Rolling Hunger

by R W Krpoun

  “Shit!” Someone yelled to the Georgian’s right and gunfire exploded into the warehouse as a second door rumbled upwards, first one weapon, and then another firing fast as if trying to drown out the wailing cries.

  “Let’s go,” Dyson headed towards the far end of the aisle at a trot. “Switching to rifle,” Bugsy gasped behind him.

  A third door rolled upwards behind them as they reached the end of the aisle and looked down the rows to where dozens of zombies were pouring out of the office area.

  “Well, hell,” Dyson muttered, sliding to his left to put his shoulder against the wall as Bugsy hugged the shelving and opened fire.

  The sudden flanking fire threw the infected mob into confusion, and Dyson and Bugsy were able to pick off a half-dozen before a sizeable group peeled off and charged, or more accurately lurched with violent intent, towards the pair.

  There was enough light so that his muzzle flash didn’t blind him; Dyson methodically moved the red dot of the reflex sight from one head to the next, firing until he saw it drop and then shifting to the next, willing to sacrifice ammunition for speed. The zeds ignored the incoming fire and pressed on as if they were moving into a stiff rain, hindered more by the footing problems of the victims falling in the front rank than anything else.

  Dyson’s slide locked back as JD and Upchuck reached them and knelt between himself and Bugsy as they added their fire to the engagement. Hitting the magazine release with his right index finger as he grabbed the empty mag with his left hand, he pulled it from the well and slid the full magazine in the ready bracket into place. He was just reaching to release the bolt when something hit the wall beside him, only from the other side.

  Turning to look as he released the bolt Dyson saw the tarnished yellow knob above and behind his head and realized that he was next to a door, not the wall, just as a second blow struck the flimsy barrier and the latch rattled free.

  He fired instinctively as the door swung open, the bullets ripping into legs clad in mossy oak camouflage as the door was jerked open and a foul smelling body crashed down on top of him.

  Punching blindly with his left arm, he let go of the MP-5 which was pinned between their bodies and clawed for his Colt Python, but the shoulder holster under his left arm was unreachable. Hands pawed frantically at his back and shoulders and he heard teeth click in a missed bite next to his ear as the embattled pair overbalanced and toppled to the floor; someone fired with the muzzle too close to his head and a dead weight fell across Dyson’s legs.

  Trapped beneath the stinking mass of the zombie Dyson forced his left forearm up the thing’s sweatshirt-clad chest until it collided with the infected’ chin. Ignoring the rain of clumsy blows battering at his shoulders and head he threw all his weight into pushing upwards with his forearm, pushing the zed’s head back and pinning its jaws together.

  The effort, which was making black dots swim in front of his eyes, raised his torso off the concrete floor slightly, enough so he could reach the snub-nosed .38 in its vest-mounted cross-draw holster low on his right side. Thumbing back the hammer he tried to bring the muzzle to the filthy, matted hair on the thing’s head but the zombie’s ceaseless assault kept knocking the weapon aside.

  Jamming the stubby muzzle into the zed’s armpit he fired three times, adding the stench of burning synthetic cloth to the odors attacking his nostrils. As its left arm flopped aside, inert, a second load crashed on top his legs. Gasping curses he pressed the .38’s muzzle to the zombie’s temple and fired, twisting his head aside as he pulled the trigger to avoid any blood splatter.

  The zed slumped, instantly inert, and was smashed off Dyson by a blow from the Georgian’s left, revealing an infected woman in a flame orange hunter’s jacket and jeans who was a in the act of diving upon him. His last .38 hit too low, smashing her jaw and sending a jet of bone and tooth fragments out a rent in her left jaw, but it did knock her back. Dropped the empty .38 Dyson drew his Python as the zombie lunched in again, shattered jaw flapping, and jammed the muzzle up under her ruined chin, forcing her head back and away before firing.

  The weight on his legs was from three dead zeds, he saw as he dragged himself backwards and out from underneath, stopping to shoot another zombie coming through the door, getting the head on the second shot. His legs free, he holstered the revolver and pulled the MP-5 into place.

  The other Gnomes were putting down the last of the assault, the final zombies crashing down within pawing distance of the shooters. Rolling to his knees Dyson shined his weapon-mounted flashlight around the confines of the restroom from which his attackers had emerged. Satisfied there were no more, he glanced behind him as he pulled out a package of bleach wipes.

  “You OK?” JD said, somewhat over-loud as they were all a bit deafened by the gunfire.

  “Yeah,” Dyson scrubbed off the last of the splatter. “Thanks for the help.”

  “It got a little western there, didn’t it?”

  “Almost too much.” Dyson found the .38 and reloaded it before holstering.

  “Good thing you were in front of that door. If we had been three feet further down they would have hit us from behind, and one way or another that would have been it.”

  “Yeah.” Dyson opened the Python’s cylinder and replaced the expended rounds. “Anybody hurt?”

  “Not from us four, but Marv just called for Chip.”

  “Shit.” In the struggle his headset had been knocked off; Dyson settled it into place and stood up. “Well, that was fucking horrible. I’ll be dreaming about this fight, I know that for sure.”

  “Yeah, that must have sucked.”

  “More than you can imagine. Thanks for kicking the body off me - the zed in the red coat would have tore me up.”

  “I was reloading, otherwise I would have shot her myself. Six, go ahead.”

  “Six to Five, Whiz got a splinter the size of a golf tee through his hand. Let’s wrap this up.”

  “Five to Six, roger.” JD turned to Upchuck and Bugsy. “Whiz just got a chunk of wood through his hand. Let’s get back to it. Upchuck, check the bodies, make sure they’re dead and look for handguns, radios, high-value items like that.”

  Dyson casually moved away from the others and breathed deeply, holding each breath for a heartbeat before releasing it, flexing his hands as he did so in the hopes of reducing how badly they shook.

  That had been far too close for his comfort.

  “All right, the survey’s finished,” JD announced.

  Marv, who was seated on the loading dock with his legs dangling over the edge reloading a magazine, simply nodded.

  “This wasn’t a strongpoint, just a place where some survivors fled to; they jammed one of the loading gate doors trying to button up.”

  “OK. Chip, how’s the patient?”

  “Fine. I’ve got him on oral antibiotics, dude. Nasty puncture, but no big issue.”

  “Good. Bear?”

  “There’s more stuff here than the trucks can hold by a wide margin. I figured load up on food and sanitation products for salvage turn-in.”

  “Chip?”

  “We found a lot of blankets, they’re bright yellow but warm. We’ll grab an extra day’s worth of canned goods plus some snacks and morale stuff.”

  “That works. Dyson?”

  “Some ammo, a few sporting arms we can trade. Only things we found that are worth issuing are a couple handguns and a twenty-gauge Remington 1100 with a Nighthawk Tactical package: military finish, picatinny rail, pistol-grip, adjustable stock, tactical light mount, sling swivels and three-point sling, left-side receiver shell carrier…the works. I would like to reserve it for Anna, as she’s a small girl and she’s used an 1100 to hunt ducks.”

  “OK, so long as nobody else wants it today. Addison, what’s the drone showing?”

  “No signs of survivors. There’s a few places with the roof marked, but all appear to have been abandoned or over-run.”

  “Anything worth pushing into the town itself?�
�

  “No.”

  “OK, let’s load the trucks and head back. Salvage to capacity and a bunch of zeds put down marks this as a win; all the more so since Dyson and Whiz both managed to get body-to-body with zombies and live. We don’t need to do too much of that sort of thing.”

  “One thing, dude,” Chip raised his hand. “That train is going to be pretty miserable to live on. How about we grab some one-inch PVC from that plumbing supply house over there? We could rig up frames so we can have shelter from wind and rain, assuming we can find some stuff to put on the framework.”

  “Good idea, Chip. Take four men and make it so.”

  “Me? Lead a patrol?” the husky Gnomes eye were huge.

  “Yeah, you. You’re drawing pay and shares as a Senior Chief, aren’t you? It’s not because you’re pretty. Go clear the building, gather what we need, and stack it on the shoulder of the road, we’ll pick it up on the way out.

  “Well…”

  “Get to it, fat man,” Bear punched his shoulder. “You can’t impress your Cuban cutie with your mad admin skills. You gotta give her that Alpha Male musk to really get the good lovin’.”

  Chip flipped off the biker. “OK, four guys.”

  “Take George as one of the four,” Marv grinned. “It will be good to show he’s being used in a leadership role. We want the troops to know that it’s not just us old-timers who matter. Make sure the other three are from those guarding the trucks when we went into the warehouse; we need to spread the experience around.”

  Chip surveyed his small force: George Sanchez, Sauron, William Ware (a short, thin black culinary student from Louisiana the Gnomes had dubbed ‘Chef’), and Timothy ‘Bad Dog’ Stokes. Bad Dog was a burly oilfield roughneck from Odessa who shaved his scalp and had a perpetual scowl on his wide, homely mug; he got his nickname from a bulldog tattoo on his left arm and his habitual expression of violent anger. Chip had been surprised to discover that the Texan was actually a very calm individual who spent his free time reading or doing crossword puzzles.

  “OK, guys, we’re gonna go over to that plumbing supply point and get one-inch PVC, connectors, and glue; if they have any fine-tooth hacksaw blades we’ll grab those too. We’ll use the PVC to build some shelters. Me and George will go guns, you three go hammers.”

  “Hammer time: can’t touch this, Chief,” Sauron grinned. Bad Dog started doing a very distant approximation of MC Hammer’s dance.

  “Thanks, Bad Dog: that’s the image I really wanted to have stuck in my head, dude,” Chip sighed. “OK, follow me, five yard intervals. George, take trail. Anything goes south for me, you’re in charge.”

  He started out as Chef and Bad Dog had reached the ‘doing the bump’ stage of the song. One by one the Gnomes fell in behind him at the proper intervals; glancing back the husky Gnome saw them moving with a purpose and realized that he had told them to follow him, and they had. No one had ever followed Chip Wilson anywhere before, much less than into a hostile situation. He jerked a chin at Sylvia’s wave and led his patrol out through the gate.

  Three zombies were trudging up the road from town, maybe forty yards and closing; shouldering his carbine Chip dropped two with three shots while George dropped the other.

  “Looks like others are taking an interest, Chief,” The Operator observed after the third zed fell, pointing towards town.

  “Feces occurs, dude,” Chip shrugged. “A quarter of a mile is a long hump for a zombie. We’ll clear the plumbing place and then pick off those who are getting close. They often lack interest if they lose sight of their target.”

  The plumbing supply building was secure except for the front door, which was propped open. Chip swallowed hard at the sight of the open doorway, but swung his carbine around to his back on its three-point sling and thumbed the quick-release buckle that secured his short pistol-grip pump shotgun to his vest. Turning on the tactical light in the mount Brick had made for him, he checked his patrol. “Ready?”

  “You want me to take point, Chief?” Sauron offered, his mask making his voice flat.

  Chip desperately did. “Nope, I missed out on the warehouse. I love the smell of building clearing…it smells like…victory.”

  Facing the entrance, he covertly took a deep breath, and stepped into the dark building.

  Chapter Seven

  Bear got a fork lift running so the loading went fast, although not fast enough; all the shooting and movement attracted attention, and Marv had to deploy a skirmish line on the road to shoot down the zombies that were straggling out of town to investigate, first in ones and twos, then in larger groups. He initially assigned the Associates who had been on sentry duty when they hit the warehouse, but soon he was sending more men as the number of infected increased.

  “Two Charlie to Six.”

  “Six to Two Charlie, go.”

  “Six, we’re heading up the road to that shop at the corner of the State Highway, gonna look for cloth or tarps.”

  Marv climbed up on the bumper on the nearest truck to take a look. “Two Charlie, affirm, but exercise caution. Wait there when you’re done, we’ll pick you up on the way out.”

  “Roger, Six.”

  “He’s turning into a regular Patton,” JD observed as the Ranger jumped down.

  “He’s a good kid; all he needed was a challenge to strive towards.”

  “Having a cute girlfriend helps, too,” the promoter grinned.

  “That’s definitely a challenge,” Marv agreed. “Pride moves you further down a hard road than patriotism or professionalism will, and there’s nothing like impressing a woman to put your pride on the line.”

  “We’re at eighty minutes, sir,” Luke advised, cutting off the beeping from his digital watch.

  “All right,” Walters muttered. Keying up the radio he instructed the other units to head to the rally point.

  He was seething inside: after the unsuccessful encounter in the downtown area he had split his command into two-vehicle teams and had cruised the residential areas, shooting zombies and looking fruitlessly for survivors. They had dismounted a few times to search abandoned vehicles and the local police/fire center, but the pickings had been modest.

  He wouldn’t have cared if Dirk Chambers hadn’t been sitting in the back seat. Frankly, he couldn’t care less about scrounging up cases of canned hash, and rescued people tended to be dirty, disheveled, and annoying. Left to his own devices he would have been happy to drive around and pick off zombies, but Dirk wanted dramatic footage.

  It was the Army all over again: all he wanted to do was get to grips with the enemy, but all the brass were concerned with was mission parameters and standards.

  “We’re used to operating in a much more target-rich environment, and with the time to develop an operation to a more dynamic conclusion,” he explained over his shoulder. “I intend to have a word with Mr. Grase about the target selection for the next mission.”

  “This was very educational,” Dirk rumbled. “We got some stock footage that may be useful. If we could pause for a few minutes at the city limits sign I would appreciate it.”

  “Whatever you need.”

  The buffoonish Yard Gnomes were already back when Hard Eight arrived at the train, but the Colonel had to bite back a snide observation at the sight of them unloading cases of canned goods into a boxcar while a DSR auditor took the tally.

  “Stop here,” Dirk told Luke, who glanced at Walters for confirmation before pulling over.

  “Looks like you did all right,” Dirk boomed as he got out of the HUMVEE.

  “About five tons of food, one ton of cleaning and hygiene goods,” Marv hopped off the bumper he had been sitting on. “Put down some zeds, but couldn’t find any survivors, although a group of ten found the train,” he waved towards the Amtrak cars.

  “Any causalities?”

  “One man got a splinter the size of golf tee through his tactical glove and the heel of his hand, fighting in body-to-body contact with a zed, but he’l
l be OK. How did you do, James?”

  “Well enough. Ah, there is Mister Grase, excuse me.”

  “If they had let us bring our trailers we could have done better.” JD observed as Brick backed the last truck onto the train.

  “We could have just shuttled the contents of the warehouse to the train,” Marv said as Dyson and his crew started chocking and chaining the trucks down. “With a five-mile turn-around the fuel consumption would have been minimal. This is just a test run, see if the concept is at all viable, and determine what tweaks need to be made. For myself, I can tell you they need to make better provisions for housing the operators. These flatbeds are not sufficient; on a long run exposure will grind the troops down.”

  “That’s the truth. Still, all in all I think this might be a good idea. It’s a little hairy when they have to stop to manually work switches or clear the rails, but it would take an epic herd to take down the train. I guess that’s why they try to keep the number of cars to a minimum.”

  “Yeah, shorter is easier to defend. Still, one boxcar or just a flatbed with a shipping container on it would suffice. Just so we could let the troops sleep warm, or cool in the summer.”

  “You think we’ll still be doing this by next summer?”

  “Every war is expected to be over by Christmas,” Marv observed bleakly. “If it was just the zombies, maybe, but with all the fringe groups piling on I figure all bets are off. And that’s just the USA: Japan has gone under, and last I heard Africa is turning into one huge zombie preserve.”

  “Europe’s having trouble, too,” JD sighed. “Too many people, too few guns.”

  “As long as our government holds together we have a chance.”

  “Got a minute, dude?” Chip asked as he approached carrying a heavy plastic shopping bag.

  “Sure.”

  “You remember I told you the guys are interested in awards and stuff like the military uses?”