by John Holmes
When the wind had died down, I crawled over to Brit. I was worried that she had caught a stray round as we were leaving the camp, and in our rush to seek cover I hadn’t had time to check on her. I put my hand on her shoulder as she sat up, covered in muck from the drainage ditch.
“Hey, are you OK? What was all the screaming about? Are you hit anywhere?” I started to look her over for bleeding, but she pushed my hands away and started rubbing her chest.
“My goddamned boob got caught in the sling, and it was pinching the whole fucking way here. Mother of God that shit hurt!”
The team laughed, as behind us, the face of Shiva, the Destroyer, lifted itself into the skies.
Epilogue
Three months later
We stood on the shoreline of our island in the Hudson River, thirty miles north of Albany. Canoes were tied up the dock, and the team was loading lashing gear and extra ammo into them.
Doc shouldered his aide bag and his Second in Command, Staff Sergeant Toshi, handed him his M-4.
“Sure you don’t want to go with us? Just a quick trip up river to Burlington. Easy vacation.”
I shook my head. “Nope. We’re done, Doc. Gonna dig some dirt, grow some corn.”
“And make babies!” said Brit.
“Well, practice, at least” I said.
It was true. I was done. The nightmares still came, but at least my hands had stopped shaking. I needed peace, and quiet. I had been fighting for more than two years, first in survival mode, then by order of that fickle parent, the military. We needed to settle down, to start over.
I would miss it, though. These were my friends, my brothers, going in harms’ way, and I felt guilty. Had I really done enough? I felt the phantom pain where my leg used to be, that itch that I could never scratch. Yeah, it was never enough, but sometimes you just had to call it quits.
“If you need anything, call us, and we WILL come and get you. It might take some time, but you know we’ll be there. Even if it’s just to pop you in the head after you’ve turned Z.”
“I expect nothing less, brother.” He picked me up in a bear hug and squeezed the breath out of me.
“Put me down, you moronic biker retard.”
Brit slapped the back of my head. “That’s not politically correct, probie!”
Doc laughed and followed Toshi out to the last canoe. They shoved off and started paddling upstream, cutting a wake through the sheen of oil on it.
“Well, let’s go plant some corn.”
Classified: secret
After action report:
Operation CHARIOT
Prepared by: Irregular Scout Team 5 (The Warthogs)
Authors:
Ryan Szimanski, IST -5 Commander
Ethan Szimanski, Team Medic
William Szimanski, Team Marksman
Chapter 1
RYAN
They were coming at me from both sides; three of them; two on my right, and one on my left. I shouldered the carbine and fired a round into the nearest walker’s chest, causing it to crumple over for a few seconds, before it recovered and began to move towards me again.
The crowd gasped.
“The round imparts enough, um, kinetic energy into the target to buy you a little more, uh time…”
One of the remaining zombies grabbed me from behind as I tried to remember my lines. I shrugged off its grasp, spun, and slammed the wood stock of the carbine as hard as I could. There was an audible crunch, and the corpse stumbled backwards a fair distance before it began to recover. I turned to the other side, where the other two zombies were almost on top of me, shouldered the carbine, and fired two quick shots, killing both before I turned and executed the third zombie, which had almost regained its balance.
The crowded cheered.
I still couldn’t remember the spiel I was supposed to give, so I held the carbine over my head like that kid from Red Dawn and said “The very newest weapon design in home defense, the Springfield Self-Defense Carbine. It’s rugged, reliable, small… um, easy to operate, comes with an integrated scope, and, um, deadly effective. It comes with ambidextrous controls and is chambered for, um, let’s see.” I hit the mag release and deftly caught the drum magazine as it dropped, then slung the gun over my shoulder, and removed a round from the magazine. It was the last round. “Chambered in… um, well, it looks like .45, but I seem to remember that it can be chambered in a number of pistol calibers. It looks like it probably holds fifty rounds, but this one only had five in it. Clearly the guys from Springfield thought that would be enough for me. For more information about this weapon and how to buy one, talk to a consultant from Springfield Armory today. I think he is set up next to the stage.”
I turned and walked off the stage as the crowd applauded. The cleanup crew was removing the corpses as the next act came out.
“Forget your lines again?” asked Sgt. Rachelle Elsea, the PR person assigned to help me with these shows.
“Yeah, you know it’s kinda hard to remember stuff like that when you’re surrounded by zombies.” I explained agitatedly.
“They had their teeth and fingernails removed. We even cleaned them up so they didn’t smell as bad. We can’t have you throwing up all over the stage like you did last time. Anyway, here is your script for the next performance. Make sure you know it this time; there won’t be any zombies up there for you to kill as you collect your thoughts.”
I took the stack of papers from her and walked further backstage to review them. This show was in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The island was pretty well secured, and there was a large American population here. Now the Provisional government wanted to get them back to U.S. soil, and back behind the war effort. Since the war bonds drive they had me doing in Seattle wasn’t much of a success (who buys war bonds anymore?), they sent the show on the road to places where Americans had started to settle down again.
During the “great fall”, thousands of Americans had migrated north to try and escape the plague. Some made it, and were allowed to stay in the relative safety of Halifax. Others came by boat. The Navy and Coast Guard managed to evacuate a decent number of people from North Eastern cities, especially children.
One of the famous accounts was how the crew of the Constitution, which is still a commissioned Navy ship with a small Navy crew, and some base personnel from the Coast Guard Yard in Boston managed to load the ship with school kids from the area and set the handful of sails they had, and sailed the ship all the way to Halifax. She’s still here; I got a tour of her before the show started, and the crew has taken immaculate care of her. Who would have thought that a warship built in 1797 would still be in fighting shape, over 200 years after she won fame in the War of 1812?
I began to read over the script, and one part in particular caught my eye. It read, “Would everyone please stand up? Now everyone over the age of 60 please sit down, everyone under the age of 18 please sit down, and everyone with conditions which preclude them from military service please sit down. Now look around. These are the people who are not doing their part for the war effort; these people are content to stand here safely while their country is fighting for its survival…”
I ran over to Sgt. Elsea. “I can’t get up there and read this!”
“You’re supposed to memorize it, not read it.”
“That’s not what I mean. Have you looked at what this says?”
“No, the Lieutenant just told me to give it to you.” she said, referring to Lt. Dimick.
“It’s a God dammed trick to guilt kids into enlisting. If the LT wants to read it, he can, but I’m not going to.”
“But that’s why we’re here; you have to read it.”
“I’m not. Tell the lieutenant I accidentally ingested zombie blood during the Springfield demonstration, and you had to put me down.”
“You can’t just walk away; you’re helping the war effort!”
“Not like this I’m not.”
“You’ll be court martialed for desertion; bes
ides, where do you think you’ll go? Everyone knows who you are, you can’t just blend in. I don’t like this assignment any more than you do, but we have to do our part.”
“They can’t court martial me, I’m a civilian.” I said as I turned and left.
Actually, it is still pretty unclear what I am. I was a civilian who managed to hole up on a farm until the military came back to the Wild East. Then I was on one of the Joint Special Operations Command Irregular Scout Teams. I rose to command IST-5; now I’m doing PR stunts. I don’t know if I’m military or not, but I’m pretty sure they would find a way to put me on trial if I left.
What does it matter? There’s no way I was going to guilt trip a bunch of kids into joining the Army. I got back to my trailer, took off my OD jacket, and pealed the Velcro patches off. I had one for Zombie Combat Command, one that said Zombie Hunter, an IST5 patch, a zombie combat tab, and my name tape on it. I left the American flag patch on the shoulder. Then I grabbed my big ALICE pack that I used as a bug out bag, and was already packed and ready to go. I walked out the door.
Not more than five minutes later, Lt. Dimick was screaming into my radio that I had to come back or he would personally shoot me for desertion. I patted the 1911A1 tucked into a concealed holster on my hip and smiled to myself. “I would like to see him try.” I thought to myself, as I turned off the radio.
I stopped at a pub by the waterfront, sat down, and pulled out my laptop. I logged onto the IST5 Facebook group, which had been inactive since the team more or less disbanded after the Fort McHenry disaster, and left a quick message. Then I walked up to bartender and asked, “Do you have any pretzels?”
He shook his head no, and I settled for a Coke that turned out to be pretty watered down.
I returned to the table where I had left my bag, and there was a small, hard bodied guy sitting there waiting for me.
“You look like you’re running away from something, mate.” He said.
Chapter 2
I met them at a field a few miles south of Halifax two days later. As soon as they got off the CH-53, I pulled their patches off of their OD jackets, which matched my own. Then I grabbed them in a bear hug.
Ethan pushed me away and asked, “What the hell is going on?”
“Yeah, why did we just pay that pilot eight ounces of gold to fly us from Maryland to Canada?” inquired William.
“We’re getting out of here,” I said to my cousins. “Grab your bags, we have to leave now. I’ll explain everything on the way.”
We piled into a Jeep I had “borrowed” and headed back towards town. Ethan was driving, I had shotgun, and William was in the back with the bags. As we pulled away, the big military helicopter lifted off. I can’t imagine how the pilot was going to explain his extra trip to his superiors, but for a half pound of precious metal, I’m sure he would find a way.
“So what have you guys been up to since I left?” I asked.
“We have been working with the river patrol boats along the Chesapeake.” Ethan replied.
“We each spent some time back west training. He went to some advanced field medic thingy, and I went to some marksmanship thingy.” William chimed in.
“I survived a helicopter crash a few weeks ago, and had to hold out until a rescue chopper showed up, but other than that, I’ve just been doing these speeches. But I’m done with that now.”
“So you finally got permission to start back up IST-5?” William asked.
“If that were the case, do you think we would have had to get smuggled into Canada?” Ethan retorted as he maneuvered the jeep around some debris on the poorly maintained road.
“I found us another job. We are going to meet a friend by the harbor, and he’ll give us the details. How’s Task Force Raven looking?”
“Not great. Supplies and manpower are scarce; it’s all being diverted up North. Something big must be going on near New York. There has been an increase in anti-American activity all around the Virginia part of the Bay, too. We’ve lost a couple of patrol craft in that area, and they probably weren’t all caused by zombies or mechanical failures.” William said as Ethan concentrated on avoiding the worst of the potholes.
“Sounds rough. How are CWO Magann and the rest of the crew?”
“They’re all doing well. They got us to the chopper, so we could get up here. The Sterett has seen better days, though. There just isn’t enough crew on her to maintain the ship. Plus, someone dropped several mortar rounds or something like that on her the other week. The ship is fine, but the fact that someone is launching artillery at a Navy destroyer is disturbing.”
“Any idea who did it?” I asked.
“If command knows, they haven’t told any of us. They aren’t going on the offensive, either; they’re pulling people back.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Yeah, that bad.”
With that somber revelation, conversation ceased as we drove through Halifax towards the waterfront bar. I ducked down, trying to remain incognito behind my sunglasses, even though it was an overcast day. Ethan, William, and I all had different dads, but they were brothers, so although our features were similar, I was confident neither of them would be mistaken for me.
Chapter 3
The three of us walked into the pub and sat at the same table I had been at the other day. After about a minute, the small, muscular guy I had met before swaggered out of the bathroom and joined us at the table. He was much shorter and thinner than any of us Pollocks, but he was clearly well built. He had a fair complexion and a boyish face, which looked at least ten years younger than his actual mid-twenties age.
“G’day mates.” He said as he approached, then, after sizing each of us up, he said, “This country has a smaller gene pool than I thought.”
“It’s because we are related. These are my cousins, Ethan and William,” I said to him, then turned and said “Ethan, William, this is Adam Soley, formerly of Her Majesty’s Special Air Service”
“Good to meet you. Had to ask about your resemblance, I was afraid all our colonies had the same kind of inbreeding as Australia.”
“Formah col’nies, gov’nah,” Ethan corrected, in his best cockney accent.
“You know, the ones that won those world wars,” William added.
“When you finally decided to join the fighting,” Adam retorted, before turning to me and adding, “Touchy bunch; let’s get down to business.”
“Right. The reason I called you guys up here is because I’m leaving, and I wanted you to come with me. I’m done with being a propaganda tool.”
“Well, you are a tool. Where are we going?” William asked.
Adam continued with the details, “I run a private security detachment which specializes in protecting ships from piracy. Because of our relative safety from zombies, England has been a major transportation hub these past couple of years. The new arsenal of democracy, if you will. However, piracy has been a major issue of late, so I’ve been on the lookout for some chaps to help me guard container ships sailing through the North Sea. The last group of chaps I sailed with got into a bit of a scrap with the locals, and are being detained, so I need a new team.”
“When do we sail?” asked Ethan.
“Later today,” I responded.
“Let’s do it,” said William.
“Ace!” said Adam, in what I assume was some sort of exclamation of excitement.
We got up to grab the bags from the jeep, and head down to the dock, when two guys in American ACU’s pushed through the door. They didn’t take notice of us sitting in a dark corner of the fairly crowded bar, and instead, walked up to the bar. The bigger of the two said to the bartender, “We are looking for someone who went AWOL a couple of days ago.”
Ethan silently moved over to the door and checked outside, then turned back to us and shook his head, indicating there were no more MPs outside. He continued to watch our backs and keep open our escape route. Adam was walking towards the bigger MP at the counter.
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my taser and handed it to William. He flipped the safety off and concealed it under his jacket, as he walked up to the counter, next to the smaller MP. I reached down to my waist and thumbed off the safety on my 1911. Better safe than sorry.
I walked up behind the two MPs, who were now showing a rather unflattering picture of me (Of all my pictures, why do they always use that one?) to the bartender.
Tapping them each on the shoulder, I said, “Excuse me; I believe you left the headlights on in your Humvee.” They looked at me dumbfounded for a second, trying to process their great good fortune. This took no short amount of time for them to do. As much respect as I have for the military, I find security personnel tend to be strong like oxen, and smart like tractors. That is to say, I don’t think either of these MPs had a double digit IQ.
