Year of the Dead

by Jack J. Lee

  Mark told the men with bayonets to either stab a vampire through the eye or to try to get to a vampire’s heart through its rib cage. Unlike a spear which was too thick, the bayonet was skinny enough to be able to slip between a vampire’s ribs. Because of the way the bayonet mount was designed, it was almost impossible to reach a vampire’s heart from its abdomen.

  Within minutes of meeting each other, and with hardly any conversation, Mark and Hiram formed a working officer—sergeant relationship. Before Vietnam, Hollywood presented soldiers as heroes; since then, soldiers have been mostly depicted as victims being taken advantage of by the government or as insane crazed killers. I grew up in a conservative rural family with six younger brothers. As children, we had steady diet of pre-Vietnam, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, and Gregory Peck movies. In almost every war movie of that generation, there was a heroic officer who was being helped by his right-hand man, a crusty wise sergeant. Mark and Hiram formed this relationship within minutes. Mark had only ten spears to hand out and he picked out the men who got them, but I saw that it was actually Hiram who was pointing out the men with his eyes and then Mark following his guidance. When Mark asked for volunteers to help shoot at the vampires and take up the spears, Hiram made sure the volunteers were chosen by him. Mark gave the impression that was what he wanted Hiram to do. I guess that’s how the military gets volunteers.

  Of course, they didn’t give me a spear but to my surprise, Mark handed me a Taser. It was one of those used by police officers. It was reloadable and Mark gave me three reloads. Mark told me he didn’t know what a Taser would do to a vampire but even if it immobilized one for a few seconds, that could be enough for one of the men with spears or bayonets to get a vampire through the heart or eye. Maybe Mark and Hiram weren’t such irredeemable chauvinists after all.

  Chapter 27: Mark Jones, October 9th to 10th, Year 1

  I love watching documentaries. I learned from a documentary that in the old West, mountain men would say, “He had seen the bear” if a man had fought a grizzly bear alone and survived. Over time, the meaning of this expression changed to mean a man who has been in combat or in a life-threatening position and been changed by it. As soon as I met Hiram Rockwell, I knew he had seen the bear. People who have seen the bear have a certain look. Of all the people in the ward, only Hiram and I had that look.

  If you saw Hiram Rockwell in the distance, when he wasn’t next to anyone you knew as a reference point, you would think he was a short, stocky muscular man. It wasn’t until you got closer to him that you’d realize how big he was. He was at least six-foot–four-inches tall, but he was so wide he looked stocky. He was a massive man, but that wasn’t why he got my respect.

  Do you know the secret of how dangerous men live a long time? They go out of their way not to fuck with other dangerous men. I knew immediately when I met Hiram that he wouldn’t compromise, stop, or falter if he thought he was on the side of the right. The best word for men like Hiram is righteous. He was absolutely convinced he was fighting for something that was greater than him. In combat, the best fighters are able to commit totally to their attacks or defense. If you start wondering what will happen if you fuck up, you will fuck up.

  Performance anxiety is bad enough when you are playing sports. If you get performance anxiety in combat, you don’t live very long. I’ve got good reflexes and I’m fast, but there are a lot of guys who are as quick who aren’t as good as me. What makes me a better fighter than most is that I’m unusually confident. I commit fully to any action I take; I don’t worry about messing up, failing or getting hurt. I just get the job done. Guys like Hiram, who really, truly believe God is on their side, don’t have confidence; they have absolute certainty. I knew his ability to commit to an action was one notch better than mine.

  He was obviously trained, massively strong, probably coordinated and filled with much more than his fair share of the wrath of a judgmental God. He was on a short list of men I didn’t want to fuck with. It was good to have him on my side.

  Hiram’s haircut and his habit of calling me sir made it easy to figure out he was ex-military—I figured a noncommissioned officer. Hiram knew the people in the ward; I didn’t. I followed his guidance in choosing who should get weapons. I had one last trick up my sleeve. The two cops I had seen in my surveillance video mowing down zombies hadn’t made it. A couple miles out from my house, I had found their vehicle. It was flipped over. The presence of bloody shoes and scraps of uniform proved they hadn’t survived. In the trunk of their vehicle I found a police-issue Taser X26 which could be used to shoot a vampire that was up to 30 feet away. I wanted to see what the Taser did to a vampire. When I asked Hiram who should get the Taser, he suggested Helen. I had no idea Hiram had this much respect for her. She was clearly clueless about how he felt about her. I could tell she didn’t have much respect for him. She acted like he was a Neanderthal; to be fair to her, he was, and that’s why I respected him. We needed more Neanderthals and fewer “highly-evolved” men that were useless in a fight.

  I’d figured Helen was one of those brittle overeducated woman who delighted in causing emotional damage but would become aghast if anything ever got physical. She looked like she would be top of the heap in academic and corporate warfare, where reputations or money were at stake, but completely useless in real life-and-death battle. If a guy like Hiram respected her, she had more going on than I’d initially thought. I gave her the Taser. She was clearly surprised by this.

  By midnight, most of the ward members were exhausted. Almost everyone went to sleep. Just a few of us stayed awake—Hiram, Frank, and me. We took turns looking through the thermal camera. Hiram isn’t much of a talker and Frank says even less, so not much was being said. A little after 1 a.m., it was my turn on the camera. Oh shit! I saw a hot spot on the roof. I told Hiram and Frank to get everyone up and ready. By the time all the civilians were along the walls and all six of my shooters—Jim, Frank, Ryan, Hiram, and two of his men—were in the center of the room spread out around me in a circle about twelve-feet wide, I had six hot spots on the roof. When humans are seen on a thermal camera, the hottest spots tend to be the head and the groin. Vampires were the same way.

  I put my laser pointer on the spot where a vamp’s head was. All six of the shooters shot at the same spot. Vampire bones are as hard as steel. The weakest round we had, the 5.56 x 45 mm NATO military cartridge, which was being shot by Hiram and the two other ward members, could still blow through both sides of a military helmet. Hopefully, vampire skulls weren’t stronger than military helmets. Jim was using a .300 Winchester Magnum round that could easily shoot through an inch of plate steel, and Frank and Ryan were shooting rounds that were larger and more powerful than Jim’s. Based on what I could see with the thermal camera, we were able to take four vampires down while they were still on the roof. To get through the roof, the vamps had to stay in one spot. The time it took for them to break through the roof was enough for us to take them down. Jim, Frank, and Ryan all had magazines that held just three cartridges. With one already in the chamber they got four shots off. After the first four vampires were down, they stopped firing to reload.

  Only Hiram and his two ward shooters were able to shoot when I targeted the last two vampires. The two vampires broke through the gym roof and dropped in among us. The shooters had been told that if the vamps got to the gym floor, they had to stop firing. There were too many civilians spread throughout the gym to risk additional gunfire. All the shooters were good men. They stopped shooting; no one was panicking. We had to take out the vampires using hand-to-hand. The vamps were so fast. You could barely see them. Within seconds the vamps destroyed all our halogen lamps. Then they started attacking everyone who was holding a flashlight. Men trying to pierce the vamps with bayonets or spears were being thrown twenty to thirty feet across the room. It was completely chaotic, with flashlights flickering, people screaming, vampires jumping, and human bodies being thrown.

  As people and flashlights were ta
ken down, it got less confusing. It was awesome; Helen Hansen nailed a vamp in the back with her Taser just as it was about to attack Hiram. The vamp froze in place as the electrical current went through it. I watched Hiram as he stabbed the vamp in front of him and pushed the spear in. He was so strong that you could see the spear head go all the way up through its chest and into its throat. Hiram pushed on the spear with such force that he lifted the vamp off the ground. The remaining vamp saw Hiram take out the other vamp and headed toward him. There was no way Hiram was going to be able to pull his spear out in time.

  I could see Helen frantically trying to reload her Taser but she’d never done this before and was fumbling. Other than carefully setting the thermal camera down on the ground a couple feet away from me, I hadn’t moved since the vampires had landed among us. If you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything. It was time to do something. I turned on my tactical light. This is the other thing I had salvaged from the cop car. A tactical light is an extremely strong flashlight. You can use it as a normal flashlight, or you can flash a beam that is powerful enough to blind someone temporarily. The tactical light had been mounted on a shotgun that was in the trunk with the Taser. I had no use for the shotgun but I took the light. I pointed it toward the vamp and flashed it on high while I closed my eyes and turned my head away. I didn’t want to ruin my night sight. I then turned the light on its regular flashlight setting and carefully set it on the ground, the light pointing toward the vamp.

  Chapter 28: Hiram Rockwell, October 10th, Year 1

  When the Director said there were vampires on the roof, we woke everyone up. I personally woke up Helen. I told her the coming battle was going to get chaotic and if she tried to pay attention to everything, she would get overwhelmed. I told her it took six firefights before I had stopped getting confused, so it had nothing to do with her; everyone went through this. I told her to just focus on me. Sooner or later, a vamp was going to charge me. It was her job to nail it with the Taser from behind. To do this right, she had to ignore everything else—noise, screams, movement, everything—and just focus on me. She nodded her agreement. I told her to stand with her back against the wall and stay completely still, no matter what, until she was ready to use her Taser. Predators see movement. If she was still, she would be invisible. I asked her for her flashlight. I didn’t want her to attract a vampire because of a light.

  I then went into position as a shooter in the center of the gym. When the Director lit up the roof with his laser pointer, all of us shot at his laser mark. The first four shots went off without a hitch, but on the next two, the only ones shooting were me and the other guys with AR-15s. Oh yeah, it’s been so long since I shot a civilian rifle I forgot they don’t come with larger-capacity military-style magazines; God damn gun laws. I saw two vamps break through the roof and land among us. I dropped my rifle and picked up my spear. I walked over to the wall about ten feet away from Helen. I made sure I had eye contact with her.

  Using my peripheral vision, I kept an eye on what was happening. I’ve been in the military for eight years and have been in too many firefights to count. I told Helen the truth. The first six firefights I had been in, I’d been confused but you get used to it. I could see the vamps were first targeting lights. When they took out a person, it was because that person attacked the vamp. Civilians that just tried to run or stood still were being knocked unconscious or disabled in a nonlethal way, with a broken arm or leg. Guess the vamps didn’t want to waste food. If I hadn’t had years of combat experience, I probably would have tried to save everyone, and instead would have died uselessly, saving no one. I was going to intervene when I knew I could make a difference. In combat you don’t get extra credit for good intentions or effort.

  I waited until most of the lights were destroyed. I needed to make sure I could predict what the vampire would do. I needed it to be focused on my lights and not others. I made sure to keep eye contact with Helen. She saw me nod, and she nodded back. I grasped two flashlights in my right hand and held them toward Helen, as far away as possible from my body. I turned them on. A vamp saw the lights and headed toward the flashlights. I could tell the vamp was really sensitive to the lights and had difficulty looking at them. It was partially blinded and was almost to the wall before it realized I was the one holding the flashlights and it turned toward me. Helen nailed it from behind with her Taser. I dropped the lights and held on to my spear with two hands. I crouched down until my knuckles almost touched the floor, then I rose up, throwing my entire body behind the spear as I thrust it up at an angle into a point about two inches below the vamp’s belly button. In hand-to-hand combat, you always aim at a point through your target. I visualized piercing the heart from below, going all the way through the heart, up its throat into its brain. There was surprisingly little resistance against my spear head. It was like it was designed to cut through vampire flesh. The vamp was a shish kabob on my spear.

  I heard Mark call my name. It was quiet enough now to hear him. I turned and saw the final vamp head toward me. I didn’t have time to pull out my spear. I saw Mark lift up a tactical light. I turned my head away. Even with my head turned away and my eyes closed, I could see the blast of light. I heard the vampire scream. Oh yeah, that hurt. I turned toward the Director, still holding on to my spear. I rested the vamp’s head on the ground in front of me. I raised my left foot onto its crotch and pulled out the spear in one move, pushing down on my foot and pulling back with my right arm. It had taken my entire life to find a Fed I could trust to have my back. Even if the guy dressed like that Hollywood Actor, George Dooney, or was that Cooley, whatever, I wasn’t going to let a vamp take him out.

  I looked at up at Mark. The vamp reached him. It was over.

  Chapter 29: Mark Jones, October 10th, Year 1

  As soon as I set the tactical light on the floor, I saw the vamp jump toward it. The vamp’s only concern was to smash the light. Vampires can easily jump thirty feet. They almost look like they are flying. It intended to land on the light like a cat on all fours. It wasn’t paying any attention to me; it was totally focused on the light.

  When the vamp landed I was stationed like an executioner at its side. I brought Watanabe’s sword down, using two hands. I timed the blow so that it struck at exactly the same time its hands and feet had touched the ground. There’s only one place on a vampire’s neck where it’s vulnerable to a sword blade. The medical term for this place is the occipitoatlantal joint. This is where the skull connects to the spine. The base of the skull is flat. There are no interlocking joints between the base of the skull and the first neck bone. The only thing holding these bones together are ligaments. Everywhere else, each neck bone or vertebra has interlocking joints, called facet joints, connecting one bone to another. These joints would have made it impossible for me to cut through the spine.

  I swung. For a split second, it looked like I had missed. Then the vamp’s head fell to the ground and its body collapsed. Jets of arterial blood spurted twenty to thirty feet in a fan in front of the body as it fell and then stopped.

  I walked over to the vampire and kicked its body over. Cool; the tactical light was still ok. I used my sword to cut through the left third and fourth ribs. I popped the ribs out and pulled out the vampire’s heart. I looked up and saw Hiram watching me. I waved at my vamp’s body and he went to the one he’d killed and did the same thing.

  I looked for my shooters. I saw Jim and Frank leaning over Ryan. I walked over. Ryan’s neck had been slashed through, almost to the bone. Jim was hurt; he had a slash on his abdomen but he was able to stand up on his own and walk. His shirt and the front of pants were completely soaked with blood. I took a look under his shirt. The vamp’s claws had made it all the way through his abdominal wall. I put my face up to his wound and smelled. I couldn’t smell any shit. If his intestines had been cut into, I would have been able to smell some. Jim had a fairly minor wound. After he got some stitches, he would probably be ok in a few months. If his int
estines had gotten nicked, he probably would have died. You need a full-service hospital with a working surgical room and IV antibiotics if your intestines are cut.

  I had Frank help me get Jim down on the floor, and told Frank I needed him to get his rifle to make sure all the vamps on the roof stayed down. Frank had a Winchester 70 bolt-action rifle shooting a .458 Magnum round. This gun was designed to kill elephants. Any vampire hit by this round most likely had a six-inch diameter hole in it. I got my thermal camera out and used my laser pointer to light up the vampires again. Their bodies were starting to cool but they could still be seen on the camera. This time, with their bodies staying still, I could see where the vampires were being hit. I had Frank put an extra round in each vampire’s head and heart.

  Chapter 30: Helen Hansen, October 10th, Year 1

  With all the lights out and most of the flashlights destroyed, it took a while to check out all the dead and wounded. None of the small children had been touched. A couple of the women had broken arms and legs. Only one woman was dead, Stacy Bingham. It didn’t look like she had been struck by a vampire. She had fallen somehow and hit her head with enough force to fracture her skull. She probably died instantly. Her death was just bad luck which made it even more tragic because it was so meaningless. I’ve only known Stacy for a few months, but for the past month she was my only friend. She had saved my life. There were things I wanted to say to her. I thought I would have enough time. I missed her. I couldn’t fool myself any longer that Cecilia in her co-op was still alive. She and my other friends with her had been preparing a fantasy land. None of them had any survival skills. None of them had ever fired a gun, started a fire, or spent any time in an area where there weren’t flush toilets, showers, and electrical power. Before September 11th, I’d never lost anyone I was close to. In just months, I had lost two best friends.