“Hard Charger, this is Oak Ridge One, over.”
“They’re calling you, sir,” Radar said.
Zach had been almost asleep, floating in between checking his eyelids and deep slumber, when the radio roused him. He leaned forward, reached for the microphone and answered.
“Mount Weather is reported to be under attack by several zeds. They are believed to number in the thousands. There is no further information at this time.”
Zach did not hesitate and ordered the convoy of armored vehicles to turn around. Radar could not suppress a groan. Zach understood. Since leaving Oak Ridge they’d only had a few hours of sleep. Plus, these men had family back home they’d prefer to be with. He reached and turned a switch, which allowed him to speak to his team members in the other vans on a sideband.
“Alright men, we’re not playing around this time. When we get there, we’re going to take care of business.”
“What about that Eve woman?” Radar asked.
“I’ll deal with her personally,” Zach promised.
Zach had pushed the convoy, but they were limited in how fast they could travel, especially at night. It took them five hours. They reached the outskirts of the Mount Weather area at approximately midnight. Zach had believed the number of zeds to have been an exaggeration, but they were not even within sight of the fenced perimeter when their spotlights illuminated zeds.
And there were many, many zeds.
“When do we open fire?” one of the men asked in the second armored vehicle.
“Stand by one,” Zach directed. He was in the turret of the armored vehicle and began scanning the zeds with the vehicle’s spotlight, looking for any familiarity in the distorted faces, or even the clothing. He saw none.
“Some of them are wearing some weird looking uniforms,” a team member known as Dax said over the radio. “It might be those Chinese soldiers.”
Another voice came over the radio. “They’ve stacked on the fence line and are climbing over,” he said, meaning the zeds had piled their bodies along the fence and continued to stack, allowing other zeds to climb over them and clear the fence.
Zach thought of something and keyed his mike. “Has anyone heard any gunfire?”
There were a chorus of negatives in response. Zach found it odd. There were several people at Mount Weather who were seasoned zed killers. The lack of gunfire emanating from the compound was concerning.
“All units watch your sectors and begin firing. Follow my lead,” Zach ordered and turned to Radar. “Take us slowly toward the main gate.”
“Roger that, sir,” Radar replied.
As the Amazon inched forward, Zach flipped the safety on the turret’s M60 and began firing in short, methodical bursts. He handled the machine gun with practiced ease, and he hit everything he aimed at.
There was a time when Zach took great joy in killing zeds. Somewhere along the way, that joy had diminished. He thought about that as he killed a group of three charging at his vehicle. It had to be the three female zeds that Fred had found in the barn. They were practically harmless. Fred cared for them for a couple of months before ultimately killing them. Putting them out of their misery, he said.
And then he met Patient Eve. No idea what her real name was. Even though she was infected, she still had a certain degree of attractiveness. With a nice figure, blonde hair, and blue eyes, Zach thought she could’ve been a college cheerleader or a swimsuit model back when she was a regular human.
He had some sort of mental connection with her that he could not explain. He wasn’t ready to call it telepathy, but it was something. She had a higher degree of sentience than any other zed he’d ever encountered, except for one particular zed he called Big Bastard. He guessed it was Eve that finally made him start to question killing zeds.
But not right now. These zeds were engaging in an offensive action against humans, and that was unacceptable. He took aim at a couple of them climbing over the fence and put two three-round bursts into them.
He continued firing as they moved. The main gate came into view in less than a minute. It was closed, but as they approached, the motors on the gate activated and the heavy double gates began opening.
They drove in slowly. The inner area of the Mount Weather compound was full of zeds. There were also many bodies lying on the ground. Zach wondered how many of them were humans.
They fired in unison and soon there were dead zeds everywhere. Zach, with his unique counting ability, numbered the zeds at slightly over a thousand. He’d not seen these many zeds massed together in some time. Even at Fort Detrick, there were only about five hundred.
The body count increased, and soon there were no zeds left to shoot at. They circled back and stopped at the main gate. The guard shack, a heavily fortified building, had stacks of dead zeds in front of the firing ports. When they parked, Slim and Priss emerged. Zach ordered Radar to park and exited the armored vehicle. He approached them and looked them over. They appeared fatigued but he didn’t see any visible injuries.
“Are you two alright?” he asked.
“No worse for wear,” Priss answered.
“We’ve been stuck in there for a while,” Slim said. “We sure are glad you came back.”
“What the hell happened?” Zach asked.
Slim rubbed his face. “First the power went out. The backup batteries worked, but we didn’t have much light.”
“I tried to call it in to the TOC, but the phone line was dead,” Priss said. “I jogged over to the TOC to see what was up. The president was in there talking with Trucker Troy. He said not
