(Alaskan Undead Apocalypse 05) Unwilling Read online

  Those words poured down Cate’s back like a brace of ice water, chilling her spine and freezing her heart. A lifetime of fearing the dark came crashing back down upon her. Paralyzing terror, long forgotten, rushed at her from every direction causing a dizzying spell of vertigo. She closed her eyes tightly against the dark, holding the nightmares of her childhood barely at bay. Too afraid to keep her eyes closed any longer, Cate opened her eyes just wide enough to be reminded how utterly deep the darkness was all around her.

  She couldn’t help the terrified chirp from escaping when Sergeant Daniel’s flashlight sparked to life. The shaft of light like a nervous moonbeam, ventured into the darkness, searching but hoping not to find anything. It worked slowly, methodically, embracing the contradiction of its mission.

  As the light cut its lonely track through the gloom, the five people behind its cone held their collective breath. They dreaded what could be revealed.

  When Bendtner’s light joined the search and still nothing emerged, the five of them breathed a long-relieved sigh. The room into which they had fled appeared to be quite large and, more importantly, empty except for themselves. To further help allay any of their fears, a quick scan revealed a thin but consistent layer of dust covering the floor all around them. Luckily, the only footprints to disturb the dust were their own coming in through the doorway and ending where they stood. They were alone…for the moment.

  Not allowing a peaceful moment to pass, the sergeant barked, “No time to rest. We need to keep moving.” His words, unmistakably direct, felt harsh to everyone but Bendtner.

  “What?” countered Martinez, still struggling to settle and control his breathing. In protest, he dropped his pack and crossed his arms defiantly across his chest.

  Though he attempted to appear resolved, to Sergeant Daniels he only looked like a spoiled child refusing to go to bed or some other perceived unpleasant task. The sergeant contained the building rage in his chest but just barely. He clenched his jaw until it looked as if it was going to shatter through sheer force. He breathed in deeply and let the breath back out slowly as he said, “Pick up your shit and fall into line. We don’t—”

  Because the sergeant’s voice had never cracked or raised above a conversational tone, Martinez felt like he could interrupt him. “Sergeant, I think we should…”

  Moving with the agility and speed of a predator, the sergeant was in Martinez’s face before the man could act. Surprised and terrified, all the technician was able to do was swallow hard and loud and await his fate. A single bead of sweat formed on Martinez’s temple and coursed down his cheek.

  With visible effort on his part, Sergeant Daniels anger appeared to fade mysteriously into the dark, scaring everyone more than if he had actually, physically exploded. This all happened in the sparse light of the two soldiers’ flashlights which cast a dolorous pallor onto everyone’s face. The sergeant breathed deeply, his chest expanding like a massive, barrel-shaped balloon. They could almost see and hear him counting.

  With a calm that raised the hairs on the backs of their necks, Sergeant Daniels said, “I promised the captain that I would protect you so that you could fulfill our mission. I’ll be goddamned if you are going to make me break that promise.” His eyes growled from the dark when he finished with, “You get me?”

  No more prodding needed, Cathlyn, Veronica, and Alonzo all nodded. Seeing that his point was getting across to them, Sergeant Daniels continued, “The object is to be safe. Do you feel safe? Here? In the dark?” The questions were directed at Martinez, who once again nodded but then shook his head and finally did something between the two. Intimidated and still jarred from the crash, Martinez wasn’t sure what the correct response was that might save him from having his head crushed by the sergeant.

  Acknowledging that his message had been received but not quite done, he continued, “Good. Now, I hate repeating myself, but.… Pick. Up. Your. Shit.” The anger in his eyes nearly glowed this time.

  He watched as Martinez, looking wounded and timid, re-shouldered the large black bag and hefted the assault rifle across the front of his body. Though he was unsure and frightened to his bones, Martinez was ready to move.

  “Bendtner. Rooftop. Stay out of sight. Get eyes on the captain.”

  Without a word, Bendtner was gone, heading toward a door. He moved with deadly purpose and confidence, like one of the big cats on the prowl. Surprising everyone, he threw open the door, allowing a blinding flood of light to invade the dark space. Besides confusing all of their pupils that couldn’t retract fast enough to the sudden change of illumination, the opening door set all of them, including Sergeant Daniels, on edge in anticipation of whatever lurked outside.

  The light, while bright, was somehow incomplete, as if it had been filtered. Windows. It was still inside where the door led, another room or stairwell perhaps.

  The immense soldier, who, even from this distance and in the dark, was an eclipsing presence, looked over his shoulder in the sergeant’s direction and nodded, pointing up with two fingers before disappearing through the door.

  Sergeant Daniels touched a Bluetooth earpiece in his right ear and listened for a second. “Roger that. Thirty seconds,” he said to the air. Then to Cate, Alonzo, and Veronica, the sergeant said, “We’re following Bendtner. I’ll lead but stay close on my six. Understood?”

  Responding to the abbreviated but intense combat training they’d received, in unison they shot back, “Understood.”

  “Okay. Let’s move then. Remember, right in my hip pocket. Martinez, you’re in the rear. Make sure you shut this door behind us.”

  Chapter 8

  The door through which they ventured led to a very well-lit stairwell that faced out toward a largely empty parking lot on what would have been the backside of the building. The air was exceedingly warm, having been cooked by the afternoon sun which seemed to hang on the horizon forever on long summer days.

  Sergeant Daniels moved quickly and deliberately, never lowering his rifle from his shoulder. They climbed the stairs to the rooftop access and emerged onto an expansive area some three stories above the ground below. The fine black cinders comprising the roof’s surface nearly hid the more than a dozen raven carcasses which had landed there when the infection finally stole away their lives.

  Bendtner, silently acknowledging their arrival with a glance over his shoulder and a nod, knelt by the edge of the far wall facing to the south. He was peering through his scope and panning slowly from left to right.

  Daniels touched his right earpiece and said something so quietly none of them could hear him. Bendtner, however, crouching well more than a good stone’s throw away, raised his hand with his thumbs up.

  Again touching his ear, the sergeant this time spoke louder, saying, “Sir. Sir? You’ve got company coming from the southeast. Yes, sir. Hundreds.” He paused and then continued, through the lump in his throat, “Good luck, sir.” And then with pained bravado, “Kill all the bastards, sir.”

  Seconds later, as the four of them crossed to where Bendtner waited, a sudden explosion to their right sent the three civilians sprawling. Cate, landing a little too close to one of the stiff, black bird carcasses, recoiled in disgust and then used the rifle she was carrying to move the lifeless body away from her. She looked up to see the sergeant, still standing but clearly waiting. He touched his earpiece and said something else but she was unable to discern his words or to whom they were spoken. Then he made eye contact with Cate but said to the three of them, “There will be at least two more. Claymores.”

  Reading the civilians’ expressions, he clarified, “Mines. Bendtner set up a few before we got into the building. They have motion-activated sensors that set ‘em off.”

  Martinez asked as he rose to his knees, “You said at least two more?”

  “Captain has grenades too. Even with a broken leg, the captain will kick some ass. I’m sure he has
some other surprises for the geeks.”

  “Oh,” came Martinez’s reply. “And then what?”

  “While the captain’s got ‘em distracted, we need to find a way out of here. We just need to take a quick look around to find our best egress.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “We have a mission. Remember?”

  Another blast, this one closer than the last, interrupted them, sending smoldering bits of turf and other assorted junk arcing through the air. Frighteningly loud, the second explosion returned the three civilians back to their bellies, clawing at the ground, trying to get lower and smaller.

  Bendtner pivoted down the wall, following the movement below him with his pointed rifle. For such a large man, he moved with immense stealth. Decked out in all black, including his tactical web gear, he resembled a large cat…a puma, rippling with purpose and possessing a singular vision and purpose. He was an instinctive predator, born for the hunt.

  Cate, watching him slink along the wall, was at once exhilarated and alarmed by his movements because she knew very well what he was watching and what had detonated the mines. Unable to resist the urge to see for herself, she crawled toward the wall to take a peek.

  Bendtner used his hand to communicate to Cate to stay low and quiet, to which she nodded her understanding. Afterward, he handed her a pair of small but powerful tactical binoculars and pointed toward the field in front of them. Adjusting them to fit her face better, Cate peered through the binocular’s eyepieces, at first surprised by the degree to which her vision was magnified.

  It had been quite some time since she had seen one of them and here, stretched out across lanes of concrete and fields of grass, was a murderous legion of hundreds of the things. Watching the wretches stumbling and shambling in front of her, moving from left to right, she couldn’t help but feel a building nausea rising in the back of her throat. There was something else as well that further fueled the nausea though she was having a hard time placing it or its source.

  The shuffling masses barely resembled humans anymore. Twisted and stooped awkwardly, their protruding spines looked more reptilian than mammal on most of the creatures. Stretched across their creaking bones, their skin was rough and weathered and darkened through decay and the elements. Many sported lethal scars from long-ago mortal wounds, but even these were difficult to see against the darkened canvas of their exposed bodies. Their clothing, what little remained, was little more than threadbare shreds and rags.

  Unfortunately, there were more than a few that appeared to be fairly fresh ghouls, suggesting that many residents in Anchorage had survived until recently. Their skin was still relatively naturally colored and their clothes were still largely intact, though each appeared to have been painted in red by the wounds they sustained in dying. The stark reality that people had been living amidst this insanity was more startling than their frightening appearance.

  One such creature was a woman who could have very easily been herself under different circumstances. She was wearing a gray hoodie, jeans, and boots, or exactly what Cate preferred to wear when she wasn’t on missions to save the world. It was easy to pick out the former woman because she was moving more freely and faster than most of her peers, whose pace more closely resembled an excited amble. The ghoulish woman quickly overtook the foremost rank of the undead and ran ahead of them through the field, apparently skirting the range of any remaining claymore anti-personnel mines.

  Her arms flailing wildly and her head whipping around chaotically, she was a demon driven to feed on the flesh of the living. Screeching and growling like a feral beast, she sprinted toward a still-smoking section of jet fuselage.

  Looking at the broken section of aircraft, Cate quickly realized that was their jet which meant the captain, his son the young lieutenant, and the surgeon were directly in her path. A single, loud pop cracked the air and Cate’s zombie doppelganger stumbled forward a few more steps and then fell to the earth, the top of her scalp no longer attached.

  Two more of the more recently turned zombies sprinted ahead of the main pack only to meet the same fate. Closer to the building on which Cate and the others stooped and watched, another claymore exploded, shredding a large crowd of devils. Arms shattered, legs splintered, and bodies crumpled, but unless any of the deadly shrapnel destroyed the creature’s brains, they rose back to their feet regardless of new, grievous wounds and continued their press.

  Several more controlled shots punched holes into foreheads and felled several more of the beasts but there were always more to fill the gaps. Excited at the prospect of the feast, the horde hastened their clumsy steps. A collective, hungry moan was growing from what sounded like the pit of Hell and hanging like a dark cloud above the advancing mob.

  The captain, only the sound of gunshots revealing he was still down there, was firing more rapidly. While still efficient and deadly, his shooting was no longer bringing down one creature for each bullet. Another explosion closer to the jet lit up the sky with fire and then darkened it with black smoke. This blast was from a different source than the claymores and resulted in residual flames that spread out and burned violently anything in its path.

  Cate could tell this latest measure was of the captain’s doings because it pleasantly surprised Bendtner who nodded approvingly as the fire engulfed several of the geeks and many more trailing smoke behind them as they moved away from the blast area.

  The air buzzed as bullets and other searing shards of metal snapped and whipped the air, creating small, dark, dusty clouds of necrotic tissue as the undead bodies were punctured and pierced.

  Something sailed out of the jet area in a high arc and landed amidst the advancing ranks. Another smaller explosion followed as the fragmentation grenade detonated. A few of the closing zombies, their skin and clothes a blend of grays and browns, were essentially vaporized in the detonation while several more were maimed beyond mobility.

  Spasming violently in undulating waves, the horde’s progress was more impacted by its electric tics than by anything the captain did. Nothing he did seemed to do anything to discourage the onslaught. There appeared to be no end to the vile, spreading death.

  Undaunted, the fearless Army officer tossed another grenade and then another and then another. Despite his discipline in discharging his weapon, the captain emptied three thirty-round magazines for his assault rifle. He fought with such furious defiance that any other conventional battle would likely have been decided in his favor, but this was not a conventional battle and so his enemy continued to close the distance to him. He was spending his ammunition at an alarming rate but it seemed to do little to change his fate.

  The creatures spread themselves around the jet like a pool of liquid threatening to overcome a dike, seeking any possible opening. The captain continued to fight, to Bendtner’s and Daniels’ prideful satisfaction. His calculated shooting had given way to violent, erratic bursts. Cate heard the man scream but realized that it was a mighty war cry of a man berserking in battle.

  Cate whispered into Bendtner’s ear, “Isn’t there something we can do?”

  Back to her, he said, “We follow the captain’s last order and get our jobs done. That’s the best way to honor him. That’s what he would want.” After answering, Bendtner touched Cate’s shoulder and pointed to Sergeant Daniels who was waiting next to an access ladder on the far wall. “We gotta go.”

  Having joined Bendtner and Cate at the wall, Martinez, staring at the soldier in complete disbelief, said, “But it’s suicide.” He was careful to keep his voice to a hushed whisper but it was a shouted whisper, if such a thing was possible. Alonzo rubbed his face, hoping that maybe doing so could change what he was hearing.

  Earnest and quiet, Bendtner answered, “It’s only suicide if we fail.”

  Still not willing to simply accept the simplicity of the gesture, Alonzo asked, “What’s it called if we don’t then?”

 
“Sacrifice. Follow Sergeant Daniels down the ladder, please.”

  Chapter 9

  “Can he get it started?” Cate’s question rang more like a prayer than an inquiry. From the other side of the enormous structure in front of them, the staccato chatter of the continuing battle helped lend a desperate, unwelcome soundtrack to their situation.

  Bendtner was wedged into the narrow space under the dash of a FedEx delivery van. For most people, there would be ample space, but the mountainous soldier filled the area with his towering frame. Looking in, it was all knees and elbows wrestling with one another to find the right angle. It didn’t seem like he would be able to get anything done.

  When the engine sputtered reluctantly and then turned, Cate nearly wept. She did go so far as to wrap her arms around Sergeant Daniels’ neck and nearly melted with relief.

  Cautioning her with, “We’re not out of it yet,” he nodded over her shoulder and lifted his rifle into firing position. Through his scope, he leveled the cross-hair of his rifle onto a ghoul’s flaking, gray forehead and squeezed the trigger. The rifle kicked quietly against his shoulder and less than a second later, the emaciated wraith, mostly bones and rotting skin, collapsed into a heap.

  Surprised by the sudden appearance and departure of the creature, Cate leapt behind the big sergeant, her eyes as big as saucers. She didn’t see any others at the moment but the rule of thumb was where there was one, there would be others. The same principle applied to rodents and roaches. Time was short, so she was not able to dwell on the similarities.

  Veronica asked, “Why isn’t the captain’s gun silenced like yours?”

  Daniels, still scanning the lot, answered as he pivoted to be able to see the other side of the truck, “He took his silencer off.”

  “Why? Why on God’s green Earth would he do that?” Veronica’s eyes, like two yellowed marshmallows floating in a warm chocolate fondue, were now as wide as Cate’s. Her mouth not wanting to be left out, did its part, sending her jaw to the metaphorical floor.