by Hetzer, Paul
Each squad member checked in on their tactical radio communication set. Most were down to their last magazine of ammo and Nantz was halfway through his final teabag of SAW rounds. The Sergeant knew their situation was critical. It was a turkey shoot, however, the goddamned things had the advantage of numbers, and they just kept coming at you, all else be damned. He watched as the remainder of the crazies advanced across the street toward the patch of woods that the squad was concealed in.
“Fix bayonets!” he ordered for the first time in his life.
The crazies were advancing at a slower pace since they had lost sight of their quarry in the woods. They approached at a walk, seemingly un-winded by their chase. The growls and mutterings of the group of crazies carried clearly to the squad’s ears.
Heinlich told Nantz to engage the tangoes when they were ten meters from the wood line, everyone else was to conserve their ammo and engage the remaining crazies with blades as they entered the woods.
“On my mark, let’s start kicking some ass out here,” he told them over their radios. He hoped this wasn’t going to be a repeat of Custer’s last stand.
“Nantz, light ‘em up!”
The SAW loudly spurted blasts of hot jacketed lead into the crazies, knocking them down in waves. It ended all too soon when the gun ran dry.
Heinlich stood up from behind the tree. “Okay grunts, let’s start hookin’ and a jabbin’!” He led the charge into the diminished pack of crazies.
They formed a tight line as they met the amped-up creatures who, upon seeing the squad emerge from the trees, went ballistic in their rage, launching themselves forward with a snarling, animalistic drive. The odds were easily eight to one against the squad of six men and women.
Sergeant Heinlich was the first to engage with the horde of crazies in the hand-to-hand fighting. A thin, muscular man leaped at him from the curb and was airborne when the Sergeant thrust his bayonet deep into the creature’s shoulder and used its momentum to fling it past him into the trees. He brought his bayoneted rifle back to the front in a smooth, fluid motion in time to meet the next pair of crazies that were hurling themselves at him. Beside him the middle-aged Debra Benton swung her rifle upwards in a cutting motion, slicing open a nude female crazy from groin to breast. The injured woman stumbled past, her legs getting tangled in her own dangling intestines as they slipped from her gaping belly, causing her to fall to the grass howling with pain.
On both sides of him the battle raged and blood flew. They swung and stabbed with their rifles, while Nantz used his depleted squad automatic weapon as an effective club. The bodies and gore piled up around them and their arms grew exhausted. Finally, it was over when the last crazy fell with Reese’s large Cold Steel fighting knife shoved up into the skull of the crazy man’s jaw. He yanked his knife free and the creature fell backwards with blood gushing from the wound.
They stood looking at each other and breathing heavily with their shoulders sagging, arms and faces splattered and dripping with the blood of their enemies. Benton wiped the wet blood from her lips with the back of her hand, leaving a grotesque red smear across her mouth and cheek. She spat onto the ground trying to get the coppery taste out of her mouth.
“Is everyone okay?” Heinlich asked, his scraggly blond beard now red with dripping gore.
There were nods and a few ‘yeses’ while everyone fought to catch their breath.
“We kicked some ass out here,” he grunted, still breathing heavily. “Although we ain’t out of it yet, we gotta move before more of ‘em find us.” He hastily scouted a direction to take the squad with his eyes. “Let’s move out. Carroll, take point. Watch our right flank. If any more are coming that’s the direction I expect to see ‘em come from.”
“Ever forward! Hooah!” Carroll called out as he assumed point.
They moved north, their bodies on the verge of exhaustion.
The Humvee sat idling on the southeast side of a set of railroad tracks that split Staunton diagonally in two. Jeremy leaned out and took another potshot at the leading line of Loonies that were a couple of hundred yards back, relentlessly following the two through the crowded middle-class homes of yet another neighborhood. They were now almost two klicks away from where they had left the rest of the squad at the OMS Annex. The Loonies were moving fast, sprinting at nearly 25 miles per hour without any signs of tiring. Sarah had kept the vehicle about one to two hundred meters ahead of the advancing swarm, pacing their speed to keep the swarm a safe distance behind them.
“Well, sport, this is where I think we dust them and double back,” Sarah said to him, smiling her dazzling heart-melting smile at him.
“Okay.” He had such a crush on her that he would have run into the swarm empty-handed if she had asked him to.
Jeremy ducked back into the vehicle and Sarah accelerated the Humvee up the incline to the track bed. They bounced up and over the tracks and down the other side onto a parallel road. Sarah gunned the engine and the Humvee shot off up the street. She had been driving these city streets since she was sixteen and knew them well. The street went through a series of name changes and then it would dump them out onto Lee Highway. From there it was a short run to the annex. They sped away, leaving the swarm lost to sight far behind them.
They sped along through the car cluttered streets as fast as they could safely drive, sometimes driving up on the sidewalks and front yards to get around abandoned vehicles. The neighborhoods of tightly packed homes were quiet and utterly devoid of life. Over the radio they had listened to Pickeral constantly trying to raise Gypsy Hill Mobile, however, her efforts proved fruitless. From the radio traffic, it sounded as though Dogwood One was on the move again and the HEMTT was making good time to the armory with its load intact. When Shavers and McCully had driven clear of the mobs of crazies, they had stopped and ‘cleared’ the trailer of a few handfuls of the creatures that still clung to the bed of the supply truck. The Stryker and its squad of men and women seemed to have fallen off the edge of the world.
They checked in with Gypsy Hill Base and gave their location. Pickeral asked, if it was safe for them to do so, to make their way back to the shopping center and try to get eyes on the Stryker.
While Sarah and Jeremy continued to negotiate their way through the town center, driving slowly by the stoic and imposing white-granite circuit court building, they kept watch back down the road for any sign of pursuit. Sarah accelerated down a clear portion of the street with her eyes glancing into the side view mirror, and failed to see a group of crazies that stormed out of an apartment building’s doorless entryway until it was almost too late. When she spotted them sprinting toward the Humvee, she instinctively jammed her foot harder on the accelerator and spun the steering wheel sideways trying to miss the handful of creatures in front of them. The sudden turn launched Jeremy sideways and he banged into Sarah hard enough to knock her hands free of the steering wheel. Without tension on the wheel, it swung back to center and the Humvee sped diagonally across the street, loudly slamming into a parked pickup truck with enough force to send both occupants flying into the armored windshield.
Jeremy woke to hollow banging sounds that sounded like they were coming from within his own head. He felt a warm trickle of liquid coursing down his brow onto his cheek and swiped at it with the back of his hand. He felt it smear stickily across his face and wondered what it was. In addition to the banging, he heard something clambering noisily overhead and forced his eyes open. It took a moment for his vision to focus and his mind to become alert enough to remember where he was. He was lying sideways on the driver’s side of the Humvee, on top of something warm and soft. The banging continued to reverberate around the interior of the vehicle, and something heavy was moving on the roof. His thoughts coalesced grudgingly and he had trouble putting the events together within his head while his sight spun dreamily before his eyes.
How did I get over here on the driver’s seat? Why did we stop?
Movement across the front of t
he windshield caught his eye and he groggily pushed himself upright. “Where’s my rifle?” he mumbled.
With a startling suddenness, a Loony launched itself through the open passenger window when it heard his voice. It made it about halfway though and its thick hand locked around Jeremy’s calf, pulling him roughly toward it. Jeremy let out a shriek and grabbed hold of the steering wheel to keep from being pulled into those snapping teeth set within a large, white, round face of a middle-aged man’s bald head. The Loony’s other hand found his thigh and pulled itself a little further into the Humvee. Jeremy kicked at it with his free leg, connecting with his heel on its nose, flattening it in a spray of blood and snot. Still the creature held on with an iron grip, its red-rimmed eyes locking onto his as if to say ‘give it up boy’.
He kicked again while letting his hand drop down to his belt holster and nearly cried with relief when his hand closed over the cold plastic of the pistol grip. He yanked it free of the holster and extended the 9mm until the barrel was almost touching the Loony man’s lips. The creature plunged its head forward and bit down on the steel of the slide right when Jeremy squeezed the trigger. The rear of the Loony’s head mushroomed out in a red spray of gore and the thing fell limp, half in and half out of the vehicle. Jeremy kicked at it until it slid back out of the window.
The banging continued unabated around him. He sat up and assessed his situation. Five or six Loonies were outside the Humvee beating on the armored driver’s side door and window, smearing the glass with their blood-tinged spittle as they bit wildly at it with their teeth. Whatever was on the roof was pounding and thrashing relentlessly trying to get in. One of the Loonies scrambled across the Humvee’s crumpled hood, clawing across the windshield. It stopped when it saw Jeremy on the inside of the vehicle and opened its rotten-toothed mouth to utter a snarling hiss at him. Its dark filth-matted hair, gaunt face, and feral eyes gave the female a mangy, diseased look of savagery. With a startling quickness, it reared back then dove at him through the windshield. Its face hit with a crack and Jeremy watched with horror as most of its front teeth snapped off at the base and its top lip smeared sideways, splitting open like an overfilled sausage.
The creature sat back up, dazed, blood pouring from its mouth in a river of red. Jeremy forced his eyes away from the woman and dove to the passenger seat, rolling up the armored glass window. As soon as he moved the woman’s eyes refocused on him and she launched herself at the windshield again. Her forehead smashed into it with a loud hollow ‘thunk’, deforming grotesquely when it impacted the heavy glass. Immediately, her eyes went dull and she slid down, leaving a smeared trail of blood on the windshield.
Jeremy tore his gaze off of the dead Loony on the hood. He gasped when he saw Sarah lying slumped in the driver’s seat, snail trails of blood cutting paths down her pretty face.
“Sarah!” he yelled and ignoring the pain in his own head, crawled over to her side. He blotted out the sight and sound of the Loonies at her window and holstered his pistol, pulling her down between the seats, cradling her head in his lap. He said a prayer of thanks when he saw the breath rise and fall in her chest. He felt the large lump on her forehead above the hairline where a cut was seeping blood onto her porcelain-skinned face. He looked around for some type of cloth to compress her wound. Before he could spot anything, the roof hatch to the .50 cal. lifted up and dropped with a bang. Then it started to rise again. Jeremy dropped Sarah’s head and launched himself up and back, grabbing hold of the hatch. He slammed it back down and speedily dogged it tight. He let out his breath and collapsed back down onto the floor with Sarah, swiping at the blood running down his own face to keep it out of his eye.
When he looked at her again, her eyes were open and he let out a sigh of relief while she tried to focus on his battered and bloody face.
“You look awful,” she croaked. “But not as bad as I feel.”
He grinned at her with bright red blood smeared all over his face, a rather ghoulish look, she thought.
“Can you sit up?” he asked her over the loud banging and growls from the Loonies.
Sarah nodded and he helped her up into a sitting position. She peered out and saw the handful of creatures, insane with rage as they tried to beat and bite their way through the armored vehicle. Her head was still swimming and her stomach felt like it was twisted in a knot of nausea.
“I guess we’re in a bit of a pickle, aren’t we?” she asked him
He nodded again. “Looks like we messed up the Humvee pretty good.”
Sarah crawled back up onto the driver’s seat, keyed the mic for the radio, and was rewarded with a static-filled squelch.
“Gypsy Hill Base, this is Ferguson. Over.”
“Hi, Ferguson, we copy you. Are you at the plaza?”
“Uhh, negative Gypsy Hill Base. We, uhh, have a situation.” Sarah swiped at blood leaking from her forehead with the sleeve of her shirt, staining it red. Jeremy found a half-clean rag in the back and handed it to her to hold over her wound.
“Go ahead, Sarah, what’s wrong?” Charlotte asked her over the radio, concern evident in her voice.
“We’ve had an accident. I think the Humvee is messed up.”
“Copy that. Are you guys okay?” The motherly worry was apparent in the way the woman dropped the military jargon from the radio call.
“Um, we’re hurt, although not bad. We got some crazies around us, but they can’t get in.”
She hoped that was the case. Her head felt like someone was using it with an anvil and her neck and shoulders were stiff and painful from the collision with the windshield. Looking at Jeremy as he swooned slightly in his seat confirmed that he wasn’t in any better shape.
There was a pause on the radio before Charlotte came back over the net.
“We copy that. First Sergeant Shavers is here now. He wants to know your position.”
“We’re just past the circuit court on East Johnson.”
“Okay kids. Stay there and stay buttoned up. We’ll get to you as soon as we can. Those things shouldn’t be able to get in to you.” Charlotte instructed them in a comforting voice. “If the situation changes, you call us before doing anything else. Do you copy?”
“I copy Charlie, thanks. This is Ferguson, out.”
Sarah glanced over and smiled at Jeremy. “Looks like we gotta wait for the cavalry to rescue us this time.”
Unfortunately, Jeremy knew the cavalry didn’t always come to the rescue in time.
They patched each other up the best they could with the first-aid kit from the Humvee and at least got the bleeding stopped, antiseptic on, and the wounds covered with gauze. They lay back in their seats looking like survivors from a battlefield, trying to ignore the creatures that were pacing about outside the vehicle. The Loonies had stopped their insane attempts to get into the Humvee and were roaming around the two wrecked vehicles as if probing for a weakness. Every so often the creatures lunged and beat on the exterior if they spotted any movement or heard any sound from inside. They would then stand as still as statues, staring into the vehicle, breathing heavily and drooling thin strings of spittle. It was a very unsettling sight to observe.
“Oh man, I gotta go,” Sarah whispered to the boy after a few minutes.
“Go where?”
She nodded her head toward her crotch and gave him a look that said ‘you know’.
“Oh,” Jeremy said as it dawned on him what she meant.
“Can you hold it?”
Sarah shook her head. She looked out the side window for some way to get relief. An old gray-haired crazy lady with drool running down her wrinkled chin stared back at her, snapping her tooth-challenged maw like a cow chewing its cud. The few teeth that remained in her liver-colored mouth were blackened or yellowed, with bits of rotting food stuck between them. Sarah turned back away from the disgusting sight. On the roof of the Humvee the crazy was still sliding around probing for a way to get in, and Sarah wanted to shoot through the roof to stop the incessant
ly distracting noise.
Instead, she reached for the key and turned the ignition switch. They both stared at each other when the engine turned over, caught, and roared to life.
She laughed. “I’m such an idiot.” “No, you’re not. I didn’t think to try it either.” The front end was so crumpled and meshed with the front quarter panel of the large pickup truck that he couldn’t believe the engine was running.
“You’re ten, Jeremy. You don’t have a driver’s license yet. I don’t expect you to know about this stuff.” She grimaced at him. “Me on the other hand…”
Outside the crazies were riled up again, beating and clawing at the Humvee.
Sarah shifted the transmission to reverse and backed the vehicle away from the truck with a rending sound of metal on metal. They finally tore apart and she pulled clear of the wrecked truck with the crazies surrounding and clinging to the Humvee. The dead crazy woman on the hood slid off and to the ground as Sarah backed away.
“We’re outta here, dude,” she said, shifting into forward, and the vehicle lurched ahead. The crazy on the roof rolled off the back, landing hard on the ground, and then was instantly back up on its feet. Something was grinding in the Humvee’s right front end and Sarah felt a wobble in the wheel when she accelerated. As she picked up speed the wobble transformed into a shimmying vibration that transmitted up and into the steering wheel, rattling her arms and making her head hurt worse. The Humvee sped away from the crazies’ grasping hands.
