LZR-1143: Redemption (5 page)

“You have ‘em, Rhodesy?” The boat was getting louder. And it was approaching us from the other side. We were between the zombies and the river.

They lurched forward.

Toward us.

“You know I do.”

That was the final word. Heads just began popping.

There was no better way to describe it. There was a whisper from the Rangers’ rifles, then a plop. Then again. Then again. Twenty became fifteen, and fifteen dwindled to ten. They fell as fast as they could pull their triggers, arms moving their guns mechanically, as if they were robotic killing machines.

As the last five moved within range of my machete, I pushed forward and took the first through the neck. The blade barely vibrated as the head flipped over itself and fell to the ground, the mouth still clicking teeth together as it bit into the dirt.

My second backhand swipe was messier, and took the small, damaged woman in the cheek, cutting the lower half of her jaw loose from a face that had once been pretty.

Her head whipped sideways from the forced of the blow, then collapsed on her neck as the bullet from Rhodes’ gun snapped her head back suddenly. Her light summer dress, thickly crusted with a layer of gore and dirt, seemed nevertheless to float to the ground in slow motion. We turned quickly toward the sound of the small boat and ran.

My pack slammed heavily against my back as we moved through the fog, moisture condensing on my sunglasses and on my neck beneath the thick fabric of the protective suit, the sound of the river now loud in the mist, though seemingly muffled by the thick, opaque gray. Clifton had disappeared ahead, slightly outrunning Kate who was still well within the visibility range. Ahead, the unruly grass turned slowly into weeds and cattails, flowing down to a six-foot chain link fence, half buried in a thick, marshy mud and the lapping, thick water of the Potomac.

“River’s been rising slowly over the last few weeks,” said Clifton over the radio, even as he took a small torch from a cargo pocket and began cutting the metal. “Pumps underneath the city failed a while back, and the swamp’s been making a comeback.”

I remembered my American history enough to register what he was talking about.

D.C. had been built, somewhat foolishly, on a former swamp. Massive sets of pumps beneath the city and along the river helped keep the river at bay, and the swamp from making a triumphant comeback.

In some ways, it was fitting. Let the sulfurous, filthy mud retake a city that was utterly full of shit.

Kate stood at the edge of the weeds, feet from the water. She was staring into the distance, watching the single light from the small inflatable boat grow closer. I walked forward and stood beside her, staring at the approaching outline, which quickly materialized into a solid form with two standing bodies on board. Then I noticed that she wasn’t looking at the boat. She was staring several meters to the left.

“What are you looking for?” I asked, locking my eyes on the same location. A small ripple disturbed the water, but the fog continued to push across, the movement obscuring anything else.

She shook her head slightly, and I heard her breath heavily.

“Nothing I guess. I just thought I saw something. I’m just jumpy from being inside so long. And I’m worried about Ky.”

I put my hand on her shoulder and tried to meet her eyes, but through the thick sunglasses, all I could do is face her. She turned her head back toward me for a split second, and everything seemed to happen at once.

“Fence is down, let’s start mov — Shit! Mother f—-” The quick whisper of rounds being fired on semi-automatic stopped with a quick gurgling sound.

The sound of the inflatable boat scratching across the weeds almost obscured the heavy sound of a body sinking under the water in a thrashing of green and black. A weapon discharged in a silence puff of displaced air, and Rhodes’ large form was next to me, gun scanning the water as the two men on board the boat jumped down and toward the fence.

“Hey, where’d your other man go?” the first one asked, pulling Kate through the fence.

“God damn geek pulled him into the water!” shouted Rhodes, pushing me through the fence and running to where Clifton was standing. “All I saw was two arms and then he —”

Then, he was on his back. As I turned, four arms and two heads were suddenly at his legs as he kicked and tried to bring his rifle around. I pushed through the water, bringing the shotgun around on its sling and detaching it as the first creature looked up, water and mud dripping from its face, hair matted to the skull like a waterlogged doll. I swung it forward quickly, using the Pathfinder’s attached blade for silence. The lips pulled back and the broken teeth smiled as the long, razor sharp blade severed its spine.

A loud tearing sound met my ears as the second creature tore a small piece of Rhodes’ pants away near the ankle, the mindless ghoul looking momentarily confused as its bloodied hands held up a small metal plate.

The large man wasted no time firing a quick shot to put the creature into the water, and frantically scrambling from the murky river. I reached down, pulling him up from the sucking, thick mud with one arm, and nearly tossing him into the boat. He glanced back once, eyes slightly wild. Whether due to the close encounter or my strength I wasn’t sure.

“What the fuck, man? Those things have a navy now?” One of the coastguardsman was incredulous, and quickly revved the engine as we climbed on board.

“I’ve never seen that before,” I said to Kate, staring at the water. Small, round protrusions in the water were visible, now.

They looked like turtles on a log, or rocks in a shallow stream.

But they weren’t.

They were the tops of heads.

More ripples were visible now, as the protrusions moved slowly toward the boat and the fog started to dissipate slightly. Hands emerged in short fits and flailed briefly above the water. The small, almost insignificant splashes as the hands broke the surface of the water, belied the danger beneath the water.

Jesus. They were in the water now.

It had to be a product of the herding impulse. It had to be the drive to join other groups.

They couldn’t be learning new ways to hunt. They weren’t that developed.

Were they?

The engine hummed and we pushed away from the marshy shore, the faint new rays of sunshine stabbing at my eyes through my glasses.

“Yeah. That’s definitely new…” Kate said, trailing off. The wake of the boat soon obscured the eerily silent following of half-obscured heads and flailing arms, and we turned to watch the water push past the sides of the small craft.

My earpiece crackled with another broken signal, this time from a dispatcher in the Pentagon.

“Seeker,” said the voice, and I heard our simple call sign, ready to respond. “This is Castle. Iron Eagle is inbound, approximately five mikes out. Patching you through to their channel. Iron Eagle, go ahead for Seeker, Castle out.”

“Copy that, Castle,” I said, hearing significant static on the new channel. The boat’s steady hum didn’t help, and I moved forward, away from the motor. “Iron Eagle, this is Seeker, how do you copy, over?”

Behind me, I saw Kate lean in and ask the younger of the two sailors something and then she signed to me: three minutes from the shore.

“…-er, this… gle…inbound to your… significant… heading east. I repeat, significant… east toward your… Do you…”

I pushed the ear bud as far as it would go into my ear as the boat began to catch larger pieces of clear visibility ahead. The hull slammed loudly over a larger wave, and I lost the sentence completely.

“Say again, Iron Eagle, I did not copy.”

In the distance, I could see the murky outlines of a control tower jutting from the mist. Beyond that, I knew that thousands of the undead waited for us.

Static hissed through ear bud, and I cursed loudly.

“Watch yourself, sir,” one of the sailors said as the rocky jetty on the tip of the runway appeared from the mist, and the boat slowed. I hit the transmit key on my collar again and repeated, softer this time.

“Iron Eagle, we did not copy. Please say again. We are at the LZ and prepared for evac in five. Over.”

Static again, and I stared into the unrelenting fog overhead until my eyes burned, hoping to catch a sign of movement ahead. Behind me, the sailor manning the motor bounded forward nimbly, despite the now gentle rocking current of the shallows, and jumped to the large rocks ahead, offering his hand to Kate as she hoisted her pack and her weapon.

I turned toward the back of the boat and gave it one more try, but my finger paused on the transmit button. Behind the small craft, the movement of the water was different, and more erratic. Something briefly emerged from the water and went back under.

More gently rounded protrusions.

Hands broke into the air again, as the water roiled.

Shit.

“Sir…” the sailor in the boat began, but as I turned and sprinted to the front of the craft, I heard Rhodes shout. I didn’t pause. I grabbed the young man with both hands and heaved as hard as I could, tossing him awkwardly onto the rocks ahead and yelling.

“They’re in the goddamned water!”

A blast from Kate’s shotgun split the morning air, and we bolted up the uneven rocks, Rhodes in the rear, the soft spitting of his silenced weapon a quick, airy staccato behind us. As we reached the top of the short incline, and our feet hit the wet gray pavement of the runway, I heard the decoys.

Someone was feeling cute.

The “Ride of the Valkyries” blared from somewhere in the ether ahead, fading and then cutting out, just as another speaker blew repeated bursts of random voices, and yet another the sounds of engines.

It was a cacophony of sound that faded away in shifts, cut out, and then restarted closer to us, and faded away again. They were clearly flying away in shifts.

And it had been working. Only a single corpse was within view, shambling away from us despite the noise of Kate’s shotgun and our rapid footfalls.

But it was also attracting the creatures from the water—a threat from our eastern flank that we hadn’t expected.

We were now between two herds, and could only move one direction.

“How many?” said Rhodes calmly in his microphone.

I just shook my head.

“Too many.”

My ear bud exploded with sound and I swatted at it through my head cover before I remembered it was there.

“Seeker, this is Iron Eagle, please acknowledge.”

Fumbling for the transmit button, I stammered quickly, “Iron Eagle, this is Seeker. We are on the tarmac and ready for extraction. We are plus one, over.”

The voice was quick to reply. “Five-One, be advised, you have a
massive
group of hostiles inbound from the East. They are at the river and… well, Seeker, they are not stopping. There are thousands of them—possibly tens of thousands. They appear to be in the water. Iron Eagle on final approach, on the ground in three mikes. Suggest you move to the west end of runway three three. Over and out.”

I looked at Kate, and then at Rhodes. The original plan was to rendezvous on this end and take off to the West. Meeting the plane at that end was a huge risk. The noise of the landing airplane would drown out the drones, and the herd would turn toward us just as the plane set down and taxied—the noisiest part of the extraction. Without cover from the snipers, and in the thick fog, they could be on top of us before we knew it.

My head was throbbing with the action, and I could hear the blood rushing in my ears.

Behind us, at the water’s edge, I watched as the fog turned into movement, and the movement turned to bodies.

“Copy, Iron Eagle. We’ll see you in three.”

I had been inside too long. I needed a release.

“You go. I’ll buy a little time.” I walked forward, not away. Toward the creatures mustering at the shore, feet stumbling for purchase on the slippery rocks. Gripping my Pathfinder in one hand by the modified stock, so that it was essentially an axe, I drew the machete with the other hand. Beside me, Kate’s form materialized.

“Not going to let you play alone,” she said, staring at the mist and gripping her weapons tightly.

The blood was pounding in my head, and I needed the rush. But I smiled at her attitude.

Rhodes and the others moved toward the end of the runway.

There were nearly fifty of them onshore already, more clamoring behind. The bulk still struggled to find footing on the uneven rocks. Those that had emerged were awkward, as if unused to walking. Trails of water dripped behind them as they struggled forward.

We met them halfway.

I swung the modified shotgun as if it was nothing, and it felt like nothing. It was weightless in my hands. I heard, rather than saw, the head hit the ground, even as I pivoted instinctively to the next body. The torso split in two as I aimed low, and I saw Kate’s machete claim another head as I ducked the arms of the next creature, slicing up with my left hand and severing the arm at the armpit, and taking the head from below. The blade vibrated slightly as it sheared through the spine at an angle.

I rolled forward, throwing both arms out to the sides, and taking the legs from two more as they moved forward. Both bodies fell, as their momentum carried them, toppling toward me, teeth gnashing and arms still searching. I threw my arms wide and caught each by the chest with my forearms as they fell. Their heads whipped toward my own and I completed the motion, smashing their torsos together with a tremendous effort and hearing the satisfying crunch of ribs and sternums. Turning quickly, I pushing both bodies away and took the heads with one swipe of the Pathfinder, even as I spun to meet the next wave.

Kate’s movements were far more graceful. She danced and spun, her movement reminiscent of a ballet dancer, when mine was far more direct. I flung and crushed and stormed and thrashed. She pivoted and twirled and jumped. Not a single creature touched her as she moved through them, like a dancer at a ball.

She was magnificent.

My own style, as unattractive as it may have been, was just as effective.

Within minutes, bodies surrounded us. We had bought the others some time.