Max Brooks - World War Z

Everything had kind of a retro feel about it. Our Lobos looked like something out of , I don’t know, Lord of the Rings? Standard orders were to use it only when necessary, but, trust me, we made it necessary a lot. It just felt good, you know, swingin’ that solid hunk a’ steel. It made it personal, empowering. You could feel the skull split. A real rush, like you were taking back your life, you know? Not that I minded pulling the trigger.

Our primary weapon was the SIR, standard infantry rifle. The wood furniture made it look like a World War II gun; I guess composite materials were too hard to mass-produce. I’m not sure where the SIR supposedly came from. I’ve heard it was a modcop of the AK. I’ve also heard that it was a stripped-down version of the XM 8, which the army was already planning as its next-gen assault weapon. I’ve even heard that it was invented, tested, and first produced during the siege of the Hero City, and the plans were transmitted to Honolulu. Honestly, I don’t know, and I so don’t care. It might have kicked hard, and it only fired on semi, but it was super accurate and it never, ever jammed! You could drag it through the mud, leave it in the sand, you could drop it in saltwater and let it sit there for days. No matter what you did to this baby, it just wouldn’t let you down.

The only bells and whistles it had was a conversion kit of extra parts, furniture, and additional barrels of different lengths. You could go long-range sniper, mid range rifle, or close-combat carbine, all in the same hour, and without reaching farther than your ruck. It also had a spike, this little flip-out job, about eight inches long, that you could use in a pinch if your Lobo wasn’t handy. We used to joke “careful, you’ll poke somebody’s eye out,” which, of course, we did plenty. The SIR made a pretty good close combat weapon, even without the spike, and when you add all the other things that made it so awesome, you can see why we always referred to it, respectfully, as “Sir.”

Our staple ammo was the NATO 5.56 “Cherry PIE.” PIE stands for pyro-technically initiated explosive. Outstanding design. It would shatter on entry into Zack’s skull and fragments would fry its brain. No risk of spreading infected gray matter, and no need for wasteful bonfires. On BS duty, you didn’t even have to decap before you buried them. Just dig the trench and roll the whole body in.

Yeah, it was a new army, as much the people as anything else. Recruitment had changed, and being a grunt meant something very different now. You still had the old requirements-physical stamina, mental competence, the motivation and discipline to master difficult challenges in extreme conditions-but all that was mouse farts if you couldn’t hack long-term Z-shock. I saw a lot of good friends just lose it under the strain. Some of them collapsed, some turned their weapons on themselves, some on their buddies. It didn’t have anything to do with being brave or anything like that. I once read this British SAS survival guide that talked all about the “warrior” personality, how your family’s supposed to be emotionally and financially stable, and how you’re not even supposed to be attracted to girls when you’re real young. [Grunts.] Survival guides… [Jerks his hand in a masturbatory movement.]

But the new faces, they could have been from anywhere: your neighbor, your aunt, that geeky substitute teacher, or that fat, lazy slob at the DMV. From former insurance salesmen to a guy who I’m damn sure was Michael Stipe, although I never got him to admit it. I guess it all made sense; anyone who couldn’t roll wouldn’t have made it this far in the first place. Everyone was already a veteran in some sense. My battle buddy, Sister Montoya, fifty-two years old, she’d been a nun, still was I guess. Five three and a buck even, she’d protected her whole Sunday school class for nine days with nothing but a six-foot iron candlestick. I don’t know how she managed to hump that ruck, but she did, without complaining, from our assembly area in Needles, all the way to our contact site just outside of Hope, New Mexico.

Hope. I’m not kidding, the town was actually named Hope.

They say the brass chose it because of the terrain, clear and open with the desert in front and the mountains in back. Perfect, they said, for an opening engagement, and that the name had nothing to do with it. Right.

The brass really wanted this test-op to go smoothly. It’d be the first major ground engagement we’d fought since Yonkers. It was that moment, you know, like, when a lot of different things all come together.

Watershed?

Yeah, I think. All the new people, the new stuff, the new training, the new-plan-everything was supposed to sort of mix together for this one first big kickoff.

We’d encountered a couple dozen Gs en route. Sniffer dogs would find them, and handlers with silenced weapons would drop them. We didn’t want to attract too many till we were set. We wanted this to be on our terms.

We started planting our “garden”: shelter stakes with orange Day-Glo tape in rows every ten meters. They were our range markers, showing us exactly where to zero our sights. For some of us there was also some light duty like clearing the brush or arranging die ammo crates.

For the rest of us, there was nothing to do except wait, just grab some chow, recharge our camel packs, or even snag some bag time, if it was possible to sleep. We’d learned a lot since Yonkers. The brass wanted us rested. The problem was, it gave us all too much time to think.

Did you see the movie, the one Elliot made about us? That scene with the campfire and the grunts all jawing in this witty dialogue, the stories and the dreams for the future, and even that guy with the harmonica. Dude, it was so not like that. First of all, it was the middle of the day, no campfires, no harmonica under the stars, and also everyone was really quiet. You knew what everyone was thinking though, “What the hell are we doing here?” This was Zack’s house now, and as far as we were concerned, he could have it. We’d all had plenty of pep talks about “The Future of the Human Spirit.” We’d seen the president’s speech God knows how many times, but the prez wasn’t out here on Zack’s front lawn. We had a good thing going behind the Rockies. What the hell were we doing out here?

Around 1300 hours, the radios started squawking, it was the K-handlers whose dogs had made contact. We locked and loaded and took our place on the firing line.

That was the centerpiece of our whole new battle doctrine, back into the past like everything else. We massed in a straight line, two ranks: one active, one reserve. The reserve was so when anyone in the front rank needed a weapon recharge, their fire wouldn’t be missed on the line. Theoretically, with everyone either firing or reloading, we could keep Zack falling as long as the ammo held out.

We could hear the barking, the Ks were bringing them in. We started seeing Gs on the horizon, hundreds. I started shaking even though it wasn’t the first time I’d had to face Zack since Yonkers. I’d been in the clean and sweep operations in LA. I’d done my time in the Rockies when the summer thawed the passes. Each time I got major shakes.

The dogs were recalled, racing behind our lines. We switched over to our Primary Enticement Mechanism. Every army had one by now. The Brits would use bagpipes, the Chinese used bugles, the Sou’fricans used to smack their rifles with their assegais and belt out these Zulu war chants. For us, it was hard-core Iron Maiden. Now, personally, I’ve never been a metal fan. Straight classic rock’s my thing, and Hendrix’s “Driving South” is about as heavy as I get. But I had to admit, standing there in that desert wind, with “The Trooper” thumping in my chest, I got it. The PEM wasn’t really for Zack’s benefit. It was to psych us up, take away some of Zack’s mojo, you know, “take the piss out,” as the Brits say. Right about the time Dickinson was belting “As you plunge into a certain death” I was pumped, SIR charged and ready, eyes fixed on this growing, closing horde. I was, like, “Cmon, Zack, let’s fuckin’ do this!”