Tammy was a trained professional. She repeated everything back, word for word. John was impressed.
He stepped out of the Humvee and into the gray afternoon drizzle. He waited as Bill jogged up. With a nod and a signal, he took the lead and stepped off the road and down into the levy. They quickly hopped over the ornamental fence and into a grove of trees.
It was unnaturally silent. Not even the sound of birds broke the stillness. All that could be heard was the slow and steady drizzle of the afternoon rain as it pattered the leaves over their heads.
Within a minute they were well inside the orchard. Bill trailed about ten feet behind John and came to an abrupt halt, crouching down as the front man raised his fist. John signaled for Bill to come forward.
Bill crept forward. When he got to John’s side, the former soldier pointed into a nearby tree, mouthing the word “apple.” Bill saw the apple, which must have been missed in the harvest. It looked slightly overripe, and a small chunk of it had been eaten away, but the sight of a real, living apple was nevertheless quite a surprise. They stared at the fruit.
Then they heard a sound.
Something was moving out there. John signaled and the two men knelt. They listened intently and tried to locate the direction and distance of the noise. Bill pointed to their right, away from the farmhouse. They listened again but could no longer hear anything.
Cautiously, John started moving in the direction of the noise. Bill hung back so that he was ten feet behind, but now also ten feet to John’s right. The two men moved in sync with each other, taking measured steps towards the perceived source of the sound.
Then John saw it. It stood beside a tree, facing a perpendicular direction. John knew instantly that it was a zombie, as it was half-naked and had a badly mangled right arm. It looked like the zombie had been attacked by some wild animal.
John signaled to Bill, and the twosome watched the zombie for a full minute. They scanned the surrounding area and saw no other contacts.
John knew that he would have to take out the zombie but feared to use his weapon and potentially alert any enemies in the farmhouse. Luckily, he had packed just the item for this kind of encounter. He carefully reached to his side, to the E-tool he had strapped there.
The entrenchment tool was essentially a short shovel, with a blade on a swivel. He grasped the tool and slowly straightened the blade. The tiny snap it made when it clicked into place was drowned out by the sound of the rain.
He signaled to Bill. They had prepared for something like this. Bill crept a little closer, then stood up.
“Hi,” he said.
The effect was instantaneous, as the zombie turned its head and immediately started to lurch towards Bill. Bill held his ground as the Zombie approached.
It was a short, squat man. Latino. Probably one of the farm labourers. Dressed in underwear and t-shirt. John registered all this as he hid behind a tree.
Just as it passed him, he stepped up behind the zombie. He kicked it in the back of the legs, and the zombie sprawled to the ground just a couple of feet in front of Bill. John stepped up and without hesitation brought the E-tool down onto the back of the zombie’s head. He swung the weapon down a second time and was met with the sound of a crack, not unlike a branch snapping. The zombie stopped moving.
John and Bill scanned their surroundings for more noises or movement, but the orchard was deserted. With a nod, the two soldiers continued towards the farmhouse. In a couple of minutes, they were on the edge of the orchard. A grass lawn dissected by a gravel driveway greeted them. Across from it stood a large barn and further up the driveway the farmhouse itself.
The barn seemed to be shut tight. The sliding doors were closed, and even the sparse windows were boarded up or shuttered.
John decided to go in for a closer look. They backtracked a short distance so they would not be visible from the farmhouse and crossed the driveway to the other side. There was little cover, so they moved low and fast.
Once at the back of the barn, John and Bill quickly checked around the corners and peeked in through a window that was not boarded up. There was no sign of life.
That left the farmhouse. It stood about fifty feet away, up the driveway. The approach was clear, with no obstructions to hide behind. John didn’t like it, but there was little choice. On his signal the two men approached.
John felt utterly exposed for the few seconds it took them to move across the open lawn. The two soldiers managed to get to the corner of the covered deck along the front of the house. There were still no sounds or movement. They slowly approached the steps leading to the deck and the front door.
Still, the farmhouse remained silent. The only sound was that of the small droplets of rain hitting the roof of the covered deck. John was somewhat grateful for the sound. The silence without it would have been unnerving.
John considered for a second. Should he go in now or get the rest of the team and go in together? He
