The Apocalypse Crusade 2 (34 page)

As they came straggling up, Collins sent them onto the line as fast as he could, extending the perimeter over and over again. The zombies continually overlapped his flanks, bending them back until the line became “U” shaped with only a few hundred yards separating the sides. He was in danger of being surrounded and cut off.

“Sir!” Austen cried. “There…there are zombies coming.”

This wasn’t exactly helpful information, they had been coming nonstop all day. Too tired to raise his voice at the asinine statement, he calmly asked: “Where’s the problem, Austen?”

She pointed straight west, the one area of the line he expected to be the easiest to hold because of the steepness of the hill. Normally, he might have blown her off; she was just a private, after all, however he had seen her running ammo. She had to have seen every part of the line as well as her share of the zombies. A few wouldn’t have had her this rattled.

“How many?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. A thousand? Maybe more. It’s the biggest horde I’ve seen.”

“Get back to work; we’re going to need all the ammo you can carry.” He turned from her and asked: “Captain Dell, what’s our reserve situation?”

“Just us, sir,” he said, waving an arm at the men around the Humvees. “The northern line was almost flanked again. It’s downhill on that side and they flow like water.”

“Shit,” Collins swore under his breath. After his earlier experience he was loathe to lose even a single man from the headquarters company, but a thousand of them? A thousand zombies at any point in the line would rupture it with ease. “Here’s what you’re going to do, get your ass to the edge of the hill and get me an estimate of the numbers there. And you had better run. Hendry! Where are the damned Apaches?”

“Anyone’s best guess, sir. We can’t use satellite phones to connect with helicopter pilots and I don’t know what frequencies they’re on. They aren’t normally part of our force structure, sorry, sir.”

“What about Courtney Shaw? Any word on her?” He had sent the first Blackhawk to her location 90 minutes before. By all reckoning, it should have been back.

“None. No one is picking up.”

Collins’s teeth gritted at this and he bit back another curse. “What about…”

Captain Dell rushed inside, cutting him off. “We have to retreat! There’s too many of them. A thousand, easily, bearing right down on the front of the hill.”

“There will be no retreat,” Collins replied, evenly. A retreat would mean the collapse of the lines, his men would be crushed from three sides and only a very fortunate few would escape. Once again, he was forced to use poorly trained and equipped weekend warriors. He had only this smattering of men and women from the headquarters company to stand in the breach. There were maybe twenty of them in and around the various Humvees. Most were over forty, a few were straight up fat, and one was six months pregnant; she looked like she was smuggling a soccer ball under her shirt. But at least she had shown up, not everyone had.

“
We
have to fight,” he said, smacking one hand into the other. “Get your weapons and get out on the line. All of you, except you,” he said to the pregnant woman. “You will be in charge of communications. Get the Governor of Connecticut on the phone. Tell her the center will not hold. She is to fortify her cities as best as she can. Then call the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Tell them that I will resign effective at midnight if the situation is not federalized by the President.”

The Humvee was quiet for a span of three seconds and then Collins roared: “Well? What is everyone waiting for? Get moving!” The soldiers went in every direction, grabbing up M16s that were in many cases as old as they were. A few attempted to put on their masks. “No masks,” ordered Collins. So far, every soldier had complained bitterly about the masks, all saying it was preferable to risk exposure rather than greatly increasing the chance of being eaten alive because of poor shooting.

They dropped the masks and then began checking their ammo situation. They were being too slow. “Everyone out!” Collins yelled. He too picked up a rifle. He supposed it was the pregnant soldier’s and he hoped to God she wouldn’t have a need for it. Just in case, he handed over his Beretta and said the same sexist thing Jerome had earlier. “It’ll be alright.”

She looked at the gun and turned green. “No thank you, sir. I can’t.” She touched her belly.

“Sure, I understand,” he said, though he didn’t at all. There was no time to argue, however and he rushed out into the fight. He could do nothing more as commander. He had secured his lines north, south and west of Poughkeepsie, and he had done all he could in the east…meaning he had failed.

“Not going to dwell on that now,” he said as he went to the line of battle. It reminded him of the old paintings that hung on the walls of West Point. Men lined up shoulder to shoulder facing an enemy only yards away. He had never understood the courage needed to stare down the muzzles of your enemies’ guns at such range, and yet there he was, finding a gap to stand in. The mass of creatures before him was enough to take his breath away.

He struggled for a breath of air and then said: “Let’s see if I remember how to do this,” before shouldering his borrowed rifle.

Just as he was about to fire, someone asked: “Finally deciding to join the fight?” It was Lieutenant Colonel O’Brian wearing a smug look, but one tinged with respect. He hadn’t expected Collins to come out of his Humvee.

“I was just waiting until it got sporting out here.” Collins fired three times into the mob rushing up the hill. Two were proper shots; the third only skipped off the top of a skull. The M16 was a light weapon and the recoil wasn’t bad and yet he felt it right down into the joint of his sixty three-year-old shoulder.

“At this distance you’ll want to aim a little lower, sir,” O’Brian said. He shot six times in a row—four were definite kills. “You see?”

“Yeah, thanks. I’ve got a job for you, O’Brian. We need to shorten our lines and close them up. The northern line extends too far. Our only chance is if we shift some men to this spot and then use the rest to button up.”

The ramifications of the order were obvious; a twitch zipped the corner of O’Brian’s eye. They were going to be surrounded and cut off. They were going to die on the hill. “Gonna be like Dien Bien Phu,” he said, referencing the famous siege that ended the French involvement in Vietnam.

“No,” Collins replied. “More like Ia Drang. I plan to walk out of here.”

O’Brian took a moment and then smirked. “Yes, sir. You’re probably right. It’s the only way.” He left on the run and Collins shook his head at the retreating form, wondering how he had made it to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He was competent, but conceited as hell and always on the edge of insubordination.

A scream brought him around. A female soldier was struggling to clear her jammed weapon as zombies came closer and closer to the lip of the hill. Half a dozen men rushed to her aid, blasting the undead beasts back. Those in front fell, spurting black blood; they rolled into those behind causing a temporary lull. Four of the men ran back to their points in the thin line. The other two tried to help the woman with her weapon while she wept in a spasm of fear, her chest hitching and heaving.

“That only takes one man,” Collins barked. “I want to hear communication, people. If they’re getting too close say something before it gets to be a problem.” He turned back to his little spot and saw that even a moment lost was detrimental. The zombies were ten feet away now. He aimed at their chins and fired—perfect. He burned through his magazine and gained a breather.

“Ammo!” he cried, joining a chorus of others.

The soldier next to him paused his shooting and handed him one of his remaining magazines. It was Jerome Evermore. “Here you go, sir. It’s always nice to see an officer finally pulling his weight.”

Collins took the magazine, slapped it home and asked: “What do they put in the water around here? All of you Connecticut boys act like you’ve never heard of the word insubordination.” He said this with a smile and the soldier laughed.

But only for a moment. The zombies were pressing close again and they had to concentrate on not missing their targets. Their ammo situation was getting scary low and the numbers of zombies appeared endless. It was especially bad when the Coast Guard would roar overhead dropping their flares, then the entire hill was lit and the masses of undead were fully on display as they wriggled and crawled over the their finally-dead brothers.

Some of the soldiers couldn’t take the sight. They backed away from the edge of the hill, on the verge of running. “Stand your ground!” Collins yelled. “We are surrounded. There is nowhere to run, so stay and fight.”

This didn’t have the effect he had expected, not only did those who were backing away continue to do so, others also started to. “I said, stand your ground! That is an order.” In the dark, he was just an old man in a uniform—he could’ve been the world’s oldest private for all they knew. They left, running to who knew where.

When they were gone, there were gaping holes and the remaining men shifted over and now that they weren’t shoulder to shoulder, the courage to stand in the face of the oncoming beasts was even greater than before. Even Collins began to feel it: the horrible odor, the hungry, anxious moans, and the gruesome visage of so many of them, made it difficult to aim into their hideous faces.

But he did. Just like the other soldiers, he stood his ground and fired his weapon until his shoulder went numb, of course, there was a great deal of pain up to that point but there was no getting around it. And still they came on and on. Austen, the ammo girl pulled her wagon up, dumped a handful of magazines and left again, rattling her red wagon on to the next soldier in line. Time lost all meaning and five minutes felt like forever.

He found himself worrying. Where was O’Brian with the reinforcements? Where were the Apaches that Stimpson had finally allowed to cross his borders? An Apache gun ship, just one, would help tremendously. And where was Courtney? He had been a fool not to divert a couple of Blackhawks long before, but that begged the question: when could he have? Every flight that night had been make or break. Every one of them necessary in some crucial manner.

As he was worrying, his weapon stopped working when he squeezed the trigger; he was out of ammo again. That was another fear: would the ammo last?

Slowly, his old man’s hands went through the motion of reloading. There was pain in his hands, especially in his knuckles. It had been growing for years now, but the cold night and the rough treatment firing the gun had made it worse. He fumbled the magazine and it dropped into the dirt. Bending over and there was another pain. It lanced up from the small of his back.

Who was he kidding? He was no soldier, not anymore. He was less of a soldier than the middle-aged men and women he had denigrated as “weekend” warriors.

When he got the magazine in place and sent the bolt home, the zombies were right there. It was the same up and down the line. “Bugger me,” he said, and then fired his weapon, raking it back and forth. There was no time for aiming. There was barely time for pulling the trigger. They toppled left and right and he stepped forward, driving them back.

And then there was one in the dark wearing mottled, green clothes. He stood right at the edge of the hill and just as Collins pulled the trigger, he realized this was a soldier and he was going to kill him His finger tightened down, automatically. Then to his great relief, nothing happened. He was out of ammo again, but this time it was ok.

“Oh, God, I almost shot you,” he said, wondering where the soldier had come from.

The soldier answered by looking up. His eyes were wet and black and there was just enough left of Cori Deebs to know to pull the trigger of his own weapon. He didn’t aim, but as he was four feet away, he didn’t need to.

The bullet was more stunning than painful. It struck the wind from Collins and took his strength. He sat down, or rather plopped down and then Cori was on him in a second, grinning the horrid black grin of the damned.

Thuy faced the wall, but couldn’t help peeking over her shoulder, thinking that one of the five hostage takers would come to collect her. Eng had said: “Get the small ones, they’ll be easier to handle.” She was the smallest, even smaller than Alivia the teenage girl. Eng had relieved Deckard of his M16, and then took the Glock Thuy had stuffed in her front pocket. He went to Alivia, twisted a hand into her long hair and pressed the pistol to her temple.

She started to whimper; he whispered into her ear: “You should count yourself lucky, you just might make it out of this alive, but only if you keep your head about you.”

Anna took a Glock from one of the state troopers and then went to the girl’s brother, Jack. She didn’t threaten him with the gun, but instead she stuck it in the pocket of her coat. For a weapon she held the vial of Com-cells at the ready.

Meeks took the dispatcher, Renee, hostage, and Bob took Jenny. This left just Allan who didn’t look like he wanted to be part of the hostage taking, and yet he kept glancing to the front of the building where the zombies were crawling over each other to get inside. He went to Stephanie, but Anna said: “No, not her, she’s sick. She’ll slow us down.”

Allan actually apologized to Stephanie before going to Courtney who was manning the radio. “Choose someone else. I’m not going,” she said. He waved his gun at her, ineffectually. She only shook her head, keeping her eyes locked on her computer screen.

One of the other dispatchers, a woman who clung to the wall as if gravity had flipped 90 degrees, raised her hand. “I’ll go.” Her voice trembled as did the hand in the air.

“Me too,” another woman said, speaking quickly and shooting her hand up, also.

“No, that’s not fair,” another of the dispatchers said, when Allan hurried to quasi-threaten the first woman with his gun. “He should get to choose.” The other dispatchers agreed; they were all desperate to get on the first helicopter. The gunfire from the front of the building was growing in intensity as the zombies pressed forward and now that Chuck had turned his gun away from the office wing, that door was being bent, alarmingly. There was little time left for any of them.

Allan looking lost, waved his gun around, but after another glance to the front where the zombies were now dropping all over the barricade of furniture, he grabbed the first woman roughly by the collar even though she was more than willing to go, and shoved her to stand with the others.

“I want to know how you plan to get out,” Deckard asked. “When the helicopters come, you still have to get by the zombies and the back door isn’t as safe as you think. It’s a trap back there and there’s no room for a helicopter to put down.”

“They’re going out through the front door,” Courtney answered, when Eng and Anna didn’t say anything but only looked at each other with lifted shoulders. “In three minutes, the first of the Blackhawks will be here. It’ll clear the front door with its guns and then you’ll board. They know about the hostage situation and they’re willing to drop you off anywhere within thirty miles. They don’t have fuel to go any further.”

Eng let out a pent-up breath. He had feared the zombies, but he was also afraid that he would have to wrest control of a military gunship. In China, American helicopters had an evil reputation and were universally feared.

Deckard had a completely different response. “What the hell, Courtney? Whose side are you on?”

Without looking up from her computer, she answered: “I’m on the side of seeing as many people as possible get out of this alive.”

This shamed Deckard into dropping his angry look to the floor. “Keep doing what you’re doing,” Thuy told Courtney. “It’s the right thing.” Deckard grunted in agreement.

During the next three minutes, they all became clock-watchers. It seemed the hands of the clock had gained weight and it became a tremendous effort for each second to journey on to the next. Everyone, except the fighters up front stood, sweating or crying or whimpering, and in nearly every case, praying. Even Sundance was pensive. Taking a cue from the others, he whined and whimpered as much as any of them.

Only Deckard could be considered calm, although he was only outwardly so. Inside he was a bundle of springs. He was running scenarios through his mind, setting parameters and evaluating risk. He was sure that in the next few minutes there would be a number of opportunities to free the hostages. Of the hostage takers, only Anna and Eng truly had it within them to kill innocent people. Bob and Allan certainly wouldn’t be able to do it. Meeks was somewhat of a mystery. What would he do if Deckard went after Anna’s gun? She had foolishly left it hanging out of her pocket where anyone with even a little speed could snatch it.

Deckard planned to grab it from her and shoot Eng. There was a fifty-fifty chance that Alivia would be killed and, sad as it was, those were good odds in Deckard’s mind. There was a 99% chance that whoever remained behind when the helicopters left would die a much worse death. He also figured that there was a twenty percent chance that Anna would release the Com-cells. It would mean her own death and he hoped that she loved herself too much to commit suicide. However, he could not rely on hope. He had speed, and he would use it.

Anna had proved herself smart and capable and yet she wasn’t trained. There had been many instances in the last two days in which she had been physically slow to react. He was counting on that again. He ran over the simple steps in his mind: snatch the gun from Anna, shoot Eng with it in the next second and then turn back to Anna and grab the hand holding the vial. All perfectly possible—except what would Meeks do? During this time, Deckard would be defenseless and Meeks could kill him with little effort. But would he? Would his anger prevail or his common sense? It could go either way.

That was the dilemma he was facing.

Thuy solved the mental problem by reaching out and taking his large callused hand in hers. He shook his head in a short arc, just a tiny movement. She shook hers right back. ‘Don’t,’ she mouthed. His lips pursed in anger for a second, but then relaxed as he realized she had somehow read his mind. This spoke to him. There was a connection between the two and had been since the first time he had seen her walk into Stephen Kipling’s office.

On that first occasion, Deckard remembered, he had watched Thuy as she had sat among the other scientists. Before anyone had spoken, he had known it was she who had discovered the cure for cancer simply by the set of her eyes and the way her chin was tilted up in the slightest. At the time he had felt psychic, now he knew it was more than that.

It had been love at first sight. From that day to this, his feelings for her hadn’t changed a hair and the connection between them was just as strong. She knew he wanted to try something and she probably knew exactly what and likely knew the odds of success better than he did. He wanted to fight her on this and she knew that, too. She took his hand and pressed it to her lips.

They remained in that position, looking into each other’s eyes, until Courtney yelled over the din of the gunfire: “The first copter is here! Get back from the door!”

Everyone cringed away and for a full second and a half Deckard could have plucked the Glock from Anna’s pocket and shot Eng. Thuy kept a good grip on his hand and then the second and a half was gone and the whup-whup-whup- of the rotors came and then the roar of engines. “Get down!” screamed Courtney and then she yelled into the radio: “Go! Go! Go!”

A second later, the air shook as the Blackhawk’s miniguns opened up, shredding the zombies in the front of the building. The door gunner had never used his weapon with such savagery before. In the glare of the spotlights, heads exploded, arms were shot away, leaving only bleeding stumps, while intestines ran like wet rope. Blood fountained everywhere, coating everything in a black shine. The gunner began to feel sick to his stomach and he was afraid he was going to barf into his mask.

He didn’t have time to be sick.

The zombies turned from the building and came charging at the helicopter. “Slow turn, 180 degrees,” the pilot said through his earpiece. Gracefully for such a big machine, the Blackhawk turned in the air giving both gunners a chance to clear the craft in a full arc. “Prepare to receive passengers,” the pilot said, in that easy drawl all pilots seemed to use. “Do not try to interfere with the hostages.”

Inside the building, the barrage of bullets had been terrifying. The front doors were blasted away and the zombies clustered there had been literally eviscerated. Even the barricade of furniture was gone, having exploded outward in a rain of shrapnel. Everyone was stunned, except Courtney who had hidden beneath her desk and had stuffed her hands over her ears.

She was the first up. “I need group one to go. Get up! Come on there’s no time.”

Eng jumped to his feet, pulling Alivia along with him. “Everyone get in a tight group,” he ordered. “And keep your guns ready. If they try something, use your hostages as a shield and don’t be afraid to kill them.”

He began heading for the door, holding Alivia in front of him. Anna went next, keeping very close to Eng, Then Bob and Allen with their hostages. They apologized to the others as they went. Finally Meeks went, walking backwards, awkwardly. There was a gap between him and Allan, and Chuck, just realizing what was happening stepped in between.

“No, Mr. Singleton,” Thuy said. “It’ll end in bloodshed and it won’t help us.” Reluctantly, Chuck stepped back and glared into Meeks’ face as he passed.

Once outside, Meeks was blinded by the spotlight and the hundred mile per hour wind caused by the wash of the blades whipping by overhead. In his hand, Renee trembled and kept stumbling over the body parts that carpeted the earth. They squished and slid out from beneath their feet, making walking treacherous. Falling would mean getting covered in the black, zombie blood and even with masks, it would very likely mean getting the disease.

No one fell, but their feet were slimed black and they tracked it into the helicopter. No one wanted to touch a thing. Eng was forced to, however when one of the door gunners pointed to a headset and then pointed to his mouth and mimicked talking. With the sound of the engines blocking out even thought, the headsets were the only way to communicate.

“Where to?” the pilot said. His drawl was now tainted with anger and wasn’t nearly so easy going. He hated what he was being forced to do.

Eng had no idea where he wanted to go other than out of the quarantine zone…and to some place he could dip his feet in a vat of bleach. A hospital came to mind right away, but those always had armed guards. “A grocery store,” he said. There would be plenty of bleach there and people with cars. He would figure out the rest as he went. “You will drop us off and leave. And know this, calling the police will only get people killed.”

“You don’t have to worry about the police too much,” the pilot said. “As far as I know there are no more police left. They’re all fighting the dead-heads or have run off.”

“Even better,” Eng murmured. With no police left it would be nothing to clean himself up, change clothes, kill Anna and the others, and then ghost away. He almost laughed, delighted and relieved.

In the station, Thuy started moving the second Meeks left the building. She dropped Deckard’s hand and began issuing orders: “Everyone get your masks on, and glove up. There are extra gloves in a box by the ladies room. Grab at least two pairs to be safe. Deckard, Mr. Singleton, do what you can about re-barricading the door. Wilson and Stephanie, take stock of our ammo and gun situation.”

As they hurried to carry out the orders, Thuy spun once, slowly, taking in the havoc and the possibilities and the danger. She then hurried over to Courtney who was wearing a pained expression. “How long until the next helicopter arrives?” Thuy asked.

The pain seemed to deepen. “Ten minutes. They had to stop and pick up a few stranded soldiers.”

“How many soldiers?” Thuy asked, dreading the answer.

“Six,” Courtney answered so quietly that Thuy barely heard. Still the words struck her like a kick in the guts.

“Six? Really? That’s…that’s too...” Thuy had to pause and swallow hard in order to collect herself. “Call them back this instant. I need to know how many of us they’ll take.”

As Courtney did, Thuy looked around at the nineteen of them and worried over who would be forced to stay behind. She knew that if she had to, she would stay and that meant that Deckard would likely as well. It also made sense that Chuck and Stephanie would remain—they would be dead from cancer in a couple of months anyway. That was the easy four; of the rest, who would she choose if she had to?

She would not choose Burke, if he was truly immune, his blood would be needed for study. And not Wilson, either. He was a doctor after all. And not Courtney; she was still young and pretty, but so too were the pair of soldiers and some of the state troopers, and the…

“Twelve,” Courtney said, interrupting the knot Thuy was finding impossible to unravel. “Only twelve.”

Again, Thuy experienced the feeling of being kicked. “That’s unacceptable,” she said, rubbing her stomach where her emotional state was having physical effects. “Ask them what their weight capacity is? Tell them we don’t need seats, we’ll stack one on top of the other if we have to.”

Courtney relayed the question. The answer was dismaying: “Twenty-six hundred pounds internally of which fifteen hundred pounds is already accounted for. But he said he thinks the chopper can take an additional eleven hundred. So that’s twenty-two hundred pounds we can use.”