Dead Calm

by Jon Schafer

  Cage checked the map instead of relying on his memory and located where the combination City Hall and Police Station were situated. Radioing to the Sergeant of first platoon, he said, “We're gonna start with the local cop shop. It’s three blocks ahead on the right. Squads one and two will go inside with me and three and four will stay outside as security, over.”

  “Roger, sir, over,” came the reply. They had gone over the plan numerous times but he still liked to announce its steps as they were about to take them.

  “Roll out then, over and out,” Cage ordered.

  The column had only travelled a hundred feet when Cage saw the first few of what quickly became a swarm of dead coming down the road. Leaning forward to try and get a better view of the force approaching him, he quickly assessed the threat and started calling out orders over the radio. “Z’s, Z’s, Z’s, about a hundred or so. Humvees pull out to the left and right as far as you can and get those fifty's going in enfilade. Head shots, head shots. Pick your targets. Second platoon rejoin us. We're stopped about two blocks shy of our primary target.”

  As his Humvee swerved to the left to set up in position for the .50 to fire at the advancing dead from an angle, on his right Cage could see the City Hall had a large number of Z’s clustered around it. To him, the dead looked like they were undecided as to whether or not to join the mass already coming toward his position. It was like they couldn't make up their minds to go after the food that had suddenly appeared or wait for the food they had trapped.

  Cage assessed the situation and determined that the crowd of dead had been clustered around the City Hall building but were attracted by the sound of his voice coming over the loudspeaker. They were on their way to investigate and see if the noise was edible when he spotted them. From above, he heard the deep, coughing boom as the .50 mounted on the roof of his Humvee opened up with its first burst. Seeing the heavy rounds impacting on the torsos of the nearest Z’s, he yelled at the gunner, “Head shots, head shots. Adjust your fire.”

  The .50 mounted on the other Humvee opened up as it pulled to a stop on the far-right side of the two-lane road. Cage could hear assault rifles popping as his people dismounted from the truck and started to put out a withering fire on the dead.

  Before jumping from the Humvee, Cage gave one last order, yelling to be heard above the noise growing around him, he screamed, “First squad, first squad. Cover our rear and watch the flanks.”

  Repeating himself to make sure he'd been heard, he jumped down and joined the fray.

  Veterans of numerous encounters with the dead, the men and women in first squad quickly moved into position. They knew from experience that it wasn't the Z you saw that got you; it was the one that came out of nowhere. Covering the flanks and rear was vital to any mission. Everyone in the platoon had seen action in Little Rock, Fort Smith, or Hot Springs and had done at least one foraging trip into Russellville, so they knew they were most vulnerable when they were in tight quarters where the dead could lunge out at them from hiding. In situations like this, with the dead in the open, the soldiers had an overwhelming advantage.

  It was, as one Private later called it, “Like shooting deer in a petting zoo.”

  A steady stream of bullets impacted the heads of the dead, blowing them apart to spray brains, chunks of skull and black puss all over the surface of the road. Some took body hits which staggered them, but the volume of outgoing fire was such that they were quickly put down. In seconds, the area in front of Cage was littered with the bodies of the dead. The volume of fire slowed and then stopped as targets were put down to never rise again.

  And then the snipers took over.

  Two of Cage's men had set up on the cab of the truck and started putting down the dead gathered in front of the City Hall building with scope equipped M-14's. In the silence, broken only by their firing, Cage could hear the two snipers talking to each other.

  “I got the one in the overalls.” Bang. “Take that farmer Brown.”

  “Shit, you see that chick on the right? She looks like my ex-wife.” Bang. “Bye-bye, biiatch.”

  “See the two near the fire escape on the side of the building? I got the one on the left; you take the one on the right. In tandem, go.” Bangang, the two shots almost sounded as one.

  “See those three lined up one in front of the other? One shot, three kills.” Bang. “Shit, I only got two of them.”

  Bang. “I got him for you. You suck.”

  This was followed by laughter from both men.

  Cage shook his head as the firing and the chatter continued. Snipers are weird, he thought.

  Hearing the whine of distant engines, he turned and saw second squad coming toward him. As they drew near, he motioned for them to stay in their vehicles as he walked over to the lead Humvee to talk with their platoon leader. In the past, only Lieutenants could command a platoon but with the decimation of the officer corps since D-Day, Sergeants had taken their place.

  Leaning down to the window of the Humvee to talk with Jones, his former driver when they were engaged in the Little Rock campaign and now the commander of second platoon, Cage said, “Had a whole bunch of Z’s clustered around City Hall so that means there's live ones inside. Since you're on S and R, I called you back. I want you and one of your squads to go with me and one of mine to check it out. We attracted a lot of attention so I want the balance of the men to secure a perimeter and provide security.”

  “No problem, sir,” Jones replied.

  “I'm gonna try calling on the PA first. If no one answers then we have to go in,” Cage told him.

  Jones grimaced. Clearing a structure was where they took ninety percent of their casualties. Most of the time on Search and Rescue, once the soldiers killed the Z's clustered around a house the people trapped inside came out on their own. It was the rest of time when they didn't, and you had to go inside, that really sucked.

  Reluctantly, Jones said, “If we have to, we have to, sir.”

  Despite sounding hesitant to do his duty, Cage knew Jones was solid when the shit hit the fan. Besides, who in their right mind would walk willingly into what could be a building full of the flesh eating dead?

  Checking his watch, he said, “We go in five minutes. Remind your guys not to get too close to any of the Z’s unless they're sure they're dead. Line abreast as we advance, and give everything laying on the road a head shot.”

  The previous week, they had lost a man when he walked past what he thought was a dead Z lying in the street, only to have it lunge up and bite him in the calf. Before anyone could react, the soldier shot the Z in the head and then turned his rifle on himself.

  Ten minutes later, the unit formed up around the City Hall. Cage tried to hail any survivors over the PA but received no reply. Looking at the sheets of plywood nailed up over the first floor openings, he assumed that whoever had taken shelter in the building had secured it from the outside and used the fire escape on the side of the structure leading to the second floor to get back inside before locking the fire door behind them.

  After considering both means of entering the building, the door at the top of the fire escape and the front doors, Cage pointed to the front doors and ordered, “Bust them out.”

  The fire escape would be too narrow and would only allow his people to get inside one at a time.

  Two men ran forward and wrapped a steel cable around the door handles of the entrance before attaching the other end to a hook mounted on the front push bar of a Humvee. With both entry squads and two .50 calibers covering the doors, the Humvee revved its engine and started to back up. With a grinding screech, plywood, aluminum and safety glass came loose and crashed to the ground. The Humvee continued to back up as it dragged the wreckage of the doors clear, leaving a gapping six-foot wide hole in the side of the building.

  Almost immediately, a dead thing wearing a blue police uniform staggered through the cloud of dust kicked up by the doors being wrenched from their frame. Three M-4's opened up it, oblite
rating its head.

  Except for a few scattered shots coming from the soldiers on the perimeter as they engaged the occasional dead that showed up, the area was silent. Cage waited two minutes to see if anything else would emerge, and when nothing living or dead showed itself, waved his people forward.

  As he passed by Cage, Jones said, “After this I want to be promoted to Second Lieutenant.”

  “And be demoted from Sergeant?” Cage joked.

  “Yeah, but the pay's better,” he shot back.

  Jones and his men were equipped with miner’s lights attached to their Kevlar helmets as well as lights attached to the fore grips of their assault rifles. These were turned on as they approached the space where the doors had been. Beams of light crisscrossed each other as they looked for a target while cautiously entering the building. Cage hefted his 12-gauge shotgun and with his squad close behind him followed Jones and his team.

  Although each platoon specialized in its own area, first platoon in scrounging and second platoon in search and rescue, both were well schooled in how to move around a structure suspected of having Z’s in it. While Jones and his people dispersed and started looking for any sign of survivors, Cage split his soldiers up into three, three person teams and told them to hold fast.

  After checking the building directory in the lobby, he sent his first team to the licensing office. Two of the men carried battery packs in case they found a computer to boot up, as this would make the job of searching the city records easier. If a computer couldn't be found that could be brought back to life, the men would have to search the paper files for people who had received a permit to install an underground fuel storage tank. This was not always desirable, since they were usually kept in the basement. Not that that the dead congregated there and made it more dangerous: it was more of a psychological thing. Basements were dark, shadowy places that were cluttered and generally spooky. Once the files had been sorted, addresses were noted to be checked later for caches of diesel fuel. Once these were located, a squad, accompanying a tanker truck equipped with an intake pump, would swing by within a day to collect the liquid gold.

  The job of the second team was to locate and secure any firearms and ammunition. Cage sent them in the direction of the Police Station. Finding weapons was secondary since the base had a well-stocked armory, but ammunition was getting scarce as all available supplies were being diverted to the units fighting in the dead cities. Team two would start their search at the Sheriff's Office, where they would look through the files of all the registered weapons in the county. The most important on the list being anything that fired .223 caliber, 7.62mm or 5.56mm. The logic behind this was, where there were guns, there would be ammunition.

  One of the men on this team also carried breaching charges, as he was tasked with having to break into the evidence locker and the armory. The C-4 plastic explosive was strong enough to take a vault door off its hinges. While it was always nice finding an armory, most of the men were more interested in what the evidence locker contained. The wide range of items confiscated by the police and Sheriff were of such variety that sometimes they were amazed.

  For instance, when the team broke into the evidence locker in the Russellville Police Station, they came across a homemade flame thrower that was so well constructed it put their military issue one to shame. They had tried using it on the Z’s, but found all it did was create flaming dead things that continued to walk around as if nothing had happened. It took a few minutes for the brain to literally boil in their skulls and cause them to drop. The mobile units were the only ones to use this type of weapon, since they could torch the dead and keep moving. Major Cage also knew that the men on this team occasionally grabbed some of the confiscated marijuana they came across. He looked the other way at this. He did let it be known in a roundabout way that if they were to take something heavier, like cocaine or heroin for instance, they would be shot. So far he’d had no problems.

  Team three was designated as general scroungers and Cage let them go do their thing. Three was led by a Corporal who seemed to have a knack for finding things. He would study aerial photos and maps of the neighborhood they planned on searching, and once he arrived at the designated area, would make a beeline for what was always a bonanza of supplies. In Russellville, he'd found numerous tornado shelters stocked with food they used to supplement what was served in the chow hall. He had even unearthed a hidden bunker erected by a pre-Dead Day survivalist, which yielded weapons, ammunition and the 12-gauge shotgun Cage carried as his primary weapon.

  Not expecting to find much there, Cage followed team two as they headed for the Police Station. He wasn't surprised when he discovered that all the weapons and ammunition had already been taken, since whoever had barricaded themselves inside the building would have picked the area clean. He did, however, find a still used for making moonshine in the evidence locker. He had his men pack it up for transportation back to the base.

  Thinking about how some of his people smoked pot, he justified taking the still with the reasoning of each to their own. No matter where they went to scavenge, the only consistent thing they found was that the liquor stores were picked clean. Occasionally, a bottle of booze or a couple cases of beer turned up while searching a house, but this was rare. Due to this shortage, it had been over two weeks since he'd had a drink. He was trying to remember how to prepare corn mash when his radio buzzed.

  “We found some live ones, over,” Jones voice crackled from the speaker.

  “Location, over,” Cage asked.

  “We’re at the jail. It's right above the Courthouse. I need your guy who's got the C-4, because they’re locked in the cell block and no one knows where the key is, over.”

  “How many people, over?” Cage asked.

  “Twenty to thirty, over,” came Jones's reply.

  Twenty to thirty Cage repeated to himself. Where in the hell am I going to put them?

  In the past, S and R had only come across small numbers of survivors. These people were brought back to the base where they were fed and treated for any medical problems, usually malnutrition and dehydration, before being transported to one of the refugee centers being set up in the Dead Free Zone around Fort Hood. For their short stay at the base, these refugees were quartered in two tents that had been put aside for this purpose. These temporary quarters were in no way large enough to handle thirty people.

  I’ll have to figure something out, he told himself. He contacted his driver and told him to use the more powerful radio in the Humvee to contact the base and have two more trucks dispatched to their location. Escorting the man carrying the C-4, they cautiously made their way through the building back to the foyer area. From here they took a hallway leading to the Courthouse. It was a standing order that they always moved in groups of two or more. If one of you were bit, your partner was duty bound to put a bullet in your head.

  Nearing the end of the corridor where it branched off to the right, Cage heard voices coming from around the corner. Not wanting to get shot, he called out, “Two coming in.”

  With the point of aim changed from the center mass of the body to the center mass of the head, the number of accidental wounds caused by friendly fire had gone down. Unfortunately, the number of accidental deaths had gone up because of this, so it was best to be cautious.

  “Advance,” came the immediate reply.

  Cage rounded the comer and found two men he recognized from Jones' platoon standing in front of an open door leading to a flight of stairs. On seeing their commanding officer, they both came to attention and started to salute, but Cage waved them off.

  “How bad is it?” He asked. Even as the words left his mouth, the smell hit him and he knew.

  The first time that he'd gone with second platoon on an S and R mission to Russellville, they had come across over forty Z’s surrounding a house that had been built up on six-foot high stilts. Constructed this way since it was near a small river that overflowed its banks at least once every few
years, instead of protecting its owners against flooding, its unique architecture now protected them from the dead besieging it.

  Knowing that someone must be alive inside because the dead didn't congregate in such numbers for carrion, Cage and his men quickly dispatched the Z’s and called out to those trapped inside that it was safe to come out. Not receiving an answer, and not being able to access the front door since the stairs had been cut away to keep the dead from reaching it, Cage ordered their transport truck to be pulled up next to the house so they could stand on the cab and enter that way.

  Cage was the first to climb up into the bed of the truck and before he even crossed its length the stink hit him. Feces, urine and the underlying stink of dead, rotten meat. When he pried the front door open with a crowbar, the stench became so overpowering that he had to retreat all the way back to the ground. Jones tried to take his place but started vomiting so powerfully he almost fell off the truck bed.

  The rest of the men stood around looking uneasily at each other as they wondered who would be chosen next. Cage choked back his dry heaves, wrapped a bandana around his mouth and nose, and moved forward. Breathing through his mouth and barely able to stand the smell, he made it to the doorway. Here he stopped long enough to draw his pistol, turn on his flashlight, and identify himself. A weak moaning sound came to him from the rear of the house. Bolstered by the thought of actually being able to save someone, he pushed the overwhelming smell from his mind and went inside.

  Listening for the moaning sound again, so he could identify which direction it came and follow it to its source, all he could hear was a buzzing noise that grew louder the deeper he went into the house. Following this sound since he had a good idea of what caused it, he came across a man and a woman in one of the back bedrooms.