I don’t remember what happened next. I woke up to Red cutting my seatbelt. I fell out of the truck and onto him. The truck itself was lying on its roof, the wheels were still spinning, a cloud of dust settling around us.
Brit lay on the ground, unmoving. Red had pulled her out first. As he dragged me over next to her around the front of the truck, I screamed. My collar bone grated together and I felt like I was going to puke. The world swam in and out of my vision, going grey.
“Sarge, Brit seems OK, she’s just out cold, still breathing. There are bunch of Zs coming down the wash. I’m going to head them off. Doc is trying to rope down here, but the road edge is really crumbly.”
“O-OK. Something in my shoulder, it’s messed up. Give, give me my pistol.”
Red chambered a round and pressed my .22 into my left hand. Then he ran out of my field of vision. I heard him start to fire.
I think I passed out for a few seconds. When I woke up, three Zombies were coming around the back end of the truck. Damn, damn, damn. I raised the pistol and started snapping off shots. It was hard to aim, and my vision was blurry. I hit one in the head and it went down, but the other two came closer. One made it to Brit and I emptied the magazine into it. It fell backwards, away from her.
I felt an incredible pressure on my ankle, and then a hot, burning sensation. I looked down to see the last one, a little girl with her face rotted off, had bitten me just above the top of my boot. She kept biting, chewing her way into the muscle, her broken teeth sinking deeper. The pain was a red hot poker shooting up my leg.
Chapter 31
I screamed and reached down, swatting at the creature with the empty pistol. I could feel the infection burning into my leg. It was like a hot piece of steel, still glowing red, shoved into my leg.
The thing’s head exploded, and the round continued its flight to bury itself into the ground, carrying a trail of bloody red mist. I didn’t look to see where the shot had come from. I reached across my shoulder and tore the tourniquet off my body armor. Kicking the corpse of the zombie off me, I wrapped the tourniquet tightly around my leg, just below the knee and a few inches above the wound. I twisted it as hard as I could, feeling it cut into my leg. Then I ripped open the leg of my uniform.
A raw bite mark was in my calf, just above the top of my boot. Dammit all to Hell! It burned like someone was pouring raw alcohol on it. I let go of my leg and crawled over to Brit, who was still unconscious, and lay down with my head on her chest. Waves of nausea came over me and actually felt my eyes roll back into my head.
I woke up to a slap across my face.
“Nick, wake up,” said Ahmed. He slapped me again and I threw a wild punch at him. He sat back, easily avoiding it. He still kept his pistol trained straight at my head.
“He is awake. Not a Z yet, either.”
Doc leaned over me, blocking out the sun. “Nick, you got the TQ on in time, but you know what we’ve gotta do. I’ll make it as painless as possible. Here, bite on this.”
Ahmed gently put a canvas strap into my mouth. “Go for it,” I mumbled. How bad could it be? My leg felt numb already.
“OK, I can’t give you anything for the pain.”
I spit the canvas strap out and yelled “Just shut the hell up and do it!” I looked over at Brit, who was awake, sitting up against the side of the rolled over HUMVEE. She looked back at me, tears streaming down her face. I smiled.
“It’s just a flesh wound, Babe,” I said, and reached for her hand as Ahmed put the strap back into my mouth.
Good thing he did, too. Doc cut into the muscle of my calf with a razor blade, in a neat circle around the bone, slicing through ligaments and blood vessels. I bit down hard on the canvas strap, so hard I felt like my teeth would break. I screamed into it, a soul-wrenching scream I tried to keep inside of me, and squeezed Brit’s hand so hard I thought I would crush the bones.
“Almost there, Nick.” Doc reached a bloody hand out and Ahmed handed him a small, battery-powered Mikita grinding saw from his medkit. It whirred to life and I could feel the vibration as he cut into the bone. My leg was a dull throb that pounded up my body.
The last thing I saw was Doc lighting the torch he carried, bending over to cauterize the blood vessels. I felt the thud of the chopper blades as the MEDEVAC helo thundered down onto the road bed overhead, and smelled my burnt flesh. Before I passed out again, I heard Brit.
“Doc, tell me he’s going to make it.”
“He’ll live, if he doesn’t go into shock.”
She squeezed my hand and whispered in my ear, “Live, dammit.”
The world fell away from me, and I fell with it.
THE END.
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All work copyrighted 2013 Think On Productions and John F. Holmes
THE WARTHOGS OF IRREGULAR SCOUT TEAM 5
by
Ryan Szimanski
Chapter 1
“You know what sucks about the zombie apocalypse?” I thought to myself as I walked alone through the rain. “No more comfort foods. I miss pretzels.”
I had just gotten out of my two days of quarantine after being flown by a variety of Navy and Air Force craft from Mid-Atlantic Command’s current area of operations near Baltimore back west to Seattle via Green Bay, Wisconsin, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and some field in Idaho. It was my first time in the Pacific Northwest and it had been raining ever since I jumped out of what I strongly suspect was a restored C-47 Skytrain.
“God this place is just as bad as England; rain every day, and not a single zombie to kill,” I said to no one in particular.
It was just as well, I didn’t know anyone around here anyway. Everyone living who I cared about was still back in the wild wild east trying to survive.
I decided to walk into the first bar I saw. “Why couldn’t the Army give me a car or something, I’m supposed to be genuine war hero aren’t I?”
Then I thought maybe this bar has pretzels; before this whole apocalypse thing started bars used to have pretzels.
I walked in and surveyed the room. No pretzels were in evidence, but as I peered into the shadowy far corner I saw something even better, and more unexpected, people I knew!
They sat behind a table talking to each other; each had their back up against a different corner wall, talking in hushed tones. Neither one had their back to an entrance, good defensive thinking, they couldn’t be attacked from behind, but they were so engrossed in conversation that they did not notice when I came in.
“Nick Agostine! Brit O’Neill! I can’t believe you’re here! I thought you were somewhere in New York,” I said excitedly as I walked towards them with my arms open, as if to embrace them. As I got closer they looked up at me and we were able to make each other out a little better.
I stopped and asked “Brit, what’s with the sunglasses, indoors at night? You didn’t get bit by a vampire did you, because there’s no way I’ll ever take you out to dinner if you’re a vampire.”
She just sat there, surprised to see me, and apparently speechless, so I filled the awkward silence. “The only reason I ever wear sunglasses indoors is when I’m checking out the ladies. Are you eyeing me up?”
She took off her glasses, revealing a very surprising sight; one of her eyes was just as green as ever, only it was glaring at me angrily, the other was a lifeless, milky white color. She stood up, punched me hard in the arm, and just spat out “pig” as she got up and walked purposefully towards the exit.
I started to follow, rubbing my arm, trying to apologize for my poor choice of words. “Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t know. What happened?”
Before I could catch up with her a beat up Slavic looking guy I didn’t recognize who had been sitting at the bar shouldered past me, glaring, and went after her. He was followed by a Native American looking kid, and Ahmed, who I recognized as being on IST-1. These first teamers never go anywher
e alone, good survival strategy. I wish I had my team with me.
I turned around to look at Nick, questioningly, as Doc Hamilton came over from the bar with three glasses and sat down at Brit’s place at the table. Nick just said “Don’t worry about her, a little not so friendly fire, don’t ask. Have a seat; it’s good to see you, Szymanski. What are you doing here?”
I sat down and Doc passed me a glass. I asked, “Do you know if they have any pretzels here?” he shook his head negative, and dejectedly I turned to face Nick again “It’s a long story, what are you doing here, and its Szimanski, sa-man-ski, not siz-man-ski, that was a guy on your team. They are completely different; one is Polish for son of Simon, the other means Simon’s son, I forget which is which.”
They both laughed at that. “Jeez, you’re a little defensive all of a sudden; people must mispronounce your name a lot. Either way, it doesn’t matter, I doubt anyone is left who speaks Polish, they were one of the hardest hit places in Europe.”
“We’re on vacation, stop being so morbid.” Doc reprimanded Nick, and then he turned to me “We are here to train army instructors. We just finished a scout of Staten Island, what’s your excuse for being here?”
“Oh I heard about that, glad you found usable facilities, Baltimore was a bust more or less. I also heard about your recent heroics at West Point, I’m sorry to hear about Jonsey. Now who will I play Call of Duty with? Oh by the way, how is Rocket taking his loss?”
They glanced at each other, and then back at me and in unison asked, “Who is Rocket?”
“He was your team dog. Oh never mind. Do you wanna waste an hour listening to my story or not?”
“Yea sure, we have nothing better to do,” Nick said.
“Try not to sound so excited.” I said sarcastically. “So you know how Team 5 has been working with Mid-Atlantic Command? About the same time you were going into New York, Team 3 was going into Philadelphia, Team 6 was checking out Jacksonville, and we were sent into Baltimore, same purpose as you, to find a new port for the anchor heads to dock their toys. We had recently finished a real tough mission scouting out Fort Dietrick. Another bust, the brass thought that might be where this whole thing started, you know that used to be the base of the army’s biological weapons program or something like that. Anyway the place was burned down; they thought we could find a way to access the lower levels of one of the research buildings or something. No joy. We took some losses, including our CO. That one I’m not upset about.”
“I thought Captain Anderson was a highly qualified leader, what happened?” Nick asked.
“Well he certainly gave that impression, Special Forces, couple of combat tours, years in the service. Imagine my surprise when I realized he couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag. Turns out he lied about all his qualifications. Apparently no one back at HQ ever bothered to check and see if he had any credentials. Things started to turn sour and all of a sudden he starts blabbering about how he was only some kind of Tech Sergeant in the Maryland Air National Guard. Turns out that’s why he insisted on calling out team the Warthogs, because that’s what he used to work on, the A-10’s based at Martin’s AFB. I wanted us to be the Wolverines, so much cooler, I mean how the hell am I supposed to impress women if I tell them my team is the warthogs, nobody gets that, Wolverines is a movie reference…”
“We know, you need all the help you can get with the ladies, get back to the story, what was wrong with Captain Anderson, how did your missions go, and what are you doing here.” Interrupted Doc, somewhat impatiently.
“Cap’n Crunch died under mysterious circumstances, may have had something to do with the gunshot wound to his head he sustained shortly after telling us he was a fraud. We couldn’t access the lower levels, the access point was completely blocked by tons of rubble, and we had to fight a running battle back towards a LZ. The plague could very well have originated there, it would explain where it comes from, and why the East Coast fell so fast. We may never know for sure. After that debacle, somehow I ended up as team leader, we boated into Baltimore, and now the brass wants me to…”
“Wait, you got to boat into Baltimore? We had to jump in because there isn’t enough boat fuel; we lost a man because of that,” said Nick agitatedly.
“Sorry to hear about that, but my team rides in style with me at the helm, we may not have been around as long as you first teamers, but we get the job done… sort of. The boat, I should stop calling it that, the destroyer that took us in runs on jet fuel, that’s how they managed it, crazy stuff, two jet engines makes for a smooth ride. Anyway, I digress, the reason I’m hear while my team is still back east is because the brass wants me to go on tour and talk about our mission to Baltimore. They’re going to try and pass me off as a genuine war hero.” I leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “Wanna know why?” They nodded, slightly annoyed that I was drawing it out so I quickly continued, “To sell war bonds. Can you believe that shit! The reason I’m not with my team is because some old fogy thinks its 1944 and wants to raise money for the war effort by parading me around and having me tell my war stories. Do you know why they chose me? Not because I’m a real war hero, because I used to be a tour guide at a museum. They think I will have dynamic public speaking skills. Can you believe that shit?”
Nick and Doc both laughed loudly at this revelation, even though I knew they would not be amused if they were in my situation.
I waited for them to calm down then continued. “Since I have you two as a captive audience, I am going to practice my speech on you, but first you have to promise to buy lots of war bonds…”
Chapter 2
My story begins in Baltimore, the only home I had ever known. I had just graduated college… over a year ago, with a degree in history, and was still living at home with my parents, no combat experience, unless airsoft counts, only a part time museum job, no prospects for the future, pretty typical of my generation I think.
When the outbreak hit I was actually excited, I didn’t have to become an adult, I could just play real life Left 4 Dead! I had a plan; I actually thought I was prepared for this. That didn’t last long.
Anyway the government had finally admitted that the increasing amount of strange “incidents” was caused by the living dead. That’s all I needed to hear! I jumped into action, tucked my Colt .45 into my waistband under my jacket, left my family, who were packing things into the car, headed out the door, and started walking towards the city. That was not my smartest plan.
I lived in Dundalk, a suburb of Baltimore, about 7 miles from the city’s center, but only 1 mile from the sea. My grand plan, which I had thought out for years, ever since I was elected an officer in my school’s Humans vs. Zombies club, was to head towards the city, to where the Navy kept some of its supply ships docked. They were a part of Military Sealift Command. I figured I could convince them to let me bring my family aboard, and then we would be safe and protected by the government.
Turns out I wasn’t the only one to think of that plan. The plague was already spreading through the city and thousands of people were swarming towards the waterfront to try and find passage on a ship.
I thought for sure the big military cargo ships would have room for us; but they had already pulled out, along with any civilian vessel that could get underway. So all I could do was watch the parade of various sized watercraft sail towards the Atlantic.
Now the entire waterfront area was crowded with panicking people, some probably already infected, many soon to be infected, and me. I heard screaming, people were running and pushing. The undead were starting to reach the edge of the group. No one knew where they were going, they just went. I turned to run for home, under normal conditions I could make that run in five minutes tops, but now I was stuck in the middle of a crowd.
I shouldered my way out, drew my gun. The infected were getting close. I took aim and squeezed the trigger, nothing. I examined the gun in my hand which a moment before had given me a sense of security. Then I noticed I
had not chambered a round yet. I grabbed the slide and gave it a tug, it did not budge. It had been a while since I cleaned my gun; it just sat in a drawer in my room.
People were running past me now, someone in front of me got tackled. A pair of real live zombies jumped on top of him and he was missing flesh before the three bodies hit the ground. I was in shock. That’s when I was hit; someone ran right into me and knocked me down. I finally yanked back on the slide and got it to chamber a round. Then the sun was blocked out. I looked up and there was a zombie standing over me, getting ready to attack.
I fired into its chest. He dropped, but started coming at me on the ground. I aimed again, but the slide had locked back, jammed. I started crawling backwards, tugging on the slide; finally it released, chambering another round. I fired it into the creature’s face and his head slumped forward at my feet. I got up, zombies were all around.
I don’t know how I made it out, but that was the first time I ever ran a 4 minute mile. I learned a few lessons from that encounter too, never go anywhere alone, clean your weapons and keep a round in the pipe, and of course, don’t run into a panicking crowd in a city when zombies are attacking. I won’t be making those mistakes again.
Chapter 3
By the time I got back home the family was already packed up and had a rough plan. I grabbed my pre-packed bug out bag and went along for the ride because I was still upset my plan had fallen apart.
The bulk of my extended family lives in the suburbs of Baltimore. They managed to coordinate something of a family wide evacuation plan before we lost internet and phones. The entire family loaded everything they could into cars and converged on a Pizza Hut buffet on the other side of the Mason Dixon Line. I didn’t even know those existed, wish it had been open.
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