Brent Acuff - Undead Nation 03

Book 3 -- Revenge

CHAPTER ONE

City Infiltration

The train horn blared outside, so loud that everyone inside and out of the train cars covered their ears, trying in vain to block out the noise. "Damn," Liam screamed over the noise. "How long is that thing going to go off?" His question went unanswered as no one in the train car could actually hear him.
 

The horn continued for another minute before falling silent. Carefully everyone removed their hands from the ears, keeping them close in case the engineers decided to let loose again. Nothing came and everyone relaxed for a moment.
 

"Stryker team, check your weapons." Most of the team went straight to work, checking and double checking the slides and magazines on their carbine rifles. Ammo was counted and recounted, unpacked and repacked to ensure easy access and an even distribution of weight. These were the veterans, those who had been on a Stryker team before. The new recruits -- freshmeat as they were called -- remained still. Either because of fear or arrogance, none of them thought it necessary to go through the motions. They would soon realize why they were wrong.
 

Liam smacked the closest recruit to him. "Get busy, freshmeat. Those ammo clips aren't going to check themselves." The recruit started through the routines they had all been trained on. Across the car came a snort from another recruit.
 

"Why are we busting our chops right now?" he said. "We're going to be here for a long time, right? What's the rush?" Almost before the recruit had finished, the first of the volleys rang out. The over-confident recruit nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound. Liam laughed.
 

"Because we never know if they," and he pointed to the roof of the train car were the Heavy Attack Force was stationed, "will do their job or not. When we have to save their ass, you want to make sure that your equipment is working before the deaders get here...not after." The recruit looked up at the roof for a short time, listening to the steady stream of gunfire, then quickly bent to check his own equipment.
 

Liam looked over to Alex, shaking his head. "Freshmeat," he quipped. "Never fails."

For the next six hours Alex and his Stryker team hunkered down in the bowels on the armored car, waiting for the Heavy Strike Force to finish their phase of the operation and give the all clear for the Stryker teams to head out. All clear was a relative term, though. While the Heavy Attack Force could clear out a large portion of the free roaming zombies in the city, they could do nothing about those trapped within buildings, in cars or by obstacles. It was up to the Stryker teams to walk into the cities and clear these out.

The cracks and pops from the rifles above seemed endless. The longer the assault continued, the more the new recruits began to get jumpy. Alex had the Stryker team check and recheck the condition of their weapons and ammo every half hour. The routine achieved two goals; the first was so that everyone knew exactly what they had, where, and in what condition. The second was more for the new recruits. The more they kept busy, the less likely they were to focus on what was going on outside. This was the time when most new recruits broke, not out in the field. The constant barrage of gunfire was enough to wear down most men.
 

Alex and Liam kept a close eye on each of the six new members of the Stryker team, looking for any signs of distress. Both men noticed Jeremy and his increasing nervousness. The two leaders eyed one another, knowing what each other was thinking. This boy was going to break. It was only a matter of time, and the longer those guns continued, the closer he came to breaking.

Alex nodded his head towards the young recruit. "He going to make it?" he asked above the noise from above. Liam looked closely at the boy. Looking back to Alex, he shook his head.
 

The pounding noise of the guns continued outside, constant and unrelenting, but the sound that soon accompanied them was worse by far. The unmistakable moans of the dead could now be heard over the barrage of gunfire. Alex and Liam stood and moved together to the north side of the rail car. Peering through the gun ports in the wall, they looked out on a sight they had hope they wouldn't see. Thousands of walking dead were converging on the train they now occupied, and the guns above didn't look as though they were going to be enough.
 

"Check your gear," Alex commanded. "Everyone to a gun port. We may be fighting sooner than later." This last command, and the implication that went with it, was too much for the already breaking recruit. The boy began screaming and thrashing around, finally reaching the limit of what his nerves could stand.

"Oh god! Oh god! We're all going to die! Oh god we're going to die!"
 

"Shut him up!" Alex ordered. The screams from the boy were having an effect on the remaining recruits. Their faces screwed up in terror at the scene before them.

"We're all going to..."
 

The boy's screams were quickly silenced by a hand clamping firmly across his mouth. Another man, Dr. Cahn, ran quickly across the interior of the rail car, plunging a needle into the boy's thigh. Almost instantly, the boy stopped moving. Hayden slowly removed his hand from the boy's mouth, prepared to once more cover the screams if he continued. The boy remained silent.
 

Dr. Cahn checked the boy's pulse then turned and nodded to Alex. "He's out, and he won't be going anywhere for a while."

"Good," Alex responded. "Everyone to their station. Prepare for attack." With the hysterical boy now quiet, the orders seemed to snap the others out of their shock. Each of the remaining five recruits set to their task quickly, then moved to their assigned place within the rail car.
 

Each man had trained for this possibility, and the armored train had been designed for just such a scenario. When a military train entered an infested city, the train's horns where blown to attract any free roaming zombies in the area. The Heavy Attack Force was then deployed to positions on top of the rail cars. Shooters were placed shoulder-to-shoulder on both sides, and the rifle scopes were modified to allow each shooter only a narrow field of vision. Each shooter had been heavily trained to only shoot objects which entered into their narrow field of fire, with only a five degree variation to either side. This technique should, in theory, provide a kill zone spanning the entire length of the rail car, with four shooters stationed at the corners to provide a rotating field of coverage for the areas between the cars.
 

Inside each rail car were two additional teams. The first were members of the Heavy Attack Force and were stationed at each of the two ladders which provided access to the roof. If a shooter's shot-to-kill ratio dropped significantly, observers monitoring the shooters would call for a replacement, allowing the affected shooter some time to rest before returning. The second group stationed within the rail cars were the Beta Stryke teams. The Beta Stryke teams were divided into two groups, rescue and cleanse. The rescue teams were tasked with locating and extracting survivors within the cities. Cleansing teams, the larger of the two Stryke teams, were to locate and eradicate any pockets of zombies. It was the cleansing teams that suffered the highest number of casualties.
 

The gunfire outside of the rail car seemed to intensify, if that were even possible. Calls came down from the observers above, ordering the relief forces up top. "That's not normal procedure," Liam said to Alex as confusion crossed his face.

"Just what about any of this has ever seemed normal?" Liam shrugged back at Alex's comment, realizing the truth of the situation.
 

"Okay," he said back, "you got me there. Let me rephrase. That's not 'standard' procedure." It was Alex's turn to shrug.
 

"Guess they are trying something new. I don't mind, really. It'll keep us out of the mess a little longer." Liam and Alex continued to monitor the fight outside through the gun ports. The extra firepower seemed to stem the hordes of walking dead bearing down on them. Soon the relief force was once again making its way back inside the safety of the armored car, and within the hour the guns up top began to quiet. Not long after, only the sporadic pops and cracks from the riflemen outside could be heard. Alex began it issue his final commands. "Last check of equipment, gentlemen. We're up next."

-----

Smoke drifted across the battlefield from the bonfires that were blazing everywhere. Bulldozers growled all around as they worked to push the decomposing corpses into the flames. The smell of diesel and burning, rotting flesh filled the air and permeated the make shift masks worn by the soldiers. Behind Alex, one of the new recruits retched on his boots.

"One would think you would never get used to the smell," Liam said to Alex as he looked over his shoulder at the sick recruit. "It gets better," he called to the recruit, giving a little smirk at the young soldier. Liam looked around the battlefield at the piles of dead and flames licking the skies.

"Have you ever seen so many?" Liam asked Alex quietly. Alex shook his head slowly.

"It took a long time getting here," he said. "The longer it takes, the more dead we can expect to see." He looked to Liam with concern. "This trip is going to be rough."

Alex and Liam led their platoon of nineteen soldiers in between the burning pyres, following carefully the narrow paths cut through the battlefield by the bulldozers. The grounds on either sides of the path were stained red with the infected blood and body parts of the dead. Once the rescue teams had returned and evacuated the area, these grounds would be completely cleansed with fire. Until then, straying from the path meant almost certain death.

Retching sounds from behind Alex made him stop and turn. The same recruit continued to vomit his lunch on the ground at his feet, this time trying hard to avoid his boots. Dr. Cahn stood next to the young man speaking quietly to him.

"Doc," Alex called back, "is he okay?"
 

"He will be," Dr. Cahn answered without looking up.
 

"I need to know if he is okay now," Alex demanded, "not in the future. If he can't go on, send him back. He'll just get in the way."

"He will be fine," Dr. Cahn said, shooting a look at Alex. "Just give him a minute."

"We don't have a minute, Doc. Send him back."

"Lieutenant," Cahn started to protest, but was cut short.

"We can't afford to have anyone in this platoon that can't perform at one hundred percent," Alex said. "You know this, Doc. If he can't get it together right now, he's only going to get himself or someone else killed. Send him back."

Cahn's face began to turn red when a feminine hand gripped his shoulder. Theresa Hill stood next to the doctor in full combat gear, looking gentle and terrifying all at once.
 

"Send him back, Doc," Theresa said quietly. "Send him back and let him live until tomorrow. We'll be fine without him."

The color of Dr. Cahn's face returned to normal and he nodded his head slightly. "Fine," he conceded and turned towards the sick man. "Congratulations," he said. "You get to go back, young man. Unfortunately, you are not going to like the reception you receive when you get back, but we can not afford to have you jeopardize the rest of the platoon." The Doc patted the recruit on the back and the young man looked up. He looked a bit confused and conflicted.

"I can go on, sir," the young recruit said.

"You are going back," Alex said quickly. "That's an order. You are a liability to this operation, and I won't have you with us." A look passed across the recruit's face that Alex read as either pain or relief. Either way, this young man was not going to continue.

"Yes, sir," the recruit said finally and looked around at the rest of the platoon standing there. "Sorry," he said quietly, lowering his head.

"Don't be," Dr. Cahn said. "No one can blame you." The doctor shook the young recruit's hand before sending him back down the path towards the train alone.
 

The platoon continued forward towards the city, leaving the lone recruit to make his own way back. Liam looked across at Alex. "That's two men down already and we haven't even seen a deader up close. Things aren't looking so good right now."

"We've done this with fewer before. And over half of the men in this platoon have done this many times." Alex looked over at his friend and smiled. "We been up against worse. We can handle this too."

"I guess you're right, Alex." Liam gave his friend a concerned look. "But one of these days, our luck is going to run out."

-----

"Come on! Come on! Come on! We've got to get out of here!" Liam's gun barked and the nearest zombie's head exploded in a cloud of red mist. The Stryker team fled past Liam and Donovan who prepared to cover their escape. A small group of survivors, escorted by the new recruits scrambled to keep up.

"Dammit," Liam yelled as he squeezed off another shot, dropping a deader as it rounded the corner of the building. "This isn't good," he called to Donovan.
 

"It'll be fine," the ex-marine said, pulling the trigger of his carbine in rapid succession. With every explosion of the gun, another of the walking dead fell. "Come on," he said, clapping Liam on the shoulder. "Let's catch up."

The two men each fired another shot into the approaching horde of deaders before turning and rushing to catch up to the rest. Only moments before, one of the recruits had opened the door to one of the buildings. This building was restricted, and the recruit had violated Alex's order for it to remain untouched. Stryker Alpha teams on the rooftops had classified this building as contaminated, meanings that they believed the building contained several deaders who were locked inside. Such buildings, if there were no survivors believed to be inside, would be dealt with after the rescue operations had ceased. The recruit had not listened to orders and opened the door, releasing the dead inside.