Carnell, Thom - No Flesh Shall Be Spared

No one ever made it up intact after being swarmed over on the ground like that, anyway. The Dead were like sharks in that respect. Once they got their teeth in you, you were done.

Caught. Cleaned. Cooked.

The team had been on a House-to-House for the past few weeks, ever since their unit was called up and told that big shit was brewing over in Cress County. The Dead had come back to Life was the story they’d heard. None of them believed it, at first. After all, who would? Who’d ever heard of corpses getting up and eating the flesh of the Living outside of a goddamn horror movie?

Seriously… what the fuck was that all about?

The whole concept seemed fabricated by a combination of over-active imaginations, irrational fear and blatant stupidity. Any one of those things by itself was a dangerous thing. Add them all together and you had a catastrophe of biblical proportions.

Lance looked over toward Sgt. Masterson, the team’s leader, and saw the big man rattle off a series of commands by way of a combination of intricate hand signals. His movements were practiced, concise and instantly understood by the men. One by one, they all dutifully complied.

Masterson was from the old school. He was a burly man in his mid-thirties with a dark flattop you could cut paper with and when it came to things like family and friends, it seemed that he’d made his choice a long time ago. The Corps had been his life and his love for as long as he could remember. There never seemed to be a good enough reason to change that. He readily admitted to being what was often referred to as a "lifer" and he was proud of that, however now that The Dead had come a "callin’", it looked more and more as if that life might just be the death of him.

Masterson motioned for the big black man known as "Ray Dog" and the guy they’d picked up on the road who called himself "Slider" to take Point. The Dog waved the M-60 in his hands in front of him like a divining rod and made his way past where Lance was crouched.

"’scuse me, Brutha…" Ray Dog said in his deep baritone.

Slider rose up and fanned the Mossberg shotgun back and forth as he came up on the right. Slider came to be a member of the squad when they’d run into him at one of the bivouacs popping up on the roads along the way. He’d been traveling west from Jersey when the shit hit the fan. The fact that he happened to have the Mossberg and a shit-load of ammo in the trunk of his car pretty much bought him a place on the team. His ability to clear a room with the weapon and keep his head while doing it kept him there. His nickname, he said, came about as a result of his love for White Castle burgers. If all the food in the world disappeared overnight, it would be those greasy little hockey pucks that he’d miss the most.

The two men crab-walked past the group and crouched near a split-rail fence for a second to get their bearings. Then they ducked under the strut and made their way carefully across the field in a fast moving crouch. The barrels of their weapons swayed back and forth, following each soldier’s ever-wandering gaze. The rest of the squad dutifully followed along, each checking both the path in front of him and the one behind for even the slightest signs of movement.

Midway down the knoll, a dirt road cut across the field and angled down toward what looked like an old farmhouse. The building was still a good distance away, but its eaves could be made out over the tops of the trees. You could just see through the foliage that the structure was flanked by a small utility shed on the left and a large barn on the right, near the back. The barn looked to be set up for horses or cattle, maybe sheep. In another time, it would have been a place where folk could live out their entire lifetimes in peace. These days, it looked like a death trap.

Reaching the dirt road, the men stood up and let a little of their tension ease. Keeping their eyes moving and assessing their surroundings, they regrouped. Masterson made a few more quick hand signals and they turned as one and headed down the road in a two-by-three formation toward the house.

"Shit, Sarge, how many more of these Sweep and Clears are we going to do?" said the man they all called "A-Rab." He was one of those guys who was always complaining about how much work they all had to do, the conditions, the weather. It was always too hot or too cold or too wet or too dry for A-Rab. The Dog said once that A-Rab was the only guy he knew who could be getting laid and still find a way to complain about the pussy. All of it was whiny-assed bullshit, but carrying the M249 SAW as he was, he’d proven himself a valuable asset to the team. The gun could cut just about anything—living or dead—in half with a burst of its firepower. When you found yourself in shit as deep as this, that kind of weaponry made the difference between life or death; between being taken along or left behind.

"Can the chatter, Son. I have neither the time nor the inclination to listen to your bullshit today," Masterson hissed in clipped tones.

A-Rab looked down, dejected; his diaper having been suitably spanked.

The six men continued to walk silently down the dirt road, each one carefully checking every shadow and shade for even a hint of motion. Once they’d seen to it that the area was clear, they began to relax and talk amongst themselves, albeit in low, hushed tones.

"Hey, Bruce," Lance said to the small, Asian man whose real name was William Takahashi, "did you get a quick one from that broad you were sweet talkin’ at that last compound?" Despite the fact that Takahashi was of Japanese heritage, the men had given him the nickname "Bruce" after Bruce Lee who, William theorized, was the only Asian guy they all knew.

Takahashi smiled broadly. "Let’s just say that she was very grateful at our having rescued her from the top of that water tower."

"Yeah," laughed Lance, "but did she show you her appreciation."

Bruce winked and grabbed at his crotch.

"The only thing was…" Ray Dog whispered back over his shoulder, "she was horny again an hour later."

The group laughed and for a moment it almost felt as if things weren’t so dire. For a second, they collectively forgot how bad things had gotten over the last few weeks, forgot about how most of the people they had known and loved were now dead. Dead or walking around with their faces torn off and trying to eat anything still left alive.

For a second, they were just a group of guys hangin’ out and shootin’ the shit.

Then, Masterson spoke and brought all of that to an end.

"Stow it, Ladies," he said in a whisper that to the men’s ears seemed louder than any scream. "We’ve got movement."

As one, the men dropped into a crouch and immediately broke off into the brush on whatever side of the road was closest.

"By the shed… on the right," hissed Masterson.

Lance directed his attention toward the small shack that looked like it was a combination utility shed and place for a gas-powered generator. The squat building had the same look as the larger ones far off across the homestead: colonial and just a step out of time.

For a moment, things looked pretty normal. The birds chirped in the trees, the grass swayed in the soft breeze and none of the dumbfucks could be seen. Things looked clear. Then, just below the rise of the hill where the shack stood, a small blur of color could be made out.

Then, another.

"Sarge, you amaze me sometimes," Bruce said quietly. "You sure you don’t have E.S.P? I mean, the way you track these fucks makes my head spin."

"Well," grumbled Ray Dog from the back of the pack, "I guess that makes you a dis-oriental."

The men all chuckled under their breath.

Suddenly, three of the reanimated dead staggered around the side of the shack. Two of them were men; white guys dressed like they’d worked as farmhands on this or a neighboring spread. The other was a woman who looked as if she’d almost been pretty once, in a plain sort of corn-fed way. But now something had gotten to her and gnawed off the lower half of her face, leaving her ravaged.