“Talk to me,” Duncan said. He nodded to Trent’s partner. It was a woman who only went by the name Dakota. She looked like she had Native American blood, but in fact she was from Great Britain.
“Sir, we did a deep scout in the territory, just grabbing prelim numbers. Out on the plain here, about seventy miles south, we ran into a massive horde,” Trent said.
“How massive?” Tommy asked.
“About six thousand; maybe as many as eight. Can’t be certain,” Dakota said.
Duncan whistled. “That’s a good-sized mob. Are they contained by anything that we can use, geographically, I mean?”
Trent shook his head. “Sir, this is West Texas.”
“Right. Are they on the move?” Duncan wanted to know.
“They’re headed this way. But this is a different kind of horde, sir,” Dakota said.
“Please don’t tell me we’re looking at six thousand kid zombies,” Tommy said.
“No sir. What we’re facing is the remnants of the United States Army. At least what was in this area when they lost to the zombies.”
“Holy shit,” Duncan said. “I wondered when we would find out what happened to those guys. Every other place we went there were signs of fighting, but the actual soldiers themselves were always gone.”
“It gets better, sir,” Trent said.
“Can’t get much worse,” Tommy said, not believing his own words.
“Since they were fighting the zombies at the time they died, a lot of them are wearing bullet-proof helmets,” Dakota said.
The reality of that statement took a moment to sink in.
“Ummm…” Duncan started.
“Yeah,” Tommy finished.
“What are we going to do, sir?” Trent asked.
Duncan thought for a minute. “We need to take a look at these Z’s. Are all of them wearing helmets or just a lot of them?”
Dakota shrugged. “All of the ones I saw were wearing them, sir. Some of them were hanging down their backs or in front, but the obstacle was still there, sir,” she said.
“We don’t have the manpower to take them all at once, sir. We’re about two to four thousand short for that,” Trent said. “And spread out to boot.”
Tommy thought about it for a moment. “All right. Get back to the rendezvous point, and we’ll come up with a plan. If you see anyone on your way there, tell them that we’re going to need every scout we can reach. I need to know everything about that horde. Direction, widest point, everything. Try not to get them following you,” he said.
Duncan nodded and pulled out a map of his own, checking the one Trent showed him, and making a few marks with a pencil before giving it back.
“We’ll see you back there in an hour,” Duncan said, raising a hand and checking the sun.
The pair of scouts got back in their vehicle and headed back the way they came. Duncan got on the radio and called the army to gather at the rendezvous point with instructions that all commanders meet at the command trailer.
After that, he looked over at Tommy.
“So what’s the plan?” he asked.
Tommy shrugged. “No clue yet, but we have an hour to figure it out,” he said.
“Perfect.”
The two looked at the map and checked the surrounding country. It was disappointing to both of them that the land was somewhat flat, mostly flat, and extremely flat. There wasn’t a riverbed or arroyo or anything that they could make use of. The only thing this part of the country had was roads.
“Can we funnel them? Use the semis and the bar?” Duncan asked.
“Too many of them. We’d be outflanked in a heartbeat,” Tommy replied.
“Sharpshooters? A hit in the face is still a kill shot,” Duncan said.
“True, but we need something more than one shot at a time. A horde that size is not going to just hold still and be shot,” Tommy said. “They’ll advance, and the shooters will be overrun.”
“What if we made a kind of hill that the zombies had to walk up, and at the bottom were our shooters aiming upwards to get the killing shot?” Duncan asked.
Tommy thought that one over. “Do we have the kind of time to make something like that?”
Duncan nodded. “If we get the earth movers over here,” he said, pointing to the map, “then we stand a good chance of making a long hill. Doesn’t need to be too high, just a few feet, but enough to get the angle.”
Tommy saw the potential. “And if we make two of them, have a retreat position and repeat the process, then we have a better chance of getting them all.”
The two men got back in the car and hurried to the rendezvous point. It took two hours for the rest of the commanders to arrive, and by that time the earth movers were already pushing dirt and moving sand. Duncan had wanted just a two-foot hill, but Tommy had successfully argued that a four foot hill would be better, since the shooters would be able to shoot from further back.
The meeting was brief, but to the point.
“We’re about three hours away from being swarmed by a massive horde to the south,” Duncan said.
“How massive?” one of the commanders asked. He was a hard-looking man of around fifty.
Trent spoke up. “Dakota and I gave it an initial estimate of eight thousand. After looking at it again, we may have been off by a couple thousand.”
“Couple thousand to the good or bad?” Tommy asked.
“Bad,” Dakota said.
The word hung in the air like a silent fart.
“So we’re looking at ten thousand on the loose headed this way,” another commander spoke. “Well, so what? We’ve faced some big hordes before. We can handle it. It’s only what? Two to one? I got extra bullets if you all need more than two.”
There was a general chuckle around the room before Duncan raised his hand for silence.
“This one is special,” he said.
“How special?”
Dakota spoke up again. “It’s what’s left of the army that fought down here. Many of the soldiers are still in their combat gear including their Kevlar helmets.”
“Aw, sweet Jesus! Can’t we ever get a break?” the first commander, a man named Hodgins, asked of no one.
“Let’s just get to the basics,” Tommy said. “And I need no more interruptions.” His steady look silenced the room. It was a trick he had picked up from John.
“Here’s where we are,” Tommy said, pointing to a map. “The horde is down here. What we are doing right now is building a small berm of dirt and creating a hill the zombies have to climb. At the top is when we will shoot them under their helmets.”
Duncan demonstrated the angle to the commanders, and the room brightened somewhat.
“If you get down on one knee then you can accomplish two things at once,” Duncan said. “You can hide behind the hill and they won’t see you, and you have a great angle to shoot them with.”
Tommy chimed in. “Plus you have a much more stable shooting platform.” He looked at the commanders. “We want two man teams all down the line. One to shoot, the other to reload magazines and to change weapons with. No one does it alone. Understood?”
There were nods of assent all around the room.
“Lastly, we are putting a man or woman in a vehicle parked behind the firing team. That’s a retreat point and escape,” Tommy said. “With a whole lot of luck, we won’t need it, but let’s keep our troops alive. Any questions?”
The group looked at each other and there was a lot of shrugging and nodding. This group of men and women came from all walks of life, thrown together with a common goal of not seeing their world fall under the dead feet of a million ghouls. They didn’t have to fight, but each of them knew if it wasn’t on this day, it would be on another. And if not in this lifetime, then in their children’s, and none of them wanted that to happen.
“All right. Get to your men and get into position. By my reckoning, we have about two hours before that horde gets in sight,” Tommy said.
&n
bsp; That ended the meeting quickly. As the commanders separated and went to their fighters, Tommy watched them leave with Duncan.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“Best chance we have to get rid of a lot of zombies,” Duncan said. “Also a good chance to pick up some extra weapons and ammo if we track them back.”
“I’d be more interested in some extra trucks,” Tommy said.
“That would be nice.”
An hour later, Tommy and Duncan were in their car surveying the work that the earth movers had accomplished. It was a simple task, just send the bulldozers out to scrape the hard ground and move it to the side to create a small hill. The line of attack went for nearly a mile, and as they drove by, the troops were getting themselves into position. They stayed about twenty yards apart, giving them room to fire. Magazines were topped off, and some of the pairs were flipping coins to see who would be shooting and who would be reloading. The drivers were making sure their cars were ready and would be taking off if the need arose.
Duncan searched the plain with his binoculars but couldn’t see anything. He went over to a small hill nearby and looked again from the summit. Still nothing. Idly he wondered if the horde had somehow turned and they were going to get attacked from the rear.
Tommy called up from the car.
“Anything?”
Duncan shook his head. “Not that I can see.” He scanned the horizon again, but all he could see was plains sprinkled with pockets of snow and brush. Depressing country all the same, he thought to himself. He looked again, then decided the binoculars were not getting the job done.
“Toss up my rifle scope will you?” Duncan asked Tommy. “The one in the big ammo can.”
Duncan heard Tommy rummaging around in the car, and eventually he came up with the scope.
“Here!” Tommy sent the scope spinning up to Duncan who scrambled to catch it. It was a lucky find in a looted gun store. It was a US Optics LR-17 which meant nothing to Duncan. All he knew was the thing worked like a charm and was adjustable to seventeen power. Duncan loved the thing, but he rarely got a chance for long-range shooting.
“Nice throw!” he called down to Tommy, who grinned back at him. Duncan shook his head and then brought the rifle scope up. He scanned the plain and was starting to think they had wasted their time here when he saw them.
They were about a mile away moving steadily through the plains. Hundreds of soldiers marching in a long line, followed by hundreds more. They moved steadily, trudging through the brush and flowing around trees and rocks. Most of them were wearing helmets, although not all of them. In between the troops were a number of civilians, likely people from towns this group had overrun. Duncan wondered how many more of these hordes were out there, especially on the east and west coast.
He signaled down to Tommy. “They’re coming; about a mile out and closing. They’re really spread out so the shooters are going to be busy.”
Tommy nodded and spoke quickly into the radio. The effect as the word spread was nearly instant. A ripple passed through the line as the word circulated, and shooters checked and rechecked their guns and ammunition. The loaders made sure magazines were ready to go, and extra cartridges were close at hand.
All they had to do now was wait. Tommy climbed the hill Duncan was on and watched with his friend as the massive horde walked closer and closer. The shooters on the line were under orders to fire the second they had a shot and keep going from there. The loaders had the harder job. They had to keep the ammo flowing, but they had to also keep an eye out for any zombies that managed to get through the line.
“Here they come,” Duncan said, looking through his binoculars now that the zombies had gotten closer.
“Jesus, there’s a lot of them,” Tommy said. He had brought up his rifle and was looking through his scope as well. His was a lower-power scope, but it would work just fine from his perch should he need it.
“Just keep coming, you nasty bastards, just keep coming,” Duncan said.
The horde closed the distance, and Tommy looked forward to the first shots being fired. This was a war, after all, and the enemy was right there.
Out on the plain, the horde advanced. One zombie private, a young man likely no older than nineteen, was on the far flank following the zombie ahead of him. He was just watching the soldier walk when something caught his eye. It was a jackrabbit that popped out of its hole, caught the scent of the zombies, and bolted in the other direction. Private Zombie let out a shrieking groan and left the horde to chase the rabbit.
Instantly several zombies became interested, and they, too, followed the young private. The trend became general, and in a matter of a minute, the entire horde turned north and away from the trenches and small hill.
“What the hell?” Duncan asked out loud to no one in particular.
Tommy shrugged. “They turned. Happens. Let’s turn them back before it’s too late. If we try to engage them on level ground with no cover, we’re all dead.”
He dropped to his stomach and sighted through his scope. Tommy found a target without a helmet and fired. The sound echoed out across the land and down the line. Hundreds of dead soldier and dead civilian heads turned his way and he took advantage of the situation by firing again and again. The horde, now attracted to a new sound and the potential for food, raised their own war cry and started towards the battle.
Duncan watched the turn and slapped Tommy on the back. “Nice work, but if the fighters don’t do their jobs, then we’re going to be really popular in about twenty minutes.”
“Shut up and reload my mags for me, would ya?” Tommy said, squeezing off another shot.
Duncan took the hint and grabbed the box of ammo. He topped off the empty magazine and handed it to Tommy just as that worthy fired his last round. He slapped the magazine in place and worked the bolt. The red dot on his scope settled on another target and he fired again.
In a few minutes, the first zombies reached the top of the small hill. Gunfire erupted on the line and suddenly everyone was very busy. Magazines were emptied and dropped with another one taking its place. Reloaders were furiously loading the magazines while keeping an eye on the line at the same time in case another zombie slipped through. Dead soldiers piled up on the hill, making another barrier for the Z’s to climb over, and giving the shooters a chance to take a breath and cool their barrels off.
Duncan and Tommy had stopped firing and were looking at the line. It was holding for the most part, but there was a problem. The dead had been piled high, and the zombies were walking north to get around it.
Tommy shot two of the zombies, but his third shot bounced off the helmet of another and simply knocked him over. The soldier got back up, and continued as if nothing had happened.
“We got a problem,” Tommy said.
“I’m open to ideas,” Duncan said.
Tommy watched the group move forward and then made a decision.
“Call them back; pull back the army. Half of them aren’t engaged anyway. Get them back,” Tommy said, hoping his hunch would work.
Duncan threw himself down the hill and scrambled for the radio. He reached it just as a voice was screaming over the airways.
“They’re through! They’re through! We’re cut off! My shooter is dead! Oh God!”
Duncan yelled into the microphone.
“Pull back! Pull back! Get out of there! Get in your car and head north! Now! Go! Go! Go! Commanders! Get your troops up north about two miles. Regroup there! Duncan out!”
Duncan jumped onto the roof of the car and got onto the roof. He looked down the line with his powerful scope and watched as the cars pulled away. Far down the line, he could see a horde of zombies climbing over the wall and falling over the side. Two cars were still on the line, and the zombies were swarming around them.
Duncan called out to Tommy. “They need help! I’m heading south!”
Tommy grabbed his rifle and magazines and slid down the hill. He jumped into the pas
senger seat just as Duncan gunned the engine and crunched over dirt and ice and snow. The road was parallel to the front line, and they raced past cars and trucks heading in the opposite direction. A horde of zombies was getting larger around something, and both Tommy and Duncan knew that there had to be something alive in there to keep their interest.
“Stop here!” Tommy said. The car slid to a stop and he jumped out. Kneeling by the side of the car, he put the tripod of his rifle on the hood and sighted in his first zombie. The red dot appeared in the center of a zombie face, and Tommy let go the shot.
An instant later, another shot rang out, and a second zombie had fallen. Duncan was getting in on the action, too.
The sound of the shots turned several zombies, and there were still more coming over the hill. The two men stopped firing at the same time, letting one man shoot while the other reloaded the magazines that had just went dry. Bodies began to pile up, and the soldiers were falling over the newly re-made dead. Two shots bounced off two helmets, and the men firing shrugged at each other.
Suddenly there was a clear path, and Duncan ran forward while Tommy covered the hill. Duncan ran and jumped over corpses, sliding around a pile of goo that might have once been a living man. Blood covered the ground, and Duncan winced when he saw what had happened to the shooter. He had no chance whatsoever. Duncan fired a round into his head as a courtesy and then reached the car. He pounded on the window, and then ducked as a shot screamed over his head, killing a zombie climbing over the hill.
A very frightened face suddenly peered out of the car, and then Duncan was wrapped up in a very grateful fighter.
“Whoa! You’re okay! Where’s your reloader?” Duncan asked. Another shot flew overhead, and Duncan looked back to see Tommy waving his arms.
“When the wave broke over the hill, he dropped his mags and ran. I didn’t even know what was happening until the zombies were clawing at the windows. Thank you so much, sir!” The soldier, a young woman who couldn’t have been over twenty, hugged Duncan again.
The Zombie Wars: We All Fall Down (The White Flag series Book 9) Page 6
