New York Run

Chapter Fifteen

The three soldiers and the pair of Warriors reached the end of the corridor and came to an abrupt stop.

The hallway was a dead end.

“The Zombies are on our level!” Private Kimper shouted, the pulse scanner held next to his face.

“We’re trapped!” Captain Wargo exclaimed.

Blade surveyed the corridor. There was no sign of Gatti. Where was he?

“Where’s Gatti?” Wargo demanded.

Blade ran, retracing their steps. He reached an open doorway on the right and peered inside, his helmet lamp revealing the interior. It was a room, perhaps 10 feet by 12, littered with the inevitable cobwebs, dust, and an antiquated wooden chair with two legs missing lying on the left side near the wall. Blade was about to pull away, when his lamp fell on the rear wall. Or what had once been the rear wall. Because now a large hole beckoned, providing access to an adjoining chamber. “This way!” Blade yelled, and took off, Geronimo dogging his heels.

The Warriors hastened through the opening and discovered another room exactly like the first. But instead of a dilapidated chair the chamber contained some newer additions: Private Gatti’s blood-soaked helmet and Dakon II on the floor in the middle of the room.

Blade scooped up the weapon and checked the digital readout. A full magazine!

“I could use one of those,” Geronimo mentioned as the trio of troopers entered the room.

“Where the hell did you get that?” Captain Wargo remarked, pointing his Dakon II at Blade.

Blade returned the compliment. “It was Gatti’s. There’s no sign of him.”

“Hand it over!” Wargo commanded.

“No way.”

Captain Wargo’s features contorted into a furious mask. “When I give an order—”

“The Zombies!” Private Kimper interrupted. “Ten yards and closing fast!”

The five men spread out, facing the way they came, their rifles trained on the opening.

Blade looked over his left shoulder. There was a doorway five feet away, lacking a door. Good. They had a way to escape if the Zombies—

Two Zombies rushed into the room, hissing, their arms extended. A barrage of fragmentation bullets ruptured their chests and heads and they collapsed, spewing green fluid.

“Hold them!” Captain Wargo yelled.

Four more Zombies were framed in the opening, and a hail of bullets dropped them on the spot.

Blade frowned. This was easy. Too easy. Almost as if it was a trap. But that would mean the Zombies were behind them—

“Look out!” Geronimo shouted in warning.

Blade crouched and whirled, the Dakon II at hip level, and the movement saved his life. Zombies were pouring in the doorway, and one of them had clawed at the Warrior’s neck even as he ducked. Blade let the mutation have it, blowing its face off.

The Technics were firing with total abandon, shooting as quickly as Zombies appeared at the opening or the doorway.

Geronimo, unarmed and feeling utterly helpless, stayed close to Blade.

The Warriors and Technics held their own for a while, downing Zombies until bodies were stacked on both sides of the room.

But then the tide turned.

Blade felt something strike his left shoulder, then his back, and he glanced up at the ceiling in time to see a slavering Zombie plummet through a narrow aperture. “They’re above us!” he cried.

Private Kimper was standing three feet from Blade, and he turned to confront this new menace.

Too late.

The Zombie landed between the two men, and with an agility belied by its emaciated appearance, it coiled and pounced, hurtling at Private Kimper, brushing the Technic’s Dakon II aside, and fastening its fingers in his throat.

Blade held his fire, concerned he would hit Kimper.

Kimper screamed as he was knocked to the floor, ineffectively flailing at the Zombie with his fists.

Blade closed in and hammered his stock onto the Zombie’s head. Once.

Twice. Three times, and the Zombie released Kimper and rose, its eyes gleaming savagely. Blade shot it at point-blank range, and his arms and face were pelted with more green gore.

Kimper, gagging, stumbled to his feet and grabbed for his Dakon II.

Three Zombies came through the doorway, and one of them reached Kimper in one mighty bound. The Technic was lifted from his feet and his head was brutally wrenched to the right.

Blade heard the snap of Kimper’s vertebra even as he shot the Zombie in the forehead.

Geronimo saw his opportunity. He darted forward and grasped Kimper’s Dakon II, then spun, firing, decimating the other two Zombies.

The attack unexpectedly ceased. Dust floated in the air. A preternatural quiet gripped the underground tunnels.

“Blade!” someone gasped.

Blade turned.

Captain Wargo was on his back, a dead Zombie straddling his legs.

Four more of the mutations lay near his boots. The Technic was staring at the giant Warrior with a resigned expression, a fatalistic acceptance of his impending demise. “I blew it,” he said softly.

Wargo’s left arm was gone, missing, severed from his body, no doubt taken by a Zombie intent on consuming the limb as a tasty snack.

“Where’s the last commando?” Geronimo asked Blade.

The two Warriors were the only ones standing.

Blade moved to Wargo and knelt next to the officer. He cradled Wargo’s head in his left hand, watching the blood pump from the ragged stump where once the left arm had been.

“I’ve bought it,” Wargo stated in a strained whisper.

“We’ll get you out of here,” Blade told him. “I’ll carry you.”

Wargo’s brow furrowed. “You’d do that for me? After what I’ve done? After the way I’ve treated you?”

Blade glanced at the Zombie on Wargo’s legs. “We can’t let them have you.”

Wargo moaned and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were rimmed with tears. “I want you to know I was only following orders.”

Is that any excuse? Blade wanted to retort. Instead, he smiled and nodded. “I know.”

Captain Wargo shuddered. “I’m so cold.” He groaned. “I wish… I wish…” His head sagged and his eyes shut again.

Geronimo was keeping them covered. “What are we going to do?” he inquired. “Get out of here, I hope.”

“We’re going after the Genesis Seeds,” Blade said.

“But why?” Geronimo rejoined. “You said you doubted they even exist.”

“But if they do,” Blade explained, “we owe it to our family, to the entire Civilized Zone, to do our best to retrieve them.”

Captain Wargo trembled and coughed, blood appearing at the corners of his mouth. He opened his ayes, which looked haunted. “Don’t,” he croaked.

Blade leaned closer. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t go after the seeds.” Wargo coughed some more. “They don’t exist.”

“Then why did your Minister go to so much trouble?” Blade asked.

“Why lure us to Technic City and force us to come here? Why?”

“The mind-control gas,” Captain Wargo disclosed as a crimson streak gushed from his right nostril.

Blade and Geronimo exchanged astonished looks.

“The gas was developed by the Institute of Advanced Technology for the Defense Department at the outset of World War Three,” Captain Wargo elaborated painfully, wheezing between words. “They planned to use it on the Soviets, but New York was hit before they could transfer the canisters of the gas from here to a military installation.” He paused, gathering his breath. “The New York branch wired the Chicago branch of the shipment’s readiness minutes before New York was hit. The canisters have been in the underground vault since.”

“What does this gas do?” Blade probed.

“Makes a person susceptible to any command they’re given,” Captain Wargo said. “The Minister… intends to make more of it. Use it on the Freedom Federation and the Soviets.”

“He wants to conquer the world,” Blade observed.

“For the greater glory of the Technics,” Wargo stated. “Needs samples to duplicate, like your SEAL.”

Blade placed his right hand on Wargo’s chest. “The SEAL? What does the SEAL have to do with it?”

Wargo was slipping fast. “Make… machines… tanks… from the same substance…”

“Why are you telling us this?” Geronimo asked.

Wargo’s eyes fluttered. “Least I could do.” His eyes widened, and for a moment he was mentally alert and in full possession of his faculties. He stared at Blade and, unbelievably, laughed, a hard, brittle tittering.

“Besides… doesn’t matter anymore… does it?” His body straightened and fluttered, he gasped once, and died.

“I can’t say as I’ll miss him,” Geronimo remarked.

“Me neither,” Blade confessed. “But we owe him for telling us about the mind-control gas.”

“So what do we do now?” Geronimo questioned.

Blade stood. “We get out of here.”

“Now you’re talking!”

“Go through Kimper’s clothes and gear,” Blade directed. “We’ll need all the spare magazines and ammunition for these Dakon IIs we can find.”

“Got you.”

The two Warriors searched Wargo and Kimper and found a total of six spare magazines and four boxes of ammunition.

“We’ll each take three magazines and two boxes,” Blade told Geronimo as he crammed one of the magazines into his right front pocket. He loaded his pockets, then crossed to Private Kimper and crouched next to his body.

“What are you doing?” Geronimo asked.

Blade unfastened the pulse scanner from Kimper’s right wrist. “It looks like this gizmo is still on,” he said. The screen contained a network of black lines.

“Do you know how to read it?” Geronimo queried hopefully.

“Not really,” Blade admitted. “But…” He paused. Small, white blips had sprouted on the screen along its outer edge. They were swiftly converging inward the center. “I think company is coming.”

“Zombies?”

“Who else?” Blade rose and hurried to the large hole in the wall.

Geronimo followed. “We don’t want a canister as a keepsake?”

“The stairs may well be intact on the lower levels,” Blade said, “but we’re not going to bother finding out. We’re going up. And fast.”

“I like a man who knows his mind.”

They reached the corridor and raced back the way they’d came. Blade saw additional white blips appear on the pulse scanner. If he was reading the thing right, the Zombies were moving toward the room they’d just vacated. And there didn’t seem to be any blips corresponding to the hallway they were in. If he was correct, they’d reach the hole allowing access to the level above them without being attacked.

They did.

“How are we going to get up there?” Geronimo asked as his helmet lamp swept the opening 12 feet overhead.

“Easily,” Blade said, slinging his Dakon II over his right shoulder.

“Oh? Are we going to fly?” Geronimo quipped, studying the hole.

“One of us is,” Blade responded. Before Geronimo quite knew what had happened, Blade stepped behind his companion, grabbing Geronimo by the back of his belt and the fabric of his green shirt at the nape of his neck.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Geronimo demanded.

“Relax and enjoy the trip,” Blade told him. His bulging arms lifted Geronimo and swung his friend down and up, twice in fast succession, gathering speed with each swing. “Get set,” he advised.

Geronimo, marveling at Blade’s prodigious strength, clasped his Dakon II and grinned.

A third time Blade swung his fellow Warrior, and then he heaved and released his grip.

Geronimo was propelled through the opening, landing on his stomach with his legs suspended from the hole. He used his elbows to crawl to his feet, then looked down at Blade. “And how are you going to make it?”

Blade gauged the distance. “It’s too high to jump.”

“You’d best hurry,” Geronimo cautioned him.

Blade glanced at the pulse scanner. “I agree.” White blips were moving his way. He unslung the Dakon II.

“I’ve got an idea,” Geronimo said.

“Make it fast,” Blade stated. The blips were much closer.

Geronimo placed his Dakon II on the floor and removed his shirt.

“Here!” He held onto one sleeve and dropped the shirt through the hole.

Blade scanned the corridor behind him, then looked at the shirt. The other sleeve was dangling about nine feet over his head. An easy jump for one of his enormous stature.

Footsteps pounded in the hallway to his rear.

Blade whirled, his helmet light illuminating four hissing Zombies closing in, four more of the detestable deviates with a craving for healthy human flesh. Blade blasted them with the Dakon.

The Zombies danced spasmodically as they were struck, then fell.

More blips filled the pulse scanner. Blade reslung the Dakon, crouched, and leaped, his arms stretched to their limit, his fingers clamping on the shirt and holding last. “Pull!”

Geronimo was nearly upended. The weight was almost too much for his arms to bear. Crouched at the rim, he sagged, about to pitch forward, but caught himself in the nick of time. He gritted his teeth as his arms strained to raise Blade a couple of feet, hoping the shirt would hold. The Family Weavers had constructed his clothing, and their garments were renowned for their durability. But Blade felt as if he weighed a ton!

“Hurry!” Blade prompted him.

Every muscle on Geronimo’s stocky body quivered as he rose an inch, then several more.

Swaying below the hole. Blade waited, his body taut. If Geronimo could get him close enough to the rim…

Something suddenly encircled the Warrior’s legs.

Blade looked down, dumbfounded to see a Zombie clinging to his ankles. The creature’s teeth were exposed as it snarled and snapped at his leg, tearing into his fatigue pants but missing the skin underneath.

Geronimo felt the shirt wrench to one side, and he glanced down.

Blade twisted, striving to extricate his legs, hoping the Zombie would not succeed in taking a chunk out of him. An insane idea occurred to him, a desperate maneuver to disentangle his legs and reach the level above. He balled his right fist and lashed downward, his left hand bearing the brunt of his massive weight, and crashed his fist into the Zombie’s hairless skull.

Staggered by the blow, the Zombie released its grip and glared up at its dinner.

Which was exactly what Blade wanted.

The giant Warrior drew his legs up to his chest, then lashed his feet down, deliberately driving his boots onto the Zombie’s slim shoulders. In the instant his soles made contact, Blade pushed upward, using the Zombie as a springboard, uncoiling and springing through the hole in the floor to sprawl beside Geronimo.

Geronimo tumbled backwards, landing on his posterior. He yanked on his shirt and smiled at Blade. “What? No full gainer?”

“Let’s go!” Blade said, rising.

Geronimo hastily donned his shirt, and they fled, retracing their route, following the trail of their footprints in the dust. They arrived at the door leading to the stairs and paused, breathing heavily, leaning on the walls.

“Didn’t we leave this door open?” Geronimo asked.

Blade couldn’t recall. He shrugged and tugged on the door, grateful it flew open so readily.

Until he saw what lurked on the other side.

The landing was jammed with Zombies and the stairs were packed with more.

“They were waiting for us!” Geronimo cried.

Blade leveled the Dakon II as the front row started toward them. They were overwhelmingly outnumbered, and outrunning the monstrosities would be impossible at this close range. He could only hope to sell his life dearly, and he would have done so had not a very peculiar event transpired.

One of the Zombies uttered a weird, gurgling noise, and the effect on the assembled mutations was instantaneous and bewildering. They abruptly ran off, the majority heading up the stairs in a confused panic, while a dozen or so bolted past a startled pair of Warriors flattened against the corridor walls.

“What was that all about?” Geronimo nervously inquired after the last Zombie was lost to view.

“Beats me,” Blade said. “But whatever it was, I like it! Let’s get to the SEAL.”

They walked through the doorway to the landing.

Geronimo bent his neck, craning skyward. “I can see the top!” he exclaimed. “And there isn’t a Zombie in sight!”

“Good riddance,” Blade commented. Now nothing would stop them.

Or so he thought.

There was a rumbling roar from directly below, and the very tunnel shook, the stairs vibrating and the landing the Warriors occupied shimmying.

Blade, nearest the railing, leaned over the edge for an unobstructed view of the vertical shaft. The… thing… his helmet lamp revealed caused the short hairs on the back of his neck to rise, his skin tingling, and he unconsciously stepped away from the railing, staggered.

“What is it?” Geronimo asked, moving toward the railing.

Blade grabbed his friend by the shoulder and shoved, sending Geronimo in the direction of the steps. “Go!” he shouted, forgetting Geronimo could hear the slightest sound in his helmet earphone.

“But…” Geronimo protested, his left foot on the bottom step.

“Go!” Blade yelled.

Geronimo, disturbed and alarmed, took the stairs two at a bound.

“Come on!” he urged Blade.

But Blade had other ideas. He would delay the… thing… until Geronimo reached safety. It was the only way one of them would get out alive. He stepped to the railing and gazed downward.

Just as the thing gave another deafening roar and rushed toward the landing.