Dead Team Alpha (Book 2): The Stronghold Read online

  “Is it?” Sister counters. “Pretty sure it’s not. Now, I ain’t been there for a long while. Not living permanently, at least. But it’s what I call home.”

  Skye grumbles, the sound like gravel grating in her throat.

  “What you really want to ask is wheredid I come from,” Sister says. “Where did I come from when your people found me and took me down. Hard to do. I give them proper respect for ambushing me. Most don’t live through that.”

  “I believe you,” Skye says. “You seem well trained.”

  “I am,” Sister says. “So are you folks. At least I guess you are since you’re moving around in the dark like a bunch of bats. You have NVGs? Night vision goggles that you found on this base and repaired?”

  “Base? What base?” Skye asks.

  “Oh, right, sorry, I was supposed to be unconscious when your people brought me down here,” Sister says. “Sorry. I woke up before we were halfway across that tarmac. Decided that since I wasn’t dead I should maybe ride it out and see where the day takes me. And it takes me into a smelly garbage room.”

  The sound of a hand smacking flesh echoes in the room and Sister grins.

  “Uh-oh, someone is in trouble,” Sister says. “Who is it? The guy that ambushed me or one of the three women he was with?”

  Sister waits, but Skye doesn’t respond.

  “I smell testosterone,” Sister says, taking a guess in the dark. “So it’s the guy. Jack, right?”

  Still no response.

  “Okay, okay, I can’t smell testosterone,” Sister admits. “I was playin’.”

  “Wheredid you come from?” Skye finally asks.

  “The East,” Sister answers.

  “The Consortium holds the East,” Skye says. “Do you work for them?”

  “I already said I come from the Stronghold, so why would I be working with the Consortium?” Sister asks. “Keep up, Skye. I don’t have time to hold your hand through this little interrogation.”

  “You are lying about the Stronghold,” Skye says. “You are not from there.”

  “Really? Is there a quiver in my voice? Is my heartbeat elevated? Do you smell me sweating?” Sister asks. “Because all of that would be happening if I am lying. Which I’m not.”

  “Do you work for the Consortium?” Skye asks.

  “No,” Sister answers.

  “Then why were you east?” Skye asks.

  “Scouting,” Sister answers.

  “Scouting what?” Skye asks.

  Sister laughs then clears her throat. “The end of the world, Skye. The motherfucking end of the world.”

  ***

  Code Monkeys.

  Sister laughs out loud at the name. Skye left her alone in the stinky concrete room an hour ago after Sister dropped the “motherfucking end of the world” news.

  News that included, but is not limited to:

  There are approximately a total of twenty million Zs still active within most of the major cities of the Eastern United States.

  The Zs are getting faster, getting stronger, and seem to be able to live off sunlight for brief stretches if fresh flesh is not available. Which increasingly, it is not since the survivor levels decrease daily.

  About eight million Zs are marching across the Plains and headed west for no apparent reason other than to go for a stroll. Surprisingly, crossing rivers does not seem to be an issue. They just create bridges of corpses as thousands get mired in the mud and the rest stumble over their backs to the other side. Z corp of engineering.

  Sister knows the Code Monkeys have almost all the launch codes to light up all of North America with nuclear mushroom clouds.

  Skye seemed quite proud about the last part. Sister knew she would be. She also knew that was enough intel to fry most anyone’s brain and wasn’t surprised that Skye left without using more drastic interrogation techniques to delve deeper into what Sister knows.

  Sister has no illusions that the more drastic interrogation techniques will be withheld for very long. Once Skye wraps her head around the news that there are so many Zs still left, with more joining everyday as survivor pocket after survivor pocket fall, then Sister knows Skye will come knocking and there will be nothing but pain that answers the door.

  With her seeds of intel planted, Sister knows it is time to get the hell out of the stinky room and be back on her way. The Peterson AFB is only a detour. A minor detour that she didn’t plan to happen so soon, but turns out to be a blessing in disguise. Except for the lump on the back of her head. That isn’t such a blessing.

  It hurts like hell.

  Sister is actually a little pissed that the damn Code Monkey had been able to sneak up on her. She is getting old, that is the only reason she can think of. Fucking Code Monkey…

  Sister doesn’t laugh out loud this time at the thought of the stupid name. Instead, she stands up and begins to make her way to the door on the far side of the room. She barely has to trace her fingers along the wet, concrete walls. While she talked to Skye, she had gauged the dimensions of the room by listening to the echoes of her own voice. It was a trick she’d picked up years ago out on the wasteland that is America.

  One giant, Z-infested wasteland. Go big or go home. USA!

  Not that Sister remembers much about the country before Z-Day. Things were confusing back then. Mixed up. Warped. She likes to think that her real life started when she woke up to a zombie boy trying to eat her face. Been nothing but roses since.

  Speaking of roses…

  “I’m done with the stink,” Sister says to herself. “Done, done, done. Done as shit. Shit stinks. This shit stinks. Done with the shit stinking shit.”

  She reaches the door and tries the knob. Locked. No surprise.

  So she knocks.

  “Hello?” she calls out. “I’d like to leave now please.”

  A woman she’d known many years before, a surrogate mother that meant more to her than her own mother, had always said that politeness was the best way to get what you wanted.

  She also said to break a bitch if you need to.

  Sister needs to.

  “I’m going to count to three,” Sister says. “When I get to three, it’ll be too late.”

  She presses her ear to the door. She can faintly hear a person shuffle outside in the hallway.

  “One,” she calls out.

  She snaps the doorknob off, reaches in and manually turns the catch with her fingers. A sharp piece of metal slices her middle finger and she winces, but doesn’t slow down as she yanks the door open.

  “Two,” she says as the person standing outside the door comes at her.

  A fist flies at her face and Sister dodges it easily despite there being zero light in the hallway. The whiff of the attempted blow caresses her cheek. Sister slams an open hand into the throat of the attacker, causing the man to bark out a strangled cry of pain. Another open hand shot to the bridge of the man’s nose drops him fast.

  Sister places her foot on his neck and stomps hard. The snap is like a grenade going off in the silence of the complex.

  “Three,” Sister says.

  She waits in the hallway, listening to the stirrings of those close enough to hear the commotion. Four people coming from the left, five people coming from the right. Almost even numbers, but Sister is pretty sure she needs to go right. Right feels good.

  She takes off running, careful not to trip or stumble on the junk placed in the hallway as a deterrent for those that try to escape. The ones that have taken her captive, the Code Monkeys, are all blind, but in a way that gives them sight better than most people with fully functioning eyes. Sister knows the debris won’t slow them down at all. She also knows it won’t slow her down. Not much does these days except the occasional flare up of arthritis and the random migraine now and again.

  And the cancer. But that’s a nuisance she can deal with. An occasional irritant.

  The first of the five reaches her and Sister ducks low, avoiding the large knife that slashes th
rough the air where her head had been. She strikes hard and punches the man in the nuts. The clatter of the knife on the ground and the groan of the man tell Sister that he won’t be a problem anymore.

  The second of the five kicks out, trying to nail Sister in the face, but she rolls backwards, dodging the blow. She grabs up a handful of trash, sticky and sweet smelling, and throws it at the second attacker. The woman grunts at the impact, but keeps coming, her legs kicking out again and again while Sister rolls farther and farther backwards until she is almost to the four Code Monkeys coming from the other way.

  “Shit fuck,” Sister says, finding herself in a position she tried to avoid.

  She jumps to her feet and throws a hard right, her fist crashing into the kicking woman’s jaw. Then she brings the arm back and slams her elbow into the nose of one of the four behind her. A man moans and falls.

  Sister whips about with a powerful roundhouse kick, her left leg snapping another man’s head to the right and back. His neck cracks and there is a tearing sound as his entire head twists about three hundred and sixty degrees. Sister kicks with her right leg, sending the head spinning in reverse until the pliant flesh rips apart and the head tumbles from the body.

  Hands grab Sister’s shoulders and she thrusts her head forward, head butting the attacker. The man stumbles back and Sister begins to press the attack, but gasps as a sharp pain explodes in her side.

  “Fucking shit fuck!” she yells, her right hand going to the wound, feeling the warm, sticky blood. Her blood. “Lucky fucker!”

  She reaches out and grabs the man with the knife around the wrist. She pulls down then twists hard, splintering the bones, sending the knife falling towards the ground. Before the blade hits the junk-strewn concrete, Sister catches it on top of her left foot then flicks her ankle, sending the knife flying through the darkness.

  A woman grunts and a body falls. Sister smiles.

  A quick straight-legged kick backwards slows another attacker while she reaches forward, stretching until she has a woman by the throat. A hard squeeze and the woman’s trachea is old news. Sister kicks backwards once more and a body falls. She lets go of the woman with the crushed trachea and that body falls as well, added to the piles of corpses quickly filling the already cluttered hallway.

  Her side is on fire with each kick and punch, but Sister ignores the pain, and the blood flowing, instead concentrating her attention on the few attackers still coming for her. Sister’s ears pick up the sounds of quite a few more feet heading to the hallway. Time to get out fast.

  A jab with her left hand, then a hard strike with her right, and another attacker is down. Sister stomps his face twice before ducking a swipe from a machete as a woman comes at her. Coming up with a brutal left uppercut, Sister sends the machete bitch flying backwards. But not before she snags the machete out of the stunned woman’s hand.

  Slashing with quick, powerful strokes, Sister cuts her way through the last couple of attackers, dropping them to the floor in pools of their own blood and severed limbs. She reaches the end of the hallway and knows she has maybe five seconds before her exit is cut off by the blind reinforcements heading her direction.

  Machete in hand, Sister starts running again, her perfectly tuned senses directing her through the pitch blackness.

  ***

  Eight of them wait for her at the ladder to the hatch that leads outside. Eight very large, very angry Code Monkeys, each at least six feet tall and nearly as wide.

  “Skye?” Sister asks.

  A seventh figure steps forward, although Sister can’t see her since the total lack of light is just as complete near the exit as it was deep inside the bunker.

  “I know who you are,” Skye states.

  “I doubt that,” Sister replies.

  “No, I do,” Skye insists. “Hard to believe, but I am sure it is you.”

  “You’re wrong,” Sister says. “But whatever.”

  “I’m not wrong,” Skye says. “We’ve been wondering if you’d come back.”

  Sister can feel her shirt sticking to her side, wet with blood and sweat. She places a hand to the wound and winces at the slight pressure. It’s deeper than she feared.

  “You are getting old,” Skye says. “In your youth, not even my people would have been able to wound you.”

  “I’m tired,” Sister admits. “Really fucking tired.”

  “Then let go,” Skye says. “Stop your fighting. Stop your running. Let go and give in. You tried. That is worth some honor.”

  “Fuck honor,” Sister laughs. “Honor means nothing to crazies like you. You talk a talk, but your walk is shit. Fuck your honor and fuck you.”

  Sister rushes the six huge Code Monkeys.

  Her machete does short work of the first one she reaches, slashing open his belly and throat in one continuous, back and forth swipe. Sister uses the falling body as a shield, blocking the swing of a heavy pipe from one of the others. The pipe crunches into the dead Monkey’s skull and Sister shoves the body back, sending both the corpse and the pipe Monkey crashing into the wall.

  A fist grabs for her throat, but she hacks off the hand, her face instantly coated by the spray of blood that shoots out from the Code Monkey’s stump. Sister flips the machete about in her hand, spins her body, and jams the blade into the belly of a fourth Code Monkey.

  Where it gets stuck in the man’s spine.

  Knowing she’ll lose precious time trying to free the weapon, Sister dives and rolls across the ground, coming up right in front of the ladder. She hears the fifth and sixth Code Monkeys right behind her. Grabbing the ladder’s rungs, Sister pulls herself up, spins her body around, and wraps her legs around the fifth Code Monkey’s neck. She uses her momentum to whip her body down and to the side, sending the man crashing upside down and backwards into the ladder. His neck snaps before his body crumples to the ground.

  The sixth Code Monkey lifts her off the ground by her neck and slams a fist into her face once, twice, three times. Sister’s head rocks back and the pitch blackness explodes into stars and motes of bright lights. Dazed, Sister almost forgets what she’s doing, but muscle memory and instinct kick in.

  Her thumbs find the man’s empty eye sockets and she shoves them in as deep as they can go. Despite having no eyes, the empty holes are still sensitive enough to feel pain as Sister’s thumbs tear into the flesh at the back of the sockets. The man screams and lets Sister go. He stumbles back and falls hard, tripping over the dead and wounded bodies of his comrades.

  Two hard jabs to her wound makes Sister scream as well, but she still refuses to give in.

  Sister whirls about, sending a hard kick with her left leg at where she thinks Skye is. Her leg meets empty air. She doesn’t have time for this shit. Sister kicks out with her right leg as soon as she has her balance again and clears a path to the ladder. She takes five steps and jumps, launching herself halfway up the rungs.

  She grabs on with all her strength and hauls ass up to the hatch. A brief moment of panic hits her when she reaches the hatch.

  Will it be locked?

  She finds the handle and twists hard, nearly crying with relief when the hatch shifts and cracks open, letting in what is almost a blazing light compared to the total absence she’s been trapped in.

  “I know who you are,” Skye calls from below as Sister shoves the hatch open and pulls herself up into the cold, night air.

  “Good for you,” Sister says, looking down at the upturned face of the leader of the Code Monkeys. “Won’t matter, though.”

  Then she sees what Skye is wearing.

  “That’s my coat, bitch,” Sister says. “I’ll be coming back for that.”

  She slams the hatch closed and stumbles away as fast as she can. Despite it being night, the world around her is bright and clear. It will take her senses a long while to revert back from her blind fight state. Her hand at her side, Sister hopes she has that kind of time, but for now, as she sees a few Zs shuffling around the base, she’s just
glad for the heightened awareness.

  ***

  Third watch.

  Val prefers first watch so she can get a solid sleep for the rest of the night, but second watch is close enough. Unfortunately, she gets third watch. With third watch, you are lucky to get back to sleep just as fourth watch ends and it’s time to get your ass up and hoof it down the road.

  She stares out at the cold, Colorado night, watching huge cloud banks drift quickly past the half moon that glows in the sky, the intense winds getting even more intense as the oncoming storm draws nearer.

  The air does smell like snow and Val wonders if it will be a heavy snow, one of those thick, wet surprises that happens every now and again. Autumn isn’t usually the time for that kind of storm, but then there is nothing usual about the world anymore.

  Or not since the Code Monkeys showed up.

  A legend amongst the old timers, and a secret tightly held by the command of the Stronghold, the Code Monkeys hit Boulder hard. They nearly destroyed everything, throwing the survivor enclave into total chaos and fear. It has been months and people are still struggling to get back to their usual routines.

  Dead Team Alpha sure as hell never expects a normal routine ever again. They have always been tasked with the most difficult missions down in the perpetually Z-infested Denver wasteland, but now their missions take them venturing into areas well outside the Mile High City.

  North to Fort Collins. South to Colorado Springs. Even east into the high plains. Dead Team Alpha is now the Point Team for the Stronghold; their job is to get ahead of threats so they can’t be surprised again like they were with the Code Monkeys.

  Hence their recon mission to Peterson AFB. It had once been the home of the Code Monkeys, years before when Val’s mother was TL of DTA, but that Team had cleared it of the freaks.

  Not the case anymore. The blind crazies are back in full force.

  Val wonders what Commander Lee will think when DTA returns and reports that the Code Monkeys are not only back at Peterson AFB, but they are taking people captive for some reason.

  The wind picks up and Val shivers as she huddles on a ledge of what had once been the football stadium for the United States Air Force Academy Falcons. Whatever an Air Force was. She knows what football is. The Teams play a lot back at the Stronghold. As for an “Air Force,” Val only knows what she does from old textbooks she read back in school. But having never seen any working aircraft, let alone a working jet fighter or military plane, it is hard to conceive of the need for an “Air Force.”