John Ringo - Islands of Rage and Hope

And they were getting hit. The zombies kept trickling in in ones and twos. Which wasn’t a huge problem and gave everyone some more training in that fact. However, it sometimes was a bit of an issue. Say, when Lance Corporal Ferguson was siphoning out a car’s gas tank and got hit from behind by an infected.

“The good news is, you’re in bunker gear,” Faith said, chopping the infected on the back of the neck. “But since your ammo would probably cook off if that gas catches, the smoking lamp is out .”

“Okay, so we also got to reformat the patrol areas,” Faith said. “Hooch, take your teams up to the east end of the island past the town. Dutch, you and Sergeant Hoag have between here and the town. Smitty, your teams have from here to the west end of the island. Got it?”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Sergeant Smith said.

“Okay,” Faith said, sorting through the maps. “So here’s your maps and assigned sectors. Dutch, you can probably just drive around the airport real slow, that will give you some range. The rest of you, just drive up and down slow and bring them in, then kill them. I mean, you’ve seen that it’s easy if they ain’t swarming. If you shoot, aimed fire , people. We’re going to be often moving close to each other. We have to get every last infected on this island. Every last one. Blow your horns. Play your music loud. Bring them in ! Understood?”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Hooch said.

“Staff Sergeant and I will take the town with the five-ton,” Faith said. “If you get in the busy and feel like you can’t handle it, call us. Make sure you don’t run out of gas. Load up and move out.”

“Permission to speak, ma’am,” Staff Sergeant Barnard said as they were cruising down Valley Road.

“Speak, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said. She was up on the .50 in the lead of the convoy and triggered a burst into an infected in the road. “Go around that so the cars can see it, Roberts. I don’t want them getting stuck on a body.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Roberts said.

“A Marine obeys orders, ma’am,” Barnard said tightly. “But…why the hell are we doing this? It’s unsafe, as you’ve said, and it’s—”

“Not in your…” Faith said. “Crap, cannot think of the word. Bucket? You don’t get to know. Not now. If something happens, it’ll all make sense. If it doesn’t…It will hopefully never make sense. Think of it as a training exercise. Which we by God need . Any other questions? I’ve killed a few infected tonight. With a kukri. I’m in a good mood.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Roberts, this one’s too close. Just run her over. Following teams, body in the road. Don’t get stuck…”

“Let’s just park out here,” Lance Corporal “Dutch” Van Rijk said, pulling the car to a stop on the runway of the airport. “We’ll crank up the music and climb up on the car in a triangle. That way we can see them coming.”

“Roger,” Sergeant Hoag said, her jaw clenched. She did not like being under the authority of a fucking lance corporal.

“In deference to your rank, Sergeant, if you’ve got an iPod you can pick the tunes…”

“Got one,” Fumitaka said. “Closing.”

“Wait for it to get close,” Dutch said, looking over his shoulder. “You don’t want the round hitting somebody in the distance.”

“Aye, aye,” Fumitaka said. He waited until the infected was twenty meters away and fired. And fired again. “It ain’t stopping.”

“Fucking Barbie guns,” Van Dijk said. “Keep shooting.”

Fumitaka put seven rounds into the infected, which stopped nearly at his feet.

“Shit,” Fumitaka said. “Shit, shit, shit… That sucked .”

“Try putting five rounds into their chest, fast,” Dutch said. “That usually stops them. Or double tap, one to the chest one to the head. If the first one slows them down. Stand by, got one.” He waited until the infected, a rather small woman, had closed. He put one round into her chest and another in the head. “That usually gets ’em.”

“Usually?” Hoag said. “Shooting them in the head doesn’t always work?”

“Eventually,” Dutch said. “I’ve seen ’em keep coming even after they’ve been shot in the head.”

“Firing,” Hoag said. She put five rounds into the chest in rapid fire and was rewarded with an infected that wasn’t at her feet. “Yeah, that worked.”

“Good training, huh?” Dutch said.

“Good training.”

“By the way, Sergeant,” Van Dijk said. “With due respect, I like your taste in music.”

“Thanks.”

“I think we got one chasing us, Sergeant,” PFC Jesse Summers said.

“Okay,” Hocieniec said, slowing to a stop. “Get out and kill it.”

Summers opened the back door of the 1980s Malibu and stepped out into the darkness.

“I swear it was right…” she said as the infected popped up around the back of the car. “Shit!”

She fired two rounds and the infected grabbed her, biting at her neck and shoulders.

“Pistol,” Hocieniec said watching from the other side of the car. “Or knife.”

The infected suddenly slumped to the ground as “I’m shot in the heart” finally got through to the brain.

“Or you can wait for it to die,” Hooch said, shrugging. “That works, too.”

He slammed into the car as a big infected hit him from behind.

“Fucker,” Hocieniec said, pulling his pistol. He put it into the hip of the infected and pulled the trigger. The zombie let out a howl and fell on the ground, writhing. Two more rounds put it out of its misery. “Okay, everybody pick a sector and let’s just see how many come to us…”

“Shewolf, Hocienic, over.”

“Go, Hooch,” Faith said. They’d stopped the truck and had Barnard and Edwards out as security.

“We got stuck on a dirt road and sort of got swarmed, over.”

“Define swarmed, over.”

“Uh… You remember Tenerife?”

“Hot diggity dog,” Faith said. “HEY, LOAD UP! On our way, Hooch. I don’t suppose you know where you are?”

“Sort of…”

“Shewolf, Annapolis , over.”

“Hear you, Annapolis ,” Faith said as the staff sergeant loaded into the vehicle.

“Our intercept gear says they’re up Albert Lake Drive near Long Pond, over.”

“Staff Sergeant,” Faith said. “Find that. Thanks for the steer, Annapolis .”

“Good entertainment as always, Shewolf. Sorry to hear about your casualty.”

“He’ll make it,” Faith said. “Somebody told me one time this wasn’t a safe job. Pretty sure Goodwin knew that, too.”

“Head up to the medical school,” Staff Sergeant Barnard said. “That way…”

“Oh, holy shit,” Edwards said.

“Now that’s what I call a concentration,” Faith said, gleefully.

The Kia sedan the three Marines had squeezed into was covered in infected. The miracle was that the windows hadn’t broken under the weight.

“Hocieniec wins the bottle of good hooch!” Faith caroled on the general circuit. “None of you bastards better get in here and ruin my fun. Stay on your sectors. We got this.”

“Ma’am, with due respect…” Barnard said.

“I’m not going to use the God-damned machine gun, Staff Sergeant,” Faith snarled. But she wasn’t sure what to do. With the infected literally covering the vehicle, a fifty-caliber round would go through an infected, the occupants and the engine block. The question was how to use any weapon against them without hitting the occupants. “Oh, fu—fornicate it.”

Faith jumped out of the gunner’s ring, slid down the windshield of the truck, then onto the ground.