World of Ashes (37 page)
“Excuse me Corporal, but isn’t twenty one hundred hours a strange time to conduct a convoy?”
“Cap’m said he wants to conduct a patrol, afraid I can’t tell you where, I have no idea why either, Sheriff. Apparently this patrol has been deemed classified.” The redheaded corporal snuffed out his cigarette and heaved his assault pack into a 5-ton.
“That’s fine. Carry on.” Ethan spotted Lee and walked up to him. Over the din of the diesel powered LMTV’s, M1114’s and ASVs he could barely hear himself think. “I didn’t think you’d go tonight. The weather’s crap. There’s no real rush, bro.”
Lee shrugged. “I don’t expect to find anything, but it would be good to know what’s there. Not to mention we haven’t had many night missions, and my boys need the practice. Like they used to say, ‘If it ain’t raining, you ain’t training.”
“You got enough batteries for all that?” Ethan pointed to a tough-box marked as night vision gear. “NVG’s and Thermals eat batteries like a 90’s CD player.”
“Yeah, we found a few warehouses here and there. We’re good to go. We’ll be back just before dawn.” Lee seemed less than interested in the mission. He wasn’t even wearing any body armor or helmet. The Cavalrymen wore soft-caps and slung their rifles lazily behind them like they just out for another bumpy ride in a big tan truck.
“Don’t you think you should gear up?” Ethan suggested. “Lord knows I hate ACH’s and IBA’s as much as the next Joe, but you don’t know what’s there.”
Lee nodded in appreciation. “Our heavy gear is in the last truck. If we run into survivors we’ll back off and suit up. You really should read the new SOPs. I don’t want to see an entire generation of my men with back and knee damage from carrying all that crap. They have enough to carry already.”
Ethan rolled his eyes. “Alright man, I’ll be monitoring the radio all night. You even get a funny feeling and I’ll kick Second Lieutenant Olsen out of his bunk and send him running with the QRF.”
“If I need help bad enough for someone to wake him up I’ll call you first. You should send a Redshirt to wake him, though. Whoever goes into his hut might not come back out.” Lee and Ethan both laughed. Though Ethan had only met Lieutenant Olsen in passing, the Cavalry’s new XO had an infamous temper forged in the fires of having been one of the first men over the berm into Iraq during Gulf War I. He had the medals and patches and papers prove it, that and he’d ended his military career by beating a second lieutenant with the man’s own car antennae after the befuddled officer had hit Olsen’s brand new Dodge Challenger. He wasn’t allowed to reenlist, but, like Ethan, had been drafted back only to be little more than a bump in the road to the zombie hordes.
After driving off Ethan found the Japan Outpost in good order. He wasn’t one to stick to ceremony or SOP’s, so long as the job got done, how it got done was irrelevant. The most contact this checkpoint encountered anymore was the occasional stray zombie. The last living human to find them had been a little boy, maybe seven years old. Dirty and so wild as to have almost forgotten how to speak, he would probably need adult supervision his entire life. Civilization had only been gone less than a year, and already those left behind were losing touch. It was sad to see, but at least this boy could perhaps be saved. How many children would be lost to the world as the last memories of the world were lost to them?
“Sup, Sam?” Ethan said, waving to the deputy at the machine gun. He was reading a Farmer’s Almanac, a highlighter in one hand, a pen in the other. Who knew what he was doing with it.
“Hey, Sheriff. You here to relieve Wigg? That little fucker is driving me nuts.”
“Yeah.” Ethan knocked on the door of the outpost. “Wigg, you in there?”
“Sheriff!?” Came a shocked voice.
“Yeah, if you read your fucking roster you’d know I was coming here tonight.” The door swung open and Wigg did his best to button his shirt back up, his belt still undone. Ethan stepped back and laughed. Deputy Sam joined in the laughter. “What on Earth are you doing?”
“I… uh… was well…” Wigg had not expected to be caught playing naked twister.
Poking his head around the corner Ethan found an extremely embarrassed looking teenage girl trying her best to button up a bra that wasn’t cooperating.
“Miss Davis
, do you really think your father would approve of you being here this late?” Ethan recognized the girl. In town she was Miss Prim and Proper, but get her outside the boarder and outside her dress (apparently), and leather and high heeled boots was the order of the day. If Ethan had been even a moment later who knew what young Cassandra Davis would have done to poor Cadet Wigg.
The girl, bright red hair with freckles all over, turned the color of her hair. Ethan stifled a laugh as she got dressed, went outside and got in her car with a poorly packed duffle bag of bondage gear. The rusted out Pontiac Aztec squealed and took off into the night toward town. They all turned to Wigg. “I think she took my uniform pants, Sheriff.” He said, his face turning as red as a fire engine.
Ethen turned slowly, deliberately, toward Wigg and gave the boy his best Dirty Harry glare. “Just push, Deputy.” Wigg sighed and started doing pushups. Ethan and Deputy McPherson settled in to watch Wigg begin to sweat in his uniform top and boots, but no pants. “Ya know what would make this moment even better?” McPherson said. Ethan didn’t even have to ask. “Beer.” They both said, cracking open a cold one each from the lunch cooler, prepared to watch the horny teenager sweat till dawn.
(*) (*) (*)
After reaching the river valley bottom where the tourist attraction Meramec Caverns was located, Third Platoon dismounted and began walking in column formation on either side of the road at the first river access. They had orders for Light and Noise Discipline, and to use their blades to dispatch zombies rather than opening fire unless they were overwhelmed. The trucks were all turned off and hopefully the entire unit could remain silent rather than tipping off whomever, or whatever was there.
Lee walked with the lead platoon, but he nor anyone else found
signs of habitation in recent months. Small campsites with weather beaten tents and blood stains through claw marks amidst wrecked cars and more bloody clothing littered the campgrounds, but it was all old. Lee had read the news report about the zombie attack at the cavern, an early outbreak before the government was willing to admit the outbreak had made it well outside the Nogales area. Lee had thought it was a shame back then for such a neat place to be closed by the CDC. There were no Zims here now, despite its proximity to the river. Actually, there was a conspicuous lack of Zims or evidence of them. A smaller cave that had been barred off years before would have been an excellent place to hide or catch a respite, but there was nothing in it, not even a stash of supplies or trash from survivors. People on the run always left trash.
The green clad Cavalrymen spread out in an old style line from the riverside to the valley cliffs. It was dangerous, a hidden sniper or gunner could mow them down like it was a charge across No Man’s Land in the War to End All Wars: Part I. Zombies were almost the least of anyone’s worries anymore. If a Zim had spent any time in the water at all it had frozen and then rotten away when the thaw came. The others were weather beaten and nearly hapless to attack people on the move.
Lee checked his watch. 2145. He wanted to be able to clear the main dance hall in the largest cavern by 2215. As he planned it they would seal off the cave in case a zombie had wandered inside, or in case one ever tried. Someone could clear it later when things were safer.
“Sergeant Woods, take First Squad and clear the docks. Sergeant Ford, push into the gift shop and restaurant through the service entrance. The rest of us will move into the main cavern hall.” The NCOs who had gathered around Lee nodded and adjusted their helmets so that they sat correctly when the NVG’s were mounted. Heavy and awkward, nothing could make walking while looking through the depthless green screen easy. Whoever had designed the system didn’t think very far ahead on how much night vision goggles weigh. Lots of people tripped over logs no one had cleaned up in years, others walked into trees or got tangled in old tents, dry rotted with age and neglect. Luckily there weren’t any dormant Zims in those tangled messes.
Lee watched the first elements of his unit pick the lock on the doors to the motel built next to the cliff. It was completely empty, the beds made and the toilet paper and towels stocked. Second Squad moved up to clear peripheral rooms while the others moved on to the attractions at ground level. Snipers cleared the zipline tower just as the familiar odor of death began to creep through the seams in the walls of the main building. The smell stopped most of the men in their tracks. Because of the nature of the virus that reanimated the dead, a large number of bacteria normally associated with decomposition didn’t attack the flesh and insects found the corpses unsuitable for digestion and reproduction or larvae. Therefore the undead didn’t always smell really bad, just sorta moldy.
A team cleared several of the smaller buildings including the fudge factory while others poured into the building through the employee entrances. Those who entered the main building were immediately pushed back by a wall of stench, air that was nigh unbreathable it was so thick. This wasn’t the smell of Zims, not even a horde of them or the food they consumed could create this… This breathable death… No, this was the smell of rot that had never been touched by the plague. The odor, almost visible on the stream of gases it rode, blew out into the line of soldiers and many, including Lee, uncontrollably vomited all down one another’s backs. They all backed out and sucked down as much fresh air as they could, reeling from what was nothing short of biological warfare. Lee was glad his men knew better than to be smoking during an op, the built up methane and nitrogen could explode if left unvented.
“Wha… What the flying fuck was that!?” Lee wiped his mouth off, sure the smell would permeate his nose forever. “Mass suicide?”
Corporal Skarine, who hadn’t vomited yet, finally gave in and let loose over the railing of the ramp to the front door. “There’s so many…” Was all he could say, his eyes wide while spittle dripped down his beard. “It’s just like that mall we found… They’re all true-dead and the rot had nowhere to go.” There was no voice behind his whisper, just the empty facts.
Lee grabbed the cloth medical mask he and all soldiers carried in their lower torso pocket and put it on. It wouldn’t stop the smell, but it would at least make it bearable long enough to see what was beyond the wall of stench. Braving the odor again he went back inside, those who felt they had the constitution to handle it followed with recording equipment mounted on their guns. Something was wrong and Lee wanted a definitive record of the event…
Another car pulled up to the Japan Outpost. Ethan, who’d been reading a really crappy vampire novel geared toward semi-illiterate teenage girls looked up and smiled as Mary opened the door and Bogey jumped out. The beagle ran to Ethan, jumping in his lap and kicking the book aside with slobbery wetness and loose fur. “Okay, good to see you too. I’ve lost my place now. I hope you’re happy.” Bogey licked Ethan’s face. He had dog breath, but his joy was infectious.
“I brought dinner.” Mary smiled. She was really starting to show at eight months. Soon, very soon, Ethan’s demon spawn would be upon this Earth, and no prophecies shall be fulfilled... “I brought you some too, Sam.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. My wife packed my dinner for me.” Sam replied, returning to reading his own book. There wasn’t much else to do at the outpost, and Wigg was still running laps around the building in his underwear so he wouldn’t require anything to eat until Ethan got tired of doling out punishment for the kid’s misconduct.
“So where’d Lee and his boys get to?” Sam asked. He heard the radio chatter of the Cavalry leaving the gates.
“Meramec Caverns. Lee’s conducting a training mission I think.” Ethan unwrapped the potato salad. He smiled wide when he saw the bag of Skittles at the bottom the bag. “Sweet!”
“Those are for desert. I’m a shitty cook, so don’t expect any home-made goodies.” Mary leaned to alleviate pressure on her lower back.
“You need a massage, babe?” Ethan asked with his mouth full. Mary had grown rather fond of having her back and feet rubbed. Ethan claimed it was the least he could do while she ‘carried his alien seed.’