Anno Zombus Year 1 (Book 4): April (2 page)

The Colonel smiled at this, then Redbeard suggested that if she were in charge, then the war we were planning and preparing for would be against people that deserved it, rather than good men who could use our help.  Looking them all over carefully, he then invited them to our tent later this evening for a couple of hands of poker.

The remainder of our patrol was pretty dull, just cold grey snow, a couple of individual shamblers to put down, nothing else of any real importance.

evening

The patrol we had encountered out in the field did indeed come over to play poker, though Apocalypse Girl and I bowed out, having ourselves a quiet little conversation over in the corner of our tent.  Redbeard had secured a small amount of Viking's homebrew for the occasion, which our fellow soldiers were grateful for, even giving them a small amount to take back to their own tent afterwards.

Apocalypse Girl wanted to just pick up and leave as soon as we could.  I was in full agreement, but we needed some time to arrange things.  She didn't seem to care much about arranging things, just wanted to leave.  She then burst into tears, apologising profusely, just in time for General Practicals entrance.

We stood to attention, saluting him as best as we could, five of us not remotely being from a military background, and listened carefully when he spoke.

“You can have your vehicle back as of tomorrow,
but
,”  He stressed the word, “I am going to need another couple of days to give you an excuse to head out with it to the south.  Tomorrow you'll be patrolling to the north, with your Nightmare.  We've received reports that a hell of a lot of Dead ones are moving out of what's left of Sydney, and we need you guys to check it out.”

General Practical went on to tell us that the reason we had been chosen for the task was because we had successfully survived two consecutive patrols with absolutely no loss of life, and had given some hope to the men.  Apparently we were heroes already.

April 3
Year 1 A.Z.

morning

The familiar rumble of The Nightmare's engine woke me from a peaceful slumber.  True to his word, General Practical had given us back our vehicle, fully rearmed, fueled up and ready for today's mission.  A crowd of admirers had come to gawk at our unorthodox combination of semi-trailer and VW combi-van.

The Nightmare had been held up as one reason why The Mech-Techs were to be considered a threat.  Other than the tank that we had helped Viking appropriate from a very overrun military outpost The Nightmare had been their heaviest piece of equipment, at least that we had seen while guests in their camp, and General Fuckwit maintained that if they can put together one of these, they can manufacture more of them.

Apocalypse Girl jumped comfortably up into the cabin of The Nightmare, the rest of us piling on board also, and she moved us off towards the north, and the location of the last reported sighting of a gigantic group of Dead.  Hundreds of soldiers cheered as we moved off.

noon

After a couple of hours driving, Apocalypse Girl pulled over to the side of the road.  She looked me directly in the eyes and told me that we had a chance to get the fuck out now.  I nodded my agreement with her assessment, then reminded her that General Practical had promised his assistance in leaving.  What we really needed was a scouting run to the south.  Holding onto her hand, I told her that we'd have that mission in a couple of days.

The Colonel, overhearing our discussion from the middle compartment, stuck her head in to add that if we left now, not only would we have to go
through
the army to get back to Melbourne, they would also be hunting us down as deserters.

The CB crackled unexpectedly at one point, and I grabbed the handset.  Viking was on the other end, asking if we had found our way to Canberra yet.  I answered him, told him that we had, and what else had occurred.  When I told him what General Fuckwit had planned, he was not amused.  He told us that his group had been having a lot of trouble with The Followers lately, but nothing they weren't capable of taking care of.  I told him that we'd try to keep him informed as best we could, then we said our farewells.

The Colonel pointed out that we had just committed treason by warning him, by even speaking to the man.  I told her that was beside the point, to me it was a greater betrayal to just roll over and let General Fuckwit go off and massacre our friends.

Apocalypse Girl's phone being fully charged once more, I sent a message to The Smart Couple at The Facility, nestled away in a dormant volcano far to the west, saying simply
Made it to Canberra.  Army here.  Conscripted us.  More info soon.
  No sooner than I had done that, and we encountered the approaching horde of Dead.

Compared to some groups we had seen, this one was fairly small, perhaps ten thousand strong.  More than enough to cause some serious harm to the military encamped several dozen kilometres behind us.  Maybe even enough to wipe them out entirely.

Looking into the faces of my companions, I knew that we couldn't just let this horde through, they had to be stopped.  The Colonel had already decided on a plan, we were going to funnel the Dead along the road, making our stand at a point about twenty kilometres behind us.  She called back to HQ, letting her superiors know of her decision, requesting some backup at the point she had chosen, describing it well, and then Apocalypse Girl turned our vehicle around, driving us slowly back to the designated ambush site.

evening

It felt almost like old times, on the road in The Nightmare, with the sole exception of the military uniforms we were now forced to wear.  Redbeard had brought along some of Viking's grog, so that we at least had something to keep us a little warmer than simply keeping close to one another, though we were careful to avoid getting too drunk, of course.

Apocalypse Girl asked me, at one point, why exactly we were going to try to stop this horde from advancing on the army.  I told her that, military or not, they were still Living humans.  Their leader might be completely fucked in the head, but we couldn't just let all of them die, not like
that.
  She nodded, saying that she understood, she just wished we were somewhere safe, rather than once again standing between disproportionate numbers of Living and Dead.

Asking her how certain of her pregnancy she was proved to be a bad idea, resulting in a kicked shin and a glare that could have slain the entire horde bearing down on us, as well as a brief explanation that she had never been with anybody without protection before me, and that her period had not arrived since early March whereas before they had always arrived like clockwork.  She was still not
certain
exactly, but she was pretty fucking sure about it.  If we were back at The School, she told me, she would have had Doctor confirm her suspicions, but after having heard what General Fuckwit was hoping to discover, she was loathe to mention anything to any of the medics left alive back at HQ.  That I could understand.

April 4
Year 1 A.Z.

morning

We had not received much in the way of reinforcements, just two more patrols with a couple of jeeps with mounted heavy machine guns.  When The Colonel had called in the numbers of Dead she hadn't been entirely believed, but when the horde appeared on the horizon our backup immediately requested more, only to be told that all available troops were holding position due to an unexpected increase in hostile Dead around the southern barricade.  I recognised the voice of General Fuckwit as easily as any of them.  He was not only making up excuses as to why he was going to get us all killed, he was also claiming that we were the ones responsible for the 'unexpected increase' as the southern barricade had been our patrol duty yesterday.

We set up a series of barricades along the roadway leading up to us, just to slow the already slow Dead up a little more.  Anything that allowed us to put a few more of them down before they overran us...

Apocalypse Girl faced The Nightmare's behind to the oncoming group of Dead, leaving the rear cannon facing them, the main turret easily able to swivel around to cut them down as soon as they stepped into range.

noon

Firecracker and Redbeard had left the confines of The Nightmare so that they could get a better bead on the incoming Dead, Sister had already taken the rear gun, The Colonel was on the main turret, and I stood next to her on the roof, assault rifle at the ready.  Apocalypse Girl remained in the cabin in case we needed to beat a hasty retreat.

The Dead were finally in range, but at The Colonel's insistence we waited for her order to fire.  Once it came we began to unleash a barrage of gunfire that mowed the first few ranks down, turning the leading line of the Dead into a dark red mist.  Naturally this did nothing to deter the Dead, and they kept on coming.  We mowed down more of them.  They still kept coming.

Before much longer they were at the first barricade, and those of us with assault rifles opened up on them.  I emptied my first clip before they made the second barricade, reloaded as quick as I could, and began firing anew.  Several of our reinforcements began lobbing grenades into the oncoming mob of Dead, blasting away large chunks that were swiftly filled once again by more hungry Dead.  Despite the carnage we were perpetrating upon them, they soon overtook the third barricade.  Two more and we would have to make a run for it.  I ducked my head inside to tell Apocalypse Girl to get the engine running.

She saw me, smiled, and pointed towards Canberra.  I looked up to see another trio of jeeps driving up, unloading more soldiers, one of them running to the door of The Nightmare.  I opened it to be told that General Practical had at least been there to hear our request for help, and knowing that there was nothing on the southern edge at all had sent what backup he could.

The extra guns and manpower proved all that was necessary to halt the forward momentum of the horde approaching us, and after what seemed like a couple of thousand years of sustained gunfire the Dead lay still, dead, in the road before us.  They hadn't even made the fourth of five barricades.

evening

We drove back into camp amidst thunderous applause.  The Colonel jumped out of the cabin of The Nightmare, and I followed with Apocalypse Girl close on my own heels.  We went straight into the command tent, The Colonel immediately demanding to see whatever intel they had suggesting that the south had not been properly cleared.  General Practical stood, saluting us, then told her that there was no such intel.  Her mouth agape, General Practical told us that it had been a ploy, as had our initial patrol duty, to get rid of a potential threat to General Fuckwit's authority.

Our commander-in-idiocy was nowhere to be found, which was probably a good thing, as The Colonel looked ready to put a few rounds into him just on general principles.  General Practical told us that as soon as Fuckwit had ordered no backup for us, he had asked for volunteers for what was going to almost certainly be a suicide mission.  He had received quite a few more volunteers than he had jeeps to spare for the mission, however, otherwise we might have not needed to fire a single shot ourselves.  The fact that we had returned, yet again unscathed, with not even a single drop of blood from Living
or
Dead marring The Nightmare's paint-job elevated our already near-legendary status to maybe a step or two just below Demi-godhood.

As we walked back to our tent, cheers erupted once again from the troopers.  I hadn't had my hand shaken this many times in my life, nor had I had my back slapped in celebration so often.  By the time we made it back to our tent my back felt as though it had been pummelled by a hundred million people a hundred million times each.  It then occurred to me that, if we were lucky enough as a species, there might actually be about a hundred million people left alive on the planet at this moment.

Then I thought on The Followers, and the planned invasion of Melbourne, and I realised that in reality, the number was in all probability much lower than that, and would no doubt diminish further before long.

Perhaps we were not that lucky after all.

April 5
Year 1 A.Z.

morning

We are officially moving out today.  Generals Fuckwit and Practical had already declared a meeting of all the officers, meaning that we had to hear all about it second hand from The Colonel.  When she was done ranting about what an idiot some generals could be, she told us that we were to head to the south with a small force and try to
make
the Mech-Techs surrender, after which we were authorised to make overtures to The Followers.  General Fuckwit is assuming that the sight of The Nightmare bearing down on them will make them shit themselves in fear.  The Colonel told us she had tried to tell him that as they gave us The Nightmare in the first place they were unlikely to find it fearsome, but he refused to hear even a word of it.

The main bulk of our forces was going to be following a day or two behind us, but there was every chance that they would overtake us along the road anyway, as we were going the more direct route, and there were bound to be more Dead and traffic obstructions this way than along the coastal roads we had travelled to get to Canberra.  Also there were bound to be more potential resupply points, as General Fuckwit referred to them.  What he meant was abandoned towns, possibly still full of food and fuel depending on how much warning they had before they evacuated, or were eaten.

noon

Back aboard The Nightmare, we began to move.  There were several other vehicles accompanying us, a couple of jeeps, several troop transports, basically enough firepower to ensure that we made it back to Melbourne relatively unharmed.  Apocalypse Girl gunned the engine to life, and we navigated the long, tedious way out from the heavily fortified encampment.