by Gunther, Cy
Jones got to his feet and followed Arrakis, Addison falling in behind Jones. Around them the squads were gathering, the squad leaders explaining the simple plan of attack. Marines nodded to him as they passed by. He returned the nods, gave Bennett and Cox each a pat on the back, the young men looking pale, but smiling.
And then Arrakis was leading them out of the perimeter, carefully passing through the new trees the Japanese had planted long before the last war. From the warehouse they could hear the worried voices of the South Korean civilians, the occasional shout of one of the North Koreans. Distinctly, above it all, Jones heard someone speaking Russian.
Lance Corporal Jacob M. Gordon
The bazooka bounced reassuringly against Gordon’s back, and he moved as quietly as he could, getting set into his position with Sergeant Mason. They were facing the entrance which had been nearest to the platoon’s original position. They could see a pair of guards and a wall of flesh behind them, the civilians packed closer than sardines it seemed.
Gordon swallowed drily and fought the urge to take a drink of water from his canteen. He needed to wait. He’d be able to drink soon, just as soon as it was done. Just as soon as they’d taken the warehouse.
For the third time he checked his weapon, made sure that everything was the way it should be, and it was – just like the two previous times.
Smiling at himself Gordon settled into his position. The rest of his squad mates waited. Sergeant Mason absently chewed on a piece of gum, shot-gun ready, carbine waiting. They all knew to wait for Gunny’s lead on the attack, but they had to keep a watch out too. Wouldn’t do to have the surprise ruined by a gook who needed to stroll out to the tree line and take a piss right on top of one of the Marines.
That would be my luck, Gordon thought. Hey, how’d you get wounded? Oh, well, this gook started to piss on me so I shot him, which screwed up the ambush and things just really went to shit after that. Thanks for asking, though, I really appreciate it.
Come on, Gunny, Gordon thought, sighting along his carbine, let’s get this shit done. I really don’t want anybody to accidentally piss on me.
Gunnery Sergeant Warren B. Jones
Jones glanced at Arrakis, and the Marine nodded.
Arrakis led off, keeping the pace steady as time hurried by. They got into position behind on the other side of the warehouse, close to the road, beside a clump of trees. From there Jones could see the civilians milling about inside the warehouse itself, the guards pacing about inside the bed of the truck, and a tall, thin man dressed in a Soviet uniform walked back and forth at the rear of the truck. A North Korean officer walked along with him, the two men gesturing furiously as they spoke. Occasionally the words reached Jones, but most of them were smothered by the soft complaints and worries of the civilians, and hell, Jones couldn’t speak Russian anyway.
Addison put his radio away and slipped his Thompson free, the boy a magician with the weapon. Arrakis lifted up his BAR and sighted in on the men around and in the truck.
Jones brought his carbine up, tucked it into his shoulder and said softly to Arrakis, “Site the Russian in, kid. Let me know when you have him.”
“I have him, Gunny,” Nicky whispered.
“Take him out, kid.”
The BAR shouted and the Russian dropped, back and shoulder blowing out all over the Korean officer beside the man. Jones fired and knocked down the North Korean officer who had been standing, shocked, and covered in the blood of the Russian. Addison stitched a pair of guards at the entrance, the Thompson chattering in its low, deadly fashion.
From all around the warehouse came the sharp, sudden sounds of firing.
The North Koreans in the truck didn’t fire their weapons, though. Instead they turned to the fifty gallon drums, cranking on the pumps as they yelled to each other, spraying the fuel out over the civilians, who started to scream in fear and outrage as it struck them. Other soldiers came rushing to Jones’ entrance, using the sides as cover, and bullets were soon smacking into the trees around Jones and his team.
Arrakis used the power of the BAR to punch into the concrete of the walls, forcing the soldiers that weren’t killed out into the open, where Jones and Addison finished them off. The three Korean soldiers in the truck continued to pump furiously, then, suddenly, they turned the hoses on each other. When they were soaked Jones watched in horror, for a split second, as the men began firing their weapons into the crowded civilians.
“Fuck me!” Jones yelled, and his bullets along with those of his squad tore into the North Koreans massacring the civilians.
Lance Corporal Jacob M. Gordon
When Arrakis’ BAR spoke from the far end of the warehouse, everyone opened up. Most of the rounds found their targets, dropping most of the North Korean guards, but quite a few civilians were struck as well. The screams were bloodcurdling as blossoms of dark red sprouted on the traditional white clothes of the civilians.
Gordon swallowed painfully and forced himself to ignore the civilian casualties, focusing his concentration on the few guards which remained and who were returning fire. The men had taken refuge behind the walls and civilians, and the BAR men in the platoon were trying to flush them out. Just beyond the entrance, from the center of the warehouse, came the sounds of firing and the panicked screams of the civilians.
Oh sweet Jesus, Gordon thought, pausing in his firing.
They’re killing the civilians.
The Massacre
Jones emptied a whole clip into one of the Koreans in the back of the truck, the man collapsing onto a fifty gallon drum. The other two were down in a heartbeat and Jones and his squad were charging to the warehouse. The civilians, panicking, tried to force their way out of warehouse through every entrance. Cries from the wounded echoed off of the rafters and rolled out –
Screams started from around the truck again, people yelling frantically in Korean. The crowd started to move in frenzy, knocking each other down in their attempt to get out as they picked up a speed that Jones didn’t think was possible.
As Jones pushed forward through the massive wall of flesh he saw the man that he had killed in the back of the truck straighten up.
Jones’ breath caught in his throat, and he shook his head, staring at the reanimated corpse.
The thing’s jaw dropped down, its arms rising up, hands outstretched. It walked off of the back of the bed and fell upon an old woman attempting to crawl under the truck. She screamed as it dragged her out by the ankles, lifting her up to bite into the dirty sole of her foot.
The two other dead soldiers on the truck staggered up, and rounds from around warehouse sank into them.
Nothing happened to the reanimated corpses, though, they simply kept moving towards the edge and the old woman who continued to scream, most of her foot missing as the one Jones had killed continued to eat her foot, flesh and blood smeared across his cheeks.
For the first time Jones noticed that the three soldiers weren’t the only dead to come back. Other soldiers and civilians who had been killed either by the Marines or the communists were feasting upon the living. A few, once bitten, died while being eaten, and then they came to life once more, arms rising up and jaws dropping open, just like their attackers.
It was then that Jones could hear the moan issuing forth from the mouths of the dead, and he saw that many of the civilians bore wounds. Some of them bitemarks.
It’s fucking passed on through the blood, he thought, shaking his head. Through the fucking blood.
“Pass the word, don’t touch anyone bitten!” Jones yelled to Arrakis. Arrakis nodded, yelling the warning on to Addison, and so it went around the warehouse.
A Thompson ripped through one of the dead North Koreans, and nothing happening, even as one of its arms was taken off at the shoulder. Another spray worked from the chest up, and when a round hit the head, the North Korean dropped.
“Head shots!” someone yelled, and everyone blazed away at the undead things approaching them.
Jones nodded. “Gordon!”
“Aye aye!” Gordon trotted up, his bazooka swinging lazily from its sling, his carbine in his hand as he loaded in a fresh clip. He grinned at Jones. “What’s coming, Gunny?”
“Truck.”
“Fun,” Gordon said. Taking the bazooka off of his shoulder the young lance corporal walked up to the rear entrance, set up the weapon, and waited for the truck. Dozens of the dead, though, were reanimating in the trees around the warehouse, and they started back towards Jones and his platoon.
“I want a skirmish line!” Jones shouted. “All the way around the fucking interior. Head shots are the only things that stop the gooks that are…whatever the fuck they are!”
Squad leaders echoed his command and the truck came tear-assing around a corner, the bed stuffed full with gook soldiers. Gordon sighted on the truck and triggered the bazooka, the blast of the weapon thundering and shaking the air in the warehouse. The shot was dead on, though, and the unarmored cab of the truck nearly disappeared. Survivors were thrown clear and soon found themselves fighting with the undead.
The screams of the soldiers rang out among the trees as the undead found them, and feasted upon their flesh.
Jones’ platoon kept up a steady rate of fire, the BARs and Thompsons keeping pace with the carbines. Jones even heard a .45 bark a few times.
Someone screamed from off to the left and Jones turned in time to see Willette and his team disappear under a writhing mound of flesh. The undead had overwhelmed the squad on both sides, and in a matter of moments the screams were silenced.
Jones snapped off a few quick shots and fell back towards his own squad.
“Let’s go, everybody out,” Jones said. “This is a fucking death trap. Pass the word, we’ll fight our way towards the burned truck, then we’ll work it out from there,” he said to Addison.
The young private looked at him, wild-eyed.
“Get a grip, Addie,” Jones said in a low voice. “Get a grip. Just because they’re harder to kill doesn’t mean they can’t be. We’ve already proven that. You’re a fucking Marine, and you need to remember that. Now get your shit together, and let’s just get out of here. Pass the word.”
Addison nodded and turned away, calling the runners to him.
Jones had Arrakis led the way while the rest of the platoon fought their way towards them. Jones stationed himself at the entrance that he had come in, remaining there and snapping off shots as quickly as he could. He slapped his last clip home while Bennett and Cox went hobbling by.
“That’s it, Gunny,” Bennett said. “We’re the last of them.”
“Good,” Jones said, and he walked backwards, glancing behind him every few steps. The undead continued to follow them, stumbling and staggering, but Jones slung his carbine and switched to his .45. Finally the dead were stopped, if only briefly, and when he arrived at the truck he found eleven Marines, and a hell of a lot of bodies. Mason stomped on the head of a North Korean soldier who was missing half of an arm and was just beginning to stir, the good arm reaching up and a low, disturbing moan issuing forth from his mouth.
The moan disappeared as Mason crushed his skull with his boot.
With the fire having died down the loud, combined moan of the undead civilians still in the warehouse reached them. The undead gooks were turning around slowly, some already free of the warehouse and heading towards them, staggering over the bodies that Jones had left in his wake.
“Gather up weapons and ammo from the gooks,” Jones said, “and be careful what you touch. I don’t know how this fucking thing is transmitted yet, but I want you all to be careful. Listen, the one map I saw of this place showed a small village about half a mile down the road. That’s probably where the gooks got all of the civvies. We’re going to head there and hole up for a while. We should get helped out by the Old Man in the next few hours.” Jones looked at his men.
“Remember,” he said, “head shots, or Sergeant Mason’s boots.”
The men chuckled, Mason grinning.
“Now let’s move out and get to some place safe.” He looked back at the oncoming undead. “I’m pretty sure that those bastards want us for chow.”
Armor
“What do you mean the track is thrown, Corporal?” the Lieutenant asked from the turret.
Boylan stood on the dirt road with Mac and fought to keep his face from revealing his surprise at the Lieutenant’s stupidity. How the fuck did he even get into an armored unit? Boylan thought, but said, instead, “Somehow we’ve thrown a track, sir. We’re going to need to fix it before we can continue on.”
“But Captain Sawyer said that he’s not going to wait for us,” the Lieutenant said, and sounded for all the world like a child who had been told he couldn’t go to the carnival. The Lieutenant looked down the road to where the other tanks were disappearing around a bend, the diesel’s echoing loudly.
“That’s true, sir,” Boylan said, “the unit can’t wait for us. There are objectives to be taken, sir.”
The Lieutenant went red in the face but didn’t say anything.
Mac spoke up. “Sir, we’ll have the track fixed in no time. Plus we’ll post a watch so no gooks can come up and cut us out.”
The Lieutenant glared at him. “I’m not worried about any of the North Koreans, Marine. I just don’t want to miss any of the action.” And the Lieutenant dropped down into the turret.
Mac looked at Boylan and rolled his eyes.
Boylan shook his head, took out his cigarettes and passed one to Mac. “He’s a fucking straight up butterbar, Mac,” Boylan said, lighting the cigarettes.
Mac nodded his agreement. “If he keeps up with that can-do attitude mixed with the I-don’t-know-shit mentality, he’s going to get us fucking killed to.”
“Yup,” Boylan sighed. He looked at the Sherman. “And we’ve got to fix that fucking tread, too.”
The Village
The remains of the platoon moved spread out, all of the greenness gone from the new men. Their faces bore hardened expressions, some of them splashed with the blood of enemies and friends alike.
Jones knew the expression. Knew too that he wore the same. He and Mason had both earned that look island hopping in the Pacific.
But this is just wrong, Jones thought, and brought his attention back to the task at hand: making it to the village.
Making it to the village and avoiding the living dead, to be exact.
They moved along either side of the road, keeping to the thin tree line and listening. All that could be heard was the gunfire and artillery from other units, the occasional plane ripping by overhead. Addie still carried the radio, but it had decided to fritz out, and they wouldn’t be able to look at it until they got to someplace secure. There was no use in sending out a runner, either. Everyone would be pushing ahead, and the tanks were due to pass through the village in the next twenty-four hours.
All I need to do is get my Marines to a secure position, and wait for that damned armor to roll up, Jones thought.
The moans in the woods, echoing off of the trees and filling their ears, though, those moans were damned unsettling, and Jones had listened to thousands of men die. Nothing had sounded like those moans, not when men were being butchered by the score. And there was a hunger to that moan that brought the image of the little old lady having her foot eaten brought back to his mind again and again and again.
Suddenly the village appeared, doors and windows open on the small hovels that the locals called home. The place looked completely abandoned, stripped utterly of life.
The platoon came to a stop at the village’s edge, dropping into firing positions.
“Nicky, Franz, you’re up.”
The two Marines nodded and split off, each them disappearing into the village. They were back in a few minutes.
“Twenty one houses, Gunny,” Nicky said.
“And nobody’s home, Gunny,” Fr
anz added.
“Okay,” Jones said. “Let’s find a couple secure houses on the main road. I want houses across from each other so we can have covering fields of fire. Nicky, Franz, Addie, I want the three of you to scout the area. Make sure there are no commies hiding out, and God damn it, be fucking careful. I’m pretty sure that those dead fucks are going to be headed this way. You find weapons and ammo, you bring it back. You run into those fucks, you get on back. Do not, I fucking repeat, do not fuck around with them. Got it?”
“Aye aye, Gunny,” the three men said in unison before taking off.
“Mason.”
“Gunny?”
“Find me those houses.”
“Aye aye, Gunny,” Mason said. He jogged down the road, shot-gun at the ready. He stopped about halfway through, ducked around one house, came back out onto the street, crossed it and did the same with the house parallel to the first. In a moment he was jogging back.
“What’s the situation, Mason?” Jones asked.
“Found a pair,” Mason answered. “Checked the backs, too. If we need to hold out for a while we should take the doors off of the empty houses and shore up the two that we use. Might as well scrounge up whatever gook food we can find, too.”
Jones nodded. “Find the well, Mason. Make sure that everyone’s canteens are full. Bennett and Cox, I want you two in the house on the right. Gordon, I want you in the one on the left. Ellery, Liskow, you two with Bennett, Quinn and Kenyan, with Gordon. Start fortifying the houses, and make it fast. We want to be ready for when the dead come rolling into town.” A chorus of ‘aye ayes’ followed, and the Marines split off to their houses.
Jones watched the men disperse, and he shook his head. Mason was back in a few minutes. “Found the well, Gunny.”
“Everything look good around it?”