Winchester, not happy with the turn this room clearance had taken, took a step back and then shouted at the group.
“Wa da rey ga!” he cried, the Pashtu for stop. The group still ignored the marines and they were now only ten feet away.
Winchester raised his M4 in the air and fired a shot, hoping it would scare them off. Even this had no effect. The other three marines took a few steps back, trying to keep the distance between them but they were rapidly running out of roof. Winchester stood his ground and lowered his carbine at the chest of the closest one. He shouted for them to stop one last time and then took careful aim. The closest of the group howled and then lunged forward at the marine. He dodged to the side and smashed his carbine butt down onto the man’s head, knocking him down to the ground.
He looked down to make sure man stayed down. With a groan it lifted itself up and tried to bite into his leg. With another swing he struck the man in the neck. The bones made a sickening crunch sound and he fell back with his head at an impossible angle.
The other marines were now unable to step back any further, and with their weapons lowered they shouted at the men to back off. One of the men reached out to grab at Lewis who squeezed off three rounds into the man’s chest. The 5.56mm bullets easily ripped through the man’s chest and hurled him to the ground. The others kept moving forwards, ignoring the plight of their comrade. Even the one on the ground started to try and lift himself back up.
“Fuck this!” shouted Winchester as he fired a single round into its head, putting it down permanently.
The rest of the men opened up, firing a conservative number of bullets into the torsos of the assailants. All but one was knocked to the ground. The man still standing managed to grab at Lewis and before any of them could stop him he tried to bite into the marine’s shoulder. With a deft swing of his weapon he stuck the man in the head and then fired a dozen rounds cutting the man with a swathe of bullets from his armpit to his head. The mutilated corpse collapsed to the ground.
A crackle followed by the firm voice of Sergeant Black whispered into Winchester’s ear.
“What the fuck is going on up there?”
Back in the street Sergeant Black was trying to maintain order after the insanity of the wounded man who had tried to attack the marines. Though the man was now dead, Black was concerned at how much effort was required to actually put him down. The marines were spread out in a defensive position in the street that resembled a crescent. With the heavy weapons brought to the front they had plenty of firepower and were confident they could repel any attack if needed. The trouble was that the only movement was coming from the group heading down the street.
“We’ve hit problems. These guys are on something, they tried to bite and attack us. We had to defend ourselves,” came the crackled radio contact from Winchester on the rooftop.
Sergeant Black was worried. He’d lost contact with Mathew’s squad and the LT was proving less than useful.
“Oh, shit!” said Black.
Winchester continued, “I can see small groups coming in from the north and west. Shit, they’ve spotted us!”
Gunfire erupted out into the distance as streams of rifle bullets thudded into the building off to the right of Black. Insurgents were obviously now in the town, perhaps on the same mission as the marines, to find out what was going on and to reclaim the town.
Black shouted out to the marines.
“We’ve got insurgents approaching, keep your heads down and hold your fire!”
The marines, already in good positions, did their best to be as inconspicuous as possible whilst Black called in on the radio to the unit back at the landing zone.
“Base control, we have a situation here. Any update on Team Charlie?” he asked.
He was answered by nothing but static. He tried again but heard nothing. This wasn’t good. With no reply from Mathews and his unit, and no contact from the landing zone, he now faced the very real possibility that the other two squads had been eliminated. Either way, right now he had just one squad of twelve men plus himself to defend this street and possibly the entire town.
“Fuck!” he muttered to himself. This situation had just gone from bad to shit.
The gunfire continued as heavy rounds, probably 7.62mm AKM bullets slammed into the building. Without warning the men on the rooftop returned fire with M16s, M4 carbines and the M249 SAW. The amount of fire was impressive but how much effect they had couldn’t be seen from this position.
Sergeant Black signalled to the marines around him in the street to hold their fire until he gave the signal. Black hoped that if the insurgents were too busy focussing on attacking the building they might not spot the marines dug in around the crossroads. It was a possibility, and at the very least might give them the edge in the opening phase of any combat. He pulled out his binoculars and scanned the horizon for any sign of the enemy.
Torres crept up and tapped him, whispering quietly.
“Sarge, we’ve spotted more movement out there. See, off to the alley ahead, near the burnt out shop,” he pointed.
Black examined the area. He saw a group of half a dozen men, all armed and with the traditional head scarf covering their features. At least two of them were carrying RPG launchers and the rest had AKs of various models. He scanned the area off to the right, the group of shambling civilians were still making slow progress down the street. It made no sense. He turned back to the group in the alley, one of them was missing. He double checked, spotting the man just in time to see a puff of smoke come from the RPG launcher.
“Shit!” he called, watching the trail as the rocket blasted from left to right in front of the marines. The rocket missed the building to the right and exploded against a building nearby, sending small shards of stone into the air. Machine gun fire opened up to the left and Sergeant Black was about to shout to cease fire until he spotted the group of about a dozen armed men rush around the corner, right into the marines defending the corner.
The fireteams M249 put down an impressive rate of fire. Its 5.56mm bullets tearing through the insurgents and eliminating five or six of them in the first long burst. The survivors threw themselves behind the wrecked cars and returned fire with their AKs.
Sergeant Black raised his M4 and fired a burst, hitting one of them in the head and suppressing the others. Unfortunately the surprise attack from the left had drawn the attention of the men in the alley and they now split their fire between Black’s men in the street and the men on the rooftop of the building.
He raised his arm and gave the signal. Any of the marines not currently firing now added their own support to the combat. Several explosions rocked their positions as either RPGs or high explosive grenades landed short in front of the men. Scanning the area, Sergeant Black could see that their position was strong but they did have one big problem, their line of retreat was down the open street with just a few crashed cars for cover. To his left the fireteam continued to pour bullets into the Taliban soldiers who were now pinned down in the street. The other men spread out in the street near him sniping at any of the insurgents if they raised their heads. He signalled to Atkins to cover his right as the remaining men were all in the building, fighting from the rooftop.
One of the doors near the fireteam to the left ripped open to reveal a large group of probably a dozen civilians. Like the injured man they were covered in blood and gore and shambled out towards the marines. The men, already busy fighting to their front, hadn’t spotted the danger and over the sound of gunfire Sergeant Black couldn’t make himself heard. Tapping Torres on his shoulder the two rushed to the breach, both firing short bursts as they moved. The gunfire continued, it seemed more fighters had arrived as scores of rounds hammered into the street, forcing some of the marines to drop down low to avoid fire.
Torres and Sergeant Black managed to halt the attack of those breaking out from the room and turned their attention to forcing back the attackers in front of their hastily prepared positions in the s
treet.
Torres shouted over to the Sergeant, “What the fuck is up with these guys?”
“I don’t know, maybe there’s been a chemical or biological attack in this area.”
As he spoke, two of the killed Taliban fighters lifted themselves up, just twenty metres in front of their positions. They were badly injured from multiple bullet wounds and both were suffering from bizarre drooling of blood. The closest one opened his mouth, more blood oozed from it.
Black pulled out his Beretta M9A1 9mm automatic pistol. Without hesitating he squeezed off two rounds, the first to the head and the second to the centre of the body. The enemy combatant flew backwards, blood spraying from the exit wound at the back of his skull. Torres put half a clip into the other man, almost cutting his arm off. Amazingly he was still standing and started shambling towards them both. As Torres slammed in another clip a burst of M249 fire came down from the rooftop to the right. The rounds tore a line in front of the marines, both knocking down the man and also pinning the others down from the sustained fire.
Sergeant Black called up to Winchester who was still on the rooftop.
“Give me a SITREP,” he called.
The answer was almost immediate, “SITREP is holy shit, Sarge!”
He continued, “We checked the bodies up here, it looks like they’ve been dead for several days. Somehow these fuckers are fighting us after they die.”
The Sergeant looked down at the bodies near him, noticing several of them moving, even though they appeared to be dead. He thought back to what Private Bennett had said about them being like zombies. He looked up, spotting the man who was currently blazing away with his M249. He moved up, shouting into the man’s ear as he kept firing.
“What did you mean when you said these things were like zombies?” he shouted.
The marine continued shooting, his fire being critical in keeping down the heads of the enemy. He turned and shouted briefly.
“They look like them and when we kill them they get up and keep fighting. It’s like Night of the Living Dead out there!” he said with a grin.
Sergeant Black felt stunned. Surely not, there was no such thing. If something like this was happening, then it must be going on in other places. The images of the attacks by some kind of biological threat appeared to him.
“Oh fuck!” he called.
Looking around, their position was now being assaulted on three sides by the insurgents. Whether these things were zombies or not didn’t really matter, all he needed to know was that they were hard to kill and something was very wrong.
A scream out to his left caught his attention. One of the marines had been dragged down by three or four of the things and they were biting and clawing at the man. The soldier was badly injured yet still managed to fire off a few rounds from his pistol before succumbing to his wounds. One of his comrades tried to help him only to be hit from a burst from an insurgent’s Kalashnikov. The bullets punched into his body armour though amazingly one penetrated enough to cause serious injury. He fell down but still managed to keep shooting.
The group of civilians were now only twenty or so metres away and it was clear that they were suffering the same condition as the rest of the dead. First, they were dead, second, they were out for blood. Torres hurled a grenade into the mass, the blast scattering half a dozen of them and causing terrible injures on those that were close to the epicentre of the explosion. It didn’t stop them though. The injured men either lifted themselves back up or crawled along the ground.
“Sarge!” A voice called.
The NCO felt himself falling down as one of the marines threw him to the floor. A group of insurgents had found a way through the alleys to sneak in on the right. The marine fired a burst from his M4 before taking the full impact of the closest insurgent’s Kalashnikov in the chest. The bullets tore open his torso, killing him almost instantly. Sergeant Black, still on the floor added his own fire, managing to kill the survivors. As he turned back to the horde to the north a series of RPG rockets blasted into the marine’s defensive position, the explosions blocking his visibility completely.
Up on the rooftop Winchester and his fireteam had their hands full. Though they had the best view of the action, they were also the most exposed and had already taken two minor wounds from a nearby RPG explosion. Luckily their body armour had done its job and turned what would have been a fatal injury into something that could be patched up upon their return. It was getting too dangerous to stay on the roof. He moved to the other defenders.
“This is too hot. We need to get down to the next floor and create some loopholes. Got it?”
The others needed no encouragement. The incoming fire on the roof was now so intense the group could hardly move, let alone return fire. As the men moved down the stairs Winchester tried to contact Sergeant Black.
“Sarge, we’ve moving to the lower level, we’re taking too much fire here.”
He reached the bottom of the staircase and immediately started working on the crumbling wall to create loopholes to shoot from. Inside they could hear the noise of the battle outside.
The doorway to the fire escape ripped open to reveal an insurgent with an explosive belt around his waist. Without pausing, Lewis who was stood to the side of the door slammed his M4 carbine into the man’s chest, knocking him back outside. The enemy fighter evidently hadn’t expected to run into the men and accidentally triggered the charge as he fell. The blast was massive and tore open the side of the building and most of the floor the marines were occupying. Amazingly none were hurt but their position was now far less comfortable.
The marine rifleman next to Lewis laughed whilst watching the smoke and debris clear, “Stupid fucker!”
Winchester received more information from Sergeant Black.
“Get back here, we need to evac ASAP!” he shouted.
“Affirmative!” he answered and gave the signal to the rest of the fireteam to abandon their already compromised position. As the group rushed down the stairs they came to the damaged door and the carnage outside.
The scene of the battle was incredible. When they’d left to take the building the marines were occupying a wide perimeter across the street and their situation looked secure. Now the street was full of smoke and debris whilst tracer and bullets whistled by from almost every direction. Worse though was that it seemed a large number of the dead inhabitants were rising from the ground and moving in to encircle the marines’ defensive position. Of the original three fireteams there were now only seven marines plus Sergeant Black. In the battle five had been killed and it looked like most of the rest had sustained injuries, though so far none of them seemed fatal. As they moved out into the street they added their own fire to that of the surviving marines. Sergeant Black was flanked by Fernanda and Torres who were pinned down behind a burnt out wreck of a Toyota Corolla.
Winchester moved up to the Sergeant, shouting over the gunfire.
“We need to retreat, Sarge,” he screamed.
Sergeant Black knocked down three of the walking corpses with an accurate series of bursts from his M4 and then slammed in another magazine.
“No shit, son. Is your radio still working? Last I heard was that we have evac coming in to the LZ in fifteen minutes.”
“I’m just hitting static,” he shouted over the din of the firefight.
From all four directions the undead locals were now shambling towards them. The real problem though was the number of insurgents who were using them as cover to get closer to attack the marines. Sergeant Black needed no encouragement to leave the scene.
“Come on marines, follow me!” he shouted as he moved off to the left and into the alleyway.
The other seven followed in quick succession with Winchester covering the rear. As they rounded the first corner they ran into three of the walking corpses. Without stopping Black smashed the first one down with the butt of his M4 and then fired three short bursts into each of them. In literally three seconds they were past the b
odies and moving deeper into the back streets. An RPG whistled by, missing the unit and hitting one of the houses a short distance away. The shock of the attacker being so close forced the marines close to the walls of the buildings but they kept on moving, firing at any targets as they emerged.
They now turned left onto a long alleyway that ran parallel to the main street. From what Black remembered this route took them almost directly back to the LZ. He signalled to the marines to keep moving whilst he spoke to Torres.
“You got any power left in your phone?” he asked, expecting to hear him bitch and whine about the battery life issues once more.
Torres flipped the phone out of a pouch and held it in the shade of the wall to view the screen.
“Yeah, Sarge, I’ve got one bar of power and a signal.”
“Fuck yeah!” answered Sergeant Black.
“Call HQ, tell them they’ll be coming in hot. We need extraction from the LZ in eight minutes, no later. Got it?” he continued.
Torres nodded and hit the emergency contact the marines were all given in case of radio issues. At least one good thing had come from watching Heartbreak Ridge all those years ago!
The rest of the unit kept moving, they couldn’t afford to stop as the number of the walking corpses in the town seemed to be increasing, with the majority right behind the marines. More of the creatures appeared ahead, blocking the alley with their numbers. Just as the marines were about to change direction a three man group of insurgents appeared just feet from the walking dead. With a scream, the first was dragged down, teeth and hands tearing at his body. The other two tried to run but fire from the marines stopped them in their tracks.
The insurgent was still screaming yet the marines did nothing. Fernanda, in contrast to the others, aimed her rifle down the street and pulled the trigger but the barrel was knocked up by Winchester, the bullets blasted off harmlessly into the air.
“What the fuck!” she shouted.
Sergeant Black towered in front of them, “Fuck em! It’s time for payback, come on!”
Zombie Dawn: Outbreak Page 12
