Rolling Hunger

by R W Krpoun

  JD had arranged the Associates in a line anchored on the brick restroom building with Bear and himself behind the line as an immediate reserve, Brick and Chip as an emergency reserve while watching their rear, and Dyson on overwatch.

  Most zeds generally displayed some aspects of a herd mentality, but in a fight they operated as individuals. As he had expected the line of Gnomes gave way under the initial contact, but stiffened and stood their ground after being pushed back a few feet. In a fair fight thirty to six would have been a slaughter on the smaller group’s behalf, but the zombies could not bring their numbers to bear in any sort of effective manner. So long as the line held it was one man, one zombie repeated over and over.

  A larger group would have flanked them, but between the building anchoring their line and the fact that the zeds came around the corner in a trailing group kept that from being possible here, although Bear hammered down a couple zombies who had swung wide.

  In the fighting line it was hard work; neither the shield nor the hammer were really heavy, but the zombies attacked with all their strength and while their attacks were easily deflected it felt like the shield was being used as a punching bag. To bring the hammer’s beak into proper play meant a solid overhead swing with the user’s weight behind it, and then an inevitable heavy yank on the arm as the zed collapsed, dragging the embedded weapon with it. To extract the weapon the user pushed forward against the resistance of the cranial bone (and the grating of steel on bare bone created a vibration that ran up the shift and seemed to settle in the wielder’s marrow) and then wrenched back and up, the weapon coming free with a disgusting noise and worse effect on the skull, although a smart operator wasn’t watching his hammer but rather was looking for the next zombie closing in.

  All this was done while keeping a watch with one’s peripheral vision on the Gnomes to the left and right to ensure that a gap wasn’t forming or a withdrawal wasn’t leaving the user exposed. From the first day they joined the corporation the senior Gnomes had been preaching that only organization stopped zombies; let a formation fail and everyone died.

  It was an eerily quiet battle: the zombies hissed and moaned, hands battered at shields with powerful but clumsy strokes, and the Gnomes grunted with the effort of the swing and the wrench of the withdrawal. The worst was the sound of steel punching through bone, and the wet noise of the weapons being pulled free. JD wished that the zombies would howl or scream or make any noise to drown out that terrible chorus of steel and skull interacting.

  “That’s the last of them. Anyone hurt? OK, catch your breath, then decontaminate your persons, equipment and weapons.” Glancing back the promoter saw that Chip and Brick had put down three at their position at the other corner and was struck by a touch of unease: zeds were supposed to be nearly mindless, yet all too often the Gnomes saw a few behaving with some degree of cunning, such as going around the building by a different route. It wasn’t Rommel-style tactical brilliance, but it didn’t seem completely instinctive, either. Zombies were by their very nature supposed to be just shambling things. Not for the first time JD wondered just how much of their original thought processes were still available to the infected.

  “Dyson, how does it look?”

  “Got a holdout or two in the wrecks, otherwise clear.”

  That was another thing that bothered JD: there always seems to be a couple zeds in any group who hung back, aware but not getting involved, lurking where visibility or access was limited so you had to go in and sort them out the hard way. “Dyson, light up any zed you can get a clear shot at, and tell the family to stay put for now. Everybody good? OK, transition to firearms.” Keying up his mike he advised Marv that the site was generally secure.

  “OK, let’s move to the front of the building. Three man teams, watch your interval and above all watch your backstop because its real easy to shoot a buddy or a bystander if you’re careless. Don’t shoot unless you’re sure it’s a zed and you know where your buddies are. One in three sticks with melee.”

  The associates were scrubbing away fluid splatter with handfuls of grass and the bolder souls amongst them were essaying a joke to show their nerve. Sauron had christened Charles Hubbard as Upchuck, and the pale, sweating Gnome simply nodded numbly as he scoured his boots with dirt.

  Bear eyed the mounded corpses that marked the line of battle and shook his head; it was easy to get overconfident in times like this. Against armed and organized men the zombies always came off second best, even in melee, unless they could bring surprise or overwhelming numbers to bear. The danger lay when they got close unobserved, caught you by surprise, or just came in hordes. The biker had gotten too close to disaster too many times to ever feel complacent.

  Marv was why he had hung around, Marv and the coming so close to dying. At first he had thought that the Ranger was just some less-than-bright small-town nobody who joined because it was that or working construction. That opinion had changed pretty briskly, starting when the Ranger went up against the first FASA guys they had come across, back in Florida before they even knew that FASA existed. No matter what they had thrown at the Gnomes in those days, Marv was ready and able to cope.

  Before the outbreak Bear had been a black market operator, dealing in moderately hot electronics, moving booze and cigarettes without tax stamps, and selling the occasional load of assault weapons to people who were unlikely ever to find themselves in Texas. He had ridden with, but never joined, outlaw bikers, and looking back he realized that his lack of commitment was because he couldn’t find a group who wasn’t loaded with losers. Bear never thought of himself as a loser; maybe not the brightest guy who ever drank a longneck, but not a loser.

  Coming across the South in a blizzard of violence had taught him something about himself, and about others. He wasn’t turning Boy Scout, but he had gotten used to hanging with guys who got things done and to following Marv, a man who saw things through to the bitter end.

  “That went pretty well, I think,” JD observed a bit nervously as the Gnomes started around the building.

  “Broke ‘em in good,” Bear nodded. “It doesn’t take too many times to get you past how they look and smell, and the sound the hammer makes. There’s no good way to say it, but I’m glad the virus just kills kids. I would hate to have to hammer kids, regardless of them bein’ zombies.”

  “No joke.”

  “You did good,” Bear slapped the promoter on the shoulder. “We all gotta learn a new way of living.”

  Marv perched on the pale blue front bumper of Gnome-1 watching while four of the Associates under Bear’s command swept the snarl of wrecks, shooting or hammering the hold-out zombies. Once it was clear of infected they methodically searched the vehicles, siphoned off fuel, and stripped off any useful accessories. Chip oversaw a detail that got the rescued family’s’ mini-van out of the ditch, and pushed enough wrecks out of the way to reopen a full lane around the bus.

  Under the new Federal law regarding salvage any gold, gemstones, cash, bearer bonds, military or government property, and the like were deemed to be the property of the US Government, although they awarded a recovery commission. Everything else that was portable was fair game. The list of exceptions was ninety pages long and growing, but most things on the list really didn’t come into play on an average day.

  “They are looking good, babe,” he said softly. Talking to his late wife was a habit he had picked up in Afghanistan and which had stayed with him ever since, like his habit of watching the ground for mines as he walked and regularly glancing behind him. An eternity ago he had been a smart-ass kid two years out of high school who had married a smart, pretty girl who was out of his league. Debra was the thinker, the planner while he had been content with earning decent money working for a bail bondsman. She had been between her sophomore and junior years in college when they married, and she had made it clear that she wanted a husband with a real career.

  He had joined the Army, partly because it was what men in his family did, b
ut mainly because it meant he could raise money fast. He enlisted for four years in the Infantry because that was the biggest enlistment bonus, for Airborne because it meant more pay, and for the Rangers because what the hell. It was a decent plan by all accounts: he could use his pay to cover Deb’s expenses, and with the enlistment bonus socked away and the GI Bill toting the load he could get a good education when he got out. By the time he entered college Deb would have had her Masters and would be working. It was a good plan.

  Until Deb fell.

  She had been a huge fan of free-style rock-climbing, something that Marv never understood. She had always countered that a guy who joined the Airborne Rangers had no room to talk, and he had always let the subject go, although he didn’t care to join her on her club’s expeditions.

  She fell while on a training climb, a prep for a big expedition they were planning a few months down the line. Dead on impact, along with all their plans. He survived Afghanistan, and she died because of a lost handhold while pursuing a hobby; he never really could explain it.

  He had drifted after that. The Army was a useful cocoon, and when his time ran out he re-enlisted, serving four tours in Afghanistan. Three Purple Hearts, numerous firefights large and small, and he was still alive and able while Deb was in the ground for five years. Thinking about it that way made his head hurt.

  Then the outbreak had begun and the world started to change for him. He started to plan again, started to live more, and he realized that staying in the Army hadn’t been safe for him, that it had been a tomb, trapping him in the last vestiges of the life he had shared with Deb. Somewhere in the madness of the last few weeks he had come to realize that on some level he had felt he couldn’t leave the Army unless Deb was waiting for him.

  So now he was out, leading a band of misfits and leftovers into combat against zombies, trying to pull a tiny fraction of the world back together while smarter men headed for the hills. But in some way it felt like a plan, like progress. He didn’t think Deb would approve of the Yard Gnome Action Team as a viable plan, but Deb, like peace, was in the past. It was a brave new world and he was trying to make his way in it.

  He looked up as JD approached. “They want an escort,” JD jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the rescued family, now seated in their mini-van. The promoter was the Gnome face-man, which was just one of the many reasons he got the two-diamond slot.

  “People in Hell want ice water,” Marv shrugged. “You give them the map and fact sheets?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then its goodbye; we’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

  The Ranger grinned to himself as JD headed back to present the news in a more acceptable manner. They were a good bunch. Chip handled the logistics of food, fuel, and general equipment, Brick looked after the vehicles, Bear tracked the stuff they would sell, Dyson kept tabs on weapons and ammunition, and Addison was the communications, intelligence, and electronics whiz. It was a tight team, solid as a rock, capable of much more than the sum of its component parts.

  The family, whose lives they had saved at some risk to their own, drove off in a huff, a teenager in the back shooting Marv the bird as they drove south.

  “Another lesson in the half-life of gratitude,” the Ranger observed as the six senior Gnomes gathered around the bumper. “How did it go?”

  “Good,” JD said. “Blooded them pretty good.”

  “We picked it up fast,” Dyson observed. “With more structure they’ll get it even quicker.”

  “They better, things are getting bad fast, dude,” Chip sighed as he unwrapped a Milky Way candy bar. “Japan’s gone, too many people in too small an area.”

  “That’s because all they do is shoot pictures,” Bear sneered. “No guns and way too polite.”

  “I don’t care if the entire Pacific Rim drops into the sea,” Marv cut into the debate before it got going. The senior Gnomes, Chip especially, would debate anything, anywhere. “While you guys were playing hero we got a call. DSR wants us back two days early, no reason given as to why, but we get credit for a successful full op so it’s money in the bank. But we’re not heading south until we run down two items on our wish list. Addison has figured the approximate final location of a bunch of survivalists who bugged out of Oklahoma City and then abruptly went off the grid a few days ago.”

  “I thought going off the grid was what those guys did,” Dyson said.

  “They do, but not like this. They were communicating with other groups via a sub-forum on the Net and then just stopped. If Addison is right and they bought the farm, they will be a prime opportunity for an equipment upgrade, so it’s worth checking out. The other lead Addison patched together from some stuff I heard from an Army buddy and some stuff we took off that last FASA team’s tablet, the one with all the video, remember?”

  “Some seriously sick stuff on that one,” Chip shook his head.

  “Yeah. In any case we’ve got a line on a possible FASA safe house. With the bounties they’re offering for FASA brass we can’t afford to pass up the opportunity. It’s in the same general direction as the bug-out group so we can round them both up and still make it back in time.”

  “Lucky chance that they’re so close together,” Bear observed.

  “Not really, Addison has a list of options he is tracking, so I picked the one closest to the potential FASA safe house. Chip, what’s the pay-out?”

  “Four-five days’ worth of food, some useful household stuff, and a dozen cases of beer. Plus two more GPS systems, so the trucks will be squared away. And a handheld unit.”

  “Brick?”

  “CB for third truck, fuel, give an hour enough seats to fix two trucks,” the Pole reported in his choppy, accented English. The most common complaint about the deuce and a halves were the uncomfortable issue seats in the cab.

  “Worth the wait. Dyson?”

  “Two decent handguns and one tactically-suitable shotgun. That will mean we have eight long guns and seven sidearms between ten Associates. Quite a bit of ammo.”

  “All the more reason to look into the survivalists.” Marv’s high standards on weapons were inhibiting the equipping of the Gnomes. He wanted no flash junk, just solid, reliable weapons with good rates of fire in common calibers. Standardization of calibers was not a priority as salvaging ammunition made any specific caliber problematic. “Bear?”

  “Half a ton of yard sale. A few guns we wouldn’t use but someone will buy, and some turn-in cash and jewlery.”

  “A buck is a buck, especially with cargo space going empty. Anything else? OK, get the seats pulled and stowed. JD, post sentries from the senior staff; I’m going to take half the Associates for basic patrolling drill, Dyson takes the other half. We have got to get these guys whipped into shape before we run into FASA types and targets that shoot back.”

  Later, as they rolled north Marv watched the countryside slide by and worried at the problems facing them. As an world-wide organization FASA was broken, but there were still dozens of national elements of the organization alive and fighting, not to mention thousands of extremists, opportunists, criminals, and general scum roving around, and their salvage operations would inevitably cause the Gnomes to cross paths with some sooner or later. Zombies were bad enough, but they were a threat that was limited in variety and one his men were at least familiar with facing. Going into a firefight with the limited training and less-than-stellar equipment could translate into dead Gnomes, and Marv dreaded that possibility.

  At least he had them in uniform with good vehicles and decent field gear; he intended that each would have a melee weapon, long gun with an optical sighting system and mounted tactical light, sidearm, and a tactical flashlight, but so far that was just wishful thinking. At least they all had the melee weapons and some sort of flashlight, although only half of the Associates had tactical models.

  They needed a medic, too. Chip had been studying military manuals and taking military correspondence courses online atop his Boy Scout training, a
nd they had a good set of emergency medical gear, but that was a long ways from being a medic.

  They needed a lot of things. Better commo, a couple heavy weapons, more training, more optics, additional night vision gear…the list was endless.

  Slouching into the thin seat Marv pondered the options before them.

  “I’m just saying you can’t top Vaas as a villain, dude,” Chip pointed out. “The guy’s monologues were epic.”

  “But does that affect his qualifications as a villain, Chief?” Sauron countered. “True, you’ve got extremely dynamic cut scenes, but what are his qualifications as a villain? By my count he kills five people personally. Its implied that he is responsible for a lot of other deaths, particularly in the buried-alive cut-scene, but it’s not directly connected. On the other hand in Resident Evil Five you’re talking a world-class viral biowar agent, so…” the Gnome paused to swerve into a zombie standing on the side of the road, the heavy steel bumper tossing it into the ditch with a crushed chest.

  “Not to change the subject, but that’s the second one you’ve hit in a mile,” Chip observed, checking the GPS unit. “Yeah, we’re getting close. Figures.”

  Marv lowered the binoculars. “Looks like about twenty hanging around a church bus with a woman and a kid on top; the bus is blocking the turn-off. There’s enough trees and brush to either side to cut visibility.”

  “I thought Oklahoma was just prairie,” Dyson shook his head. “I could do with more field of view.”

  “The bus is from the same church as owns the encampment,” Addison muttered. The dark Gnome habitually kept his head down and his voice low to hinder surveillance attempts.

  “All right, Dyson and Addison for cover fire, Bear and JD as reserve, the rest on line. I’ll anchor the right, Brick the left, and we move to close with melee, gunfire only if there’s no other option. Any questions?”