Chapter Thirty Two

As another hour came and went, White ordered everyone out to stretch our legs and move around. Half an hour after that, Sleepy set up his tablet on the Humvee's hood and started up a subtitled movie with the sound muted so Overwatch wouldn't know what we were doing.

Hour three was more of the same, although D-Nav's voice began to grow tense. We all expected him to find something soon, so we piled back into the Humvee and waited for it.

It never came. His drones encountered no runners, no apes, and no heat signatures. As far as his most sensitive scans could determine, Memphis was a city entirely populated by shufflers.

"The other platoon had a hit," Overwatch reported. "While they're checking it out, begin evac procedures and regroup with the rest of the Company across the river."

As White, Doc, and Sleepy left the Humvee and headed for each of the three trailers we'd brought with us, Crazy turned to me with a grin and asked, "How was it?"

"How was what?"

"Your first experience with the military's infamous 'hurry up and wait'. Was it everything you expected it to be?"

I knew he was trying to lighten the mood, but I wasn't feeling it.

"My Uncle is going to be bummed when he hears Graceland is gone," I commented.

Crazy's smile faded. "Yeah, well, Elvis is either dead or a zombie, so I don't think he'll mind."

"They didn't give us time to set up firebreaks," I added.

"I'm sure they're prepared on the other side of the river. I don't think they care much about what happens on this side. If the fire spreads, it just means fewer places we'll have to bomb directly. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it takes out half the state considering how many National forests are around here."

"Do you think they'll tell anyone in the Quarantine States we started it on purpose?"

"I don't know."

Morale was low when we the two halves of camp reunited and I couldn't put my finger on why. I thought we'd done a lot in a short period of time. Several metric tons of supplies were heading to the Quarantine States and we'd confirmed there were no survivors left to find. I knew we'd headed out with the idea we'd need days to ready the city for bombardment, but wasn't this better? We weren't at a standstill any longer, wasting manpower and holding an invisible line only we saw.

I didn't understand my melancholy until a fleet of more than a thirty planes flew overhead, interrupting our debrief with Sergeant James and D-Nav. They aimed straight for the city and everyone in camp fell silent as we watched them pass.

Less than a minute later, as soon as I heard the first explosion, it hit me. We'd given up on the city. While it stood, there was still hope of finding one more survivor or figuring out a way to clear out the zombies without destroying anything. Now, thanks to my big mouth, that hope was gone.

I suddenly didn't feel like a commando anymore. I felt like an arsonist.

"Let your bodies rest," Sergeant James said, turning back to us as the distant explosions continued and the horizon filled with smoke. "We'll be splitting camp again tomorrow and sweeping the city once the fires die down. If everything goes well and there's nothing left for us to do, we'll press forward to Jacksonville."

"What about any buildings and small towns we find along the way?" White asked.

"We'll do a wide range scan for survivors and keep moving. Our focus right now is clearing the larger city centers."

"Assuming there are any left after wildfires get hold of them," Doc muttered.

"Precisely," Sergeant James replied tonelessly.

"This wasn't what I had in mind when the President asked what I'd do," I felt the need to say. "I was thinking we'd use a more controlled blaze. Burn it all down, yes, but this was haphazard."

"They're panicking," White explained, her focus on me. "They're losing control in the Quarantine States and they know they're on the precipice. It won't be too long before some idiot decides he wants to be a zombie hunter, breaks containment, gets bitten, and starts a whole new outbreak. They had to do something to make the masses think we have the situation under control."

"Do we have it under control?" Crazy asked.

We looked to Sergeant James for an answer and he shook his head. "We're pushing back for the first time, but there's no way to know if we're doing any good yet. Hazmat teams are sweeping through towns on this side of the river and incinerating any zombie they find, but the country is large and the odds are against us. It'll take years of vigilance before we'll have any inkling whether we're winning this war or losing it."

He sent us off to clean our weapons, then I decided to join Hanson in his bunk. I spent hours with my arms wrapped around his sleeping form, needing the physical contact while my mind tried to grasp what I'd started.

By daybreak, I thought I'd made peace with it and convinced myself we'd done what needed to be done. We'd wiped out thousands—potentially tens of thousands—of zombies, destroyed their nesting ground, and given ourselves a foothold we could use to push further East.

I slipped out of the bunk about an hour before Hanson needed to wake up for breakfast and went outside to check the news on my tablet. The bombardment of Memphis was the top story, along with news St. Louis, Chicago, Minneapolis, Jackson, and Baton Rouge had been taken out simultaneously. The public's reaction was mixed. Some people were shocked silent, others cheered over the way we were taking the country back, and a small number denounced our actions as destructive overkill.

The radical groups weren't making headlines anymore and the number of volunteers showing up for the volunteer draft had skyrocketed overnight. There were now lines forming outside the enlistment centers.

White found me as I was reading through Zed's database, seeing what had been reported in the last twenty-four hours. She let me know my uniforms and identification tags were in, along with Hanson's, so I took a few minutes of my free time to pick them up from the armory.

When Hanson and I showed up to breakfast wearing all black like everyone else, our steel nametags hanging from our necks, the rest of our squad congratulated us. Crazy teased us by calling us Corporal Bryant and Specialist Hanson. At least, I thought they were jokes until White tapped the black stripes embroidered on my sleeve and explained those were actually our ranks. As a lich working on Zed's front lines, I'd been promoted straight to Corporal while Hanson had made Specialist because of his immune status. They thought it would help in the future whenever we came across newly drafted, uninfected humans who didn't have our experience in the field.

"We'll start teaching you about military regulations and ceremony so you'll act right when we meet up with other Units," Carver promised. "Of course, it'd help if we knew which Branch we're supposed to imitate. The last thing you want to do is 'Hooah' when you're supposed to 'Oorah'. You can start a brawl that way."

I had some idea of what he was talking about thanks to military school, although I was the first to admit I hadn't been a good student.

Hanson nodded vigorously between bites of oatmeal. "The head instructor at school was former Air Force, so it was all 'Hua' for us."

The conversation continued as we geared up to sortie. Once we put our earbuds in, even D-Nav got in on it, offering a suggestion that Zed come up with their own battlecry.

"We already have one," Crazy replied with a smirk. "It's called FUBAR, because that's the first thing you think when you encounter a dead head."

"I think we're beyond FUBAR," Sleepy countered with a yawn. "It's more like SNAFU."

"SNAFU?" I asked. "I know FUBAR is 'fucked up beyond all recognition, but what's that one?"

Every voice in my squad said in unison, "Situation normal: all fucked up."

I chuckled, although my laughter died as our hoverbikes rose above the treeline on our side of the river and we saw the remains of Memphis.