Pyrrhic Victory Read online

  Lt. Richard West scanned the barricade as he stood behind the forward squad. The dead swarmed over in ever greater numbers; in a little under an hour they had gone from a mere handful to a mob, and more arrived every minute. Not for the first time, he wondered how and where they knew to come.

  A tracer round flashed above him and slammed into the skull of a corpse standing on the roof of a car, the explosive bullet disintegrating the head. It came from the top of a fifteen-foot platform behind him where lay a half-dozen sharpshooters. But even as the decapitated cadaver fell back off the barricade, its seven companions leapt off the crest and charged the line of jarheads at the base. Until a short while ago, the riflemen had been enough to stop the revenants from coming over the top, but at the moment too many came too quickly; another handful followed the first lot, and the snipers had to concentrate on them. Meanwhile, he could see the heads of more appearing over the crest of the ridge of rubble and debris that closed off the cul-de-sac.

  The men and women in front of him did not hesitate. They fired at will with their service pistols, modified to accept special clips that held 120 rounds each, and if the cadavers came within hand-to-hand range, they used machetes. The revenants could only be stopped by severe head trauma. That made automatic rifles and submachine guns useless, especially at close range. Though any form of head trauma would do the trick, a .45 caliber slug or sharp, heavy blade had proven to be the most effective and efficient means.

  Even as the squad cut down the last corpse, Sgt. Kaylee Summers jogged up beside him. Though she had cut her luscious honey-blonde hair down to a severe crew-cut, her close-fitting fatigues accentuated her voluptuous figure. He knew she had been a nude model before the Apocalypse, and had once posed as a Playboy Playmate. The issue had come out the same day the dead had risen; some of the men joked that she had been cause. He still kept a copy, but he hoped some day she would give him a personal showing.

  He stared at her with some impatience. "What's the bloody hold up?"

  "Whateley's still chanting."

  He turned around. Behind him, a chain-link fence had been set up. Beyond it were half a dozen mortar pits, and behind those stood a mausoleum. In front of its closed iron doors a tall, gaunt, hoary figure dressed in soiled rags gesticulated madly as he screamed gobbledygook in a harsh, guttural language. What remained of West's platoon surrounded the old coot, and two grunts held a giant book open in front of him.

  He glanced at her without turning around. "We're running out of time."

  She shrugged. "He did say it could take awhile--look out!"

  He spun around in time to see a couple of dozen cadavers surge over the barricade. The sharpshooters brought six down immediately and four more fell to pistol fire as they reached the ground, before they could close with the troops. As two ran towards him and Kaylee, keening in their monotonous wailing voices, she raised her pistol and fired, knocking one backwards off its feet, as he swung his machete around in a wide arc and cleaved off the top of the other corpse's head as it tried to grapple with him. Meanwhile, a horde of dozens flowed over the barricade in a continual flood.

  "We don't have awhile!" He shoved a whistle in his mouth and blew a single long blast, then spit it out.

  He started to retreat. "Fall back!" Tapping his ear, he spoke into the microphone next to his left cheek. "Cover us."

  Behind him he heard the platoon sergeant shout, "Fire!", and a second later came the pop of mortars going off as the forward squad retreated. Shells screamed as they arced high above, then dropped steeply down on the other side of the barricade. Fragmentation shells went off some twenty-five feet above the ground, while incendiary shells fell to earth. Their explosions lit up the night as the rising fireballs illuminated the surrounding city ruins.

  Kaylee had rushed ahead to join her squad, as the two machine gun nests on either flank opened up. Though normally ineffective, their purpose at that point was to slow the macabre advance. Even if a corpse wasn't killed, a .50 caliber slug could still throw it down or tear off one of its legs.

  Yet a huge number still got through, forcing the marines to fight the cadavers off before they could retreat further. The snipers fired as fast as they could, and the rest of the platoon had gathered at the fence, shooting through the chain links, but they had to check their fire to avoid hitting their comrades. West stood in the open gate, holding it against any zombies that came near.

  "Come on! Move your sorry butts! We don't have all night!"

  A few had fallen under the surge of walking dead, but finally they reached the gate, and ran as their friends opened up with everything they had. Kaylee stood off, letting her squad through as she helped cover them. But she wasn't sufficiently armed to hold the cadavers off, and four of them caught her and bore her down. As three held her, fighting and cursing, the fourth began to rip off her clothes, to expose the tender flesh beneath. More dead swarmed around her, and as soon as they had denuded her they knelt and tore into her body with their teeth. Only her head stuck out of the mound of carcasses, and she started screaming as she bent it back. She stared at him, imploring with her sky-blue eyes for help. He hesitated only a moment, but long enough for a corpse to clamp its mouth on her neck, silencing her in a spray of blood. Then several more converged on her head and she disappeared from sight.

  Too late, he fired into the grizzly mass, screaming in rage, until his platoon sergeant pulled him behind the fence. One soldier tried to close the gate, but a couple of corpses caught him and pulled out into the mob, but another grunt managed to slam the gate closed even as several cadavers tried to get through.

  "Fall back!" the platoon sergeant barked, pulling West with him. The marines complied, and the horde slammed into the fence. It held, swaying under the press of bodies, but everyone knew it would not hold for long.

  Regaining his senses, he shook off his top sergeant. "Keep them at it; don't let those bloody zombies press too close."

  "Yes, sir."

  But West didn't pay attention. He focused on Whateley and made a beeline towards him.

  Before he could reach him, however, the self-proclaimed wizard made a final, spinning leap, threw his arms into the air, and shouted out a single word. West didn't catch it, but he doubted he would have understood it even if he had.

  Whateley closed the book when he reached him. Despite its size, he took it from the marines and cradled it to his chest.

  "Are you finished?" He put all the sarcasm he could muster into his tone.

  Whateley turned to stare at him. That gaze did not intimidated him as it did others, but the old man did remind him of pictures he had seen of Charles Manson, except his hair and beard were dirty gray-blonde and his eyes were almost black.

  "I have just completed the ritual, Lieutenant." His voice sounded strong despite his age and physical condition, and somewhat hypnotic.

  "Good, because I really want to tear you apart right now."

  "With help so soon on the way?"

  "Damn you, we're about to be overrun. We're trapped, with no escape. And I just lost several good men, including Sgt. Summers."

  Whateley's expression did not change, but his voice did manage to sound mournful. "A pity; my friends would have loved to make her acquaintance. Oh, well, you have a number of other females that will do as well."

  "What the hell are you talking about?" He cut himself off when he heard a massive, grating sound, as from enormous rusted metal hinges protesting being disturbed after so many long years. The hairs standing up on the nape of his neck, he turned towards the mausoleum, and he felt his blood run cold as he saw the doors opening inward.

  Whateley did not bother to look. "My friends have arrived."

  He didn't hear him; all his senses had fixated on the figures that slowly emerged from the dark recesses of the tomb. Though roughly man-shaped and bipedal, they stood and walked bent over, as if hunchbacked. They wore no clothes, and patches of mold covered their rubbery skin. Their humanoid heads had long canine sn
outs with massive jaws, like a boxer, and short, triangular ears topped their bald heads. Their arms and hands looked normal, but their legs had backward pointing knees, and their feet resembled cloven hoofs. Most chilling of all, though, their eyes glowed a bright flaming red in the darkness.

  Without turning or taking his eyes off West, Whateley raised a hand and gestured the monsters forward. They surged out the opening like a black tide and spread out in the cul de sac, but they avoided the soldiers and crashed upon the fence, trying to tear it down so they could get at the revenants beyond.

  He snapped out of his trance. "Open the gate!"

  The platoon sergeant moved to comply, but as soon as he unlocked it, the monsters ripped it off its hinges and charged out into the horde of walking dead. They dragged the sergeant along with them, and he watched as the old soldier disappeared into the crowd of bodies.

  Even as he turned to rail against Whateley, he heard a scream. He spun around and watched three of the dog-beasts ripping the clothes off a female grunt. Her male comrades starting shooting to save her, and a dozen monsters converged on them and tore into them, ripping out their throats.

  West took a step to intervene, but Whateley grabbed his arm. "Order your men not to interfere." The canine horrors repeated their actions with a second woman, and a then a third, and they killed any man