World War Moo

 

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Table of Contents

About the Author

Copyright Page

 

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FOR NATS,

even though she told me to dedicate this book to somebody else

 

Acknowledgments

As ever, I have a bazillion people to thank, but I'll restrict myself to those with the most direct impact. First up is my wife, Nats, who reads my books at least ten times during development, poor thing. She still manages to come up with excellent feedback every time, and as of yet hasn't thumped me over the head with a rolled-up manuscript.

I am also indebted to Rebecca Dempster, Kat Urbaniak, Scott McDonald, Mick Sailor, Tom Dixon, Peter Abraham, Dani Solomon, and Andy Dunlop for their services as beta readers. If any other author needs a bunch of eagle-eyed readers who are not afraid to stick the boot in, they're available for hire as a job lot. John Berlyne also helped with his early comments on the tone of the book, and I am grateful for this.

Finally, thanks to the readers of
Apocalypse Cow
who entered my competition to have their names, and in some cases appearances and quirks, used in
World War Moo
. They are, in no particular order: Ruan Peat, Jack Alford, Glen Forbes, James Anthony Hilton, Andy Scholz, Tim Roast, Eva Gilliam, Hannah Campbell, Scott McDonald, Peter Abraham, Tom Dixon, and Andy Dunlop. Andy Dunlop really is a competitive egg thrower and Scott is genuinely a giant with an addiction to tie-dye, which goes to show real life really is often stranger than fiction.

 

1

General Carter was standing on the seventeenth tee of the Augustine Golf Club, using his wood as a leaning post and stifling a laugh as his Russian counterpart shanked a ball into the rough, when the call came in. General Kuzkin broke off from his incomprehensible cursing, and General Zhang turned from where he was sifting through his clubs. They looked at the American expectantly as he listened. He nodded once, said, “Understood,” and hung up. A broad grin sprang up so quickly that it set his pockmarked jowls wobbling.

“Good news, gentlemen,” he said, adjusting his red golf cap to a jaunty angle. “Our glorious leaders have finished their little powwow, and they've finally had enough of waiting on this multilateral UN crap. This time next year, I'll be teeing off at Gleneagles again.”

“Lovely course,” said Zhang, miming a swing with his delicate hands.

“Yes indeed. I laid out five thousand bucks for my membership last year and only got to play once before those goddamn zombies shut down the country. Didn't even get a refund. Eight months without a round at the best course in the world. That, my friends, is a tragedy.”

“How soon do we move?” Kuzkin asked.

“They want us ready to go in twenty days. No warning. Catch them with their pants down and their pasty British asses dangling in the breeze.”

Kuzkin threw his club back to the caddy. “We should go to the clubhouse to start planning.”

“Hold your horses,” Carter said. “We've still got two holes to play. I do my best thinking on the course.”

“In Russia, we do our best thinking in the
dacha
with a warm fire and a bottle of vodka. This is a stupid Western game.”

“Hey, it's team building. This is our first joint mission: Russia, China, and the U.S. working together in the interests of humanity. It's a brave new world, my friend. We need to understand each other's cultures.”

Kuzkin's pale blue eyes peered out from beneath a canopy of shaggy eyebrows. “Culture is literature, classical music, and art, not hitting a stupid little ball at a stupid little hole you can't even see with binoculars.”

Zhang slid a wood from his bag and pointed it at the Russian. “You only want to stop because you are losing.”

“I don't care if I lose. You can have my money now. Or we can go double or quits and play Tiger Has Come in the clubhouse.”

“What is that?” Zhang said.

“Russian drinking game. I am the army champion.”

“You are the top general. They let you win.”

“
Nyet
. I have the stomach of a bear. Every day I drink bleach and disinfect the urinals in headquarters with my piss.”

“A bit of focus here, gentlemen,” Carter said. “Before we do anything else, we've got to take care of the most important part. We need to name the mission.”

The Chinese general whacked his ball hard and true down the fairway, prompting a disgusted snort from Kuzkin. The three men climbed into their golf cart and trundled off, the caddies following in their own vehicle.

“How about Operation E-limey-nate?” Carter said, letting out a chuckle as he steered. The others offered up blank expressions. “It's a joke. We used to call the Brits ‘limeys,' and we'd be … oh, forget it.”

“We need a strong Russian name. Operation The Great Terror would make them quake in their boots.”

“You can't make it sound like there's killing going on,” Carter said. “You may as well call it Operation Mass Murder. It has to be evocative. Woolly enough so folks can pretend what we're doing in their names isn't all that bad. Like Operation Desert Storm, that was a great name. Geographically appropriate, dynamic, and suggestive of a force of nature.”

“But we will be killing a lot of people. There should be honesty, no?”

“Hell no. The first rule of any military campaign is that you lie your ass off to the folks back home. And, you can't refer to them as people. Always call them zombies, especially in public.”

“They are not zombies.”

“They're near as dammit. Look, we can't have the public thinking of them as people, or they might start feeling sorry for them. As it is, we're damn lucky we've had all those zombie films and TV shows swimming in blood and guts for the last few years. Actually, we're even luckier the Brits didn't turn into vampires. If my daughters are anything to go by, we'd have every pubescent girl that's ever read
Twilight
trying to get over there and find some sparkly five-hundred-year-old teenager to tongue wrestle.”

Zhang, who clearly hadn't been listening as he stared off into the distance, held up his closed fist and opened his fingers. “Operation Unfurling Petal,” he said.

“That's too far the other way. We're not dropping flowers on them. It doesn't even make any sense.”

“We call it after my president,” Kuzkin said.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Hurricanes get people's names, not military campaigns. And we're doing this jointly, not under the command of a man who can't seem to keep his top on.”

“He has a manly body, not like your scrawny president. Why should he not show it?”

“No man I know gets his bitch tits out when he's fishing or horse riding. It's borderline homoerotic. But if you insist, we can call it Operation Topov.”

“His name is not Topov,” the Russian said, frowning.

Carter sniffed. “Damn language barrier's killing my puns. Let's just move on. Any other suggestions?”

“Operation Flaming Wind,” said Zhang.

“Sounds too much like the gas you pass after a hot chili.”

“Operation Deliverance,” offered Kuzkin.

The American shook his head. “We've had that one already. Canada in Somalia, 1993. Made everybody think of banjos, buggery, and Burt Reynolds.”

They fell silent, faces scrunched up in concentration as the buggy shuddered to a halt in the general area where the Russian's ball had skittered into the long grass.

“How about Operation Excision?” Zhang said as Kuzkin clambered out and gestured to the caddy to find his ball.

“What's that mean?” Carter asked.

“It is the surgical procedure of cutting out a diseased organ or tissue. Very appropriate, since we will be stopping this disease from spreading.”

“You know, I think that might just work,” Carter said. “It sounds clean. Precise. Tidy. Agreed?” The other two men nodded. “Excellent. Now we just need to draw up a plan. Twenty days, gentlemen, and the fireworks commence.”

Kuzkin stood over his ball, which the caddy had located, and slashed at it. It curved into the trees a few dozen feet ahead.

“If we are off this course by then,” Zhang said.

Carter gave up trying to hold in his spiteful mirth at Kuzkin's golfing ineptitude and released a guffaw that startled a swan dozing on a nearby water hazard. The bird spread its great wings and took to the air. It flew overhead, casting a dark shadow like a bomber, and unleashed a stream of white shit to splat on top of the buggy.

“I just hope our boys are as accurate,” Carter said, and laughed again.

 

EIGHTEEN
DAYS TO EXCISION

 

2

The waters of Loch Long lapped at Ruan Peat's ankles like a slobbery and cold-tongued dog as she crouched in the shadows, entranced by the siren song of soft light spilling from the bar. A glowering mountain stabbed its peak into the pale moon slung low over the village, and the wind blew strong and cold into her chafed face, setting her body shivering. She imagined walking into the low white building, where the awesome power of her breasts would warp the barman's pitiably fragile male mind and stop him noticing she was far too young for a vodka and coke. She would then defrost before a crackling fire, sipping her drink and listening to the local yokels' boring small talk as the crackle and spit of frying fish and chips drifted through from the kitchen.

She blinked rapidly to dispel the dangerous fantasy. The welcoming fa
ç
ade of the bar was as genuine as the bogus
Facebook
profiles her teachers used to warn her about—behind which fourteen-year-old Jenny, who “hearted” chatting about boys with her online mates, was really a dough-faced pedo who typed with one clammy hand. Within that bar lay monsters—probably wearing comfortable shoes and 1970s Noel Edmonds jumpers from the look of the place, but monsters all the same.

No sixteen-year-old girl, especially one once so painfully hip that she almost qualified for replacement surgery, should have been as intimately acquainted with the life of one of British TV's most persistent unflushables. However, Ruan's mum had nursed a crush on the hamster-faced presenter and kept a scrapbook spanning thirty years of the most egregious knitwear known to humankind. Ruan's dad, a facial-fuzz offender himself, hadn't seemed to mind. Ruan considered her regular subjection to the book far worse abuse than anything skulking beneath
Facebook
's veneer of chumminess. At one point she'd threatened to call ChildLine. Now she longed to sit in their spacious apartment in Edinburgh's New Town and leaf through the album one more time, rolling her eyes as her mum advised her to “find a nice man like Noel when she grew up.”