Zombie Killers: Ice & Fire (2 page)

Chapter 4

I watched her figure disappear into the now raging snowstorm, and I heard the zombie howl come winding up the stairway. Time to get a move on. I unbuckled my belt, took it off and threw it over the steel cable. Before that, I made sure I tied off my pants. I was still way below my normal weight, after starving for months out in the wild, and I didn’t want to go sliding out into a snowstorm and have my pants fall down around my ankles. I gripped the belt in my hands and launched myself out into the blizzard, and then stopped dead.

A zombie had grabbed my ankle
and was holding tight, trying to pull my back into the building. I was hanging there, swinging in the wind, snow blowing in my face, and slowly being pulled back into the building. My exact thought was, “You have got to be kidding me!” I twisted around and started kicking at the hand that was holding me. Other Z’s were reaching for me as I got closer, and I was starting to freak out. One final kick, and the arm tore apart, and I slid down the wire.

I went through another smashed window, into the third floor of the library.
I fell to the floor in a heap, rolling my ankle again. I tried to stand on it and I fell to the floor, cursing, then sat up and looked around. Through an open doorway, I could see into the library proper.

“Come in and shut the damned door, GI Joe. Were you born in a barn?” I grimaced and propped myself up with my rifle, then stumbled through the door, to face a shotgun barrel in the face.

“Put it down” she said, motioning to my rifle. “The pistol too. Real slow. Kick them both over here.”

“You just saved my life, and now you’re going to shoot me?”

“Maybe. I’m a woman, I can change my mind. It’s my prerogative.”

She was in her early twenties, from what I could tell under the dirt on her face. Red hair, blue eyes, a pretty face with a broken nose.  I started to sit back down, and she thumbed back the hammer on the double barrel shotgun.

“I’m not fucking around, soldier boy.”

“OK, calm your tits. My ankle is killing me.” I put the rifle down and
skidded it over to her, then pulled my pistol from its holster, slide first. I started to put it down on the floor, but then threw it as hard as I could at her head. She ducked and the shotgun roared over my head as I dove for her knees and took her down in a full tackle, right at the knees. I wrapped my arms around her legs and rolled over on top of her, then locked my legs around her and put her in arm bar. She pinched as hard as she could to the inside of my thigh, and tried to bite my leg. My eyes watered, and I pulled harder on her arm.

“Give it up, or I’ll dislocate it!”

“Fuck you!” she yelled, and stabbed my leg with pocket knife she had managed to unfold. It stuck in my leg, and she made to stab again, so I twisted and pulled her arm out of her socket. She howled in pain and started crying. I got up off her and retrieved my rifle, holding it on her.

“Stop crying. Talk to me.”

She held her arm against her side and looked daggers at me.

“Listen, Miss. I’m not here to rape you, kill you,
turn you into a zombie. I’m grateful you saved my life, but nobody holds a gun on me. Here.” I pushed the shotgun back across the floor to her. She picked it up wither good arm, broke it open, and stuffed new shells into it. Then she cracked it back closed, but didn’t point it at me.

“I should shoot you. My arm is killing me, asshole.”

I looked down at the blood running over the top of my boot. “I think we’re even. I’ll fix your arm if you bandage my leg. As long as you promise not to steal my soul.”

“
Haha, very fucking funny. Like I haven’t heard that before.” She put the shotgun on the floor and started giggling, then laughed out loud.

I put my rifle on safe and limped over to her, held out my hand.

“Nick Agostine, US Army Irregular Scouts. Sorry I screwed up your shoulder.”

She grabbed my hand, pulled and smashed her forehead into my face. I saw stars and fell down to the floor.

“Pleased to meet you, Nick. My name is Brit O’Neil, and NOW we’re even.” 
 

Chapter 5

I held out the squirrel I had been roasting on a stick, and she made a disgusted face at me. I shrugged and said “Suit yourself. I just killed it yesterday. Still fresh.”

“I’m a vegetarian.”

“Ha!” I laughed out loud. She looked at me over the cup of soup she was drinking.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

I looked at her again. Apparently she was serious.

“How can
you survive as a vegetarian?” In answer, she waved at the stacks of cans that lined some of the shelves in the library while she shoveled soup into her mouth.

It actually wasn’t too bad of a place. A propane heater roared behind us, heating the fifth floor room we were sitting in. Cans of propane were stacked up, warm clothes, boxes of shotgun ammo. A small propane lamp lit the room, and a pot of soup was boiling on a camp stove.

“So let me get this straight. You have hidden here since the meltdown? Why didn’t you go when they evacuated Syracuse?”

She swabbed out the remains of her soup with some MRE bread I had given her.
I had popped her arm back in place, and then I rigged up a makeshift sling. “I saw how that disaster was going to shape up. I watched from the highest building on campus while they tried to run that clusterfuck out of the airport. Do you think I wanted to be on a bus full of idiot college kids when a swarm from the suburbs overran their convoy? OMG, THEY’RE, LIKE,KILLING US!”

I knew what she was talking about. Efforts to evacuate civilian populations
had gone to hell quick and the government had finally given up, fallen back to hold the Pacific Northwest.

“So, you just … survived?”

“Pretty much. People are stupid. They panic, they die. I didn’t panic. I was studying to be a physicist, for Christ sake.” She started laughing, and I waited for her to stop. She didn’t stop, and her laughter changed to hysterics. I waited till she was out of breath. Then she started crying.

I watched her for a few minutes, till she stopped. “You OK?”

“NO I AM NOT FUCKING OK? WHAT ARE YOU STUPID?” She threw her bowl at me and kept crying.

I still waited. I had seen it before. We were all, collectively, suffering from some kind of psychosis. Maybe some people back in Seattle, who had been spared the outbreak, might be considered “normal”, but anyone who had gone through it wore the scars, outside and in.

Eventually, she stopped.

“Are you going to play amateur
pshrink on me? Tell me I’m crazy?”

“You are crazy. I’m crazy. Anyone who survived is crazy. The things we had to do to survive. I had to beat my wife’s brains in after she turned Zombie and ate our baby daughter.” I saw it in my minds’ eye, all over again. Like I did every day.

“Damn. That’s cold.”

“Yeah. Like I said, we all have issues. Nice place you have here. How do you survive?”

She seemed grateful for the change of subject. “I survive by being smart. I have cables rigged so I can get out of any side of the building I need to. I can get in here from three different buildings.”

“How do you avoid the Z’s?”

“I studied them. Ain’t that right, Professor?” She shone a flashlight into an alcove behind her, and I jumped up, reaching for my pistol.

“Holy Crap!”

She burst out laughing. Stuck on the end of a broomhandle was the head of zombie, and its jaws had started snapping when she shone the light on it.

“My old biology professor. Thought he knew everything.
Hahah.”

“You, you studied them?”

“Sure! I’m a scientist, right? Or I was going to be one. Not that I care anymore, but it IS interesting. For example, did you know that they don’t like rain?”

“Nope. Didn’t know that.”

“Big badass Zombie Killer you are, GI Joe. Yeah, when it downpours, I can move freely around the buildings. I built a sled to carry supplies up here.”

“Why the library?”

“Um, to have something to read? Duh? Once the campus was empty, before the power failed, I used a pneumatic jackhammer to demo the stairs. Started a fire to set off a propane can down the valley to draw the Zombies off, did the stairs in about a half hour. They’re attracted to sound, because their corneas scratch up quickly without tears to lubricate. Like I said, you gotta be smart to fight undead.”

I nodded, still watching the head snap uselessly. She motioned to it. “I used to have his whole torso, but his lungs allowed him to do that stupid annoying howl thing they do, and it kept calling more of them.”

“So now what? Do you want to come back with us?”

“Of course, you idiot. First things first, though. Let me see your pistol.”

I handed it to her, and raised my eyebrow as she expertly racked the slide, ejecting the round and seating another. “Grew up on a farm” was all she said. I followed her as she went downstairs to the second floor and leaned out a shattered window. Below the zombies shuffled around, still trying to get at us.

“Shit, we’re going to be stuck here another three days.”

“Well, soldier boy, at least you know something about fighting Z’s. Don’t worry, though, we can slide outta her to the next building and leave anytime we want.”

She leaned out and started taking measured shot, one ever few seconds. She started laughing manically as zombies started falling, each shot drilling down through their heads. “TAKE THAT, YOU PIECES OF CRAP! HAHAHAHA! PAYBACK IS A BI-OTCH!”

I reached over to my harness and clicked on my Motorola radio.

“Doc, this is Nick, over.”

He came on almost immediately. “Hey Nick, glad to see you’re still alive.”

“I’m doing OK, holed up at the library.”

“Yeah, we’re up at the old arts building. We can be down by you in fifteen mikes. What the hell is that noise, over?”

He had heard Brits’ laughter when I keyed the mike. “Long story, but we’ll come to you, over.”

“We? You found survivors? How many, over?”

“
One, and it’s a long story. I can get the Bible pages we were looking for, then meet up with you. Give me” and I let off the key, looking at Brit as she gleefully fired down into the horde. “Give me two hours.”

Chapter 6

We went back to the fifth floor, after Brit packed the things that she wanted to bring with her. I told her not to bring more than twenty pounds of gear with her, because we might be running fast. She shot me a dirty look and said “Listen GI Joe, if you want to be a condescending ass all your life, just remember that I’ve lived on my own for quite a while, and I don’t need you. Got it?” She turned her back to me and started shoving her gortex sleeping bag into a frame pack.

Women. I
sat down and cleaned my rifle while she packed, running a quick brush down the barrel then swabbing out the chamber. This was going to be tricky. From what I had seen of her, this girl could handle herself, but she had never operated according to Army SOP. Then again, Army SOP versus real world experience; I would take the experience every time. Then again, she seemed batshit crazy at times.

I sighed. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

She turned back to me, shouldering her pack and slinging her shotgun, putting her hair up in a ponytail and tucking it up under a knit hat. I used my rifle as leverage to lift up off the floor, and followed her up the stairs, heading to the fifth floor. As we walked, she peppered me with questions.

“So, what is this Irregular Scout
thingee? Are you like, superduper zombie special forces hit team or something?”

“Not really. We’re a mixed bunch. Doc and I are military, Jonesy and Ahmed are civilians who volunteered to join the team.”

“So what do you do? Just like, run around and be badass or something?” She stopped on the stairway and turned around to face me, a look of glee on her face.

“
Wait, you said civilian volunteers. YES! I’M IN!”

“No, hold on a minute! It doesn’t work like that.”

“What do I have to do, sleep with you or something? Cause it ain’t gonna happen.”

“No, you don’t have to sleep with me. You have to sleep with the whole team.”

“OK, that I can do. JUST KIDDING.” She said that after seeing the look of surprise on my face. “Oh my god, you’re so fraking gullible. Duh. But tough shit, I’m on your team.” She turned back around continued to march up the stairs. I shook my head and followed her. 

At the top floor, several windows were smashed open, and ropes ran out of them to adjoining buildings, entering into other broken windows.

“Impressive.”

“Ha, took me a week to set this up. This way, I can just slide out of the buildin
g and into another one. I’m never stuck in one building. Eastern Mountain Sports, good climbing ropes. Carabineers too.”

“You know, you might just work out OK.” I grabbed one of the D – rings and snapped my harness into it, then launched myself out into space. As I went, Brit slapped my ass, and I almost let myself go into an uncontrolled slide. I managed to catch myself and slowly went down, hand over had, knocking ice and snow off the rope.

We made our way slowly down through the next building and exited out the other side, heading back up the hill towards the looming Performing Arts building. As we reached the top of the stairs, my radio crackled into life again.

“Nick, this is Doc, we have a bird inbound in 2 mikes,
LZ is the parking lot. No sign of Z,s but be ready for a hot extract.”

I waved at the figure standing in the doorway of the building, and I saw Jonesy wave back. As I jogged up to him, he let out a low whistle.

“Damn, Nick, only you can find a hot piece of ass in the middle of a gunfight!”

I made a waving motion with my hands,
then drew my finger across my neck. Brit came storming past me. “Piece of ass? PIECE OF ASS? I’ll show you a piece of ass!” and with that she slammed the buttstock of her shotgun into his stomach. Jonesy folded over with a “whoof” of air escaping his lungs and fell to the ground, gasping. Through labored breathing, he whispered something. I bent down to listen to him.

“I like her, Nick. Can we keep her?”