Zombie Ascension (Book 1): Necropolis Now (5 page)

Miles whistled again and said, "Holy. Fucking. Shit."

"Playtime's over!" Bob shouted back to them. "Saddle up!"

Bob looked through the window at the scene as if seeing it for the first time. His jaw clenched tightly and he ran his fingers through his wild, tangled gray hair.

Vega saw the seventy-two floor Marriott Hotel in the middle of the Renaissance Center. Smoke and flame burdened several floors. In the street, the familiar flashes of gunfire were absent among the barbed wire and police vehicles which blocked the streets. Large clusters of people ambled about.

She habitually checked her gear once again while Miles did the same. Bob handed them their headsets.

"That's not military personnel beyond the barricades," Miles stated the obvious.

"I couldn't hear what the status was," Bob explained. "Mostly static coming over the line, but it sounded like a civilian twit. Didn't know how to properly operate the radio. Tried to get someone else on the line, but we got a few aces in the clouds here who said they're backing off and awaiting orders. Couldn't get much more than that."

"So you didn't actually get clearance to drop us in," Vega said, "because there's nobody left to give it."

Bob pumped his Benelli shotgun.

A wayward chopper lifted off from the roof of the Marriott, which was a cylindrical spire of burning glass. The city's inferno was mirrored within the entire hotel's length, coloring it in the shades of violence and war. Scattered lights on some of the floors were indication enough they still had power. A red signal flare on the roof revealed a group of civilians who tried to flag them down by desperately waving their arms over their heads and jumping up and down.

Bob opened the chopper door.

Vega put a hand on his shoulder; she had to shout over the wind and the chopper's rotors. "Look at me, dammit!" she shouted. "There might not be a C.O. down there! You're looking at the same thing I see! We don't know how much time we have before this shit reaches the hospital! Let's pick up our target and get the fuck out of here!"

However, she knew his old loyalties had never been severed. She'd experienced his diffidence toward mission objectives in the past; when it came down to an opportunity to save American lives, Bob modified the parameters of their job to satisfy himself.

For once, Bob provided a rationale behind his actions. He kept his attention focused on the people below as the chopper slowly descended. "These could be VIPs!"

Miles shouted back. "And they might not! How do we know they're not hostiles?"

There was no place for the chopper to completely land on the roof, even if there wasn't a group of people waiting to be rescued. The chopper hovered a few feet above the roof, and Bob motioned for Vega and Miles to jump down. After they landed in a crowd of panicked, weepy civilians, Bob threw a ladder out of the chopper and leapt after his comrades.

Right away, Vega understood the situation was completely wrong. She knew from experience these people didn't care about the appearance of gun-toting soldiers, because they feared not everyone could fit on the chopper, and there might not be another one coming. While Bob shouted for a C.O., the crowd pushed the soldiers out of the way.

They found only one soldier on the roof, a National Guardsman who leaned heavily into an older man wearing a bloodied polo shirt and khakis. The guard was pale and his eyes were bloodshot, but when Bob stopped them, he seemed wounded only on his arm.

Bob helped organize the evacuation, attempting to ferry women and the elderly onto the chopper first. Vega was usually the one who communicated with civilians.

"Where's everyone else?" Vega stopped the civilian who was helping the guard. "Can you tell me what happened here?"

"They're all dead,'" the civilian replied simply, his lower lip trembling with quiet rage and sorrow. "Everyone's dead. Those people… they're not people."

"Sir, are you wounded in any way? May I have a look at the private?" she noticed the wounded soldier's rank.

Vega looked at the soldier's lapel.

"Private Willis," the soldier finally snapped to attention at the mention of his name. He blinked at Vega several times and waited for her to continue. "My name's Vega. We need to know what happened to the rest of your unit."

Private Willis stared back at her for a long time. Vega removed a glove from her hand and gently touched his cheek. He was frigid, and his glassy, red eyes were unfocused. He didn't blink for a long time, and his breathing was terribly shallow. She quickly turned around and motioned for Bob and Miles to hold on to the chopper and save room for Private Willis and the gentleman.

When she peeled back the strip of cloth wound tightly around the soldier's arm, she stopped herself from showing surprise. Instead of being shot, an entire layer of flesh had been ripped away, revealing muscle tissue surrounded by flesh that seemed more infected than it should have been.

"One of his own people did that," the civilian added. "It's everywhere. There's no escape. These people here… most of them don't know what they saw, but I know. I know what they were. I know what they
wanted
."

Vega swallowed. "Sir, can you be a little more clear, please?"

He shook his head. "There's nothing to say. There's nothing… we can do. My wife… there's nothing but death. There's only… death."

She stepped aside and allowed Miles and Bob to load him into the chopper. They couldn't cram all the civilians inside, and a brief melee ensued between the remaining survivors as the chopper lifted off into the sky.

Even with weapons pointed at them, they pushed and pulled at the mercenaries; no matter how many times Bob tried to tell them the chopper would be coming back one more time.

Vega joined the fracas and was forced to slam the butt of her gun into someone's jaw. Two people leapt off the edge of the roof without a further word, while Miles and Bob freed themselves from the fight.

For a moment, Vega could feel herself surrounded by the flames which poured out of nearby skyscrapers. She could feel the warmth of the dying city on her face, and she knew, deep down, that this city would never be the same.

"Off the roof!" Bob shouted at them.

They found the elevator and discovered, thankfully, that it was still operational. The glass elevator shaft provided a view to the surreal inferno which engulfed even the darkest corners of Detroit. Although there was barely a million people living in Detroit, the outbreak of violence might spread to the rest of the metropolitan area.

"We should wait for the chopper to come back!" she suggested. "We ride to the hospital and drop in. It's a waste of our time to roll through the whole damn city to find one man."

Bob shook his head and stopped his conversation over the headset. He said, "Chopper's coming for the last civilians and heading back home. Some political garbage got in the way. We're going to move in, grab Traverse, and bring him to Selfridge base."

"Did you see those people jump off the roof?" Miles asked. "I can't imagine a riot would do that. A well-trained battalion wouldn't just fall apart. I feel like we're a little late to the party. I got a bad feeling about this."

"What did you find out?" Bob asked Vega.

"Nobody could give me a clear answer. That was in total shock. He didn't have a bullet wound. It was… I don't know. A chunk of his arm was missing."

"We need to look at social media," Bob said. "Try to get an idea what the hell is going on around here."

While Bob removed his smartphone from his pocket, Vega couldn't help but look at him with her eyebrows raised. "This is a suicide mission," she said. "We better figure out what the hell we're going to die for because it's not for some brain-fried crazy in a nut house. What the fuck is going on?"

"Look!" Miles shouted.

A bright, fiery star burned through the smoke-filled atmosphere, twisting and turning as it came closer.

Vega swallowed. She could feel her entire body tense up; she could feel the fatigues sticking to her sweaty body and the weight of the useless sniper rifle in her hands, a weapon that couldn't save her now. She was aware of the headset on her head and the thick application of war paint beneath her eyes and around her nose.

Without knowing why, she wanted to see the expression on Miles's face, but her gaze was locked on the oncoming fireball, and she could see it clearly for what it was. It spiraled through the sky, heading on a collision course with the Renaissance Center.

"Hold on to something!" Bob didn’t have to say.

The helicopter burned through the air and crashed into the upper floors as their elevator continued its descent. The building quaked and the elevator's drop accelerated.

Vega felt unhinged; her control and comprehension of gravity failed. Wind and breath collided as glass shattered and rained over her helmet, which was violently ripped from her head. The steel supports groaned above and around them, a monstrous protest against the violation of the building's structure.

She tried to open her eyes—she was like a little girl swimming in the pool and opening her eyes for the first time underwater, everything blurring together, the uncertain vision was making it easier just to close everything up tight. She clutched her sniper rifle tightly to her chest, while her entire life seemed suspended in a state of free-fall.

The Act of Contrition quickly tumbled from her lips without a second thought. "My God, I am heartily sorry for having offended…"

A hairline fracture snaked along the glass as it shattered above them, raining shards down upon their heads. A gust of warm wind swirled around the soldiers.

Vega slid across the elevator as it tilted slightly. She grabbed the edge just as she was about to tumble into the street below. She wasn't afraid of heights, but looking down would be an acknowledgement of her own mortality. 

The elevator lurched and her stomach curled while steel and glass cried out in pain. The quaking resumed, and she could feel herself once again filling into her body, as if her soul had abandoned her. Smoke stung her nostrils and burned her lungs, forcing her to cough violently as a cloud of ash and dust devoured their elevator, which seemed to grind against the side of the building, resisting a sudden disconnect.

When the elevator finally stopped its descent, she closed her eyes. She didn't see Miles or Bob fall, but there was so much smoke… she had to hang on. Her shoulders burned, and her fingers couldn't find the grip she needed.

She thought of the little girl whose face appeared on the television back at the hotel. The bright-eyed Shanna, smiling widely, a phone number defining her fate among the missing.

A strong hand suddenly grasped her fingers. She glimpsed Miles's stubble-laden face through the thick smoke. He pulled her over the edge, and she lay on her back to collect her ragged breath. Miraculously, the sniper rifle remained on the platform as the entire elevator dangled precariously, as it had been stopped somehow, someway.

Whenever it was a close call, Vega knew that God intervened on her behalf. She just never understood why.

"On your feet!" Bob shouted.

A hand grabbed hers and lifted her, coughing, through the rolling fog. Her arms were lifted over two sets of shoulders. She tried to open her eyes and make sense of what she saw, but the smoke burned her eyes. It was all she could do to breathe. She slipped her arms from around her teammates' shoulders and stood on her own feet, grateful the M25 was in her hands again. She still had her submachine gun strapped around her shoulder. Everything was right with the world.

Bob and Miles were both dull shadows in the smoke. They turned on the flashlights on their weapons in the darkness, which illuminated nothing more than the cloud of ash and dust that had been shaken from the chopper that crashed into the large hotel. Vega felt numb, her entire body possessed by instinct rather than rational thought. She followed her teammates for a few feet in the dark until they stopped to rest against a stairwell.

She could see their sweat-drenched faces. There was still the mission, and they were soldiers, no matter what happened on the elevator.

"We're still alive," Miles noted. "Holy shit."

They were stranded in the darkness, and whatever hostile threat had decimated Willis's unit must have remained behind, waiting for them. They were in enemy territory, and they had no idea what they were up against. The abyssal dark was made thicker by all the unknown dangers that lurked within it. Not even the emergency lights were operational.

Vega closed her eyes and struggled to slow her beating heart. She should have died, yet, God allowed her to continue. He had to have a reason for keeping her upright.

She couldn't remember the first time she felt afraid. Her first combat encounter had been thrilling and exciting, and ever since, she remained an action junkie. She couldn't understand why she was painfully aware of her own mortality now, when her teammates needed her. Where did these feelings come from? Why was she so relieved to find that Miles had survived?

"We're on the fifth floor," Bob announced. "Check your weapons. I'm good to go. Are we wounded?"

"Affirmative on the weapons, boss," Miles said. "Not wounded."

Vega flashed him the thumbs-up. "Just my pride," she said and immediately coughed. "Never liked theme park rides."