The Zombie Virus (Book 2): The Children of the Damned (15 page)

“About a month and a half,” she answered.
“You sure do ask a lot of questions.”

He shrugged and looked away.

She smiled at him knowingly. “It’s okay,
sweetheart. I kind of like having someone new to talk with.”

Jeremy brightened noticeably. “Where are you
from?”

Her smile faded a little. “Here in Staunton.
I was on my own for a long time before they found me. It was a
nightmare being in the city with all the crazies around me. I was
with a couple other survivors, but I was the only one to be
rescued. How about you?” she asked. “Where are you from?”

“I’m from Southern Maryland.” he replied.
“I’m on my way to our farm down in Virginia.”

“Are you by yourself?”

He peered down at his feet, his smile fading
to a frown. “I am now. I got split up from my parents and the rest
of our group months ago.” He looked up into her eyes. “I’m supposed
to meet them at the farm.”

She reached over and touched his cheek in
sympathy. He reminded her very much of her brother David, whom she
had watched get ripped apart by a group of crazies while she had
stayed hidden in a dumpster. She had begged him stay put in the
apartment across the street while she scavenged at the corner
store. When the group of crazies had spotted her she had run to the
only place she could find shelter; the dumpster filled with weeks
of rotten trash. The crazies had clambered all over it trying to
get in while she screamed in terror. Then she had heard David
yelling at them to get away from her. She had peeked out the
sliding door to see him running down the street leading them away.
Then another crazy had run out from a side street and the two had
collided and went down hard on the pavement. Within an instant the
others were on him and it was over.

The pain was still so raw that tears began
flowing from her eyes and she gazed at Jeremy with blurred vision.
He looked a lot like her brother and she swore silently to herself
that she would never stand by and watch him die like David had.

She forced a smile and swiped at the
tears.

“You okay?” he asked, the concern evident in
his voice.

She nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. Bad memories,
you know?”

He nodded back in understanding.

“Come on, sport. Let’s get you to the mess
and warm you up some chow.” She took his hand and led him out of
the room.

“How about Jumper?” He glanced back over his
shoulder at the dog lying comfortably on the mattress of the other
bed and wanted to bring him along, yet didn’t want to lose contact
with the soft hand that held his.

“I’m sure we can dig him up something until
we can make a run for some dog food,” she replied as they left the
room to the sleeping dog.

First Sergeant Shavers stood at the briefing
room’s conference table, staring at a large pieced-together map of
the Staunton area, which included the surrounding towns of
Waynesboro and Fishersville to the east, Verona to the north, and
Stuarts Draft to the south. Each town was subdivided with the
outlines of a red marker into zones, and in each zone were yellow
highlighted points.

The goal that day had been to get to the
Allied Chemical plant in Waynesboro and liberate some white
phosphorus. Running into the boy had drastically changed that plan.
He thought about the swarm of crazies that they had eliminated that
afternoon. It was another group that had gone undetected and could
have caused a serious problem if they had encountered them
dismounted. At least they wouldn’t be a concern anymore. There were
two larger swarms that they knew existed in the area of operations
around the chemical plant that they had planned on raiding today;
several thousand in each group.

The swarms went out each day in random
directions searching for food. They scoured the land like locusts,
leaving a path of destruction, eating anything that could be
digested, living or dead, along the way.

As of now, they were to be avoided at all
costs.

The 29th had observed over the past few weeks
emaciated bodies of the crazies littering the dead zones after the
swarms had passed. They had concluded that these were members of
the swarms who were dying from starvation, wounds, and disease,
although not at a fast enough rate of attrition to make a
difference in the outcome of this conflict. It was hopeful that
during the cold winter months they would see a larger attrition
rate. Closer in to the armory in Staunton was an even larger swarm
nesting less than a klick away. They were a very grave concern. If
that group ever came at their compound they could be overrun and
everyone inside killed in short order. The security fence would be
not much more than tissue paper to that size of a group of tangos.
They always kept a Stryker ready for just such a contingency. If
shit were to go south and the Armory was threatened with being
overrun, at least some, if not all, of the personnel could bug out
in the Ready Stryker.

They needed the white phosphorous, which was
called Willie Pete in Army terminology, if they were going to try
and fight these swarms with any chance of success. They had ideas
for a trip-wire activated chemical improvised explosive device that
should cause mass casualties of the crazies without any of his
personnel having to endanger themselves any more than necessary.
They would reschedule today’s aborted mission again for as soon as
possible.

Shavers thought back to the day of the
‘event’. He had been on post with several dozen men and women
literally just back from deployment in Afghanistan. For most this
had been their first deployment, for Shavers and Heinlich it had
been their fourth together. He and the Sergeant had been the only
members of the post that had at one time been regular Army. Shavers
had retired after twenty and became a part-timer; at least that had
been his plan before being called to active duty because of the
mess in the Middle East. The same had pretty much happened to
Heinlich, who had only served for eight years as a regular grunt.
Then this shit had happened right after they had returned from goat
country before either of them could even return to their normal
lives.

God hadn’t even granted him the opportunity
to drive to South Carolina to visit his teenage son and ex-wife
before the shit had hit the fan. On the day of the event, he was
talking to his son when the boy’s mother, his ex-wife, had attacked
Kyle. The sounds were horrific and heart-wrenching and the boy
never returned to the phone. He hadn’t even had the chance to tell
him that he loved him one last time. Now Kyle was either dead or
one of the crazies. Either way, he was gone from him forever.

By some miracle he and Heinlich had survived
the initial sickness and turning, and had fought side-by-side
against people who had once been their closest companions. It had
been a turkey shoot, and had gone on until they had cleansed the
armory of all infected personnel.

Through the reserve list they were able to
put out calls for the first week that power was available and get
hold of about a dozen and a half of the 2500 or so of the
reservists of the 29th that were stateside and were still alive and
kicking. Of those, only ten made it to the base. That gave them a
force of twelve.

They had called themselves the ‘Dirty
Dozen’.

The first two months had taught them a lot,
and had cost them a lot. Of the original Dirty Dozen, only six
remained. He hadn’t had those kind of losses even in the worst of
the engagements in goat country.

They had been able to contact some fobgoblin
at FORSCOM in Fort McPherson. He had been less than useless and it
sounded like the base was overrun by crazies without any hope of
the few Army personnel that were there reclaiming their territory.
The command structure was shot to hell, if not non-existent. He was
the highest ranking person of anyone that Shavers had contacted,
reserve or regular. This made him the NCOIC, or non-commissioned
officer in charge. It was a role he had filled before, although not
without the support of command and logistics. Now, not only did he
have to build and lead a fighting force, he was also responsible
for supplying all the beans, bullets, and Band-Aids for that
force.

They were on their own and he was their
leader. That responsibility was a heavy burden on his shoulders. He
knew with God’s help he could do this, as he had always done in the
past when shit needed to get done.

He smiled to himself as he planned out the
operations for the next few days and thought about their mission
now. He was doing what his training and experience dictated:
bringing the war to the enemy; fighting an offensive battle against
the swarms of crazies. They would start in their immediate AO and
then spread out to the rest of Virginia as they picked up and
trained more fighters like the young kid from today. After Virginia
they would go state by state if they had to until they reclaimed
their country back from the filthy vermin that had infested it.

A knock on the door interrupted his
thoughts.

“Come in,” he replied without looking up from
the map.

Sergeant Heinlich strode into the room and
sat down heavily on one of the cushioned chairs.

“Well, today was totally FUBARed.” He sighed
as he took a sip of warm soda; the acronym meaning that the day had
been Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.

Shavers finally looked up from the map at his
Sergeant. “Not necessarily. The boy was a good find, the dog too.
We need to start growing this Army again if we’re to eradicate the
crazies.”

“Hooah!” Heinlich replied, raising his soda
can in the air in salute.

The civvies who they found had the option of
staying on only if they accepted his command and committed to being
a soldier in this diminished Army. Anyone who chose not to stay was
fed, allowed a good night’s rest, and was taken to the highway and
sent on their way. It sounded harsh, however, if people weren’t
willing to fight to survive in this horrible new world, then they
would only be a liability to those that had the balls to take a
stand against this relentless enemy. It would be an all-volunteer
force, yet once you were committed, you were here for the duration.
They would follow the UCMJ as if the command structure was still
intact. So far everyone they had met had volunteered to join the
remnants of the U.S. Army.

“We still need that Willie Pete,” Heinlich
said after another swig.

Shavers nodded, tugging on his beard as he
glanced at the map again.

“Do you want to try again in the AM?”
Heinlich asked.

“No. We know better than to hit a target area
again two days in a row. The swarms will be stirred up and could be
anywhere. We have to give it a few days to calm down.”

This time Heinlich nodded his assent. “It’s a
shame there wasn’t more than just the kid and his dog. He sure as
hell did a job on those crazies. Although I bet his pucker factor
was high.”

“I think most who have survived this long
will have at least gained some combat experience against the
crazies and will be easy to train for our group,” Shavers
surmised.

“You talking about the kid?” he asked. “It’s
amazing that a boy that young has survived this long by
himself.”

“Children are resilient, they bounce back
from adverse situations; they learn and adapt swiftly. They have a
wonderful propensity to overcome their fear and tuck it away
somewhere deep inside of them. They haven’t as yet developed the
moral impediments that we as adults have acquired through
experience or the wisdom bestowed on us by society, and therefore
can become efficient killing machines without that moral guidance.
We must make sure we convey that morality to them, yet on the other
hand mustn’t coddle them if we want them to survive in this new
world.”

Shavers paused and looked Heinlich hard in
the eyes. “God has brought this plague upon us and we are the
chosen few who are left to carry out His will, which is to adhere
to the Constitution of this great nation and see it returned to
prominence.”

“I’d be happy just to survive to see a new
year,” Heinlich muttered. “Did you see the fence at that warehouse
where that pack came from that attacked the kid? They flattened it
like a runaway bulldozer. Doesn’t give me much faith that a larger
force won’t breach our defenses.”

Shavers nodded. “We mustn’t give them a
reason to want to attack our perimeter.”

They both sat quietly for a few moments
contemplating different scenarios.

“Do you think the kid will stay?” Heinlich
asked.

“Where else does he have to go?”

They discussed the squad’s plans for the next
few days before there was another knock on the door and people
started to enter and take seats for the debriefing.

Last to enter were Sarah and Jeremy, who took
seats next to each other at the back of the table. Shavers was
happy to see the teenager taking the young boy under her wing. He
could see that Jeremy was enamored with her by the way he followed
her every movement with puppy-dog eyes. He filed the information
away in the useful box in his mind and then turned to business at
hand while everyone settled in.

“Who’s relieving Carroll and Pickeral on
watch after the meeting?” he asked first of Heinlich.

“Benton and Nantz are up next.”

Shavers nodded and then addressed the
assembly. “Obviously we didn’t get to our objective today. However,
we picked up a couple of new additions, Jeremy and his dog Jumper.
Well worth the trade-off I believe.” There was a smattering of
clapping.

Shavers laid out the plan for the next day. A
food run to the Dogwood Hill Kroger grocery store, two and a half
klicks southeast from where the Armory was located in Gypsy Hill
Park. They would have to traverse through the heart of Staunton
with its scattered bands of crazies that hadn’t yet integrated with
one of the larger swarms. The 29th had eventually expanded their
scavenging efforts as they emptied the shelves of non-perishable
food stores closer to their location that hadn’t yet been overrun
by crazies.