I thought back over Addison’s comments. I found it ironic that the perfect stealth weapon for fighting undead ghouls was a bow and arrow – one of the most primitive weapons man had ever created.
Warfare, it seemed, had come a full circle.
There was a sudden commotion of movement behind the two veteran soldiers and I saw the crew chief again. He began unloading stores and supplies, carrying them from the chopper and stacking them in the long grass beyond the droop of the big rotor blades. He made several trips.
Noyce reached into the pocket of his multicam pants and retrieved several envelopes. He handed them to the crew chief. Then the two old soldiers got to their feet, nodded at me, and slipped out through the cargo door, back into the afternoon’s warm sunshine. I watched them go.
“What’s next for the Silverbacks?” I called out suddenly. I could see the four soldiers falling back from their outpost positions, and then heard the helicopter’s turbines slowly begin to whine. “Now the war has been won, and the undead are contained in Florida, why haven’t you pulled out – disbanded?”
Noyce took the question. He stopped walking away. He turned slowly around to face me. His voice was rasping. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance,” he said, quoting Thomas Jefferson. “The war may have been won, but the only way we’re going to be sure the infected don’t break from their barriers is to keep a close watch. That’s what the Silverbacks intend on doing.”
HOLLY SPRINGS, MISSISSIPPI:
“It might look quiet now,” Lieutenant Colonel Chris Bond said to me as we stood at the deserted intersection, “but for a few hours on that Sunday afternoon last year, these streets were a glimpse of hell itself.”
We had arrived in the little town of Holly Springs in a Humvee – one of the very same vehicles that had brought Chris Bond and troops from A Company, 2nd Battalion 75th Infantry Ranger Regiment face-to-face with the zombie holocaust.
I got out of the vehicle. There was a soldier manning the 50-caliber machine gun, his body tensed through the vehicle roof hatch, and the weapon traversing warily. Four other Rangers spilled out of the vehicle with their weapons ready. They took up positions at each point of the intersection.
Bond looked relaxed, betraying the heightened tension on the faces of the men who protected us. We walked to the corner of Fant Avenue and North Walthall Street, and stared up at the edifice that was the front of the Holly Springs high school. A wedge of cool shadow spilled across the side street. There were houses across the road, their lawns overgrown, trash strewn in the gutters. A bundle of old newspapers drifted on the breeze like a tumbleweed.
The old homes were pockmarked with bullet holes. Windows had been shattered, and several of the houses had burned to the ground, their roofs collapsed around the charred remains. There was an overturned tricycle in the middle of the street and dark brown stains like oil spills on the blacktop. Propped against the front of the school building were the bleached white bones of several broken bodies.
The town was eerily quiet, long ago abandoned. The breeze through the trees was like a moan, and the only sound seemed to be the singing of silence in my ears and the irregular beat of blood against my temples.
“Everyone was trapped inside the gymnasium and auditorium,” Lieutenant Colonel Bond said, pointing. “There were twenty one school kids and three teachers. They had barricaded the doors as the first of the undead had swept through the town. They were lucky to be alive.”
I walked towards the school building. Bond didn’t move. “I wouldn’t go any further if I were you,” the soldier said, his voice remarkably calm and level. “Just in case…”
I turned and looked at the man. His hair was shaved in the standard Ranger buzzcut, but somehow that just seemed to emphasize the chiseled angles of his features. He had a square jaw and a thin slice for a mouth. The line of his nose was ridged with a bump, and his eyes were deep set beneath the jutting slope of his brow. He had the face of experience – the face of a man who had seen the horrors of war and reconciled his conscience to the necessity of it.
I nodded, and retreated the few steps. Bond glanced over his shoulder, and without a word two of the Rangers came forward at a sprint to cover the doors of the school building. I heard the rumble of the Humvee’s big engine, and saw it creeping closer to us like a hen protecting her chicks.
“Can you tell me more about that afternoon,” I asked. “I’d like to know more about the operation, and how you eventually were able to rescue the trapped civilians.”
The corner of Bond’s mouth tugged up into a flicker of a smile.
“Mission Exorus was a joint operation,” he said carefully. “It was a combination of Delta operatives and my Rangers from A Company. The whole rescue attempt hinged on whether the Delta boys could gain access to the building where the refugees were hiding.
“And they did, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Bond said dryly. “But not easily.”
Lieutenant Colonel Bond explained that eight Delta operatives had been transported to Holly Springs aboard helicopters flown by the elite 160th SOAR. “They roped down to the roof of the building at zero two-hundred hours on the Sunday morning, and were engaged in a bloody firefight to gain entry,” Bond explained. “By that time the undead had surrounded the gymnasium and were hurling themselves at the doors. The people inside were unarmed. They had barricaded the entrance.”
“How did the Delta teams get in?” I asked.
“Through the roof,” Bond said. ‘They opened fire on the zombies to clear the press of ghouls away from the doorway while one of the team cut down through the roof with gear the choppers had flown in with them.”
“Were the Delta teams necessary to the defense of the gymnasium?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” Bond said. “The people were panicking. They had no way to defend themselves. Once the Delta team was able to breach the roof and gain entry to the gymnasium, the mission went from being speculative to possible.”
“They were that critical?”
“Sure,” Bond said. “In fact if the Delta team’s part in the operation had been a washout, I doubt any of those people would be alive today, because I don’t think command would have released a column of Humvees to save them. It would have been too risky.”
I frowned. “You need to explain,” I apologized. “I’m not following you.”
Bond’s features remained impassive. “Of course you’re not,” he noted. “That’s because you’re not military.”
We walked a little further down the street until we could see the corner of the gymnasium. It was an imposing dark brick structure with high white columns and long narrow windows. There was a power pole and a fire hydrant out front of the building. Bond strode a little closer and then stopped abruptly.
“You see we had clear access to the front entrance – and plenty of space to draw the column of vehicles up to evacuate the civilians,” he swept his arm around, gesturing as he spoke. I noticed several of the building’s windows were shattered and there were dark stains of blood on the steps. “But we knew the people inside were panicked. There was no guarantee we could gain access to the building without creating an opportunity for the undead. Once those gymnasium doors were opened, we had no way to control the zombies, or to get control of the people hiding inside. The Delta boys made the rescue possible. They were on hand to defend the opening, and they were able to organize and prepare the civilians.”
I got it. I nodded my head.
“But there were delays with the column, right?”
Bond shrugged his broad shoulders. “We brought twelve Humvees from Fort F-004 near the western edge of the Danvers Line, but the roads were choked with abandoned vehicles.”
“You must have expected that, right?” I questioned. “Didn’t you have satellite images and those kind of things to study when you were planning the route?”
Bond looked like he was a moment away from punching me on the nose. “Yeah, we expected it,” hi
s voice had an angry edge. “So we planned on going cross country – which we did. We estimated a ninety minute race to the gymnasium, and we set out at first light on the Sunday morning.”
I waited. Bond knew I had more questions.
“One of the vehicles broke down about half way to Holly Springs,” he said, like the matter caused him acute personal embarrassment. “I decided we couldn’t abandon the vehicle – I needed every Humvee for the evacuation. We radioed back to command and they told Delta there would be a delay.”
“What time did you reach Holly Springs?”
“Twelve noon.” He spoke like that was all he was prepared to say.
We walked back until we were closer to the Humvee. Lieutenant Colonel Bond turned in a slow circle, his eyes everywhere at once, remembering the fateful events of that warm afternoon. He sighed. Along with the triumph of the operation had come moments of utter tragedy.
“Can you tell me what happened from the moment the convoy of vehicles entered the town?”
Bond nodded, and then his face seemed to change – his features somehow collapsing to make his expression haggard. His eyes went dark, then dulled, and when he spoke at last, his voice had the hollow echo of haunted memories.
“I saw the town through binoculars – that was the first impression I had,” he said flatly. “The column was racing along the open ground, and everything aboard the Humvees was jolting and bouncing. I saw the undead swarming through the streets in howling packs. They were moving awkwardly – a kind of shuffling unsteady gait. I tried to guess their numbers but it was impossible – the zombies were sweeping through the town in a snarling surge.
“I dropped the binoculars to my chest, because by then I didn’t need them,” the veteran soldier shook his head. “The sounds of the chaos carried clearly. I could hear the high piercing screams and the terror in the voices of the people being hunted. It was a world gone mad – something I had never seen the likes of before.”
“Were you in the town by then?”
He shook his head. “We were on the outskirts. The undead were clawing people to shreds. It was mindless murder – a relentless insanity of horror.”
Bond’s voice trailed off for long moments, as if the vision he was replaying in his mind had paused. He sighed again, and turned his face to mine.
In that instant I saw the man behind the soldier.
“There was a young boy,” he muttered softly. “He was cowering on the back seat of an old silver sedan. The tires had blown out. It was an old Buick. I could see the white stricken blob of the kid’s face, and then a swarm of undead attacked the vehicle. They wrenched the door open and I heard the boy scream. The sound… the sound was like a steam kettle boiling. The zombies threw him to the ground and fell on him. The screaming stopped.”
“What did you do?”
Bond shrugged, but this time the gesture seemed almost weary. “We were in column,” he explained. “I told the driver to mount the curb, and then radioed for the rest of the vehicles to proceed to the gymnasium. Our Humvee went crashing up over the pavement and ploughed into the zombies, while my sergeant in the turret began opening fire with the fifty.”
“You broke discipline?”
Bond stared at me. He nodded.
“When the column arrived out front of the gymnasium, every undead ghoul for miles was swarming around the building. There must have been a thousand of them. They were dripping blood and howling. The lead couple of Humvee’s were surrounded by the mob. They began banging on the sides of the vehicles. They smashed their fists against the windows and then swarmed over the roofs. I saw one of the Humvee’s begin to rock.”
“What happened next?”
“We tried to give covering fire with the fifties mounted on top of the rear vehicles in the column, but the zombies were relentless. The machine guns tore them to pieces, but they just kept coming back, more and more of them every time. There was blood and guts and gore splattered over the vehicles and we still couldn’t cut a clear path through to the gymnasium.”
I could imagine the scene in my mind. Standing right were it happened a year or so earlier, I could visualize the long line of drab green vehicles parked nose to tail in front of the gymnasium doors, and I could picture the horror of a thousand or more ghouls flinging themselves at the guns and the men bunkered down inside the steel boxes.
“What did you do?” I asked quietly.
“I took my Humvee back to the head of the column, and ordered the rest of the convoy to follow me,” Bond said. “We drove around the block again, mowing down the undead, crushing them beneath the tires as they threw themselves at us. We went fast. I could hear the bodies rolling off the top of the vehicle, saw them fall to the road and get crushed by the next Humvee in the line. The road became slick with blood.”
“And then you came back to the same place – you came back to the front doors?”
“About eight minutes later,” Bond said, his voice still remote and shallow, devoid of emotion or timbre. “Except this time we came back with the 50 cal’s firing,” he said, “tearing into the undead before they could swarm around the vehicles.”
“Did it make a difference?”
“It bought us time and space,” Bond explained. “We went up onto the grass and parked the convoy so that the first few vehicles were past the door and the last few were short of the door. That meant the middle Humvees were adjacent. It was like a line of old battleships,” he said, “firing machineguns broadside at the undead.”
“And that allowed your men in the middle vehicles to gain entry into the gymnasium?”
Bond nodded. “We had warned the Delta boys. They had pulled down the barricade.”
I paused for a moment, and so did Bond, both of us sensing that the crisis point of the operation had been reached.
“What happened next?” I prodded gently.
“My Rangers aboard the Humvees got out and formed a defensive perimeter around the gymnasium doors,” Bond explained. “I had about fifty men, plus every one of the Humvee machine guns firing. We used the vehicles like a steel barricade. Suddenly the doors of the building burst open and a screaming group of school kids and teachers came bursting out into the sunshine. We flung them into the Humvees as quick as we could. They were crying, sobbing, shaking. Their faces were masks of pure terror.”
“They all made it out?”
“Most of them…” Bond said the words like a dreadful warning.
“What happened?”
“The zombies were enraged. I don’t know if it was the movement, the sound of the gunfire, or the screams of the civilians,” he shook his head. “I still can’t work that out. All I know is they flung themselves at the line. It was like they were suddenly incensed. They hurled themselves onto the guns and my Rangers were overwhelmed. The Delta boys had most of the refugees in the back of the Humvees, but it didn’t happen quickly enough. A couple of the undead got through the line. They clawed at one of the teachers. I never saw her face, never knew her name. I just saw a zombie crouched on her chest, tearing at the woman’s nose with its teeth while she thrashed and kicked her legs in a pool of her own blood. I shot the zombie in the back of the head, and then I shot what was left of the woman before she turned.”
I looked away for a moment. A nasty wind was swirling through the street, bowing the trees before it and filling the air with grit and swirling debris. I shielded my eyes. When I glanced back at the Lieutenant Colonel had his head cocked to one side, as if he had heard something.
I got anxious.
“Everything all right?” I asked. I spun round and checked. The four Rangers who were our bodyguards were still in position, and the Humvee was still where it had been parked, the young soldier still vigilant behind the heavy machine gun.
“Yeah,” Bond said. “Everything is all right,” he reassured me. “I just thought I heard something… peculiar.”
I felt my heart stop. Something choked in my chest. “Are we safe here?”
“The mission turned into a shit storm,” the words seemed to explode from his mouth. “The undead were right against us. The line we had set up was starting to collapse. They got amongst my boys. I pushed myself into the breach and fired point-blank into the snarling face of a zombie. The bullet struck the ghoul in the mouth, snapping off teeth and tearing a hole up through the back of its head. I watched the body fall. Everything had become a scene of milling murder and chaos,” Bond said. “There were just too many of them, and they were impossible to stop. We fired until we were running out of ammunition and they still kept coming.”
“When did you evacuate?”
Bond nodded, sensing that I was drawing him further along in his retelling of that tragic day’s events. He didn’t seem to object.
“I stepped over the body of one of my Rangers,” he said. “The boy’s head had been severed, gnawed clean from its neck. Behind him I heard another man retch. Most of my men were pale-faced and horrified. They were spattered with gore and the blood of the ghouls they had killed. I grabbed one of the men and ordered him into the nearest Humvee.
“We had lost about half-a-dozen good soldiers – heroes all,” Bond muttered, “and still the zombies kept coming. They swarmed over the bodies piled around the vehicles. I watched them come like a wave, saw the blood spatter from their howling mouths, the gnashing teeth and the insane shrilling screams of their fury.
“By then all the civilians were aboard the Humvees. Two of the Delta operators had fallen. The rest of them formed up with my command behind the vehicles in the middle of the line that had the refugees inside them.”
“And then…?”
“And then we waited,” Bond said with a bleak growl. “The zombies were spread across the grass, flailing their arms, clawing for us. They fell back, and then surged again. When they were just about to launch themselves at us, I told the men to open fire. We kept firing until the ammunition ran out and then boarded the Humvees as the zombies finally came crashing through the perimeter.”
Zombie War: An account of the zombie apocalypse that swept across America Page 13