Stone Soldiers 6: Armageddon Z (7 page)

CHAPTER TEN

In the split second before it detonated, Mark Kenslir was able to register what kind of bomb the monsters had been concealing with their bodies. It was a hastily constructed device, made from three 55-Gallon drums, around which were taped a dozen Claymore antipersonnel mines. No doubt brought into the city by an overzealous National Guard that was no match for the undead.

The explosives erupted with earth-sha
king force, throwing out fire and small ball bearings in every direction. Kenslir and the fifty-odd zombies near it were blown off their feet.

High in the stands, Victor Hornbeck was completely taken by surprise. He flinched reflexively as the stadium shoo
k and shrapnel went into the stands. After a moment of stunned surprise, he leapt to his feet as a fire ball rose up into the air, churning and turning to black smoke.

He was already running down the stands, toward the field when the smoke cleared. He saw
the huge crater in the center of the field, and the black scorch marks from the blast radiating out around it. Burning pieces of the undead were scattered everywhere—some having been blown up into the stands.

A lone figure lay on the field, hurled a doze
n feet back. Colonel Kenslir, his body now charred all black, like his torn clothing.

By the time Victor reached him, the Colonel was starting to sit up.

"Sir?!" Victor said excitedly, not knowing what to do. Kenslir's face was torn and blackened, his teeth showing through on one side. His uniform had remained mostly intact, with the exception of great rips and holes here and there—evidence of projectiles from the blast tearing into him. His tactical goggles were gone—no doubt blown to pieces.

Kenslir held
up a finger, indicating Victor needed to wait a moment. He pointed to his ears. His ear drums had been blown out by the blast that should have torn him limb from limb.

Kenslir put hand down on the ground and pushed off, rising slowly. Victor could see the
gray stone of the Colonel's hand was turning flesh tone again as his many curses worked to repair the brutal damage of the explosion.

"Got any water on you?" Kenslir croaked, his voice raspy.

An ALERT warning flashed across Victor's field of view, and a square panel sprang up in the air, showing the concerned face of Major Campbell in Florida.

"Phillips and Jacobson are under attack!" the Major snapped. "I've got air support on the way!"

"Yes, sir," Victor said.

"Zeus and Jacob are in trouble," Victor said
, helping the Colonel.

Kenslir was already limping toward the stands. Even with his curses working, he looked to be pretty badly injured. The stone of his face hadn't even closed up around his exposed teeth yet.

"Well, let's go help," Kenslir said. Then he seemed to notice something off to the side.

Kenslir shook off Victor's help and limped over to a metal canister laying on the ground. It wasn't marred by the blast. It was long, several feet, and made of shiny aluminum. One end was open.

When the Colonel touched the canister with his hand, a green glow was visible. Stamped on the side of the canister was one word: Gr33ng34r.

"What is that?" Victor asked.

Kenslir looked up at the roof of the dome. "I think the blast knocked it loose." He sniffed at the open end of the tube.

"Spores."

***

The undead were concentrating their combined fire on the two stone soldiers with little effect. Even peppered with thousands of high-velocity bullets, the petrified men were unharmed. That was the point of the petrification, after all—to create more durable soldiers.

Similarly, Phillips and Jacobson found their return fire equally ineffective. Their carefully placed shots split mold-filled heads
—sending out sprays of yellow spores into the air. But despite the tops of their heads removed by the precision shots, the reanimated dead continued to return fire, unphased. They didn't need brains or eyes.

Phillips finally had enough and threw his rifle down. Clearly, these creatures were puppets for someone or something else. And
the presence of the Stage Threes here meant their mystery enemy had expected an investigation to lead to the Dome as the source of the infection.

That had been simple enough to discover. Police and hospital reports of the first reanimated had been inputte
d into the CDC computers and links were sought—and found.

The common threa
d linking the victims had been simple—a large percentage of them had used their credit cards to buy concessions at the Sunday football game between the Bears and the Rams.

Their und
ead enemy had expected them to come here. He, or she, had laid a trap—one that might have stopped even the stone soldiers. Their enemy had learned from the attack in Texas. Hiding their undead army in a building had prevented satellite detection. And where one hundred undead confined in a semi trailer had proven ineffective, several hundred, armed undead filling a convention center were far more lethal.

But their enemy hadn't planned on one thing. Chad Phillips was not just a man made of living stone. Exten
ding one hand he spread his fingers wide and unleashed a blue-white streak of lightning.

The crackling bolt of electricity snapped down the hall
—striking one of the undead square in the chest. Even comprised of dry mold, there was still enough moisture in the creature to prove its undoing.

It exploded violently in all directions as the static bolt of electricity poured into its body.

"Sprinklers!" Phillips yelled, shifting his aim and unleashing another blast.

Unlike the bullets harmlessly flattening again
st him like leaden rain, his lightning-like discharges were horrifyingly effective. Another undead ceased to exist in a flaming explosion that scattered its pieces all over its companions.

Isaac Jacobson shifted his aim and fired into the ceiling—aiming fo
r a sprinkler head. His second shot found its mark and blew the head apart. Water immediately sprayed down from the ceiling—all along the hallway.

The zombies hesitated now, many stopping their firing, others standing still, halfway through reloading their
captured weapons. They, and their handler, were unsure what to do.

Colonel Phillips let an evil grin spread over his stone face. Extending both hands, he unleashed a searing double-blast of raw electricity into the wet floor of the convention center.

Up and down the hallway, the undead spasmed in place as the water soaking their bodies carried a massive static charge deep into their reanimated flesh. Fungus that had replaced nervous tissue and internal organs exploded as the electricity coursed through it.

Over a hundred of the undead dropped to the damp floor, smoke curling from empty eye sockets.

"Don't just stand there," Colonel Kenslir said loudly from one end of the hall. "Let's finish these bastards off!"

The Colonel's uniform was torn in many place
s, but his injuries had healed from the blast in the stadium. His submachine gun was gone, blown apart. But in each hand he held one of his long Bowie knives.

Beside the Colonel, Victor had a Bowie knife out as well.

Chad Phillips nodded and drew his own knife. Nearby, the doors to a convention hall were filled with undead. Their eyeless faces remained impassive masks devoid of emotion, but Phillips preferred to think their master was now just a little afraid.

"We're coming for you!" he yelled, looking dir
ectly at the closest monster. Then he unleashed another blast of lighting that bored through over a dozen ranks of the creatures like a cannonball.

The other soldiers charged at the other doorways, slashing with their oversized knives, cutting the reanimat
ed in half with ease.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ONE DAY BEFORE INFECTION (42nd Attempt)

The alarm woke him up as it always did, at 9:00 AM. He opened his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. It had worked. He was home again.

Kenji sat up in bed with renewed vig
or. He had grown tired of this morning over the past few months of his life. Of constantly having the same conversations, the same arguments with his parents. But things were different this time. He had hope.

He slipped on his jeans and sneakers, grabbed u
p a flannel shirt and threw it hastily on. He grabbed up his phone and jacket and raced out of the room.

"Oh, good morning, Kenji," his mother said, smiling as he rushed through the living room. As always, she was cleaning—getting ready for the Christmas d
ecorations his father was even now hauling down from the attic.

"Gotta go, mom. Be back in a few," Kenji said, pausing only long enough to kiss his mother on the cheek. Then he raced out into the garage, ducking under the ladder folded down from the attic.

"Taking the car, dad. Be back in a few!"

"What? Kenji?" his father called out from the attic.

Kenji didn't hear the rest—he was already in his parents' sedan, hitting the switch on the remote to open the garage door and putting the key in the ignition.

As he backed out of the garage, he saw his father lean down from the attic opening, saying something he'd never heard before. But he didn't have time for that. He had a call to make.

Kenji sped out of his parent's neighborhood and drove away from Chicago.
He remembered only too well what was going to happen when he called in to report the pending apocalypse. No sense in getting his parents arrested again.

As he drove, Kenji dialed the number on his cellphone he had committed to memory. Kenslir's number. It
was answered on the third ring.

"Hello?" Colonel Kenslir said, surprise in his voice.

"Sir? Mark Kenslir?"

"Yes. Who is this? How did you get this number?"

"Look, this is all going to sound crazy, but you have to listen to me, please. My name is Kenji Nakayama, and I'm calling you with a very special message."

"What kind of message?"

Kenji could hear the suspicion in his voice.

"Sir, would you please take out your wallet out and look at the bills inside it?"

"How did you get this number?" Kenslir demanded.

"Okay, how about a twenty?"

"I don't like games, Mr. Nakayama."

"Please, bear with me. One of your twenties should start with the number JE133."

There was a pause, then Kenslir answered. "And?"

"JE1339311D," Kenji said.

"That's a neat trick, Mr. Nakayama. What is it you want?"

"Look, I know you're tracking me by now—you said you would. But I need to assure you I'm on the up and up. I'm what you call an Oracle—and I've had a terrible vision of the future."

"What kind of vision?"

"There's going to be a hor
rible outbreak—a disease—Monday, in St. Louis and Chicago. A lot of innocent people are going to die."

"If you have information like that, why are you running?" Colonel Kenslir asked.

"Because you told me to."

***

Pam Keegan was tired. Very tired. This w
as not how she'd wanted to spend her Thanksgiving weekend. But when duty called—or more specifically Colonel Kenslir—it meant something big was going down. And that superseded vacation with her parents.

Pam nodded to the FBI Agent standing guard outside th
e interrogation room of the Chicago office then took a deep breath and walked inside.

The young man in the chair was unkempt and very tired looking. Which made sense
—he'd been in FBI custody for most of the night and all of the previous day.

"Mr. Nakayama?
" she asked, closing the door behind her.

Kenji Nakayama's shoulders sagged when he saw the small blonde agent with the large chest and low-necked shirt enter the room. It was not the reaction Agent Keegan normally got from a man.

"Yes," Kenji sighed. He checked his watch. It was 5:00 AM. They were running out of time. He considered for the hundredth time that night ending this vision and trying again.

"I'm Pam Keegan, Joint-Interior-"

"What do you want?" Kenji said. He sounded more disappointed than tired.

"I'd like to talk to you about your vision," Pam said. She walked to the table Kenji was sitting at and took a seat across from him.

"I've already given your other agents all the information. I need to see Colonel Kenslir."

"Yes," Pam nodded. "I under
stand. But the Colonel is a little busy right now."

"In Florida, at Argon Tower—I know," Kenji said. He'd already told all this to the other agents. "Look, I've given you the serial numbers for the money in the Colonel's wallet, and described his office in
detail. I've told you about Josie Winters freezing things with her mind, and Jimmy who's a werewolf. I even told you about the stone soldiers. What more do you people want from me? Lives are at stake here!"

A knock sounded at the door, then it opened. In
came the telepath Kenji had met in Florida.

"Gloria!" he said, perking up. This was a very good sign. "You're a telepath—tell her I'm telling the truth!"

Gloria nodded. "He's right. I can see a lot of fragmented memories in there—and one of them is of myself and the Colonel. Talking with him."

Pam leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her large chest. She stared at Kenji quietly for several minutes.

"You understand how strange this all is for us," she said at last.

"I know, I know. Your psych
ics haven't detected anything yet."

"And you have operational knowledge no one should have outside of the Detachment."

Kenji leaned. "Please, can't you just check it out?"

"Okay. We'll send someone. But you've got to come with us. To Florida."

Kenji was surprised. "Why?"

"Because the Colonel wants to meet you, face to face," Keegan said, reaching into a pocket. She pulled out a syringe and a small bottle of what looked like medicine.

"What's that for?" Kenji asked, getting nervous.

"We'd prefer to sedate yo
u before you're moved," Pam said, pulling the cap off the syringe. She plunged the needle into the rubber cap on the top of the small bottle and carefully drew out a portion of the solution inside it.

"Sedated?" Kenji didn't like the sound of that.

"It's a highly classified building we're taking you to," Pam said. "It would make a lot of people more comfortable if you were unconscious."

"But you do believe me, right?" Kenji asked, looking back and forth between the two women.

"Yes. We believe you."

Kenji s
ighed, and began to roll up his sleeve. He had hoped to get it right this time. If this didn't work, he'd just try again.