Snareville (19 page)

“
Hope they’ll all fit.”

“
We’ll see. I called your brother. He’s on the way with air support.”

“
That makes it easier, but he’s an hour out.”

“
Called twenty minutes ago.”

“
Okay, we’re down to forty minutes. We should be able to hold that long.”

“
Take Imal’s squad. Get movin'. We’ll pull the dragons back and see if we can bait the Zeds. Happy hunting.”

“
Thank you, Major. Good luck here.”

I gathered up the troops and headed out between the fire engines. We took off on a run, following the sounds of destruction. The dragons were hosing down the Zeds on Hog Farm Road near the east park. Only a couple of blocks from my house, but a long way through a wall of deaders.

I keyed the comm net as we came up behind the tanks. They stopped firing, but they left their torches lit.

We waited for the flames to die down. My troops watched and waited. Mixed emotions washed across their faces: fear, hate, excitement. Jinks stood on my left, Bill on my right. An inferno reached up into the early-morning sky. Some of the trees were scorched. The little gazebo in the park had collapsed into ashes. The flames crackled as they consumed everything they touched.

Within fifteen minutes, our nerves frayed. The fire died down and burned low. Across the blaze, we could see the rest of the deaders. Rotted bodies, torn faces, some nude, some with remnants of clothing. A few were still fully dressed. I figured they must be recent kills. A number of them were marked up like Savages. Bankers, lawyers, clerks, shop workers, people like us. They all stared at us with the same white-dead eyes. Empty windows into soulless bodies.

“
Squad, take aim!” I shouted. Rifles came up, and safeties went off. “Private Jinks, Private Rizzo… drop a round of WP at the back of the swarm. Ready… aim…”

The flames had almost gone out directly in front of us. The Zeds could squeeze through pretty easy now, if they wanted to.

“
Fire!”

The barrage ripped through the front rank of corpses. They went down in a heap as the WP exploded behind them. Walking corpses went up in flame as the front rows surged forward.

“
Watch for runners!” I shouted as we backed up. It wasn’t hard to stay ahead of them, as long as we moved at the same pace.

A block down, the whole swarm moved past the tanks. The heavy machines turned and helped to herd the shuffling mob along. It worked. We moved down Main Street, and the Zeds followed like rabid sheep.

At the west end of the street, we scrambled over the gate. The tank crews slammed the east gates closed. The Hill Street gate was already locked. The Zeds were in.

We looped around at a jog on the back streets. I found Kenny at his CP.

“
Your brother’s five minutes out,” he said. “I’ve asked for rockets down the corral. Whatever's still movin' after that, we can finish with the Garands an' such.”

“
Yessir,” I said. “We need to clear my side of town. I don’t think they all followed us.”

We headed east. In the distance, I could hear the faint slap of rotors against the dense air. I checked my watch. Only ten o’clock. Lord, it had already been a long morning.

“
Take Catfish and her squad. That should give you enough firepower, so you don’t get cut off.” Kenny signaled. Catfish and Tony trotted over. We gave them the plan, and they called the rest of their squad to join up. We were up to fifteen troops as we started out at a jog back to my side of town. Other squads were out hunting Zeds in the areas of town that might have been missed by the tanks and troops early on.

Back in my neighborhood, we found Wilson, Beecher, and their crews still in the tower by the southwest gate. Bodies were piled up six feet deep all around them. Their guns were dry. I radioed Kenny. He called up a team to repair the smashed gate and send up ammo. A small box truck lay on its side just inside the fence. That came through first, and the Zeds followed.

The choppers swooped low overhead now. The concussion from their blades slapped at the air. I counted ten birds—everything from Apaches and Blackhawks to Vietnam-era Hueys and a couple of Cobras with Marine Corps markings. The choppers did a slow circuit of our little town, then the Blackhawks peeled away to the south. The Apaches began their run over the Zeds, followed by the Cobras. On foot, we started to pick our way between the houses.

Explosions rocked the morning. The sound peeled through town like a wave. I hoped our windows weren’t breaking out. I’d never been this close to rocket fire before. I felt sorry for the people at the firehouse, only a block off Main Street.

Some of my platoon was able to come out and join us. The Zeds had mostly left town or been killed. House by house, we searched. We found a few. Where some of my people were holed up, we found a half dozen or so deaders. Easy kills.

We made it onto my block. The only place with any zombies out and about was mine. Jenny sat on the roof of the porch with Sandy, their rifles laid across their knees. On the porch under them, a cluster of Zeds beat on the door. The yard was littered corpses. Our garden looked okay. We’d put up a tall fence last year to keep out the deer and rabbits. Looked like it worked for zombies, too.

“
You mind gettin' these pests off the porch?” Jenny radioed over the rockets. “They figured out if they step off, they die. Haven’t had a shot in twenty minutes.”

“
No problem. Babies okay?”

“
They’re fine. Heather radioed me about Pepper.”

“
It was touchy.”

“
Aren’t
you
Captain Understatement?”

We started popping the rotten bastards with our pistols. Two of them shambled down the steps at us. One tripped and fell. She tried to get up, and we put her out.

When the deaders were killed, the group waited in the yard while Bill and I went inside. He must have felt the same way I did. He just grabbed his wife and hung on. I took the stairs two at a time and came upon Jenny as she hurried from the nursery. I swept her into my arms, and we said nothing. I dropped my K-pot on the floor and kissed her long and hard.

“
Glad you’re okay,” she said at last.

“
Me, too.” I couldn’t find words for anything else. We were safe.

I heard the choppers pull away. Rifle fire started after that, but it was winding down. Rachel started to fuss in her crib. Funny how I could tell the cries apart. I stepped into the nursery as footsteps came up the stairs.

“
She wants her daddy,” Jenny said as I stood over our baby.

“
Can’t," I said. "I’m covered. And now Michael’s starting up.”

“
He can’t let his sister get in the last word.”

I grinned. I wanted to pick them up, but I was covered in Zed-juice. All the babies had been inoculated, but they were still so little. I didn’t want to take the risk.

On the floor, the mike in my helmet crackled. They were calling me from outside.

Jenny stroked my cheek. “You better go.”

“
I’ll be back in a little bit.”

She smiled as I passed Bill in the hall.

“
You stay here. I’ll leave Dog’s squad for perimeter duty.”

Bill nodded as I headed down the steps. Outside, one of the troops pointed to a small cluster of deaders milling around a house across the street.

“
Who’s in there?” Jinks asked.

“
Someone I shot, if she ain’t dead yet.” I turned to the group. “Dog’s squad, stay here and establish perimeter. Sergeant Hanson’s in command. Catfish, your squad is with me. The rest of you fan out and find any last Zeds. Put ‘em down.”

We started across the street. I dropped the first Zed as he started toward us. Tony dropped another as it came around the side of the house.

“
Who’ve we got here, Boss?” Catfish asked.

We passed the body of the Savage I’d killed in the yard. He’d been gnawed on pretty good. Most of his flesh was gone, and he was down to bones and a skull with a bullet hole through it.

“
I don’t know. Some Savage bitch. Put a round through her leg after I dumped her boy here.”

We dropped two more deaders as they came off the porch at us. After that, it was quiet. I sent Tony and Hunter to search the yard and garage. I waited on the porch with Catfish. The guys came back with an all-clear. I tried the door. It was locked. At least she was that smart. I gave it a kick the way Tony taught me, and it flew inward.

We cleared the door four-stacked and found her in a sticky pool of her own blood. She was still breathing. Back against the wall, she faced the door. Her leg looked like someone dipped it in blood from the thigh down. She had on nothing but a torn, black T-shirt, some chains, and a pair of old jeans. Tattoos covered what skin was exposed, including a big, five-point star over one eye. She looked like a female Ace Freely. Her ears were ringed in metal, and blonde roots showed through her black-dyed Mohawk.

“
Hiya, Star,” I said. I leaned over to lift her.

She smiled. “Death.”

I heard a loud pop. I felt something smack me in the chest. I backed up and found a little twenty-five pocket pistol in her hand. She laughed as her finger started to tighten on the trigger again. I didn’t give her the chance; I wound up and punched her in the face.

Her nose flattened as her head snapped back. The pistol fell out of her hand, and I kicked it away. She tried to focus, but her eyes rolled back in her head. She went limp.

“
Problem solved,” I muttered. “Upsy-daisy, bitch.”

I hoisted her over my shoulder, and we headed for the firehouse. I didn’t like her, and we had no place for prisoners, but I wasn’t about to let her die. Maybe I could send her back to the Arsenal with my brother.

The gunfire had died away to sporadic bursts as the troops cleared town. Already, the bucket tractors were in play, scooping up killed Zeds like so much burning shit. They dumped the corpses into the backs of the city dump trucks. The first full load followed two backhoes out of the town to the south. The crew would find a spot to dig a new hole on top of a hill in the fields a couple miles away. It would have to be a big pit to hold all the corpses this time around.

Danny ignored it all as he carried the woman on his shoulder to the firehouse. She stirred, grumbled, and cursed. After one outburst, he smacked her on the ass with his free hand. She yelped as pain streaked through her shattered leg. Tony carried his commander’s rifle as they made their way through town.

They splashed through the little creek, now flooding because it was clogged with Zed corpses. A crew already worked to clear the stream, but they had to dodge the pockets of floating napalm as it drifted with the sluggish current. The pop of a pistol signaled that the work crew had found a wiggler. A disabled Zed, but still an active Zed.

Danny eased between two fire trucks as Catfish opened the door to the station for him. Inside, he flopped the Savage woman onto a table. She yelped again and spat curses at him.

“
So that’s how you pick up the chicks, eh, bro?” A major in digital BDUs stepped forward from the crowd. “I’ll have to try shootin' 'em first next time.”

Danny grinned and shook his brother’s hand. “Good to see you, Tom. Thanks for the air support.”

“
Well, we weren’t doin' anything today, anyway. Figured it was a good day for a leisure trip.”

A snarled curse interrupted the brothers.

“
Who’s the charmer?” Tom nodded at the girl on the table behind them.

“
That'd be Star. Main fuck-bitch of Wolf, leader of the Savages. I think he's the one I killed when this shit started this morning.”

The two stepped closer to the table, where the doctor had sheared the pants off the bitch to get a better look at her wound. He approached her arm with a needle—something to kill her pain—and she fought back.

“
You do her, too?” Tom asked.

“
Yeah.”

“
Lousy shot.”

“
Went where I wanted it. We need to know how they led that whole swarm up here. Can’t get that if her brain’s splattered all over the yard.”

“
True.”

They watched as Doctor Leary struggled to slide the needle into the woman's arm. Finally, Danny stepped forward, cocked his pistol, and stuck the barrel under her nose. She froze.

“
Hold the fuck still so they can fix you, cunt.”

Leary got the I.V. going. Danny holstered his pistol.

“
Great bedside manner you have there, Captain Death,” Leary noted. “Now get out of my way. Go see Pepper.”

Danny walked away. Tom lingered at Star's bedside. He wanted information from the bitch, too.

On a cot in the back room, Danny found one of his wives. Pepper lay bundled in heavy blankets tucked to her chin. Eyes closed, she looked to be sleeping. Danny picked his way between the other cots to kneel beside her.

Softly, he brushed a stray lock of hair from her face. When they married, her hair had been buzzed off. She wore it longer now, but still in a boy-short cut. If he knew her at all, he knew the little bangs would soon be gone. She didn’t like them long.