Dead Team Alpha: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (18 page)

“My…gun,” he grunts as a he feels blood flowing from his scalp and down the back of his neck. “My fucking…gun.”

He reaches down for it, but catches a foot across the cheek, spinning him away from the window and down to one knee. Junior has to plant both hands on the floor to keep from completely collapsing. He watches as drops of blood splatter next to his fingers, each one bursting into bright techno colors as they hit the floor.

“You’re fucking dead!” Clank yells as he pulls himself up by the woman’s bed. “I am going to so snap your little fucking neck
myself!”

He gets to his feet and rushes the kid, but Marshall ducks under Clank’s arms and darts away. As Clank spins
about, he comes face to scarred face with the woman, who is no longer on the bed, but standing right in front of him. She shakes the remnants of the cord loose from her wrists and ankles, and smiles.

Clank sends a right cross at her head, but she dodges the blow and returns it with her own, catching him on the chin. He stumbles back, almost tripping over Junior, but is able to keep his footing. He doesn’t get much chance to recover
though, as the woman’s left foot snaps his head to the side. Her left fist nails him in the gut and he doubles over as her knee comes up, shattering several teeth in his mouth.

Clank tries to get control, but the woman doesn’t stop, nailing him with kicks and punches until he’s forced up against the window.

“You don’t call Marshall a little fuck. You should be more respectful,” the woman says as her foot hits Clank right in the chest. “Maybe you’ll learn it on the way down.”

The window shatters and Clank has to grab onto each side to keep from falling out.

“He didn’t leave,” Marshall says.

“He will,” the woman replies as she crouches, grabs Clank’s ankles and lifts

The man can’t stop the momentum and his heavy torso pulls him out the window as his legs are flipped up into the air. Not being able to see, neither Marshall nor the woman move forward to watch as he falls end over end three stories to the asphalt below. And the noise from the battle outside is too much to hear the crunch and thunk his body makes as it bursts open on impact.

“What…did… you do?” Junior asks, still unable to get up, his head a whirling dervish of pain.

“I’ll show you,” the woman says as she grabs Junior by the collar and pulls him to the window.

***

The first body leaves Hawks stunned. The second that falls only moments later leaves her reeling.

She
wants to back away from the barricade, but her training won’t let her and she moves forward, climbing onto the unsteady pile of broken furniture and cast off supplies. Her heart hits her throat when she sees the mangled bodies of Clank and Junior outside on the pavement. Her eyes turn to DTB Two, still firing at the herd that has started to claw its way up out of the trench. With the endless gunfire filling the air, Stanford, Tommy Bombs, and Shep have no idea two of their Mates lay behind them, piles of broken bone and ruptured flesh.

No time to bother with the dead, Hawks slides down
the barricade to the floor, shoulders her carbine and sprints towards the stairwell.

***

“What the fuck are you looking at?” Boyd says as he turns and faces the woman that has come walking quickly up to him. He’s holding a lit candle that he’s been using to light tapers set inside sconces that once burnt with electric light. The flickering light illuminates her face fully and his eyes go wide at the lack of hers. “Shit fuck…”

The knife stabs hard into his gut and is yanked
even harder up to his chest, splitting him open from belly to ribcage. He lets out a quiet moan and looks down at the intestines spilling out around the hand holding the blade. Looking back up, his mouth opens, a question formed, but only blood comes out from between his lips.

The woman pulls the knife out and lets Boyd fall to his knees, his own innards
uncoiling through his fingers as he clutches at the massive wound. She places her foot on his shoulder and shoves. Boyd falls quickly, dead before his back hits the floor.

“
Oh, my God!” a man yells as he sees what’s just happened. “She fucking killed Boyd!”

“Boyd,” the woman says, rolling the name around on her tongue, tasting the pleasure of knowing who she’s killed.

Her head turns back and forth in an almost hypnotic fashion, like a cobra coaxed from a basket.

“What’s wrong with her eyes?” someone asks.

Marshall moves out from behind her and grins at the crowd of people he can’t see.

“We are Code Monkeys,” he says. “Two of the chosen to keep the legacy of the Codes going.” He takes a short bow. “I’m Marshall Rosado, Thirtieth Code Monkey. My good friend is Skye Lawrence, Twenty-fourth Code Monkey.
We have come to kill you all and preserve the sanctity of the Code.”

“Don’t fight and it will be clean,” the woman, Skye, says. “Fight?” She gives a non-committal shrug of her shoulders.

“Are they blind?” a person asks.

“They can’t see us,” another states.

“We can fucking take them!” a third shouts.

As soon as the RC starts to move forward, Skye stops weaving her head back and forth. She cocks it one way then slowly moves it the other,
as if her neck is made of clockwork gears.

“They didn’t listen,” Marshall says sadly.

“They never do,” Skye replies.

The two blind Code Monkeys step casually over Boyd’s body, ready to meet the crowd surging at them.

***

“Almost out!” Shep yells.

“Me too!” Tommy Bombs shouts.

Stanford empties his magazine, ejects it, slams his second to last one back in, racks the slide, but doesn’t open fire. From the
right, came Lang and Horton, firing on the run. From the left came the twins doing the same. The Team regroups as a few hundred Zs crawl over each other to get out of the trench and at the meat before them.

“Right flank is gone,” Lang says, catching her breath.

“Left too,” Carlito states. “They’ll be on us in thirty… What the hell?”

Everyone turns the direction he’s looking and see
s the bodies of Clank and Junior splattered on the pavement. Clank’s corpse is mush, but Junior’s starts to twitch as his eyes pop open, showing them the dead grey color of a Z.

“How the fuck did that happen?” Stanford asks.

Above them, glass shatters and a man comes flying out of a third floor window, screaming all the way down. He smashes on top of the burnt out wreck of an abandoned ambulance, his scream cut short instantly.

“TL?” Horton asks.

“We move,” Stanford says. “Get to a defensible position and hunker down until the herd passes.”

“What about Boyd and his RC?” Carlotta asks.

Another man is flung from the window above and they watch as he lands almost on top of the first. Their attention is drawn to the shape of someone standing at the window looking down at them. Or maybe not precisely
looking
.

“Is that…?” Tommy Bombs asks. “That’s one of the captives.”

“We move now,” Stanford says, raising his M-4 towards the window, but Skye fades back inside before he can pull the trigger. “By the time we get in there, they’ll all be dead.”

“Every person counts,” Shep grunts.

“And we always remember,” Stanford says. “But we can’t exactly do that if we’re dead ourselves, can we?” He slings his carbine and tightens the strap. “Let’s go! Put up your guns and save your ammo!” He pulls a long knife from his belt. “NOW!”

The Team all take off around the side of the hospital, each trying to ignore the
cries of pain and fear as people are thrown to their deaths.

***

She can hear the screams of the dying before she gets to the third floor landing. By the time she’s in front of the door, it’s as if the screams are right next to her. Taking a couple of deep breaths, Hawks grabs the door handle and throws the door wide, stepping into the hallway, her carbine moving side to side. Gorge fills her throat, but she swallows it down as she looks upon the scene before her.

No one is left standing. The floor is covered by crying, moaning, pleading people, all clutching mortal wounds. Blood is splashed against the walls like paint
. Body parts are strewn here and there; the smell of urine and excrement fills the hall.

Moving
through it all, his back to Hawks is Marshall, skipping and dancing from person to person, a knife in his hand, slashing throats as he goes, adding to the already unfathomable amount of blood.

Then he stops and turns his head slightly so Hawks can see the left side of his face.

“Oh,” he says. “It’s you.”

“What have you done?” Hawks asks, her words
steady and measured. Any semi-maternal feelings she had for the boy are long gone. All that remains is cold professionalism. “Why?”

Marshall turns all the way around, reaching out and slicing a woman from ear to
ear. His scarred eye sockets face Hawks and he sighs.

“I’ve already explained it to them,” he says, flicking the knife this way and that, sending droplets of blood here and there. “You missed it
, but if you come here I’ll tell you.”

“Drop the knife,” Hawks says. “Just put it down. I don’t want to kill you.”

“Yes, you do,” Marshall says, taking a step towards her. “You want to kill me bad. Even through the stench of blood I can smell it.”

He takes another step.

“Stop,” Hawks says. “No more warnings.”

“I know,” Marshall says as he bares his teeth.

Hawks pulls the trigger just as Marshall breaks into a run. The kid twists to the side as the bullet just passes over his shoulder. He tucks his other shoulder and uses his momentum to dive into a forward roll. His small body tumbles across the wounded then comes up, leaping forward into another roll as Hawks fires again and again, just missing him each time.

When her carbine clicks empty, Marshall is standing right in front of her, a sad smile on his face. His knife plunges into her just below her sternum and he jams the blade up into her heart. One beat, two, then a struggling third and Hawks’ life is done.
He pulls the knife free and gives her a shove, sending her falling onto the floor, her corpse covering the body of a struggling, whimpering woman.

***

“There,” Stanford shouts, pointing at one of the old administration buildings separated from the hospital by a wide parking lot. “We get in and onto the roof. Then hunker down and wait.”

The Team all follow as he sprints towards the derelict building that has already been gutted for salvage. The windows along the first floor are broken and the front door hangs from one hinge.

DTB Two hurry into the deep darkness of the admin building. Blocked from the light of the burn barrels in front of the hospital, it takes a second for their eyes to adjust. They leap over a reception counter and move through the rows of old cubicles where endless amounts of paperwork were processed and filed on a daily basis.

In the far corner is a door with a cracked, plastic sign next to it indicating the stairwell. Stanford gets to the door, but stops before pushing it open. The unmistakable groans of Zs can be heard on the other side.

“When was the last time this building was cleared?” he whispers to his Team.

“Don’t know,”
Horton replies. “The reclaim crews stripped this building a long time ago. I don’t think it’s been in the rotation for years.”

Stanford can see by the state of the shredded drywall that all the wiring is gone. He nods and looks back at the stairwell door.

“On three,” he says, gripping the handle. “One, two, three!”

He shoves the door inward and jams the blade of his knife
through the eye of the first Z that comes at him. He keeps pushing forward, shoving the dead Z back while pulling his knife free. Shep follows behind and stabs the next Z while Lang is right on his tail, taking down a third.

The door is all the way open and a dozen Zs stumble down the stairs towards the Team. Stanford changes tactics and starts grabbing the Zs and tossing them to the side, letting his Team end them with precision stabs to their skulls.

It only takes two minutes from when Stanford opened the door until the last Z falls. The twins double check the corpses to make sure each blow was fatal then give Stanford a confirming nod.

“The roof,” Stanford says and takes the steps two at a time until they get to the very top landing.

Nodding to his Team, they repeat the same process again, but luckily, there are no Zs on the roof as they rush through the door.

“Clear,” Lang says, checking the north corner.

“Clear,” Shep responds from the south.

“Clear,”
Horton says from the east while Tommy Bombs gives a thumbs up from the west.