Zombie Airman

by Guenther, David

  “Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing now, airman?”

  “I’m dressing for success. If you want me to sign a 1297 hand receipt for this crap, I will. But the base is still littered with weapons from last night, probably quite few Zs, too.” Caleb replied, trying not to get any madder.

  “You go back to your computer terminal and leave the battle rattle behind. We’ll let you know if we need you.”

  “Can I at least get a ride to the passenger terminal to pick up my truck? Say ‘yes’ and you might get a genuine M1117 armored car with a partial load of grenades and .50 cal ammo. Say ‘no’ and I’m just joking about the armored car.” Murphy looked like he was going to burst the blood vessels going to his temples.

  “I got this MSgt Murphy, the kid’s had a fucked up night too.”

  “Okay Barnes, get the kid back to his truck and give the passenger terminal a quick recce.” Murphy did not look at Caleb as he spoke.

  “C’mon kid, my car’s out front,” the SSgt said, not showing any emotion. Caleb grabbed the plastic bag of sodas and snacks and followed the SSgt out. The hallway of bodies stunk even worse now that they were older, and softer under foot. The SSgt opened the exit door and Caleb cried out in pain from the sun, his eyes too sensitive. Squinting hard, he held up his hand to SSgt Barnes, in it was the padlock key for the armored car’s hatch.

  “Good move, kid.” Barnes climbed in, went to the switches behind the commander’s seat, and enabled them, and then he went to the driver’s seat and easily fired up the vehicle. Caleb was going to close the hatch when Barnes hollered over the sound of the engine. “Leave the hatch open, I want to air this thing out. Smells like something died in here last night.”

  “So, how was last night for you?” Caleb asked from the commander’s seat.

  “I spent the night with a chair jammed against my apartment door and a butcher knife ready in case anything got in. I was lucky, it sounded like something out of Dante’s Inferno in my building. This morning it was quiet, lots of bodies in the hallway of my apartment and in the streets, but nothing like the slaughter here on base.”

  “Wait until you see my handiwork out by the flight line.” Caleb said, then instantly regretted that it had come out as a boast. The base looked almost normal except for bodies and wrecked cars everywhere. There was more activity than Caleb anticipated as people reported in from off base. Maybe all the married folks that lived off base will be in to work.

  SSgt Barnes pulled up to the street side of the passenger terminal. “Can you go around to the flightline side? I’m parked on that side.” Barnes fought the initial urge to tell him POVs (personally owned vehicles) access to the flightline was restricted, but just wasn’t in the mood for a fight with the rebellious airman.

  Turning the armored car around the terminal put Barnes into a new state of shock. Dozens of civilian and military vehicles were parked pell-mell on the flight line, including four more M1117 armored cars. “If you look to the northwest and then keep looking left until you’re looking to the south, you can get an idea of what it was like last night. Notice there’s not too many bodies by buildings. After the last plane took off, that’s when we retreated to the armory.

  Barnes looked on in shock as he tried to estimate the body count; by the time he gave up he figured it to be a minimum three to six thousand bodies. I seem to have made my point. “That red pickup by the building is my truck. The one covered in all the dried blood and body parts.”

  “Kid, I get it, you went Rambo on the zombies. Now everything is back to normal. You have to get back to the regular game now. Today you’re a worker bee, last night you were a hero.”

  Caleb got up from the seat and moved to the open hatch. He looked back at the driver, “When I bugged out for the armory, there had to be at least ten thousand of those fuckers heading to the base. Where did they all go?” Once back out in the sunlight his head started to pound. What in the hell is wrong with me?

  Walking up to the truck, Caleb grimaced at how it looked in the day light. The front of the truck was covered in gore and the red gore around the wheel wells reminded him of how the truck looked after off-roading in the mud. The three bullet holes drew him to them, he thought about repairing them, and then thought it’d be better to find a way to preserve them for when he told the story one day about the zombie apocalypse.

  Opening the door and climbing up, the smell of the blood and crap he and the others had tracked onto the floorboards and the seats assaulted his olfactory receptors. I bet I’ll have to tear up the carpet and replace the seats. He reached up to the visor and pulled down his wraparound sunglasses. He was relieved when most of his pain began to fade away once he put them on. He looked over to make sure the armored car had moved on. He then looked behind the seat at the weapons he’d collected through the night. There were a half dozen M17s and three M4s along with a couple dozen assorted magazines. He chose the M17 with the least amount of blood on it, then removed the magazine. It was clean and still had seven rounds left in it. He gave an involuntary shudder, imagining the shooter being overwhelmed as he fought back with the weapon. Reaching down, he pulled up two more magazines and grabbed the rag he used to wipe his windows. Setting the magazines down on the seat, he ran the rag over the weapon, wiping away dried blood and other foreign matter, wishing he had a gun cleaning kit. Once satisfied, he cleaned the magazines, then reloaded all three. He looked at the M4s and decided he didn’t want to draw any attention to himself. He reached over for a light blanket behind the passenger seat, and then used it to cover up everything in the back of his cab.

  The drive back to the squadron building filled him with memories from the night. I wonder if Henrietta and Asher made it out okay? Ahead he could see a tow-truck moving the last of the vehicles from around the North Gate. He looked on both sides of the street and grinned when he saw his handiwork across large areas of the manicured lawns. That was a dumb ass thing to do but it was fun. He pulled up as close as he could get to the building, then slipped the two magazines into his thigh pockets. He waited until he got out of the truck before concealing the pistol in the back of his pants then covering it with his shirt.

  “Morning Airman White. Glad to see you survived the night and was able to make it into work. You won’t believe what a mess there is inside the building.” Caleb smiled and held his tongue as Capt Hernandez checked off his name from a roster. How many bottles of perfume are you wearing? He thought while trying not to breathe in too deeply.

  “Uh Ma’am, why not just have everyone use their cards to log into the building? Then you can printout the security report to see who is left.”

  Hernandez smiled at him as if he was her retarded stepchild. “We need to assign jobs to everyone as they come in. I’ll need you to assist in body removal. Find SrA Garcia, he’s in charge of that detail. When that’s finished, there’ll be more work that needs doing.”

  “Ma’am, has anyone come in yet from AFSPC Special Projects? I need to make a report to my supervision.”

  “No one from Special Projects reported in yet.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. I have to get to my duty section. They evacuated about 0200 hrs. There’s been no one monitoring key components. If no one else has come in yet that responsibility falls to me. That’s almost eight hours. Some things could go critical if I don’t get in there now. Good day, Ma’am.” Caleb walked by the captain, expecting to hear her holler for him to return.

  Blood still covered the floors from where people had fought and died. Long streaks of blood showed where bodies had been dragged away. If I let them get their hands on me for that bullshit, I’ll still be here tonight mopping blood off the floors. I have too much to do, rather than to play janitor.

  Caleb slid his CAC then the code on the wall mounted device for access to the Special Projects section. The ‘beep’ when he pressed the buttons on the keypad sounded excessively loud, just like when the bolt securing the door slid back. The rooms lighting was soft so
he removed his wraparound sunglasses, stuffing them into his pants pocket. He could smell the bodies that hadn’t been removed yet, and something else, something strange.

  He walked softly through the cubicle farm, noticing how many of the computers were still up, their operator’s CAC still in the slot on the keyboard that did not have the screensavers engaged. He was about to give it up, passing it off as an overworked imagination when a slight bump told him he wasn’t alone. Pulling the M17 from the small of his back, he flicked the safety off. It had to be one of two cubicles on the other side of the partition.

  He glanced into the cubicle; A1C Wang looked up at him from the floor, sniffing the air in confusion. Even with the lower half of her face and chest covered in dried blood, she still looked like a petite angel. The scraps of her light blue uniform blouse barely hung from her shoulders, leaving the bra pushed up under her chin in the front, exposed. Her dark blue uniform skirt was missing, exposing a tiny white thong that contrasted against her light brown skin. She made soft grunting noises towards Caleb, then slowly faced away from him on her hands and knees, her head on the floor, in a submissive posture. Caleb could not help but see the tiny white string didn’t cover anything. He forced himself to try not to stare as he tried to reason out what was happening. She looked like she was infected, but wasn’t attacking him, but then, she wasn’t adding much to the conversation either. He decided to leave her there and get to work when the sound of the doors bolt opening made Wang and him look up as someone else had entered the room. He could smell deodorant, after-shave, and shampoo even though he was thirty feet away. Wang looked up at him and made a loud shrieking noise, surprising the hell out of him as she pushed past him and after whoever had entered the room. She was five feet away when he fired three shots into her back, knocking her down. She tried to get back up as Caleb fired once more into the back of her head. He stood over her twitching form as SSgt Li walked up.

  “What the hell did you just do White? You just murdered an innocent, beautiful girl. Were you raping her when I came in and she escaped from you?” Li sounded panicked, like he was going to lose it all together, then he looked at the pistol in Caleb’s hand, and his eyes got even bigger.

  “What I just did Li, was save your life. You didn’t hear her shrieking as she ran after you? That wasn’t fear or terror, that was raw rage! You’re not keeping a score card from last night?” Caleb sounded bewildered.

  “How did you get a weapon?” SSgt Li asked, now even more suspicious of the airman before him.

  “I was tasked with supporting the base defense last night. I haven’t received orders to turn it in yet. Obviously, the base is still a dangerous place.”

  “You’d better let me hold on to it until there’s time to return it.” He looked down at Wang, then back at Caleb in his bloody uniform and turned to the side, projectile vomiting his breakfast.”

  Caleb decided the conversation had gone as far as it was going to go. He headed for his cubicle. Screw that, I’m taking one of the nicer terminals. Caleb sat down at his flight commander’s desk, slipped his CAC into the keyboard and signed in. Out of habit he checked his work email then, noticing there wasn’t anything new for the last eight hours. He checked his personal email, only a couple new emails from friends worried about the end of the world. Nothing from his parents, he felt guilty that he hadn’t given them any thought through the entire night, instinctively knowing they‘d be okay, but afraid to call them.

  He went back to his email and fired up an email for his boss Major Arnot, he didn’t know who his supervisor was now that his last supervisor was rotting thirty feet away. He sent a simple email: SSgt Li and I are alive. Damage to duty section seems repairable. Base as a whole has returned to some limited normalcy. All zombies seem to have disappeared. From my experience, I think they are hiding in the buildings. I killed one that was in our section around 0930 hrs. Please send email stating I am to be armed. After I killed the zombie, they wanted to take my only protection away. Until I receive orders to the contrary, I will devote my time to checking status of all systems.

  A message flashed along the bottom of his monitor, “This is the Peterson Command Post with an emergency announcement. I say again, this is the Peterson Command Post with an emergency announcement. There is a mandatory emergency meeting for all field grade officers at Patriot Park in one hour. By order of the commander, all personnel are hereby ordered to evacuate all base facilities now and not return until their facility has been declared cleared of infected personnel. All personnel should avoid any contact with those infected that are still alive as they are highly contagious. Dead infected should not be touched unless in full MOPP 4 gear (Mission Oriented Protective Posture) or suitable protective equipment. Avoid contact with any dead bodies or their bodily fluids. For the duration of this emergency, all personnel are authorized the carry of firearms including, personal and non-issue weapons. Extreme safety practices will be followed. This concludes this message from the Peterson Command Post. Command Post out.” Caleb had been so busy reading the he didn’t realize it’d been announced over the building’s public address system, and the base public address system.

  “You heard that, champ time for us to get the hell out of the building. By order of the commander,” SSgt Li ordered.

  “SSgt Li, we are in a secured facility, I just cleared it of the last zombie. Even if there are more in the building, they can’t get to us,” Caleb tried reasoning with the NCO.

  “A1C White evacuate the building now.” SSgt Li opened the door and waited for Caleb to go through. Caleb threw up his hands in disgust, pulled his CAC out of his keyboard and followed the NCO out of the building. At least I can start cleaning my guns and reloading the magazines.

  Capt Hernandez was standing by the door with a pair of NCOs; people had gathered in small groups comparing their experiences from the night before. Caleb over heard one of the NCOs with the Captain, “Yes, Ma’am, I think it would be a good idea for the airmen to beautify the green belt around the building. I’d love to find out who tore it up, driving around doing donuts. We should at least get the bodies off the lawn, bad for morale.” Caleb burst out laughing when he heard their discussion. The three of them looked his way, not understanding he was laughing at them. Damn folks, how about scavenging for weapons, making people top off their gas tanks, make improvised weapons. What the hell are you going to do when the zombie hordes attack again? Maybe I’d be better off deserting. Maybe I shou--.

  Huge white beams of light flashed down from the sky. Each one was obviously hitting far away. All talk from the groups ceased as they stared at the lights. After a couple seconds, each light stopped.

  Luke AFB, Arizona, April 2, 2029

  Gloria walked unsteadily, keeping her eyes down when she stopped and picked up a pair of sunglasses. After wiping the gravel off them, she smiled as most of her pain seemed to vanish. Great, I’m stationed in the valley of the sun, and now I’m allergic to sunlight. What else could go wrong? She found herself at the bottom of the hill, a security forces blue pickup stopped beside her.

  “Excuse me, Ma’am. Would you like a ride to the fire station?” The driver was in full body armor and wearing a helmet. That boy smells like he wasn’t potty trained, or taught how to use soap and water.

  “Yes, I would,” Gloria looked at the nametape and rank on his chest, “Thank you, TSgt McDonough. Can you tell me anything about last night? I just woke up and have no memory at all of yesterday or last night.” Even with the windows open she could not help but smell how bad his body odor was.

  “Well, Ma'am, pardon me for saying so, but you look like you’ve definitely been in the middle of everything that went on last night. Nevertheless, I’ll tell you everything that I know. Around 2000 hrs we started getting disturbance calls. At the same time, it looked like we were getting protesters at the gates as well as running around the base causing mischief. We locked down the base and proceeded a recall of all security forces, we were overwhelmed f
rom the git go. The bastards were biting us as we arrested them. In desperation, we closed the base gym and locked them up there. Then we started getting reports on the TV that it was all over the US and had been for over a day in Europe and Asian countries. Instead of giving us some sort of warning, it had all been hushed up. About 2200 hrs those that had been bitten or scratched started to turn. That was the same time our orders were changed from apprehend, to shoot to kill instead. We lost even more when our people tried to capture instead of kill fellow defenders who had turned into monsters. Later, they were saying it was the zombie apocalypse. They were in packs of hundreds, hunting for people to attack, then when dawn hit they started to disappear. They went inside building to hide. I’m guessing we’re going to get orders soon to start clearing the buildings. We lost so many folks last night that we’ll have to use augmentees. That’s royally messed up since clearing a building is one of the most dangerous tasks you can do. Here we are, have a medic check you out for wounds.”

  “Thank you again, TSgt McDonough. You try and stay safe.” Gloria got out of the truck and was surprised at the number of people inside the fire station’s open bay where the trucks would ordinarily be. An airman at a table beckoned her to him.

  “Ma'am, please sign in here and a medic will give you a quick evaluation.” Gloria signed in and saw a spot to sit that was in the shade. She didn’t feel like socializing at the moment with any of the groups of people comparing their stories.

  “Lt Gloria Alban?” Gloria looked up at an airman wearing a white lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck. Smelling of sanitizer, disinfectant, soap, and more chemicals, like deodorant, shampoo, and some type of skin cream.

  “That would be me.” She replied, starting to feel the need for a nap.

  “Follow me, please, Ma'am.” He took her behind a portable cloth and metal partition and had her sit on a gurney. “Ma'am, do you know how you got blood on you? Have you been injured? If so, where?” He took a squeeze bottle of water and sprayed it on her nose and face, then produced a large paper towel and began to wipe the blood and other things from her face. He looked down to where she had her arms crossed, covering her bloody torn blouse. “Please put your arms to your sides, please. He sprayed more of the cold water on her neck and the front of her shirt, she felt her nipples harden with the cold water, then he began wiping the blood off the best he could when he suddenly became embarrassed. “Um, you can do that area, Ma'am.” By that time, her shirt and bra were soaked, leaving both items transparent. The airman was trying not to stare and failing miserably as he excused himself. He returned a few minutes later with a scrub top. “I’m sorry, Ma'am, I hope this helps.” He handed the top to her and turned around. She debated whether to take the bra off and decided she didn’t want to go wet. She took off the blouse and bra, and then finished wiping away the remaining blood. She looked at where she’d been tazed and could not find any wound at all. A quick check of her bra showed a definite pair of holes where she’d been shot. No longer caring or wondering, she slipped the scrub top on and was unhappy to see it was too tight.