Omega Days (Volume 1)

THIRTY-ONE



Oakland



Skye sat cross-legged on the dusty boards in the tower, the large bell hanging silently behind her. Rain was coming in each of the four open windows, turning the dust to sluggish, gray swirls. Her fingers moved quickly between the ammo box and the empty magazines, feeding copper-jacketed rounds in one at a time, click, click, click until she reached thirty, and then moving on to the next. She had been shooting nonstop for well over an hour, and the ammo can was half empty.

When the last magazine was filled she slipped them all into her bandolier and moved back to a window, arming the M4 with a snap. The area below was filled with fallen bodies. They were scattered across the intersection, down all four cross streets, on lawns, and piled against the iron fence of the First Baptist Church of Clawson. The sight of those bodies was fuel for the inferno burning within her, and she welcomed the hundreds more which emerged from the neighborhood to take their place. The silencer only concealed her position to a point, and they eventually noticed her in the tower, a powerful magnet for their primitive instinct. Good, she thought.

Sighting. Adjust for distance, adjust for wind. Squeeze. Headshot. She shifted the muzzle right. Squeeze. Headshot. A tick up and to the left. Squeeze. The bullet tore through a man’s throat, and he didn’t flinch. Three inches up and squeeze. Headshot. The daytime tracer rounds left a millisecond zip of bright green in the air, which helped adjust her accuracy. She wondered if soldiers switched to red tracers for nighttime, because in the movies they used tracers at night, and they were always red.

Skye stayed in the window until she emptied the magazine, then, ejected and replaced it as she moved to the opening on the right. Here she leaned out, firing down at an angle so steep it was almost vertical. Fifty or more freaks had gathered at the fence on this side of the church, dead hands grasping iron bars as lifeless faces tried to push between them. Stationary targets. Five rounds, ten, twenty, thirty, the click of an empty magazine. Twenty-four more motionless bodies were piled against the fence, crumpled on a gore-spattered sidewalk. The rain was turning the nearby street gutters red.

She moved to the back window, which gave only a partial view of 32 Street to the east, the rest blocked by the steep peak of the church roof. The last window also looked out onto a wide stretch of roof, and what slim view it offered was of the dead grass in the front yard, the street beyond the fence blocked by the leafy boughs of trees. That window wasn’t much use, so she went back to the front, the best seat in the house, and returned to work.

A knot of freaks was heaving at the padlocked gate. She dropped them all, a few bullets sparking off the iron. She emptied a magazine at the creatures lurching across the intersection, used another on the front fence line, and then a third on the fence visible from the right window. Freaks went down beside cars filled with in bullet holes, on the sidewalk in front of the little Latin groceria, near the liquor store, more at the fence, more in the intersection. The sharp tang of cordite filled her nostrils, and empty brass rattled under her boots as she moved. Skye paused only long enough to wipe the rain off her face and off her battle sights.

They kept coming, an endless infestation streaming towards the church from all directions, slumping and stiff-legged, their cries filling the street and occasionally drowned out by the rumble of thunder. How many hundreds? How many thousands? Skye didn’t care, didn’t think. There was only the kill.

Another reloading session, hands working in a blur, feeding bullets click, click, click. When she went back with full magazines, the streets were once again filled with the walking dead, a sea of them which made it look as if she hadn’t fired a shot. They blocked out the pavement in places, and were shoulder to shoulder along the entire fence, packed in five and six deep. Arms thrust between the bars, and broken teeth bit at the iron. Even more stumbled in to join the crowd.

Skye stood at the window gripping the assault rifle, blinking as rain streaked her face. She felt as if she had been startled awake from a dream.

“What am I doing?”

Her own voice sounded like a stranger’s. What was this? She had broken every rule she was taught or created for herself, rules which had kept her alive for weeks. And for what? All those bullets hadn’t made a bit of difference. She had surrendered to a killing frenzy just because she found a box of ammo and a good shooting position? This went beyond careless. Was this a half-assed suicide attempt? The church was about to become her grave.

“Stupid girl,” she whispered. She looked down and saw that a pair of freaks had managed to get elevation at the fence by climbing up on the bodies of the fallen, and were now pulling themselves over, mindless of what the spikes were doing to their flesh. Skye snapped up the rifle and sighted as they toppled over, but they shambled out of sight towards the church before she could draw a bead.

“Stupid dead girl,” she said.

The roar of an engine caught her attention, and she looked out to see a boxy blue truck racing up 32, smashing zombies with its heavy grill and crushing them beneath its tires. At once she knew what that was about; friends of the madman she had killed up north, the one creeping towards her house in the night with a woman’s head tied to his belt, come for payback. Okay, so this was how they wanted to do it. She would oblige. The moment they popped their heads out of that truck she would lift their skulls with 5.56mm.

Skye shrugged into her gear and started down the stairs. She descended half way before the door at the base crashed open. Looking down through space she saw a line of freaks pushing in and starting up the steep stairs. Two she recognized as those which made it over the bars, but the others were new. Had they found a gap in the fence at the back of the church? Did the fence even go all the way around? In her hurry to get up here, she hadn’t even checked. She just assumed, and so much so that she hadn’t even bothered to secure the front or back doors of the church.

The angle was bad, and the freaks would be hidden from view at least half the time they were climbing, so there was little chance to engage them at a distance. Skye reached one of the tight little landings two-thirds of the way down and knelt, waiting for them. As soon as they came into sight, crawling up on hands and knees, she began firing across the open space. Red and gray splashed the far wall, bullets drilling neat little circles of daylight through the boards.

She reloaded and descended, hearing more coming in below. Her mind raced to find a plan. Option one: Shoot her way out of the church, clear a space at the fence, get over and sprint into the neighborhood, counting on her speed versus their lethargic movement to outdistance them, lose them in the neighborhood.

Option two: Retreat to the tower and the ammo can and go down shooting.

No, that wasn’t even an option. If he could, Sgt. Postman would be kicking her ass for exposing herself like this in the first place. If she then cornered herself, it would be the final betrayal of what he had tried to do for her. She didn’t have nearly enough ammo to make a stand like that, and it would indeed be suicide. She realized that she wanted to live, even if only to spend a few more days killing them. However this went down, though, the last bullet in her silenced pistol was reserved for her own temple.

More ghouls clawed their way up the stairs, and Skye descended towards them, rifle to her shoulder and squeezing off rounds, empty brass clattering off wood. The walls were painted with crimson splashes, the steps slick with blood as her boots picked their way down through the bodies. She changed magazines and kept going as more poured through the door at the base.

Outside came the whoop-whoop of a siren, and the staccato crash of an automatic shotgun, boom-boom-boom in rapid succession. A horn honked long and loud. The crazy man’s friends wanted her to know they were coming, wanted to rattle her. She flexed her fingers around the M4’s pistol grip. What I’ve got, you don’t want, boys.

Skye focused on her sight, framing heads with slack dead faces and gray eyes, pulling the trigger as the bodies fell. A woman in bra and panties snarled only a few feet in front of her, and then the back of her head blew out. A teenager in a yellow track suit growled and gripped her ankle. She kicked it in the face and pressed the muzzle of the rifle to its forehead. It died in a pink explosion. Two men tried to come through the tower door side by side and got wedged. Skye shot each through an eye at point-blank range, kicked them loose and then dropped three more out in the church beyond as she stepped over bodies and went through the door.

They were coming in from the back, a stream of freaks pouring through a doorway and moving up the center aisle between the pews. Skye went through the open front doors and leaped down the steps, into the yard.

Hundreds of corpses at the fence saw her and let out a moan, reaching feverishly through the bars. To her right, several more used the bodies of the fallen to get themselves up over the top of the fence. On her left, a gang of freaks stumbled around the corner of the church, and at her back, the first of the stream coming through the pews emerged from the front door.

Surrounded.

The rifle came up and she fired, turning left, right, back, squeezing off rounds. Bodies fell, but not enough. The trigger clicked on a dry mag, and they were too close to reload. She let go of the rifle and it fell against her chest, hanging by its strap, as she jerked the silenced pistol from its holster. Puff-Puff-Puff. Ghouls went down in the yard and in the church entrance, and soon that weapon clicked empty as well.

She had used the last bullet without realizing it.

Skye tore the machete from its sheath.



TC unfolded a metal bar from the ceiling of the Bearcat’s cargo area, a device with two metal steps and a small platform which someone could stand on. He used it to open the armored hatch in the roof, and stood there half in and half out of the vehicle. Across his chest were belts of red, 12ga shells, and he carried a pair of automatic shotguns with pistol grips front and back, big circular drums of ammo hanging underneath like the cylinders of a revolver, only with a much higher capacity. The wind from the speeding truck blew his hair back as he shrieked, “Get some, f*ckers!” and began blasting away.

Carney drove the Bearcat into and over everything he saw, smashing bodies, sending them flying, crushing heads and torsos under the monstrous tires. Blood and rain hit the windshield as he accelerated into a huge gathering of the dead, the armored truck barely slowing as it plowed through them. TC’s shotguns boomed above, blowing apart bodies and heads.

“Getsomediemotherf*ckerdeadcocksuckingbraineatingf*ckingdeadf*ckers!”

Carney used the siren and the horn, drawing the horde’s attention. They shifted slowly towards this new noise, pulling back from the fence and crowding towards the vehicle. The Bearcat’s grill and TC’s shotguns were waiting for them.

He saw the girl exit the church and stop in the open, turning and firing. She pulled a pistol and still they came. He snatched the radio handset and hit the PA switch. “Get over that fence right now!” his voice boomed through the speaker. “I’ll come to you. Climb up the hood and into the hatch!”

Carney cranked the wheel to the right, crushing more bodies, and gunned the truck at the fence. TC kept firing and laughing and screaming obscenities. Just before he hit, Carney cranked harder, roaring in along the fence and sweeping another dozen corpses off the bars and under the tires before slamming the brakes.

TC climbed out of the hatch and stood on the roof, pumping rounds at creatures in front of the truck. “Move it, bitch!” he screamed. “I ain’t coming to you!” The cylinders rolled off three more shots. “Move it now!” The inmate swept his fire across the fence, and heads came apart like a row of melons.

Skye buried her machete in a freak’s head, saw its eyes roll up and jerked it free. She sprinted for the fence. The freaks lined up before her went down in a bloody row, as a ping of a shotgun pellet on the iron bars left a hot crease below her left eye. She barely noticed, and hit the fence at a run, tossing her machete through the bars as the tread of her boots scrambled against the metal, the muscles on her arms taut as she hauled herself up. At the top she stepped carefully so as not to impale herself, then landed in a crouch on the other side. She would use their cover to get out, but if these guys thought she would get in their damned truck so she could be raped and decapitated they were confused. She only needed a moment to slap in a new magazine, and then the a*shole on the truck’s roof was going down.

“C’mon, bitch, get that sweet ass up here!” TC ripped off five blasts at a cluster of ghouls behind Skye, the pellets whizzing over her head. The girl picked up her machete and-

-a ghoul caught hold of her pack and jerked her to the ground. It towered over her, teeth gnashing around flaps of hanging, rotted flesh. Another with its legs blown off at the knees dragged itself towards her, making a wet rattling noise in its throat.

Skye cried out and chopped at a leg, severing it. The creature collapsed on top of her, and Skye just managed to straight-arm its throat to keep it at bay. Its skin felt greasy as it thrashed, twisting its neck and clawing with both hands, writhing on top of her in a gruesome parody of intimacy. A putrid stink of rotten meat came from its snapping mouth.

The legless ghoul reached her, fingertips scraping at the top of her head. She screamed and swung the machete at the one on top of her, sinking the blade into the side of its head at the temple, destroying an eye. The blade went deep, and the ghoul stiffened. Its head split open like rotten fruit, and suddenly a torrent of sticky black and yellow fluid gushed from the wound, hitting Skye in the face with a splash.

She gagged. It was in her mouth, her eyes, up her nose. She gasped and heaved the body off to the right, vomiting onto the street just as the legless creature caught her head in both hands from above. It came in with its teeth.

A black boot pinned the thing’s neck to the pavement, and a rifle muzzle shoved in its ear blew its head apart.

Carney grabbed Skye by her pack straps and hauled her up, tossing her over his shoulder. She couldn’t resist, could barely breathe, retching as her fingers dug at her eyes. Carney carried her to the open driver’s door of the Bearcat and shoved her up and in, then climbed in after her.

TC was back inside, and dragged Skye into the rear. Still she could only choke, her vision blurred. The inmate propped her against a stack of twelve-pack sodas, and sat on the bench across from her. Carney got the Bearcat moving again, driving over both walking and fallen bodies, accelerating away from the church and into the Oakland neighborhood.

TC handed Skye a bottle of water and a rag. She immediately got it wet, scrubbing at her face, washing out her eyes and nose, gargling and spitting, wiping at her teeth and tongue. TC watched her closely, saying nothing. When she was done she looked around, eyes darting. The back of the truck was filled with survival gear, food and weapons, but no human heads. Across from her was a tattooed, wall of a man with crazy eyes and a wild grin, staring at her as if she was an exotic zoo animal. She didn’t know where her pistol was, and the machete was gone. The rifle, still hanging on her chest, was empty. She’d never get a magazine in before he was on her. She snatched the boot knife from its sheath and pointed the blade at the man.

“Easy. I’m TC, that’s Carney. What’s your name?”

“It sure isn’t bitch,” she said tightly. She saw the door at the back of the vehicle. Could she get out before he caught her? No way. She was sure she could stick him if he made a move towards her, but he was wearing a lot of body armor and it had a high collar. She would have to get him in the face or neck, and would only get one chance.

“How old are you?” asked TC, his eyes roaming over her.

She didn’t respond. The vehicle was moving, the driver saying nothing. She didn’t like the way this man was looking at her, like a dog eying a steak on a kitchen counter, sizing up whether or not he could reach it. She needed to know where they were, needed to get out.

Up front, Carney had other things on his mind besides their new acquaintance. The steering had a new shimmy to it, the vibrations traveling up into his hands through the steering wheel, and he had to over correct to keep it straight. There was a knocking in the engine, too, and that worried him more than the steering. He had used the Bearcat like a bulldozer, slamming it into and rolling over hundreds of bodies. Armored and rugged as it was, the riot vehicle was still just a truck, not a tank, and he had damaged it. How badly he couldn’t know until he crawled under it and got inside the hood, neither of which was possible right now. Even though the church was blocks behind them, more of the dead were emerging from buildings all around, drifting into the road, drawn by the sound of the vehicle.

He listened to the knocking. Was it getting worse? A breakdown here would be very bad. Carney slowed down, threading the Bearcat around abandoned cars and trying to avoid running over more of the walking dead, keeping to the same street. Hands beat at the sides of the truck, and some simply came right at him, impossible to avoid. They crunched under the front bumper.

Skye waited silently to see what the man across from her would do, but he just sat there, looking at her, no longer asking questions. It took less than thirty minutes. Skye’s vision doubled, and then tripled. She felt sick to her stomach, felt like throwing up. Minutes later she began to sweat, the inside of the armored truck quickly turning into an oven. The man morphed into her eighth grade science teacher.

“I forgot my homework,” she said.

TC laughed.

At an intersection, Carney looked right. A block up was Peralta, the street he had crossed to get to the church, still running parallel to the street he was traveling. He saw a line of vehicles go by, led by a motorcycle, a tow truck and a VW van. He cut up a block and stopped at Peralta, looking left, then waited until the last vehicle was almost out of sight before turning in to follow them.

Her science teacher morphed into Crystal. Her sister wasn’t bitten, wasn’t changed, and she was smiling. “You came back,” Skye muttered, and then passed out, the knife falling to the floor.

TC picked it up and tossed it behind some boxes. Then he used the gear they had loaded from the training center to cuff her hands behind her back, and shackle her feet together. He cut a length of nylon rope and shoved it between her teeth, tying it tightly behind her head as a biting gag.

The younger inmate stuck his head through the opening into the cab. “She’s sick, man. I think she’s got it.”