Zombies
Here’s a short story I’ve tried from a couple of different angles in the past but wrote here mostly from scratch. It’s 4:30 am and I just finished it so no editing and not even one read through heh. Inspired to do writing this late in part by shastas nice comment on life or love. Thank you shasta.
The story takes place some few decades in the future in a military outfit with no particular nation.
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ZOMBIES
Chief Medic First Class Roberts took his time inspecting the line of new medics fresh from boot camp. Their plain sand suits wouldn’t stay that way for long in the weeks ahead as rank and special areas of focus clouded out their simple identification. Nations of origin were represented as flags below their serial numbers. The only real tie to who these cadets are was a simple embroidered first name above the left pocket. Eighteen year old boys and girls, that looked about ready to go into convulsions if not let loose to fidget.
“At ease cadets!” Roberts’ gruff voice echoed throughout the hallway, vacant save for these twenty new faces. Immediately following his command, and with a brief moments of hesitation-sighs came as puffed out chests and straighter than healthy postures released to a more relaxed state. “I will be your first instructor until you decide or are placed in an area of expertise. It is my job to see that you have the full overview of what it means to be a Medic in this army. And I do not accept failure.”
Realizing that the last statement may have come out a bit harshly, Roberts’ sought to offer them some praise. “You made it through basic, which I certainly could no longer do.” The Chief Medic ran his hands down his quite large stomach, patted them once and placed his arms back at his sides while walking before these cadets. “And you all scored exceptionally well on your exams- otherwise I would never have accepted you into my barracks. Our job here is to save lives, not to better our own. If you wanted fame and glory you would have gone infantry, if you wanted power and money it would have been command. Yet you decided on one of the most undervalued teams in the military and I salute you for that.”
The children before Roberts were finally relaxing, and realizing that this wasn’t going to be like their old commander. His job was to make them fit for any possible service the country could want for them, Roberts task was to take the material he had been given and sculpt the best medics he possible could. And for that he needed a loose environment where people could think for themselves and not feel pressured by authority when it came down to saving a leg, or a life.
“First off, are there any questions you cadets would like to ask? Something about what is expected from you here?” Roberts knew what the question would be, it was the same when he was a cadet and every year since.
“Sir,” one brave girl asked far off to the right with only the merest hint of nervousness to her voice.
Glancing down at some paper work he glanced up again in her general direction. “Cathy is it? What’s your question?”
“It’s about the zombies sir.” Cadet Cathy spoke a little more quietly this time. The girl standing next to her, must be a friend, poked her in the side. A muffled ouch came from the little incident and the rest of the cadets were whispering to each other excited and quietly.
“Ghost stories, is it? No questions about pay ranks, time off, or barrack relationships?” Chief Roberts who has done this for a good five years now knew how to play to an audience. “I’m sure the other cadets would rather discuss more practical matters wouldn’t they?”
Almost as once they answered, “No Sir!”
A smile danced at Robert’s lips. “Well who can tell me what a zombie is?”
“The walking dead!” Some cadet spoke up and was met with a quick, “shut up Randy.”
“It’s the phrase for combat troops who are walked back to base by their suits and are already dead.” One of the more aggressive girls responded as if each word was a sentence in itself.
“Well now, that’s only half the truth though. What’s your name young girl?” Roberts walked the line until he was standing in front of her.
“Sally, sir.” She tried to hide the offense taken at being corrected in her eyes, which peered outward a bit too defiantly and unfocused.
“Well Sally, sure there is that. Every poor soul lost on the field of battle comes back and is a zombie … but not everyone of them is a Zombie.” Roberts stress the letter z much harsher the second time around. “Can anyone tell me what a Zombie is?” Again stressing the word.
The kid who made the walking dead comment spoke up, “Someone who died in their suit, but never really left it sir.”
Sally turned to the speaker forgetting her commanding office and erupted, “that’s nothing but a ghost story to scare homesick kids at the barracks!”
“Well now, I don’t generally consider myself the superstitious kind young Sally, and every single outfit has some story to tell about them dead soldiers still in their suits.”
“Do we sir?” It was the same kid again- name by Randy.
“Well son, that was just the question I was waiting for someone to ask.”
“The exoskeleton suits were first designed to help soldiers carry more weight. Fire power and tactical displays and better armor. With a suit on a man can carry five times his weight and run three times as fast. It wasn’t until later when some higher up realized we could get wounded soldiers off the field and back into action faster by programming the suits to return to base. Unfortunately, we ended up getting more dead soldiers coming back than live ones. They’d stroll nonchalantly into camp- even be greeted by friends. It wasn’t until the suits were pulled off that their friends realized they had been welcoming back corpses. Most returned troops were like that, dead- and being such a ghastly experience, patting a walking corpse on the back- someone invented the phrase zombie. For a time they wanted to kill the return program in the suit, it unsettled the troops- but it was felt that even getting the suits cleaned up, back in the field on another soldier was worth the distress. So here we medics are today, most of the time prying bodies out of the exoskeletons and getting them ready again for service, but often enough we do end up saving a life that would otherwise have been lost. So it isn’t like y’all will be working in a morgue or anything of the sort.” Robert’s took a breath before going into the real story.
“Now several years back when I was only little older than you are now, I was sent out for my first real experience at what was thought to be a small operation. An easy assignment my friends told me, they couldn’t have been more wrong.”
“There was a small camp of terrorists located in some hell hole desert. Even in the morning it was hot at that time of year, still the decision was made for a dawn strike. Three of us medics were up drinking coffee as one by one the small group of a dozen soldiers packed themselves into their suits and jokingly told us they’ll be seeing us soon. Of course no one was worried about much more than a stray bullet. Considering the easy exercise most of them were first timers as were us medics. Save for John. He was an old guy who refused to pick up a teaching job or retire. Kept talking about saving lives- so managed to pass a medical exam every year to stay on the job. He’d laugh when us novices spoke up about zombies. See, he had been around since long before the suits. His attitude was better get them in the tent where it’s nice and cozy than running stretchers out into the killing zone. Of course for his age he wasn’t stationed in many big fights, but every battle we went into he acted as if we were storming Normandy.”
“They were about an hour out or halfway to the enemy camp when we all heard commotion coming from the communications tent. So of course being bored ourselves, we made our way there. The techie at the computer was busy trying to hold several conversations at once and didn’t notice us coming in. John realized what was going on first. They had a freaking EMP mine. That’s electromagnetic pulse for any of you who slept through basic warfare. We didn’t even think about a group of terrorists having access to one at the time. And in any conflict the EMP was likely to do as much damage to both sides. For awhile there had been talk of keeping a regiment of soldiers with bows and arrows just in case of an all out non-electrical war, but no one took it seriously. The best we did in those days was to hold half our soldiers back, ready to be deployed if the rest were knocked out of action. Those suits are heavy and after being hit by one there’s no chance of soldiers picking themselves up under their own strength. Seemed like near everyone just stood there in thought for more minutes than had passed for a new cry to come from another station. They were being slaughtered. All around the position men with antiquated machine guns were blasting into the heap of piled up suits. The chief communications officer was calling in air support but it would take time to get there.”
“My only thought was, they’re all going to be killed. I was so busy thinking of all those poor kids that I didn’t notice John had left the tent until someone else brought in to my attention.”
“Some soldier pointed out at one of the security screens and said, what’s that guy doing- isn’t that the medic. Following his line of sight, I saw it was John dressed up in a half broken down suit running full speed towards the fight. Someone tried to call into John to tell him to stand down and return to camp but there was something wrong with his suits communications system. The best we could get was the video feed from his visor as he continued on towards the battle, unarmed save for his medical kit.”
“There was nothing for us to do until the helicopters came in to clean out the terrorists so we could get to the scene. This was supposed to be a silent operation after all, with a focus on getting prisoners and intelligence. There was nothing on standby to help us out. So we watched as John made it to the scene and started cutting the soldiers out of their suits. Many were still alive, thanks to the suits armor- but none were totally unscathed. Psychologically these kids were tormented, unable to move enough to even turn their heads, but with bullets flashing all around them. The terrorists were shouting something but most of the soldiers didn’t know enough Arabic in those days to understand it. It was just a hail of dust and yelling and bullet sprays until John started cutting them free.”
“We all expected John to go down fast, after the second body the terrorists quickly realizing he was unarmed turned their attention to him. Yet his armor must have held out since he managed to free another soldier before the helicopters finally arrived.”
“That was our cue, we hopped into a transport truck with our supplies and rushed off with barely a word spoken. John really had inspired us and we didn’t want to look like slackers. When we got to the site several wounded soldiers were hunched up on the side of a ridge and John was working on getting the rest free. We went right to work on the wounded, getting them patched up as much as possible, and with that done we went to see if John needed any help. He didn’t say anything and just continued working along, so we figured he was irritated at us for taking so long. He was single minded and deftly took apart the joints of the suits to get the soldiers free, only taking the time to lay them down and moved on to the next. For a moment we stood transfixed but a sense of duty called us back to work so we went to another soldier still trapped.”
“We counted ourselves lucky, either due to Johns intervention of just blind luck none of the soldiers died that day. Some were pretty badly wounded, but it was almost a miracle considering the blind trap they had walked into. Imagine a group of terrorists, not even an organized army- having something as hard to come by as an EVP mine.”
“At any rate we were finishing up with the last soldier, getting ready to transport everyone back to base, when Johns suit curled in on itself and fell to the ground. We assumed it was cause the suit was in disrepair and out of power as we hurried over to cut our own comrade out.”
“We tried to talk to John, saying we’d get you out in a second- but he didn’t answer us. It didn’t make sense still being mad at us at a time like this. Neither of us knew him that well but it still didn’t fit. Only when we got the suit open, did we realize, he was dead.”
Roberts paused for a few moments listening to see if any of the cadets had anything to say.
“But when did he die?” One spoke up hopefully in the back.
“Well that’s the funny part, seeing as how his suit was already half busted when he put it on- it didn’t keep track of his vitals. So maybe he died from wounds right when we were finishing up and the suit didn’t know what else to do so it shut down. Maybe he had been shot up pretty bad before the helicopters came in to clear the terrorists off. Some people even claim he had died when he first got to the scene, but somehow his suit knew to keep going.”
“But what do you think Chief Medic?”
“Well, I see it that John would have done anything to save those soldiers and if it was within his power he wouldn’t let a little thing like death stop him.” Roberts rolled up his sleeve and noticed the time. “Seems it’s gotten later than I thought, alright cadets off to the barracks.” A series of moans came from the squad who wanted to hear more. “Plenty of time for stories another day. Tomorrow you have to be up bright and early to begin training on how to remove the exoskeleton suits. Pleasant dreams.” With that the Chief Medic turned on his heels and marched off to his own room for the night.
