Zombie D.O.A. Series Five: The Complete Series Five

by JJ Zep

  John Messenger opened his eyes with a collage of images flitting across his brain like a slideshow on fast forward. He became simultaneously aware of a trio of sensations, the caress of flame on his skin, the rhythm of fat raindrops pattering to earth, the stench of seared flesh. Only gradually did he realize that the burning flesh was his own.

  He sat up in the road junction and swatted at his face. The skin felt rubbery under his palms, pitted, reptilian. When he drew his hand across his scalp, clumps of blackened hair came away like charred scrub grass after a prairie fire. His clothes smoldered. There was the faint smell of burning rubber from his boots.

  Messenger experienced all of this dispassionately. His physical condition was of little concern. Only one thing mattered.

  Skye.

  The immutable force that had drawn him here, that had placed him in such danger, had been right.

  He’d found her.

  His Skye. His love.

  The bitch who’d taken his life and given him another. Who’d birthed him. Madonna and whore, but his. Forever.

  He tottered to his feet, stood in the intersection and looked south along the rain-drenched expanse of road.

  Thunder rumbled overhead.

  Messenger lifted his destroyed face towards the heavens. He entered easily into the stream of flickering images again, the hive mind of his brethren. His tongue danced across the roof of his mouth, calling them to him.

  twenty five

  Charlie clattered up the steel staircase. The rain was falling steadily but he hadn’t bothered to fetch a slicker from his quarters, hadn’t bothered even to go to the ops room and check if there’d been any communication from Pendleton. He needed to get to the lookout post, to run a scan of the area, to see what Morales’ sentries had seen.

  He stepped onto the rooftop and moved immediately towards the sandbagged bunker. The guard there, Zarinsky, was hunkered down behind the M-60, a military green tarpaulin draped over the position in a vain attempt to keep the steadily falling rain at bay. He stood awkwardly, trying to keep himself and the weapon dry as Charlie approached.

  “At ease, Zarinsky,” Charlie said. “You see anything unusual out there in the last hour or so?”

  “Unusual sir?”

  “Z’s, Zarinsky, you see any Z’s?”

  “No sir,” Zarinsky said. He seemed confused.

  Charlie unslung the binoculars from his neck, popped the caps on the lenses. He walked quickly towards the southern edge of the roof, boots squelching through half an inch of water. He raised the glasses to his eyes and looked out across a field of near uniform grayness. Water sluiced across his vision, guillotining down in sheets.

  He angled the glasses down, brought them into focus and ran them along Holt Avenue. Nothing moved out there but the water surging down the gutters. Raising the binoculars, Charlie scanned along the dilapidated row of houses on the opposite side of the street, then he angled across until he picked out the broad expanse of Imperial Avenue and the small business premises that lined it. Nothing. He zoomed in on the steeple of a church, on the medical center further west of that, somewhat obscured by the rain.

  An adjustment to the glasses brought the blackened façade of the hospital into focus. Beyond it lay the I-8, a virtual parking lot of rusted hulks stretching as far as Charlie was able to see in the sub-optimal conditions.

  “Did I miss something, Loot?” Zarinsky said from beside him, his voice apologetic.

  “If you did Zarinsky, I’m missing it too.”

  “What exactly are you looking for?”

  Charlie didn’t answer. He thought he’d picked up movement between the vehicles. Now he saw it again, a flash of red among the brown hulks. He focused in and picked out his first Z of the day, a woman, drenched to the skin, a ragged red dress hanging from her scrawny frame. Now that he’d spotted the first Z, he soon picked out another, then another, this one clawing its way up the embankment onto the highway.

  Soon the spaces between the vehicles were crawling with the things. Charlie was reminded of maggots squirming in the chest cavity of a corpse. But he still couldn’t understand what had gotten Morales’ men so exited. The Z’s, for some reason, had disappeared from the streets of El Centro. Now they were back. No news bulletin there.

  A flash of movement caught Charlie’s attention and he spotted one of the creatures scurrying across the roofs of the cars, bounding from one to the other. A quick.

  Okay, now that was cause for concern. Hadn’t the quicks jammed his I-Pod frequencies in Mexicali? Still, a few quicks, even a few dozen, wasn’t going to cause too much of a problem. A sniper on the rooftop would soon take care of that.

  A shaft of late evening sunlight carved through the storm. In the next moment the rain stopped as suddenly as if God had turned off a faucet. A rainbow arched across the sky and touched ground in the west. Charlie directed his glasses towards it, remembering as he did the ridiculous stories his father used to tell him and Jojo when they were kids, about leprechauns and pots of gold.

  An involuntary smile half formed on his lips then died as he brought the glasses into focus.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” he breathed.

  The highway to the west, the desert beyond that, was black with Z’s.

  twenty six

  Lieutenant Pasquali was in his quarters when Charlie found him, stripped to the waist, leaning over the sink, washing up. Charlie wasted no time on preamble. “Pasquali,” he said. “Get the men kitted up and down to the parking lot. Where’s Galvin?”

  Pasquali stood into his usual, slightly stooped posture, his eyes wide. “Is there a problem sir?”

  “No time,” Charlie said. “Where’s Galvin?”

  “He’s in the Ops Room.” Pasquali crossed the room, reached for his shirt and shrugged into it.

  “Five minutes,” Charlie said. “Rifles, ammo and water only, in front of the Humvee. Let’s hustle!” He was already on the move. How soon before those things got here? He figured maybe two hours, less if the quicks were front running, cutting off from the group. Either way, he wanted to be far away by the time the shit storm hit El Centro and there was still a lot to do.

  He crossed the parking lot at a sprint, burst through the door into the Ops Room. Galvin barely registered his entrance, he was leaning over the radio set, a frown creasing his brow. Charlie could immediately understand the reason for his consternation. The sounds coming from the radio were an unearthly mix of earsplitting feedback and rapid clicks and clucks. Charlie knew where that was coming from. The realization chilled him.

  Galvin worked franticly at the dials and switches. “Any station, any station,” he spoke into the microphone. “This is Listening Post Zero, El Centro. Are you reading me? Over.” All he got in response was the discordant symphony of squeals and clicks.

  Charlie put a hand on Galvin’s shoulder. Galvin turned towards him with combination of perplexity and irritation on his face. “I can’t…it won’t…” he started before Charlie cut him off.

  “You can try again in the Humvee,” he said.

  Now Galvin really looked confused.

  “We’ve got every Z in southern California headed our way,” Charlie said. “We’re blowing this joint.”

  “What? Where?”

  “No time now, just get out to the lot with your stuff. You good to go on that leg?”

  “Right as rain,” Galvin said, tottering to his feet.

  “Let’s get this done then.”

  Seven minutes later, Charlie had his men gathered in front of the Humvee on the sodden tarmac. The day had clouded over again, bringing with it an early twilight. Charlie thought that it might rain again later.

  “Listen up,” he said, cutting through the buzz of conversation. He held their worried looks for a moment. “We’re pulling out.”

  “What?” Pasquali said. “But sir –”

  Charlie stilled him with a hand. “We’re pulling out and heading back up the road to Pendleton. I’m not sure how th
is happened gentlemen, but we’ve got a shit load of Z’s heading down the road towards us, more than we can deal with.”

  A hubbub of excited conversation kicked up again.

  “What about the frequency?” someone asked.

  “They’ve got quicks in among them, so chances are the frequencies won’t work. Maybe they will and maybe they won’t. We can’t take that chance.”

  “How many are we talking about?”

  Charlie thought about that for a moment. How many had there been? Eighty… a hundred thousand? He decided to pitch it at the high end. He needed to instill a sense of urgency in his men.

  “I’m guessing a hundred thousand, maybe more.”

  This time the furor was louder, more fearful.

  “You’ve got a head start on them,” Charlie said, speaking over the voices. “By the time they get here you’ll be halfway to Pendleton, where they’ve got the manpower and weaponry to wipe this little uprising off the map. But you need to get moving now, so I want you all to get on board the Humvee. It’s going to be a tight squeeze but it’s what we’ve got, gentlemen, so make do. Any questions?”

  “I’m not sure there’s enough fuel to take us all the way to Pendleton,” Pasquali said.

  “Then you ride her as far as you can and hike the rest of the way. Clock’s ticking gents, anything else?”

  “You keep saying, you.” This was Galvin. “As though you’re not coming with us.”

  Charlie had hoped to keep that piece of intelligence away from his men until the last moment. No chance of that now.

  “I’m not,” he said.

  twenty seven

  The Humvee rolled, heavy-laden, through the gates, made a left and disappeared along the slick expanse of Imperial Avenue, a cloud of diesel smoke trailing in its wake. It had taken Charlie a full five minutes to convince his men, especially Galvin, to leave without him. They’d only agreed once he’d assured them that he’d soon be heading up the road after them. Right after he convinced Tico Morales to do likewise.

  Charlie stood a moment longer in the parking lot with Wackjob and Kiefer Jespersen, who’d refused to leave without his wife. Jespersen was, of course, married to Tico Morales’ daughter, so having him here was not necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps he could help persuade Morales to do what needed to be done. Charlie had a feeling Morales was going to be less than receptive to abandoning his compound.

  “So what now chief?” Wackjob said. “You know I ain’t going anywhere near Pendleton, right?”

  “Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it,” Charlie said. “First I want to get a handle on how much ground the Z’s have covered, then we get our asses up the road to the compound.” He was already on the move as he spoke, heading for the gym, Wackjob following in his wake.

  “Sir?”

  Charlie turned back towards the lot where Jespersen stood.

  “Would it be okay if I head up to the compound? I’m kind of worried about my wife.”

  Charlie considered the request for less than a second. The Z’s he’d seen had probably reached the outskirts of El Centro by now but he doubted that they’d made it into the town itself yet. If they had, in such large numbers, surely he would have been able to hear them. Still some of the quicks might be front running. It was too much of a risk.

  “Your wife’s safe for now, Jespersen. You just hang ten and keep an eye on that gate while me and Corporal Reed go topside and check out the lay of the land. You see anything you be sure to holler.”

  “But sir –”

  “We’ll be out of here in five, Jespersen. Better we go together. I don’t want to have to explain to Tico how I let his son-in-law wander off and get turned into Z burger. Sit tight.”

  “Yes sir,” Jespersen said dejectedly.

  Charlie didn’t have time to debate the issue. He was already pounding up the stairs with Wackjob behind him, taking the steps in twos and threes, almost losing his footing as he planted his foot on the slick surface of the rooftop.

  South lay the I-8 and the suburbs that Charlie and his men had reconnoitered earlier in the day. Then, the area had been empty of Z’s. Now it teemed with the creatures, a ravenous army on the march, blackening the horizon to the south, blotting out the desert to the west and east, wheeling in an encircling maneuver, advancing like a shroud drawn across the dead flesh of a corpse.

  “We’re fucked,” Wackjob said and Charlie was disinclined to contradict him.

  twenty eight

  Zarinsky had left the M-60 behind. Under normal circumstances such negligence would have earned him a reprimand and probably some extra guard duty into the bargain. Now, though, Charlie was glad for Zarinsky’s tardiness. If they encountered any forerunners on the way to the compound, the M-60 might well be the difference between living, and a swift and unpleasant death.

  He tossed his carbine to Wackjob, sprinted across the rooftop and snatched up the machine gun. A single belt of ammo hung from the weapon’s breach, 100 rounds of 7.62. Charlie threw the belt over his shoulder like a bandolier. It felt reassuringly weighty.

  Wackjob was already crossing the roof. Charlie followed, clunked down the stairs after him. He hit the tarmac, sprinted towards the library building and around it, came to a skidding halt in the parking lot.

  Jespersen wasn’t there.

  “Jespersen!” Charlie shouted, scanning the spaces between the buildings, knowing he was wasting his time. Jespersen hadn’t waited, had probably headed up the road the minute Charlie was out of sight.

  “Faaarrrrk!”

  His voice echoed back off the buildings. As those echoes faded, Charlie heard the unmistakable buzz of the approaching Z’s. There was no time to lose. If Jespersen had disobeyed orders and wandered off, he was on his own.

  He headed for the main gate, through it, onto the street. Movement along West Orange caught his attention and he spotted Jespersen far ahead, almost at the intersection with 4th Avenue. Simultaneously he heard the rattle-thud of a 20-mil from the Morales complex and saw Jespersen freeze. Now Charlie spotted the first Z’s moving in from the direction of the railroad tracks, moving fast.

  Quicks!

  One of the creatures burst into the intersection and was torn apart by the 20-mil. But he’d been only a decoy. Others charged from an alleyway and crossed the road in great bounds as though hardly touching earth. Two of them were struck by the twenty, tossed aside like discarded toys. Four more made it across the road and closed on Jespersen. At the last moment he dropped his carbine and tried to run. It was too late. The quicks were on him in an instant. Even at this distance, Charlie could see the spurt of arterial blood fountaining into the air as the creatures tore Jespersen apart on the pavement.

  Knowing it was too late, knowing they should duck into one of the side roads while the quicks were occupied, Charlie nonetheless charged forward. His thumb found the safety on the M-60 and disengaged it. The quicks were a hundred feet ahead ripping at Jespersen, clawed hands coming away with bloody chunks of flesh, which they bolted down before resuming their feast.

  Charlie slowed to a walk, the machine gun tucked in against his waist, his finger on the trigger. He made another five paces before one of the quicks spotted him and clucked out a warning to its companions. They looked up from the corpse as one, their jowls dripping thick gore.

  Charlie braced his legs and depressed his finger on the trigger. The M-60 bucked under his grip and spewed metallic death, catching the main body of quicks before they had a chance to move. Three of the creatures immediately buckled under the barrage. The fourth peeled off and tried for the cover of the buildings at the side of the road. Wackjob dropped it with three evenly spaced shots that blew out the back of its head.

  Beyond the intersection a larger group of Z’s was just crossing the railroad lines, thousands upon thousands of the things shambling forth, moving faster than Charlie had seen massed Z’s move before. It was going to be touch and go whether they got out of El Centro before the main contingent
surrounded the compound. He just hoped that Morales wasn’t going to give him an argument.

  “Come on,” he said pointing Wackjob left at the next side-road.

  twenty nine

  Jojo stood up on his bunk and peered through the barred window of his cell. Not that he was hoping to see anything. The cell was in the inner ring of the prison, facing out onto the exercise yard. Harrow had been explicit in his instruction that Jojo was to have no contact with anyone.

  “Can’t have Major Turncoat divulging our battle plan to the enemy,” he’d sneered as he’d ripped the oak leaves from Jojo’s lapels, in an instant wiping out what Jojo had worked three years to achieve.

  Jojo wasn’t sure how he felt about that. On the one hand he was bitter, angry with Harrow for destroying his dream of making general by his mid-thirties, angry at himself for allowing that ambition to sully his sense of morality. On the other hand he felt strangely liberated, as though a huge burden had been lifted from him. He realized now that he had never been cut out for the military, at least not for the life of a senior officer. There were too many moral compromises to be made, too many party lines to be toed, too many idiots to be indulged simply because the insignia on their lapels trumped yours.

  Not that any of that mattered right now. Tomorrow morning, right after they razed the shantytown, they were going to march him out into the yard, this very yard he was now looking out on, and shoot him. He was never going to see his family again, never going to see Ferret again, never going to hold her again or look into those deep green eyes and tell her how much he loved her. These thoughts left him strangely unemotional, strangely resigned. What point was hope in a situation that was beyond redemption?

  His only chance was that Duma and the shack dwellers might prevail in the battle. That was about as likely as every Z on the planet collapsing to the ground and staying dead this time. It simply wasn’t going to happen.