The assault boat moved in after the front half had slipped beneath the water, leaving a patch of burning oil on the surface. I watched them through my binos as they went from body to body, pulling each one up to check for signs of life, to see if we could get a prisoner. They turned back empty.
Chapter 6
Someone, I don’t remember who, once said that all warfare is logistics. That never held more truth than when fighting Zombies. One on one, maybe, you can beat a zombie, though they are strong, and once they start attacking, they never, ever stop. More than one, unarmed, you’re dead, or even worse, joining their ranks, if your heart doesn’t give out fast enough. A baseball bat or some other kind of knocker, you can hold out for a while, but having more than a few around you, you’re going to get swamped, like Jonesy when he went down fighting at West Point.
The key to beating zombies is equipment and keeping your distance. Ammunition, working weapons, and most important, a solid defense. I’ll sit all day behind a concrete wall and poke zombies through a murder hole with a spear, provided too many bodies don’t pile up and they start climbing over the wall. After that happens, of course, you’re screwed.
With that in mind and not knowing where our destination was, Doc, Brit and I sat down and started working on a packing list. It was going to be an airborne insertion, and I had no faith in the Navy coming to pull us out in time, so I wanted a pallet to be dropped with us. Screw that, I wanted two pallets, each a duplicate of the other. I was pretty sure we would have to settle for one, though.
What we came up with, after more than an hour of deliberating and arguing was:
• Ammunition:
— 20,000 rounds of .22 magnum ammunition for our rifles, preloaded into 50 round magazines
— 1000 rounds of 7.62 for Ahmed’s rifle
— 2000 rounds of straight .22 for our pistols
— 3 spare rifles and 3 spare pistols
— 1 case of thumpers
— Three AT-4 anti-tank rockets. If we needed to blow a hole in the side of a building, we were going to need to do it fast.
I wasn’t sure we were going to get that much ammo, much less the magazines, but I left that up to Brit to try to wheedle it out of the fat supply sergeant up at Fort Orange.
• Demolition Supplies:
— 5kw Generator, along with a spare parts set. Electricity was a huge combat multiplier.
— 20 gallons of gasoline. I was sure we would be able to scrounge more, but I didn’t want to count on it. Along with that I added 3 empty 5 gallon fuel cans, and a fuel filtering unit. A lot of the gas you could scrounge from cars had gone bad with water contamination. I also added a hand-cranked fuel pump and 20 feet of rubber hose.
— Six 100’ extension cords
— 3 drills, along with screws, hammers, and nails
— 2 sledge hammers and two axes
— 500 feet of ¼” steel cable, in 50’ lengths. We had found this useful strung up either ankle- or chest-high. It often stopped or seriously delayed a horde of zombies.
— 2 electric saws-alls, along with a gasoline-powered demolition saw
— 5 lbs of C-4, along with blasting caps. I let Doc deal with that. I don’t like explosives, never did, but I wanted the ability to drop a building if I had to.
— 10 sets of halogen worklight bulbs. I could probably scrounge lights themselves, since there were hardware stores all over the city, and lights were the last thing looters went after. Night vision equipment was great but I wanted the ability to light up any field of fire we had. It would save ammunition and fighting in the light is always better for morale.
— Two 15’ collapsible assault ladders. In the city, many of the older buildings had floors that more than twelve feet apart. They could also be used to span an alley between roofs.
• Portable water purification unit., along with 30 gallons of water in 5 gallon cans.
• Three cases of MREs, along with 5 rolls of toilet paper. Never forget that.
Brit finished making a copy of the list and sent it by e-mail to the S-4 section at Fort Orange.
“I’m probably going to go up there to make this happen myself,” she said, “but I know a supply sergeant who owes me some, um, favors.” She shot me a guilty look, the “we need to talk” look. I nodded at her.
Doc pulled out his Garmin and brought up the local hardware stores. “Well, looks like we have to go raid a Home Depot. According to the GPS, there is one in Fishkill on Route 9. I’ll see if I can get some air support and fly in instead of a boat mission.”
“I’m going to go over the Infantry, see if we can get a couple more guys for this mission. I think Killian and two more riflemen would be good. They can make their own fire team. Let’s plan on doing the scrounge mission tomorrow at noon. You know the drill, pre-combat checks and inspections.”
We broke up and went our separate ways to start getting ready. Brit followed me on my way over to the Infantry Command Post.
“Nick, we need to talk.”
I hated those words. I’d rather hear a full horde screaming the zombie moan than hear a woman say that.
“OK, Brit, go ahead.”
She took a deep breath, then laid it out flat.
“Until you and I can go riding off into the sunset together, I’m not going to be with you. We can’t. You’re the team leader, and I may love you, but I expect all of us are going to die, sooner, rather than later. Maybe we can call it quits someday after this zombie thing and we can rethink it, but for now, you know we can’t. You have way too much responsibility to think of only one person.” I took off my work glove and brushed a strand of hair off her face, then ran the back of my hand across her cheek. She closed her eyes.
“Maybe someday, Brit.” She nodded and opened those blue, blue eyes. There were tears in the corners.
“Maybe someday, Nick.”
Chapter 7
“Mya, Redshirt, before we roll out, you have to go attend quarterly mandatory briefings. Sexual harassment and suicide prevention.”
“I already know how to sexually harass someone.”
Mya shot him a dirty look and asked me, “Why do we have to do these things if we’re attached to a super special unit?”
Brit laughed. “Because you’re regular Army pukes. Ha ha, sucks to be you!”
“Brit, Doc is giving a class to the Infantry in avoiding plague infection in Zombie Combat. You just volunteered to be his demonstrator.” Now I was the one on the receiving end of the dirty look.
“Let’s go, we have to finish mission prep tonight for tomorrow’s hardware store run.”
“Good. I need more saline solution for my contacts. Can we raid Walmart tomorrow too, Oh Fearless Leader?”
“Nope, quick in and out. You’re going to have to wear your birth control glasses. Maybe you should wear them now to keep the infantry guys off you.”
“Now why would I want that?” she said and batted her eyes at me.
“Bite me.”
“Someday.”
They followed me out of the tent. Mya and Redshirt were heading over to the ops tent to get their class and Brit and I went to join up with Docs’ class, which was already in session.
“Great, our demonstrators just showed up. This is Nick Agostine and Brit O’Neill. Nick, Brit, we were just going over the basic background on the plague.”
I made a “carry on” motion and he picked up where he left off.
“As you were taught in basic training, we don’t know the exact nature of a zombie infection. We do know that it operates on a cellular level, animating tissue where all prior electrical activity has ceased. However, it causes massive degeneration of neurons, so brain tissue and nerves are dead, except for the most basic functions in the hypothalamus. Why that survives, and a desire to eat living flesh, is unknown.”
A private sitting in the first row raised his hand. Doc nodded to him.
“Is that why when we shoot them they don’t feel nothing?”
&nb
sp; “That’s correct. Also, the oxygen their muscles need seems to come from some kind of metabolic reaction in the virus itself, not through respiration. Their skin, which feels slightly slimy, is covered with some kind of organic growth which aids in respiration. One reason why Zs don’t like water.”
After answering several more questions about the nature of the Zombie infection with a couple of “We don’t know”s, Doc moved on to the combat phase of the class.
We spent some time alternating between various methods of defense against a zombie attack. Most of them were based on throws from jujitsu. The best defense against a zombie that gets inside your guard is to get it off you as quickly as possible. One serious problem, though, is often the decomposition of the corpse leaves you with an arm or a leg in your hand after you’ve tried a shoulder throw, with the thing still trying to take a chunk out of you.
We demonstrated how an upward strike would break a zombie’s jaw if you hit hard enough with the palm of your hand. I reminded them how hunching your neck up in your kevlar collar would prevent any cuts, and so would the issued, detachable hood that was part of our issue uniforms now. Joes often liked to throw away equipment that was hot and bothersome, but in this case, it could save their lives in a close fight.
I was demonstrating how to do a break away, acting as the Zombie, when one of the guys up front said “I’d like to have her bite my neck!” Brit walked over to him, made a “let’s go” motion, then promptly went apeshit, biting and clawing all over him. He tried hard to defend himself but she finally stepped back with his blood on her face. He had half a dozen serious scratches and one bite mark on his cheek.
“Oh my God, what the fuck is wrong with you?” yelled the burly infantryman, holding his hand to his face.
Doc stepped in between them.
“Private, if you can’t stop one girl you outweigh by more than a hundred pounds, what the hell are you going to do against a zombie your size, who has infection-fueled strength and could probably break you in half?”
He turned the guy around to face the rest of the group. The wound on his cheek was bleeding profusely.
“Let this be a lesson to all of you, especially you kids who haven’t been in a zombie fight yet: If that had been a real zombie attacking him, he would either be dead or reanimated right now, and attacking you. Think about it. We’re not playing games here. This isn’t basic training or the playground. Nor is it Army Combatives, where you are trying to choke someone out or subdue them. This is kill or be killed, in every single encounter. Now, partner up and TRY TO DRAW BLOOD!”
I walked over to where Brit stood wiping the blood off her face, and handed her my canteen to wash up.
“I think you’re getting a little slow in your old age, Brit.”
“Kiss my ass, old man” she said, and grinned a bloody grin.
Chapter 8
We had air transport for our equipment-scrounging trip. To get it, I had to promise the Infantry they could go along to get some Zombie fighting experience. While we were running around Home Depot with shopping carts and pallet jacks, they would form a perimeter and fight a holding action against any Zs that showed up. Then, after we had loaded up on the CH-47, they would conduct a fighting withdrawal back onto the choppers. That would give them some combat experience and leave us free to do our scrounging.
Or that was the plan. It was interrupted by an MH-60 from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment that came flaring in for a landing as dusk settled on the river. Two guys I recognized as Operators from Special Forces Operational Detachment (Delta) jumped out, followed a short, good-looking woman in ACUs. No combat gear or weapon, just a bag slung over her shoulder.
Doc stood next to me as we watched them exit the bird, the two Delta Operators acting as bodyguards as they made their way to the command post.
“Should we run and hide right now? That woman is bad news.”
“I know who she is, Doc. Doctor Morano from the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. We’ve met before. Long story.”
She walked around the command post and made a beeline for where our team had set up our hooches. I headed her off before she ran into Brit and a gunfight started right in the middle of the camp.
She waved off the body guards as we approached. “Stand down, this is the guy we’re looking for.” The two of them immediately shifted their attention back to scanning for threats.
“Dr. Morano. Here to get someone killed, I presume.”
She smiled at me. “Nick, so much with the drama! I see you’ve joined forces with Sergeant Hamilton. You two make a good team, running around playing white knight.”
The first time I had seen her had been at Bagram Airbase, at the prison. I had signed for two prisoners who had been turned into gibbering idiots by her attempts at “biological interrogation.” The other two I had turned over the day before were dead, due to “natural causes.”
The last time I had seen her had been just outside Buffalo. She had asked me to join her team of bio-researchers who were capturing zombies and experimenting on them. Her exact words were, I think, “collateral damage to civilians doesn’t matter. We have more important things to do.”
She smiled her sweet, evil smile at me.
“I heard your team tends to run into concentrations of infected on a regular basis. I have an experimental vaccine I want you to use the next time you encounter a large group of infected.”
“Are you sure? That doesn’t sound very evil.”
“You enjoy your job, Sergeant Agostine. I enjoy mine. How are we any different?”
I laughed. “You enjoy killing people and causing pain. I enjoy beating the enemy. I don’t enjoy killing.”
She gave me a blank look. Frigging sociopath.
“Enough with the verbal chit chat.” She handed me a bandolier of 40mm grenade rounds for the M-203.
“These have been modified with an aerosol spray containing a skin contact serum. If you fire it over a crowd of infected, it should work within a few minutes. Those who are fresh corpses may be cured. Those who have decomposed past the point where life is possible, or who suffered life threatening wounds in their initial infection, should just drop.”
Doc took them from her and looked them over. There were five of them.
“So what’s the catch? I don’t trust you, Ma’am. What if I refuse to do it?”
“Doctor. If you refuse, these two gentlemen will shoot you dead on the spot.” The bodyguards glanced at Doc and I, and I knew those guys would drill us through the head at a single word, probably a prearranged code mixed into a sentence so that we didn’t have time to react.
She had us, and there was nothing I could do about it. “What’s to stop us from just dumping them in the river after you leave?”
“There is a transponder in each one that will tell us time of firing, location, etc. I may be evil, Nick, but I’m not stupid. In fact, I’m actually a genius.”
“No, you’re actually a sociopath. OK, we’ll do your dirty work, Dr. Morano.”
“Please see that you do. I’d hate to have you killed.”
“I doubt that you would hate it.”
“No, you’re right, I’d probably record it and play it over and over.”
That was one crazy evil woman. She turned and walked back to the helo that was spinning up again. One of the Delta guys looked back and gave us a thumbs up. I gave him the finger.
Specialist Mya came up behind us. “What was that all about?”
Doc handed her the bandolier. “Go get yourself a different weapon with a 203 launcher on it. We need you to replace Jonesy’s firepower anyway. Then go practice with a half a dozen HE rounds into the river. Take Redshirt with you and have him show you what to do.”
She looked at the rounds in the belt. “What about these?”
“Those” I answered her, “are a potential cure for the infection. We’re going to fire it over a crowd of zombies and see what happens.”
Her
eyes got wide. I could see her professional interest as a medic had been piqued.
“Coool!”
We were cleaning weapons an hour later when we heard a blood-curdling scream of agony carry across the island. Doc, Brit and I jumped up and ran as fast we could in the direction of where Mya and Redshirt had been lobbing 203 rounds into the river.
She lay on the ground, with Redshirt standing there ten feet away from her. We were the first to get there. Doc made to push past him, but he tackled Doc and threw him to the ground.
“DOC, NO!” he yelled. “It’s poisoned! Nerve agent!”
Doc’s face went pale and he stood. The rest of us halted where we were.
Mya lay on the ground, twitching in agony. She had vomited and her back arched in spasms, her scream fading as her jaw opened and closed. Beside her a 203 round lay on the ground, one of the ones from the bandolier LTC Morano had given us.
Brit pulled her pistol from her leg holster and shot Mya through the heart, twice. She arched one last time and fell still.
“She said she wanted to check out the shells with the medicine in them, see how they worked. She took one out and I guess she handled it wrong or something. Next thing I knew, she staggered and yelled at me to run, said it was nerve gas and then said something like V, then she fell to the ground and started vomiting and she screamed once.” V meant VX, a nerve agent. As a medic, Mya knew what was happening to her.
He turned around and threw up in the bushes. I handed him a canteen. The Infantry guys showed up and Brit motioned them back. Doc filled them in and they filed away. This part of the island would remain off limits, along with her corpse. We wouldn’t even be able to bury her.
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