Zombies! (Book 7): Still Standing

by Merritt, R. S.

  Randy thought he saw something right behind Higgins. He moved to the side and looked again but couldn’t see anything. In a sudden flash of movement an arm launched out from under the RV. A gnarly clawed hand latched onto Higgins leg. Before Higgins or Randy could react, an infected man pulled himself out from under the RV and started gnawing on Higgins pant covered leg. Higgins bounced backwards away from the RV and grabbed the Zombie by the hair. He was tugging on the long greasy hair to keep the infected man’s teeth far enough away to avoid being bitten. The Zombie had a solid grip on his leg and was wrapping itself around him like a human anaconda.

  Randy sprinted over to help Higgins out. Screeches from under the RV made him glance that way. Multiple infected were pulling themselves out from under the RV while screaming out their mad desire to rip into his skin with their teeth. Looking towards the door he saw all the kids were in the RV except for Caitlyn. She was standing on the bottom step next to Bryan waiting for him. Bryan was trying to line up a shot on the Zombie wrapped around Higgins. Randy’s blood ran cold when he saw a Zombie crawling out from under the RV beneath an unsuspecting Bryan and Caitlyn.

  Randy made it to Higgins right as the man lost his balance and fell on the ground. Randy shoved the end of the crowbar he was carrying into the Zombies head as hard as he could. He felt the bar smash through the skull and into the grass. He ripped the crowbar up out of the man’s head to swing at the infected woman who’d appeared out of nowhere. The woman leapt on top of Higgins screaming with blood lust. Randy stepped in and swung the crowbar into her gut. Her body fell to the side, but her face was still buried in Higgin’s stomach. She was busy feasting on his gut. Another Zombie crawled out from under the RV and joined her at the intestinal buffet.

  Randy turned and ran for the door to the RV. There was nothing more he could do there. The Zombies were sucking and pulling on Higgins guts like piglets nursing at their moms teats. Bryan sighted in on the Zombies ripping into Higgins and started shooting. At least one of those bullets would be destined to end Higgins.

  Pushing Caitlyn up the stairs Randy flung himself on the nice leather couch in the main area of the expensive looking motorhome. The interior smelled a little musty but otherwise looked great. Whoever had bought it had splurged on all the bells and whistles. Not that the huge flat screen was going to do them a ton of good unless it was hooked up to a DVD player. Bryan slammed the door shut and sprang up the stairs yelling for Gomez to get them the hell out of there.

  Randy looked up in the front of the RV and saw Phil had claimed the passenger seat. Gomez was sitting in the driver’s seat turning the steering wheel and getting them moving. Randy turned and looked out the big picture window beside him. The beast of a machine rode high enough that the Zombies smacking on the side of the RV were barely able to hit the actual windows. There was very little risk that the loud smacking on the hard metal sides of the RV was going to do any real damage.

  Even with the infected flooding the streets they found themselves rolling out onto the interstate in no time flat. Kelly was digging around in the stainless-steel kitchenette trying to find something for everyone to eat. Randy was flashing back to the bowls of pasta everyone had been like five seconds from enjoying. Kelly sat down at the small kitchen table and buried her face in her crossed arms. Randy went to check on her. Sitting down beside her he rubbed her back.

  “There’s no food on this thing.” Kelly announced.

  “I know. I was just thinking if we’d had another five minutes then we’d all be full now.” Randy said. He wasn’t overly concerned since they had food in their packs if needed. It was always nice to eat what you could find before pulling out your backup stores, but it was what it was.

  “You mean if I hadn’t taken so long trying to make it look nice. You carried that doll house down and everyone was having so much fun. It all felt so normal. I didn’t want to ruin it by handing everyone a can with a spoon sticking out of it. So stupid.” Kelly mumbled burying her head deeper in her arms.

  Randy kept his mouth shut and continued rubbing her back. The kids were shooting him accusing looks. Probably wondering what he’d done to make mommy sad this time. He ignored them for now while thinking that he absolutely would’ve just shoved some spoons in the cans and called it a day. It wouldn’t have been as pretty but none of them would be hungry right now. He understood her fascination with the fantasy that they could return to something like the way life used to be. He just didn’t know how they were going to get there. They were currently rolling the dice big time in the belly of this traveling behemoth on a major pipe dream.

  “We’re going to make it. We’re going to get on that ship and end up somewhere that we can build ourselves a normal life.” Randy said. He sounded fake to his own ears, but he hoped it would help cheer Kelly up. Pipe dream or not they’d made the decision to go for it and were determined to see it through.

  “What’s going to stop a drone from blowing up this RV before we even get there?” Kelly asked.

  That was a very valid concern that Randy didn’t have a good answer for. Which explained why he was actually momentarily relieved to look out the window and see that a paramilitary motorcycle gang was riding past them. Phil and Gomez both had their windows down and their arms hanging out. They occasionally flashed a peace sign or nod to the men riding by. The leader of the ten men riding the motorcycles gave them one final wave before gunning his engine to leave them in the dust. The rest of the men on motorcycles did the same.

  “I can’t believe that worked.” Bryan said starting to sit down with Randy and Kelly at the table. He noticed she looked like she’d been crying so awkwardly walked in the other direction.

  “What’d you do?” Kelly asked sitting up straight and wiping her eyes off.

  “Phil and Gomez just acted like they were some random Brotherhood soldiers driving an RV to the battle. For some reason those guys didn’t get suspicious and shoot us. I’m calling it a big win.” Bryan said smiling.

  “What about drones blowing us up like they did Frank?” Kelly asked.

  “If they think we’re road tripping to wage war in our overpriced Winnebago on the Brotherhood side then we shouldn’t have any issues. If we were driving the other way, they may take a shot at us, but I think we’re good for now. The settlement planes may be the biggest thing we have to worry about now. They’ll be cruising over all the main highways looking for things like troop transports to drop bombs on.” Bryan said thoughtfully. He closed his mouth when he saw that Kelly had put her face back in her arms again effectively shutting him out.

  “You couldn’t have just stopped at the part where the drones probably wouldn’t bother with us?” Randy said sarcastically as he worked on trying to bring Kelly back out of her shell yet again.

  Chapter 27: A Vicious Cycle

  Krantz applied pressure in small circles on his temples with his index fingers. He was absorbing the fact that they’d lost at least two battalions worth of men to a glaringly obvious flaw in the plan. The plan as provided to him by Sam had been to infiltrate their troops to Virginia by having them move in small groups. The squad sized groups had easily traversed the state for the most part. Small groups were able to climb trees or hide in basements or do whatever it took to evade any obstacles they ran into. Small groups also didn’t warrant the expenditure of limited resources like harpoon missiles by the enemy.

  Battalions were not small groups of men slipping through the forest. Battalions were made up of around five hundred fighting men plus auxiliary troops. Battalions were loud and impossible to conceal for very long from the infected. The men had instantly spotted the issues with everyone gathering together but had been ordered to join up anyway. Fearful their families would suffer if they didn’t do as they were instructed, they’d come in and pitched their tents. They’d all known how it was going to end.

  The squad leaders brought up the issue to the platoon leaders who raised it with the battalion executive officer who brought it up
to the battalion commander. By the time the complaint filtered up the entire chain of command it was already too late for one of the battalions. A herd ripped into them. They fought off the first wave but the noise from that fight attracted several more herds. The infected kept coming until the battalion was obliterated. The only survivors were those who’d known it was going to happen and planned accordingly. They’d taken off running at the first signs of the incoming infected.

  The other battalion that was obliterated almost made it. The commanding officer was teetering on whether or not to disperse the troops out to the field. It was late in the day, so he decided to put the decision off until morning. Against the strong objections of his executive officer he ordered an early muster and went to his tent to sleep for a few hours. The commanding officer’s thinking was that they may receive the order overnight to advance on the settlements in the morning. If they didn’t receive that order, then they could disperse in the morning in an orderly fashion to await the order to attack. He assumed they’d be safe for the night since that’s when the Zombies nested. He let the executive officer know to be ready to move everyone out at first light.

  Zombies don’t go to sleep when a group of five hundred men is camped out near them. They started coming against the sentries in ones and twos. At first, they were killed by clubs and blades as was the normal procedure. When the trickle changed to more of a steady flow, men started getting tired and sloppy. Reserves were called in to assist with repelling the infected moving on them. Groggy with sleep they walked the perimeter beating infected to the ground and then bashing in their heads. The eerie screeches of the invader washing over the whole battalion.

  The commander heard the growing volume of screeches and immediately realized his mistake. There was obviously not enough time to wait until first light like he’d wanted to. He opened the flap of his tent to look for his orderly. No one was standing directly outside so he whisper-yelled to see if he was close by. This was an order that couldn’t wait. His hushed summons attracted the attention of someone on the trail leading to his tent. The commanders first thought was that his orderly had decided to get drunk. That thought flitted around in his head for a second before the drunken looking figure screeched out loud and sprinted straight for him.

  The commander jumped backwards into his tent and tugged the zipper down. The oversized zipper went about halfway down before getting caught on the canvas. He tugged harder on the zipper and ripped it completely off the tent in his panic. He fell over on the floor of the tent still holding the broken zipper in his hand. Before he could get up the Zombie was in the tent smashing it’s face into his exposed midsection. The monster embraced him like a long-lost lover lustfully ripping into his flesh. When the orderly finally opened the tent flap there wasn’t much left of his boss. With no one to give the order to disperse the battalion quickly descended into complete bedlam.

  The other battalions fared much better. Most of the commanders recognized the flaw in the plan before they commenced gathering the incoming squads together. The commanders staged different areas around their allotted regions for the men to assemble in much smaller groups. This decentralized way of forming the battalions worked a lot better. It was what Forrest had ordered the battalion commander of the battalion he’d met up with to do almost immediately.

  Krantz continued to massage his temples. He was trying to recall whose brilliant idea this had all been to begin with. Realizing the plan had originally been thought up by the same former commander who’d thought it’d be smart to lead helicopter raids into enemy territory he pressed even harder with his fingers. It didn’t really matter who’d come up with the original plan. Krantz was the one who should’ve recognized the issue and made the necessary adjustments. Now well over a thousand men were dead because he’d been an idiot. The mistake had cost them that numerical advantage they’d achieved by getting the men to Virginia so efficiently. Without those overwhelming numbers it might look like a fair fight to the settlement militia. A fair fight would mean a major loss of life on both sides. An unfair fight would send the enemy sailing away as fast as their nuclear-powered carrier could make steam.

  Forrest waited patiently for his orders. He’d said his piece and left it that. They both knew whose fault it was the plan had been so botched. Forrest went on to explain that now with all the men more evenly dispersed they were no longer such easy targets for air raids either. There’d already been some bombing runs and strafing type attacks. The settlement militia had sought to take advantage of their air superiority almost immediately. Unless the New American armies bunched up together in one place again though it rendered that advantage moot.

  “Having everyone bunched up for the final assaults on the settlements was the original plan. That’s why we had everyone come together in Virginia to form battalions to begin with.” Krantz said. He watched as Forrest stoically maintained a poker face on his end of the video conference.

  “That’s right sir. That’s another great reason to abandon the battalion concept and just do this at the squad level. It’ll just take additional coordination.” Forrest responded.

  Wondering how much of his headache was stress and frustration and how much was due to overindulging the night before Krantz signed off. His final order to Forrest was to take the day to reorganize the battalions by squads. They needed to begin moving them into position to be ready to attack the main settlement base. It’d become painfully obvious they needed to get this battle over with and pull the troops out of there as quickly as possible.

  Forrest pulled off his headsets and handed them to the techie standing in the small building beside him. What Krantz had just ordered him to do was going to cost them a lot of lives without being a certain path to victory. The really advanced weaponry was all at the Naval base with the settlement troops. With their air superiority and access to advanced weaponry they could hold off the Brotherhood troops for weeks. All the settlement militias had to do was keep them at bay until they were ripped apart by the infected hordes converging on this side of the state.

  Forrest sat down at a table and wrote out the orders to be delivered. He was giving each battalion commander their orders on what region of the city they’d be attacking and when they needed to be there. He was ordering them to move under cover of darkness and to make sure they utilized small tactical units instead of trying to advance as a battalion. He didn’t think he necessarily needed to tell them that at this point, but he wanted to be certain they didn’t keep repeating the same mistakes.

  It physically hurt his heart to hand the pile of notes to the communications guy he had with him. All they really needed to do was give the settlements enough time to get their carrier supplied and they’d sail away on their own. There was no need for this upcoming battle. The settlements had attacked them, but it’d always been more to try and secure their own borders than out of vindictiveness. It was the Brotherhood that was expanding and moving in on everyone. He really hoped there was a reason for this he just didn’t know about. He hated to think they were throwing away the lives of all these men and women just because the Senator wanted to get vengeance for his sister.

  Not that it mattered too much to Forrest at this point anyway. He was pretty sure he’d be lying dead on a battlefield somewhere within the next few days. He wasn’t ordering his men to go in and be slaughtered while he hung out safely in the rear with the gear. He was planning on being the tip of the spear. Or if he didn’t move fast enough, he’d at least try to be one of the feathers towards the pointy end of the spear.

  He found himself wondering what exactly they were supposed to do if they actually made it to the carrier before it left?

  Chapter 28: Isn’t It Ironic

  “There hasn’t been anyone here for a few days based on how it looks.” Ritz said quietly walking out of one of the cabins in the first settlement they’d been sent to destroy.

  “Is the phone line hooked up?” Kyler asked. If it was than they could warn everyone that
way. Not only did the settlements that they’d planned on attacking need to know what was going on, but HQ should be notified as well.

  They dug through the remaining cabins but couldn’t locate the phone or the phone line. The cabin they looked in last was the mayors residence. It should’ve been the one with the phone line hooked up, but they couldn’t find any sign of it. Not super surprising since the lines were normally pulled out and buried when the settlers migrated to a new site. Staying in one place for too long was never a good idea. Burying the phone line would’ve definitely been taken care of considering they were on a wartime footing when they left.

  “Ok. So, we make a run for the next settlement to make sure they’re warned then tell the others.” Kyler said.

  “There’s no telling which settlement the squads might decide to attack once they know what we did. Even if we split up, we might pick the wrong ones.” Ritz said staring down at the ground. There was only one way to be sure the other settlements weren’t attacked. Only one way to be sure they weren’t hunted down themselves for what they’d done.