Zombie Night In Canada (Book 2): 2nd Period

by Friesen, Jamie

  “Night Xander, you be careful,” Diane replied.

  “You know it sis.”

  Evelyn and Xander walked back to the Pathfinder together.

  “Tonight’s going to be a night you remember for the rest of your life Xander,” Evelyn said.

  “I’ll do my best not to disappoint,” Xander said as they walked into the conjugal visit trailer. When he got there, he presented his draft letter and was quickly ushered into a room.

  “We bumped someone, you’ve got an hour,” the officer grinned.

  Several hours later, Xander lay in his cot, struggling to fall asleep, worry about tomorrow racing back and forth in his mind. Finally, after at least an hour of hearing everyone else snoring loudly, he drifted off.

  Part II – Recruit

  Chapter 15

  November 5th

  Xander was sitting in a folding chair in a large gym, filled to capacity with a couple hundred other people. At the front of the room, an orderly was setting up a microphone. Lined up along the walls, huge soldiers wearing a weird mix of camouflage and some sort of chain mail armour stood at attention, as rigid and stiff as statues. Xander rubbed his eyes because it was the crack of dawn, not even 6 o’clock, and the army hadn’t bothered to feed them yet either.

  Fuck, they hadn’t even offered him a coffee or something to take the edge off, Xander thought groggily.

  Right now, Xander was wishing he had gone to bed an hour or two earlier than he did last night, and unlike a lot of other guys there, at least he wasn’t hung over. It looked like more than a few celebrated their last few hours as free men and hit the bottle hard.

  Then an officer only a few years older than Xander stepped up to the microphone as the orderly scurried away. Unlike the soldiers along the walls, he was wearing just the normal camouflage outfits Xander had seen other soldiers on the base wearing.

  “I am Captain Koch and in command of this training battalion. Normally, recruits to the CF go through a lot of training and field exercises before seeing action. Quite simply we don’t have the time to break you down and turn you into soldiers the way the CF used to. Before the crisis, basic training was sixteen weeks of intense physical, mental and psychological training. We have don’t even have one month. Your training begins today and in all likelihood, will end in two weeks,” he said. “Once winter sets in, you’re all going into the field.”

  “Every day will consist of weapons training, drill and plenty of practice. Where we can, we will include other survival skills like map reading and orienteering. Each day will be 12 to 16 hours in length, and for those of you who are soft and pudgy, I guarantee you that by the end you will be in far better shape than you are today.”

  Captain Koch paused, clearing his throat and then continued.

  “Gentlemen, look to your left, then to your right. Odds are one of you will likely be dead in the next year. If you want to survive, listen to your instructors and work hard. I will now turn you over to Warrant Officer Raroger, my senior NCO, who will be involved in trying to teach you the skills necessary to survive the coming months. Warrant,” Koch said.

  Looking around, Xander was somewhat surprised by the age of the other recruits in the gym. Instead of the stereotypical pimple-faced teenagers you usually saw in war movies, most guys looked in their mid to late-20s or even early 30s.

  Why is everyone so old, he wondered.

  Captain Koch walked down the stairs from the stage and out the door. A huge muscle-bound, grey at the temples, middle-aged soldier stepped up to the microphone while the NCOs positioned near the walls moved forward, strategically taking up places at the ends of each row.

  “I am Warrant Officer Raroger and I am your senior non-commissioned instructor. Now, I expect most of you have seen war movies like Full Metal Jacket or Platoon or some other nonsense and expect me to be a hard-ass who swears at you and insults your mother for giving birth to you. Give me a reason to and I promise will live up to that stereotype, but otherwise, I expect you to follow orders without question and work hard. Keep your mouth shut and your nose clean and everything will go smoothly. Trust me, you don’t fucking want me on your ass,” he growled menacingly.

  “When you came in, all of you were seated with members of your platoon. Follow the NCO at the end of the row out of the room and we’ll get started. Good luck gentlemen,” he said and walked off the stage and out of the gym.

  “Alright you monkeys, on yer feet!” screamed the NCO at the end of Xander’s row.

  They stood up and walked out of the gymnasium in single file. A slow moving recruit yelped after an NCO’s pace stick stuck the wall behind him, sounding like a gunshot.

  “I’d said move goddamnit!”

  They hustled down a hall into a classroom.

  “I am Master Corporal Girardi and I’m your platoon leader. Does anyone have a problem if I swear?”

  Most of the recruits shook their heads.

  “It doesn’t matter, 'cause I don’t give a fuck what you think. Does anyone know what the most important characteristic of a soldier is?”

  Silence greeted him.

  “If you think you know, speak up, I won’t bite your head off,” Master Corporal Girardi said.

  “Physical fitness,” a recruit said.

  “Nice try, but no.”

  “Marksmanship,” someone else said.

  “Nope.”

  “Obedience?” Someone mumbled.

  “No. Discipline is the most important thing we hope to teach you here. When a command is given by a superior, you need to follow it without hesitation. Hesitation will get you and your fellow soldiers killed,” Master Corporal Girardi said. “Does anyone know what a shitpump is?”

  Everyone shook their heads.

  “A shitpump is a useless recruit who gets his section mates in trouble. Don’t. Be. A. Shitpump! These four gentlemen are Corporals Harper, Westerlund, Crozier, and Desjardins. They are your section leaders and my assistants. We are 2nd Platoon, 2nd Company. Line up and when one of the good Corporals calls your name, join the section behind him. Anyone who fucks the dog is going to get this shoved up his ass!” Master Corporal Girardi held up his pace stick menacingly.

  The Corporals started rattling off names and recruits lined up behind him. When Xander heard his name, he quickly lined up behind Corporal Crozier. Shortly, everyone was huddled around one of the three section leaders.

  “Alright, you are all part of 2nd Section. That should make it easy for you dumbasses, 2/2/2, right?” Corporal Crozier stated. Corporal Crozier was almost as tall as Xander, but much more heavily muscled.

  A weak chorus of “Yes Sir” rose from the recruit’s mouths.

  “Only officers are called Sir! You stupid apes can call me Corporal Crozier or God. I prefer God, but the Army prefers Corporal Crozier, so learn it and fucking learn it quick!” Corporal Crozier said.

  “Yes, Corporal Crozier!” They said in unison.

  “ I can’t hear you, you fucking pussies!” Crozier snarled.

  “No Corporal Crozier!” They shouted.

  “Better! Let’s get going,” Corporal Crozier replied.

  They followed the rest of the platoon out into the hallway and into the parade square behind the building. Dawn was still half an hour away and without the sun, Xander and most of the other recruits stood shivering in the cold air.

  “This is our parade square. You will not walk across it until you have learned to properly march. If you have to get to the other side, you walk around it. You got it?” Master Corporal Girardi yelled.

  “Yes, Corporal!” The platoon bellowed.

  The first thing the recruits did was learn to stand at attention, stand at ease and something called stand easy. Having watched war movies, the first two were simple enough, but Xander didn’t really understand the point of the last one - still, all of them were pretty simple and he learned them pretty quick.

  “Barnes, keep your goddamned elbows tucked in! I shouldn’t see any fucking daylig
ht between your arms and your worthless chest!” An instructor barked at him.

  While he griped inwardly about number of repetitions of the exercise, he saw it was because others in the platoon weren’t as quick at picking it up. On the plus side, they kept him somewhat warm and because of that, he wasn’t dumb enough to say anything.

  Someone else, however, was.

  “What’s the point of this, Master Corporal Girardi?” Someone behind Xander said.

  Master Corporal Girardi rolled his eyes and hesitated. Xander could see he was almost struggling with the sheer stupidity of the question.

  “Why? Why is this important? Holy fucking Christ!” Master Corporal Girardi sighed loudly. “Because this is Army 101, that’s fucking why. You need to know this to survive in the Army. What’s your name soldier?”

  “MacEachern, Corporal.”

  “What do you think is going to happen when you run into an officer and don’t know how to stand at attention? Or salute them? Or even march across this base?”

  MacEachern started to speak when Master Corporal Girardi cut him off.

  “Well, Private MacEachern, let me give you and everyone else here the 411, so to speak. You – and I – and every other soldier on this base are in this for the duration. Not a week, or a month, or a year. We’re all in this until either we’re fucking dead or all the infected are. It’s that fucking simple. This isn’t going to be some weekend warrior bullshit…we’re in this to the bitter fucking end. Does that answer your question fuckhead?”

  “Yes, Corporal,” MacEachern stammered.

  “Good, now quit fucking interrupting and get back to practice!”

  They practiced for close to an hour, until everyone, even MacEachern had it down.

  “Good, let’s get some chow! Everyone, double time it behind me,” Master Corporal Girardi said before he turned and took off at a slow jog.

  Thank God, Xander thought as his stomach growled angrily.

  It took only a few minutes to get to one of the messes on the base and by which time several of the other guys were already out of breath. Xander, however, was just getting warmed up and hadn’t broken a sweat yet.

  “This is the mess you will eat all your meals at from now on – morning, noon and night,” Corporal Crozier said. “Now I know you dumb apes have no understanding of military etiquette, but I’ll give you some pointers. First off, you never, ever wear headgear of any kind inside. Not a beret, not a helmet, and certainly not a fucking ball cap. If I or one of the instructors catch you wearing a hat of any kind, it’s twenty push-ups for the first offence. The second time, it’s forty push-ups. The third time, well, if that happens, we’ll find something really fun to make sure you learn your lesson.”

  “Secondly, and this is fucking really important – you will not waste a fucking ounce of food. There is barely enough food for everyone on this base and our fellow soldiers are risking their lives every day going into the city trying to find enough to keep us all from fucking starving.”

  “Finally, you have to make way for someone with a superior rank. That means if I come up behind you, you let me in and I get my food first. As lowly recruits, you are the lowest piece of shit on the totem pole and you make way for everyone with any rank, even a fucking Boy Scout. Got it?”

  “Yes, Corporal Crozier!”

  “There are other rules, but you’ll learn them as you go along. Get inside and get some grub – you now have fourteen minutes!”

  They raced inside only to find a huge line-up of other recruits waiting. Xander and everyone else inched along and picked up a tray and got some eggs, hash browns and some sort of fried meat.

  By the time he got his food and found a seat, ten of his fourteen minutes were gone, so he wolfed down his food and cleared his tray, running outside. Two other soldiers from his section were already standing there in a line. Corporal Crozier came out a minute or two later and saw the three of them standing there.

  “Good, nice to see we have some half decent recruits in this section!” He said.

  One by one, the other soldiers in his section came out and fell into a line beside Xander.

  “Okay, I’m going to teach you this one time and one time only. When you assemble in the future, you will use this to form up and look like Canadian soldiers, not a bunch of fucking rabble!” Corporal Crozier barked.

  “Stand in a line and hold your left arm out until it touches the shoulder of the recruit next to you. If you need to move left or right to make it happen, then do it. Then snap your arm back down and stand at attention until you’re told to do otherwise.”

  Xander and the other recruits did their best to emulate it.

  “Not bad. Now let’s get going!” He said and took off at a leisurely jog. Despite the easy pace, a recruit lost his breakfast.

  As the recruit puked, Master Corporal Girardi stood beside him and berated him, “Do you think you have time to fucking puke when you’re in the field? Fuck no! If you need to puke, you do it and get going! You don’t stand around and fuck the dog with this gagging shit! Harper! Westerlund! Drag this lump of shit to the medics and meet us at the parade square in ten! The rest of you, fucking keep up!”

  They jogged back to the parade square and then spent the better part of two hours learning to march.

  Damn, this is painfully slow, Xander thought as they taught him the basics of marching.

  “Alright, time to put all that practice to work! Attention!” Master Corporal Girardi barked.

  40 pairs of feet slammed to the ground, making a staccato sound.

  “When you snap to attention, I’m only supposed to hear one fucking boot hitting the ground. That means you all do it at the same time, not spaced out like a goddamned machinegun. Again!”

  It sounded better the second time, but was far from perfect.

  “Just my luck for being lumped in with a bunch of fucking morons,” Xander muttered to himself.

  “Alright, time to head to the Stores building and get your kit!”

  The platoon began jogging and as they got going, found a rhythm that wasn’t all that bad, or at least Xander thought so. Others, especially the older recruits, were struggling to keep up.

  When they got there, Master Corporal Girardi barked, “Halt! Attention!”

  A couple troops stumbled trying to do both moves so close together, but most did it passably.

  “Okay, form a line and get your goddamned kit!’

  One by one, the troops began drawing uniforms, boots, and everything else a soldier needs. After Xander left, groaning under all the equipment he had been given, he headed out into the foyer. There, Master Corporal Girardi ordered everyone to change from their PT gear and into CADPAT. Others complained about ill-fitting fatigues that were too small/large and every other gripe under the sun. Finally, after an hour, everyone appeared to be satisfactorily equipped and the platoon stepped out into the brisk fall air.

  “I think some of you dumb fucking apes were looking for excuses to fuck the dog in there. Well, I hope you enjoyed it, because that’s the last goddamn break you’re gonna get for a long time! Get into ranks!” Master Corporal Girardi yelled. “I’m going to tell you this once and once only. Each of you was issued a can of foot powder, just like this one!”

  He held up an olive drab tin.

  “Technically, it is for your feet, but you should all powder your ass and balls every morning and every spare chance you get during the day. Otherwise, you’ll get monkey ass and monkey balls! What is monkey ass you ask? It happens when you get a rash on your nut sack or your ass from all the running, drilling and other shit we’re going to have you doing over the next two weeks. And because the rash itches and chafes, you’ll start walking like a goddamned monkey. That’s monkey ass and monkey balls!”

  They scurried into rough lines, juggling equipment and then jogged back to a huge warehouse.

  “Inside is your barracks. Each of you has been assigned a bunk, take your duffel bag and put it in your locker
and get out here. Anyone not back in two minutes will be sorry!”

  Xander ran inside, found his ‘bed’, which was a folding cot with a sleeping bag on it, and threw his bag inside the trunk at the foot of the bed, slammed it shut and was back outside in thirty seconds. He was the first person back.

  “Good hustle!” Master Corporal Girardi bellowed.

  In the next minute, the rest of his section raced outside. The last guy was older and was huffing and puffing.

  “Wyndham, you’re the last one out. Drop and give me twenty push-ups!” Corporal Crozier barked.

  He fell to the ground and Corporal Crozier began counting them off. Wyndham was quickly struggling with the task and his face was turning red as he huffed and puffed his way through the task.

  “Twenty! On your feet!” Crozier barked.

  Wyndham stood up slowly and Crozier shouted, “That’s what punishment looks like. You slow everyone down, you’re going to do push-ups. You fuck up, you get push-ups. Hell, if I don’t like the way you look, you get push-ups! Understood?”

  “Yes Corporal Crozier!” everyone screamed.

  --------

  They spent another hour practicing the basic drill they learned in the morning, marching up and down the parade square. Their ranks were uneven and their footsteps stuttered across the pavement. After an hour of marching to and fro, they practiced standing at attention and at ease again. Then they marched back into the makeshift barracks and learned exactly how the instructors expected their cots and footlockers to be.

  While Xander stood at ease, he looked around the ‘barracks’ he was assigned to. He wasn’t sure, but it looked like a pretty standard warehouse, albeit one that smelled of diesel fuel and oil. In several places on the floor around the barracks, there were large oil stains. The walls had large dents and scrapes in them, and there were bits and pieces of equipment lying around, which crews were working on removing. There was absolutely no privacy for anyone, as the bunks were all out in the middle of the hall, separated from each other by four or five feet. At the far end of the hall, were the washrooms and a few shower stalls. A handful of space heaters positioned on the fringe of the bunks struggled to keep the temperature above freezing in the hall.