Rick pulled Teems aside. “Get the kids and anybody else who wants to go into the silo, make sure Chris and Anna are down there, and then lock yourselves in. Shut the top hatch but leave the bottom door open so you can hear us call for you. Don’t let anybody in if you can’t figure out who they are.”
“Rick, I’m staying up here to fight the rotters off, I can…”
“You can help Dallas, and keep your son safe. There’s no time to discuss this, and don’t let Dallas give you any shit, either, get him down there.”
The Abrams tank fired up its diesel engine with a growl. Sixteen people stood on either side of the tank ready for whatever came through when it opened, and the Bradley and the LAV had the back hatches open to receive these folks should something go awry. Three of Teems’ T-poles were in use on each side of the tank, with three gunners and two men wielding harpoons per side as well. The rest of the depot community was either on the roof or in the silo.
It had taken almost ten minutes to maneuver the vehicles out of the way so the Abrams could move into position in front of the garage door, and Bourne inwardly cursed himself for being so stupid as to not foresee of the problem beforehand. In the time that it took to move the other vehicles, the mass of dead had reached the depot and were smashing their fists on the concrete walls. A minimal force had traversed to the far side of the building, and the snipers above culled as many as possible before someone figured that more dead were coming to that side because of the shots.
“Open it!” someone yelled, and the door began to rise. Several undead knees were revealed as the door slowly ascended, and several of the more impatient zombies dropped down to crawl under and into the facility.
The men with the poles went to work and held as many creatures as they could at bay while the ones behind hurried to spear them. The door moved painfully slowly as the men and women fought off the onslaught. Calvin was one of the spearmen, and six inches of his pointed pole was protruding from the back of the skull of an undead housewife wearing a brown-stained apron with
Kiss the Cook
on it, when two zombies broke the front line and one grabbed him. A shot rang out as he frantically pulled on his harpoon, the dead weight of the re-killed woman dragging it away from him. One of the breachers dropped, but the one who had grabbed his shirt sleeve lunged and snapped at his arm. He let go of the spear and used his hands to fight the thing off. He punched it in the face as the tank rumbled forward, the door already closing.
The commotion at the door had attracted many more undead, the snipers on the roof trying to deal with as many as they could. The fifty caliber was firing steady too now that the horde was closer and bunched together. The massive shells blew the encroaching host limb from limb, scattering bits and pieces of undead flesh, bone, and organs on the dirt.
As soon as the tank was out the door, the gap was filled by more zombies, but the giant metal door was mostly down. A surge pushed the defenders back as the roll-down gate reached head height, and the young woman manning the push-button door control screamed for the defenders to drive the creatures back or the door wouldn’t close all the way. The door would get stuck on the bodies.
The door continued to close, cutting the enemy down to sixteen inside and dozens outside. The snipers could see that several of the exterior creatures had turned to chase the rumbling Abrams. The undead who had breached the depot began to spread out, and the defenders fought for their lives. Two creatures grabbed a young man from the bus and fell on him, biting and clawing. He became hysterical as he fought them off, and received help when a harpoon pierced the skull of the skinny girl who was trying to bite his stomach. The other thing, a dead orderly by the looks of his stained blue scrubs, was held at bay by the young man as he pulled the thing’s hair with one hand and held its face away with the other. Someone shot it and it went limp, the man pitching it off to the side.
With the T-poles, the harpoons, and the guns, the battle lasted less than a minute. There were twenty nine re-killed creatures, and the defenders looked around and started cheering, but trailed off as the young woman with the door control started yelling that the door wasn’t all the way down. There was a ten-inch gap where the metal frame couldn’t reach the ground. Several undead lay in its path blocking the closure. Three had been destroyed, but two were still moving, one with its legs moving feebly on the inside of the door, the other trapped at the waist and pushing up with its hands, hopelessly trying to free itself.
Calvin grabbed a harpoon off the floor and strode to the pinned zombie, who immediately smashed its face on the ground when it reached both arms at Calvin and snarled. “Stupid fucker,” he said and stabbed the weapon into its head. The defenders used the T-poles to shove the rest of the things that were caught under the door back outside as best they could. Apparently, the word was out though, and many of the creatures had dropped to their hands and knees and were trying to get through the gap.
As a creature would get its head under the door, the defenders would stick it with a spear, and someone else would shove it back out. Soon there was a small wall of lifeless people on the outside of the door, and it was able to be closed all the way. A second cheer went up.
Doc was looking at the man from the bus, who had deep red furrows on his right forearm and cheek from the things that had pinned him. It didn’t look too bad, but the doctor wanted him isolated and watched just the same. The doc stood up and looked around, wiping his brow, and noticed Calvin. Calvin was staring at his hand as everyone else was congratulating each other on the victory, with hearty claps on the back and high fives.
Calvin looked up as the doctor approached, his eyes glazed. “It must have happened when I punched the one that grabbed me.” Doc took his friend’s hand and examined it. There was a small gash on the knuckle above the ring finger. Calvin looked at the doctor knowingly. “Shit. After all this, I kill myself.”
Doc swallowed. “Now, we don’t even know how you got this for sure. We’ll clean it out and watch you, but don’t assume that it’s fatal just yet.”
The biker nodded, but the look on his friend’s face spoke volumes.
The tank used its treads to do the job outside, and it ground the wretched former humans into pulp as it ran them over. The problem was that there were so many of them that it was difficult to get them all, and the procedure took the better part of the day. The snipers had stopped firing to conserve ammunition, as had the large machine gun. Bourne was in constant contact with Barry in the tank giving him orders and locations of pockets of stragglers via the radio and his rooftop vantage point. When all was said and done, better than eight hundred undead had been pulverized, shot, bludgeoned, or harpooned.
Bourne came down off the roof five hours after the first dead person showed up, to see three people on stretchers. He knew the names of two of them, Private Hobbs and a biker named Calvin, but the third man was unknown to him. All three looked to be in bad shape. Hobbs was vomiting, and the unknown man was unconscious, and in the process of being secured to his gurney with restraints by the resident doctor. A single blood-red tear ran from the man’s eye. Calvin was coherent, with a damp cloth on his forehead. Several people, including the big man Teems, Seyfert, and Rick were talking with Calvin.
“Bullshit,” joked Teems, “you’ll be fine, ya dumb hick. It isn’t a bite.”
“I punched him in the face and his tooth cut my hand. What’s the difference, a bite or a cut by a tooth? I’m screwed, and it would probably be easier on me if you all just quit bullshitting me about it.”
Bourne furrowed his brow as he approached the group. “What happened?”
Private Hobbs wiped his mouth with a rag and tried to sit up. “Sir, when—”
“Lay back down, soldier, you can tell me from there.”
“Thank you, sir. When we opened the garage door to let the Abrams out, there were more than we anticipated outside. Several got in, and we had no choice but to go hand to hand. Sir, the folks here are good people and damn good fighters.”
“Agreed, son. Why are you sick, were you bitten?”
“Negative, sir. That guy,” he indicated the unconscious man, “had two of the Fallen on him, and I dragged one off and shot it. There was some spray and it hit me in the face.” He looked away. “I must have become infected because of the shit that got on me.”
“We don’t know you’re infected, it could be anything.”
“Due respect, sir, but
I
know. I can feel it.”
“Me too,” Calvin said from the other gurney. “I can’t tell if it’s something extra or if I’m missing something, but I can feel it just the same.”
The doctor gave a sharp intake of breath and backed quickly away from the man who had been unconscious. The man was feebly struggling to sit up, and was emitting a low, guttural growl.
Doc wiped his brow with his sleeve and shook his head. “He was alive five minutes ago.”
The private vomited again and closed his eyes muttering. He was obviously scared. Calvin was angry. “Dammit. I didn’t want to go like this. Not like this. Puking and feeling like shit until I try to get up and eat my friends.” The private began to sob quietly on the bed next to him.
“Calvin, you are too damn pretty to die. You’ll be fine.”
The biker mechanic sat up so fast the cool cloth on his forehead went flying. “Knock it off, asshole! I’m fucking dead already!” he spat venomously. “If you keep…” Calvin caught himself and immediately looked horrified. “Sorry Teems, I’m… I’m just mad. It’s so… so
unfair
,” he lay back down. “Doc, best tie me down too. I honestly wanted to jump off the table and kill my best friend for a second there, and that ain’t me, I don’t get mad.”
“Do it, Doc,” Teems said in a heartrending voice. “Calvin is right, he never gets pissed.”
Rick spoke up. “What do we do with him?” He pointed at the young zombie strapped to the stretcher.
Doc reached down to a gleaming stainless steel table and picked up a small instrument. He put on a face shield, grabbed the dead man’s hair and yanked his head to the side. The surgical drill entered through the ear and the dead man’s struggles ceased. “We bury him.”
25
Private Hobbs died at 20:44 hours on as near as anyone could tell, a Sunday night. The colonel sat with him next to his gurney until he lost consciousness, then he called the doctor. By the time the doc got there two minutes later, Hobbs was snapping through his restraints at his commanding officer. The doctor’s drill did its job again.
Calvin’s left eye had started turning crimson at 18:00 hrs according to Boone’s watch, almost three hours before Hobbs died. The biker began to babble about his mother and a dog named Lug Nuts soon after that. He lost consciousness at 18:40. He never puked once.
He didn’t die either. At 20:51, as they were unstrapping Hobbs from his steel slab, Calvin started screaming. He thrashed against his bonds, and Teems came running.
“Calvin, are you…” Teems backed up slowly.
The mechanic did everything he could to break the leather straps holding him in place. He thrashed so violently he tore the skin on his arms under the straps. He slammed the back of his head against a now blood-stained pillow repeatedly in frustration. It was clear he wanted to kill something, and his friend was the closest to him. One of his teeth cracked and fell out as he snapped his jaws closed.
“I’m sorry, Teems,” the colonel said. “He was a good man. Irreplaceable as well.”
“You don’t know the half of it. This is gonna be real hard on Danny, and the rest of the Steadys.”
The doctor came over with his drill yet again, but stopped short, “This man isn’t dead. Look at his chest, he’s still breathing.”
“He’s a runner then,” Rick said. “We’ve seen some before. They’re feral, and will attack anyone they get close to. They’re infected, but not dead.”
“We’ve seen them before,” Teems said.
The colonel nodded. “As have we. The good side is that they can be killed like any normal human, then they get up again. The bad is that they are very fast and resistant to pain.”
Teems brightened. “But if he ain’t dead, doesn’t that mean he can take this cure and be okay?”
Rick shook his head. “I don’t know. My ex-wife told me that anyone that was already infected was incurable, but that was before we knew about the runners. The cure, if it works, can only prevent people from getting back up. You’ll still die if bitten, but once you die you stay dead.”
“I’ll take that, it’s better than the alternative,” said Bourne.
“Yeah but what if it does work? I can’t just kill Calvin knowing that he could have been saved.”
“I’m sorry, Teems, but we don’t even know if the cure works at all, let alone on a runner. Besides, we’re fifteen hundred miles away. How would you contain him for as long as it will take to get the cure back here, assuming we survive the trip and get it in the first place? The country is crawling with zombies.”
“Don’t forget the Triumvirate,” the colonel added, “Although now they’re probably calling themselves something else. They’re going to be searching for me, and no doubt Brooks knows about a secret mission from San Francisco to Boston by now, so he’ll be searching for you as well.”
“Gentlemen, this doesn’t solve our immediate problem,” said the doctor. “What do we do with Calvin?”
“Can you sedate him?”
Doc rummaged through what looked like a tackle box and came out with a syringe and a small bottle of clear liquid. He injected the now shrieking Calvin in the forearm with the stuff, and the infected man calmed down almost immediately, although he still lazily snapped at the doctor while he was close.
Ed was standing behind the group. “What did you give him?”
“Valium,” answered the doc. “Actually, it’s a concoction of valium and morphine I mixed together. I could have used Thorazine, although I don’t know why they would have that at this facility. The Thorazine would drop an elephant. Normally, I wouldn’t mix an opiate with—”
Teems pointed. “Jesus, look at him, he looks almost normal.”
Calvin had indeed calmed down, and his blood red gaze was locked on to Teems, who took a tentative step toward his friend. He stooped to pick up Calvin’s tooth and the doctor yelled at him, “Don’t touch it! It has infected fluids all over it.” Doc used a surgical glove to pick up the tooth and he discarded it in a plastic bag. “Therein lies the problem, my friend. If we keep him here, eventually he will infect someone else, regardless of how he’s isolated or how careful we are around him. Not to mention he might not eat. I’ve seen the runners attack people and tear into them, but they don’t eat the people like the rotters do. Besides, if he does eat, who would feed him? You can’t get close enough without him trying to kill you.”
Calvin’s hands were clenching and unclenching into fists, and his eyes began to leak what appeared to be blood. His breathing started to speed up, and he turned his gaze from Teems to the others nearby.
“How much of that shit did you pump into him, Doc?” demanded Ed.
“Enough that he should barely be conscious, and extremely happy besides.”
The restrained biker started moving more quickly on his stainless steel bench, and he began to emit a low growl as he looked back into Teems’ eyes. His lip curled into a snarl and he clenched his teeth.
Doc looked at his syringe, and then at the small vial he had used. “That should have put him in a near coma. I… I don’t understand.”
“The dead are walking, Doc,” Rick said. “The rules have changed.”
“Now what do we do?” Teems asked, his eyes locked with Calvin’s.
Bourne stepped up. “Considering this infection is strong enough to oust whatever medication you gave him in less than five minutes, I think the answer is clear.”
“What answer? What’s clear?”
“I’m sorry, Teems, but you need to put him down?”
“You mean kill him? Put him down like a…a sick dog?”
“If you need to think of it that way, please do.” Teems started to argue, but the colonel raised his hand. “Consider the alternative, he bites or scratches someone, and then your enclave here is infected from within. Let me ask you this: Would he want that? If it were you, would you?”
Teems looked down, defeated. “No. No I wouldn’t.”