John Holmes - Even Zombie Killers Get the Blues

Jonesy ambled over after exchanging watch with Ahmed. “Nick, this isn’t going to work. Ain’t no way we gonna get prisoners to question. They might screw off up in the towers but outside the wire? Them bastards got their shit wired tight.”

I shook my head. “Gotta agree with you, brother from another mother. Ain’t going to happen.”

We had already had two killed and one wounded on this mission, so I did what any good subordinate does when confronted with impossible orders from above with no relevance to the situation on the ground: I ignored them.

We waited until daylight, then I called into Empire Six.

“Empire Six, this is Lost Boys, Over.”

I told him we had captured a prisoner, and before he expired, he told us that yes, they were cannibals, and yes, they were in the prison, and no, he didn’t know how many of them they were.

“What do you mean he didn’t know how many of them there were?”

“Well, he died.”

“Did you get to question him first?”

“For a bit. He pretty much confirmed what we knew already.” Damn, this jerk was making it hard to lie to him.

“ How did you get the information out of him?”

No way was I going to let that pinhead fulfill his dark fantasies by giving him torture tales.

“Better you don’t know, if you get my meaning, over.”

“Roger that, Empire Six, out.”

God, he was an insufferable prick. Another FRAGO came in from the S-3. If possible, they wanted us to secure the county jail. I calculated up the odds. We had only seen guards in two of the towers there and at the gate to the jail. That we could do. H Hour was at 0300. We moved out to a better observation position so we could keep an eye on the jail and the prison. It wouldn’t do for whoever was coming for the prison to get a surprise if we could avoid it.

“Jonesy, quit that shit. Just kill it.” We had settled down on the edge of the tree line. A Zombie with no legs was pulling its way toward us through the forest. Its lower jaw was missing, probably a survivor of the Z wave that had broken over the jail. Jonesy was baiting it, letting it get close then low crawling to a different position.

“I’m just doing PT with my battle buddy here, Nick.” I could see his grin in the moonlight.

“Just kill it already. Have a little bit of compassion. That was someone’s mom once.”

“OK. You just one big bad teddy bear, Nick.” With that he pulled his .22 pistol and popped two rounds into its head. The Z sank to the ground, the weird red light in its eyes slowly fading.

At 0259, H-1, Ahmed lined his rifle up on the guard in the tower at the jail. I lay next to him, watching through my NVGs and counting down quietly. 3, 2, 1.

At 0, all hell broke loose. Ahmed’s first shot dropped the guard in the tower. At the same instant, a bolt of light shot into the truck parked in front of the prison. It exploded with a dull CRUMP, lifting off its axels and landing a dozen feet away, burning brightly. A Hellfire missile fired from an Apache miles way had impacted at exactly 0300. From behind another hill, another Apache rose up from where it had been waiting and started pumping 30mm chain gun rounds into each of the towers in turn.

The Hellfire explosion had washed out my night vision goggles for a second. Ahmed’s also, spoiling his shot at the second guard. I flipped off my NVGs but the jail itself was still in darkness. I flipped them back down again and saw the other guard sprinting for the building where the slaves were kept. Ahmed’s second shot splintered the doorway next to him as he dove in. Three figures rushed out from the guard shack at the gate to stare at the fireworks. The five of us rose. In a steady walk, we advanced across the field towards the jail, shooting as we went. All three fell before we were halfway there. As the last one went down, we heard automatic gunfire and screams erupt from the slave barracks, and the inside was lit up with a strobe light of gunfire.

We broke into a run, even as three CH-47s from the NY Army National Guard thundered overhead. Two stopped over the prison courtyard and started spilling troops from the back, fast roping into the courtyard. The third touched tail on front of the prison gate and a heavily armed squad ran out the back. As soon as the last man was clear they powered up and lifted to the back side of the prison, probably droping off another squad to cover the back exits.

I saw all this out of the corner of my eye, but I stopped when I heard a .50 caliber open up. If you have ever shot a .50 or had one shot at you, you know immediately what it is. A stream of tracers hammered into one of the Chinooks dropping troops inside the prison yard and it immediately hauled ass away from the courtyard, fire erupting from one engine and two guys dangling from the ropes in the back. I stopped and stared for a second, watching it head south in a trail of smoke and flame before hitting the ground, hard. One guy had hung onto his rope and I watched him bounce off the ground with a bone-crunching thud. The second Chinook let loose a stream of fire from a side mounted minigun and something in the courtyard blew up in a flash, hidden by the thirty foot walls. Gunfire started swelling in a rapid crescendo inside the walls as the guys from the 108th Infantry went to work, routing out cannibals. The squad in front of the gate hosed the opening with short bursts of suppressive fire from a 240B machine gun. I started to run toward the downed chopper but Doc slapped me back to reality by hitting my shoulder as he ran toward the jail. The gun fire inside the slave barracks had changed to single shots, but the screams went on.

Ahmed threw a flashbang through the open doorway. I looked away, opened my mouth and cupped my hands over my ears. A second after the grenade went off, my ears still ringing slightly, we piled through the door.

The scene before me was pure chaos. Pools of blood ran out of jail cells. Two-thirds of the way down the corridor a figure was turning towards us. I only caught a glimpse of him as I turned to scan my sector, the right corner of the room. I was coming back around, lining up my sights just as he fired. Doc fired back from over my shoulder as an enormous hammer whacked me in my kevlar helmet. I fell to the floor, stars running crazy circles in my eyes, and everything going double for a second before snapping back into place. The rest of the team advanced down the corridor, scanning each cell for potential hidden bad guys. Then I blacked out.

I came too with Doc kneeling over me, shining a flashlight in my eyes. I immediately started to try to get back up but he pushed me back down with a knee on my chest.

“Slow down there, Killer! Take a break and sit for a minute. You took a round upside your helmet and got a pretty good whack. You’ve been unconscious for a few minutes, started to get worried about you. We need to go check out the slaves, see how many we can save. Here’s a souvenir for you.”

He handed me my helmet. On the top left side was a long, shattered groove. An inch downward and it would have blown the top of my skull off. I felt really weak for a good minute or two.

Jacob, standing guard at the door, waved in a figure dressed in US Army Multicams. It took me a few seconds for my eyes to focus in the glow of the chemlight he was carrying, but I recognized Captain Horatio David, from C Company of the 2-108 thInfantry. I guessed it was his guys who had raided the prison. Behind him, two medics hurried in, moving towards the sounds of screaming and moaning coming from the jail cells.