Jake had Buffy take some practice shots at the blues on the ground. Bruce was tempted to do that also but he was supposed to be a bad ass and decided not to. Looking through the scope Bruce spotted movement to the right of the cage as the radio called out, “West side, contact to the north of your cage, in the tree line.”
Bruce smiled seeing five blues walk out, they all roared as Bruce squeezed the trigger dropping one. Moving his knees which moved the rifle over, Bruce put the crosshairs on another head and squeezed dropping another. Again moving his knees, Bruce shifted targets dropping another one. As the last two took off running Bruce lowered his knees moving the crosshairs down and squeezed again dropping another one. As he was moving to the last one Bruce saw something hit its chest making it stumble then the blues head exploded.
Buffy turned around smiling at him, “Good shooting Buffy,” Bruce told her as he looked back through the scope.
Bruce saw something coming through the woods and watched three blues come out. Bruce sighted on the first then moved to the second and third. Aiming at the first one again, Bruce squeezed the trigger then shifted and fired and shifted and fired, dropping all three.
“Let me see that damn thing!” Jake snapped.
Bruce handed Jake his new toy and Jake sighted in on a blue body shooting the wrist at four hundred yards. “Nice,” Jake said as a blue stepped out of the tree line. Jake squeezed the trigger twice in rapid succession hitting the blue twice in the head.
“Oh Matt this thing rocks, it has hardly any muzzle climb,” Jake said handing the rifle to Matt.
“Can I have my new toy back now?” Bruce asked.
“Let us play with it Dad,” Jake moaned.
Bruce just shook his head as Matt dropped two that came out of the tree line. “Oh I’m getting one,” Matt told Jake.
Buffy climbed out the top of the RG and walked over to Bruce, “You can play with mine Daddy,” Buffy told him holding out her rifle.
“That’s okay Buffy. Sit between my legs and let me show you how to shoot off your knees,” Bruce told her.
Buffy sat down and since the rifle was just a little big for her it took some work to get her comfortable. Buffy shot at three more blues hitting all of them but only killing one, Danny got the others. Ted wasn’t even trying at that range but several others were. By midnight they had over two hundred down and none made it within fifty yards.
Bruce started a rotating sleep shift and fell asleep with Buffy between his legs. The team let Bruce sleep never waking him for his watch. They all figured he had done enough to earn some sleep.
It was the dawn light that woke up Bruce the next morning. The first thing Bruce noticed was his butt hurt. Then his back filed a complaint followed by his legs. After that Bruce quit taking complaints from his body. Trying to move his right arm Bruce found he couldn’t. Blinking his eyes Bruce looked down on his right.
Danny was leaning on his shoulder snoring lightly. Bruce was going to rub her head but his left arm couldn’t move either. Looking on his left Bruce saw Mindy asleep on his left shoulder. Buffy was still in his lap but so was Mary. ‘I’m so getting another job,’ Bruce thought looking at the girls.
Turning his head, Bruce saw several members of the squads awake including Jake and Matt. Matt had Bruce’s rifle and was shooting a blue walker. ‘Well if we are shooting walkers, it’s time to move,’ Bruce thought.
“Jake,” Bruce whispered and Jake didn’t hear him. “Jake,” Bruce said a little louder and Jake turned around. “Help me,” Bruce told him. Jake tapped Matt and they came over helping Bruce up without waking the girls.
When Bruce stood up he almost fell off the RG when his right leg locked up which started in his right ass cheek. Feeling like someone literally beat his ass with a metal pipe, Bruce fought not to grimace. Working the kinks and knots out of his body, Matt and Jake returned to shooting blues.
“When did the walkers show up?” Bruce asked.
“About an hour ago, we haven’t seen a runner in three hours,” Ted told him as Matt shot a blue walker then handed the rifle to Matt.
Bruce looked down at the girls and smiled then noticed Jake’s AR-10 beside Buffy. “Jake, your rifle is up here,” Bruce told him.
“I’m going to let you use it, I want to use yours,” Jake said, not looking up shooting another walker.
“Wh-,” Bruce started to say and just left it alone. It wasn’t worth it. “Daddy never gets new toys,” Bruce whined like a bitch.
“What Dad?” Jake asked, handing the rifle over to Matt.
“Nothing, I hope you two slept at some point?” Bruce asked.
“Yeah we both grabbed several hours each,” Jake said as Matt shot a walker.
“We damn well had better won,” Bruce told them.
“Well if we didn’t it’s because more blues came out somewhere else,” Matt told Bruce handing the rifle back to Jake.
Slowly Bruce climbed down in the RG grabbing baby SCAR. Moving to the back, Bruce unlocked the door and climbed down. His body had already told him, it was in no mood for jumping yet and it wasn’t looking promising for jumping today. Locking the door back, Bruce headed to the RV for breakfast. Walking up Cook handed him a plate and a cup of coffee.
“Good morning, boss,” Willie said walking up.
Bruce growled, “What’s so good about it?”
“Aww, someone got up on the wrong side of the RG today,” Willie said grinning.
“Willie, you’re a smart ass and since my ass hurts so much now, I’m not in the mood,” Bruce told him.
Willie just laughed, “Well, I see you found out that your group won,” Willie said.
“No I didn’t, I just know if I don’t have some coffee, I’m fixing to hit someone,” Bruce told him.
Willie walked over to the RV and grabbed a cup of coffee and came back to Bruce holding it out. “Here is number two, please don’t hurt me,” Willie told him making Bruce smile.
“Who lost?” Bruce asked finishing his cup and grabbing the one Willie was holding out.
“Oh south team lost big time. They have way over a hundred in the fifty yard mark and their cage got knocked over,” Willie told Bruce.
“How many did they have?” Bruce asked.
Willie looked down at his note pad, “Seven hundred and nineteen,” Willie said.
“Damn and they lost?” Bruce asked.
“Yeah north had eight hundred fifty-two, but they have almost a hundred in the fifty yard mark. East had one thousand, one hundred and four with about two hundred in the fifty yard ring, they are number two. West had nine hundred and forty-two none in the fifty yard ring. That’s minus the hundred and forty-two they had already shot,” Willie told Bruce putting his note pad up.
“Cook, can I get four plates and four cups of coffee please,” Bruce asked then looked at Willie. “Help me carry the girls some food and grab a plate,” Bruce told him.
“What about the boys?” Willie asked.
“They took my gun so they can fend for themselves,” Bruce said in a cocky voice as Cook handed out the plates and coffee. “Cook, tell the radio operator to call Carl and tell him to get to my track,” Bruce said and Cook nodded.
Walking back Bruce saw the girls were awake. When Buffy saw Bruce, she jumped down the RG making Bruce’s joints yell out in referred pain. The older girls were moving slow but like Buffy, they all jumped down. ‘Getting old sucks,’ Bruce thought. They ran over to him grabbing plates and coffee. Buffy ran to the back of the RG grabbing the bottles of sweetener and creamer.
Bruce was telling his team they won and they needed to eat so the rest of the group could eat. When Carl walked up, Bruce told two from second squad to bring a plate and coffee for Carl and Ted.
“Willie, what’s in the area?” Bruce asked.
“A shit load of deer,” Willie told him.
“What I figured, when we see walkers showing up we’ve taken out the runners,” Bruce said.
“Well what’s the plan
today boss?” Willie asked.
“We don’t have any cities with populations over twenty thousand. Let’s set up outside of Natchez and wipe out the population, then hit the gang when we start getting walkers,” Bruce offered.
“Fine with me, I couldn’t find anything on TV,” Ted told them.
They all laughed as Bruce said, “Let’s mount up and move out in an hour.” They all nodded moving back to their vehicles. Ted and Carl called over the squad leaders letting them know the plan for another day of war.
Chapter 19
The Colonel and General were sitting in the operations room a thousand miles away watching the monitors. Fuel was going to be short in a few months and the president ordered that the military operations center would shut down every night from midnight to 0600 to save fuel. The Colonel just about went and shot the president for that, even though the Colonel knew he couldn’t. No one but the Secret Service was allowed weapons around the president. Power was not to be cut to the presidential area.
As they had for the last two months, the General and Colonel met in operations, watching the group in northwest Louisiana. They had followed the attack to the south watching the small band wipe out one horde, then go and find another one. Even the President came over for that, even letting the operations run past the midnight shut down.
The General looked at the Colonel and asked, “Well, when do you think we should move against them?”
The Colonel watched the monitor as a line of trucks left New Orleans, thinking about his answer. “Sir, we have four roaming hordes between us and them. We don’t even have the ammo to take out one. The horde above Dallas is estimated at sixteen million, the largest we’ve ever seen in the central states. If we roll now, we lose our force, plain and simple,” the Colonel told him.
“That is not what I asked,” the General told him.
“Sir, I would wait until winter. When the blues hibernate, we can move down only having to worry about one enemy. Then we can send a small detachment to see if they will fall in with us. If they don’t, we hit them in a two prong attack with air and ground forces. The air fields have to be taken out first, then the mortars. We’ll have to move fast,” the Colonel told him.
“We’ve seen how they take on hordes, why don’t we try that?” the General asked.
“Sir our troops can’t even begin to get kill ratios like that. On replay they were averaging one point two shots per kill. Our best we’ve ever had here is sixteen for a kill,” the Colonel told him.
“That’s shit, our towers kill infected with one shot all the time,” the General said.
“Sir, that’s small groups and our shooters are stationary,” the Colonel replied.
The General looked back at the monitor. He wanted out of this valley. Like the President, he wanted that compound in Louisiana. They had power, fuel and fresh food. A few weeks ago they had watched them swimming in a pool. In this land of hell, they had a paradise.
“Why are you so adamant about talking to them first?” the General asked, not looking away from the monitor.
‘So they have some warning before we destroy the last safe place,’ the Colonel wanted to shout. “Sir, we know some of them are military. If we don’t have to fight them, let’s not, we can use them to wipe out hordes even training our men how they do it,” the Colonel answered.
“We know there were several rouge military units out there during the fall,” the General said.
“Sir that was small groups the largest was a company in Ohio,” the Colonel replied.
“What are the odds they’ll let us take over?” the General asked.
‘Next to nothing,’ the Colonel almost told him. “I believe it’s about seventy percent because they have military and they won’t like the idea of shooting at other members of their force,” the Colonel answered.
“Good point,” the General noted.
“Sir, I don’t need to remind you we lost contact with Groom Lake last week. That was the last operational base in the continental U.S. We still have contact with Alaska but the air wing is at twenty percent, not that it does us any good since we don’t have an air field here unless you count the county road we use to launch our UAVs. Louisiana is our only option,” the Colonel told him. The Colonel was sure they would all die before they got anywhere near Louisiana, which suited him just fine.
“Nonsense, we have the groups in Michigan, Iowa and West Virginia,” the General replied.
“Sir they’re all gangs, we’ll have to fight them to take them over. Louisiana is the only group we have found of any size that is living normal lives. People work, eat, don’t have to worry about getting raped and they seem happy. Jesus, we’ve seen kids running and playing,” the Colonel told him. “Plus sir, if we go towards the other groups, the hordes in the northeast are massive. We don’t have the ammo or man power,” the Colonel added.
“Yes they are massive Colonel. Yeah, I heard the report of the mega horde moving down the eastern seaboard,” the General replied.
“At thirty million strong,” the Colonel added.
“Winter is a long ways off,” the General said.
“Yes sir, but if our troops get wiped out before getting there, it’s a moot point,” the Colonel reminded him.
“Colonel if we have to attack, what would you put our losses at?” the General asked.
“First with ten thousand troops we can swarm them probably fifteen hundred maybe as high as two thousand,” the Colonel said with certainty that he was wrong.
“We only get five thousand for the attack,” the General told him.
“Sir, then we will lose ninety percent and I can’t guarantee that we can take them,” the Colonel told the General, smiling on the inside.
“Then we should just attack them,” the General said.
“Please sir, we won’t have the element of surprise. They have UAVs two hundred miles out in every direction. Out of the three hundred helicopters here, only one hundred and eleven are now operational. Like I have said, unless we send twenty or thirty we have to haul them on trucks. They have A-10s now and could decimate us long before we could get in range of their base. That’s just if they don’t bust out a nuke,” the Colonel told him.
The General wanted to scream, those shit kickers had more shit than he did. “I’ll talk with the President, when would you launch an attack?” the General asked.
“No earlier than December, but January would be better. We’re going to the south and winter can be mild. Since we lost contact with the weather satellites we’ll have to shoot in the dark. I’ve been in Louisiana in December and wore shorts. It would really suck to have snow here in December load up, to have sixteen million blues waiting on us in Texas,” the Colonel told the General.
“Yes that would suck but January is a real long ways off,” the General said.
“Well sir if we’re lucky that group will head to Texas and wipe them out for us,” the Colonel said, trying to give the General false hope.
“What about the reports on the short wave of the ‘Omega’ group,” the General asked.
“It’s Omega Team sir, and they’re using shock tactics to install fear in their enemies. Watching them attack that group in northeast Louisiana was eye opening. It just lets us know they have military officers that are leading them. Only someone in the upper officer ranks could’ve pulled that off without a loss. Then torturing the surviving gang members and setting some free to spread fear. That tells us that they have special operation troops,” the Colonel said, laying out each point. The Colonel didn’t believe that there were ranking officers with them, but anything to make the General happy.
“Valid points Colonel, get me if anything changes,” the General told the Colonel as he left.
‘Yeah like I want to be around you anymore than I have to,’ the Colonel thought, watching the General leave. The Colonel had talked with other officers that he could trust and found them on his line of thought. The entire base knew about the group in Louisi
ana and they wanted to go there. Over a dozen people had been shot trying to escape to get there. The Colonel had a private hope someone would make it and warn the group.
Most of the troops were tired of the President after losing a third of their numbers. When word leaked out that the group had fought a determined enemy wiping them out. Then within thirty-six hours get hit by a horde of over a million and wiped out the horde. When you only had two thousand people to fight those kinds of number it filled the people with hope.
When the Colonel heard the first report of this ‘Omega’ he blew it off as another gang until they spotted a flag with an omega symbol flying on the trucks that left the farm. Then they watched a small group of less than a hundred run and start fights with hordes or gangs, grinding them down until nothing remained. Watching the larger force roll into Ruston and Monroe wiping out tens of thousands in less than an hour let the Colonel know this group could fight and liked doing it. The analyst told them in Monroe that the group was averaging sixty kills a minute per person still with the unbelievable hit ratio of one point two rounds per kill. That team was killing thousands a minute.
The soldiers and civilians loved the group but the President hated them as did the General. It was already rumored that Home Land was going to kill the leaders if they surrendered. They were competition with the rulers here. Running scenarios through his mind, the Colonel tried to think of a way to join up with the group with at least a thousand troops. With that he could come here and bring the troops and civilians to the group. Home Land had over two thousand personal here which were little more than executioners.
Little did the Colonel know he’d get his wish. The group would know they had been found and they were on the hit list.
Chapter 20
It took three days to clear out Natchez and the surrounding area, then Omega pulled down to the gang’s camp. It was 0900 when Bruce stopped the team five miles from the camp. Bruce called the command group over as he drew on a grease board inside the RV.
“Listen up, they’re in a truck storage area like that group near Baton Rouge. Four guard towers and roving patrol. First platoon will hit from the north and second from the west. Kick off time is 1100,” Bruce told them.
Blue Plague: Rage Page 23