Dead Man's Party

by Nathan Robert Brown

  Before J-man could argue, or he lost his nerve, Erik snaked past the wreckage, keeping low, and closed on the zombie. The guys under the bridge needed at least ten more minutes to hit their original estimate, and once the first shot rang out, every zombie in a mile would descend up them.

  His rifle clanked softly with every stride. Erik smelled rotting flesh before he saw the zombie. Thunk; his rifle bumped a car, leaving a scratch where the flash suppressor caught the door. At the sound of the rifle hitting the car, the zombie shifted its gaze to Erik and moaned louder.Erik popped to standing and charged the zombie he saw over the trunk of a car angled across the lane.

  That sound, the moan they uttered when they found food, grated every nerve in Erik. He swung the E-tool hard as soon as he reached arm's length. The blow cracked the zombie's skull and knocked it sideways. Without thinking, he slid to a stop next to the downed zombie and swung the tool straight down. Smashed between the concrete and the falling hammer, the zombie's head caved in, splattering blood and bits of brain out its mouth and a newly formed gap in the back of its head.

  Something with weight latched onto his butt pack as Erik stood up. He jumped forward, dragging a legless zombie with large chunks missing from his chest out of a car window. The mess that had been a man landed wetly on the concrete, still clutching at Erik's combat belt.

  He kicked repeatedly. Each kick rocked the zombie's head back at an awkward angle. Finally, Erik paused a heart beat, made sure both feet would connect, and kicked one last time. Its head snapped backward at a sickening angle. Erik bounced to his feet and stomped on the side of the head until it collapsed under his boot. His hands shook visibly as he picked up his E-tool and started back toward J-man and the others.

  Two rifle shots cracked through the silence as Erik knelt at his place in the perimeter.

  “Fuck. All that to stay quiet ...” Four more shots from two rifles sounded.

  “Look alive. The dead want to play,” J-man shouted more for the benefit of the Marines under the bridge than those on it.

  Erik braced on the hood of a wrecked car to counter his trembling hands. His breathing settled automatically as he sighted his rifle and identified targets. For an instant, he thought about throwing a grenade. Ten zombies shuffled toward them in the gaps between the rows of vehicles. Compared to the last time they fought on a bridge, he preferred their current situation. A relative few zombies, and they wouldn't be in the area much longer. J-man, Glover, and Erik fired at nearly the same time. Three zombies dropped. The National Guard soldier to Erik's left panicked when he missed the first shot on a faster zombie. He fired three more rounds, far too rapidly to have any chance to aim. The zombie the guardsman had missed tackled him.

  Before Erik could turn to help the downed man, he heard the pop of a pistol he hadn't realized the soldier carried. The soldier rolled the zombie on its back, kneeling on its chest and drilled two more rounds into its head. Erik turned back to the approaching zombies in time to see a zombie's head explode as it reached for him.

  “That's two you owe me,” Erik heard in the time it took him line up the last approaching zombie and send a round between its milky eyes.

  Calls of clear sounded.

  “J-Man, we had a man tackled,” Erik said. He looked at the soldier, deep red blood streaked with black splattered all over his face. The soldier wiped at his face with his rapidly soaking sleeves. Erik caught a glance from J-man and grabbed the soldiers arms. “Stop. Stop before you rub that shit in your eyes.”

  While Erik worked to keep the nearly frantic soldier from smearing the blood into his eyes or mouth, J-man reached into the large pouch on the back of his belt and pulled a triangular bandage out. Even before the end of the world, medics and soldiers knew a thousand uses for the cravat. Add another one to the book. J-man quickly wiped the blood from the man's face, giving him instructions to “keep his damn eyes shut.” Erik let go of the man's arms.

  “Breathe, man. Just breathe,” Erik patted him on the shoulder as he stood to move back to his position. “Calm down. Get back in it.” The soldier nodded weakly, wiping his hands on the cravat like Lady Macbeth.

  Fat rain drops slowly splatted on windshields and concrete. Erik felt two more hit him in the face. Rain fell steadily, but not heavily. It soaked the Marines, but didn't fall hard enough to significantly limit their vision.

  Water dripped off Erik's helmet in front of his eyes. More dripped on his shoulders and down his back. It brought some relief from the warm day and the heat trapped under the heavy fatigue shirt and ballistic vest. The inevitable downside to the rain, it drowned out some sounds. Like the moaning the Marines carefully listened for.

  Erik glanced at the Guardsman still wringing his hands and rubbing at his face then back along the lines of vehicles littering the massive bridge. “I don't like this,” he said as more rain slid off his helmet.

  Several minutes passed as the rain soaked the Marines and ran in red and brown streams from vehicles.

  “We can pack up. In fact I'd recommend it.”

  Erik turned to see Drakos climbing back onto the surface of the bridge. On the other side, Torrent climbed over the side rail and leaned down to help Cloud up.

  “How long we got?” J-man asked as the demo team pulled themselves up the ropes.

  “About 15 minutes. Long enough to get away, not long enough to stand here talking about it,” Torrent answered, automatically starting to untie the safety rope now that his partner squatted at their gear bag shoving things back into it.

  Erik didn't wait. He turned and grabbed the closed gear bag while the demo guys stuffed the other one. A moment later he tossed the bag roughly to the boat as it bobbed on the gently sloshing water. Thunder sounded above him. Something skinny and man shaped cartwheeled through the air and slammed into the water with a cannonball splash. No more shots range out, but Erik hurried to the top of the ramp just the same.

  J-man pushed a pale soldier toward Erik as soon as he reached his team. Erik caught the man and guided him down the off ramp. The man slipped on a rivulet of water running down the ramp. His weight pulled his arm from Erik's grip. It worried Erik the man didn't scream but groaned when his forearm slammed into the ground just in time to be hit by his head. Too much like a moan.

  Two more small thunderclaps Erik knew to be rifle shots told him it passed time to go. He just had to get the stumbling man into the boat before everyone piled up trying to get aboard. Before the zombies started looking for munchies. Erik grabbed the back of the guys belt and pulled him up enough to get under him and pick him up. With the soldier in a one-man-drunken-buddy carry, Erik half dragged the man to the bottom of the ramp.

  “Come on. You gotta help me. Get your feet under you,” Erik worried the man would fall as soon as he let him go to climb over the barrier and onto the waiting boat.

  Another two cracks of thunder, followed by what sounded like a handful of rocks thrown out over the water. Erik propped the soldier against the barrier and slid himself over and onto the boat. With a deep breath, he grabbed the woozy man under the shoulders and dragged him bodily over the waist high wall and to the far side of the boat from where others would board. Erik brought his rifle up and scanned the tops of the ramps.

  The boat undulated under foot. From where he stood, nearly eighty feet below his buddies, he couldn't see any danger. A single voice, distorted by distance reached him; though he was unable to make it out, he assumed J-man yelled for people to “hurry up, get their shit and get out.” That was the NCO standard when things went SNAFU.

  A man walked down the ramp. For an instant, Erik swore a special effects studio set up shop behind his eyes because he saw lines in the rain where a bullet missed whizzed past him. Small clouds of concrete chips jumped where the rounds hit the barriers. Erik blinked, and the effect stopped. The man stood still for a moment, seemingly torn between the soldier who shot at him and Erik bobbing slowly with the boat.

  Erik didn't give him a chance to deci
de. He sighted in and fired twice, just to make sure the gentle movement of the boat wouldn't prevent him from dropping the zombie. The body dropped and rolled three times before getting lodged against a car tire.

  “Heads up!” Erik turned to see the other National Guard soldier running down the ramp, rifle in one hand and the demo bag in the other. In an impressive display, the man slung the bag ten feet to Erik, hopped and turned so he landed, sitting on the barrier. His weapon swept both ramps.

  “Covering. Get the boat running.” The soldier didn't waste time acknowledging Erik; he spun himself on the wall and hopped into the boat, moving straight to the pilot house.

  Two more soldiers ran down the ramp, keeping their rifles shouldered as they did. Above them, someone fired four more shots. Blower and Drakos reached the boat about the same time.

  “Get up top. Move,” Blower yelled as he climbed over the wall. Erik didn't argue. Not even bothering to sling his rifle, he climbed the short ladder to the upper deck and dropped into the kneeling position, using the railing to help steady his weapon.

  Bookie, Glover and J-man started down the ramp. Erik thanked whoever was listening that none of them did the action move thing and turned to fire. He aimed carefully and shot a zombie that started to chase them. They ran faster, looking like they only just kept their feet under them as they charged down the slope.

  It took less than a minute for the three of them to get aboard and one of the demo guys to pull the mooring lines. The National Guard soldier fed power to the motor and eased them under the bridge to head back toward the channel that would let them head to the second bridge at the far end of Key Largo.

  Eric stopped to wonder if they would be far enough away in the nine or so minutes they had left. The driver fed more power to the engines, pushing along the bridge at a frightening speed from where Erik sat on top of the boat. It took a good ten minutes to reach the ramps on the way in; they reached the relatively open water of the main channel in about four on the way out.

  The power to the engines dropped off a moment after the turned along the channel. Erik looked over the edge, looking for Drakos or Blower. “Is this a safe distance?” The bridge stood about a football field behind them.

  “Ish,” Blower said, scanning along the tree line with a pair of binoculars.

  Erik felt a horrified look swim across his face. Blower read the look “What do you mean ish?”

  Blower stood next to Erik and checked his watch. “Well, by the regs we should be probably a mile or more away, but we want to make sure it actually goes.”

  “How much explosives did you use?”

  “About half. So, roughly eighty pounds?” Blower shrugged.

  “And you somehow doubt it's gonna take the bridge?”

  Blower shrugged again. He brought out a digital camera. “Maybe I just want to see it.”

  None of the demo crew had the countdown to the second. When they rigged the charges, Torrent spun his dive timer to give them an approximation.

  The blast wave felt like someone turned on a wall of concert speakers at max volume mere inches from them. A second later the sound hit them with a roar like lightning striking a tree right next to you. Dust flew out from the sides of the bridge and curled back over it, rolling several times as it billowed high above the bridge. Pebbles and little bits of debris rained around them, bouncing off their helmets and the boats.

  It took several minutes for the dust and smoke to clear, even with the rain pulling it out of the air. The demo guys went crazy while the drivers put power to the engines and pushed the boats toward the second, and smaller bridge. Erik wished they had a camera that would have seen through the massive amount of dust kicked up by the explosives. The entire section, once filled with stalled cars, and presumably zombies, dropped into the water below, leaving a huge gap where concrete once towered above the water.

  One down. One to go.

  Although the blast that destroyed the bridge negated the need to be quiet because if you happened to be within five miles, you had to hear the boom, the Marines still had to exercise some caution to prevent damage to their sole means of safe transportation. Moving into the deeper water on the other end of Jewfish Creek, they sped up and covered most of ten miles in less than a half hour.

  No where near as large as Jewfish Creek Bridge, the Tavernier Creek bridge still represented strength through simplicity. Three sets of pillars supported the less than seven-hundred-fifty foot long, modern concrete bridge. Six cars, frozen as if viewed on an internet map program, sat abandoned on the bridge, batteries long dead from doors left open in haste. Unlike the first bridge, no exit ramp dipped to water level from the road on twenty-foot stilts.

  As much as the whole mission was dangerous, they faced the possibility of grounding one of their boats trying to get ashore. Had either boat been a few feet taller, they could have simply stood on the canopy to rig the charges. Erik sighed, he felt sure the demo squad felt the same way.

  Blower appeared over Erik's shoulder. “This one could get ugly, sergeant,” he said, clearly talking to J-man. “We'll have to put the boats close to the shore and walk up the bridge. No real way to tie the boats like last time.”

  Erik kept scanning the buildings and shore of Plantation Key. Behind him, he heard the two boats maneuvering closer together. “Hold there. Bookie, grab a line and tie us together,” J-man said. “Slow us down for a bit.” The engines stopped their steady purr and started the periodic rumble of holding at idle.

  J-man, Torrent and the senior National Guardsman talked on the other boat for about ten minutes. It seemed obvious to Erik from his scans along the bridge two men needed to keep their rides ready and close. That left four men to secure each direction on the bridge while Torrent and his men rigged the charges. On the plus side, with the last of the charges set, the bags would be mostly empty and could be simply tossed to the boats below. Hell if things turned bad, they could afford to abandon the ropes, even leave them tied and use them to climb down to the boats rather than walking back the shore while fighting.

  An equipment bag landed behind Erik with a thump and jingle followed quickly by a second bag. He turned in time to see all but two men from the other boat stepping onto his.

  J-man started talking as two Marines cleared the lines holding the two boats together. “We're going to wade ashore on the Key Largo side, move up the bridge. Torrent says he wants to take this bitch at the farthest pillar. Jamison, you, Glover and the guard guys not driving will secure the far side. Bookie you're with the boat and driver. Lee, Lemming, you and the two guard guys have the Key Largo side. Fellman will be staying with the other boat. Let's make this quick and clean. With luck most of the zombies on the Key Largo side have started moving toward the other bridge.”

  He had the driver nearly beach the boat on the concrete slope under the over pass. Twelve men splashed into the water. Erik decided dismounting a small yacht into water makes noise no matter how hard you try not to. Bookie threw the gear bags. As soon as Bookie tossed the last bag, the driver eased the boat away and circled back to stay on station.

  If anything had a mind to attack them, they totally would have caught the Marines in the worst position to fight from. The squad had to move from under the bridge to the road single file, and only two people made it by the time Erik crossed. He moved up to the middle of the road and took a knee.

  Dense shrubs and short trees hemmed the approach to a handful of meters on the sides of the worn, concrete road. Like the bridge itself, few cars sat on the road compared to the line of hundreds at the other bridge. The ankle deep grass swirled and waved in the gentle breeze.

  “Got your back,” Glover said as he knelt facing down the bridge.

  The humidity skyrocketed when the rain ended. Sweat poured down Erik's face. More rolled down his back, tickling him under his armor.

  Five minutes later, J-man walked down the line of men pulling security, taping their shoulders, signaling time to move. Each guard waited a se
cond after receiving the signal before standing and taking his eyes off his sector. Nothing moved in either direction. Demo had time to work.

  Maybe we'll catch a break.

  Erik and his team took a knee twenty feet from the far shore. To their right, sprawling away from the creek, lay the corpse of their former way of life with shopping centers wearing broken storefronts, warehouses wrapped in empty parking lots, marinas bearing orphaned yachts, and offices displaying the broken smiles of shattered windows and sporadic fires.

  Glover, who had the build of a line-backer and consistently scored 39/40 during weapons qualification, held the left edge, practically sitting on the barrier. Erik sometimes wondered if the man missed that one target on purpose.

  On Erik's right knelt the National Guard soldier he'd pulled down the ramp for the other bridge. As they had floated along, the man regained his color and seemed to recover himself after nearly having his face eaten. Who could blame the man? Even the Marines who had cleared the neighborhood started shaking after a close enough call; they'd swear the smell just got to them. He gave the Guardsman credit for recovering himself well enough not to be a liability for the second half the mission.

  At the far end of their small line, knelt the other guardsman. Age lines and graying hair marked the man as older. His rock-solid, unflinching firing stance spoke to a combat tour or two; though no one would ask until he volunteered the information. Erik studied the man, thought of his own experience, and decided wherever the guy deployed to must have been one nasty piece of business.

  Somewhere behind him, he heard Torrent cussing because the bridge didn't offer an easy access system for them to use. Instead they prepared to use ropes to go over the edge and would have to climb across the underside of the bridge. Fortunately a slip meant taking a dip and not a bone shattering fall.

  Nothing moved. Erik thought about relaxing, letting his rifle slide into the more comfortable low ready. He mentally admonished himself. Things tended to go to hell pretty quickly these days, and that half second could be the difference.