Glancing around to make sure that no zombies had managed to sneak up on us from the other side, I jumped into my own car, with Nate only seconds behind. I took off as soon as I was strapped back in. Someone must have thrown a grenade at the wreck because it went up in flames moments later, a scenic backdrop to the five of us speeding away, heading straight for the first bridge. There were zombies everywhere, scattered across the plain, but most were feeding on their fallen, ignoring us.
I allowed myself to relax as we reached the other river bank once more, heading back south without further delay.
“How bad are they off?” Nate asked once all the cars were clear.
It took Martinez a few moments to reply, likely because he was still busy patching them up.
“One’s looking good, just a little banged up. Sprained ankle, maybe a few broken ribs. The airbag broke his nose, but I think the blood’s all his.” He paused for a moment. “The other has a long gash straight across his back. He’s unconscious right now so I can’t assess how his torso’s doing, but lungs sound clear. Could have been from some scrap metal, but there’s gunk everywhere.”
Shit. That didn’t sound too good. My thoughts were echoed when I heard Jason curse over the com link.
“I’m fine,” an unfamiliar voice replied, presumably the first patient. “Fucking suckers surprised us. They were just there, from one moment to the next. One of them slammed right into my windshield and I panicked. Next thing I know, we’re jammed together sideways, and they’re coming through the broken windows. Safety glass, my ass. Boss, I’m sorry—“
“No need to cry over spilled milk,” Jason replied, his voice uncannily soft. “Can you still shoot?”
“Sure thing.”
“Mind if he stays with you guys?” Jason asked.
Burns was quick to respond. “With Martinez busy trying to do some bona fide battlefield surgery right there in the back, we’re a man short, anyway. Would appreciate the help.”
“Awesome,” the not-patient replied. “You got any spare ammo? I’m all out.”
“Crate’s right behind the driver’s seat,” Burns said. “Help yourself.”
With the rocky meadow mostly clear ahead of us, I chanced a glance at Nate. He was looking grim, confirming my guess about the fate of the second merc—and maybe the first, too. We’d already lost one of our own to a wound that he hadn’t even felt getting. Something in the zombie saliva was so fucking neurotoxic that it immediately took out the pain receptors around the wound. Only time would tell if Jason was about to lose one or two of his guys. Either way, it wouldn’t happen until long after this operation was over—whether we won or lost.
Fifteen minutes later, we were around the river bend with the flood plains opening ahead of us, letting us catch a first glimpse at the settlement again—but that wasn’t what drew my eye. I stared for several seconds straight, until I hit a boulder and the resulting jostling tore me out of my stunned silence.
“Are those fucking tanks?”
Chapter 7
The smile spreading on Nate’s face wasn’t something I got to see often. Come to think of it, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen it.
“Actually, that’s an ABV,” he said, chuckling under his breath at my blank stare. “Armored Breacher Vehicle. What amounts to the lovechild of a tank and a bulldozer. Combat engineers use them to clear IEDs. Didn’t think we had any left, or personnel trained to handle them. Looks like I was wrong.”
Now that we’d rolled to a halt, I couldn’t stop staring at the thing. From up closer, it looked exactly like Nate had described it—a tank with a plow attached in the front. One of them even seemed to have some kind of crane attachment, although that was folded square on top of the vehicle. As we kept watching, the hatch of the one closest to us opened and a man looked out, wearing what looked like regular army combat gear. He shouted something at us but we were too far away to hear. At Nate’s nod, I brought the Rover forward until we were in shouting distance. And because just opening a window wasn’t impressive enough, Nate had to climb back and open our own hatch, as if we had to prove anything. Next to those forty-foot long behemoths all of our cars looked rather diminutive.
“I’m Nate Miller, of the Lucky Thirteen. That over there is Jason Luke, leader of Luke’s Chargers. I presume you’re here to help us with the cleanup?”
“That you might say,” the guy in the tank—ABV, or whatever; to me it was a tank—replied. “Lance Corporal Daniel Watts. We’re not exactly an operational unit anymore.”
“Sappers?” Nate guessed.
“Out of Fort Leonard Wood,” Watts replied. “Got a few of our babies still up and running. Listen, do you guys have a signal scrambler up? We tried hailing you since yesterday when the guys from the radio network called out the warning, but we didn’t get through.”
Getting out of his own car—and looking comparatively small—Jason eyed the vehicles with a similar grin as Nate’s, if maybe lacking a little bit of innate pride. Must have been army pioneers, I figured. It was a thing between the guys.
“We had some issues with long-range communications,” Jason offered. “But short-range works great. Got something to write down? We can give you our team frequencies.” They quickly exchanged the details, Watts repeating them to whoever else was with him in that thing, and presumably the other two vehicles as well.
“You’re truly a welcome sight,” Nate said. “We just got back from drawing as many of the undead fuckers as possible away from the settlement, but as you can see, that still leaves quite a lot of them. Particularly if you have to work with rifles and guns to get rid of them.”
“No problem, that’s what we came here for,” Watts explained. “We usually patrol this area, up into Iowa to the munitions plant near Burlington. Had some issues after a tornado busted up our barracks. Next thing we hear, Harristown is under siege. We tried to make it here by sunrise, but clearly you guys were faster. Hope you don’t mind that we waited here for you to come back?”
“At least you still left some of the shamblers for us,” Nate joked, looking out over the plain toward the settlement. Across the distance it was hard to guess, but there must have been a few hundred zombies left. I wouldn’t have minded seeing them all gone, but having tanks for backup was the next best thing.
I expected Nate to talk strategy next, but he paused to watch Burns climb out of his car to join us, standing next to my window. “You guys from Fort Leonard Wood? Did my sapper training there.”
“What’s your name, soldier?” Watts asked.
“Sergeant Thomas Burns. Not that rank matters anymore.”
Watts’s eyes went comically wide. “You’re not that Tom Burns, right? Who blew up ammo bunker seven on a dare? You’re a legend, man!”
Nate gave Burns a look that was part considering, part condescending. “Was that before or after we did ordnance training together?”
“Before,” Burns provided, laughing. “I got demoted for that stunt. I’ll never know why they didn’t kick my sorry ass out. Must have had other plans for me.” It didn’t pass by me unnoticed that he scratched the back of his neck, a sure sign what he thought the army had had in store for him. “Anyway,” Burns continued. “I was wondering, would you guys mind giving me a ride in your sweet digs there? We have two wounded in the back and jostling them around doesn’t sound like too much of a plan. Cho can easily defend the car while I’m having fun. If that’s okay with you, boss? I’ve always wanted to see the inside of one of these monsters.”
Nate offered a shrug, while Watts looked weirdly excited. I made a mental note to drag that entire story out of Burns later.
“Sure. We’re a man short. If you’d man the machine gun, that would be great. Or do you want command over the rocket launchers? We’ve upgraded our baby quite a bit…”
A little perplexed, I watched as Burns climbed up onto the ABV, chatting away as if he and Watts were old friends. I wondered if that was an army thing, too, or just plain B
urns. Probably the latter.
Nate climbed back into his seat in the meantime, pausing when he noticed me still staring at the ABVs. “What?”
I made sure that my mic was turned off for now. “Those things come in mighty handy, right?” He gave me a “Duh!” look. “Don’t you think that’s rather convenient?” I asked.
“Are you complaining?”
I shook my head. “Just paranoid, is all.”
“Considering how often fate slaps us in the face, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth,” he replied. “Besides, I doubt they would have let Burns over there if they were up to no good. All hero worship aside, you saw that Watts checked us both out?”
I nodded. With full gear, not much of the marks was visible, but enough to let anyone who knew what he was looking for find it.
“They look legit to you?”
“As legit as they need to be,” Nate told me. “Need anything else, or can we get down to business? A potty break maybe? Or some candy to take your mind off the task ahead?”
I glared at him, already reaching up to engage my mic again. “You’re such an asshole sometimes.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” And knowing him, that was the truth.
As soon as Watts and the drivers of the other two ABVs joined our com channel, Jason and Nate quickly coordinated the second wave of attack with them. In the meanwhile, the other group got into position up on the slope where everything had started what felt like a small eternity ago. I listened in, not having much to contribute myself, sucking down an entire bottle of water in the meantime. The temperatures were climbing rapidly now, making it stifling hot in the unmoving car.
I had no idea what the not-quite tanks usually were armed with, but from what I gathered the engineers had spent the entire winter tuning and retrofitting them, turning a vehicle that was built to dispose of mines mostly into a moving fortress that could just mow through the undead hordes with their insane number of fifteen hundred horsepower. Hearing that, I stopped wondering where they got the ammo from, and instead marveled that they were still operational. It was one thing to fuel the five cars of our unit, with almost every broken-down vehicle on the road still having enough in the tank that we could syphon off. I doubted the ABVs would burp at what the Rover was running on for days easily.
Latent anxiety and fear made it impossible for me to let my guard down, but as we drove further south, getting into position on this side of the river to where we were straight across the plain from the settlement, I couldn’t help but feel just a little bit better about this when we remained behind and only the ABVs drove straight into the fray. And, man, did they move fast.
Not knowing the first thing about armored vehicles in general, I’d expected them to be kind of slow, lumbering hulks, but they accelerated at about the rate of one of our SUVs cross-country, and plowed right into the remaining mass of zombies as if it was an open field of grass. Body parts and gore splattered everywhere, making me grimace as I watched through the binoculars. The zombies didn’t get much time to react, and anything that got too close was toast. Several explosions ripped deep gouges into the moving field of bodies, and the steady rat-rat-tatt of the machine guns did its own to chew into them. As gruesome as the show was, it made me feel kind of useless. Of all the things that I’d expected to happen today, that wasn’t one of them.
“How long do we wait?” I asked Nate, handing the binoculars back to him.
“Why, you getting antsy all of a sudden?”
I shrugged. “If they keep going like this, we’ll be done by noon. That means I could get some chow into the gaping hole where my stomach used to be by one, two latest. What’s not to like about that? Besides, they can’t really get close to the walls without damaging them. Someone has to do the fine work.”
I really didn’t know what to make of the grin I got for that. “Maybe not all hope is lost yet,” Nate observed.
“Of what?”
“Of me turning you into a proper soldier.”
That made me scoff. “Fat chance. I wouldn’t even swear to obey you if you’d ask me to marry you.”
He gave me a weird look for that remark, making me wish instantly I could take it back, but his reply made me relax again. “Yeah, you’d turn writing our vows into negotiations that would make any prenup pale in comparison. I already have to clean the car each and every time you splatter zombie guts all over it. I’m not gonna get myself into any more obligations there.”
“Aw, poor boy, has to do a little washing up. You know, there are enough men in the world who’d never even let their women get anywhere near their car when it gets to cleaning,” I snapped.
“Those women usually don’t drive, either,” he replied, smirking.
“Shut up. You like it well enough that I’m your chauffeur.”
“I’d like it even more if you’d stop questioning my authority at each and every turn.”
“Am not,” I protested. “Besides, you’d just get bored if I didn’t. Admit it. Apocalypse and all that crap aside, you’re having the time of your life.”
His almost benign smile made me roll my eyes, and I was quite happy to fall silent in favor of listening to Burns whoop all over the com frequencies as he zipped across the plain in his turbo tank. Only the periodic updates from Martinez reminded me that what we were doing was a hell of a lot more dangerous than it might have looked.
Jason gave the ABVs about twenty minutes to cut a few nice swaths through the zombies before he sent us forward. I tried to keep in formation with him and his second car, but with bodies heaping up everywhere, making pressing forward difficult at times, it got virtually impossible. Instead I broke away, heading toward the palisades, Andrej to my right. He seemed to have less trouble there, but in the end we both just made sure to strafe any larger group of zombies so our passengers could rain fiery hell down on them.
Things got a little hairy about an hour in when I ran over one of the super zombies, and rather than stay down it started tearing at my fender and windshield. Andrej crashed into it from the other side, wedging it between our front bumpers. That made it go down, but not for good. I tried going over it again, but got stuck in another heap of squashed body parts, momentarily grinding to a halt—giving the juiced fucker the opportunity of a lifetime to start tearing the undercarriage apart. Some excessive rocking forward and back finally finished it off, but when I tried to accelerate, the car gave a series of weird noises—and then it died on me.
Still panting from exertion, I cast around for the next zombie to come after us, but the area around us was mostly quiet. I tried to restart the car twice, then slammed my hands against the wheel for good measure, not unhappy that Martinez had wisely removed the airbags last winter. Nate calmly listened to my string of curses—half in English, the other half in whatever I’d picked up from our merry band of misfits—while he reloaded his rifle.
“Are you done yet?” he asked when I finally ran out of air.
“Not quite,” I huffed, glaring at nothing and everything. “I fucking hate this!”
“We can, of course, remain sitting here and watch while the others finish our job,” he supplied.
“Or?”
His grin wasn’t exactly a nice one. “Or we get out there and finish it the old-fashioned way. You’ve barely emptied a box of ammo yet. Are you really going to say you did your part with that to show?”
“I killed at least fifty of them by grinding them to a bloody mess under my tires,” I grunted, already wrenching on my breathing mask. “But wasn’t it you who told me that I shouldn’t get too close to this?”
“That was before I knew we’d have tanks,” he told me succinctly.
“ABVs,” I corrected.
“Shut up and get your gear on. We’re burning daylight.”
Suddenly anxious to get out of the increasingly tightening cage of the car, I still took a moment to check that my mask was in place, the straps of the helmet were closed, and my goggles sat
firmly over the upper part of my face. It was so fucking hot under that mask that I couldn’t wait to get out, even if that meant leaving my cozy seat behind. I just had to do something, and killing zombies sounded like the perfect antidote to that.
Nate waited until I was crouching right next to him behind the seats before he wrenched the hatch open, sending a few bursts of rapid fire around us to take care of the increasing number of zombies that had gotten curious in the meantime. As soon as he gave me the “go,” I straightened, my back almost touching his as I took over that side. As much as I loved my shotgun, I had no intention of getting that up close and personal with anything today, for once using one of our spare AR-15s. The recoil was laughable, and I might have squeezed off a few too many rounds at first, but what were a couple bullets wasted compared to getting my face chewed off?
It took us a good fifteen minutes to level everything that moved in our vicinity before it was safe to exit the vehicle completely. I might have laughed maniacally a time or two when a head exploded somewhat spectacularly. For every zombie that fell, two more followed, but even with reloading, none of them got too close. My back ached from bracing myself, as did my shoulders and arms from keeping the AR up, but I kept on shooting until all the magazines I had in easy reach were empty and nothing was moving in our immediate vicinity.
Damn, but I’d so needed that.
Once we’d run out of targets, we reloaded before we left the Rover. Nate did the groundwork and I followed after pulling the hatch closed behind me. No need to leave it open so one of the shamblers could climb in and leave stinking goo all over what constituted my living room nowadays.
And speaking of the stench—it was unbelievable.
Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 2 | Books 4-6 Page 9