Zombie Killers: Ice & Fire (24 page)

Chapter 27

We breached the door into a cavernous engine room. Adam quickly fired off his last several shells into a rebel trying to take cover behind a piece of machinery. He dropped his empty AA-12 and took cover to pull out his pistol in one hand and another grenade in the other.

I leveled my P-90 at a second rebel’s crotch and squeezed the trigger, letting the recoil bring the muzzle up. The 5.7 rounds walked their way up his torso and he dropped. I pointed the gun deeper into the space and gave Ethan and William covering fire as they came through the door and ran up a ladder to the catwalks to give us covering fire.

I started taking fire from the opposite and I took cover while Adam emptied his pistol as covering fire. Somehow we were the first group of raiders to reach the compartment, or perhaps we were the only group to make it through the zombie infested maze.

A major rebel push began to overwhelm our tenuous situation. A half dozen or so men came at us while one or two others put fire on the catwalks forcing William and Ethan to relocate. I emptied my magazine into the general direction of the rebels. When I ducked to reload Adam got up to fire. He took several rounds in the chest and went down immediately.

I turned and ran for the ladder to get to the scaffolding. As I mounted the first step it felt like a sledge hammer hit me in the back and I collapsed. I was so sore I had no idea how many times I was hit or if any penetrated my armor. Someone grabbed me by my shoulders, flipped me over, and dragged me to where Adam was laying. He was still breathing, raggedly, a death rattle.

Others ran up the ladder and I heard gunfire and shouting from above. I tried to pull myself together, figure out what was going on. A guard was standing over me, M-16 aimed at my head. That’s when I saw him, walking towards me.

He was wearing a full dress uniform, white gloves and all. He was a big man, with a full mustache, broad shoulders, and a chest full of ribbons. “Is it done yet?” He asked an aid walking beside him. 

“No sir. They are designed to prevent exactly what we are trying to do from happening.” The aid responded.

“I don’t care what you have to do, but I want Norfolk to glow in the dark. NOW!” General Fortier said, and then he looked at me and said “What do we have here?”

“Some of the pro-government raiders managed to make it this far, we are rounding them up as we speak.”

"There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter." The General said, looking at me.  “Ernest Hemingway said that. Is it true? You have been hunting me tonight, is there anything else that compares to our little dangerous game?”

I stared at him blankly. I had not had time to reload my P-90, I reached for my 1911 clumsily but he kicked it away. I propped myself up on my elbows and blinked several times from the bright light caused by someone taking a welding torch to some of the equipment.

“Give me Papa Bear.” He said to his aid.

The aid handed him a Taurus Judge, a big revolver that fires .410 shotgun shells. He opened the cylinder to check the load, spun it deftly and closed it. Then he clicked the hammer back with his thumb and fired it into Adam’s head, immediately stopping his horrible death rattle.

I continued to stare at him numbly. I’d like to say I hadn’t given up and I still had some fight left in me, but when you are staring down the barrel of a shotgun-pistol you don’t have too much hope. I tensed up, waiting for the bang.

BANG!

The round missed the General and tore through his aid’s chest. Another shot hit the welder and he dropped. The general turned and fired several shots towards the other side of the compartment.

I pushed myself up, pulled the pocketknife out of my back pocket and lunged at General Fortier
.
I slammed into him, burying the three inch blade into his side. He was a really big man and didn’t budge after my attempted tackle. I bounced off and landed on my back on the deck again.

General Fortier reached down and pulled the knife out without flinching and leveled his Judge at me again. The hammer fell, but Papa Bear didn’t recoil, it was empty.

I grabbed my 1911 from the deck where the General had kicked it and emptied all eight rounds from the chamber plus the one that I had chambered into his chest. Little red circles opened up all over his immaculate uniform but he still didn’t go down.

Instead he flipped open the cylinder and dumped the five empty plastic tubes onto the deck. The empty shell casings made a hollow sound when they hit the deck. He started patting his pockets, checking for more shells. Instead his hand came back red.

I also ejected my magazine, chambered another 8 rounds, and hit the slide release. I leveled the gun at General Fortier again, holding it with one shaking hand while my left arm was wrapped around my tender torso.

Fortier was examining his red hand, he looked almost confused, or maybe indignant was the more appropriate term. He slowly dropped to his knees and slumped forward, dropping Papa Bear. He reached a menacing hand out towards me then went limp as the brightness of life drained from his eyes.

Chapter 28

A handful of Special Forces raiders began to sweep the compartment, taking out rebels with well aimed shots. Ethan, William, and Herold found me sitting on the deck with my back up against a piece of machinery. 

Ethan quickly looked over Adam, took his dog tags, and came over to look at me. William pulled me off the piece of machinery so that my front was leaning against him so Ethan could inspect my back.

“Looks like you’ll be ok. None of the rounds made it through the armor.” He said looking me over.

Lieutenant Herold flipped the General onto his back with his boot and quickly fired two shots into his right breast and one into his head. “Glad that’s over with. One of the guys is looking over the machinery, looks like they never managed to turn the reactors into a bomb. Even so we are rigging charges on this space to flood the compartment. Ships should be salvageable when this is all over, but until then nobody will be able to get down here and mess with the reactors anymore. Let’s get out of here.” he said as he turned away to gather his remaining men.

“What happened to you two?” I asked my cousins.

“When you got overran we were chased from the compartment but we managed to find the Lieutenant and his men and come back.” Ethan said.

“Just in time to save your butt.” William added.

“Oh yea, well who killed General Fortier?” I asked.

“Who guessed his weapon?” William retorted.

“That does not count as a revolver.” Ethan said.

William asked “What would you call it?”

“I wouldn’t call it a revolver.” Ethan said. “But I’ll still give you my MRE cheese. Those things mess me up.”

“Deal.” Said William.

We made our way back up on deck. The sun was out. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. All around the city was burning. Occasional gunshots marked battles between rebels and raiders or humans and zombies. An explosion below decks told us the engineering spaces were flooding.

A helicopter flew over playing a recording on its loudspeaker. “Any survivors who want to join the legitimate United States government make your way to the Naval Base Golf Course.”

“Come on, we have to pull security until more friendlies show up and all this noise is only going to attract more zombies.” said Lieutenant Herold.

Ammo was low and our aggression was high. We just wanted to be done with this mission, but there was always one more objective tacked on just when we thought we were done. We fought our way through the zombies gathering around the carrier with our melee weapons and we cut and bludgeoned our way all the way to the pier where the few remaining patrol boats were waiting to take us to the evac point on the other side of the river.

As we approached we could already see people gathering on the shore. The first helicopters were already touching down to drop off Marines to help secure the area and pick up civilians. We joined them on the outer perimeter and screened people coming through for bites. Several had to be cordoned off.

Eventually the number of zombies far outnumbered the number of people and we began to fall back as the helicopters took more and more survivors out of harm’s way. Finally it was our turn as the last couple of choppers lifted off and the zombies finally overran the now empty field.

We finally touched down aboard USS
Wasp
, a navy amphibious assault ship waiting off shore to pick up survivors after a short flight. We were about to head below to get the debriefing over with so we could go find food, a shower, and a bunk.

Lieutenant Herold walked up to us. “If there is one thing to take away from this mission, what is it?”

I thought about it for a second before answering: “We don’t have nearly as much to fear from the dead as we do from the living.”

End of OPERATION CHARIOT

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