Zombie Fallout (Book 13): The Perfect Betrayal

by Tufo, Mark

  “Hungry,” Iggy signed. He was breathing heavily from the exertion of the conflict. Alarm registered in Collier’s mind as he realized what Iggy planned on using for food.

  “No,” Collier tried to beg with his hands. “Friends,” he pleaded.

  “No friends,” Iggy echoed in a much more sinister way as he advanced.

  Collier scurried back. His damaged knee screamed in protest, though he paid it no heed as he stood and started to run. He fell hard to the ground as Iggy shoved him from behind. The gorilla flipped him on to his back and roared directly into his face, the fearsome yellow fangs mere inches from Collier, who turned away as spittle coated the entirety of his face. A fist slammed down close to his head, making it vibrate from the percussion.

  “Please,” Collier begged. “Please,” his trembling hands signed.

  “I begged. None listened to me either.”

  “No!” Collier squirmed as Iggy placed one fist on the man’s chest, embedding him a few inches into the soft ground. The gorilla’s other hand wrapped around his left boot. With hardly any effort, he bent the lower portion of Collier’s leg until it snapped. Collier’s high-pitched screams echoed in the narrow valley. He didn’t think the pain could get any worse until the gorilla began to bend the break back and forth, sharp bone shards grating against each other and tearing through the muscles of his calf. His mind was a scalding, maddening haze of static and pain. The notion of thinking upon anything was completely lost to him, his subjective self was being obliterated with each twist of his leg. Higher reasoning was beyond his capability—he just needed the pain to stop in the worst way possible. He did not think his plea was going to be answered, then, there was a blissful moment where the stabbing, unrelenting agony diminished considerably. Collier took the first real breath he’d had in nearly a minute. The pain was still immeasurable, but still somehow better than it had been. Once he could finally open his eyes, he would again beg the gorilla; perhaps the animal had been confused who his enemy was and had mistaken Collier for a zombie.

  “No. No, no, no…” Collier repeated as Iggy moved the hand from the corporal’s chest to his thigh, the other still holding tightly to the boot. His shrieks were cut short as Iggy pulled the boot and the leg attached to it further away from Collier’s body. Collier sat up, his eyes bugging out of his skull as the muscles and everything along with them were being stretched to their capacity. He could not even manage a scream by this point, some dim part of him watched as his leg was wrenched free, slabs of his muscles collected dirt as they fell onto the ground. These, Iggy picked up and quickly placed in his mouth. The nerves in his muscles were still firing, making them twitch and move, even as the gorilla chewed down on them. Iggy placed the bottom of Collier’s leg in his mouth and stripped it, much like one would a chicken wing. Collier was not even aware parts of him were being eaten as he mercifully lapsed into unconsciousness.

  When Iggy had eaten his fill, he looked at the unconscious human, shrugged, then completely stripped the human of meat, and finally, rubbed his belly contentedly. “Hungry,” he signed. “I go to Etna. Eat more.” He was not sure in which direction that was, but the dead ones always seemed to know where food was. He would follow them, like he had been. Much easier to be brought to food than have to hunt it. He liked the arrangement he had with them. They fed him, and he killed any that dared to trespass on his kills.

  9

  Mike Journey Entry 7

  Got back to base a couple of days later. The squad was understandably low on morale. Most of it was due to the fact that one of our own was trying to do us harm, and that he was only a low man on the totem pole of eradication. Another part was the farce of a court we’d all taken part in. Kirby and Stenzel were pissed that we had not concluded the guilty verdict with a harsher sentence, namely, death by firing squad. The rest had varying degrees of guilt over our actions. I leaned in the direction of Kirby and Stenzel; it would have been better to take him out, there and then. Leaving enemies behind always seemed to bite me in the ass, but the rest had felt right; cold-blooded murder—that was a tough pill to swallow. Sometimes it never went down, it would sit there, high on your chest, stuck in your throat.

  “Nothing?” Bennington asked, his eyes hopeful as he looked upon me.

  “Nothing sir, not a sign.” I was not at all happy with how adept I’d become at lying.

  “We’ve been attempting to track him with the satellite, but we’ve had no luck in that department. Saw some interesting things, though.” He did not elaborate.

  My heart started its white guy dance routine, meaning, it thumped in jerks and without a synchronized beat. I tended to forget about that fucking eye in the sky. If we’d been followed from the onset, they could have witnessed the entire thing, or potentially just as bad, our little camping adventure as we sat around a fire and roasted S’mores. Well, not really, but we most obviously weren’t out on a manhunt, and then I would have to lie about why we weren’t doing our due diligence. He kept looking at me. I wanted to squirm, but confess? No, that wasn’t happening. If I was caught, I was caught. Nothing I could do about it. But I’d not willingly give information that endangered myself or any of those around me.

  “Come with me.” He stood. We walked together out of his office and took a left down the hallway. Two MPs were guarding a doorway, or more likely waiting for me. The one on the left opened the door as we approached.

  “After you,” the colonel motioned. I figured I’d go in and get waylaid, placed in cuffs, and thrown in jail. Instead I found myself in a large conference room with a huge table and over a dozen chairs, all of them empty. A big-screen TV dominated the far wall. He grabbed a remote and turned it on.

  “I wanted to show you the success of your mission in the mountains,” he clarified. “The sacrifice was for the greater good.”

  “Tell Springer that, sir.”

  “He understands.”

  I didn’t know if he was saying that in the metaphorical or not. As far as I knew, he’d not been in to see the man; he’d not even had the time to talk to me after the mission. That was the part that I found very strange, troubling, and possibly telling.

  “This is after you left the area, obviously,” the colonel said as the screen came to life. It was satellite imagery of the Loveland area. “We waited until the weather cleared so we could get a true visual.”

  It took me a few seconds to put everything together. I could see Rose’s handiwork; between the rock and snow slide, a half-mile section of I-70 was nearly obliterated. Still, somehow, a trickle of zombies that must have mated with mountain goats were picking their way through the debris or climbing up and around. It was hardly a dribble, cracks in a dam, when taking into consideration the enormous swarm that was bottlenecked. It was a blight on the otherwise white and snowy landscape. A black smudge of decay and ruin. There were so many, they were backed up to Idaho Springs, some twenty-five miles away.

  “This is most likely the largest horde of zombies ever gathered in one place,” Bennington said with a hint of pride, like he was talking about his child’s ability to play Beethoven on the piano. I wanted to let him know that this gathering might not be the best thing ever. A bomber flew into the frame, had a pretty good idea where this was going. An object fell from the bottom of the plane. I was fascinated, enthralled, and appalled. It was something that needed to be done, I suppose, but a nuclear device detonated on American soil still fundamentally tore at my soul. If I’m being honest, a nuclear bomb detonated anywhere was a heart-rending notion. It was such an indiscriminate weapon. It would roll its unspeakable wave of destruction over foe, friend, and innocents alike. My heart gained momentum as the bomb moved toward terminal velocity. The contrails behind the bomber intensified as the pilot taxed the engines to their maximum. No one wanted to be anywhere in the vicinity of a blast radius—if given the opportunity. The plane was just out of frame as the screen I was watching flared bright white. It was long moments as the satellite camera worked i
ts way through the burst of light. I didn’t realize it, but I was holding my breath. When the picture was restored, I exhaled. It took me a few more moments to figure out what I was looking at.

  I read somewhere when I was a kid that with each nuclear bomb detonated there was some small chance that it could ignite the atmosphere in a global extinction event, and right now I was prone to believing that. The sky, the ground—everything in its path was a massive fireball sweeping through the mountains. Arguably, some of the most pristine and beautiful country on the entire planet was now a wasteland of radioactivity. Bennington was grinning in satisfaction. I thought I was going to be sick. Steam from the boiling snow was creating a massive fog bank; melted water from farther away was causing flash floods, further intensifying the damage. The massive gathering of zombies was no more; there was hardly a trace they’d ever been there. That was all great and fine, but how many people, how many families hiding in the area had become collateral damage? How many wolves, elk, bear, and deer? Again, it was justified by the sacrifice of the few for the greater good of the many…but still, what gave us that right?

  “Lieutenant, this is a great victory for us,” Bennington said. I suppose looking at my distress, he felt the need to placate me.

  “I know, sir; I get it. This scorched earth approach; I…I don’t know what to think.”

  “It is not my plan to continue with a nuclear option, but we have delivered a crippling blow to our enemy.”

  It was hard to argue with that; killing a million or so of your enemy in one fell swoop was of tremendous significance, unless, of course, you realized that number represented less than half a percent of them. Then, not so much.

  “It’s just…”

  “Just what, Lieutenant?”

  “It’s the United States sir. We blew up a nuke on US soil.”

  “Make no mistake, son. This is no longer the United States. This is the Sovereign Territory of Etna Station, then there’s the rest of the world. Even if we someday come back from this, the possibility that we would return to calling ourselves a country is many years off, if ever. We have to deal with the right now. The future, which was always a temperamental shrew, is now just a dream.”

  “Is that all sir? I think I want to go home,” I said as I stood.

  “I’ll admit, Lieutenant, I’m slightly disappointed in your reaction. I would have thought this would have been a boost to your morale.”

  “Colonel, I don’t know what to think.”

  “I heard you had trouble on your last mission.” His eyes narrowed as he studied me.

  “Sir?” Now I got to ponder if this was the real reason he’d brought me here. I could about smell the stale cigarette odor that was Deneaux all over the room. If I had munitions and weapons issues, then all of a sudden the armorer went missing? Well, that got real suspicious real quick. She was turning the spotlight back around.

  “A crate of fouled ammunition.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Yet, you said nothing to me.”

  “We got the mission completed. What good was complaining about it going to do?”

  “Seems to me that would be just the kind of thing you would bring up with your commanding officer,” he replied.

  “At the time, I was more concerned with Springer.” That was an absolute truth. “And the ammunition did not end up playing a factor. I would have brought it up at our next meeting. Even so, I will personally inspect any crates I’m sent out with in the future. So you see, the fault was mine for just assuming everything would be all right. I won’t make that same mistake twice.” If he was indeed complicit in this little scheme, then I had just made what amounted to a veiled threat.

  I wanted to ask him how he knew about the crate, but I didn’t. If he truly was in on it, then my suspicion would cause him greater concern, and who knew in what way he would escalate the situation. I had more than just me to be concerned about. But the flip side, was by not asking, he could only assume I knew, and that could be just as dangerous to one who maybe had an unhealthy dose of paranoia building up within themselves.

  Bennington sighed. “I guess my little display here won’t help what I’m going to tell you next.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “PFC Springer has passed.”

  Instead of sadness, it was an eruption of anger that boiled within me. I kept my demeanor as neutral as possible.

  “Will his remains be interred?”

  “He’s been cremated. The service will be the day after tomorrow.”

  I knew he was full of shit and the frustration of not being able to call him out on it was proving difficult to keep under wraps.

  “Thank you, sir,” was all I could manage. “May I be dismissed?”

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. Losing a charge is always a blow. Get some rest; you look tired.”

  “Yes, sir.” I left the office. As soon as I got out of the building, I stared up into the sky. I sought calm in the blue expanse and the clouds that drifted by; it didn’t work quite as well as I’d have liked.

  I headed to the building that was being used as our delivery service. It wasn’t quite up to Amazon’s status, or even that of a small-town post office, but the converted sandwich shop was big enough for Etna’s purposes. I’d had a small stroke of luck when I walked to the back and Jerry was loading up his truck. As is normally the case, he was not overly thrilled to see me—and who could blame him? I was a disruptive force in every life that came in contact with me. I didn’t want to be; it was just the role I was cast for.

  “Hello, Lieutenant Talbot,” he grunted as he lifted a heavy box.

  “Hey, Jerry. I’m going to need the names of those board members.”

  “So much for foreplay,” he said as he stopped what he was doing.

  “Sorry,” I told him, “no time for niceties.”

  “I don’t care so much about myself, Lieutenant, but if any of this falls back on Autumn…” He left it at that, didn’t matter, I knew where he was going.

  “If I don’t do something, it’s going to fall back on all of us,” I replied. He seemed to think about that.

  “Bob Lambert, Linda Vetter, Alison Crowley, Ned Andersen, and Vivian Deneaux. I’m pretty busy.” He turned his back and kept loading.

  I left without saying another word. I walked to the front of the building and in.

  “Hello, Lieutenant.” A woman I didn’t know greeted me as I entered. “Can I help you?”

  “I’d like to see the station directory please.”

  “Sending a package?” she asked all smiles as she reached under the counter and pulled out a much too thin book.

  “A message,” I said, trying to feign a smile I wasn’t feeling.

  “I know it’s strange, but I like that we don’t have all that technology anymore. It’s so much more intimate to receive a letter.”

  “This will certainly be personal. Can I borrow some paper and a pen?”

  “Of course.”

  She handed over the supplies and I jotted down the addresses before going over to the map and where I needed to go. “Looks like it’s your lucky day, Ned,” I said softly when I figured him to be the closest on my revenge tour.

  “Did you say something?” She was still smiling. What had seemed so genuine at first, now looked like a warning, a display of teeth like the grin of a threatened monkey. Most likely a shift in my perspective, but still.

  “Thank you,” I said as I nodded, and I shook the piece of paper at her, leaving the pen on the table. Didn’t have to go far. “Holy shit, Ned, looks like the civilian board pays well. Like we’re all equal, only some of us are more equal in this brave new world.” I did a horrible paraphrasing of Animal Farm, but his house looked like something lifted straight out of a southern plantation. Large columns in front held up an overhang to a porch nearly as large as the house I found myself living in. It would have been more striking if not for the fact that the place had been painted in this off-putting color: sal
mon that had been out in the sun for a little too long. “No accounting for taste,” I said as I headed up the cobblestone walkway.

  The front door was wide open; I knocked on the screen door frame. “Hello?” I called in when no one responded. The screen door itself was locked, so I knocked again before popping my hand through the screen and undoing the latch. “Oof,” I said as I walked into the vaulted foyer. There was an unpleasant smell. Not that particular unpleasant smell. Something burning, maybe. I looked around until I found the kitchen; this wasn’t one of those places with an open floor plan. There was a pan on the stove, trails of brown smoke rising up from the cookware. I pinched my nose as I approached the source of the stench. Four extremely hard-boiled eggs were burning, all of the water had completely evaporated and they had broken open and melded onto the bottom of the pan. I shut the gas off, and like the brainchild that I am, I grabbed the handle. The sizzle of skin burning added to the stench.

  “The smarts are strong in this one,” I said as I shook my hand around. I grabbed a dish towel and moved the pan off the hot burner then moved as quickly away from the foul odor as possible. It was only now that I was getting suspicious. “Open door, check. Burning food on the stove, check. Now I just need to find the body.” Took two steps until I fulfilled my prophecy. I was looking upon the hunched over form of who I figured was Ned, sitting at the dining room table. I walked closer and placed two fingers against the side of his neck. He was still warm, but he’d taken his last breath before I’d got there. The remnants of tea were spilled on the table top. My guess was there’d be poison in the cup if someone was inclined to read the leaves. But that wasn’t going to happen. Ned was pushing seventy, which in itself wasn’t horrible, but he was bordering on morbidly obese. The hard-boiled eggs and tea led me to believe he was finally doing something to improve his health; seemed like someone didn’t want him to make it on next year’s fitness calendar. This was Deneaux; had to be. Ned must have been her weak link, either that or she was sending a message to the rest of those in collusion with her. Who knows, there was a decent chance the other three were dead as well. When you decided to sleep with a snake, you can't be overly surprised when she strikes.