Last Stand of the Dead - 06

Chapter 1

“Are you kidding me?”  I was stunned stupid.  There was no other way to describe it.  I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  “They’re right
there
!  Just get a patrol across and find a way to pin them down!”

“Can’t be done right now, sorry.”
Colonel Freeman seemed sincerely apologetic.  “The damn truck is stuck and there’s little we can do until the other truck gets in place.”

“Unbelievable.  They are right damn there, and your stupid soldier goes and blocks everything because he can’t figure out what goddamn gear the goddamn truck is in!  Jesus Christ!”

I was fit to be
tied.  We had finally managed to
catch up to the little zombies that had been tearing across Iowa, and we finally had figured out how they were travelling undetected.  But just as they slipped across the river into Illinois, some dumb ass manages to let them get away.  I let the trooper know what I felt in no uncertain terms.  Charlie was next to me and I could see he was as angry as I was.

“No offense, sir, but lighten the fuck up.  It was a mistake.  You
’ve
probably made the same,
too,
”  The
soldier replied.  He was shorter than I was, and although he had a layer of fat on him, there was still plenty of muscle underneath.

That was it.  I didn’t wind up, I just uppercut from the waist, taking the smart-ass on the chin and knocking him to the ground.  In an instant, several of the
troopers
friends jumped in, and I had my hands full
,
blocking punches and dishing out punishment.  The numbers actually worked for me, since there w
ere
too many of them to attack
, all
at once.  I had my arm wrapped around one soldier’s neck and was pulling on the ear of another
,
when a third stepped in front of me and pulled his fist back for a serious punch to my head.  I couldn’t do anything but watch it come when suddenly
,
the man’s head snapped sideways and he fell to the ground.

Charlie had entered the fray.  Between the two of us, we beat the crap out of the small platoon that had backed up the corporal
who
had caused the headaches in the first pl
ace.  I took out my frustration by distributing
busted noses, cracked ribs, and loose teeth.

When we dropped the last one, we turned back to the bridge and found ourselves staring at the muzzles of five rifles. 
Apparently,
the men had friends who weren’t happy with us.

“On the ground!
Now
!”
One of the men shouted furiously.

Neither of us moved. I stared at the man in front of me wh
o held the rifle with unsteady
hands.

“Not likely.  Put your weapons down.  That’s an
order,
” I said.

“You don’t give me orders. My orders come from Colonel Freeman. Get your ass on the ground or I will put you down.”  The soldier, whose name badge read Williams, took a small step forward to punctuate his words.

“Williams?  Put that rifle down or I’ll make you wish you had.”  I was calculating the odds, and I figured I could take the two on the left before they knew what was happening,
and I knew Charlie was focusing
on the two on the right.  The one in the
middle would be a problem, and I might have to take a bullet before I could get him. 
I didn’t relish that idea, but I was just mad enough.

“That’s enough!” Colonel Freeman’s voice cut through the air. 
“Mr. Talon, Mr. James, would you please let us handle this?”

“Talon?”
Williams said to himself
,
as he lowered his rifle. 
“No way.”

I leaned in close as I went by. “Way.”  As I walked away towards our trucks, I overheard Colonel Freeman chewing out his men.

“Damn fools. 
You looking
to get killed?” The colonel helped several of the men to their feet.

“I had the drop on him,
sir,
” Williams
said defensively.

“He’d have killed you for it, and if he didn’t, his wife would have.  And you’re in serious shit for disobeying orders, soldier.”  Colonel Freeman pointed over to our trucks where Sarah was standing in the bed, a rifle at the ready to drop anyone foolish enough to start shooting.

“Whose orders, sir?”
Williams was confused.

“
His
, jackass.”

I lost the rest of the conversation as I reached the truck and helped Sarah down.  We were about fifty yards on the bridge leading across the Mississippi from Iowa to Illinois.  We had been chasing ghosts across the state for the better part of a week, and just as we thought we had the little zombies caught in a vise, they slipped across thanks to our oversight.  With the delay caused by the truck, we were swiftly losing our tactical advantage and would have to start all over again chasing the little zombies.

When this all started, I had no idea what we were going up against.  All we had known was several towns had fallen off the
grid
and three groups of investigators had disappeared.  The mystery turned out to be a large group of zombie children, moving fast, infecting towns, and wiping out large portions of the post-
u
pheaval communities.  These zombies were fast, smart, and somehow able to communicate with each other.  They were the deadliest things we had ever come across, and so far
,
had managed to outsmart all of us.

“You okay?” Sarah asked, taking my hand and looking over my knuckles.  They were a little swollen, but not bloodied.  Charlie at least had the presence of mind to have his gloves on, so his hands were fine.

“Our luck continues to
hold,
” I said darkly, looking over at the soldiers who were getting to their feet and casting evil glares our way.  I figured our welcome with this bunch was at an end, and I could honestly say
,
I was glad to be done with it.

“What are we going to do now?” asked Tommy.  He and Duncan were at the van, both of them holding rifles and matching the soldiers glare for glare.  Duncan was
smiling and
winking at the soldiers, and it was only a matter of time before some hothead tried to make a point.

I thought about it for a minute.  “We’re done.  We found what the problem
was;
we got the army where they were supposed to be, so we just need to get the hell home and away from all of this.  It’s not our problem.  We fulfilled our obligation.”

Charlie spoke up. “Maybe so, but we can’t just walk away and let this group of knuckleheads try and save the world.  We’d be going back into a dead state.”

Duncan and Tommy nodded, and I knew what they were saying was true.

“All right.
 
All right.
  You’re
right,
we can’t just let it fly.  If for no other reason than we need their firepower. I feel better for saying it
though,
” I said.

That got a chuckle and we settled in to wait.  I figured the truck would be cleared in a few minutes and we’d be on our way after the zombies within the next half hour.

It was a good plan, and I felt better for it.

Chapter 2

A
n
hour and a half later, I was
beyond fuming.  I had left
M
ad
ville
a few miles down
the road and was pulling up to
R
age
town
, with
I
nsanity
burg
just over the hill.  The soldiers had managed
to
fail in the removal of the stuck truck, but the other one
,
which was supposed to pull the stuck one out, had
also
become stuck in the
roadbed
. 
Apparently,
the driver, a kid about seventeen, thought to take a shortcut around a car, and misread the embankment.  Twelve soldie
rs were trying to push out a four
-ton truck from a ditch and up a thirty-degree incline. 

We weren’t going anywhere from here.  I was done, and the crew was
too.

“Okay, we’re
leaving,
” I announced.  Everyone agreed with me, and I went over to where the Colonel was berating his men for the delay.

“This is unacceptable!  I can’t believe we have the enemy within reach and we are stuck here on this goddamn bridge!  Get men over to the other side right now!  If nothing else, see if they can pick up some sign as to the enemy’s direction, and we can get them later.  You five, go!” Colonel Freeman was about as angry as I was, but I had to agree his suggestion made sense.

“Colonel Freeman?”  I stepped up beside the man, ignoring the glares of the men with bruised and bloodied faces.

Freeman spun around, ready
to unleash another tirade, but
he saw it was me.  His demeanor softened somewhat, but not by much.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Talon?  We’re trying as best we can.”  Freeman wiped his forehead with a small bandanna.

“We’re going to take our trucks and head south, cross the river, and see if we can pick up the trail of the zombies.  We’ll move faster than the men you’ve placed over there, and we’ll report to you their movements.  Sound good?”  I said.

Colonel Freeman thought about it as he watched his five men disappear over the bridge and head towards the railroad bridge that the little zombie kids had used. 

“Sounds good.
We’re using channel three for routine communication, so you can reach us that
way,
”
he
said.

“Thanks, I remember.  We’ll be seeing you.”  I shook his hand and went back to the truck and van, feeling a lot better that we were heading out and away from this mess.  If they couldn’t cross a bridge without trouble, I didn’t want to be anywhere
near
them when the bullets started flying.

I told the crew what we were going to do and they all agreed.  Duncan had a question, though.

“What the hell happened to the army?” He asked. “A few years ago
,
we kicked the crap out of the zombies, knocked them back to the mountains and sealed them away for good.  This group would have been lunch in ten minutes.”

Charlie fielded this one. “These aren’t the same men who came with us to fight.  The army we had
was
all veterans of the
u
pheaval and had been surviving since day one.  They had faced their zombie and killed it
,
before the war to take it all back began.  When the call came to finish the job, every single one of them knew the enemy, knew what the Z’s could do, and were ready for it. 
The ones who made mistakes were already dead.  We could drop any of our group into zombie-infested
areas and unless something went seriously wrong, they would be able to survive and get out, killing a hell of a lot of zombies along the way.

“
These guys are the ones we left behind
,
because they weren’t old enough to fight yet, and their fathers had been the ones to protect them from the zombies in the first place.  They can shoot, but can they fight?  Don’t know for sure.  The guys we fought with
are
scattered all over, taking their due from the peace they earned.  We could get them back, but it would take weeks for the word to get out, and by the time we had enough together with the right supplies, the little zombies would have made their own army invincible.”