by Alex McHale
Baublitz looked over at him. “Why are you telling me that?”
“Because I need to know if your mother has crabs.”
Ethan weighed in with his quasi-professional medical opinion. “As your medic I advise you to re-watch the Army’s Instructional video on spotting and preventing venereal diseases.”
“Baublitz you should tell your mom to do the same.” Walls said.
William asked Ethan “Do you have a pamphlet or something for him to give his mom?”
I only laughed as we motored through the calm brown water a couple hundred yards from the Sterett, now barely making headway in the channel, towards the Eastern Shore farmers who were waving to us from the shore. We scanned for threats, both from zombies, and from other humans.
As always the Marines hit the beach first, thirty seconds before our boat slid up beside them on the shore. I jumped out followed by the rest of the team. The L T announced herself. “United States Marine Corps, Lieutenant Simpson, identify yourselves.”
An old patriarchal looking fellow responded “I’m Clayton Robins from Rock Hall, y’all can call me Clay. These are my family and other folks from around here. We mean you no harm. Y’all are the first soldiers we’ve seen since y’all pulled out two years ago.”
At that the LT went over to talk to him and some other older folks. My team and the Marines began to fan out in a perimeter. I walked over to the younger group and started talking to them; they seemed to be about my age, mid twenties, but with my beard I was the oldest looking. Some kids ran up and I gave them a candy bar from one of my pouches, they ran off fighting over it.
We made introductions and talked cordially. I asked how they were making out, asked if any were in need of medical attention, if they had anything they wanted to trade, or needed. But it seemed like they were doing a pretty good job of surviving on their own. They had managed to fortify this peninsula, Eastern Neck, and were pretty safe and well supplied. Ethan was looking over some of the older people, performing routine medical checkups.
One of them, Marion, seemed to be their spokeswoman. She looked both disarming with her pigtails, twin dimples, and smile and tough as nails with her arms, which were thicker than mine from years of farm work. She asked “Are you a Marine? Because you sure aren’t dressed like the others, where is your camouflage?”
“No I’m a zombie killer, I’m on Irregular Scouting Team 5, we go in alone ahead of the army and collect information on future objectives.” Then I leaned in to whisper out of earshot of any devil dogs “We have standards.”
“Is the army coming back soon?” she asked.
“No” I replied, “We are continuing up the Bay on a separate mission. Anyone who wants is free to come with us and we’ll relocate them back west where it’s safe.”
“No, I don’t think anyone will go for that, we are doing just fine here on our own.” She answered without a second thought.
“I can see that.” I have nothing but respect for the people who chose to stay behind. “You’re farmers, right? I know you do agriculture things, but what about livestock? Also do you have any pretzels?”
Nope, sorry, no junk food left. We have goats and cows for dairy, for meat we have rabbits…”
“Rabbits!? You can get meat off rabbits?”
“Let me show you one of our rabbits.” She sent someone to collect one to show to me. He came back with his hands empty, but behind him was a rabbit the size of a medium dog!
“HOLY SHIT! Why is that rabbit so big?”
Marion said “It’s called a Flemish Giant; our largest are around 50 pounds, they were bread specifically for food.”
“Do they make good pets?”
“Oh yeah, like cats, they don’t make noise, can be litter trained, and eat only when they’re hungry.”
“That is the coolest animal I have ever seen! Any for sale?” I asked. We had a pet Beagle, Trooper, but he was with the rest of the family wherever they were. He was small compared to this monster though. My girlfriend back in college had had a pet rabbit, but it was much smaller than the beast that was currently in front of me devouring succulent dandelions.
“One of our does just had a litter a few weeks ago, I’ll trade with you.” She said “Let’s go check em out.”
By now the area had been thoroughly searched for threats and was found to be clear. The farmers had made a nice safe place here. We began to mingle with the locals; we had about a half hour left until we had to be back on the boats. Ethan and William were trading ammunition for bottles of moonshine, Markus was being led away by a beautiful girl in Daisy Dukes, Walls was socializing with some of the marines, Baublitz was elbows deep under the hood of an old truck trying to fix something, and Bull was admiring some homemade weapons. I walked over to the rabbit hutches with Marion.
Twenty minutes later and we were all back at the boats. 8 Reeses Cups bought me a tan baby rabbit no bigger than a smoke grenade. I put it in the dump pouch I had on my pistol belt. For sentimental reasons I decided to name her Penny, after my girlfriend’s rabbit. I hoped she was still alive and had managed to keep her Penny rabbit alive, too. I pushed that thought out of my head and turned to get in the boat. It had been months since I last thought about her.
“Is what you are doing important?”
I turned to see Marion approaching with a bag over her shoulder.
“I like to think we save a lot of lives by putting ours on the line, I like to think we make a difference.”
“I want to join.”
I held out my hand. “Welcome aboard. You’ll probably be dead within the week.”
She took it without batting an eye. “You might, but I’ll make it.”
She had the right stuff, and I had a full squad for the first time in a months.
Chapter 6
When we climbed back aboard Sterett I grabbed Ethan before he could disappear below decks. “Gimme the moonshine.”
“I bought it fair and square.” He said.
“The ammunition you bought it with is team property, so is the moonshine now.”
“You don’t even drink, what are you gonna do with it?”
“Listen. William still has two jars, go split it with some of the off duty marines or something. Just remember, salt water makes a poor lubricant.”
He grumbled but relinquished his loot. Everyone started walking below, I grabbed Marion who had stopped to stare at some shirtless marines as they moved ammunition to a jury rigged ready locker by one of the after guns.
“Been a while since you’ve seen a chip n’ dales performance?” I teased her, then mentally kicked myself for not calling them the village people instead.
“No I’ve never seen a cannon that big before, does it work on zombies?”
“Depends on the ammunition, come with me.” I said as I led her to the other side of the ship where Chief Aquia was chewing out a group of sailors for some offense. I said “Chief, can I have a second?”
“What do you need, shipmate?” he asked, seamlessly transitioning from his drill sergeant voice to a slightly more congenial tone.
“I picked up a new team member and I need some equipment. Do you have anything to spare?”
“You know how bad it is for the army, it’s ten times worse for the navy, we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.” He said matter-of-factly if not apologetically.
I pulled the jars of moonshine out of my bag and passed them over.
“Well shee-it why didn’t you tell me you had a still, come with me.” The chief said as he examined his new acquisition.
He led us below to a small locked compartment and pulled out a ring of keys. “We do have small arms on board for just in case, but like I said they aren’t top of the line.” He pulled the moonshine out of the bag, slid them into his uniform cargo pockets, and passed me the bag. “Feel free to take anything that will fit in this in addition to a rifle.”
I was struck by how similar this situation was to that scene in Boondock Saints. Marion a
nd I walked into the compartment, which was stocked with tactical stuff; most of it outdated, and began rooting around. “Chief” I called out the door. “I know you said your stuff is outdated, but what in the world are you doing with an M-14?”
He stuck his head inside the door “The skipper used to let the guys go swimming back when we were after pirates in the Indian Ocean before all this bullshit. We had a gunners mate in one of the boats with that on the lookout for sharks. Go ahead and take it, no one is going get a swim break any time soon.”
“No thanks chief, it’s a little hefty for our line of work.”
Instead I passed Marion am AR chambered in .22 and began putting the magazines and a few boxes of ammo into the bag. I managed to sneak in some 5.56 to replace what Ethan and William had traded, and some 9mm for my carbine. There was no .45 for my sidearm. I also grabbed a pair of M9 pistols and some mags and ammo for Marion. I could also use the mags in my carbine, so I grabbed a few more.
I loaded some other gear and a camelbak into the bag, thanked the chief and headed back to the mess deck to see if there was any chow left or lady sailors for that matter. I hoped Ethan and William didn’t already have the pick of the litter. Then I thought what’s the point, Markus has already made his rounds, and I certainly don’t want his sloppy seconds.
Discouraged by that thought, I decided I wasn’t that hungry yet. On the way back to our berths I ran into Markus, so I did what any good commander would do in this situation and decided to conduct a little experiment.
“Hey Markus, I’ve got some stuff to do, would you show Marion around and introduce her to everyone.” I did not get the impression that Marion was the type of person to be easily seduced, but I wanted to see how she would react to Markus’ advances anyway.
I stopped in our compartment, dumped my gear on the floor, and changed into my running shorts. Sterett was designed with hangers for two helos, but due to shortages she had only one. The extra space was set up as a makeshift gym. It was actually pretty well stocked with equipment and I jumped on a treadmill for two hours of Zen.
Before all this started I was a cross country runner, I ran marathons and those obstacle races like Tough Mudder and even a zombie themed race called Run for Your Lives. Now running was pretty much the only way I could unwind. I don’t care what Mel Brooks says, it’s not good to be the king.
Chapter 7
After I ran my leisurely 13 miles I decided it was time for a nice hot shower. I went to the head, set my cell phone alarm for 3 minutes and jumped in under the water. The one good thing about only having half the normal crew was that I could take twice as long for my Navy shower.
From there I got dressed, the usual, jeans and a t-shirt, loaded .45 tucked in its holster out of habit, and headed for the mess deck. On the way I passed Baublitz lying under some sort of machine, maybe a dynamo, or condenser, while a sailor passed him tools. Bull had been in the hanger/gym power cleaning an absurd amount of weight.
I went out onto the main deck and Ethan and William were there with Marion helping her get a feel for her modified rifle, and taking practice shots at zombies on the shore. The two of them were ribbing each other constantly.
I crossed to the other side of the ship and stepped through another door. In the corridor I ran into Markus just as an attractive female marine (I know, I didn’t know they existed either) shook her head and walked away from him. I asked “Markus, where did you get that black eye?”
He said “Man, I don’t wanna talk about it.” and turned to walk in the other direction.
That was the first time I had ever know a woman to reject him, well I guess it was the second time that I knew of, because I had a pretty good idea who gave him the shiner. As soon as he was out of sight I laughed for good long while.
This mission had been more of a vacation so far, it was the longest I’d gone without being threatened by a zombie or Reaver in at least a year. I was just starting to feel good and believe that I was a great leader. On the mess deck Walls was reminiscing with some other Marines about his time at Gitmo. I walked over to the serving line. There was a salad bowl on the counter that reminded me I was supposed to do something... but what?
“Oh shit! I left that rabbit in my gear several hours ago!” I exclaimed as I grabbed a literal handful of salad and ran from the compartment amid stares of confusion.
One of the stewards yelled after me “You can’t take food from the mess deck!”
The door of our berthing compartment was wide open. I went in and began to frantically search, waving a leaf of lettuce around. “Here bunny bunny bunny, who’s a good bunny rabbit?” no response (do rabbits ever respond?) Penny wasn’t where I had left her, in the dump pouch of my MOLLE vest heaped on the deck. I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
After searching our berthing compartment and finding no sign of Penny I decided she must have gotten out. I walked to the open door and wondered if she could even jump over the knee knocker. She must have been able to. I started to search around the passageways and opened doors to see if I could find her.
Eventually I reached a dead end with an open hatch in the deck, I was thoroughly lost, and not even sure if rabbits could use ladders, but I went down anyway. There was only one door, it was closed, and I opened it. Inside it was dark and didn’t smell like the rest of the ship, and then I saw eight red points light up in four pairs. They started moaning.
I jumped back through the door and went to close it, but the zombies were already coming out. A marine guard slid down the ladder screaming “Don’t open that door!”
Too late. I don’t know where he had been, but he certainly wasn’t where he was supposed to be. We both drew our pistols and started firing. We got off two rounds a piece, maybe three, and dropped the first two zombies, but the rounds that missed started to ricochet around the compartment. If we had hollow point rounds this would not be an issue, but we did not.
I don’t know if the guard was hit by a ricochet and stopped shooting, or if the ricochets just made him cease fire and that’s how the zombies got to him, but one way or another he went down under a zombie. I started moving backwards, but tripped over some nautical device which was protruding from the deck. The fall knocked the wind out of me and my .45 went flying.
As I struggled for breath I fumbled for the Gerber pocket knife in my back pocket. Just as I retrieved it a zombie dropped on top of me. I swung the knife into his forehead and put a divot in its putrid skin but the blade did not penetrate. Stupid, stupid, that part of the skull is one of the thickest, I knew that.
I was holding it by the neck with my left hand and it was using all its weight to push itself closer and closer to my exposed neck. Too bad I didn’t have one of those uniforms with the Kevlar sewn in and the neck guard.
This time I swung the knife at the corner of the skull. The blade buried three inches deep, directly behind, and at a right angle to, the eye socket. I tried to pull it out, but it was stuck. The last remaining zombie stood up and began to move towards me, then the marine guard stood up and also began to shamble in my direction.
I pushed the body off and stood up; looking frantically for a weapon as the two zombies came closer.
Just then a pair of boots dropped through the hatch overhead and landed with a sickening dry crunch on the first zombie’s chest. Attached to the boots was Ethan, who drove his heel into the zombie’s face repeatedly, until it stopped moving.
He was immediately followed through the hatch by William’s boots, which were attached to William, which put down the marine zombie, this time with a squishier sound, made by crushing a still juicy corpse.
“Have you guys seen my rabbit?”
“Yeah, Marion grabbed it when you went running. Did you see what she did to Markus’ face?” Ethan said as he scraped coagulated gore off his boots.
Chapter 8
“What the hell were you doing poking around my ship Zimanski; you cost the life of one person, and endangered coun
tless others…”
“Its SA-manski sir, the Z is silent.” I interrupted his cliché speech. I’m sorry, but I can’t stand clichés when zombies are involved.
“Dammit man, those zombies were for Dr. Morano. Do you have any idea what she’ll do to me if I don’t deliver her specimens?” said Commander Owen angrily.
“Yes sir, I’ve heard stories about her, I will find you some more live zombies.”
“They can’t be just any zombies. They have to be long dead. Something about the closer she can get to patient zero the better her chances of synthesizing a cure.”
“I will take care of it, I owe you one.” I said even though I had no idea how I would wrangle a group of ‘old’ zombies, while still carrying out my mission. I pushed that thought to the back burner.