Winter Apocalypse: Zombie Crusade V (10 page)

“Nope, I think these are just some stragglers. Look at how bad some of those infected are; these creatures would never keep up with an army of hunters.”

“So, we try to drive through ‘em?”

“Yeah, but we won’t make it. Follow us but don’t ram us. Crack your windows and start shooting as soon as we’re stopped. If we run out of ammo, try to climb up on top of the trucks and fight from there. Good luck, Sal.”

“You too,” he almost shouted as Christy hit the accelerator and Vickie tried to keep up.

Bodies flew in every direction as the massive grille on the truck smashed into the crowd. Splashes of black-red blood sprayed through the night air before falling onto the piled white snow. The howls of the infected could be heard over the wind, and then the vehicle abruptly slowed and stopped in the middle of the howling pack. Within seconds the shooting startedas Tyler began emptying his JIC 12-gauge into the faces of the frantic flesh-eaters outside his window. Christy and Trudy added their fire to the fight, and even Jenny Alberts was unleashing a torrent of buckshot from her little .410 pump. Tyler created a big enough gap with his fusillade of death that he was able to quickly open his door and climb atop the crew cab, listening to Christy yelling at him as he screwed the pieces of his halberd together. The weapon was an exact replica of the one Jack had used when rescuin
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the teen from an overrun gas station, and also the first medieval-style implement he’d learned to use in his training.

Christy had shouted, “No Tyler! Dammit!” as he climbed out, but at the same time she’d realized that sooner or later the ammo would be exhausted and somebody would need to be out there. He wore all of his armor except his helmet, but with his head twelve feet above the ground he figured he wouldn’t miss it. His body was certainly protected where it was most vulnerable; as the infected scrambled to grab his feet, Tyler greatly appreciated his snake-proof boots. Vickie had ended up ramming the bumper of Christy’s truck, but not hard enough to harm anyone in either vehicle. She saw what Tyler did and immediately hit the child-locks in her SUV so neither Jade nor Sal could try the same thing. Then there was nothing more to do but shoot.

Christy felt as if the fight was dragging out for hours, but experience told her that it had probably been only minutes. Corpses were piled around both vehicles, falling snow covering the blood and gore almost as quickly as the monsters fell. The sound of footsteps on the roof of the crew-cab, as well as the steady transformation of skulls into flying bone and brains outside her window let her know that Tyler was still in the scrum. As she seated her last magazine for the .22 pistol, she made sure that her dagger was on her hip. She was determined to go down swinging if it came to that. The volume of fire around her had dropped to almost nothing, and she figured they were in deep trouble now, their ammo gone and only a handful of true fighters in the group.

Then she stuck the barrel of her gun out of the cracked window and found nothing to shoot at. Every creature out there was lying in the snow. Tyler slid off the roof and explained, “I think I can hear a helicopter out there somewhere, probably trying to bring more hunters in, though only God knows how they can fly in this weather. You and Vickie back up a few feet and I’ll pull out the corpses lying in front of your wheels.”

Christy quickly radioed Vickie and they managed to reverse the trucks a few feet before the dead piled behind them stopped their progress. Sal had pulled on his helmet as he ran up to help Tyler remove the bodies from their front, and within a minute or so a path was clear for their escape. They rushed back to the vehicles as Tyler shouted, “I just saw ‘em! Hundreds more of ‘em, we need to get outta here!”

He didn’t need to tell Christy to go, as the ghostly shapes of the first members of the new pack of flesh-eaters were already emerging from the swirling snow, climbing over the mounds of corpses between them and their next meal. They weren’t going to eat now though; after a tense few seconds of spinning the wheels, the lead truck finally found traction and the two vehicles rapidly resumed their trek to the east. Christy reassured herself that Johnny Appleseed Park was only a mile away, then all they would have to do was exit the trucks with her mother, four kids, and a dog. Two teens and a recently reformed pacifist would be protecting them. Hopefully, if there was an enemy helicopter in the area, it would lay its next trap somewhere beyond their destination.

Carter showed up at Luke’s cabin about the same time Luke fell back into a heavy sleep.

“What is it? Have we heard from anybody?” Jack was throwing on his coat before Carter had a chance to answer. “David, stay here and I’ll come back for you when everything is good to go.”

Carter shook his head with what passed for an apologetic look from him. “We ain’t heard nothin’ yet. It’s probably a good idea if ya can get a couple hours sleep. I’m plannin’ on crashin’ by the radio myself. I just wanted to check in here first, see how it’s goin’, maybe have a word with ya.”

Jack sighed with frustration. “I’ll walk with you as far as headquarters, but there’s no way I’m taking a nap.”

“Suit yerself,” Carter replied. He nodded towards Luke. “He been sleepin’ most of the night?”

“Off and on,” Gracie answered. “He knows about Fort Wayne, and he told Jack and David they need to go deal with Barnes.”

“That boy must have gotten his good sense from his momma,” Carter cracked. “When he wakes up again tell ‘em I’ll be keepin’ an eye on his daddy.”

Gracie smiled. “I think he’ll appreciate that.”

“I don’t need a nap or a babysitter,” Jack grumbled. “Now let’s get moving.”

They walked out into the freezing night air, the ground covered with a light dusting of snow that was still falling as flurries from the dark sky. Jack could feel the cold seeping into his bones as they headed toward the meeting house, and a fleeting burst of anger flashed through him as he thought about what Carter had said back at the cabin.

“Do you really think that I can’t handle myself, that I need you watching out for me?” Jack demanded.

Without another word, Carter reached over and grabbed Jack by the loose folds of his coat and dragged him toward the nearest cabin.

“What the hell?” Jack angrily called out until he lost his breath when Carter slammed him into the solid, outside wall of the dwelling.

“I’ve just about had it with ya,” the whipcord-tough Kentuckian coldly declared. “Now yer gonna listen to me, jackass!”

Jack feebly struggled for a moment to pull free from his buddy’s grip, but Carter had gotten the drop on him and there would be no getting loose without a fight, or listening to what the angry soldier had to say. Jack decided to hear Carter out.

“All right,” he gasped as he fought to regain his breath. “What’s so important that you have to toss me around?”

Carter didn’t loosen his grip. “We’ll get to Barnes, and we’ll get our settlement back. It’s not yer fault.” He paused for half a beat. “And the boy ain’t dead yet.”

Jack spat back, “Nobody survives a bite!”

“Oh yeah, well I never seen nobody survive half the scrapes that boy’s been in. In case you ain’t noticed, he ain’t exactly like everyone else. If God wants to call the boy home then he will, but I’ll believe that when I see it.”

There was no human being closer to Jack Smith than Carter Wilson, but now Jack tried to hurt his best friend. He smashed his fists upward with enough power to break a normal man’s wrists, then he punched his buddy square in the jaw and knocked him to the ground. Jack had grown used to winning his fights since the outbreak, somehow forgetting that Carter was a backwoods brawler and one of the toughest Rangers Uncle Sam had ever produced.

Almost before his back hit the ground, Carter was flipping himself onto to his feet and rushing head-first into Jack’s torso. The move wasn’t exactly Army-textbook, but it had the desired effect as once again Jack had his breath knocked out of him. Carter’s momentum sent them both sprawling onto the rock-hard ground. Before Jack could even begin to fight back, Carter had flipped him over on his belly and twisted his right arm up tightly behind his back.

“I’ll pull it outta its damn socket, asshole,” he snarled through gritted teeth.

Jack knew he was beaten. “Okay, say your piece and be done with it.”

“Gimme yer word that ya’ve had enough,” Carter demanded.

Jack had no more fight left in him. “You have my word, I’ll listen to what you have to say.”

Carter gently eased Jack’s arm out of the painful position it was in, even taking a brief moment to rub his buddy’s shoulder where, by experience, he knew it was tightening up. Then he pulled Jack up to a sitting position.

“I think Luke will probably die ‘cause I never seen nobody live through a bite. But somethin’ just don’t seem right about this whole situation. I don’t need to tell ya that Luke’s different; he’s linked to the flesh-eaters somehow. He knows where they are, what they’re doin’, and he can kill ‘em faster and more efficiently than any person on the face of the earth. If anyone can survive the infection, it’s him, so let Gracie keep his fever down and see if he can beat this thing. If he don’t make it, we’ll grieve then, not yet though.”

“I need to talk to Maddy and Zach; when he turns, if he turns, he has to be put down. I don’t think Gracie can do it.”

Carter nodded, “I think yer right ‘bout that. And if he don’t make it, the rest of us have to go on. We need ya to go on, Jack.”

Jack stared out into the bleak darkness, the inky black of the night mirroring his heart. “The fight will go on without me; if it can go on without Luke, it can go on without me.”

“I ain’t plannin’ on lettin’ ya turn this trip into a suicide mission. You’ve lost sighta somethin’ important, maybe the most important thing.”

“What’s that?”

“The wars we been in, the battles we fought, they ain’t never been ‘bout us. Ya know damn well we gave it up on that mountain a long damn time ago. Yeah, we love each other and our people, but we gave ourselves up for them when we started killin’ for ‘em. We lost somethin’ in Afghanistan, and whatever it was ain’t never comin’ back. Part of our souls is gone, buddy.”

Jack remained silent, so Carter continued. “We go on, we live, to fight the bad guys. We keep goin’ so others won’t have to lose what we lost over there. It’s simple, really—we just keep pushin’ on till we’re done. Fer guys like us, war don’t ever end. What’d yer dude Hemingway say, that ya used to tell me when we was still in?”

Jack nearly whispered, “For man there is no defeat, only death.”

Carter nodded, “Yep, that’s it. He’s wrong though, we can be defeated if we give up. Right now yer givin’ up, little by little so you don’t even realize what’s happenin’ to ya. Ya have to stop it, buddy, or that despair will tear ya down and ya might just take all of us with ya. Yer a moody bastard sometimes anyway, but ya can’t let it get the best of ya. Whatever happens with Luke, fer both of us, the fight goes on.”

“I know why you’re worried, and, dammit, you were right to kick my ass. I agree with everything you said, and I can promise you this,” Jack assured his friend, “I won’t be reckless on this mission, and I will kill Matthew Barnes before I draw my last breath.”

CHAPTER 9

Christy and Vickie pulled the two gore-covered trucks into the lot next to the park where the boats were kept. They knew they didn’t have much time before the huge pack of creatures following the vehicles caught up with them. Incredibly, Deb had sent two guards upstream to the site, where they waited in their armor for the refugees from the ranch to arrive. They were both western soldiers from the Utah Company, and Christy didn’t know them by name, but they had six canoes fitted with powerful trolling motors and AR-15s to cover their retreat. Just as important, they wore high-quality NVGs and had extras for anyone who’d be piloting a boat. The entire group was floating with the current before the first hunters came scrambling to the river’s edge, howling their frustration as the tiny flotilla turned on their electric trolling motors and disappeared into the blizzard.

The earlier plan had been for Christy’s group to catch up with the Fort Wayne evacuees below a nearby dam, but as the small fleet passed the north wall of the settlement and travelled along the eastern border of the housing area, they could hear gunfire and shouts in the distance. Soon they could see the main dock, bathed in the glare of floodlights cutting through the whipping snow, where the last of the evacuees were climbing into small motor-boats before heading off to the southeast. Christy guided her canoe toward the shoreline, where eventually she saw Deb shouting into a walkie-talkie with two soldiers standing at her side.

When she finally noticed Christy out on the water, Deb enthusiastically waved her in. As soon as they were within earshot of each other, Deb yelled over the storm, “Ted Simmons got the kids and some of their parents onto a train heading to Vicksburg.”

“Best news I’ve heard all night!” Christy shouted back.

As the bow of the canoe reached the dock, Deb stooped down and pulled it along until Christy was just a few feet away. She peered at Christy with obvious concern, “How are you? Is the baby ok?”

“Jesus, Deb, I think we have real problems to worry about. I’m fine, the baby is fine—what can we do to help?”

Deb quickly scanned the area, then turned back to Christy. “We’re really getting backed up down at the dam, and I’ve still got people here to evacuate. Can you head down there and help them sort out that mess?”

“Of course,” Christy yelled over the wind. “Where’s Andi?”

“She just told me that there’s no way they can retreat from the breech in the wall without being run down; they’re exhausted and two hunters take the place of every one they kill. I honestly don’t know how we’re gonna get them outta there alive.”

A male voice spoke up. “Christy, I’ll go back and get Andi off the wall; all those fighters are just gonna have to make a break for the boats.”

Christy looked at the tall young man bundled up behind Deb. “Do I know you?”

“Lieutenant Heder, from Middle Bass, ma’am. You were there when Luke saved me from drowning.”

Deb appreciated his offer. “Do you know Andi?”

“Not personally, but I know who she is. Everybody knows who she is. If you all concentrate on the civilians, I’ll see what I can do at the wall and make it my personal responsibility to get Andi out of there safe and sound.”

“Go on,” Deb agreed. “Do whatever it takes to get all those fighters away from the breach immediately.”

Lieutenant Heder sprinted through the blinding snow, guided more by the sound of battle than the eerie glow that now hung above the wall over the bridge. As he drew closer he saw that nobody was on the fighting platform anymore, and only seven or eight fighters were still standing in the breach. Andi’s leathers and distinctive helmet stood out against the armor worn by the Utah soldiers, so the lieutenant was able to immediately zero in on her location. He slid to a stop behind her and spun her around by the shoulder, intending to tell her to retreat when instead he found himself frantically ducking to avoid the skull-cleaving sword-stroke Andi tried to decapitate him with.

She shouted,  “What the hell? You trying to get yourself killed?”

Lieutenant Heder shook his head vehemently as he yelled his reply, “Everybody’s evacuated, even Deb. They sent me back to get you and the rest of the fighters.”

Andi turned around to check on the surviving soldiers she’d fought shoulder-to-shoulder with since the explosion had rocked the settlement. Their numbers were few, and those remaining barely had the strength to continue resisting. What had been a platoon of crack western infantry had been reduced to less than a full squad. The remaining warriors were making their final stand at the base of a massive mound of corpses piled at the very edge of the shattered wall. A continuous wave of hunters were still scrambling over the dead, slipping and falling in the gore and snow as they mindlessly pushed forward with their suicidal attack. In spite of the appalling losses they had suffered fighting in a blizzard against such lethal defenders, the tide of battle was inexorably turning in the flesh-eaters’ favor.

The hunters were quickly gaining the upper-hand in the slugfest, the more sure-footed among them now able to leap upon the remaining human warriors from well above head-height. The only reason a breakthrough had yet to occur was that most of the creatures were sliding down the pile of bodies rather than ferociously launching themselves at additional prey. Some of the attackers had actually stopped to feed, but that didn’t do much to slow the wave of flesh-eaters crashing toward the settlement. 

Andi realized that the fight was lost. Now the biggest challenge for the stout warriors was to somehow disengage from the monsters without being swarmed, hauled to the snowy ground, and ripped to pieces by the hungry beasts. The experienced officer read her mind. “Just give the order!” he shouted with a hint of exasperation as he pulled his .22 pistol.

“You still loaded?” Andi hoped to be pleasantly surprised. “Can we jump in there hard for ten or fifteen seconds and give these guys a head start?”

“Hell yeah, three mags in my pouch and one in the gun; let’s kick some ass!”

Andi had sheathed the short sword she’d nearly sliced her ally’s head off with, and picked up a halberd still lying next to the dead warrior who’d wielded it until his neck had been broken by a hunter that had leapt on him from the rubble pile an hour earlier. The unfortunate soldier was one of the few human corpses still visible; virtually all of the fallen had been pulled into the mob of flesh-eaters and hungrily devoured.

Heder was an expert with a handgun, a skill honed in deadly combat around the Great Lakes over the past five months. He immediately shot two flesh-eaters trying to regain their feet after sliding down the corpse-mound before killing another about to leap on one of the exhausted westerners. He was shouting for the gore-crusted defenders to retreat but they didn’t know his voice.

Andi had entered the line next to the trusty sergeant who’d informed her of the hole in the wall hours earlier. When she screamed at him with the command to run for the docks, he followed orders without hesitation. “First platoon!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “First platoon retreat to the docks. Now!”

All but one of the surviving soldiers turned to run as commanded. They seemed to sense that Andi and the stranger could cover them, indeed, they’d already gained a bit of separation from the enemy that gave them a chance to escape. The fighter who didn’t retreat obviously was suffering from some sort of wound to his leg or foot. Even during the confusion of combat, Andi saw that he was badly limping about even as he still fought with the desperate ferocity of a cornered leopard.

The rest of the warriors from Utah headed toward the docks as quickly as they could, snow drifts and bone-deep weariness limiting them to a slow trot away from the bridge where the last three humans stood defiantly amid the rubble and corpses. But they were three deadly humans. Andi caught a small hunter in mid-jump by thrusting the spear-tip of her halberd through the creature’s mouth as it roared in anticipation of sinking its teeth into flesh. Then she expertly flipped the dying beast to the left before bringing the butt-end of the weapon, covered with a sharpened steel-point, smashing down into the skull of yet another hunter that had slipped and fallen from the mound.

Heder was putting nearly half of his bullets into the brains of flesh-eaters, no simple task when most of the monsters were either sliding or jumping in his direction. As he replaced another empty magazine, he realized with a jolt of surprise that he only had one more remaining in his pouch. Coming from upstate New York, then living on Middle Bass Island for past the few months, he really hadn’t had the time, or sparring partners, to work on his medieval weapons training. He needed to find a way to get Andi out of there in the next minute or so, while he still had the rounds to create some sort of gap they could use for a head start as they ran from the monsters. Fortunately for him, the injured soldier now fighting next to him had already decided he wasn’t ever leaving this place, at least not alive, and he planned to go out in a blaze of glory.

“Give me your gun!” the western fighter shouted at the young lieutenant.

“What?” Heder yelled back incredulously.

“I’ll give you and Andi cover; get her the heck out of here before we’re out of ammo.”

Heder didn’t hesitate to accept the brave warrior’s offer to sacrifice himself for their sakes, shoving the pistol and the last full magazine into the Utah soldier’s bloody gloves before grabbing Andi and pulling her from the wall.

“What about him?” Andi pointed even as she allowed herself to be dragged through the snow.

“His idea,” Heder shouted back without breaking stride. “He knew he was a goner and wanted to cover our escape.”

Andi followed Lieutenant Heder without thinking. After a minute or so of stumbling through the growing drifts, she realized that they were heading in the wrong direction. She planted her feet in the heavy snow, forcing him to come to a complete stop.

“The boats are on the east side,” she panted, “where the floodlights are still shining. We’re running west.”

“I know,” he replied, equally out of breath. “I’ve got a canoe over here, and we’re safer going this way. The hunters that just broke through are probably chasing the soldiers.”

As if to reinforce the lieutenant’s claim, Andi suddenly heard a chorus of triumphant howls from behind. “Yeah, they’re through the wall now. Lead on!”

A few minutes later they were approaching the river bank when the pair were suddenly bathed in a blinding spotlight from above. Hovering in the blizzard, shrieking over their heads, was an enemy Blackhawk. A voice from a loudspeaker commanded them to freeze in place. Andi immediately tried to run, but Heder held tightly to her hand as he loudly ordered, “Stand still. There’s no way out of here.”

“No way,” she yelled in reply, continuing to fight to free herself from the officer’s grip. Then she saw Heder’s gloved fist coming straight at her visor. The blow wasn’t enough to really hurt her, especially through the helmet, but precious seconds were lost as she struggled to regain her footing. By the time she steadied herself, the chopper was landing, and the young lieutenant grabbed her from behind and held her in a vice-like embrace. Three fully armed soldiers in U.S. Army uniforms immediately jumped from the open side-door and ran at the battered fighters.

Andi froze, hoping that Heder would raise a hand in surrender, giving her an opportunity to run. A bullet in the back was better than falling into Barnes’ hands. There was no way to know what Barnes’ soldiers would do with her before they discovered that she was Jack Smith’s fiancé, but once USAMRIID forces realized who she was, there was no doubt she’d be used as a tool to sadistically torment the man she loved. The mad general would make some ridiculous demands for her ransom, and even if they were met, she knew she’d never live to see Jack again.

Her racing thoughts were suddenly interrupted as one of the soldier
s
shouted, “Good work, Heder. Keep that damn sat-phone on you and catch up with the rest of the group. Major Jackson will send new orders as soon as he processes developments on the ground. You sure this is Smith’s woman?”

Andi looked toward the young lieutenant in stunned astonishment. As the reality of what had just happened sunk in, Andi felt a cold rage building inside. Right before the soldiers shoved her into the Blackhawk, she shouted over the blizzard. “You’re a dead man, Heder. Jack and his people are smart; they’ll figure this out, and one of them will kill you. I have two daughters you son-of-a-bitch!” The betrayer didn’t look up, didn’t move a muscle as Andi yelled one last curse before the door of the chopper slammed shut. “Burn in hell you bastard!”

Deb was as tired and angry as she’d ever been in her life. The people who’d put together the evacuation plan, her husband included, had somehow missed several important factors regarding the escape route. Nobody, for example, had considered the chance that the people of Fort Wayne might have to leave in the middle of the night, a blizzard raging around them as they struggled to overcome the darkness and the river. The second problem was even worse; none of the planners had apparently considered the possibility, or affect, of shallow water on overloaded watercraft. The early winter had locked up a lot of water in the frozen countryside that made up the Maumee’s drainage basin. The river itself was still flowing, with ice only covering the pools and backwater areas, but the depth and current were proving to be extremely problematic for the refugees.