A Plague on All Houses (27 page)

“It’s okay, Rico… cough, cough
…
I don’t mind dying because I got to have you.” Tony gave one more dramatic cough and grinned at us. Kai snickered.

“I hate you, Tony.” I spoke with great sincerity.

Gabriel looked at him. “One of these days you’ll be old enough to have a girlfriend, kid. And when you are, I hope you have something more meaningful than movie quotes up your ass. That is, if you live past today.”

Another shout went up from the barricades. Gabriel’s expression went grim. “You guys ready? Good. You have five minutes to finish up here and get your asses into rank.” He gave me one last look before vanishing up over the ramp to the other side of the barricades.

I got nose to nose with Tony. “If you say ‘this shit just got real’ I swear I will kill you here and now.”

Tony held up both hands in a “who, me?” gesture, popped in his ear buds and clambered up onto Mount Gillette to watch for the approaching army of the dead. Maybe reducing everything to a movie moment helped him deal with reality.

Lil stood up, M4 in hand, pickaxe strapped to her back. I put a hand on her shoulder. “You gonna be okay?”

She gave me a shaky smile. “Yeah. I just miss Mack.”

“We all do.” I hugged her and she threw both arms around me and clutched me tightly. Our various weapons and accoutrements clashed and clanked and stuck in painful places, but it didn’t matter. I suddenly realized I’d die to keep Lil safe.

“Wild Cards! Time to dance!”

Gentry stood on top of the barricade next to Tony and grinned down at us. “You ready to do this?”

Lil, Kai, and I looked at each other and then up at Gentry before yelling in unison, “Hell, no!”

“Good! Get your asses into line!”

We stood in the second rank along with Simone. Nathan was in the front line with Gabriel and Gentry. The soldiers were divided up between the three lines while the non-coms who weren’t good enough with the guns stood by to reload spent magazines and hand off ones to each line as they fell back. We also had a supply of surplus weapons so the third “line” could up replacements for jammed or overheated guns.

Jamie was one of the non-coms, her face pinched with tension and fear. I had to hand it to her; she was obviously terrified, but still putting her ass on the line with the rest of us.

I didn’t know most of the people we stood with in line. All I could think of was a line from some BBC series with Sean Bean (and yeah, I only remember the line ‘cause I think Sean Bean is a hottie), “I know you can fire three rounds a minute. But can you stand?”

I knew I could, and would, stand. But could the rest of these people? Their pale, set expressions, sweat dripping down even in the cool Northern California morning, didn’t give me an answer one way or the other. The soldier next to me couldn’t have been more than twenty, if that, a skinny weed of a kid with the look of a movie extra there for the sole purpose of dying and making the audience feel sorry for him. I caught his eye and smiled reassuringly. He managed a brief lip tremor in return. I vowed he’d make it through the day too, if just to cheat the God of Movie Clichés of its expected sacrifice.

The smell suddenly went from foul to total stinky charnel house reek as the wind shifted, blowing fog and stench across the open fields to the barricades.

“Remember,” called out Colonel Paxton, standing on Mount Gillette. “Head shots, three rounds per zombie. Make them count! If you can’t hit their heads, go for the knees and take out their mobility. We can do this.” With his oratory skills and rich Shakespearean voice, he made a pretty convincing argument.

The moans grew louder, the rotten stench thicker. I suddenly remembered an old biology teacher saying, “Smell is actually particulate.” Ugh. Thanks, memory. Like I really needed to think about that now. Time for nose plugs.

I glanced at Tony. The earbuds were in, his eyes shining with glee as zombies slowly poured out of the tree line into the field. “My lord, the army of the dead approaches,” he said softly. Then, as promised, he yanked out the buds, tucked them carefully in his vest pocket and grinned at me. I gave him a thumbs-up.

An explosion rocked the field as a zombie stumbled into one of the claymores. One of the soldiers in the front row fired off a few rounds in nervous response.

“Don’t waste ammo,” shouted Colonel Paxton. “They’re not in range! Wait for my signal! Then first rank, fire at will.”

Blurred faces in the distance started taking on distinct, rotting features as the first of the swarm closed the gap. The zombies’ former genders became apparent, along with the hideous wounds that killed them. I could see remnants of designer jeans and tops, dresses, a few business suits, lots of flannel shirts, and, in one heartbreaking instance, Hello Kitty pajamas on what used to be a little girl. Having the time to see the zombies without the distraction of killing them sucked. I silently begged Colonel Paxton to give the order to fire.

“First rank, ready … fire!”

Thank you…

The first rank opened fire in controlled three round bursts, thirty or forty rounds per gun.
Bap bap bap, bap bap bap
, the three-beat staccato over and over again until their rounds were spent. A light haze of smoke drifted through the ranks, mixing in with the fog.

“First rank, fall back!”

The first rank stepped back as the second rank stepped into position, sighting and firing as soon as we were in place.

Bap bap bap.
The little girl went down. Bye-bye, Hello Kitty.

My rounds went quickly, even with careful sighting. Second rank finished and dropped back to let the third rank into place. I ejected the spent clip and someone immediately handed me a fresh one; it was Jamie, still looking terrified but determined. She handed a clip to Lil, who had that “Aieee Kali!” light of battle in her eyes again.

Third rank dropped back, first rank ready to step up again, and the dance started over.

My ears rang with the sound of gunfire, the shouts of men and the moaning howls of the dead a muted backdrop for the constant chatter of rifles. Hot brass littered the ground, and now and again an explosion marked the detonation of another claymore. Some of the better marksmen used each shot to lethal affect, each bullet taking out a zombie. I could only aspire to that kind of marksmanship. This went on for what could have been minutes or hours; hard to tell when your ears are ringing and your shoulder numb from the kick of your gun. All the shooters were tired, no time for breaks. All each person could do was grab a quick swallow of water when it was their turn to reload.

It became obvious the swarm hadn’t been thinned by much despite the growing number of unmoving corpses now littering the field, and more zombies continued to stagger implacably from the trees and road leading up to Big Red. More were angling in from the sides as well, which meant that some of our shooters had to peel off from the straight ranks and start taking out those zoms before they reached us.

Distant explosions punctuated by intermittent gunfire signaled that at least a few zombies were approaching from the other side of campus. The guards stationed there would signal by flare if it got out of hand. Paxton and Nathan were banking on the odds that it wouldn’t since zombies don’t have the brains to strategize and attack our flanks. I hoped to God they were right because we didn’t have the manpower to put up a pitched battle on both sides of Big Red.

“They’re getting through!” One of the lookouts on Mount Gillette waved frantically as he yelled again. “They’re getting through!”

The zombies had slowly increased in numbers; even as we killed the ones in front, more pressed forward, crawling, climbing, and stumbling over their fallen comrades faster than the three ranks could shoot them down. If we didn’t do something quickly, we’d have to fall back behind the barricade. Eventually the zombies would get over it; they’d just pile up against it until they made a rotting walkway up and over the Slinky and the Great Wall of Gillette.

Lil and I glanced at each other. We knew what this meant. Time to start taking them down in the field. Which meant activate Wild Card powers.

“Wild Cards, time to take the field!” Colonel Paxton’s shout rang out above the gunfire. Second rank was up and firing, but as soon as we’d spent our rounds, the Cards dropped out of rank. The kid next to me put a hand on my shoulder. “Be careful out there, okay?”

I squeezed his hand and smiled. “You, too. Just hang in there and try not to shoot me.” I mean, seriously, not only did we have to worry about getting ripped to pieces and snacked on by zombies, but we ran a very real chance of being hit by friendly fire.

He nodded vigorously.

“Kick zombie butt, you got it?”

He slapped a fresh clip into his rifle. “I got it.”

I ejected my spent clip and grabbed a loaded one from Jamie. “Thanks.”

“You need some for the road?” She held out several more. I had my M4, my katana, my tanto, and my dart gun, and my various pockets, pouches, and knapsacks were pretty full, but hey, there’s always room for Jell-O and more ammo when you’re going on a possible suicide mission, right?

We’d start by detonating any darts that had already been dispersed by the claymores, then fan out on either side and use our dart guns and transmitters to start thinning out the swarm coming in from those directions. Gentry would use the flamethrower in wide sweeps to light a few walking dead torches that would hopefully stumble into more zoms and keep the fire burning, so to speak. Anything to keep the numbers down so the ranks could continue to put the zoms down with head shots and make the piles of bodies too high for the rest of the zombies to climb. All this and hopefully not get hit by friendly fire.

I checked to make sure the radio transmitter was clipped firmly on my belt. Time to rock and roll. Or possibly tango.

“You ready?” Gabriel joined me, dirt and sweat intermingled on his face. He looked irresistible, but I managed to resist.

“Sure. So … is this our first date?” Okay, I couldn’t resist that.

He laughed, that particular single bark of his that signified genuine amusement. “Absolutely. There’s champagne at the end of it if you kill enough zombies.”

“Jeez, a date with a quota.”

He kissed me quickly, a hit-and-run smooch before Tony or any of the other Wild Cards could make another wisecrack. Yea, though we were about to walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Zombie Death, I will hear no more movie references. Or something like that.

I heard Simone’s voice rise in argument followed by Nathan’s exasperatingly calm tones. Of course.

“I’m a Wild Card, damn it!” Simone glared at Nathan fiercely. Her hair was mussed, her face actually shiny with sweat. She looked like a Valkyrie.

“You’re also an expert marksman,” Nathan pointed out calmly. “And the foremost living expert on this damned plague in the world. You stay here.”

Colonel Paxton stepped down from Mount Gillette. “Nathan is right, Professor Fraser. We can’t risk your life out there. It’s dangerous enough here. If you die, it’s an irreparable loss.”

“If any of them die”— she gestured toward the rest of us, all gathered together next to the ramp—”it’s an irreparable loss.”

Nathan shook his head. “Sorry, Simone, but your knowledge is worth the lives of all of us. If we didn’t need every competent marksman here, you’d be inside. And if the zombies manage to breach the barrier, I’ll carry you in there myself…”

“You’ll be out risking your life with the rest of he Wild Cards,” Simone snapped.

“I’ll be keeping my eye on the situation.”

I could see Simone seething, but she’d run out of steam in her argument. “Fine.” She turned to our little group. “I expect to see every single one of your safely back here, do you hear me?” Her eyes were bright with determinedly unshed tears. We all nodded silently; even Tony kept his quips zipped. “Good!” Slapping another clip into her M4 with more force than necessary, she got back in line, a grimly determined look on her face. I pity the fool zombie who shambled into her sights.

I watched Nathan watch Simone. The sex
must
have been great ‘cause he looked like a starving man whose dinner and dessert were just out of reach. He caught me looking at him and frowned. “You heard the professor,” he growled. “You kids be careful.”

“I’ll take care of Lil,” I promised, giving her an awkward one-armed hug.

“No, I’ll take care of you this time,” Lil said fiercely, a kitten discovering it had more than a wee squeak for a meow.

“I’ll take care of both of you.” Kai used his best Lando voice as he slipped an arm around each of us.

“Not to break up the lovefest, but the zombies will take care of all of us if we don’t get our asses out there,” said Gentry. He tapped an imaginary wristwatch. “Time, ladies and gentlemen.”

We split into two teams again: me, Gabriel, Nathan, and Lil on one, Tony, Kai, and Gentry on the other. Team A would take the right and Team B the left after we blew up a few zombies on the way out. “Don’t press your transmitters if the zoms are grappling with you,” Gabriel reminded us. “Try to stay at least ten yards away from each other and keep an eye out for your fellow teammates when you set off the darts. If you see someone grappling with a zom within your ten-yard signal perimeter, don’t use it.”

Jeez frickin’ Louise, this was going to be fun in the fog.

“
Move out
!”

On Gabriel’s yell, we took off on either side of the line of fire, running an obstacle corpse as soon as we hit the hundred-yard mark.

The crack of rifle fire continued to sound as we ran through the fog, dodging outstretched arms and grasping hands, totally unnerving. Every second I expected the impact of a bullet smacking into my back. Honestly, the expectation freaked me out more than the zombies.

As soon as we were safely beyond the range of the rifle fire, we spread out. I took a quick glance to see where the rest of my teammates were; all three were out of my sight line, lost in a sea of fog and zombies. I heard a gleeful holler—definitely Tony—followed by a rapid succession of little explosions. It sounded like popcorn kernels going off in a kettle.

Half a dozen zombies zeroed in on me, changing their relentless trajectory towards Big Red to follow me. I noticed a couple of the little white darts sticking out of the zombie near me and decided to test out the transmitter. It was a little closer than ten yards so I grabbed another zombie, a skinny little thing in skimpy nightshift, tossed it into the zombie pincushion, and flicked the switch.
Pop pop pop!
The darts exploded, popcorn on steroids, and about half a dozen zombies fragmented around me, taking a few innocent bystander zombies with them. The splatter effect was nasty; I probably looked like a modern art piece by one of those throw-the-paint-at-the-canvas types. It left a nice little zombie-free zone around me, which quickly began to fill like a hole dug in sand at the water’s edge.

I whipped the re-jiggered paintball gun from its makeshift holster, firing a few rounds of darts into random zombies around me while dodging gaping mouths and grasping fingers coming at me out of the fog. Their mottled gray skin seemed to ooze moisture, whether from the fog or the decomposition process I couldn’t tell. Either way they looked nasty and slimy.

Another explosion went off somewhere to the front and right of me. Someone yelled, definitely male, either in pain or surprise. Not sure which, but my heart immediately froze in my chest. What if one of the guys had blundered into the path of a claymore and was now stuck with darts? They’d set the claymores up against the tree line to prevent this, but who was to say Gabriel didn’t lose his way in the heavy fog amidst all the zombies? Shit.

I pulled my katana out of its sheathe and took off in the direction of the yell, plowing through zombies and knocking them aside like a linebacker taking out the opposing team’s defensive line. I didn’t stop to kill if I could evade or knock them down, but a few really asked for it, like one scrawny male zombie with an underbite and no chin who looked it hadn’t had much of a relationship with hygiene even when while alive. Cletus, the slack-jawed zombie. It lurched into my path and clutched at my head, pulling me towards his open slack-jawed mouth, yellowed teeth champing in anticipation of food.

Thank you, nose plugs.

I shoved my left hand against its chin, raised my katana, and sliced through his skull with one hard cut. A great kill shot, but the blade stuck in bone when I tried to pull it out. Cletus Zombie’s knees buckled as it sank to the ground. I grabbed the hilt of the katana with both hands and yanked hard. It came out with a lovely sucking sound.

Ah, the joys of zombie slaying.

More zombies converged on me. I cleared some space with some wide, arcing horizontal slices. Didn’t kill them, but hard to attack when your torso is sliding off your hips and hanging by a few sinews.

“Gabriel!” I yelled.

“Over here!”

Recognizing Gabriel’s voice, I ran towards it, hoping my sense of direction wasn’t totally fubared by the fog.

Thwack!
Off went the head of what used to be a pretty young coed.

“Ashley!” Gabriel’s voice again, right in front of me.

Another ten feet or so and I saw him, spraying a bunch of zombies with more darts. He looked like he had all his limbs and I didn’t see any darts sticking out. “You okay?” I asked when I reached him.

“I’m fine.” He grabbed me by one shoulder. “But why are you here? We’re supposed to keep safe distance so we don’t blow each other up.”

“I heard you yell when one of the claymores went off. Couldn’t risk using my transmitter if one of the team suddenly had a bunch of déjà vu darts sticking out of his or her ass.”

Gabriel snorted. “One of the mines went off in front of me, but I was on the non-business side of things.”

“Heh. Made ya flinch, though.”

“Heads up!”

Zombies closed in on all sides.

“Fire in the hole!” yelled Gabriel. We ducked down on the ground, pressed our transmitters and set off a veritable Jiffy Pop series of explosions all around us. A gloppy rain of exploded zombie bits spattered us. If I had one wish it would be for a hot shower before I died.

We got to our feet, goo dripping off our helmets. We’d cleared a substantial area, but already more zombies were filling in the gaps.

More darts, more explosions. My sword sliced through countless necks and stomachs, smoke and fog intertwined as Gabriel and I slowly fought our way out of the thick of the swarm to protect the right flank of our defense, all the while slipping and stumbling through the piles of body parts, intestines, and other viscera. Nathan and Lil had obviously covered this territory.

The swarm thinned out substantially as we cut across the parking lot and angled back up towards the barricades, but there were still enough zombies headed towards the right flank to potentially put us up Shit Creek if they broke through to the firing lines. Tony, Kai and Gentry probably faced the same situation at the left flank. Hopefully Mister Flamethrower would hold the zoms off.

“Fire in the hole!”

Nathan’s voice rang out clearly through the chaos. Gabriel and I dropped again as more déjà vu darts went off. No fallout splatter this time, not that it would make a difference to the overall grossness level of my clothes.

We joined Nathan and Lil at the far side of the parking lot. They were both equally disgusting. “Isn’t this gross?” Lil practically bounced up and down with excitement, eyes shining with unholy glee.

I raised an eyebrow. “You’re enjoying this?”

Lil shrugged. “I might as well ‘cause if I die in the next ten minutes I’d rather be having fun, y’know?”

I couldn’t argue with her logic so I didn’t try. “What are you going to do for excitement when this is all over?”

“String beads,” Lil said firmly. “Whoops!” Staring over my shoulder, she raised her M4 and fired off a few rounds at some zombies that had gotten too close. One bullet found its mark; the others hit chest level or missed. “I suck at this,” Lil frowned.

“You just need more practice,” said Nathan, sighting and firing. Four zombies bit the dust. A claymore went off in the near distance,

“I’ve got this!” Lil dashed off into the fog, and we heard the darts explode a few seconds later. Lil reappeared as quickly as she’d vanished, looking worried. “That took out a few, but there are more coming. They just keep coming…”

“How many darts does everyone have left?” asked Nathan.

I checked my knapsack. “Maybe ten?”

“I’m out.” Lil pulled out her pickaxe.

Gabriel pulled out a handful. “This is it.”

Nathan shook his head, frowning. “Use ‘em wisely. And let’s hope Gentry is doing damage with his flamethrower.” As if on cue we heard a war whoop from somewhere to our left followed by the roar. Even through the fog a big diffuse bloom of hazy light was visible as Gentry commenced zombie barbecue on the left flank.

Invigorated, the four of us grinned at each other and went back to work. We spread out in a fan, Gabriel and Nathan using their firearms to deadly effect while Lil and I cut and smashed down approaching zoms with blade and pickaxe. Body parts flew, the asphalt of the parking lot becoming a treacherous surface of flesh, innards, and that nasty-ass black goo that passes for blood in the walking dead. I didn’t envy whoever’s job it would be to mop things up when and if we won. I sincerely hoped it didn’t fall into the category of Things Only Wild Cards Can Do.

Lil fell back beside me, panting heavily from exertion.

“They’re not stopping, Ashley.”

“Sooner or later they have to,” I said firmly.

“I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” she said, voice uncertain.

“Switch to your gun.”

“I suck with my gun.” She sounded near tears.

“Take your time and aim. I’ll cover you so you can give your arm a break, okay?” I didn’t tell her my cutting arm felt like lead, each stroke of the sword harder than the last. To stop was to die or worse, to let Lil die. I’d take a bucketload of ibuprofen later.

Lil switched out to her M4 without further argument. I continued slaughtering the incoming zombies, no longer seeing gender or age. They were all just rotting flesh that shouldn’t be walking around.

I don’t know how long this went on. I sliced, diced, and decapitated on autopilot, a human Cuisinart running on emergency battery power. Nathan and Gabriel made every shot count. Zombie corpses piled up in front of us. But more kept coming.

Finally Nathan fell back next to me. “I’m out of ammo,” he said.

Gabriel joined us. “I’m close.”

Zombies continued to stagger towards us, undeterred by the bodies in front of them. They’d fall, stagger to their feet or get shoved into the body part stew by more zombies behind them.

“Fall back! Fall back!

The shout from the lines chilled my heart. This meant the zombies had broken through the safety zone and were advancing on the lines.

“Back to the front!” snapped Gabriel.

The four of us ran back along the barricade until we reached the sides of the lines; Gentry, Tony, and Kai ran in from the left, all as disgustingly goo-splattered as Team A.

Colonel Paxton and Simone were already urging people back over the barricades to the temporary safety of Big Red and DBP Hall. Paxton stood on top of Mount Gillette while Simone ushered people up the ramp. Some of the soldiers, maybe fifty, still fired in two lines, but you could see the tension and exhaustion in their faces. Jamie and a few other civilians continued to hand out clips. There was still a good supply, but the main problem was there were just too many zombies and not enough people. It really was like trying to dig a hole in the sand as water and more sand continually poured in.

Nathan ran up to Simone and grabbed her arm. “Get back inside the barricades. Now.”

She pulled her arm away with a total ‘you’re not the boss of me’ glare. “As soon as everyone else is safely on the other side, I’ll go.”

Nathan shrugged. “If that’s how you want it.”

“It is!”

Without another word Nathan scooped her up in his arms, strode up the ramp to Mount Gillette and vanished down the other side, ignoring Simone’s outraged protests the entire time. He reappeared a few seconds later, stopping by Colonel Paxton to say, “Make sure she stays on that side,” before leaping back down to rejoin us. Paxton gave him a little salute. I swear he looked grateful.

“This is it, kids,” he said. He pointed out over the fields and parking lot where zombies continued to pour in. “Most of the lines are going up on the barricade where they’ll continue to take out the advancing enemy. We have enough darts left to make a dent in the rest of the swarm, but not necessarily enough to stop them. We’re all tired, which means mistakes are easier to make. The odds are shitty.”

We looked at each other, then back at Nathan.

“We will not go quietly into the night,” said Tony. “We will not vanish without a fight!”

“We’re going to live on,” Kai chimed in.

“We’re going to survive,” added Gentry.

The three of them linked arms and yelled, “Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!”

I shrugged. “What they said.”

Nathan grinned. “Good. Although this is gonna be a little more complicated than using a Mac to infect an alien spaceship. Drink some water, load up on darts and ammo, and let’s go.”

The soldiers continued to fire, fall back, reload, and fire again while we quickly grabbed as much ammo, clips, and darts as we could stuff into our pouches, pockets, and rucksacks. The moans of the living dead were continual, almost white noise by this point, like a track on one of those Sounds of Nature records.

“Everyone fall back to the barricade!” Paxton’s rich voice rang out over the moans and the remaining soldiers seized the rest of the gear and hustled up the ramp with it.

Paxton stared down at us, face solemn. “We’ll hold the ramp as long as possible.”

“Could you leave a nightlight on?” Tony, of course.

Nathan smacked him on the back of the head. “Burn the ramp if you need to. We can always get in the back if we make it that far.”

Suddenly Simone appeared next to Paxton. “Nathan, I swear I will haunt you if you don’t bring every one of them back alive!”

Nathan grinned. “What makes you think I won’t haunt you even if I do?”

Never one to waste a good exit line, Nathan waved his arm at us. “Let’s do this!”

Déjà vu, just like the darts, we dashed back into the fields, spreading out in an arc of controlled mayhem. We sent out more darts into the oncoming zoms, exploded them, cut down stragglers before they could close in on us, then repeated the process over and over again, with Gentry using the flamethrower with deadly effect. Heads melted, clothes caught on fire, and flaming zombies stumbled like really clumsy stuntmen into other approaching corpses and passed the torch. We couldn’t keep them from reaching the barricade; there were just too many of them. At this stage of the game, all we could do is take out as many as possible, stem the tide enough so the incoming wave wouldn’t eventually sweep over the barricade and into Big Red.

I was out of darts and switched to my M4, not sure if I could use my katana and tanto with any force. I’d lost sight of the other Wild Cards, but could hear the occasional roar of the flamethrower. The body count was over the top, and still they kept coming. Rotted faces, gaping wounds, staring white pupils and yellowed, bloodshot whites—how could there still be more when I was so tired?