The Last Town (Book 4): Fighting the Dead (16 page)

“Of course,” Victor said.

“No, no, you need to do it now. You need to start getting traffic turned around.”

“I will, Barry. What’s the rush?”

“We’re cutting the roads. Tonight,” Corbett said. “Enough screwing around. If we’ve lost power for good, then I want this town sealed tighter than a frog’s butt.”

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

The dead hit the Bowl like a stinking flood.

It took less than an hour for them to overwhelm the wire defenses that Morton’s men had erected. The coils of razor wire were crushed beneath the weight of hundreds and hundreds of cold bodies that continued to thrash about, ignoring the slashing razors the same way they ignored the fact that hundreds more ghouls were crushing them underfoot. The Guard and most of the cops had massed at the entrance to the Bowl, where they slugged it out with the dead, cutting them down by the dozens. For the moment, the high, reinforced sound barriers that surrounded three quarters of the amphitheater served to channelize the zombies into the main entrance, and Reese thought that was all right. It reduced the scope of the engagement to one front, and made it so the zombies were essentially walking into a kill funnel.

At the end of the first hour, thousands of rotting, cold corpses lay all across Highland Avenue. The piles of dead slowed the advance of the next waves, giving the shooters time to zero in and score perfect kills. But the mounds of bodies also worked to the advantage of the stenches. They provided cover behind which they could mass, and charge anew. When that happened, the big .50-calibers opened up, chopping the dead to pieces.

By the third hour, Reese couldn’t see much in the way of pavement—every open space on the street was occupied by a body. A Chinook came in, slinging a pallet load of ammunition. Boxes of .50-caliber ammo and 40-millimeter grenades were offloaded, as well as cans of 5.56-millimeter. In one flight, the Chinook had dropped in over two hundred and fifty thousand rounds of ammunition.

Well, that’s convenient.

“They keep that up, we might be able to get through this,” Bates said, as he fired his M4 at a shambling monstrosity. “Though they might need to send us a bunch of upper receivers, at this rate.”

“Maybe they will,” Reese said, shouting over the constant firing.

After five more hours, the LAPD cops were rotated back to rest and refit. Bates disappeared to check on the five-ton truck. Reese quickly broke down and cleaned his M4, then stuffed fresh mags into the magazine carrier he wore around his vest. He hadn’t fired his pistol yet, but he did check to ensure it was still functional. Then he helped himself to some chow—bags of MREs were set out, so he just grabbed one and ate as much of it as he could. The civilians inside the Bowl were severely freaked out by the din of combat, and Reese couldn’t blame them. He felt he was half-deaf already, and the constant combat left him feeling kind of strung out, like how a drug addict might feel when he needed a fix, but knew one wasn’t coming.

Bates returned and shot him a thumbs-up. “Truck’s still there,” he said, then set about breaking down his rifle to clean it. “How long do we have?”

“Don’t know. Better make it quick. Shit could go downhill in a heartbeat.”

“Yeah.” Bates quickly cleaned his rifle, then headed over to grab some food. Like Reese, he didn’t bother picking through the MRE bags looking for something specific. He just took the first one he came across, cut it open, and dug in. Reese grabbed a bottle of water and walked around the cluster of cops, checking to make sure everyone was accounted for. Everyone was there, and everyone was busy. Even Renee was cleaning her rifle, pausing every now and then to fiddle with her glasses.

“Renee, you have a spare set of specs?” Reese asked.

“Yeah,” she said, “at home.”

“Ah.” Reese knew she lived in a condo in West Covina, fifteen or so miles east of Los Angeles. There was no chance she would be getting her spare set of glasses anytime soon.

The few Guardsmen still manning the hastily-erected parapets along the sound barrier wall suddenly began shooting in
eanest
. Reese looked across the breadth of the Bowl, as did thousands of terrified civilians. There wasn’t much to see—just guys in Army uniforms shooting, which was pretty much the new normal right now. Then one of them grabbed a grenade and tossed it. It went off a few moments later with a hollow thump. More Guardsmen tossed grenades after that, and the firing picked up.

Bates looked up from his meal. “Second front,” he said, stuffing a piece of prepackaged cake in his mouth.

“What?” Renee asked.

“New wave coming in,” Bates said. He picked up his rifle and ran over to the rearming station, pulling fresh magazines. The rest of the cops stirred uneasily.

“Man, this shit is just never ends,” Marsh said. He looked like crap—face covered by gray-speckled stubble, eyes red and glazed, face drawn and haggard. Reese knew he looked the same way. Hell, he might look even worse, except Marsh was bald and Reese still had hair.

“It is what it is,” Reese said.

More Guardsmen pushed toward the far wall, running on either side of the bowl. Reese wondered what the emergency was. Then he saw a couple of Guardsmen actually
wrestling
with a zombie as it came over the top of the wall and lunged for them.

Holy fuck—

The men fired at the stench, but it was too close. It wrapped its arms around one and began to take him down while the other ineffectively kicked and punched it. He finally drew back and slammed it in the head with the butt of his rifle, but that didn’t seem to do much either.

Another zombie came over the edge, and behind it, scores of arms flailed in the air.

“Oh, shit!” Renee cried, and she frantically began slapping her rifle back together.

“What?” Marsh didn’t know what was going on. He turned and looked behind him, watching the scene atop the wall unfold. “Hey, how the hell did they get up
there
?”

“On your feet!” Reese ordered the cops. “On your feet, now!”

More Guardsmen ran toward the wall, followed by a slew of sheriffs and a few LAPD cops. The wooden parapet that had been built collapsed suddenly, and the two Guardsmen fell to the ground, one of them still wrapped up in the stench’s cold embrace. The Guard troops on the other fighting stations kept pouring on the firepower, but it was too late. Two more ghouls came over the top. Then five. Then twenty. They dropped into the Bowl like lemmings running off a cliff, only they didn’t die when they hit the bottom. The Hollywood Bowl was like a sinking ship, taking on the foulest of water.

“Where are the Apaches?” Reese asked.

“Busy, I guess,” Bates said. “So, we going for the truck?”

Reese raised his rifle and began firing across the Bowl, drilling the boiling mass of dead with shot after shot. A couple of other cops joined in as well, but the breach was too frantic for aimed shots. They hit several zombies, but they were non-critical shots. They just kept coming. The people in the Bowl began to surge away from the incursion, screaming. Reese stepped forward and looked into the amphitheater itself. There were already zombies in the mix, crawling in through the rear bleacher seats, dragging fractured legs behind them. Some cops floundered after them, trying to douse their lights before they could start inflicting more damage, but it was hopeless. There were hundreds pouring over the wall now, and they were intermingling with the Guard and police. And some of them were damned fast.

“Reese!” Bates shouted.

“Yes! Yes, go get the fucking truck!” Reese motioned the cops to follow, his legs quaking with fear. “Come on, let’s get going! Save who you can, let’s get going!”

The cops ran. Some of them ran light frightened rabbits; others ran like cops, stopping to urge civilians to follow them, to shoot a shambling zed, to pick up a fallen civilian. Reese scooped up and young boy who was crying and beckoned for his family to follow.

“Come with us!” he shouted.

The hulking truck was still there, and it looked as big as a house. Bates climbed into the cab, and its diesel engine rattled to life a moment later. Reese and two other cops stood by the tail gate, helping other cops and civilians aboard. From the other parking lots, he heard other engines roaring to life over the steady gunfire. A rattle of explosions tore through the fading light of late afternoon, and he saw a Humvee with a Mark 19 grenade launcher opening up on a gaggle of dead, blasting them to pieces. Desiccated body parts flew through the air. The slap of rotor blades echoed through the Bowl as a pair of Apaches roared in and orbited overhead as their pilots apparently tried to figure out where to start firing. Reese kept urging people to climb into the truck. He’d seen this before, and two Apaches weren’t enough to do shit. They’d use up all their ammunition in minutes, and then they’d be as useful as a Nerf Dart Blaster in an honest to God gunfight.

Pandemonium reigned. The screams, the gunfire, the sounds of maneuvering vehicles—it was total sensory overload, and it didn’t help that the acoustics of the amphitheater made it even more maddening. Reese felt dizzy from fear and adrenaline, his senses assaulted by the mayhem that surrounded him. There were too many people to save, and the truck was already almost full.

A zombie picked its way toward him, its jaws slick with blood, its gray-white belly so full it protruded before it like a balloon about ready to pop. It locked onto Reese and made for him, hissing. It went down as one of the cops in the truck shot it in the head.

“Reese, come on!” the cop shouted.

Reese tried to close the tail gate, but it was damned heavy. One of the cops jumped down and helped him, and the two of them managed to get it up high enough where the others could take over and pin it closed. The engine roared as Bates goosed the accelerator. Reese and the other cop climbed up and threw themselves into the truck’s long cargo bed. Someone else climbed up after Reese, and he twisted, trying to get his M4 up. It wasn’t a zombie; it was First Sergeant Plosser.

“Mind if I tag along, Reese?” the senior NCO asked.

“It’s an open party,” Reese said.

With that, Bates dropped the truck into gear. There was a metal gate in front, and he drove the truck right through it, ripping it off its hinges. There were zombies on the other side, but the hulking, olive-drab five-ton truck didn’t even slow down as it rolled right over them. The truck continued down the narrow service road that ran alongside the Bowl, then turned left, heading off overland. Everyone in the back of the truck held on for dear life as Bates steered the truck through the trees and scrub, heading in the general direction of the Hollywood Bowl Overlook, a small observation park that lay just off Mulholland Drive. The truck left a huge wake of dust behind it, and through the billowing clouds, Reese saw people running after the rig, waving their arms. Men. Women. Children.

And behind them, slower but tireless, came zombies.

The Apaches pirouetted overhead, already guns dry. Two more black dots appeared on the horizon, anti-collision lights winking in the darkening sky. Black Hawks, descending as they approached the Bowl. Reese wondered if they were going to actually attempt a landing. Plosser looked up at the approaching utility helicopters as well.

“I see the colonel’s getting a ride out,” he said, his tone dry as he held onto the side of the truck. He turned to Reese. “So, Detective. Tell me you have a plan? We heading for the Mojave?”

“Long Beach,” Reese said.

Plosser frowned. “Little late to work on your Hollywood tan, isn’t it? Gonna be night soon.”

“You like boats, Plosser?”

“Not really, But if there’s a paycheck in it, I’ll join whatever navy you want.”

Reese grunted as the big truck pushed through a copse of trees, actually knocking one right over. Its wheels spun as black exhaust erupted from its stacks, and for a moment, Reese feared the rig might get stuck. But it shuddered on, powering its way through the barricade of vegetation, then through the guardrail on the other side. Bates horsed the truck through a decidedly inelegant three point turn, and then, it was rolling down Mulholland Drive. Heading southwest, its square nose pointed in the general direction of the Pacific Ocean. From up here in the hills, Reese saw the devastation that was being wrought on the darkened, powerless city. Columns of smoke rose in the air from fires that burned unabated, lighting up the city in the darkness. Helicopters of all kinds whirled across the sky.

Over thirty miles to Long Beach,
he thought.
A piece of cake.

TO BE CONTINUED IN

THE LAST TOWN #5: FLEEING THE DEAD