Special Purposes: First Strike Weapon

CHAPTER NINE

0046 EST, 17th November 1987

The Bowery, New York City

THE M113A3 ARMOURED personnel carrier was basically a brick on tracks, with a sloping front and a Browning M2HB .50 calibre heavy machine gun mounted on top of it. Given a straight road, the APC was capable of hitting a speed of just over forty miles an hour; and the Fräulein seemed determined to reach it.

“I can smell blood in here,” Gulag shouted over the roar of the engine and grinned at Princess. She narrowed her eyes but held her peace. It wasn’t just the smell. There was blood sloshing around in the bottom of the vibrating armoured vehicle. The APC had held an entire squad of infantry until they’d been killed and unceremoniously slung out onto the road. Vadim had no idea if they would rise again or not.

He found himself gripping his rifle tightly. The smell of blood suffused his senses. He wanted to launch himself across the cramped interior of the APC and bite Princess, or New Boy, until he tasted flesh; and if he felt like this, the others must as well. It could only be a matter of time before someone snapped. He wondered briefly if this was some kind of delayed adrenalin response from the fight, sluggish biochemistry trying to force its way through a dead body. He had felt nothing during the fight itself, no excitement, no fear. It had been clinical.

“Get ready!” the Fräulein shouted from the driver’s seat. They didn’t feel the impact – the APC didn’t even slow – but they heard it: bodies bouncing off the armour, the wet tearing of flesh under the tracks. Through the narrow window slits on the roof, they saw bodies tumble past. Vadim heard something hit the .50 cal. He was staring at New Boy. He knew he was going to attack if he didn’t find something to distract himself.

“New Boy!” he shouted, but the scout didn’t hear him over the roar of the APC’s engine. Vadim reached over and grabbed New Boy’s leg. The scout flinched, and almost brought his weapon up. Vadim let go and pointed up at the roof. “When I pass my shotgun down, you pass yours up and reload mine, and keep doing it! Understand?” New Boy nodded. Unsteadily, Vadim pulled himself up and opened one of the roof hatches.

“What the fuck are you doing?” It might have been the closest that Vadim had ever come to hearing the Fräulein actually scream. Straightaway, one of the dead was in the hatch, trying to scrabble into the compartment. Vadim grabbed it by the face, avoiding snapping jaws, and dragged his saperka from its loop on his webbing. He jabbed the sharpened edge of the entrenching tool up into the mouth of the struggling zombie; he cried out when he heard a crunch, but continued pushing until the creature went still. He shoved it away, and only then did he realise it was just a torso with arms.

“How come Infant gets to have all the fun?” Gulag shouted, but Vadim ignored him. Despite the Fräulein’s protest, he had a purpose. He wanted to save the .50 cal. He had a feeling that they would be needing it.

The Bowery was obviously a less salubrious part of town. There wasn’t much emergency lighting, and the buildings were more rundown. The APC’s headlights cut through the night, showing the charging horde sprinting at them and bouncing off. The APC mowed them down like wheat. A broken, flailing form sailed over the roof, and Vadim tried to batter it out of the way, but the body slammed into him, throwing him into the edge of the open hatch.

Despite the speed of the APC, some of the dead managed to cling on. Vadim lashed out with his saperka, severing fingers and dislodging zombies, but there always seemed to be more of them. Row after row of the horde were disappearing beneath the vehicle. They were sprinting out of the side streets, out of the alleyways, forcing more of the dead into the path of the APC. The press of bodies was horrific. All he could see were what had once been people, filling the street wherever he looked. There must have been thousands, tens of thousands.

Vadim checked behind him and saw a zombie clambering onto the roof from the rear of the vehicle. He jammed his saperka into a handhold, drew the sawn-off KS-23 from its back sheath and rammed it, one-handed, against the thing’s head. The rear top hatch of the vehicle flipped open, hitting the barrel of the shotgun and knocking it away from the zombie. The weapon discharged into the masses, the muzzle flash illuminating the silent, distorted faces of the dead horde. The zombie practically fell on Gulag as he rose through the hatch; Vadim heard the crack as Gulag rammed his saperka into the thing’s skull again and again, before heaving it over the side. He swung round to face Vadim.

“Did you just try and shoot me?” he demanded, shouting to be heard over the APC’s engine, although he was smiling. Not yet, Vadim thought.

“Pay attention!” Vadim cried. Gulag had hold of New Boy’s KS-23. He fired, ejected the shell, and fired again. A face ceased to exist in a cloud of matter and bone. He worked the slide and fired again as Vadim turned away. Another zombie was clambering up the sloping front of the APC; Vadim put the shotgun in its mouth and squeezed the trigger, and a headless corpse slid down and under the tracks. Behind him, the muzzle flash from Gulag’s shotgun lit up the night once more.

“Reload!” the Muscovite cried, passing the shotgun back down into the passenger compartment for New Boy. Suddenly the APC veered sharply to the right, sending zombies flying into the air. They were heading towards the wall of a building.

“What are you doing?” Vadim cried.

“I can’t see!” the Fräulein shouted back.

“Left, left! Forty-five degrees left!” Vadim shouted. He was thrown around again as the APC veered the other way. Behind him Gulag was striking out with the saperka. Vadim fired his shotgun twice more, dropped it into the APC and started doing the same. The entrenching tool’s blade sparked off the APC’s armoured plate as he cut the hand off one of the zombies, and the creature fell back into the press. The night lit up as Gulag fired the KS-23 again. Vadim felt a tap against his leg as his now-reloaded shotgun was passed up to him. From behind him, the sound of an unfamiliar handgun as Gulag fired his new .45 repeatedly into the head of one of the zombies, laughing maniacally. Vadim shouted another course correction to the Fräulein and blew a zombie off into the road, and then they were clear of the horde.

“Yeah!” Gulag cried out from behind him. “Wooh!” Vadim glanced behind. He could make out the dark mass of the horde sprinting after them, but they were getting further and further away. The APC had left lines of gore on the street. He reloaded the shotgun and slid it back into its sheath, wiped the worst of the mess off the blade of his saperka with a rag and then slid the entrenching tool back into its loop. He clambered out onto the roof of the speeding APC, holding on tightly to one of the hand rails, and did his best to clean the narrow slit of armoured glass that passed as the APC’s windscreen, so the Fräulein could better see the road. Just for a moment, it felt like they were all alone in the city. Just for a moment, it was almost peaceful.

The Fräulein slewed the APC up onto the ramp to the Manhattan Bridge. As the road rose, Vadim could make out what looked like state housing on either side. They were dark and still. Whatever had happened here had happened while they were still uptown. Even so, he wondered at where all the millions of people living in New York City had gone. He envisaged them sweeping away from the city, sprinting as fast as they could, like a viral herd migration. Perhaps the squad had stayed close to each other at Central Station, even as they had succumbed to the mindless hunger, out of loyalty to each other, their own herd instinct.

If the bridge had been a choke point, it had passed. It was deserted now, though thoroughly blocked by abandoned cars, their windows broken, stained with blood, like the rest of the city. The whole tableau was illuminated by a flickering glow from the south and the west.

The APC slowed as its caterpillar tracks clawed its way up onto the roofs of the abandoned cars, crushing them under its weight as it made its way across a carpet of Detroit metal. They passed under an ornate arch flanked by colonnades and out onto the bridge proper on the upper Brooklyn-bound lane.

Looking back down the East River, through the Brooklyn Bridge, past the twin sentinels of the World Trade Centre, he realised that part of New Jersey and much of the Upper Bay was on fire. The Statue of Liberty, tiny at this distance, was almost lost amongst the flames, but somehow she looked unbowed. Between Manhattan Island and the Atlantic, he could see burning ships in the flames. He assumed an oil storage or tanker leak had been ignited by the firestorms. At his back was the now-silenced city, the city they had killed.

“We need to be punished for this,” he whispered to himself.

“It’s fucking beautiful,” Gulag said from behind. It seemed that Gulag was embracing his condition. Vadim tried to ignore him.

Below them, he saw ships making their way up the East River, away from the Upper Bay and the fires. A huge container ship, looking too large for the river, headed towards the Brooklyn Bridge; a coast guard cutter ran alongside it, shining searchlights up at the larger ship. Vadim could hear shouting over a loudhailer, but couldn’t make out words. There were people running all over the decks of the larger ship, clambering around the containers, and that was when Vadim realised it was already a ship of the dead. The crew must have tried to help evacuate people and only too late realised that they had the infection on board.

There was the sound of tortured metal as the container ship collided with the coast guard cutter. Vadim saw the flicker of muzzle flashes from the cutter and heard the gunfire moments later as the dead spilled from the larger ship, plummeting to the decks of the boat. The gunfire intensified. The sheer weight of the container ship forced the cutter into shallower water; he heard more shrieking metal and an almighty crash as the cutter hit one of the bridge’s supports. Then the container ship ran aground as well, sending the dead tumbling into the river. Meanwhile, a smaller container ship was trying to slowly pick its way past the colliding craft without running aground, and without getting too close to the larger ship and its cargo of zombies.

Seeing his vague plan of hijacking a ship from one of the Brooklyn Ports going up in smoke, Vadim turned to look over the bridge to the Brooklyn side, hoping for inspiration. That was when he saw the dead running at them from Brooklyn, scrambling across the carpet of abandoned cars. He looked down at the smaller container ship. There were people on the decks, more than would be needed to crew a ship that size, but they weren’t running around trying to eat each other. He pounded on the roof of the APC.

“Stop! Stop!” he shouted. The APC lurched to a halt. Vadim checked behind him, looking towards the Manhattan side of the bridge. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he could see dark figures sprinting towards them from that direction as well, the horde from the Bowery catching up. He turned to Gulag and gestured towards both groups of the dead. “Man the .50,” he told the Muscovite, “but don’t fire until I tell you to.”

Gulag nodded and crawled out of the rear hatch across the roof as Vadim sank down into the APC, moving out of the way so the gangster could stand on the gunner’s pedestal. The rest of the squad were all looking to him.

“Switch off the engine,” Vadim told the Fräulein, and she did so. “We have forces closing in on us from both ends of the bridge. There’s a container ship going by under…” The thunder of the .50 cal overhead drowned him out as Gulag fired a short burst, and then another. Hot shell casings rained down into the APC. “Gulag, cut it out!” Vadim shouted. Gulag laughed, but didn’t fire again. “Gulag, Fräulein and myself will cover; New Boy, you rig a rope and drop it over the side. Everyone gets into harness and rappels down onto the ship. Understand?” They all nodded. New Boy kicked the rear hatch open and threw out the duffel bag full of climbing gear he had taken from the outdoors shop.

“Can I fire now, Infant?” Gulag asked insolently.

“I want the whole belt gone before we leave,” Vadim told him as he looked around at the weapons they had taken from the National Guard squad. He grabbed the M16/M203 combination assault rifle and grenade launcher, along with ammo for both weapons, and followed Princess out of the APC. As she stepped out she fell forward, hitting the ground. He saw an arm reach out from under the vehicle and a zombie – one leg missing, the other a crushed, mangled mess – pulled itself out from under the APC and tried to climb up her. The roar of the .50 cal atop the armoured vehicle drowned out any warning cry. Vadim’s hands were full, nothing readied. He was about to drop the assault rifle and reach for his saperka but Princess used her boot to ram the zombie’s head against the lip of the rear hatch as she drew her pistol. There was a crack as powerful leg muscles broke something in her attacker’s spine. Then Vadim flinched away, more by instinct than anything else, as she fired two rounds into its head, perilously close to where he was standing. Then the torso was still. Princess didn’t even look at him. She just stood, holstered her pistol and grabbed the M16 she’d taken.

Vadim quickly pulled the climbing harness on, securing it in place. The APC’s tracks – the whole lower half of its body – were caked in dripping gore. He then moved a little way away. Gulag was firing towards Brooklyn, every three-round burst sending one bright tracer arcing lazily into the mass of the dead. Vadim loaded a fragmentation grenade into the M203 grenade launcher mounted underneath the M16’s barrel. Gulag didn’t need a head hit with the .50 cal. A limb hit would destroy and probably remove the limb, the hydrostatic shock of a centre mass torso hit could pop the head off. Just like Pavel, he thought. There was an explosion as one of the API rounds from the .50 ignited a fuel tank, blossoming into flame over the bridge; in the red light, the dead looked like ants swarming from a nest.

Mongol fixed a second belt of ammunition to the first in the M60 the Fräulein had taken off the jeep. The big East German woman lifted the large weapon to her shoulder like an oversized rifle and started laying down fire towards the Manhattan side of the bridge, Skull feeding the belt into the machine gun. Vadim saw targets taking hits; the 7.62mm round did significant damage, but the zombies kept moving until they were utterly destroyed.

Skull and Princess both had M16s and were aiming carefully, firing single shots and taking aim every time. Both were probably good enough to reliably make head shots from that distance.

Vadim fired the launcher, sending a fragmentation grenade into the masses coming from the Brooklyn side. Then he reloaded and fired towards the Manhattan side. He saw dark figures torn apart, flung into the air, but some of them kept on crawling when they landed.

“Ready!” New Boy shouted, flinging the rope over the side of the bridge. Vadim glanced over and saw that the ship was almost below them.

“Go!” Vadim shouted and New Boy disappeared over the side of the bridge. “Princess, go!” Vadim ordered, firing another grenade towards Brooklyn. Princess was shooting down into the lower level of the bridge, where the subway lines and extra car lanes were.

“They’re below us!” she shouted before dropping the M16 and sprinting for the line, attaching her descender to it and following New Boy over the edge. Looking down, Vadim could see more of the dead moving through the lower levels. He fired a high-explosive grenade into a mass of them. It detonated, throwing cars into the air. There was a second explosion as another fuel tank went up, fire blooming up through the bridge.

“Skull, you’re next,” Vadim called. The bow of the container ship was now under the bridge. Skull fired a few more shots down into the lower levels of the bridge and then dropped his M16 and made for the line. Vadim loaded another fragmentation grenade and saw the last few bursts from the .50 cal tear zombies apart.

“Empty!” Gulag shouted from the APC.

“Mongol, go!” Vadim shouted. Mongol abandoned the Fräulein as she cut loose with a long burst of fire from the machine gun. Vadim was firing the M16 now. They were close enough. Three-round burst, shift, three-round burst, shift, fire again. The fire from the gas tank that Gulag had hit had spread; a tanker truck exploded, blowing burning cars off the bridge and into the East River. Vadim heard a clang as car bounced off the side of the ship below. It looked as though the fireball had consumed a number of the zombies, but they just came sprinting out of it a moment later, on fire.

Gulag didn’t wait for an order. He pulled on a climbing harness, attached his descender and rolled over the side of the bridge. Vadim heard gunfire from below; it didn’t sound like anything carried by his people.

“Liesl, go!” Vadim shouted. The dead from the lower level were starting to clamber up towards them. Vadim was firing the M16 and backing towards the riverside edge of the bridge. His magazine ran dry. He ejected it as three of the dead climbed up onto the upper level. Vadim grabbed the last magazine he’d taken for the weapon and slammed it home as they charged him. The long burst from the M60 sent the zombies staggering backwards, the rounds churning up their unliving bodies as they tumbled back into the lower levels. The Fräulein dropped the M60 and ran to the line. Vadim fired his last grenade towards Manhattan and then turned towards Brooklyn, firing the M16, illuminating the bridge one more time before dropping the weapon, and attaching his descender to the line. Charging zombies from both sides were almost upon him, several of them on fire, reaching for him. He clambered over the railings and tried to kick off, but there were already people on the rope below him, holding it taut, and he slid down, battering himself against the superstructure. The dead just threw themselves off the bridge at him, grabbing at him as they plummeted by. As he slid past the lower level, he saw more of them sprinting along the subway lines to throw themselves out over the river, whether to try and get to him or the container ship, he wasn’t sure. He slid below the lower level into open air. The bridge castle of the ship was beneath him now. He saw Gulag on top of it, removing himself from the line, the Fräulein just about to touch down. Gunfire sounded from the tops of the containers and the decks running along either side of the stacks, answered by fire from the bridge castle and the stern.

Vadim was trying to make sense of the situation as he rappelled towards it, when a shadow fell across him. He looked up in time to see one of the dead falling towards him, its chest cavity glowing from within. The zombie half-landed on him, and he half-caught it. At first he thought it was one of the burning zombies, but realised it had one of the .50 cal API rounds lodged inside it. The round must have passed through a number of vehicles, slowing it down, before it had hit the zombie, but the incendiary was still burning.

The zombie had hold of one of the straps on his climbing harness, and seemed to be simultaneously trying to climb him and claw at him as they swung around beneath the bridge. The creature managed to wrench its hand free and started to fall, but Vadim grabbed its wrist, not wanting to add another zombie to whatever was happening on the ship below. He pulled his knife from its scabbard and rammed it down again and again onto the top of the struggling, glowing creature’s head. The awkward angle of attack meant that the knife was mostly scraping off the thing’s skull. Finally, however, with a sickening crunch, Vadim managed to get a solid enough blow to pierce the skull and the zombie was still. Then Vadim let it drop and bounce off the ship. He continued sliding down the rope, conscious he was about to run out of ship.

He could see the stern of the vessel. A man he didn’t recognise was standing by the rear edge of the bridge castle, firing a Heckler & Koch G3 with a distinct lack of expertise. Behind him, Vadim could see a limp-legged zombie dragging itself across the deck towards the man.

Vadim tried to rappel even faster, but the rope jammed in the descender. The ship was about to disappear beneath him. He cut the rope and fell through the night air.