Apex Predator (6 page)

“Sore, but I think I’ll make it.”

“Alright, we’re Cav.  Observe the enemy.  Report on his activities.  I want to know what every one of those things that walks by looks like, what it does, and what it’s wearing.  Jackson, you take first watch.  Anderson, let’s get down stairs and see what we can use in this place.”

The two guardsmen walked down stairs.  They each took a room.  SSgt Brown didn’t find anything useful in the room he was searching, just a phone.  Fuck it, what the hell.  He picked up the phone and dialed the number he knew by heart.

“1
st
Squadron 108
th
Cav, Sergeant Harris,” the voice on the phone answered.

“John!  It’s Dave.  Dave Brown.”

“Dave, holy shit,” Sgt Harris covered the phone, “Colonel!  I got C Troop on the phone!”  He came back on, “Dave you ok?”

“No John, we’re pretty fuckin’ far from ok.  I only got two troopers with me and one is wounded.  I got a teacher and a couple of kids.  One of them is sick.  I don’t know where anyone else is.  And, to beat all, it seems like everyone around here is some kind of fucking monster who wants to kill us all.”

“Sergeant Brown, this is Colonel Pinson.  I heard your report.  Where are you and how bad are you’re wounded?”

“Sir, we’re held up in a body shop about 200 meters from the east gate of Barksdale.  Sir, I got a child who has a high fever and a trooper that got a bite wound on his ankle from one of those things.”

“Ok.  We have some casualties here too.  Are you in contact with anyone from Charlie or Alpha Troops?”

“No sir, we got separated.  Alpha got run over by these things.  Lt Foote ordered our platoon to try to pull them out.  It was a fuckin’ slaughter, sir.”  He paused.  “Is anyone else alive out there?”

“No son, no they’re not.  Major Finch reported the TOC was being over-run by rioters.  That was two hours ago.  The squad that was on the Red River Bridge, made it onto Barksdale.  As far as I know I have a total of twelve survivors out of half of my battalion.”

“Any chance anyone is coming for us sir?”

“Not right now Sergeant.  We tried to get out this morning.  I lost an entire platoon in about a minute, and they didn’t get 100 meters out of the gate.”  The Colonel paused, took a deep breath.   “What’s your supply status Sergeant?”

“We’re ok sir.  Ammo is good, water ok, food sucks.  We got into the candy machine here but it won’t last.”

“Ok son.  Sit tight.”  SSgt Brown could hear shooting and shouting in the background.  “Ok, Sergeant, coms check in twelve hours.”

“Yes sir.  Rock 3-3 out.”

Anderson walked into the room

“What ‘cha got Anderson?”

“I got Shit.  I got two doughnuts, a cold cup of coffee, bunch of pens, paper, and office supplies.”

“Ok, get that little sick girl onto the couch.  Look around for some medicine or something.  Anderson came back in a few minutes later.  “No meds, Sarge.  But she’s comfortable.  Were you talking to the Colonel?”

“Yup.”

“What did he have to say?”

SSgt Brown repeated what the Colonel said.

“Doc, Ramirez, Peeves?  They’re all dead?” asked Anderson.  “How did this happen?  How did we walk into this?  Fuck Sarge!  These things just wander around.  They don’t seem to think much.  Shit they couldn’t even open a gate back there.  Did they really ambush half a battalion of cavalry troopers?  How were we so stupid Sarge?”  Anderson began to weep.  SSgt Brown placed a hand on the troopers back.

“I don’t know Anderson.  I just don’t …I don’t know.”  SSgt Brown walked out of the office.

Day 5

Oak Hills Drive, Bossier City LA

Jen woke Mike early in the morning.  They climbed down the ladder and into the kitchen.  The sound of moaning seemed louder than before.

“Anything new?” asked Mike as he cracked a soda.

“Davy seems to have drawn a crowd our way.”

“Damn.  I can’t believe I let that kid fall.”

“You couldn’t do anything Mike.  We needed to signal the outside world.  Poor Theresa, she’s watched her whole family die.”

“She sleep much?”

“She finally stopped crying about 2 hours ago.”

“Damn.  Well, get some sleep.  I’ll have breakfast done for you when you get up.”

EEEEEEEEEKKKK.

“What was that?

EEEEEEEEEEKKK.

Mike crept to the window.  As he peered between the slats, his eyes were met by the eyes of a female ghoul.  Her eyes were a pale blue.  Her skin was grey.  Her face was covered in blood from the nose to her chin.  She bared her teeth at the sight of him.  Her long thin fingers scratched the glass again.

EEEEEEEKKKKKKK!  EEEEEEEKKKKKKK!

She clawed at the window, getting more and more frantic.  She moaned.  She began banging on the window.  Several other monsters were at the window now.  They were frantic to get in.  They hammered at the glass.

CRASH!!!

The glass broke.  Fingers began clawing at wooden slats.  They watched in horror as the first wooden slat cracked, and then gave way.  Pale cold arms reached in.  Grasping.  Flailing.  The second slat gave way.

“Shit!” exclaimed Mike.  “Upstairs!  Go!”

They both darted for the ladder.  Jen first, followed by Mike.  As he reached the top, Mike stopped.  “The rifle!” he exclaimed.  He slid down the ladder and sprinted for the kitchen.  He saw the carbine leaned against the refrigerator.

CRACK.  Another slat gave way.  He grabbed the rifle and spun in one motion.  One of the things was crawling through the window.  Mike sprinted as fast as he could past the window to the ladder.  The creature lunged at him.  Mike dodged right, tripping over the coffee table.  He landed hard on his left knee.  The rifle skittered across the floor.

The zombie closed the distance.  His eyes fixed on his prey.  He was tall.  He wore a dark blue robe that was stained in blood.  He had on one house shoe.  His other foot was bare.  Mike was still on the floor.  He reached for his pistol.  It was under his ass.  He rolled onto his left side.  He felt a lightning bolt shoot through his left knee as he did.  AGH!

The tall zombie had closed the distance.  He was reaching down towards Mike.  It’s mouth open, baring blood stained teeth.  Mike brought the pistol up.  He thrust it forward into the ghoul’s mouth.  BAM!  The zombie fell on top of Mike, the pistol still in its gaping mouth.

Mike rolled again, freeing him from the body that had him pinned to the floor.  He grabbed the rifle as he limped towards the ladder.

“Hurry, Mike!” Jen yelled.

Mike glanced at the window.  Several of the monsters had made it into the living room.  He lunged for the ladder, making it in two strides.

“C’mon, Mike!  Hurry!”

Mike started climbing the ladder.  He was almost at the top when he felt a cold hand grasp his right ankle.  Turning, he saw the same zombie that had been scratching the window.  Her eyes were now focused on Mike’s foot, her mouth opening.  Mike could feel her grip tightening around his ankle.  He tried desperately to free himself.  Her grip was too strong.

He drove the black plastic stock of the carbine down on her head.  She continued to jerk his leg.  He hit her again, and again.  Finally he heard a dull crunch and felt her skull give way.  He felt the fingers on his legs relaxed.  The monster crumpled to the ground.

He scrambled up the last two steps.  Jen kicked the ladder over; the lightweight aluminum knocking several more zombies to the ground.

“Are you ok?” asked Jen as she began a quick head to toe assessment of him.

“I’m ok, tweaked my knee a bit,” he reported.  “Take that you fucking bitch!” he yelled into the living room.”

“Let me look at that knee.”  She pulled his pant leg up.  “Does this hurt?” she asked, prodding his knee.

“A little bit.”  She began tugging and twisting his knee in different directions.  “Ok, you’ll live.”

There were now several zombies in the living room.  Three of them were at the base of the stairs, reaching towards the survivors.  Theresa emerged from her room.  “What happened?” she asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Nothing dear,” said Jen.

“I heard a gunshot.  Did something happen?”

“Go back to bed dear.  It’s nothing.”

“AAAAHHHH!  They got in?  Oh God!  What do we do now?”

“Calm down, ok.”  Mike was rubbing his sore knee.  “We’re gonna be fine.”

“No!  We’re not!  Those things were outside; they killed my parents and ate my brother.  Now, they’re in here and they’re going to kill us.”

“Baby, they’re not going to do any such thing.”  Jen turned on her soothing nurse voice.  “They’re down there and we’re up here.  They can’t get up here.”

“No, you don’t understand.  We can’t stay up here forever.”

“What do you mean?” asked Mike.

“What are we going to eat?  All the food is in the kitchen.”

Mike looked towards the kitchen.  He counted six zombies at the bottom of the stairs and at least two more trying to come through the window.  No way were they getting to the kitchen.  He thought about his run in with one zombie and rubbed his knee again.

The Body Shop

“Sergeant Brown, can I speak with you?” asked Mrs. Sparks, closing the door of the manager’s office behind her.

“Sure Ma’am.  Come on in.”

“We have a problem,” she paused.  “Cindy just passed.”

“Do the other kids know?”

“No.  They’re all still sleeping.”

“We need to move her away from the others.  We need to secure her body.”

“I know.  I just don’t know what to do.”

“We can’t exactly bury her.  I’ll take care of it,” he said quietly.  He got up, walking out of the room, closing the door behind him.  He went upstairs.

“How’s it going Jackson?”

“Not bad Sarge.  Those things are still out there.  Looks like about twenty of them.  None of them seem to care that we’re here.”

“The kid died.”

“Shit.”

“We need to secure the body.  You see anything like a blanket or tarp up here?”

“Sure, they got a blue tarp in that corner back there.”

“Ok, get it out for me.  I’ll be right back.”  He headed back down the staircase.  He returned a few moments later, cradling the small lifeless body in his arms.  He placed it gently onto the blue plastic.  He folded the edges over, and tucked it under her feet.  The two troopers placed her body gently down in the corner near the fire escape.

Jackson bowed his head.  Sergeant Brown saw his lips move in some prayer.  He felt compelled to lower his head as well.  He couldn’t think of words to say for this little girl.  The only thing he knew was that she died way before her time.  He thought about her brother.  He thought about her knowing he died.  He thought about the strange fever that killed her.

Oak Hills Drive, Bossier City LA

Mike emerged from the room holding two backpacks. 

“This is all we have,” he said; emptying the contents onto the floor at the top of the stairs.  “All the guns and ammo, that’s good.  We have most of the tools, bat and shovel.  Again, that’s good.  We still have running water, but nothing to store it in besides the bathtub and sink. That’s not ideal, but it’ll work.”

“What about food Mike?”

“There’s the problem.  We have:  We have a case of canned corn, 4 cans of fruits, 3 cans of tuna, a jar of peanut butter, and some granola bars.  That’s maybe a day’s worth of food.”

“We can’t stay here.  Mike, we have to leave.”

“I know, but where do we go and how do we get there?  We can’t just walk out the front door.”

Theresa got up and walked into Mike and Jen’s bedroom.

“Do you think we can walk out there?  Those things will be all over us.  You saw what they did to Davy.”

“Well, if we can get to the garage, we can use the Tahoe.”

“Mr. Mike,” called Theresa from the bedroom.  “Does your garage open to the backyard?”

“No door, only a window.”

“Is it big enough for us to fit through?”

“Sure.”   Mike’s mind began working again.

“Alright, you girls stay here,” he ordered as he crawled out on the roof holding the baseball bat.

The two women watched as he leapt off the roof.  They heard the window to the garage break.  Theresa ran to the stairs.  Several of the ghouls had taken notice of the breaking glass.  She saw them start to scratch on the door.

“Mike, keep it down in there.  They heard the glass break,” she yelled.  The zombies at the garage turned; shuffled across the kitchen back to the bottom of the stairs.

In a few minutes, Mike threw the rope through the bedroom window.  Jen hauled it in.  At the end, Mike had tied the ice chests from the garage.  Theresa ran and grabbed them, took them to the bathroom.  Jen heard the water turn on.

“Throw down the backpacks,” he whispered.