John Holmes - Even Zombie Killers Get the Blues

Self-doubt, one of the biggest killers on the battlefield, and I knew she had to snap out of it, quickly. “Listen, Specialist Mya, you did the right thing by instinct. Trust yourself and you’ll live. Doubt yourself and you’re dead. You can do this, and you’ll save lives as a medic, too.”

I turned to Redshirt, who still looked sheepish himself, as well he should. He was trained for this.

“Now, Private Redshirt, you might be a great Injun tracker, but you need to know that threats can come from a three hundred sixty degree angle, anytime, anywhere. Buried under a pile of brush. Jumping down through a window. Out of a closet in an already cleared room. Both of you need to understand that. I don’t know how things are where you came from; out here in Z land EVERYTHING will be trying to kill you.”

“I understand, Sarge. I come from the reservation in New Mexico. We didn’t have much of a problem with Zs, mostly you can see them coming from a mile away.”

“Well, different place here, Red. The pre-plague population density means there are millions of them out there, and I don’t know about you, but I only carry a couple hundred rounds of ammo.”

“OK, let’s do it again, this time, Redshirt is point, then Mya, then me, then Brit.” {2} 2 ß who said this?

Later that night they were to learn an even harsher lesson.

I hadn’t been able to sleep so I was walking the deck. Dawn being only two hours away, I took a mug of coffee from the tug captain and headed back to where I knew Mya and Redshirt were pulling guard over our packs.

As I got closer, I could hear music coming from somewhere. In the moonlight, I could see Mya’s head nodding to the beat of some headphones stuck in her ears. Next to her, Redshirt snored.

I came up behind them, and grabbed Mya by the neck, throwing her onto the deck and ripping the headphones off her, followed by her iPod. She lay there, stunned, and I kicked Redshirt awake. His eyes opened and crossed as he looked at the barrel of my pistol two inches from his nose.

“ WHAT. THE. FUCK !”

I was pissed. Regardless of WHERE we were, guard duty was sacrosanct. Sleeping on guard duty was an offense punishable by immediate death, carried out by the senior officer or NCO present. By the Universal Code of Military Justice, rewritten last year, I could have, and should have, shot Redshirt right there.

I holstered my pistol and sat back. I placed SPC Mya’s iPod on the deck and smashed it under my boot.

“Hey!” she shouted. “You can’t get those anymore!”

“I suggest you shut the hell up and listen, Specialist. Do you understand I have the right to kill PFC Redshirt right now? And have you whipped? Or vice versa, depending on whose fault it was? In fact, I think this is your fault more than his. You let him fall asleep.”

He didn’t say anything, merely hung his head. She stared at me. I think reality had just bitten them both in the ass, very hard.

“You never, ever sleep on guard duty. I don’t care if we are in the middle of Seattle, in the safe zone. NEVER, EVER. Do you understand me? ”

They both mumbled something and I blew out a long breath.

“I’m not going to shoot you. Or have you whipped. This is as much my fault as it is yours. I shouldn’t have put both of you noobs on the same shift together. Just understand, from here on out, there are no second chances. If it happens again, you’re done. Mya, go to bed.”

She got up and walked away without looking back.

“I thought they taught you better in Infantry school, PFC.”

“Uh, they did, Sarge. One kid fell asleep in basic training, on fire watch at night. They had him whipped in front of the whole company and drummed him out. Put him outside the gate. I guess I was just worn out from the training today. It won’t happen again.”

“If it does happen again, I will shoot you. Do you understand? If you let your partner fall asleep, you will get whipped under UCMJ. You’re lucky this isn’t on dry land, because it would have been far worse. I would have had you both whipped for a first time offense.”

“Would you have really shot me, Sarge?”

“I’ve done it before, Red. Once. I’ll do it again, if I have to. So would Doc. Brit wouldn’t even think twice about it. You’re lucky it’s not her who found you. I will not let my team be killed by someone’s stupidity. We all make enough mistakes, myself included, to die easily out here, and none of us are going to let the rest of the team down if we can help it.”

Our boats hummed through the night, over the still river water. I kept my head down and a cloth over my face. Ever since the plague, more and more areas had been turning back into wetlands, without the constant maintenance on causeways and dikes, and that meant more and more mosquitoes and bugs. Most people didn’t know it, but malaria had been a big problem in the States, even as far north as Canada, right up until the mid-20 thcentury, and it was going to come back and be a pain again soon enough. They were all over and I didn’t want to catch more than my share in my teeth and up my nose as we scooted across the water.

As we raced along, I thought back to the scene at Firebase Castle a few hours before. Night had just fallen, and the chopper that had been flying up and down river the past few nights flared in for a landing on a cleared LZ. Two guys in civilian clothes had hopped out, one of whom I recognized from my time in Afghanistan.

The Effing Press. They were greeted by LT Carter, who ran over to them with a giant sucking sound and started shaking their hands. He stood by their extra camera equipment and yelled for me as the Huey thundered back up river.

“Sergeant, get a detail together and move this equipment down to the boats!”

“NO FUCKING WAY!” I yelled back.

LT Carter stopped his sucking up for a minute to come over to talk to me.

“What is your problem, Sergeant?”

“Sir, what is the point to this mission? We are a recon element, not a goddamned circus.”

“Sergeant, the mission is to show the world that we are returning to the places that mean something to America. This camera crew is going to help us show that.”

I shook my head in disgust. “They are going to get us killed.”

“Sergeant, you will protect these men with your life, if need be. Their mission is more important than any one man. Do you understand?”

“Oh yeah, I understand that those douchebags are going to get themselves and us killed and or eaten. They aren’t going.”

“I’ll load their equipment myself if I have to.”

“Fine. Have fun. Arrivederci . Whatever.”

“When we get back to Fort Orange, Sergeant, I’m bringing you up on charges of insubordination and dereliction of duty.”

“How about we get through this mission first, and then we see what’s a sucky attitude and what is reality!”

I turned my back to him and walked away. A little later I saw him yelling at Redshirt and Mya to load the equipment into the boats, and the Navy boat crew giving him shit about the extra weight.

So here we were. My team was in one boat, and the LT, Mya, Redshirt, the reporter and his cameraman in the other. I knew the “reporter” from my days in Afghanistan. He had done a couple of embeds, then managed to alienate and piss off just about everyone in the military with his crappy reporting and misdirected crusades, and spent the rest of the war “reporting” from Singapore. I wasn’t surprised he had survived. Cockroaches always do.

We cut the engines and shipped oars about two hundred meters from the remains of the dock, but let the current carry us slowly there. As we drifted up, we all watched through our NVGs for signs of Zs. I saw one stumbling through the parking lot, then hear a muted phut from Ahmed’s rifle and the figure went down. We backed water with our oars for a few minutes to see if anything else came out, then tied up to the dock.