Sever, p.6
Sever, page 6
The rounds stopped as suddenly as they started. “Dammit! Sir, this is Blue Two, they made it out of the tunnel and have already gotten into the company trains.”
“What the hell?” He grabbed the periscope and watched in horror as thousands of zombies poured out of the far left tunnel where Red One and Red Two had collided. Red Three was sitting silent.
“Red Three! Red Three, this is Chaos Six. What happened?”
“This… ee… Radio… own… ammo. Over.”
“Shit. I think their radio’s out,” Mike muttered.
“Sir,” Sergeant Gilstrap’s voice came over his headset. “Sounded like they said they were out of ammo.”
He thought back to his fight a few minutes ago. Had they been firing? He couldn’t remember. Shit. Mike switched his transmit to the battalion frequency. “Wrangler Six, this is Chaos Six. Over.”
A few seconds later, Lieutenant Colonel Espenshade’s voice came over the radio, “This is Wrangler Six, go ahead.”
“Sir, they just got past us through the tunnel. Over.”
“Hell, Michael. You guys didn’t even last four hours.”
“I know what we didn’t do, sir. What are your orders? Over.”
Another pause as he assumed the battalion commander checked the map board in the Battalion Operations Center. “Continue fighting where you are. Kill what you can. Over.”
Mike blanched as he thought about the creatures that were already behind him. “Sir, are you saying to give up the city?”
“Bravo Company was overrun twenty minutes ago, Mike. Their hatches were open when they got hit. They didn’t even survive first contact.”
Bravo had been the farthest north of the battalion’s companies, which meant the zombies were likely swarming into Manhattan now. “Holy shit. Why didn’t you say anything? Over.”
“Wouldn’t have changed your mission. You’ve got to take out as many of those things as you can, Mike. We… The battalion headquarters got whacked too. They were dismounted and those things just swarmed over them. Alpha is holding the Verrazano alright, but… Those things are in the city behind us already. We’re gonna have to abandon New York completely. I’m just waiting on word from the governor to reposition, maybe trap them in the city somehow.”
It was Mike’s turn to pause as he thought over the implications of losing the city. Finally, “This is Chaos Six, acknowledged. We’ll stay buttoned up and kill what we can until we run out of ammo on the guns. Over.”
“That’s all I can ask of you, Chaos—hold on, there’s a call from the governor that I have to take. I’ll call you back.”
Mike switched to the company frequency. “All Chaos elements, this is Chaos Six. Do not open your hatches to reload. Once you expend all of your ammo, that’s it. Open those hatches and everyone on your tank is dead.” He paused to decide what he would tell the company.
“Wrangler Six just told me that Bandit was wiped out and the zombies are already streaming into the city up north. Our orders are to kill what we can, then stand by for our rally point. Keep your hatches closed! Chaos Six out.” He switched frequencies immediately so he wouldn’t have to hear the questions and confusion of the men in the company.
He pressed in the numbers to the infantry commander’s net on his radio keypad. “Marauder Six, this is Chaos Six.”
A moment later the commander came back, “Marauder Six.”
“Zombies coming your way. They got around us. We just got word that they’re already in Manhattan behind us.”
“Well, shit. What do we do then?”
“Recommend that you either move into hardened structures or the safety of your trucks.”
“Not much of a help. Okay, I’ve got it. Thanks for passing along the message.”
Mike acknowledged the man’s comment and wished his men good luck, then switched back to the company frequency. Over the next twenty minutes he watched as one by one the company’s tanks ran out of ammo that was loaded into their weapons. The zombies surged around them on their way deeper into the city; most didn’t even pay attention to the giant metal boxes. “Chaos Nine, this is Six. How you holding up back there?” he asked over the radio.
The first sergeant answered immediately, “We’re holding our own. I’m glad the Guard upgraded us to eleven-fourteens last summer or else this would have been really uncomfortable.”
The company had been issued new up-armored M1114 Humvees the previous June. The M1114 had integrated armor versus the older soft-skinned vehicles that the battalion used to maintain. The doors on their previous vehicles had been made of plastic sheeting stretched tight over a thin metal frame, whatever idiot had thought that a combat vehicle should be designed that way should have been fired. In the early years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, troops welded metal plates to the sides of their trucks in an effort to stop even the smallest of rifle calibers from wounding or killing the vehicles’ occupants. But the older chassis weren’t designed for that much weight; as a result, axles broke, vehicles tipped over during turns and sank deeply into mud. Enter the M1114, a drastically modified vehicle that was capable of performing under the stresses of combat. The only real issue that soldiers had with them was the diminished storage capacity in the hatchback area.
The lightly armored vehicles kept the members of Mike’s company who weren’t inside an Abrams tank alive. “Thank God for small miracles. Top, I think we’re gonna have to reposition somewhere so we can reload our weapons.”
“I was waiting for you to give the order, sir. We should use our tanks to crush the ever-loving shit out of these things,” the old tanker replied.
“Red Two, this is Chaos Six. How are you holding up? Over.”
“We’re fine, sir. Sounds like we’re just sitting tight like everyone else for now. Don’t leave us behind when the company moves.”
“Not a chance in hell, Red Two.”
The commander switched back to the battalion command frequency and tried unsuccessfully to get anyone on the radio. “Shit,” he muttered. Now was not the time to be taking a smoke break at the headquarters.
Mike almost ordered his tanks to begin moving around to crush the creatures, but his thoughts kept returning to how Red One and Two had collided and threw track and he decided against it. The driver’s field of vision when he was buttoned up was only directly to the front, so he relied on the tank commander to tell him everything else. Once the hatch closed, it was like an eighty-year-old man with cataracts trying to tell his blind wife how to drive through rush hour traffic.
He tried for twenty minutes to raise anyone on the command frequency, but was only able to reach Demon Six, the commander of the battalion’s Delta Company. They were holding their own at the Holland Tunnel for now. After another ten, he finally got sick of trying to reach the headquarters and switched the radio from the encrypted frequency-hopping mode that the military used to single channel, plain text; that meant that anyone with an FM radio could potentially hear what he said.
He began to scan through the channels and eventually picked up some chatter. Mike keyed his microphone in excitement, “This is Chaos Six of the New York National Guard. Is anyone out there? Over.”
After a moment, a voice answered. “This is Sergeant Barnes, New Jersey National Guard. Where are you at? Over.”
“My tank company is defending the Lincoln Tunnel leading into New York City from New Jersey. We lost communication with our battalion. Over.”
There was a long pause and then Sergeant Barnes returned, “Sir, are you with the 101st Cavalry? Over.”
“Yeah, roger.”
“We got word that the battalion was wiped out. Satellite imagery shows the zombies streaming in at every bridge and tunnel into the city. We can see your tanks, but the creatures are all around you. Over.”
No shit, he thought. “We’re out of ammo for the machine guns. Can’t reload without exposing ourselves to the zombies, so we’re just sitting tight for right now. Over.”
Another pause answered him and for a moment he thought that he’d lost the radio frequency. But then, “Chaos Six, this is Colonel Shay. The president has federalized the National Guard all along the East Coast. You guys put up a good fight, but New York City and Long Island are lost. Do you have fuel to move? Over.”
“Yeah, we have full tanks… Why do you ask? Over.”
“Look, son, you’re not gonna like this, but you need to move out of the city. The zombies seem intent on taking New York for now, so we’ve been ordered to let them have it before we waste any more lives. The president is considering using the Air Force to blow the bridges and tunnels to trap as many of them as we can. We’re setting up a rally point at Parsippany-Troy Hills in central New Jersey. Then we’re going to set up a line of defense to keep them from moving further west.”
“So we’re just going to leave the people of New York to fend for themselves?”
“Not our call. Everyone has had plenty of time to obey the evacuation orders. If they’re still in the city, that’s on them. We’re going to provide humanitarian supply drops to give any survivors a chance, but we have an entire nation to defend. Once we establish a defense to stop them from infecting the rest of the country, we’ll go back in and clean them out.”
Mike considered the colonel’s words and then replied, “I just talked to the 101st Cavalry’s commander forty minutes ago, sir. He said that they were holding the bridge from Staten Island and our Delta Company had the Holland Tunnel secured. Has something changed? Over,” Mike asked.
“It’s over. They bypassed the bridge and tunnel. Like Sergeant Barnes said, we have satellite imagery that shows the zombies made it into the city. Damn things started swimming across the river. If your commander is still alive, he isn’t talking on the radio anymore.”
Mike glanced over at Sergeant Gilstrap. The gunner listened intently to the conversation, but his eyes betrayed the feelings trapped inside. Chaos Six sighed and pushed the transmit button on the radio, “Yeah, roger. I’ll relay the orders to our Delta Company down at the Holland Tunnel and give them the order to move also. Over.”
“We’ll gladly add your tanks to the mix, Chaos. I’m sorry that it’s come to this.”
“Me too, sir,” Mike answered truthfully. He really was sorry to see the city fall. When they’d left Hoosick Falls two days ago, he’d honestly thought that they could hold out against the zombies at the tunnels and bridges. The battalion had some of the most modern equipment available in the world, how had they been overrun so quickly? It was just a bunch of brainless creatures that walked directly into the line of fire. How the hell had it come to this?
“Sir… Do we know how far they’ve advanced into the city? Over.”
“Looks like the ones that are leaving the Lincoln Tunnel are meeting up with the ones from up north in midtown Manhattan. They’ve also begun to move east into the Bronx and Brooklyn in the south. There’s nothing that we can do at this point to save New York.”
“Roger, sir. We’ll start moving as soon as we can.”
“Sounds good, Chaos. I’ll see you soon. Out.”
Mike looked at his gunner once again. “Can you believe this shit?” he said. “We’re giving up the city.”
“It’s fucked up, sir. Want me to call the company and relay your orders?”
Mike tapped the tips of his fingers hard against his knee. “Yeah, let’s get the first sergeant up to secure the personnel in Red Two. Tell everyone else to be ready to move in ten minutes. I’ll call Delta Company and Marauder to relay the rally point to them.”
While he worked the radio he typed the location into his Blue Force Tracker computer system. It brought up a map and overlay a straight line from his current location to Parsippany-Troy Hills. He passed along the details to the tankers and infantrymen while he used the computer’s stylus to drag the route to the most obvious roads. Once the route was charted, he could send that to everyone in the company and they could each navigate to the rally point individually if they got separated.
“Hey, sir,” Sergeant Gilstrap interrupted his planning. “The first sergeant is moving now. He’s going to back the FMTV up beside their tank and they’re gonna get in the back. He’ll reposition the truck and allow them to move from the back into one of the 1114s.”
Mike thought for a moment. The FMTV—Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles—was a 5-ton cargo truck and the bed of the truck sat around four-feet off the ground, so it should be high enough to keep the men safe until they could make the switch to the Humvee.
“Good plan,” Mike muttered. He’d known the first sergeant long enough to know that once the man came up with a plan, he would execute it and virtually nothing that the commander said would change his mind. The old tanker had always had a plethora of tricks up his sleeve in the past. As far as Mike could tell his plan was the best option available for the trapped crew. The commander chose to keep his mouth shut and leaned forward to his periscope so he could observe the rescue.
It went off without a hitch. The first sergeant popped up from the cab of the truck into the gunner’s ring mount and killed the creatures on top of the tank with his rifle. Over the company radio frequency, he ordered the four men from the disabled vehicle to get into the back of the truck. All the hatches opened and the crew scrambled to the relative safety of the FMTV. Then, once they were secure, the truck pushed its way through the pressing horde toward the line of up-armored Humvees.
After the men from Red Two had transferred from the bed of the truck into the Humvees, the first sergeant called Mike on the radio. “Chaos Six, this is Nine. We’re ready to go when you give the word.”
“Good job, Top. Guidons, this is Chaos Six. Let me know when you’re ready to go,” Mike said into the radio. “Guidons” was the term used when he wanted all leadership elements within the company to pay attention to the radio; it was easier than calling them each individually.
Within minutes everyone had answered and Mike gave the order of march to the rally point that the colonel had given him. It would be Blue Platoon, followed by the Commander, then the two remaining tanks from Red Platoon, followed by the XO’s tank and Headquarters Platoon in their trucks and Humvees, the trail element would be White Platoon.
It was about forty miles to Parsippany. The company’s tanks had almost-full fuel tanks and could easily range the rally point. The big Abrams had a 490-gallon fuel tank with a range of 256 miles, which broke down to about a half mile per gallon. The engines could run on just about any kind of fuel in a pinch. They could accept normal unleaded gas, diesel and even high-octane jet fuel. All of those options had helped tankers in the past as they became separated from logistics supply lines so the company had the ability to keep going as long as they could find any type of fuel.
To get to Parsippany, they’d take the 495 through the tunnel, link up with New Jersey Route 3 to US 46 and then hit I-80, taking that all the way to where the colonel had told them to go. There were more direct routes, but the highways would allow for maximum maneuverability when the column was up to speed.
Out of the three tunnels, Mike chose to send the entire company through the center instead of dividing and meeting on the other side. It was about a mile and a half through the Lincoln Tunnel until they reached the New Jersey side. He was worried about vehicles down inside that they’d be forced to drive over because of the lack of space; not a big deal for the tanks and the recovery vehicles because they’d just crush them, but the Humvees and FMTVs could possibly have a hard time going over the scrapped metal. That’s all he needed was for one of his vehicles to pop a tire or even potentially tip over due to the imbalance.
“Move out,” Chaos Six ordered over the radio and watched as the first tank of Blue Platoon entered the tunnel. Zombies continued to pour out of the mouth of the opening and the vehicle crushed several as it began its descent into the tunnel. One by one the tanks disappeared until it was his turn to go and Specialist Greeley depressed the throttle to propel the metal monster forward.
It was slow going as the front of the tank dipped downwards while they descended. Luckily—or unluckily, depending on how you viewed it—the power in the tunnel was still on. The overhead lights allowed for a view of the mass of creatures slowly making their way toward the city. The tanks swam through a flowing river of former humanity. When one vehicle crushed the creatures and made its way past an area, the hole would close up immediately with more zombies, who would then be destroyed by the next tank.
The vehicle’s desert tan paint quickly stained with the muddy brown color that resulted when blood mixed with feces, brain matter, intestines and the contents of whatever had been in the creature’s stomachs when they died. Body parts were severed from their owners and pulverized under the 70-ton vehicles. The sheer amount of gore covering the vehicles was appalling.
While the smells from outside were kept at bay by the tank’s air filtration system, before long the smell of vomit from inside his tank made Mike’s own bile rise to his throat. The things outside didn’t care that some of them were there one minute and gone the next. They didn’t have friends or the responsibility of leadership like Mike did. How were humans supposed to fight against an unfeeling, uncaring enemy? Mike prayed that everyone in the company had taken his advice to get their families out of New York as he’d done, otherwise there would be a problem after they arrived at the rally point.
Mike chose to combat his own doubts by talking to the men of the company on the radio. He reminded them that they were the only hope for the rest of America and that the only way out of the tunnel was through it. If they stopped, their friends and fellow soldiers would be trapped and then they couldn’t help the rest of the country against these things.
Finally, after an agonizingly long time, Chaos Six emerged from the tunnel into Weehawken, New Jersey. The city looked like the war zone that it had become. Thousands—maybe even millions—of the creatures marched steadily forward toward either the Lincoln Tunnel or further north toward other ways into the city. Mike longed to use the weapons of the war machine that he rode in, but to exit the vehicle to load the machine guns at this point would be suicide. Once they got farther away from the city, presumably there’d be fewer zombies. Mike would stop the column and order the company to load their weapons so they could kill while on the move.
