Free The Gathering Dead by Stephen Knight Page B

protectors,” he whispered to Finelly, then took up a guard position while Finelly dropped back and did as instructed. The Atchisson AA-12 assault shotgun was heavy in McDaniels’ hands. Above, the rapping noise continued unabated. Finelly joined him again, and McDaniels waved him to the rear.
    “I’ve got more firepower. I’ll take the advance.”
    Finelly looked appropriately stressed that a field grade officer should be leading him into danger. “Uh sir, I know you’re Special Forces and all, but maybe I ought to be the guy who does this? A lot of difference between our pay grades.”
    McDaniels shook his head. “I got this one, troop — you’ll just have to owe me one.” He handed over the sat phone. “But you can hold this.”
    Finelly accepted the phone with a shrug.
    “Let’s go,” McDaniels said, and he pushed himself up the stairs. The muscles in his thighs were burning, and he had no doubt he would be feeling some pain tomorrow.
    Up the stairway leading to the landing below the 27th floor. McDaniels flattened against the wall, AA-12 trained up the last remaining stairway that led to the final landing. Sure enough, someone stood at the gray fire door, dressed in a still-pristine blue pinstriped suit that looked expensive even from where McDaniels stood. It banged on the door with a hand that was nothing more than a mass of bruised, split flesh that suppurated viscous fluid; the door was smeared with gore. As McDaniels watched, the figure slammed its right fist against the steel door again and again, totally ignorant of the damage it was doing it itself.
    It was a zombie, and it grunted every time it slammed its hand against the door.
    Kind of whistling while you work, zombie-style, McDaniels thought.
    He glanced back at Finelly. The big soldier stood next to him with his back pressed as flat against the wall as his packs would allow. He looked up at the zombie with a vaguely sickened expression, and McDaniels knew why. This zombie must have turned a few days ago, as it was getting pretty ripe. He slowly advanced up the steps, keeping his right shoulder against the wall while training the AA-12 on the zombie’s head. The zed continued pounding on the door, oblivious to the two men creeping up behind it. McDaniels mounted the steps one at a time, moving as quietly as he could. With each step, more of the zombie came into view. The suit was indeed doubtlessly expensive, as were its Gucci loafers.
    McDaniels stopped three steps from the landing and aimed at the zombie’s head. At the last moment, the ghoul must have sensed his presence. It pivoted, turning to face him with milky eyes that had once been pale blue. Its dark hair was a mass of tangles, and in life, the suit had probably been one of those well-coiffed metrosexual types that knew nothing beyond business and the phone numbers of the five star restaurants stored in its PDA. It moaned when it saw him, and lurched toward McDaniels with outstretched arms. McDaniels suddenly reached up to his helmet, found his goggles, and yanked them over his eyes. He then firmed up his aim, and pulled back on the AA-12’s trigger.
    The sound and muzzle flash were tremendous, almost overwhelming the hearing protectors and the light polarization of the goggles. The 12-gauge antipersonnel round did its job quickly and efficiently, and from McDaniels’ perspective it seemed that the zombie’s head simply disappeared into a smear of gore that was plastered against the gray cinderblock wall behind. McDaniels was pelted with pieces of cinderblock, and he looked down at his body as the headless corpse collapsed to the landing. He was revolted to discover his uniform was peppered with bits of dark gore.
    A small stream of blackish liquid flowed from the ragged stump of the zombie’s neck. McDaniels stepped to one side as it trickled past his feet and down the stairs. Finelly did the same, and leaned against the metal handrail as he looked down the center of the