by Amber Wyatt
Brown was glad that Wells was in charge. The wiry officer had done three tours in Iraq and knew his shit. The other officers in the company had never served in combat, and this being an emergency call out on a weekday, none of the lazy bastards had bothered to leave their highly-paid day-jobs to respond. Brown was happy about that too, seeing as he was now free to run his platoon the way he wanted without some one-bar wonder trying to order him around, ignoring every piece of constructive advice that Brown tried to offer, based upon his experience from four tours in Afghanistan.
The briefing had been brief and to the point. Captain Wells’s company was to arrive first and establish a secure cordon; nothing in and nothing out. A second Guard company was forming up back in the barracks now, being issued CBRN suits and respirators. They would arrive within the hour and their job was to go into the prison complex and kill everything inside. The mission briefing had been very clear that all inmates and staff within the prison were either zombies already, or had been infected and would soon be zombies anyway, the poor bastards.
Wandering through the massive prison, which Brown thought to himself, is now apparently also on fire, with their peripheral vision constrained by gas masks, trying to clear zombies out of every hall, room, cupboard and dark corner, was going to be a total nightmare for the soldiers who had yet to arrive. It would be much easier to kill the zombies in the open. To that end Captain Wells was setting up some form of bait and ambush at the main entrance, to try and lure as many of the zombies out to the waste ground in front where they could be machine-gunned down in an efficient manner. Every zombie killed in the field outside the prison, would be one less for the troops to deal with on the inside.
If everything went according to plan, Brown and his men should not have to expect any trouble at the back. Zombies were attracted to noise, and God knows there was going to be a lot of it at the main gate. But Brown had learned the hard way not to assume anything, and he positioned his men to cover the back entrance as if they were facing the main outbreak there.
His Humvees were positioned in pairs, each one with a machine gun in its turret. Only one machine gun would fire from each pair, the other one would kill any strays if they wandered off to the side. The second machine gun would only start firing when the first paused to reload, or had a stoppage and needed to clear it. In addition to the M240s on the turret of each Humvee he also had his soldiers dismounted with their rifles and M249 SAWs. They were all to hold fire unless one of the squad leaders gave the order, and Brown had told them to give that order if zombies closed to within one hundred meters of the vehicles.
Brown checked that all of his gunners were ready, then radioed his other two Humvees around the back of the prison to check that they were in position to observe the blind spots, but also either in cover or far enough to the side that they were not going to be hit by any stray machine gun fire from Captain Wells’s ambush. He had just confirmed arcs of fire with the right-hand pair of Humvees and was jogging back to the left pair, where he wanted to position himself, when his driver poked his head out of the vehicle door.
“Sergeant Brown, the Captain says they are starting up their bait and shoot at the front gate,” the soldier spat his tobacco juice into the dirt. “I told him we were all set here.”
“Okay everyone,” Brown spoke on the small Motorola walkie talkie they used for informal chats within his platoon. “Heads up. Captain’s starting his show at the front gate.”
In front of the prison, Captain Wells gave one last look around to check that everyone was ready. Alert squad leaders all had their eyes on him, and around them the helmeted heads of their squads faced forward, hunched over weapon sights. None of the other officers had made it back to barracks in time for the call-out, but his non-coms were almost all veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Most had been retired, but had signed back on with the National Guard once they had realized they were stuck in the Zombie Zone. Wells himself had only been in town visiting his aunt when the quarantine zone was announced. He had been lucky to get a day-time job that he hated, as an English teacher in middle school, and as soon as the emergency callout had come through on his phone, he had grabbed his laptop case, ignored the children’s whined queries and walked out of the classroom by the time he had read half the text message.
“Okay, Sergeant Nolan, fire up the speakers.” Wells said.
“Yes sir,” said the female sergeant. She threw several switches on the jury-rigged keyboard in front of her, and loud nightclub music started pumping out of the speakers mounted on the Humvee in front of them.
The National Guard battalion within the Zone was configured chiefly to deal with either natural disasters or activation in event of a zombie outbreak. Since they had an active policy of wherever possible, avoiding hunting down zombies and instead drawing zombies towards them to eliminate them on ground of their choosing, each company was equipped with a psyops Humvee. However, instead of its speakers broadcasting propaganda to demoralize the Taliban, for zombie bait they simply played loud music. Even though they had specifically trained for this scenario over and over, this was the first major outbreak in the quarantine zone in several years, and Wells could sense the excitement and anxiety amongst his troops.
Nolan adjusted her keyboard, increasing the volume and Wells winced slightly as the speakers boomed out music at an uncomfortable level. Almost immediately there was movement at the front gate of the prison in front of them. But instead of zombies Wells was surprised to see a small convoy of cars appear.
“Oh my God, sir, there are survivors!” Nolan said.
The cars had stopped outside the gates at the sight of the soldiers deployed across the road leading to the highway, and now there were a few people in uniforms getting out of the cars, waving at them.
Wells gritted his teeth and his stomach turned. He had been hoping it would not come to this, but his orders were clear and had left no room for interpretation whatsoever.
“There are no survivors in the prison, Sergeant. They are all infected.” He said grimly. Wells looked around at the squad leaders, still looking at him waiting for his order. Behind the convoy of survivors, the leading edge of a crowd of zombies appeared at the gates of the prison. He gritted his jaw, raised one hand up above his head and then chopped it down. “Fire!” he roared.
“Thank God, the Army finally got here,” said Milea in relief. “I’m going to brief them on the situation, Lamoureux be prepared to assign some of our people to guide them through the prison.” He got out of the car to stand next to Belkin who was waving at the soldiers excitedly. “Belkin can you see who is in charge?”
“No, I can’t tell who’s in charge, they all look the same,” answered Belkin with a huge smile and tears in his eyes. “We made it. I can’t believe it.”
“Why the hell are they playing that music,” an alarmed Lamoureux scowled suspiciously. “That’s just going to draw the damn zombies out here.” Then his face suddenly cleared and his expression changed to dread as he understood. “Oh no…”
He dived at Milea and brought him down to the ground just as a tiny figure on top of the center Humvee dropped its hand. There was a deafening fusillade of fire as a dozen machine guns opened fire simultaneously, and hundreds of bullets tore into the cars next to them. Glass and blood sprayed the interiors as bullets whipped through the windscreens and occupants. Those lucky enough to survive the first few seconds of destruction crawled out on their bellies and tried to find cover in tiny folds of ground.
Wounded men still in the cars screamed, and coughed blood and died. Then the machine gun fire stopped, and single shots and the occasional burst rang out as the soldiers tried to pick off those prison guards still lying out on the waste ground.
“Jesus Christ,” gasped Milea, “they think we are zombies! Why are they shooting?”
“We’re not zombies!” shouted Belkin as loud as he could. “We’re survivors!” He got up on his knees and waved both his a
rms above his head. Almost immediately two machine guns zeroed in on him and he was hit by dozens of bullets. Belkin gaped in surprise as blood and chunks of flesh exploded out of his back, and then his head dissolved into a cloud of red fluid as his lifeless body was thrown back down to the ground.
“They know we’re not zombies, but they cannot take the risk that we have been infected,” muttered Lamoureux as he pressed a horrified Milea into the ground next to him. “They probably have orders to surround the prison and kill everyone inside.”
“Bastards!” shouted one of the surviving guards hidden on the other side of the wrecked cars. Many of them were carrying the scoped carbines issued to the tower guards. At first one or two of them started shooting back at the army, and then all of them were. A few of the soldiers dropped before they scattered and took cover. They were deployed to kill zombies, and had not expected any armed resistance. Then the National Guard started to return fire in earnest. Gunfire on both sides roared back and forth as a full pitched firefight flared up.
Behind Lamoureux and Milea the first zombies started trickling out of the main gate, and as they saw the National Guard troops, they broke into a run. At first there were only a few, then a dozen, then countless numbers started pouring out of the front doors of the prison.
Milea looked back and forth between the oncoming zombies and the National Guard Humvees with their blazing machine guns. There was no way out. Then he felt Lamoureux tugging him from the side. He was crawling back towards the car they had just bailed out of.
“What are you doing, Lamoureux?”
“Follow me,” the other man hissed, dragging Milea along. “We have to go back into the prison.”
“What! Are you crazy?” Milea asked.
“If we stay out here, we die. There is no other choice,” said Lamoureux, his face grim. “Now get in the car or I’ll leave you out here.”
Milea quickly scrabbled into the rear seat while Lamoureux unceremoniously dragged the driver’s body out and took his place. By some miracle the engine was still running, even though the front of the car had been shredded by machine gun fire and the radiator was leaking steam. Lamoureux pushed it into gear and stomped down on the accelerator, whirling the car around and heading it straight back at the prison gates. The engine thumped and rattled with the damage it had taken, but at least it still worked. Amazingly the soldiers did not fire at them, and they started ploughing through the mass of zombies, their bodies thudding off the front grille of the heavy car.
“Let them go!” Wells shouted at his machine gunner started tracking the car, and he repeated the order over the radio to the other Humvees. “Keep your fire on the zombies! Tell the gunners to aim for the heads. Aim for the heads!”
He watched as the other prison guards hiding in the waste ground stood up in front of the tide of running zombies. Some ran towards his guardsmen, shooting, and died under concentrated bursts of machine gun fire. Some turned and shot into the crowd of zombies until they were pulled down and disappeared under heaps of bloody bodies. None of them survived.
Behind them, Wells saw the single car doggedly pushing its way through the flood of zombies and driving back into the front courtyard of the prison. He put them out of his mind. They could be taken care of later if they even survived in there. In the meantime, Wells had other things to occupy his mind like the several hundred zombies coming straight at him and his troops.
Inside the car Lamoureux was driving blind. Dead zombies were piled up on the hood and the shattered windscreen was virtually opaque with cracks, bullet holes and blood. Suddenly there was a tremendous bang as they hit something so hard that Lamoureux broke his nose on the steering wheel, and Milea was launched head first from the back seat into the footwell of the front passenger seat.
“Oh fuck,” mumbled a stunned Lamoureux, blood dripping down his face. “Don’t these things have airbags?”
Milea stuck upside down, grunted and panted with exertion as he twisted and pulled himself the right way up. Almost immediately he recoiled from the window. Zombies had completely surrounded the car and were clawing at the windows. Lamoureux had driven straight into the wall of the main building and although the main flow of zombies was still rushing out towards the sound of gun fire, those that had seen the tasty humans trapped in the car were desperately trying to get in at them.
Milea had no words. Fumbling, he pulled out his pistol with numb hands and the two men squeezed against each other, as far away from the windows as they could get. It was dark in the car with the zombies completely blocking out the light from the windows as they pawed and bit at the glass. Lamoureux wiped the blood from his face and kept turning the key over and over again, but it was in vain. There was no sound at all as he turned the key, not even the whine and sputter of a faulty starter. The engine was just a dead hunk of useless metal under the bonnet.
“The engine’s completely screwed,” he said in disgust, and then pulled out his own pistol. “Now what?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
National Guard
Albert and Dwayne peeked around the corner of the shower room into the main hallway. Dwayne was panting a little with fear, and although Albert made no sound, sweat glistened on the top of his bald head and on his scowling brow. When the barred door to the showers had suddenly opened, they had hidden in the stalls and listened as screams and the banging of distant guns had echoed down the hard walls of the corridor leading to D block. Then those sounds had been replaced by a silence that was even more frightening. Unbeknownst to them, the last prisoners in their block had finished dying, and the ragged survivors of the CRT were fleeing for their lives back across the rec yard. Suddenly a lone figure appeared running silently towards them. Both men leapt out with their metal poles ready, but then relaxed again when the man stopped and held up his hands in a pacifying gesture. It was Sammy Pereira.
“Chill, guys it’s me!” the slim Latino hissed in a desperate whisper. “D block is full of zombies. We need to get the fuck out of here.”
Barton, the old librarian, now dressed back in his orange prison uniform, poked his head inquiringly around the corner of the shower stall. Dwayne was about to ask what was going on when there was more shouting and a crackle of gunfire from behind Sammy. The muted pops of pistol shots. Seconds later two more men appeared, running down the corridor towards them. It was two of the guards, Friedman and that asshole Bourne.
Friedman waved them on frantically, one finger pushed up to his lips urging them to silence in a way that would have been comical if the entire hallway had not been filled with the stench of blood. Sammy and the two guards took off running down the hallway towards C block. The three prisoners hiding in the shower block shared a quick glance of confusion, and then ran after them as quietly as they could.
Sammy stopped, bewildered, at the corridor towards C block as the two guards suddenly peeled left towards the infirmary. He looked uncertainly down the hall towards C block and then back at the two guards running purposefully down the corridor to the administration offices. The other three, Dwayne, Albert and Barton did not even hesitate. They had discussed Lamar’s plan of escaping through the staff carpark and agreed that it was the best chance of getting out of the prison alive. They sprinted after the guards, and after a moment’s hesitation, Sammy followed them. The four prisoners slowed down as they saw the two guards struggling with the door at the end of the hallway.
“My card isn’t working,” whispered Friedman desperately, “shit the system is down! Why haven’t these doors opened up automatically like the rest?”
Dwayne looked up at Albert and then at the wall to the infirmary. They were stood outside the hole in the wall that Lamar had knocked through. The legs and lower half of a zombie protruded out from the hole, lying amongst rubble and chunks of concrete all over the floor. The top half of the zombie was hidden by the infirmary examination bed that blocked up the rest of the hole. Through a tiny crack at the top they could see what looked like cabinets w
edged up against it from the inside.
“Your boy Lamar, his plan was to go through the wall, right?” Dwayne asked. “Looks like he made it.” He tugged at the makeshift barrier experimentally. It was solid.
Suddenly a deafening bell started ringing and they all flinched at the sudden blast of noise. Although there was no way they could have known it, up in the operations room the warden had just activated his plan to turn on the fire alarm in C block, in order to draw the zombies away from the surviving guards in A and B blocks.
Sammy ran back up the hallway and looked left and right towards C and D blocks respectively.
“It’s coming from C block!” He shouted back to them over the ringing and pointing. It was pointless trying to be silent now. Then he cast a look of pure horror back towards D block and ran back towards them. “The zombies are coming!”
The two guards looked up at them in despair and redoubled their efforts with the door to the carpark but it was obviously locked and not going to budge.
Albert and Dwayne grabbed hold of the barrier blocking the hole in the wall and started heaving against it, but it was completely immovable. Whatever Lamar had done to fix it in place it was solid. Nothing was going to shift it. Albert planted his feet more firmly and pushed and pulled in a panic. Even above the noise of the bell it was possible to hear the shuffling feet of the mass of zombies approaching from around the corner.
“Albert help me get this body out the way,” Dwayne abandoned trying to dislodge the bed and grabbed hold of the dead zombie’s legs. Thankfully Albert did not bother asking stupid questions and just grabbed hold and pulled. The dead zombie popped out from under the bed, leaving a small gap under the barrier, and they laid it down behind them. Albert dropped down prone and tried reaching under the barrier with one arm, to move the cabinets but he could not get the leverage.