Man Eaters (Book 2): The Horde Read online

  Dallas nodded. “I like that.”

  “I’ll relay the message. You move to the left and attack from that angle. That will keep you from being trampled.”

  Being trampled was certainly a danger, so beheading them from the side or from behind, while exhausting, would prevent such a disaster.

  When Dallas was finally out of ammunition, she studied her line of shooters. More than half were empty and awaiting orders. Dallas yelled to Roper to flank left. Roper did the same, and soon enough, the whole line moved to the left and to the side of the Horde.

  Luke looked at Dallas and she signaled for him to join the line. He studied the approaching zombies for a moment before shaking his head, pointing to the tree line, and taking off toward the line of woods several hundred yards away. He paused, yelled to the survivors, and beckoned them to come to him.

  Dallas knew why he had bolted.

  He had seen the same thing she had. There were far more than her original estimate. The horde might turn with him, a ZB, and enter the woods after him, making it slower going for their lumbering legs. Then he would continue toward Angola to lead the survivors home. She’d been right following Einstein’s advice and Butcher’s request. Luke was definitely cut out for leading an army and was doing everything he could to move the horde away from the slowing survivors.

  And they were really slowing down, but could Luke outrun them?

  “Goddess go with you,” Dallas said softly as he disappeared through the woods.

  Moving with the line, Dallas pulled her machete from the sheath and started taking off heads along the way. It never ceased to amaze her how they never retaliated, never fought back, never showed a single emotion. Fighting wasn’t in their skill set. They were programmed simply to eat. They had no emotions, no vengeance, nothing but an insatiable thirst for human flesh.

  As headless undead collapsed around her, she stepped up, gripped the machete handle, and swung it like a baseball bat over and over again, often stepping on a fallen body as she pursued another victim.

  And there were many victims falling beneath her blade.

  As Dallas’s arms started feeling like dead weights, she gazed down at the gauze and knew she’d busted open her stitches. Blood seeped from her wound and onto the gauze.

  It didn’t matter. She could not stop fighting, could not stop leading the group.

  That was when she heard the horn and the machine gun of the Fuchs.

  “Fall back!” She ordered, stepping away and running to the middle of the road, waving her arms. When Otis saw her, he drove around a couple of stragglers while Churchill used a single shot Colt to take out as many zombies as he could.

  “How’d it go?” Dallas asked, panting.

  Otis stared at her arm. “You’re bleeding.”

  “I’ll live. How was it?”

  “The kids were great. Meg had food ready to go for them, and they were so hungry and so tired, they ate and immediately fell asleep in their cells. We had to wrestle with some of the wounded who refused to go into quarantine. Once we got them all unloaded, I came back after you.” He shook his head. “Do you have any idea how many zombie corpses are in the fields and roadway?”

  Dallas shrugged. “There were too many to count.”

  “Well, from what I could tell, ya’ll cut their numbers in half.”

  Dallas did a quick calculation. By her count, she’d killed close to two hundred herself, maybe more. That meant natural shooters like Butcher and Roper had killed probably much more, maybe double that. That could only mean…her original estimation had been far too low.

  They had collected far more along the way than Dallas calculated.

  “Oh shit.”

  “What?”

  “Get our people back on the flatbed. We’re getting out of here.”

  “We’re leaving the survivors?”

  Dallas nodded. “For now we need to drop back and punt.”

  ****

  Dallas was out of the Fuchs before it completely stopped. “Meeting room. Fifteen minutes,” she barked at Colby. “Where’s Wendell?”

  Wendell came running out of the camp. “Welcome ba—” He stopped. “What’s up?”

  “I miscalculated the number. I was hoping we’d cut the number in half, but—”

  “You want to know if the fences will hold. We’ve given it the supreme once over, reinforcing it as much as we can, but we’re out of supplies for now.” He pointed to the more vulnerable area near the road. Somehow, Wendell had managed to move dozens of vehicles inside the facility and lined them up like rows of dominoes against the fence. If the zombies pushed against the fence, it would hit the cars, but not collapse inward.

  “Your zombies won’t be getting in here.”

  Dallas felt a small weight lift from her shoulders. “Brilliant. Thank you, Wendell. I was hoping to stop the onslaught, but there are so many of them.”

  “Go do what you do best, Dallas, and leave the fortification to us. We’ll go back over it again.”

  “I won’t ask how you moved those cars.”

  Wendell chuckled. “Then we won’t tell.”

  Dallas ran back to the base, barking orders along the way and grabbing as many shooters as she could find. When she came to the crow’s nest, she let the guard know he needed to fly the defense flag. In lieu of an auditory signal, Luke had gone with a visual one she could only hope worked.

  At the meeting center, everyone she needed to be there was there, including Einstein.

  “Okay everyone, settle down. We don’t have much time. Luke is out there leading the pack of survivors back here. We cannot wait for them to reach us, which is in approximately five hours, maybe less now that Luke is with them.”

  Einstein raised his hand. “Why aren’t we going back for him?”

  Dallas’s eyes met Otis’s, who answered for her. “The survivors would crawl all over the Fuchs like ants on a peppermint again. The amount of time we would lose trying to get them off could give the horde the time it needs to catch up. We can’t risk that. We needed to get our people back here and regroup, which is what we did.”

  “With Luke leading them, they’ll get here sooner,” Roper added. “He knows what he’s doing, and so does Dallas.”

  “Okay, we cut their numbers significantly, and gave the survivors some breathing room, but their growth surpassed what I’d anticipated. CGI shooters will be going back out with me. We’re going out five miles to assist in the last push to Angola. Once the survivors get beyond us, we will shoot and fall back, shoot and fall back, so that we’re right on their tail. Once the survivors reach the gate, we need to continue order for quarantining. Once order is obtained, depending on how much time we’ve bought ourselves, we will either make a stand in front of the fences or fall back and assist the ZB shooters in taking them out from within base camp. We have two mounted machine guns, which will have 500 rounds apiece. Once those cease firing, we will commence firing with the ZBs. Make every shot count. Once we are out of ammo, the CGIs will revert to machete, bat, and crowbar. Convene at the gate in thirty minutes.”

  When everyone moved out, Dallas pulled Henry and Otis aside. “I need your best shooters. Make sure they have more ammo than everyone else. Reiterate head shots, and to have patience not to shoot until after the machine guns stop firing. That’s important. Those guns can take out a helluva lot, but we need patience. Panic will kill us.”

  Henry nodded. “Ten-four. We got this, Dallas.”

  When they left, Roper and Butcher stood on either side of Dallas. “He’s right, babe. We got this.”

  Taking their hands in hers, Dallas addressed Butcher. “If I could have done this any other way—”

  “You couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He knows what he’s doing. I have to believe that. So should you.”

  Taking both faith and belief with her, Dallas led her fighters to the line of scrimmage.

  ****

  Several hours after her return to Angola, and stationed five miles from
the front gate, Dallas heard Luke before she saw him. Urging the survivors on, he prodded, pleaded, and encouraged them to press ahead. He had returned to the road, probably because it was easier on the survivors, who were coming around the corner at a pace somewhere between walking and jogging. The survivors lit up upon seeing Dallas and company.

  “They came back!” A woman yelled down the line to the survivors behind her, who erupted in exhausted cheers.

  Dallas strained to see Luke, and when she finally made eye contact with him, he took off in a sprint toward her, stopping in front of her with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. His shirt was torn in three places and there were several cuts on his forearms, but other than that, he appeared unharmed.

  “How far behind?” Dallas asked.

  Luke stayed bent over, hands on his knees. His shirt was soaked and perspiration dripped from his nose and chin. “Not too far. Half a mile…max. God…am I glad…to see you. Didn’t think we’d make it.”

  Dallas patted his sweaty back. “You did great, Luke. Thank you for getting them here.”

  “Not finished.” Rising, he wiped the sweat from his brow. “How much…further?”

  “Five miles or so. We still have a ways to go. Fire and drop back, fire and drop back. You take them the rest of the way. Keep them at the gate until I get there.”

  Dallas looked at Roper, who gave her the thumbs up.

  “You ready?” Dallas asked.

  “Right beside you, babe. Let’s do this.”

  It was time. Once the last survivors hurried by, Dallas raised her rifle and called out for her shooters to get ready. The line was tense. The air still. The moaning reached them long before the bodies. By the looks of it, they hadn’t made a dent in the numbers, so large was the amoeba-like horde lumbering toward them.

  “Fire!”

  They took out the first line of zombies and then fell back. The CGIs were moving slower than Dallas would have liked, and she knew they were tiring. She was tiring. Swinging a machete was hard on the body. After awhile, your gripping muscles go and maintaining a good grip on the handle is vital for a good kill. You had to be able to pull it out once you stuck it in.

  Once your grippers go, you have to use two hands and swing it like a bat. Sometimes, the machete gets lodged in the skull, so then you have to put your foot on the head to pull it out. All of this takes precious time and energy, and she could sense the waning energy of the group.

  When they retreated and fired again, Dallas knew that continuing this pattern until the survivors were safely at the gate was going to be tough.

  Fire, retreat, fire, retreat. The pattern continued for nearly two hours until they were within sight of the main gate of the prison, where the survivors stood waiting, wondering, disbelieving they might actually make it.

  Dallas’s clothes were soaked through with sweat, her hair pasted to her forehead. She was nearly out of ammo, her arms felt like lead pipes, and her legs like soggy noodles.

  “Henry, get them ready!” Dallas yelled, running up to the gate where Gary stood with several rifles hanging from his shoulders.

  “Open the gate, Gary, and herd the survivors to quarantine. Shoot anyone who breaks protocol.”

  Gary nodded and barked orders to the twenty people in charge of the quarantine procedure.

  Henry rallied his troops behind the walls of the prison while Butcher, Meg, and the medical team dealt with the quarantining of the survivors, some of whom balked until Wild Bill assured them it was best for everyone involved. By the time the survivors were all in quarantine, the first line of zombies had made their way to the fence.

  That was when Dallas knew she had made a terrible miscalculation.

  Yes, they had cut the horde in half, but it had grown significantly in the twenty miles it traveled, nearly doubling in size…maybe tripling.

  “Fire!” Henry bellowed, followed by the sound of machine gun fire popping from the two machine guns aimed at the horde. One thousand rounds goes much faster than one might think, but the sheer number of bodies that fell acted as a roadblock for the others who stumbled over them as they reached for the fence.

  “Fire!” Luke yelled when the machine guns quieted. It was now the ZBs turn to fire on the zombies, and Dallas watched as bolt after bolt, arrow after arrow downed the eaters.

  But still they came like a swarm of locusts, moaning, reaching with fleshless limbs.

  The only sounds that could be heard above the gunfire was that awful moaning and the sounds of bodies hitting the ground. Over and over, the undead fell and became the truly dead.

  Swinging machetes, the CGIs entered the fight with reckless abandon. Dallas killed a hundred or so before her machete broke off at the handle. Then she used the butt of her rifle and started caving heads in.

  She had no idea how long she did this, but when Roper’s hand shot out and pulled her inside the gate to assist the ZBs, it took another hour to put down the last zombie limping toward the fence and stumbling over the dead. The fence not only held up, but did not appear to be stressed at any point. Wendell had done his job spectacularly. The zombie bodies were eight deep from the fence and had acted as a primary speed bump, making them slow down. This made it easier for the shooters to make their head shots, and they did so more efficiently than Dallas had hoped.

  When the last zombie crumpled on top of his dead friends, the entire compound erupted in cheers, Roper threw her arms around Dallas’s neck, and the feeling of jubilation washed over the fighters and everyone in the prison.

  “You did it,” Roper whispered, kissing Dallas’s salty neck.

  “We did it,” Dallas corrected. “We did it.”

  And so they had.

  Piled outside the perimeter were thousands of truly dead. The survivors were tucked away safely behind the fence. Her plan, their defenses, everything had worked itself out.

  Once everyone made their way back to the theater, they were an exhausted, jubilant group who had managed to fight back and win. They had won their first major victory, and the renewed energy flowed through the survivors like a magic elixir.

  That night, the kitchen crew served a celebratory feast as everyone shared their experiences and stories in what came to be known as The First Wave.

  It was the best night they had had in a long, long time.

  ****

  Butcher’s Log

  Four Days After the First Wave

  It’s odd feeling both pride and anger at Luke for his decision to help the survivors in a way that put him at risk. On one hand, it was brave and heroic—on the other, foolish and impulsive. I don’t believe they would have made it here without him, so Luke has definitely made some great deposits into the karma bank, but I would prefer it if he weren’t so selfless.

  After dinner, he crashed and slept until noon the next day. Dallas posted a guard at the door of our cell, and threatened to gut anyone who woke him up.

  I love that woman like I’ve never loved another woman (besides my mother). She has brass balls, that girl, and isn’t afraid to lead. I know I wouldn’t want her job, and I imagine it keeps her up at night, but she takes good care of us, that’s for sure. She has kept us all alive and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, I wouldn’t do for her.

  I’ve been kept up at night for other reasons—reasons I wish would go away. I keep having nightmares that the baby is…God help me…born a zombie. It’s horrific. The thing comes out scratching and clawing at the doctor and nurse and launches itself at the doctor’s throat. In another nightmare, I am breastfeeding it and it takes a huge chunk out of my breast, blood spewing all over. I can’t shake it. It clings to me, sucking my milk and my blood.

  It’s awful. I wake up with the cold sweats and have a hard time falling back asleep. My rational mind knows this can’t happen, but it feels so real…it makes me feel for my baby.

  My baby.

  Such strange words. For his part, Luke has been wonderful. He doesn’t hover or treat me like I am suddenly he
lpless. It makes me love him even more. He’s become the hero of the survivors and they look up to him a lot, which is good because that Benjamin has been talking too much and trying to rally support for his cause. He wants some sort of board or committee or some such bullshit. Every time he talks, I look over to Roper and can see the veins in her forehead. If he’s not careful, Roper’s going to have him for breakfast soon.

  Yesterday, the last of the survivors left quarantine. We had one turn about an hour after intake, but luckily, Ferdie was in there doing the exam, and he put her down quickly.

  Dallas spent the afternoon assigning them duties. When she assigned duties to the children, one mother balked, saying her son was too young. The funny thing was what Dallas said. “No one is on scholarship in this camp.”

  It was priceless.

  It’s amazing how quickly our numbers have grown. At last count, we had three hundred and seventy-four. Imagine that! With more mouths to feed, we’ve scheduled more fishermen, more hunters, and more trappers. With the smokehouse going twenty-four/seven, we haven’t had a problem with lack of food or proper nourishment.

  The new survivors we call the Texas group were stunned at the food we provided. They ate their fill, and then ate some more as they asked questions about the facility, about the jobs that needed doing. One thing about those Texans, they don’t sit idle and they are willing to work.

  Of course, now we have the magical duo of Wendell and Elliot, who have made electricity feasible to the point that once every week, everyone gets a five-minute warm shower. Dallas posted a schedule with big, bold print that says No Trading. Everyone showers. She did this after she caught one of the kids trading his shit duty to another kid for his shower time. Apparently, boys prefer being smelly and dirty. Ugh.

  The slips Dallas tossed out of the plane have yielded nearly a hundred new survivors, and each one said word was traveling fast. Wild Bill told us that first night that they were headed along the southern border of Louisiana when they heard from a small group that Angola was safe.

  For the most part, it is. Besides the one survivor Ferdie killed, Wild Bill’s group yielded three man eaters who changed within the first twenty-four hours of quarantine. They’d been bitten in the initial skirmish just before pulling away in their first all out run. Wild Bill couldn’t thank Dallas enough for the mandatory quarantine, and asked if he could be of assistance in the quarantine ward. Meg was more than happy to have someone actually volunteer for such a dangerous duty, so away he went. They hit it off right away, and I have noticed some mutual attractions happening. Ferdie seems to have a huge crush on Churchill, Meg and Wild Bill have traded those looks people give each other, and Jamie seems to be drawn to Zoe, who doesn’t seem the least bit interested right now.