Crusade (Eden Book 2)

Eden: Crusade

Tony Monchinski

Published by Permuted Press at Smashwords.

Copyright 2010 Tony Monchinski

www.PermutedPress.com

“When you side with a man, you stay with him. And if you can’t do that, you’re like some animal, you’re finished.”

—William Holden,
The
Wild
Bunch

“Some of us…are more broken than others.”

—Michael Caine,
Around the Bend

The dawn came but it did so unbeknown to an earth below—a morose land canopied by thick, unforgiving storm clouds layered one upon the other, unremitting, impenetrable. The morning mist rose from the ground to the sky above in a seamless veil of wispy bleakness, cloaking the road to town in a fold of hazy desolation.

And from the brume emerged some monstrosity: a man in shape and form yet somehow misplaced, as if having stepped out of the past. An atavism brought forth by some ancient incantation. His person was clad in a chain mail bymie, head and bulky shoulders cloaked with a coif and aventail. His face was unseen behind a splatter mask, the slits between the grill revealing only shadow. Leather gauntlets protected his hands and forearms and he was festooned with weapons. Leather pants supported triple pistol mag thigh rigs; extended clips in the handguns; a chainsaw slung over his back next to a flanged mace; a brace of knives crossing his chest. Waterproof Blackhawk Warrior Wear Black Ops Boots with full grain leather uppers protected the man’s feet.

Pressed to his immense chest was a cherubic form, swaddled in blankets, secured to his person in a Baby Bjorn.

Before him he pushed a two wheeled wooden cart, a wagon laden with leather saddle bags and crates of ammunition atop which lay automatic rifles and machine guns and spears. Within reach was a morning star mace. One of the wheels on the cart protested shrilly as he pushed it onto the bridge that lead into town. Somewhere below a stream gurgled. The fog rising from its waters shrouded the chasm and the overpass spanning it.

As he approached forms took shape from out of the gloom. The rusting hulks of begrimed vehicles long abandoned. He passed several of them with his wagon and stopped when he reached an old Hummer, its tires flat, one of its doors ajar. In the distance there was a howl but the man was unconcerned.

He left the wagon in the road and walked around the vehicle, morning star raised in one hand defensively lest something should leap from the mist and shadows. He inspected the Hummer, opening each door to peer inside, closing all but one. The keys were still in the ignition. He didn’t bother trying to turn the engine. It would be long dead.

“Shhh, shhh, shhh,” he cooed to the bundle as he unstrapped it from his chest. “You rest in this car. It’s safer for you here.”

The bundle did not protest as the man laid it on the leather front passenger seat. He transported some crates from the wagon to the backseat of the off-road vehicle and placed the chainsaw on the floorboards in the back. He looked in once more on the form and smiled, then closed the door and pocketed the keys to the vehicle.

As he did so there was a steady growl from behind him. Headlights cut through the gloom and alighted on his cart in the middle of the bridge. A Chevy Silverado 2500 jacked up on Baja Claw Radial SLT tires, with Bushwacker Fender Flares and a three inch bull bar, pulled to a stop a few yards from the man and his wagon.

A woman stepped down from the cab onto the running board then onto the bridge. Like the man she was heavily armed and armored. Head to toe black body armor enveloped her trunk and limbs. The chest plate, collarbone pads, shoulder and elbow cups, back plate, and kidney belt of her fully ventilated O’Neal underdog body armor protected her upper body. She wore leather motorcycle pants with Vevlar fabric panels on her forelegs and CE armor on the knees. Altama EXO Speed Waterproof Tactical Boots shielded her feet. The boots were water-and blood-borne pathogen proofed; she knew what was coming.

Pistols were holstered on her hips, at her waist, and under her arms. She cradled a Colt Commando M16A2 assault rifle in her hands, which were sheathed in full-fingered shooting gloves. She approached the man and looked warily into the mist ahead of them.

“The child sleeps,” said the man by way of greeting.

The woman nodded. Her head was covered by a leather aviator helmet cap. The clear anti-fog lens of an Uvex Bionic Face Shield covered her face. From somewhere in the distance a wail reached their ears.

The man went about his preparations, taking assault rifles from the cart and bandoliers of ammunition and propping them in different areas about the bridge. The sides of the bridge were waist high rock walls overgrown with moss and weeds and tendrils of green sprouting from the asphalt of the road itself. Several of the stones had come undone and portions of the wall lay crumpled in disarray.

The woman cast one last anxious glance into the shadow and climbed back atop her truck, into the bed. On the roof of the cab before her she lay out a Model 85 sniper rifle and stacked numerous box magazines.

The fog was not as dense as earlier. Other shapes farther along the bridge and the road beyond emerged.

The man returned to his wagon and upended a fifty gallon gasoline barrel. He rolled it down the bridge away from the truck, the cart, and the Hummer. When he went a short distance he was satisfied and stopped. He unplugged the barrel and tipped it onto its side. The thump of the drum on the road reverberated. Gasoline splurged from the barrel onto the bridge. He repeated this process with two more barrels and left a fourth upright next to the emptying ones.

There was more movement amidst the fog somewhere beyond the span. A large sign on the side of the road took shape, with only the words
Welcome to
and
Population
left decipherable.

He returned to the cart to retrieve his Colt M16A2 Commando and a handdful of flares. Passing the Hummer, he paused briefly to peer within. His precious bundle rested peacefully where he had placed it. He walked back to the fourth barrel and lay the flares down before it, well out of reach of the gasoline which continued to spill out, cascading down a barely noticeable decline towards the road. He had placed two bandoliers of 5.56mm ammunition in 30-round magazines near the barrels and he took these and laid them atop the side of one drum within easy reach. He leaned the morning star head-down, its shaft against the remaining full drum.

He turned and looked in the direction of the Hummer with the bundle inside and the woman. She knelt in the bed of the truck, the Model 85’s bipod rested on the roof of the cab. The fog had dissipated to the extent that when she gave the man a thumbs-up he perceived it clearly.

He returned the gesture and once more faced the road into town.

She stood and squeezed a shot from the sniper rifle into the air. The crack of the rifle echoed in the still of the morning. Above them the clouds glowed a faint purple and bubbled like broken surf.

The woman racked the bolt on the Model 85 back and chambered a new round. The empty shell casing flipped end over end to rest on the mist enshrouded bridge.

“Bring out your dead,” she spoke.

There were screams and chortles and moans from within the brume. The man stood and waited. Within moments the first of the undead broke from the mist on the run, misshapen and hideous, arms askance as the bookers sprinted onto the bridge. When they saw the man standing behind the drum their wails increased in intensity.

The zombie in the lead wore a suit jacket and boxer shorts. Its shirt was stained and its tie hung around its neck like a limp noose. As it ran towards the man a 7.62 mm slug from the Model 85 entered its forehead just above the nose and punched out the back of its skull. It collapsed onto the bridge with its ass jutting up in the air. Soon several more sprinting nasties passed by it.

The man waited. He was not as good a shot with a rifle as the woman for his aim was compromised. He watched a second then a third and a fourth zombie as their heads jerked back and they fell. The cracks of the 85 punctured the morning. He stood there with the M16A2 at his waist. His breathing got heavier. More zombies fell and he stopped counting.

He had done this before and felt no fear. In fact, as their numbers increased and they drew nigh, he felt a rage suffuse his being, an anger grip his person, and he started to shake. They were screaming as they ran towards him, sounding like banshees let loose from some infernal netherworld where the hungry dead reigned.

He grunted and raised the Commando, the stock pressed to his shoulder. He sighted and fired, the flash from the barrel licking out into the morning. A zombie wearing a baseball cap backwards caught the round in its upper chest. It staggered but kept coming. The man adjusted his aim and fired again. The zombie dropped in its tracks.

Dozens of them had broken from the fog and sprinted across the bridge towards him and the woman in the truck. They chose their targets and fired methodically..

He was able to fire out one thirty round magazine before they were on him. The first zombie alighted a barrel and launched itself towards him. He caught it in midair, its head in his gloved hands, and he slammed it back down to the ground, twisting its skull savagely. The pop if its spine was audible above the woman’s sniping.

He came up with the morning star in his hand. Wielding it like a club, he crashed it down on the head and shoulders of the closest zombie. The sharpened spikes buried themselves in the thing’s skull and deltoid. He yanked the weapon out of the dispatched beast and brought it down on the next creature. Its rotten head collapsed under the blow. The thing dropped to its knees.

A zombie hit him from the side and would have knocked him from his feet if he were a smaller man. He brought his elbow down on its head and it crumpled. Then they were all on him—a shrieking gaggle bearing him off his feet and to the ground.

The woman had been through this with him before. She ignored his situation and fired on the bookers crossing the bridge. They fell unceremoniously, all head shot. She worked systematically: drawing back the bolt, chambering a new round, aiming, firing, swapping out for a fresh magazine. She let the empties gather about her feet in the truck bed.

With a mighty heave the man thrust the zombies clinging to him off and stood. His heavily armored body was unviolated. Zombie teeth and claws were unable to penetrate chain linked armor and leather. The zombies shed from him spilled to the road.

He came up with a Colt Python .357 revolver in his right hand and a flare in his left. He straight-armed the revolver and fired. A devastating blow obliterated a zombie skull. He swiveled and fired on others as they regained their feet, the Python recoiling in his mighty hand as he knocked them down forever. As he killed he was aware dozens more were running at top speed across the bridge.

Two zombies tackled him but he would not go down again. They clung to him and pawed and bit at his armor and splatter mask to no avail. He used his left forearm—his left hand still gripping the flare—to pry the face of one away from his body just enough so he was able to press the muzzle of the .357 to its temple and blast the side of its head off. As it fell from him he dropped the empty revolver and cracked the flare open. With a hiss and violent sparkle it sputtered to life. He reached around and snatched the second zombie from his back, yanking it around to face him. The creature screamed and gnashed its teeth. He plunged the lit flare into its maw. As the thing howled he pitched it over the barrel to the gasoline soaked road beyond.