by John Holmes
The interior of the C-17 Globemaster was packed to the limit, filled with reclaimed electronics, car parts, gold bars, all the loot of the modern world to keep the light of civilization burning. Reclamation teams followed the path of the Army, disassembling cars, recovering precious metals, siphoning gasoline. It was shipped to depots and sorted. The jewelry was melted down into ingots for easy transport, the gasoline and oil fed into fuel blivets.
We sat on either side, our gear piled at our feet. Taking off, the pilot had performed a sharp, twisting climb to avoid random potshots, leaving my stomach somewhere behind. I tried to sleep, but I was drawn to the small window as we chased the setting sun.
Below me, the flat plains of the Midwest stretched out. The great rivers, the Ohio, the Mississippi, the Missouri, had all broken their banks and flooded great stretches of the countryside. Here and there in the darkness below gleamed one or two spreads of lights, fortress towns that somehow survived. Ship lights gleamed on the Great Lakes, moving to Buffalo from the railheads in Green Bay, carrying supplies and troops to New York. I remembered how it all looked, the great spread of lights where Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis had all been. Now they lay faintly shimmering in the moonlight, reflections of the billion shards of broken glass that lay like sand on the beach.
We approached the Columbia Federal District, once known as Washington State, with the bulk of Mount Rainier shouldering its way above the clouds, and touched down in the light rain that always seemed to hang in the air. The pilot’s voice came over the intercom. “Welcome to SeaTac airport. There is a shuttle bus to JBLM at the USO desk. Please go through customs and declare all weapons. Thanks for flying Zombie Air!” Very frigging funny.
I lifted my Alice pack onto my back, picked up my duffle, followed the rest of the guys down the ramp and into the closest building, where an Airman stood with a clipboard. He took a copy of each of our orders and ran our CAC cards through a reader.
“I see you guys are coming from the Wild Wild East. When was the last time any of you were here?”
“Doc and Jonesy, I mean, Doc and I were here last year. I’m pretty sure SPC Redshirt was here pretty recently.”
“I was just here for Basic Training, never saw anything outside the base,” said Redshirt.
“OK, well, then you have to understand some things have changed. You are going to have to wait two days in quarantine and all personal weapons have to be left here to be reclaimed when you fly back out.”
“What the hell? Since when?” I went everywhere armed. We all did.
“Well, bad riots last year in response to the government-forced resettlement plan. Under the Federal Emergency Mandate, personal firearms and weapons are not allowed in the Columbia Federal District unless you are part of a law enforcement agency. In addition, all personnel arriving from areas not under federal control must remain in quarantine for prevention of spreading reanimation virus.”
He sounded like he was reading from a bad movie script and looked bored as hell. We were tired and suffering from jet lag so none of us argued with him about it. Just grumbled and bitched as we started pulling guns, knives, grenades and various bludgeons from holsters and pockets. The more stuff we dropped in the amnesty box, the bigger his eyes got. When we finally finished, the box was filled to the top.
“You know,” one of the two Military Policemen standing there said, looking at all the hardware we carried, “you all think you’re so badass rolling in here with all this. How freaking bad can it be out there? I think you’re all so full of shit it isn’t even funny.”
I ignored them and kept dealing with the Air Force sergeant. He was about to lock the box and hand me the key and a hand receipt listing all the items when I heard a commotion behind me.
“Oh shit, she’s turning!” yelled Doc, and he swung Brit, who twitched and spasmed, screeching and howling at the top of her lungs, toward the MPs, who reacted like a grenade had been thrown at them. Brit sank her teeth into the hand of the one who had called us full of shit, and he screamed like a little girl. His partner fumbled to load his pistol while the Air Force sergeant dove under the table, dropping his clipboard.
The scene was absolute chaos for a second, until Brit abruptly stood up and started laughing.
“Who’s full of shit now, you pogues?”
“You freaking bit me!!”
“Didn’t even break the skin. Wimp.”
Ziv had stepped in front of the other MP, who had finally managed to load a magazine in his pistol but hadn’t racked the slide. He stared him down, then sidled past and out the door. Brit passed them, laughing, and the rest of us filed out.
Outside, Doc passed us each one of the weapons he had grabbed out of the lock box in the confusion. I took my .22 automatic and slipped into my coat pocket, feeling a lot better, and we boarded the shuttle bus to Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
Chapter 55
Brit put Game of Thrones back in the DVD player and hit play, then started chowing down on popcorn again.
“How many times are you going to watch this?” Red, Doc, Ziv and I were playing spades, and Doc and I were losing, badly.
“As many times as it takes. Gotta see my girl burn shit up with her dragons. Plus I got the hots for Captain Tightpants.”
I threw a spade down on diamonds, but Red cut me with the Big Joker. That kid had all the luck, and he put it to good use.
“Play again? Make it a thousand.”
Doc threw his cards down. “No, I’m tired. Gonna hit the rack.”
“I’m going to head over to the front desk, see if we can get out of here any sooner.”
We had been in quarantine for more than a day now, and it was getting boring. I could see Mount Rainier in the west, and I knew that Seattle, with all its civilization, was only an hour away. After being out in the wilds for two years, we all wanted to get to it.
The Specialist at the desk was playing Call of Duty and ignored me for a minute. I stood patiently until his match ended.
“SPC Esposito,” I read off his name tag, “how the hell do we get out of this place early?”
“You really want to get out of here early?”
“Sure do. You know none of us has the plague. We’ve been out in the wild for two years, and I want a fraking steak.”
“Simple. Take me with you. I’m a clerk now, but I’ve got a tour in Iraq as an11B and a tour in Afghanistan as an MP.”
I looked him over. A little heavy-set from sitting and playing Xbox all day, but a few months in the wild would take care of that. We could use another shooter, and anyone who wanted to go with us might be crazy enough to fit in.
“OK, when we head back to the Wild, if your command OKs it, you can join our merry little band.”
“Cool beans!” He turned to his laptop, printed out a release paper and signed it.
“There you go. Cleared of quarantine. Go over to North Fort and draw quarters, and you’re expected at Building 4387 at 0700 Monday morning for inbriefing. Have fun, and stay off the MP blotter.”
I banged open the door to the Quarantine Block. “PACK IT UP! TIME TO ROLL! E.R. Rogers, here we come!”
Steak. I wanted some serious steak, and the best place to get it was in Steilacom. I had drawn a GSA van and we piled in. I called ahead and made a reservation for five. Ahmed went his own way, wanting to go to a mosque for Friday prayers.
The steakhouse was in a large, converted Victorian-era house. We made our way upstairs, Red peeled off to hit the bar and we headed to our table. “Stay away from the real firewater, Red!” I called after him.
“Well, look who came in out of the rain! How nice to see you, Sergeant Agostine, Sergeant Hamilton, Ms. O’Neill. And who is this gentleman?”
I stopped short. Dr. Morano sat at a table by the window, laptop in front of her. Her two bodyguards sat at another table a few feet away.
“Where is that young lady, Specialist Mya? Ohhhhh, that’s right, I read the report. Such a tragedy.” The smile on her face didn’
t reach her eyes.
I wasn’t fast enough. I shot out my arm to grab Brit, but she launched herself at Dr. Morano, catching her in a headlock and trying to bang her head into the table. The two fell to the floor, and the bodyguards’ table crashed over as they leapt up and drew their pistols. Ziv punched one in the back of the head with a set of brass knuckles that he had hid from the airport security guys. The other pressed his pistol against Brit’s head. Doc and I had out guns out and pointed at him.
“TELL YOUR BITCH TO STAND DOWN!” yelled the bodyguard.
“DROP THE FUCKING GUN!” I yelled back at him.
Brit held dead still. She could feel the barrel of the pistol pressed against the nape of her neck. Beneath her, Dr. Morano spoke through smashed lips.
“Johanson, put it away.”
He stood and holstered the pistol. Brit started to get up, then banged the doctor’s head off the floor. The bodyguard started, and Brit stood up and put her hands up in the air. “It’s OK, you trained dog. I’m done.” Then she hawked up some phlegm and spit on Dr. Morano’s steak.
“Did you have to spit on her steak? That might not have been the best idea.” We were driving north on I-5, having grabbed Redshirt from the bar and hightailed it out of there before the local cops showed up.
“Nick, I’ve done a lot of things that seemed like a good idea at the time. Spitting on her steak seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Yeah, but I think somehow we’re going to pay for that. I don’t think old Delta Force boy is happy with you punching him in the head, either.”
Ziv snorted. “Some men, they need to be punched. It keeps them, what is the word? Humble.”
Chapter 57
We were at a bar in downtown Seattle, far enough away from the bases so we weren’t surrounded by uniforms while we knocked back a few beers. Brit went over to the bar to get herself a drink and lay a trap. Far enough away that if someone interesting came her way she could talk to him, close enough to us if she needed mutual fire support or extraction under heavy fire.
She didn’t have long to wait. I could overhear the conversation but I pretended not to notice. A guy in uniform, badges piled high on his chest, sidled up the bar and leaned in. He looked about twenty years old but was wearing Sergeant Major rank. Zombie Airborne wings with a star, Air Assault, Pathfinder, Combat Infantry Badge with a star, Ranger, Sapper and Special Forces Tab over an Airborne Zombie Combat Command patch. He had more stuff on his uniform than our whole team put together.
“Hey Good-Looking, is heaven missing an angel? Because I want to turn you in for the reward!”
Brit laughed. “You’re retarded.” He looked crestfallen, but waded in for another try.
“Hey, cut me a break, I just got in from the wild East Coast!” Doc choked on his beer and sprayed some out on the table. I shot him a look that said, shut it! This was going to be good.
Brit rolled with it, making her eyes open wide. “Really? Oh, my gosh! You were actually out in the Wild?” She rolled the neck of her beer between her breasts. His eyes never left the beer.
“Yeah, you might have seen us in the news, couple of weeks ago. Of course, our faces were blacked out, you know, Special Forces. We were the ones up at West Point. You know, that picture that was in ‘Merika Today.”
She leaned over and put a hand on his arm. “Oh, I bet that was some pretty bad stuff. Did you see some action?” She flipped her hair back over her shoulder.
“Hell yeah! There were zombies all over the frigging place! We got overrun. I was the last man on the chopper, held them off with the butt of my rifle. See this?” and he rolled up his sleeve to show a small scar on his forearm. “I got a Silver Star and three purple hearts for that action. Bad shit.”
“Ohhh, what unit did you say you were in?” she breathed out in a husky voice.
“Well, I’m not supposed to say, but you might have heard of us. I’m with the Irregular Scouts. We go where no one else will.”
By this point, we were all trying hard not to burst out laughing. Doc actually got up from the table with his hand over his mouth, and even Ziv had the ghost of a smile on his craggy face.
“Oh, that sounds dangerous! That’s the kind of man I’m looking for!”
His eyes lit up, and he leaned in further toward Brit. “Really?”
“Yeah, I got a thing for tough soldiers. Matter of fact, I wouldn’t mind showing you a thing or two! You know, support the troops and everything.” As Brit started to lift her shirt, the look on the guy’s face was pure amazement at his luck.
“Hell yeah!” he started to say, then cut it off when he saw the still livid scar across Brit’s abdomen.
“Yeah, I need a man who can take care of me. You know, when I come home tired and SHOT!”
His face had turned a bit green, and we all burst out laughing. “Whoops, I forgot about that! You see, I got SHOT. In NEW YORK. Before we went to WEST POINT.” She pulled her shirt down and pulled up the leg of her shorts.
“OMG, I totally forgot about this one! I got SHOT. In the LEG. When I was in NEW YORK. Before we went to WEST POINT!” We were all rolling on the floor, laughing our asses off. The guy turned and ran out of the bar as the whole place erupted in laughter.
I loved that woman.
Chapter 58
I stood in front of the auditorium, drinking coffee, trying to get the projector to work for our PowerPoint presentation. Doc sat at a desk, feet up on a chair, snoring loudly. We were both trying to get past our hangovers and get down to work.
Our job over the next few weeks was to pass along the lessons we had learned about fighting zombies to instructors at the Fort Lewis Basic Training unit. Since the plague, Fort Lewis had turned into a giant training ground and headquarters for the Army, and there were now thousands of troops being cycled through every month. Knowledge from the field was passed on through the Center For Army Lessons Learned. We were being used to give firsthand experience the instructors would pass on to the recruits.
They filed in, a group of captains, lieutenants, staff sergeants, sergeants and corporals. Most of them had combat patches on their right sleeves, only a few of them red Zombie Combat Command patch. It was considered “cooler” to wear a patch earned by fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. Anyone could fight zombies. They all had a patch, though. The Army had learned, finally, that you don’t train your troops with inexperienced leaders.
We got past the standard introductions, all the wanker-measuring, all the street creds. Then, in answer to a question from one of the guys, I told them about our detachment.
“Well, you all know what a mess things are out there in the wild, and how hard it is to get trained replacements on a regular basis. Anyone left out in the wild is obviously a survivor, or led by a survivor, used to living in areas that are infested. So the Irregular Scout Teams are composed of Regular Army, Reservists and civilians.” From the back of the auditorium Brit let out a yell. “That’s me, sucking the taxpayer’s tit!” The guys (and not a few ladies) laughed.
“Keep the comments from the peanut gallery down, please.” I continued on.
“Currently there are six”
“FIVE!” yelled Brit.
“Yes, sorry, five Irregular Scout Teams. Our business is a bit hazardous. We have had a roughly, um, three hundred percent casualty rate over the last year.”
A Captain in the first row spoke up. “Three hundred percent? Is that a bit much?”
“Sir, we do a very dangerous job. We’re out there all alone, trying to avoid zombies and people who would just as soon shoot us as welcome us. Last two missions, we lost, um, let’s see …” I added them together in my head. Ski, Jacob, Jonesy, Mya, Killeen dead, Redshirt, Brit and Desen wounded. “We’ve had 5 KIA, and 3 WIA. For an eight man team, that’s 100% casualties. IST - 4 was wiped out to a man last week in Philadelphia.”
I turned my attention to the rest of the crowd. “We’re here today and for the next couple of weeks to help you understand a littl
e more about fighting zombies, using the information that teams such as ours can bring you, and help you pass the info along to your trainees. We’re all volunteers, so whether we live or die, we will get you the information you need to do your jobs.”
Redshirt started a PowerPoint briefing, and a collective groan arose from the crowd. “Shit, not PowerPoint!” said someone in the back row. I grinned an evil grin and said, “Next slide, please!”
A picture of multiple undead appeared on the screen and I launched into the spiel I had been working on all night.
“First off, we’re not here to talk about the “why” of the Zombie Apocalypse. It happened, and no one knows why. Nor are we any closer to figuring out what a zombie actually is. Our job is to kill them. Actually, your job is to kill them. Ours is to scout areas you may be going into so that you don’t get your asses handed to you.”
“The very first thing your troops need to remember is that you are smarter than a zombie. Well, some of you. We’ll leave the junior officers out of this for now.” That brought a laugh from the crowd.
“The reason most people die out in the wild is they don’t use their heads. If you just use some freaking common sense, you can live out there. My team members back there, the two civilians,” I said, indicating Brit and Ziv, “did it for two years.”
Then we got down to the serious business. How zombies found you. Where they concentrated. How to avoid them. How to kill them. How to avoid getting killed or turned by them.
“I see all of you are wearing the new multicam uniforms. Notice the heavy kevlar panels sewn into the sleeves. Yeah, they are annoying, but if you cram your arm into a zombie’s mouth and let him chew on that for a few seconds, it will give you time to shoot or smash their brains. Just don’t inhale when it splatters back at you. Also, the hoods attached to the blouse can and will protect your head and necks from being bitten.”
After a break, Doc moved onto a session about emergency battlefield medicine.
“The one thing I can tell you, the one thing you must get these kids to understand, is that an infected soldier will turn into a Z quickly and break your lines. Many of you have seen that. As leaders, don’t be afraid to neutralize a former soldier of yours. There is no room for compassion.”
