Winter Apocalypse: Zombie Crusade V (6 page)

“Did Hiram tell you what’s going on up here?” she asked as calmly as possible.

“Yeah, and I got here as fast as I could. Been any changes in the last few minutes?”

“Nothing new that I’m aware of—the evacuation needs to move faster though,” Deb responded. “We gotta take the river-route, Carter, in this weather.”

A brief silence ensued before Carter gently explained. “This is a military operation now, babe. You can’t focus on the people you might lose along the way; you gotta complete the mission. You understand what I’m sayin’?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know how well I can do that; what about the old people and the kids? Some people just can’t move fast enough, and I don’t want to leave anyone behind.”

“Ya save the group, Deb, as many people as ya can. Kids come first, if ya can manage it, but ya can’t endanger the group. I know that sounds harsh, but war ain’t ever fair. Ya just do the best ya can.”

“So I leave the elderly behind?” she sounded horrified.

“No,” Carter carefully continued. “I’m sayin’ that even the old folks would want ya to make sure you get every single kid to safety. Deb, I wish to hell I was with ya right now, but ya always know what needs to be done, with or without me. I never met nobody with more common sense.”

“I just wish you here, Carter. And tell David that Christy is out at the ranch with her mom. They’re in lockdown mode. Redders and everybody at the Castle secured themselves underground in the bunker. There was a helicopter and the Castle was overrun about the same time we were. I think the whole area is under attack, but if the folks out in the county can stay quiet and out of sight . . .”

“I don’t know ‘bout that, babe.”

“I don’t either, but it’s what I have to believe right now. I’m also going to believe that Chuck and his pilots can fly our Blackhawks out of here. I’m going to send them your way as soon as they’re ready to go.”

Just then, Ted Simmons, chief railroad operator for the settlement, burst into the small radio room and gestured to Deb for the microphone. “Carter, I have three troop cars hooked up to a locomotive about half a mile west of here. The river bank’s only twenty or thirty meters from the tracks there. You want me to try to get the kids on that train and head to you guys or Utah?”

Carter didn’t reply for a long moment, trying to consider the feasibility of the suggestion as he pictured the terrain Ted was describing. Before he could say anything, he heard Deb in the background.

“You wanna take ‘em up there by boat?” she asked.

“Just what I was gonna ask,” Carter added.

“Yep, and I’ll take some of the parents along as guards, and as many Utah soldiers as we can scrape up too. We can use those mini-barges we’ve been using to transport grain. If the area’s overrun by hunters, we’ll just stay on the water, turn around, and rendezvous with the other evacuees. But I’m hoping we’ll have easy access to the trains.”

“Okay,” Carter decided, “give yer plan a try unless Deb has any objections. And Ted, if ya get ‘em safely on that train, bring ‘em to Vicksburg. I’m purty sure we’re gonna have some worried parents down here.”

“Will do, amigo. Here’s Deb again.”

“Carter, your mom has Greta and Cassandra, I’m gonna send them on the train with Ted—I know Andi will appreciate that. I need to sign off now and help get these people on the boats. I love you, and I’ll try to get a message through after we get to our destination.” She knew not to mention Middle Bass by name over the radio; Carter knew where they were going.

“Debbie, yer the strongest person I’ve ever known. Get our people outta there. And make sure my momma goes with Simmons on that train. I love ya too, baby.”

Back at the cabin, Luke had broken into a cold sweat. He was shivering, but so deeply asleep that neither David nor Gracie could wake him. They wrapped him in blankets and watched helplessly as he twitched and jerked in seizure-like bursts every few minutes. Eventually the spasms stopped, and he settled into what appeared to be a restful slumber. His breathing was deep and even, and when Gracie listened to his heartbeat it was strong and regular.

In his mind, Luke had been trapped in a cell that kept getting smaller and smaller until he was being crushed on all sides by iron bars. He struggled against the pressure until he suddenly expanded and broke free. He’d become bigger and stronger in an instant—strong enough to shatter his metal prison as if it had been made of paper-thin glass. He roared in delight. He’d never felt so powerful and alive. He scanned his surroundings and saw nothing but emptiness; then an uneasiness slowly crept over him as he sensed that something dangerous was watching. He turned around to find several alpha hunters a few feet away, studying him and snapping their jaws. He felt a surge of power in his chest, and he expanded again. Now he towered over the hunters, and they ran away in fear.

A distant hum caught Luke’s attention, and he cocked his head to listen. It was music, and it called to him. He walked toward the sound. When he got a bit closer he recognized Gracie’s voice, but he couldn’t quite make out what she was singing. A large window appeared to his left, and he could see several deer standing together by a thicket of small trees and shrubs. For an instant he was torn—he didn’t know whether to follow Gracie’s voice or leap through the window to make a feast of the wild game. The hesitation made him question himself, and who or what he had become. Suddenly Gracie was standing before him in her wedding dress, radiating total love and acceptance. She bent down and picked up a large, ornate mirror. She raised it slowly and held it up high in front of her. Luke quickly turned away, afraid of what he would see in his own reflection. He knew what would be there—the coal black eyes of a heartless predator. He forced himself to confront the mirror, resigned to his monstrous fate. He was surprised to see his normal human face staring back at him.

CHAPTER 6

Deb made one last transmission before packing up the radio, turning her full attention to finalizing the evacuation, and abandoning the fort. She contacted Christy and the others out at Trudy’s horse ranch. “We’re deep in Alpha 2 evacuation mode; whoever bombed the wall also managed to sabotage the explosives wired to the bridge. We can’t hold this place.”

Christy looked around the room at her mom and the rest of the people gathered by the radio. They’d been discussing their options since the first call from Deb about the trouble in Fort Wayne. Everyone at the ranch understood what they were going to have to do. Christy was five months pregnant, her mom was a fifty-five year-old housewife, Vickie was a doctor, and her husband a gentle giant who avoided fights when he could. Teenagers Jade and Tyler were with them, and four kids under the age of twelve were counting on the adults to take care of them. They also had Chewy, a beagle with a heart of gold. He’d saved the kids once before on the journey from Cleveland, and now it looked like he might have the chance to do it again on a return trip down the Maumee.

“Deb, we’ll follow your lead and see you at the HD.” There were several canoes hidden at the nearby farm on the St. Joe, and she knew that Deb would understand that “HD” meant the Hosey Dam on the east side of town. Jack and Carter had tried to ensure that everyone, even newcomers to the settlement, had a basic understanding of the regional geography and could locate several key landmarks that could be utilized as rendezvous points.

“No way,” Deb declared. “Not in your condition, in the middle of a blizzard, with thousands of hunters prowling this entire area. Stay put unless you have to run.”

“You know we can’t do that. Even if we’re not under attack tonight, we’ll be sitting ducks out here tomorrow. Or the next day. Besides, we know that river; hell, even the kids know it better than any of you down there. We’re going to guide you, blizzard and hunters be damned.”  

 
 
Deb didn’t know what to say. She had known Christy for years as David’s girlfriend, and the past three months as a sister. No, she thought, that wasn’t quite right. She knew Christy as only soldiers at war can know one another, with a love that can never be fully explained, though it’s certainly one of the most powerful bonds in the world.

“You still there?” Christy pressed.

Deb finally shook herself out of the brain-freeze she was languishing in and made a decision. “Yeah, I’m still here. Listen, I don’t have the time or energy for any of that code talk. The hunters assaulting us are all coming over the bridge from downtown. We don’t have any reports of attacks along the north wall. The Castle is four miles southwest of where you are; I think you can drive to Fort Wayne. Pick up a few canoes at Johnny Appleseed Park and motor down to the dam. If you run into any problems along the way you can always head back to that farmhouse on the river.”

The radio was silent for a few seconds as Christy thought the suggestion through. “Good idea, Deb. We’ll drive to the park; I think you’re right: the hunters can’t be everywhere at once. Heck, we’ve killed most of the infected within a thirty mile radius of the Castle; all the helicopters in the world can’t round up the dead.”

Deb smiled as she considered the possibility that the choppers could do just that; after all, only five months ago they’d been certain that they were facing George Romero-style, certifiably dead zombies. “Yeah, I think the Blackhawks are working with just what they could gather from the immediate area; there were thousands of them just across the river not long ago. They’ve been wandering away, chasing stray cattle, but they probably didn’t get far.” She felt a slight sense of hope for the first time since she’d heard about the breach in the wall. “If Barnes had been moving a new horde in this direction, our scouts would have picked up the activity. I’m pretty sure this is a knee-jerk reaction to what happened in Vicksburg.”

“All right then,” Christy replied. “We’ll be on the road in a few minutes, and with any luck, we’ll see you within the next hour and a half.”

Deb finished packing the mobile communications gear and bundled herself up for the cold. On her way to the docks, she almost ran into Devon Ferguson herding a group of civilians to the boats.

“Sorry,” she shouted, “I can only see about two feet in front of me. I don’t know how we’re going to know when everyone is loaded.”

“I think we’ve got most of ‘em ready to go,” he yelled back. “We just need to get ‘em out on the water, and they’re loading pretty fast now.” The human shouts and screams, combined with the howls and snarls of the hunters fighting to force a path through the hole in the wall, had spurred on the evacuation in spite of the weather.

Deb left the radio equipment with Devon; he said he would secure it with one of his injured soldiers before rejoining the fight at the wall. He told her that they’d lost a lot of good people and couldn’t hold out much longer.

She tried not to think about Andi still fighting near the bridge. Time was not on their side, but Deb needed to determine the status of their own captured Blackhawks and the pilots they’d taken as prisoners. The eldest and most experienced of the group was a veteran warrant officer named Chuck, who’d earned the trust of Jack and the other leaders as he’d flown them to the Ohio River bridges when they’d set out to thwart Barnes’ invasion plans.

Chuck had sworn his loyalty to Jack and the community, and had guaranteed the cooperation of the other airmen being held captive. Still, there was one big problem involving the prisoners that now fell squarely on Deb’s lean shoulders. The helicopter force had been led by a USAMRIID officer at the time of their capture, and virtually everyone in Fort Wayne believed the rogue soldier was a war criminal who should be executed for crimes against humanity. The pilots had flown their birds as ordered during the weeks and months following the outbreak, most of them under the mistaken belief that Barnes was conducting his missions under the authority of whatever remained of the U.S. government. Those who’d begun to question the morality and constitutionality of what they saw the general doing to the groups of survivors they found continued to fly because they were convinced their families would be tortured and killed if they didn’t. Basically, the pilots were being forced to support Barnes’ operations, while the officer now in Jack’s custody was designing and enforcing policies of murder and enslavement.

With Jack in Vicksburg, Deb had to do something about the men being held here before the evacuation was complete. As she walked quickly toward the house where Chuck and the pilots stayed, she noticed that the guards normally present were gone. Carter had ordered a permanent security detailthere to protect the prisoners from the people, especially the USAMRIID officer who was locked up in an insulated garage behind the building where the aircrew was billeted
.
She jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned to see Chuck suited up for theblizzard
.

“C’mon in out of the cold, hon, and tell us what’s going on out there.”

Deb stepped into the small house, thankful to be out of the raging storm for a few minutes
.
“Someone blew a big hole in the wall on the bridge, and at least one Blackhawk made a couple passes above us, leading hunters to attack across the bridge. The storm is picking up, and we’re barely holding on at the breach. I’ve ordered an evacuation.”

Chuck whistled in disbelief. “We heard the alarm, and all the commotion, and figured it couldn’t be anything good. Y’all are going out on the river in this weather?”

Deb wearily nodded. “We don’t really have a choice. The Castle’s been overrun too, and we don’t have the manpower to defend this place right now. I talked to Carter and Hiram Anderson, and they’ve briefed Jack; they know what we need to get everyone on the boats and headed downstream.”

“How can we help?”

“I’ve been thinking--what’s the status on the choppers?”

Chuck grimaced, “Two of ‘em are in hangars out at the airport; they’ve both got engine problems we’re trying to figure out. The third one is on the helipad on top of the headquarters building.”

“Fueled up and ready to go?” Deb asked anxiously. “Can you fly it in this weather?”

“I can fly it in a blizzard; the biggest thing we need to worry about is frame icing, and I was just checkin’ the conditions outside. It feels colder than it is; the snow is still pretty wet and heavy. We have to be careful with the wind, and the poor visibility, but we should be able to fly it outta here.”

“How far can you go?”

Chuck shrugged, “Depends on a lot of things. Where do you want me to fly?”

“Can you make it seven hundred miles to Vicksburg tonight?”

Chuck looked briefly at the other pilots standing nearby, who all nodded their belief that the Blackhawk could do it. “Yeah, probably. It’ll help if we got the wind at our backs and can fly outta this damn blizzard. We got stub wings and external back-up tanks, and they’re filled up right now. We should be able to make it to Vicksburg, but we’ll have to find more fuel to go anywhere else after that.”

Deb looked relieved. “All right, grab your pilots and take off as quickly as possible; I don’t know how much longer we can hold the bridge. If you can get back this way tomorrow, fly along the Maumee east of town and call out on the handheld until you find us. Be sure to let Vicksburg know you’re coming so they don’t think the chopper belongs to Barnes.”

She started to turn back to the door but stopped suddenly. She pulled out the Glock 19 Carter had taught her to shoot and demanded that she carry everywhere she went. She held the handle out toward Chuck. “I’m sorry, I can’t kill the USAMRIID officer, but we can’t take him with us . . .”

Chuck waved her offer away. “Jack’s been lettin’ me carry a .45 auto and one of those silenced .22s y’all have around here. He didn’t want me to ever have to make an emergency landing out there without any weapons. There’s two AK’s in the Blackhawk too.”

Deb tucked her weapon back inside her coat. “We just can’t let that bastard go free; he’s got the blood of thousands on his hands.”

Chuck nodded. “I’m not sure that shootin’ him isn’t too easy on him. Can you trust me and us pilots to handle it? We’ll make sure that bastard pays for what he’s done.”

Deb agreed without hesitation. “I understand that you all have a personal score to settle with him, on top of his general war crimes. Whatever you do, just take care of it fast and get out of here.” 

The barges carrying almost two hundred kids, parents, and soldiers slowly moved up the St. Mary’s River toward the CSX railhead. The position had been steadily fortified and strengthened in the past months as the importance of regular train movement to Utah, and eventually Vicksburg, became increasingly obvious. Old boxcars topped with massive amounts of concertina wire had been hauled into two, parallel lines stretching from the river to the locomotive. Ted Simmons knew that no fortifications were safe if enough hunters could be led to attack them, but unless thousands of the monsters were available to swarm the walls and cover the razor-tipped wire with their own bodies the corridor from the dock to the train should be clear.

The barges were pulled against the current by a system of ropes and electric winches, which were much quieter than any motors big enough to propel the large craft would have been. The blizzard also helped muffle the inevitable noises accompanying the movement of so many people. No lights were allowed in the convoy, and as far as Simmons could tell, the banks of the river were free of hunters with no sign of helicopters above. Less than an hour after the decision had been made to evacuate the children by train, the youngsters and their guardians reached the docks that led to the railhead.

Ted was still determined to take no chances in spite of the so-far uneventful evacuation; before the kids could leave the relative safety of the barges, a squad of soldiers leavened with a few armed parents was sent toward the tracks. The scouts wore NVGs and armor, but carried no guns as a precaution against making any noise that might attract more flesh-eaters if any were found prowling about. Sure enough, a handful of hunters had crawled under the locomotive and were stumbling around the area, probably drawn by human scent lingering about the site.

One of the Utah soldiers had volunteered for point duty, and he saw the flesh-eaters through the swirling snow before they detected the humans headed their way. The experienced fighter held up a closed fist to halt the patrol coming up from behind, then motioned for everyone to fan out into a skirmish line facing the train. Most of the troops leveled stout spears before they advanced, though several of the local folks had learned to prefer halberds while learning from Jack and the others in the early days of the outbreak.

The small line began to move forward, one slow step at a time, the fighters doing their best to avoid making any noises that might alert the hunters to the human presence. The wind covered the sound of snow crunching under boots, but before the soldiers had covered ten meters somebody slipped on the icy gravel of the rail bed and fell to their knees. Suddenly the area was full of hunters, at least a score of the creatures crawling out from under the boxcars where they’d been sheltering from the storm. The monsters still hadn’t seen the troops, but they were now close enough to hear the slightest sounds the humans made, and some of the creatures could smell their nervous prey. Then, as the man who’d fallen climbed to his feet, he sent rocks clattering down the slope. Almost as one, the huge pack attacked.