SurvivorZ: Grave Harbor

45

A trip would soon be necessary to see for herself. She wasn't looking forward to it. If the battle meant a new herd had moved in from Needham, her problems were bigger than simply needing a new map to track their movements. With Roxbury still under fire, they were bound to migrate east over the next week, right through her forest compound. She'd have to find a new place to bunk down for the foreseeable future. Some place where neither the dead nor the living would think to look.

Movement from the road below caught her eye. A couple of zombies roamed Florence Street, attracted by her Humvee's arrival. She recognized them from her previous visit. They were probably hanging around the neighborhood because of a handful of survivors who had holed up in a nearby condominium complex.

Speaking of...

A sharp scream and a clap of gunfire from the condominiums drew not only her attention, but those of the meandering corpses below. Darla searched for the source of the commotion through her spyglasses. Probably one of the survivors ran into a stray on his or her way back to the shelter. Bad luck for them, but at least their companions wouldn't have to worry about the noise attracting a herd. By her records, the closest mob was—

Smoke billowed into the air over the tree line. More gunshots followed, accompanied by additional wails of horror and pain. The racket was sufficient to pique the curiosity of the roamers below.

From the noise, the occupants of the Chestnut Hill condominium complex sounded as though they were in a pitched battle for their lives. That it suddenly sprang up out the blue on their doorstep made her think of the worrisome silence that had settled over Oak Hill since the gun battle tapered off.

It couldn't be from a new influx of dead, she figured. Oak Hill went silent a couple of days ago. With all the homes and forests between there and here, there was no way a slow-moving herd could cover that much ground in so short a time. It had to be an attack from a smaller group of zombies.

Darla grabbed her radio handset. "Pilgrim Base, this is Ranger 3-5. Come in."

She peered at the attack through her binos. She couldn't see much for the trees blocking her view, but judging by the horrified screams coming from down the block, she didn't need to see the battle to know how it was going.

"Ranger 3-5, this is Pilgrim Base," the voice responded over the radio. "Copy."

"Reporting from site Charlie Hotel 1-3," she declared. "I have hostiles engaging nearby locals. No visuals on enemy, but this area should be clear of mapped forces. Requesting further orders, over."

"Is your current position compromised, 3-5?"

"Negative."

"Then stand down. Maintain position and continue to observe."

She hesitated. The urge to head over there and provide aid wasn't an easy instinct to subdue. The mission always took priority, no matter how badly she sometimes wished it didn't.

Movement through the trees caught her notice. She raised her spyglasses again.

"Stand by," she said into the radio.

The zombie couple shambled across her field of vision, still heading for the massacre in the hopes of scoring an easy meal. She tracked past them to find another zombie emerging from the woods.

This one, a tall, dark-haired figure clad in a black suit, seemed no different from any she'd observed before. It had the same torn, bloodstained clothes and dark veins tattooed over its pale flesh. However, all it took was a single glance to recognize that it was a breed apart from the others. Its movements were more fluid, its eyes more aware.

Its hands, full.

She stared at the object it carried by its side, trying to make out if it was a weapon of some kind. It looked to be too big for that. The zombie stepped from the shadows of the trees and took in its surroundings. In the rising sunlight, she saw the item it clutched clearly for the first time.

It was a disembodied head still attached to its spinal cord.

Darla gasped and looked closer. From the bone protruding through its black flesh, only a portion of Keith Cross' original face hadn't been gnawed off. The grisly trophy gazed from its upside down vantage as it dangled like a ball and chain at the end of its bony stalk. The zombie head's keen eyes landed on her watching from the rooftop. It hissed menacingly.

The one carrying the head looked around and noticed her a moment later. It howled a challenge from three stories below.

With trembling hands, Darla lowered her glasses. "Shit."

The tree line was dark with approaching shadows, all of them loping to the zombie's side like a pride of lions responding to the call of their leader.

"Oh, fuck." She had heard of these things from reports over the radio, but this was her first time seeing them in the flesh. Ghouls. Judging by the looks of it, they must have numbered in the hundreds.

The alpha waved a hand at the lone figure watching them from the Wegmans rooftop and roared again. A second later, the empty parking lot was black with monsters surging across it.

Darla dropped her glasses and grabbed her gun. "Oh, no. Fuck!" She ran to the ledge. Zombies sprang off the ground and grabbed hold of anything they could find. They started shimmying up the side of the building after her.

"Base, I've got a situation here." She fired, knocking one of the climbing monsters off its perch. She didn't have nearly enough ammo or time to stop the dozens of others from reaching her. "Ghouls! They're everywhere. I can't stop them."

"Evacuate, 3-5."

"There's no time!"

She backed away as veiny hands clamped onto the edge of the roof. A mauled face with a missing eyeball hissed at her from over the ledge. She popped a bullet into its skull and kept retreating.

Zombies hopped onto the rooftop with the dexterity of panthers. She continued to fire, and even managed to drop one in the process. It was no use. There was nothing in her arsenal that could stop a horde like this.

With her enemies closing in and preparing to leap across the roof to finish her off, Major Darla Adams made an executive decision that countermanded her original orders. She placed the warm barrel of her gun against her temple and gave her final transmission.

"3-5, down," she announced.

Darla squeezed the trigger, abruptly ending her solitary mission. Her final observation, this one going unwritten and unreported, was that of a snarling horde closing in on her collapsing body. Where the mob ventured from here was no longer any of her concern.