A Very Zombie Killer Christmas It was cold. Upstate New York cold. We sat in the ruins of a house, holed up on the second floor, shivering in our inadequate shelter. The horde of undead outside shuffled around the house, their ghastly moans competing with the wind that howled through the mountains. There was nothing solid to build a fire on. If we had tried, the whole house would have gone up in flames. We had to be quiet, after our running gun battle with the horde that had chased us in here. For the tenth time, I pulled the magazine out of my rifle, and counted the rounds. One, two, three, four. Not even enough for each member of the team to take the easy way out. I took off my pack to root around in it, see if I had any more loose rounds hiding down the bottom. Beside me, Brit shivered, her red hair catching snowflakes from the holes in the roof. Ziv looked out over the horde, impassive as ever, trying to match the undead stare for stare. Specialist Redshirt, not used to these cold New York winters, was the farthest gone. His bronze Navajo face was pale with the cold, and he had fallen through the ice on our retreat across a creek, soaking him. He started chanting under his breath, something I suspected was a tribal death song. Doc knelt next to him, took his pulse, and shook his head. “He’s not going to last much longer, Nick. We gotta do something.” Ahmed crawled over to Red, ignoring his broken arm, and huddled against him, trying to raise some body heat. Doc sat down on the other side, lending is burly weight. We had been so tired from a weeklong trip through the mountains that the horde had surprised us we walking through a ruined town. They had risen up like ghosts from under the snow, the infection keeping their body heat just at freezing. Hundreds of them, and we had run, run as hard as our tired bodies would allow. Ducking into the last shattered house on the street after gaining some distance, we had smashed the stairs and barricaded the doors. Now, well, now we were screwed. Out of ammo. Too far from a firebase to raise anyone on the net. Freezing to death. The undead started banging at the door, smashing against it. Eventually it would shatter and they would pile themselves up on the missing stairway as we killed them with two by fours and rifle butts. Then they would feast, and we would either die or be turned. I took the four rounds out of the rifle magazine and placed them in my pistol mag, then racked the slide. One for each of them, since I knew that Ziv would prefer to go out fighting a horde, risk be damned. Id have to ask him to cut my throat. I looked at them each in turn, and each one nodded back. I decided to give the radio one last try. “Anyone this net, this is Lost Boys, Indian Sierra Tango One. Need extract, over.” I repeated it again and again, knowing that no one was flying in this storm. Brit’s hand closed over mine. Since the Denver campaign last summer, we had become close, far closer than team mates should be. We had tried to fight it, but now, I regretted the wasted opportunity. “Nick, don’t bother. You’re just killing the batteries.” I sighed. She was right. I looked at them all again, and continued to rummage around my rucksack. I had about given up, when my hand closed on Gerber multi-tool stuck way down in a corner. I pulled it out, and in the glow of the chemlights, opened it. Inscribed on the blade were the words “YOU WORRY TOO MUCH”. I laughed to myself. Jonesy, who had died so valiantly at West Point, creating time for us to escape another horde, had given it to me when we first formed the team; what seemed a lifetime ago. He had given it to me for Christmas. “Hey! I just remembered! What time is it?” Ziv looked at his watch. “Zero Three Thirty” he said, and looked at me like I had a hole in my head. “It’s Christmas!” That bought a ghost of a grin to all of us, even Red. “Well, it’s the shittiest Christmas I’ve ever had, but screw it. I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time.” I got down on one knee in front of Brit and said “Britany Danielle O’Neil, will you marry me?” Her mouth opened and closed like a fish. I had never, ever seen her at a loss for words, but I guess there was a first time for everything. She said nothing, just bent down and kissed me, and buried her face in my shoulder. I looked at the rest of the guys, who all had shit eating grins on their faces. “About effing time!” said Doc. At that moment, the radio crackled to life. “LOST BOYS, THIS IS ODIN SIX, OVER.” I stared at it in amazement. “ANSWER THE GODDAMNED THING, YOU IDIOT!” said Brit. I could see that the magic of my proposal had lasted all of twenty seconds. Grabbing the handmike, I called back, “Odin Six, this is Lost Boys, are we glad to hear your voice, over!” The heavy thud of rotor blades sounded in his transmission as he called back. ”HEARD YOU NEED SOME FIRE SUPPORT. POP A FLARE TO YOUR POSTION, OVER.” We wasted no time in complying. The eerie red light reflected off the slowly breaking clouds of snow as stars started to shine coldly overhead. In answer, a green shaft of light danced a circle all around the house, six thousand rounds a minute from a minigun chewing through undead like a lightsaber through Jedi. The aircraft made several passes, hunting down individual undead with short bursts from the door mounted minigun and several other machine guns. While they were doing that, we lit the house on fire, not caring if it burned. We had to get Red warm again, and he quickly revived under the scorching heat. The pilot deftly set the big CH-47 Chinook down in the snow in front of the house. A team of riflemen spread out, making sure there were no live undead. Then the Pilot walked out of the lowered ramp in the back. He was a short, fat dude wearing Colonels’ rank and sporting a red and white aircraft crewmember helmet. “Geez, they sure let the standards slip. Look at how fat that old guy is!” said Brit. I shrugged, not willing to complain about the help. He had saved our asses, and I could ignore the white beard that showed he hadnt shaved in a quite a while. Standards HAD been lowered when the world fell apart. With a grin and a twinkle in his eye, he took off a fur lined glove and shook my hand. “So, the famous Nick Agostine, and the redheaded wrecking machine Brit O’Neil. I hope you’re going to make an honest woman out of her, Nick!” “Do I know you, Colonel?” He waved his hand dismissively. “You know how the military is. When you’ve been around forever, like I have, eventually you know everyone. I can’t give you kids a ride back, I’ve got places to be, but I can give you some supplies.” He whistled, and some of the bird’s crew started tossing crates of ammo and boxes out the back. My team carried them into another house, this one much solider than the one we had hid out in. He stood and watched with his hands on his stomach until everything was out, and then called his crew chief. “Sergeant Dancer, load ‘em up, we have other places to be. Well, Sergeant Agostine, Merry Christmas! You’ve been a good boy this year, but put a ring on it as soon as you can!” “Can do, Sir. What’s your name again? I’d like to buy you a beer if we ever run into each other again.” “You can call me … Chris.” He laughed and ran up the ramp. I saw him again at the cockpit window, and he saluted me. I saluted back, and the engines powered up sending me back into the house to avoid the blowing snow. Inside, the team was going through the packages, reloading magazines and breaking open MREs. “Hey, Nick, check it out! This is weird.” Brit held a long package in her hands. She tilted it to me so I could see in the light of the fire we had going in the fireplace. On it in big letters someone had scrawled “O’NEIL”. “Look, here’s one with your name on it!” Sure enough, a box was marked “AGOSTINE”. She grew as excited as a kid in a candy store, ripping into the stack and throwing boxes at people. “REDSHIRT! HAMILTON! YAZIR! ZICHOVIC!” she called as she found each one. “Well, don’t just stand there, open it!” I ordered her. She did and pulled out an Italian made Benelli Vinci 12 Gauge Tactical Shotgun. “OHMYGOD!” she squeeled and started jamming rounds into it. “NICK, LOOK! It says SOUL STEALER on the stock!” She ran over and kissed me hard. “I don’t know how you did this, but THANK YOU!” I didn’t spoil it by saying I had no idea what the hell was going on. “Careful, you’ll shoot your eye out! “said Doc. “Ha!” she laughed “Screw shooting my eye out, I’d blow my head off!” One by one we opened the boxes. Ziv had a custom made 14” combat knife, forged by Mike Williamson. He laughed and threw it as hard as he could, and it THUNKED into a wooden beam an inch from my head. I ignored this, having had it done to me dozens of times before, a favorite game of his. Doc got an expensive new leather jacket with “ZOMBIE KILLERS MC” hand stitched into the back. His old club had pulled a spectacular ride through a horde when thing s fell apart, and he had been the only one to make t through, his leather jacket shredded. He had been looking for a replacement for two years now. Ahmed pulled an antique hand woven prayer rug that still smelled faintly of the desert, to replace the one he had lost only last week. He immediately pulled out a compass, laid the rug in the direction of the glowing crater that was Mecca, and started praying. Redshirt opened his up and quickly assembled a heavy duty hunting bow. Very effing funny, the Indian gets a bow and arrow he muttered, but then grinned and started target practice on an old couch at the back of the room, driving steel headed arrows through the leather and into the wall. Could come in handy, I suppose he said, and I could tell he was pleased. I waited until last. My box was small, not much larger than my hand. I opened it slowly, gently. Inside was an envelope. I opened this gently too, and a piece of paper fell out. On it was printed one word. Brit put her arms around me and asked “What did you get, oh fearless leader?” I turned the paper up so that she could read the one word printed on it. “The best gift ever” I said and kissed her. The paper fell to the floor between us, landing right side up. The flickering firelight played on Brit’s hair and illuminated the word. HOPE. Merry Christmas everyone! ~ SFC (R) John F. Holmes, somewhere in upstate NY.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 14:13:01 +0000
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