The stairs creaked as we walked down. In the movies, this was the time when they would build up suspense, and let me tell you, they were spot-on right. I had that twist in my gut that made me feel like I wanted to puke and I was sweating my ass off. It didn’t go away until we had cased out the whole basement. We’d found nothing there except two old skeletons, which I knew were there from last time. We ignored them, since the real dead held no terror for us anymore.
Chapter 2
Brit shook me awake at 2 AM for my watch. “Get up, squirrel breath,” she whispered, then stuck her tongue in my ear. I almost jumped out of the sleeping bag. It was frigging cold as shit despite being early May, and I jogged around for a bit to get warm. There ain’t nothing like having to get out of a warm sleeping bag on a cold night. I grabbed my boots out of the bottom of the bag and pulled them on, then my armor. I checked my rifle and chewed on some Skittles.
“Gah, that was disgusting! Forget toilet paper, obviously you’re missing Q-tips, too.” Brit spat loudly on the floor.
“Goddamn. I frackin’ hate you sometimes. I really, really do.” She gave me the finger and crawled into my sleeping bag. I grabbed my gear and headed up the stairs, joining Ahmed on watch. He filled me in with a mumbled “not much,” and handed over the NVGs. Then he leaned over and picked up the sniper rifle, turned the scope back on and settled down on the bipod.
I scanned the area from the rooftop. The infrared sensor picked up a few hot spots, way in the distance. I called spottings out to Ahmed. 3 o’clock, 800 meters or so. We had the ranges pretty well sited from the last time we were up here but I didn’t expect much. We had cleared out quite a few the last time, but you could still smell the stench lingering. They give off heat, too. Not as much as a live body, but whatever it is that animates them, it makes the muscles work, and that generates heat. Another thing the movies got wrong.
Ahmed shifted his scope over to the right, then started muttering under his breath. “Allllaaaaahhhhhhhaakkkkbaarrrrrrrr allllaaaaaahhhhhaaakkkkkbaaaarrrr.” Shit just freaked me out, and I had told him time and again to not do that around me. Reminded me of all those Haji terrorist videos you used to see of them shooting at us over in the desert, and I could still here the echoes of that call being yelled at me when we duked it out in Fallujah. I asked him about it once, why he was here in America.
“Nick, yes, you were the Great Satan. Infidels. I fought you in Afghanistan. I fought the Taliban, also, to protect my people. Then this happened, the demons from hell. Allah has sent me here to America to kill demons, instead of infidels. God is great, and it is as he wills it.” Great, I have a muj sniper on my team who might slit my throat one night. Apparently he had managed to escape from prison in Guantanamo Bay when the plague started, made his way across Cuba alone and gotten to Florida. That was all he would say about it. There weren’t any sides anymore other than living versus dead. We had been on more than a dozen scouts together and he was a damn good shot with the rifle. He pretends he wasn’t trying to kill me ten years ago, I pretend I wasn’t chasing his ass all over the mountains of the ‘Stan ten years ago. We both agreed that was all just bullshit now.
POP! Suppressed, of course. A shot on a night like tonight would bring the Zs running. Ahmed picked up the empty brass and slipped it in his pocket when it had cooled. In the NVGs I watched the hot spot burst into a glowing mist, and the figure dropped.
“So what’s your view on taking down Zs like this in the middle of the night? Allah OK with that? It bothers me sometimes, you know? Once they were someone’s mother, kid, whatever. At night, through the scope, they look like people.”
“Nick, they are dead. I am only releasing their souls to go to Heaven. It is Allah’s work.” With that, there was another POP! A figure I hadn’t seen, off to the left, tumbled up and backwards from behind a bush where it had been hiding for the night, knocked over by the impact of the round in its chest. I watched as it started to get back up and waited for the Z scream to start. Another muted POP and the figure fell down, with a hot splash through the head.
“I had to smoke that one out, as you Americans say. Hiding in the brush.”
Another thing the movies got wrong. Zs are smart. Not people-smart, but maybe like monkey-smart. Apparently the infection destroyed their higher order brain functions, and, having no heartbeat, they can’t process things all that fast but they have an animal instinct. They go to ground, hide out, wait in ambush. Territorial, too. Ninety percent of Zs will stay within two miles or so of where they died unless another one starts screaming. That’s why towns and cities are such a bad idea. You can find yourself facing a horde within five minutes, ’cause those suckers can run when they get pumped up. One on one, I can out run any zombie, but holy shit, you do not want to trip and twist your ankle. As for the other ten percent, they wander around like lost souls, always moaning. They are what make things so dangerous on a patrol through open country. You never, ever know when you’re going to bump into a solitary Z, and have it attack or start moaning, drawing more to you.
We waited the rest of Ahmed’s shift but nothing else showed up. Just a pack of wild dogs that was, thankfully, south of our position. We watched them plow into a herd of deer, taking one down and then fighting over the kill. Stray dogs scare me almost as much as Zs do. What’s that, you say? Call me a puss to be scared by a dog? Hell yes. These aren’t your friendly golden retrievers or yappy little shits you want to kick like a football. This is the Rottweiler or pitbull that fought its way to the top of the pack when its trailer park meth dealer/owner turned Z and it got loose in the wild. I love dogs, and Rocket slept by the front door of the house, always half-awake, listening for Zs. A pack of strays though? Nuh-uh.
Jones came up for the last hour of my watch, letting Ahmed get another hour of sleep. Then we conducted Stand –to, everyone a hundred percent up, waiting for the sun to rise. It’s a hard, hard world we live in, if you can call it living.
Chapter 3
“So, the night before we left the FOB, I hooked up with this zoomie guy from that C-130 that came in…”
“You is a female manwhore, you know that, right, Brit?”
We were walking slowly down the east side of the Hudson River, on our way to Fort Edward. The west side of the river was a no-go, fallout from the Knolls Atomic Power Lab semi-meltdown. It was probably safe, but the river made a good line not cross until you were north of Schuylerville. Our objective for the day was the south end of the Champlain Canal and the railroad bridge over the Hudson. The Army Corps of Engineers weenie huffed and puffed behind me, carrying too much gear. His problem, not ours. It made for a slow march, though.
“I’m just living life because I’m alive, Jonesy. So anyways…” and she rolled her eyes at him “…remember how China was saying it was the West’s plague, and they were going to shut their borders? Punishment for our decadent lifestyle and all that shit?”