Quarantine: A Pandora Novel Read online

  10

  Capt. Jeremiah Hess hung up the phone in smug triumph. Capt. Hess was the ranking officer in charge of the contingent of guardsmen at the Midtown Terminal quarantine center. Or what used to be the center. He had finally, through perseverance, browbeating, and the constant haranguing of Lieut. Col. Murray at headquarters, succeeded in obtaining approval of his plan. The “Fighting 69th”, he thought, didn’t achieve their bold nickname by sitting on their asses waiting for something to happen. No, they got that name by rising up and attacking the enemy head-on. No complacent desk-rider, this commander.

  The indomitable Capt. Hess had also achieved a nickname. He was ignobly called “The Hessian” by the rest of the battalion. The name came from the Germanic Hessian mercenary troops that fought for the British during the American Revolution. Their mercenary incentives had been universally despised and this was reflected in the captain’s constant quest for fame and glory. He would do anything to further his rise in rank. Also, though even more darkly, he was also called “Custer”. Capt. Hess was noted as an unconscious protégé of the infamous George Armstrong Custer. As vainglorious as his whispered namesake, Hess was seen as the kind of officer, like Custer, who would through sheer hubris and dangerously misguided and reckless audacity send his men to their death needlessly in his quest for glory. The fact of this last phone call to his superior was testament and proof of his being “Custer incarnate.”

  Turning to his subordinate, Capt. Hess smiled grimly and said, “Well, it’s about time those imbeciles woke up. Now we’re going to go where we can do some effective fighting.”

  Standing, he strode vainly to his worried staff and commanded, “All right boys, we’re getting our asses out of this useless quarantine center and will be put back in the thick of it, where we belong.”

  Looking at each other in puzzlement, one of his staff officers asked, “How are we going to do that, sir?

  Looking at a generic map of the city, Hess said, “We are packing up and heading in to Times Square. There, we will be met by helos and the birds will pick us up and take us downtown to Battery Park.”

  Looking at the map and then glancing at the three Humvees parked there, the officer nervously cleared his throat and pointed out to his commanding officer, “But we all won’t be able to fit in the vehicles. And what about the police? And the wounded, sir? Are we--”

  “Oh, for Christ sake, Dunphy,” shouted Hess in disgust, “grow a pair already. My God!” The officer cowered. “The police are coming with us,” explained Hess impatiently. “We will accompany the vehicles, double- timing it toward our destination. It’s only a few blocks. The .50 calibers on each vehicle will cover the foot soldiers and the lead vehicle will act as a battering ram, clearing a path for us to press on.”

  “And the wounded?” another voice boldly asked.

  Capt. Hess glared at the vocal subordinate with hooded eyes. “They will be left on site,” he replied coldly. “We’ll close the gates back up when we leave and a medevac will be in to pick them up afterward.”

  The twenty-seven injured had been separated from the rest. As it turned out, only nine of the wounded had injuries other than bites from the undead. These nine soldiers and police were separated from the others and as all but one were ambulatory, they were put back with the main body of national guardsmen and included in the breakout force.

  For the rest of the bitten and now infected warriors it was looking like a very dismal future. From the nineteen victims, three had already succumbed to their injuries and died. The dead soldiers were removed and when they inevitably turned, received a bullet in the head from their heartbroken comrades. Of the sixteen left, four more were starting to deteriorate fast and it wouldn’t be too long before they, too, joined the ranks of the undead. Given morphine for comfort, they were left on-site. The rest kept their own weapons for protection and it was left as an unspoken question, what they intended to do with them.

  Word spread down the ranks and in forty-five minutes and everyone was geared up and ready to rock ‘n roll. The birds were scheduled to rendezvous with the troops at 1000 hours so they would have to haul ass to arrive in time. They also had to take time to secure and prep the landing zone.

  Austin, Jermaine and Jeff checked and made sure they were ready. Jermaine slapped the magazine back in place and turning to his friend said, “Locked, cocked and ready to rock.”

  Austin looked at him askance, “What are you, Schwarzenegger?”

  “Nah, dude,” Jermaine answered, “that guy’s white. I’m more of a Wesley Snipes.”

  “Is that so?” chided Austin. “I thought you were more Steve Urkel.”

  Walking behind the two, Jeff added, “From where I’m standing, I’m thinking more Fat Albert.”

  Jermaine laughed and said, “And this from Beavis and Butthead.”

  All three soldiers had drawn positions on foot with the majority of the remaining unit. Donna lucked out and was riding in the middle of vehicle.

  The gates were opened and the three Humvees and seventy-six surviving soldiers and police officers filed out of the makeshift and now defunct quarantine station. Capt. Jeremiah Hess stood in the open top hatch of the lead vehicle along with the gunner. He had his hands planted on the roof and stood gazing forward with his chin thrust out. Wearing wraparound Oakleys, he stood like a conquering Caesar. When the gates were resealed, the military caravan started their drive toward the center of Times Square and to the foot of the famous statue of George M. Cohan, which defined the internationally known center of the civilized world.

  No sooner had they crossed 12th Avenue when the formation started to run into trouble. The three Humvees contained all of the wounded, the officers, the station’s medical supplies and whatever other troops could fit in (which weren’t many). The rest of the soldiers jogged alongside. The problem was that the unprecedented amount of wrecked or abandoned vehicles on the streets at times proved insurmountable. The lead vehicle needed to gain more speed in order to push them out of the way. The Humvee is not a tank and couldn’t just ram the blocking cars and trucks head on or roll over the tops of them. It had to strike them a deflecting blow to the fenders and spin them out of the way, least the lead Humvee sustain damage to the radiator and engine compartment. It was after all, just an oversized, armed and armor plated SUV. To get enough ramming force the lead Humvee (holding Capt. Hess), had to pick up a little more speed. This lengthened the distance between him and the rest of the convoy. He would then have to stop and wait for them to catch up. All of that noise and the roaring engines inevitably attracted the attention of the myriad of undead roaming the Midtown area. Focusing on the street the troops were traveling on, the entire contingent of undead zombies converged on that area. Like a herd of rabid sheep, the masses of ghouls turned and followed each other toward the sound of the approaching convoy.

  The top gunner manning the .50 caliber started opening fire on the encroaching masses of undead. Afraid of becoming cut off and surrounded, Hess picked up the radio mic and gave the order to increase speed. He wanted the three vehicles near each other and supporting one another with converging .50 caliber covering fire.

  This maneuver unfortunately began to leave the struggling soldiers who were on foot behind. They changed from an easy jog to a flat out run. Also, having to deal with approaching zombies they were “running and gunning” their way forward.

  “Keep moving, don’t stop,” the sergeant next to Austin yelled out.

  His helmet was bouncing around and giving him a headache and Austin was now sucking in gasps of air through his open mouth. A female zombie in a red leather jacket came from the inside of one of the doorways. Austin swiveled his M-16 around and fired three shots knocking her back through the open door.

  All of the men were shooting as they ran. They learned fast that to stop was to be left behind. A block before, a kid next to Austin, Jackie or Joey or something, stopped and started firing carefully at the growing number of zombies that were
now following behind them. Austin saw him stop but was distracted by a bloody pair of ghouls that had suddenly materialized from the side of a brown UPS truck. He shot one in the head and had to club the other away as he ran past the creature. Hearing a yell from behind, Austin turned and saw the young soldier who had stopped was now all alone and surrounded some thirty feet back. He tried to run through the tightening circle of zombies but was taken down and swarmed.

  At last the lead Humvee pulled out onto 7th Avenue and turned toward the center of Times Square. The amount of stationary vehicles had thinned out some and they were able to slow down a little. By now the undead of New York City was streaming into the area from all of the connecting streets. There were, incongruously, two large, empty yellow school buses that had run up on the curb near the large bronze statue.

  The three approaching military vehicles pulled up next to the two buses and formed an ad hoc circle. The sweat soaked and panting foot soldiers and police officers piled into the center. By climbing the bus bodies and scrabbling atop the Humvees, if they could, they were able to join the machine gunners in laying down fire on the converging horde of undead. The shooting was intense as bodies began to pile up. Firing down on the snarling, grasping zombies from the tops of the school buses, the hot shell casings rained down, bouncing on the metal roofs. One soldier moving to take aim at a zombie that was climbing the side of the bus accidentally slipped on the rolling brass and, arms waving helplessly, tumbled over the side.

  The welcomed sound of helicopter rotors was heard and three MH-60 Pave Hawk birds appeared from between the tall buildings. They swung in toward Duffy Square, crewmen firing out of the open side doors. The only space free of vehicles for the birds to touchdown was in front of the square and the pilots radioed into Capt. Hess to clear the area for them.

  The captain had the gunners strafe that area in front of them with a combined and withering concentration of .50 caliber rounds. The undead fell like rag dolls as the bodies piled up. The Humvees were emptied of wounded, supplies and troops. This concentration of fire gave the zombies converging from the north a brief reprieve and they soon started to breach the vehicular corral from behind. It finally seemed that Capt. Jeremiah Hess, the ersatz “Custer”, had at last attained his own Last Stand at the Little Bighorn.

  Austin and Jermaine were standing shoulder to shoulder firing continually at any zombie that showed its head in front of them. A cop was next to them firing his handgun and had just stopped to reload. As he stepped behind one of the buses and changed mags, a zombie, crawling under the bus, grabbed his leg and bit him through the trouser material. Screaming, the cop dropped the fresh magazine and the gun. As he reached down, another ghoul crawling under grabbed his arm and the two creatures pulled the struggling officer under the bus. Another zombie crawled through and Donna Masters came running up. Bending down, she began to empty her gun at the creatures now trying to crawl through. At the side of the second bus, a wounded soldier on a stretcher had his throat ripped open by an undead teenaged girl who had also crawled through and attacked the prone figure.

  Seeing their rides coming in, Capt. Hess yelled out to his men, “Move out to the square in front. Move out. We’re getting picked up right now.”

  Now appearing between the tall skyscrapers, two Chinook helicopters swooped low and the first hovered about two feet from the ground.

  The police and soldiers grabbed the wounded and forming a wedge moved en masse toward the waiting aircraft. As they ran out from the circle of vehicles the rapidly multiplying undead all swarmed in on the moving unit. The fought like a scrum line in rugby, pushing and fighting their way through the snarling opposition.

  Austin was using the butt of his M-16 to smash the heads of the grasping zombies. The man to his right was grabbed and pulled from the tight ball of survivors moving toward the waiting Chinook. As he was sucked from the group and taken down, Jeff stepped up in his place shooting any zombie in his sights.

  Hess reached the bird and, to his credit, didn’t jump on board immediately. He helped a wounded cop aboard then turned and started shoving everyone else on the aircraft. Getting to full capacity, the Chinook started to rise up. Three soldiers grabbed onto the open ramp and hung on. As the bird turned, one of them was grabbed by a zombie and pulled from his perch. The other two were hauled inside as the bird rose into the sky and headed back south.

  The next Chinook came into hover a few yards away from the site. Moving toward it, the tightly packed unit started to unravel. Hess and several officers and soldiers became cut off from the main body. The Chinook crewmembers were firing at the undead trying to enter the aircraft and yelling for the remaining soldiers to hurry. As the increasingly panicked national guardsmen struggled to run for the safety of the aircraft, the unit began to break up into small packs of survivors amid the swarm of undead flooding Times Square.

  Toward the rear portion of the unit Austin, Jermaine and Jeff found themselves being pushed back with about ten others in their band. Knowing they would never reach the bird in time, Austin called out, “Get back to the vehicles. Go back inside the vehicles.”

  Immediately veering back the way they had come, the small group threw the awkward zombies off kilter and was able to reach the three Humvees left behind.

  Meanwhile, as the first of the troops reached the waiting Chinook, the zombies also started to grab ahold of the hovering aircraft. The crew was pulling the police and soldiers on board as fast as they could; but now the amount of creatures grabbing and climbing on the aircraft was throwing the weight distribution off and the bird started to wobble. It raised another ten foot in the air and turned hundred and eighty degrees to throw off the hanging creatures. A few fell, but not enough. The crewmembers tried to hang out the aircraft while being held by another soldier so they could shoot the zombies off. The now unwieldy aircraft dropped down again and another couple of undead grabbed on. Finally, wobbling precariously, the pilot gave up and rose in the air, spun around and flew off, the flailing undead dropping off as it departed.

  Stranded back on the ground, isolated pockets of survivors still fired on their undead predators. A number of soldiers broke and individually ran for the hopeful safety of cross streets or fled into any open buildings they came upon. A group of six soldiers climbed through the smashed window of a souvenir shop that a taxi had plowed into. Jumping through the shattered exterior, they turned and opened fire on the pursuing undead. Another lone police officer managed to run into a tavern, only to find it occupied by its undead patrons. He pointed his weapon at a rather large zombie that had half of his lower jaw chewed off and fired. All he heard was a click. He had fired his last ground back in the street. Throwing the empty gun in the lumbering zombie’s face, he resorted to his fists. He was soon overwhelmed.

  Capt. Hess, true to his call to glory, kept the zombies at bay with his small band of fighters, ferociously beating off all comers and shooting with the gun in each hand until their ammunition and finally their luck ran out.

  11

  Rick and Amy found themselves in the back of a consignment shop. The front windows were smashed in causing broken glass and scattered clothes to lie piled on the floor. The mayhem that was happening blocks away was still loud and furious. The din was continuing to draw zombies toward the confrontation. They could see the undead figures staggering past the windows. A few of them were moving with some speed.

  Amy noticed a narrow stairwell in the back of the shop and they both silently ascended the steps. Upstairs was an office and racks of surplus clothes. They looked around but saw nothing that they could use. Rick went to the window and looked down the street.

  “I think we can make it across the street now. They seem to be thinning out.”

  “Okay,” Amy said, “the grocer should be on the next block.”

  The two scavengers headed toward the head of the stairs when the noise sounded from below.

  “Oh, shit,” Amy whispered, “did they see us in here?”

>   “I don’t see how,” hissed Rick. “They were in too much of a hurry to get uptown.”

  Listening closely, they could hear a sliding noise on the wooden floor below. A muffled crash sounded as someone toppled over a rack of clothes. There were more sliding noises, then sounds of somebody pushing things aside.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” murmured Rick under his breath as he slowly edged to the top of the stairs. Rick leaned against the door jamb and carefully peered around the molding to look down to the bottom of the landing. Crawling over to the bottom stair was a wild haired woman of about forty-five. She was dripping black blood from her open mouth. Finally making it to the bottom step she looked up at Rick and gurgled out a moan. Rick stood there staring at her in a trance. He had brought his fist up to his mouth and was gnawing at the knuckle to stop himself from screaming.

  Now that she was trying to crawl up the stairs toward him, Rick saw to his horror that she was missing the rest of her body from mid-abdomen down. A long, wet trail of coagulated blood and eviscerated entrails marked her torturous path across the floor. The half zombie now grasped the second riser and was making horrible, phlegmy growling sounds that were growing in urgency as she became frustrated by her inability to climb the stairs. Amy appeared beside him and as she opened her mouth to scream, he swiftly clamped his hand across her lips to stifle it.

  “Shhhh,” he whispered. “You’ll draw more of them in here.”

  Amy turned away in disgust. Swallowing down her bile, she looked at Rick frantically. “We can’t get down the stairs,” she hissed worriedly. “What are we going to do?”

  Looking around fretfully, Rick rubbed a nervous hand over his head. Then, he turned and walked swiftly back to the window. Looking out in both directions he ran back.