Payload

by RW Krpoun

  “Establish a collection point-we bring the wounded to you, not the other way around.”

  The little man subsided. “Yeah…that’s right.”

  “Get back to our picnic table-I’ll send them to you.”

  “OK…what’s that?”

  The Ranger had heard it, too. Releasing Doc, he turned north, towards the entrance and the fully-engulfed double-wide trailer. “Ammo cooking off?”

  “Too sharp,” Addison muttered, stepping alongside the two. Behind them Marv could hear the RV’s extensions being cranked back in. “Gunfire.”

  “What the hell is going…crap.” The fires were slashing the night into contrasts of glaring hot light and inky darkness, but the lurching movements of the silhouettes were unmistakable. “Zeds. We’ve got hostiles inbound!” Marv shouted over his shoulder, extending the M-4’s stock. Dropping to a knee, wincing at the gravel bruising his already battered leg, he twisted the power knob on the ACOG sight to night setting 5 and laid the green ‘doughnut’ onto the head of a figure which was lumbering up the road, dragging one leg. The figure dropped like a puppet with its string cut when he squeezed the trigger.

  Addison and Doc were both firing to his right, and JD had moved up on his left and was firing his lever-action Marlin carbine, but Marv focused with the experience born of training and Afghani firefights, monitoring his breathing, focusing on the steady and the squeeze, clearing his mind of everything but the act of placing each shot where it need to go.

  The ACOG’s doughnut sight point was just a small hollow circle, intended to be more accurate and faster to acquire than a simple dot, with green for low-light shooting and red for daytime. With only four-power amplification it was intended for fast, relatively close shooting. Despite being wrapped up in his shooter’s mind zone, Marv quickly realized that although he was dropping an infected subject with each shot, firing at intervals of a second or two, and was one of several shooters, the size of his targets were steadily increasing: the zombies were getting closer.

  Lowering the M-4, he realized that there was a solid mass of infected lurching at best speed up the circuit road, their numbers maintaining an unbroken front despite individuals peeling off to attack campers to either side and a steady loss to gunfire. Only their slow speed and the complications to the footing caused by the casualties from the front ranks had kept the Gnomes from being over-run.

  Beside him Addition knelt and opened up on full auto, firing shot bursts into the front ranks’ legs, tumbling several to the ground and throwing the entire mass into disarray. Marv began rapid-fire, aiming low on the torso, trying for pelvis hits that would knock them down to buy time.

  Dropping the empty mag into his goggle pouch, the Ranger slotted in a fresh magazine and released the bolt, glancing over his shoulder at the RV. Two of Gnomehome’s extensions were fully retracted, and the third was moving; firelight reflecting on water spray showing where the water connection had been released without first cutting off the water source.

  “Get ready to move,” he yelled at the others. He was turning his head, Captain Jack to his far left near the picnic table firing his shotgun, JD to his immediate left on the shoulder of the circuit road thumbing rounds into the Marlin’s loading gate, Addison kneeling to his right with the Mac 10 on semi, firing carefully, and Doc on the far right shoulder, katana and a EMT bag slung about him, standing hunched forward as he reloaded a magazine from a box of cartridges.

  In the movies bullets zing past, but in real life their noise is much more distinctive. Old reflex sent Marv to the ground as the first roared across his front, the fact that it came from his deep left registering after he was prone. “Down!” he yelled, seeing that Addison and already prone and that Doc was stumbling backward, fresh cartridges pin-wheeling into the air as the little man was hit again and again.

  Captain Jack had dropped prone when the rifle fired behind and to his left, instinctively realizing that the shooter was aiming at his fellow Gnomes, not the zombies. Squirming around, the slender Gnome observed one man in a kneeling stance taking the Gnomes in the roadway under fire while a second one rushed forward to take cover behind the simple iron box grill that was, like the concrete picnic table, part of the site’s furnishing. Both were clad in camouflage and wearing tactical gear, but Captain Jack was certain they were not military men.

  They appeared to not have noticed him, but that was a slender and perishable advantage-he was alone, and he strongly doubted there were only two; worse, he had only two rounds left in his shotgun. For a moment the unreality of it all made his head swim, and for the space of a heartbeat the image of a house, a wife, and children swam in front of his eyes, with an impression of a small, unremarkable office superimposed over it in some fashion. Then it was past and he was a man of action again, a soldier of the Crown and an officer of The Regiment.

  Mating cheek to stock he shot the nearer of the two intruders in the knee and again in the chest as the shooter fell. Heaving himself to his feet, drawing the Browning Hi-Power as he moved, he raced for the grill, the only cover available, firing as he moved. The second rifleman saw him, but Captain Jack scored the first hit, knocking him back. Two other rounds connected before Captain Jack realized that the man was wearing body armor. Sliding against the grill’s grimy post, the Gnome braced his arm against the three inch galvanized pipe set into concrete, and shot the man squarely in the forehead as he struggled to get air into his lungs.

  The sudden flares of muzzle flashes to his right confirmed the slender Gnome’s belief: there were more than two.

  Marv spotted the shooter just as Captain Jack came out of nowhere, blazing away with a pistol and dropping the shooter with several rounds to the body armor and one to the head, a good Mozambique. He saw the movement just before the others opened fire, and had the ACOG in the area as the first muzzle flash erupted on the far side of the fence like an oil refinery gas jet.

  He fired with the doughnut just below the heat of the flash, three shots rapid fire, letting the muzzle climb walk the rounds across the shooter’s neck and face. Rolling to his right after the third shot he fired five more at movement, the other shooter either relocating or retreating.

  Chip’s cargo truck was roaring to life as he risked a look to his right: the zeds were at twenty yards and closing fast, uninterested in the firefight and ignoring the gunfire coming at them.

  Cursing, he dropped two with headshots and heaved himself to his feet. Addison had dragged Doc behind a hybrid sedan, and was firing at the zombies again. JD was prone, blazing away with the Marlin.

  “Back to the RV!” the Ranger bellowed. “Here.” He tossed the payload to JD and raced towards the picnic table, firing randomly into the darkness on the other side of the fence.

  As he slid to a prone position beside Captain Jack Chip’s cargo truck lurched onto the circuit road and plowed into the zombies, snorting and bellowing through their ranks.

  The truck wasn’t killing any that JD could see, but it was knocking them around like ten-pins. Clambering to his feet, heart pounding madly, he saw movement to his right and spun, firing squarely into the charging infected’s mouth, dropping the creature. His firing pin punched air as a fat Hispanic infected closed; reversing the lever-action carbine, he swung the weapon like a batter reaching for the bleachers, the impact shattering the creature’s skull and snapping off the rifle’s stock.

  Discarding the Marlin, only vaguely aware of the blisters raising on his hands from the hot barrel, he pulled his Glock and staggered back towards the RV as it rumbled its way onto the roadway. Addison, the EMT bag on his back and his bloody ice axe in hand joined him as he jogged towards Gnomehome’s open door, where Dyson was leaning out and firing.

  Feeling to make sure the payload was intact, JD fired blindly up the road as Dyson hopped back and Addison clambered aboard.

  “Where’s the others?” Bear yelled from behind the wheel.

  “Doc is dead,” Addison snarled and headed deeper into the RV.

/>   “Marv went for Captain Jack,” JD holstered his Glock on his second try, his blistered hands shaking badly. Leaning against the dash, he hit the back cam controls. “Someone was shooting at us. There he is; Dyson, Marv’s coming from behind, carrying Captain Jack.”

  Dyson racked the doors shut as the big Ranger heaved himself onto Gnomehome and unceremoniously dumped his burden onto the plastic trash bags Addison had laid across the floor.

  “That’s not Captain Jack,” JD said.

  “Captain Jack is dead,” Marv snapped, eyeing the payload still slung over the promoter’s shoulder before kneeling by the body he had been carrying. “This is one of the crew who jumped us.” Pulling flex-cuffs from the figure’s tactical vest, he bound the subject’s ankles together. “Everyone stay low and face outbound.” He grabbed the edge of the sofa as the RV jolted over objects in the roadway.

  “Running over zombies,” Bear announced. The sounds of hands slapping and clawing at the vehicles’ sides emphasized his observation.

  “Head east once we’re clear of here,” Marv advised the biker. Catching Dyson’s look, he shrugged. “They’ll expect us to run west. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the zombies showed up at the exact same time that FASA did.”

  JD peered out the side window, looking back at the burning camp grounds. “Shit, there must have been more than a hundred-fifty people here…all because of us?”

  “FASA doesn’t concern itself with collateral damage,” Marv sighed, loading a fresh magazine into his M-4. “Load up, boys. The night is young.”

  “This is a girl,” JD advised when Marv returned after changing into a clean uniform. The promoter was kneeling beside the still figure. With the tactical vest, body armor, and watch cap removed they could see that she was indeed a dark-skinned woman in her early twenties, wearing military-surplus woodland BDUs.

  “I’m glad you can tell the difference,” the Ranger observed drily, tossing his dirty uniform into the washer and turning it on. “You get one of the spare shotguns?”

  “Yeah,” JD lifted to bandolier of shells across his chest with a thumb for emphasis. ”Why did you grab her?”

  “I want to ask her some questions. How is she doing?”

  “Not great. She’s got a knee shredded by buckshot, a heavy blow to the torso, and another to the head. Using the flex-cuff as a tourniquet worked, but it’s on so tight we’ll need to cut her to get it off. Not to mention our only medic is…gone.”

  “Yeah, that’s one topic on my chat list,” Marv knelt by the girl and checked the flex cuffs binding her wrists before lifting an eyelid. Using his lock-blade knife he began cutting her BDUs off.

  “What are you doing?” JD demanded.

  “Checking her for surprises,” the Ranger held up a handcuff key that had been in the wrist cuff. “Plus it will put her at a mental disadvantage to be in her skivvies when she comes to. I want some answers.”

  “She’s a prisoner, a wounded female prisoner,” JD protested.

  “She’s part of a crew who unleashed a bunch, a large bunch, of zombies onto to a campsite with, as you pointed out, a lot of innocent bystanders. They opened the show by setting fire to a trailer-remember the nice lady who let us stay for free? How do you figure her night turned out? I figure the zeds they used were ones they made, like their buddies with the horse trailer. Plus they killed two friends of mine, and showed a serious interest in killing me. Not to mention the fact that so far as I’ve been told, they’re part of the bioweapon assault in the US of A. So fuck the Geneva Convention-I want some answers.”

  “Number one would be how they found us,” Dyson observed sourly.

  “That would be a favorite of mine, too,” Marv agreed, examining a tattoo on the girl’s shoulder. “She’s Lebanese, I don’t recall the name of the group, but it’s a narco-terrorist bunch running opium out of Afghanistan. The guy who got Doc looked to be of the same ethnic mix.”

  “Did you get him?”

  “No, Captain Jack did, along with this girl. I think I got a third one.”

  “What are Middle East mobsters doing in Alabama?”

  “Guns for hire. They’re foot soldiers, movers and security for the big players. The guys I killed on I-75, a couple of them had cartel ink. I’m betting FASA is relying on narcos for foot soldiers. Hired guns working for the highest bidder.” He sorted through her gear. “Semi-only folding-stock AK, Smith & Wesson nine millimeter pistol, plenty of ammo, tactical radio, flex cuffs, gag…looks like they wanted at least one of us alive. Let’s see, sketch of the camp ground, X in slot nineteen, photocopy or drawn on a computer…some tac gear…first aid kit…night vision goggles…hello.”

  “What?” Dyson leaned forward.

  “It’s a token, a bar token, like you play in a jukebox or bar games. Can we get the Net?”

  “Yeah, Doc got it set up before he went to bed.”

  “Find out where Bub’s Busted Barrel is.”

  Addison sat in the booth, reloading his Mac-10’s magazines and monitoring the captured radio, which was completely silent. He had to admit, he was uncomfortable-his mother trying to kill him was nothing new, but this attack was on a completely different level of intensity from her previous efforts. The others might buy that FASA would apply resources at this critical juncture to see payback for a couple of their teams being shot up, but Addison knew better. These were ruthless people who would accept losses without it getting personal.

  It was his teeth, always his teeth. The woman was obsessed.

  “Guys, we have company,” Bear called back. “Vehicle up ahead.”

  “It’s the moving truck,” Dyson observed a moment later as the RV slowed. “The guys next to us. Looks like they broke down.”

  “They saved our bacon, punching a hole through that herd before they could close,” JD pointed out. “And we could use a couple extra bodies.”

  “If they were FASA we would be zombies or dead right now,” Bear agreed.

  “Do what you think is best,” Marv muttered, studying the screen of Doc’s modified tablet.

  “She’s dead,” Addison mumbled, straightening up from the girl. “Shock, I guess. I’m getting a Glock.”

  “Grab me a couple boxes of 5.56mm, please,” Marv tapped the screen. “I need to refill. If you’re going to stop for the guys, we might as well dump her body.”

  “I would call you a cold-hearted bastard if we hadn’t just left two of our own in the dirt,” JD sighed. “You know, after seeing all of this, I think I’m completely over my wife leaving me. Compared to what else I’ve been through lately, it’s hardly anything at all.”

  “That’s the spirit,” the Ranger nodded. “Remember, this girl would have been happy to leave you dead or infected.”

  “Yard Gnome Action Team, eh?” Chip eyed Moogie in the place of honor next to the fridge. “Well, we’re game until Texas.”

  “What now?” Brick rumbled. The powerfully-built Pole looked like he was on the verge of violence at any given moment, but JD got the impression it was just his squat, powerful appearance.

  “We find a place to hole up while I take a look at a bar,” Marv didn’t look up from the long thin strips he was cutting from a BDU top that was part of the unclaimed proceeds of the trio’s Jacksonville surplus raid. “The people who hit that camp site were there recently, and may still be. I want to know how they knew we were in that RV park.”

  Chip shook his head. “Brick, maybe we should have just stayed on foot.”

  “No. Those are bad people. Terrorists. We need to…,” the tough Pole scowled, thinking. “Aid, help…we need to do service. This is very bad. We need to make part.”

  “Take part,” Chip sighed. Despite looking like he was always on the verge of assaulting the next person who made eye contact, Brick was insistent that his English be corrected.

  “Take, take part,” Brick nodded thoughtfully. “We need to take part in defend America.”

  “I dunno, dude,” Chip mumbled. Brick was tough
-he had served in the Polish Army, and had earned money to get to America by doing security work in Afghanistan for a Coalition contractor. Chip, on the other hand, was definitely not tough. He was strong, you couldn’t move furniture without building up, but he wasn’t tough. Not the way these guys were tough. They all carried a lot of weapons, and just looked like bad-asses, even JD who was older and more sophisticated than the others.

  Chip didn’t care about terrorists and fighting, he just wanted to get back home to his jumbled little apartment, fire up his Xbox, and order in Chinese.

  He had a sick feeling that he wasn’t going to get his wish for a long time to come.

  Chapter Six

  It started to rain as Bear parked Gnomehome behind a long-dead gas station not far from an intersection with a state highway.

  Marv tied strips of BDU cloth to his legs, upper arms, and pinned them to his ACU top, the long ends hanging free. “Keep all lights out, and try to get some sleep,” He advised the others as he smeared black Kiwi shoe polish on his face and the white letters on his ball cap.

  “I still think you should let me go, too,” Dyson said.

  “You’re expert at the sneaking, but how are you at pulling the trigger on an uninfected Human, if it comes down to that? Besides, we’ve only got one night vision device.” Marv checked the batteries on the hand-held CB, then turned the unit off and clipped it to the back of his belt. “This is what I do. Four tours of this crap: sneaking around in the dark looking for trouble. You guys get some rest, leave two on watch until you hear from me. I’m not going to be back before daylight, so patience is key.”

  “We’ll be here,” Bear assured him. “But if we don’t hear anything by seven we’re loading up and heading there ourselves.”

  “You do that,” Marv grinned. “See you guys at dawn.”

  The rain was cool and brisk; the big Ranger paused outside the door to adjust his black ball cap, and then switched on the goggles. They were Yukon brand, Gen One stuff you could buy at Wal Mart, but still pretty solid for the tech level, and the girl had had six extra pairs of batteries in her gear. The head straps were brand-new and held the unit snugly in place once he had them adjusted.