Even Zombie Killers Get The Blues (Zombie Killer Blues) by John Holmes Page A
Authors: John Holmes
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around.”
“Agreed,” said Doc. “I lost my aide bag back there,
so I don’t feel like patching any of you up with my sewing kit. That and I’m
just getting dried out.”
We started down the road, in an airborne shuffle
that ate up the meters at a steady pace. I was tired, worn out by all we had
been through in the last two days, but I reached down inside myself and ignored
the blisters being generated by my wet boots, the burns I was getting in my
crotch from the wet uniforms pants chaffing my skin raw. I was on a mission,
now. One was to rescue Brit. The other was to deal with LTC Jackass. I didn’t
know if I even needed to do both. Brit was probably in no condition to be moved
from the hospital, and as far as she knew, the team was lost, cut off from
coms. Hell, Jackass or his ass-sucking Sergeant Major would probably feed her
some bullshit about us being overrun by Zombies in Whitehall. He was a sneak
and an asshole, but I don’t think he would have the stones to make Brit
disappear right out of the hospital so she was safe for now. I just hated her
thinking we were dead.
We spent that night up in the trees, slung in our
hammocks. We carried them in our assault packs because if you got separated
from the team, you would never be able to fortify, or even defend, an old house
by yourself. Up in a tree, you could hold out as long as you had ammo and
water, and if you were smart, move from tree-to-tree to give you running room.
Hell, even moving to a different branch on the far side of a tree and dropping
down might give you enough of a head start to outrun a zombie horde.
In the south, a column of smoke was highlighted by
the setting sun, matched by its twin to the north. The helo at the jail still
smoldered, and behind us, something had caught fire in Whitehall and burned
through the night. Below us, a steady
stream of zombies, animated corpses of those killed in the jail battle,
stumbled on through the night, attracted by the fire on the horizon.
Ahmed tapped me on the leg and I awoke with a start,
but I didn’t move. In the stark brilliance of the full moon, I could see stream
of zombies had died down to a lone figure, limping along on a shattered leg. It
dragged the remains of a rope, entangled in military issue web gear.
“Do it!” I whispered, but the figure below us
stopped at even that quiet remark. It looked up, the eyes glowing a dull red,
and Ahmed’s pistol coughed twice. The figure crumpled to the ground. I waited
to see if anything else turned up and then drifted off to sleep again.
In the morning, there were no zombies around. We
climbed down and I went over to the corpse. As Ahmed and I had suspected last
night, it was an Infantryman, one of the those who’d been hanging off the tail
end of the helo as it crashed. His guys must have missed his body in the rush to
Evac. He must have still been alive but the zombies had gotten to him. We tried
never to leave a man behind unless it risked other lives, but, more important,
we tried not to leave a man to wake up undead. Every soldier who fell in
battle, bitten by a zombie, was given a round to the head. Horrible, gruesome,
but there was no way I wanted to become an undead, and we all felt the same
way.
I stripped him of ammo, which fortunately was for
our modified M-4s with the hot .22 long rounds, not regular .223 military issue
ammo, About one out of every three guys in a unit carried the newer,
rechambered rifles. Smoke grenade, flashbang, two frags. Water in a Camelbak
that we wouldn’t touch, in case it was contaminated. I pulled one of his dog
tags off his right boot and slipped it into my pocket. We spent the next hour
building a cairn of rocks over his body and set out on the road again. Rest in
peace, Brother.
Chapter 24
The next two days were a blur. A haze of encounters
with Zombies, lack of sleep, hunger, and pain. My feet were raw where my boots
had been wet. My extra socks were back in my ruck, somewhere in
“Agreed,” said Doc. “I lost my aide bag back there,
so I don’t feel like patching any of you up with my sewing kit. That and I’m
just getting dried out.”
We started down the road, in an airborne shuffle
that ate up the meters at a steady pace. I was tired, worn out by all we had
been through in the last two days, but I reached down inside myself and ignored
the blisters being generated by my wet boots, the burns I was getting in my
crotch from the wet uniforms pants chaffing my skin raw. I was on a mission,
now. One was to rescue Brit. The other was to deal with LTC Jackass. I didn’t
know if I even needed to do both. Brit was probably in no condition to be moved
from the hospital, and as far as she knew, the team was lost, cut off from
coms. Hell, Jackass or his ass-sucking Sergeant Major would probably feed her
some bullshit about us being overrun by Zombies in Whitehall. He was a sneak
and an asshole, but I don’t think he would have the stones to make Brit
disappear right out of the hospital so she was safe for now. I just hated her
thinking we were dead.
We spent that night up in the trees, slung in our
hammocks. We carried them in our assault packs because if you got separated
from the team, you would never be able to fortify, or even defend, an old house
by yourself. Up in a tree, you could hold out as long as you had ammo and
water, and if you were smart, move from tree-to-tree to give you running room.
Hell, even moving to a different branch on the far side of a tree and dropping
down might give you enough of a head start to outrun a zombie horde.
In the south, a column of smoke was highlighted by
the setting sun, matched by its twin to the north. The helo at the jail still
smoldered, and behind us, something had caught fire in Whitehall and burned
through the night. Below us, a steady
stream of zombies, animated corpses of those killed in the jail battle,
stumbled on through the night, attracted by the fire on the horizon.
Ahmed tapped me on the leg and I awoke with a start,
but I didn’t move. In the stark brilliance of the full moon, I could see stream
of zombies had died down to a lone figure, limping along on a shattered leg. It
dragged the remains of a rope, entangled in military issue web gear.
“Do it!” I whispered, but the figure below us
stopped at even that quiet remark. It looked up, the eyes glowing a dull red,
and Ahmed’s pistol coughed twice. The figure crumpled to the ground. I waited
to see if anything else turned up and then drifted off to sleep again.
In the morning, there were no zombies around. We
climbed down and I went over to the corpse. As Ahmed and I had suspected last
night, it was an Infantryman, one of the those who’d been hanging off the tail
end of the helo as it crashed. His guys must have missed his body in the rush to
Evac. He must have still been alive but the zombies had gotten to him. We tried
never to leave a man behind unless it risked other lives, but, more important,
we tried not to leave a man to wake up undead. Every soldier who fell in
battle, bitten by a zombie, was given a round to the head. Horrible, gruesome,
but there was no way I wanted to become an undead, and we all felt the same
way.
I stripped him of ammo, which fortunately was for
our modified M-4s with the hot .22 long rounds, not regular .223 military issue
ammo, About one out of every three guys in a unit carried the newer,
rechambered rifles. Smoke grenade, flashbang, two frags. Water in a Camelbak
that we wouldn’t touch, in case it was contaminated. I pulled one of his dog
tags off his right boot and slipped it into my pocket. We spent the next hour
building a cairn of rocks over his body and set out on the road again. Rest in
peace, Brother.
Chapter 24
The next two days were a blur. A haze of encounters
with Zombies, lack of sleep, hunger, and pain. My feet were raw where my boots
had been wet. My extra socks were back in my ruck, somewhere in
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