The Living & The Dead (Book 1): Zombiegrad

by Hasanov, Oleg

  Bulldog gave a punch in Angel’s shoulder. “Behave.”

  “Your equipment will be delivered to you in a separate container,” the captain went on. “The green one.”

  “Got it,” Gavrilov said.

  “Firearms and ammo will be dropped in the red containers. The yellow containers are for food.”

  “In what containers do you deliver booze and whores?” Joker said and laughed.

  “I know only the color of the container in which your dead body will be shipped to a crematorium,” Captain Voyevodin replied.

  Joker giggled, his fat belly shaking.

  “Now cut this shit, you motherfuckers,” the captain said, “and prepare for the battle.”

  Joker looked down on the overcrowded streets. “They’re having a political meeting or what?”

  “God Almighty,” Armen said. He made a cross with his hand. “This is for real.”

  The helicopter hovered above a school stadium. It was not so crowded here. There were two or three walkers in the vicinity.

  A soldier took a rope, secured the anchor end and opened the door. A blast of wind rushed into the helicopter.

  He gave Gavrilov the rope. “You go first.”

  “It’s like fucking breathing for me,” Gavrilov said putting on his all-leather gloves.

  He took the rope, fastened himself to it, sat in the door and slid down to the stadium. Without enemy fire, a deployment bag or any load, the rappelling was easy. Other prisoners followed him. They had to lower the helicopter to let Angel climb down safely as he had no basic training in rappelling.

  They stood on the ground, looking around and waiting for the next order.

  Afghan picked a police baton off the ground.

  “We’re sitting ducks here,” Bulldog roared. “Where are all the fucking guns?”

  A walking dead male heard him and went toward them. He was wearing a bloodstained T-shirt and sports shorts, a whistle dangling on his neck.

  Angel took a handgun lying on the ground and pointed it at the undead gym teacher. He squeezed the trigger and heard a hollow click.

  “Fuck!” he shouted. “It’s empty!”

  The monster staggered nearer and grabbed him by the shoulders. They tumbled into the snow together.

  Afghan struck the dead man on the head with the baton. The sound was wet. He hit the ghoul again and broke his neck. Then he snatched the monster’s head from behind with his left hand and gave it a twist with his right. The dead man’s body went limp, and he fell on the hacker. Angel pushed him off with disgust.

  “Damn!” he said standing up. “I think I’ve just creamed in my pants.”

  Afghan turned his back to him and started looking for other weapons.

  “Hey, thanks,” Angel said.

  Afghan said nothing.

  In a minute they heard the roar of the second helicopter. A red box detached from it and started a slow descent on a parachute onto the stadium.

  “The guns!” Carp shouted.

  The men ran to it elbowing each other.

  “Maestro, Maestro, come in,” Gavrilov heard in his helmet. “Do you copy?”

  “I hear you loud and clear,” Gavrilov said into the mike. “Go on.”

  “We just dropped the red box,” the captain said.

  “Yes, we got the visual,” Gavrilov said.

  “A herd is coming your way,” Voyevodin said. “Get ready. It’s them or it’s you.”

  Armen was the first to run to the box. He took a box of ammo out and tore the package. Bullets spilled out on the snow. He bent to pick them up and saw a little boy, about seven years old, standing near the box with his back to the young man.

  “Hey, little boy?” Armen said.

  The boy turned around slowly and looked at Armen. His crimson eyes sparkled with hatred. His nostrils widened in rage. The undead boy gave out a growl and started shambling toward him. He raised his hands approaching the man.

  “What happened to you?” Armen asked.

  The boy lunged at him, his arms outstretched.

  Armen dropped the box with ammo and grabbed an AK-47. The crazed boy grabbed the barrel and snatched the weapon out of the bewildered man’s hands. He hissed and threw the rifle aside.

  Armen gave the little monster a punch in the face. The undead boy fell down but quickly wiggled his body up, grabbed the man by the ankles and clamped his piranha-like teeth on his leg. The red blood made the prisoner’s pants orangey-red. Armen screamed and kicked the little ghoul in the face. The monster boy fell in the snow. Armen started trampling on his head with all his might until it was like porridge.

  He took off his cap to compress the wound with it and glanced around. He found himself looking into the muzzle of the handgun Gavrilov had already loaded and was aiming at him.

  Armen let go of his wounded leg, blood spraying on his boots and raised his hands in the “Hands up, Don’t Shoot” protest gesture.

  “No, wait!!” he cried. “Please, plea—”

  The shot was sent into the middle of the young man’s forehead. A flock of tomtits flew off the trees.

  Gavrilov looked at the men. “All right, motherfuckers! Gear up and load the guns. This shit is going to be tougher than an elephant’s turd.”

  Angel looked at Armen’s dead body in disbelief.

  “Echo One, this is Maestro. We got one man down,” Gavrilov said into the radio. “Waiting for the green container, over.”

  “Proceed with the operation, Maestro,” the captain’s voice was calm. “The green container is on the way. ETA 10 minutes, over.”

  “That’s clear, Echo One. Maestro, out,” Gavrilov said. He turned to the others. “All right, men. As you can see for yourself, we’re nothing but disposable shit here. If you want to survive, aim at the schizos’ fucking heads as I’ve just demonstrated. Remember that those motherfuckers can’t be negotiated with. You shoot them right here.” He showed at his forehead. “Or you become one of them.” He pointed at a figure which had staggered around the corner and started shambling toward them. Gavrilov raised his gun and sent two bullets into the monster’s head. It went down with a thud on the icy path.

  The words seemed to have sunk in. The men had become quiet and serious. They avoided looking at Armen’s body lying on the snow-covered ground and they started to look frantically around. Alert.

  Bulldog came to the red container. “Well, let’s see what we got in the Christmas package.” He took out a grenade launcher. “Now we’re talking. That’s the toy I’ve always dreamed of.”

  Joker picked up the rifle Armen had dropped. He started loading it, whistling a merry tune.

  “This is idiocy,” Carp said, sending a clip into an AK-47.

  “What is?” Gavrilov asked. “The dead walking on earth?”

  “This whole operation,” Carp said. “These stupid orange suits. The fucking sick dude we have to find in a frigging hospital.”

  “We’re in deep ass trouble,” Gavrilov said. “Let’s admit it. But, you know what they say, it’s too late to drink mineral water when your kidneys have failed. This is our only ticket to freedom.” He took out a map and unfolded it. “Now let’s have a look at our location.”

  A bout of hysterical laughter broke out. It was Joker laughing again. “Now look at this,” he said pointing at Angel. A dark patch was spreading rapidly on the crotch of the young man’s pants. “Our little baby has pissed his little pants!”

  Angel covered himself with his hand, trying to conceal the wet stain. There were tears on his cheeks. He clenched his hands. “Stop fucking laughing at me!” he cried. Wrath sparked in his eyes.

  “Shut up,” Afghan said looking around. “Maintain the noise discipline.”

  Angel saw a rusty iron rod on the ground. In one swift movement, he picked it up and ran to Joker. The fighter dodged the hit coming at him and struck the young man in the stomach with his fist. Angel doubled over and froze with his mouth open. The rod fell to the snow.

  “You th
ink you’re in a goddamned video game, huh?” Joker said. His face had become red like a tomato and twisted with rage. He hit Angel in the nose and it started bleeding. The young man grunted and fell down, red droplets of blood making a Jackson Pollock painting in the dirty snow.

  “Hey, calm down, you two,” Gavrilov said. “You’re attracting the roamers’ attention.”

  “Yeah, leave him,” Bulldog said. “We have to haul our ass.”

  “Wait, man,” Joker said to him. “I’m going to teach this butt-fucker a good lesson.”

  “Swine,” Angel said through his teeth. He spat blood and gasped for air. He dug his gloved fingers into the snow trying to get up. He failed and collapsed in the snow. He drew his legs in and curled in a fetus position.

  “I’ll be quick with this son of a whore,” Joker said and grabbed Angel by the shoulders to stand him up.

  “Just don’t waste him,” Gavrilov said.

  Angel grabbed the iron rod and drove its sharp end into the man’s ankle. Joker screamed in pain and dropped to his knee.

  “Fuck!” he shouted. His fat cheeks were shaking with blind rage. “He’s cut my leg!”

  Angel stood up. He was about to give another hit when there was a pistol shot. The bullet hit the rod and twanged away.

  “Enough,” Gavrilov said. “Or I’ll blot both of you out.”

  Angel dropped his weapon, casting a warlike look at Joker.

  “Damn!” Carp said. “This kid is a real element of surprise.”

  Joker rose to his feet. He limped a bit. He looked at Angel with hatred and hissed through his pressed teeth, “You won’t get away with it, cocksucker.”

  A sudden deep growl made all of them turn around. A female zombie was coming up to them. Carp shot his gun. The insane woman took a hit in her chest but her gray frostbitten face did not even wince.

  “In the head, goddamnit!” Gavrilov drew a knife and stuck it into the woman’s eye socket. There was a wet sound like when one cuts a rotten pumpkin and she fell down.

  “What are these creatures?” Carp asked looking down at the corpse.

  “I don’t care who they are,” Gavrilov said. He wiped his knife on the woman’s clothes and concealed it in the sheath. “All I need to know about them is that a sharp blade or aimed fire is the best defense against these sacks of tainted meat.”

  “A swarm,” Afghan said and pointed ahead.

  Everybody looked in the direction he was looking. A gray mob of dead people in tattered clothes had come out around the corner. First, they saw a dozen of them. Then dozens of dozens. The zeks opened fire, their guns spitting out spent casings. The walking bodies jerked as the bullets hit them. Some of them fell down, but most of them kept walking on.

  Afghan took out a hand grenade, pulled the pin and threw it into the shambling crowd. It exploded with a loud bang, strewing the body parts all over the place like bowling pins. More and more of them were coming out. The gunshots must have attracted them from far distances.

  Gavrilov folded his map and shoved it into his pocket. “Let’s roll! North-west, three hundred meters. Bulldog, you’re in the lead. Afghan, cover our rear. Move!”

  Afghan nodded silently. He shouldered two AK-47s, held another one in front of him, his finger on the trigger, and went backwards behind them.

  Angel stood up coughing. His body was shaking. He wiped the blood off his chin with his sleeve, adjusted his helmet and went after them.

  They dashed across the stadium and came to a street which was a maze of debris and abandoned cars.

  Two carnivorous creatures were feasting on a corpse of a dog. Gavrilov came up to them in stealth mode and stabbed them one after another in the back of the head. They fell with a grunt without having noticed their second death coming.

  Angel shuddered as a little palm struck the bloodstained window glass inside of an old blue Nissan Langley. An undead baby girl had been strapped in the baby seat, unable to get out. She was observing the men passing by. There was a Garfield decal on the door. It depicted the cartoon cat digging his claws into the door, trying not to fall off and leaving scratch marks.

  A helicopter hovered in front of them. They saw a green box parachuting down. The green container was smaller than the red one. It landed right on a walker who got trapped in the parachute canvas. Bulldog shot the zombie and tore the wooden lid off the box. He took out a backpack and a portable Yamaha generator.

  “Grab it!” He tossed the backpack to Angel.

  Angel shouldered the backpack and took the generator. There were a dozen zombies at the closed main hospital gates. Two of them had got stuck in the narrow space between the two halves of the gates. They moaned and tried to reach the people clawing at them.

  Afghan, Carp, and Bulldog activated hand grenades and tossed them to the gates. They rolled under the feet of the undead. The loud explosion hammered the infected ones into the gates and took one of the doors off its hinges. The other half was deformed by the blast. Half of a female living corpse in white fatigues was still crawling toward them. Carp punched her ticket with one merciful headshot.

  They went through the gates. There were bodies scattered all over the yard. Clad in all kinds of clothes. White lab coats, khaki, fur coats.

  “Holy shit,” Gavrilov said. “Now you just look at this.”

  He stopped and bent over the lying body in an orange combat uniform. It was a man. His back had bullet holes and looked like a sieve. Dark frozen blood was seen through the punctures. Gavrilov took off the man’s helmet. The head was intact. No bite marks. Gavrilov frowned.

  Guns started blazing again. Gavrilov spun around. Zombies were coming at them from different directions.

  “Maestro, come in,” the captain’s voice was heard over the shots and moaning.

  “Echo One, we’re on the perimeter, over.”

  “As you’ve been briefed the med complex consists of eight buildings. You need the intensive care unit. That’s Building 5, on the eighth floor, over.”

  “At once, Echo One. Moving to Building 5. Over,” Gavrilov said.

  “Echo Two will clear the entrance. Infiltrate the building and get what you’ve come here for. Commence infiltration now,” the captain said over the radio. “Echo One, out.”

  Angel took out a GPS navigator out of the backpack. He had charged and fine-tuned it while he was in the prison before the mission. He turned on the device and led the way. Building 5 was only a hundred meters according to the navigator. It could take a minute to reach it as the crow flies. But they had to move in a wide arc to evade the crowds of zombies.

  “Echo One, the place is heavily overrun,” Gavrilov said. “We can’t break through without support. We need your firepower assistance now!”

  “Maestro, this is Echo Two. Hold on there. We’re rolling your way. You better take cover.”

  The whopping sound of the helicopter rotor blades was nearer. In a couple seconds, the helicopter hung over the building like a giant hawk.

  The walking undead were advancing at the fighters. There were a hundred of them or more.

  “Time for you to shit your pants now, sissy boy,” Joker said to Angel with a chuckle.

  The helicopter was a black Ka-52 Alligator, the best all-weather attack helicopter in the world. It was also highly maneuverable in limited space, and it was the best option for operating between the buildings. The helicopter machine guns came alive and began spitting fire, cutting the walking bodies like a scythe. Little volcanoes exploded on the ground hitting the zombies. Shreds of ruptured meat and bones started flying all around. Body fluids were gushing from the wounds in fountains. Heads disintegrated from their necks. A dark red mist of blood was sparkling in the sun. It was a horror show in broad daylight.

  Gavrilov and his men had hidden behind a dumpster observing this nightmare opera.

  Bullets were ripping the living corpses apart. Some bullets were hitting the door and the windows. Glass shards and cement pieces were raining down.

  F
inally, the dust, dirt, and blood settled down and the way to the hospital building was free. It smelled of blood, decaying meat, released body gases and freshly plowed earth.

  Gavrilov came out of his shelter and showed the pilots a ceasefire sign. The helicopter leaned on one wing and ascended higher above the buildings. It froze above the roof on guard.

  The shots and explosions had attracted more of the undead because they were coming from everywhere now.

  Gavrilov had a window of about one minute to get inside the building before the advancing hordes would replace the fallen ones.

  The squad went to the main entrance across the yard, squelching through the bloody mud. It was an abattoir yard now. Decapitated heads, maimed torsos, separated legs and cut off hands were scattered on the ground. The snow did not show through this patch of dirt and blood. Bulldog and Carp shot occasional ghouls, which still could move.

  The group climbed the stairs littered with paper, glass and body parts and went through the entrance. In the lobby, Carp blew the brains out of the zombie who had gone for him. The very instant they closed the door and bolted it, there was a heavy crash on the door as if a dozen hammers banged on it at once. Angel crept to the broken window to look at the mass of the living dead which was heaving like a sea, and his grip on his pistol tightened. The people inside the building were lucky that the windows on the first floor were high enough.

  “Your pants dry?” Joker asked him with a grin.

  Angel said nothing and crawled away from the window, dragging the generator behind.

  “All right, Echo One,” Gavrilov said into the mic. “We’re in.”

  “Proceed with your mission. Echo Two will get you from the roof. Echo One, out.”

  Gavrilov slipped a fresh magazine into his assault rifle and turned to his companions. “All right, motherfuckers, let’s kick some ass.”

  They made sure the lobby door was securely bolted and looked around. There was blood on the walls and on the floor.

  “Stolyarov,” Gavrilov said to Angel. “Let’s find that server now.”

  Angel took out a map of the building and spread it on the floor. “According to the map the main server is here,” he pointed at the map, “on the first floor.” Gavrilov leaned closer but quickly started back because of the faint smell of urine coming from the man.