Rotters: Bravo Company (9 page)

“Sure,” McAllister answered. “The colonel and the major have both talked to the Pentagon. I guarantee you they are very interested in what’s happening here. Don’t change a damn thing. They can’t send us anything fast enough to make any difference.”

“What about air support?” I asked hopefully.

“Nope,” the sergeant replied. “Takes too long to get here, and there ain’t no local assets to call on. The flyboys couldn’t hit anything but the village anyway for all the trees. I wouldn’t trust the major or Beckham to call in an air strike regardless. We’d all be killed by friendly fire. Do not bring that shit up around them, I don’t want them getting any bright ideas.”

“How are we holding up for ammo?” I asked.

“Sgt. Price and I were just discussing that when you pecker heads showed up,” McAllister replied. “We’re getting kinda low on everything.”

“It
ain’t pretty,” Price nodded.

“How bad is it?” I inquired.

“Well, we are down to one functional Platoon, and since I don’t have to supply as many troops, we’ve got about five or six-hundred rounds of 556 NATO left per trooper. About enough for one good firefight,” Sgt. Price responded. “If you fuckers could shoot straight and didn’t waste so much ammo we wouldn’t be in this fix. We done burned through enough ammo to kill half a fucking division!”

“Those bastards don’t lay down and die when you shoot
em, do they now boys?” McAllister laughed.

“Fuck, no,” Hard-on agreed.

“What about ammo for the SAWs?” I asked.

“That’s a real tragedy,” Price sighed. “We only have six cases of ammo left. Those guns could go through that real quick.”

“The SAWs are the most effective weapon we have left,” McAllister stated. “We’ll have to use them wisely.”

“I’ve got a half a case of nine-millimeter for the Berettas and a few boxes of shotgun shells,” Price added.

“Can’t we run back to the planes and pick up some more?” Hard-on inquired.

“I can’t raise anyone at the insertion point on the radio,” Sgt. McAllister answered slowly. “And we can’t send a single vehicle, it’s too dangerous. We all leave or we all stay.”

We were all quiet for a moment. “What about Claymores?” I finally asked.

“We’ve got four left,” he answered sadly.

“How we fixed for grenades?” Sadler queried.

“One case left of fragmentation, that’s a dozen, and there are two white phosphorus left,” Price responded. “We’ve got more bottles of whiskey than grenades.”

“Normally that would be a good thing,” McAllister concluded. He paused to think for a moment. “Do we have any C-4 with us?”

“Nope,” Price answered. “I don’t like to haul that shit around unless I have to.”

“How much gasoline do we have left?” the sergeant asked.

“Not much of that. I’ve usually got four Jerry cans full, but we’ve used most of it up burning the dead. Now, we’ve got plenty of diesel. I’ve got a full fifty-gallon drum in the truck and there is another ten to fifteen gallons in each of our vehicles. Of course, we need that to drive out of here back to the planes. There is lot of diesel still in the Humvees the medical unit drove in here. Their tanks hold twenty-five gallons, full. I bet I could siphon out another forty gallons or so from them. Why do you ask?” Price wanted to know.

“There is a lot of wicked shit you can do with flammable liquids,” McAllister responded. “Especially when the guys you’re fighting ain’t none too smart.”

“Does diesel burn?” Hard-on asked.

“Fuck yeah it burns!” Price responded. “It just has a lower flash point than gasoline. It’s safer, but it will still burn like hell if you get it started.”

“What do you have in mind,
Sarge?” I asked eagerly.

“You’ll see,” he responded with a wicked grin.

As our little party broke up I took the sergeant aside. “Can I talk to you for a second?” I asked.

“Sure,” he grunted back. The beers had mellowed us both a little.

“You want to hear my theory on why we are being attacked?” I suggested.

“I guess,” McAllister replied. “I’ll hear it sooner or later anyway.”

I laughed and then grew quickly serious. “I think all the noise from the colonel’s sample tent is drawing in more zombies. They seem to start moaning more when they get excited, and then that attracts even more of them. That’s all that those poor bastards in that tent do. Plus all the gunfire and racket we are making
killin’ the ones that do show up. Hell, out here I bet a gunshot carries for miles. There’s nothing else making any noise except for the birds and shit. The colonel said the virus drives them to attack living things, I bet it’s like we’re ringing the dinner bell for those fuckers. I think we are just sitting here like a big juicy buffet.”

McAllister grunted, “I hadn’t thought about that. I was too busy trying to figure out a way to beat
em. Not bad, Parsons.”

“It’s just a theory,” I responded.

“I’ll see what I can do about the sample tent anyway,” the sergeant stated.

A series of gunshots rang out from the edge of camp.

“I think it’s too late to worry about the other,” McAllister added.

I paused for a few seconds then spoke again, “
Sarge, as lethal as this shit is, we could be the only living humans for miles. If they can sense us somehow they’re just gonna keep on coming. We haven’t actually killed that many yet, maybe just a couple three hundred.”

“What’s your point, Parsons?’ he asked.

“I don’t know what this part of the world’s population is like but there could be a lot more of them out there, maybe so many that we won’t be able to stop them next time. They seem to be comin’ in waves. I think they’ll hit us again tonight, real hard,” I concluded.

“Yeah,” McAllister slowly spoke. “I’m afraid you’re right about that, too. Well, we will do what damage we can with what we have to hand. Come on, we need to get to work, especially if your theory is correct!”

McAllister rounded up everyone who wasn’t nailed down to make up a work detail. We walked back out to the perimeter line facing the village. The sergeant studied the ground for a moment. He walked past our
foxholes a few paces and turned to face us.

“You guys are
gonna love this one,” he explained. “I need a slit trench about three feet deep all the way around our perimeter line.”

No one responded for a few seconds, then Hard-on realized what that meant.

“Damn it, Sarge, we done fought and sweated and dug in and searched all to fuck and back. It’s too damn hot to dig!” he demanded. He looked close to tears.

McAllister responded calmly, “I know you guys are tired. Just do the best you can. We need to get as much done as humanly possible, and quickly. More of those fucks are
comin’ in, and we are seriously low on ammo. I’m improvising a defensive system to make up for it. This trench will keep you alive. I’ve got to go talk to the CO, and get a few things taken care of. I’ll be back to help you as quick as I can!”

The sergeant walked back into the camp and disappeared.

Nobody wanted to dig, but we went to it. Everybody bitched and moaned. We quickly stripped down to our boots and pants. We were filthy, tired, and sore, but we dug in. The ground was just a sodden muddy mess that clung to your shovel’s blade. The sun beat down on our backs; the sweat ran in buckets. We all knew that we would never finish the trench before dark, it was too damn much, but we were determined to try.

Hard-on paused for a second to chug a warm bottled water. He looked over at me and spat into the mud. “I’d give my left nut for a bulldozer about now,” he grunted.

I dug another three spade-
fulls before his words sank in. “Wait a minute,” I laughed.

I looked down the shallow muddy trench. Sgt. Price was just down the line from us, digging just like everyone else. I dropped my spade and walked over to him.

“Sgt. Price, I just got an idea,” I stated.

He looked up, “It had better be good.”

“You’ll dig it,” I replied. “I know where a backhoe is.” 

Hard-on and I grabbed our rifles and led Sgt. Price out into the forest to the clearing where we had found the truck and the backhoe. We moved carefully; an occasional zombie was still wandering into camp, but we encountered nothing.

Price approached the derelict tractor and shook his head sadly.

“I can’t do nothing with this thing boys. Its plumb shot to shit,” he intoned. “Hell, even if it ran it wouldn’t be able to move.” He pointed to the backhoe’s oversized tires. They had rotted and sunk into the African mud.

“Couldn’t it run on the rims?” I asked hopefully.

“In this mud? Nope,” he replied.

We stood looking forlornly at the beat up backhoe.

“Wait, we really don’t need to drive it around, right?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Sgt. Price asked. “Of course you need to drive it.”

“No,” I retorted. “We could winch it out with the truck, and pull it back to camp. If you can get the engine to run we could use the claw to dig the trenches. We could move it with the wench, or I’ve seen operators pull a backhoe along with just the arm!” I stated.

“Damn me, you’re right,” Price cursed. “The arm works off the PTO and hydraulics.”

He looked at the backhoe’s claw. “These hydraulic hoses are rotted, but I might be able to cobble something together. It’s worth a shot!”

I fist bumped Hard-on. “Let’s get the fucking truck.”

We brought the cargo truck from the village down the path to the clearing. It barely fit between the new growth trees. We finally got it into position and hooked up our heaviest tow chain to the eight-ton winch.

“Come on baby!” Sgt. Price chanted, over and over. He threw the winch’s handle forward. We all stood clear in case the cable snapped. The winch wined and smoked, and the truck crabbed forward until it jammed against a tree trunk. Finally, with a nasty slurping sound, the backhoe pulled free and began to limp slowly back towards the truck.

Sgt. McAllister and half the camp came out to watch us as we emerged from the trees. The sergeant shook his head in wonder and ordered everybody back to work.

We reset the winch and the truck a dozen times before we had the backhoe clear and into position. Sgt. Price and two of his mechanics went to work on the tractor’s engine and arm. Hard-on and I went back into the trench, and started digging again.

I was almost too numb to notice that all I could hear was the snick of the shovels, and the birds and animal noises from the forest. Suddenly it hit me that I could hear the buzz of the ever present flies. The moaning noise from the sample tent had ceased.

“Hey, Hard-on,” I grinned. “Listen.”

“Yeah, I know,” he replied.

Two hours of hard digging later I heard the high pitched whine of a starter. We all stopped digging. I fell to my knees in the clinging mud and said a prayer for that starter to work. It sounded again, turning over and over, then stopped.

I heard Sgt. Price cursing like a San Francisco pimp, and then the starter reengaged. The backhoe’s engine roared to life with a backfire and a belch of black smoke. It was the sweetest sound I had ever heard. All down the line everyone cheered and threw down their shovels.

Two hours later the slit trench was done.

BRAVO COMPANY SUPPLY NCO SGT PRICE

REQUEST IMMEDIATE AIR DROP OF AMMUNITION AND HEAVY MUNITIONS OUR LOCATION. SITUATION CRITICAL.

TRANSMISSION ENDS

SERGEANT PRICE US ARMY

06:56 p.m. Zulu

Village of
Lat

The Congo

Hard-on and I wrestled the fifty-gallon drum of diesel fuel into position at the lip of the trench. Its contents shifted and sloshed as we slowly lowered it down until it was horizontal, with one end overhanging the channel. We stood and stretched our aching backs. The blood red sun was moving across the sky towards the trees to the west. Darkness, and the lurking horrors it would surely bring, was fast approaching. We had a couple of hours at most.

Sgt. McAllister prepped the drum’s bung so that it would open and flood the trench. When he was satisfied he climbed out and looked down the line.

“How did you get the colonel to agree to silence the specimens?” I queried.

“I didn’t,” McAllister replied. “He was too busy to see me. I convinced one of the corpsmen to help me. We cut the fucker’s vocal cords. That constant moaning was driving everybody insane. It was the right thing to do.”

“What did the major say about it?” I asked.

“Nothing. He drank himself into a stupor this afternoon. It’s how he is coping,” McAllister informed us. “He authorized me to prepare the defenses as I saw fit.”

“I take it that means we are staying, no matter what happens?” I inquired.

“Looks that a way,” McAllister grunted. He paused to look out at the surrounding forest and listened carefully. Everything was peaceful for the moment.

“The major and the colonel have had a parting of the ways though,” he added.

“What happened?” I asked hopefully.

“The major wants to pull back to the airfield. He just changed his mind all of a sudden like. Might have something to do with my report on how low we are on ammunition and such.” McAllister lowered his voice and continued. “He and the colonel had a hell of a row, damn near came to blows. You know how irate the old man can get when things don’t go his way. The colonel pulled rank on him. He said his work was almost finished and it was too important to interrupt. Ordered the major to stay put until his command is relieved. The colonel actually called him a coward. You shoulda seen how purple the CO’s face turned! I actually thought he was gonna blow a gasket and have an aneurism right there on the spot!” McAllister laughed softly.

“Like we could get that lucky,” I added.

“After that the old man started drinking. He’ll be as mean as a snake later, but at least it keeps him out of our hair for a while,” the sergeant concluded. “Enough gossip, we still got work to do.”

We returned to our preparations. Sgt. Price had readied dozens of plastic gallon milk jugs, now filled with diesel. The cargo truck had been loaded with them, and pulled forward to the slit trench. Hard-on and I set them into the trench in pairs, spacing them roughly equidistant; and removing the caps, leaving them open to the air.

Sgt. McAllister had ordered Price and his men to drain all the diesel fuel from every vehicle except for the truck and two of the Humvees. He wanted every available ounce of the liquid in the trenches. We even raided the village store, and placed every flammable liquid remaining in the place into the channel. A lethal mix of kerosene, lighter fluid, ammonia and bleach, cheap rum and vodka, and almost all our whiskey went into the plastic jugs and into the trench. All of the medical unit’s rubbing alcohol went in too. If it was flammable liquid, we pitched it in.

“It’s a damn good thing beer doesn’t burn,” Hard-on growled as he set in the booze. He wasn’t happy about wasting good whiskey. Finally, the slit trench was ready.

We had reset the trip wires and set our last few flares at the extreme edge of the village. This would be our first warning, and was well away from the flammables. The killing ground between the village huts and the
slit trench was clear. Just beyond the trench towards us we pounded stout wooden stakes into the ground, and strung out the last of our trip wire between them. A few feet beyond the wire we drove sharpened stakes into the ground, in staggered rows. The hope was that the zombies might trip and impale themselves, rendering them at least temporarily immobile. Lastly, we set a few long, sharpened poles at a forty-five degree angle in a hedgehog just before our foxholes. I reflected that soldiers had been doing this same work for centuries, back to the beginnings of warfare, and probably bitching about it for just as long.

Everyone pitched in to shore up our defenses. The mechanics and medics worked just as hard as we did, their lives depended on them, too.

Sgt. McAllister stalked back and forth down the line, looking for weak spots and shouting encouragement, driving us back to work when we slacked or faltered. His deep voice bellowed out above the pounding of the mallets, sledgehammers, machetes, and shovels.

We had done everything we could. McAllister did one final walk around and called it a piece of work.

“It’s crude, it’s rude, it’s pathetic, but it beats a blank. Good work gentlemen.”

Each of our foxholes had been cleared and deepened. Each had been stocked with a half dozen Molotov cocktails, the last of the gasoline in a glass whiskey bottle with a bit of rag stuffed down the neck. You just lit the rag and tossed it at whatever you wanted to burn. Each of us had five hundred rounds of ammunition, twenty magazines each. Once that was gone, well, we all knew what would happen then.

Sgt. McAllister had set up a SAW in the two diametrically opposite corners of the box. Each could fire down two sides of the perimeter. The ammo would last longer utilizing two heavy machine
guns instead of four. He set back three M27 linked belts of 556 ammo and another SAW in the center, as an emergency reserve. At each of the other corners he had set a single Claymore mine, wired back to the corner hole. The man in the corner hole could trigger the mine by pulling its cord. They also had two grenades each.

We had set up an improvised defensive position around the command tent. It was just a small square made up of empty crates, barrels and four of the abandoned Humvees as a last resort. Everyone was to fall back on it if we were overrun again. The two fueled Humvees and the cargo truck were parked directly adjacent to this area, ready to go.

The remaining mechanics and the medics went into the lines to fill the empty foxholes. Each had an M-4 with two full magazines, fifty rounds each. McAllister had set the rifles to single shot and warned the men not to change the selector switches back to auto. The remaining Berettas and nine-millimeter ammo had been distributed to them also.

I could tell they were shit scared. I didn’t blame them
; I just hoped they wouldn’t bolt.

We had exactly enough people to fill the foxholes and corners, that was it.

1st Platoon faced the village, 2nd Platoon faced the forest. We all faced death.

Only the old man, Col. Warren and a couple of lab techs weren’t in the lines. Even Lt. Beckham walked out and asked the sergeant where he should post up.  McAllister slapped him on the shoulder and sent him over to command 2nd Platoon. Sadler would be the SAW gunner on that side of the world and Sgt. Price would be the gunner on our side. Sgt. McAllister would be in command.

The sun set in a blaze of crimson against the gently waving canopy of the giant trees. No zombies had wandered in while we finished our defenses. There either were no more left, or much more likely, they were massing under the trees, slowly moving forward through the forest, drawn to us like iron filings to a magnet.

My money was on the later.

It grew still. The night was still warm, and the place still stunk, but I was too tired to care anymore. I sat back against the rough dirt wall of my foxhole and closed my eyes for a precious moment. Nothing was trying to kill me just this second. I heard someone laugh, on the other side of the camp. The birds chirped, the insects droned, the night came on. I wished I could just go to sleep and wake up back home, far away from the Congo.

“Hey, asshole, you awake over there?” Hard-on shouted to me.

I stood up in my hole and leaned my ass back against its rim.

“Yeah,” I replied. I looked over at him and Gordo. We were the middle of the line. I rubbed my eyes and
twisted my head from side to side, trying to work out the kinks and knots in my neck and shoulders. I stretched and yawned.

“You look like shit,” Gordo observed dryly.

“He’s looked worse,” Hard-on observed.

“Kiss my ass,” I replied.

It grew steadily darker. The light began to fade away.

“Do you think they’ll come back again?” Gordo asked.

I didn’t answer for a moment. I just stared out at the empty village and the towering trees. I tried to imagine it before all the death, before the virus. I tried to imagine the people who had lived there before they died.

“Yeah, they’ll be back,” I finally replied. “They can’t help themselves.”

Darkness settled down over the village like a funeral shroud. All of the animal and insect noises faded away and it grew still. No one was laughing or talking now.

A tension filled the air, a waiting, a sense of apprehension. A cold chill ran through me despite the oppressive, stifling heat. I could feel them out there, slowly moving forward towards us like an inexorable wave of death and destruction. I tried to remember that they were just human beings like me once.

My throat went suddenly dry and I felt an overwhelming urge to urinate. I ignored them both. I strained my eyes against the darkness, seeking a target.

Abruptly the eerie moans of the undead broke the silence, all around us. Gunfire broke out on the other side of the square.

“Hold your fire! Wait for a clear target!” Sgt. McAllister bellowed out of the darkness. I eased my finger back off the trigger. I took a deep breath and forced myself to relax. Now that I knew they were here, a calmness overtook me. 

The unearthly moans grew in pitch to a nerve shattering howl. I was sure the zombies had somehow cleared the flares, it sounded as if they were right on us.

“Wait for it! Conserve your ammo!” McAllister warned.

The zombies hit the wire as they stumbled out from between the huts. Two flares sprang to sputtering life, illuminating the advancing horde of undead.

“Fire!” the sergeant screamed.

I leaned forward in my hole and rattled off short, controlled bursts at the shambling horde, switching from one target to the next as they crumpled under my withering fire. The bolt of my rifle locked back far too quickly, I was empty. I mechanically dropped the spent mag and slammed in a fresh one. I threw the bolt and opened fire again. 

Dozens of the disgusting, rotten monstrosities surged forward. They clambered and shuffled over the shredded, shot up corpses that littered the killing ground. The smell washed over me in a fetid wave as they advanced. I fired off one magazine after another as the festering, putrid walking cadavers came on.

They were incredibly tough. One zombie took a full dozen hits without stopping. I poured the bullets into its frame, walking the rounds from its waist up to its head. Each hit blasted away a chunk of rotten, soggy flesh. The horrible travesty of a human jerked and twitched grotesquely, staggering and stumbling towards me before finally collapsing into a twitching, gibbering mass of shredded red meat. Even then it struggled to rise and claw its way forward.

The SAW fired from my left. Its tracers and ball ammo walked across the zombies that went down, shredding them into bloody, jerking gibbets of flesh and shattered bone.

Still the zombies came on. There were a lot more of them. Dozens poured forth from the village and the forest. We could not stop them. There were too many to shoot.

They poured forward over the shot up pieces of their destroyed kindred and hit the slit trench. The zombies dropped mindlessly into the trench, one after the other. They attempted to climb out, only to be trodden down by the zombies who fell into the pit behind and beside them. The pit began to fill up. A few zombies cleared it by walking across the undead struggling to escape. I concentrated my fire onto them, driving them back.

Sgt. McAllister leapt forward to the fifty-gallon drum. He hit the bung with his shotgun butt, knocking it clear. Diesel fuel gushed into the pit, sloshing over the struggling zombies to either side. They reached out to grab the sergeant, but he was already backing away, firing his shotgun into their outstretched hands. He emptied the gun and pulled a phosphorus grenade from his belt. McAllister pulled the pin and lobbed the explosive into the trench. He dove headlong for the corner foxhole.

The grenade went off with an earth shaking concussion as the cascade of glowing white-hot phosphorus ignited the diesel fuel. The burning liquid roared through the trench from corner to corner, engulfing each pair of jugs in a raging, twirling inferno of flame. The entire trench erupted into a blazing wall of fire and smoke. Tiny burning droplets of flaming liquid rained down on my unprotected arms, and smoldered in my hair.

The zombies caught in the trench went absolutely berserk. Those that could pulled themselves free and ran like human torches helter-skelter. Most of them hit the trip wires and went down onto the stakes, where they twitched and burned. Some ran back into the forest and the village, setting the huts ablaze. The zombies who couldn’t escape sank down into the flaming trench, thrashing wildly as they slowly burned and melted. The smell of smoldering, rotten meat overwhelmed me. I vomited until my throat bled. Acrid, thick black smoke swirled over the line and all around me, blinding me and stinging my eyes. I couldn’t breathe or see. I struggled to recover.