Hissers II: Death March (31 page)

Amanita swore. “Fuck!”

Connor turned and saw the hissers streaming out of the woods ahead of them. We’re flanked, he realized, we’re done.

They all stopped running, just stood in the sun as hissers approached from the front and back. And what did the sides matter; that was just a road, and the undead things would just merge together and chase them.

He raced to Amanita and held her, looked in her eyes, saw the shock there. She’d thought they were going to make it. What could he say to her now to make it any better? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Instead, he put his head to hers and let her shake in his arms.

He heard Doug yelling, “Come on, you fucking abominations. Come try and take me.
I’ve gotten out of worse!”

He
saw Olive and Dr. McGowan, the former just huffing in annoyance, the latter praying.

And above it all, he heard the hissers coming. The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes was a young undead girl running toward him with yellow eyes and a hand sticking out of the side of her head. It opened and closed as if trying to squeeze sense from the air.

And then…gunshots. Thousands of them. So loud he dropped to his knees and covered his ears, felt gobs of cold flesh splat against him. The ground rumbled as some kind of rocket dug up the earth nearby. Shocked, he opened his eyes and watched as the hissers were torn to shreds all around him. The spiders were blown apart, sending appendages flipping through the air. Puddles of blood and chunks of gore fell on his head like a torrential rain. The little girl coming at him fell apart like a Jenga game, her lifeless head rolling by his legs and coming to rest looking up at him.

Through the red mist in the air he saw Amanita lying prone, her hands over her
head. He crawled to her and lay down on top of her, trying his best to shield her from the debris and bullets.

The barrage
played out all around them, spent shell casings dropping through the air like parade confetti. Behind the incredible level of hisses, he finally noticed the other agonizing sound in the air.

Buddabuddabuddabudda.

Helicopters. U.S. Army choppers. Five of them, hovering above like sentinels.

As Connor and Am stood up, a rope ladder was tossed down, and a man in gray MARPATs leaned out from behind the gunner and saluted them.

Gunners hung halfway out the doors,
spraying rounds, holding the undead back, and Connor realized they had little time to get out of this mess. He hauled Amanita up, dragged her to the ladder, and they climbed into the arms of the people he least wanted to see.
 

EPILOGUE

DON’T DREAM IT’S OVER

SUNDAY 10: 35 AM

The man with
the Command Sergeant Major insignia leaned forward in his seat as the copter banked over the water. His grin almost seemed sinister, until he began to yell over the din of the rotors. “We were out on a search and rescue when we heard your new message. Some of our boys had been pinned down a quarter mile south. They didn’t make it. That left you.”

“You heard our message before!” Dr. McGowan was pissed.

“It’s not so easy to just infiltrate a building right now. It’s not personal.”

“It is to me! So Kraus was right, you just want what we have now?”

“The ingredients of the cocktail. Pretty crazy stuff, or so I’m told. I don’t know much from science, but my superiors tell me it’s a mite important. So Yeah, I’m not gonna lie to you, ma’am, we apparently have a vested interest in that.”

“Where are we going?”
Connor asked.

“Mira Mar. Not too far away, as the crow flies. Only base here that’s still standing and fortified.
We’ll get you cleaned up and fed.”

“What if we don’t want to go?”

“Son, we just saved your ass and you’re saying you don’t want to go to the only place in southern California that can protect you? Did you hit your head or something?”

“What are you gonna do with us?” Olive asked.

“Do with you?” The Command Sergeant Major shook his head in wonderment. “Not gonna do anything with you but get some soup in you, introduce you to our little group of survivors. Hopefully find you a bed that’s not occupied. Think you can handle that? What’s all your names anyway? I’m Drew, but my boys call me Goon. What’s your name, son?”

Connor hesitated,
unsure about that weird smile. Was this guy really ignorant of the prior information they’d broadcast? Was he ignorant of what the hisser cocktail really meant? He certainly didn’t’ seem to care about it that much. Or did he know they had it all on a drive in Dr. McGowan’s pocket? No, how could he. But that didn’t mean Connor was going to just open up to him. Not yet.

“C’mon, kid, I don’t bite.”

Connor looked at the others in the copter with him. Squeezed tightly again his left side were Doug and Olive. Their clothes were torn and their faces covered in dried blood. Both were waiting to see what Connor was going to give up. Across from them were Dr. McGowan and Am. The Dr. was silent, looking out the window at the land beneath them. Connor could see the thin outline of the drive in her pants pocket.

Am looked…tired. Her short hair was red and wet. Her eyes sunken, her cheeks hollow
. She needed rest, he knew. Needed to heal. They all did. So maybe for now, until they could better assess the intent of these military men, he should take them up on their hospitality. He could always escape again, right?

“Connor,” he said finally.

“Well, Connor, I want to welcome you.”

“To what?”

“What do you mean ‘to what?’ To the revolution, son. Your broadcast just gave us the most hope we’ve had in a while. Or so say our researchers are the base. I’m getting trickle down info here so bear with me. Now you just sit tight, we’re gonna be home in two minutes.”

The copter straightened out and careened one thousand feet up above the land.
Below them, Connor watched the land zip by. As far as his eyes could see there was nothing but wreckage and decay. Cars long burned to crisps clogged the road. Buildings were smashed and scorched, their windows blown out and doors ripped off. Houses were reduced to kindling, trees on their sides everywhere. Fields were littered with corpses and various bits of junk.

So much of it seemed to be mil
itary vehicles, as if there’d been a major war here. Which maybe explained why they hadn’t seen as many undead as they thought they would upon arrival. But then again maybe not.

H
ere and there pockets of hissers still moved about aimlessly. Almost none of them resembled traditional humans anymore. Most had picked up some kind of third arm or leg or second head in their travels. Always close by were the spiders, lumbering along on their multiple hands and feet, their collections of heads all looking in various directions at once, hungry for flesh. Some of them had gotten huge, and as they moved across the land they picked up even more attachments. Always, growing, Connor thought, just getting as big as they can and still be able to move.

But for as many of these as he watched below on the ground,
and despite the signs of major battle, he still thought there should be more. He’d traveled long enough and far enough to know that in a major city such as this the ground should be littered with hissers. Even if the military had killed them, and even with the spiders picking up parts, there should be more corpses.

Where a
re all the undead, he wondered, thinking back to how bare the land had been of hissers when they’d hit La Jolla. It still seemed off somehow.

Next to him, Olive leaned her head against Doug’s shoulder. “You don’t mind do you?”

“Not at all, darling.”

“Don’t get any funny ideas. I’m just tired is all.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Olive.”

“Don’t worry,” Am piped up, “he’s harmless. First real gentleman I ever met in my life, in fact.” She caught Connor watching her and added, “Except for Connor.”

“We’re almost there,” Goon said. That sinister grin spread across his face again, and Connor followed the man’s eyes outside to the ground.

“Where are they all,” he finally asked. “Why so few here?”

“Them zombies? Son, have a look around, tell me how many people you see. Not a whole heck of a lot. When the plague hit people tried to run, but you’re looking at one of the worst traffic columns in America. Go north and it’s gridlock even on a good day without undead. Go south and….well, south is Mexico. Last we heard the cartels had taken up the fight and were using people as bait. Fact is, everyone here that ain’t in our camp is running around looking to bite you. They took off all over the place, mostly downtown. Word of advice, if you’re thinking about going out on your own ever, do not go downtown. Unless you want to see a million of them things having a parade at Horton Plaza.”

Could it be true, Connor wondered. Could so many people have been devoured already that the hissers food sources were depleting, making them move on? How could the humans compete with such a vast amount of undead? Even if you had all the firepower in the world, you couldn’t take out the entire Earth population.

No, he’s lying about something, Connor realized.

“
But hey,” Goon said, “if you really want to see some, just give it another couple of seconds. You’ll see where most of ’em are. Any second now. Ah, yeah, here we go. See?”

Connor looked down again, and this time he saw thousands
upon thousands of them. They were marching toward a massive pileup of cars. No, it wasn’t a pileup, it was a wall. And beyond the wall were fences, and beyond them, more fences, and concrete, and another barrier of school busses. It was a series of rings, each man-made, each acting as a means of protection, and finally, in the center of it all, was the base.

They knew where the humans were and they were trying to get in. And why wouldn’t they, if helicopters kept coming and going from t
his point. It was like a giant neon sign on a dark street.

The helicopters hovered over the landing pad, then slowly descended. Connor undid his seatbelt and jumped out onto the tarmac. His friends did the same behind him. Command Sergeant Major Drew, aka Goon, motio
ned for them to follow him to an office where he waited a minute for the helicopters to die down.

“Hang out
in here for a second,” Goon said. He disappeared into another room where he spoke quietly to someone. Connor assessed the exits, just for the heck of it, threw a glance at Am and saw she was doing the same. She would have been a good gamer, he thought. A second later Goon returned with another man, this one in dark shades and a black bomber jacket. When the man removed his glasses Connor’s eyes went wide.

“Well well,” said
General Ryan, “welcome back to the fray.”

“You asshole,” Am said, “you killed my parents!”

“Hold up, girl. I didn’t kill anyone. I lost you guys on the battle field at Wallington. Whatever happened after that wasn’t my doing. I never made it to the next camp, though I did hear it got overrun. So wherever you drove off to I wasn’t there. That being said, you’re lucky to be alive. Hell, I’m lucky to be alive. And I hear, according to the message one of you sent—” He stared at Dr. McGowan.

“Dr. Klaus,” she said. “He didn’t make it.”

Ryan sighed. “Too bad. Nevertheless, I hear in this message, you’ve brought our intel back to us.”

“Great,” Connor said, “so you can bomb more cities.”

“There’re no cities left to bomb…Connor, was it? No, I’m happy you’re here because if what you broadcast is right, then you’ve given us cause to begin the next part of this war.” He knelt down in front of Connor and Am, stared them in the eyes. “You two show up in Wallingford from Castor. You two make it to San Diego. You two are with the group that broadcast the chemical makeup of the drug that started this virus. So look me in the eye and tell me you two don’t have intel stolen from that plane crash. I’m not dumb, kids, not at all. But what you don’t suspect is that I’m also not for its existence. That was someone else. I don’t even know who but I don’t care. I came to find out it existed, but trust me, I don’t want it to exist. But you’ve put the data out there and I guess I have to thank you for that, because now we can at least look for a way to combat it. So can I have it, whatever it is you have the info on?”

Connor remained mute.

“Connor, I know you don’t trust me, but you’ve got to, because if you don’t, we’re all done for. What happened to Castor was just orders. Now, I need your data. We need to work together. Who has it?”

“
Oh for God’s sake, I have it,” Dr. McGowan said, handing over the drive. “Sorry, Connor, but if I’m going to be  a part of this—and I certainly am, General Ryan—then I need whatever resources are here.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Ryan said.
“Now that that’s settled, let’s get you cleaned up. Because I need you all in tip top shape.”

“For what?” Connor asked.

“For the war, Connor. Clearly you can fight. You all can, and we’re going to need as many people as possible for our big plan.”

“And what plan is that?”

“After we create an antidote, it’s a pretty simple plan. We bring the war to them.” With that, he walked off. Slowly, Doug and Olive and Dr. McGowan followed. Connor and Am stood together in the room, aware of the military personnel at the doors but too tired to that they were being watched.

“All the way here to end up back in a camp,” Am said.

“Yeah. Sorry. Thought this would have gone a little differently.”

“It kind of did. You got the information here, it’s out there in the world. Sort of anyway. And you’re probably more trained in fighting these things now than anyone here in green is.”

She inched towards him and put her arms around him. “Did you ever think, that night at the fort, that you and I would...be like this?”

“What? Covered in blood in a foreign city. No.”

“I mean…is it retarded to say I love you? I know it sounds stupid and something they say in movies before the fucking prom or something but… I dunno, I feel it. I’ve never felt it before. I only felt strange guys’ eyes on me at the mall and shit. I thought I felt love, like, in the way that I wanted to kiss Jason Drake—”

“Please don’t mention him.”

“But that was just me liking the notion of kissing someone I couldn’t get attention from. I feel now like I have to kiss you because I can’t live without you. I guess…I can go if this is just fucking weird or—”

“No.” Connor almost shook as he touched her face. “Don’t go. I like that you’re swearing again. It’s like the old you. Only different.”

“Well, the hair is shorter.” She chuckled. “The swearing…yeah, I fucking need to do that sometimes.”

“Fuck yeah,” he said. “And Am, I, uh, love you too.”

“As much as
Star Wars
?”

“
Yeah, as much as
Star Wars
.”

“What the hell is that?” Doug said. He had drifted over to a laptop
.

“That,” said
General Ryan, “is what we’re up against now. The rules have changed, which is why we needed this info.”

Connor moved over to the laptop. They all did. They all stood in awe of what they saw. It was a surveillance video, shot from a helicopter.

Mega spiders. Ten times the size of the spiders they’d seen the past few days. At some point they’d all thought it, but none of them had guessed how right they might be. On the video, the small spiders—ten to fifteen people combined—mashed themselves into each other, growing bigger, enormous. One hundred people. Two hundred people. They weren’t even arachnid anymore, they were just immense blobs of body parts rolling and skulking and undulating along, destroying everything in their path. The helicopter fired and blew them apart, and they reformed, bigger than before.