Deadrise (57 page)

"Then they are some stupid looters." Major Farrell said. "This is the Command Center, not the armory."

"Regardless who it is, we can’t stay here." Jenkins said. "I’m going to launch a fragmentation grenade out there. I want two of you to follow that with smoke grenades. Once they blow, we bust the hell out of here. There are several jeeps and trucks out there in the parking lot. Get out of the city any way you can." He gave each and every one of them a long look, contemplating on weather or not to say any more. "If you can’t head north to Hill Field head east up I-80 and make for a town called Kittewa. Above town in the hills is Rainbow Lake. Turn south on the lake perimeter road and take the
second
drive on the left. That’s my place. I got people up there. But be warned, the last I heard from them, they were under attack by deadfucks, so you might just be walking into another shit storm. The choice is yours."

He turned to Private Jimenez. "Do you have family here in the city?"

"No sir." The kid was visibly scared but trying to keep it together.

"Then you’re with me and the Major, so stick close. Once we make it to the vehicle I want you behind the wheel. Get us to the heliport as fast as you can."

"Yes sir." Private Jimenez smiled, suddenly less afraid.

Jenkins aimed his grenade launcher at the main entrance. "Ready that smoke! FIRE IN THE HOLE!" He fired his grenade launcher through the door. He heard the explosion several seconds later. "SMOKE!" he called. Two hand tossed grenades followed, and theirs was a lower, muffled explosion. Seconds later thick white smoke began to billow in through the main entrance. "MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!" Jenkins screamed at the top of his lungs, charging out the doors into the cloud of smoke…

Templar Samson was fifty feet away from the main entrance of the Command Center, crouched behind a vehicle in the main parking lot when the grenade exploded twenty yards away. He praised the divine spirit of master Necrotura when no shrapnel from the grenade reached him. He pulled another hand grenade from his shoulder bag when two smaller, muffled explosions nearby caught his attention and he looked up to see the front face of the Command Center enveloped in thick white smoke. With a snarl he broke from his position and sprinted for the building. When he reached the edge of the smoke cloud he began to fire wildly with one hand in the general direction of the main entrance. He used his teeth to pull the pin on the grenade, wading deeper into the smoke, weapon still firing. Through the white haze he made out the main entrance barely ten feet away, and there were uniformed men pouring out with M-16’s in their hands. But even through the smoke Templar Samson could tell by the frightened looks on their faces, the uncomfortable way they held their weapons and the way they cowered in fear away from his gunfire that they were desk officers accustomed to air conditioned situation rooms rather than the chaos of battle. With a smile he heaved the grenade into they’re midst, flattening his body against the side of the building…

Jenkins had just exited the cloud of smoke into the parking lot when the grenade exploded at the main entrance, the blast wave rattling his guts. He continued running another twenty feet to his parked Humvee. Major Farrell and Private Jimenez were right beside him...

Templar Samson moved through the main entrance, which was cluttered with broken and shattered bodies caught in the grenade’s explosion. On the floor before him one soldier was trying to crawl away, his twisted legs leaving a bloody streak on the tile floor behind him. Templar Samson put a quick 3-round burst into his back, right between the shoulder blades.

"To the bowels of hell with you, Unbeliever!" he said with a mad cackle, walking deeper into the lobby. He could feel his fate fast approaching like a powerful tidal wave, growing in intensity with each step. He spotted another pair of officers huddled in the back of the lobby, weapons cradled uselessly in their arms as they shivered with fear. Templar Samson smiled at them.

"AS YOU COWER IN FEAR LIKE THE FAITHLESS DOGS YOU ARE, SO YOU MEET A DOGS DEATH! TO THE BOWELS OF HELL WITH YOU UNBELIEVERS!" Samson shouted at the top of his lungs, his body rigid and amped like a livewire, his mouth spread in a cackling grin while his eyes burned with zealotry. He put three-round bursts through both men’s hearts, breaking into maniacal laughter as they crumpled to their death.

The
Spirit
was in him fully now, an unstoppable force of nature that flowed through his veins like pure lava, overwhelming him, commanding him, controlling his hand in the Name of, and by the Will of Master Necrotura! Pulling back the sleeve of his right arm he exposed the trigger to his Martyrs vest. A cool, soothing wave of euphoria swept through Templar Samson’s body as he closed his eyes, envisioning the glory of Master Necrotura shining down upon him.

"For the glory of master Necrotura and the New Humanity, I meet my destiny with open arms." Templar Samson’s face had softened to an almost boyish, loving smile. "May Satan welcome me into his palace." Templar Samson pushed the button…

The Humvee had just exited the parking lot when the Command Center exploded into a giant fireball, mushrooming out halfway across the lot and throwing fiery debris two hundred yards in all directions. The blast wave hit the Humvee and caused Private Jimenez to momentarily lose control, swerving wilding across the road.

"Holy shit!" was all Farrell managed to say from the back.

"Looks like we got out of there just in time." Jenkins said with the understatement of the century. He was riding shotgun.

Jimenez just swore under his breath and concentrated on driving. The heliport was southeast of the now destroyed Command Center. They were traveling north, and just ahead the road intersected with the main east/west boulevard into downtown. He gazed in horrific wonderment at the raging inferno that had been downtown, with flames towering hundreds of feet into the blue-black canvas of night. He had been there earlier today to visit his favorite prostitute, and had contemplated returning for another round when he got off duty. Oh well, so much for that.

A station wagon crossed the intersection two hundred feet ahead, moving east. It was halfway through when the rear end exploded from a grenade impact and the heavy vehicle slid sideways and rolled onto the passenger’s side where it spun and rocked before finally coming to a halt at the east end of the intersection.

As they drew to within one hundred feet of the vehicle they could see passengers struggling to get out the shattered windows. They could also make out several zombies stumbling into the intersection from the north and west. Just as one of the passengers emerged fully from the drivers window gunfire from the east intersection shredded his back and threw him facedown on the pavement.

They were thirty feet away when from the west a superzombie ran through the crowd of encroaching zombies into the center of the intersection, aiming its M-16 right at the windshield. Jimenez swerved hard left, narrowly avoiding the stream of hot lead and then cranked the wheel hard right, zeroing in on the superzombie. It was twisting to bring the muzzle of its weapon around in time but to no avail as the nose of the Humvee smashed into it. The evil creature tried to hop up onto the hood with the impact, but again it was too slow and was pulled down and ground beneath the wheels. Jimenez kept the wheel turned until they were pointed east and then straightened out, gunning the engine. The Humvee leapt forward, the road east clear of deadfucks.

"Good move!" Jenkins said.

The next minute were spent in quiet but tense anticipation as Jimenez followed the empty road around to the heliport. The radio occasionally chattered with the cross talk of scattered units trying to regroup and coordinate their evacuation. The last remaining Apache helicopter passed overhead, unleashing a pair of missiles toward the north. Jimenez drove the Humvee right out across the flat expanse of the heliport which was illuminated by large field lights. The maintenance tents were on the northwest end with a pair of large refueling tankers parked nearby. Jenkins chopper was parked on the south end, right where he had left it.

Jimenez parked thirty yards behind the helicopter and all three men clambered out. The sound of gunfire and grenade explosions echoed up from the city to the northwest as well as the occasional tank blast, the sounds made even more haunting by the surreal flicker from the fires raging across Park City.

"The doors should be unlocked." Jenkins said. The heliport had been under heavy military guard, but they must have fled when the evacuation order came, because other than them it was deserted. The men quickly stowed their weapons and other gear in the back of the chopper and climbed aboard. Jenkins quickly went through the pre-flight warm-up and within a couple of minutes they were airborne.

"So much for the supplies I was promised." Mused Jenkins aloud as they climbed into the darkness…

Chapter 57

Tuesday, June 26 2001

Park City, UT

7:01 PM

Rick opened up on the superzombie the instant it kicked the bullet riddled bedroom door open, his screaming obscenities drowned out by the roar of the automatic weapon. Half a dozen bullets ripped into its shattered chest before Rick’s M-16 jammed. He tossed the rifle aside as the creature took two steps into the bedroom, raising its own rifle. But Rick was pumping on a mixture of fear and adrenaline, and before the creature could fire he leapt forward and grabbed its rifle, trying to wrestle it from the superzombies hands.

With a loud
CRACK
the superzombies right forearm snapped in half, causing that hand to slip free of the weapon and a knobby end of bone to jut through the withered, blackened skin. The creature released the weapon to Rick and quickly grabbed him by the jacket with its intact left arm, lifted him from the ground as if he were weightless and threw him across the bedroom. He crashed through the balcony doors with a splintering of wood and the breaking of glass, landing against the rear balcony rail…

Samantha, with baby Tyler clutched in one arm, had been the first onto the roof, followed by Sharon with little Mary. Jennifer, with a screaming baby Tiffany held tightly in her left arm, was a few rungs below and David was bringing up the rear when Rick crashed through the balcony doors.

"RICK!" Jennifer sobbed from above him, her face streaked with tears, squeezing the baby so tightly that its cries were choked off.

"Keep going!" David commanded from below her. "Jennifer! Keep moving!" David gave her a swat on the ass, but she just held her position, screaming Rick’s name over and over…

Rick painfully rose to his knees, amazed that he had somehow managed to keep hold of the superzombies M-16. He looked into the bedroom and could see the half-head superzombie was less than ten feet away, walking toward him. Rick aimed the rifle at the superzombie and pulled the trigger. The M-16 was on full automatic, and the bullets began to chew into the creatures broken torso which was still leaking a thick, black, syrupy liquid, but the superzombie kept striding forward, onto the balcony, undeterred. It reached out with its left hand, grabbing the barrel of the rifle and pushing it aside even as Rick continued to fire.

The bullets chewed into the side of the house and up across the ladder, one of them catching Jennifer in the throat and another smashing into her sobbing face just below her left eye
,
and with a sickening squelch and a spray of blood and bone half of her face disintegrated. The impact of the bullets spun her body loose from the ladder and she pitched out over David and fell three floors to the hungry horde of deadfucks below, wailing baby Tiffany still in her arms.

From the roof above, Samantha and Sharon began to scream at the top of their lungs while David clung to the ladder and peered helpless below as the deadfucks ripped the baby from Jennifer's arms and began to devour them both.

"JENNIFER! NO! NO! NO! N-" Rick began screaming in agonized horror as he watched his wife and child fall to their deaths, but his screams were cut short as the superzombie used its good left hand to tear out Rick’s throat with a spray of blood before dumping his body over the side of the balcony…

From the second floor balcony Matt stopped firing and watched in mute shock as the deadfucks on the ground below tore the infants body limb from bloody limb in a matter of seconds, stuffing the grisly morsels into their mouths and chewing frantically with black and broken teeth. Around Jennifer the slavering horde was so thick her body wasn’t even visible. As if the carnage he was witnessing wasn’t enough, Rick suddenly came falling from above and landed atop several zombies, driving them to the ground in a heap of rotten bodies. Blood was spraying from Rick’s ruined throat, splashing into his horror stricken face and gaping mouth, down across his torso and legs. For one second his eyes made contact with Matt’s, his left arm feebly reaching out to him, then the zombies were on him, biting his arms, face and fingers, clawing out his eyes and ripping out his guts.

"What the fuck is going on up there?" Sgt. Turner asked Matt as he reloaded his weapon and watched Rick’s horrid demise.

"I don’t know." Matt said, his voice queasy. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the hellish feast below.

"Go check it out!" Turner snapped, cocking the actuator to chamber a round then raising his M-16 back to firing position. "I got this covered." He began shooting the deadfucks who tore at the bodies just below.

Matt pulled himself away from the edge of the balcony and entered the bedroom.

Mac stood in the doorway with his M-16 pointed into the hall, guarding the stairs. His wounded leg was drenched in blood and his face was set into a grim mask of pained determination. Norris stood beside him, looking frightened and confused. He opened his mouth to speak but Matt hurriedly stepped past him into the hall.