Bad Company: Zombie Killers 8

by John F. Holmes

  “Son, you aren’t in any position to be giving me shit. There are undead around, I could leave you for them. Done it before, more than once.” That shut him up.

  “OK, so let’s try this again. I don’t have a lot of time. What’s your name, and what is this ‘Bad Company’?”

  “Private Greyson. We, we’re American soldiers.”

  He looked very taken aback when I started laughing out loud. I keyed the radio and interrupted some kind of angry shouting match between a voice I recognized as the assumed Captain Washburn and another, much more angry person.

  “Hey, Captain Washburn, this is Nick Agostine. I have your Private Greyson as my prisoner, break” and I let off the mic. I was sure they didn’t have any RF direction finders, but old habits die hard. “I’m going to bring him in as a show of good faith. Sorry about your other two, but they were too slow, over.”

  “I’M GOING TO RIP YOUR HEAD OFF AND SHIT DOWN YOUR NECK!” shouted angry, Latino voice.

  “If I had a dollar for every asshole that said that, I’d be a very rich man, over.”

  The radio stayed silent for five minutes, and then Captain Washburn came on. I used that time to get Private Greyson to his feet and started frog marching him west, away from the searchers.

  “Agostine, or whatever your name is, we could always use some good men. Bring back Private Greyson and you have my word we’ll talk.”

  “Your word? That doesn’t mean shit to me, over.”

  There was a pause, then he came back on. “My word as an officer, over.”

  I thought about that one for a second while we walked, coming to a battered two lane with rusting cars backed up from here to nowhere. “I’m about to cross a two lane, due west of where your soldiers found me. I’ll leave your Private there. We can talk later. Out.”

  We stopped and I sat the teenager down on the bumper of a rusty minivan. Three undead kids inside started howling and thumping at the windows, but we both ignored them. I took a second to zip tie him to the car, then checked his gear once more for anything I might have missed, that I might need.

  “He’s gonna kill you, you know,” said Greyson, sullen and defeated.

  “Captain Washburn? No, I don’t think so. It’s an officer thing.”

  He shook his head, and said, “No, not him. He doesn’t really run shit anyway. Ramirez. He’s going to cut you from ear to ear.”

  “So what’s the deal, then? You called yourself an American soldier.”

  He held his head up in a little show of pride. This kid couldn’t have been more than eight or so when the Apocalypse hit. The shit he must have gone through. He should be out trying to hook up on Tinder instead of carrying a rifle and hanging out with scumbags like the two I just shot.

  “That’s right,’ he said, his southern accent pronounced. “I ain’t one of them gang bangers like Ramirez and his acere buddies. I been sworn in and everythin’!”

  “So, what’s the deal with bad Company? Who is Ramirez?”

  He clammed up, and I figured it was time to go. Reaching down, I ripped open his uniform blouse and pulled his t-shirt up over his head, making an expedient blindfold. Then I made a great deal of noise, as if I was hustling away. In reality, I doubled back, pulled the pin on a grenade and wedged it under the tire of a car that was about twenty meters away, and then ran fishing line I had looted, along with the backpack, along the ground and back to a car that had gone off the west side of the road, making sure I had a way to wiggle back out to the treeline, and a good clear field of fire. The fishing line lay slack on the ground, ready for me to yank on and provide a diversion.

  They showed up about ten minutes later, a pair of scouts who approached the road very carefully, providing overwatch for each other. These guys were good, a lot better than the two I had killed earlier. They crossed over to my side of the road in a dash, ignoring Private Greyson, and disappeared in the pine trees on that side. I’d have to watch out for those two. Don’t get caught between a rock and a hard place, Nick. There’s no team to watch your back.

  After a few minutes, what seemed to be a reinforced squad came out of the woods and approached where Greyson sat. The two scouts reappeared, and took up watch on the north side of the road, and two more went south. The two original scouts seemed older; one was black and one white. Both of the newer scouts were Hispanic, and a lot sloppier.

  Of the new soldiers, it was two men with officer rank on their chest, a Captain and a Lieutenant, from what I could see. The rest were hidden from me, backs to me or blocked by wrecked cars.

  I lay there and waited, sweat dripping down into my eyes, and watched how this would play out. They unbound Greyson, and one of the men started checking him for wounds. That was good. Then the two officers started arguing again, and the LT actually slapped Greyson as hard as he could in the face, knocking him down to the ground.

  That elicited an interesting reaction from the Captain. He raised his rifle and pointed it directly at the Lieutenant, who stepped back. The Captain lowered it and helped Greyson to his feet. Then a tough looking white guy wearing Master Sergeant rank whistled, and the squad fell back into the west side of the woods, disappearing into the brush.

  Except the last two who had been guarding the south side. The sloppy ones. They stopped and actually leaned against the car I had the grenade pinned under, and lit cigarettes. Honestly, now that I could see them closer, they looked pretty damn incompetent. I’m not just talking wear and tear on uniforms and equipment, I’m talking about overall cleanliness and discipline.

  Looks like things in Bad Company weren’t so good, after all.

  Chapter 273

  From what I figured, these two jokers were supposed to stay behind and catch me when I came out. I could wait; and not for nothing, I bet those other two scouts were watching these guys. I would wait for dark and cross the road, and try to find Bad Company’s main camp. I needed to talk to that Captain. If I was going to make it home, and a tiny, glowing spark of hope said maybe I might, it wasn’t going to be by myself. Eventually, I would get into a situation that I couldn’t handle alone. Broken leg, infected cut, bad water, too many undead, running out of ammo. Any of these things could kill me without some secure base of operations.

  I lay there under the wrecked car, slowly sipping on the water in my camelback and getting hungry. I had some granola bars, but they would be my dinner tonight if I didn’t find anything else. The day passed slowly, with joker number one actually sitting down and taking a nap, while his buddy flipped through a tattered porn magazine. I could wait; being a Forward Observer had taught me much patience.

  Except for the fire ants. Around three, I shifted to get a better position and relieve cramped muscles, and my foot must have disturbed a nest. Less than a minute later, I felt a stinging sensation on my hand, and then another on my face. Seeing the ant on my hand, I swatted at it, and then another bite, on my neck, then another, I looked back and saw them swarming over my legs.

  All sense of danger forgotten, I dragged myself out from under the car, trying to brush them off my legs, yelling each time one bit me. I had gotten a few when a long burst of rifle fire shattered the windshield of the car, about two feet to the left. Trying to ignore the ants, I lifted the long barreled M-16, sighted, and fired. Instead of hitting center mass, the round creased the gunman’s right shoulder. So much for the zero on this weapon! I shifted my aim left and fired again, and the top of his head came off, causing his body to drop out of my sights, just as his partner stood up and fired at me. I dropped as fast as I could and low crawled around the wrecked cars, picking at ants as I dragged myself across the roadway, panic fire zipping overhead.

  “WHICH WAY DID HE GO?” came a shout behind me in English. I had been right, the two competent scouts had stealthily made their way out of sight and crossed the road where I couldn’t see them. Time to lower the odds a little bit. I scrambled back and found the fishing line lying on the road, and pulled as hard as I could. Picturing the grena
de popping out from under the tire, I heard the spoon go bouncing across the pavement, and then felt the BANG through the pavement. Joker number two must have been hit, because he screamed loudly, a scream that died away to moaning. In a moment I was up and running toward where the grenade had gone off, vaulting over a car hood and landing in a pool of blood. I shoved the dead man under the nearest car and sat back against the wrecked car, head tilted forward, trying to look as dead as could be, while joker two continued to moan. He was pushing himself along the ground, holding his stomach, face buried in the blood soaked pages of the porn mag he had been reading.

  You read about the dignity of death in combat, but really, the best you can hope for is a bullet that goes through your head, or an artillery round that blows you to mist. Quick, and over with. I watched with horrid fascination through slitted eyes as the man tried to hold his guts in and moaned some woman’s name. As he did, he pushed himself along the ground, face down, scraping across the concrete.

  One of the scouts glanced at me quickly, and I held my eyes open in that dead stare, trying desperately not to blink from the blood I had smeared on me, and the bits of brain I plastered onto my face. The other followed, scanning three sixty, ignoring me in the assumption his partner had given me the once over. Both were crouched low and looking for me. When the second one had passed me, I blinked in relief.

  The first scout got to the wounded man, grounded his weapon, and quickly slit his throat, draining the rest of his life out. Looks like there was no love lost between these guys and the Hispanic crew. His partner risked raising his head up over the wrecked cars, and as he started to turn toward me, I raised my rifle.

  “FREEZE!” I yelled, as loud as I could. This could have gone two different ways. They could react, and fire, in which case I would hopefully get the drop on both, or they could realize that it was a bad situation, and do what I said. Playing dead had been a risk, but if I had to hunt these two down, I think I would have been up shit’s creek.

  Thankfully, they chose the second option did , both halting in place, with their backs to me. “Don’t move. Black man, drop the knife. Kick it away. OK, good. Lay down on the ground, spread eagle. Good,” I said, as he complied, planting himself down in the blood.

  “If either of you moves, I’m going to shoot your partner. I know you guys are a team, and you don’t want to get each other killed. So do what I say. White man, drop the magazine from your rifle.” It clattered on the ground.

  “OK, with your right hand, slowly work the bolt.” The chambered round spun out and clinked on the pavement.

  “Place the rifle on the car in front of you. That’s it. Now push it across the hood. OK, now go lay down next to your partner, facing the other way. Spread eagle.”

  He moved very slowly and cautiously, eyes watching my finger on the trigger, and lay down with his face on the ground. Professional, no shit talking, quick to obey and wait for better developments.

  “Ok, gentlemen, now we talk.”

  Chapter 274

  They said nothing, and I didn’t ask them any questions. I just sat there, my back against a wreck, in the shade, drinking some water. They lay out there on the hot asphalt, baking in the sun. I let them stew like that for maybe fifteen minutes, then started.

  “So tell me, what’s the deal with this whole ‘Bad Company’ shit?” I said, gesturing to one of the dead men. Ants and flies had started to attack the corpse. “It doesn’t seem like much of a company to me, what with you slitting your comrades’ throats and all.”

  Neither one answered. “OK, suit yourself. Must be getting pretty hot out there, and I’m sure the flies going after the blood are laying eggs on you. I’ve heard they carry some pretty nasty tropical diseases.”

  White guy glared at me, but said nothing. I reached over and turned up the volume slightly on the radio, listening to see if anyone was coming to investigate the shooting, but there were only routine patrol reports. As I suspected, gunshots were routine, due to random encounters with the undead, and something to be ignored. I also figured that no one would come looking for these guys for a while.

  “You know what sucks about this whole Zombie Apocalypse thing?” I asked, taking bites of chicken. “By the way, whoever cooked this chicken this morning, it’s pretty damn good. Was it either of you?”

  White guy continued to glare at me, and I saw black guy trying to turn his head to look at me. “Anyway, like I was saying. I have a theory. The suckiest thing about the Zombie Apocalypse isn’t undead people, or fighting with my fellow Americans, or even no ice cream. The suckiest thing is, no effing toilet paper. I mean honestly, I would kill for even one of those little packets that come in an MRE.”

  “That’s stupid,” said white guy. BINGO! He was talking.

  “No, actually. Of course, it’s my personal opinion. You might not care. What do YOU miss? Come on, I’ve got all day.”

  He didn’t say anything else, but his partner muttered something I couldn’t hear. “Come on, speak up!”

  “Man, I miss cat memes. Long ass day, hard work, out on patrol, and man, I would laugh my ass off.”

  “NO SHIT!” I exclaimed. “There isn’t much to take your mind off all the bullshit. Of course, the internet still exists, where I’m from.”

  “Jesus, Jonas, shut the fuck up!” hissed his partner.

  “You talked to him first!” White guy glared at me again, then laid his head down on the pavement. He quickly jerked it upwards again; the tar was melting on the road.

  “Pretty hot, ain’t it? Let me ask you boys a question. You seem like real soldiers, not like the other jokers lying dead next to you. Come on, how did you wind up with this ‘Bad Company’?”

  Neither one answered. Damn, I really wished I had someone with me to search them. Truth be told, I was getting hot too, and I wanted to get on with the day. “Ok, then. Here’s the deal. Are you two aware that the United States government still exists? I know you’ve been cut off here in Florida for what, eight years now? But trust me, we’re alive and well.”

  White man looked hard at me, and Jonas turned his head. I had their attention.

  “It’s true. My name is Sergeant Major Nick Agostine, Brevet Colonel, Joint Special Operations Command, Irregular Scouts. We were sent down here to secure the nuclear weapons on that grounded carrier, but I was separated from my team by a horde of undead. Go ahead, sit up. Move wrong and I’ll shoot you down.”

  Both men moved slowly and sat with their backs to a wrecked Mustang. I worked a canteen from the belt of the dead man under the car, and tossed it to them. White guy took it and drank some but still glared at me; Jonas drank more, put the cap back on, and nodded his head in a gesture of thanks.

  They were an odd pair. White guy was around my age, maybe a little older, with streaks of grey in his brush cut hair. His face was lined in a sour, pinched sort of way, and I bet he was no man to go against in a fight. In fact, they both looked very, very competent. Their equipment was clean and patched, and their uniforms looked well cared for, or as well as can be. His partner, Jonas, had the look of a fat man who had spent the last eight years dying for a Big Mac. Folds of skin hung loose on his face, but he also looked like a tough bastard, and he had a serious gunshot scar on his face. They both had the look of men who had been professional soldiers.

  “So,” I started off, “I’m assuming that you both served in the military, before.” No reaction. “That means, under the Executive Recall Act of November 1, Year Zero Post Apocalypse, I could shoot you two for deserters. All State National Guard units were Federalized, and all prior service up to age 65 were recalled back to Active Duty. You were supposed to report to the nearest military unit, and here you are running around with a bunch of gang banger wannabes.”

  At that, White Guy stiffened and barked at me, “Staff Sergeant Mike Whitmore, Bravo Company, Second Battalion, Two Hundred Twenty Fifth Infantry. We ARE the nearest military unit.”

  “You gotta be shitting me. Bunch of gang
sters, like these dickheads?”

  “Man, screw those Cuban motherfuckers,” said Jonas, who I could see wore Sergeant’s stripes, E-5 type. “We been fighting the goddamned walkers for years now, and we was short on manpower, so Captain Washburn, he done enlisted them.”

  “Looks like that didn’t work out too well,” I answered, pointing to the dead man next to them, the one with his throat slit. Flies were crawling in and out of the gash on his neck, blood still leaking from it.

  “Captain Washburn did what he thought best. Headquarters platoon and first platoon are all originals. We’ve got two platoons of them,” said Whitmore, indicating the dead man, “and they’re a huge pain in the ass.”

  “Well,” I said, and stood up. Both flinched backwards, probably expecting me to shoot them. Instead I walked over, picked up Whitmore’s rifle off the hood, put a magazine in it, loaded a round, and handed it back to the man.

  I expected him to shoot, I honestly did, and a big part of me didn’t care. He looked me in the eye for a long, drawn out second, and my finger started to tighten on the trigger of my own weapon. Then he glanced at Jonas, and an unspoken signal passed between them, like it would for good partners. He looked back at me, lowered the rifle, and engaged the safety.

  “That settles that, then. As the highest ranking officer in the area, I’m assuming command of your unit. Let’s go see your boss, Captain Washburn.”

  “Just like that?” said Sergeant Jonas, looking at his partner.

  “Come on, Jo, this guy has field grade written all over him.”

  “Thanks, I think,” I said, fishing out my ID card and handing it to him. “I know you’ve seen overflights and read some of the leaflets that were dropped a few years ago.”

  “Yeah, wiped our ass with them!” said Jonas, with a big grin. “Nothin ever come of it.”

  “Well, shit hit the fan in Seattle two years ago, and we took a big step back. Things are starting to get better, though. New York, Vermont, parts of PA, some of Ohio, northern Jersey, western Mass, parts of Maine. You guys ever hear of the Mountain Republic?”