directly into Hedrick’s destroyed face. A sense of remorse, of deep shame, flooded his mind. Hedrick had trusted Charlie to get him through this. That trust, as it turned out, had been misplaced.
But he couldn’t dwell on feelings of guilt now, not if he wanted to live. He needed his I-Pod and he had to find it while keeping his head down and avoiding being bitten or shot. He also had to hope that the device was still working. It had come down hard on the road surface.
He disentangled himself from Hedrick’s corpse as a burst from the machine gun ripped chunks of tar from the pavement and raked a path of destruction across the Z’s. One of the creatures was struck in the hip and buckled to the ground just feet from him. Before Charlie had a chance to move, the thing lifted its head and spotted him. Disregarding its mangled appendage, it began clawing its way across the road surface, digging its claws into the tar to haul itself towards him. Charlie twisted onto his side and slashed with the knife, missing on his first pass, catching it in the throat with his backhand swing. The knife was sharp and it cut deep, slicing all the way to the spinal column, unleashing a flow of black gore. Still the Z came, its head loosely attached to its spinal column, flapping like a broken shutter. It got a handhold on Charlie’s boot, hauled itself forward, attempted to sink its teeth into his shin. But the knife had done its job, severing the tendons and preventing the Z from bringing its jaws together. Charlie lunged, driving the blade into the thing’s rotten brain.
The road surface was a writhing mass of dead and dying zombies. But despite the devastation wrought by the guns, more of the creatures kept pouring into the intersection. If Charlie maintained his current position, lying on the ground, trying to avoid the bullets, it was only a matter of time before he was bitten, or shot.
He scanned again for the I-Pod, desperately searching along the ground, between the dead and the dying. He spotted a glint of silver and pulled himself towards it. It was only a button on the tattered coat worn by one of the creatures.
Frustrated, he lashed out, pushed the thing from him, the realization that his I-Pod was lost, probably forever, sinking in. It was time for plan B.
Other sounds came now, the roar of a vehicle being revved up, excited voices, the pop of rifle fire.
He got a fistful of the Z’s coat, used it to pull himself towards a cluster of them lying on the ground. The bodies would provide protection from all but the twenty-mil, and the stench of the dead Z’s would mask his scent.
Lying there drenched in gore, among a pile of reeking corpses, with Hedrick’s brain matter congealing on his face, Charlie realized that this was exactly what Harrow had planned for him. Harrow, for all his faults, had read him like a book. He’d known that sooner or later Charlie’s appetite for risk would get him killed. That without his experienced team around him, he’d inevitably get himself into a situation from which there was no escape. Charlie had managed to do that within hours of his arrival in El Centro. He’d also managed to get one of his men killed. He hadn’t known Hedrick, but he did know that Hedrick hadn’t deserved to die like this, on some suicide mission of Charlie’s design.
Earlier in the evening he’d told Brunsden to man up. He realized now that it was time for him to take his own advice, to take responsibility for his actions and for the lives of those entrusted to his command. First though, he’d have to make it out of here alive.
twenty two
Eventually, the machineguns fell silent to be replaced by voices, the sputter of a diesel engine and the sporadic pop of small arms fire. Somewhere there were lights, more than likely the headlights of the vehicle, graying the darkness. As the voices drew closer Charlie realized that they were speaking Spanish and that they were probably working their way through the fallen Z’s, finishing off those who’d somehow managed to survive the barrage.
He lay very still, his body wedged between the reeking, bloodied corpses. Something wet rested against his hand and, looking down, he saw that he was jammed up against a Z whose stomach had been ruptured by the bullets, ejecting a coil of shredded entrails. He smelled shit and blood and s
poilt meat. Repulsed though he was, he dared not move.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Closer now.
Charlie considered his options. Should he stand up and announce himself? Probably a bad idea, probably they’d mistake him for a Z and put a bullet in his brain. Maybe he should play dead, wait for them to leave, then work his way back to the school. That brought its own problems. What if one of them decided to pop him, just for good measure?
Pop. Pop. They couldn’t have been more than ten feet away.
That decided it. He was going to call out from where he lay. He was going to call out to alert them that there was someone alive in this mess. He was just going to have to hope that they didn’t shoot him anyway.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Hey, over here!”
For a moment it was dead silent. Then an excited babble of conversation, and cutting through it, a single heavily accented voice.
“Who the fuck’s that?”
“This is Lieutenant Charlie Collins, Pendragon Corporation.”
Silence. Then.
“What the fuck you doing out here? Thought all of you chicken shits was headed back up the road with your tails up your asses.”
“We still have men at the school.”
Another rapid exchange of views. Charlie, who spoke only cursory Spanish, had no idea of what they were saying. Hopefully, it wasn’t, ‘Let’s kill the Gringo.’
“You still ain’t told me what you was doing out here among the Z’s in the middle of the night.”
“I was coming to see Mr. Morales.”
“What makes you think Senor Morales want to see you?”
“I was hoping he might.”
The man seemed to contemplate that answer for a while. Then he spoke again. “You came out here all on your own? In the middle of the night?”
“I wasn’t alone. Your guns killed one of my men.”
Silence again. Charlie thought the man might be about to apologize for killing Hedrick. Instead he said. “You’re one loco Gringo coming out here like this.”
“I didn’t think we’d have any problem.”
“Guess you figured that wrong.”
“Guess I did. Is it okay if I get up now?”
A moment’s silence.
“Yeah, okay, but do it slow and with your hands above your head. You try any shit you gonna wish the Z’s got you.”
Charlie eased from his position lying on his side, flipped onto his stomach, brought his hands under him and pushed up onto his knees. Then he tottered to his feet and stood, simultaneously raising his hands above his head.
He made out several silhouettes, a pickup truck standing at the edge of the killing field, a twenty mil mounted to its rollbar. A figure standing upright in the truck swung a spotlight towards him, picking him out. Charlie brought his arm up to his face to cut out the glare. One of the silhouettes stepped forward, a carbine slung over his shoulder. Charlie looked down into the face of a slender, dark-haired boy, no more than 15 years of age. The kid quickly frisked him, relieving him of his trench knife and sidearm and passing them off to another man.
The man who had received the weapons now spoke. “You say you came out here to see Senor Morales, so let us see if he wants to see you.”
twenty three
Tico Morales was a large man, with an expansive belly and a booming laugh. Right now he was laughing in Charlie’s face. “You came out here to rescue me?” he chuckled, slapping his thigh for good measure. Then he translated what Charlie had said into Spanish and his henchmen, positioned along the walls of the well-appointed office, joined in on the joke. Charlie scanned the room and noticed that the ‘henchmen,’ three male and one female, were youngsters, the oldest perhaps eighteen, the youngest maybe thirteen years of age. Nonetheless, they were well armed, with AR-15’s and sidearms, some with ammo belts slung Pancho Villa style.
“I didn’t say I came to rescue you,” Charlie said once the laughter had subsided. “I said I came to see that you were okay.”
“And as you can see,” Morales said, spreading his arms expansively from behind his desk, “We are.”
“I also came to let you know that I’m going to have to pull back the barrier all the way to the school. That will put you on the outside. I’m sorry, but with the men I have, I can’t protect you unless –”
“Unless what? I move my people into the school? Tell me Lieutenant Collins. Do I look like I need your protection?”
Charlie looked around the room to the four heavily armed guards and decided that Morales probably didn’t need his protection.
“I also need to tell you that El Centro has been downgraded from a fortified camp to a military listening post. That means there’ll be no more supplies delivered for civilians.”
“Hmmmff,” Morales said, an expression that was half disgust, half amusement on his face. He seemed to contemplate for a moment before levering his huge frame from the chair. He came waddling around the desk in a crumpled white linen suit. “Follow me, Lieutenant,” he said, hooking a finger at Charlie.
Charlie got up from his chair and followed Morales from the office into a well-lit corridor. The lighting was electric, which meant a diesel generator, a singular luxury these days (even at Pendleton) when fuel was such a rare commodity. Morales led him through a few turns before coming to a stop in front of a fortified double door. Two of the guards stepped past and began disengaging locks, then swung the doors open onto a yard, letting in a blast of warm air. Charlie hadn’t picked up on it before, but now realized that the interior of the building must have been air-conditioned.
On the opposite side of the yard stood a medium-sized warehouse with a wide, roller door. Morales handed over a cluster of keys and one of the guards jogged over and began working on the locks. Charlie stepped out into the yard, illuminated by the fires he’d seen earlier. To his right stood four beige Toyota pickups with bed-mounted 20-mils.
Casting his eye beyond the vehicles to the perimeter fence, he saw that his opinion of Morales’ defenses had vastly underestimated the man. Although he hadn’t been able to see it from the intersection, a field of razor wire four-foot wide and three high surrounded the compound. Anyone, Z or human, trying to wade through that was going to shred himself. Elevating his view, Charlie saw the machine gun positions that had rained down fire on them. Well sited at upper windows in the main building, they offered protection on every flank.
The rattle of a chain brought his attention back to the warehouse, where the roller door was being ratcheted up. He followed Morales into the darkened interior. In the next moment, rows of fluoresant tubes flickered into life and Charlie sucked in a sharp intake of breath.
The warehouse had four wide stacks, running along its length and upward into the ceiling space. Morales took him inside and led him along each aisle. Every inch of shelf space, and most of the floor, was used up. Charlie didn’t think he’d seen such a supply of goods – food, fuel, weapons, ammo, medical supplies, household goods, booze, cigarettes, chocolate, and more – in his entire life.
“So Senor,” Morales said. “You still think I need the help of the Pendragon Corporation?”
twenty four
“Mexicali,” Morales said without hesitation. They were back in his office and Charlie had just asked him where his treasure trove had come from.
“Mexicali?” Charlie said. “In Mexico? Over the border?”
“There are no borders any more, my friend,” Morales chuckled. “No Mexico, no United States either. Right now we all live in Zombieland.”
Charlie contemplated that and decided that Morales was probably right. Not probably, he was right. He took a sip of the best coffee he’d tasted in a long while, took a drag on a Marlboro that actually tasted fresh. Morales had slipped him a carton. It had made not the slightest dent in his inventory.
“So,” Morales said, setting his own cup aside. “How you fixed for supplies up at the school?”
Charlie wasn’t about to tell him that the only thing standing b
etween his men and starvation was a pallet load of pineapple chunks. “We’re doing okay,” he said.
“Bullshit,” Morales said, a glint in his eye.
“Obviously, we’re not as well stocked as you,” Charlie said. “Maybe, I’ll have to take a drive down to Mexicali myself and check it out.”
“Be my guest.”
“Really?”
“I’m not the King of Mexicali, amigo. Besides there’s plenty to go around. Warehouses standing full of goods. Untouched.”
“How’s that work exactly? Every resource in California is pretty much tapped out. Yet in Mexico, there are warehouses standing full of goods. How is that?”
“Simple.”
“Enlighten me.”
Morales took a drag on his cigarette, leaned back and exhaled a stream of smoke. They were alone now, the guards having been dismissed. Evidently, Charlie had earned some kind of badge of trust.
“You were born after this all happened, yes?” Morales said.
“Yes, but my father told me how it all went down.”
“Then you’ll know that it happened very fast. America with the strongest military in the world, with the National Guard mobilized almost immediately, couldn’t cope. Mexico was far less prepared. There were very few survivors, no one to use up the supplies that were left behind.”
“So it’s still lying there? Waiting to be picked up?”
“Not so simple, amigo.”
“How so?”
“Lots of Z’s, friend, more Z’s than you ever seen in one place at one time. And your little music player won’t work, either. Lots of Quicks. Man, those things are so fast they should be called Zoombies.” He chuckled at his little joke.