Eastern Front: Zombie Crusade IV (20 page)

“Dammit!” Luke shouted, “didn’t you hear anything Jack said about taking orders?”

“We ain’t on your mission right now,” Zach retorted. “Me and Maddy are just soldiers; our people need you to survive this.”

Luke fought the urge to immediatel
y push his friends down the back of the wall, but then he forced himself to consider Zach’s statement for a brief moment. Somehow, in the middle of a horrific battle, a calm washed over him as he looked out over the horizon at the most beautiful sunrise he’d ever seen. Beyond this hideous killing-ground, somewhere in a future he’d never been willing to consider, he saw himself leading an army, the spearhead of a fierce people carving out a homeland from the apocalyptic chaos that had plagued the earth for years. He was certain that he heard the laughter of children playing, children born after the outbreak. He suddenly remembered that humanity had a chance to survive, and for some unfathomable reason, the people needed him to lead the struggle. He saw Gracie’s eyes and knew she was smiling, even though he could see nothing else of her face. Then he heard Maddy repeatedly shouting his name and the scene slowly faded from his consciousness. He had no idea if he’d just seen a vision or experienced some sort of fantasy spawned by the concussion of the explosion, but he knew for a certainty that Zach, in some inexplicable way, was correct in his argument.

Before Luke
could say anything, Jack walked over to their position and stepped into the line with his trusted halberd in hand. The four of them watched as the first group of hunters able to cross the slippery carpet of their still-struggling mates lying face-down in the gore reached the base of the second wall. Hundreds more stumbled determinedly behind and began climbing over the others in their unstoppable drive to reach the humans above.

“Luke,” Jack shouted through his helmet. “Kill one of these bastards and toss him in the river, then get your ass back to the third wall and get ready to pull us up.
Tell Chad to pull everyone back and get ready to blow the bridge—we can’t hold these walls.”

Still feeling a bit overwhelmed
after what he’d just seen and heard, Luke merely nodded and loudly replied, “Yes sir.”

Maddy and Zach turned and stared as they tried to determine if their headstrong young friend was serious, but Jack was smiling under his helmet as he realized Luke had finally seen the light. The older fighter still wasn’t
exactly sure what that light was, but he felt deep in his bones that the enigmatic young warrior had an important role to play in future of their people.

“You three better be right behind me
,” Luke shouted.

Jack
nodded before turning to the others, “Zach, Maddy, you kill two and follow Luke. I’ll expect all three of you to help pull me up when I retreat.”

“You WILL be coming as soon as we’re up that wall,” Maddy declared.

Jack’s battle-scarred helmet bobbed up and down in agreement before he yelled, “Here they come!”

No army that had
ever existed would have been able to crawl across the horrors these hunters had just crossed, then attack a defended wall with such unmitigated ferocity. Once again, the monsters created by the virus proved to be soldiers of unprecedented will and strength. They didn’t think about what they were doing; they just did it. The infection had transformed them into insatiable eaters of human flesh, and that food was right in front of them. Whatever role the helicopters played beyond steering the creatures toward their targeted victims wasn’t clear, but the frenzied and unceasing attacks at these locations were unlike anything else; even warriors with experience battling strong packs of hunters were completely unprepared for what transpired in these situations. From New England to Georgia, up through Tennessee and Kentucky, Barnes’ armies had crushed all resistance with increasing efficiency. They had faced higher walls than these, some with many more defenders, and they’d never failed to capture prey. This assault would be no different.

Jack had spent the past five months training every soldier he met about how to fight the infected. In the beginning, he focused on armor and weapons, and then moved on to tactics. As the creatures he’d called zombies evolved into hunters and their numbers increased, the strategies used to defeat them were changed as well. He hadn’t spent a lot of time with Chad’s fighters, but since they’d come riding to the rescue during the Battle of Fort Wayne he’d demanded they spend at least a few hours each day on the training grounds with The Castle’s veterans. Now the extra work paid off, as the troops automatically formed into a mini-phalanx, tightly packed next to one another and presenting an unbroken array of spears and pikes against the enemy charge. The soldiers were strong and experienced, victors of many battles against vastly superior numbers, but this time they were doomed to failure.

Jack knew that the key to success when employing the phalanx was to ensure rock-solid flank protection, and have enough warriors in the formation to prevent the enemy from simply bowling them over. Today they h
ad the flanks perfectly sealed, but this horde of hunters was far more numerous and disciplined than any they’d ever faced. Perhaps discipline wasn’t the correct word to describe the tactic being employed by the flesh-eaters, but fact that they were working together was undeniable. Every one of the beasts was pushing the creature to its front with all of its strength, with the end result being an unstoppable momentum at the point of attack. The number of hunters able to confront Jack’s fighters atop the wall at any given moment was roughly equal to that of the defenders, but the pressure of tens of thousands of creatures behind the front line meant that even corpses were effective as crude battering rams. Ultimately, the humans were going to be pushed back no matter how many monsters they killed.

Jack and the others gave it all they had, somehow managing to hold their sagging line for nearly two minutes. The first hunters to come into range of the wicked spear points were literally thigh-deep in
the squirming bodies of those that had arrived before them and were now being crushed to death as the horde steadily pushed over anything in its path. These were easy enough to kill, though the plan to push all of the corpses over the sides of the bridge immediately proved impossible to execute. It seemed as if two monsters took the place of every one that was cut down, and they quickly began pulling themselves onto the fighting platform and grabbing at the legs of the defenders.

Screams along the line indicated that at least a few of the soldiers had been pulled down into the squirming, howling mass of hunters, and after Jack pulled Maddy back from the edge by chopping off the hand that gripped her ankle
, he shoved her onto one of the escape poles before returning to the fight. Luke had already retreated to the third wall, where he stood waiting for his friends even as most of Chad’s soldiers were following the order to evacuate behind the section of bridge rigged to explode. He pulled Maddy up and sent her on her way, in spite of the fact that she was demanding to stay and help Zach.

Luke could already see him running across the space between the walls as he literally pushed Maddy from the platform
before turning to help Zach make the climb up the barricade. Jack was one of the last to break free of the score of hunters now atop the second wall, his halberd gone and armor streaked with gore. Even as he slid down the pole, flesh-eaters were dropping all around him, the pressure from the rest of the horde forcing them from their hard-gained perch. Zach and Luke pulled Jack up from the surface just as half a dozen hunters were reaching for his boots. As soon as he reached the top, a quick look showed that they were the last three soldiers on the wall, and as he grabbed another escape-pole his young protégés did the same.

As soon as they reached the bridge
, they heard the second propane-bombs roar, sending pieces of seared hunters hurtling above their heads as they waited for all of the detritus from the explosion to settle to the surface. They all realized that a fifty-pound piece of flesh falling from a hundred feet could easily break their necks, so they huddled against the back of the wall until they felt safe to make a run for it.

Chad had organized the survivors into three lines of spear-wielding infantry a hundred meters from the last of the explosives rigged to the bridge. As Jack and the teens reached their friends
, they were unceremoniously pulled through the ranks and dumped in the rear to catch their breaths. They were on their knees when they heard the first of the pursuing hunters crash into the formation, almost immediately followed by what felt like a powerful earthquake pass underfoot just before the blast wave knocked everyone to the surface. Once again the air was filled with debris, but this time most of it was steel and concrete, and nearly all of it tumbled harmlessly into the Ohio. Hundreds of hunters fell into the river along with sixty meters of bridge, and the handful of monsters that had survived the blast by being engaged with the humans were summarily dispatched by the first fighters to regain their footing.

A few moments later, the exhausted, blood-covered soldiers all stood
watching as wave after wave of hunters on the other side of the chasm continued to push over the corpses of their pack-mates only to fall into the rushing waters below. Luke could actually notice a slight change in the howls of the beasts as they fell toward the river, taking grim satisfaction in what he was certain were notes of dread as the creatures realized that they were about to enter the substance they feared the most. Of all the scenes of armies, battle, and destruction the soldiers on the bridge had witnessed since the outbreak, what they now watched was the most astounding of all. For at least five minutes the hunters continued to stumble over the walls and into the hole left by the explosion. Jack would later come up with a rudimentary formula that yielded a death toll of roughly a thousand flesh-eaters every minute before the first Blackhawk appeared to try to stop the unfolding disaster.

Now Jack
unleashed another nasty surprise upon the enemy. When he and Carter had stockpiled food, weapons, and other supplies in The Castle during the years leading up to the outbreak, they hadn’t neglected the need for firearms capable of inflicting great harm on humans who might threaten their future security. Arms and armor for dealing with the infected had been the most important part of their planning after food storage and water, but they both suspected that, at least early on, they would face hostile people armed with guns. With that knowledge in mind, they had purchased hundreds of firearms and over a million rounds of ammunition for them. Carter, being a bit of a gun-lover, had convinced Jack to buy two, very expensive, Barrett fifty-caliber sniper rifles after filling their armory with scores of AKs and AR-15s. They had then used their military connections to quietly amass over a hundred armor-piercing bullets for the deadly weapons. Now that foresight paid off.

Jack had told Chad about the Barretts and their special ammo before he led his force to the Ohio, and the veteran Ranger-sergeant had gleefully included
the rifles in the gear his troops packed for the trip. After years of war in the Middle East, the two old soldiers knew full well the awesome advantage of helicopters and armored vehicles when fighting insurgents whose main weapons were AK-47s. Some choppers had been brought down by lucky hits from RPGs and other crudely guided rockets during the years of combat they endured, but usually the war-birds rained down spectacular firepower on an enemy with no means of fighting back. With those experiences in mind, since first hearing about the connection between Blackhawks and armies of hunters, Jack had been waiting for the right moment to use the fifties to try to bring one of the choppers down.

Once Barnes realized that his precious helicopters and pilots were vulnerable to Jack’s forces he would be much more careful with them, so the decision had
been made to hold off using the Barretts until they were absolutely needed. Jack’s troops were safe from Barnes’ army for the moment, but he doubted that he’d ever again have the opportunity to kill a thousand hunters a minute in any future battle. Chad had placed his two best snipers under cover on the Indiana bank, and Jack told him to order the men to fire into the cockpit of the Blackhawk as it approached the gap in the bridge.

The chopper was moving fast, but moving north on a route that seemed to be headed directly toward the line of troops still watching the hunters pour into the river. The angle was basically the best the snipers could hope for, and they began shooting when the Blackhawk was still several hundred meters from the Ohio. Jack couldn’t hear the rounds over the noise of hundreds of thousands of infected howling and moaning, but he saw sparks fly from the base of the rotor and knew that the sharpshooters had the range on the bird. A few more seconds passed before the pilots apparently realized they were under fire that could damage them, at which point they went into a sharp turn and headed back to the south as fast as they had approached just minutes earlier.

The torrent of hunters tumbling into the gaping chasm seemed to have slowed a bit, but they were still dying by the thousands
with no chance of harming the humans watching them fall. Another Blackhawk appeared from the southeast, this time taking a hovering position well over the Kentucky bank where Jack assumed they were transmitting signals to the horde. A few more minutes went by with no change in the hunters’ forward momentum, but one of the snipers radioed in from his elevated position and said that Barnes’ creatures were finally moving west again. Sure enough, the flow of flesh-eaters coming over the walls almost immediately slowed to a trickle, stopping altogether when the beasts actually turned around and retreated back over the bridge.