"Infamy" Story: Complete Story

[Faust]

This is a work of fiction I have written on the popular mystery behind the Zombies video game mixed with classic story telling. Enjoy!

Infamy

Prologue

As my crew pushes deeper into the forest, the woods thicken. As we cross a frozen brook the wind shifts. As we pass a large oak tree I know that my crew and I are plunging deeper into the heart of darkness.

The trees begin to speak an old tale of good and evil, and the bullfrogs fill the darkness with a symphony of sorrow. I feel the open air wash over me as I enter a field light by moonlight. My crew scurries by behind me, crackling sticks and kicking up pebbles. I tell them to wait as I enter the structure in front of me, a large concrete bunker.

As I enter memories flood me. Not my memories, but memories left behind. I pause to take them all in. Lovely. I walk casually down the hall, tracing bullet holes in the wall with my finger. I find a room, and within it… Nothing. The walls where stripped bare. My heart fills with sorrow. I scurry into the night to tell the crew we failed only to find the crew huddled around an old B-17. One man takes motion videos as the others collect samples, document their find, and climb onto it. It laid there like a sleeping giant.

Emotions well up inside me and I drop to my knees in tears. Could this be what I was searching for all these years? Was this the first clue to a mystery left unsolved?

Chapter 1

A Boeing B-17 flying fortress soared above the clouds. The only thing Captain Wesley could hear over the engines was his co-pilot’s blabbering about how routine their mission was. Since the end of WWII the allies had stretched the map looking for scattered axis resistance. Every once in a while a militia of Nazis or Imperials would turn up in Russia and China, but they would stand no chance. The allies would find them a bomb um’ to whatever pit they crawled out off. While the Soviets where celebrating it Berlin streets, Seelow Heights and Indo-China was under constant bombardment from allies.

This was one of the missions Captain Wesley, Corporal Oxford, the co-pilot Doyel, and the rest of the men of the B-17 “Wild Wessel” where assigned to. To bomb a small post-WWI bunker that could house rebels outside the Polish city of Brathslo. The last “normal” mission they would ever go on.

Wesley looked hard long and hard at his team. You had never seen a more rag-tag group of marines and airmen. He stepped back from his left gunner position and took a huge swig of scotch from his canteen. Hell if they did anything right. But like Doyel said, it was a routine mission. They’d be done, in meet-up with the 4th, and back to the states in no time. He walked through the cabin to the benches used to seat airborne.

“Wake me when we make contact,” Wesley said to Oxford as he laid upon the wooden bench. It wasn’t a bed, but it worked. The plane jerked to the right and threw Wesley off his bench.

“What the hell was that,” he called to Oxford.

“Slight turbulence sir,” He replied, “but we’re at our destination anyway.”

“Turbulence? Destination? We should still have another hour before we reach the drop zone.”

“Yes sir, but you dozed off.”

“Quiet fast I might add,” joined in the pilot.

Wesley stepped off the bench and walked to the nearest window. It wasn’t possible. When he fell asleep it was bright as day, they had a good wind pattern, and weather conditions were clear. Now, it was pitch black (I assume it was around mid-night), there was no wind, and a dark fog covered the Earth and enveloped the sky. It was a scene out of a horror film. Well, just short of the monsters.

“No way,” he called, “It was only 3pm when I fell asleep.”

“We got lost in the fog. It… wasn’t suppose to be hear.”

The plane gave another shake, this time more violent.

“That can’t be good.”

The tail gunner joined in on the conversation. “I think I see shadows on the ground. Think they’re Nazis?”

Wesley took a look down from his gunner position. There was currently something on the ground. Through the mist he could see human-like figures limping and shuffling; marching on. Defiantly Nazis.

“Uoh,” called Doyel.

“Uoh?” called the top gunner, “What uoh?”

“Gages are hitting’ red. Can’t… hold… her.”

Doyel was struggling to hold to fortress steady as it began to shake even more violently.

“What’s going on?” called the pilot.

“We’re losing altitude! I can’t hold her or I’ll break both my arms!”

“Can we drop the bombs?”

“No way! We’d be dropping them at some 50 feet!”

“We have to hit the target! Now!”

It was no good. The bombs released but only just on the bunker the plane stalled as it lost the extra weight it was about to recover but the pilot misjudged the altitude and smashed the right wing into the ground and sent the B-17 into a vertical cartwheel. The pilot spun the wheel in an attempt to correct it, sending it into a horizontal spin. Wesley was thrown from the bomber, only to land on the ground and see the bomber crash a few feet in front of him. The plain lay still and the last thing Wesley remembered was the pain through his body and dark hideous cadavers flashing through his mind. Wesley awoke hours later to the sight of Corporal Oxford looming above him in a raincoat soaked with a black viscous liquid. At first he seemed dazed, and then Wesley ask one plain question:

“Have we crashed?”

Oxford gave him a rather grim look. “I fear that something far worse has happened.”

Chapter 2

Oxford gave him a hand in lifting himself off the ground. Wesley found he was in some sort of a bunker in a clearing in the woods. The roof was heavily damaged, perhaps by the plains own bomb, for most off it was blown off, safe for scattered pylons of reinforced concrete. It bunker itself may have been the vary bunker the where instructed to destroy. Mission successful I guess. The next thing he noticed was Oxford himself. His uniform, face, and any other exposed part of his body was soaked in blood.

Wesley then looked around the room. Piles of ruble covered the corners, overturned chairs covered the floor, and sand bags lay across the room. Every window was boarded up and every door was barricaded.

“What happened here?”

“What didn’t?” replied the tail gunner as he trudged down a nearby staircase.

“Hay,” replied Oxford, “Be nice. The Captain was out cold wail it happened.”

“What happened?”

His question was ignored.

“Ya,” the Gunner said back to Oxford. “And we had to crawl out of the burning pile of ruble formally know as our plane to pull buttercup here’s boots out of there!”

“Buttercup?” bumped in Wesley. “Look, I may have been out for a few hours, but I’m still your commanding officer! Now we need to review what happened get a head count-“

“Ph,” mocked the Gunner.

“Ph?”

“Only people left are you, me, Oxford and… um.”

“Who?”

“He’s a bit shaken. He…”

“Who?”

“He’s… up the stairs. You should see yourself.”

The Gunner beckoned Wesley to the stair case that led up the stairs. He climbed over overturned chairs and a sofa to the 2nd floor. As he walked up there was writing to the end of the case reading “You must ascend from darkness”.

“What the hell does that mean?” asked Wesley.

“No idea. It was in here when we jumped in the building to run from those things. Everything was boarded up and barricaded before we came too. You saw those things that attacked us right?”

“Only just. I remember… visions. Cadavers. Death. Destruction. Like the world itself had frozen over and burst into flames.”

The Gunner gave Wesley a funny look. “Well, I don’t remember that, but I do remember that there were a lot of them. They looked human, only with glowing yellow eyes, a hellish scream, and a lust for human flesh.”

“Human flesh?”

“After the plane crash they seemed more preoccupied in the other 6 men aboard that died. We fled, and out of the corner of our eye, we saw them feed.” When they finally reached the 2nd floor the Gunner picked up a chair and sat in it backwards facing a window leading into the fog. “Wasn’t pretty.”

“What are they?” asked Wesley.

“Well,” replied the Gunner making a buzzing noise with his lips, “I reckon’ no ones ever seen on of these things before, but we’re thinking of sticking with the term-”

“Zombies,” Doyel cut in from the corner, “They were zombies.”

Chapter 3

“Excuse me?” Wesley asked Doyel.

“Zombies,” said the Gunner, “Doyel here’s calling those things zombies. I think it’s a word ‘e made up or something. He’s a bit shaken since the crash. And he’s our 4th man.”

Wesley took a close look at Doyel. He was dressed in his US Army Air Corps. Leather jacket and cap it was slightly burn from the crash and ruffled as if he had been forcefully ripped from his chair. He was no more than 20, with long moppy hair that covered his eyes. He looked drunk and held a bottle of brandy that was given to him by Oxford to calm him down. Wesley ripped the bottle from his hand and confronted him.

“Christ, boy, you not even old enough to drink! And if you where, screw brandy and have some scotch!”

“Sorry Captain,” Doyel said in a whimper, “I was just thirsty.”

He began to weep. Wesley rolled his eyes. Great, he though, now I have to deal with an under-age drunk heart. He’d have to talk to Oxford about this later.

Doyel repeated himself, “I was just thirsty.”

“Yes, yes, you where thirsty,” said Wesley, “Now, what did you call those things?”

“Zombies,” he said, “I read about them in one of my science-fiction books. They’re the living dead. Dead people brought back to life by a virus or evil spirit. They eat people, and if you’re bit, oh God, if you’re bit… you’ll become a zombie! And I’d have to kill you! And-”

“That’s an outrageous piece of science-fiction.”

“NO! IT WAS REAL!”

Oxford crawled up the stairs and pulled Wesley away from Doyel. The Gunner walked back down the stairs with them.

“Told you he was shaken,” said the Gunner.

“Hey! Don’t say anything to him,” yelled Oxford, “Not after what he’s been through. Not after that.”

“That crap about the ‘zombies’ thing wasn’t true was it?”

“As far as we could tell. Seemed to match what we saw.”

Wesley made a mental note. “Right,” he said, “We’re fighting monsters, and don’t get bit or your dead.”

“AAAAAAAGHHHH!”

A painful scream cried out from the 2nd floor.

“What the hell was that?” asked Wesley.

“Sounded like Doyel,” said Oxford.

“Oh no,” said the Gunner. “I think we got company.”

Chapter 4

The Gunner picked up a Thompson SMG that he had slung over his shoulder and threw it over to Oxford.

“Where’d you get that?” asked Wesley.

“The plane,” relied the Gunner.

“Can I have one?”

“Sure.”

The Gunner ducked under a chair and pulled out a BAR. “Will this do?”

The Gunner, Oxford, and Wesley loaded their weapons and ran to separate windows the down the stairs had 5 different windows. Two swung around back and curved over, two covered the main door and parking lot with a truck and a few barrels with a wooden fence enclosing the outdoors, and one looked out into a foggy field. A crazed Doyel ran down the stairs with his pistol drawn.

“They’re coming! I saw them! Yellow eyes in the fog!”

“Ya, that’s great Doyel,” the Gunner said sarcastically as he picked up a Thompson and ran to the windows over by the garage, “Now go cover the stairs and let us do our work.”

Doyel nodded and ran up the stairs.

“So…” asked Wesley with his back to Oxford in the two back rooms. “What do we shot at?”

“Yellow eyes.”

Wesley wondered what all this talk about “yellow eyes” was. Then he saw it. At first I was a dark humanoid shadow in the fog then it materialized into a man that lumbered slowly over to the window. Then that was the first time Wesley saw the “yellow eyes” he was talking about. The figure he saw had dark-grey skin. Wore a tethered Nazi uniform from when it may have died. It had large bullet holes in its front and seemed total unaware of its surroundings. And it’s eyes. They where sunken into its skull and glowed yellow in the night as a lamp lights a room. It was disgusting.

“Halt!” called Wesley. The creature was total unaware Wesley’s commands and refused to halt. When it reached the window Wesley had it at gun point. It’s gross, swollen hands reached for the planks and ripped on out of the wall. Wesley was so alarmed that he fired upon it and it’s head shattered, with the body still reaching for more planks. Wesley screamed and jumped back into Oxford’s line of fire.

“Whoa! What are you doing!?” shouted Oxford.

Wesley pointed at the headless zombie ripping at the boards.

“Ewwwwwww,” Oxford gurgled seeing the zombie at the window.

After about three boards the zombie’s body fell to the ground dead. Wesley walked over to the dead body and shot it once with his BAR.

“Ain’t that a waist of ammo?” asked Oxford.

“Sure it is,” replied a calmed-down Wesley, “But… best to make sure it’s dead.”

Oxford nodded his head in agreement. He stared out into the mist. It couldn’t be. Twelve yellow eyes on the horizon. Well, he thought to himself, now the real fun starts. He pulled back the camber on his BAR to make sure the next round was chambered. He wouldn’t be afraid of these things. He wouldn’t fire until they where at the window, so that he didn’t miss a single shot.

The Gunner scanned the garage area with his Thompson in hand. Outside the wall he couldn’t see anything. Suddenly an arm burst through the wooden gate. Must have gotten board with the meal we left them back at plane, he thought to himself. After one zombie broke through the gate four others climbed over the gate. They stared at the Gunner, paused to moan as if to telling him to be afraid, and lumbered over to him varying to speeds from a painfully slow limp to an outright dash. Once all the zombies were at his window, he considered firing on them. He set down his Thompson and pulled out a knife he had in his holster, which he would have normally used to cut ammo belts for his 30 cal. in case it got jammed. The Gunner figured that head better save ammo for emergency situations. One zombie reached for a plank to rip out of the wall, only to have the Gunner stab it in it’s hand a rear back in pain. Another zombie reached forward, but the Gunner stopped it in its tacks by slicing its throat. Black, vicious blood poured immediately from it’s neck and down the Gunner’s hand. It was cold, chunky, and dried almost immediately. The Gunner pulled back, wiping the blood onto his shirt.

“Gross,” he said to himself. Another zombie ripped out another barrier and screamed at the Gunner. “Man,” he said, “What’s wrong with you guys?”

Oxford held his post at the back window. At this point there were 13 zombies in his line of fire. He was killing zombies at a fast and steady pace. 1, 2, 3 zombies fell dead with multiple bullet holes in it’s front and back from Oxford’s Thompson.

“This is too easy,” he shouted to the Gunner and Wesley.

“Speak for yourself,” called Gunner as he decapitated a zombie with his knife. Black liquid covered the front of half of his USMC uniform.

“Ya,” said Wesley, “Just anther few hours of this…,” he cut himself off to hit a group of zombies with his BAR, “Then the sun will rise. Then I’ll wake up and this hell will be over. Hah?”

The zombie attack shook Wesley for a few minutes, but unlike Doyel, he was quickly desensitized to it. He’d already had his fair share of gore and quickly got used to it. Doyel on the other hand- wait. Doyel! Where’d he-?

“AGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!”

Chapter 5

“No, no, no, no, no!” Wesley said to himself as he ran up the stairs to Doyel’s aid when he ran up he found that a few zombies had found a few open windows and had crawled through them. Doyel was nowhere in sight. Wesley looked around the room to his left was a large balcony that allowed him to see out into the field. More and more zombies where running out of the forest and towards the bunker. He looked ahead as ten zombies funneled through a door and towards him. Wesley lifted up his BAR and pulled the trigger. A cold lump hit Wesley’s stomach as his fire was met with a loose click.

“Damn! Out of ammo!” shouted Wesley.

As Wesley gave his last words Oxford and the Gunner ran up the stairs and gunned down the zombies. That gave Wesley enough time to reach for his sidearm, his .357 Magnum pistol.

“Plans gone to crap!” yelled Oxford, “We couldn’t cover all the windows and now they’re inside.” The three soldiers turned and faced the stairs as they crept back further into the 2nd floor. Zombies funneled in as the three Marines fired upon them. Wesley risk a moment to look at his feet. The floor was covered with brass shells from bullets fired. There was another click. Oxford threw down his empty Thompson and pulled out an M1A1 carbine. It was a losing battle. The Marines had there backs against he wall and were quickly running out of ammo. When it came time to reload a zombie grabbed Oxford and threatened to pull him into the crowd. Gunner used his knife to sever the zombie’s arm, but the blade was getting dull fast. Oxford looked around for a good weapon. Something, anything would do! Under a pile of rubble, he found a tattered cloth bag. He lifted it up and looked at its contance

“Hey!” he said to the other two, passing them each grenades from the bag, “Use these!”

Both Wesley and the Gunner pulled the cord on there grenades and threw them at the zombies they hit them on the heads and fell to the floor. Five seconds later, a single unified BOOM shook the building. When the dust cleared, Wesley and the team look for the survivors. What they saw was disgusting, living upper halves of the creatures, trailing their damaged legs behind them in a sort of army crawl. This confused Wesley.

“Should… we kill them?” he asked.

“Na,” Oxford joked, “Let them crawl in the corner and gnaw on their legs.”

“Very funny,”

Wesley walked over to the slow moving crawler and pressed his gun to its head. He pulled the trigger and a gooey puss splattered onto his shirt. As if Wesley had given some sort of order, Oxford and the Gunner opened fire on the crawlers. Everyone took their time to reload, including Wesley’s BAR and the jogged down the stairs.

“I think that was the last of them,” said Wesley to his men, “Now, we need to set up a position, rebuild those barriers (I think we know why they put those up now), and locate Doyel coward must have ran off.”

Wesley raised his cantina to get a drink, but before anyone could say anything a zombie charged from down the stairs and tackled Wesley. It pinned Wesley to the wall, the Gunner and Oxford being too stunned to help their friend. The zombie raised its mighty hand and was about to bare-down on Wesley, before Doyel ran down the stairs with a MG42 in full fire at the zombie.

“Get your hands off him you piece of shit!”

Doyel unloaded every round in his ammo belt into the zombie until it was just a splatter on the wall. Wesley stood dazed at what just happened.

“Sorry I couldn’t come sooner,” Doyel apologized, “But I found something you might want to take a look at.”

Chapter 6

May 27, 1945;

1:30 am

Berlin, Germany

Nikolai set down his bottle of vodka. He looked around the room of the pub. His fellow soldiers were celebrating their victory over the third Reich. They had been for a month now.

“Go out and celebrate!” he had said after the flag ran atop the Reichstag. And celebrate they did! For a month now, Nikolai’s men had been hard at work slaughtering innocents, burning landmarks, and drinking in pubs like these.

He looked around the pub once more. Once, it was the meeting place of friends and lovers, now a place of murder. Blood cover the hard-wood floor and walls of the bar from killing the store owner and a group of refugees from the Soviet takeover. Outside hung the bodies of both civilians and German soldiers alike. Among other buildings, even the bodies of Nikolai’s tradeous comrades who had ether been killed in a squabble or bar fight, or committed suicide after the accusation pressed on them by the Red Army.

Hell if the command knew though. Hell if they would remember. They had forgotten about them. They where left to patrol the city after the victory n Berlin leaving Nikolia to drown in his own self-pity, and keeping him away from his beloved Motherland. There he was a hero. Here he was a soldier. Nikolia turned over his bottle of vodka. Empty.

Chapter 7

Same time,

Back at the plane crash

“C’mon,” said Doyel, leading the way with his MG42, “I’ve got to show you this!”

Wesley wondered where Doyel was taking them. They had been walking to the furthest end of the bunker, always keeping an eye out for zombies. So far, the last one was the one Doyel bonded to the wall in gun fire.

“So,” began Oxford, carrying his bag of grenades, “You calmed down then?”

“Ya,” replied Doyel, “Figured I ‘ought to stop being so afraid and fight, but I only had my pistol, so I looked for a weapon and found this door.”

Wesley stood in shock when he saw it. It was a big sliding door, on it the unfinished word “HELP” only the person writing it must have been attacked, because it seemed to drop and pull of to the right, as if the person was dragged to the floor by the same crawling sort of zombies they had seen. Coincidentally, the way the letter “P” was unfinished, made the word appear as if it was written “HELL”.

Doyel pulled back the sliding door to reveal a new room. Unlike the outside room, this room was still intact. There were three small boarded up windows and a stair case leading to the 2nd floor. Written on the wall were the words “Salvation lies above. In the corner of the room was a small trunk. Wesley walked over to the trunk to examine it. Almost immediately he smelt rotting flesh and spilt blood. He looked at the floor blood covered it. Then he looked at the ceiling it too was covered in blood. Even more frightening, a trail of blood on the floor that looked as if a body was dragged out off the bunker. The zombies must have done that. On the trunk sat a helmet and a double barrel shotgun. He threw away his BAR and swapped it for the shotgun. He popped open the ammo hold to put in new shells. Only one of the shells was used. The blood splatter that was once a man had taken his own life. Wesley popped in a new shell and continued to study the trunk. A small letter was found on it. It read as followed:

“Transportation of super heavy element to be sent from Waffberk Der Riese to checkpoint before transfer to Berlin. This is a risky assignment and, should you choose to accept it, there shall be no ‘take backs’. You and your men shall be credited with the defense of…”

The note quickly became too faded to read. Wesley opened the trunk, only to find more papers, some dating back to 1939, & some date only a few weeks ago. All of witch was written in German or some odd series of codes Wesley didn’t recognize.

“What the hell is this place Doyel?”

“No idea, but I found the MG by that trunk, so I rushed up the stair through that staircase to help.”

“You did well. Ox, you still got that grenade bag?”

“Yo,” said Oxford as he tossed the empty cloth bag to Wesley.

Without thinking, Wesley began to stuff the paper from the trunk into his bag.

“What are you doing?”

Wesley replied, “Looks like a lot of secret stuff went on here, and when we get back Uncle Sam’s going to want to know everything.”

Doyel walked over to the corner. A small radio sat on the table. It was good for receiving, but there was no microphone to call for help. Doyel made a mental note of that and moved on.

“Hey, Captain,” called the Gunner, “What do you call this?”

In the corner of the room next to the radio was a small box of an odd shape. Imagine a piano key the size of a piano and you would have a good idea as to the dementions of the box. A shroud of dust covered the top of the box. Wesley walked over to the box and brushed of the layer of dust. The box was a wooden crate with the stamp “Property of the Third Reich” scribbled on it. On it was scribble a small question mark in the same chalk that covered the walls with the phrases of doom. On it sat a small pad lock, holding the box shut.

Wesley took a deep breath and said, “I'm going to shoot the lock off.”

Chapter 8

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Captain Wesley fired at the lock on the crate with his .357. It lock broke and fell to the floor. Wesley walked over to open the box. After he opened it, he notice how well made the box really was. He could see that it was a form of oak. The inside was stuffed with a sort of packing hay. Carefully, Wesley removed the hay to find the boxes contents.

There was a large rock that appeared to glisten in the moonlight. As Wesley picked it up it seemed to radiate energy. He stared at it in amazement. Suddenly, something when flying across the room. Wesley ducked quickly to avoid it, only to find what had been thrown at him magnetized to the rock. Tiny pellets from a shotgun shell cover the rock. Wesley looked around the room. It seemed as if everything magnetic in the building was slowly gravitating over to the box. As metles drew neared and nearer to the box the rock began to give off a fain cry. Wesley looked at Oxford in a sort off amazement.

“What the hell is this?”

He looked over to Doyel as a new thought dawned on him.

“Doyel, what happened to the plane before we crashed?”

“Well, the compass went wacky, that’s how we got lost in this crap,” said Doyel, “After about two hours of going in circle the radar went dead, then we start being pulled to the ground like a magnet. After that, the engines gave out and…”

“Boom,” finished the Gunner.

“Exactly.”

Wesley laughed silently to himself.

“In that order?” he said. “Do you know what that means?”

He took a brief pause and finished while looking at the rock.

“This damn thing was magnetizing the whole plane as we where in the air. That’s why we crashed.”

“Damn,” cused the Gunner.

Oxford glaired at the rock and suggested Wesley put it back in the box.

Wesley placed the rock back in the box and began to search through the box again. In it he found a small teddy bear. How cute, he thought to himself. He looked deep into the bear’s eyes. They where tiny little buttons that seemed ever so calm, then Wesley realized that he himself started to feel calm. Then fearful. Then happy. Then infuriated. Slowly, slowly he began to feel ill, as if he was felling every emotion at once. Then Wesley began to hear whispers. Those whispers became voices. Small, broken words like “play” & “Maxis” played in the back of his head. Wesley seemed entranced by the bear. He was awakened by a loud “Captain!” from Oxford.

“You OK?”

“Yeah,” said Wesley.

Wesley placed the bear back in the box. He hoped to never hear those voices again.

Chapter 9

Wesley backed away from the wooden crate that he had found. The Gunner began to walk over and search through it.

“What else is in here?” The Gunner asked Wesley.

“Noth- nothing,” stuttered Wesley. He felt in was best that he didn’t tell anyone about the teddy bear.

The Gunner ruffled some packaging hay, pulled out a random weapon, and asked the others what it was. Doyel took a look at the gun. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. It appeared to be some sort of a pistol. The end of the gun formed a sort of accordion-like tube. It had a little dial on the sides that seem to measure the amount of power left in it. On the end was a “laser” as Doyel believed it was called, a directed beam of light that can run in a strait line. He remembered how in one of his science-fiction books aliens used “lasers” as a sort of heat ray, but this laser appeared to be used as a form of targeting system.

“Look’s like something out of one of my books,” said Doyel.

“What the hell do you call it?” asked the Gunner as he passed the gun over to him.

“No idea,” said Doyel.

He scanned the gun for a name. Carved deep into the weapon was the number “XI”. He looked at the paint scheme of the weapon. It was a hot rod red with black flames. On it was a sketch of a tiny alien.

“An alien gun?” Doyel asked himself.

Under the alien was a small title “Blast-o-matic”.

“Blast-o-matic it is,” he said as he passed it over to the Gunner.

“Here,” the Gunner said as he passed it over to Oxford. “I still have most of my Thompson ammo, you can use it.”

“Thanks,” said Oxford as he looked at it confusedly. “Now how do I use it?”

“Well,” said Doyel looking at the dial on the weapon. “Evidently, it’s fully charger and set on ‘kill’.”

“Well,” said Ox, pointing it as the nearest wall to test it out. “How hard can it be?”

Oxford cut himself short by firing the XI. Little did he know that the gun had enough kick-back and splash damage to send him flying across the room into the opposite wall. Oxford hit the wall fell and laid unresponsive for a minute or so before saying, “Oh I’m gonna have fun with this.”

Wesley tried to describe to himself what he saw. A green ring of pure energy fired from the gun! How was that possible? Wesley didn’t care, he just know that it was badass.

“Oorah,” said the Gunner as he pulled the Oxford to his feet. “That was SWEET!”

Doyel walked over to the wall, only to find that a brick had fallen off of it. Before he placed it back in the wall, Doyel took the time to notice that the other side off the wall was hollow and led out to a secret tunnel that ran through the side of a hill. In it, Doyel could hear fain moans of pain, sccraping of claws, and the shuffle of boots. He shoved the brick back into the wall and looked out into the mist. He saw several yellow eyes staring back at him. He grabbed his MG42 and alerted the others.

“Um, hey guys… we got company... again.”

Chapter 10

1 week before the airfield outbreak,

Somewhere in Seelow Heights

General Klugger sat around the campfire with the rest of his men. As he looked around, he met eyes with the other soldiers. They too, where leftovers from the Germany army after the war. They were charged with the task of locating a single airfield bunker that withheld information that, as was described to Klugger, “may hold valuable clues as to how to raise the Axis Empire ‘in honor of the fourth Reich’”. The Fourth Reich, thought the general, what an asinine way to spend our life.

Since the death of their “beloved Fuehrer” as Klugger thought of him then, the Fourth Reich had slowly been harboring survivors of the battle in Berlin and started to assemble a new army in secret. They would break out Nazis accused as war crimes and have them join there ranks, willingly or unwillingly. This was how Klugger had met his fate within the Fourth Reich.

Klugger looked away from the blaze and at his body. He had several broken ribs, a crippled leg, and his left arm was hung in a sling.

Klugger was a major during the end of the war, now called “World War II”, on the Western front. During the battle of Bastogne he was hit with an American mortar. Even with a flank jacket (which no doubt saved his life) the blast broke every bone in his body and left him completely paralyzed for quit some time. In a local military clinic outside Berlin, he saw the city fall as he was helpless to do nothing. He mourned to loss of his comrades for days as he was left bed-ridden, still paralyzed in his left leg. Eventualy, he was able to walk short distances again and was to be tried for war crimes. He didn’t care though. He would pay is debt to sociaty and be a potato farmer in Ireland, or something, so long as he wouldn’t have to put up with the hell he went through ever again. He’d spoken too soon.

In the middle of the night one morning, a band of Nazi militia killed every medic in the clinic, whether they where US Army Red Cross, the nurses that had lived in Berlin all their lives, or German medics that had tended to Klugger and his men since Bastogne. They spared Klugger, well, sort of, claiming he was a vital POW. The fourth Reich already know that the war was over; they just did everything in their power to let. Hell, though Klugger, if the fourth are as self-destructive as they seem, then this whole fiasco would end promptly, and would just be passed of as an extremist militia. Then they’d get off easy.

Nevertheless, the Fourth was convinced that there was something so incredible important out there that it justified them to steal a crippled potato-farmer-to-be, hand pick him for a mission (most likely because all other major officers where dead), send him out into the forest on a front he didn’t serve on, and promote him to a general as compensation, as if they had the right to. Klugger began to hate all the Nazi party stood for, and even found himself agreeing with the American’s way of thinking. The rest of the general’s men had no such story. They had not been crippled, kidnapped, seen their city fall before them, or any other such thing. Most of them where around 15 years of age and fought only to seek revenge on the world after the killings in Berlin. Each had there own cliché story, there father was murdered, vowed revenge, or something along those lines, but nothing really compared to the hell he had gone through. Until now.

One of Klugger’s squad members swirled around his rations of caned beans with his spoon. He wasn’t hungry. He’d lost his apatite fighting off whatever the hell they encountered on their way towards the bunker. At first the creatures had came sparingly. One ever five miles or so. Then there amounts would multiply into small packs. They wouldn’t attack tough. They would only hang back and watch, as if they where leading them into a trap. As the Corporal would walk through the forest, their bright yellow eyes would trace him, as if studying the best was to kill him. About 5 continues hours of hiking without rest (for no one wanted to stop or sleep surrounded by these creatures) the squad SMG expert lost it, yelling, cursing and firing wildly into the night were ever he thought he saw something move. Eventualy he took off running only to trip over a tree root and brake his leg. The general told the squad to leave him, without even a moment to see if he where he was OK. As we left him, the man with his MP-40 continued to fire blindly into the night. We heard the gun shots firing continuously until they suddenly stopped. What ever happened to that man, wondered one of the squad as he sat around the camp fire greasing his Kar98k. Had he been consumed by the creatures, or had simply ran out of ammo? If he had ran out of ammo, than what became of him after? Had he ran, or was he forced to sit patiently as he saw the creature yellow eyes grow nearer and nearer before he was eaten or took his own life?

After the loss of the SMG gunner, it was decided to make camp and gather their sanity. They had been marching for 6 hour with those ghastly yellow eyes staring at them. When they made camp, no one said anything. They simply sat as they were now, too terrified to move.

There was a shift in the wind and a separate pair of yellow eye stared back at Klugger. His body went rigid, and he stared blankly at his squad. He didn’t need to tell his men it was time to leave, they just knew. Without saying a word, each man loaded his weapon and stood tall, leaving their meals behind as they pressed deeper into the progressively darkening forest. They didn’t even put the fire out.

Chapter 11

1 week later,

Back at the plane crash

“Contact!”

Wesley, Doyel, and the Gunner ran off to the windows and took aim at the zombies. Wesley threw the cloth bag over to Oxford and ordered him to go through every crate in the room and collect every document he could find, only then would he join the fight. The Gunner, quickly remembering the open windows on the second floor, ran up with his Thompson and M1A1 in hand to find a way to board them up. Doyel ran to the furthest window he could find and set his MG42 on the frame to make a sort of rampart.

“Alright,” Wesley began too say. “This is gonna be one hell of a siege. Check your weapons and ammo, ‘cause those undead bastard aren’t gonna make a meal of us. Remember, save one bullet for yourself… just in case.”

The Gunner ran back down the stairs in a rush and reported to Wesley. He looked pale as he said, “I managed to pile a few sand bags and chairs to cover the windows up the stairs.”

“How many did you see?”

The Gunner grew quiet, and then replied, “Hundreds.”

Wesley peaked out the window. It was true, hundreds for yellow eye drifted along in the fog. Some where so close that Wesley could see the sillowets of what once where men stumbling over crops, old WWII foxholes, and bombed-out mortar pits. Wesley picked up the BAR he had set down, loaded the first round, and took a deep breath. He would be the first to fire.

BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP!

Wesley unloaded a large wall of slugs at the zombies with enough stopping power to knock one or two of the zombies to the ground and kill them, but more still just hauled themselves up and continued towards the bunker. Doyel responded to their actions by laying down a smokescreen of lead with his MG that had enough raw power to literally rip the bodies of the undead in two. The Gunner stood behind Doyel and the parapet with his M1A1, picking off any survivors of the Marines’ onslaught. For a split second, it ran through Wesley’s men’s heads that the undead where more or less outmatched, but that thought quickly disappeared as and thousands more ran out from the forest.

Oxford shoved the last of the documents into his bag and ran to his friends’ aid with his XI in hand. The accordion-like tube pulsated green as he took aim at the zombies, as if it was charging up a shot, as if it knew. He aimed at a large cluster of ten or so zombies and fire one huge blast at them. The green ray struck the ground and splash damage ripped the zombies in two. Oxford aimed at another zombie, this time at its head. He fired on green pulse that split the creature’s head open like a chestnut. The Gunner looked at Oxford and yelled out a summarizing, “Holy shit!”

Oxford looked at some of the zombies. Something wasn’t right. Some of the zombies where burnt and limping, as if damaged by the air raids. Other wore old German WWI uniforms and were almost decomposed to the bone, and others still were fresh, WWII Nazi corpses with bleeding chunks and bites taken out of them. It was like there were different generations of zombies all converging on one area to feed.

“How did a horde this big go unnoticed for this long?” asked Wesley.

“The bombing probably turned up the soil and helped them dig their ways out. Most of these bodies must have been killed by the Soviets at one point and were put in mass graves,” said Doyel. “Of coarse there’s only one real way to kill a zombie for good.”

Wesley and the Gunner glared at Doyel.

“How?”

“Well…” he stopped cold in his tracks to see that the windows behind Wesley were packed with zombies, all reaching for him. “Jeez, there all over the place!”

Doyel didn’t wait for Wesley to notice the zombies and pulled out his Colt M1919. Rapidly, he fired at the zombies. Wesley jumped to the floor to avoid Doyel’s fire. He looked back to see what Doyel was firing at. He immediately dropped his BAR in amazement and grabbed his double barrel. It was a sight to behold, Oxford firing off the wonder weapon, the Gunner picking of stragglers, Wesley loading his double barrel, and a trigger happy Doyel, blasting his MG42 to one side of the bunker in one hand and his Colt in another.

That’s it!” shouted Gunner, “Keep firing!”

The Gunner threw down an empty carbine, popped out fro behind pillar with his Thompson and sprayed wildly at the crowd from the hip. As amazing as this may sound, it had little effect except for one unlucky zombie that got shot in the head, leaving a splatter that covered the Gunner’s face and temporally blurred his vision.

As Gunner wiped the last of the zombies’ blood from his face, he could only stare in horror as one of the zombies reached into the bunker, ripped away Doyel’s MG42, and sunk its teeth deep into his flesh.

“NO!” he cried out as Doyel fell to the floor with his M1919.

Oxford responded immediately by shooting the “Blast-o-matic” at the entering zombie, blowing it into a glorious red spray. Wesley, too shocked to realize Doyel had been bit, took aim at the nearest zombie.

“Doyel!” he boomed, “How the hell do we kill these things!?!?”

“Take their heads off!”

Wesley aimed for the zombies heads, pulled the trigger on his shotgun, and unleashed a powerful blow, imploding the zombies and even killing a few unlucky cadavers behind him. He scanned the endless crowd for any signs of lightening. None. Wesley pulled out his Magnum, and began to slowly make his way to the furthest wall from the group of zombies.

“Any ideas, Ox?”

Oxford scanned the fields for something to work with. Finally, it came to him; scattered all over the field were barrels of gasoline.

“Yeah,” he said, raising his XI. “Take cover.”

Wesley dropped to the floor as Oxford fired his weapon at a can of fuel. In one fluid chain reaction the first barrel of gas exploded, causing direct explosive damage, killing several undead. Incendiary damage also set all that were left alive ablaze. This reaction set of another barrel, then another, then another. At some point a large stock of fuel went off, engulfing the bunker in smoke and flame. When the smoke settled, Wesley rose from the ground to check the windows.

At the windowsill sat tons of mutilated remains of rotting flesh. As he looked out into the crops he saw many zombies still alive, broken and burnt beyond belief, but they would quickly burn to death. Wesley turned around and was about to say something clever like ‘Hot damn!’, but he grew silent when he saw the Gunner helping a bitten Doyel to his feet, his wounded forearm gapping, and bleeding in a dark viscous substance a little thicker than blood. Wesley had meant to say ‘Oh no!’ or ‘Are you okay’, but all he could manage to say as he helped pull him to his feet was “We must get out of here…”

Chapter 12

The Marines rushed they’re wounded comrade into the room behind the sliding door. Oxford swiped several objects off of a table to set Doyel on as Gunner and Wesley lifted him off the ground. Doyel whimpered, hollered, and cried after the adrenalin of the battle wore off. He cradled his arm repeating “I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die! Oh God, I’m gonna die!”

“No your not,” said Oxford as flung Doyel onto their make-shift operating table.

Wesley lumbered over to the truck Oxford had taken notes from and pulled out a map from his back pocket. Carefully, he spread the map across the trunk and pulled out a pencil to mark the map. As he pulled out his pencil he snorted in disgust. Blood from his hands left a maroon-colored patch on the map, covering most of Poland. Wesley pulled out the glass bottle of brandy he’d confiscated from Doyel and took a huge swig, leaving a bloody palm print on the clear neck. As Doyel squirmed from Oxford’s field surgery, Gunner gave Wesley a disgusted look.

“What?”

“Your brandy, give it here.”

Wesley handed the bottle to the Gunner, who took a quick sip and handed it to Doyel, who took a large dose. Doyel struggled to break free of the Gunner’s grip to hold him down and struggled heavily to hold down the alcohol. Oxford look at remaining amount of brandy in the bottle, ripped it from Doyel, and poured it on the bite. Doyel responded with an ear-splitting shriek.

“Good thinking, Gunner,” Ox said. “The alcohol works as an anti-bacterial, a pain killer, and restricts the blood flow so he doesn’t bleed out.”

“Erg, right!” replied the Gunner. Honestly, he just figured Doyel would have wanted something to drink.

The brandy helped calm Doyel down. The wound was clean, and Oxford was beginning to stitch the wound with his bootstraps. Gunner sat back, watching a pained Doyel attempting not to look at his gratuitous forearm. He gave a soft whimper of pain.

“You’re a good soldier,” Oxford said as he finished the final stitch. Wesley was still bent over his map, tapping his pencil agents the wooden trunk.

“Gunner,” he called. “Got a minute?”

“Yeah, sure.”

The Gunner walked over to Wesley.

“Good thing Ox knows how to perform field surgery with a little more than a booby pin and a uniform.”

“Yes. Good thing….”

“You okay Captain?”

The Gunner looked at the map bellow him. On it was mark with hundreds of scribbles, all marked towards one single railroad.

“What’s this?”

“My plan for escape.”

“Your what!?”

“My escape route to Berlin. Only I can go. We can’t bring Doyel with us so only one of us can get help while the others hold out. In the event that someone finds you and locates where we crashed, even in this fog, then I’ll follow the train tracks so transport can pick me up.”

“Your insane. The railroad in this area stopped functioning in 1939, and I’m sure the Soviets destroyed the tracks.”

“At least the tracks still lead to Berlin.”

“Those things are waiting for us.”

“I’ll travel at dawn.”

“It’s three days of travel on foot.”

“I’ll move fast.”

“Okay, so let’s say you do make it, how will we know?”

Doyel brushed Oxford off from wrapping is arm in a tunicate and pointed his swollen, half wrapped arm at the radio.

“Doyel’s got a point.”

Gunner looked back at Doyel who’d already blacked out as Oxford began making a sling for him.

“Fine. But I’m going, not you!”

“What!?”

“I’m not gonna live with the guilt of staying here, however long that may be, knowing I left my captain for dead.”

4:23 am; sunrise

No. of attacks since last: 0

Gunner stood at the exit to the bunker as he watched the red glow of dawn envelop him. Doyel stood there with his sling, looking like he was going to vomit. Oxford and Wesley stood side by side next to the Gunner, watching the sun rise. They needn’t ruin the moment and say how relieved they felt to know that the nightmare of the undead, if not for a few hours, was over. The Gunner had packed his bag with dried food, water, a canteen of scotch, the papers from the crates, and a small chuck from the rock in the “mystery box” as they had came to call it.

“Now remember,” said Doyel, shivering vigorously, “It’s a three day trip so… just don’t die.”

“Thanks,” replied Gunner.

Wesley said nothing.

“Here,” Oxford said. “Take the X1; it might save your ass.”

“Thanks.”

Wesley said nothing.

The Gunner took a deep breath and without thinking about what he was doing, began to advance out of the field and into the forest. It finally accrued to Wesley that these may be the last words he’d say to him.

“Hay,” he said involuntarily. “Take care for yourself Peter.”

"...Thanks."

Chapter 13

Wesley, Oxford, and Doyel looked helplessly into the field where their friend once stood. That’s it, Wesley thought to himself, that’s the last time we’ll see him. After Peter blended into the Black Forest, nothing was left of him but a memory.

“Captain,” Doyel asked, “Will we ever see him again?”

“I don’t know,” replied Wesley, staring into the red dawn. “I don’t know.”

Oxford looked at his partners. He could tell that if he didn’t say anything, they’d be standing in that spot for days, waiting for Peter to return with a squad of Marines. But Oxford knew that wasn’t going to happen. They needed a plan B.

“Okay,” he said. “We need to survive long enough for Peter to save us so let’s get to work. Firstly, we need to get rid of all these Z-bodies”

Oxford was right. Strum across the field was thousands of bodies from last night’s siege. Some had burnt to nothing, some were decapitated by headshots, and some where temporarily immobilized, dead only a few hours before they’d reanimate. Some where still alive, either trapped in a ditch, cripple beyond movement, or dragging themselves closer and closer to the bunker. These bodies needed to be disposed of.

“Captain, take a trench shovel and start digging a pit, I’ll kill all the crawlers with my carbine. Doyel, you---” he looked sick as a dog, “get some sleep. Once where done Wesley, help me out with carrying the bodies into the pit. We’ll burn these SOBs.”

Withen an hour a pit was dug and Wesley and Oxford where carrying the dead bodies stretcher style into the pit, one by one. By the end, the 10x10 foot pit was full. Oxford located a drum of kerosene and began dousing the stacked bodies in it. He saved the rest of it in the empty brandy bottle for a future Malvatov Cocktail.

“Got a match?” Oxford asked. Wesley pulled out his USMC lighter lit one last cigarette and tossed the whole light into the fire. The entire pile of undead burst into a fireball, incinerating all the hair clothing, and flesh. The burning flesh make such a strong odor take it awoke Doyel from his nap. Wesley finished his cigarette and tossed the butt into the fire. Doyel staggered over to the fire in an attempt to get warm. To Wesley it appeared to him as if Doyel had been in a cold sweat. He was dripping in it and was shivering uncontrollably. Poor kid. All of a sudden, Wesley heard Doyel’s stomach growl. Was the ‘infection’ Doyel was talking about setting in? No. No. He was just hungry. The Marines hadn’t eaten in, what was it? 4o’clock? At least 48 hours. Wesley knew that there were some MRIs in the plane. Oh, God. The plane. Wesley haddn’t see the crash yet. How bad was it? He had to check.

“I’m going to see if we left any food or ammo in the crash,” said Wesley as he swung on his back pack.

Chapter 14

Battle of Okinawa.

1st Marine Raiders.

Lt. Wesley.

Sergeant Pepper took point with his M1 Garand in a patch of tall grass… Directly bellow the enemy MG pit. Lieutenant Wesley stood it a foxhole blown into the hill from a mortar. It had been this way for 4 hours, a constant standstill between the Japanese MG gunner and the Marine’s Thompsons. The torrential rain washed out their souls, just as the way it was washing the color from their uniforms. The MG gunner never wasted a shot, only firing when you’d pop out from behind a rock. The Marines were pined down, with the rain only cramping Wesley up, making him wish he was dead. Too many good people die already. Corporal Oxford, he gained a promotion after his heroic acts on Peileilue, but at the cost of his brother’s life. Peter was a pilot, the only reason he was here was because the military needed more people than planes, otherwise, he’d be flying a P-51 in Europe right now.

In the first hour of being pinned down, most of the other Marines died trying to be a hero. Pvt. Antoine, Pvt. Thomas, Pvt. Garry, Sergeant McAllen, all dead. All that remained was Wesley, Ox, Peter, and Pepper. But they had an Ace up their sleeve. Over in the hills with his Springfield was Captain Sanderson. Without any warning the gunner in the MG nest would drop dead. There would be a scuttle inside the nest, and a new gunner would take his place. This happened six times. It had been an hour since the last, and you couldn’t see inside the bunker. Perhaps, it ran through Pepper’s head, it was safe.

Almost on queue the MG nest ripped into full auto and tore through Peppers body. Back in the hills Sanderson popped up screaming the MG ripped through him as he plummeted to the ground.

“Wesley!!!”

Wesley had no idea what was going on. In his hands he found he caught a large yellow box, a satchel charge. Instinctively, he tossed it into the pillbox. He noticed that in Peter’s hand he hold a small detonator. Wait, Wesley thought, I’m too close to the blast!

It was too late. The satchel detonated, launching a dead soldier out of the MG nest and tossing debris onto Wesley. The last thing Wesley remembered was a sandbag hit his chest and feeling the force of the blast pressurize every part of his body.

He blacked out.

Chapter 15

Same time,

Berlin, Germany.

Nikolai’s dream went like this: He was trapped in a basement of a building during the battle of Berlin. A small rectangular window let in little light from the street lamps outside. Beyond the window was a bronze statue of two metallic lizards entangling each other with a plaque under it that read “The Double Dragon’s” . He took a second to look around the basement. The room was relatively bear except for a wooden staircase that led to a door with a small sliver of light streaming out of a crack and into the udder darkness the Nikolai found himself in. Somehow, he knew that the door was locked. The stench of rotting flesh filled the air, and that’s when he noticed the large numbers of bodies lined agents the wall, lined up and hunched over on the ground as if they had died by firing squad. He remembered thinking that he needed to get out of there, but to his surprise, he couldn’t move. An imaginary chain held him to the basement floor. Desperately, he called for help, but no one heard him. Except for the Germans. Four of them stormed down into the basement, some with their MP-40s, some with there bare hands. They circle around Nikolai’s invisible prison and stared directly at him and began circling him. To Nikolia’s disgust, every time they’d pass in front of the light given of by the window, the would change into hideous beasts. One of the men withered into a skeleton, with only dust for skin. The next was engulfed in fire and carried as many ammo clips as he could carry. The next gave of a light so intense that Nikolai had to force himself to look away to prevent from going blind. And the last one he was to see! This last man carried a disease Nikolai hadn’t yet encountered. Darkness trailed his movements and death followed. As he stepped into the light, he was revealed for who he truly was.

His flesh turned black. Large, grey welts gave off white viscous puss. He gave a banshee’s scream, and his eye’s ignited yellow. The soldiers shrieked along and gave off manic laughter. This man was disease.

Nikolai refused to see any more. He struggled to rise from his shackles, but the more Nikolai struggle, the tighter the shackles grew. The men stopped pacing and started chanting “Get up! Get up! Get up! GET UP!” WACK!

Chapter 16

Nikolai woke to a young soldier slamming the butt of his rifle into his forehead yelling “Get up!”. He cracked open one eyelid, glanced at the soldier, and fell back asleep. The soldier grumbled a little, muttered something about old goats, and shook Nikolai awake.

“Wake up you drunk bastard!”

Nikolai casually pulled out his TT pistol and placed the cold barrel under the soldiers chin and calmly muttered “Remind me again why I shouldn’t kill you?”

“Look, I’m just here speaking for the commissioner, he needs all of his troops down at the asylum.”

“What? Why?”

“Rumor says some riot got out of hand. He wants all his squads down there to help, I’ve got to go tell the other squad leaders. Bye.”

As the messenger left the building Nikolai noticed he was in the same bar he was in the other night. He must have passed out. Again. But what was odd was that no one was left in the building. He was alone. He got up, shook his legs, and raided the bar for one last drink.

“Let’s see,” he said, scanning the racks,” Vodka, vodka, vodka… Ah!”

He pulled out a well aged bottle of vodka and pulled out his pack. In it was his PPSH-41 and a few empty bottles.

“Only room for one,” he said looking at his weapon.

Casually, he dumped out the glass bottles, pulled out his SMG, and set in the alcohol. As he walked into the street, he noticed the entire block was a ghost town, not another living soul, except for the messenger who was darting into the opposite direction. Nikolai stared toward the direction of the asylum. Where ever his squad was, they’d most likely be over there.

After a few minutes of hiking without seeing anyone, he finally started to see a few soldiers darting to and fro, all too busy to tell him what was happening. Toward the asylum, large stakes of smoke and ash tinted the sky in a perpetual twilight-red. As he turned another corner he could hear gunshots, screaming and saw a few medics tending to the wounded. The wounded men seem to have no bullet wounds, only large chunked of flesh torn away and scratch marks covering their faces.

“This isn’t right,” Nikolai told himself. He had a bad habit of doing that.

As he turned the corner it all hit him at once.

A large scale battle was engulfing the gates of a large building. This building was covered in vegetation, boarded up, and was in extreme disarray. It was the west wing of Wihitnarum Sanitarium, a corner of the old asylum the soviets forgot the clear. It was simply marked as “all clear”. That always did bother Nikolai. In front of the asylum was a massive crowd of crazies wearing torn Nazi uniforms, surrounded by nearly every Soviet in the city. The crazies from the asylum where dashing strait into the crowd, literally beating peoples brains out and… Eating them. Over in cover was Nikolai’s squad, far from the carnage of the battle. Nikolai dashed over to them popped the cork out of his bottle of vodka and took a big sip before finally asking what was going on.

“The Red Army sent out a scout team to check out the old asylum,” one of Nikolai’s squad member reported. “We blew a hole into the side of it, but as soon as we did these crazies started attacking us. At least we think they’re crazy, the wont stop trying to kill you, even if both their leg gets blown off. They just don’t stop! They’d crawl! Anyway, the commissioner called for all available squads to quell this, but I figure if I woke you you’d shoot me in the face.”

Nikolia had just enough time to fire a burst at the crowd and reply, “You made the right choice.”

The men stood there ground for what seemed like forever agenst the berserkers, only to find a large group of US Marines storm into the crowd.

“What the hell are the Americans doing here!?”

A Marine with an M2 Flamethrower advanced into the crowd and set hundreds of the zombies ablaze. Another Marine came up behind Nikolai, tapped him on the back and told him he was his relief. Nikolai punched him in the nose and got pulled back to the main road joining hundreds of other Soviets fleeing the city as more berserkers poured out of surrounding buildings.

“Come on,” Nikolai heard someone say, “Command has issued a full evacuation of Berlin!”

See the rest at Infamy: Part 2! (I reached the word limit)

[carbonfibah]

Chapter 17

Back at the crash,

5:01 pm.

The first thing Wesley noticed was the smell. As he inched nearer to the twisted heap of metal that was once his B-17, the stench of rotting flesh filled the air. The next thing he saw was the amount of damage the plane had taken. The left wing was bent and twisted from digging into the ground and cart wheeling. The front of the plane had plowed into the ground and folding inward, sandwiching the pilot’s body, leaving him dangling out of the windshield like a grotess hood ornament. Most of the upper half of the body was hanging on to the waist by only a few tendrils and intestines, for it had been cut in half by the crushed metal. Wesley asked himself one more time whether or not he wanted to go in there. Yes, he thought, I have to see what happened.

As he approached the loading door, he ran his hand along the outside of the hull. When he pulled it back, a thick layer of blood and oil cover his hand. It was as if secreting in oil. The ship was bleeding.

With a loud clank the hatch swung open. The stench at this point was almost intolerable. He looked down and saw scraps of raw flesh and fresh blood collect on the floor. He looked into the airborne troopers benches and found not a body, but random meat in the shape of a man. At this point Wesley was trying heavily to control his gag reflex. Wesley then saw the tiny tooth and claw marks that seemed to have picked the pile of meat clean of all innards. That was the last straw for him. He bent down, fell to his knees and vomited the very little food left in his stomach. He got back up and continued to search the plane. Wesley knew about the mess in the cockpit he didn’t need to see that again. As he made his way to the back, a tiny crunch rung out from beneath his boot. He looked down to see a picture of Ox, him, Peter, Doyel, and the rest of the crew in one frame. They had taken that picture only a few days before they set off to Berlin. The frame under it read “To may friends”. Nudged in the corner of the frame was a picture of a young woman holding hands with a young pilot. Wesley notice the pilot in the picture was the same as the one in the other. What was that man’s name? Cole? He folded up the picture and placed both in him pocket. Don’t worry Cole, he thought, I’ll make this up to you.

As Wesley walked down the aisle, he gathered supplies from ammunition that they where suppose to transport to large first-aid kits containing dehydrated food. Eventually, he passed the bathroom.

Within it Wesley heard something stirring. He couldn't distinguish whether it was a chewing, crunching or slurping, but something was feeding within the stall. The door was only cracked open, so Wesley couldn’t quiet see what was happening in there. Through the crack he could see something hunch over a large red mass. The thing was feeding on the mass, shoveling large loads of liquid and meat into its mouth. The door had to be open via a door knob, maybe the creatures hadn’t figured out doors yet. In just a few split-seconds, Wesley screamed, slammed the door shut, and tuned the knob shut. He retreated to the other end of the plane, expecting to hear a deep throated wail. Instead, Wesley only heard the ever methodical, “slurp, crunch, slurp, crunch, slurp, crunch”.

Wesley’s own heart raced in his head. The thing hadn’t seen him. He was going to be okay.

The back of the B-17 held nothing, only a twisted 50 cal. That was too damaged to be used. Fortunately, Wesley did find some ammo clips, water, an M2 Flamethrower, and one bazooka with two rockets. He’d return after he brought back everything he currently had. With the M2 strapped to his back, a fully loaded pack strapped to his front, and a few canteens dangling off his belt, Wesley looked as if he was ready to take on the entire undead threat single handedly.

That’s when things started going bad. The restroom the creature was trapped in seemed to shake in anticipation. As Wesley passed the door to escape, he heard a low gnawing sound, in addition to a haunting scrape, scrape, scrape. Wesley panicked. As he stormed outside and head back to the bunker and over to his friends, something was out of place, yes, it had gotten dark fast, as it looked as if it was late at night, yes the same eerie fog had rolled in, but some else was out of place. Of course, he thought as he looked at the front of the aircraft. The pilot’s body. It was gone. Where did it go?

Almost on cue, a lone zombie shambled over a hill. This one had fresh flesh, a new glow in its eyes and was more determined. But something else was different. This creature’s body was torn in half, and wore a US Airman’s uniform. He pulled out the old picture of the young woman and the pilot. The man in the picture, the man in the uniform, the creature with the man’s face… it was Cole. Wesley didn’t remember running or when he regained consciences, he just remember thinking that he needed to get out of there, and that when he got back, he was gonna burn it to the ground.

Chapter 18

Wesley didn’t remember dogging the outstretched hand reaching for him from the ground, nor the large horde of undead emerging from the tree line. In a hop, skip, and a jump, Wesley had darted to the bunker and flung himself in via a gap in the window.

When Wesley reentered the bunker he found Doyel and Ox sitting around a pot of Military Rations that resembled something like pea soup. Both of the me sat around the pot with their bowls empty in and, except for Doyel’s half empty bowl laying on the floor with the spoon laying in it as though he’d stopped eating. Oxford got up at the sight of a shell-shocked Wesley running in covered with bandoliers and explosives. Wesley dropped ammo at Oxfords feet and picked up Doyel’s bowl, franticly shoving the “food” into his mouth. He almost vomited at the taste, but he quickly forced it back down. The cold soup sat like a lump in his stomach. He coughed a bit as some of it went down the wrong tube. He quickly got up and started surveying the windows.

“Captain!” yelled Oxford. “What the hell is going on!?”

Wesley simply handed him a BAR, some ammo clips and shushed him up.

Oxford looked inside the pack. Loaded in it was Thompsons, BAR clips, satchel charges, and grenades, along with a few M1A1 clip. It made him wonder why the hell they where transporting this stuff in the first place. The war in Europe was over; all of this should have gone to the Pacific front. He walked over to the window to see what Wesley was looking at and darn near soiled himself. In front of him was a small army of the dead, much larger than the last one they’d fought before.

“Oh shit….”

Wesley hesitated for a few seconds.

“Alright,” he said, opening the valve on the M2, “Let’s show these bastards what happens when you fuck with the US Marines!”

He expected a ‘hooya!’, but all he got in return was a “How the hell are we going to do that?”

Wesley licked his lips at the though. He had a plan. It was suicidal.

“Easy,” he said, handing Doyel a Bazooka, “I’ll go in with the flamethrower and set a Zack fire, kill a few zombies in the process. If I get swarmed Doyel,” he points the bazooka toward his head, “Don’t hesitate.”

“You want me to blow you up!”

“Only if I get swarmed. God knows how many zombies you’ll take with me.”

Oxford wanted to protest, but before he could Wesley was crawling outside the window.

As Wesley stormed straight into the horde, multiple hands outstretched from the ground out of the mud to reach him. On occasion, he’d kick the outstretched waterlogged hand and punt it a good hundred yards. The ghouls weren’t intimidated by this; they simply crept closer to meet the Marines, holding their ranks. One moment in particular a full zombie hoisted himself out of the mud, tackled Wesley, and threatened to devourer him before Wesley summoned his strength, flipped the zombies to one side, and rip the zombies arm off. The zombies stumbled a few feet and fell back to the ground. Wesley looked at the severed arm in his hand, still squirming in the air in an attempt to strangle him. He had no idea how he managed to do that. The adrenalin, Wesley thought. It felt good.

“Alright freaks,” he said to the writhing horde in front of him. “Bring it on.”

Oxford couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Adrenalin powered Wesley was single handedly taking on the zombies in hand-to-hand combat. As one zombie charged, Wesley ripped off it’s arm and used it as a club to beat the owner back into the ground. Another time, he lifted a large boulder and though it into the crowd with great effect, smashing the heads of two or three Gs. After another zombie charged, he picked up another rock smashed the runner’s face in, and continued to beat down the body wail yelling something that sounded like “Die freak!” Afterwards, he opened fire into the crowd with a burst of his M2. In just a few short seconds, one man had destroyed one third of the attackers.

“Wow,” Oxford said to Doyel, “Wesley looks pissed.”

At that very moment, Wesley stopped in his tracks. Oh no, thought Oxford. Wesley was looking wildly at his feet. Other zombies started to surround him. No. No. No, no, no, no, no. It couldn’t end like this. Doyel had the bazooka pointed at the ground crying and shivering violently, Doyel took aim at his friend. It’s easy, Doyel thought, Take a breath, count to three and- Doyel stopped. Oxford was pushing down on the bazooka, preventing it from firing.

“We can’t,” he said.

“We have to, or the zombies will, which is worse?”

“No,” Oxford said, picking up his M1A1. “Get on the MG, take aim, and when we come back aim high. The zombies will be their.”

“I’m not going to let you-”

“I WILL NOT LOSE TWO MEN!”

Well, Wesley thought, this is the end. He didn’t mean to stop. One of the hands had grabbed him. The most have been survivors from the first two attacks. This was it, he thought as the figure hauled itself out of the ground, using Wesley’s leg as its means of escape. Slowly, a face lifted from the mud. Sure hope the bazooka kills me before these guys. The M2 was useless surrounded. It would only make a firestorm that would incinerate Wesley as well. That was the plan. He’d be live bait, and the exploding fuel tank would burn the zombies. This was a one way trip.

He paused for a second. No bazooka. Figures.

Wesley pulled out his grenade as three zombies around him fell dead.

“What the hell?”

It was Ox!

“Though I told you to kill me.”

“We have plenty time to die, but I’m not going to let you live though a war to die now.”

Wesley just smiled, pulled the pin, and through his grenade into the zombies. The explosion sent chunks of flesh and shrapnel flying.

“Alright, let’s get going.”

“Look out!”

From beneath Wesley, the face buried its teeth into his. Wesley recoiled and felt. Nothing. Years of rot had rotten away its teeth and gave its gums the texture of rice pudding ageist his leg. Wesley let out a bellowing laugh and curb stomped the creature, smashing its head open like a ripe pumpkin.

“Go, go, go!” yelled Oxford, “And keep your head down!”

On cue a burst of MG fire ripped out from the bunker, mowing down the zombies. Ox and Wesley leaped in through an opened window to fin Doyel manning the MG.

“How do you man an MG with one arm?” asked Wesley.

“Very carefully.”

A large zombie howled as if alerting the undead army. The undead moaned back in a sort of mass consciousness. A large majority of zombies disappeared into the woods.

“What are they doing?”

Just then a fireball lit up the night sky. Wesley paused and said “… Get on the radio.”

As Ox manned the MG, finishing off the rest of the ghouls, Doyel and Wesley listened in on the radio. Eventual they came across a message:

“Oh God, oh God. This is recon flight 217, searching for the B-17 “Wild Wessel”. I crash landed way outside of Berlin somewhere in the Black Forrest. I… I don’t know where I am, there was… a fog. I got lost in it. I can see figures getting closer to my crash site. Are they friendly? No. They…what the hell…………… AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Oh God, what the hell are those things! Please! Is anyone out there! Please! THEY’RE GETTING CLOSER! HELP! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Whack!

OH GOD, JUST LET ME LIVE!

Whack!

>Moan! <

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

The message cut out. Oxford at this point temporarily stopped mopping up and was standing in the corner. He shook his head before murmuring “God help us.”

As Wesley left the room, Doyel could have sworn he heard Wesley say “God help us all.”

Chapter 19

Wesley couldn’t sleep. How could he? Those creatures were out there. Watching. Waiting. He’d been trying to sleep for, what was it? Two, three hours?

He looked down at his broken watch on his wrist. The crash had put a huge spider crack in the middle of the face, obscuring the numbers six and nine. It was about 3 o’clock at night. Wesley gave a loud sigh and stair at the ceiling, counting the splatters of blood the way a child would count sheep.

He’d come very close to sleeping before. After the battle he just crashed on the floor, not asleep, but in a primitive state of mind where the conscience mind in turned off, but his eyes where left awake, surveying the landscape for an occasional zombie. Once he fell asleep only to awake to a crawling zombie pulling itself into the room across from Wesley, grunting as it did so. Wesley found he was carrying no weapon, he was defenseless. He forgot about Doyel, about Oxford, about Peter, and for a few choice seconds Wesley felt calm. He was entranced in an ancient form of fear. It felt as if nothing mattered, that everything will be okay, perhaps the same form of ignorance an animal feels before it is killed in a slaughterhouse. As the creature pulled itself nearer, he was broken from this trance by a gunshot, exploding the creature’s head. He looked up to find Doyel with his M1919 pistol in hand. At other times he awoke to a loud bark of static and a storm of foul language as Oxford fiddled with the radio. Both times he fell back asleep, but this time was different.

Wesley wiped cold sweat from his forehead and hoisted himself up off the ground. He hobbled over to the stair case and looked at the writing on the wall.

“‘You must ascend from darkness’,” he said, roughing up his dirty red hair, “And ‘Salvation lies above’. What the hell does it mean!?”

He stared across the field and on the horizon. Doyel hobbled over with his bandaged arm and a M1A1 in hand. He looked worse than before and now he was hovelling along on an old salvaged Kar98k as a makeshift braise.

“How’s it going?” Doyel asked with as much vigor as he could despite the fact he was clearly sick.

“Oh, well, good I guess. I’ve been trying to decode this writing; I think it’s a tip on how to kill these things.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Well, it says ‘You must ascend from darkness’. Did you ever notice how the zombies only attack at night? Then you must lift yourself from the night, from darkness, to find salvation, and it lies above. And what lies above? The sun! One way or another, sunlight weakens these things.”

“That… or the night makes them stronger.”

Wesley hadn’t thought of this. What could make these thinks stronger? Like a flash the teddy bear Wesley found was brought to mind. With anther flash, the rock he’d given to Peter ran though his head. The little, evil thoughts Wesley had heard jingled in the back of his mind. He though t of the box. He thought of the box floating in front of him, whispering “Let me out.”

He brushed off the thought and looked over to Doyel. His pale face held what Wesley though he could recognize as a warning, as if he where telling him “Don’t do it, don’t open the box.” The quick shift on Doyel’s face from pale to green made him forget the idea. As quickly as his face had changed, Doyel vomited on the steps. There was no deigning it; Doyel was sick.

“How are you holding up?”

“Bad. The bite got infected and now it’s crippling everything in my system. I’m sick to my stomach, can’t keep food down, have the runs like nobody's business--”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

“No. I won’t. Even if we get out of here, even if I don’t have whatever these freaks do… I’m sunk.”

Doyel tried to lighten the mood with a nasally laugh. He pulled out his sleeve and wiped a long trail of snot down it. Wesley never really knew Doyel before this. He always though he was a nascence a draftee that thought he was hot stuff. Doyel never had any friends but—

“Hey Doyel, I think you should see this.”

Wesley felt a lump grow in his through as he handed Doyel Cole’s picture.

“I found this in the wreck.”

A tear rolled down Doyel’s cheek as he handed him the photo.

“We where both drafted together. Thank you.”

“Your friend?”

“No. My brother.”

Doyel shutter for a bit before clinging to Wesley and sobbing.

Wesley let out a dry sigh.

Whether it was coming to them or if they were going to it, Doyel needed help. He got up and walked into the other room to grab some shovels.

“Where are you going?” Doyel asked.

“First I’m going to go squeeze the weasel; I’ve really got to go. Then I’m going to fortify the building for tonight. I we need to book it tonight, we’ll need any booby traps we can make to get the hell out of here.”

Chapter 20

The following message was transmitted from Berlin that night as the Marines where bunkering down for the night. It is unknown to me if Wesley and his men managed access and decode this signal:

>Gunshots<

Marine 1: Get some fucking fire on those things!

Marine 2: SUPPRESSING FIRE!

Marine 3: What the hell went wrong!? Where the fuck is our Shermans!

>Static<

Marine 1: Flamethrower, moving up!

Marine 2: RAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

>Torch ignites, scream of zombies and men alike are heard<

>Static<

Radio Officer: Command wants you to retrieve a high priority target within the asylum!

Marine 5: Are you fucking nuts!

Marine 4: Not ‘till we get some damn Shermans!

>Static<

Marine 3: I think I killed it!

>Moan<

Marine 3: It’s not fucking dead! AHHHHHHHHH!

>Five continuess minutes of gunshots and screams, until it falls sillent and sounds as if the radio shifts and is carried off<

Marine 1: Looks like Thomas died with the radio. Poor bastard.

Marine 2: Him? What about us?

Marine 1: Shut up Riley… can’t find a comm link to command. Looks like we're on our own.

>Radio shuts off<

To be continued...

[carbonfibah]

Chapter 22

Battle of Peleliu

Operation: Stalemate II

Lt. Wesley

1st Marines

The darkness was the worst part. And the silence. As the landing craft was about to launch, no one said a word. Occasionally the intercom would blast orders or someone might cough or sneeze, but it was quiet. Wesley looked up at the landing motto near the gate out of the ship. “Stay alert. Stay alive.” Wesley felt his grip tighten around his M1 Garand. He muttered a silent prayer. Sergeant Pepper—that was his name right? Pepper?—laid a heavy hand on Wesley’s shoulder. “Relax kid,” he said, “You’re in with the old breed.”

“Three days people, just three days. No more, no less.”

“Right,” Pvt. Lawson griped, “Three hell-filled days with the whole Japanese army trying to kill us.”

“You know what Lawson?” Peter cut in, “Why are you such a downer?”

“Shut up!” yelled Captain Sanderson, “If we can’t work together now where all dead!”

The loud speaker cut in, “Dog squad, launch is go!”

“That’s us! Get ready!”

With a slow creak like an old rollercoaster the boat move off the loading dock and past the loading doors. As they emerged into the light, they where almost deafened by a rocket volley firing from the ship across from them. Waves washed over the boat and the driver shut his flood hatch as to not get wet. Even being so far away, MG fire roared directly over their heads.

“Keep your heads down.”

Even without being able to see the beach, Wesley could easily see their objective. The Point. The large mountain fortress withstood navel shelling and was now firing huge shells down on the Marines even before they could leave their boats. With a loud swish, a shell slammed into the serf right next to the boat. The sudden wake toppled Wesley to the floor. Oxford offered him a hand and pulled him to his feet.

“Get up Tumbles!” he mocked. Lawson slipped on the soaking wet deck and banged his head on the side of the boat.

“Hey, too bad you where wearing you helmet Lawson, you might not have been able to fight that Jap army you where talking about!”

The other Marines bellowed out laughs, even it the midst of all this chaos. Wesley didn’t yet understand the Marines, but he found himself admiring them. Laughing in the face of death. Classic.

Eventually with a thunk, the boat hit land.

“Last one out…” said Peter as he threw himself over the edge. The other Marines just stared at the empty seat he sat in. On of the youngest Marines tapped Wesley’s shoulder and politely asked him “Is he insane!?”

Wesley whipped the water from his face and replied as he hoisted himself over the edge, “We all are. We’re the Marines.”

The other Marines just stood in shock. No one expected the new guy to be that brave. Not to be outdone, Sgt. McAllen tossed his 50 cal over the edge of the boat.

“Come on,” he said, “We’re going for a swim.”

Wesley didn’t expect the water to be that cold. As soon as he plunged in, he found himself waist deep in freezing cold water. He stumbles as he tried to get a foothold on the coral reef, slipping beneath the waves. When he surface he had lost his weapon, couldn’t find the other Marines, and had swallowed a huge gulp of salt water. As he made his way to the beach, MG fire roared over his head, making a lead ceiling Wesley could not pass. With a flash, one of the heavy guns fired into the surf strait as Wesley. He heard a “Look out!” and was pulled into the sea. When he was pulled back up, he found himself staring in the face of an older, more experienced Marine. Wesley’s ear felt like they were filled with cotton, but he could make out the words “Stay down!” before the Marine trudged off. As he sloshed through the water, Wesley felt a warm trickle run across his leg. Upon examination Wesley found that it was blood in the water. It soaked through to his trousers and stained his hands. Eventually he found the source. A torn Marine floated face down in the surf. In the midst of the Beach landing, Wesley had a moment where it seemed like no one else was there. He flipped over the body and stared into the face of Pvt. Lawson.

Peter was shivering from the water, but he managed to find his was on to a rock a distance away from the bullets. An older Marine was pulling bodies (living or otherwise) from the ocean. A young Marine was planning a joint strike over the radio. A corporal ran over to great Peter.

“Hey, good to have you here! Good to see one of the squads made it through fine!”

“Thanks. So, are we knocking out those bunkers, or are we planning to let them use up there ammo first?”

The corporal gave a wheezy laugh. “No, we have Miller over there calling in a strike. Should be ready in….”

“Thirty seconds,” Miller called.

“Alright, let’s watch the fireworks!”

“Roebuck!” one man called.

The older Marine dashed off, leaving Peter alone. He fixed his bayonet and prepared to charge.

“Ten seconds!”

Peter could here in intercoms of offshore ships adjusting their fire.

“Five, four, three, two!”

There was a distant, foom-foom-foom-foom and tracked the rocket as they sailed across the sky, them the beach exploded into a firestorm. The bunker be came leveled and bodies flew left and right. Every Marine on the beach charge together inland. Peter took off toward another location.

He found himself in a mine field just off the beach. Eventually he came across five stone lions. That was the main marker. He dropped down into a trench and found himself in a small cavern. In it sat a small desk with blueprints and schematics. He checked them to see if they where legit. Command had tough him little Japanese for this mission, but he could make out the word “Porter’s” on it. When he found the weapon, it was only half complete with the main power cell missing, but it would have to do. He shoved it into his bag and went on his way. When he made it back to the beach the rest of his squad had been looking for him.

“Oh thank God, you’re alive,” said Pepper.

“Why? How many people did we lose?”

“Too many.”

Wesley noticed a small object in Peter’s hand.

“Hey, what’s that?

“Nothing.”

Wesley saw a flash of red when Peter shoved the object back into his bag.

“Alright. Come on. Those boys over at the airfield need our help.”

Wesley felt a cold lump grow in his throat has they left the blood-red sands.

Chapter 23

Back at the crash.

4:23pm

Wesley sat on the steps inside of the bunker. Outside, a large fire was still blazing for a signal for the incoming aircraft. Doyel with the last of his energy shambled over to Wesley and sat next to him.

“This is it,” he said, “We’re going home.”

Wesley let out a small cry when he heard this. “Jesus, I thought we were already dead. God, the first thing I’m doing when I get home is have a big old cheeseburger, an ice cold beer, and then I’m going to sleep.”

“The first thing I’ll be doing is… being fed through an IV as I’m tested for some gross disease.”

“You still think you’re dying?” Wesley asked. Doyel just had a grime expression on his face, and then broke into a fit of coughing.

“So,” Wesley continued, “What did you do before the war?”

“Oh, not much. Cole and I grew up on a farm. We had pigs, cows, chickens, goats. You know, all that good stuff.”

“How’d you get into flying?”

“Flying crop dusters. Cole and I saved up a fortune to by one. We used to leave first thing in the morning to go work on it, fly it, and not come home ‘till late at night. Once the war started, we thought it was the perfect idea to go into military flying. What about you? What’s your story?”

“Well, I was a student.”

“Student?”

“Yeah. I went to Harvard and worked on history. Once I was drafted I had to go through officer training. That took a while. Because of that, I was one of the newer Marines to join. I saw Guadalcanal first hand, but just from the deck of a ship. I was too late to join the Marines on the island.”

“Good thing. From what I heard it was hell.”

“Oh, it was. Ask Oxford, he was there. Anyway after that I went island hopping without even seeing a Jap. It wasn’t until Peleliu that I fired my first shots.”

“On the beach?”

“No, I’d lost my weapon. On the airfield though I’d manage to fire my carbine and take out a few infantry. I also snagged a bazooka off a dead body and killed a tank with one of the rockets. Eventually on The Point I got to get up close and meet the enemy. I was inside the mountain with my trench gun as was in the perfect position to take out a platoon. One of them charged. I can still see the look in that boy’s eyes as I pinned him down and….”

Wesley seemed to space out. Doyel quickly swapped topics.

“So I heard you where also in Okinawa.”

“Oh, yeah. That was terrible. We lost so many men. I almost got torn in half by a satchel charge. A few boys helped my out of the battlefield and to the med ward. I even got to ride in Major Gordon’s truck... And I became a Captain that day. It became my job to watch over the rest of my squad and reach Sheri Castle, where I fired my last shots of the war… Fun stuff.”

Just then the radio barked to life into a series of code. The sound of engines could be heard in the distance. Oxford ran outside yelling “It’s them!”

Wesley ran outside a looked at the horizon. The blood-red sun showed the silhouettes of fighter planes approaching. The Marines ran outside shouting and hollering in joy as the fighters flew overhead. The pilots circled the building once and then lowered speed. Really lowed speed. The pulled the brakes and dropped their payload.

A large cloud of napalm shrouded the bunker and set trees ablaze. All the fortifications Wesley set up outdoor was engulfed in fire. The three Marines dropped to the ground as the fighters pulled off. Wesley got to his feet and stared at the scorched earth.

“Fucking idiots!” Oxford cursed at the top of his lungs. “Don’t you see what’s going on!?”

Wesley just dropped to his knees and replied, “I don’t understand.”

“The US Army just told us to go fuck ourselves. Evidently, they think that the Krauts captured us, and think that it would be easier to thermo bomb us and take out the Krauts too then it would be to rescue us!”

“No…”

“Shit…” Doyel cursed. Several freshly turned and burning zombies where beginning to rise from their graves. “We have to get inside now.”

“Doyel… your right. We have to gather our stuff before we leave.”

Chapter 24

“What!?”

“Get inside, grab a gun, and form up.”

The zombies where inching nearer and nearer to the Marines. One after the other, the three men ran for the bunker. Doyel stumbled and fell to the ground. Wesley lifted him up and pushed on. The entire bunker was in flames. If the Marines hadn’t been outside, they’d have been trapped inside and engulfed in flames. Wesley set Doyel down. He picked up the M2, his double shot, his .357 and his personal pack. Oxford and Doyel where packed and ready to go as well.

“Alright, does everyone remember the plan? Good. Hold you ground here ‘till we have to leave.”

A burning support beam fell right in from of Oxford.

“At this rate that won’t be much longer!”

Zombies began to swarm the building, sacrificing their hands to claw their way into the burning building. A few actually started climbing into the building, getting dangerously close to the Marines before one of them shot it dead. A large amount of burning debris collapsed from the foundation, sending Wesley sprawling to the floor. Oxford quickly pulled him back up.

“Don’t worry buddy, I’ve got you back!”

Another zombie snuck up behind Doyel and threatened to bare down on him, but

Wesley though quickly and pushed the creature into the flames and hosed the creature down with napalm.

“We’ve got to move!” he yelled as another zombie tried to pull him into the fire.

The men rush up the stairs. As some of the zombies tried to pull themselves up, the Marines used the butt of their guns to push them back down. One ghoul grabbed Wesley’s uniform and tried to pull him down. He grabbed the zombie’s arm, only to have the charred flesh slide off the bone. Wesley pulled out his knife and sliced the zombie’s arm off and punched it in its swollen head so hard a white puss covered his hand afterwards.

One zombie charged and tackled Doyel to the ground. He fired his pistol at it, but the bullets just bounced off. The thing was wearing a flack jacket! Slowly, the creature raised its head. What Doyel found made him shriek in horror. He was staring into the face of Cole. The creature let out a moan as chunks of flesh fell from its mouth. The creature was opening its mouth to feed.

With a red spray, Wesley’s shotgun bore through the creature’s head, and totally decapitated it. No one else saw what had happened but Doyel. Doyel felt… angry.

“Alright,” Doyel said, prepping the bazooka, “Let’s push the bastards back!”

The rocket hit the steps and exploded, sending body parts flying. Even more zombies pulled themselves back up. Just then, Wesley heard something coming from the radio room. Chatter. Someone was sending a transmition to the bunker!

“Fall back to the radio room!” he yelled. As the Marines ran down the stairs, Doyel fired the last rocket and demolished the staircase, blocking the Marines in and the zombies out. Wesley dashed to the radio and intercepted the message. It was coordinates in Morris Code. He was not radio man but he decoded the message on a small piece of paper. The coordinates where to Berlin!

“Peter!” yelled Ox, “They’re from Peter!”

Wesley could have said he told them so, but there was no time. As Doyel manned the MG, mowing down tons of zombies, Wesley and Oxford began tearing down the wall to the tunnel. When they reached the tunnel, a large group of zombies ran out, vicious from hunger. Oxford managed to kill a few with his M1A1, and Wesley finished off the rest with his .357 and shotgun. The tunnel was open! They could leave. Several zombies where tearing apart the barbed wire that held them back.

“Doyel, let’s got!”

Doyel just walked around and primed the satchels on the support beams.

“Doyel, what the fuck are you doing? Let’s go!”

“There’s only room for two on your freedom train Captain. Someone has to hold back the zombies as you escape. Besides (he stops to enter a fit of coughing) I’m not going to make it anyway.”

“Doyel we can still---”

“No, you can’t. Don’t worry. I’ll topple the building and trap the zombies inside. You’ll make a clean get away. Cole would have wanted it this way.”

Doyel began to prim an old bomb from the B-17.

“Go…” Doyel said. Wesley stood his ground. With a pop, one of the wires broke and the zombies began to climb through. Doyel fired his M1911 at them and yelled the order louder. “GO!”

Wesley ran. He didn’t know why, he just ran. He felt like he was on Peleliu again. Like he was a kid. As he entered the forest Oxford questioned where Doyel was. Wesley just dropped to his knees and began to cry. When Oxford realized what happened, he ran off to the bunker. There was one last scream, and the bunker ignited. Small bits of debris feel back to Earth, but nothing was left but toppled concrete. Wesley grabbed Oxford to stop him from running into the blaze.

“Look,” he said, “Doyel wasn’t a Marine, but he was the bravest man I’ve ever known. Unless you want him to die in vein, we have to make it to Berlin, find Peter, and get home. Do you hear me!?”

The two Marines took one last look at the blaze before the set off into the woods….

Chapter 25

Doyel counted to ten before grabbing the hellbox to the charges. The writhing horde in from of him had its arms outstretched ready to feed. He took a deep breath, pushed down the charge and… nothing. Nothing happened! This was unfair! He was going to see Cole! He threw the hell box and it dropped to the floor. Then something happened. The “mystery box” began to glow yellow as a silver metallic liquid poured out of it. As Doyel tried to touch it, he burned himself. It was a molten form of the rock they gave Peter.

The molten liquid moved across the floor until it reached the bomb. It began to cover the bomb like a symbiotic and the bomb began to hover in front of Doyel. One voice thought ran through Doyel’s mind like an evil wind.

Touch it.

Doyel reached out for it with his good arm and touched it. It was too hot to get near. He looked at his bitten arm. It seem to fell better again when near this. Doyel removed his bandages to reveille his gory forearm. He outstretched his arm and stuck it in the liquid alloy. With a loud bellow of pain, he reached the molten core and felt a burst of heat, and so heard the last thing he would ever hear:

Ka-boom.

The end

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