Zompoc Survivor: Inferno (26 page)

For a few seconds everything was still and dark around me. Then figures started shambling into the empty space between the Humvee and the Prophet’s people. More surrounded the truck, and I saw the Necromancer limp into the light in front of me, his suit hanging from his mangled body in shreds. The circle of undead widened, and the Necromancer sucked the flesh off of another one of his zombies, leaving black marks across his exposed skin as it repaired itself. The zombie fell into a pile of bones and purple goo, and the Necromancer offered me a grim smile. Slowly, he lifted a hand and gestured to me.

I got out of the truck, and stepped into the light. He laughed his creepy laugh and smiled at me as he clapped slowly. Behind us, I heard the Prophets people calling out to each other in confusion. The undead were just standing there, not trying to eat anyone. I was still a little creeped out about that. Then I heard the first shots ring out. I circled around so that the Necromancer was between me and the Guest House.

“Well, Survivor,” he said. “You played your part even better than I had hoped. What an entrance. I couldn’t have choreographed it better!”

“Neither could I,” I said. “But this isn’t part of your plan.” I took a step forward and swung at his head. He stepped back, and all I sliced through was air.

“But it is, Survivor. It’s time to kill you now, where and when it will do the most good.”

“You had your chance at me,” I said. “Twice. You couldn’t pull it off then, you can’t pull it off now.” To my left I could see the New Eden thugs fighting the zombies, but around us it was eerily quiet. I brought the Deuce in a backhand slice and caught him across the chest.

“You were just another soldier then,” the Necromancer said as he looked down at the shallow cut. “I could kill a million like you, and you humans would still carve a better world for yourselves out of all…this,” he said as he waved his hand back toward the glowing sky to the east. The cut on his chest slowly sealed itself back up. “A soldier’s job is to fight and die by the thousands. No one flinches at that. But it isn’t soldiers who build cities or have babies. That is the work of the masses, the normal people. Plain old good folk, I think you’d call them. In their thousands, they’re the ones who really create civilization.” I reversed the blade and tried a feint and slash, but he danced back out of the way.

“Then why the whole elaborate plan?” I asked as I came back into a guard stance, feet shoulder width apart, blade in front of me and my weight balance at my midline. “I’m nothing special.”

“No, Survivor, you
are
special now,” he said with a confident smile as he took a step backward that took him just out of my reach. “I’ve made you into a hero for these people. A hero’s job is quite simply to survive where no one else can and give people hope. And when a hero dies, he doesn’t die alone.” His smile became a grim expression, and he tilted his head expectantly.

“Hope dies with him,” I said quietly. “You planned to kill me where everyone would see.” His smile got broader, showing gray teeth.

“All I had to do was home in on the other one while you were away. Now, not only does everyone else see you die, your precious little girl will too.” Without thinking about it, I turned to look at the Guest House. Too many things were coming together in my head, half formed thoughts connecting as what he told me sunk in. He was aiming for where he felt ‘the other one,’ he’d mentioned Amy, and he’d come here...Amy had to be the other one, the other one like me. And she was here, right in the line of fire, which was
not
where she was supposed to be. If she survived, I was going to kill her. I gave Willie a thumbs up and turned back to face him. His smile faltered as lanterns went out on the roof of the Guest House behind him. I had to think fast, and I said the first thing that came out of my mouth.

“How are you able to home in on me? What the hell am I?”

“Your kind has had a lot of names through the ages. Nephilim, deva, grigori, dhampir. Whatever your masters decided to call you, you’ve been lapdogs to sheep, killing their monsters for them when you could have been lions. But now you serve my purpose. You’re going to die tonight, and they are going to watch their hope die with you.”

“There’s a problem with your plan,” I said. I brought the sword back behind me, where my body blocked his view of it. “This was a diversion. There’s no one here except a few soldiers…and they’re leaving.” He turned and looked over his shoulder, then turned back to me. His face contorted into a rictus of rage that made my knees a little weak, and he let out a scream of pure hate at me.

I’d read the Evil Overlord’s list, and I knew when to take advantage of a good diversion. And while a primal scream might not have been as cliché (or therapeutic) as cackling manically, it was the best moment of distraction I was going to get. I bolted for the Humvee as the chief dead guy leaped at me. His jump took him into the wall of zombies around us, and I put a foot on the front bumper to get myself the rest of the way to the hood. Two steps took me across the hood and to the roof of the cab. Without knowing why, I dropped to one knee and saw the Necromancer fly over my head from behind to fall into the horde at the rear of the vehicle. While he was busy untangling himself from the bodies he’d landed in, I yanked the hatch open and dropped down inside, thankful now for the same bad habit that had gotten me more than one ass-chewing in Iraq. I pulled the hatch closed behind me, this time remembering to latch it from the inside as I slid into the driver’s seat and tossed the blade onto the seat beside me. The diesel engine rumbled to life when I hit the start button, and I put it in reverse. From habit, I turned in the seat and looked over my shoulder through the narrow rectangle of the rear window as I gunned the engine. The headlights on the New Eden trucks backlit them, giving me a good target. The frame shuddered as I hit bodies, and I hoped the Necromancer was one of them.

A loud, rhythmic thumping across the roof sent chills down my back and made me grab for the .45 in my vest’s holster and eye the hatch. To my surprise, the threat didn’t come from there. Instead, the Necromancer dropped down in front of me and slammed his fist against the windshield. The thick glass cracked under the impact, and I got to see a close up view of his fist deforming under the force of his own punch. He looked at his fist for a moment, then at me through the glass, and I let go of the pistol’s butt to flip him off. As I mouthed a sentiment to match the gesture, his head jerked to one side. When he turned back to look at me, his right eye was dripping down his cheek. He drew back in surprise, blinking rapidly, his face contorted in what might pass as irritation mixed with confusion. His head jerked to the right again, then once more a couple of seconds later, and I saw brain matter splatter in a thin line against the windshield. I looked left and saw a narrow lance of flame erupt from the top of the Guest House. When I looked back to the Necromancer, he had raised his left hand to his ear. When he brought it back to where it was visible to his good eye, it was covered in grayish ooze laced in black that glistened in the stark light. Three tiny holes peppered the side of his face, one just below the temple, another an inch higher, and the third a little higher and on the edge of his hair line. The fourth shot had to have nailed him in the ear. I felt a sudden surge of pride in seeing the little .22 caliber holes in such a tight grouping. In broad daylight Amy could practically drive nails at fifty yards. She was the only person I knew of who would be either stupid or brave enough to shoot at an Alpha Zombie with a .22 in the dark in the middle of a fight. When I gunned the engine, he fell against the windshield, then he tumbled off the hood when I slammed on the brakes.

I didn’t bother to look at him as I slammed the truck into reverse and turned the Humvee’s back end toward the garage doors on the cinder block building. Amy was still in the building. I had to get her out. I didn’t bother with the niceties of opening doors, The garage doors buckled under the armored vehicle’s momentum, and the driver’s side mirror was sheared off as I cut it a little too close on that side. The top hatch resisted, then scraped open as I muscled a panel of the garage door off of it.

“Amy, come on!” I yelled as I came up with the M39 in hand. Zombies started moving toward me, and I drew down on them. As soon as I had a head in my sights I pulled the trigger, then went to the next one, emptying the magazine as fast as I dared. Infected fell with about every other shot, until the locked back on an empty chamber. I hit the mag release and let the box fall through the hatch and into the Humvee’s interior as I pulled a fresh mag from my vest. Almost as soon as I had the fresh load in, I chambered a round and put the sights on another zombie face. Bang. Dead zombie. I swept left and started working my way right, closing my right eye long enough to put the crosshairs on a zombie nose, pull the trigger, then opened it again and find another target. Recoil, and another dead zombie, then open the right eye, find another target. I heard feet on the back of the Humvee, then the crack of Amy’s Ruger above my head.

“Wait until I reload!” I yelled after I dropped one of the infected. I pulled the trigger five more times and heard the click of the firing pin hitting air. “Reloading! Fire!” I yelled, grabbing another mag from the vest. The empty bounced off the roof, but I couldn’t waste a second to grab it. I slammed the fresh mag home and chambered a round as Amy’s Ruger popped again and again. It went silent, and I raised my rifle.

“Call it out when you reload!” I reminded her before I pulled the trigger.

“Sorry! Reloading!” she said. I swept the gun across the slowly approaching crowd and thinned them out a little before I got to the end of my magazine.

“Reloading!” I called out. “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” The infected had stopped moving toward us. As one they turned their heads to their left, looking south. I leaned forward to see what they were looking at and saw more headlights approaching. Then tracer rounds sliced through the air and started tearing through the infected. The Prophet’s men started cheering as a pair of Strykers drove up on either side of their line.

With the dead and the Disciples facing each other, I took advantage of the distraction to look over my shoulder at Amy. She wore a pair of blue jeans and had found a pair of hiking boots to wear under her greaves and knee armor. The pistol I’d given her from the hospital was strapped to her right leg, and I swore her vest and upper body armor seemed to fit her better. She’d added a black half-helmet to her gear that bore a bright red nylon Mohawk down the middle. Whatever I had been about to say was lost in the laugh that escaped my lips.

“What’s so funny?” she demanded, suddenly looking a little fiercer in the dim light. When she turned toward me, I could see the hilt of her new sword sticking up over her right shoulder, and the gray cache tube was laying on the roof beside her.

“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “Get in the car, I’m pissed at you.” I dropped down into the driver’s seat and let her toss the cache tube in the back before she followed me. This time I made sure the hatch was secured. When I looked back out the windshield, I could see more zombies marching through the hail of machinegun fire, mostly unaffected by the bullets that were ripping through them. I grabbed the mic and pressed the transmit key.

“Willie, are you guys almost ready?” I said. Moments later, I heard the click and short static burst of another mic being keyed.

“We’re almost there. Stomper One is headed your way to give you a little breathing room.”

“Negative, negative!” I said. “We’re just about clear here.” Even as I said it, I saw movement further up the road. “Oh, shit…” I breathed softly as the flickering red light backlit a group of hulking figures that were slowly making their way down the ramp from the Twelfth St. Bridge. In the poor light I couldn’t tell how many there were, but even one was too many. As I watched them stomp down the bridge, the Necromancer stepped into view behind his slowly advancing horde. With the big, tumor zombies behind him and waves of the normal ones in front, he was all but untouchable for the moment. There were enough infected around him and under his control that even the armored Humvee was vulnerable.

“Are those zombies like the one we killed at the hospital?” Amy asked. I nodded. Then the Stryker slammed into the Necromancer like something out of an old cartoon. With its lights out, no one had seen it coming, and in the din of gunfire and screams of dying men, the lead zombie hadn’t heard it either. The tires rolled over him and crushed his body like a bug. Then the big armored vehicle did the worst thing it could possibly do: it stopped with the Necromancer pinned beneath it. The remote weapons mount on the Stryker turned and opened fire, throwing .50 caliber rounds at the opposing Strykers. Kaplan seemed to be aiming for their weapons, and he was a better shot. Sparks flew from the mount on the one closest to us first, then the enemy gun went silent. The M2 swiveled as the other Stryker gunner got the same idea a split second too late to save his own gun. More sparks flew, and then smoke started to spew from the weapons mount as Kaplan hit one of the smoke grenades.

“Stomper One, Dave, get the hell out of there!” Willie’s voice came over the radio. “Hall’s telling his people to pull back to a safe distance. Get out!”

“Will, shut your radio down and go! Kaplan, get Stomper One on the bus! Do not reply. I say again, do not reply!” Once the Stryker started backing up, I put the Humvee in gear and stomped on the gas pedal. Metal screeched as I took part of the garage door with me, and I felt the steering wheel pull as it tore free of the building. Then I was turning left and heading for the intersection. The only thing that I could think of that would make Hall suddenly give a damn about his people when he had a mad on was a bigger threat. And there was only one thing that was more terrifying than a ton of zombies. A Hellfire missile.