Verge of Extinction (Apex Predator Book 3) (23 page)

“Where is the rest?” Indira asked.  Jen looked again.  She was right.  There were only about fifty or sixty troops following SSgt Brown.

“Probably securing the port facilities,” Donaldson answered.  He chuckled.  “Did you think we were going to just walk in there kill everything and leave again?”  The smugness in his voice was difficult to miss.  Jen and Indira simply shook their heads and tried to ignore him.

The HEMTT rumbled as Jackson revved the big diesel engine.  The big ten wheeled truck began to slowly roll forward.  The shipping container on the back deck was the fourth and last that he would move today.  He glanced to the west at the rapidly setting sun.  It was now a dark orange and was low on the horizon.

SSgt Brown waved his right hand as he directed Jackson.  The truck backed up slowly until it almost touched the shipping container behind it.  SSgt Brown held up a fist.  The truck rocked back and forth as it stopped.  He pointed a finger toward the ground and made a twirling motion with it.  The container began sliding off the back of the truck.   Jackson slowly pulled forward as the container came to rest next to the one behind it and against the fence.  Tomorrow, he would probably finish reinforcing the fence line.

SSgt Brown set the guard for the night.  He and Jackson would remain inside the port facility with thirty of his people.  He assigned each of the six fire teams a container to sleep on.  He gave them two rules.  One, at least one person per team would be awake.  Two, no one would get off of the container without two other people.

Day 45

The Island

SSgt Brown, Sgt Procell and Jen watched as Jackson dropped the last shipping container along the fence line.  A loud scraping sound and a sudden thud announced the 40 foot metal container had reached its destination.  The HEMTT pulled away to the cheers of the rest of the people looking on.

SSgt Brown was actually amazed at the amount of work his little army had been able to accomplish in one day.  Not only had the entire port facility been surrounded by a wall of multicolored 40 foot corrugated shipping containers standing eight feet high. But, Sgt Procell and the two sailors had been able to fashion three of the Little Debbies from the smaller and lighter 20 foot shipping containers.

SSgt Brown couldn’t help but notice that no two looked the same.  He turned toward the younger NCO.  “Not much for standardization, are you Ed?”

The young former Screaming Eagle chuckled.  “Well, what happened was that each of us took charge of one of the Little Debbies.”  He nodded towards the two sailors standing a few feet away.  “First, Paulson started welding that giant swing arm onto the front of his.  Said he would snap it shut on anyone in front of it.”  The contraption had a 12 inch roller on a spring loaded arm.  When activated, it would slam against the side of the Little Debbie at about head height He smiled at the sailors who were now walking towards them.

“Then Erikson went and welded those big fans out front of his.”  He pointed to the Little Debbie with four large fans welded to the roof.  The fan blades had been replaced by five feet pieces of chain.  Jen could see that when the fans where turned on, the chains would create a virtual wall of spinning metal six inches in front of the Little Debbie.  It would be like a giant zombie blender.

“So, you thought it would be a good idea to cut a bunch of holes in yours?” the big NCO asked.

“Don’t think of them as just holes,” the younger man said.  “Think of them as modified loopholes or murder holes.”  He tried to put his hand through one of the holes.  It was far too small for him to insert more than three fingers.  Then he grabbed one of the pikes.  He jammed it through the hole.  He showed them he could thrust several times at differing heights and angles.  “See, we can just sit inside; all safe and sound and stab them in the face.”

SSgt Brown nodded his head.  He wasn’t sure which one of the Little Debbies would be the best.  But, he was pretty sure that whoever was inside of them would be safe from zombies.  That was all he needed.

Erikson and his team of ten had been standing on top of the Little Debbie for most of the day.  The black kid, his name was Jackson or something like that, had dropped them off several of hours ago.  They were about a mile outside of the wire. Just off of the main east-west highway.

The idea was simple.  Once deployed, they would make as much noise as possible, drawing zombies from near and far to their location.  Once the local zombies had arrived, then they would simply climb on top of Debbie, and turn on the fans.  The local zombies would pretty much be standing in the middle of a meat grinder.  They could continue making noise and killing zombies for as long as their food and water held out, or until the zombies stopped showing up.

There had been quite a bit of speculation on the last point.  No one knew exactly how good a zombie could hear.  So, there was no way of knowing how close a zombie had to be in order to be led to the trap.  SSgt Brown was pretty sure they would come from a mile or so away.  Erikson wasn’t so sure.  He wouldn’t have put his money on anything over a half of a mile.

A car horn hooked straight to a car battery created the noise.  At first, they had just hooked it up and let it go.  After several minutes of constant buzzing of the horn, they agreed to just sound it every few minutes.  Within ten minutes, it was clear the local zombies had taken the bait.

Soon there were zombies clawing at the Little Debbie’s grey corrugated sides.  The moans they produced were the eeriest sounds Erikson had ever heard.  He was soon convinced that they wouldn’t need to use the car horn anymore.  The moans of the dead were doing more to attract the rest of the dead than anything else they had done.

When Erikson was confident that there were enough zombies around the Little Debbie, he ordered the fans turned on.  The sound of the fan motors momentarily drowned out the sound of the incessant moaning.

Soon the chains were slicing zombies down in droves.  It was like watching a weed eater tear into the edge of someone’s lawn.  One minute a zombie would be clawing at the metal, the next minute a pink mist was filled the air as the monster was vaporized.  Then another would step into its place.  Everyone on the roof of the Debbie was covered in fine pink mist.

Day 46

Highway 90 Pascagoula MS

Jen was in the passenger seat of the HEMMT.  She had asked SSgt Brown if she could accompany Jackson on his pickup run of the Little Debbies. She looked at the young trooper.  Although he still looked young, he somehow appeared older.  Well, she thought, not old. Maybe he was just looking more experienced.  His face was beginning to show those fine little wrinkles one gets when one worries too much.

She could certainly understand that.  Jackson had taken the lion’s share of being in the lead over the past month-and-a-half.  She knew he took the responsibility of that position very seriously.   She thought about Mike.  Tears began to well up in her eyes again.

She knew he had also taken her husband’s death as a personal failure.  The poor kid hadn’t been able to look her in the eye for a week now.  She knew just riding in the truck with her was uncomfortable for him.  He hadn’t said two words since they had left the gate.

“God Damn it, Jackson,” she began.  “That’s enough of this.”  She wiped the tear running down her face.

The soldier looked at her with a look of dismay.  He didn’t want to talk to her.  He’d been the one who had let her husband get bit by a zombie.  Why did she want to talk to him?  He’d let her down and because of it the most important thing in her life was gone.

“Mrs. Jen,” he meekly croaked.  His throat was so dry.  “I’m so, so, sorry.  I didn’t…”

“Of course you didn’t,” she cut him off.  “No one intended for Mike to die.”  His expression changed to a look of shock.   “Yes, Jackson, he’s dead.  It sucks.  Every day I miss him.  Every day my heart aches for him.”  She paused for a moment.  “And you,” she said.  “I know you blame yourself for his death.”

She placed a hand on his knee.  “But, don’t you see?  There’s no one to blame.  You’ve done such a great job of keeping us all safe for the past month or so.  Our luck was bound to run out sometime.  It just happened to be Mike that drew the short straw.”

She wiped another tear that was streaking its way down her cheek.  “But, if you need it, I’ll give it to you.”  She paused for a moment.  “Private Jackson, I forgive you.  I love you and I forgive you.”

The truck came to a sudden stop.  Jackson began to sob uncontrollably.  He turned to Jen, who embraced him as a mother embraces a frightened child.  He cried unashamedly as she ran her fingers through his coarse hair.

Jackson gradually applied the brakes.  The HEMMT lurched to a stop 50 meters from the Little Debbie.  Something was wrong.  There was a pile of partial bodies surrounding the corrugated steel box.  That was to be expected.  They had not, however, expected to see twenty or so zombies meandering around the Little Debbie.  None were very close, but close enough that they should have been attracted to the live people inside.

Jackson threw his door open.  “Wait here,” he ordered. The last two Little Debbies had had people on top of the structures when he and Jen had arrived.  He couldn’t believe there was no one on watch.  This Erikson guy was going to severely piss him off.

He banged on the side of the container as he approached the double doors on the end.  “Wake up slackers,” he yelled.  “It’s time to go home.  I hear we’re having SPAM for dinner tonight.”

The locking mechanism groaned as the young trooper pulled on the large handle.  When it reached the unlocked position, the door burst open, knocking the young black man back.  He stumbled a few steps before he finally lost his balance, landing on his butt.

His heart raced and his bladder emptied at the sight in front of him.  Ten undead monsters had stumbled out of the Little Debbie and were shambling towards him.  The closest one was already almost within arm’s reach.

He quickly threw his legs under his butt and began crab walking away. He could feel the front sight post of his rifle digging into the ground as it was dragged behind him.  His attempt to reach his bayonet was futile.  Instead his upper body slammed into both the ground and the rifle strapped to his back.

He screamed for help as the small hoard of monsters closed the gap.  From where he was, he could not see the HEMMT.  He did, however, hear the door slam shut.

He tried again for his bayonet.  This time he lunged into a left twist to get his right hip and the bayonet strapped to it off the ground.  He continued his roll until he was prone.  Another lunge with both legs and he was on his feet moving forward.

He glanced over his shoulder as he did.  He wished for a brief second that he hadn’t.  Just out of arm’s reach was Erikson’s zombie.  The cold pale eyes and grey skin both reached for him.

Suddenly he hit something in front of him, causing him and it to tumble to the ground.  Again, he rolled to the left in order to put some distance between himself and the new threat.  Arms clasped around his head as he did.  They were cold and strong.  He tucked his chin and repeated his version of an alligator roll.

As his head slipped from the grasp of the ghoul, he could hear gunshots.  Thank God, he thought.  He didn’t have time to celebrate.  He slid his left hand along the monsters torso until he found the neck.  He locked eyes with the zombie an instant before he drove his bayonet into its skull.  The body suddenly went limp.

Another gunshot rang out.  He spun around and found himself face to face with three of the living corpses.  He tried to kick his right leg at one, but it was too close.  All he was able to do was get his left hand under the monster’s chin.  It was pointless.

Jen screamed as the four bodies tumbled to the ground.  She fired round after round into the mass of bodies.  She hoped she wouldn’t hit Jackson, but knew deep down inside that she was.  She knew she had too.

The young trooper screamed for a moment as both bullets and teeth tore into his flesh.  Then, as the zombies above him stopped moving one-by-one; a wave of peace washed over him.  The weight on top of him became lighter and lighter.  Then, it was as if he could feel a cool ocean breeze cover his entire body.  He opened his eyes.

There, above him was the face of an angel.  Her pale skin and slightly moon shaped face stared down at him.  Behind her the sun shone orange on the clouds.  It looked to the dying trooper as if she had bright orange wings and a halo.  She had never looked so beautiful.

“Go,” he tried to scream to her.  “You can’t stay here.”  It was no use.  His lungs had no breath, his throat no voice.  He was dying.  His angel had to leave.  She couldn’t save his body.  But, she’d done better.  She’d freed his soul.  He could die in peace, his conscience clean.  She had given that to him.  But she has to go before…