"Alright soldiers, what we're up against is something only in books, shows, and half-assed movies! Fuck me, boys, but down there, down that street, we have zombies." The sergeant's voice cut through the sound of tanks moving into position, of HUMVEEs vrring this way and that, and of MLRS getting set up.
"But there is no need to fear! Just stay calm, pop some heads. All you need to fucken do, boys, is put that red dot on a dead man's skull. They're slow, you'll have all the fucking time you'll need." The sergeant gave a wave of his hand and everyone nodded; they shouldered their rifles and walked out of the small command post.
There were 20 such posts; other soldiers were also streaming out of those, headed towards their positions. Two parking garages, a narrow street, and buildings blocking every other route were where everything was.
A great chokepoint, perfect for killing those slow fuckers.
Two weeks ago, a woman had been infected with a virus in Austin, Texas. Now, 16 million of the 21 million people there were also turned. Only 5 million had managed to be evacuated, and even then, 2 million of those were found to be carriers of the virus and had to be... terminated for the safety of the populace. It was quite the day; groups of the carriers, usually 10 or 8, were lined up, back to a firing squad, and then shot in the head.
But, just to be sure, the military had the bodies thrown in a pit and then burned. Then they had the ashes burned. Very thorough. Complicated, long. Arduous, one might even say.
Anyways, 12 thousand US troops, 20 HUMVEEs, 18 M1 Abrams, 13 MLRS, a couple A-10 Warthogs, and a whole ton of other fancy shit were being set up and prepped that would wipe a conventional enemy off the map.
But not the walkers. Not the dead-heads.
To kill those things, you need headshots. Bombs and missiles will only do so much; maybe a couple of them will be lucky, stick some shrapnel in the skull. But most of them will just rip up the body, get all those guts and organs and blood spilling out. Maybe even force some of those things to crawl and make 'em harder to hit.
Alexei thought all of this, everything the military had brought, was a bunch of bullshit. Bunch of bullshit that was brought to impress the people.
He was reminded of the short story in that book, World War Z. Battle of Yonkers or something, it was called.
Quite similar to the crap they were doing now; at least here there were people on the roofs, machine gunners in the parking garages. Not sandbags or firing holes, thank god; fuck those.
Did the walkers have firearms? No, and they didn't have armor either. But they didn't need that; normal humans, you can put a bullet or two in their chest, and they'll fall like dominoes- but not walkers. No matter how many shots you get off on a walker, unless you pop their head, they'll keep on coming. Just shambling towards you, waiting until they reach you so they can eat you, bite you; whatever they do.
Alexei let out a sigh; he could hear the mobile SAMs being brought in. Why did they need those? Did the walkers suddenly know how to fly planes, or offensive aircraft of some kind?
Probably just some more fancy shit for the public to be transfixed by.
Maybe it would've been better if the bigshots or whatever fuckers that had all this planned out had read World War Z. Then they would've read about the Battle of Yonkers and thought, Well, they fucked up, so maybe we shouldn't do that! But no. Who was going to read a piece of fiction and then revise their plans? Nobody. World War Z was just fiction, after all. Good fiction by Max Brooks, but still just fiction.
Alexei thanked god, however, for that he wasn't one of the unlucky few soldiers on the ground. He had been stationed up on a higher level of the parking garage, to snipe some walkers when he could.
He walked besides another sniper; Lance Corporal Axel Denzel. He knew that guy; recognized the face. Slightly scraggly orange beard, blue eyes. Alexei remembered the guy from the karaoke bar. Drunk as fuck, that guy was. Belting out the lyrics to some obsolete rock song.
But he had to admit, the guy was beefy. Built like a fucking tank, made that Barrett .50 cal he had in his hands look like a small little toy. Like a nerf gun, whatever those things were called.
He and Denzel stepped into the elevator; the big guy practically punched the button that read "floor 9" and off they were.
The elevator creaked and groaned and Alexei bet all of his nonexistent money that Denzel was the one causing it.
Several minutes in silence, that ride was.
Several minutes in silence, where all Alexei had to listen to was the sound of the struggling elevator and his thoughts, most of which were about Denzel's potential weight and how the man could even possibly eat enough to maintain such a size and muscle.
Finally, the elevator beeped, and stopped.
"You have reached Floor 9. Thank you for your patience." Auto-fucking-mated message that was absolutely useless; Alexei hated them. Dumb things sounded like robots.
The doors parted, and he and Denzel stepped out.
On the far side, the one overlooking the road where the walkers would be streaming towards, an M2 Browning had been set up- it was manned too, by some private who shook like a leaf in the wind- and a woman with an M4A1 was seated against the wall.
Ah. Private Hazel Valera. Alexei had seen her around a couple times; pretty promising soldier. Tall too; at least 6'1. He himself was only around 6'0.
The hair always confused him. It was this shiney reddish-brown color; not only did he wonder how she always kept that shiney, with all the workouts and shit she did on a daily and hourly basis, but also whether or not that was a natural hair color.
Probably was. Alexei just didn't see many people that often... he wasn't exactly what one would call a "social butterfly". More like the one people would call the "introvert with a rifle".
Ah, well. He was the top of his class; wouldn't put himself up there with Chris Kyle, of course. That guy had had more skill than he ever would...
Denzel promptly walked over to the edge, setting himself up by the shaking private, while Hazel stayed seated against the wall and ate a granola bar while checking her gear over.
Alexei stood there for a moment before going over to the left of the M2 and putting the bipod of his rifle on the wall... fence... thing.
He did a few adjustments to his rifle scope, made sure he saw everything clearly, and was in the process of checking his pistol over when the message came over the radio.
"Zombie ETA is 2 minutes! I repeat, zombie ETA is 2 fucking minutes, so move your asses and get in position if you haven't already! Sergeant Havvil over and out!"
Alexei sighed; breathed in, breathed out. He barely noticed the first groan when he readied a shell in his M24.
But then the air was absolutely permeated with them.
The backdrop noise of the vehicles moving around was loud, yes, but that groaning overpowered every sound.
The groans of 16 million zombies. 16. Million. Zombies.
Alexei breathed in again; this was fine. He would be fine, everyone would be fine as long as they kept their shit together and stayed calm.
If only that had happened.