Zombie Killers: HEAT (10 page)

Chapter 257

Elam went downstairs half an hour later, to check the perimeter and send up Ziv, who was on next watch. I continued to watch the Mountain Republic guys, who were clustered at the end of the pier. The angle they were at, unable to see the deck, they probably didn’t even know what had happened to cause their plan to screw up.

The way I figured it, they had planned to hose down the carrier deck, killing every Z that showed its head, and then wait several days for any undead attracted from the land to wander off. In the meantime, teams could using cutting torches to both block up passages and open up a direct line to the armory, and winch out a warhead. Or two. Or three. Now, with the loss of half their platoon, two of their heavy weapons, one horde on deck and another on the causeway, they were done.

Ziv came up the stairs and sat down next to me with a grunt, putting his feet up on the window sill and lighting a cigar. The nasty smoke wafted over me, making me choke, and I asked him to put it out.

“You know, Nick, I do not know what the red haired demon wench sees in you. You are such pussy sometimes.” He said it with a grin though, a rare smile. The cut on his forehead showed livid; he refused to wear a bandage, claiming he wanted a good scar out of it.

“Pussy or not, she likes me anyway. I don’t question it.” Ziv and I had not always gotten along. We were teammates, more or less, but not good buddies. The former Serb Special Forces soldier existed on a much more elemental level than I did, caring little for the big picture, enjoyed killing, and seemed to have few emotions. I could count on one hand the number of times I seen him smile, and I had known him for six years.

With an evil laugh, he said, “I think, after this mission, I kill you and take her.”

I looked straight at him. He sat there with a huge grin on his face, the cigar, still burning, chomped in his teeth. Was he serious, or just fucking with me? His fingers tapped idly on the hilt of the fighting knife he had strapped to his belt. Turning back to the scope I said, “You can have her. She’ll cut your dick off faster than you can blink.”

He laughed a low laugh and actually put out the cigar. “I will not have to kill you. Someday, your pussiness will get you killed. THEN I take red haired demon wench. Comfort her and show her what real man is like.”

“Just be nice to my kids. Now, what do you think we should do next?”

The smile gone from his face, Ziv listened as I updated him on the situation. After thinking for a few minutes, he said, “Leave them. We are supposed to secure the carrier, yes? What does that mean?”

He had me on that one. “I’ve been questioning that since we got the order. How are eight,”

“Seven,” he interrupted.

“Seven,” I continued, “people supposed to secure a thousand foot long ship, with hundreds of compartments? Secure what? From who?”

“Those shitheads,’ he said, gesturing towards the pier where the MR guys were still milling about. Then he raised his finger to his lips, making a shhh gesture, drew his pistol, leaned over the window, and fired twice, the slide making a snick snick sound and the small .22LR cartridges flickering out into the sunlight.

“Roamer,” he said in explanation, then put his boots back up on the sill and lit his cigar again. “How about you just call airstrike down on MR shitheads?”

“Nothing in range,” I answered. “The sub could maybe put a Tomahawk onto their position, but I don’t think the Navy would want to risk hitting that close to their precious carrier.”

“That and you want to kill the traitor fuckers who tortured Brit.”

“Don’t you?” I asked.

“Why do you think I am here? Do you think I give shit about carrier? That and I want to fuck Lowenstein. Never screwed a Jew girl before. She has perfect tits.” Blunt, and to the point. That was Ziv.

“That is true, but you better be careful there, brother. She is one tough ass woman.”

He grinned and said, “I will romance her.”

I burst out laughing. The image of Ziv giving flowers to the scarred woman with her purple hair was ridiculous.

“What? You don’t think I know how to talk to women?” I was almost as amused at the hurt look on his face as I was at the very idea of him doing so.

“Not really, no. I’ll give you some advice if you want.”

He made a ‘humph’ sound, and crossed his arms. “Back to mission. Fuck the carrier, it is not going anywhere. How do we get to Strasser?”

At that moment, everything changed. Coming over the wind was the moan of thousands of  hell bound souls, in the form of a multitude of undead moving up the highway from the south, moving towards the sound of the gunfire, to the where the tracers had arched across the sky and been visible for miles.

“Shit,” I said.

“Shit,” answered Ziv.

Chapter 258

The rest of the team were resting or sleeping downstairs; we had blocked up every window and doorway with plywood taken from a close-by unfinished building, and it took few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. When they did, I moved over to Brit and gently shook her. She woke up without a sound, but swung her pistol directly in my face. I had been expecting it, and used my hand to grab her wrist. Full awareness came onto her eye, and I whispered, “Horde. Upstairs.” She nodded and quietly gathered her pack and weapons, then moved to wake up Shona.

Elam had been cleaning his rifle when I came down, and he woke Obi, who responded with a loud “WHAT?” making me curse the decision to bring the kid with us. We all sat still for a minute as a scratching sounded at the rear door in response to his exclamation. I drew my pistol and made my way through the kitchen to the doorway. Through the peephole, I saw the remains of an obese man raking its hands across the door, trying to pry its way into the house. All the sudden it stopped and sniffed the air. Well I don’t know about sniffed, because they don’t actually breathe, getting their oxygen from the bacteria coating their skin, but what else could I call it? It smelled me, that’s for sure. We stood like that for an endless moment, separated by an inch thick piece of wood and glass, and I thought about the words of the undead soldier back in New York. What was still alive in this thing? Fuck it. I stepped back and tapped once on the peep hole. It immediately darkened, and I fired twice. The shadow vanished and a heavy THUD sounded from outside.

Swapping magazines for a fresh one, I safed the gun and holstered it, then headed back to the living room. The team was fully awake and moving equipment upstairs, as quietly as they could, crowding into the two upstairs bedrooms. I grabbed Ziv’s pack and moved past them. Brit was last up, and she and Obi started prying up the steps of the stairs as they crossed each one, as quietly as they could.

I went back to where Ziv was watching in the north facing bedroom. All around us in the yard, moaning figures shambled like a slow moving river, crashing through fences, falling into swimming pools, and pressing inexorably onward. There were hundreds of them in sight, maybe thousands. It would take hours to pass.

This called for the utmost quiet on our part. We had sat out hordes before, but it was tough. Not the first hour, not even the second. Eventually, though, you have to sneeze. Or cough. Or piss, or shit. The human body isn’t a machine, and it was hot and humid in the July Florida heat. We had to drink water, and a lot of it, and even though we sweated a lot of it out, you had to piss eventually. I ordered everyone to lose their body armor, take off their tops, and unblouse their pants from their boots, to minimize the heat and sweating.

We lay there as the sun rose to its height, and it got warmer and warmer. I watched the ongoing battle between the MR platoon and the undead, now streaming down the causeway. They had gotten the second minigun in action, and were using it to sweep the pier clear about once a minute. Working, so far.

Two hours into it, Ryan spent the time re-bandaging his finger; he was fighting off a stubborn infection and I was worried about blood poisoning. He was eating painkillers and antibiotics like candy, and if he didn’t get medical attention in a few days, he might lose more than a finger.

Elam had resumed cleaning his rifle; even though he had only fired one round, he stripped the entire thing down and was polishing and oiling each piece individually. Good man; your weapon was your life. He studiously ignored everyone, eventually getting up going to the other bedroom to unroll his prayer matt in the direction for destroyed Mecca.

Obi sat quietly. I think the big guy was ashamed of how he had reacted on being woken up. If we had been out in the wild, it could have gotten us killed, easily. He wasn’t a bad soldier, but after the ambush a few days ago, his stories had completely dried up. The reality of Scott getting killed, and how easily he had mowed down the attackers with his machine gun, had sobered him and made him a thousand years older. It had been good for him, though it was a costly lesson.

Brit got up and sat down next to Shona, whispering quietly about girl shit. Ziv, who sat at the top of the stairs, looked over at the two of them and leered openly. Both were wearing army issue t-shirts with sports bras underneath, but with the heat and their sweat, it was quite obvious they were women. They saw him leering, and looked at each other, then kissed passionately, long and deep; Brit’s red ponytail contrasting with the dragon tattoo on Shona’s face. Both grinned shit eating grins and gave him the finger. I heard a choking sound and Obi went red. Ziv merely gave them the finger back and continued to stare. In fact, we all just stared as Brit slipped her hand up under Shona’s’ shirt and gently squeezed her breast, eliciting a soft moan from the infantry captain. Brit stood up and pulled Shona up with her, forcing her back against the wall, and dragging her shirt over her head, then bending down to lick the Captains’ exposed nipple. Then she took her own shirt and bra off, pushing her own breasts in to Shona’s, the sweat making them both glisten. The cross tattooed in red on Brit’s back was partially hidden by the dark haired girl wrapping her arm around Brit’s waist, her other hand slipping between the redheads’ legs…

“Nick, wake up.” Someone was gently shaking me and whispering in my ear.

“Huh? What?”

Brit was sitting next to me, shoveling the remains of an MRE into her mouth. She kicked me, hard, in the leg.

“What were you dreaming about? For once you had a smile on your face.”

“Uh, nothing.”

“Nothing my ass. You said ‘go for it, Brit’ and had a huge smile on your face, then said someone else’s name.”

“Uh, I was dreaming of being back home with you,” I muttered.

“Bullshit!” she said, with a grin on her face. She used her tongue to lick the MRE spoon clean, very slowly. Ugh.

Towards evening the horde attacking the MR had dwindled down to a few stragglers. The firing continued, though; they must have brought a shitload of ammo with them. I knew it wouldn’t be good enough. Eventually the undead would pile up higher than the traverse of the gun, and they would spill over the top. Then there was the horde that was still slowly moving past us.

“OK,” I said, as the last Z passed us by. “Gather round. Here’s what’s next.”

The team crowded into the bedroom and sprawled around, waiting. I looked at them, and took a deep breath.

“We have to go rescue them.”

Chapter 259

Ziv turned to Brit and said, “He has finally lost his mind, devil woman. I am leaving.” He started to collect his equipment.

Shona looked at him and said, “Leaving? What do you mean leaving?”

“I mean I am not going to get killed doing something so stupid.” He settled his tactical vest comfortably and shouldered his pack, picking up his AK. Captain Lowenstein also stood.

“Good, you are coming with me?” said Ziv.

In response, she drew her pistol and pointed it at him. “The Colonel said we’re going to rescue those people. I suggest you sit down and listen to what he has to say.”

The smile never left Brit’s face. She leaned over to me and whispered, “This is gonna be great! I wish I had popcorn!” I was a little more concerned. I knew Ziv would do exactly what he wanted to do, but once he heard me out, he’d probably go along with us. Shona, though was Regular Army through and through, and had a lot to learn about being on the Scouts and how we operated.

“Little girl,” Ziv said, a look of amusement on his face, “put that away or I will feed it to you, one bullet at a time.”

“Sit down.” She cocked the hammer back on her pistol; it wasn’t a .22LR like most of us carried, but a big old 1911 .45 automatic. It looked huge in her hands, but she held it competently in a two handed grip.

Ziv walked slowly forward, and Obi looked like he was going to try and do something about it. Both Elam and Ryan were motionless, just watching. I held up my hand to Obi, motioning him to stay put.

He kept advancing until the suppressor was an inch from his face, still looking impassive. Then he reached up and slowly pushed it to the side. Man, that dude was stone cold. A few pounds of pressure on the trigger, and he would have a hole almost a half inch wide in his face. Shona held rock steady and resisted his push. The gun did move, but maybe only an inch, until it pointed at his eye.

“Sit. The. Fuck. Down!” she said.

“I do not take orders from women. I come and go as I please, and right now, it pleases me to go. Now move.”

Shona slowly uncocked the hammer of her pistol, then slid it back into her leg holster. “Thank you,” said Ziv, and he made to move past her.

What happened next was so fast I almost missed it. When Captain Lowenstein first showed up at the farm I noticed, shaking her hand, that it was extremely callused. I had also seen her practicing various sets of movements in her off time, and when I asked her, she had told me that she had, at the age of sixteen, won a slot on the US Olympic martial arts team. Her specialty was Judo, which emphasized holds and grapples, but her training had been interrupted by the apocalypse. Currently, the Captain held a 5
th
dan
Black Belt in Judo, and was a Krav Magna instructor, which, she said, she had found very useful in close combat with the undead. She had also asked me to not make a big deal out of it, which I hadn’t.

The result was that Ziv found himself facedown on the floor, with her on top, arm wrapped around his throat, slowly choking his air off, and his right arms painfully contorted behind his back. Instead of trying to get her off him, Ziv merely reached up with his free hand to grab her by the hair. Her short haircut gave him no grip, and his face started to turn red. Then he reached down to his belt and slipped his knife out of its sheath, and weakly tried to put the point up against her neck. She squeezed harder, and his eyes rolled back in his head, knife dropping to the floor.

Shona got up off him, her own face red with exertion. Brit slowly, quietly clapped, with a look of glee on her faceo. “Colonel, I’m sorry, but I won’t have troops disobey your orders,” said Shona. The dragon tattoo stood out strongly on her face, and under it I could see the white scars.

“As much as I appreciate the loyalty, Mary Sue, unfortunately, Major Zivcovic IS a civilian, and IS free to come and go as he pleases. As are Brit and Obi.”

Her face looked crestfallen, and she asked, “But why did you let me choke him out then?” She was honestly at a loss.

“Because,” I said, “I’ve wanted to do that myself, far too many times.”

Ziv sat up groggily, picked up his knife from the floor, and slid it back in its sheath. He glared at me, but I laughed and said, “Who’s the pussy now, Ziv? Got your ass kicked by a girl!”

“I did not want to hurt her,” he muttered, and stared daggers at Brit as she laughed out loud. I was worried that Ziv might get up and try it again with Shona, but he instead he picked up his pack and sat down next to her. She ignored him. 

“Maybe I stay. I will hear your plan first,” he said, looking sideways at her with admiration on his face. She still ignored him, and I continued on with my interrupted briefing.

“OK, here’s the WHY. Like them or not, those guys up there are Americans. Maybe deluded, maybe rebels, and I’ll gladly kill them in one on one combat, but I’m not going to leave them to get massacred by the undead. I’m not going to leave them to that.”

I let it settle in, and Brit was the first one to ask a question. “What about Strasser and his dog? I’m going to kill him.”

“If he isn’t dead, then you can have both of them. But I’m not leaving the ordinary Joes to get turned into undead.”

“I don’t get it,” said Obi. “One minute, you have Sergeant Yasir shoot one of them, and get a bunch slaughtered, and the next you want to save them. That seems kinda screwy to me.”

Ryan answered for me. “It’s like this. Our mission was to stop the Mountain Republic guys from securing a nuke from the carrier, and then to secure the carrier ourselves. Sergeant Yasir managed to do the first with one shot. There’s no way they are going to get onto that carrier now, with thousands of undead active aboard it, and thousands more cutting them off from their retreat. Their only hope was a quick in and out, and now they’re trapped.”

“OK, I see that,” said Obi. “But what about securing the carrier?”

“That’s a joke. It would take a company to clear all the compartments on that ship, and with a lot of explosives and you’d still take casualties.”

“So the mission is done,” I said, “and those guys out there are fellow human beings now instead of targets.”

“Except for Strasser and Harlan,” chimed in Brit.

“Except for those two,” I agreed.

Elam asked next. “So how do we GET there? There is a horde of undead between us and them.” As if to punctuate, his question, the minigun roared again.

I turned to Ryan and said, “How about it, Chief?”

He grinned and said, “Does a fish piss in the ocean?”

“Ziv?” I asked, “coming or going?”

He turned and looked at me, waved an irritated hand and went back to staring at Shona. She got up and muttered “creeper”, then sat back down on the other side of the room.