The North: A Zombie Novel Read online

  Mel threw Sid a venomously look. “Fuck you, Sid.”

  He shook his head and chuckled to himself, muttering the words “split arses.”

  Dawson took a threatening step forward until she was less than an inch from Sid’s face. “What the fuck did you say?”

  He took a drag on his cigarette and deliberately blew a mouthful of smoke in Dawson’s face. I saw her clench both hands into tight fists and if I didn’t step in there was going to be a dust up that could tear the team apart.

  “Enough of this shit!” I snarled as I stepped between the pair. I gave Sid a hard shove that didn’t even move him from where he stood. It was as if his feet were encased in cement. “We’re on the same side so get it together.”

  “Asshole prick,” Dawson spat.

  “Kate!” Cruze snapped. “Raise your voice again and we’ll be swarming with creeps. If Green was still here this little outburst wouldn’t have happened.”

  “Yeah, well he’s not here,” Sid griped.

  I needed to say something so there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind as to who was in charge. And surprisingly, I didn’t flinch. I didn’t feel like I was going to throw up. I didn’t do anything more than look at my kid sister whose eyes narrowed sharply. She threw me a single nod, as if she was telepathically giving me a vote of confidence.

  I drew in a deep breath and growled, “Everybody down on one knee now!”

  The team complied with my command. Instantly. Even Sid.

  I shut the radio off and let everyone kneel in silence for a few moments. I wanted them to hear the sound of the monsters shuffling around our position. I wanted them to breath in the scent of death and decomposition. To suck the poisonous air of a city ruled by the dead into their lungs.

  I pulled Sgt. Green’s letter out of my pants pocket and read aloud in a voice that was little more than a whisper. And I didn’t give anyone a chance to say a word about it when I’d finished.

  “Dawson you’re my 2IC,” I said firmly. “Sid and Doug are with us – and Jo, too. Cruze is taking the other carrier with Mel and Kenny. I want both machines packed with everything we need to survive. I want rations stripped down. Section level weapons. Mortars and H.E. I want the guns mounted in both turrets. Two toboggans lashed on the sides with full tent groups. Camouflage nets for winter and summer. Check the med kits … check fucking everything and then double check it. We’re getting the hell out of here, people. Unit-O-Group at the carriers – 18:00 tonight. I’ll be issuing orders.”

  Then I stood up and took Jo by the hand. Together we walked through the stairway and disappeared into the armory.

  I didn’t bother looking back.

  7

  I stared at the show of hands. The interior lights beamed with a dull red glow that cast shadows onto the thin armor plate walls behind their heads. I scanned everyone’s faces for any sign of dissent or disagreement and all I saw was the faces of a bunch teens that looked like they’d aged twenty years in the span of a few months.

  “Plan Z,” I said slowly, “Isn’t my plan. It’s Green’s. We’re going to put it into motion.”

  “It’s cool,” Doug grunted with a slight nod. “Listen, brother … you’ve got skin in the game. Jo believes in you and that’s good enough for me.”

  I threw Doug a firm nod.

  “You were closest to Sergeant Green before the creeps took him down,” said Dawson as she cleaned the barrel of her carbine with a push-rod. “I’m sorry about this morning. Won’t happen again.”

  “You didn’t start it,” I said as glanced over at Sid. “It won’t happen again, right, Sid?”

  He nodded and said nothing. That was good enough for me.

  “I want you to lead this thing, Dave,” said Cruze, her voice filled with resolve. “We’re going to break the fuck out of here and head for Sanctuary Base and we’re going tomorrow at first light. It’s decided.”

  “Jesus … tomorrow?” I nearly spit out the words. I hadn’t expected to go within hours.

  “It’ll be winter soon and tomorrow is as good a time as any,” said Mel Dixon. “We can’t collect snow and melt it for drinking water. The sky is poisoned – we’ve all seen the rain. It’s fucking oily – who the hell knows what’s in it by the time it hits the ground.”

  Sid snorted. “We’d probably freeze to death in this place too. We’ve got tents and plenty of naphtha, but that will eventually run out.”

  “You have my support, Dave,” Kenny Howard added. He ran a freckled hand through his shaggy mop of red hair and then pointed to the crew commander’s hatch behind him. “We’ve all decided and it’s unanimous. Green picked you. He knew you were always the guy with his nose inside Infantry Section and Platoon in Battle.”

  There it was – the unanimous vote of confidence I was hoping for. I could have thanked everyone. I could have tried to improvise some bullshit speech that was designed to motivate and inspire, but I knew they would see through it. And there was still a major decision to be made that couldn’t come as a directive from the team leader.

  “Sgt. Green said we should head to the mountains. If we’d have never heard that broadcast, we’d break out of here and push through to Lake Louise. But we know about Sanctuary Base. It’s a thousand miles from here and these carriers will get us maybe a third of the way if we’re lucky.”

  “We’re going to need a shit pile of luck,” said Cruze. “When we burn out the last of our fuel, we’re going to be on foot and hauling the toboggans – we’re not even sure of their specific location.”

  “But the closer we get the better the chances are that we can hail them on the radio,” said Doug as he took a sip of coffee from his plastic cup. “They must want people to join them otherwise they’d be on radio silence.”

  “There’s probably close to a million creeps in this city,” Dawson said with no shortage of gloom in her voice. “Once we’re clear there’s every reason to believe we might even find a better place than Sanctuary Base – you never know, right?”

  “Good point, Kate,” I said as I studied everyone’s faces. There wasn’t even the tiniest flicker of doubt among them.

  “This is an escape,” Sid Toomey interrupted. “This city is a prison. I don’t give a shit where we go, as long as we’re moving.”

  “Alright then, tomorrow at first light,” I said firmly. “Kenny and Doug – are these carriers going to fail us?”

  The pair looked at each other and then Kenny said, “They’re serviceable as far as we can tell. Once we’re on the road, who knows?”

  “This is like Noah’s Ark!” Jo chirped. “We’re gonna escape just like Noah and his family.”

  I gave her a big thumb’s up as my lips arched into a wide grin. “Then my carrier’s call sign will be Ark One. Cruze’s will be Ark Two.”

  “YES!” Jo shouted as if she’d won the lottery.

  “Alright … alright,” said Cruze. “Radio frequencies should be fifty one twenty for day travel, fifty one sixty for night time.”

  “Agreed,” I said as I pointed to the map on the floor of the carrier. “If you look at the map, you can see that we should be no further than 500 meters away from each other once we get out of the city.”

  Mel leaned forward and squinted as she focused on the map. “Yeah but we won’t have line of sight, so if we get in trouble we’re going to have a hell of a time making it over to you.”

  “Listen for the shooting,” Sid chuckled.

  “What happens if we run out of fuel before you guys?” asked Kenny. “I mean … we can’t expect you to come and get us … so we’re on our own then, right?”

  I shook my head. “We’re all we’ve got so nobody gets left behind. We’ll need to radio our fuel levels periodically during the day. We’ll also set firm rendezvous points before nightfall in case we get separated or so we can share whatever we scrounge up. If you come across a fuel tank on a farm or some equipment we can siphon from, then you need to radio a grid reference and we’ll RV before investi
gating. Nobody goes it alone … we clear? You don’t leave your APC without covering fire from the other section.”

  The group bobbed their heads in agreement as Kenny pulled out his water bottle and gulped back a mouthful. Mel leaned over and pointed to the map. “500 meters between two APC’s – man that’s a hell of a distance to cover if anyone gets in trouble.”

  I clenched my jaw and ran a finger along the route I’d traced on the map with a china marker. “And that’s why you hit the combat locks on the doors and stay hatches-down until we can get to you.”

  “Fair enough,” said Kenny. “But if the carrier is swarming with creeps I’d appreciate if someone would divert them away with their personal weapon and not the turret guns – the hulls on these carriers can’t stop ammunition bigger than 5.56 MM. The turret guns are way bigger than that.”

  I nodded. “No freaking doubt. The creeps are attracted to noise, light and movement – that much we know.”

  “Yeah, just like any predator,” Cruze said grimly. “Except these ones don’t exactly have critical thinking skills.”

  “Oh yeah … Kenny can totally relate to that,” Mel chortled, as she nudged the bony redhead in the ribs.

  Kenny stuck his index finger in his mouth and then drove it into Mel’s left ear. “You just say that because you’re secretly hiding the fact that you’re into me.”

  “Ugh … I’d rather make out with a walking corpse!”

  “Well take your pick, Mel … there’s a jillion of them just outside the main doors!” Kenny said with a snort.

  “Look, guys,” I said ominously. “The creeps are just one of the obstacles.”

  “What are you saying?” asked Dawson.

  I took a deep breath. “Think about Green’s warning. Other survivors are going to be out there – people like us, people with guns. We’re a unit and we need to stay that way. Now, between us we’ve got plenty of food and ammo, and it’s ours – got it? We lose any of that stuff to other survivors then it means less for us.”

  Kenny gave me a nudge. “Yeah, we’re a unit – we gotta guard our stuff and each other with our lives.”

  “And we might have to kill to protect it,” said Cruze in a cold voice. “We need to lay down some rules right freaking now so that when we’re on the move there’s no second-guessing – we don’t have that luxury.”

  Kate Dawson grunted. “I wish we weren’t heading north. Aren’t there warmer places to start over?”

  Doug raised a finger. “There were three hundred million people in the U.S. before Day Zero and millions more the further south you go. We only know about one city they nuked before the Internet crashed – for all we know three quarters of the country could be a radioactive wasteland. That means on top of the nuclear hot spots, there are probably three hundred million creeps that would love to make a meal out of you – simple math, Kate. Sanctuary Base said they were all clear – that must mean they’ve got a handle on creep control. Maybe the colder temperature slows the creeps so it makes sense that they’d freeze come winter. They’re just dead flesh walking and nothing more.”

  Doug’s matter-of-fact observations seemed to have hit the spot with everyone because nobody said anything for the next few minutes. We all just studied the map and if anyone was contemplating our chances for survival, they were keeping it to themselves. The team wanted to go at first light. They accepted my leadership and it was clear they were leaning toward Sanctuary Base. I just needed to confirm it.

  “Okay, listen up. Plan Z – do we head to the mountains? Raise your hands?”

  Nobody raised their hand. It was unanimous.

  “First light then,” said Cruze.

  “Wait … what about the main doors?” asked Kenny. “Whoever opens them is gonna get their ass chewed off by the creeps.”

  I shook my head and tossed a stick of C-4 to Kenny.

  “No they won’t,” I said menacingly. “We’ve got high explosives.”

  8

  “Mount up!” I shouted, as I waved my left arm overhead in a circular motion. The parade square was thick with the acrid stench of diesel and I coughed heavily as I raced to the main gate with Sid Toomey in tow. I could hear the loud clank of the hatches on the APC’s and I glanced over my shoulder to see the headlights blinking from both vehicles, confirming that everyone was accounted for and ready to go. We’d placed five shaped explosive charges on the door, designed to detonate outwards – we’d have sixty seconds from the time we pulled the ignitors until the charges would blow, one every ten seconds, so we’d have to haul ass back to the carrier.

  I blinked a few times and drew in a deep breath as I pulled the small sliding hatch on the main door to the right and peered outside to see what we were in for once the charges detonated. To my front no more than ten feet from the peep-hole was a small gaggle of creeps. The one closest was shirtless. The dull grey skin on his torso was pulled tight – like the skin itself was receding back into the creature’s skeleton. A massive gash stretched from its left shoulder down to its right nipple exposing the rotting layers of tissue beneath and I could make out its ribs through the wound.

  I was about to close the hatch door when the monster slowly looked up at the peep-hole. A thick, cloudy blue-grey film gave its eyes an unearthly appearance. It was like staring into the eyes of a statue; cold, empty and forever lifeless. The skin on its face was puffy and I noticed a thin stream of yellowish liquid dribbling out of a wound on its right cheek.

  Even through the thick wooden door, the foul stench of decomposition filled my nostrils, threatening to cause my breakfast to wind up being spewed across the door. The monster lurched forward followed by a small gang of rotting husks, so I place the barrel of my carbine into the viewing port and fired off three quick rounds that tore the top of the creep’s head clean off. It dropped like a wet sandbag.

  I closed the sliding hatch and then glanced back at my APC as I gave a thumbs-up – Doug Manybears, my driver, gave me one in return and pulled the driver’s hatch down over his head. The plan was that Doug would plow through what was left of the blasted doors as soon as I took my place in the crew commander’s hatch. Sid would climb into the turret and open up with the .50 caliber machine gun and the smaller GPMG. Both guns fired in tandem through an electronic solenoid, and the barrels were bore-sited to fire at whatever Doug saw through his visor-mounted scope.

  I slipped my left index finger into the pull ring on the first ignitor, and then glanced back at Sid.

  “You ready for this?”

  “Are you done daydreaming? I thought I lost you there for a minute.” he said, nervously, as he dropped to a kneeling position and cocked his rifle.

  “Yeah, I’m good. Here goes nothing,” I said, and pulled.

  My nostrils filled with the pungent smell of burning powder as the safety fuse hissed and spat flaming embers and melted plastic onto the floor. Quickly, I pulled the rings on the other four ignitors and ran like hell to the back of my carrier. Sid dove in after me and we pulled the doors shut, slipping the combat locks over the door handles. I crawled over the other three people in my carrier and grinned at Jo as I climbed into my crew commander’s hatch.

  “Cover your ears!” I shouted as I glanced at my watch. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one …”

  The vehicle pitched sharply as the first charge exploded, followed shortly by the other four. I peered through my periscope as I adjusted the microphone on my helmet, and saw a minivan-sized hole through a plume of smoke and burning wood. But that was nothing compared to what I saw next.

  It was like we’d opened a door into hell. No sooner had the smoke from the explosive charges cleared when a huge swarm of the monsters poured through the opening like water through a spillway. Sid opened up with a series of controlled bursts from the turret guns, and the inside of the carrier quickly filled up with the smell of cordite and burning gun oil.

  I grabbed the radio switch dangling from my helmet and pressed the push-to-ta
lk button.

  “Go! Go! Go!” I roared into the mouthpiece.

  I felt the vibrations of the engine revving up behind the engine panel beside me and then our APC lurched into gear. I grabbed hold of my periscope handle and pushed my face into the rubber-coated visor as the ten-thousand-pound armored fighting machine barreled through the door, smashing through the monsters like a wrecking ball. We bounced heavily as the eight twenty-two-inch tires bounded over rotting bodies and debris. My carrier was clear of the building.

  “Hard left!” I shouted, spotting a clearing between a pile-up of smashed cars. The carrier swung sharply and our bodies tilted to the right as Doug made the turn.

  My radio hissed and squawked in my ears. “Ark One, this is Ark Two – we’re clear of the building and right on your tail, over!”

  I pressed the push-to-talk button. “Ark One, roger. Keep a distance of twenty meters behind me. You’re weapons free in controlled bursts but only if we become surrounded. Stay within your prescribed arcs of fire left and right of my position. Over!”

  “Ark Two, roger that!” the radio hissed.

  Smashing out of the armory was the easy part. We still had to navigate through streets filled with monsters and the burned husks of automobiles as far as the eye could see. The carrier pushed on and I swung my periscope left and right to survey the war zone that had once been the very heart of the city. The office buildings stood like towering sentinels, lonely reminders of wealth and power from a time and place that was still fresh in our minds.

  The explosion was attracting the attention of hundreds of creatures, shambling menacingly through the twisted metal. Their mouths hung open, dripping gore and offal onto the pavement. They could surround our fighting vehicle ten deep for all I cared. We were safe inside and there was nothing they could do to get at us. The powerful engine would push us through the sea of creatures as easily as a plow pushes through the snow after a blizzard.