Special Purposes: First Strike Weapon

CHAPTER EIGHT

2015 EST, 16th November 1987

Corner of Park and 38th, New York City

THEY HAD GONE out into the dark streets, humid with black rain and lashed by winds. The silent cars were bumper-to-bumper, blood stained, their windows broken. Emergency lighting shimmered on the wet streets and in the broken glass that crunched underfoot. All the people had gone. The dead had long since swept out and away from the area, looking for more prey.

Vadim knew there were ports in Brooklyn, so they headed south. Skull was on point, the massive suppressor screwed to his .303. Princess, her own suppressed sniper rifle in her hands, brought up the rear with New Boy, both of them still holding back from their dead comrades. Noise and ammunition were issues; Vadim didn’t want the squad to draw attention to themselves unless they had to. If they saw lone zombies, then they would leave it to the two snipers to deal with them, but if they encountered a horde, they would run and hide. They would only use unsuppressed weapons as a last resort.

They had burned through a fair amount of their ammunition during the fire fight in the station. They had switched their weapons to semiautomatic and would only fire when they were sure of a headshot.

Frankly, he was making it all up as he went along, keeping up appearances. He was taking command out of habit more than anything else. Even the decision to go home, the hunt for vengeance, was little more than busy work. An excuse to keep on existing.

He heard more gunfire in the distance. There was a glow in the sky, to the west. They moved quickly, tirelessly. If Princess and New Boy were struggling to keep up, they gave little indication. The streets were wide, lined with trees and not strewn with rubbish; Vadim guessed that this was one of the more upmarket parts of the city. A fire engine had crashed into a church on the corner of the intersection. The engine’s spinning red light was still functional, giving the deserted streets an even more alien feel.

“Boss,” Mongol hissed from behind him. Vadim turned around to look at the medic, who pointed to the fire engine. Vadim nodded and signalled the team. They crossed the road quickly and quietly. Mongol slung his RPKS and raised his suppressed Stechkin, and the rest of the squad took up covering positions. Vadim concealed himself behind a small bush as best he could. Mongol wouldn’t waste their time. If he wanted to search the fire engine, he had good reason. He didn’t even look around when he heard the hushed cough of the medic’s suppressed pistol.

Princess hissed and Vadim turned around to look at her. She pointed down the adjoining street and raised a hand, five fingers extended. Mongol stopped climbing out of the fire engine and slid back out of sight, and the rest of them hunkered down into their concealed positions. Vadim could hear footsteps, the creak of metal as the strangers walked over the abandoned cars filling the road. He was more aware of them, somehow, even before they emerged into the intersection.

He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting: there was none of the shambling his limited exposure to capitalist filmmaking had prepared him for, and nor were they the pouncing animals he’d seen in Grand Central Station. They just walked out into the intersection, almost casually. There were two men and three women, a mix of ages, all from different walks of life, judging by their clothing. It seemed the virus was the ultimate equaliser.

True communism? he mused grimly.

They had a good look around and continued on their way, and he revised his initial opinion. There was something predatory about their movement. Not a pack on the hunt, more like an apex predator: at leisure, but still alert. They disappeared from view, but it was still a number of minutes before Princess gave the all clear. Once, Vadim would have felt some semblance of relief; now, he didn’t care. Quiet moments only gave him time with the red hunger.

Mongol climbed out of the fire engine, carrying a pack. It looked like a paramedic’s kit, and Vadim almost started laughing at the absurdity of it. A walking dead man carrying medical supplies. They were a bit beyond that.

A louder cough this time, from Princess’s Dragunov. On the other side of the intersection, one of the five zombies – a middle-aged man in a business suit – fell in the road, half his face missing. Vadim waited, expecting the others to come back, but none of them did.

2151 EST, 16th November 1987

Off Lafayette Street, New York City

A HOOKED NEEDLE pierced unfeeling flesh the colour of fish skin. Vadim sat on the edge of a display in the camping shop they’d broken into. The window had already been shattered, but there’d evidently been little time for looting. It was a strange place to Vadim’s eyes. The equipment all seemed somehow absurdly luxurious for such utilitarian things.

The Fräulein, Skull and Gulag, were keeping watch whilst Mongol patched him up. The medic had already sewn up the rest of the squad’s wounds. The Fräulein and Gulag had something of Frankenstein’s monster about them. Some of Gulag’s wounds, like the bite mark in his neck, just had to be covered with trauma dressings. There was no denying that any of them were dead, but Mongol was hoping to delay the onset of putrefaction, the inevitable rot. It was a good idea, as was stealing functional outdoor clothes from the shop. If he wanted them to act as though they were still human, then they needed to look and feel as human as possible. That was difficult when your flesh was hanging off you.

Vadim hadn’t felt very human when Mongol had dug out the bullet that killed him; there had been little of what he would consider pain, just discomfort and an odd feeling of dislocation as Mongol rooted around in his chest with forceps.

“How are you doing?” Vadim asked the Mongol, more for something to say than any good reason. At first he didn’t think the medic was going to answer the stupid question.

“I am frightened for my family,” Mongol finally said, not looking up as he continued to sew the captain’s chest wound shut. The words were a little indistinct; Mongol had had to cut away flaps of skin from the side of his mouth and sew them up, exposing most of his teeth and jaw. Vadim nodded, although it had been a long time since he’d had any family, other than the military. The Nazis had seen to that.

“I don’t want revenge, I don’t care about that. I just want to go home…”

He left it there, but Vadim had a notion of what he was thinking. Even if he made it home, how could his family possibly accept him like this?

“What will you do?” Vadim asked, and Mongol shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps I can live away from them, but watch over them.” He looked up at Vadim. “It may not be an issue. We’re going to rot. It’s unlikely we’ll make it that far, assuming we can even find a ship.”

“Shh!” said the Fräulein, by the window, and the squad moved into cover. Something shambled past the front of the shop, broken body casting monstrous shadows across the racks of camping equipment, backlit by the few light still burning in the city. He heard New Boy exhale once the danger had passed, just another reminder that some among them still lived. Mongol must have heard it as well. He followed the sound, but instead ended up watching Princess as she changed.

“I don’t feel any stronger than Genadi,” he said quietly. Then he looked back to Vadim. “I am so hungry.”

Vadim nodded. He felt it as well.

“When it becomes too much…”

“I promise,” Vadim told him.

“Boss?” New Boy said. Vadim closed his eyes, opened them again and looked up at the scout, who was holding up some rappelling gear. Vadim didn’t want to weigh them down with any unnecessary weight, but they had been very underequipped, beyond weapons and ammunition. He considered the climbing gear for a moment, then nodded. They had also taken trail rations for the living, flashlights, boots and civilian replacements for all the equipment they should have had for the mission.

0039 EST, 17th November 1987

Corner of the Bowery and Delancey Street, New York City

THE FRÄULEIN HAD found a map of New York in the camping store. They’d skirted Little Italy, heading for Manhattan Bridge, when they caught up with the mass of the dead. Moving east, glancing south down streets with names like Mulberry and Mott, they’d seen large crowds of what had once been people milling around in the darkness, drifting and eerily silent. If there were people still alive down there, then they were well-hidden and very quiet.

Just past Elizabeth Street they heard the clank of armour, and the almost reassuring sound of tracks on concrete, searchlights stabbing through the darkness of the starless night and grimy rain. Skull signalled a halt.

Vadim glanced down Elizabeth Street. The dead were on the move now, migrating like herd animals at a steady walk, moving through Chinatown maybe four or five blocks to the south. Skull had headed across the street to get a better vantage point. He signalled what he saw ahead: two tanks, two APCs and a jeep. Vadim beckoned to the Fräulein and explained his plan.

“We’re going in. I want an APC.”

“Why take the risk? We can go around,” she said.

“Between us and where I want to go there are a lot of dead people. An APC could make our lives a lot easier.” He slung his AK-74, pulled two hand grenades from his webbing and started towards the intersection.

“Vadim!” the Fräulein hissed, but he ignored her.

VADIM TRIED NOT to think about what he was doing. There were other, less risky ways of achieving what he wanted here. Did he want to die? Really die, as in stop moving? He was looking at a future of rot, after all. Did he want to be punished?

From where he skulked, he could see a number of bodies lying in the streets: people who had, mercifully, been too badly hurt to reanimate. A few were twitching, but were too broken to move. He was very well aware of what they – what he had done to this city. There was no doubt in his mind that if there was natural justice, then death was the very least of what he deserved.

He gave the rest of the squad enough time to get into position and removed the pins from the grenades, but left them hanging from his fingers.

The two M48A5 Patton tanks were two generations old; the boxy, tracked M113A3 Armoured Personnel Carriers were a generation behind the current US military. National Guard, Vadim decided. According to the street signs, this was the intersection of the Bowery and Delancey Street. It was clear that the Guard were just doing as they had been told, blocking this particular thoroughfare. It irritated Vadim; whoever had given the order had clearly been working on doctrine and had no real idea of the situation. Things must be pretty extreme.

“Don’t shoot!” he called in English as he moved out of the darkness and into the street. A few of the broken, mindless dead cocked their heads and started dragging themselves across the asphalt towards the source of the noise. He raised his hands high, but kept his fists curled around the grenades. The searchlight almost blinded him. That wasn’t good, but it was to be expected. There was shouting from the tops of the APCs and the tanks.

“Quiet!” a voice unused to command shouted. “Who are you?” Despite the bright white light, Vadim was pretty sure the voice was coming from the passenger side of the jeep. He’d spotted a manned M60 machine gun mounted in the back of the vehicle.

“My name is Captain Vadim Scorlenski of the armed forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”

There was some muttering from the jeep.

“A Russian?” the voice asked.

“Just so. Who am I addressing?”

“Lieutenant William Smithson of the 50th Armoured Division.” Lieutenant Smithson sounded young, and more than a little nervous. This did not fill Vadim with confidence. In some ways, given the situation, he was impressed that the young officer was holding it together, but nervous people made mistakes. “Can I assume that you’re surrendering?”

“I’m afraid not,” Vadim said apologetically. “Take the light off me and we can talk.” He could hear discussion from the vehicles. Someone referring to the lieutenant as Bill, encouraging him to just ‘blow him away’. “As you say, you have me covered, but I have information pertaining to the force that is about to attack you.”

“I’m going to send two of my men out to secure you,” the lieutenant said, still little more than a shadow behind the lights from the two tanks.

“That would be a mistake,” Vadim told him and opened his fists, revealing the grenades. “Lieutenant, please understand, I am trying to save your life.” Is that it? he wondered.Is that the reason for this stupid plan, is this just a pathetic attempt to alleviate a tiny bit of my guilt? He told himself he was just buying time for the squad to get in place.

“I could just shoot you,” the lieutenant pointed out.

“Your men in the tanks and the APCs will probably be fine, but I suspect the blast will catch your driver and gunner. Besides, you can see me without the lights and you need them to check your surroundings. I am not the threat, unless you make me one.”

“Just fucking shoot him.” The voice sounded like it came from the turret of the M48A5 to the right of the jeep.

“That’s enough,” the lieutenant said. “Take the light off him.”

“But lieutenant…”

“Now, Rogers!”

The light was moved off Vadim, leaving bright spots in his sight. His night vision was ruined.

“Did you do this?”

Vadim blinked trying to make out the figure wearing a helmet and poncho in the passenger seat of the jeep. “We brought this to your city, yes,” Vadim told him. “We were just…” He was about to tell the lieutenant that he’d been following orders, but he’d heard that excuse before. It was a coward’s excuse.

“Son-of-a-bitch!” This was from the gunner stood on the back of the jeep. “Let me kill him, loot!”

“Can you think of a terribly compelling reason why I shouldn’t just kill you now?” the lieutenant asked, voice taut.

No, Vadim thought. He would have sighed if he’d had breath.

“Do I look well to you?” he asked.

“No, sir, you do not. We heard rumours of a biological weapon.”

“That is correct. It makes people kill in a frenzy,” Vadim told them. He couldn’t be bothered to try and explain what was actually happening.

“Like rabies?” the jeep’s driver asked.

“Yes, only it is much stronger and acts much more quickly.”

“Bullshit,” the gunner in the jeep said. “Where are the bodies?” It was a good question. Vadim decided to ignore it.

“Lieutenant, you have a force of several thousand frenzied cannibals, probably two or three blocks south of you, in the Chinatown district.” Several of the soldiers actually turned around and looked down the Bowery. “You have been sent here to die. You need to put all your men in one of your armoured personnel carriers and leave.”

“Why would I put all my men in one of the APCs?” he asked.

“Movement!” This came from the turret of the tank to his left. Still trying to blink away the spots in his vision, Vadim could see the tank’s commander had twisted around and was pointing a pair of binoculars back down the Bowery towards the bridge. Vadim wasn’t sure, but he thought he might be able to see the darkened silhouette of the bridge at the end of the broad road.

“Because I need your APC,” Vadim told the lieutenant.

“I get the feeling you’re not asking,” he said. Vadim could hear it in the young officer’s voice: resignation. He knew he was about to die.

“There’s no duty left here, only ruin,” Vadim all but pleaded.

“It’s an ambush!” the lieutenant shouted. Vadim brought his tired arms down.

The two commanders in the turrets of the tanks died first, shot by Princess and Skull. Vadim threw the grenade in his right hand at the closest tank, the one on the right. It was a lucky throw, dropping through the open hatch. He heard the ensuing panic. With his now-free right hand, he drew his Stechkin and opened fire. The RPKSs opened up from a building on his right, bullets tearing into the jeep and sparking off one of the APCs. He heard cries of pain, but the M60 in the back of the jeep started firing. Tracers flew past him. He heard the sharp crack of the near misses as he reached the deceptive safety of cover behind the left-hand tank, just as its turret traversed towards the building Mongol and the Fräulein were firing from. Both gunners on the APCs were firing at the building as well, their big .50 calibre heavy machine guns blowing huge holes through the masonry. Bullets from the M60 sparked off the tank Vadim was hiding behind.

When the two .50 cals went silent and the gunners slumped forward, Vadim assumed his snipers had killed them as well. He heard shouting from inside the closest APC as the rear hatch opened and the infantry squad inside started to debus. Vadim clambered up onto the front of the tank, firing his Stechkin wildly at the M60 gunner in the jeep. He tossed the grenade awkwardly, underhand, at the open hatch of the tank. At first he thought he’d missed, but the hand grenade bounced off the armoured plate and in.

There was a popping noise, a grenade launcher. An explosion in the back of the closest APC. No! Vadim thought. They needed one of them. Screaming, the shredded remnant of a soldier staggered out of the back of the vehicle only to be cut down by bullets from an AK-74. The M60 gunner on the jeep slumped, his gun swinging up, tracers shooting into the air like fireworks. The tank Vadim was crouched on bucked as its main 105mm gun fired and part of a building ceased to exist. Vadim’s second grenade went off inside the tank and the gunner’s torso leapt out of the open turret hatch. A cloud of powdered masonry rose from the building the tank had hit. Vadim hoped that it had been a blind shot, that Mongol and the Fräulein hadn’t been anywhere near where the shell had hit.

He heard the staccato of AK-74s on burst-fire. Gulag was advancing on the rear of the APC he’d hit with the grenade launcher, firing into it, finishing off the wounded soldiers. New Boy was doing the same with the far APC, but at least he’d listened to the orders Vadim had passed on through the Fräulein, to capture a vehicle with as little damage as possible. The younger man closed with the APC, firing into the hatch; at the last moment, he let the assault rifle drop on its sling, grabbed the sawn-off KS-23 from his back scabbard and fired the weapon, twice, into the APC. Vadim could see the muzzle flash of the shotgun lighting up the carrier’s interior through the narrow armoured windows.

“Clear,” New Boy said. There was something in his voice; he sounded sickened. There was a low, unpleasant laugh from Gulag.

“Yeah, clear,” Gulag said.

“Check the other tank,” Vadim said, reloading and holstering his pistol before looking in the tank. It was a slaughterhouse. He tried to ignore his hunger.

At the sound of birdsong, he turned to see Skull on the corner, pointing down the Bowery towards the bridge. Vadim was still seeing spots, and it took him a moment to work out what Skull was pointing at: a vast, dark mass of people about three blocks away, sprinting towards them. They weren’t uttering a sound, but now he was aware of them, Vadim heard the thunder of their feet.

“Get the bodies out of the back of the APC!” he shouted. “Grab any spare weapons and ammo to hand, but don’t waste any time!” He needed to hope that the Fräulein hadn’t been killed. They’d all been trained on various pieces of captured or bought NATO equipment, but only the Fräulein had ever actually driven an M113. To his relief, he saw both Mongol and the Fräulein stagger out into the intersection, though both were covered from head to foot with dust. The Fräulein cast him a look of utter scorn as she ran to the jeep.

Gulag and New Boy were tossing bodies out of the back of the less-damaged M113, stripping them as well as they could of weapons and ammunition. New Boy kept casting glimpses back at the rapidly closing horde of the dead. Skull ran to aid them; Princess followed, but paused, briefly, to watch the closing horde as well. Even Vadim was finding their silence eerie.

“Captain, help me with this!” the Fräulein snapped at him. She was trying to unscrew the M60 in the back of the jeep. He ran to aid her. “Get the ammo!” She pointed at two ammo boxes as she finally wrenched the gun free. “What the hell are you playing at?” she demanded, quietly enough so the rest of the squad couldn’t hear. Vadim was looking at the lieutenant in the passenger seat of the jeep. He was young. The captain found himself wondering if he was a college student. He’d sounded educated. Vadim resisted the urge to apologise. Suddenly Gulag was by the jeep, searching the lieutenant.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Vadim demanded, grabbing Gulag’s arm. The gangster threw his hand off and held up Smithson’s Colt M1911, and a couple of spare magazines.

“I’ve always wanted one of these,” the Muscovite said, and grinned.

“Come on! We don’t have time for this!” the Fräulein snapped and all three of them were running for the APC.