Corporal Eddie Brown popped his head out of the Stryker's hatch and looked around at the city square, startled by what he saw. “Goddamn!” he said, letting out a low whistle. The entire city crawled with the dead. They appeared everywhere, arms raised and their diseased mouths open, bloody saliva dripping from their rancid lips. Thousands of infected, maybe more. The entire country must have been filled with them. Driving with the aid of the periscope had limited his perception of the outside world, but to witness this ugly spectacle with his own eyes was something completely different.
Sweat poured down his face and underneath his khaki uniform, dripping down his arms. The temperature below had become unbearable, forcing him and Capozza to take occasional breaks. Disabling the automated computer system had knocked out the next-generation networking and software technology and in particular, the air conditioning. He pulled himself up until he was standing atop the vehicle. The angry roar of the horde filled his ears, reminding him of the Snoop Dogg concert he once attended when the rapper failed to show up at the Tacoma Dome and the crowd booed for minutes on end. Shaking his head, he looked out over the frenzied mob and saw their numbers go on as far as the eye could see. A wistful smile spread across his face as he removed his Kevlar helmet and sat on top of it. The rumble of the Stryker's powerful engine vibrated up through his legs and crotch and into his spine.
“Look, the filthy rat popped outta his friggin’ hole!” the soldier in the LAV in front of him shouted. “Wazzup, Brownie? Trying to get yourself a nice tan?”
“Shut your mouth, mothafucka. Can't you see I'm enjoying the scenery?” He flipped Dennison off.
“Holy shit, Brownie. Look behind you.”
“Why you stressing on me, dawg, when I try and be chillin’?”
“There’s people up in those apartments and they’re trying to get our attention.’
Brownie stared behind him and up at the brick buildings surrounding the open space. People waved bed sheets and pillowcases out their windows and shouted for them to come to their rescue. They looked frail and sickly, as if they’d been holding out for weeks on end and hadn't eaten a thing. Just below him stood the horde, reaching up and trying to grab hold of his ankle, but they were too far away to be of any real threat. A sense of frustration filled him as he stared up at the trapped souls. Where in the world would they put them all?
“Those peeps are seriously fucked!” Dennison shouted.
“We got nowhere to put them. And we can’t just leave them here.”
“Townsend ain’t going to go all homo on us now. Those peeps are as good as toast.”
“The man can't possibly be that cold.”
“Dude, he'd leave his own mother behind for an extra star on his collar.”
“Army bling don't mean shit to him now. Not to any of us.”
Frustrated, Brownie pulled out his pistol and pointed it down at one of the crazed, infected faces glaring up at him. They looked like one of those strung-out, mashed-face crackheads begging for change in Pioneer Square. He wanted so badly to blow the dead guy’s brains out but to waste a bullet right now would be stupid. There were millions of them out there and he needed to save his ammo for when it really mattered. He tucked the gun back into his holster and stared up at the people stranded in the apartments. It broke his heart to see a mother and her two young children waving their arms out the window of a third story walk-up. Reminded him of his childhood growing up in the roughest part of Tacoma with five stepbrothers and sisters, and a mother more concerned about getting drunk than raising kids, and a father he rarely saw except when he was begging for coin at a busy intersection. Good thing the Army whisked him away from all that craziness. He’d never looked back—only to have his life turned upside down again by this insidious plague.
“Hey, dipshit!” Dennison shouted. “Word from the top is that General Ballbuster wants us back in our holes so we can head out. Make sure you take some cheese down there with you, rat boy.”
“You lucky you over there, you Eminem wannabe, or I might shoot one of these rounds up your skinny white ass.” Brownie chuckled.
“Ain't the color of my skin, bro, but the content of my character that truly matters.”
“Don't be going all Martin Luther King on me, Dennison, or I'll go Malcolm X on you and yours.”
“Next place we stop at, Brownie, the forty ounces are on me. You and I gonna round up some dead ho's, get fall down drunk and then maybe get us some head.”
“Judging from the looks of you, Dennison, your mama came back from the dead and ended up eating so much that she needed telephone poles for toothpicks.”
“Well your mama was so fat that them zombies needed doggy bags afterwards.”
“When the zombies bit into your mama's leg gravy poured out.”
Brownie palmed his Kevlar helmet and slammed it over his head, laughing. His hair was getting nappy and long and only one soldier in this fleet knew how to give a good fade. He reckoned he’d jump a grenade to keep the dude alive. He climbed back down the hole and shut the trap door behind him. Inside the compartment, Sergeant Capozza stared down at the remote weapons screen. He'd only gotten to know Capozza these last few days but already they'd hit it off.
“How bad is it out there?”
“Damn zombie fest, Poze. Suckers crawling all over the place like they at a horror convention.”
“The new world order wasn’t quite what everyone expected, huh?”
“You ain't gonna believe this but there’s survivors up there in them buildings, begging us to rescue them.”
Capozza looked over from the screen. “And?”
“Townsend ain't going to lift a finger for them. Dude wouldn't budge if his own mama was stranded up there.”
“It’s a shitty situation those people find themselves in, Brownie, but you know as well as I do that he's making the right decision.”
“Maybe he could pile them all in the cargo vans and transport them to safety. Better than doing nothing at all.”
Capozza laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“Where's he going to take them? And how would they get food or supplies? C’mon, man, you and I both know those people are fucked.”
“Damn! Pains me to hear it but you probably right.”
“Of course I'm right. Besides, how would we get over there to save the poor bastards?”
“Push over, Poze, because we about to get rolling." He sat down at the controls. “Feels like a sauna down here.”
“I’ve been testing all the systems to see what works and what doesn't. The air conditioning is useless and all our radar and sonar systems have gone to shit since the computer was disabled. The CBRN warfare system is useless, too, although I’m not sure we’ll need it.”
“What’s that?”
“The pressurized system designed to protect us in the event of a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack. The good thing is that we can still switch over manually from four to eight wheel drive if need be. All the machine guns are in good working order, though they can only be operated manually.”
“Lot of good that's going to do us now. We all dressed up with nowhere to go.”
“You heard Townsend. If somehow we're able to track down that ghost then we can survive indefinitely out here and maybe even get rid of these goddamn headaches.”
“Feels like I drank a dozen Colt 45's last night. Swear, Poze, I’ll never drink again if I ever get out of this mess.”
Capozza looked over from the periscope and chuckled. “First thing I’m going to do once this crisis is over is cook me up a big bowl of spaghetti and meatballs using my nana's gravy recipe. Then I'm going to wash it down with a nice glass of red wine.”
“You eye-talians kill me. Can't live without your pasta and vino.”
“My nana grew up in Sicily and every Sunday she'd cook up this huge mother-of-a-feast, inviting friends and family over. I've been drinking red wine and eating pasta in her gravy since I was knee high.” Capozza smiled. “I doubt any of them are still alive.”
“Forget the past, Poze. They only painful memories now.”
“How about you, Brownie? Any family to speak of?”
“Bunch of step-brothers and sisters came and went as they pleased. Hardly ever saw my pops, and my momma drank herself stupid most of the time.”
“Sorry to hear that, bro.”
“Is what it is.” He shrugged. “You and me brothers-in-arms now. Masters of our universe.”
“Yeah, I suppose you're right,” Capozza said, looking into the periscope.
“This unit we in like the Olive Garden now. When you're here you with family; a bunch of dysfunctional dickheads that hate your guts.”
“Time to head out,” Capozza said, laughing. “Get your ass in gear.”