Chapter 109 - Beachhead

  Farnsworth had talked me into doing a quick scouting loop around the mall, using Sue to expedite the process. Kara stayed behind to help keep things organized with the ratkin; they liked her almost as much as they liked me, and even the avians seemed to understand she was important to me, and therefore someone to listen to.

  We set off at Sue’s best sprint, racing across the road and into the parking lot at top speed. There was no motion from inside the mall at first, and I was wondering if we were wasting our time.

  “You sure this is necessary?” I asked. I was a little annoyed and half wondering if the real purpose of the mission was ‘Master Sergeant wants a dino ride’

  “Intel never hurts,” Farnsworth replied. “We’re short on time, yeah. There’s a deadline, and after dark the monsters will come out and fight us, instead of us going in after them. Is it possible that’s the best case scenario, though? Wouldn’t it be better to fight them in the open?”

  “No,” I replied, no question in my voice. “You didn’t sense what I did, when they attacked the fort. Whatever is in there is bad news, and it’s stronger at night. Attacking when it’s weaker, relatively speaking anyway, just makes sense.”

  The damage we’d done to the Target windows was still the same as it had been, only this time the space inside was full of zombies. That was new, and I told Farnsworth as much. Last time we were there, the place had been empty. Did that mean the enemy had more troops now, or were they just plugging a potential hole through their defenses? No way to tell.

  The door next to the Applebee’s was much the same. It was one of those row of glass doors you see at malls all over. The space on the inside was full of zombies. Same for Kohl’s. Same for JC Penny’s. One store after another, one set of doors after the next, it was the same over and over. Each entryway was now heavily patrolled by zombies.

  Fortunately, they were mostly still the tier one monsters we were used to. I spotted a few tier two skeleton mages in the mix, same as before, but the horde hadn’t been ranking up. If they had, we’d be in way more trouble, so that was some good news.

  We cut through the space between the mall and a Hanford’s grocery store just south of it. I made a mental note to check the grocery store out, if we survived all of this. The front of the store was all broken glass, smashed in and ruined. But I was willing to bet that thanks to its proximity to the mall and its zombies, most of the canned and dry goods were probably still intact.

  Winter was coming, and even if it was still months away, we needed to find supplies if we were going to survive the cold months.

  Once we came around on the western side of the mall, we turned north and followed the paved delivery area, looking for anything interesting. The whole area was closed up, though. Every loading bay was shut. Every door, too. The whole rear side of the mall was locked up tight. We could definitely bust in, but we wouldn’t see what was on the other side of those doors until we were through them.

  About halfway along the rear side, Farnsworth pointed west. “What’s that, over there?”

  I squinted, trying to make it out. There were a bunch of fields, and some barn-like buildings. One barn had caught fire and burned to the ground; the ruins were still smoldering. But the rest of the structures looked more or less okay, and even the fields looked mostly untouched.

  “I’m not sure,” I replied. “You want a look?”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” Farnsworth said.

  I shrugged. He was right that we still had some time, and information was power, so we set off in that direction. It was a quick hop, anyway, not far out of our way.

  What we found was interesting: a fully operational farm, more or less. The livestock was mostly dead; the place had once housed a bunch of horses and cows, but they’d been cut to ribbons by zombie claws. Oddly enough, a bunch of chickens had survived. Must have run away when the zombies showed up. They wandered around the yard, pecking at bugs on the ground.

  It wasn’t until I saw the sign near the front gate that I realized what I was looking at. The University of Vermont had a ‘model farm’ for their agriculture students to study at. This was that place. Before the Event, it had been a full-fledged farm, complete with livestock, crop fields, and even housing. I spotted an old-style well on the premises, too.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Whoever had been living here was long gone. There were signs of zombie attacks everywhere, and I felt confident anyone who’d been here when they hit the place was now part of the horde. But they hadn’t burned it to the ground like they had most of the nearby retail buildings. Maybe they’d hit this spot early on, and only started burning things later? Whatever the reason, it would have made for a decent camping spot, if it hadn’t been for the neighbors.

  “Might be a good rally point,” Farnsworth said. “If things get messy in the battle, people can retreat there. But it probably makes more sense to use the bookstore instead, unless we’re planning to strike toward the rear of the mall.”

  “Do you think that makes more sense?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Nah, I think the front is smarter. We ought to be able to draw the zombies out into the parking lot to fight them there. Even if we can’t, we can at least engage them in the entrance areas. With those back doors, we won’t know what’s on the other side until we’re hip deep in whatever sort of trap is waiting for us.”

  “You’re expecting traps, then,” I replied. It wasn’t a question, in my mind, but what good was having a career soldier with me if I didn’t use his experience?

  “Oh, absolutely. Come on, let’s get back to the others.”

  We continued our path, cutting around the north end of the mall to finish our loop and return to the bookstore. The troops were still there, waiting for our arrival. If anything they were all formed up now, the ratkin in rows right behind my undead.

  I wished I’d been able to get some weapons and armor from the Guard before we left, but given the tension in the air at the time, asking for something of Turner felt like a bad plan. My undead were tier three. I hoped that would be enough to still make them effective. I mentioned it to Farnsworth and he grunted.

  “Got an idea. Head south to that strip mall there,” he said.

  Hopeful, I did as he asked. The place was mostly burned down, but there had been a sporting goods store on the corner, and it was partially intact. The place was mostly wrecked, but there were still stacks of baseball bats and hockey sticks, all of which were viable weapons for my troops. I ordered the undead to march down there and pick up weapons. There weren’t enough for all of them, but it was a good start.

  Finally, there wasn’t anything else to do. There were no more boxes that needed checking. Nothing else we could add that would improve our chances of victory. Nothing I could think of, anyway.

  I turned to Farnsworth. “We ready?”

  He nodded. “It’s time.”

  My undead formed up on the road, and we marched across. The ratkin forces lined up directly behind my guys. Farnsworth took command of the other humans, guarding our south flank. If we were going to get surprised from somewhere, that would probably be the place. The avians flew above us, seeming excited to be finally on the assault. Kara was beside me on Sue, and Hope was nearby, waiting for the battle to begin.

  “We really doing this?” Kara asked. She looked nervous, but determined.

  I had a feeling my face read the same way. “Time to take it to them.”

  I raised my voice so it would carry. “Move out!”

  We crossed the road and the parking lot beyond, making for the Target again. Why that spot? Well, we already had an opening there that we knew Sue could pass through. It was also toward the north end of the mall, meaning we could start there and work our way south.

  I had Sue spit a Fireball into the Target. It detonated just inside, sending zombies flying in all directions and shattering any nearby windows that we’d somehow missed on the first attack. That was our signal, and I sent my undead in right after, juggernauts leading the way.

  They poured through the opening in the wall, smashing into the still-stunned zombies inside the place. Fire skeletons peppered the enemy with blasts of flame from behind the juggernaut ranks. The attack was lightning-quick, and with the defenders stunned, it didn’t take long before we had a solid beachhead inside the Target.

  But there were a lot of zombies in there! Too many for us to easily just bash our way through. I needed to get in there and help if we were going to win the store as quickly as I wanted to. “Kara, you good?”

  “Go. I’ll be fine.”

  I took to the air, flying into Target through one of the shattered upper windows. Inside, the battle was far more chaotic than it looked from without. I couldn’t maintain Flight for too long, or I’d drain all my mana, so I dove in, landing just behind my juggernauts. From there it was three quick steps, and I was in the front line, sword in one hand and the new shield Farnsworth gifted me with in the other. I lashed out, cutting down one zombie after another.

  I’d grown faster. None of the tier one enemies could so much as touch me. I dodged each blow like they were standing still, and my sword flickered in and out of zombies like a beam of light. I’d grown stronger. One zombie got too close for the sword, so I fired off a front kick at it instead. The kick sent it sailing back twenty feet! It smashed through six other zombies as it sailed through the air, before finally coming to a crushing stop against the far wall.

  Each of my sword swings chopped zombie parts clean off. A swing to a neck decapitated the zombie. A blow to a leg cut the leg off. I still wasn’t used to this level of raw power, but it was growing on me.

  I’d grown more resistant to damage, too. The skeleton mages on the enemy side figured out fast that I was a serious threat, and they ganged up on me. Three of them dropped Harm spells on me at almost the exact same moment. A few days ago, that might have killed me outright. Now, I felt the pain as those spells hit, and it was even enough to stagger me—but it didn’t come close to taking me down. I dropped a Drain Life on the nearest of the mages and killed it instantly, restoring most of my lost health.

  Ten minutes later, Target was ours. We’d cleared the place entirely, my juggernauts holding the line just on this side of the doors to the rest of the mall.

  I called Sue into the store, and we gathered up all our troops, making ready for the next step of the operation. Gaining a beachhead was the easy part. From here on out, I was confident things were going to grow much more difficult.