Looking out across the field Bill saw another group of zombies coming towards them. They had not seen any people for at least an hour now, these were zombies. “Ruben. Here they come, this is a big group.”
“Yeah sarge, it is. What do you want us to do?” Ruben said back.
Bill stopped for a moment, “You love this, don't you?”
“What?”
“Being here, doing this?”
“No sergeant I do not like the zombies.”
“That wasn't what I was talking about. You love being here doing this stuff. Responding to an emergency, even though you are what? Eighty?”
Ruben stiffened, “I am seventy one, Sergeant. Not a year older. And I was retired for eight years and about bored to death of it. Now I am doing something useful again and people depend on me and if you don't mind my saying we better do something because this group here does not look small enough for us to handle on our own.” he said, pointing with his left hand.
“Oh hell.” Bill looked again to make sure he was seeing things right, the far edge of the field had become an undulating wave of undead. “Send someone to tell Williams we have to pull back. Someone fast.”
“John?”
Bill wanted to say 'no', then shook his head to clear that thought, Ruben took that to mean not to send John and said, “Maybe Jerome then?”
“No, no that was to myself, send John, he is probably the fastest one here. Tell him to tell Williams we are going to be up to our eyeballs in bodies in fifteen minutes and they might not make it over the bridge if they wait longer than that.”
“Okay I will send him off and have Kirk buddy up with Larry and Vic.” Ruben ran to the north end of the line where John was and gave the young man the news. Normal soldiers had radios to speak with each other, the national guard also had decent equipment, but Max and the other squads like his had to make due with one radio per ten men and the radio was a bulky, ancient piece of equipment that was mostly battery. It did have a global positioning device on it, so the Lieutenant could find them if he needed to plot artillery. Williams squad had been issued a radio, but it had only lasted for a day before the battery gave out. Once Ruben spoke to him, John nodded and melted quickly into the night, running off to where the sounds of gunfire were coming from in the north. Each of the ten men in the squad, Bill included, had a designated 'buddy' whom they were not to leave for anything. You stayed with your buddy unless ordered to separate, the idea was that two men would not spook as easily as one. Bill's buddy was Ruben and the two of them violated the 'always stick with your buddy' rule constantly.
“Alright men, we know what to do, if they get too close we are backing up to the next line of defense.” Bill bellowed out. He had used the slow pace of the fighting this afternoon to prepare two lines to fall back on towards the bridge as the Lieutenant had directed him to do. “Jerome! Get the lieutenant on the line and tell him we need reinforcements there are too many zeds over here. Fire at will everyone.”
The gunfire bellowed into the night, knocking down zombie after zombie. Bill was certain they could handle this mob, they didn't fight back with guns of their own and they were slow moving targets. The problems that developed were all too human in nature. Jerome, nominally the radio operator, and his 'buddy' Dan's rifles both jammed at the same time. Bill was close to them so he told them to fix the guns while he provided covering fire. Jerome's was a simple matter of a shell getting stuck in the ejection mechanism, it was jammed in, but the man had a screw driver handy and shrugged off his pack to pull it out and fix his gun. Dan's rifle was another story, the man was cursing it and trying to pull the clip out to see if he could clear it, but the clip was stuck too. Bill risked a glance at what the man was doing and said, “Leave it, look at the barrel.”
Dan glanced at it and saw the bulge that had not been there before, along with a tear I the metal, “What the fuck? How'd that happen?”
“No idea, toss that piece of shit and get a club.”
“You serious?”
“Just do it!” Bill fired into the oncoming crowd again, noticing that some of the zombies were starting to go around the edges of his position, “Fall back! Fall back now!”
Ruben echoed his cry and the men quickly left their firing positions to retreat to the next in line, which were about forty yards further back and more compact around the rail road line. The elevation and trees cleared from the edges of the tracks gave them an even better firing position than before. Once they arrived Bill looked back and saw that the field was completely filled with the shambling dead, on one side he saw three faster moving people. “Over here!” he yelled, trying to get the human's attention, “Come this way! Men provide covering fire for those humans coming in!” leading by example he cut down some of the zombies between him and the humans out near the edge of the zombie mob.
“Sarge!” Ruben was by his side, “Sarge!”
“What Ruben? What?”
“Why aren't the zeds attacking those three?”
“Maybe they don't see them.” Bill said, but even he knew how lame the words were as soon as they came out of his mouth. “Okay I get it, watch them. Jerome? You got that rifle working yet?”
“Yeah.”
“Good give it to Dan and get on the radio to Jenkins, tell him we fell back to the secondary position and….What?” Bill stopped seeing Jerome shaking and turning pale.
“I…”
“What?”
“He doesn't have the radio.” said Ruben.
“What?”
“I didn't mean…I just…I was getting the rifle unjammed and you said to fall back and I fell back and I forgot it.” the man said. looking miserable.
“Shit.”
“Not to worry sarge, I'll get it.” and before Bill could say a thing Ruben was running down the tracks back the way they had come from.
“Jerome! Cover Ruben!” Bill ordered, then he started firing at any zombies he could see coming towards the old coot as he ran back to their last position. “Matt, Javier, that is Ruben out there, give him some supporting fire!” Bill turned back to keep an eye on the trio of presumed humans that had been on the southern end of the mob, but he could not spot them anywhere.
Ruben's rifle fired from down along the edge of the field where they had been, they saw the flashes of the shots as well as heard the retort of his rifle. The slow moving zombies had to have passed the area they had first held by now, Bill thought, holding his breath as more gunfire rang out.
'God and country. God and country.' Ruben thought as he swerved over to the tree line from the railroad embankment. 'Why am I out here running like an old fool?' Bullets whizzed by him close enough to catch, were he so inclined, and he pushed through the first, faster zombies as he made his way back to the position where Jerome had left the pack. There, the backpack with the radio unit was on the ground at edge of the barbed wire fence. Several zombies had already tumbled over the fence pushed from behind by the others. Ruben held off on taking a shot until he was at point blank range then he fired one shot at a time, making each one count. He had just moved out of sight from his squad, they could not provide him with covering fire unless they moved up, which 'Sergeant Bill' wouldn't do, he was a good man, but green as the summer grass in the ways of tactics. Even calling him a 'Sergeant' was a stretch for a man like Ruben who had fought the Viet Cong in the jungles of south east Asia for two tours of duty. A real sergeant would have eaten Bill for breakfast and gone back for seconds and thirds. The way these kids were coddled today, standing around with their hands out waiting for money to go buy their video games and drugs! They were learning better now, weren't they? Ruben ducked under the slow swing of a zombie and came up to the tree where the backpack lay, he snatched it up and fired his gun one handed at the closest zombie while another got a grip on his shoulder and started to pull the old man towards his gaping maw. The zombies he was fighting were a horrifying array of shapes and sizes. Being an old Swede himself Ruben didn't pay much attention to color, but fat zombies and naked zombies stood out.