She looked down at Ahmed’s peaceful features, all the color drained away from the massive internal bleeding. She made a pillow out of her hoodie and set his head down on it, then leaned down to kiss his forehead, a strand of her red hair brushing across his still face, tears mixing with the blood.
“Morano is out there, probably still with some of her goons, and maybe some Z’s. I wrecked her transportation, so they aren’t going anywhere.” I listened, but the explosions outside had stopped. “Air support is done. We need to get the team together and go after her.”
Doc stood and then lifted Ahmed’s body. “I’ll take care of him. I’m still no good in a fight anyway, with my hands like this. I know what to do with his body.” Even more so than I had, Doc had spent a ton of time in Afghanistan as Special Forces medic, and had fought and lived with the same kind of people Ahmed’s tribe had been. He knew their ways, and I could trust him to show the proper respect. Even more than that, Ahmed had been, with Doc and Jonesy, our original teammate, and it was an obligation he willingly took on.
I took Brits’ hand and led her down the stairs. Halfway down, I had to stop and retighten my leg. As I sat down on the stair and worked the straps, Brit sat down with me. Her tears had stopped, and she put her arm around me.
“Nick, I can’t go out with you. I’ll stay here with Doc.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not risking it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was going to tell you after the guys had left, but I want you to know now. I’m pregnant.”
I sat there on the stairs, looking at her. Outside, zombies were howling. Blood was leaking down the stairs, one of my best friends’ lifeblood. He lay dead upstairs. Outside, corpses were strewn around our farm. I could hear Ziv and the others coming back into the kitchen. There were hundreds of bullet holes in the house. An evil psychopath was somewhere out in the woods, possibly with heavily armed troops, and corpses animated by a genetically engineered parasite were crawling around. Brit was pregnant. This was the only thing tonight that had thrown me for a loop.
“How?” Well, that was a stupid question. We had talked about it, and I wanted a family, but she had been scared of being pregnant so far away from real medical care. I had told her that it would be up to her.
“Probably when you bent me over the couch a few weeks ago.” She laughed, and then started crying again.
“Oh.” OK, I felt like an idiot. “Britanny Karen O’Neil” I whispered to her, “thank you.” She squeezed my hand, and I got up off the stairs. She sat there, looking at me, the blue in her eyes rimmed with red from crying.
“I, I just wanted you to know. In case you didn’t come back.”
“I’ll try my best, beautiful girl.”
“Go get her, Nick.”
Chapter 30
The sky was growing light in the east as we started across drawbridge. We had built it earlier in the year to reach the catwalk across the canal doors, which we had cut away halfway across. Ziv led point, and after we had crossed, Brit and Doc cranked the wooden plankway up. As we passed over the canal, Red shot at several zombies that had fallen into the water.
I missed Ahmed. I had been on countless missions with him, and it was hard to believe he was gone. I put it aside, deep down. I would think about it tomorrow, or later today when we buried him. For now, mission first.
We crossed the Hoosick River by wading through a crossing I knew of. Ahead of us the field of corn that I laboriously planted was torn to pieces by 40 millimeter cannon fire. Small green shoots were scattered around and craters were all over the field, mixed in with body parts from the zombies. Further on, in the next field, a clump of bodies lay around a crater from a 105mm howitzer shell. Those would be the merc squad that had been firing on the house.
“Spread out, and shoot any of them that look alive. Watch out for unexploded ordinance.” Ziv turned and walked backward for a second, and the light had gotten strong enough that I could see the grin on his face.
“We will be making a soldier out of you yet, Nick.” He turned just in time to step over one a rock wall bordering the field, and continued patrolling forward toward the tree line. Red laughed as he passed me, since I had stopped to give Ziv’s back the finger.
Hart walked next to me for a bit.
“So, what’s the deal, Nick? Does this crazy psychopath have some kind of personal beef with you guys?”
I nodded. “Yeah, we’ve run into her several times. Know that eye patch Brit wears?”
“Yeah. Did she give that to her?”
“”Yep, back in Seattle. She also killed one of our teammates, Specialist Mya, with some bullshit neurotoxin “cure”. That and Ziv mixed it up with one of her bodyguards too.”
“Bodyguards?”
“Yeah, she goes everywhere with two guys who were Army Special Forces, Delta, back before the plague. I’m pretty sure they’ve gone rouge. Every now and then an occasional asshole slips through selection.”
Ziv had reached the cluster of bodies in the field, and he flipped one over, then started kicking the body as hard as he could. A groan escaped from the prone figure. Red rushed up and took a knee, his back to Ziv, rifle at the ready, scanning for targets.
“I think Ziv found one of them.” As I watched, he knelt down and made a quick cut across the guys’ throat. His boots drummed for a second in the dirt, then fell still. Ziv spit on him.
“He doesn’t screw around, does he?” said Hart.
From behind us came a “Nope. He’s my hero.” Donnie the Butcher laughed that weird laugh of his, and Jim smacked him in the back of the head.
“Shut the F up, you weirdo, and watch your sector. And DON’T touch those zombie corpses.”
“But Jim, they might have jewelry, and like, gold teeth.”
“I will butt stroke you. In the teeth.” Jim carried an M-14 with a wooden stock, and he knew how to use it. Donnie grumbled but kept walking in a straight line. We moved toward the tree line, and a fog seemed to follow us across the field, rising from the river.
“Keep it tight. I’m pretty sure I hit the other bodyguard, but I could be wrong. Might have hit him square on the ceramic. Noise discipline from here on out. Jim you, Donny and Red circle around and try to cut them off. Assume that neither is wounded, but I doubt she can move through the woods like we can. He’s gotta be hurt, any which way I hit him. Even if I hit his strike plate, he’s gotta have some busted ribs. Make SURE you ID your targets, no friendly fire. Say it back.”
Ziv repeated it back to me, and the three of them set out at a fast airborne shuffle around to the Northeast, through the woods. They would parallel the road until they got to the next field, then keep a line of sight down the opposite side of the woods. The anvil to our hammer.
Red, Hart and I moved through the woods, making noise as we went. We would hopefully drive them out towards Ziv and the rest of the guys. I wanted them alive.
We had only gone a few dozen meters into the woods when a shot punctured the morning stillness. All three of us rushed forward, in single man overwatch, rushing from tree to tree, till we broke out of the thin belt of trees.
Ziv and the others were approaching from the North, and in front of us two figures knelt on the ground, half hidden by the scrub growth that had grown up over the last two years. We met the others and together approached them.
“Hart, cuff the Doctor. Be careful, she might stick you with something. Ziv, what do you want to do with the bodyguard?”
“I will do it the old way, the way Ahmed would have wanted.
Chapter 31
Morano looked daggers at Hart, and Hart punched her across the face, knocking her down. Red covered her with his rifle, and Hart knelt on Morano’s back, wrenching her arms behind her, not gently, and cuffing her with a zippy tie.