Apoc Series (Vol. 1): Whispers of the Apoc [Tales From The Zombie Apocalypse]

by Wilsey, Martin (Editor)

  Specialist Harold English had only been with the 69th a few years. He lived and worked in Manhattan, but his parents and siblings lived in Binghamton. He too wanted to go home. He was certain that if he stayed with his captain and sergeant he would have the best opportunity of seeing his family again. He said yes.

  Corporal Mark Watson said no. Although he also lived in New York City, he had no family or girlfriend there. He originally hailed from Great Falls, Montana. He was better off taking his chances on going to Colorado. He was out.

  Arn went to tell Earlman their decision. He ordered them to gear up for a low-level static line jump. But the plague had something else in mind.

  ***

  The three transport aircraft were flying in a 3-ship, multi element formation, when the lead plane suddenly dropped in altitude, and then popped back up higher than it had been. Though the lead did not cross into the vertical space between the planes to left and right wing position, the abrupt altitude dip and climb was concerning to Captain Jenny Moore, who was piloting the Globemaster left of the lead. She asked her co-pilot, First Lieutenant Amy Hellinger to radio the lead.

  “Thunder One-Three, Thunder One-Three this is Thunder Two-Three. How copy? Over.”

  The lead did not respond. Hellinger repeated her radio call, but there was still no answer.

  Once again the lead plane quickly dropped altitude and popped back up. This time, though, the aircraft began to move left, crossing into Thunder Two-Three’s flight path, and then right into the flight path of Thunder Three-Three. The lead’s wings sharply tilted as it banked. Then the plane’s cargo door opened.

  Hellinger radioed the third aircraft to warn them of the loss of radio communication. “Thunder Three-Three this is Thunder Two-three. We have no joy on Thunder Leader. I say again, we have no joy on Thunder Leader.”

  As Hellinger was about to tell Three-Three to break formation an object came falling out of the cargo door. It was a person. Then there was another, but no parachutes opened. Thunder Three-Three broke right, getting out of the way of the falling bodies.

  Thunder One-Three sharply climbed, and then rolled left, tilting hard, almost with its wing tipped toward the ground below. More bodies fell out the cargo door with no parachutes. Captain Moore made an evasive maneuver, attempting to take the plane out of harm’s way, just as a stream of parachutists exited the aft cargo door. The plane was at such a precarious angle that the jumping warfighters’ chutes didn’t properly deploy from the static line. Several men tangled in their chutes plummeted toward the plane.

  ***

  The plane banked left abruptly, and then there was a loud crash on the roof. Eller radioed to the cockpit, but before he got a response there was another loud impact. This time an explosion followed it.

  ***

  The first parachutist to hit the plane did so on the roof of the forward portion of the cargo compartment, and then bounced off. The second jumper to make contact with the plane was sucked into the outer right engine, the chute getting stuck and flapping over it. While the engines were robust enough to be bird-strike resistant, they could not survive a whole flock or a human body being sucked into them. Engine four erupted in fire, and then the turbine disc failed. Hellinger quickly shut the fuel off to the engine as the automatic fire detection system activated to extinguish the flames. At the same time, the captain adjusted the thrust of the remaining engines and the aircraft’s bank to keep it level. The Globemaster III could fly on three out of four turbo-fan engines, but the loss of 25% thrust was a serious matter with a full cargo load.

  The lodged fluttering parachute began to come free. Captain Moore needed to get rid of it before it got sucked into neighboring engine three. If they lost another engine on the right wing the transport would go down. She pitched the plane left, so that the right wing was tilted up. The chute shifted direction. For a moment it flapped in the wind. Then it partially opened, catching some air. It was enough to pull the chute free and send it streaming away. Moore leveled the plane once again.

  A warning alarm sounded. There was a problem with engine three on the right wing. It was running above the normal operating temperature. Moore knew that something must have struck it when the warfighter got sucked into engine four. Moore knew that if she sustained the high thrust load on the engine it would fail. She had no choice but to order the payload dropped, even though they were fifty miles from the drop zone. Moore told the loadmaster that his crew needed to immediately drop the two Stryker Fire Support Vehicles (FSV).

  ***

  Staff Sgt. Eller had remained on the radio with the co-pilot, and was aware of what was happening. When the order came to drop the payload, Eller’s crew went into immediate action. When the aft door began to open and the Special Ops Mission Commander was informed of the emergency, Earlman demanded to speak with the pilot. Capt. Moore told Eller she would have no problem with speaking directly to Earlman, and to prep the load for discharge. Eller wanted to let out a big grin when he handed the comm set to the mission commander; he knew what his captain was going to say to Earlman, but he kept his grin to himself.

  Earlman was on the radio with the captain for less than thirty seconds. After he reminded Moore that he was mission commander and then ordered her to make it to the drop zone, Moore told him that he was only mission commander once on the ground. She also reminded him that she was the ranking officer of the flight mission, and the payload was going to be dropped for the safety of everyone aboard. Earlman grumbled, “Son-of-a-bitch,” as he pushed the comm set back to Eller, and then returned to his mission members to let them know the heavy assets and Stryker teams would be jumping and the Rangers would continue to the drop zone.

  ***

  The first sled rolled to the end of the cargo compartment. A small drag chute ejected out the door and then opened. A moment later the drag chute pulled out three larger chutes, followed by the first Stryker FSV sliding out the back of the plane, the three chutes pulling open ten larger parachutes. After the first Stryker was clear, the second rolled to the end. Less than fifteen seconds later Stryker Two was on its way. The two five-member Stryker teams followed afterward, and then Captain Arn and her two team members jumped next. They jumped without Earlman’s consent.

  Airdropping the load had worked. Captain Moore reduced the thrust on the engines, and engine three returned to a normal operating temperature. Thunder Two-Three caught up to Thunder Three-Three and took the flight lead to the drop zone.

  Earlman’s Operation Thunder had begun with six Strykers, six Stryker teams, and a platoon of Rangers—eight per plane. Earlman didn’t know how many warfighters had escaped from the lead transport before it nose-dived toward the ground, but he hoped that whoever made it out had made it safely to the ground and without a carnivorous enemy awaiting them. Nonetheless, the loss of life and equipment was significant, and now, with two more heavy assets not getting to the drop zone, the lieutenant was concerned that the losses would critically jeopardize the mission’s ability in helping B Company, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion/Marine Corps to keep the USAMRIID facilities at Fort Detrick secure. However, the mission commander was confident that if the two Stryker teams could get their vehicles to Fort Detrick quickly, the mission could still be successful.

  ***

  Captain Arn saw an opportunity and she seized it. She and her two subordinates had been tethered to the static jump line on the same side of the plane as the 3-2 SBCT members. As soon as she heard Earlman notify them about the situation, she knew it was imperative they jump right behind the two teams. Arn, Richardson, and Emery were out of the plane before Earlman could stop them.

  Before jumping, Arn had informed her two comrades that they needed to keep eyes on one another so they were situationally aware of where each of them were landing. She also told them they needed to steer clear of the Stryker teams. Spc. English had never done a parachute jump and he asked how the parachute was steered. Arn had to whisper an explanation to him that stee
r clear was not to be taken literally, because you couldn’t steer a T-11 military parachute like you could a civilian skydiver’s chute. She told him he just needed to stay away from the Stryker members and join up with one another as quickly as possible.

  When Captain Moore had ordered her crew to dump the payload, she did not think Earlman would be so reckless as to order the Stryker teams out of the plane in order to recover their vehicles. Eller had tried to warn the mission commander that the vehicles were being dropped over terrain that was not conducive to asset delivery, and that in all likelihood the vehicles would be unrecoverable due to impact damage upon reaching the ground. However, Earlman informed the loadmaster that his assessment of the situation was unacceptable and that if he closed the aft cargo door before the Stryker teams could jump, he was going to shoot the loadmaster for refusing to obey an order during wartime. Eller took Earlman’s threat seriously. He kept the door open even though he was certain Earlman was ordering the Stryker teams to their doom.

  ***

  Both Stryker teams landed in a small open area off Pretty Boy Dam Road, a short distance from the Pretty Boy Dam. However not every member of the two teams landed without incident. Two members missed the clearing and ended up in a forested area. The parachute of the driver from the first Stryker tangled up in some tree branches, but he didn’t land too high that he couldn’t release himself safely, and there were no zombies waiting for him. However, the vehicle commander for the second Stryker team wasn’t as lucky. He too became entangled in some tree branches. As he hit the branches the chute ripped causing him to swing into another tree, and into the jagged point of a short dead branch. The branch pierced his larynx, impaling him. For a moment he twitched, and then the dead branch snapped. The vehicle commander fell. He was dead before he hit the ground. One of his team members knifed him in the eye to be sure he didn’t reanimate.

  Although the loss of one member from a team was tragic, it was not devastating. All members of a Stryker Combat Team were familiar with the Stryker’s systems and could take over another member’s duties when needed. There would be one less person in Stryker Two to do air guard duty from the rear air guard hatch that opened to the roof.

  Both teams would not have a problem with locating their vehicles. Each team had roughly seen where they landed. Plus Strykers were equipped with GPS locators for exact positioning. The roadway was clear and both teams double-timed it to their vehicles. They knew it was only a short time before the zombies would smell them.

  ***

  The first Stryker landed on top of a farmer’s barn a half-mile northeast of the Pretty Boy Dam on the outskirts of the town of Parkton, Maryland. The 16.5-ton, eight-wheeled armored fighting vehicle crashed through the barn roof, ripping a large hole in the structure, slid across the wooden floor, and finally came to rest halfway out the main barn doors it had destroyed. Miraculously, the Stryker FSV suffered little damage on impact. Unfortunately, the loud crash attracted almost every zombie to it in a half-mile radius. The first Stryker team had barely begun to unstrap the vehicle from its pallet sled when they found themselves under siege. Luckily for the team, not all of the 7,000 plus inhabitants of Parkton had succumbed to the virus or had been in the immediate area. The two air guard sergeants kept the zombies at bay while the other three members got the vehicle operational as quickly as possible. However, a growing horde of living dead surrounding them was the least of their problems.

  The Stryker FSV had crashed through the roof from back to front, destabilizing the building by destroying or fracturing the barn’s main support columns. There were no warning creaks or splintering sounds that the building was going to give way: the only undamaged wood support just snapped and the barn collapsed, crushing the driver and gunner who had just finished unstrapping the vehicle from the sled.

  The two air guard sergeants standing on the front of the vehicle that protruded across the barn’s threshold were also struck by collapsing debris. The first sergeant was killed immediately, crushed under broken lumber. The second air guard sergeant wasn’t as lucky. He was knocked off the vehicle after being hit by the collapsing debris. He landed unconscious on the ground and nearly at the feet of several zombies. He abruptly awoke in horrific pain as the ravenous living dead bit off his face.

  Vehicle commander SSg. Axel Grant had been inside the vehicle getting the Stryker’s systems online when the building gave way. He had also been on the radio to his driver, who was giving him a sitrep on the vehicle’s readiness. Grant heard the thunderous collapse around him, and it was evident from the noise that the damaged barn had given way. After unsuccessfully attempting to make radio contact with his crew, he struggled to exit the vehicle but found all the doors and hatches blocked by debris. Though he knew the Stryker would be impenetrable to zombies, he couldn’t stay trapped in the vehicle forever. It was only equipped with three days of food and water for five people. Also, he needed to know if his crew was dead or just incapacitated. The only way he was going to find out was to see if he could get the fire support vehicle out from under the rubble.

  The second Stryker did not crash into anything. It missed landing in the reservoir behind the dam by several hundred feet, and came to rest just downstream of the spillway. The water wasn’t deep, only a few feet, but it was rocky, and tree-lined inclines bordered the waterway. It would be slow in traversing.

  Stryker team two did not know the fate of the other Stryker team, not at first. They were too busy attempting to get their vehicle operational, and the flowing Gunpowder Falls waterway was hindering their progress. They too had a zombie menace to deal with, or so they first thought. The living dead had gathered on both embankments, but they made no attempt to come any closer. The two air guard sergeants who were on over watch duty atop the vehicle at first hadn’t noticed the zombies’ odd behavior. The air guards were ready to kill any zombie that attempted to traverse the water, but none tried. The living dead stood ten feet from the water’s edge, groaning. Every once in a while an additional zombie would join the group. It would move close to the bank and then turn around as if it had seen something that frightened it. At first the air guards thought the zombies had figured out that if they got too close they would be shot. However, after the seventh or eighth time the strange behavior occurred, the two over watch soldiers realized the zombies weren’t looking at the guns aimed at them; they actually feared the water. It was the damnedest thing they ever saw from a zombie.

  ***

  The barn-crashed Stryker had struggled to get free from under the collapsed outbuilding, and it took all of the diesel engine’s 350 horsepower to get the heavy fire support vehicle out from under. A one-man Stryker Fire Support Team was not a combat team. SSg. Grant needed to rendezvous with the other team. It was best he take command of their vehicle and get to Fort Detrick post-haste. He radioed the other team. They would come to him.

  ***

  Captain Arn and her two warfighters had made it safely to the ground, although Spc. English did get his feet wet when he landed in a farmer’s pond. Arn didn’t know exactly where they had landed, though she had seen a dam nearby and the Stryker teams landing on the opposite side of it. The closest farm and two nearby homes were vacant and lacked vehicles, but did yield information in the form of an address on a piece of mail. They were somewhere in the town of Parkton, Maryland, though from the ample space between the residences, Arn surmised they were not in the main part of town. Luckily, Arn’s cellphone still had an internet connection. She knew the internet would be as extinct as humanity would be if the war against the living dead wasn’t soon won, so she quickly jotted down the route they needed to take to get back to New York. They were approximately 215 miles southwest of their first and closest destination of Middletown, where Sgt. Richardson resided. That was if they stuck to the main routes, which they knew would be more risky. They would have to take the longer, more rural roadways to avoid the heavier populated areas, which meant a much longer trip. They needed to acquire
transport. They headed northeast toward the dam, hoping the town of Parkton would have a suitable vehicle.

  As they crossed the dam they observed a Stryker team in the water below. From what they could assess the team had unharnessed the vehicle and was getting ready to depart. However, there were a whole lot of zombies waiting on both sides of the water’s edge for them. It was imperative Arn’s team avoid contact with the 3-2 SBCT. Any interaction with the vehicle crews could risk their freedom. They crossed the dam unnoticed and continued toward town.

  The team was just about to exit a dense tree-lined section of Pretty Boy Dam Road into another residential area, when SSg. Smith caught a glimpse of a Stryker coming around the bend from behind them. A Stryker had a low acoustic signature, which was part of the reasonthat the vehicle was a formidable combination of mobility, stealth, and lethality. The team ducked into the woods for cover. Arn was certain it was the Stryker they had passed shortly before, but she couldn’t figure out why it was going in the opposite direction of Fort Detrick. The speeding eight-wheeled vehicle passed, not detecting their presence. After Arn was sure the vehicle was clear of them, she again moved her team forward, checking the nearby residences for suitable transportation. When they moved to the second home along the roadway, they heard a vehicle running from inside a closed garage. When they opened the side door a blanket of car fumes billowed out. A working car was exactly what they were after, but the garage was filled with toxic fumes, too much for them to make an immediate entry. Then the Stryker returned, but Richardson was keeping an eye on the front property line for any threats, and saw it in time before it could get close. The fire support vehicle stopped just past the residence. It stood idling for a moment and then moved away, heading back toward the dam.