The Apocalypse War: The Undead World Novel 7 Page 5

  “You’re welcome,” he said as something thudded into the dirt behind her. When she turned she saw a grey body, lying on its back on the face of the hill. It had somehow come up from the high side of the hill.

  “Oh, thanks,” she said, breathlessly. She probably should have felt foolish over thinking the soldier was going to kill her; however, she was just too spent.

  “You’re welcome,” the soldier answered without casting a single eye at her; he had his cheek pressed against his assault rifle. When he fired, she lacked the strength to follow the line of the bullet. Assuming the sixty or so men were good shots, she let her legs collapse. She lay down on the hill, closed her eyes and rested until her muscles stopped their quivering and it was no longer a strain to suck in air.

  After some time, she rolled onto her side, propping her head in her hand, looking as though she were at the beach having a picnic. She watched as the men cut down the zombies with grim efficiency. They would fire, pause, fire and pause. As they had been going at it for some minutes, they would sometimes take short breaks, letting their weapons hang from their straps while they shook out their hands, or rolled their shoulders.

  “Don’t want to get stiff,” the soldier closest to her said.

  Before she could reply, a lieutenant yelled: “Gorman, stop your flirting and get down here.” The hill was carpeted in dead bodies and now the rest of the company was standing knee deep in the river, forming a single line stretching from one end to the other.

  “I wasn’t flirting,” Gorman groused. “I just didn’t think it was right to leave her up there all alone like that.” There wasn’t much justification in this statement. Zombies, being drawn to the closest or easiest to get at prey, were no longer fighting to get up the hill. They were going after the soldiers in the water.

  “You weren’t protecting the girl,” another soldier joked. “You were just trying to keep your nuts from turning to ice cubes.”

  It was only after that comment that Sadie remember the water was practically at freezing temperature. “Poor guys,” she said, under her breath. They were stoic about the cold and no one complained, but their lips began to turn pale and their hands shook, making their aim an uncertain thing.

  Guessing that Captain Grey would be sending reinforcements soon, Sadie went upstream to where the hill wasn’t nearly as steep. She kicked at the floor of the forest until she had a patch of barren dirt. She then gathered twigs and leaves, arranged them into what resembled a foot-tall teepee, and lit the leaves at the base with the lighter she’d been carrying around for weeks.

  When Captain Grey arrived with his remaining two platoons, he gave the fire a quizzical look and she explained: “The water is icy. They’ll need to warm up.”

  “Right,” he said. “Good thinking.” Terse as always, he didn’t add anything or ask about how she was doing or wonder how she had managed to stall an army of ten thousand zombies, single handedly. He had his dark eyes downstream where his men were firing into the horde, killing dozens with every volley, turning the water an ugly dark maroon. There were nauseating chunks of flesh floating as well; the river was fast becoming a foul, running soup.

  Thankfully, it was, for the most part, flowing downhill, away from the men. For the most part, but not entirely.

  The soldiers were firing with such efficiency that the zombie corpses were falling in heaps and mounds that gradually rose up out of the water, damming the river in more ways than one. Slowly, the water level began to rise, forming an evil pool that was soon waist deep and where before, the men had been stoic, now they began to grumble as they were slowly coated in the tainted, maroon slime.

  “Shut your cake-holes!” a sergeant roared over the firing. “You’re doing the Lord’s work here.”

  It looked like hell to Sadie. The wall of torsos, stray arms and grey, rotted heads grew with every volley. It had to be crawled over by the other zombies coming up, slowing their advance even more. The horde was being checked by the firepower and accuracy of Grey’s men; however, the pressure from behind was even greater—again the steep hills were being covered by the dead as they came on inexhaustibly.

  Grey took all of this in with a long sweeping glance. He turned to one of his lieutenants. “I want 4th Platoon here on the double to take over in the water. Send two squads of 2nd Platoon to the hill on the north side of the river and two to the south. Have1st Platoon rotate back here to warm up. We’ll switch them out in a round robin every twenty minutes.”

  The captain then turned to Sadie and said: “I’m going to need more and bigger fires. Probably three going constantly until this is all over.”

  “And when will that be?” Sadie asked. She was already tired and flagging.

  “Not long,” he answered. “I’d say we’ll be close to finishing when we’ve killed a quarter million zombies.” There was no smile on his face or laugher in his eye when he said this.

  Chapter 6

  Neil Martin

  The remainder of the meeting did not last long. More companies of soldiers were sent to shore up the defenses at the Red Gate and the Big Thompson River, while others marched to bolster the handful of men at the Blue Gate. Three more companies were broken up and sent out to throw up hasty barricades along the less likely avenues of attack.

  The remaining three companies were held in reserve. The company commanders of these grumbled about not being able to join in the fight, but they were quiet grumbles—General Johnston clearly wasn’t a man who would allow much in the way of insubordination.

  And yet Neil was feeling very insubordinate. Johnston had flicked his dark eyes Neil’s way time and again during the briefing and each time there had been judgment in those eyes. Neil had thought that he was long past caring what others thought of him; however, the looks bothered him.

  When the soldiers had been dismissed and there was only Neil and Deanna left, General Johnston came to stand so close to Neil that the toes of their boots nearly touched. Johnston loomed over Neil. He was a barrel-chested man with large, python-sized arms. His entire aspect was one of command; he was perfectly in control.

  Where Neil sweated under the dark eyes, the general was cool and dry. He smelled pleasantly of talc and his uniform sat on his muscular frame, completely unwrinkled. Where his officers had been edgy or angry at the attack, he had been calm. Where they were bristling and ready to charge into battle, he was a rock. All in all, he was one of the most physically intimidating men Neil had ever seen.

  And yet Neil wasn’t intimidated. He was tired of the very idea of intimidation. “Yes?” Neil asked, pleasantly.

  Next to him, Deanna, looking uncomfortable with the general being so close, made an excuse to move away. She stepped back even as she held out her hand to him. The general didn’t shake it; he kissed it before switching off the scrutiny and giving them both a genuine smile that was equal parts weariness and worry. “First off, I don’t blame either you or your group, Mr. Martin, for the attack today.”

  “Thanks,” Neil replied. “And we don’t blame you, either.”

  The smile faltered. “Yes,” the general said, dryly. “Captain Grey told me to expect you to be a bit prickly. He told me about your troubles. I want you to realize that you are among friends.”

  “Then why the looks?” Neil asked. “Every time I see you, I get the feeling that I’m being appraised like a pig in a county fair.”

  “That’s because you are. This world rarely allows for second chances or mistakes, and I can’t afford to make any, especially at a delicate time such as this. War does things to people. It tends to bring out the crazy in them. It can make them dangerous. This craziness is precisely the reason I wanted you and Deanna to talk to me.”

  The two renegades shared a look of confusion. “About what?” Deanna asked.

  “About…well, it’s a delicate situation we have here in Estes. When we first founded this community eight months ago, I had an idealized society in mind. A republic guided by Christian morals ruled by l
aws. Power was supposed to be transferred from the military to this government gradually in preplanned stages, so that in the end, the people would be able to rule themselves.”

  “Sounds great,” Neil said. “Great, except for the big ‘but’ you’re about to drop on us. Let me guess, you want to hand over power but really keep it on the sly? Are you looking for one of us to be your puppet?”

  Johnston shook his head. “No. You are completely wrong. I don’t want a puppet, because I really don’t want to deal with any of that crap. I’m a soldier, not a politician. That’s the truth. I’m a warrior. I like to kill monsters and break things, preferably with very large explosions. I don’t want…what is it, Neil?”

  Neil caught himself staring off over the general’s shoulder and he jerked back into reality. The words the man had used had reminded him of Jillybean and that had triggered a guilt response. “It’s nothing. You just sounded like someone…one of my old friends that I lost. Sorry, please go on; you were saying you don’t want to be a politician?”

  The general looked ill at the very idea. “No I don’t, it’s abysmal. The paperwork and the dull minutia and the whining. I simply hate the whining. That’s something I should warn you about going in, all you’re going to get is complaints.”

  “Hold on,” Neil said. “All I’m going to get? You want me to run things around here? That’s...that’s...really, that doesn’t make any sense. Aren’t there other people here better qualified? I mean, I just got here. No one is going to vote for me and they probably won’t listen to me, either.”

  “First off, I’ll appoint you, so there won’t be a vote. It’s an emergency situation and I’ll say there’s no time for an election. Secondly, they will listen to you if you take charge. That’s very important. If you act the part of the leader, they will follow. People are like that. And you will have the backing of the military. That’s key. That alone will give you the status needed to be seen as the leader in their eyes.”

  This was all going too fast. Only an hour before he’d been contemplating life as a farmer. “But…but why me? Really, there has to be others who are qualified for the job and others who actually want the job, which I don’t know if I do. And I’m a stranger here. Wouldn’t you rather have a leader that you know?”

  “I know enough about you to make this decision. I see how you comport yourself. I hear how others talk about you. Captain Grey, for one, speaks very highly of you. As for the others who may want the job…” He looked pained, as though speaking badly about someone was against his nature. “Yes, there are others who would want the job. Some aren’t qualified, some are vindictive, some are quarrelsome a few of them are simply too nice. Also, if I give the position to the leader of group A, then group B will be mad, you see? In my opinion, there are three serious contenders in the valley; however, they’re populists. They parrot the people instead of putting forth bold ideas. They remind me of the old politicians that got us into this mess in the first place. They feed into the complainers.”

  Most of the people in the valley were exceptionally sweet, but there were some hardcore complainers: the soldiers were lazy; the general was a slave master; there was never enough of this or that.

  Every one of the renegades had shaken their heads in disbelief over this. The valley wasn’t perfect by any stretch; however, it was ordered, neat, protected, and best of all, relatively well stocked with goods. The people owed a certain percentage of what they produced or scrounged to the community, and the rest was theirs to do with what they wished.

  The soldiers could hardly be called lazy as they stood guard over the valley around the clock and when they weren’t on guard, they were training or working in some capacity. They were never drunken, rarely disrespectful and would be punished severely for anything that even smacked of bullying. Over all, Neil had been exceedingly happy with the arrangement—and now the general wanted to change it? And worse, he wanted Neil to be the agent of that change?

  Deanna spoke up for the first time: “Don’t you think that now is the wrong time for all of this? We were just attacked for goodness sakes.” For emphasis, she pointed to the window where the day was bright and sunny and the world seemed utterly peaceful…if one could ignore the quiet crackling of the distant gunfire.

  “I don’t think the timing could be any better,” Johnston answered. He also pointed out the window. “I need to be out there. I need to be in the fight. What I don’t need is regulating farm sizes or overseeing fights between neighbors. I took the position of governing out of necessity and I kept at it because there wasn’t a good candidate to take my place. I never wanted the job.”

  “And I do?” Neil asked. “It sounds like a thankless task and quite frankly, I don’t think I want it.”

  General Johnston face clouded at this and he continued to stare out of the window and was quiet for a long time. Eventually, he reached out and pressed the tips of his long brown fingers to the glass. “What would you say if I told you that I need you? What would you say if I told you,” he poked the glass now, “That they need you?”

  He turned towards Neil. “Here’s the truth: I am a fair man and an honest man, but I’m also a military man and have been practically my entire life. I’m also a student of history. I know how a militarily controlled government will end.”

  Neil knew enough history to have an idea that it wouldn’t end well. “Fire, war, rebellion, torture, general unhappiness?” he asked.

  Johnston nodded. “Maybe not this year or the next, but I will die eventually. There might be a squabble over who’s next in line. Power does that to people. Even the best of us.”

  Now it was Neil’s turn to gaze out the window. His eyes were drawn to the grey peaks that hemmed them in. They formed walls fourteen thousand feet high and yet they were still too small to keep evil out of the valley.

  “We bring the evil with us,” Neil whispered. Johnston raised an eyebrow at this and Neil tried to smile away the comment. “I won’t be a puppet,” he announced. “And I don’t want to be president for life or anything like it, and there should be a separate court system that can hold everyone accountable; that includes me and the soldiers.”

  A nod from Johnston was followed by: “Sounds proper. Go on.”

  Deanna, who had been somewhat ignored, said: “Hold on a second. I don’t understand what I’m here for. Was it just in case Neil said no?”

  A rueful grin broke across the general’s face. “Something like that. I think you’re equally qualified and you were my second choice. I also wanted to use you as a sounding board. You wear your emotions on your sleeve in an honest and open manner. I wanted to judge your reaction to my proposal to Neil. From what I could tell, you were surprised but certainly not repelled by the idea. I could see you weighing the pros and cons, and I could see that the pros overwhelmingly won out.”

  “Easily so,” Deanna said. “Neil is a strong, resourceful leader. He is smart and far wiser than he gives himself credit for. He knows his limitations and yet surpasses them time and again. The truth is, I would vote for him over anyone here. Sorry to say, but the civilians in the valley are soft. They have been more than just protected, they’ve been shielded from some of the hardest realities of this new life and it has made them dependent.”

  “I agree,” Johnston said. “It was another reason I wanted an outsider and another issue Neil will have to face if he accepts the position. Can I assume you want the job?”

  Out of habit, Neil pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. He had thought he was done with all of this. He thought that he would scavenge for a few weeks in the hope of finding Jillybean on the off chance that she had managed to escape from the Azael. Then he figured he would become a farmer.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw himself mopping sweat from his brow with a red kerchief and leaning on a pitchfork, though he wasn’t sure exactly what a pitchfork was used for. Poking things, he assumed, perhaps like a pig’s butt. They didn’t seem likely to move if you didn’t
poke them. He was just wondering why he would want to move a pig in the first place when the general frowned. “I have things to do, Neil. Every minute counts in battle, so if you need some time to think about it, I can give you a day or two, but then I’m going to have move on to my second choice.” He indicated Deanna.

  “She would be a great leader,” Neil replied, but at the same time he wondered: Would she be better than me? He was an honest person and that honesty included his assessment of himself. He knew full well the mistakes he had made leading the renegades; for the most part they had been mistakes of trust. He had trusted the River King and Ernest when he shouldn’t have. He had trusted the words coming from Sarah’s mouth and not the pain in her eyes. He had trusted Jillybean’s resiliency when he should’ve been sheltering her.

  His biggest mistake of trust was that he hadn’t trusted himself until it was almost too late. That lesson had been hard bought and the sole reason he didn’t want Deanna as leader. There had been a sharp learning curve as leader, with each mistake marked by death. Errors in judgment now with battle raging on their frontier and a new government to establish could spawn rebellion among the people or mass enslavement by the Azael.

  There was too much on the line for Neil to trust anyone but himself.

  “I’ll do it, but there will be conditions,” he said. “We’ll talk about them as they come up, but the first and foremost one is that the military will be mine to command.” At this Johnston’s mouth set like a wedge of stone and, when Neil added, “Completely,” his eyes blazed.

  It was for a moment only. Johnston let out a long breath saying: “It can be the only way.”

  “Yes,” agreed Neil. “We’ll start right now. I want you to spend the next five minutes filling me in on the military situation. I need to know the number of men we have, the type of equipment they use and their overall state of readiness.”