" I say we wait for "Roach" here, something is wrong with the town, better if we stay in a place we can exit faster from here, than the narrow roads of the city."
The others nodded their heads in agreement, it seemed like the best thing to do, for now.
" Who's Roach? "
Bianca asked nervously from the drivers seat.
" He's the guy that just saved your ass, he should be along soon. "
Maria chipped in.
" Oh, so are you like his Girlfriend or something, he seemed very interested in your safty. He told me yesterday his name was Brad something ?"
Maria looked annoyed, then softened, then her and Carla started laughing, it was a tension breaker, and Bianca started laughing to.
" I'm not his girlfriend and neither is she, Roach is his nickname." Maria got out between bouts of laughing with Carla.
"So, how do you know Brad "
" He flirted with me the other day at a little cafe during lunch in Split, so I was surprised to see him here, but Hvar does have all the best clubs. I gave him my number, hoping to hook up again with him, he's cute and charming in a bad boy kind of way. So why do you call him Roach ?"
Bianca was trying to get any info she could from these two beautiful women, neither of whom seemed to be romantically tied to Barett, which she did find confusing.
"Just a nickname his brother gave him, don't really know much more than that. But you need not worry about him, he's a nice guy."
Maria and Carla exchanged glances, and this was not lost on Bianca.
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Barett came riding down the road, shotgun across his chest, helmet visor up, letting the cool air rush across him. He was ready for a full on "End of the World" type of event. The moon throwing a erie glow across the landscape, bright enough to hunt by, shadowy enough to conceal death at every darkened door, he loved it. It had been a long time since they had been the harbingers of death.
He made it to the crest of the hill just before coming down into the bay and the church, when he noticed the Mini-Cooper sitting off to the side of the road. The three women inside having a animated conversation before looking up at him and smiling. Thoughts of killing zombies fled, as he could read that expression, they were up to something, and it involved him and Bianca somehow, he should have seen that coming.
Looking down the hill at the darkened bay, only a few random lights showing he realized why they had stopped, for that he was glad. Easing off the throttle he pulled up next to the car.
" What's the situation ?"
Barett hollered at them over the engine noise of the Motorcycle.
" We didn't like the look of the town, so we waited for you. Can you raise the others on the radio ?"
Carla asked, Bianca smiled coyly at him from the drivers side of the car. Barett swore under his breath, he wondered what these two had said to her, knowing Maria was a bit of a prankster herself he could only imagine.
"I'll give it a shot, but some one sold these guys top end jammers."
He clicked the radio three times, then four times, then two, it was there own personal code. Waiting for a few minutes in silence, but the radio remained quiet.
"No go, when we were in the building with the thick stone walls I could pick you up, but out in the open it's not working. I say we take a peek at the church, if we don't like the looks of it, we go to the boat. What do you think ?"
Maria and Carla shook their heads in the positive, but Bianca was hesitant.
Preaviously, back at the church Rick looked around at the gray stone walls of the room again, this time with a new perspective. They were in the church’s crypt. And he noticed it would be a death trap if they got overrun because there was only one way in and out.
“Nice place to hold up.” He said to Shelia as he helped her to the back wall and sat her down by an ancient tomb of a long forgotten nobleman.
“Rick, I am going to check the nave and the cloister outside to see if there are any more nasty surprises waiting for us.” Utah said as he rose from inspecting the body of the giant zombie. He grabbed his big 45 and turned to the two Macedonian. “Zeus, make yourself useful and come with me. Rick, is she going to be OK?”
Rick grabbed a pen flashlight and attempted to check her eye dilation. Shelia swatted him away.
“I’m fine.” She said with sharpness, and then she got an apologetic look on her face. “Just give me a minute and a blanked to cover up.”
“Shelia’s a tough cookie. She’ll be fine. I don’t see any bites on her.” Rick said.
“Good, we’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Be careful not to get bit. I would hate to have to blow your head off.”
Utah gave Rick a cocky attitude stance that clearly communicated, ‘Hey, it’s me and there ain’t anyone tougher.’
Utah and Zeus headed out of the crypt.
Psy, the bald Komodo dragon, looked nervously back at Shelia as Rick covered her with a thin sheet. He snorted something unintelligible yet clearly offensive as he continued to load ammunition into different magazines. Both Rick and Shelia looked at the lizard.
“What's bothering you big guy?” Rick asked trying to calm the tense atmosphere.
“This necromancer voodoo isn't right!” Psy said in a strongly worried voice. “Something is going to go seriously wrong if scientists keep monkeying around with these super bugs, keep this up and before you know it, there won't be a need for those high-tech bombs anymore. They will just wipe out everyone with their nasty new plague!”
Rick looked over at Psy. “You've seen this before then?”
“Yea and it wasn't pretty. We had to flames the whole city to stop it.”
“Where was this?” Rick asked.
Psy stopped loading abruptly; his posture was of one trying to overcome a heavy burden.
“It happened about eighteen months or so back.” He said in his heavy Slavic accent. “It was out in Old Kazakhstan in a place called Aralsk. We got reports coming in about some inhabitances that were acting weird. We sent in a few operatives to check it out but they disappeared. And that was saying something. Those guys were tough SOBs. The boss began to worry that something bad had gone down. So when went in ready for hard contact with the locals, thinking they starting some sort of rebellion. What we found was nothing we had ever dreamed of. We got our asses kicked bad; you couldn’t stop them coming at you, just like you seen tonight.
“Zombie Apocalypse?” Sheila said but it wasn’t a question.
“You can’t imagine how bad it was. We pulled out and then were order to cast the place down like some biblical prophecy. Planes fire bomb the entire city. We guarded the roads, quarantined the place. Shot everything that moved out of the city; zombie or not.”
Psy shuttered at the memory. “It was insane!”
“Did you find out what started it?” Sheila asked as she continued to rest against the ancient tomb.
Psy turned. “You ever hear of Voz Island?”
Rick looked at Shelia. He could read her like an open book as a look of horror creeping on her face.
“You mean Vozrozhdeniya?” She asked.
“Yeah, the very same. That is where it came from. The place ain’t an island anymore and it’s the most godforsaken outpost on mother earth I ever set my foot! Old testing ruins from the forgotten Soviet Union's biological primer research center.” Psy said as he turned to Rick. “They weaponized their nastiest stuff there.”
“And then they abandoned it all and left it as a problem from hell for someone else to clean up right?” Rick guessed.
“A biological nightmare left out to rot.” Psy agreed. “Government knew about the mess but was ignored. They wanted to leave it for someone else too. But then something mutated out of the refuse from Voz and spread. First it was the birds; then the cats. Then the people started to change.”
“Zombies.” Sheila said, “People enslaved to a virus; turned into nothing more than a walking transport systems of the pathogen.”
“We burned them all to a blackened crisp. And that was to be the end of it!” Psy said with emotion.
His face shown with stress, Rick knew usually was seen in individuals with PTSD.
Psy pointed at the corpse of the giant yak on the floor, “It should have stopped then but it looks like some ass-hole human-elite-purist wanted got his hands on the stuff!”
“I guess they did.” Rick stated flatly as the boom of gunfire thundered above them. “Here they come again.” He grabbed his new Kel-Tec shotgun and ran for the hallway.
Upstairs, Utah was performing the Danse Macabre: The Dance of Death. With grim macabre indifference to the dingy, gray rush the zombies, Utah and the white wolf Zeus, fought in the nave, attempting to push the creatures back out into the broken windows into the churches cloister and enclosed square garden.
Utah was already out of ammo, so he had picked up a five foot long iron rebar with a huge chunk of cement encased at one end. His blows weren’t killing the creatures, but it was effectively driving them back.
Utah Blaine looked down at the Zombies from the window, having driven the last few back out. Zeus was busy beheading the fallen ones with some antique sword he had "acquired" from a glass case. It was working quite well, and Utah "Borrowed" one from a adjacent case, a two handed bastard sword, it looked expensive and old. There were at least two dozen of the brutes milling about in the courtyard now, and they seemed to have lost interest in coming through the open windows, for now.
Utah wondered what was going on, they had stopped the relentless barrage and if he didn't know better they seemed to be waiting for something. Not being one to miss a oppertunity, he grabbed some wooden pews and started stacking them in a makeshift barricade.
" It's time to take up a more tactical position, Zeus, lets get the others up here NOW! We need to move to the second floor monks quarters."
Yanking a fire escape map off the wall he tossed it to the Wolf.
" Let's take advantage of the break, while we have it. They are up to something, so we need to change our position and tactics....it may be time to leave. Have Rick booby trap the basement. Let's go....move move move!"
Zeus looked at Utah as he pushed a large stone satue down pinning the pews againest the window.
Running with him back towards the basement, he realized this was more than just life and death for Utah, he was really enjoying himself.
They made it to the basement just to hear a crashing sound followed by the sound of loud thumping coming from outside, it sounded like a stampede...a zombie stampede.
Utah Grabs the handle to the door and flings himself in. Three guns come up on him immediatly.
" What the hell is going on out there.? " Rick yells as he lowers the gun.
"I don't know exactly, but it's not good...these guys are not movie zombies, they are organized and have an objective. We need to treat them like enemy combatants, like they can think. Lets use the back hall and make our way to the monks wing and out of the death trap the catacombs will be."
Utah is busy packing up weapons and gear, while he is talking. The Two Macedonians are standing at the door ready to go.
Shelia tries to walk to the door on her own but stumbles a little. Rick picks her up and throws her over his shoulder.
"Hey, I can make it." She protests, but stays on his shoulder, admitting defeat for the moment.
Rick doesn't even respond, he tosses the laptop and some cables into his backpack and heads to the door.
Utah looks them over, shakes his head and peers out into the hall.
"Ok, I'm first, then Rick with Shelia, then Psy and Z . If we meet heavy resistance and need to turn around, you guys will need to be the lead, can you handle that.?"
The two warriors nod.
" Ok, lets role, move, move, move."
Utah charges forward, pack slung over his shoulder, Rick with Shelia over his and Psy and Z following up. Rick is half bent over, trying not to knock her head on the hard wood beams that ran across the ceiling every few feet.
They run to the corner of a hall, and Utah does a quick check then they move up the stairs, to the main level, then up to the second floor. Utah stops at the top and sweeps the dark hall, holding up his fist in a stop and be quiet sign. The group drops down and pulls up positions, Rick shifting Shelia to his left shoulder so he can shot from his right. The thunder from running zombies.
The thunder from the running zombies is quieter over at this end of the complex, the sound of crashing doors and broken windows roll down the hall below them, almost like a distant storm.
Utah stands up, puts up two fingers to designate moving forward in groups of two, first him and Rick with Shelia, then Psy and Z. They start down the hall, moving as softly as they can. The dormitory as it once was is a large open room with high windows and hardwood floors. It's narrow and long, with 14 foot ceilings. The place is filled with displays and cases now all covered with canvas tarps, they move to the middle of the room then Utah stops.
" We hold up here and see if we can make our way to the roof and out of this situation."
Utah drops down to the ground and starts laying out grenades and bullets to reload his gear. He points to the stairwell on the far side then back to the one they just came through.
" Z take the staircase we just came through and these two grenades. Trying to take a staircase from the bottom will be hard for the zombies and give you a great kill zone. When you need to fall back to our position here, drop these grenades down the stairwell and Rick and I will give you cover to return to us. Psy do the same with the other staircase, we will cover you guys. I will see about getting us on the roof to get some recon done. Go and kill lots. Lets move."
The building was starting to shake now from the sounds of destruction that was taking place in the Chapel and the catacombs. Rick could hear the high pitched wailing of the female she-devil zombies. It reminded him of the night sounds of being in the African bush on a H.O.G mission they did a few months back, seemed like the devils pets all came out at night.This was much worse than Africa.
Utah had out his small roll of rope and had scaled the wall up to a window and was looking out to the Northwest parking lot where the cars were sitting. He looked down at Rick and smiled, gave the hand sign for two minutes and slid out the open window down to the ground below, bring his gear bag and weapons with him, the old sword slung across his back.
Zeus was at the south staircase, which lead to the outside southwest corner of the building. Psy was at the north staircase, the one they just came up. Rick expected any second now to hear shooting from the north end.
He checked Shelia again and she was starting to come out of it a little, he pulled some water from his pack as he pulled more ammo out and stuffed all his computer gear saftly back into his bag.
"Drink this up, it will help you out." He handed her the stainless steel water bottle.
She nodded and drank it down slowly while they waited the two minutes for Utah. There was limited noise from outside, not any shooting, which was good, or bad, depending how you looked at it. Shelia sat on the cool wood floor, wrapped in the thin sheet. Rick gave her a spare shirt from his pack, and she managed to stand and put the shirt on with out acting tipsy, which was good.
Rick had to admit, she was one good looking hardbody woman. It was too bad that they didn't get along well, she was hot enough to date him, but she was really more Utah's type, head strong and violent, maybe that was Dave's type. At least she was some worthy eye candy.
Utah popped back up at the top of the window, signalled for them to move to the south door and exit, then dropped back down to the ground to cover their exit.
Rick knew this was the run to the vehicles, and it was going to be a deadly one. He felt confident that at any point He could out run any of these zombies if it came to that, and Utah if he decided to could as well. But Shelia couldn't in the shape she was in, and Zeus and Psy he didn't know about. They seemed good enough, and were holding up well for now, but there was no telling what would happen next.
Rick slipped 14 rnds of shotgun shells into his pockets, tossed on his pack, then Shelia over his left shoulder, having her use the pack as a stabalizer and support.
The new shotgun was in his right hand, as solid and comfortable as if it was built for him, custom, the flat black metal pressed againest his flesh.
Rick signaled for them to move out, indicating that they were going to the south stairs. He half expected the shooting to start the second he stood up but nothing. They all gathered at the stairs, z to the lead, then Rick with Shelia, the Psy at their rear. the sounds were growing louder, and closer, of crashing furniture and breaking glass. Somehow open ground started to seem like the best idea.
The back door was open as they came down the stairs. Utah was standing there, bloodied sword in hand, and three decapitated zombies at his feet. He motioned for them to move forward to the side of the building as they slowly moved up the hill to the parking lot.
" It is smooth sailing for about a hundred feet, then we hit wide open ground."
Utah communicated to them in wispers as they huddeled againest the stone wall in a alcove area.
" There are a good two dozen of the smaller guys milling around about the cars, and at least three dozen inside the building. There is something big moving around in the trees, in the dark, and it smells awful. Lets clear a path to the cars and restock our ammo. We need to kill them all or wait for Roach's return before doing a complete bugout."
Rick gave Shelia to Utah, who swung her over his shoulder with easy. He was stronger than Rick and lower to the ground, and it was his turn to carry her.
Rick was taking lead with the shotgun, Z was behind him, then Utah with Shelia, Psy was covering the rear.
Utah gave the signal to Rick. It was a hard run to the cars, fast as they could go, since the zombies had failed to use projectile weapons they took the chance at no one being fired apon, and moved towards the safty of back up ammo and escape vehicles.
" When we get to the Evo 10, pop the truck, and slide Shelia into the back seat." Utah said just before they took off running.
It was a 200 yard up hill run, but looked farther than that in the dark, the sinister blackness of the now lightless city, added to the strangeness of the land.
Rick sprinted ahead, with Z close behind, two zombies, big guys, were wandering in circles around the cars when Rick came around the buildings corner. Four quick shots from the shotgun on his arm dropped them. The parking lot was empty now and Rick popped the trunk for Utah who was right behind them, with Shelia and Psy. Utah went right for the trunk as Rick helped Shelia in the back seat. Z and Psy had gone to their vehicle and were loading up on ammo and weapons.
"Check the cars for bombs before starting anything up. Then lets do some cleanup." Utah yelled from the back of the car.
He came around to the side door across from Rick with the custom 50 cal. bmg, with the short heavy barrel. It was a large gun, armor piercing rounds, 45 lbs heavy and almost comicbook looking sitting on Utah's hip. The large night vision scope bolted to the top rail, the black legs of the tripod folded under the barrel. Utah had the armorer back at the base make it for him, Just in case he needed to stop a armored car or something.
There was a brief feeling that it was all behind them, the zombies and smell of death, when the sound of crashing trees and heavy footsteps thundered across the parking lot. Out from the tree line barreled the biggest Elephant Zombie Rick had even seen.
At least 12 feet tall and well over 2000 lbs of muscle and strange Tatoo's it snorted in the air, bellowed some Primevil sounding cry and leveled its massive tusks at them, and charged.
Rick felt more than heard the .50 cal BMG of Utahs go off, the concussion from the round rocked the car, and blew back his hair, as Utah fired over the top of the car at the Elephant. He'd been on the range with the big gun plenty of times, but had never been standing to the side and in front of it when it was fired, it was a loud, intimidating weapon.
The round struck the Elephant Zombie in the chest, dead center, and punched out through his back, the gore trail following it. Normally that would be the end of anything you shot, but the beast just kept coming like nothing had happened.
Rick wondered where the dozen or so "regular" zombies Utah had reported on earlier were, but that didn't take long to understand.
Streaming from behind the Elephant were more than two dozen of the faster ones, who were quickly spreading out in a wide skermish line. Rick left the big guy to Utah, clicked the lock button on the car to give Shelia some protection and started shooting.
Zeus and Psy were quickly picking targets and shooting, and swearing, from what Rick could tell.
It wasn't a large parking lot, perhaps 200 feet deep and 150 feet wide, but it was open ground. They were on the low ground and the zombies were coming in from the top side where the trees were.
Utah took another shot at the head of the beast. Unfortunatly he had armor piercing rounds in, great for shooting cars or planes or boats, but not as effective on flesh. They tended to punch right through, granted it was a big punch and a large hole, but it didn't have the same shock effect as a hollow point, or glassy round.
Utahs second round caught the Elephant in the jaw at a angle, riping off most of his jaw and breaking one of the tusks.
It was within 50 feet now and still moving at a incredible pace for taking two rounds from a .50 cal BMG.
Utah was working the action on the big gun a little faster now, Rick was firing like a mad man, the click click click of the action as each subsequent round was ejected and replaced by another lost in the violence surrounding them. It was a swarming mass of bodies, lurching and clawing towards them, like some desert sand storm, trying to swallow them up. Rick had six of them down by now, when the third shot from the .50 cal BMG went off. It caught the Elephant Zombie in the hip and made him swerve towards Psy and Z's Euro van thing, blood and gore splattered across the pavement, even with three fatal shots in it, the zombie moved forward at surprising speed. Utah got one last shot off just before the beast crashed into the van, flipping it over on its side.
That's when the shooting from Psy and Z stopped. Rick didn't worry about that to much right now, he had other things, like 12 of them to be exact about ready to over run his position.
It was a bad situation, if he had time to feel scared, it might have happened. The Zombies had the higher ground and the sheer volume to overrun them, he was forteen shots into the forteen round tube magazine when the first one came with in striking distance to him. Rick was standing in front of the car and Utah was behind it, some where to his left Psy and Z had been, the under belly of a van, the wheels spining lazily as it sat on its side now, a large squirming mass of gray and red on top. There was sporatic shooting from the other side of the van, so at least Rick knew they were not all dead yet.
This scene reminded him of the movie " All quiet on the western front" about WWI trench warfare. With the erie moon and lack of city lights, the whole scene was more Black and white than color.
Rick swung the butt of the gun like a club and knocked the first one down for a second, pulled out his .45 cal pistol in the same move and put two shots in its head. Not even flinching as the brain matter splattered onto the car door.
Utah opened his Criss .45 submachine gun up, full auto, spraying the thinning barrage in front of Rick.
It was a bad place to be in right now, a very bad place to be in, but there was nothing he could do about that. Fate was, what fate is..best to fight than roll over and die.
There were just six left in front of him when they overran his position. But Rick had the advantage now, Leaping into the air and over them, landing firmly on the ground behind them. Now the zombies were in a bad spot, stuck between Utah and Rick. Half of them Ran right into the side of the car and then over the top to the other side. The other three skidded and slid on the concrete to a stop all momentum lost, confusion on their faces.
Rick has his .45 cal H&K up and on the three zombies that stood on his side of the car, six quick shots to the head later three flopping bodies lay on the ground, quickly reloading the shotgun he swung around to find Utah beheading the last one on his side of the car, with the sword.
Gore was everwhere, on the car, all over the parking area, in Ricks hair, he was really mad about his hair getting dirty. It smelled terrible, like rotten meat and feces, it was a good two shampoo's and deep conditioning before it would look good again.
"Help out Psy and Z while I finish off the Elephant." Utah yelled to Rick as he slapped another click into the Criss .45, the large .50cal BMG swung across his back.
Rick jogged over and finished off four more wounded zombies, before getting to Psy and Z. They were on the back side of the van, and Zeus was tring to get Psy out of the van where his leg was pinned in under the crushed metal with the Elephant zombie on top of it.Eight Zombie bodies lay strewn out on the concrete before them, some only a few feet away from the back doors of the flipped on its side van.
Zeus looked up at Rick as he came around the side, swinging wide.
" All clear on our side, whats your status. " Rick hollered out not wanting to startle them and get a face full of lead.
" All targets down, ammo is low and Psy has his leg pinned in the van, its hurt but I don't know how bad." Zeus says, between pants of trying to reload and tug at the metal around Psy's leg.
Rick heard Utah Blaine hacking away at the Elephant Zombie on top of the van, along with some colorful cursing.
Looking around at the parking lot and building the coast was clear, the count of the dead was 26 smaller zombies dead or dismembered and one very large one on the van. Rick moved around to see both the van and car, along with Utah and Zeus.
"Ok, coast is clear for now, Looks like we need to do some clean-up. We have one man down, pinned in the van, one injured in the car and three able bodies. What is the plan ? "
“The plan?” Rick asked with total incredulation. “Well, this situation is so beyond SNAFU and FUBAR, I doubt they have figured out a way to say it. Maybe a TARFU and I mean that with a double capitol Total and Royal.” Rick said he attempted to kick a body out of his way as he moved over to the Evo to retrieve more shells. “Our plans are so shot to hell that I doubt we’d even recognized it if it was spelled out in these guy’s entrails and tattooed arrows were pointing at it!”
“How in the atomic afterglow of Hades did someone get a zombie elephant here?” Zeus asked Utah, ignoring or not understanding Rick’s comments. “I mean, it’s not like you can put something like this in your back pocket and nobody notice it.”
Utah looked back at the heap of smoking flesh. Zeus stood by, waiting for an answer.
But something else was bothering Utah; the night had become quiet. With all the noise they had just made, he was expecting to hear sirens or something. But outside Rick’s clatter at the car, there was nothing.
Utah quickly ran over to parking lot’s ledge that gave a good vista of the town. Hvar wasn’t big. There were a few lights here and there in the city but for the most part the place was dark and quiet. Yet something was wrong with the picture but he couldn’t put his finger on it. And then it hit him.
“The plan?” Rick asked with total incredulation. “Well, this situation is so beyond SNAFU and FUBAR, I doubt they have figured out a way to say it. Maybe a TARFU and I mean that with a double capitol Total and Royal.” Rick said he attempted to kick a body out of his way as he moved over to the Evo to retrieve more shells. “Our plans are so shot to hell that I doubt we’d even recognized it if it was spelled out in these guy’s entrails and tattooed arrows were pointing at it!”
“How in the atomic afterglow of Hades did someone get a zombie elephant here?” Zeus asked Utah, ignoring or not understanding Rick’s comments. “I mean, it’s not like you can put something like this in your back pocket and nobody notice it.”
Utah looked back at the heap of smoking flesh. Zeus stood by, waiting for an answer.
But something else was bothering Utah; the night had become quiet. With all the noise they had just made, he was expecting to hear sirens or something. But outside Rick’s clatter at the car, there was nothing.
Utah quickly ran over to parking lot’s ledge that gave a good vista of the town. Hvar wasn’t big. There were a few lights here and there in the city but for the most part the place was dark and quiet. Yet something was wrong with the picture but he couldn’t put his finger on it. And then it hit him.
“Rick, Zeus, it ain’t over! It looks like the power has been cut.” Utah called out. “The perimeter of this mission just gets more and more interesting by the minute.”
Rick understood and pulled out his radio from the car and attempted to raise a signal. Sheila began throwing question after question at him; all of which he ignored. Utah ran over to the van and within five seconds had wrenched up the metal that had trapped Psy’s leg. But he let Zeus help Psy out of the van as he quickly took stock of the damage to ascertain the condition of the van. It didn’t take much to know that it was totaled. That left them with one vehicle. He walked over to Rick with a one eyebrow cocked in question. Sheila voice was an unending stream of sound trying to get the brother’s attention. It wasn’t working.
“Nothing,” Rick said as he pulled his head away from the radio transceiver. “And that means we are being jammed. But not just us here. Everything is down. So that either means the rest of the world has been blown up or they have put blanked the whole city. The second option is much more viable but it takes some high end sh@! to pull that off.”
Sheila continued to ramble on. Utah shouldered his 50 cal. and looked over at Zeus as he helped Psy make his way around the chaos of strewn out bodies.
“Shut it!” Utah turned and shouted at Sheila who surprisingly closed her mouth. Utah turned to Rick. “We need to get out of here. We’ve lost the initiative and need to get it back.”
“Agreed.” Rick said as he dropped the radio back into the front seat. “Head to the boat and slip out of here?”
“Sounds good but I want to take care of something else.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Just a hunch but maybe one with benefits. I’ll take Shelia in the car as she is still a bit loopy. But I think she can help me out.” Utah turned to the two Russians. “Zeus and Psy, I think you two and Rick are going to have to hoof it out here until you can procure another mode of transportation. You think you’re mobile enough to move?”
The big lizard shook his head affirmative.
“Zeus, you take Psy and head for the marina double time and set up a defense perimeter. We’re bugging out but we have some dangling ends that need to be cleaned up. We need the marina held against anything that goes bumping around tonight. Don’t let anything through. Rick, I need you to somehow signal Barett and Carla and let them know the new plan.”
“Got it.” Rick said as he loaded up with weapons and ammo from the car. Both Zeus and Psy grunted and headed over to their ruined van to round up equipment.
“Well little brother,” Utah said. “In life, most of us are capable of handling ourselves when things are going well. Throw in some sort of disaster and we find out who we truly are.”
“I’ll remember that. Don’t die and I’ll see you at the docks.” Rick said as turned and hurried up the dark hill.
The dark road into town didn't seem that bad to Utah, he had driven many dark roads in the past. But there was something dark and meanacing about the way this all was coming about, perhaps Barett was right about the corruption and evil that those in power seemed to emminate. .
Shelia sat in the front passengers seat, holding a five shot mossberg in her hands watching out the side window, keeping quiet.
Utah figured that the best way to score some extra points in all of this was to save the princess. Perhaps it was his religious background, or the western paperbacks his dad read to them on camping trips into the desert, but finding and saving a real live princess seemed like a really good thing to do, and a possible hero award wouldn't look to bad on his shelf either.
He knew from the intel and local gossip from the girls at the dock that she was in the newest hotel on the bay "Le Grande Hvar Hotel".
Utah imagined she was staying in the presidential suite, top floor over looking the bay. It should be easy to find, getting there on the other hand, could be the real test.
Utah made it quickly to the front entrance of the "Hotel". The streets were dark and quiet, but nothing scary jumped out from the shadows at them. Shelia was starting to come out of the shock of her thrashing from the yak zombie, but Utah felt she was suffering from a mild concussion. The problem with people that should know better, like Shelia, is they didn't want to admit that they were injured and needed to take it easy. She was showing all the classic signs of a head injury, Twice she had asked Utah where they were going, and kept looking at the cloths whe was wearing. Utah could tell she was having trouble putting everything together, but that wasn't to hard to understand, Utah was still sorting through the last two days in his head.
Utah sat in the drivers seat of the EVO 10 car, looking down the block at the hotel entrance.
The street was dark, but he could see moving lights in some of the windows of the hotel.
The rest of the street was quiet. He checked his watch, looked over at Shelia, clicked off the overhead light and opened the door, stepping out into the cool night air as it flowed down the hill and out to the sea. Nothing stirred, his senses indicated that all things were as they should be, and that is what made him the most nervous.
The brother’s had been told that the town of Hvar had a Jekyll and Hyde personality: The daytime was peaceful and idyllic; the night full of young partyers that socialized until the sun-up. Day or night though, the place was known for a holiday/party atmosphere with a pace of life relaxed and gentle.
“Not so much a vacation spot now.” Rick thought as he hurried up a dark gray and very narrow alley that was deserted from its usual revelry. Sounds of unpleasant happenings echoed between the walls but he saw nothing.
The buildings were ancient and the stone paving was worn and uneven; a hazard to trek on in the dark as he almost tripped again for the third time. Up ahead the monochromatic slate gray of the stone walls began to warm to an orange glow. Rick could see that someone had set up a torch outside a back doorway to illuminate the night. Two figures were up ahead. The smaller of the two turned as he or she heard Rick stumble. It turned as raced up a short distance and vanished around a corner.
The other figure stayed where it was, kneeling down over a mound of something on the cool stone pathway. Rick slowed and brought his shotgun barrel to bear on the back of the kneeing figure, ready to blow its head off.
The figure turned to look back at him but instead of the dead zombie gaze, the eyes were clearly those of a man.
Rick lowered the gun and approached. To his left against the wall of the building where two tables, one overturned in a mess while the other remained with a large fish sliced sitting in ice. Rick instantly smelled the cooking fire from within an open doorway and the fragrant smell wafting out of Adriatic cooking. He figured he was at the back of one of the many restaurants in town.
Meanwhile back at the hotel, Utah was sneaking around to the side loading dock. The hotel was host to the largest club in Hvar, rumor was that this was the high end place to Party. The front doors to the hotel were all automatic, and with the power out, that made going thru the lobby out of the question. But there was a man door next to the roll-up door for deliveries that was standard.
Utah was armed to the teeth, 6 grenades hung from his waist on his combat webbing, the shotgun across his back, the Criss .45 cal in his hands. He had a nightvision monocular on a light helmet setup. He was in full combat gear, body armor, boots, load bearing vest, a thin black mask covered his face, just in case.
Ready for anything he ran solo up to the door and paused, listening for sounds from the inside, and checking the door handle. The door was locked, but as he pulled back on it, the door swung open with out resistance. Someone had left a small rock in the frame, keeping the lock from engaging, but making the door look shut. From the amount of used cigettes that littered the dock area, he quessed this was the un-official smoking area.
Utah moved quietly down the dark hall the smells of garbage and detergents filled his nostrils, indicating that the Laundry and service areas came off this hall. The third door on his right was a staircase, he scanned the area looking for bodies or movement but there was none. With his advanced hearing and training he could hear voices and movement in the building, but nothing that indicated they were after him, or coming his direction. Utah dismissed the noise, the princess was his main goal.
The Hotel was a Modern structure built a few years ago to look like the other buildings in the bay, stone and glass designed with a natural patina, at ten stories high it was by far the tallest of the hotels. The concrete and steel staircase echoed his booted feet as he stepped into the stairwell.
Utah pulled up the nightvision monocular, as the emergency lighting in the stairwell, though dim ,was more than enough to see by. He checked his bearings, eight flights up to the top, and four flights down. All the doors looked the same, great for costs, deadly in a emergency. He took out a large black marker and drew a X on the door so he could find the correct one again if he was in a rush. The Stairwell was quiet, the thick concrete walls echoing his boot steps as he mounted the stairs and begain the climb to the top. Three floors up he poked his head out the door and did a sweep, nothing in the short hallway like room moved. It was a service area, with housecleaning carts and machines for carpet cleaning, the dull glow from the stairwell light casting his shadow across the floor. He caught the outline and noted that he had a omminous shape, with the narrow hips and wide upper body, weapons protutuding at various angles from his body. It was a intimidating form, and he liked it.
Back into the stairwell he ran the last few floors in a few seconds, arriving at the top floor quickly. His back to the cool concrete wall, he stopped to listen and control his breathing. Counting down from 30 he cracked open the door and rushed into the next room, the tactical flashlight on the end of the Criss .45 cal cutting through the darkened room.
This service area was much nicer than the first, and he quessed that it was to take care of the high rollers on the top floor. A small service elevator was across the room from him, its door propped open with a broom handle.
Utah swept the room and finding all clear headed to the far door leading to the hall.
He could hear the noise of people talking now, muffled by the door and insulation. There was no screaming of zombies, or the dying, at least not yet.
Turning off the tactical light he shimmied up to the door and listened. He couldn't understand the language, but the tone of the women was high pitched and nervous.
Taking a risk he cracked the door and stared out into the hall.
Rick noticed that the people in the restaurant were in a state of confusion and shock but the ear shattering screams of panic were missing. Whatever had happened was over. There was nothing he could do for them. He turned his attention back to the man kneeling man in the back alleyway.
The man had blood all over him. He looked up again as Rick approached. His eyes spoke of intelligent and even control. He looked to be in his mid-forties, sporting a full beard and sweeping black hair with obvious graying areas. Rick could clearly see he was trying to help the mutilated individual that was the mass under the man but it was clear whoever it was, was beyond help.
“You speak English?” Rick asked.
“Da. A little.” He answered with a heavy accent.
“What happened here?”
“Mrtav men . . . Dead men.” The man tried to explain.
Just then another screech echoed down the alleyway. It was the high pitched sound Rick recognized instantly as the cry from a zombie. His gun had come up automatically, pointing towards the source of the noise but he couldn’t see anything past the point where the buildings jigged out and blocked the view. But it was close.
The man had jumped up and had moved over behind Rick.
“I doctor.” He said. “But what that thing? I never seen anything like before.”
Rick motioned for Psy and Z to move up to him from the shadows. Psy was walking with a slight limp now, a blood stain on his pants, on his leg that had been pinned in the van. The big guy wasn't complaining, and the limp was so slight you'd barley notice, but Rick did.
The cries got louder, the doctor backed away to the door frame. The shadows from the torch, jumped and moved down the uneven stone walls. The alley way jogged to the left, then right then was lost. The sound of heavy footsteps on the stone pavers and coblestones was coming their direction. The sound of three safties clicking to the off postion came from Rick and the boys.
Rick checked his retreats, the restarant was one, the other way they had just come was the only other. He did look up, and check the roof tops. This area was two stories deep, 16 to 20 foot high walls. He could jump, and perhaps escape, but Z and Psy were not going to be able to follow, last resort he said in his head. He didn't like it, but it was to late for that.
Streaming down the alley five of the big Yaks came pounding on the stones, from behind him, he could hear the females circling around on another alley that must cross connect through. They were trying to pin him in, and that showed some signs of inteligents, and that worried him to.
Rick has the drop on them, what does he do ?
“RUN!” Rick screamed at the others before the sound of his shotgun ruptured and drowned out all other sound.
These were heavy solid slugs meant for busting open reinforced doors and delivering massive punch-out force. Against flesh they were devastating. Yet after five rounds only one Yak went down. This wasn’t going to work as all he was ending up doing was just making these Himalayan bovines madder. The distance between him and the giants was fast closing. They were close enough now that Rick could see the madness in their eyes flash from the light of the single torch hanging on the wall behind him. This reminded him too much of images he had seen of bull running in Pamplona Spain.
“Right,” Rick said as he spun and ran. “Now all I need is a bullring.”
Pulling a concussion grenade from a pouch, Rick pulled the pin and lobbed it behind him. Three seconds later after the second yak charged over the object Rick had just thrown, the overpressure concussion effect ripped its lethal shockwave between the enclosed walls.
The blast nearly knocked Rick over. The doctor, who Rick a nearly caught up with tripped tumbled to the stones. Rick grabbed him by the back of the shirt and hauled him back to his feet just as he passed an intersection in the alleyway.
Coming at him from his left where more zombies coming fast. Psy and Z were just in front of him and Psy was clearly hurting. They were going to be overrun if they couldn’t get free of the buildings quick. Stopping to engage them here didn’t seem like a good solution because there was no way to get to a place to hold a defensive position without have the zombies just move around them to flank them from another block. These mutants were showing signs of intelligence and he wouldn’t put it past them to figure something like that out.
Rick knew he was south of Pjaca, the plaza at the heart of the town, and he knew they were heading in the right general direction to get back to it but he couldn’t make out the bell tower of St. Stephen’s Cathedral with the two and three story walls all around him. He also knew if he didn’t do something now to slow down the zombies, they were going to get everyone. The ally was narrow here so he made a snap decision to make a stand where he was and let Psy, Z, and the doctor run out of the trap. He hoped the narrowness was enough to cause a massive bottleneck he could plug up with bodies and then he would jump up and out before they got him.
Rick speed re-loaded the shotgun, and did a quick mental count. Fourteen rounds in the Keltec, twenty eight in his ammo pouch. At five shots per each, he could shot down eight and a half of the big yak guys. Five were coming down the alley, he could handle just five ok, the narrow spot that was no more than seven feet wide, hemmed in on either side by twenty foot stone walls, a great kill zone.
The thunder of their feet on the cobblestone road echoed loud in his ears, only the sound of the shotgun in rapid fire succession could be heard over the stampede noise. The flash of fire from the barrel illuminated the alley, the rounds going through it makeing the end look like some WWII flame thrower.
Rick stood in a combat stance, the rifle tucked firmly in his shoulder. Each shot causing the weapon to raise and then to be pulled down by him and fired again. He was dramatically lighted by the fire from the front, and darkness behind him, if someone had taken this as a photo it would make the cover of solider of Fortune. Fourteen rounds ran through the gun this way, the brass and black plastic casings bouncing off the old yellow and brown stone walls, and spinning on the dirty cobblestone street, till they came to a rest next to his feet.
The fire from the barrel and barrage of lead caused the remaining Zombie Yaks to pause and hold back againest the walls, hidden from view, before passing through the narrow alley way.
Rick had tossed the shotgun around on his shoulder, not having time to reload and had his pistol in hand. Above him was a small metal rod sticking out from the building, about 10 feet high, and three feet out. Next to it was a copper two inch roof drain leading up to the redclay tiled roof, almost twenty four feet overhead. His first choice for escape. There was a brief pause of movement, then the sound of a stampede coming from behind him down another narrow alley. The remaining two Yaks seemed to gain courage and started stomping and bellowing in a most primal way.
Then from around the corner of the alley they came at him, and from behind he could hear others closing in. Psy and Z were long gone now, and Rick was the soul lone target in the alley.
What does Rick do?
It was time for his first choice of escape; up and out. The horde of corrupted beings rushed towards him in both directions like a flash flood overcoming a man trapped in the narrows back in the land of his nativity.
Rick leaped easily and reached for the small metal rod sticking out from the building. The horde crashed beneath him in a mass of bodies, the yaks nearly tall enough to reach him. Rick swung to catch the roof drain but just as his right hand closed on the metal, something exploded into his back just under his right shoulder blade.
“Sniper!” Rick’s mind calculated instantly. This was a game changer. The roofs were no longer a safe exit.
Then realization suddenly blossomed in his head that he had been shot as his right arm lost all strength to hold his weight. He was in trouble. He knew he was fortunate to be wearing body armor but didn’t know if he had been hit with armor-piercing round and it had ripped through or not as he tumbled down back into the massing horde of grinning zombies.
He was in trouble as his finger slipped off the roof drain. For some weird reason, only one swearword came to his mind as he fell and it was in French.
It has been said that a good public speaker speaks at about 150 to 160 words per minute. This is the “comfortable range”. Adults can be training to fully comprehend up to 300 words a minute. Auctioneers speak up to about 250 words while the fasted speaking debaters speak from 350 to sometimes over 500 words per minute. However, compared to speech, it has been shown that the brain can easily process up to 900 concepts “per second”. Rick’s mind was going faster than that as he was about twelve feet about the heads of the zombies. His fall rate gave him less than one second to think and react.
And here in laid the reason why the brothers were always training. Within under a second, Rick knew he had to focus and deliver a combination as defensive and offensive strikes and not let the fear of these grotesque creatures and smell, along with the inhuman noises they were emitting induce any level terror that would preclude his rational and violent response.
He noted that his right arm seemed to be out of commission for the time being. This was a bit of a problem. But his mind as able to focus on the assets he did have. All of this happened with the time it takes for someone to realize they have an itchy nose. For Rick, it was like reaching a state of “Zen”, only in a much hurried state. His first asset was that he was trained and an expert in Tea Kwon Do and Capoeira. Both concentrated on feet attacks. What he was going to do was feasible only for the most advanced martial artists. He knew his strikes must be pinpoint accurate and must deliver seriously impairing blows because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t get any more chances. If even one of his strikes were off the mark, he probably will not escape.
Rick turned his tumble to roll to deliver a modified half Korean/ half Brazilian based flying-spinning axe kick. As the saying goes, “necessity is the mother of all invention”. The back of his foot connected with the skull of a particular ugly mutant-deer that was staring hungrily up at him. The force dropped the zombie like a sack of wet potatoes, giving Rick just enough room to land squarely in the middle of the pack of zombies.
There was no time to think! He kicked out backwards into the knees of a she-devil zombie behind him. Her knee caps exploded out backwards and the zombie began to fall as she clawed to grab ahold of Rick’s back. Rick then leaped into the air and delivered a split kick to two zombies attacking from both sides and then on his downward momentum, he dropped his left arm into an elbow strike that looked a lot like a staged WWF move to the head of another she-zombie directly in front of him.
At the same time, the two yaks went into a berserked frenzy, ripping apart zombies in front of them as they advanced on Rick’s position in the swarm of bodies.
As the first giant yak reached Rick, Rick dropped like a dancer down on all four (well all three anyway, his right hand and arm was seriously tingling and somewhat useless but the feeling was coming back) and spun around the legs of the colossal zombie while simultaneously sweeping the legs out from another zombie to his right.
The yak’s arms closed around nothing but air, a look of bewilderment on its mangled face. Rick had swung full circle down around the zombies legs and was now behind it, crouching slow but ready.
The second asset: as an expert in capoeira he could move in quick and strangely complex moves that were unpredictable.
A gray-goat zombie saw him and lunged down for him but Rick pushed hard with his left hand he shot backwards between the legs of the yak. The gray-goat crashed into nothing but the cobble stones. Rick arched into a one handed, hand stand and executed a kick up into the mouth of the unsuspecting yak. Then he dropped back down into a low stance, grabbed the yak’s right leg and lifted, throwing the giant zombie back who fell and crushed down onto the gray-goat.
All of this happened within 3 seconds. No death blows but Rick had made a clearing around him to move and fight.
Rick’s furious counter attack had moved the encircling mob of zombies back. The bulk of the giant yak-zombie lay in the middle of the opening. It slowly began to recover from being tipped over backwards but its bulk slowed him like a walrus trying to right itself after a ten hour nap. Rick jumped back from the hulking thing and quickly surveyed the rest of the grotesque horde closing rapidly back in. The main threat was the other yak that was still fighting through the crowd but before him three she-devils began screeching in some weird echoing hiss at Rick.
The female immediately in front of Rick was a canine, possibly an Anthropomorphic African wild dog. She was tall and slender with jutting canine ears with dirty-black coloring around her half mouth- half snout. Her eyes, a solid yellowish brown without a hint of whiteness stared unblinking and cold. Rick realized that this zombie showed signs of intelligences, as if she was organizing an attack.
Rick knew he needed to watch this tall wild dog zombie carefully but he lost her as one of the screeching females leaped at him from his left, her fingers contorted into a claw like hooks, mouth open in an ear-splitting scream. All Rick had time to notice was the redness of her skin and that she had long slightly spiraled horns that make her look like a devil. Rick swayed his head and torso in a distinguish capoeira Esquiva defensive move to parry and then flow into a follow-through kick.
The parry worked, the kick missed as the demonic looking she- antelope twisted in an impossible arch to grab Rick. Her claws ripped into his shoulder but her trajectory and Rick’s parry was such that she couldn’t get hold of any flesh. The attack by the she-zombie was like a breaking of the dam. Just as she sailed over Rick’s head and began to fall the horde surged forward between the narrow alley walls in a crush of madden beings caring nothing but to reach their prey with unquenchable hunger for his blood and flesh.
This was bad! This was a really bad.
Rick pulled his tanto out with his left hand from its casing in the small of his back and rushed head first into the horde of zombies, cutting and slashing with a fury and ferocity that matched their lunacy. Fingers were severed, gore and blood began to spray, and amputated arms fell. But he couldn’t keep this up long and sniper or no, the only way out of this was either go out with a bang or go up and over.
Rick was mad enough to consider suicide, going out with a sneer on his face and three grenades shoved down these zombies throats. But he couldn’t get his right arm to move just right yet to pull the grenades as it was tingling with pins and needles like his blood was burning on the inside. Such just as the horde was about to get their final iron grasp upon him and pull him down he jumped with all the strength he hand every used in his life.
Parts of his clothing came ripping off, other hands slipped under the coating of blood and gore that covered him from head to toe, but out he popped from the horde of zombies, looking like a bloody mess popping out from an infected wound. He jumped up to the stone was about ten feet up and then kicked off the wall into a backwards summersault flying towards the adjacent wall and rooftop. Darkness of the early-early morning and his sudden unexpected escape was probably what saved him from the sniper. Rick scrambled over to a rooftop window and crashed down through it just as a bullet impact exploded just inches away from his head into the wood frame.
Rick landed hard on the kitchen table breaking it in half, falling glass and debris showering down on him. The screaming of the zombies echoed up from the narrow alley way, filling the semi-illuminated room with their noise. Rick rolled over on to the cool tile floor, his shirt sleeves mostly gone, as were the lower half of his pants. His Right arm was all pins and needles, but he could flex his fingers slightly now. Blood dripped from every surface of him, and it was hard to tell what was his or the zombies.
Rick checked his weapons, the shotgun was still strapped on his back, literally hanging by a thread.
The tactical vest and armor were damaged but functional, and had literally saved his life. The light weight ceramic plates had multiple scratches across them at all the vital spots. He had for the most part all his gear and his boots. The boots were double knotted and tied down good, just like if he was doing a HALO jump. Best lesson ever learned, keep your boots tied on good. Granted you had to cut the laces to get them off, but you never lost them.
Rick went to stand up, but bullets started coming through the windows. They were shooting wild, who ever was doing it. But even a wild round would be bad. He stayed low, crawled and slide across the floor to a dark hallway away from the windows and started to think.
It was time for Evasion and Escape methods, zombies were one thing, zombies and snipers a totally other. He looked back in the room and calculated the trajectory of the bullets and possible sniper locations and distances.
The simple math let him know the shooter was within 600 meters and only slightly higher than on of the roofs. He was shooting a 5.56 mm round, a modified M4 or something like it, at least it wasn't a heavy .50 cal. Perhaps a water tower or one of the three story houses was the snipers nest.The best part is, there seemed to be only one. If Barett was there they could have hunted him down and killed him easily. But with no communication equipment that was useable, and a bad right arm, escaping was the best route, even though he really wanted to get this guy.
Making his way down the hall he found the stairs to the main floor and a bathroom.
What does Rick do next ?
The walls were think stone now with no widows. He guessed that was because the wall he was now standing next to was a shared wall with the neighbors. Down a narrow short hallway was a door which he hoped opened into an empty street of the other side of where the zombies where at. He could hear noises of someone weeping. It sounded muffled like someone head was hidden in a pillow, trying hard to keep hidden and quiet.
He guessed there was a bedroom next to this little bathroom and the owners were probably trebling and hidden inside. No need to scare them anymore.
Rick raced to the end of the hallway on carefully opened the door for a quick peak. It was dark and empty.
Easing his body out, Rick checked the door to make sure it wouldn’t lock on him if he needed to quick retreat back into the house if he needed it.
A screech like the sound of a dying woman echoed from over the walls and rooftops. He was in another very narrow and dark alleyway, this one lined with doors unlike the other one he just fled which only had windows. The path led down and towards the north. This was the right direction and he thought he could make out the church tower just a few hundred meters ahead of him.
Rick move quickly, keeping in the shadows, and stopping for short seconds to listen and make sure he wasn’t drawing any type of attention. He could hear braking glass and screams coming from over the roof tops. It sounded like the zombies were tearing into the buildings, trying to get through. He wasn’t sure if they were somehow attuned to him or had a way of tracking his movements, but it seemed as if they were drawn to him and his brothers like a shark is to blood. They seemed to be leaving the general population for the most part, unharmed; unless of course the locals got in their way as the hunted their intended target: namely him and Utah.
Rick was almost to the church when he heard the sharp snap of a bullet breaking the sound barrier. It was followed a series of cracks and tinks of bullets hitting metal. This was followed by the unmistakable echo of a 50 cal. reverberation answering back.
Rick smiled in the darkness. He knew the sniper had moved and was picking on someone else with a much bigger gun. “The Calvary is here. Time to give him some help.”
Rick quickly pulled off his shotgun and loaded up the fourteen rounds in the Keltec one more in the barrel. He had thirteen rounds left in his ammo pouch. He stretched out his right arm, testing it for motion and strength. His back was going to have a rhino sized of a bruise on it where he had been hit by the sniper’s mark but the tingling had stopped in his arm. Swinging the shotgun around to his front and reattaching it to some different webbing, Rick started to climb up the face of the stone walls to surprise and hunt down this pesky sniper.
Rick starts the climb, freestyle up the face of the church bell tower. The old stones and wood beams giving him plenty of hand and foot holds. Rick was climbing on the backside of where the shooting was coming from, in the darkness of the shadows that clung to the old building. After he got up about 30 feet he peaked around the edge, just as the sniper unloaded a series of quick bursts down on the docks edge. The shooter was in the top of the open bell tower whick overlooked the entire city, a great place to play lookout and direct any action going on in town, with out the need of radio's. Who ever planned out this Zombie invasion, had done some thinking. Rick could see the EVO 10 was the object of the snipers attention. After the slight barrage he watched Utah roll out from the front of the car and fire at the bell tower. Rick felt the .50 cal round hit the structure, followed shortly by the crack of the large gun. He was close, and for a second nothing happened then the sniper unloaded a full clip on the car, brass shells tumbled down the front of the church. Sounding like wind chimes, the 5.56mm brass casings made their way down to the cobblestone street. Rick could do several things now that the sniper was totally distracted by Utah. But first he wanted Utah to know he was there, and not to shoot him.
What does Rick do ?
Utah Was hunchered down behind what was quickly becoming a riddle holed car. It really pissed him off, he was beginning to really like the little EVO 10. He had parked the car in the relative open, only the little Mini-Cooper was close by. It would be a 25 meter sprint to the next building to offer decent cover and allow anykind of escape and counter snipering. If he was all alone he would have just run for it, but leaving the princess was not a option, yet. Utah was able to deduce several things from the brief exchange with the sniper. One this shooter was no zombie, two he was not a professional sniper, to small a caliber bullet in full auto configuration to be a decent sniper gun, three he was probably just holding them down till a back up got a good bead on them, or the zombies showed up.
Utah wanted better protection, and to be less of a target. Opening the passangers door he took the car out of gear and released the emergency brake.
"Ok, stay with the car I'm going to move us to a better spot."
Utah nodded towards the princess.
"Here, hold this and point it towards the tower and fire everytime he fires at us...say can you fire a gun ?"
She looked at him with some humor, then smiled.
"I've never fired this kind, but all royalty gets weapons training, my older brother is a captain in our army. So... point dangerous end towards enemy and pull trigger ? Yes ?"
" You got it Your Highness, ok lets go!"
Utah started pushing the car across the open plaza towards a stone two story building on the dock side.
Rick had enough of this steaming pile of elephant dung situation they were in. Events and players were moving faster than the brothers had information enough to even mount a constructive counter move. He felt it was time to perform a tactical retreat, regroup, and assess the situation. And it was time to silence this sniper.
Rick flashed his tactical light up into the night sky in a simple Morse code with a dot, dash, dot of light. Then he lowered his shotgun and unloaded two rounds of solid slugs into the back of the sniper’s head.
Utah saw the flash of code from Rick, then heard the Two shot boom from the tower. That shotgun sounded mean, Utah almost felt sorry for the guy, but that went away quick. He let the car coast to a stop buy the building. Pulled up the .50cal and scoped out the tower from behind the car. He saw Rick standing in the opening, shotgun in hand, cloths shredded. Admittedly it had this road Warrior feel to it. Utah Flashed back to Rick, and pointed to the boat. When he looked down the dock he saw Barett standing in the shadows, gun to his shoulder pointing up to the castle. Two shots later he gave the all clear sign and walked over towards Utah and the Princess.
" I say we go meet up with "The Rooster" and have a Private conference." Barett said as he looked over the girl holding Utah's Criss .45 cal submachinegun.
"Yeah Good idea, This here is a real life Princess...got a safe place for her?" Utah Responded.
Barett nodded towards the boat.
"It's secure now, three friendlies on board...Run her down and come back we have some serious chat we need to have. I'll back up 'The Rooster' meet you back here in a few."
"Roger that, see you back here in a few...glad to see you alive and kicking." Utah grabbed the princess by the arm and dragged her down the dock.
Rick went up to the body and searched it for any clue as to his/her identity. He also scouted the city for the zombie horde, knowing that they were still about and posed a growing danger every minute he and Utah stayed in the city. He also took a minute to survey the road which led into Hvar from Stari Grad. He saw nothing and worried a bit about Carla and Beratt. Well, more about Carla and Maria anyway: Barett could take care of himself.
Rick wanted to leave in a hurry but he didn’t want to leave without Barett, Dave and the girls. He had no idea if Barett had found Dave and Maria or not. But the situation had changed dramatically and staying in the city much longer wasn’t an option. If they were coming, Rick knew Dave would be ticked if he and Utah had to leave them. He would get over it and Ricked assumed he and Barett just get over it and steal a boat and make his way back to Split with Maria and Carla. But the thought of Maria alone with Dave bothered him. Barett would take care of Carla but he wasn’t so sure about Dave’s intentions with Maria. Rick didn’t like the idea of her running around with Dave too much. Dave was blood but that didn’t mean he didn’t mess up relationships with his brother’s girlfriends. It had caused some major problems in the past.
“Still,” Rick thought. “It would be good to be with her again.”
This line of thinking took Rick to the events of this evening coupled with the news they had heard about Edinburgh Scotland. The game had changed and the stress of it was mounting and it weighed heavily on his mind. They needed to get their bearings on what was happening. Connected as Shelia acted, she seemed to be as much in the dark as the bothers.
“We need to convince Carla to tap into her resources on this one. And maybe following up with Ms. Shanzai too would help get another perspective.” Rick said to the dead body as he turned and began to climb down. “She seems to have some deep connections that the military doesn’t like.”
Rick came out the door of the tower building to see Utah and Barett pulling gear out of the shot up EVo 10. Utah was complaining about how much of his good gear was trashed, Barett was giving him a consolatory nod, but nothing more.
As Rick approached the other two brothers nodded towards him and slung the gear over their shoulders. Utah pointed to a dark alcove between buildings, to walk to.
" Good to see your still alive Rooster, in need of any medical attention ? " Barett said as he held up a medical bag.
"Nothing for now, maybe later...glad to see your still up and kicking." Rick sat down on the cold stone bench in the dark alcove, and picked splinters and gore from his cloths.
" Look this has gone beyond a complete Cluster Failure. I lost Mama Bear ( aka Shelia ) somewhere back at the hotel a few minutes ago, seems like these zombies know where to go, before hand. I think she just up and walked away on me. I got the princess, but we lost her entire entorage to the zombies. What about you guys ?"
Utah was looking Rick over with concern in his eyes.
" I sent the two guys ahead to the boat with a local, when we got ambushed in the alley...sniper got me in the back while I was trying to escape through a roof. He's down, had no papers on him, but some good gear...looked like one of the guys from the brothel, no way to identify him from the neck up now."
Rick swigged at a water bottle and looked at Barett.
" I do have good news, Vertigo ( aka Maria ) is safe on the boat, along with Ajax ( aka Carla ), I ran into more zombies in Stari Grad at a club. Toro ( aka Dave ) refused to make contact with me. Tradecraft dictates that you don't make contact if you think they are being tailed or are compromised. That is how Toro acted, with me. I had suspicions, but that opens up questions about Ajax and Mama Bear. Plus I picked up a rider as well."
Barett started chewing on a power bar, and looked at Utah.
" What's the game plan ? Search for Mama Bear and Toro, or Pull back and find out what is going on ? I acquired one of the jammers being used, Rooster should be able to use it and get us a channel to the outside."
Barett was constantly looking around watching for the zombies, and snipers, as were Utah and Rick.
Utah knew he was lead man on the mission now. Dave he wasn't concerned about, he could handle himself just fine. It was Barett's report about the possibility of moles or tails that made him the most concerned. Shelia was over acting in the car, and on the ride to the hotel, which made him suspect her even more. But the mission rules were clear, she left them, they were instructed to move on with the original plan with or without her.
"We move out of here, while we still can, make contact with Split and get some help for the island. We can't do much more for now, here. Take the boat out to sea and re-group...I wish we had someone to interrorgate ?"
Utah looked back at the city.
"Oh yeah, there were some guys on the boat, one is still alive, the other is dead. Give him a few hours and we should be able to get some info from him."
Barett interupted Utah.
"That would have been good to know in your first report."
" Yeah well, I was just covering the basic's do you want a body count now ?"
Barett quipped in a cocky tone.
" No need to brag just yet, I'm sure we all have some double digit numbers to compare. If its agreed on then, we go to the boat, gather more information, keep and eye out for Mama Bear and Toro and see if we can detect who is our possible mole. I for one could use a shower and some fresh cloths."
Utah nodded towards Rick and Barett for aproval.
Rick and Barett nodded agreement to move out. And none too soon. Zombie began spilling out between the alleyways into the promenade forming an imposing wall of madden cannibals bent upon devouring everyone in their path. The brother stood in shock at the mass number flowing towards them between the grey stone walls. The brothers turned, leaving being a number of grenades ticking down, and fled in the dark hours of early morning towards what they hoped was the freedom of the blue sea beyond the quaint fishing harbor.
Utah, Rick and Barett move quickly through the shadows of the boats and buildings to the stolen yacht.
Maria is on guard, standing on the bow of the boat, M4 rifle in hand watching them approach. She stands defiantly in the soft breeze that blows across the water. The explosion that happens behind them is accompanied by the high pitched shrieks of the female she-devils. Utah starts an all out run for the boat, followed by Rick then Barett.
Maria waves at Rick excitedly, then fires past them down 200 meters to the promenade at the first wave of zombies to survive the grenades. Rick jumps right over the bow and into the cockpit, starting up the engines while Utah and Barett untie the boat.
Utah braces himself againest the pier once the ropes are undone, and pushes with his massive leg muscles, the boat out into the water. The large boat eases itself out from the dock, like it doesn't have a care in the world, slowly drifting away from the dock. Utah jumps the ten feet or so onto the back deck. Black smoke pours from the cold diesel motors exhausts as Rick urges the boat out into the middle of the bay slowly.
The zombie hoard begins to pile up on the pier, hissing and growling at them. Maria continues to pump rounds into the swarming mass, if only to make herself feel better.
Several of the zombies fall into the water as others come from behind them pushing the mass of bodies to the waters edge.
" I guess we'll find out if zombies can swim ?" Barett quips to Utah.
Looking at the hoard from only thirty feet away, they seem to all have a uniform apperance. The struggling ones in the water seem to gain some control and start swiming for the boat.
"Whore of all Babylon, S.O.B.'s can swim." Utah mutters under his breath at the same time he swings around his shotgun.
"Fish in a barrel !" Barett yells and starts firing at the ones in the water. Plumes of sea water rise into the night sky as the sabot rounds strike the black water around the zombies. The rest of crew run onto the deck weapons in hand. The hoard on the pier takes notice and enmass jumps into the water.
Utah yells to Rick.
"Time to get this rust bucket up and moving, we have unwanted guests."
Rick starts yelling something out to Utah in Korean, but the words are unintelligable above the sound of shotgun and rifle blasts. The engines RPM increases and the boat backs up further into the bay. Barett can guess what Rick was saying to Utah with out needing to hear the words, and he smiled.
The zombies look like a school of fish fighting their way up a shallow river. Spashing and hissing, thrashing about in the dark waters. They aren't very good swimers and the few that break free from the mass are quickly shot by Utah or Barett. The rest of the crew, Maria, Carla, Bianca and the Princess are firing into the mass. Barett stops firing long before the others. Feeling that he is just wasting ammo he may need later. He lets the girls keep firing, they need the cathartic release. Utah has stopped firing as well, see they are over 100 meters from the shore by now. Barett can see he is counting the ones on the shore, trying to figure out how many there really are.
Barett leans over to him and whipsers in his ear.
" Notice how they hesitated at the water until the other girls came on deck, then they went crazy. Maria didn't seem to affect them that way, nor any of us, just the girls. Think about it."
Utah nodded his head and continued to scan the dock, while Barett watched the city. He had switched to his sniper rifle and was scoping out any tall buildings or lights.
Rick spins the boat around and opens up the throttle, heading for the open darkness of the adriatic sea. Soon nothing but the still sea water surrounds them.
Barett is nursing a cold German beer he found in the galley. He was just holding it more for something to do, than drinking it.
He had given Utah and Rick a once over medically and put in a few stiches, but other wise they were fine. Rick was in the shower and Utah was at the wheel, Barett stood at the door to the wheelhouse.
" What next ?" He said outloud, to no one, but really to himself.
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