“Sort of…”
“Shewolf, Annapolis, over.”
“Hear you, Annapolis,” Faith said as the staff sergeant loaded into the vehicle.
“Our intercept gear says they’re up Albert Lake Drive near Long Pond, over.”
“Staff Sergeant,” Faith said. “Find that. Thanks for the steer, Annapolis.”
“Good entertainment as always, Shewolf. Sorry to hear about your casualty.”
“He’ll make it,” Faith said. “Somebody told me one time this wasn’t a safe job. Pretty sure Goodwin knew that, too.”
“Head up to the medical school,” Staff Sergeant Barnard said. “That way…”
“Oh, holy shit,” Edwards said.
“Now that’s what I call a concentration,” Faith said, gleefully.
The Kia sedan the three Marines had squeezed into was covered in infected. The miracle was that the windows hadn’t broken under the weight.
“Hocieniec wins the bottle of good hooch!” Faith caroled on the general circuit. “None of you bastards better get in here and ruin my fun. Stay on your sectors. We got this.”
“Ma’am, with due respect…” Barnard said.
“I’m not going to use the God-damned machine gun, Staff Sergeant,” Faith snarled. But she wasn’t sure what to do. With the infected literally covering the vehicle, a fifty-caliber round would go through an infected, the occupants and the engine block. The question was how to use any weapon against them without hitting the occupants. “Oh, fu—fornicate it.”
Faith jumped out of the gunner’s ring, slid down the windshield of the truck, then onto the ground.
“Do not run me over, Edwards,” Faith radioed. “HEY! FRESH MEAT!” she screamed, waving her hands over her head.
“Fuck,” Barnard said, rolling out of the truck.
Faith had drawn her .45 and was servicing targets as the infected, blinded by the truck’s lights, turned from the unavailable meat and headed to apparently easier pickings. She dropped the pistol and clawed another out of her chest holster as the infecteds closed.
Barnard had barely gotten out of the truck when the lieutenant was swarmed.
“…sometimes I get overcome thinkin’ ’bout…” Faith sang, slamming a trench knife into an infected’s face. “…makin’ love in the green grass…” The trench knife sunk into a throat as she fired her .45 single-handed into a stomach. “…behind the stadium…” Another pistol hit the ground and her third and last came out. “…with you, my brown-eyed girl… Wait. Does singing this make me gay?”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Barnard said, wading in with her Ka-Bar.
She found it surprisingly hard to kill this infected with a knife. She couldn’t seem to get it to stop struggling and it was a woman, not even her size. She suddenly realized that the little bitch really was unbelievably deadly, since in the time it took her to finally stab the infected to death the lieutenant had killed three.
“Stab up, Staff Sergeant,” Faith panted, firing into a belly. “And you might want to use the pistol in contact instead.”
The Ka-Bar slid out of Barnard’s blood-covered rubber gloves and she scrabbled for her pistol as an infected tackled her.
“How can you stay on your feet?” Barnard snarled as she fired the 1911 into the infected’s chest.
“The same way you get to Carnegie Hall, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said. “I also play a fair trombone.”
The three-man team had finally bailed out of their vehicle and with them wading in they made quick work of the remaining infected.
“Tha’ was a fair dinkum scrum, mates!” Faith caroled as she helped the staff sergeant to her feet. “Fair dinkum an ah! So far you win the prize.”
“Can we get it tonight, ma’am?” Hocieniec asked. “I couldn’t figure out how to kill them from inside the car.”
“Shoot through the window next time,” Faith said. “O— oorah. Staff Sergeant?”
“Ma’am,” Barnard said, bent over and panting.
“This vehicle needs extracting,” Faith said. “Put out security and handle it. I’m going for a walk. Oh, zombies! Zombies, zombies, zombies? There’s a poor little girl all alone and lost in the woods…” She wandered back down the road continuing to call. “Ooo! Ow! I think I twisted my aaankle…”
“Lance Corporal,” Barnard said, still bent over. She straightened up and twisted her neck. “You and Rock take security. Haugen, there should be a tow strap in the back of the five-ton. Hook it up to the car.”
“Aye, aye, Staff Sergeant,” Haugen said.
“Lance Corporal,” Barnard said.
“Staff Sergeant?”
“I’m going to need a shot of that hooch.”
“Aye, aye, Staff Sergeant! Miss Faith is a tad nuts, Staff Sergeant. But you get used to it. Have you met Trixie, yet?”
“Okay,” Sophia said through her mask. They were working in Tyvek suits and air masks to avoid contaminating the interior. “Seal it up. Put fricking rigger tape everywhere and seal it tight…”
Cleaning and securing the five-ton had been a bitch and a half even with the powerful spots of the Grace Tan illuminating the scene. For one thing, the flies that always hovered around fresh kills were all over the place and with all the light they were active. For another there was the wind, which was from the land so it was carrying dust and potentially flu. They had finally just turned the five-ton around so the back was pointed at the Grace Tan and away from the land.
“Staff Sergeant Decker,” Sophia said. “Thank you for your assistance in this.”
The staff sergeant and his sidekick Condrey had, in fact, been of assistance. A pain in the ass but a necessary one. He had insisted on going over every inch with a toothbrush. At one point there had been seven people in the back of the vehicle scrubbing every square centimeter to the staff sergeant’s painfully precise direction. But if it wasn’t perfectly antiseptic, it wasn’t for lack of trying.
“Staff Sergeant, moment of your time,” Sophia said, walking away from the five-ton.
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Staff Sergeant Decker said, following her over at a slow march.
“This is not for dissemination,” Sophia said. “We are going to have to get seven people from a vehicle into the five-ton without contaminating them or the interior of the five-ton. We then are going to have to drive it back, back it onto the Grace Tan and get them into the container that the Grace Tan is preparing. I’m going to leave that last up to Mr. Walker and the Grace Tan crew. Getting them out of the vehicle, which will be somewhere on the island, and into the five-ton, without contaminating the interior, concerns me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Decker said, frowning. “What type of vehicle, ma’am?”
“Think an Apollo moon lander,” Sophia said.
“Ma’am…” Decker said, then froze.
“No ideas?” Sophia asked.
“No, ma’am,” Decker said. “No ideas, ma’am.”
“We’ll figure it out when we get there, then,” Sophia said with a sigh. “I’m going to need you and Condrey to accompany me. And we’re going to need lots of plastic and tape I guess. We’ll need to decontaminate the suits again but we’re going to be going onto the Grace Tan in a bit. We’ll get out of them and then suit back up later.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Decker said.
“I’m calling this exercise complete,” Sophia said, pulling off her mask. “Fall into the Tan with Condrey and unrig.”