In a methodical voice, like a teacher to a slow student, he said, "To me, all of this means we lost. Our guys were wiped out and at least one of theirs had to be left to take out our last man."
He flicked the dried chunk off his blade, spun the knife in his fingers, the way a gunslinger would holster a pistol, and returned it to his belt. Readying his own rifle, he added, "Stay sharp son, stay human."
The team picked through the field, looking for the dog tags of their fallen brothers, cautious of any remaining enemy fighters, or parts thereof. They had little fear of the leech-like skin that would remain of a dismembered combatant. The evidence of the battle was at least a week old, more than enough time for the survived flesh to become inanimate, its final death into decay.
-CLACK-
Auggie spun, finger light on his trigger. He saw nothing there.
-CLACK-CLACK-
This time BB heard it. The mechanical click of an unloaded weapon being dry-fired. It had come from behind the shattered trunk of large Kapok tree. The body of the tree had fallen out of the clearing during the battle. The base lay on the stump, all of the wreckage covered in dead branches from the carnage of the fight. Foliage had begun to overgrow the toppled tree, leaving a small canopy of leaves underneath the log—a perfect place to lie in wait. Which would have been the case if the sniper hadn’t been out of ammo.
The rest of the squad reacted the same way BB and Auggie had. Crouch, turn towards the threat and ready your weapon.
Sgt. Walker gave Auggie two sharp waves of his left hand, chop-chop, in the direction of the left side of the threat, then pointed to BB, chop-chop, to the right. Spreading his fingers and then pointing, he ordered Nevada and Starkey into a spread formation aiming their E35s in the direction of the tree-line.
Auggie sighted through his scope, his left hand gripping the front of the stock, his middle and index fingers resting on the weapon’s selection buttons. He chose low-light mode and the area under the vines brightened in his eyepiece. He ignored movement near the ground too small to be a person. BB moved parallel to Auggie, approaching the opening from the other side.
Auggie stopped when he noticed thin bone fragments that resembled fingers on the ground.
Using the toe of his matte-black combat boot, he moved the leaves away. He saw more of the same type of bones protruding from a single longer piece and recognized what he was looking at, a tiny ribcage connected to a spine. Flipping his scope to infrared, he sighted back toward the shifting undergrowth he had discounted earlier. In the greenish fog of the eyepiece, he saw several, loaf-sized creatures foraging in the leaves. Thumbing the mic button on his glove, he waited for the communication acknowledgment before he spoke.
-BEEP- "Rats Sarge. Damn big rats." He released the button. -BOOP-
Auggie heard the reply in his earpiece.
-BEEP- "Tapirs, rookie. They’re the local wild pig-rats. Keep looking. They’re not the ones who tried to shoot us." -BOOP-
Auggie switched back to low-light mode and glanced over at BB. He, and the rest of the squad, had heard the exchange between the two men. BB nodded his head and gave Auggie a, chop-chop, to move on.
As Auggie rounded the stump leading with his muzzle, he selected pop-tips. Even though he was concentrating on the scope, he kept both eyes open. Near the point that the tree's top branches touched the ground, he saw three live tapirs along with several decaying carcasses. His crosshairs followed the line of the tree from the Tapirs back toward to the stump.
-CLACK-
Startled, he stumbled backwards, surprising himself that he didn’t discharge his weapon. He still saw only the stump.
Looking across, he saw BB lying prone on the ground; he had been standing directly in Auggie’s line of sight. If either had fired, the other would have had his head taken off.
"What the hell is that?" Auggie muttered.
"Shit, meat!" Yelled BB. “I thought you were going to pull."
Auggie ignored him. "Did you hear that Sarge?"
-BEEP- "Use the comm, kid." Sgt. Walker’s voice was loud in Auggie’s ear. -BOOP-
-BEEP- BB's voice. "I got something underneath all that green shit, Sarge. A rifle, but it’s not pointing at us. Not a threat." -BOOP-
-BEEP- Sgt. Walker again. "You and Auggie check it out. Everyone else, keep sweeping." -BOOP-
-BEEP-. BB was still lying on the ground, weapon pointing just behind the stump. "Meat, get out of my line and move up to the stump. You'll see it." -BOOP-
Auggie nodded, shuffled two steps to his left, and crept toward the tree. When the now-familiar sound of the trigger squeeze happened, he saw the rifle move.
The barrel and stock were covered in vines and moss. Not seeing anyone there, he realized the leaves were holding the rifle up. He moved closer to touch it with the tip of his weapon. He looked at BB, standing now, rifle still fixed on the stump. BB nodded for Auggie to continue.
He leaned in, his eyes adjusted to the darkness under the tree. He saw a Prior, or most of one, propped against the stump.
Auggie lifted his right hand off the rifle and did a quick, sign of the cross gesture. He whispered, “Jesus, save us.”
Covered in vines and leaves, the entire lower half of the Prior-soldier’s body had been blown off, as was the top of his head above the eye sockets. Exposed, his moist brain throbbed with a reanimated pulse. One of his eyes was missing. The other hung against his cheek by what appeared to be a stalk. Although its unnatural life should have been done, this Prior continued to fight.
What remained of the enemy soldier had been enveloped in new growth. To Auggie, it didn’t look covered as much as absorbed. Vines and leaves were so intertwined with the Prior’s remnants that there was no distinction between them. The Prior had become the jungle.
Auggie look at BB. “Um, what do we do?”
BB clicked his comm, -BEEP- "Sarge, you’d better come get an eyeball on this.” -BOOP-
Both men stood dumbfounded. Auggie’s gaze followed the trajectory that the Prior’s rifle made along the fallen tree. He saw the same dead Tapirs and the live trio he’d noticed earlier munching the new growth at the edge of the clearing. He watched as one drew closer, as it reached the vines that could be traced back to the Prior’s ‘fingers’ along the rifle’s barrel,
-CLACK-CLACK-
The Prior aimed directly at the Tapir and squeezed the trigger. If there had been rounds left in the magazine, there’d be another splattered jungle rat in the weeds.
Auggie asked BB. “You ever see anything like this before?”
“Nope.” He replied, shaking his head. “This is some weird-ass shit, man. Seriously fucked up.”
Auggie felt relieved that at least this was something new to BB too, which made him feel like less of a newbie.
Sgt. Walker reached them. “What’s got your panties in a twist, children?”
“A dead zip-heart,” said BB. “Well, not dead exactly. Nothing to be concerned with, or maybe more to worry about. Don’t really don’t know what to say about it, Sarge.”
“Sarge, I think that the Prior’s metabolism has changed,” Auggie said.
“What’s that mean to us, Private O’Neil? Is it a threat?”
“Right now no, but I can’t guess what it’ll mean in the long run. See, instead of needing living Human brain, or the Reclamation Juice that the brainiacs came up with to tame them, this one’s body has adapted to the nutrients in the ground and sunlight.”
Sgt. Walker and BB looked at each other, back to Auggie and then shrugged in unison.
“He’s evolving, Sarge. He’s becoming the plant.”
“Then why the rifle? Why try to kill the fucken jungle-rats?” BB asked.
“They’re a threat.” Sgt. Walker answered for Auggie, “Just like we were to his kind when he was ali---. Well, not alive-alive. Not Human alive. Prior alive if you get my drift.”
“That’s fucked up,” repeated BB, starting to sound like an X-rated broken record,
“Yeah man, I got it.” Said BB, “No problem Sarge. Consider the fucker fried.”
Using his scope’s capture function, he saved several images of the vegi-Prior. He then chose ‘Pairs’, for his rifle to fire one of each type of round when he squeezed the trigger.
-BEEP- Sgt. Walker. "OK, boys, too much weirdness here, time to boogie.” -BOOP-
Auggie kicked at the ground trying to scare off the Tapirs.
“Move it, meat,” BB barked. “I need to melt this thing.”
After shooing the furry toasters back into the jungle, Auggie called. “Let ‘er rip BB.”
BB raised the M-E35 to his shoulder.
-PHOOPHOOPHOOPHOOOT-
The Prior’s head disintegrated in the hail of pop-tips and MRSA slugs. BB shouted while unloading both clips. “Melt you fucker!”
BB slung the rifle over his shoulder and reached to his chest for a plasma grenade. Holding the olive-colored can in his right hand, he twisted the lid off with his left, set the dial and pulled the tab to start the timer. As he dropped his arm back in a short windup to toss the device into the smoldering remains, the vines around his legs leapt up as if on a puppeteer’s strings. They sheathed his hand and the explosive in a living glove.
Auggie heard the timer start to click away time as BB screamed, “Damn, what the hell?”
-TOCK-TOCK-TOCK-
“Sarge,” Auggie yelled, not wanting to take the time to use radio. “I need some help here!”
He took a step towards BB, but the vines beneath his feet wrapped around the tops of his boots.
“Sarge! Need you like, now!”
-TOCK-TOCK-TOCK-
Auggie tried to remember how many ticks he had heard. ‘At one per second, that’s six gone.’
Auggie called to BB, “How long did you set the fuse for? Can you open your hand?”
“Thirty seconds, meat. And no I can’t open my, God-damned hand.” He grabbed at the grenade with his free hand. The vines twisted and pulled it back.
Sgt. Walker had already made it to the shade on the other side of the field. –BEEP- “What the hell’s going on over there?” -BOOP-
-TOCK-TOCK-TOCK-
‘Three more seconds. 9 gone.’
-BEEP- “Sarge, BB’s hung up in the vines. They grabbed him. He can’t let go of the plasma. ” Auggie tried to be succinct. “I can’t reach him, the vines won’t let me.”-BOOP-
-TOCK-TOCK-TOCK- ‘12.’
-BEEP- Sgt. Walker, “Starkey, you’re closer from the other side. Go get him.” -BOOP-
Starkey had been standing a couple of feet behind BB frozen in disbelief at what he was seeing. When Sgt. Walker’s command popped in his earpiece, he broke out of it.
–BEEP- “Got it.” –BOOP-
-TOCK-TOCK-TOCK-
Auggie called out the time remaining. “Fifteen seconds guys.”
Starkey drew his machete and ran toward BB.
The vines grabbed at Starkey’s boots. His blade slashed and hacked at the living thing. Although he could cut them away to prevent them from stopping his progress, they slowed him enough to allow precious seconds to pass.
“Seven seconds.” Auggie backed away from BB.
With no time left to try anything else, Starkey swung the machete into BB’s forearm, severing the hand just above the wrist. BB’s armored combat pants prevented the blade from cutting through his thigh. BB screamed as he fell. The vines retreated allowing the grenade, BB’s hand still holding on in a final death grip, to drop in front of the diving Starkey.
-TOCK-TOCK-TOCK- “Four seconds.”
Reminiscent of a shortstop flipping a grounder to second on the first leg of a double play, Starkey snatched up the can and tossed it into the pit of the stump.
-PFOOOM-
The explosion spread its molten payload over what remained after BB’s peppering. Filled with an acidic gel, the plant/Prior began dissolving as the vines curled back into the jungle.
BB lay on the ground, holding his bloody arm and cursing. Starkey lifted BB to his feet as Auggie hit the comm.
-BEEP- “Sarge, BB’s hurt bad. Losing a lotta blood. We’re pulling him out.” -BOOP-
During the initial few months of the outbreak, Auggie had seen plenty of gore back on the farm. He hadn’t expected his first look at combat blood to make him nauseous.
-BEEP- “Roger that.” Sgt. Walker replied. “Nevada and I will cover.” -BOOP-
Starkey slapped a cauterize-patch on BB's open forearm. The gauze contained embedded chemicals designed to seal the wound while releasing antibiotics and pain killers to the damaged area.
Starkey apologized as he helped carry BB. “I’m sorry, man; it was the first thing I could think of. Don’t worry, BB, they’ll make you a new hand. Sarge says his is better than the one he was born with.”
“Screw you, Starkey. I promised my girl I’d come back human and intact. You know they’ll never get the color to match.”
Auggie felt the air by his ear stir.
-PHOOT-PHOOOT- Nevada had his rifle aimed into trees on the far side of the clearing. He shouted as he fired. “Run you MO-FOs. We’ve got incoming.”
He wasn’t laying cover fire. With his weapon set to dispense a single shot per trigger pull, he had something specific in his sights and was trying to take it out.
BB said to Auggie, "Go get some, newbie. Pop your combat cherry."
Auggie turned to face the threat Nevada has been firing toward.
The scores of undead he had encountered back home in New Jersey—and the handful of the fighting corpses he had plucked from the camp's perimeter defenses—hadn’t prepared him for the two-dozen Jihadist martyrs rushing at his squad.
Setting his E35 to full-auto, he fired bursts of explosive tips into the onrushing horde. He knew he was scoring hits, but they wouldn't fall. Branches and leaves ticked off the surrounding trees as the enemy’s rounds flew past them as they ran.
"Bug out, men!" Sergeant Walker ordered his team to retreat.
They shot into the mob in an alternating retreat formation as each man dropped back to reload. The one with the fresh mag covered the group. Starkey helped BB along until the pain relieving gel in the patch took effect. BB shook Starkey off and, holding the stock of his weapon in his remaining hand, began firing into their pursuers. Starkey joined the others in their defensive pattern.
As soon as he had seen the enemy appear from beyond the clearing, Sgt. Walker had called the base for reinforcements.
“Help’s coming, boys, keep moving. There’s a guard post up ahead. We’ll set up a defensive line there until the Calvary arrives to bail us out.”
Bloody-black sludge, a mixture of rocks, dirt, and the melting limbs of enemy soldiers, flew in every direction as Nevada and Auggie tossed grenades into the path to cover the withdrawal. The attacking dead began to fall as the body parts needed to keep them mobile were blown or melted off their already decomposing bodies.
The foliage thinned as the trail widened when BB reached the Human checkpoint. Expecting to find help from the stationed guards, he found instead three Prior fighters picking on the gruesome remains of the UAA soldiers who had been stationed there. Unable to manipulate a fresh mag, he dropped the E35 and drew the stiletto dagger he carried as a backup weapon.
The closest of the Priors charged, its fat tongue wagging—seeking the heat from BB’s body. Like a bullfighter from some hellish nightmare, BB used the attacker’s momentum to his advantage, sidestepping and stabbing it in the eye socket as it stumbled past. The needle-like blade slid through, lodging into the back of its skull, missing the vital connection between brain-stem and spinal cord. With the glossy-black handle of BB’s knife protruding from its eye socket; it lunged, latching onto BB’s throat. A second grabbed at BB’s head.
Th
e scene unfolding before Auggie brought back a long repressed memory.
Auggie and his Uncle Bob hunted for unreclaimed dead in the suburban woods south of their hometown. The morning was crisp and dry, filled with the smell of pine needles and the crunch of their boots on the twigs and dry leaves as they walked. Cresting a hill, they were surprised by a pair of wild Priors—the term used for the untamed dead. Auggie had been carrying his father’s old Remington double-barrel with the forearm open. Half-remembering his father’s advice on aiming for the creature’s mouth, he snapped closed the breach and shot the first round into the dirt between them. Chunks of dirt and stone flew up in the trail as the two undead monsters ran towards Uncle Bob. Ears still ringing from his first errant shot, Auggie aimed at the farther of the two. Its shoulder exploded in a spray of rotted flesh and black blood. Before Uncle Bob had a chance to squeeze off a shot from his Winchester 30-30 lever-action, the other dragged him down, pulled his head back, and bit into his throat.
The one Auggie had wounded grabbed Uncle Bob’s skull in its remaining hand and slammed it against the ground.
Auggie would never forget his Uncle’s final words as they gurgled from his crimson lips. “Run, boy. Run!”
Thrashing through the trees, his tears blinded him as he ran. But Auggie stopped. Even though fear gripped him, he wasn’t a coward. He had to go back to help his uncle.
Auggie heard the thumping and felt the ground shaking. As he approached the hill, he witnessed first-hand how the ravenous dead get to the living brain they crave. Auggie saw them tear open his Uncle’s skull.
Like a human walnut, they use the hard ground as a nutcracker, opening the shell to get to the meat inside.
Auggie wiped the tears from his vision, picked up Uncle Bob’s 30-30, and blew the head off the one feasting on his uncle’s brain. By the time the other one—the one Auggie failed to deal the final death to—looked up, Auggie had levered another cartridge into the Winchester and finished him too.
All Things Zombie: Chronology of the Apocalypse Page 44