by Zack Archer
He tapped a button on the side of the steering wheel. I felt the rockets exit the limo before I saw them. There were flashes of light on either side of the car as two of them screeched into the night like bottle rockets. They weaved down the road and slammed into a knot of zombies, atomizing the dead and turning night to day.
If the zombies hadn’t seen us before, this got their attention.
Lawless floored the limo as the brain-eaters converged, pushing The Tomb until it reached its max speed of sixty miles per hour. The zombies came up fast, a stampede of sickness and depravity.
We rammed right into them, the limo’s bumper filling the air with the zombies’ pickled flesh.
The resulting impact was surprisingly violent and Lawless struggled with the wheel as we thumped over dozens of the resurrected, turning their bodies to pulp.
The bodies slowed us down as more of the things staggered into view. I checked my HUD. If we could just get past the next bunch of zombies, we’d been in good shape.
“BRACE YOURSELF!” Lawless shouted as—
BOOM!
The limo jackhammered into two dozen zombies, knocking them down like ten pins. My head slammed into my window and when I looked up, the road ahead was clear for a good sixty feet. I smiled, and so did Lawless—but that’s when I noticed that we weren’t moving forward. The limo’s wheels were spinning, fouled up by whatever was left of the zombies.
We were stuck.
“Out,” Lawless said. “Someone needs to get out and push!”
Exactly what I didn’t want to hear.
The doors swung open and I eased outside, slipping on a runny skein of entrails, the leftovers from the zombies we’d run down. The blood and guts came up to my ankles. I waited for my eyes to fully adjust to the murkiness and then raced toward the back of the limo, my breath visible in the cold night air. Deb and the others did the same.
I planted my shoulder against the rear of the limo. Deb, Raven, and Hollis did the same at my side. The others had their weapons out, ready to provide cover as we pushed and Lawless tried to rock the limo free.
Gritting my teeth, I braced myself and pushed against the limo as Lawless gunned the engine. When this didn’t work, he told us to stand back and reversed the limo, then put it into drive, rocking it back and forth. The tires chewed up what was left of the bodies, spitting gore back at us as the ladies opened fired on the approaching zombies.
“How many, Slade?”
“Don’t ask. Just fire.”
I brought my cannons up and let rip, firing bullets and then a blizzard of metal darts into the monsters. Our firepower drove the zombies back, but they quickly regrouped. One of the ghouls grabbed his groin, loosing a back-of-the-throat hiss. I shot fired two metal darts into his mouth, silencing the fiend.
The limo’s engine continued to whine as I began pushing it again. “COME ON!” I yelled. The others ceased firing and this time, all of us put our weight behind the machine. Smoke poured from the tires as Lawless gunned the mighty engine a final time. The tires ate through the remains and kissed asphalt. The limo shuddered and then began rolling forward as the zombies neared us.
“GET BACK INSIDE!” I ordered.
The ladies darted back into the limo as I sprayed my cannons, cutting down another twenty or thirty of the sick. Firing while on the run, I swung around and ran toward the limo. Raven was visible in the passenger seat, holding out a hand. I grabbed it and she pulled me inside seconds before the zombies swarmed the limo.
Lawless did what he could, but the sheer weight of the zombies created an imbalance. The limo veered forward, swerving, covered by the undead. The suspension groaned and the wheels spun in the bloody sludge as we harpooned the zombies, but it was all too much. The sheer bulk of a hundred bodies forced the limo off to the right where it clipped the lip of the verge and went airborne, tossing us around like a pair of dice inside an old metal can.
10
We flew forward in slow-motion, the sound of our screams mixing with growl of the limo’s engine.
The machine struck the middle of an eight-foot-deep ditch that lay beyond the verge and kept on going, trenching the soft, wet earth for a good sixty feet before shuddering to a stop, mired in the mud and muck. Raven was pressed against me and I was jammed against the passenger door, thankful for the five inches of bulletproof glass that didn’t so much as crack.
Lawless punched a button below the dashboard. Hidden explosives blasted out the windows on his side.
Everyone grabbed their weapons and gear and climbed up toward the windows, where we poked our heads out to see that the hillside beyond the road was heavy with zombies.
“We need to take a hard right,” Slade said. “The rendezvous point is less than a quarter mile away!”
Planting my feet on the limo’s side panel, I held up a hand. Lawless grabbed my wrist and pulled me up. Then we helped Deb and Raven, who situated themselves and laid down cover fire as I helped the others up. We beat back the first wave of zombies and ran.
I mentally engaged my nightvision and bit back a scream because the road between us and the helicopters was rapidly filling with flesh-eaters. Thankfully, we had our new weapons and let loose on the dead-heads, the rounds from our guns punching through the zombies’ coarse, leathery skin.
Raven squeezed several shots from her rifle and the explosive bullets lanced forward. Each bullet speared through a zombie before lodging in the chest of another one and exploding, killing three more.
Scarlett aimed her Phasr, firing pulses of light that either burned holes through the zombies or set them on fire.
Layla had her XM-99 weapon out, hip-firing the Yojimbo blades in one direction while Deb, Hollis, and Lexie mowed the brain-slurpers down in the other.
Plunging forward, I leaped over the bodies of the fallen while the zombies swam in and out of my vision. Gunfire suddenly erupted off to the left. The silhouettes of men were visible, a brace of security guards from back at Site R. They were clustered near an overturned Jeep, spraying bullets in every direction.
We drew closer and the men looked somehow younger in the darkness, less certain. I didn’t recognize any of them. I imagine they were battle-hardened, but I think even they were surprised at the speed with which the base had been overrun. The Woken were emerging from every shadow, from every bush and section of foliage, moving with the hunched grace of primates. They were famished, moving in on the men like lions tracking a gazelle.
Before we could reach them, the men’s fire stopped as their guns clicked over empty. One of the guards, a large-boned man with a beard, hung his head in sorrow or denial and then was gang-tackled by ten zombies.
Another guard clutched a grenade. I signaled for everyone to stop as a loose-limbed zombie, moving gracefully like a dancer, jumped on the man. The grenade detonated, creating a murderous shockwave. The initial explosion cooked the Jeep, creating a kind of explosive backslap that momentarily stopped the crazy scramble of nude and nearly-nude bodies. We used the lull to our advantage, streaming forward.
“Lawless!” someone shouted. “Where’s Lawless?”
I looked back to see him fighting off four of the zombies with his bare hands. “HIT THE DECK!” I shouted.
He dropped to his chest and I sent a flurry of metal darts into the zombies. He bolted to his feet and rejoined us as we slashed past the area where the grenade had gone off. The air was thick and warped from the explosion and the wind carried the scent of burning flesh and fuel, which burned my eyes and caused my nostrils to curl.
We fought our way to the edge of the rendezvous spot, a hillock surrounded by razor wire fencing. There was a broad sweep of concrete on top of it along with two outbuildings and two helicopters that were powering up. Another, larger helicopter was already in the air, rotating around. One of the guards from the helicopters ran down and shot off a lock, then pushed the razor wire fence open so we could enter.
“What took you so long?” he asked.
I looked back at the r
oad, which resembled a slaughterhouse. The Jeep still burned and the blacktop was carpeted with bodies, hundreds of them.
I noticed that Lawless was lingering near the entrance gate, the boombox and duffel bag at his feet. “Let’s go, man!”
Lawless didn’t move. I jogged back down to him, noting that his flesh was whiter than winter frost and a strange smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “You waiting for an engraved invitation?” I asked.
He shook his head as I approached and gave a hollow chuckle. “Don’t think I’ll be going along for the ride after all.”
“Why the hell not?”
“‘Cause in all the excitement, I got nicked,” he said.
He tugged his sleeve up to reveal the horseshoe imprint left by a zombie mouth. The skin was broken and blood dribbled down, and when Lawless turned I saw that his skin had gone waxy and sallow.
“Jesus, Lawless.”
“It’s cool, man,” he said. “I always wanted to go out with a bang, and this gives me the chance.” He pointed to the ground. “Hand me my bag.”
I did, and he opened it, fished through the contents, and pulled out a CD. “I’ll draw them off while you fly.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Hollis said.
“Sure, I do,” he replied, forcing a smile. “My life didn’t amount to a whole hell of a lot before the world shit itself, so I’ll be damned if my death don’t count for something.”
“I hope you travel lightly,” I said.
“I surely will. But I’m planning on going out in style.”
He set the boombox down, inserted the CD, cranked the volume, and then held up two machine-guns, facing the approaching zombie pack.
I ran back to the helicopters and climbed inside, sitting next to Bo, who was our door-gunner. He slipped on his Second Skin mask and opened fire, sweeping his weapon from side to side, riddling every zombie in sight.
As we circled over Lawless, I heard the opening riffs of Jimi Hendrix’s version of the Star Spangled Banner. It was echoing from Lawless’s boombox. The tune ripped the air as Lawless stood his ground, grooving to the song while holding a machine-gun in hand, dropping the zombies in bunches.
The helicopter pulled back and up, the music continuing to echo across the mountaintop as I lost sight of Lawless.
“Brother Lawless had balls,” Bo said, pulling his mask back.
I nodded. He moved back through the belly of the chopper as we flew through the darkness, following the other two helicopters, one of which held Boz and Dersh. The pair were visible through the open bay door until their helicopter broke off and headed in another direction, out toward Wyoming eventually, according to Sharla.
We flew due west, headed toward the Shenandoah Valley. I leaned back and glanced at the ladies, who were gore-covered, sweaty, and exhausted.
“We’ve got a two-hour flight,” Lucy said. “Everyone, try and get some rest. You’ve earned it.”
We all leaned against each other and somehow, the rhythmic whop-whop of the rotor blades ushered us to sleep.
I woke to the sound of a klaxon. My vision was cloudy and my teeth were mossy. The sky was beginning to lighten in the distance, the world stitching itself back together again. I glanced out the bay door and spotted a long stretch of dense woods. On one side of the woods was a long, narrow air strip, and on the other was a cluster of buildings. A green light pinned to the roof of the copter turned red as we were ordered to prepare for landing.
The helicopters swooped down and landed in a field fifty or sixty yards away from an impressive-looking estate house that I reckoned was easily eight or nine thousand square feet in size. Flanking the house was a large detached guest house made entirely of gray stone, two barns, a greenhouse, two reflecting pools, and paths leading through terraces filled with gardens, walls, growing beds, and flagstone terraces.
“Nice spread,” Raven said as we exited the helicopter.
“Dibs on the pool!” Lexie shouted.
“It’s December, ding-dong,” Deb said.
“Not too shabby, huh, Slade?”
“Beats the underground bunker,” he replied.
We covered our heads and crossed the field, watching the helicopter lift off. Bo accompanied us, but the other security men took off to refuel the helicopters at a depot a quarter mile away so that we could head down to Florida in a few hours.
I scanned my HUD, trying to get a read on the main house and the surrounding lands, but nothing was coming up.
“I’m blind, Slade. Can’t pick up a thing.”
“There’s something jamming the signals.”
“I’m not picking anything up,” I said.
“Neither am I,” Lucy said, holding up a portable scanner.
“That’s by design,” Sharla replied. She pointed to the roof of the main house, where several sets of antennae and two small geodesic domes were visible. “There are jammers mounted up there, spoofers put in place when this estate was in use by the government.”
“CIA?”
Sharla nodded. “Just means we have to reconnoiter old-school,” she said. “Eyes and ears.”
We tromped forward and looked at the main house, which was imposing and gloomy, with lots of dark wood and heavy stone with dozens of windows protected by thick iron bars.
“Wonder who came up with the exterior design?” Hollis asked. “The warden of a prison?”
“What matters is that it’s secure,” Lucy said.
“For the time being,” Deb huffed.
We stopped and stared at the gardens and pool.
“The woman who once owned all of this died at the age of 103 in 2014,” Lucy said.
“How do you know?”
“My father loved horses and was a bit of a Francophile. He came here once on a tour.”
“To do what?” Lexie asked.
“Examine the grounds and the books that used to be in a library here. Horticulture and botanical tomes from the 14th century. There is much more here than meets the eye.” She pointed. “For instance, over there was a potager, a French vegetable garden, and down there was a croquet lawn next to the ornamental garden.”
I gaped at the gardens and the greenhouse which was centered by a pavilion with two wings of glass that extended in either direction. Much of the glass was broken and it appeared that nobody had tended to the place in a year or more.
We moved to the main building. Sharla had the code to the front door. We quickly filed into the house, on edge, everyone clutching their weapons. Sharla said we’d be greeted by the staff, but after what happened back at Site R we weren’t taking any chances. We nosed through the front door and did a quick circuit of the ground floor, but didn’t find anyone. Not a soul. We did find candles, however—dozens of burned-down candles on every surface.
“The house is supposed to have generators,” Lucy said, inspecting one of the candles.
“Maybe they ran out of fuel.”
“Highly unlikely,” Sharla said.
Something creaked overhead and our eyes roamed to the ceiling.
“Who wants to be the first one to check upstairs?” I asked.
Bo smiled. “I think you just volunteered, pardner.”
11
Scarlett agreed to accompany me as we moved slowly up the broad, wooden steps, careful to stay on the outside of the treads to minimize creaking. We paused at the top of the stairs. A hallway ran east to west. I motioned for Scarlett to head one way and I went in the other, cannon out, ready for anything that might be hiding in the murkiness.
I shoved open the first door I reached to find a messy bedroom, but little else. Tons of clothes were strewn about, along with some old books and a few bags of toiletries. The next bedroom was empty too, along with a bathroom with a leaky sink. There was nothing here. The rooms were messy but deserted.
The last door at the end of the hall was open and I stepped into what had likely once been the master bedroom. The room was large and octagonal, with a king-sized bed. T
here were suitcases on the ground, papers, shoes, and very little else. I breathed a sigh of relief. An empty house meant no zombies and for that, I was grateful.
I turned to exit the room and stepped on something. When I pulled my foot back, I noticed a small white object on the ground. Bending, I retrieved the object and turned it over in my hand. It was human tooth, attached to a length of black pulp.
A feeling of unease overcame me and my eyes darted around, searching for clues.
The strangest thing was that there were no signs of a struggle, not even a droplet of dried blood on the ground. But staring at the wooden planked floor ,I did see something I’d missed before. The ghosted image of a footprint in the dust. A set of bare human feet.
“Find anything?”
I jumped a foot into the air. “Jesus, you almost gave me a heart attack,” I said, spotting Scarlett at the door. I tossed her the tooth.
“Gross.”
“I’m not sure it was a voluntary extraction,” I said, gesturing to the footprints.
“Biters?”
“If they were, they’re long gone.”
“Long gone where?”
I shrugged, and we headed back downstairs to find the others.
After mentioning clothes to the others, everyone headed back upstairs to grab some extras—underwear, t-shirts, etc., so we’d have extras when we went to Florida. Then we headed back down and checked out the other rooms, the basement, and a kitchen and cupboard which was stocked with bottled water and canned food.
“We’ve got two hours of downtime, boys and girls,” Lucy said. “Anyone need anything?”
Lexie shivered. “How ‘bout some heat?”
Lucy pointed to a large fireplace in the great room.
I raised a hand. “I’ll get some wood.”
“I bet you will, Mister Dekko,” Lucy said with a smirk.
“I’ll help,” Raven said as we shrugged on our jackets and headed outside, moving toward what looked like a woodshed that was visible near the tree line.