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

by Murphy, James W.

  Ruth had gone into the kitchen, pulled pork chops from the freezer and put some potatoes on to bake. She got out a can of green peas, knowing I liked them with potatoes. She came over, redressed the wound on my forehead, and looking in my eyes again and said, “Your eyes are really bloodshot. I hope they clear in a few days and aren’t really damaged. Can you see okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I can see both of you just fine. Would one of you throw another log on the fire, please?”

  She put another log on and we heard a horn honk. Julia and Dave were here, so Ruth pushed the button for the gate and watched out the front window as their truck pulled up outside our front door. Ruth opened the door, and both flew into the house and at the same time said, “How is he?”

  Ruth pointed to the couch and Julia and Dave rushed over to check me out. Julia knelt in front of me and looked at my eyes first. “Your eyes are bloodshot from the concussion. Should be okay in a week or so,” she said reaching for her medical bag. She pulled out an oto-ophthalmascope, put the ophthalmoscope attachment on the handle and turning it on, and made sure the light shone on the palm of her hand. She eased up to my right eye and looking through the scope, viewed my eye. She moved to the left eye and looked at it.

  “Both should be okay in a few weeks. Now for the ears,” she said, professionally. She replaced the scope on the handle with the otoscope top and added a speculum to peer into my ear canals. She looked at the left first and seeing no damage, moved to the right where all the blood was. She quickly backed off and rummaging in her bag, brought out several sterile, wooden, cotton-tipped swabs and cleaned the canal as best she could. She then used the scope to look and giving a hmmm, said, “Your tympanic membrane is ruptured, and you may have some residual hearing loss once it heals. It will heal,” she said looking at me, “but it’ll take several months at your age. In about ten days, it’ll begin to itch like crazy, but don’t itch it. If you must, run some lukewarm water in it but gently – you’ll get dizzy.

  “Now let me look at your forehead. Nice, straight-line laceration, about four centimeters long and reaching the hairline. You’ll have a scar, but it’ll be thin. Now for your shoulder.” Something had gone through my coat and shirts leaving a gash in my left shoulder. “I’ll use butterflies to close this. It should be okay in ten days or so. Keep it clean, as dry as you can and do daily dressing changes.”

  “I’ll call him Scarface now,” Dave snickered.

  “No scotch for you,” I moaned.

  “Quite, both of you,” Julia commanded. Both of us shut up. She was looking in my ear again and asked Ruth to hand her another swab. She use it to wipe more blood out of the canal, then asked for another clean one and used it to swab in some antibacterial ointment. She then used a cotton ball and cutting it in half, used one-half to pack into my canal. Then she began cleaning up.

  “Don’t I get a sucker or something for being a good patient?” I asked her with a smile.

  She pointed at Dave and said, “He’ll pour you another scotch. Now you just sit here and enjoy the fire and rest.”

  She went into the kitchen and Dave whispered, “Dude, I think we got on her bad side there, here,” and handed me my tumbler with another two fingers of scotch. He poured himself a glassful of the liquid and sat in a recliner. We clinked glasses and sipped the elixir, enjoying the fire and the warmth both the fire and liquor going down.

  “Dave, would you start the grill,” Ruth asked from the kitchen.

  He jumped up and said, “Sure thing,” and left me to sit and enjoy the fire alone. He came back about ten minutes later and emptied his glass, giving a grimace as the fluid hit bottom and said, “Man, that warms you up quick.” Then threw another log on the fire and refilled his glass. “Pork chops should go on in about ten minutes,” he said.

  I nodded, feeling…well not much but the warmth of the fire and the liquor. I did have the beginnings of a headache but not much. The fire was warm…

  Dave shook me awake, saying, “Come on, buddy, dinner’s ready and you need to eat to keep your strength up. Come on,” he said helping me to my feet. The room was still spinning, and I don’t know if it was the ear injury of the scotch doing it this time, but whew, the place was making left-hand turns I did not want to make – I felt like a race car driver.

  Dave helped me sit at the table and Ruth placed a plate in front of me. I sat there looking at the food and it was not appealing for some reason. Then the smell assailed me. Now I was hungry. Dave gave the blessing for the food and we dug into our meal. The meal did make me feel better and the pork, perfectly done, tasted great.

  After dinner, we made our way back to the seating area in front of the fireplace, Dave helping me wend my way over, where he offered me more scotch and I said, “No more for me. Do we have some coffee? I’d much rather sip a mug of coffee if we have some.”

  Ruth brought me a mug and said she’d put some honey in it. The warmth was just what I needed and felt great going down. I held the mug against my chest, enjoying the warmth penetrating my shirt.

  “Doug,” Julia said to get my attention.

  “Yep,” I answered.

  “You listening to me?” she asked.

  “Yep, I’m okay, thanks,” I said.

  “Look at me,” she said a little more forcefully. I did. “You need to keep that ear dry for the next couple of weeks. That’ll help prevent infection. Keep it dry. If it bleeds more these first few days, that’s probably okay and part of the healing process. Use a sterile swab like I did,” looking at Ruth, “and gently dry it. But keep it as dry as you can…okay?”

  “I got it,” I said, “keep the ear dry. No baths and head dunking.”

  “Yes, no baths…showers only and what after a shower?” Julia asked me.

  “Dry it real good. But don’t itch it,” I said.

  “Right, don’t itch it. You have been listening,” she said.

  I smiled at her and said, “Thank you very much, Florence.”

  “Well, I’ll take that as a compliment and you’re welcome,” she said to me.

  Dave said, “Who’s Florence?”

  “Florence Nightingale, silly, the nurse from way back…” I said sarcastically.

  “Oh, yeah, I remember her from history classes,” Dave said.

  Ruth swung the conversation back to the drone saying, “So what do we do about that drone thing? You know they’ll be coming to look for it. It probably has one of those tracker things on it and something that big and probably expensive to build, especially today, would be something they’d come looking for…right?”

  “Julia and I will try to get to it tomorrow,” Dave answered her. “We’ll take it to the workshop over at our place and I’ll take it apart and find the tracker. We’ll smash it good, but I’m with you, Ruth, they’ll probably come looking for it and probably us. Maybe not too soon since the snow is piling up. If the wind starts up, they won’t be able to get to us for a while. We need to be ready and I don’t think the M4s are going to be enough. I’m glad we got those AT4 rockets and the extra grenades.”

  “My fifty is toast,” I said.

  “What?” Dave asked.

  “My fifty…it was hit and busted up when that rocket hit. Ruth, tell ‘em will you?” I asked her.

  “When that missile hit, something hit his rifle and damaged it by the housing,” she said. “It saved Doug’s life by stopping what ever it was. It bent the housing up pretty good and the chamber was dented, badly. I think it’s beyond hope.”

  “That’s okay, brother,” Dave said. “Remember the armory that Sam had over at our place?” We all shook our heads. “We have four, Barrett M82a1, semiautomatic rifles that have twelve-round magazines. I’ll bring you two in a few days and you’ll be all set.”

  “That means thirteen rounds with one in the chamber,” I said. “Since they’re semiautomatic, that means rapid fire support with a fifty. Far out, brother.”

  “I think we’ll both be able to rock-n-roll with those,”
Dave said with a grin. “Only problems are the size and weight. They’re forty-eight inches long, that’s four feet, and weigh about forty pounds without ammo. So, with thirteen rounds added, it’ll be over fifty pounds, easy.”

  “Those have the mid-point carrying handles though, don’t they?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, but still, trying to lug around, not to mention aiming the thing, will be difficult at best,” he answered.

  “Still, the firepower they’ll give us…It we’re together and cut loose the same time on a target or a convoy of vehicles or group of men…man, we could really do some damage,” I said. “And with Ruth and Julia backing us up with the .308s, we’ll be a force to be reckoned with.”

  “Also, with those AT4’s, we’ll be even more lethal. We should plan an ambush like scenario where we start with the fifties and .308s, then when they’re leaving the vehicles, follow up with the AT4’s and shell whoever it is. How many of the AT4’s did we wind up with?” Dave finally asked.

  “Twenty-six crates for fifty-two weapons we brought home last trip, eight each from the first trip, that’s sixty-eight rockets,” I tallied. “That should do us.”

  “And how many Claymore mines?” Dave asked.

  “Twelve per crate, and we have seventeen crates for two-hundred four mines. There is an equal number of clackers per crate and we have miles upon miles of det-cord to use.”

  The three of us looked at Dave as he gazed into the fire, thinking. We could see his wheels turning. He sipped his scotch once. After a few minutes, he looked at me and asked, “What do you know about the ‘L- shaped’ ambush?”

  I hung my head and thought for a few minutes, then said, “The Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam…it started with one of those ambushes. It’s most effective with larger units. I don’t think we have enough force to handle one. We would be better suited to use what the Vietcong called the ‘Bloody Nose’ ambush.”

  “And that is…?” Julia asked.

  “It’s an ambush tactic used by small units, usually against larger forces,” I explained. “It was a head-on attack, waiting until an enemy came into a kill zone. Once inside the zone, the ambush activated, usually with mines, and followed up with machinegun fire, mortars and rarely, direct assault by troops.”

  “How would we set up something like that?” Ruth asked.

  “We would first need to look at the valley and decide where the best site for the ambush would be. Then design what we’d do and how much firepower we want to bring to bear and for how long. I’d say we need to look at that map app on the computer and get an aerial view of the valley and decide on a spot.”

  Dave jumped up, startling me and I think the ladies, and went into the library and brought up the computer. It didn’t take long, and he had the app up and the valley in focus. He asked us to come into the library and look.

  We discussed several areas and weighed the pros and cons of each. The eastern approaches were all too open to be effective. We knew whoever it was attacking would have to come down Highway 130. They would continue to Centennial on the highway or turn south on Highway 11. The best place, we decided, would be at the river crossing on Highway 130. It was five and a half miles from Centennial, and a hair over a mile from Highway 11.

  At the bridge, we discussed several ways to have the ambush and decided on a plan suggested by Julia. The first vehicle in the convoy would be stopped on the bridge, thus blocking the route. The remaining vehicles would be forced to stop to be able to turn around. We decided we would put boulders along both sides of the road, limiting the useful turning area. The grand slam would be the Claymores. We would set one up every ten feet for one-hundred feet, on both sides of the road. We’d fire the south side first, then the north a few minutes or so later.

  The Claymore mines had an effective range of between fifty and two-hundred fifty yards. Once fired, the seven-hundred ball bearings they contained traveled at about four thousand feet per second, ample enough to pass through most cars and trucks without slowing much. If we set them ten feet off the highway, and with a sixty-degree arch for a kill zone, we should be able to take out a four to six truck convoy easily. We decided on using twenty per side and two angled to the northeast and southeast from the front. Forty-two mines would be set up in the ambush site.

  Julia’s idea also planed for two firing pits built one hundred yards south of the bridge, one on each side of the waterway. The fifties would be there. As soon as the dust settled some from the destruction the mines wrought, Dave and I would open fire with the fifties, sending rounds into the vehicles. We would each fire two magazines for twenty-five rounds each going down range.

  As soon as we stopped firing, Julia and Ruth would open up with the M240 Bravos, raking the convoy with .308 caliber fire while Dave and I retreated. We would hide our ATV just to the south of the highway, west of the creek. Retreating to it, we would get in and haul it to the southwest to Dave’s home as quickly as we could get there.

  The ladies would be in prepared positions to the south of the highway. They would have an ATV hidden and once they had fired two belts each of .308 ammunition, or five hundred rounds, they would retreat to their ATV and skedaddled outta there to Dave’s place, where we would regroup, reload and prepare for any assault that might come.

  We got some typing paper and drew out the plan, making a sort of map. We all decided it was a good plan. The only thing that might stop it from working was Highway 11. If the convoy turned down the highway, we would not be able to spring our ambush. How to stop them from going down Highway 11 became the topic of discussion.

  Blocking the road was out as the prairie around the area was so flat it would take us weeks to block enough. They’d just go around anything we tried to build. Mining the area would be too dangerous for many reasons. We decided to sleep on that one, so broke the meeting and went to get some rest. We would discuss more on the morrow.

  Julia and Dave headed for the stairs to the Underground, but Ruth stopped them and said that due to the damage up there from the missile, they needed to stay in the guest room. We prepared the coffee pot and put more logs on the fire then retreated to our respective rooms for some sleep.

  I cleaned up and put on flannel pajamas, took two Motrin, and hit the sack. I didn’t feel Ruth come to bed…and I slept the whole night.

  I woke to silence the next morning and several areas of my body aching something awful. I felt like an old man trying to get out of the bed, feeling that all my joints were creaking as I rose to go into the bathroom. I relieved myself, brushed my teeth, combed my hair, washed my face, and felt better. The shoulder wound was very sore and limited motion, so I took two more Motrin then made my way downstairs, being as quiet as I could.

  Dave was already up and had the coffee ready. He poured me a mug and had it waiting when I got into the kitchen.

  “How are you feeling this morning?” he asked.

  “Run over by a truck sounds good,” I answered, “but not too bad overall. I can certainly hear better out of my right ear. Shoulder’s pretty sore, though. You sleep okay?”

  “Yes. I’ve been up for over an hour, thinking about that ambush we designed last night. I can’t find fallacy in it and think its good, save the Highway 11 issue. That’s the only unknown variable we’ll have. The only other thing I could think of was how are we going to stop the lead vehicle? Will we use a mine or what?”

  “Rifle shot,” I said. “You would fire the first round and it would signal the start of the attack. You’d fire into the front end of the lead vehicle, taking out the engine, maybe using two or three rounds to let them know you meant business. Once the vehicle comes to a stop, they would begin to bail out of the vehicles and the girls can let loose with the southern Claymores. That would send everyone to the north side, and they would blow those. The last two from both sides angled down the road would signal us to open up with the fifties. Once we stopped firing, the ladies would open up with the 240s while we ran to our ATV and spilt, and so o
n.”

  “You make that sound so easy,” Dave commented.

  “I guess that’s the beauty of an ambush. Once you’ve expended the set amount of fire, you leave. End of story. I do think we need to reload, rearm and settle down for a bit at your place then once the four of us have recovered, go back and check bodies and look for stragglers or survivors and dispatch them with extreme prejudice, as they used to say.”

  “I agree with that, but with the caveat of leaving the girls with their .308 rifles or 240 Bravos up on that little hill to the south to cover us. They would for the most part be out of danger while you and I went down there with M4s, shotguns, handguns and grenades to take care of the leftovers.”

  “Write that down and we’ll set it in stone,” I said. “How ‘bout some biscuits ‘n gravy this morning?”

  “Nah, maybe just an apple or something light; still feel full of that whopper of a dinner last night.”

  “That was good, wasn’t it?”

  “Yep. Good choice you made. Hit the spot. I’m going to lay off the scotch for a while.”

  “Me, too, that got to me last night.”

  “Doug?”

  “Yeah…”

  “You have one of your drones ready to fly or do you need to charge one?” Dave asked.

  “I don’t know actually. I’d think we would need to charge one up if needed. You want to fly in this weather?”

  “Yeah, I want to fly over Highway 130 then back this way along Highway 11. I want a real bird’s eye view of the valley. We can use a card in the camera and playback the video here.”

  With a shrug of my shoulders I said, “Okay, let’s get one of the big ones out and charge it up for a long mission.” Together, we got busy and pulled the largest drone I had out of the armory. I plugged in the charging system for the batteries and with the lights blinking, started the hour-long process. This particular unit carried a four-battery pack, giving it a forty-five-minute flying time, that is straight and level flight, with no aerobatics. It would record the whole flight, or we would be able to activate the camera and watch and record at the same time.