The Dying of the Light (Book 3): Beginning (3 page)

The rounds took him in the legs, shattering the bones in both. He managed to kill the other monster coming for him and watched in horror and not a little pride as Cockrell took out her killers with her combat knife.

He couldn’t hear any more Driebachs coming his way, but he knew they were out there. The door—and salvation—seemed miles away for some reason, but he thought he could crawl that far. He wasn’t sure the detonator’s signal would reach otherwise. Leland looked down at his ruined legs, the blood flowing across them showing black through his NVD. What was left of Cockrell disappeared as Leland pulled himself backward. Cockrell was buried under the bodies of the monsters that had killed her. Just as he lost sight of it, her body began twitching and moving. Leland cursed, dragged himself faster, and reached for his throat mic with one hand.

“Whiskey Five, Whiskey Four. Come in. Do you read me?” There had been no response from their sniper despite his repeated attempts. He hoped it was just a matter of the radios not reaching through the shielded door and the ten feet of dirt and concrete on either side of it. “For God’s sake, Fayde, come in!” he pleaded.

It felt like an eternity before he reached the doorway, but he made it outside. He propped himself into a seated position against the main door. Less than hopeful, he tried the radio once more as he took his rifle in the other hand, pointing it back into the bunker.

He could hear them coming. He could hear their weird hoots and hollers, their cries that promised nothing but pain and slow, horrible death… or a quick turning. The mutated prion would spread through his system and render him nigh-immortal in mere moments if he let it. He could always off himself first. No way was he going to go out like Airman Cockrell. Lucky for him, his injuries thus far had been from claws, not teeth, so he wasn’t infected yet. Still, he would never walk again.

“I’ll never do much of anything again,” he muttered as his radio squealed to life.

“Whiskey Five to anyone. Can you read me?”

“This is Worm, Fayde,” he replied, laughing to himself as he used the hated nickname. Of course he did, now. “They’re dead.”

“What? Who’s dead? What’s going on? Talk to me!”

“Everyone,” he said. “They’re all dead. Those walkers got them. It was quiet at first, like that one that you shot was alone or something…” He coughed, noticing but not caring about the blood that sprayed across his uniform. It didn’t matter now anyway. “They’re coming for me too, Brandy. I can hear them. They’re coming…”

“Just get out of there! Blow the charges. I’ll cover you!”

He laughed, then coughed again. More blood. “I’m not going anywhere. Tell them… Tell them not to come back. Just leave us all down here. Forever. Never come back.”

“What? No, Worm, you have to get out of there!”

“You tell them, Fayde. We can’t let these things out. They’re not like regular walkers. You tell them! Tell them the colonel said ‘Never come back.’” He glanced up as he saw a hand come out of the shadows in front of him, dragging something behind it on the floor. He didn’t need to see the rest of the body to know it was Cockrell, awake now and ravenous. He ripped off the NVD, turning to look out the open door as he pulled the remote detonator from his pocket. It was a shame that such a pretty day had to be so soul-crushingly hot.

The last thing Leland Wormwood saw was the bright blue sky of that Mississippi afternoon in July.

The explosion was deafening and collapsed who-knew-how-much earth and rock. The blast had the side effect of starting a landslide on the mountain, causing even more rubble to cover the massive metal doors.

Soon, it was impossible to find any trace of the bunker. Only a few outlying fences and the aerials at the mountain’s summit marked the location.

“Yankee Actual, Whiskey Five.”

“Go ahead, Whiskey Five.”

“Sir… they’re dead. They’re all dead.” Even the Ice Queen’s cold façade sounded haunted by the events of the day, and her voice cracked a bit.

“Dead? How? What the hell happened?”

“It’ll be in my report, sir. Corporal Wormwood passed along a message from Colonel Monterrey, sir.”

“What message?”

“Sir, the message was ‘Never come back.’”

“I see. Was that it?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “That was it. For what it’s worth, I’d listen.”

“I’ll take that under advisement, Captain. Return to base.”

“Yes, sir.” Brandy Fayde packed up her .50-cal Barrett sniper rifle and climbed down from her perch in the red maple tree. The sap’s pungent odor rose as she scraped her way down and headed for the chopper waiting just over the hill. She glanced once over her shoulder at the mound of freshly turned earth that had been the entrance to Bunker Nine. “I hope they listen this time.”

New Atlantic Fleet
Naval Station Norfolk
Z-Day + 19 years (Two Years Later)

The reconstruction of the Atlantic fleet was taking much longer than Jeremiah Graves had planned. There were many ships in the harbor and in the surrounding areas, but most weren’t seaworthy. None were up to what he would consider United States Navy standards.

Not that much of anything was anymore. There was no navy to speak of. He stood on the roof of the reconditioned Atlantic Fleet HQ, looking out over his new “fleet.” If you could call seven ships a fleet, anyway. Jeremiah glanced out toward the mouth of the harbor, past the massive silhouette of the
USS Enterprise
. Though it still floated, it would be a while before they could get that aircraft carrier moving again. Assuming that they could negotiate a purchase agreement with the tribe of people who inhabited the huge ship… and clear the lower decks of the walkers that had taken up their own brand of residence there.

As if summoned by his thoughts alone, Commander Jackson O’Reilly joined Graves on the roof.

“What’s the status on the
Enterprise
team, Commander?” Graves asked.

“They’ve tentatively agreed to allow us to take control of it, sir, with one condition. They want us to designate a section of the docks as theirs in perpetuity. Autonomous rule, that sort of thing.”

“What about the walkers?”

“They’ve all been secured in the three lowest decks. We can go in and clean them out, but it will take some time and men.”

“We’ll have to decide if that’s worth it. We could use something that big to transport us, but after twenty years…”

“That was my thought too, sir. It might be better just to let the tribe have it.”

Graves grunted. “Maybe so. What’s the status on the
Ramage
?”

“She’s—” O’Reilly broke off as the radio in his hand squawked, and he held it to his ear. “Skipper,
Ramage
is requesting permission to depart,” his executive officer said.

“I wish I was going with them,” Graves muttered. “A sailor should be on the sea, not stuck on the shore. I need to feel a deck beneath my feet again.”

O’Reilly didn’t say anything, and Graves didn’t expect him to. His executive officer knew he was just grousing, and what’s more, he probably agreed with him and wanted to get out there too. They were both men of action, men of the waves and the sea. They weren’t born for deskwork.

He sighed and turned to the XO. “Permission granted, Jack, and my compliments to Captain Stockhouse.”

“Yes, sir.” O’Reilly twisted a dial on his radio and waved to the distant figure standing at the rail outside the destroyer’s bridge. “You’re cleared for departure, sir, with the admiral’s compliments.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” said the tinny voice from the small speaker, and Graves could just make out the man’s wave.

The
Ramage
’s propellers spun and threw up quite a wake as it maneuvered around the remains of the
USS Donald Cook
. That rusting hulk lay across a great swathe of the entrance to Chesapeake Bay and the naval station. They’d tried several times over the years to clear the wreckage, but it hadn’t been possible, and now Graves saw it as a bonus fortification.

In any case, they had to get moving if they were going to beat the harsh winter storms across the Atlantic. Though he wanted to go with them, Graves knew that his place as the commander of the new fleet was here at home, not out there on the sea trying to find out why they hadn’t had any contact from Europe or elsewhere in years. Satellites were useless since time had destroyed most transmitting and receiving capabilities. But radios still worked, if not quite as well as before Z-Day, and they’d heard nothing from across the pond.

Graves had made a promise to David Blake to find out what had happened. He’d promised to send ships to London, Bilbao in Spain—only two hundred miles or so from Madrid—and even to Oslo, Norway. He would’ve promised the man who’d saved his crew from an icy death anything, within reason. Oslo hadn’t been his
first choice, but given how cold affected walkers, it was a good suggestion. They were more likely to find survivors there than anywhere.

USS Ramage
was only the first ship to set sail, headed for London. He just hoped there’d be something to show for all this in the end and not too many of his people lost along the way.

“Godspeed, men,” he whispered.

Lacey, Washington

The air was cool and crisp. It was fine fall weather for this small town that had once been just sleepy but was now silent and still. Death had claimed Lacey, and nothing stirred in its streets and homes. It would be a near-perfect location for Bunker One’s Expeditionary Force to reclaim for its people.

Once they’d cleared the remaining walkers, of course.

The Blackhawk helicopter came in low and whisper quiet over the rooftops. Its matte-black fuselage reflected little of the midday sun as it slowed to hover over a squat two-story office building just off the freeway. With a few shots from the soldiers hanging out of the open helo doors, the streets below were clear.

The helo disgorged six soldiers in black fatigues and body armor as they fast-roped to the building’s roof. Each man assumed guard positions until the entire team was down. The crew chief looked out the open door of the helo and returned the thumbs-up from the ground team leader. With that, the Blackhawk moved off to take up a support position nearby.

“Echo Six to Nest,” Captain Jake Powell said. “On site and beginning sweep.”

“Acknowledged, Echo Six.”

Powell flashed a quick “go” signal, and the team split into several groups, with the first approaching the rooftop access door. Standing to one side, the soldier waited for the signal from his partner, who had taken up a defensive position, shotgun at the ready. The door was flung open on an empty staircase, and under cover of the shotgun, the first man moved forward. He rigged a claymore mine a few steps down from the top, positioning a small motion sensor several steps below that.

At the top of the fire escape, the other group had just finished their own clearing operation. The soldiers returned to the middle of the roof, once more assuming guard positions.

“All clear, sir,” one of the men said. “Ready to proceed.” He turned to the captain, who stood nearby scanning a map of the local area.

“Good,” Powell said. “Take positions for overwatch.” He raised his own binocs and took position as one of the spotters. His eyes weren’t as young as they used to be, but with the help of some laser treatments, he could see as well as any younger man. The others had taken up positions in two-man spotter-sniper pairs around the edge of the roof.

“Echo Six to Nest. Ready to begin cleanup.”

“Roger, Echo Six. Cleanup authorized. You may proceed.”

Grabbing a small metallic disk from his pocket, the captain turned to his men. “Ready for screamers.” Each member of the team inserted the earplugs they had prepared. With a thumbs-up from all five, the captain gave a quick twist to the bottom of the disk and threw it over the side of the building.

The ear-splitting noise generated by the disk as it hit the ground was almost overwhelming, even four floors above the street. The men all winced, covering their ears with their gloved hands until several minutes had gone by and the screamer had stopped. Shaking his head, the captain turned from the street back to his team.

“Recover! Spotters report walkers on sight.” As one man, they answered “Sir!”

Screamers acted as zombie attractors. Drawn by the noise, the walkers would move straight toward the device. This allowed prepared teams of soldiers to set up a “kill box.” It didn’t take long for the soldiers to pick out the moans from the walkers in the nearby streets. It was only a few moments longer before the captain heard a spotter call out, “Target, ten o’clock.” A loud crack, and the spotter reported, “Target down.”

An hour later, Jake and his sniper had run out of targets on their side of the building. They’d put down forty-seven so far, just the two of them. They’d found a much larger number of walkers than expected for such a small town. The tall captain with the salt-and-pepper hair took the opportunity to stretch and twist and get rid of some aches from staying in one place too long.

He noticed the sweeper team loading their last clips of ammunition when one of the men turned to the captain. “Cap, alarm on the stairwell.”

“Understood.” Powell activated his throat mic. “Ranger One, Echo Six. We have a stage two alert. Request evac.” He paused when there was no response. “Repeat, Ranger One, Echo Six. We have a stage two alert. Contact imminent. Request immediate evac.”

Powell scanned the horizon in a full circle, then scanned it again with his binocs. Their helo was nowhere to be seen.

“Spotters, visual check for Ranger One.” The spotters swept the area as the snipers continued firing at the remaining walkers converging on the building. “Nest, Echo Six. Ranger One is not responding and is not on station. Request emergency evac.”

“Copy, Echo Six. We show Ranger One in your area. Confirm no visual on Ranger One.”

As he turned to the other spotters, both were shaking their heads, their faces pale. “Confirm no visual on Ranger One, Nest. Repeat, no visual on Ranger One.”