Omega Days (An Omega Days Novel) (11 page)

Smiles wasn’t here. The zombie bumping around the room was a heavyset Puerto Rican girl in lingerie, her skin ashy and her eyes a cloudy gray. The long wounds of her slit wrists were clearly visible as she reached and stumbled toward the two men, making a thick gurgling sound.

Xavier leaped left, up onto the bed, where he discovered the sheets were tacky with blood, a sticky box cutter lying near a pillow. Pulaski froze, staring at the girl with his mouth hanging open as she closed on him.

“Kill it!” Xavier yelled.

Pulaski dropped the lighter, grabbed the tire iron with both hands, and drove the sharp end into her belly. The girl grabbed at him, getting a fistful of his hair and pulling herself forward. The pipe fitter shrieked and jerked away, but she didn’t let go and stumbled after him, the tire iron poking out of her.

Xavier came in from the side, throwing a hammer blow of a punch at the side of her head, then three more. The dead girl’s head rocked to the side and she fell against the TV, knocking it over, but not releasing Pulaski’s hair, dragging him down as he yelled, “Get it off me!”

Xavier was about to land another punch, but she turned her head and he faced snapping teeth. Instead he jumped back, looking around as his shoe crushed a plastic bong lying on the floor.

The girl got her other hand knotted into Pulaski’s hair, and she pulled.

“Ah, Jesus, Jesus,
Jesus
!” Pulaski strained back against her, trying to pry her fingers loose, but she was a big girl, bigger than him, and now she was bringing those snapping teeth to his face.

Hanging on a wall near the corner was an Aztec calendar with a ferocious-looking face at its center, crossed spears behind it. Xavier darted that way but ignored the spears (he figured they were cheap replicas) and snatched something off the floor beneath the calendar. He came up with a red obsidian statuette of an Aztec fertility god with a gigantic, curving penis. It was solid and heavy, and he raised it over his head and brought it crashing down on the girl’s skull.

There was a crunch, and her fingers jerked open. Pulaski fell backward. Xavier hit her again in the same spot, grunting with the force of the swing, and her head caved in. The girl’s body slumped against the wall and slid over onto the floor.

Both men were breathing hard, and neither spoke for a moment. Finally Pulaski approached and yanked the tire iron out of her belly. “The head,” he gasped.

Xavier swallowed hard and nodded. “The head.” He tossed the fertility god onto a leather sofa.

“I thought I was gonna piss myself,” Pulaski said, looking at the priest. “But I was so scared, I don’t think I could have squeezed a drop if I wanted to.”

Xavier checked the front of his jeans. “I thought I did piss myself.”

They stared at each other, laughing like two crazy people, and then looked at their watches in the glow from the window. “We’re out of time,” Pulaski said.

They searched the room quickly, neither wanting to go through all this and leave empty-handed. They were rewarded. In the closet, hidden behind stacks of sneaker boxes, they found a combat shotgun, a pair of automatic handguns, and a big, snub-nosed .44 Bulldog revolver. Inside several of the shoe boxes they found boxes of ammo for everything. A Timberland boot box held half a dozen loaded magazines for an assault rifle.

They found the AK-47 concealed in a cutout hollow in the bed’s box spring.

“Satisfied?” Xavier asked.

Pulaski grinned, loading the shotgun.

They tore apart the closet until they found a pair of nylon gym bags, putting the handguns and magazines in one, the boxes of ammo in the other. Xavier checked the Bulldog, found it loaded, and slipped it into a pocket of his jeans. He slung the AK-47 over a shoulder, and they went back downstairs, stopping again in the doorway.

The fire had gone out, and once again bodies moved slowly through the fog. There were more of them now.

“Use your lighter,” Xavier said. Pulaski lit it, holding it high and moving it up and down, like a nightclub owner signaling a stand-up comic that his time was almost up. There was no response from the darkness of the looted dollar store. Xavier checked his watch. They had been gone for forty minutes.

“Do it again.” Xavier said.

Pulaski did, and then they waited. Nothing. “They’re gone. The teacher did what you told him and took off. We’re on our own,” Pulaski said, nudging the priest with his elbow. “Let’s find a back way out of here.”

Xavier stared at the dark shop across the street, imagining Alden trying to get the two teenagers out of the city alive, knowing the man wouldn’t make it. The list of people Xavier had failed just added three more names.

A small shadow emerged onto the far sidewalk, and there was a glimmer of fire. A second later there was a whoosh as the Molotov cocktail sailed through the fog, away from the streetlight. Flames spreading across the hood of a car got the dead moving in that direction, an eerie keening rising from the shuffling figures. Within minutes the street was clear, and the two men hustled back to their group. There were smiles of relief all around.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” Snake said, grinning at the priest. “I forgot that you guys had the Zippo, and I had to dig through the counter back there to find another lighter.”

Xavier shook the boy’s hand. “You did great.” He hefted one of the gym bags, and Pulaski showed them the shotgun. “We all did. We’ll figure out the weapons later. Right now we should get out of here, find a place to hole up until morning.” He dug a few magazines out of the bag and shoved them in his pockets, then slipped the Russian assault rifle off his shoulder.

Pulaski pointed his chin at it. “You know how to use that?”

The priest inserted the magazine, snapped back the arming bolt, and thumbed the weapon to safe. His face turned grim. “Yes.” Then he led them out the back.

Berkeley

It was close to midnight by the time they finished up, and Skye thought she might just collapse right where she was and sleep on the tar roof. Everything ached; her knees and thighs burned from holding the same position for hours, her right shoulder felt like someone had been hitting it with a hammer, and her arms were iron bars. Were it not for the soft, yellow ear protectors Taylor had given her, she knew she would also be deaf.

“You did well for a first-timer,” Sgt. Postman said. “It’s about repetition and discipline, but talent plays a part. You’re not afraid to pull the trigger, and that’s important. And you listen, even more important. Practice will make you better.”

Skye smiled, gathering from Taylor’s expression that the sergeant didn’t hand out many compliments.

“We’re almost done,” Postman said.

“Almost?” she asked. Was he kidding?

“You’re not finished until you clean your weapon, lady.” Postman produced a cleaning kit, informing her it was an extra and hers to keep. Apparently he had been planning this for a while. Then the two soldiers spent an hour teaching her how to break down the M4 and how to clean, oil, and reassemble the weapon so that it was ready for action. This was all done by the glow of a flashlight.

“I’ll clean the sniper tonight,” Postman said, “but only this once.” He threw her a wink.

Taylor walked with her to the other side of the roof, where he had spread a poncho out on the tar. “Use your pack for a pillow,” he said.

She eyed the lumpy camouflage backpack, filled with MREs and spare magazines. It sure wasn’t the pile of down pillows on her bed back in Reno.

Taylor chuckled. “You’ll be asleep so fast you won’t even notice it.”

But she wasn’t. Her tired body was loaded with adrenaline from the evening’s shooting, and now that she had time to sit and really look around, she was too awed by what she saw to close her eyes. Berkeley lay in darkness, vast stretches of black punctuated by tiny pockets of light, generators or perhaps patches of the power grid that hadn’t gone down yet. None were close to them. Fires burned in the night, some as small as a lone, burning vehicle, others wild infernos as entire blocks burned unchecked. The air reeked of smoke.

The bay was a flat black field with only the occasional pinpoint of light, a small boat maybe, or buoys, and the great city beyond was burning. The Bay Bridge, normally a ribbon of light, was nothing but a silhouette, and she couldn’t even see the Golden Gate. Some aircraft flew high above, their blinking lights no different than on any other night, and there were helicopters buzzing over San Francisco, though fewer than had been there when the sun was up. Nothing flew over Berkeley. A light fog was coming in, and soon the city across the water would be masked.

A ghost town, she thought.

She watched Taylor and Postman break down their own weapons and begin cleaning them, hands moving with practiced efficiency. She had been clumsy and wanted to be able to do it with their speed and confidence.

Skye had learned so much today, and aching more than her muscles was her head, trying to remember and process the day’s many lessons. Sgt. Postman was a good teacher, direct and patient, but also quick to correct with a stern voice or firm grip when ignorant hands did something wrong. Very different from the weary, soft, and even bitter teachers in high school. The sergeant knew his job well and insisted that you learn, without excuses.

He had started with the assault rifle, the M4, explaining the basic structure. She learned how to load a magazine, how to load the magazine into the rifle (“It is not a
gun
, lady”), and how to arm it with the charging handle. Each magazine held thirty rounds, and the rifle had an effective range of five hundred meters. She was shown where the spent brass was ejected, how to “safe” the weapon and eject an empty magazine, and how to switch from single-shot semiauto to a three-round automatic burst. He told her full auto was a waste of ammo, and told her if he ever caught her switched to “rock and roll” she would do push-ups until her arms turned to Jell-O. She spent an hour “snapping in” with the unloaded rifle, as Postman showed her how to hold it, how to fit it into the hollow of her shoulder, and where to rest her cheek. He taught her about safety,
Lord
how he went on about safety.

“Tell me about the scope,” Skye said.

He shook his head in disgust. “That is a sight, an ACOG sight to be precise. It’s a combat sight designed for quick use.”

She looked through it. A pair of radiant green chevrons seemed to float in the air, points used to mark the target, and not unlike a video game. “Does it see in the dark?” He said it did not.

The M4 didn’t kick as much as she expected, and after the first magazine she barely noticed it at all. Postman put her right to work on targets in the street below, and she spent more than two hours killing zombies. It was a total rush. She also learned that a head shot was not an easy thing to make, and Skye sent more than her share of bullets whining off pavement and brick buildings, or
thunking
harmlessly into chests and arms and legs, which didn’t bother the tangos one bit.

“The human head is only about five point nine inches wide to begin with,” the sergeant explained. “The farther away from it you are, the smaller it gets.”

She missed a lot. She hit a lot of dead flesh to no effect. The
kills
, however, those were the
real
rush. Seeing one of the walking dead stiffen and collapse as one of her bullets found its mark, that puff of pink mist and gray matter that popped when her shot went where it was supposed to, that was worth every ache and pain.

“Understand that hitting a target from a stationary position is much different than from a vehicle—”

“Which is almost impossible,” Taylor added.

“—or while walking.”

She nodded at the sergeant. “I want to learn that too.”

The soldiers looked at each other and laughed. “Well, Miss Dennison, I was kind of hoping we’d link up with our troops and get you someplace safe before we had to teach you the advanced stuff.”

Skye blushed. She didn’t
want
to be shipped off like some refugee. She wanted an M4 in her hands all the time, to be a hunter, not a victim.

Postman had worked with young soldiers for many years, not only at home but in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Those soldiers were boys who had seen friends killed, whose childhood was quickly stripped away by the brutality of war. He saw something in the girl’s eyes he knew well, something he appreciated as a professional, but also found a little sad. “Back to work.”

The late-summer sun took its time going down, and they had enough light to use the assault rifle until around nine. Then the sergeant introduced her to the M24. “The fancy name for this is the M24E-XM2010. Got all that?”

“Not a bit of it,” she answered.

“Wiseass. Doesn’t matter, it’s just an improved variation of the basic M24 sniper rifle, very different from the M4.” And he was right. Everything about it was different: longer, heavier, harder to handle, and with a completely different balance. It had a snap-out bipod to keep it steady (“But a sandbag or a pack as a shooting platform is best”) and carried only five big .300 bullets in a stubby magazine. At the end was a long suppressor designed to reduce noise and flash and keep the recoil manageable. This rifle did have a scope, Postman explained, which could be swapped out for another capable of night vision.

The sergeant went through all the same procedures as with the assault rifle: loading, proper grip and sighting, and more safety. In the last of the light he had her fire five rounds, and she discovered that it kicked like a bastard. She missed with three; grazed a hip, which succeeded in spinning the corpse in a half circle; and blew off an arm with her last bullet. Not a head shot among them.

Postman spoke about curved trajectories, minute of angle, vectors and fractions of gravity, range, crosswinds, and leading the target. It was an incomprehensible jumble, and not understanding made her angry since she had always thought of herself as a fast learner.

The sergeant saw her frustration and said, “Our snipers go to school for months just to learn the fundamentals. Don’t expect to pick it up in a couple of hours.”

That helped a little.

“Just remember some basics,” he continued. “The farther away from the target you are, the more the bullet drops, so the higher above the mark you have to aim. Fire a little bit in front of moving targets, where they’re
going
to be when the bullet gets there. The rest is Kentucky windage.”

“What?” she asked.

He smiled. “Guessing. Shooting and adjusting until you get it right.”

“Why didn’t you just say that first?”

“Because it burns through your ammo. Remember to steady your breathing and let it out slowly as you fire. Don’t forget to relocate. That’s one of the most important lessons a sniper learns.”

Taylor was watching her face and saw her eyebrow go up. “Changing position after a couple of shots,” he said. “The longer you stay put, the easier it is for your targets to find you. Movement equals life.”

They were words she would remember.

“But we’ve been shooting from the same place for hours,” she said. “They keep coming.”

Postman looked at the street. The fog didn’t reach this far in from the bay, and there was a half moon above. It revealed hundreds of corpses congregating below, all facing the building from which they were shooting, steadily pressing forward. “Yeah, I noticed. They seem drawn to the gunfire.”

“So explain why that’s not bad, if movement is life.”

“Well, for one thing they can’t shoot back. And I don’t really think they’re smart enough to figure out how to get up here.” He gestured out at the town. “We didn’t see a single freak on a rooftop, did we? They’re more like cattle.” He snapped on the night scope and gave her back the rifle. This time Skye scored four hits, including a head shot. That one just disintegrated from the neck up.

“Holy shit,” she whispered.

“Yeah, holy shit,” Postman said, laughing. “At short range, with that caliber bullet, you could blow the head off a cow.”

Skye looked at the big rifle in her hands. Its power was humbling.

Now, as she stretched out on the poncho, her M4 loaded and resting beside her, she looked up at clouds tinted silver by moonlight, stars darting in and out of them high above. It was the same sky that had been there last night, but tonight the world it looked down upon was very, very different. Had it only been this morning when everything changed? Her mom and sister laughing on the grass in front of the dorm, Dad grumbling good-naturedly about carrying luggage . . . It felt like a lifetime had passed since then. Thoughts of her family carried her off to sleep.

•   •   •

S
he had a nightmare.

An explosion. Snarling. Gunfire.

“Skye! Skye, get out!”

Not a dream. The dead surged through the rooftop door, which had been shredded by Taylor’s claymore, spilling out in a tumble, scrambling to their feet, still more pouring out behind them. Sgt. Postman was buried beneath thrashing shapes, his legs kicking as a dozen corpses tore at him. Taylor was ten feet away and on one knee, firing and dropping shapes in the doorway. Not enough of them.

“Move!”
he screamed.
“Skye, move, move!”

Bodies fell, only to have more stagger over them. Taylor dropped an empty magazine, reloaded, and started firing again. “Get off the roof!” he shouted. Snarling shapes slammed into him, bringing the young soldier down with an angry yell. Teeth and hands tore at him, and in seconds his yelling turned to a thick gurgle.

Skye was on her feet. Postman had stopped moving, and she couldn’t even see Taylor under the pile of hungry fiends. More corpses stumbled through the door, looking around, spotting Skye. She snatched up her rifle and grabbed the pack she had been using as a pillow, racing across the roof and throwing it over the side. She threw the rifle strap around her neck as the dead pursued her toward the drop-off.

With one hand she grabbed the arched top of the ladder and swung over, her sneakers slipping on the rungs, and she hurried down. Arms shot down at her over the low wall, a fist catching some of her hair. She screamed and fought to pull free as another hand groped for a hold of its own. Skye gripped the sides of the ladder and swung her legs out, letting her full body weight drop. Hair came loose with a ripping sound, and she screamed as she clutched at the metal rungs, stopping her descent before she could free-fall. Moans came from above as she descended, feet moving fast.

The alley would be filled with the dead, she thought, standing and waiting for her. They would pull her off the ladder and tear her apart. When her feet hit the asphalt she spun, gripping the rifle and bringing it up quickly, determined to take as many with her as she could.

The alley was empty in both directions.

She found her pack and pulled it on, slinging the rifle strap properly around her neck as she had been shown, taking the weapon in both hands. At the top of the ladder, agitated shapes still clawed at the air. She wanted to go back up there, to kill the things attacking the men who had saved her life, knowing it was too late. Tears sprang into her eyes and she wiped at them savagely, shaking her head. No more, she told herself.

Skye put the rifle to her shoulder, switched off the safety, and jogged into the night.