Last Stand on Zombie Island (14 page)

The anticipation of death is worse than actually dying, or so Billy thought. After the first attack at the end of the bridge roadblock, everyone talked about everything but the zombie attack, impending doom, and possibly the end of the world. Pretty much anything to take their minds off of the fact that they were all covered in gore, mung, and splatter was talked about
except
gore, mung, and splatter.

The first few games of the NFL football season were openly analyzed in detail and every one of the nine bridge defenders had a different favorite team. Durham made small talk about the interesting world of a Gulf Shores police sergeant. Billy related about how the price of diesel fuel was eating into his profit margin on offshore trips. Reid spoke about the latest gossip at the county jail.

“I thought I recognized you from somewhere, boss man,” Spud, who finally climbed down from his hiding place on the ladder truck, said to Reid.

“Yeah how you been, Spud? You keeping your nose clean? They miss you in the showers at County. Nobody gives crying blowjobs like you do,” Reid said with a smile.

Spud laughed and quickly pointed out that Reid was joking.

“How many pair of drawers you wearing right now, Spud?” Reid asked, nudging Billy.

“Two,” the little man replied.

“And tell the nice citizens here why someone of your caliber always goes double-bottomed?” Reid said. You could almost see his grey-toothed crooked smile in the dark.

“You always wear two pair of boxers and two t-shirts; because when you are in county and you wash your shit in the sink, you still have a set to wear while your dirty whites are drying,” Spud said with no shame.

“See, young Mr. Potato Head here is not your average every day, walking-the-street type of citizen,” Reid concluded.

“So, boss man, how about you, you in the real military now?” Spud asked the sergeant.

“You little shit; I sat on a roadblock and stared at a road for eight months on my last tour in Iraq while you were avoiding gang rape in the shower. So you can kiss my dick with that one weekend a month crap,” Reid said, black spittle leaking out over his lip.

“Raptor Six, this is Raptor Main,” The radio in the hummer broke into the conversation.

Stone picked up the handset, “Send it,” he muttered and released the mic.

“We have cutter
Fish Hawk
on fox mic advising he is on station below you. He is bittersweet aware and is on weapons-hold,” came the reply from the radio speaker.

“Roger that, advise
Fish Hawk
we are sending two personnel in a marked police vehicle to the wharf on south side boat ramp at our location for transfer, how copy?” Stone said into the mic.

“Good copy,” came the reply as Stone was replacing the mic in its cradle and turning to Durham.

“Sergeant Durham, since your car is on the other side of the laddertruck, can you take Mr. Spud here to pick up some ammo from the cutter downstairs?” Stone asked.

This brought a quiet cheer from the collective group and Durham, with Spud in tow, marched away up the bridge to the Swiss-cheese patrol car and then quietly pulled off.

Less than ten anxious minutes later, they had returned and parked the battered vehicle in the same place behind the laddertruck. Four shadows emerged from the vehicle, each lugging heavy wooden crates wrapped in wire towards the roadblock. The sound of hushed voices exchanging stories and grunts accented their trip from the car to the hummers. One of the figures slipped in a puddle of sticky blood and caught himself before falling all of the way over.

The mustached Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer from the boarding earlier that morning reached out and shook Billy’s hand. A second Coastie with a baldhead and an awkward fitting pistol belt stood quietly behind the Chief. The rising moon reflected off the man’s shiny head.

“Do not be alarmed, sir. Remain calm. I am from the Government and I’m here to help,” Chief Hoffman said through a thick waggling mustache that looked as if it had been stolen from a dead walrus. The Chief had an old school M16 slung over his shoulders rather than the newer and neater M4s that the MPs had.

“Can’t believe Captain Crunch is here and he isn’t writing tickets,” Billy said.

“He’s down under the bridge on the cutter, but I can get him up here if you really want one,” Hoffman said.

“Thank your skipper for me on behalf of the US Army, Chief,” Stone said, making his entry into the conversation. He was already breaking into the crates of ammunition with a pry bar from the hummer.

“No problem, sir, but I do need you to sign my chit for the transfer to make this all official like,” Hoffman said handing out a piece of paper that the MP Captain dutifully signed.

“Ok, ladies, let’s get over the hug fest and get the ammo handed out, I’m getting some more movement down the highway,” Reid said, watching again through his NOD.

A flurry of activity broke out and Billy grabbed his Denver tool to help pry one of the fifty-pound wooden crates open. Out came four green ammo cans about the size of a kid’s shoebox. Stenciled in yellow paint across each can was
200 Rounds 7.62 Ball, linked.
Billy read the inscription aloud and handed each in turn to MPs who accepted them greedily for their unloaded machineguns. Three of the cases were the same, the fourth contained 5.56mm ammo for the M4 rifles that had sat empty and unused in the hummers during the first attacks.

Durham, Spud, and Billy were given a crash course in loading 30-round M4 magazines using the stripper clips in the fourth case by Reid while the MPs were busy arranging the belts of 7.62mm ammunition like coiled snakes on top of the hummers.

With a small flashlight held in his teeth to provide light on his hands while he thumbed rounds into magazines, Billy could make out the pair of Coast Guardsmen’s conversation. Hoffman’s bald friend was complaining that he was just a Cook and did not sign on for this shit. Hoffman was countering with how they ought to stick around a little longer and see what was going on, how he felt no need to rush back to the boat.

The two Coasties stood talking to themselves, shining flashlights on the thirty or so dead bodies lined up neatly to the side of the hummers. The lines of bodies lay like paper dolls shoulder-to-shoulder. The idea was that it would enable them to be identified better when the sun came out. Each of the bodies had been left so their faces looked up towards the starry night through open, if not always intact, eyes. In the distance, they saw a thirsty dog, greedily drinking a puddle of human blood leaking from a cadaver and debated whether they should shoot it or not.

“This guy’s face looks like a hot pocket,” the Cook said to Hoffman, shining his light on a body at the side of the bridge.

“This shit’s wild man. Damned Cowboys and Indians crap here.”

“OK, kids, let’s look alive. We definitely got a crowd coming, hooah,” Reid called out after consulting with Stone.

Billy finished loading the last magazine and handed it to the female MP driver of the second hummer. He picked up his Denver tool and started huffing it back to the ladder truck. Spud had already beaten him there. All Billy saw of him was the soles of his shoes as the crook returned to his previous hiding spot.

“Here come at least 20 more, sir,” the MP behind the machinegun said quietly to Captain Stone.

“That’s fine—just 20 more to stack up. All these clowns know how to do is die,” Stone announced calmly.

“Get up here you puddle pirates and give us a hand,” Reid growled to the two Coastguardsmen who were still holding their ground halfway between the hummers and the ladder truck. “I mean, you guys are kind of like the military so you might as well act like it.”

Hoffman rose to the occasion, “Do you know why soldiers don’t ever make Kool-Aid? Because they can’t figure out how to get two quarts of water, and a cup of sugar into those little packets,” Hoffman said as he walked forward with the Cook to assume a place at the roadblock.

“You pond skimmers actually know how to use those weapons?” Reid said once they had assumed a position.

“Yes, in the Coast Guard we have to pass what is called a written test with all these complex things called questions before they let us in, so the learning curve is a little higher than the Army,” Hoffman said. “We are real-world operators.”

“You guys don’t operate shit. I know you guys are used to shooting Mexicans from kayaks and shit, but this is dry land here, just hold your fire until we open up,” Reid said.

“Can you even spell kayak?” Hoffman asked Reid.

“Hey, is there a kayak on your lip, or did a caterpillar take a shit on it?”

“It’s a bad-ass mustache man, like a mustache with biceps. Your wife loves it. Hell your baby sister has a mustache, why not you?”

As Reid began to take a deep breath Stone intervened, “Let’s can it and get ramped up here, team,” the Captain commanded, bringing the Coast Guard vs. Army banter to a stop.

Billy stood on the running board of the laddertruck to give himself a better view of the situation. He could see a black mass moving forward towards the roadblock. Once more, he heard Reid calmly state the new range to the infected. The range decreased and the tension increased with each mutter. Billy heard the female MP’s voice ask something that carried away with the fresh night breeze. The flashing red and white strobes of the ladder truck’s light bar reflected against everyone and everything. The Denver tool grew cold in his hand, the thick rubber handle sticky against the sweat in his palms.

“You were born for this day. No matter what comes down this highway we have it covered,” Stone said, encouraging the MPs and other defenders. “Machine gunners! Fire mission front! Five hundred meters!” he yelled.

“Light ’em up!” Reid called out and the drivers of the hummers hit their spotlights just as before.

Seeing this, Billy flipped on all of the spotlights on the laddertruck and resisted the urge to lock himself in the truck’s cab. This time, instead of the twenty or so infected that they had thought were coming, there were at least fifty.

Stone did not even bother calling out over the loud hailer as the infected broke into a run directly for the hummers. The
rap-rap-rap
of the M240 machineguns in controlled bursts rang out staccato as the two gunners on top of the hummers opened up on the mob. M4 assault rifles, shotguns and the occasional pistol joined the orchestra of shots in the one sided firefight. Grey-black machinegun belt links, empty shotgun shell hulls and spent brass clattered down all around the hummers.

The machineguns were louder than Billy had ever expected, even louder than the shotguns. He had never seen one fire in real life and the image of the weapons opening up was horrifically sinister. He almost felt bad for what was on the receiving end of their fire. The muzzle flash of the rounds leaving the barrel at 2,700-feet per second made the guns look like a torch on its side, flame crackling in the air.

Billy watched the crowd recoil as the rounds found their targets and bodies exploded in bright ugly blossoms of red and black. Tracer rounds set clothes on fire as they hit and some of the infected smoked and flamed up as they fell, arms and legs flailing. More often than not, like the teeth in a shark’s mouth, as one line fell to the ground another rolled forth over the prostrate bodies and continued to surge forward.

Headshots were increasingly hard to get as the machine gunners fired controlled bursts that more often than not hit center mass on their targets. This pushed the infected down only to have them rise and resume the attack a moment later. The other MPs were concentrating on headshots but several times their targets were pushed out of alignment by wounded infected falling next to them. Already, the Cook had expended all of the magazines for his pistol and was yelling for another weapon.

The machine gunners continued their fire and had begun to go cyclic with continuous long bursts, chattering away at the line until their targets fell. Once on the ground, the machine gunners walked their fire into the heads of the body to make sure it did not get back up. Billy could hear yells, screams, and shouts, not entirely sure if they were from the roadblock defenders, or the crowd, or both. Billy did make out one shouted order above the chaos. He heard Stone yell, “You will not fail!” over the roar of the automatic weapons.

The line of infected stretched as far back as the lights illuminated and what had been 50 became easily a hundred, even after the carnage inflected. One of the hummer drivers gave his rifle to the now-unarmed Coast Guard Cook, but before the MP could draw his pistol out to get back in the fight; two disease victims were on top of him. The MP had his throat pulled out and his eyes rammed past their sockets into his brain by extended bloody fingers while he was still working his Beretta free of the holster. The Cook opened fire on the two attackers with the newly acquired M4 and cut them down, draining a magazine in the process.

Reid had drug the wounded MP back by his vest and tried to shield his body long enough to see if the soldier was alive or dead. Billy saw the old First Sergeant shake his head and point his pistol at the prostrate soldier’s face before the orange muzzle flash obscured the scene.

One of the machineguns had stopped firing and the second slowed dramatically. Billy saw Stone climb on top of the hummer whose M240 had stopped firing and work the bolt furiously. As he did so, the gunner opened another green ammo can and passed a belt over. The female MP driver, all of five feet tall, was pulled down by a half dozen infected as she switched magazines on her pistol.