Dead Team Alpha: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (15 page)

“We stay, we die too,” Val says. “This man deserves some mercy, not more fear and agony.” Brian nods over and over. “I’m sorry, TL.”

Val shoves her Team Leader aside and grabs her blade from its sheath strapped to TL Lafferty’s belt. In one quick motion, she stabs Brian right between the eyes. A final breath escapes his lips and then he is still.

“BAPTISTE!” TL Lafferty screams. “You’ll hang for that!”

“If I live that long,” Val says. She looks at her sheath. “I’m going to hang onto this. I think my time is probably done on DTA, so I could give two fucks about your field kit rules. But I do give two shits about whether or not I’m eaten alive. You coming with?”

Val tucks her blade into her
belt, then slings her rifle across her back and secures the strap as she sprints to a rope ladder leading down to the next platform. She quickly descends, not looking to see if TL Lafferty is following. A loud snap and shriek of metal tells her at least one of the gates has collapsed, which means the tide of undead has come in and is about to completely wash over the platforms. She lets the rope ladder slide quickly between her gloves and drops to the next platform.

Far
below, she can see the rest of DTA sprinting down the ramps. None bothers to unbolt the gates; they just leap at the steel and clamber up and over, dropping down onto the dusty earth. She goes over the mental map in her head and decides that the ramp to the right is her direction. She can head out into the Plains, then circle back to 470 and enter Denver via South University Boulevard.

“I’m with you, Baptiste,” TL Lafferty says as she drops down behind Val. “Lead the way.”

“Yes, sir,” Val says and takes off towards a rocking rope and wood slat bridge that connects the platform they are on and the one they need to be on to get to the ramp.

They get halfway across the bridge when they hear the first snap. Then the next. The bridge
sways, and then slants dangerously to one side. Val and TL Lafferty grab onto the ropes, but as they look over their shoulders, a third and fourth snap, taking the bridge out from under their feet.

The ropes and slats drop quickly and each woman grits her teeth as she hangs on for dear life. They fly through the air for a split second,
and then the ride comes to a jarring halt as the snapped bridge slams into one of the massive concrete support struts for the former interstate overpass. They both grunt from the impact, then look up at the climb they’ll have to make to get back up on the platform.

“Down?” Val asks.

“If you want to break a leg,” TL Lafferty says, looking down at the two story drop.

“Shit,” Val says. “
Climb, it is.”

Above them, on the other side, hisses and snarls grab their attention as Zs get to the edge of the upper platform and see the s
uspended meals. Dozens start to jam together until the pressure of the ones from behind is too much and Zs begin to fall forward, tumbling off the platform to the pavement below. Their putrid bodies explode like rotten flesh balloons, sending offal and black blood spraying everywhere.

The two women try to ignore the Zs and focus on
the several feet of hand over hand climbing they have to accomplish. If it was just the climb, then they would be fine, but the Zs have other plans, intentional or not.

Val cries out as the ropes and slats suddenly take a lurch downward. “What the fuck?”

“We have company,” TL Lafferty says, seeing the problem under her.

One of the falling Zs has gotten tangled in the bottom ropes and slats of the vertical bridge. It doesn’t have the intelligence or coordination to climb up after the women, but it does see the meals above it and starts to thrash with hunger. The thrashing quickly strains the
ropes, and Val can see where normal, non-issue frays in the hemp begin to turn into very serious shit’s gonna fall frays.

“
Fuck,” Val says. “Gonna need all our hustle, TL.”

One of the frays begins to unravel, a twirling spectacle of doom only feet from Val’s face. She reaches up, grabs a slat, and pulls, repeating the motion again and again until she’s eye level with the fray. It stops its spinning and Val watches in horror as the last few strands of rope go snap, snap, snap.

The bridge drops several feet and swings off to the left. TL Lafferty and Val both hang on tight, waiting for the swinging to stop, but too many of the Zs above stream over the edge of the platform, slamming into the tangled Z, keeping the bridge from stabilizing. More frays start to spin and Val looks down at the Z covered pavement under them.

“They may break our fall,” Val says.

“Or break our necks,” TL Lafferty says.

“We aren’t going to make it, TL,” Val says. “Maybe we can swing the bridge so it’s over the thickest pile. If we land just right we won’t-”

But she never finishes her sentence, as the remaining ropes securing the bridge to the platform all come undone, sending the two women falling onto a thrashing pile of undead.

***

The night-shrouded landscape around Tiny D and Duster is a minefield of debris and potholes. They run as fast as they can, each praying they don’t snap an ankle, as they work their way through the former suburban sprawl. There used to be hundreds of cookie-cutter houses that stretched for miles, instead of hard packed dirt, but they were gutted for supplies and razed many years ago. Most of the materials were salvaged for use in the Stronghold or to build up the rudimentary barricade that lines Highway 470.

What
couldn’t be used was left in the hopes of hindering any Z herds coming off the Plains or slowing down any human elements trying to sneak into Denver at night when the sentries can’t see them. Tiny D always thought it just made the place look like a post-apocalyptic mess, but as she is subjected to the never ending near falls and stutter steps caused by the debris, she realizes it was a pretty good idea after all to leave the crap where it is.

She just wishes she didn’t have to deal with it.

Duster risks a quick look over his right shoulder and groans. The Zs have overwhelmed the platforms and are spilling out around them, pouring onto the Plains and barrens. He has no idea which way Diaz, Alastair, and Bobby are, but he sure, as shit hopes they are putting some serious space between themselves and the herd. Anyone caught up in that will be eaten down to the bone in minutes. He’s seen Teams nearly overwhelmed by herds a quarter of that size.

Tiny D whistles and points at 470 off to the right. Duster sees where she’s indicating and adjust
s his course to follow. They quickly get to a weak point in the barricade and clamber up over the burnt wood and broken concrete. When they get to the top, they look off towards the platforms and see the herd still streaming out of Denver. The endless lines of undead roll up over the barricade as if it was a singly stacked sandbag in the face of a tsunami.

The part that makes each of the Mates clench their guts is the branch of the herd that isn’t going over the barricade, but instead following the path of least resistance and shambling down 470 . Right towards them.

“Son of a fuck nut,” Duster says. “This is eleven kinds of fucked.”

“Shut it, Dust
er,” Tiny D says. “Push them out of your head. There are miles to go before we rest.”

“No poetry, TD,” Duster says. “This fucking night is bad enough.”

***

The M-4 flies from his hands as
Bobby’s foot slips into a deep hole, his leg snapping at the shin. He cries out and reaches down, praying it’s not as bad as he thinks. However, once he gets his leg free and sees the shiny white bone protruding through his uniform, he knows he’s fucked.

“Keep going,” he hisses at Diaz and
Alastair. “Run, you mother fuckers!”

“We can carry you!” Diaz says.

“Bullshit,” Bobby replies between gritted teeth. “You have to watch your own footing, dipshit. One of you’ll snap a leg like me if you have to carry my ass.”

“Fuck that,” Diaz says and grabs
Bobby under the armpits and starts to lift. Bobby screams and then clamps a hand over his own mouth.

“Fuck,”
Bobby pants. “Sorry.”

“No worries,”
Alastair says, his NVGs covering his eyes as he faces the herd. “They were coming right for us anyway.”

“Not leaving you,
Bobby boy,” Diaz says.

“Yes…you are,”
Bobby says and pops Diaz in the nose.

“Ow, you fuck!” Diaz protests as he lets
Bobby fall to the ground. “What the fuck?”

“Grab my carbine,”
Bobby says, maneuvering himself up against a loose stack of concrete chunks. “And leave me all of your frags.”

“Leave you…oh,”
Alastair says realizing what Bobby is going to do. He runs and snags the fallen M-4, with the frag popper attached to the bottom rail, and places it in Bobby’s hands. “You got balls, Bobby boy. They’ll write songs about you after this.”

“Then you two better fucking live and make sure they do,”
Bobby says as he starts undoing straps and stripping off his gear. He lays the M-4 across his lap and sets out the eight grenades he has into a row close at hand. “And make sure it’s up tempo. No death ballad or Hotel California shit. I want people to dance to it.”

“Fuck this shit,” Diaz
says as he unloads all the grenades in his pack and sets them next to Bobby’s. “Just fuck it all.”

“That can be the title,”
Bobby laughs then grimaces as he shifts his leg. “Just Fuck It All.”

“Just frag it all,”
Alastair corrects adding to the pile of grenades. “That would be better. I’ll see if the Taint Punchers will write it. I love those guys.”

“No, not those fucking assholes,”
Bobby says dropping a grenade into the launcher and pulling the trigger.

The explosive flies from the M-4, arching into the air and landing a few yards in front of the oncoming herd that has started to regroup after being split by the platform supports. The grenade explodes, sending rock and dirt flying high into the air.

“Don’t’ you want to save those?” Diaz asks as he goes through Bobby’s pack and divvies up the magazines between himself and Alastair. “I don’t think you have to worry about the dirt coming to eat you.”

“Gauging the distance,”
Bobby says, loading another grenade. “I’ll make the rest count. Now get the fuck gone, you two.”

Alastair
grabs up the extra magazines and stuffs them into empty pockets on his vest that had ben occupied by grenades just seconds before. He looks down at Bobby and salutes.

“We always remember,”
Alastair says.

“Go fuck,
Swancutt,” Bobby says. “Don’t let the last words I hear from you be Stronghold rah-rah crap.”

“Fuck you,
Breitenberg,” Alastair says.

“That’s more like it,” he smiles, holding out his hand.
Alastair shakes it and then Diaz. “Book it, kids. This is adult stuff and not safe for children. No, wait.” He reaches into his breast pocket and hands something to Alastair. “Give that to Val, will ya?”

Alastair frowns as he looks at the book of ration tickets in his hand.

“Okay,” Alastair says.

“I would have used them for a date, but she shot me down,” Bobby says. “Maybe she can take that doctor out with them.”

“You’re a strange one, Bobby Breitenberg,” Diaz says, “but a good one.”

“Fuck off with the mushy shite,” Bobby says. “Go.”

Diaz and Alastair each give him a pat on his shoulder as they take off into the night. Bobby just sits there, watching the herd that’s backlit by the still burning pyre on the main platform. He slowly counts out the seconds, waiting for his first shot.

“Fire in the hole,” he says and pulls the trigger. The second grenade whistles thro
ugh the sky then bounces off the head of one of the lead Zs. A split second later, and the night air is filled with bloody mist and putrid flesh. “Bango bongo, baby!”

He launches another and another, adjusting the angle slightly so he can penetrate the herd a little deeper each time. He creates fountains of blood and plumes of severed limbs. Undead parts and pieces fly into the sky then rain back down to earth.

Without even knowing it, Bobby is whistling Hotel California, a fatalistic grin on his face the whole time.

When he reaches out and finds he only has one more
grenade, he gives it a kiss and loads it into the launcher. He aims straight up into the air and fires.

“I’ve always wanted to see if this will work,”
Bobby says as the herd is almost on him.

He opens fire with his M-4 and empties the magazine just as the first Zs lunge. They pile onto him and he begins to wonder if he shouldn’t have saved a bullet for himself. Then a slight thump gets his attention through all the snarls and his grin widens.

His last thought before the pile explodes is that he hopes when the song is written there’s a line in there about him going out with a bang. Or at the very least with a smile on his face.