Special Purposes: First Strike Weapon

CHAPTER SIX

1607 Eastern Standard Time (EST), 16th November 1987

Grand Central Station, New York City

“VADIM?” A UKRAINIAN-ACCENTED voice asked from behind him. Vadim didn’t turn around immediately. He was still staring at the Fräulein.

She was red from head to toe. She’d taken multiple gunshot wounds, and in places was missing chunks of flesh. He could see human teeth marks in the wounds on her face, scraps of meat dangling from them. She was a mess. Her mouth opened and human flesh dribbled from it, an obscene red he’d seen in the aftermath of so many battles.

“Turn around slowly, hands raised. We have you covered.”

The Fräulein’s head twitched at the sound of the voice. He smelled it too, sensed it at some primal level: food, prey, or at least a respite for the hunger that suffused him. But he wasn’t an animal, at least not at this moment, not as he had been. He turned around slowly, but he didn’t raise his hands, nor did he drop his Stechkin.

New Boy and Princess stood in front of the blood-stained entrance to the terminal. Princess’s sniper rifle was levelled at his face. The weapon’s suppressor was screwed onto the barrel. She could not miss at this range. It would be easy, quick, an end to this non-life, an end to the hunger that gnawed at him like a beast imprisoned in his body. They were both pale and bloodstained. They looked strained and, unusually for Spetsnaz soldiers, visibly frightened. Both of them were also alive. Their blood sang to him. He could already taste their meat between his teeth. Red drool ran down his chin. He saw Princess’s finger tighten around the trigger. She was wound tight.

The city was dark, stained red by the emergency lighting from the surrounding buildings. There was no starlight, no moonlight, all of it was obscured by the ash and dust thrown into the sky by the nuclear explosions.

It took him a moment to realise that the noise behind him was the sound of teeth clacking together, a dry, breathless larynx trying to form words in defiance of biology.

“Princess…” the Fräulein finally managed from behind him. A tear ran down Princess’s cheek, but she didn’t take her eye away from her scope, the Dragunov never wavered. New Boy swallowed hard, his own rifle levelled at the Fräulein.

“What are you?” New Boy managed. There was disgust in his voice. Vadim was sure the younger man knew the answer to his own question. They all did, if they were honest, but there was a gulf between knowing and accepting.

“I do not breathe. My heart does not beat,” Vadim managed. It had taken him several attempts to make a noise that resembled speech. It felt unnatural, as though he no longer had the tools for the job. He wasn’t sure whether he was imagining it or not, but New Boy and Princess’s pulses were deafening, a beating drum between his ears. He found himself staring at Princess’s pretty neck. Imagining tearing into it with his teeth. “I want… need to eat.” He was trying to warn them. They tensed. He was surprised that neither of them fired.

“Please…” the Fräulein managed, staggering to his side. Vadim had no idea what she was asking for. Understanding? Mercy? A release? Food?

“Why can you talk?” New Boy demanded. “Why aren’t you trying to feed?” Somehow the meat talking about feeding was too much. The hunger was the only real sensation he felt, the only thing that wasn’t a muted, numbed echo of what his senses once were. The hunger was hot and red and washed over him… and he was gone.

HE HAD ONLY moved a few feet. New Boy was lying on the ground; he looked as though he’d stumbled backwards and tripped. His weapon was now pointed at Vadim, his face a mask of terror. Princess was the colour of snow under the blood spatter. He had no idea why he wasn’t dead, why she hadn’t pulled the trigger. Then he realised that someone was gripping his shoulder, tight. He looked over at the Fräulein. She was just shaking her head. He couldn’t quite believe what he’d almost done. It started to rain. The rain was gritty and black. It had been the Fräulein’s touch that had stopped him.

“Don’t fucking do that!” New Boy barked as, still covering Vadim, he scrambled to his feet.

“I’m sorry,” Vadim told him. He meant it, but it sounded so hollow, so utterly pointless given the situation. “You can’t trust us.”

They heard the scraping first. The sound of metal dragged across stone. Princess moved to the side, keeping her sniper rifle levelled at him but manoeuvring for a better shot at the Fräulein. New Boy spun around, covering the entrance, broken glass crunching underfoot. Vadim could see the large figure moving towards them, but he didn’t get any sense of life. He glanced around, wondering where all the other bodies had run off to.

It was Mongol, dragging his RPKS-74 by the stock, the barrel scraping across the floor in a way that should have appalled Vadim, but such considerations were for the living. He looked good, as corpses go. He’d caught a shotgun blast to the chest, something that body armour might have saved him from. A bullet had torn open his cheek and smashed his teeth, revealing his jaw. The way he moved – stumbling, dragging his weapon behind him – it was easy to assume he was one of the mindless ones, but why wasn’t he hunting?

“That’s enough, Mongol,” New Boy told him. Mongol kept on staggering towards him. “I mean it. I’ll put a bullet in your head.”

“Mongol!” the Fräulein snapped. Her voice still sounded wrong, hoarse and dry, but she was starting to sound more like herself. Mongol shuffled round to stare at the Fräulein. Dark eyes, as though from a haemorrhage. There was no spark there, no intelligence, no sign of recognition. Mongol opened his mouth, teeth bared obscenely through the torn skin. The noise he made sounded like a wounded animal. Vadim was pretty sure that it was only a matter of time before New Boy snapped and shot someone, then Princess would kill the rest.

“Your weapon!” the East German continued. Mongol looked down at the light machine gun for what seemed like a long time. Vadim waited to get a bullet in the face. Then Mongol lifted the weapon and put the sling over his head, letting it hang down, held at the ready but pointed well away from the anxious living. Vadim used the moment to holster his pistol. Mongol turned to stare at him.

“Wh…” he tried, the skin around his mouth flopping around. “Wh… What… have… we done?” he finally managed. There was something different about his eyes, now. Vadim shook his head slowly. He wasn’t sure he had a good answer for the big medic.

“Did you know?” It was Princess who asked the question. Vadim shrugged.

“We all knew it was going to be bad, but this…” he managed. He wasn’t sure if he’d even thought of such things before. It was far beyond even his experience.

“This isn’t war,” Mongol said. “This is black magic.”

He was right. Vadim had been a good Communist; he hadn’t been inside a church since before his parents were killed in the war. Their current situation belonged in the sphere of supernature. He had no frame of reference for any of this. He doubted anyone did.

“What happened?” he asked, nodding at the bloodied wreckage out the front of the train station. It was more for something to say than anything else. “I thought I saw one of them take you down.”

“After you got shot,” New Boy said, driving home to Vadim that he was dead, that he’d been killed in the tunnels below the station. “I managed to hold it off, stop it from biting me until I could stab it through the head. I heard the gunfire from Princess and Fräulein, and made my way across the tracks, through the trains, until I found them.”

“There were too many of them down there,” the Fräulein continued in her dry, rasping voice. “They were running through the carriages making more of themselves. We laid down a lot of fire, grenades, and managed to break contact, make it back up to the main concourse. But they were right behind us. Mongol…” She looked at the medic. “And Skull…”

“I saw Skull,” Vadim said quietly. He wondered where the other sniper was. Was he wandering around here, or off hunting with the others?

Why are we different? he asked himself. It was only then he thought of Farm Boy and Gulag. They had both fallen, just the other side of those doors. It would be easy to look for their bodies, but Princess and New Boy both seemed a little too highly strung for him to show any initiative at the moment.

“We made it back up here and then ran into the police,” New Boy told him, nodding towards the bullet-ridden wreckage of the police cars out front.

“The SWAT van? The helicopter?” Vadim asked.

“Fräulein,” Princess said simply, though Vadim could hear the emotion in her voice. New Boy was looking at the big East German with something approaching awe in his eyes, and more than a little fear.

“The zombies were coming up behind us. We needed to break through. She – Fräulein hit the van with one of the RPGs,” New Boy continued. “Then she laid down fire on the chopper. She… she got hit…”

“Over and over,” Princess said evenly. “Even then, she kept firing. Told us to run. Then they fell on her from behind and fed.” Somehow it was more uncomfortable having the Fräulein standing next to him listening to a description of her own death.

“How’d you get away?” he asked. It sounded somehow inane.

“We ran,” Princess told him.

“Back down again. All the zombies were coming up anyway. We locked ourselves into a baggage car.” New Boy’s head dropped as though ashamed, but Vadim couldn’t really see what else they could have done, other than die themselves. It sounded as though they were very lucky to be alive, although perhaps, given the situation, ‘lucky’ wasn’t the right word.

“And then we were very, very quiet,” Princess whispered. Vadim looked down at the ground, the big black drops of rain leaving greasy stains even over the blood. He wondered how much radiation they were taking from the fallout. Would it make a difference to the dead? Would it kill Princess and New Boy?

“Where did they all go?” the Fräulein asked.

“It was like an explosion,” Princess told her. “It had an epicentre that spread out.” Or a virus, Vadim thought. “They hunt the living, and then those they kill rise again. When they thought everyone here was dead, they moved on.” She nodded out into the city. He imagined them streaming out of the station, running down pedestrians, dragging people from their cars, leaping through the windows of shops and restaurants. Running up through the high towers of these steel and glass canyons, killing and raising more and more of themselves, like a cancer consuming cells. In the moment of quiet, Vadim faintly wondered when the music had stopped. In the distance, he thought he heard gunfire.

All of them heard the sound of a horse’s hooves echoing on the asphalt. The terrified animal galloped down 42nd Street in front of them. Princess lowered her weapon.

“What do we do now?” she asked. Vadim did not have an answer.

HAVING LOST HIS rifle, Vadim carried his now-reloaded shotgun as they re-entered the station, trying to move as quietly as they could through the carpet of empty shell casings. There was blood everywhere. The Fräulein found her RPKS-74, close to where she had fallen, and the three dead went first, New Boy and Princess following at a safe distance.

They were going through the motions. Vadim had no idea what to do now. His head was a whirl of thoughts and blunted emotions. He didn’t think he was in charge anymore; that would be insane. Princess and New Boy couldn’t trust any of them. He had to concentrate on other things just so he wouldn’t leap at their throats.

Vadim checked the area where Gulag and Farm Boy had fallen. Their bodies were gone, although tellingly, neither of their weapons remained. Just for a moment, he wondered if the KGB had slipped them some kind of partial vaccine, perhaps in their food on the submarine. Something that allowed them to hold onto to just enough of their selves to function. Were they supposed to be the second stage of this horrifying new weapon, he wondered?

“Boss,” said Mongol, and Vadim looked up. They’d found Skull, dead. A bloodstain on his sweater where his heart should be. A good shot. Killed by a fellow sniper. He was seated on a neatly stacked pile of bodies, bullet holes in their heads, as though enthroned. He was holding his .303 up in one hand, the butt on his leg, barrel pointing at the domed roof. They approached him carefully, fanning out, and he just watched, smiling. In the emergency lighting, Skull’s eyes glittered. He was clearly sentient. Despite the smile, Vadim had known the sniper long enough to know he was angry, very angry.

“What did they do?” Skull asked. They, Vadim thought. It seemed Skull had decided to direct his anger.

“You killed all these things?” Mongol asked, nodding at the sniper’s corpse throne. Skull turned to look at the medic, but said nothing.

“Skull?” the Fräulein asked. He ignored her and looked up at Princess. Vadim followed his gaze. She nodded at the other sniper but looked ready to kill him if she had to. Skull turned back to Vadim.

“Permission to fall in, captain?” he asked. He’d used Vadim’s rank, and it wasn’t a question you heard often in the Spetsnaz. Vadim just nodded, half-wondering why anybody was listening to him. Even through the whirl of his own thoughts he was aware that something seemed very wrong with Skull, beyond what was obviously very wrong with all of them.

THEY DID A sweep of the station – no sign of Gulag or Farm Boy – and set out for the secondary rendezvous point, in the underground car park beneath Eugene’s building. Walking corpse or not, Vadim still found the deserted streets and blackened sky eerie.

Princess and New Boy were still, understandably, keeping their distance, as much covering their dead comrades as they were looking for the more mindless zombies.

They found Farm Boy first, in a pool of light created by the flickering emergency illumination in the underground car park. His arms were bound to his side, legs as well. He was thrashing against his bonds, drooling. His eyes were bloodshot, wide, no longer the eyes of a human being. He went wild when he sensed Princess and New Boy.

Vadim knew he wasn’t thinking straight, but this was clearly bait. He started to turn to look around, Skull and the Fräulein doing the same. Gulag stepped out from behind a pillar, his rifle aimed at Vadim. Skull had his AKS-74 shouldered, levelled at Gulag, and Princess followed suit. The rest of them were checking the surrounding area.

“See, I knew you were trying to kill me.” He was in shadow, the flickering light giving the occasional glimpse of his ruined form. Like the Fräulein, he’d taken a lot of damage, and at some point been chewed on.

“What are you doing, Gulag?” the Fräulein demanded.

“You’re still playing soldier, comrade Fräulein?” Gulag said. Vadim found himself transfixed by the barrel of Gulag’s rifle. It looked like a way out.

“Lower your weapon,” the Fräulein told him.

“Or what?” the Muscovite demanded. “Administrative punishment, court-martial, firing squad, send me back to the gulag? All seems redundant now. We’ve blown up the world, but the funny part is: we can’t die.”

“You can still die,” Princess promised him.

Gulag raised his ruined nose slightly and sniffed the air. “I smell life. My food is talking to me.”

Princess tensed.

“What do you want?” Vadim asked, looking back down at Farm Boy, or what had once been him. He was trying to thrash his way across the floor towards New Boy, making the scout step backwards. New Boy lowered his rifle to cover the now mindless corpse of his squadmate.

“Don’t you point your fucking gun at him!” Gulag screamed. Even Vadim flinched. New Boy looked unsure for a moment, but he didn’t shift his aim. “I mean it. I’ll do you next!”

“I asked you a question, Nikodim,” Vadim said quietly. Then he looked away from the barrel and searched for Gulag’s eyes in the flickering light.

“What did you do to me?” the gangster asked.

“You know I didn’t do this. We could have walked away.” For all the good it would have done. “I am as you are. So are Fräulein, Skull and Mongol. You know this. If it makes you feel better, then pull the trigger.”

“You’re one of us,” the Fräulein said. “What are you doing?”

“Lower the gun, brother,” Mongol told him, letting his own weapon dip. “There’s just us here.”

Skull and Princess still had Gulag covered. He glanced over at them.

“Is it your time now?” Skull asked him. “Do you want to leave?” It didn’t sound like a threat. It sounded like sympathy, understanding.

“Farm Boy…?” Gulag asked. Even dead, his voice was wracked with anguish. Vadim looked down at the big Georgian. It didn’t make sense; why had they retained their sentience, but not him? They had eaten the same food on the submarine.

“I don’t know,” Vadim said, shaking his head. Farm Boy had settled down a little, though he was emitting an odd keening noise, not unlike a beaten dog. Princess cursed and raised her weapon as the Fräulein walked in front of her, blocking Gulag’s line of fire to Vadim. Skull raised his AKS-74 as well, shifted position so he could get a clearer shot, but didn’t re-aim his weapon.

The Fräulein pushed Gulag’s rifle down. Vadim could see the Muscovite’s frame shaking, as he made a strange, dry hiccoughing noise. It took Vadim a few moments to realise that the hardened criminal, a man who had spent many of his formative years in a Siberian prison camp, was sobbing. The Fräulein just lay her hand on his shoulder.

Skull looked down at Farm Boy, and then Vadim. “Do you want me to do it?” he asked, and Vadim shook his head.

“It’s my responsibility,” said the captain, and in saying those words started to feel the enormity of what had happened; just how badly he had failed his people. He walked over to Farm Boy and put the barrel of his sawn-off KS-23 shotgun to the side of his head. The Georgian looked up at him. Vadim hoped for something, some spark of recognition, of intelligence, but there was nothing. He – it – didn’t even understand that there was a weapon pressed against his head.

“I’m sorry,” Vadim said, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was better. He started to squeeze the trigger.

“Wait!” Gulag came out of the intermittent darkness to stand over his friend. “I’ll do it.” He handed Vadim his AK-74 and grabbed a second rifle he’d slung across his back, Farm Boy’s own. He sighted down it.

“The noi—” New Boy started. The crack of the rifle echoed through the parking structure, the muzzle flash throwing them into harsh relief for a moment. “Never mind.”

Farm Boy was still.

Vadim was grabbed and slammed against a concrete pillar, and Gulag’s ruined face was suddenly nose-to-nose with his. He could still just about make out the Muscovite’s tattoos under the scabbed, bloody grime. The Fräulein lumbered towards Gulag to drag him off, but Vadim saw something like a tear, thick and glutinous, run down the Muscovite’s cheek. The captain held up his hand and the Fräulein stopped.

“If I ever find out that you had something to do with this,” he said quietly, his voice full of menace, “I will hammer a shell casing into your skull, do you understand me?” Vadim could smell the meat on the other man’s breath, see the dried blood on his teeth. Vadim leaned towards Gulag.

“What do you want, Nikodim?” he whispered. In part, because he had no idea what to do next, or where to go from here. Spetsnaz officers were supposed to have initiative, but nothing even remotely similar had been discussed during officer training in Kiev.

“I want to know who did this,” Gulag hissed.