John Ringo - Under a Graveyard Sky

After the sun went down the band changed. It was another NYC local band but it was better. Not by much but better.

That band changed out for somebody she actually thought she recognized, a tall saturnine guy carrying an acoustic guitar.

“Is that Voltaire?” Sophia asked.

“Yeah,” Christine said. She’d been hitting a bottle of Chivas Regal from the neck and was thoroughly plastered. “He shows up every night.”

“Brains, Brains, Brains…!” the crowd chanted.

Of course, he started with Brains, then all the oldies and goodies. Vampire Club, Demonslayer, USS Make-Shit-Up… She knew them all and she’d always wanted to see him in concert.

An underground concert in a park in NYC in the middle of an apocalypse was just…perfect.

He was in the middle of Day of the Dead, when she heard the first shotgun blast…

* * *

“The 1911 is a great gun,” Faith shouted. “But it’s really obsolete technology. And it’s only got seven rounds! I prefer the H &K.”

“Try getting service out of them,” Durante shouted back. They were standing side by side with Faith watching the bands and Durante watching the outer darkness. They’d both put in earplugs even after Voltaire showed up. You could still hear him and she wasn’t a huge Voltaire fan. “And a 1911 doesn’t have a ‘I crack if you look at me wrong’ polymer frame.”

“You can shoot an H &K under water,” Faith said.

“You can shoot a 1911 under water,” Durante replied. “Although I don’t know why you’d have to. That’s called a strawman argument.”

“Once, maybe,” Faith argued. “But an H &K has an octagonal barrel. It can handle a much higher load.”

“We’re just going to have to agree to disagree,” Durante said, grinning.

“I wish they had, like, Atreyu or Avenged Sevenfold,” Faith said. “Sophia must be having a blast, though.” They’d all been keeping her under light surveillance.

“She seems to be,” Durante said. “She seems more…” He paused and shook his head. “BOSS! COMPANY!”

“Cops?” Faith asked, looking over her shoulder.

“No.”

Coming out of the shadows of the trees she could see two naked people, male and female, trotting towards the concert-goers.

“Shit,” she said, drawing her taser.

“Again, let me take it,” Durante said, drawing one of his. “Less questions.”

The zombies weren’t heading directly their way so Durante trotted to the side to interpose himself between them and the crowd.

“I’m surprised it’s taken this long,” Tom said. A Glock had appeared from somewhere.

“Uh, oh,” Faith said, gesturing to the side. More zombies were coming out of the trees. Lots of zombies. And they were moving fast. “Uncle Tom?”

“I don’t think tasers are going to do it,” Tom said. “DURANTE! MULTIPLES. HOT ROUNDS!”

Durante had already tasered the two zombies and injected one. He dropped his injector as he was preparing to inject the second and switched to the Saiga.

“See?” Steve said. “I told you this was a bad idea.” He had his 1911 in a two handed grip and Stacey had his back holding a Sig Sauer.

“Cell service is out,” Tom said. “Shit. Engage at will.”

“On it,” Faith said, drifting right. Durante had gone left to engage the first two. Moving right she was closer to covering Sophia. She and the group with her were apparently completely oblivious to the approaching threat.

Faith put her eye to the point and shoot scope on the Saiga and targeted the first approaching zombie.

“ This is how you handle a zombie apocalypse,” she said, just as Durante fired.

Sophia spun around and saw Faith fire at one of the fast approaching infecteds. The fiftyish woman was thrown back with her chest opened up by the twelve gauge round. But she wasn’t the only one inbound for the concert goers.

Sophia didn’t even hesitate. Her father had run her through too many tactical ranges and her actions were muscle memory. She’d been standing towards the back of the group and now stepped forward, covering their rear, and ripped her 1911 from its holster. Taking a two handed grip she targeted the closest zombie, putting two.45 rounds into his chest. She was using polymer-tipped expanding hollowpoints, which on impact spread out to make not a.45 inch hole but a nearly inch wide one. The “lab tech” had recently been getting an eclectic masters level course in biology including mammalian anatomy and physiology. She could practically recite the blood vessels her rounds took out without doing the autopsy. The infected took two more steps and dropped.

She’d been carrying a round in the chamber and a full magazine for the 1911. If she’d been in the earlier argument with her sister she would have pointed out, didactically, that that way a 1911 can carry eight rounds. Which did for four infecteds.

But there were more.

* * *

“This job fucking sucks.”

Specialist Cameron “Gunner” Randall, New York Army National Guard, was tired, aggravated and frustrated. He was a fricking 13Foxtrot: a fire support specialist. He was supposed to be calling for artillery fire. Not roaming the streets of New York “enforcing the curfew.” Among other things, they weren’t “enforcing the curfew.” There was a fucking concert going on right there in Washington Square Park. And he and his guys had to just “maintain presence.” What the fuck did “maintain presence” mean?

What they really were were roaming zombie collectors. They carried their issue M4s but so far all they’d used were Tasers. Taser the zombie, inject, call for pickup. Tell people there was a curfew. Tell people. Not order them back to their flipping homes. “Remind them.” And the ROE for shooting a zombie with your M4 went to ten pages. “And don’t bother the concert.”

It really, really sucked. He never thought that a deployment in the states would suck more than the Stan. But this sucked .

“Well, at least it’s a slow night.”

SGT James R. “Worf” Copley thought their current job was idiotic on so many levels it wasn’t funny. Among other things, since “zombieitis” whatever they were calling it this week was incurable, the “care facilities” were not only getting overrun with infected they’d started as nightmares and just gotten worse. Killing them, sad as it was, would have been a mercy. And if they were going to have a curfew it should be enforced. But this was New York City. The city that never slept. And even with occasional power outages, food shortages and zombies it was going to go right on being “The City That Never Sleeps” until things blew over or it all went to shit.

“Maybe all the zombies are at the concert,” Private Patricia Astroga said, wistfully. “I don’t suppose we could stop by just for a bit to…ensure security?”

“I’m not really into alternative…” Sergeant Copley said. “Besides…” He paused as he heard the distinctive boom of a shotgun from the direction of the concert followed by a series of shotgun and pistol blasts. What amazed him was that whoever was caterwauling keep right on singing over what was working up to a full-fledged firefight.

“On the other hand,” Randall said.

“Let’s roll,” Copley replied. “ Fours , not Tasers…”

* * *

Sophia was reloading, visually tracking another inbound target, when her arm was grabbed from behind.

“What are you doing?” Christine asked. “You can’t shoot those zombies!”

“‘Can’t,’ ‘may not’ and ‘shouldn’t’ are three different things,” Sophia said, seating the magazine and letting the slide go forward. “And what I’m doing is protecting you. Why the hell are you still here?” She looked over her shoulder and was amazed that the concert was still going on. Thinking about it, Voltaire hadn’t even missed a beat.