by John Holmes
Every few minutes, the horn would be blown, and the front rank would fall back and change places with the people behind. That gave us time to catch our breaths, and it was reassuring knowing you had someone watching your back. Ethan had my back with some sort of katana, and no shield.
After nearly two hours of chopping, we were still facing a surging wave of zombies. Most of them looked like they had crawled out of the sea, and were horribly bloated, slimy, and deformed. Some did not, however, and they did not look European, either. They were wearing matching blue jumpsuits.
Near the end, fatigue was setting in pretty bad. I’m in pretty good shape, but holding a heavy wooden shield and swinging a sword for hours will tire you out, especially after you stop fearing for your life and lose all the associated adrenaline.
As the number of undead finally started to thin out, I dropped my shield and pulled out my Kershaw knife with my left hand. I started chopping with it, to try and give my right hand a rest. It was starting to take multiple hits to break the skull or decapitate the head, and my shoulder had never been so sore in my whole life.
Finally, we managed to destroy them all. I was dead tired, and thankfully it was just in time for afternoon tea. I couldn’t believe how proficient the militia was. They suffered very few casualties, despite fighting the undead in close quarters and without firearms.
Chapter 10
“C’mon mates, let’s go see where they were all coming from,” Adam said resolutely after we ate.
“Don’t you think we got them all?” William said
“Did you notice the ones that didn’t wash up?” Adam said.
“They looked Asian,” said Ethan “and fresh.”
“Chinese, judging by the uniforms,” I added.
“Yeah, we have to go find out what a bunch of intact Chinese sailor zombies are doing here,” Adam said.
“Before or after tea?” I asked, exhausted.
“Right now, while we’re warmed up,” Adam responded, determined.
“Alright, this better be important,” I finally agreed.
The Hoy Fusiliers were out of their armor and starting to clean up the battlefield. They were piling the bodies, preparing a funeral pyre. I took off my armor and returned it to the tent.
We set off down the coast line into the fog, trying to find the source of the zombies. Along the way, we had to dispatch a few straggling zombies, mostly disabled in some way that prevented them from responding to that god-awful horn.
After less than a mile of trudging along the gravelly beach in the intensifying rain, a large black mass began to materialize. It was a cigar shaped tube. Maybe fifty feet across and six hundred feet long, it was rammed up onto the beach and now sitting high and dry at shallow tide.
I couldn’t believe my eyes; a ballistic missile submarine was sitting there in front of us, listing about 30 degrees to port. There were gaping holes in the bow, torn away when she ran aground at high speed, and some of the missile bay doors were inexplicably open.
We pulled ourselves up through one of the less jagged holes, into the submarine. The sharper openings into the hull were covered in blood, bits of fabric, and scraped flesh from the zombies who had crawled out to answer the horn blow. Presumably, not all of the crew had made it out.
Inside, the blue emergency lights were still on. They bathed the compartment in an eerie glow, which was accentuated by the awkward angle we were standing at in the listing ship.
We were in the forward torpedo room, which was zombie-free, and began to move aft towards the control room. We passed through officer’s country and the sonar shack. In the control room, the various panels were all still active.
“Find the navigation console,” Adam said. “Let’s figure out where this thing was going.”
We began to check the screens; it was hard to tell what each console did, since it was all in Chinese.
William found one with English writing on it. “Hey, look,” he said. “This must be the GPS. It already has a bunch of American cities programmed into it, and it’s just waiting for someone to enter an access code.”
“Don’t touch that, mate!” Adam walked over and looked at it. “This isn’t navigation; it’s a weapons console for nuclear missiles,” he proclaimed.
On the other side of the tilted compartment, Ethan found a chart with the ship’s course plotted on it. We looked at it to try and see where it was going. The course was plotted from Yulin Naval Base in Northern China. It sailed north through the Bering Straight, under the Polar Ice Cap, and through the Iceland-Faroes gap. From there, a straight line could be drawn directly to the Falkland Islands. But that’s not where the chart ended; the chart showed that the sub’s course was supposed to alter once it made it through the GIUK Gap. The final destination was Norfolk, Virginia.
“What do you make of that?” I asked Adam after we had stared at the chart for several moments.
“I don’t have any idea why this Chinese submarine was headed for America and wound up in England. That’s for someone else to figure out. Let’s go make sure the missiles are disabled,” he responded.
We swept through the boat and dispatched several zombies in the cramped crew space, as well as several incapacitated ones in the missile compartment. Adam worked his magic on the missiles, and we moved towards the reactor spaces to make sure they were undamaged. I noticed that the zombie we found in the reactor compartment was wearing a radiation badge. After dispatching the ghoul we inspected the badge. It showed that the man had not been exposed to any adverse levels of radiation.
We returned to Adam’s cottage, and he called in to the naval base to let them know about the submarine, along with the other information we had discovered.
Once he was done, I put in a phone call to Sgt. Elsea, my old PR rep, to ask if she knew anything about what was going on in Mid-Atlantic Command. She said she couldn’t tell me, and I sensed something was wrong, so I told her about the submarine. She told me she would call back, and asked where she could reach me.
Chapter 11
We were on a plane to the Bahamas; Me, Ethan, William, and Adam. The American and British governments had gone over the data recovered from the submarine and requested that we return to American service. They agreed to pardon our desertion and Adam’s smuggling illegal aliens into the country, and also promised that we would not be used in any more PR displays.
The islands were completely changed from their pre-war paradise tourist attraction look. They were now a major military installation, supporting all branches of the armed forces. It was a supply depot and a place to refit for Special Forces. The Navy used it as a base, and the Air Force kept several squadrons of planes based there as well.
When we got off the plane we were hit with the warm tropical air, a striking contrast to the miserable weather in northern Scotland. Adam’s fair skin started to burn immediately.
We were met on the tarmac by another fair skinned man, this one quite a bit taller than Adam, taller, even, than my own six-foot stature. He introduced himself as JJ. He worked for the Department of Defense, in some capacity. He would be conducting our briefing. We were immediately ushered into the briefing room. A number of Special Forces people and a few officers were in attendance. The briefing began when the base commander, General Michael Sola, walked in.
JJ got up behind the podium and started “I wish we had more information for you, but we don’t at this time. We are extremely limited as far as surveillance assets go.”
“Why don’t you tell us what you do know?” General Sola suggested.
“We have been taking an increasing number of casualties in the Mid-Atlantic Command area, starting with the loss of IST3. We now believe it was a deliberate series of attacks by one antagonist; we don’t know who yet. Last month, Forward Operating Base Ripken was completely destroyed when part of the perimeter was breached with explosives, and a strategically placed horde of zombies was attracted to the explosion. We were able to determine that the hostile force
s originated in the Norfolk area. We immediately sent the guided missile destroyer USS Sterett to bombard the area that we suspected they were operating out of. However, we lost contact with the ship shortly after the mission began. Two weeks ago, we managed to rescue a handful of survivors, who confirmed that the ship was sunk by missiles. We also believe that a Chinese submarine was heading to a rendezvous in the Norfolk area before it was overrun. Quite frankly, we don’t know what to make of that. In order to answer these questions, we are sending a scouting mission into Norfolk, to find out who is behind this. There will be a preliminary precision bombing strike provided by the USS Ronald Reagan Air Wing prior to the landing of our scouting party. The eight man scouting team will be comprised of the remaining three members of IST5, Mr. Soley, and a four man fire team of Navy SEALs. If there aren’t any questions, I suggest you head to the armory and gear up, helos depart in two hours.”
The four of us walked to the armory like kids on Christmas morning. Adam knew exactly what he was looking for. He was in and out fast. He grabbed a vest and an AA-12 automatic shotgun, several different types of shotgun shells (and plenty of them), and his other essentials. He was not overwhelmed with the awesomeness of this place like we were; he had been in ones like it before, probably ones that would have put this one to shame, back before the outbreak, when there was more available.
I wanted something better against humans than my CX-4 Storm carbine. The 9mm semiautomatic was great for aimed shots against zombies, but I was not confident in its ability to take down armored humans. I chose the FN P-90 to replace it. With fifty rounds of 5.7mm ammo, a high rate of fire, and low recoil, it could put a lot of rounds on target, or be used for accurate single shots, at the same ranges at which my carbine was effective. In an urban environment, I wouldn’t need anything more than that.
The P-90 isn’t particularly accurate at long range, so I added a laser designator and a Trijicon ACOG sight, which I removed from an AR standing in one of the dozens of racks around the armory. The P-90 has three Picatinny rails, so with the ACOG on top and the laser on the right hand side, I added a flashlight to the opposite rail. If we were going to be fighting in an urban environment, it was likely we would end up in some dark rooms. Another addition I made to the submachine gun was the addition of an extra fifty round mag, clipped upside down and backward over the mag that was loaded. I tend to have a fetish for keeping as much ammo as possible on the weapon itself so when I found the FN clip to do this, I was quite happy.
I also added a sling and a suppressor; those were no-brainers. I grabbed as many magazines for the gun as I could find, only five total: the two on the gun; and three in a triple pouch mounted diagonally on the left side of my MOLLE vest, with the help of a 45 degree adaptor panel. The magazines were just too tall for me to comfortably mount them anywhere without losing too much valuable surface area for the other things I needed accessible. I stuffed as many 50 round boxes of 5.7mm rounds as I could find into my pack, because I was not likely to find any more in the field.
I debated for a while if I should take a Glock 19 or a PX-4 (the pistol companion of my carbine) but in the end I decided to keep my 1911A1 as my sidearm. It doesn’t have the capacity of most modern handguns, and capacity is what you need, but it is pretty damned ubiquitous. If something breaks or you need ammo or magazines, chances are you can find them. Besides, I was familiar with it, and it had sentimental value. I was already taking one untested gun into battle; I certainly didn’t want my backup to be untested as well. I did take some extra mags, ammo, and pouches to carry it, but I ended up putting a lot of it back, because my load out was becoming unmanageably heavy. In the end, I had enough mags for 100 rounds of .45, mostly on my belt with my pistol, knife, and emergency gear butt pack, so that if I had to ditch my vest I, would still be armed.
As far as knives, vests, and other gear, I was pretty happy with what I already had, and again, I didn’t want to change up too much before going into a major combat operation. I kept the same black MOLLE vest and pouches I always use. I did top off my various supplies, medical, food, weapons maintenance, etc. Each of us added a long-range radio to our load out, and as many batteries as practicable. I traded in my old, worn-out jeans for a pair of OD 5.11 tactical pants, the kind with the built in knee pads. Those always came in handy in an urban environment. I grabbed a navy blue undershirt, one size too small, as always, to ensure it was skin tight, and my OD jacket that I always wear, with a green shemagh. A black ball cap, Oakley gloves with built in knuckles, tinted plastic safety sunglasses, and, of course, my old black running shoes finished out my look. I briefly considered trading the shoes in for boots, but decided I didn’t want to be breaking in new footwear at a time like this.
Ethan wanted more range than his AR could provide, since we would be fighting targets that could shoot back; 5.56mm wouldn’t cut it. He opted to upgrade to a 7.62 NATO in the form of an M14 EBR, which came equipped with a Leupold Mk 4 3.5-10 power scope. He chose an FN 45 Tactical to back it up. Both firearms were, obviously, suppressed. He kept a small wakizashi on his back, as well as a disturbing amount of knives and blades, which he claimed he needed for “medical things.” He kept much of the same load out, altering only enough to facilitate eight new M14 magazines and six .45 mags. He also topped up and modernized various components of his med kit, as appropriate. He was wearing his black MOLLE vest with non-matching pouches, and a full Multicam uniform, as he always did.
William knew what he wanted, but he never gave up a chance to drool over modern military-grade weapons. He ended up taking a Knight’s Armament Company M110, a 7.62 pattern AR sniper rifle which was already dressed up with the matching suppressor, Leupold 3.5–10× scope, appropriate night vision, and a Harris Bipod. He felt the need to add an Aimpoint Micro T1, mounted in a 45 degree mount, flashlight and collapsible stock. He also grabbed eight magazines, plus the one already in the rifle. For his sidearm, he picked up a Sig Sauer P226, also equipped with a silencer and flashlight. He stuck six magazines loaded with 9mm into his pouches.
For his melee weapons, William was eyeing up a fancy tomahawk that he had read about, back before all this shit happened. He integrated that into his MOLLE vest for ease of access. After that, he picked up a beautiful kopis sword. I was almost jealous that he had grabbed it, but I still had my own, although it was well worn and heavily nicked by now. He mounted that on his left hip; so that he could cross draw it when need be.
He changed out his plate carrier to a Condor MOPC, outfitting it with 7.62 mag pouches, IFAK and hydration pouches, and other various mission essential pouches made of his favorite pattern, Multicam. He set his rig up according to his designation, marksman. Next, he traded his holey jeans and worn out OD jacket for a brand new pair of Crye Precision Multicam pants with built in kneepads, and a matching Crye field jacket, topped off with his off-colored shemagh and the M1 helmet he often wore. I resented him for loving Multicam. He also decided to keep his broken in boots, for the same reason I kept my running shoes.
We spent the next day at the range, zeroing our weapons and soaking in the sun; it felt good after the clouds of England.
Chapter 12
The mission started right on time. Ethan, William, and two SEALS were in one Blackhawk, Adam, two more SEALS and myself were in the other chopper. Normally the helos could carry more but fuel was an issue; with FOB Ripken out of commission there were no more bases close to the area of operation. We had been in the air a while when we stopped at a Navy amphibious ship to refuel. From there it was on to the mission area.
As we neared the coastline we were joined by a pair of Navy F-18 Super Hornets who quickly identified themselves over the radio. They were our cover for the mission, as well as our air support if we needed any precision bombing once we were on the ground. If I craned my neck and looked up out the door of the Blackhawk I could sometimes make them out above us in the clouds. It was a beautiful, mostly clear day. Not the best weather for a mission like this.
We could hear the fighter jocks over our radio channel as they lined up to buzz Norfolk to see if they could spook any anti-American forces into revealing their positions. I could see their contrails as they accelerated towards land.
One of the pilots got a warning buzz in his cockpit that indicated he was being illuminated by radar. Over the radio we heard him say “I’ve got tone.”
One of the Hornets was outfitted with HARM missiles, High-speed Anti Radiation Missile. The missile is designed to fire straight back down a radar beam and destroy whatever is emitting the signal. Once illuminated by the radar the pilot launched a HARM missile. It dropped from under the fuselage, then shot off like an arrow towards the surface several miles distant.
We were flying low, close to the water with the fighters high above us. The city started to come into view ahead of us. We could see a bridge and beyond that was the former naval base. One of the ships must have been what activated the radar. As we watched the HARM missile arced in and slammed into the superstructure of the ship that had illuminated the Hornet with its radar. The ship’s superstructure started to burn intensely, indicating that it was an older class, made of aluminum instead of steal. I couldn’t make out exactly what it was through the smoke.