Apocalypsis Immortuos | Book 2 | Concurrence, page 34
part #2 of Apocalypsis Immortuos Series
Coming back to the present, he realized he had been crying. He sensed Sarah’s hand still on his back. People were looking at him with a mix of concern and sadness. He wiped his eyes and faced the group.
“There’s not much else to my story. I ran around looking for a place to hide. I ran into Breanne a few minutes later, and we made it to Mike and his team shortly after that.”
Unexpectedly, a smile came to Steve’s lips at that memory.
“She’s funny.” Steve said, clarifying, “Breanne. I guess I did not just run into her. I bowled her over. She swore up a storm as she picked herself up from the ground but settled down when she saw that I was crying. She said, ‘Kid! You hit me so hard that my ovaries clapped together!’... I don’t really know what that means but it sounded funny.”
Several people in his audience knew, as the comment elicited some laughter.
Steve smiled, responding to his audience. “I remember later that day, after we had arrived in that communications building. We were sitting around, sipping water. She looked at me and mentioned our collision.” He shook his head in amusement.
“She really wanted to get a reaction out of me. ‘OK, give me a moment,’ she said, and she was scratching her chin with the lid of a water bottle. ‘You hit me so hard, that my grandchildren will have bruises,’ she said.
“Before I could answer, she continued, ‘Ah, I can do better. Come on, Breanne!’ Then she finally came up with: ‘You hit me so hard that Chuck Norris sensed it.’”
That got an out-loud laugh by Nancy. “Oh, dear!” she said, embarrassed by her outburst. That got the rest of the group laughing.
Rosa stood when he was done. “Thank you, Steve, for sharing your story. And I know that it sounds cheesy, but you have fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters, right here.” She spread her hands around the room. “We’re happy that you’re here with us.”
She walked up to Steve and hugged him. Steve turned a bright shade of red at the embrace from the curvaceous woman.
“Damn!” Q said. “How do I get one of those?” He chuckled with a wink at Steve.
Chapter 51
John
All was quiet inside Car Two. The Humvee, driven by Mike, was en route to its destination: a breach in the wall.
They had not seen any movement on their drive so far. They had passed the point where they could break noise discipline and speed up a few minutes ago, and the vehicle was jetting down the road at a solid forty miles per hour.
John looked at the two soldiers in the front seats. Abi seemed much younger than her age. He figured that she was in her mid to late twenties, but that bubbly personality and youthful face made him second-guess himself, so he constantly had to remember there was a soldier and not a teenage girl manning the radio in front of him.
She sure handled Jack’s call with efficiency and professionalism.
Mike, in sharp contrast, probably looked older than he really was. His lined face was focused on the road ahead. He seemed capable of handling a vehicle, but he had already advertised that he was the worst shot out of all the radio operators.
This is your team, soldier. For better or worse. He sat back and checked his sidearm for the second time.
The Humvee continued along the road for another minute, until Mike said, “We’ve got movement up ahead, chief.”
John looked through the windshield and saw several shapes lumbering towards them from a couple of blocks away.
“Faster ones,” John stated, watching the fast-moving zombies home in on the sound of their approaching vehicle.
They weren’t necessarily running but moving at a jogger’s pace. Any resemblance to an actual jogger ended there, as their loping movement looked anything but normal.
“Can you drive around them? I’d like to get a little closer before we start shooting,” John suggested.
Mike sucked in his cheeks. “Yeah, I think so.” He glanced over at Abi. “Seatbelts on. Looks like we’re going sidewalk surfing.”
He stayed on the road until the very last second, keeping the approaching zombies straight in front of him. He narrowly missed the first one as he started to drift towards the side of the road. Thankfully, there were no vehicles parked there, giving him extra room to maneuver. He cut around the second zombie a bit too close, and the female shape lashed out and hit the back corner of the Humvee. John watched it overbalance and hit the pavement.
Half a block later and they were on the sidewalk. Five zombies chased them at a jog.
“We’ve got more up ahead, John.” Mike sounded less confident this time. One look over the soldier’s shoulder and John could see why. There were only a few more zombies on the road for the next block, but beyond that John could spot at least a dozen.
“Give me one more block, Mike,” John instructed. The Humvee lurched forward as Mike sped up. He clipped one of the zombies as he drove by, the large bang eliciting an involuntary yelp from Abi.
“Stay frosty now, guys.” John spoke with infinite calmness. “Abi, radio in. We are about three blocks from the breach and are engaging.”
Operating a radio was something Abi was comfortable with and good at, so she took on her task with vigor — any hints of her being flustered had disappeared as she transformed from the scared girl into the professional radio operator.
John prepared himself for action as Mike maneuvered the vehicle into position and Abi radioed in the report. He put on his ear protection and popped the hatch as soon as the Humvee came to a stop.
The belt was already fed into the automatic weapon from a drum, which was slotted right into the gun. He had a thousand rounds, ready to send downrange towards a target-rich environment.
Damn. I love this weapon! John released the safety.
He sighted and shot a burst of twenty or so bullets.
Come get some! He tried to suppress the thought, but the aspect of bullets flying, and the crackling sound of the weapon’s fire took over his every instinct.
After a second slightly longer burst, the road ahead was cleared. Well, sort of. John realized as he watched torn up bodies crawling along the ground. He felt a tug at his leg and looked down. Abi had somehow managed to wiggle through the gap in the front seats and was trying to get his attention. John lifted the earmuff off one ear and nodded at Abi.
“Don’t forget your six!” she called up to him.
John released the SAW and reached down for his M4, turning to face the rear as he did so.
The first zombie ran into the back of the vehicle with a smack. John left that one for the moment and looked up at the other half dozen jogging their way. John was methodical and precise as he picked off first one then another zombie with well-placed headshots.
Mike started rolling the vehicle forward to create some space between them and the remaining zombies. He came to a stop again half a block later, and John was able to take out several more zombies before he felt a familiar tug on his leg. He handed his M4 down to Abi and turned around, ready to deal destruction once more.
WHILE JOHN WAS ENGAGING zombies, BB had pulled up to a nasty surprise.
“What the fuck!” He looked at the horde of zombies heading their way. Breanne’s first reaction was to look at BB. His mouth was half open in disbelief, his eyes half closed as his entire pockmarked face grimaced in a look of extreme discomfort.
Breanne’s next reaction was to look out of the windshield.
This was extreme, all right.
A solid mass of zombies rushed towards them as they turned the last corner towards the gate. Looking beyond the crowd, they could see many more zombies traveling through the wide-open gate and towards their location.
At least a hundred, if not more, were already inside the community.
Several things happened at once then. Breanne reached for the radio receiver to report in as Bill pounded on Mike’s shoulder.
“Get me some space to shoot!” he yelled.
BB threw the vehicle into reverse and Breanne radioed in; her eyes glued on the approaching horde.
BACK AT THE REN ALL was quiet. Well, almost quiet. The people inside could just make out the staccato sounds of machine guns in the distance. Jack imagined that the people on the roof could hear the sounds of violence more clearly.
He kind of wished he were up there now. Partially to see what was going on. Partially to be near Nat.
She confuses me, he realized.
The radio squawked. Jack quickly picked up the handset.
“Ren, this is Car One, over.”
“Car One, this is Ren, I read you loud and clear. Go ahead, over.
“We should be coming up to the gate in the next minute or so. Over.”
“Understood. Keep us updated on your progress. Over.”
He waited in silence for several moments. Then the radio crackled again.
“There’s too many! Fuckin’ back up the tru—” The signal turned to static mid-sentence.
“Breanne? Breanne, come in, over.”
Jack and Ethan looked at each other in horror.
“Oh shit.” Jack wasn’t sure if it was he or Ethan who said that.
“Switch channels and let John know,” Ethan blurted. Jack nodded.
In his hurry, he forgot all about the radio protocol. “Jack to Abi. Abi come in. Over.”
“Jack, this is Abi, over.” She sounded concerned.
“Abi, we’ve lost contact with Breanne! Her last message was that there were too many zombies. I think maybe they crashed their vehicle or something. Over.”
There was a momentary pause before Abi replied. “Jack, John says that there is nothing we can do for them right now. We’re fully engaged ourselves. Tell the shooter teams over there to get ready for action. Over.”
Jack looked over his shoulder, exchanging a worried glance with Ethan. “Go tell them.” Ethan nodded and ran off.
“10-4, Abi. We will prepare. You be safe. Over.”
“OK, Jack. We will return to the Ren as soon as we can. Good luck to you and the others. Over and out.”
Jack tried Breanne’s frequency again but was met by static. He sighed as he placed the mike back in its holder.
All he could do was hope that things weren’t as bad as they sounded.
THE RINGING NOISE IN Breanne’s ears was overwhelming. That, along with the smoke that filled the cabin of the Humvee, caused her to be severely disoriented.
Breanne felt like she was sitting at an odd angle, too. Her head was resting on the side window. She felt a sharp pain and a wave of wetness washed down her cheek and neck when she moved her head away from the window.
Breanne heard a noise, much like a muffled moan. Then she felt hands on her. They grabbed her in inappropriate places. She moved her arm clumsily to bat the hands away.
“Get offff.” The badly slurred words barely made it past her lips.
“Breanne!” She clearly heard her name that time.
She looked over at the shape looming above her. Her vision spun and twisted, but she could make out BB’s sunken-cheeked long face in the middle of it all.
“BB?” she said weakly. He continued to yell, his hands all over her.
“Hey! Aren’t you going to buy me dinner first?” She wasn’t sure if she’d thought it or said it. It all sounded garbled. What she could hear was the unmistakable sounds of shooting, and as her vision settled, she could make out Bill’s shape just outside BB’s door. He was shooting furiously.
Finally, BB’s hands found what they were looking for. He reached behind him, and Breanne clearly saw the dangerous looking knife he raised above her. She had no time to scream or struggle as the knife plunged down, and she felt her body falling away.
THE BURSTS OF 5.56MM rounds were doing massive damage. John had grouped his shots and took down at least three zombies with every burst of ten shots or so. Abi could tell he had been resisting the urge of just pressing that trigger and blasting the shit out of everything in front of him.
Abi tugged his leg and he paused his shooting for a second.
“What’s up, baby doll?” he said with a confident wink.
This guy was seriously confident in a fight!
“How’s your ammo?”
He checked the ammo box. “Still over half full. Tell Mike to move up the street some more.” With that, he slipped the ear protection back on and started shooting again.
Mike had heard the command and slowly guided the vehicle forwards another twenty yards. The surface of the road was no longer smooth, as the vehicle drove over various body parts. It took all of Abi’s willpower to keep herself from shuddering.
All the targets behind them were down, if not out. Abi snuck a look through the side mirror, catching a weird angle of the world behind her. This time, she couldn’t prevent the shudder, as she saw several shapes worming their way towards them down the blood-slickened street.
Just then the regular staccato sound of the SAW was cut off by a loud clank. She turned around just in time to see John drop down into the cab of the Humvee.
“Damn, I’ve got a jam.” He started rooting around the floor at his seat. Abi couldn’t believe how calm the former soldier was. “Maybe back us up ten to twenty feet there, Mike,” he said as he dug around.
Mike complied, coming to a stop just as John found what he was looking for.
“Bingo!”
He held his prize aloft for Abi to see. It was a barrel.
John recognized the look of confusion on her face and quickly explained, “Quick release barrel.” The next second, he was back on his feet. Three seconds later, a sizzling barrel fell down from his weapon.
“Careful. She’s hot!” he called down.
Abi looked up anxiously as John swapped out the barrel and reattached the ammo drum. He pulled the charging handle and pushed it back into place after making sure no other objects were blocking the chamber. Within moments, the sound of the SAW firing dominated everything once again.
“There’s the hole!” Mike yelled over the noise.
Abi looked out and saw the gap in the wall. It looked like one section had collapsed under the combined weight of all those zombies. Some were still spilling through, but it looked to Abi like most of the crowd had already breached.
Most of that crowd lay in pieces on the roadway.
John shot off a few more bursts. The mob of zombies was definitely thinning now. He poked his head back into the cab. “Try to get an angle for me. I don’t want to damage that wall,” he yelled, forgetting that he was wearing his hearing protection.
Mike pulled the vehicle forward, bumping into several moving shapes as he maneuvered the Humvee onto the street that ran parallel to the wall. John did get trigger-happy then, delivering a steady stream of bullets into the last grouping of zombies. He held down the trigger for a solid ten second burst, sending over a hundred bullets towards the undead.
Abi could hear him yelling up there, even as she saw the terrible damage he was causing to his humanoid targets. She watched the bodies spin away, fountaining blood and viscera, and swallowed down the bile rising in her throat.
She heard John shout something as he released the trigger. Abi couldn’t make out what it was. In fact, she couldn’t tell if he was angry or happy. Both of those notions disturbed her, so she quickly pushed the thought aside.
Then the shooting stopped.
The silence was nearly as deafening as the loudness of the weapons’ fire a few moments before. John reached down for his M4 and popped back up through the hatch. He carefully took aim and started shooting the crawling undead.
The end was in sight. At least, Abi thought so. She crawled back to the front seat and sent a quick message to Jack, who was all too happy to hear from her. He told her that he had been attempting to contact Breanne, but to no avail. The news was alarming, to say the least.
But Abi and her team had their own problems to solve.
“How are we going to plug that hole?”
Mike gave voice to the question that was on her own mind. The gap in the wall was about eight feet wide, and Abi could think of no quick way to fix it. She scanned the space around the vehicle.
“Hey!” she pointed excitedly. “What about that?”
BREANNE MOVED ALONG in a daze. She could barely feel her feet touching the ground as she stumbled away. She knew she was moving, though, as she saw the ground slide by under her. It was going the wrong direction, but that didn’t faze her.
Her hearing was slowly getting better. In one ear anyway. She heard Bill’s voice calling out, and BB, who was somewhere close, reply. She couldn’t quite make out the words, though. It kind of sounded like she was underwater. Breanne was reminded of the teacher’s voice in the old Charlie Brown cartoons. “Moh Wohwohwoh. Hom womwon woh-who.” She snickered in amusement.
The sound of several gunshots nearby sent painful spikes into Breanne’s head and shattered her amusement.
Dammit, Bill! Don’t you know how loud that is?
She stopped running. Or at least the ground stopped moving. She felt herself lifted and plopped down on a cold, hard surface. She stared up, seeing blue sky to the left and the metal wall of a tall building to the right. She dropped her head to the side and watched BB climb onto whatever platform she was on. He moved off, affording her a view into...
A parking lot of some kind. Loading dock. I’m on a loading dock.
Then, movement. At the entrance to the lot. A figure. No, two. No. Four, ten, twenty!
Breanne lifted her arm and pointed. “Company’s coming.”
She heard Bill and BB moving on the other side of her. Their voices were raised in alarm. She heard a clanking sound and guessed they were trying to open the door. They grew more frantic in their efforts. Breanne could guess why; she had a first-row seat to their impending doom.
The nearest zombie was about twenty feet away. It was nearly naked, wearing only boxer shorts. Its skin was dark and wrinkled, like it was dried out or something.
Man jerky. Breanne laughed out loud as the thought came to her. Her laughter must have alerted her companions, and she saw Bill kneel at the edge of her vision.
