The Drill

Robards stared out the rear of the transport, watching the sea of metal and glass disappear in their wake. Abandoned vehicles choked the lanes and shoulders. The occasional steel-on-steel scream of their metal carriage bulldozing a car made him twist uncomfortably in his seat. The median they were traveling on had been passable so far, but everyone knew the situation might change at any moment.

A flock of vultures took to the air as they passed, and Robards was rewarded with the horrid sight of the scavengers' most recent meal. The corpse of a woman, swollen and pecked free of several layers of tissue, lay neglected by the open door of a stranded Subaru. The bloody ruins of her tattered blue housedress stirred in the draft of the armored truck's passage.

Robards looked away, feeling nauseous.

The roar of the vehicle's engine was the only constant sound in the otherwise quiet interior. Men exchanged a few infrequent words, but no one spoke much--except for Fullon, whose mild chatter seemed incessant. Most of the men simply stared at their boot laces, as if trying to decipher some cryptic pattern in the threading. Williams--eyes sealed tight, Bible in hand--was praying. Earlier, the new guy--Jones? Johnson?--had vomited out the back, and he looked like he might do it again soon.

Fullon was moving from seat to seat, speaking in a hushed voice to any soldier he landed beside, absorbing each spring of conversation until it was drained.

He's like one of those damn buzzards, Robards thought, moving from victim to victim.

The majority of them hardly moved. For the most part, they just sat there with vacant looks haunting their faces, like a group of lobotomized mental patients clothed in camouflaged fatigues. All they needed were strings of drool hanging from their chins to complete the effect.

Jones/Johnson covered his mouth and lurched to the back of the transport. He braced himself and began retching through the opening, the partially-secured flap waving over his bobbing head like a banner heralding the event. He pulled back in, wiping his mouth, to find Maddox in his face, the sergeant indifferent to the rancid aroma tainting the private's breath.

"Pull it together, soldier!" Maddox ordered. "You pull that shit in the field, and I'll shoot you! We don't need you going to pieces on out there, becoming a liability! One scratch from those bastards and you're done! Game over! Understand?"

"Yes sir," the private said weakly.

"I asked if you understand?!" Maddox screamed.

"Sir, yes sir!" Jones/Johnson answered with conviction.

Maddox seemed satisfied. He stomped back to his seat and began sifting through papers.

In the corner, Williams finished his prayer--"Amen"-- and tucked the Bible under his seat.

Robards checked his magazines, made sure they were fully loaded.

A moment later, Fullon dropped onto the seat next to him and started checking his own clips. "They're calling it the Romero Virus now," Fullon confided, his mood and tone cheery to the point of being disturbing. "Because of those movies. Get it?"

"I get it," Robards acknowledged.

"Man, how could they let this shit happen?"

Robards half-turned to glare at Fullon. "You seriously expect me to answer that?"

"No. But those movies came out when? In the `70s?"

"`68 or `69, I think."

"Either way, it's been a long time. You'd think the contingency people would've thought up a few `what-if' scenarios by now."

"They probably never seriously considered it happening. And it hasn't happened. Some asshole probably said it as a joke in the beginning." Robards went back to inspecting his clips. "Bet he's not laughing now."

"But it is just like those movies," Fullon continued, "the way they act--running people down, chewing flesh off their bones, coming at you all crazy, screaming their damned heads off."

Robards sighed. He'd had different versions of this conversation with just about every man in the unit and he was tired of it. "They're not zombies, you know. They're not reanimated cannibals. They're people. They're out of their fucking minds, contagious, but people just the same. Take out a vital organ and they're done."

"Maybe. But it's like the movies. The best way is to plug `em in the noggin, cause they don't always go down with a chest or gut shot. Sometimes it takes a while, like they're on PCP or something. And during that time they're still coming at you, madder than a rabid dog and twice as vicious, like the movies." Fullon shivered. "Creepy. It's just too bad they don't stagger around all slow and dazed. That'd make this job a lot easier."

Robards placed two extra magazines in an ammo pouch on his belt and snapped it closed. "Nothing about this is easy. Not in any context. I don't think it should be."

"Okay, listen up, ladies," bellowed Maddox.

"The pre-game pep talk," Fullon whispered to Robards as he straightened in his seat.

Robards grunted a reply as he secured his last clip, then turned his attention to the man distributing orders.

"You all know the drill," the Maddox was saying. "Kill any screamer you come across. Look for survivors, but be careful! This thing is spreading like a sonofabitch, and we've already lost more men than we should have. If anyone comes running at you, order them to identify

themselves. If they don't, open fire. No exceptions. File 13 your emotions and preconceptions. Age, gender, race...none of that matters. All there is now is us and them, and these bastards are gaining numbers. Don't get careless out there."

Maddox looked over the papers in his hands, shuffled them around a bit, then continued. "I want two groups. Lewis, I want you to take Staniskowski, Honeycutt, Byrd..."

"I also heard that we're losing the bigger cities" Fullon whispered. "Heard they're considering going tactical. You know--" Fullon placed his fists side by side, then slowly straightened and splayed his fingers as he moved his hands apart.

Robards shook his head. He'd heard the rumors, too, but hoped it didn't come to that. Nuclear strategies would be an all-too-clear indicator as to who was winning this struggle, a frightening vision of how things were going and what might come.

"The roads leading into the city are pretty jammed," Maddox was saying. "So we're going in the back." Maddox paused, exhaled noisily, then continued. "And the really bad news is that we'll be entering through a school district."

Several groans and gasps escaped the men.

"I know. I know. But remember, it's hard to tell when the outbreak occurred here. Maybe we'll get lucky and find it happened during the night or evening hours,

when people would've been home. Either way, keep focused. Do not get caught up in your emotions. Don't hesitate! If you do..." He held his hands out to his sides, palms up, and shrugged.

"That's it. ETA in five. Ready up!"

"Oh, man," Fullon said. Robards saw that the man had grown a few shades paler. "I...I..."

He didn't need to explain. Robards felt the same way. Every man there did. It was in their eyes, that growing dread about what they might have to do, that fear of being unable to do it. No matter the makeup of the man, everyone has boundaries he can't force himself over. In this case, not forcing your way past those limitations could mean your life.

And if it came to that...

Robards's checked the bulge in the right breast pocket of his uniform. The grenade was still there, the pin accessible. He felt that he could carry out his duty when the time came, but if not... Well, he wasn't about to become one of them!

Williams retrieved the Bible and several of the other men formed a small circle on the floor around him. They joined hands and bowed their heads. More than a few were crying softly as Williams delivered the prayer.

When the transport braked to a stop, no one immediately moved. Outside, the sky had darkened considerably, and the wind was building force--as if

God, in his infinite humor, was setting the mood, dressing the stage for a grisly play they were to star in. For a moment, everyone just sat and stared out the open rear flap, watching bits of litter and dead leaves skip across the deserted asphalt. More abandoned cars obstructed the area. Cold gusts howled around unlit buildings, whistled through the jagged glass teeth of broken window panes, and roared down empty alleyways. And hiding in those icy shrieks, Robards thought he heard voices. Small, faint voices. Screaming. Chris Dezarn