These Dead Lands: Immolation (61 page)

Hector Guerra walked
across the bridge and through the gap in the coils of razor wire at the far side. Reader and Stilley were right behind him. All three carried the extra M4s and ammunition they had requisitioned from the Gap’s arms room. The Amish compound wasn’t that far away, and aside from some clumps of brush and some thin stands of trees, they were in sight of the Guard guys manning the opposite bank of Swatara Creek. Guerra had slathered on bug repellent, turning himself into a walking No-Pest strip. The mosquitoes no longer bothered him, and for that, the swarthy staff sergeant was happy.

The day was another steamer, though. Heat and humidity were high, and he’d already been drinking lukewarm water from his CamelBak. He was sweating profusely and could feel his undershirt sticking to his chest and his uniform gathering uncomfortably beneath his pads and armor. It was a miserable day to be laboring like some migrant worker, but that was what he got for joining the United States Army. If he’d wanted to work in air-conditioned comfort, he should have joined the Navy.
But hey, at least I have extra bug repellent
.
No joy for
los mosquitoes
hoy dia.

As they approached the stockade fence surrounding the Amish compound, a slight tickle at the hairs on his neck told him men with weapons were nearby, and he glanced back at Reader and Stilley. They maintained tactical spacing and looked reasonably alert, though Stilley was humming under his breath. After listening a few seconds, Guerra realized the idiot was humming
Stayin’ Alive
.

“Stilley, stop that shit,” he hissed.

Stilley gave him a shit-eating grin. “Stop
what
, Sergeant G?”

“Breathing would be a good start,” Reader muttered.

Stilley responded with an indignant
hmph!
but stopped humming.

Ahead, the old Amish man appeared, rising from behind the tall fence as if levitating.

“Hello, my friend,” Guerra said, nodding. He came to halt about thirty feet away from the fence.

The Amish man nodded back, his expression inscrutable. Guerra took a look around. There were some more dead reekers near the creek. One of their bodies was half-submerged in the water, and a flock of black birds pecked at it. Not for the first time, Guerra wondered why scavengers only descended on the corpses after they were returned to death’s embrace. It would be helpful if they developed an appetite for them while they were still moving. He looked up at the old man after confirming that Reader and Stilley were eyes out and scanning for threat.

“We brought you some weapons and ammunition, as well as some supplies,” Guerra said. “Nothing fancy, just some M4s and some MREs.”

“That was thoughtful of you,” the old man replied.

Well, hell, pal. Don’t get all misty-eyed on me. It’s not like it’s a betrothal or anything
. “Yeah, well, we’re neighbors and all. You mind if we approach?” As he spoke, Guerra spotted a ripple of movement behind the tall fence, and he thought he saw the gleam of sunlight on well-oiled steel. “Seems like you have some company with guns back there already. We don’t want to have any accidents, right?”

The old man smiled thinly. “No accidents. You can come up to the fence.” He gestured at the barricade across the creek. “I’m sure that if anything happened, your men up there would be able to wipe us out. I see mortars there, yes?”

Guerra nodded. “Yes, there’s a mortar platoon up there. But they won’t fire on you. As a matter of fact, they’re there to give you covering fire.”

“Cover fire?”

“Yeah. To keep the reekers off if you need to evacuate.”

“Wasted effort, I hope.” The old man waved them forward. “Come on, now.”

Guerra advanced, and he heard Stilley and Reader move in after him. Reader was light on his feet and didn’t make a lot of noise as he walked across the overgrown lawn. Stilley, on the other hand, pretty much stumbled and bumbled his way across with all the agility of the walking dead. And he was humming again—
More Than a Woman
.

“G’tting’ old, Stilley,” Guerra snapped over his shoulder.

“Just trying to put you at ease and all, Sergeant G,” Stilley said. “Hey, I like your cologne, by the way. What’s it called,
eu de DEET
?”

“There you go, complimenting another man on his smell,” Reader said. “Tough to prove you’re not a homo on the go now, Stilley.”

“Homo, you don’t!” Stilley cackled at his own pathetic play on words.

The old man was regarding the exchange with an odd expression, his eyes shaded beneath the wide brim of his hat.

Guerra shook his head. “Ignore them,” he told the man. “I usually do.”

“Does it work?” the man asked.

Guerra shrugged. “Not really. So listen, you want us to hand this stuff up to you?”

“No. Wait.” The man disappeared behind the fence.

Guerra scanned the area again as Reader fell out, shouldering his rifle. Stilley was wearing the rucksack full of MREs and water for the Amish, so he just stood there, sweat pouring down his dark face.

Guerra motioned toward the creek. “Stilley, step over there.”

“Why?”

“You’re standing upwind.”

“Damn, Sergeant. You’re killin’ me.”

An aluminum ladder descended to the ground in front of the fence. Guerra wondered if the old man meant for him to climb over, but then a young man with a wispy beard and a broad belly clambered over the top of the fence and began coming down the ladder. Another man appeared at the top of the fence. Also bearded, he wore a wide-brimmed hat and big aviator style glasses that hadn’t been in fashion since George H.W. Bush was telling people to read his lips.

The old man popped up again a moment later. “If you don’t mind, we’ll take the items over the fence,” he said.

Guerra shrugged. “No problem. Do you need some instruction on how to use the weapons?”

He shook his head. “We know how they work.”

The younger Amish man landed on the ground with a huff, and he turned to Guerra expectantly.

Guerra handed the rifles to him. “I didn’t know Amish served in the military,” he said to the old man.

“We don’t. We refuse military service.”

“So how do you know how to use the weapons?”

The old man favored him with a ghost of a smile. “We watch YouTube during
Rumspringa
.” The way he pronounced the last word made Guerra think of World War II Germany. He didn’t know what a
Rumspringa
was, nor why YouTube would be a sanctioned activity during enacting whatever odd rituals the strange word might convey.

“Okay, then,” Guerra said. He turned to Reader and Stilley. “Guys, hand off the gear.”

The young man slung the weapons over one shoulder then climbed halfway up the ladder to hand them off. It took no time at all to hand off the remaining materials, and soon, the Amish had retreated back behind the fence, hauling the ladder up after them.

Only the old man remained, looking down at Guerra and his men with his unfathomable gaze. “Thank you for your gifts,” he said. He reached behind him then held a plain cloth sack over the fence, nodding toward Guerra.

“What’s that?” Guerra asked.

“Apple fritters,” the old man said. “We have orchards, and we would like to repay your kindness in a small way.”

“Fritters for rifles?” Reader muttered. “Small way: achieved.”

Guerra ignored him and reached for the bag. He opened the warm sack and peered inside. Cloth napkins were wrapped around the food, but he could smell the rich mixture of apple and cinnamon. He closed the sack and looked up at the old man. “Thank you. Have you thought about coming back to Indiantown Gap?”

“We will remain here,” the man said. “God will protect the truly faithful, for we are his children.”

Guerra tried to think of a suitable response, but nothing came to mind. He sighed and shrugged. “All right, sir. Remember what I told you: make for the barricade if you can. If not, well… God bless.”

“And the same to you. Good-bye, Sergeant.” The old man ducked down behind the fence and disappeared from view.

“All right, let’s get back,” Guerra said to Reader and Stilley.

“Can I have a fritter?” Stilley asked.

“Yeah, you can eat it off the tip of my boot as I kick you in the ass,” Guerra snarled. “Get going, and no more Bee Gees tunes.”

*

The reekers were
early.

They came in singles, pairs, and small groups that picked their way through the dead traffic clogging the highway. It was easy for the soldiers manning the sniper rifles to get head shots because the zombies had to stick to the narrow aisles left between abandoned cars and trucks. The rifles cracked, and heavy rounds shattered the reekers’ skulls, essentially liquefying whatever was left of their brains. The corpses slumped to the ground, their bodies getting wedged between the vehicles. The zombies that came after them stumbled over the motionless corpses, clambering across them almost lethargically. They too were vanquished, though a few managed to evade the snipers’ wrath and made it to the pile of vehicles that had been created the day before. It took a long time for any zombies to climb up and over the wreckage, but when they did, the reekers were fully silhouetted against the sky. Before they could do more than moan, they were taken down.

The numbers of dead began to increase, trickling in faster. The pairs and trios grew to a half dozen or a score. More gunfire rang out, and more corpses were returned to death’s everlasting embrace. After three hours, the narrow aisles between the seized river of traffic began to fill, and the oncoming reekers stumbled and tripped across the yielding, rotting flesh under their feet. The snipers began to miss a little more often, as the ghouls would suddenly slip and fall just as the soldiers fired. Hastings winced every time a round went wild, even though there was plenty of time for do-overs.

The trickle became a steady stream of dozens, then a torrent of hundreds. As the sun sank closer to the horizon, hundreds became thousands. The snipers were firing all out, joined by the big M2s, which ripped out thunderous bursts of full automatic fire. While less precise than the sniper rifles, the .50-caliber rounds slammed through the corpses, tearing them apart. While the M2 fire didn’t kill as many reekers as the soldiers manning the barricades would have liked, it did serve to slow the zombies’ advance. That gave the snipers the opportunity to catch up. With dozens of firearms discharging at once, Hastings could barely hear himself think. He looked over at Ballantine, who sat next to him, leaning against a sandbagged position, his M4 oriented toward the engagement area.

“Not exactly like shooting fish in a barrel!” Hastings shouted.

“I’ll take whatever I can get,” Ballantine yelled back. His face was a blank slate, no emotion present. Hastings figured Ballantine’s mind was on his family, not on what was going down a couple of hundred feet away.

A reeker climbed over a shattered pickup truck that was part of the traffic barrier separating the zombies from the kill zone in front of the container wall. A bullet struck it right in the forehead, and the zombie tumbled to the ground, out of sight among the carnage. It reappeared a moment later, and Hastings thought the shot hadn’t killed it. He was wrong. The corpse was being buoyed upward by the mass of reekers pooling behind the wreckage.

Shit’s getting real now
. He leaned forward a bit and tucked his M4’s stock against his shoulder, firming up his firing position.

Ballantine suddenly pointed. “Hey, sir, look out there!”

Hastings raised his head a bit, looking past the rising zombie as it flopped about lifelessly above the herd trying to climb over the barrier. In the distance, the horizon seemed to squirm. He checked through the scope on his rifle. With the benefit of its additional magnification, he saw a virtual tidal wave of the dead, tens of thousands roiling down the highway. They were no longer walking beside the abandoned vehicles. They were walking
on top
of them, tottering and stumbling and often falling, but still coming.

“Yeah, shit’s definitely getting real now,” Hastings said.

“What?” Ballantine asked.

“Nothing. Stay on your lane.” Hastings rose into a squat, looking down the line. He spotted Vogler in a fighting position, conferring with his senior officers. “Vogler!” When Vogler turned his broad face toward him, Hastings waved toward the horizon. “Notify War Eagle Six we’re in definitive contact at this time!”

“I already did!” Vogler shouted. “They’ve got deadheads in the wire to the south!”

“Well, motherfuck,” Hastings said, settling back down and returning to his rifle.

One of the Shadow drones zipped past overhead at an altitude of two thousand feet, its sound rendered virtually silent by the racket of soldiers working their weapons. Hastings glanced up at it then snapped his gaze back to the engagement area as Ballantine started firing.

A mass of reekers crested the barricade of wreckage, tumbling over it like rats, bouncing and flailing as they fell over the vehicles and crashed to the cleared pavement on the other side. More soldiers joined in the shooting, using their rifles and cleaning up the closer targets while the snipers and machine gunners hit those more distant. Hastings sighted on a target and fired. The small 5.56-millimeter ball round struck true, and the zombie jerked slightly as a small puff of brackish matter exploded out the back of its head. It fell face-first to the highway. Hastings sighted on another ghoul and dropped it. Then another. And another.