ZNIPER: A Sniper’s Journey Through The Apocalypse.

by Ward III, C.

  Victor’s eyes watered at the thought of what they had gone through. “I’m so sorry,” he said, kneeling down and pulling them both in tight for a strong, long-lasting hug.

  “It was really bad, Dad,” Zavier whispered, his voice cracking.

  “I know. Tonight, tell me everything that happened. OK?”

  Zavier and Michael nodded, looking up at the other men stepping closer.

  “We picked up the refugees. This is one of them; his name is Kevin.”

  “Nice to meet you, young men. You can call me Leprechaun if you’d like,” he said shaking their mud-covered hands and not caring about the slimy mud.

  “Guess what, boys? The Leprechaun granted us a magical wish. He’s brought Erica to us. He’s been with her on a very long journey all the way from Detroit!”

  All the stress and turmoil of the day’s chaotic events washed off their faces, replaced by great big smiles.

  Zavier jumped into the back of the pickup truck. “Well, what are we standing around here for? Let’s go!”

  Баба-Яга

  The motherland of milk and honey

  Силы Cпециальных Oпераций operator Dragan Ilic had watched countless Amerikan broadcasts portraying California as a luxurious paradise of endless beaches, flawless women wearing scandalous bikinis, a variety of convertible sports cars on every street, never-ending sunshine, and warm weather. Even through a Kevlar-lined neoprene dive suit, he was deeply disappointed when he felt the coldness of the ocean around him. The six-man special operations team breached the surface simultaneously into the frigid night air with the same climate shock reaction.

  “О, твою мать! Can we swim back down to the warm submarine?”

  “Speak English, Potrovsky. Russia put us through years of linguist classes. Use it, you big ox,” Captain Vassili chastised his man.

  “Not quite the bath water I expected,” Ilic agreed. “It’s as if we’re still in Siberia.”

  With chattering teeth, the team went to work, pulling each other into the inflatable rubber boat that had also ascended the silent aquatic depths from the P-650 special-purpose midget submarine. Ilic’s teammate distributed weapons and night-vision devices from a large dry bag, which was then refilled with their dive fins and masks. Normally they’d take off and stow away the dive suits, too, so they could hit the beach running, but tonight they kept them on for warmth.

  Ilic was scanning the horizon in all directions. While pointing off the starboard side, he nudged his team leader with a boot. “Land ho, Kapitán.” A quick glance at a compass confirmed that the mountain mass jetting out of the water was their target. A wrist-worn waterproof GPS would be used along the way to guide them to their insertion point. After a nod to the coxswain, the motor purred to life, and they were on their way, propelled across gently rolling swells toward San Clemente Island.

  The voyage across the sea during midnight boat raids usually gave way to daydreams while lying on the gunnel tube, bouncing up and down. However, tonight Ilic’s mind was processing the magnitude of their mission. The United Nations had labeled it a humanitarian operation, the BBN referred to it as peacekeeping, but everyone knew that was херня. For the first time ever, Russian military was on Amerikan soil, uninvited. A гребаное invasion.

  Dragan Ilic had been training his entire career for this moment. From when he was six months into his eighteen-month universal military obligation, he knew that he wanted something better. The regular army unit ranks of mandatory service conscripts were treated like the slaves they were. Daily degrading work details outweighed the occasional bare minimum of combat training, which none of the conscripted soldiers cared to do. Every excuse was made to leave. Desertion and insubordination had been constant occurrences.

  When he had heard rumors of a new special operations command being formed in 2012, Ilic did everything possible to be at the tryouts, including bribing a unit commander with stolen vehicles from a sister battalion. Ilic lacked the commissioned rank and time in military service required by the special operations unit, but with pure determination and performance, he proved himself worthy. By the Spring of 2013, the new CCO unit was officially born, and he was in it. Their first task was to provide antiterrorism security for the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.

  When not deployed, he attended every military training course available, sometimes having to pay his own way. Dive school, airborne school, communications, leadership seminars, western language and culture classes, and then finally the coveted Spetsnaz sniper school.

  His six-man team had been on numerous successful classified missions in Europe and along the southern Asian border. But never in a million years had he thought that Mother Russia would take the fight to the Yankees. The seemingly impossible thought made his pink frozen cheeks lift into a smile. Written in the history books thereafter, he would be part of the great reshaping of the world order.

  Even though intentions of western domination were obvious, they still had to pretend to be the good guys. United Nations liaison officers were on the ground overseeing hundreds of Chinese relief workers—fake relief workers who were mostly Chinese army regulars awaiting orders, with battle equipment close by. That’s why the amphibious midnight mission was covert—not for a surprise assault against the Americans but to avoid United Nations scrutiny.

  Politics always slowed down progress, Ilic thought. He wondered why President Putin didn’t dissolve the UN altogether; it’s not like the UN had power or funding anymore without the west. All for a show, he concluded.

  His helmet-mounted phosphorous night-vision technology displayed the approaching rocky landmass in light shades of gray. The picture clarity was far more advanced than the older light-amplified green-filtered goggles. He hoped to recover working Amerikan military tech to compare and to take home as war trophies. The coxswain turned the boat slightly toward a small crescent-shaped beach now in view.

  The team repositioned themselves in the rubber boat quickly while they rechecked gear and weapons. Slung across his back, Ilic had an Orsis T-5000, a bolt-action rifle built in Moscow. He chambered in NATO 308. He chose to deploy with this rifle with the assumption NATO ammo would be easier to come by in Amerika. In his hands, sweeping the shoreline, he held a Vityaz-SN submachine gun. Ilic had never been so focused and alert.

  After a massive swarm of infected crazies had overwhelmed the Russian and Chinese forces in San Francisco, the Fifth Red Banner Army Brigade needed to establish a new foothold. The San Clemente Island US Naval base would be a perfect location for a forward operating- and logistics base. That is if they could clear and hold it. But first, they needed to know who—or what—was occupying it. For forty-eight hours, they would conduct reconnaissance and surveillance around the main airfield, reporting to higher-ups every thirty minutes. They were briefed prior to expect former base workers, maybe some security staff, civilian refugees that fled the mainland to seek refuge, possible an island full of the cursed creatures or worse. The US Navy SEALs also used this base for training, which meant they could face a worthy adversary. It made no difference which they encountered, they would all be dealt with in the same permanent way. Hence the reason they were going in quietly, with no UN liaisons.

  Novikov looked out a port window of the Mi8M transport helicopter. The morning sun had just crested over a mountain range on the mainland to the east, giving fresh light to the quickly approaching island. The squadron pilots did them a favor and lapped the 147-square-kilometer island, giving them a full inflight tour of the old dirt airstrip centered on the island, a fairly large barracks facility, and an urban training area. From the air, nothing seemed to be alive on the surface.

  White-capped waves crashed against the rocky western shore. Vegetation seemed sparse, revealing a more arid, rockier terrain than he’d imagined the advertised southern California “paradise” would be. On the island’s northern tip was a long paved airstrip flanked by several buildings, some of which were smoldering with t
all, thick plumes of blackened smoke.

  As the pilot straightened the helicopter out on final approach, the ground around the airfield came into better view. The pilot favored one side of the airstrip, away from the piles of debris, toward a clearing marked by a tired-looking special forces operator. The wheels touched town on the flight line, bounced once, and then the back ramp dropped, inviting them to disembark.

  As quickly as the helo’s rear ramp dropped, Novikov’s platoon jumped out onto the tarmac, avoiding the tail rotor, and formed 360-security around the bird while fighting against the rotor downwash. As their ride lifted off, the thumping of the helo blades fading into the distance, they were left to take in an horrific sight: the piles of debris littering the airfield were mangled human corpses.

  The company and platoon commanders stood in a group with one of the CCO operators, who pointed here and there. With a quick salute, the meeting was over and the infantry mission began.

  The airfield compound was divided into quadrants; each platoon would do a detailed search of their designated quadrant to look for anyone—or anything—breathing. Afterward, they would rotate to the next to research the quadrant the other platoon had just searched. While looking for survivors, any valuable, useable, or just plain interesting Amerikan equipment was to be logged for further inspection.

  After the airfield was searched without finding a living soul, Novikov’s platoon began fortifying the airfield and running security patrols. The other platoons took off on foot to search the rest of the island. Nobody went within ten meters of the dead lying piled about in fear of infection. There had been an estimated three hundred personnel on this island, and it appeared that they were all dead and rotting before him. Novikov prayed he wouldn’t be on that cleanup detail.

  The next wave for transport helos brought another platoon of soldiers, an entire helicopter full of men in white hazmat suits, and a small group of clean-cut, sunglasses-wearing civilians with matching jackets. GRU intelligence services, Novikov thought.

  Oddly, the spooks didn’t meet with the unit commanders. They glanced around to get their bearings, then walked straight toward a large concrete building as if they knew exactly what they were looking for. It wasn’t until they found it locked that they talked to the company commander for assistance. After several hours of cutting and grinding, they finally opened the massive metal doors to expose an ammo supply point completely full of every type of ordinance in the US naval inventory, from bullets to cruise missiles. Jackpot.

  After that treasure box had been opened, the spooks took aim toward a round metal-roofed building the size of an airplane hangar, with the logo of an eagle holding a trident above the large overhead door. The CCO operators were protecting the entrance. It seemed that they had wanted to loot the Amerikan SEAL team’s warehouse more than the spooks did.

  The next morning, Ilic sat overlooking a bluff, staring across the ocean toward the mainland. Several ships were parked off the island coast now: a battleship, an aircraft carrier, a refueling ship, a hospital ship, a couple of cargo ships full of shipping containers, and a submerged submarine he knew was patrolling around the island. By the end of the day, the engineers would have generators running and power grids and waterlines working. Within a couple of days, this place would be fully functioning to support their “peacekeeping” efforts, he thought while scrutinizing a smoldering mass grave at the ocean’s edge.

  Ilic scratched his scruffy chin, took a swig of coffee, and lit a cigarette. He started daydreaming about the Amerikan tactical dune buggy they had found in the hangar. As soon as he cleaned himself up, he’d take that thing for a joyride around the island—as a security patrol, of course. Ilic was just about to stand up when an army regular sat down next to him with a field ration in hand.

  “Morning,” the young soldier said, shifting comfortably into position. He peered down the bluff toward the pile of burnt bodies. “Is that your handy work?”

  Ilic was used to vaguely blowing off questions about his classified missions, so he just took another swig of coffee, ignoring the soldier.

  “Were all of them infected?”

  Normally he would tell this kid to отвали, but Ilic liked his demeanor. Army regulars usually have an inferiority complex about themselves around special operators and would immediately begin blabbing, trying to explain how they were going to do spec ops, but didn’t because [fill in the blank] with whatever lame-ass excuse. Sad and annoying. That went double for the mandatory service conscripts. But those киски were all deployed to the phony Middle East stabilization effort, where NATO was doing the heavy lifting.

  This kid next to him held his head up high and talked straight with him, aggressive almost. He wasn’t there by mandatory service. Only volunteers who reenlisted were honored with this campaign. Maybe it was the weight of the mission, a bond all of them could share. Those who could later in life proudly say that they were there. They were there, conquering the savage lands of Amerika, reshaping the world.

  “Probably most of them were cursed,” Ilic answered coldly. “Hard to tell at night, while you’re stacking them up by the moonlight.”

  “That’s brutal.”

  “Needed to be done. Won’t be the last time,” Ilic answered, but he was thinking more about the missions to come.

  “What’s next? Where are you off to now that this rock is secured?” asked the soldier.

  “We’ve only been here a day; I wouldn’t call it secured,” Ilic said, dodging the direct operational-security question the soldier should have known better than to ask. “We’ll probably deploy somewhere else on the coast to gain another foothold, then start working our way east toward the Rockies.”

  The soldier licked his spoon clean, nodding his head, envisioning a long bloody road ahead of them. Even with the cargo freighters full of troops and logistics floating in every day, taming this land would be more difficult than when the English settlers had arrived here a couple hundred years ago. He stuck the empty ration container in his cargo-pant pocket and reached over to shake Ilic’s hand. “My name’s Novikov. Good luck out there.”

  Ilic took his hand firmly. “You, too, Novikov. Watch your back.”

  Before Novikov could get to his feet, a form darted from the bushes like a Баба-Яга, tackling him hard to the ground. A ball of entangled bodies rolled over the edge and onto a ledge five meters below, landing with screams of pain and rage.

  Ilic jumped to his feet, unslung his submachine gun, and aimed over the edge. He couldn’t shoot without hitting Novikov. Normally he’d casually shoot them both dead without a care, but he liked this kid. He slung his weapon over his shoulder and jumped, landed hard, and punched the attacker in the back of the head with no effect. He punched and punched again, pulled his diving knife from its sheath, then drove the blade up to the hilt through its neck and then pulled back until he scraped against vertebrae.

  Breathing heavily, with a moan, Novikov heaved the attacker off him, rolling it to the side. Ilic offered him a gore-covered hand to help him up. Both soaked in dark-grayish blood, they stared into the pinpoint pupils of the twitching attacker, who continued to claw at the ground to get them, even with a ripped-out, gurgling throat.

  Two days later, after many heated protests, engaging in hand-to-hand fighting while resisting physical restraints, and then eventually getting knocked unconscious and subdued by GRU spooks, Ilic and Novikov both sat in a grungy locked stateroom aboard a freighter ship heading north up the coast of California.

  “This is хуйня! There’s a submarine right out there, escorting this ship with my team on it!” Dragan Ilic shouted. “I’m not infected. Are you infected?”

  He didn’t wait for Novikov to answer as he paced back and forth in the small, cramped living quarters, yelling at the secured heavy metal hatch. He had spent a lot of time on ships, even submarines, without a problem, but the confined dingy stateroom, that smelled of a stale mop bucket, was making him claustrophobic. No porthole to
look out of, no television, no books. Same as all sea-bearing vessels, every piece of furniture was secured to the deck or bulkhead to avoid shifting during high seas.

  Ilic felt as if he were going mad. There was no way he would allow them to pull him from the historic operation. That particular mission was the climactic reward for weeks, months, and years of pain and suffering. To be yanked from him, after one day on the ground, was insulting; the military may as well end his life and get it over with! He wondered if his team would still getting missions now that it was down a man and not at full strength. Probably only shitty, low-risk overwatch missions, all because of him. He felt disgraceful, a dishonor to the OCC and to his brothers.

  Novikov understood his comrade’s frustrations. Leaving the battle for an illness was always laughed upon. A sign of weakness. Even if the sick soldier returned to full duty, they were to be made fun of. Something else stirred in Novikov: Not fear of being a coward or weak, but of getting sick. A fear of turning into the cursed. He could feel it in him. Crawling on his skin. Cramping his stomach. Eating away at his memory. He was feeling the exhaustion set in but couldn’t fall to sleep. If he was infected, then so was Ilic.

  “Maybe if we play nice and show them that we’re not infected, they’ll let us out of here and return us to duty?” Novikov offered, in an attempt to calm his roommate.

  Ilic’s mind slipped for a moment, forgetting why he was locked in the stateroom to begin with. The comment brought him back to the moment. A sliver of paranoid skepticism crept in. “They suspect that we’re infected,” he agreed. “So why didn’t they kill us on the spot? Why lock us in here?”

  “I’m infantry. Besides the airborne training, my position is easily replaceable. But you? How much time, money, and resources did Russia spend on you? They want to make sure you’re infected before discarding a valuable resource. I’m just lucky to be your acquaintance,” Novikov acknowledged.