Free A Shrouded World - Whistlers by Mark Tufo, John O'Brien Page B

lined up my shot again, I heard the clatter of brass into steel. I would have shaken my head if it wouldn’t have messed up my targeting.
    “Boom ,” I whispered as I sent a high-speed projectile down range.
    The speeder ’s head exploded in a splintered shower of bone and blood. He dropped and was immediately trampled underfoot. That was a hard thing to watch, the loss of any sign of humanity. That, more than anything, attested to their savagery and how far they would go to attain their goals.
    I’d been to combat in some of the most inhospitable places o n the planet. I’ve fought Iraqis, Afghanis, insurgents, and a half dozen other enemies I can’t remember the names of. They all hated us as much as, if not more than, we hated them. We were fighting to keep our friends alive and to get back home to Mom and apple pie. (Not my mom’s apple pie mind you, but someone’s mom’s apple pie.) The people we were fighting were generally fighting for their country or the way in which they chose to live their lives. They had every right to fight like demons, and often times, they did…performing atrocity after atrocity. But as I write here today, I will tell you—be it Taliban, Rebel, or Usurper—that fighting force would stop and pause with whatever the fuck they were doing when one of their own took a head shot.
    There is something so primal when you watch the man next to you have his hopes, dreams, thoughts, and beliefs literally destroyed in an instant; his brains torn from the rest of his body. Advances would halt, retreats would move back quicker, planning shifted to survival. Whatever it was, the enemy would stop and alter course.
    Nothing is more demoralizing to an enemy than a sniper wiping out a comrade with a head shot. It took the fight out of them and that’s why we aimed for that particularly part of the anatomy. The point? The point is that zombies didn’t give a fuck; didn’t concern them in the least. Maybe on some level they were happy because it meant one less mouth to feed; less competition when they did get a hold of their prey. Those were my thoughts as I sent a magazine of bullets scorching towards their targets.
    Most hit, because with this many of them , it would have been harder to miss. Chests caved in as impacts shattered rib cages and sternums; legs were sheared off from the ferocity of the bullets. Arms became little better than T-Rex appendages as I pulverized them. And then, on occasion, I was rewarded with the assassination shot. Heads snapped back, necks recoiled from the shock of taking in something with so much force. I popped in a second magazine. When I was fairly confident I had done a good number on the speeders, I told John it was time to go. I was thankful he had grabbed the ammo case, I could only hope and pray it was full of bullets and not of Phrito’s. Speaking of which, where were they?
    He hopped down from the truck, I followed suit. “Where are your snacks?” I asked.
    “ Almost done.”
    “Are you kidding me? How long have I been gone?” Seemed like an hour, two at the most.
    Was the world in which we now found ourselves different? Were the rules altered? Were days twelve hours instead of the standard twenty-four, or had I been looking for supplies lon ger than I’d originally thought?
    He showed me his yellow tongue, his teeth coated with damn near a half inch of corn paste. That was fucking grosser than watching the zombie’s head explode.
    “We going to the water tower?” John asked.
    “Where?” I asked , coming up next to him. I reached out and pulled on the arm that was carrying the ammo. It was heavy, I breathed a sigh of relief.
    John was pointing to a green structure maybe a mile off from our present location.
    “How in the hell did I miss that?” I asked.
    “Saw it since we rested by the trucks.”
    “You didn’t think to say anything?”
    “Why?”
    Fair enough answer , I suppose. I just couldn’t figure out how I spent the entire day missing