Apocalypse Atlanta (60 page)

“Fuck me.” Barker swore.

“No, fuck us.” Nailor said with a weak humorless laugh.

“What about the Navy?” Candles asked.  “They’re self-contained out on the ships aren’t they?  Is there anything about how many ships have checked in?”

Mendez shook his head.  “No.  Whatever is causing this, the ships are affected too.  A couple have run aground, and most of the others aren’t even responding at all.  Navy’s out too.”

“What else?” Peter prompted.

“Um, okay, so leadership.  The President, Vice-President, and Speaker of the House haven’t been seen since yesterday.” Mendez said.

“Wait, what?”

Mendez shrugged.  “That’s all I could find about it.  If anyone knows what happened, they’re not talking.  A lot of people are speculating they turned into zombies, I dunno.  But the Secretary of the Interior is the one calling the shots, and no one who’s left is arguing with him about it.”

“What about Congress?” Candles asked.

“I didn’t spend a lot of time on it, but maybe half, more or less, are supposed to still be alive.  Some of the reports are monitoring twitter feeds, emails, and stuff from congressional staffers.  It looks like what’s left of Washington is evacuating, but they won’t say where.”

“Why not?” Swanson mused.

“Doesn’t matter, security, too busy to say, whatever.” Peter said.  “Moving on.”

“Right.” Mendez shuffled through his papers again.  “Outbreaks I guess.  I found a list, and we’re fortieth.”

“What, forty outbreaks?”

Mendez looked up with a startled frown.  “What?  Oh, no.  Forty on the list of biggest cities in America.  That’s where Atlanta falls.  Out of the ones above us, only a couple are still reasonably intact.”

“Run that by me again?” Crawford said.

Mendez shrugged.  “Well, it looks like Phoenix is doing pretty good, and except for the Strip, so is Las Vegas.  We’re real bad off, so are New York, LA, Chicago . . . uh” he looked down at his papers again.  “Houston, Philadelphia–”

“Right, zombies everywhere.” Candles broke in impatiently, just as Peter was about to.  “Moving on.  What about us?”

“Oh.” Mendez fidgeted with the papers for a minute.  “Well, apparently the government has ordered whatever’s left of the military to pull back.  They’re going to try to consolidate them away from the population; it’s an attempt to preserve what’s left of the forces.  And they’re pulling together ordinance packages for the bombings tomorrow.  Apparently they don’t want to use nukes, and there aren’t enough of the FAEs that are big enough.  But the plan is to figure all that out tonight, and tomorrow they’re going to start bombing.”

“Holy Jesus.” Roper said.  “Are they warning people?”

“Well, the word’s out on the news.”

“Shit, we had to jump through some hoops to get word.” Roper said, not entirely unreasonably.

“Hell, we had to jump a fence.” Swanson pointed out.

“And steal a car.” Whitley murmured.

“My point is, are they going to do fly overs, drop leaflets, send teams to announce it?” Roper replied, steadfastly ignoring Swanson’s comment.

Mendez shrugged.  “I don’t think so.  My read is they’re having trouble finding enough people to prep the planes and ordinance, and to fly the missions.  I think there’s a lot of reservists and civilians being involved, and even then they’re short.”

“So they’re going to drop a FAE on us as soon as they can?”

“Not any earlier than tomorrow morning.” Mendez said.

“When tomorrow morning?” Hernandez asked.

“The announcement just says Sunday morning.”

“Fuck, depending on whose definition of ‘morning’ they’re using, that could be a ten or twelve hour range.” Hernandez said in disgust.

“So, what are we sitting around in here for then?” Candles asked.  “It’s time to go.”

“It’s not even dark yet.” Barker said.  “Let’s at least finish eating and put together a plan.”

“My plan is to get the fuck out of Atlanta before they spread a cloud of fuel across downtown and ignite it.” Candles said, starting to climb to his feet.

“Hang on.” Peter said.

“No way sarge.” Candles shook his head.  “It’s time get moving.”

“How?” Whitley asked.  “Unless the zombies dispersed since last night, we’re going to run into the same problems again.”

“That Bronco down there is running just fine.” Candles said, gesturing in the general direction of the stairs that were outside.

“We won’t all fit in it.” Oliver said unhappily.

“Like I said earlier, there are other vehicles around here.”  Candles was slinging his M-16 into a combat carry position.  “How many of us are there, almost twenty?  That’s like four cars, three if we crowd in some.  We can be out of here in, what, five minutes?  Let’s go.”

Peter sighed.  “Modern cars often have a computer that prevents the engine from starting unless the key and its codes are present.”

“So?” Oliver asked, his voice tight and afraid.  “Cars get stolen all the time.  There have to be ways around that crap.”

“There are.” Peter nodded.  “But I’ll probably have to pull the modules and do a bit of rewiring to get the vehicles running.  But that’s not the biggest problem.”

“Yeah, the fucking bombs are.”

“No.  Well, yes.” Peter said, trying to keep his temper in check.  “What I’m talking about though is the zombies.  Unless we can find a clear path out, we’re probably going to still be hemmed in by zombie packs.”

“Cars trump zombies.” Hernandez said.  “I mean, don’t they?”

“Yes and no.” Peter said.

“I drive tanks.” Candles pointed out.  “Trust me, vehicles win.”

“We don’t have a tank.” Peter replied.  “If we did, no problem.  We could roll over almost anything in our path and follow the trail.”

“Same difference.”

“No, big difference.  Civilian cars weigh less.  There aren’t any treads.  The ground clearance is different.”

“Just keep your foot down and keep going.”

“Listen Goddam–” Peter started, a lot more loudly than he’d meant.  He stopped and drew a deep breath, then forced himself to speak calmly.  “If we have to push through a big crowd we’re seriously risking getting stuck.”

“How?” Oliver asked.

“He’s speculating.” Candles said, not quite dismissively, but without any real measure of respect.

“So are you.” Whitley said in an irritated tone.  “Or have you driven through a crowd in a Bronco before?”

Candles opened his mouth, then hesitated.  Whitley nodded.  “Right.”  She turned back to Peter.  “Sarge?”

“Everyone just calm down.” Peter said.  “I’m not staying, and anyone who wants to go I’m happy to bring along.  Anyone who wants to go on their own, that’s fine too.  My position hasn’t changed from earlier.  But it’s not going to kill us to take a few minutes to get our heads on straight and decide what we’re going to do.”

“It might.” Candles muttered, but he stepped back several feet and leaned against the wall with his arms folded, waiting.

“Okay.  Like I was saying, if we try to put a regular car, even a truck or an SUV, through a big crowd of zombies, it could fuck us over.  Bodies could get tangled up underneath the car and break something, or jam the wheels.  Most cars only have the one drive axle.  If those wheels lose traction or don’t have good contact with the ground, then whoever’s in that car is zombie chow.”

“Fuck that.” Smith said.  “I’ll eat a bullet first.”

“Shut it Doom-boy.” Johns told him before looking around.  “How likely is that?”

“Think about it dude.” Harper said.  “If we go fast enough to knock zombies out of the way, the car’s not gonna make it far before it’s totaled.  Slow enough to avoid that, and we’re probably driving over most of them.  Only takes one, a fat one or maybe they roll around underneath in just the wrong way, and suddenly we’re stuck.”

“Totally fuck that.” Smith said again.

Nailor spoke quickly as Johns turned his head toward Smith again.  “So we’re stuck in here?”

“What about MARTA?” Teves asked.

Roper laughed.  “I hate to break it to you amigo, but I don’t think the trains or buses are running.”

“Fuck you man.” Teves shot back, sounding annoyed.  “I mean the tracks.”

“Yeah, what about the tracks?” Johns said, sounding enthusiastic.  “Stations are all over downtown, we just get to one, then down to the tracks, and we can go out through the tunnels.”

Smith was shaking his head.  “You’re crazy.”

“What?”

“Think about it guys.” Smith said.  “The only reason any of us lived through the shit last night was we had places to dodge when the zombies closed in.  The train tunnels only go two directions, forward and back.  What happens if we get surrounded by a big pack of zombies on both sides?”

“The zombies can’t be everywhere.” Teves said, though he sounded uncertain.  “How likely is it they’re down there?”

“You want to risk finding out?” Whitley asked.  She looked at Peter.  “Sarge, you’re on to something, I can tell.  What’s up?”

Peter stared blankly at her for a couple of moments, then blinked and shrugged.  “I don’t know.” he said slowly.  “Maybe.”  It was the mention of MARTA that had jogged his memory.

The city’s transit system used trains that ran north to south, and east to west, in from the suburbs though the heart of downtown.  But it depended heavily on hundreds of buses that ran routes all through the region, feeding people into the train stations or ferrying them away from the trains on the other end of their trips.

“We passed a MARTA bus abandoned a couple blocks to the south yesterday.” Peter said, his thoughts racing.  “That’s heavy enough to ignore a lot of the problems I just covered.  Plus, if it gets up to a decent speed – say thirty or forty miles per hour – its mass should knock a lot of things in the way aside without much of a problem.”

“That’s your plan?” Candles asked.  “Go a few blocks on foot and hope for the bus to be drivable?”

“No, we drive a few blocks.” Peter said, still using all his experience and maturity to avoid rising to the argument Candles was apparently willing to have.  “And we use the vehicles we get there with to block off the top of the ramp so we have a position to fight from while we see if the bus will run.”

“And then?” Hernandez asked.

Peter shrugged.  “If it isn’t, then we try to dodge our way out of downtown using the vehicles.  Maybe we’ll find another big vehicle, like another bus or something, and try the same thing with that.  If this bus is working, I’d say we head down onto the Interstate and go from there.  Either way, any sort of plan beyond that would be pure speculation.  We’re going to have to make decisions on the fly.”

“Great, so that’s the plan.” Candles said, standing straight.  “Let’s do it.”

“Jesus, calm down man.” Teves said.

“Fuck calm.” Candles replied hotly.  “I don’t plan on being blown up and I sure as hell don’t plan on getting eaten.  What the hell else is there to discuss?”

“Ammo.” Whitley said.

“Yeah.” a few others said.  Candles threw his hands up in the air, but he didn’t say anything.

“Ammo is still a big problem.” Peter said with a suppressed sigh.  “I definitely think everyone needs a hand to hand weapon of some sort.”

“Oh man . . . going mano-a-mano with zombies?” Mendez asked in a troubled voice.

“Weapons are better than bare fists.” Hernandez pointed out.

“My fists are good for it.” Crawford said with a grin.

“Yeah, but then again you’d probably look good paler and with less pep in your step.” Swanson replied.  “And, wait–” he said as she raised one of her fists.  “–if you hit me I’ll tell them about that thing.”

Crawford glared at him.

“What thing?” Oliver asked.

“Yeah, what thing?” Barker chimed in.

“It’s not important.” Peter said, stepping in as he saw Candles stirring restlessly.  “If anyone’s got a M9 with ’em, I’d say that’ll do okay.  If not, then a regular knife that’s got a long enough blade might work.  But there’s plenty of apartments around here.  Go dismantle a table or repurpose a lamp or something to use a club.”

“Clubs probably won’t kill zombies.” Smith said with a frown.

“Probably not, but you can knock them around, use it as a shield or a prop to hold them back or something.”

“Break arms and legs.” Crawford said.  “Especially legs.”

“Zombies don’t feel pain.” Mendez pointed out.  He had produced his M9 from one of his pockets, and was sliding the bayonet knife out of its sheath.

“Yeah, so what?” Crawford replied.  “Broken leg is hard to walk on whether you feel it or not.”

“It’s better than nothing.” Peter confirmed with a shrug.  “But I’d say everyone should get a hand weapon together, because if it comes down to it, we flat out don’t have enough ammo to shoot our way out of a tight spot.  A bunch of clubs or whatever might be the difference.”

“Fucking-A.” Hernandez agreed.

Peter surveyed the soldiers.  Candles was still visibly angry; not frothing at the mouth, but definitely upset.  Hernandez and Barker looked a little impatient too.  On the other end of the scale, Oliver and Mendez looked the most worried.  Everyone else fell somewhere between those two extremes.