Payload (32 page)

“OK, everybody, just keep moving to the bus,” he boomed, trying to sound jolly and competent. “We’ve got the infected bottled…well, exactly where we want them. Keep moving, that’s right, ma’am we’ve got it under control, its all part of the plan.”

“But they’re coming off the roof,” a woman protested.

“Right into a killing field,” Chip nodded, beaming like an idiot. “We’ve got the building sealed off, and we’re putting down those that are inside. Its not pretty, but it works. We’ve done this sort of thing before.”

“Come on folks, let’s leave them to their work,” an older man leaning on a cane spoke up from two steps below the third floor landing. “Our job is to get onto that bus. It’s just like a fire drill, we go our way and the firefighters go theirs. Need a hand, Yolonda? You’re doing great. I see Pete is holding up fine. Sam, how’s the new hip doing?”

“It sure as hell beats the old one,” the fat, bald man gasped as he determinedly moved down the steps. “I won’t need physical therapy this week.” As Sam came alongside Chip he winked at the Gnome. “Got them right where you want ‘em, huh?”

“Yes, sir,” Chip bobbed his head apologetically.

“Its not an exact science, is it?” the man with the cane murmured as he reached the second floor landing, keeping his voice too quiet for the others to hear.

“We got the first busload out without a hitch. The zeds are more cunning than people think.”

“You’re doing fine. The important thing is that you came-I was having my doubts about rescue until you showed up.” He glanced behind him. “I’m the tail-end Charlie, name’s actually Charlie, by the way. I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.”

“Glad to be here,” Chip grinned, and a small part of him
was
; the rest was convinced he was going to die any minute, but he was grateful for the minority report.

A woman screamed from below and he hurried to the rail. The zombies, agitated by the proximity of so many people, were rocking the bus. The vehicle was too large for them to do much, but the movement was terrifying those trying to load.

Flipping off his safety, Chip braced himself on the rail and opened fire, bursting skull after skull in the crowd below. Between his holo-sight and the nearly-motionless targets he essayed quite a slaughter until the zombies starting shuffling away to hug the wall below him, out of his field of fire. He had accounted for about twenty when the bolt locked back, and the mob had dispersed for safer environs. Pulling the empty magazine, he stuffed it into his pocket and loaded a fresh one. He released the bolt and set the safety before reaching for his CB. “Two to Six, all of Fourth floor are off the fire escape.”

The
thump
to his left made him jump; turning, he saw a battered male zombie in a grimy cook’s uniform gathering itself to attack the fire door again.

“Crap.”

They should have closed the fire door, but by the time it had occurred to them too many bodies had piled up on the landing, wedging it firmly open. Addison’s Mac-10 had jammed, and he was firing his Glock; beside him Bear was pounding away with his AK, using the heavy rounds to knock zeds down before going for a head shot as the growing pile of corpses was steadily eroding their field of view.

Dyson slapped the dark Gnome on his shoulder. “Clear your weapon, I’ll cover.”

The Georgian finished a zed whom Bear had kneecapped and tried to get a look out; the pile of bodies was chest high and growing. “How many are there?”

“Too damn many,” the biker growled, latching a fresh magazine into place. “And we’re not going back out that door, no matter what.”

“This day just keeps getting more and more fun.”

Not many were getting past the top landing where the trio of Gnomes were creating a spectacular mound of bodies, but the corpses had completely blocked all possible passage. Marv smashed another skull and stepped back, forcing the next zombie to pick its way over the pile of bodies where the stairs met the fourth floor land, spiking its skull as it was distracted.

“Two to Six, all of Fourth Floor are off the fire escape.”

“Six, copy.” He thought hard as a black man in a tee shirt and jeans, a large bite on his neck, lurched over the stack of bodies, swaying from the shifting footing. Stepping forward he hooked the zombie’s left leg out from underneath it and then finished it with the hammer.

His plan had been straightforward: seal off the building from zombie reinforcements and then minimize the zeds’ ability to approach his people by breaching apartment walls and the use of the fire escape. It had worked up to now, but the infected were more cunning that he had given them credit, so now his plan had to change. “Six to One, pull back to the second floor landing, prepare to defend against zeds coming from upstairs. Break, Six to Four, pull back to the stairwell with your civilians; I’ll head to the fourth floor stairwell, and we’ll meet on four. Use the north stairwell.”

Wiping the hammer off on a handy zombie’s shirt, he shoved it behind his belt and snapped the shield back onto its quick-attach buckle as he headed through the fire door. Pulling out his Allen wrench, he spun it in the black socket on the crash bar, causing the interior bar to move into the locked position. “OK, we’ve heading to the north stairwell,” he told Brick. “Fifth floor landing is too full of dead zeds to be used. We’ll meet them there.”

Brick shook his head. “Not good.”

“Tell me about it.”

Chip slammed his shoulder into the door as the zombie hit it again, feeling the frame shift. Bracing himself, he pushed back, realizing that more infected were adding their efforts to the far side. Straining against the growing pressure, he knew that he was the only thing standing between the open hatch in the bus roof and the zombies. Let one zed drop into the bus, and no one would survive.

Hauling furniture had put muscle under the excess weight he carried, and the latter was finally an advantage as the zombies moaned and tried to shove the door open. The metal of the door frame creased and folded inward around the blade of his knife, but the knife continued to act as a wedge, giving the Gnome a slender but very real advantage.

Until the entire frame shifted, and he heard metal screeching against stone and smelled powdered mortar: the struggle was unseating the door frame from the wall itself. Wedging his work boots against the bars supporting the railing, Chip shifted his shoulder to the center of the door and tried to hold the entire assembly in place.

He knew that when it finally gave way he would die.

“Well, hell.” Dyson leaned against the wall and tried to think over Bear’s AK firing at roof-jumping zeds. “Bear, Addison!”

“Yeah?”

“We have to get the people down the stairwell to the fourth floor.”

Bear shot a zombie twice in the leg and then in the skull as it crashed down atop the pile of bodies. “OK, shit, I’ll head down the hallway. Addison, you cover the rear, Dyson, you get the people moving. Which stairwell?”

“North.”

“OK.” Bear unlatched his magazine, checked it, and replaced it with a full one. Slinging the AK, he unsnapped the Mossburg from its quick-detach buckle. “I’m starting to get low on ammo to boot. Give me a count of thirty.”

Thumbing rounds into an empty magazine, Dyson kicked the east apartment door. “Open up, we’re about to go.”

Shotgun ready, his flashlight clipped to the collar of his denim vest, Bear eased down the hallway, wondering how he had gone from running hot electronics to unpaid hero. He had always suspected he was not all that bright, but after this week he was sure of it. The weirdest thing was that even though he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to get out of this brick armpit alive, he actually felt kind of good. Screwed up as this business was, it was
real
like nothing else he had done in his life had been real. He was starting to get why Marv did so many tours in Afghanistan.

A zed lurched out of a recessed doorway and he put a load of shot into its skull, firing on instinct. It was getting to be like stepping on a scorpion, he realized as he worked the shotgun’s action. They weren’t Human, they were just…something you killed before it could hurt you.

He shot another in the next set of opposing doorways and then paused to thumb two shells into the Mossburg. Behind him he could hear the residents assembling in the hallway, and he stepped off again, not rushing, moving steady, Addison’s Mac-10 pumping off three shots wringing a couple girlish shrieks from some of the old babes.

The hallway ended in a sort of entry area with a couple decorative tables, a fire hose hanging in accordion-like folds in its red box, an extra-wide elevator like those used in hospitals, and two stairwell doors, one on either side of the elevator. The north stairwell door also had a blue sign with white letters that said ‘roof access’.

And three zombies.

The compression of metal around the knife had reached a point where the door was open three inches and the lower glass panel was starting to crack. Chip couldn’t remember trying harder at anything in his life, but still, millimeter by millimeter he was losing ground.

Then JD was beside him, jamming the muzzle of his MP-5 into the narrow gap and opening fire, the three-round bursts showering hot brass across Chip’s head, the over-heated metal stinging like a spray of boiling water but the Gnome could care less. Sagging back from the door with a relived gasp, he ripped the knife from the jamb and closed it one-handed as he kicked the door open. Hauling the cut-down up on its strap he unloaded all five shells into the zombies.

Dropping the empty weapon on its sling he drew his Glock, the M-1 having ridden around onto his back during the struggle with the door, and shot the cook square in the forehead as it struggled to regain its feet. He advanced into the hallway, shooting any intact head he saw.

When all six zeds were put down, often with an extra round or two in the head, the big Gnome turned slowly around and shook his head. “You saved my bacon, dude.”

“Glad to help,” JD loaded a fresh magazine and released the bolt. “I’ve got to cover the fire escape-you watch the hallway.”

With trembling fingers Chip loaded a full magazine into his Glock and holstered it, tucking away the partial magazine. Loading the cut-down shotgun and releasing it to hang on its strap, he pulled the M-1 around to the front and tried to steady his breathing. “That was intense,” he said to no one in particular.

The first to come at Bear was a gray-skinned zed, moving fast and sure. The biker clipped its shoulder with the first shot, got a solid chest shot that stopped it in its tracks, and blew a hole in its forehead with the third. The other two zombies, both battered women wearing hair stylists’ smocks, were slower, more unsteady, but he took no chances, knee-capping one to give him time to shoot the other in the head. Shooting the cripple in the head, he let the Mossburg drop onto its strap and drew his USP.

“Clear,” He said over his shoulder to Dyson, who was halfway down the hall. As the Georgian moved up at the trot Bear headed to the north stairwell. “Watch the south stairwell.”

Pulling open the door, he leaned over the railing and was startled to see Marv on the landing below, looking up at him. “We’re clear,” the Ranger said.

“Good. Hold on a second.” Taking the stairs two at a time, Bear raced up to the next landing, where the roof door was held ajar by a battered coffee can painted red.

Hitting the door with his shoulder, he kicked the can, sending a spray of sand and cigarette buts across a zombie in a bloody work shirt and jeans coming to investigate the shots. Shooting the zed twice in the chest to stop him, Bear steadied his aim and put the third round into the zombie’s forehead. “HEY! C’MERE!” he screamed at the infected crowding at the roof’s edge, following it up with five quick shots aimed at the crowd. As they turned and started for him he pulled the door shut, jerking up on the release bar to ensure it was locked. Swapping out a full magazine for the partial in his USP, he holstered the weapon as he bounded down the stairs. “Roof access is secure,” he advised Marv in passing.

“OK, the path is clear,” he told Dyson. I’ll watch the south stairwell.”

Thumbing shells into the Mossburg as the residents trudged past single file, the biker hoped they were getting close to being done-he was getting low on ammunition and even lower on nerve.

“Take them all the way to the fourth floor fire escape landing,” Marv said as Dyson started down the stairwell. “Brick has the south stairwell, and I’ve got this one. Bear sealed off the roof. Once you’re there get JD to cover the third floor hallway and start ’em to the bus. You’ll need to cover the fourth floor landing from any coming down.”

“Got it. Bear and Addison are covering the rear.”

“Good.”

Trotting ahead down the hallway, Dyson keyed up his CB as he reached the fire door. “Four to One, we’re at the fourth floor. Six advises to move back up to three and cover the hallway, I’ll cover from above.”

“Got it, Four. On my way.”

Hitting the push bar, the Georgian stepped out onto the fire escape landing. To his right a few dead infected littered the stairs, and JD was trotting up to the third floor. To his left was a stack of infected with shattered skulls, and above that was the fifth floor landing and its massive stack of dead.