Zombie Killers: Ice & Fire (8 page)

Chapter 23

We stopped for the night when it got too dark to see without using the headlights.  The engine noise was bad enough; the lights would be a dead giveaway. One man stayed up in the turret, and another stayed awake. I settled into the front seat, trying to get co
mfortable, wrapped in my woobie, and slowly drowsed off. Half my mind slept, the other half listened for unusual sounds, changes in the conversation, anyone saying my name. It was a skill combat soldiers had been learning since long before Alexander’s phalanxes had marched through Persia.

It wasn’t an unusual noise that woke me; it was a kick to the head. J was up in the turret. “Nick” he whispered.
“We got movement in the woods, undead, maybe a hundred.” I reached over slowly and shook Doc’s shoulder. His eyes opened, but he didn’t move. The turret ring ticked on its ball bearings as Jonesy traversed to cover the group. A hundred undead could swarm the truck, no problem.

Ahmed was already awake, on watch. He slowly slid his window down and extended his rifle out, lining up on the closest zombie.

From the other side of the truck came a THUD and then the zombie howl. Brit woke with a start and then caught sight of the rotted face smearing itself on her window, and she screamed. Her shotgun, cradled in her arms with the barrel pointed at the floor, went off with a BANG that deafened all of us. The stock jumped up and hit her in the jaw, and she collapsed, out cold. I felt, rather than heard, the truck start, and hot brass started showering down from above as Jonesy engaged.

My ears still ringing, I yelled for Doc to get us the fuck out of there. He shifted into drive and floored it, but we didn’t move. Ahmed closed his window, reached over, and pulled Jonesy down from the turret. J fell in and closed the hatch behind him, locking it. The Z’s swarm
ed around the truck, rocking it as they pounded into it. We sat there, engine revving, going nowhere.

“Doc, check out Brit, see if she’s OK. J, figure out what the hell is wrong with the truck.”

“On it, Boss.” The two big guys squeezed past each other, trying to maneuver in the confines of the truck. Doc shone a flashlight in Brit’s eyes, then broke out some smelling salts. She woke up quickly, and then vomited all over herself.

“She’ll be OK. Slight concussion, we’ll have to keep an eye on her, keep her awake.”

Jonesy had been shining a light under the seat. “Wish I could say the same about the truck. Looks like she done shot the transmission shifter linkage away.”

“Crap. Well, OK, nothing we can do about it right now. They aren’t going to get through the armor. We’re just going to wait them out. Figure three days, max.”

“Can’t we just, you know, open the window a bit and shoot them?”

I thought about it. At this stage in the game, we didn’t know how zombie infection was transmitted. I was worried about body fluids splashing back and contaminating someone through the open window.

“Maybe when it gets light out. Right now, let’s get some sleep. We have about three hours. One man on, hour each. I’ll take first, keep Brit awake.”

The others slowly dropped off. I sat and stared at Brit
, then drew out my 9mm and put it on the dashboard. She looked back at me, barely visible in the light thrown off by the radio.

“Nick, I’m sorry.”

“Right now, I’m trying to decide whether to put you outside the truck, or just shoot you. You put the whole team at risk. What the hell were you thinking, sleeping with your weapon off safe?”

She was quiet for a minute. I could tell she was crying, but at that point, I didn’t
care. We might all be dead because of her in a few hours.

“This isn’t some comic book, O’Neil, or a fucking video game.”
My voice was harsh.

“Don’t you think I don’t know that? Why was my weapon on fire, Nick? Because I spent the last eight months sleeping alone, every night, not knowing if some fucking monster was going to rip my throat out while I slept. I had to be ready to shoot in an instant! I was
alone, Nick, so fraking alone, and then you and the guys show up like some kind of goddammned angels out of nowhere.” She was sobbing now, and I could tell the rest of the guys were awake, listening.

“Every single night, alone. I’m sorry, but that’s how I had to live.
Maybe you’re stronger than me, but I was scared every single minute. Don’t put me out there with them. Shoot me if you have to, just not that.” 

“I’m not going to shoot you. No one died” I said. “
I lived just like you did, for a couple of months. But you have to understand, from here on out, we are your team. Your family. We trust each other with our lives, and I go to sleep peacefully because I know that I can depend on them to keep me safe. Can we trust you?”

“Yes” she whispered.

“If it happens again, I’ll kill you myself. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” A little strength
had crept back into her voice into her voice.

“Good. Make sure your weapon is on safe, reload, clean yourself up, and get some rest. Drink some water. Stay awake
, though.”

Outside, the undead had stopped howling, but they shuffled around the truck in a circle.

Chapter 24

It had clouded over during the night, and dawn wasn’t the rising sun. Instead, the landscape went from black, to grey, to white.

Ahmed shook me awake, and we each quietly shifted around and tried to stretch as best we could in the cramped space. I opened up an MRE, and set up the heater for some breakfast. Doc and Jonesy took turns shaving each other’s heads, and Ahmed twisted around to pray to his destroyed Mecca. Morning rituals.

“Tuna with noodles? Holy crap, what is the date on that MRE? I haven’t seen that in ten years.” Doc was peering at the brown wrapper.

“I dunno, let me see. Um, 1996.”

He laughed. “That’s almost twenty years old. Your funeral.”

“Ain’t nothing tabasco can’t kill.” I emptied the small bottle into the packet and started chowing down. I licked the brown plastic the spoon clean and shoved it back in my sleeve pocket.

“Nick.” Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around. Brit was leaning forward.

“I gotta pee.”

“
So? Get a coffee can, or use an MRE bag.”

“Seriously?”

“Well, you’re welcome to step outside and find a tree.”

She shifted uncomfortably and crossed her legs. “I’m serious, I’m going to wet myself.”

I was tempted to let her piss her pants as payback for last night. “Go ahead, piss in an MRE bag.”

“I can’t pee in front of people. I never could.”

I sighed. Someone was going to have to learn some hard lessons. “What if you had to take a dump? I shit myself, twice, in Afghanistan, while a Taliban patrol was ten meters from my hide site.”

“So you’re a big hero. I GOTTA PEE.”

Ahmed spoke up. “We have two problems that need to be solved. The truck, and Miss O’Neil needs some privacy to urinate. I shall run.” With that, he started stripping his body armor off and secured his rifle. He was older than me, but the wiry little Pashtun tribesman was faster than a jackrabbit. I didn’t like it. We COULD wait them out. I was tired, though, and wanted to go home.

I nodded to him. “Meet you about a mile up the road.”

“Wait, what is he going to do?” asked Brit.

“He’s going to run through the zombies and draw them away from the truck.”

“But” she stuttered, “but that’s insane! You’ll get killed, or bitten.”

“I have faith in Allah, that what I am doing is his will. Besides, I will keep one bullet for myself and soon have milk and honey and more virgins than I ever want to deal with again. Who wants to be surrounded by that many women for eternity? A man would go insane!” He laughed and put his hand on the door. 

Doc slid his window down and threw a
grenade as far as he could. It went off with a flat BANG, muffled by the snow. The Z’s swarmed towards the explosion, temporarily clearing Ahmeds’ side of the truck. He opened the door, slipped out, and ran ten meters, then turned and fired into the crowd.  As one mass, they started after him, and he disappeared into the wood line. I hoped the snow wouldn’t slow him down too much.

I rolled out my door and into the snow, and crawled under the truck to the far side, looking for the broken linkage. I saw Brit’s boots hit the snow, and she ran for the nearest tree, unbuckling her belt as she ran.

I saw where the linkage had been shot away. The shifter extended down next to the transmission, and where it entered the housing, the metal was scored by the shotgun pellets. I took the piece of hanger wire that I had grabbed and tried to twist it around the broken linkage.

“Go ahead, try it!” I yelled up to Doc. I saw the shifter move, but the hangar wire didn’t have the stiffness to force the lever on the transmission. Damn, I thought to myself.
I took my K-bar knife out of its’ sheath and started hammering on the lever with the hilt. I dull CLUNK and the truck jumped forward, then stopped as Doc hit the brakes. I quickly crawled out from back under, just as the 240 opened up, tracers racing into the woods just of the left of where I could see Brit’s legs as she squatted up against a tree. Note to self, next time, make someone go with her.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!” she yelled, and struggled to pull up her pants. Jonesy let another burst fly at a shambling figure that had emerged from the woods. One round caught it in the head, dropping it, but a half dozen more came charging out.

Brit ran for the truck holding her helmet on her head with one hand and her pants up with the other. She dove into the truck, and her pants fell down as Doc stomped on the gas, slamming the heavy armored door shut. Jonesy looked down from the turret as Brit struggled to pull her pants up.

“Damn, you skinny, white girl! You need to EAT! Nick, what the hell do you see in that skinny little
butt?” Doc started laughing as Brit tried to slap Jonesy in the crotch and he rotated the turret away from her. I just shook my head and looked for Ahmed.

We picked him up, just ahead of the crowd of zombies, on the side of the road. He jumped in, and we headed off down the road.

Chapter 25

We swung up and around Saratoga Springs, moving through deserted small towns. Outside Corinth, coming down from the hills on Route 9, we ran into a barrier across the main street in town. On the south side, piles of skeletons glistened in the snow. Refugees, shot down by the townspeople as they tried to storm their way into town.

The bride to the North, across the Hudson River into Hadley, had a barricade made out of an old school bus. Behind it, a plume of smoke came from a makeshift chimney on a Stewarts shop at the intersection.

“Stop the truck” I told Ahmed, who had taken over driving. We had stopped an hour before and rigged up a shifter for the truck. I wanted to talk to these people and
intel was intel. Maybe some allies up here would be useful.

“HELLO THE BRIDGE!” I yelled.

No answer.

“UNITED STATES ARMY SCOUTS!”

An arrow flew out of the shattered building windows, and buried itself at my feet. I reached down and plucked it out of the snow.

“WE’RE NOT HERE TO FIGHT, WE JUST WANT TO TALK!”

Someone inside the building yelled “FUCK OFF!” and another arrow bounced off the roof of the truck, barely missing Doc, who was leaning on the 240. He didn’t flinch, but I heard the selector switch rotate from SAFE to FIRE.

“WE’RE WITH THE GOVERNMENT, WE JUST WANT TO TALK!”
I heard Jonesy laughing inside the truck. “Shut it, you moron.” He laughed louder.

I turned back to face the bridge, wanting to give it one more try, and I was knocked down by a hammer blow to the chest. It flung me backwards and I crashed into the open door and fell to the snow, gasping for breath. I tried to sit up as Doc opened fire with the gun, hammering short bursts into the structure.

“Cease fire!” I tried to yell it, but it came out as a croak. Someone grabbed me by the dead man’s strap on the back of my body armor, and pulled me into the truck as I struggled to get to my feet. Brit started pulling at the velcro tabs on my body armor, shoving her hand down the front.

“NO BLOOD!” Doc dropped down from the turret, and Brit took his place as we drove away. Hot brass fell on me as I struggled for breath, and I winced in pain as we bounced over
sidewalks to avoid the barriers, truck tires crunching through bones.

We stopped half a mile down the road, and Doc stripped off my uniform top and felt my ribs. He touched one and I almost jumped out of my skin. An ugly bruise was forming on my chest.

“Yeah, broken rib. I’ll tape it, but you’re just going to have to take it real easy for a few days. Lucky for you it hit your SAPI plate clean on. Any higher” he said as he reached into my vest and pulled out the shattered ceramic plate “and your would have had your shoulder ripped off.” He felt around and pulled out a flattened bit of metal and dropped it in my hand. “Full metal jacket, high velocity military round. Maybe an old M-1 Garand or a Springfield ’03. You are one lucky mother, buddy. Try not to breathe too hard. ”

“No shit, Sherlock” I groaned.

Jonesy turned around. “Damn, Nick, don’t you know by now there ain’t no helping some people? First arrow, I would have skedaddled out of there, but nooooo, you had to play John Wayne. Just like that time in California, down in LA. “US ARMY, WE’RE HERE TO HELP!!!” He burst out laughing, as did Doc and Ahmed.

“Stop, you ass, it hurts to laugh!”

“Tell me about it!” said Brit.

“Well, we got some kinda
intel that some rich folk …” I held up my hand to stop Jonesy. I had had enough embarrassment for one day.