Enclave: A Novel of the Zombie Apocalypse

by Robert Morganbesser

  Taylor yawned loudly, still weary from painkillers. "Then we'll just have to go get them," he said, drifting off into sleep. Chung covered his friend and knew that once Taylor was well, that was exactly what he'd do.

  And he'd be right there with him.

  Chapter 9 - The BodySnatchers

  03 April 2032

  Boro Park Command Post

  Brooklyn, NY

  The pile grew by another head. Corporal Jay Finley wiped his machete off and sheathed it. Compared to Manhattan, Brooklyn was turning out not to be so bad. Half of it was empty of the living; a third of once thriving Boro Park smashed flat by air strikes. Unlike Boston, Finley’s last assignment, which was crawling with the dead, and the living were a bunch of uncooperative pricks, Brooklyn was, so far, a cakewalk. Part of Queens and Brooklyn were all the military still held. Only Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Bronx were totally abandoned. New Yorkers were tough as nails. Many of them were quite practical in their reaction to the plans of the military. Need to bomb something to make a blockade? Do it! New Yorkers had the attitude that “As long as I’m still breathing when you’re done, fine with me!” Finley grinned as he remembered the protests when air strikes leveled historic parts of Boston, the Old North Church among the targets. Bostonians had a rich history, but was it worth preserving to end up in some zombies stomach? Most New Yorkers had a different attitude; they just wanted the zombies dead. If the Coney Island amusement park or the Grand Army Plaza library had to be bombed – fuck it – bomb em! Finley and many other troops appreciated this kind of attitude; it kept people out of the way, allowing the troops to do what they had to. They’d finally picked a name for their unit, the ‘Bodysnatchers’, due to all the rescue missions they’d been part of. Led by Captain James ‘Blackjack’ Nevers, the hardest officer Finley ever met, they did their job well.

  “Hey, I know this guy!” Sergeant Steve Chung, a heavy-set Chinese soldier, exclaimed. His friend and shadow, Sergeant Joe Taylor, came up alongside Chung.

  “Which one?” Taylor asked, scratching at the fresh scar that stuck out from under a black eye patch. The puckered flesh was pink and raw, making the Doctors suggest Taylor stay in the hospital a while longer. Taylor would not hear of it, wanting to get back to work. It was time consuming, getting used to being one-eyed, but that wasn’t going to stop him. As he said to Chung, being one-eyed was better than being dead. He would live with this disability.

  They both peered at the pile of heads, many of which were active, eyes blinking, mouths opening and closing, jaws clacking in hunger. Chung pointed. “This guy right here, the Paki.” Chung pointed at the head that lay on its side, blood spattered headdress still in place. Part of his headdress was torn, revealing the raw wound that had killed him. Brown eyes open, both were moving. “Didn’t he run the newsstand over on Ditmas? The one with all the awesome porn mags? Said he wouldn’t evac until we dragged him out? Kept that sawed off under the counter?”

  Feeding rounds into his shotgun, Taylor shrugged. “You sure? This area was big with the Paki's.”

  The Paki had carried some of the strangest porn mags Taylor (and having spent most of his adult life in the Army had seen a lot) had ever seen. A new strain of porn evolved with the rising of the dead. Dead Porn. Videos and magazines of people fucking the dead. Taylor shuddered at the thought of this. The new version of a pimp would take a fresh, nice looking female zombie (sometimes helped into dying by an overdose), put a mask and heavy gloves on her, and let the customer go to town. How could someone fuck a dead thing? Now that the numbers of the dead were passing those of the living, he wondered if that little cottage industry had faded out. Chung prodded the Paki head with the barrel of his assault rifle and moved the head a bit away from the pile.

  “Yep, that’s him. I’m sure of it.”

  “What the fuck are you assholes up to?” the gravelly voice of Captain Never’s could be heard over an artillery bombardment. He was one of the best field officers in the army, an uncompromising man who would do anything for his men. Stalking over, he stared down at the pile of heads. Taylor and Chung looked somewhat embarrassed.

  “Never seen a fucking head before?” growled Nevers. “We’re doing a sweep. There may be looters in the area, so orders are: shoot first and forget the fucking questions.”

  This was contrary to the actual order, since command wanted looters taken alive for trial. The government was desperate to show people that things were still under control, and that humanity would prevail. When told this, Nevers acquiesced to his superiors, assuring them they shouldn't worry. As soon as his appeased superior departed Never’s laughed, saying, “Trial? I try ‘em with a bullet.” Never’s volatile nature was well known through the service. So far, none of his superiors had questioned anything he’d done. This was why Nevers and the men under him got the hardest assignments. They had a high rate of success, and success was one thing that would silence command.

  Nevers had the attitude that if the living were not with him, they were against him. If someone did not like the way he did things; tough shit. It was a hard world that was getting harder. While Never’s rambled on about wasting time and trials on looters, Taylor checked his gear. He’d heard his CO’s bullshit before and knew when to tune him out. All the men wore Kevlar vests along with forearm, elbow, knee, and shin guards. In warm weather, the stuff was hot as hell, but the gear had saved more than one life from a fate worse than simple death. Taylor rubbed the left side of his face where an eye patch covered his left socket. The scar tissue that poked out around the patch itched like mad. As Chung had said more than once, “there were worse things to lose than an eye.”

  Chung, seeing discomfort on his friends face, came over immediately. “You OK, Joe?”

  Taylor nodded; the irritated look on his face fading as he pulled off a glove and scratched the scar tissue. “It’s still itchy.”

  Finley ambled over, followed by a flamethrower man. “You guys want to step aside? It’s barbecue time.” As the flame-thrower carrying trooper prepared his weapon, Taylor and Chung watched. The weapon was retired in the 60’s, but jungle combat in Central American interventions caused the military to bring them back. With a thought toward ecology, the public frowning on chemical defoliants, flamethrowers were the answer. Once they were bulky things with three tanks, two of jellied gas, one of propellant. Now they were far more streamlined; made of lighter materials, carried more fuel, and were a damn good weapon against the zombies. Today’s flamethrower looked more like a super dive tank than the bulky and dangerous equipment it was during WW2 and Korea. Of course, a puncture to the weapon was still a death sentence, but with tanks shielded by Kevlar, they were a little safer. Taylor moved away to give the man a safe distance to fire up the heads.

  As the men walked over to a supply truck, a runner appeared, looked around, handed Never’s a flimsy sheet of paper then disappeared.

  Nevers looked up from the paper and laughed. The men looked at him, shocked since he rarely laughed. “Well,” said Nevers. “I’ve got good news and bad news.” Nevers paused for effect. “The good news is we ain’t collecting heads anymore.”

  The men cheered at this news. Few civilians ever came forward to identify a head. They were too busy trying to survive. It was easier to destroy the zombies than try to keep up appearances of civilization. “Yep,” said Nevers. “Just kill ‘em now. The bad news is,” he looked directly at Chung as he reached into a box in the truck. Grinning, Nevers put a bunch of plastic riot cuffs in Chung’s hand. Chung looked at the cuffs. “Oh no! Not again!”

  Nevers laughed. “Oh yes, the brain boys want some more specimens.”

  Taylor rolled his eyes. “How come we always get the fucked up details, eh? Why us?”

  Nevers squeezed Taylor’s shoulder. “Because we get the job done, and I don’t suck any General’s cocks. Now stop whining and let’s get fucking moving.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt if you sucked a little now and then,” mumbled Chung.

/>   “What? What was that, Sergeant?” Nevers practically snarled at him.

  Before the conversation could turn ugly, three other men, one bearing a radio came trotting over.

  “All ready, LT.”

  Nevers looked over his men. He knew they were right to grumble, they did get the shittiest jobs, the worst assignments. Nevers looked out for his men and in return, they respected him. Nevers led from the front, unlike some commanders, who stayed where it was safe and barely saw any enemy, living or dead.

  “Everyone got enough ammo? Got your masks?”

  Sullen nods from each of the men were his only answer, but he knew they would do their jobs.

  “Let’s move out.”

  03 April 2032

  13th Avenue

  Brooklyn, NY

  As they stalked up the ruins of 13th Avenue, the area had the aura of a ghost town. All the stores not looted or burned were closed and shuttered. Broken windows from the apartments above, glared down like empty sockets in a skull. Litter piled high in the streets was a home to rats and other vermin. On one block, clouds of flies gathered around the rotting remains of corpses. On another, faded tickets stuck under the windshield, tires flat, paint fading from the weather, lay abandoned cars. Some of these held dead, trapped inside, unable to escape their tomb. On occasion soldiers would destroy the trapped thing, freeing it from its pathetic existence. Some troops let them be, knowing that any unnecessary sounds would attract what they called ‘free-range’ zombies. Some buildings, little more than burned out hulks were death traps. On a few street corners, they found piles of burned skulls where previous incinerations had taken place. None of them felt sad no longer have to collect heads.

  So far, so good, thought Nevers. Taking point, he patted himself down, making sure all the gear he needed was within easy reach. He had his black jack, which he used to subdue the living and the dead. As of late, it hadn’t been used on many living. Any looters they ran into – well, they’d have a bad day - captured zombies would go to the brain boys who had all kinds of experiments planned for the undead bastards. Nevers didn’t wonder why the dead had risen, he just killed them as often and in as large a number as he could. The living were important to him – at least some living.

  Capturing zombies was a dangerous job, but Nevers quickly mastered the art of subduing one. He knew just where to hit a creature in the head stunning it long enough to disable and cuff it. He took grim pleasure in being good at his job. Problem with collecting specimens was that they had to be fresh, not rotting out. Fresh ones were stronger which made them more dangerous.

  Nevers checked his weapon. Like the rest of the troops, he carried an M11 assault rifle. These weapons used the same round as the M16/M4 they had replaced, the 5.56. All of them carried fifty round drum magazines. It made the weapon heavier, but only a fool wouldn’t carry as much ammo as possible. The 5.56 ammo he used, like the rest of the team, was dum-dums. The impact of one on a zombie would blow off limbs or decapitate it. Prior to this war, such rounds were outlawed by most nations, since they caused too much tissue damage. Early in the rise, the military learned that a zombie could take a lot of punishment. Zombies with no legs, or missing an arm had attacked and wounded the unwary. People had to stop thinking of this new enemy as if they were humans. The average zombie, when fresh, could take damage that would kill two living humans and still be a danger. Dum-dum’s had partially solved this problem. When there weren’t enough ‘official’ dum-dums to go around, Nevers could be found, rat tail file in hand, making his own. Like most troopers, Nevers always looked for an edge. Hell, he wished he had an armored suit like in some of his favorite science fiction novels. Then he could really bring down some hurt on the zombies. Be nice to smash down those Lazarite fuckers as well.

  Never’s was always trying to convince Taylor, who he knew for years, to switch over to an automatic weapon, but Taylor was stubborn. He stuck with his shotgun, a Remington 870 with an extended magazine. Taylor liked it because he could and had used the weapon as a club. With a stock of heavy walnut, he could crush in any skull, living or dead. Taylor also carried a .45 caliber pistol, a weapon he tinkered with all the time.

  Nevers stopped a moment. There was movement up ahead. Making a motion (the crew carried comms gear, but Nevers preferred the silent approach) his men spread out into a skirmish line. Nevers glanced left and right before moving. Taylor was to his right, flanked by Finley and Tobin, the SAW gunner. Tobin, a huge man, handled the heavy machine gun like a toy. On the left were Chung, Harris and Vargas, the radioman. Vargas was in constant contact with air support, which had two helos standing off. Helos had saved the teams asses more times than any of them could count.

  They had taken a helo for the short trip to this AO. The men taking a good look at the area they would be operating around. Knowledge of a battlefield had saved their lives more than once. All of them carried maps with exfil points as well as the locations of friendly units. The area they were in now was once a middle class neighborhood, now it was a war zone. Smoke drifted into the blue sky while birds pecked at the corpses of rekilled zombies. None of them knew what the next day would bring, so they tried not to worry about it. They were just glad to travel by Chopper rather than truck. Quite a few times being in a chopper had saved them from ending up in a shitstorm. Chopper pilots could see what was waiting and abort a mission. That pilot always found himself inundated with bottles of booze.

  Ahead of the troops, standing in the middle of the street stood one zombie. Arms swaying, head cocked at an odd angle, it stood there, waiting. Nevers gripped his weapon and stared. From its neat appearance, he knew the zombie was new. Dressed in a white shirt and black pants, it had no shoes on and some kind of scarf or shawl hung around its neck. There were no visible injuries. A thick, unkempt beard filled with debris covered the bottom part of its face. The zombie had once been a Hasidic Jew, one of the various ethnic groups that formerly inhabited Boro Park. The creature stood there, staring stupidly; drool running from its open mouth. As the team got closer, it suddenly lunged at Nevers, arms up. Nevers neatly sidestepped and tripped it. It fell forward on its face, shattering its teeth. As bits of rotten enamel exploded from its broken mouth, the creature began struggling to rise. Before it gained its feet, the blackjack flashed up and down, temporarily stilling its movement. Grabbing an arm, Nevers pulled it back and began applying the riot cuffs. Taylor grabbed the other and bent it back. “Remember,” said Taylor, “that time you did this and the fuckers arm came off?” Nevers grinned at the memory. When one lived on the cusp of death, the strangest things were funny. Quickly they secured the zombie. Taylor pointed to the length of frayed rope sticking out from under the shawl it was wearing. “Hung himself,” Taylor said. Suicide was more common among the more religious when the dead rose, destroying their idea of resurrection. Nevers nodded once as he looped another riot cuff around the creature’s ankles then a larger one around its jaw and the top of the head, securing it. Grabbing the shawl, he pulled it off and tossed it aside. The zombie could lay there until they came back to collect it. If they didn’t, well various vermin would have an easy meal.

  Standing over the creature, which could not even thrash, Nevers said, “Let’s move. We’ll call for pick up later.”

  The next two blocks were clear. In the middle of one block a burned out Pizzeria still leaked feeble spirals of grey smoke. Just inside, partially covered with ruined pizza boxes, a headless corpse lay half in and out of the entrance. Taylor peered in. Just inside lay several more decaying, but undead corpses, pinned by debris. Leaning over the shattered storefront, he drew his .45, end covered in a bulbous silencer and fired twice, destroying both heads. Taylor took no chances. For him, the only safe corpse was a decapitated one. Some zombies played possum and men had lost their lives because of it. If the zombies got Taylor, it would not be through such a simple ruse!

  Moving away from the store, Taylor paused to holster his pistol. Not far off was a glint of light. Ch
ung, stopping to take a drink from his canteen, saw it too. “Vehicles coming! Another patrol?”

  Nevers glanced at a plastic coasted sheaf of paper. “We’re the only patrol scheduled for this area. Might be survivors making a run for it… or it might be looters! Off the street!” The men wasted no time diving for cover. Close to Nevers, Vargas made a motion to his headset. Nevers shook his head. Better to find out what was going on rather than play his hand too early.

  A fusillade of shots ricocheted off where the team prior positions. Whoever it was had seen them and was not friendly. Chung cursed as chips of street ricocheted off his gear. The best and worst in humanity came out with the rise of the dead. Next to the Lazarites, looters were the worst. They killed indiscriminately, survivors and zombies. They took supplies needed for all and sold them for things like jewelry, which might be worth something when or if things ever returned to normal. Often they killed the buyers as well, adding whatever the desperate had to their own stocks. Taylor peered around the edge of the building he was using for cover. The looters lead vehicle was a Chevy Suburban. The two vehicles behind it were the same make. A heavy tough truck that could take a beating, they’d painted over it, but the men could see streaks of the olive drab that was its original color. It was more than likely they killed soldiers to get it. Even if they were not looters, just panicking civilians, this evidence signed their death sentences.

  The Suburban was a tough vehicle, but it was not an armored one. Chung peered through the window of the shattered car he was behind and fired off a round from his grenade launcher. The projectile hit on the right front of the vehicle and exploded, blowing out the front tires and shattering the windshield. With a shriek of tearing metal, the vehicle did a half turn and flipped over, rolling to a stop against a burned out yellow school bus.