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Zombie day!
I noticed a trend in apocalypse and zombie stories so I thought I'd but my half story up. It's a combination of my two favorite cliches military special operations groups and zombie apocalypse. I heart zombies.
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Black Friday
The dead will try to inherit the earth
I've been knee deep in the shit for the past year and a half. It was July twenty first, Friday, which is kind of ironic. I used to be just another retail jockey that couldn't cut it in the real world, high school dropout, no attempts at higher education, just surviving day to day to put a roof over my head. The news started chiming in with reports of mass hysteria, that was off for the greater east side, and then the stranger reports of them biting civilians and smelling like rotting flesh came rolling in. No one wanted to believe that of all things that came to be it was zombies, I'm still betting on this being the plague from Revelations. Maybe that's just the faith in me talking.
Standing in front of twenty fresh faced recruits I'm forced to wonder what kind of serious fuck ups or lunatics these boys are to be in my presence. Some stand with the confidence of knowing right why they're here others glance around nervous and fidgeting under my gaze. Got lost in a train of thought and for a moment I consider trying to figure out how long I've been staring at these kids, shit no wonder some of them are freaked out.
"You all stand before me claiming to be soldiers. Some of the best from what I hear." I point my thumb back towards Clay."Clay over there tells me some of you boys are the brightest stars in this new war. I don't read none to good so I just trust his judgment because he's the only one in this outfit that's survived with me." Clay leaning back in a chair gives a nod from the shadows the cigarette still sitting between his lips arms folded across his chest."So how many of you even have a fuckin clue why you're even here?"
"Sir, to combat the forces of the undead, sir!" one of the bright and shiny new recruits belts out.
"Son, I'm not an officer. I'm what you'd call a civilian operative with government funding." I barley manage to spit out between chuckles to myself. I can hear clay laughing to himself.
"S-sir?" He looks at me with dull witted eyes.
"So this is abundantly clear. I am in fact a civilian. So is Clay. Now before any of you even think to consider questioning my authority think about two things. What are my qualifications and will I shoot you in the head where you stand?" I wait with a pleasant dramatic pause seeing a few men with puzzled looks on their faces."The answer to the second question is I will shoot you in the head right now if you even blink too hard at me. The answer to the second question is prefixed with a question of its own. How many living dead, “I make sure to emphasize living dead as opposed to undead cause that's associated with vampires and other horse shit spooks," encounters have any of you been involved in?"
"None sir." the shiny boy replies. He looks around the room and most shake their head indicating damned rookies.
"I have four black ops missions against them, all successful." A man towards the back of the room built not much larger than I am finally chimes in.
"Well black ops how did you end up here? Forced or suicidal?" I have to ask this.
"Force, I assaulted my first in command for attempting to grenade a building that was being used as a safe point for friendlies he thought they were spooks." He finishes with a cold certainty that he had done the right thing.
"Thank god, finally someone worth their weight in shit." I can't help smiling.”Son you get to step on over here I'd be happy to get a soldier with some fuckin sense of decency."
"I've been in one encounter sir." A voice that's so quiet I have a hard time hearing speaks up.
"Ok well what got you here then?" I'm really expecting the worst on this one. The quiet ones are always fucked up.
"I killed my family once they turned. I went AWOL and found them bitten and turning. I killed them and returned to base. They wanted to court marshal me but I opted for this duty." There's a heavy silence in the room.
"I'm sorry for your loss but if I take you I need a promise from you soldier. No getting yourself killed on purpose. Despite the name of the squad that's not what we do here." I say looking at him earnestly.
"I understand. You have my word." When he says it I really believe him. I give him the nod and he walks on over.
"Any of you other boys worth anything? Because I'm looking to survive so you can fuck off right out that door if you can't give me a reason to keep you." I watch them shift and almost all of them begin giving reasons at once. Lost family, no reason to live, they just got sent here, I just nod and smile."Which one of you dumb mother fuckers didn't talk while the others were talking?" Two hands came out of the crowd."You two come over here. The rest of you are a human impairment of my mortality and can all get the fuck out of my ops room." They rank and file out like sad retarded monkeys who just got tofu bananas.
"Ok you girls can all take a desk now I got some basics I want to go over. Once again not to save you but to keep my ass alive one more minute of one more day. If you think you need a pencil and paper for this you might want to get out right now because I don't have time for those that can't retain basic information." I give a little pause to take a sip of water and light up a smoke myself."You are now officially in suicide squad one, now that may seem impressive and elite but truth be told we are the only suicide squad, but leave it to the military to over complicate shit. All of you have now volunteered for Operation Black Friday, which is once again a very fancy title, lots of meaning and none at the same time. How are you all holdin up under this barrage of info so far?"
Some of the men give a light hearted laugh. Suddenly a hand rises up. "Yes black ops ... wait what the fuck is your name?" I'm forced to ask.
"My name is Smith, John Smith." He hesitates for a moment then just gives it an obvious mental fuck it and goes for broke."You mentioned earlier your qualifications, also that you were a civilian, also why suicide squad and what's up with the ops tag Black Friday?"
"You are quite an astute young man Smith, John Smith. Ok qualifications are these, I've survived the death of hundreds of squad mates in a number of missions I can't even remember nor count to without my boots off and my fly down also it doesn't hurt that me an Clay over there made it over the floating bridge with nothing more than a crow bar and a trench shovel, so they offered me a job. I'm a civilian with military funding as I said. Suicide squad was easy, quite simply it's what we do, military sweeps are inefficient and time consuming so in the instant you need to attempt an evac on a few survivors and the likely hood of success is zero that's our time to shine. I won't lie we fail but damn well try not to and if all else fails we try to bring them peace and get ourselves back in one piece. The ops tag, well that was me and Clay, we used to work retail and if any of you ever did that job then you know that black Friday is the day after thanksgiving one of the most major retail sale days. The people walk in enmass into the store freaking out trampling each other for sale items that no one buys during the rest of the year. Also since most of them are poor white trash or foreigners that don't believe in washing their ass it stinks like rotting shit. Any other questions?
"Are you fucking serious?" One of the two guys who were just smart enough not to talk over the others asks.
"Uh yeah. Most of this job is improv. Training means exactly jack shit." I say without a trace of jest."Any other stupid questions or may I continue with your intro to the living dead?"
"Were you serious about losing hundreds of men sir?" Says the other one that was silent.
"Kids we are in a losing battle versus these cock suckers. Make no mistakes about it I've shot a fraction of my team mates myself. Clay has got the others under his belt. Between the two of us we have well over several thousand confirmed kills and god knows how many unconfirmed. Shit you remember the tower fiasco Clay?" I ask looking back at him as he brings his chair up next to mine.
"Hard to forget watching a building collapse, shooting flames, glass, and body parts from every window as it collapses." He looks at the recruits’ dead pan as usual."Yet god smiled upon the priest and allowed him to walk away."
"Priest? You're a priest?" The quiet one looks at me seeming even more confused.
"It's a nickname. A day or so just before all this I had announced my plan to become a priest. Obviously God had other plans for me." I just shake my head."What's your name?"
"Rolland .." I cut him off.
"Rolly it is. Oh and Smith you're now Johnny." I just smile at them.
"I hate that name." Says Johnny with disdain.
"Yeah well your ass is mine now till you reanimate and I put one in your brain and send you back to God." He just stares at me with all the venom and hate he can muster and I love every second of it."You two who got in by luck or being unlucky however you look at it what are your names?"
"Jones."
"Davis."
"Alright now that we got all the hand shandy introductions out of the way. Rule one is always shoot them or smash them in the head. Breaking their brain is the only way to actually kill them. Decapitation works well to disable but they will still try and bite you. Rule two is if any team member is bit do not hesitate to shoot them in the head, that's a quick way to get us all killed. Keep in mind these are not super humans they are basically corpses with the ability to move and bite that's it. Facing one zombie is like perching on the roof of the Special Olympics with a sniper rifle. Facing a platoon of the undead is ... well I've run out of similes so lets just go with the it's a fucked up scenario and you don't want to be caught up in it. Like the bellsquare incident." I say trailing off remembering that nightmare.
"Bellsquare is a mall over on the east side. It was before we got wrangled into this gig. We went there in an attempt to save some friends and got overwhelmed by them. It took all our ammo and some make shift maltovs to get out of there with our skin. That's what led to us bludgeoning our way off the floating bridge." Clayton picks up my slack like usual.
"Right. Now as most of you should know offensive zombie maneuvers are dangerous at night. Yet we work mostly at night because day shift hides in their barracks and wet themselves while they pray for mommas to come rescue them from hell. You will become at home in your all black Kevlar and cloth uniform. I sleep with this shit on because most nights I don't make it through one without being woken up and thrown to the beasts. Zombies have a sight close to a humans but their hearing and smell is quite acute. Lucky for us they are not fast and in no way agile so kick that Hollywood mind fuck out of your brain." I spend a few minutes trying to get my bearings of important shit to go over.
"Sticking together is the only way to survive. The only one in this room that's going to survive on their own is priest here and he's proven that time and time again. So if you want to be a hero you might want to walk out. If you want to save a few lives and kiss this man begging him to drag you out of the lowest levels of hell stick around and you might learn a thing or two." Clayton chimes in.
"You do know how to make a grown man blush." I wave my hand at him in an effeminate way and lisp the words.
"Also never forget your ear plugs it's essential to your equipment." He adds.
"Right because we'll be using fire arms." Jones or Davis chimes in I don't know which one.
"Wrong, we use silencers. Zombie hearing is probably better than humans and even firing off a twenty two is the equivalent of stripping naked and waving flares around screaming its dinner time. The reason you need the plugs for is for the constant zombie moan or wailing. Whichever term you prefer, after prolonged exposure most men slit their own throats." He stares them all down one by one letting them know how deadly serious he is.
"Any more questions from you girls?" A vigorous shake of heads goes through the group."Ok then hit the sack melee assessments and fire arm proficiency tests will be issued tomorrow."
With that Clay and I get up and march into our "officers’ suite" and bunk down letting them find their own way to their bunks on the other side. I can hear them still sitting in their desks in hushed whispers trying to sort the bullshit from the truth. After a while they just believe it but with me and Clay to look at truth becomes the only available option, once upon a time we weren't too bad looking. Now we're both looking about ten years older and have maps of scars crisscrossing our features. The last thing I hear almost makes me bust up laughing if I wasn't so exhausted from last night’s mission which warranted this fresh batch of recruits, they sit their arguing about who has to ask about the tower incident. That's when sleep finally hits me.
Out of the frying pan and into hell
I love the beginnings of night. I hear the activity around the base of alarms going off and heavy gates closing. Men yelling to others to get into their safe havens. Fuckin pansies.
"Good evening. Everyone sleep well?" Not one of them slept a wink."Y'all are going through a crash course so you know. The good little sheep have no time to wait because they're too busy on the block waiting for the butcher. Before anyone asks sheep are a term of endearment for all of those out there that can't help themselves. I may be a citizen I'm no victim like most of them." I give em all a dirty mean stare trying to find a reaction but none seem up to challenging me."So before I drifted off to sleep I heard y'all yammering in your sowing circle and to prove I'm a good sport you all get one question. Choose wisely." I step back my arms in my back pockets while a cigarette dangles from my lips.
"Ok priest we were curious about the tower." Says Johnny. I like that kid no fear in him. Probably gonna last a week or so.
"Clay you wanna field this one?" I ask him because he's a better story teller than me. Especially on this one where all I was thinking was 'Oh fuck' and 'Please God let me live through this' most of it's a little hazy.
"Fine. Some of you might have heard about the tower collapsing in downtown Seattle. Well that was us. We rigged the building with explosives and hauled in barrels of gasoline and diesel fuel into the center. Then I started doing donuts and honking the horn in front. This of course was right after a report of about five hundred ghouls hangin around the downtown area came over the wire. It took em about fifteen minutes to rally to our position. Just then we realized there was a major flaw in our plan, how to get them in the building. Priest here yells at me to stop the truck and grabbed a parachute pack that we randomly carry as an escape contingency. Yelling at me to meet him back on base he runs out chute in hand and bashes the lead ghoul in the face with his crowbar then hauls ass into the building waving and screaming. At this point I have the engine off and they all file in after him. I waited a few more minutes not to steal any of them off of him and began to haul ass out of there. The last thing I saw in the rearview mirror was the building blowing up. After that all I know is that this son of a bitch walks in and lies down on the bunk next to me filled with glass bitching about needing to quit smoking. Oh and for the record that is not included in our confirmed kills." When he finishes its all awe struck silence and staring at me.
"You know Clay and before all this I was going to enter that beauty pageant right before the clergy." I say with a smile my scars creasing my face.
"What's your real name priest?" Rolly asks.
"Tsk tsk. I said one question now start with some warm up laps." they start running and Clay and I bullshit in the middle finishing our smokes before we call them back in to start the real fun.
"Rally up boys and meet in the center. It's time for basic combat training." They get in a circle around Clay and me."This is your standard issue nerf bat. We're going to be testing your skills at close quarter fighting and rating you all. I will be using a real crowbar." They all stare at me a little unsettled by the thought of me holding a real weapon against their foam ones."Now now don't wet yourselves just yet, I will only be defending myself. You get the nerf bats in case one of you gets the crazy idea that smashing my skull will get you a permanent position in this outfit." The troops lighten up a bit a few of them laughing."Besides if you believe there is a long term position in this outfit you've gotta be smoking rocks because as far as the military is concerned we are a disposable asset."
"Here are your standard issue happy fun time melon whackers." Clay says as he hands out the nerf weapons of minimal destruction."The goal here is to strike priest over there in the head. Remember disabling a zombie by removing a limb or poking them with a stick is great but it will not stop them from trying to bring you down with them and bite the ever loving shit out of you."
"Who wants to give it the first go?" I ask as a sick smile spreads across my face.
"I'll give it a go." Says Johnny.
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Hobotastic! 
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