No Easy Hope - 01 (10 page)

It soon became clear that everything Gabe had told me about the Reanimation Phage was terrifyingly true. News footage repeatedly showed the infected attacking anyone they could get their hands on. The networks brought so-called ‘experts’ on their programs to provide explanations for why the awful violence had spread so far, so quickly. The explanations varied, and covered everything from mass hysteria to airborne diseases that affected the brain. A spokesman for Homeland Security suggested it could possibly be some kind of neurotoxin released by terrorists, prompting an entirely new round of speculation and debate.

I would have laughed at all of them, if the implications weren’t so dire. It was obvious that no one had the faintest clue what was really happening. If the scientists, doctors, and government officials that the public depended on to handle situations like this did not understand what they were facing, then it was unlikely that they would be able to do anything to halt the spread of the disease. I began to understand why Gabe was so afraid of this thing.

I turned off the TV and went down to the basement. I pulled the dryer out from the wall a few feet and pressed a hidden switch designed to look like an electrical outlet, allowing a small biometric scanner to read my fingerprint. I heard a click as the locks disengaged, and pulled aside the piece of fake drywall that covered the entrance to the underground shelter. After opening the steel hatch and crawling inside backward, I pulled the dryer back into position and replaced the fake sheetrock. On the wall to my left was a locked keypad. I unlocked it and keyed in the security code. When I heard the locks release on the hatch behind me, I kicked backward with one leg to push it open.

I crawled backward into the short tunnel, then stood up and flipped on the lights. I closed the hatch, and after turning down two levers to secure the locks in place, I keyed into the shelter’s living compartment. I turned off the tunnel lights, and spun the door’s handle to lock it from the inside. With the tunnel secured, I went into the living compartment side of the shelter. I fired up the laptop and opened a software application that controlled the security system.

I engaged all the magnetic locks on the hatches and doors that led into the bunker, and brought up a screen that showed the view through all of the house’s security cameras. Every camera’s field of view occupied a little box on the screen, and I could enlarge any one of them with a mouse click. I turned on the DVR that recorded video for the cameras, and set it to store twenty-four hours worth of footage before purging old data. The DVR had limited storage, and since I planned to check it every day, I didn’t see any reason to tax its capacity. I set the computer to give off an audible alarm if any contact sensors or motion detectors triggered, and turned the volume on two small speakers flanking the laptop to their highest setting. I wasn’t expecting any trouble, but I wanted to be prepared just in case.Once the shelter was as secure as I could make it, I went into the bedroom and began reading the document Gabe emailed me. What I discovered in its pages frightened me beyond words. There were detailed accounts of the effects of the Reanimation Phage, by what means it spread, and what weapons were best suited to dispatching the reanimated victims of the infection.There were descriptions of successful tactics as well as methods that failed miserably. As I read, I took notes with a small pad and pen, and wrote down a few of the passages notated for special emphasis. Gabe’s clinical, detached writing method conflicted with his brooding, surly personality. His careful documentation and detailed analysis indicated a level of intelligence that I would never have guessed the big guy possessed. One passage in particular caught my attention:

Summary of undead characteristics, and means of termination:

Until the Phage kills its victim, the subject is conscious and aware of his or her surroundings. Infected persons who are near death generally suffer from severe fever, dementia, and convulsions. It is common for the infected to injure themselves in the throes of violent seizures. There does not seem to be any consistent amount of time that passes before the subject reanimates. Subjects may reanimate in as little as two minutes, or it may take as long as three days. Reanimation occurs one hundred percent of the time, unless an operative destroys the victim’s brain.

Once reanimated, the revenant appears to have extremely limited motor function and cognitive abilities. They move in a shambling, uncoordinated manner, and do not appear to be capable of deliberate communication. They are, however, capable of making an unnerving moaning sound that invariably attracts other undead to their location.

The undead can instinctively recognize any sound that indicates the presence of potential prey.  Their range of detection varies somewhat, and is no better than what they were capable of when still alive, but the undead have an uncanny ability to triangulate sounds and follow them to their source. If one finds the undead on their trail, he or she should stay quiet and hidden, and the undead will eventually wander off.

Revenants do not seem to possess anywhere near the olfactory capabilities of predatory animals such as dogs or large cats, but they are able to track scents over a limited distance, provided that the trail is fresh and nothing else attracts the undead’s attention. Revenants seem to hunt primarily by sound, utilizing smell and sight as secondary methods.

It should be emphasized that revenants are very easily distracted, and even if an undead is tracking your scent trail, any loud noise will draw them away from your location. This method of evasion can be utilized by simply throwing a rock, or some other object, in the opposite direction of one’s position, provided that the undead cannot see or hear you. If the undead see or hear a potential victim, they will continue to pursue that person until they catch them, or are distracted (or destroyed).

The primary weakness of the undead, as it applies to one on one combat, is their lack of coordination and mobility. Even the fastest of them can only proceed at speeds comparable to a brisk walk. Although they are clumsy and ungainly, they have the ability to lunge quickly across very short distances. This usually occurs once the undead is within arm’s reach of its intended victim, and can bring the revenant’s snapping teeth dangerously close to its target. The undead do not experience pain or fear, and consequently do not tire, even during protracted periods of unarmed combat. They seem superhumanly strong because they simply do not get tired as a living person would, and can utilize one hundred percent of their body’s strength capability at all times. This is impossible for a living person to accomplish due to fatigue, and the damage that vigorous exertion causes to living muscle tissue.

One can only permanently kill the undead by shutting off the creature’s brain function. Even beheading is not one hundred percent effective unless the brain stem itself is destroyed. The severed head of a revenant can still move its eyes and mouth, and will click its teeth together in an effort to bite anything that comes near it. Bullets fired directly into the brain are the fastest and most efficient method of dealing with the undead, but because the walking corpses are attracted to sound, shooting a revenant often leads to more of them converging on the area of the shot. It has been stated before, but bears repeating, that the undead are exceptionally good at triangulating and locating sources of sound. Neutralization by firearm should only be undertaken utilizing a silenced weapon, or as a last resort when faced with overwhelming numbers.

Melee weapons have varying degrees of effectiveness, depending on the individual weapon’s characteristics and the skill of the user. Some commonly available items that have proven effective in the field are large hammers, crowbars, pick axes, fire axes, and hatchets. Other effective, albeit more difficult and risky means, are detailed as follows, based on actual observed confrontations:

Knives:

These weapons can bring down a revenant, but require the wielder to engage the enemy at very close range. The danger posed by this method cannot be over-emphasized. The blade must be driven deep into the undead’s brain, and often the weapon will become lodged in the skull of the attacker. The most effective means of dispatching revenants with a knife is to trip the undead and drive the knife upward into the base of the skull, thereby severing the brainstem, or to strike upward beneath the jaw, through the soft palate, and into the base of the brain. The latter method is especially effective with a bayonet fixed to the end of a rifle.

Swords:

Only one operative has ever attempted to use a sword against a revenant. Said operative was an expert martial artist, and a highly skilled swordsman. The first sword he utilized was a Japanese Odachi, (a very large and heavy Katana style sword) and so long as he had room to swing the massive weapon, it was very effective at beheading the undead, and severing their legs at the knee to reduce their mobility. At close range, however, the blade became useless, and the operative nearly found himself overwhelmed.

The next weapon he tried was an Iberian Falcata. The blade was shorter than the Odachi but nearly equal in weight, and proved very effective not only as a chopping weapon, but also at cleaving the skulls of the infected. With a strong, properly executed blow delivered at a forty- five degree angle to the top of the skull, the sword caused catastrophic damage to the revenant’s brain without the blade lodging in the brain case. The weapon in question was custom designed, and due to limited availability will most likely see limited use in further revenant engagements.

Spears:

A strong, heavy, long bladed spear, preferably with a narrow, spike-like profile, has proven very effective as an anti-revenant weapon. A quick, powerful thrust to the nasal cavity, under the soft palate, or the base of the skull will usually put the undead down permanently. Destroying the brain by stabbing the revenant through the eye is effective, but due to the small target area that the human eye presents, this technique is difficult to accomplish as quickly or as consistently as a strike to other, larger parts of the skull. Spears are mid-range weapons best used at a distance, and become ungainly and ineffective at close range.

Special note:

As a best practice, tactical situation permitting, it is usually easiest to destroy an infected person by tripping them, then destroying the brain while the infected is face down on the ground. Undead are extremely easy to trip. Simply holding a T or L-shaped obstacle in front of their ankles will usually result in a fall. Once down, the undead can be held to the ground with the same implement until dispatched, by placing the restraining device across the back of the undead’s neck, and putting weight on it.

The undead will doggedly follow prey so long as they remain within the revenants range of sensory perception. Revenants have been successfully destroyed by placing live bait on a high precipice out of reach of the undead, and simply letting them plunge down to their demise. The pitiful creatures will literally walk off the side of a cliff or tall building in an attempt to capture prey, further proving their lack of intelligence.

Patterns of Movement: The undead do not seem to have any set pattern to their movement or behavior, other than that they are more active at night than during the day. Revenants do not seem to suffer any degradation of their tracking ability at night, most likely because they rely on sound and scent more than on vision. If trapped in an area with a large infected population, movement at night is strongly discouraged. Revenants seem to instinctively attack and tear out the throats of their victims, resulting in walking corpses that do not emit the loud gurgling moan typically associated with a ghoul spotting its prey. Several times, operatives have been attacked and killed by undead that they did not know were tracking them due to limited visibility.

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As I read on, I learned that Gabriel had worked with others on his strike team to develop more effective and efficient means of dealing with the undead. There were descriptions, and even illustrated diagrams, of various group and individual tactics as well as the relative success or failure of each method. It soon became clear that two or more people working together in a coordinated attack was far more effective than one person fighting alone.A long section of the journal detailed different types of firearms and ammunition used against the infected, as well as how each one performed in combat. Initially, Gabe’s strike team tried using sniper rifles that fired powerful 7.62 mm and .338 Lapua magnum rounds. Their strategy was to keep at least one hundred meters away from the undead, relying on accuracy and long-range firepower to bring them down. The strategy was effective at first, but the noise from the loud rifles attracted large numbers of infected, and the team soon found themselves running low on ammo. Due to the heavy weight of the bullets, each operative carried less than three hundred rounds apiece. The team soon found themselves trapped on the roof of a poorly constructed schoolhouse, surrounded on all sides by the dead. They were forced to radio for a helicopter to rescue them, and had to make several return trips to eliminate the remaining infected.

Afterward, Gabe’s team decided to use weapons that fired smaller rounds that allowed them to bring more ammo to the battlefield.  They tried a variety of different combinations of weapons, and  determined that the optimum load out was to have at least one operative carry a sniper rifle for long range engagements, two to three riflemen armed with carbines that fired 5.56mm NATO rounds, and the remainder of the team utilizing submachine guns with high capacity magazines.