Looking at the number of cars jammed into the parking structure it seemed like a lot of people had tried to catch a flight out of the city. Hoss hoped most of them made it, but looking at the number of aircraft still at the airport he doubted many had.
“Johnson your team has point, take Cunningham and his M60 with you. We'll hold the entrance and take point on the second structure.”
Johnson gave a nod to Hoss them made a series of hand signals to his team, but only Dawson and Cunningham responded.
“I don’t know what any of that means," said Smith “I've been out for a few years and I never had to do any of that tactical stuff.”
Johnson sighed and it looked like he visibly deflated.
“Ok, that’s fair.” Johnson started the series of gestures again, slower this time with narration. “Night vision on inside, no flashlights. Squad automatic weapon up front, move cover to cover by teams. Rally back here if separated.”
With a slightly annoyed tone Smith added, “Not to be a buzz kill, but why cover to cover? The zombies don’t have firearms.”
“Yeah, let’s just walk in there and shoot 'em, boss.” Olson son chimed in while patting his shotgun.
Several of her teammates opened their mouths to answer at the same time, but the one eyed Cunningham beat all of them, “Just because this enemy is doing something dumb doesn’t mean we should start bad habits. They travelled across space, or through dimensions, or some shit, to get here. I'll bet my left nut they can figure out how to use a gun at some point.”
“The man's right, listen to Johnson. Stay alert.” Hoss grunted out.
“Alright! Smith stick next to me, there's no time like the present to learn these signals. Same for anybody else who doesn’t remember or never had to use them, find somebody who does and do as they do.”
Gunfire started up in the distance as the other units started to engage zombies at their objectives. Johnson's team moved into the parking deck first. They turned on their night vision goggles and infrared lasers so their teammates would be aware of their lines of fire. The interior of the structure was packed with cars parked in every conceivable space. They moved between the abandoned vehicles, each team of two motioning the others forward after they checked the immediate area.
When they got near the center of the structure Cunningham held up his fist to signal a stop. Everyone took cover and waited as Johnson silently glided up next to the point man.
“I hear movement, somewhere to the 3 o'clock. Sounds like scraping.” Cunningham whispered.
Johnson gave the signal to setup facing that direction. Instructions were passed and the team reoriented, taking cover behind the nearest line of vehicles. A few moments later a trio came around the corner, a extremely lean figure running followed by two fat figures with flashlights in their mouths.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Cunningham dropped the one of the fat zombies while a hail of buckshot from the squad dropped the other.
For a moment the team hesitated, the thin figure didn’t look like it had a spider in its mouth but as it drew Johnson could see its cloths were in tatters. It looked like the remains of a police uniform, even in the green and black colors of his night vision Johnson could see the man had several holes through his vital organs. He fired two rounds directly into the neck of the thing, almost beheading it as it collapsed face down only a few feet in front of Johnson.
“Cover me" he said as he slung his weapon and squatted down over the corps. He rolled it onto its back and used his combat knife to pry the mouth open. The tan disk that they had come to expect was absent instead was a tangle of electronics and wires that looked like they were melting. “Get Cook or Lee up here to collect a sample off this one. Tell Hoss something is changing.”
Johnson continued looking over the body. The fingers looked like they had been flayed to the bone and the tips had what looked like razors attached to them. The other two bodies looked, and smelled, just about how a three day old corps should look and smell. They weren’t fat, they were bloated and discolored from rot. He poked around their mouths with his knife but couldn’t tell if their spider disks had been intact due to damage.
Cook came up with Lee and Olson to cover her as she collected samples from the corpses. “This looks like its fused into the jaw," she said with a fascinated tone as she pulled a hammer out of her back pack and went to work separating the lower jaw. She looked up and gave Olson a withering look when he muttered something that sounded like “psycho.”
Cunningham gave a humorous laugh, “Take it as a compliment.”
“At-ease that chatter. Make sure that gets on the next flight back, charlie mike.” Johnson cut in.
The team continued their careful advance into the parking structure, clearing row after row of vehicles. They didn’t encounter any more zombies, but on the second floor they started to find vehicles with square sections of their engine compartments missing along laser strait lines.
It was mid-morning by the time Hoss's team finished clearing the second structure. With no enemy contact it was a tedious and stressful process.
Afterwards Hoss made a quick note detailing what they had found and sent it along with cook to update to LtCol Brown who was the operation's commander. Cook returned and delivered an out of breath status update. Zombies had started pushing the parameter hard over the course of the morning. Since there was no major zombie presence in any of the other buildings, most of the teams clearing them had been pulled for perimeter defense. Brown wanted Scar Company to continue sweeping the terminal buildings, they would have to start without support.
The two teams moved through the main terminal building. Compared to the constant gunfire and explosions outside, the interior was eerily quiet. The ticket counters were abandoned and stripped of electronics. The floors and parts of the walls were covered in reddish brown stains of dried blood. Closer to the security checkpoint the floor had become so covered in stains that it was impossible to tell what color the flooring originally was.
Before moving into the terminals, the two teams swept the baggage claim area. when they were about to declare it clear Cunningham held up a hand to indicate a halt and made gestures to inform the team he had seen something through a broken down door.
Nothing happened for several moments so Johnson moved up next to him. “What did you see?”
“I saw movement through that doorway, I think it saw me but it backed off and turned around"
Over the past few days Johnson had come to realize that zombies acting unusual was not something positive. Being ignored only meant something else was happening and you weren't important.
He has his team cover the door as he crept up beside it and peeked through. As he got closer he could hear the clanking and grinding sound of machinery. He peeked around the corner of the empty doorframe, instead of an area filled with lines of conveyer belts floor to ceiling the room was almost stripped bare.
Conveyer belts, luggage, and scraps of metal sat discarded and piled around the edges of the room. In the center there was a cube of machinery that the sound was coming from. There were four of the emaciated zombies in front of it that looked like they were standing in line. As he watched the zombie closest to the cube stuck its arm out, a series of mechanical tendrils unrolled from the cube and started stripping the flesh from the zombie's hand. As he watched a trio of bloated zombies jogged through a doorway at the far end of the room and started sprinting towards him.
Johnson immediately started firing at the ones charging him, one shot to the neck dropped each of them. It only took moments, he looked back to the middle of the room in time to see one of the zombies step back from the cube and the next step up. The one who stepped back now had its hand and forearm covered in silver metal, with an oval tube along the length of the forearm. Taking no chances Johnson threw himself out of the doorway and hit the floor yelling “INCOMING!”