Necrophobia - 02 Page 4

  But going into the City…nobody liked that.

  Sabelia and the other ladies didn’t have real good memories of any of that. They had been held prisoner by ARM and the scars of that ordeal were still fresh and hurtful. The rest of us weren’t really crazy about it either. But, good or bad, we started making plans for a series of concentrated raids on various armories to get what we needed.

  Those few precious days of peace following the armory incident, I did my best to relax, but it wasn’t very easy. I played cards with Jimmy and talked about the old neighborhood before the Awakening. I spent a lot of time with Paul, trying to get him to come to terms with his mother’s death, something, which was not easy for either of us. Hell, I was no therapist, but I knew I couldn’t let him bottle something like that up inside, so I kept up a running dialogue between us. But it wasn’t just me. I knew Jimmy had talked to him about it and Diane made him open up as well. I got the feeling it was easier for him to talk to her than to me.

  When I wasn’t worrying over my son, I worried over the raids that Tuck and I, Riley and Sabelia and Jimmy were planning. I worried over the details, planning and re-planning. Of course, there were only so many things you could plan for. I knew from experience that, like in war, the majority of what we would encounter could not be planned out. What it would come down to was instinct, experience, and our ability to react as one.

  At night, I would lay there thinking it over and wondering which raid would leave my son an orphan. It definitely wasn’t my own skin I fretted over. It was all of us, of course, but mainly Paul. He had proven himself to be tough and resilient, but he was still a ten-year old boy.

  Always, as usual, when I wasn’t lying sleepless in bed worrying about that or trying to make some kind of sense of the world we had inherited, I was thinking about The Awakening. It troubled me. Sure, the idea of the dead rising to feed on the living was troubling in every way, but the mechanics of the entire thing was what bugged me. It had happened nearly overnight and spread like wildfire. And no matter how I looked at it, I still could not come up with a single vector that could sweep the entire world in a matter of days. I mean, if it was some kind of biological weapon; that would mean it was set loose in every country simultaneously. That seemed a little far-fetched to me. And if it was just a germ dispersed by the usual vectors—air, water, personal contact—then it would have taken many, many months to travel around the globe and maybe even years. But it hadn’t. It was everywhere at once. As far as the germ itself went, Necrovirus/Necrophage/ZombPox, it made perfect sense that it would attack healthy individuals. That they would rise up to feed was insane, but a reality nonetheless. Okay. But why would the germ infect those already dead? Because it had. The first waves of the dead had been from morgues, mortuaries, and graveyards. How could a germ do something like that? How could it possibly breech buried coffins and vaults?

  I accepted the germ theory.

  But the rest of it simply made no sense.

  It was disturbing. Very disturbing.

  THE WATCH

  The third—and as it turned out, last—night of peace we had a really good dinner that Dorothy, Susan, and Jimmy whipped up. They made us a beef stew and biscuits with a cherry crumb for dessert. It was the best food we’d had in some time and I was amazed, as always, at the sort of good grub those three came up with when they put their heads together.

  Later that night, after Paul and the other kids were asleep—Sabelia and the other girls were bedded down with them for the night, Diane and Riley locked into intensive mental combat over a game of chess that had been going on over a week—I went up to the air traffic control tower to find Tuck with his face pressed up to the glass.

  “Something out there?”

  “Not that I see,” he said. “But I got me a funny feeling right up my spine. Maybe I’m imagining shit, but it seems like whenever we get too comfortable somewhere something tends to happen.”

  He was right on that. Sooner or later, the zombies seemed to sniff us out and that was why the various smaller survivalist groups tended to keep on the move and not let themselves get button-holed anywhere. The zombies always came and they came in numbers.

  We kept the generator down to low ebb at night to save on fuel, just burning a few emergency lights and nothing more. Up in the tower the only light was a nightlight on the wall. More than that would attract attention. I went up to the glass and looked out there. It was a moonless night and you couldn’t see much.

  “I don’t see anything,” I said, but maybe my imagination was running away, too, because damn if I didn’t get the funniest feeling as well. I thought for one moment I saw shadows mulling around out by the gate.

  “You don’t sound convinced, Booky.”

  And I wasn’t. The more I looked, the less convinced I was. I would have paid in blood right then for some night-vision goggles, but that was one thing we didn’t have. The Stryker cameras had that capability…but to fire one up and take it out of the hangar just to get a peek at what was outside the fence, was it worth it?

  “Yeah, I thought about that, too,” Tuck said when I mentioned it to him. “But if they’re out there, they’ll still be there come first light. We’ll wait and see.”

  “It’s not the zombies that you’re worried about, though, is it?”

  He shook his head. “What I like about the dead ones is that they’re predictable. If they come in the night, they’ll be there when the sun comes up. They don’t sneak around looking for ways to breach our security. Unlike some others.”

  “ARM?”

  “Maybe. But they’re not the only crazy fuckers out there.”

  He was right on that. The zombies, as I said, were dangerous, but with the proper security in place, you could keep them at arm’s length. The others were the problem. The scavengers and militias. We had already danced with ARM on several occasions. If they came in force, blasting their way in, we might get them but the gaps in our defenses would be wide open and the dead would flood in.

  “You want me to take watch?” I said.

  Tuck shook his head. He settled into his chair and lit a cigarette. “No, Jimmy and Diane are coming on at three. I’ll wait until then. I think somebody’s out there. I wanna see if they try something.”

  “I’ll wait with you.”

  “No, get some sleep. I can handle this.”

  I thought it over. I knew I wouldn’t sleep. “If a guy were to go out there on a little sneak-and-peek, it might put our minds at rest.”

  “Sure. A little recon might not be a bad idea. Could be dangerous, though.”

  “We could draw straws.”

  We did…kitchen matches, actually…but I got the broken one.

  So out I went.

  CONTACT

  Even though we had agreed that the loser was going out to do the dirty, Tuck wasn’t too happy about it being me. Reconnaissance had once been his business and he wanted to go. But an agreement is an agreement. Besides, I was itching to do something besides staring at the walls and worrying.

  I figured it was exactly what I needed.

  When I went downstairs, Diane and Riley had turned in as I had hoped. It made for fewer questions. I took my CAR-15 with two-extra mags and a couple WP grenades, a few flares, my Gerber knife, and Sig-Sauer 9mm. I clipped all of this onto my black tactical vest and made ready.

  Tuck was grinning like a naughty kid when he made ready to open the door. “The others find out we did this, they’ll be pissed. Especially your girlfriend.”

  “Sabelia’s not my girlfriend,” I told him.

  “She thinks she’s your guardian angel.”

  “Okay,” I said, checking over my vest. “I’m ready.”

  Tuck pressed a walkie-talkie into my hand. “Keep it quiet out there. No talking. One click if things are cool, two if you need back-up.”

  “Got ya.”

  “One thing,” he said. “You figure Sabelia will go for me after we bag your ass?”

  “Fuck
off,” I told him.

  Then he opened the door and I slipped out into the night.

  I ran about fifteen yards until I was just below the tower, sidling up behind one of the berms where I intended to stay for about ten minutes until I got a feel for things. Dark? Oh yes, it was like being in a closet out there. The stars were bright in the sky and they were the only light I had to see by. It wasn’t much. I waited there, my eyes adjusting to the point that I could make out shapes in the night. I could see the outbuildings and hangars in the distance and I could just see the fence beyond.

  I saw no movement.

  I gave Tuck a click on the walkie-talkie and moved out across the pavement, keeping low and moving fast so I wouldn’t present much of a target to anyone trying to draw a bead on me. I raced over to a guard shack just inside the wire.

  I waited again.

  I looked back at the tower and I could see the burning end of Tuck’s cigarette. He was nervous as hell and I knew it. If I got greased out here, the others would hold him responsible for what they would consider a real risky and foolhardy venture.

  I gave Tuck another click.

  Silently, I crept up to within about four feet of the fence. I saw nothing. My idea was to follow the fence line and see if I could spot anything or draw any fire. Whatever it took to put our minds at ease. I moved along the fence, taking my time, all senses alert and ready for action. I had gone maybe a full city block when I found the breech. There was a side gate, which had been chained shut and secured with a couple of Masterlocks. Even in the dark, I could see it was standing open. The chains were on the ground and I couldn’t find the locks. The hairs along the back of my neck were standing up by this point, because I knew I wasn’t alone.

  Although I didn’t want to use my light, I knew I had to.

  I clicked it on and saw all I needed to see in about three seconds: not only had the chain been cut, but also the grenade tripwire Tuck had attached to the gate itself. It would have taken a real pro to pull off something like that in the dark.

  I was looking in every direction now.

  I snuck back and slipped behind a green metal dumpster. I was sweating and breathing hard and I figured very little of that had to do with exertion. Although I was supposed to maintain radio silence, I got on the box. “Tuck…Tuck? The gate’s open down here. The chains are cut, the tripwire’s been snipped,” I whispered.

  “Get your ass back here right now.”

  I needed no prompting in that direction. It was my very plan. But as I crept around the side of the dumpster, judging how much of a run it was to the tower, I saw three shapes come gliding out of the darkness. And the smell they brought with them made no doubt about who or rather what they were.

  They had me spotted and they came on silently.

  Although I knew it would wake everyone inside, I had no choice. I brought up my CAR-15 and opened up. I dropped two of the zombies immediately; the third came right at me. It grabbed the barrel of my rifle and nearly yanked it from my hands. I kicked out and stomped the zombie in the kneecap. I felt something give, and as it went back and down, my rifle went with it. I pulled the Sig-Sauer from vest and drilled the shit eater twice in the head.

  By the time I got my rifle from the dead guy on the ground, there were dozens of zombies closing in on me. I started busting rounds from the CAR-15 in every direction. I clicked on the tactical flashlight mounted to the barrel so I could see what I was shooting at. The zombies surrounding me were starved-looking things whose faces weren’t much more than skulls. I dropped six or seven, whirled around and batted away two or three more reaching out for me. Christ, they were pressing in from every direction.

  I sighted in where the throng was lightest and emptied my clip in that direction, getting a few good headshots that blasted skulls to gray goo. The numbers in that direction thinning, I ran at them and dove right into them. It was a tactic they were not expecting and I hit them like nine pins, scattering them and finding my feet before they bit me or got their maggoty fingers on me. I ran maybe fifteen feet, dropped to one knee, ejected the spent clip of my rifle and inserted a fresh one. I poured three-round burst after three-round burst into the advancing horde, only dropping a few.

  I made for the berm and there were more ghouls mulling around, all of them zeroing in on my light and me. I shot, ran, shot and ran, doing both at the same time until I reached the safety of the berms. I put out more rounds, turned for a run to the door and something hit me alongside the head, spilling me to the pavement.

  I grabbed up my rifle and saw that it was a head.

  One of them had thrown a decapitated head at me.

  And right away, I saw which one it was. A naked teenage girl came at me, hands raised like claws. Her face had gone soft like a rotting tomato. She only had one breast, the other chewed away. What I saw mostly in the light was her teeth and stark white eyes. I shot her dead when she was barely three feet from me.

  More zombies.

  I was being hunted.

  I dropped two more and a third grabbed me around the throat. I stomped my boot onto his instep and slammed my elbow back. It went into a gut that was sloppy and loose, but the deadhead let go. I jammed the barrel of my rifle into its face, drove it back, and made a wild run for the door.

  By then Tuck was out there with his MAC-10, dropping the dead at every quarter. I tripped over a corpse and then there was one right in front of me. I brought up the CAR-15 and the most amazing thing happened.

  The zombie shouted: “PLEASE…PLEASE DON’T KILL ME…”

  Except it was no zombie. It was a man dressed in camouflage fatigues. He had a gun in his hand, it looked like a big caliber, maybe a .357, but he was not aiming it at me.

  “GET DOWN!” he said.

  I ducked and he opened up with his hand-cannon and drilled a zombie right behind me. Then he swung around and dropped another. Then, side-by-side, we were fighting together, laying down heavy suppressive fire along with Tuck. Then the three of us made for the door.

  We got inside just as twenty of the dead converged on us.

  KILL PHIL

  It was organized confusion as we brought our new friend into the mess hall. He was a big guy with a hard face, but his eyes were open and friendly. Although, at that moment, they were a little on the scared side. Tuck and I ignored the questions and complaints of the others as we concentrated on the new guy. His fatigues were the four-color Russian variety that ARM seemed to favor, and probably because they’d looted them from a warehouse in bulk somewhere.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Tuck asked him, after he had surrendered his handgun, which was empty anyway.

  “Phil,” he said. “Phil Boncek. I’m from Coney Island. I grew up there.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Riley asked.

  There was the question that needed answering, and Phil didn’t look real happy about doing so. “I’ve been on the run. The dead are everywhere. Fucking militias. There’s nowhere safe. I knew you people were here, but by the time I got on-site it was dark so I—”

  “Bullshit,” Sabelia said. “Try the truth.”

  Tuck still had his gun on him. “And try it right now. You’re a survivor? Well, I don’t buy that shit, because you’re dressed like an ARM puke.”

  Phil sighed. “All right, all right. I was with them.”

  “Still is,” Sabelia said.

  He held up his hands. “No, no, wait…you got it all wrong. You don’t understand.”

  Although Tuck clearly wanted to throw him to the dead, and the ladies who’d suffered at the hands of ARM probably wanted to emasculate him, we let him tell his sad tale of woe. He told us that lots of people were joining up with ARM and a lot of them had been in the regular military. They were absorbing a lot of the lone gun survivalist types and smaller militias. But not everyone joined by choice. “They don’t give you that option,” he said. “You’re in with them…or, well, you’re the enemy. In that case, they shoot you. Sometimes the only
way to survive is by joining up. I didn’t want to, but I didn’t have a choice. Kill me if you want to, but that’s the truth. They make you join up. And you don’t dare desert, because if they catch you, they tie you up and let the zombies have you.”

  “But you deserted anyway?” Jimmy said.

  Phil looked almost sheepish about it. “Yes, I did. And you would, too. Believe me, you would.”

  I just watched him. I didn’t necessarily believe what he was saying, but, then again, I didn’t completely doubt him either. I sat there with Diane and Sabelia while the others interrogated him beneath the grim glare of Tuck. I was most interested in what the ladies would ask him, the ones that suffered as prisoners of ARM. Kasey and Brittany said nothing, of course, but then they rarely did. Sometimes it seemed they were not two distinct individuals, but parts of a common whole. Susan and Dorothy threw questions at him, but they were both bold individuals and I wasn’t surprised at that. Mia, Ginny, and Carrie said very little but watched him very closely. Sabelia was firmly in Tuck’s camp and wanted to throw Phil out the door. Riley was suspicious, but she had a good and compassionate heart for any and all. Despite what she’d been through at the hands of Phil’s compatriots—Brothers in ARM, if you will—she listened and tried to understand.

  When the interrogation ended, it was my turn.

  “Okay, Phil,” I said. “Here’s my problem. You say you deserted. Okay. You say that you knew we were here. Okay. But those zombies didn’t get through the fence on their own. Somebody cut the chain on the side gate and snipped the grenade tripwire. Then, they opened the door and I’m guessing it was because they wanted the dead to come in here. Finding that tripwire in the dark is the mark of a real pro. Did you do it?”

  “No. The gate was already open. I swear it.”

  Tuck shrugged. “I believe that much. This bonehead wouldn’t have the skill or nerve to do that.”

  “Well, somebody did it,” Diane said.