by Mark Clodi
The gunfire bellowed into the night, knocking down zombie after zombie. Bill was certain they could handle this mob, they didn't fight back with guns of their own and they were slow moving targets. The problems that developed were all too human in nature. Jerome, nominally the radio operator, and his 'buddy' Dan's rifles both jammed at the same time. Bill was close to them so he told them to fix the guns while he provided covering fire. Jerome's was a simple matter of a shell getting stuck in the ejection mechanism, it was jammed in, but the man had a screw driver handy and shrugged off his pack to pull it out and fix his gun. Dan's rifle was another story, the man was cursing it and trying to pull the clip out to see if he could clear it, but the clip was stuck too. Bill risked a glance at what the man was doing and said, “Leave it, look at the barrel.”
Dan glanced at it and saw the bulge that had not been there before, along with a tear I the metal, “What the fuck? How'd that happen?”
“No idea, toss that piece of shit and get a club.”
“You serious?”
“Just do it!” Bill fired into the oncoming crowd again, noticing that some of the zombies were starting to go around the edges of his position, “Fall back! Fall back now!”
Ruben echoed his cry and the men quickly left their firing positions to retreat to the next in line, which were about forty yards further back and more compact around the rail road line. The elevation and trees cleared from the edges of the tracks gave them an even better firing position than before. Once they arrived Bill looked back and saw that the field was completely filled with the shambling dead, on one side he saw three faster moving people. “Over here!” he yelled, trying to get the human's attention, “Come this way! Men provide covering fire for those humans coming in!” leading by example he cut down some of the zombies between him and the humans out near the edge of the zombie mob.
“Sarge!” Ruben was by his side, “Sarge!”
“What Ruben? What?”
“Why aren't the zeds attacking those three?”
“Maybe they don't see them.” Bill said, but even he knew how lame the words were as soon as they came out of his mouth. “Okay I get it, watch them. Jerome? You got that rifle working yet?”
“Yeah.”
“Good give it to Dan and get on the radio to Jenkins, tell him we fell back to the secondary position and....What?” Bill stopped seeing Jerome shaking and turning pale.
“I...”
“What?”
“He doesn't have the radio.” said Ruben.
“What?”
“I didn't mean...I just...I was getting the rifle unjammed and you said to fall back and I fell back and I forgot it.” the man said. looking miserable.
“Shit.”
“Not to worry sarge, I'll get it.” and before Bill could say a thing Ruben was running down the tracks back the way they had come from.
“Jerome! Cover Ruben!” Bill ordered, then he started firing at any zombies he could see coming towards the old coot as he ran back to their last position. “Matt, Javier, that is Ruben out there, give him some supporting fire!” Bill turned back to keep an eye on the trio of presumed humans that had been on the southern end of the mob, but he could not spot them anywhere.
Ruben's rifle fired from down along the edge of the field where they had been, they saw the flashes of the shots as well as heard the retort of his rifle. The slow moving zombies had to have passed the area they had first held by now, Bill thought, holding his breath as more gunfire rang out.
'God and country. God and country.' Ruben thought as he swerved over to the tree line from the railroad embankment. 'Why am I out here running like an old fool?' Bullets whizzed by him close enough to catch, were he so inclined, and he pushed through the first, faster zombies as he made his way back to the position where Jerome had left the pack. There, the backpack with the radio unit was on the ground at edge of the barbed wire fence. Several zombies had already tumbled over the fence pushed from behind by the others. Ruben held off on taking a shot until he was at point blank range then he fired one shot at a time, making each one count. He had just moved out of sight from his squad, they could not provide him with covering fire unless they moved up, which 'Sergeant Bill' wouldn't do, he was a good man, but green as the summer grass in the ways of tactics. Even calling him a 'Sergeant' was a stretch for a man like Ruben who had fought the Viet Cong in the jungles of south east Asia for two tours of duty. A real sergeant would have eaten Bill for breakfast and gone back for seconds and thirds. The way these kids were coddled today, standing around with their hands out waiting for money to go buy their video games and drugs! They were learning better now, weren't they? Ruben ducked under the slow swing of a zombie and came up to the tree where the backpack lay, he snatched it up and fired his gun one handed at the closest zombie while another got a grip on his shoulder and started to pull the old man towards his gaping maw. The zombies he was fighting were a horrifying array of shapes and sizes. Being an old Swede himself Ruben didn't pay much attention to color, but fat zombies and naked zombies stood out.
“You young hippie, you won't get me that easy!” Ruben yelled trying to pull his rifle around, but another zombie grabbed the barrel. Firing a burst didn't get the thing to let go of his rifle; it had no feelings in its hands to burn as the barrel heated up. The female holding his gun had been an attractive young woman before something had gotten to her face and the side of her neck. The zombie who had eaten off of her had taken her ear, cheek and part of the flesh along side of her left eye, leaving a gaping dark wound that dribbled a black, inky liquid down her naked torso. Ruben was no innocent recruit when it came to dirty fighting, his skills may have seen fifty years of dis-use but he still had them. If the zombie would not let go of a heated rifle barrel there were other things he could do. Instead of trying to swing the barrel sideways to aim it, he pulled it straight back, angling the butt of the gun at the young zombie's head who was trying to gnaw on his shoulder, the butt hit the younger zombie's head with a crack, but had the drawback of pulling the other zombie into Ruben. The other zombie, the 'hippie' in Ruben's mind, was also young, but must have outweighed Ruben by a two to one ratio.
The young man had no visible wounds on him, his clothing looked unsoiled and it was only his opaque eyes and awkward movement that made him stand out as a zombie. His flabby arms were bare, he had on some sort of a cotton t-shirt with the arms torn off and some black pants that looked like denim. Around one leg was a bandana, which Ruben didn't think was hiding a bite mark and the thing's feet were bare, hence the "hippie" moniker. The zombies straining against the barbed wire of the fence came in all sort of shapes and sizes, one looked like a greaser from Ruben's era, another sort of resembled Burt Reynolds during his 'Smokey and the Bandit' days. All in all Ruben thought there were simply too damn many of the things and if he were going to live to bring the radio back that he had better make a decision on what to do.
Clutching the backpack Ruben decided it was worth more than his gun, he dropped the weapon and took off back through the woods, pausing just long enough to pull a grenade from his belt and toss it back into the crowd milling about at the fence line. Not every soldier was issued grenades, in fact only Bill and Ruben had them, they were not effective against the living dead. Both the non commissioned officers had received a fifteen minute seminar on the appropriate time to use the devices. Thinking back on it Ruben realized this was not one of the times, he shrugged and jogged up the rail road embankment, trying not to break his ankle on the large stones making up the base. Behind him the hippie's foot came down on the hand grenade just as it went off. The hippie was blown into a hundred different pieces, but was not dead, the body with one arm and his head still attached flew upwards through the trees, over Ruben's head and into the woods on the far side of the rail road tracks. The half naked gnawed on zombie woman was torn in half by the grenade as she turned to follow Ruben up the hill, one of the pieces of shrapnel entered behind her ear and torn out the front of her
face near her good eye, she fell silently never to rise again. Two of the zombies by the fence were also struck with pieces of the grenade in the head and stopped moving, dozens more suffered lesser wounds, which did nothing to slow them down. The explosion also cut the top wire of the barbed wire fence, causing a cascade of zombies to fall over into the light woods where the squad's first line of defense had been. Recouping and standing up the zombies who had been knocked off their feet by the blast poured through the half torn down fence like a wave.
Ruben continued stepping carefully from rock to rock as he picked his way up the railroad bed. The old man was wheezing heavily, but making steady progress. A zombie moving faster than Ruben, ran towards him after springing out of the woods about twenty yards behind him. The pursuer had probably been older than Ruben when he turned, but the ancient corpse was not worried about breaking an ankle on the head sized stones that made up the base of the tracks. The zombie was gaining steadily on Ruben, despite the clear ichor coming out of its eyes making it half blind and the fact that it wore some sort of casual slippers on its blue tinged white feet. There was nothing the old man could do, the thing was as fast or faster than he was. Ruben tossed the pack up to the top of the hill by the tracks and pulled his combat knife from his belt. The old zombie was two feet from him when it was hit by multiple gun shots from by the rail road tracks, one of the shots sprayed blood and foul smelling brain matter all over Ruben's face.
The old man wiped his hand across his face to clear his eyes and started to climb up again as the Sergeant and two other soldiers gave him covering fire.
“I figured we would have a better angle if we moved out of position.” Bill said.
Ruben nodded, “And thank you for that sarge. I think you might have saved my life.” he said with more respect in his voice.
“You looked like you had things under control.”
“Maybe. I would rather not get into a situation like that again.”
“Next time we send Jerome back, it was his radio, his responsibility.” said Bill.
“You are probably right, we coddle these kids too much these days, they got to learn to fix their own mistakes. Old men like me can't be bailing them out every time they have a problem.”
Bill nodded and continued firing into the sparsely spaced trees. “I heard your grenade. Thought you might have, well, you know.”
“Me? No, not me, not that. I will fight until the end.”
“Yeah I saw that.” Bill offered one of his grenades to Ruben, Sergeants were issued two of the six pound explosives, Corporal's only rated one each, “Lost your rifle too. Damn.”
“Down two guns, three with John gone.” said Ruben taking the grenade from Bill.
“He hasn't come back yet.”
Both men turned to listen to the gunfire to the north of them. “He might be busy with problems of his own. I hope he is okay Sarge.” An explosion sounded from the north, as one of that squad's grenades went off. Bill winced.
“He was the right one to send, regardless. He is the fastest runner. C'mon men let's get back to the others.” Turning they all headed back to the second line, Ruben pointedly picking up the pack before they trudged back.
Chapter 15
The sharp pain in his side made Max want to give up and just stop fighting. It seemed like the knife above him hung in the air for minutes, no more like hours, while he thought over his options. Flashes of childhood memories played through his mind, riding bikes with his friends, shooting out a street light with an air gun. Throwing a Frisbee for his dog two days before it was hit by a car and died. The world was paused, he had time to rethink his whole life, his childhood, his college years, his marriage. Sarah. Dead now, or undead, stuck in the attic of his home. What would become of her? Would she starve without blood and flesh to feed on? What about the kids? The kids brought him back. Without him the kids had no one. There might be a time to sacrifice himself for their lives, but this little ambush was not that time. Anger welled up in him and Max bucked and twisted under the zombie man named Charlie, one thrust of his hips and the zombie flew up high enough to make his stabbing motion turn into a flesh slicing graze. Max grabbed on the zombie's arm as the cut sliced down at him and then pushed the arm backwards into the zed's chest tumbling it off of him. Instead of letting the zombie get away from him, Max did the opposite, wrapping the man's legs in his own and tangling him up so he could not move or stab with his knives effectively. One of the blades opened a cut on the front of his shins and then the other punctured his jeans and went into the floor, when the zombie raised that hand to stab again the knife slipped out of his hand to land near Max's gun.
Twisting sideways Max tried to flip the zombie over with him, it only partially worked, the zombie rolled sideways a bit, then quickly recovered. Max pulled his legs up out of reach of the zombie's remaining knife and then crawled quickly towards an overstuffed chair in one corner of the living room. Charlie used the break to lunge towards the gun and knife on the floor instead of going after his prey.
Max grabbed one of the table legs from the coffee table and stood up, turning to face his foe. The table leg was still attached to one plank of the coffee table and Max stood up to face the zombie with an awkward makeshift weapon, the zombie, on the other hand, ended up facing Max with a revolver.
“No!” Max shouted raising his club to try and deflect the bullet, he also raised one leg and cringed backwards slightly in a comical effort to make himself a smaller target.
Charlie pulled the trigger on the gun and the hammer fell on an empty chamber, clicking softly in the sultry living room air. Disgusted the zombie threw the gun away from him, it landed in the formal dining room, hitting the table then sliding off of it onto the chair at one end. Snarling, Charlie stalked towards Max. “I will kill you for them. You didn't have to kill them. It was just a baby!”
Max straightened and shook his club, the board fell off, leaving a wicked looking screw sticking of the far end of his weapon. He changed his stance slightly to meet the oncoming zombie and didn't reply to the thing's words.
“What you can't talk? What kind of man kills a baby?”
Max stepped backwards towards the kitchen opening to avoid the zombie's first slash with the knife, and then swung the club, smacking the zombie in the side of the head, where it stuck with the screw piercing the hard bone of Charlie's skull. The screw was not deep enough to kill the thing, but the blow seemed to daze it, which gave Max a chance to run into the kitchen. The woman had shaken her head and shoulders out of the sink and was twitching violently on the floor in front of it, spreading black blood all over the linoleum. Max's first instinct was to run around through the other exit from the kitchen into the dining room and grab his pistol, then he spotted the shotgun where he had left it at the top of the stairs. He veered for the weapon as Charlie bellowed in rage and tore after him from the living room.
“You are fast enough I give you that much...” started Charlie, only to be cut off by the blast from the shotgun as he entered the kitchen. The shot hit him dead center in stomach, just below the rib cage, the best shot Max could get off in a hurry as he juggled the gun. Charlie went down in a heap, his legs not working anymore. The zombie let out a mournful moan as Max raised the gun and stepped closer. Crawling towards the woman twitching on the floor. “Elaine...” he said touching the zombie woman's leg, then Max shot him in the head spraying blackish grey matter flecked with shards of too white bone and brown hair all over the front of the cabinet doors. A second later Elaine received the same treatment. After checking to make sure that the zombie baby was really dead Max moved to the stairway to check on Stewart. She was lying at the bottom of the stairs, moving slowly, not quiet conscious. He went down to her and gently pulled her into the basement away from the stairway, straightening her limbs and looking for damage other than the huge welt on her forehead.
Turning on his radio Max said, “Amelia, Tom?”
“Yeah Max, is everything okay? Are they ther
e yet?” came Tom's voice.
“Here and gone, there is kind of a mess in the kitchen, so come back but keep the kids down by the tire swing okay. I don't sense any more zombies around.”
“You guys okay?” ask Amelia.
“Stewart got hit in the head pretty hard.”
“She alright?”
“She isn't dead. Then she fell down the stairs. Backwards.”
“Oh my God is she okay?” yelled Amelia.
“She isn't dead or bleeding or anything, just not conscious.”
“We'll be right there!” Amelia said.
Max used the few minutes until they arrived to practice sensing how far away they were from him. He noticed that each of them was slightly different and as his friends and family got closer to him they came into sharper focus. Each glowing bright light of energy was unique, he assumed the one in the front on the left hand side was Amelia, she had the van moving fast, which made the person in the car following her Tom. The children seemed to have a more colorful glow about them, except for the one he tagged as Kenny, his swirling pattern was not as bright or colorful as the others.
Funny, Max thought, but I can't see the vehicles at all. He made a mental note to try and identify everyone by their unique glowing form so he could tell who was where when they were out of his normal sight range. His extra perception seemed stronger now too, as if fighting the zombies had made it grow, a thought Max found oddly disturbing.
“Oh...” Stewart moaned as she opened her eyes. Max was startled to see there was bright red blood in whites of her eyes as she stared up at him, “Did we win?”
“'We'?” Max kidded.
“Ugh, we lost. I was afraid of that. So this is what being a zombie feels like. God it feels worse than when I was alive.”
