Payload (31 page)

“I’ve got it,” JD braced the ladder, and Chip climbed steadily up to the window, trying to ignore the way the ladder swayed from the zombies pushing on the truck below.

Inside the darkened apartment he helped hold onto the ladder as JD climbed, and then he and Brick hauled it up through the window.

“You boys are sure a welcome sight,” the lady said admiringly, jumping as gunfire erupted in the hallway outside. “My lands! I am Mrs. Abernathy, but please call me Betty.”

“I’m Chip, that’s Brick, JD, and Bear,” Chip tried to sound pleasant. “Are you ready to leave, Betty?”

“I am,” she indicated two small bags packed and ready.

“OK, this is the spot, and the power’s cut,” Bear shouldered the sledgehammer, took a deep breath and swung it hard against the wall, punching through the sheetrock and insulation. Across the living room Brick started on the opposite wall.

“Why don’t you come over into the kitchen with me,” Chip suggested. “This is going to create a mess.”

“It was a very nice apartment,” Betty observed sadly.

“It is,” Chip agreed. “And sheet rock damage is easily repaired.”

“They’re not playing our game,” Marv told JD over the CB. The Ranger and his team were on the fire escape at the second floor, Addison watching up the stairs while Dyson and Marv covered the hallway. “We’ve gotten a couple, but the rest have taken cover. The recessed doorways and the little side-corridors wipe out our fields of fire. We’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

“Don’t we always? We’re working on it.”

“Why don’t you two move up to the third floor? I can cover this hallway,” Marv sighed.

“These are older zombies,” Dyson gestured towards the three they had shot in the hallway. “Probably part of the truckload sent in to get the dance started. The older they are, the quicker and more cunning they seem to be.”

“Unfortunately true.”

Working methodically, the Gnomes opened up passages to each of the apartments on the east side of the second floor and gathered the occupants into the north-most apartment.

“OK, when we open the door, proceed into the hallway, turn right, go to the fire escape, turn right, and go down one flight. There will be a stepladder leading to the roof of the bus, and people to help you.. Undoubtedly there will be shooting, but just keep moving-we’ll keep you safe,” Chip tried to sound as upbeat as the airline stewardess’ did when explaining how to bail out of the planer in time of disaster.

“Hell, sarge, just gimme a weapon and I’ll help you!” offered Walter, a peppery eighty-year-old wearing a VFW cap with Korean War insignia.

“Thanks, Walter, but we need you to get to the school ASAP. They need every hand to help man the perimeter.

“Just so long as I get a chance to get an oar in the water,” Walter grinned. “Perimeter’s more my speed these days. I ain’t as mobile as I used to be.”

“Marv will move upstairs once we open the door,” JD hooked the CB onto his belt and hefted his MP-5. “They’ll cover the fire escape. Me and Chip will cover the hallway, Brick gets across the hall and starts opening up that side, Bear gets the conga line going, and then hooks it upstairs to get started on the third floor, east side. Chip, when we’re done you’ll stay here and cover the second floor. Everybody good? Let’s roll.”

Chip was the first out the door, taking a knee ten feet down the corridor. A zombie, a gray-skinned male in ragged jeans and a sun-faded Raiders jersey moved out from a doorway and came at him, giving the all too familiar nerve-wracking moan. The speed and suddenness of it startled him, and his first shot missed, but the carbine’s recoil was nothing like the shotgun’s and the holo-sight was a huge help-focusing on the red dot was a welcome distraction from actually watching the face. His second round caught the zombie just over the left eye and dropped it. To his right JD was firing at zeds spilling down the hall, and behind him several women screamed, but Chip concentrated on the red dot and the bodies coming forward, firing steadily, finding that semi-auto and a large magazine created a huge improvement over his previous fights.

Only about eight really charged, although Chip suspected a couple had taken cover in the recessed doorways once the shooting started. When the last of the eight fell he loaded a full magazine and tucked the partial magazine into his upper left shirt pocket. “You see how quick that first one I shot moved?”

“Yeah. You see those who were coming and then took cover?” JD swapped out magazines. “I think they operate better when they’re around smarter zeds, older ones. Sort of a reverse mob mentality.”

“So you think adding some old ones lifts up the young ones?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Great.”

The west-side apartment inhabitants joined in the line loading onto the bus as fast as Brick could blast through walls, and the Pole was a deft hand with a sledgehammer- they only had to wait a couple minutes for the last of the second floor rescues to reach the fire escape.

“They’re moving around down there, but I can’t see what they’re doing,” JD scowled down the hall. “When we move, pull back to the fire escape-just our luck they’ll start punching through walls themselves.”

“Good idea.”

“Are you going to be OK by yourself?”

“Rock steady.” Chip tried to sound tough.

“You’re that and more.” JD slapped him on the back.

Brick, coated in sheet rock and breathing hard, came out into the hall as Chip moved back to the fire door leading to the fire escape. He grabbed Chip’s shoulder in a comradely grip as he went past, leaving a white hand-print on the tiger-stripe camo.

Addison and Dyson had displaced up to the fourth floor when Marv came up, followed shortly by Bear. By the time JD and Brick came up third floor east side residents were coming down the fire escape. Brick went to work on the west side apartments, and when Bear finished he and Marv headed up to the fourth floor while Dyson and Addison moved up to the fifth floor.

They had to get the fourth floor to remain in place because the bus had to head back to the CISD to unload. JD covered the third floor, and Marv covered the fourth. Brick and Bear took a breather after finishing the fourth, and then headed up to start on the fifth floor.

“Two, this is six, how are you doing?”

“Six, I’m fine. Haven’t had any movement at all,” Chip was glad for the contact. “How is it going up there?”

“Smooth-four is ready to roll, and five is almost done.”

“Six, why aren’t we getting more trouble? There’s a lot of zeds here.”

“Two, I don’t know.”

Chip leaned against the door frame and watched his hallway. Something wasn’t right here. He wished they had brought two buses.

“Six, the bus is getting into position,” Dyson advised.

“Four, OK, send me one.”

“Six, will do.” Dyson stowed the CB. “Marv needs one to help get moving.”

“I go.” Brick tossed his empty water bottle down onto the zombies shuffling up to the idling bus and headed down the fire escape.

“Almost done,” Brick commented to Addison as he leaned against the sun-warmed brick. Dyson was to his right, standing in the fire door to the fifth floor while Addison was to his left pacing back and forth on the small steel-bar landing, scowling. “What’s got your hair up?”

“Too easy,” the dark Gnome shrugged. “The first attempt got taken out.”

“Well, we have a lot more experience-we’ve been killing zeds all week.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, we’ve got the building sealed off, and they don’t seem to be too interested in rushing down the halls, so what can they do?”

“They didn’t want to come at us on the road outside the relay point, either,” Dyson pointed out. “I had to go shoot one to get their interest.”

“True,” Bear conceded. “And at I-75 we had to really work at it to keep them interested-if we stayed out of reach too long they would pull back.”

“They avoided the front-loader, too,” Dyson mused. Below them the residents started their progress down the fire escape.

“They don’t like fights where they don’t have a chance,” Addison mumbled. “They only get excited when people are real close, like on the gravel truck-even though they couldn’t reach us they kept trying because the temptation was too great.”

“That’s the most I think I’ve ever heard you say at one time,” Bear grinned. “Yeah, they’ve got some cunning.” He straightened and hitched his AK a bit forward. “This is like telling ghost stories around the campfire-now I’ve got the creeps.”

“Hundred or so infected here,” Addison said quietly. “Maybe more. But we’ve shot maybe fifteen. Gotta wonder.”

“Yeah.” Dyson pulled his magazine from his Mini-14, checked it, and slotted it back into place. “I
am
starting to wonder.”

“Another ten minutes and it’s a moot point,” Bear said, stepping to the railing to look down at the residents being helped down the hatch into the bus. “They’re loading the fourth floor.”

Even as he spoke the CB crackled. “Six to all, four-west starting to move.”

“There they go,” Bear jerked his chin as more residents appeared. “Not long until we start…” his voice trailed off as he turned towards the movement that had caught his eye. “SHIT!”

Eight feet above them several infected were shuffling to the edge of the roof. Without thinking Bear brought the AK to his shoulder and shot a gray-skinned infected male in blue coveralls with a company logo half-covered with dried blood on its breast. Beside him Addison opened up on full auto, knocking zombies back from the edge as the terrible moaning rally cry went up.

Dyson leapt to the rail and opened fire as the first zombies lumbered over the edge. They landed hard, too stiff and uncoordinated to take the fall-Bear could clearly hear bones snapping as they slammed into the steel bars that made up the fire escape floor, but as with everything, they ignored the damage and struggled to their feet or just crawled.

Bear shot the first four that came down from the roof and was putting the front sight on the fifth’s head when Dyson grabbed his arm. “Inside-we’ve gonna shoot each other! Get into the hall!”

Addison was already diving into the doorway, and Bear was hot on his heels. Dyson backed in after them, firing as he went. “Cover!” He yelled, stepping back and keying up the CB. “Six, they’re coming off the roof! We’re trying to hold the top landing!”

He turned and looked at the hallway behind him as Marv always lectured them in every briefing: avoid tunnel vision, check flanks and rear regularly, and was startled to see zombies closing at best speed. Dropping to one knee, he opened fire.

Leaning back against the wall to reload as Addison blazed away out the doorway at the zeds crashing onto the landing, Bear saw Dyson firing at zombies advancing down the hall. “Just great,” he swore. To add to the joy, the bodies piling up on the landing created a softer landing surface for the follow-on waves, and there were few injuries, although one or two hit the rail and spiraled down into the crowd below.

Latching the magazine into place, he joined the dark Gnome at the doorway, painfully aware that they were cornered.

“Watch the hall,” Marv shouted at Brick as he shouldered out onto the fourth-floor landing. “Keep moving, no problem,” he tried to keep his voice calm. “This is part of the plan, an ambush for the infected. Just keep heading to the bus.”

There were some screams and a red suitcase fell end over end into the ranks of zombies below, but there wasn’t much panic.

Turning, the Ranger shouldered his weapon as a zombie industriously crawled down the steps, dragging its shattered legs behind it, then cursed and flipped the selector to Safe. Swinging the rifle onto his back, he pulled his hammer as he climbed three steps and caved in the infected’s skull. Unlatching his shield, he settled it onto his arm as a zombie hobbled down towards him on one working leg.

  Batting aside the questing hands, he caved in her skull and retreated down two steps. Keying up his CB, he paused thinking hard. “Two, secure your door and get out on the landing, keep people calm.”

The bodies piling up on the fifth floor fire escape landing were allowing the zombies to land without injury, and several were able to cross the gauntlet of fire from the doorway and lurch down the stairs towards him. He backed down to the fourth floor landing and waited, taking a little comfort in the fact that the stairs would only allow two at the most to come at him.

The zombies coming at him were not what bothered him, but rather that he had three Gnomes and a floor’s worth of residents cut off, and his retreat was becoming threatened.

They should have brought two buses, he realized as he slammed the hook through the bald scalp and the skull below it. Standing on the rusting steel fire escape with the tall pale bulk of the rest home rising to his left, hammer and shield in hand, he felt like he was a strange mix of medieval knight and utter idiot.

“Crap.” Chip stood and looked around. The fire door was opened by pushing a horizontal bar on the inside-Marv had had to use a key to open the ones which had been closed, and had used an Allen wrench to unlock them completely once the Gnomes had gotten inside. Stepping out onto the landing he flipped open his lock-blade and slid the blade between the door frame and the jamb just above the bottom hinge, then battered the door shut with all his weight, wedging the portal into place. It wouldn’t hold for long, but it was the best he could do for now.