Free Even Zombie Killers Get The Blues (Zombie Killer Blues) by John Holmes

squad to cover the back exits.

I saw all this out of the corner of my eye, but I stopped when I heard a .50
caliber open up. If you have ever shot a .50 or had one shot at you, you know
immediately what it is. A stream of tracers hammered into one of the Chinooks
dropping troops inside the prison yard and it immediately hauled ass away from
the courtyard, fire erupting from one engine and two guys dangling from the
ropes in the back. I stopped and stared for a second, watching it head south in
a trail of smoke and flame before hitting the ground, hard. One guy had hung
onto his rope and I watched him bounce off the ground with a bone-crunching
thud. The second Chinook let loose a stream of fire from a side mounted minigun
and something in the courtyard blew up in a flash, hidden by the thirty foot
walls. Gunfire started swelling in a rapid crescendo inside the walls as the
guys from the 108th Infantry went to work, routing out cannibals. The squad in
front of the gate hosed the opening with short bursts of suppressive fire from
a 240B machine gun. I started to run toward the downed chopper but Doc slapped
me back to reality by hitting my shoulder as he ran toward the jail. The gun
fire inside the slave barracks had changed to single shots, but the screams
went on.
    Ahmed threw a flashbang through the open doorway. I
looked away, opened my mouth and cupped my hands over my ears. A second after
the grenade went off, my ears still ringing slightly, we piled through the
door.

 
     
    Chapter 17
    The scene before me was pure chaos. Pools of blood
ran out of jail cells. Two-thirds of the way down the corridor a figure was
turning towards us. I only caught a glimpse of him as I turned to scan my
sector, the right corner of the room. I was coming back around, lining up my
sights just as he fired. Doc fired back from over my shoulder as an enormous
hammer whacked me in my kevlar helmet. I fell to the floor, stars running crazy
circles in my eyes, and everything going double for a second before snapping
back into place. The rest of the team advanced down the corridor, scanning each
cell for potential hidden bad guys. Then I blacked out.
    I came too with Doc kneeling over me, shining a
flashlight in my eyes. I immediately started to try to get back up but he
pushed me back down with a knee on my chest.

“Slow down there, Killer! Take a break and sit for a minute. You took a round
upside your helmet and got a pretty good whack. You’ve been unconscious for a
few minutes, started to get worried about you. We need to go check out the
slaves, see how many we can save. Here’s a souvenir for you.”

He handed me my helmet. On the top left side was a long, shattered groove. An
inch downward and it would have blown the top of my skull off. I felt really
weak for a good minute or two.
    Jacob, standing guard at the door, waved in a figure
dressed in US Army Multicams. It took me a few seconds for my eyes to focus in
the glow of the chemlight he was carrying, but I recognized Captain Horatio
David, from C Company of the 2-108 th Infantry. I guessed it was his
guys who had raided the prison. Behind him, two medics hurried in, moving
towards the sounds of screaming and moaning coming from the jail cells.
    “Hey Nick, you doing OK?”
    “Yeah, Horatio. Took a round to the Kevlar, I’m a
bit jiggly right now. Don’t move around so much. How’s your boys?”
    “Two dead, seven injured, one critical. The helo
going down was tough but they managed to get out of the bird after it hit,
before it went up. I’m going to have that jackass Colonel crawling up my ass
about losing a helo. And he’s going to be all over your shit for not telling him
there was a heavy automatic weapon in there.”
    “Screw him. What were we supposed to do, crawl
inside the jail? Sorry about your guys.” I was pretty sure I would know them
but I would wait til later to find out their names. I didn’t need any more
grief right now.
    “Such is war, Nick, such is