Even Zombie Killers Get The Blues (Zombie Killer Blues) (15 page)

Jonesy counted his magazines. “Seventy-five percent,
but my weapon is shot. The receiver is cracked, where I hit some hard-headed
booger. And I ain’t got no thumpers left.”

Doc was doing OK. “About half, also. Maybe two
hundred rounds.”

Ahmed: “Forty-two rounds for my rifle, a hundred
percent for my pistol.”

The LT and Mya were down to less than twenty-five
percent each. I expected that, since this was their first op and they had been
spraying rounds left and right with little fire discipline. I was tempted to
cross-level ammo with them but they would waste it. We were out of thumpers
altogether, too.  

“Mya, give Jonesy your weapon. Stay back with
Redshirt, make sure he’s doing OK, and if
it
looks
like we’re getting over run …”

“… Jump into the water with him?”

“No, put a round through his head and jump in the
water yourself.”

At that, Redshirt sat up, and demanded a weapon.
Damn, this kid was tough! I gave him my pistol, and told him I’d save one for
him if we got overrun. He laughed and said, “Bring it, Chief.” Then his eyes
rolled back in his head, and he passed out again. I took my pistol back.

We waited for four hours before the first Zs showed
up. They first came wandering down the hill, in ones and twos every few
minutes. Ahmed quietly took them out from a long distance, setting his rifle on
some debris and popping heads from five hundred meters out. The red eyes would
flare briefly when the rounds hit them, then go out.

“Hey Brit.”

“Yeah, Jonesy?”

“Ain’t it true that redheads started the damn zombie
apocalypse, stealin’ too many souls, an’ it just kinda got outta hand?”

“Kiss my ass, you big chocolate hunk of muscle.”

 “You should have seen mah muscles, honey, before
you redheads done brought the world to ruination. I ain’t had watermelon an’
ribs in forever!”

“You people.”

“What do you mean, YOU PEOPLE?”

“Zip it, both of you, and watch your lane.”

More started showing up and they started to get
closer. The guys joined in the firing, less accurately than Ahmed, when they
reached two hundred meters. We had a lull for a few minutes, then a huge, long
moan wailed from behind the hilltop, and a horde came charging over the hill,
eyes blazing.

“Uh, Nick, this kinda looks bad!”

“CASTLE, CASTLE, WE ARE UP SHIT’S CREEK, OVER!”

“Lost Boys, understand. Bird is on its
way south, ETA thirty minutes, over.”

“Roger. Well, maybe we’ll be here, and maybe we
won’t. Switching over to CAS.”

I switched freqs over to the Navy Close Air Support
Channel.

“Stinger 52, this is Lost Boys 6, over.”

The answer came back choppy, thousands of pounds of
thrust distorting the pilots’ voice.

“Lost Boys, this is Stinger, on station
with short load. Expended most ammo popping hordes down the City. Enough for
two runs. Over.”
She had a sweet voice, and I imagined
Scarlett Johansson in a flight suit. Reality was, she probably had gotten beaten
with the ugly stick when she was a kid and was overcompensating by being a
fighter pilot, but I would kiss her if she got us out of this.

“Understood, be advised, horde is about four hundred
meters from IR strobe, azimuth twenty-two degrees. Strobe marks our position,
do
not
drop on strobe. Hurry up, over.”

“Roger, four hundred  meters azimuth 22
degrees. Standby.”

A minute passed, and then she came back over the
radio.
“Dropped, heads down.”

“INCOMING!” I yelled, and buried my face in my arms.
A tremendous
WHAM
lifted me off the dock and set me back down, and I
looked up to see a fireball rising in front of us. Bits of body parts flew
through the air.

“Stinger, dead on, put one more just past it, over.”

“Roger that, then I’m out. Good luck,
Lost Boys, next air on station an hour from now. Buy me a beer next time you’re
in the City. Stinger out.”

The follow on JDAM blasted another hole in the
horde, but they kept coming. We opened fire but more and more of the red eyes
glowed in the moonlight, hundreds coming over the hill in front of us. The
barrel of my M-4 was getting hotter as the bolt locked back on an empty
magazine. Reload. Release the bolt. Aim. Squeeze. Shoot.

Fifty meters.
They were coming closer, despite our knocking them down in rows. The bodies
were piling up, and the Zs were screaming now, charging towards us, climbing
over the bodies. I heard, over the scream, the thudding of chopper blades
coming from up river.

Twenty  meters.
I could see the flashing navigation lights and a long stream of machine gun
fire arched out of the night and into the horde, to no effect. The rounds shot
through their bodies, only hitting their heads here and there, dropping a few. The
rest kept charging at us.

Ten meters
.
I reached for another magazine, and there weren’t any. I pulled out my pistol
and started taking single shots. The rotor wash from the helo threw off my aim.
Next to me, Brit pulled out her crowbar and started swinging hard, smashing at
the first Zs that grabbed toward her. Jonesy was swinging his iron bar in a wide
circle, savagely knocking them down and cursing at the top of his lungs.

The helo came to a hover at the end of the dock, and
I risked a quick glance behind me to see Doc and Mya throw Redshirt into the
open doors. Mya climbed in next to her, followed by Doc, but the LT came
running back to us, firing and charging into the melee, swinging his plastic-stocked
rifle at the closest Z. I saw him go down as I smashed one in the head, swarmed
by a dozen who immediately started tearing him apart. Ahmed ran backwards,
firing his pistol until the slide locked back, then turned and jumped in
through the open door.

Jonesy had been separated by more Zs and there was
no way for him to get to us. He swung his bar again, clearing a space around himself,
and yelled, “I’LLSEE YOU IN HELL, NICK!” and started moving away from the helo,
swinging hard, smashing them down, leading them away from us.  One grabbed his
ankle, and he started to fall. A shot rang out from the helo, and Jonesy
collapsed to the ground, shot through the heart by Ahmed.  

Brit was bleeding from the stomach, blood staining
her uniform where her stitches had ripped open
.
She flung her crowbar at the head of the nearest Zombie, then turned and ran,
clutching her side. I followed close behind her, the Zs right behind us,
howling and screaming. A gust of wind pushed the helo away from the dock just
as Brit jumped for it and the door gunner opened up with his 240. I saw her
fall into the water, slipping down between the helo and the edge of the dock.

In front of me, the door, and salvation, gaped wide
open. Ahmed and Mya reached for me, hands held out, while Doc fired over my
head, knocking Zs back from me.

I dove off the dock, and the cold river water closed
over my head.

Chapter 38
Even
with the full moon shining on it, under the surface was black as hell until a
bright light stabbed downward. I could hear the thump of the helo blades coming
down through the water. I unsnapped my gear and dropped my weapon as I sank
towards the bottom, shrugged out of my body armor, kicked for the surface.
Taking a deep breath, I turned over and dove for the bottom, trying to feel for
where the current was running. Next to me another figure splashed into the
water, and Doc dove down with me.

Fortunately, in the shelter of the point, the water
was almost still and only about fifteen feet deep. I could see the bottom in
the glare of the powerful spotlight on the helo, and after three dives I saw
Brit’s body. I slapped Doc’s leg, and he turned and followed me over to her.

She had struggled half out of her armor, but floated
unmoving, her eyes and mouth open, red blonde hair hanging in front of her
face. I started pulling at her armor, my head starting to hammer for oxygen.
Doc pushed me aside and cut it off where it had caught on her uniform. We each
grabbed an arm and kicked for the surface.

The crew chief of the helo directed the pilot to set
the tail end into the water, and we struggled up onto the lowered ramp, pulling
Brit’s body with us. Doc pushed me out of the way, listened to her heart, then
started to perform chest compressions. I pinched her nose and started forcing
air into her lungs.

The helo rose in a smooth arc and headed north.
Ahmed leaned out of the side door, firing steadily into the crowd of zombies
until we were out of range. Mya was wrapping Redshirt in some blankets while
holding up a new IV. The crew chief was hurriedly working on the wiring, where
a short had sent sparks arching onto the floor. It smelled of blood, cordite
and aviation fuel.

Brit suddenly coughed. A ton of water shot out of
her mouth, then she vomited on me and started making choking sounds. Doc rolled
her on her side and cleared her mouth out with his fingers, then started tying
a bandage around her waist where her gunshot wound had opened up.  

I sat on the deck of the helo and cradled her head
in my lap as we thundered up river to Fort Orange. After a few minutes, she
opened her eyes and said something I couldn’t hear over the roar of the twin
turbines. I leaned closer.

“If you wanted to kiss me that bad, all you had to
do was ask, you stupid ass.”

The End.

Or maybe not…

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