Billy heard the radio in the hummer bark with traffic for the Captain and saw Stone pick up the handset to reply.
“400 meters,” Reid muttered.
“If I had some 7.62, I’d light these fuckers up right here, Top,” Billy heard one of the MPs ahead of him say to Reid. The First Sergeant growled at him to shut the fuck up and watch his gun sights.
Spud was rattling around on top of the laddertruck, digging through hatches, sticking small items in his pockets.
Durham walked past again, returning from his car with a shotgun in his hand. He slid shells he pulled from the pocket of his reflective windbreaker into it as he walked.
“Hey, a couple firefighters showed up about an hour ago at the station and asked where their ladder truck was. I told them to come up here and get it if they need it. Just saying,” Durham said as he passed, laughing.
“Thanks, I appreciate that,” Billy said.
“By the way, Spud, hiding does not stop evil, return fire does,” the police officer said over his shoulder.
“Still suing your ass!” Spud yelled after him.
“300 meters,” Reid muttered ahead.
Stone walked halfway back to the ladder truck and called to Billy, “Harris, you and Spud stay low back there. When we go loud get behind the engine block of that truck and stay there. All we have is shotguns and sidearms so we have to let them get bad-breath close before we open up.”
Billy gave him a thumbs-up and the Captain turned back towards the hummers.
“200 meters,” Reid updated.
Spud was not even visible any more but Billy heard his voice, barely audible, above and behind him.
“Did my brother work for you today, Billy?” Spud asked.
“Yes, he did. I saw him this morning,” Billy responded.
“Was he ok when you left?” Spud asked quietly.
“Yes, Spud, he was ok last time I saw him. He was tying up the boat at the marina and going back home,” Billy said.
“Thanks, Billy.”
“I’m sure he’s okay. He’s a pretty tough guy, as long as he hasn’t run out of cigarettes.”
“100 meters,” Reid muttered.
Billy strained his eyes past the hummers until he could just make out the blur of walking humanity making their way down the highway to the bridge. Every time the light pulsed from the ladder truck, he could catch a flash of their faces and clothes in the distance. Every flash brought them closer.
“We’ll hit them with the lights at 50, and give them a chance to stop or turn back. If they don’t, we open up at 25,” Stone passed the word to his left and right. His words carried on the sea breeze across the night.
Billy tightened his grip on the Denver tool and felt the heaviness of its sledgehammer head reassure him. He moved the .38 from his shorts to the pocket of the borrowed turnout coat so he could get to it faster. The gun would cave in the head of a shark but its barrel was so short you could not hit a barn with it. With that in mind, Billy chose the Denver as his primary arm and the .38 as his backup.
“50 meters, hit the lights,” Reid called out and the combined headlights, hi-beams, and spotlights of the two hummers shot out into the darkness. They caught the shuffling crowd of infected in full profile. Instead of stopping the oncoming crowd, it seemed to have an electric effect upon them and they began screaming and rushing forward.
Stone called out from the hummer’s public address system, “This is the United States Army, and you are ordered to turn around. You are in violation of a quarantine order and will not be allowed to pass. Turn around now or we will be forced to fire upon you.”
The crowd never even paused and like a gust of wind in a hurricane, blew forward.
“Open fire,” Stone ordered, pulling his Kimber from the holster on his side, and taking aim. “Head shots only,” he added.
Shotgun blasts and pistol cracks rang through the night as the pack of thirty or more infected of all ages, races and sizes broke into a run towards the headlights. Infected fell forward but not all of them stayed down. Some took horrible hits to the chest but only staggered and kept coming. In the 25 meters of distance from where the MPs had opened fire to the hummers, all but a dozen of the infected were dropped.
Durham was reloading his shotgun as the first of the infected reached the hummer. Stone extended his Kimber into the face of the 300-pound assailant and fired a double-tap into his forehead. Durham butt-stroked a second one crawling over the hood with his shotgun, which promptly broke the weapon in half, in exchange for only slowing the creature down. Reid emptied his Beretta into a young infected woman dressed only in a sports bra just as a second MP sideswiped her friend in the face with the T-handled shovel. Another of the enlisted MPs held her Beretta like a dueling pistol skyward before taking careful aim at a pair of elderly infected bringing up the tail end of the attack.
Billy rotated the handle of the Denver tool as he watched the fight from his position on the side of the laddertruck. Spud was nowhere in sight. The slick-slack of shotgun slides followed by the shuddering boom of low-recoil slugs echoed through the night. He saw Durham fumbling with plastic-hulled shotgun shells in the dark, dropping them as he tried to hand them to an MP with a 12-guage. The high crack of the MP’s 9mm pistol rounds going off punctuated the action. The grunts and screams of infected and non-infected alike lubricated the scene.
The combat finished with a crescendo of rounds from Durham’s Glock as he engaged the last three of the infected attackers in rapid succession.
Silence fell over the bridge with the final shots resounding down the concrete columns and out over the water. Handheld flashlights and vehicle-mounted spotlights probed across the battlefield seeking out any remaining threats.
“Shut down the hummers and count your rounds. Get ready for the next wave, good-a-go. It is going to be a long night, kids,” Reid called out in the silence. He at last spit a long wad of tobacco juice out onto the roadway.
— | — | —
CHAPTER 17
Orange Coast Bank, Gulf Shores
Mackenzie sat quietly in the dark of the powerless bank branch. Every now and then, a sudden noise would filter in from outside. The night was filled with sirens, sporadic gunfire, and the other sounds of a city in turmoil. Occasionally a shadow would run by the bank in the night. Some of the shadows laughed or screamed but most were silent as they passed by. Several times, she had peered outside, thinking of walking to her car across the parking lot and driving away, but to where could she drive? Better to take your chances behind reinforced plate glass and brick walls than in a Honda.
The temperature had dropped what felt like twenty degrees since sunset and Wyatt, her young freeloader and refugee, had curled up on the floor. Mackenzie covered him with a jacket that had been left behind at the branch by a long-transferred teller. The lights had flickered twice and finally went out altogether. The sign over the exit remained lit in a dull red glow that gave everything in the room just enough ambient light to create a murky shadow world.
Her phone was on its last bar of battery strength, but still she hit refresh every few minutes to see if she could get any more contact with the world outside. If nothing else, it gave her something to do in the dark.
On about the one-hundredth refresh she noticed a new mail icon on her Facebook app. She sat in the dark with the white and blue screen illuminating her face unsure if she had the intestinal fortitude to click on the email. She always got the worst message anxiety about anything that could be bad news and thought about waking Wyatt just to get him to read the message because she could not bring herself to click on it.
Finally, she did.
“Dear Mack,
I’ve been trying to call all day. The doctors have told me that they can’t do anything for me. One of them, who I am sure isn’t even a citizen, advised me to pray. I have a terrible headache and can barely see straight. Phil died about 8pm and again at 8:15pm. They took his remains away and said they are cremating
everyone due to the infection.
If you never hear from me again, I wanted you to know what happened.
Remember that big oak tree on your grandfather’s farm? The one that used to have the swing on it? I would like it if you put a memorial to me there when this is all over. Don’t forget me even though we now appear to be moving in a different direction from each other. Just think of it as I’m going on ahead and we will be together again one day.
You used to love to be pushed on that swing. I can still hear your laugh. There was always supposed to be more time. Please take care of yourself.
I love you.
Mom”
Mackenzie tried to reply several times but she did not know what to say. Her phone powered off as the battery died fifteen minutes later. In conspiracy, the Exit sign over the door grew dimmer with each passing second, its battery charge failing. She was glad that at least the dark hid her tears.
— | — | —
CHAPTER 18
October 9/10th midnight
Dr. WC Holmes Bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway.
The anticipation of death is worse than actually dying, or so Billy thought. After the first attack at the end of the bridge roadblock, everyone talked about everything but the zombie attack, impending doom, and possibly the end of the world. Pretty much anything to take their minds off of the fact that they were all covered in gore, mung, and splatter was talked about except gore, mung, and splatter.
The first few games of the NFL football season were openly analyzed in detail and every one of the nine bridge defenders had a different favorite team. Durham made small talk about the interesting world of a Gulf Shores police sergeant. Billy related about how the price of diesel fuel was eating into his profit margin on offshore trips. Reid spoke about the latest gossip at the county jail.
“I thought I recognized you from somewhere, boss man,” Spud, who finally climbed down from his hiding place on the ladder truck, said to Reid.
“Yeah how you been, Spud? You keeping your nose clean? They miss you in the showers at County. Nobody gives crying blowjobs like you do,” Reid said with a smile.
Spud laughed and quickly pointed out that Reid was joking.
“How many pair of drawers you wearing right now, Spud?” Reid asked, nudging Billy.
“Two,” the little man replied.
“And tell the nice citizens here why someone of your caliber always goes double-bottomed?” Reid said. You could almost see his grey-toothed crooked smile in the dark.
“You always wear two pair of boxers and two t-shirts; because when you are in county and you wash your shit in the sink, you still have a set to wear while your dirty whites are drying,” Spud said with no shame.
“See, young Mr. Potato Head here is not your average every day, walking-the-street type of citizen,” Reid concluded.
“So, boss man, how about you, you in the real military now?” Spud asked the sergeant.
“You little shit; I sat on a roadblock and stared at a road for eight months on my last tour in Iraq while you were avoiding gang rape in the shower. So you can kiss my dick with that one weekend a month crap,” Reid said, black spittle leaking out over his lip.
“Raptor Six, this is Raptor Main,” The radio in the hummer broke into the conversation.
Stone picked up the handset, “Send it,” he muttered and released the mic.
“We have cutter Fish Hawk on fox mic advising he is on station below you. He is bittersweet aware and is on weapons-hold,” came the reply from the radio speaker.
“Roger that, advise Fish Hawk we are sending two personnel in a marked police vehicle to the wharf on south side boat ramp at our location for transfer, how copy?” Stone said into the mic.
“Good copy,” came the reply as Stone was replacing the mic in its cradle and turning to Durham.
“Sergeant Durham, since your car is on the other side of the laddertruck, can you take Mr. Spud here to pick up some ammo from the cutter downstairs?” Stone asked.
This brought a quiet cheer from the collective group and Durham, with Spud in tow, marched away up the bridge to the Swiss-cheese patrol car and then quietly pulled off.
Less than ten anxious minutes later, they had returned and parked the battered vehicle in the same place behind the laddertruck. Four shadows emerged from the vehicle, each lugging heavy wooden crates wrapped in wire towards the roadblock. The sound of hushed voices exchanging stories and grunts accented their trip from the car to the hummers. One of the figures slipped in a puddle of sticky blood and caught himself before falling all of the way over.
The mustached Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer from the boarding earlier that morning reached out and shook Billy’s hand. A second Coastie with a baldhead and an awkward fitting pistol belt stood quietly behind the Chief. The rising moon reflected off the man’s shiny head.
“Do not be alarmed, sir. Remain calm. I am from the Government and I’m here to help,” Chief Hoffman said through a thick waggling mustache that looked as if it had been stolen from a dead walrus. The Chief had an old school M16 slung over his shoulders rather than the newer and neater M4s that the MPs had.
“Can’t believe Captain Crunch is here and he isn’t writing tickets,” Billy said.
“He’s down under the bridge on the cutter, but I can get him up here if you really want one,” Hoffman said.
“Thank your skipper for me on behalf of the US Army, Chief,” Stone said, making his entry into the conversation. He was already breaking into the crates of ammunition with a pry bar from the hummer.
“No problem, sir, but I do need you to sign my chit for the transfer to make this all official like,” Hoffman said handing out a piece of paper that the MP Captain dutifully signed.
“Ok, ladies, let’s get over the hug fest and get the ammo handed out, I’m getting some more movement down the highway,” Reid said, watching again through his NOD.
A flurry of activity broke out and Billy grabbed his Denver tool to help pry one of the fifty-pound wooden crates open. Out came four green ammo cans about the size of a kid’s shoebox. Stenciled in yellow paint across each can was 200 Rounds 7.62 Ball, linked. Billy read the inscription aloud and handed each in turn to MPs who accepted them greedily for their unloaded machineguns. Three of the cases were the same, the fourth contained 5.56mm ammo for the M4 rifles that had sat empty and unused in the hummers during the first attacks.
Durham, Spud, and Billy were given a crash course in loading 30-round M4 magazines using the stripper clips in the fourth case by Reid while the MPs were busy arranging the belts of 7.62mm ammunition like coiled snakes on top of the hummers.
With a small flashlight held in his teeth to provide light on his hands while he thumbed rounds into magazines, Billy could make out the pair of Coast Guardsmen’s conversation. Hoffman’s bald friend was complaining that he was just a Cook and did not sign on for this shit. Hoffman was countering with how they ought to stick around a little longer and see what was going on, how he felt no need to rush back to the boat.
The two Coasties stood talking to themselves, shining flashlights on the thirty or so dead bodies lined up neatly to the side of the hummers. The lines of bodies lay like paper dolls shoulder-to-shoulder. The idea was that it would enable them to be identified better when the sun came out. Each of the bodies had been left so their faces looked up towards the starry night through open, if not always intact, eyes. In the distance, they saw a thirsty dog, greedily drinking a puddle of human blood leaking from a cadaver and debated whether they should shoot it or not.
“This guy’s face looks like a hot pocket,” the Cook said to Hoffman, shining his light on a body at the side of the bridge.
“This shit’s wild man. Damned Cowboys and Indians crap here.”
“OK, kids, let’s look alive. We definitely got a crowd coming, hooah,” Reid called out after consulting with Stone.
Billy finished loading the last magazine and handed it to the female MP driver of the seco
nd hummer. He picked up his Denver tool and started huffing it back to the ladder truck. Spud had already beaten him there. All Billy saw of him was the soles of his shoes as the crook returned to his previous hiding spot.
“Here come at least 20 more, sir,” the MP behind the machinegun said quietly to Captain Stone.
“That’s fine—just 20 more to stack up. All these clowns know how to do is die,” Stone announced calmly.
“Get up here you puddle pirates and give us a hand,” Reid growled to the two Coastguardsmen who were still holding their ground halfway between the hummers and the ladder truck. “I mean, you guys are kind of like the military so you might as well act like it.”
Hoffman rose to the occasion, “Do you know why soldiers don’t ever make Kool-Aid? Because they can’t figure out how to get two quarts of water, and a cup of sugar into those little packets,” Hoffman said as he walked forward with the Cook to assume a place at the roadblock.
“You pond skimmers actually know how to use those weapons?” Reid said once they had assumed a position.
“Yes, in the Coast Guard we have to pass what is called a written test with all these complex things called questions before they let us in, so the learning curve is a little higher than the Army,” Hoffman said. “We are real-world operators.”
“You guys don’t operate shit. I know you guys are used to shooting Mexicans from kayaks and shit, but this is dry land here, just hold your fire until we open up,” Reid said.
“Can you even spell kayak?” Hoffman asked Reid.
“Hey, is there a kayak on your lip, or did a caterpillar take a shit on it?”
“It’s a bad-ass mustache man, like a mustache with biceps. Your wife loves it. Hell your baby sister has a mustache, why not you?”
As Reid began to take a deep breath Stone intervened, “Let’s can it and get ramped up here, team,” the Captain commanded, bringing the Coast Guard vs. Army banter to a stop.
Last Stand on Zombie Island Page 10
