Arisen, Book Eight - Empire of the Dead Read online

  There was no coming back for this guy, Jameson realized, and his rifle chugged three times as he fired single shots – two for the zombies, now sent tumbling away from the injured man, and then a third dead center in the medic’s forehead. As the man dropped, Jameson wondered why the hell that third shot had been so difficult to take. Nothing could be done for the man, and if he’d been given the few minutes more of life he no doubt deserved, he’d have turned and become just another part of the problem. Jameson had to shrug it off, and accept that sometimes it all goes to shit, no matter what you do.

  He just had to keep going.

  A glance at the other fight revealed that it had gone no better. All five figures lay dead on the ground as Eli and the two Marines with him scanned the corridor leading away from the carnage. Jameson saw blood on their bayonets, and realized he hadn’t heard a shot fired from that side of the room. As he watched, Eli spat in the direction of one of the downed zombies.

  The shooting from the courtyard outside ticked down, and seconds later the last of his men surged into the room, spreading out and moving to the exits, until they had all the doors covered. Jameson stood at the foot of the stairs, scanning in all directions, trying to decide the best plan of action in the few seconds he had. As more gunfire erupted on the floors above, he decided he only really had one choice. Every section of the building was critical, but none more than the heart of the nation’s military operations – the Joint Operations Center (JOC), now two floors directly above him.

  He turned and took the stairs two and three at a time, knowing Eli would be covering him. Other Marines spread out and followed, hitting the stairs seconds behind him. There was a burst of fire as he turned the first corner, and he turned to see four of his men, on their own initiative, holding the foot of the stairs and firing into the hospital wing. He recognized one of the youngest of his men – Nicks, a corporal only six months promoted to fire team leader – among them.

  “Nicks,” he said into the radio. “Strongpoint that position and only withdraw if you have to. I want our access to the other wings and the main reception clear.”

  “Understood, Lieutenant,” came the reply.

  “And watch your back – we may not be able to hold every entrance to the stairs.”

  “We got it, sir.”

  The Fall

  CentCom Strategic Command Center

  Jameson leapt up the stairs, passing the second floor and then slowing as they hit the open corridor that bisected the upper floor of the command center. This was the hub of the operation, and usually heavily guarded, but all Jameson saw as he ran through it were mangled bodies.

  Halfway along the corridor they arrived at the smashed-open doors of the Joint Operations Center. Two more RMPs lay on the ground, though one was still twitching and looking up at Jameson pitiably. He moved through the open doorway and looked upon the chaos and carnage that had once been the nerve center of Britain’s defenses.

  The entire JOC was trashed. Monitors, keyboards, and chairs were smashed and lying in bits across the floor. The massive panel windows that once lined the far end of the room were also smashed through, with only jagged splinters of broken glass in the frame remaining.

  And there were bodies everywhere. The struggle in here looked to have been bloody and brief. Where there might once have been thirty or forty personnel at any given time, all seated at their stations and managing the whole fight for the south, there were now torn and mangled messes littering the floor.

  As Jameson, Eli, and the other Marines scanned around them, they noticed a few signs of movement. At the far end of the room, a collapsed desk flipped over, and a figure leapt from underneath it – then began to run full-tilt across the room at them. It had at least three big holes in it, obviously gunshot wounds, but these didn’t stop or even slow it down.

  It had made it a quarter of the way across the massive room when Jameson took it down with a single shot. Just before he fired, he realized that he recognized the face, before its features were obliterated. It had been Colonel Broads, second in command of the entire operation.

  More movement over on the other side of the room. Another dead body arose from behind a desk, this time to be taken down by Eli before it could make a move.

  “Nicks, message, over,” said Jameson.

  “Send message, sir.”

  Jameson spoke while stepping carefully through the ruins of CentCom. “Get up to the third floor and strongpoint this level.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Everyone spread out,” Jameson said. “But stay tied in. Check each body in this room. If they’re dead, kill them again.”

  Thirty shots later, with most of the JOC cleared, Jameson saw Eli turn and scan the offices running down one edge of the giant room. He knew these were the senior commanders’ offices, and soundproof. He could see that all the doors were shut, though each was fronted by a wall of glass – but the middle one, which Eli approached now, was mostly shot out. What glass was left was splattered with blood on the inside.

  There were bodies everywhere, many of them obviously of destroyed dead. But the body pile out in front of the middle office was particularly high and wide.

  “I’ve got movement in here, bossman,” said Eli, aiming his rifle into the window of that office.

  “On my way,” said Jameson. As he looked up at the shot-out window he added, “I thought that glass was bulletproof…”

  Eli glanced over at him and then nodded at the missing panel windows at the front of the JOC, and the massive gaping holes now letting in a cool breeze. “Weren’t they supposed to be bulletproof as well?”

  Jameson nodded. “As far as I know, yes.”

  “But I guess not.”

  “Or someone used a cannon to shoot them out.”

  Eli turned again to the middle office, and peered through the shards into the dimness inside, checking the slight movement, and scanning as much of the room as he could make out.

  “Would a Gimpy do that, do you think?” asked Eli.

  “A General Purpose Machine Gun?” asked Jameson.

  “Yeah. Because whoever is in here is holding one, and looks ready to rock…”

  * * *

  “Go firm,” Jameson said into his chin mic. Immediately the rest of the Marines stopped their slow check of the room and dropped down under hard cover. Two of them moved toward the entrance, keeping that covered, while the others in the room covered their lieutenant and troop sergeant.

  Jameson lifted his rifle to the closed door and slowly put his hand out to push it open.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Who the fuck is that?” shouted a voice from inside. Jameson recognized it immediately, even though the voice was strained, and clearly in pain.

  “Colonel Mayes?” he asked, pulling the door slowly open and peering in.

  “One fucking step closer and I’ll blow hell out of you.”

  “Sir, this is Lieutenant Jameson, One Troop. Are you injured?”

  “The fuck I am. Are you? If you’ve been bitten or scratched I’ll roast the fucking lot of you.”

  Jameson and Eli looked at each other, shocked.

  “Sir, we have no injuries. Can you lower your weapon so we can assist you?”

  “Lower my fucking weapon? Are you mad? They are out there. They’re all going to turn.”

  “Sir, if you can just stand down, my men will take care of any… threats.”

  At this, Mayes laughed. But it wasn’t a healthy laugh, and Jameson wondered if the fight had tipped the senior officer over the edge, sent him into some kind of dementia.

  “You’re too damn late for that, but come on in,” said Mayes.

  Jameson pushed the door open, looked around the room, and then stepped in. Eli followed.

  Jameson pressed his radio PTT button and quietly said, “Resume sweep of the room.” He then focused on the man lying before him, propped up against the back wall.

  His wasn’t the only sprawled-out form in
the room. Two others lay near the shot-out window ahead of him, both armed – and both dead of multiple gunshot wounds. Jameson couldn’t recognize either, as both were face down. But he could see they had been shot in their backs – including the backs of their heads.

  Mayes was a complete mess. His face was pale and covered with blood, and his left arm had a huge chunk torn out of it – a bright red wound that looked like it went right down to the bone. On top of this, he was covered in scratches, cuts, and numerous bite marks.

  A GPMG medium machine gun, over four feet long, lay across his lap, with linked belts of 7.62mm ammunition snaking and piled up around him. There were also hundreds of empty shell casings, as well as piles of the disintegrating links that had held other belts together. The colonel was basically propped up in a pile of his own brass, most of it stained with his own blood. It also occurred to Jameson that if he had been wielding that thing while still on his feet, then the old guy was a lot stronger than he looked.

  “That’s right, Lieutenant,” croaked Mayes. “The bastard got me – your old boss, Major Grews. He always was an asshole. I don’t know how he got past medical. But the son of a bitch bit my arm – and the others he’d already turned scratched me to hell before I could hole up in here.”

  “Did you get them all?” Jameson asked.

  “No. Grews jumped right out the window, but I know I tagged him – more than once. He’s out there somewhere right now. I’m afraid I also shot these two.” He nodded toward the two bodies by the window. “Things got out of control in the chaos.”

  Jameson tried to keep any judgment off his face.

  Mayes caught the look anyway. “We were being overrun. It was either all of them… or all of us together. They were dead either way. Hell, we’re all already dead…”

  He took a few labored breaths before continuing.

  “Look, you have to kill everyone in that room,” he said, nodding at the JOC out beyond his door. “And get your men out looking for Grews. He’s a type three, and a hell of a lot faster than a runner – doesn’t stop to eat, just infects and runs like hell for the next. Starting with just him alone, he took down this whole complex in under an hour. If he gets outside the wire and into London… well, it’ll be end of the world, Lieutenant. End of the fucking world.”

  The Colonel lapsed into silence and ragged breathing. Jameson looked at Eli, and knew they were both thinking the same thing. They’d seen plenty of runners, but they’d also seen a few of the type threes, the Foxtrots. And the two were worlds apart.

  If Grews got out, or another like him, the city could conceivably fall before the outbreak in the south even brushed up against the giant wall they had painstakingly constructed to protect them.

  And London would go down like CentCom, like every other military installation, like virtually every other heavily defended place.

  It would fall from within.

  They Go, You Stay

  CentCom Strategic Command Center

  “We’ll find him,” Jameson said to the dying old soldier at his feet. He then turned to face Eli, and clicked onto the squad net to issue orders – to throw all of One Troop back into the fight.

  “Okay, lads, here it is. We sweep and clear all the way out to the perimeter – and that’s everything, starting here. Four-man teams, watch your intervals, but maintain supporting fields of fire. What we’re looking for is Foxtrots, the nightmare fast ones. And they are fucking dangerous, so do not drop your guard for a second. And we have to take them all down. Because if any of those bastards make it out of this place… ”

  He left the words hanging, knowing that every man in his unit would understand the consequences.

  He turned back to Mayes even as he saw, in peripheral vision, his men stacking up and spilling out into the corridor, and the sprawling base that surrounded them. Eli hung back, moving back out into the room, going to finish the job that needed doing – the clearing of the JOC.

  “We’ll find them,” Jameson repeated to Mayes, then turned to leave – but knowing he would have to shut the door securely behind him. Because not long after this last exchange, he would have to enter this room again – and put down the animated corpse that would soon replace the most indispensable field-grade officer running the fight for Fortress Britain.

  “No,” said Mayes urgently, as Jameson turned to leave. “Your men go, but you stay.”

  Jameson stopped, hesitating as he stood in the doorway. This was Colonel Mayes giving him a direct order – but the man was injured, infected, and in Jameson’s mind couldn’t be expected to act rationally. But still he stayed where he was.

  “There are things you need to know, things that can’t be forgotten or lost. Send your men out. But you stay with me.”

  “Sir,” said Jameson. “If we have FNs out there…”

  “I don’t give a damn, Lieutenant. This isn’t a request, this is a fucking order. You have no idea.”

  Shots erupted from the room outside, three of them in close succession, and then Eli appeared at the door.

  “It’s clear in there. Let’s go, boss.”

  “I have to stay with the Colonel,” said Jameson, giving Eli a look that his troop sergeant seemed to understand.

  This is an order. No questions.

  “Find those bastards and take them down.”

  Eli nodded once and then he was gone, running out of the ops center to catch up with the rest of One Troop. They would even now be sweeping the floor below and the ground floor simultaneously. A twinge of regret crossed Jameson’s mind, knowing that his men were hunting the very worst that the apocalypse could offer, and he wasn’t with them.

  At least the fate of humanity is in the best possible hands.

  * * *

  Jameson turned back to the Colonel. The senior officer coughed and spat out blood that was darker than it should be, and for the first time Jameson noticed black lines spreading across Mayes’s face, spidering out from his eyes, which were now bloodshot.

  “Okay, listen up,” he said. “I don’t have long. Ten, fifteen minutes at most, if the speed people have been turning around here is anything to go by.”

  “Do you want me to—” began Jameson, but was cut off.

  “No. I’ll do that myself. And that’s not what I need you for. Listen carefully. We have two hundred thousand troops in the field fighting this invasion, and this ops center is the relay point for every decision we make. And right now there’s no one left alive in here to carry on. So you’re going to have to take over until relief from Edinburgh gets here.”

  “But—” started Jameson, starting to protest that he was totally unqualified to serve as a theater-level operations officer, never mind commander…

  “Just shut up and listen, Lieutenant,” said Mayes. “I don’t have the luxury of time.”

  “Sir.”

  “Have you heard of Secunda Mortem?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I’m about to share with you classified information, Lieutenant. Info that only those on the mission and those preparing here know about. That equipment out in the new Biosciences Complex? The machinery you retrieved, that Biacore 4000, and all the other equipment they have in there isn’t just to research a possible vaccine. It’s to manufacture one that is already nearly ready. Secunda Mortem is an operation – run by USOC, the boys in black out at Hereford. It’s objective was to retrieve a scientist trapped in the USA – one who had already developed a vaccine for the infection, but was unable to get it out before being trapped himself. Well, that objective has been achieved. They have the scientist and he has his cure, except it needs to be perfected before we can use it. So the mission has proceeded to Africa. Specifically, the Horn of Africa.”

  “The origin of the virus,” said Jameson.

  “Exactly. And if that mission is successful, they will be hightailing it back here – and that facility outside will have to be ready and functional. So that we can manufacture the vaccine.” He paused and coughed piteously
. “Maybe even before it’s too late, and everyone is already dead.”

  Jameson tried to get his mind around this. “Holy shit,” he said, finally.

  “Yes, quite. And there’s no one we can pull out of the field to keep this place running, not in time, and not with transport buggered. Anyway, every senior officer in the field is needed there to keep the defense from falling apart, to delay the siege and destruction of London – until we can get the vaccine out. So you have to do this. You need to somehow get the tactical stations and radios up and running, or enough of them to run a skeleton operation. And you need to man them.”

  Mayes gave Jameson a moment for this to sink in. He then concluded, “And delaying the fall is the best we’re going to be able to do.”

  “I thought the invasion was being quelled,” said Jameson, half-stunned, and just parrotting the official line. He’d never really believed it. Now his skepticism was confirmed.

  “Not in the slightest,” said Mayes. “And it isn’t going to happen. We’re on the verge of losing Portsmouth right now, and with that the entirety of the south. We have estimates of an army of a million undead already in the field. And we’ve spent most of our heavy ordnance.”

  Jameson reeled. “A million?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant. A million. Soon it will be tens of millions. And our deployed units in the field are already outnumbered five to one. The only thing we have going for us is that most of the dead haven’t reached London, or the main line of resistance – the MLR we’ve planned and fortified. Yet.”

  Jameson looked into the Colonel’s eyes. And it occurred to him that, in his last minutes on this Earth, Colonel Mayes was sparing not a single thought for himself. Instead, he was thinking of everyone else.

  Mayes coughed up blood, then went on. “In two years, no one ever figured out how it works, or exactly what drives them. But, following whatever urge or instinct, they’re all heading toward London now. Even though most of them are miles from the front, they still somehow know exactly which direction to head in. Those damn noises they make urge on the others… it’s like some twisted fucking game of Chinese whispers and they are much better at playing it than we are.”