World of Ashes (49 page)

If they co
uld avoid shooting the Zims Cavalry did. The trucks were already noisy enough, and gunshots could attract living hostiles. It had only been a year and a half since the fall of society. Feral children would bum-rush people after hearing gunshots, taking food and knives and often smashing or throwing the guns away. At least one had attacked simply because he knew the sound of gunshots brought more zombies. He wore what people described as an ill-fitting snow suit with
SkyLander
creatures on the legs and a hunting camo coat large enough for Reynolds to wear. He was on the Sheriff Department’s list of Wanted Individuals, but that was out of concern for the boy as much as it was the people outside. Tragically, the last person to encounter him had been forced to put him down to defend their young daughter. Lee knew the girl had gone silent since that trauma. So much tragedy, so far from over.

             
The convoy neared Jefferson City proper just after noon. They crept through one of the many highway cuts in the sandstone hills of the Ozarks, beneath a slanted bridge with rusted looking traffic lights on the underside and into a large intersection. It revealed a cityscape that looked more like the skeletal remains of Berlin after World War II than a vibrant American City and the Capitol of the State of Missouri. Tatters of flesh and clothing were scattered down every street as zombies rotted to the point where they could no longer stand, skeletons in rags like a movie set about a nuclear apocalypse. Lee got on the radio and made sure the order to avoid stationary Zims went out. No need to risk lives this late in the game. After the engines were turned off and everyone had dismounted the vehicles they stood silently and waited for almost an hour while snipers took positions on buildings, killing any zombie inside with a blade. In a world without cars or other machines you could hear much farther than before. The details of the birds’ songs, the echoes in the wind, nothing betrayed movement, not even barking dogs.

             
After a time no one could report hearing the telltale sign of people. Fire, gunshots, music, speech, vehicles. There were no plumes of smoke on the horizon either, which meant there were no fires, and without fires in this colder weather the living weren’t as likely to be around. People needed heat, and large fires also provide distraction and cover, which many survivors wouldn’t be without. Lee pointed to several spots on the map, including the capitol building and sent one platoon to each spot. The company was redirected and parked near the Missouri Highway Patrol headquarters. Lee wanted to keep the gear and trucks out of the center of the city in case of an ambush. The Highway Patrol building had been defended long after the fall of the state government and abandoned without much fanfare sometime after. All that was left was a farewell letter from the last Trooper to stay. Ethan pocketed that letter for later. The Highway Patrol HQ meant they now had access to a much more powerful radio than the handhelds, and with generators hooked up and fueled they now had a repeater that could reach clear across the Missouri River. It took about forty five minutes to hook the radio up, but finally they had reliable communications.

             
“Where are you going?” Lee asked as Ethan stepped outside the building. There was an abandoned Sonic nearby and the Mess Sergeant was setting up a barbeque on the benches. It would raise troop morale and attract anyone who could still smell. A taste of the old world could go a long way in making new friends.

             
“To the capitol building. I’d like to see if I can take the hard drives from the computers. You never know if maybe they have the answers to who killed JFK or something.” Ethan smiled.

             
“Right. You just want to sit behind the Governor’s desk. Your secret motivations are revealed!” Ethan’s grin gave Lee his answer. “I don’t want to spoil your fun, but I’d rather you stayed here. Though I guess there’s no reason you can’t go with First Platoon. They’re only going to be there long enough to take a peek inside in case we want to come back. If you can find the hard drives, though, maybe we can take a look if it’s safe.” Lee stepped closer to Ethan and whispered, “See if you can find any information about where the government went. I’d bet anything state governments were invited to Cheyenne, and as cozy as Missouri could be with Chicago politicians… I guess I’ve become a bit of a conspiracy theorist in my old age.”

             
Ethan patted his brother on the shoulder, “Ignorance is bliss, no?”

             
First Platoon had to walk to the capitol building, which was a good distance from the Highway Patrol’s HQ. It was a slow, paranoid walk, none of them used to patrolling such a large urban area on foot. For the men who’d been to war before the tension was almost overwhelming, their mindset saying to them there was a sniper in every window, a suicide bomber or zombie behind every rock. Of the troops in First, only a handful were prior service from any of the branches. Many were FNG’s, some were still just kids. The sight made Ethan lose himself in thought, remembering his friends and comrades in the Army, what it was like to be so close to brothers from another mother. Though pointless and often torturous, route marches had always been a fun experience when it came to spending time with friends.

What would it
be like, Ethan’s trains of thought took him, if they ever had to return to St. Louis? The burned out buildings often contained numerous charred corpses, some of which could still move. The Cav was also under orders not to go searching random buildings unless it was on the docket and in force. Zombies that weren’t an immediate threat were to be left alone. A bank and a bar were on the route 1
st
Platoon was taking to the capital building, both were just skeletal remains of collapsed brick and charred wood. The scene was like seeing the corpses from the Nazi ovens in real life, only to have them lean upwards and reach for you, their blackened teeth snapping and singed lungs belching out black goo and ash plumes. Everyone wanted to put those poor souls out of their misery, but orders were orders.

             
“Is that a tank?” Keith joked, poking Ethan and bringing him out of his staring contest with a zombie in what remained of the bar. All it could do was open its jaw and wiggle its fingers. The rest was bone and jerky.

             
Ethan looked to his side and saw what Keith was pointing at. “No, that’s an ASV.” He said. “Look at the turret, it’s different than an Abrams or a Bradley. Also, it has tires.”

             
“Huh. I guess I must have slept through
US Tank Day
during my Medic courses.” Keith shrugged. They crested a hill next to a collapsed parking garage, offering the platoon a better view of the overrun embattlements that had surrounded the Missouri State Capitol. It was like looking at the remnants of a Civil War battlefield no one had bothered to clean up, left for future generations to sift through like the remains of an ancient civilization frozen in time.

             
“Jesus H. Christ.” Someone exclaimed, catching her first look at the war zone. Everyone rounded the block to view the capital building. The entire perimeter of the capitol parking lot was covered in Hesco Barriers and sandbag pillboxes with rusted machine guns laying exactly where the Soldiers and Marines had dropped them. Most were completely out of ammo. Whatever unit this had been stood their ground to the last man and the last bullet. The only question was, where did they go when the fight was lost? Were they all infected? Shambling off to attack more people, or did they have a chance to retreat? The more thought one put into the scene the more confusing it became, and more horrifying. Every man and woman in 1
st
Cav had their own story of survival, of coming face to face with the Undead. This was entirely too close to home.

             
“This is really strange.” Ethan thought he said to himself.

             
“Yeah, I know.” Ethan recognized the voice of the bearded master sergeant. “Why would anyone bother to make a last stand here? This is not the most defensible area. I’ve defended worse, but not by much.”

             
“My thoughts exactly.” Climbing up the side of an Armored Security Vehicle with Missouri Guard markings on the bumpers, Ethan pulled at one of the hatches. It was sealed. “You don’t think there’s a body inside, do you?” Ethan took a look around. He didn’t see any threats and decided to get on the radio, “John Law to Gomer Pyle.”

             
Lee’s annoyed voice responded, “
Real cute. Go ahead John Law
.”

             
“Thought I’d give a sit-rep. The capital’s parking lot is a fallen bastion. There’s a lot of unsecured military equipment out here, but most of its burned or rusted, break. We’re going to take a look inside… Place looks haunted.” Ethan didn’t know why he added the last part, but it was a perfect description. The world was populated by the undead and soon to be undead, and the only thing that gave him the willies was seeing the symbols of his civilization lie in tattered ruin.

             
“
Just remember we’re time sensitive here.
Captain
Pyle out.”

             
“Wilco.” Ethan climbed off the ASV and motioned for First Platoon’s lieutenant to prepare to enter the capitol building. They could scavenge ammunition and medical supplies on their way out, right now he wanted as many hard-drives as possible. There would be no way to look at them for some time, but the next time they had contact with Texas they might be able to hand the drives over to them.

             
The doors were locked and barricaded like a medieval castle, a pile of skeletal remains, charred and broken and undistinguishable from one another, washed upon the door like a tidal wave of still life death. Ethan flipped the selector switch to full auto, grateful he’d found more ammo for his M14. A full length rifle like his was not ideal for close quarters combat, but that was against people. Zombies weren’t shooting back around corners and a rifle with accuracy, knockdown power and range was ideal. Every step he took sounded like a bomb going off to Ethan as the boots of the Cavalrymen crunch over spent ammo and charred bodies. There was no way into the building from the front, and the arduous walk around the exterior, exposed on every flank, seemed to take forever. Ethan was the first one around the last corner, rushing around like he was clearing a building lest he hesitate. Ethan was almost knocked over by the rest of the men who followed him, all stopping in horror and awe of the scene before them. The courtyard behind the building was a warzone unto itself, frozen forever at the pinnacle of grotesque perfection.

Remains of men and machines
melted together, oil and infected blood and destroyed equipment ensured no grass would ever grow here again. Ethan struggled to understand the mechanics of such a scene, how the waves of men and zombies and armored trucks and guns and fire and more men and more zombies had all become an eternal, undefilable monument to the cruelty of fate. This was the Devil’s playground, her own personal Hell on Earth. (Because the Devil is a woman in a blue dress.)

             
“Is that a Black Hawk?” Someone pointed to an overturned helicopter teetering dangerously on the edge of the courtyard, threatening to fall off the edge to the railroad tracks a good distance below.

             
“We’re not going into the courtyard.” Ethan said. “There’s nothing back here we need.” The truth was he didn’t want to see who was in the destroyed chopper. Power lines were entangled in the bent rotors, and someone’s arm hung from an open door with corpses frozen in place piled all the way to the walls. The crash hadn’t been pretty, the bird not making it aloft fast enough as a swarm of raging monsters piled inside and dragged her down.

The platoon sergeant
pointed to the back door, which was propped open by skeletons wearing mottled body armor, brown and black rusted weapons in their hands. Had they been shot while still alive attempting to retreat inside? Zombies usually dropped whatever was in their hands when they reanimated, but these men had been deliberately killed. The entire scene wreaked of a Black Ops mission gone wrong, a Government run shit-storm that was no better for their interference than everything else they had done near the end. How terrible must the last few moments have been for these people, trapped between a wall of stone and a wave of death.

             
Inside the capitol building the carnage continued. Ethan had long believed the scene he’d witnessed inside the caverns, and the other sites Newton had built, would be the worst thing he’d ever be forced to endure. The mad man’s lairs didn’t hold a candle to the no-man’s land inside the once great marble halls of the Jefferson City Capitol Building. The smell they unleashed was unbearable, the noxious gases of decay plumed out like gasoline vapors, probably just as flammable. Ethan snatched a cigarette out of a guy’s mouth and stomped on it. They retreated a few feet to a clearing, and after fifteen minutes of searching they could only come up with two ProMasks buried in under the radio operator’s spare socks. Since no one had a clean shaven face except for Ethan and the young soldier the older one had been helping back at the truck stop, they were by default chosen to go inside. Lucky Ethan.

             
“You ready?” Ethan asked, his voice muffled by the mask.