Cassie (Adrian's Undead Diary Book 8) (34 page)

The two of them reached a small side street that’d allow them to cut towards Cassie’s place of work. Adrian dropped to a knee and put his red dot over the forehead of a teenage zombie that was missing an arm. From waist to shoe one side of his dead body was covered in dried, crusty blood. He stroked the trigger of his weapon smoothly, and ended the teen’s days of shambling aimlessly. Adrian wondered if the kid shambled aimlessly when he was alive too. “Kevin, radio check.”

“Loud and clear. Raise hell. See you when this is over.”

“Roger that brother. Sua sponte,” Adrian said back quickly so he could snap a round off at a zombie that had gotten uncomfortably close.

“Make it happen.”

*****

Cassie walked out of the elevator and into the hallway of the abandoned office building, flanked by her two Lieutenants. Both Melanie and Cassie clung onto a portion of Alan’s shattered arm as if they were weapons to be used against the living. Cassie looked around the empty hallway, her dim intelligence and the guiding will of evil steering her towards the stairwell where she could head lower in the building towards where her love approached.
 

Her hunger for him was on many levels, good and bad, and it was powerful.

*****

 
The herd packed into the parking garage was second to none. Kevin had visions of the day Mildenhall fell to the undead as they rounded the corner, but this seemed worse. There were variables here that weren't present in England. A wall of flesh was packed into the concrete structure from front to back, and side to side on each level visible from the ground. Thankfully the undead were preoccupied with something inside the garage, and the trio of warriors had not yet been discovered on their approach.

“Oh holy fuck,” Hal said softly. He wiped more sweat off his black brow with the back of his wrist as he caught his breath.
 

“Oh shit,” Abby said softly as well. She turned to check their rear as the three gathered ideas for what to do next.

Kevin slid his weapon around to his back as he dropped to a knee. He sat the AT4 down on the ground and slipped a small pair of binoculars from a cargo pocket on his pants leg. He scanned the structure for a solid minute, looking for a solution to a problem that seemed insurmountable.

“We still trying to blow that place?” Hal asked, taking a knee and sighting the garage through his rifle mounted ACOG scope.

“Fuck yeah. Didn’t come to the prom to not dance. The good news is the bottom where all the explosives and wiring are is pretty empty at the moment. If the bombs aren’t blowing, my bet is one of these dead bitches tripped on a wire or something and somehow unhooked the wiring Quan did. If we go in silent, using suppressors and move really fast looking for loose wires, we might be able to do this. Thoughts?” Kevin turned to ask the other two what they thought.

“I’m game,” Hal said quickly.

Abby nodded without hesitation. “My AR doesn’t have a suppressor. I’d need to borrow one of your pistols, or one of your M4s. Other than that, I’m down. Adrian needs this diversion, and at this rate, we need it to get the fuck out ourselves.” Abby looked both men in the eye, showing her resolve and strength. Kevin smiled, amazed at how strong this young woman was.

“Alrighty then. Take Hal’s M4. Hal you take mine and the 40mm grenades for the M203. I’ll go with my M9. I'll do the wiring shit when we get inside. Abby I can carry your AR, hand it to me.”

“You’re already carrying your rocket launcher Kev. I’ll carry it fine,” Abby replied as she took Hal’s fully automatic weapon from him.

Kevin handed his carbine to Harold and drew his pistol to affix the suppressor. “Okay. Slide in and out, stay quiet. In and out as fast as we can.”

The two men quickly got to their feet and began sprinting towards the base of the parking garage, Abby just a few feet behind them. The parking garage’s lower level was half below ground. There was a four foot opening running almost the entire perimeter of the bottom floor that looked into the space that Kevin moved to. The entrance for vehicles was on the opposite side of the massive garage, and slipping in through the gap was much faster. He cleared the space directly below where he’d drop with his pistol, and slung his body through the space. He hit the concrete floor softly, and came up, looking for targets and covering Hal and Abby as they followed his lead. Nothing saw them enter the garage, and the closest zombie was a dozen yards away.

“Spread out and clear the threats. Let me shoot first. Check for breaks in the wires,” Kevin said softly. His pistol was quieter than the higher velocity M4s.

Abby and Hal responded by moving in different directions, looking for the wires that linked all the charges planted inside the pillars and supports.

Kevin lifted his pistol and put the small dot of the front sights on the head of the closest zombie. He exhaled slowly and pulled the trigger, feeling the gentle bucking of the gun’s recoil. His mind registered a fine grey and pink mist blossoming from the back of the skull of his target as it crumpled to the concrete. He heard the metallic ‘ting’ of the shell casing hit the hood of a sedan beside him. He smiled and moved forward, feeling the predator inside him urge him on.

From far behind him Abigail Williams heard the ‘thwip’ of the pistol going off as well as the metallic clinking of the spent shell hitting the ground. She was shocked at how the metallic noise of the casing hitting the ground was actually louder than the gun going off.
Military silencers are quite advanced
, she thought to herself.

Abby’s eyes darted from ground to chest height as the wire dipped up and down. She traced it from pillar to pillar as she moved further and further away from the two men she was with. Abby stopped every few steps to turn and scan the garage nearby. The last thing she wanted to do was walk into a wandering zombie and die from stupidity. Adrian would find her, dead or alive, and smack the shit out of her if that happened.

Abby came to the main pillar at the far corner of the garage where Quan had left some box connecting several of the wires together. She saw clearly several wires had been yanked or kicked free, and were curled out into the floor of the garage, right out in the open. Abby took stock of the situation and saw nothing even remotely close to the wires.

Abby reached up and triggered the transmit button on the expensive throat microphone they were all using. She heard her own voice in the tiny ear bud in her right ear, “Kevin I found several wires loose over in the… south east corner of the garage. Near that boxy thingy Quan left. I’m gonna grab the wires and drag them to the box if you want to come over and have a look at it.”

“Sounds good Abby. Hal can you collapse on that position and provide cover for us?”
 

“Aye. Headed your way now,” Hal said quickly.

“You guys found the problem with the explosives?” Adrian asked over the comms network. All three people in the garage could tell he was huffing and puffing hard. If Adrian was winded, Michelle must be dying from exhaustion.

“It appears so. If you hear the world crack in half in a few minutes, consider that confirmation. You two okay?” Kevin said as he moved slowly towards Abby, his pistol up and ready in the event anything moved. He saw a zombie standing in the street thirty feet away and slowed slightly to pop a round into its head. The pistol recoiled gratifyingly, sending a round into the throat of the dead man. The hit staggered him, but missed the spinal column. He stopped entirely and put a second more accurate round into the corpse’s temple. Kevin was moving before the dead body hit the street.

“Yeah. We’re running a bitch of a Mogadishu mile though. Getting thick as black flies in spring out here. Any kind of loud ass noise would be highly fucking appreciated riki-tik.”

Kevin smiled as he reached Abby and crouched, taking the wires she’s collected and looking to make heads or tails of them. “We’ll do what we can brother. Use your suppressor, we’ll start to make noise to help in less than a minute I think.”

“Roger that.”

“Great job little woman. You can fight in my squad any day,” Kevin said as he took the wires from the teenager. Abby nodded. Statements like that didn’t even give her pride like it used to anymore, such was her confidence. Now she simply appreciated being appreciated. “Simple fix too. If you want, go help Hal, and pull the suppressors off after the first few shots. Any noise we can make now will help Adrian and Michelle.”

“You got it Kev,” Abby said. She left Hal’s M4 with Kevin and took off at a jog to join her man, unslinging her AR as she went.

Kevin took quick stock of the situation and saw the solution. Three wires had come loose, breaking the circuit on the explosives, rendering the detonator useless. Rewired back in, the explosives would be back in business. He started repairing the problem immediately.

Hal’s suppressor was off by the time Abby reached him. He’d already put two and two together regarding the noise making. He was a smart man.

“Hey Hal, why don’t you take off the supp— oh, never mind,” Abby said as she reached his position behind the trunk of a Cadillac. “Looks like maybe four or five up there?”

“Yeah. Not too many. I think taking those down will draw some attention away from Ring and Michelle. Shall we? I’ll go left to right?” Hal offered to his girlfriend. Abby nodded and gave him a playful pat on the ass. Both leaned over the trunk and opened fire slowly, picking their distant targets carefully.
 

Their gunfire was very loud, and was heard by more than an army’s worth of the damned.

*****

“This three shall fall.”

“We will see. I have some faith in this one.”

“But not the others? He is but one, and even if he makes the correct choice today, there are still many who can fail.”

“Perhaps, but I will be very pleased by the success of this one. He has come far. Further than the others.”

“I will not allow him to succeed easily.”

“As you should. That is your task. Unleash yourself upon mankind and force them to redeem themselves. You exist to test them. To not do as much would make your existence moot.”

“Indeed.”

“Unleash your legion upon him and the others. If he succeeds, so be it. I shall be proud of what he has done, and if he should fail, I shall be proud of the effort he put in. Even in failure he has shown cause for some leniency. We’ve six more souls to attend to.”

“As you wish.”

And in the real world, hell quite literally broke loose.

*****

Abby lowered her weapon as the last zombie in sight went down in a heap at the bottom of the ramp. She could hear the soft, distant scrapes of uncoordinated feet coming down the ramp in great numbers, but Abby and Hal had plenty of distance on their potential attackers, and the zombies would be moving so slow. It helped that they'd just made a knee-deep pile of corpses for them to navigate over as well.

“Nice shooting gorgeous,” Hal said.

"Are you hitting on me?" Abby asked, feigning anger.

"Absolutely. I'm aiming to get a little naughty here if we survive," Hal said as he pulled a dry magazine and slapped in a fresh one. He gathered up all their spare mags off the concrete floor. Couldn't afford to leave them behind.
 

“Well in that case, thanks. Right back at ya.” Abby reached up and thumbed her transmit button once more to pass along the message that they were all clear for the moment. Just as she was about to start talking a breeze picked up through the garage that chilled her to the bone. It felt as if winter was doubling its efforts. Immediately her skin tightened and she shivered intensely. The cold was unnatural, and it churned her stomach as if it had pierced her like a dagger. Hal turned to her, his face giving away that he felt the very same evil chill. As the wind whipped Abby’s ponytail into her face, she let go of the transmit button, seeing a wall of undead pour around the ramp ahead of them. Hundreds and hundreds of undead came around the bend, each stark raving mad with more emotion and rage than any of them had ever seen in the walking dead. It was as if every negative emotion had been poured into them and heightened tenfold. Abby’s stomach fell further than possible to her feet as an enraged battalion of the dead marched on them.

“Kevin, we have a serious fucking problem here,” Hal said into his microphone. “I think they’ve found us. Something's changed.”

A hundred feet from where Hal stood, Kevin double checked the wiring he’d just repaired and got to his feet, looking over to where his two teammates were standing. Kevin saw the massive influx of walking dead coming their way at a much faster than normal clip. He felt the cold, and as the hair on the back of his neck stood, he too knew something was changed. He reached up and thumbed his microphone, “We’re wired up. All good. Head to the exit and I’ll meet you there.” Kevin noticed that the communications were scratchy, almost as if they were being interfered with somehow, but that was impossible. No one should have that kind of technology now.

Hal, Abby, and Kevin all started sprinting towards the garage’s vehicle exit. As they ran Kevin wished he had brought a SAW from home. Thirty seconds and a full belt of 5.56 would literally chop the entire horde down at the knees. Sadly, no light machine gun meant running was their only smart option. As the three met each other at a run on the exit ramp to the ground level, they didn’t let up one bit. The undead behind them were less than a hundred feet on their heel and the surface streets ahead were spotted with more. From broil to bake it seemed.

“We need a hundred meters! A hundred meters and some cover and we blow it! Run as fast you can!” Kevin screamed as the three escapees tore up pavement. Abby slowly lost ground behind the two warriors, though she didn’t fall far behind. All three fighters kept their weapons up as best they could, snapping off rounds at the zombies that approached them. They could outrun everything behind them but the threats ahead must be dealt with. Kevin selected full auto and simply let loose a short burst into the upper chest of his targets. Following suit Hal did the same. Angry coughs of high speed 5.56 knocked the undead backwards or killed them outright when a lucky round walked up and hit their faces.