I'm Tired of Zombies | Book 2 | Full Scale War

by Murphy, James W.

  No one said anything, so I said, “Turn your hot mikes on and move out.” The five of us broke up and moved to the areas I assigned. I dropped the bipod on my fifty and lay just behind the lip of the downward slope of bunker four, my M4 laying across my back. Ruth lay to my left and just behind. She didn’t want to be hit by hot fifty caliber expended brass and I didn’t want to be hit by hot .308 expended brass from her AR-10. She’d found a bipod on another rifle and put it on her AR, and extended the feet, snuggling into her rifle. I was glad she was on our side.

  Over the hot mike I said, “Everyone ready?”

  “Dave up.”

  “Julia up.”

  “Chet up.”

  “Ruth up.”

  “Okay, people, eyes open, ear plugs in. We already know the track records of the people in the black hummers so shoot first and shoot well. I love all of you, God bless.”

  The five of us waited. Ruth whispered down to me, “How many do you think they’ll be?”

  “Three hummers, maybe four in each, so between six and twelve I’d say,” I answered her.

  Dave came over with, “I agree. Chet, keep an eye out in between those buildings. They may park on the west side and move forward through the buildings.”

  “Got it,” came the response from Chet. “I can hear the hummers now…it sounds like they’re at the gate, stopped, they may be cutting the lock.”

  “Okay everyone, get ready and stay as low as you can,” I told the group.

  Chet was the first to fire. It made the rest of us jump, and he soon followed up with a second and then a third shot. Now we could hear M4s rattling to the west, so someone was shooting our direction.

  Dave was obviously next as the report from the fifty overpowered every other sound around. He came over the hot mike and said, “Two going to the north – Doug, Ruth, get ready.”

  “Copy,” I said and pulled the fifty in tighter. I looked through the scope and saw the first guy running in a crouch. I sighted on him and Ruth’s shot made me jump. She nailed the guy with her AR-10. The second guy fell next to the first and began checking his vitals or something. That’s when I let loose with the fifty. The round went through the first guy and the second spun almost one-hundred eighty degrees from where he was. Ruth and I could see the spray of tissue and gore flying from the two.

  I watched for movement and saw none from either. Dave fired again and we could hear Julia’s M4 rattling off rounds. Chet was still firing from his position, too. Ruth nudged me and pointing, indicated she was going to the top and add her fire to the front. I nodded and she began crawling up the slope of the bunker. I moved forward to get a better view myself.

  I heard Dave fire another round and almost immediately came an explosion from the west. Dave came over the hot mike saying, “Man that was spectacular.” I could see a black and white mushroom-like cloud rising to my left. He must have hit one of their hummers.

  I crawled to the upper side on the lower end of the bunkers and could see the hummer burning fiercely. It was still rolling, slowly, to the south, with a body slumped over the steering wheel, through the windshield. That meant at least three dead.

  The shooting died as suddenly as it had begun. We all waited, tense, scanning the area. I said, “Everyone okay?”

  “I’m good,” Chet said, adding, “I got one.”

  “I’m good,” from Julia.

  “Me, too,” from Dave.

  “As am I,” Ruth said.

  “I’m okay, too. How many of them are down do you think?” I asked the team.

  “I got the one for sure and can still see him. He’s not moving,” Chet answered.

  “Dave and I got three, two in the hummer and I got one with my M4,” from Julia.

  “Ruth and I got two for sure,” I reported. “That’s six,” I said. “May be more out there so keep a sharp eye.”

  “There’s definitely more,” Chet reported. “I saw two go behind the big building on the right.”

  “That’s the garage building,” Dave said.

  “I saw another go that same direction,” Julia reported.

  “So at least three more,” I said. “Stay down everyone.”

  The bullet hit my fifty just in front of the bolt face, destroying the action and the scope. I rolled away from the useless rifle, down the embankment trying to get to the concrete wall for cover. The second bullet hit just behind me. I stopped the roll and swinging my M4 around and opened up in the general direction I thought the fire was coming from. I was on full auto and putting three and four-round bursts down range. I began hearing Ruth’s AR firing, but didn’t know where she was shooting.

  My mag ran dry and I began rolling down the embankment again. I ejected the spent mag and pulled another from my vest and while rolling, inserted it, and hit the BAD leaver loading the weapon. I reached the concrete wall and rolling over the side, landed with a grunt on the concrete leading to the bunker’s door. Rounds were pinging all around me, some hitting the concrete wall behind me.

  I took a few deep breaths and listened for the shooting sounds. I could hear Chet and Ruth, and from the north at least two .556 caliber weapons sending rounds our way. I peeked over the lip of the wall and saw two men firing at Ruth’s position. I brought my M4 up and taking careful aim fired a burst at the first guy. The rounds hit the tree and the guy, sending debris and gore flying to the rear. I think I’d fired eight or ten rounds. That meant seven down.

  I heard more shooting from the west and rose some to see if I could locate the shooter. Rounds smacked all around me and I felt a tug on my right side. I ducked down behind the wall and twenty or so rounds pocked the ground and wall all around where I’d been. I stuck my M4 up over the wall and emptied the mag in the general direction of the western shooter. Empty, I quickly inserted a fresh mag and activated the BAD leaver.

  No rounds were hitting near me, so I hazarded a look over the wall and saw a hummer with what looked to be an M249 in the turret. It was firing to my left, so I raised a bit more, aimed my M4 in that direction and cut loose on full auto. I could see my rounds hitting the hummer, but it obviously had armor. I fired until the mag went empty and dropped to reload.

  Rounds began hitting all around my position again. That must be the M249 raking my position. I heard Ruth’s AR-10 open up above me and knew she was okay. I was worried as she was lying in the open up there. I could hear more fire coming from Dave’s fifty and Julia’s M4 rattling away. I didn’t hear anything from Chet and that worried me. Was he hit or just out of targets?

  “Chet, you okay?” I asked.

  “Yep, still good. No targets right now.”

  “Move to the north and support Ruth. Concentrate on the hummer with the 249 on top, will you?”

  “Moving now,” he replied.

  Dave cut in with, “Doug, use your fifty on that hummer.”

  “My fifty was hit and is useless now – action and scope toast - sorry,” I answered.

  “On my way to Ruth with my fifty - Chet, stay with Julia,” Dave ordered.

  “Okay, will do,” Chet, said.

  I could still hear firing from above and could hear Ruth’s AR popping rounds on single fire. I’d better get back into the fight so rose and cut loose on the hummer again. I concentrated my fire on the turret’s firing slit, using four or five round bursts, hoping to slide one in through the firing portal. I could see my rounds thwacking the steel shield for the gun and saw it swing my direction. I dropped again and rounds began hitting all around me.

  Another explosion from the west got my attention. Chet came over the mike with, “That must have been ammo in that hummer that’s on fire. She sure blew good that time. Pieces are flying everywhere.” We could hear the excitement in his voice as he described the falling pieces, the fireball and renewed fire. “It looks like it’s melting the metal.”

  “Cut the chatter,” I said. “Dave, you ready to hit that hummer?”

  “Setting up now. Had to put a dressing on Ruth, she’s
hit; not badly but it’ll hurt for a while. I’ll be on it in a second. Give me some more covering fire, will ya?”

  With that, I opened up on the hummer again, concentrating my fire on the turret. I could hear Julia’s M4 opening up and could see her rounds hitting the hummer also. I popped a fresh mag in and began earnestly concentrating my fire on the firing portal.

  I was about halfway through my mag when I heard Dave’s fifty go off. The turret of the hummer suddenly had a new hole in it and the man behind the gun literally exploded when the big bullet hit. That gun was now quiet. I could see the driver moving around inside the vehicle when the second shot from Dave’s fifty hit the passenger window. It was as if someone had thrown a can of red spray paint inside the thing. I knew there would be no more to worry about from it.

  Dave said, “Hummer’s done. Check fires everyone and let’s see if anyone is left out there.”

  “Anyone see that third hummer?” I asked. The question met silence. “Okay, then, be on the alert and watch for it. They may have another turret mounted weapon on it.”

  Chet said, “I think it’s behind that garage building where I saw those other guys running.”

  “Dave, can you put a few rounds through the garage? Let’s see what we can flush out but wait until I get up there.”

  “Okay, changing positions and waiting for you.” Dave said.

  “I’m moving with him,” Ruth added.

  “I’ll be there in a second,” I said, climbing the embankment.

  As I crested the ridgeline, I could see Dave and Ruth lying up ahead about twenty yards. At a low crawl, I scooted in beside Ruth and said, “How you doin’?”

  “I’m okay, just a crease down my left arm,” she said with a smile. “Dave patched me up so I’m good.”

  “Dave, when ever you’re ready,” I said.

  “Get ‘em Dave!” came from Chet.

  I had to smile at his enthusiasm. I hoped he wasn’t enjoying this.

  Dave’s first round went into the garage. We knew the bullet would go all the way through the building, since there was nothing inside…that we knew of. His second left the big gun and he followed that with the rest from his magazine. He dropped the big mag, inserted a fresh one, and waited.

  Julia opened up a few moments later and Chet joined her. They were shooting to their left. I rolled past Ruth and Dave and added my M4 fire, shooting in the general direction they were. I was popping single shots at windows and to the corners of the buildings. I heard fire from my right and looked over to see two shooters next to the garage firing at Dave and Ruth.

  The two of them returned fire, Dave’s fifty taking the head off one and Ruth’s AR-10 stitching the other one with several rounds in the chest. Neither would move again. I saw Dave swing his fifty to the left to support us.

  The five of us saw a guy fire around the right side of the garage corner and we began shooting his direction. Dave said to cease-fire. The guy fired a few more rounds in our direction and when he slipped back around the corner, Dave fired, and we could see the body’s explosion of blood and tissue.

  The quiet was surprising. We could hear the flames from the burning hummer, crackling and the metal popping with the heat and cooling, but nothing else.

  “Stay down,” I said. “Keep scanning the area. Dave and Ruth scan to the north, Chet and Julia to the west.” I gave it a minute and then said, “See anything?”

  Negative answers came from everyone, so I stood up and said, “Clear.”

  “Clear,” from Dave.

  “Clear,” from Chet and Julia at the same time.

  The other four stood and we looked at each other with looks of relief and amazement. We had been in a major firefight and lived through it.

  “YOU’RE HIT!” Ruth yelled as she came running up to me. I turned to see whom she was talking about and no one was behind me. As I turned back, she slid in next to me winded, and yelled, “Do you realize you’re hit?” She was looking at me, eyes wide and concerned.

  I shook my head and looked at my left arm, then the right. She said, “Your side,” and pointed to my right side.

  The shirt was bathed in blood…so was my right pants leg now that I’d stood up. I remembered the tug I felt when the hummer with the 249 was firing at me. I let my M4 hang on its tether and pulled my shirttail out, lifting it so Ruth could survey the damage. I still didn’t feel any pain. She probed my bleeding wound and said I had a through-and-through in the love handle. The damage amounted to two small holes, where the .556 round had passed through. She poured some water over the wounds and drying them with four by fours, taped dressings over the holes then wrapped me up with some bandaging.

  Dave sauntered up and said, “So, you get another purple heart.”

  “And you get the marksmanship award for blasting hummers,” I said smiling.

  “How bad is the damage on your fifty?” Dave asked.

  “It’s done for. The bullet hit just under the action and it took both it and the scope out. I don’t think we’ll be able to get the magazine out either.”

  “Should we go check and see if any of those guys are just wounded?” Chet asked.

  “I suppose we should. If we find one alive, maybe we can get some information about what’s going on and why they shoot at everyone.”

  Dave, Chet, and I put fresh magazines in our weapons and moved out towards the buildings across the field. Julia and Ruth covered us with .308s. The hummer was still burning as we passed it and was too hot to get close. We didn’t bother going to the guy that had been at the corner of the garage. I kept watch with my M4 up and ready while Dave and Chet checked the bodies that were reasonably whole. If dead, they stuck them in the head to prevent a Z outbreak inside the fence. None of them had any identification on them. They didn’t have anything in their pockets at all.

  We found the third hummer on the west side of the garage, just as we supposed. We crept up to it and all three of us about jumped out of our skins when a radio came to life inside, the voice asking for a situation report.

  I looked at Dave and said, “Should I?” with a grin.

  “No,” he said, “they probably have a code they need to say first. I say just let it go and we’ll go check the other bodies.”

  We were about to walk away to the north when the radio said, “Launching drone, ETA twelve minutes your poz, copy?”

  The three of us looked at each other and I told Dave to find a place where he could shoot up with the fifty and get ready. I told Chet to get in the garage and stepping to the side of the building, whistled to get Julia and Ruth’s attention. When they looked at me, I signaled for them to come in, and as they came up told them to get into the garage and why.

  Dave had found a perfect place inside the hummer, with the fifty aiming up through the turret opening. I jumped in with him and we waited. I caught movement out the windshield, looked to the north and could see a multitude of Zs crowding against the northern boundary fence, attracted by all the noise of the firefight. If many more piled up, we would be in trouble.

  The radio crackled and then, “Drone ETA three minutes.”

  I brought my binos up and studied the western sky. It wasn’t long before I saw the thing, black against the gray-white cloud cover. I pointed at it for Dave and reinserting my earplugs, waited. He was tracking the thing, the barrel of the fifty slowly moving. Something caught the thing’s attention, because it came to a hover, turning this way and that. I saw Dave take a deep breath and I knew he was about to fire so I opened my mouth.

  The report made me jump even though I was expecting it. Those things scare the crap outta me every time. I peered out the driver’s door looking at where I’d last seen the drone and saw a smoking mass tumbling to the ground. Dave had hit the thing. When it smacked the ground, it flew into several pieces.

  “Great shot,” I said.

  “It never should have stopped,” Dave said with a smile.

  The radio crackled again and, “Black One, base, drone
malfunctioned. Can you locate and RTB with it for repair?”

  “Should I?” I asked Dave again.

  “Try it and just say, ‘Black One, roger’, and hang up.”

  I picked up the mike and keyed it, waited a second and said exactly that. Silence. “Maybe it worked,” I said.

  “Well if it didn’t, we’re going to have company again pretty soon,” Dave said.

  Leaving the hummer, we got the rest of the group and headed back to the bunkers. We loaded everything we could from the NG base and policed all the weapons and other materials the dead men had. We took all the MREs, clothing, Mollie gear, and every bit of ammunition we found. Find of finds was a green case with two, forty-millimeter grenade launchers. I remember from my study of the Vietnam War, they called them ‘thumpers’ and we searched for the ammunition needed for them, which Julia was the winner finding it in the second bunker. Six synthetic crates, filled with fifty rounds each. They would certainly come in handy. This, in all likelihood, would be our last trip to the NG base as we’d pretty much cleaned it out of supplies and equipment we knew how to use.

  When we left, we locked the gate for the last time and turned south for Fort Collins. We drove west on Prospect and watched the animals. The roadway was beginning to overgrow with trees and other plants. The concrete and asphalt were no longer smooth, and it was slow going in several areas. We finally reached College Drive and turned north.

  The first ranch store was as we’d left it. That was a bad sign and surprised us; no one breaking into the place, and it made us wonder if we were the last living humans in the tri-state area of northern Colorado, western Nebraska, and southeastern Wyoming. An area roughly the size of Rhode Island, eighty-thousand square-miles or so for five people that we knew of who were still alive, except for the black hummer people.

  We camped for the night inside the store, with one of us holding guard duty shifts every three hours through the night. The next morning, we made a large breakfast with a propane stove. Chet browsed through the store with a cart, picking things he wanted to keep from the supply. Later, we all took carts and began to collect supplies in earnest.