Zombie Squad Read online

  He’d killed twenty-eight ramblers in those three days. He knew this because it was the one thing he really kept track of anymore. In the twenty-two months he had spent on the house- boat, he had been forced to go to land seven times. He had taken out a total of eighty-six ramblers during those trips. Each time he went out, there seemed to be less of them.

  He didn’t know what this meant or if it was even relevant at all.

  His boat was anchored in a remote little cove in Bugg’s Island Lake. The town of Clarksville that sat along the northern point of the lake was small. Before the outbreak, it had boasted a population of around four thousand. He had to assume that most of the humans had been evacuated or gotten out before this part of the state of Virginia had truly been decimated with the outbreak. He figured that meant that there should have been around one thousand or so ramblers sprawled around the area.

  He knew very little about the ramblers, but the one thing he did know was that they stuck together. He also knew that they preferred heavily populated areas—and Clarksville could not be considered a heavily populated area by any stretch of the imagination, even before the outbreak.

  As he pressed some cheese out onto one of his cardboard-like crackers, Nick walked to the back of the interior where his small mattress was set up, littered with sheets and a few magazines that he had read over one hundred times. Next to the bed was a table that was built into the side of the boat. There were two guns on it: his Sig Sauer and a Browning A5 shotgun that he had picked up during his travels. His ammunition for both guns was running dangerously low.

  He had looked for ammo for both guns, but had found none in Clarksville. He knew that this meant he’d have to take a longer trip out into the world very soon. Without ammo, he had no way of defending himself when he was forced to walk on the land. And without a means to go to land without defending himself, he would either eventually starve or be killed by the ramblers.

  Nick popped the cracker into his mouth and chewed. The cracker was so stale that there was no crunch. The cheese was bland, with only a momentary tang of saltiness.

  He looked back to the guns, frowning.

  He reached for one, simply to pick it up and feel some connection to his old life.

  But his hand froze over it.

  For just a moment, he had heard something. Something from outside.

  He cocked his head, concentrating. He listened for the noise again and sure enough, there it was. It was a slight clipping sort of noise, right alongside the exterior of his boat. It was instantly followed by a small splashing sound.

  He picked up the gun and looked towards the back of the boat. The square of light from outside shone in through the entryway, revealing nothing.

  He walked to it, hearing the noise for a third time. Something was striking the side of his boat and then splashing directly into the lake. He thought of a rambler on the shore, looking out to the lake. Nick had learned quickly that the ramblers couldn’t swim. Several had tried to make it out to the boat, only to sink and head back to the shore.

  A few had come to the shore and stared at the boat for days on end, waiting him out. On those occasions, Nick had killed them with well-placed headshots with the Sig from the deck of the boat.

  It was the Sig he carried to the doorway, listening for the noise again as he stepped out. He looked to the shore and sure enough, there was a figure standing there.

  But Nick could tell right away that it was not a rambler.

  It was a man of about forty of fifty years of age. He was dressed in some sort of military grunt jacket and cargo pants. He was in mid-throw, cocking his arm back with, Nick assumed, a rock cupped in it.

  The man had been throwing rocks at the boat to get Nick’s attention. They stared at one another for ten seconds before either of them spoke.

  The newcomer spoke first. “Nick Blackburn?”

  Hearing another human’s voice was eerie. Nick had heard so many voices in his head over the last two years that hearing an actual physical voice was otherworldly.

  “Yeah?” he asked.

  “Can I please come aboard?” the man asked.

  Nick thought about it for a while, looking at the wooded area behind the man. There was a trail back there that led to a secondary road which then went into Clarksville. If there were ramblers back there, they’d be hidden in the trees. Nick had learned this the hard and terrifying way for himself on a few of the occasions when he had gone ashore.

  “I don’t know,” Nick said. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Duncan Griffith. I was a sergeant with the US Army. I’ve been sent to find you.”

  “By whom?”

  Griffith looked behind him and then back to the lake. “Mr. Blackburn, if you don’t mind, I’d really like to come aboard. I had to outrun three of them to get here. They’re back there somewhere.”

  “They,” Nick said. “Ramblers, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  Nick thought it over for a moment. Griffith was wearing a holster on his waist, carrying a pistol. However, the pistol meant nothing. Even if Nick did see the man as a threat, his claim to be a former sergeant with the army had him intrigued.

  “One second,” Nick said.

  He walked to the walkway that circled the boat, enclosed by steel railings. He made his way to the front where a life raft was tied to the rails. It was the same raft he had used to go to shore for his excursions. When he untied it and carried it to the back edge of the boat, Nick felt as if he were giving away some huge secret.

  Nick opened the rear gate, and reached out to the small steel ladder that he kept pulled out of the water…just in case the ramblers ever got down the art of swimming. He unlatched the ladder; its lower half unfolded and plunged into the water. He then set the raft in the water and gave it a hard push towards the shore.

  As the raft covered the fifty or so yards between Nick’s boat and the shore, he stood on the back of the boat with his gun still gripped in his hands. He kept a lookout for ramblers as the raft drifted towards Griffith.

  “Thanks,” Griffith said, his voice crawling across the water like an alien breeze.

  Nick only nodded. He didn’t know whether or not to trust anyone from the US government or military, no matter who they were or what their intentions might be. His last interaction with living human beings had been with the government…and it had not been pretty.

  He’d often wondered if there might be some faction of the military in place after the world had essentially ended. As he was assuming the entire world was in ruin now because when he had left DC and headed here to the lake, the outbreak had already overtaken Russia and Africa. The last he had heard, it had been also gaining traction in Europe and was running rampant in South America.

  Griffith didn’t wait for the raft to reach him completely. He walked out into the water until it was up to his thighs and reached out for the raft when it was close enough. He climbed in carefully and used the single paddle inside to head for the houseboat.

  Nick watched Griffith drift closer and closer. His grip on the Sig grew tighter, but if he was being honest with himself, he was rather excited to have Griffith coming aboard.

  Whether or not the man was a friend or a foe remained to be seen…but the sheer fact that Nick was going to be having a conversation with a human for the first time in almost two full years almost made him not care.

  Still, he held his gun close.

  Just in case.

  3

  Griffith climbed aboard with a speed that made Nick think that the man was glad to be on the boat. If he had indeed come through Clarksville, he was probably relieved to be relatively safe from the threat of the ramblers.

  After pulling the raft aboard, Griffith eyed Nick suspiciously. He nodded to the Sig Sauer in his hand and said, “You know, that’s not necessary.”

  “I truly hope it isn’t,” Nick said, but he didn’t put the gun down.

  “Do you mind if I ask how long you’ve been here?”r />
  “On the lake? Twenty-two months.”

  “And you’ve survived the ramblers without any problem?”

  “They can’t swim. One time, one got about ten feet away from the boat, but he just sank to the bottom. He was too close for comfort, though, so I killed him.”

  “Yeah, it took us a while, but we found out they can’t swim. There’s a lot of things they can’t do.”

  “Before we get into that,” Nick said, “I think you should tell me why you’re here. If someone from the army or any branch of the government sent you, I assume you know that I’m not exactly one of the government’s favorite people.”

  “I do know that. And I have been sent at the direction of Colonel Richard Ogden. I was asked to locate you and bring you back.”

  Nick let out a genuine laugh. It skated across the lake and sounded like the maniacal noises of a deranged ghost.

  “Back where?” Nick asked.

  “We have a base of operations set up in Langley.”

  “And it’s safe there?”

  “For the most part,” Griffith said.

  The two men eyed one another for a moment, trying to size each other up. Nick guessed that Griffith was closer to fifty than to forty. His face showed signs of aging and his hair was going slowly grey at the temples. The thin scruff of beard he wore also carried signs of white and grey.

  “I have to ask,” Griffith said, “if you know how bad it got? If you’ve been here for two years, you probably made it out here just as we lost all forms of broadcasting capabilities.”

  “It was pretty rampant everywhere when I left DC,” Nick said. “How bad did it get?”

  “Nearly a total loss everywhere,” Griffith said. “The only place that was remotely spared was a seemingly random strip of land in Japan that measures about forty miles. Six small towns about one hundred and fifty miles away from Sendai. The ramblers took over everywhere else.”

  “How many survivors worldwide?” Nick asked.

  “Not many. The last estimate that was reported indicated that there was a global loss of life of about ninety percent.”

  Nick had always expected the worst, but to get confirmation on it was totally different. He felt cold. He felt sick. He felt more hopeless than ever.

  “What about Langley?” Nick asked. “How many are at your base of operations?”

  “About three hundred. That’s military and government members as well as members of their families that survived the outbreak. There’s another one near Edwards Air Force Base in California. There are another five hundred there. We’ve been communicating through some dodgy satellite communications for the last six months.”

  “Sounds like things are safe and squared away for the government lackeys,” Nick said. “So why in the hell did you come out here to find me? A better question, though…how did you find me?”

  “Like I said, we managed to get some satellite coms back up and running. It took us a few months—we don’t have any sort of IT or coms specialists in Langley –but we managed to get a few links back in operating order a few months back. When it was decided that you could be of help, we did a background check on you. There was no way to know if you had remained alive when you left Bethesda after everything that happened, so we started monitoring locations that we thought you might go, based on intel that was gathered on your past.”

  “Monitoring?”

  “Yes.”

  “Using satellite imaging?”

  “Yes.”

  Nick was impressed, but tried to hide it. “In other words,” he said, “the government is still spying on its citizens even after the end of the world.”

  “Sure, if you want to look at it that way,” Griffith said.

  “Why spy on me?” Nick asked. “Is there still a grudge held against me for the way things played out against me and the government?”

  “Some feel bitter towards you,” Griffith said. “No sense in lying about that. But at the same time, your record speaks for itself. And there have been certain events that have occurred over the last three months that we believe you can help us with.”

  “Like what?” Nick asked. “You have to know that I’m not who I claimed to be during those last few days.”

  “Of course I do. It’s common knowledge. But the state of the world right now allows forgiveness in situations like that. The slate is wiped clean. The clock resets.”

  “What is it you think I can help you with?”

  Griffith looked out to the lake and grinned. He looked like a kid that was seeing the ocean for the first time. It was clear that he was thinking hard about something—probably how much to tell, Nick assumed.

  “We have a few of the ramblers in captivity,” Griffith said. “Ten were captured and locked away in research labs beneath our Langley headquarters. We’re trying to learn what we can about them. More than that, we’re trying to learn more about the nature of the parasite that made them what they are. It’s hard to imagine after all that happened, but the ramblers, at their very core, are really nothing more than humans that fell ill to some hyped up and super-resistant parasite that we still don’t fully understand. We’re coming to be more sympathetic about this as of late for one particular reason.”

  “What reason is that?” Nick asked, unsure of where Griffith was headed with this. Not once since he had watched the White House get overtaken by the ramblers had Nick been able to see the ramblers as anything other than monsters.

  “Some of our people have developed a vaccine.”

  “For the ramblers?”

  “Yes. It has been tested on five subjects. Three fully recovered. Other than headaches and occasional yet severe muscle spasms, they seem to be fully recovered. Even the signs of decay that are apparent on most ramblers have healed on these three.”

  “And what about the other two?” Nick asked.

  “One died. She went into spasms and her heart stopped. I’m not sure if you know, but the only ways to kill a rambler is a bullet to the head, decapitation, severe electrocution, or setting them on fire. So the fact that this one died due to heart failure tells us that the vaccine took, but it took too well. As for the other one, the vaccine took, but he fell asleep and simply never woke up. Of course, these results aren’t stellar, but it has given us ample room to experiment.”

  “That’s great,” Nick said, somewhat sarcastically, “but I’m still not sure what you need me for.”

  “As I said, your history speaks for itself. We know that you’re something of a rogue. But we also know that you were, at one time, one of the most decorated soldiers in the US military. A Navy Seal, in fact. We also know that you later went on to serve as a member of the secret service for President Decker and for the first few years of President Ames’s first term. You left there, and although you thought you disappeared within the system, we do know that you were working as a freelance operative for several less-that-reputable cells within the military. You have a recorded fifty-one kills, two thwarted terrorist attacks, and you saved the President’s life during his first two months in office.”

  “You left out the part where I held him at gunpoint,” Nick said.

  “I did. And that’s because if you can help us, that little matter will mean nothing.”

  “What do you need?”

  “The vaccine can only be created in small doses. I know very little about the process but I do know that it takes quite a while for the guys in our lab to create a dose. We have the crew at Edwards Air Force base working on it, too, but it’s still a slow process. As it stands, one dosage provides us with enough of the vaccine to administer to maybe eight ramblers. So obviously, widespread usage of the vaccine would be next to impossible. Even if we can get the vaccine created in some sort of assembly line—which is also a monumental task in and of itself—it would take decades to even be able to reasonably think about widespread use.”

  Griffith stopped here, as if hoping Nick would pick up a clue. However, Nick was still not understanding why
the government would send this man here, trying to recruit him to leave the solitude and relative safety of his houseboat.

  What Nick doubted Griffith knew was just how much the government had taken from him during the illustrious career that Griffith had recited to him. Doing anything to help his government made him feel sick.

  Griffith was once again looking out to the lake. Nick followed his gaze and tried to imagine the boats that had once rocketed back and forth on these waters, some pulling children on skis or floats behind them. That world seemed like a vivid dream that teased him at the edges of waking.

  When Nick remained quiet, not piecing together Griffith’s narration, Griffith went on.

  “The thought is that we create a few batches of the vaccine and administer them to people that, before the end of everything, were in positions of power. We want to create some sort of structure to everything again. We lost a lot during the outbreak and the violence that followed—over ninety percent of our active military and several high-ranking government officials, in fact.”

  “Including President Ames,” Nick said.

  He still had nightmares about that day…watching the President lose his life and then ultimately get it back in the form of a rambler. In the nightmares, Nick puts a bullet into his head, but in actuality, he had been unable to. He’d had other pressing matters at hand.

  “Yes,” Griffith said. “Including the President. That being said, the plan is to locate these people of interest and administer the vaccine. This would include military officials, heads of organizations such as the CDC, the CIA and so on. And, of course, President Ames.”

  “And then do what, exactly?” Nick asked. “Build the government back up again?”

  “In a matter of speaking.”

  “And I guess you want me to help find these people?”

  “Yes. We would send you into the field to locate these individuals and administer the vaccine. Believe me…we tried to find a way to do it internally, but we don’t have anyone that survived that has your skillset. The guys in Langley are just grunts, really. Most of them have less than two years of duty under them.”