“Many crimes have been committed out of passion. I did see that you did not kill children, though others did. That’s why I shot your leg. We have a bigger enemy now, though. I heard what you said to the Sergeant Major here, and I don’t know who this Brit woman is, but there’ll be time for that shit later.”
Ziv said nothing, just picked up his shovel and continued digging, as if the whole episode had never happened, despite the blood dripping from a cut over his brow. Boz winked at me, and grabbed another e-tool and started digging alongside him.
I could almost hear Brit’s mocking voice in my ear. “Men and their stupid alpha dog games. I don’t know why he didn’t just piss on him.” I laughed to myself.
Chapter 267
One of my concerns for our weapons was that we had a shitload of .22 magnum rounds for our converted M-4s, and a half dozen of those rifles. That was great for fighting undead; more rounds to carry meant you didn’t run out when fighting a horde.
What we didn’t have, and what I was worried about, was heavier stuff to for going toe to toe with a group of humans, like this “Bad Company” Boz had told me about. A Kevlar vest will stop our .22 rounds, and they weren’t very accurate past a hundred meters. Just not enough feet per second. Great for punching a hole in undead, sucky for body armor. Still, we had to go with what we had. I took an M-4 and loaded up on ammo. Ziv took his usual AK-47; I had been trying to get him to convert over for years, but he never would. “Plastic piece of shit!” was his usual comment about the M-4.
Elam had been using an M-14, but his other rifle of choice lay compartmented in a dry storage box. A VSK-94, the Soviet era 9-mm silenced semi-auto sniper rifle was broken down into its component parts, which he quickly assembled. I also made him take one of the M-4s, and more ammo.
Boz nodded appreciatively at the rare sniper rifle, then he reached into the crate and pulled out a Benelli M4 Super 90. “Sweet!!!!” he said, feeding 12 gauge shotgun shells into it. Everyone else froze and looked at me. Boz picked up on the silence and turned, a question on his face.
“What?” he asked me, and I struggled to keep my face neutral. It was hard seeing Brit’s favorite model gun in someone else’s hands, but life in this new world was what it was.
“Nothing. That ... was a teammate’s gun. She’s missing.”
“Well, if we find her, I’ll give it back. Fair enough?” Without waiting for my answer, he started stuffing the pockets of his baggy cargo shorts with shells. He also slung an M-4 across his back, and took another 300 rounds of .22 in a magazine carrier. It was obvious that he knew what he was doing; his hands moved in that muscle memory we all get from handling firearms constantly.
“You didn’t by any chance pack an extra satellite radio in here, did you?” asked Boz. “Anything bigger than these squad radios?”
We, well, Shona, Ziv and I, kinda looked at each other, then Shona said “Well, we tried to get one, but there was this dickhead supply sergeant, and apparently he didn’t like officers, so no, I didn’t get one.” Brit and she had argued about that, but there wasn’t time to go back down to Albany and get one, if we could even find one. Things were in short supply all over.
Boz chuckled and said, “I guess things never change.”
Taking turns at guard, we all changed out of our U.S. Army issue multicam into our Walmart cammies and hunting gear. Even King got a black and grey patterned shirt. It was Brit’s, and a little big on her, but with a pair of camo pants rolled up, it would do until we found something else. I had Shona take a few minutes to get her all strack with the snaps and pulls on her ammo carrier, and then handed her another shotgun. It was a smaller, .410 model that I had packed for shooting birds, but we had plenty of ammo for it.
“Can you shoot this?” I asked her, and she gave me a scared but determined look.
“I can if I have to. I shot a shotgun in boot camp, and a rifle too. Never know when a Navy ship is gonna get boarded nowadays.”
“Well, good, but it ain’t like when you were back in the hood. Aim before you shoot; a shotgun isn’t a magic death ray.”
“The hood! Mister Army guy, I was raised in Seattle. My daddy was an executive at Microsoft. I got drafted and wound up in the Navy when I turned seventeen.”
“Well, no shit,” I said.
“I’ve never even SEEN a zombie. When the second plague came, I was fifteen, and we took a jet right to the safe zone in Syracuse. If my daddy could only see me now!” She smiled and it was infectious. I liked her spirit.
“Well, just be careful with that thing. Keep your booger picker off the bang switch trigger . One more thing. You’re black.”
She rolled her eyes and said, “No shit. The Nazi over there already pointed that out,” she said, gesturing to Ziv.
“I’d be careful using that word. The Serbs fought the Nazis in World War Two.”
“Yeah, well, he wanted to shoot me, so he isn’t my favorite person right now.”
I shrugged. “Ziv is …practical. But what I’m getting at is that, from what Boz told us, there might be some places where I may ask you to hang back before we go into a town or something.” When she started to object, I said “Shona will be with you. Being a woman who looks like her can be just as much a liability as being black in this fucked up world.”
I caught myself looking at Shona, and she smiled as she caught my eye. I looked away, feeling guilty. She was a good looking woman, and in her T-shirt, cleaning weapons, she looked, well, stacked. Ziv was also staring at her while he smoked another cigarette.
“I get it, Colonel. I may be young, but I AM a woman too. Just don’t leave us anywhere.”
“We won’t, trust me.”
Walking over to Boz, I pondered our next move. North, of course. I wanted to comb the beach for signs of Brit or any other survivors of the missile attack on the sub. But after that? I was out of my element down here.
“Master Sergeant Bozelli, I need some advice. What, exactly, is north of where the carrier is grounded? Any idea?”
He paused from field stripping an MRE, and thought for a minute. “Got a map?” I produced one and he started pointing out things.
“North of here is Jacksonville, and that’s a mess. You might want to cut over to the west coast, see if you can steal a boat and make it down to the Navy Base at Key West.”
I started at that one. “The base is still running? How do you even know that?”
He winked at me and said, “Like the song says, I get around. Yeah, the base is still there, but the runway is shot. There’s the wreckage of two C-17s tangled together. Just a bunch of Navy guys. I talked to them five, no six months ago. They have a radio, but no one had the time to go get them, and the big boats can’t get in there. Just caretakers, supposed to start things up again, but the second plague hit.”
“That’s almost four hundred miles in a straight line. Lot longer to walk.”
“Well,” he answered, twisting at his beard, “if you go north, you got the race war going on, and the whole coast is full of zombies.”
“I guess south it is, then.”
“West, you mean, hundred miles through Florida, without a lot of fresh water between here and there.”
I nodded. It would be tough. “Well, one way or another, I’m going home. Are you coming with us? Want to collect that pension?”
“I’ll go as far as Key West with you.” He held out his hand, and I shook it.
“One more thing,” he said. “Your killer, Major Zivcovic? He ain’t done by a long shot. He almost had me today, and he’s pretty pissed at you, if I know anything.”
“He thinks I killed my wife, and he may be right.”
Chapter 268
Even though I was anxious to hit the beach and start looking for Brit, I gave everyone until noon to get their shit together. This included test firing the weapons, even the shotguns. Ziv agreed with me there probably wouldn’t be any people around, and if there were Zs, well, let them come.
As we shoul
dered our rucks, sweating in the summer heat, I groaned. You never, ever get used to it, and these packs were heavy as shit, stuffed full of extra ammo, spare parts for the guns, batteries for the team radios, water, food, extra clothes, medical kits, and Night Vision, I was pushing eighty pounds, and I felt all of it on the stump of my leg. This walking in the sand was going to kick my ass.
“NEWS TEAM, ASSEMBLE!” I called, and when everyone had gathered around me, I gave a pretty good pre-mission brief. By now, Ziv, Elam, and Shona worked well as a team, but we were really going to be in the shit, and I essentially knew nothing about Boz or King.
“OK, listen up. We’re going to head north, at least to the town where the carrier is. If Brit didn’t make it here, she would have gone there. Last time it took us two days of cautious patrolling to get there, so this time I expect it will take four. It’s going to be tough to walk in this heat and sand. If we weren’t looking for sign, I’d say move at night, but we can’t. So we take it slow.”
I paused for a second, making sure they understood, then continued, “Most of you already know how we roll, but I’m going to go over it again.”
Holding up my fingers, I counted off.
“One, if we get hit by undead, you assault through. Watch your fire, those of you who are new to this. King, you’re going to be in the middle. You only shoot forward and ONLY to defend yourself. Let the professionals take care of the threat.”
I saw her swallow, but she gripped the shotgun a bit tighter.
“Two, if we run into other survivors, no one fires until myself or Ziv fires.” We may not have been seeing eye to eye, but in a fight, well, I trusted Ziv’s instincts more than mine. “There is a strong chance we can talk our way past, even do some useful information trading. Nobody WANTS to get killed.” I would remember that later, much to my regret. There were some people who did want to die, and they were often the most dangerous.
“Three, if we come to an inhabited area, you two,” and I pointed to Captain Lowenstein and King Monahan , “stay back and out of sight with Elam. Shona, you’re in command.”
She started to protest, but I cut her off short. “Listen, this isn’t combat like you’re used to, in Brads and surrounded by your guys. Bad guys will avoid a trio of hard looking motherfuckers, but throw in a couple of good looking, healthy women, and they’ll go for it. They’ll risk their lives to get a fresh woman, and no offense, Elam, your people have never been too popular in the Deep South.”
“None taken. I’m not stupid.”
“Fourth, as we march, the rally point if we get separated will either be at the house closest to the grounded carrier, or at the cache we just left. If no one shows up in a week, you’re on your own.” The veteran Zombie Killers gazed at me stonily, with no shit looks on their faces. Screw them; I wasn’t going to have anyone get lost because of complacency.
“Fifth, I don’t give a shit HOW hot it gets, you will stay in uniform, and keep your hands gloved. You all know how much broken glass there is out there,” literally millions of tons of it, coating almost every major street in America, “and a cut in this tropical environment will get infected in nothing flat, and you will die from a scratch. If you get a cut, or a blister, go see Boz. He is cross trained as a medic.”
“Last, my main hope is that we’ll find Brit alive on the beach somewhere, turning all her freckles into one big tan. If we don’t find her, or sign of her, by the time we get to the carrier, I’ll turn command over to Captain Lowenstein and you can all try to get home. I’ll stay and keep looking. Ziv, if it comes to that, tell Red to raise my kids up right. I expect you to teach them how to shoot; he never could worth a damn.”
I turned away before they could see how much it hurt me to say that. It was if I’d just had the sudden realization that maybe, just maybe, my wife and my best friend actually WAS dead.
The team filed past me as I looked out to sea. I was startled out of my thoughts by a rough hand on my shoulder. I turned, expecting to see Boz or Elam, but it was Ziv standing there.
“Nick … I …” His face, usually so emotionless, actually crinkled around the eyes, making him look even harder. Still it was emotion, something I had NEVER seen on him before.
“I am sorry. I was, how do you say, out of line. Your wife, she has been more friend to me than any other. When I lost Danielle and the baby last year, I was mad man. I killed, so many, many and then I almost killed myself. That was the third time I have lost family, wife and child. Three wives, two daughters and a son.” He drew in a deep breath, and continued after I said nothing.
“She came to me, flew to Kansas when you were away up north. She talked to me, and then hit me in head with shotgun when I turned my back on her. She is, she is only person who love me despite who I am.”
At that, he drew back, and resumed his expressionless mask, stood ramrod straight. “I will stay and help you find her, and give my life doing it. I know that, even though you are big pussy, you would do same for me.”
And what did I say back to him, in typical guy fashion, after he opened up his heart to me? “Who is the pussy? You got your ass kicked by an old man!”
He grinned, only the second time I had seen him smile, gold teeth shining, and said, “I am trying to look, how you say? Vulnerable, so sexy bitchy Jew captain is attracted to me, like she is to pussy you.”
“Shona is not …” I started to say, but he just turned and walked away up the beach.
I caught up with them within a couple of hundred meters; everyone was moving slow over the packed sand. As we walked, I listened to Ziv try to chat up Shona.
“Why are you called ‘Mary Sue’? Is that your real name? I thought you were a Jew, but Americans are strange,” he asked, trying to speak with a soft voice. It was ludicrous.
She sighed, not looking at him, scanning the trees. “My name ISN’T Mary Sue, and stop with the Jew shit, you racist prick.”
He looked back at me and grinned, enjoying himself. I wasn’t sure I could get used to this new Ziv. “OK, no more Jew stuff. I will call you Mary Sue, not a Jew.”
“Ugh! A Mary Sue is a girl that can kick everyone’s ass, that does things only much more heavily muscled men should be able to do. It’s from comic books and stories. Don’t even bother, I know you can’t read.”
“But you CAN kick some men’s asses. I have seen you. I even let you throw me, though I was pretending. I wanted to feel your hard muscles under my hands.”
She turned and, surprisingly for a Black Belt, slapped him full across the face. Then she jogged forward to where Elam was on point. Ziv walked backwards and gave me a thumbs up, smiling. “I am doing you a favor, saving you from certain death from the red-headed demon woman when you cheat on her with Mary Sue.”
Beside me, Boz laughed uproariously. “I have no idea what the fuck is going on, but this is going to be a very interesting trip!”
Chapter 269
Ahead lay the beach, stretching out endlessly into the distance. The hulking bulk of the shipwrecked carrier loomed over the treeline, miles away. In front of me were scattered debris, tree trunks, and wrecked boats. The ruins of civilization.
I was on point, watching for movement that would betray an enemy, so I didn’t see her at first. It took me a second to recognize her body for what it was, partially hidden behind the back end of a plastic barrel. She was partially buried in the sand, lying face down. The first thing I saw was the uniform, clad in multicam, one boot missing, and a pale foot. As I got closer, I saw Then I saw, as I got closer, dark red hair, still sodden from the earlier rain.
Stopping dead in my tracks, my world came crashing down. I started to run, but tripped in the sand, my artificial leg hobbling me, and Ziv passed me like a bat out of hell. He reached the body and turned her over just as I caught up.
Her good eye stared up at me, so bright and blue, and accusing. Her right eye, blinded years ago, had been eaten away by something while she was in the water. I sank down on my knees and reached out to
touch her cold skin. The rest of the team caught up with me just as I moved a strand of hair away from her pale, pale face. She looked so young, like the college girl I had met almost a decade ago.
“Nick, you bastard,” hissed Ziv, and I looked up, just in time to see his arm lunge forward, punching his fighting knife through my body armor, just above the ceramic plate. He pulled it out and punched it again, the tip hammering into me.
“Nick, you bastard! Get up!” Ziv kicked me again in the chest. Not gently, either. “Get up, they are coming!” In the moonlight, I could see him checking that all his magazines were in place, then he lowering his NVGs Night Vision to cover his face. Around me I could hear the sounds of the others scrambling out of their sleeping bags or blankets. Weapons were being checked, rounds chambered. Feeling really disoriented, I quickly went from one nightmare to another. This one, though, I could deal with.
Before the sun went down, we had spent an hour digging in, just like the Roman legionnaires did each night. A circular wall of sand was thrown up, with a pit around. It was no more than a few feet high, but we could shoot over it, and it might slow an attacker. Plus a few feet of sand will stop even a high powered bullet.
What was coming at us was no bullet, though. I put my own NVGs on, and my left eye showed everything as clear as day. The undeads’ glowing eyes turned into pairs of bright points, rapidly getting bigger. There were dozens of them, a horde that stretched back into the trees. The first ones were already almost in range, and I opened fire, my PAC-4 ripping a targeting beam out at head-height, measured shots, putting my mark right between the glowing lights. Aim. Fire. Aim. Fire. The old nightmare was quickly forgotten in the reality of the new nightmare.
“WATCH YOUR AMMO! KING, WATCH THE REAR, ZIV RIGHT, SHONA LEFT! ELAM, BOZ WITH ME!” I yelled in between shots, my ears already ringing from Ziv’s AK. I changed my magazine as my bolt locked back, hit the release. Aim, Fire. Aim, Fire. I was tunneling, my vision fixed on the end of my rifle and the sparkling laser designator. Beside me, Boz went full cyclic on the SAW, holding it up to his shoulder, approximate Z head height, and swept the automatic weapon back and forth, the barrel starting to glow. Even as I fired and changed out to another magazine, he dropped it in the sand and swept up the shotgun. The booming sounds echoed along the beach. Not that I heard any of it, my ears were ringing already. I felt it more than anything; if they were in shotgun range, it was going to be close.
Zombie Killers (Book 8): Bad Company Page 3