Left With the Dead by Stephen Knight Page B

stopped halfway down the hallway. He motioned for her to cover the exit, while he turned back toward the stairs.
    “Terminator, Summit. Order out, party in ten, over.”
    It didn’t take that long. Gartrell heard the helicopters shift position, and then the rotor noise was louder than before. Gartrell glanced over his shoulder and saw the zeds on the sidewalk outside slowly look up at the noise. He couldn’t see the Apaches, but he hoped they were hovering above the buildings, not between them—
    Loud cracking noises echoed through the concrete canyon outside as the Apaches opened up with their belly-mounted 30mm chainguns. At first, Gartrell didn’t see much of anything happen, then the stenches right outside the door… exploded . It was as if they simply ceased to exist, transforming into disassociated body parts as the big high-explosive rounds utterly decimated anything soft and unprotected. The glass door cracked as metal fragments slammed into it, and Jolie jumped away from it and into Gartrell, jostling him.
    “Jesus Christ!” she said over the sound of the helicopters and the firing guns.
    “Not exactly, but the aviators would like to think so.” Gartrell kept his AA-12 oriented on the stairwell door, and even above the discordant chaos breaking out on the street, he heard the sounds of the approaching zombie horde, stumbling their way down the steps. To no doubt they’d heard the helicopters as well, and were zeroing in on the sound.
    “Terminator, Summit—Apaches report first pass complete, the block is temporarily clear if you want to make your exit, over.”
    “Roger that, Summit. We’ve got stenches to our rear, they’ll be following us out in just a minute or so,” Gartrell said as he pushed Jolie toward the door. Small shards of glass cracked beneath his boots. Jaden struggled suddenly, shouting. “Maybe if two of the gunships can start working on keeping the subway station entrance clear, the other two can guard the back door, over.”
    “Roger Terminator, will pass that on, over.”
    They made it to the door, and Jaden’s struggles increased. Gartrell looked down at where the boy’s wrists were bound to his body armor, and he saw the plastic quick ties had cut into his skin. He was bleeding, though not badly. He squeezed one of the boy’s hands quickly, taking a moment to try and reassure him. It didn’t work.
    “It’s going to be loud out there, so stay close!” Gartrell said to Jolie, having to raise his voice above Jaden’s shouting and the thunder of the hovering helicopters. “The Apaches will give us some top cover, but they’re not firing death rays—they can only stop what they hit, and their cannons are made to take out vehicles, not people. So stay close, and remember, keep them off us!”
    “I will! I will!” Jolie looked at Jaden with a pained expression. “Oh, baby—” She reached past Gartrell’s shoulder to touch her boy’s face. Gartrell slapped her hand away.
    “Later! Stay focused on what we have to do now! Let’s move out!”
    He pushed against the door, and it opened slowly. He looked down and saw why; the quivering remains of a zombie lay just outside. The ghoul had been blown into three different pieces, but its upper body was still moving, and the shredded remains of one arm slapped against the door, leaving blackened streaks of gore on the pitted metal. Its jaws opened and closed and its remaining eye rolled in its socket until it locked onto Gartrell. It stared at him hungrily, with a mindless malevolence that he felt would terrify even a Great White shark. He reached behind him and grabbed Jolie’s arm, tugging her after him as he pushed the door open, sliding the thrashing corpse out of the way. Jaden’s struggles increased, and Jolie spoke to him as comfortingly as she could over the din of the hovering helicopters.
    Gartrell sidestepped the gory remains of the stenches that had been on the sidewalk. Above and behind their position, two