Floyd & Mikki (Book 2): Zombie Slayers (Dawn of the Living) (10 page)

The sailors gathered their duffle bags, weapons and ammo. The bags had been packed for more than a year and they had to brush off the dust. The SEAL members and MacGyver led the way back down through the corridors, pausing to check through any open doors as they went. Since all the barriers had been destroyed, they walked cautiously with weapons raised. There was no telling if any Super Z’s had found the opening and entered. In that case, they could be waiting around any corner.

Of course, they
were
. As the sailors checked a side room, Floyd and Mikki stepped out into an adjacent corridor about a hundred feet from Behemoth, only to come helmet to helmet with four Super Z’s in full battle gear. The two Zombie Hunters froze, awaiting an attack that never came. The Super Z bodies did not show up on infrared, but in the low light, their outlines showed up on the helmet screens. All four of them had a green hue with a green plus sign floating next to them, indicating they were friendly. They let Floyd and Mikki walk right by.

Floyd turned to wave the sailors off but it was too late. The Super Z’s spotted them, even though they were still back in the corridor, and started firing automatic weapons. Based on past experience, Floyd and Mikki knew the gunfire would stop as soon as they ran out of bullets, but that wouldn’t stop their vicious leaping attacks. The sailors dove into an adjoining room for cover. They couldn’t return fire because they might hit their two rescuers.

As quickly as possible, Floyd maneuvered himself behind a Super Z at the back. Mikki did the same. Obviously, she remembered Floyd’s turkey shoot story. They pointed the barrels of their shotguns and fired at the base of the Super Zombie skulls, sending two heads flying almost simultaneously. The two in the front were immediately alerted that something was wrong, as the forms of their two comrades disappeared from the internal screen. By the time they turned around, however, Floyd and Mikki were already on them. Floyd fired straight into the nearest one’s throat, but Mikki used her katana to separate the last creeper’s head from its body.

“All clear!” Floyd called out into the hallway.

“Seems like these helmets make us look friendly. Y’all better let us scout ahead from now on.”

“Yeah,” “Sure,” and “No problem,” came the simultaneous replies.

The rest of the way to Behemoth was clear, but several pairs of Super Z’s were wandering outside again. Floyd climbed up and opened the hatch while Mikki waved for the remaining humans to haul ass. They ran straight for the vehicle, jumped up the outside ladder and dropped down inside, just as the other Supers Z’s noticed them.

Floyd powered up the vehicle and backed out as the attack began. One of the Supers had machine gun with a grenade launcher. One after another, explosions rocked the armored vehicle, but she held together.

“Damn! How did we miss that! I want one o’ them grenade guns!” Mikki whined.

“Head in the game, Mikki!” Floyd chided.

“Yeah, Yeah, I’m on it!”

Mikki grabbed the three sailors and gave each of them a machine gun to monitor. She took the one on the right front, but kept an eye out for any reason to fire the cannon. Soon, Behemoth was spewing bullets in every direction, but by that time, the Supers had started howling to bring every brother-in-arms on the base to their defense.

“Damn!” Lieutenant Carlson cursed. “I had forgotten how many people were on base.”

Lolo added, “I thought we took out more of them.”

“I’m just glad me managed to stay hidden for so long,” MacGyver opined.

Each continued spraying bullets at anything that moved, but the Supers were hard targets to hit. Not only did they move crazy fast, but it turned out they could jump sideways just as effectively as forward. They were jumping and bouncing all over the place. Before long, about seven or eight of them were on top of the vehicle, firing at point blank range. One Super with a grenade launcher fired and blew himself and two others off the turret. There was, indeed, a limit to their intelligence with weaponry.

A screen went blank on the console. “We lost a camera!” Floyd called back to Mikki.

“Let’s hope that’s all we lose!” Mikki called back, as several more Supers jumped up past the outer cameras on their way to the top of the vehicle. “We’re takin’ one helluva beating! Get these Super Creepers off of us, Floyd!”

“On it!”

Floyd sent the vehicle spinning around several times in a 360. A couple of the undead attackers went flying off, but they soon came right back. The machine guns managed to take out a couple dozen more as they approached, but a direct hit from another rocket grenade shook Behemoth violently. Thankfully, all gauges still read normal – except the battery gauge.

“Shit!” Floyd cried. We’re almost outta power! Hang on! This is gonna get bumpy!”

Bumpy wasn’t the right word. Floyd spun the vehicle around one more time and crashed right through the wall of a building. A few of the Supers were knocked off. Several more were left behind as Floyd crashed through the wall out the other side. He plowed through two more buildings that way before crashing into one more building. The battery died before he could exit the other side.

Floyd jumped from his chair and ran to the battery compartment. “Change the batteries!” he cried to Mikki.

“No, Floyd, wait!”

Before she could stop him, Floyd had thrown open both battery compartments. Immediately, the entire vehicle went dark.

“God dammit, Floyd!” Mikki yelled at him in the blackness.

“What happened?” came Lolo’s voice.

“Floyd, you gotta read
my
half of the manual! You gotta take only one battery out at a time. You just fried the damn truck!”

“It’s not a truck! It’s a Tactical Armored Vehicle!”

“It’s a tactical armored piece of shit now, dumbass! Help me get these new batteries in. It’s gonna take at least 10 minutes to reboot the system.”

“Alright, alright! At least we’re safe now,” Floyd argued.

Suddenly, the air vents all popped open. “Why do I smell rotten eggs?” Lolo asked.

MacGyver had the answer. “Shit! That’s gas! We must have busted a gas line. Everybody out!”

Mikki locked in one battery and hit the power-check button. Three out of five bars lit up. It would be enough. After feeling her way around, she dashed up the ladder, unlocked the hatch and threw it open, leaving Floyd to finish locking in the last battery. Because of their helmets, they could see in the utter blackness just fine, but the three sailors couldn’t. It suddenly dawned on Floyd that they should’ve taken time to pick up the four Super Z helmets for the navy guys.
Too late now!

When light streamed in through the hatch, Mikki called down, “Ladies and gentleman, this bus will leave again in 10 minutes. Y’all enjoy the local attractions try and stay alive ‘til then. Have a nice day!”

Floyd shook his head and commented aloud, “Always a smartass!”

“Better than a dumbass!” Mikki retorted, exiting the vehicle.

Floyd followed the sailors out and slammed the lid down behind him. Nobody was dumb enough to fire a weapon in a cloud of flammable gas. Floyd noticed a sign hanging on part of the remaining wall that said, “No smoking.”
No shit Sherlock
, he thought to himself.

Mikki noted the time on her watch. 5:13pm. They had to stay alive until 5:23 if they were to have a chance at getting back into the vehicle. Once Behemoth powered up again, the outside vents would close and the air scrubbers would cleanse the vehicle interior of any gas. Ten minutes was all they needed (theoretically). It might as well have been 10 years.

Already, a wave of Super Z’s was on its way. Fortunately, they had the same kind of linear thinking as “normal” zombies. They could have gone around both sides of the buildings they had crashed through to flank and surround the humans, but instead, they came directly through the openings Behemoth had left in the structures. This gave the humans an advantage, as it narrowed the field of fire and forced the Supers into a tighter group.

Taking defensive positions behind what remained of the shattered brick walls, the five popped around their battlements to fire and dropped back down to avoid getting hit. Bullets went flying in both directions. When a large enough crowd of about eight Supercreepers entered the building through the opposite wall, Mikki threw in a couple of grenades, taking them all out.
Damn, that felt good!
Mikki did love her grenades.

“Damn! I’m hit!” MacGyver called, dropping back behind the wall after a bullet ripped through his upper arm.

“Stay down!” Lieutenant Carlson ordered him.

“Yes, sir!” MacGyver answered, but the tone of his voice was more like, “You don’t need to tell me twice!”

As the final onslaught began, Floyd, Mikki, and the two SEALS started chucking grenades one after another into the building, popping their heads up only momentarily to assess the situation. Mikki looked at her watch. Severn minutes. Three more to go.
Crap!

Somehow an unarmored Super managed to make through unscathed. He jumped through the opening in the wall and hit Lieutenant Carlson square in the chest, knocking him to the ground. Lolo grabbed the thing from behind and snapped its neck. Another flew through the air and landed next to Lolo, grabbing him with its powerful hands. MacGyver picked up his weapon in his left hand and fired point-blank into the creature’s skull. Undead brain matter sprayed all over Floyd. He ignored it.
Yup. Same shit, different day!

A few more Supercreepers managed to make it through, but thanks to Mikki’s grenade barrage, they only straggled in one or two at a time. One managed to bite Lolo in the arm. “Goddammit! Not again!” Lolo bitched, before firing his machine gun into the thing’s forehead.

A few made the mistake of attacking Floyd and Mikki, who were well-armored and bite proof. The training Floyd had initiated paid off. They both managed to dodge their attacks and fire well placed shots to dispatch the attackers. Even so, they had changed the magazines in their Mini Uzis several times already, and now were low on ammo.

Mikki looked at her watch again. 5:24pm.

“Alright, ladies! Next bus for Dallas is leaving now!”

She threw two more grenades almost simultaneously. One through the building to the other side, and one that landed in the middle. She turned to run before the blasts went off. The others followed her. So did the remaining Super Z’s.

Mikki was as fast as she was nimble, even loaded with a variety of weaponry strapped to her body. Of course, it helped that she had thrown nearly all of her grenades, lightening her burden. Besides, being chased by an army of the Super Undead tended to be a great motivator. She scampered up the side of Behemoth, popped the hatch, dropped down, and dashed over to the controls. The panel lit up when she pressed the button. The lights came on, the outer vents snapped shut, and the ventilation system fans started whirring softly. By this time, the others were also dropping in to say hi. Floyd took his place in the driver’s seat. Lolo was the last one down, closing and locking the hatch.

“OK, let’s blow this popsicle stand,” Floyd said.

“No! Not yet!” Mikki ordered.

“Not yet? Are you crazy? Now what?” Floyd asked, turning to look at her as zombie after zombie started pouring through the hole in the building. They already had more Super Z’s climbing all over the vehicle than a grammar school jungle gym.

Mikki took her helmet off, and Floyd saw that wicked grin on her face again. That, “I’ve got crazy ass idea,” grin. Floyd just turned around in his chair and said. “Whatever.”

Mikki sat beside Floyd at the console. She trained one of the cameras on the opening behind them. When it seemed that all the creepers had come through the building and were firing at or banging on Behemoth from above, she smiled even bigger.

Mikki put her hands together, turned them over, and cracked all of her knuckles at once. Floyd winced. “Fire in the hole,” she said non-chalantly. Then the pushed the cannon fire button. She didn’t even bother to aim at anything.

BOOM! Ka-BOOM!!!!

The flame from the cannon blast set off the gas, and the entire building around them exploded in a huge ball of flame. So did the last batch of Super Zs. When the dust settled, not a zombie remained.

“That’ll do, Mikki,” Floyd said, before throwing the vehicle into drive.

“Hit it, Floyd!” Mikki screamed.

“Hallelujah!” MacGyver shouted, as the big machine started moving.

“On the road again!” Mikki sang. “The life I live is makin’ music with my friends!”

Laughing, the rest of the team in the vehicle began singing along. Everyone was off key and no one cared. “I just can’t wait to be on the road again!”

“Sorry about this, Lolo,” said Lieutenant Carlson, as they tied Lolo to one of the folded-down bunks.

“Yeah, yeah. I know, but I’m not staying like this for a week again. Wake me if you find a Burger King.”

“Will do,” the lieutenant laughed.

The Super Zombie hadn’t bitten a chunk out of Lolo’s shoulder, but its teeth had sunk in pretty deep. Bright red blood had stained the tough Hawaiian’s khaki uniform shirt. Mikki swabbed the wound with antiseptic and bandaged his shoulder, but everyone was worried about a different kind of infection. Lolo and MacGyver didn’t see the need for quarantine, but this wasn’t a democracy and the lieutenant pulled rank. He insisted that avoiding infection the last time didn’t mean Lolo was still immune nearly two years later. No one could argue with that logic.

Floyd retraced the route he had taken to NCH—minus the diversion to Lake Havasu. Neither Mikki nor he wanted to visit those people again. It was like a bad dream you couldn’t quite forget, but you kept trying anyway.

The new batteries they had plugged in were still pretty well charged. So far, only one had drained down to 40%, but they still had a long way to go. Floyd kept a steady 50 miles per hour to conserve as much battery power as possible. They still had six more batteries in the back, but they had to make it to the campground and hopefully back again.

After a couple of days, Lieutenant Carlson ordered an end to the watch on Lolo. By then, they were a little past Flagstaff, Arizona. Along the way, Floyd and Mikki each finished reading the full manual on Behemoth and MacGyver had explained the helmets to them. Each of the sailors had tried on the helmets as well. There was one for each of them plus two spares.

Five little symbols lined the bottom of the helmet screen. By looking at a symbol and blinking, you could activate whatever the function was. It turns out, there was a loudspeaker function so your voice could be heard by the outside world. Activating a volume bar on the screen enabled the wearer to adjust the volume heard inside or outside the helmet. Mikki raised her outside volume to maximum and nearly deafened everyone in the vehicle.
Note to Self: no more than mid-volume when indoors.

Another control turned a headlight that emanated from above the forehead on or off. This seemed pretty unnecessary, since the night vision feature worked great. One control adjusted the screen display (colors, hue intensity, etc.), which no one wanted to mess with. One auto-calibrated the screen to the wearer’s eyes (a highly useful feature that greatly enhanced the operation of the helmet). Finally, one adjusted the view angle, and there was even an option that put a rear-view image in the top right corner so you couldn’t be surprised from behind.

Floyd insisted on stopping once a day for additional training. Lieutenant Carlson showed them some highly useful close quarters combat moves. After an hour or two of physical training with the SEALs and each other, Floyd and Mikki paired off to practice with their swords. Mikki was definitely into it, and she was becoming one with the blade. She practiced slicing and slashing at imaginary opponents, honing her technique. Her katana had already proved useful more than once, and it never needed reloading. She loved the sword almost as much as she loved blowing shit up. Not quite as much as she loved Floyd, though.

A few more days later, and they were finally nearing Emerald Valley Campground. Four of the remaining batteries were still unused, so Floyd calculated that Behemoth should be able to make it all the way back to New California Haven easily, even if they ran into a little combat along the way.

When the former raider camp came into view on the long-range camera, Mikki radioed Bob. It took a couple of tries, but eventually, he came on the line.

“Hey, where are you guys?” Bob asked.

“Sneakin’ up on yer back door. You’ll know us when you see us. We’re drivin’ a big-ass army truck.”

“It’s a tactical assault vehicle,” Floyd commented, loud enough to be heard by Bob through the headset Mikki was wearing.

“It’s a big-ass
tactical
army truck,” Mikki sort of corrected herself. “Covered in black and grey camo.”

“With our logo painted on the side!” Floyd added.

“With our—dammit, Floyd! I’m on the radio here! You wanna be on the radio? Here, you tell him!” She threw the headset on the panel in front of Floyd.

“I don’t want to be on the radio, I’m driving!” he protested, tossing the headset back at her.”

“Oh, no! I think you want to be on the radio!” she insisted, tossing the headset back at him. “You don’t think I’m doin’ this right, then you take the damn radio!”

“I don’t want to take the damn radio,” Floyd countered, tossing the headset back again. “But you’re leaving out important details. You say ‘army truck’ and they’re gonna be looking out for a truck. This is not a truck!”

“If it looks like a truck, drives like a truck, and quacks like a truck,
it’s a truck!
Nobody knows what the hell a ‘tactical assault vehicle’ is!”

“Quacks like a truck?” Lolo whispered to the lieutenant, who waved him away.

“You could just say it’s a TAV,” MacGyver suggested. The simultaneous withering stares he got from both Floyd and Mikki made him retreat in silence. He cowered in the back with the other big tough navy men. They would all have rather faced a hundred Super Zombies than be stuck in the middle of this conversation. Awkward!

“Here!” Mikki shouted, throwing the headset back at Floyd again. “You get on the damn radio and tell him whatever you want!”

Floyd threw the headset back, saying, “Goddammit! I don’t want to be on the damn radio! I’m driving here!”

“Well, then drive, already!” Mikki ordered, grabbing the headset and putting it back on. It was a testimony to American engineering that the thing still worked after so much abuse. “Sorry, Bob. We just had a little ‘tactical’ discussion here.”

“Yeah, we all heard.” There was significant laughter in the background as Bob spoke.

Mikki forgot that while Bob had to push a button to talk, her headset was voice activated, so they had heard every word of their argument. Whatever! She was way too angry to be embarrassed.

“We’re in a
tactical assault vehicle
.” Mikki explained. “That’s a big-ass army
truck
, painted in black and grey camo, with three giant tires on each side and a cannon turret on top. I painted our heart logo in bright red paint a mile high on both sides. Believe me, you cain’t miss it!”

Turning to Floyd, she said, “That good enough for ya, Mr. Man?”

“That’ll do, Mikki. That’ll do.”

Over the radio, Bob couldn’t see Mikki stuck her tongue out at Floyd.