Zombie Fallout 16 Read online

  “You’re not my mother!” one said and laughed, they tried to high five but missed terribly.

  “Can’t fix stupid.” Walde grabbed my shoulder and pulled me in. We were running for a staircase. We bolted down a couple of flights and rejoined the rest of the group in the bowels of the building.

  “Five…four…three…two…one,” Tommy counted down.

  23

  Canter

  “Stupid shits, driving straight toward the blast,” he said as he watched the truck rumble down the road. “Hope you enjoy the surprise.”

  He’d traveled another few miles before a worm of doubt insidiously worked its way through his cerebrum. “Why would they be driving toward the blast so quickly?” His pedaling faltered and he came to a stop, placing his feet on the ground. Suddenly, he wasn’t sure if he should continue on his present course or follow what he was pretty close to convinced were evacuees.

  “Fuck…” was the last word he uttered as every molecule of his being was violently torn apart and added to the destructive winds disintegrating everything in its path.

  24

  Mike Journal Entry 14

  Dust was knocked loose from the ceiling as the building shook, then the loud rumbling sound of a runaway locomotive barreled through. It was the quiet after that let us know how deafening it had been.

  “Is it safe?” Dallas whispered.

  “Should be,” Tommy spoke. I had no idea. Most of my early years had been under the shadow of the Cold War; we’d had it drilled into our heads that the world was constantly on the brink of nuclear war, and there would be no escape should the US and USSR embark upon a Mutually Assured Destruction rampage. I wasn’t about to change my mind now. Tommy was heading for the door.

  “You sure?” I asked.

  “We’re plenty far away, and the prevailing winds were in our favor.” I was hesitant to follow but went anyway.

  Dumbass one and two were now standing, slack-jawed, staring off in the direction of the blast.

  “Whoa…did you see that?” one of the men asked me as we came upon them. Dallas grabbed the rifles they’d left on the sidewalk. Walde removed a sidearm from one, and I got a knife from the other.

  “What do we do with them?” Walde asked.

  I didn’t know. I mean, obviously they were the enemy, and they’d been part of a plot to kill us, but it was over, for now. Did we want to start this new chapter of our lives carting around prisoners? “Good thing there’s still a major around. I’ll let Eastman figure it out.”

  “Dallas, can you see about getting us a ride?”

  An hour later, I was still receiving a browbeating from BT, who was ripped I’d gone on the mission without him, even after he thanked me profusely.

  I stayed in bed for nearly twelve hours. I didn’t sleep all that time; most of it was tossing and turning, and when blissful sleep finally blessed me with its dampening touch, my dreams were often littered with nightmares of the explosive variety. Made no fucking sense. Sleep was supposed to be a way to strip away the worries of the world, a resetting of the mind and body, not a constant reminder of what you’d just been through. That’s like the mind cantankerously double dipping you in excrement.

  When I finally decided to get up, I went to the mess tent. I was toying with something called “lasagna.” It was as close to its namesake as beans were to a cheeseburger.

  “Mind if I sit?” Major Eastman was looking down. I motioned to a seat with my fork.

  “Great job out there, Captain.”

  I felt like I grunted; I may have been silent.

  “The ship is going to be completely eradicated in the next two days and should be clean enough to board three days after.”

  “Okay.” I was looking at him; he didn’t come here to give me a personal update.

  “We’re securing more fuel for my plane.”

  “Okay.”

  He kept looking at me.

  “You want to just tell me what’s going on, Major?”

  “I’m going back to Etna. As long as Deneaux is in charge, we’ll never be safe.”

  I was thinking that maybe we should take a vote and remove “safe” from the English vocabulary as it was a word that no longer held meaning.

  “Major, I’m trying to decide if I’m going to eat this, do you want to let me know what this is about?”

  “I’m returning the favor.”

  That got my attention. “The bomb from the ship?”

  He nodded. “I’m going to drop it straight on her fucking head.”

  Part of me was jubilant to know that she would get everything she had coming to her. The other horrifying part was thinking about all those people still there that had nothing to do with any of this.

  “I can see it in your eyes. This has to be done.”

  If the food had held even the tiniest bit of appeal, that had been brushed away. My mind was scrambling for some sort of desperate evacuation. We’d need somewhere near fifty helicopters landing in a hot zone, picking up only those that weren’t actively trying to kill us, and to get away without getting blown up. No part of that was feasible. Deneaux had weapons at the camp that were more than capable of taking the birds down. No possible way to drive in; the million-zombie moat made sure of that. There was the drainage tunnel, but “longshot” didn’t even begin to convey the odds. How would it even be possible to tell people what was going on? Any sort of plan would take hours inside hostile territory to enact. And bringing them out that way was not even remotely guaranteed. Charlie had brought a military unit to get just Trip and myself out, and his people had been almost completely wiped out. If we had old, young, sick…well, that goes unsaid. And it was extremely likely Deneaux knew all about that particular hole in the wall and had it plugged up good and tight by now.

  “Are you planning on saying something?”

  “I want to be on the plane,” was all I could think to respond with.

  “We leave tomorrow. And Captain…it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

  The moment he left, I stood and tossed my food in the nearest trash bin. Somewhere there was a bottle with my name on it.

  25

  Etna

  Vivian was in her office with five of Etna’s highest-ranking military officials. The room was a thick cloud bank of smoke, yet she was the only one partaking. They were discussing the normal day-to-day operations and problems they were encountering.

  “We’re beginning to run low on food. Rations are down to one meal a day,” Colonel Langdon spoke. In normal times, if such a thing had ever existed, he would be considered an anomaly. Twenty-five-year old colonels are not something that one sees very often. His promotion from lieutenant had been fast-tracked with so many vacancies to fill, whether from desertion or firing squad. He was well aware that Deneaux was only looking for yes-people, and he was happy to oblige as long as that kept him alive.

  “Let them eat cake,” Deneaux’s voice more gravelly than usual. Her smile a bit more forced and all the more menacing for it.

  “That didn’t end well for the French aristocracy,” General Palmera intoned. Much like Langdon, his rise from captain had been meteoric.

  Deneaux waved the response away. “Any update on Talbot?” she asked. There were a few sidelong glances among the personnel in attendance. “If you have something to say, now might be the time to say it.”

  None did. The previous morning, they’d watched as one of their own was dragged out of the room by two of the guards stationed there and gutshot outside her window, so all could see. They’d continued with the meeting while the man had cried out for help, even as he bled out. By the time they’d wrapped up, he had passed. His only offense had been questioning Deneaux’s single-minded determination to kill one man while they had so many problems of their own to deal with.

  “I spoke with Captain Vienden an hour ago; there was still nothing to report,” Palmera said.

  “I don’t like it. He’s always around his family, unless he’s on a mis
sion, and the only target worth a damn is this one.”

  Palmera wanted to disagree. Etna was a lost cause; another week and they would be on the verge of starvation. Lack of food was contributing significantly to low morale. “Ma’am, I think now is the time we should discuss an evacuation. We have just enough fuel to get military personnel away.”

  “You don’t believe this a fight we can win?” she asked.

  Palmera swallowed hard; he could feel the ice he traversed beginning to shift.

  Deneaux sat back. “Do I need to find people more capable than yourself, General? I’m sure that won’t be a problem.” She stared him down until he looked away. “We will not abandon Etna. This place is mine.” She stood and slammed her hand against the table, sending cigarette ash across the surface. “I have worked entirely too hard to give it all away to mindless zombies! Now, I want you batch of geniuses to figure out a way to take care of that problem. Once that has been dealt with, everything else will fall into place. Now get out of here so I can smoke in peace.”

  “We haven’t finished with the agenda.” Captain Durling rifled through sheets of paper with the many topics they were supposed to go over.

  Deneaux stared at her until the woman got the message that they wouldn’t be covering anything else. “The next person to step into this office had better be coming in to tell me either Talbot is dead or that the zombies have magically disappeared. Now fuck off.” She turned her back to the group as they quietly filed out. “I thought they’d never leave.” Her eyes were fixated on the bloodstain where Major Stapleton had died. She knew that his questioning of her priorities shouldn’t have warranted that end, and she’d felt almost like an outside observer as she’d ordered her men to dispose of him. That night, she justified it to herself; it was something that needed to be done, a show of strength to keep the rest in line. But in the harsh light of dawn, she’d had a glimmer of the truth of it. She was losing it. Not her mind, that was as sharp as a tack, but rather, the base. Once she was assured that Talbot was dead, her contingency plan was to get into a helicopter and have it take her as far away from this place as possible. She would be saddened to lose Etna, but not nearly as much should she lose her head.

  She was two packs into her day when a nervous corporal showed up at her door. “Ma’am?” Amells knocked softly on the door frame. Deneaux could barely see him through the fog as she turned her seat around.

  “What is it?”

  “I have Sergeant Canter on the radio.”

  Deneaux followed him out to the comm room. “Go find something to color,” she told the corporal as she grabbed the radio.

  “Mrs. Deneaux this is Canter at…”

  “I know where you’re at, Sergeant, I’m the one that sent you there. Where’s Vienden?” She gripped the microphone tight as the sergeant told her all that had happened. He was still talking when she left to go back to her office to send the signal to the bomb to commence the countdown. “Escape this, Michael. I dare you,” she said as she pressed enter. A vivid display took up the majority of her console: 5:00. She rocked back in her chair, opened a drawer, pulled out an expensive bottle of brandy and poured herself a few fingers’ worth of the amber fluid. The hand not holding the drink and the cigarette dropped down into her lap. She traced lazy circles upon her sex as the clock ticked down. Her face grew flushed; she could not remember when she had been so excited. Her breathing became heavy and labored as the time rolled from a minute to fifty-nine seconds. Her head was thrown back, her legs spread open, her hand a vibrating blur as she rubbed harder. She could feel the waves of intense pleasure building up within her waiting to break over. She crushed the cigarette against the display as the throes began to overtake her.

  “Nggh.” Her eyes fluttered. “Oh…oh—” She was close to a world-shattering, mind-numbing orgasm. “OHHH….Talbot!” She shot up. “You. Mother. Fucker!” she screamed as she watched the time reset to nineteen minutes and nineteen seconds. Amells! Get your ass in here!” she shrieked.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He was at her door before the smoke stopped swirling from her words.

  “I need satellite imagery of the deserters’ camp…now,” she emphasized as he looked at his wristwatch.

  “It’s out of range for the next fourteen minutes.”

  She had a hand in her drawer, her finger upon the trigger of the very large caliber revolver pointing squarely at the corporal’s jewels. Killing him would not bring the satellite around any quicker, but oh how she wanted that release. “Let me know when it’s time.” She was dismissing him but never took her eyes from his crotch.

  “Um, should I go?”

  “I should think so, unless you wanted to have a blinking contest.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “What about having your balls blown off?”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Get the fuck out of here.” She released her hold on the pistol, easing the hammer back into the safer, two-stage position.

  Deneaux chain-smoked through four cigarettes as she stared out the window. “How many times could I have run him over with my car while he was out walking his dog? Worst I would have got was vehicular manslaughter, and a little old lady like me would have never seen time…might have lost my license…a small price to pay. The dog would have been an added bonus. Wonder how much trouble I would have got in once he was dealt with if I’d driven straight through the front door and took out the rest of the white-trash clan.” Her cheeks wrinkled into dozens of creases as the muscles stretched the skin in an unnatural way.

  “Two minutes to satellite acquisition, ma’am.” Amells was standing at the door.

  “Just enough time for another cigarette.” She watched as the timer counted down from eleven minutes. “I swear by all that is unholy, Michael, if you somehow slip this noose, I will make sure the entire West Coast slides into the sea.”

  Even for her, Deneaux smoked the cigarette fast; she thought about snuffing it out on the back of the corporal’s head as she entered his office, but instead, she dropped it to the floor and ground the cherry out.

  “I’m zeroing in on their encampment now,” Amells said as the satellite focused.

  “Damn you, Bennington.” Whatever the colonel had done, they’d not been able to get the resolution anywhere near to the ability the spy tech was capable of. “Can you find the bomb?”

  “I should be able to find the van the bomb was in…the crate itself, probably not.”

  As it was, the view was like looking down from a jetliner at five thousand feet. The lay of the land was exposed, as were larger objects, but honing in on anything bigger than a truck was impossible.

  “Got it.” Amells was on the multi-colored van.

  “Anything moving?” Deneaux was breathing down the corporal’s neck. The smell of stale smoke and bitter breath was causing his hackles to rise. “Is the bomb in the van?”

  Amells had no way of telling and had no idea of how to tell her that.

  “I see military trucks.” They were both looking at two troop transport vehicles.

  “Move.” She pushed him out of the seat, which he happily relinquished. “How’d he find them?”

  “Ma’am?” Amells asked.

  “Shut up.” She panned over to the traitors’ camp. “Something’s wrong. If they know there’s a bomb, I would expect mass evacuation. Nothing is happening.”

  “Could they have diffused it?” Amells asked.

  “Impossible!” she blurted out, but resetting the clock should have been impossible, too. She panned the camera around, looking for any signs of what was happening. “Go to my office, look at the screen, tell me what it says. And hurry.” She panned out, getting a much broader view of the surrounding area.

  “Less than a minute.” He came back breathlessly.

  “My office is twenty feet away; maybe you should exercise a little more.” Deneaux’s hand shook ever so slightly as she lit a cigarette. She was halfway through it when a bright white sun flared i
n the bottom left of the screen. “Son of a bitch!” She pushed the chair back and stood when she realized the detonation was too far away to do any damage to her intended target. “Toss Vienden’s daughter in the jail.”

  “Ma’am, she’s just a kid.”

  “I don’t care. She will pay for the sins of her father. He did this. He somehow warned them and now all of my planning is for naught! Why are you still standing there?! Would you rather I assign you to her execution detail?”

  “No, ma’am.” Amells quickly left.

  She could hardly believe it had happened this way. For the first time in her adult life, she was nervous. She had played her best hand, and Michael had somehow trumped her; there was no chance he wasn’t going to call in the marker. He had to. She’d proven to him over and over just how dangerous she was and now he knew beyond a doubt that there was no line she wouldn’t cross in her quest for victory. She’d kill her herself, if the roles were reversed. And perhaps Michael thought he held the higher moral ground, but he was not above getting his hands dirty; she’d always respected him that. Once again, she was left wondering why she felt the constant need to cross swords with the man.

  She walked back into her office, confused as to what she should do next. “Well? What now? It’ll take time for them to mount an offensive, but that will be something they will most certainly do.”

  26

  Mike Journal Entry 15

  “I heard you were going with Eastman.” BT sat down across from me.

  “You know, every time I try to sit down and eat this slop, I get interrupted.” I turned my spoon over. Whatever the food was, stuck fast. I shook it a couple of times until it plopped onto the table.

  “I have an idea, but I wanted to run it by you before you go and talk to Eastman.”