Zombie Killers: Ice & Fire (9 page)

Chapter 26

The rest of the day passed in a haze of pain and discomfort. Doc gave me some Codeine, and I had some really weird nightmares as a I drifted in and out. We cut down Route 32 southeastward, around Glens Falls and through Gansevoort to Schuylerville, and crossed over the Hudson there. The Saratoga Battlefield Monument kept silent watch over the deserted apple orchards, slate grey in the weak winter light.

Fourteen miles to the south, we made a right turn onto a set of bridges going back across the Hudson at Stillwater. In between the bridges, on a small island, stood a two story house. I had spent last summer, immediately after the Apocalypse, hiding out there and fortifying the house. Whenever things got too hot, I took off across the water in a rowboat to a refuge in the woods, several miles away, that I had built on an old farm foundation.
TO the south, the city of Mechanicville still swarmed with Z’s, but I had cleared the immediate area out, sniping from the roof, using up thousands of .22 rounds.

Snow crunched under the wheels as we pulled up slowly and stopped twenty meters from the front of the house. Across the western bridge span, the barricade I had built out of cars still stretched across the road. As we un-assed the truck, a sharp pain shot through my side and I bit down on my lip to stifle a groan.

“Ho, hey there, where do you think you’re going?” Doc put his hand out and stopped me. “Back in the truck, cowboy.”

I compromised and sat down on the seat, feet hanging out of the door. “Be careful.”

“Any booby-traps?”

“No. I knew I was going to be gone for a long time, what if some refugee family needed the place? My weapon stockpile is hidden behind a false wall in the basement. Place was locked up pretty tight though. Look at the front door.”

It was swinging wide open in the wind. The front lock had been shattered by a shotgun blast or an axe.

“Got it. Ahmed, Jonesy, let’s go.”

I expected Brit to say something, but she just spun the turret back down the way we had come, to cover our rear. Maybe she was learning.

One of the hardest parts of command, of combat, was watching your soldiers and friends go into battle and standing aside. In Afghanistan, as a Staff Sergeant, I had taken a piece of shrapnel from a mortar round through the back of my leg, keeping me off patrol for two weeks. During that time, my squad had lost two men in an ambush, and I couldn’t help but think that if I had been there, they might have lived. Or at least lived long enough to die in the Zombie Apocalypse.

I was broken out of my reverie by a burst of fire from the top floor of the house. Three flat CRACKS that I immediately placed as coming from an AK -47. One of the rounds plowed its way through the wall and ricocheted off the roof of the HUMVEE. Brit started to spin the turret but I motioned for her to hold her fire. The CRACKS had been followed by two POPS from a pistol. A double tap from one of the guys. We waited another two minutes, my rifle covering the front door the whole time.

“ALL CLEAR” crackled over the team radio. I lowered my weapon
as Ahmed came out the door, holding a battered AK over his shoulder. He was followed by Ahmed and Doc, carrying a skinny, malnourished body between them. They walked over to the edge of the island and heaved the body far out into the river. It cracked through the ice and sank out of sight.

“Welcome home, Nick. Sorry about the blood.
Kid almost got me.” Doc was watching the spot where the body had disappeared. The river had swept it away under the ice. 

“We all need a break, Rob.”

He unsnapped his helmet and took it off, slung it over the barrel of his rifle. “I think, if I can get a ride on a bird heading back west, I’m going to set up my clinic at the FEMA camp in Buffalo. For a couple of months, at least. I’m getting tired of the killing.”

“I’m not comfortable being out here with no medical support, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Stay for a week or two so we can get our defenses set up, and if you could give Brit as much First Aide training as possible, I’d appreciate it.”

“No problem. I need to restock up on stuff anyway, and I’m not going to leave till your ribs are OK.”

Epilogue

Doc came back a few months later, just as the ice was melting, jumping out of a C-130 that was making a flight out to Nova Scotia. I watched his chute blossom and walked out to meet him in the cleared field on the other side of the Eastern Bridge. After his initial welcome, it was all business.

“Task Force Liberty is on the move. They want us to scout from
Canajoharie to Albany.”

“Up the Thruway?”

“No, Route 20. Fewer towns, less Z’s, less ammo expended. Their goal is Albany Airport and the Port of Albany. Navy is going to run a destroyer up the Hudson to meet them there.”

“Lieutenant Colonel MacDonald?
What about me punching him out?”

He grinned. “He came to me to get treated for
gonorrhea. Swore that if I didn’t put it in his medical record, then he would drop all charges against you.”

“Ha! Well, I’m sure he’ll forget soon enough.” I turned to face the house.

“LOST BOYS, SADDLE UP!”  

End
of “Ice”

Irregular Scout Team One

FIRE

The events of this story take place between “Even Zombie Killers Need a Break” and “Even Zombie Killers Can Die”.

Seattle, Columbia Federal District, two and half years after the Zombie Apocalypse

Chapter 1

My leg hurt. Well, not really, because my leg wasn’t there anymore. Instead, I was getting used the prosthetic attached to the stump, just below my knee. It still hurt though, like a bitch.

We were sitting in a briefing room at Joint Base Lewis-
McCord, the massive combined Army – Air Force facility south of Seattle. Overhead, a C-17 thundered out towards Puget Sound. I watched it out the window as it turned and headed east, back towards the wilds.

“Sergeant Agostine.” The briefer had stopped has slideshow.

“Huh? Yeah, sorry. Leg was bothering me.” He looked at me and then turned back to his presentation.

Brit leaned over and whispered in my ear “You’re full of shit.”

“Shhhh!” I said, and tried to pay attention to what was going on.

“Intelligence assets have picked up rumors of a plot by unspecified groups which have plans to use a weapon of mass destruction in the Seattle area, directed against the United States.”

He paused for a minute to let us think about it, apparently, and then continued. “The rumors are originating in the Tacoma FEMA Displaced Persons Camp. Your mission is to go into the camp, determine the validity of these rumors, and take appropriate action as necessary.”

We waited for him to provide more details. The officer, a Major, stared back at us.

Ziv broke the silence. “In Serbia, we call this a clusterfuck.”

Specialist Redshirt chimed in. “Sir, with all due respect, but that’s it?”

“Right now, that’s all we have. I wish I could give you more, but that’s it.”

I sat and waited for the team to get it out, and Brit spoke up the loudest.

“So, let me get this straight. You want us to do your government dirty work, killing enemies of regime and all that? And you can’t tell us who, or what. What, exactly, does this have to do with killing zombies?”

“Nothing, Miss O’Neil, and I remind you, you’re a volunteer. You can walk away from this at any time.”

“No, sweet cheeks” she said, making me inwardly groan “I got this. Can’t let Doc here babysit old pegleg by himself.”

I looked around the room at the Team. We were a mix of soldiers and civilians, though we were a bit short on civilians right now. Brit O’Neil and
Sasha Zivkovic, or Ziv for short. She was a former college student, and he used to be a Serbian Special Forces Soldier. Next to them sat Ahmed Yasir, our sniper. On the military side, there was myself, my second in command and team medic, Sergeant First Class “Doc” Hamilton, and our two junior enlisted guys, SPC Redshirt and SPC Esposito.

Well, time to go all in. “Are you asking us to do this mission, or telling us?”

“Telling.”

“Well that settles that, then. We’ll need access to your intelligence sources inside the camp, civilian clothes, etc.”

He seemed to have this already covered. “We pulled your records, all the appropriate clothing sizes will be available at the Central Issuing Facility. New ID cards, cover stories, pistols, communications equipment. We don’t think that you’ll need more than that, because the camps are weapons free zones.”

Brit laughed. “Hey sucker, I got a bridge back in New York I want to sell you. Weapons free, my ass.”

“What’s our cover story?” said Doc.

“
You’re a salvage group, bringing in surplus from the San Francisco ruins. Your truck got impounded for use by the Army, and you got put in the FEMA camp till something opens up. This way, you can stick together as a group, and maybe develop some contacts.”

I nodded. “We can use that.” In my head, though, I figured things would go a different way.

Chapter 2
The FEMA camp sat miles south of Tacoma, which was itself overflowing with refugees. There were still large burnt out areas of the city, but things had attained some sort of order over the last year. Now, unrest was rising again. People were getting tired of the permanent “state of emergency”, and there had been riots the last time we were here, a few months ago.

Now the Army patrolled the streets in force, and travel between the camps was severely limited. Every few days a new round of riots would break out, spread by some accident or by design. Rumors were flying about armed groups that were plotting against the government, and sniper fire occasionally hit Army convoys travelling on I-5. The day before, an Improvised Explosive Device had been detonated south of Olympia, and two trucks had been destroyed. The Predator drone on overwatch had left the attackers a smoking hole in the ground.

This was the situation that we were being dumped into, none of us trusted the Army, even JSOC, to have a good plan. We needed to come up with our own.

“Anyone got any ideas?”

Redshirt spoke up first. “How about, we, you know, contact the guys providing the intel, and see what they say?”

Doc answered “Yeah, well, kid, times like this you learn to trust your gut, and things are too unsettled for us to just go walking in there and associating with known rats. They’ll make us in a second.”

He was right along with my thinking. “Doc, I know you used to run with some of the Motorcycle Gangs.”

“Clubs” he corrected me.

“OK, Clubs. I know you were an East Coast guy, but you might know some of them in the camps. No bikes anymore, but I’m sure they stick together. I need you to get in touch with them, see what you can find out.”

“Not a problem. I know three guys who made it back alive from upstate, been in touch with them through e-mail before. They were thinking of going back east, now that we cleared out the Mohawk Valley. I’ll see what info I can get from them in return for a way out of the camps.”

Brit chimed in. “Oh, wait, I know, you want me to be a stripper! See what info I can wheedle out of some Johns, maybe make some New Dollars!” Sarcasm dripped from every pore.

“Um, no. I know deep down in your heart you want to be
taking your clothes off for fat sweaty men, but, too bad too sad. You’re going to stay wherever we set up our base of operations.”

She was pissed. “What the hell, Nick? Should I just sit back in the kitchen and make sandwiches? Maybe shine your frigging boots?”

Ziv laughed his low rumble. “Watch out, Nick, she is, how you say, catching fire? Don’t get burned.” He was right, her pale face was almost as red as her hair, and her eyes were blazing.

I sighed. “No, Brit, it’s not like that. Once we get settled,
they are going to come to us. The good Major might think that we can go I all incognito, but I’m sure they’ll figure us out soon enough. These camps have been in existence for two years. It will be like walking into a small town, where everyone knows everyone else, and there are powers that be.”

I looked at the team. We were hard. Two years of living out in the wild, marching hundreds of miles, dozens of firefights and hundreds of encounters with the undead. Ziv with his cruel, scarred face. Doc with his bald head, huge arms covered with biker tattoos.
Red with his thousand meter stare. Brit with her gunshot wounds. Esposito’s lean, lethal frame. Ahmed’s calm, neutral sniper eyes.

Yeah, we were going to fit in with these FEMA camp sheep like a bunch of wolves. I’m sure the other wolves would sniff us out pretty damn quickly.

“OK, then, let’s roll out.”