“So if I am the supervisor what does that make you?”
“Me? I am the eager young man training to take over your position and to show how much I want it, I keep this crew in line for you. You move up, I move up. Just like the business world. Of course it really isn't like that, the Army switched to promotion schedules and stuff during peace times. You know though, this is war and I might make it back to sergeant yet.” rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
“Third time's a charm, right Ruben?”
“How did you know that? Goddamn, you can't keep a secret in this army, even after five fucking decades!”
They moved out around two o'clock in the afternoon and each man had bagged a zombie or two as they pushed into the fields along River View Drive, the other sergeant, Don Williams, was given the objective of clearing out a sports complex to the north of the rail road tracks and Bill was supposed to hold the tracks proper and scout into the fields to the south. The entire area immediately close to the river was not settled, but South Sioux City Nebraska was less than a mile away. As the sun went down a steady stream of refugees started moving towards them, most were alive, but a few were bitten and infected and fewer still were undead.
Bill asked many of the people moving why they hadn't left during the day and they told him they had been told to stay put earlier, but then the military moved in after sundown and told them to leave and head east into Iowa. This didn't make any sense to Bill so he called up to the Lieutenant to confirm it. Jenkins got back to him and said no such orders had been given by either the Iowa or Nebraskan national guard, but he was checking into it. That had been six hours ago. Now they could hear William's squad firing almost constantly and Bill's men were having a hard time differentiating living from dead as they came towards them across the fields. One thing that did make it easier was that most of the living carried some belongings with them, chances were if the person coming towards you was not carrying anything it was a zombie, or a 'zed' as the squad started calling them.
“Here sergeant.” said Ruben, offering him a packed sandwich. Bill took aim at the man rushing across the field and fired at his head, the thing went down, leaving him to hope it had been a zed.
“Where did you get…?” Bill asked Ruben, then shook his head, he didn't want to know. There was not a store in sight and these were not army rations. He took the sandwich and a diet soda that Ruben offered. “Thanks, you getting everyone fed?”
“Of course sergeant. We are the last to eat, feed the men first, that is my motto. I got one of the civilians to cross the tracks and bring us this stuff, enough for thirty guys, I said, he brought back fifteen sandwiches on the first load, but he looked a bit skittish when Don's squad started firing, I doubt he will be coming with that second load of food.”
Bill frowned, officially civilians were supposed to be told to move to the southern bridge on highway twenty about three miles downriver to cross, that way they could be inspected and allowed to cross. But sometimes they let a few people through. All of them had to pass Ruben or one of his cronies visual inspection, which meant stripping down naked as a jaybird to make sure they didn't have any bit marks on them. Those who protested could take the walk south, most didn't. Ruben had set up a tarp to offer the people some privacy from others in line and the soldiers who were nominally protecting them.
Looking out across the field Bill saw another group of zombies coming towards them. They had not seen any people for at least an hour now, these were zombies. “Ruben. Here they come, this is a big group.”
“Yeah sarge, it is. What do you want us to do?” Ruben said back.
Bill stopped for a moment, “You love this, don't you?”
“What?”
“Being here, doing this?”
“No sergeant I do not like the zombies.”
“That wasn't what I was talking about. You love being here doing this stuff. Responding to an emergency, even though you are what? Eighty?”
Ruben stiffened, “I am seventy one, Sergeant. Not a year older. And I was retired for eight years and about bored to death of it. Now I am doing something useful again and people depend on me and if you don't mind my saying we better do something because this group here does not look small enough for us to handle on our own.” he said, pointing with his left hand.
“Oh hell.” Bill looked again to make sure he was seeing things right, the far edge of the field had become an undulating wave of undead. “Send someone to tell Williams we have to pull back. Someone fast.”
“John?”
Bill wanted to say 'no', then shook his head to clear that thought, Ruben took that to mean not to send John and said, “Maybe Jerome then?”
“No, no that was to myself, send John, he is probably the fastest one here. Tell him to tell Williams we are going to be up to our eyeballs in bodies in fifteen minutes and they might not make it over the bridge if they wait longer than that.”
“Okay I will send him off and have Kirk buddy up with Larry and Vic.” Ruben ran to the north end of the line where John was and gave the young man the news. Normal soldiers had radios to speak with each other, the national guard also had decent equipment, but Max and the other squads like his had to make due with one radio per ten men and the radio was a bulky, ancient piece of equipment that was mostly battery. It did have a global positioning device on it, so the Lieutenant could find them if he needed to plot artillery. Williams squad had been issued a radio, but it had only lasted for a day before the battery gave out. Once Ruben spoke to him, John nodded and melted quickly into the night, running off to where the sounds of gunfire were coming from in the north. Each of the ten men in the squad, Bill included, had a designated 'buddy' whom they were not to leave for anything. You stayed with your buddy unless ordered to separate, the idea was that two men would not spook as easily as one. Bill's buddy was Ruben and the two of them violated the 'always stick with your buddy' rule constantly.
“Alright men, we know what to do, if they get too close we are backing up to the next line of defense.” Bill bellowed out. He had used the slow pace of the fighting this afternoon to prepare two lines to fall back on towards the bridge as the Lieutenant had directed him to do. “Jerome! Get the lieutenant on the line and tell him we need reinforcements there are too many zeds over here. Fire at will everyone.”
The gunfire bellowed into the night, knocking down zombie after zombie. Bill was certain they could handle this mob, they didn't fight back with guns of their own and they were slow moving targets. The problems that developed were all too human in nature. Jerome, nominally the radio operator, and his 'buddy' Dan's rifles both jammed at the same time. Bill was close to them so he told them to fix the guns while he provided covering fire. Jerome's was a simple matter of a shell getting stuck in the ejection mechanism, it was jammed in, but the man had a screw driver handy and shrugged off his pack to pull it out and fix his gun. Dan's rifle was another story, the man was cursing it and trying to pull the clip out to see if he could clear it, but the clip was stuck too. Bill risked a glance at what the man was doing and said, “Leave it, look at the barrel.”
Dan glanced at it and saw the bulge that had not been there before, along with a tear I the metal, “What the fuck? How'd that happen?”
“No idea, toss that piece of shit and get a club.”
“You serious?”
“Just do it!” Bill fired into the oncoming crowd again, noticing that some of the zombies were starting to go around the edges of his position, “Fall back! Fall back now!”
Ruben echoed his cry and the men quickly left their firing positions to retreat to the next in line, which were about forty yards further back and more compact around the rail road line. The elevation and trees cleared from the edges of the tracks gave them an even better firing position than before. Once they arrived Bill looked back and saw that the field was completely filled with the shambling dead, on one side he saw three faster moving people. “Over here!” he yelled, trying to get the human's attention, “Come this way! Men provide covering fire for those humans coming in!” leading by example he cut down some of the zombies between him and the humans out near the edge of the zombie mob.
“Sarge!” Ruben was by his side, “Sarge!”
“What Ruben? What?”
“Why aren't the zeds attacking those three?”
“Maybe they don't see them.” Bill said, but even he knew how lame the words were as soon as they came out of his mouth. “Okay I get it, watch them. Jerome? You got that rifle working yet?”
“Yeah.”
