Induction

I could tell they were loaded because the vest was heavy and cumbersome as I maneuvered it onto my torso. The gravity of what we were about to do hit me as I slid my arms through the vest. Lieutenant Dan went over the plan again. We parked about a klick away from the truck, I now knew that a klick was equivalent to a kilometer or pretty close to a mile, and headed to the bridge on foot. It was unlikely we would find the men kicking back and catching some rays by the tanker, but it gave us a starting point and hopefully would provide us with some clue as to what happened and where Jake was.

I was surprised by how few walking corpses we came across. Empty streets meant they weren’t dropping dead on their own. They had to be moving. The problem was, the only time I saw them moving was when they had a target in sight. Living, breathing targets. The truck stopped moving and Seth put it into park and killed the engine. Two Humvees stood abandoned nearby. The team hit the ground and was immediately on alert.

Fanning out, with guns at the ready, we began walking to the bridge. It wasn’t lost on me that the men kept me in the center of their protective circle. Adam fell into step beside me. No one spoke. Bayonets had been affixed to each of our weapons. Our orders were clear. Silent kills unless absolutely necessary.

We knew the zombies were attracted to smell and sound. Smell, we couldn’t do anything about, but we wouldn’t give them the benefit of hearing us. When faced with one or two at a time, we could easily take them down without guns. I mean easily in the sense of physical stress. Psychologically, I still struggled with killing. I even felt a bit of remorse for Lena.

The entrance of the bridge loomed before us like a gaping mouth. Seth’s hands began moving in rapid succession like he was having a Tourette’s attack in sign language. With eyes so intensely focused on the group, his hands moved like he was cranking a handle. This was answered with a thumbs-up from the men. So, I followed suit, deducing this must be him asking if we were ready to move.

He shimmied up about ten feet and pancaked himself behind a minivan, looked around and patted his head. He pointed at Sanchez and brought his thumb to his eye like he was looking through a spyglass. The group, myself included, just following the leader again, moved up to Seth and stopped. Only Sanchez continued past him, crouched low and weapon at the ready.

Seeing my obvious confusion, Seth then tugged his ear, patted his forearm, made a finger twirling motion, and followed it up by sticking his finger up his nose. I was totally lost; I could almost feel the question mark bouncing over my head. Every man in uniform had a shit-eating grin on their face, attempting to maintain composure and not laugh. Mouth agape, I snapped my head back to Seth with the realization that he was completely messing with me. He stood there, hands on hips, and chest puffed out in pride at his little practical joke. I won’t lie. It was damn funny. Completely the wrong time, but a well needed tension breaker.

Back down to business. Seth made a few more gestures, too fast for me to see, much less understand. But the soldiers clearly did, and they split into two teams. One covered our front, and the other flanked us as we began moving again. I heard the wet squishing noise of knife penetrating brain as they dispatched any undead that got close.

We kept low, using the cover of cars in case there was a horde waiting for us. It was a good thing the bridge had three lanes, giving us some breathing room between cars. As I passed their windows, I found myself looking inside. Some were empty; others entombed the undead as they made feeble attempts to free themselves. Windows were smashed and dried blood, cracked and flaking from the elements, covered the bridge in large splatters.

The trek to the fuel tanker was a quiet one. We had come into contact with only a handful of undead. As we neared the truck, I noticed a change in the blood. It was still tacky. Flies swarmed the area and their buzzing made my skin crawl.

“Sir,” I heard one of the soldiers whisper. I immediately jogged to where he was standing. On the ground lay what had once been one of our men. Clad in shredded fatigues, he looked up at us vacantly as his jaws snapped. The force of his jaw clamping down caused his front teeth to shatter, and the broken pieces had fallen into his throat. His body didn’t move. I suspected that was largely due to what little was left of him. They had picked him clean. Both legs were gone and his central mass was an empty cavity down to his spine. I wondered how long they feasted on him until he turned and if they kept on eating him even then. His hand still clutched the radio. This was the voice of Echo One we’d heard the day before.