by Mark Clodi
"Except for the LAV's we were the only unit with a mounted machine gun and we were positioned, once again, to watch our asses, make sure nothing crept up on us and to keep the way to retreat open. Hah! That is a joke, we drove right into them, not knowing what they were. We let them surround us completely and then we were surprised when they rose up off the ground almost in unison to attack us. At the same time the ones got up off the ground more rushed out of all those buildings. I saw this one guy, right before it started, at the urging of his buddies, creeping towards an open doorway, a dark open doorway. He got about eight feet from it and froze, after that, as my old drill instructor would say, 'the foul excrement hit the air moving rotary device'. The guy I saw by the door fired wildly into the building while turning around and running back to his buddies, they were laughing their asses off; I saw he had pissed himself, and keyed Tompson that they zombies were gonna hit us, that was all I had time for."
"A second later the screaming started, the zombies got up off the ground and distracted us from firing at the ones rushing out of the buildings. The LAVs did well, we did fine, I thought we were going to make it. Then a good old fashion Molotov cocktail hit one of the IAVs, some of it must have gotten in through the rear deck too, got sucked into the air intakes, 'cause soon that thing was dead in the water. The men weren't dead, but they lost power and could no longer rotate the turret. The other two, and me, started moving our vehicles, instead of leaving them stationary for more accurate fire. Just in time too, 'cause more of the Russian specials came raining down into the trucks off the rooftops. They did not hit us, but a couple of them landed on the trucks where the infantry were fighting, which forced them to bail. What a choice huh? Burn to death or get eaten to death?"
Tompson did good work. No, he did great work with the machine gun, he didn't hit any friendlies, I know that, but he would walk that gun right up to them and back. The problem is, these god damned things have to be hit in the head to take them out, sometimes a shot to the spine will disable them, not always. Anyway Thompson's strategy seemed to be more along the lines of 'saw their legs off', one I approve of. I had to keep moving the hummer forward and back, to clear the zombies away from the doors. A Sanchez was busier than hell trying to keep the doors clear. He thinks he tagged one of our guys too. That would be as much my fault as his though, I was moving the vehicle and he had a limited arc of fire, and, as I said, things were bumpy with all the pock marks and bodies all over the ground."
I watched zombies rip apart guys, full body armor or not, I saw men screaming for their buddies to shoot them in the head, to kill them and not let them be ripped apart by the mob. I saw horror. In a normal battle you kill a few people and the rest get demoralized and run away, it was always the other guy who broke too, after all who can face down the fire power of the good ole' US of A? We fired and fired, the infantry fired and fired, the LAVs were fucking priceless for the amount of shots they could pour out and here was our enemy, not even trying to take cover or shoot us back. And they demoralized us. No other words for it. They. Just. Kept. Coming."
Ted got a faraway look in his eyes, then gathered himself together and continued, "I also saw such courage as to make me cry. You know that some of the guys managed to form a circle using one of the trucks as an anchor and forming up around it, three guys in the bed, keeping zombies off on that side. Two guys were needed on the underside, at first, to keep the zombies from crawling under the truck. After five minutes the zombies were piled high enough to keep anymore from crawling through and they put one of the walking wounded there to shoot any more that squirmed through. Around the outside of the circle the bodies were getting higher too, some of the zombies though, were not dumb, they were taking cover or ducking into the buildings, I pointed them out to Sanchez as I saw them, I made one pass in front of the semi-circle to try and clear out the bodies, not a good idea in a soft skinned vehicle, a couple rounds got through from the guys and their rifles and Sanchez was like to die screaming and praying when a bullet snapped through his pant leg, didn't even touch him, just went through his pant leg. My pass made things a little better; I did manage to push a bunch of bodies into lower positions, to crush them with my tires. A few minutes later the bodies were piling up again. By this time all the survivors who were going to make it were in the semi-circle formed by the infantry, there were even a couple medics doing their jobs, with IVs and everything, it was surreal. The vehicles that were not part of the fortification kept circling so as not to get bogged down or overwhelmed, the marines were firing with everything they had. Thank God for small favors, the one truck they had formed up around was full of small arms ammo. Then again that master sergeant was one smart fellow, so I doubt luck played much role in his selection of trucks to defend."
"When a zombie managed to firebomb the front of that truck I knew they were in trouble, the attacks increased in intensity, I remember a zombie jumping up on the hood with an iron bar, maybe a crowbar, he swung back and then his head disappeared when Thompson swung the gun around and let off one shot at point blank range. I was done then, wanted to bug out, fuck my friends, my fellow soldiers, it was time to go. The last of the reserve was feeling the same way, and they made a break for it after that rush. They were spearheaded by yours truly and the two remaining LAVs, some of them even made it out, including the sergeant.
"Of course, all the while the three columns were being hit too, screaming at the reserve to move up here or there, eventually I had the Major talking to me, asking where the hell the reinforcements were. I had to tell them they were dead, there were just the two LAVs, one with two flat front tires, the other with no ammo for its main gun, and us. He told us to bug out, load up who we could, then he gave the retreat codes over the radio. There was nothing much we could do. Our group survived, the LAVs drove turret reversed behind the main body of, oh, I dunno, maybe fifty guys on foot, we drove in front clearing the way and finding the path."
"There were so many of them, it took us awhile to get to a point where we could stop and pass out some of our ammo to the other two vehicles. Between them they had two spare tires to get the LAV with the flat tires rolling again and we gave them each a third of the ammo we had carried up there. By now it was getting dark, we had been fighting a running retreat for four hours. I think the only reason we did not run into another ambush is that I was choosing turns randomly, never going with the easiest looking path, never going back the way we had come from, two of the best ways to avoid ambushes. Dark was a bad thing though, we had some night vision gear, the LAVs had it built in, the infantry's was in the trucks, so they had none, and they were running out of ammo, plus they had about a dozen walking 'bitten' with them, which we were all worried about. All the seriously wounded had been left behind."
"I need to be clear about this too, we did have some contact with one of the other columns. Not me, right then I was not doing so good radio wise. Remember the zombie on the hood with his crowbar? When he was shot off he rolled over our antenna, he didn't knock it off completely, just broke it. We could still talk to the LAVs pretty well, but I could only catch a few phrases and clips of words from the other columns, the Major sounded like he was rallying them. Maybe. Not winning though, definitely not winning. The LAVs picked up more communications for awhile, then nothing." Ted gave another one of his his characteristic shrugs, "Maybe the columns antenna got knocked off then too. Anyway we looked for gun stores, finding one in north-east, liberal Denver was harder than finding fault with a playboy centerfold, in other words we didn't find one. Not even a fucking k-mart or wal-mart where we at least could maybe have gotten shotguns and small caliber weapons. We took refuge in an abandoned Barnes and Noble. There was a small fight inside; maybe ten really slow, stupid zombies were in among the books, nothing we could not handle. The vehicles circled up out front and formed the perimeter; we broke out the fuel and topped off the armored cars, and the humvee. Johnson, a decent guy, a mechanic, he got our antenna fixed again, probably with duct t
ape and spit, anyway it has been working okay for us since."
"The infantry went up on the second floor of the bookstore to bed down, the second floor had a really good view of the store front. Plus there were no windows on the sides of the building only towards the parking lot and only one way up to the second level, the escalators. The power was still on, but we just moved the elevator to the second floor and hit the emergency stop, the buzzer went off, so Johnson disconnected it. Not a bad defensive position, we weren't in a fire base situation though, we were on our own."
"The LAVs contacted the base and they told us to sit tight, they were not going to do anything unless the zombies found us and mobbed us, if we kept our heads down they said we should be alright. We heard the helicopters all night a few miles to the east and then to the south and east and then just to the south. From how the helicopters sounded it was like they were providing cover for one of the columns, so I think something got out from the fight at radio station."
"The night passed quietly for the simple reason that the enemy was preoccupied elsewhere. Of the twelve who were bit, eleven of them died and came back that night, one guy was fine. I almost felt sorry for him, you should have seen how everyone was watching him all the time! Come morning we started looking around the parking lot and checking the pockets of the few dead people we could find in the store, we came up with seven civilian vehicles, I topped them all off with some of the fuel I still had, we've got maybe twenty gallons extra left now. Seven vehicles for thirty eight men, we wanted to take on a few, but the lieutenant in the LAV overrode me, the men were not trained in the vehicles and would get in our way if the shit hit the fan, that was the official reason. Besides there was something else the Lieutenant needed us to do. The guy, the deejay, was still on the air, he was still alive and our mission had not changed. We had to go back and see if anything was left of the columns. And if the zombies were all gone, we were to see if we could get the guy out. However we could and would, break off as soon as we saw a major group of zombies, those were his orders. The rest of the group was going to head back to the base, probably by using back roads, going down Sante Fe drive and heading south through Salida along the new highway. If the base could, they might send a helicopter for the troops, otherwise they would make do with the civilian vehicles."
"When we got to the radio station we were to radio back to them what we found and bug out quick. After hearing our orders no one else wanted to ride in our hum-vee. Me and the guys didn't mind, you see 'plan B' was forming in our minds. I mean if all the zombies were here, they couldn't be where we lived. So we said, 'Sure Lieutenant, sir, we will do your reconnaissance for you, yes sir we understand why a flyby of the helicopter might not be as good as eyes on the ground, sir! You can count on us sir!' and we left. Funny thing is we did go back to the station, at least as close as we could get, there were millions of zombies there. I swear to God, millions! I saw them and got the hell out of there. Some of them were wearing fatigues and body armor now too."
"We radioed to the LAVs what we found, they have higher powered, longer ranged communications gear, ours could not make it to the base. They relayed the message and we were told to cut and run, pronto. They emphasized that we needed to leave the area quickly. Blake, the dj, saw us and he told us to get out too, we had him on the fm we stole from the Barnes and Noble. No fm radios in hum-vees, go figure. I felt so bad for that guy, I mean we were his last hope really, if an entire armored column couldn't free him, what could?"
"We were headed home, via Aurora, along the way we lost contact with the LAVs, Sanchez unplugged our GPS transponder and I turned the radio off, we were on our own to check on our families."
Listening, Juan spoke softly, "What did you find?"
Looking up with a haggard expression, Ted said sharply, "Did you see any fucking family members come in with us?" he cast his eyes down and wiped a dirty hand across his face, "I'm sorry man, I just met you, I am sorry. It was the same for all of us and all bad. The kids were the worst, I would have suicided, Sanchez would have at his house, Thompson at his, somehow, we didn't form a circle at Thompson's house and do each other. I mean my place was first, I saw my kid at the end of the block, eating....eating... I was so angry, so mad, I ran it down, it was not my kid anymore. After my house we checked on Sanchez and his kid, wife dead, kid not around, blood everywhere. Both of us hoped, maybe you know, something would be left for Thompson, anything worth living for. There wasn't, at least he and I knew for sure, Sanchez will always wonder if his kid got away or turned or didn't. We at least have closure. In Thompson's driveway we shared a moment, looked at each other and we all had 'that' look, the despair, the pain, the 'nothing worth living' for look. Sanchez asked if Thompson was Catholic, Thompson said, no and then Sanchez asked him to kill him, he couldn't do it himself as he still believed it was a mortal sin. He said he wanted to die. Thompson raised his gun, up to stomach high, Sanchez closed his eyes. I will always remember the sweat breaking out and beading on Thompson's forehead, he was going to do it, I thought. He stood that way until I pushed his rifle away and said, 'Fuck it. Lets get in the truck and go'. They didn't argue, they just got in the truck and we went. I made my way back to the highway and we headed south, where I ran into your people."
"Did you hook your radio up again?", asked Juan.
"No. Not yet, we can do it anytime. We don't want to go back. You mentioned a warehouse club? With other people? We might be able to take them to the base, get you almost there, if Thompson and Sanchez want to go with you, you could leave me with the humvee."
"Alone? We'll see, we should contact the military and see what they say, see if your friends got back okay, find out if they have any information." said Juan.
Jack chimed in, "Ain't nothing we can say to you Ted. We have mostly been pretty lucky so far, we know the world has gone to hell, but our part of it is still alive and we need to protect it. You could stay with us until you decide what to do. Or just stay with us."
"Yeah, it is getting dark now, I won't drive again tonight, even with the night vision gear. We'll stay here tonight and figure out what to do in the morning." said Ted.
"Okay, your machine gun still have bullets?", asked Jack.
"Yeah, over ten thousand rounds give or take. That is quite a lot, enough for any slow zombies that might come crawling around. I think we would do better not to be making a bunch of noise, it seems to attract them."
"Oh yeah. No I was thinking towards the more distant future, not for right now. That gun could be useful."
"Maybe. Look Jack, you are not a military man right?"
"Me? No way brother, liberal military hater all the way."
Raising his right eyebrow questioning Ted said, "Well machine guns, especially the new ones actually require a lot of maintenance, we can clean ours out and keep it firing, but the barrel is usually changed out every three thousand rounds or so. We have already fired four or five times that through it. It will still fire, it is just the accuracy is going to go down on it."
"What? Every three thousand shots? Is that possible? I mean that is like what, three minute of fire?", asked Jack.
"No, more like eight minutes or so, they fire about six hundred rounds per minute, but they use a hundred round cans of ammunition, reloading takes time, so push that to ten minutes overall use, most fire fights are over before that and you have to realize the gun is not going to be fired full out the entire time either. Nothing like what we just went through was envisioned when they designed the gun. Most enemies take cover, they don't stand there and let you mow them down. Our gun is a new E50, basically a field upgrade that makes changing the barrel a twenty to thirty second job and improves a few other aspects of the gun too. The problem is we don't have any other barrels. I know the LAV's had at least one spare each, they changed them out last night, but if we want a new gun barrel we have to head back to the base for it." said Ted.
Nodding Juan spoke again, "No need to worry about that right now. You tel
l anyone else your story?"
"No, but I didn't tell the others to keep their mouths shut either, so probably everyone knows by now, why did you want us to keep it quiet?"
"I would rather you tell them, so they have a better idea of what we are facing. I am glad you told me what happened, and Ted?" Juan asked.
"Yeah?" replied Ted, who was turning to walk away.
"I am sorry for your loss."
Ted nodded his head once, then turned and headed back down the hall towards where the main group was gathered. Thinking while he walked back to his men that maybe he should have told them the whole story...
Jack turned to Juan and Nanci after Ted had passed through the fire doors at the end of the hall, "Well what do you think?"
Juan spoke first, "About what? He has been through a lot, probably more than most of us here."
"I don't know, something is not right, he seems too...I don't know, together maybe? I mean for a man who just lost his family and seen most of his friends get slaughtered. What is keeping him going now?" asked Nanci.
"Yeah, yeah that is what I mean, Nanci. I don't think he lied about anything, I really don't. It's just...well something does not seem right. Is there any way to check up on him, maybe talk to the other guys?" said Jack.
Juan nodded his head slowly, "Well, si, if you think I should. Look Jack we took dozens of people's stories at face value at the club, heck even here at the hospital, what makes Ted different?"
"He works for the government man! He is one of them, the people who caused this problem. Not one of us."
"Nah, c'mon Jack half the boys on the block served the military, and Ted wasn't even an officer, you know? He didn't cause this."
"Yeah, sure Juan, you think only the officers get dirt on them? Special Forces guys, they ain't officers you know, most of em are just grunts, E-4s or so." said Jack naming a common low military rank.
