The Age of Zombies: Sergeant Jones (2 page)

The Afghan skies hovered above the men and mountains like a smooth blue crystal. Sometimes Roddy thought he was on some distant planet, like he was a grunt stranded on a far out world found in the sci-fi books of his youth. A surreal mood would wash over him as he steadied his aim on a target, peering down the barrel of his sniper rifle. He wondered how these missions would be remembered a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand years from now. He wondered if this convoy mission would have even the most insignificant impact in the course of civilization. If, perhaps, this one forgettable day could somehow fit into the jigsaw of destiny. He wondered if in some future world, when humanity had colonized space, they would look back at America’s war in Afghanistan as a relic of brutal and hoary origins; a past not to be forgotten, but to be remembered as the twilight of human strife.

Roddy took a deep breath and cleared his mind. This wasn’t a time for fantasy. When he returned back stateside, he would have plenty of time to finish up his novel.

“How’s my ass look through that scope,” Big Boy said. “You can tell I’ve been working my glutes, can’t you Roddy?”

“Last time I checked, your ass looked like ten pounds of hammered cow shit in a five pound bag,” Wimpy said. “Roddy, the coast is clear. There’s nothing in, under, or around this boulder. Over.”

“Roger that,” Roddy said. “I’ll let Sarge know. You two come on back now. I’ll keep my eye on your asses. Your sweet, sweet asses. Over.”

Before Roddy turned around, three roaring bangs echoed off the mountainside and ricocheted through the valley. This time the cloud of dirt wasn’t from some pika. Roddy reacted quick and steadied his gaze through the scope of his M24. Big Boy was hit and on the ground. Wimpy readied his M16 and let loose a burst of gunfire. Two large, cumbersome figures completely covered in desert fatigues emerged from the ruckus and dust clouds. They both wielded a pistol and a bowie knife.

One of the brutes lunged towards Big Boy’s limp body. The enemy caught the soldier’s arm, and dug its face into Big Boy’s abdomen. Roddy unleashed a round from his M24. It zipped through the warm Afghan air and kissed its target right where it counted: a headshot. The towering figure collapsed to the ground and started to tumble down the mountainside.

“Hooah,
hajji
!” Roddy shouted. “Round two!”

By this time Sergeant Jones had started the cargo truck and readied his arsenal. He wasn’t going to let any of these good men down.
Especially not Big Boy. They went back too far for Jones to lose him like this.
 “Hop in, Rodriguez! We’re going for a ride!”

Roddy ignored the command just long enough to send another round whizzing from his M24. His mark was off. The second enemy was running full speed down the path chasing after Wimpy. Roddy couldn’t tell who was running faster, but by any estimation Wimpy was huffing down the mountain quicker than what science would say the human physique allows. The problem was that the huge figure behind him was gaining ground. Roddy let another futile round loose from his rifle. He hopped up from the dirt and into the truck.

“Accelerating to warp one,” Jones said. “Let’s take this starship into overdrive.”

Jones revved the engine and sped off the dirt path towards the mountain. Wimpy was still running for his life. The beast that trailed him was much bigger than Rodriguez first thought. As the truck got closer to the mountain, both occupants of the truck were stunned at what they faced. The beast wasn’t more than a stride or two from catching Wimpy. They both hoped that this was the last one.  

“Kill the fucking demon genie!” Wimpy hollered. “This shit’s crazier than Alladin!”

Jones brought the truck to a halt, and Roddy hopped out ready with an M4 carbine. Wimpy dove for cover, and Roddy let a burst of rounds rip. The freakishly massive enemy combatant fell to the ground with a bloody abdomen and thighs.

“What is that thing?” Roddy said with a shaky voice.

“Doesn’t matter much to me what it is,” Jones said. He took a swig from his water canteen. “Roddy, Wimpy, go check on Big Boy. This fucker’s mine.”

Jones stepped forward and stood above the freak. He estimated the enemy to be about seven and a half feet tall, with a body that weighed at least six hundred pounds. Not a shred of the monster’s skin was showing. Only its eyes could be seen. They were black and beady, and in exorbitant pain. Jones steadied his M9 pistol on the beast’s head. Jones didn’t care where this thing came from. He didn’t care where the other one came from, either. But he knew damn well where they were headed.

“Straight to hell for you, motherfucker,” Jones said.

“Your seed cursed,” the enemy said. His voice was gruff and thick with some Eastern European accent. “My shadow follow you forever.”

“You pile of Eurotrash,” Jones said. “Your shadow’s not getting any further than the ditch I’m gonna dig just for you. Your memory’ll rot out in the middle of this wasteland.”

“Death mine,” the enemy said. “But death won’t save you.”

With those last words Jones emptied three rounds into the monster’s skull. Gunsmoke curled up from the dead body. Jones grimaced as the Afghan sun beat down on him. He wondered if these two enemies were some sort of military experiment. Jones had never seen human beings this big. Curious, he kneeled down and lifted the bloodstained balaclava veil from its face.

Jones gasped at what he saw. This wasn’t a human. Instead of brains and blood, pudgy white worms crawled out from the giant creature’s skull.

“Sergeant Jones, come take a look at this. I found a tunnel.” Roddy stood on the far end of the boulder that started this whole debacle. “I think we’ve stepped into some shit.”

Jones knew that Roddy was right. “Don’t go stepping into unwelcome places,” he said. “Curiosity can be dangerous out here.”

Wimpy hovered close over Big Boy’s body. He gave Jones a thumbs up as he walked by, indicating that Big Boy was alive. Wimpy started dressing his fellow soldier’s wounds. “He’ll be alright,” Wimpy said. Big Boy groaned. “But we’ll have to get him to CSH ASAP.”

Big Boy wasn’t doing well. Wimpy didn’t want to alarm Jones, but he knew that Big Boy wasn’t going to make it long.

“I can’t feel my legs,” Big Boy said. He looked into Wimpy’s eyes. Big Boy had the dreaded look of a man who was face to face with death. “What was that thing? That monster. That freak.”

Wimpy shook his head. “I dunno, Big Boy. But you’ll be alright. I swear, you’ll be alright. Just breathe. Just breathe.”

Wimpy tore his own shirt up so that he could dress Big Boy’s wounds. The problem was that half of the injured grunt’s abdomen had been ripped to shreds by the giant. Wimpy didn’t want Big Boy to see the extent of his own injuries. He knew that Big Boy was in shock, and didn’t want to frighten him with images of his own mutilated body.

“I can’t feel my hands,” Big Boy said. “I can’t move them. Can I? Are my hands moving? Are my feet moving?”

They were moving. They were shaking with shock.

Wimpy knew how close Jones and Big Boy were. He wanted Big Boy to fade away in peace. He wanted Jones to see his friend after the pain was long gone.

Jones continued on to meet up with Roddy, who pointed at the base of the boulder. Jones peered down the entrance of a dark tunnel. He took out his flashlight and shined it down the way. The tunnel seemed to go on forever. “I’m going in,” Jones said.

“So now you’re curious,” Roddy said. “How do we know there aren’t more of these freaks of nature down there?”

“We don’t know,” Jones said. “But we’re gonna find out.”

“Sergeant Jones, with all due respect. This adventure would be a significant deviation from the stated goals of our current mission.” Roddy looked over at Wimpy and Big Boy. “I say that we book it back to base, and call in a recon group.”

Jones shook his head. A primal instinct overtook his rational mind. Maybe it was those worms. “I want to know what’s down in this tunnel.”

Roddy wasn’t happy, but he followed his sergeant’s orders. The two men readied their weapons and flashlights and entered the tunnel. The first hundred yards or so proved to be absolutely boring. The innards of the tunnel were completely bare. The air was cool in the tunnel, which Jones appreciated. He hated the Afghanistan heat.

The men were another hundred yards in before they noticed a marked improvement in the tunnel’s construction. The rock and dirt entrance gave way to smooth stone bricks. They looked old, but well maintained.

A glint on the wall caught Roddy’s eye. He stopped to examine it closer. It was a gold coin stuck deep in one of the wall’s bricks. The coin was of an incredibly ancient provenance. The head of a bull-god graced its face, with two worm like creatures curled up on either side. Roddy dug his thumb into the side of the coin and tried to wedge it out. But it didn’t budge. “Hey Jones, check out what’s in this brick.”

Jones didn’t pay any attention to Roddy. The sergeant was another twenty or thirty paces ahead. What he found in that short distance was infinitely horrifying. Jones looked around in absolute disgust. His face contorted in revulsion at what he saw.

“Sarge, come take a look at this,” Roddy said again. “There’s a coin lodged in this brick. Come see if you can get this damn thing out.”

“Leave the coin, Roddy,” Jones said. “We just stepped in some shit.”

Roddy turned away from the coin and shined his light down the tunnel. He made his way towards Jones, and as he got closer, a sense of dread became palpable. “What’s up there, Sarge? What do you see?”

Jones stayed perfectly silent. The horror in the tunnel muted him. Roddy finally came to see what was hidden away in this treacherous tunnel. A pile of skeletons, stacked from wall to wall and floor to ceiling, stood in front of the two soldiers. Their skulls were fractured and busted open. Their femurs were splintered, and upon inspection Jones realized that the marrow had been meticulously carved out. And the skeletons weren’t alone. Several neat stacks of clothing accompanied them. They were the uniforms of United States soldiers.

“There’s got to be two, three hundred,” Roddy said. His voice was steady, but his hands shook. The light bounced up and down as he examined the pile of uniforms. “What is going on here?”

Jones stayed silent. He approached a stack of uniforms and gently unfolded one. He held the shirt up to his own chest. “This tunnel’s more fucked up than a soup sandwich on a Sunday,” he said. Jones tossed the shirt to the ground. He pulled out his pack of cigarettes and lit one up. He picked up a pair of pants and sniffed the crotch. “Fresh kill. This pair of pants couldn’t have been worn more than a couple days ago. Roddy, we’re not saying squat about this tunnel once we get outside. We’re not tracking this shit on our boots back to the platoon.”

“An official report then,” Roddy said.

Jones took a deep drag from his cigarette. “Not quite, Roddy,” he said. “We’re washing our hands of this shit now. We’re coming out of this tunnel squeaky clean.”

Roddy looked baffled. “But these are fellow soldiers,” he said. “We’ve got to get this info up the ranks.”

Jones just laughed and shook his head. “You’re green, grunt,” he said. “Talking about this would be suicide. I hate to say it, but somebody, somewhere in the United States Army, or some ABC intelligence agency, already knows about this. And I’m not willing to smear shit on their objectives. Whatever this is, whatever this happens to be, has no bearing on our current mission. Like you said before, this whole situation is a significant deviation from the objective at hand. Our objective. Now buck up, soldier. We’re done here.”

Jones put out his cigarette on the femur of a fallen soldier. It seared the bone, and for a moment Roddy could smell that caustic odor of burning human. This whole situation was utterly surreal. It seemed like a dream to Roddy. Like he accidentally stepped into this tunnel and into some nasty nightmarish world, and stepping back out into the light would wake him up out of it. Just for the sake of it, he pinched his own arm. No effect.

Presently, the two soldiers heard a rumble come from beneath the pile of bones. They drew their weapons and waited for something to emerge. The rumble’s volume strengthened. The bones started to shake and move. The two soldiers took a few steps back.

Thousands of pudgy white worms slithered out from the bones. They quickly blanketed the entire tunnel floor. They made a collective sound that reminded Jones of an idling bus.

“I can’t believe this shit,” Roddy said. “When I get home, if I make it, this is going into my novel.”

“Well I’m kinda hungry,” Jones said. He scooped down and picked up a worm. It was the same type of worm that crawled out of that giant’s skull. He pinched it between his thumb and forefinger and brought it up close to his face for inspection. “Damn grubby thing looks tasty, don’t it, Roddy? Full of protein, I bet.”

“Damn it, Sarge. Don’t eat that nasty thing. It’s diseased. It’s been feeding on human flesh.”

Jones brought the worm right up close to his eyeball. The little white crawler wasn’t more than a half inch long. It wasn’t much more than a half dozen segments and a mouth. “So these worms ate our soldiers,” Jones said. He squashed the little bug between his fingers. Its guts splattered on his face. “Fuck, Roddy. This whole thing has me puzzled. How did these men end up in this godforsaken tunnel.”

Roddy felt something crawl up his leg. He slapped the worm before it could get any further. “I dunno, Sarge,” he said. “But I’m getting out of here.”