John Holmes - Even Zombie Killers Get the Blues

Doc flipped him the finger over his shoulder, not taking his eyes from where we were going. I actually smiled a little and Jonesy dropped back to talk with Ahmed. I felt a little better.

Who knew, psychotherapy from an ex-con?

We headed out down the railroad tracks, both for survey and to keep off the roads. Walking down railroad tracks were a bitch because the rail ties never seemed to land under your foot. It made for a more tiring walk, but on either side of the grade was swamp and mud. It was hard keeping on our toes with the sun beating down on us. When you hump a rucksack, you sweat. I don’t care how hardcore you are, humping a ruck is hard work, and we were soaked in sweat before we had gone a mile. So much for being clean.

As I walked slowly along the tracks, scanning my sector for movement, my mind wandered. Half paid attention to what was going on around me. It had to, or we would be dead. The other half thought back, remembered, dragged up conversations with people long dead, replayed events in my mind. I tried not to think about before the plague. Some things are too painful. Instead, my glance crossing over Jonesy’s pack as I did a slow turn to walk backwards for a few meters, checking our six, I thought of how the team had come together.

It had been at the FEMA camp on Grand Island, just west of Buffalo. The Feds and the Army were just gearing up for Task Force Empire, and Doc and I had reported into the base, reactivated under Presidential executive order to our old ranks. Everyone who ever served, up to age 65, was reactivated and automatically made part of their old branch of service. In theory, anyway. I had made contact with a small “clear and hold” unit that had airdropped into the high ground just west of Schenectady. They had flown me, along with a dozen others, to the Seneca Army Depot in the Finger Lakes. While waiting for assignment, and starting to chafe under the usual Army chickenshit rules, I had run into Doc, whom I knew from way back. Together we came up with the idea for the scouts and pitched it to a Major we knew in the Infantry. We resigned the next day and we were hired as Irregular Scouts. Next thing we knew, we were on a UH-60, flying over the ruins of Buffalo on our way to the camp on Grand Isle.

I stood in front of the ragged group of civilians and looked them over. A sadistic-looking little man wearing a drill sergeant hat was barking at them, trying to get them to stand in ranks, doing the usual “YOU’RE IN THE ARMY NOW, MAGGOT” crap. Most of them looked at him with contempt. These people were the survivors. They had lived through the plague and everything after, volunteered to serve. Maybe some were there for three hots and a cot, but I doubted it. They had carried the other ninety percent milling around the FEMA camp who sat in their tents, relieved the government had finally gotten there so they could kick back. Deadweight. I had seen them as I walked through the camp, the vacant looks on their faces. The ones who had been carried through the plague by the fighters. The same fighters who stood before me in this group.

I stood for a minute, then whispered to Doc “Watch the big black dude.” The sergeant had gotten in his face, or more like his chest, and was yelling obscenities up at him, ending with “DO YOU HEAR ME, BOY?” At which point, the black guy punched him as hard as he could in the face. The sergeant went down for the count, flat on his back. The other around them laughed, until they heard the rattle of bolts being drawn back and rounds being chambered in the rifles of the Military Police team nearby.

“HOLD IT!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, and walked forward to address the crowd. Doc knelt down and checked out the sergeant, who was trying to sit up, holding his face. I told the Military Police team to stand down, which they did, staring angrily at the group.

“My name, for those who care, is Sergeant First Class Nicholas Agostine. Just so you know, the Army you just volunteered for isn’t the kinder, gentler Army anymore. You, black guy, what’s your name?”

He stepped forward. “Jones. LeShaun Jones.”

“Well, Jonesy, you aren’t back on the block anymore. Those guys” and I motioned to the three soldiers who were helping the Drill Sergeant sit down on a bench, “will shoot you for something like that. Matter of fact, they probably are going to shoot you, just as soon as I leave here, to make an example out of you. I don’t have to explain to you how cheap life is nowadays.”

Most of them acknowledged what I had said. Jones just stood there and glared at me.

“Can you run? Or is that all just muscle?” I asked him, poking him in the chest. Holy crap, this dude was big.

“Yeah, I can run. Bet yer ass.”

“Good, because I’m taking you with me.” I turned my back to him and faced the crowd again.

“Like I said before, my name is SFC Agostine. This is SFC Hamilton, my team medic. I’m recruiting a few volunteers to serve on my scout team. Our job is to go out and be the eyes and ears of Task Force Empire, the Army’s push back into New York State. It’s going to be dangerous as hell, but we will be on our own, detached from the regular army bullshit, not even part of the command. Our actual overhead is Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC. If you’re interested, Doc and I will be over here for the next few minutes. Think about it.” I pointed at Jones. “You, come with me if you want to live.”

We walked away, Jones following, and sat down on the steps of ruined library building. A dozen people walked over to us and we formed them in a line, interviewing each one. We had picked out six of them, all tough, competent survivors, when a vaguely familiar, dusky-skinned man stepped up to me.

“Name?”

“Ahmed.”

“Last name.”

“If I told you, will you torture me again, Nick Agostine?”

I looked up from the laptop where I had been punching in people’s names and shielded the sun from my eyes. I recognized him at once. He had been on our capture list for months in Afghanistan, leading a band of independent tribesmen who fought us and the Taliban with equal ferocity whenever anyone trespassed into his valley. At one time, he had been a member of the Taliban but had gone off on his own, disgusted by their attacks on children. He had hated America with equal vehemence for an airstrike which had killed two of his own children. We had him in custody once, but the last I heard, he was in Guantanamo Bay Prison.

“Ahmed Yasir. What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I am signing up for your team.”

I closed my eyes for a minute. Doc stood next to me, his pistol in hand. Ahmed stood calmly, arms folded. I opened my eyes and took the man in. He was dressed in ragged street clothes, three days growth of beard. Trying to blend in with the crowd. There were more than enough assholes who had let the plague be an excuse to take out their racial prejudice against whatever group they hated.

“I meant, what are you doing in America?”

“As for what I was doing in America, well, I was guest of your prison system. The great Satan has fallen far lower than anything I could have hoped to have done, and I actually like it here. I am here, my country is gone, and Allah has given me an opportunity to slay demons. I will never be able to go back to Afghanistan. There are plenty of demons to slay here.”

I thought for a minute. Ahmed Yasir was one bad-ass mofo and my company had spent months chasing him. I hadn’t really tortured him, just beat the crap out of him when we finally caught him. Payback for the men I had lost. Still, I had a lot of respect for the bastard. He fought fair, as fair as anyone could fight in that dirty little war.