Irregular Scout Team One: The Complete Zombie Killer series

by John Holmes

  “NICK!” Something wrapped around me, strangling me as I fell through the air. I struggled to free myself.

  “NICK!” I rolled onto my back and watched as the plane exploded in midair.

  “NICK!, WAKE UP!”

  I woke with a yell. Someone was shaking my shoulder, and I swung as hard as I could, thinking a Z had gotten me. I caught just a bit of a shirt as Brit jumped out of the way, and it ripped open. She knew to stay back when she woke me from a nightmare, but we were sleeping on cots and she was too close.

  “Dammit!” she said, looking down at her shirt, the faded Yankees logo ripped in half. “This was my favorite shirt!”

  “Sorry” I meekly answered, still half awake and shivering from the remembered nightmare. She leaned over and kissed my forehead, breath nasty from the coffee she had drunk on guard duty last night.

  “You are pussy to have nightmares. Nice breasts, Brit” came the gravelly voice of Ziv from a cot on the other side of the tent.

  I sat up and rubbed my eyes while Brit struggled into a sweatshirt. The pale light of dawn was creeping in through the flaps making the door to the GP Medium tent that the team had taken over as our home.

  “You don’t dream, Ziv?”

  “Hemoj. No. I do not. I am not weak westerner. The people I kill deserve death, they are weak. I am strong.” He sat up and swung his legs over the bed. We had been here a month so far, letting both Ziv and Red’s wound heal. Ziv laced up a pair of running shoes and started stretching.

  “You know, if you rupture something and collapse, I’m just going to leave you out there and go home” said Brit as she brushed her teeth, spitting out the doorway. Ziv ignored her and pushed past, taking off on a light jog, pistol bouncing in a shoulder holster.

  Putting my leg on, I got up and stiffly walked over to where Hart and Red were tangled up in one giant sleeping bag. I kicked the leg of their cots hard until I heard a muttered “for fucks sake” from one of them. Towards the back of the tent, Bognaski was racked out, snoring steadily. He and Ripley had pulled the midnight guard shifts last night, so I let them both sleep.

  My last stop was at the cots of our newest members. Doc Bailey was already up, scraping at his beard with some cold water. He ignored me, lost in his own PTSD world. I respected that, gave him the space he needed. As long as he was there when the shit hit the fan.

  “Vely, get up.” She kept snoring. “Come on, Sergeant. Get your ass outta bed.” I kicked the cot, hard. The sleepy face of Felecitas Arroyo-Wilson glared out at me from under a poncho liner.

  “If you want to survive as a Lost Boy, Vely, you gotta get up at the crack of dawn.” I kicked the cot again. She sat up, blew her nose onto the ground, groaned again, and reached for her boots.

  “I knew a stripper named Dawn once” said Doc as he scrapped at his face “and she did, indeed, have quite a crack.”

  Brit threw an empty magazine at him. “That’s nasty!”

  Doc flinched and cut himself. “See what happens when you get cut, Miss O’Neil. See if I bandage you up.”

  He and Vely had attached themselves to our team a few weeks ago, intent on making their way back to the Northeast with us. I wasn’t complaining. We could use a good medic, and although Sergeant “Vely” Arroyo-Wilson couldn’t shoot to save her life, she was an expert scrounger. Sometimes you needed someone like that more than you needed shooters.

  “OK, ten minutes to shit shower and shave, and then we go for a run. See you outside.” I ducked out of the tent flaps, rinsing my own mouth out from a camelback. I could smell the Pacific Ocean, just down river from the local airport we were occupying. The Air Force had set up a rough landing strip for C-130’s to make emergency landings at Klamath –Glen airport, just inside California from Oregon. Now it was down to just one aircraft. The next to last one had left yesterday, full of refugees from the new plague. Ours was scheduled to depart tonight, taking the team, a couple of Air Force weenies, and whatever we could salvage ammo and food wise. We were scheduled to fly Southeast to avoid fallout, though that had dropped off over the last week, and then Northeast, refueling at some place in the Midwest. We had waited for Ziv and Red to heal, at least enough to be mobile. That, and we needed to rest and refit after that devastating week, and come to terms with the new plague.

  The sun peeked over the mountains, and I raised my hand in a silent salute. Hopefully by this time tomorrow, we would be halfway across what was left of America and on our way home.

  Chapter 11

  A C-130 is not a jet, and this one was stuffed to the gills with our people and whatever we could salvage from the remains of the temporary Air Force base. The evacuation from the West Coast had been going on for a month, and we were pretty much the last plane out. It struggled into the air, just clearing the end of the runway, following the river, headed out over the sea. Climbing in a broad turn, the setting sun cast a red glow through the plane as it dropped into the Pacific.

  I eyed the pallets strapped down in the center warily, still conscious of my nightmare. Every bump of turbulence sent my heart pounding, and even concentrating on the music coming from my headphones didn’t help. I flipped past the Dropkick Murphys, looking for something relaxing. Next thing that popped up was some techno crap. I took the headphones out and put some earplugs in. The steady drone of the four powerful engines were a vibration more than a sound, so I unsnapped my seatbelt and laid down on the cold floor, wrapping myself in my woobie and using my Gortex jacket as a pillow. I stayed that way, sleeping fitfully, until we landed at another temporary airstrip in Eastern Colorado to refuel. Working together, the team rolled fifty five gallon drums over to an electric pump and topped off the plane. Easy to say, but it took us hours, and at the end of it, my hands were blistered and raw from handing the drums. The empties were rolled off the runway, and the plane climbed back in the sky as dawn broke again, headed northeast.

  The endless expanses of the Midwest stretched out beneath us, and I lost myself in gazing out the small portal, watching them pass below. Less than half an hour had passed when my reverie was interrupted by a hiccup in the rhythm of the engines. First a brief skip, then as I watched in growing fear, the outer engine cut out. I watched the prop spin down and felt my stomach start to float as we lost power.

  “Oh shit!” I muttered, and turned and sat back down in my seat. Brit was looking at me, and as I snapped my seatbelt closed, she did the same. I grabbed one of the crewmen as they unsteadily made their way back forward and asked him what was going on.

  “Must have gotten some bad fuel” he yelled “gonna have to make an emergency landing!” and continued to climb over the gear piled high in the aisle. Even as he moved away, the last two engines cut out and I closed my eyes. Shitshitshit. Brit held tight onto my hand and I continued to mutter silent prayers under my breath.

  The next ten minutes seemed to take forever, and yet, when it was over, I remembered it only as an instant. The mind works like that, blocking out the memory of the terror. Because, what it was, for me, anyway, was terror. At one point I opened my eyes to see Brit, throwing her hands up in the air like she was on a roller coaster. “COME ON, NICK! It’s FUN!” Crazy woman! I closed my eyes as the ground got closer and closer and the pilots dead sticked it in like a huge glider.

  The plane hit hard, on a piece of interstate highway that seemed cleared of ruined cars, and we made it, almost. The wheels were rolling to a stop when it slammed into a pothole on the unmaintained highway, skidding around sideways, collapsing the landing gear. The wing tilted and scraped across the field on the side of the road, and we finished with the fuselage canted crazily.

  “EVERYBODY OUT!” someone yelled, and I scrabbled at my seat belt, yanking franticly at the buckle. It finally came free, and Brit grabbed my arm as the back ramp slammed down. Taking up my pack, I ran as hard as I could as smoke started to drift through the cabin and sparks jumped out of a wiring harness by the ramp. I passed Bognaski, who was hacking at some of the boxes on one o
f the pallets.

  “Come on, Ski, we gotta go!”

  The infantryman ignored me, pulling out cans of ammo and throwing them as hard as he could towards the back of the plane. We formed a chain and started passing the heavy green metal boxes backwards to the ground outside. The smoke was getting thicker, making me choke, and I could smell spilled aviation fuel. One of the Airmen pushed me toward the ramp, and I grabbed one more can, slung my ruck and ran, just as flame started casting a bright glow through the smoke. I stumbled out into daylight, coughing. Veli and Brit were helping Ziv down the roadway, and all of the others had grabbed weapons and ammunition cans and were hustling after them.

  Brit and I stopped a good distance away and watched as fire consumed the plane. The smoke rose from the burning pyre far into the sky, a black pall that marked our position for any undead or reavers within a hundred miles. We backed up as ammunition started to cook off inside, sending stray rounds zinging through the air.

  “Well then” I said, as we looked over the edge of the roadway, watching the 21st Century burn away.

  “Yes, well then” said Brit. She stood there, red hair streaming in the wind that never stopped blowing across the plains. “Where are we?”

  “Kansas, Nebraska maybe. Hopefully the pilots got a fix before we went down.”

  “Going to be a long walk back to New York.”

  “Yes, yes it is.” I turned and looked back at the small group gathered in the summer sunlight, then looked at Brit. Her bright blue eye gazed steadily back at me.

  “I guess I’m in charge of this clusterfuck” I said. Same shit, different day.

  “Unless you want some Air Force officer running the show.”

  I looked back at the group again. The pilot stood there, hands on her hips, watching the plane burn. Her copilot, another woman, sat on the concrete, also watching the flames.

  “They’re both kinda hot, you know.”

  “Kinda hard to walk back across half a country with your balls cut off, honey.”

  I nodded. “Kinda.”

  She reached up and wiped at the dirt on my face. Damn, I usually hated when she did that, but now the touch of her hand felt good.

  “Guess we better start walking.”

  “Yep.” I shouldered my pack, slung my rifle, picked up the ammo can and walked back to the group. They stood in front of me, the plane crew in the middle, my guys already pulling security. Bognaski, Ripley, Vely, Hart, all faced outward, scanning their sectors. Doc Bailey was treating one of the airmen for a nasty cut on his arm. Red and Ziv were busy breaking open the ammo cans, pulling 5.56 rounds out of their packing and dropping the loose rounds into ammo pouches, pockets and rucksacks, to be loaded into magazines later. The rest of the aircrew just stood in the center of the circle, looking a little dumbfounded to actually be on the ground in hostile country.

  “Lost Boys” I said “time to hit the road!”

  Part II

  Chapter 12

  By the time night fell, we were five miles away, patrolling slowly so we didn’t run into anyone coming to investigate the fire. We moved parallel to the highway, but more than half a click away. Close enough to hear an engine, far enough to engage or break contact. There wasn’t adequate cover, but the fields were overgrown with four years of scrub grass and weeds, maybe knee high. We followed a battered service road that ran between barbed wire fences, occasionally going past stands of dead sunflowers. Left over when the farmers abandoned them in the collapse of civilization after the ZA, they now stood in impassable lumps and tangles, twisted into strange shapes by the wind.

  I called a halt long before the sun started downward. We were all exhausted from the march, and the airmen were a hurting unit, blisters on their feet slowing them down. Ahead I could see a small town, grain elevators towering over the plains. They had been visible even from the crash site, monsters ten stories high.

  The team did the standard drill, picking out a defensible position on a slight rise in the field, setting to work digging with E-tools. We hoped to have a three foot trench dug in the rich earth, with the dirt thrown up to form a bit higher wall on the back side. It would slow the Zs down, and give us cover if some Reavers or cannibals started shooting at us, and it would hide a small fire. It would be cramped inside the perimeter, but we had dealt with worse. Everyone pitched in, except for the pilot, a Major with the name tag “Rhodes”. I politely suggested several times that she pick up a shovel and start digging, but she just gave me a blank look and kept picking at the blisters on her feet.

  Brit paused and wiped some sweat off her face. “What’s up with the Princess over there?” exactly like I knew she would. Her arm hadn’t still fully recovered from taking shrapnel, but if I mentioned it, she would ignore me.

  “Cut her some slack, Brit. Those aircraft are like children to the pilots and crew.”

  “Yeah, well, the rest of the crew doesn’t seem too broken up over it.”

  She had a point. The other airmen, a Master Sergeant, a Captain who was the copilot, and the worlds’ oldest First Lieutenant, a gray haired officer who was their Navigator, had their coveralls tied down around their waists and were pitching in with enthusiasm. The other crewman was trying to rest with a ripped up arm.

  I motioned to Bognaski, digging away with enthusiasm. “Apparently the good Corporal has been scaring the shit out of them with stories about being out in the wild, with hordes of zombie cannibals swarming over hapless survivors.”

  She laughed, her one good eye sparkling. Brit always did like a joke. “I’ll deal with her” I said, and handed my shovel over to one of the Air Force guys, who had been scraping at the earth with a survival knife.

  I took some time to observe the pilot as I built a small fire. Mid-thirties, dark hair cut short, strong face, but one that was unlined by the troubles that the rest of us went through. She was scribbling furiously in a notepad, trying to catch the last of the setting sun. Every now and then she glanced up and saw me watching her, gave me a dirty look, and returned to writing.

  Calling a halt to the digging, Ziv set watch so that people could rest and get something to eat. I eyed the pilot sitting across from me, firelight playing on her drawn face, blanket wrapped around her head to keep the mosquitoes out. She was miserable. I nodded to Brit, who got up and walked over, sat down next to her. Maybe a female civilian could connect with her better.

  “Bad luck the plane going down like that” said Brit. “But hey" she said "shit happens. You got us all down on one piece. That was some pretty fancy flying."

  "We would have been fine" Major Rhodes said, anger in her voice "if those dickheads at that field had put the right filters in the gas." She turned and faced one of the Air Force Sergeants and spat "You should have checked before we pumped all that crap fuel in there!"

  His look held the wise old steady gaze of an abused NCO. "Well, you're right Ma’am, of course. Probably should have filled in that crater on the highway, too. Guess I'm getting a shitty eval when we make back to New York. No promotion for me."

  I laughed out loud and the pilot shot me a dirty look. Screw her, she was baggage until we needed her again, and if she was going to be a problem princess, Ziv or Brit would cut her throat while she slept.

  “Major Rhodes” I said, trying to set a reasonable tone “are you doing Ok?”

  She looked at me with dull eyes and said “If I want your opinion, Sergeant, I’ll ask for it. Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out how to get us out of this mess and keep you people alive.”

  My mouth actually dropped open, and the digging stopped. She looked at me for a moment and then said “Don’t you all have something to do? I suggest you get your men to work, Sergeant.”

  I slapped her. Hard, across the face. The Major gasped and put her hand to the red mark, then struggled to free her nine millimeter from a bulky shoulder holster rig. Brit reached over and wrapped a vice like grip on the Major’s wrist, and the two of them descended into a whirling catfight, punching
and gouging. None of the Air Force crew seemed inclined to break it up, even when it became apparent that Brit was getting the upper hand. I looked over at Ziv, who was continuing to shovel MRE into his mouth, a large grin on face. “Don’t look at me” he mumbled between mouthfuls “this is better than porn.”

  “OK, that’s ENOUGH!” I yelled, and pulled Brit off the Major, stopping her in the act of choking the larger woman out, legs wrapped around her neck. Rhodes had managed to pull out a knife from a sheath and was making feeble swipes at Brit as her face turned red. The Air Force Master Sergeant grabbed Rhodes and helped her up. I pushed Brit, but not hard, over to the other side of the berm.

  “Listen up, Major. We’re on the ground now, and you fucking listen to me, and my men, and MAYBE, just MAYBE some of us will make it back to New York. Do you understand?”

  She nodded meekly, still trying to catch her breath. I reached over and roughly pulled her pistol from her holster, and glared around at each of the Aircrew. “That means all of you. Got it?” I took a few deep breaths to calm down, then sat down in my original place. My leg was killing me. “I’ll give you this back when you earn it.”

  Brit hummed quietly as she broke down her shotgun and cleaned it. “That’s better than shooting her in the head, I suppose.”

  “It may come to that” I said “but I hope not. She’s in shock; she’ll get over it.”