by John Holmes
“What the hell, that’s a straight-up Mechanized Infantry push! What use would we be there?” Then I thought back to what Morano said to us in the lab. Have a nice vacation in Denver, she had said.
“I know, but it does get us out of here. Either way, orders are orders.”
Chapter 62
We rode a troop train out of Seattle, headed for the front lines outside of Denver. Like all soldiers, we slept, played cards, got bored. I used the time to get to know our newest guy, Specialist Esposito.
“Not what you were expecting, was it? Heading to the front lines.”
“I’m getting out of the office, that’s all I give a crap about. I was turning into a zombie myself, doing admin shit all day. I spent half the time trying to get my stupid CAC reader to work. I mean, really, who is going to try to hack our networks now?”
“Nobody, but you know how the Army is. Once something is in place, it will never be taken away, only added to.” He seemed like a decent guy, and it would help that he had combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. Different fight, but experience was experience. We did the usual “where were you in `09, what FOB were you at, did you know so-and-so.” It was military guys’ way of sniffing each other’s butts, like two strange dogs getting to know each other.
As the train clattered over the mountains of Idaho and Wyoming, I thought about our problem with Dr. Morano. One way or another, I was glad to be out of her immediate reach. Payback would have to come, and it would be a showdown to the end. You can’t leave enemies like that, ones who were willing to kill without conscience, alive and able to strike at you. We would have to be very careful, though. This wasn’t some jumped-up jackass of an officer who had it coming and nobody around him cared less. I had read about some of her research and she was a big shot, a favorite of the powers that be. The fact we were on our way to the front lines was proof enough of that.
We rolled out onto the northern plains, sweltering in midsummer heat. Above us, regular flights of Kiowa Scout helicopters started to appear. One of the few things getting priority of manufacture was the small, lightweight observation copters. They could cover a lot of ground and ran regular patrols all over the countryside. Any figure or groups of figures that didn’t respond to interrogation with some sort of signal showing they were human was immediately engaged, either through a lightweight chaingun mounted on the nose, or rifle fire from the observer/sniper who rode alongside. They would land several hundred meters from the Z and hop out to take the headshot. Shooting accurately from a hovering helo was something you did in movies, not in real life. If it was a group, and they were advancing quickly, the team would do what was called a “skip and shoot;” landing, shooting, pulling back several hundred meters, then landing again. If things got out of hand, quick reaction rifle squads were scattered every seventy five miles or so, in remains of small towns, and could be there within a half an hour by Blackhawk or two hours by truck. A real horde of several hundred, or even more, would be led by the scout helo flashing lights and playing sound to attract them to a designated “kill zone” where troops had established permanent fighting positions and would be waiting for them. The kill zones were set up every hundred miles or so, depending on terrain features, and had preregistered artillery, deep ditches and palisades. They had been used a lot in the first year of the war to stabilize Montana, Idaho and the Dakotas and cut down on the number of hordes wandering about. Now we held the northern Great Plains north of the I-90 corridor. We had patrols as far south as Kansas and a mechanized infantry division sitting outside of Omaha shooting anything that stumbled out of that ruin. We also had four divisions getting ready for the push into Denver, one mechanized and three light infantry. In California, we were massing wheeled infantry in the mountains, getting ready to try and take back the Imperial Valley with all of its agricultural potential, and the Navy wanted San Francisco Harbor back. They were tired of being holed up in San Diego, and the Marines were itching to get into the fight, training constantly at their bases in Hawaii. The brief and bloody fight against the secessionists in Utah had devolved down to mopping up in the mountains, and the sensible people in Salt Lake City had thrown out the “Emergency Council of Elders” after they had vowed to fight the government “to the last saint.”
In the small picture, our picture, Third Corps (III Corps) had established a cordon around the greater Denver Metropolitan area and was preparing to take the city. The government needed the rail lines and transportation infrastructure as a forward base for taking back the rest of the country, and there was talk of moving the capitol there after everything was cleaned out. For now, though, there were estimated to be close to a million undead gathered there. Our job was to first scout the airport.
“Why don’t we just drop a neutron bomb on it?” asked Red, who had been looking over my shoulder as I read the intel updates. “You know, just fry their asses, and leave the buildings standing and all that.”
“Tried it already, in Los Angeles. Didn’t work. Just left a bunch of pissed-off, radioactive zombies.”
“Damn. Well, what about, you know, carpet bombing it or something? Blow the hell out of them, leave a lot less for the Army to clean up. I know you won’t kill a lot of them that way, but it will sure mess up a bunch.”
“Won’t leave the buildings intact, and we need to take Denver so it can be reoccupied. The Air Force carpet bombed … where the hell was that?”
“Reno” chimed in Doc, who was pretending to sleep in the seat across from me.
“Yeah, Reno, Nevada. Pounded the whole place flat. Carpet bombs, fuel air explosives, Napalm, everything. All that, a small city, and it STILL took three weeks for a full division of troops to declare the place a hundred percent secure.”
“So, let me get this straight. We’re still scouts, right?”
“As far as I know, yes.”
“And we’re going to scout an area we can’t bomb and has a million Zs in it?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“Damn, White Man, I should have stayed on the reservation.”
I laughed. “Red, don’t worry, this will be a piece of cake compared to New York.”
Just then, the train hit a rough patch in the rails and my coffee jumped in my hand, spilling the hot liquid on my uniform. Damn, what a way to start.
Chapter 63
Somewhere in Wyoming, the train ground to a halt and an announcement came over the intercom.
“All troops, this is the train commander. Air scouts are leading a zombie horde, about one thousand strong, toward our position. All troops will mount rooftop firing positions and engage targets. Estimate contact time is ten minutes.”
Brit let out a whoop. “Hell yeah, I was getting bored watching Red moon over all those buffalo. He’s had a hard-on for the last two hundred miles.”
“I’m a Navajo. We screw sheep, you stupid paleface squaw.”
“OK, OK, quit it and gear up, you two.” We checked weapons and ammo and moved into the aisle. Doc still pretended to sleep. I slapped his boot and he grunted, rolled over into a more comfortable position and started snoring. Esposito finished loading his rifle and then asked “What’s with him? Isn’t he going to help?”
“He’s just faking it. He’ll be down here with his medkit in case someone gets injured.”
A ladder had been pulled down from the roof and soldiers were climbing up through a hatch. We made our way up onto the flat roof of the train. I had wondered why the car was so low, and I saw that several feet had been sawn off the roof and a parapet placed around it. The car was still low enough to pass under tunnels and bridges but provided an elevated, protected firing platform. There was even an overhang to prevent Zs from climbing up.
As we crowded over to the southern side of the train car and took up firing positions, the helos thundered overhead. I looked out over the open plain, which was shimmering with heat waves. White stones stood at various intervals that I judged were every hundred meters or so, and piles
of picked-over bones lay around them. Hundreds of thousands of bones, and the smell coming off them reminded me of a slaughterhouse.
“What’s with the rocks and the bones?” I asked one of the regular train security personnel, who was directing the placement troops along the parapet.
He laughed. “Those are for estimating range. You don’t think we just stopped here at a random place, did you? This is a regular ambush place. We do this about every fifth train ride.” He leaned over the edge and pointed to the ground below.
“See that?” I leaned over myself and saw a deep ditch dug along the tracks, which approximated the entire length of the train. It too was filled with bones, but it made it impossible for any Z to even get close to the train cars, much less climb them.
“Every couple of weeks the air scouts come across a wandering horde and lead them back to this place or a few others we have along the rail line. Then we just let the troops on board shoot the piss out of them. Plus, we got that,” and he gestured towards the last rail car.
“Is that what it looks like?”
“Yep. 100 kilowatt FIRESTRIKE Laser. Made by Northrup –Grumman. We just start at the back of the horde and work our way forward, frying the crap out of them.”
“I want one!” said Brit, who had been listening in.
“Fat chance, Lady. We have an extra diesel electric locomotive hooked to the train to provide power for that sucker. Still, it smells like a good old pork BBQ when we get done.”
In a few minutes, I heard the zombie howl come drifting over the wind. Brit looked over and gave me a thumbs-up. Ahmed settled more comfortably behind his scope. On my left, Red looked a little nervous. I couldn’t blame him, after what he went through at West Point. Espo tapped a magazine against the rail, then seated his patrol cap a little further back on his head.
Ahmed shot first, a flat crack coming out of his rifle, unsuppressed for once. Damn, that was loud. I reached into my sleeve pocket, pulled out a set of foam plugs and squeezed them into my ears. I’d rather have my hearing than compensation from whatever agency managed to succeed the Veterans Administration.
I felt the engine powering up for the laser, and toward the back of the horde, individual Zs started to burst into flame. Some only smoked as they moved out of the laser’s aimpoint. I guess it took a second or two for the full heat effects to be felt. Thank God the wind was blowing away from us, or I think I would have puked from the smell of burned flesh.
The horde resolved itself out of the heat waves, running toward the train, drawn by the sound of the gunfire. At five hundred meters, the designated marksmen opened up, dropping them with every other shot. At three hundred, some of the guys joined in. At a hundred and fifty meters, everyone else opened up, and at a hundred we started firing with our .22 magnums. At this point, there was a continuous roar coming through my ear plugs and the whole train deck was vibrating. I could barely see anything through my sites, just fired whenever I recognized the pattern of a face.
“CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE! STOP FIRING YOU STUPID JACKASSES! AMMO AIN”T CHEAP!” The train crewman kicked the back of our feet and we stopped pulling our triggers. The roar of shots dropped away. Spent brass cartridges lay all around us on the roof and I could smell the cordite. I loved that smell, but killing was hot work. I took a very long drink from my camelback.
In front of us there was a pile of steaming, burning corpses. Some still crawled toward the train and a couple of snipers took individual shots. Every now and then one would pull itself upright and then it would drop in a spray of blood from its head. The nearest zombie corpse lay ten feet from the train tracks.
“OK, before you go back down, police up all the brass!”
“You have got to be shitting me,” said one of the soldiers.
“You think brass grows on trees? There are ammo crates by the ladder, make sure you sort by caliber!” Damn. I pulled off my patrol cap and started putting .22 shells in.
As we filed back down, I asked the trainman what would happen to any stray Zs.
“A squad will be coming in by air in the next thirty mikes. They’ll take care of any leakers.”
Doc sat up as we took off our gear and stowed it overhead. “What did I miss?”
“We just whooped a whole buncha zombie ass!” said Brit. “I could get used to this big Army stuff.”
“Don’t get used to it.” I said. “You know when we get to Denver it’s going to just be us all out on our lonesome. The Lost Boys are who they call when they need to know, but are too scared to find out.”
“Hell, yeah!” Brit and Red exchanged high fives, and she started to do a sexy dance in the aisle to the catcalls and hoots of the troopers around us. Then the train started up again with a lurch, and she fell on her ass.
Chapter 64
Dust and mud. That’s what being a soldier is about. Cold, too, usually, but thankfully it was midsummer. Another thing that always bothered me about zombie TV shows. Being in a survival situation is, well, dirty. You never see the hero scratching his crotch because he hasn’t showered in two months and he has heat rash. You never see the hero reporting in to his commander and the commander’s nose wrinkling up because the hero smells like a few weeks of rotten ass due to being on the run all the time. Or the zombie brains and blood and guts that are splattered all over his uniform, which smelled rank long before they got splashed.
Thankfully, this time, it was just dirt and mud. Dust first, then mud, after a thunderstorm had dropped an inch of rain on FOB Griffin, about 20 miles north of the front lines around Denver. The rain had turned the road in between the tents, already stripped of any vegetation by passing trucks, into a clay that gripped my boots. Every few meters I had to stop and scrape the mud off my boots onto whatever was handy. By the time I got back to the trucks, I was covered in mud splatters up to my knees. Screw it, just something you get used to after a while in the field.
Our two gun trucks were sitting on the remains of a parking lot, thankfully. Brit, Red, and Ahmed were welding a Z-catcher, an angled iron “V”, on the frame of -06. Ziv and Espo worked on mounting a M-249 SAW in the turret of 07. Once we had signed for the trucks, Red had gone to work with a can of paint and a stencil, blocking out the old bumper numbers that said “4 ID HHC-04” and “4 ID HHC-13” and stenciling them with “JSOC-IST 1 – 06” on my truck and “JSOC-IST 1 – 05” on Doc’s.
I took a minute to review the operations order in my hand. It was short and to the point. Lengthy op-orders had gone out the window with the zombies.
1. SITUATION
Enemy forces.
Expect upwards of seven hundred thousand infected in the greater Denver Metro Area. Over flights of airport show scattered activity.
Significant hostile surviving population has been reported in outlying areas.
b. Friendly forces. JSOC-IST 1 will be operating in support of Task Force Bronco.
c. Attachments and detachments. None.
2. MISSION: On order, JSOC-IST 1 will conduct a tactical reconnaissance of the Denver International Airport to determine runway and facilities conditions.
3. EXECUTION
Intent:
a. Concept of operations.
(1) Maneuver: Conduct intelligence gathering at Denver Airport.
(2) Fires: TF Bronco will dedicate one battery of 155mm Paladin Howitzers in direct support.
(3) Reconnaissance and Surveillance: See attached aerial photographs.
(4) Intelligence: See attached aerial photographs
(5) Engineer: None
(6) Air Defense: N/A
(7) Information Operations: N/A
b. Tasks to maneuver units: Coordinate passage of lines with JSOC-IST 1
c. Tasks to combat support units.
(1) Intelligence: None
(2) Engineer: None
(3) Fire Support: Coordinate suppressive fires for ingress and egress.
(4) Air Defense: N/A
(5) Signal: See attached SOI
(6
) NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical): Possible radiation hot spots due to failed nuclear strike southwest of Denver Metro area. Radiation contamination at crater at site of Former Rocky Mountain Arsenal.
(7) Provost Marshal: N/A
(8) PSYOP: N/A
(9) Civil military: TF Bronco elements will make all efforts to rescue Survivor Civilian Populations (SCP).
(10) As required
d. Coordinating instructions.
(1) Time or condition when a plan or order becomes effective: 0001 Local
(2) CCIR (Commander's Critical Information Requirements): Suitability of Airport facilities for flight operations.
(3) Risk reduction control measures: None
(4) Rules of engagement: None
(5) Environmental considerations: None
(6) Force protection: None
(7) As required
4. SUSTAINMENT (formerly Service Support)
a. Support concept: JSOC –IST 1 will use organic TF Bronco assets.
b. Materiel and services. JSOC –IST 1 will use organic TF Bronco assets.
c. Medical evacuation and hospitalization: 934th Aero-Med Company will be on standby to support all combat operations.
d. Personnel: JSOC –ST 1 and attached Airforce elements.
e. Civil military: N/A
f. As required.
“Who wrote this shit? It looks like it was written by a first year ROTC cadet,” scoffed Doc.
Blah blah blah. Again, we were off on our own with little support. Not that a battery of Paladin 155mm howitzers were something to laugh at, but I had already spoken to the Task Force Fire Support Officer. The conversation went kinda like this:
“Don’t expect shit from me.”
“Roger, Sir, won’t expect shit.” He wasn’t being a jerk, just explained to me that he had literally thousands of standard high explosive rounds but few if any of the new firecrackers, the ones that sprayed ball bearings all over their blast radius.
