Even Zombie Killers Need a Break

by Alex McHale

  After I was dismissed I decided to mess around on the internet. It was still a few hours until we would be close enough to Baltimore to begin the mission.

  I pulled out my laptop to check my emails. Damn, another one from Mom. It was filled with the usual stuff; my baby sister was dating another soldier, the family was trying to find a way to get her medically disqualified from military service. The army was still more or less all volunteer, but there was definitely a lot of pressure to join up. My sister cannot handle pressure. That should be enough to medically disqualify her; I guess that’s why she is seeing a shrink. Dad lost more weight; I don’t know if that’s good or bad at this point, my younger brother is trying to become an officer in the chair force. Probably the best place for him if he intends to serve. I doubt he had developed the right stuff.

  I replied to the email “We’re still alive.” That’s all I ever had the patience to write. I made a mental note to inform Ethan and William of the news from home.

  The one good thing about the end of the world is there isn’t any spam any more, well I should say there aren’t any spam emails anymore. All the Nigerian princes must have been killed, and girls don’t really care how long your penis is when you’re one of the last men on earth.

  That said there is still spam. Lots of spam, in fact I bet the company that makes spam is making a killing. The army recently re-released C-Rations. Apparently MREs are too difficult to manufacture, so C-rats are making a comeback. Yuck. I used to like spam too, but after a month of eating it day-in and day-out it started getting old. We always ended up with new C-rats instead of leftover MREs. That was the only new thing we ever seemed to be issued.

  Next I did something I had not done in a very long time. I went on the missing person’s database and began filling in information in the various fields.

  Sex-female

  Race-Caucasian

  Hair-blond

  Eyes-green

  Age-20-25

  Last known location-Austin TX

  Identifying marks-scar on bridge of nose

  I had no picture of her anymore so I hoped my memory served me correctly. I started scrolling through the mug shots of dead zombies. It was disgusting, and I hated myself for doing this again, it had been months since I had last searched.

  Sometimes soldiers had time after a firefight to take pictures and upload them here. Sometimes you saw who you were looking for so you didn’t have to hold on to hope anymore. I could never find her.

  Chapter 9

  I was about a hundred pages into my missing person’s search when I heard a series of splashes. I ran up on deck. The ship was passing under the Francis Scott Key Bridge which spans the Patapsco River near where it empties into the Chesapeake Bay. It is almost directly above where Francis Scott Key watched the first battle for Fort McHenry and wrote the Star Spangled Banner. I had not seen the bridge in two years.

  On our port side, falling astern was Fort Carroll, the island fort designed by Robert E. Lee before the Civil War. On our starboard side was Sparrows Point, site of the old Bethlehem Steel Mill. It was one of the places we would be inspecting. During World War II more liberty ships had been built there than anywhere else in the world. Hopefully it could be used for that again.

  Another splash stirred me from my reminiscing. I looked up; the bow of the ship was just passing under the shadow of the bridge. The bridge was covered with the undead, looking down at the first fresh meat they had probably seen in years. Some were jumping, despite their usual aversion to water. Most hit the water harmlessly, but a few hit the deck. They landed with a bone crunching splat of congealed black goo all over the forward portion of the deck.

  Standing at the very bow of the ship a sailor stood repeatedly dropping a weighted piece of line into the water. He was sounding the channel, making sure it was deep enough for us to pass through.

  As I watched, fascinated that he could continue to perform his essential task while we were in essence being bombed by zombies, one of the falling zombies fell right on top of him, breaking his spine.

  The sailor broke the zombies fall just enough that it was able to continue to function. It bit into the paralyzed sailor then started to wander further aft. I pulled my pistol and rushed forward as the first zombie was joined by a second, the reanimated corpse of the sailor.

  I swear I cannot make this stuff up; the undead sailor must have had a bullseye on his hat because another zombie landed on him, luckily with enough force that it killed both the falling zombie and the sailor zombie. Now only the first zombie remained for me to shoot.

  As the ship continued sailing under the bridge more and more undead jumped onto the deck or into the water. I grabbed Marion, who was in the garden, a plot of potted plants (try saying that ten times fast) on top of the forward vertical launch tubes, letting Penny eat leaves off one of the plants. I pulled them back towards the superstructure as the shadow of the bridge overhead chased us and the splat, splat, splat of zombies grew nearer.

  A marine on a .50 caliber machine gun amidships opened fire on the zombies on the bridge. His rounds knocked loose a support girder that plunged towards the ship. It landed alongside with a big splash. There’s no telling how much damage it would have caused if that hit the ship.

  An alarm sounded, followed by an announcement over the ships 1MC, the ship wide PA system. “All hands clear the main deck. Set condition Z throughout the ship.”

  We ran into the forward superstructure and I grabbed the nearest sailor “How do I set condition z?”

  “Close all watertight doors.” He said

  “Z has nothing to do with zombies?” I asked.

  “No sir, it’s just the highest level of watertight integrity, condition X is the lowest.”

  Slightly dejected that there wasn’t a special condition for zombies, I dogged the quick acting watertight door behind me and began to head for the bridge. The number of splats from zombies hitting the deck was increasing in frequency. I mounted the last ladder to the bridge when the ship groaned and shuddered, throwing me off the ladder and onto the hard deck.

  The ship stopped moving forward. Marion picked me up and we continued to the bridge. Commander Owen was calmly ordering the quartermaster at the helm “Full Astern.”

  I asked “What happened?”

  He responded “We’ve run aground, I was afraid of this. The channel is normally kept dredged out so that deep drafted ships like ours can safely navigate, but it’s been two years since this harbor was dredged and the channel must have silted up. We are going to have to change our plan for getting into the harbor.”

  As he said that the ship jerked free and started to move backwards. Once we were no longer under the bridge he ordered “All stop. Drop anchor. Lieutenant Simpson, have your Marines sanitize the deck and post an anchor watch, I don’t want any of them climbing aboard… unless they are very old.” He added for my benefit.

  We went to his cabin to redraw our plan. “I had wanted to put this ship in the most central point between your objectives so our artillery would be in the best spot while your team was using the helicopter. I’m going to have to keep the ship out here unless we find a deeper section in the channel. I am going to use the helo’s dipping sonar to measure the channel depth and drop navigation beacons for us to use, assuming there is enough of a channel. In the meantime you can borrow the PBR to start your mission, and we’ll assist if possible.”

  “Understood.” Was all I could get out before we were interrupted by gunshots on deck.

  “Commander, there are so many zombies in the water now some are climbing the anchor chain.” Said Lt. Simpson as she entered the bridge.

  “Chief, give me a full pattern with the K-guns. Mister Szimanski go with the Chief, you should get a kick out of this.”

  We walked out on deck; chief walked up to one of the sailors whose rating may have been torpedoman, and said “Time for you to earn your pay, Skipper wants a full spread.”

  “Aye Aye.” He respon
ded and ran off.

  Chief Aquia walked me to the side of the ship and simply said “Watch this.”

  On each side of the ship groups of men were hoisting what looked like black 55 gallon drums onto K shaped devices mounted on the deck. Once all of them were in place an alarm sounded, followed by a loud series of popping sounds. The cans were shot about fifty yards from the ship and began to sink. After a brief time in the water they exploded with a massive muffled boom and shot towering geysers of water into the air. Within seconds, scores of zombies started floating to the surface.

  “What just happened Chief? Were those Depth Charges?” I asked.

  “Yes they were. We brought em back from retirement recently to help protect ourselves against underwater zombies. The gases released by the explosion shoots up the zombie’s tight little rigor mortised asshole and fills it up. That makes it buoyant enough to float up where we can see it.”

  The marines manned the rails all around the ship and started methodically shooting the impotent floating zombies.

  Chapter 10

  While the Seahawk helicopter hovered over the channel, using its dipping sonar as a sounding device the eight of us began to navigate the rope ladder from Sterett to the PBR below.

  Chief Aquia kept repeating “Hands on the vertical, feet on the horizontal!” as we climbed down.

  When Markus yelled “Shit you just stepped on my fingers!” at Baublitz I knew he had not been listening to the chief. He was really off his game. I was beginning to think sticking him with Marion had been a bad idea, funny, but not smart now that I needed him at a hundred percent.

  In peacetime Arleigh Burke class destroyers like Sterett each carried two rigid hulled inflatable boats. Wartime shortages, combat losses, and normal wear and tear meant that there were not nearly enough RHIBs to go around. It was necessary to have fast, armed boats assigned to the big destroyers, especially when they were performing inshore missions like Sterett.

  To fill the gap civilian boats were converted for military use and dubbed PBRs. Patrol Boat River, like the old Vietnam era craft made famous in Apocalypse Now. I could not tell what type of civilian pleasure boat this one had originally been. It was painted OD green, the cabin had been chopped off and replaced with some posts amidships over the wheel, shaded by camouflage netting. There was a twin .50 cal mounting sunk into the deck forward of the cabin, a Mark 19 grenade launcher at the stern, and an M-240 SAW mounted on each side of aft of the cabin. This particular craft had a blue stripe painted on the bow, similar to a coast guard stripe.

  Then I noticed the word Pabst was scrawled in cursive behind the blue stripe. I grinned at that. Behind me on the ladder Ethan laughed as he realized the other meaning of PBR.

  Some crew members on deck, under the watchful eye of Chief Aquia lowered the rest of our gear down to us and we pushed off from Sterett, still anchored in the channel, a short distance from Fort Carroll.

  From the bridge wing where he was monitoring flight operations Commander Owen saluted as our motor fired up and we pulled away, towards the north bank, and our first objective. Marines on deck, manning their various guns, waiting for us to call in a fire support mission, waved as we left.

  It was a short bumpy ride from the ship to Sparrows Point, our first objective. This area had been a major industrial site for most of the twentieth century, but in the years leading up to the plague it had gone through a series of bankrupted owners, and finally been fenced in and shut down for good.

  Satellite images showed very few undead in the area despite its proximity to the former major population center of Baltimore. That’s why it was our first stop; hopefully the harbor equipment that had once been used for everything from unloading iron ore to building, repairing, and scrapping large ships were left intact when the peninsula was abandoned.

  The sea was choppy and the speed at which Chief Warrant Officer Magann was driving his boat did not help any. Marion and Markus were both looking green. When Marion leaned over the side to throw up, Markus ran to the opposite side to do the same. An auspicious start.

  Besides CWO Magann at the helm impassively standing behind a pair of Oakley shades there were three other sailors on the PBR. PO1 Ramsey was at the stern gun, she looked like she was in her early teens, but when she gave an order, by god I jumped to it. PO1 Dillon was fidgeting with something concerning the motor while Baublitz looked on, and PO3 Gill sat high in the forward gun tub scanning for threats as we approached the shore.

  No threats were in evidence as we pulled up to a pier. The eight members of IST5 jumped off, covered by the crew of the PBR. As soon as we were off, CWO Magann pulled away about 100 meters to wait for our signal.

  Because we would be using the PBR as a base of operations for this mission as we criss-crossed from one side of the river to the other checking port facilities we left most our gear on the boat. We had just enough that if something went wrong and we were stranded here for a day or two we could continue the mission.

  Chapter 11

  Marion being the untested newb was taking pictures of the facilities, guarded by Ethan. I couldn’t hear the joke Ethan must have told, but judging by Marion’s insulted expression and Ethan’s own look of self satisfaction I assume it was sexist.

  William and Walls had climbed to the top of one of the dockside cranes to be our lookouts. William called down “I don’t see any walkers anywhere.”

  Bull and Markus began to search further into the overgrown harbor front part of the facility. They also reported no biters in the area.

  Baublitz and I were inspecting the dry dock and one of the cranes, well he was inspecting that; I was just standing there trying to act leaderly.

  After thirty minutes or so Baublitz gave his report. “The dry dock is in good enough shape, but none of these cranes look like they’re any good. I would need power to know for sure, but I doubt any of them will ever work again.”

  “Alright, let’s move into the steel mill and see if there’s anything there worth scavenging before we head out.”

  For those of you who have never been to a facility like this you can’t imagine how big it is. It was about 3 klicks inland from the dry dock to the steel mill (the only reason I am any good at mile to kilometer conversion is because of the number of cross country races I used to run). All we saw were old, rusty warehouses, completely empty, and other industrial type buildings. All of them were completely cleaned out of all but the biggest most immovable equipment. This wasn’t the work of looters though; all this had been done before the end of the world. The Navy wouldn’t have much use of these facilities.

  Just then Bull, who had wondered ahead on point, came tearing around a corner, sprinting at top speed.

  I knew it was only a matter of time until we ran into the undead, lately, I had almost forgotten this was the zombie apocalypse.

  The thing that followed him around the corner wasn’t a zombie though; to my surprise it was a dog, a big feral dog. I looked on in amazement as it leaped at Bull’s exposed back.

  BANG! The shot from William’s rifle shattered the silence. His round hit the beast in the center of mass and it dropped harmlessly with a howl of pain.

  The howl was answered by several more, all around us. I began to consider our options. We couldn’t flee, we were too far away to have a chance, we couldn’t call in any kind of support, the feral dogs were already too close.

  “Circle up!” I yelled as the team began to form a perimeter in what once must have been an alley between warehouses.

  Dozens of big mangy dogs appeared from the buildings, and at each end of the alley. I don’t know if they had been left behind the fence like junkyard dogs to protect the abandoned property once upon a time, or if they had sought refuge from the undead at some later date, but they seemed to be doing well. They must have been feeding on the wild squirrels and rabbits that had undergone a massive population boom in recent times since zombies couldn’t quite seem to catch them.

  The dogs eyed us from a
ll directions, baring their fangs and growling, a low rumbling growl. Then at once they charged.

  We were unaccustomed to hitting anything moving this fast and our first shots were wild. As they got closer, and we remembered we didn’t have to aim for the head we began to score hits.

  The quiet zips of Bull’s silenced MP5 on full auto and the loud booms of Markus’ shotgun mixed with the steady bangs from the rest of our carbines. As they quickly closed the distance our circle collapsed in on itself as we reflexively retreated.

  As they reached point blank range the dogs jumped at our throats. Markus skewered one on his shotgun mounted bayonet, Ethan had already drawn his pistol and was pumping out 9mm, William was still getting off measured shots, Baublitz emptied his AR into one a few feet away and drew his pistol. Walls’s .45 pistol boomed repeatedly, a dog Marion shot continued into me and knocked my carbine out of my hands. A second mutt dove on her, but Bull, who had been swinging his ax like Paul Bunyan gave the beast a powerful kick in the ribs that lifted the animal clear off of her and sent it yelping.