Left With the Dead (12 page)

“Dave.” Jolie coughed and spat. Gartrell turned to her, and she pointed up the stairway with her revolver, which she held in both hands. “They’re coming.” A trail of blood ran down one side of her face, and he figured something had sliced open her scalp, probably a piece of shrapnel. He moved grabbed her arm without even bothering to raise his NVGs and glance upward. He knew the zeds would follow them down, despite the raging inferno that blazed away over their heads.

“Zombies in the tunnel, but they can’t see us. Stay quiet, and let me lead you. We have to hop over some turnstiles, and then we’re going to walk up the platform to the right. You understand me?”

“Yes. Jaden’s so scared—”

“So am I. Do as I tell you. You go first, then turn and help me and Jaden across.” He led her to the turnstiles and helped her climb over one. She was unsteady, and her movements were furtive, unsure. He wanted to yell at her, but he didn’t dare, not with the zeds so close. They were already zeroing in on their position, and their moans echoed in the empty subway tunnel. Jolie looked about wildly, but in the inky blackness she could see nothing. Gartrell slapped her shoulder as he heaved himself over the turnstile, and she grabbed his arm and helped him across. It was tough going, especially while carrying all manner of weapons and with a forty-pound kid strapped to his back, but Gartrell made it.

And just in time, for the first of the ghouls made it to their platform and hoisted itself onto it. A single shot from Gartrell’s AA-12 sent its headless body flying back onto the northbound tracks. That only served to attract the rest of the zeds in the tunnel, and they rushed toward their position. Gartrell grabbed Jolie’s arm and pulled her after him, hurrying down the platform. As he did, he spoke quietly into his headset’s boom microphone.

“Summit Six, Terminator. We’re in the tunnel—we made it. Hats off to the aviators, they got us through, over.”

The response from the 2/87th’s commander was broken up by static, and Gartrell had to concentrate to make out the words. “Terminator, Summit. Your transmission is breaking up, we can barely get you. Confirm you’re in the tunnels, over.”

“Summit, Terminator is in the tunnel, over.”

The response was awash with static and an oscillating tone. They were already too far underground for the radio to work properly. Jaden moaned, and the ghouls behind the group caught the sound and stumbled after them. One of stenches fell right off the edge of the platform and slammed onto the tracks with enough force to break bones, but it struggled back to its feet and continued on, dragging one leg behind it. Gartrell led Jolie to the end of the platform, where a small gate bearing a DO NOT ENTER sign blocked off a maintenance ladder. He brought Jolie to a halt and pushed her against the wall.

“Stand right there. I’m going to have to thin out the herd a bit,” he said.

“I can’t see anything.”

“Don’t worry. I can. We’re good, we’ve got about”—he looked over his shoulder at the oncoming zombies—“six or seven stenches to deal with, then we’re going to go down a ladder and head up the tunnel. Stay cool, Jolie. We’re getting through this.”

“Trying,” she said. But the expression on her face said it all. She was already past her limit, and the only thing that kept her running was force of will and the love for her son.

“Stay right here,” Gartrell told her. He did a quick visual reconnoiter of the area, and saw no zeds in the area other than those to their south. He stepped away from Jolie and walked back the way they came; this way, when the zeds keyed in on the AA-12’s muzzle flashes, they wouldn’t threaten Jolie directly.

Just me and poor little Jaden. That’s the ticket, Gartrell—put a four-year-old in harm’s way.

The zombies groped their way down the platform, moaning, hissing, their dead eyes rolling in their dry sockets as they struggled to separate shapes from the blanket of darkness that enshrouded them. Overhead, Gartrell heard the rotor beats of the Apaches fading into the distance. Their job done, the attack helicopters were retreating, probably to rearm, refuel, and repeat their attacks elsewhere.

He waited for the zeds to close on his position. Before he opened up, he checked over his shoulder to make sure Jolie was still secure; she was. He raised the AA-12 to his shoulder, sighted on the closest zed, and fired. It collapsed to the platform twenty feet from him. Jaden screamed at the sudden sound and struggled mightily, and his movements were so severe this time that Gartrell’s second shot missed the next zed entirely. That gave it enough time to charge forward with a surprising burst of speed, and Gartrell dropped it when it was only four feet away. The rest of the stenches roared and hurried toward him as if of one, hands outstretched, jaws spread wide. It took all of Gartrell’s discipline not to mash the AA-12’s trigger down and rock and roll on full auto as he backpedaled, Jaden’s screams in his ears as he fired again and again and again. Spent 12 gauge shotgun shells flew out of the weapon’s ejector port and rolled across the platform floor as Gartrell faded back, leaving a trail of still corpses in his wake. When he was done, he had laid waste to seven zeds.

Across the tracks, more commotion from the other platform. And back at the turnstiles, a few more zeds that had survived the inferno overhead managed to make it to the platform. Gartrell counted at least twenty, maybe thirty zombies had entered the tunnel. He ejected the AA-12’s ammunition drum, and found he had only three rounds left. He suppressed a curse and reached into his knapsack. He pulled out the other drum and extracted the three shotgun shells from it, then hurled it southbound as far as he was able. The drum bounced down the tracks, and the zombies turned toward the sound, peering into the darkness. Gartrell loaded the three shells into his remaining drum, then slapped it back into the AA-12. He now had a total of seven rounds left, and then the AA-12 would be useless.

Jaden moved on his back and whined loudly, doubtless from the pain emanating from his bleeding wrists. Gartrell winced at the sound as the stenches turned back in their direction. They started moving immediately, casting about in the darkness for the prey they knew was there. Gartrell fell back to Jolie and touched her wrist. She started and brought up her revolver.

“It’s me,” Gartrell whispered. “We’re leaving. Right now.” He grabbed her wrist and led her to the maintenance gate. It was unlocked, so he pushed it open. Below was a short ladder, only three or four rungs which led to the tunnel’s surface. No stenches were in the immediate vicinity, so he brought his lips close to Jolie’s ear. She stank of sweat, grime, and singed hair.

“Three steps to the bottom. You go first. I’ll move you into position, but be quick about it—we’re danger close here, the stenches are closing in.”

“Okay.”

He had her place the revolver in her jacket pocket, and then maneuvered her so she stood at the edge of the platform. After he positioned her hands on the ladder’s rails, she quickly descended down the short ladder. Once on the ground below, she pressed her back against the wall and waited. Gartrell went down the ladder as carefully as he could, struggling not to make any noise—the first of the zeds was only twenty feet away at the most. The barrel of the AA-12 struck one of the handrails with a metallic clang, and the nearest zombie charged straight ahead. It slammed face-first into the wall next to the ladder and bounced off with a grunt. As it sprawled across the platform floor, Gartrell had the surprisingly strong urge to laugh at it.

He reached out and took Jolie’s wrist again and led her into the tunnel, panning his head from left to right as he scanned for any sign of additional danger. So far, the tunnel ahead looked vacant, though even the NVGs could expose only so much—there was close to zero illumination, and even the night vision goggles needed some source of light to amplify. Behind them, bodies hit the ground as the zeds on the platform walked right off it and crashed onto the subway tracks. Gartrell looked back. Several of them survived the tumble pretty much intact, and they rose to their feet and resumed the hunt. Some were disoriented, and actually started moving across the tunnel, or heading back in the direction they came from—

Something fell over in the darkness to his right, and Gartrell turned toward the southbound tunnel. He shouted a curse when he saw literally
dozens
of stenches pushing their way through the man-sized openings in the wall that separated the northbound tracks from the southbound one. Some of the zeds were only feet away.

Gartrell fired and dropped three of the zombies instantly. He blew the leg off another, and a fourth he blasted back with a shot to its chest. Jaden came alive on his back, writhing and screaming, and Gartrell’s fifth shot missed its target entirely, and the sixth only decimated one of its shoulders. Undeterred by the gruesome damage, the ghoul lurched toward him, flailing about in the darkness with its one good arm. It missed Gartrell by inches, and the first sergeant unslung his AA-12 and swung it at the zombie’s head with all his strength. The blow knocked the stench to the deck, but another one sprang up to take its place as Gartrell cast the AA-12 aside and ripped his MP5 from its tactical truss. Holding it in one hand, he clicked off the safety and ripped off a burst, moving the submachine gun from right to left. It was mostly a waste of ammunition, but the sudden fusillade of nine millimeter rounds knocked the zeds back a few paces, giving him the opening he needed. He grabbed Jolie’s arm in his left hand and yanked her away from the wall. He took off at a run, heading north, as she stumbled along after him. She made little noises in her throat, but Gartrell was certain the zeds behind couldn’t hear them; they must have been deafened by the gunfire, and their own moans filled the subway tunnel with a creepy, ululating cacophony. Jaden continued writhing on Gartrell’s back, whimpering as he bounced up and down in time with the soldier’s gait.

Behind them, he heard the dead as they surged up the tunnel in pursuit. Ahead, two more zeds appeared, crossing over from the southbound tracks. Gartrell fired on the move, three shots resulting in two fatal hits—a terrible ratio, given his current ammunition state. The walls of the tunnel were coated with a grayish material that he presumed was some sort of fireproofing. It seemed to capture what little illumination there was in the tunnel. Gartrell made Jolie grab onto his belt—it took more time than it should have, but he couldn’t speak—then he fished around in his pocket for another infrared chemlight. He found it, activated it, and hurled it down the tunnel before them. Light blossomed through the NVGs, and he saw the remainder of the northbound tunnel was clear…but in the distance, at the very edge of the goggles’ acuity, he thought he saw some sort of obstruction.

Jesus, what the fuck could that be?

And then, more zombies crossed over from the southbound tracks. They stumbled through the darkness, completely blind, but they sensed the activity in the tunnel, and that activity meant there was a chance at finding food.

Jaden struggled again, and Gartrell moved forward, heading for the zombies ahead. He knew the light infantry troops were in that direction, and if he could do anything to close the gap, then that was what he would do.

“Jolie, stay with me,” he whispered over his shoulder. “If you drop behind, they’ll get you.”

“I know.” Her voice was more whimper than whisper. “If anything happens to me, take care of my son.”

“Roger that.”

Gartrell advanced toward the zombies milling about ahead, pulling ahead of the stenches to the rear. Their footfalls were as quiet as possible, but he doubted the zeds could tell the difference between their steps and their own. As he closed on the group, he made sure his last magazine of MP5 ammunition was where it was supposed to be—he would need it in a hurry. It was. He shouldered the weapon and took aim at the zombie closest to him, about thirty feet away. It stared unblinking into the darkness, as stupid as a fire hydrant and about half as good looking.

The quick tie binding Jaden’s left ankle to him failed suddenly, and the boy shifted crazily on his back. He cried out as the pain in his wrists doubtless doubled. Jolie grabbed him, tried to keep him steady, but the young boy screamed and thrashed, his voice hoarse and dry, but still it echoed throughout the tunnel. The zombies ahead of them turned to the south as if of one mind, and they rushed toward them as fast as they were able. Then one of them went down, tripping in the darkness; the rest of the stenches piled up on the first, falling like a line of dominoes.

Gartrell pulled his knife and cut the quick ties that bound Jaden to him. “Jolie, grab Jaden and move to the right—flatten against the wall there! Keep him out of the way, then get the flashlight out of your pack. Don’t turn it on, just let me know when you’ve got it!” he said as Jaden slipped off his back. He held on to the boy’s left wrist, preventing him from collapsing to the ground. If that happened, he didn’t want Jolie fishing around in the darkness trying to find him. “Do you have him?”

He felt Jolie tug Jaden away. “I have him! We’re moving to the wall!” He heard her shrug off the backpack, and it hit the ground next to the wall.

Gartrell shouldered the MP5 and blasted two zeds through the head, dropping them as they rose to their feet. He then turned at the waist and fired at the mass of zombies behind them. He dropped one zed, then another, the nine millimeter projectiles blasting furrows through their skulls. He turned back to the north and fired again, one round per stench, firing with a quick precision that belied the near-panic that nibbled at the edges of his discipline and threatened to overwhelm him. If that happened, then they would all die.

And Gartrell wasn’t ready to die just yet.

Especially when a lady and her autistic son were depending on him.

So the zombies fell to the rails like clockwork. Every shot he fired resulted in a bullet punching through a stench’s skull, turning the remains of its brain into something like watery oatmeal, and blasting a good portion of that goo out the other side as the bullet continued on its merry way. He counted off the shots as he went, even though he didn’t know how many rounds were still in the magazine after he had ripped off on full auto earlier.