Ballantine sighed and looked over at Bellara, but the captain was in deep conversation with his chain of command. He turned back to the mayor and her people and tried to collect his thoughts. Only hours ago he’d seen the Gap fall beneath the hordes of the dead, and the National Guard post had been heavily fortified and defended by well-trained and disciplined troops, many of which had seen action against the reekers. The chances of this small town surviving even a half-hearted assault by the zombies were so small as to be negligible.
But you can’t tell them to say goodbye to each other and start eating their guns, right?
“First thing, don’t depend on your wall. It’s not going to stop them for a moment once they find out there are people inside, you understand?” Ballantine pointed to the irregular formation that surrounded the town. “There are plenty of weak points all around, and they’ll be able to crash through it just from mass alone. The best thing the wall can offer is concealment, and if I were you, I’d start plugging all the holes with everything that’s not nailed down.”
The mayor nodded. “All right. What else?”
“Be quiet. Don’t do anything that might give the dead a clue you’re around. Any kind of life signature will draw them in. We don’t know if they can smell or not, for instance. Right? But they might be able to, so you shouldn’t cook food. Spend the next few days or weeks eating out of cans and bags. You have a central water supply?”
“Two streets over,” one of the men in the crowd said. “We have two tractor trailers full of water.”
“Start issuing water to your people. They can’t leave their homes once the dead make it inside the wall, so they’ll need food and water so they can shelter in place. You have livestock?”
The man with the beard and twitchy eye nodded. “I have two horses.”
“Get them out of the town and let them loose,” Ballantine told him. “They can’t be controlled. They’ll make noise and do everything you don’t want them to. Get rid of them.”
The man snorted. “I’m not getting rid of my horses!”
“Then you might as well kill them now and cut them up for food, because if you don’t? Fifty thousand walking corpses might find them and decide to check out the rest of the town. The dead, they’re plumb stupid. But they have no fear, and they can be very determined when it comes to getting into the chow line. You understand me? They won’t stop.”
The man shook his head angrily. “Not getting rid of my horses,” he said again.
Ballantine shrugged. It wasn’t his problem.
“What else, Sergeant?” The mayor wasn’t letting him off the hook. Ballantine glanced back at Bellara, and saw the captain wasn’t smiling. More gunfire sounded in the distance, then a quick rap erupted much closer to the town. Guerra and the boys had just engaged some targets.
“Fortify your personal shelters. Board up windows, barricade doors. If people can exist on a second story, block the stairwells so they can’t climb up. Or just plain destroy them. But that’s not going to be enough—again, don’t leave a signature. Kids have to be quiet, the sick have to be quiet, everything has to be quiet. You want the dead to think your town is a corpse just like they are.” He paused to gather his thoughts for a moment. More gunfire sounded. Things were getting hot. “Some of your people will die. Don’t try and save them, because you won’t be able to.”
“You must be kidding us,” the mayor said, and her voice was a hiss.
“I wish I was, ma’am. I wish I was.”
Bellara finished his chat with his commanders and returned to the group. He looked nervous but still tried to smile. “Ballantine?”
“Just giving the good people here some survival tips for the coming days, sir. What’s up with the colonel?”
“Okay, listen. Good news, bad news. Good news is, they’ve got the signal situation straightened out and the recon teams say the immediate path is good to go—no dead trains or anything blocking the line. Bad news is the train is attracting a lot of attention. Jarmusch is about to dismount another company for security while the teams fall back—they’ve sighted about four or five hundred reekers emerging from the tree line to the south. We need to pull out of here.”
“And that’s it?” said the bearded man with the eye that was winking much faster now. “You’re just going to leave?”
“Like I said earlier, we’re in a time crunch here, sir,” Bellara said.
“What about us?” the man yelled.
“What did I say about being quiet?” Ballantine said.
“I have orders, mister. I’m just a captain, I follow more orders than I can ever give,” Bellara replied.
The man ignored Bellara’s response. He looked like he was about to start swinging. Ballantine did a quick scan of the rest of the people in the group. They all looked scared, but no one appeared to be having any devious thoughts about taking him out.
“What about us, you bastard?” the man snarled at Bellara.
“Mitchell.” The mayor’s voice was calm and even. “Get yourself under control.”
Bellara stood up straight beneath his battle rattle as the last vestiges of his good-humored smile evaporated from his face. “Mister, that train?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the general area where the long train sat idling in the day. “My troops are on that train. A thousand plus civilians are on that train. My family is on that train. So what about you? I’ll tell you. You are not my fucking problem. Let’s go, Sergeant.”
With that, Bellara turned on his heel and started back toward the ladder that would lead him to the top of the wall and another ladder that would take him down. Ballantine turned back to Mayor Mags.
“Ma’am, remember what I told you. You can’t save everyone, and you might not even be able to save anyone. But you do what I told you to do, you’ll have as good a chance as any.”
The mayor’s face was a blank mask behind her sunglasses. “Thank you, Sergeant.”
“Ballantine, let’s go!” Bellara was already halfway up the ladder and moving fast. Apparently heights weren’t as much to be frightened of any longer, now that the dead were arriving.
“On it, sir.”
On the way back to the waiting Humvees, Ballantine had a quick discussion with Bellara regarding the fallen police officers outside the town’s walls and how their gear and ammo could be useful. The captain acknowledged this and gave permission for Guerra’s element to scrounge what they could in five minutes—after that, they needed to get back to the train. It would take some time to recover the vehicles and get underway, and the National Guard commander was necessarily eager to get back to the rest of his company. After all, they formed the bleeding edge around the train, and if it was under dedicated attack, Bellara wanted to be with his troops. For that reason, he swapped positions with another soldier. The newcomer would ride with Ballantine, while Bellara went ahead to the train. Bellara’s first sergeant would provide oversight, something which didn’t thrill Ballantine. The first sergeant was suitably blocky and taciturn, as only a first sergeant could be. But there was something soft about the guy, like he would go all belt-fed crazy the second he saw a reeker picking its way toward the Humvee.
Ballantine gave Guerra his orders. As expected, Guerra accepted the mission without dissent. He squared away the rest of the lightfighters, and a minute later the column of Humvees was on the road. The town behind them was essentially forgotten now; Mayor Madge and her people would have to fend for themselves.
Hartman stopped the Humvee just past the fighting position where the cops had made their last stand. Guerra pushed open the uparmored front passenger door and hauled his ass out of the vehicle’s front seat.
“Hartman, stay behind the wheel,” he said. “We’re not gonna be long.”
“Unless we find some more Danon yogurt,” Tharinger cracked. “Then Stilley’s gonna be bottoming for fruits all day long.”
“You guys really know how to stretch a bad joke,” Stilley muttered as he crawled ou
t of the Humvee as well. “I was just eating yogurt!”
“Fruit on the bottom, sweetheart!” Tharinger said. “Right there on the label!”
“Come on, let’s get this shit over with!” Guerra looked back at Ballantine’s Humvee. The big sergeant first class and Reader dismounted with the rest of the troops and took up security positions. There were reekers shambling toward the group, but they were several hundred feet away and moved slowly. Their arms described odd arcing movements, almost as if they were attempting to swim through the humid day.
He joined Tharinger and Stilley as they entered the overrun position. Dried gore was everywhere, and black flies swarmed around looking for anything that still might provide sustenance. They were out of luck. The bodies of the cops who had manned the position had been torn apart and lay in pieces pretty much everywhere. Anything the reekers hadn’t consumed had been worried by local wildlife. The stench of death remained, however. Guerra wrinkled his nose at the disgusting smell as he pawed through the debris, pulling out rifles, pistols, and unspent ammunition. Stilley and Tharinger did the same, looking up occasionally to check the area.
Tharinger release a coughing laugh as he picked up something from the gore-encrusted ground. “Oh, I can’t fucking believe this!” He threw it toward Stilley. Guerra watched as a plastic container tumbled through the air and bounced off a rib cage that had been picked clean before rolling to a halt beside Stilley’s left boot. The container was filthy, but Guerra could make out its label through the grime. Blueberry Dannon yogurt.
Stilley scowled. “Man, you’re about to get on my last nerve, guy!”
Tharinger spread his hands, indicating the carnage that lay all around them. “You’re standing among your deceased people, Stilley. They liked fruit on the bottom, too.”
Stilley sniffed and picked up something of his own from the ground. He held it up for Tharinger to see. “You want me to throw this shit at you, butthole?”
Guerra peered at the object through narrowed eyes. It was generally cylindrical, but it had a pin and safety handle. It was a concussion grenade. “Stilley...be careful with that, you idiot!”
“It’s just a flash bang, Sergeant G,” Stilley said, as if that explained everything.
“I know what it is! Just put it away and get back to work!”
Stilley shrugged and put the device in one of his pockets then turned to pick up the rest of the ammunition boxes scattered around him. Tharinger had already collected two rifles, and regarded a third with a blown-out barrel.
“Take it,” Guerra told him. “We might be able to use the lower.”
“Got it,” Tharinger replied.
“Guerra!” This was Ballantine, his voice coming over Guerra’s headset. “Time’s up—reekers are getting close!”
Guerra turned and looked back toward the Humvees. Sure enough, the reekers were only about a hundred feet away. The soldiers could waste them, of course. But a more thoughtful decision would be to mount up and drive away, thereby saving some ammunition.
“Okay assholes, fall back with what you got,” Guerra said. He had a rifle and a few pistols himself, and several boxes of ammunition that he’d stuffed into his pockets. “Come on, shake a leg!”
The two lightfighters preceded Guerra in the fallback to the waiting Humvees. They mounted up and Guerra gave Ballantine a thumbs up before he flung himself into the front passenger seat. He heaved against the heavy, uparmored door and pulled it closed.
“Ballantine’s element is mounted,” Hartman said, staring at his sideview mirror. “Reekers about twenty meters out to the rear.”
“Let’s go,” Guerra said. “Get us back to the train, Hartman.”
Hartman dropped the Humvee into gear and rolled away. Guerra checked his own mirror and saw Ballantine’s Humvee was on the move as well, right on their tail. He leaned back in his seat and sighed. Everyone was all right. They’d made it, and the train came into view as Hartman accelerated over a small hill. It was being harassed by a small element of zombies, but nothing the dismounted Guardsmen couldn’t handle. A few moldering corpses lay scattered about, individual reekers that had been cut down as they advanced toward the long consist. Rifles snapped in the near distance.
“Man, that shit’s gonna wake up Kenny,” Hartman said.
“Yeah. World’s gone to hell, and all we have to worry about is a kid getting enough sleep,” Tharinger said from the back.
Guerra turned to look at him, irritated by the comment even though he had kind of been thinking the same thing himself. “You’re all heart, Tha—”
He was cut off by a piece of metal that bounced off his helmet. Stilley, Tharinger, and Guerra all stared at the flash bang grenade in Stilley’s hand, dumbfounded. Somehow, Stilley had pulled the pin and managed to let go of the safety lever at the same time.
Stilley’s eyes were as wide as silver dollars. “Yeah, like I didn’t mean to do that...”
“Drop it, you idiot!” Guerra thundered. Stilley dropped it to the floorboard and pulled his knees to his chest. At the same time, Hartman wrenched the wheel to the right and stood on the brakes without being told. Guerra threw open the Humvee’s heavy door with all his strength and managed to get it ajar about halfway before the grenade went off like a thunderclap right behind his seat.
“Okay, what the fuck? Over,” Reader said when Guerra’s Humvee suddenly swerved to the right and locked up its brakes. Reader stood on the brake pedal and drifted to the right without Ballantine having to say anything—it was a normal reaction, peeling out of a column in the event of a sudden attack. Ballantine was clueless as to what was going on as Reader brought the vehicle to a halt, and the first sergeant sitting behind him was just as perplexed.
“What the fuck are your people doing, Ballantine?” he snapped.
What, like I fucking know, Joe?
The doors on Guerra’s Humvee slowly opened, and a sudden explosion of dust erupted into the summer day from the vehicle’s interior. Ballantine heard the sharp crack of an explosive an instant later, and his heart began hammering overtime. At first, he thought the Humvee had struck an IED. Even though they were almost in the heartland of America, it was the first thing that popped into his head. What the fuck, over indeed.
Ballantine pushed open his door as soon as the Humvee had come to a full stop and hit the belt release with his left hand. He tucked his rifle in close as his feet hit the roadway.
“Reader, stay with the vehicle!” he ordered.
“Sure thing,” Reader said.
Ballantine pounded across the asphalt road, sprinting toward Guerra’s Humvee as fast as he could under the weight of full battle rattle. He was dimly aware of the rest of his vehicle’s occupants pushing out after him, but he didn’t wait. These were his men, he needed to get there right away.
He saw Guerra emerge from the Humvee, swearing up a storm at full volume. He staggered away from the uparmored vehicle while rubbing his eyes. He was screaming in Spanish. Then the rear passenger door opened and Stilley practically tumbled out, falling to his knees on the road. He still maintained control of his SAW, but there were no targets.
“What the fuck happened?” Ballantine shouted as he rolled up.
Guerra ignored him and starting punching Stilley in the head, still screaming in Spanish. Stilley didn’t even try to defend himself beyond raising his hands up. Guerra slapped them away and in an instant, he had Stilley flat against the Humvee, shouting and cursing.
“Stilley! You stupid fuck! What the hell were you thinking, you damned pendejo!” Guerra slapped Stilley across the face with enough force to make the lightfighter’s head rock back and forth like a dingy in the middle of a hurricane-riddled sea.
“Guerra! Stop that now!” Ballantine shouted. Guerra apparently didn’t hear him, for he kept banging away at Stilley like a kid at a piñata, slapping him again and again. Ballantine let his rifle hang from his shoulder by its patrol strap as he slammed into Guerra and pinned his arms to his side.
Guerra struggled against Ballantine even though he was substantially less than six feet four and two hundred twenty pounds. The staff sergeant was strong, Ballantine realized then. A true kickass, and if it had been a real fight, Ballantine wondered who might win. But Guerra blinked and realized who it was who had braced him, and his struggles ceased immediately.
“I can’t fucking hear you, Carl!” he shouted. “Copernicus here let off a flash bang in the fucking Humvee!”
Ballantine grabbed Guerra by the shoulders and pressed him against the Humvee. “What?”
“I can’t fucking hear you, Ballantine—we’re all fucking deaf!”
Ballantine released Guerra and turned to Stilley. The soldier was woozy on his feet, but still had his SAW under control and at least attempted to scan the horizon for threats. He seized one of Stilley’s arms and forced him to look at him.
“Stilley, can you hear me?” he asked, raising his voice. “What did you fucking do?”
Stilley looked at him stupidly, but that was hardly unusual. Ballantine shook him roughly, and Stilley held up one hand.
“Sorry Sergeant, can’t hear shit right now,” he shouted.
Ballantine hissed in irritation and looked inside the Humvee. It still looked operational; whatever had happened didn’t appear to have impacted the vehicle’s functionality. He pushed Stilley back into the Humvee and slammed the door closed, then pulled Guerra back to the front passenger seat. As he watched Guerra slip inside and get himself squared away, Ballantine bent over and looked at Hartman.
“Sergeant Hartman, can you hear me?” he shouted.
“Barely,” Hartman shouted back.
“Ballantine! Get your people squared away!” This was the Guard first sergeant, still standing beside the Humvee Ballantine had been riding in. “Reekers inbound!”
These Dead Lands (Book 2): Desolation Page 10