Dark Days (Apocalypse Z) (21 page)

That guy’s got a hard on like a horse in heat
, she thought, puzzled and amused. Just then, the redheaded guy (who looked a lot like the lead singer in the Spin Doctors) drew his hand from behind his back and aimed a black gun at her and Maite.

Lucia didn’t believe the expression
time stopped
—not until five seconds after she opened that damned door. The instant that guy pulled the trigger, Lucia felt time stand still and become something very gooey and thick, like melted caramel.

The first shot sent slivers of the wall flying by her right ear and shook her out of her daze. She automatically stepped out of his line of fire. But Maite froze in the doorway, that cup of bad coffee clutched to her chest, her eyes glued to the shooter as he raced along the wall, raising his gun again.

The second shot hit Maite right below her heart with enough force to lift the small girl into the air, spraying blood and coffee in every direction. She pirouetted like a dancer in the Russian ballet, slumped against the door, then slid to the floor where she lay motionless, a bewildered look in her eyes.

“Not that nurse, you idiot! The other one! Get the other one! The tall one!” Lucia heard the orderly say.

That voice triggered a memory and Lucia knew instantly that the nun was a goner. If she didn’t run for it, her number would be up, too. Groaning in fear, Lucia retreated down the hallway.

The hospital was in utter chaos. Alarms were going off everywhere. Groups of armed men (some in uniform, some not) ran past dozens of panicked patients and confused, overwhelmed doctors.

“Froilists! Fucking Froilists!” howled a guy in a military uniform Lucia didn’t recognize, as he led a group of soldiers into the building.

From another part of the building came a series of hiccups Lucia instantly recognized as bursts from HKs. Then came a muffled explosion and the rattle of another weapon she couldn’t identify (Pritchenko could’ve told her they were AK-47s). In the pandemonium of panicked civilians and soldiers afraid of a Froilists’ incursion, two groups of guards were shooting at each other. It was a fucking madhouse.

A gurney flew out of nowhere and hit Lucia in the hip, knocking her to the ground. A red-hot pain shot up her leg. The crowd and the shooting swirled around her as she struggled to her feet. She glanced down the hallway and spotted the redheaded guy with the gun standing next to Basilio. When he saw her pushing through the knot of people, he jabbed the gunman in the ribs and pointed at her.

Lucia wasted no time. Gripping the gurney, she stood up, knocking aside equipment that had fallen in the corridor. Knowing her way around the hospital gave her an advantage, but she had less strength to push her way through all the people running in every direction. Not daring to look back, she sensed that her pursuers were gaining ground.

Lucia spotted the intersection of two hallways. She knew if she turned right, she’d come to the exit. Even in all the chaos, there must be a guard at the door. She was just a couple hundred feet from the hallway.

As she approached the intersection, machine-gun fire nearly tore Lucia’s head off the minute she stepped into the hall. She instinctively dropped to the ground. Shots rang out behind her, coming from the same direction as the first shots. Before she knew it, she and fifty other people were caught in the crossfire between two groups shouting commands and rallying cries.

Get out of here or you’re screwed
, she told herself as she gritted her teeth and crawled toward a side door. A nurse she didn’t know was slumped on his side, his head blown wide open. The air smelled of gunpowder, blood, and shit. The groans of the wounded mingled with the hysterical screams of those hit by an explosion.

A disheveled officer in the Civil Guard came out of God-knows-where, shouting himself hoarse trying to bring order to the chaos.

“Hold your fire! We’re shooting at each other, dammit!” His words convinced a few of the confused shooters to stop firing.

Lucia felt relieved. Finally someone was taking control of the situation. She started crawling in his direction, but stopped midway when she saw that smiling redheaded creep who killed Maite come up behind the officer.

With a flourish, like a barber removing his customer’s cape after a haircut, Eric Desauss raised his gun and shot less than an inch from the neck of the unsuspecting officer. The soldier dropped to the ground, a red fountain gushing from his neck. Security guards took aim at the gunman, but before they could fire, a machine gun at the other end of the hall took out three or four of them.

Chaos erupted again. The guards completely forgot the lone gunman and concentrated on the group that had fired on them. Basilio took advantage of the situation to grab one of the HKs on the floor.

“Over there! She went out that door!” Basilio yelled.

Humming a little tune, Eric the Belgian stepped over the soldier’s bloody corpse and headed for the door, looking down the barrel of his gun, with Basilio following close behind. His fly felt like it was about to explode as intense pleasure spread through his body. As he sprinted through the crossfire, he pictured himself jacking off over that slut’s corpse and a huge smile lit up his face.

31

MADRID

For a very long second, I stood there, frozen like a store dummy, staring at the Glock in my hand. What had happened didn’t sink in. The fucking gun hadn’t fired, but I didn’t have time to ponder the situation. With a murderous roar, one of the half-charred Undead launched himself at Prit as he loaded his HK, grabbed him by the shoulder and hurled himself on top of the small Ukrainian.

Instinctively, Pritchenko raised his rifle and drove its muzzle into the Undead’s chest like a stake, which sent both of them careening backward. The Undead stopped in his tracks. The blow probably broke his ribs. Caught off balance, Prit stumbled and fell backward onto the ground, totally helpless.

That was all the Undead needed. He dropped to his knees and slumped over my friend who was struggling to get free from that deadly embrace. Everything was moving in slow motion. I peered at the monster’s rotten teeth through his lips that’d been reduced to a thin grimace by the fire. He snapped his jaws like a bear trap, just inches from the Slav’s face that was pale with terror.

“Get him off me!
Dabai, dabai!”
Prit shouted.

Getting a running start, I kicked the Undead’s ribs as hard as I could. That kick would’ve knocked the life out of a normal person, but
those creatures were made of sterner stuff. Wobbling from my kick, the Undead guy dropped Prit, who crawled away.

Then the monster focused all its attention on me. I took a couple of steps back as the Undead struggled to his feet. Prit stood silently behind him, holding his huge hunting knife, poised to hack off the thing’s neck.

Before the Slav could make a single cut, the Undead’s temple erupted in a miniature volcano. Bits of the guy’s brain splattered everywhere and his body collapsed in a heap. Prit and I looked at each other, stunned but relieved.

“What kind of fucking game are you two playing?” Pauli’s shrill, sarcastic voice was the most wonderful sound on the earth. She was down one knee, blue smoke wafting out the barrel of her HK. She’d come along just in time.

“Looks like you boys prefer hand-to-hand combat,” she said mockingly. “You know better than anyone that wrestling with monsters is a really bad idea. You could catch something really bad.” She slowly got to her feet and brushed off her knees.

“Prit’s fucking gun jammed,” I protested, pointing to his HK. “My pistol didn’t fire either.” I waved the Glock under her nose. “So don’t give me any shit, dammit!”

“For starters, that’s a rifle, not a gun,” Marcelo corrected me, rubbing his shoulder that was sore from shooting the MG3. “You guys jammed
two
weapons? That’s a first.”

I held out my Glock, with a scowl. The Porteño took out the magazine and examined it carefully. He raised his eyes with a look of disbelief.

“Did you chamber the first bullet, asshole?”

“Uhhhh…” The blood rushed to my face. Fuck. Despite the training in Tenerife, I’d never gotten over my fear of accidentally shooting myself as I drew the gun. I’d decided to take the first bullet out of the magazine, so there was no bullet in the chamber.

I knew perfectly well I had to cock the gun before I shot it, but in the confusion, I’d forgotten. The Glock hadn’t fired on account of my own negligence. I was mortified. I wished that that Undead lying at my feet
had
killed me.

“Who’d they send us? Rookies wet behind the ears!” one of the younger legionnaires shouted, spitting on the ground in disgust.

“Careful what you call me, you sniveling brat.” Prit turned on the legionnaire, a homicidal gleam in his blue eyes. “When you were still running around on the playground, I’d already slit a bunch of Mujahideen’s throats in Chechnya.” The Ukrainian’s voice was icy and controlled. He’d rip the guy’s guts out right then and there if the loud-mouthed kid gave him the slightest excuse. Prit pointed at me. “This guy’s been through more than you can imagine. He’s survived tight spots that would’ve scared you shitless. So shut the fuck up!”

The legionnaire glanced around for support, but the rest of his team was out of earshot. He swallowed, raised his hands and backed off. “Take it easy, pal! Just watch your ass, because I’m not going to lift a finger to help you. Got it?” He turned and walked back to the warehouse door with his tail between his legs.

“What happened to your HK, Prit?” Pauli asked, unfazed. “Did it jam?”

Not saying a word, the Ukrainian took the magazine out and pulled the hammer. A shiny bullet flew out and hit the ground with a clink. Prit scooped it up and handed it to Pauli.

“Oh, shit! It’s a series forty-eight!” The Catalan frowned and handed it to Marcelo.

He examined the shell and winced. “The motherfucker’s calibrated wrong!”

“What is it, Marcelo?” Clearly something was wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what.

“We’ve used up a shitload of ammunition fighting the Undead,” Pauli said, as she checked her own gun’s magazine. “Each incursion consumes hundreds of rounds. Six months ago our supply of bullets reached a critical low. We had to start making our own. The problem was there were no machines on the Canary Islands to produce the shells with the necessary precision, so we had to build the machines from scratch.”

“But that’s good, right?”

“Not really,” Pauli said with a weary shake of her head. “Not all that ammunition met quality standards. Occasionally some defective ammunition can slip in. We lost a couple of teams before we figured out
what was going on. We assumed the ammunition for this mission had been tested several times. Guess we assumed wrong.”

“A mistake?” David Broto asked, wide-eyed. All in all, the computer guy had survived his first contact with the Undead pretty well.

“Or sabotage,” one of the sergeants glumly interjected, as he checked one of his magazines. “This one’s defective too! Son of a bitch!”

“Froilists?” Broto asked.

“Could be.” Marcelo stretched like a cat and started walking toward his MG3. “All I know is, Tank’s not going to like this.”

Sabotage? My head was spinning. What was that all about? Before I had time to ask, Tank landed like a mortar round in the middle of our group, barking orders.

“What the hell’re you doing standing around? Get the lead out, dammit! We don’t have all day!” He pulled one of the legionnaires by his backpack toward the building.

Wrestling with my backpack, I followed the rest of the group toward the warehouse’s rusty fire escape a few feet away. Thinking about that defective ammunition sent chills up my spine. It could be the death sentence for a lot of our group.

32

TENERIFE

Lucia ran down a hallway in an unfamiliar wing of the cavernous hospital. Unlike the rest of the building, it was deserted and was lit up by flickering fluorescent lights. There wasn’t a single bed or wheelchair… and not a damn thing to hide behind. She rubbed her throbbing hip where the gurney ran into her. She’d have one helluva bruise, but she wasn’t concerned about that.