As I stood on the ridge, the wind shifted direction and blew a wall of white powder into the faces of the approaching horde. I bent over my rifle, dialed the scope to eight-power, and peered at the day’s threat. The undead were moving toward us in a teardrop formation, the less mechanically injured ghouls out front and the ones with reduced mobility following behind. The wind-driven snow made it difficult to make out their features, but with a dawning sense of dread, I realized one thing was undeniably clear.
At least half of them were Grays.
Hooves clomped and saddle leather creaked a few feet away from me. I looked up and saw the Hawk astride his tall, elegant mare.
“Do you see what they are?” he said.
I let out a weary breath. “Yeah. Grays, and lots of them.”
“I do not like this. Every horde I see, more and more are Grays. Something is wrong.”
I watched the Hawk for a few seconds. I had long ago learned to trust his intuition. When he had a hunch, it was almost never wrong.
“What do you think they are?” I asked. “Some kind of mutation?”
“That much is obvious. But it is more than that.”
“Like what?”
A shake of the head. “I do not know. Whatever they are, they are not natural. They are something that was never meant to be. I know it sounds superstitious, but that is what I believe.”
I stood there on the ridge and felt the cold creep into my bones. My right hand tightened around my rifle’s grip, and a small but insistent voice in my head was telling me to run, run, run.
“I don’t think you’re superstitious, Hawk. And I don’t think you’re wrong about the Grays.”
He reached behind his saddle and drew the lever-action rifle from a leather scabbard. With his other hand, he unhooked a canvas bag full of cartridges and slung it across his chest. The mare stomped in the snow and tossed her head and snorted. She knew her rider, and she knew when battle was imminent.
“Let us get this done. I am ready for hot meal and a warm bed.”
I pulled the magazine from my rifle, checked that it was full, re-inserted it, and gave it a push-pull to make sure it was seated. The charging handle rasped as I drew it back and then let it snap forward. A round went into the chamber with a metallic clack.
“Sounds good to me.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Eric,
Somewhere East of Colorado Springs
The people around me were armed with either standard issue M-16s or M-4 carbines. And while M-16s and M-4 carbines are fine weapons, one of their drawbacks is that they are extremely loud. One rifle is enough to deafen anyone nearby without hearing protection. Start chopping away with more than a hundred of them, and the noise is enough to make a man dizzy. Consequently, the Army was as generous with its seemingly endless supply of earplugs as it was with weapons and ammunition. Which meant everyone shooting that day had little foam cylinders stuck in their ears. The earplugs muted the staccato cracks of weaponry to a dull, mind-numbing roar that drowned out all auditory input. Consequently, while I worked, my mind wandered, and I thought about how all these people had come to possess the weapons they were using.
On a July morning, twenty months after the end of civilization, hundreds of communities awakened to the sound of aircraft passing overhead. When they exited their shelters and looked to the sky, they saw parachutes descending toward them. Most of the parachutes were attached to crates of weapons, ammunition, communications equipment, food, and medical supplies. But a few, a very important few, gently lowered troops charged with contacting survivor communities and teaching them how to use the tools they were being given.
The program was called Operation Steel Resolve. And while the name might have been ridiculously propagandist, the mission itself was a smashing success. The troops issued the weapons and immediately began training people how to use them. Anyone who demonstrated sufficient knowledge of the AR-15 platform was trained as an armorer. The armorers were then instructed to enforce mandatory marksmanship practice and require people to pass minimum accuracy qualifications in order to retain possession of their weapons. This last policy, however, did not meet with much success. No one was willing to take a weapon away from someone simply because the government told them to. Especially not with thieves, raiders, and a couple of hundred million ghouls threatening to descend on their homes at any given moment.
To compound this, before the Outbreak, there had been over three hundred million firearms at large in the United States—literally enough guns to arm every man, woman, and child in the country—and most of them were still out there waiting to be picked up. Which was why, seven years after the Outbreak, with the nation’s population standing at a paltry three and a half million, if you were unarmed, it was your own fault.
Weapons aside, another point in humanity’s favor was the Army’s policy of making its ever-evolving anti-revenant doctrine public knowledge. There were standard operating procedures for dealing with hordes of ghouls ranging from a few dozen to over ten thousand. And the Army had done an excellent job of communicating these procedures to civilians. In turn, the populace had done a good job of listening and putting those ideas into practice.
The philosophy was simple: everything starts with resources. How many people do you have? What are they armed with? Do you have enough ammunition to destroy the horde in front of you?
In our case, we had well over a hundred people, which in post-Outbreak military terms put us at company strength. Everyone was armed with military issue rifles, and our ammunition supply was more than sufficient to deal with the horde.
Box checked.
The next thing to do was assess the terrain. In our case, this was easy. The horde was approaching us across a wide, barren plain dotted with the occasional pine tree or patch of shrubbery. From our position, we had an unobstructed field of fire. And since we had seen the horde coming from a kilometer away, there had been plenty of time to set up our defenses.
Another box checked.
With all this in mind, Great Hawk was following ghoul doctrine to the letter. At company strength, a field commander, be they military or civilian, is supposed to divide the fighters into four groups: three fire teams and a support element. The fire teams do the shooting, and the support element ensures everyone has ammunition and, when necessary, takes a shooter’s place on the firing line. This might seem like an unnecessary precaution, but it is not. The reasons shooters need to be relieved are many and varied. People get tired. They get cold. They get hot. Weapons malfunction. People realize they have to answer the call of nature and it is not going to wait. The list goes on. And when the person being relieved has dealt with whatever problem took them off the line, their duty is to assist the support team.
The last element of destroying large numbers of infected is deciding who shoots at which section of the horde. I have spoken with many soldiers over the years, quite a few of whom were serving since before the Outbreak, and according to their accounts, in the beginning, the method was simply to line up, pick a target, and shoot at it until it went down. It quickly became apparent this was a deeply flawed methodology.
For starters, ghouls don’t give a pinch of shit about being shot at. They literally have no concept of their own vulnerability. Say two of them are walking along, one in front of the other. You blow out the brains of the one in front and splash gore all over the face of the one behind. The second ghoul doesn’t even notice. It just keeps right on walking, trampling over the corpse of its fallen comrade like nothing happened. Because as far as the ghoul is concerned, nothing did.
Second, it was highly common for three or four or even more soldiers to pick the same target and start plugging away at it. This ensured the ghoul in question went down quickly but wasted ammunition getting it done. Which is decidedly bad when facing a big horde with limited ammo.
Another problem was standoff distance. If a horde gets too close, you damn well better have a clear escape route. Otherwise,
as the Army says, your position will be overrun. Which is just a nice, clinical way of saying that you are well and truly fucked. If one wishes to avoid the aforementioned state of being well and truly fucked, he or she should keep in mind that the most critical aspect of wiping out a horde is bogging them down until they are forced to approach at a crawl. To do this, you must create piles of bodies along a line perpendicular to the horde’s direction of travel. The technical term for this is berming. Verb. The act of creating a berm. A berm is a stack of bodies ghouls have to go around rather than through.
I have never heard a soldier call a pile of bodies a berm, nor have I ever heard a soldier refer to the act of creating a pile of bodies as berming. They call it shitpiling. Verb. The act of creating a shitpile. A shitpile is a stack of bodies ghouls have to go around rather than through.
Ghouls are also not good at climbing and tend to follow the path of least resistance. Put a tall obstacle in their path, and whatever instinct remains in them will tell them to find a way around. Consequently, the Army’s leadership, after watching thousands of their troops get well and truly fucked, directed some of their most enterprising minds to talk amongst themselves, compare notes, and develop a methodology for destroying ghouls that did not result in brave soldiers being added to the ranks of the enemy.
The doctrine they came up with depends, like most things, on resources, personnel, and terrain. It is up to the field commander to work out the details, but the fundamental process is well established. And while ghoul doctrine is not totally effective for all scenarios, it nonetheless gives people a north star to guide their decisions. The importance of this cannot be overstated.
Which brought me back to the situation at hand. The Hawk assigned me and the others in my group the task of establishing the forward shitpile at the vanguard of the horde. Cole’s group was tasked with establishing a second line at the horde’s middle where the teardrop shape bulged out to its widest point. Our combined task was to create two proverbial speed bumps in the ghouls’ path. This is a slow process at first, but as the forward shitpile grows, the ghouls behind it slow down, making the job easier for people creating the secondary line.
Thompson’s group was on straggler detail. Their job was to assist Cole’s team until the secondary line was big enough, and when it was, Great Hawk would signal them to direct their fire at the ghouls who succeeded in circumventing the shitpiles. Doing this required Thompson to divide his team in half, each element firing at one side of the horde.
Once I was in position and had taken a few warm-up shots, the process became mechanical. Great Hawk wanted a hundred-yard standoff from our position, and my sniper carbine allowed me to accomplish my part with no problem. But for everyone else, making a headshot at a hundred yards with an M-4 on a moving target is not easy. So, the people helping me did what they had been taught to do: shoot at head level and hope for the best. With a horde this big, chances were good they would score a kill with every two or three shots. The ones lucky enough to have optics on their weapons would do much better.
It took me a while to realize it, but I was racking up a score of one ghoul every three seconds. And with the Nightforce scope, I was able to do this at the precise distance Great Hawk wanted. In ten minutes’ time, I dropped close to two hundred infected. Which, to my immense satisfaction, accounted for half of the bodies comprising the forward shitpile. Cole and Thompson’s teams had dropped another three hundred or so, reducing the horde to half its original size. The secondary line was now chest high and ghouls were tripping over each other trying to get around it. A few wayward Grays still tried to skirt the edges, but for the most part, the horde had ground to a halt.
Great Hawk gave a signal, and Thompson ordered his team to start picking off stragglers. The forward shitpile had grown too tall to shoot over, so my group was ordered to direct our fire toward the horde’s flanks.
Twenty minutes later, Great Hawk gave the order to cease fire. What had begun as a swarm of over a thousand infected was now mostly piles of rotting corpses. I stood up straight and winced as my back jerked and cramped. The muscles along my spine had stiffened up from being hunched over my rifle for so long, and it took me a few seconds to work out the kinks. Part of me wanted to blame the ache on the cold weather and long weeks spent sleeping in a wagon, but deep down, I knew better. I was not as young as I used to be, and it was beginning to show.
“Start collecting magazines and ammunition,” Great Hawk called out. “I will take the other riders and kill the ghouls that remain. The rest of you go back to the wagons and await our return.”
The Hawk looked down at me. “Eric, will you please make sure the caravan does not leave without us?”
“Can do.”
“Thank you.” With that, Great Hawk signaled Cole, Thompson, and Holland, and the four of them rode off toward what was left of the horde.
Something touched my face, and when I looked up, I saw it had begun to snow. Big fluffy flakes fell from the sky, alighting on people’s clothes and making fresh piles on the frozen ground. A few flakes landed on my rifle’s barrel and immediately melted and sizzled. The cold and wind had kept the barrel from overheating, but it was still hot enough to fry an egg on. I was grateful for the fact I was wearing thick gloves. Without them, I would be nursing blisters on my hands.
I slung the rifle across my back, dropped my empty mags in the box, closed it, latched it, and began walking back toward the wagon train. People around me did the same, retrieving empty mags and closing green metal boxes. The Outbreak had made misers of us all, and I had no doubt that not a single errant cartridge would be left on the battlefield. I also had no doubt the people returning to the caravan with the government’s ammunition would fill their pockets before depositing the steel cans in the supply wagon. Not that I blamed them. It’s a tough world out there, and bullets are always good for trade.
My ammo box was noticeably lighter as I trudged down the slope of the ridge. Before going to see my wife, I went to the wagon at the front of the line. The caravan leader, a dirty, disheveled man named Folston, was sitting on his buckboard reading a paperback. The sight of him lounging made me want to kick him in the ass, but in all fairness, that was an unworthy thought. As caravan driver, he was supposed to remain with the wagon train to make sure no opportunistic souls used the distraction of the horde as a chance to go looting and pillaging. I stopped beside his wagon and cleared my throat. He looked up irritably, saw who he was addressing, and quickly put on a pleasant face.
“Oh, hey. Mornin’, Mr. Riordan. How’d it go out there?”
It was a lot of work, you lazy fuck.
“Like clockwork. Great Hawk and his team are cleaning up the stragglers now.”
Folston nodded and pointed at the eastern sky. “We need to get this caravan moving if we’re gonna reach the Springs on time. Maybe we ought to shove off and let the riders catch up.”
Way to think of yourself first, you flapping anus.
“The Springs isn’t going anywhere, Folston. Don’t worry about that bonus for being on time; you’ll get it. In the meantime, we wait here until Great Hawk gets back and gives the order to move out. Are we clear?”
His expression soured. “Yes sir. You’re the boss.”
And don’t you fucking forget it.
“I appreciate it, Folston.”
Back at my wagon, I stowed my gear, sat down on the bench, and kissed my wife.
“Everything go okay?”
“Yeah. No big deal.”
“You guys worked fast. I thought it would take longer.”
“That’s what happens when you put the Hawk in charge. Shit gets done.”
Allison tried to smile but did not quite manage. Her face was drawn and brittle looking and there were dark circles under her eyes. The last seven weeks had been tough on her, and it showed. Little Gabe was snuggled against her, his head resting on her bosom, fast asleep. To the north, the sound of gunshots rang out. Most of them were the high crack
of M-4s, but I could also hear the resonant boom of Great Hawk’s lever gun.
Little Gabe slept right through it.
It was not long before the riders returned. The Hawk moved down the line, checking to make sure everyone was ready to go. At my wagon, he simply glanced at me and nodded. Allison smiled and waved at him, and the big Apache smiled back.
Cole, Holland, and Thompson returned to their positions around the perimeter. The Hawk rode to the head of the wagon train and had a brief word with Folston. The caravan driver nodded to his foreman, who grabbed a long pole with a green flag on it. He stood and waved it in the air six times. When he was finished, the lead wagon began moving. A few minutes later, the caravan was once again rolling toward Colorado Springs.
CHAPTER FIVE
Eric,
Caravan Road, Colorado Springs
The last few miles to the city made two things apparent.
First was the fact the people living in the shadow of the city wall, who had been known as Slummers the last time I visited the Springs, must have relented in their hatred of the city dwellers. In those days, over two years ago, aid workers had been unable to assist the Slummers out of fear for their lives. Several efforts had been made to bring food, building materials, medicine, and other things to make life better for the survivors on the fringe, but many of those well-intentioned souls had disappeared, the gifts they brought stolen and hoarded by the most violent elements within the slums.
But now, things were obviously different. Where once stood rickety shanties and filthy tents patched together from refuse, there were wooden row-houses and organized market squares. Storage buildings made of brick and mortar and public service facilities dotted the broad, flat landscape. To the south stood a water tower that looked to have been dismantled in some other place, relocated here, and put back together. I saw public water dispensaries every few hundred yards with people standing in line holding big plastic containers. There were even restaurants, taverns, and inns along some of the broader, busier streets.
Surviving The Dead | Book 9 | War Without End Page 3
