Alice in Deadland Trilogy (45 page)

Jim’s face bore a grim expression as he answered.

‘Not too good, Sir. If those were twenty humans, even
trained soldiers, we could have ambushed them now and taken out half of them in
the first salvo before they got a shot off. But we need headshots, and they’re
about two hundred meters out. At that range, we can forget scoring head shots
with our handguns, and the two boys with the M-16s aren’t exactly trained
snipers either.’

‘Then we hide as long as we can.’

They huddled against the SUV with Jim lying flat on the
ground behind a tire, watching the Biters as they approached. All of them were
trying to be as still and as quiet as they could, and then Jane brought her
hands up to her nose, trying to stifle a sneeze. Everyone looked at her in
dread, the two seconds seeming like an eternity. As the moment passed, they all
spontaneously broke out into smiles. And then it happened.

Jane sneezed.

The Biters stopped, looking right and left, and then
Gladwell’s heart stopped. One of them looked straight at the SUV and roared,
and they began shuffling towards the SUV as fast as they could.

‘Marines, fire at will!’

Gladwell’s roared command galvanized the two Marines into
action and they stepped out from behind the SUV, their M-16s at the ready.

‘Single shot only. Aim for the head. Only the head.’

As the Marines took aim and began firing at the approaching group
of Biters, Gladwell and the others took aim with their handguns. Gladwell
ensured the safety was off on Jane and Jo’s guns and steadied Jane’s hands,
pointing them towards the Biters.

‘Sweetheart, don’t worry about the heads. At this range, we
won’t hit them with pistols. Aim for the legs so we can at least slow them
down. Take a deep breath, count to three, aim and fire, and then repeat. Don’t
fire blindly or too fast.’

And then the group opened fire in a deadly volley that would
have massacred any human opponents. With the Biters, it had less of a dramatic
effect. The two Marines were trying their best, but with the Biters moving,
most of their initial shots missed their targets. Some hit the Biters in the
chest and neck, and sent them staggering back till they resumed their approach.
Then one of them scored a direct headshot and the Biter went down for good. The
group cheered, but it was a small victory.

That still left almost twenty Biters now closing in on them.
Jane and Jo were firing away and Gladwell noted with dismay that most of their
bullets were pinging off the pavement around the Biters. With human
adversaries, even such near misses would have sent them scampering for cover,
but Biters did not seem to care. He was about to say something when he saw how
badly Jane’s hands were shaking.

He took aim, focusing on a large Biter closest to them, a
man wearing only a pair of shorts, his bare torso covered in blood and gore.
Gladwell fired two rounds, one smacking into the Biter’s thigh, the second hitting
him in the stomach. The Biter doubled over for a second and then straightened
up and made straight for him. Jim and the Marines had been busy and at least
three Biters were down but now they were less than fifty meters away and it was
a matter of time before the Biters overwhelmed them.

That was when Gladwell did something quite extraordinary.
Under normal circumstances Gladwell would never have worked up the insane
courage to do something like this, but all Gladwell could think of was
protecting his family and so he stepped into the middle of the highway and
began to walk briskly towards the Biters. Jo screamed out his name and he did
not look back as he replied.

‘Keep shooting!’

He was now less than ten feet away from the nearest Biter, a
thin man wearing a bloodied Superman t-shirt. Gladwell shouted back, though he
would have no recollection of what he had said, though much later Jo claimed he
had said something along the lines of ‘Eat shit and die’. Gladwell felt a stab
of fear as the Biter came closer, and he tried to give him a name, to think he
was a living, breathing enemy who could be killed, not some undead monster. So
this one naturally became Superman.

As Superman howled, Gladwell put a bullet through his
forehead, sending him flopping down on the road. Gladwell was hardly a crack
shot, but at such close range, he did not need to try too hard. Another Biter,
this one a woman with flowing long hair now matted with blood oozing from her
neck, took his place and came towards him. Gladwell missed with his first shot,
which hit her in the shoulder, but the second put Rapunzel down for good.
Another Biter went down from a headshot, and he turned to see that Jim had
joined him. The two Marines had also come to join them and at such close
quarters, they were putting down Biters with almost every shot. A large Biter,
who towered over him, came so close that Gladwell could smell his putrid breath
and see the yellow gore on the corners of his mouth. He put a bullet in his
mouth and as the Biter staggered back, Gladwell kicked him in the gut and shot
him in the head.

Gladwell was suddenly aware that the Biters were no longer
just in front of him but beside him. In the chaos of the battle, he was no
longer facing a mob of Biters but in the middle of one. He shot another Biter
down and took a step back as two more Biters reached out towards him.

That was when both Biters fell, their heads cracked open by
direct hits from large-caliber weapons. The deep rumble of heavy engines rose
and Gladwell looked up to see several trucks and one SUV. Men in the black
commando fatigues of the National Security Guard jumped out of the trucks and
began mowing down the Biters with precisely aimed shots to the head. The
bearded and turbaned face of Randhawa peered out from the passenger side window
of the SUV.

‘Gladwell, I thought you were a diplomat but you would put
bloody John Rambo to shame. Come on!’

As Gladwell shepherded Jo and Jane into Randhawa’s SUV, he
turned to see the two Marines and Jim looking at him with an expression he had
not seen before. Till now, he had been the ranking diplomat. Now, he was
respected. In the new world that faced them all, this was one of the subtle
changes they would all come to adapt to – the ranks and badges of the past
meant nothing. Respect, and indeed survival, had to be earned in blood.

***

They sat in silence for a few minutes, each of them quietly
taking in how everything had changed. Gladwell was glad to see that a few
stragglers from the Embassy who had arrived late had been picked up by
Randhawa’s convoy. In all, they numbered about a hundred men, women and
children, all headed towards the relative safety of Randhawa’s base.

Jo and Jane were in the back of the SUV with Randhawa’s wife
and child and four armed commandos, and Randhawa had decided to drive the SUV
himself, asking the driver to take a break in the back of one of the trucks.
The terrified young soldier had saluted gratefully and jogged back to one of
the accompanying trucks.

Unable to contain his curiosity any longer, Gladwell asked
Randhawa if he knew any more about what was happening in the world. Randhawa
looked at him with bloodshot eyes. ‘It’s really the bloody end of the world,
that’s what it is. First we have these Biters crawling out of every frigging
corner, and what they haven’t ripped apart, we will ourselves.’

When Gladwell asked what he meant, he got a chilling account
of the multiple nuclear battles being waged. Contact with much of the Middle
East had been lost as Iran and Israel engaged in a last orgy of mutual nuclear
annihilation that engulfed much of the region. Chinese missiles were flying
into Taiwan and India and Pakistan were at each other’s throats. Gladwell
closed his eyes and sat back, wondering if this was all a bad dream, if he
would wake up and find that his biggest worry was fetching American Chopsuey
for Jo at odd hours. He opened his eyes, and seeing the abandoned vehicles
littering the highway, he realized that the world he had come to take for
granted had indeed died. What would arise in its place was a terrifying
prospect and he wondered how long he could keep his family safe.

Thunder rumbled and Randhawa flinched before recovering.
Randhawa grinned at him, and not for the first time, Gladwell wondered how he
could manage to smile at a time like this. ‘Never a better time to get out of
the city.’

Gladwell looked back and saw smoke rising in the distance
from numerous fires that had broken out. He shook his head sadly. Even when
human civilization was threatened, man’s baser instincts could not be tamed.
The soldiers in the back were talking about how they had seen looters rampaging
through the streets and with no apparent law and order, raping and pillaging at
will. While Randhawa’s convoy had fought its way through a large mob of Biters,
they had gunned down an equal number of human looters who were rampaging
through nearby shops. Someone spoke out on the radio.

‘Sir, I see a bike approaching us at high speed.’

‘Who’s driving it? Are they armed?’

Gladwell could sense the hesitation in the man’s voice as he
answered Randhawa.

‘Sir, there’s a young woman in the back, and it’s being
driven by a kid wearing… rabbit ears of some sort.’

Randhawa slammed his fist on the steering wheel.

‘Just what we need. Some drunk kid out on a joyride wearing silly
ears. If they come closer, tell them to back off.’

As the bike moved towards them, Gladwell’s hand tightened
around his gun. The boy’s shirt was covered in blood and his face had a
desperate look that Gladwell didn’t like. One of the soldiers in the back
pointed his rifle at the boy.

‘Sir, I will shoot if you do not
move away from this convoy.’

The girl sitting behind the
strange boy with bunny ears raised one of her hands and pleaded.

‘We need help. I’m trying to get to
that safe zone at the airport, and my boyfriend needs medical help.’

Jo murmured behind him, ‘Oh my
God, could that be Neha from the foundation?’ Jo pushed down the rifle the
soldier had pointed at the bike and pleaded with Randhawa to stop. ‘Please, please
stop. I think I know that girl from the Make-A-Wish Foundation. We can’t just
leave them here.’

They were tight on space and
Randhawa seemed to be mulling the question over in his mind. Finally, he barked
into the radio. ‘Stop, everyone stop. One of you in the back go and check who
they are.’

One of the soldiers disembarked
and went over to the bike, which had stopped alongside the SUV. He talked to
the girl, and started to lead her back to the SUV. The girl was sobbing and
pointing to the boy, whose eyes had started yellowing. Now that they had
stopped, Gladwell and the others got a closer look at him. There was no
question about it – he was transforming into a Biter, yet he had somehow got
this girl to safety, knowing he was doomed. Gladwell felt a lump in his throat.
In the middle of all the madness and hatred, this simple act of sacrifice
reminded all of them that being human was still worth clinging on to, still
worth fighting for, still something to be proud of. Gladwell thought he saw
Randhawa’s eyes moisten as well, but the grizzled soldier blinked it away,
though he did give a curt nod of respect to the boy. The girl was still sobbing
uncontrollably as Jo took her in her arms and then the convoy sped on towards
its destination.

***

Gladwell was surprised, though perhaps he should not have
been, that the first predators they had to fight off were human.

With the outbreak came a lawlessness that nobody had ever
planned for. Initially there was some looting, but soon people realized that
money was of little value any more. Prison doors lay open. Serial killers,
sociopaths, rapists – the worst of man came out to wreak their havoc.

Three days into their stay in the base, Gladwell and
Randhawa had started seeing small groups of civilians escaping from the madness
in the city. They had taken them in, though soon enough supplies and food would
be a real issue. Then came those who came not to take refuge, but to prey upon
a well-stocked settlement. A settlement with food, supplies and women.

The first attack had been smashed before it had really
unfolded. Ten men armed with swords and cleavers had tried to enter the complex
at night. The American Marines and Indian commandos, by now trained to aim for
the head after all their battles with the Biters, had mistaken the intruders
for Biters and felled four with headshots before the others screamed in terror
and ran away into the night. The next attack had been more serious, with two
jeeps full of armed men, members of a paramilitary unit that had decided to use
their weapons and training to their advantage. The firefight had lasted more
than thirty minutes before they were driven off. But after that, attacks by
looters ceased. Word had spread that this particular settlement was occupied by
people not to be messed with easily. In the second attack, Randhawa had been
seriously wounded, and by consensus, Gladwell was appointed the leader of their
small settlement.

That night, Gladwell sat down next to Jo, who was singing to
her unborn daughter, hoping that innocent rhymes would register with her
instead of the gunfire and screams that she heard all day.

‘How are you doing?’

‘She seems to like the noise. She’s been kicking all day.’

Gladwell kissed her lightly on the head and then sat down to
take stock of their situation. They had plenty of ammunition, but at the rate
at which they were attracting new members, they would have to organize some
sort of effort to get food. By now, nobody believed that things would get back
to normal. Gladwell had organized small patrols to scour the neighboring areas,
and they all spoke about Biters running rampant. The Internet was down, and
there was nothing on TV, but they did manage to pick up radio transmissions
from military channels and from private radio operators.