Joseph Talluto - White Flag of the Dead

“Fine. Getting bigger.” I saw Nate’s eyes cloud over briefly and again figured there was a story there. “What’s the status on our cleanup?”

Nate grimaced. “We’re getting ready to head out. Tommy is on the roof and figures there are about thirty-two in the area. We have squads of shooters and squads of cleaners suited up and ready to go. Also, we’ve got some of people who aren’t happy that the families are exempt from cleanup.”

That surprised me. “Who’s making noise?” I had a feeling I knew what the answer was, but I have been wrong before.

“That new guy, Frank.” Nate said, with an irritated glance down the hallway.

I followed his look. Frank Stearns was talking to about three people, making a lot of hand gestures and faces. I made a mental note to deal with Frank later.

“Leave him to me. I’ll have a chat with him later.” I reassured Nate.

“You sure?” Nate asked. “He could have an ‘accident’ out there, you know.”

I looked at Nate. “Not my way, but I’ll keep it in mind. Maybe I’ll get lucky, he’ll screw up, and some zombie will have fresh Frank for dinner.”

Nate grumbled. “If you had luck like that I’d marry you.”

I laughed, “You’re too ugly for my taste.”

Nate walked past, shouting for the squads to assemble and check their gear. I hopped up the stairs and knocked on the door to Kristen’s room. A very sleepy head poked its way into the hall. “Hmmm?”

“Do me a favor and see if anyone is up enough to dress and feed Jake. I need to get out onto the grounds for cleanup.” I said to the blinking head in front of me.

“I think Kristin’s already downstairs, and Jessica’s still sleeping. I’ll ask Dawn, she’s up.” The head yawned.

“Thanks. Ten minutes?”

“’Kay.” The head withdrew. Process of elimination made Janice the girl I was talking to. Nate had found her on the roof of a gas station, having climbed there to escape a mob of zombies that had chased her out of her house. She faced death by dehydration or being eaten by zombies, so when Nate came charging in, she was more than willing to come along. Nate was a demon when it came to killing zombies. He was calculating, methodical, and deadly. He never panicked, and was silent as a ghost when he wanted to be. Just the man I liked to have around when raiding.

I headed down the stairs, thinking about out situation. We had a decent thing here, but there was no real life, no actual thought about the future. Was this the place I wanted Jake to grow up? Was this the place I wanted to grow old and die in? Off the bat, the answers were no. But I didn’t have a solution that was acceptable. Sure, I could say lets build an army and go kick ass, but logistically it was impossible. If most of the world was zombie or dead, that left roughly one million zombies per survivor. Not good odds by anyone’s standards. I did have some notions to work out, one being going back to my house to retrieve items left behind, if they hadn’t been stolen by looters, bad memories not withstanding. Another was an idea I wanted to float by Nate as soon as I could. But I had work to do now.

I walked into the commons area where the cleanup and eradication crews were assembling. Cleanup consisted of four squads, four people in each. Two people were chosen by flipping a coin and they were the ones who dragged the bodies to the burn area to be disposed of. The other two people in the squad provided cover and protected the unarmed draggers. The draggers had six-foot-long poles with large hooks attached to them. The dragger just had to shove the hook into the dead body’s collarbone or neck, and drag it off. Sometime the bodies were in weird places, and required careful manipulation of two dragger hooks. Eradication groups consisted of six squads, four people in each. One of the squad members each had long poles with larger hooks on them, the notion being to trip up the zombie and get him on the ground. Two other members had shorter poles, about six feet long that had a flattened rod attached perpendicular to one end, which then was rounded at the ends, creating a kind of “crescent moon on a stick”. One member would pin the zombie down around the torso after he was tripped, and the other would then pin the zombie by the neck. The fourth member had a short rod with a heavy pointed weight on the end which was used to bash in the zombie’s head when he was pinned to the ground. This method was invented by Nate when we realized we needed a relatively quiet and safe method of disposing zombie that strolled into our yard. It worked most of the time, sometimes there were problems, like when there were many of them and they began swarming. Then it came down to the Shooters — six men armed with rifles to hold a line and start eliminating. Every squad member has a sidearm, only to be used when things got overwhelming. Then one member was to drop his pole and then use his gun. The other members would use their poles to hold the zombies at bay until a head shot could be taken. All told, there would be 46 armed people out there, ready to do battle if needed. Sometimes they were needed, and more than once, they weren’t enough.

I looked at the group assembled, and found my Shooters. There were four of them, I made up the fifth. We had two jobs. We were to shoot the Z’s if they got too swarmy, and we were to act as decoys to get them to the eradication squads. Not too hard, but accidents happened. I looked over at Nate, and he nodded toward Frank, who was looking very glum as a Dragger. He held the pole as if he expected it to bite him, and I saw him looking over his shoulder at the other three members of his squad. Something tickled the back of my mind and I went over to Nate, who was checking the gear of an Eradicator whose pole seemed shaky. “Heads up, Nate.” Nate glanced at me. “What’s that, bro?” “I think we’re going to have some runners today.” Nate’s eyebrows went up. “Really? Your buddy?” “Yeah. I get the feeling he’s wanting to wander off, not liking the rules of this place.” “Some people are stupid that way. I kind of figured him for an opportunist.” I thought about that. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t get anyone killed.” Nate grunted. “If he does I’ll stake his sorry ass out on the lawn and cover him in ranch dressing for the Z’s” I laughed. “Roger that. Just giving you a gut feeling.” Nate smiled. “Your gut ain’t been wrong yet.”

I clapped him on the shoulder and went back to my shooters. I rounded them up and sent them to their assigned doors. I would head out the front door, and with luck, we should wrap this operation up quickly. Cleanup crews would head out when we called them, and we would all head for the baths for washing after.

I found my squad and we went through the routine of checking gear and tightening straps. No loose clothing was allowed, and guns were checked to make sure they were loaded and chambered. I lowered my goggles and jacked around into my carbine. For this work I preferred the AR-15 over my M1 Carbine. Thirty rounds of. 223 was enough for this work. I saved the M1 for serious work. I checked the window and made sure there were no surprises waiting outside the door. We had taped over the windows and had a thin slit for viewing. No Z’s were close to the door, although there was a middle-aged guy about ten yards out. He was first.

I flicked the safety off, braced my foot on the release bar of the front door, and shoved the door outward, moving into the morning light. I didn’t have far to go, and was immediately the center of attention of about seven zombies that had been milling about the parking lot before I popped out at them. They must have thought dinner was about to be served because as one, they started to move towards me and my group. We quickly fanned out and went towards the closest zombie. He reached a mangled hand out to take hold of the first guy he saw, only to go crashing down to the dirt on his face. The hook had taken out his legs. Immediately the two pinners jumped on him before he had a chance to get back up. One leaned in with the pole on his back and the other pinned his head to the ground. The basher ran in and with one hard swung to the top of the head, the zombie was finished. I focused on the remaining zombies and figured the teenage boy with the mutilated face was next, he was moving a little faster than the rest and would be closest. The other five were a little more spread out, and would not get to us in time.