by David Spell
During the conversation, the retired admiral, Jonathan Williams, had given Clark the first news of what was happening in the rest of the country that he had heard in a long time. The admiral had let the colonel know that they were making progress in getting the infrastructure reestablished. One of the key components of that was exactly what Kevin’s soldiers were already doing: eliminating the infected. This was happening in other areas of the affected areas as National Guard and law enforcement units had started to get their feet under them again. Williams had been impressed by Clark’s initiative and asked him to personally thank his soldiers for their sacrifice and commitment.
The colonel understood that one never said ‘no’ to an admiral, retired or not, and he and his troops were about to pull up in front of the address on Brookhaven Road, just off of Peachtree Road. The three humvees stopped twenty-five yards apart and offset, the spacing giving them a reaction gap in case they were attacked. Clark led Corporal Whitmer, Sergeant Thomas Jackson, and Private Dan Merchant across the wide front yard up to the large, classic two-story redbrick home. First Sergeant Ricardo Gonzalez was the second-in-command, monitoring the team’s radio traffic while protecting their vehicles along with the other four National Guard troops.
Each soldier knew their job but the colonel still took point. Ranger officers were taught to lead by example and even as a field grade officer, Kevin led the way. The house was on a slight hill, sixty yards off of Brookhaven Drive. The neighborhood was quiet and Clark and his three soldiers were almost to the front door.
A shot rang out behind them and then another. “Contact!” First Sergeant Gonzalez’s voice came through the earpiece in Clark’s ear. “We got Zs coming down the street, an estimated group of fifteen, inside a hundred yards.”
“Roger,” the colonel acknowledged. “We’ll make this quick.
More gunfire erupted from behind them as the soldiers in the hummers took down the infected walking towards them. All of the troops understood that the gunshots would draw in more zombies so time was of the essence. Within seconds the upscale residential area was quiet again.
The front door was standing open at the top of five concrete stairs. Clark had just reached the small porch when a decomposing, bloody, Asian male zombie, clad only in his boxers, burst outside, growling at the four men in front of him. The colonel’s 5.56mm bullet punched through the bridge of his nose, sending him facedown on the landing.
The soldiers waited, weapons raised, to see if any other surprises were going to come out the door. Thirty seconds later, they heard footsteps and more growling approaching them from inside the house.
“I got this one,” Sergeant Jackson said. The tall, muscular, dark-skinned African-American soldier raised his rifle just as an infected Asian girl, probably no more than ten years of age, stepped through the doorway, her Minnie Mouse nightgown covered with gore, snarling and reaching for the men. The sergeant’s round exploded the zombie child’s small head, dropping her next to the man they presumed was her father.
“You guys OK?” Gonzalez asked over the radio.
“Roger,” Clark answered. “We just took down two.”
“Man, if I’d have known it was kid, I’d have let somebody else shoot her,” Jackson said, disgusted. “I hate popping zombie kids.”
“Yeah, Sarge, but she would’ve loved to have taken a bite out of your knee,” Private Merchant noted.
The street behind them was still quiet, and they had not detected any other sounds from inside the home.
“Okay, let’s do it,” Clark commanded. “The office is upstairs. The safe is supposedly hidden behind some book shelves.”
In their briefing earlier that morning, Lieutenant Colonel Clark had let his team know that they were tasked with recovering a hard drive and a notebook connected to the zombie virus vaccine research. Normally, they would also take the time to search for anything else of value inside the house. Food, bottled water, medicines, guns, and ammunition were things that they never had too much of.
Today, however, the colonel had told them that this mission was get in and get out. They were a long way from home and he didn’t want to take any unnecessary chances. Clark knew that the closer they got to Atlanta, the more zombies they would encounter.
All of soldiers were experts at clearing buildings, having trained and drilled both before and after the zombie virus was released. When they reached the staircase inside the house, Merchant stayed at the bottom as his three companions went upstairs. He was responsible for making sure nothing came up the stairs after his friends.
Whitmer staged at the top of the stairs, watching the hallway but also able to see downstairs and cover Merchant. Normally, they would clear every room, but they knew if there were any more infected in the house, the noise would have brought them out already. Jackson followed Clark to the home office, stopping at the doorway, covering his boss as he entered the room to look for the wall safe.
This home, unlike so many others, had not been ransacked, the presence of the infected inside probably enough to send potential looters looking for an easier location. The office had three large bookcases against the walls, all stuffed with books, plaques, and photos. Kevin couldn’t help but noticing the framed family photo of a handsome Asian man, a beautiful Asian woman, and their cute preadolescent daughter, all smiling brightly for the picture. He shook his head at the loss. He knew where dad and the little girl were, but where was mom?
The second bookshelf was the one that hid the small vault. The heavy wooden piece of furniture rolled when he pushed it, exposing the secret compartment mounted in the wall. Clark quickly pulled a pocket notebook out of his breast pocket, flipping it open to where he had written the combination during his chat with Admiral Williams.
“How much longer, Boss?” Gonzalez asked calmly over the radio. “We’ve got Zs coming from both directions. Probably twenty total.”
“We’re almost done. Take ‘em out and get the vehicles started. We’ll be right there.”
Gunshots erupted from outside as the National Guard soldiers took down the zombies coming towards them.
A minute later, the safe was open. The hard drive and notebook were there, along with two pistols, a Glock Model 21 and a Sig Sauer Model P220. Interesting that these guns were in the safe, Clark mused. Maybe if the male zombie he’d shot had been armed, he might’ve been able to protect himself and his little girl.
Kevin didn’t see anything else of value in the safe. The hard drive, notebook, and guns went into a nylon bag that he pulled out of his cargo pocket. He paused, but then on a whim, grabbed the family photo off of the shelf and slipped it in with the other items. The soldiers quickly retraced their steps out of the house.
On the return trip, Private Merchant had point with Sergeant Jackson bringing up the rear. As they started down the steps from the front porch, two Zs stepped into the view of the young soldier, having come from next door. The elderly white couple were both bloody, smelly, and had seen better days. The man was wearing red flannel pajamas and the woman, a floral flannel nightgown, her silver hair in rollers. Neither of the growling zombies had any teeth, their dentures evidently left inside their house. The private never stopped moving forward, firing two head shots that brought down both of the geriatric Zs, their brittle bones crackling as they fell to the grass.
All the infected had been cut down by the time the team regrouped around their vehicles. The only noise that could be heard were the rumble of the humvee’s diesel engines and the metallic clicking of the troopers reloading their weapons. The colonel hesitated before getting into the hummer, checking to make sure that all of his soldiers were in and ready to go. Satisfied, he pulled open the passenger door of the big vehicle.
Suddenly, the unmistakable roar of automatic gunfire came from just south of their location on Peachtree Road. Clark jumped into his vehicle and motioned to Ellison to get going. Kevin punched the transmit button on the radio as the military convoy started moving.
&nbs
p; “Gonz, did you hear that? Automatic weapons from close by?”
“Roger, we heard it. You want to check it out?”
The rattle of machine gun fire sounded like it was getting closer. The soldiers could also hear squealing tires and racing engines heading their way.
“10-4. We haven’t had a good firefight in what, two weeks or so?”
Intersection of Piedmont Road and Peachtree Road, Buckhead, Atlanta, Wednesday, 1405 hours
Israel Ramirez had made his move. His adrenaline had shoved his fear onto the back burner of his sub-conscious. Someone needed to know what was going on. He had no idea who he was going to alert or how he would find any police or governmental authorities, but he knew he had to try.
After witnessing Corona and Quintero murder a man in their experiment with the virus, Israel had slipped out a side exit of the Peachtree Summit and made his way to the end of the block. The cartel headquarters was located on Piedmont Road a block south of Peachtree Road. At the corner of the two main thoroughfares was the gang’s vehicle pool. A shopping center parking lot had been confiscated as the home for almost two hundred assorted vehicles.
Some of these had been driven from Mexico but most had been stolen from victims who no longer needed them. Often, when the criminals went out on looting missions, they would bring back any vehicles that appealed to them. In most cases, the owners were now zombies, anyway. Other times, the gangsters simply killed anyone foolish enough to still be hiding in the city with a nice car.
Several of the pickups had been rigged with machine guns taken from National Guard units. The two stolen military hummers in use by the cartel’s security patrols were both out of the lot at the moment, driving around the four block area that was under their control.
Israel noted that the guards on duty were Juan and Rafael. They were seated in folding metal chairs at a small table at the entrance to the lot. The guards lived on the same floor that he did and they often took their meals together. A half-empty bottle of tequila and two glasses sat between the men, their rifles laying on the table, as well. All of the other entry points into the parking area had been blocked off.
“Hey, Chico,” Juan greeted him, his speech slurred. For some reason, that was the nickname that he had given Ramirez. “What was the shooting about in front of HQ? We couldn’t really see what was going on from here.”
“Man, it was terrible!” Israel said, having mentally rehearsed his lines on the walk up. “One of the boy-toys turned into a zombie and they had to shoot him.”
“Whoa!” Rafael exclaimed, also clearly enjoying the tequila. “Loco! How did he get infected?”
Ramirez shrugged. “I don’t know,” he lied, “but they managed to get him outside before they shot him in the head.”
While the two inebriated sentries contemplated how someone inside their secure area had managed to turn into a zombie, Israel said, “Amigos, Señor Jorge wanted me to drive up to the gas station and get some more diesel.”
Ramirez pointed to the QuikFill convenience store a block away. “I didn’t have enough earlier to get the generators filled and Jorge wants to make sure they don’t run out of fuel again. He doesn’t want Señor Corona to have to use the stairs.”
Both men chuckled, understanding the importance of keeping the chubby cartel leader happy. It was not unusual for Israel to ask for a vehicle since Jorge had him running errands and servicing equipment in some of the other buildings inside their secure quadrant. The large underground tanks at the QuikFill still contained fuel and Israel regularly went there for more diesel.
Juan pointed at a white Dodge Dakota pickup sitting twenty feet away. “Take that one, Chico. The keys are in it.”
“Gracias, amigo.”
Rafael got up to move one of the vans that was blocking the intersection so Israel could pull out. As the maintenance man drove out of the parking lot, he glanced back to his left and saw Jorge walking up the street towards the corner. He was still a half block away.
The brown Ford Econoline van pulled forward just far enough onto the sidewalk for the Dakota to get past. Ramirez glanced into the rear view mirror as he drove through the opening. Quintero was now sprinting towards them, yelling at the two sentries, and drawing his revolver. Thankfully for Israel, Juan and Rafael were both buzzed and their reaction times were slowed. The white pickup turned right onto Peachtree Road and accelerated north.
After the successful experiment, Jorge decided to walk over to the car lot and drive around the perimeter, which he did at least once a day. As the deputy cartel leader approached the corner, however, he saw his maintenance man, Israel Ramirez, in a pickup truck, driving out of the lot. Only higher ranking members of the gang were allowed to take vehicles without permission; all others had to have Quintero’s approval.
Jorge started running, screaming at Israel to stop and for his two sentries not to let him leave. In moments, he reached the intersection, his chrome-plated .357 Colt Python in his hand. Quintero ran by his two men who still had not comprehended what was happening. Jorge rushed into the middle of the street, firing all six shots at the fleeing pickup, watching it speed out of sight.
Furious, Quintero threw the revolver to the pavement and stalked back to where Juan and Rafael stared at him, wide-mouthed. Without warning, Quintero punched Juan in the nose, knocking him onto his back. The deputy cartel leader pivoted and fired a kick into Rafael’s groin, sending him to his knees. A short left hook put him all the way down.
In full rage mode now, Jorge alternated between kicking and screaming at the two downed sentries. He would have beaten them both to death or picked up one of their rifles and shot them, but he suddenly heard Antonio’s voice inside his head from the last time he had killed one of his people for not doing their job. Tony the Tiger’s own temper was legendary but he was doing much better controlling it since they had moved to Atlanta, knowing that he didn’t have any men to spare.
The cartel leader had scolded his lieutenant, “Jorge, we can’t kill any more of our men when they don’t meet our expectations. Of course, they need to be disciplined from time-to-time, but try not to beat any more to death or shoot them.”
Quintero stopped his attack, breathing heavily. Juan and Rafael writhed in pain at his feet, bloody, bruised, and probably with a few broken bones. He spat at them, still angry, when he realized that the two cartel humvees had stopped at the roadblock, watching the spectacle at the entrance to their carpool.
Jorge ran towards the vehicles, the four men in each one looking apprehensive as he approached. Everyone knew of Señor Jorge’s temper. Two Mexicans and two black men were in each hummer, Antonio’s way of trying to integrate the American gangsters with his cartel fighters.
The big, bearded black man, DC, was leading this patrol. He opened the passenger door of his lead hummer and stepped out, watching Jorge closely as he approached. DC kept his hand close to the 10mm Glock Model 20 in a cross draw holster on his web gear.
Quintero’s English wasn’t great, especially when he was agitated and he struggled to remember much of his English vocabulary. “DC, vai ahora y get that white pickup! Israel Ramirez quiere escapar! Catch him or kill him pronto!”
DC nodded at Jorge as one of the bilingual Mexicans translated the orders for everyone else. The black gangster swung back into the hummer. His driver, Melvin, aka, Melon, and he had known each other for years as members of the Black Mafia street gang in Atlanta. Melon accelerated and the two hummers went after the fleeing pickup.
Peachtree Road, North of Buckhead, Atlanta, Wednesday, 1420 hours
Ramirez breathed a sigh of relief. He had actually managed to escape from the cartel. His meager plan was to drive by his apartment complex a few miles up the road. If the parking lot looked clear, he’d make a quick stop to grab some more of his things. All he had with him were the clothes that he was wearing.
After that, he had to try to find someone with the government. He hadn’t seen any police in a long time and didn’t kno
w where to look. Maybe there were some soldiers around? That part of his plan was still a bit vague.
Sudden movement in his rear view mirror brought him back to reality. He had only managed to get four miles up Peachtree Road and the cartel’s patrol already had sight of him. The two captured, armed humvees were closing fast. Something slammed into the back of the pickup, startling the small man. They were shooting at him, but were still at least a quarter of a mile back.
Thankfully, the road had some curves, making it harder for them to hit the Dakota. Israel considered turning off the main road and trying to lose them, but the gunshots had sent him into panic mode and he wasn’t thinking clearly. More shots flew by him, hitting the asphalt with a spray of fragments and dust. The fleeing man held the accelerator to the floor, sending the pickup’s speed to over ninety miles an hour.
The section of road in front of him now was a long straightaway. Ramirez jinked the steering wheel in both directions, trying to create a more difficult target. There in front of him! More humvees. Who were they and where did they come from? He glimpsed the American flags on them as these new military vehicles began firing their machine guns back towards his pursuers.
Suddenly, a long burst of bullets ripped into the Dodge Dakota from the cartel’s weapons. The glass shattered behind Israel, and a heavy impact knocked him forward, against his seatbelt. One of the gang’s rounds also found his left rear tire, bursting it and sending the pickup careening out of control. The Dakota veered to the left, back to the right, and then flipped, rolling over and over for fifty yards, finally coming to rest upside down, the tires still spinning.
When Israel regained consciousness, he found himself hanging upside down by his seatbelt. He tasted dust as he watched his blood dripping onto the ceiling below. Every part of him hurt as he felt his life leaving him. I hope my mother’s prayers can save me, he thought. I don’t want to go to Hell.