Black Ops Read online

  The screaming came from multiple voices.

  “Does that sound like children?” Bunny asked.

  Top nodded. “Women, too.”

  They spurred their horses simultaneously and raced in the direction of the screams. The undead didn’t scream, they moaned. Some humans were still out there and in danger – probably under zombie attack. As they rode, they checked their weapons. Bunny’s chest tightened and he took a deep breath, focusing his energy and senses as he always did when preparing to go into combat. Beside him, he saw Top go through similar preparations, though they each put their own spin on it. They’d faced fire together hundreds of times, yet the prep remained the same. Military discipline and common experience.

  As they topped a small rise, they began making out voices mixed with the screams – shouting, pleading, arguing… No distinct words yet, but enough to confirm there were several humans involved – male, female, and children.

  They rode into fields of heavy cacti and petrified rock, and Bunny spotted a fading, cracked sign saying, ‘Welcome to Petrified National Forest’. A trail had been laid out, lined with logs connected by pillars of stone. The well-worn dirt path between them was around ten feet wide, so they turned their horses and began following it in the direction of the voices and screams.

  Some nearby cacti bore beautiful purple and green flowers in stark contrast to the sharp spindles shooting out of every other available surface upon them. Bunny briefly wondered if animals were fooled. For what purpose had the plants grown such camouflage and how many generations ago?

  Then the trail turned and they were winding along the top of one of two facing natural stone walls, layers of red, yellow, tan, and grey revealed along the sides that ran down into the canyon between them – loose rock, grass, and cacti growing scattered along the slopes. It was stunning, a clear reminder why the place had drawn the attention of the Department of Interior and become a National Park.

  The shouting and pleading became intelligible now.

  “No, they’re just babies!” a woman sobbed.

  “Hold her down!” a man yelled. “We can’t help them now!”

  “How did they find us again?” another woman wondered, her voice filled with pain and mourning.

  “Get back under cover or they might come back for you,” the yelling man ordered.

  Then Bunny spotted a dirty cargo van, its white exterior spotted with mud and debris, peeling along a thin natural road that ran down the middle of the valley on the canyon floor. Gunshots echoed as rocks and pebbles shot up from the road, the rounds missing the van as it peeled away as fast as it could manage on the slippery surface.

  “Who the hell has a working van and frigging gasoline?” After the EMPs hit the cities, most above ground vehicles and gas pumps stopped working. Bunny had heard rumors that vehicles parked in metal buildings or underground might escape the problem, but it had been a long time since he’d seen one. “Should we stop it?” he called to Top.

  Both reined their horses to a stop and aimed their weapons, eyes searching for targets, trying to determine who was attacking whom.

  Finally, Top shook his head. “We don’t know what’s going on yet.”

  “Someone stealing children,” Bunny said.

  “Or rescuing them,” Top countered.

  Then they heard the distinct click of a shotgun and pistols being cocked behind them and whirled to find two men and a woman, faces dirty from dust and sand, standing near the trail edge, weapons aimed right at the two soldiers’ chests. Bunny knew that with quick movements, he and Top could be off their horses and taking the three out, but Top shot him a look that said, ‘wait’, so he hesitated, watching his partner.

  “Drop the weapons now!” the man with the shotgun ordered. He looked to be in his thirties. From the way the others responded to his voice, Bunny suspected he was the leader.

  “Easy there, we mean no harm,” Top said, as he and Bunny lowered their guns, moving them slowly toward their holsters.

  “Freeze!” the woman shouted, shifting nervously, her .45 swung toward Top’s forehead. She was tan with long blonde hair and looked a decade younger than the leader. Top and Bunny stopped moving.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Bunny said. “Just trying to put them away.”

  “Who are you?” the leader demanded. “What are you doing here?”

  “Soldiers, come to help,” Top said. “First Sergeant Sims, US Army Rangers and Master Sergeant Rabbit, USMC.”

  “Army and Marines together?” the leader said with a quizzical expression. “You aren’t official then.”

  Top shook his head. “Not many official teams left, you know. With the troubles.”

  “Yeah, we’re all on our own,” the woman said angrily. “And we don’t like strangers.” She took a breath and her .45 faltered a bit, but then Top shifted slowly in the saddle, turning to look at her and she snapped it up again, stiffening.

  “Just wanted to say that we understand,” Top said. “We don’t know who to trust anymore either. That’s why we’re together. We trust each other.”

  “Till death do us part,” Bunny joked.

  “You a couple then?” the third person, a scowling younger man with the .45 aimed at Bunny’s forehead snapped. He looked like he was barely out of his teens, his short blonde hair similar to the girl’s. Could they be related? Either way, he’d spread his legs apart shoulder-width and locked them there, steady, ready for anything. Young or not, he clearly had experience with his weapon and Bunny had no doubt it was a shot he’d probably make.

  “Not that kind, no,” Bunny said, shaking his head.

  “You’ll have to pardon the farm boy,” Top said, shooting Bunny a warning look. “His sense of humor sometimes comes out at the wrong times.”

  “This ain’t no joke!” the woman snapped, glaring at Bunny, then locking her eyes back on Top.

  “We know that, ma’am,” Bunny said, swallowing. These people needed to seriously chill. They clearly had no idea that Top and he could have taken them out in seconds if they’d wanted to.

  “We’re looking for a camp of survivors from Sun Valley we heard might need help,” Top said quickly. “We were on our way there. Rode in from Colorado.”

  “Help? What kind of help?” the leader demanded.

  “The undead, some kind of raids, finding shelter and a good hiding place,” Bunny explained.

  “And what’s it to you?” the scowling young man said.

  “We have experience with such things, come to offer it,” Top said.

  “Who was in the van?” Bunny asked.

  “None of your business!” the woman said, waving her .45 again.

  The leader’s eyes softened as he read the two soldiers. “Caroline, let’s calm down a bit and hear them out, okay?”

  “I’m calm,” the woman said. “Calm as I’m gonna be after what just happened.” She relaxed her arms a bit, lowering the .45 slightly.

  “What happened?” Top asked softly.

  “We were raided,” the leader said, pointing the shotgun at the ground. “Some strangers came and took women and children and a couple old men.”

  “Took them where? For what?” Bunny asked. Humans raiding to kidnap other humans had to mean they were sick or going to be. What other explanation could there be in these times?

  “The Lab. Experiments. Damn crazy doctor,” Caroline mumbled, shaking her head.

  “What lab? You’re raided by other humans?” Bunny asked.

  “What’s it to you?” the scowling man said, waving his pistol again. “Why are we telling them anything? We don’t know them! They could be with the Doc!”

  “They’re on horses for one, Steven,” Caroline said. “The doctor’s people come in vehicles.”

  The leader nodded. “And if they were with the Doc, they would have left together, not hung around.�
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  “We caught ‘em. Maybe they’re playing dumb, Owen,” Steven said, looking toward the leader.

  “We’ll take their word for it for now and watch them closely,” the leader said, nodding in the younger man’s direction. “Lower your weapon, Steven, okay?”

  Steven hesitated, his scowl changing to a face twisted with confusion. Owen nodded again, then slowly lowered the .45 a little and relaxed his stance.

  “Now, you two slide slowly down off those horses so we can talk, okay?” Owen said.

  Top and Bunny exchanged a look of agreement, then nodded and slowly dismounted, making sure to keep their hands well clear of their weapons as they did. Their feet thumped on the stone ground as they landed, sending dust and loose rocks up in clouds around their boots. As Top turned to Owen again and opened his mouth to speak, a whistle sounded from somewhere in the distance.

  “They’re gone,” Caroline said, and all three relaxed a bit more, exchanging knowing looks.

  “How many did they get?” Steven wondered.

  “We’d better go back to camp and take a count,” Owen said.

  “What was that about a lab? A doctor taking people?” Bunny asked, exchanging a puzzled look with Top.

  “That signal’s from our camp,” Owen explained, ignoring the specific question. “All clear.”

  Top and Bunny grunted but held position. That one they understood perfectly.

  “What about them?” Steven asked, motioning to the two soldiers.

  “They’re coming with us,” Owen said. “But you two stay behind them and be ready.”

  “You’d risk letting them know where our camp is?” Caroline asked, looking uncertain.

  “We move it a lot,” Owen said. “We’ll keep them under guard. We need time to find out more about them. But first, we need to make sure the perimeter’s secure again. Okay?”

  After a moment, Caroline nodded then stepped forward and took away the weapons from the two soldiers – pistols and rifles slung off their shoulders. She didn’t inspect their bags or pat them down, for which Bunny felt grateful. She handed one rifle to each of the men and put the pistols in her belt, then stepped clear.

  Steven’s jaw tightened as he grunted in affirmation and motioned sharply for Top and Bunny to follow Owen. Top and Bunny each grabbed their mount’s reins and led the horses after the group’s leader.

  —7—

  The Soldier and the Samurai

  They heard the screams from miles off.

  It was not the empty moans of the hungry dead. It was not an animal sound. These were screams from human throats. Male and female. Raised to that terrible pitch where the screams rip themselves out of throats, damaging tissue, violating the air, breaking the world.

  Ledger and Tom were at the top of a hill and the road down twisted in and out of a scattered community of RVs and campers. It was like a hundred such camps they had seen, and like the others it looked like a war zone, with zombies everywhere and partially-eaten corpses sprawled and rotting in the weeds. Vultures circled endlessly in the high, dry air.

  However those screams were alive. They were immediate.

  Neither man said a word. Instead they kicked their bikes into motion and pedaled as hard and fast as they could, accelerating downhill. They could not see any living people, but the screams had to have been coming from outside – they weren’t muffled the way they would be if the victims were inside one of the campers.

  It was only when they heard the gunshot that they skidded to a stop.

  The dead don’t use firearms.

  “Off,” snapped Ledger and they let the bikes fall. Tom, who was used to Ledger’s methods by now, immediately faded left, running low and fast toward the outermost camper, making the maximum of cover. He drew his sword because it was a cloudy day and there was no sunlight to reflect from the blade. Ledger went right, running a zigzag through the dead, twisting to avoid them without having to engage. He did not draw a weapon because the situation hadn’t yet revealed how it needed to be handled. It was a lesson he still needed to teach Tom.

  He stopped at the corner of a rusty RV that sat on flat tires. Ledger knelt and did a quick-look around the rear bumper, then retreated to let his mind process what his eyes had seen.

  Beyond the RV was kind of a pen made from old shopping carts, heaped junk, and cars that had been pushed together. He could not see much of what was going on inside the pen, but there were at least a dozen zombies pressing close to it. A fresh scream from inside the pen told him this was where things were happening. Ugly things. Up close the screams sounded younger and more thoroughly infused with comprehensive personal outrage as well as physical pain. Two guards stood atop the highest points on the pen wall. Both men; both dressed in travel-worn clothes and makeshift armor. Jeans, hockey pads, football helmets. And guns. The guards ignored the zombies, confident that they were out of reach, and instead cheered on whatever was happening in the pen.

  Ledger held still and listened to the noises, picking them apart, cataloging them. Several men. How many? Six? Ten? Somewhere in that range. A small pack. The male scream had ended when they heard that gunshot. The female scream continued, rising and falling.

  The situation sucked. Outnumbered and outgunned, with at least one helpless victim and the complication of sentries and the zombies. In most circumstances this would be a walk-away, a hopeless scenario.

  But not for Ledger. He knew he could never leave this unaddressed. That wasn’t who he was. The young scream made that absolutely certain. A long, long time ago, back when he was fourteen and the world was decades away from falling off its hinges, Ledger and his girlfriend, Helen, had been attacked by a group of older teens. Ledger had been stomped nearly to death and had lain there, bleeding and helpless, while the teenagers ruined Helen. Although Ledger and Helen had both lived past that day and had healed in body, neither had ever healed in spirit or mind. Helen eventually found her way out and it was Ledger who found her after she’d gone away. Found what was left of her. An empty shell from which all of Helen had leaked away. The whole process had fractured him, splitting his mind into three distinct personalities. One was the Modern man, the civilized and ordinary part of him, the one who clutched to his dwindling supply of hopes. The second was the Cop, the strong, quiet, intelligent, detail-oriented investigator and thinker. That part had been his mostly reliably dominant aspect.

  And then there was the third part, the aspect truly born on that horrible day so many years ago. The Warrior. Or as he preferred to be called, the Killer. Savage, uncompromising, brutal, relentless. However it was the Killer who was, in his way, the most compassionate and protective, because he did whatever was necessary to protect the members of his tribe against all predators. Children were always to be protected. The young, the weak, the helpless. It was hardwired into the brain of the Killer to make sure they would not perish, for as they went so went the tribe itself. Basic Survival 101.

  The Cop leaned out and analyzed the scene again, noting distances, placement, weapons, obstacles. However when he rose, it was the Killer who went to war.

  He did not signal Tom Imura. That wasn’t necessary. Tom would either understand and be ready to function as a member of their small hunting pack, or he wouldn’t. Warning him would create a risk Ledger could not afford. Besides, Tom was smart and fast and a killer lurked in his soul, too. Ledger had seen that before. It hurt Tom to kill, but he his regrets and his humanism did not slow his hand. Not at all.

  Ledger drew his Heckler & Koch MK 23 pistol as he rose from his point of concealment and held his gun out in a firm two-hand grip. He did not run but instead took many small steps to prevent the weapon from being jolted. He had twelve rounds in the box magazine and a thirteenth in the pipe. The range was good enough for kill shots, but Ledger didn’t want these men dead. Not yet. Instead he shot the closest man in the thigh, aiming center-mass to insu
re a shattered femur. The .45 round punched all the way through at two hundred and sixty meters per second. The man screamed and twisted and fell.

  The zombies lunged up to catch him, to drag him down, their nails and teeth ripping into the man before he ever hit the ground. Ledger swung the barrel to take the second man in the hip, the foot-pound of impact knocking him backward off the pen wall. Ledger heard his screams as soon as he fell out of sight.

  And then it was all insanity.

  The zombies who weren’t tearing at the first man wheeled toward him, empty eyes filling with naked hunger, mouths biting the air in anticipation of fresh meat. Ledger shoved his gun into its holster and whipped his katana from its scabbard. He was not as stylish a swordsman as Tom, but he was a more practiced butcher. He cut his way to the wall of the pen and everything that reached for him fell. Nothing fell whole.

  There were shouts from the other side of the pen wall, and Ledger dodged sideways and leapt onto the wall fifteen yards from where he had fired. When he reached the top he saw nine men in the center of the protected area, and every one of them was looking in the wrong direction. A naked girl of about thirteen lay bruised and beaten on the ground, her young body covered in blood. It was obvious she had been brutally used. They did not see Ledger as he drew his pistol once more and swapped in a full magazine. They did not see Tom Imura slip over the far wall, silent as death.

  Ledger opened fire on the men.

  This time he shot to kill.

  The pistol was accurate within fifty meters. The range here was less than ten. He did not miss.

  Men screamed and fell. Others tried to turn their guns – shotguns, hunting rifles, Glocks – on him, but then Tom ghosted up behind them and his sword did quick and terrible work.