The Last Bastion of the Living: A Futuristic Zombie Novel (21 page)

“We will begin eliminating the
Scrags
closest to the gate and work our way toward the city. Each day, we will stack the
Scrag
bodies and burn them. We have been ordered to work sixteen hours a day. We then have four hours to ourselves. To read, talk, play games, to do as you please. We blackout for four hours.” Omondi pulled the image around with his fingers and highlighted a few key points
.

Watching the grayish faces of the squad, Maria could see that their joviality was giving away to rapt attention. It was fun to joke around to alleviate the stress, but in the end, they had a massive job to perform. As the briefing droned on, Maria marveled at the lack of tension in her body. There were no butterflies in her stomach,
no
tense muscles in her back, no headache or any other telltale sign of stress to deal with. It was actually really refreshing to not have to deal with any of the physical symptoms of anxiety. Though an occasional worrying thought would wind its way through her mind, she felt remarkably clear-headed.

“We will adapt our plan if needed once
w
e
’
re
on the field, but I have confidence if we stick to our plan we will be done well before the six month end date,” Omondi finished.

“Sounds good,” McKinney decided.

“And to make things a little more interesting...” Omondi killed the map and chart took its place. “The SWD has approved a bonus system for most kills per day. The soldier with the most kills per day will be granted a gold star.”

“Like in kindergarten?” Denman asked, looking amused.

“Exactly like kindergarten. These gold stars will be tallied at the end of our mission and based on how many you have acquired, you will be granted extra perks to your prefab house of your choice.” Omondi grinned.

This elicited murmurs of excitement.

“Like extra wide vid
screens?” Jameson asked.

“Oh, yes. Even extra rooms.” Omondi winked at Maria.

She hadn
’
t even known about this. It was a great way to keep everyone motivated during the long days of killing.

“Almost feels like an old-fashioned game show all
of a sudden,
” Denman decided.

“A list of what you might be eligible for when this is all said and done has been downloaded to your wristlets,” Omondi continued. “As for the rest of tonight, I would usually tell you to get some rest, but considering we
’
re dead...”

Laughter filled the room.

“Isn
’
t there a saying that you can rest when you
’
r
e
dead?” Gutierrez asked.

“And no rest for the wicked,” Denman added.

“I guess
i
t
’
s
flipped around now,” Omondi said. “No rest for the dead cause we
’
re taking down the wicked.”

The briefing broke down as cheers filled the room and people excited
ly
chatted with one another. Maria overhea
r
d Jameson suggesting Cruz indulge him in a bit of necrophilia, which resulted in him being shoved off his feet. Laughter and high spirits would give away tomorrow to death and destruction. They all knew it, but there was a sense of invincibility now that they knew that the
Scourge
wouldn
’
t
identify them as victims.

It was Mikado who said it was like being a god.

Maria didn
’
t remind him that sometimes even gods met terrible ends in old earth mythology.

C
hapter 15

It felt like old times. Memories of the last time she traveled outside the walls of
The Bastion
assaulted her as she strapped herself into her seat in the personnel carrier. She almost expected to see Lindsey sitting across from her and Ryan grinning at her as he
shamelessly flirted
. Instead, Chief Defender Obuya
Omondi
was finishing securing the buckles of his harness.

The personnel carrier had been modified for their mission. An addition had been attached to the rear providing extra space for their equipment. The long
,
sleek
armored
vehicle wasn
’
t the most comfortable to ride in, but it would provide a good base of operations.

Maria
sat
behind the driver and
Omondi
took up the space where the passenger seat in a regular vehicle would be. His monitors were up and running. Beside him was Michael Denman, their medic, and he was already checking on all the information
being streamed from
the armor and helmets of the soldiers crammed into the seats behind him.

“We
’
re looking good. All units are transmitting,” Denman informed Omondi.

The tiny sensors and cameras in their helmets would keep Denman and the SWD informed of their every movement.

Maria adjusted her bolt weapon beside her and glanced
up
the row of soldiers. The bravado was dissipating in the face of the actual deployment and she saw a few people whispering prayers. Crossing herself, she said her own silent prayer and closed her eyes.

A tremor ran through the personnel carrier as the tiltrotor latched onto the roof. The whine of the engines and the propellers beating the air was muffled by her helmet. Maria opened her eyes and glanced through the front window. As the tiltrotor lifted off, the world tilted to one side and the SWD facility came into view. Every window was filled with people watching the takeoff.

“Into the crucible,” Omondi said
hushed voice
.

It was early morning on a Sunday. Not many people would be out in the streets of
The Bastion
. Their passage over the wall might not even be noted. Maria had seen the flight path and knew they were keeping it as low as possible to avoid too many sightings. Despite all the proclamations of the president, the mission was still top secret.

As the tiltrotor continued to angle away from the SWD headquarters,
The Bastion
came into view, gray in the gloom of the morning. The sun was barely beginning to peek over the summits of the mountains and darkness still filled the city streets. The lights in the government facility seemed to blaze in the darkened city
.
Maria knew that the president and his cabinet were probably watching the live feed
transmitted
from their helmets.

She felt eerily apart from the world, separated not only by the empty space below the tiltrotor and its heavy cargo, but by the grayish pall
or of her skin, lack of breath,
and
quiet of her heart
. Stillness filled her. Whereas before she would have been fighting her nerves, keeping her breathing regulated, and trying to calm a wildly beating heart, she was now in perfect quiet within her armor and helmet. The faces of her companions were contemplative behind the plastic of
their visors
. She wondered if they felt the same way, too. The SWD had made sure that the
Boon
were isolated from the rest of the facility. Even the pilots in the tiltrotor carrying them over the wall had no inkling of what they now were.

“
We
’
re
Inferi Boon
!” Maria said, her voice thick with passion.

Each soldier slammed one foot down and let out a war cry.

“Nothing can stop us!”

Another stomp and a cry.

“We
will
destroy the
Scrags
!”

Boom!

“We will free our people!”

Boom!

“We will not fail!”

Boom!

Cheers erupted and the silence fell away with its stifling deadness. Omondi grinned at Maria and gave her
a
thumbs up. Chatter started up among the soldiers, smack talk mostly, but it killed the quiet.

Denman glanced over his shoulder at her and nodded his head. She wasn
’
t sure what he was approving of, so she gave him a quick nod back.

The tiltrotor banked again. Outside of the cockpit windows, the huge Maelstrom Platforms on the wall
were an imposing sight
. The tiltrotor sailed right between two of them and the world beyond
The Bastion
swung into view. The crowds of the
Scourge
were dark waves rippling across the valley.

“Damn,” Cruz muttered. “That
’
s a whole lot of
Scrags
to kill.”

McKinney grunted. “I
’
ll kill half on my own. I don
’
t need you assholes.”

“You better leave the other half for me!” Jameson
’
s voice was a little high-pitched with excitement. “I
’
m getting myself a pool with my house!”

“I
’
m eyeballing a hot tub myself,” Mikado chimed in. “Me and Cruz are going to sit back and soak in a hot tub of champagne when this is all over.”

“Don
’
t include me in your plans. I
’
m going to be too busy riding my electro-car around blasting my stereo,” Cruz shot back.

The voices of the
forty
men and women anxiously waiting to set down filled her headset as they joked and ribbed each other. It was the best way to keep anxiety down before they landed. Soon they would be on the ground and speeding toward the gate.

The roar of the Maelstrom Platforms
’
opening
fire
drew everyone
’
s attention forward. As the tiltrotor began to descend, the
Scourge
rushing toward the vehicle were destroyed by the barrage from the wall. Bodies dissolved as they were shredded by the Maelstrom Platform rounds. Blood clouds filled the air and the wipers on the cockpit windows of the personnel carrier
cleared
the red mist from the glass. Special Constable Jes Cormier, the driver, glanced
over
at Omondi.

“It
’
s going to be messy down there,” Cormier stated.

“We knew it would be,” Omondi answered.

“Those guns are fucking awesome!” Jameson exclaimed as the Maelstrom Platforms continued to vaporize the
Scourge
rushing toward the tiltrotor and its cargo.

“Tiltrotors going silent in five seconds, Cormier. Get ready to roll,” Omondi ordered.

Maria braced herself for the landing. The tiltrotor relea
sed the carrier and flew upward
. A second later, the personnel carrier landed in the thick paste of the pulverized
Scourge
. The engine roared to life and Cormier slammed it into gear. The carrier treads sunk deep into the bloody mud before finding traction and surging forward. Maria quickly swiveled her chair around, summoning her console. It flipped out of the floor and over her lap. The radar and cameras on the outside of the carrier revealed a mass of
Scourge
heading toward them.

“How many more bursts do we get from the guns?” Maria asked.

Omondi was watching his readouts, too. “Status on the guns,” he barked into his headset, speaking to the SWD directly. A growl emanated from his throat and he held up three fingers to Maria.

Frowning, Maria dragged her screen around looking for a viable path through the oncoming
Scourge
. “Punching in coordinates for where they should fire.” She quickly transferred the information to Omondi
’
s console
, as well as
Cormier
’
s.

A quick nod from Omondi and the driver confirmed their course of action. Omondi transferred the coordinates to the SWD as Cormier swerved to avoid a mass of
Scourge
coming in from the opposite direction of the city.

“Maybe we should have walked,” Maria muttered.

“Quicker to the gate this way,” Omondi reminded her.

“Except that the
Scrags
think we
’
re a meal on wheels,” Maria answered.

“Platforms firing in three...two...” Omondi
’
s voice vanished under the roar from the Maelstrom Platforms.

Looking up
,
Maria saw the
Inferi Scourge
just ahead of the personnel carrier dissolving into clouds of viscera. Cormier kept the carrier moving forward straight through the muck in the air and a few of the soldiers cheered as the windows were coated in blood.

“
That
’
s
what I
’
m talking about,” Jameson said, high-fiving Mikado.

The platforms continued to roar, punching a path through the crowd of
Inferi Scourge
. There was a hard jolt as the carrier found an old abandoned road. Cormier turned onto it and accelerated. A triangular-shaped plow extended out from under the nose of the carrier, the edges sharp and glinting in the growing light of the sunrise. The vehicle sluiced through the
Scourge
hurling themselves at the vehicle. Again the platforms sounded, shredding the
Scourge
before the vehicle.

“Exciting morning, isn
’
t it, Vanguard
?
” Omondi said as he studied his console. “Bet you
’
r
e
glad you didn
’
t sleep in.”

“Wouldn
’
t have missed it for the world.” Maria
’
s eyes never strayed
from
her readouts and screens. “Shit. We got a massive crowd coming up from the southwest. The guns won
’
t be able to hit them at this range and we
’
re not going to be able to push through.”

“I see them,” Omondi grunted. “Shit. Cormier, sending you a new course heading.”

Cormier whipped the carrier about, the treads grinding a few
Scourge
into the pavement, then they were off the road again, bouncing across the wasteland.

The platforms roared one last time
,
c
reating a path through the ever-
growing crowd of rampaging
Scourge
. Cormier continued to deftly wind her way through the massive throng
,
avoiding the worst clusters.

Glancing up briefly, Maria saw the faces of the creatures they
had been
sent to kill. As always, she was struck with how human they appeared. Their thrust out hands and screaming faces could easily be seen as a wounded person crying out for help. Instead, the
Scourge
were howling for the humans they believed were inside the vehicle.

Bending
over her console, Maria continued to study the increasin
gly
-
complicated patterns of the
Scourge
as they
flowed
toward the carrier. The vehicle so far
had been able
to push its way through less
-
compact
ed
areas of the crowd, but the
Scourge
were closing in on them far more
swiftly
than anticipated. They were terrifyingly fast and agile.

“Looks like you might get your walk,” Omondi said, the images from his console reflecting on the visor of his helmet.

“It
’
s getting tricky,” Cormier declared. “See any paths for me?”

Maria slid her fingers over the screen scanning for any weak spots in the crowd. “Not yet. Looking.”

“Vanguard, that situation from the southwest has become dire.” Omondi
’
s voice was clipped and hard, but the strain in his face said it all.

She could see the tidal wave of dead humans building and heading straight toward the carrier. The
Scourge
were clustering into one massive battering ram.