Becks’ convoy was about ten minutes out as the first four trucks loaded with stunned PDZs were being dumped out of the backs of the trucks within a few feet of the front line. The trucks slowly pulled forward as their backs raised so there would be more of a line than one big pile of the bright orange-haired zombie soldiers as the trucks emptied their loads and raced back to get more. Observers reported what was happening, and unfortunately, about 10-15% of the PDZs did not regain consciousness in time to avoid being trampled by the herd. Another 20% began attacking along the front line, but their orange heads were quickly swallowed up into the sea of undead humanity. However, while forward progress of the herd didn’t appear to be slowed, it was another story along the flanks.
It’s easier to try to pass along the sides of an oncoming crowd than go up the middle, and the majority of PDZs naturally started filtering down the edges. The observers then sent up some drones, and in a very short time a thin, orange line was beginning to form along both sides, which hopefully would hold the herd together. This action was helped even further because when a PDZ would kill one of the herds’ zombies, its ravenous companions would also stop to feed on the victim. It was only a drop in the bucket with hundreds of thousands of the undead still surging forward, but every zombie death and delay helped.
What also helped were the New Jersey troops, led by Captain Lennox, beginning their assault on the western edge of the herd. Again, with every zombie they killed, several more would stop to feed. While it seemed like they were trying to cut down a mighty oak with a penknife, if it prevented New Jersey from becoming an even more heavily infested hellhole, it was worth every bullet, arrow, and homemade spear.
Becks tuned in briefly to hear what was going on along the “Western Front,” as Combat HQ was calling it, and all was certainly not quiet. From what she could glean from all the chatter, a large, local militia was fighting side-by-side with Captain Lennox and the Army regulars. She thought she heard that the militia was being led by a General Eddie, and a thrill of hope shot through her that it might be Big Eddie from New Ridgelawn, but she couldn’t listen for too long, as her convoy was approaching the rendezvous point.
The closer they got, the more cars and trucks there seemed to be in their convoy. Becks thought she saw a few vehicles join them at the Palisades Interstate Parkway entrance in New City, and then more in Nanuet, Pearl River, and Orangeburg. Word of the herd had spread like wildfire amongst local residents, and while Rockland County was in imminent danger, people in Orange and Ulster counties knew that if Rockland fell, they would be next. The Voice of the Hudson was whipping everyone into a frenzy and more volunteers were also converging on West Point by land and river.
The convoy rendezvous point was supposed to be a mile ahead of the herd, but it was now less than half that, if they were lucky, as the terrible mass of zombies was clearly in sight, like a black fog on the horizon. More than one person had to run into the woods to vomit as the awful spectacle—and even more awful smell—was just too much for their nerves.
Becks used a megaphone to get everyone to line up, and then quickly had the additional hundred or so new recruits, who had met them along the way, split up and join a squad. She gave a special welcome to some familiar faces, like Brian from Fort Ace in Ellenville, who had brought down a dozen fighters and some of their cool homemade weapons, and Digger, who had brought some of the Albany men and women and four of those powerful snowplows. And despite the seriousness of the situation, Becks also had to ask the young man who had arrived in an old ice cream truck what that was all about.
“My granddad was a veteran of D-day, and after the war he drove that ice cream truck around Pearl River. I figured if it was good enough for him, then I would be proud to drive it into battle.”
It was clear by the faces of the older troops before her, that many of them had fond memories of those ice cream trucks on a hot summer’s day. It had been a good life, growing up in the Hudson Valley, and it was now Becks’ job to help make sure that future generations would also have the opportunity to make their own good memories here, as well.
Several more dump trucks with their cargo of PDZs passed them on their way to the front and volunteer troops cheered the Cowboy Squads for their bravery. By the time this latest batch reached the herd, no zombies with orange hair could be seen. Either they had filtered down the sides, gotten trampled, or were now deep into the advancing mass. Whatever the case, the herd continued to move forward. If it reached Exit 5, it could overrun the depots and spread north and south on Route 303. Once they began pouring onto the local streets and into the towns, it would be like the start of infection all over again, and nowhere would be safe.
Becks divided her little army into four groups, and appointed Sticky Pete, Margot, Brian, and Digger as group captains. As tempted as she was to use terms like “Red Leader,” she kept it simple and called them by their first names. Throughout this brief process, Cam was looking increasingly anxious, shifting his weight back and forth and appearing like he was going to bust all of his stitches.
“Trues, you seriously can’t expect me to stay out of this fight,” he said pulling her aside as the troops geared up and checked their weapons.
“That’s exactly what I expect,” she said as a commander, with no hint of their close bond. “You shouldn’t even be out of the hospital. You can barely walk, and you sure as hell can’t fight. I can’t be worrying about saving your ass every two minutes when I’m going to be responsible for all of these lives.”
“But--”
“Aren’t you the one who always says that everything after ‘but’ is bullshit? Now is not the time for you to be selfish. Think of everyone else. Stay with the vehicles and be ready to extract anyone who calls for help. Are we clear?”
Cam knew he couldn’t have it both ways—he couldn’t admire Becks for the leader she had become, and then ignore her when she made a wise command decision. He was still in rough shape, held together with sutures and bandages, and he would be risking others’ lives by putting himself in harm’s way in such a vulnerable condition.
“Yes, Commander. Understood,” Cam responded with a salute of respect. “And permission to hug the commanding officer in front of the troops?”
“I would have you court martialed if you didn’t,” Becks said, falling into his open arms and trying to imprint every second in case it was their last moment together.
Taking a deep breath, Becks pulled away. Blowing a whistle twice, she then raised her right hand and motioned their advance toward the herd. It suddenly became very quiet as the hundreds of volunteer soldiers started walking toward the hundreds of thousands of zombies. The plan was simple—provide cover for the Cowboy Squads and do whatever they could to stop, or at least slow down, the herd
While she wouldn’t openly admit it, Becks got the idea for her battle formation from old World War II movies she used to watch with her dad. In those movies, she saw that troops used to march behind the tanks for cover. While they were fresh out of tanks, they did have Digger’s snowplows.
Splitting her forces between the north and southbound sides of the PIP, she had two plows, side-by-side, leading the way with squads lined up behind them in two columns on either side of the trucks. At first glance, they looked quite formidable, even given the dirty, undernourished individuals who comprised the majority of her fighting forces. As they drew closer, however, and the enormous juggernaut of the herd began to resolve into countless, sunken-cheeked corpses with their green and black teeth bared, it looked like more of a foolish and pointless suicide mission with every step.
The smell was indescribable and a steady stream of volunteers had to momentarily break rank to throw up, or have the dry heaves in the cases of those who had already vomited so many times that nothing was left in their stomachs. Becks fought hard to suppress the gag reflex as she didn’t think it would be very inspiring to the troops if she bent over and hurled her breakfast.
The sound was also something f
or which one could never prepare. Becks thought it sounded something like a huge stadium full of people groaning in unison over a bad play by the home team. But there was something more to it than that—a sinister overtone that created the impression of very angry, and very hungry, wild animals.
A chill ran up Becks’ spine and the hair stood up on the back of her neck as the faint sound grew to a loud roar. It might be difficult to hear over the radios with all that noise, so Becks personally jogged along the lines of the columns to pick young, healthy-looking runners to task them with spreading orders in case radio communications became useless. The designated runners joined Becks at the front of the farthest right-hand plow.
The formation on the left-hand side, marching south in the former northbound lanes, had to shift temporarily to allow several more truckloads of PDZs to pass, but there was no cheering this time. From where the volunteer troops on the ground were now looking, it appeared to be a lot safer inside those dump trucks, even if they were driving right up to the front line.
Combat HQ checked in with Becks to inform her that the supply of PDZs was already running low. If the zombie soldiers didn’t start having some effect soon, the project would be a failure. And that was the good news. The bad news was to confirm that they would soon be in firing range and the new orders had her moving even closer to the front lines.
Becks imagined that corporal at HQ standing by the big Hudson Valley map pushing ahead a little group of plastic toy army men that represented her troops. She was secretly hoping the corporal had chosen some hot, female, superhero action figure to represent her, but the sound of distant gunfire snapped her out of her musings.
It was a comforting sound to know that Lennox and his army were peppering the Western Front with everything they had, but Becks was not under any illusions that they would be able to make a serious dent in the herd. With every passing moment, the desperation of the situation escalated. Had everyone at West Point, including her, completely underestimated the immense size and power of the herd? It just didn’t seem humanly possible to stop this mass killing machine from obliterating the Hudson Valley. Still, there was more than one way to combat a seemingly overwhelming force…
Becks’ mind now kicked into overdrive and an idea began to take shape. She had a different mental gear than average people, something that helped her concentrate, focus, and act at a higher level in times of extreme stress. It was something she had started to develop as an ER nurse, when people so badly injured or gravely ill had mere moments to live, and she and the doctors and other staff had to work together and do absolutely everything quickly and correctly, or it would be a fatal failure.
It was also something she experienced when Cam had been shot and she had to race up the river to the Hudson-Athens lighthouse to perform surgery—her first surgery on her own. She still vividly recalled the distinct smell of his blood, and the way the surgical gloves clung to her fingers, and just the right amount of pressure she had to apply to cut Cam’s flesh to find the bullet—not too much to cut too deeply and cause more damage, but just enough to do the job.
That’s what she needed now—not too heavy a hand that she marched her troops into certain death, but not so little action that it had no appreciable effect.
“Margo,” Becks called into the radio. “Get up here ASAP. And all groups, send up some of your best marksmen.”
Margo and about 30 others reported to their commander within a couple of minutes. Becks told them to double-time to within a close, yet safe, range where they would be certain to take down a member of the herd and not any PDZs.
“Head shots only, if you can do it,” Becks continued, as Margo shot her a glance to the effect that there wouldn’t be any question about her deadly accuracy. “I want as many brains splattering as possible. We have seen that when a PDZ takes out a zombie, it makes half a dozen others stop to feed. Take out as many in the front lines as possible, but for god’s sake, fall back if they get too close.”
As Margo and her marksmen ran toward the herd, Becks called Combat HQ with a new request. As the plan continued to form in her head, she realized that a lot would have to go correctly for it to work. Otherwise, it would be a fatal failure on an apocalyptic scale.
“HQ, I need eyes on the herd,” Becks continued, as if she was a seasoned veteran. “I need to know where the PDZs are exactly, and if there is any change at all in the movement of the herd.”
As she waited for a response, she could see the marksmen frighteningly close to the herd. Margo had them form two lines, one kneeling and one standing, with the shooters about five feet apart, and then had only one line fire at a time. Ammunition was precious, and a zombie only needed one bullet to the skull, not two or three. And they certainly didn’t want to bunch up the kills. By spacing apart the shooters and controlling the pacing and rate of fire, Margo was ensuring the most efficient kills and spreading out the brains to attract as many hungry herd members as possible to disrupt the front line. Not bad for a med student, she thought.
The marksmen lived up to their claims, and skulls were popping open up and down the front lines. The irresistible aroma and sight of fresh brains was too great a temptation and a dozen zombies would drop to their knees in unison fighting over the tiniest morsel. Once they had sucked up every juicy, green slime-coated bits of brain, they plunged their teeth into the rest of the corpse, as if they hadn’t eaten in months, which was probably actually the case for many of them.
After a few rounds of firing, Margo shifted the marksman on down the line and repeated the process until the entire front had bodies and feeders along it. Of course, by the time they had made it the length of the line, the herd had pushed forward and trampled and engulfed all of those on the ground, or at least that’s how it appeared. Margo reported this to Becks who did not appear disappointed at all and just told Margo to continue firing up and down along the front line for as long as they could.
Becks and her troops on the southbound lanes had to move right to let more Cowboy Squad trucks pass. This time, as per her request, all of the PDZs were to be released along the front of the herd on the southbound side. It was one thing to hear about the PDZ drops over the radio; it was quite another to see it actually happening and even Becks stopped in her tracks for a moment as they watched the process.
The trucks rumbled toward the front line in single file, and then stopped just a few hundred feet away. Then, one at a time, the first truck pulled ahead until the herd was almost close enough to touch, and then the driver made a sharp U-turn—or as sharp as you could manage in a cumbersome dump truck on a two-lane roadway. If a few members of the herd got crushed and smashed in the process, so much the better.
As soon as the back of the truck was facing the herd, the bed slowly began to rise and PDZs started sliding out. Slowly moving forward, the mixture of unconscious and semi-conscious, orange-haired soldiers were spread out across the road. Unlike the problems encountered with the fully conscious six-pack PDZs, which immediately began attacking one another, the recently stunned zombie soldiers were attracted to all of the noise and movement of the herd, and for the most part, walked right past their fellow PDZs, who were still prone or struggling to get to their feet.
Once the first truck was empty, it sped back to the depot to refill, if there were any PDZs left, while the next truck in line followed the same maneuvers, trying not to run over any zombies with bright orange hair.
Becks anxiously awaited word from HQ about what the observers were seeing. She had almost caught up to the marksmen by the time some initial reports were coming in, and rather than have anything lost in relaying the information, the observers were patched into the HQ transmission, but all of them began talking at once and it took a moment until a single spokesman emerged.
“There is some commotion along the front lines just a few yards in, and there are certainly more swirls of orange,” a very young man who only identified himself as Henry, began. Becks wondered if the boy was even more tha
n 12 or 13 years old. But who better to fly the quad copter drones?
“Henry, Commander Truesdale here,” she said dropping the army tone and speaking like he was just a neighborhood kid. “Could you explain to me in more detail what you mean by that?”
“Oh, hey cool, Hi!” Henry replied somewhat tongue-tied, clearly excited to be talking to the woman he had heard stories about around those campfires. “You know those orange-headed PDZs are showing up real good and there’s more and more pockets of them forming deeper into the herd. You know what I mean?”
“Yes, I do, Henry. What did you mean about the ‘swirls’ you mentioned?”
“Oh yeah, that,” Henry responded quickly. “It’s really awesome the way the orange is like swirling and spiraling. Ya know?”
“Turbulence! Yes!” Becks practically shouted as if she had just heard the best news of her life.
She thought back to a lecture she attended on fluid dynamics where the professor hated turbulence so much he was like a priest talking about the devil. To him, smooth, laminar flow represented everything good in the universe, and turbulence was an evil that must be stamped out, a disruptive force that brought chaos to the world. At this moment, however, a little turbulence would seem heaven-sent.
Regaining control, she then calmly and slowly spoke her next words. “Henry, I want you to take your time and look very carefully. Around those swirling orange pockets, is the herd changing direction at all, or doing anything different?”
“Uh, uh, let me see. Give me a sec,” Henry almost whispered, as he deftly maneuvered his quad copter from side to side, and forward and back, as his other preteen companions managed their drones just as skillfully. “One more sec.”
HVZA (Book 3): Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse [Project Decimation] Page 14