by John Holmes
Burning fiercely, the first truck crashed into the mess tent, and that quickly caught fire. This was a hell of a distraction, and people were streaming in from all around to watch. The two HUMVEEs from the morning patrol pulled up, trying to insert themselves between the crowd and the burning truck. From the lead truck, an amplified voice ordered the crowd to disperse.
“RETURN TO YOUR TENTS!” boomed out from the speakers mounted on the roof. The crowd ignored the orders, getting pressed in from behind. That’s where the trouble makers would be, out of danger and egging the crowd on. Sure enough, rocks started bouncing off the trucks.
The Area Denial System mounted on the second truck spun in a slow arc, and the crowd started to move back away, people in the front starting to shout and scream. Even from a hundred meters away, I felt my skin start to burn as it moved past me. The ADS was pumping out microwaves, putting a punishing radiating heat into people’s bodies. I had been on the wrong end of one of these before, and I knew that those closest to the system would be feeling sick and wanting to get out of the way as fast as they could.
Another burning arc through the sky, and a Molotov Cocktail, a bottle filled with gasoline and a burning wick, shattered on the HUMVEE. The soldier in the turret dropped down inside the truck, and …
“OH SHIT!” Doc and I both said at the same time. We each grabbed one of Brit’s arms and pulled her flat on the ground, just as the gunner in the first truck opened up with his mounted M-249. Tracer rounds flew overhead, then answering shots, flat pistol cracks. The crowd started running towards us, and the machine gunner dropped his elevation and fired directly into them. People stepped onto us, and Doc and I shoved them off our backs.
Doc leaned over and yelled in my ear “We gotta get the hell out of here!” I nodded my head, then grunted as a body fell on top of me. I pushed the woman off, then stuck my fingers to her neck, checking for a pulse. They came back bloody, my fingers finding a throat torn out by a bullet.
The firing stopped, and there was a momentary break in the crowd. We both jumped up and half carried, half dragged a protesting Brit towards where the second cargo truck was hidden, knocking people down when they got in our way, stepping over fallen people and bodies. The square was a screaming, pushing mob, fighting each other to get away from the gunfire. We scrambled around the back of the truck, and ran smack into Red and Ahmed, weapons drawn. Ziv and Espo stood at the front of the truck, and Flagg was between them, a look of mad glee on his face. Next to him stood Taylor, hulking in his coat over his armor.
“This is GREAT!” Flagg shouted. He walked over to me and clapped his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t you think? Madness and chaos is the natural order of things.” His dark face was flushed, a mad gleam in his eye.
“Yeah, great” I said, sarcasm dripping from my voice. If he heard it, he ignored it.
“OK, on to business. This truck” and he slapped the side “needs to get to the center of camp. Once there, the driver will take care of things. I need you to make sure it gets there. The patrols are distracted, but there will be people who get in the way.”
“Where are the people who supplied the zombies? How many are there?”
“Oh, there was only one. By now, I expect, there are three or so. I locked up the terrorists in there with them this morning. After all, it’s every Americans’ patriotic duty to fight the war on terror, isn’t it?” and he laughed that maniacal cackle. He made my skin crawl.
“So that’s it, then? All the terrorists are locked up in there?”
“Yes, why?”
“Randall Flag, under the authority of the Federal Emergency Powers Act of 2014, you’re under” and my words were cut short by Taylor whipping his sword out and swinging it at my head.
“Son of a BITCH!” I fell backwards and twisted to one side. As his sword whistled over my head, I felt something go POP and a wrenching pain shot through my lower back. He swung again, downward, and I tried to roll to one side, but couldn’t move.
Ziv hit him broadside in a football tackle. They both crashed down in the dirt and started rolling around. From my position in the ground, I could see Ziv’s knife skidding across Taylors’ armor. I tried to stand, but I couldn’t raise myself any higher than one knee. “Doc! My fucking back! I can’t move!”
I heard Brit yelling “I can’t get a shot! I can’t shoot!” and saw her aiming her pistol at Ziv and Taylor. Doc grabbed me by the shoulders, wrapped me in a bear hug, and lifted. My back went POP again and I could move. He set me down on my feet, and I looked around for Flagg. Espo, Red and Ahmed had moved around to the back of the truck, and were working the pins.
I heard a loud CLANG and the tailgate of the truck fell open. Two dozen undead started piling out, scrambling down, screaming their zombie howl. They streamed past the guys, heading straight for the melee in the square. Taylor and Ziv had gotten to their feet, and were facing each other. Ziv held up one hand to Brit, waving her off, ignoring the Z’s. Brit was ignoring him in turn, firing as fast as she could into the crowd of zombies. I drew my own pistol and started firing as fast as I could, but several of the Z’s ran around the corner and disappeared, chasing the crowd of rioters.
“GET FLAGG!” I yelled at Espo, and they took off after him.
“Would you just cut that shit out!” I strode over to Ziv and Taylor, who were trading knife and sword strokes, faster than I could see. Doc fired at the last Zombie coming at us, and it fell at our feet. I walked over to Taylor as shots and screams broke out in the camp, mixed in with the howling of the Undead. He stood with an uncertain look on his face, but not taking his eyes off of Ziv.
Red and Ahmed, followed by Espo, reappeared around the far corner. “We lost him, boss!” said Espo.
“Forget it, this place is blown. Taylor, get the hell out if you can. You were just doing your job.” He nodded to Ziv, lifted his sword to his face, and saluted us all, then walked off, sword still drawn.
I grabbed the radio handset out of Red’s backpack, and the guys formed a defensive circle around me.
“Iron Mike, this is Lost Boys, SHOPPING BAG, I say again, SHOPPING BAG, Camp Bravo Two Zero, over.”
It took a second, but then the voice came back, loud and strong.
“LOST BOYS, THIS IS IRON MIKE. CONFIRM SHOPPING BAG BRAVO TWO ZERO.”
“I say again, I confirm, SHOPPING BAG.”
“ROGER, EXTRACT FIVE, I SAY AGAIN, FIVE MINUTES.”
“Five minutes, Lost Boys out!”
I stuffed the handmike back in Red’s pack, and took my place in the circle. Doc crouched next to me.
“Shopping Bag? Who the hell comes up with these code words?”
“Some dipshit staff officer in the New Pentagon. Thinks that if anyone overhears it, it won’t start a panic.”
Doc nodded. “Are they going to pull us out?”
I thought about it. “Fifty Fifty. They might scrag the whole camp just for shits and giggles. If you’ll excuse me.”
I got up and moved next to Brit. “Hey Brit. We might bite the big one on this. I just want you to know…”
“I know, Nick. Even if it all ends right now, I know.”
Around us, the howls, gunshots and screams grew louder, and fires leapt up, smoke blotting out the morning sun.
Chapter 80
Out of the dust and smoke stepped the guy in the black duster, pistol hanging low down at his side. He walked slowly up to us, eyes scanning around the area. He walked up to me, nodded to Doc, and stuck his gun back in his belt.
“Gunslinger, have you seen Flagg?”
“No, we lost him in the confusion. Just want to warn you, in a few minutes, this place is going to be turned in to a cinder. Helo takes eight, there’s only seven of us.”
He seemed to think about it for a few seconds. A look of longing showed on his face, but he shook his head.
“I have to follow Flagg where ever he goes.”
“In a few minutes, he’ll be toast. He isn’t going anywhere.”
“Nick. Nick Agostine.”
“Roland. Roland Deschaine.” With, he strode off into the camp.
Brit looked at him go. “Frigging wackos. Both of them.”
Red handed me the handset to the radio. In the distance, I we watched the surviving HUMVEE from the patrol charge across the square, mowing running people down and bumping over bodies. They knew what was going to happen, and were trying to get out. It seemed like they would, but a steel barrier shot out of the ground, closing the gate. They hit it at about forty miles per hour and stopped dead. A horde of Z’s came howling after them. The gunner let loose a wild burst from his machine gun, blowing bloody holes in bodies, but they still came on. The gun jammed and he pulled out his pistol, firing until the slide locked back. He might as well have been spitting into a wave. They swarmed him and tore him apart. None of us moved; our survival now depended on staying out of the way.
“LOST BOYS, THIS IS WARBIRD, FIVE MINUTES OUT.”
“Roger, Warbird, be advised, LZ may be hot.”
“UNDERSTOOD, LOST BOYS. MACGUIRE RIG EXTRACTION. MARK SMOKE, OVER.”
Ziv pulled the pin in a red smoke grenade, flipped off the spoon, and tossed it between us and the horde. It started billowing out, blocking the massacre in the square from view. An MH-60 Special Operations helo popped over the fence, the rotor wash sucking up the smoke into a giant swirl, and held at a hover thirty feet up. Two ropes bundles fell out, one from each side. Machine gun fire started raking the crowds on the other side of the smoke. The pilot wasn’t going to risk his multimillion dollar, rare post apocalypse aircraft by setting it down into chaos.
“HOOK UP!” yelled Doc. One each rope were four slings that clipped around a person’s chest. I slung mine under my arms and turned to check Red’s sling, making sure it was tight. He checked Ziv’s, and Ziv checked mine. On the other sling, the rest of the team did the same. The crew chief leaned out, saw that we were ready to go, and the rope tightened and heaved us up in the air.
Below us the camp was a madhouse. Tents were burning, and people ran in every direction, being chased by undead. Gunshots echoed, and a mob was pressing at the front gate. Steel barriers had blocked their exit, and they were trying to knock down a section of fence. As we rose, I closed my eyes. Thousands of men, women and children. All dead because of me.
We spun in our harnesses as the chopper turned east, dipped its nose, and poured on the power.
Chapter 81
As we flew, twisting in the wind, I could faintly hear Brit screaming and yelling over the thud of the rotor blades. I craned my neck to try and see what was wrong, but the wind tore at my vision and I could only get occasional glimpses of her. Nothing I could do about it till we hit the ground.
We flew steady on for ten minutes, then swung around a road cut. The pilot set the ropes down on the ground, and we unsnapped as he landed and powered down. The crew ran past us, pointing to a ditch on the side of the road, with the side of the hill between us and the camp, twenty kilometers away. I put my hands over my ears, opened my mouth and squeezed my eyes shut.
The flash, twenty clicks away, burned through my eyelids like a giant flashbulb, even though the hill was in the way. When the first shockwave hit, it came through the ground. We were bounced two feet off the ground. Then the blast wave came thundering over the hill, first rushing past us as a hot wind, then come back the other way as the mushroom cloud sucked in air to feed itself.
The camps were built on ten feet of concrete to prevent fallout, and the nukes were set for a low airbusts to maximize the heat scorching everything. The only way to be sure was to kill it with fire. The camps themselves were downwind and miles from any kind of civilization. Any Z’s that escaped and made their way into the country side would be hunted down by air patrols with radiation detectors. They would be glowing white hot on any scanner.
When the wind had died down, I crawled over to Brit. I was worried that she had caught a stray round as we were leaving the camp, and in our rush to seek cover I hadn’t had time to check on her. I put my hand on her shoulder as she sat up, covered in muck from the drainage ditch.
“Hey, are you OK? What was all the screaming about? Are you hit anywhere?” I started to look her over for bleeding, but she pushed my hands away and started rubbing her chest.
“My goddamned boob got caught in the sling, and it was pinching the whole fucking way here. Mother of God that shit hurt!”
The team laughed, as behind us, the face of Shiva, the Destroyer, lifted itself into the skies.
Epilogue
Three months later
We stood on the shoreline of our island in the Hudson River, thirty miles north of Albany. Canoes were tied up the dock, and the team was loading lashing gear and extra ammo into them.
Doc shouldered his aide bag and his Second in Command, Staff Sergeant Toshi, handed him his M-4.
“Sure you don’t want to go with us? Just a quick trip up river to Burlington. Easy vacation.”
I shook my head. “Nope. We’re done, Doc. Gonna dig some dirt, grow some corn.”
“And make babies!” said Brit.
“Well, practice, at least” I said.
It was true. I was done. The nightmares still came, but at least my hands had stopped shaking. I needed peace, and quiet. I had been fighting for more than two years, first in survival mode, then by order of that fickle parent, the military. We needed to settle down, to start over.
I would miss it, though. These were my friends, my brothers, going in harms’ way, and I felt guilty. Had I really done enough? I felt the phantom pain where my leg used to be, that itch that I could never scratch. Yeah, it was never enough, but sometimes you just had to call it quits.
“If you need anything, call us, and we WILL come and get you. It might take some time, but you know we’ll be there. Even if it’s just to pop you in the head after you’ve turned Z.”
“I expect nothing less, brother.” He picked me up in a bear hug and squeezed the breath out of me.
“Put me down, you moronic biker retard.”
Brit slapped the back of my head. “That’s not politically correct, probie!”
Doc laughed and followed Toshi out to the last canoe. They shoved off and started paddling upstream, cutting a wake through the sheen of oil on it.
“Well, let’s go plant some corn.”
Chapter 82
It never fails.
Specialist Redshirt felt the rumbling in his guts, about ten minutes after he had eaten his lunch MRE. Could be the water, could be the food itself. Good water and unspoiled food were getting hard to come by, almost three years after the Zombie Apocalypse had pretty much trounced Western Civilization.
The rest of the team sat finishing their meal. Doc and Ziv picked idly at their MREs, the springtime heat making it hard to eat. Red was standing watch, along with Ahmed, but he had to go. He motioned to Sergeant Toshi, who was stretching her legs.
“Sarge, I gotta hit the treeline. Take over for me.”
She grunted and climbed to her feet, tossing her rucksack onto her back and shouldering her rifle. Beside her, the big Swedish guy, Svenson, levered himself up off the ground. No one went anywhere alone.
They were taking a break in small clearing, just off the remains of Route 9, north of Ticonderoga. To the east, Lake Champlain stretched out, a broad sheet of water reflecting the summer sun. Their canoes lay drawn up on the shore where they had stopped at sunrise. The team was heading north to see what remained of the Air National Guard unit at Burlington Airport, and then to check the locks at the end of the lake where the Richelieu River wound its way down to the Saint Lawrence. They had stopped for the day just north of Port Henry on the New York side of the river.
“Oh crap” muttered Red under his breath, and he dashed for the trees, setting h
is rifle down, dropping his pants, and barely making it before his guts exploded. Coming up behind him, he heard Svenson starting to laugh.
“That’s what you get for picking a number eleven MRE, Red!” he started laughing again, but it was cut off with a choking sound. Red saw the feathers of an arrow sprout from the big man’s neck, just above his body armor. He fell to his knees, grabbing at the arrow, a stunned look on his face, then spilled forward, choking.
Red scrambled to pull up his pants, yelling “AMBUSH” at the top of his lungs, and dove for his rifle. He grabbed it just as burst of shots dug into the ground where he had been squatting. Recovering his footing he ran as hard as he could through the woods, away from the gunfire that had erupted between him and the rest of the team. He dove over a fallen tree, and then started to scramble around to the right, trying to get back in the clearing where the team was.
After a few minutes, he could see through the trees. Two dozen figures in a haphazard collection of camouflage and carrying an assortment of weapons, everything from M-4’s to shotguns, had rushed the area, and a squad of them was moving towards where Svenson lay. He noted that they moved in covering fire teams, cautiously advancing.
Sergeant Toshi lay out in the open, an arrow sticking out of her face, her feet drumming on the ground. Ziv was in the middle of a brawl, swinging his big combat knife. As Red watched, someone hit Ziv on the back of the head with the butt of a rifle, and he fell to the ground. Ahmed was nowhere to be seen, and one man stood with a pistol to Doc’s head. Even as he watched, Doc let out a yell.
“Red, RUN!”
Specialist Eugene Redshirt, Irregular Scout Team One, United States Army, ran. Before he did, though, he fired a long burst from his suppressed carbine at the squad moving towards Svenson’s body. He saw one fall before he turned and ran deeper into the woods, deeper into the mountains surrounding the lake. Deeper into Zombie Territory.
Chapter 83
As he ran, he heard gunfire behind him, and then a red hot poker zipped through his leg, and he stumbled and fell heavily on his face. His rifle flew out of his hands as he tried to stop his fall. Behind him he heard yelling as the ambushers started off in pursuit.