Shades of Gray (22 page)

“─do you mean, a fallen tree?”

“Yes, sir. One mile from your location.”

“Son, I don’t know what you’re looking at, but I’m looking at a road that is no longer there. Forest where there shouldn’t be. Where the hell are you?”

Silence.

The four of us glanced around at each other. Gus, sensing the tension, stopped panting.

“Mister Collins, what is your location? Respond,” Waters said again. Chief Warrant Officer Collins was the Blackhawk pilot. Nice guy, though I’d only met him once, and only in passing.

Seconds stretched without a response. The only noise was a faint crackle popping from the radio. I took a breath and was about to ask Willis his opinion when Collins finally spoke.

“Uh…Sir?”

The uneasy confusion in his voice was more than unsettling. Apparently it affected Waters in the same way, because it took the span of several breaths before he answered.

“What do you have?” He sounded like someone who knew what sort of shitty news he was about to get.

“I’m not…well sir, we have cattle?”

I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. Jake snorted and threw a what-the-hell look in my direction. I’d been staring at the radio, but after that comment, I glanced ahead and saw doors opening on the middle and front Humvees. Michael, Jonah, Todd, and the two soldiers from Jonah’s vehicle came into view and grouped together on the right-banked side of the convoy. Why Todd was sticking his nose into it, I had no clue. He was such an asshole. The soldiers had their weapons at the ready, all five men sharply studying the hillside and beyond.

“Explain,” Waters ordered.

Jonah’s head was tilted and his eyes narrowed. I knew from experience he was listening to something. That man had ears like a damned fox and eyes like a hawk. Michael was trying to shut Todd up. I was hoping he’d hit him in the mouth.

“Cattle, sir. Maybe 150, 200 yards east of your location and closing fast. They’re stampeding, sir.”

“How many?”

Silence. Jonah’s head jerked and he turned his widened eyes to Michael.

“How many, Collins?!” Waters yelled.

“We count fifty-seven head, sir. And they’re being chased by Zacks. Between fifteen and twenty. It’s hard to get a count─” Collins’ voice was quivering, like he’d been out in single-digit temperatures for too long.

“Oh, shit,” Willis whined.

We turned our eyes to our right, staring in the same direction as Michael and the others. Jonah was talking emphatically, and the soldiers were setting their feet and squaring their shoulders, preparing to fire. Todd was darting his eyes and head like a chicken, clearly in panic mode.

“Get back in the fuckin’ Humvees,” Jake muttered. “Get in the
Humvees!”

Willis opened his door. I wasn’t sure why, unless he thought an extra set of ears would be helpful. Turns out it was unnecessary. As soon as it was open, we could hear it. Screaming, screeching, and the thundering of hooves. Gus snorted and growled, and I think we all jumped.

“Can you take care of the situation?” Waters was still talking with Collins. I wondered if he was oblivious to the shitstorm that was nearly on top of us.

“No, sir. The trees are too thick. We’d risk hitting the convoy.”

Shit.

“Shut the door,” Jake said to Willis just as he opened his. Our driver did as he was told, though I think it was purely because of the shock he was in.

Shit.

“Jake,” Mia began, but couldn’t finish because he had jumped out and was yelling at Michael and Jonah.

Shit!

“Get in the goddamn Humvees, NOW!”

As they turned their heads in Jake’s direction, the first wave of the stampede crashed through the trees at the highest point of the hillside to our right, and Waters was shouting an order over the radio.

“Move out! Now!”

Our eyes shot from the hillside, to the radio, then to Jake in the span of seconds.

“Waters said go, now! Go, go, go!” Jake relayed the order, since all the dipshits in Jonah’s vehicle were standing outside, no one manning the radio. Immediately the group split up; Michael running back to Waters’ Humvee, and Jonah and the two soldiers tearing ass back to theirs.

“Jake!” Mia and I both shouted.

Willis fired the engine and jerked it into gear. Jake jumped in and slammed his door as the panic-maddened cows barreled down the hillside and began crashing into the narrow dirt road, directly into our vehicles and the spaces in between.

“Change of plans. Everyone stay put and hold tight,” Waters said.

That’s when I happened to notice that Todd was still outside.

* * *

The radio was alive with chatter, drivers speaking in short and clipped voices back and forth with Waters and Collins. Our Humvee shook violently with each bovine body that slammed into it. Blurs of black, brown, and white. Sometimes a head would slap its wet nose against the door glass, streaking snot as it slid out of view, the grating chorus of their mooing, rising and falling in pitch. Their tough, leathery hides scraped along the sides of the Humvee as their shoulders would pass the windows. Those able to get to their feet would turn and slam right back into the vehicle. I supposed it was caused by a blind hysteria due to stampeding.

Todd, by some half-miracle, had managed to climb onto the roof of the middle Humvee, where he was being jerked left and right, clawing at anything he could grab to hold himself down. Inside our vehicle, Gus was growling and whining while the three of us bit back a string of profanities and braced ourselves against the seats and doors.

“This is the most ridiculous damn thing I think I’ve ever seen,” I said.

“Even more ridiculous than the zombie midgets?” Mia asked, which forced a strained laugh from Jake.

“Well,” I said, “you got me there.”

One time back in college, after finals week, a group of us had gone to the local watering hole to unwind. The place had a mechanical bull in the back, and every Friday night that back room would be full of drunken 20-somethings, placing bets on who could keep their ass on the bull the longest. I always turned my friends down. That night after finals, though, I climbed onto the bull and took it for a spin. It turned out, though, that it actually took
me
for a spin, and sitting inside the Humvee while a frenzied herd of cattle plowed into it felt exactly the same way.

It was almost easy to forget that Hell was riding in behind the cattle. From what I could tell, they were all basically uninjured and turning down the road, running the way from which we’d come. I was reminded of our problem, however, when Jake broke the silence with a choked gasp.

“Oh…crap…”

Hell had arrived.

November 23rd

Sophia had only one thought, a singular notion that repeated itself through her savage mind like elevator music:
Kill
. She had only one objective, written into her DNA like a computer program:
Destroy
the Evil Ones
. The backdrop to these orders was this:
Go home
. It was a lethal combination, thrown together in a petri dish and inserted into the body of a weapon. Into Sophia’s brain.

Her memories were gone save one. Her dad, mom, brother, and sister had never existed. Her friends, old birthday parties, first kiss, all gone. Her last known residence, however, was burning bright in her mind.

Go home.

She had fought and killed many of the enemy on her journey. Her brothers and sisters had also been successful, and between the ten of them, they’d been able to clear a swath through the undead wasteland on their way home.

Destroy every Evil One in your path.

She had many brothers-in-arms. Hundreds of them. All spreading out and sweeping the land, wiping the slate clean.

Kill.

She had come into contact with several Good Ones. Sophia and her brothers were not permitted to destroy these. It was difficult for her to turn away from them, they smelled so very good. In the end she couldn’t fight her synthetic instincts. She couldn’t fight what she had been created to do.

As branches slapped and scratched at her flesh, the wind whipping through her long hair, she ran alongside her brothers, pursuing a group of Evil Ones through the trees. The steep slope of the forest made it difficult for her to stay on her feet, but her new genetic makeup drove her forward. Bellowing beasts announced their chase; her enemy hunting the herd for many miles.

The hunters had become the hunted.

She cared little for the prey; her brain registered them as Good Ones. She cared little for the large hunks of steel barring the Good Ones’ path. She cared little for the Good Ones’ scent that wafted from the steel boxes. Her only care was focused on the enemy in front of her, the Evil Ones which were about to overtake the Good Ones up ahead.

* * *

“Hold on to something!” I shouted seconds before the first runner mowed into the right side of the Humvee.

Time seemed to stop. Radio traffic ceased. We held our collective breath. Time began moving again as runner after runner slammed into the Humvees, rabidly attacking the cows that had yet to struggle to their feet and escape. Todd screamed like the stupid asshole that he was, drawing the attention of more of the runners cascading down the hillside. Three leapt into the air and slammed into him, wrapping him up in a death ball. Our eyes followed them, over the Humvee and straight down into the deep hollow to our left.

“We have to do somethin’!” Jake snapped around so his eyes could plead with me.

“Hold your positions! No one move!” Waters shouted over the radio.

I had one hand clamped on Gus’ collar and the other hand braced against the door. Breathing heavily, hissing exhales so I wouldn’t hyperventilate, I shook my head.

“There’s nothing we can do but hang on and hope like hell we don’t go over the side!” I said, referring to the steep drop off on our left.

“Stay calm. They can’t get to us, we’re safe!” Willis barked. It was the first time I had seen the young man’s training take control; discipline and strength replacing scared youth. “Fasten yourselves in, now!”

He didn’t have to say it twice. If he was any indication of the discipline and training of the Unit, I was sure the rest of my friends were getting the same order. Willis continued barking instructions on what to do if the Humvee rolled (how to prepare and all that shit), and I tried very hard to pay attention to him, but my eyes kept finding their way back to the horrendous scene outside. The runners had split their attention; some were on the cattle, some trying to tear their way into the vehicles.

This is what you’re going to become. Pull your sidearm and eat the barrel.

Mia found my hand and squeezed it hard, her fingers lacing through and gripping mine tightly. Jake twisted in his seat and locked eyes with us, switching his gaze from me to Mia every few seconds.

A sudden and incredibly loud pop whipped his and everyone else’s heads toward the passenger-side window.

“
What
the
fuck?!
” Jake’s voice cracked.

That noise had been the sound of his window groaning under the weight of one runner as it was attacked by another runner. Mia and I were speechless, while Jake and Willis were not. Willis began reporting what he was seeing to Waters, Jake continued with the cussing. The attacking runner was literally ripping the other one to pieces, right outside Jake’s window.

“Oh God…look,
look
!” Mia smacked her hand against my arm repeatedly, short, quick slaps meant to get my attention. As if I hadn’t already been looking out the window. What did she think I was doing, taking a nap?

Except she was pointing up the hillside, where I had
not
been looking.

“Did that just happen?
Did that just fuckin’ happen?!
” Jake screeched, still staring at the two runners outside his window, although the one runner had mostly been reduced to shreds, a few ligaments, and gnarled bones.

“Up the hill, Jake. Up the hill,” I said as calmly as I could while raising my voice to be heard. Willis actually started praying quietly. Mia whimpered.

On the hillside next to us, another group of runners had appeared. They were doing what the thing next to Jake’s door had been doing: attacking the first bunch of runners. They didn’t seem interested in the cows, some of which were still alive and thrashing around on the ground. These new arrivals seemed totally obsessed with their brethren. Instead of having a hunger for living flesh, these had an apparent appetite for dead meat.

We watched the slaughter for several long moments, our faces frozen in dazed stupidity.

“I take back what I said.
This
is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen,” I choked out. The noise level had dropped considerably as the battle was now being waged on the bank and not directly against and around the Humvees.