The muffled but audible Crack! Crack! Crack! Of several weapons firing also came to their ears.
“Listen up!” the Comtech called at the top of his lungs. Everyone paid heed. Even the top gunner crouched down to hear. “We’re coming up on the Northeastern perimeters main division. They are at the edge of the campus. West and North of them are the old neighborhoods. Now they are crawling with zombies.” he was looking at Matt, as if everybody else in the already knew what he was saying. “Like I said earlier, aerial recon reported the deadfucks massing together. Well they’ve been coming out of the neighborhoods in waves several dozen at a time. They are having a problem keeping the perimeter secure. Control has ordered all units in the vicinity to assist.”
“Hotdamn!” exclaimed Johnson. “It seems we’re going to see some action after all!”
The Humvee accelerated quickly, weaving through a large grove of trees, emerging into another broad expanse of grassy knolls. Matt could hear what sounded like a large firefight. Ahead, spread out over 200 feet, was the Northern Perimeter encampment comprised of An M1A1 Abrams tank, a dozen Humvees, three personnel trucks and almost two hundred soldiers. The Humvees were spread out in a ragged line nearly two hundred feet in length, the top gunners firing to the northwest. The Tank sat squat in the center of the Humvees, turret facing northwest. The trucks were parked thirty feet behind the line of Humvees facing south, ready for a quick getaway if necessary. Soldiers were spread between the row of Humvees, others atop the tank. All were firing to the northwest. As their Humvee came pulling into the rear of the encampment, a soldier in full black and gray combat gear flagged them to a stop.
“Patrol five. Reporting as ordered!” The driver barked to the soldier.
“Take a position at the western end of the line!” the soldier was screaming to be heard over the gunfire. “Deploy your men, and start shooting deadfucks!”
“Yes sir!” the Driver barked, gunning the jeep into motion.
“You heard the man!” Jenkins yelled. “Once we park I want you all to take position to either side of the Humvee and shoot any deadfuck you lay your eyes on!”
The Humvee braked to a stop at the end of the line, and Jenkins threw open the back door and stepped out.
“Move your asses!”
Matt piled out behind him, un-slinging his rifle and thumbing off the safety. He stepped to the side of the Humvee and gazed across the battlefield. Ahead of the line of jeeps were a series of trenches, spread twenty-five feet apart. Each held half a dozen soldiers, rifles trained out ahead of them to the advancing wave of zombies. Forty feet beyond the trenches, the rolling lawn ended in a street that marked the beginning of a subdivision of neighborhoods, which spread to the north and west, down the hill, into the city. Zombies were pouring from these neighborhoods by the dozens. Matt blinked in surprise at the number of them; there must be at least five hundred spread out across a two hundred foot line, the nearest only thirty feet away. Hundreds more lay dead between the trenches and the street.
“What the hell are you waiting for?” Jenkins was screaming beside him. He was barely audible over the gunfire. “Open fire!”
Matt raised his gun to his shoulder and took aim. The zombie was a woman, or had been. Now she was nothing more than a pile of walking pus. Her head sagged to the side, eyes blank, her skin a slight shade of green. Her left arm ended in a jagged stump, three inches below the shoulder, with several inches of yellow bone poking through. Her clothes were tattered rags, stained with blood and grime. Matt’s hands were shaking with adrenaline, and his first shot went through the zombies throat. It stumbled back half a step, before continuing ahead. His second hit her between the eyes. He targeted another. And another. He emptied two full clips, scoring a kill with almost everyone. But the zombies kept coming. Ron was beside him, his own rifle blasting away. The kick of the gun and the smell of the powder put Matt in some kind of trance. Zombies fell dead like ducks in a shooting gallery.
Finally, after what seemed forever, it was over. He lowered his gun, surveying the carnage. Over two thousand zombies lay dead, piled in heaps ahead of them. There hadn’t been a single human casualty. Matt looked around. Soldiers were smiling at one another, clapping each other on the back and laughing at their victory. Matt could hear nothing but a high-pitched ringing in his ears. Ron was beside him, saying something, a wide grin on his face. Matt shouldered his rifle, turning away from the carnage. His head spun, and he put a hand against the Humvee to keep his balance. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. When he opened them, Ron was beside him holding out a black canteen.
“Water.”
The ringing in his ears had subsided some, and he could barely hear Ron. He took the canteen and gulped several mouthfuls of water. He splashed a bit on his face, hoping the cold water would help clear his head. He held the canteen towards Ron.
“Keep it.” Ron said.
Matt sat there for several long minutes, taking deep breaths and sipping water, until the ringing faded to a dull whine. He would probably hear that until tomorrow.
“How are you holding up?” Ron asked from beside him.
“Good.” Matt said, feeling anything but. “All that gunfire. It sort of put me in a daze.”
Ron chuckled. “It’ll do that.”
“I’ve never seen so many of those things at once. They just kept coming.” Matt was bewildered.
“It was never like that before.” Ron said. “After the initial outbreak, we only saw strays every now and again. But for about the last week the deadfucks have been hitting in larger groups, but never more than a dozen or two. There must be a couple thousand dead zombies out there!”
At the opposite end of the Humvees, another shot rang out.
Then another.
Shouts.
Another shot.
“What the hell is going on now?” Ron muttered to no one in particular. As they headed around the front of the Humvee, several shots rang out at once, and as they came into view of the commotion, they realized at the same time that many of the shots were being fired at the soldiers. And they were coming from the neighborhood to the north. As they watched, ten soldiers came running out into the open. They wore black and gray Military body armor, Kevlar helmet, and sprayed the barrels of their M-16’s back and forth as they drew nearer.
“Take cover!” Jenkins barked, ducking behind the nearest Humvee. Matt took cover as well, poking his head above the hood to see. The enemy soldiers charged on, emptying their clips into the ranks of the perimeter defenders. Several perimeter defenders fell, most only wounded thanks to their body armor, but a few unlucky ones lay with fatal wounds to the head. But the advancing enemy soldiers were far outnumbered by the perimeter defenders, and for every bullet they fired, ten were fired back at them. They staggered and fought for their feet as bullets tore into them, but they kept charging.
Matt was shocked. There was no way body armor could stop all of those bullets. Those men had to be wounded. One of the advancing soldiers stopped, and held his rifle at an odd angle. A small puff of smoke erupted from under the barrel as he fired his grenade launcher.
“Oh shit!” Ron exclaimed.
“FIRE IN THE HOLE!” Jenkins screamed, ducking low and covering his face. Ron pulled Matt to the ground beside him, and Matt curled into a ball, protecting his face.
A tremendous explosion rattled Matt’s bones, causing his guts to feel like Jell-O. The noise was deafening! Matt raised his head to see a twisted metal ball of flame where the jeep on the far end used to be. Defenders lay broken and dead about the wreckage, some in pieces. The charging soldiers changed clips on the run, all the while bullets peppered into them.
“It can’t be.” Jenkins said, reaching for the binocular on his belt. He lifted them to his eyes. “SHIT!” he screamed.
“What is it?” Ron asked.
“Their deadfucks!” Jenkins exclaimed, still looking through the binocs.
“What!” Matt couldn’t believe it.
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“Deadfucks!’ Jenkins was almost screaming. He held the binocs out. “Look for yourself!” Ron snatched them, holding them up to his eyes.
“Well I’ll be goddamned.” he said softly.
Jenkins looked to the rest of his squad. “Hold your positions!” he called. “Keep a sharp eye on our own area!”
Ron handed the binocs to Matt. He was almost afraid to look. But he did. They were zombies all right, big ones well over six feet tall. And they looked different. Their faces were skulls, with only cobwebs of black leathery flesh still clinging to them, slimy black with rot.
And they were clad in US Army full combat gear, including helmets.
And they carried M-16’s.
And they were running at full speed.
Through the binoculars he could see the bullets tearing into the zombies body armor. He saw a bullet smash right through ones head, taking most of the lower jaw and sending it spinning to the ground…Where it rolled with the fall and came up in a crouch, fingering the trigger to its grenade launcher! Matt saw the puff of smoke.
“Fire in the hole!” he heard Jenkins scream again.
Matt ducked for cover again and another explosion went off, this one much closer. He looked up, seeing the grenade had hit behind the line of vehicles, near one of the transport trucks. Screams from the wounded were drowned out by the gunfire.
There were at least a hundred soldiers now firing at the charging zombies, and armor or no, the sheer impact of so many bullets was enough to knock them from their feet. The flak suits they wore were smashed and battered into useless rags, and the bullets riddled black leathery flesh. But they still came on. A grenade landed near one, taking one of its arms and both of its legs in the explosion. Black blood, coagulated to thick mucus poured from the jagged stumps. Amazingly, it raised its head to gain its bearings, and used its single arm to roll itself over and begin dragging itself towards the perimeter defenders.
“We got company!’ Ron screamed.
Matt looked around to see a fresh wave of zombies emerge from the neighborhood directly across from their position. In the time it took them to take new positions and begin firing, there were one hundred zombies in the open.
Matt raised his gun, and began picking targets. The flanking maneuver had caught the defenders off guard, with over half diverting their attention to the armed zombies. Behind the wave of advancing zombies, three more fully armed and armored superzombies burst into the open. Matt turned his attention to one of them, aiming for the creature’s hands and weapon. He knew his bullets would do little to stop it, but if he could take out its weapon, it would also be harmless. At least until it closed to hand to hand range. But they would have to worry about that then. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jenkins haul back and throw a grenade like a baseball. It arced high, dropping right in the center of the wave of staggering, normal zombies. Already dead bodies were blasted apart, while others fell from jagged shrapnel through the brain. Suddenly, fresh zombies emerged all along the length of the perimeter. There were now a total of thirteen superzombies in the fray. Most of the initial ten had been blown into torsos with barely an arm or leg. But they kept fighting.
Fire. Fire is how you deal with those ones.
The air was alive with bullets, mowing a path through the stumbling, rotting hordes that crept foreword ever so slowly.
Gunfire was returned.
The top gunner of Patrol Five, the Humvee Matt had ridden in on, tumbled from his perch with a bullet through the throat. The armed superzombies used their grenades as well, destroying the Humvees with precision aiming. But in turn they were being eliminated with grenades. It was the only effective way to stop them.
Out of nowhere an Apache gunship appeared over their heads, arcing slowly across the battlefield thirty feet in the sky. The twin electric Vulcan Machineguns sprayed a stream of death into the ranks of the zombies, the spinning ten barreled cylinders spewing forth 500 rounds a second. The zombies were literally shredded to hunks of rotted meat. Even the superzombies fell beneath the Vulcan machinegun fire, their body-armor no match for the six-inch bullets that tore into them by the hundreds. Within a minute it was over. The battlefield was covered with blood and guts and chunks of what used to be bodies, as well as the two thousand corpses of the earlier battle. The helicopter swooped over the neighborhood; its Vulcan’s spewing death into the remaining ranks of zombies that advanced. The soldiers of the perimeter regrouped, reporting to squad leaders who in turn reported to command. All of the perimeter defenders killed in the fighting were rounded up and a bullet put through each ones brain, regardless of how they had died. They took no chances. The bodies were then loaded aboard one of the transport trucks, where they would be taken back for cremation. The wounded were also loaded aboard one of the trucks and shipped back to the main base at Fort Douglas.
Jenkins walked up to Matt, his weapon slung over his shoulder, a lit cigarette in his hands.
“We just got the word people. As soon as the reinforcements arrive, we load up and head back to base. So pull yourselves together.” He went to stand near the passenger door, and converse with the Comtech. The rest of the soldiers went about what ever they had been doing.
“So much for their fallen comrade.” Matt muttered. The top gunners body had been carted away; a bullet put through his brain, and loaded aboard one of the trucks.
“You’ve got to understand,” Ron began. “Most of these soldiers have been in the shit, fighting the deadfucks since it all started. They’ve seen more friends die than they can count, most torn apart by deadfucks. Their hard.”
Matt didn’t look at him. He found it hard to understand how someone could become so cold inside, that the loss of a close friend, one that they had been joking with fifteen minutes earlier, didn’t even affect them. Matt also wondered if he too would become that cold inside? That dead. Without another word Matt piled into the back of the Humvee. He was exhausted. All he wanted was to return to the hospital, find Zack and Susan, get to the Barracks at Fort Douglas, and get some sleep…
Chapter 9
Friday, June 22, 2001
University Of Utah Hospital
Salt Lake City, UT
9:09 AM
After Surgery, Zack had been taken into the hospital cafeteria, which had now been filled with dozens of folding cots, most of which held wounded. Some of the people here had relatives or loved ones beside their beds, cramping the space even more. The Head Nurse pointed to an empty cot across the room, and the orderlies began weaving the stretcher through the maze of wounded. Susan followed behind. It smelled of antiseptic. When they reached Zack’s cot, they slid their arms under him and quickly yet gently lowered him onto the cot.
“A nurse will be along to see to his needs.” the orderly said. Then they left, folding the stretcher in two and carrying it away. Susan knelt beside him. She laid her hand on his face. His skin was burning hot with fever.
“Don’t you die,” she said softly, fighting back tears as her fathers face suddenly sprang to mind. “Do you understand? Don’t you die.” she lowered her face, wiping away tears.
“I won’t.” She looked up, to see Zack’s eyes half open and glassy from the painkillers. She smiled wide, leaning foreword and kissing him on the cheek.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Like shit.” he muttered. “I need water.”
“They told me the nurse would be here soon.” He closed his eyes, appearing to slip back into unconsciousness. But his eyes opened again, and he looked at Susan.
“I’m sorry about your father.” he said meekly.
“I know.” she said. “There was nothing you could have done.” she said. He tried to speak again but she spoke first.
“Stay quiet. Matt is taking care of things with the bus. He’ll be here in the morning.”
A nurse stepped up alongside the cot, a pillow and blanket in one hand, a portable IV kit in the other. She slipped the pillow under Zack’s head while Susa
n covered him with the blanket.
“I need water.” he said, his throat a raw, parched desert.
“After I put the iv in.,” the nurse said. She swabbed the back of his hand and inserted the tube, taping it down when she was done. She then applied the saline solution drip to his IV. “I’ll be right back with some water.” the nurse left.
“Looks like we’re in a pretty bad situation.” Zack rasped.
“We’re much better off than we were in the city.” Susan said. “There are no zombies here, and you got the bullet taken out.”
“How bad is it?”
“The doctor said you would be ok.” Zack began to chuckle to himself. “But you need rest. What’s so funny?”
“That was a DOCTOR who was operating on me? It felt like a meat butcher.” He continued to laugh, a bubbly, giddy laugh brought on by the painkillers. They had doped him good.
The nurse returned with a small Styrofoam cup of water. With a groan of pain, and a small fit of coughing, he rolled onto his side.
“Careful!” snapped the nurse. “You’ll do yourself no good if you reopen your wound. Start the internal bleeding all over.”
“I’m fine. I need water.”
“Here you go.” the nurse gave him the water with a scowl on her face. He tipped it to his lips and gulped it in two swallows. Nothing had ever tasted so good. “Careful. You’re dehydrated. You’ll gag if you drink too fast. Now lay back and rest. Get some sleep.” Zack looked up at her. “Go on now.” she said sternly. Zack complied without a word, laying back and letting out a deep breath.
“And you,” she was looking at Susan. “You look nearly as bad as him. When was the last time you slept?”
“I don’t know.” Susan wracked her brain, and she honestly couldn’t remember. “It’s been awhile.”
“Why don’t you go find someplace to get some sleep yourself?”
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