Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 3): Salvation (29 page)

Speaking
of grenades, those were put to use, almost wastefully, as our inflatable boats
surged forward. Anyone in their way was targeted, and quite a few went sailing
through windows and open doors. This created no shortage of carnage and confusion,
allowing the squads to get ashore on opposite sides of the island with minimal
resistance. They quickly formed firing lines and began to advance.

“No
reports of casualties,” said Mary. “The squad leaders and Renee have open mics,
but all they’ve done so far is give normal orders.”

I
nodded. It would be nice to make it through at least one fight without somebody
getting killed.

Tara and
Dale kept up a steady rate of fire, but I soon stopped. Standing, I moved to
the side where I could get a better view of what was happening. Most of our
people on the island had yanked off their night vision goggles. The light from
the fires was likely causing problems. They were also shooting anyone who
rushed them, was armed, or appeared in any way to be dangerous. However, the
remaining structures were mostly ignored. We lacked the numbers to search
buildings in the middle of a fight, and most of the defenders were coming
straight at us. By lingering around the landing zones, we gave them little
choice. They could charge, hang back and suffer the wrath of our snipers or
helicopters, or hide and let us take control.

And
prisoners were being taken. A few had raised their hands. These were put in the
back where a pair of militia members stood watch. Rather, Renee’s band was
doing so. My view of squad one was obstructed. The numbers were more than I
expected, especially this early in the battle.

“Got a
guy down in squad three,” said Mary.

“What’s
happening?”

“Looks
like one of the people who gave up pulled a knife and stabbed someone. I’m not
sure who, but it seems to be a flesh wound. Got it in the stomach though, and
that hurts.”

“We’ll
evacuate him as soon as there’s a chance. Tell one of the choppers, whichever
is lower on ammo, to pull back and rearm. The other is to stay in the air until
they can switch out.”

Mary
sent the message. This was planned for, and Marcus would have the belts of
ammunition and spare rockets ready and waiting.

“This is
much better than fighting in the trees,” commented Mary.

“Better
right now, but that’ll change if we have to go into the houses.”

“Maybe
they will all give up.”

“We can
hope. I want to loot the entire town, taking whatever they have. That’ll be
easier if we aren’t blowing it to smithereens.”

“Renee’s
got a bunch sitting in a row on the ground already. Some kids too. That’s good.”

“Hard to
tell,” I replied, “but that’s ten, twelve?”

One of
these suddenly slid a gun from beneath his shirt and fired a round into Renee’s
chest. She staggered, but her body armor apparently stopped the bullet. But
while she looked to be okay, the woman was anything but happy. The two guards
weren’t any better. One promptly killed the would be assassin.

I hit
the switch so the squad leaders and Renee could hear my orders directly. “That’s
the second time someone surrendered in order to get close enough to attack. No
adults are to be taken prisoner. Kill all of them.”

“Order
received and confirmed,” said Renee. Her voice was harsh and ragged. “No adult
prisoners.”

She
personally turned her M-16 on the captives. A few threw themselves to the side,
trying to get away, or cried out for mercy. Others stood like deer blinded by
headlights. It made no difference.

“Squad
one just confirmed they are complying.”

I’d
caught the acknowledgement in my own earpiece. The squad leader sounded unhappy
but not enough to disobey orders.

Disabling
my microphone once more, so no one would hear my conversations with Mary, I
scanned the horizon. There were zombies on the shoreline watching us, drawn by
the noise we were making. A few even attempted to advance by walking into the
water. They could cross along the bottom, being unnaturally dense, but would
lose sight of the conflict as they did so. Unable to track their prey, many
stumbled back the way they’d come. Others were probably lost down there.

“Mary,
let everyone know we have shamblers in the water. I don’t know how many. Most
are staying on the shore, but a few may show up on the islands.”

That was
quickly relayed. The main settlement had walls to protect the inhabitants, but
we had blown quite a few holes in them. The small island with the goats and
chicken coops had one as well. Ours did not. I ordered Tara and Dale to move up
to the roof of the little building. That would keep them out of danger while they
were shooting. Mary and I would have to look out for ourselves.

*
* *

“How
many dead?” I asked.

“For us,
zero,” confirmed Renee.

Hurray!

“We have
four wounded, one serious, but he should recover. Ronnie went to get the news
chopper. He’ll take them home and come back for the Cobra after.”

“What
about them?” asked Mary. She was staring at the bodies lying strewn about the
streets and gutters.

“I don’t
have an exact count yet,” admitted Renee. “Once it started to die down, we assumed
defensive positions until the sun rose. Then I used the loudspeaker we brought
to order everyone to approach, stripped naked to ensure they were carrying no
weapons. If you were not naked, you would be shot on sight. Those have all been
moved to the other island with squad three keeping an eye on them.”

It was a
shameful way to treat prisoners, even crazy ones, but their feelings were
nothing compared to our safety.

“Get
Marcus over so we can find out if any were involved. Ask them to identify all
Brotherhood members first.”

“Think
they’ll talk, Dad?”

I
shrugged. “Who knows. They may. Don’t kill these people yet, just separate
them. There’s no rush to shoot them and no reason to get the prisoners even
more riled up.”

Identification
proved to be rather simple. While everyone in the community followed this
fucked up religion, officially, it turned out there were several who didn’t
particularly care for the bastards or their desire to feed strangers to the
zombies. These individuals were quick to point fingers. As likely as not, this
opportunity was also used to settle personal scores, but with so few naming
names, I had no way to differentiate.

The
looting, unfortunately, did not go as smoothly. You just knew there would be
those who refused to surrender no matter what. Maybe they feared we would shoot
them as we did their friends the prior night, or perhaps they were too damn
stubborn to admit it was over. We suffered two more wounded after entering buildings.
I will take this opportunity to thank the powers that be for the existence of body
armor. Many attacks that would otherwise result in death or maiming were
lessened or prevented altogether because of the equipment.

“Enough
of this shit. Pull everyone off the big island. We can base on the little one
until we clear the shoreline of zombies. Then we start moving prisoners, the
ones we are taking to Montana. Load them in the trucks and lock them in.” I
looked at Renee. “I’ll go last, and I’ll kill those that Marcus and the
townsfolk identified as Brotherhood or collaborators.”

“You’re
the consul,” she argued. “You shouldn’t be doing that sort of thing.”

“I’m
exactly the one who should be doing it,” I countered. “And I can’t have you or
the others do all the nasty work. Isn’t right.”

The
twins looked at each other.

“We’ll
help kill them,” said Dale.

Tara
nodded.

“Fair
enough.” As if I could really argue with the pair. “We three will finish up.
Once we are off and Ronnie’s back, we can load the news chopper with napalm
bombs and drop them on the island. Use all of them.”

“We have
eight,” she pointed out. “That is more than enough.”

“No one
is going to survive that.”

“Mary, that’s
the plan. Total destruction. We burn it to the ground and everyone still
hiding.”

“But
what if there are kids we missed?” Her eyes began to tear up. “There could be
some hiding inside the houses, or maybe their parents are hiding them.”

I shook
my head. “They had their chance, and no one else is getting hurt on account of
these people. God, I hate this shit.”

*
* *

“That is
not quite as many as I expected,” said Captain Briggs. “Was the battle that
difficult?”

He’d
been watching in real time, so the captain knew much of what occurred. He was
obviously being polite.

“It
could have gone better,” I replied.

There
was a man wearing a business suit beside Briggs. Everyone else was some
distance away removing prisoners from the rear of the tractor trailer and
walking them to a small pavilion that had been set up in the grass. On the
runway was a large transport. At the far end were crates and boxes, which I
assumed held our supplies.

“We had
to kill a bunch,” commented Mary. She was quieter than normal.

“It went
well at first,” I elaborated. “We targeted those building we knew The
Brotherhood used, taking them out from the start, and began accepting
surrenders from everyone else. Unfortunately, some of those weren’t really
giving up. They pretended so they could get in close, and when they did, they
tried shooting us in the back. As outnumbered as we were, I had to say no
prisoners would be taken, aside from children of course.”

“That’s
horrible!” exclaimed the man.

I
instantly disliked him.

“This is
Senator Doug Fletchle from Hawaii. He came so he could see what was happening
on the mainland for himself. He will be returning with the aircraft when it
leaves in a few hours.” The captain turned to the politician. “When an enemy
fakes surrender in order to kill your troops, a commander is obligated to take
whatever steps are necessary to safeguard the lives of the men and women under
him. Jacob was correct in refusing surrender during the battle.”

I caught
onto “during the battle” and quickly continued. “Once it settled down we
announced that any wishing to surrender could now do so, provided they stripped
and approached slowly. That way we knew they had no weapons or explosives
strapped to them.”

“You
made them get naked?” asked the senator. He seemed to be having difficulty with
this concept as well.

“We gave
them back their clothes after they were in the truck,” added Mary, “so stop
looking all whiny. What, you rather us let them try to kill everybody a second
time?”

“That is
one method for taking prisoners under difficult circumstances,” confirmed
Briggs. “Remember, they had a relatively small attack force and were operating
far from home. The fact they recovered so many of the children and pregnant
women…” That some of the captives were expecting was obvious. “…is a tremendous
accomplishment.”

The
praise was nice, even if I could have kept more of them alive by not ordering the
summary executions and torching the entire town. I wasn’t about to contradict
him in front of the senator however.

“Well,”
admitted the politician, taking off his glasses and cleaning the lenses with a
white handkerchief, “the children were always the priority. They are innocent
of their parents’ crimes and cannot be held accountable.”

While
this was true, I was nevertheless glad they were all going to Hawaii. The brats
were going to be angry and hateful, after their current shock and sorrow wore
off, and payback would be on their minds. Best to have them where this was
simply not possible. I also suspected that, as with the raiders, the powers
that be did not really want to deal with The Brotherhood. Their own limited
resources could be better spent elsewhere.

“Yes, I
will definitely spread the word that despite a dire situation, being
outnumbered and outgunned, our brothers and sisters in South Dakota managed to
put a halt to the predations of a brainwashed group of cultists, saving the
children from the horrors their elders would have foisted upon them.”

Oh. My.
God. This man was wordier than me. Could it be he actually understood what he
was spouting, or was Doug Fletchle the sort who enjoyed spitting out buzz words
whenever possible?

“I will report
the good news, gentlemen and lady.”

We
watched him stroll toward the waiting transport. The captives had all been
removed from our truck, and Marcus and Renee had begun loading the supplies. We
would be leaving as soon as that was completed.

“The guy
is nuts,” said Mary.

“He
has…” Captain Briggs laughed softly. “Most of the career politicians died in
the first few days like everyone else. A few, such as the prior president, were
taken to places of safety, military bases usually. Many of those were later overrun.
Those in office now almost all lack any sort of prior service, having been
private citizens their entire lives. We have a sizable number, with Senator
Fletchle fitting in nicely, who try very, very hard to act the role. The man
can and will spin anything to his advantage. I’m not sure if he realizes that
he’s doing it.”