Rend, p.26
Rend, page 26
The two of them had raced up the stairway, positive that they’d be safe on the second floor, but the zombies climbed and clawed over one another and they watched in horror as the writhing mass of creatures soon reached the first landing. Allyson suggested that they flee upwards and they were currently on the fifth floor hiding in an apartment. She could already hear the zombies’ moans echoing down the hallway and she estimated that they’d already reached this floor.
“Shit,” Steve stated simply from his vantage point at the window.
“What is it?” Allyson asked.
“They’ve found the fire escape. It’s fascinating to watch how they pile up on top of each other to reach the next level. I really believed that we’d be safe going upwards…”
She ran over to the window and peered down. They were on the third deck already. “We have to keep going up,” she announced.
Steve looked at her with a weary expression. “Allyson, I’m tired. They’ve beaten us. We’re trapped like rats in a maze and they’re going to get to us eventually. It’s useless.”
Her hand snaked out as quick as lightning and smashed hard across his cheekbone. The rough mesh of the sharksuit scraped across his face and drew blood. “You shut your goddamned mouth, Steve. We still have a chance. We have to keep going up or else we’re done for,” she seethed.
He looked shocked for a full ten seconds and then his eyes hardened. “You’re right. We’re not done for yet. There’s always a chance that they’ll forget what they’re doing like they usually do. Alright, we go up.”
Allyson grabbed her duffle full of food and the first aid kit and then headed for the door. A quick look through the peephole showed an empty hallway draped in shadows too deep for the windows on either end to penetrate. This is it, she thought. Once I open the door, either there’s something out there in the hallway or in the stairwell and we die, or we make it to the roof.
Her hand rested heavily on the apartment’s doorknob and she checked to ensure that Steve—brave Steve, not coward Steve—was still with her. He smiled and it reminded her of old news footage of Charlie Manson. If they made it out of here, Steve would need some serious therapy. She nodded to him and turned the handle. Steve pushed past her into the hallway and stabbed outwards with his spear into empty space.
“Doesn’t hurt to be prepared,” he shrugged and began slowly shuffling toward the back stairwell that they’d discovered on the third floor when they’d attempted to stop there. She tightened her grip on the spear and followed the crazy bastard.
*****
19 June, 1456 hrs local
114 East Lexington Street
Baltimore, Maryland
The rescue team cleared the top floor of the apartment complex without running into any problems. When they’d exited the roof, they could hear the zombies’ rasping calls echo up the stairwell. A quick glance over the railings showed the creatures slowly climbing higher up the stairs by piling on one another the same way that they’d done outside. The damn things were relentless and they’d eventually have the entire building filled with their kind.
Asher made the decision to clear the building floor-by-floor from the top down. It made the most sense that if Allyson was trapped in the building then she would have gotten as far away from the creatures as possible. If the two of them were still alive, it would be exponentially harder to find them the closer to the ground floor that they remained.
“Hey man, we got nothing on this floor,” Jenkins called out softly from the next apartment doorway down the hall.
“Yeah,” Asher agreed. “Let’s gather everyone up, get accountability and hit the next floor.”
Robert Jenkins’ voice echoed in his earpiece as he called out to the team that they needed to rally up at the stairwell. It only took a few seconds for the team to finish searching their assigned location and gather near the door leading to the stairs.
“Okay, we’re going down to the ninth floor,” Asher told the small team. “Same rules apply. Search every apartment and call out for Agent Harper so if she’s hiding somewhere from those damn zombies, she can hear you and come out. Questions?”
No one said anything, so they slowly entered the stairwell and turned their night vision goggles on once more. Another glance made it evident that the zombies had made it up at least another floor and Asher estimated that they were at the fourth or fifth floor now. He wasn’t sure what they’d do when the team went low enough that they were on the same level as the zombies. Very soon, there would come a point in this mission where he had to recommend that they call it off or else risk getting themselves trapped and more than likely killed.
Goddamn it! Why are these things so focused on reaching Allyson? It didn’t make any sense. Why was every zombie in the city surrounding this building? They all seemed to have one purpose in mind, which was totally different from what he’d personally experienced with the random, shambling creatures down in DC. It reminded him of Hank’s recount of the zombies who slipped past the ring of soldiers and attacked the refugee camps during the war. They’d been under the direction of a Type One who had the single-minded purpose of destroying the refugee camps. His mind fixated on the similarities once more and Asher came to the conclusion that there had to be a Type One controlling the zombies in Baltimore.
He was the second man through the door to the ninth level and the men yelled for Allyson Harper. The team members’ voices drifted down a hallway illuminated by an eerie green in the light of their NVGs. The calls of the undead seemed to get even louder as the sound of human voices echoed down the stairwell to where they writhed in the enclosed space.
Several of the men glanced nervously backward, but went forward as ordered and each man entered an apartment to search. Asher stayed in the hall and continued to keep an eye on the doorway that led to the stairs as well as down the long hallway to the last set of apartments. Within minutes members of the team began to emerge from their respective search targets and made their way to the next set of doors.
A loud clanging sound on the far end of the hallway sounded like a door slamming shut, but it was too far away for Asher to see clearly through the NVGs. He thought the shadows moved a little bit in the distance so he flipped up his goggles to the top of his helmet and raised the SCAR to his shoulder. The selector switch clicked home on the “semi” setting while he reached up and pressed the thermal IR switch on the rifle’s combat optics.
Two human forms blossomed in white heat against the dark blue background. “Holy shit!” he yelled. “Allyson, is that you?”
“What? Hello, is someone there?” a female voice reverberated off the walls of the hallway.
He switched his rifle back to “safe” and called out, “Allyson, its Asher. We’re here to rescue you!”
“Asher! Where are you? We can’t see anything.”
He brought up his rifle and peered through the scope once more. “Just keep coming this way. You’re about one hundred feet from the team.”
Asher broke a chemlight and the watery yellow light erupted in the hallway. He waved it over his head so she could see. “Oh, I see you now. We’re coming!” she shouted. The sound of feet slapping against the tile was a reassuring sound that they were alright.
Allyson’s ragged form burst into the small circle of light and she practically leapt into Asher’s arms. “Oh my God, I’m so happy to see you!” she exclaimed.
“Same goes, babe,” he replied and squeezed her body tightly against his chest. He felt the reassuring stiffness of her sharksuit, but her deep red hair flowed freely over his mask while her head pressed against him. He gently leaned her backward and asked, “Allyson, where’s your mask?”
“It’s a long story. Are we clear to exfil? This building is crawling with zombies and we need to get away before they make it up the stairwell.”
He did a quick headcount and counted five people besides himself and Allyson. “Yeah, let’s get out of here,” he stated and leaned around the side of the woman he’d entered the city to find.
“Asher Hawke,” he said with an outstretched hand toward the stranger.
The man took it in a relatively firm grasp and said, “Steve Adams. Nice to meet you.”
“Same same, brother. Let’s get on the helo and we’ll get your story.” He led the small group back toward the stairwell and keyed his radio to request an immediate helicopter pickup for six personnel.
“Where did you guys come from?” Jenkins asked as they quickly ascended the stairs past the tenth floor toward the roof.
“We got trapped on one of the lower floors,” Steve replied. “The main stairwell was blocked, but that back stairway went all the way to the ninth floor. Guess they didn’t want all the riffraff to be able to make it up to the penthouse level.”
“Wow, we were lucky that we didn’t miss each other in the dark,” one of the other men said.
“Yeah, lucky. Alright, the bird is supposed to be landing now,” Asher stated as he shoved hard against the roof access door.
The light from outside was overpowering to the men who’d become accustomed to the dim interior of the old apartment complex and they had to shield their eyes until they adjusted. While they had them covered, they could hear the alterations of the sounds the engines of the Blackhawk emitted and by the time they were confident enough to expose their eyes, the helicopter was resting lightly on the roof.
Everyone rushed across and boarded the utility helicopter. Once Asher finished fussing over Allyson’s seatbelt, he plugged the pilot’s intercom into his suit’s radio jack. “We’re ready to go.”
“On it,” the lead pilot replied. “I can’t believe that you actually got them. Holy shit, this will be one to tell the grandkids! Good job, Hawke.”
“Thanks,” he acknowledged as the wheels lifted from the roof. “I need the grid to that building.”
“Sure thing, man. Whatcha’ thinking about doing?” the pilot asked.
“I’m going to level the mother fucker and kill every one of those things.”
Asher spent a few moments coordinating the airstrike with one of his buddies in the Agency. He’d initially asked Reston about it, but the Bureau man was unable to make the strike happen, so Asher simply called in a favor to an old friend. Within minutes, the large form of a Reaper drone streaked in from the west. The pilots wisely increased their altitude and distance from the target.
The drone fired two hellfire missiles at individual aim points in between the second and third story. The missiles punched through the relatively soft brick exterior before expending their payloads inside the building. It only took a few seconds before the top floors began to collapse and the building folded in on itself as a great cloud of dust and smoke spread outwards in all directions.
Asher nodded in approval as the strike eradicated thousands of zombies in minutes. Even if they survived and somehow escaped the wreckage, they’d be useless with broken spines and compound fractures. He hoped the Type One that led these creatures was in the building when it went down.
“Hey, Asher,” Allyson’s voice interrupted his thoughts as he stared out the open doors of the helicopter. He glanced over and saw that she’d placed a headset over her ears.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“I need a favor from you.”
“Anything, what is it?”
“Every zombie in the city was surrounding that building, right?”
“Looks like it,” he answered cautiously.
“I need to go back to the fort. I know where the Banner is.” She held up her hands to silence his unspoken protest. “It’s still in the packaging crate and would take less than ten minutes to secure.”
He knew the feeling that was surely eating away at her. He hadn’t always been successful on all of the missions over his long career and there was always the internal questioning of your actions that egged you on constantly. What if I’d done X differently? What would have happened if I hadn’t spoken to Y about my plans?
“Allyson, we need to get you to a hospital.”
“Asher, I’ve been breathing this shit for almost thirty-six hours. Ten minutes isn’t going to make a difference. Please, I need to complete this mission.”
“I don’t know. There’s still a huge risk involved. What if there are still zombies at the fort?”
“Then I’ll need you to kill them and keep me safe. This is important to me.” She considered her words for a moment and then said, “If I recover the Banner, I’m done with field work. No more inserting behind The Wall to play super-FBI agent. I’ll likely get promoted and have a desk job.”
Shit, he mused. That was probably the only thing that could have swayed me. He stared deeply into her verdant eyes while he considered her request. She stared expectantly back at him.
“Dammit,” he muttered and flipped the switch to talk to the pilots.
*****
19 June, 1808 hrs local
100 Block of East Lexington Street
Baltimore, Maryland
The creature stared at the smoking remains of the building across the street. It wanted to go across the way and pull the rubble from the followers, but it knew that it needed to stay hidden from the eyes in the sky that the master had warned them of. It had considered using the followers that weren’t trapped to dig the others out, but they weren’t coordinated enough and would simply harm themselves without much progress. Plus, the humans would see them working to pull their brethren from the wreckage and know that a leader remained alive in the city.
This would be the final time that they would be caught unawares behind the walls of their cage. It pained the creature to have lost so many good followers, but now the others would see what the humans would keep doing to them as long as they were trapped behind the walls unable to create more followers. It had also learned another valuable lesson. The humans’ weapons were powerful, so the followers shouldn’t all be in one place at the same time. Attacking along multiple locations was the best way to achieve that.
The Chosen brethren from the home city were correct. They had to strike before the humans discovered the weakness in their cage and sealed them in forever. Now was the time to use the big water to their advantage.
ELEVEN
04 July, 1754 hrs local
New Federal Capitol Building
Denver, Colorado
The backdrop was covered in American flags and striped banners. Talk had been made, and summarily rejected, of removing the star that represented Maryland since most of the state, including all the major cities, was lost. As Ryan Wilson examined the scene through the Secret Service video feed, he was proud that the previous administration had stood their ground and fought for the state to remain as whole as possible. The state capital was moved to Frederick and life carried on. The Virginia and Maryland governors were his go-to guys for issues concerning The Wall and he was glad for their assistance when they could offer it.
The huge battle-scarred and deteriorating Star-Spangled Banner hung suspended in a new impact-resistant case meant to preserve it as well as block any residual radiation from leaking out and harming observers. He would use it for the background for this speech and then move the artifact to the new Federal Archives Building once it was completely converted and appropriate security measures were in place.
Underneath the flag sat the Charters of Freedom lined up in chronological order from the Declaration to the Bill of Rights. Archaeology experts had emplaced them in new encasements that would further protect them from harm. The team of scientists and archeologists had been pleasantly surprised to find that the original encasements, along with the old National Archives staff’s actions, had sufficiently protected the documents from the radiation of the dead city and it was simply a matter of changing the encasements and presenting them to the population.
The president was proud of what he’d accomplished. Without his vision and leadership, the documents, the Banner and even the recovered artwork from the various mob facilities would have all been left to rot behind that damned wall with all of those foul creatures. He’d been shocked at the level of violence that the Bureau had been subjected to during the recovery, but it couldn’t be helped. Those things were outside of his control, for now.
The report of a Type One living in Baltimore had proven to be false as the FBI man, Reston, sent team after team into the city looking for evidence of the thing. Besides the misidentification of some type of “smart zombie”, the man who’d been rescued along with the female agent had proven invaluable. His testimony about the various mob factions would lock them away for a long time and help clean up the streets of a few cities. Once again, President Wilson wanted to pound himself on the back in congratulations for his success during the last few months.
“We have one minute, sir,” his aide interrupted his thoughts as she held up one finger.
“Thanks, Miriam. I’m ready— Actually, do you have a bottle of water? I’m feeling a little parched and I don’t want my voice to be scratchy during my speech.”
“Of course, sir. Here you go,” she replied as she produced a new bottle of water wrapped in a small monogrammed napkin from her purse.
He thanked her and then took a few sips and handed the bottle back to her. “That did the trick. Alright, let’s go.”
Two men pulled the double doors open from inside the building where the cameras wouldn’t see them and the president strode through. High-powered camera flashbulbs greeted him along with the murmuring of reporters and cheers from the crowd that had been assembled for hours waiting to catch a glimpse of the man. As he walked out, “Hail to the Chief” played and he saw the large “X” marked in tape on the stage platform that indicated his mark. The president made sure to step on it before turning toward the podium with the special American backdrop that he’d had designed for the event.
