Gnash

by Brian Parker

  “I was wondering if you’d do me the honor of being my wife?” he asked.

  “Yes!” she nearly screamed.

  “Oh thank God! I was worried you’d say no. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t have a ring for you, yet…”

  “Hank, you hunt zombies for almost fourteen hours a day, it can wait,” she cut him off.

  “Oh man, I was so nervous just now,” he said and they both laughed at the absurdity of a member of the U.S. Army Delta being nervous about anything.

  She stopped laughing and used the back of her hand to wipe away a tear that appeared unbidden on her cheek. “I want to get married as soon as you’re ready. I don’t want to rush you, we can talk about that later. But that was a really big source of tension between Grayson and me. I mean we dated for four years, engaged for almost three, but he would never settle on a date. It drove me crazy. I’ve never even met his parents for Pete’s sake, it’s ridiculous.”

  “I want to get married as soon as we can too. I’ve given my entire life to the special operations community. I’ve never really had a serious girlfriend before you because I was always off doing…things. But I’m ready to take that next step and get married.” He grinned at her and squeezed her hand, “My parents live in Florida, as soon as we’re done here, we can go meet them.”

  She pulled him from his half-crouched position beside the bed on top of herself and kissed him. “You said you wanted a family? How many children are we talking about here, Mister?”

  “I don’t know, two or three. How many do you want?”

  “I was thinking at least three. But, we’re not getting any younger and I don’t want to be one of those parents that are too old to go out and play with our kids.”

  “So does that mean you’re not tired anymore?” he said slipping his hand under her nightshirt.

  “Oh, I’m still tired. Just not that tired…”

  ***

  19 November, 0945 hrs local

  Shelbyville Municipal Airport

  Shelbyville, Indiana

  “The reason I called this emergency meeting is that President Holmes has seen sufficient evidence to lift the quarantine for citizens living inside Indianapolis,” Major General Sir Ian Clarke said in his crisp Midlands English accent.

  He looked around the table at the five community leaders. It was the same group he’d been meeting with monthly for over six months minus two members whose areas had been overran by zombie hordes, despite his best efforts to protect the population centers.

  “I have been informed that our joint panel of government scientists has determined that the Alex-C virus is not airborne. However, it is now their concern that it may mutate before the winter months set in and have recommended to the president that you be evacuated immediately. You will have one day to pack what items your community members desire to take. However, the intent is to move your personal items to your new homes after the zombie threat is eliminated. So pack light, you will see your property in the future.

  “Starting tomorrow morning, one community will be evacuated per day. My men will arrive at the designated community at 10 o’clock in the morning to provide escort. The convoy will leave the city via Interstate 74 to the southeast.

  “We have set up a temporary camp in the town of Shelbyville that has a capacity of over four thousand beds, which should be more than enough space. Once there, we will record everyone’s information and allow them to either stay or move on to other locations if they desire. It is imperative that every person’s information is obtained for your government. There is a fund set up to provide you with housing, recoupment of your losses, employment, et cetera.

  “We will operate the camp for one week after the final community is evacuated. At that time, we will no longer provide anything except the pre-packaged MRE for the citizens who decide to stay. It is strongly recommended that everyone try to find housing elsewhere until the government aid is established.”

  He paused for dramatic effect as all eyes were riveted on him. “The order of evacuation has been determined based on our assessment of your community’s ability to defend itself for a few more days until your time to evacuate comes around. The first community will be Cedar Ridge, then the Fourth Street Commons, Arora Highlands, Three Pillars and finally Pecan Valley. What are your questions?”

  “Why do the people who are less prepared than us get to go first,” Chante asked pointing towards the Cedar Ridge representative. The general sighed and began his effort to quiet the bickering.

  ***

  21 November, 2148 hrs local

  The Awakening

  National Harbor, Maryland

  Master Sergeant Hank Dawson patted his best friend’s leg to get his attention as the helicopter banked. The only thing that kept them from falling to their deaths was their chest harnesses which were secured by straps to the floor inside the Little Bird. He held up his index finger to indicate that he’d just been told by the pilots over the intercom that they were one minute out from their designated insertion point at the National Harbor area.

  On their previous trip to the area Hank’s rebuilt Delta team 378, which consisted of himself and Sergeant First Class Jeffery Sanders plus ten other special operators, had identified the only place relatively clear of debris. Their landing zone would be along the Potomac River waterfront at the site of The Awakening, a large, multi-piece sculpture that was designed to resemble a giant climbing its way out of the ground. The statue was creepy as hell when it was just a regular tourist stop, but now that most of the buildings were a least partially collapsed from the nuclear detonation and there were fucking zombies running around, the place was downright scary.

  Jeff gave Hank the thumbs up sign and slapped up on the magazine of his SCAR to ensure it was seated properly. For this mission, he would be on the ground with the rest of the team instead of being located in a stationary sniper overwatch position. The teams had learned the hard way that you couldn’t leave one or two men by themselves in a hide because the zombies invariably found them. Plus, he did have his Lapua Magnum .338 sniper rifle slung across his back, so he could provide long-range coverage if the need arose.

  Hank looked aft of the helicopter he was riding in and saw the other two Little Birds following in formation behind them. Each helo carried four of his teammates, plus two pilots from the 160 SOAR[33]. His stomach lurched into his throat as the birds flared quickly and set down. He hit the quick disconnect button on the front of his chest harness and it fell away so he could jump the moment the skids hit the pavement.

  Before the four men were even off the bird, it was lifting away again to provide immediate close air support. They ran out at a low crouch to secure the area as the other two helos came in behind them and dropped off their passengers. Once all twelve men were on the ground, Hank rallied his men around him and they moved out towards their first objective, the Fleet Parking Garage.

  The layout of the National Harbor was a planning nightmare, but in an effort to apply some type of strategy to their movement to contact, their plan centered around the three main parking structures, the Fleet Garage, Mariner Garage and St. George Garage. They would treat each garage as a separate objective to clear and then clear the buildings immediately surrounding each one and then move on to the next objective.

  It was an imperfect plan due to the several large hotels and buildings that they would initially pass to clear the garages and that they didn’t have enough personnel to secure anything after they’d cleared the area and moved on, but it was all that they could do with twelve men. One of the only saving graces for the entire scenario was that the nuclear blast had occurred prior to the bulk of the Harbor’s workforce and customer arrival for the day, which minimized the cars in the garages and on what was left of the streets.

  They bounded up slowly due to the debris and lack of depth perception in their night vision goggles. The newer PNVG technology and the operators’ years of experience eased the disorient
ation, but it was still difficult with so much detritus littering the ground. In addition, their thermal sights were next to useless against the zombies since they gave off so little body heat. Still, Hank ordered his men to periodically switch to thermal in case there were survivors living in the wreckage.

  Over the months that they’d been performing these operations, his team had only encountered a few survivors, but some of the other teams found them all the time, it just depended on where they were operating. Even after almost half a year, there were humans living in the radiation zone. He never really followed up with anyone about it since it was outside of his lane, but he thought that most of the survivors were goners anyways since they’d been living in the fallout areas so long. But hey, modern medicine could perform miracles, they’ve even managed to produce no-shit zombies, so maybe we could beat cancer, he chuckled to himself.

  The first of the garages loomed over him as they walked slowly forward. He keyed his throat mike and ordered the first men inside. Once he entered the structure, it became clear to him that they’d be able to sweep the parking structures pretty quickly. Even though there were multiple levels and the stairwells would need to be cleared, the almost total lack of vehicles made the job relatively simple.

  When they got to the roof parking level of the first garage, Jeff unslung his sniper rifle and ran to the railing to scan for targets out in the jumbled mess. After a few minutes he shook his head and held up his semi-closed hand to indicate that he didn’t see anything. Hank called his higher headquarters to inform them that the first structure was clear and they had negative contact so far.

  The group trudged down the ramp and returned to clear the building they’d bypassed in order to make it to their first objective. As the team was retracing there steps Hank second-guessed himself. They should have cleared these two smaller buildings en route, then hit the Fleet Garage. It couldn’t be helped now, but inwardly he fumed at his mistake. He’d seen the flaw in the plan when they were doing the map recons, but he’d let the staff officer in charge of the planning make the decision.

  He should have altered the plan as the lead operator on site, something that he would have done without even thinking prior to the last several months. As his guys stacked up on the building’s entryway he thought about how his instincts were slipping. He wasn’t as sharp as he should have been, especially considering that they were on the ground hunting Type Ones. They were sneaky little bastards. If he didn’t get his head in the game, he’d end up losing it. So much for his plans to marry Emory and retire, he’d be just another name in her database. He rubbed his eyes wearily and stood to enter the building.

  ***

  Hank’s team had been systematically clearing the structures in the National Harbor for almost seven hours. It was nearing 5am and they hadn’t seen any indications that there were more zombies hanging around besides the three they killed a week ago. Everyone needed this mission to not result in a dry hole[34]. For the good of the country and for their personal sanity, they needed to find and kill these things. The initial infections began with the Type Ones and they were the ones who planned and devised the mass Type Two zombie operations against humanity, like the infiltration of the force to attack the refugee camps that almost got Emory killed. They were the ones who could sneak past the ring of military surrounding the city and ultimately end up infecting the whole country. Before this could ever hope to end, they had to eliminate all of the Type Ones.

  The hotels had proven especially difficult. They were fairly large hotels with several hundred rooms each and every room, stairwell, closet and airshaft had to be cleared. The lessons learned file on the Type Ones was small, but what was in there is that they are extremely deceptive and could hide just about anywhere. If there’d been more Special Operations units to go around or if they’d had positive ID of more Type Ones in the area, then they might have gotten more troops and been able to speed things up. As it was, however, they were slowly and methodically clearing every building floor by floor.

  They had cleared their three objectives and just finished with the hotel on the waterfront near the Awakening statue that they’d bypassed initially. They only had the big-ass hotel and convention center to the south to clear. There were over 2,000 rooms in that bad boy, then once they cleared that, they’d be able to claim this small area was clear. Hank still didn’t know what they were supposed to do to ensure it stayed clear though, since the National Harbor was just carved out of the surrounding area along the Potomac. Hell, there might be hundreds of zombies in any of the five large forested park areas within two miles of the Harbor, let alone the rest of Maryland surrounding the area.

  He’d never been to the National Harbor before the blast, but the convention center must have been stunning when it was whole. Now, however, the building was a terrible mess. The curved glass roof and outward-facing walls of the atrium and reception areas were shattered and shards of glass protruded from every surface. The nuclear blast had devastated almost every window for miles beyond the city and structures that were mostly glass, like the convention center, didn’t fare well at all.

  He gathered his guys around himself. “Alright, we’ve had a long night. This is the last structure we have to clear, so keep your wits about you. I know that I’m starting to slip a little, see things that aren’t there, and I’ve been doing this a long time,” he said as he pointedly looked at the two newly-minted Special Operators that command had saddled them with. “We’ve got a little over 2,000 guest and meeting rooms to clear, eighteen floors total. If we run into any of these fucking zombies, they won’t care if you’re tired or hungry or sick of being in JSLIST suits[35] and radiation masks. Keep your heads on a swivel and don’t get dead. Got it?” Several of the men wearily nodded agreement, the rest just chugged water through their masks’ straw and checked their ammo. Then they began the tricky task of picking their way over the glass and rubble as they moved towards the convention center.

  Hank couldn’t place it, but he felt like there was something out of place. His instincts about his surroundings had saved him on several missions in the past. Yemen, Djibouti, Mali. Those were a few of the places he’d been where the U.S. wasn’t in open conflict and the Special Operations community had played a deadly game of cat and mouse with terrorists over the years. Even in Afghanistan, he’d called off his team’s route through a canyon because it didn’t feel right and he had a drone diverted to their position. Less than a klick away, there were 60 enemy fighters waiting for them. They’d been able to call in airstrikes and wipe them out, but if the hair on the back of his neck hadn’t stood up when it did, his team probably would have died in that valley. Now was one of those times. Something wasn’t right.

  “Hold up,” he said over the team’s radio frequency. “Take cover, something’s not right.”

  The men moved fluidly from their standard patrolling formation to positions behind cover. It was by sheer habit that they got behind obstacles that were between themselves and the convention center, the damn zombies didn’t have any weapons that required them to get behind cover. Some of the men sighted down their weapons while others pulled miniature binoculars out of their pocket and scanned the structure.

  “What’s the deal ole buddy?” Jeff asked him from a few feet away.

  “Don’t know. Something’s up though. I just have one of my feelings.” Jeff nodded, he’d been saved by Hank’s feelings before.

  “I got one. A Primary, up in the rafter, about 2 o’clock,” Bobby, one of the newer Staff Sergeants, said.

  Hank looked through his scope. There was a Type One standing behind a collapsed wall with just part of its head exposed as it peeked around the corner at them. The damn thing nearly blended in with the convention center’s tan exterior.

  “Jesus, there’s another one on the opposite side,” Jeff said as he peered through the 32X’s magnification scope on his Lapua Magnum. “Looks like they’re waiting for us.”

  “Everybody, pick a spo
t to defend from in case they have a group of Type Twos with them. I have to call this up to Higher.”

  He called the command post and informed them of what they were seeing. “Roger, understand you Delta Three Seven Eight,” the operations officer on the radio told him. “Go ahead and continue mission. We don’t have any assets available to assist you at this time. It is imperative that you eliminate all Type Ones that you encounter.”

  “Are you kidding me, sir? This makes five Primaries that we’ve seen at this location. We might have a large group of them here. We need, at a minimum, gunships patrolling the perimeter.”

  “Acknowledge your concerns Delta Three Seven Eight. However, all other assets are assisting the outer perimeter. There’s a pretty big fight going on right now and we can’t allow an entire Army division to get overran and let the Zs out of the quarantine zone. Continue your mission.”

  “Yeah, roger. Three Seven Eight out,” he sighed as he switched his radio from transmit to monitor on the command frequency. “Like always, we’re on our own boys,” he said over the team’s internal radio net. “Jeff, I want you to take out the one on the right, Bobby, you hit number two on the left. On my mark.”

  He waited for his two snipers to get lined up for their shots then gave the order. Jeff fired a split second before the younger soldier did, but both found their marks. Through his field binoculars Hank saw the head of the Type One on the right side explode and he swung the binos to the left in time to see the other creature’s limp body fall the forty feet from the rafters.

  “Good job guys. Let’s take this slow. Jeff and Bobby, stay here and provide overwatch until I call you. Dan, stay here with them and cover their rear so they don’t get snuck up on while they’re scanning for targets.”

  The sun slowly began to rise to the East as the nine men from Delta 378 bounded forward towards the building. The long shadows created by the dawn light became areas of concern that could potentially hide the enemy now that the men had to remove their PNVGs to see in the daylight. They bounded to within 100 meters of the structure with no further contact so Hank called up his trail element to get into position where he was crouched behind a few planters. Once the three men were set, Hank bounded his team forward.