I would normally think that this was its own slice of heaven, just being able to sleep without worrying that someone might start shooting at me. Now, I’d have to sleep with one eye open so that one of my teammates didn’t eat me.
“How long do you think they’re going to keep us locked in here? As much as I hate deployments or going on missions, it’s better than standing around with our thumbs up our asses,” Doug complained as we rejoined the others from the plane.
“Eh, I think as long as no one shows signs of becoming sick tonight, they’ll ship us out pretty quickly. My Cousin Patti’s group literally got off the plane and left in Humvees.”
“Man, that’s harsh,” Evan spoke up from the bunk on my right. “I was upset because we had to stay here, but after what happened on the plane, at least we’re not having to fight any of those zombie things yet.”
I just shook my head. Did this guy really not get that those things had been part of our unit? They’d been people we knew, but everyone dealt with things in their own way, so who was I to judge?
The door flew open, banging as it hit the wall. “Ten-hut!” the sergeant called out before the staff sergeant came through the doorway.
This couldn’t be good because the staff sergeant didn’t make house calls unless it was important.
“Since you’ve all been confined to barracks, the cooks decided in a rare show of compassion that food will be delivered tonight and, in the morning, before you move out. Everyone will report at 0800 to the infirmary to be cleared. You will then proceed to follow B Company to Nashville and back them up in keeping the peace. The president has declared martial law, so we are now in charge of all domestic areas. Stay safe out there and guard each other’s sixes. Dismissed.”
The staff sergeant and sergeant disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, leaving a ton of questions behind.
“Martial law?”
“Nashville? What happened to Charlottesville?”
“At least we get to eat something besides MREs.”
I sank back down on the bed, torn between relief that I would only be a few hours from Emma, and frustration that I couldn’t go straight to see her and our baby. Cell phones might still be working, but what could I tell my wife? ‘Hey, honey. I’m in the States, but they won’t let me come see you.’
That would go over great, and even though the world might be falling apart, the Army wouldn’t be as lenient if I gave her information that was still considered need to know.
A groan slipped out, causing Doug and Evan to notice that I wasn’t happy.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s upset because he can’t play soldier in front of his wife. He actually has to go battle these things,” Doug scoffed at my moment of despair.
“Is he always such a wuss?” Evan snickered.
“No,” I shot back. “Just wait till you find someone you want to spend your life with, and then be told that you have to go out and fight things trying to kill you for no reason whatsoever.”
“Lighten up, man. We both know that we’re just trying to have a little fun.” Doug threw his body onto the bunk over me.
“Sorry,” Evan offered. “I had no idea.”
I waved him off. It wasn’t really about anything that he or Doug had said.
“Everything’s just catching up to me,” I spoke to the mattress over me. “Let me know when they get here with the chow, will ya?”
“Sure, man,” Doug replied, but all he heard from me was a snore.
Morning came all too soon, and our unit was cleared to head out and follow B Company. The transportation trucks went in the path cut only twenty-four hours before by the other group, and the countryside was empty.
Normally, only one company would be sent out at a time, but since we were down a few men from sickness and death, they’d added to our company and combined three units, so we were moving with all the bodies they could send.
I’d never seen maneuvers like this in the actual States before unless it was on a base, which meant that shit was getting real.
Nashville was about a six-hour drive, depending on traffic, but we were the closest base to the Midwest. Our base had already sent reinforcements in several directions. We were closer to Jackson Mountain on the base, and this assignment was going to take me farther away.
“Did you hear the reason that Nashville’s being run over with these ZITs?” Doug casually started the conversation, hoping to keep us occupied.
“Back up—what’s a ZIT?”
“Zombie Infected Thing. They’re not just infected humans anymore, and undead seems weird, so they’re things. They’re moving, walking things that act like zombies. I’ve seen enough movies that zombies would be an accurate description.”
“Can’t argue that, man,” Evan agreed, slapping Doug on the back.
“So, you were about to tell me why we’re being sent to Nashville? You always seem to have the 411 into the top brass’s plans.” I scoffed at Doug, but he had a unique way of finding out information way before the lower troops did, and nine times out of ten, they would-be right-on target.
Doug glanced around, leaning closer so that only Evan and I could hear him.
“The rumors say that the hardest hit cities with the sick are those that had international airports. Of course, the other airports were infected by proxy, but the biggest sources started in the larger, more popular cities.”
Evan frowned. “Why didn’t they just shut down all flights?”
“They, the government, homeland, whoever, did close everything, but it was too late. So many were carrying around this virus even if they weren’t immediately getting sick. They were infecting others who weren’t immune. Thus, our ZITs began popping up all over. It spreads faster than a normal sickness does because once a human is dead, it becomes a ZIT. A bite from a ZIT is fast, or if death occurs, then they turn around and bite someone else.”
“Again, Doug, your powers of gathering intelligence are amazing. It’s saved us more than once, so I’m going to take your word for it. What did you hear of Patti’s group? Did they make it through?”
“Oh, yeah. Word is they stayed in a smaller town on the outskirts where it was safer last night. They should’ve connected with the guard about the time we got out of the inspection line.”
I leaned back and watched as the familiar roads sped by, thanks to Patti’s team clearing the path for us.
Nashville was a huge metropolitan city that under different circumstances, would be just another place to save from the bad guy, only now it was growing into something from a horror movie.
The convoy pulled into the warehouse district, which was apparently where the center of operations had settled.
It was a hive of activity as the trucks pulled up. They told us to unload and gear up.
“Attention! All the new arrivals have fifteen minutes to use the facilities, gear up, and report back for your assignments.”
I looked around as groups of volunteers and civilians worked to setup cots that were being unloaded from Red Cross trailers.
“Company D and Company E will work together and start an extensive sweep of the neighborhoods east of here and work your way out until dark. Companies F and G, you will start your sweep west. Bring in anyone that won’t make it a few more days without food or water. They cannot be sick. There isn’t enough room for the entire city, but we are looking for those in immediate need. Large buildings will have to be entered at the discretion of your unit leaders. We can’t do a house to house search until we get the crowds of ZITs taken care of properly.”
When the staff sergeant mentioned ZITs, I knew that Doug would be impossible to live with for a few days.
He continued. “Carry only what you need, and three times the normal amount of ammo. These things are not stopping unless you blow their heads off. Don’t let them take a bite out of you. It’s a death sentence. Let’s get this done.”
There was a scramble to grab the extra ammo we neede
d and load back up on the trucks.
It was mid-afternoon, but the streets were empty of people. We stopped at a street filled with apartment buildings. No one was hanging out of the windows or talking loudly. It was a strange sight to see in the middle of the day for this part of town. There were always gang bangers and small children wandering around the elderly, who were their babysitters.
“Form up in teams of six. You heard the sergeant, we can’t do full sweeps, and yet we can’t have buildings of ZITs attacking us when we come back. Open the doors with caution because there may be people inside that are armed as much as we are. Do a bottom floor only sweep for ZITs. If nothing stands out and you don’t hear anything from the upper floors, head out the back door and on to the next building. These areas are going to be some of the worst, but let’s keep our heads on a swivel and meet back here in two hours unless you run into trouble. Unit with the highest kill record gets the better sleeping arrangements.”
Subdued “Hoorahs” came from the men around me as we prepared to bring hell to the things attacking our homes.
The inside of the apartment buildings were dark, depressing atmospheres, ironically bringing a welcome relief from the spring heat and humidity.
I could hear the sounds of people behind the doors of a few apartments, but no one opened the doors or attempted to come out into the hallways.
The few infected we found were just shuffling around in the dark, making it easy to take them out without a fight, until we made it to the third building.
“Hey, hold up.” Corporal John, or Ghost as he was affectionately known, halted us. “Do you hear that?”
The groans were faint, somewhere above us, but they definitely needed to be taken out before they could any grow larger.
“Doug, you and Brad take the stairs and I’ll cover these two. Evan, Salt, and Diaz, take the other stairs and let’s secure our sleeping arrangements for the night, gentlemen.”
Doug normally took the highpoint, and since he was taller, I went low, while Ghost made sure to have our backs.
The second floor only sported one ZIT, but the sounds were growing louder the higher up we went. We regrouped and headed up another flight, only to come in contact with about twenty ZITs bottled up in the stairwell.
“We’ve found some in our stairwell,” Ghost cautioned quietly. “Stay back and let them come to us so we don’t get overrun. Do the same on your end, team two.”
The poor lighting continued to flicker, making it hard to see if it was a shadow or an actual ZIT. The first set of pops rang out, causing the ZITs heads to come up and stop their progress up the stairs.
Now the shitheads were coming straight toward us quickly.
I took out the first three, and Doug got the ones behind them, but as they moved out of the way, more fell down the stairs now that the bottleneck had opened up.
“We may have to retrace our steps and give them a chase through the halls, just so they don’t cut off our exit.”
They were coming too quickly to answer Ghost, so we concentrated on shooting. This group wasn’t getting any smaller.
“We’ve cleared our side and are proceeding up to the next level. We’ll take them out and clear them out down to you.” Salt’s voice could barely be heard over the groans, as the sounds brought more toward us.
We were losing ground fast when they stopped coming down the stairs, and our last shots dropped those in front of us.
“Thanks for the assist, guys. How’s it looking up there?” Ghost helped make sure that all the bodies were dead as we moved forward, toward the stairway again.
“Guys? Team two? Do you read me?”
I met Ghost’s eyes as I aimed my pistol at this teenager’s head when his arm twitched.
“Crap. Let’s go.”
As we hit the landing, the welcome sound of Evan’s voice whispered, “Corporal, we have a problem. Get up here, asap!”
Taking the stairs at a run, I made it to the last floor, only to see a huddle of children at the end of the hallway by the window.
“When the gunfire stopped, we could hear a baby, sir, so we busted in the door and found these.” Evan pointed to ten children ranging in age from babies to about sixteen years old, all girls.
One of the girls kept trying to shush the baby, while the other little ones looked at us with tearstained faces.
“Thank you for rescuing us. We’ve been in there for two days, ever since those things followed us. They just wouldn’t leave the hallway, and we couldn’t leave the kids alone.”
“We need to get you guys down to the trucks before dark comes and we’re all stuck here. Let’s put the ones that can walk behind us, and two of us can carry the smaller ones.”
At least they all had shoes on and looked like they were ready. The girls had backpacks on, showing they had been trying to leave their home. They would’ve been eaten alive.
“Double check everything. If anything moves, take it out. Let’s go down the other stairs since there aren’t as many bodies that way.”
We formed a strange sort of pack with armed military men trying not to scare the children but watching for an attack from anywhere. Our situation still hadn’t quite set in the way it was supposed to because we’d just come from a firefight, and it didn’t even dawn on us to check outside before we opened the door leading out.
The weight of the ZITs that slammed against it caught a few of them with their arms hanging in the doorway.
“That way’s out unless we can get another unit to come and clear it out for us. But I’m betting they’re all occupied,” Diaz announced cheerfully.
“Thanks for that update, motherf…” Doug trailed off when he remembered the children.
“We could try the other entrance over in the other hallway,” the girl with the baby suggested. “You could sneak up on them so we could escape.”
Exchanging glances, we all seemed to agree that she made a convincing argument.
“All right, you heard her. Evan, take the lead.”
This time, we checked things out before we opened the door and left Ghost, Evan, and Diaz with the kids while we took out the group in front of the other door.
Twenty bodies and a smoking gun muzzle later, I opened the door, motioning the children out. It was a lot closer to dark than I’d thought, and everyone picked up the pace back to where the trucks were parked.
One other team had made it back, giving us more numbers to protect the kids.
“Hey, Brad, looks like your group grew while you were gone,” Clutz called out while helping lift an elderly woman into the truck.
“I could say the same for your group. Where’s Mike?”
Clutz made a cutthroat gesture.
Uneasy that we’d lost a man, I groaned. It hadn’t even been one afternoon, and it could have been us because of our stupidity.
The children were excited to see other people, and chattered happily while we took up positions, watching and waiting for the other teams to come back.
“We should walk down the street and see if we can help any of the other units bring people back to the trucks. If there are any other groups, it’ll take less time if we can back them up,” Diaz suggested hopefully.
“Clutz, I’m going to take three of my guys and go see if we need to extract anyone. Have you got this buttoned down?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right move out again. It’s getting dark fast.”
Gunfire sounded over to the right, and we took off running toward the noise.
We met the other three teams two streets over, and they had about thirty people moving toward the trucks, but they weren’t going to make it because of the hundreds of ZITs chasing them.
I needed someplace that I could shoot down into a crowd. There were a few parked cars, so I braced myself on the roof of one and started picking off ZITs that were closest to those fleeing. When the others saw what I’d done, they followed suit and we kept the ZITs back as the team with them herded their char
ges to the trucks. Once we were clear of live humans, I let loose into the lumbering bodies. Head shots were more difficult, but we couldn’t waste bullets just to fire into the crowds.
Salt was on the top of a truck next to me, and I could hear him counting. “Fifty-one, fifty-two…” At least this time, he’d have proof instead of salting his story with partial truths as was his normal routine.
“Keep shooting, men. We need to give them a chance to get everyone into the trucks before we retreat,” Ghost shouted from his perch a few vehicles over.
It didn’t seem to matter that a few from the other teams had stopped to help us, since the things were still coming.
I’d already used two out of my three backup ammos, and even with all of us, it was going to be close.
“Ghost, I’m out!” Salt yelled.
“Me, too!”
“Well, shit. Fall back, now!”
The jump to the ground jarred me, but I didn’t waste any time in running to the truck, firing behind me, hoping that it slowed the ZITs pursuit.
Engines were fired up and the other teams were adding the last stragglers as we rounded the corner at a full run.
“Go!” Ghost waved to the drivers.
They pulled out as we scrambled into the last truck with the gate hanging down.
The sun’s last rays faded as we raced away, finally leaving the ZITs trying to catch us.
Even though we’d used most of our ammo, there was still a good portion of the ZITs left. The noise of our retreat and the truck engines had drawn more from other places, and they were now congregating at the entrance to the housing district.
I could only hope that they didn’t send us back to the same place tomorrow because anything that stepped foot out of the buildings overnight didn’t have a chance against those zombies.
As we drove into the compound, we passed another group that were setting up watch around the warehouses. I didn’t envy them in the least.
We pulled up at the warehouse doors and gratefully handed our living off to the civilians that had gathered to get them organized and settled for the night.
Against Zombies Box Set, Vol. 1 | Books 1-4 Page 18