by John Ringo
The other man squinted at him for a moment.
“Whatever,” he said as he changed out the jag for a bore brush. “Nah. What Mr. Green did was different. He went looking for bad motherfuckers. Like, everyone was handpicked because we’re special. Me? I was actually sort of a cop, like Loki.”
“Yeah?” Jason said, fighting to keep his face straight. “What branch?”
“DHS, man! Homeland Fucking Security!” Short Round said, tapping his chest. “I was a TSA officer. You know, airports, trains, that sort of thing. I had a sweet gig in Atlanta, running a crew at Hatfield. We made decent money on the side, but the great thing was picking out some fine thing coming through security. Make like she set off the explosives residue detector—scare them good. The younger, the better, you know? The teenage ones without parents were the best. Flash the blue gloves at them, take them in the exam room and hooo-eeee!”
He made a suggestive motion with his fist.
“Uh-huh,” Jason said as he decided that skepticism was the safest response. After all, a quick headshot would prompt questions from the rest of this crew. “And that qualified you for Green?”
“Nah,” the former TSA agent replied with a shrug. “Guy on my crew got careless. Got caught stealing penny ante shit by the straights, then flipped and gave state’s evidence. Couldn’t have that. Once I posted bail, me and the crew paid him and his old lady a visit. Made a point of explaining why we wuz angry. Skinned that bitch and made him watch. Blue gloves handy for that too.”
“So then you got caught?”
“No man, ain’t you listening?” Short Round said as he began assembling his weapon. “After, we decided to lean on the TSA supervisor who objected to our little ways. Turned out he was some kind of gun nut. Shot back, the fucker! Then the cops came, and it was all done. Damn shame. It was a good gig. Anyhow, I plead out for murder two, figured parole in maybe fifteen years and bam! Zombie apocalypse. Next thing, I’m on a bus somewhere in this shit state and it wrecks. There’s Mr. Green and his fucking scary dog Loki and they’re offering me a job. Like I don’t know what would happen if I said no.”
“So the tattoo?” prompted the ex-cop.
“Man, I was in prison,” Short Round said with a grunt. “You never been inside? You gotta pick a side. You gotta run with your pack. The White Resistance wasn’t gonna take me, and them MS13 fuckers were straight up crazy in groups. You know I ain’t black, so what does that leave?”
“Cool story, bro,” Jason said. He didn’t think that the Gleaner would catch the lack of sincerity. “If I see any blue gloves I’ll grab them for you.”
“Yeah?” Short Round squinted again, checking to see if the new guy was being sarcastic. Then he smiled briefly. “Thanks, man!”
* * *
Paul Rune’s early, personal efforts at using polearms had been surprisingly successful.
Despite the store of ammunition that Smith had transported to Site Blue prior to the Fall, Paul knew that it couldn’t last forever. As a result, he had proposed creating more hand weapons to eliminate infected. Somewhat to his surprise, Kohn had enthusiastically backed the project.
To start he had made a demi-pike, nearly an assegai. Working with a local refugee and the tools recovered from a smithy, and after much trial and error over the previous month, they had forged a scavenged shovel blade into a long, leaf-bladed lance head. Fitted onto a shortened but reinforced shovel handle, it was light enough to be wielded one handed and remained handy in the tighter confines of a building. Their recce to the high school had proven that.
In order to ward off the infected while he was making with the stabby-stabby, Paul also built a plywood shield. It didn’t have to resist other weapons but merely keep the teeth and lethally dirty fingernails of the infected away long enough for the deep, broad wounds he planned to inflict to bleed out his targets. A jury-rigged steam box helped him shape quarter-inch plywood into a form akin to a Roman kite shield. More scavenged material, this time the thin metal thresholds from the doors of destroyed homes, served to protect the edges of the shields and improve their stiffness.
Covered from throat to shin, a line of shield-bearing men could hold off infected across a narrow front, while using overhand stabs of their assegais to mortally injure or outright kill infected.
Paul had trained the few remaining BotA security staff into the nucleus of his recovery team. A few dry runs had been followed by testing the concept in very low concentrations of infected. With sufficiently heavy clothing, gloves and face protection, even a large number of infected really struggled to kill or seriously injure the fighters, so long as they kept their heads. Of course, if the fight went for a ball of chalk—as his old boss used to say—then they could fall back on firearms and shoot their way clear.
Paul felt that close-quarter shooting was best left to the professionals, and didn’t want to use that as a fallback unless in dire straits. What he needed now was to expand the group, broaden his shield wall and build something to protect his flanks.
It was time to go back to Acting Administrator Kohn for another favor.
* * *
Kendra looked up when she heard his voice. It was Paul’s turn to deliver the Security Committee’s report. She’d stopped seeing him after he criticized her support of Kohn. She hadn’t been certain if their connection was purely situational, a by-product of stress and fear. It might have been more than that, but Kendra was scared of being vulnerable, of relying on any part of the plan that had so clearly come apart. She folded her arms across her chest and shoved the memory of his arms around her away until the ache of missing him faded.
She watched Paul stand and update the usual figures for a few minutes.
“Our supplies of ammunition and spare parts are not unlimited,” Paul said, completing his otherwise routine presentation. “But the infected represent a limited risk as long as we can select the ground and avoid getting buried in a large mob. Edged weapons and shields are much more cost effective and using them in other than emergencies will prolong the supply critical items, especially ammunition and weapons parts.”
“Is the risk to your team quite high if you only use swords and shields, Paul?” asked Kohn. “Although the camp population is healthy, there are only so many people which are emotionally and physically qualified for such a role.”
“Well, pikes and shields actually,” Paul said, ever the pedant. “And no, it isn’t without risk, Ms. Kohn. Nothing we do, including just sitting on our hands, is risk free. We’ve already lost a few people using existing methods. However, whatever number we dedicate, the training will have to be physically rigorous. Additional food will be needed for the participants—at least those that stay with it.”
“We are all subject to rationing, Paul,” Kohn said reasonably. “Forming an elite cadre and rewarding them with more rations seems counter to our message that all should contribute equally. That all benefit equally.”
“Well…” The former intel officer drew out the first syllable, something that Kendra knew was a precursor to his infuriating habit of lecturing. She knew that Paul was about to step into a philosophical minefield which could only derail his real purpose at the meeting. She mentally grimaced as Paul continued.
“It isn’t about rewarding the deserving, Administrator Kohn. Using a shield and a spear will require very heavy conditioning. For example, we’ll improve leg strength and overall cardio by requiring trainees to advance in a line with their shields interlocked as they shove heavy boxes full of rocks along a dirt track. We’ll have them thrust weighted spears into hay bales for hundreds, perhaps thousands of repetitions every day.”
“And how long do you propose to train?” followed up a skeptical Christine. The former refugee had become an integral part of Kohn’s growing team.
“Several hours a day,” replied Paul. “I’ll be happy enough if we retain half of our initial volunteers. Despite the difficulty, we’ll realize several advantages in the long run, not the least of which
will be a big reduction in friendly fire incidents.”
Several refugees had been either rescued with existing gunshot wounds or had suffered gunshots during clearance and salvage operations. Paul had told Kendra that, the state of training being what it was, the danger from friendly yet panicked fire was at least as great as the actual risk from infected. He routinely forbade his teams to patrol with a round up the spout. Sometimes they even listened.
“How will you ensure that we have diverse representation on these teams who you propose to award greater rations?” Christine queried puckishly. “It sounds like your physical requirements are designed to favor men.”
“Attacking zombies only come in one flavor,” Paul said. “The hungry-all-the-time, largely oblivious to normal levels of pain and hysterically strong variety. They aren’t sorted into ‘great big zombies’ for big men to fight, ‘medium sized zombies’ that anyone can fight and ‘teeny tiny baby zombies’ that even a bureaucrat ca—”
“That is not helpful, Paul!” Kohn said, sharply cutting across his reply. She paused and composed her voice. “What if we lose the only formally trained security staff that we have? Where do we replace them?”
“We have lots of wa—sorry, townies added to our team,” Paul said. Kendra immediately noted a few audible inhalations and several angry looks. “What? What did I say?”
“The respectful term for recently arrived refugees who are sheltering in the camp is displaced persons,” Christine replied acidly. “To use that other label is to deny them their humanity and unperson them. Disgraceful!”
In addition to her role as chair of the Education Committee, Christine had been the founding member of the Site Blue Diversity Council. As more local refugees had joined the camp, it had begun to skew the demographics of the original urban transportee population towards a more rural mix. The council was established to address that troubling change, among others.
“It was this committee that changed the nomenclature from the original ‘walk-ins,’ which was perfectly descriptive,” Paul said in protest. The temperature in the room perceptibly dropped as Paul’s use of an even more forbidden word sparked additional audible inhalations of outrage.
Kendra knew that Paul had really put his foot in it. She’d gone on a few scavenging runs outside the camp. Out there, some brutal realities never stopped demanding a survivor’s attention. Inside the camp, away from the horrors that Paul had described, alternative viewpoints had flourished. Based on emotion and identity, these popular positions were an occasionally frustrating, if perfectly understandable dynamic. She didn’t buy all the way in, but she sympathized.
Well, a little.
“We’re not going to accept the labeling conventions of the now thankfully extinct white male-dominated patriarchy—” Christine said, launching into full tirade mode before Paul cut her off.
“Are you serious? First, the zombies don’t care about color, they just want fresh meat,” he said, waving one dark-skinned forearm in the air. “Second, black guy here? One of the few left around? Like I was saying, we can ask for help from the new folks and incorporate them in the training, but that will mean time away from other projects.”
“You’re just participating in the system that—”
“Christine, one moment,” Kohn said, cutting through the angry hubbub on her side of the table. “Paul, thank you. The Committee will take your request under advisement. Prepare a list of potential additional recruits and continue training with the people that you have. For the moment let us refrain from requirements that cut into our supply situation. Leave the list of required resources with us after the meeting. In a broad sense, I think that your concept makes sense…”
Kendra noted that a few of the administrator’s erstwhile allies shot Kohn some side eye at that last statement. Kohn didn’t react, but Kendra knew from experience that Kohn somehow seemed to notice everything.
After the meeting, Kendra approached Rune. It was time. She grabbed her sorrow and screwed it down tightly, to get through this.
“Hi, Paul,” she said simply.
“Hi, Kendra!” Paul said, smiling warmly. “Hey, I’m free, do you want to grab some dinner? I could use the company after that crazy meeting.”
“I’ve got some things to do,” she replied, watching his face fall. “I just wanted to tell you that you’re doing a good job and I appreciate it.”
She leaned forward to give him a short, hard hug and, feeling her eyes blur with tears she quickly stepped away. She left him looking entirely confused and oblivious to the medallion that she’d just returned to his pocket.
As oblivious as he was to Kohn, still shuffling papers and making notes, while her eyes flicked about the large meeting room.
CHAPTER 11
“That’s more than I had expected,” Tom said, passing the binoculars to Pascoe.
“Mmm,” the grizzled vet hummed a bit while he counted. “Eight vehicles. Figure maybe forty shooters. Fifty tops. That’s bad odds.”
“Vehicle ambush takes care of that,” Junior said with a snort. “Two machine guns and we torch the entire group.”
In addition to the RPK and all its remaining ammunition, Tom had sweet talked Robbins Sr. into the grudging loan of one of the heavy World War Two relics.
“I like it!” enthused Fat Ralph.
“They’re armed and mobile,” Pascoe said, reminding them. “We might get them to deploy, and then they pin us long enough to allow half the survivors to pick a flank and shoot us to shit. No thanks.”
The young teenager looked angrily at the two older men but didn’t say anything else.
“We’re buying time, Junior,” Tom said as he borrowed the glasses back. “We don’t want to try to wipe them out, just delay them. They’re going to have to cross that bridge we came over a few miles back. What we do is…”
* * *
“Boss, this is lead.” O’Shannesy’s radio startled Jason who had been zoning out, watching the monotonous view of unreaped corn fields sweep past.
“Go ahead,” she replied.
“Got a bridge coming up. Blow across or prepare for deliberate crossing?”
“Wait one,” O’Shannesy said, consulting her map. “We’re well outside the cleared zone. Pick a spot and deploy.”
“Copy.”
As the convoy slowed and stopped, she studied the crossing, only a hundred meters away. It looked…clean. Usually choke points like crossings were blocked with vehicles and wreckage. This two-lane bridge spanned a dirty brown stream and it was clear, though she could see a car in the stream bed and a few more pushed off to one side.
“What’s up, Boss?” her deputy said, walking up to check on the delay. He ignored Jason.
“Doesn’t feel right.” O’Shannesy said musingly. “Bridge is too clean and we didn’t clean it. We’ll set up here and you take a team across on foot to check the bridge and the intersection. If you see single zombies just shoot them. If you get a bunch, run back while we advance and we’ll take them from a distance.”
“Got it, Boss,” the deputy said without hesitation.
“Problem?” asked Jason.
“Don’t know.” O’Shannesy said frankly. “We’ve done a bunch of these. I get a feeling sometimes. We aren’t on a schedule—so no need to plunge forward. All I want to do is localize whoever we ran into at the town, scout some spots that Green highlighted and then get back. We can probably make our radio window tonight, if we find a high point on the far side. So that means getting across.”
Jason looked around the valley they were in. Surrounded by gray limestone escarpments, the team’s handheld radios weren’t much good for other than short distances. The longer range of their one HF radio should reach camp, but it took a while to set up and needed good elevation.
He cast his eyes about for a route upwards while the foot team moved forward.
* * *
“Hold the wall!” Paul yelled in order to be heard over the din of the pack of infected that s
urged from the hospital’s lower floors. “Brace yourself and just stab. Between shields, like we practiced!”
A few semi-dry runs had made short shrift of the small numbers of infected remaining in the mostly cleared crossroad hamlets and small towns within a short distance of Site Blue. Overall, the ammunition preservation strategy had borne fruit. As a result, the Executive Committee had approved his concept and directed that they continue the previously agreed salvage schedule.
The still missing components needed for vaccine production were doubtless a big part of the reason. With a little luck, itself a rare commodity, he hoped to complete their search for a functioning high velocity centrifuge as well as filtration media. His team had successfully infiltrated the regional medical center. A key advantage was the relative silence of the shield-and-pike method of clearance.
Once inside, his picked squad of a dozen had managed to dispatch the smaller clusters of infected by blocking the broad hallways of the medical facility and piling corpses up in front of them. However, the number of infected had steadily climbed until the Site Blue team was forced backwards. The remaining Bank staff seemed steady, but the new recruits were visibly wavering. To this point, they hadn’t attracted the attention of more than a few infected at a time.
But that had changed.
“Second rank, aimed fire, now!” Paul ordered. They’d attracted far more infected than forecast. As a result, he’d resorted to using firearms in order to control the flood of zombies. The bright white splashes of light from the tactical flashlights intermittently lit a sea of bobbing heads as even more infected packed the corridor. Shooting past the heads of the shielded men, the team briefly relieved some of the pressure, until the infected started to clamber over their own dead.
“Where they all coming from?” screamed his squad leader, barely making himself heard over the crashing gunfire and the howling mob. Paul yelled his reply, trying to estimate the number of infected in view. It far exceeded the most pessimistic estimates in his worst-case scenario.