Down the center aisle, we split into two teams; Doc and Redshirt together in one and Brit and I in the other, and headed in separate directions. We would meet back in the front of the store after confirming ID.
Brit led the way, shotgun at the ready. The flashlights created a jumpy, dancing pattern of shadows, and my heart was pounding.
“Are you up to this?” I whispered as I noticed her favoring her leg that had been wounded a few weeks before.
“Suck it, Fat Boy” she whispered, without looking back at me. I grinned in the darkness. She was okay.
We had made it through the tools section, moving aisle by aisle. Brit poked a small periscope with a PVS-14 NVG attached to it around each corner, looking for the faint heat signatures a zombie gave off. Shining a light down the aisle could miss something hiding in shadows. Looking around one corner, she held up one hand, palm down, then two fingers, then a walking motion towards herself. Okay, two zombies, ambulatory, moving toward us. I brought my shotgun up to my shoulder and put my knee on her back to let her know I was ready.
As soon as I felt her move, I swung past her right and turned left down the aisle. My flashlight swept up the floor to center on the head of the right hand zombie and I fired twice. I heard Brit’s gun boom next to me at the same time. Her first shot spun the left hand zombie, the second shot taking off the back of its head. Mine was also down, but still trying to crawl forward with half its face blown off. I walked up and hit it in the head with the weighted stick I carried.
“CLEAR, two zulu down.”
“Roger, two zulu down.” came Doc’s response over the radio.
We met back up at the front of the store, then each team peeled off to get the assigned items, Brit pushing a shopping cart and me a pallet. Outside, the firing was picking up, going from occasional shots to almost continuous single shots. We ran down the aisles, throwing things we needed into the cart and onto the pallet while keeping an eye out for any Zs we might have missed.
“Do we have everything?” I asked, slightly out of breath from pushing the heavy cart as fast as possible.
“I need new mechanic’s gloves.”
I held up a pair in her size. “I grabbed you a pair. Let’s get the hell out of here.” She nodded and we walked out into the bright sunlight, followed a minute later by Doc and Redshirt.
Outside it had evolved into a full-fledged firefight. Zs were piling up on the perimeter, climbing over bodies to get at the fresh meat shooting at them. The machine guns were hammering out a steady symphony of bursts, waiting for a cluster of Zs to show themselves over the pile. Brass lay all over the parking lot.
I grabbed the Infantry Platoon Leader where he was directing fire and shifting people and yelled in his ear.
“SIR, WE ARE GOOD TO GO!”
“ROGER THAT!” and he shouted for his platoon sergeant, making a whirling motion with his hand over his head. Then he popped smoke right in front of the pallets and shopping carts. While we waited for the birds, the team secured all the loose items in each pallet or cart with a tarp, duct taping them down heavily. Once on board, the crew chief would strap them down.
Now came the hard part: Withdrawing under pressure. As the helo set down, we joined the perimeter, firing along with the Infantry at the massive horde pouring out of the city of Newburgh. Next to me a young trooper panicked, trying to reload his magazine as a Z came straight at him. He dropped the weapon and turned to run but tripped on the broken pavement. I shot the Z coming at him, but another was right behind him. It grabbed his ankle and started to viciously bite on his leg, dragging him out of the perimeter. His scream was cut short as Redshirt put a burst into his chest. A stream of tracers from the machine guns tore through head level of the crowd of zombies, but a bullet caught another trooper in the back of the head as he stood up to swing his knocker at them. He fell forward on his face and lay still.
We shortened the line as each squad peeled back into the choppers. As the heavy weapons crew collapsed their tripods and ran into the last chopper, we followed them in. I counted off the whole team, getting a thumbs-up from each, then boarded myself. The last squad practically fell onto the ramp, getting a hand up from the guys already aboard.
As we lifted, zombies rushed the helos and the crew chief opened up with his minigun. A hundred rounds a second, and only a few fell to head shots. More fell from limbs being torn off.
We flew out over river. Across from me, a young kid stood up and staggered over to me.
“I HOPE IT WAS WORTH IT, YOU MOTHERFUCKER!” he yelled at me. I guess one of the guys who had died was a friend.
“I DON’T KNOW IF IT WAS OR NOT!” That took the wind out of him, and he sat back down, tears running down his face.
Truth was, I didn’t know.
Chapter 10
The mood in the Infantry was ugly when we got back. They helped us unload our supplies, but little was said. The company commander called me, the platoon sergeant and the platoon leader aside and asked what had happened. When we got to the part about the two soldiers who had been lost, he said nothing but his eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched.
“I’m sorry about that, Sir. I know you guys were supporting us.” It sounded contrite, but I wasn’t sure what else to say. This was a new company, most of them new privates straight out of basic training at Joint Base Lewis-McChord outside Seattle.
He nodded. “It’s OK, Nick. You and I have both been around this fight long enough to know that people are going to die. They’re dead because of their own mistakes and lack of training.” At that, he looked hard at the platoon leader, who flushed red.
“Can’t always stop a man from panicking, Captain. It happens. Most of these kids have never dealt with a zombie horde. Hell, some of them might not have even seen one outside the rifle range at Basic Training. Isn’t that why you sent them with us on this scrounging raid in the first place? Two men dead, but it might save a lot of lives later.”
He was silent for a minute, then he nodded his head toward me. “I’m going to make sure none of them has a problem with supporting your team in the future.”
“Thanks, appreciate it.”
He walked away and climbed on top of a pallet that was sitting by the LZ. He waited ‘til his guys had all stopped what they were doing and he had their attention.
“Listen up. We lost two soldiers today. Good guys. Dietrich and Coburn. They were friends of yours. They were your friends and my soldiers. I know you’re upset by what happened, but they are dead. Get that into your heads. This isn’t Call of Duty, and you don’t respawn. Soldiers die, and in this shitty war, some of you will die on almost every mission we go on. I hope not. I really, really do.” He paused for a second and took off his glasses, rubbing them on his T-shirt and then putting them back on.
“Just remember this about your buddies. They aren’t zombies, stumbling around in the dark with their souls trapped in a rotting body. Sergeant Agostine’s soldier did the right thing by shooting Coburn. If not, he would have been a danger to all of you if he had turned Z while inside the lines. He saved your lives. Don’t hold it against him, or the rest of his team. Your job is to go where you are told and kill what you see. You did that today, and I’m proud of you.” He paused for a minute to let that sink in, then he pointed back to me.