“Not much we can do in the dark, but I do think we should keep the cows in the back pasture, away from the road for a while. We could also reinforce the fencing up there by the main road so if more do come through here, we can keep them moving on, straight down the road and into town.” Tyler agreed walking closer to the fence to take a look at the dead.
“They’re going to keep coming, aren’t they?” Jessica slipped her left arm around mine.
“I’m afraid so. I wish I had something else I could tell you, but this may be the world we live in now.”
“It was horrible out there today. Those things were eating people like it was a delicacy. I had to shoot humans.”
Her body gave a shudder as she inched closer to me.
“Don’t even get me started on the man in the gun shop who thought he could take advantage of us because we were women with an unlimited credit card.”
“You haven’t acted impulsively, even when the guys here just snuck up on you. How are you managing to keep so cool?”
I wanted to keep the pride I felt to myself, but so far, Jessica was doing better than many privates that showed up at basic training.
“Really? I’m a mom. If I panicked at every sound or freaked out because something is out of the norm, I’d be in hysterics all the time. Although, I have to say these zombie humans are not normal.”
“Can you two lovebirds take it somewhere else? I’m trying to focus all my non-mom energy on keeping us safe and you’re distracting me.”
“Ignore him, Jessica. He’s just pissed that you chose this fine male specimen that thinks mom radar is better than someone who’s just a know-it-all.”
“He’s right. I should head back to the house in case the kids or Trish heard anything and decide to investigate.”
Lips brushed against my cheek, and then she was gone.
“Sorry, boss. Didn’t mean to cockblock you.” Sam’s voice held not one drop of sincerity.
Tyler returned before we could trade more insults.
“The ones out there aren’t moving anymore, so they won’t attract others.”
“Of course, they’re not moving. I shot’em.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Tyler countered. “They were dead before you shot them, and yet they were still walking around and moaning as if their lives depended on it.”
I could sense this was going to be a new contest between equally qualified military guys, so I excused myself.
“Listen, whatever you two have to tell yourselves to be able to sleep tomorrow, but I’ve been up all day. Since my one moment of relaxation has been taken away, I’m out.”
Leaving them behind, I made sure to walk away from the house, even though the urge to just go knock on the door and see if anyone had been disturbed was very strong.
My bed was calling my name. One more night alone in it was going to be sheer torture, but I could do it. An exit plan was going to be very difficult depending on how things went with Jim in the morning. We were going to need to check in with my mom and make sure that there was a way into town that didn’t involve going through the main entrance.
Solutions to a myriad of problems flashed through my mind as I finally drifted off into a restless sleep.
Patti
One week. That’s how long I’d been clearing out the stupid dead rich people. I’d never had to shoot so many targets wearing only a bikini.
They were dead no matter how rich, famous, or good looking they had once been. Even some of the zombies were good looking, and I couldn’t begin to imagine how hot they’d been before they became infected.
An entire area of people who were trying to tell us, the ones with the guns, how to protect them from these things.
Now, it was time for our unit to find a way to clear out two bridges so that we could get to the hospital just across the way. The best way to take out that many infected was to use a rocket launcher or flamethrower, but it might only set these guys on fire.
Making it to the hospitals had become an urgent situation last night when Len had seen lights on the upper two floors of the hospital that hadn’t been there the day before.
It didn’t make any sense unless there were survivors holding out against the sick who had become infected.
“Corporal, how are we going to clear out that group and make it inside? There must be over 1000 dead wandering outside, and probably that many more just waiting for us to let them out.”
“Steve, you’re pretty good with a rifle. Do you think that you can take out those infected from this distance?”
It looked to be at least a mile, but that was just a guess.
“With a scope, sure thing. If we can take out a chunk of them without going over there, I can get on top of one of those trucks they’ve used as a barricade to take out more, closer to the hospital.”
Steve walked over to the supply vehicle and pulled out three sniper rifles and handed two over to Len and Tom.
“Here, let’s see if we can take these guys out, but you other guys will have to keep us covered because we won’t be able to hear while we’re lighting these ZITs up.”
The boys had fun until the barrels of their rifles got too hot to continue shooting. The noise had stirred the horde up, but they hadn’t made it across the river yet.
From the looks of things, the National Guard had put a fence up to keep people, or the infected, from the edge of the water so that we didn’t suddenly have a river full of floating undead.
The only thing my team had managed to accomplish was a huge pile of dead bodies that now made it impossible to hit anything behind it.
“Hey, Corporal. I’m not having any trouble hitting the infected, but those of us that died over there are a bit more difficult because they have a lot of armor on, and the helmets aren’t helping us with the head shots. We should cross the bridge and see if we can get some higher ground with an advantage to help clear a path.”
I shook my head at Tom’s words. “No, it’s too close to dark now. We’ll go back to where we’ve setup camp and come back in the daylight. I don’t think we’ll be able to leave our position if we’re on top of those vehicles. It may even cause the horde to work together and push the vehicles to this side. Right now, they can’t smell or hear us except for a general direction of sounds, so we have the upper hand.”
“Can we burn them up? Those that are already dead-dead?” Len asked, rubbing his hands together eagerly.
“That might take care of the bodies, but the light will draw others when it’s dark. Come first light, you can fire up as many extras that are drawn to the flames before we head in closer. It should also keep them distracted while we do.” I sighed as the possibilities continued to pile up. The people in the hospital might not have time for us to find safe options to rescue them.
“Sleep. We need to be rested or we’ll make stupid mistakes that’ll get us dead. I really want to save people, but not at the risk of my team dying. We’ve already learned that from the zombie dog.”
Although I heard a few grumbles from the boys on my team, because they liked action, they packed up the rifles. There was no way to police our shells, and under normal circumstances, I’d have been all over them for leaving that amount of brass, but there were more important things to worry about at the moment.
The sun was almost hidden behind the ridge. “Move it, guys. We don’t want to get caught out here.”
I took off at a slow run toward the supply vehicle so we could head to the house we had been staying at that was surrounded by huge iron fences.
The gate was closed, but the other guys were watching for us and manually opened the gate as we approached.
I got out to check in with those on watch, while Tom drove the truck up next to the house for quick access in case things got sticky overnight.
“How did things go while we were gone?”
“Um, we took out a few walking zombies, but nothing else for the past several hours.”
“Good, I’l
l take one of the first shifts. Draw names and let me know who else gets the short draw.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Rick saluted sloppily, leaving me in peace for a few precious moments.
That was the thing I hated most about this zombie apocalypse thing, the lack of privacy. I hadn’t had any personal time in weeks, and normally the team had a little down time from the constant adrenaline rush that came from being on guard all the time.
If this continued, there were going to be shorter tempers, and I just might be stuck with six guys I had no interest in repopulating the world with, no matter how dire things got.
I could’ve slept all day but killing ZITs with fire had all of us excited. I mean, I hadn’t joined the military to lead a boring life, so playing with fire was a big to-do on my list.
A few energy bars later and all of us were geared up and ready to leave, as a light pink tinted the sky, bringing in a new day.
Instead of the guys closing the gate after the truck, they came through and closed it, making sure that only living things would find a way inside.
“How do things look?” I asked through the flap between the back and the driver’s seat.
“The ZITs have pressed against all the bodies from yesterday, so when we send a flare over, it should take a few extras with all the fire.”
“Or we could have fiery ZITs running around, catching more things on fire. The blind leading the blind, and they might set more things on fire than we want since there isn’t a way to put out extra fires from here.” Joe painted a humorous, if not untrue situation.
“Steve, are you in position to fire?”
“Corporal, you’re going to let him have all the fun? That’s no fair,” Len whined as he took out a rifle with a scope attached.
“Len, I don’t think you have to worry about not having fun. There’ll be plenty of chances to use the rocket launcher.”
“Let’s burn some shit up.” Steve braced his feet and propped the launcher on his shoulder.
“Clear?” Steve called out, checking the proximity of people around the back-blast area.
“All good,” I replied as everyone stood to the side.
Earplugs had cut down on some of the noise, but it was still loud, and after three shots, my ears were beginning to ring.
Steve lowered the smoking launcher while the others started taking out the ZITs drawn to the now severed, burning flesh of the dead.
I looked around to make sure that our little fire show hadn’t brought any unwanted attention to us. While we were the military assigned here, that didn’t mean that there weren’t others with guns who would like to relieve us of our weapons.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except for a few extra ZITs that were moving in behind us.
I pulled my pistol out, and four rounds later, we were in the clear again.
“Do you think we can make it over to the trucks and finish clearing a path to the hospital?” Tom passed the binoculars to me for a look at what we’d accomplished.
“There’s only one way to find out.” I gestured to the truck. “Joe, pull the truck over the bridge, but back it in so that we can leave in a hurry.”
We hoofed it over the bridge and started climbing up the truck and bus.
The sight that greeted us was worse than anyone could have imagined. We hadn’t even made a dent in the infected dead in the area. They were so packed against the vehicles they couldn’t even move.
“Hey, Corporal!” Joe yelled up at me, causing all the ZITs below us to turn and look at us, causing the two rows of overturned vehicles to rock.
“Shh…” I yelled in a whispered hush. “Throw those grenades into the crowd past the bridge. We need to be able to keep the bridge stable.”
While the grenades were going off, I radioed Joe, who was the only one left on the ground. “I need you to stay here with the truck. I’m going to have Steve stay up here on the trucks and pick off anything that we can’t take care of on the ground.”
The grenades had cleared out some of the packed space, but there were still too many for us to get down off the trucks just yet.
“We need to thin these out some more. What do we have in terms of a larger explosive?”
“Other than dropping a bomb on the entire area, not much, except for those three special weapons they handed out when we left the temporary base.” Len gestured back to the supply truck where there were three flamethrowers stashed.
“Guess our bosses aren’t worried about the rights of a few infected dead people.” Steve grinned, finding his statement humorous.
“If society starts up again, that will be one of the first activist groups to look out for, ‘The Zombie Rights Group’ where we won’t be able to use bullets or fire on the dead because it won’t be humane,” Len chimed in.
“Well then, let’s take out as many of these ZITs as we can so that there won’t be any for the activists to worry about in the future,” I shot back as the crowd below started to come back at the sound of our voices.
I grabbed one of the flamethrowers and started aiming into the crowd at our feet.
The skin melted off the dead as the fiery heat did its job. The other ZITs were drawn to the flame, and when the other two got started, we began to make a dent in the mass of bodies.
After about ten minutes, we needed to let things cool down or we’d never be able to walk across the bridge.
“Steve, throw a couple of grenades to make them wander away from this area.”
I sank down on the metal roof that was warm in the early spring air, but it wasn’t completely unbearable yet. I needed to cool down from the heat and make sure that all my protective gear was in the correct place around my calves so that nothing could bite through.
“Go ahead and put the armplates on. When the area clears out and cools down a little, we’ll go down and burn these guys out of our way.”
The explosions had almost settled when the four of us dropped down from the roof, landing with a jarring thud. The crunch of still smoking bones and squishing flesh were the first impressions that washed over me as I faced my first zombie horde. This was nothing like the video games everyone played, fighting zombies in a fictional world. These really were dead people with flesh hanging from their bodies because of the grenades we’d thrown at them.
Thankfully, we could put these dead people out of their misery as we started the flames, clearing a path toward the doors of the hospital.
Rick was taking shots at those getting too close as we moved forward.
Only about a hundred feet remained between us and the hospital door when a shift occurred in the mass of dead. They seemed to surge in from the sides, but the rocket launcher roared above us, taking out a section on each side. Rick finished up the extras as we ran to the hospital doors. They slid open, letting out those trapped in-between the inner and outer doors.
The flamethrowers were too large for the five ZITs that lumbered toward us. We pulled our smaller guns out, pointing them toward the problem coming at us.
“Tom and Len, you take the sides. Rick, watch our backs,” I whispered, dropping those in front of us.
Those that had been stuck behind the inner doors came through when the five bodies had moved toward us. Now we had at least twenty or more coming through the doors since they were opened, and our window of relief was closing in as the others from the side masses made our small path disappear behind us.
“Everyone inside.” Thankfully, the guys didn’t second-guess my decision as we shot into the group holding the doors open.
I stepped over the bodies that still seemed to twitch. Once inside the small opening, I shot those in the doorway, pushing them backward into the others trying to come through. I reached up and turned the emergency switch off before another set could come through.
The guys made it in and did the same thing to the outside door.
“Should we leave the flamethrowers here so we don’t have to carry them everywhere?” Tom asked, making a good recommen
dation.
“What if we have to leave by another exit and can’t come back to this door? Or the ZITs manage to make it through the glass doors? Then we’re up a creek. Either way is not a good option. I’ll leave it up to majority rules, though. Keep them here or take them with us?”
Three hands went up for leaving them. I couldn’t really blame them because they were so heavy. We propped them in the inner corner and took up a stance, ready to dive in when the doors were opened.
“All right open her up,” I ordered Tom.
The dead had tripped over the others that I’d shot and were reaching up for help. A round to the head made it safe for us to walk over them.
There weren’t as many since most of them had walked out the doors, but our gunfire had brought some of the other moaning dead from rooms and other hallways.
Tom shut the doors behind us so that hopefully we’d have a safe place to retreat to that wasn’t crawling with ZITs.
Most of the lights were off, and the only emergency lighting, along with the exit lights, were still working. There were some rooms that had a lot of light coming out into the hallway because the blinds were open, allowing some extra light to filter through.
I had expected the halls to be filled with infected and nurses, but there were a manageable number—at the moment.
“It would be faster to split up, but I think we should clear it like we would in a very hostile environment. Two in front and two to sweep a room should help us catch any surprises,” I ordered, motioning which teams of two and taking the lead.
Rick and Tom stayed in the hall to pick off the stragglers that were coming to the party. Len and I swept into a room, then the bathroom, to make sure there weren’t any trapped people in there. As we came out of the room, they peeled off into the next one and we stood guard.
At the end of the hall, we turned around and did the other two ER halls in the same fashion, leaving the main hall for last because it went into the main hospital.
Against Zombies Box Set, Vol. 1 | Books 1-4 Page 20
