As the train clattered over the mountains of Idaho and Wyoming, I thought about our problem with Dr. Morano. One way or another, I was glad to be out of her immediate reach. Payback would have to come, and it would be a showdown to the end. You can’t leave enemies like that, ones who were willing to kill without conscience, alive and able to strike at you. We would have to be very careful, though. This wasn’t some jumped-up jackass of an officer who had it coming and nobody around him cared less. I had read about some of her research and she was a big shot, a favorite of the powers that be. The fact we were on our way to the front lines was proof enough of that.
We rolled out onto the northern plains, sweltering in midsummer heat. Above us, regular flights of Kiowa Scout helicopters started to appear. One of the few things getting priority of manufacture was the small, lightweight observation copters. They could cover a lot of ground and ran regular patrols all over the countryside. Any figure or groups of figures that didn’t respond to interrogation with some sort of signal showing they were human was immediately engaged, either through a lightweight chaingun mounted on the nose, or rifle fire from the observer/sniper who rode alongside. They would land several hundred meters from the Z and hop out to take the headshot. Shooting accurately from a hovering helo was something you did in movies, not in real life. If it was a group, and they were advancing quickly, the team would do what was called a “skip and shoot;” landing, shooting, pulling back several hundred meters, then landing again. If things got out of hand, quick reaction rifle squads were scattered every seventy five miles or so, in remains of large towns, and could be there within a half an hour by Blackhawk or two hours by truck. A real horde of several hundred, or even more, would be led by the scout helo flashing lights and playing sound to attract them to a designated “kill zone” where troops had established permanent fighting positions and would be waiting for them. The kill zones were set up every hundred miles or so, depending on terrain features, and had preregistered artillery, deep ditches and palisades. They had been used a lot in the first year of the war to stabilize the Dakotas and cut down on the number of hordes wandering about. Now we held the northern Great Plains along the I-90 corridor. We had patrols as far south as Kansas and a mechanized infantry division sitting outside of Omaha shooting anything that stumbled out of that ruin. We also had four divisions getting ready for the push into Denver, one mechanized and three light infantry. In California, we were massing wheeled infantry in the mountains, getting ready to try and take back the Imperial Valley with all of its agricultural potential, and the Navy wanted San Francisco Harbor back. They were tired of being holed up in San Diego, and the Marines were itching to get into the fight, training constantly at their bases in Hawaii. The brief and bloody fight against the secessionists in Utah had devolved down to mopping up in the mountains, and the sensible people in Salt Lake City had thrown out the “Emergency Council of Elders” after they had vowed to fight the government “to the last saint.”
In the small picture, our picture, Third Corps (III Corps) had established a cordon around the greater Denver Metropolitan area and was preparing to take the city. The government needed the rail lines and transportation infrastructure as a forward base for taking back the rest of the country, and there was talk of moving the capitol there after everything was cleaned out. For now, though, there were estimated to be close to a million undead gathered there. Our job was to first scout the airport.
“Why don’t we just drop a neutron bomb on it?” asked Red, who had been looking over my shoulder as I read the intel updates. “You know, just fry their asses, and leave the buildings standing and all that.”
“Tried it already, in Los Angeles. Didn’t work. Just left a bunch of pissed-off, radioactive zombies.”
“Damn. Well, what about, you know, carpet bombing it or something? Blow the hell out of them, leave a lot less for the Army to clean up. I know you won’t kill a lot of them that way, but it will sure mess up a bunch.”
“Won’t leave the buildings intact, and we need to take Denver so it can be reoccupied. The Air Force carpet bombed… where the hell was that?”
“Reno” chimed in Doc, who was pretending to sleep in the seat across from me.
“Yeah, Reno, Nevada. Pounded the whole place flat. Carpet bombs, fuel air explosives, Napalm, everything. All that, a small city, and it STILL took three weeks for a full division of troops to declare the place a hundred percent secure.”
“So, let me get this straight. We’re still scouts, right?”
“As far as I know, yes.”
“And we’re going to scout an area we can’t bomb and has a million Zs in it?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“Damn, White Man, I should have stayed on the reservation.”
I laughed. “Red, don’t worry, this will be a piece of cake compared to New York.”
Just then, the train hit a rough patch in the rails and my coffee jumped in my hand, spilling the hot liquid on my uniform. Damn, what a way to start.
Chapter 26
Somewhere in Wyoming, the train ground to a halt and an announcement came over the intercom.
“All troops, this is the train commander. Air scouts are leading a zombie horde, about one thousand strong, toward our position. All troops will mount rooftop firing positions and engage targets. Estimate contact time is ten minutes.”
Brit let out a whoop. “Hell yeah, I was getting bored watching Red moon over all those buffalo. He’s had a hard-on for the last two hundred miles.”
“I’m a Navajo. We screw sheep, you stupid paleface squaw.”
“OK, OK, quit it and gear up, you two.” We checked weapons and ammo and moved into the aisle. Doc still pretended to sleep. I slapped his boot and he grunted, rolled over into a more comfortable position and started snoring. Esposito finished loading his rifle and then asked “What’s with him? Isn’t he going to help?”
“He’s just faking it. He’ll be down here with his medkit in case someone gets injured.”
A ladder had been pulled down from the roof and soldiers were climbing up through a hatch. We made our way up onto the flat roof of the train. I had wondered why the car was so low, and I saw that several feet had been sawn off the roof and a parapet placed around it. The car was still low enough to pass under tunnels and bridges but provided an elevated, protected firing platform. There was even an overhang to prevent Zs from climbing up.
As we crowded over to the southern side of the train car and took up firing positions, the helos thundered overhead. I looked out over the open plain, which was shimmering with heat waves. White stones stood at various intervals that I judged were every hundred meters or so, and piles of picked-over bones lay around them. Hundreds of thousands of bones, and the smell coming off them reminded me of a slaughterhouse.
“What’s with the rocks and the bones?” I asked one of the regular train security personnel, who was directing the placement troops along the parapet.
He laughed. “Those are for estimating range. You don’t think we just stopped here at a random place, did you? This is a regular ambush place. We do this about every fifth train ride.” He leaned over the edge and pointed to the ground below.
“See that?” I leaned over myself and saw a deep ditch dug along the tracks, which approximated the entire length of the train. It too was filled with bones, but it made it impossible for any Z to even get close to the train cars, much less climb them.
“Every couple of weeks the air scouts come across a wandering horde and lead them back to this place or a few others we have along the rail line. Then we just let the troops on board shoot the piss out of them. Plus, we got that,” and he gestured towards the last rail car.