Free Zombie Killers: HEAT by John F Holmes

cockiness.
    “Consider yourself hired. Go up to the house and see Ms. O’Neil, tell him you’re our new machine gunner.”
    His face fell when he realized that I was serious. “But, I thought, you know, since I’m so good, I could …”
    “Could what? Everyone on this team can shoot. Brit is even better than you with a shotgun and a pistol, and despite your size, I’m pretty sure Ziv could eat you for lunch in hand to hand. Shona has seen more combat in the last year than a scout will see in a decade, and Elam can hit a squirrel at a thousand yards. No, we all work together, and I need a machine gunner.”
    “But,” he almost spluttered, “What good is that going to do against undead?”
    “Used properly, at the correct height, it can do a shitload of good, and Zed isn’t the only thing we go up against. So if you want to roll with us, you do what I say. Is that a problem?”
    He seemed to think about it for a minute, and then his face lit up again. “Nope! I guess.”
    “Good. You aren’t that smart are you?” I asked, smiling to let the edge off.
    “Smart as I need to be. I’m still alive,” he answered, but grinned back at me.
    “Good. After you see Ms. O’Neil and sign your contract, Major Zivcovic here will see how good you are at hand to hand combat. Try not to hurt, him, he’s getting slow in his old age.” Ziv glared at me and muttered some kind of Serbian curse, but Lowenstein and Yasir were both smiling. There’s lots of ways to build a team.
    At that moment, the radio crackled to life. “Lost Boys, this is Rattlesnake Six. We need your Six element and your medic to come over to OP One ASAP, Over.”
    “Do you need a nine line, over? And security status?” I asked back, meaning a medical evacuation. In an emergency, unlike most, I could get a MEDEVAC out of Albany. Rank has its privileges.
    “Negative, no threat and no medevac, but you gotta see this shit, over.”
    “Roger that, on my way.” I jumped on the four wheeler and told Shona to go up to the house and get Brit and Scott, our medic. Then, not waiting for them to move, I peeled out, followed by Ziv on his own four wheeler. Obi and Elam started jogging, double time. Observation Post One was at the bridge over the canal, only two hundred meters north of us, and I made it there over the field in less than a minute, only stopping to unlatch and then relatch the gate across the causeway leading to the island.
    When we got there, Lt. Kilas, the infantry platoon leader, stood with two of his men, Ryan, and my two private security contractors who ran OP One. In front of them, on the ground, lay a hog tied figure, writing and moaning. I could smell the undead before I even hopped off the quad.
    “What’s up, Lt? Why haven’t you put it down yet?” He said nothing, just gestured to the thing. I approached cautiously, rifle up on my shoulder; undead were very strong, and I had seen them smash down a wooden door before. I didn’t want to think what would happen if the flex cuffs broke.
    The thing had been a middle aged man; not one of the original infected, who were usually a shambling mess by now, eight years later. This one had probably come from the second plague, two years ago. It wore the remains of an Army uniform, one of the new ones designed for Z combat. As I approached, red dot directly on its head, ready to pull the trigger, it twisted around and glared at me, red eyes glowing. I expected the howl to start, that grating, annoying howl that they used to call each other to feed. If it did, I was going to plug it for sure.
    Instead, what I heard sent a streak of fear and cold right through my body. Out of its mouth came a dry, hissing rattle and …
    “Helllllpppppppp meeeeeeeeeeeee pleassseeeeeee killlllll meeee…”

Chapter 249
    I shot him. Immediately. My finger squeezed the trigger and the rifle rocked back into my shoulder, the sharp CRACK! echoing across the water. The high velocity 5.56 round punched a small hole in