Zombie Killers: Ice & Fire (3 page)

Chapter 7

“Again.”

Brit rolled her eyes at me. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. I want twenty rounds in the black” meaning the black circle on the top of the target, representing a zombie’s head. “You can take your time with this one. You have twenty seconds.” We were back at Seneca Army Depot, and I was trying to teach Brit how to be part of a team, and get her used to our weapons.

“YES DRILL SERGEANT!” she sarcastically yelled at me, and took a knee, aiming downrange. The target popped up fifty meters away, and started rolling down the track towards her. She started snapping rounds at it. More than half missed, striking the body of the target, or missing all together. The bolt of her rifle locked back on an empty magazine, but the target kept coming at her.

“You’re dead. You have to score at least fifteen hits to make it stop before ten meters. Way to go.”

She threw the rifle on the ground and started to stomp off the range.

“Hey! Get your ass back here!” She turned around and gave me the finger, then kept walking.

I bent over and picked up her rifle, dropping the magazine and letting the bolt ride forward, “Jonesy, go get her, bring her back.”

“Sure thing, boss.” He jogged after her, grabbed her around the waist, and threw her over his shoulder. She cursed him all the way back, and he threw her down in a snowbank. She got up cursing, brushing snow off her new uniform. I waited for her to stop, then threw her rifle at her. She caught it just before it hit her face.

“This rifle is your life. Next time you lose control of it in a hissy fit, you’re off the team. It stays with you at all times. Got it?” She said nothing, merely glowered at me.

“OK, do it again. Thirty rounds. Twenty seconds. Twenty hits.”

The snow has started blowing again, cutting visibility down. She kneeled down as Doc and Ahmed rolled the target back down the track and reset the motor.  When they got back, Jonesy raised the red flag and called Range Control, telling them we were going hot again. Doc stayed with her, coaching. Ahmed stepped back with me.

“Ahmed, do you think I’m being too hard on her?”

He stroked his short beard and pondered for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. She has never worked with a team, and has always been able to run before. She needs to learn how to stand in the face of a horde, and count on her teammates.”

“Agreed. It’s just that, well, you led your tribe back in Afghanistan, and Jonesy ran with a gang when he was younger, so you both understand teamwork. She’s just some college kid who managed to survive by playing lone wolf. Even the new guys we’re getting have been through Basic Training.”

“I think she’ll do, as you Americans say, OK. She is smart, and full of fire.”

“Yeah, well, speaking of noobs.”

Walking down the road were three soldiers in ACU’s and winter gear, carrying their rifles at port arms. The stopped in front of
us, and stood at attention. Their leader, a Corporal, ordered them to stand at ease.

“Corporal Williams, PFC Hernandez, designated marksman, and Private Collaton. You’re Sergeant First Class Agostine? We were told that we were being assigned to your Scout Team for the recon past Utica.”

“Yep, let me introduce you to the rest of the team. This is our sniper, and third in command, Ahmed Yasir.”

A look of disgust passed over Williams’ face as he glanced down at Ahmed’s offered hand. “A raghead?”

I looked at him for a minute, not saying anything. Nine - Tenths of the world were dead or Undead, and this asswipe was being racist.

“Corporal, take your ass back down that road and tell whoever sent you that I found you not suitable for service. I’ll be making a written report, too. PFC Hernandez, Private Collaton, stay here. Unless you two have a problem also?”

Williams looked furious. Ahmed stared at him coolly. The two Privates shook their heads no, and stepped back from their team leader.

“Why are you still here?”

A blood vessel throbbed in Williams forehead. “You have got to be shitting me. I’m a Regular Amy NCO, two tours in Afghanistan. One of these bastards shot my buddy back at Kandahar, dressed up like an Afghan National Army soldier. I smoked his ass, and if you think for one second I’m going to take orders from some civilian sand nig” His words were cut off as the stock of a rifle hit him across the back of his head, and he fell face forward in the snow. Jonesy stood behind him.

“I can say that word, but you can’t say that word, stupid cracker.  Geez Nick, I hope I didn’t hit him too hard.”  

“He’ll live, but he isn’t going with us. Two tours and still a Corporal, even after the Zombie Apocalypse, when anyone with any experience was getting promoted left and right? No, he’s a shitbag, and we don’t need his attitude. I really would hate to see him disappear in the middle of the night after saying one thing too many to Ahmed.”

Ahmed looked down at the Corporal, who was sitting up and rubbing his neck. “I have no idea what you are talking about, Nick.”

Chapter 8

The rest of the team went back to the old ammunition bunker tha
t served as our temporary home, and Doc and I headed to the Task Force Ops Center. As we drove, we passed hundreds of soldiers working on Armored Personnel Carriers, Tanks, Helicopters and even aircraft.

Seneca Army Depot, located in between two of the New York Finger Lakes, had served as a fortress during the desperate days of the Zombie Apocalypse. The Engineer Brigade of the New York Army National Guard had fallen back from Buffalo and thrown up a fifteen foot high earthen wall, faced by a ten foot ditch, from one lake to another, then done the same on the south end. Troops from all over the Northeast had fallen back there, either on foot in running battles with the hordes, or in armored vehicles, escorting frightened civilians. Then the Air Force had laid a non-stop carpet of bombs on anything that moved outside the safety of the base. It had been a desperate fight, espec
ially when a horde of Undead from Rochester had almost breached the wall. I hadn’t been there, but Doc had, brought up from the evacuation of Manhattan on one of the last C-130’s out of Stewart Air National Guard base.

Doc and I had known each other in Afghanistan
, and we crossed paths a few months back after I had arrived at Seneca. I had been surviving on my own, living on a small island in the Hudson River, when I rescued an F-16 pilot that had bailed out do to an engine flameout. The Search and Rescue (SAR) team had brought me back with him. When I ran into Doc Hamilton at the clinic, the big, bald headed ex-biker had been all fired up to help with my idea for the Irregular Scout Teams.

Now we were running our team as one of the scouting elements for Task Force Liberty. The mission of the Task Force was to open up communications and land transport between Buffalo and New York City. The main combat elements were organized around the remnants of various National Guard and Army Reserve units that had made it to Seneca. When we had picked up Brit, IST-1 was just finishing up a scout of the Syracuse area, looking for concentrations of Zombies and checking out the highways, rail lines, and canals.
A harsh winter in upstate New York can cause enough structural damage to prevent a sixty ton tank from crossing a highway. We were on our way to the TOC to get our next mission briefing. That, and I wanted some hot coffee.

I almost spilled that coffee on myself when some flunky screamed “ATTENTION IN THE TOC!” at the top of his lungs. The door opened and the second coming of General MacArthur strode into the room, also known as Lieutenant Colonel MacDonald. He was the Operational Commander of the forward elements of the Task Force, and a moron.
My personal name for him was “jackass”. I sat in my chair as everyone else jumped up and stood at attention.

He walked over to me and glared down at me. “I see you’re back from joyriding, and already causing problems. You will take the people my S-1 assigns to you. Do you understand me?” He
was referring, I guessed, to the racist punk I had met out at the range. Probably his nephew or something.

“Actually, I don’t work for
you, I work for Joint Special Operations Command. Here’s my phone, the JSOC Ops Center is on speed dial.”  I held out my cell phone to him. He glared at me, the spun around and took a seat right in the middle of the briefing room. Doc laughed, because the projector for the Power Point Briefing was shining on his back. His aide leaned over and whispered something to him, and the Colonel scooted over.

The S-3, or Operations Officer, Major Flynn, stood to give the briefing. The Task Force was going to continue to clear the New York State Thruwa
y. I snored through it until we came to our part of the plan.

“IST One will be inserting by helo just outside the town of
Illion. Your mission will be to scout the Remington Arms factory, check undead concentration, and see if the roof is structurally sound enough to bring in heavy lift and get all the machinery out that way. Once you radio back that information, a clear and hold team will be dropped in to make the building secure while the engineers move the machinery out. ”

I liked it. Simple in and out, small town
, so not that many undead. At least we wouldn’t be walking in. I hated ruck marching in the winter. It used a ton of energy, you alternately sweated and froze, and you never knew when a Z was going to be hiding in the snow.

“After that, you will be dropped at Little Falls to check out the canal locks, and then a continuous patrol through the Mohawk Valley, looking for surviving civilians.”

“Continuous? What does that mean?” I had a bad feeling about this.

Flynn looked at LTC MacDonald, who was smirking. “It means you will be out there until you’re
retasked. Resupply will be when we can get it to you.”

I stood up to leave. “Bullshit. We ALWAYS come back to base camp for resupply. It gives the guys a break from constantly watching for Z’s. Maybe YOU should come outside the wire with us sometime, see how nerve racking it is.” MacDonald started spluttering, his face turning red, and Doc put his hand on my arm.

Major Flynn jumped in to make peace with us. “Nick, for now, lets’ just do Little Falls and Saint Johnsville. Then we can reassess from there. We’re setting up a Forward Area Refueling Point and a Firebase at Little Falls, and we need to know what’s on the other side of the pass. Sir, does that sound OK?”

MacDonald glared at me for a full minute,
then turned away, motioning for Major Flynn to continue the briefing.

Doc leaned over to me and whispered “No frigging way. Half the team is brand spanking new. I’m not staying out there.”

“Agreed. I’ll get with Flynn. Saint Johnsville and no farther. I’ll work it out with Flynn.”

Chapter 9

We boarded the CH-47 in the soft grey light before dawn, strapping in under the green cabin lights. As Brit strapped in next to me, I turned her weapon outside down, placing the muzzle down on the floor.

“Keep it away from your chin!” I yelled in her ear. She pulled an earplug out and yelled back “WHY?”

“In case we crash. The force of your chin hitting the rifle will break your neck!”

“Really! COOL!”

I shook my head as we powered up off the ground, nose tilting forward. We gained altitude and forward motion, and sped down the river.

Ahead of us, an AH-64 helo ran down the river, pausing every now and then to halt, spin in place, and fire a burst of rounds at groups of zombie shambling on the highway. I watched in my NVG’s as the rounds tore through a group, exploding on contact,
splashing zombie flesh over the highway. Headshots didn’t mean much when the body is shattered into a hundred pieces. I plugged a set of headphones into the crew circuit, and listened to the pilots talk back and forth.

“HELLBOY TRAIL, THIS IS HELLBOY LEAD. GOT A LARGE GROUP
ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF I-90. WE’RE GOING TO STAY AND ENGAGE.”

“ROGER THAT, WE’LL WAIT.”

“CAS COMING IN HOT, CLEAR THE AO IN THIRTY SECONDS”

“ROGER, STARTING RUN NOW.”

As I watched, the Apache broke left, catching the rising sun as it rose over the mountains. A steam of tracer rounds went ripping into the darkness that still lay on the ground, followed by rockets pounding the target area. The Apache rolled out and stood back to let the Close Air Support birds come in.

Brit grabbed my arm and screamed in my ear. “THAT’S GODAMNED BEAUTIFUL!” Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. I knew what she meant, knew what she was feeling. We had been knocked down, kicked back almost to the edge, and the military was fighting back, finally taking the offensive. Not like our bullshit wars in the Middle East, where our hands were tied. Now we were fighting an enemy where we
had to throw every piece of ordnance in the inventory to survive; our only consideration was saving civilians.

A flight of A-10 Ground Attack planes
screamed overhead, then tipped over and opened up with their cannons. They powered in, guns making that awesome BRAPPPPPPP, ripping up the ground in the ruins of Utica, scattering bodies all over. The creeping dawn slowly lit the open area where thousands of undead had concentrated, for whatever reason they had. Who knew why the Zombies did what they did? I was just glad they set themselves up for such an easy target. On their next run, the Warthogs flew low and slow, releasing half a dozen cluster bombs from the hard points on their wings. The canisters split open a hundred feet from the ground, throwing out hundreds of grenades, each of which detonated with a dull thud that I could feel over the thumping of the helicopter’s rotors.

The trick to fighting zombies was to get them in the open, and pound them with high explosives. People don’t understand what HE does to human bodies. The shrapnel, ordinarily the killer in an artillery shell, didn’t make much of difference to a Z. The hot metal just zipped through their bodies, leaving ragged holes, but not usually hitting their vital brain. Enough High Explosive,
though, brains jellied, flesh was ripped off bones, arms, legs blown off. Maybe not a killer, but an immobile zombie is only a threat to someone looking for a Darwin Award. We drew them out where we could, identified hordes, called in artillery and the Air Force dropped tons of bombs on them.

When the dust from the explosions had become too much to identify targets, the Apache rotated back east and took the lead again, following the Mohawk River as it wound its way through the valley. We were coming up on Ilion, just shy of the pass by Little Falls when we dipped down for our first fake insertion.

Z’s are drawn to sound. Their eyes, quickly scratched and scored by lack of lubrication, are less than useless when it comes to tracking things. Bring enough noise and vibration, however, and they will come running. Our plan was to fake an insertion, along with the Apache, having the helos hover in one spot for around ten minutes, drawing whatever remained of the Z population out of
Ilion. Analysis of trends indicated that around twenty five percent of any Pre-Apocalypse population actively survived as mobile undead, or so the intel weenies said. Our own observations seemed to confirm that.

Hovering over a clearing about two miles west of town, the thud of rotors quickly drew a crowd of several hundred undead. The door gunner on our helo started burning through cases of ammo, the big .50 caliber rounds on his M-2 chewing off hunks of flesh, blowing off limbs. Like I said, head shots are best, but when a round a half an inch wide, moving at more than a thousand feet per second, hits a shoulder, hip, leg, whatever, that limb is coming off. Brit watched wide eyed, laughing so loud I almost hea
rd her over the rotor wash. The woman was crazy.

After a few minutes, we lifted straight up to a c
ouple hundred feet and dashed eastward, the Apache saying there to keep their attention. The Blackhawk flared onto the roof of the factory, and we scrambled out, landing in the snow that had accumulated over the last couple months. The helo barely stopped before turning north and meeting up with the Apache again in a different spot, drawing the Z’s away from the building again.

There was a doorway on the roof, leading to a set of stairs. Ordinarily these were emergency exits, locked from the inside. Jonesy took out his huge crowbar and inserted it into the doorframe. Myself, Hernandez, Collaton, and Ahmed stacked on the side of the
doorway, pistols held down and ready to clear the stairway. We used pistols, because the lower velocity rounds would power into the concrete of a cinder block after going through a zombie, where a high velocity rifle used in a confined space like that could lead to a dangerous ricochet. The 5.56 millimeter rounds in the M-4 were notorious for going directly through a body if it didn’t hit bone.  I was in the lead, and instead of a pistol, I carried a pump 12 gauge shotgun.

I felt Hernandez place his hand on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze, the “ready” signal. Since batteries for our Night Vision Goggle were in short supply, I lit a magnesium flare and held it smoking in my hand. Jonesy put his weight into the
pry bar, and the door popped open. I threw the flare down the stairwell and followed it in.