Still of Night (Dead of Night 3)

He crouched behind an unbroken section of wall, propped his elbow on the top and leaned into the stock as he sighted his target. One of the Rovers was crabbing sideways to get a better angle on the wall twenty feet to the left of where the first grenade had hit. His frown deepened because it a was poor choice of targets. Whether the Rovers themselves wanted to invade the town or if they intended the dead to be a forlorn hope, it was a bad choice of target when you wanted to break down a wall.

If, in fact, that was their plan at all.

Time to sort it out later. Church sighted through the deer-hunter’s scope and drew his bead. Then he fired, leaning in to take the shot, keeping the weapon steady. He exhaled and squeezed the trigger just as the Rover was pulling his. The heavy bullet struck the launcher’s metal tube and ricocheted along the weapon, exploding the fingers of the man holding it and then glancing off to punch a red hole through his lower lip and out through his cheek. The Rover screamed and his finger jerked the trigger, but the launcher spun and twisted as he fell and the grenade went skittering and hissing across the grass toward the oncoming tide of bodies. It struck the ankle of one of the Rovers in bloody coveralls and exploded, flinging red rags across the faces of the dead.

The zombies went mad with the smell and taste of fresh meat and suddenly the driving herd was a disordered mess. The Rovers with the bloody clothes and whistles had to back sharply away from clutching hands. Two Rovers were splashed with blood from their dead companion and they vanished beneath a wave of the dead.

Closer to the wall, several of the zombies turned to rush at the man Church had shot. The bullet had done terrible damage, but he was alive. However, he was splashed with his own blood, as were the others in the RPG team. A dozen zombies swarmed over them, driven wild by the smell and sight of fresh human blood. It trumped the nullifying effect of the zombie blood on their clothes. Church watched this with a cold eye, noting the effect and nodding to himself.

He worked the bolt and shifted the rifle to another target—a pair of Rovers leading a huge mass of zombies—and fired a single shot. He aimed for a stomach shot and hit the Rover just off center. With only muscle and organs to punch through, the bullet went all the way through the first Rover and into the groin of the second. Lots of blood.

The effect was immediate and appalling. The zombies following the Rovers went from a shambling mass drawn only by the whistles and became a pack of predators sparked to frenzy by blood. They fell on the wounded Rovers and even from that distance Church could hear the screams.

He shifted and used his last round to get a similar gory effect on the left flank of the assault.

***

Dahlia stood watching from the wall and was amazed at the effect of three carefully chosen shots. It was surgical, calculated, and horrible. But it was perfect, too, because now the attack was in total confusion.

What disturbed her, though, was the complete lack of emotion on the old man’s face. He was not only an excellent shot, but ice cold, too. No flicker of human emotion showed at all as he caused people to die in awful ways. She wondered if that was something she should aspire to, or something she should fear.

— 45 —

THE WARRIOR WOMAN, THE SOLDIER, AND THE DOG

We could see daylight through the trees and I signaled Rachael to stay low and be very quiet. She moved well, and we crept to the edge of the forest. Up ahead were three people dressed in what looked like white hazmat suits covered with black muck. There were no obvious rents or tears in their clothing and they moved with the coordination of living men, not the awkwardness of the dead. Baskerville sniffed and looked uncertainly from them to me and back.

I waved Rachael to a spot behind a tree and held a finger to my lips. She nodded and crouched, still but ready. I gave a hand signal to Baskerville to circle and take up a flanking position. While he was doing that I crept forward for a better look.

The three people in the white suits were struggling with a big plastic cart. The left rear wheel had come off and they were trying to fix it without the use of any tools. There was a lot of cursing. Dead people don’t curse. Their language was very colorful and included descriptions of improbable sexual acts that would have been both gymnastic, humiliating, and painful. I caught one comment, though, that told me who they were.

“Big Elroy’s going to have your balls,” said one of them.

“Yeah, well fuck your mama with a donkey dick,” was the reply. “Are you going to help me with this thing or not?”

Ah. Rovers. Nice people. Bet they’re great at family picnics with Grandma and all the kids.

The fact that Rovers were here, dressed like this, and splashed with zombie blood made a lot of things make sense. The whistles and moans had a clear logic to them now. It was a smart plan, and there was a damn good chance it would work, especially considering how

goddamn stupid the people manning the walls of the town were last time I checked.

I shifted around so I could see past them, and my heart sank. Out in the field between the forest and the town was a fucking war. Other Rovers, dressed just like these three, were leading masses of zombies toward the town. The walls of the town were smoking and there were two big holes. How had the Rovers accomplished that level of damage?

The answer came with the sound of a gunshot. A heavy-caliber rifle. I took out my binoculars and saw zombies swarming over a badly-injured man. Other men stood with him and they carried shoulder-mounted RPGs. Well, hell. That wasn’t good. From the carnage around them, though, it was clear someone from the town had returned fire and the fresh blood had trumped the protective clothing. Either a lucky accident or a smart plan.

There was a second shot, and a third. In each case the victim was wounded rather than killed. In both cases there was a lot of damn blood, and that’s not a happy thing for them when you’re surrounded by an army of flesh-eating ghouls. I watched with some amusement as the living dead tore into the wounded Rovers, and anyone else splashed with their blood. I waited for more shots from the walls, but there were none.

Even so, whoever had fired those shots was a cold and clever bastard. Shame he or she was a resident of Happy Valley. It’s hard to admire talent in someone who is otherwise a total rat bastard.

The three Rovers near me were watching all this, too.

“Shit,” said one of them. “Those dead cocksuckers are going batshit.”

“No,” said another, pointing. “The handlers are working them. See?”

And it was true. The flurry of murder did not last long, and from what I could tell it accounted for only about eight or ten of the Rovers. There were many others, and they ran along the ragged lines of the dead, blowing their whistles and shoving them toward the town. I saw several more carts like the one near me, and some of the Rovers were reaching into them and removing bottles. One person at each cart lit something—a torch of some kind—and the other Rovers leaned toward the flames, lighting cloth streamers stuffed into the necks. Molotov cocktails without a doubt. Then they ran and hurled the bottles, smashing them onto the ground. The oil or alcohol in each splashed out and the flames leaped up.

At first there didn’t seem to be a use for this, because they weren’t even trying to reach the walls. For a moment I thought they were afraid of more gunfire, but then as more and more of the Molotov cocktails exploded, the sense of it became obvious. The Rovers had lured the dead out of the forest with whistles, and now they were creating lines of fire on the field to drive the dead along corridors of flame that narrowed down to where the walls had been breached. Zombies shy away from flames—not sure if they’re afraid of it or because there’s nothing about the burning heat that smells of life or food. In any case, they shifted away and moved toward the smell of life beyond the walls.