Even Zombie Killers Can Go to Hell

by J. F. Holmes

  “Is that your plan?” asked Cahill.

  I smiled and said, “I thought you’d like it. No sneaking.”

  He just shook his head and walked back over to his truck, pulling magazines out of a duffle and slipping them into a dump pouch affixed to the dash.

  We started the trucks back up, did a radio check, test fired our weapons, and started down into the valley. When Jonas topped out at twenty MPH, I told him to step on it, and we shot forward. Well, we sped up, anyway.

  Wrecks started to appear, but there seemed to be a clear lane. Either Mountain Republic or our engineers had opened a lane down the center. Undead also started to appear, wandering down the road. Our engines were heavily muffled, and the modified V-shaped “cow catchers” on the front of the trucks tossed them aside instead of bashing against the fiberglass hood. There was no way to shoot them at that speed, so we all just held on.

  For the most part, they pretty much disintegrated when we hit them. Ten years of wandering the outdoors, exposed to sun, rain, snow, heat, whatever, had left them little more than ambling husks. I still had no idea what animated them, bacteria, virus, weird alien possession, whatever, and I didn’t care.

  One hit, the remains of an immensely fat woman, and rolled up onto the hood. It started howling and scrabbling toward me. I heard muffled answering howls from Brit in the cargo space, and anger flared up in me. Pulling out the heavy ball peen hammer I was carrying for close-in work, I climbed up and leaned over the top of the windshield, trying to hold steady and swing the hammer at the same time. With a POP I connected, and her head exploded; the thing swung off the hood, rolling down the road.

  “Feel better?” asked Hildebrand from above me where he hung on the gun.

  “A little bit, yeah!” I answered. Then Jonas slammed on the brakes, coming to a skidding halt, and Truck Two kissed our back bumper before stopping. The fog broke on the other side of a small river, and ahead of us, moving slowly across the highway, were thousands of undead. With a roaring howl, they turned as one and started running at us.

  Chapter 325

  “GO! GO! GO!” I yelled, and Jonas looked at me like I was crazy. Then he shook his head and stomped on the gas.

  We hit the horde going about fifty, and the truck started to rock from side to side, then jumped up as we smashed into the bodies. Hands reached for us, grabbing, howling, and we fired as fast as we could while the truck lost momentum. Point-blank headshots until our magazines ran dry, and behind us, their way cleared, Boz swept the SAW up and down the sides of our truck. I could hear the rounds hammering through bodies and into the pavement, and ricochets banged into the sides.

  One managed to latch on, and I hammered at it with the buttstock of my empty rifle, crushing its head and shattering the plastic. Another ripped it out of my hands, and I heard a yell from behind me. Elam had been grabbed around the neck, and he hunched down into his collar, trying to avoid the bite. Dragging at my holstered pistol, I saw that I was going to be too late, and the bouncing truck would make a clean shot impossible. Hildebrand turned, stepped, and kicked the thing as hard as he could in the head. Rotted bone crumpled, and his boot sank deep into gore, then it fell away.

  Our speed was down to less than thirty now, the mass of undead in front of us compacting as they piled up, and Jonas turned the wheel from side to side to try to scatter them. The wheels started spinning on the gore, and we lost traction, slowing down. For a second, I thought we were done, and fear shot through me, my heart racing. Then the tires caught, and we managed to reach a cleared spot.

  Behind us, Truck Two slipped on the gore also, and then raced ahead, sticking to our bumper like glue. Another fog bank, and then a barricade of cars set to slow traffic, some long-ago defensive position, even as Hildebrand yelled, “WATCH IT!”. With a screech of tires, Jonas swerved in time to miss the first wreck, and behind us we heard a loud CRASH, steel and fiberglass shattering. Our truck slid to a stop, the way ahead mercifully clear of undead. He looked at me, obviously asking what he should do.

  For a split second, I thought of ordering Jonas to continue onward, I really did. But, well, they were my men, I’d led them there. I said nothing, just swung open the half door and started running back and around the barricade, even as gunfire erupted, a furious fusillade of semi and automatic fire, unseen but less than twenty feet away.

  I passed Mary coming back the other way, her face bloody, her arm hanging limply, with Vasquez holding her up and firing backward one-handed with her rifle, just throwing rounds downrange. Elam grabbed her and half-carried her into the back as I moved forward, pistol up, and Vasquez reloaded as she followed me. As we came around the barricade, I saw the truck, hood smashed and leaking coolant, tipped half up onto a wreck.

  The Marine ran to the truck, pulled herself up against the tilted SAW, and started hammering away with short aimed bursts, head high, knocking back undead, but they kept coming. Boz was trying to extricate Shona from the wreck, but her leg was caught. Badger was locked in mortal hand-to-hand combat with two undead who were swarming him, trying to get a bite in, and a half dozen more had slipped past Vasquez’s wall of lead. Cahill stood square on, like he was back on the Line, rock steady, pop pop pop, dropping them like clockwork.

  That time thing happened. The thing where I seemed to have all the time in the world to choose a course of action. Drop to one knee, pistol up, two-handed grip, sight blade lining up on the face of one undead, squeeze the trigger. The barrel rises as the smoking shell is ejected out the side, but not much, the suppressor holding it down, the round zipping through the top of Badger’s arm, a little puff on the edge of his uniform sleeve. Same face, fire again, shift left, red mist, side of the head, Badger’s contorted face inches away, trying to hold the teeth off. Fire, fire, fire, and shift to approaching ones as Badger’s enemies drop.

  Elam had apparently grabbed Brit’s shotgun, because I heard the rough, ringing cough of it firing, and Ziv had raced past me, AK up on his shoulder. Hildebrand moved to help Boz, and time suddenly returned to normal. The immediate space in front of us was clear for about a hundred meters back. Behind that were the undead in their thousands, more and more climbing onto the highway.

  “FALL BACK!” I yelled and ran to stand next to Cahill. As they came closer, I started shooting, even as undead came streaming down the side of the roads, too. They smelled fresh meat, and they were hungry. Thousands of red, angry, glowing eyes. Ziv opened up with his rifle next to me, and the three of us stood side by side, shooting as steady as we could. Now I was in Cahill’s element and, glancing at him, I saw, over the stock of his rifle, his eyes crinkle up in a smile. Beside him now stood Badger, a wild look in his eyes, blood running down his shoulder, but shooting steadily.

  “Last mag!” said Cahill as he dropped one on the pavement and grabbed another, slamming it home.

  I looked back and saw Shona being carried around the barricade by Boz and Hildebrand. The nose of Truck One was poking back through the opening, and they threw her up on the hood. “OK, let’s go!” yelled Badger, and the four of us turned and ran with the demons of hell hot on our heels, Elam providing covering fire with the shotgun. Vasquez, last out, took time to unlatch the SAW from its pintle mount, and she held it in two hands, disregarding the red-hot barrel.

  We jumped on the bloody cowcatcher, and Jonas slammed it into reverse, backed it up through the barricade, then did a quick three-point turn. It was hard to hold onto the slick metal, and I waved for him to stop. When he did, I ran back around and climbed in the TC seat, the others in the back, Ziv and Cahill electing to stay on the hood, but securing themselves more tightly.

  The next two miles passed in a blur, completely clear road and highway climbing up out of the valley, undead falling behind. When I judged we’d gone far enough, I called a halt, and we gently slowed to a stop.

  “Doc, check out Shona and Mary. Everyone, give me a check.”

  Vasquez, “Yo! Burned the fuck out of my hands.”

&nbs
p; Badger, “I’m good. No bites, but my shoulder stings.” The relief in his voice was evident.

  Ziv, “Dobro!”

  Cahill, “Like being back on the Line.” Yeah, screw that.

  Elam, “Still alive, I think.” He moved to help Badger put a dressing on his shoulder.

  Hildebrand, in a shaky voice, “I’m OK, but I think I pissed myself.”

  “Won’t be the last time,” said Boz, stuffing loaded magazines back into his ammo carrier, spitting out a stream of tobacco juice. “Good job grabbing the gun, Vasquez..”

  Jonas was already out and kneeling by Mary where she lay on the ground. Seeing his hands shaking, I went over to him and asked, “You OK, Jonas?”

  “Yeah I’m fine. But I’m not doing this scouting shit anymore. Nice farm for me.” He held his friend’s hand as she grimaced in pain; Doc was putting an improvised sling on her arm.

  After Doc told me Mary had a dislocated shoulder and possibly a broken collar bone, I went to where Shona was sitting with her back to the wheel of the truck, a splint already on her leg. “Hey, Major,” I asked softly, “you alright?”

  She guzzled what seemed a canteen worth of water, wiped her face, and said, “Yeah, but my leg is fucked up, Nick. Doesn’t hurt yet; Doc said it’s a clean break. Pretty useless now, though.”

  Finished with her civilian charge, Doc knelt down next to her and said, “I’m going to see if we can get a Medevac for you and Mary; her shoulder’s pretty destroyed. You both need treatment, and the 1st ID CASH isn’t that far.”

  I started to object, but Doc Swan, that laid back, quiet, middle-aged nurse, gave me a look that froze me in my tracks. Maybe not, I thought. “OK,” I said, “but we’ve got to keep moving. Look for a good LZ on the map outside Frederick.”

  Looking at my watch, I counted the time. Twenty-seven hours since Brit had been bitten.

  Chapter 326

  While waiting for the dust-off to extract Shona and Mary, I’d blistered the sitcom channels, calling in every favor ever owed me and, if things were going as promised, three F-15 Strike Eagles were winging their way to Andrews Air Force Base. In the back seat of each was one of the scientists and technicians from Halifax Research Lab. A helo was supposed to bring them and drop them off with us.

  The promise itself had come from President Epson. I’d been yelling at the CG of JSOC, and he was yelling back, when the line went dead and Chris Epson’s voice came over. “You’ll get what you need, Nick. I owe her my life.” Then it had dropped entirely.

  Now, the sounds of the helo faded away, the echoes slowly dying out across the valley as it faded into the east. I paced back and forth in growing frustration; we’d had to wait more than an hour for the bird due to them being non-critical. Climbing back into the passenger seat, I punched the dashboard with my fist, ignoring the pain.

  “Let’s just GO!” I yelled, and the team was quiet, not looking at me. Behind us, Brit howled in her body bag, sounding less human than ever. Jonas put it in gear and we rolled forward, headed toward the suburbs that surrounded the base.

  Fort Detrick wasn’t exactly a “fort” in the classical sense of the word. No high walls surrounded by a moat, like some of the coastal forts built in the 1800s. It was a modern facility, surrounded by chain-link fence and a cleared perimeter, but there were commercial buildings right up next to it, as well as apartment buildings.

  We pulled over onto the side of State Route 40 within sight of the gate. It was noon, hot as hell, and there wasn’t a sound. I looked to the sky to see the turkey vultures circling, but nothing else moved.

  “What do you think?” I asked everyone in general. No one spoke, and the tension was thicker than the fog had been that morning. We were going into the unknown, into some kind of combat. Everyone was still shaken up by earlier events, and we were running on little sleep and a lot of caffeine. That and I really think they were doubting my judgement. I know I was.

  “Ziv?” I asked.

  “We go in hard and fast. Kill anything that moves.”

  “Sergeant Cahill?”

  He thought for a moment, then said, “Slow and quiet, could be anything in there.” Good, at least he was thinking.

  “Well, we need to clear it, at least the target building and an LZ,” I said, thinking out loud.

  The tide of war had swept over the city of Frederick, and I doubted there were undead around. Buildings had been shattered by artillery, and there were few unbroken windows. Military facilities faired a little better, and we’d gotten an intel dump over the radio from a friend at JSOC. Last they knew, there might have been a squad or even a platoon of Mountain Republic troops there, holed up somewhere in the city. They’d been bypassed earlier in the drive to break their supply lines from DC to the Shenandoah Valley.

  “As soon as we secure the building, you call that helo in,” I said to Badger. “Those techs have to get to work most tik. Jonas, you’re a farmer, you’ve gotta have some experience with electricity. There should be backup generators that were there to keep refrigeration going. We’ve got forty gallons of diesel; you’ve got to make them work.”

  “I’ll do what I can, but it’s been ten years, probably rusted shut,” he said gloomily.

  Boz answered for me; he could see I was losing my patience. “Military grade should be OK. Though, if this is where it all started…”

  “It was ground zero, this place. Before the second plague, one of the Teams cleared it and they started doing research again,” I said. “But it got shut down when we pulled back to New York. So they probably sealed everything up, and I bet the MR had it going again.”

  Vasquez spoke up from the gun, “Why are we sitting here bullshitting? Let’s go.”

  Me, Boz, Vasquez, Elam, Ziv, Vasquez, Cahill, Jonas, and Doc. Nine of us to clear a building of possible enemy troops and undead. Clear it and hold it against whatever our gunfire attracted. I didn’t count the reporter, even though he held Brit’s shotgun in a white-knuckled grip. His job was to guard Brit and help get her down into the labs.

  “OK, then, we pile on. Jonas, do you need to look at the map again? I’m counting on you.”

  He shook his head and just shifted into drive. We rolled forward, off the highway and into the main drag that would take us to the base. This was going to be quick and dirty, and if we met resistance, we’d hammer it. Ice ran down my spine as we moved, despite the July heat. It was a feeling of being watched; the vehicle and weaponry were a treasure beyond compare.

  Our first contact was a grunt from Vasquez as she fell over, knocked forward onto the gun, the echo of the shot sounding a split second later, impossible to tell where it came from in the echoing canyon of buildings. “SNIPER!” yelled Badger, holding Vasquez from falling out of the truck as Jonas swerved and accelerated, just as something heavier opened up on us. One burst in front of us, then it stopped, probably jammed, but rifle fire rattled around us too. In their eagerness to seize the ruck, they tried to pick their shots. Nevertheless, several perforated the fiberglass hood.

  Ahead of us a wrecked bus, hauled up into the air by a block and tackle, crashed down, blocking the street, designed to make a kill zone. “ELAM!” I shouted, “UP ON THE GUN!” even as the rate of fire increased.

  A voice, amplified by a bullhorn, cut through the air, demanding we surrender. It was cut short as the .50 hammered across the building front, and I distinctly heard someone say, “SHIT!” through the bullhorn before it died with a screech.

  “What the hell do I do?” asked Jonas as we sped toward the wreck. Bullets again scored the concrete around us, and he swerved from side to side, trying to make a harder target. Muzzle flashes from the roofs sparked on either side, and Elam started raking them with .50 caliber. Ziv also opened up with the SAW, and the others joined in with aimed shots as well as they could. The gunfire was deafening, and I had to point to where I wanted Jonas to go. He aimed the truck toward a shattered storefront at the bottom of the leftmost occupied building, and we bounced over t
he sill and into the darkness.

  “Jonas, stay with the truck. Badger, how is she?” I asked. He was tearing off Vasquez’ uniform blouse, looking for a wound, and she sat up and punched him in the face.

  “I guess OK!” he said, smiling and holding his jaw. “But her chest plate’s shattered.”

  More gunfire from outside, and Elam fired once, hitting a man who had moved into the street. His buddies grabbed him and dragged him back inside the doorway, just throwing unamied fire into the storefront.

  “OK, Jonas, Vasquez, guard the truck and keep them suppressed, the rest of us, UP! Hildebrand, I hope you’re taking notes!”

  Without a word, I ran toward the back of the store, moving over broken counters and shattered furniture. Finding a door to a stairway, I flicked my tac light on and shot the lock off. Ziv stormed past me, and I followed him, weapon scanning. Speed was the key here, but we also had to be careful of IEDs and tripwires.

  We reached the first landing without engaging anyone. Ziv was about to round the landing when a grenade came bouncing down the stairs past me, the spoon following it. Sergeant Yasser, three steps below me, yelled, “ALLAH AKBAR!” and dove on it. I tried to crawl into my helmet, waiting for shrapnel to rip me open, as Ziv fired upward on full auto.

  The Afghani finally rolled off the dud and sat breathing heavily. “Holy shit,” he muttered to himself, staring at the small round object. I nodded to him, and Ziv and I continued up the stairs, followed by Cahill and Badger. We left the Afghani sniper trying to stand up on shaky legs and, as he passed, Badger said, "Seventy-two virgins aren't going to do much good with your balls blown off."

  "Ha ha," said Yasser weakly, and slid back down the wall.

  Chapter 327

  On the landing above us, a kid in MR camo was sprawled out on the floor with his brains splattered on the ceiling from one or more of Ziv’s AK rounds. A round entry hole was just above his right eye, and a look of surprise still showed on his face. He must have been leaning over to see the effects of his grenade and hadn’t expected anyone to shoot back. “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” said Cahill, but I could see that the kid’s age troubled him. As the war had wound down, they’d become more and more desperate for manpower, and I doubted this one was even fifteen. Screw it.