John Holmes: Even Zombie Killers Can Die

It never fails.

Specialist Redshirt felt the rumbling in his guts, about ten minutes after he had eaten his lunch MRE. Could be the water, could be the food itself. Good water and unspoiled food were getting hard to come by, almost three years after the Zombie Apocalypse had pretty much trounced Western Civilization.

The rest of the team sat finishing their meal. Doc and Ziv picked idly at their MREs, the summer heat making it hard to eat. Red was standing watch, along with Ahmed, but he had to go. He motioned to Sergeant Toshi, who was stretching her legs.

“Sarge, I gotta hit the treeline. Take over for me.”

She grunted and climbed to her feet, tossing her rucksack onto her back and shouldering her rifle. Beside her, the big Swedish guy, Svenson, levered himself up off the ground. No one went anywhere alone.

They were taking a break in small clearing, just off the remains of Route 9, north of Ticonderoga. To the east, Lake Champlain stretched out, a broad sheet of water reflecting the summer sun. Their canoes lay drawn up on the shore where they had stopped at sunrise. The team was heading north to see what remained of the Air National Guard unit at Burlington Airport, and then to check the locks at the end of the lake where the Richelieu River wound its way down to the Saint Lawrence. They had stopped for the day just north of Port Henry on the New York side of the river.

“Oh crap” muttered Red under his breath, and he dashed for the trees, setting his rifle down, dropping his pants, and barely making it before his guts exploded. Coming up behind him, he heard Svenson starting to laugh.

“That’s what you get for picking a number eleven MRE, Red!” he started laughing again, but it was cut off with a choking sound. Red saw the feathers of an arrow sprout from the big man’s neck, just above his body armor. He fell to the ground, grabbing at the arrow, a stunned look on his face, then spilled forward, choking.

Red scrambled to pull up his pants, yelling “AMBUSH” at the top of his lungs, and dove for his rifle. He grabbed it just as burst of shots dug into the ground where he had been squatting. Recovering his footing he ran as hard as he could through the woods, away from the gunfire that had erupted between him and the rest of the team. He dove over a fallen tree, and then started to scramble around to the right, trying to get back in the clearing where the team was.

After a few minutes, he could see through the trees. Two dozen figures in a haphazard collection of camouflage and carrying an assortment of weapons, everything from M-4’s to shotguns, had rushed the area, and a squad of them was moving towards where Svenson lay. He noted that they moved in covering fire teams, cautiously advancing.

Sergeant Toshi lay out in the open, an arrow sticking out of her face, her feet drumming on the ground. Ziv was in the middle of a brawl, swinging his big combat knife. As Red watched, someone hit him on the back of the head with the butt of a rifle, and he fell to the ground. Ahmed was nowhere to be seen, and one man stood with a pistol to Doc’s head. Even as he watched, Doc let out a yell.

“Red, RUN!”

Specialist Eugene Redshirt, Irregular Scout Team One, United States Army, ran. Before he did, though, he fired a long burst from his suppressed carbine at the squad moving towards Svenson’s body. He saw one fall before he turned and ran deeper into the woods, deeper into the mountains surrounding the lake. Deeper into Zombie Territory.

As he ran, he heard gunfire behind him, and then a red hot poker zipped through his leg, and he stumbled and fell heavily on his face. His rifle flew out of his hands as he tried to stop his fall. Behind him he heard yelling as the ambushers started off in pursuit.

Redshirt got up again, holding onto his thigh, squeezing it tight to try and stop the blood flow. It hurt, but it felt numb more than anything else. He limped deeper into the forest.

The sounds of pursuit died off, and then he heard one voice calling to him.

“Hey, you’re gonna die out there, and I ain’t wastin’ none of my men comin’ to get you. I knows yer wounded, and unarmed. I hope you got enough sense to kill yourself before you get eaten!”

He risked a look back and saw the squad heading back to the ambush site. One of them held his rifle in his hands. Damn. His pack, all his extra ammo, food, everything was back at the site, as well as the rest of his team.

First things first, his leg. The smell of blood and the sound of gunshots would draw any zombies, even though they had stopped at a deserted stretch of shoreline. He ripped open the leg of his pants and looked at the wound. A shot had creased the muscle, tearing out a bunch of skin and flesh. It hurt like hell but he wasn’t going to bleed to death. He pulled out a field dressing and wrapped it around his leg.

Redshirt started crawling back to the campsite, but flanked around to the left, where he could get a good view. A big motor boat had pulled up the shore, and the team was being hustled onto the boat. He counted more than twenty of the reavers. They had stripped Sergeant Toshi’s body, but it didn’t seem like they were going to eat her. Not cannibals, then. As he watched, one put his boot on her head and pulled out the arrow. Doc was already on the boat. Ziv must have been unconscious, because they threw him into the bow like a sack of potatoes. The boat backed out of the shore after about half of the Reavers had climbed aboard, then headed north up the lake. The rest melted into the woods, moving as a disciplined squad.

He climbed slowly onto a high rock, and waited. One hour. Two. Three. The whole morning passed before he saw the stay behind ambush. Three of them walked out of the trees, and used an axe to smash holes in the canoes drawn up on shore. Then they walked back into woods, following a trail that ran northwards along the shoreline.

His leg was starting to hurt, and he was hungry. The nearest safety he knew of was a hundred miles south, through wrecked civilization and hordes of zombies. Redshirt checked over his inventory. A silenced .22 automatic, 450 rounds of .22 Magnum ammo in his Load Bearing Vest, and his survival kit strapped around his waist. It contained a hammock, 50 feet of line, lighter, some spare food, Poncho, extra five shot .22 revolver, 20 rounds of ammo, signal mirror, water purification tablets, and a multi-tool.

He slid slowly down the rock, pistol in hand, favoring his wounded leg, and made his way to the campsite, carefully skirting the perimeter, trying to make sure no one else was around. Finding no one, he made his way in, careful to avoid the naked body of Sergeant Toshi. There was nothing left on the ground except some expended brass and some MRE wrappers. He quickly ripped them completely open and licked off whatever food was remaining inside.

“Got you! Knew you were somewhere out there!” He heard the safety flicking off a weapon and raised his hands, then slowly turned around. In front of him stood a figure camouflaged in a set of old Army BDUs, wearing body armor and holding a pump shotgun pointed at him from about fifteen feet away.

“Drop the weapon and start walking” The reaver motioned with the shotgun barrel. “Captain is going to be happ—” As he started to swing the barrel back towards him, Red dropped his hands and dove to one side, firing his pistol as fast as he could. The shotgun boomed and his left arm stung, but he kept firing until the slide locked back. He stood up and walked over to the man lying on the ground, grabbing at his face and screaming. As Red watched, the man coughed blood out of his mouth, then shuddered and went still. Red kicked the shotgun aside, and started stripping the body of everything useable. Then he picked up the shotgun, ejecting the spent shell.