Chapter 142

The huge black helicopter hovered forty feet above the street as nylon ropes were dropped out. One by one, soldiers rappelled down the ropes and landed warily on the street, assault rifles strapped over their backs. They wore green and brown camouflage fatigues, not much use in an urban environment, with red and white umbrella patches on their shoulders.

Carlos Oliveira unlatched his rappel line and shouldered his M-16 assault rifle. The team was being dropped off in the middle of a residential area, a friendly neighborhood with streets full of small homes with well manicured lawns and family cars parked in driveways. The hovering chopper made the trees bend and shake, creating constant movement for Carlos to watch, his index finger resting nervously on the trigger.

He had a small pack on his back, filled with ammunition, radio equipment, and some grenades. His torso was protected with body armor, but his arms and legs only had the fabric of his uniform to protect them. Black fingerless gloves were on his hands, and a small radio receiver was behind his ear, with a tiny microphone extended along his cheek. Desert Eagles were holstered on each hip. His short brown hair was spiked up, and his almond skin glistened with sweat.

"Calm down, Carlos," a thick accent said from behind him.

His squad commander, a burly Russian named Mikhail Victor, stood beside him, looking up as the helicopter rose into the air and flew away. The rest of the seven-man squad huddled around Mikhail, who merely waved a hand at the row of houses in front of them.

"Check each house. Look for infected ones," he grunted. His red hair was tinged with gray and his chin was unshaven. He pursed his lips and scanned the street, lifting his gun.

The soldiers spread out, each man going to one house. Carlos walked up a smooth asphalt driveway and to the front door of a small blue house with rose bushes out front. He swallowed hard, glad for the gloves on his hands. They were sweating so much the gun would have slipped right out of his grip.

He tried the door and found it locked. He took a step back and then kicked hard with his booted foot, kicking the door open with a crash. He walked inside, his gun against his shoulder, aimed straight forward.

He heard a scream. Not from an adult, but from a child. He rushed forward through the middle-class living room, his boots stomping across the beige carpet, passing pictures on the wall of a husband and wife and a young boy. He turned down the hall and stopped.

Two people approached him. A man wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, his feet bare. Slimy blood smeared across his face, and his bright blue eyes stared forward with manic intensity. Beside him was a beautiful young woman with long blonde hair, her throat torn out. The entire front of her blue nightgown was soaked with blood, sticking to her body. Her hands were coated with blood as well, from when they tried to stop the flow of blood from her own neck.

Carlos took a deep breath and opened fire. His M-16 roared like a cannon in the narrow hallway, and the two zombies flew backward with the impact, their heads blowing apart, spraying the hallway with gore.

The screams continued, and Carlos made his way down the hall to a door at the end. Bloody hand prints from the woman were all over the door, and it was half broken off its hinges. Carlos could hear the young boy inside crying hysterically.

"Hey!" Carlos said. "Hey, get out of the way, okay? I'm going to open the door."

He slammed his shoulder into the door and it buckled. One more time and the latch broke, letting the door easily swing open. Inside was a typical boy's room, with a few sports posters and action figures all over the floor.

A young boy wearing pajamas was crouched inside his closet, his hands over his ears. He looked up in terror, tears streaked down his cheeks. Carlos slung his gun over his shoulder, keeping his voice calm. He could only imagine the horror the boy had gone through, hiding in his room as his parents went mad.

"Listen, I'm here to help you, okay? I'm a soldier. I'm gonna help get you out of here."

"My ... my parents ..." the boy mumbled.

"It's okay, they're gone now. They ain't gonna hurt you, okay?"

He picked the boy up and carried him out of the room. "Listen, just close your eyes, okay? Keep your eyes closed and I'll take you out of here."

The boy's body trembled uncontrollably as Carlos carried him out, stepping over the corpses in the hall, trying not to touch either of the walls, which were coated with infected blood. Carlos, like all the soldiers in the UBCF unit, were fully aware of the dangers of a biological outbreak, and knew exactly what it was that they were dealing with.

Back when he had joined the UBCF two years before, he had not known exactly what kind of work they did, but they paid well and offered advanced military training, so he said yes without asking too many questions. After being kicked out of the Mexican Army, he had run out of opportunities to fulfill his lifelong goal of a military career. He had no job skills, no high school diploma, and was basically a twenty year-old washout. He almost accepted a low-paying job as a security guard when Umbrella had contacted him with an offer to join the UBCF.

Carlos recognized the organization for what it was, a mercenary outfit. But Umbrella said they were looking for ambitious people with a military background, and Carlos fit the bill quite nicely. He never figured out how his name wound up on their contact list, but he accepted their offer immediately. They offered good pay, international travel, specialized combat training, and all they asked in return was that he sign a non-disclosure agreement so iron-clad that he felt like he was signing over possession of his soul.

Although Umbrella fulfilled their promises of training and travel, Carlos wondered if maybe he should have learned a bit more about the company before signing his life away. If he had known exactly the kind of work they did, maybe he would have said no. But probably not. Working as a mercenary soldier for an international chemical company was not exactly what he'd had in mind, but it was the closest thing he could get to being a real soldier.

And now, being dropped off into some random American city to help fend off an invasion of the living dead? Well, he hadn't exactly planned on that either.

He heard more scattered gunfire as he carried the young boy out of the house, and someone shouting in Russian. Not Mikhail though, it sounded like one of the other squad members named Vladimir. Carlos went out the front door to the sound of several guns being fired all at once in the houses around him. None of his fellow squad members were outside.

"I'm gonna put you down now, okay?" he said to the boy. "Just sit here. I'm gonna have a look around."

The boy sat silently on the porch, his hands still over his ears. Carlos looked at the boy nervously, and then lifted his gun as someone came stumbling around the side of the house.

It was an elderly woman wearing a shabby dress with yellow flowers on it. Blood dripped down her bare legs under the dress, and one side of her face was missing. Carlos squeezed off two shots, blowing off the entire side of her head.

The boy screamed frantically and ran back into the house. Carlos tried to grab him, but the boy slid out of his grasp and ran inside. He turned the corner to run back to his bedroom, but stopped and screamed hysterically at the sight of his dead parents.

"Carlos!" someone screamed. "We need help here!"

Leaving the child behind, Carlos ran across the street to see two of his squad members barreling out from behind one of the other houses. There was more gunfire from two houses down. The soldiers turned and opened up with their guns, spraying bullets all across the side of the building.

Carlos was half way up the driveway when he saw them coming. There were too many to count, but he guessed at least a hundred of the zombies were shambling across the back yard, coming from the next row of houses on the other side of the block. No fence separated the two adjacent back yards, and the zombies came across like an invading army.

"Mierda," he whispered.

He raised his gun but hesitated. He didn't have enough ammo to take them all down anyway, and he had the feeling that wasting ammo might be a bad idea. He quickly ran back down the driveway to the street.

Mikhail came out from one of the other houses, shouting into his small microphone. "Where is the next squad? There are too many of them here! I said there are too many! Hundreds of them! We need to join the next squad!"

There had been seven soldiers when they arrived, but now Carlos could only see four others. Each of them had his gun ready, facing a different side of the street. Carlos looked around nervously, sweat dripping down the sides of his face.

One of the other soldiers, a Chinese man named Yuan, stumbled out the front door of a nearby house, gripping his arm, which was dripping blood. He grimaced and came across the lawn to the sidewalk, shaking his head.

Mikhail looked at the soldier's arm impassively. "You are hurt?"

"I'm sorry, sir. One of them bit me."

"You know what it means."

"Yes."

Yuan looked away and took a deep breath. Carlos watched him in disbelief, knowing what it meant as well.

"Look!" one of the others shouted, pointing down the street.

Carlos turned to see a crowd of people materialize, seemingly out of nowhere. It was like a huge mob of rioters, only instead of bricks and molotov cocktails, they had only their bloody mouths and insane eyes. Men in business suits, women wearing nightgowns, one man in front wearing just a pair of underwear, and a teenage girl wearing a tight t-shirt with the word "Sexy" written on it in glittering letters. They came forward as if in slow motion, the trees at the end of the block casting a shadow across their bloody faces.

Carlos looked back to see the first few zombies from the other crowd making their way coming around the side of the house. They were trapped in between two growing mobs of the undead.

Yuan let go of his wounded arm and flexed the fingers on that hand. He winced in pain but gritted his teeth and let his gun slide off his shoulder. He gave the other squad members a final nod, and walked away toward the oncoming mob from behind the house.

"Let's go," Mikhail said.

Carlos and the others ran off down the other side of the street. Two zombies appeared from behind a house and Mikhail shot them both down with barely a sideways glance. Carlos looked behind him just as Yuan opened fire on the crowd of zombies. He stood in the driveway and aimed head high at the crowd, mowing them down with a sweep of his arm. When his machine gun ran out, he pulled out a pistol and continued shooting.

Mikhail led his team down the street and around the corner. Carlos didn't know where they where going, but he hoped Mikhail had some kind of plan. With a sickening thought, he realized that they had lost two men already. How long could they survive out in the open, with an entire city of zombies to deal with?

Carlos stopped at the corner and looked back toward Yuan. He watched Yuan take down several more zombies with his pistol, and then use the last bullet on himself.