by J. W. Vohs
“Lord Almighty,” Carter whispered.
Jack didn’t say a word as he lifted his M-4 and took careful aim, the light of the fires illuminating his sights. He hit the creature in the center of the forehead and it crumpled noiselessly to the ground. This seemed to shake Carter from his shock and he started shooting toward other mutilated bodies trying to climb up out of the valley. What had at first seemed like dozens was actually more like ten, and within a few moments all were lying still on the ground.
Carter declared in a shaky voice, “It’s just like one a them zombie movies, man! There ain’t no way those things are alive with those wounds!”
Jack didn’t respond, he just kept scanning the area for more targets. He wasn’t scared now, and he really wasn’t thinking much, just fighting like he was trained to do. Seeing no more of the creatures through the hazy darkness, he took a moment to drain his canteen, leaving enough to offer Carter a gulp.
“Call them whatever you want,” Jack agreed, “but they aren’t human anymore. That one I killed behind us had my boot in his mouth stronger than a snapping turtle, and I hit him hard enough to knock a normal man into next week and it didn’t loosen his grip one bit!”
Carter was calm now; the Ranger was back. “All right, so we got zombies down there, or somethin’ close enough to it. We gotta destroy the brain to kill ‘em, just like in the movies. I suggest we assume they can bite us and kill us, again, just like in the movies. I only hope they ain’t turnin’ people into zombies with a bite.”
“Just like in the movies,” Jack finished.
Carter grinned at him and added, “Well, we ain’t takin’ any chances. We’re stayin’ right here and killin’ every one of those creatures we see.”
Jack patted down his vest and asked, “How many clips you got left?”
Carter checked his equipment and groaned, “I got about fifteen rounds left.”
“I’ve got twenty. If we’re staying out here we need a new plan.”
“Whatcha thinkin’?” Carter inquired with doubt in his voice.
“Ever heard of SCA, you know, the Society for Creative Anachronism – people who reenact medieval life, especially warfare?”
“No,” Carter declared with frustration. “What do those weirdos got to do with our situation?”
Jack grinned as he pulled two short poles from his pack and screwed them together like a pool cue, then on the end he screwed in a wicked looking mace-head that was diamond shaped iron with studs sticking out of it.
“What in the sam-hill is that thing?”
“This, my ignorant friend, is a bone crunching medieval nightmare!” Jack declared triumphantly.
“Ya’ll brought that thing along to a modern war?” Carter asked with astonished derision.
“Yeah, I brought it, and its better than the knives a lot of you hill-jacks strap to your boots!”
Carter looked guiltily toward the Gerber dagger stashed in his right boot and admitted, “All right, whatever. How ‘s that mace gonna help us out here?”
Jack handed Carter his extra clip as he explained, “We stay here and we’re going to be overrun eventually. I say we take the fight to them. Look out there right now; dawn is coming and all these fires have lit up the whole valley. We can see now. We’re heading down, buddy, and we’re going to kill ‘em all!”
Carter looked doubtfully at the friend he now believed may have truly lost his mind and said, “Well, whatever we’re doin’ we best get to it. Here they come!”
Jack looked down the slope and saw at least twenty of what he now thought of as zombies heading uphill toward their position. He quickly explained, “I’ve got leather gloves on, an army field coat over a Kevlar vest, knee pads and a Kevlar helmet. I’m hitting those monsters with my mace, and you’re gonna stay behind me and finish off the wounded.”
Carter looked horrified as he shouted, “Ya’ll have lost your flippin’ mind!”
Jack snapped his chin strap and hefted the mace, “You can follow me or let me die, your call.” Then he stepped gingerly around the protective boulders and headed toward the advancing zombies.
Carter gathered the extra clips together, muttered a few obscenities in Jack’s direction, then hurried to back up his friend’s suicidal charge.
Carter caught up to Jack and began keeping pace about five yards behind, then called out, “I’m back here, buddy!”
Jack didn’t reply because at that moment a zombie came out of the smoky haze and wildly reached for the young soldier. Jack easily dodged the clumsy, outstretched arms and came up with a vicious blow to the side of the creature’s cheek bone that sent it crashing to the ground. Without checking to see if he had actually killed the thing, Jack stepped quickly forward to meet two more of the monsters approaching his front. This time Jack brought an overhand stroke directly onto the top of the first zombie’s skull and actually saw bone and brain fly from the strength of the blow.
As he pulled back his mace, the second mindless killer grabbed Jack’s coat and pulled him forward toward a bloodied, foul, gaping maw. With no time to bring his weapon to bear, Jack lowered his head and butted the zombie in the face with his Kevlar helmet. This maneuver knocked the creature down but Jack had to leave the death blow to his partner as he sidestepped toward the next zombie.
As Jack used another overhead swing to dispatch the monster, he wondered why he wasn’t hearing gunshots from behind. He turned to see Carter pulling his attached bayonet from a zombie’s eye socket. Seeing Jack looking at him, he explained, “I think they chase sound! Our gunshots draw ‘em in!”
Since he couldn’t see any other creatures coming toward them, Jack stopped and listened for a moment. He heard scattered gunfire from around the sides of the valley, although the roadblocks were ominously silent. Carter came up beside him and whispered, “It’s gettin’ light out, and the wind’s clearin’ out the smoke.”
Jack took a wider look around and realized that the Ranger was correct on both counts. Suddenly he worried about being shot by other snipers who were almost certainly shooting at any movement below their positions. Checking to make sure no zombies were close by, he grabbed Carter and explained, “We have to go back up the ridge, man. We’re sitting ducks down here if the other shooters can see us.”
Without a word Carter turned back with Jack a few steps behind. They gave a wide berth to the corpses littering the trail until Jack saw the heavyset woman with a dirty white bandage on her arm lying spread-eagle on the slope several yards away. He stepped over to the body and looked carefully at her face; she looked just like the rest of the monsters he had seen that night. Carter grabbed his sleeve and asked, “Whatcha doin’? Man, we gotta go!”
Jack pointed at the corpse and said, “She was bitten two nights ago. I wonder if that’s how she was infected?”
“Whatever, dude, let’s get the hell outta here!”
Five minutes later they were back amid the relative safety of their sniping post hidden in the boulders, and the growing light revealed a scene they might have expected to see if they had ever visited Hell. The breeze was now lifting most of the smoke skyward, and the dust from the Apache strikes had finally settled to the ground. Debris from the destroyed village littered the valley floor, and bodies, or pieces of them, were lying everywhere. The worst thing was that some of the zombies were still milling about, but most had found something to eat and seemed to be in no hurry to continue climbing toward the ridge.
Jack heard no more shots being fired and thought it strange until he noticed shapes moving up the slope from some of the sniping posts set up around the valley. He pointed them out to Carter and asked, “Why are they leaving when some of those creatures are still alive?”
Carter didn’t answer at first, then his eyes grew wide as he exclaimed, “We gotta get the hell outta here! They’re gonna blow this place!”
Jack didn’t hesitate as he wordlessly grabbed his pack and started running after Carter, who turned around once to make sure his fri
end was following. When they reached the top of the ridge, they witnessed several Hummers speeding along the crest. Two USAMRIID vehicles roared right by them, but the third vehicle, being driven by Carter’s buddy Marcus and already carrying several Rangers, stopped long enough to pick them up. Within minutes they felt the ground shake as the Tomahawk missiles loaded with high explosives smashed into the village they had left behind. Then waves of B-52s flew over and literally blew the entire valley to dust with their bomb loads. Carter looked at Jack and cracked a smile through his grime-caked face; they had made it out of the valley after all.
About two weeks after the incident in the valley, Colonel Barnes showed up at battalion headquarters with three USAMRIID soldiers in a Hummer, followed by an armored Range Rover filled with four Red Eagle goons in their mirrored shades. Carter had informed his commander of the events in the valley, but left out his belief that the infected were essentially zombies. The Ranger leader didn’t care for men like Barnes, and had no intention of allowing the rogue colonel to cause any trouble with Carter or Jack. He did allow Barnes to meet alone with the two men under a canopy arranged for the visit, but he had several locked and loaded squads strategically placed around the site. He had told Carter and Jack to armor up and keep an ear bud in place during the meeting; if they were threatened with violence they were to hit the ground and cover up. The Ranger colonel intended to kill the USAMRIID and Blackwater men if necessary, certain that his soldiers would back his order and keep their mouths shut. Afghanistan was a dangerous place where men died every day. The Rangers could certainly make it look as if the visitors had been in their vehicles when attacked several miles down the road.
Barnes was obviously angry with the arrangements, but was realistic enough to realize that he didn’t want to tangle with a Ranger battalion. He looked at the two young soldiers with disdain and explained, “We had ninety-two men surrounding that village, and only fourteen escaped. Two of them hit an IED a week ago, so only twelve men know about what happened out there.”
When Jack and Carter didn’t respond the colonel asked, “So what do you men think went wrong with the situation in the village?”
The two Rangers had already decided that Jack would do all of the talking, and that they were keeping their secret fears to themselves.
“That virus made those villagers crazy, sir,” Jack answered. “I’ve been thinking about it, and somehow the bug made the people immune to pain and insanely violent. I don’t know why they weren’t using weapons, because the only ones we saw tried to grab and bite us. We killed about six of them, all men, and we had to empty clips into them to knock them down. Even then we had to finish them off with head shots. To be honest, sir, we’re both still freaked out about that battle. We didn’t even know if you had made it out of there. I’m glad you’re all right, sir. Have you figured out what was wrong with the villagers?”
Barnes took a moment to reply, seeming to consider Jack’s question and wondering if this was all the young soldiers had witnessed in the crazy fighting around the village. The colonel answered the question with one of his own, “Why are you men only meeting with me under these circumstances?”
Jack replied, “No offense, sir, but I’ll never trust anyone with USAMRIID again. That village should have been wiped out before so many of our men died. We have no reason to trust your unit, and our CO doesn’t care for you at all. He made the arrangements. He’s very protective of Carter, they go back a long way, and he’s angry that out of five Rangers he was ordered to send to back up your mission, only one returned. He’s even managed to get me transferred over here from the 82nd to try to make up the loss.”
The colonel considered this information before continuing, “I was under orders from the top to keep the place under observation and let none of the villagers leave. We didn’t know what was down there and needed to maintain observation in order to learn about the virus. You’re right, things went horribly wrong up there, but you must realize that what we learned about the virus could save countless lives down the road.”
Jack and Carter both nodded their understanding as Barnes went on, “I just came out here to see if you boys were showing any sign of infection. Also, you both need to sign confidentiality agreements that state you will never tell anyone about what you witnessed around that village. Have you talked with anyone about the battle yet?”
Carter shook his head as Jack answered, “Only each other and our CO, sir. We figured that what happened out there was Top Secret and we weren’t about to tell anyone else about it. Hell, we still don’t understand what went wrong up there.”
Barnes feigned sympathy as he nodded, “Well, that’s what I’m going to be working out for years to come. I know we stopped the spread of the virus, and that whatever it was could have truly destroyed millions of lives if it had gotten loose. Our men up there didn’t die in vain, in fact, they may have saved the world for all we know.”
Again Jack and Carter nodded their agreement and continued to act as if they were clueless about what really happened in the village and surrounding valley. They accepted Barnes’ thanks and willingly signed the confidentiality agreement, telling the colonel again that they were glad they were able to do their part but didn’t want anything more to do with USAMRIID. Once the paperwork was out of the way, Barnes shook hands with the two Rangers and wished them luck, thanking them once again for their help in the village. Then the colonel flashed a dirty look at the Ranger CO looking on from the command tent and gave the sign to his men to load up. Seconds later they tore out of headquarters and didn’t look back.
When they had time alone later that day, Jack asked Carter what he thought of the meeting.
“Well, Barnes is a lyin’ SOB! He had somethin’ to do with whatever infection turned them villagers into zombies, and he’d hustle us off to Leavenworth in a heartbeat to keep us quiet about it. Hell, he might even see to it that we ‘ran over’ an IED before we get home.”
“Yep,” Jack agreed, “He’s a snake in the grass if I’ve ever seen one. I think he bought our story though; guys like him always believe they’re smarter than everyone else. To Barnes, we’re just stupid grunts in a Ranger battalion. Still, I think we better do our best to keep quiet about what happened in that village; I don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for Colonel Barnes.”
Carter agreed as they sat down to eat their evening MRE, “Yeah, I hear ya. But if that virus ever gets out I’m gonna hunt Barnes down and kill him!”
CHAPTER 4
United States, 2012
Dr. Jack Smith, Ph.D., walked among the medieval arms and armor being displayed in the Royal Armories section of the Frazier History Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, admiring and appreciating the hard work he and his staff had put into the exhibits. At thirty-two years of age he had landed the plum position of director of this wing of the museum, owing mostly to the friendships he had developed while working on his dissertation, The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Norman Military Machine, 1050-1200, at Oxford University. He also knew his subject; if there was a better expert on medieval arms and armor in the United States he had yet to meet him.
Jack had hung onto his dreams of studying history in college even after the Army’s Stop-Loss program kept him in Afghanistan for almost a year longer than his original enlistment agreement. When he and Carter had returned to the Ranger base camp following the debacle in the village, Carter had convinced his colonel to arrange orders moving Jack into the Ranger battalion. The fact that Carter had once saved the officer’s life, along with the reality of Jack’s pre-war training, allowed the transfer to take place in the chaos of the early days of the war. Nearly two years of hard fighting against the Taliban amidst the savage landscape of Afghanistan had actually helped Jack cope with the memories of what had happened in the infected village. He still thought of the incident every day of his life, but he dealt with the trauma and horror as well as could be expected.
Having Carter as his
best friend helped a great deal during the months after what they now half-jokingly called The Battle of the Zombie Valley. Jack’s heart nearly broke when he left the service while Carter stayed on, but four years and three deployments to Iraq brought Carter back to Kentucky where the two veterans were able to reestablish their friendship. Now Carter worked as the keeper of Jack’s retreat in northern Indiana, a place Jack returned to every weekend possible.
Even before leaving the Army Jack had become a wealthy man. His father had been the owner of one of the largest auto dealerships in Fort Wayne, and when he died after a long struggle with cancer Jack accepted a buyout offer from two brothers and a sister who wanted to continue the business. Their fourth brother was working hard to become a partner in a Cleveland law firm, and when the deal was done a little over two million dollars went into an investment portfolio until Jack returned home. The money just sat and gained interest for nearly six years; the young veteran living off of his savings and attending college on the G.I. Bill. Attending graduate school in England was expensive, but didn’t really make a dent in the principal that was now over three million dollars.
Jack became a Ph.D. with no pressing need to take the first job that came along. He lived in London for a year and volunteered at the Royal Armories Museum in the Tower of London, then received the position in Louisville. Though he had many years of training and experience, he was still considered a very young man in the world of professional historians.
During recess from his studies, Jack had purchased thirty acres of land that backed up against the Chain O’Lakes state park about forty miles west of Fort Wayne. For northern Indiana, the park was as rugged as any land to be found in the farm belt, and the property he bought behind it was beautiful pasture and woodlots set amid rolling hills. It was there that he and Carter began work on what they called The Castle.