Sergeant Simpson took the other fireteam and moved into the next house.
As the afternoon wore on, Second Section began to feel a bit giddy because of the ease of the assignment.
When they entered the last house on the street Thomas shouted, “Knock, knock, guess who’s home?”
“Shut up will you?” Frank said.
“Why, we want them to come out so we can bash their head in and drag their bodies out into the street, right?”
“I suppose, but have some respect man. This was somebody’s home,” Frank replied.
“The operative word there is ‘was’. It’s nobody’s now. Whoever lived here is either dead or long gone,” Thomas said.
Like every other cookie cutter house on this block, this one had a similar floorplan and layout as most of the others. The difference was that this house had been ransacked either by the owners as they fled, or by scavengers sometime afterwards. The cupboards and pantry were open and empty and pots and pans were strewn around the kitchen. A huge TV was lying smashed on the living room floor, and bits of clothing and paper were scattered about. Xander came around a corner and found a huge fan spray of blood on the wall.
“Heads up, we got possible infected!” He shouted.
Frank shouted from upstairs, “Gotcha!”
Thomas came running and looked at the scene, “Better watch our asses. This floor is clear, let’s check the basement.”
Thomas opened the door and gestured for Xander to go first, “Age before beauty.”
Everyone’s a smartass,” Xander replied and headed downstairs.
“Turn on your light man,” Thomas said.
“Shit, yeah.” Xander muttered and flicked it on.
As Xander descended the steps, the temperature seemed to warm. When he got to the bottom, he scanned left, then right. As his light swept right, he heard a low moan and an infected shuffled in the dark.
“Hello, anyone home?” Xander said hopefully.
A series of louder moans came from his right.
“Shit, we’ve got some down here!” Xander shouted.
As Thomas vaulted down the last few stairs, Xander shouted over his shoulder, “Contact!”
Thomas stepped beside him and they joined ranks and raised their shields.
“Is it just me, or does it feel warm down here?” Thomas asked.
“It’s not just you.”
The infected came out of the dark from the right. The first one was a small woman, followed by a pair of children. Xander swung his mace and took out the woman, while Thomas did the same with the little infected boy. The infected girl latched onto Thomas’ leg and tried to bite him, but found only chain mail. Thomas swung his mace downwards and silenced the little girl forever with a sickening crunch. Out of the darkness came two huge infected men, and Xander and Thomas flailed at both of them for a few seconds until they could connect and bash their skulls in.
“That was tougher than it should have been,” Xander said.
“Probably because they had such a huge reach and those massive arms,” Thomas replied.
Frank and Mack thundered down the stairs a few seconds later.
“You guys okay?” Mack asked.
“Think so,” Xander said. “Guess we gotta sweep each of these rooms now.”
Xander and Thomas moved to the right, while Frank and Mack took left. Xander and Thomas didn’t find any more infected, but Frank and Mack found another one locked in the utility room and dealt with it too.
For good measure, they swept the basement again just to be certain it was clear.
“Dammit, now we have to drag these bodies outside,” Thomas muttered.
The platoon moved up and down streets all afternoon, clearing out houses, very few of which had infected in them, although it was apparent that infected had broken into some of them and slaughtered their inhabitants.
By the time the sun was beginning to set, the company was almost finished sweeping the entire neighbourhood, and Second Platoon was down to its last couple houses. A couple dozen survivors had been located and scores of infected put down and removed from the homes they had been lurking in.
As Xander and the fireteam entered the second last home on the block, he shouted, “Dinner time! Come and get it!”
“Be careful what you ask for,” Mack said softly. Frank nodded in agreement.
Xander shrugged his shoulders and stepped forward, noticing that the lights in the hallway were on.
“Thought the power was supposed to be out in this area,” He said.
“That’s what the briefing said,” Frank replied.
“Anyone hear that chugging sound?” Thomas asked.
“Yeah, it’s coming from over there,” Mack said, pointing.
The fireteam advanced on the door to the garage. When they were ready, Xander opened the door slowly and the others went in.
The garage was mostly empty, except for a large generator chugging away and a couple big fat infected men standing nearby.
They growled at the fireteam and advanced on them.
Mack standing at the top of the stairs said, “I’ll deal with these two.”
He swung his mace twice and both infected collapsed into a heap on the concrete floor.
“Why isn’t it cold in here?” Frank asked.
“Because that generator was powering that space heater over there,” Thomas said pointing to a round satellite dish-shaped heater hidden behind the generator.
Xander pulled off his gloves and rubbed his hands, “This works really nice, we should grab it before someone else does.”
“Where do you plan on putting it? It’s not a chocolate bar or a can of stew that you can shove in your pack,” Thomas replied.
“A guy can dream can’t he?” Xander said, still thinking of a way to get it back to the base.
Thomas shook his head and said, “We’ve still got to clear this place first.”
“Killjoy. Fine, let’s go,” Xander said.
They went back into the house, clearing the main and second floors, saving the basement for last.
Mack opened the door to the basement and low moans rolled up the stairs from below.
“That’s going to be a problem,” Thomas said, taking a step.
“Wait a second Thomas. Why go down there and then carry the bodies outside afterwards? Let’s get them to come up here and deal with them on the lawn out front,” Xander suggested.
“Not a bad idea,” Frank seconded.
“Makes sense,” Thomas said. “Guess you were right when we walked in here.”
“Huh? Xander said.
“Thomas rapped his mace on his shield and shouted, “Dinner time! Come and get it!”
The moans got louder as the fireteam fell back to the front entrance. Soon, a line of infected began following them.
Outside, the four men braced themselves, raising their shields and maces. The infected seemed to mull around inside for a few seconds, then erupted out of the door and towards them.
On the street behind them, someone shouted, “Contact!”
The infected hit the shield line like a freight train and shoved them backwards a few feet. They swung their maces and four infected dropped to the ground, their heads caved in, but seven or eight more were right behind them. The infected tried to flank the fireteam, but failed, and before anyone from Second Platoon could come to their assistance, the rest of the infected were down on the ground.
Epilogue
December 10th
Dan and the rest of his platoon were stuck at the Remand Centre. He wasn’t sure where the rest of First Company was, but he assumed they were here somewhere too. The helicopters had ferried them directly here, landing in the parking lot and dropping them off. The troops were hustled inside and sent straight to quarantine as a precaution.
Each of them were forced to remove everything they had on and then subjected to the standard physical inspection to make sure none of them had bites or wounds from yesterday’s f
iasco and extraction by helicopter from an apartment complex overrun with infected. Even though Dan had had several of these in the past couple months, it never seemed to get any less embarrassing, either for him or the tech who had to inspect him. After the inspection, they got a new set of CADPATs and were herded off to cells individually, where they were told get some shut eye and left to their own devices.
Early in the morning, Dan got his clean bill of health and was released from his cell. He didn’t bother putting on his armour, and just slung all of his equipment over his shoulder while he waited. One by one, the troops in his section were also cleared. Once everyone was assembled, they were told to get some breakfast from the cafeteria and await transport back to the base.
“Hey Barnes,” Jack said as they walked towards the cafeteria. “Your little chink bitch inspected me last night and said she’d never seen such a big cock before, so I gave her a little taste and she begged for more.”
“Chink bitch?” Thomas said. “Man, that’s way out of line.”
Dan was about to respond when Xander turned around, his face a little flushed. Without hesitation, he cold-cocked Jack, connecting right above Jack’s left ear.
Jack screamed in pain and fell to the ground. Xander followed him down and was about to start wailing on him when two strong hands pulled him off Jack.
Xander looked over his shoulder and saw Mack’s huge arms restraining his own. He stopped struggling instantly, knowing he had no chance of breaking free of Mack’s bear like arms.
Dan stepped between Xander and Jack, and said, “What the fuck Ashton? And Barnes, you should know better than to hit one of your fellow soldiers.”
“See Sergeant, I told you Barnes is no good! He’s always on my case, harassing me,” Jack shouted.
“Perhaps if you weren’t always fucking up, he wouldn’t have to,” Sergeant Simpson said. A look of genuine hurt crossed Ashton’s face.
“Barnes, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“Ashton is a racist piece of shit. He’s always making comments like that, and in training he got the whole section in shit because of it. If that wasn’t bad enough, he struts around camp, taking advantage of poor women who have no recourse but to sleep with him so they can feed their kids. Frankly, he’s a douche bag and I’ve had enough of his bullshit.”
“What do the rest of you think?” Sergeant Simpson asked.
“Those two have been like oil and water ever since they got assigned to this section,” Frank said.
“I don’t know that they’ll ever get along,” Phillip said, with Andrew nodding in agreement.
“No comment,” Mack said.
“I may seem biased, but I agree with Barnes, Ashton is always fucking up and getting us in shit or trying to get a rise out of Barnes. This was a prime example of the bullshit games Ashton likes to play,” Thomas said.
“Fair enough everyone. Now you two fuckheads listen up and listen good. You don’t have to like each other, and I can’t make you like each other either. But by God, you two will support each other and work as a team in the field, or I’ll snap both of you in half like a couple of toothpicks. We don’t have fucking time or energy for this bullshit, the goddamn enemy is outside, waiting to tear all of us apart. Got it?” Dan said through gritted teeth.
“Yes Sergeant,” Xander and Jack both replied.
“Good, now shake hands like men and let’s put this behind us,” Dan said.
They shook hands and forced a smile on their faces, but Xander didn’t believe for a minute that Jack had forgiven or forgotten.
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“Do we have any idea where all those infected came from? Recce didn’t show anywhere near those kinds of numbers when we ran a sweep the day before,” Lieutenant Colonel Burkhart said.
“No sir, we do not. We always run a couple of aerial surveys and follow it with a recce in force drive past. Not one of those checks indicated more than a handful of infected,” Lieutenant Chapman said. “And an aerial sweep an hour ago shows they have all disappeared.”
“Does anyone have any theories about what is going on?” General Raine asked his assembled staff.
One by one, his staff each shook their heads.
Sighing, General Raines asked, “What are the final numbers?”
Lieutenant Colonel Burkhart looked down at the report, “First Platoon was effectively wiped out. We retrieved nine survivors, but two were infected. Second Platoon weathered the storm pretty well, losing five soldiers. Third Platoon lost two full sections and is down to about fifty percent strength. All told, First Company is down to forty-five percent strength and their morale has been shattered. We probably should pull them off the line for a few days to regroup, relax and then have them do some training to rebuild their confidence. Now that Second Company is out of training and ready for deployment, there will be minimal impacts on our operations. Third Company should be ready before Christmas, so I believe the question we need to answer is do we fold what’s left of First Company into the others, or use Third Company to replace First Company’s losses?”
“What are the projections on Third Company?” General Raine asked.
“Most of the recruits are of average quality, so we can expect there will be some washouts, estimated at twenty two percent,” Lieutenant Colonel Burkhart said, glancing at his notes.
“It sounds like that answers our question right there – we fold the new recruits into First and Second Companies to replace their losses,” General Raine said. “That means First Company will have nothing to do for a week and a half. I think billeting in and garrisoning the liberated zone is the best duty for them right now. Do you have any other suggestions John?”
“Actually, that was what I was building up to. That gives them time to recover from any minor injuries, as well as do some relatively easy light duty and some extra training to get their confidence back,” Lieutenant Colonel Burkhart replied.
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“Diane! Jared!” Xander shouted as he approached them standing outside their tent.
Jared ran to Xander, “Uncle Xander!” Jared said excitedly as he hugged Xander.
Xander said, “Let’s go inside, I’ve got some great news.”
“Are you tired of freezing your butt off in this tent?” He asked.
“I was bored of it by the end of the first day, and the excitement wore off for Jared by the end of the first week, right?”
Jared nodded in agreement.
“Well then this is your lucky day. We cleared out a chunk of the city earlier this week and today and we were told we can nominate some of the people who get to move in over there,” Xander said.
“Where is it?” Diane asked.
“Just south of here on the other side of the Henday, I was too busy to look up the address,” Xander replied. “But the area is full of nice big homes, some duplexes and a couple small apartment buildings.”
“Is it safe?” Diane asked. “I may not like living here, but the base has lots of troops and those nice big fences to keep out the zombies.”
“This base isn’t as safe as you think. The infected have breached the fence line several times since we’ve been here, even with all the fancy weapons they have here. The tent city is like a giant, juicy steak for the infected out there and whenever it’s warm, they are at the perimeter trying to get in here. But this place will be even safer. We helped build a huge wall around the subdivision and then cleared out every single building inside it, from garden shed to apartment building. They’re also going to station our company in there to guard it. This place will be safe, trust me,” Xander said. “Are you in?”
“Yes, but we need also need your help with something else,” Diane said.
“Sure, anything for you.”
“Donald got caught selling supplies for his friends and is in trouble. The MPs locked him up at the prison.”
“Stupid asshole!” Xander muttered and then saw Jared wince. “Sorry Jared. I warned him didn’t I Sis?”
Diane nodded.
Xander took a deep breath and let it out slowly, “I’ll see what I can do.”
Afterword
Four years. That’s how long it took me to write this book.
By any reasonable estimation, that is way too long. Now I could provide all sorts of reasonable explanations why it took so long…but, I won’t bother. As my late father used to say, excuses are like assholes – everyone’s got one.
So all I’m going to do is tell you I’m going to do better for Zombie Night in Canada: Third Period. Yes, I’m already working on it, but don’t expect it right away. I’ve still got some planning to do and then a ton of writing, editing and all the other crap that goes into releasing a novel.
The reason I wrote Zombie Night in Canada: First Period was simple – I wanted to see a zombie story with a Canadian angle. Sure, the hero in Romero’s Land of the Dead often jokes about how he wants to go to Canada because there are fewer people, but other than that, there were relatively few zombie stories in Canada – Pontypool and Fido being the ones that come to mind.
In the course of writing and marketing ZNIC: 1st Period, I met a large number of Canadian authors who were doing the exact same thing I was, which was really cool. Some of them have written amazing books and I’d encourage you to look for them the next time you want a zombie apocalypse novel set in Canada.
As always, there are tons of people to thank for helping out in the process. First off, thanks to my wife and children who were supportive of my writing career. I’d also like to mention my buddy, J.J. Beausoleil, who helped out at Edmonton Expo, beta read my first couple drafts and has been a great source of inspiration, as well as someone to bounce ideas off of. A special thanks to Dark Age Creations, who provided me information on medieval warfare and the equipment used in its modern day re-enactments. Thanks again to Pete Corrigan for providing a kick-ass cover that uses local scenery (shout out to the CN Tower and City Hall).
Another group to thank are the fans of Zombie Night in Canada: First Period. They were supportive and understanding as the writing process dragged on (and on and on), as well as providing upbeat messages on social media, awesome reviews and other sources of inspiration that stopped me from just saying to hell with it over the past few years.
Zombie Night In Canada (Book 2): 2nd Period Page 26
