by TW Gallier
Colonel Humphries and Lieutenant Miller were running towards us. Humphries was in his boxers and firing his pistol at us. I hit the gas. Charlie almost fell out when we surged forward. He cussed a blue streak.
"Hold on," I cried.
"Too late, ass," he replied.
The gate guards started shooting. Mike and Charlie laid down suppressive fire. Shots rang out from the Humvees behind us. I was pissed. A firefight was the last thing I wanted. And it was my fault for shooting that asshole in the armory.
The camp gate was just an unpainted 2X4 across the road that the guards could swivel inward or outward to let vehicles pass. I hit it about 30 MPH. Surprisingly, it didn't break, just swung around super fast to slam into the concertina wire. All four other vehicles made it out of the gate.
The Humvees behind us turned on their headlights. That was a no-no in the Army. But then, it was pretty dark. I kept mine off, but was able to see with their lights down that dirt road. When we hit the blacktop, I turned on my lights. I turned eastward, heading towards home. To my surprise, all four of the other Humvees followed me.
"What are they doing?" I asked. "We should all go in different directions."
"I saw this all of the time as a scout," Mike said. "In the Army, it's follow the leader. No one wants to think for themselves."
"Charlie, get on the radio and tell those guys to split up."
"The TOC will hear us," he said.
Every radio in our brigade was on the same frequency. The TOC would monitor multiple frequencies, all for different commands up and down the chain.
As if on cue, Colonel Humphries voice came over the radio, threatening us with high crimes and misdemeanors. If you believed him, we were all going to be hung, shot, and then court-martialed. I had Charlie turn off the radio.
"Why? We can monitor what they are doing."
"No. They'll change to another frequency before coming after us," I said. "We're the idiots, not them."
Mike had the map. He was looking for a dirt road that would take us off the highway and get us out of the mountains and onto the plains beyond. I got all tingly thinking about it. I was going home.
Jenny, I'm coming.
Chapter 9
"Zombies!" Charlie cried.
A little too late. We crested a hill, and then plowed into them on the other side. Bloody, broken bodies were thrown left and right. One of them came over the hood. Mike stood up and shot him in the head over the windshield.
"Stay on the road!" Charlie shouted.
The barely there dirt road went left, but I was so caught up in all of the zombies I didn't notice. Spinning the wheel, I tried to get back on the road. It probably didn't matter much since there wasn't much flat ground to either side of the road there.
Charlie opened up with the SAW. Zombies dropped in waves before us. Problem was most of them got back up.
"Head or heart! Don't waste ammo on anything else," I said. "We won't be resupplied with ammo when we run out."
Charlie continued with three to five round bursts. Mike fired them up with single shots. He was actually taking the time to aim. The four vehicles behind us were all in full automatic mode. I shook my head and accelerated into the remaining zombies.
"Holy fucking crap," Charlie cried once we were past them. "Did you get a good look at those bastards? They were all bloody and missing lips and ears and eyes."
"That your first encounter with zombies?" I asked.
"Yeah. I saw them on TV, but…"
They were disturbing to look at. No argument there. Worse was knowing that they were good people just like us before the bio-agent turned them into monsters.
We rounded a bend and spotted a dozen or more zombies to our right and on high ground above us. Mike started shooting at them.
"What are you doing?"
"Killing zombies."
"Stop it." I gave him an angry look. "Only shoot the ones that threaten us. Don't waste ammo. Ya'll have to understand we cannot waste ammo."
"Calm down. We're good," Charlie said.
"Dude, you're kind of bossy," Mike said, but with a grin.
I shrugged. "Staff Sergeant. That's part of the job description. Besides, you know I'm right about saving ammo."
All I saw was how much ammo we'd already expended, and we were barely into the trip. I'd checked the distance before the EMPs knocked everything out. It was about fourteen hundred miles, and that was a pretty straight shot. I doubted we'd be so lucky. We'd have to take a more roundabout route to avoid major cities and their zombie hordes. The Google map showed it was about a 20 hour drive, too. In my dreams.
I looked in my rearview mirror. Four Humvees still followed me.
"Do you think the others will follow us all the way to Georgia?" I asked.
Gunfire erupted again. We were being fired upon.
"What the fuck?" Mike screamed, ducking.
At first I thought it was one of the other Humvees shooting at us. It took a moment to realize the shots were coming from higher ground. It was still dark, so the attackers' tracers helped us locate them.
All five vehicles opened up on them. I clenched my jaw and accelerated, trying to get away as fast as possible. I didn't want to fight other soldiers. They weren't really bad guys. We were the deserters, and it didn't matter to anyone but us why we were deserting.
"Damn, I hate being a deserter," I growled, face super hot.
"You aren't," Mike said. He took a few more shots, then sat back down to change magazines. "None of us were sworn back into the Army. We're all still civilians in my book."
I hadn't thought of that. I liked it, but I didn't think the Army would agree.
Boom!
The Humvee behind use blew up.
"What the hell are they shooting up there?" Charlie asked.
Suddenly, more zombies were on the road. I ran over two, and another jumped on the hood. He grabbed the dead one from earlier, and ended up dragging the corpse off when I swerved around a corner.
"Shit!" Charlie screamed.
Rounds hit all around me. It took a second to realize it was Charlie trying to kill a zombie that jumped into the Humvee. He was using the SAW. Mike grabbed the zombie in a headlock, pulled his pistol, and blew its brains out.
The road took us to another rise. I hit the brakes so we could check out the situation behind us. Three Humvees were stuck behind the destroyed one. The guys in them were charging up the hill. The soldiers up there must've ran out of ammo, because their weapons went silent a moment before they bugged out.
"Let's get out of here," Mike said.
From our position, I could see for miles and miles. The eastern horizon was getting brighter. It was early morning twilight. In the distance I saw fires and columns of smoke. It looked like a war zone. Then I spotted three Apache helicopters firing on a convoy. It was impossible to miss in the dark.
The US Army was killing US citizens trying to escape the zombies.
Technically, that was also the 110th Infantry Brigade's mission. The military was ordered to keep everyone, survivors and zombies, out of the western states. The Rocky Mountains was a line of death. God help you if you were on the wrong side.
"Are they turning toward us?" Charlie asked.
My heart dropped into my stomach. There was no escaping helicopter gunships. They had passive night vision, infrared, 30mm chain guns, and air-to-ground missiles. Those bastards probably already had us in their sights.
"Get out!" I cried, pulling off the road.
We bailed. I didn't care if there were zombies in the area. I didn't even bother to turn off the engine or take it out of gear. We scrambled to higher ground, carrying our weapons and as much ammo as we could. I was pissed that none of us thought to bring a rucksack, even though it would've looked mighty suspicious to be walking around with a pack.
"Wahoo!" a man yelled.
The other three Humvees came barreling around the curve. They didn't even slow down to see why our vehicle was abandon
ed. I just stared at them a second, and then continued up until I was safe behind a large boulder. The three of us huddled there and watched our comrades race toward disaster.
"Don't they see the Apaches?" Charlie asked.
My heart raced. I didn't know any of those men, but we were connected by a shared history in the military. They were my comrades in arms. They were the men that helped us escaped forced service.
"They're probably all Marines," Mike said.
"I was thinking Navy, but yeah," I said.
I felt bad about making a joke, but we had to cope. We had to save our sanity from the insanity. All of my tours in Afghanistan returned. All of those times I felt helpless and frustrated.
"Hey, they figured it out," Charlie said.
The three Humvees stopped in a herringbone formation. The first and third vehicle turned off the road to the right, the middle vehicle to the left. Soldiers piled out, opening fire on the approaching helicopters with personal weapons and SAWs.
The Apaches opened fire with missiles, and then the 30mm guns. All three Humvees erupted in flames, blown to pieces. It looked like they were veering toward our abandoned truck when the survivors opened up on them again, but from relatively close range.
"Whoa!" I cried when one of the Apaches turned into a fireball, and then tumbled sideways and clipped the lead helicopter. That second one rolled over and plunged into the earth, erupting into another fireball. "Zombies!"
Zombies were coming back down the road. Were they following us? They ignored our empty vehicle. I counted twenty-seven of the little horrors. Thankfully, none of them looked up to see us. Some split off toward each of the two downed helicopters. The rest rushed towards the burning Humvees.
The survivors opened up on the zombies. At the same time, the last Apache swung around and attacked the survivors. We watched incredulously. The surviving gunship made pass after pass. I think he only stopped because his ammo ran out. I didn't see any more missiles.
"Let's go," I said, heading back down to the Humvee.
There were three zombies feasting on one of the crewmen of the first crashed helicopter. I braked, while Mike and Charlie picked them off with head shots. The second crash was completely engulfed in flames, so nothing to eat for the zombies. They'd moved on. We found the rest chomping down on the bodies of our comrades.
"Kill them!" Mike cried, standing up in his seat.
Charlie, Mike, and I got out and walked in line toward the burning Humvees. We took careful aim with every shot, and systematically slaughtered those cannibalistic zombies. When the last one fell dead, I bent over and emptied my guts. Mike and Charlie were looking more than a little sick, too.
"I've seen more death and horror than I ever want to admit, but seeing them eating…" I couldn't continue, and then puked again. "God I hate zombies!"
"See if we can put out these fires," Charlie said. "So we can get to the ammo."
We looked around, calling out for any survivors. No one answered. We weren't a hundred percent sure how many men were in those three Humvees. Some might have died in the previous fight. Of course, other survivors might not want to continue with us. When it was all said and done, we only found eleven bodies.
I was going to just leave, but getting remaining ammo wasn't a bad idea. The fires weren't too bad. It was mostly just diesel burning. So with fire extinguishers we got off the vehicles, and a lot of dirt, we put out the fires. We scavenged what supplies we could use, mostly NATO 5.56mm ammo for the M-4s, 40mm grenades, and some more 200 round belts of SAW ammo. We also grabbed shovels and axes.
"Axes are good, but to kill zombies you need a machete," Mike said. "I know. I watched all of the zombie movies and TV shows."
"The Army doesn't issue machetes," I said. "We train to kill the living, not the undead."
"Are these zombies really undead?" Mike asked. "All I've heard is they are infected with some bio-agent. They're all really just homicidal maniacs."
"Living or undead," Charlie said. "They don't feel pain or mercy. They're not human anymore in my books. They are zombies."
"Good enough for me," I said.
I climbed up onto the hood of our Humvee with some binoculars. Mike and Charlie arranged everything in back, tying down what they could. The road looked clear as far as I could see. Of course, off in the distance I saw zombies converging on the convoy the helicopters destroyed. So I got out the map and came up with a route to avoid them.
We were about to leave the road.
"How long do you think it'll take to get to Georgia?" Charlie asked when I continued down the road. That dirt road was getting sketchier and more washed out the further we went. We were reduced to a crawl and it was brutal. "At this rate we won't even get out of the foothills by dark."
"Google maps said it was about fourteen hundred miles, and should take about twenty hours," I said. I glanced at them with an amused expression. "Of course they were figuring on perfect conditions."
"I don't know, man. I got a Humvee up to 80 MPH one time," Mike said.
In our dreams. Maybe we could find a stretch of road to open her up. I couldn't imagine it would be very often, but we could always hope.
"Well, we're off to a sucky start," I said. "We started a few hours ago with five vehicles and around twenty men. Now we are just three men in a single Humvee."
"You, sir, are an optimist," Mike said.
Chapter 10
"We'll put a chain link fence across the road here," Sean said.
I looked up the side of the mountain. One corner of the model home's front deck could be seen. We already had a lookout posted there with a pair of binoculars and one of Sean's deer rifles. Amy was a hunter, so would do well with that scoped weapon. Her husband, Paul, was down on the road with us.
I was the armed guard while the men did the real work of fortifying our position.
Sean made a good choice for our first defensive line. The road hugged the side of the mountain at that location. It was almost sheer, rocky cliff above and below that stretch of road. He wanted to position the fence so that as much road in front of the barrier was exposed to our fire from above as possible. He wanted to kill them before they climbed over to the other side.
I tried not to think about it too much.
There was a home under construction. The general contractor had fenced off a section of land to store his equipment when not in use. Apparently, someone stole a forklift off the site one weekend. His paranoia was our boon. Sean had a team of men tearing the ten foot tall chain link fence down, with plans to use it as several layers of barriers along the access road.
"What if we have to get out?" Bill asked.
"We'll cut it down," Sean said.
"What'll keep the zombies from cutting…" Bill started, and then stopped. "Never mind. I'm still a little rattled by all this shit."
While the men discussed what tools they'd need and how best to tackle the project, I walked over to the edge of the road and looked downhill. It was a breathtaking view. I could see sections of the access road, and other roads through breaks in the trees.
And then I saw them. People coming up the road. They were too far away to tell if they were survivors or zombies.
I immediately chambered a round with the lever. That got everyone's attention.
"We have company coming," I said. As I turned back towards them, I spotted more down the road maybe a hundred feet away. "They're almost on top of us!"
Sean came up next to me with his AR15. Bill stood on the other side of him with a 12-gauge shotgun. Paul Sutton and Greg Hanes carried semi-automatic pistols. We stood in line and studied the approaching people. They didn't look like zombies to me.
When they were within shouting distance, Sean fired off a shot into the air.
"That's close enough!"
They stopped, looking uncertain and worried. My heart went out to them. I wanted to help, but there were so many. Just that first group must've had fifty or more men, women, and children. There
were some empty cabins they could stay in.
"What are we going to do?" Bill whispered. "I know we said we wouldn't take in any others, but look at them?"
"They are a mob. See the look in their eyes?" Paul said. "They are as much a threat to us as the zombies."
"More so," Sean said. "They can think and fight more effectively."
"You're not going to just chase them away, are you?" I asked. "They have children, for Christ's sake."
"Are you going to give them your food?" Sean asked. "Are you willing to take food out of your children's mouths to feed them?"
I didn't know what to say. My first responsibility was my children. Yet to just chase innocent men, women, and children away was too cruel to contemplate. I didn't care what the group decided. Faced with reality, I knew something had to be done for them.
"Please, we need help," a man called. "We're starving. We need food and shelter."
"We don't have any to spare," Sean called. "This is a dead end. You'll have to turn back."
My stomach churned. Too much. The world was losing its humanity. All any of us wanted to do was survive. I struggled to think of something, anything, we could do for them.
"You have to help us!" the man cried, starting to get angry. The crowd behind him agreed, looking more and more hostile. Pleading faces began to turn angry. "You have food. We need food!"
"We don't have enough," Sean said. "We don't even have enough to feed our own families."
Others back in the mob began shouting. All I could do was stare. They turned so fast. I had a feeling we weren't first to turn them away. Maybe we weren't the first they'd turned on and attacked.
"Give us half!"
They weren't asking. The mob was demanding. My eyes darted downhill. More were coming, and they'd want their half. And then the next mob would want their half.
Sean's weapon was pointing at the sky until that moment. He lowered it toward their spokesman. I noticed his finger tighten on the trigger.