by Max Brooks
What is beachhead sanitation?
Basically, helping the jarheads get ashore. What we Learned during Bermuda, our first amphibious landing, was that the beachhead was coming under constant attack by Gs walking out of the surf. We had to establish a perimeter, a semicircular net around the proposed landing area that was deep enough for ships to pass over, but high enough to keep out Zack. That’s where we came in. Two weeks before the landings took place, a ship would anchor several miles offshore and start banging away with their active sonar. That was to draw Zack away from the beach.
Wouldn’t that sonar also lure in zombies from deeper water?
The brass told us that was an “acceptable risk.” I think they didn’t have anything better. That’s why it was an ADS op, too risky for mesh divers. You knew that masses were gathering under that pinging ship, and that once they went silent, you’d be the brightest target out there. It actually turned out to be the closest thing we ever had to a Cakewalk. The attack frequency was the lowest by far, and when the nets were up, they had an almost perfect success rate. All you needed was a skeleton force to keep a constant vigil, maybe snipe the occasional G that tried to climb the fence. They didn’t really need us for this kind of op. After the first three landings, they went back to using mesh divers.
And harbor clearing?
That was not a cakewalk. That was in the final stages of the war, when it wasn’t just about opening a beachhead, but reopening harbors for deep-water shipping. That was a massive, combined operation: mesh divers, ADS units, even civilian volunteers with nothing but a scuba rig and a spear gun. I helped clear Charleston, Norfolk, Boston, freakin’ Boston, and the mother of all subsurface nightmares, the Hero City. I know grunts like to bitch about fighting to clear a city, but imagine a city underwater, a city of sunken ships and cars and planes and every kind of debris imaginable. During the evacuation, when a lot of container ships were trying to make as much room as they could, a lot of them dumped their cargo overboard. Couches, toaster ovens, mountains and mountains of clothes. Plasma TVs always crunched when you walked over them. I always imagined it was bone. I also imagined I could see Zack behind each washer and dryer, climbing over each pile of smashed air conditioners. Sometimes it was just my imagination, but sometimes… The worst. . . the worst was having to clear a sunken ship. There were always a few that had gone down within the harbor boundaries. A couple, like the Frank Cable, big sub tender turned refugee ship, had gone down right at the mouth of the harbor. Before she could be raised, we had to do a compartment-by-compartment sweep. That was the only time the exo ever felt bulky, unwieldy. I didn’t smack my head in every passageway, but it sure as hell felt like it. A lot of the hatches were blocked by debris. We either had to cut our way through them, or through the decks and bulkheads. Sometimes the deck had been weakened by damage or corrosion. I was cutting through a bulkhead above the Cable’s engine room when suddenly the deck just collapsed under me. Before I could swim, before I could think… there were hundreds of them in the engine room. I was engulfed, drowning in legs and arms and hunks of meat. If I ever had a recurring nightmare, and I’m not saying I do, because I don’t, but if I did, I’d be right back in there, only this time I’m completely naked … I mean I would be.
[I am surprised at how quickly we reach the bottom. It looks like a desert wasteland, glowing white against the permanent darkness. I see the stumps of wire coral, broken and trampled by the living dead.]
There they are.
[I look up to see the swarm, roughly sixty of them, walking out of the desert night.]
And here we go.
[Choi maneuvers us above them. They reach up for our searchlights, eyes wide and jaws slack. I can see the dim red beam of the laser as it settles on the first target. A second later, a small dart is fired into its chest.]
And one,…
[He centers his beam on a second subject.]
And two…
[He moves down the swarm, tagging each one with a nonlethal shot.]
Kills me not to kill them. I mean, I know the whole point is to study their movements, set up an early warning network. I know that if we had the resources to clear them all we would. Still. . .
[He darts a sixth target. Like all the others, this one is oblivious to the small hole in its sternum.]
How do they do it? How are they still around ? Nothing in the world corrodes like saltwater. These Gs should have gone way before the ones on land. Their clothes sure did, anything organic like cloth or leather.
[The figures below us are practically naked.]
So why not the rest of them? Is it the temperature at these depths, is it the pressure? And why do they have such a resistance to pressure anyway? At this depth the human nervous system should be completely Jell-O-ized. They shouldn’t even be able to stand, let alone walk and “think” or whatever their version of thinking is. How do they do it? I’m sure someone real high up has all the answers and I’m sure the only reason they don’t tell me is …
[He is suddenly distracted by a flashing light on his instrument panel.]
Hey, hey, hey. Check this out.
[I look down at my own panel. The readouts are incomprehensible.]
We got a hot one, pretty healthy rad count. Must be from the Indian Ocean, Iranian or Paid, or maybe that ChiCom attack boat that went down off Manihi. How about that?
[He fires another dart.]
You’re lucky. This is one of the last manned recon dives. Next month it’s all ROV, 100 percent Remotely Operated Vehicles.
There’s been a lot of controversy over the use of ROVs for combat.
Never happen. The Sturge’s got way too much star power. She’d never let Congress go ’droid on us.
Is there any validity to their argument?
What, you mean if robots are more efficient fighters than ADS divers? Hell no. All that talk about “limiting human casualties” is bullshit. We never lost a man in combat, not one! That guy they keep talking about, Chernov, he was killed after the war, on land, when he got wasted and passed out on a tram line. Fuckin’ politicians.
Maybe ROVs are more cost-effective, but one thing they’re not is better. I’m not just talking about artificial intelligence; I’m talking heart, instinct, initiative, everything that makes us us. That’s why I’m still here, same with the Sturge, and almost all the other vets who took the plunge during the war. Most of us are still involved because we have to be, because they still haven’t yet come up with a collection of chips and bits to replace us. Believe me, once they do, I’ll not only never look at an exosuit again, I’ll quit the navy and pull a full-on Alpha November Alpha.
What’s that?
Action in the North Atlantic, this old, black-and-white war flick. There’s a guy in it, you know the “Skipper” from Gilligan’s Island, his old man. He had a line… “I’m putting an oar on my shoulder and I’m starting inland. And the first time a guy says to me ’What’s that on your shoulder?’ that’s where I’m settling for the rest of my life.”
Quebec, Canada
[The small farmhouse has no wall, no bars on the windows, and no lock on the door. When I ask the owner about his vulnerability he simply chuckles and resumes his lunch. Andre Renaid, brother of the legendary war hero Emil Renard, has requested that I keep his exact location secret. “I don’t care if the dead find me,” he says without feeling, “but I care very little for the living.” The former French national immigrated to this place after the official end of hostilities in western Europe. Despite numerous invitations from the French government, he has not returned.]
Everyone else is a liar, everyone who claims that their campaign was “the hardest of the entire war.” All chose ignorant peacocks who beat their chests and brag about “mountain warfare” or “jungle warfare” or “urban warfare.” Cities, oh how they love to brag about cities! “Nothing more terrifying than fighting in a city!” Oh really? Try underneath one.
Do you know why the Paris skyline was devoid of
skyscrapers, I mean the prewar, proper Paris skyline? Do you know why they stuck all those glass and steel monstrosities out in La Defense, so far from the city center? Yes, there’s aesthetics, a sense of continuity and civic pride… not like that architectural mongrel called London. But the truth, the logical, practical, reason for keeping Paris free from American-style monoliths, is that the earth beneath their feet is simply too tunneled to support it.
There are Roman tombs, quarries that supplied limestone for much of the city, even World War II bunkers used by the Resistance and yes, there was a Resistance! Then there is the modern Metro, the telephone lines, the gas mains, the water pipes. … and through it all, you have the catacombs. Roughly six million bodies were buried there, taken from the pre-revolution cemeteries, where corpses were just tossed in like rubbish. The catacombs contained entire walls of skulls and bones arranged in macabre patterns. It was even functional in places where interlocking bones held back mounds of loose remains behind them. The skulls always seemed to be laughing at me.
I don’t think I can blame the civilians who tried to survive in that subterranean world. They didn’t have the civilian survival manual back then, they didn’t have Radio Free Earth. It was the Great Panic. Maybe a few souls who thought they knew those tunnels decided to make a go of it, a few more followed them, then a few more. The word spread, “it’s safe underground.” A quarter million in all, that’s what the bone counters have determined, two hundred and fifty thousand refugees. Maybe if they had been organized, thought to bring food and tools, even had enough sense to seal the entrances behind them and make damn sure those coming in weren’t infected…
How can anyone claim that their experience can compare to what we endured? The darkness and the stink … we had almost no night vision goggles, just one pair per platoon, and that’s if you were lucky. Spare batteries were in short supply for our electric torches, too. Sometimes there was only one working unit for an entire squad, just for the point man, cutting the darkness with a red-coated beam.
The air was toxic with sewage, chemicals, rotting flesh… the gas masks were a joke, most of the filters had long expired. We wore anything we could find, old military models, or firefighting hoods that covered your entire head, made you sweat like a pig, made you deaf as well as blind. You never knew where you were, staring through that misty visor, hearing the muffled voices of your squad mates, the crackle of your radioman.
We had to use hardwired sets, you see, because airwave transmissions were too unreliable. We used old telephone wire, copper, not fiber optic. We would just rip it off the conduits and keep massive rolls with us to extend our range. It was the only way to keep in contact, and, most of the time, the only way to keep from becoming lost.
It was so easy to become lost. All the maps were prewar and didn’t take into account the modifications the survivors had made, all the interconnecting tunnels and alcoves, the holes in the floor that would suddenly open up in front of you. You would lose your way, at least once a day, some-times more, and then have to trace your way back down the communications wire, check your location on the map, and try to figure out what had gone wrong. Sometimes it was only a few minutes, sometimes hours, or even days.
When another squad was being attacked, you would hear their cries over the radio or echoing through the tunnels. The acoustics were evil; they taunted you. Screams and moans came from every direction. You never knew where they were coming from. At least with the radio, you could try, maybe, to get a fix on your comrades’ position. If they weren’t panicked, if they knew where they were, if you knew where you were…
The running: you dash through the passageways, bash your head on the ceiling, crawl on your hands and knees, praying to the Virgin with all your might for them to hold for just a little longer. You get to their position, find it is the wrong one, an empty chamber, and the screams for help are still a long way off.
And when you arrive, maybe to find nothing but bones and blood. Maybe you are lucky to find the zombies still there, a chance for vengeance … if it has taken a long time to reach them, that vengeance must now include your reanimated friends. Close combat. Close like so…
[He leans across the table, pressing his face inches away from mine.]
No standard equipment; whatever one believed would suit him. There were no firearms, you understand. The air, the gas, it was too flammable. The fire from a gun…
[He makes the sound of an explosion.]
We had the Beretta-Grechio, the Italian air carbine. It was a wartime model of a child’s carbon dioxide pellet gun. You got maybe five shots, six or seven if it was pressed right up to their heads. Good weapon, but always not enough of them. And you had to be careful! If you missed, if the ball struck the stone, if the stone was dry, if you got a spark… entire tunnels would catch, explosions that buried men alive, or fireballs that melted their masks right to their faces. Hand to hand is always better. Here…
[He rises from the table to show me something on his mantelpiece. The weapon’s handle is encased in a semicircular steel ball. Protruding from this ball are two 8-inch steel spikes at right angles from each other.]
You see why, eh? No room to swing a blade. Quick, through the eye, or over the top of the head.
[He demonstrates with a quick punch and stab combination.]
My own design, a modern version of my great-grandfather’s at Verdun, eh? You know Verdun — “On ne passe pas” — They shall not pass!
[He resumes his lunch.]
No room, no warning, suddenly they are upon you, perhaps right in front of your eyes, or grabbing from a side passage you didn’t know was there. Everyone was armored in some way … chain mail or heavy leather. … almost always it was too heavy, too suffocating, wet leather jackets and trousers, heavy metal chain-link shirts. You try to fight, you are already exhausted, men would tear off their masks, gasping for air, inhaling the stink. Many died before you could get them to the surface.
I used greaves, protection here (gestures to his forearms) and gloves, chain-covered leather, easy to remove when not in combat. They were my own design. We didn’t have the American battle uniforms, but we did have your marsh covers, the long, high waterproof boots with the bite-proof fiber sewn into the lining. We needed those.
The water was high that summer; the rains were coming hard and the Seine was a raging torrent. It was always wet. There was rot between your fingers, your toes, in your crotch. The water was up to your ankles almost all the time, sometimes up to your knees or waist. You would be on point, walking, or crawling-sometimes we had to crawl in the stinking fluid up to our elbows. And suddenly the ground would just fall away. You would splash, headfirst, into one of those unmapped holes. You only had a few seconds to right yourself before your gas mask flooded. You kicked and thrashed, your comrades would grab you and haul fast. Drowning was the least of your worries. Men would be splashing, struggling to stay afloat with all that heavy gear, and suddenly their eyes would bulge, and you’d hear their muffled cries. You might feel the moment they attacked: the snap or tear and suddenly you fall over with the poor bastard on top of you. If he wasn’t wearing the marsh covers … a foot is gone, the whole leg; if he had been crawling and went in face-first. . . sometimes that face would be gone.
Those were times when we called a full retreat to a defensive position and waited for the Cousteaus, the scuba divers trained to work and fight specifically in those flooded tunnels. With only a searchlight and a shark suit, if they were lucky to get one, and, at most, two hours of air. They were supposed to wear a safety line, but most of them refused to do so. The lines tended to get tangled and slow up the diver’s progress. Those men, and women, had a one in twenty chance of survival, the lowest ratio of any branch of any army, I don’t care what anyone says. Is it any wonder they received an automatic Legion of Honor?
And what was it all for? Fifteen thousand dead or missing. Not just the Cousteaus, all of us, the entire core. Fifteen thousand souls in just three mon
ths. Fifteen thousand at a time when the war was winding down all over the world. “Go! Go! Fight! Fight!” It didn’t have to be that way. How-long did it take the English to clear all of London? Five years, three years after the war was officially over? They went slow and safe, one section at a time, low speed, low intensity, low casualty rate. Slow and safe, like most major cities. Why us? That English general, what he said about “Enough dead heroes for the end of time…”
“Heroes,” that’s what we were, that’s what our leaders wanted, that’s what our people felt they needed. After all that has happened, not just in this war, but in so many wars before: Algeria, Indochina, the Nazis … you understand what I am saying… you see the sorrow and pity? We understood what the American president said about “reclaiming our confidence”; we understood it more than most. We needed heroes, new names and places to restore our pride.
The Ossuary, Port-Mahon Quarry, the Hospital. . . that was our shining moment. . . the Hospital. The Nazis had built it to house mental patients, so the legend goes, letting them starve to death behind the concrete walls. During our war it had been an infirmary for the recently bitten. Later, as more began to reanimate and the survivors’ humanity faded like their electric lamps, they began throwing the infected, and who knows who else, into that undead vault. An advance team broke through without realizing what was on the other side. They could have withdrawn, blown the tunnel, sealed them in again… One squad against three hundred zombies. One squad led by my baby brother. His voice was the last thing we heard before their radio went silent. His last words: “On ne passe pas!”
Denver, Colorado
[The weather is perfect for the neighborhood picnic in Victory Park. The fact that not one sighting has been recorded this spring gives everyone even more reason to celebrate. Todd Wainio stands in the outfield, waiting for a high fly ball that he claims “will never come.” Perhaps he’s right, as no one seems to mind me standing next to him.]
