John Holmes - Even Zombie Killers Get the Blues

The medics zipped him up in the body bag. Next time we pulled into shore, he would be buried with honors in a deep grave to keep the Zs from digging him up, and we would fire three volleys over him. Tonight, the guys in his squad would divvy up his stuff and auction it off. If his family were still alive, someone would call them. Not enough people anymore in the Army to do casualty notification in person. In a few days, once they got the satellite coms up and running, someone would post on his Facebook wall that he was gone, and messages would be posted all over the Internet. Six months from now, only his family and friends would remember him. I hated war. I hated death. So tired of it.

The medic leaned over the edge of the barge, trying to reach the water to wash her hands clean of the blood, then vomited.

“Well, Ah got him.”

“No, I think I got him.”

“Bullshit, both of you, I lit him up with the Ma Deuce.”

We sailed on downriver.

Overhead, a battered old Huey helo thopped its way downriver. As it passed, the Doppler-distorted message boomed from loudspeakers, repeated over and over:

“THERE IS HELP IN ALBANY. GO UPRIVER. THERE IS HELP IN ALBANY. GO UPRIVER. THERE IS HELP IN ALBANY.”

I was reminded of the scene from that old sci-fi movie Blade Runner where an airship droned over Los Angeles, telling people to “move off world, to a new life in the colonies”. I laughed at the irony. Here we were, thirty years after Blade Runner , and instead of exploring new worlds, we were fighting over the scraps of the old. I understood what Brit felt, about the stars.

The chopper droned away southward, down the valley. This had started last night, several trips up and down the valley by a blacked-out Army helo. Today several boats had passed us on their way north; ragged, battered pleasure boats packed, overloaded with people. They were a sorry lot, emaciated, in ragged clothing and armed with a variety of rifles, shotguns and clubs, and when they pulled up to the tug, they made as if to swarm the boat. They were met with a burst of machine gun fire into the water in front of them, and a loudspeaker from the tug, telling them to stay back fifty feet.

On the lead boat, a man yelled across to us. “Let us aboard! We have women and children, and we’re almost out of gas!”

The Infantry Platoon Commander wasn’t having any of it. Another burst of fire hit the water, and the boats backed off. He wasn’t taking any chances of these people infecting his soldiers with tuberculosis, cholera or some other communicable disease. Unlike the farmers that Doc had visited yesterday, these people looked dirty and desperate, at the end of their rope, and who knew what they were carrying.

“There is a food and medical care in Albany, at the port. We can leave you gas.”

We threw them a couple of cases of MREs and left twenty gallons of gas tied to a float. They took it without a word of thanks and motored off upriver. We hadn’t seen anyone else, and night soon arrived, so we dropped anchor in the middle of the river, just north of the ruins of Poughkeepsie. Tomorrow we would arrive at Bannerman Island and start setting up the Firebase.

I stood and picked up my rifle. “OK, let’s do it again.” Muttered groans sounded from some of the team, especially the new medic, Specialist Mya. She wasn’t used to the kind of repetitive, muscle memory training that we were doing.

“Sergeant Agostine, I think the Specialist has had enough. It’s not really her job, after all.”

I turned to where the Lieutenant stood in the darkness.

“With all due respect, Sir, you’re wrong. This is exactly what she needs to be doing. We’re going to be going through buildings in West Point. She and Redshirt need to be part of the team. Redshirt is doing good, but I need to know she isn’t going to shoot one of us in the back.”

“She’s a medic, Sergeant. She will be treating any wounded, not engaging in any gunfights.”

God, this guy was being a stupid git.

“She’s a solder first, Sir. We all fight. Including you, so I wish you would participate in these exercises.”

“I’m perfectly qualified in Close Quarters Combat.”

“That may very well be, but you need to become part of the team. We all know how the other is going to act. I don’t know how you are going to act.”

“I’ll be fine, Sergeant. You just do what NCOs do, carry out my plans and train the men.”

Before I could butt-stroke him in the face, Jonesy grabbed my arm.

“Don’t do it, man. Ain’t worth it!”

I spit on the deck as the LT walked away back forward.

We had set up a shoot house on the back deck of the barge made out of crates. We were using .22 blanks in our modified M-4s, and had set up some targets, cut-outs with infrared and red chem lights where zombie eyes would be. Some of the Infantry guys moved them around, raised and lowered them randomly. Earlier that night, we had done the same for them.

I stood back and let Ahmed lead the stack through the door, followed by Redshirt, Jonesy and Mya. Several shots cracked out, then a yell from inside. I stepped inside to a scene of chaos, and yelled “STOP!” just after watching Mya fire a burst directly into Redshirt and the department store dummy I had gone ashore and looted today. Ahmed and Jonesy had cleared the room and advanced into the next corridor, and then one of the Infantry dropped the mannequin directly on Redshirt, simulating a Zombie attacking from above.

Specialist Mya stood there, shocked. Brit was laughing hysterically. “Hahaha, I know where you got the idea for that one!” I told her to suck it and shut up if she wasn’t going to help. I pulled Mya aside while Doc helped Redshirt out from under the dummy. Ahmed and Jonesy continued to clear the rest of the shoot house for practice.

“OK, calm down, and let’s go over what just happened.”

“I—I… fucked up.” In the harsh light of the boat lights, she looked down at the deck. Redshirt came over, looking equally crestfallen.

“No, actually, you didn’t. You did exactly the right thing. Your boy here was dead. It’s pretty damn rare that you can get jumped by a Z like that and he hasn’t chomped on your neck in a second or two.” She turned to look at Redshirt, who had a freaked-out look on his face.

“You killed the Z and saved your partner from turning into one by killing him, too. At least turning into one fast. Tell me, what happens to someone who is bitten in the neck by a Z?”

She recited from the Army Field Manual, FM 3-84: “Subjects bitten on the extremity will become infected and turn within one to two minutes. Bites to the torso, less than one minute, depending on proximity to the heart and the main arteries. Bites to the neck in the vicinity of major arteries result in infection within ten to fifteen seconds.”

I nodded at her. “So you did do the right thing. If you had hesitated, you would have been facing two Zs coming right at you. Just remember, when shooting an infected person who hasn’t turned yet, you have got to stop the blood flow, either with a head shot or a heart shot, right away, or the infection will spread. Go for a head shot if you have the time, with a burst. These little hot .22 rounds don’t have the tissue disruption that a bigger, faster bullet has.”

She looked like she was calming down, but she still shook her head. “It just happened so fraking fast. I panicked. I wasn’t trying to kill him.”