by John Holmes
“Holy shit, did you see that fuckers’ head come apart!” yelled Master Sergeant Dowling from the other truck. This was all new to him, and he looked to be having a grand old time. Until, that is, the truck shifted into gear and he fell headlong onto the ground, over the back gate and landing on the concrete.
Chapter 30
Doc Bailey jumped after him, despite the approaching horde, which was now within a hundred meters. He grabbed Dowling by the harness and tried to lift him onto the bed of the truck. The townie riding with them reached down to give him a hand, and as we watched in helpless horror, the first waves of undead reached the stopped truck. Doc Bailey turned and drew his .45, emptying the magazine and taking down the first two, even as more swarmed around him and the fallen Air Force NCO. The truck started again, the driver stomping on the gas, and the man on the back fell out also, dragged down by his hand, caught in Dowling’s gear. The truck only went a few feet before a zombie reached in through the open cab window and ripped out the driver’s throat with a claw like hand.
Ziv spun the turret and fired half a dozen grenades at the truck, and then at where Doc Bailey had started to rise from the ground again, his bloody uniform showing clearly against the rotting clothes of the undead. The grenades shredded the medic’s reanimated corpse. Bognaski leaned over from the open tailgate of the HUMVEE and threw up on the ground. Ripley started to spin the wheel, yelling “We gotta go back for them!”
“Sergeant Ripley, get to the bridge!” I shouted at him. He ignored me as the truck stalled, then roared back to life. Brit drew her pistol and shoved it in his face, cocking back the hammer. “DRIVE!” she yelled, and he grimaced, straightened out on the road, headed for the bridge visible ahead.
We thundered over it, crashing through potholes in the pavement, getting thrown around, across the first half. The second half of the bridge, which I had not seen when we had done a reconnaissance that morning, had a gaping hole in it, wide enough to drop the Humvee into the ravine forty feet below. We screeched across the pavement as Ripley stood on the brakes, barely stopping before the hole.
“Everybody out!” I ordered, and it was a mad scramble to un-ass the truck. Doors flung open, and we grabbed whatever ammo we could. Ziv thumped down on the hood, and I threw him an M-4. He turned and started taking measured shots across the roof, dropping undead from three hundred meters. Bognaski joined him with his heavier M-14, scoring hits even further out.
“Ziv, can you blow this?” I yelled over the gunfire. He took a second to look around at the ruined bridge, nodded. Climbing back on the roof and leaning in through the turret, the Ex Serbian Special Forces soldier grabbed a pack of explosives he had put together from the dropped ammo crate.
“Getting close!” yelled Bognaski, and Brit and I started firing also. “I’m out!”she yelled as her bolt locked back, and I handed her a magazine. I was down to two myself, and getting worried.
“Let’s go” said Ziv, and Ripley led the way, crossing over the few remaining feet of pavement on the side of the bridge, then resting his rifle on the hood of a wrecked car, covering us. We ran past him and turned to fire. Ziv set the charge against one of the arching supports of the bridge, and pulled a chemical timer fuse, holding up one finger to us, meaning one minute.
We ran as fast as we could up the road, with the undead hot on our heels, streaming across the bridge, dropping through the hole in the pavement to fall with a sickening splat far below. Their howl was a scream now, their bloodlust driving them crazy. Ripley fell behind, his bad arm slowing him, and one jumped on his back, dragging him down to the pavement. His scream was cut short by his .45 automatic cracking out, sending a shot through his head. “FUCK!” I yelled and ran harder, my own prosthetic leg slowing me. I could smell the rotten undead stench coming up behind me.
Ziv’s explosives detonated with a huge, crashing roar that threw us all to the ground, shattering the bridge and dropping it into the ravine below. I fell to the pavement, trying to roll and come up in some semblance of a fighting stance. One undead was directly in front of me, trying to get up, and I smashed the butt of my rifle down on its head, then swung the barrel to catch another one in the skull. The blow glanced off; skulls, even rotten ones, are pretty damn hard, so I jammed the rifle in its ruined face and pulled the trigger. The bullet shot through the things’ head and tore through Bognaski’s arm, who was fighting another one directly in front of me. He yelled and spun around with the impact, and I fired again, a burst that emptied the magazine and ripped the head off the thing he had been wrestling with.
I heard Brit’s shotgun boom three times, and saw Ziv haul Bognaski up by his arm, getting him back on his feet. I reloaded with my last magazine and started laying down disciplined, single shots at the dozen or so undead that had made it across the bridge. Brit and I advanced at a steady pace, side by side, working our way forward until there was nothing living or undead on our side of the bridge.
Ripley lay on the ground, an ugly exit wound on the side of his head. I reached down and pushed his eyes back into their sockets, then managed to close them. I closed his mouth, cutting off the silent scream forever. Last thing I did was to tug the American Flag off his shoulder and put it in my pocket.
We walked back to where Ziv sat with an unconscious Bognaski, cradling his head in his lap, shielding him from the sun, as he smoked a cigarette. In his other hand he held his big knife to Bognaski’s head, rock steady. On the ground beside him sat a bloody hand, and Bognaski’s arm ended in a tourniquet and mass of bandages. Another field dressing sat higher up by his elbow.
“Did he get bit?” asked Brit, and Ziv nodded. A few minutes or less would be enough time to tell if Bognaski would turn, and at the first sight of it, Ziv would push the knife into the base of his skull.
“How is his arm?” I asked, motioning to the bandage.
“How the fuck should I know?” said Ziv, without a trace of animosity. To him, what we had just been through was what he lived for. Around him were five undead corpses, all beheaded or with smashed skulls. He had cleaned his knife on a rag, but I could tell he was still riding that combat high.
I sat down on the pavement, opening up my canteen and trying to take a drink. My hands shook so badly that I spilled water all over my chin and down my shirt. Brit helped me drink it, then finished off the rest of the canteen herself.
Overhead, with a roar, the C-17 lumbered by, heading back east with its plane load of children. I raised my shaking hand in a silent salute to Red, who was onboard. I knew he couldn’t see us, but hopefully he felt it.
Chapter 31
We sat, exhausted, watching the horde mill around on the edge of the ravine. Every now and then one would fall over the edge, landing with a bone crushing splat. Brit kept up a steady fire from Bognaski’s rifle, until I told her to stop and save the ammo. We were thirty miles from town, with the nearest crossing halfway there.
I felt sick to my stomach, watching Bognaski grow pale as he went into shock. I didn’t know what to do anymore. We had succeeded, but at a terrible cost. Dowling, Bailey, Ripley, and the two guys from the town militia. Ski wounded, maybe dying.
Brit sat down next to me on the hard pavement, and we were silent for a minute. Then she asked me what I had been afraid she would ask me. “What now, Nick?”
“I don’t know. I’m not …” My words trailed off. I didn’t want it. I couldn’t decide anything. My brain felt numb, and nothing came to mind. I laid back and stared up at the blue, blue Nebraska sky, trying to block it all out.
Brit said nothing until I heard footsteps approaching, combat boots crunching on the gravel. Ziv crouched down over me, his scarred, battered face blocking out the sun. He looked at me for a moment, and then offered his hand to help me.
“Look” he said. I did. I saw thousands of undead clustered against the rim of the ravine. Rotting, blistered, some only held together by their clothes. Four years on the plains had been rough on the walking corpses.
“It
was good plan, Nick. You did what you set out to do. Shit happens, people die. Because of us, many people live. It is good enough. Now, you go home. Take batshit crazy redhead woman and make many more babies, name one Sasha for me.”
He was right, and I pushed the black thoughts hard to the back of my mind, What we had done here would give the townspeople, hundreds of them, a chance to survive. I was so exhausted, though, and tired of the death and killing. I leaned hard on Brit, who wrapped her arm around my waist. Ziv knelt down to check on Bognaski, not that we could do much for him, then looked up into the sky, cocking his head to listen. I heard it too. Coming from the East was the thud of rotors, and we all turned in surprise, looking for the source of the sound. High in the sky the long body of a twin rotor CH-47 was descending, aimed right for the plume of smoke and dust raised by the explosion.
I turned back to Ziv as the helo approached. “What do you mean, ‘you’ go home? Aren’t you coming with us?”
He smiled, something I had never seen him do before, showing his cigarette stained teeth. “No, I am staying here. Maybe I become warlord of the plains, yes? I have a woman to subjugate first. Teach her to be good Serbian wife, not talk too much, learn who is boss.”
At that, Brit laughed and said “Good freaking luck with that, you pig!” Then she hugged him and planted a passionate kiss on his cheek.
“Red headed fire demon from hell” he said as he hugged her in return. Then he stepped back, saluted me, turned and walked into the west. We never saw Major Sasha Zivcovic, late of the Serbian Army’s 63rd Parachute Battalion, again.
The aircraft, which I could see was a Special Operations MH-47, settled down a hundred meters from us, sending the zombie horde into a howling frenzy. We picked up Corporal Bognaski by the shoulders and half carried, half dragged him towards the rear ramp. Along the way he kept mumbling about his hand, saying “Can’t ever cast a spell again.” When I asked Brit what that was about, she just shook her head, as mystified as I was.
Major Alex McHale met us as we got close; I had suspected that it would be him. He owed me his life, and we owed him ours, multiple times over, and if anyone would come get us, it would be him.
“I see Scarletti sent some help after all” I said, smiling back at his Irish grin.
“Ha, no, I stole it from Niagara Falls Air Force Base. Thank God I had some buddies who sent me a refuel. They’re waiting for us over Ohio to retank. We can make it all the way back home.” His crew had a medic with them; they quickly strapped Bognaski to a stretcher, starting an IV. We lifted off as the sun sank towards the West. Rising in the East, a full moon poked its head over the horizon. The Chinook spun to face it and picked up speed, jet turbines whining and making it too loud to talk.
Even as we lifted off, a flight of four F-15 Strike Eagles whipped past, cluster bombs and napalm canisters falling free to drop on the horde. They went ballistic and climbed into the darkening sky, finally catching the sun and turning blood red.
Brit sat with me on the two last seats, and we held onto each other tightly, watching the blazing sunset. I took the dozen bloody and worn American Flag patches from my breast pocket and whispered each of the names of our dead friends. As I did so, Brit threw each one out of the tail of the helo, to get caught in the rotor wash and blown away into the coming night. The last one, Kelly Harts’ worn patch, I placed back in my pocket, to give to her son. Then I took my own off, kissed it, handed it to Brit, and she threw ours together. They fluttered away, and were gone.
The End.
Epilogue
The auditorium was crowded with parents and senior Officers, most of them wearing Army Dress Blue. One man, grey haired and with a lined face, wore the uniform of a Command Sergeant Major, and around his neck was the pale blue and white stars of the Medal Of Honor. Beside him sat a woman, red hair showing a few streaks of grey also, but the single eye not hidden by a black patch still shone bright blue with pride. She held her husbands’ hand tightly as another name was called, and a young woman, taller than she ever was, but with the same pale skin and fiery red hair, stepped across the stage.
Command Sergeant Major Nicholas Agostine and his wife, Brittany O’Neil, both stood up and walked on stage to meet their daughter and pin her 2nd Lieutenant’s bars on her. Behind them a chorus of whistles and howls broke out as her brother, Captain Nathanael Agostine and his friend, Sergeant First Class Nicholas Hart, clapped loudly and cheered.
The Master of Ceremonies, Major General McHale, called her name and branch as the young woman was presented to the crowd as a newly commissioned officer in the Restored United States Army. “Second Lieutenant Anastasia Agostine – O’Neil, branched Irregular Scouts, assigned as Team Leader to Irregular Scout Team Eleven.” The young woman blushed but stood rock still as her father and mother pinned on the golden insignia of her rank, then the crossed tomahawks of the Scouts.
“Ladies and gentlemen, honored guests” said McHale “I present to you the newest officers of the US Army.”
A roar went up from the crowd, a continuous clapping and cheering for the thirty seven graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point. It went on for a full ten minutes, and Nick Agostine realized that they weren’t just cheering the new officers, but also their survival as a country. He pulled the prepared speech he had labored over for hours the night before from his pocket, glanced at it, and put it back in his pocket.
As McHale announced him as the key note speaker, Nick looked over the crowd, seeing the ghosts of old friends dead and gone. Then he focused on his own family in the front row. His son Nate and Angelo Redshirt’s son Nick, both just in from the wilds of Tennessee, leading IST Eight, scouting the hydroelectric complexes there. His other daughter, Jean, in a suit and tie, just as proudly wearing the pin of the Reclamation Corps. Their youngest, Jesse, his red hair contrasting loudly with his Midshipman’s uniform, up from the Naval Academy on leave for his sister’s graduation. Next to them sat Master Sergeant (Retired) Redshirt, leaning forward on his cane. He wished, for a second, that all his old friends could be there, and two decades still hadn’t numbed the pain of their loss.
“I had a prepared speech” he started “and a power point presentation!” The audience groaned, but ripples of laughter spread around the room.
“In all seriousness, I want to keep this short. I’m not one for public speaking, and I’ve seen enough zombies in my life to not want to bore you all to death. I just want to say, to the new officers gathered here today, to remember a few things.” He paused to drink from a glass of water, and to try to shift his artificial leg into a more comfortable position. He had been wearing it less and less as the years went on.
“First, remember your men and women. Always take care of them, and understand that sometimes, you will have to do things that will, no matter how hard you try to prevent it, get some of them killed. It’s the nature of our business.”
“Second, never be afraid to speak your mind. It’s better to be wrong and embarrassed than to be proven right by being killed. More than twenty years ago, the world fell apart, and it was because people were afraid to speak their mind. Afraid to cast a spotlight on the evils of the world. Never again.”
He paused for a second, looking out over the silent crowd, then continued.
“Third, and last, never ever, ever, forget who you serve. The people and the Constitution of the United States. The oath you swore, even though it can and WILL cause you great pain and loss, is your guide in doing what is necessary and right.”
Command Sergeant Major (Retired), Nicholas Agostine, Brevet Colonel, United States Army, looked straight at his daughter, her face so similar to her mother. Strong, determined, and unscarred. His next comment was directed to her, and she smiled at him as he said it.
“Last, always come home.”
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