by John Holmes
“SHUT IT OFF! SHUT IT OFF!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. The guy down below looked up and yelled back “WHAT?”
The deep BOOM BOOM BOOM continued to sound, so I pulled my Leatherman out and quickly clipped the speaker wires, cutting the sound off in mid BOOM. All was quiet for a second, and I listened carefully.
Nothing. No, wait. I heard it start, coming to us on the west wind. The zombie howl. I climbed down a rung and helped Red get a hold of the tower again, and told him “We have to get the fuck down, right now.” He listened for a second and heard it too.
“Holy shit! There are like, ten thousand zombies in Troy!”
“Yeah, and they’re all headed this way.” I could see movement starting in the houses just to the west of us, figures pouring out into the streets. They began to filter into the trees that were between us and the city.
“CAPTAIN Z! SADDLE UP! HORDE ON THE WAY!!!!!” I yelled down, and started climbing as fast as I could, almost sliding down the tower. Above me, Red had stopped.
“What the fuck are you doing? Get your ass down here!”
A look of panic came across his usually stoic bronze features. “I can’t! My Safety harness is caught!”
“Cut yourself loose!”
“I can’t! I lost my knife when I fell!” He struggled with the harness, trying to unsnap it. Almost impossible when there was tension on it. I started climbing back up to reach him. Below me, a shot rang out, then another, then a full volley. I felt the tower shake and looked down. Brit was starting to climb up to help me.
“GET OF HERE, NOW! That’s an order!” She shook her head and continued to climb, then looked at the undead spilling out of the wood line. Brit jumped back to the ground, rolled, and came up shooting, then sprinted for the cab of the nearest LMTV.
I heard Captain Zarzicky yell “FALL BACK!” and his squad retreated back to the trucks, bounding backwards so that one fire team was always engaging Z’s. The climbed up into the bed of the truck and the turret gunner started to hammer out the song of his people on the 240, but the fat machine gun rounds merely tore holes through the reanimated bodies. A few dropped, but the gun, up in the turret, was the wrong angle for sweeping at head height.
Both trucks’ engines started at almost the same time, and they hauled ass away from the tower. One of the infantry had been pulled down in the retreat, and he fell under a pile of bodies. As we watched helplessly, he managed to clear a circle around him. The soldier stood, uniform ripped, splashed with blood, holding his standard infantry smasher, a length of oak topped with a steel knob, designed to crush zombie skulls.
He looked upward, and at that moment, our eyes locked. Then he stepped back and held up his smasher in front of him like some Roman in the arena, ready for death. Standard procedure in circumstances like this was to put one through his head, rather than that get torn apart by undead.
“Screw that.” Red leaned into his harness and opened up with his rifle, steady headshots. I joined him, trying to create a path to the tower.
“RUN, YOU DUMBASS!” I yelled down, and run he did. He shouldered his way through the crowd of Z’s, their ragged nails scraping across his body armor and Kevlar sleeves, trying to pull him down. One tangled his legs and he went down, just as Red put a burst through the zombie’s head. The soldier got up again and vaulted up onto the tower and started climbing. He reached us a minute later, trying hard to catch his breath. He looped his arm around a rung of the ladder, and held out his other for me to shake.
“Corporal Jimmy Bognaski. Thanks, guys, I owe you my life.”
“You and everyone else. Don’t worry about it. Nick Agostine, and this here is Sergeant Eugene Redshirt.”
“Redshirt? Really?” and the guy burst out laughing. Red scowled at him and started counting his ammo.
“Well, this is another mess fine we’ve gotten in. Why does this shit always happen to us?” asked Red, but I really don’t think he wanted an answer.
I looked down again. Around the base of the tower shambled hundreds of zombies. Their glowing red eyes occasionally glanced upwards towards us, but I knew they relied far more on hearing than sight. They were looking for the source of the loud, crashing sounds that had come out of the stupid fraking speakers.
“Well, we have about three days to hang out here, until they wander off. How are you set for ammo?”
Red thought, then said “Standard load out, five hundred, no, four hundred and fifty or so .22 caliber long, that’s about it. “
“Me too.” We each carried a modified M-4 that fired .22 caliber rifle shells. Not hot loads like 5.57mm standard military rifle rounds, but enough to punch a hole in a Z’s skull, and we could carry a LOT more of them.
“Suppressors aren’t going to last all five hundred rounds” said Red.
“And there are more than a thousand down there. Way more. If we start going loud, were going to get a lot more, too.”
We both hung in our harnesses, swinging gently in the breeze of a late summer afternoon. Bognaski had looped snapped himself onto the ladder with a carabineer, and he said nothing, contemplating the close call he had just had.
“Well then. “ I said.
“Yes. Well then” answered Red.
Bognaski looked out over the field or glowing red eyes. “Does this shit happen to you guys often?”
“Pretty much every time we go out” said Red.
Chapter 4
I hit the push to talk button on my Motorola radio clipped to my IBA, and tried to call Brit. In the distance, back up Route 40, I could hear burst of gunfire echoing off the hills. She didn’t answer, and I figured they were still a bit busy trying to drive their way out of the horde. To emphasis that, a stray round went zipping by our heads, chipping paint of the tower before spinning off in a different direction.
“Maybe we should get lower,” said Red.
“Good idea. Have you got your harness figured out?” He shook his head, and I handed him my knife. He quickly cut himself free and we descended to about fifty feet off the ground. Below us, the horde of Z’s milled around. They were very two dimensional, never thinking to look up. Then again, for all I knew, they never thought anyway. We settled in to wait and see what would happen, even as the zombie howl quieted. From past experience, way too much past experience, I knew that it would be about three days before they cleared out.
Corporal Bognaski sat with his legs wrapped around the tower and wolfed down an old Tuna with Noodles MRE. Thing must have been almost twenty years old. As I watched he burped loudly and wiped his face with the back of his hand. “Good shit!” he muttered, and leaned over. He threw the MRE garbage as hard as he could at a zombie standing directly below us.
“Ha, you missed,” said Red.
“I suck at Baseball, Sarge.”
I sat back myself and asked him “What’s your story, Corporal?”
He licked his fingers and then stuck his combat gloves back on. “Well, long story short, I had JUST arrived in Afghanistan, brand new cherry private, fresh out of Ninety Two Yankee MOS school. Next thing I know, before I even get a chance to unpack my duffle, we get hustled onto a C-17 and willy nilly get thrown into the shit. We landed back at Joint Base Lewis-McCord and I went straight to the front lines. I got reclassed infantry by on the job training and I’ve been in the shit ever since. This is actually kind peaceful,” and with that he pulled his pistol out and started dropping Z’s. One shot to the head, like clockwork.
“Save your ammo” I said. “This isn’t the Line and we aren’t going to shoot our way out of this mess.”
He gave me a look and said “What does a farmer like you know about being in the shit? I mean, I know you’ve got it tough out here on the edge of the wild and everything, but have you ever been in the actual middle of a horde? I mean, come on, really?”
Red leaned over and said to him “Do you really know exactly who we are? Did you hear our call sign?”
“Uh, yeah. Lost Boys or something. Wait.” His
eyes grew wide. “You’re they guys from that TV show! TAKING BACK AMERICA! Fuck, I KNEW you looked familiar!”
Ugh, another fraking fanboy. Last year, to get some extra New Dollars, Brit had convinced me to let a film crew come up to the farm and do a documentary on the team, or what was left of it.
“Holy shit, that means that red head is ohmygod Brit O’Neill! Do you know how many times I’ve wacked off to her?”
I stared dead at him. “That. Is. My. WIFE!”
“And you’re a lucky man, Master Sergeant Agostine! I mean, come on, you get to tap that!”
I pulled out my gun and shoved it in his face. He stopped talking and turned pale.
“I mean, sorry, I’m just saying, she’s hot. And now you know why I’m still only a Corporal. I guess I don’t really know when to shut up.”
“Now would be a good time,” said Red, who was trying hard to not burst out laughing.
“OK, shutting up. But Sarge, I mean come on! You know how nasty the girls are in the FEMA camps, even if they are willing to put out for an MRE!”
“Corporal, I suggest, before I take my leg off and I beat you to death with it, you go climb up the tower and see what’s going on around us.”
“Right, Sarge.” He unclipped and started climbing, but I heard him say “Wow, Brit O’Neil. Wait till I tell the guys!”
Red was looking pointedly away in any direction but at me.
“What?” I said. He ignored me and kept trying to suppress a laugh, then finally said “I told you so. You should have never have done that stupid TV show, white man.”
“Fuck my life. You know how Brit is when she sets her mind to something.”
“I do,” the Navajo said, “which is why, all and all, I’m glad I’m not you sometimes.”
We resumed our watch, looking out over the horde, waiting for the radio to crackle to life. I sat and thought about how we had wound up in this place.
Four years ago, the government had been in the middle of one of its usual idiotic political logjams, and the President had threatened to shut down the Federal Government. A researcher at U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), at Fort Dietrich, Maryland, had been about to be laid off. So that evil bitch had released a weaponized bacterial strain that used some sort or neurotoxin to turn people into undead, no shit zombies. Of course, she got to keep her job as “the expert” while the whole world, almost, came crashing down around us. Fortunately, she herself was now wandering the wilds of upstate New York as a zombie. Our team, a mixed group of civilian contractors and military, had spent years scouting the ruins for the Army as it fought its way back into New York State.*
Now, I watched and waited as the infected’s red eyes glowed softly in the gathering gloom. They made a nice contract to the fireflies that started blinking on and off as evening fell. My reverie was broken by Red handing me the MBITR radio.
“Sheriff is on the line, they will relay to Fort Orange. The G-3, Colonel Scarletti, wants to talk to you.”
Sheriff was the call sign for an EC-130, a four engine turboprop that flew in a racetrack pattern up and down the Hudson Valley. They acted as a giant relay station to connect all the various units operating between Albany and New York City, but didn’t come out until after dark due to people taking potshots at them with high powered rifles.
“Liberty Three, this is Lost Boys Six, over.”
“This is Liberty Three. I need you to report back to Fort Orange as soon as possible, over.”
I almost laughed at the look on Red’s face. “Uh, Liberty Three, we’re kind of indisposed right now. I thought you were calling to offer some help, over.”
Colonel Scarletti’s gravelly voice came right back “I don’t particularly give a crap what you’re doing. You’re a big boy, figure it out. See you soon. Liberty Six, out.”
Red looked at me and shook his head. “Better figure out something quick.”
*Please see the events in Irregular Scout Team One
Chapter 5
Below us, the crowd of zombies turned to the south in unison. They heard the approaching truck long before we did, and started to flow around the base of the tower like a rotting river. As they passed we took shots directly at their heads. Soon, only a few dozen corpses lay on the ground. The rest had moved towards the road, where one of our trucks briefly made an appearance. As soon they stopped, an armored window rolled down and two flashbangs came flying out. Then the truck turned around and hauled out of there. The grenades went off with an ear cracking WHAM WHAM, followed by two more down the road. The crowd of Z‘s tore off in pursuit, just as our second truck, with Brit driving, passed it coming the opposite way. She ran over one or two, but skirted the crowd and slid to a stop at the base of the tower.
“What are you waiting for, a goddamned invitation?” yelled Brit, and we hustled down out of the tower and climbed up onto the back of the truck, Red giving me a hand up. Bognaski stood and fired at the Z’s who were starting back towards, laughing like a maniac as he shot. I reached down and slapped the top of his helmet and he turned and climbed on just as Brit threw the truck into gear again and took off.
I crawled slowly over the mounds of equipment and ammunition and slid into the passenger seat. Ziv sat in the gunners’ turret, casually spinning the MK-19a2 around and giving Brit grief about her driving. He stopped when she reached over and pinched him on the inner thigh. He cursed her and started kicking at her head, despite her laughter. I ignored them and called up Captain Zarzicky in the other truck. “Cruncher Six, this is Lost Boys Seven, over.”
“GO AHEAD, NICK” came back at me after two calls.
“We have orders to head to Fort Orange and talk to Liberty Six. We have your Nasty element with us, over.”
“YOU CAN KEEP HIM, OVER.” Bognaski, who had moved up to the divider between the cab and the truck, put on a hurt look.
“Roger. Feel free to resupply at the house. I’ll call and let you know what’s going on, over.”
“IF LIBERTY SIX WANTS TO TALK TO YOU, IT CAN’T BE ANYTHING GOOD, AND I’M GLAD I’M NOT YOU” he laughed through the airwaves.
“Ours is not to wonder why. Lost Boys Seven out.” I hung the mike back on the radio and told Ziv and Brit to cut the crap.
“Cut down Oakwood Avenue to Hoosick Street and head up to Fort Orange.” The main operating base for the Army was located at Albany Airport, occupying the former National Guard HQ. From there, hunter / killer patrols, both foot, motorized and horse mounted, spread throughout the country side, eliminating undead town by town, street by street. This side of the river, east of the Hudson, was still pretty much a no-man’s land. Bands of survivors and cannibals still roamed the hills between Troy and Southern Vermont, attacking anyone they thought they could get away with.
“So what’s the deal, bossman?” asked Brit as she swerved to run over another zombie wandering the approaches of the Hoosick Street Bridge.
“I don’t know. Colonel Scarletti wants to talk to me. Probably wants us to do some sneaky peeky shit for him.” Brit had a shit eating grin on her face, and was bouncing around in her seat, unable to contain herself.
“OK, out with it, woman. Tell me.” Somehow, despite being isolated in on a farm in the middle of the river, twenty mile from the nearest civilization, she always seemed to know what was going on in the entire Northeast. Kept track of things back in the Federal Zone in the Pacific Northwest, too.
“Remember that guy who stopped in last week, said he was trading up and down Route 22?”
Ziv, who had couched down to listen, said “Yes, that smelly mountain man. Pig.”
“Yeah, him. Well, he told me that there was a pretty big group of survivors living in a walled town. Petersburgh. You know it?”
I did. Petersburgh, New York was, or had been, a small little hamlet at the crossroads of State Routes 22 and 2. It backed up against a high pass that lead over into Massachusetts. Like most of the rural areas in Upstate, the inhabitants had bee
n cut off and left to fend to themselves when the Army and the Government had pulled out.
“Yeah, I know it. Dinky little place, not even a Stewarts shop in the main road. Just a couple of buildings, the old Veteran’s Hall. No wall there that I know of.”
“Well, turns out that they’re doing pretty well. They took a bunch of heavy machinery and built a wall around it, and gates at the road junction. Probably three, four hundred people living there now.”
“Has the Army been out that way yet?”
Brit almost bounced in her seat with glee. She loved giving out info in drips and drabs, and got a kick out of feeding us intel. “Three months ago, they politely told a cavalry patrol to PISS OFF. Said they didn’t need their help, thank you very much, except that they might trade for medicines. Rumor has it, though that the guy running the place used to be some government bigshot.”
“So what does it have to do with us?”
“Don’t you pay attention to ANYTHING? I swear, sometimes, I should have let the Zs in Syracuse eat you. Hellooooo, constitutional crisis? Acting President Taylor more like acting dictator Taylor?”
“And I still fail to see what that has to do with us.”
She just snorted and refused to say anything more.
We pulled up to the barrier across the Hoosick Street Bridge. A skeleton in rotted Army camo lay slumped there, a bullet hole in the top of its head. Brit spit on it when we stopped. Red hopped out of the back and unlocked the gate, covered by Bognaski. He made sure to wave to the cameras mounted there, so the guys back at Fort Orange knew who was coming through and didn’t shove a Hellfire missile up our asses. As we drove through, Brit leaned out the window and spit on the skeleton.
They waved us onto the base, and Brit dropped me and Red off at the Headquarters building. Although we were both not currently on Active Duty, Redshirt and I retained our ranks as Army Reservists under the National Emergency Act. He had steadily moved up the ranks over the last few years, making Staff Sergeant, and I had just received an e-mail that I was now a Sergeant Major. I had deleted the email and gone on to other, more important things, like collecting eggs from our chicken. So it came as a bit of a surprise when the guard at the front desk handed us shiny new ID cards with our correct ranks on it, then used a DNA scanner to make sure we were who we said we were. Then they escorted us to an office on the third floor.