by Scott W Cook
“Yeah,” I said, collapsing the stock on my M4, “I hate that guy…”
“What the hell are you doing?” She hissed as I slid toward the edge of the car, “Andy, if you get hurt… your mom’ll kill us!”
I laughed as I brought the now much smaller weapon to my cheek and peered through the scope, “I need you to turn over onto your back… gonna need that anyway… and raise your rifle up by the butt.”
I guess she got it, because I heard the sound of cloth scraping against steel and a groan of pain. I cringed at that. Then she must’ve been able to raise her weapon because I caught the flash of a muzzle just to my left. I swung my rifle in that direction and peered through the scope.
“Got you, fucker…” I hissed, seeing the man kneeling behind a fallen log. He was using it as a platform to rest his rifle on. I made sure I was on burst and sent three rounds his way. They went low, hitting the log and kicking up splinters of wood. But it made the guy jump backward and more upright. I sent another three round burst and all three hit him center mass. I saw his chest erupt into a cloud of blood as he pitched backward into the underbrush.
I waited several seconds but no more shots came. It was only then that I heard the exchange from up the train. It sounded pretty heavy. I felt a jolt of fear for mom and for Vicky but at the moment, I had my own problems.
I crawled back over to Rivers, “How you doing, Gunny?”
“Nice shooting,” She said. I could hear the pain in her voice.
I sat up next to her and laid my weapon down. I was about to slide my pack off when I noticed hers lying next to her. I also noticed her NVG’s still perched on her head and I gently slid them off.
“Gonna need to borrow these,” I said. I had a set of my own, but didn’t want to waste time digging them out. I slid the goggles on and the world around me became a brighter landscape where everything was green. But I could see pretty well.
Her right arm was soaked with blood from her shoulder all the way to her wrist. It was so much that at first I couldn’t even tell where her BDU sleeve stopped. I cursed when I saw it and began rummaging through her pack. I was grateful that our team had the medical supplies. The first thing I did was slip on a pair of nitrile gloves to get ready.
“Can you move your fingers?” I asked her.
She did but with a little groan of pain, “Fuck… hurts like a bitch!”
I grinned at her, “Oh, stop you’re whining, marine! It’s just a scratch.”
She actually chuckled and I gave her left hand a little squeeze.
“Okay,” I said, pulling out what I needed from her bag, “I’m going to cut away the sleeve and apply a tourniquet. Then I’ll clean the wound with alcohol and bind it up. Do you want a shot for the pain?”
“No,” she said, “Need to be lucid if we’re gonna make it to the loco.”
I laughed, “I think things are already loco… okay, here we go…”
I used surgical scissors to cut her sleeve off at the shoulder. I tossed the blood soaked fabric over the side of the train and looked at the wound. I could now see where a bullet had struck her high up on her bicep. She had good muscle tone, which I hoped would help. From the angle of the bullet, though, I was afraid it might have hit bone.
“Okay, Gunny,” I said, “I want to lift this arm a little so I can feel and see where the bullet went. It might hurt.”
Her big eyes looked at me. She couldn’t see mine, but I could see hers. They were a little frightened but determined too. This was a tough marine.
“Okay,” She said, gritting her teeth.
I grabbed her elbow in my right hand and slid my left under the shoulder joint. I lifted the arm about six inches. She cried out before biting the sound back into a teeth clenching groan and fast deep breaths.
‘Sorry…” I said as I looked. The bullet had gone in right on the front of her muscle and exited through the triceps. From the angle and her reaction, I knew it had hit bone. But the arm seemed rigid, so it probably wasn’t broken, only chipped.
“You’re doing great,” I encouraged, “I want you to put your right hand over your stomach and use your left to hold it. I’m going to clean the wound and put a bandage on.”
“Okay…” She wheezed, “Where’d you learn this stuff?”
“Sam and Tony,” I said, applying the tourniquet and opening a bottle of alcohol and some sanitized wipes. With the tourniquet in place, the bleeding had slowed substantially. I soaked a wipe in the alcohol and began to wash the blood away from her arm. That wipe was quickly coated and I got another and repeated the process. Finally, after I had a little pile of bloody wipes next to me, I began to work alcohol into the wound from both openings. She groaned and nearly hyper-ventilated at this.
“Almost done,” I soothed, “You’re doing awesome. Double tough, Julie.”
“Thanks,” She gasped, “You’re doing awesome, too.”
“Almost done,” I continued, “Now slide your elbow a little toward me… that’s good. I’m gonna wrap the bandage now…”
I began wrapping a bandage around the arm nice and tight and then tied it off right over the entry wound. I frowned at the arm as I took my gloves off. I didn’t think the arm was broken, but I couldn’t be sure. I also couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just hanging together by a thread of bone.
I put the supplies back but dug out a splint. This I placed along the outside and inside of her arm and synched it down to keep the upper arm rigid.
“Just in case,” I said.
“Hey… you hear that?” She asked me as I helped her to sit up.
At first all I heard were the shots being exchanged over a quarter mile away. They weren’t continuous, though. You’d hear a few bursts, then a pause, then a few more. Like the combatants were exchanging volleys as they tried to get at each other. I hoped mom and Sanchez were still okay.
Then I did hear it during a lull in the firing. There were crackling sounds from the woods and shuffling sounds from behind the train. And then there were moans. Lots of them.
I looked around with the NVG’s still on and groaned. From mostly behind us but also from the edges of the trees near the open land came zombies. First dozens of them, but their numbers seemed to steadily grow.
“Fuckin’ zombies…” I groaned, “Why is it always fuckin’ zombies…”
Chapter 35
From the personal journal of Samuel R. Decker
I’d like to say that I was surprised that we were under attack. Yet it seemed that in this new undead world, human conflict was going to be more and more prevalent.
“Now what?” Tara asked me with fear in her big blue eyes.
I rested a hand on her shoulder and gave her a smile, “Don’t worry. We’re trained military personnel and I’m willing to bet these are just bandits or even survivors who have staked a claim on this train. They’re dangerous, but they’re up against a well-armed and well-seasoned team. He’ll be okay.”
Tara smiled thinly as we listened to the muffled sound of rifle fire outside. She clutched her M4 and nodded.
“”I’ve found some information,” Tony said from the command console, “It’s all computerized… even the couplings.”
“No shit?” I asked, “So you can uncouple whatever cars you want from up here?”
He nodded, “And I’ve located the startup process, too. It’s gonna take a few minutes, though. These plugs have to warm up and then the engines go into a start cycle that takes a few minutes to get them ready to run, also. Maybe ten minutes.”
“Okay,” I said, “then I’m going out there to help get our team back. Tara, your job is to guard him. Lock these doors and don’t let anyone in.”
She nodded.
I was quickly clearing my weapon when the radios crackled to life. It was Andy’s voice.
“Blue two, red three… we’re under fire and red four is hit!”
I saw Tara flinch at the announcement. I snatched my radio from my chest rig, “Red three, can you get to he
r?”
“Roger… how’s blue two?”
“Red team,” Andrea said tersely, “We’re pinned down ten cars back from the engine! At least eight bogies split up on either side of us! And don’t try to get her unless you can do it safely, red three! Sorry red four if you can hear me…”
Andy reported that he was good and I gave Tara’s arm a little squeeze. I settled my NVG’s over my cover and removed the scope from my carbine. It had to be one or the other, and I needed to be able to see out there, especially where I was going. I could aim well enough in close quarters combat with my weapon’s iron sights.
“I’m going radio silent,” I said, “Keep in touch with blue team, Tara. I’m going to ease the pressure on them. After I go, wait a minute or two and tell them to focus their fire on the port side of the train.”
“Be careful,” She implored, “and good luck.”
I smiled and then looked at Tony, “No words of encouragement?”
He scoffed, “Don’t kill em’ too fast.”
“Well, a vote of confidence at least,” I said and slid the starboard door open.
The gray-green landscape was empty near us. That seemed odd to me. You’d think they’d come at us from the locomotive to prevent us from stealing the entire train. Although maybe these people, whoever they were, hadn’t been able to get the train started and didn’t think anybody else could, either.
I wouldn’t assume that. As Von Clausewitz said in his book, you plan on what the enemy can do, not on what you think they’re likely to do. If this train was truly something they claimed, then why not have a guard on it?
I slid down the ladder to the track bed and moved forward to scan ahead. There was nothing up there but the tracks running through the pine forest. I still thought that was odd but there wasn’t a lot I could do about it now.
I could hear the shots being exchanged behind me, about two-hundred and fifty yards away. I couldn’t see anybody, but as I made my way toward the edge of the woods on the right side of the train, I caught a couple of muzzle flashes coming from the train itself. Andrea and Sanchez were probably underneath the train and taking cover between the wheels. They had a good firing position and good cover, but eight against two wasn’t a good scenario, especially when the eight could move around and had the cover of woods and darkness on their side against stationary targets.
I slipped into the woods and started moving back toward them. It was slow going, as I placed each step carefully so as to avoid unnecessary sounds. The woods weren’t too dense, there was enough room to move between the trees and undergrowth with a reasonable amount of stealth.
Still, covering the distance was taking an agonizingly long time when I thought about my girlfriend and our new team member pinned down by multiple fields of fire. I was nervous for them… and I was pissed off, too.
I was not only moving toward the four on this side, I was also moving behind them. I had to figure that they were on the edge of the woods. They had to be in order to have a clear firing position. I wanted to come in from an angle that would keep me unnoticed until the last minute.
It seemed like ages but was probably no more than five minutes before I saw the first man. He was lying on his belly with a big rifle propped up on a fallen log. The gun looked like a heavy hunting weapon like a .308 or 30 aught six. Whatever it was, he was steadily firing and levering rounds into the weapon.
For a moment, I considered using my KA-bar on him. A nice quiet and personal death. But I had little time for that at the moment. I simply sighted in and squeezed off a single round that hit him square in the side of the head. His body jerked to the left and he rolled sideways, an eruption of gore shooting out of the head wound looking blackish green in my night vision goggles.
I crouched low and began moving further down the line again. I took up a position behind a skinny pine as I saw the next man in line. He was kneeling behind a patch of dense palmettos firing what looked like an AR through them at my team. I couldn’t see much of the train from where I was, but imagined he could see enough to lay down fire. He was firing three round bursts and burning through ammo pretty fast.
“Hey, Ed!” he shouted, looking to his right where he figured his friend was, about twenty yards away, “Why’d you stop firing’? You outta ammo?”
Fuck stick, I thought.
I brought my M4 up to my shoulder and sighted in. Another single shot and he bent backward, nearly snapping his own spine before he pitched back and sideways. I moved closer to search his body.
He did have an automatic rifle, an AR15 in fact. I ejected the magazine and saw that it held three rounds. I pocketed it and frisked his body, finding two more full mags which I also pocketed. He had a few other odds and ends, including a cheap looking radio which was switched on at low volume.
As I was examining it, the walkie-talkie crackled and a man’s gruff voice said, “Willy, what’s up down there? Why ain’t they shootin’ at us anymore?”
For a long moment, I debated what I should do. Holding the enemy’s radio certainly gave me a tactical advantage. On the other hand, it was also a direct line to our attackers. I grinned and held it to my mouth.
“It’s because you’re being hunted by a Navy SEAL, you dumb fuck,” I growled into the unit, “Willy and Ed are zombie chow.”
There was a pause and then the voice came back angry, “Who the fuck is this?”
I pressed the talk button and laughed, “That’s what I was gonna ask. You’ve chosen to attack a SEAL strike team you stupid shit for brains. You could’ve just walked up and introduced yourself, or called on the radio… but you decided to sneak up on us and open fire.”
“That’s our fuckin’ train,” The man nearly shouted, “You’re in our territory stealing. That’s good enough for me.”
The leader… “Well, good job. First, it’s nobody’s train. And how would I know you’d claimed it? Not like you posted a sign or bothered to tell us. Second, we’re not after the goods. Only the locomotive. However, since you attacked us without warning, my team is going to kill each and every one of you and take the stuff anyway. Out.”
I turned the volume on the walkie almost all the way down and I could hear the man shouting curses clearly through the trees. He was on my side and about fifty feet in front of me and slightly to my left. I crouched low and began to move forward again.
“Smitty!” Another voice called over the radio. The volume was almost all the way down but still audible, “Jacks and Tinker are down! They’re cutting us to pieces over here. Who the fuck are these guys?”
“Shut the fuck up, Todd!” Smitty growled, “Didn’t you hear that fucker just now? Says this is a SEAL team!”
A long pause and then Todd came back, “Oh, fuck me… fuck me… you didn’t say nothin’ about no SEALS! We can’t beat them, Smitty! Fuck this shit, fuck…”
Good, old Todd was getting scared. All the better.
I made my way around a stand of palmettos and saw a man leaning up against a thick pine with his rifle aimed toward the train. I guessed this was Smitty because of how close the curses I’d heard moments before were. This was confirmed when, off to my right, there came through the night a low steady rumble.
The sound of the locomotive’s diesels coming to life. Smitty damn near shit a brick.
“Fuck!” He hollered into his radio, “Keep your pants on, Todd! They’ve got the engine going! Shit!”
I slung my M4 and drew the KA-bar from its sheath on my thigh and moved in. Smitty was so furious and frantic and making so much noise shouting into his radio that he didn’t notice me until I was right behind him.
We humans have some kind of innate sense. I don’t know if it’s a sixth sense exactly… but it’s that feeling you get when you can sense somebody’s eyes on you… or when you know somebody is right behind you even though you didn’t hear anything. I saw Smitty flinch and start to turn.
“Don’t fucking move,” I hissed into his right ear as I brought the blade of my
knife up to his throat with my left hand, “Or I’ll bleed you out right now.”
Smitty tensed but remained still, “Who the fuck are you?”
“I told you already,” I said softly, “We’re SEALs. I’m Captain Sam Decker. We’re on a special mission and need the locomotive as safe transport up the coast.”
“This train is our lifeline,” Smitty said, “It’s loaded with stuff we desperately need.”
I understood that was probably somewhat true. However, I suspected there was more to Smitty’s defense of the freight train than simple survival. The thought of Drake, the self-proclaimed “Governor of West Tampa Bay” came to mind. And what Colonel Williams had said about being attacked by another person claiming to be the governor of East Tampa Bay as well.
A freight train, even a smallish one like this, loaded with sixty or eighty thousand gallons of fuel, a variety of goods and other commodities could cement a local bandit in his own little kingdom.
“I don’t want the train,” I said, “Just the engine. Now order a cease fire and let’s work this out like men.”
I held up my captured radio to Smitty’s lips and pressed the talk button.
“Everybody hold fire!” Smitty said, “Hold fire! These are military people. We’ve sent the message and now I’m gonna talk to their leader.”
I ignored the bravado. If it stopped the shooting, then so much the better. The shots coming from the other side of the train and from our left ceased. Andrea and Vicky held fire also.
I pulled out my own radio and turned it on, “Red leader to all units. We’re in a cease fire. Send sitrep.”
“Red one, blue two,” Andrea said, “Red two and I are nominal.”
“Blue one nominal… locomotive is operational,” that was Tony. I already knew that, we could hear the low rumble already.
There was a pause and then, “Red one… red three. Red four has been patched… but we’ve got Zulus coming up on our six. Maybe close to a hundred of them or more.”
My guts heaved at that. Andy and a wounded Rivers were caught at the end of the train with dead heads slouching toward them. I gritted my teeth, “Can you make your way toward us on foot ahead of them?”
