Free Zombie Killers: HEAT by John F Holmes Page A

his forehead, and exited out the back, blowing off a fist sized chunk of skull and digging into the pavement. The red light went out of his eyes and the corpse shuddered once and went still.
    “What the FUCK!” exclaimed Lieutenant Kilas, and I turned to face him. He looked aghast at what I had done.
    “Problem, Lt?” I asked casually, keeping my weapon on my shoulder. Behind him I saw Ziv move out of my line of fire, and my three guys moved off to the left, hands on their weapons, leaving all three infantry exposed.
    “You just shot that man!”
    “I killed a Z. There was no man left in him.”
    “But I HEARD him talk!” he started to protest, and I raised my rifle a little higher.
    “Lt. Kilas, if there was a man in there, he’s better off, and no you didn’t hear him say anything. Are we clear?”
    “But …”
    I raised my rifle barrel higher, and Ryan trained his on the other infantry soldiers, who stood numbly.
    “But nothing, Captain. You might have maybe imagined something. Air hissing out of their lungs can sound a lot like speech. I’ve seen it before, it’s just decomposition. You heard NOTHING. Are we clear?”
    The man looked very confused. “I guess, Colonel. But ...”
    I raised my barrel fully until it was pointed directly at his face. “ARE WE CLEAR?”
    “Yes Sir, crystal.” He looked pissed, but stepped back.
    “Ryan, escort these men,” I said, gesturing to the specialist and private standing there, “back to their bivouac area. Lt, come with me.” I lowered my rifle and started back towards the house, not looking to see if he followed me. I was pretty sure Ziv would make sure it happened.
    We met Brit coming down from the house with Scott and Shona, and I motioned for them to follow me back. When we got to the porch I sat down heavily, dropped my magazine and cleared my weapon, and set it down next to me.
    “Lieutenant,” I said to the officer standing in front of me, “let me explain something. What happens if the word gets around that the undead are really still people?”
    The kid was smart, I’ll give him that. Once out of the stress of the situation, he quickly came up with the answer. “Some bleeding heart civilian is going to start demanding we treat the undead like people, and try to minimize damage.”
    “Right, and they are also going to head back home to try to find the wife or child they lost in the apocalypse, and demand that a ‘cure’ be found. Which is bullshit.”
    “There isn’t any cure. Vaccine, yes, but once you’re infected, you’re infected,” said Brit.
    “So think about what that means to any combat unit. Think of the fucked up orders that will come down. Avoid casualties among undead, attempt to contain, etc. How many men will you lose if that happens?”
    I could see it was sinking in, but he had one last question. “Would you have really shot me if I continued to argue with you?”
    “And both your men,” I answered.
    “If he didn’t, I would have,” added Captain Lowenstein. She had caught up to us, along with Elam and Obi. “I’ve been in the shit fighting undead for the last year on Bradleys. There is no way in hell I’m letting word of that get out.”
    “His men will talk. Maybe we should kill them all,” said Ziv, in his flat, remorseless tone.
    “No,” I said, to the young officers’ relief. “They might, but no one is going to believe them, and the Lt here will back up my story. Another month and it will be just a rumor and a legend, and I’m not going to let them leave here for another month.”
    “Ah, Nick, there might be a problem with that. These came in on the last boat,” said Brit, and she handed me an envelope with “TOP SECRET / EYES ONLY” stamped on it in red.
    “OK,” I said, taking the envelope. “All of you, scram. Ziv, you and Brit and I have some work to do.”
    We went inside and I ripped open the letter. Inside was an encrypted flash drive, with, I’m sure, orders and Intel for another