DUSK 2
“Holy shit!” Chambers shouted. He’d expected resistance, but he hadn’t
expected the fuckers to be able to take out the helicopter before any of his
men could shoot.
A second explosion made him
jump. The chopper hadn’t yet smashed into
the pavement when the rear transport took an RPG hit to the rear axel. The rear end of the trailer lifted off of the
ground and slammed back down with a thud that was audible from the front of the
convoy. The undead backed away from the
rear of the disabled while swarming the front.
The men inside fired frantically.
That many ghouls would be able to tip the trailer over if they all
pushed on one side, but their main concern had to be a second attack. Without mobility, they’d be easy prey.
Before Chambers could radio in the
order to regroup and extract the men from the downed transport, the second
attack came. A number of cars of various
makes and models sped towards the center of the formation, gunners already
firing.
The rebels weren’t this organized or
brazen. They were cautious about losing
their own. Chambers had been sure the
attack would come inside of the rubble walls surrounding the tower. The location was an obvious ambush, and he’d
been trying to find a way around it when the attack happened.
God,
he though. Lou had been right to not
take this assignment. If the rebels had become
this aggressive, they were likely to sack the compound next. Then he thought of Wassen, who he’d requested
as a pilot. He thought he’d earn his
friend an easy medal. Now he was dead,
probably burned so horribly that not even the undead would want him.
The approaching force fired on
anyone who approached the downed transport, while the stranded soldiers had
shifted their fire from the undead to the ravenous living. They descended on the trailer, attacking with
a ferocity and disregard for their own safety that Chambers had never seen. Some fired at the men inside. They weren’t aiming to kill, but to provide
cover for a team with flaming bottles.
The undead scattered from the
blazing trailer. Some of the zombies
were enveloped with flames, themselves.
The burning dead forgot all about their hunger and limped around erratically,
waving their arms. Too bad their jumbled
memories of their lives didn’t include stop, drop, and roll.
Panicked, several of the men inside
of the trailer opened the doors and scrambled out. The lucky ones were picked off by enemy fire
or grabbed by the undead. The remaining
few were savaged by clubs, blades, and even bare hands. Men’s arms and legs were cut off while the
soldiers were just left there to die.
Others were disemboweled. One
soldier screamed and tossed himself into the fire to escape the onslaught.
He’d never known the rebels to
commit such atrocities. They’d ambushed
supply convoys and plotted political assassinations, but they never committed
acts of such wonton destruction. Then he
noticed the uniforms. Most of the men
dressed in black, while a handful wore red.
A bell rang in his head as he remembered the refugees’ story.
The
cultists.
As his convoy took more fire,
Chambers ordered them to retreat. Unable
to head back to the compound, the only place left was right into Turnbull’s
ambush. At the moment, he didn’t see a
better option. The entrance was a chokepoint
he could use to skim the enemy numbers and with the second force, the men in
the tower might give Chambers some cover.
“And for the love of God, protect
the transports!” he added to the transmission.
Stomping on the gas pedal, Chambers
led his men in a hurried charge towards the compound. Two sports cars sped up towards the transport
behind his jeep. With a quarter of his
men already dead, he couldn’t afford any more losses so soon. Chambers cut the wheel and spun the jeep
around. Without being ordered, the
gunmen beside him and in the back took aim and fired.
The bullets shattered the windshield
of one of the cars, but the driver survived.
The second car’s headlights and front, left tire exploded. The driver lost control and slammed into the
wreckage of what used to be a post office.
Survivors scurried from the crash, shooting at the advancing mob. With the crowd of ghouls that thick, Chambers
knew how the skirmish would end.
When he turned his attention back to
the other sports car, he noticed the vehicle was upside down and twenty yards
behind the transport. A truck stopped
beside the wreck to pick up the survivors.
*
The glorious battle raged as the
holy army destroyed the heathens. Reed
could feel the messiah with him and wondered why he’d ever doubted. The sinners would be crushed. He sat in the side of the lead jeep, with
As the heathens’ lead jeep took down
two of Reed’s cavalry, he lined one of the gunners in his sights and opened
fire, blasting the soldier in the shoulder.
The driver spun around a corner, trying to lose the holy crusaders
behind a collapsed building, but Reed followed.
The driver was skilled in the art of
evasion, dodging Reed’s gunfire and maneuvering around buildings while not
losing sight of his convoy. Though the
heathens numbered half the holy army, they would be worthy adversaries. He hoped that the pain of their deaths would
purify them enough to enter the gates of Heaven.
The jeep skidded around another
building.
Instead of risking a further attack
against the entire beast, Reed ordered
*
After spotting the missile, Sal
calculated where the shot had come from and kept an eye in that direction. Not long after, two jeeps parked near the
opening in the ring of wreckage.
Apparently they planned to take down a few more vehicles with rockets in
a suicide attack.
“Why are we risking our necks for
this?” Burt asked.
“Because if we’re getting out of
this alive, we might have to give your man a little help,” Sal answered. “Besides, they have a rocket launcher. We could use that.”
“How do you expect us to take
them? There are eight of them!”
Positioned behind the ambush, Sal
had noted that all of the men were ready to fire… in one direction. The spot they had chosen was void of the
undead, so the troops felt safe. They
weren’t expecting a stealthy attack from behind. If they timed it right, they might be able to
take out half of the soldiers before they could turn around to fire. Sal wasn’t sure if he trusted Burt, but he
had to do something.
Readying the semiautomatic rifle for
its faster firing rate and farther range, he crept behind the soldiers until he
was confident about his aim. Sal fired
the first shot, catching the first soldier in the head as he lit a
cigarette. The blast splattered teeth,
blood, and brains all over the soldier next to him, who was Sal’s next
target. Before he fired at the confused
soldier, another one hit the ground, flapping his arms. Apparently, Burt got the idea. The two attackers squeezed off three more
shots each, catching one cultist in the shoulder and chest and another in the
leg.
The surviving cultists scattered,
firing at Sal and Burt’s positions as they ran.
Both men ducked behind whatever cover they could find. Burt was able to catch another cultist in the
shoulder before he could get behind his jeep.
“Keep covering me!” Sal shouted and
Burt kept shooting.
Sal reached into his backpack and
grabbed a surprise. He’d made sure to
pack a couple of Molotovs just in case. As
the cultists ducked behind the jeep, Sal lit the fuse and tossed it behind
their position. The three remaining
cultists ran away from the flames and into the open, leaving their wounded
comrade behind. Again, they fired at Sal
and Burt without taking aim. Sal spotted
another one drop as he raised his rifle to fire.
Suddenly, the two men tumbled
over. Judging by the exit splatter,
neither he nor Burt had taken them down.
When Sal looked over to Burt, he saw
his partner on the ground. What was left
of his head was splattered against the wall behind him.
The two other soldiers in Sal’s
group appeared from behind a building.
They greeted him, then shook their heads at Burt’s body. Since they’d ditched their own jeep, they
moved as much ammunition into the second of the cultists’ jeeps as they could
and drove around the wall of debris. The
two approaching convoys couldn’t be far behind.
*
Helen’s jaw dropped as she saw the
vehicles firing at each other. She’d
jumped when she’d heard the first few explosions, but she hadn’t been able to
see the commotion. A couple of minutes
after the gunfire started, she saw cars of various models dart behind rows of
buildings and pretty soon they were at the wall.
The smaller force, who Helen
presumed were Olmstead’s men, maintained their lead as they made a desperate
rush for walls. If they could have
gained enough of a lead, Olmstead’s forces might have been able to stage an
effective offensive. However, the
cultists nipped at their heels.
As the first of the vehicles made it
inside, Helen spotted a figure standing on top of the debris. Black, as if enveloped in pure shadow, it
looked right at her. As a chill ran
through her spine, Helen resisted the urge to take a shot and aimed back
towards the battling convoys.
You’ll
regret what you did to me.
Helen took a deep breath. If they were going to survive, they were
going to have to pound the cultists first.
Their appearance could be an advantage if the forces on the ground could
batter each other enough for the forces in the tower to overpower them. They just had to keep Olmstead’s troops from
being obliterated before they could put up a fight.
After the transports made it inside,
several cars pursued them, firing shots and tossing fire bombs. Several gunmen returned fire from inside of
the transports. A few of the cars
crashed as the tires or drivers were hit.
One of the transports turned on its side and slid towards the building,
halting maybe fifty yards away.
Soldiers immediately scrambled out
of the side as the cultists moved in for the kill. Helen picked off black robes as fast as she
could. No matter what the original
attacking force was planning to do, nobody deserved the kind of retribution the
divine warriors delivered.
As the second attacker fell from
Helen’s rifle fire, they ran for cover, allowing the soldiers in the transport
a chance to escape. For the moment, none
of them fired at the tower.
*
“Shit, man, shit!” Vince shouted.
“Come on, keep running!” Fox
shouted.
When their transport toppled over,
they were lucky not to be the first out.
That son of a bitch had died, blocking their exit. They’d had to push him out of the way in
order to get out. Luckily, the rebels
gave them cover fire. Now they were
running from something more savage and freighting than the undead. They’d seen what this new enemy had done to
the poor sons of bitches in the first transport they took down. Maybe it had been Fox’s imagination, but he
could have sworn he heard the men screaming over the gunshots and ghoulish groans. With the blasts echoing through the cabin of
the transport, it was a miracle Fox had been able to hear anything else.
With still ringing ears, the two
young soldiers dashed for cover, dodging decomposing hands and praying they
weren’t hit by gunfire. Fox had looked
over his shoulder in time to see a station wagon hone in on three soldiers fleeing
in another direction. He refused to look
back after that.
“They want revenge!” Vince shouted
as the undead grew thicker around them.
Dodging them became increasingly
harder and Fox found himself having to club several corpses aside with the butt
of his rifle.
“For what?” Fox shouted back.
“Baseball season!”
Fox shook his head. Either Vince still had his sense of humor or
he was starting to snap.
“Look Vince, we’re saved!” Fox shouted.
The pile of wreckage that surrounded
the battlefield was not far off. All
they had to do was reach it and climb.
If they weren’t shot on the way up or pulled off, they were home free
until the battle was over. As long as
their attackers didn’t win.
There were no undead at the wall, so
when Fox reached it he chanced a look back.
He wished he hadn’t. Vince was
gone. The mob of walking dead had thickened
behind him to the point where Fox couldn’t see through them. His friend had tripped or been snatched and
now he was screaming under a pile of them as they tore at his flesh. Only Fox couldn’t see or hear him. There was nothing he could do.
Fox threw himself at the wall and
frantically clawed his way up.
*
The last transport stopped. Maybe its engine block had been blasted. Chambers didn’t know and the information
didn’t matter. What mattered was making
sure the men inside weren’t killed as quickly as the men in the other two. He spun the steering wheel, trying to get
between the attacking forces and his men in the transport. Never mind that there were four carloads of
men attacking. If Chambers couldn’t keep
his men from being slaughtered, he’d be facing worse odds.
With his front seat gunner dead
beside him, Chambers was down to two gunmen in the back. Without time to dump the body, one of the men
in the back had put a bullet in the dead man’s head so he couldn’t reanimate
and attack Chambers as he drove.
When they swung by the disabled
transport, the men inside were already laying down cover fire. Bullets also rained down from the tower,
striking the attackers. Some of them strayed
towards Chambers and his men, but their hatred seemed to be on the sidelines. He assumed that if the attackers’ numbers
were cut down enough, the gunfire would turn on Chambers’ force. He couldn’t think about that right now. The moment was all that mattered.
Staying out of the transport’s line
of fire, Chambers swung behind the vehicle and emerged from the other
side. His gunmen opened fire on a
Corvette. The sports car was already
having trouble navigating through the wreckage and made an easy target.
When two jeeps zeroed in on him,
Chambers pushed his jeep as hard as it would go, hugging the tower, hoping
snipers would take on the threat behind him.
They seemed to be firing everywhere else.
Another jeep rounded the corner in
front of Chambers as he approached. With
a split second remaining before a crash, Chambers threw his hands up in front
of his face and screamed. The impact
shattered every window in the jeep.
Amazingly nobody inside had been hurt.
Their luck changed when the men
inside of the other jeep sprang out with their weapons drawn. The gunmen behind Chambers were ready, but
outnumbered. As they were gunned down,
they took down two men in black uniforms.
Two men in red outfits with red capes remained. One of them bored into Chambers’ eyes with a
Cyclopes stare.
“Let the purity of pain purge your
soul. You shall die a good death,” the
one eyed man said.
Both attackers were armed with
rifles and swords; the kind he’d seen in ninja movies as a kid. They’d discarded their rifles for a more
intimate weapon. Chambers drew his sidearm
and opened fire.
The cardinal with two good eyes
dropped, but the Cyclopes strafed to the side.
Before Chambers could adjust his aim, a sword twisted in his
shoulder. Suddenly, the image of Grant
Sobkzak flashed in his mind. He saw his
former commanding officer plummet into the hands of a thousand ghouls.
Chambers was jealous.
*
As soon as the chopper went down,
Turnbull knew that he would be needed on the lower floors. From their position, they would be able to
shoot at the street, but they’d be useless at fending off close up and inside
attackers. Without the threat of an
aerial assault, there was no reason for them to be up there.
He ordered his men to run down to
the third and fourth floors as quickly as they could and take firing positions
there. Turnbull took a position next to
“What’s the situation?” Turnbull
asked.
“Fucked,” Ted answered.
“Fucked indeed,” Jack said. “I’ve seen what these animals do. If they get to us, we’re going to wish
Olmstead had caught us.”
“I actually feel bad for the men in
those transports,” Ted said. “That one
down there looks like it can’t move.
I’ve been trying to keep them off of it, but they just keep coming.”
Two station wagons moved towards the
transport. One of them kept down a line
of fire while a man in the other lit a fuse attached to a bottle.
Suddenly, one of the station wagons
exploded. A smoke trail led to the wall,
but whoever had fired the shot was gone.
“Must be our men outside,” Turnbull
said.
The men ducked as bullets whizzed
into the room through the windows.
Wooden splinters rained down on them.
It was a good thing they’d gotten rid of any glass left in the windows.
*
“Glorious!” Ty Cooper exclaimed.
His transport had snuck in behind
the tower and his men would soon be able to get inside of the building. All they had to do was shoot down a few
snipers. The other transports were
gathering around the other sides of the building as the ground forces
diminished.
Milo Ortiz looked at Cooper,
expectantly awaiting a command.
There
are almost as many troops getting out of this transport as there are in the
building, a voice echoed in Cooper’s head.
He ordered his men to push the
snipers back, while a handful of the troops shot at any ghouls who wandered by.
After maybe thirty seconds of
gunfire, Cooper saw two shots hit their marks.
He grunted in triumph, though his losses were much heavier. Twenty men had climbed out of the transport,
but only ten remained. They climbed up a
fire escape to the second story. Ortiz
led the charge.
They must have triggered a trap when
they rushed through the window. The
explosion made Cooper flinch.
He was down to five men. Maybe Reed was doing better on the other
side.
*
Helen ducked as gunfire concentrated
on the building. When an explosion
rocked the walls, Helen assumed that one of the traps had been triggered.
“Take defensive positions!” Mr.
Lindsey shouted. “You and you, stay at
the windows.”
One of the “you’s” was Helen.
She continued firing at the men
outside. With more men concentrated
inward, she was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to repel the advancing troops
fast enough.
*
They had three rockets left and
still plenty of targets. One of the
soldiers Sal accompanied loaded the weapon for another strike. Their target of opportunity was a transport
truck that was headed straight for the tower.
Two trucks had already parked next to the building, with men engaging
the snipers inside. They didn’t dare
fire explosives at the vehicles next to the tower.
When the soldier fired, a glowing
projectile rocketed towards the truck.
Less than a second later, the back end of the transport exploded. There could have been more than twenty
cultists inside. Nobody jumped out of
the back.
The truck stopped and two men leapt
out of the cabin. One wore a black
uniform, the other in red, with a cape.
The soldier in black dashed towards an Oldsmobile; his finger jutting
right at Sal.
The red soldier fired into the crowd
of zombies that approached the burning transport. He could have run. There were no survivors in back, but the
soldier engaged the undead as if protecting someone very important. He didn’t move around to try and break up the
mob. Instead he stood still, taking
careful aim and firing.
When the ghouls were within grabbing
distance, the soldier tossed his rifle into the crowd and drew the sword. It was then that he danced around, making
himself harder to grab. He cut off
heads, arms, and legs where he could. He
fought with grace and skill Sal had only seen in the movies. Sal was glad he hadn’t been forced into close
quarters combat with the red soldier. He
made a point never to fight with his fists, and seldom in the open.
Despite the soldier’s skill, he
stumbled when a ghoul, crawling on the ground without legs, bit into his
ankle. A second later, the cultist
screamed as he was torn apart.
“You got that thing reloaded?” one
of the soldiers asked.
“Yeah,” the other one yelled back.
The Oldsmobile had joined a car that
Sal couldn’t recognize. They were
heading right for them.
He stared as another rocket sped
towards the two cars. The Oldsmobile
exploded and the mystery car jerked to the right. Sal opened fire, but he doubted any of his
bullets struck. The front tire popped
when the vehicle hit a loose pile of bricks.
The three troops kept firing as the car limped away.
Having momentarily escaped death,
the three men on the wall cheered. Their
short celebration ended when they saw a truckload of men breach the first and
second stories.
*
Fox watched as several of his
comrades tried to make it to the walls.
With fewer men remaining, the cultists concentrated on the tower, but
several cars hunted survivors on the ground.
If the freaks didn’t get them, the undead did.
One group of soldiers who might have
been younger than Fox ran towards his position.
There were five of them. He
wanted to provide cover for them, but didn’t want to give away his position. They were being chased by a single jeep. Gunmen fired on the fleeing troops, but they
didn’t seem to be trying to hit them.
No, the cultists barreled straight
for the fleeing troops. Three of them
dodged to the left, and one to the right.
The last one kept running straight.
The jeep ran him down and turned left towards the larger group of
survivors.
To Fox’s horror, the wounded soldier
was still alive. He tried to stand, but
couldn’t as hundreds of flesh eaters limped towards him. Fox wanted to shoot the injured man and save
him from being eaten alive, but the jeep was still around. There was a chance the shot would attract the
freaks.
Not a minute later, the undead were
on the screaming, paralyzed soldier.
Fox’s arms shook and he fought the urge to drop his rifle and howl.
He forced himself to look everywhere
else. The activity inside of the walls
had moved closer and closer to the tower.
Fox no longer saw any of his comrades on the ground; only their burning
cars and transports. The roving freaks
now concentrated their fire on the undead.
Men in trucks moved up the fire escapes towards the windows while other
men engaged the snipers from the streets.
Their entry had triggered a couple of explosions, but soon the attackers
became cautious and were able to circumvent the traps.
The freaks had and continued to
suffer heavy casualties, but they fought without regard for their own
wellbeing. Besides, they still must have
outnumbered the soldiers in the tower by at least two times.
For the time being, the rebels were
Fox’s only hope of surviving, but he wouldn’t have been sad if they lost the
struggle. They had arranged for these
freaks to find them. They had arranged
the slaughter below. Suicide was always
an option for himself, but if the rebels survived Fox would make them pay.
*
Move,
a voice rang in Helen’s head. Up.
It was different from the malicious
voice that tormented her. This one lacked
hatred and was full of concern. It was
strangely familiar, yet Helen couldn’t quite place it. She trusted it.
“Come on,” Helen shouted. “They’re already inside. We won’t be able to hold them here. If we join up with the forces on the third
floor, we can keep these fuckers off of our heels.”
She ran to the door and without
further argument, the other soldier followed.
They found a battle in the hallway.
George Lindsey was on his belly.
Several exit holes in his back had stained the yellow shirt. Another soldier was on the ground. He gritted his teeth as he clutched his leg.
She tapped the soldier who’d been
posted with her.
“Grab him. We’ll cover you.”
Without arguing, the soldier ran to
his wounded comrade and dragged him into a room where a rope ladder hung. Helen and the remaining soldiers fired at the
men in the hallway. None of their shots
connected, but they kept the cultists back as a hail of splinters assaulted
them.
Helen waved her arm, signaling the
men to move to the third floor.