Rend, p.7
Rend, page 7
The divers secured their equipment to their sleds and then tied them to the pier supports. They swam silently to the ladder where they bobbed in the water while the first man went up alone. After he signaled that it was clear, they clamored up the stairs clumsily in their suits. In the summer, the wetsuits underneath the radiation suits became unbearably hot, but Bodie welcomed the warmth in the chilly February evening, especially if they had to make a fast getaway into the water.
Just like he’d learned in the Army, Bodie sent two men toward the end of the pier to make sure there weren’t any more zombies behind them. It would screw up their day if the zombies attacked them from behind while they were looking at the city and their target residences. Another splash in the darkness confirmed his suspicion that the first two weren’t alone. “Can’t we do this more quietly?” Jake hissed beside him.
“Nothing we can do about it, man. At least we took them out before they started moaning and warned the others that we were here,” he answered. The movie got that part right. When the fuckers moaned, it carried on the wind and every creature within hearing distance shuffled toward the sound of the noise. Once one of them moaned, it was time to leave, with or without the haul.
The two men shuffled back slowly from the far end of the pier, flashing their thumbs to Bodie, indicating that it was clear. He motioned the group forward and pointed at their target: a massive row of townhomes sitting near the water. The team split up into one set of security that would stay outside and three teams of two, who would each clear a house, then take all the valuables before moving on to the next home.
He walked up to the end unit and gently jiggled the door handle. Not surprisingly, it was unlocked. When the government alerted the East Coast that a nuclear missile was headed toward Washington, most of the population grabbed whatever they could fit in their pockets and ran. Which meant that they left their homes wide open for Bodie’s crew to sweep in and clear the place out six years later.
The dive team leader placed his hand on the shoulder of his partner to let him know that he would follow him in and clear the home. They crept slowly inside and closed the door. Once the door was secure, it became extremely hard to use their NVGs because they relied on ambient light. Bodie purchased infrared flashlights for everyone in his crew and they mounted them to each gun’s rail system. The IR flashlight illuminated everything in their NVGs just like a flashlight would except it was invisible to the naked eye.
From the pier, he’d seen that the townhouses were at least four stories tall and they’d entered on the first floor which shared the space with a garage and an office. They cleared one floor at a time, but they focused most of their effort on the ground floor since the zombies couldn’t climb stairs. Each time they cleared a room they would shut the door to let themselves know that they’d cleared it. Within minutes, they’d worked their way up to the master suite, which occupied the entire fourth floor.
“Found the owners,” Jake whispered and pointed his IR flashlight at two desiccated corpses lying across the bed. It was impossible to tell if they were male or female, but Bodie assumed that the radiation killed them, probably within a couple of hours of the blast given their location. He’d seen plenty of dead bodies during this job, so it didn’t bother him anymore. He reached down and broke off the woman’s ring finger. Her diamond engagement ring fell onto the bed and then promptly went into his collection bag.
“Looks like the place is clear, start getting everything you can,” he said casually. “I’d like to be out in less than thirty minutes so we can hit this entire row of townhouses.”
Bodie was pulling aside clothing to see if there was anything hidden in the master closet when there was a loud boom from downstairs that echoed throughout the townhome. “What the fuck was that?” he hissed toward Jake, who stood frozen in front of the jewelry box he’d been clearing out.
Jake shrugged and Bodie motioned for him to go downstairs and see what it was. His partner nodded slowly and unslung his rifle. He slowly started walking down the stairs and right as the top of his head disappeared below the landing there were several loud bangs as someone walked heavily up the stairs.
Jake’s head reappeared as he rushed up the stairs and crouched beside Bodie. “What the fuck is going on, man?” he wailed. “I’m really freaked out right now!”
The heavy thudding stopped instantly and then began again as someone began running up the stairs toward them.
Bodie didn’t know what was happening, but it wasn’t a zombie coming up those stairs, they couldn’t climb. It must be someone from his crew or another group of thieves, but whoever it was didn’t care about making any noise. He sighted down the sights on his rifle toward the stairwell and caught his breath when someone turned the corner and rushed the last few steps toward them. Bodie wasn’t sure of what he saw in front of him and hesitated to fire. It wasn’t nearly as slow as a zombie should be and it had just climbed the stairs toward them. Even though he was certain it wasn’t one of his crew, his mind told him that there was no way that the thing in front of him was a zombie.
He hesitated because he wasn’t entirely certain what he was looking at in the strange IR light. It was shaped like a large man, so he called out softly to him, “Hey, what are you doing? We’re not done in here yet.”
That was the last thing Bodie Clifford said as the creature covered the distance between the stairwell and the two men in seconds. He backpedaled quickly and fired his rifle, but the rounds went wide of the thing that came after him. Bodie tripped over the rotten carpet and Jake watched in horror as the creature fell on top of his friend and then wretched involuntarily as it twisted Bodie’s head from his body. Blood fountained upward toward the ceiling and then his corpse slumped sideways onto the carpet.
What are you doing here? You’re not allowed here! a voice exploded in Jake’s mind. You will die because you came into my city. The creature turned toward the second thief and he squealed in horror at the abomination before him.
Jake dropped his rifle and tried to sprint past the terror that had just killed his friend, but it snagged his radiation suit and pulled him backward toward its chest. It wrapped both arms around him and squeezed hard enough that several of his ribs snapped like brittle twigs. The thief cried out in pain and his arms flailed wildly as the creature picked him up over its head and then slammed his back against its knee. His lower vertebrae sliced through his spinal cord, instantly paralyzing him below the waist.
The thing let his ruined body fall to the floor and it watched him claw pathetically at the carpet to get away. You enter our places and kill the followers, the voice boomed in his head once more. You have rekindled the fire that faded. After a few moments, the creature reached down and grabbed his arm. Jake screamed in pain again when it jerked his shoulder out of socket and dragged him across the floor toward the stairwell.
Through the haze of pain and injuries, Jake felt his body lift up over the railing and then he was falling, falling, falling until he slammed onto the ground floor. His body started to go into shock, but before he passed out, he felt the fingers tear at his abdomen as the first of the zombies who’d waited for their master’s gift fell upon him. He passed out before he saw both of his useless legs twisted and torn from his body.
The nearer zombies clawed and bit into the thief while those further back gnashed their teeth in anticipation. They tore Jake’s body apart, creating an unrecognizable lump of severed flesh. After the thief finally died, they stopped taking out their hatred and frustration on him. Soon he would be one of them.
*****
26 February, 2134 hrs local
Inner Harbor
Baltimore, Maryland
It looked over the railing at the bloody mass of quivering flesh below. The humans who’d come into the creature’s city had temporarily satisfied its followers’ bloodlust but they would need more soon. It wondered why the humans were beginning to come into the city again. Were they trying to take it back from the Chosen?
A thought sparked in its mind; maybe it shouldn’t have killed them. The last time that the humans came into the city, the Chosen were unprepared for them and many of the followers were wasted in foolish piecemeal attacks. There must be a way to learn how the humans acted and what they would do when the followers confronted them.
The leader wanted to leave the city, but most of the others were unsure since they considered the city safe. The creature saw the crippled human’s corpse change and become a follower three stories below where it stood thinking about the future and how it could leave the prison that had kept it locked away for so long.
*****
01 March, 0945 hrs local
FBI Forward Field Headquarters
Quantico, Virginia
Asher walked up to the guard shack and showed his US Government retiree ID card. The guard, Winston, tried to turn him away until Asher convinced him to check for his name on the access roster. Sure enough, Allyson Harper had lived up to her word and gotten him access to the building for the meeting.
The Forward Field Headquarters was a large FBI-owned building located adjacent to Marine Corps Base Quantico. The Bureau became homeless when the nuke destroyed the J. Edgar Hoover Building in DC until they built the campus beside Quantico. Then after the government relocated to Denver, the headquarters moved west, but they retained the location for their East Coast offices.
Winston escorted him through the security station and made him wait on a couch in view of the guard station until Allyson finally met him. Her professional attire somehow also managed to accentuate her feminine curves, surprising Asher. When she’d discussed the upcoming mission with him at his house last week, she was dressed in warm winter clothing that covered up most of her form. Today she wore an ivory silk blouse with black edging, black dress pants and low one-inch heels. She’d pulled her auburn hair back into a tight bun, fully exposing her neck and jawline. Displayed prominently around her collar was her badge and Asher was certain that he’d never met a woman as striking as the officer in front of him. Too bad, she already doesn’t like me.
“Erm… Ah… Hello, Allyson,” he stammered.
“Hi, Asher! I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, but you know the deal with security measures in secure sites.”
“Oh, it’s no problem at all. I was just enjoying the scenery in the building.”
She looked at him funny then looked around the bleak security holding area. “Yeah sorry, there’s not much here,” she agreed. She’d obviously missed his attempt at flirting and thought he was being facetious. “Are you ready to get started?”
“Yes ma’am. I’m ready to meet my team and begin training for our insertion.” Shit, ‘insertion’ is the wrong word to use around this woman, he chided himself.
Again, she was oblivious to the internal struggle that waged in Asher’s mind. “Ok, follow me, we’ll walk and talk,” she stated with a slight wave of her hand. He fell into step beside her and she continued, “For our meeting today we’ve got the Deputy Director of the Bureau, two consultants who are the closest thing to zombie experts that we have and several other analysts from across the Bureau.
“You said that you already knew Hank Dawson,” she continued as they stepped onto the escalator that took them to the second level. “Have you heard of Grayson Donnelly, the citizen who led the defense of Indianapolis against the zombies there?”
“I saw the movie, so the name sounds familiar,” he replied.
“Okay, well there are a lot of things that Hollywood took liberties with. We’ll brief you when you get inside, but Grayson is just a normal guy who did extraordinary things to save a few hundred people from his neighborhood. I’m sure he’ll tell you, but know up front that the zombies don’t actually crack open skulls to eat the brains. They attack and kill however they can, which usually also involves biting, and that’s where the director went with the age-old Hollywood zombie flick.
“Don’t get me wrong, the story is mostly accurate,” she continued, “but we need to practice expectation management about what we thought we knew about these creatures and what’s reality.”
“Alright, I’ll be a sponge and try to soak up all the information that I can from both of them,” he replied.
They stopped outside the meeting room and she said, “Good. We need you to be on your A game. Let’s go.”
When they walked in, Asher immediately noticed Hank sitting at the far end of the room facing the door. He looked up from his conversation with another man who looked to be in his early forties and had some scarring on his face. That must be Donnelly since the other three people in the room were all wearing suits.
Allyson sat at the head of the table and indicated a seat to her left for Asher, who considered it briefly but then walked to the end of the table and sat beside Hank. “Hey buddy, how ya doin’?” he whispered to his friend.
“I’m good, man. Real good,” Hank replied. “This is Grayson Donnelly, the Type Two expert.”
Asher reached across the table and shook Grayson’s hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said. Then he glanced sidelong at Hank and asked, “What’s a Type Two?”
“Fuck. You’re that in the dark? Do you even know what you’ve agreed to?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna help these fuckers fight off some zombies while they rescue the Constitution. Seems cut and dry.”
“Type Twos are the type of zombies that we had in Indianapolis,” Grayson stated. “We—”
“Gentlemen,” Allyson cut him off, “I hear you starting to talk about Type Twos. If you would, please just brief us all so we don’t miss anything. I believe we all know each other except for Mr. Asher Hawke, whom I brought in with me. He’ll be the security team lead when we infiltrate the city.”
She indicated the three people in suits seated to her right and said, “Mr. Hawke, this is Alistair Reston, the Deputy Director of the FBI. Next to him is our senior DelMarVa region analyst James Zypriot and finally, Keith Eubanks is the chief of our artifacts recovery team. He’ll be going inside The Wall with us.”
“Us?” Asher asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, us. I’ll be on the ground as the overall lead. Do you have a problem with that, Mr. Hawke?”
“No, Miss Harper. I just thought I was going in with a trained HRT team.”
“You will be, but you’ll also have the artifacts recovery team and me on site.”
She waited a moment for further protests before beginning with her prepared notes, “Now, let’s discuss the Type Ones from DC first and then we’ll talk about the Type Twos from Indianapolis. After that, we’ll discuss the issues with the terrain and then specifically about the artifacts that we’ve been tasked with recovering.
“Everyone in the room has been authorized by the Director of Homeland Security to receive the information about this mission and the creatures that inhabit The Wall. Mr. Dawson, if you wouldn’t mind introducing yourself and then telling us what you know about the Type Ones, it would be greatly appreciated. Gentlemen, please hold all questions until the end of the briefing.”
Hank shifted in his chair to address everyone, “Hi, I’m Hank Dawson, retired Army Delta. I was the team leader for Delta 378 and my team was the first response unit at the Pentagon. We continued to perform hunter-killer missions later during the prolonged zombie war, specifically searching for, and targeting, the Type Ones.
“The initial outbreak at the Pentagon was caused by a self-replicating virus/bacteria hybrid named Alexandria-Collins, or A-Coll for short. Virus and bacterium hybrids don’t occur naturally in nature, but they can be created in a lab. When the now-defunct terrorist organization called the Brotherhood of Niyyat unleashed this super-virus in the building, everyone was killed.”
He paused and indicated Asher, “Mr. Hawke here was the team leader who wiped those fucking pieces of shit off the face of the earth.”
“Wait, your file didn’t say anything about your involvement with the zombie threat,” Allyson stated.
“You probably didn’t ask the right question,” Asher answered. “When dealing with the Agency, you have to ask specific questions. Yes, I was there and we eliminated the terrorist threat, but I’ve never seen a zombie before.”
Allyson leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. She harrumphed and indicated that Hank should continue.
Hank Dawson nodded and carried on where he’d left off, “Our scientists hypothesize that A-Coll mutated somehow and became the zombie plague. Those initial casualties, the Pentagon employees, changed into some type of super freak zombie that was different than the others. First off is appearance. Their skin is pale and waxy and it looks like it’s separated from the muscle underneath, like when a person loses a lot of weight rapidly. There’s all this excess skin, except it’s everywhere on these things.
“The biggest difference, though, is the Type Ones can think and learn—that’s the classified part. The public knows there were two types because of the movie, but they don’t know the truth about the difference between them. My team was the initial response force at the Pentagon and the freaks attacked us almost hourly, in waves. Each attack was a little different, a little more advanced each time, like they regrouped each time. They died by the thousands, but they also learned how we fought and what did and didn’t work against a defensive military formation.
