What Zombies Fear (Book 2): The Maxists (12 page)

“
Your son Max is of particular interest to us,” she continued. “He’s different than even you, Tookes. When my kind enters a body like yours, your body releases a toxin that kills us, an unfortunate result of a genetic. Max, however, is special. We think he’s unique to your entire species. The toxin his body releases is like a drug for us. It doesn’t kill us, but we get addicted to it and that allows him to control us. If you give us Max to study, we’ll leave you alone. Otherwise, we’ll kill all of you and take Max ourselves.”

—–

Nearly two hundred miles south east, twelve men dressed in military fatigues crept across the border of the neighboring farm. They inched up the hill towards the manor house, crawling along on their bellies. When they reached the fence, the leader spoke quietly into his radio.

“
Colonel, we’re in position.” He replied while peering through his night vision rifle scope. “Upstairs middle window, the target is sleeping.”

Chapter 10
Dilemma

At that moment, Shannon Johnson saw a glint in the grass. The rest of M5 was spread out behind him following on their nightly patrol of the grounds. Shannon dropped to his belly and brought his 30/30 up to ready before turning on the powerful MagLite that illuminated the twelve men lying prone in the grass.

Those men opened fire, all twelve of them firing at the source of the light. Shannon was killed instantly in a hail of gunfire, the huge flashlight hit the ground and slowly rolled to the left. The rest of Shannon’s team dropped to the ground and opened fire on the area where they’d seen muzzle flashes. Their bolt action rifles were slower than the M16’s carried by their attackers, but they did the trick. Even without being able to see anything, they were able to kill half of the invaders before retreating around the corner of an outbuilding.

When they first started these patrols, most of them had not taken them seriously. If they’d been walking in a group and talking like they had for the first month, they would have all been killed. One night just two weeks before Bookbinder ambushed them, ‘killing’ the entire team all by himself. After that fiasco, he taught them to stay separated by at least ten feet and walk in a line, canvassing the sides of the hills surrounding the manor house and settlement. Tonight, when Johnson turned on his flash light and was killed, the remainder of the squad dropped to their bellies in the tall grass. They were flanking the approaching soldiers, had perfect lines of fire when the attackers opened up on Shannon.

The men were catching their breath when they heard gun fire from down by the barn. They heard the slower, quieter M16's of the military men and the louder, single shots from the fire team’s hunting rifles. Signs of stress were already prevalent among the group. Gallard was staring into space, not really paying attention to anyone. None of them outside of Baker had ever shot a living person. Baker was an ex cop, who’d fired his weapon a couple of times in the line of duty, including killing a teenager that was waving a gun at an old lady.

Baker, who was second in command of M5 spoke first. The southern Virginian had a rough accent, he’d lived in the hills of Appalachia most of his life. He was no stranger to guns and knew as much about survival as anyone on the property. Baker was always picking some wild edible and talking about the benefits of this plant or that one.

“
They won’t be no fuckin’ help from them other teams.” Baker said. “Tookes has the god damn walkies and the fuckin’ H&K magazines on they mission. That leaves us’ns to defend the fuckin’ home place with these shit-ass 30-30's. I don’t think them motherfuckers was ready when Johnson saw ‘em, so we has the fuckin’ element of surprise, but they gots us out-gunned and now we’s fuckin’ pinned here shit outta luck. I don’t know what these fuckers is up to or who they is, so we should think about tryin’ to nab one of em fuckers a prisoner. I’m pretty sure there were twelve of them fuckers in that group we run up on, now down to seven bitches left.”

Having assessed the situation, Baker continued, “So, em fuckers was headed towards the big house and only folks in there now is Missus Tookes and lil Max. Either they’re after lil Max, or em fuckers are gonna be mighty disappointed when they figure out the Command ain’t in there. Dumb fucks shoulda done some recon work. So, we gonna assume them fuck sticks is after lil Maxie, ‘cause thats worst fuckin’ case.”

Baker then started issuing orders to the team that was now his to command. “Gallard, Grieco, you fuckers head around the back and sneak in the fuckin’ kitchen door real quiet. Don’t let them fucks see you. Me an’ Leuty are headin’ straight up their ass, through the back door. We’s gonna swing by them fuckin stiffs we blasted out in the field to make sure they’ gonna stay dead an’ grab their guns. I’ll bring a couple extra for you’s. We meet up in the dining room in four minutes, get on now, fuckers. An’ be fuckin’ quiet about it.”

Gallard and Grieco ran as hard as they could for the back of the house; half crouched, trying to keep anything between the sliver of the moon and them. The surviving men from the field were nowhere to be found. Baker and Leuty collected four rifles and two radios which they put on. Leuty quickly removed one man’s undamaged combat vest and put it on himself. The gunfire from the barn continued; sporadic shots followed by moments of silence as both sides worked to outflank each other.

Down at the barn, M3 was heading up the steep hill from the river. They had just finished their last patrol and were about an hour ahead of M2. Leon Scott was in the lead when two men in soldier’s uniforms stood up out of the grass. They opened fire, somehow missing Scott. The leader of M3 threw himself to the ground rolling end over end down the hill. About halfway down, he hit his head on a rock jutting out of the hard ground, knocking himself unconscious.

Mark Shoenfeld and Gary Burbank weren’t so lucky. Mark took the first round to the neck, followed by another one straight through the heart. He had stopped to light a cigarette and turned away from the wind, giving the attackers a perfect side profile. The bullet went right under his arm, through his chest and exploded out the other side leaving his heart liquefied in his chest on its way through.

Gary caught a ricochet off a rock. The stray bullet entered his left cheek at a strong upward angle, broke through the soft pallet at the back of his throat and disintegrated the back of his head, launching bits of brain and skull all over Scott Humphries, who shouldered his weapon at the first sound of gunfire and squeezed off a round. His aim was true, taking the first soldier in the eye. Exactly what he’d spent the last two months training to do. He flicked the bolt back and forth and shot the other soldier in the face. Thinking he had negated the threat, he walked towards the corpses. Fifteen year old Adam Jacobsen yelled “No!” as two more men in combat fatigues stood up a few feet away. They shot Humphries simultaneously, hitting him directly in the chest with two rounds each. Humphries was thrown back several feet and landed in a heap on the ground.

Adam fired one round from a kneeling position killing a third soldier. Bookbinder had trained these men ruthlessly; one shot one kill. In addition to Bookbinder’s training, every one of them got a lot of practice shooting that night the horde came. The bruises on their shoulders from firing hundreds of rounds each had taken almost the entire next week to heal.

All that training kicked in just like Bookbinder said it would and the young militiaman gladly let it take control. He worked the bolt, aimed and squeezed, killing the fourth soldier. Six men in US Marines BDU’s came up from behind the patrol. All six men fired their weapons at Jacobsen. Two shots to the head, one slug in the neck and three bullets in the middle of his back ended Adam Jacobsen’s short but heroic life.

Randall Levitt gathered the men of M4 when the shooting started. They’d been relaxing in the communal living area above the barn, having finished their day’s assignments. Four minutes later they were just finishing gearing up when Adam Jacobsen fell dead. They ducked into the last concrete-block horse stall for cover and began returning fire at the six men in military uniforms through the vents in the block walls. Both groups were firmly entrenched, but the men in the barn had the insurgents pinned down behind a rock outcropping.

“
Who’s in charge up there?” yelled someone from behind the rocks during a lull in the conversation.

The leader of M4 shouted down “My name is Levett. Why are you attacking us?”

“
Mr. Levett. You are holding the key to the end of infected-human conflict. The Zombies have signed an agreement that they’ll give the remaining humans all the land between Virginia and Florida in exchange for one child. Giving the child to them can end this for all of us. We can have peace. Turn over the child and we don’t have to fight anymore. The decision you make here could affect every living human left in the world.”

“
You believe them?” Levett shouted.

“
I do, son. I met with their leader face to face. We sat down at a table and worked out an agreement.”

“
Who are you?”

“
My name is Fred Shoemaker; I’m the Vice President of the United States of America.”

“
Give me a minute.” yelled Levett. No leadership here, none of the people he trusted. Where was Bookbinder or Tookes? They’d know just how to handle this situation.

“
Mr. Vice President, why did you attack? You should have come to us. You should have just come and talked, not come in here at night, guns blazing.”

“
Levett, We tried a stealth mission, to save loss of life. We wanted to come in, get the kid and get out, before anyone else had to die. Every human life is sacred to me, especially now that there are so few of us.”

That makes some sense, Levett thought to himself. But I can’t just give them Max.

“
Sir, why didn’t you come peacefully? Leave now, come back tomorrow. Tookes will be back, we can reason with him. I’m not in a position to give up his child. I’ve been left in charge of security of this facility and I won’t give the kid up.”

“
That’s a shame, I’m sorry you feel that way. The deal with them is that we deliver the kid by 8am. If we fail the deal is off the table. We can’t afford to fail here Mr. Levett, this is the future of the species we’re talking about.”

Timothy Simmons watched the Vice President shift. A small part of the speaker’s head became visible. Simmons whispered “I have a shot Sarge. There is no more United States of America. There is only this place. This is our home and these fucks are attacking it. They killed M3. They shot up our home. They attacked us in the night like cowards. They waited for Tookes and M1 to be gone and they attacked.” And he squeezed the trigger. The former Vice President of the United States of America bucked once as the top of his head blew off and then fell silent.

“
How do you know if a politician is lying?” asked Simmons. “Their mouth is moving.”

Up at the manor house, Baker and Leuty ran at top speed towards the back door of the house, which was hanging open at an odd angle. A voice came over the radio. “Target in custody, evacuating. Disengage.”

Leuty, thinking much more quickly than Baker could, said into the radio “Belay that, hold inside the house, hostiles incoming.”

Baker and Leuty heard a door slam upstairs, as Gallard and Grieco came running in the room, followed by an explosion from near the barn.

“
Gallard, you two go up the back fucking stairs. Them fuckers is pinned in Lil Maxie’s fuckin’ room, I ain’t lettin’ em fuck sticks outta here with that boy. Tookes will have all our fuckin’ asses. Leuty, we’re going up the main stairs. You two, there’s a big fuckin’ closet at the top of the stairway. If you grab the door and sling it open, you can duck in’nair. In this old house, that bedroom door does double duty, swing it one way it’s the closet door, swing it the other it’s the bedroom door. When them fucks come runnin’ out, you kick that motherfucker as hard as you can and smash them numb-nuts in the face with that big ol’ fuckin’ door. Me an Leuty are gonna wait till we hear that door fuckin’ crash open and we’re gonna come bustin’ ass in there with these guns. We can’t shoot em’ cause they’re prolly holdin’ lil Max, but maybe we can convince em fucks to come out past your trap. Don’t fuckin’ let em get away.”

Just then over the radio “Who was that? Who belayed that order?”

“
This is uhh” Leuty quickly looked down at the name on his chest “Private Kyle Sir.”

“
Private Kyle’s dead,” came the reply.

“
In that case, my name is Kenneth Leuty and I’ll kill every one of you before I let you leave with that boy.”

“
Ken, I have three m203 40mm grenade launchers pointed at that barn. Each of these grenades has enough power to punch through that pretty tin roof and explode inside the building. I don’t know exactly how many people are living up in that hayloft, but it seems like a couple hundred. You stand down and let my boys come out or I will level that barn and everything in it.”