Both me and Alexei switched our attention from the prone form of Kazamir to the new threat climbing out of the earth. In spite of our training, and experience as soldiers, in addition to having seen a few zombie flicks each, nothing prepares you for that. So both of us just stared for a second and watched the rotting corpse of a man with tattered leather armor slowly un-dig his own grave.
We both watched until the thing almost had its waist free. But that was as close as it got to freedom, cause we lit that fucken ghoul up like 1920s gangsters. Unluckily both of us forgot that crucial info that Snow had told us. Shoot the glowy part. Which was in the heart area. After riddling the zed with enough bullet holes to make Swiss cheese blush. The zed toppled over, steaming from the amount of hot lead that had just ripped it apart.
Both me and Alexei had run out of bullets in our mags at this point. So acting on instinct, both of us swapped mags. Ending a few seconds later with a metallic click of the bolt slamming home on my M4 and a satisfying chick chick from Alexei’s AK as he racked the charging handle. We both looked up from our rifles at about the same time to find about 30-40 zeds trying to climb out of their shallow graves. They were clad in various armors, from heavy half plate to leather tunics and robes.
This time our monkey brains had noticed the glowing blue orbs bursting through the rotting flesh on the chests of the undead figures. So our shots were a whole lot less frantic and more aimed. I aimed for any wearing robes first. My reasoning was fairly simple, I have no clue how magic works, and I don’t have any plans on learning the hard way.
I managed to drop four robe-wearing targets in as many seconds with slightly panicked 5-6 round bursts. The rounds tore through the fabric, pierced rotting flesh, and smashed through decaying bones. After the first terror-induced bursts my head started to clear from the pure fight-or-flight adrenaline. So as the fight went on I started aiming more and shooting less. But I was still spending around three bullets per target.
As I saw my 6th target drop, I heard a deeper more bassey gunshot that broke through the higher-pitched clatter of both assault rifles. It was Snow’s shotgun and it sounded closer than I expected. ‘Must have been a smaller town than I thought. Or the A-10 strike must have done more than I thought it would.’
The expectation of reinforcements kept my spirits up as I squeezed the trigger. While the pitter-patter of my M4 was music to my ears, the sight of a falling zombie was still quite a lot better. I got two more zombies before my mag was dry and my bolt locked back. My hands worked on instinct, dropping the empty mag to the ground and slotting in a fresh one. All while my eyes shot from zed to zed as if making a list of coming carnage.
In the second I had to look I spotted at least 40 zombies in a mixture of tattered rags and rusting armor. The zed that caught my eye the most had been some type of holy warrior. His plate armor was rusting and had several gashes that had cut through. But it still had a gold-painted cross with a red crescent overlaid on top.
I centered my crosshairs on where the crescent and the cross met and pulled the trigger. The gun recoiled into my shoulder as I put a burst through him. One of the bullets ricocheted off his armor with a clang and whizz. But I watched as the rest of the rounds found their mark. His armor crumpled around the bullet holes and his face seemed to have a look of shock. But as he started to fall his lips took on a thankful smile.
That one smile shook me to the bone with its implication. I didn’t have much time to dwell on my findings as Walter’s voice came over the radio.
“Hey, uh alpha. If you guys move I can cut that hoards numbers down a bunch.”
“Roger that bravo we’ll do our best to get out of your way.”
I replied as me and Alexei wordlessly grabbed up the still unconscious Kazamir and ran toward the closet-ruined building and hit the floor. The buzzing sound of Walter’s MG spitting lead as fast as the mechanism allowed reverberated throughout the valley. I resisted the urge to stick my head up to watch, because getting shot by friendly fire wouldn’t be a very fun way to die. The shooting stopped after a second or two but the intermittent gunfire was still coming from the hill as Bunden seemingly shot any stragglers. Half a second later this proved true when Bunden radioed us.
“Alpha, this is Bravo actual. The horde of zeds behind you is KIA. Be aware we are still mopping up stragglers.”
“Roger that Bravo. Charlie, we have been freed up if you need support.” I said after tuning in to Charlie’s radio frequency.
“That would be appreciated greatly. We are near the church ruins, we have run into the head honcho.”
Les sounded out of breath as he gave his report and I could clearly hear the gunfire on his end of the radio and coming over the piles of rubble that was a town.
“Roger, hold in there we are en route to your position now.”
Alexei lightly jostled me and as I turned my attention over to him, he gestured to the prone form of Kazamir.
“What are we going to do with him?”
I swore under my breath, retuned the radio, and started speaking.
“Hey, Bravo actual. Alpha has a casualty, nothing bad it’s just he’s uncon. Could you watch him while we move to support Charlie?”
Kazamir tried to interject at this point “I’m OK, I can fight. Jus-st don’t leave me here.” he seemed to spit out the words through both gritted teeth and goans of pain. It took just a glance over him for me to dismiss his words out of hand.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Kazamir was scratched to all hell and had several light cuts from his legs to his arms and it seemed like he was either disoriented to hell and back from rolling down the hill, or he hit his head on something. After looking at Kaz’s injuries I took a second to give myself a once-over. My uniform was dirtier than a pigsty after a rainstorm and I could feel several sharp rocks digging into my feet which tightly laced boots had failed to keep out. Overall, I’ve been worse.
I slid the mag out of the gun in my hands, checked it, reinserted it with a metallic click, and reached for my radio.
“Bravo, you guys have overwatch on our casualty? Cause the gunfire is picking up meaning Charlie is probably in some deep shit.”
“Yeah Alpha, I have Walter still watching out you’re free to go and give them hell.”
“Thanks,”
I changed the frequency on my radio to that of Charlie squad? Team? Eh, something like that. I patted Alexei on the shoulder and jerked my head toward the gunfire. He nodded and we began to make our way over the ruins and rubble. I got to the right frequency after a second or two and voices came over the radio.
“Keep moving that bastard is ignoring cover.” Les said over the now louder and slightly fuzzy new source of gunfire.
“Roger that.” Mc’cullen brogued as the stress of the situation brought out his accent.
“Charlie, this is Alpha actual, we are moving to support. What’s going on over there?” I said injecting a bit of coolness into my voice in an attempt to get a coherent response. It was almost spoiled by a loose piece of debris that made me stumble.
Snow was the first to respond, she sounded giddy and excited so probably didn’t hear me falter as she spoke. “Well, we have found the big bad of the place. He had some sort of bone arms that move as fast as lunging serpents. That along with his staff which he uses to throw killing spells that faze through rock and wood as they launch towards us.”
Alexei had tuned in to hear that last bit, we shared a quick worried look and quickened our pace.
____________________________________________________________________________
Les and the rest of Charlie had been having a great time right up until they ran into the boss. The regular zeds didn’t take too long to dispatch especially when Snow’s shotgun had anything to say about it. Speaking of Snow she seemed to be having a great time blasting away at undead flesh. All the while Les and Mc’cullen took single well aimed shots. That all changed when they entered the church’s courtyard. the cobblestone walkway and the small fountain had been ripped up by the A-10’s gun. The surrounding buildings weren’t as lucky. Most of them had been smashed into chunks of stone and splinters of rotting wood by the bombs.
The debris of which flung themselves around the former courtyard. Which at first looked good, solid cover is a war fighter's best friend after all. But then wave after wave of zeds came at them, the destroyed pieces of buildings then started to clutter lines of fire. It got pretty sketchy a few times. One of those times included Mc’cullen having to fend off a zombie with his boot as he reloaded, Snow using the breaching device on her shotgun as a bayonet, and Lez having to beat a zombie to death with its own arm after his rifle was knocked out of his hands by said zombie.
Luckily Lez’s zombie was the last one. Because it seemed that the head zed had crawled out of the rubble that had been a church. A cursed to eternal damnation church but still. The zed had the same dirty black cloak it had been wearing the time Bunden had seen it, or at least how Bunden had described it to Les when they had been talking over the fire last night. At the time Les had been worrying about what kind of mumbo jumbo magic he would have to deal with.
Les had brought up his rifle, BANG, click. He heard as his bullet slammed into the ruined stonework around his target. he saw a puff of crushed stone. He had missed.
____________________________________________________________________________
When me and Alexei had crested the ring of ruins surrounding the church we came across quite the scene. Both Les and Mc’cullen were running around in circles dodging translucent dark patches of air, which upon closer inspection happened to be skulls. Snow was popping out of cover, taking a shot then ducking back behind the ice wall she had made for herself. The reason the other two weren’t hunkering down became obvious as a skull went straight through a chunk of rock and almost hit Mc’cullen if he hadn’t dived away from the cursed thing.
Speaking of things, the boss zed we were here to kill was floating a foot off the ground screaming about how he was going to use Les for a meat suit, Mc’cullen for a carpet, and Snow for a cape. As me and Alexei watched the deadly play of comedy of errors continued its confused act. I dragged Alexei down behind the rubble before pressing a grenade into his hands. He looked confused for a second or two but a look of understanding came over his face as I pulled another grenade off my vest. I held up 3 fingers, and when the final finger descended we both rose over the rubble unpinning the explosives as we went.
What I saw when we crested that pile of rubble would stay with me for as long as I live. That thing seemed to be staring into my soul. The only thing that saved my life was long hours of training and Alexei. The training made me throw the holy hand grenade, and Alexei because he bodily grabbed me and dragged me with him to the ground. We hit the rubble so hard it caused a miny landside of two troopers, rocks both big and small, wood splinters, and pieces of assorted household items. I couldn’t see the explosions of shrapnel, but I sure as hell heard and felt it. The pair of BANGs was distinctive along with the unholy clattering and pinging of shrapnel ricocheting off the cobblestones of the courtyard. Not to mention the deep thumping I felt as the small blastwave rolled over me.
I crawled out of the shallow grave that a pile of rocks had so graciously made for me and heard some groaning from a nearby pile of rubble. So I started digging as the gunfire resumed behind me. To my slight surprise, the gunfire petered out after an initial spat. I took a breather from digging through the debris to check myself over. I had several large pieces of wood splinters sticking out of my clothes and vest, when I reached for my radio I noticed a wood splinter coming out of a speaker hole. I plucked the offending toothpick out of my radio while fervently praying it still works.
“This is alpha could I get a sitrep.”
“Roger that, Bravo reporting in we have zero casualties and it seems like all the gouls in our neighborhood have gone back to sleep.”
A pained voice came a half-second after the first.
“Charlie reporting in. We have two walking wounded and have eliminated our primary target.”
I breathed a sigh of relief before a voice came from under the rubble.
“So, are you going to get me out of here anytime soon or should I take a nap while I wait.”
I could practically hear the smile on Alexei’s face as he spoke.