John Holmes - Even Zombie Killers Get the Blues

“Sir, you put their lives at risk and blew the mission because you wanted to make the front page of a paper. You’re lucky none of them pushed you off the boat last night on the way back. None of the boat crew would have cared. You put their lives at risk too, by forcing them to come back for us. You’re actually lucky that camera guy is alive, because Brit wasn’t shooting to disable him. We don’t do that; she was just off her game because she’s still recovering from a gunshot wound. By all rights, he should be dead.”

“I know, I know. I just got my ass reamed by the CO.” He meant the Infantry Company Commanding Officer, who had overall command of the Firebase.

“Really? What did he say?”

“Uh, he said I should suck my thumb and let you change my diaper when I crapped myself, and that I wasn’t in charge of shit.”

I laughed out loud, and he cringed. “Sir, this is real life now. Learn a few things and you can be in charge. I don’t know why you’re out here with us, instead of learning the ropes on a line platoon, but if you stay alive, you will learn a good bit and be better off for it.” In fact, I did know why he was with us; because Major Flynn was punishing me for what he suspected happened to LTC Jackass, but I wasn’t going to say that.

“I guess so, Sergeant. Do I have to apologize to the whole team?”

“If you want to live through our next encounter with Zs, it’s probably a good idea.”

He did apologize. Everyone took it well, except for Brit, who called him a dumbass and some other pretty abusive things until I told her to lay off. Like I said, we worked for the Army, but we weren’t part of it.

We set out again later that afternoon but without all our gear. This time was killing time. The boats pulled up off the landing, about one hundred meters. A large crowd of Zs was milling around the parking lot, stepping on the remains of the ones the firecracker rounds had shredded last night. The guys started popping shots at them, but hitting a target the size of a head from a hundred meters away, on an anchored boat slowly rising and falling is almost impossible. Only Ahmed was scoring hits on a regular basis. I let Redshirt and Mya the LT continue to fire, though, because they needed to get accustomed to shooting at real dead targets instead of pop ups.

Beside me, Jonesy lined up his 203 launcher.

“Did you get any flashbangs?”

“Nope, but I did manage to work a thumper into a shell. Only about one in three survive the shot, so I brought twelve.”

“OK, I think we’ll only need two.”

“On the way!” He set the timers and fired six quick rounds into the parking lot. We waited a few minutes and I listened for the music to start up.

“Beastie Boys? REALLY?” The strains of “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” started filling the air. It sounded like three of them were working, each a second or two off the other.

“Hey, them white boys are the shit, Nick.”

We watched as more Zs started to shamble down the road to the parking lot. We waited half an hour, then an hour. It was a packed, milling mass, and we pulled back a few hundred meters and off the Gun – Target line, in case of a misfiring fuse. Nine hundred steel pellets would shred one of these boats, and us, in short order.

“Cockers, this is Lost Boys, FIRE AA4037, over.”

“Lost Boys, Fire, AA4037, out.”

Two minutes later the rounds started detonating over the parking lot. Sharp cracks, blinding even in the sunlight, left small puffs of smoke. We could see where the water on the edge of the river got ripped up by the BBs and a few even skipped across the water towards us.

“Lost Boys, this is Cocker, rounds complete, over.”

“This is Lost Boys, Rounds Complete, estimate two hundred plus rendered ineffective. Thanks, Lost Boys out.”

We pulled back in towards the parking lot. Blood and ooze ran down into the river, and here and there individual Zs stumbled about. Jonesy shot another four thumpers with their timers set to half an hour, an hour and six hours. Hopefully they would draw any more Zs down to the river.

The boats engines kicked out and we sped downriver, around to the south side of point, and tied off to the remains of the dock there.

This wasn’t going to be a sneak and peak anymore. The Zs were too stirred up for that, and no way were we going to go blundering around at night. This was going to be a balls-to-the-wall, run across campus, killing everything in our path, plant the flag and GTFO. With pics to prove it happened.

We ran. Fast. Run. Stop. Aim. Fire. Run. We ran uphill from the dock, shooting everything that moved. One team up one side of the street, another up the other side.

There weren’t that many Zs but what there was made me sick. Many of them were in the tattered remnants of uniforms, both the cadets and regular soldiers, and it hurt to shoot at them. It was one thing to watch from five hundred meters away while the artillery pounded them, another to stop, aim, and place a .22 slug in the center of their faces from twenty feet.

We had made it almost halfway to our objective, Trophy Point, overlooking the Hudson Valley, and were just coming out of the tunnel leading to the parade field when we ran smack into group of Zs. They were headed in the same direction as us, coming from around a corner, and in an instant, we became a maelstrom of yelling, cursing, clubbing and firing, trying to break through without getting bitten. I hit one as hard as I could with my reinforced rifle stock, straight across the face and hopefully smashing its nose into what was left of its brain. I fired into another on the downswing, a quick burst that caught it in the throat, shoulder and leg. Beside me Jonesy was using his barrel like a club, probably ruining it forever, smacking it down on the heads of any Z that came near him.

We made it, almost. The Zs were slow to react, but by the time PFC Redshirt, bringing up the rear, tried to make it through, they were worked up to fury and he was buried under a pile of them, swinging his hammer as hard as he could. He went down with a fight and a yell. Mya started back, but Brit grabbed her and shoved her forward. She screamed at the crying medic, “He’s done! Let’s go!” and then took off running herself. The rest of us had turned and were laying down a suppressive fire so they could catch up. We smoked the few still standing Zs as they came at us but couldn’t see where Redshirt had fallen through the tall weeds. A quiet fell over the grounds as we made our way over through the brush which grew up over the parade field.

The LT and Mya looked visibly shaken, and Mya was crying steady tears. Brit stood next to me, and whispered in my ear.

“You knew that was going to happen. The frigging kid’s name was Redshirt, for Pete’s sake. I’m surprised he lasted this long.”

“Shut it Brit. I don’t care if he was predestined to get sacrificed to the great Zombie God. He was my troop.”

“Whatever. Just trying to make you feel better.” She walked away to scan part of the perimeter. It made me feel like an ass that I understood what she meant. People die in our business.

“OK, that sucked, and it’s going to suck worse trying to get back to the boat. Let’s get on with this mission, and stay on your toes. Jonesy, you had point, you SHOULD have seen them coming. Be more alert.”

“Warn’t nothing I could do, Nick. They just popped outta the doorway next to me. But yeah, sorry about that Injun kid. Hope you’re at your happy hunting grounds now.”