We turned off our lights and waited with weapons out. The door opened and two Koreans came through it waving around flashlights and pointing there AKs at us. Gunny and I both were on full auto and let them have it as soon as they were inside. Once we saw them tumble to the ground we put in fresh clips and started running for the door. Gunny got to the door first and waved for me to slow down. He slowly opened the door then signaled for me to come on. He took a step outside the door and with a loud gunshot I saw a puff of thick mist go out the side of his head and then watched him collapse onto the ground.
I immediately charged out the door and leaped over his body. I turned to the right and saw a jeep sitting there. I pulled the trigger and started putting rounds into and around the jeep. A man ran out in front of the jeep with a pistol in his hand and tried to bring it up to target me. I moved the M-16 over and put some rounds into his body. He fell on the ground and I walked over to finish him off.
I saw man had his hair up in a bun when I got there so I rolled the body over. A woman stared up at me with a streak of blood running out her nose into her mouth. She started to say something and I shot her in the face. If they had women over here why were they trying so hard to kidnap more?
I went and checked on Gunny. He was absolutely dead. Rather than leave him to become Zombie chow I took the time to drag him back into the hangar and position him over by the barrels where his body should burn. The old warrior deserved a Vikings funeral. I left him with a grenade under his body and the pin pulled in case the Koreans came back before the C-4 went off. I went ahead and booby trapped the Korean bodies as well. Then I got in the Toyota and started driving back the way I had come.
I was looking for something else to blow up but did not really see anything other than asphalt and chain link. When I judged I had gone far enough I pulled the truck off the paved strip and started searching for one of the gaps we had cut. When I finally saw one I slowed down and was able to drive the truck through it. Right outside the fence I saw some bulldozers and such were sitting around. I stopped the truck and went and put two of the remaining C-4 charges on two of those near the gas tanks.
I jumped back in the truck and continued driving. I was flashing my headlights on and off like crazy hoping they didn’t decide to put a few grenades into the cab here with me since they had no clue I’d be coming back in a truck. The sky was starting to get lighter and turn a little bit blue by the time I found the Hummer. Ann waved at me but didn’t get out.
I ran and jumped into the passenger seat. Ann looked over at me then back at the truck. The marine in the back who was normally a cook asked where we should wait for Gunny.
“He didn’t make it. We need to get out of here.” I leaned back and let myself relax for a second. I felt some of the stress melting away in the warm cab of the Hummer. Ann got us moving towards the rendezvous point. I kept a watch out. The Koreans would know something was up at this point so we may need to just get out of here versus waiting to drop some grenades on them. I didn’t think the grenades would actually be able to reach that far now that I thought about it. They’d have to go from the road down the landing strip all the way over to the admin buildings to do any damage. Maybe best to save our grenades in case we needed them on the way back to base.
We got to the rendezvous point as the first explosions happened. It was magnificent. A pillar of fire shot into the sky high enough for us to see it. Then there was just black smoke pouring up that didn’t stop. A random explosion happened about every five minutes after that. We’d brought about fifty timers between Reeves and us. We’d dumped most of ours into the hangar, we had a few in other spots. I was hoping to get a pretty respectable boom from the bulldozer charges I had planted.
I was starting to worry when the other Hummer finally pulled into view behind us. I opened the door to get out and go check on them when I heard what I thought was another explosion. I then realized it was the sound of tens of thousands of Zombies screaming their heads off while they ran for the source of the explosions.
Entry 39: You Can’t go Home Again
I figured the Koreans probably had an idea someone was out there at this point so I put on the headset and clicked transmit on the walkie.
“Hey guys. How’d it go?”
Ginny’s voice came back a few seconds later.
“When we get somewhere safer we need to pull over and talk.”
Well, that had my interest peaked. I told Ann what I had just heard and she started looking for somewhere to pull over. We were still hearing huge explosions behind us so must have set-off some sort of chain reaction. Based on all the noise, I gave the Koreans a probable ninety percent death toll. I hoped Reeves was good. Ginny’s cryptic communication had me worried.
After driving through the snow for about twenty minutes while the sun came up we could tell we were now pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Ann stopped the Hummer and got out, leaving the engine running. Sure. For Ginny, she actually gets out and goes into the cold.
The marine shimmied his way up into the turret to keep over watch while we were stopped. I kissed Ann lightly on the lips and we slogged our way along our tire prints over to the other Hummer that was idling behind us. The front window rolled down and I saw the marine who was in charge of the turret on their Hummer. I couldn’t remember his name. He was staring straight ahead. Probably because of the pistol pointed at the back of his head.
“No worries Steve! It’s me holding the cowardly lion here prisoner. Him and the other guy wanted to leave when Reeves didn’t make it back in time. I shot butt face up there in the foot and shoved him in the car then told sissy up there to sit behind the wheel. I had to threaten to shoot him in the head to get him to stay there.”
I walked around to the back door and opened it up. Reeves and the other marine were slumped in the seat next to Ginny. Both of them had blood all over them and looked wrecked. Reeves smiled over at me and gave me a thumb up.
“The Lance Corporal here managed to take a bullet so I had to carry him back. Made us a bit late. Especially since I had to fight off a couple Zombies with my knife while carrying this guy. He’s somehow managed to maintain a high body mass. Is it Ok if I kill the guy in the passenger seat? Ginny left out the part where he punched her before she shot him in the foot.”
I looked back at Ginny and saw she had a bloody nose and one eye was starting to puff up. I walked around to the front of the Hummer. I opened the door. The guy started to say something about his foot so I bitch slapped him. Then I did it a few more times because it felt good to do it. Very therapeutic. Ann finally walked over and stopped me by grabbing my arm.
The guy looked up at her through his slapped to shit face that was puffing up and was getting at least one black eye and said thanks. She said no problem and reached in and grabbed the guy by the hair and drug hum out of the Hummer. She threw him on the ground and started kicking him. I love her so much.
As much as I was enjoying the physical violence against the girl punching asshole I finally brought it to a stop because we needed to get moving. Although, the more I thought about it the less I wanted to go back to the base. First, the place was probably overdue to be overrun and I had not sensed a lot of urgency for them to roll out. I liked Hellfont but I had no desire to go hang out with him until we were killed.
We’d have to live with this moron, whom Ginny had just shot in the foot. Not to mention the officer I had already mixed it up with once. An idea started to percolate. I called Ann over to discuss it. She agreed with me so I looped in Reeves. He just said whatever you want to do boss. I called over the guy manning the turret on the Hummer we had been riding in.
“Hey private. We’re going to task one Hummer and go out on a recon mission. We’re not planning on coming back for a while. We need you and the rest of the marines here to escort scum and bag back to the base. I’d recommend they be strung up and shot or put in the brig for dereliction of duty or trying to desert there post or sodomy or something. Basic
ally, I don’t like them and I don’t want my people to have to be around them.”
“I’ve never liked them either sir. Sounds like a plan. I hope I run into you guys again. Happy to follow you into battle.”
The guy actually saluted me. I had never saluted anyone in my life but I did my best to return it. Reeves spent a good part of the next three days imitating my salute and cracking up. All the marines got into the lead Hummer and left us standing there in the snow. We had the Hummer and we had supplies so we were basically back where we had started when we rolled into this town. I felt ok taking their Hummer since they had destroyed ours.
We got in the Hummer, Ann took the driver’s seat. She looked over at me.
“Where to sir?” She asked with a big grin. Reeves was in the back telling her she needed to salute before asking me a question. I ignored him. I considered being able to ignore him one of the most valuable skills I had picked up so far over this experience.
“South. When it stops snowing we’ll turn right and start shooting.”
Entry 40: South for the Winter
It turned out going south was not as easy I thought. We had to jump on a series of small roads that kept being washed out or so covered in snow we couldn’t tell where the road was. We ended up driving super slow through the middle of nowhere. We were able to find a hardware store that we snagged a hose from to use to siphon diesel from the trucks we passed to keep a full tank on the Hummer. We had snagged some containers to store the fuel in as well and had those tied to the outside of the Hummer again. We were traveling through sparsely populated areas so the Zombie menace was pretty much non-existent so we were able to drive during the day with no issues. That was a good thing because trying to stay on these snow-covered roads at night would have been close to impossible.
We took turns driving. At one point, there was a snow drift along the road that was large enough we were worried we would not be able to get through it. We spent about an hour digging through it with shovels we’d snagged from the hardware store. Once done, we were able to continue and the snow gradually lessened until we were driving on nice clear asphalt again. I’d like to take a second to point out that while Ann and Ginny were good to go brazenly attack the enemy and show that sexism was dead they had no problem playing the ‘I’m a girl’ card when it came to who dug through the snow drift. Just saying.
We kept going until we saw some signs up ahead for a town called Pueblo. We’d driven through a number of small towns and since none of us had ever heard of a town called Pueblo we made the assumption it was pretty small as well. We briefly discussed going around it but in the end decided to stay on the highway and just keep on keeping on. Horrible idea. We made it through town and over a bridge and then got swarmed. I have no idea where they came from but we went around a curve and were suddenly surrounded by Zombies banging rocks and sticks onto the Hummer.
There were way too many for us to drive through standing on the road in front of us. Reeves was the one driving and he must have had the same thought process as I did. He jerked the wheel to the left and sent the Hummer through a few Zombies and over the side of the incline beside the highway. Once we made it down the embankment Reeves straightened out and drove parallel to the highway. The Zombies were tumbling down into the embankment and rushing to close the gap behind us but we were cruising pretty good with just open dirt in front of us. Until we weren’t.
The open path ended at a broken bridge. Zombies were tumbling down the embankment towards us. There was a large canal in front of us that was currently dry but the walls on each side were too steep for us to go down and even if we did we could not go up the other side. More Zombies were raining down on us. Reeves cut us to the left again and we drove through a bunch of low hedges and into the parking lot of a large distribution plant looking place. Based on the Pepsi symbols all over the place I was thinking Pepsi distribution center.
I was up in the turret getting banged all over the place as Reeves drove over curves and through hedges and around trees at a pace that I considered a bit unsafe. Of course, being surrounded and cornered by a large group of Zombies was also extremely unsafe. I racked the machine gun and had it ready to open fire if needed. Not that I thought it would do a ton of good against as many Zombies as we had coming towards us. The screaming noise coming off our pursuers was deafening. I hadn’t heard anything that loud since we had blown up half of Colorado Springs to get the Koreans swarmed.
Reeves was heading for the alley between the two large warehouse buildings to get us out of here. Hopefully, once we got through there we could find a road to take us over the canal and back to the highway. I focused on the gap up ahead to see if any Zombies showed up I needed to take out. The ones behind us were coming fast but we had some room there. I saw a few Zombies crowding into the gap up ahead so I sent a few bullets that way. I saw more Zombies filling the gap so I let out a sustained burst.
That’s when we saw the problem. There were a ton of Zombies coming through the gap at the end of the alley. We couldn’t turn around as the other end of the alley was already clogged with the Zombies who had been chasing us this whole time. We weren’t going to be able to go forward and we couldn’t go backwards. We had about ten seconds to decide if we wanted to try and get into the building and hide there. There was a loading dock area on the left side of the alley. Reeves swerved in that direction. I sent another burst at the Zombies pouring in at the end of the alley.
I didn’t have my headset on so there was no way for me to communicate with Reeves. Yelling wouldn’t work since the Zombie screams would drown out anything any of us tried to say. All of the bay doors were closed. I would assume they were all locked as well but that should not be a huge issue for us. Of course, seconds were fixing to become extremely valuable. Reeves slammed the Hummer into the rubber mats hanging off one of the loading docks right beside a door that was between two of the bays.
I scrambled over the top of the Hummer even as the others were flinging open their doors and ejecting from the Hummer as fast as they could. Daisy was the first one to make it to me up on the loading dock area. She was growling as she turned to face the incoming Zombies. Her teeth were bared. She’d done the transformation from loveable large fur ball to primal predator ready to defend her pack. I tried the door. It was locked and the door itself seemed pretty damn solid. I took a step back and pulled out my pistol to go ahead and shoot it anyway and see if that helped to get it open.
Ann smacked me on the back of the head and pointed at the bay next to me. The one on the left of us was flush with the concrete floor but the one on the other side was sitting a few inches above it. Open to the world. I jumped over and put both hands on the bottom of the door and pulled up as hard as I could. Nothing happened. Except I felt all my vertebrae pop. I tried again and the door slowly went up about a foot. Looking to my right I saw Reeves had joined me in pulling on the door. It wasn’t going any higher and we needed to get inside now. I heard shots popping off behind me and turned my head to see Ginny and Ann were standing behind us in classical firing stances taking out the lead Zombies sprinting towards us.
There was no way they could hear me with all the noise so I reached out my leg and kicked Ann and made eye motions towards the open space. She reached out and pushed Ginny towards the opening. Ginny hit her stomach and easily slithered underneath the door. Daisy ran in after her. A trail of piss following the terrified dog who had still stood firm with her pack mates.
Ann ran and slid under the door. I saw her waving at us from underneath it. Her and Ginny were holding the door up for us. Based on Reeves and I struggling like crazy to hold the door open I had my doubts about Ann and Ginny being able to hold it long by themselves. I flashed back to the whole sexism thing though and decided to go with the flow. I kicked Reeves and motioned for him to go under the door. He looked like he was going to argue but we just didn’t have the time so he dropped to his knees and let go of the door. I pulled up as hard as I could, feeling t
he door immediately start going down.
Reeves was pinned under the door for a second before he ripped his way through and seconds later I felt the door bounce back up again. I dropped to my knees and started getting on my stomach when I was knocked backwards by a Zombie jumping on my head. My neck got wrenched one way while the little bastard was trying to get at me with his teeth. The body was light so I bench pressed and threw the Zombie. I was facing the wrong way to get under the garage though. I pulled out my pistol and started shooting at the Zombies crowding in above me. Their faces slobbering and staring at me with crud filled red eyes. All humanity burned out of them by this point.
I was going to die. I was going to die shooting though. I felt hands wrap around my calves and anticipated the bite. One of the Zombies I shot fell forward and landed on my face hiding everything from site. I felt hands ripping at my exposed stomach. Then I was jerked towards the garage door. My shirt rode up and half the skin on my back felt like it was being ripped off. Just the bottom half though so I guess it would match the top of my back where I’d already had to regrow skin once thanks to these demons.
Zournal (Book 4): Reap What You Sow Page 21