Empire's End (19 page)

Three burn teams arrived in refurbished Jeeps
to find hundreds of rotters clambering through the destroyed gate
at Section Nineteen. All was chaos; they ran in every direction,
the slavering undead, running for the cities just a few miles
away.

Kill. Then eat.

The driver of the first Jeep was skewered by
a pike, its point exploding through the fiberglass shield of his
helmet. The Fakir pulled another pike from his thigh and rammed it
through the driver’s chest.

The other men spilled out of their vehicles,
pulling fuel tanks on over their orange jumpsuits and igniting
flamethrowers.

Several undead came at them. They unleashed
jets of liquid fire, bathing the rotters in scorching heat and
sending them to their knees, blind and flailing.

The flames caught the attention of a dozen
others. They ran into streams of fire and collapsed. But there were
more behind them, and some made it through the fire and tackled the
team members to the ground, clawing at their helmets, knocking the
flamethrowers aside. One man managed to break free and, in his
panic, fired point-blank into the horde. The flames swelled high
and surrounded him; the flame-retardant suit could only do so much.
Covered in thrashing, burning undead, he was broiled alive.

Shots rang out across the battlefield. It was
Dalton, standing atop the Wall and picking off as many as he could
before they could reach the burn teams.

The Strongman looked in the direction of the
gunfire and spied Dalton. He ran for the ladder.

Dalton aimed straight down at the behemoth’s
face and shot him between the eyes. Spoiled brain matter slopped
out of the gaping exit wound, and the Strongman stumbled off the
ladder, staggering into his brethren, his faculties scrambled by
the injury to his head; and finally, with a weak swing of his
hammer, he went down.

The remaining members of the burn teams had
fallen back and once again had the upper hand. They’d brought down
a few dozen rotters already. But the others were keeping their
distance from the flamethrowers now, instead heading for the
cities.

“Get to the Jeeps!” barked a team leader.
“Chase them down!”

He turned to find the Fire Juggler standing
right behind him.

The rotter crouched and, holding a torch
before his lips, blew a fireball into the leader’s face.

The man was engulfed in flames. The Juggler
had spewed some sort of flammable liquid all over him. It was
adhering to the suit, the fuel tanks; the man fell to the ground
and tried to roll. The tanks were too goddamn heavy, and searing
hot, burning his back; then they exploded.

The rest of the burn teams were caught in the
explosion. The force ruptured their tanks. Fire ripped across the
open plain, lighting up the night sky.

Dalton watched in horror through the falling
snow. One of the Jeeps was on fire. It went up next. It was
deafening. And the rotters kept pouring through the gate. Hell had
come to the Great Cities.

* * *

The dying screams of the burn teams had been
transmitted via radio to a military post just outside of Chicago.
There, Major Briggs and his subordinates listened grimly.

When all was static, the major rose from his
chair. “Pull everyone you can off the Wall and send them to section
nineteen. Then get on the public channel and tell everyone else to
meet up with their units—here—and head out there. Tell them we’re
dealing with a pack... an enormous pack.”

“The public will hear—they’ll panic—” one of
his men began.

“We can’t worry about that right now!” Briggs
snapped. “Panic in the streets is the least of our problems. The
damn P.Os can handle it. We have to stop the rotters from reaching
the cities. Clear?”

Briggs turned to another officer. “Open the
bunker. I’m requisitioning everything, including the rockets. We’ll
worry about the paperwork later.”

He’d always known this day would come. They’d
spoken about it in whispers while the Senate sang their platitudes
about the safety of the Cities. Those who had been out there in the
field knew what the undead were capable of—and, perhaps more
important, they understood the rotters’ hunger, a hunger that could
never be satiated. Yes, they would come, and they would beat down
the great Wall and they would head for the cities.

Following the withdrawal, the Army’s
remaining weaponry had been stored in the massive bunker beneath
Chicago. With God’s grace, they’d have enough to stamp out this
pack. And then...

No, first things first. Briggs had to keep a
cool head. He had to lead his men. Until his last breath, he was
their commanding officer and nothing else.

“Someone radio Gillies,” he said. Closing his
eyes, he thought back to the early days of the war—for this
was
a war—and of the angel in white who had restored him. It
had been for this purpose, this very day, that she had done so. He
might not be able to count on God tonight, but he’d do right by
her.

* * *

Dalton descended the ladder and, drawing his
.45, cut a path through the milling undead with surgical precision.
A kneecap shattered here, a spinal cord severed there. One after
another they fell until he’d reached one of the remaining Jeeps—and
then the Strongman brought his hammer down through the
windshield.

Dalton spit glass from his mouth and started
the engine. The Strongman clambered onto the hood. Dalton stomped
on the gas.

They sped into ever-increasing torrents of
snow. Rotters struck by the bumper sailed past Dalton and were lost
in waves of white. There was only the Strongman, clinging to the
hood with one meaty hand and raising his great hammer with the
other.

Dalton jerked the wheel to the right. The
Strongman nearly rolled off, but righted himself. Dalton emptied
the .45 into his face. The undead shook his head as if bothered by
gnats; the pulp of his eyes slopped down his face. He let the
hammer go and grabbed Dalton by the throat.

A hard left. The Strongman held firm. Already
Dalton was seeing red, hearing only the thudding of his heart in
his ears. Through a crimson haze he saw the Strongman’s head
lowering, his bloody jaw falling open.

Dalton’s foot found the brake, and he pressed
down with all he had left.

The Strongman dropped hard onto the hood,
losing his grip on both the Jeep and the soldier, then flew off,
landing twenty yards away in a puff of snow. Dalton fell out of the
vehicle and pulled his rifle off his shoulder. Fighting to keep his
balance, he came up on one knee and took aim at the zombie.

The Strongman’s head exploded in a scarlet
supernova. His body sagged, hands grasping at the red mist in the
air. Then he was done.

Dalton lowered the rifle. He hadn’t fired a
shot.

A fleet of headlights appeared on the
horizon. There were more gunshots. A headless rotter fell beside
Dalton.

The cavalry had come. The tide was about to
turn.

“No plane’s going to land in this shit,”
Gillies muttered, frowning through the window of the Hummer. Beside
him, Gregory was silent.

Someone emerged from the storm, rapping on
Gregory’s door. He pushed it open. “Call for the Senator!” the man
said, forcing a radio into the bodyguard’s hand.

He passed it to Gillies, who grumbled,
“Thrill me.”

“Senator, this is a message on behalf of
Major Briggs. Rotters have breached the outer Wall. They’re all
over the dead zone outside Gaylen.”

“Where’s Briggs? Why isn’t he telling me
this?”

“He’s on his way to the front, sir.”

“Jesus.” Gillies lowered the radio and tapped
his driver on the shoulder. “Get out there and have them close all
the gates. I want you posted out there. Tell the other Senators I
want their men out there too! Shoot anything that comes near
us.”

“Me too?” Gregory asked.
Dammit. I should
be out with the troops.

“No, you stay put.” Gillies rubbed his eyes
with a groan. “I have a headache.”

“Want me to go fetch you an aspirin?”

“Don’t give me any shit, Ian. You’ve already
let me down tonight.”

Gillies’ door was yanked open. Senator Cullen
stood in the snow. “What the hell are we gonna do, Sam, just sit
here and wait for them to surround us?”

“We’ll be fine,” Gillies sighed. “The entire
army’s out there. What you should be worrying about is that plane
turning back in this weather.”

“Do you think that’ll happen?”

“I don’t know. I’m staying regardless.”

Cullen frowned. “Do what you want,” Gillies
said, and slammed the door shut.

* * *

The other Army vehicles, Jeeps and Humvees,
had pulled up beside Dalton and stopped. A hundred men trained
their weapons on the horde in the distance.

“Visibility’s shit,” Briggs said, handing off
a pair of binoculars. “All right,” he said into his radio, “we’re
going to try and keep them back with small-arms fire. Use your heat
scopes. Reinforcements are on the way to help. With any luck we can
get the rotters bunched up close together—then we bring out the
heavy artillery,”

Silhouettes, barely visible through the
storm, were peppered with gunfire. They couldn’t see well enough to
cripple the rotters; they were wasting ammo. “Let ‘em come closer!
Put ‘em down!” Briggs yelled into his radio.

The shadow figures were scattered sparsely
across the dead zone. Dalton knew immediately that something was
wrong. He’d seen far, far more than this at the Wall. Where were
they? Hanging back, wary of the gunfire? Or plotting?

Rotters plotting? Undead with a
strategy?

The silhouettes weren’t coming closer. They
were spreading further out and fading into the storm.

“Heat scopes aren’t doing any good!” a
captain shouted. Briggs, standing in the front of his Jeep,
clenched his fists and sat down. “All right, roll out! Let’s find
the sons of bitches!”

“They’re
behind us!
”

Cries erupted throughout the ranks as a surge
of undead came from the back, flying out of the white winds and
landing on the troops. Sheer panic overtook the men. Briggs could
only watch in terrible wonder as the dead claimed their swift and
brutal victory.

* * *

Voorhees was lying, bound, on the floor of
Tripper’s bedroom. Halstead and Lily sat beside him.

“I’m sorry we hurt him,” Halstead was saying.
“But you see, he doesn’t understand that we’re the good guys.
Tripper and Campbell have taken good care of you, haven’t
they?”

Lily nodded slowly. “But why would good guys
hurt a policeman?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Voorhees
muttered. “You can preach to me all you want, Halstead, but you’re
not going to sway a child with your bullshit logic.”

“You just... if you’d only met Thackeray.”
Halstead sighed. “He’s the architect. He’s the revolutionary. He
sent us here with a plan, and no, it’s not to burn the Great Cities
to the ground. This is about liberating this country from the
undead. It’s about not giving up, not living in denial. And I
know
you understand that logic.”

Voorhees rolled onto his back, staring at
nothing, and spoke not a word.

He had to get Halstead out of here and be
alone with the girl. Halstead wasn’t stupid, though. She wouldn’t
give Voorhees the opportunity to talk Lily into untying his
wrists.

But he didn’t need that kind of time. He
needed only a few seconds—enough time for Lily to help him loose
his widowmaker from the sheath beneath his shirt...

Cam poked her head into the room. “It’s
almost dawn.”

“Happy Halloween,” Halstead said.

* * *

Eviscerato led his minions over Gaylen’s city
wall. The few soldiers posted there were slaughtered before they
could even reach their radios.

It had taken only a few hours to make it from
the outer Wall. The pack had suffered minimal casualties. And even
now, some of the dead soldiers they’d left in their wake were
rising to join them.

The King of the Dead paid no mind to the
solitary Jeep that sped past him into the city. Gaylen was asleep.
They didn’t stand a chance.

* * *

“I see the plane,” one of Gillies’ men cried,
pointing east. “Look!”

Gillies ran from the Hummer and across the
airfield, his heart pounding. The plane was still coming, even
through the storm! The British had come through! There
was
a
God.

“Will they land?” Senator Cullen cried.

“Of course they will!” Gillies practically
screamed. “Light the torches! Guide them in!”

The plane streaked over the airfield and
began a sloping turn. Men thrust flames into the air and waved
desperately at it.

The plane was coming in. Cheers broke out
among the Senators and their entourages.

Gillies clapped his hands and, turning to see
Ian Gregory standing behind him, said, “Is your faith still waning,
my friend?”

“I can’t do this,” Gregory said.

“What?”

“I can’t get on that plane. I belong back
there with the troops. I’m not abandoning all these people. The
woman I loved,” he said softly, “she died here.” He glanced away
from the runway, toward the gates. “She died.” And he began to walk
away.

“Ian!
Ian!
”

To hell with him then. Gillies watched the
plane touch down. He jogged back to the Hummer and retrieved his
briefcase. Hopefully it wouldn’t take long to negotiate his way on
board. Maybe he’d just tell them that the rotters had breached the
Wall and that all was lost. The truth wouldn’t hurt for once.

The plane taxied toward the fleet of parked
cars and came to a stop, engines whining. Stairs descended as the
side hatch opened.