The Apocalypse Crusade 2 (31 page)

He stormed away and Collins whispered: “Good riddance.” Louder, he yelled to the soldiers on the hill: “There will be no more falling back. There will be no more retreat. This is where we draw the line and this is where we make our stand! Your friends and loved ones are counting on us to stop these creatures right here and right now.”

“Who the fuck are you?” someone demanded from out of the dark.

This brought a laugh from the general. He could imagine the pain, fear and stress these soldiers had endured, and now they were being told they couldn’t run from a flesh-eating horde? “I’m your Commanding Officer and those Humvees back there represent my command post. It’s not moving. When I say we cannot run any further, I fucking mean it! Running at this point means surrender. It means we’ve lost the state, possibly the country and maybe even all of humanity. So we’re going to fight. We’re going to shred those motherfuckers like pulled pork. We’re going to stop them here and now!”

He grinned again when the rag-tag group of tired men and women let out a raucous curse-laden cheer. Their guns began to fire and Collins jogged back to the command post where he was greeted by the stunned looks of the officers. He began barking orders: “I need the miniguns pulled off my Blackhawk, and that goes for every chopper that puts down here. Next, I want those Strykers and Hummers that were sent out recalled from whatever they’re doing. I need them to keep a lane open for the retreating men. Next I want the Humvees we have here moved to the edge of the hill.”

“But these aren’t weapons platforms, sir,” a captain said, explaining the obvious. “We don’t have guns. We only have computers and comm gear.”

“No shit, son,” Collins shot back. “But they do have headlights and until we can redirect some of those Coast Guard birds in this direction we’re going to help our boys fight. Now get your asses moving.”

The hummers and ammo trucks were brought up to the line and in the glare of the high beams, the soldiers saw their peril more clearly than they ever had. They were just a handful compared to what might have been two thousand or more of the undead. Panic rippled along the lines and it grew worse when Lieutenant Colonel O’Brian was seen throwing down his M4 and running. He wasn’t deserting; he ran to the field where the general’s helicopter sat. Two men, the pilot and Lieutenant Colonel Victor, were trying to disconnect the cumbersome, electric Miniguns from the side of the craft. O’Brian saw there was no time for it.

“Get this bird in the air!” he ordered. “I need your guns on targets in two minutes or there won’t be a line left.”

The pilot knew he’d be disobeying Collins’ direct orders and he paused, but only for a second. “Ok, but I need you to work the other gun. I sent my crew to the line.” With a colonel in each door, the pilot, only a captain, lifted off, going just high enough to clear the roofs of the hummers. He brought the bird to hover twenty feet above the slope of the hill where the concentration of zombies was the heaviest. “Remember, short bursts. Don’t burn through the ammo. If you’re not careful this will be a one minute ride.”

“Go lower!” Victor yelled into the mike. “The angle sucks.” He had been firing on a downward trajectory and it seemed like a waste that missed shots went into the dirt.

The pilot dropped the bird so that it hovered a few feet off the ground and now Victor and O’Brian opened up. The heavy rounds zipped out at head height blasting apart the zombies to the great cheers of the men and women on the line. Gradually the pilot worked the Blackhawk in a circle, laying out 360 degrees of death. All too soon, the miniguns went dry and the copter went to reload—the one problem being that reloading meant a trip back to the airbase outside of Albany. The men were once again on their own.

General Collins had watched the scene with one ear to his satellite phone; Courtney couldn’t be reached and worse neither could Governor Stimpson who was, supposedly on the phone with the President. “Probably looking to fire me,” he said to himself. “Which is just fine with me. I need the sleep.” He glanced over at the comm unit: he had thirteen calls waiting for him and a battle to run. The calls would have to wait.

“Governor Stimpson, please. Hold for the President, please,” she said, her tone was well beyond the point of being snooty. It basically brooked no argument whatsoever and Stimpson’s secretary who was well beyond the point of dealing with another dignitary’s assistant, even the President’s, only grunted out: “One second.”

Stimpson was on the line a moment later and he was altogether breathless. “Listen, sir, you have to take this mess off my hands. I’ve got seventy-eight lawsuits from this morning’s incident alone. I’ve got reporters crawling all over the place looking to lay blame, and you know what the
New York Times
is doing? They’re blackmailing me. They just sent me tomorrow’s cover with a note that read: Now do you want to talk? The fucking picture is of me with my finger and thumb cocked like it was a gun and it looks I’m pointing at those dead bodies from that fucking YouTube video. They’re trying to pin this on me, sir. I tried to tell them that it was the army but they’re going with this commander-in-chief business, which is completely unfair. It’s killing me is what it is. My poll numbers are dropping like a rock!”

There was a long pause and Stimpson said: “Mr. President?”

Courtney Shaw cleared her throat, amazed and dumbfounded that these were Stimpson’s main concerns when talking to the President. Shouldn’t he be worried about the people who were trapped in The Zone? Or the people out there dying or those already dead? “This isn’t the President. This is Courtney Shaw. I had to talk to you and this was the only way, I’m sorry. Your secretaries are tough to get around, and...”

She could feel Stimpson’s wrath through the phone line and she was sure he was within a second of hanging up. Quickly, she added: “General Collins asked me to call you.”

His voice was ice. “That’s a lie as well, isn’t it?”

“No, sir.”

“I think it is. You see I have a direct line to him. If he wants to talk, all he has to do is pick up the phone. Now, I think you have gone too far this time, Courtney. I’m a busy man and I can’t be bothered with pranks. Don’t take it personally but you will be receiving a call from the State Bureau of Investigations. Have a nice day.”

“Let them call,” she said hurriedly before he could hang up. “They can come and arrest me if they want. I’m at the trooper station on highway 54. But if they come, they better come with about a thousand men.”

Stimpson was slow to reply. “That’s in The Zone, isn’t it? Ah, Courtney, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. I can’t allow anyone out. It’s for the safety of the rest of the state. You understand, don’t you?”

He was back in politician mode and his voice was soothing and for a second she really did understand. In fact, she felt a slight bit sorry for him that he was forced to make such a hard decision. But it was for just that second and then she blinked away the spell. “Right, I get that, but I’m not calling for me. I really am calling for General Collins. His men are in big trouble and they need you to step up. They…”

The door to the office wing slammed open and Max Fowler backed out of it, firing his M16. Seconds later, he was followed by John Burke and Chuck Singleton. Chuck smashed his shoulder against the metal door while Burke worked the lock. They then began to heave the displaced office furniture against it to bolster the meager defenses. This door was the weakest point now. It wasn’t nearly as sturdy as the one that led to the incarceration wing or the heavy glass ones in front.

Deckard and Thuy came to help, while a few of the others stood around and watched. There wasn’t much more anyone could do besides wait for the inevitable. Except for Courtney that is, she could do something. “Like I was saying…”

“Was that gunfire?” Stimpson asked in a quiet voice. “Are you ok?”

“For now…for the minute. Listen, Governor, I need a favor. Well, really it’s the general who needs a favor, but don’t think of it as a favor to him. Think of it as a favor to your men. You are the Commander in Chief. Those are your men out there fighting and without you they don’t stand a chance.”

Stimpson was slower to reply and there was a caginess to his answer. “From what I gather my lines are fine, all except in the east and those aren’t really my lines are they? Connecticut and Massachusetts are dealing with that sector, so maybe you should talk to them.”

“I will if I have time,” Courtney said, raising her voice. The zombies were assaulting the door from the office wing and it was loud in her ear. “But you aren’t as secure as you think. Remember last night? Remember how we thought we had a handle on this thing time and again?”

“Yes, but the lines are holding. I’ve seen the aerial reports, the main grouping of infected persons is headed east. They’re not my problem anymore.”

“Maybe they’re not your problem tonight, but they will boomerang. If Collins can’t stop them before they hit Hartford then instead of dealing with a hundred thousand zombies, he’ll be dealing with a million. With what he has now he won’t be able to stop them. They’ll flood into Rhode Island and where do you think they’ll go from there?”

“Massachusetts?”

“You’re right, a lot of them will, but not all. Some will come back this way. Maybe only a quarter of them, maybe ten percent, but how many will there be by then? Five million? Ten? If ten million zombies boomerang to New York, what chance do you have? Listen to me, Governor. You have the chance to help stop this now.”

“The feds will step in before any of that happens. They have to. They…”

A new sound came. It was almost as loud as when the zombies were hammering the doors with rocks. Deckard ordered a man to take his place and then he and two others advanced toward the front of the building. Courtney’s lip began to jabber up against the mike. They were running out of time.

“Yes, they will take over,” she said, “and you’ll be the man history blames. They’ll say you did nothing to stop it when you could have. You better believe that’s how the President will play it, because that’s how he’s playing it now. He’s going to wait for you to make the hard choices because he can’t and he’ll blame you if you don’t.”

“But the voters…you don’t get it, Courtney. They already blame me for what happened this morning with that massacre. What do you think will happen if I authorize more force? That’s what you’re looking for isn’t it? You want me to let the general have his tanks and his gunships and his jets. The people won’t stand for that.”

“That was this morning. Pretty soon they’ll be begging for it and in the meantime, Collins isn’t looking to harm New Yorkers. He needs the weapons platforms for Connecticut. He needs you to allow New York troops to operate outside the state line. He has permission from the Governor of Connecticut for this and one signature from you will make all the difference. You’ll be absolved from the actions they take. You can be decisive without taking a risk.”

Again, there was quiet as Stimpson thought through his options. “I’ll need to talk this over with my staff.”

A gun shot from the front of the building stiffened Courtney’s resolve. “No! There’s no time. You have to decide right now. Think about it! These aren’t people anymore. They’re not voters. Please, there is only upside to this.”

He breathed out: “Fine. What’s he need?”

As Courtney let out a sigh of relief, Deckard waited at the front door of the station, with his mask down across his nose and mouth. There had been more of the rock-handed zombies and they had put three head-sized holes in the thick glass of the front doors. These doors hadn’t been designed to be bulletproof but they were close and still they were coming apart under the relentless attack.

Another zombie with its hands covered in duct tape was pushed through the crowd by the boy in the striped shirt. He was the evilest thing Deckard had ever seen. The way he grinned hungrily, and the way his eyes were black and hating but in a gleeful manner, made Deckard’s skin crawl. The boy had power over the other zombies. They were unthinking and usually relied either on hunger or hate to drive them but they accepted his guidance without question. Luckily, it seemed their ability to comprehend was extremely limited. They knew to bash and little else.

Deckard stuck the barrel of his M16 through one of the holes in the door and tried to kill the boy. The angle he had to shoot the little bastard was bad; it was too high, and the bullets thudded with an ugly sound into the zombies just behind him. Then he was gone again, hiding in the pack of ghouls that surged forward. Deckard fired through the holes trying to get at the one with the rocks tied to its hands, but couldn’t find the right angle and had to wait until it made its first hole in the glass at which point he plugged it straight away through the eye.

Unmasked and unafraid, Burke came into the foyer, pushing past the two troopers who had shied back from the proximity of the beasts. “Y’all look like ya need some hep,” he said, genially. “It’s like a game of whack-a-mole. Y’all ever play that?” John had many times. He used to take Jaimee Lynn down to the Nickel-A-Play and whack all sorts of moles with her.

Deckard couldn’t remember ever playing the game, but he understood the analogy. Hands were constantly grabbing at the holes and ripping at them and when they did, he would step up and shoot whatever beast was just on the outside of the hole. There was diseased black blood running down the inner wall of the door and sprays of it on the outer. After only a few minutes, there was no way to look out.

“This is getting ugly,” Deckard said, pausing to reload the M16. He eyed one of the troopers who had a Glock in his sweaty hands. “Step up, will you? The pistol is a little better for this kind of work. Don’t worry. We’ll bleach you down when you’re done.” A question came to mind: who would bleach the last man in the foyer when the door finally caved? No answer came to that, probably because at that point no one would be worried about germs.

He had the other trooper give him and his weapon a scrub down making his eyes water with the chemical stench. When he was clean, he went into the lobby and stepped around the backup barricade Dr. Wilson was constructing from what was left of the furniture. He had the two teens along with a dead-tired looking Stephanie Glowitz helping him.

“Maybe you should take a break,” he suggested to her. “I can get one of the state troopers to take your place.”

She shook her head but began coughing, making a wet sound. The two teens backed away, fearing that she might have the zombie disease. Dr. Wilson put a hand on their backs to steady them. “Don’t worry. She doesn’t have the sickness you’re afraid of. She’s sick with something else. Please, Stephanie. Go take a seat. Why don’t you guard the prisoners and send me one of those two in the back. They haven’t done anything all evening as far as I know.”

They all knew to whom he was referring.

Cheryl had stayed as far from any action as humanly possible, which meant she was generally far from anything that could be considered work. Thuy had volunteered her to watch over the prisoners, mainly because she figured that, cuffed as they were, they weren’t going to be a danger, and it wasn’t like they were going to run away. Thuy also chose Benjamin because it was clear that he wasn’t going to leave her side no matter what. He was as bad as Sundance who sat next to Courtney Shaw and wouldn’t budge. In the dog, it was endearing; in the human, it was skeevy.

“There won’t be a helicopter,” Eng said, suddenly, and to no one in particular. The prisoners were sitting on the bare floor of a storeroom that sat just off the loading dock door. No one had spoken much. Anna had tried to nap, laying her head on Meeks’ lap. He hadn’t said no to this but not because of a sexual reason. She seemed to have had a rough time of it. Her hand was mangled and swollen, her face was bruised and cut in places. Supposedly, she’d had a hand in the tragedy that had befallen them, but Meeks had a hard time believing it.

The two men who had come in with the now dead Mexican had been shunned by the others and sat as far from the rest as possible. One was named Bob and the other, Allen. They glanced at each other and then at Eng. “What are you talking about?” Bob asked.

“Just that there won’t be a helicopter. Where will it land? You heard them, there’s no roof access. That means we’ll have to go out there. We’d have to fight our way through a mob of zombies.”

“Not if we take the back door,” Benjamin said, jerking his thumb toward the loading dock. “There aren’t any zombies out there.”

Eng smirked at this. “No zombies and you’re still sitting here? Wow.”

Cheryl’s dull eyes sparked at this. “What do you mean, wow? Are you saying we should go out there? That’s idiotic when there is a helicopter coming.”

“Oh, you are so young and naive,” Eng said, shaking his head, wearing a rueful smile. Anna gave him a sharp look that no one saw but him. There had been a question in the look and he answered, warning her to keep quiet with the tiniest shake of his head. “You don’t know these people like I do. Lying is second nature to them just as backstabbing is. You should ask them how they managed to get out of Walton when so many others died or were infected. You better believe it that, if there is a helicopter, I won’t be on it and neither will Anna. We know the truth and they can’t let that get out.”

“Well, that sucks for you,” Benjamin replied in his usual abrasive fashion.

“It sucks for you as well,” Eng said, easily as if he hadn’t heard the pettiness in the man’s voice. “Even if there is a helicopter coming, do you think you’ll be on it?
They
take care of their own inner circle of friends, which I can tell, you’re not a part of. Besides how many people are here? Thirty, forty? And how many will fit on a helicopter?”