Stopping the Dead (4 page)

Adam

With a simple click of the mouse Adam was able to switch the exterior cameras to night vision as the sun finished setting over the bridge leading into Hudson.  Parts of the city still burned in the distance, and he wondered, idly, how the hell the government was going to secure the city, if that was even an option.

Adam took a drink of his water, opened another window, and started running the search program that he had installed for Ernst back in June.  The program would let him find any video feeds that were being transmitted, normally on the regular grid, but now they’d be powered by generators.  Since most stores and government buildings had exterior security cameras that operated wirelessly, he might be able to get a good look at what was going on in the city.

The program ran quickly, and Adam soon found himself with access to nearly four hundred cameras.  How long their power supplies would last was something else.  He needed the intelligence the videos could provide, and he needed it quickly.  There would be no easy way to get out there and refuel generators once they ran dry.

Another click of the mouse and the camera for a convenience store on Lake Street appeared.

Nothing.  Just pavement and a set of stairs…

A set of feet clad in sneakers, the rest of the body hidden, slowly shuffled by.

Adam took a screen shot of it, created a file, and dropped the image in.

Shaking his head he moved on to the next, a traffic camera at the corner of Lake and Main.  Smoking cars, walking dead, and
motionless corpses on the pavement.

Adam took another screen shot and moved on.

Camera after camera, image after image.  Minutes passed slowly, and he became numb to the death he saw, and the sheer horror of the zombies roaming.  Several times he saw people try to use the cover of night to break away from their hiding places.

None of them made it.

The dead were too many.  They didn’t need speed.  They simply kept coming.  From everywhere.

Adam put those images into the files as well.

The dogs lifted their heads, and Adam realized that Ernst had walked out of his room.

“Surfing for porn?” Ernst asked.

“I wish,” Adam said, stretching.  “Just trying to get as much intel as possible before the generators start crashing.”

Ernst nodded.  “I figured.  You know it’s one in the morning?”

Adam rubbed his eyes.  “Really?”

“Yup.  I even fell asleep for a little while.”

“Should we bother waking the brothers?” Adam asked.

“Are you going to sleep yet?”

Adam shook his head.

“Me neither.  I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“What about Lee?”

“She’s still asleep on my bunk,” Ernst said, sitting down on the kitchen counter.  Diane stood up, walked over to him and put her head against his leg.  Ernst smiled down at the dog, scratching between her ears.  “She crashed hard.”

“She’ll hold it together.”

“I don’t doubt that at all,” Ernst said.  “She looks like she did at least one tour in Afghanistan, if not two.”

“Well,” Adam said, taking a drink of water, “we’re lucky.  We could have been stuck with some real shitbags.”

“Very, very true.”

Adam went back to the cameras, accessing and saving, over and over again.

Then he paused, staring hard at the screen.

“What is it?” Ernst asked.

“Is this the bookstore on Main Street?”
  Adam asked, turning the laptop for Ernst to look.

“Raven’s Books?
  Yeah, I think it is.  Why?”

“Look at the display window, do you see what it says?”

“’Still Alive!’” Ernst shook his head.  “What the fuck.  Really?”

Adam spun the laptop back, nodding.  “Damn right.”  He stared hard at the image, the occasional zombie passing by –

“There’s definitely someone in there,” Adam said.

“How can you tell?”

“I just saw the barrel of a rifle following a zombie that walked in front of the store.  Real steady, too.”

“We’ll have to get them tomorrow morning,” Ernst said, resting his hand on Diane’s head.  “We can’t risk a night time mission.”

“No way in hell.  Everybody’s still crashed anyway.  We’d just be setting ourselves up as dinner.”

“What do you think, you and the twins?” Ernst asked.

“That sounds good.  I figure two to provide cover, one to get the person out of the store.”

“When you three leave that should actually give Lee and me the opportunity to get that damned humvee in here, too.”

“Think so?”

Ernst nodded.
  “It’s a short distance, and the dead should be distracted by the pick-up.  If they’re not, we’ll put the salvage operation on hold.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to sleep yet?” Ernst asked him.

Adam shook his head.  “I’ve got another sixty-seven cameras to check, then I’ll crash.  What about you?”

“I’m actually pretty tired tonight.  I’m going to go get Lee stretched out on the bunk, probably stretch out on the floor after.”

“I shouldn’t be more than an hour or so,” Adam said, “just to let you know.”

“I appreciate it.”  Ernst gave Diane a final pat, got down off of the counter, and wandered back to his room.

Adam went back to the laptop, clicked on the next camera, and found the dead eating a fresh kill.  Sighing he saved the image, and moved on.

Brian

“So,” Brian said, “Corey and I rigged up a ladder to the top of the warehouse, which actually let us get a pretty good look at downtown.  Well, where the bookstore is.”

“And we’re pretty lucky,” Corey added.

Brian nodded.  “Yeah, no shit.”

Ernst, Adam, and Lee looked at him.

Brian cleared his throat.  “Anyway, we’ve got some dead traffic leading up in front of our place to the intersection with Commercial Drive.  Once, there, though, it’s pretty good.  Looks like the fire department kept its section of the road clear, especially since it doesn’t run
anywhere near Waltner Airfield.  We’re lucky too that the bookstore’s right on the corner of Main and East Hollis Street, because Main Street is all sorts of fucked up.”

“We figure though,” Corey added, “that if we ride in the back, and Adam keeps a steady pace, we can use his pick-up as a tactical.”

“We can take out any of the dead who get too close, have a solid firing platform that’s
higher
than the dead, and be able to cover Adam’s entrance and exit from the store.”

Lee nodded.  “Actually sounds pretty solid, marines.”

Brian grinned.

“I’ve got my med bag ready,” Adam said, patting it.  “So, I’m ready whenever you two are.”

“We’re good to go now,” Brian said.  “We’ve got extra ammo.”

“And food and water,” Corey said, “just in case this turns into a massive cluster fuck.”

“I’ve got a handheld, too,” Adam said, looking over at Ernst and Lee.  “I’ll let you know when we get the person, and what the status is.”

“I’ve got my handheld,” Ernst said, motioning to the unit clipped to his belt, “so now it’s just time to go.”

Brian nodded, looking over at Corey, who nodded back.  “Okay,” Brian said, “let’s do it then.”

He and his brother picked up their rucksacks with the extra supplies and followed Adam as he led the way out of the warehouse.

“You know,” Brian said, “we’re going to need to come up with a name for this place.”

“For what place?” Corey asked.

“This,” Brian said, waving his A4 at the warehouse.  “We can’t just keep call it ‘here’ or ‘Ernst’s place,’ can we?”
  He looked over at Ernst.

Ernst shrugged, smiling.  “Call it whatever the fuck you want, Brian.  It’s really low on my list of things to do.”

Brian felt his face go red, but Ernst slapped him on the back. 

“Don’t sweat it, kid,” the older man said.  “This situation is so fucking surreal I don’t know what to do.”

Lee nodded.  “I used to joke about a zombie apocalypse, but this is really just not funny.”

“No shit,” Adam said, tossing his pack into the front seat.

Brian tossed his rucksack into the bed of the truck, as did Corey, then the two of them climbed in.  Outside the gate the dead still lingered, walking aimlessly back and forth.

“Ready?” Adam asked.

Everyone nodded.

Adam got into the truck and started it and Brian and Corey settled up against the cab of the truck, A4s resting on the roof, safeties off.  The dead turned to face the sound of the engine,
and they began to moan, arms r
ising up as Ernst and Lee walked to the gate.  Lee raised an A4 up to her shoulder as Ernst punched in the code.

Brian realized, suddenly, that Ernst was smiling and humming as he did it.

Then the man had his rifle up, the .22 barking as Ernst started shooting the dead closest to the gate.  Brian, Corey, and Lee all followed suit, and in a moment Adam was driving out over the fallen undead.
 

Adam continued to drive on ahead as Ernst paused to close the gate, Lee keeping him covered.  Ahead of them, nearly blocking the road, was Lee’s humvee.  More dead moved around it, a wave seeking to drown Adam’s pick-up.

But Brian and Corey kept firing
.

“Changing mags,” Brian said, reloading.

“Got it.”

Within a heartbeat Brian was firing again.

“Changing mags,” Corey said.

“Got it.”

Brian and his brother kept up a steady fire, leaving a clear path for Lee and Ernst to the humvee
as the pick-up bounced over bodies
.  Once past the humvee he and Corey kept their eyes on the road.  As the pavement widened and the buildings fell away, fewer dead could be seen, but they were still present.  They all took up the moan as the truck passed by, arms
rising
up, shambling gait propelling them after the truck.

“Christ we’re gonna have a hell of a time on the way back,” Corey muttered.

“No we won’t,” Brian said.  “As soon as we hit that bookstore, we start taking the fuckers out.  It’ll be just like at the range.”

Corey looked over at him and grinned.  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.  Then again, we’re pretty much fucked any way that you look at it.”

“Yes we are,” Brian agreed.

They reached the intersection of Main and East Hollis, and there was the bookstore, the sign in plain sight.  Adam parked the truck as close as he could to the curb, and left the engine running as he got out, pack in hand.  He said nothing as he ran to the door, which was already opening to reveal an old
black
man with an ancient looking bolt action rifle in his hand.

Brian brought his attention back to the street though as Corey opened up.  Sighting over the iron, Brian let all his tension slip away as he began killing dead, the recoil of the A4 soothing.

Lee

Lee opened the door to the humvee and nearly gagged, the stench of Andrews spilling out over her.

Ernst’s hand steadied her.  “Door unlocked?” he asked.

She nodded.

He walked around the front of the humvee, brought his rifle
up, fired off a few rounds, and
went to the passenger side door.  He popped it open, the body slumping towards him.  Ernst’s expression never changed as he grabbed a handful of Andrews’ BDU blouse and hauled the corpse out onto the road. 

Ernst looked at her across the seats.

“You good to drive?”

She nodded again.

“Good,” Ernst smiled.  “I’m feeling a little exposed out of my hole.”

He shut the door and turned his attention back to the street.

Lee climbed in, ignoring the smell as she checked the back, making sure that nothing had climbed in during the night.

Clear, thank God, she thought, and closed the door behind her.
 

The humvee started up, the engine growling.  Ernst fired a few more shots, glancing over his shoulder at her as she shifted and eased the vehicle forward.  Ernst walked slowly alongside of her, glancing down to step over bodies, his eyes scanning.  Lee switched her attention back to the road, looking for any dead that might come between them and the gate.  She kept the pace
slow, hating the fact that he was out in the street, but Ernst had said it’d be best, and he’d told her the code, should anything happen.

A quick look at him showed that he was smiling, switching out the mag on the weapon.  Then the rifle spoke again, and she looked back to the gate.  Jack and Diane, the giant dogs
, ran back and forth behind
the gate, tails wagging
.

Within moments she was stopped in front of the gate.  She put the humvee in park, climbed out, and stepped over to the lock.  Ernst nodded to her and she punched in the code.  The gate started sliding back when the dogs began to growl and Ernst said, “Down.”

Lee dropped to the pavement, the .22 barking once.

A body thudded behind her.

“We’re good,” Ernst said, and turned his attention back to the street.

Lee stood up and caught sight of a teenager wearing
a running outfit
lying on its face.  Most of its back was gone, chewed away.

Lee swallowed
back her breakfast and got
into the humvee.

Once inside of the gate she killed
the engine and sat quietly in vehicle
.  Behind her Ernst fired a few m
ore shots, closed the gate, and
walked
over
to see her.

“Are you going to make it, Sergeant?”

She nodded.

“The teenager?”

She nodded again.

“It’s tough,” he said softly, looking out at the street of corpses, “but they’re already
dead.  We can’t worry about them.”

“I know,” she said, looking up.  “I just wish I knew whether or not my family was alive.  My brother likes to run.”

“Maybe the grid’ll be back up soon.  Or at least cell service.  Plus we can check your radio,” Ernst said, nodding towards the humvee’s radio, “and I’ll dig out the Ham radio.  I hope that we’ll be able to pick something up other than emergency broadcasts.”

“Yeah, me too,” Lee said.  She got out of the humvee, the wind blowing the stench of the dead towards them.  “We’re going to have to do something about those bodies.  That’s about as far from sanitary as you can possibly get.”

Ernst nodded.  “Probably have to burn them.”

“After the others get back,” Lee said, looking at the alleys and streets branching off of the street in front of them.  “We’ll need some security if we’re out there making all that noise and lighting a damned bonfire.”

“That we will.”

Lee looked at the humvee, the dents and the blood, the jammed .50 cal on the top.  “Got a hose that I could use?  That little bitch needs a bath.”