The Rising Horde: Volume Two by Stephen Knight

Author:Stephen Knight
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Horror, Fiction
Publisher: Ronin LLC
Published: 2012-04-28T06:00:00+00:00

14

The trenches burned for almost an entire day.

Ignited by white phosphorus charges, the volatile incendiary soup burned at thousands of degrees. Those actually in the mixture melted almost immediately as the combustible caught and burned at such high temperatures that necrotic flesh and bone were essentially vaporized. The column of withering heat ascended immediately, melting the outer layers of the concrete sheath that contained it as it caused the rest of the necromorphs trapped within its confines to explode. The biological shrapnel was then disintegrated by the heat, and to those who witnessed the immolation of thousands of zombies, it looked as if the corpses almost disappeared in the bright light. The white smoke from the mix turned black as it reduced the zombies to a harmless scattering of invisible carbon molecules that gently wafted away from the camp, courtesy of the light breeze.

The heat was so intense that those standing guard on the wall could feel its caress even through the desert day. In places where the fallen concertina wire was close to the trench line, the metal wire glowed red-hot. The billowing smoke made it impossible to see the desert beyond the trenches, even from the observation towers. For the rest of the day, the only visual contact the staff in the tactical operations center had with the outside world was through helicopters and unmanned drones, which flew over the obscurant. The electronic devices along the perimeter could see through the smoke, so some margin of “ground truth” could be retained. What they showed, while neither shocking nor unexpected, was still jarring.

The army of stenches outside the camp simply marched into the wall of flames and smoke surrounding the installation.

McDaniels and the others watched on a monitor in the tactical operations center without much comment. The zeds staggered to their own destruction without any hesitation, hundreds at a time. The necromorphs knew no fear.

“I gotta wonder,” Haley said after a time, “if we have enough incendiary mixture to keep them out of the camp.”

“I requested more three days ago,” McDaniels said. “We’ve got what we’ve got. There isn’t any more that can be sent to us.”

Haley looked at him with surprised eyes. “You’re kidding me.”

McDaniels shook his head. “Bull, I wish I was. The fact of the matter is the entire military just isn’t prepared to fight an enemy in these numbers. Not here, not inside the US. And not without things going nuclear.” He nodded toward the monitors. “Even the Russians couldn’t stop them, and I heard they used low-yield nukes. That took care of the immediate infestations, but even they couldn’t nuke their entire country to save it.”

“Colonel McDaniels?”

“Go ahead, Chase.”

“Rapier Actual is looking for you, sir.”

McDaniels exchanged glances with Haley and Gartrell, who hovered nearby. “Anyone want to bet this isn’t going to be good news?”

“Maybe he’s calling to tell us he’s got his mitts on some more incendiary mixture,” Haley said.

“Maybe he’s calling to tell us to eat a lot of beans and keep

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