Zombie apocalypse fiction – Ruth’s story #136 Zombies in the misty forest #TEOTWAWKI #SHTF #WCS

If it were not for the stupid, clanking cowbell hanging around the zombie’s neck, the fucker would have grabbed me before I realized that he was even there. Thankfully, I heard the bell just before its nasty hand grabbed my hair. This zombie lacks a flaming tire.

Spinning quickly, my hair in its customary ponytail caught by the zombie’s left hand pulls out from underneath my field coat. Tethered to the zombie by my hair, with both hands, I swing my Cold Steel Special Forces shovel over my shoulder.

The flat shovel blade strikes the zombie in the face. Its face and jaw broken, dripping broken, loose teeth the zombie snaps at me like a rabid dog. The sounds made by the pieces of cowbell zombie’s broken jaw grinding together are sickening.

Yanking on my hair, cowbell zombie snaps at me again. I spin inside its arms so that I am face to face with the much larger male zombie. A pair of knee strikes to the mid-outer thigh between the leg muscles shatters cowbell zombie’s left femur.

Some of my male Krav Maga instructors describe an outer thigh strike as more painful than a kick to the balls. Lacking balls, I am not able to determine if their opinion was true, but an outer thigh strike which at the minimum, paralyzes the leg, is extremely painful.

Unfortunately, zombies do not feel pain. The zombie drops to its knees, the jagged ends of its shattered femur erupt through its rotting flesh. Cowbell zombie’s left hand is still holding on to my ponytail. I swing my shovel again; the sharpened edge of the spade severs the zombie’s left hand at the wrist.

The twitching severed hand clutching a few wisps of my hair slides down my back falling to the ground. With a sickening crunch, before cowbell zombie’s severed hand hits the ground, I bury the sharpened shovel blade in its forehead. Twisting the shovel’s handle with a spray of black gore, I yank my shovel from the dead zombie’s forehead.

With hands reaching for me, a second zombie staggers out of the underbrush. The zombie’s hands are tipped by bloody and chipped painted and manicured nails. This zombie lacks both a cowbell and a flaming tire.

Dressed in bloody ragged light blue hospital scrubs this female nurse zombie is an older one near full transformation. Nurse zombie still has her white plastic name tag pinned to her blouse; I cannot read it due to the blood covering it. Her feet still wear the incredibly tacky white Crocks.

My knife shreds through the leafy undergrowth burying itself in nurse zombie’s left eye. Disorientated, the zombie nurse staggers on its feet.

I close the distance in four strides slamming the knife deep into the zombie’s brain with a vicious palm strike against my Glock field knife handle. Twisting the knife, I wiggle it side to side ensuring nurse zombie is truly dead.

Beside me one of my men dispatches another zombie by plunging his Wasp knife up through the soft palate into the zombie’s brain. When he depresses the trigger, the zombies head explodes in a disgusting chunky shower of brain, hair and white pieces of bone. Yanking the knife from the corpse, the man removes the spent 800 gram CO2 cartridge.

Dropping the spent gas cartridge on the ground, he installs a fresh cartridge into the knife. Walking beside me, he wipes the Wasp knife off with a rag. I do not know this man’s name, as he is a recent arrival in camp. He wears operator-style black BDUs, with desert tan, US army style boots.

Fashion sense aside, the man appears to be a competent fighter. A battered FDE Steyr AUG hangs over the man’s back. He replaces the Wasp knife on his left hip hanging from his OD green, old-style army pistol belt. Hanging from the belt on his right hip is a pretty, satin nickel CZ 83.32 ACP pistol with a Fitz-style open trigger guard.

Loaded with a menagerie of bullets, the little CZ pistol has a 15 round magazine. I was never fond of the little 32s as I always consider them too underpowered. I certainly would not choose a 32 as my sidearm in a zombie apocalypse. I suppose, though, that one cannot be too picky about finding a weapon in a zombie apocalypse, and a 32 is better than no pistol at all.

As our troops kill the few zombies, that stagger through the forest, we hear the occasional low-frequency thump of a mine detonating. Many more zombies stagger out of the forest, some worse for the wear showing obvious signs of wading through a mine field.

Not sure how many mines we have left, but the zombies are quickly exhausting them. Realizing that our troops are quickly being overran by the zombies, Nikola and I call our men back. Yelling at Junior, I run with my men towards our fortified position.

Hearing the low thump and the whistle as the first mortar rounds sail overhead, I yell for my troops to prepare to kill the zombies behind us. Running towards our lines, one of my men falls underneath several zombies. His screams are short-lived.

Hurdling over the stacked logs, my surviving men take their positions. I yell for the men to prepare to detonate the claymores and other explosives placed in front of our position. At my command, the explosives rip through the trees, killing many of the zombies.

As I yell for the men to commence firing, Shack runs over yelling in my ear. “All the Adventists on our left are dead. Someone slipped over their wall and slit their throats. Not sure how many enemy forces are inside. The colonels are attempting to replace the lost Adventists.”

Nikola’s and my lads open up, decimating the first ranks of the zombies. The grenade launchers obliterate the zombies. The fuel air bombs effects are not as effective outside as they are indoors. FABs kill by over-pressurization, incredible heat and by consuming all available oxygen.

Used indoors, a FAB ruptures lungs as it consumes all the air. The intense pressure wave shatters eardrums, causes blindness, and is a horrible way to die. The thermobaric grenades carried by our troops have a lethality radius of about ten feet.

The zombies in the immediate area of the thermobaric grenade’s blast are deflagrated, disappearing in a fiery cloud of zombie bits. Zombies on the fringes of the thermobaric grenade’s blast are badly burned and injured, some enough so that they die a few seconds after the explosion.

I do not want my men to expend the few thermobaric grenades they carry. At my command, several frag grenades get tossed among the zombies, further reducing their numbers. Unfortunately, the gun fire, explosives and men yelling attract more zombies. I just hope the number of zombies does not exceed the amount of ammo we have.

I hear the squawk of the radio behind me. I hear Junior talking in the radio set, but I cannot make any of the words out as they are drowned out by gunfire. The Princess’s daughter continues to lob HE mortar rounds into the forest.

Junior taps me on the shoulder. Placing his Kevlar helmet against mine, he says “Uh, Ruth, you may want to get this.”

He holds out the handset to me.