Even Zombie Killers Get The Blues (Zombie Killer Blues) (13 page)

Chapter 33

Overhead, a battered old Huey helo thopped its way
downriver. As it passed, the Doppler-distorted message boomed from
loudspeakers, repeated over and over:
“THERE IS HELP IN ALBANY. GO UPRIVER. THERE IS HELP IN ALBANY. GO UPRIVER.
THERE IS HELP IN ALBANY.”

I was reminded of the scene from that old sci-fi movie
Blade Runner
where an airship droned over Los Angeles, telling people to
“move off world, to a new life in the colonies”. I laughed at the irony. Here
we were, thirty years after
Blade Runner
, and instead of exploring new
worlds, we were fighting over the scraps of the old. I understood what Brit
felt, about the stars.

The chopper droned away southward, down the valley.
This had started last night, several trips up and down the valley by a blacked-out
Army helo. Today several boats had passed us on their way north; ragged,
battered pleasure boats packed, overloaded with people. They were a sorry lot,
emaciated, in ragged clothing and armed with a variety of rifles, shotguns and
clubs, and when they pulled up to the tug, they made as if to swarm the boat.
They were met with a burst of machine gun fire into the water in front of them,
and a loudspeaker from the tug, telling them to stay back fifty feet.

On the lead boat, a man yelled across to us. “Let us
aboard! We have women and children, and we’re almost out of gas!”

The Infantry Platoon Commander wasn’t having any of
it. Another burst of fire hit the water, and the boats backed off. He wasn’t taking
any chances of these people infecting his soldiers with tuberculosis, cholera
or some other communicable disease. Unlike the farmers that Doc had visited
yesterday, these people looked dirty and desperate, at the end of their rope,
and who knew what they were carrying.

“There is a food and medical care in Albany, at the
port. We can leave you gas.”

We threw them a couple of cases of MREs and left twenty
gallons of gas tied to a float. They took it without a word of thanks and
motored off upriver. We hadn’t seen anyone else, and night soon arrived, so we
dropped anchor in the middle of the river, just north of the ruins of
Poughkeepsie. Tomorrow we would arrive at Bannerman Island and start setting up
the Firebase. 

I stood and picked up my rifle. “OK, let’s do it
again.” Muttered groans sounded from some of the team, especially the new
medic, Specialist Mya. She wasn’t used to the kind of repetitive, muscle memory
training that we were doing.

“Sergeant Agostine, I think the Specialist has had
enough. It’s not really her job, after all.”

I turned to where the Lieutenant stood in the
darkness. 

“With all due respect, Sir, you’re wrong. This is
exactly what she needs to be doing. We’re going to be going through buildings
in West Point. She and Redshirt need to be part of the team. Redshirt is doing
good, but I need to know she isn’t going to shoot one of us in the back.”

“She’s a medic, Sergeant. She will be treating any
wounded, not engaging in any gunfights.”

God, this guy was being a stupid git.

“She’s a solder first, Sir. We all fight. Including
you, so I wish you would participate in these exercises.”

“I’m perfectly qualified in Close Quarters Combat.”

“That may very well be, but you need to become part
of the team.
We
all know how the other is going to act. I don’t know how
you
are going to act.”

“I’ll be fine, Sergeant. You just do what NCOs do,
carry out my plans and train the men.”

Before I could butt-stroke him in the face, Jonesy
grabbed my arm.

“Don’t do it, man. Ain’t worth it!”

I spit on the deck as the LT walked away back
forward.

We had set up a shoot house on the back deck of the
barge made out of crates. We were using .22 blanks in our modified M-4s, and
had set up some targets, cut-outs with infrared and red chem lights where zombie
eyes would be. Some of the Infantry guys moved them around, raised and lowered
them randomly. Earlier that night, we had done the same for them.

I stood back and let Ahmed lead the stack through
the door, followed by Redshirt, Jonesy and Mya. Several shots cracked out, then
a yell from inside. I stepped inside to a scene of chaos, and yelled “STOP!” just
after watching Mya fire a burst directly into Redshirt and the department store
dummy I had gone ashore and looted today. Ahmed and Jonesy had cleared the room
and advanced into the next corridor, and then one of the Infantry dropped the
mannequin directly on Redshirt, simulating a Zombie attacking from above.

Specialist Mya stood there, shocked. Brit was
laughing hysterically. “Hahaha, I know where you got the idea for that one!” I
told her to suck it and shut up if she wasn’t going to help. I pulled Mya aside
while Doc helped Redshirt out from under the dummy. Ahmed and Jonesy continued
to clear the rest of the shoot house for practice.

“OK, calm down, and let’s go over what just
happened.”

“I--- I … fucked up.” In the harsh light of the boat
lights, she looked down at the deck. Redshirt came over, looking equally
crestfallen.

“No, actually, you didn’t. You did exactly the right
thing. Your boy here was dead. It’s pretty damn rare that you can get jumped by
a Z like that and he hasn’t chomped on your neck in a second or two.” She
turned to look at Redshirt, who had a freaked-out look on his face.

“You killed the Z and saved your partner from
turning into one by killing him, too. At least turning into one fast. Tell me,
what happens to someone who is bitten in the neck by a Z?”

She recited from the Army Field Manual, FM 3- 84:
“Subjects
bitten on the extremity will become infected and turn within one to two
minutes. Bites to the torso, less than one minute, depending on proximity to
the heart and the main arteries. Bites to the neck in the vicinity of major
arteries result in infection within ten to fifteen seconds.”

I nodded at her. “So you did do the right thing. If
you had hesitated, you would have been facing two Zs coming right at you. Just
remember, when shooting an infected person who hasn’t turned yet, you have
got
to stop the blood flow, either with a head shot or a heart shot, right away, or
the infection will spread. Go for a head shot if you have the time, with a
burst. These little hot .22 rounds don’t have the tissue disruption that a bigger,
faster bullet has.”

She looked like she was calming down, but she still
shook her head. “It just happened so fraking fast. I panicked. I wasn’t trying
to kill him.”  

Self-doubt, one of the biggest killers on the
battlefield, and I knew she had to snap out of it, quickly. “Listen, Specialist
Mya, you did the right thing by instinct. Trust yourself and you’ll live. Doubt
yourself and you’re dead. You can do this, and you’ll save lives as a medic,
too.”
I turned to Redshirt, who still looked sheepish himself, as well he should. He
was trained for this.
“Now, Private Redshirt, you might be a great Injun tracker, but you need to
know that threats can come from a three hundred sixty degree angle, anytime,
anywhere. Buried under a pile of brush. Jumping down through a window. Out of a
closet in an already cleared room. Both of you need to understand that. I don’t
know how things are where you came from; out here in Z land EVERYTHING will be
trying to kill you.”

“I understand, Sarge. I come from the reservation in
New Mexico. We didn’t have much of a problem with Zs, mostly you can see them
coming from a mile away.”

“Well, different place here, Red. The pre-plague
population density means there are millions of them out there, and I don’t know
about you, but I only carry a couple hundred rounds of ammo.”
“OK, let’s do it again, this time, Redshirt is point, then Mya, then me, then
Brit.”
ß
who said this?

Later that night they were to learn an even harsher
lesson.

I hadn’t been able to sleep so I was walking the deck.
Dawn being only two hours away, I took a mug of coffee from the tug captain and
headed back to where I knew Mya and Redshirt were pulling guard over our packs.

As I got closer, I could hear music coming from
somewhere. In the moonlight, I could see Mya’s head nodding to the beat of some
headphones stuck in her ears. Next to her, Redshirt snored.

I came up behind them, and grabbed Mya by the neck,
throwing her onto the deck and ripping the headphones off her, followed by her iPod.
She lay there, stunned, and I kicked Redshirt awake. His eyes opened and
crossed as he looked at the barrel of my pistol two inches from his nose.

“
WHAT. THE. FUCK
!”

I was pissed. Regardless of WHERE we were, guard duty
was sacrosanct. Sleeping on guard duty was an offense punishable by immediate
death, carried out by the senior officer or NCO present. By the Universal Code
of Military Justice, rewritten last year, I could have, and should have, shot
Redshirt right there.

I holstered my pistol and sat back. I placed SPC Mya’s
iPod on the deck and smashed it under my boot.

“Hey!” she shouted. “You can’t get those anymore!”

“I suggest you shut the hell up and listen,
Specialist. Do you understand I have the right to kill PFC Redshirt right now?
And have you whipped? Or vice versa, depending on whose fault it was? In fact,
I think this is
your
fault more than his. You
let
him fall
asleep.”  

He didn’t say anything, merely hung his head. She
stared at me. I think reality had just bitten them both in the ass, very hard.

“You never,
ever
sleep on guard duty. I don’t
care if we are in the middle of Seattle, in the safe zone. NEVER, EVER.
Do
you understand me?
”

They both mumbled something and I blew out a long
breath.

“I’m not going to shoot you. Or have you whipped. This
is as much my fault as it is yours. I shouldn’t have put both of you noobs on
the same shift together. Just understand, from here on out, there are no second
chances. If it happens again, you’re done. Mya, go to bed.”

She got up and walked away without looking back.

“I thought they taught you better in Infantry
school, PFC.”

“Uh, they did, Sarge. One kid fell asleep in basic
training, on fire watch at night. They had him whipped in front of the whole
company and drummed him out. Put him outside the gate. I guess I was just worn
out from the training today. It won’t happen again.”

“If it does happen again, I will shoot you. Do you
understand? If you let your partner fall asleep, you will get whipped under
UCMJ. You’re lucky this
isn’t
on dry land, because it would have been
far worse. I would have had you both whipped for a first time offense.”

“Would you have really shot me, Sarge?”

“I’ve done it before, Red. Once. I’ll do it again,
if I have to. So would Doc. Brit wouldn’t even think twice about it. You’re
lucky it’s not her who found you. I will
not
let my team be killed by
someone’s stupidity. We all make enough mistakes, myself included, to die
easily out here, and none of us are going to let the rest of the team down if
we can help it.”

Chapter 34

Our boats hummed through the night, over the still
river water. I kept my head down and a cloth over my face. Ever since the
plague, more and more areas had been turning back into wetlands, without the
constant maintenance on causeways and dikes, and that meant more and more
mosquitoes and bugs. Most people didn’t know it, but malaria had been a big
problem in the States, even as far north as Canada, right up until the mid-20
^th
century, and it was going to come back and be a pain again soon enough. They
were all over and I didn’t want to catch more than my share in my teeth and up
my nose as we scooted across the water.

As we raced along, I thought back to the scene at
Firebase Castle a few hours before. Night had just fallen, and the chopper that
had been flying up and down river the past few nights flared in for a landing
on a cleared LZ. Two guys in civilian clothes had hopped out, one of whom I
recognized from my time in Afghanistan.

The Effing Press. They were greeted by LT Carter,
who ran over to them with a giant sucking sound and started shaking their
hands. He stood by their extra camera equipment and yelled for me as the Huey
thundered back up river.

“Sergeant, get a detail together and move this
equipment down to the boats!”

“NO FUCKING WAY!” I yelled back.

LT Carter stopped his sucking up for a minute to
come over to talk to me.

“What is your problem, Sergeant?”

“Sir, what is the point to this mission? We are a
recon element, not a goddamned circus.”

“Sergeant, the mission is to show the world that we
are returning to the places that mean something to America. This camera crew is
going to help us show that.”

I shook my head in disgust. “They are going to get
us killed.”

“Sergeant, you
will
protect these men with
your life, if need be. Their mission is more important than any one man. Do you
understand?”

“Oh yeah, I understand that those douchebags are
going to get themselves and us killed and or eaten. They aren’t going.”

“I’ll load their equipment myself if I have to.”

“Fine. Have fun.
Arrivederci
. Whatever.”

“When we get back to Fort Orange, Sergeant, I’m
bringing you up on charges of insubordination and dereliction of duty.”

“How about we get through this mission first, and
then
we see what’s a sucky attitude and what is reality!”

I turned my back to him and walked away. A little
later I saw him yelling at Redshirt and Mya to load the equipment into the
boats, and the Navy boat crew giving him shit about the extra weight.

So here we were. My team was in one boat, and the
LT, Mya, Redshirt, the reporter and his cameraman in the other. I knew the
“reporter” from my days in Afghanistan. He had done a couple of embeds, then
managed to alienate and piss off just about everyone in the military with his
crappy reporting and misdirected crusades, and spent the rest of the war
“reporting” from Singapore. I wasn’t surprised he had survived. Cockroaches
always do.

We cut the engines and shipped oars about two
hundred meters from the remains of the dock, but let the current carry us
slowly there. As we drifted up, we all watched through our NVGs for signs of Zs.
I saw one stumbling through the parking lot, then hear a muted
phut
from
Ahmed’s rifle and the figure went down. We backed water with our oars for a few
minutes to see if anything else came out, then tied up to the dock.

The team fanned out, rifles ready, scanning the parking
lot to see if there were any other Zs waiting around. We set up a small
perimeter while the packs were unloaded, then the second boat pulled up and
started unloading the camera crew and their gear. They made too much noise and
I ignored them. I noticed Mya and Redshift had immediately moved away from the
LT and over to where Brit and Jonesy held part of the perimeter. They weren’t
stupid.
The plan was for us to wait for daylight before moving uphill towards the main
campus. Unfortunately, no plan survives contact with the enemy, and in this
case, the enemy was us. Or, to be more specific, the asswipe reporter and his
cameraman.

A high intensity light suddenly lit behind the team,
silhouetting us all. It shone full on the LT, who stood next to the reporter,
bedazzled look on his face, while the guy shoved a microphone at him. That lasted
all of about two seconds before Brit turned and fired a burst that shattered
the camera, the light, and the cameraman’s shoulder. Chaos erupted.

“YOU STUPID ASSHOLES!”
.

“That bitch shot me!”

“Sorry, I was aiming for the camera!”

“Not helping, Brit!”

“Sergeant Agostine, get your men under control!”

The cameraman was rolling on the ground, screaming.
The LT was yelling and the reporter had pissed himself, from what I could
smell. The rest of the team stood silent, scanning the perimeter. Waiting.
I walked over to the wounded man; Mya was already putting a field
bandage on his wound. She whispered “Right through, he’ll be fine.” I squeezed
her shoulder, whispered “good job” to her, then stood up and slapped the LT
across the face. He stopped yelling.

“Sir, shut the hell up and LISTEN!”

He fell silent, eyes wide, then he heard it too. The
moan. They were coming.

I whistled once and made a circle in the air with my
hand. We fell back to the dock and started firing at the figures that were beginning
to stumble down the road towards us. Some were actually running, smelling the
blood from the wounded cameraman.

I banged the end of a green flare on the ground and
it shot into the air. Out on the river, I heard the engines of the boats roar
to life, and breathed a sigh of relief. The first one pulled in thirty seconds
later, and we threw the cameraman and reporter in bodily. I was right; he had
pissed and shit himself. Next went Mya and Doc, then Redshirt.

“Get in, Sir.”

“No, Sergeant, I will be the last one to get on the
boat, fighting off the demons while you load your team.”

Around us the firing increased, joined by the 240Bs
on the boats. They scattered their bursts head high, hoping to catch the Z but
most of their bullets tore right through. My team tried to drop them with head
shots, but it was tough to do in the dark.

“OK, suit yourself!” I turned and waved the rest of
the guys in, and they piled in the second boat. The LT looked at me, then
turned and ran for the boat as fast as possible, passing Brit and Jonesy on the
way. Ahmed and I backed towards the dock, firing as we went, then jumped as it
started to pull out. We landed in the bottom of the boat and Ahmed’s rifle hit
me in the back of the head, making me see stars.

While I sat there, trying to clear my head, I heard
Brit on the radio, finishing up a call for fire on Priority Target AA3427,
which we had marked before leaving the base that night. We had over twenty of
them pre-plotted but I hadn’t expected to need them right away.

I watched as the night was split open by the CRACK
CRACK CRACK of variable timed rounds bursting over the parking lot, sending
thousands of ball bearings through the several hundred Zs gathered there. 

Chapter 35
Dawn found us pulling back up to the barges tied off at Firebase Castle. A
trauma team was waiting for the cameraman, but Doc had already done a pretty
good job of stopping the blood flow. One round had shattered his shoulder
blade, and it was painful, but he wasn’t in any danger of bleeding out.

The reporter pretty much ran off the boat, and Brit
tracked him with her rifle as he jumped off without looking back. I stopped her
from taking a shot at him, but only just. He had almost gotten us all killed,
and pretty much blown the mission, for now.

LT Carter slunk off toward the base Command Post, a
tent with the American flag flying over it. I knew that we would have to “talk”
later, but maybe some time for him to think about what had happened would be
good. Meanwhile, I had another mission to plan. Well, same mission, different
plan.

“Hey Nick, how long are we going to be here?”

“We’re going to try again tonight, so get some
sleep.” Muttered grumblings as they pulled out their pop-up tents, or wandered
off to find someplace dark to hide out and catch some shuteye.

I headed over to the Fire Direction Center for the
Artillery, and I brought Jonesy with me. As we walked, I told him my latest
idea.

“J, I want you to find an M-203 and put it on your
rifle. Then find some grenades, pull the explosive head out so you have just
the propellant charge, and try two things: Rig up a thumper to the shell, and
see if you can get it to survive getting kicked out of the barrel. Try and see
if you can rig a flashbang, or if you can actually find some for a 203, that
would be great too.”
I had been thinking about how the bright lights of the camera had brought the Zs
running. If we could rig up a distraction, concentrate them
en masse
,
then rip the crap out of them with some firecracker rounds, it would make our
job of going through West Point a helluva lot easier. Once a Z got stirred to
activity
they would stay active for a few
days, hunting for fresh, live meat. So for the next couple of days, West Point
was going to be crawling with active Zs. Don’t ask me how it worked, that’s
just the way it is, and I planned to take advantage of that. Before we were
going to do a sneak and peek, now we had to do something different.

I hopped up into the FDC trailer and sat down with
the Fire Direction Officer and the FDC Chief, a Staff Sergeant I knew well. We
had been coordinating artillery fire all the way from the ruins of Syracuse.
“First, I just wanted to say thanks for the quick reaction last night. I know
it was early in the morning, but the crews were right on it.” I did appreciate
it. There is a difference between waking a gun crew up, with all the slow
reaction time that implies, and having them ready to throw rounds downrange at
a minutes’ notice. It could mean our lives.

I took a seat at the map table and said “Here’s what
I’d like to do …” We sat and worked out the details for an hour, until I was
sure the Artillery guys had my plan down tight.

My next stop was the CP, but along the way, I met LT
Carter coming down the trail, back toward the boats. I stopped short, then
stood aside to let him pass. He knew where I was going, and why. I was
surprised when he stopped too, and I got ready for the verbal abuse I fully
expected.

It never came, though. He stood for a second, and I
took a good look at him. His eyes were red, and his face looked pale and drawn.

“Sergeant, I, um …”

I stood there with my arms folded. He started to
turn red.

“Sergeant, uh, I’m sorry.” He sort of mumbled it
under his breath.

“What, Sir? I couldn’t hear you.” This was great.

“Don’t be an asshole, Sergeant. I know I screwed
up.”

“Pretty much.”

“Lesson learned, then.”

“I’m not the one you need to apologize to, Sir. You
need to apologize to the team.”

He stared at me for a minute, then looked at the
ground.

“Sir, you put their lives at risk and blew the
mission because you wanted to make the front page of a paper. You’re lucky none
of them pushed you off the boat last night on the way back. None of the boat
crew would have cared. You put
their
lives at risk too, by forcing them
to come back for us. You’re actually lucky that camera guy is alive, because
Brit wasn’t shooting to disable him. We don’t do that; she was just off her
game because she’s still recovering from a gunshot wound. By all rights, he
should be dead.”

“I know, I know. I just got my ass reamed by the
CO.” He meant the Infantry Company Commanding Officer, who had overall command
of the Firebase.

“Really? What did he say?”

“Uh, he said I should suck my thumb and let you
change my diaper when I crapped myself, and that I wasn’t in charge of shit.”

I laughed out loud, and he cringed. “Sir, this is
real life now. Learn a few things and you can be in charge. I don’t know why
you’re out here with us, instead of learning the ropes on a line platoon, but
if you stay alive, you will learn a good bit and be better off for it.” In fact,
I did know why he was with us; because Major Flynn was punishing me for what he
suspected happened to LTC Jackass, but I wasn’t going to say that.