Fortress of the Dead by Chris Roberson

Author:Chris Roberson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd

Chapter 13

AS SHE STOOD atop the wall that encircled the base camp, peering through the telescopic sights of her T-99 at the Dead horde massing below, Jun found herself regretting her choice of words only moments before. Because while she was not yet being forced to leap from a plane, neither was she able to face the present danger with the ground beneath her feet. Instead she was perched awkwardly on a narrow ledge that ran along the inner side of the stockade fence, with only a low railing between her and the open air behind her. Even as relatively short as she was, it would be a matter of ease for her to step over the railing if she choose to do so; and while stepping over the railing into the empty air beyond was the last thing on her mind, still she worried that it would be all too easy to accidentally topple over it if she weren’t careful, with a long fall to the hard ground below.

The winds were picking up, not only carrying with them the scent of putrefaction and decay from the approach horde of the Dead, but also serving to buffet Jun and knock her off balance. With her right hand over her T-99’s trigger and her left hand steadying its stock, she couldn’t reach out and take hold of the top of the stockade fence to steady herself, and instead had to continually shift her weight from one leg to the other, constantly moving her center of gravity to maintain her position. It made sighting for targets more difficult than normal, which only complicated what were already trying circumstances.

Jun had originally assumed that it had been the arrival of a new group of undead shamblers that had occasioned the ringing of the base camp’s alarm bells, but when she and the rest of her squad had first climbed to the top of the ramparts she had been surprised to see that there were only a handful of zombies shuffling about along the northern edge of the electrified perimeter fence that ran all around the camp, with a handful more approaching from the north. The heightened response seemed disproportionate to the threat, and caused Jun to wonder whether Major Wilkins’s unsettled thoughts and feelings of guilt about the recent undead incursion into the camp had lead him to overreact. The major would not be the first combatant in the Dead War driven to make irrational decisions by undigested fears from a previous fight, even one that he had himself survived unharmed.

But then Sergeant Josiah had drawn her attention to the fallen log draped over the wire at the northwest corner of the perimeter fence, and suddenly Jun had a better understanding of the urgency of the situation.

“I’m telling you, it’s just a coincidence!” Curtis shouted as he fired a round from his M1 Carbine at one of the zombies that was shuffling towards the base of the stockade fence. Another of the Dead was in the process of clambering over the log that lay across the wire fence some distance behind.

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