Eastern Front: Zombie Crusade IV (35 page)

Satisfaction washed over him as he looked at the next group of hunters amid the rubble on the dam, apparently too frightened of the water to make any moves in his direction. Luke knew that their hesitation wouldn’t last, that a new Blackhawk would soon be flying out over the dam to compel the monsters to renew their assault. He looked forward to it. Brandenburg had haunted him long enough. The head injury following his shock at seeing a hunter purposely avoid his blow had faded into a low-grade headache he could live with. Now, here, he was going to return to his God-given mission of destroying the infected. They’d killed his hometown, killed his friends, and finally killed his father, but they hadn’t killed him. He knew he couldn’t stop this horde, but he was going to give notice that humans were the deadliest animals on the planet, not the hunters.

As a new helicopter cautiously made its way forward over the dam, the army of infected slowly stirred to action. One of the Utah officers called out to Luke and said he was bringing a squad over to help, but the teen warrior waved him away and called out, “Just don’t kill me by accident when I come running back.”

He turned around to see that three hunters were rapidly making their way across a jumble of cement and iron, heading toward the asphalt where Luke was defiantly standing his ground. Two arrows hissed through the cold air within seconds of one another, and two flesh-eaters dropped dead into the rubble. Luke allowed the third monster to actually place its hands on the slab before he crushed its skull with his trench axe and kicked its corpse down with the others. Now the top of the dam was a living creature, writhing and squirming in muted shades of pink and skin-tones as thousands of hunters threw caution to the wind and rushed howling toward the humans gathered on the other side.

Luke waited patiently with his bow, content to set the axe back into its belt-sheath while he practiced his archery skills on the objects of his enmity. There was no concern that these creatures were once humans, or that they were living animals, or that they were anything other than monsters from the pit of hell. Evil men had turned these bodies into instruments of death to be used against those who would not submit, and until Luke could get within weapons range of those men, he would destroy their abominable creations. Ten arrows flew in half a minute, dropping nine hunters in their tracks while knocking a mouthful of teeth from the last monster. The eleventh shot killed that one. Then the floodgates opened as Luke finally faced the first wave of hunters actually being pushed by the thousands moving forward on the northern shore.

Luke slung his bow and picked up the pike, slamming the razor-sharp point through the guts of one hunter and into the chest of another, sending the stricken monsters howling into the river far below. Before those two were even off the rubble pile, Luke had his halberd in hand, stabbing the spear tip of the eight-foot-weapon into faces and skulls with uncanny accuracy, even by his lofty standards. The creatures were ducking and grabbing—even the men in the phalanx had been dealing with the new behaviors all morning—and they were being pushed by the multitude behind them finally rousing themselves to fury. None of it saved the score of hunters from the cold steel Luke ruthlessly slammed into their brains in less than sixty seconds. Finally, several monsters managed to scramble to their feet on the concrete slab to grab at the deadly human, one of them rewarded with a kick to the sternum that sent it over the dam, while the second lost the top of his head to Luke’s trench axe.

Carter watched through his binoculars, his hands balled tightly into fists as he repetitively whispered, “Get outta there, get outta there, get outta there . . .”

During the western battles they’d been involved in, the men in the front ranks of the phalanx had never witnessed anything remotely close to what they were seeing now. The Utah soldiers had heroes in their ranks, men and women who’d made daring stands and lived to bask in the glory of their bravery. But what these veterans were watching unfold before them seemed to be an extended scene from a pre-war video game or Hollywood movie. Luke was now swinging and spinning his trench axe as calmly and efficiently as he had done countless times on the training grounds back home, in spite of the thousands of powerful, starving, furious hunters pushing inexorably toward his position.

The platoon on top of the trailer had the best view of all, just fifteen meters away from the fight and four above it. They were literally screaming themselves hoarse as Luke single-handedly kept the horde at bay, several of the more impetuous among them finally climbing down the back of the semi and beginning a stumbling trek across the dead to reach the mighty warrior before he was felled by the monsters. Several more soldiers from the front rank of the phalanx joined them, not even having to worry about breaking orders to hold their position as a captain had been the first to step out.

Carter was quivering with something between rage and an impossible desire to be at Luke’s side as he continued to watch the fight develop. Now the hunters were on the asphalt slab with the teen in numbers too great for any warrior to clear, and Carter cursed as he saw Luke go down under the frantically clawing and biting flesh eaters.

Luke wasn’t at the bottom of the pile, but he was close—several corpses had broken his fall as he was tackled by at least two huge hunters. He didn’t panic, having been in positions like this before. Luke knew that the key to survival when mobbed by a group of infected was to take advantage of any space they gave you. He couldn’t move his right hand, still gripping the trench axe that was unusable for the moment. So he pulled a short dagger from his belt with his left hand and thrust the strong blade through the ear of the closest skull.

That’s one
, a voice in his head declared, somehow detached from the reality that the monsters on top of him were only a small portion of the vanguard of the massive army rapidly crossing the dam. But he knew no other way to fight against such outrageous odds—he could only kill them one at a time. He couldn’t move anything except his right foot and left arm, but that didn’t stop him from driving the dagger into the forehead of a hunter trying to gnaw its way through his visor. Then, somehow, the mortally stricken beast climbed off of Luke with the hilt of the blade still protruding from its punctured cranium.
Now I’ve seen everything
, Luke thought with numb astonishment.

Then the dead hunter seemed to fly from the asphalt into the void above the rushing river below, and Luke looked up to see the concerned face of one of the officers he’d been speaking with before crossing the mound of dead.

“Are you all right?” the captain shouted.

Luke was too breathless to answer, but he allowed himself to be pulled to his feet by several more fighters who’d just thrown aside the other corpses holding him down. With his hands on his knees as he gasped for air, he finally waved toward the rising tide of hunters and wheezed, “Kill ‘em all!”

The troops who’d charged to Luke’s side would probably have been called Berzerkers in another time and place, for they were fighting beyond the reach of reason or any sense of mortal vulnerability. The warriors later claimed that there was no thought of life or death on that asphalt slab, only the unstoppable, visceral compulsion to kill the vile creatures that had brought so much misery and suffering to the human race. Luke would always believe that in that moment the soul of man transformed. An instinctive, justified, perhaps even holy, hatred of the flesh-eaters finally overwhelmed the desire of the soldiers to simply live in a world that seemed determined to kill them. From that moment forward, they would wage war as a sacred duty, an honor that brought glory not only in this life, but also in that yet to come. They had become crusaders.

Six men and one woman stood on the asphalt slab for nine more minutes. With unintelligible shouts and screams they repeatedly plunged their spears into the writhing mass of hunters, killing when they found the brain, and pushing the monsters from the dam when they didn’t. The horde had found their rhythm, finally pushing across the rubble with confidence after so many loose pieces of iron and cement had already taken thousands of their packmates to a watery death. Six, seven, sometimes eight abreast
, the monsters scrambled over the dam, surging toward the despised humans with the strength of a hundred thousand working as one. Luke was young and powerful, five months of grueling combat and campaigning having fine-tuned his already athletic build into a potent bundle of muscle with a bad attitude and steady aim. So when a moment of clarity jarred him from the spell he’d been under since leaving the trailer he took note. His breathing was ragged, his axe swings were slowing, and he knew that if he was feeling this way the others were probably as bad or worse. It was time to rejoin the battalion.

Stepping back several paces, Luke found his last quiver of arrows and replaced his axe with the bow. He then moved to the right flank and shouted over the din of combat, “Everyone back to the line, NOW!”

To his surprise the blood-soaked fighters listened to him, perhaps hearing something in his voice that told them Luke was to be obeyed, or maybe it was the discipline all of the western soldiers displayed. Luke didn’t care why, he was just thankful that they stepped away from the edge and began the nasty walk back to the phalanx. As they did so the hunters rushed to fill the gap left behind, where systematically Luke put arrows into eye sockets, open mouths, and nasal cavities at the rate of one shot every three seconds. Then he pulled his .22 pistol and dropped nine more monsters before he too headed back to the formation where the hands of comrades eagerly pulled him to safety.

Carter watched all of this happening with open-mouthed astonishment, nothing unfolding as he had so greatly feared it would. Luke and the others all returned safely to the 1
st
Utah’s lines instead of ending up as hunter-chow. Now he breathlessly awaited the reaction of the front ranks of the phalanx as the leading flesh-eaters thundered across the bloody asphalt and corpse-mound before launching themselves at the humans. He could see steel flashing and blood spraying through the air at the point of contact, then blades furiously slashing up and down into the faces of the monsters that managed to evade the wall of spears to penetrate the formation. The assault was relentless; every dead hunter was immediately replaced by another being pushed from behind by what seemed like a million frantic flesh-eaters.

Carter
waited for the phalanx to break, or at least to be pushed back at an alarming rate, but the soldiers held their ground. The decision to place troops on top of the semi-trailer so they could weaken the hunters’ left flank played an important role in the 1
st
Utah’s ability to withstand the horde’s assault, but Carter could also sense a change in attitude among the fighters now streaming back through the ranks as the line rotations began. As they lifted their visors to drink and talk, there was something close to fanaticism in their eyes while they recovered their strength and prepared to return to the battle. These soldiers wanted to fight, perhaps more than they’d ever wanted anything else in their lives. Carter could only shake his head in awe and wonder as he witnessed the transformation the troops were undergoing, and for the first time in a long time he began to believe that maybe, just maybe, they were going to find a way to defeat Barnes.

Luke was directing the platoon on top of the trailer as if he’d been commanding troops in combat his entire life. The soldiers followed his orders promptly and eagerly, certain that their leader would guide them to victory. The battle-lust had faded in Luke’s soul just enough that he could step back from killing hunters once in a while to see how the fight was developing. For a brief moment, he realized that this was the balance Jack and the others had been trying to encourage him to find, the state of mind that would allow him to effectively lead without taking the edge off of his deadly killing skill. Right now, it seemed like the most natural condition he’d ever experienced, and his confidence overflowed into the warriors fighting by his side.

Morning slipped into afternoon, and the battle continued to unfold as nothing less than an absolute slaughter of the infected, but humans were dying as well. As Luke suspected, the evolution of the hunters was far from complete, and they kept surprising the soldiers with their ability to change tactics as they watched others fall to the steel wielded by the troops. Through dodging, weaving, and other evasive measures, enough hunters were making it through the wall of spears and pikes at the front of the phalanx to penetrate the lines and disrupt the complicated rotations. Other flesh-eaters were occasionally able to get a grip on some piece of a soldier’s clothing or gear and pull them screaming into the mass of monsters from which none of the humans returned. Luke figured something like fifty to a hundred hunters were dying for every soldier killed or incapacitated, but even at that rate the 1
st
Utah would ultimately lose the dam.

Hour after agonizing hour the
fighting continued unabated; the hunters never slowed or stopped attacking. The soldiers had lost twenty meters to the flesh-eaters, mostly due to the build-up of corpses that couldn’t be pushed off the dam. Once a mound of dead was high enough, the creatures were able to leap over the front ranks of the phalanx while others found better positions from which they could attack the troops on top of the trailer. When that happened, a short retreat was efficiently conducted and the battle resumed. Carter had radioed Luke to tell him that the 1
st
Utah had lost about a hundred and fifty troops, almost evenly split between dead and wounded. That was a thirty percent troop reduction, and the phalanx had been seriously weakened by the losses. Carter remembered Jack once telling him that the word, “decimated” came from the Greeks, and it meant that ten percent of your force was gone. When that happened a unit was basically considered combat-ineffective. But there was nothing they could do about the losses right now but continue to fight, so the exhausted soldiers kept killing hunters as the afternoon waned and dusk began to settle over the battlefield.