Dead Team Alpha: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (29 page)

Knowing her limitations, Commander Lee scrambles down a ladder, hits the ground, then runs from ladder to ladder, shoving them to the
dirt, hoping she’ll slow the Code Monkeys’ progress. However, as she turns and sprints down the street, she glances over her shoulder and sees the crazies leap to the ground. Some give brief cries as their legs snap, but others are able to roll with it and come up fine, their blind faces turning one way and then the other, taking in all the information their heightened senses can.

Above them
, Zs, burning and not burning, crawl onto the platform, stand for a second, and then tumble to the ground. The bodies that don’t burst on impact, get up and start to follow the Code Monkeys, their undead moans filling the air.

Commander Lee looks away and digs deep, pushing her legs as fast as she can until she is several blocks a
head, standing at the intersection of Broadway and University Ave. The streetlights have long since been removed, needed for the scraps and parts they could provide, but Commander Lee has to wonder what it was like so many decades ago when automobiles moved freely through the Stronghold. Back before the gasoline and diesel ran out; before the Stronghold was attacked again and again by outside factions such as the Consortium.

That was well before Commander Lee was born, but she has read the reports, she has seen the photographs. She knows it only takes one cataclysmic event for everything to change.

She prays this isn’t that event for her and her people. She prays that it was the right choice to make many years ago not to tell the population of the Stronghold about the Code Monkeys. She prays that the rare moment of secrecy in a normally open culture doesn’t lead to the death of them all.

Because when the doors fly wide and the people do what they are trained to do, they won’t be just running towards Zs. They will be running towards the faces of death; faces that have no eyes, but can see every way possible to kill and keep killing.

***

A set of double doors at the back of the Gym flies open and Kevin Ross steps into the huge space, dozens of men and women
of the defensive guard behind him carrying melee weapons of all types. He moves aside as the weapons are distributed to the crowd. He takes a mental inventory of who takes what, just because that’s his job. A job he takes very seriously.

“You all know what we have to do!” Kevin shouts. “No more bullets, no more explosives
. We have drained the armory of every bit of gunpowder. Today, we fight like the founders of the Stronghold did!” He holds out his hand and a large hunting knife is slapped into his palm. He stares at it for a second, then looks at the person that gave it to him. “That’s it? There’re no sabers or machetes left? I’d even take a fire axe or something like that.”

The man shrugs. “Sorry. That’s
it.”

“Fuck,” Kevin snaps. “Oh, fucking well.” He turns to the crowd and holds up the knife. “In just a few
minutes, we will show those fucks what we are made of! No herd of Zs will take the Stronghold! Now or ever!”

Cheers and chants go up, as the people inside the Gym rally themselves into a fighting frenzy.

***

“Was that Commander Lee
that ran by?” Fitz asks. “Should we call her in here?”

“No,” Marsh says.
“She knows what she’s doing.”

“Bet she wishes she hadn’t created a Silo Team Beta
out of the reserve Mates, huh?” Collin says, happily holding a jar of hooch. “Kinda left her without backup.”

“Oh, there’s plenty of backup,” Marsh grins. “But you wouldn’t
know, since you haven’t attended a civil defense meeting in how long?”

“Fuck if I know,” Collin says, taking a long swig from the jar. “I lost count just after I could give two shits and right before fuck you all, I’m getting drunk.”

“Exactly,” Marsh smiles. “It was probably better for everyone that you didn’t attend.”

“Better for me,” Collin says, finishing off the jar and reaching for another one.

“You realize I use that shit to clean my guns with, right?” Marsh says.

“Lucky guns,” Collin grins.

“Here they come, Sheriff,” Crespo says.

“Zs?” Marsh asks.

“And more,” Crespo replies, nodding to the street. “Are they blind? Jesus, they are!”

“Quiet,” Marsh says.

Collin lets out a loud belch behind them.

“Sorry,” he says. Then
he farts. “Not for that, though. That had to come out.”

Marsh whirls on him, his eyes filled with accusation and anger.

“Did you know?” he asks.

“Nope,” Collin says. “Not until after my sister gave her rah-rah speech. By then, what’s it matter?” He shrugs. “Nothing we can do once they get inside
, you know that.”

“What’s he talking about?” Fitz asks. “Who are those people?”

“Code Monkeys,” Marsh says.

“Code…? Fucking seriously?” Crespo laughs. “What the fuck name is-”

“Shhh,” Marsh snaps. “Don’t say another word, don’t make a sound. Don’t fucking breathe.”

Collin farts again.

***

Leading the deadly pack is Skye Lawrence, Twenty-third Code Monkey, with Marshall behind her and off to
the right. The other Code Monkeys and crazies begin to spread out across the street, stretching the pack until it is a line of blind killers marching along through the Stronghold. Heads turn back and forth, the sightless faces searching the area for prey and hunting for those trying to stop them in their quest.

Yards behind, in various states of destruction, the Zs come. They follow the Code Monkeys like rats following a piper. Feet shuffle forward, arms outstretched, mouths wide open, grey eyes hungry for the taste of human meat that they can smell all around them. On they come, their numbers growing as more and more crest the wall and tumble from the platforms.

As one, the Code Monkeys stop, their attention turned towards the Team command center. Skye walks forward, straight to the doors and pulls, but they don’t budge. She didn’t expect them to, but it was worth a try. With a barely perceptible nod of her head, Marshall hurries up next to her.

They stand there silent for a few
seconds, then Marshall nods and walks away. He moves into the bushes that surround the building, stopping a few yards from the entrance. With amazing agility, he leaps at the wall and grabs onto a window frame then reaches up and finds purchase in the nooks and crannies of the brick and stone building. Within seconds, he’s climbed half way up before he stops, lets go with one hand, then punches through a large window just off to his side.

Glass shatters and falls, raining down on the bushes below. The Code Monkeys in the street smile at the light tinkling sound the glass shards make as they bounce off the building. It’s the sound of magic and fantasy to those without sight.

Marshall climbs into the building, his body easily avoiding the chunks of glass that still stick out of the frame, and is lost from, well,
sight
. Skye waits at the main entrance, knowing the young one will work his way down and open the building to them. It doesn’t matter if he meets any of the Stronghold inhabitants along the way. She knows he’ll end them quickly and continue on without hesitation.

The sound of a door opening gets Skye’s attention, but it isn’t the doors in front of her.

The Code Monkeys all pivot and face the Gym that’s half a block away.

From out of the Gym come
the defensive guards and the citizens that stayed behind by the wall to support them. They march as one, filling the street, their hands gripping axes, machetes, short swords, spears, pikes, chains, bats, even a crossbow here and there, anything and everything that can be used to kill a Z.

But it’s not Zs that stand in front of the command center
. The Zs are still shuffling their way from the wall. No, it’s living, breathing humans that are before them, shoulder to shoulder, their blind faces relaxed and ready.

“What the fuck?” someone mutters.

“Who are they?” another asks.

“We can’t kill people…can we?”

“Are they here to help us?”

“Look at their faces.”

“Look at their eyes.”

“Fuck,” Kevin Ross say
s, realizing who they are now up against. Inside him, rage boils. If he lives through this, he’ll be having a word with Commander Lee. “Get ready, people.”

“Ready for what?”

“The Zs are behind us, not in front!”

“We need to turn around!”

“What is going on?”

Someone cries out and a body drops. The crowd all look as a man lies in the road, blood spilling from his head where a knife is protruding. They
all look towards the Code Monkeys as one of the sightless killers lowers an arm and steps back in line.

“Motherfucker…”

“Did you see that throw?”

“It was too fast.”

“They killed Bart!”

“FUCKING GET THEM!”

Before Kevin can shout a warning, the group surges forward, their legs picking up speed as they close the distance to the Code Monkeys. Screams of rage and fury boom from their mouths as weapons are lifted into the air, ready to deal deathblows to the crazies.

But death isn’t for the Monkeys. Not right away.

The two factions collide and those screams of rage and fury quickly turn to pain and surprise as the Code Monkeys tear through the ranks of Stronghold citizens. Bellies are ripped open, limbs hacked off, and the very throats that raised the cries are slashed from ear to ear, silencing them forever.

In
seconds, the street is covered in blood and guts. People slip and slide, trying to keep their footing as the Code Monkeys take down numbers that should have overwhelmed them. The citizens of the Stronghold that realize they are outmatched begin to retreat, and back away as fast as they can, turn and all out sprint for safety anywhere they can find it.

But in their horror, they have forgotten the nightmare that their existence is based around.

They have forgotten the Zs.

Those that flee run right into a wall of undead, the
living flesh welcomed by open, rotted arms.

***

“Sheriff?” Crespo asks, her eyes watching as friends and neighbors struggle to keep from being torn apart. “We have to help.”

“Hold, Deputy,” Marsh says, his finger on the trigger of the MK-46. “Wait for my signal. You just make sure those
rounds feed properly. Don’t want a jam.”

“Sheriff,” Fitz says
, “they’re dying out there. You gotta let me fire.”

“I know, I know,” Marsh says. “I can see what’s ha
ppening, but once we open fire, our position will be given away. We’ll have moments before those crazy fucks get to us. We have to make every one of those moments count.”

Marsh surveys the bloody scene out on the street, carefully gauging the timing of it all, waiting for just the right second to attack.

“Fitz?”

“Yes, sir?”

“You send those grenades into the back of the horde of Zs. Don’t worry about hitting any of our own. If they are in the middle of that shit, then they are already dead. You just fire and keep firing until that thing is empty. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” Fitz nods as she looks into the targeting screen the MK-47 has. “I’ll do my best.”

“Your best?” Collin laughs then urps up a little bile. “Girl, you better do more than your best.”

“Shut up, you old drunk,” Fitz says.

“What are you going to do, Ward?” Collin asks. “What’s
your
best?”

“I’ll hold our position,” Marsh says as he targets the Code
Monkeys. “When they head our way, and they will when Fitz starts firing, I’ll cut ‘em out at the legs. I don’t care what fucking superpowers they have. They can’t do shit without legs.”

“Good plan,” Collin says. “Can’t wait to see
how it works out.”

***

The sound of the grate rolling up catches Skye’s attention and the man she’s holding by the neck falls to the ground dead after a quick snap of her wrist. She smiles and walks casually over as the front doors swing open, showing Marshall standing there, fresh blood splashed across his shirt and neck.

“Any
problems?” she asks.

“No,” Marshall smiles. “Not for me. Not for me.”

“Good,” Skye says. “I’ll find what we are here for.” She pats him on the shoulder as she walks past. “You go have fun. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

“Yay!” Marshall shouts as he runs from the building and joins the massacre in the street. His hands flick out here and there, suddenly both holding wicked sharp blades, and more screams are added to the chorus of brutality.